Gráinne Conole

What are the affordances of information and communication technologies

The paper examines the notion that Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) have affordances that epitomize the features of our late modern age (Giddens, 1991) and explores whether these affordances (Salomon, 1993, p. 51) can be used to facilitate particular approaches to educational practice. It argues that a clear articulation of these affordances would enable us to understand how these technologies can be most effectively used to support learning and teaching. We believe that any one affordance can be considered to have both positive and negative connotations and the paper draws on social and educational theory to provide an initial taxonomy of these affordances.

A review of computer-assisted assessment

Pressure for better measurement of stated learning outcomes has resulted in a demand for more frequent assessment. The resources available are seen to be static or dwindling, but Information and Communications Technology is seen to increase productivity by automating assessment tasks. This paper reviews computer-assisted assessment (CAA) and suggests future developments. A search was conducted of CAA-related literature from the past decade to trace the development of CAA from the beginnings of its large-scale use in higher education. Lack of resources, individual inertia and risk propensity are key barriers for individual academics, while proper resourcing and cultural factors outweigh technical barriers at the institutional level.

E-Learning: The Hype and the Reality

Abstract: This paper considers the increasing impact of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and the associated rise in e-learning as a recognised and respected research area. The paper provides a summary of some of the current research areas under investigation and provides a list of characteristics of the area. The paper goes on to consider the professional identities of researchers in the area and the tensions which have resulted in terms of aligning with this new emergent group of professionals within existing institutional structures. Editors: Stuart Lee.

Facilitating New Forms of Discourse for Learning and Teaching: Harnessing the Power of Web 2.0 Practices

When asked what they would find most helpful to enable them to use technologies more in their teaching, most teachers say ‘give me examples, in my subject area’ and ‘point me to relevant people I can discuss these issues with’. Web 2.0 technologies – with their emphasis on sharing, networking and user production – seem to offer a potential solution. However uptake and use of Web 2.0 sites such as blogs, social networking and wikis by teachers for sharing and discussing practice has being marginal so far. This paper focuses on work we are undertaking as part of the Open University Learning Design Initiative (http://ouldi.open.ac.uk) and the Hewlett‐funded Olnet initiative (http://olnet.org). A key focus of our work is the development of tools, methods and approaches to support the design of innovative learning activities and open educational resources. In this paper I want to focus on one strand of our work; namely, how to leverage technologies to promote better sharing and discussion of learning and teaching ideas and designs.

Characterising the Different Blogging Behaviours of Students on an Online Distance Learning Course.

Since the early years of the twenty‐first century there has been an increasing interest in using Web 2.0 technologies to support learning in Higher Education. However, previous research suggests that the integration of blogging into courses can be difficult and cites problems with issues such as student compliance. We adopt a learner‐centred perspective and explore students’ (rather than their educators’) understanding of how blogs and blogging can support distance learning in Higher Education. We report on a study of UK Open University (OU) students on an online distance learning Masters course, that has enabled us to determine the issues that are important to these bloggers, and we describe five ways in which they appropriated blogging to suit their individual needs. We discuss the importance of making blogging activities flexible so that students can blog to meet their own needs whilst still attending to the requirements of their course.

Listening to the learner voice: The ever changing landscape of technology use for language students

What does learning in todays technology-enhanced environment mean? Is learning as an activity fundamentally changing as a result of the opportunities offered by new technologies and tools? How are the new communicative channels and increased social dimensions possible through Web 2.0 technologies impacting on the way students work and learn? And what does this mean for the role of teachers and institutions in terms of how they support students? This paper considers these questions and reports on findings from current research evaluating how students are actually using technologies and what this research tells us about the ways in which patterns of learning might be changing. It will consider the implications for individual teachers (in terms of designing and supporting learning activities for students) and institutions in terms of the impact on policy and the associated infrastructure needed to provide an appropriate environment that maximises the potential offered by new technologies.

Carbide forming and cluster build-up reactions in ruthenium carbonyl cluster chemistry

Abstract The reinvestigation of an early synthesis of hexaruthenium carbido clusters has lead to the isolation of a number of new clusters which have been fully characterised by spectroscopic and crystallographic techniques. The thermolysis of Ru 3 (CO) 12 in the presence of mesitylene (1,3,5-trimethylbenzene) at moderate temperatures yields two new clusters, [Ru 6 (μ 4 -η 2 -CO) 2 (CO) 13 (η 6 -C 6 H 3 Me 3 )] (I) and [HRu 6 (μ 4 -η 2 -CO)(CO) 13 (μ 2 -η 7 -C 6 H 3 Me 2 CH 2 )] (II), the structures and reactivity of which indicate the origin and mechanism of formation of the carbido-carbon in the hexaruthenium carbido clusters [Ru 6 C(CO) 14 (η 6 -C 6 H 3 Me 3 )] (III) and [Ru 6 C(CO) 17 ] (IV). A further product of the reaction is the decaruthenium carbido cluster dianion [Ru 10 C(CO) 24 ] 2− (V) which has the tetracapped octahedral geometry. The monohydrido-cluster anion [HRu 10 C(CO) 24 ] − (VI) may be synthesised quantitatively from V by protonation. The nature of the hydrido-ligand in VI has been investigated in the solid state by NMR spectroscopy and it has been found to be fluxional, its location being temperature dependent. The decanuclear dianion V has been found to react with mercury salts to yield the 21 metal atom cluster dianion [Ru 18 Hg 3 C 2 (CO) 42 ] 2− (VII) which consists of two tricapped octahedral nonaruthenium “subclusters” fused by a bi-facecapping (Hg 3 ) 2+ unit.

Visualising learning design to foster and support good practice and creativity

Technologies offer tantalising possibilities for new forms of educational innovation, but we have argued that there is a gap between the potential of technologies to support learning and the reality of how they are actually used, and that this is due to a lack of understanding about how technologies can be used to afford specific learning advantages and to a lack of appropriate guidance at the design stage. This paper describes a project that has developed an approach to using learning design as a methodology to guide design and foster creativity in concert with good practice in the creation of learning activities. The paper will provide an overview of the work being undertaken by the Open University, UK Learning Design project; concentrating on the work we have done to represent and visualise design. Se représenter la conception de l’apprentissage pour développer et soutenir les bonnes pratiques et la créativité Les technologies offrent des possibilités séduisantes pour créer de nouvelles formes d’innovation éducative, mais nous avons souligné qu’il y a un fossé entre l’appui que ces technologies sont susceptibles d’apporter à l’apprentissage et la réalité des pratiques effectives, ce qui est dû à un manque de compréhension de la façon dont les technologies peuvent être employées pour offrir des gains d’apprentissage substantiels ainsi qu’à un manque d’orientation appropriée lors de la phase de conception. Cet article décrit un projet dans lequel on a mis au point une approche visant à utiliser la conception de l’apprentissage comme méthodologie pour guider la conception et développer la créativité, de concert avec une bonne pratique de la création d’activités d’apprentissage. Cet article présente une vue d’ensemble du travail entrepris dans le cadre du projet britannique de Conception de l’Apprentissage de l’Open University, en se concentrant sur le travail que nous avons effectué pour représenter et rendre visible la conception. Veranschaulichung von Lernentwürfen zur Unterstützung von „good practice” und Kreativität Technologie bietet vielversprechende Möglichkeiten neuer Formen pädagogischer Innovation. Wir müssen jedoch feststellen, dass zwischen dem Potential von diesen Möglichkeiten Gebrauch beim Lernen zu machen und der tatsächlichen Nutzung in der Praxis ein Graben herrscht. Dies liegt sowohl am mangelnden Verständnis, wie Technologie erfolgreich eingesetzt werden kann um Lernfortschritte zu ermöglichen, als auch an der nicht stattfindenden Anleitung während der Entwurfsphase. In diesem Artikel wird ein Projekt vorgestellt, in dem ein Verfahren entwickelt wurde, das Lernentwürfe zur Anleitung und zur Pflege von Kreativität zusammen mit „good practice” und der Entwicklung von Lernaktivitäten einsetzt. Der Artikel berichtet im Überblick über den Stand der Arbeit, die an der Open University UK Learning Design Projekt ausgeführt wird, unter besonderer Berücksichtigung von Entwurfsvisualisierung und ‐veranschaulichung. Visualizar el diseño del aprendizaje para fomentar y sostener buenas prácticas y la creatividad. Las TICs ofrecen posibilidades tentadoras conduciendo a nuevas formas de inovación educativa pero hemos argumentado que hay una brecha entre el potencial de las tecnologías para sostener el aprendizaje y la realidad de los usos reales, esto siendo el resultado de una falta de comprensión de los modos en que se puede utilizar esas tecnologías para proporcionar ventajas específicas en el aprendizaje y también de una falta de orientación adecuada en la fase de diseño. Este artículo describe un proyecto en el cual se ha desarrollado un enfoque para utilizar el diseño del aprendizaje como metodología para dirigir el diseño y fomentar la creatividad en consonancia con buenas prácticas en la creación de actividades de aprendizaje. Este artículo ofrece una visión de conjunto del trabajo que está siendo llevado a cabo dentro del proyecto Diseño para el Aprendizaje de la Open University del Reino Unido, haciendo hincapié en el trabajo que hemos hecho para representar y visualizar el diseño.

Evidence‐based practice and e‐learning in Higher Education: can we and should we?

Policy makers are increasingly looking to evidence‐based practice as a means of ensuring accountability and validity in education and more recently in e‐learning. In this paper, the origins of evidence‐based practice are reviewed, and considered in relation to the emergence of e‐learning as an area of policy, research and practice. The close links between these three activities within e‐learning are described, and a critique is presented that raises methodo‐logical, epistemological and moral questions about this approach. This analysis identifies a number of implications for e‐learning, including the problems facing practitioner‐researchers working on project funding and the potentially distorting effect of e‐learning policy on research in this field. Possible alternative approaches are suggested, advocating a more inclusive conception of evidence‐based practice in which any single model (such as the hierarchy of evidence developed within medicine) is prevented from dominating evaluation by explicitly adopting a commitment to inclusivity and empowerment within evaluation and research.

Fostering social inclusion through open educational resources (OER)

This special issue explores open educational resources (OER) and the ways in which they can be used to support social inclusion, one of the key challenges that need to be addressed in today’s technologically rich digital environment (Conole, 2011). This call is timely as we are at a point in OER research where we need to move beyond the creation of OER repositories to consideration of how they can be used effectively. The OPAL project (http://oer-quality.org/) is a good example, as it focuses on exploration of the practices around the creation, use, and management of OER. There are now many repositories of good practice; however, despite this research suggests that learners and teachers are not using and repurposing OER extensively (McAndrew et al., 2009). New social and participatory media that have emerged in recent years seem to have immense potential for use in learning and teaching, in particular to support new forms of communication, cooperation, and collaboration (Conole & Alevizou, 2010). The key characteristics of these new technologies, such as peer critiquing, collective aggregation, personalization, networking, and more open practices, generally sit well alongside what constitutes good pedagogy and more learningand learner-centered approaches such as inquiry-based learning, scenario-based learning, dialogic and reflective learning, and more constructivist and situated pedagogies generally (Mayes & de Freitas, 2004). The vision behind the OER movement (promoted through organizations such as the Hewlett Foundation and UNESCO) is that making educational resources freely available to all is a fundamental right. The hypothesis is that making OER freely available will lead to their being used more by learners and teachers, as well as being repurposed, hence promulgating good practice. In particular, new social and participatory media provides a range of mechanisms for sharing and discussing OER. OER are of particular importance in addressing the challenges faced in developing countries, where it is evident that conventional approaches to education are not going to meet the needs of learners and teachers there (Daniel, 2010). However, despite the rhetoric about new social and participatory media generally and OER specifically, the reality is that their uptake and reuse in formal educational contexts has been disappointing. Furthermore, the ever increasing technologically rich learning environment in which today’s learners and teachers are immersed is raising issues in terms of social exclusion; the technological divide might be narrower but it is deeper—those not connected or not using these new technologies are being left behind at an alarming rate. Distance Education Vol. 33, No. 2, August 2012, 131–134