Academic with an interest in Learning Technology

The Education in a Changing Environment conference is taking place a the University of Salford today and tomorrow,  with the tag line “Is the Student Really at the Heart of Higher Education? Critical Voices, Critical Times”.

Delegates were welcomed to the Conference by Professor Gill Nicholls, Pro-VC Academic at Salford. The first speaker was Professor Sue Clegg, Head of the Centre for Research into Higher Education, Leeds Metropolitan University, who spoke on “Pushing the boundaries: critical research in higher education”.

Quoting Bourdieu, Sue encouraged us to make the domestic exotic in our quest to engage in critical research in our ‘domestic’ environment, higher education. Sue identified the shift in our view of what is a student, from one who studies a text to one who is becoming an autonomous lifelong learner.Also changing is the way in which disciplinary practice is transformed into curriculum.

Sue used the example of research into personal development planning. When students present us with reflection, it may be retrospective and not quite what it seems.  Research into PDP can be difficult to conduct since in trying to answer the question “Does it work?”, we don’t know what it is, if the phenomenon under examination e.g. reflection is under-theorised.  Sue’s research has found that where the practice was consistent with thosein the discipline/ profession, it was more likely to be successful.  Reflection does not guarantee authenticity, it can also involve performing to a script.

That has made me think about a module we are starting this semester being delivered to 450 students across many different programmes.  We will have a real challenge to make the activities authentic for the students within their own disciplines, particularly the reflective element of the coursework. Sue has identified that Y1 students lives, lived in the present, is not conducive to planning and reflection, that coming later as graduation looms.  Also, temporality for students is very different from that of their teachers.

Next Sue spoke about voice, using the example of women’s voice in feminist research, which in proclaiming itself as different from the standard male voice, became a voice that may not represent all groups of women.  So what is the student voice? Better to think about student voices and how we listen to them - via the National Student Survey?

Promoting independence for students may make it difficult for them to ask for help.  Sue asserted that the evidence-based approaches may make it difficult to unearth the diversity of student voices.  She concluded with reasons to be cheerful:

• challenges make research exciting and exhilirating
• theoretical diversity can lead to productive vulnerability

Professor Martin Hall, VC at Salford, spoke next on “Killing off Mickey Mouse: Open Knowledge, Open Innovation”.  He asserted that closed information systems are based on the idea of intellectual property, that has been evident at universities with the drive towards exploiting knowledge through, for example, pharmaceutical industry.  The innovation ‘funnel’ has 1000s of patents that will only generate a few successful products.

He gave the example from academic publishing, where he was invited to pay $3000 for the privilege of distributing pdf copies of his own paper.  This is an example of the drive towards privatising the results of our own research.  Another aspect is the increased cost of education to its subject, e.g. graduating American vet could have $250000 debt.  The tendency to shift debt to student is likely to increase in the UK, with education being seen as something that produces a return on the (individual’s)  investment.  He challenged, using US as an example, the notion of an open market in education, also reflected in UK universities almost universal adoption of maximum level of fees.

So why has privatising of HE not worked? because we are very different from pharmaceutical industry and we are like each other.  Our business is really about giving our intellectual property away, and so we find the third stream income stuff difficult.  Also, we identify more strongly with our disciplines than with our institutions, and disciplines are about giving away knowledge, whilst retaining recognition by attribution.

Knowledge is different from a natural resource or manufactured artefact in that it can be given away endlessly without being diminished but rather increased the more it is known.  Even if we wished for them, closed systems of knowledge are unlikely to work. He offered the metaphor of the “Tragedy of the Commons”, where everyone loses from over-grazing but individual restraint may not be rewarded.  The counter example of open source software confounds this - “The triumph of the commons”, where collaborative open sharing has helped create free, large, robust software.

He quoted Latour, in identifying the success of science has been in closed system, but that we are moving into an era where the problems are not in closed systems, e.g. Global Warming.  We need to find new ways of engagement that recognises costs and ownership - sort of academic eBay from which emerges a fair price for knowledge exchanged between universities.

This is an excellent  presentation (under 10 minutes) to watch and listen to at this time of year when we are updating the content of our courses.

The Social Aspect Of Resource Discovery

View more presentations from Brian Kelly.

Presentation Zen gives some very good practical and design tips on using images in presentations.

Here are some previous posts relating to the use of images.

James Clay, who makes tech understandable, is contributing to a webinar on video.  Check him out at http://www.slideshare.net/jamesclay, and sign up if you’re interested - the places will probably go fast.

Jointly with the E-Learning Network, ALT will be running the third of
three free 90 minute lunchtime webinars, “Video on a Shoestring”, on  15
October with James Clay of Gloucestershire College and Rob Hubbard of
LearningAge Solutions. Booking deadline 09/10/2009.
For further details and booking information, see: http://tinyurl.com/cfzydr

This video challenges the dominance of non-verbal communication

Peter Levin has written several study skills books for students but also provides an online book to help them avoid accusations of plagiarism.  Although this book is aimed at students, and is quite critical of much UK HE practice in this area, it provides food for thought for those who wish to support students in being good scholars and avoiding accusations of plagiarism.

N.B. Sorry for formatting on this post - tech difficulties ;)This report is very interesting read on educating the net generation but also on the impact of emerging technologies, whether teachers use them or not I suggest you read the Executive summary then dip into the rest as needed http://www.netgen.unimelb.edu.au/downloads/handbook/NetGenHandbookAll.pdfHere are the headline findings:1. The rhetoric that university students are Digital Natives and university staff are Digital Immigrants is not supported.2. There is great diversity in students’ and staff experiences with technology, and their preferences for the use of technology in higher education.3. Emerging technologies afford a range of learning activities that can improve student learning processes, outcomes, and assessment practices.4. Managing and aligning pedagogical, technical and administrative issues is a necessary condition of success when using emerging technologies for learning.5. Innovation with learning technologies typically requires the development of new learning and teaching and technology-based skills, which is effortful for both students and staff.6. The use of emerging technologies for learning and teaching can challenge current university policies in learning and teaching and IT. For me the message from this and other readings critical of the netgen dualism of digital natives and  immigrants is that educators have to offer what they always have had - insight and criticality as well as knowledge, but they have a responsibility to do this within and about the digital context.  The implication is that as educators we should become effective rather than enthusiastic users of technology.

Sandra Sinfield provided these excellent resources via the LDHEN list:

On-line Literature Review on STUDENT READING:
http://litreview.pbwiki.com/

And blog at:
http://onlinelitreview.blogspot.com/2008_01_01_archive.html

Notemaking
Mini-notemaking lecture:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1IHsPt_Nmg

Mini Buzan lecture on Mindmapping:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlabrWv25qQ

Our notemaking pages - use ‘the NoteMaker’:
http://www.learnhigher.ac.uk/learningareas/notemaking/home.htm

NoteMaker - with additional topics imported:
http://learning.londonmet.ac.uk/TLTC/learnhigher/notemaker/noteMakerWithVid/noteTaker_2.html

Cornell generator - Generates templates to print off and make notes upon:
http://eleven21.com/notetaker/

Visual Literacy site ‘periodic table’ of pattern notemaking strategies to
support notemaking teaching
http://www.visual-literacy.org/periodic_table/periodic_table.html#

Buzans’ site - with 7-step guide:
http://www.buzanworld.com/Mind_Maps.htm

Concept map tools website:
http://cmap.ihmc.us/

Really useful resources - see their WORKBOOKS - Notemaking especially
http://www.brad.ac.uk/acad/management/external/els/pdf/effectivenotemaking.pdf

Notemaking booklet from Exeter University
http://www.education.ex.ac.uk/dll/studyskills/note_taking_skills.htm

On using images in your learning:
http://rathergraphic.blogspot.com/

Quick guide to keeping references
http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/nursing/sonet/rlos/studyskills/harvard/index.html

What to do in lectures:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tiv9GG_SzlI

Reading - also evaluating information
Our pages on student reading:
http://www.learnhigher.ac.uk/learningareas/reading/home.htm

Critical reading towards critical writing
http://www.utoronto.ca/writing/critrdg.html

On-line Literature Review on STUDENT READING:
http://litreview.pbwiki.com/

And blog at:
http://onlinelitreview.blogspot.com/2008_01_01_archive.html

Active reading - from Evolving essay:
http://anessayevolves.blogspot.com/2007/02/active-reading.html

How to read a research article:
http://cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba/495/howtoread.html

How to read an academic article
http://www.lenmholmes.org.uk/students/oe209/how2read_a.htm

Internet Detective - finding & evaluating information
http://www.vts.intute.ac.uk/detective/

For Summarising information:
http://learning.londonmet.ac.uk/busdev/hq1001nc/ecdl/summarizing.htm

Referencing
http://slb-ltsu.hull.ac.uk/awe/index.php?title=Harvard_system_of_referencing
&
http://www.cite.auckland.ac.nz/

for Students:
http://www.staffs.ac.uk/uniservices/infoservices/library/find/references/

Readability (NIACE research…):
http://www.niace.org.uk/development-research/readability

Avoiding plagiarism:
Staff website:
http://learning.londonmet.ac.uk/TLTC/connorj/plagiarism/Staff/

(Avoiding) plagiarism tutorial
http://learning.londonmet.ac.uk/TLTC/learnhigher/Plagiarism/

A resource introducing the concept of integrating evidence into own writing:
http://unilearning.uow.edu.au/main.html

Especially useful is the section “Expressing your voice in academic writing”:
http://unilearning.uow.edu.au/academic/4bi.html

Useful papers on plagiarism - especially in visual media
http://www.jiscpas.ac.uk/casestudies.php

What I really like about this slide show is the way it shows how:

• a personal learning environment(PLE)  extends beyond standard provision (like Blackboard) to Web 2.0 tools and services
•  and how we can support students’ use of their PLE by embedding support for use of additional tools and services in the curriculum

Check out Jo Badge’s slideshow

Encouraging lifelong learning habits in a web 2.0 enabled PLEView more OpenOffice presentations from Jo Badge.

Through the LDHEN list server, I received news of this rich writing resource from Monash University.  I have only just begun to explore it but have found that it could have lots of uses:

• for me in thinking about how I word essays and assignments - see
  • What makes a good essay
  • What makes a good review
• for students - in seeing different examples of student approaches to writing assignments, taking them through the whole process, for example
  • Look at the lecturer’s expectations of the assignment.
  • Next read Amy’s assignment.
    • How well do you think the assignment responds to the topic?
    • Do you think the assignment could be improved in any way?
  • Now read the lecturer’s comments about Amy’s assignment.
  • Finally, listen to Amy talk about how she wrote her assignment and read feedback about how to overcome the difficulties she faced

There are examples of writing in many different subject areas, many  relevant to FBLBE

• Art & Design
• Arts
• Business and Economics
• Education
• Engineering
• Information Technology
• Law
• Medicine
• Pharmacy
• Science

This resource must have had substantial investment in gathering the content and creating the content, and we can use it in student activities and resources for writing.  However, we can also create simpler similar examples, more closely tied to our own curricula.  Once we have sorted out the issue of student permissions, we can create simple web sites using Wimba Create.  Emma Coleman (SBS GTA) and I set up such a resource to guide students through writing a literature review.  Do contact me if you want to talk more about this.