Week 17 A4 – Cuban 2008 – Use of technology by academics

Cuban, L. (2001) Oversold and Underused: Computers in the Classroom, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, ch.4.

The Main conclusions that Cuban makes are

• Faculty use technology in their research and classroom prep but are limited users in teaching.
• Substantial investment in computers and networks on campus to enable opportunities for learning outside the formal classroom.
• Dominant teaching practices remain lectures/seminars despite the penetration of technologies.
• Even when faculty are keen to use technology, they can’t relinquish time to train and think about new teaching bcause they are focused on research – which gets them recognised.
• Marjorie Ford “Technology invites you to work with students, not just lecture at them”

My reflections while reading this

My approach to deploying elearning needs to change – I need to think carefully about approaches to teaching and finding the appropriate technology to suit their approach but the main aim being to give DL students the opportunities for more than just printed notes!
Technology should not be perceived as changing the way we teach, but a solution to some of the problems we face in teaching (numbers, geography, learning through doing).

Something Frauke Said

http://bieni64.wordpress.com/2009/05/18/week-1314-wrapping-up-activity-2/#comment-43

“I have access to similar technology but feel I’m much more prone to use it in the ‘intended way’ – eg. using my mp3 player for music (and the occasional podcast of a radio programme I missed), using the DVD player for a DVD rather than my laptop etc.” This is a good point Frauke. I was thinking about how taking a portable DVD player on holiday to keep Livvy entertained, but then realised that I was planning to take my laptop and wouldn’t that do. But then again, we’d be fighting over using it! The idea is to keep her quiet while I get some studying done on holiday.

She also said that she’s been trying to do everything justice but now feels that maybe she needs to be more of a strategic skimmer. I’m like Frauke in terms of wanting to do everything justice, but too am starting to speed things up. In the last 2 weeks I’ve decided to try and go “paper-less” and I think this has helped speed things up. I find speed reading and skimming easier on screen – is this because that’s how I use technology – I am always fast on the computer, people can never keep up. But reading of print, I’m slow, I can’t concentrate,I end up reading and re-reading and having to make copious notes which takes ages. By copying the website or pdf into Word or One Note I just edit that, cut, highlight and make comments, instead of making additional notes.

The last activty (weeks 13 and 14 Act. 4) only took my just over an hour, and not the 4 hours proposed by the authors…and I do feel I’ve done it justice.

With the TMA looming I know the activities I select to talk about will probably end up being done again to be sure I’ve got enough good stuff to talk about.

Weeks 13 and 14 A 3c – more on the learner experience with Wikis

Read the extract from ‘Analysis of interviews with students studying Software Requirements for Business Systems’.

- The wiki not interactive enough to discuss the content at the same time

To solve problems they

- spread exercise over a longer time to allow everyone to contribute

- assigned moderation roles

- used alternative tools

Appreciated as a publication tool but not for collaboration.

If one person is editing, how do you carry on the conversation to determine what edits to make. as only the current editor can write.

1. Does the interview data offer a different perspective from Minocha and Thomas?

The interview data is neutral, there is no risk that the student’s would cover up truths because this content is not being assessed as the M&T research was from TMA  commentaries about the wiki experience.  But the interview data was volunteers only, whereas M&T used everyone’s feedback.

There is more emphasis on the lack of suitability of the wiki for discussion than in M&T, although M&T did recognise this. These studies were more about the students’ perceptions rather than the teachers’ perceptions. In M&T the teacher’s arguments were being put forward such as the ability to moderate claims about ones contributions.

2. Does it affect your perception of how the wiki functioned in any way?

No as M&T already told us about the discussion problems and editing problems. Perhaps the student’s perceptions weren’t as good as M&T would have us believe.

3. Does it provide more documentation of the student experience?

Yes M&T used the reflective commentaries about the process on using the wiki from the TMAs. Students may want to ensure they put a positive slant on the content of any review of the wiki process in a TMA as they may fear that being too critical would lose marks. This survey enabled honesty from students.

4. If you had access to accounts of learner experience for a course you were responsible for, would you be able to make direct use of those accounts in revising your course?

Yes and we do.

5. What other data might you benefit from?

Usage stats for eresources…how many times a resource was used eg a wiki could be read many times before an edit is made, so how much is it being used passively.

There is further evidence from these interviews when technology is designed into a course and its assessment, students use it – or at least try to do so although this does not invalidate the LXP and LEX projects finding that students vote with their feet.

If tools integrated within a course are found to be defective, the effort of finding alternatives to substitute for them will impact heavily on students and those supporting them. – we had this in H808, when the e-portfolio system simply wasn’t fast enough or reliable enough or intuitive enough to use. Towards the final submission many people reverted to word documents, and we were given extensions due to the technical problems.

Weeks 13 and 14 Activities 2b, 2c – audio/video evidence

I watched a narrated slide show of the results of the JISC LXP study by Grainne Conole (you need to download and save the presentation to get the narration to work)

[slideshare id=121445&doc=conole-jisc-lxp4304]

This followed on from the paper we read in Activity 2a which provided a report of the same project.

The slide show helped to reinforce and scaffold (dare I use a term like that when I don’t fully understand it, have I used it correctly) the learning from the paper.  Watching the slideshow having read the paper made it easier to understand. Just listening and watching the very BUSY slides would have been confusing if I’d done that first.  I found the slides really messy and hard to read it all while listening. The downside I found about the slide show was that having already read the report twice, I wanted to skip some of the slide show but whereas with reading you can skim read and leap frog bits, this is difficult with audio as you may miss something important or  new. I chose not to use the transcript by the way, as I wanted to experience just slides and audio narration.

The media used for this message the author to emphasise points in a much more informal way as it isn’t bound by research publication standards, enabling the author to emphaise key messages to the audience without having to stick to academic writing standards – the author can be more personal and refer to the first person and their findings which, for me, made it more interesting.

For me the video clips added some level of reality to the study. The things the student was saying complimented the studies findings, however, the video of her working at home and in the learning labs at University made the prose in the study come to life. I could now picture, for real, what it was like to be a student today and not just imagine what the study means. However young I like to think I am, it is wrong to assume that you can put yourself in the shoes of those 15 years younger than you in this completely different environment to myUG experience where you were lucky to get access to a PC and all PC’s did then was enable you to present your work in Word, Excel and PowerPoint – well, at least that’s what I found. With the videos you are not just taking someones word for it, you can see the claims in action.

Keith wrote this in the forums: “For the LXP project, Conole(2008) finds that “that students are using a range of different types of e-learning strategies, appropriating the tools to meet their own needs” What does this imply for us educators or designers? Should different types of technologies be made accessible for particular learning outcomes so that all possible types of learners can be accomodated? I think that the research we have been reviewing is putting us in this direction, but I doubt that this is practical in a real context.” (Keith Aquilina, 14 May 2009 22:49:45
Subject: Re: A2d: Forum discussion To:  H800 les6 09 W13-14 A2d)

I responded: “If you think that  Conole’s statement refers to e-resources (eg podcasts, multimedia resources, online tests etc) then the answer to how to accommodate all types of learners means that yes we would have to create these resources in all type of media which would not happen due to cost. So how do we ensure, with these types of resources, that different learning styles and the need for learner choice (as Conole puts it – voting with their feet if they don’t see value in it) will suffer.

However, I think she is actually referring to dialogue tools to encourage participatory learning. eg  Web 2.0 tools like forums, SNSs, MSN, blogs, etc (i include VLE forums here) then the implication is that we need to design the learning content to enable communication and then let the students choose how they communicate. But the implications of this is: should we make participation a requirement, if so, I like the idea of the eportfolio self assessment of participation that we touched on several weeks ago for this. The other implication is how to we ensure students are discussing the right things and not leading each other down the wrong paths. I wonder if Emma and Jenny’s course in the videos for LXP made the eportfolio a requirement or optional…and wonder what the opinions of the the less “comfortable with technology” students were…”

Weeks 13 and 14 Activity 2a Conole et al (2008)

JISC funded LXP project

Findings; students are immersed in rich, technology-enhanced learning environment and that they select and appropriate technologies to their own personal learning needs.

Implications: for the way in which educational institutions design and support learning activities.

8 Factors informing the changing practice  of students use and perception of technology in learning.