This post was inspired by Janine Utell’s ‘Making a Space for the Digital and the Scholarly: The Editor as a Teacher’, published in the digital journal Hybrid Pedagogy on 2 April, 2015.
The question of whether technology influences teaching is obsolete. That is to say, there is no question: technology has influenced teaching whether or not teachers consciously make an effort to include technology in their teaching practice. That is not what I mean to discuss under the banner of ‘Technology in Higher Education’. Higher education differs from other teaching forms in its requirement of participants to continue their own work as researchers, publishers and writers, all while maintaining their responsibilities as educators. The ‘Research v. Teaching’ debate has been carried out countless times in a multitude of forums, and I won’t resurrect it here. However, I do want to focus on some problems with active integration of technology into fields of higher ed: specifically publishing, and how teaching with technology needs to go beyond simply using technology.
Janine Utell frames her Hybrid Pedagogy piece within Bloomsbury, specifically in the London of Virginia Woolf’s writing. Her opening passage notes the resonance of literature within the very streets of this city, and its existence both as a place of physical and immediate experience as well as a memory of words and images received and interpreted via another person’s mind’s eye. I am familiar with both Londons, the two finally crossing paths in my delight at finally understanding the Underground-related puns in Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere when I re-read the book after starting my Ph.D. Utell’s focus on London’s existence as a literary setting is important, because it shows how easily we romanticise elements of literature: not just the contents, but the physical objects themselves. While this piece does not engage with literature directly, I don’t think we can ignore the influence literature has had in determining value on the physical, printed word. Utell’s descriptions of colleagues who feel that a digital journal will be somehow less ‘credible’ is understandable: for people who have spent much of their lives placing monetary value on physical objects, a PDF can be disappointing.
Utell suggests that a concern of editors of digital (albeit scholarly) publications is that they cannot fulfil the role of ‘mentor’ to young scholars; this ‘mentor’ role coming from the ability to offer these young scholars continued survival in their field via publication (as Utell puts it, ‘that all-important file in the conventionally acceptable format for a P & T committee’). In other words, the value of publication is still being evaluated (at least in part) by associating worth with a physical object. This physical value translates to scholarly interaction with open-source material, as well. There is still an underlying, Pandora-esque idea that something behind a paid firewall must be more valuable than something left out in the open, and Utell brings up what Dan Cohen has called ‘the social contract’ between authors and readers: that the value comes from the time required to produce a physical object, beautifully presented and free of error. The immediacy of technological publishing and ability to quickly edit already-published material must mean that less work is required for the initial draft, right? Well, no. Books still contain typos and varying degrees of error; the difference is that the books will continue to possess such errors until a second edition is published, while the digital format can be updated as needed.
This is obviously not meant to be taken as a diatribe against books. Instead, I’m hoping to shed some light on why technology remains a contentious subject in higher education. Teaching with technology only becomes successful if the pedagogy develops alongside the resources. In the case of editorial work, Utell suggests that one way to counteract the de-valuing of digital publication is to rethink the process of peer review. She acknowledges the pedagogy behind modern reconstructions of the peer review process (championed by the editorial staff at Hybrid Pedagogy) as being akin to a collaboration; a conversation between a writer and editor with its roots in the Socratic method, allowing both writer and editor to learn and develop from the process.
It is in this description of editorial pedagogy that I believe the most important aspect of ‘Technology in Higher Education’ is found. If we want to include technology in higher education, we must not only think of it as a tool for presenting information or a way to elicit interest from bored students; we must allow our classrooms to spill over into new platforms. If we want students to place value on digital content, their own work included, we must prove as teachers that we understand that content’s worth.
The Use of Social Networks as Tools for Online Academic Group Discussions
This post is firstly inspired by the general theme of this page, Technology in Higher Education. However, it is also inspired by the previous post on electronic publications versus the traditional hard copy publications and our perceptions and prejudices as far as these two types of publications are concerned. The article in question is entitled The ‘Facebook' Effect: College Student ' Perceptions of Online Discussions in the Age of Social Networking (2012)*. I am drawing attention to this particular article because it raises similar issues of perception and prejudice as to those of the post above by examining the social network Facebook as a tool for online group academic discussions.
The article refers to a case-study-based research conducted by a group of academics in the USA. They employed two groups of undergraduate students undertaking two different modules, one in Gender Studies and the other in Philosophy. Each group was again divided into two; one group was assigned to have their online group discussions on Facebook whereas the second group on the university platform (a platform similar to Moodle). All participants answered questions for a pre-course survey as well as a post-course survey. The collected data is thoroughly examined and discussed from many different perspectives. It covers various areas, such as the required preparation in order to apply a method of online academic discussions via social networks, the usefulness and effectiveness of such a method and comparisons between this method and the current standard methods used by the majority of universities.
It is not my intention to go further and deeper into the statistical analysis of the research data. However, the observation of the general outcomes of this research seems to be of great significance and interest. Throughout the pre-course survey, the participants appeared to be very hesitant towards the use of a social network as a platform for academic discussions. They expressed hesitation about privacy related issues as well as distraction issues rising form the Facebook familiar environment, but most and for all they feared that a Facebook discussion would not reflect the expected academic and intellectual level of a university. However, the post-course survey revealed very different results. Participants allocated in the Facebook discussion groups showed more interest in the participation of such academic discussions, they found the Facebook environment very easy to access and use, and the academic and intellectual level did not lack in intellectuality from any previous discussion experiences they have had on the official university discussion platforms.
This is not to suggest that Facebook should replace any other academic platform, but at the same time teachers in higher education might need to reconsider methods of online group discussions. The 'demonisation' of anything new, especially when it comes to methods of e-learning and e-teaching must be taken into serious consideration, research and analysis and as academics of this e-epoch we need to adopt and adapt. The Pandora-esque idea (I borrow the term from the post above) that social networks or other tools outside the academia are degrading the level of intellectuality for an academic discussion must definitely be revisited. At the end of the day, we should not forget that the knife can be a murder weapon in the hands of a killer, but at the same time it can be a surgical tool in the hands of a doctor.
*Reference:
Hurt, Nicole E.; Moss, Gregory S.; Bradley, Christen L.; Larson, Lincoln R.; Lovelace, Matthew; Prevost, Luanna B.; Riley, Nancy; Domizi, Denise; and Camus, Melinda S. (2012) "The ‘Facebook' Effect: College Students' Perceptions of Online Discussions in the Age of Social Networking," International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning: Vol. 6: No. 2, Article 10. Available at: http://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/ij-sotl/vol6/iss2/10
--------------------------------------
This post derives from the reading of the article ‘Students as partners in blended learning’
This article discusses a case study held in the University of Wolverhampton on the use of technology-enhanced teaching in Higher Education: in this project, the students used peer-led Facebook groups as a way of giving support and feedback on the learning experience. As their conclusions show, ‘they additionally formed a communication channel between staff and students which, whilst not a technical role, improved communication flows and enabled teaching to be adjusted and problems to be addressed’ (p. 15). At the same time, both teachers and students found it a very useful tool that helped the first to see how their students reacted to teaching in ways impossible in a traditional teaching environment, giving them the possibility to adjust themselves to these reactions, whereas the latter were aware of the improvement in their course thanks to their involvement in this activity (p. 13).
Students of the present generation are undeniably ‘digital natives’ and, as such, their involvement and reaction to technology-enhanced teaching is generally very positive because of the familiarity with this environment. However, at the same time, most of the teachers involved in Higher Education are technically illiterate, which makes difficult a fully ‘integration of the use of technology in Higher Education’ (p. 2). This ‘technological disability’, also present in Higher Education as an institution, is quite a big handicap in the way to a proper student-centred approach to teaching.
Given that students entering Higher Education now have a clear appeal and familiarity with technology, teachers have to implement their approaches to teaching with tools that could help students get the ownership of their learning as well as reinforcing their understanding of their topics of study in ways that are easier for them to access, approach and understand. However, not all the tools available work with all the subjects and, thus, teachers that have tried to use the wrong technological approach might be discouraged by an unsuccessful experience and abandon this student-centred approach all along, denying their students a very good way of improving their learning.
Technology is not the only tool in Higher Education, but it is one that works very well with students, being it the mere use of videos to demonstrate difficult concepts or a more sophisticated forum as the main assignment of a particular course. Whichever option works better in a said area, technology must never be left aside because of the ‘illiteracy’ of the teachers.
*Bibliography:
Paul Brett and Glynis Cousin, ‘Students as partners in blended learning’, Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education 3 (March 2011).
......................................
This post comes from reading chapter 4 of 'Teaching in a digital Age' by A.W. (Tony) Bates
This post discusses the ADDIE model as described in 'Teaching in a digital Age', it is important to look into this model as it is used often in the development of MOOC's. It is a very efficient model for developing online and digital course but does have it's limitations. The proliferation of online learning and how this is managed using LMS's (learning management systems) is an important area of consideration for technologies use in higher education. LMS's are being used to support classroom learning and in some cases (MOOC's) delivering whole courses. Digital content delivery to support classroom learning and as a substitute is different to classroom learning. Students can consume the content in any way the want, they are not bound to the timeframe and structure designed by the teacher and the single location of the classroom. There is less interaction and checks and balances with online learning so the development of these courses needs consideration. The ADDIE system is one way of organising digital or online courses and is particularly popular for MOOC design. 'Many open universities, such as the U.K. Open University and the OU of the Netherlands, Athabasca University and Thompson Rivers Open University in Canada, have and still do make heavy use of ADDIE to manage the design of complex multi-media distance education courses' (p.4.3)
The ADDIE system stands for Analysis, Design, Develop, Implement and Evaluate. The course needs to be throughly analysed to consider all the variables, then the design process looks at the learning objectives and material needed to teach them. The development stage is the implementation of the preparation process, where materials are created, LMS's are chosen and/or designed and the course comes together. Finally the implementation process is the actual delivery of the course and finally the evaluation process takes a look at how things went with a view to improving the course. This structure is very simplistic and easy to use, hence it's popularity. It is also great for managing large amounts of content so particularly popular methodology for making MOOC"s. It also allow parity between different courses so popular with organisations that design multiple courses. Further advantages are that the courses are well structured and clearly organised with clear learning outcomes and goals. The method allows parity between different courses and an obvious overview of material. There are however some limitations with the method. The method works best with large courses and can become overly complicated when the course is aimed at a small number of students. Further the method as been described as 'front end loaded' with the emphasis on the design and less on the implementation, which has been 'criticised by constructivists for not paying enough attention to learner-instructor interaction, and for privileging more behaviourist approaches to teaching.' (p. 4.3) The model can also suffer from over complicated designs leading to expensive project management and development costs. The main criticism from A.W. (Tony) Bates is that in the digital age the model is too rigid, he says 'How does a teacher respond to rapidly developing new content, new technologies or apps being launched on a daily basis, to a constantly changing student base?' (p. 4.3) It seems the ADDIE system is a great basis for designing complicated large digital courses but it's major drawback is it's limited agility in the digital landscape.
Bibliography A.W. (Tony) Bates, 'Teaching in a Digital Age', (http://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage/), 2015, Licensed under a creative commons non-commercial 4.0 International use.
The question of whether technology influences teaching is obsolete. That is to say, there is no question: technology has influenced teaching whether or not teachers consciously make an effort to include technology in their teaching practice. That is not what I mean to discuss under the banner of ‘Technology in Higher Education’. Higher education differs from other teaching forms in its requirement of participants to continue their own work as researchers, publishers and writers, all while maintaining their responsibilities as educators. The ‘Research v. Teaching’ debate has been carried out countless times in a multitude of forums, and I won’t resurrect it here. However, I do want to focus on some problems with active integration of technology into fields of higher ed: specifically publishing, and how teaching with technology needs to go beyond simply using technology.
Janine Utell frames her Hybrid Pedagogy piece within Bloomsbury, specifically in the London of Virginia Woolf’s writing. Her opening passage notes the resonance of literature within the very streets of this city, and its existence both as a place of physical and immediate experience as well as a memory of words and images received and interpreted via another person’s mind’s eye. I am familiar with both Londons, the two finally crossing paths in my delight at finally understanding the Underground-related puns in Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere when I re-read the book after starting my Ph.D. Utell’s focus on London’s existence as a literary setting is important, because it shows how easily we romanticise elements of literature: not just the contents, but the physical objects themselves. While this piece does not engage with literature directly, I don’t think we can ignore the influence literature has had in determining value on the physical, printed word. Utell’s descriptions of colleagues who feel that a digital journal will be somehow less ‘credible’ is understandable: for people who have spent much of their lives placing monetary value on physical objects, a PDF can be disappointing.
Utell suggests that a concern of editors of digital (albeit scholarly) publications is that they cannot fulfil the role of ‘mentor’ to young scholars; this ‘mentor’ role coming from the ability to offer these young scholars continued survival in their field via publication (as Utell puts it, ‘that all-important file in the conventionally acceptable format for a P & T committee’). In other words, the value of publication is still being evaluated (at least in part) by associating worth with a physical object. This physical value translates to scholarly interaction with open-source material, as well. There is still an underlying, Pandora-esque idea that something behind a paid firewall must be more valuable than something left out in the open, and Utell brings up what Dan Cohen has called ‘the social contract’ between authors and readers: that the value comes from the time required to produce a physical object, beautifully presented and free of error. The immediacy of technological publishing and ability to quickly edit already-published material must mean that less work is required for the initial draft, right? Well, no. Books still contain typos and varying degrees of error; the difference is that the books will continue to possess such errors until a second edition is published, while the digital format can be updated as needed.
This is obviously not meant to be taken as a diatribe against books. Instead, I’m hoping to shed some light on why technology remains a contentious subject in higher education. Teaching with technology only becomes successful if the pedagogy develops alongside the resources. In the case of editorial work, Utell suggests that one way to counteract the de-valuing of digital publication is to rethink the process of peer review. She acknowledges the pedagogy behind modern reconstructions of the peer review process (championed by the editorial staff at Hybrid Pedagogy) as being akin to a collaboration; a conversation between a writer and editor with its roots in the Socratic method, allowing both writer and editor to learn and develop from the process.
It is in this description of editorial pedagogy that I believe the most important aspect of ‘Technology in Higher Education’ is found. If we want to include technology in higher education, we must not only think of it as a tool for presenting information or a way to elicit interest from bored students; we must allow our classrooms to spill over into new platforms. If we want students to place value on digital content, their own work included, we must prove as teachers that we understand that content’s worth.
Bibliography
Cohen, Dan. 'The Social Contract of Scholarly Publishing'. DanCohen.org (blog). 5 March, 2010, http://www.dancohen.org/2010/03/05/the-social-contract-of-scholarly-publishing/.
Utell, Janine. ‘Making a Space for the Digital and the Scholarly: The Editor as a Teacher’. Hybrid Pedagogy. 2 April, 2015, http://www.hybridpedagogy.com/journal/making-a-space-for-the-digital-and-the-scholarly-the-editor-as-teacher/.
_
The Use of Social Networks as Tools for Online Academic Group Discussions
This post is firstly inspired by the general theme of this page, Technology in Higher Education. However, it is also inspired by the previous post on electronic publications versus the traditional hard copy publications and our perceptions and prejudices as far as these two types of publications are concerned. The article in question is entitled The ‘Facebook' Effect: College Student ' Perceptions of Online Discussions in the Age of Social Networking (2012)*. I am drawing attention to this particular article because it raises similar issues of perception and prejudice as to those of the post above by examining the social network Facebook as a tool for online group academic discussions.
The article refers to a case-study-based research conducted by a group of academics in the USA. They employed two groups of undergraduate students undertaking two different modules, one in Gender Studies and the other in Philosophy. Each group was again divided into two; one group was assigned to have their online group discussions on Facebook whereas the second group on the university platform (a platform similar to Moodle). All participants answered questions for a pre-course survey as well as a post-course survey. The collected data is thoroughly examined and discussed from many different perspectives. It covers various areas, such as the required preparation in order to apply a method of online academic discussions via social networks, the usefulness and effectiveness of such a method and comparisons between this method and the current standard methods used by the majority of universities.
It is not my intention to go further and deeper into the statistical analysis of the research data. However, the observation of the general outcomes of this research seems to be of great significance and interest. Throughout the pre-course survey, the participants appeared to be very hesitant towards the use of a social network as a platform for academic discussions. They expressed hesitation about privacy related issues as well as distraction issues rising form the Facebook familiar environment, but most and for all they feared that a Facebook discussion would not reflect the expected academic and intellectual level of a university. However, the post-course survey revealed very different results. Participants allocated in the Facebook discussion groups showed more interest in the participation of such academic discussions, they found the Facebook environment very easy to access and use, and the academic and intellectual level did not lack in intellectuality from any previous discussion experiences they have had on the official university discussion platforms.
This is not to suggest that Facebook should replace any other academic platform, but at the same time teachers in higher education might need to reconsider methods of online group discussions. The 'demonisation' of anything new, especially when it comes to methods of e-learning and e-teaching must be taken into serious consideration, research and analysis and as academics of this e-epoch we need to adopt and adapt. The Pandora-esque idea (I borrow the term from the post above) that social networks or other tools outside the academia are degrading the level of intellectuality for an academic discussion must definitely be revisited. At the end of the day, we should not forget that the knife can be a murder weapon in the hands of a killer, but at the same time it can be a surgical tool in the hands of a doctor.
*Reference:
Hurt, Nicole E.; Moss, Gregory S.; Bradley, Christen L.; Larson, Lincoln R.; Lovelace, Matthew; Prevost, Luanna B.; Riley, Nancy; Domizi, Denise; and Camus, Melinda S. (2012) "The ‘Facebook' Effect: College Students' Perceptions of Online Discussions in the Age of Social Networking," International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning: Vol. 6: No. 2, Article 10. Available at: http://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/ij-sotl/vol6/iss2/10
--------------------------------------
This post derives from the reading of the article ‘Students as partners in blended learning’
This article discusses a case study held in the University of Wolverhampton on the use of technology-enhanced teaching in Higher Education: in this project, the students used peer-led Facebook groups as a way of giving support and feedback on the learning experience. As their conclusions show, ‘they additionally formed a communication channel between staff and students which, whilst not a technical role, improved communication flows and enabled teaching to be adjusted and problems to be addressed’ (p. 15). At the same time, both teachers and students found it a very useful tool that helped the first to see how their students reacted to teaching in ways impossible in a traditional teaching environment, giving them the possibility to adjust themselves to these reactions, whereas the latter were aware of the improvement in their course thanks to their involvement in this activity (p. 13).
Students of the present generation are undeniably ‘digital natives’ and, as such, their involvement and reaction to technology-enhanced teaching is generally very positive because of the familiarity with this environment. However, at the same time, most of the teachers involved in Higher Education are technically illiterate, which makes difficult a fully ‘integration of the use of technology in Higher Education’ (p. 2). This ‘technological disability’, also present in Higher Education as an institution, is quite a big handicap in the way to a proper student-centred approach to teaching.
Given that students entering Higher Education now have a clear appeal and familiarity with technology, teachers have to implement their approaches to teaching with tools that could help students get the ownership of their learning as well as reinforcing their understanding of their topics of study in ways that are easier for them to access, approach and understand. However, not all the tools available work with all the subjects and, thus, teachers that have tried to use the wrong technological approach might be discouraged by an unsuccessful experience and abandon this student-centred approach all along, denying their students a very good way of improving their learning.
Technology is not the only tool in Higher Education, but it is one that works very well with students, being it the mere use of videos to demonstrate difficult concepts or a more sophisticated forum as the main assignment of a particular course. Whichever option works better in a said area, technology must never be left aside because of the ‘illiteracy’ of the teachers.
*Bibliography:
Paul Brett and Glynis Cousin, ‘Students as partners in blended learning’, Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education 3 (March 2011).
......................................
This post comes from reading chapter 4 of 'Teaching in a digital Age' by A.W. (Tony) Bates
This post discusses the ADDIE model as described in 'Teaching in a digital Age', it is important to look into this model as it is used often in the development of MOOC's. It is a very efficient model for developing online and digital course but does have it's limitations. The proliferation of online learning and how this is managed using LMS's (learning management systems) is an important area of consideration for technologies use in higher education. LMS's are being used to support classroom learning and in some cases (MOOC's) delivering whole courses. Digital content delivery to support classroom learning and as a substitute is different to classroom learning. Students can consume the content in any way the want, they are not bound to the timeframe and structure designed by the teacher and the single location of the classroom. There is less interaction and checks and balances with online learning so the development of these courses needs consideration. The ADDIE system is one way of organising digital or online courses and is particularly popular for MOOC design. 'Many open universities, such as the U.K. Open University and the OU of the Netherlands, Athabasca University and Thompson Rivers Open University in Canada, have and still do make heavy use of ADDIE to manage the design of complex multi-media distance education courses' (p.4.3)
The ADDIE system stands for Analysis, Design, Develop, Implement and Evaluate. The course needs to be throughly analysed to consider all the variables, then the design process looks at the learning objectives and material needed to teach them. The development stage is the implementation of the preparation process, where materials are created, LMS's are chosen and/or designed and the course comes together. Finally the implementation process is the actual delivery of the course and finally the evaluation process takes a look at how things went with a view to improving the course. This structure is very simplistic and easy to use, hence it's popularity. It is also great for managing large amounts of content so particularly popular methodology for making MOOC"s. It also allow parity between different courses so popular with organisations that design multiple courses. Further advantages are that the courses are well structured and clearly organised with clear learning outcomes and goals. The method allows parity between different courses and an obvious overview of material. There are however some limitations with the method. The method works best with large courses and can become overly complicated when the course is aimed at a small number of students. Further the method as been described as 'front end loaded' with the emphasis on the design and less on the implementation, which has been 'criticised by constructivists for not paying enough attention to learner-instructor interaction, and for privileging more behaviourist approaches to teaching.' (p. 4.3) The model can also suffer from over complicated designs leading to expensive project management and development costs. The main criticism from A.W. (Tony) Bates is that in the digital age the model is too rigid, he says 'How does a teacher respond to rapidly developing new content, new technologies or apps being launched on a daily basis, to a constantly changing student base?' (p. 4.3)
It seems the ADDIE system is a great basis for designing complicated large digital courses but it's major drawback is it's limited agility in the digital landscape.
Bibliography
A.W. (Tony) Bates, 'Teaching in a Digital Age', (http://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage/), 2015, Licensed under a creative commons non-commercial 4.0 International use.
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