Susan Greener

Talking online: reflecting on online communication tools

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to reflect on the value and constraints of varied online communication tools from web 2.0 to e‐mail in a higher education (HE) teaching and learning context, where these tools are used to support or be the main focus of learning.Design/methodology/approach – A structured reflection is produced with the aid of Bolman and Deals framing approach enabling four perspectives of this teaching and learning experience to be considered.Findings – Structural, interpersonal, political and symbolic issues are identified which currently favour the use of learning content management systems for course communication tools. Some of the blocks and barriers to the use of web 2.0 freedoms to publish, collaborate and communicate are identified and offered for debate.Research limitations/implications – This is a short paper designed to share reflective insights from HE teaching and learning experience in order to stimulate further research and debate on online communication tools for lea...

What do we mean by “student-centred” learning?

Many teachers hold strongly to the notion that their classes are student-centred. This phrase appears in many course validation documents and evaluation reports. It is a required criterion for academic credibility. Yet it does not seem to have penetrated beyond the periphery of practice. If we investigate a little the idea of student-centredness, we immediately confront the role of the teacher, because for a programme of learning to be centred on the student, the teacher cannot equally occupy that centre ground. Carl Rogers in the posthumously published “On Becoming a Teacher” (Rogers & Lyon 2013) said “teaching is a vastly overrated function and only the facilitation of learning is important.” Yet of course there is a vital role to be filled in designing that learning experience which will encourage the student to learn. In the online learning world we talk increasingly of designers as well as facilitators of learning. And that learning design should by rights have students at the heart of the experience. This must mean that students are not seen as passive vessels to fill with knowledge, nor yet as willing or unwilling collaborators in the learning curriculum, but as people able to choose where they put their attention; people able to choose to learn or not to learn. Bandura suggested that we consider learning to be a product of triadic reciprocal determinism, an echoing process where the abilities and expectations and attitudes of a learner are constantly in relationship with the environment – not just the physical sensory one but also social environments involving friends, colleagues, family and role models. Behaviour of the learner in Bandura’s model of Social Cognitive Theory (1986) is a shifting process bouncing off others, environmental experience and personal attitudes. If this is brought into the educational context, those students at the centre of the process will clearly learn, or not, from others – not just the teacher but fellow students, and will be bringing to the learning experience attitudes and behaviours from their own and others’ pasts. Whether they choose to learn will be affected by the attention they give to all these inputs, and whether they hold in some regard significant others who demonstrate learning behaviours to them. This shifts our understanding of the provision of formal learning experiences to one which must seek to be open to the student’s self-perception and self-efficacy; their prior learning experiences and their relation to others in the learning situation. This is not so much a test of our ability to design engaging learning materials and tests, or to find appropriate Open Educational Resources, as a need to spend time getting to understand our learners and their worlds. This interaction is the prime one – that of the learner with all other influences – people, knowledge, online and physical environment and their own self-perceptions, if we are to encourage active learning in and outside the classroom. Our learning experience, to be student-centred, needs to be recognised as a social system in which learning can take place since learners are people who have agency – intention, forethought, selfreactiveness and self-reflectiveness (Bandura 2006). Technology, when introduced as an

Are we outsourcing memory

As I age, I keep lists. Not the pen and paper or back of the envelope variety; my lists are entirely within my online personal learning environment. All accessible by mobile, tablet, laptop and desktop: I am a compulsive note-taker. I used to produce a form of scribbled graffiti within a physical diary, now it is all online – sorted, retrievable at a click or two. My record includes photos: of slides, of documents, of people and places. So however many dozens of meetings, seminars, conferences and just thoughts there are in the average week, I have a record of them. By referring back to my notes (not always written in recognisable English) I can recreate the event, the conversation and the thought of the moment. I add to them through reflection, connect thoughts, bring together resources which appeared separately. This is my way of living, by which I mean learning, since life without learning seems rather senseless. There is an argument in psychology which proposes that, as cognitive function declines with age, it could be particularly helpful to outsource information to external devices, allowing forgetting and freeing up unnecessary interruptions of normal cognitive process or making space to think (e.g. see Wimber, Alink, Charest, Kriegeskorte, & Anderson, 2015). There are also strong cases for external environmental supports for sensory and cognitive degeneration with age (Ross & Schryer, 2015). We are told that we need to encode information to move it from working memory to long-term memory to be easily recalled. van Niekerk and Webb (2016) suggest that one of the basic principles of brain-compatible learning (blending neuroscience and educational psychology) is that there is no long-term retention without rehearsal. This principle offers much opportunity to facilitators and designers of learning experiences, to set up practice and application of ideas with relevant feedback loops to support learners. Presumably any such practice or rehearsal will involve some kind of action by learners as they recognise and construct patterns to develop their learning. I think that this is what I am doing when I take notes. The action involves the processing of information into shapes and structures, categorising what I hear and what I say into forms which enable me to retrieve not just the words written but also the thoughts and sensory experiences lodged in memory systems at that time. Of course, since this is an active behaviour, I may also by engaging in kinaesthetic preferences simply by moving my fingers to help me listen effectively. When I blog or write reports or take actions based on these notes, I reactivate that information and push it further along into semantic and perhaps also episodic memory, creating new neural connections in the brain in relation to what was already there. So the whole process involves my attention and action, my active notetaking which supports encoding of information into memory and its storage, not just in an external device such as a mobile, but also in my own memory systems, giving me potential to reactivate and recall. So when I take a class of students, and they resist mutely the encouragement to take a note, to bring in a device to class, even to voice record the discussion for later playback, I start to worry. Is it just that at my advanced age I need to make notes and they, with younger brains, do not? Well, age probably does have something to do with it. However, we do rely increasingly on external devices to do the work of memory for us. Students seem more and more reluctant to write anything in class, unless they are specifically engaged in a task. We could simply see this as a shifted opportunity for more active learning in that classroom. This sounds good; as teachers we must thus move further away from lectures and towards flipped learning, engaging learners fully in tasks, problems, discussions, projects within the classroom and online. Many of the papers in this issue

Human capital or signalling, unpacking the graduate premium

Purpose - –The purpose of this paper is to revisit the debate on the contribution of higher education (HE) to the economy which has been dominated by human capital theory and signalling theory. Human capital theory contends that HE contributes by adding to the potential productivity of graduate employees. Signalling theory, asserts that HE contributes by enabling employers to differentiate potentially productive graduate employees. Design/methodology/approach - – The paper uses recent advances in our understanding of the graduate employability to reassess the two theories. Most graduate job vacancies are open to graduates of any subject and the key to employment in such jobs appears to be the graduate propensity to learn in employment. Findings - – HE both increases students’ propensity to learn in employment and signals to employers that graduates are people with a high propensity to learn in employment. Practical implications - – The conclusion is that for the four key stakeholder groups, the economic value of a university education can best be explained with the concept of “graduate propensity to learn”. Social implications - – Employers, government, existing students and potential students and universities benefit from the propensity to learn, which is the most important economic outcome of a university education. Originality/value - – The paper resolves the choice between human capital and signalling theories as a false dichotomy as HE both develops students’ powers.

Mathematics students’ next steps after graduation

This article is about what happens to newly minted mathematics graduates. It explores data from the first destination statistics from the perspective of mathematics lecturers and others involved in institutions that provide a higher education in mathematics. It also looks at reasons why this issue is important to those engaged in the higher education of mathematics undergraduates. A key finding is that the employment of mathematics graduates is concentrated in the sector of the economy that includes banking, property and financial services which makes the employment prospects for new graduates in mathematics vulnerable to recession in that sector.

What does technology add to learning

Debates abound about whether learning is changing through digital capabilities. Learning has always happened in varying degrees and the neuroscientists are increasing our understanding of the biochemical and electrical activities which make this happen in the brain, exploring the neural processes involved in learning. Does digital activity, particularly long spans of screen focus, affect how this learning happens? A paper published by the Royal Society (West et al., 2015) suggests structural changes can occur in the ever plastic brain through regular video game playing, changes which may be associated with a risk of neurological and psychiatric disorders later in life. This is just one paper, and the conclusions are far from conclusive, but there are some warning signs that neural activity, being very flexible, may adapt to excessive use of screen and touchscreen interaction, and not always in a good way. So perhaps we should be concerned about the effect technology can have on learning. While brain structures and linkages will adapt, and, for some stimuli, return to their previous state when the stimulus is no longer encountered, the laying down of memories and the augmentation of knowledge and skill still happen through enquiry, interaction with the environment and rehearsal. Learning technologies of the kind discussed and explored widely in this journal tend to focus on the enhancement of enquiry and rehearsal motivation, often looking for the marginal gains which will make a difference. According to the Royal Society’s publication on Neuroscience: Implications for education and lifelong learning (2011), research demonstrates that uncertainty about the reward the learner might receive contributes to the level of neural response it generates. This seems to challenge any simple relationship between reward and motivation in school, and could offer new ways to use reward more effectively in education to support learning. Using games which can adapt to a learner’s skill level can be a particularly effective way to demonstrate the difference between the outcome the learner expects and the outcome they actually achieve. In a virtual environment this can encourage practice and rehearsal, personalising through adaptive routines to the learner’s needs in a way which would be difficult to achieve in a traditional didactic classroom. A whole range of other opportunities derive from technology which could be said to add value to learning. Digital simulations are offered in a range of disciplines from medicine to mathematics and business to the creative arts, enabling experimentation without danger, and access to hands-on learning experiences which would otherwise be unavailable. Calculations can be similarly manipulated online, easily producing an endless set of examples with randomly introduced data; this allows practice and rehearsal of arithmetic processes, often made more attractive by innovative visual display. Videoconferencing has made it possible for learners at every level to connect with people remotely and have conversations directly with those living in contexts they would formerly have met only through textbooks. This is a huge boost for language learning as well as all forms of educational research and interaction. Digital cameras and other sensors enable real time observations for data gathering. Applications enable learners to relate differently to real world environments through augmented reality. At the same time, passively collected data about their use of applications enables learning analytics to enhance and guide our understanding of attention, activity and engagement in learning. This means educators can offer support in good time when it is needed, rather than waiting until assessment failure flags up a problem. Learners can take greater responsibility for their own learning,

Smart toys and sophisticated learning tools

Teachers have a lot of responsibility. Their views clearly count, since they will affect what goes on in the classroom. Theory also counts – we get to think through notions of learning and teaching in a “grand theory” context and we get to apply and experiment with theory in practical learning situations. So when learning technologies disrupt what teachers think they know about learning, and when physical devices and virtual connections impinge on the classroom experience, teachers are responsible for constructing a way forward. Models of adoption suggest that what others do will affect the response to new technology, particularly when there is no escape from the change. Today’s digital revolution means teachers cannot escape from the physical presence of mobile devices in the classroom. Whereas before the student could bring their daydreams and preoccupations into class only in their heads and sometimes in their exercise books, now they arrive unbidden in the form of smart devices, and no amount of Canute-like hectoring will send them back. The way forward, then, must embrace the change. An openness to the opportunities and affordances for learning, which smart devices can offer, does not mean starting again on grand learning theory, but rethinking the way classes run. Teachers know much about learning and the excitement, challenge and creativity needed for an effective classroom. That is what smart devices can offer, when they are welcomed into the learning design. An example of this is offered in the paper from Kara, Aydin and Cagiltay on smart toys, or physical toys with technological features. When we think of smart toys, we tend to think of smartphones and tablets, or perhaps wearable technology such as the iWatch; but in this paper, we are treated to a storytelling environment involving a computer, a Radio Frequency Identification system and some picture cards and plush toys for children in kindergarten. The inclusion of multimedia technology seems to affect the length of time playing with the toys and for 6-year olds, offers a step forward in creative storytelling. Still in the classroom and taking games further, van Rosmalen and Westera discuss a wiki-based game called Argument using free online software. Their purpose is to overcome technical and financial barriers which often prevent teachers from introducing games-based learning into the classroom. Although the wiki games designed in the study were not always perceived as true serious games by participants, the authors were able to encourage teachers to use public domain software based on wikis to develop their own interactive exercises with game-like attributes. Staying with wikis, Peled, Bar-Shalom and Sharon discuss peer feedback for in-service teachers in a wiki environment. The learning benefits of peer feedback for formative assessment are clear to teachers, but are not widely used even in a manual format in the classroom. Online learning environments can facilitate and encourage such peer feedback, making it easier to organise, but barriers still exist for students who have not learned to cope with

Designing environments for peer-to-peer and collaborative learning

In Thomas and Seely Brown’s A new culture of learning: cultivating the imagination for a world of constant change (2011) there is a story about a nine-year-old child who played Scratch, a multimedia programming tool developed in 2003 at MIT Media Lab. The authors suggest that as a result of playing with this imaginative software, the child learned not just about programming, and taking part in online communities with other participants, but also how to learn from other participants. This is a story which goes to the heart of the debates in this journal: how digital learning environments can, through interaction of learners within these environments, build knowledge and meaning for themselves. The environments become actors within this process, offering affordances for learning which may complement learning interactions in the physical world. An environment is a place where things happen. If we want learning to happen, we need to understand what elements of that environment help learning to happen. Teachers, of course, are principal actors in this process too. They and their beliefs about teaching and learning will shape the environment offered to learners, particularly when that environment includes digital spaces and not just last century classrooms. Interactions and dialogue in physical classrooms often follow traditional cultural norms, based on authority residing in the teacher. However in digital spaces, these norms change; peer-to-peer interaction is enabled more freely and, in the right conditions, given a trusting and supportive culture of learning, learner/learner interaction can capture the imagination and fertilize or cultivate the process of learning. The dynamics of social media tell us that change, novelty and connection entice people into digital spaces. The challenge for teachers and trainers in professional learning worlds is to be sufficiently open to these dynamics, without letting go the standards of excellence required for the furtherance and construction of knowledge. As Lu and Churchill show in their small-scale study of a social networking environment, cognitive engagement within digital social networks is by no means a foregone conclusion. We are still learning about learning in these digital spaces and the study suggests the design of authentic tasks and environmental constraints, as well as cultural factors, may increase social activity to the detriment of cognitive activity. Hwang and Wu’s study of children’s collaborative relationships in the control of robots also focusses on social interaction, and how students learn to work together through negotiation, which is best facilitated, according to their study, by a peer co-ordinator who can see the big picture. Two comparative studies are included in this issue. Park et al. also underline the importance of environmental design in their comparison of physical and virtual delivery methods in an agricultural course; a study which favours learning outcomes achieved through virtual delivery. Bicen, Ozdamli and Uzunboylu contrast blended with fully online learning

Editorial: TEL in the workplace

An introduction is presented in which the editors discuss topics within the issue, including technology-enhanced learning (TEL), workplace learning, and human resources development.

Where are we on our journey of online learning

When I completed a series of thesis-driven papers and articles in 2007, as an author I was painfully aware that my thoughts and conclusions were temporary litter on the pathway towards a cleaner, better understood learning world. I imagined that within a very few years, these ideas would be old hat, and my grasp of learning technologies would be much improved, enabling me to drag my learning and teaching practice into a new virtual era. To some extent, this proved to be the case. When I re-read those earlier papers, the software discussed and the learning environments evaluated seem dated and out of step with my current practice. I could not have anticipated even then the 24/7 connections which support my leisure, living and learning today. Learning environments are on the whole less mechanical, more intuitive and easier to navigate than those first adopted by educational institutions. They also have a wider reach into global literatures and practice. My students certainly do not depend on me for content any more. The least self-directed learner today is still likely to be able to locate good material swiftly – although they may not know quite what to do with it. And perhaps that is a clue as to where we are on this learning journey. We can develop ever better systems to support learning and we can blur the formal and informal learning contexts, or cut down the barriers which used to exist between them. We can provide efficient shortcuts to access virtual affordances for learning, develop creative ways in which to visualise and imagine competency improvements using learning technologies, we can review and enhance physical and virtual interrelationships in the process of learning, and we can rediscover sound learning concepts which were previously constrained by the classroom. This issue of Interactive Learning Environments offers evaluation of all these steps forward. But, and there had to be a but, have we progressed on the journey? Are we in a new virtual era and is it supporting learning better than its physical precursor? Readers will have their own view on this but perhaps we might consider that learning has not improved through the development of learning technologies, nor through accelerated Web growth and transformation. Our learners, both in educational institutions and in the workplace, are not necessarily learning better than in the days of cramped desks and chalk-related blackboards. They could be said to be learning more, from a wider range of sources. They could also be said to have much better access to data and information; even in parts of the world where laptops are scarce resources, Wi-Fi and smartphones are changing the availability of data. One of the dilemmas posed by developing online learning research is the drive towards trying to make learning easier in some way for the learner and for the teacher. Seeing learners struggle to change old ways of thinking and grapple with new points of reference, perhaps to transform their perspectives and bring information into the form of personally and practically useful knowledge inspires most teachers to search for better ways to help