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Christopher Douce

Introducing ICEBERG

Sunday 17 August 2025 at 21:06
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On 11 July 25, in my capacity as a TM113 module team member, I attended a continuing professional development (CPD) event about something called ICEBERG.

ICEBERG is an abbreviation for Integrated, Collaborative, Engaging, Balanced, Economical, Reflective and Gradual. It is a tool used during learning and curriculum design, and is intended to embody best practice. The session was facilitated by learning designer Paul Astles, who is from the OU unit Learner and Discovery Services (LDS) (I think that is what LDS means).

What follows is a set of notes, which I am sharing with permission. It is hoped they are useful to anyone who is involved in learning design (including my colleagues from TM113 module team). My advance apologies are for anything obvious that I have missed, any mistakes I have included, and how long it has taken to pull together this set of notes. I always endeavour to thoroughly offer citations, but some sentences may have been taken verbatim from a useful presentation that Paul shared during his session.

Considering draft materials

The starting point of the session was also our starting point; our first drafts of our module materials, which are known as a ‘D0’ (or, module materials that we have started to sketch out). To help up think about our D0s, we looked at 3 ICEBERG principles: Integrated, Collaborative, and Engaging. Each principles have a set of ‘corresponding design tips’. Here are the tips that I’ve noted down, which come from Van Ameijde et al. (2018):

  • Integrated: A well-integrated curriculum constitutes a coherent whole where all the parts work together in a meaningful and cohesive way. This means that there is constructive alignment between learning outcomes, assessments, activities and support materials which all contribute effectively to helping students to pass the module.
  • Collaborative: Meaningful student collaboration and communication helps students in engaging in deep learning and making concepts and ideas their own (e.g., Garrison et al., 2001; Johnson & Johnson, 1999). It also serves as a mechanism for social support where students feel part of an active academic community of learners (see Tinto, 1975) which makes it more likely that they are retained.
  • Engaging: An engaging curriculum draws students in and keeps them interested, challenged and enthusiastic about their learning journey. Where the curriculum matches student interests and aligns with their educational and career aspirations, students are more likely to be retained. Using relevant case studies and readings and keeping these up-to-date as well as including a variety of different types of activities contribute to an engaging curriculum.

We were asked to look at a bit of material that was content heavy and were asked a question: how do we relate our draft materials to these points on the framework?

During our discussions, I made a couple of notes. Regarding Integrative, scene setting is important, since it adds concept. Collaborative can be useful, particularly a bit later on in the module when tools are introduced (collaboration is really important skill within software engineering). Also, Engaging can and should directly align with educational and career aspirations.

A key point that I took away from this part of the session was the need to emphasise ‘the people bit’. Also, since TM113 has three key themes, a question I had was ‘how do we integrate them together?’ There are also, of course, other important themes that are important to the module, such as employability, skills development, ethics and sustainability. In some respects, software engineering can be a linking theme, since it is all about people, tools, management of complexity, and communication.

The student learning journey

After a short break, the next part of the session related to the ‘student learning journey’. We again returned to the definitions of Van Ameijde et al. (2018):

  • Balanced: Balanced in this context refers to the workload that students face when studying the curriculum and the extent that this workload is well-paced and evenly distributed. Research has pointed out a negative correlation between average weekly workload and student outcomes, including satisfaction and pass rates, making it particularly important that we don’t overload students whilst keeping the workload appropriate for the level of study.
  • Economical: Economical refers to the extent to which a module or qualification is efficient in delivering the learning outcomes without providing too much additional material which. There might be a temptation to provide students with an overwhelming array of interesting facts, ideas, theories and concepts in a given subject area.
  • Reflective: For students to effectively pass a module and engage in deep learning, it is important that they are able to reflect on their learning and study progress and have the time and space to do so. This includes regular opportunities for students to test their understanding through, for instance, self-assessment questions, formative quizzes and iCMAs. It also includes opportunities for students to reflect on their learning practices and progress, and set goals. Such opportunities for reflection and feedback help keep students engaged with the curriculum and makes retention more likely.

Of these three principles, one of them is causing me a mild amount of worry: the ‘economical’ principal. There is an inherent challenge within pedagogy, which is: to learn some higher level concepts, you may need to learn a lot of lower level concepts. This learning of ‘lots of useful stuff’ can be difficult. There is also an important related question, which is: where do tell students about all these lower level concepts, if we’re being asked to do it in a cognitively economically way? Interesting facts, ideas and theories can be useful.

We didn’t get the chance to have a chat about ‘G’, which is Gradual. Also drawing on Van Ameijde et al. (2018):

  • Gradual: In an effective learning journey, students will gradually encounter increasingly complex and challenging concepts, ideas, materials, tasks and skills development. Where knowledge, skills and assessments all occur over a manageable gradient which builds on acquired knowledge, provides timely opportunities to learn and practice study skills and prepares them achieving the defined learning outcomes, it is more likely that students will not be overwhelmed and therefore more likely be retained.

The key point that I’ve taken away from this bit is the importance of practice (relevant ‘student answered questions’ which can be presented in the module materials)

Resources

During this session (and a related session) links to a number of useful resources were shared. These include:

And, of course, the article that was mentioned earlier:

Reflections

During this session, we didn’t have much time to apply the framework to our module materials, since we still had much to figure out. Not only were we still figuring out ICEBERG, we were also still figuring out the nature and form of our module materials.

One question I did have of ICEBERG was: where is the tutor in all this? I think the answer is that the tutor is implicitly embedded within all parts of the framework. Tutors, of course, make module materials come alive. In turn, they can magnify whatever learning design decisions have been made by the module team.

I get the impression that ICEBERG is a tool that specifically applies to individual modules, rather than qualifications – or, in other words, groups of modules. Can ICEBERG be applied to qualifications?  Referring to the original article by Van Ameijde et al., the definition of economical ‘refers to the extent to which a course or qualification is efficient in delivering the learning outcomes’ which suggest that it may well have a wider role. An interesting research question could be: ‘how might all the principles of ICEBERG be used to analyse the learning design of qualifications from different faculties?’ In the meantime, I’m going to concentrate on TM113.

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to Paul for his useful presentation, LDS, and all colleagues who have contributed to the development of ICEBERG. Thanks are also extended to fellow TM113 colleagues who attended the session.

Tags: learning design, Learning Design, LD, TM113, ICEBERG, LDS
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Christopher Douce

What can we learn from distance learning? One day conference, April 2021

Sunday 23 May 2021 at 10:45
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On 1 April 2021 I attended an online half day conference, ‘What can we learn from distance learning?’ which had the subtitle ‘Supporting teaching in the post-COVID world’. The conference was organised by the University of Kent eLearning group and was introduced by Phil Anthony. An accompany hashtag for the event is: #DigiEduWebinars (Twitter).

What follows is a short blog summary of the event which may serve a number of purposes: it is to share a set of accompanying resources and links in one place, to more widely share the conference to anyone who might be interested, and to remember what I did during 2021.

This summary also contains links to the various presentations, but I do expect that these links will age over time, and are likely to be available for a relatively limited amount of time. To complement the links, I’ve also shared some rough notes that I made during the event (which are provided with accompanying relevant web links). 

Going beyond ‘blended learning’ – re-imagining digital learning for higher education

The first presentation was by Professor Chie Adachi, from Deakin University, Australia. It was interesting to hear that Deakin was founded as a distance education provider.

A range of different tools are available within LMS systems. These tools can be mapped to activity types, such as knowledge acquisition, inquiry, collaboration, discussion, production, and assessment. I also noted that video has become a means to connect students, and this leads to the reflection that the concept of blended learning exists on a spectrum.

Technology and pedagogy are intrinsically connected. There was a reference to the concept of ‘critical digital pedagogy’ which relates to the idea of care, and how to embed caring within online learning. There was also reference to something called the “CloudFirst learning design principles” was said to be building on something called a “Digital First” approach. There are five learning principles: learning is supported, activity focussed, social, feedback focussed and scaffolded.

Blended learning is a concept that can take account of time, place, work and life. In terms of time, interactions can be synchronous or asynchronous. In terms of work, the blend could be a combination of professional or ‘performed self’. In terms of place, learning could take place at home, on campus, or anywhere. A broader question is: how can we create caring communities online?

Finally, we were directed to a FutureLearn Mooc called: transforming digital learning: learning design meets service design (FutureLearn).

Lessons for assessment in a post-Covid world

Next up was a presentation by Sally Jordan from the Open University, who spoke about assessment. Sally began by presenting an overview of the OU; it was founded in 1969, has around 169k students, mostly studying part time, and 30k students have declared a disability. 8k students are studying outside of the UK.

Sally is interested in assessment analytics and demographic differences and assessment. She mentioned a related presentation: Computer marked assessments: friend or foe? There was a reference to assessment strategy in the sense that students have to get over a particular threshold, and that VLE or MLE systems (such as Moodle) can make use of different types of question, such as those that make use of pattern matching. 

The themes of Sally’s presentation were the importance of fairness, clarity, that assessments should be engaging, authentic, and sustainable. An interesting reference to follow up on was provided in the session text chat: Butcher, P. & Jordan, S. (2010). A comparison of human and computer marking of short free-text student responses. Computers & Education, 55(2), 489-499.

What can we learn from distance learning?

The third presentation was by Dr Mark O’Connor who was from the University of Kent. Mark works as a Distance learning technologist, who also works with FutureLearn (FutureLearn partner link).

In response to the title question: “What can we learn from distance learning?” the answer was: pretty much anything. Course design can enhance flexibility. A point I noted down was: if something is good practice for distance learning this helps with on campus learning too.

A couple of links to note is the e-learning at the University of Kent portal and The good Moodle guide (pdf).

Different types of courses were mentioned. There was something called an ExpertTrack, which leads to a digital certificate, and microcredentials, which leads to academic credit which could be used on an official academic programme. The OU is also delivering a number of microcredentials (OU website) in combination with FutureLearn.

Microcredentials is an interesting subject. There are advantages and disadvantages, and questions about equity and access which need exploration and debate. There’s a question of how they may practically fit in and complement existing institutional programmes, and their wider role within the higher education sector.

Teachers collaborating to improve blended learning

This session, about collaboration and blended learning, was delivered by Professor Diana Laurillard, from UCL. The aim of the presentation was about helping teachers and offering them support. The presentation centred around a tool: A visually structured approach to learning design (UCL).

The aim of the tool was to help teachers to collaborate with each other to create and share pedagogic designs. Through the tool, teachers can browse existing learning designs, edit, adapt and ultimately share them. A detailed representation of a learning design can be produced as a document, and a design could be analysed in terms of what was planned. A short summary was offered: tutors do enjoy working with the learning designer, they see the point of sharing and peer review, and arguably there is the potential for improvement if ideas area shared.

Following a theme from earlier presentations, reference was also made to a FutureLearn MOOC. The one that was mentioned by Diana was called Blended and online learning design (FutureLearn). 

I always find presentations about tools really interesting, partly because I used to have a full time job as an educational technology developer. Looking to recent educational technology history, there have been instances of initiatives that have aimed to create repositories of resources. Perhaps this new tool reflects an increased understanding that is isn’t the detailed content that is the bigger problem, but instead the pedagogy and the learning design. Outside any tool usage is, of course, the establishment of a culture that relates to its use within a learning community.

How are students experiencing learning online?

This important question was introduced by Sarah Knight, who joins us from JISC. The full title of Sarah’s talk was: How are students experiencing learning online? What the data from our digital experience insights 2020-1 student surveys is telling us.

Sarah’s talk referenced a recent Office for Students report that was entitled Gravity assist: propelling higher education to a brighter future. I noted that this report emphasises co-designing digital teaching and learning at every point in the design process, and the student voice should inform strategic planning.

The question is: what was the students’ experience? Data from 30k students was collected from October to December 2020. Most students were studying within home environment. Many students had difficulty of connectivity, mobile data cost, and a space to study. 36% of HE students agreed they had a choice of being involved in learning design.

There are questions about technology, use of technology, digital skills. Some further questions are: what can we do now: get basics right (connectivity), make sessions interactive, record lessons, train and support lecturers, consider the pace of deliver, create opportunities to ask questions, provide timely individual group support and feedback on assessment activities. Some of these points connect back to the topic of pedagogy which was highlighted in the previous presentation.

Another important question to ask is: how do you facilitate student engagement through academic staff? One answer might be to look at mechanisms to replicate a feeling of connectedness, and perhaps this links back to the notion of blended learning, and the different ways in which it can be considered.

On the subject of Jisc, I learnt about the following recent Jisc report at another event I attended: Digital at the core: a 2030 strategy framework for university leaders which has the subtitle ‘a long-term digital strategy framework designed as part of the learning and teaching reimagined initiative’. An obvious reflection is: there’s always things to catch up on, and always new things to read. 

Cutting the Rubber Band of Practice: Developing Post-COVID Pedagogies

Dr Chris Headleand, from the University of Lincoln, shared a metaphor: if you pull a rubber band back too far, it might break, or not go back to the same form. This begs a question that relates to the current experience in higher education: when everything returns back to normal, will everything snap back to normal, or will there be a lasting change? An important point is that academics and organisations didn’t really have a choice when it came to a rapid transition to online learning, and that change was pretty universal.

There are some important questions: have some things been stretched too far? Also, what changes might continue? Will there be on going changes in the use of physical space, transitions to new practice, and changes to infrastructure?

A tip I noticed down was: “engage student proactively, share practice often and with a wide audience”. A blog that might be of interest has the title: Preparing for the New Normal: Change Planning for the Future of Higher Education. Another reference was: A Framework for Innovation Management and Practice Development.

Help! I have not left yet. Engaging staff in transition journeys to online delivery – reflections from an emergent motorway analogy

Another metaphor was presented by Andrew Clegg, from the University of Portsmouth. Andrew drew on motorway analogy. On the outside lanes there were those driving quickly, who had high levels of competence, high levels of pedagogic and digital literacy. In the middle lane, there were staff working consistency, sometimes trying things out. There was also the inside lane: those who were slow to start, but were getting there and gaining confidence. An important point was that it is necessary to have a journey plan, and have opportunities for communication and sharing practice.

Other points I noted down were that blending learning is, of course, a spectrum. There is also a link between engagement and innovation.

Dealing with dissonance: digital education in crisis and beyond as a challenge to mindset

Associate Professor Martin Compton from UCL was interested in what works, and draws on a context of institutional cultures and leadership. A reflection was that departmental cultures can frame and shape what is done. The rapid shift to online learning represents a challenge of identity to those who may have teaching as a performance, and appreciation of the familiar: lectures and examinations.

Martin draws on the familiar and important ideas of cognitive dissonance and fixed and growth mindsets. When faced with new challenges the concept of cognitive dissonance is connected to anxiety, since there can be dissonance between what we know and what we do.

Keeping it good and simple

The final presentation of the day was by David Baume (personal website), from the University of London. I noted that graduates should be competent, communicative, collaborative, creative, critical, comfortable with complexity, conscientious, confident and computer literate. David referred to a paper called: what the research says about learning co-authored with Eileen Scanlon from The Open University.

The notes I made represents a nice summary of some really important themes about teaching and learning. Learning ‘well’ requires a clear structure and framework, the expectation of high standards expected, and the ability for learners to acknowledge their prior learning. Also, learning is an active process where learners spend time on task. Learning is also (ideally) a collaborative activity, and learners use and receive feedback on their work.

I also noted down some key elements that related to simplicity: activity should be aligned to attractive learning outcomes (I know this as the notion of constructive alignment), there should be pointers to good resources, opportunities to gain peer support, and the provision of helpful feedback. A paraphrased concept that I noted down was: “give them interesting stuff to do, and ask them what it means for them”. That “stuff”, of course, should aim to develop key skills, knowledge and behaviours. 

Reflections

What I liked about this online event was there was emphasis on sharing of practice between institutions, but there was also space to ask those important searching questions about the characteristics of higher education teaching and learning. I also appreciated the metaphors that were presented in a couple of the papers since they facilitate reflection and sharing. 

There are clear and direct implications of moving teaching online. One of those is about mental health, both of students and of teachers. 

It’s also always important to remind oneself that it’s never only about the technology, but always about how the technology is used, and in what context. A further question is also: who is the technology used with? This applies both on the student side as well as the educator side. All this links back to an option that I have always maintained: it is always people that matters most, never the technology.

I would like to acknowledge Phil Anthony, the University of Kent, and all the speakers. It was a really thought provoking event. It will be interesting to see the extent to which the rapid shift to online teaching and learning has ongoing and lasting consequences for the sector.

Tags: online learning, distance learning, conference, university of kent, kent, blended learning, webinar, covid-19, covid, pandemic, learning design
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Christopher Douce

User generated mobile learning designs

Tuesday 18 November 2008 at 09:07
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Edited by Christopher Douce, Sunday 17 August 2025 at 21:12

Would I be considered to be weird if I said that I quite like exams? I admit, I do quite like the challenge, but more specifically, I also like the feeling of opening a paper and knowing (roughly) how to answer the questions I find, and making a choice about which questions I'm going to answer, and which ones I'm going to ignore (if I have a choice, of course). I also like receiving the result and relaxing when a course finishes!

A big question to ask in relation to taking exams is, 'how do you successfully transfer all the knowledge and understanding from your course into your head in such a form that you can answer potentially challenging (and interesting!) questions?' We all have our own unique set of strategies. I'll share some of mine.

Repurposing material

When I'm taking a course, one of the things that I do is make voluminous notes. I am a sucker for writing things down. I buy a couple of dividers and split a A4 (or a lever arch) file into sections corresponding to the blocks. I usually have a couple of extra dividers free for 'other stuff'.

I admit that I sometimes go a bit far, especially when I insist on choosing a single brand of pen for the whole set of notes that I make during a course. I make headings in a consistent style and sometimes experiment with underlining colours!

Although this might seem to be a bit unusual (in terms of my studying rituals), the activity of taking notes is central to my studying strategy. Once I have my notes and the exam date is looming, I sometimes re-write my notes. I take my sides of A4 and 'summarise them down' to a single side of A4, trusting that the stuff that is not on the page is faithfully held within my head.

In the e-learning world, the term 'repurposing' crops up from time to time. It means to take existing materials that have been designed for one purpose and to change them in some way so they can be used for something else. One of the difficulties of e-learning content repositories is that it is difficult to repurpose or reuse existing learning materials, perhaps because of the granularity of the material, or perhaps because that some material is too closely connected to a particular learning situation (or context). But I digress…

When working towards an exam, I actively 'repurpose' the contents of the course that I am studying. I take the course and transfer themes and ideas from the text books or the course materials and transfer them into my A4 file.

Learning pathways

The A4 file represents my own unique adventure or path through a set of learning resources, replete with questions to self, underlining, quotations and green underlining. My repurposing activity, as an active learner, is a construction activity. In essence, I have designed my own learning resources, or have designed my own learning.

When I was a student on The Challenge of the Social Sciences, I have to confess I was not looking forward to the exam. What helped me, was not only the excellent resources that the course team provided, but also the mind maps, sets of notes and other forms of crib sheets that my fellow students had posted selflessly to our on-line discussion forum. They were a great help, not only in seeing that others were revising as hard as I was, but they were also pointing out and bringing different parts of the course together in ways that I had previously missed. Guys, I owe you one!

Dead time

I often travel on a train. When studying, I try to read when I am travelling, which I find difficult. One of the reasons, other than that I cannot easily take notes because the train is bumping around (!), is that I'm often sitting next to someone who is insisting on talking loudly on their mobile phone the moment I wish to try to settle down to learn something about the history of empiricism. Not to mention the lack of 'elbow room' needed to work through ones course notes.

I much prefer listening to podcasts. Listening is another one of my learning preferences. If only I could easily convert my notes into audio form, I might be able to make better use of the 'dead time' I spend on a train.

One thing I could try to do (but I shall never dare!) is to make a podcast of my own notes. This does sound a bit extreme since I am lead to believe that making a podcast takes up lots of time, not to mention equipment. 

You need to learn how to use your sound recording software, you might even start with a script, then there is a period of editing (podediting?) to edit out the false starts, door bell ringing, the dog or telephone… 

This makes me wonder: is there a way to repurpose textual notes, interesting quotations, chapter headings and thematic points in such a way that you can create an interactive audio file that contains pathways that you could navigate through whilst your travel?

iLearningNotes

Not so long ago I learnt about the Daisy talking book project and was struck by the quality of the speech synthesisers that could be used (some of the same synthesisers are also used by the current generation of screen readers).

Imagine a tool, not unlike Compendium, where you could build audio mind maps. Underneath headings you could add notes and quotations. You could establish conceptual links between different titles, chapters and ideas. The graphical structures that you create could then be converted into speech using a high quality speech synthesiser.

Another possibility could be that you might be able to use excerpts from other podcasts. Of course, there may be nothing stopping you making your own recordings, perhaps combining your material with words from other sources (providing you adhere to licence conditions, of course).

When you have finished editing you could transfer your edited interactive 'audio map' (which may even have corresponding iconic pictures!) to a magic mobile device not unlike an iPod. You could use the magic wheel control to move through the chapters, sections and notes that you have 'built'. You may also be able to control the rate of playback, allowing you to skip over sections of which you become more familiar.

When you have created your audio notes, in true Web 2.0 fashion you could share your own personal course specific pathways with others. You might be even able to repurpose or modify pathways created by other people so they closely match your own individual learning needs. Furthermore, these resulting navigable audio equivalents may have the potential to be useful for people with disabilities.

Back to learning design

There are some resonances between these ideas and the area of learning design tools and systems.

I first came across the concept of learning design when looking through the IMS specifications. I soon learnt that IMS LD was an XML language that could be used to construct descriptions of learning activities that could be executed using a player. I later came across a system called LAMS, and most recently was told about something called the e-lesson mark-up language, ELML.

Learning design, as an idea, can take many forms. The different systems vary in terms of dynamic adaptability, ease of authoring and who the language or system is intended for. Another is presented by CloudWorks, from what I understand.

My designs

When I study, I design my own learning with help from the materials that I am provided. This may occur when I travel on a train, carry out internet searches on the internet, or read some notes whilst drinking a cup of tea at home.

My own personal pathway through a set of resources may be very different to the pathway that other learners may choose. Learning about the differences, potentially through mobile devices, may help me (and fellow learners) to see new sets of connections that were not immediately understandable.

In doing so, we have the potential to create devices and tools that make better use of our 'dead time'.

Tags: mobile learning, podcasting, accessibility, user generated content, learning design, Learning Design
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