Anytime Learning Literacies Environment (ALLE)

A JISC Funded LTIG project

Presenting team:

Lyn Greaves, Claire Bradley,

Prof Tom Boyle and Andy Turner

Learning Journeys: Resourceful solutions for learner digital literacy acquisition

Our Aim was -

To fully scaffold all digital literacy activities in a UWL module with interactive Learning Objects that ‘explain’ the concept and house them in a single user interface – the Learner Journey

To design and build our Learner Journey using the JISC LLida project framework categories

http://www.academy.gcal.ac.uk/llida/outputs.html

Use materials from the OER community to ensure maximum reuse of our ‘Learner Journeys’ across the sector and maximum flexibility

Why did we want to do this?

Already had some success with building in Learning Objects from the RLO CETL (JISC RePurpose Project BL4ACE, 2009)

Had learnt a great deal about our learners and our institution from participating in the JISC LLiDA audit, 2009

Had experienced the benefits for our learners (and tutors!) of Learning Objects strategically built in to the curriculum

The GLO Maker Tool was at a development stage to customise/repurpose Learning Objects

Context: UWL West London Business School

First year core module dedicated to preparation for study and PDP. Carefully designed curriculum to support learner progression and success.

drawing together the processes, encounters and engagements that make for good learning

making explicit digital and information literacy processes that underpin critical thinking

immersing learners in weekly activities that practise digital and information literacy processes

building up to a final written artefact (essay)

Delivery approach

1 hour large group lecture (300) concept explained e.g. ‘Searching on a topic’

7 hours Independent task execution

1 hour peer & tutor supported sharing discussion in BB during the week

1 hour small seminar (25) peer and tutor feedback on task processes

An example of weekly activity:

Concept scaffold framework for Module Professional skills for Business and Finance

The Challenge – support non f2f activities

After contact session learners are left to identify and select suitable support materials to reach an understanding of how to tackle the task

Might have missed the concept explanation Support is often dispersed and difficult for

students most in need to access Personalised learning approaches mean

students arrive at ‘understanding/s’ at different points in time/study

Merging the personal and the technical

Enabling and supporting the learner to acquire their understanding at a pace, place and time of their own choosing.

Meeting the Challenge - Support for our learners

To fully scaffold all digital literacy activities with interactive Learning Objects that ‘explain’ the concept and house them in a single user interface – the Learner Journey

Ensure the materials were designed for reuse across the sector

Designing the Learner Journey

RePurposed the LLiDA Framework Agreed a shared understanding of each

component Storyboarded each component into a stand

alone Learning Object Searched for OER materials to reuse or

created new materials Involved students at each stage of the design

process Students designed and created Learning

Objects

Designing the Learner Journey

RePurposed the LLiDA Framework Agreed a shared understanding of each

component Storyboarded each component into a stand

alone Learning Object Searched for OER materials to reuse or

created new materials Involved students at each stage of the design

process Students designed and created Learning

Objects

Designing the Learner Journey

RePurposed the LLiDA Framework Agreed a shared understanding of each

component Storyboarded each component into a stand

alone Learning Object Searched for OER materials to reuse or

created new materials Involved students at each stage of the design

process Students designed and created Learning

Objects

Magpie activity

Examples of the sources we scavenged from:

http://web2practice.jiscinvolve.org/wp/ http://www.rlo-cetl.ac.uk/ http://www.phrasebank.manchester.ac.uk http://www.glomaker.org/community.html

http://www.phrasebank.manchester.ac.uk/conclusions.htm

Designing the Learner Journey

RePurposed the LLiDA Framework Agreed a shared understanding of each

component Storyboarded each component into a stand

alone Learning Object Searched for OER materials to reuse or

created new materials Involved students at each stage of the design

process Students designed and created Learning

Objects

The GLO Maker Tool was used to create the Learning Objects to populate the interface

Website:

http://www.glomaker.org

Wiki:

http://glomaker.wetpaint.com

Ease of transferability

GLO Maker: The GLO Maker allows for

rapid easy transferability and customisation across sector and educational contexts

The website has tutorials; examples and a thriving community of academics, developers and librarians

One of the project outputs is how we can transfer to different contexts: workplace learning; study, home, but also is suitable for specialist customisation, as the example GLO here shows

http://www.glomaker.org/samples/MarketingFemaleForm/GLO_Player.html

The learner journey

The learner journey is in 3 parts:

The Academic journey

The Library learning journey

Digital tools for learning

‘The learner journey’ is a resource designed for repurpose and use across a range of contexts (e.g. workplace, community or placement).

Students can access it via mobile phones

The Learner Journey encourages anytime, anyplace user engagement

Has it been Effective?

The Learner Journey was implemented at the University of West London and London Metropolitan University.

What did the students and the tutors think about it? Interviews with tutors at both institutions Focus groups with students

What did students like?

‘Wordle’ visualisation of comments from 80 students

http://www.wordle.net

What did students like?

“They are a valuable resource and have helped me with my out of contact work.”

“It was very helpful. It helped me develop my skill and broadened my knowledge horizon.”

“It helped to develop my reading and writing skills. It gave me support to complete my portfolio.”

“It enhances learning, making available the right materials needed for any kind of assignments.”

“Very good, passed the link on to friends who found it useful as well.”

“Nicely organised and easy to use.”

Our evaluation suggests yes…

We’ve had positive reactions to the learner journey from both students and tutors

Initial analysis of the data indicates that students’ digital skill levels have increased, although it is difficult to isolate the impact that the learner journey has had in this

Students at UWL who were heavily scaffolded show a higher increase in their digital literacy skills

Benefits and Reuse :

Benefits Locates existing essential resources

for learners in an authentic context e.g. workplace, home, prior to university, point of entry, within the curriculum designed for their needs

Staff can have confidence in using the resource drawing upon research based practice

Reuse Can be used in a variety of contexts

across the disciplines; or individual sections as required

Easy to locate resources in current academic practice, e.g. websites, Virtual Learning Environments, on memory stick or DVD

Potential to use as part of cloud tagging and other web 2.0 technologies

An important generic resource at cash constrained times for academics and students to use immediately

We would like you to use the Learner Journey with your students

It’s free (Creative Commons) and it’s easy to use

Contact us for access to the files:

lyn.greaves@uwl.ac.uk

To repurpose the materials:

http://www.glomaker.org/

Questions?

Contact details

Learner Journey: http://hermes.uwl.ac.uk/learnerjourney/

Project Wiki: http://alle.uwl.ac.uk

Lyn Greaves: lyn.greaves@uwl.ac.uk

Claire Bradley c.bradley@londonmet.ac.uk