ICT%20SUPPORT%20FOR%20STUDENTS

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ICT SUPPORT FOR STUDENTS COLLABORATION IN
PROBLEM AND PROJECT BASED LEARNING

• Nikorn Rongbutsri (nikorn_at_hum.aau.dk)
• Md. Saifuddin Khalid (khalid_at_hum.aau.dk)
• Thomas Ryberg (ryberg_at_hum.aau.dk)
• Dept. Of Communication and Psychology
• E-Learning Lab center for user driven
  innovation, learning and design

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Outline of presentation

• Overall question identifying students use of
  technology to support their problem and project
  based group work
• Background to the study The Aalborg PBL model
• Social media are coming to Higher Education
• Some pressing questions vocal calls for
  educational change due to technological changes
  (web 2.0) and/or students as digital natives /
  Net Generation
• Some findings (and methodology)
• Is there a need to support students?

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The aalborg PBL model
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The Aalborg PBL model

• Problem Based Learning
• Based on real-life problems
• Project Organised Education
• Project work supported by lecture courses
• Group Work
• groups of four to six students
• supervised by lecturers/professors
• Interdisciplinary Studies
• Integration of theory and practice
• Focus on Learning to Learn and methodological
  skills
• University Wide Model - Used in all faculties
  (with variations)

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Students use of time - lectures, courses and
project work
Project work a major assignment within a given
subject-related framework determined for each
semester (thematic framework). Project related
mandatory courses supporting the project
work Evaluated as oral examinations based on the
project report or through individual written or
oral examinations.
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Problem Based Learning the Process
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The Aalborg PBL-model in short

• Long-term collaboration 4 months (semester)
• Students own and define the problem to work with
• Students decide on methods, theory, empirial
  investigations (together with supervisor)
• Solution open ended
• Students write up an app. 100 page project
  report reflecting their work
• An university-wide pedagogy not short-term or
  single course

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Pressing questions from the tech-ed sphere

• Social media are coming to Higher Education

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Why social media or web 2.0 in education

• Some of the keywords from the tech-ed
  buzz-o-sphere
• Realised through use of Blogs, wikis, social
  bookmarking etc.
• Very much aligned with PBL thinking in many ways!

Web 2.0 Progressive education (since 19XX)
User-driven Learner-centred
Collaboration Collaborative learning
Participation Active students vs passive recipients
2 -way communication Dialogues and interaction
Creating and sharing Knowledge construction vs acquistion
Bottom-up Ahierarchical, flat students as co-producers
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Web 2.0 in educational context (e-learning 2.0)
general buzz

• From hierarchical structures based on courses and
  topics towards more student centred networks
• From students as consumers to students as
  producers
• From distribution to more horizontal patterns of
  exchange peer-learning
• From Learning Management Systems (LMS) ? Personal
  Learning Environments (PLEs)
• Encouraging exchange, sharing of knowledge and
  students production of knowledge and artefacts
• Encouraging the production of personal portfolios
  personal repositories

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From LMS to PLEs

• Separate management and learning
• Focus on learning activities
• Individual and collaborative tools
• From big packages of educational software (LMSs)
  to numerous light-weight, interoperable web 2.0
  service (blogs, wikis, social bookmarking)
• Dashboard systems where students collect relevant
  resources and tools

(Dalsgaard, 2006) http//www.eurodl.org/materials
/contrib/2006/Christian_Dalsgaard.htm
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Some pressing questions

• Is the net generation or digital natives coming
  to higher education?
• Strong discourses on digital natives and
  students being fluent with digital technologies
• Crave educational change due to their intensified
  use of and experiences with web 2.0 technologies
• What should the university provide the VLE vs.
  PLE debate? Structured environment or self-chosen
  tools?
• Are students better able to collate various tools
  and services to support problem and project based
  learning?
• Are students digital natives capable of
  identifying technologies for problem and project
  based group work on their own?
• Notion of digital natives has been criticised
  heavily from a research point of view!

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Some selected findings
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Methodology

• Data collection across different levels of scale
  - multi-method study combining qualitative and
  quantitative studies
• Questionnaire (cross-campus to 3000 students
  253 completed)
• Background
• Mobile life style (where do students work)
• Project collaboration
• Familiarity with Web 2.0 tools (state of
  diffusion)
• Narrative analysis of blog post (133 student
  narratives from 51 M and 82 F)
• 1.semester students within a programme
  (humanistic informatics) asked to write blogs
  about technology use during 1.sem (analysing
  diffusion of various technologie)
• Oberservational studies
• Following a 2.semester group (interview and
  observation) their use of technology

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Illustration from questionnaire

• Percentage of students who do not know about a
  certain tool may not mean they use it if they
  know about it though!!!
• Green Pervasive use or knowledge of (twitter
  knowledge, but little use)
• Red Tools that might be very useful, but
  little/scattered following

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Findings from blog posts and observational studies

• Facebook Dropbox rather pervasive
• Skype used among many groups
• Some groups utilised Google services (e.g.
  Calendar, Docs)
• Live next to formal systems (e.g. Moodle but are
  not intertwined) formal system for course
  activities
• Cautious about bringing in new tools in their
  problem and project based group work
• However, some of the more advanced tools for
  academia 2.0 purposes (tech-ed-buzz) and problem
  based project work were not very pervasive
• Google Docs
• Social bookmarking (delicious, diigo)
• Social referencing systems / bibliography
  (zotero, refworks)

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Summarising

• Indications that students do bring in social
  media to the university forming digital
  ecologies, which may live next to formal systems
  (happily or not)
• Some systems pervasive, but systems which could
  support more advanced academic practices are
  largely under the radar of the students
• Students are to some degree capable of creating
  efficient digital ecologies to support problem
  and project based group work but also ask for
  introductions
• For more advanced socio-technical academic
  practices to emerge theres a need for
  facilitation combining tech-support with
  meaningful integration of technologies into
  courses / group work
• We should not ignore they are adopting social
  media, but neither should we ignore they might
  need facilitation to scholarise their social
  practices, as to develop advanced academic
  socio-technical practices