Higher Education

pedagogy, technology, blended learning...

[ggdines]

Ascilite 2014: Rhetoric vs reality

The theme of the conference was “Rhetoric vs Reality” which really resonated with me.

There was a general feeling of consensus amongst presenters and conference delegates that the rhetoric of Learning and Teaching and the reality of it are two different things. We say one thing and we tend to do another. Of greatest concern was the message that this undermines our credibility with our clients.

http://ascilite2014.otago.ac.nz/proceedings/

Below you will find snapshots of some of the presentations.

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Master of Education (Knowledge Networks and Digital Innovation)

Judy Connell, Charles Sturt University

·        New program based on addressing the digital environmental needs of educators. 

·         The program includes a thorough evaluation of digital learning ecologies

·         Lifelong and life wide learning is a central tenet of the program

·         Future educators must be agile and responsive

http://www.iftf.org/futureworkskills/

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Changing the face of learning @ UWS

Tim Griffin

Institution wide transformation over a 3 year period. From 2015 UWS courses will be online.

 ·         A top down approach was taken and this can be problematic

·         school level control and implementation with little interference was one of the keys to success

·         Approved BL plans are given workload allocation resourcing to give staff time to implement their plans

·         Priority units were identified - stage one priority was given to first year courses

·         Embedding learning designers (BLADES) in schools is very important.

·         Promotion is connected to BL plans to act as an incentive

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Carmel McNaught was awesome

Some words of wisdom:

·        Make time to keep up by reading. e .g Horizon report

·         Don't forget the J curve: Things get worse before they get better

·         You can't ask for change without evidence

·         Once change does happen, you need follow through for it to continue and become self sustaining. Effective change takes time and monitoring over time is essential.

·         L&T research needs to be conducted much more rigorously

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Universal Design Models for learning

Iain McAlpine

Veryuseful presentation that focussed on promoting awareness and implementation of Universal Design principles for learning. The following 3 slides summarise this very well (apologies for the quality of the shots):

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OER universities

Wayne Mackintosh

The growth model isnt sustainable and OER’s can help to move to more sustainable practice. OERu http://oeru.org/

OER is sustainable and renewable - how will USC stay sustainable without OER?

 Higher education requires openess and exceptions from copyright legislation:

Content created using public funds should be available freely for use by everyone

There should be no restrictions on copying by educators for L&T purposes

 Comparing business models…

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Redesign from f2f to online

Carole Hunter CSU

250 subjects redesigned for online over 2 year period - 198 after revision and rationalisation

 Success was based on:

·         Defining what quality online means - connected, meaningful, engaging, challenging

·         A negotiated design relationship between educational designers and academics

·         Acceptance that redesign takes time. Redesign required between 30 to 100 hours

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Blended Learning @ UWS

Carol Russell

Carol Russell (UWS) makes the point that all students want flexibility. What do students mean by flexibility?

·         Availability of both f2f and online learning options

·         Ability to study while working or caring for family

·         Classes timetabled to suit their time management

Defining blended learning from a student perspective

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Flexibility in Higher education

Jenkins, Walker, Voce

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Virtual Worlds

Sue Gregory

Virtual worlds working group. www.vwwg.info

Virtual worlds are used most in education and health discipline areas.

 The future of virtual worlds:

·         Clones of cities with humanoids (not avatars)

·         Browser based Virtual worlds

·         New world cretion for use with wearable technologies

·         6D holodeck technology

·         3D printers used to print replicas of artefacts created in virtual worlds

·         Oculus rift

·         Nimble sense

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/nimblevr/nimble-sense-bring-your-hands-into-virtual-reality/comments?cursor=8227380

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Vine: The Latest Social Revolution in Higher Education

See on Scoop.it - Pedagogy in HigherEd

Somewhere between YouTube, Twitter and Instagram, Vine is the perfect platform for sharing.

GG's insight:

@BlendedLearnUSC

See on edtechmagazine.com

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Mobile is eating the world: Benedict Evans

MOBILE IS EATINGTHEWORLDPresented at BEA, May 2013Benedict Evans@benedictevansEnders Analysis

This presentation ties in with what many speakers discussed at Edutech 2013.

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Shirley Alexander: UTS

Whats happening at UTS?

Learning 2014 Strategy - see link below

Self, peer and teacher assessment of grad attributes using Review and Spark (www.review-edu.com and http://spark.uts.edu.au)

Teaching learning and technology consultation group@ UTS is chaired by Shirley. The group has reps from AV and IT and no decisions are made at UTS that affect teaching & learning without consultation with this group

The importance of peer review for academics

Promoting reflection via encouraging blogging among staff.

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Paul Wappett: CEO, Open Universities Australia

Paul talked about the importance of providing students with predictive information about how they are doing in a course. He demonstrated what this looks like within the OUA learning interface. 

Part of what Paul talked about can also be found in this article: 

http://theconversation.com/radical-rethink-how-to-design-university-courses-in-the-online-age-9737

Open2Study: OUA's own MOOCS

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http://www.nmc.org/pdf/2013-Technology-Outlook-for-Australian-Tertiary-Education.pdf

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Andrew Ng: Coursera

Andrew talked about Mastery Learning and the importance of students having the option to do an activity over and over. They have found that multiple attempts  are very important. He argues that mastery learning leads to very successful outcomes for students at Coursera.

http://blog.coursera.org/post/50352075945/5-tips-learn-more-effectively-in-class-with-mastery

Some other points:

Both self assessment and peer grading are very effective. Self assessement grading is completed with the guidance of an instructor developed rubric

Coursera uses discussion forums so that students can answer each others questions. Students can rate the best answers.

Should the instructor's face appear in online lectures? Which provides the best learning outcomes for students? Still not sure. However, students without the instructor face in the lectures complained that they couldn't see the lecturer.

Monitor and track what are students getting wrong. Find ways to guide them through these common mistakes.

To help instructors with working in the online environment Coursera has a portal called Coursera Instructor support

Active learning is far more effective than lectures. e.g. flipped classroom method.