Last month, I had the privilege of participating in two ELESIG (Evaluation of e-Learner Experience Special Interest Group) events, at UCL (ELESIG London) and St Andrews University (ELESIG Scotland), and an M25 Learning Technology Group meeting, also held in UCL.
ELESIG London (‘Come Evaluate with me’) on 11th November was organised by Leo Havemann from Birkbeck and Dr Mira Vogel from UCL. The event started with a discussion about the organisation’s remit and activities, out of which emerged a rough plan for a collaborative cross-institutional evaluation of the impact of our community of practice on our own and others’ professional practice. Highlights included talks by Tunde Varga-Atkins (University of Liverpool) on the nominal focus group technique for e-learning evaluation, followed by Professor Amanda Jefferies (University of Hertfordshire) sharing her expertise of using student video diaries for e-learner experience evaluation. Tweets have been curated in Storify. This event was followed by an excellent M25LTG event (‘Dreams and Nightmares’) organised by Sonja Grussendorf. Of the many highlights, one for me was Clive Young and Nataša Perovic’s ABC approach to curriculum design, and tweets have also been curated in Storify.
ELESIG Scotland (‘Teacher experiences of E-Learning’) on 23rd November was kindly hosted by Margaret Adamson, Head of Learning Technology and IT Skills Development at St Andrews University. Margaret outlined exciting developments at St Andrews in terms of embedding technology enhanced learning (TEL) into the institution’s core learning and teaching strategy. One highlight included student involvement in all aspects of TEL, including work on open badges which will be linked to students’ Higher Education Achievement Record.
The keynote by Professor Keith Smythe, Professor of Pedagogy at UHI, encouraged us to adopt evidence-based approaches in staff development in technology-enhanced learning, as well as contributing to the growing scholarship evidence in this area. In particular, Keith made a plea for more robust evidence of the impact of staff development in TEL, going beyond immediate evaluations of perceptions to more longitudinal critical evaluation studies.
An overview of staff experiences of transitions to blended learning at the University of Glasgow was presented by me (Vicki Dale). This was work conducted with Josephine Adekola and Kerr Gardiner under QAA Scotland’s current Enhancement Theme. Informed by the literature, this work has resulted in a holistic framework that provides a number of considerations for institutions looking to expand their blended learning provision.
Professor Lesley Diack from Robert Gordon University shared an evaluation of e-learning CPD developed through a knowledge transfer project in partnership with industry. By developing bite-sized chunks of e-learning, and maintaining ongoing consultation with users, Lesley and colleagues were able to design a highly effective suite of online learning materials that received an overwhelmingly positive response.
Sheila MacNeill outlined new developments at Glasgow Caledonian University on tools for supporting teachers in developing fully online courses. Sheila advocated using easy-to-use content creation tools such as Blendspace, Sway, Storify and Adobe Slate. However, the initial process of working with staff on their online learning design was very much a paper-based exercise, to allow them to focus on what students are expected to learn and do.
The day concluded with a series of short talks, including one by Helen Gadegaard, also from the University of Glasgow, in which she presented the results of an evaluation of Labster tutorials to prepare students for the wet lab.
Tweets from the event have also been curated using Storify. For more information about the events and links to presentations and videos of the talks, please join the community at http://elesig.ning.com/. In particular, please join the ELESIG Scotland group to receive updates about future events.