Artybartfast » jisc ‘08

What I learned at JISC ‘08 about… priorities

lindsayjordan — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 21:08:38 +0000

The idea that today’s students lack critical thinking skills isn’t a new one – but the growing abundance of poor quality and unreliable information on the web means that actively teaching these skills within our courses has become a priority (Ron Cooke, JISC Chair). I’ve recently been involved in the design of an online study skills module to support our distance learning students. It’s designed to help students to learn about all aspects of effective studying, from the basics through to higher order skills including critical analysis. I’m looking forward to finding out how the latest cohort of students used this resource, and how effective it’s been.

Today’s students are ‘digital natives’, but they’re using the available technology in an unsophisticated way, and they often lack the ability to articulate how they are learning (David Melville). The key to engaging today’s learners is tapping into what they really value in higher education that they don’t already get from tools such as facebook (Helen Beetham).

What I learned at JISC ‘08 about… tangible benefits of e-learning

lindsayjordan — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 21:06:59 +0000

The clearest return on investment in e-learning is found for projects that aim to solve a simple, well-defined problem, and for those geared towards automating systems rather than totally transforming the learning experience. This doesn’t mean complex, transformational projects aren’t worth the effort – but benefits may take longer to be realised, and evidence may be largely anecdotal at first. Although such projects involve a higher risk, they are essential in order to keep the sector moving forward (Gill Ferrell, JISC infoNet).

The clearest evidence of improved student retention due to improvements in supportive communication offered by e-learning applications is in areas with a high proportion of non-traditional learners (e.g. mature and part-time students) – probably because they have the highest drop-out rates to start with (Exploring Tangible Benefits of e-Learning; JISC infoNet publication). This is good news for us in our work with part-time distance learners – as it means we’re not only making a big difference to the student experience, but also very likely to recoup our investment into development of the programmes. Evidence of improvements in student achievement have also been identified in the Tangible Benefits project – “those who have provided figures for student achievement appear to be recording improvements of around 10% in pass rates as a result of the e-learning they have implemented”. According to students, a key factor in this appears to be the increased opportunities for formative assessment and regular feedback.

What I learned at JISC ‘08 about… the future

lindsayjordan — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 21:04:20 +0000

What, or who, is shaping the market for continued innovation? The increasing number of part-government funded knowledge transfer partnerships (KTPs) that are springing up between universities and industry may be a significant factor (Ron Cooke, JISC Chair). This was good to hear as we’re hoping to develop a KTP programme as an extension of the development work we’re currently doing with the distance learning masters programmes in Engineering at the University of Bath. A KTP programme could transform the relationship between the university, the students and their employers, and would be a driving force for continued development in technology-enabled learning, communication and stakeholder collaboration.

Future-gazing beyond the boundaries of HE, it seems likely that more websites will take on a tiered access structure as adopted by the Financial Times, where subscriptions are offered for access to deeper content (Lord Puttnam, OU Chancellor) The demand for more reliable information is causing user-generated content sites such as wikipedia to target their energies towards the peer-review process, and static, ‘approved’ versions of the online encyclopaedia will become available (Angela Beesley, Wikimedia Foundation)

And finally… visual aids such as media projectors are still not allowed in the House of Lords. I envy the lords and ladies for never having to endure a speaker reading word-for-word from a powerpoint slide. However, I do feel a little concerned that the people deciding on the Climate Change Bill have to do so by drawing graphs in the air with their hands. Luckily Lord Puttnam is trying to persuade them of the potential benefits of allowing a little technology into the room.