JISC

The Design Studio: Update on progress and consultation activity
JISC launched the Design Studio in 2009 as a nascent online toolkit drawing together existing resources to support innovative practice in curriculum design and delivery. Since then the resource has grown to include around 1000 ‘assets’ contextualised in different ways in particular the whole body of outputs from the Transforming Curriculum Delivery through Technology programme and emergent outputs from the Curriculum Design programme. The approach to the Design Studio has been to showcase work in progress and engage the wider community in its development.   This stage of development provides an opportunity to consult with the Experts group on how useful the resource is, how it might be improved and it’s future potential. After a brief update, the programme team would like to engage your feedback through a short exercise so remember to bring your laptops!

Marianne Sheppard, JISC InfoNet and Helen Beetham, Synthesis Consultant for Curriculum Design Programme
Download presentation (PDF)

Effective Practice for Lifelong Learning in a Digital Age
The session will outline the context for the JISC’s next publication in its Effective Practice series. The publication will focus on Lifelong and Work Based Learning. We live in a world marked by rapid economic and technological change. Individuals have continuously to update their competences and qualifications and sometimes to re-train in new vocational areas. As a consequence, an increasing number of students are returning to education later in life, bringing diverse experiences, skills and needs.
 
The higher education learning experience is already changing in response to these challenges. In this session, we will briefly describe the shifting landscape and introduce a framework to explore the responses of higher and further education to lifelong learning as they relate to JISC work, supported by technology.

Eta De Cicco, Author and Ruth Drysdale, JISC e-Learning Programme
Download presentation (PDF)

Lunch and networking time

Members Showcase

Members from the Experts Group are invited to showcase their work or invite feedback on specific areas they are working within. The session will run as three 30 minute roundtable discussions offering members the opportunity of attending two of the three sessions.

Session 1: Getting it right
Professor John Traxler, Learning Lab,University of Wolverhampton
Download presentation (PDF)
Recently, educators have started using popular digital technologies These have included  personal mobile devices such as phones and media players; social networks such as Facebook; blogging sites such as Twitter, immersive virtual environments, mainly Habbo Hotel and Second Life, and gaming platforms such as Grand Theft Auto and World of Warcraft. This is an important development because it is entirely different from the use of technologies that are purely educational and institutional such as interactive whiteboards, e-portfolios or virtual learning environments, where educators and their institutions procure, install, maintain and control the technology and lay down the rules. With the popular digital technologies, the ones beyond the institution, other rules, standards and expectations have already developed. The HEA recently supported a SIG in order to explore the meaning and significance of educational ethics in these new contexts. This talk will report on some of the issues and perspectives that surfaced in the course of discussions and meetings.

Session 2: Turning Visitors into Residents: How can we do it (and does it matter)?
Mark Childs, Coventry University
Download presentation (PDF)
A project currently running at West Chester University and SUNY Empire State University aims to teach science ethics through simulation within Open Sim. In order to prepare students for this learning, a series of sessions are planned in which students can develop their ability to move and communicate within the environment, but also for them to develop an inworld identity, and to form a stronger sense of embodiment within the virtual world; in short, to make the transition from visitor to that of resident. The precursor sessions will require students to select clothes for their avatar, spend time thinking about their name, visit a variety of sims in different grids and reflect on who they are as a virtual person. The rationale for this is research that indicates that students who have a sense of identity and embodiment within the virtual world have a stronger experience of presence, and (hence) a more effective learning experience. We'll be comparing the learning of those students who opt for the course with those who don't to see if it really does make a difference.

This session is an opportunity to discuss (and perhaps challenge) this rationale, and to identify key prerequisites for learning in immersive environments, as well as to exchange experiences about whether residents in virtual worlds really do learn better than visitors. Ideas for how to assess the outcomes of the precursor course would be particularly welcome.

Session 3: Making Assessment Count
Professor Gunter Saunders, University of Westminster and Dr Mark Kerrigan, University of Greenwich
The Making Assessment Count (MAC) project started at the University of Westminster in 2008 and sought to align staff and student expectations of feedback and support greater use of feed-forward approaches. The MAC process was based on a student-centred, three-stage model of feedback: Subject specific, Operational and Strategic (the SOS model). Central to the MAC process and SOS model is a web application called e-Reflect which is used by the students to facilitate reflection on the feedback they receive on their coursework.

Since the initial development and implementation of the MAC process within Life Sciences at Westminster, a consortium of universities has worked together to maximise the benefits of the project outcomes and collaboratively explore how the SOS model and e-Reflect can be exploited in different institutional and subject contexts. In this presentation, an evaluation of the use of the MAC process within Life Sciences at Westminster, from both staff and student perspectives will be presented and discussed. In addition the presentation will show how the consortium is working to develop a number of scenarios for utilisation of the process as a whole as well as the key individual process components, the SOS model and e-Reflect.