JISC

The Lab Group  is an ALT sponsored collaboration between UK labs which undertake research and development in learning mediated by technology. Yesterday the Lab Group held an open day at which the cutting edge of education technology research was on display.

Opening the event, Sara de Freitas, University of Coventry and Chair of the Lab Group, reflected on the maturity of education technology research. Noting recent growth and the continued strength of the UK research labs community, Sara underlined the importance of their role in bridging research and development and being increasingly effective in working between industry and academia.

The Centre for Applied Research in Educational Technologies at Cambridge University (CARET) hosts and develops an institutional collaboration and learning platform called CamTools, which supports a wide range of information resources and services across research and teaching, from digitised art-historical content to a VLE-integrated one-stop interface for students. Peter Carmichael, presenting, also highlighted CARET’s interdisciplinary role through projects designed to inform practice and decision-making in teaching and research across departments, such as Learning Landscape.

In the subsequent debate, delegates spoke of their shared experience of challenging engagement with central IT departments and noted a surprisingly widespread lack of confidence among students in using VLE tools despite the latter being adept in social software use.
 
Dr Sara de Freitas led a quartet of presentations about the Serious Games Institute and its partners at Coventry University. The emphasis here was on building bridges between academia and business and creating communities of practice, demonstrated by the presenting partners who were businesses collaborating with other organisations in the serious games (using games technology for non-entertainment purposes) and ‘virtual worlds’ arenas. 'This stimulating event for knowledge exchange is a great opportunity to catch up with some of the very latest developments in learning technology'.
 
The Learning Societies Lab at the University of Southampton, although based in the School of Electronics and Computer Science, works across a number of disciplines and in the words of its Head, Dr Hugh Davis, aims to stimulate innovation in science, technology and education. From a broad range of research activities seeking to improve practice in teaching and research for wider social benefit through applied technology, the presenters highlighted several projects exploring areas such as the sharing and re-use of teaching materials, better management of placements through mobile learning technologies, multimedia learning interfaces for disabled users and learning toolkits combining a loosely-coupled range of applications.

Participants debated the resistance among lecturers to using and re-using shared educational materials. As mentioned elsewhere in the event, however, there was recognition of the fact that the traditional core element of teaching, incorporated in the lecturer’s personal communication to the students, has a value which may not be easily replaced.
 
Professor Tom Boyle provided an overview of the HEFCE-funded Centre for Expertise in Teaching and Learning (CETL) for Re-Usable Learning Objects (RLO), which is leading the way in the development of deeper, more productive ways of conceptualising learning objects. Since inception in 2004, the RLO-CETL has created nearly 200 web-based, multi-media learning objects, free and flexible for use, re-use and re-purpose.

Acknowledging the breadth of challenges when designing for informal and lifelong learning, John Cook proposed that user generated content, driven by improvements in hardware and the popularity of social networking, is transforming the providers from 'instructors into conductors'. Understanding how learners appropriate new cultural tools to meet learning needs is, he said, the focus of his research.

Dr. Andrew Ravenscroft leads research which aims to ensure technology-enhanced learning is based on supportive pedagogy (process and practice), and places emphasis upon communication and cognition, whilst being pervasive, attractive and interoperable.
 
Open Day delegates also heard about the EELS project which captures the clinical experiential learning of medical students. An easily adaptable online resource, it was developed initially for 4th and 5th year medical students to capture and submit patient case information whilst on placement. Aside from supporting a dispersed community of students and providing opportunities for reflection, it also provides a database of cases which it is hoped will be useable as learning resources for future students.

The JISC funded Collaborative Research Events on the Web (CREW) project captures formal and informal information relating to research events, using a variety of approaches including social software, semantic technologies and recording tools. The hope is to enrich the events experience for the participating audience, but also extending opportunities for non-participants, thereby maximising investments within academic and research events.

Mary Ulicsak from Futurelab introduced 'Beyond Current Horizons', a project funded by the Technology Futures Unit at Department for Children Schools and Families (DCSF). In leading this ambitious research, Futurelab seeks to answer the question: 'What might be the purpose, nature and organisation of education in 2025 and beyond?'

Conscious that the future is not easily predicted, Futurelab is looking to explore anticipated challenges faced by education and wider society. Rather than promoting a technology-enabled revolution for education, early findings suggest that learners, teachers and parents see the physical learning space and the role of a teacher as fundamental to the educational experience. The research concludes in 2009.

Summing up the day’s presentations and workshops, JISC’s Director of Users and Innovation Craig Wentworth, said: 'It's a stimulating event for knowledge exchange within this community, but also it's a great opportunity to catch up with the some of the very latest developments in learning technology. Yes, it's rewarding to see the return on some of JISC's investment in innovation research ... But now comes the real challenge, to ensure that we capitalise upon these impressive research outcomes so that we achieve our aims to enhance the learning and teaching experience across education and research'.

A video and interviews of the event will shortly be available on the ALT website