Journal of Learning and Teaching No. 1 by Andrew Clegg

JOLT Journal of Learning & Teaching

University of Chichester E-Learning Benchmarking Report - Executive Summary

E-Learning

Web 2.0 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; What is it and Why You Should Care

Blogs and Work-Based Learning (WBL): The Design, Implementation and Review of Online Learning Logs

JOL

The Long and Winding Highway: 10 years of C&IT and E-learning Revisited To E-nfinity and Beyond: Taking the Plunge into Podcasting and Pedagogy How to Guides: Creating a Podcast How to Guides: Embedding a YouTube Video into a PowerPoint Presentation

Journal of Learning and Teaching

June 2008

Journal of Learning and Teaching Issue 1: E-Learning Contents p. 2

University of Chichester E-Learning Benchmarking Report - Executive Summary John Scriven

p. 5

Web 2.0 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; What is it and Why You Should Care Lindsay Da Silva

p.12

Blogs and Work-Based Learning (WBL): The Design, Implementation and Review of Online Learning Logs Tim Friesner

p.22

The Long and Winding Highway: 10 years of C&IT and E-learning Revisited Dr Jessica de Mellow

p. 26

To E-nfinity and Beyond: Taking the Plunge into Podcasting and Pedagogy Ian Worden

p. 32

How to Guides: Creating a Podcast Matthew (Roz) Hall

p. 34

How to Guides: Embedding a YouTube Video into a PowerPoint Presentation Dr Andy Clegg

Journal of Learning Teaching University ofand Chichester

E-Learning Benchmarking Report

Executive Summary John Scriven Online Learning Co-ordinator From May 2007 to January 2008, the University of Chichester participated in Phase 2 of the HEA/JISC led e-Learning Benchmarking process. The aim of this exercise has been to examine our progress in embedding e-learning throughout the University and the ways in which it has altered the student learning experience. Along with 37 institutions in England and Wales in Phase 1 and 24 in Phase 2, Chichester’s results will form part of a national picture that will inform HEFCE policy. The Benchmarking Exercise was timely in that Chichester was due to undertake a review of existing e-learning policy and practice during 2007. The aim was to reflect on what had been achieved so far and to modify existing strategies. Benchmarking was welcomed wholeheartedly as an exercise allowing us to formalize the review process within an environment that would see us working with, and learning from, other institutions in the sector. It would also give us access to a team of experienced advisors and ultimately to create strategies based on thorough research. The Benchmarking exercise was completed during the autumn semester 2007, involving as many staff and students as possible in order to generate reliable data. E-learning Benchmarking (BM) has been coordinated by the Centre for Learning and Teaching and the results are being disseminated via an external report to HEA/JISC and an internal report (this document). The reports were also presented to the Learning & Teaching committee and formed part of the annual Learning & Teaching Conference. Anticipated outcomes from the exercise: · A clearer picture of what the University delivers in terms of e-Learning · The perception of both academic and support staff in the effectiveness of e-learning · The perception of students in how e-learning is supporting their study · An understanding of what is needed to improve the effectiveness of e-learning · A strategy to implement the findings and to embed the Benchmarking process · An e-Learning Semester to raise awareness of the findings

Journal of Learning and Teaching Summary of Findings

General observations ·

Students are positive about e-learning and find it essential to their study

Staff find e-learning a useful way of enhancing the student experience

E-learning is being developed in interesting and exciting ways across the University

Both staff & students comment on the limitations of the present systems

Staff comment on the lack of time & resources to engage fully with e-learning

Areas of good practice: ·

Strategic documentation is regularly updated and reviewed

The VLE extends to all students down to modular level

The project fund for staff helps develop innovative e-learning

E-learning is led by pedagogy, not by technology

Key areas that need to be addressed in the light of the findings: ·

Portia has many of the essential components of a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) but is lacking in several areas, e.g. online assessment, document management and detailed student tracking. The University needs to introduce a true VLE such as Moodle in order to answer the criticisms of the present system.

The present system is perceived as less than 100% reliable. Better resourcing in terms of backup systems and more trained staff would improve both real and perceived performance.

There is little understanding of the costs of using technology in learning (this is problematic across the sector as a whole), an example being determining staff workload in using technology to enhance learning. A better costing model needs to be developed.

At present much of the development work is being undertaken by enthusiasts, without reward or recognition. Together with a lack of a costing model, this may result in progress that will be less structured, ad hoc and depend on the goodwill of a few early developers.

Although e-learning is generally well-accepted, there are areas where this is not the case. The staff development team needs more specialists in educational technology who can work across the University. The profile of e-learning needs to be raised by targeted activities to demonstrate its usefulness. With this in view, the semester from January to May has been designated an e-Learning Semester with a series of events and workshops.

Journal of Learning and Teaching 路

Usability (the ease of using e-learning) tends to be assumed rather than tested according to agreed standards. An example is that of staff & students who comment on difficulty in navigating around Portia - both groups need to be involved in evaluating systems. This procedure is already underway.

路

Accessibility (access for disabled students & staff) to e-learning resources is only at a minimum level. Although the University reacts swiftly to student needs, it needs a clear policy that responds to this legal requirement. It is recommended that a working group be set up to address this issue. Initial meetings with the Disability & Academic Skills Service, Information Services and the Online Learning Coordinator have already taken place.

Chichester needs to build on the general enthusiasm for e-learning and utilise the information from benchmarking in a strategic manner so we can move towards achieving our vision of the effective application of learning technology for all our learners, whatever their mode of study. The University has made great strides in e-learning during the last few years and now compares well with other institutions in terms of planning and strategic documentation. However, it is not able to implement these strategies particularly well, for a variety of reasons. These include lack of human resources to support esystems and financial resources to improve the quality and robustness of these systems. In addition, it is clear that there has been a lack of commitment in the past and an ability to avoid engaging more fully in e-learning. As has been noted by several key staff, the University needs to invest in improving e-learning resources if it is to meet the expectations of staff and students, both present and future. The Benchmarking Exercise has proved extremely useful in identifying areas of good practice as well as areas of concern. It is important to embed this process into an ongoing cycle of Quality Assurance in order to provide a continuing quality audit of elearning. The exercise has also demonstrated that Chichester has many areas of e-learning where it exceeds the maturity level of other universities. Having made a good start, it is important that we build on our successes and improve in the areas where we are less good.

Web 2.0 – What is it and Why You Should Care Journal of Learning and Teaching Lindsay Da Silva Technical Services Librarian Abstract

This article is about the ideas behind Web 2.0, and looks at some examples of Web 2.0 services, such as RSS, blogs, and social-bookmarking, and how these can be used to enhance learning and teaching.

Introduction to the Idea

You may already have seen the term ‘Web 2.0’, or similar, in a number of areas, and indeed many people just add ‘2.0’ to other terms (e.g. ‘Library 2.0’, for Web 2.0 ideas in libraries) to describe these new ideas. So, what does it all mean? Web 2.0 is a difficult term to define, since it represents a trend, or way of thinking that is made up of certain common ideas about the development of the web. The main idea shared by most Web 2.0 technologies is concerned with putting the user at the centre of the service, so that they get the services they want and that are relevant for them, rather than being on the ‘outside’ using the service. There are a number of attributes shared by most of these services, such as being hosted services, so the user doesn’t have to install them (very useful in ‘locked-down’ PC environments, such as at most institutions). Lots of the services are free, some just requiring registering with an email or username/password, so you can try them and use or discard them depending on how useful they are to you, and most are also very easy to use to encourage the end-users. I guess one of the most important idea is that of sharing and collaboration, hence the impact of social networks, blogs, and wikis.

‘Web 1.0’: The ‘Old’ Way

User 1: searching for particular websites

Internet User 2: searching for particular websites

Journal of Learning and Teaching Web 2.0: User-Centred and Sharing

User 1: receives updated information from chosen websites Sharing between users via Web 2.0 services

Internet

User 2: receives updated information from chosen websites

You may now be thinking that this is all very well and good (though it may sound rather waffly, which may reinforce the idea that all this is just a fad!), but some of the Web 2.0 services can really change the way you work, and add a new sense of motivation and excitement as you discover new ways of doing things. You don’t need to worry or understand what the term really means, you just need to try the various services and experiment with them to check if they are relevant to you and do what you require, and if not, you can either discard them, or better still, re-purpose them to suit your own requirements. This, I think, is one of the hardest parts of Web 2.0 stuff – trying to be imaginative and thinking about ways you could use a new service to more accurately reflect your own individual requirements. The exciting part of all this, though, is that a service can be transformed into a really useful and popular tool just by imaginatively tweaking it to suit a particular environment. So, you now have a vague sense of the ideas behind Web 2.0, but as I said earlier, it’s all about the services and technologies that allow you to engage in all this creativity, collaboration, and sharing of ideas, so what are the services, where can you find out about them, and how do you use them? Well, there are lots and lots of services which could be described as Web 2.0-type services, and this in itself can be a problem. There are just so many services that people don’t know which service to try, which is the ‘best’ one, and sometimes they just give up trying any of them! You need some sort of strategy to cope with the mass of stuff out there, and the best way I think is to concentrate on particular categories of service. The world of Web 2.0 technologies can be divided into particular areas, such as RSS, blogs, wikis, podcasts, social bookmarking, social networks, virtual worlds, etc, etc, and within each of these broad categories, there are many examples of software services that perform similar functions in each area. So, how do you know which is the ‘best’ blogging software, for example. Well, ‘best’ depends on your own particular requirements, so it’s very hard to compile a list of the ‘best’ blogging software, and this applies to all the other categories as well. The best way is just to try various services until you find one you like, and of

Journal of Learning and Teaching course you can rely on the recommendations of others to create that short list of services to try in each category. The logical next question is where to start your Web 2.0 journey? Again it all depends on your particular requirements and interests, but I would suggest you start with RSS, since this technology will keep you informed about all the other services that are constantly developing in this rapidly changing area.

Really Simple Syndication (RSS)

RSS stands for ‘Really Simple Syndication’ or ‘Rich Site Summary’, and is one of the most important and useful Web 2.0 tools. If you do nothing else, use RSS – it will save you lots of time and help keep you up to date in whatever field you’re interested in. So, what does it do? When you find an interesting web site, what do you do? You make a note of the address so you can come back to it by saving it in your web browser’s favourites, or some other method. When you want to see if there’s anything new on that website, you type in the address or click on your favourites list to get back to the site, and look through the whole website to see if there’s anything new. RSS saves you all this time by alerting you, via an RSS reader, when anything new is added and tells you what it is. So, instead of you going out to search for that new stuff, it comes to you, all within the one space of your RSS reader (you see what I mean about Web 2.0 services being user-centric?). As you can imagine, this can save a huge amount of time, since you don’t have to keep checking all those useful websites for information, and also makes sure you keep up to date with all the new stuff that is being added to any of the websites from which you have created a feed. Most readers allow you to mark any new feeds as ‘read’, and thus you can keep organised and just read the new feeds, or any particular headline that grabs your attention. Sounds good, but how do you set it all up? You first need to decide which RSS reader you want to use – as usual it all depends on personal preference, but I would recommend either Bloglines1 or Google Reader2. Once you’ve registered, you just have to log in to the service and then you can start to add feeds to your chosen reader. This is simply a matter of clicking the RSS icon and adding the resulting link to your reader – the reader will have instructions on how to do this. You can create feeds from any website that displays an RSS icon as above (note that they don’t always look exactly like this, but they will be similar). You can find this especially on news sites and blogs, since they are updated regularly, but increasingly you find RSS feeds on lots of other sites too. You’ll soon have to stop yourself creating too many feeds, but it’s very easy to add and delete feeds from your reader. Then, whenever you have a spare moment, just log in to your reader and see if there’s anything new to read. It’s also much quicker to scan the list of headlines on your feed reader until you find something of interest, before you mark them all read.

Journal of Learning and Teaching From a library point of view, RSS is also a very good way of keeping up to date with new research and news in your chosen field since lots of journals have RSS feeds with tables of contents. So you could create a folder on your reader with all the feeds from your favourite journals, and thus be able to quickly scan the list of articles from the latest issue to find any topics of interest. RSS has lots of other potential uses as well, remember, it’s up to you to think of the best use of this technology. I personally find it an invaluable tool, for example for keeping up to date with new Web 2.0 developments via various blogs I subscribe to, as well as keeping track of new documentation and forum postings from our library management system supplier.

Blogs

Now that you’re keeping up to date with all that’s happening in the world and in whatever subjects you’re interested in, you keep finding out about lots of new and interesting stuff which you, now being a Web 2.0 convert (!), feel you must share. Hence we come to the wonderful world of blogs. Again, you may have a view that blogs are either for geeks who only like to write about techy stuff, or people who feel they must share the day to day happenings of their lives with the rest of the world! However, blogs can be a great tool for anyone involved in education, since they are a very useful way of communicating with others – you write the post when you’re ready, and your readers can read it whenever they are ready to digest the information (again, user-centric). Also, that information can be delivered to your readers in easy-to-digest bits of information, which you can build upon, post by post, gradually educating your readers about a particular subject. In the library, we’ve found that writing a blog has benefits not only for the readers, but also for the authors. Not only does it improve your written communication skills, but it also helps in clarifying your ideas or explanations, as you find yourself thinking about the best way to describe something within the confines of a succinct and interesting blog post. Writing blog posts regularly also motivates you to learn new things in your field (“what am I going to blog about for this week?”), and it gets you thinking about ideas and issues. Blogs can also help you collaborate with your fellow colleagues since you can pass on ideas which may not suit your particular blog but may be useful to them. This way, discussion is stimulated and the result should be the production of interesting and insightful blog posts. I must not forget to add that I actually find writing blog posts quite fun, since it’s a creative activity (a screenshot of my e-Library blog is below – accessible from the Library Services home page on Portia). Blogs are a very good medium for getting information quickly to your readers, but be warned that it can take some time to establish a readership of any size. It helps if you post to your blog on a regular basis I try to write a post at least once a week, and you can also store up ideas by writing drafts and releasing them when required. As with most things, your readers have to develop the habit of reading your blog, though of course with RSS they don’t need to come to your site just to check whether you’ve written anything new all the time,

Journal of Learning and Teaching they could just subscribe to your blog with RSS.

Screenshot of my e-Library blog

As to the question of which blogging software to try, we in the library have opted for the free hosted version of Wordpress3 - this allows some customisation of how your blog looks, and most importantly provides usage statistics. I would also recommend Blogger4, which allows much more customisation and interactive elements to be added to your blog. Usage statistics are quite important, since sometimes it can feel like you’re just ‘talking’ to yourself, so it helps motivation if you find out someone is actually reading your precious posts! Statistics also help to gage your audience’s reaction to particular posts, and you can begin to get a feel for which subjects they like and which they find less interesting. If you’re very lucky, someone may even be brave enough to comment on a blog post, after all part of the attraction is meant to be the interaction with your readers, but I have never had a comment from any student yet (maybe it’s just me!).

Social Bookmarking

Organising your list of favourite websites (especially now you’re using RSS and find so many more!) can be a pain, for most of us they just end up as a huge long list of websites we’ve come across, or the more organised may have them in subject folders. Then you’ve got the problem that some are stored on your computer at work, some may be on another computer at home, but what if you find something interesting for work when you’re surfing at home, etc.? Services such as Del.icio.us5 aim to solve these problems by allowing you to store your favourites on the hosted service, so they are always available on any computer with Internet access. All you have to do is create a free account and then you can start enriching your favourites by tagging them with keywords so you’ll be able to find them again. This produces a tag cloud (or a tag list, but I prefer tag clouds since they provide more than one piece of information in a visually-interesting way), which is just an alphabetical listing of all

Journal of Learning and Teaching your tags, grouped in a block (or ‘cloud’) with the more common keywords in a proportionally larger font. This being a Web 2.0 service, you can also share your favourites with others and send suggestions to other members of Del.icio.us. You can find out about more interesting websites by searching on Del.icio.us, and since these websites have been shared by people who think enough of the site to add it to Del.icio.us, you’re bound to find something of interest which you may not have discovered otherwise. Looking at the favourites of someone who shares your interests or research may also lead to more useful discoveries. In the library, we have an account at Del.icio.us, so students and staff can see our tag cloud and find useful resources related to our courses and more general topics. Web 2.0 services are meant to encourage engagement and interaction in a two-way process between students and educators, so it would be great if students (and staff!) sent us their favourites to add to our account – it could provide a useful area for finding quality web resources for the whole University, all accessible from our growing tag cloud on Del.icio.us, as below. You can easily tag all favourites relevant to a particular subject, so that you can then see just the links for that subject.

The library’s Tag Cloud on Del.icio.us

Journal of Learning and Teaching What Next?

So, you’ve set up RSS feeds in your chosen RSS reader, you may have even started a blog to effectively communicate with students and colleagues, and you’ve organised your list of favourite websites on Del.icio.us, so what’s next? Your path on the Web 2.0 road now depends on your own interests, but there are many interesting routes to follow and lots of discoveries to be made. For example, in the Library we have started to use the Pageflakes6 service to create subject-specific pagecasts, which are just easily created websites made up of modules of different content. There are really so many different services constantly being created and waiting to be tried, and you can find out about them via RSS feeds to various blogs and websites. You could read a book about Web 2.0 (for example, try Phil Bradley’s book7 (2007), available at Bishop Otter Campus library, and read my blog, or any of the other blogs on the Library Services home page on Portia, to keep up to date with new developments.

Conclusion

Web 2.0 may be a hard term to define, but it encompasses a growing and developing list of services and technologies that can make a huge difference to all of us, no matter what aspect of learning and teaching we are involved in. Why should you care about Web 2.0? The more we try out and experiment with these services, the more we can understand how to re-purpose them to suit our own particular requirements, and thus improve not only the way we do things, but also help educate others to learn and prosper in the rapidly changing environment that Web 2.0 technologies effect. It’s also very exciting and fun, so join the Web 2.0 revolution, it could be the future!

Useful Resources

1. Bloglines: http://www.bloglines.com/ 2. Google Reader: http://www.google.com/reader 3. Wordpress: http://wordpress.com 4. Blogger: http://www.blogger.com 5. Del.icio.us: http://del.icio.us/ 6. Pageflakes: http://www.pageflakes.com/ 7. BRADLEY, P. (2007), How to Use Web 2.0 in Your Library, Facet, London.

Blogs Work-Based Journal ofand Learning and Teaching Learning (WBL): The Design, Implementation and Review of Online Learning Logs Tim Friesner, Senior Lecturer in Marketing School of Social Studies Abstract

The paper considers the pros and cons of online learning logs. It recalls the outcomes of a live project run with more than 50 students from a UK-based University. It includes the perceptions of staff and students after the implementation of a tailormade online log assessment. Other findings are offered, and recommendations are made to those that may wish to extend and develop ways to assess online learning using Information Technology.

Introduction

Learning logs are an increasingly popular mode of assessment in Higher Education. This paper reports upon a live project that was created to deliver an online development of traditional paper-based learning logs, diaries and portfolios. It considers the design, implementation and review of online learning logs. A summary of knowledge relating to learning logs sets the scene for a more detailed outline of the online project itself. An examination is made of the potential problems with paper-based learning logs and an argument for an online approach is reasoned. Then a description of what an online learning log would look like is offered, before a more detailed examination of the students’ perception of the strengths and weaknesses of online learning logs is made, post-Work-Based Learning. Finally, the views of the tutors that support the online learning logs are recorded, before conclusions are drawn, and recommendations are made for those that may wish to extend online learning logs as a mode of assessment for experiential learning. The online learning log is a departure from more established learning and teaching tools often found contained in Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs), since it is adaptable, flexible and learner-driven, and it could also be potentially extended to encompass learning through a learner’s life. It is argued that the online log has the potential to play its part in overcoming some of the problems associated with ‘mature’ VLEs (Stiles 2007).

What are Learning Logs?

Learning logs measure learning from experience. Whilst theory is important, practice underpins experience, and it is practice that is the essence of experience contained in learning logs (Moon 1999, Cottrell 2003). There are a number of research studies that have been conducted using learning logs, mainly from the subject disciplines of Human Resource Management (Barclay 1996), Education (Clandinin and Connelly 1991) and Marketing (Friesner and Hart 2005). These previous studies have slightly differing uses for logs. One thing that they have in common is that they suggest that logs record learning in practice through the mechanism of ‘reflection.’ Logs also have a prescribed format that follows the stages of knowledge acquisition through the transformation of experience. Such stages have an epistemology that includes the Lewinian Experiential

Journal of Learning and Teaching Learning Model (concrete experience, observations and reflections, formation of abstract concepts and generalisations, and testing implications of concepts in new situations), Dewey’s Model of Experiential Learning (observation, knowledge, judgement and purpose), Piaget’s Model of Learning and Cognitive Development (concrete phenomenalism, internalised reflection, abstract constructionism and active egocentrism) and finally Kolb’s Learning Cycle (concrete experience, reflective observation, abstract conceptualisation and active experimentation). The research and work of Lewin (1951), Dewey (1938), Piaget (1970) and Kolb (1984) all form part of the epistemology that supports the theory of experiential learning, and hence the structure and reasoning behind learning logs. Commonly the stages are represented as described by Barclay (1996) under the sections called preparation and the action plan. These form the basis for the two stages, or ‘phases’ of the logs. Clandinin and Connelly (1991) considered a range of research methodologies suitable for recording personal experience, and found that learning logs best fitted their purposes. It is worth noting that their perspective sees experience not as a record written directly into a diary, but as a story that is retold after an event. Their reasoning is driven by their philosophical point of view. They take a middle ground position when considering the philosophical perspectives supported when studying experience. They criticise what they see as a ‘linguistic left’ that sees text rather than people as the experience and the involvement of the researcher in that text as part of that experience (Watts 1992). Finally, Friesner and Hart (2005a, 2005b) used learning logs as a method of research and data analysis when addressing reflection and experiential learning.

Project Background

The purpose of this e-learning project was to design, implement and review a webbased form of learning log assessment. The Web Log or ‘Blog’ essentially replaced the paper-based learning log and its portfolio, which are currently popular. The context for this project was a Work-Based Learning (WBL) module, which forms a part of a BA (Hons) Business and Management suite of degrees. Business and Management students complete Work-Based Learning (WBL), a double-module, during their final semester at Level 3. Between January 2007 and March 2008 local and national employers offered around 50 full-time student work placements for a 10-week continuous period, and hence provided an ideal opportunity for the implementation of this e-learning project. Naturally the Blog had the same Learning Outcomes as its paper-based predecessor, which are as follows:

Journal of Learning and Teaching Figure 1: Online Learning Logs:

On successful completion of this module students will be able to demonstrate: 1. An appreciation of the placement organisation, its management and the changing business environment in which it operates.

Learning Outcomes

2. Skills of reflection, independent learning and Personal Development Planning (PDP) 3. Preparation for, or development of, a career in business and management.

So What’s the Problem with Paper-based Learning Logs?

Considering the vacuum for any recent research into the topic of learning logs, the short answer is ‘nothing!’ Therefore the reasoning for a move to an online substitute is solely practice-based, since the project discussed in this paper is the result of action learning undertaken by a small team of Business and Management tutors at a UK university. The need for an online learning log was driven by a number of potential problems that could arise with its paper-based predecessor.

They are contained in tangible files or folders that make up a portfolio, essentially containing a number of documents. If alterations need to be made, then paper and time are wasted.

If your students require a tutorial, then the portfolio has to be copied and then sent ahead so that the meeting time is maximized. Otherwise tutor and student are restricted to flicking over the portfolio and sampling the work, perhaps missing problems that could re-emerge at later meetings, even during final marking.

With formative assessment using learning logs how can any tutor be sure that the student is working on the log unless one actually sees it? You could call a meeting or you could assess sections of the work early in the learning process, but how do you know that the work has not been written the night before? If one cannot in all honesty see the logs in real time, one cannot ever be sure that the ethos behind reflective and experiential learning is being upheld. It is a record of formative learning.

How do you know when your student is having trouble with learning logs in the work place if you cannot see them? If one doesn’t in some way monitor that logs are being written, one cannot spot that a student is in difficulty. Of course, if you meet regularly for classes, seminars or tutorials you will identify problems, but what if your student is at work for long periods of time or some distance away?

Journal of Learning and Teaching How does an Online Approach to Learning Logs help?

So the online learning log has a number of potential benefits that could be captured. Some of the key advantages are considered below:

As with most IT, benefits tend to include convenience, speed and ease of use.

Tutors will be able to see the learning logs as they emerge, and will be able to intervene if problems arise, help the student to add depth to surface level learning, and offer praise to those that are successfully logging.

You can compare and contrast progress within an entire cohort, or between cohorts.

You can offer instant feedback to your students. You can also manage your time so that you can fit in feedback when it suits you during the working week. This would also remove the need for some or all face-to-face meetings with students.

There is also a benefit to the employer since the student would not need to leave work placement to attend a tutorial, and a tutor would not necessarily have to visit to check over learning logs.

Based upon these predicted benefits, the project had a number of aims and outcomes that are summarised in Figures 2 and 3. Figure 2: Online Learning Logs: Aims

Project Aims The aims of this project were: (a) To design, implement and review a web-based form of learning log/diary assessment. (i) To adapt Blog software to meet the assessment Objectives and Learning Outcomes of the Work-Based Learning (WBL) modules (ii) To train students and staff involved in Work-Based Learning (WBL) in the use of the Blog (iii) To implement the aforementioned Blog software as students begin WorkBased Learning (WBL) (iv) To report and disseminate findings

Journal of Learning and Teaching Figure 3: Online Learning Logs: Outcomes

Project Outcomes By the end of this project the University will benefit from: (I) A purpose built online learning log/diary assessment, or ‘Blog.’ (II) An opportunity to offer Blogs (as a form of assessment) to tutors and students in other Subject Areas within The University. (III)To share findings with colleagues from other institutions.

What Would an Online Learning Log Look Like?

This project did not use bespoke technology such as Blackboard, WebCT or Moodle. However it was coded using PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor which is the same dynamic code that forms the basis for open access Moodle. A needs analysis was undertaken which resulted in a project brief which was given to a professional PHP coder. Coder and clients participated in a number of meetings until the project was complete. Points (a) to (g) summarise what the online learning log would look like. (a) Student Login:

Create a sign in page for students to enter username and password

Create a database table to store usernames and passwords

Write code to query database and check username and password against it

(b) Staff Administration:

Create a page with login and password for tutors to access their admin pages

Create an ‘account admin’ page, listing students with usernames and passwords, with facility to change a password

Create an ‘add a student’ page with appropriate code to add details to the database

Create a ‘document bank’ page which allows tutor to upload appropriate documents and displays documents already uploaded (with option to delete)

Create an initial page, which shows the following links:

Links to the ‘account admin’ page

List of students with clickable links to each students ‘entry page’ (when accessed via the tutor admin section. The ‘tutor comments’ sections will be editable – email to student when tutor first completes this).

Create database table to store initial log forms against appropriate student.

Create a form, which allows students to store/amend details on their initial log

(d) Final Log:

Create database table to store final log forms against appropriate student.

Create a form, which allows students to store/amend details on their final log

Journal of Learning and Teaching (e) Learning Log:

Create database table to store multiple learning log forms against appropriate student (by log entry number)

Create a form, which allows students to create a new learning log and choose a week/entry number to associate it with

Add some code so that when first created an email is sent to the tutor

Create a form, which allows students to amend details on the appropriate learning log

Add a section at the bottom, which will display tutor comments but is not editable by students

(f) Student ‘blog’ page with gallery:

Create a page where students can write some general notes about their work placement and upload pictures of their work colleagues /placement environment.

(g) Student Entry Page:

Create a page which:

Shows student details (i.e. welcome Joe Bloggs to your learning log).

Link to the log assignment page

Shows a list of documents which tutors have uploaded for information (clicking on them will bring them up in a new window e.g. handbooks and exercises)

Link to the initial log

Link to all learning logs currently completed. Clicking on links takes student to the learning log to view tutor comments and/or edit learning log

Students’ Perceptions of the Strengths and Weaknesses of the Online Logs

An ‘add a learning log’ button

Link to the final log

Link to their ‘blog’ page

Once 50 students had used the online learning logs at work, their perceptions of the strengths and weaknesses of online learning logs were investigated. Two focus groups were organised during the 10-week work placement period. Both contained 10 students each. Naturally the focus groups supplemented the current student feedback and quality assurance processes of the University. Students essentially entered into a prepared and structured discussion with their tutors, in relation to the strengths and weaknesses of the online learning logs. A record sheet was circulated asking the focus group participants to list three strengths and three weaknesses of the online learning logs that they have been using for the previous 8weeks (N.B. the focus groups were conducted 2 weeks before the end of the10-week work placement/WBL period). Sheets were collected at the end of the discussion and the researchers took notes.

Journal of Learning and Teaching The underpinning research question posed was: ‘Based upon your recent experience of online learning logs, please take a few minutes to record your views of the learning and teaching benefits of the online approach, as you see them.’

Strengths of Online Learning Logs

Responses were summarised and grouped into clusters. Those that ranked highest are reported first.

The students found the online logs user friendly and simple to operate.

They felt that since their tutors were checking the logs that it gave them the motivation to keep on top of the assignment. This had helped them to stay on track with their work. Logs supported effective time management.

The focus groups reported that quick feedback was appreciated, and this had helped them to write more meaningful log entries. Students like the fact that the online logs had a mechanism to notify them when the tutor had left feedback.

Some students said they had enjoyed participating in a mode of assessment they had not encountered before. This was refreshing.

It was appreciated that a learner could go back over previous log entries to improve and develop them.

One unexpected strength was that work would not get lost since the logs were ‘on the Net.’

The simple layout made the logs easy to get to grips with, and the prescribed structured, based upon cycles of learning, were appreciated.

Learners could access the online logs from work. This was a key benefit to parttime and distance learners.

Ultimately learners agreed that online logs had helped them to maintain reflective thinking and development.

Weakness of Online Learning Logs

Nearly all of the weaknesses from the students’ perspective related to functional issues relating to word counts, spell checking, fonts and problems involving the inclusion of diagrams. The online log was not connected to MS-Word – so it took additional time to move material between a word processor and logs (although this was not absolutely necessary).

Some students commented they would have liked even more feedback, and that they would have preferred feedback after every log entry throughout the formative assessment until submission.

Interestingly, some expressed concern over the security of the online logs, especially in relation to the fact that other students could be reading their logs.

It was not as good as a face-to-face meeting with a tutor.

Learners experienced different periods of time between creating logs and receiving feedback.

SWOT and other analyses used need their own sections within the online logs.

Journal of Learning and Teaching Tutors’ Perceptions of the Strengths and Weaknesses of the Online Logs

Feedback was taken from the seven tutors that had supported students with their online learning logs. Feedback was positive, with a few issues relating to the functionality of the assessment. After getting to grips with the basics of the online log, tutors reported that they had found it simple and straightforward to use. As predicted during the earlier design stages:

There were no paper-based portfolios to be reviewed. Online logs were quicker and more convenient. Tutors gave feedback whenever and from wherever they wished.

The necessity for face-to-face tutorials was removed, although some face-to-face meetings were organised where tutors felt support was needed. This was conducted on a case-by-case basis.

Tutors could spot who was logging and who was not. Interventions could be made. On the other hand, praise was offered to those that were progressing well.

Cohorts could be compared and contrasted in real-time.

Tutors have choices and voices. One of the tutors suggested that there would be a benefit in creating a way for all of the draft logs to be archived therefore the true progress of the learners could be mapped from start, through tutor feedback and practice-based experience, to the submitted learning log. This is an example of how a tailor-made approach allows for the development of an online assessment that could be built the way that tutors want it, and not the way that that it is marketed to them.

Conclusions and Recommendations

It is stimulating to design your own online assessment as opposed to going in search of one that is already in the market. It allows you to be precise with your needs as a tutor as well satisfying the needs your learners may have. That way (budget allowing) one can improve the online environment in a tailor-made manner year-on-year. Based upon student feedback and our experiences as tutors we can invest in improvements that will almost certainly be implemented and deliver a targeted benefit.

The online logs could be extended to include all manner of work-based online curricula such as entrepreneurial games and case studies, live research and other online modules.

A version of the online learning logs could be adapted that took advantage of mobile devices such as phones, PDAs and games consoles.

Interested individuals and groups could develop the online learning logs concept across subject disciplines in order to deliver focused benefits to both learners and tutors.

The increasing popularity of learning logs in a post-Leitch (2006) era also holds some opportunities. More modules and programmes will inevitably be undertaken at work, and the online log approach offers and assessment meeting the needs of learner, educator and employer.

Journal of Learning and Teaching

Online logs, which essentially contain electronic text in a database, offer researchers the opportunity to use learning logs as a mode of data collection on experiential learning.

Finally, if you code in PHP your work can be integrated into Moodle. The Moodle environment has a number of benefits including a lower initial investment in a Course Management System.

References

BARCLAY, J. (1996), Learning from experience with learning logs, Journal of Management Development, 15(6), 28-43. CLANDININ, D. J. & CONNELLY, F. M. (1991), Narrative and story in practice and research, in D. SCHON (Ed.), The Reflective Turn: Case Studies in and on Educational Practice, pp. 258-281), Teachers College Press, New York. COTTRELL, S. (2003), Skills for Success: The Personal Development Planning Handbook, Palgrave Macmillan, London. DEWEY, J. (1938), Experience and Education, Kappa Delta Pi. FRIESNER, T. AND HART, M.C. (2005a), ‘ Learning Log Analysis: Analysing Data That Record Reflection and Experiential Learning’, Paper to the 4th European Conference on Research Methodology for Business and Management, Université Paris-Dauphine, Paris, France, 21-22 April 2005. FRIESNER, T. AND HART, M.C. (2005b), ‘Learning Logs: Assessment or Research Method?’, Electronic Journal of Business Research Methods, 13(1). LEITCH REVIEW OF SKILLS (2006), Prosperity for all in the Global Economy - World Class Skills, HMSO, London. LEWIN, K. (1951), Field Theory in Social Sciences, New York, Harper Row. KOLB, D. A. (1984), Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development, Prentice Hall, New York.. MOON, J. (1999), Learning Journals: A Handbook for Academics, Students and Professional Development, Routledge, London. PIAGET, J. (1970), Genetic Epistemology, Columbria University Press, New York. STILES, M.J. (2007), Death of the VLE?: a challenge to a new orthodoxy, The Journal for the Serials Community, Volume 20 (1).

Journal of Learning and Teaching WATTS, S. (1992), Academic leftists are something of a fraud, Chronicle of Higher Education, pp. A40 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; A43.

The andand Winding JournalLong of Learning Teaching Highway: 10 years of C&IT and E-learning Revisited Dr Jessica de Mellow, Principal Lecturer for L&T School of Cultural Studies “I have always thought that a [Managed Learning Environment] only becomes effective if students want to engage with it. Stagnant or dumping grounds do little to inspire me and are equally unlikely to inspire today’s modern, MTV student generation. Forcing students to use it by only delivering coursework or module notes does little more than allow the user to tick the box saying the MLE is being used. The box alongside effectively remains empty.’ Mark Russell, e-learning tutor of the year 2003 (JISC Inform, 2004:6) Many, if not most, academics report a significant shift in emphasis in their teaching environment and methods since the late 1990s, as accelerated development in technology and a culture of e-learning impacts our students’ expectations of what, and how, they learn. But do teaching and assessment methods which appear to engage with an emerging cultural language really increase qualitative learning, and foster a deep relational synapse between subject and individual knowledge? I have been involved in developing and delivering online learning in my own teaching in English Studies since 1997. During that period, the sector’s response to e-learning nationally has evolved in a discernable sequence ( itself a rich case study in the quicktime evolution of a ‘new’ pedagogy): enthusiasm and utopianism in e-learning pioneers and enthusiasts in the late1990s; recognition of the commercial benefits of e-learning as the century turned, with the collapse of UK-eU in early 2004 the prime example of a prematurely buoyant response to e-learning’s commercial potential; a more sober evaluation of the strengths, weaknesses and pedagogical benefits – and constraints of e-learning in 2008. Despite the distance travelled – and lessons learned – from the events of 2004, the residual influences of earlier stages of development in e-learning still inform our driving policies, from the government’s strategy on e-learning down. Consequently, and unusually, ‘top down’ policies such as Hefce’s (now anachronistic) statement that ‘wholly internet-based e-learning has recently captured the imagination because of the opportunities to explore exciting technological possibilities’ (Consultation on Hefce e-learning strategy, 2004, Annex A, 2, 6) and the JISC strategy’s optimistic vision that ‘[I]n the future we will all be able to use information and exchange data in the same way’ (JISC Inform 2004:5, p.5) are contested by ‘bottom up’ reports from practitioners and researchers. These reports suggest that the commercial and pedagogical benefits of learning environments based ‘wholly’ on internet activities might, after all, have been overestimated; an evolutionary adjustment reflected in the emphasis on flexibility, responsiveness and blended learning in more recent JISC strategic planning, and in

Journal of Learning and Teaching Chichester’s own evolving Learning and Teaching Strategy. Experience as practitioners teaches us that a teaching method is only as effective as the way it is approached and conceptualised. ‘Shallow’ C&IT approaches – an elearning component that consists solely of an unvaried diet of multiple choice tasks, for example – are likely to produce as negligible a result in ‘deeper leve’l learning as the least interactive and ‘read’ 50-minute lecture, no matter how impressive the site animations. Yet at their most effective, virtual learning environments can harness the energy of the best seminars and produce learning outcomes that are planned for – and, intriguingly, some that are not. The VLE components of our own portal, Portia, represents a learning environment whose presence in our teaching methods and module delivery is now well established across the University. As part of a portfolio of learning methods, C&IT approaches to learning and teaching, and blended learning - planned and integrated mindfully in our teaching - can enable our students to engage with a greater diversity of learning styles, and combine relational thinking with recognition of kinaesthetic intelligence. ‘I work better when I’m thinking at the keyboard’, one student wrote in a recent course evaluation (ENL117, 2006): ‘doing stuff with the mouse and moving around the screen unlocks something for me’, another commented. If even one student in a seminar group of twenty-five is ‘unlocked’ by a learning method that speaks to their individual cognitive strengths, can we afford to dismiss e-learning, and C&IT development generally, as a costly sop to the so-called McKnowledge generation? So what is the ‘added value’ of C&IT in undergraduate teaching? In 2004, a Times article, ‘Is a Degree Still Worth Having?’, the value of learning is framed in terms of financial worth. The gap between graduate and non-graduate salaries is shrinking briskly, the article reports, as the disparity between humanities and science graduates’ salaries widen (The Times, 23 April, 2004). Four years on, the statistics to support this argument are persuasive; educating undergraduates in a climate of widening access and declining ‘graduate’ jobs seems likely to move the ‘value added’ status of C&IT and e-learning beyond pedagogic theory and into the stark figures of recruitment and graduate employment. With the knowledge that IT and communications skills are now a matter of financial contingency for students and a key recruitment issue for subject disciplines, continuing debate about the pedagogic value of C&IT in undergraduate teaching seems increasingly anachronistic. Yet as we move from a C&IT culture of ‘should we?’ to ‘how should we’, resistance to new teaching technology is still evident in academic departments nationally. Will e-learning prove the thin end of the wedge, eroding contractual hours and threatening job security? Why, some colleagues have asked, are we investing heavily in technology such as video conferencing equipment and interactive whiteboards for no other reason, it seems, that this technology exists,

Journal of Learning and Teaching while academic research remains chronically under funded in many institutions? Where is the proof that this technology really enhances learning, and benefits our students? Adopting new learning and teaching methods involves change and risk. My first experiment in C&IT in teaching, in 1997, was not a success. In the late 1990s I shared the excitement in the cultural and intellectual resonances of a now quaintly named ‘information superhighway’. When Chichester adopted its first network package, Groupwise, I began using email to communicate with seminar groups, sending preparatory information through the system and sometimes uploading entire lectures after a session - an exercise I would have resisted, in any other context, as low-value learning. The technology existed, and I created a use for it; what mattered at that point was the novelty of the method, rather than its qualitative value. Error number one: the novelty of a new teaching method dropped me straight into the pitfalls of elearning as Mark Russell described it, using technology as a ‘dumping ground’ for information that could have been accessed as well, or better, in contact time. Additionally, the practical limitations of learning via a network system were soon exposed. To make sense of the exercise intended to promote accessibility and flexibility, I needed a web-based system accessible from home PCs. In 1998 I advanced the experiment and set up an external MSN home site, using it, again, to lodge documents and make announcements, and gave students a broad and vague invitation to ‘make comments’ on reading material in the message board section. While the experiment was received favourably, the student’s evaluations praised my intentions, rather than real improvements in their understanding of the subject. Most students did not have access to PCs at home in 1998; IT training was sporadic and net culture and IT skills were largely perceived by mature students in my groups as the preserve of their children. I had not built demonstrations or training into the experiment; my students needed direction and support in using the message boards. A year on, I realised that the experiment was little more than a bolt-on to a module which could, and had, existed perfectly well without it; a well-intentioned exercise in technology for technology’s sake. By 1999, without the support of other users and a body of published research, I had fallen into the patterns of teaching I strove to avoid elsewhere: regurgitating lecture notes; providing handouts without setting tasks or testing understanding; establishing myself up as the sole provider of information, whose job it was to transmit information to a passive audience. The experiment reinforced a useful lesson: teaching methods can reinforce, weaken or appear to transform entirely teaching principals I assumed were uncomplicated, transferable or innate. I was learning what my students learn also: ‘the meaning of the distinction [deep or surface] has to be reinterpreted in relation to different subject areas’ (Ramsden, 1992, p. 49), and to different teaching methods.

Journal of Learning and Teaching In 2003, five years after my first experiment in blended learning, I used the college’s new web-based learning package, Portia, to re-launch a refined e-learning provision for the same module. Now, rather than using the package as an email and announcement facility, or uploading documentation which could have been (and was) reproduced as handouts, I now integrated online work into the main module outcomes. Students were asked to post their own learning tasks, respond to one another’s ideas and contribute to an online research database:

READING WOMEN'S WRITINGS Topic: Excess vs. Deprivation Author: Helen Stone | Posted on: 9-14-04 If the first section of "Fasting, Feasting" represents over abundance (hence three quarters of the novel) and the second section symbolises deprivation, it is apparent that there needs to be a balance in life in order for happiness to prevail. If so, are the majority of characters victims of their own unbalanced decisions? Post a message

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By removing myself as ‘webmistress’ and delegating control of the site to the students themselves, participation improved; we were able to blend the results of online work into contact time seminar discussion. The C&IT component was now clearly integrated with the module outcomes, and so with assessment criteria; evaluation of the course showed a good level of appreciation for the value of the provision, and not only its good intentions. As the cultural and pedagogical gap between question and answer, search and result diminishes, the status of teachers and the physical body of the teacher are problematised increasingly as agents of knowledge. The growth of IT culture and elearning may come to increase our professional status as conduits of information (‘qualified search engines’, as a colleague commented), but it carries risks, not least of which is an return of atomistic and surface learning approaches that the availability of sophisticated methods of delivery seem to assure us belong to a remote pedagogic past. Yet my experience of blended learning at Chichester since 1997 has convinced me that a well-planned and rationalised application of C&IT in can equal a good ‘traditional’ seminar session in terms of learning value; it can certainly exceed an indifferent one. We should, at least, be reassured by the way that new technology has re-energised inveterate questions - what is learning, anyway? What does a teacher offer that technology cannot? - the debates and theoretical divisions that energised our thinking and teaching, decades before our whiteboards began writing back.

To E-nfinity Beyond: Taking the Plunge into Podcasting and Journal of Learningand and Teaching Pedagogy Ian Worden, Principal Lecturer for L&T School of Visual and Performing Arts ‘To infinity… and beyond’ is of course Buzz Lightyear’s catch-phrase from Disney and Pixar’s first computer animated feature Toy Story. The 1995 film is a story that starts with a disruption to the status quo in the ‘lives’ of the toys in Andy’s bedroom. On the day of Andy’s eighth birthday all the toys are anxious that they are going to be replaced by a new toy. Woody, an old fashioned pull-string cowboy doll who has been the little boy’s favourite toy is particularly concerned. Enter Buzz Lightyear, the ‘must have’ action figure and high-tech toy of the moment who soon becomes the little boy’s new favorite toy. Buzz’s arrival leads to all sorts of ‘trouble’ for Andy’s toys: friction, hostility, misunderstanding and even jealousy. By the end of the film though the two ‘squabbling rivals’ Woody and Buzz have learnt how to get along together and realize they are both significant in Andy’s life. The ‘shock of the new’ of Buzz fuels an anxiety in the toys that something new, a new technology in particular, can create in other spaces. Part of the narrative of Toy Story seems analogous with the trouble that new ‘buzz’ e-Learning technologies like podcasts, wikis and blogs can cause. The University of Chichester’s e-Learning Benchmarking Exercise – HEA/JISC (2007) interestingly provides stories from staff and students of some of the troubles and anxieties associated with new technologies and e-Learning in our spaces. In a paper presented at the university’s Learning and Teaching conference in January 2008 Maggi Savin-Baden also mapped out challenges and troubles faced by academic communities in reinventing learning and reconceptualising learning spaces in the twenty first century. Savin-Baden suggested that, the reason we need to invent our curricula as more troublesome learning spaces is because of the challenges of new and emerging technologies and the impact they are having on staff, students and what ‘learning’ means (Savin-Baden, 2008: 3). Troublesome learning spaces, according to Savin-Baden, might be fraught with difficulties but this need not always be seen as a bad thing because ‘spaces and places where shifts in learner experience occur’ (ibid.: 11) can lead to what Savin-Baden terms ‘transitional’ and ‘transformational learning’. Other academics such as D’Andrea and Gosling (2005) have also explored the added value of learning technologies in improving learning and teaching in general and the Executive Summary of the UoC eLearning Benchmarking report (available on the CLT site) highlights ways e-Learning projects and initiatives have enhanced student learning at this institution in particular. This paper documents some of the findings of a project started in the academic year 2006-2007 after a successful bid for funds to support enhancements in e-Learning. It explores some of the challenges of a new ‘buzz’ digital media channel like podcasting and examines ways it might be integrated into our curriculum spaces in a blend with

Journal of Learning and Teaching conventional approaches to learning and teaching that impacts on the student learning experience. The paper documents the podcasts we created, details feedback from student evaluations and provides some information on how to create podcasts.

The iPod Cometh

The iPod has been hailed by Apple as ‘the most iconic invention of a generation’. Whilst Apple would say that, there is no doubting the company’s success with its product in terms of market penetration. Now in its eighth year, the iPod is the best selling portable digital audio/video player on the market. In the fiscal quarter between July and September 2005 Apple sold 6.5 million iPods. Over 120 million iPods have been shipped in total now since the product was launched in 2001. In that time Apple has developed various ‘generations’ – the iPod Classic; the iPod Touch; the iPod Nano; and the iPod Shuffle. Initially compact portable iPod MP3 players were designed to store music digitally. The number of songs a device could store would be dependant on the size of its memory. The iPods could download music from Apple’s iTunes site. Music could also be ‘ripped’ from CDs and then turned into digital files before being transferred to MP3 players through a computer. Other brands such as Sony, Samsung, Philips and Technika now offer MP3 players and there are a number of different file types and ways to download audio material. The more recent MP4 players have all the features of MP3 players but have full colour built-in LCD screens that will run films, videos, TV programming, digital photos and can be used in connection with audio books, organiser functions and slide presentations. The new generation iPods can now store anything from 1,000 songs (4Gb iPod Nano) to 40,000 songs (160Gb iPod Classic) and have up to 30 hours of video playback capacity. The take up of such digital media technology alongside mobile phones has been significant with students (69% of Level 3 students we worked with owned MP3 or MP4 players, 67% of Level 2 students owned such devices and 82% of Level 1 students had portable digital audio/ video players).

Project Podcast

Given such a take-up of this new technology by students, our project sought to connect with the UoC initiative to develop and increase the incorporation of C&IT in the student’s learning experience and the various departments’ responses to the University’s revised Learning and Teaching Strategy with respect to e-Learning, diversity and accessibility. We wanted to explore how podcasting might add to the continued enhancement of the quality of student learning provided by initiatives undertaken with Portia and virtual learning communities/environments in general and Course Home Pages in particular. Students would be able to access lecture materials online, download these materials as podcasts on their computers, or save them as MP3 files or MP4 files which might be accessed in their own time on portable digital audio/ video players or mobile phones. We hoped to use podcasts to make learning and teaching sessions more accessible, diverse and imaginative for a student body on the move and a generation of students attuned to digital media.

Journal of Learning and Teaching Other universities have also begun to realise these exciting possibilities for learning and teaching. Researchers at Sheffield Hallam for instance, have been working with multimedia and digital audio learning objects for the last three years. Their projects have focussed more on audio recordings of what they call ‘chunks’ of lectures – audio notes and selected moments/ideas captured during lectures for reconsideration (Nortcliffe and Middleton, 2006). These materials are made available to students before and after lectures. Student feedback on the added value provided by podcasts to the face-to-face lecture has been positive at Sheffield regarding ‘post-lecture learning’. In their presentation at the ICED conference in 2006 Nortcliffe and Middleton also drew on the work of Williams and Fardon (2005), Russell and Mattick (2005) and Law (2005) who have monitored the impact of such technology at other institutions on student attendance and motivation to suggest that the streaming of audio lectures and other such activities need not reduce student attendance (a troublesome issue with podcasting for some stakeholders) and enhances student learning. Our project wanted to build on the work undertaken at Sheffield by complementing audio files with slideshow and video formats.

Podcasts are Go!

We created podcasts on four selected modules across two departments in the first semester of the 2006-2007 academic year. The first podcast was for a lecture on naturalism on a Level 2 English module. This session fitted in with a trip to see Strindberg’s play The Father and a pre-show talk on naturalism by a colleague from the University of Portsmouth at the Minerva Theatre. A copy of this talk was made available to students on our Course Home Page on Portia to provide a rich blend of materials – pre-show talk (that could be revisited in another format as a Word document), trip, lecture and podcast. The lecture was recorded and uploaded on Podcast Admin on Portia unedited.

Journal of Learning and Teaching As a lecturer the first trouble you encounter with podcasts is hearing your voice and becoming aware of certain mannerisms you weren’t aware of! There is also the issue of being ‘miked up’ and realising your performance is being recorded. We also scanned in some acetates used in the talk that would advance on students’ computers or MP3/ MP4 players in the right place. A clip from Ibsen’s A Doll’s House was also uploaded as a MP4 file that would run on players with this capacity or a computer. For the second podcast we chose a lecture on representation and stereotypes delivered using PowerPoint to examine how slides would work on certain players and again included a film clip from the lecture (Four Weddings and a Funeral). This session was troubled by the fact that for some reason the audio didn’t record. We resolved this by recording the lecture in another space without any students. Interestingly a Level 1 Media Studies lecture that usually lasted for an hour shrunk to a twenty minute podcast without student interaction. The third podcast was a Level 3 lecture on film noir, neo noir, the femme fatale and gender. This lecture was trouble-free and we uploaded four film clips (The Maltese Falcon, Fatal Attraction, Basic Instinct and Disclosure) to see how relevant technologies would cope with download capacities and timings. The audio was edited to tidy up the pauses and any inconsistencies to see how much time this would take and what effect it would have on the podcast. The fourth session we worked on was a lecture delivered by a colleague on the Level 1 Media Studies module to get input from another member of staff on their experience of podcasting. We also used this session to create two other shorter podcasts that went beyond capturing actual lecture content experienced by students. One was a PowerPoint slideshow of images from postmodern culture and accompanying music and the other was a short five minute talk on Bend it Like Beckham (the film students were studying as part of their assessment) with music extracts from the film’s soundtrack bought through iTunes. The last podcast we created was a guest lecture on Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray for a first year English course Victorian Literature where we filmed the lecture (including the audience) and uploaded audio, PowerPoint slides and a film clip. This approach proved rather ambitious and we were troubled by editing time, syncing up sight and sound and download possibilities. As a result we uploaded the session in the usual format without the shots of the lecturer and cutaways of the student experience of the session.

Podcasts to the Rescue?

Student evaluations of the various podcasts we created were generally positive. Some of the benefits of this particular technology seemed to tap into the ‘Accelerated Learning Cycle’ as developed by Alistair Smith (1996). Smith’s cycle involves the following interconnected points or moments - ‘connection’, ‘activation’, ‘demonstration’ and ‘consolidation’. Podcasts can connect with learners in new ways, activate and reactivate learning imaginatively and demonstrate issues through technologies students are attuned to. A number of comments welcomed them as a useful space/ place to ‘consolidate’ learning and participate in post-lecture learning. One student commented, ‘It enables students to re-do the lecture in their own time’ (Level 3 Media Studies). Another suggested ‘I found it really useful as I could be listening to it and

Journal of Learning and Teaching doing something else’ (Level 2 English). The idea of ‘redoing’ and ‘revisiting’ recurred throughout the positive comments and one student added, ‘Sometimes you don’t capture all the lesson and this is a helpful recap’ (Level 1 Media Studies). Another noted ‘I can go over something I didn’t understand the first time’ (Level 3 Media Studies). Comments from Level 2 English students on the issue of consolidation included, ‘It was good to revisit to solidify knowledge. Strange to hear the past again’, ‘It was good to go over and pick up on some points’, ‘It was really interesting and helped with my understanding’ and ‘Great to hear the lecture again.’ Others who had trouble taking notes in lectures because of the pace of lecturers for instance, found the podcasts valuable – ‘I felt like I was taking the whole lecture in and there was no pressure to jot things down while missing another important piece of info. I could go back to something if I didn’t understand and listen to it until I felt happy’ (Level 1 Media Studies). Several students for whom English was their second language also praised the podcasts and a Level Two English student commented that podcasts were ‘Another way of going over notes instead of just reading.’ Other comments linked the benefits of podcasts directly to assessment - ‘Great idea if you’re writing an essay to do with that particular session’ (Level 3 Media Studies). Some students were troubled by various technologies or uncertain how to download podcast materials from Portia – ‘I tried but the technology got the better of me’ (Level 2 English), ‘It was difficult to download the visuals and audio separately – lot of messing about’ (Level 3 Media Studies) and ‘I was unsure how to download it’ (Level 1 Media Studies). Another Level 1 Media student felt ‘it’s a good idea, it just needs to be explained a bit more.’ Other students didn’t feel it was necessary to ‘redo’ the lecture as a podcast because they had ‘sufficient notes’ and they would rather use their players for other purposes. A number of responses thought podcasts would be useful if students missed lectures but there were concerns that podcasting could impact on student attendance – ‘Could affect the amount of people turning up to lectures’ (Level 3 Media Studies) and ‘Some might think they can miss lectures. These should definitely not be used as an alternative for lessons on a regular basis’ (Level 3 Media Studies).

Cast-off

These are interesting comments. Podcasting quite rightly shouldn’t be seen as a troublesome ‘alternative for lessons on a regular basis’, a rival or something that’s going to replace other approaches. This particular buzz technology though blended with other approaches can impact on the learning experience for some students beyond our time together in the classroom. Such technologies might also not be as troublesome as we think and might be significant with regards to diversity and accessibility. Perhaps this project was more a case of dipping a toe into the water and others might like to plunge into the possibilities afforded by podcasting. Come on in, the water’s fine.

Journal of Learning and Teaching References

D’ANDREA, V. AND GOSLING, D. (2005), Improving Teaching and Learning in Higher Education: A Whole Institution Approach, Open University Press, Maidenhead. LAW, E. (2005), ‘Promoting Understanding Using a Virtual Learning Environment’ International Conference on Engineering Education, Gliwice, Poland. NORTCLIFFE, A ET.AL (2006), ‘Providing Added Value to Lecture Materials to an iPod Generation’, ICED Conference, Enhancing Academic Development Practice: International Perspectives, Sheffield Hallam University, 11-14 June 2006. RUSSELL, P AND MATTICK, K. (2005), ‘Does Streaming of a Lecture Result in Empty Seats’, The Proceedings of ALT-C 2005 Exploring the Frontiers of e-Learning: Borders, Outposts and Migration, Manchester. SAVIN-BADEN, M. (2008), ‘Second Life Learning: Liminality, Liquidity and Lurking’ Keynote Speech, Learning and Teaching Conference, University of Chichester, 17 January 2008. SCRIVEN, J. (2008), University of Chichester e-Learning Benchmarking Internal Report, Centre for Learning and Teaching, University of Chichester. SMITH, A. (1996) Accelerated Learning in the Classroom, Network Educational Press, Stafford. WILLIAMS, J AND FARDON, M. (2005), On Demand Internet Transmitted Lecture Recordings: Attempting to Enhance and Support the Lecture Experience in The Proceedings of ALT-C 2005 Exploring the Frontiers of e-Learning: Borders, Outposts and Migration, Manchester.

Journal and Teaching How of toLearning Guides: Creating

a Podcast

Matthew (Roz) Hall Front Line Services

Step 1: Using PowerPoint Presentation Slides 1.

Open the slides in Microsoft PowerPoint.

Go to – FILE, SAVE AS, FORMAT. Then select jpeg. Your PowerPoint pictures will now be saved into a folder as separate pictures and are individually viewable when clicked on.

Step 2: Using Garage Band version 3.0.4 1.

Click on the Garage Band logo in the tool bar (a guitar icon).

Select NEW PODCAST EPISODE in the option screen.

Select file NAME and a file to SAVE INTO.

Step 3: Creating your Podcast episode 1.

Select the FINDER icon in the Toolbar (Blue face).

Find the SOUND FILE and DRAG it onto the Garage Band workspace.

The screen is split into three windows;

2 Window 1 shows the layers of the Podcast. Each is named down the left hand side; Podcast Track, Male voice, Female voice etc… More can be added if needed. Window 2 shows in detail the track selected. If the Podcast track is selected then it displays the chapter titles and what Picture is attached to it. If a sound recording is selected then it’ll display the wave formation. Window 3 displays a Preview of the Podcast you are making.

Journal of Learning and Teaching 4.

Move the PLAYHEAD to the start of the recording and select PODCAST TRACK in window 1.

In window 2 select ADD MARKER.

Give the Chapter a name and then select the FINDER icon on the toolbar.

Find your individual PowerPoint pictures and DRAG the required one onto the Garage Band window 2 where it says: DRAG ARTWORK HERE.

Double Click on the picture to open a window to RESIZE.

PLAY the Podcast until you reach moments where you want to add new Chapters (and Pictures) repeat 5-8.

Step 4: Deleting Sections of Audio 10.

If there are moments of the sound recording that you do not require you can delete them easily.

11.

Select the TRACK in window 1.

12.

In window 2 move the cursor over the sound recording until it changes into a CROSS.

13.

CLICK and DRAG to select the section you do not want.

14.

CLICK in the selected area – this will isolate it from the rest of the recording. Press the BACKSPACE key to delete it.

Step 5: Converting to .mpa 15.

Select SHARE at the top of the screen.

16.

Here you have an option to open your Podcast in iTunes or to save onto Disk. Both have the same effect.

Step 6: Converting to audio only .mp3 17.

In Garage Band select PODCAST TRACK in window 1. Select them all and delete. Also delete any picture you have given to represent the episode.

18.

Select SHARE at the top of the screen and open in iTunes.

19.

In iTunes select iTunes at the top and go into Preferences.

20.

Select ADVANCED and then IMPORTING.

21.

Change IMPORT USING… to MP3 ENCODER.

22.

Then select your Podcast Episode in your iTunes Library, go to ADVANCED at the top and select CONVERT SELECTION TO MP3.

Journal and Teaching How of toLearning Guides: Embedding

a YouTube Video into a PowerPoint Presentation Dr Andy Clegg, Principal Lecturer for L&T School of Social Studies Open a new PowerPoint presentation and generate a blank screen. In PowerPoint we need to have the Developer Options shown in the main ribbon.

Click the Office Button and then click PowerPoint Options.

Select show Developer Tab in the main ribbon

Click OK.

Journal of Learning and Teaching

The Developer Tab now appears in the main ribbon. Click this tab.

Click the More Controls button.

The More Controls dialog box opens.

Scroll down and select Shockwave Flash Object.

Click OK.

Journal of Learning and Teaching

A cursor appears on the screen. Draw a rectangle; this will give the size and position of the video that you want to embed. With your rectangle selected, press the right mouse button and click Properties.

Journal of Learning and Teaching The Properties dialog box appears.

At this point we now need to include the url link for the video clip that you want to embed. Go to YouTube and find the video clip that you want to embed. I am embedding a clip from Fawlty Towers that I use when delivering customer service training.

Journal of Learning and Teaching The Properties dialog box appears.

In the YouTube window click (MoreInfo) to highlight the required URL

The required url link is revealed.

Select and copy the url address. Return to PowerPoint and the open dialog box for the Shockwave Flash Object.

Journal of Learning and Teaching

Paste the url link next to Movie. We now need to make a slight change to the url. Specifically change:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Vsm3FObZ1sI to

http://uk.youtube.com/v/Vsm3FObZ1sI You would need to make this change for any url link you pasted into the dialog box.

The basics are: Delete the elements in red

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Vsm3FObZ1sI an d put a forward slash behind the v

http://uk.youtube.com/v/Vsm3FObZ1sI Run your presentation and your YouTube video clip will appear on the screen. Remember you need to be connected to the Internet for the video clip to play.