Learning and Teaching Practice Experts Group Meeting - Moving Forward

Learning and Teaching Practice Experts Group Meeting - Moving Forward

23rd March 2011, Maple House, Birmingham

Aims

  • To update the group on the findings from the Supporting Learners in a Digital Age (SLiDA) study
  • To consult with the Experts on how the e-Learning Programme should prioritise future activities within the area of digital literacies
  • To update and consult with the Experts on emerging findings from the Lifelong Learning and Workforce development programme
  • To update and consult with the Experts on emerging findings from the e-Portfolio Implementations Study
  • To share best practice and enable discussion across the Expert group

09:45     Registration and tea/coffee and pastries on arrival

10:15     Welcome and introduction to the day with a brief update from e-Learning Programme
 Sarah Knight, e-Learning Programme
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10:30     How are institutions creating and enabling opportunities that promote the development of effective learning in a digital age?
 Rhona Sharpe and Greg Benfield, SLiDA project, Oxford Brookes University
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The SLiDA project has produced nine institutional case studies and an overall synthesis report, which outlines the policies and practices being developed to support students in a digital age and the change management tactics institutions have used. The Experts will be invited to comment on the findings from the SLiDA project and explore the implications for their own institutions. See http://wiki.brookes.ac.uk/display/slida

11:30     How is technology supporting lifelong learning and workforce development?

Overview of emerging findings from the Lifelong Learning and Workforce Development Programmme
Ruth Drysdale, Programme Manager, JISC
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11:50     Project Showcase – 6 of the Lifelong Learning and Workforce Development projects will be showcasing their findings and discussing their outputs in a marketplace activity.

The following projects will be represented:

12:50     Lunch and networking time

13:45     Learning from the e-Portfolio Implementation Study
Gordon Joyes, Associate Professor, School of Education, University of Nottingham and Angela Smallwood, Associate Professor, Centre for International Portfolio Development, Information Services, University of Nottingham
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The JISC funded ePI study (August 2010 – May 2011) is exploring large-scale implementations of e-portfolio use in Higher and Further Education and professional organisations in the UK . The study has involved 9 participating HE institutions, 3 FE colleges and 2 professional organisations in the UK. There are also 4 Australian and 3 New Zealand participants.

A wiki has been used by the participants to develop the case studies and each one has identified areas of developed and developing practice and has offered exemplars of these. This has been used as a basis for eliciting the implementation journey that has led to current practice within the wiki. We are at the stage of outlining the models of implementation and considering ways of disseminating the rich data collected in the wiki through the JISC InfoNet e-portfolio infoKit.

We are looking to explore with the experts group the nature of the ePI wiki resource, the models of implementation and ways of maximising the potential for these outputs to impact on practice

14:45     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 – Circuit Warz: Gamification of Electronic & Electrical Engineering Education
 Michael Callaghan, Senior Lecturer Multimedia & Games, University of Ulster
Kerri McCusker, Research Associate, Intelligent Systems Research Centre, University of Ulster
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In recent years there has been significant growth in the use of virtual worlds for e-learning. These immersive environments offer the ability to create complex, highly interactive simulations. Virtual learning environments’ support teaching and learning in an educational context, offering the functionality to manage the presentation, administration and assessment of coursework. Video games have entered the mainstream as an increasingly popular entertainment format and the gamification of education, where game play mechanics are used for non-game applications is a rapidly growing area.

This session will introduce the Circuit Warz project and will show how immersive virtual worlds can be used effectively to create and implement a game based approach to teaching electronic and electrical engineering. It will demonstrate how virtual world platforms could be used to rapidly prototype simulations to teach advanced electronic/electrical circuit theory, through a game based learning experience in a 3D immersive world, where teams of students work together collaboratively and competitively to bias electronic circuits. 

This JISC-funded project is built by integrating a virtual world with a virtual learning environment using SLOODLE and the SLOODLE Tracker extension allowing educators to structure, scaffold and record for subsequent assessment/review the student’s experience. 

Session 2 – Aston Technology and Learning Community (TLC)
 Kevin Brace and Adam Massey, Centre for Learning Innovation & Professional Practice, Aston University

Aston University central support department (CLIPP) are creating a public facing learning technology platform that will provide support for staff and students in the guise of a fully categorised portal. It is being built using the Drupal Content Management System. It will contain both user guides, case studies, and pedagogic advice for all of our centrally supported tools (e.g. PebblePad, Turnitin and Blackboard) created by ourselves and sourced from others i.e. JISC, The Academy, other Universities.

This public platform will provide advice and guidance on appropriate and potential uses of technology enhanced learning (TEL). It is aimed at academic staff or students who want to know more about a particular technology (e.g. “a walk through ”) and those new to TEL, who would like to understand the potential of certain tools. The public facing platform will provide multiple points of entry covering pertinent information contextualised to specific audiences. The teaching and learning platform will essentially answer three primary questions relating to any particular learning technology. Namely the “what”, “why”, and “how” of effective learning technology use.

The navigation system relies upon a carefully selected suite of meta tags that “deliver” appropriate content to container pages. Whilst not strictly a traditional web page hierarchy structure, the use of meta tags and clearly defined categories allows for a simplified navigation structure for those interested in either the technology and/or the underpinning pedagogies.  Intelligent collation and aggregation of existing web based resources underpins the ethos of this important support service. Future plans include; referrals, comments, link backs, RSS feeds, and methods to allow topic specific communities of practice to develop around the resource.

Session 3 - Taking concept linkage further through C-Link
 Professor Peter Hartley, University of Bradford
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C-Link is a prototype information search and concept mapping tool (developed for educational applications through JISC Rapid Innovation funding). It enables students (and staff) to undertake and manipulate information searches in a way that can stimulate and encourage critical thinking. The tool automatically searches for links between two concepts and builds a map of the relationships between them, providing an easy way to visualise these concepts and understand their relationships.

C-Link currently searches Wikipedia but is designed to work with any standards-compliant database; searches can be saved and exported to C-Map, a freely available concept map builder. The tool is available on open access at www.conceptlinkage.org .

The website has had visitors from 53 different countries and over 170 different cities in the UK, and been demonstrated at several national/international conferences. Specific expressions of interest include:

  • Ongoing discussion with the Dynamic Learning Maps project at Newcastle.
  • Request for C-Link to search technical and citation databases.
  • Planned exhibit at the National Media Museum’s upcoming Internet Gallery

User trials of the prototype gave us valuable and extremely positive feedback, and also included suggestions on how to enhance the usability and the look and feel of C-Link. The most important of these have now been implemented and will be demonstrated in this session.

This demonstration will lead to discussion of possible future developments and applications. For example:

  • Concept mapping is a developing technology and the automatic generation of concept maps using linked data has the potential to change the way we research. There are currently no tools or technology that allow a user to interactively guide a search or display the information in a semi-structured way – C-Link aims to fill this gap and change the way we search.
  • C-Link can be used by anyone of any ability (an HE student could research and essay as could an FE student) and age (a teenager/elderly person could see how history/new technology relates to things they understand). As the prototype is written for Silverlight it is highly accessible via a web browser and supports multi-touch systems. As multi-touch becomes commonplace in education, this tool will become even easier to use.

15:45     Close and tea available

Dates for your diary for 2011 Meetings:
Thursday 14th July 2011 – Bristol TBC
Wednesday 19th October 2011 – Venue to be confirmed

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