Christine Steeples

Competences for Online Teaching: A Special Report.

During June 2000, practitioners and researchers from the United States, the United Kingdom, and other European countries participated in a workshop on competences for online teaching. The workshop was held in Bowness-on-Windermere in the United Kingdom and was cosponsored by the International Board of Standards for Training, Performance and Instruction (ibstpi), the Centre for Studies in Advanced Learning Technology (CSALT), Lancaster University, and the Joint Information Systems Committee of the UK universities funding councils. As a member of ibstpi, I wanted to document the workshop so that the issues discussed there could be shared with the wider Educational

Networked learning: perspectives and issues

Networked Learning: Perspectives and Issues looks at what networked learning has to offer and how best we can ensure that its take-up maintains or improves the quality of learning in higher education. It looks at the key issues which will be of interest to anyone using, or thinking of using, this important technology including practitioners, policy-makers and managers in higher education, learning technologists, and support and library staff. It will also be invaluable to anyone researching or studying in relevant areas.

Technological Support for Teaching and Learning: Computer-Mediated Communications in Higher Education (CMC in HE)

Abstract This paper arises from a workshop at the CAL 95 conference. It attempts to share practical experience with both successes and problems in the use of computer-mediated communications (CMC), to support flexible patterns of teaching and learning within higher education. The workshop was based around the CMC in HE project at Lancaster University, with accounts from Lancaster and the University of Derby that have been actively exploring the use of CMC in their teaching. Several participants at the workshop (including from Sheffield University and Glasgow University) also reported on their own experiences. Their contributions are included here and collectively have provided stimulus to the issues that are addressed. This papers main function is to crystallize some reflections from these perspectives around the important issues of flexible access and opportunities for women, establishing use and sustaining participation in CMC-based learning environments.

Flexible learning in higher education: the use of computer-mediated communications

Abstract This paper arises from a workshop at the CAL 93 conference. It attempts to crystallize some reflections on experience, rather than reporting the outcomes of a research study. The workshop was based on accounts from Lancaster University and the Institute of Education at London University that have been making significant use of computer-mediated communications (CMC) in their teaching. Several participants in the workshop also contributed some thoughts about their own experience of CMC, whether as a learner or a course-provider. These have found their way into our thinking and into this paper. This papers main function is as a stimulus to thinking about some key issues that have to be addressed if one is attempting to use CMC technology to support more flexible patterns of teaching and learning in higher education, such as group cohesion, modes of discourse, and human-to-human interaction.

A special section on computer-supported collaborative learning

Collaborative learning is a specialized type of group collaborative activity. The key bene®ts claimed for collaborative learning are that it supports active learning and deep processing of information (e.g. [1]) through requiring learners to invest mental ex80ort [2]. Collaborative learning is valued because it can assist in clarifying ideas and concepts through articulation and through discussion. Designing learning around collaborative activities is a means to encourage learners to draw upon the rich potential of each others ideas and perspectives (particularly valued for adult learners). McConnell [3] makes strong assertions for what he terms ``cooperative learning (though his term is synonymous here with our use of collaborative). He suggests that it can develop critical thinking, communication and coordination skills, and informs learners about the construction of knowledge. Cooperative learning provides validation of individual ideas and ways of thinking through conversation (verbalizing), multiple perspectives (cognitive restructuring) and argument (conceptual con ̄ict resolution). He further claims that cooperation fosters knowledge about the learning process and therefore encourages a spirit of learning to learn. When learners express their views, it can help them compare between their own understanding and that expressed by others, and from this to validate their ideas and/or to reveal misconceptions. When learners create an articulation, they must formulate their contribution with an awareness of what their partners do or do not know. Learners need to create together a common cognitive environment, consisting in knowledge that they all know and share. Communication becomes the process by which a base of mutual knowledge can be established [4]. Computer-supported collaborative learning becomes possible when we utilize networked learning environments to support these collaborative processes. These environments permit people to work together and communicate with each other over time as well as in geographically distributed ways. There have been a number of researchers looking at this area, primarily concentrating on text-based computer conferencing (e.g. [5±7]). More recent developments of multimedia groupware tools, together with developments in the area of computer-supported co-operative work (CSCW) have given a strong impetus to computer-supported collaborative learning. Groupware environments provide opportunities for collaborative learning in ̄exible yet cost-ex80ective ways: from distributed locations and within ̄exible timeframes. They allow learners and tutors to draw upon and interact with a vast array of resources: using them to de®ne problems; to represent or express ideas in dix80erent media; and to augment the resources with personal commentary, questions and alternative viewpoints [8]. Our theme in this special section of the journal is computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL). The papers we have gathered here are, with one exception, a set of papers written as a result of a special workshop organized by the DTIs Special Interest Group on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW). Within the SIG, a working group was established relating to CSCL and to mark the importance of the ®eld within CSCW, the workshop was held (at Heriot Watt University). The papers mark the development of this area of interest and give the Computers Educ. Vol. 30, No. 3/4, pp. 219±221, 1998 # 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved Printed in Great Britain 0360-1315/98

Asynchronous multimedia conferencing in continuing professional development: issues in the representation of practice through user‐created videoclips

19.00+0.00 PII: S0360-1315(97)00065-1

Undergraduate students’ experiences of networked learning in UK higher education: A survey-based study

Asynchronous multimedia conferencing (AMC) can be seen as a multimedia extension of text-based computer conferencing, which is a form of group-based distance learning technology now in routine use in many places. In contrast, AMC is quite novel and raises new issues concerning usability, appropriate pedagogical methods and potential educational benefit. In this paper we report on some exploratory work whose context is set by the goal of using AMC to support continuing professional development among geographically dispersed groups of practitioners. In particular it explores ways in which AMC may enable knowledge that is tacit and embedded in working practices to be rendered into shareable forms for collaborative professional learning. The paper reports on work-in-progress on a European-funded project, SHARP (SHAreable Representations of Practice). It describes some initial requirements-oriented studies and locates this activity within the broader landscape of AMC environments used for continuing professional development. In particular it discusses issues concerned with capturing representations of practice. Using digitised videoclips to create representations of practice is a relatively unexplored approach for professional learning and this approach has surfaced issues about what is needed in order to render a practitioners video representation into a communicable form. The paper offers a typology within which different kinds of videoclip, and different kinds of representational purposes, can be located. It sketches an AMC interchange in terms of the building up of a web of multimedia objects. Finally it offers a set of descriptors for such multimedia objects that can be useful in classifying and indexing entries in an educational AMC.

Perspectives and issues in networked learning

This chapter reports findings from a study of networked learning at the undergraduate level. It focuses on students’ expectations about, and experiences of, networked learning. The data come from questionnaires administered at the start and end of four different courses, and their interpretation is informed by a set of interviews with students and teachers involved in these and other networked learning courses. Students’ views were generally positive at the start and at the end of each course, though they became more moderate over time. The structure of students’ reported feelings remained relatively stable over time. There was no evidence to suggest that male or younger students had more positive feelings about networked learning. The thoroughness with which the use of communications technology is integrated into a networked learning course appears as a significant factor in explaining differences in students’ feelings about the worth and value of their experience. As might be expected, a well-integrated course was associated with more positive experiences.

Enabling professional learning in distributed communities of practice

Computer networks are still a recent phenomena and research into the uses of such networks for communication and group work is less than 30 years old. In the 1970s the Institute of the Future began to explore issues that remain relevant today and they also began to explore methods of research that continue to have their place in networked learning research (Vallee et al., 1974; 1974a; 1975). The continuity of research cannot blind us to the rapid changes and sudden shifts in the field. In particular the emergence and growth of the Web in the 19905 has had a prof ound impact, making networks the center and focus of developments in the way in whichcomputers themselves had provided a focus previously. As this book was being written anotherwave of technological innovation was developing but we cannot yet know the degree to which the promise of this new technology will be realized (Chabot, 1999). Mobile and ubiquitous computing might be the next big thing with fixed networks builton wires and cables being replaced by cellular radio networks that allow for ‘always on’ broadband communication. Networked learning is a term that describes the new focus for attention, the network, but it does so in suitably ambiguous terms, as the focus of networked learning is both learning and the network.

Computer mediated collaborative writing in higher education: enriched communication support using voice annotations

This paper explores how we may use multimedia communications technologies to enable key elements of real-world working knowledge, that are tacit and embedded in working practices to be rendered into shareable forms for professional learning. Communications technology offers innovative ways for geographically distributed communities of practitioners to create, annotate, discuss and reflect upon multimedia objects that capture working practices, such as problems of practice. The paper reports on work-in-progress on multimedia objects (primarily digitized video clips). Use of multimedia in professional learning is a relatively novel approach, and it is surfacing issues about the requirements for creating shareable, effective representations. A set of descriptors for multimedia objects has been developed and the paper focuses on applying the descriptors to an example video clip, to identify potential relationships between the descriptors. The duration of the clip, its use of artefacts and the social cues given in the clip are considered key factors in creating a shareable representation for discussion and reflection among practitioners in distributed professional communities