Keynotes
Design and co-design for inquiry-based learning
Philippa Levy
“Universities should treat learning always as consisting of not yet wholly solved problems and hence always in research mode”. In this keynote, Philippa will suggest that this view, put forward in 1810 by Wilhelm von Humboldt, remains just as compelling - and just as challenging to educators and institutions - at the start of the 21st century. At present, there is increasingly strong policy emphasis internationally on mainstreaming student learning through research, from the first undergraduate year. Philippa will argue that this is essential if our aim is to empower students for life and work in a profoundly uncertain and complex world, as well as to prepare the next generation of researchers.
What is the role for digital, design for learning tools in support of this agenda? How might these be developed and used in ways that are consistent with the aim to encourage student ownership of their experiences of learning through inquiry, and to foster inquiry partnerships between students and staff? Philippa’s keynote will offer a critical reflection on issues and challenges in design for inquiry-based learning, drawing in part on lessons learned from research into the use of LAMS. A conceptual model identifying eight ‘core’ modes of inquiry-based learning will be presented, with practical examples of ways in which LAMS can be used to support design in different modes for different educational contexts including in schools as well as in universities. Identifying an important role for students as designers of their own inquiry processes, she willl suggest that there is a need to develop methodologies and tools that explicitly support students as (co)designers of learning.
Deborah Evans
Project-based learning requires students to take a fundamentally more active role in planning for and creating their own learning. Understanding how they might do this is a complex and multi-faceted problem. It is not just a matter of helping them think up relevant and authentic learning tasks, as teachers it is our role to provide them with carefully thought out scaffolds that enable them to achieve beyond what they could as individuals with the resources before them. This type of learning requires us to think about a number of dimensions of the learning environment including:
Professor James Dalziel
While curriculum frameworks can be important guides to the use of ICT in education, there is often little direct relationship between the learning objectives and/or competencies of a specific component of a curriculum framework and generic e-learning tools like a Learning Management System or Web 2.0 tools – instead, the teacher is expected to configure “by hand” the generic tools to suit a particular curriculum purpose. One problem arising from this process is that good e-teaching ideas aren’t easily shared between e-learning systems (as they only ever exist as one off “by hand” configurations by teachers). However, Learning Design provides an opportunity for direct mappings between specific objectives/competencies and specific sequences of student learning activities, and also for easy sharing and re-use of sequences among teachers. A clear advantage of connecting objectives/competencies to specific student activities is the ability of teachers to search through curriculum frameworks for ready-to-use “digital lesson plans”. A less recognised but equally important feature of this connection is that teachers can sometimes find curriculum frameworks difficult to translate into practical activities in the classroom, whereas seeing an exemplar digital lesson plan can aid understanding of the underlying intent of a particular objective or competency in a curriculum framework. This presentation will propose a virtuous circle between curriculum frameworks and Learning Design, including discussion of new curriculum mapping features in LAMS and the potential benefits of these features for the new Australian national school curriculum.
Abstracts
Kumiko Aoki
In Japan, low motivation and apathy of many college students have been an issue of concern recently. Many reasons can be considered for such attitude of Japanese students: the college life being considered as the moratorium between the hard school life and the work life; low expectation of potential employers in terms of students’ academic achievements in colleges; dominance of lecture-style classes where students are passive learners; and prevalence of the assessment methods in which retention of factual knowledge is tested rather than students’ attainment of deep learning. Especially the last two points, the dominance of lecture-style classes and the assessment methods, need to be reconsidered to improve teaching and learning in Japanese higher education. The major reason why the lecture-style classes prevail in Japanese colleges and universities is because throughout the majority of one’s school life, students have never given the chance to be responsible for their own learning; thus, they don’t really know how to be autonomous learners. At the same time, teachers, who have been trained in such educational systems, don’t really know how to lead classes without giving lectures. In my opinion, LAMS can shift teachers’ and students’ focus from content to activities. By designing teaching and learning not around its content but its activities, students can actively engage in their own learning. In addition, LAMS can visualize learning activities that help teachers to design their classes in terms of activities rather than content to cover. In this presentation, I will discuss the potential of LAMS in changing teaching and learning practices of higher education institutions in Japan.
Maria M. Bounds
This study investigates the curriculum of Small Business Development with special reference to modules dealing with the small business such as Growing of a Small Business, Small Business Marketing and Small Business as natural port of entry. The study concludes with a generic curriculum framework and suggestions from small businesses to bridge the gap between the higher education and the business world.
Matt Bower & Maximilian Wittmann
As open source educational systems both LAMS and Moodle provide a range of tools that can be used to support the development of pre-service students’ learning design capabilities. Sixty-eight teacher education students were surveyed to gauge their perceptions of each of these systems as frameworks for designing learning experiences. Responses indicated that the majority of students appreciated that different tools were suitable for different purposes. An unexpected outcome of the research was the different levels of learning design thinking that the survey questions revealed, ranging from highly developed to misconstrued.
Leanne Cameron
This presentation we will provide an update on progress of the ALTC project to implement a learning activity planning tool which can be used by academic staff to tailor exemplary learning design examples to meet the individual lecturer’s and/or course co-ordinator’s particular requirements, whilst providing them with the underlying pedagogical principals involved in the Learning Design. The LAMS Activity Tool has been tested and is now considered quite stable. Key members of the project team have gradually refined the template to a point where a basic structure for adding new exemplar learning design templates has been developed.
Examining the Impact of Object Owners’ Anonymity on Learners’ Participation Rate and Critical Thinking in an Asynchronous Online Discussion Environment
Wing Sum Cheung , Khe Foon Hew and Aloysius Foo
This paper reports a case study in Singapore that examined the impact of object owners’ anonymity on learners’ participation rate and quality of critical thinking in an asynchronous online discussion (AOD) environment. Results suggested that when there was anonymity, more participants tended to post their comments and viewpoints in the online discussions, as well as showed more evidence of in-depth level of critical thinking. Suggestions for future research are provided.
Bronwen Dalziel
University of Western Sydney, Australia
Glenn Mason
Macquarie University, Australia
James Dalziel
Macquarie E-Learning Centre Of Excellence
Using LAMS to create 250 hours of online content for a medical school has allowed for much reflection on the use of templates and Learning Design. Whilst a LAMS template was initially thought to provide the best pedagogical guidance necessary for the clinicians designing content, it was soon found to be too restrictive for the different ways of teaching the medical topics. The first 75 hours of content (13 case studies) were created with a wide range of teaching styles, and with little reference to the details of the original LAMS template. Analysis of common themes in the case studies showed that a higher and looser level of structure could be applied to all of the sequences as three broad themes: the clinical case; the scientific basis of the disease; and current research or ethical considerations around the topic. Concurrent with these themes was the application of three pedagogical categories that ensured each Learning Objective was adequately taught: the teaching and learning point; a concept check; and feedback. This structure was used in the creation of an eStoryboard for each case study and has been used for retrospective analysis of cases for pedagogical soundness and for planning of future content in the course..
Luisa dall’Acqua
GSi Edu-Research Group, Switzerland
Today we live in a society characterized by multiple reference points and a dynamic knowledge, continuously subject to reviews and discussions. It is necessary a new model of person, manager of own space and identity. The here presented Instructional Design model uses a socio-cognitive constructivist approach and allows a multi-perspective view of the learning process. It proposes a flexible design that includes rapid prototyping and an educational environment, able to: increase productivity and operability, create conditions for a cooperative dialogue, develops participatory research activities of knowledge, observations and discoveries (“ecological” learning environment), customizing the learning design in a complex and holistic vision of learning / teaching processes. In particular, it examines the conditions that make a learning environment “adaptive”. Finally, the LAMS implementation will be analysed to verify how it supports : a) coaching /tutoring solutions with the finality to adapt the learning path; b) the teacher/author in advanced monitoring and planning activities, and dynamically re-defined course activities; c) the student, in a dynamic, collaborative and synergistic construction of “significant knowledge” in a multi-learner environment..
Eva Dobozy
Edith Cowan University, Australia
This paper discusses the potential utility of interactive lecture podcasting in LAMS, which is based on a preliminary examination of the data of a curriculum innovation study. The case was a teacher education (TE) unit that produced unexpected student learning behaviour. An analytic induction methodology, in conjunction with educational data mining techniques, was used to analyse the data. The purpose of the study was to better understand one specific aspect of students’ active participatory learning behaviour, vital for their success in higher education (HE): willingness to engage in online peer-to-peer dialogue. The paper closes with a suggestion for more systematic monitoring of HE students’ online learning behaviour.
Luke Foxton
Macquarie University, Australia
This presentation is all about a new tool in development that brings the power of the Wookie W3C widgets (http://getwookie.org/) into LAMS.
Wookie is an open-source Apache project in development. It provides a framework where widgets developed under the W3C widget specification (http://www.w3.org/TR/widgets/) can be installed into a library and from there, embedded seamlessly into web applications (like LAMS) using plugins. Using this framework, theoretically any widget installed into the Wookie library can be embedded into a LAMS activity without the need for further integration in LAMS, opening the door to countless web tools, games and collaborative activities developed by independent parties. Apache Wookie also implements the Google Wave Gadget API enabling synchronous, collaborative Widgets such as games, chats and surveys.
This presentation will include a demonstration of the current progress, as well as in-depth discussions about how it Wookie works in LAMS.
Paul Gagnon
Nanyang University, Singapore
This presentation will present a working model for scalable, affordable and rapid content development to support adult training in industry. This model reflects a progressive orientation towards a more interactive androgogy, based on a synthesis of three existing platforms: LAMS, Blackboard and AcuConference.
Yuan-Chen Liu, Tzu-Hua Huang & Wei-Chun Hsu
National Taipei University of Education, Taiwan
Li-Ling Wu,
Liyuan Elementary School, Taiwan
The purpose of the study is to explore the impact of recognition, spelling and comprehension in English words on elementary school students in Taiwan by using three different pedagogies for the sight words instruction and also to compare the performance of these different English teaching strategies. The participants were fifth graders in three different classes drawn from a primary school. After the experiment, these students all progressed obviously in the post-test. Results meant that the ‘Sight Words’ can help primary school students to recognise, spell and comprehend English words in reading. The effects would be most outstanding if the sight words operate in coordination with look and say approach for low-performed team students and learning vocabulary through reading for high-performed part students.
Jo Jenson
eWorks, Australia
The Australian Flexible Learning Framework recently released a Learning Design Tool which has been created to take the hassle out of learning design. This product allows users to create their own learning materials. The Learning Design Tool allows you to save, review and modify your work; and includes a mapping feature, so you can easily see your progress through each of the four stages. The four learning design stages are:
The Learning Design Tool was released as a Beta version in October 2009. This presentation will highlight the feedback received through the engagement of a global community and outline the proposed development of the final product. At the end of the session you will appreciate the rationale that supports each of the stages, understand the proposed final product and see first-hand an application that provides a framework for your learning design. This session will benefit those who produce learning design materials, provide support to a graphic design team, manage learning design projects and teachers who are required to produce their own learning materials.
Jarrod Johnson
Pedare Christian College, Australia
This presentation will introduce delegates to the newly released tool..
Peter Kent
ACT Department of Education, Australia
Clint Codey
ACT Department of Education, Australia
LAMS is currently being utilised by teaching staff in the Australian Capital Territory through the Australian Government Quality Teacher Programme (AGQTP). The AGQTP professional learning projects must address one or more of the following priority areas:
LAMS has proven more than capable at addressing all of the priority areas and has been adopted into areas as diverse as Arts, Languages, Business Studies and Science.
Within the ACT AGQTP program the collaborative nature of the tools provided within LAMS was extended through greater access to digital resources (Scootle – The Le@rning Federation). This allowed teachers the opportunity to promote higher levels of intellectual quality, create a quality learning environment and make explicit to students the significance of and in their work in a manner consistent with the NSW Quality Teaching Framework.
Numerous methods and models of delivery have been explored and vigorously discussed by the AGQTP participants and this workshop will display the results of several of the projects in the context of the Quality Teaching Framework.
An Investigation of Adult Learners’ Collaborative Learning and Self-regulation on Online Learning Effectiveness
Horng-Ji Lai
National Chi Nan University, Taiwan
The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of adult learners’ collaborative learning and self-regulation on online learning effectiveness. Participants were 217 adult earners from the department of Information Management in a cyber university located at southern Taiwan. Learners completed at least two online courses during a semester, and one of the online courses’ modules included a section of learning design activity. Learners’ were required to design a lesson plan on small group basis. A questionnaire which consisted of three scales (collaborative learning, self-regulated learning, and online learning effectiveness) was administered to collect participants’ responses. The research results showed that both collaborative learning and self-regulation have significant effects on online learning effectiveness. Analysis of the data revealed that two factors of collaborative learning (task structure and incentive structure) and four constructs of self-regulation (searching relevant learning information, controlling learning pace, improving self-efficacy, and looking for learning partners) were significant predictors in predicting adult learners’ online learning effectiveness. Among the six factors, task structure, searching relevant learning information, improving self-efficacy, and looking for learning partners appeared to be the significant elements in determining their online learning success based on the research findings. Practical implications, learning activity design in particular, were discussed in this study.
Jun-Dir Liew
Macquarie E-Learning Centre Of Excellence, Australia
LAMS 2.3 was released on 25 May 2009. Among it's improvements were a significant increase in startup times and memory usage. This talk will cover how this was achieved in terms of the technical frameworks used, and the consequences for performance and future development. Current work on upgrading to JBoss 5 will also be covered, which will be the basis of the next major release of LAMS 2.4.Mathematics Lessons for Slower Learners in Secondary Schools in the Caribbean using the LAMS Platform.
Glenn Mason
Macquarie University, Australia
Bronwen Dalziel
University of Western Sydney, Australia
In the paper the perspectives of learner-learner and learner-teacher interaction, knowledge construction and social presence will be used to illustrate the different ways of approaching the evaluation and analysis of the teaching and learning that takes place in asynchronous online forums in a higher education context. This will be combined with a discussion of some Learning Design issues that have arisen as a result of the implementation and use of forums within the LAMS (Learning Activity Management System) environment. We will end by suggesting that to successfully implement collaborative forms of teaching and learning, it is important to have an understanding of the nature of learning as it takes place in forums as well as an awareness of how the structural position of forums in LAMS sequences can potentially contribute to improving the educational value of forums.
Brian Mayne
TAFE NSW, Australia
LearnSpire is a learning framework for use with the development of e-learning resources that is particularly suited to the vocational education area. The learning framework works around six dimensions:
Each dimension with its associated design elements offers a specific way of enhancing learning and boosting learning potential. Benefits from the learning framework include:
Use of the learning framework disaggregation of the content/assets will lead to:
David Kernohan
University of Bristol, UK
Sheila MacNeill
University of Strathclyde, UK
The JISC and the Higher Education Academy are currently funding a total of 29 institutional, subject and individual projects in making a wide range of educational materials openly available under creative commons licenses. This one-year pilot programme is the first step towards substantial UK investment in open educational resources. Projects range from institution-wide projects, to multi-institution subject consortia, to individual academics working in institutions.
The funded projects are expected to demonstrate a long-term commitment to the release of OER resources. As such, they are working towards the sustainability of open resource release via the adoption of appropriate business models. Supporting actions may include modifications to institutional policies and processes, with the aim of making open resources release an expected part of the educational resources creation cycle within institutions.
This presentation will discuss a number of common and emerging issues that the projects are facing e.g. intellectual property rights, metadata, syndication of content, use tracking and embedding processes into institutional practice. The presentation will also outline the range of support being offered to the programme.
Jeremy Page
Macquarie E-Learning Centre Of Excellence, Australia
In this presentation we will explore the different options available to LAMS users for obtaining support for LAMS, as well as demonstrating the extensive user and technical documentation available through the LAMS Wiki and the LAMS Community.
OPUS One - An Artificial Intelligence - Multi Agent based Intelligent Tutoring and Adaptive Learning Environment
Attilio Pedrazzoli
Switzerland
This presentation proposes a concept for an Intelligent Adaptive Learning Environment (IALE) based on a holistic Multidimensional Instructional Design Model, applied on OLAT, an open source, Java LMS, developed at the University of Zurich, to support student and/or groups defined as “Learning Entities” (LE). The concept is based primarily on an Artificial Intelligence – Tutoring Subsystem, used to identify, monitor and adapt the student's learning path, considering the students actual knowledge, learning habits and preferred learning style. The proposed concept has the peculiarity of eliminating any didactical boundaries or rigid, implied course structures (also known as unlimited didactical freedom). Relying on “real time” adapted profiles, it allows content authors to apply a dynamic course design, supporting tutored, collaborative sessions and activities, as suggested by modern pedagogy. The AI tutoring facility (eTutor), coupled with the LMS, is intended to support the “human tutor” with valuable LE performance - / activity data, available from the integrated “Behaviour Recorder Controller” (BRC), allowing to confirm or manually modify actions suggested by the eTutor. The student has the option to select the level of tutoring interventions or switch to a “subject matter” exercise mode if desired and permitted. The concept presented combines a personalized level of surveillance, learning activity- and/or learning path adaptation suggestions to ensure the students learning motivation and learning success.
Using Instructional Design and Learning Management System in Virtual World for Learning Health and Alternative Medicine
Nik Siti Hanifah NikAhmad & Wan Tao Ruan
Bradford University, United Kingdom
The main purpose of Instructional Design is to increase the performance of students’ knowledge and expertise while the Learning Management System’s main purpose is to increase the effectiveness of organizational goals and objectives. The important of this research is to develop instructional design system for making health or Complementary or Alternative Medicine (CAM) learning through virtual world or metaverse. In this research, we attempt to present the instructional design model of health or CAM module in metaverse. This involved the development of 3D design environments, tutorials, simulations and tests embedded with instructional design elements. A series of developments have been done in a previous case study which was on an episiotomy module and dementia. We did summative and formative evaluation through a test and questionnaires. The comments and suggestions from health students are taken into account towards further development and enhancement which will be on cupping, reflexology and acupuncture modules. We hope this research will trigger more research on instructional design system in the virtual world for online learning environment, not specifically in health but in other subjects as well.
Mathematics Lessons for Slower Learners in Secondary Schools in the Caribbean using the LAMS Platform
Steve Warner
West Indies
This paper explains how teachers/facilitators and students/learners can work together on the Learning Activity Management System (LAMS) platform to facilitate conceptual learning in mathematics, with the primary view of assisting slower learners in the Caribbean region. It is a monumental undertaking to teach or be a facilitator to thirty to forty students (15-16years old) after three years of secondary education and simple tasks of applying the four rules on fractions cannot be conceptualized and simplified. There is not enough time using face to face learning to ensure that these concepts are attained in order to write a high stake examination. It is therefore essential to have such students engaged in diverse processes of constructing their own concept representations. Teachers are encouraged to prepare students to visualize concepts during their study time. It is hoped that with this new design and approach to learning that mathematical instruction would be transformed and that, as students and teachers move towards a fresh and innovative paradigm shift, students will truly be responsible for their own learning and teachers can act as facilitators and motivational specialist.
Quek Choon Lang
Singapore
This study sets to investigate the learning of 25 in-service teachers through their self-created Weblogs. The blog serve to document their reflections in a professional development course. The learning design provides teachers’ initial exploration of instructor’s Weblog and podcast, their designing of individual Weblogs to record on-going reflections and linking to their peers’ Weblogs for collaborative learning during the course. They are required to read and comment on each other’s reflections daily. The teachers’ reflections were analysed qualitatively. Findings have shown the teachers’ articulation of technological, pedagogical and social affordances of Weblog as an open learning space. They also identified personal experiences and regular updates of resources were characteristics found in quality learning Weblogs in this case study.