Projects and Pedagogy at Beyond Distance Research Alliance

Simon KearKeeper of the Media Zoo (Senior Learning Technologist)

European Foundation for Quality in e-Learning UNIQUe Award

Learning Technologist ofthe Year 2009: Team Award

Beyond DistanceRESEARCH ALLIANCE

www.le.ac.uk/mediazooUCC, 23 September 2011

Outline

• Introduction to BDRA

• Projects and technologies

• Design for online learning

Slides will be available athttp://tinyurl.com/mz-ucc

The Beyond Distance Research Alliance

“…brings together teachers and researchers, interested in the field of innovation in teaching and learning, from any discipline or level of education.”

Beyond Distance Research Alliance

4

The Alliance

• Is a Research and Innovation Unit

• Generates evidence collaboratively – evidence colleagues can relate to – through funded projects

• Promotes and disseminates evidence-based, incremental change and embedding

• Shapes and informs policy and strategy

5

Our mantras

• Research to practice• Innovation to mainstream• Low-cost, high-value learning technologies• Design once, deliver many times• Design for learning, e-moderate for

participation

…to inform, embed, disseminate and sustain change

What is the Media Zoo?

• Research dissemination forum

• Technological wildlife

• Internal / external focus

• Not Staff Development

• Not IT Help Desk

The Media Zoos

Unisa, September 2011 8

Areas of the Zoo

Areas of the Zoo

Technologies & Pedagogies

Mark

ets

& M

issio

ns

Existing

Exis

ting

New

New

Exis

ting

New

New

Existing

PETS’ CORNER

VLE, E-Library for increasedstudent number, flexibility,

blend, access, quality &efficiency

BREEDING AREA

Mobile & wireless learningfor any time, any placecombinations & blends

SAFARI PARK

Countries, objectives, levelsof education & new markets

not previously addressed

EXOTICS HOUSE

Scan environment, researchto explore emerging

technologies & applicationsfor innovation

Pets’ CornerIMPALA (podcasting)

• Student learning

• Student created

• Recent move from Breeding Area to Pets’ Corner

Safari ParkELKS (community of practice)

• Identify and transfer best practice

• Regular key events online

• Global reach

• Open membership

Safari ParkBADGER (virtual patient)

• Develops clinical reasoning skills

• 15 virtual patient cases across 5 clinical specialities

• Web- or brower-based

• Apps in development

Safari ParkBADGER

Breeding Area DUCKLING

15

4 technologies to enhance curriculum delivery for distance learners

E-book readers

Podcasting

Voiceboards

Second Life

Breeding AreaDUCKLING

Breeding Area OTTER, OSTRICH and TIGER

Open Educational Resources (OER)

17

http://www.le.ac.uk/oer

Breeding AreaOTTER

Exotics HouseSWIFT (Second Life)

• Department of Genetics and Beyond Distance Research Alliance

• Virtual laboratory

• Complements real-life lab time

• Series of stages

Exotics HouseSWIFT

Supporting PhD students

• 1 f/t on-site, 3 p/t at a distance

• Regular one-to-one tutorials through Skype

• Regular research days on-site and through Adobe Connect

Supporting PhD students

“I put my content online, therefore my students do e-learning”

Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bowena/

Process Development Guide for E-moderators

1. Access & Motivation

2. Culture Building

3. Co-operation

4. Collaboration

5. Development

5 stage model for productivelearning forums

1. Access & Motivation

2. Culture Building

3. Co-operation

4. Collaboration

5. DevelopmentLink, Feedback, Search

Interact

Navigate, save time, personalise

Receive and Send

Access

5 stage model for productivelearning forums

1. Access & Motivation

2. Culture Building

3. Co-operation

4. Collaboration

5. Development Guide

Facilitate

Lead

Host

Welcome

5 stage model for productive learning forums: the role of the e-moderator

Alexkessyarnzombie

ToniVC

Larger numbers

Groups of 15, divided up for more

1 e-moderator can manage 2 or 3 groups

(Trained) students can help

Focus on what the e-moderator can do (weaving, summarising, feedback)

‘But they won’t engage!’

E-tivitiesAsynchronous online learning activities that:• Foster effective and purposeful interactions• Provide ‘hinges’ and reflective points between course

components• Contribute to the achievement of learning outcomes• May contribute to assessment

E-tivities are…

• Brief and clear (not ‘mini-projects’!)

• Motivating, engaging, purposeful

• Mappable against (and aligned with) learning outcomes

• Designed to generate meaningful interaction

• Useful as an assessment scaffold

• Designed and led by an e-moderator

• Asynchronous

• Cheap to produce and easy to run: good design leads to cost-effective e-moderation

Key features of e-tivities

• Stimulus or challenge (the ‘spark’)

• Online activity, which includes individual participants posting a contribution to a forum, wiki, blog, etc.

• An interactive element, such as responding to the postings of others

• Summary, feedback or critique from an e-moderator (the ‘plenary’)

Politics and International RelationsUniversity of Leicester

• Suite of MAs taught at a distance

• Delivered wholly online

• E-tivities for formative and summative assessment

Unisa, September 2011 35

Pets’ CornerCARPE DIEM (virtual learning environment)

• Two-day workshop

• Course design or redesign

• Low-cost, high-impact

• Involves everyone

• Six stages

• Over 40 internal

• Over 17 universities

worldwide

Design for learning

E-moderate for participation

39

Delivery

Good

Bad

Bad Good

Design

40

Delivery

Good

Bad

Bad Good

Design

41

Delivery

Good RECOVERY

Bad

Bad Good

Design

42

Delivery

Good RECOVERY

Bad WHAT A WASTE!

Bad Good

Design

Designing together: Carpe Diem

Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/susanvg/

Seize the Day

Invest two days of your time

and get your course online

Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/curtisperry/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/linksmanjd/

Dissemination of evidence

Carpe Diem addresses…

• ‘My use of e-learning is bad.’• ‘Help me redesign this.’• ‘The discussion forums are never used.’• ‘What is a wiki?’• ‘Can I run synchronous sessions? How?’• ‘What is Web 2.0 and how can my learners benefit from it?’• ‘Existing resources? What resources? Are they readily

available? For free? Really?’

Focus: designing for learning

www.le.ac.uk/carpediem

Carpe Diem deliverables

• Blueprint for the course

• Storyboard

• Running e-tivities (peer-reviewed and reality-checked)

• Model for further development

• Action plan

47www.le.ac.uk/carpediem

www.le.ac.uk/mediazoo

Learning outcomes

Assessment

START END

51

E-moderating development

Schools

corporate

Blend and campus

Across levels

Across disciplines

Format

Content

Text &

graphics

Audio Video Slides (eg

PowerPoint)

Other (eg Adobe

Presenter)

What I find and

reuse as is

What I find,

tweak and use

What I find,

repurpose and

use

What I create for

this module

Resource Audit

UCC Materials

NIHR-CLAHRC

http://connect.le.ac.uk/leicesterktresearch

Follow The Sun 2011Learning Futures Festival 5

• Global, non-stop for 48 hours

• Adobe Connect 8, Second Life and Moodle

• 250-plus delegates

• CO2 saving of approx. 200,000 tonnes

• 27 countries

• 30-plus hours of recordings

Follow The Sun 2012Learning Futures Festival 6

• Global, non-stop for 48 hours

• 12 discipline experts; 12 futures

• Blackboard Collaborate 11, Second Life and Moodle

Futures For Knowledge

http://tinyurl.com/followthesun

European Bioinformatics Institute, 26/09/2011

Simon Kear

Keeper of the Media ZooBeyond Distance Research Alliance

103-105 Princess Road EastLeicester LE1 7LG

simon.kear@le.ac.uk0116 229 7549

www.le.ac.uk/mediazoo

Thank You

Gilly Salmon (2004), E-moderating: The Key to Teaching and Learning Online. 2nd ed. London and New York: RoutledgeFalmer

Gilly Salmon (2004), E-tivities: The Key to Active Online Learning. London: Kogan Page

Gilly Salmon (2005), ‘Flying not flapping: a strategic framework for e-learning and pedagogical innovation in higher education institutions’, ALT-J, Research in Learning Technology, Vol. 13, No. 3, 201–218

Gilly Salmon, Sylvia Jones and Alejandro Armellini (2008), ‘Building institutional capability in e-learning design’, ALT-J, Research in Learning Technology, Vol. 16, No. 2, 95–109

Alejandro Armellini and Olaojo Aiyegbayo (2009), ‘Learning design and assessment with e-tivities’, British Journal of Educational Technology

Ming Nie, Alejandro Armellini, Sue Harrington, Kelly Barklamb and Ray Randall (2010), ‘The role of podcasting in effective curriculum renewal’, ALT-J, Research in Learning Technology, Vol. 18, No. 2, 105–118

All are available to download at: http://tinyurl.com/bdra-publications

Selection of Beyond Distance publications

• CARPE DIEMwww.le.ac.uk/carpediem

• IMPALAwww.impala.ac.uk

• ELKShttp://elkscommunity.wetpaint.com/

BADGERhttp://www.le.ac.uk/badger

• DUCKLINGwww.le.ac.uk/duckling

• OTTERwww.le.ac.uk/otter

• SWIFTwww.le.ac.uk/swift

• CALFwww.le.ac.uk/calf

• Learning Futures Festival Online 2011http://tinyurl.com/followthesun

Project websites

All third-party images were taken from Wikimedia Commons in accordance with the appropriate license. Attribution is contained in the hyperlink attached to the image.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

Resources