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Christopher Douce

e-Learning community event: mobile devices

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Edited by Christopher Douce, Thursday, 20 Feb 2014, 12:01

Mobile devices are everywhere.  On a typical tube ride to the regional office in London, I see loads of different devices.  You can easily recognise the Amazon Kindle; you see the old type with buttons, and the more modern version with its touch screen.  Other passengers read electronic books with Android and Apple tablets.  Other commuters study their smart phones with intensity, and I’m fascinated with what is becoming possible with the bigger screen phones, such as the Samsung Note (or phablets, as I understand they’re called).  Technology is giving us both convenience and an opportunity to snatch moments of reading in the dead time of travel.

I have a connection with a module which is all about accessible online learning (H810 module description).  In the context of the module, accessibility is all about making materials, products and tools usable for people who have disabilities.  Accessibility can also be considered in a wider sense, in terms of making materials available to learners irrespective of their situation or environment.  In the most recent presentation of H810, the module team has made available much of the learning materials in eBook or Kindle format.  The fact that materials can be made available in this format can be potentially transformative and open up opportunities to ‘snatch’ more moments of learning.

An event I attended on 11 February 2014, held in the university library, was all about sharing research and practice about the use of mobile devices.  I missed the first presentation, which was all about the use of OU Live (an on-line real time conferencing system) using tablet devices.  The other two presentations (which I’ve made notes about) explored two different perspectives: the perspective of the student, and the perspective of the associate lecturer (or tutor).

(It was also interesting to note that the event was packed to capacity; it was standing room only.  Mobile technology and its impact on learning seems to be a hot topic).

Do students study and learn differently using e-readers?

The first presentation I managed to pay attention to was by Anne Campbell who had conducted a study about how students use e-readers.  Her research question (according to my notes) was whether users of these devices could perform deep reading (when you become absorbed and immersed in a text) and active learning, or alternatively, do learners get easily distracted by the technology?  Active learning can be thought of carrying out activities such as highlighting, note taking and summarising – all the things that you used to be able to do with a paper based text book and materials.

Anne gave us a bit of context.  Apparently half of OU postgraduate students use a tablet or e-reader, and most use it for studying.  Also, half of UK households have some kind of e-reader.  Anne also told us that there was very little research on how students study and learn using e-readers.  To try to learn more, Anne has conducted a small research project to try to learn more about how students consume and work with electronic resources and readers.

The study comprised of seventeen students.  Six students were from the social sciences and eleven students were studying science.  All were from a broad range of ages.  The study was a longitudinal diary study.  Whenever students used their devices, they were required to make an entry.  This was complemented with a series of semi-structured interviews.  Subsequently, a huge amount of rich qualitative data was collected and then analysed using a technique known as grounded theory.   (The key themes and subjects that are contained within the data are gradually exposed by looking at the detail of what the participants have said and have written).

One of the differences between using e-readers and traditional text books is the lack of spatial cues.  We’re used to the physical size of a book, so it’s possible to (roughly) know where certain chapters are once we’re familiar with its contents.  It’s also harder to skim read with e-readers, but on the other hand this may force readers to read in more depth.  One comment I’ve noted is, ‘I think with the Kindle… it is sinking in more’.  This, however, isn’t true for all students.

I’ve also noted that there clear benefits in terms of size.  Some text books are clearly very heavy and bulky; you need a reasonably sized bag to move them around from place to place, but with an e-reader, you can (of course) transfer all the books that you need for a module to the device.  Other advantages are that you can search for key phrases using an e-reader.  I’ve learnt that some e-readers contain a built in dictionary (which means that readers can look up words without having to reach for a paper dictionary).  Other advantages include a ‘clickable index’ (which can help with the navigation).  Other more implicit advantages can include the ability to change the size of the text of the display, and the ability to use the ‘voice readout’ function of a mobile device (but I don’t think any participants used this feature).

I also noted that e-readers might not be as well suited for active learning for the reasons that I touched on above, but apparently it’s possible to perform highlights and to record notes within an ebook.

My final note of this session was, ‘new types of study advice needed?’   More of this thought later.

Perspectives from a remote and rural AL

Tamsin Smith, from the Faculty of Science, talked about how mobile technology helps her in her role as an associate lecturer.  I found the subject of this talk immediately interesting and was very keen to hear learn about Tamsin’s experiences.  One of the modules that Tamsin tutors on consists of seven health science books.  The size and convenience of e-readers can also obviously benefit tutors as well as students.

On some modules, key documents such as assignment guides or tutor notes are available as PDFs.  If they’re not directly available, they can be converted into PDFs using freely available software tools.  When you have got the documents in this format, you can access them using your device of choice.  In Tamsin’s case, this was an iPad mini. 

On the subject of different devices, Tamsin also mentioned a new app called OU Anywhere, which is available for both iOS and Android devices.  After this talk, I gave OU Anywhere a try, downloading it to my smartphone.  I soon saw that I could access all the core blocks for the module that I tutor on, along with a whole bunch of other modules.  I could also access videos that were available through the DVD that was supplied with the module.  Clearly, this appeared to be (at a first glance) pretty useful, and was something that I needed to spend a bit more time looking at.

Other than the clear advantages of size and mobility, Tamsin also said that there were other advantages.  These included an ability to highlight sections, to add notes, to save bookmarks and to perform searches.  Searching was highlighted as particularly valuable.  Tutors could, for example, perform searches for relevant module materials during the middle of tutorials. 

Through an internet connection, our devices can allow access to the OU library, on line tutorials through OU Live (as covered during the first presentation that I missed), and tutor group discussion forums allowing tutors to keep track of discussions and support students whilst they’re on the move.  This said, internet access is not available everywhere, so the facility to download and store resources is a valuable necessity.  This, it was said, was the biggest change to practice; the ability to carry all materials easily and access them quickly. 

One point that I did learn from this presentation is that there is an ETMA file handler that available for the iPad (but not one that is official sanctioned or supported by the university).

Final thoughts

What I really liked about Anne’s study was its research approach.  I really liked the fact that it used something called a diary study (which is a technique that is touched on as a part of the M364 Interaction Design module).  This study aimed to learn how learning is done.  It struck me that some learners (including myself) might have to experiment with different combinations of study approaches and techniques to find out what works and what doesn’t.  Study technique (I thought) might be a judgement for the individual.

When I enrolled on my first postgraduate module with the Open University, I was sent a book entitled, The Good Study Guide by Andrew Northedge (companion website).  It was one of those books where I thought to myself, ‘how come it’s taken me such a long time to get around to reading this?’, and, ‘if only I had read this as an undergraduate, I might have perhaps managed to get a higher score in some of my exams’.  It was packed filled with practical advice about topics as time management, using a computer to study, reading, making notes, writing and preparing for exams.

It was interesting to hear from Anne’s presentation that studying using our new-fangled devices is that little bit different.  Whilst on one hand we lose some of our ability to put post it notes between pages and see where our thumbs have been, we gain mobility, convenience and extra facilities such as searching. 

It is very clear that more and more of university materials can now be accessed using electronic readers.  Whilst this is likely to be a good thing (in terms of convenience), there are two main issues (that are connected to each other) that I think that we need to bear in mind. 

The first is a very practical issue.  It is: how do you get the materials onto our device?  Two related questions are: how can we move our materials between different devices? and, how do we effectively manage the materials once we have saved them to our devices?  We might end up downloading a whole set of different files, ranging from different module blocks, assignments and other guidance documents.  It’s important to figure out a way to best manage these files:  we need to be literate in how we use our devices.   (As an aside, these questions loosely connect with the nebulous concept of the Personal Learning Environment).

The second issue relates to learning.  In the first presentation, Anne mentioned the term ‘active learning’.  The Good Study Guide contains a chapter about ‘making notes’.  Everyone is different, but I can’t help but think that there’s an opportunity for ‘practice sharing’.  What I mean is that there’s an opportunity to share stories of how learners can effectively make use of these mobile devices, perhaps in combination with more traditional approaches for study (such as note taking and paraphrasing).  Sharing tips and tricks about how mobile devices can fit into a personalised study plan has the potential to show how these new tools can be successfully applied.

A final thought relates to the broad subject of learning design.  Given that half of all households now have access to e-readers of one form or another (as stated in the first presentation I’ve covered) module teams need to be mindful of the opportunities and challenges that these devices can offer.  Although this is slightly away from my home discipline and core subject, I certainly feel that there needs to be work to be done to further understand what these challenges and opportunities might be.  I’m sure that there has been a lot more work carried out than I am aware of.  If you know of any studies that are relevant, please feel free to comment below.

Video recordings of these presentations are available through the university Stadium website.

Permalink 1 comment (latest comment by Jonathan Vernon, Wednesday, 5 Mar 2014, 23:38)
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Christopher Douce

e-Learning Community: Portfolios and Corpora

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The Open University has something called an e-learning community.  This is a loose group of people who share a common interest in e-learning and the application of information technology for teaching and learning.  Since I was visiting the head office at Milton Keynes for a meeting, I thought I would drop into a seminar that took place on 11 July 2012.

This meeting of the e-learning community comprised of two different talks, both very different from each other.  The first presentation, by Thomas Strasser, was about e-portfolio systems and how they can be used with teacher training.  In some ways, this first talk connected to an earlier HEA event at Birmingham City University which focused on helping people to create an on-line professional presence.  The second talk, by Alannah Fitzgerald, was about how corpora can be used to help with language learning.  I hope that that through these notes I've done justice to both presentations.

The role of self-organised learning using Mahara

The full title of Thomas Strasser's presentation is, Mighty Mahara: the role of self-organised learning within the context of Mahara ePortfolio at Vienna University of Teacher Education.   Mahara (Mahara website) is an open source ePortfolio system which appears to be increasingly used in combination with the Moodle virtual learning environment.  One of the reasons for this is likely to be that both systems make use of the same underlying software, PHP. 

An ePortfolio system can be described as an on-line tool that can be used as a repository to store documents of work performed and reflections to gain further understandings of a particular subject or topic.  I understood that ePortfolios can have different faces: on one hand they can be private (to facilitate personal reflection), or they can be public (to enable the sharing of documents and ideas between different groups).  The public dimension can also allow the user to share information about competencies with other people, and this may include potential employers.

During Thomas's presentation, I was introduced to a slightly different (and more nuanced) view of ePortfolios.  Apparently three authors called Baumgartner, Himpsl and Zauchner proposed three different types: systems that can be used to facilitate reflection (thoughts on work that has been done), development (thoughts about future directions and plans), and presentation (information about what the user or student can do, or has achieved).

One of the most important points that I've noted is that Thomas argued that teachers need to be digitally literate and be able to appreciate the different situations in which digital media might be used. 

One term that was new to me was 'self-organised learning'.  Whilst I had not heard of this term before, its intention feels immediately comprehensible.  Thomas mentioned that it is connected to recent debates surrounding life-long learning.  Four components of self-organised learning were mentioned, a focus on individual strengths and weaknesses, self-reflection (I'm assuming this means on work that has been performed and problems carried out), differentiated systematic reflection (I'm not sure what this means), and documentation (which I understand relates to the creation of documentation, to create evidence).

Why use an ePortfolio?  I understand that teacher training is a field where it is necessary to collect a significant amount of documentation and evidence.  The one thing that an ePortfolio can do is to replace paper based reports and portfolios, thus helping to unburden the lecturer.  The lecturer, however, is not the focus.  Instead, the student or learner should be at the centre.

For any on-line tool to be successful its users need to either see or discover its worth. One way to achieve this is to have a lecturer being a 'role model', i.e. using the same tools as the student.  An important point was that the popularity of a tool can depend on the enthusiasm of the tutors that are using it; acceptance is something that can take time and institutions may have a role to play in terms of making certain tools obligatory.

Through their ePortfolio system, Thomas's students are encouraged to share a lot of their work and activities with others.  The system can store contact information, students can communicate with each other through a reflective blog and can provide peer feedback through task-based reflection. (It was at this point that I thought of the Open University tool, Open Design Studio that is used as a part of the U101 Design Thinking module). 

The question and answer session at the end of Thomas's talk raised a number of familiar questions.  These include what may happen to an ePortfolio when a student leaves their institution, the extent of difference between an ePortfolio and a website, and the issues of privacy and security.

A copy of Thomas's presentation can be found by visiting the presentation section of his Learning Reloaded website.  Further information and research can be found on Thomas's home page.

Addressing academic literacies: corpus-based open educational resources

Alannah Fitzgerald's presentation had a strong connection with the subject of computational linguistics, a subject which I took as a master's module.  I understand a corpus to be a set of texts that can be used by researchers to gain an understanding about how language is used.  I first learnt of the term when I heard of something called the British National Corpus, or BNC, which is a set of carefully sampled texts which can be used by linguists.

One of the themes of Alannah's presentation was teaching of academic English, particularly to people who know English as their second language.  I had never heard of this before, but apparently there is something called an 'academic word list'.  This word list has been published by academic publishers with the intention of helping language learners.  The word list has apparently been produced by the analysis of a corpus of academic articles.

One of the challenges of creating a corpus is to ensure that it is representative.  This means that samples of language use are chosen from different disciplines.  Just as in the social sciences, research that presents conclusions from poorly sampled data can be subjected to challenge.  Such challenges, of course, can lead to new experiments (or new corpora), which may lead to different results.

Another theme of Alannah's talk was open educational resources (Wikipedia), or OER.  OERs are educational resources that anyone can use, free of charge.  Over recent years a number of on-line corpora and linguistic tools have become available.  Such tools can be used by teachers and student alike, potentially to either augment the use of textbooks, or even to gain different or alternative perspectives.

We were introduced to FLAX, or Flexible Language Acquisition Project, Wordandphrase and Lextutor.  Wordandphrase draws upon a corpus called COCA, an abbreviation for Corpus of Contemporary American English.  Apparently, one of its really interesting features is that whilst the BNC is a snapshot of language at a particular period of time, COCA is continually being added to, so it represents 'current' language usage. Another interesting corpus is BAWE, an abbreviation for British Academic Written English.

The main point of Alannah's talk was that teachers of English need not be constrained only by the resources that publishers provide.  Challenges lie in understanding how the different tools work and how they can fit in and be used within classes (a thought which has been drawn from Thomas's earlier comment that the tutor needs to show how tools could and should be used).

Other resources include BALEAP, which is an organisation dedicated to the professional development of those involved in learning, teaching, scholarship and research in English for Academic Purposes (EAP).  Another site that was mentioned being Teacher Training Videos.

Reflections

I enjoyed both presentations.  Regarding the presentation about ePortfolios I do sense that their success in an institution or a course of study will heavily depend on how the advantages of such tools are conveyed to students.  People only use tools if they are perceived to yield some kind of benefit or have a clear purpose (or if you have to use them to gain scores that contribute towards an assessment).  One issue that remains is the unknown consequences of sharing or whether what we write will be 'googleable' and come back to haunt us.

I particularly enjoyed Alannah's talk since the subjects that she spoke about were very different to my current research interest (which is becoming to be more about the history of computing).  What was great (for me) was that it brought back memories of old studies and reminders of tools I had looked at many years ago (such as WordNet).

Alannah's talk also made me wonder about whether it might be possible, or in fact, useful to create to create a corpus of computer programs, which may have the potential to help us to learn more about the ways that software developers perceive and understand different types of software.  Much food for thought.

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