Supporting pre-UniversityICS Teaching

Nigel Linge, Kate Booth, Rik Whittaker, Louise HeatleyUniversity of Salford, Salford, UK

Development of freely availableteaching materials forBTEC and AS students

2. Background Rationale

ICT/Computing seen as ‘dry’ and/or ‘difficult to understand’

Want to motivate to study at HE

Need to enthuse/engage/connect

Need to contextualise

Need to maintain interest

3. Aim & Objectives

Design, implement and evaluate packages to support BTEC & AS ICT teaching Work with local schools and colleges to

establish level and likely need Identify suitable topics

& contexts Produce SCORM

compliantpackages for VLEs

Evaluate effectivenessof materials

Choose something that is familiar – mobile phones and the Internet

Choose a popular application- text messaging and socialnetworking

Keep referring back toapplication to maintain link tothe familiar world

Exploit the opportunities of themedia – animation, audio, video

4. Putting it into Practice 1

Storyboarding the package Identify logical and manageable chunks of information Ensure information in each chunk is connected back to the original context

5. Putting it into Practice 2

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Mobile Phone storyboard

Designing each Learning Object (LO) LOs self-contained so usable as independent entities

6. Putting it into Practice 3In

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Rev

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AudioVideo

Interaction

Animation

7. Putting it into Practice 4

Creating Learning Objects using Pedagogue

Collaborative eLearning content tool produced by

CDSM Interactive Solutions Ltd. Optimised for the

creation ofinteractiveeLearningmaterials

GeneratesSCORM compliantpackages for a VLEor stand-alone web pages

Focus groups of targeted students

Students very positive about style, structure, content, presentation and interest level of the material

Some would have liked an audio version of the text

Some would have liked links to sources of background reading

8. Initial Evaluation

Developing materials takes far longer than you think!

Multimedia material has to be sourced

Expertise is required to produce Flash Animations

Turning complex ideas into simple and accurate sound bites is a slow process+

-

9. Lessons Learned

Varying use of media and activities keeps interest and engages with different types of learner

Access to an application that does all the spadework of package creation allows you to focus purely on academic content

10. Outcomes & Further Work

Outcomes Confirmation that the approach works Improved engagement with local schools and

colleges Mobile Phone Learning Objects completed

and will be available from September 2008 Storyboard for the Internet completed

Further Work Creation & publication of Internet Learning

Objects over next 12 months Ongoing evaluation and revision of all LOs

11. Contact Information

Learning Objects will be downloadable from

www.salfordphonesproject.ac.uk

Further information can be obtained from

Prof Nigel Linge n.linge@salford.ac.ukDr Kate Booth k.m.booth@salford.ac.uk

12. Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge support from the following

HEA Development Fund

Salford City Learning Centre

SETPOINT Greater Manchester

Museum of Science & Industry, Manchester

CDSM Interactive Solutions Ltd