Specific examples and assistance

Some things we might do and use: Powerpoint and onwards

‘We shape our tools, and thereafter our tools shape us’McLuhan 1995

Bringing together some of the things we might want to do*

• Present material to students– PowerPoint (lectures etc, posters)– Webpages

• Images,video,audio

• Integrate materials – (website/portals/VLE/LMS)

• Communicate with students– Synchronous (tele/video conferencing)– Asynchronous (e-mail, text submission/return)

• Communication between students• Present student material

– Weblogs,webfolios,posters*back to interaction models

We might want to do, or improve, all of these things:

• Student involvement• Staff involvement• Immediacy• Show reflection• Accessibility• Recording• Assessment • Feedback• Integration• Quality control

Can we do these things better by 'e-'?

University Infrastructure

• Superjanet as backbone• Computer labs for students• Library/ies (how e-friendly are they? WiFi?)• Teaching spaces, do they have video-projectors?• How easy is it to link up? (laptops, memory sticks)

• How much help do you get for doing things:• Personally? (Promotional rewards?)• Departmentally? (local gurus?)

University/Departmental hardware

• What facilities do your students have for remote access?– Do your students have access to

scanners?

• In lectures, 'magic whiteboards'• Interactive units for 'voting' in lectures

and seminars

University (departmental) Software

• What do you use?• What do your students use?

• Basic suite of MS Office plus….• Modelling?• GIS and e.g. Minitab, SPSS

• Creation tools (Flash, AI)– Better web integration

Social infrastructure

• ADSL will become commonplace• As will Wi-Fi for local areas (and

universities?)• 2G phones will become even more

common (with even more gadgets)• 3G (and upgraded 2G) technologies will

give even more sophistication of delivery

Public hardware

• 3G phones, interactive TV, home and portable computers, GPS, PDAs, printers, scanners, digital cameras

• Satellite communication with TV, computers

• Most of these are here already! - at steadily reducing costs.

Student ability to both own and use these devices

• Will be related to decreasing costs• Will be related to fashion• Will be related to ease of use• Will be related to integration of devices

• Will be demanding that 'we' have the applications, tools and subject materials (lectures to libraries) to supply their needs.

Some categories to consider

• University Infrastructure• Social infrastructure (ie Public; e.g. ADSL,)• University/Departmental hardware• Public hardware (3G phones, interactive TV, home

and portable computers, GPS, PDAs, printers, scanners, digital cameras……….!)

• University (departmental) Software• Public software• Student ability to both own and use these devicesQ: What will be the drivers and what the constraints on what/how

we teach?

A few other things for technology

• E-submission centrally

• MCQ s via LTSN CAL

• Specifics– Checking submission of paperwork – Sending out reminders– Attendance etc – students at risk

Accessibility

• SENDA - Special Educational Needs and Disability Act 2001

• Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act 1998

Others ways to Accessibility

• Videoing lectures (ahem!)• Streaming technologies*

– realtime and progressive

• Using student inclusiveness– Groups and Teams involving lab, field or

discussion events (stills; video: fieldwork example)– Pre-post event demonstration and recap

• Technology is on our side, miniaturisation and easy of use an connectivity - you can do it

Tools (gadgets) to use

• Affordances (Donald Norman)– In communication technologies– In physical tools– In ideas about these

– Thus, let technology (hardware and software) develop and take what's best/easiest to implement

• (no need to be an early adopter)

Tools (applications) to use

• Office Suite• Creative Suite (P'shop, Illustrator, GoLive, Acrobat)

• Search engines– (more than Google! e.g. Scholar, A9; Meta search

engines, Vivisiomo,)

• Databases - search engines Portals

• Web technologies will drive various aspects– HTML, DHTML, XML

Educational (Learning) Objects

• 'A resource which helps a learner achieve a particular learning objective'*

• Nothing to do with Intelligent learning Systems or automation ('instructivism')

• Chunks ('granules') that can be used for specific purposes (stand alone)– Knowledge Object (Korper)*– Content or information object (Mason)– Asset (Duncan)

• Constructivist approaches to education - by reusing ELOs

Reusable Educational/Learning Objects

• Some bits of applications (Java Applets, Javascript)

For instructional REOs:• Time, effort, cost, finding them etc• Better to share - finding the things• Copyright problems

– Creative Commons and Copyleft– Can we be altruistic and collegiate?

• Making a start?– Digital repositories (Data storage plus metadata)

• MERLOT (M'media Educational Resource for Online and Teaching)

Some examples

• Book or journal article (sharing, cost, on-line?)

• Maps – (digital? Redrawn; OS? but e.g. Multimap )

• Definitions and encyclopedias - use with care– (Wikipedia; XreferPlus)

• Photographs (yours? Copyright?)• Diagrams (from text books?!)• So you have to know about these resources!

Sharing resources

• Mike Slattery's AAG geomorphology CD• 'Borrow' things from Web sites

– students find these well enough

• What about day to day PowerPoint?– Where do you get your material from?– Back to copyright issues– Should universities hold copyright?– Can we avoid some of these issues?

Feedback - how do we give it?

• Marking is quick, feedback takes time

• But, students consider the mark as ‘feedback’– Websites with general feedback,

‘advance feedback’ (Save time next time)

– E-mail submission and conversion to pdf and subsequent marking acrobatscreen1.jpg

Adding the bells and whistles

• At this point I need to know what is the capability of the workshop.

• How to provide instruction?

• Do you want a demo of the capability of PowerPoint?

• The Blue Peter Principle (PPT - Try this)

Other things with PowerPoint

• Make REOs for incorporation elsewhere• Students use it for revision• Send questions out with it - responses

via e-mail or annotations of ppt • Turn it in to an asynchronous learning

network (add e-mail)• Once you've got it you can modify it -

flexibility, unlike CDRoms

Asynchronous Learning (Networks)

• You now have the basics of an ALN (via a VLE/MLE)• Look, no web pages!• Just developing from vanilla PowerPoint• You can add material at will (try doing that with a CD let

alone an overhead or set of slides)• Students can download to add notes.• Graphics are there• Why do we bother with overheads any longer?

– Really!

Adding substance to our ALN

• Look back at the requirements we thought of and listed earlier– How can we add these?– Information provision– Just in time provision (rather than just in case)

– Constructivist scenarios.

• Integrated web sites (per module) are better

Module Websites

• Add information (of all types)– Practicals, mark schemes, images– Portal– How to, information, guides– etc

• E-mail address for the module/website

• The importance of assessment:

Assessment always rears its head!

• "if you are intending to train students to learn online, then you have to decide what skills they will need to acquire, and make sure that their development is supported in the assessment. It's no good concentrating on the subject of the course, and forgetting about the process of online learning."

Macdonald 2000

E-Assessment methods(and some feedback)

• MCQs and quizzes (automatic)• Report writing (Word etc submission)

• Posters large and small (ppt, e-submission, compact and easy to mark)

• Web pages for students (a useful skill) eg

• Web folios (reflection on past work) eg• Electronic submission of e-work (drop-off)• Checking paper submissions - faster, less 'corruptible'

Presentation of work and reflection

• The usual from Office, ppt Word and Excel• Creation of web pages (easy now with HTML editors)

• Placing material on web pages (ftp, webfolios)

• Examples

• Show structure of a module (learning map)

• Learning log - weblog

Student provision

• We can probably provide better services to students than ever before:

• Training in anything from GIS to statistics

• Business and entrepreneurship to 'employability'

Other things on websites

• Usual things such as reading lists– Practical info, assistance, comments etc– General 'help' or 'how to' information– Portals to significant areas– Guided this and that 'Virtorial'– Records of Achievement– Module publicity - records, attainment etc

Things students can learn from HTML etc

• Some structure to scripting languages• Invention and communication• Graphic design (knowledge about disabilites etc)• Communication via media• File structures and information• Meta data and information retrieval• Databases• And they do it well! And (usually) enjoy it.

E-hardware

• Creativity– cheaper and more robust than conventional, USB

and Firewire

• Data acquisition - images – (satellite,digital photography, microscopy)

• Data acquisition - data logging• Data processing• Make REOs easily

Digital production - made easily and quickly

Put video in ppt Images on website Send microscope images to students

Audio clips in ppt

Share a Wi-Fi network

Map with GPS

E-whiteboard

Some things with simple GPS

• Self-guided field trips– 'Geocaching' to ease congestion and make

students do the work/observation

• Mapping– Breadcrumb trail to digital points and jpg

• Students use this to construct a map via e.g Paintshop or Photoshop

Things on the horizon (for e-learning)

• Games• Sharing materials/downloading (BitTorrent - 'a

cooperative free speech tool'; Azureus)

• Podcasting (audio)• 3G phones (Isle of Man) and UMTS network.

(Universal Mobile Telecommunications System)

• Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL)• More mobile and portable computing

Have I convinced you?

• That e-this and that has great potential for learning and teaching

• That ALNs are a good way to go• That we've still a long way to go• That a web page for a module is a

useful attribute• That we should move towards reusable

educational objects.

Either way - come back at me!

Some reading

Garrison and Anderson 2003 'E-learning in the 21st Century'

Jochens, Van Merriënboer and Koper, 2004 'Integrated e-learning'

Schank 2002 'Designing world-class e-learning'

Shepherd 2004 'E-learning's greatest hits'

Association for Learning Technology ALT J

Student examples