G’day
February is such a short month and is gone before I’ve got everything done; mind you that always seems to be the case. Thanks goodness for time management and planning. I must get onto it sometime soon. Not a lot lighting my fuse this month. A smorgasboard of elearning, leadership, management, e-assessment, sponsorship and sharefest have punctuated my waking hours.I also read a fascinating article on ‘YouTube as the art commons’; look it up.
Most of my other perambulations are reflected in this month’s Watch which includes links to switching LMS, iPads 4teaching, learning analytics and emotions, science resources, mEducation, learning styles, workplace elearning, student assessment, How to Moodle, conferences and the odd one out.
Easter is on the horizon, so that’s it until the uneggspected comes rolling in for the next Watch
1.Learning Analytics Review: Review 1: Measuring and Understanding Learner Emotions: Evidence and Prospects. This is an interesting approach to the use of learning analytics.It’s probably reasonable to assume that emotions affect many aspects of our lives and education is an area where there appears to be a paucity of research/ information on how much emotions can impact on learning. This review goes some way to redress the deficit and may contribute to changing the way in which tutors handle the learning environments in which they teach.
Extract from the abstract:
‘Emotions play a critical role in the learning and teaching process because they impact on learners’ motivation, self-regulation and academic achievement. In this literature review of over 100 studies, we identify many different emotions that may have a positive, negative or neutral impact on learners’ attitudes, behaviour and cognition’.
http://www.laceproject.eu/learning-analytics-review/
2.How colleges make the big LMS switch: Why six schools changed their learning management systems. An interesting article on reasons why and how some educational organisations switched their LMS.
http://www.universitybusiness.com/article/how-colleges-make-big-lms-switch
3. Biointeractive: Free resources for Science education: A wide and extensive range of resources for science with some useful information around each resource. Many of the videos can be downloaded
http://www.hhmi.org/biointeractive
4. Learning styles and pedagogy in post 16 learning: A systematic and critical review.
Extract from the document:
‘This report critically reviews the literature on learning styles and examines in detail 13 of the most influential models. The report concludes that it matters fundamentally which instrument is chosen. The implications for teaching and learning in post 16 learning are serious and should be of concern to learners, teachers and trainers, managers, researchers and inspectors’.
5.Transforming learning through mEducation. An interesting overview of Meducation, providing some insights into the potential and promise of mobile devices in education, with predictions on growth and in which areas, like gaming.
6. Workplace e-learning:An annotated bibliography.
This report gives an overview of the literature relating to e-learning in workplaces in New Zealand, Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
Author: Peter Guiney, Tertiary Sector Performance Analysis, Ministry of Education, New Zealand.
http://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/publications/ict/e-learning-in-the-workplace
7. Kathy Schrock’s iPads4teaching: Kathy has been around for a long time and she is a tireless contributor to the world of technology supported learning; the sheer volume of information she puts together is amazing and it’s constantly being updated . This website is dedicated to the use of iPads in support of teaching and learning and contains a wealth of resources.
http://www.ipads4teaching.net/ipads-in-the-classroom.html
8. Assessing Student Learning in Higher Education. This is a very comprehensive website with a wider range of useful information tools , ideas, and workbooks. The workbook on learning outcomes is worth perusing. You will find that some of the links in the references section no longer work, however this doesn’t detract from the wealth of material available on this site.
9.Moodle Assess and Evaluate. Here is a useful site with a variety of resources focused on assessment and evaluation in Moodle. I like the format and the material provided is well structured and informative.
http://it.umn.edu/self-help-guide/moodle-assess-and-evaluate
10.How to Moodle Manual 2.5: Shows you how to do it with all the tips, enhancements, ideas and tricks.
http://www.howtomoodle.com/manuals/HowToMoodle_CC_Essential_2.5_manual.pdf
11. Conferences for 2015
11.1 ALT Annual Conference 2015: Shaping the future of learning together
The 22nd annual conference of the Association for Learning Technology, 8 to 10 September 2015, University of Manchester, UK
Download the Flyer:
The ALT Annual Conference 2015 Call for Proposals has been issued at:
http://altc.alt.ac.uk/conference/2015/submissions/
11.3 Ascilite 32nd conference. Perth, Western Australia.
Globally Connected, Digitally Enabled: November 30th to Dec 3rd 2015.
Website:
http://www.2015conference.ascilite.org
11.4. 8th Annual New Zealand SharEfest: 28th and 29th September 2015.
We are very pleased to announced that adjunct Associate Professor Rob Phillips from Murdoch University, Western Australia has accepted our invitation to to be the Keynote speaker and workshop presenter for the 8th Annual NZ Shar-E-Fest. Here is a brief ‘bio’, more will appear on the Website in due course. Mark the dates in your Diary and commit to attend another great opportunity to network and learn.
‘Adjunct Associate Professor Rob Phillips has worked in higher education learning and teaching since 1992, working with staff from most discipline areas. His expertise includes educational design, e-learning, distance education, educational policy development and academic staff development. He has provided professional development and mentoring for academic staff in the scholarship of learning and teaching, and has chaired university committees on Awards and Citations, Learning and Teaching Spaces and Open Education.
Rob’s research interests include evaluation research in elearning; learning analytics; making creative and innovative use of technology; university policy issues; and project management in educational innovations. Rob has over 130 publications, including 60 refereed papers. He has been principal author of two internationally published books ‘Developer’s guide to interactive multimedia’ and ‘Evaluating elearning: Guiding research and practice’.
12. ACADEMIC EXTRAS
1. UTS are advertising a Doctoral Scholarship in the area of educational technology. Details can be found at:
http://www.jason.edu.au/scholarship/7280
2. Dr Kevin Burden (Hull Uni, UK) is leading an international project on m-learning in teacher education entitled: Mobilising and Transforming Teacher Education Pedagogies. The project is an Erasmus+ Key Action 2 Cross-sectoral Strategic Partnership. Further information & resources are available from the project website at:
13. The odd one out: The Great War Archive. Lots of interesting stuff in the Herald in New Zealand over the past year, highlighting individuals and their exploits during the great war of 1914 to 1918; all quite fascinating and sobering at the same time. This site delves into many more such experiences.
http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit/gwa
TTFN
Richard
Richard Elliott
The Eternal Macademic
Auckland
New Zealand