This article was downloaded by: [University of Western Ontario]On: 16 November 2014, At: 20:25Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registeredoffice: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK
Journal of Further and HigherEducationPublication details, including instructions for authors andsubscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cjfh20
Designing for blended learning, sharingand reuseIsobel Falconer a & Allison Littlejohn aa Glasgow Caledonian University , UKPublished online: 08 Mar 2007.
To cite this article: Isobel Falconer & Allison Littlejohn (2007) Designing for blendedlearning, sharing and reuse, Journal of Further and Higher Education, 31:1, 41-52, DOI:10.1080/03098770601167914
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03098770601167914
PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE
Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the“Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis,our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as tothe accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinionsand views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors,and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Contentshould not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sourcesof information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims,proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever orhowsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arisingout of the use of the Content.
This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Anysubstantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing,systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms &Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions
Designing for blended learning, sharing
and reuse
Isobel Falconer* and Allison LittlejohnGlasgow Caledonian University, UK
The concept of design for learning has arisen as education faces up to the implications of modern
pedagogy, student diversity, and the affordances of information and communication technologies.
This paper examines some of the benefits and issues for teachers in further and higher education
surrounding the idea of learning design and its practical implementation in blended learning. It
looks particularly at questions of documenting and representing learning designs so that they can
be communicated to others. It explores the differing requirements of representations at various
stages in the planning and sharing process, and for different communities of users, finding that
multiple perspectives on a learning design are usually necessary. However, few representations to
date have succeeded in capturing the essence of a good piece of teaching. Ways of representing
designs as dynamic processes, rather than static products, may need to be developed. The paper is
based on the outcomes of work with practising teachers during the UK Joint Information Systems
Committee (JISC)-funded Models of Practice Project, part of JISC’s Design for Learning
Programme, which runs from 2006 to 2007.
Introduction
The concept of ‘design for learning’ has arisen in the context of three institutional
challenges that currently face teachers in further and higher education: the
increasing size and diversity of the student body; an increasingly managerial
approach that evaluates education against cost, efficiency and measurable outcomes;
and the potential of new technologies to provide personalised learning and call into
question traditional ideas of the purposes of education and what constitutes
knowledge (DfES, 2001; Council for Industry and Higher Education, 2002;
Beetham & Sharpe, forthcoming).
The solution to these seemingly incompatible challenges is often sought in use of
technological tools such as virtual learning environments (VLEs) for scaleable and
flexible delivery, and for efficient sharing and reuse of teaching ideas and activities.
Yet despite substantial recent institutional investment in trying to exploit such
*Corresponding author. Caledonian Academy, Glasgow Caledonian University, Cowcaddens Rd,
Glasgow G4 OBA, UK. Email: [email protected]
Journal of Further and Higher Education
Vol. 31, No. 1, February 2007, pp. 41–52
ISSN 0309-877X (print)/ISSN 1469-9486 (online)/07/010041-12
# 2007 UCU
DOI: 10.1080/03098770601167914
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Uni
vers
ity o
f W
este
rn O
ntar
io]
at 2
0:25
16
Nov
embe
r 20
14
technologies in learning there is little sign that education has changed in any
fundamental way at the level of teacher practice (Collis & van der Wende, 2002). It
appears that the benefits of e-Learning are not sufficiently clear or easy to
communicate (Beetham, 2004). Nor are they well enough aligned with existing
institutional structures, values and rewards (Seufert & Euler, 2004).
This paper examines some of the benefits and issues for teachers in further and
higher education surrounding the idea of design for learning and its implementation
in blended learning. It is based on the outcomes of the UK Joint Information
Systems Committee (JISC)-funded Models of Practice Project, part of JISC’s
Design for Learning Programme (http://www.jisc.ac.uk/index.cfm?name5elp_
designlearn), which runs from 2006 to 2007.
Why design for learning?
The impetus to design for learning comes from a number of directions, taking
‘design’ to mean the planning and documentation of a learning activity, session or
curriculum in advance of delivery. Where orchestration of a number of different
resources for a large class of students is involved, for example in science practical
classes, advance planning and design of the session has always been necessary
(Sanches & Valcarcel, 1999). Simpler sessions, with lower numbers or minimal
resources, have traditionally required less advance planning, enabling a flexible
response to the immediate needs of learners. Over the last two decades, however, the
rising demands of quality assurance to ‘maintain and, where possible, enhance the
quality of the learning and teaching environment’ have required that even such
simple sessions are documented, as part of formal review and validation processes.1
Recent government widening participation policies have increased the number and
diversity of students for whom equivalent learning experiences need to be provided,
requiring advance planning and design (Scott, 1995). At the same time comes the
realisation that effective learning entails a student-centred teaching approach that
fosters the skills of independent thinking, team working and enterprise required by
employers (Garrick, 1998). However, such activities need to be scaffolded in advance
so that students can be adequately briefed about the activity. Furthermore, if such
activities are to be presented flexibly, or to distance students, they probably draw
extensively on technology to support online collaboration and access to resources,
and such access needs to be specified and set up (Contreras-Castilloa et al., 2004).
However, the technologies that might enable teachers to meet these various needs
are developing and changing rapidly. A supposed benefit of learning technologies is
their potential for providing access to a wealth of knowledge and tools for students to
interact with the knowledge, the teacher and their peers. Yet teachers receive little
guidance on how to use these tools to best effect. Another reason for documenting
the design of learning activities, sessions or curricula that have proved effective is to
share and reuse practice, providing advice and guidance and increasing the efficiency
of planning (Beetham, 2004).
Furthermore, if a machine-readable language for describing learning designs
could be devised, a lot of the setup and orchestration of tools could be done
42 I. Falconer and A. Littlejohn
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Uni
vers
ity o
f W
este
rn O
ntar
io]
at 2
0:25
16
Nov
embe
r 20
14
automatically, relieving teachers of this burden (Masterman, 2006). A number of
such methods have been developed for the technical development community.
These include Educational Modelling Language (EML; Koper, 2001) which was
developed to describe teaching and learning interactions at a generic level. This
approach has been incorporated into the IMS Learning Design specification, a
global initiative which aims to provide a digital format for encoding, transporting
and playing learning designs (Koper et al., 2003). In the United States, the
Department of Defense developed SCORM (Shareable Courseware Object
Reference Model) which is a set of specifications and standards to enable
web-based learning systems to find, import, share and reuse learning materials in
a standard way (http://www.adlnet.gov/scorm/index.cfm). While these initiatives
primarily focus on the technical development community, a more teacher-
friendly system is LAMS (Learning Activity Management System) (http://
www.lamsinternational.com/), which enables teachers to plan activities using drag
and drop icons, and then to run them in a VLE. However, the range of activity types
and sequences possible is currently rather limited. Despite this enthusiasm for
developing a language for describing learning designs that will enable sharing and
reuse, researchers have yet to find descriptions that teachers in mainstream
education can understand and apply (Burgos & Griffiths, 2005). This reflects a
more general split in the e-Learning community between development of e-Learning
tools, services and standards, and research into how teachers can use these most
effectively (Bennett et al., 2005; Falconer & Littlejohn, 2006).
Representing learning designs
The idea of designs for learning is that they provide the guidance teachers need by
modelling good pedagogic practice, and can be shared and reused, promoting
efficiency and quality assurance.
‘Design for Learning’ may be defined as ‘designing, planning and orchestrating
learning activities as part of a learning session or programme’ (JISC, 2006). A
‘learning design’ is the outcome of this design process. Learning designs have been
known to further education teachers for a long time as ‘lesson plans’, but are
relatively unknown in higher education.
A learning design may exist purely in the head of the teacher implementing it but,
as pointed out by Vogel and Oliver (2006, p. 4), ‘in order to be comprehended by
others, designs must also be represented or articulated’. However effective a learning
design may be, it can only be shared with others through a representation that
communicates the structure and purpose of the design. Efficient sharing and reuse
can only take place if the representations are effective; they must convey the
information that teachers need in a form that the teachers can understand. The issue
of representation, then, is central to the whole drive to share and reuse designs.
A learning design may be of any size and complexity, from a course down to an
individual activity. We will take it that the scope of the design is determined by the
learning objectives to be met: a design contains the activities required to meet a
Designing for blended learning, sharing and reuse 43
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Uni
vers
ity o
f W
este
rn O
ntar
io]
at 2
0:25
16
Nov
embe
r 20
14
learning objective (Falconer & Littlejohn, 2006). For teachers, the most common
learning designs are probably of a session lasting between one and three hours, or a
course module of a number of sessions.
Learning designs have been represented in a number of ways, for example, as
lesson plans, case studies, units of activity in a VLE, flow diagrams, or tutor notes.
However, while these representations clearly convey the ‘orchestration and planning’
of activities, there is some debate over the extent to which they communicate the
‘design’, where design is taken to imply the pedagogical intent underlying the
structure (Griffiths, 2004).
Two representation systems that have been developed through extensive
consultation with teachers, aiming to convey the generic structure and peda-
gogic intent of a design and enable sharing and reuse, are the Australian Univ-
ersities Teaching Committee (AUTC) temporal sequence system (http://www.
learningdesigns.uow.edu.au/) and the LDLite matrix (Littlejohn & Pegler, in press).
These are essentially paper-based systems and are not currently machine-readable,
but they aim to bridge the gap between teachers and technical developers.
Thus a learning design communicates more than just the sequence of activities; it
expresses also the pedagogical rationale for the relationship between activities,
resources, and the path between them. Greller (2005) has pointed out that for
teachers pedagogic intent is the primary feature of a design; it comes first, before any
attempt is made to decide upon a methodology, activity or pathway.
Documenting learning and teaching practice
Blending a number of learning activities, media and e-tools can be compared with
orchestrating a stage performance (Liber & Olivier, 2003). It is helpful to have
different types of information about the performance at different levels. As a starting
point, it is useful for teachers to have access to a short synopsis, just as they might
read on a poster or in an announcement. The purpose is to provide sufficient
information to choose between one ‘performance’ and another. This sort of
representation is essential for reuse across different stakeholders since it allows
communication about the learning design to others. It is less important for teachers
who are reusing their own designs. The synopsis defines the learning outcomes and
documents an abstraction or a pattern behind learning activities or activity
sequences.
If the synopsis seems of interest, then a teacher may want to find more detail about
an individual learning activity or activities. This is akin to a screenplay that gives
information on what happens during an activity sequence, giving details of each
activity to others. For teachers and students who are part of the performance, the
screenplay indicates what to do at each stage. This detail is usually presented as a
detailed linear document about a set of events happening in one space as a
continuous flow. An example of this type of representation is a ‘lesson plan’ which is
essentially a matrix mapping of activities along a timeline (Littlejohn & Pegler, in
press).
44 I. Falconer and A. Littlejohn
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Uni
vers
ity o
f W
este
rn O
ntar
io]
at 2
0:25
16
Nov
embe
r 20
14
Unlike a play, learning activities might not take place sequentially. It is important
to have an overall mapping of the performance—akin to a ‘director’s working docu-
ment’. This form of representation is a ‘learning design sequence’ that orchestrates
the different activities, resources and tools integrated into blended learning.
Documenting teaching practice is particularly important in blended learning,
because this form of learning involves blending a number of factors: learning
activities, media, environments (physical and electronic), synchronisation (real-time
or asynchronous activities) and pedagogical approaches (MacDonald, 2006).
Consequently, it may be the process, rather than the product, of planning and
blending that is the important element for teachers.
As part of our Mod4L study, we carried out focus group interviews with teachers
to find out the ways they plan and document teaching their courses. Our sample
group of 12 came from a variety of UK universities and colleges teaching a range of
subjects. These teachers use a range of different planning frameworks, operating at a
variety of degrees of ‘granularity’, from a whole course to an individual learning
activity. These types of representations are listed in Table 1.
Our sample group identified that the most useful representation depended on the
purpose and the user of the representation. A different representation is likely to be
selected if a teacher is reflecting on teaching practice or working within a closely knit
team, than if he or she is communicating ideas to other stakeholders, such as other
teachers, external examiners, technical or audiovisual developers. There is evidence
that teachers form informal networks to share information about teaching
approaches online. The discussion within these networks communicates much of
the ‘tacit’ information that is difficult to capture in learning designs.
Like the communication of information about a play, successful transmission of
learning design requires consideration of all the factors being blended, outlined
above, to be viewed simultaneously at a variety of levels, outlining different
perspectives. McAndrew et al. (2005) note that multiple representations may be
necessary to develop learning designs for reuse, while Masterman (2006) found that
teachers similarly use several different representations during the planning process.
In our workshop we asked participants if a combination of a rich narrative overview
pattern, a detailed lesson plan and a learning design activity sequence provided three
suitable perspectives. Their response was that lesson plans alongside patterns or
learning design sequence maps may be useful combinations, depending on the
context. However, concept maps seemed too similar to learning design sequences to
be complementary. Most importantly, representations must be useful or meaningful
to teachers in order to motivate them into documenting learning designs.
Key issues and challenges in reusing blended learning designs
Several enquiries have explored the use of representations by practitioners to
communicate and improve understanding of practice (Beetham, 2001; Sharpe et al.,
2004; Falconer et al., 2006; Littlejohn et al., 2007, in press). The challenges raised
may be considered by broadening out from personal use of designs, to institutional
and cross-sector reuse.
Designing for blended learning, sharing and reuse 45
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Uni
vers
ity o
f W
este
rn O
ntar
io]
at 2
0:25
16
Nov
embe
r 20
14
Table 1. Frameworks used by teachers to plan and document teaching
Representation Description Usefulness Target users
Module plan or
master folder
Text based overview of the module. Usually
available as a ‘Word’ document or in paper
form.
Essential for quality assurance procedures such as
external assessment.
Tutors
Programme leaders
External examiners
Case study A narrative overview of a teaching and learning
situation—ranging from an entire module to a
single classroom activity.
Case studies are used to communicate ideas about
teaching practice. They are most useful when they
outline specifics about what went wrong as well as
positive outcomes.
Tutors
Course developers
Briefing
document
A narrative overview of a teaching and learning
situation, focusing on class management issues.
The briefing document is similar to the case study,
but has more of an emphasis on class management
issues, such as resourcing and timing.
Tutors
Programme leaders
External examiners
Pattern overview A rich, narrative description of a learning
activity or set of activities
Useful for communicating teaching ideas to other
tutors. The ‘pattern’ abstracts information about the
teaching approach. It gives more concise information
than the case study. Its intention is to provide an
overview at a glance.
Tutors
Course developers
Technical
developers
Contents table A list of contents of a module or a single class Useful for communicating an overview of a course
(or class) to other tutors. The ‘contents table’ focuses
less on the teaching approach and more on the
subject matter. Students can use such a list as a
course overview.
Tutors
Students
Concept map A mapping of concepts and/or learning activities The concept map can be used to communicate ideas on
learning activities and teaching approaches. It can be
used by students to help them understand the ways in
which concepts and/or activities fit together.
Tutors
Students
46
I.F
alcon
erand
A.
Littlejoh
n
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Uni
vers
ity o
f W
este
rn O
ntar
io]
at 2
0:25
16
Nov
embe
r 20
14
Representation Description Usefulness Target users
Learning design
sequence
A sequence of learning activities The learning design sequence is similar to the concept
map. Its purpose is to orchestrate learning activities.
This is fairly straightforward where learning activities
are sequential, but becomes more complex with
learner-centred approaches, such as problem-based
learning.
Tutors
Students
Technical
developers
Storyboard A mapping of concepts and/or learning activities The storyboard is similar to the concept map, but
usually has more detail. It can be used to
communicate ideas about instantiation of specific
teaching scenarios to tutors, but may be too detailed
for students.
Tutors
Audiovisual/
instructional
developers
Lesson plan A matrix mapping learning activities against a
timescale. Lesson plans are commonly used in
Further Education.
Lesson plans map learning activities with resources.
They are highly contextualized, but do not give
information on the effectiveness of teaching
approaches – what works and what does not work in
practice.
Tutors
Table 1. Continued
Design
ing
forblen
ded
learn
ing,
sharin
gand
reuse
47
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Uni
vers
ity o
f W
este
rn O
ntar
io]
at 2
0:25
16
Nov
embe
r 20
14
Representations for personal use (planning and personal reuse)
Even when planning for personal use, teachers use multiple representations
(Masterman, 2006), finding different forms appropriate for different stages in the
planning process. For example concept maps and other diagrams are often used for
initial organisation of ideas, while text-based accounts, often in tabular form, are
used for the final plan.
Institutions often require completion of an institutional pro forma for any course
or lesson for quality assurance purposes. However, Masterman’s findings, and the
variety of personal formats of the examples contributed by Mod4L participants,
suggest that the institutional pro forma are not useful as heuristic tools for planning.
Planning tools such as LAMS, DialogPlus (http://www.dialogplus.org/) AUTC
and the JISC pedagogic planner projects (http://phoebe-project.conted.ox.ac.uk/
cgi-bin/trac.cgi and http://www.wle.org.uk/d4l/), designed to assist teachers in
designing for learning, are beginning to appear. Mod4L participants made a
distinction between representations that they could use to document an existing
design, and planner tools that would help them create new designs or modify
existing ones. The representations might be the same in each, but a planner tool
would need to provide support and guidance as to what was likely to be effective in
practice. This might be by drag and drop options, by some sort of hidden algorithm
that made suggestions, or by a narrative description.
Challenges in developing such planning tools include establishing the processes
involved in planning and the variety of entry points at which teachers customarily
start planning, use of representations that teachers find heuristically useful, and use
of vocabulary that is meaningful to teachers in their context. For example, a one-
hour teaching session may be a ‘lesson’, a ‘seminar’, a ‘lecture’, a ‘workshop’, a
‘practical’, etc., and the terminology may become even more confused if the session
is moved to an asynchronous online environment and spreads over a week.
Representing for institutional reuse
Many further education institutions require staff to contribute their learning designs
for institutional sharing and reuse. The compilation of ‘master folders’, intended to
contain all the information necessary for another lecturer to step in and take over a
class, is common.
When documenting for reuse within an institution, the issues of multiple
representations are similar to those for personal planning, although the processes
represented will be different. Instead of initial organisation of ideas, for example, an
overview of the structure of the design will be necessary. Where a concept map may
have been appropriate for the former, a temporal sequence such as the AUTC
system might be better for the latter.
The learning designs also have to be meaningful to the different communities
within the institution; they have to be in an appropriate format and convey the
required information, and this is likely to be different, for example, for teachers,
managers, and technical support staff. For example, a teacher implementing a design
48 I. Falconer and A. Littlejohn
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Uni
vers
ity o
f W
este
rn O
ntar
io]
at 2
0:25
16
Nov
embe
r 20
14
for a lesson needs to know timings for the sequence of activities, whereas managers
do not need detailed timings, but do want to know how it fits the rest of the
curriculum. Attempts to fulfil all these needs in a single representation become so
detailed that they cease to be useful.
However, the differing types of description necessary for reuse raise the issue of
teachers’ time and motivation. It takes time to document and describe a learning
design so that someone else can reuse it, especially if it has to be described in a
number of different ways, representing different information in each. To a certain
extent this is required in many further education colleges, in compilation of the
master folders. Things are very different in the higher education sector where
institutional and cultural attitudes to personal intellectual property preclude similar
attempts at sharing designs, and there is little institutional reward for doing so.
Representing for sector-wide reuse
Issues of time and motivation become even more apparent when considering sharing
and reuse between many institutions. But a more fundamental question is, can it be
done effectively? Is an effective learning design still effective when transferred to a
new context? Furthermore, how may a teacher judge whether a reusable learning
design might be effective in their own context?
Even with multiple representations, capturing the essence of a learning design
seems problematic. Even in the case of master folders, where the context is constant,
Mod4L participants suggested that achieving a useful documentation was extremely
difficult and no one had found a set of representations that they felt was satisfactory.
Teaching style, position, and learner needs all have a contingent effect on
implementation of the design.
These problems are magnified when context also changes. Sharpe et al. (2004)
suggest that to be effective, representations need to be ‘owned’ by, and meaningful
within, each particular teacher community. In addition, they should be the focus of
active collaboration and interaction, and should be richly contextualised.
Contextualisation, collaboration and interaction help teachers gain insights into
the ‘wiggling around’ that Mod4L participants suggest bonds the components of the
static design together, and that constitutes the essence of teaching. In this sense, they
implied that while a static design can ensure that the teaching environment,
comprising activity structures, supports and resources, is put in place, they cannot
ensure that the intent of the reused design is realised.
This finding is similar to that of Vogel and Oliver (2006) when investigating use of
VLEs (such as Blackboard and Moodle) as design tools. They found that:
[teachers] barely touched on the process and act of design, but rapidly slid off into
insights about the experience of running the designs. … course area concepts and
contents develop incrementally, continuously and reactively - according to tacit
principles which are difficult for teachers to articulate in retrospect. (p. 20)
When it comes to running a reused design, or indeed any lesson designed in
advance, rapid decisions may need to be made to meet the immediate context, such
Designing for blended learning, sharing and reuse 49
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Uni
vers
ity o
f W
este
rn O
ntar
io]
at 2
0:25
16
Nov
embe
r 20
14
as different or unexpected learner needs, interruptions to the lessons, etc. Yet
flexibility and contingency planning seldom find a place in representations of
learning designs, and documenting such variations adds to the burden on teachers’
time.
Many other things that Mod4L participants wanted to know about when assessing
designs for their own possible use, such as rationale, assessment policies, teacher
reflection and evaluation, and student feedback, are also poorly covered in most
representations.
While documenting designs for sharing and reuse place burdens on teachers’ time,
equivalent or greater savings might be achieved if setup and even running of designs
could be done by machine. If designs that use technological tools are to be shared
and reused from one institution to another, then they also need to be described in an
interoperable, machine-readable, way. But the possibly competing requirements of
machine-readable representations and teacher-understandable representations have
yet to be resolved. For example, the richly contextualised case studies appreciated by
teachers do not lend themselves to easy sharing and reuse in an online or blended
environment.
We have also noted the need for teachers to be able to modify a design as they
implement it, to meet immediate learner needs and contingencies. This applies
equally to computer-run activities. The experience of Mod4L participants supports
Britain’s (2004) call for learning design tools that support differentiation, branching
and looping workflow, and also the findings of Masterman (2006); Vogel and Oliver
(2006), and the Learning Activity Design in Education project (www.elframework.
org/refmodels/ladie) that tools should allow for teachers to modify the design during
run time.
Closely related to the ability to edit designs during run time is the issue of
representing designs as an active and ongoing process, rather than a static product of
the design process. This has been noted by Vogel and Oliver (2006), Burgos (2005),
and Taylor and Richardson (2001), who warn of the dangers of disenfranchising
teachers and perpetuating conservative practices if teachers are expected to operate
in ‘recycling’ rather than ‘discovery’ mode. Representing designs as active, and
enabling development and communication around them by a community of
practice, emerges also from the discussions of Mod4L participants as a means of
encouraging and supporting sharing and reuse. This observation is one that LAMS
and DialogPlus try to implement, with varying degrees of success, through their
websites. Most repositories of resources, however, seem so far to have failed to
establish communities of users (Margaryan et al., 2006). This is an urgent issue that
may be related to the problem of representing design as an active process.
Discussion
The idea of design for learning offers practical benefits to teachers in terms of
improved teaching quality and efficiency. However, before these benefits can be
realised there are a number of issues to overcome. The issues can largely be classified
50 I. Falconer and A. Littlejohn
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Uni
vers
ity o
f W
este
rn O
ntar
io]
at 2
0:25
16
Nov
embe
r 20
14
as institutional and representational. This paper has concentrated mainly on the
representational ones:
N Representations to meet user needs. Representations need to be meaningful and
useful to different communities of users. Differing groups, for example teachers
and technical developers, may need very different forms of representation.
N Multiple perspectives are necessary. Even a single user generally requires multiple
perspectives suited to differing processes during planning or adaptation of a
design.
N Representations may be difficult to construct. Few representations to date have
succeeded in capturing the essence of a good piece of teaching. Ways of
representing designs as dynamic processes, rather than static products, may need
to be developed.
These issues are the focus of active research at present and the next few years are
likely to see the emergence of user-friendly learning design and design running tools.
Notes
1. Examples of quality assurance procedures can be reviewed at http://www.qaa.ac.uk/reviews/.
References
Beetham, H. (2001) ‘How do representations of practice enable practice to change?’, Educational
Developments, 2(4), 19–22.
Beetham, H. (2004) Review: developing e-learning models for the JISC practitioner communities. A
report for the JISC e-pedagogy programme, JISC. Available online at: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/
uploaded_documents/Review%20models.doc (accessed 11 January 2007).
Beetham, H. & Sharpe, R. (Eds) (forthcoming) Rethinking pedagogy for the digital age (Abingdon,
Routledge).
Bennett, S., Agostinho, S. & Lockyer, L. (2005) Reusable learning designs in university education
in: T. C. Montgomery & J. R. Parker (Eds) Proceedings of Education and Technology (ICET)
2005 (Calgary, ACTA Press).
Britain, S. (2004) A review of learning design: concept, specifications and tools. Report for JISC
E-learning Pedagogy Programme. Available online at: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/uploaded_
documents/ACF83C.doc (accessed 11 January 2007).
Burgos, D. (2005) Contribution to ‘primitives to patterns’ discussion. Available online at: http://
moodle.learningnetworks.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d5137 (accessed 3 August 2006).
Burgos, D. & Griffiths, D. (2005) Unfold booklet. Available online at: http://www.unfold-
project.net/project/UNFOLDbooklet.pdf (accessed 3 August 2006).
Collis, B. & van der Wende, M. (2002) Models of technology and change in higher education (Twente,
Center for Higher Education Policy Studies).
Contreras-Castilloa, J., Favela, J. & Perez-Fragoso, C. (2004) Informal interactions and their
implications for online courses, Computers and Education, 42(2), 149–168.
Council for Industry and Higher Education (CIHE) (2002) The Council for Industry and Higher
Education response to the joint consultation document from HEFCE and the Learning and
Skills Council. Available online at: http://www.cihe-uk.com/partnershipsfor.htm (accessed
30 January 2003).
DfES (2001) Education and skills: delivering results a strategy to 2006 (Norwich, Stationery Office).
Designing for blended learning, sharing and reuse 51
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Uni
vers
ity o
f W
este
rn O
ntar
io]
at 2
0:25
16
Nov
embe
r 20
14
Falconer, I. & Littlejohn, A. (2006) Mod4L report: case studies, exemplars and learning designs.
Report of the JISC Mod4L project. Available online at: http://mod4l.com/tiki-
download_file.php?fileId52 (accessed 11 January 2007).
Falconer, I., Littlejohn, A., Conole, G. & Jeffery, A. (2006) Mediating between services and
learning activities—the user perspective in: S. Banks, V. Hodgson, C. Jones, B. Kemp,
D. McConnell & Ch. Smith (Eds) Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on
Networked Learning 2006, Lancaster University.
Garrick, J. (1998) Informal learning in the workplace (London, Routledge).
Greller, W. (2005) Contribution to ‘primitives to patterns’ discussion. Available online at: http://
moodle.learningnetworks.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d5137 (accessed 3 August 2006).
Griffths, D. (Ed.) (2004) UNFOLD. Transcript of the Barcelona CoP meeting, Universitat
Pompeu Fabra. Available online at: http://www.unfold-project.net/project/events/cops/
f2fbarcelona/transcript/ (accessed 3 August 2006).
JISC (2006) Circular for Design for Learning funding call. Available online at: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/
index.cfm?name5funding_01_06 (accessed 15 February 2006).
Koper, R. (2001) Modelling units of study from a pedagogical perspective: the pedagogical meta model
behind EML. Available online at: http://eml.ou.nl/introduction/docs/ped-metamodel.pdf
(accessed 3 August 2006).
Koper, R., Olivier, B. & Anderson, T. (Eds) (2003) IMS learning design best practice and
implementation guide ( IMS Global Learning Consortium, Inc.). Available online at: http://
www.imsglobal.org/learningdesign/ldvlp0/imsld_bestvlp0.html (accessed 11 January 2007).
Liber, O. & Olivier, B. (2003) Learning content interoperability standards in: A. Littlejohn (Ed.)
Reusing online resources: a sustainable approach to eLearning (London, Kogan Page).
Littlejohn, A., Falconer, I. & McGill, L. (forthcoming) Characterising effective e-learning
resources, Computers and Education, in press.
Littlejohn, A. & Pegler, C. (in press) Preparing for blended eLearning (London, Routledge).
MacDonald, J. (2006) Blended learning and online tutoring: a good practice guide (Aldershot, Gower).
Margaryan, A., Currier, S., Littlejohn, A. & Nicol, D. (2006) Learning communities and
repositories. Available online at: http://www.ic-learning.dundee.ac.uk/projects/CD-LOR/
CDLORdeliverable1_learningcommunitiesreport.doc (accessed 25 September 2006).
Masterman, L. (2006) An evaluation of generic tools used in design for learning. JISC Learning Design
Tools Project Report. Available online at: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/uploaded_documents/
LD%20Tools%20Report%20v1.1.pdf (accessed 25 March 2006).
McAndrew, P., Goodyear, P. & Dalziel, J. (2005) Patterns, designs and activities: unifying
descriptions of learning structions Int. J. (preprint). Available online at: http://kn.open.
ac.uk/public/getfile.cfm?documentfileid56000 (accessed 8 August 2006).
Sanchez, G. & Valcarcel, M. V. (1999) Science teachers’ views and practices in planning for
teaching, Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 36(4), 493–513.
Scott, P. (1995) Meanings of mass higher education (London, SRHE).
Seufert, S. & Euler, D. (2004) Sustainability of e-Learning innovations—findings of expert interviews.
SCIL Report 2 (University of St Gallen). Available online at: http://www.scil.ch/publications/
docs/2003-06-seufert-euler-sustainability-elearning.pdf (accessed 11 January 2007).
Sharpe, R., Beetham, H. & Ravenscroft, A. (2004) Active artefacts: representing our knowledge of
learning and teaching, Educational Developments, 5(2), 16–21.
Taylor, P. G. & Richardson, A. S. (2001) Validating scholarship in university teaching:
constructing a national scheme for external peer review of ICT-based teaching and learning
resources (Canberra, Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs). Available
online at: http://www.dest.gov.au/highered/eippubs/eip01_3/01_3.pdf (accessed 8 August
2006).
Vogel, M. & Oliver, M. (2006) Design for learning in virtual learning environments—insider
perspectives. JISC Learning Design Tools Project Report. Available online at: http://
www.jisc.ac.uk/uploaded_documents/D4L_VLE_report_final.pdf (accessed 8 August 2006).
52 I. Falconer and A. Littlejohn
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Uni
vers
ity o
f W
este
rn O
ntar
io]
at 2
0:25
16
Nov
embe
r 20
14