“Technology is a vital ingredient in enhancing learning. Discuss”

Or: Phil vs Tansy – Who Won?

Dr Stephen WebbHead of Technology Enhanced LearningUniversity of Portsmouth@stephenswebb

20 June 2016: all-day event – The Digital Classroom British Academy of Management Knowledge & Learning SIG Debate: This house believes that:

Technology is a vital ingredient for the enhancement of learning

For: Dr Phil Richards, Chief Innovation Officer @ JISC Against: Prof Tansy Jessop @ SSU

Debate at Portsmouth Business School

Phil looked at the impact of business intelligence and learning analytics on Higher Education Institutions

Tansy argued that technology is not as vital for the enhancement of learning as the proper and consistent construction of assessment and feedback

Two debate streams chaired by Steve Wheeler of Plymouth University (for the motion) and James Johnston of the University of the West of Scotland (against)

Result...

(Triple) dead heat, 3 October 1953, Gooreen Collection; Public Domain

This talk: observations from someone whose job it is to promote the use of technology in teaching and learning (bias?!)

Would like to focus on just one aspect

Debate at Portsmouth Business School

Forthcoming:

Glyph Riches (tentative title) – December 2016 delivery

The Past That’s Yet To Be – August 2016 delivery

Written on iMacs (Intel Core 2 Duo/Snow Leopard and Intel Core i5/Mavericks)

Written on iMacs (Intel Core 2 Duo/Snow Leopard and Intel Core i5/Mavericks) Written on PC/Win98

Could go from PC to Mac, OS to OS, without pause...

... because I used TEX Its main aim is “to produce beautifully

typeset documents, especially documents containing mathematics” (Knuth)

It is a free, sophisticated, extremely robust platform

Same output on all computers, at any point in time

A platform for writing

Blog, updated on various devices

Blog, updated on various devices

Written on a PC/Win95

Unusual Effects

InParticle

Diffraction

Thesis, 1988

Written on a DEC VAX 8600 using manroff

Computer is long obsoleteCompany is defunctEditor is discontinued

But I could still use the content and get identical output ...

TEX gave me a stable platform – something I could rely upon

A platform for teaching?

Consortium of 14 UK Physics depts 1993-95; worked with Phil on this Self-paced learning Assessment engine Superb simulations! Deep learning! Pre-web (Microcosm-based)

A platform for teaching?

1993-95; worked with Phil on this Consortium of 14 UK Physics depts Self-paced learning Assessment engine Superb simulations! Deep learning! Pre-web (Microcosm-based)

Distributed on CDs for Windows PCs only Big migration costs (“If I wanted to go there I wouldn’t start from here”) Diversity of OS and security concerns SToMP is no longer supported Embedding SToMP in the curriculum led to costs (financial & time)!

I joined the University of Portsmouth in 2006 VLE when I joined was WebCT VLE soon migrated to Vista-based “Victory” VLE then migrated to Moodle

Opportunity costs involved with each migration! Webconferencing tech has moved from:

Live Classroom to BBB to WebEx

Numerous classroom response systems in place. And so on...

A platform for teaching?

April 2016, Portsmouth was part of JISC “Student Digital Experience Tracker”

We surveyed L4 students; had 678 responses 74.4% of students agreed that “when technology is used by

teaching staff, it helps my learning experience” However, a common complaint [free text field] was that many

teaching staff struggled to use technology – even basic technology

Teachers are highly inconsistent in the use of tech!

A platform for teaching?

A platform for teaching?

How can we ensure sustainable, equitable, institution-wide provision when...

Research

QA

TEF

REF

Recruiting

Admin

Exam boards

Contact time

Pastoral work

Technology can enhance learning!

Students themselves say that technology enhances their learning (JISC)

Richard Noss (UCL): Tech can make some things learnable!

For example, flocking of birds is difficult to describe analytically

For example, flocking of birds is difficult to describe analytically

But children can investigate and understand the behaviour with eg Scratch

Simulations can engage students in deep learning (SERC, in US)

Used in u/g science, engineering, politics, economics courses...

Deep learning means that students learn methods including:the importance of model buildingrelationships among variablesdata issues, probability and sampling

Deep learning means that students reflect on and extend knowledge by:transferring knowledge to new problems and situationsunderstanding and refining their own thought processesseeing social processes and interactions in action

So should teachers use more tech?