Extending the classroom together [1412] Home : Annual Conference 2016

Public Group active 9 months, 2 weeks ago

Thu, Sep 8 2016, 1:30pm – 3:00pm
Authors: Amber Thomas, and Robert O’toole
Room: Theatre
Theme: Create
Type: Standard Session

Description

To many educationalists, the imperatives to provide effective digital learning experiences are clear. And yet we know that academics do not always recognise the value of TEL. Two years ago in this university we began to rethink how we market technology in teaching.

This is an implementation story of a whole institution initiative to improve the awareness and uptake of technology enhanced learning. It begins with identifying the key value proposition of the core tools in the toolbox, in a benefits-led and visual approach rather than our previous supply-side story. Through acknowledging different patterns of use within departments and services, the variety surfaces but within a context of core centrally supported tools. This allows us to talk about repeatable, sustainable patterns of use across VLE, lecture capture, personal response systems, eportfolio, reading lists, discussion forums etc. By using design thinking to understand how technology use can fit, stick, spread and grow, we are better prioritising our work to have impact. The central IT team is working closely with the staff development unit to raise awareness of the affordances of both supported and unsupported tools. This is a path trodden by many institutions but we will tell our story.

In this short session we will describe how this unifying initiative acts as an umbrella for sustainable change within an institution that resists centralisation.

2015/6 has seen a deepening of the approach, as we continue to extend the classroom together.

Through a new digichamps programme and building on student interest in the benefits of lecture capture, we are looking inwards to the skills and perspectives of our student body: investing in student co-creation of TEL activities, supported by open badges.

In parallel we are looking outwards to our international partners to identify where TEL is being used to bridge institutions, where it isn’t, and why. What switches people on to virtual classroom sessions? What is the role of MOOCs and SPOCs within departments?

And what does all this mean for our biggest services, the VLE and lecture capture? How do we develop institutional policy and practice in a context of academic and departmental autonomy?

Looking forwards, we will finish with a look towards the future and some provocations about the role of TEL tools and specialists as we head towards 2017.

This work is rooted in models of academic practice with TEL (see Bennett, 2014), design thinking in education (see O’Toole, 2015) and models of change in a networked organisation (see Jarche). We have used these underlying approaches to frame our model of supported TEL adoption. On these foundations we are now moving towards formalising the evidence base for evaluating the change.

BENNETT, Liz. Learning from the early adopters: developing the Digital Practitioner. Research in Learning Technology, [S.l.], v. 22, jul. 2014. ISSN 2156-7077. Available at: <http://www.researchinlearningtechnology.net/index.php/rlt/article/view/21453>. Date accessed: 08 Jun. 2016. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.3402/rlt.v22.21453.

O’TOOLE, Robert (2015) Fit, stick, spread and grow : transdisciplinary studies of design thinking for the [re]making of higher education. PhD thesis, University of Warwick. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/73157/

Networked Management models via Harold Jarche http://jarche.com/2015/09/principles-of-networked-management/

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