E-learning and e-resources

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E-learning and e-resources

• Brett Lucas
• Learning Technology Web Development Officer
• English Subject Centre
• brett.lucas_at_rhul.ac.uk

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Overview

• Current Higher Education Academy E-learning work
• Current English Subject Centre E-learning work
• Other e-learning sector initiatives
• Resources
• Questions for discussion

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Current HEA work

• Distributed e-learning
• Cultural issues, subject differences and
  embedding
• http//www.jisc.ac.uk/programme_edistributed.html
• http//www.heacademy.ac.uk/distributedelearning.ht
  m
• E-tutor of the year
• http//www.heacademy.ac.uk/etutor.htm
• E-learning Benchmarking exercise
• to allow institutions providing higher education
  to identify their current progress, on embedding
  e-learning, in relation to similar institutions
• Academy e-learning resources
• http//www.heacademy.ac.uk/969.htm

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English Subject Centre e-learning work

• E-learning advocates
• http//www.english.heacademy.ac.uk/explore/resourc
  es/technology/advocates.php

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English Subject Centre e-learning work

• E-learning advocates
• National scoping study of English studies
  (Philosophy Religious studies and History)

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UK English department survey - 2002/3
Does your institution support a VLE/CMS?
Dont know - 19
Yes - 55
No - 26
Source Curriculum Teaching Survey (2003) -
English Subject Centre
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UK English department survey 2002/3
If Yes, How many lecturers in your department use
it
A substantial minority 34
Majority 4
A few enthusiasts 55
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UK English department survey 2002/3
What stage best describes where you would like to
see your departments use of IT in teaching in
three years?

• Early stages - 15
• Well established 49
• Innovative - 25
• Not an issue - 11

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UK English department elearning practitioner
survey - 2005
Does your institution support a VLE/CMS?
11
English is.
English Subject Centre e-Learning Practitioner
Survey 2005
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E-learning Practitioner survey 2005






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3.1 How valuable do you think e-learning is for 3.1 How valuable do you think e-learning is for 3.1 How valuable do you think e-learning is for 3.1 How valuable do you think e-learning is for
not at all valuable of limited value of considerable value extremely valuable
communicating with students 0 (0) 4 (5) 21 (24) 75 (87)
supporting discussion among students 0 (0) 29 (33) 39 (45) 31 (36)
creating learning resources for students e.g. a website or VLE based course 2 (2) 11 (13) 40 (46) 47 (55)
providing access to learning resources 1 (1) 6 (7) 36 (42) 57 (66)
improving literacy/essay writing skills 4 (5) 52 (60) 33 (38) 11 (13)
supporting classroom activities 4 (4) 19 (22) 48 (55) 28 (33)
supporting learning outside the classroom 2 (2) 17 (19) 40 (46) 41 (47)
improving accessibility for all students e.g. part-time dyslexic 1 (1) 14 (16) 50 (57) 36 (41)
assessing students and giving feedback 6 (7) 44 (51) 34 (39) 16 (18)
tracking students' activity/progress 4 (5) 47 (54) 31 (35) 18 (20)
managing classes 12 (13) 46 (52) 27 (30) 16 (18)

Total Respondents 116
Source English Subject Centre E-learning
practitioner survey 2005
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3.1 How often do you currently use e-learning for 3.1 How often do you currently use e-learning for 3.1 How often do you currently use e-learning for 3.1 How often do you currently use e-learning for 3.1 How often do you currently use e-learning for

Never Rarely Quite often Frequently
communicating with students 1 (2) 5 (6) 11 (13) 83 (97)
supporting discussion among students 18 (21) 36 (41) 30 (35) 16 (18)
creating learning resources for students e.g. a website or VLE based course 16 (19) 20 (23) 24 (28) 40 (46)
providing access to learning resources 7 (8) 9 (11) 36 (42) 47 (55)
improving literacy/essay writing skills 36 (41) 32 (37) 20 (23) 11 (13)
supporting classroom activities 8 (9) 22 (25) 41 (47) 29 (33)
supporting learning outside the classroom 7 (8) 27 (31) 35 (40) 30 (34)
improving accessibility for all students e.g. part-time dyslexic 20 (22) 32 (36) 31 (35) 17 (19)
assessing students and giving feedback 30 (34) 29 (33) 28 (31) 12 (14)
tracking students' activity/progress 33 (38) 31 (36) 23 (27) 12 (14)
managing classes 34 (38) 27 (31) 24 (27) 15 (17)

Total Respondents 116
Source English Subject Centre E-learning
practitioner survey 2005
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3.1 How often do you currently use e-learning for 3.1 How often do you currently use e-learning for 3.1 How often do you currently use e-learning for 3.1 How often do you currently use e-learning for 3.1 How often do you currently use e-learning for
Never Rarely Quite often Frequently
supporting discussion among students 18 (21) 36 (41) 30 (35) 16 (18)
3.1 How valuable do you think e-learning is for 3.1 How valuable do you think e-learning is for 3.1 How valuable do you think e-learning is for 3.1 How valuable do you think e-learning is for
not at all valuable of limited value of considerable value extremely valuable
supporting discussion among students 0 (0) 29 (33) 39 (45) 31 (36)
Source English Subject Centre e-Learning
practitioner survey 2005
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3.1 How often do you currently use e-learning for 3.1 How often do you currently use e-learning for 3.1 How often do you currently use e-learning for 3.1 How often do you currently use e-learning for 3.1 How often do you currently use e-learning for
Never Rarely Quite often Frequently
assessing students and giving feedback 30 (34) 29 (33) 28 (31) 12 (14)
tracking students' activity/progress 33 (38) 31 (36) 23 (27) 12 (14)
managing classes 34 (38) 27 (31) 24 (27) 15 (17)
3.1 How valuable do you think e-learning is for 3.1 How valuable do you think e-learning is for 3.1 How valuable do you think e-learning is for 3.1 How valuable do you think e-learning is for 3.1 How valuable do you think e-learning is for
not at all valuable of limited value of considerable value extremely valuable
assessing students and giving feedback 6 (7) 44 (51) 34 (39) 16 (18)
tracking students' activity/progress 4 (5) 47 (54) 31 (35) 18 (20)
managing classes 12 (13) 46 (52) 27 (30) 16 (18)
English subject centre e-Learning practitioner
survey 2005
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3.1 How often do you currently use e-learning for 3.1 How often do you currently use e-learning for 3.1 How often do you currently use e-learning for 3.1 How often do you currently use e-learning for 3.1 How often do you currently use e-learning for
Never Rarely Quite often Frequently
improving literacy/essay writing skills 36 (41) 32 (37) 20 (23) 11 (13)
3.1 How valuable do you think e-learning is for 3.1 How valuable do you think e-learning is for 3.1 How valuable do you think e-learning is for 3.1 How valuable do you think e-learning is for
not at all valuable of limited value of considerable value extremely valuable
improving literacy/essay writing skills 4 (5) 52 (60) 33 (38) 11 (13)
English subject centre e-Learning practitioner
survey 2005
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Is practice changing?
I've found myself shifting attention to primary
literary and dramatic materials and away from
critical/interpretative material. That is to
say, I find my teaching practice more likely now
to be the encouragement of students to find
their own explanations of what's in the drama
and the literary rather than to become well-read
in the secondary material. (This development
has, I think, good and bad sides to it.)
Raised my expectations of what students can
accomplish on their own initiative (I am more
demanding in some ways - with set assignments
each week for preparation. The students respond
well to this and I don't get large numbers who
'haven't read the text' and require
spoon-feeding with a plot summary. They know we
press on regardless on the basis of the work
they can all access on or off campus - so no
excuses!) Made me more creative about providing
supporting materials that students might find
helpful.
more able to transcend limitations of
book-based resources and open new channels of
learning
English Subject Centre E-learning practitioner
survey 2005
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Some conclusions from the survey

• Careful that we arent replicating existing
  practice
• Early adopters vs luddites
• Institutional pressure top down vs bottom up
• More work on student perspective
• longitudinal studies

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Use and reuse
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For each resource type listed below please indicate whether you regularly For each resource type listed below please indicate whether you regularly For each resource type listed below please indicate whether you regularly For each resource type listed below please indicate whether you regularly For each resource type listed below please indicate whether you regularly For each resource type listed below please indicate whether you regularly
use with learners produce myself find elsewhere share with colleagues Response Total
Reading lists / bibliographies 100 (108) 97 (105) 25 (27) 47 (51) 108
Websites as secondary source material 100 (97) 40 (39) 85 (82) 36 (35) 97
Online primary texts e.g poems plays etc 100 (94) 41 (39) 84 (79) 24 (23) 94
Essay questions 100 (96) 94 (90) 10 (10) 42 (40) 96
Class tasks exercises 100 (86) 95 (82) 16 (14) 36 (31) 86
Overhead or PowerPoint slides 100 (80) 96 (77) 12 (10) 22 (18) 80
Digital images (used in a VLE or individually) 100 (65) 51 (33) 68 (44) 22 (14) 65
Digital text archives e.g. EEBO 100 (59) 22 (13) 86 (51) 32 (19) 59
Moving images, video or animations 100 (57) 30 (17) 77 (44) 23 (13) 57
Audio 100 (59) 49 (29) 75 (44) 25 (15) 59
Multiple choice test questions 100 (20) 75 (15) 25 (5) 40 (8) 20
Software e.g. concordancing tools 100 (18) 22 (4) 83 (15) 22 (4) 18
Simulations, games, virtual worlds 100 (14) 29 (4) 81 (10) 29 (4) 14


Total Respondents 108
(skipped this question) 8
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Sharing re-use

• 2/3 prepared to make materials available outside
  their institution
• But

I think of sharing in terms of people I know
material only really makes sense in the context
of a larger conversation. Other peoples
material is often a bit useless if you are not
personally engaged With it/them no matter how
good it is.
Re-using learning materials in English report
forthcoming
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Re-using learning materials in English report
forthcoming
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English Subject Centre e-learning work

• E-learning advocates
• National scoping study of English studies
  (Philosophy Religious studies and History)
• Digitisation Projects

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Digitisation projects

• Web-based resources for teaching, research and
  general use, on Robert Bloomfield and Thomas
  Chatterton
• Romantic poets
• Ug 6th form
• Nottingham Trent University
• Interdisciplinarity Online learning Fiction in
  the Victorian Edwardian provincial press
• Digitisation of local/regional papers
• University of Teesside
• Digitisation of manuscripts and papers relating
  to D.H Lawrences Odour of Chrysanthemums with
  supporting pedagogical materials for textual,
  historical and critical study.
• University of Nottingham

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English Subject Centre e-learning work

• E-learning advocates
• National scoping study of English studies
  (Philosophy Religious studies and History)
• Digitisation Projects
• Repurposing digital archives

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Repurposing Digital text archives

• Repurposing Research tools
• Pedagogical layers
• good practice guide on using Digital text
  archives
• Sheffield Hallam

http//www.english.heacademy.ac.uk/explore/project
s/archive/technology/tech20.php
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English Subject Centre e-learning work

• National scoping study of English studies
  (Philosophy Religious studies and History)
• Digitisation Projects
• Repurposing digital archives
• Information Literacy

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How do I reference an article again? Information
Literacy E-Learning

• researching and creating a web-based module which
  concentrates on research and writing skills
• helping students make the transition from A-level
  directed work to university self-directed study
• on-line assignments in conjunction with library
  assignments
• entirely web-based /mandatory for progression
• University of Newcastle
• http//www.english.heacademy.ac.uk/explore/project
  s/archive/technology/tech12.php

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http//www.shef.ac.uk/cilass/networks
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Sheila Webbers Information Literacy Weblog
http//information-literacy.blogspot.com/
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Other e-learning sector resources
http//www.jorum.ac.uk
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Other e-learning sector resources
http//www.merlot.org/Home.po
http//www.nln.ac.uk/Materials/default.asp
http//careo.ucalgary.ca/cgi-bin/WebObjects/CAREO.
woa
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Other e-learning sector resources

• Designing Spaces for Effective Learning
• http//www.jisc.ac.uk/uploaded_documents/JISClearn
  ingspaces.pdf

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The Saltire Centre Glasgow Caledonian University
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• 21st century Library
• Learning space
• Single point of access to services

An Organisational Change project
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Other e-learning sector resources

• Humbul Artifact-gt http//www.intute.ac.uk/develo
  pment/

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Other e-learning sector resources

• JISC exemplars of online resources for FE
• http//www.jisc.ac.uk/index.cfm?nameexemplars

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Using a VLE as a portal for useful web resources
on a final year specialist course.
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WWW

• Online libraries
• Journals
• Datasets
• Resource / enquiry /PBL

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Questions

• What is your role in promoting e-resources?
• How far do you see yourselves going in suggesting
  teaching applications?
• How much access do you have to individual courses
  on your institutional VLEs?
• How do you see your role vis-à-vis the JISC
• How far do you think academic staff are aware of
  what is available?
• How do you choose which elearning resource to
  subscribe to?
• How far do get involved in elearning design issues

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Todays students.

• Attributes of the information-age mindset of
  todays students
• Computers are not technology
• The Internet is better than TV
• Reality is no longer real.
• Doing is more important than knowing
• Learning resembles Nintendo over logic.

1. Diana Oblinger. "Boomers, Gen X's,
Millennials Understanding the New Students,"
Educause Review 38.4 (2002)27-47.
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Todays students..

• Attributes of the information-age mindset of
  todays students
• 6. Typing rather than handwriting.
• 7. Multitasking is a way of life.
• 8. Staying connected is essential.
• 9. Zero tolerance for delays.
• 10. Consumer / creator blurring.

1. Diana Oblinger. "Boomers, Gen X's,
Millennials Understanding the New Students,"
Educause Review 38.4 (2002)27-47.