Taking eBook Readers to Prisons: A Tale of Two Projects

Dr Helen Farley, Dr Angela Murphy

Dr Tas Bedford, Dr Susan Hopkins

University of Southern Queensland

Assumes connectivity

What happens when universities go paperless?

Our students• Low socio-economic status background

• Females prisoners do not see the value in education

• Younger prisoners (under 25 years old) are less inclined to study

• Older prisoners (over 25 years old) are most inclined to study

• Considerable peer pressure not to study

• Prisoners from non-English speaking backgrounds

• Generally low literacy or numeracy skills

PLEIADES

Stand Alone Moodle

• Interactivity and access to multimedia

• Proof of concept

• Too labour intensive

• USQ shifted from Moodle 1.9 to 2.1

• Shared server

• Issues with training

eBook Readers

• To supplement Stand Alone Moodle

• Incarcerated students spend 2 – 3 hours per week in computer labs

• Conversion of materials to ePub

• Copyright a major issue

From Access to Success

• From Access to Success: Improving the Higher Education Learning Experience for Students without Internet Access

• OLT-funded $217,000• Finishes May 2015• Automation of key

processes including installation of SAM

Triple ‘E’ Project

• 5 correctional centres

• BeBook Pures

• 47 participants (male and female)

Data collection

• Focus groups at the beginning and end of every semester

• Initially surveys with education officers and students

• Interviews with education officers

• Interviews with stakeholders

• Reflective diary of tutor

• Student results

• Project team notes

Issues and challenges

• Technical

• Issues at correctional centres

• Students concerns

• Digital literacies of the students

• Digital literacies of the education officers

• Copyright

What the students thought …

Student 1: I use mine every day... it’s portable so it’s really good, you can use it lying down or sitting up.

Student 2: It’s the way of the future. I used it all the time. It’s pretty useful.

Student 3: With the extra readings available, it's just like a textbook only easier. Solves the troubles of missing (not received) textbooks. The words dictionary is very helpful, on the other hand it has its downsides. Small letterings. Charging them was sometimes difficult.

What the students thought …Student 1: I’m reading the novels on the e-reader but I prefer my study books to be hard copy because I can highlight on the hard copy books. I enjoy reading the novels but not the study materials on the eReader.

Student 2: Most of the students face difficulties trying to operate the eReader. They don’t know how to magnify it, so they just complain it is too small to read because they actually don’t know how to use the e-Reader [to enlarge text].

Making the Connection

• $.4.4 million over 3 years

• 13 correctional centres (in Qld, WA, Victoria)

• Stand Alone Moodle

• Tablets

Paper to Pixels

All photos from Flickr …

• Breaking all chains by Kristian Niemi

• Illuminated Paper Blowing in the Wind by mymodernment

• The Prisoner by Raúl G. Huergo

• The Pleiades by Jeremy Stanley

• Avery Watts - Hard Work by Avery Watts

• …Hope… by Darren Tunnicliff

• ~thank you~ by Amber McNamara

Dr Helen FarleyAustralia Digital Futures InstituteUniversity of Southern Queensland

Email: helen.farley@usq.edu.auSkype: helenf5300