teaching with technologies

Teaching with technologies: potential and pitfalls

Dr Janet Macdonald

Teachers’ conference 15th Jan 2011,

International Study Centre, Brighton

What do students need to be able to do?

How is this changing with technology use?

How do we support their learning?

Listening, reading and sensemaking

(Making sense of course content)

Communicating and community

(Communicating with a group)

Searching and researching

(Searching, evaluating and using online

resources)

Writing and speaking(Preparing oral and written

assignments)

Learning with online and mobile technologies

Macdonald & Creanor, (2010)

Listening, reading and sensemaking

Making sense of course content…

Getting the gist“I used to wonder how I could possibly have got to the

end of that first module without a clue as to what it had been about. But I am learning, at least, I’m learning how to survive. Once I discovered how much it helped to go over the main points more than once by downloading and reading over the handouts and listening to the podcast, I started to get the gist of what it was about then at least I had a fighting chance.”

(Macdonald & Creanor, 2010)

Battling with the language..

“I would recommend it, especially to people who come from having English as a third or a fourth language, I need more time to re-listen the same story to understand it, that is what my experience with podcasting has been..”

Ng’ambi, D. (2008) UCT

www.open.ac.uk/itunes/

Checking understanding

The classroom

..concentrating on troublesome knowledge…

Elluminate

Writing and presentingPreparing oral and written

assignments..

Use of comment and review tool

What to write?

“Produce a coherent argument which includes a critical evaluation of the salient points of this discussion…”

How to write?

The E-scrapbook• Tutor comment:Tutor comment: Every course has its own particular approach to writing.

When planning your essay, remember […] I have put together a few examples from your scripts to illustrate this point. You can learn from each other!

• Student quote 1:Student quote 1: I am going to look at the situated view of learning as explained in the course and give examples of personal experiences which show the connections between [...]

• Student quote 2:Student quote 2: What is a ‘learning situation’? Although in this analysis I use terms such as ‘my personal learning situation’ in order to situate my argument within the context of the course, the truth is [...]

Enhancing assignment feedback and feed forward (audio clips)

Communicating and communityLearning with a group

Online groups for community

“if I was going to recommend anything at this stage, it would be to find people facing similar problems and discover that you are not alone!”

Forums for course discussion“This forum's been great to help get rid of nerves …

Everyone was extremely helpful and everyone was very enthusiastic. Some of the discussions that we had really helped to show how much everyone know about the subject already just from everyday life, and it was good to share ideas and points of view.”

Macdonald (2008)

SMS Alerts• Reminders of

assignment submission• Exam results• Warnings• Encouragement !

Rodrigues de Lemos 2009

Searching and researchingSearching, evaluating and

using online resources..

- paraphrasing, summarising,

- Avoiding plagiarism

http://openlearn.open.ac.uk

www.scran.ac.uk

In summary..• New tools bring new opportunities for students• They will use them whether we invite them to or not• We need to be prepared to offer informed guidance…!

Macdonald, J. & Creanor, L. (2010) Learning with online & mobile technologies. (Gower)

Macdonald, J. (2008) Blended learning and online tutoring. (2nd ed, Gower)

http://uk.linkedin.com/in/janetmaconlinescot