ocTEL Webinar 17th April 2013

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Teachers Talking about TEL Liz Masterman 17 th April 2013 http://giar3579.deviantart.com/art/My-lecturers-306744823

description

Slides + notes (at back of document). The

Transcript of ocTEL Webinar 17th April 2013

Teachers Talking about TEL

Liz Masterman 17th April 2013

http://giar3579.deviantart.com/art/My-lecturers-306744823

The projects

  Learning  Design:  informant  prac22oners    Phoebe    The  Learning  Designer  

 Open  Educa2onal  Resources:  discovering  OER  in  a  workshop  se@ng    OER  Impact  Study  

  Student  Digital  Experience:  the  staff  perspec2ve    DIGE  

The themes

  Suppor2ng  students’  needs  and  preferences  through  TEL  

  Theory-­‐informed  TEL    Reusing  digital  resources  (OER)  created  by  others  

  The  ins2tu2onal  picture    Transforming  prac2ce  +  the  ques2on  of  evidence  

Students’ needs and preferences   ‘I  was  very  passionate  about  helping  them  learn  more  effec2vely  and  beNer’  

  ‘If  we  don’t  do  any  sort  of  blogs,  podcasts,  internet  searches,  if  we  don’t  get  the  students  using  their  mobile  phones  …  as  part  of  the  curriculum,  what  kind  of  graduates  are  we  sending  out?’    

University of Maryland http://www.flickr.com/photos/umdnews/4968436744/

Students’ needs and preferences   ‘The  students  also  make  demands:  “Can  you  provide  this  work  online…?”  and  therefore  people  slowly  start  coming  out  of  their  own  cocoons’  

  ‘And  the  students  are,  well,  you  know,  “In  our  other  course  we’ve  got  this,  in  our  other  course  all  the  lecture  notes  are  up.”’    

University of Maryland http://www.flickr.com/photos/umdnews/4968436744/

Students’ needs and preferences

  ‘They’re  coping  with  very  large  numbers  of  students  and  they  have  no  2me  at  all  and  they  just  revert  back  to  tradi2onal  forms’  

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Activism_Course.jpg: Public domain

Students’ needs and preferences   ‘It’s  not  about  just  pu@ng  your  PowerPoint  [on  the  VLE]  …  a  good  discussion  can  be  as  good  as  something  technologically  wonderful’  

  ‘They  have  no  concept  of  the  whole  scale  of  human  knowledge  that  exists  in  print  form  in  libraries  …    A  lot  of  that  knowledge  is  being  lost’  

University of Oxford

Students’ needs and preferences

  Is  there  some2mes  a  tension  what  students  (say  they)  want  and  what  might  be  more  beneficial  to  their  learning?  

Theory-informed TEL

  Theories  of  learning  vs  theories  of  teaching  

  ‘What  the  reflec2on  can  lead  you  to  is  the  point  where  you  go,  “Well,  this  is  not  working  but  I  don’t  know  how  to  fix  it”  …  you  need  to  be  able  to  head  into  the  theory  behind  it’    

Dennis Callahan http://www.flickr.com/photos/denniscallahan/7864653008

Theory-informed TEL

Theory-informed TEL   ‘It’s  not  as  simple  as  saying,  “Oh  yes,  I’m  a  construc2vist  or  a  social  construc2vist,  or  a  this,  or  a  that”  …  I  think  they  all  do  influence,  but  I  don’t  think  there’s  one  correct  one’  

  ‘In  the  end  what’s  going  to  inform  my  decisions  are  2me,  number  of  students,  …  the  things  that  they  have  to  get  done’  

Dennis Callahan http://www.flickr.com/photos/denniscallahan/7864653008

Theory-informed TEL

  ‘Good  use  of  technology  builds  on  all  the  educa2on  theory  …  You  shouldn’t  really  be  dabbling  with  the  technology  un2l  you  know  what  you’re  doing  with  the  learning  and  teaching.’    Do  you  agree?    

Reusing resources created by others

University of Oxford Images (excl. lesson plan) accessed via http://ww1centenary.oucs.ox.ac.uk

Reusing resources created by others   ‘One  of  the  func2ons  that  other  

people’s  stuff  has  is  teaching  me  how  to  do  it  by  looking  at  example.  And  classicists  are  more  prone  to  doing  that,  I  think,  than  some  other  disciplines’  

  ‘I  …  got  this  lovely  example  of  fulcrum,  load  and  effort  and  a  car  crashing  into  a  wall.  …  I  thought:  “Well,  that’s  not  what  I  do  because  I  don’t  teach  a  concept  that  can  be  grasped  like  that.”  And  …  I  suddenly  went,  “Oh,  so  when  I’m  teaching  that  means  I  could  do  this!”’  

Elizabeth Matthews Van de Graaff generator

Reusing resources created by others   ‘Whole  packages  …  kind  of  assume  that  we  are  kind  of  neutral  deliverers  of  objec2ve  content  to  those  passive  recipients,  and  that’s  not  what  happens’  

  ‘We  haven’t  made  it  and  used  our  thought  processes  to  make  it  …  And  then  you  spend  a  couple  of  hours  re-­‐jigging  it  to  sound  like  you;  using  the  concepts  but  put  it  in  your  style’  

http://pixabay.com/get/d82ade6eaf2788458a6e/1363368359/states-40679.png: Public domain

Reusing resources created by others

There’s  currently  a  drive  to  encourage  teachers  to  incorporate  OER  created  by  others  into  their  curriculum.      What  trade-­‐offs  and  compromises  are  entailed?  

The institutional picture: top-down   ‘We’ve  benchmarked  where  are  all  faculty  prac2ce  with  e-­‐learning,  and  we  did  that  by  asking  everybody  “Where  are  you  on  this  scale  of  using  these  tools  in  VLE?”  …    …just  because  they’re  not  using  [the  VLE]  doesn’t  mean  they’re  not  actually  using  technology  and  e-­‐learning’      

The institutional picture: bottom-up   ‘Can  you  take  a  sort  of  a  guerrilla  approach  and  …  get  a  dialogue  going  within  these  communi2es  of  prac2ce?’  

  ‘Most  of  the  2mes  people  don’t  even  like  [the  VLE]  …  I’ve  been  kind  of  trying  to  work  up  strategies  to  get  people  engaging  with  the  online  world  more  crea2vely  for  teaching  and  learning’  

The institutional picture: in the middle   ‘You  need  to  have  the  shared  domain  …  this  stuff  works  when  I  focus  it  on  the  [XX  Faculty]  …  there’s  no  added  value  if  I  do  a  course  centrally  for  someone  from  Engineering  that  I  will  never  see  again’    

  ‘Having  somebody  that  you    trust  who  teaches  and  works  in  the  department  tell  you  that    it’s  there  makes  it  way  more  likely  to  get  used  than  if  the  university  planning  commiNee  tells  you  that  it’s  there’    

The institutional picture

  Where  is  the  locus  of  really  innova2ve  TEL  in  your  ins2tu2on,  in  terms  of  organisa2onal  structure,  people  and  technologies?  

  What  it  its  rela2onship  to  ins2tu2onal  policies,  services  and  systems  to  support  TEL?  

Transforming practice through TEL   ‘Each  2me  we  introduce  a  new  technology  it  opens  up  ways  of  doing  things  that  may  have  always  been  done,  but  which  can  now  be  done  more  effec2vely’  

  ‘One  of  the  main  benefits  of  technology  is  that  it  offers  an  opportunity  to  think/talk  about  teaching  and  learning:  teaching  in  a  more  interes2ng  way,  thinking  about  how  students  learn’    

  ‘Technology  won’t  make  a  bad  teacher  into  a  good  teacher,  and  it  won’t  necessarily  make  a  good  teacher  any  beNer  either’    

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AMerian_Metamorphosis_VI_.jpg: Public domain

Transforming practice through TEL

University of Salford Press Office http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AStudents_in_a_computer_lab.jpg

  ‘I  need  to  be  convinced  that  there’s  a  real  benefit  –  rather  than  it’s  a  new-­‐fangled  thing  and  we  must  all  use  technology’      

  ‘What  [senior  management  is]  saying  is,  “You  should  all  have  a  [VLE]  site  and  as  a  minimum  you  should  have  your  module  booklet  up,  you  should  have  your  name,  your  office  numbers,  your  this,  your  that.”  Well,  to  me,  where’s  the  joy  in  that?  …  last  year  …  one  of  our  Masters  students  …  did  an  evolving  essay  and  several  of  us  all  commented  as  she  was  going…’  

Evidence: what counts as convincing?   ‘Prove  to  me  that  this  has  been  done  before  and  that  it  has  worked  for  someone  else  …  who  looks  exactly  like  me  in  exactly  what  I  teach  at  exactly  this  level’  

  ‘…seeing  somebody  else  who  is  really  interested  in  that  way  of  teaching,  being  inspiring  and  interes2ng  about  it’  

  ‘The  defini2on  of  “beNer”  depends  on  what  your  research  background  is’      

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AEvidence_of_Toronto_people.jpg: Public domain

Transforming practice through TEL You’ve  heard  about  an  innova2ve  use  of  TEL  and  want  to  try  it  out  for  yourself.  What  will  best  help  you  to  decide?  

  Evidence  of  improved  learning  outcomes  (p  <  0.01)  

  Students’  feedback  showing  mo2va2on  and  enjoyment  

  The  teacher’s  self-­‐report  

  Knowledge  of  the  context  so  that  you  can  decide  if  it’s  applicable  to  yours      

Conclusion (and thank you!)

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Collier_conclusion.jpg: Public domain

Five questions 1.  Is  there  a  tension  what  students  want  and  what  might  

be  more  beneficial  to  their  learning?  2.  ‘Good  use  of  technology  builds  on  all  the  educa2on  

theory.’  Do  you  agree?    3.  What  are  the  trade-­‐offs  and  compromises  in  using  

(open)  educa2onal  resources  created  by  others?  4.  Where  is  the  locus  of  ‘cool  TEL’  in  your  university/

college  and  what  is  its  rela2onship  to  ins2tu2onal  support?  

5.  What  (quan2ta2ve  and/or  qualita2ve)  informa2on  will  best  help  you  decide  whether  to  try  out  a  TEL  innova2on?  

Reading  this  week’s  outline,  we  seem  to  be  moving  from  the  big  ques9ons  of  TEL  as  a  whole  to  big  ques9ons  for  individual  teachers  as  they  get  to  grips  with  TEL.  

I’ve  been  doing  research  into  how  teachers  and  lecturers  in  HE  and  FE  engage  with  digital  technologies  for  nearly  9  years.  In  the  next  20  minutes  or  so  I’d  like  to  share  with  you  some  of  the  topics  that  I  discussed  with  them  in  interviews  that  I  have  done  in  a  number  projects.  I’ll  address  some  of  the  themes  in  this  week’s  ac9vi9es,  and  some  other  ones  as  well.  I’ll  pick  out  in  par9cular  the  ‘big  ques9ons’  that  arose  from  each  theme,  some  of  which  I  hope  you’ll  pick  up  and  discuss  later  on.    

Obviously,  I’ve  been  selec9ve  in  choosing  material  that  I  hope  will  s9mulate  discussion,  but  I  have  tried  to  let  the  data  speak  for  themselves.    

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17th  April,  2013  ocTEL  Webinar  –  Liz  Masterman  

I’m  going  to  draw  from  interviews  conducted  in  three  areas  of  research:  

Learning  Design  –  Phoebe,  Learning  Designer  –  projects  that  researched  and  developed  prototype  digital  tools  to  help  teachers  plan  and  design  their  students’  learning,  esp  to  get  them  engaged  in  TEL.  Concept  of  informant-­‐prac99oners  (IPs)    –  interviewees  in  the  Learning  Design  projects  (roughly  20  –  some  were  interviewed  for  both  projects):  primarily  individuals  who  are  experienced  prac99oners,  are  well  versed  in  digital  technologies,  and  represent  a  range  of  roles  within  TEL:  subject  lecturers,  staff  developers  and  learning  technologists.  This  places  them  in  a  strong  posi9on  to  ar9culate,  and  interpret,  the  perspec9ves  and  needs  of  early-­‐career  lecturers  or  of  seasoned  academics  who  have  not  yet  engaged  with  TEL.  

Open  Educa9onal  Resources  –  the  OER  Impact  Study  –  looking  at  OER  from  the  reuse  side…  A  workshop  with  16  lecturers  who  were  discovering  OER  for  the  first  9me.  

DIGE  –  14  interviewees  –  staff  to  complement  and  supplement  data  gathered  from  students  

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17th  April,  2013  ocTEL  Webinar  –  Liz  Masterman  

Themes  –  not  sure  if  there  is  a  logic  to  this  order…  

Star9ng  with  students    -­‐  pragma9c  considera9ons  

Then  move  on  to  the  role  of  theory  –  which  is  one  of  the  ac9vi9es  for  this  week.  

Idea  of  developing  your  own  prac9ce  by  finding  and  using  materials  that  others  have  created  and  made  available  –  which  nowadays  includes  OER  

The  ins9tu9onal  picture  –  where  does  innova9on  lie  –  who’s  doing  it,  with  what  technologies,  and  at  what  level  of  the  organisa9on.  

Finally  –  look  at  the  poten9al  for  doing  something  more  with  digital  technologies  than  simply  replica9ng  one’s  current  teaching  prac9ce  online  –  how  using  technology  might  help  lecturers  to  change  the  way  they  do  things  –  and  what  they  want  to  know  in  order  to  try  out  with  their  own  students    successful  innova9ons  such  as  the  examples  you’ve  been  looking  at.    

I’ll  conclude  each  theme  with  a  ques9on  that  has  emerged  from  the  data.  The  aim  is  to  get  you  thinking  about  the  theme  in  rela9on  to  your  own  context,  and  thus  to  seed  the  discussion  aaer  this  presenta9on,  but  it’s  at  least  as  important  for  you  to  come  up  with  your  own  ques9ons.    

ocTEL  Webinar  –  Liz  Masterman   17th  April,  2013  

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Start  with  students’  needs  and  preferences  as  for  at  least  one  lecturer  this  was  what  prompted  her  to  explore  the  possibili9es  of  digital  technologies.  

The  emphasis  on  developing  graduate  abributes  to  ensure  that  students  are  fit  for  the  labour  market  has  also  come  to  the  fore  in  recent  years.  It  is  manifested,  in  part,  in  a  drive  towards  digital  literacy  and  towards  the  greater  use  of  technology-­‐enhanced  learning.    

ocTEL  Webinar  –  Liz  Masterman   17th  April,  2013  

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But  it’s  also  to  respond  to  their  requests.  

And  it’s  important  that  students  have  a  consistent  digital  experience  across  all  the  subjects  they  study.    

I’ve  got  this  all-­‐singing,  all-­‐dancing  site  with  all  kinds  of  stuff  on  it.  And  then  they  go  to  the  next  class  and  there’s  a  module  booklet  up.  And  the  students  are,  well,  you  know,  ‘In  our  other  course  we’ve  got  this,  in  our  other  course  all  the  lecture  notes  are  up.’  

This  comes  from  a  lecturer  based  in  London,  but  we  have  found  the  same  situa9on  in  Oxford    

ocTEL  Webinar  –  Liz  Masterman   17th  April,  2013  

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But,  student-­‐related  factors  can  act  as  constraints  rather  than  enabling  factors.    

For  example,  although  technology  enables  lecturers  to  scale  up  their  teaching  to  accommodate  larger  class  sizes,  the  greater  numbers  can  make  it  difficult  even  for  enthusiasts  to  innovate.    

ocTEL  Webinar  –  Liz  Masterman   17th  April,  2013  

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But  judicious  use  of  technology  –  students  can  be  discerning!  And  can’t  assume  that  students  necessarily  want  to  engage  in  DTs  for  learning.    

IP6  recounted  how  one  department  in  his  university  was  concerned  that  the  level  at  which  it  had  to  teach  the  majority  of  students  meant  that  it  risked  losing  its  brightest  students  through  boredom.  The  lecturers  set  up  a  group  through  Facebook,  through  which  these  students  were  given  weekly  problems  and  could  receive  peer  support  from  students  in  the  year  above.  It  worked  

But  he  also  told  us  about  another  lecturer  who  tried  an  innova9ve  approach  by  pugng  resources  on  Facebook  without  considering  the  students’  point  of  view  first.  Although  half  of  the  students  were  ‘switched  on’  by  this  novel  approach,  the  others  were  not.    

Students  as  conserva9ve/ac9ng  against  their  own  interests  as  learners  –    

From  DIGE:  consequence  of  the  privileging  of  online  resources:  ‘They  have  no  concept  of  the  whole  scale  of  human  knowledge  that  exists  in  print  form…’.    

In  other  words,  if  knowledge  is  not  represented  online,  it  is  assumed  not  to  exist;  -­‐  same  is  true  in  musicology  –  if  it  isn’t  in  Spo9fy,  it  doesn’t  exist  and  they  are  reluctant  to  come  into  the  department  to  listen  to  CDs.  

ocTEL  Webinar  –  Liz  Masterman   17th  April,  2013  

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Some9mes  what  students  want  is  not  pedagogically  appropriate  to  the  kinds  of  skills  and  ac9vi9es  which  their  lecturers  want  them  to  develop?  Especially  if  what  they  want  is  pedagogically  retrogressive?  

e.g.  from  DIGE:  Students’  preference  for  reading  lists  with  links  that  give  them  direct  access  to  online  materials  appears  to  be  conten9ous  for  staff.  A  librarian  reported  faculty  agtudes  that  students  need  to  learn  how  to  search  catalogues,  while  for  one  of  our  most  senior  interviewees  the  skills  of  cri9cal  enquiry  are  developed  through  inves9ga9on,  which  includes  working  in  libraries  and  going  to  original  sources  rather  than  their  digi9sed  versions.    

ocTEL  Webinar  –  Liz  Masterman   17th  April,  2013  

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Moving  on  to  the  second  theme…  

Researchers  now  widely  consider  that  theories  of  learning  and  theory-­‐informed  frameworks  play  a  key  role,  not  merely  in  ensuring  ‘good  pedagogical  design’,  but  also  in  countering  tendencies  towards  ‘technological  determinism’.  

In  the  Learning  Designer  interviews,  we  asked  our  IPs:  What  is  the  general  value  of  theory  to  their  prac9ce?  

The  interviews  suggested  that  the  value  of  theory  lies  above  all  in  providing  insights  into  the  underlying  mechanisms  of  teaching  and  learning.    

Indeed,  one  person  drew  an  illumina9ng  dis9nc9on  between  theories  of  learning  –  explanatory  theories  of  how  people  come  to  learn,  but  which  he  felt  contained  insufficient  constraints  to  be  of  use  in  guiding  design  prac9ce  –  and  theories  of  teaching:  prac9cal  frameworks  for  implemen9ng  teaching  and  learning,  which  can  nevertheless  be  based  on  learning  theories.  

In  this  way,  theory  can  both  inform  the  ac9vity  of  crea9ng  a  learning  design  and  fulfil  an  explanatory  func9on  in  the  ac9vity  of  reviewing  (reflec9on):    

ocTEL  Webinar  –  Liz  Masterman   17th  April,  2013  

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our  work  with  Learning  Designer  IPs  included  a  short  ‘9ck-­‐box’  ac9vity  to  elicit  quan9ta9ve  data  on  interviewees’  familiarity  with  a  specific  set  of  generally  accepted  theories.  We  listed  10  theories  and  asked  them  which  they  use  themselves.  We  also  asked  them  for  any  theories  we  had  missed  from  the  list.  

Wordle  shows  the  theories  that  they  actually  used  –  those  in  our  list  as  well  as  those  we  had  missed  out.  

The  2  9ny  ones  are  Behaviourism  and  Construc9onism  

-­‐ Use  of  Behaviourism:    

whilst  I  do  think  there  are  useful  things  in  construcAvism,  having  had  you  know,  children  and  having  had  teachers  who  watch  teachers  work  a  lot,  it  does  strike  me  that  there  are  some  sort  of  condiAonings  that  you  can  use  very,  very  effecAvely  in  order  to  get  people  to  do  certain  things,  whether  they  kind  of  like  it  or  not,  sort  of  you  know  it’s  going  to  be  good  for  them  sort  of  thing.    

I  don’t  think  that  I’m  someone  who  will  necessarily  chuck  out  a  theory  that  […]  I  know  kind  of  works  because  of  some  sort  of  poliAcal  agenda.  

ocTEL  Webinar  –  Liz  Masterman   17th  April,  2013  

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Of  course,  theory  is  not  applied  uncri9cally.  Although  a  number  of  lecturers  spoke  of  being  influenced  by  a  variety  of  theories,  these  had  become  interwoven  into  their  general  world  view  and  they  rarely  set  out  to  implement  a  specific  one;  for  example:    

…there’s  kind  of  a  lot  of  complexity  around  there,  and  it’s  not  as  simple  as  saying,  ‘Oh  yes,  I’m  a,  you  know,  I’m  a  construcAvist  or  a  social  construcAvist,  or  a  this,  or  a  that,  or  […]  I  look  at  Piaget’…  I  think  they  all  do  influence,  but  I  don’t  think  there’s  one  correct  one.  

Finally,  a  few  lecturers  took  a  deliberately  atheore9cal  stance;  for  example:    ‘in  the  end  what’s  going  to  inform  my  decisions  are  9me,  number  of  students,  […],  the  things  that  they  have  to  get  done’.  Moreover,  even  lecturers  who  cited  theories  extensively  admibed  that  pragma9c  issues  were  their  primary  considera9on.  

ocTEL  Webinar  –  Liz  Masterman   17th  April,  2013  

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Ques9on  speaks  for  itself  

ocTEL  Webinar  –  Liz  Masterman   17th  April,  2013  

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Teachers  have  for  ages  incorporated  resources  created  by  others  into  their  students’  learning  and,  to  a  lesser  extent,  made  their  own  resources  available  to  others.    

However,  the  prac9ce  remained  largely  informal  and  localised  within  ins9tu9ons  or  discipline-­‐centred  communi9es.    

With  the  burgeoning  of  the  open  educa9onal  resources  movement,  reuse  has  become  a  much  more  overt  prac9ce.  And  OER  provide  an  acceptable  way  to  gain  inspira9on  for  designing  one’s  own  learning  materials  or  to  acquire  materials  that  one  lacks  the  wherewithal  to  create  oneself  .  

What’s  reused?  

Granularity  –  things  of  different  sizes.  Big  and  lible  OER  –  Weller  

pedagogic  intent:  whether  the  resource  has  been  explicitly  developed  for  an  educa9onal  purpose  –  the  MIT  course,  blog  post,  simula9on,  podcast  and  lesson  plan  

or  can  readily  be  co-­‐opted  for  such  a  purpose  –  image  on  bobom  right  

There  is  rela9onship  between  pedagogic  intent  and  granularity:  we  found  that    

lecturers  feel  more  in  control  over  ‘lible’  than  ‘big’  OER,  and  

 ‘lible’  OER  that  are  more  easily  slobed  into  a  learning  design  oaen  have  a  non-­‐educa9onal  origin  

ocTEL  Webinar  –  Liz  Masterman   17th  April,  2013  

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The  five  examples  of  TEL  that  you  looked  at  came  from  different  disciplines  –  so  can  ideas  and  learning  ac9vi9es  and  materials  from  one  discipline  be  transferable  to  another?  (Cross-­‐pollina9on)  

The  dominant  research  methodology  within  a  par9cular  discipline  was  perceived  to  influence  lecturers’  agtudes  towards  re-­‐using  materials  created  by  other  teachers,  as  shown  in  these  quota9ons  from  a  lecturer  and  a  staff  developer  respec9vely:    

One  of  the  funcAons  that  other  people’s  stuff  has  is  teaching  me  how  to  do  it  by  looking  at  example.  And  classicists  are  more  prone  to  doing  that,  I  think,  than  some  other  disciplines,  just  on  the  grounds  that  we’ve  very  used  to  looking  at  examples  and  recovering  paIerns  in  the  way  that  we  work  for  research.  

Content  acts  as  another  barrier  to  the  cross-­‐disciplinary  fer9lisa9on  of  learning  designs  and  design  ideas.  To  surmount  it,  one  must  discern  something  of  relevance  to  one’s  own  teaching  in  terms  of  structure  or  approach.  A  humani9es  lecturer  vividly  described  a  moment  of  enlightenment  in  this  respect:  perceiving  the  relevance  to  her  own  field  of  the  pedagogy  underlying  a  reusable  learning  object  developed  for  physics:  

I  …  got  this  lovely  example  of  fulcrum,  load  and  effort  and  a  car  crashing  into  a  wall.  …  I  thought,  ‘Well  that’s  not  what  I  do  because  I  don’t  teach  a  concept  that  can  be  grasped  like  that.’  And  there  was  this  moment,  and  …  I  had  an  epiphany  because  I  suddenly  went,  ‘Oh,  so  when  I’m  teaching  that  means  I  could  do  this!’  

Relies  on  ability  to  latch  onto  something  in  the  example  –  in  this  case  it  may  have  been  because  this  classics  lecturer  had  done  Physics    A  Level,  but  it  may  also  be  because  she  was  able  to  perceive  the  underlying  abstract  pedagogic  pabern  of  this  learning  ac9vity  –  recall  Diana’s  talk  about  paberns  last  week.  

ocTEL  Webinar  –  Liz  Masterman   17th  April,  2013  

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Although  lecturers  can  be  willing  to  sacrifice  certain  aspects  of  quality  and  fitness  when  reusing  materials  created  by  others,,  the  individuality  of  their  teaching  voice  remains  sacrosanct.    

In  such  cases,  the  lecturer  either  provides  explanatory  guidance  to  students  on  how  to  approach  the  resource  or  modifies  it  (if  the  licence  permits).    

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17th  April,  2013  ocTEL  Webinar  –  Liz  Masterman  

Looking  at  OER  in  par9cular…  There’s  currently  a  drive  to  encourage  teachers  to  incorporate  OER  created  by  others  into  their  curriculum.  Benefits  of  OER  include  being  able  to  use  them  –  even  modify  and  redistribute  them  –  legi9mately  because  of  the  use  of  Crea9ve  Commons  licensing.  But  what  trade-­‐offs  and  compromises  are  entailed?  

ocTEL  Webinar  –  Liz  Masterman   17th  April,  2013  

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Of  course,  lecturers  don’t  work  in  a  vacuum,  and  in  this  segment  I’m  going  to  look  at  how  innova9on  in  TEL  fits  into  the  ins9tu9onal  picture.    

Top-­‐down  ini9a9ves  may  centre  around  ‘endorsed’  tools  (primarily  the  VLE)  or  around  course  design  and  valida9on  processes.    

However,  the  VLE  may  not  be  universally  used;  moreover,  individual  members  of  staff  may  experiment  addi9onally  with  other,  unendorsed,  tools.    

So  it  can  be  difficult  for  an  ins9tu9on  to  obtain  a  full  picture  of  its  TEL  ac9vi9es.  

ocTEL  Webinar  –  Liz  Masterman   17th  April,  2013  

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For  this  learning  technologist  interviewed  by  the  Learning  Designer  project,  a  bobom-­‐up  approach  is  the  op9mal  way  to  effect  changes  in  prac9ce.    

the  original  thing  I  was  asked  was  basically  get  more  people  using  [the  VLE],  and  therein  lies  a  problem,  you  know,  how  …  do  you  do  that  when  most  of  the  Ames  people  don’t  even  like  [the  VLE]  and  there  is  all  the  technofear  and  there’s  only  me.  So  basically  I’ve  been  kind  of  trying  to  work  up  strategies  to  get  people  engaging  with  the  online  world  more  creaAvely  for  teaching  and  learning  purposes.    

Are  there  sugges9ons  here  of  a  tension  between  innova9ve  prac9ce  by  individuals  and  ins9tu9onal  strategies  for  implemen9ng  technology-­‐enhanced  learning?  

ocTEL  Webinar  –  Liz  Masterman   17th  April,  2013  

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I  guess  this  could  be  called  the  middle  way.  Two  quotes  –  one  from  a  learning  technologist  driving  the  ini9a9ve,  the  other  from  a  lecturer  (in  another  university)  on  the  receiving  end  of  a  department-­‐based  ini9a9ve  

Key  concepts  in  this  approach  are:  

Shared  domain  Communi9es  of  innova9on  Trust    

ocTEL  Webinar  –  Liz  Masterman   17th  April,  2013  

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So  what  this  seems  to  boil  down  to  is  the  locus  of  innova9on    -­‐  where  the  cool  TEL  stuff  is  happening…    

Is  it  inside  or  outside  formal/ins9tu9onal  support  –  and  if  it’s  outside,  how  do  these  different  drives  co-­‐exist?    

ocTEL  Webinar  –  Liz  Masterman   17th  April,  2013  

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This  week  is  about  using  TEL  to  transform  –  or  at  least  enhance  –  one’s  pedagogic  prac9ce.    

This  entails  two  things  -­‐  

First  quote:  Changing  what  you  do  

Second  quote:  Changing  how  you  think  about  what  you  (and  your  students)  do  

But  transforma9on  doesn’t  happen  automa9cally  

ocTEL  Webinar  –  Liz  Masterman   17th  April,  2013  

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What  is  not  likely  to  transform  prac9ce…  

It  doesn’t  happen  by  pugng  technology  first  (e.g.  also  FE  college’s  observa9on  sessions  –  teachers  must  use  DT  because  it’s  in  the  classroom)  

And  it  doesn’t  happen  by  managerial  mandate…  

ocTEL  Webinar  –  Liz  Masterman   17th  April,  2013  

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But  what  is  it  that  will  convince  us  that  something  is  worth  trying?  

Does  evidence  have  to  come  from  someone  working  in  exactly  the  same  subject?:    

Show  me  how  it’s  beIer.  But  also  prove  to  me  that  this  has  been  done  before  and  that  it  has  worked  for  someone  else  before,  and  it  has  worked  for  someone  else  who  looks  exactly  like  me  in  exactly  what  I  teach  at  exactly  this  level.  

Or  is  peer  observa9on  sufficient?    

What  inspires  me  and  gets  me  interest  in  teaching  in  new  ways  is  seeing  somebody  else  who  is  really  interested  in  that  way  of  teaching,  being  inspiring  and  interesAng  about  it.  

And  does  the  evidence  and  proof  sought  differ  according  to  discipline?:    

Does  there  have  to  be  an  experiment  in  which  a  control  group  did  this  and  X  was  applied  in  this  situaAon  and  equalled  Y?  If  that’s  the  only  way  you  can  be  convinced,  which  may  be  to  do  with  your  discipline  background,  that’s  quite  different  from  what  you  might  read  in  a  case  study  from  somebody  from  the  social  sciences  who  is  talking  about  a  number  of  factors  working  together  to  bring  about  this  change  and  doesn’t  need  an  experimental  model.    

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17th  April,  2013  ocTEL  Webinar  –  Liz  Masterman  

So,  what  do  you  need  to  be  convinced  to  try  something  adventurous?  

ocTEL  Webinar  –  Liz  Masterman   17th  April,  2013  

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Conclusion…  

Interviews  conducted  between  2006  and  2012,  obviously  a  period  of  evolu9on:  •   greater  confidence  among  teachers,    • DTs  more  mainstream,    • ra9onale  and  mo9va9on  for  using  then  now  embraces  the  employability  and  digital  literacy  agendas  and  the  need  to  scale  up  to  accommodate  larger  classes,  •   as  well  as  improving  learning  outcomes.    

Also  students  have  more  influence  in  how  they  learn  –  and  when  and  where  they  learn.  

And  the  technology  has  expanded  too,  with  growth  of  social  media.    

But  s9ll  persis9ng  issues  –  the  technology-­‐reluctant  (and  they  exist  among  students  too),  problems  of  reach  in  TEL  ini9a9ves.    

And  the  problema9c  role  of  the  VLE  –  whether  it’s  the  end  point  or  the  start  point.  Is  uploading  resources  to  it  and  using  it  to  manage  learning  a  sufficient  condi9on  for  saying  you  engage  in  TEL,  or  is  it  only  the  springboard  to  greater  adventures  in  the  online  environment?    

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17th  April,  2013  ocTEL  Webinar  –  Liz  Masterman  

So,  thank  you  –  and  here  are  the  five  ques9ons  in  summary.  But  don’t  feel  restricted  to  them.  

ocTEL  Webinar  –  Liz  Masterman   17th  April,  2013  

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