e-learning practice weblog

Design for Inquiry-based learning interventions

2011-09-13T20:47:00.000+03:00

Inquiry-based learning (IBL) is a prevailing concept for teaching and learning nowadays. IBL describes a situation where the student is involved in activities which are focusing on questioning, exploration, investigation, collaboration and reflection. IBL can be used in various disciplines from science and technology to humanities and social sciences. A distinctive difference over traditional approaches is its emphasis on what the student does. There are however some debates between the educational community in terms of tha nature of IBL. For example some suggest that inquiry-based learning should focus on halping students to understand scientific content while others argue that IBL should enhance processes and skills. I would suggest that both are equally important as both content and process are necessary for enhancing the student experience. It doesn't matter what's more important; what it matters is to provide the necessary resources and tools for the student to understand concepts and processes. Different pedagogical models and frameworks for IBL have been used for helping teachers to design inquiry-based learning activities both for understanding subject matter as well as for mastering processes and skills.

Elafonissos August 2011: Simos Beach

For example in science education, the US National Research Council (NRC) has provided a framework that could be used from researchers and practitioners alike as a way of adopting IBL into science classes. The Essential Features of Inquiry has been suggested by NRC as the Standards-based approach to science teaching. The argument was that because science has been predominately based on a teacher-directed model where the teacher is transferring information to students by providing content though lectures with the aim to just cover the subject matter seemed to be ineffective in promoting self-direction, active involvement and transfer of learning in authentic situations. So the NRC thought to provide some guidelines to science teachers for helping them to change that behavioristic approach to teaching. Although the model supports open student directed approaches to learning it also supports structured and more guided approaches depending on the level of student, the type of the course etc. For example the teacher can decide to give to the student full control of the learning process by allowing him/her to pose a question for initiating a scientific investigation. This may imply that the student has fully understand content knowledge thus is aware of the different scientific processes needed to answer that question. The amount of teacher direction is minimal allowing the student to begin the inquiry quest without any help. This may create several implications in relation to teachers' conceptions of teaching and learning (i.e. how science teaching and learning is perceived and enacted by teachers? and what amount of scaffold is necessary from the teacher to help students to achieve scientific understanding as well as to conceptualize the nature of scientific inquiry?), the perceived belief about prior knowledge and skills of the student; the nature of the course (how hard or soft is in order to allow for information searching using technology (e.g. WebQuests) or for using a simulation software to test scientific understandings). Institutional policies and the overall culture of the institution in promoting IBL with or without use of technology plays a significant role in terms of allowing the teacher to experiment and see what fits best to his/her teaching practice. From the other hand the teacher may choose to use a more-structured or guided approach by just providing a list of questions for the student to select or even be more directive by providing the question and the learning material for responding to the question. Again these decisions are informed from and influenced by the perceived situation of the learning environment. An alternative may be for the teacher to combine all these different approaches to one - the coupled or mixed approach for gradually allowing the student to acquire the necessary skills through a more structured and/or guided approach and when these skills are acquired then a more open-ended approach could be used. An interesting article about the different types of inquiry is provided by Martin-Hansen, L. (2002). Defining inquiry: exploring the many types of inquiry in the science classroom. The Science Teacher, 69(2), 34-37.

There are examples in the literature that explore the impact of the essential features of inquiry in terms of which aspects are widely used and which others are not. For example a study by Assay and Orgill (2010) (Asay, L. D., Orgill, M.K. (2010). Analysis of Essential Features of Inquiry Found in Articles Published in The Science Teacher, 1998-2007. Journal of Science Teacher Education, 21, 57-79) described the student experience as emphasizingspecific features of inquiry over others. Students often gathered evidence andanalysed data with teachers’ guidance and support, but they were not asked toform scientifically oriented questions, to create evidence-based explanations,connect explanations to scientific knowledge or communicate the results oftheir investigations to a larger group. However we haven't seen yet how the essential features or similar frameworks are used in practice and how often and which aspects are used more and which are used less within a school setting. An empirical study providing evidence how inquiry-based learning is used and what challenges teachers are facing would provide some practical help; but also some evidence-based answers on what kind of support/scaffold is needed for teachers to design inquiry-based activities.

ascilite 2011

2011-06-29T00:21:00.003+03:00

Ascilite 2011 will be held this year in Hobart, Australia 4-7 December 2011. The theme of this year conference is changing demands, changing directions. The conference is relevant to those who have a research interest in technology enhanced learning in tertiary education. Visit ascilite website for call for papers at http://www.leishman-associates.com.au/ascilite2011/abstracts.php.

Blended university teaching using virtual learning environments

2011-06-27T23:21:00.003+03:00

Recently, I have published a paper in Instructional Science which explored the use of VLEs in blended learning. The publication was part of my PhD thesis, and discussed how university teachers experienced the use of VLEs in the discipline of computer science. Certain categories of description emerged and different issues were raised including influences of subject matter, technology, level of students, modes of teaching (face-to-face vs online) among others. These were described in the context of dimensions of variation that ran across the categories of description. Phenomenography was used as a research approach and method for eliciting the qualitatively different ways of experiencing teaching using VLEs represented in an outcome space. The publication can be accessed from here

Summer School Rethymnon Crete 4-9 June

2010-06-25T20:05:00.003+03:00

In the framework of the Organic.Edunet project, we are organising a summer school for training school teachers to exploit the project's products. The school will be held in Rethymnon, Crete, Greece. Although it will be focused on a small group (8-10) teachers, it will be a great opportunity to learn about creating learning scenarios for sciencel education while sharing and re-using them through digital libraries. The Summer School is entitled "Hands-on teachers' training activities towards European Natural History and Environmental Cultural Heritage using Digital Learning Resources and Repositories". The school will involve several lectures about educational metadata and learning objects on digital repositories; and also teachers will be involved in a series of activities for creating, adapting and sharing their own learning scenarios. The program of the summer school can be accessed from here. Interesting plenary sessions as well as science visits in a real school garden will further stimulate teachers' interest on digital libraries, design for learning and learning objects.

Organic.Edunet Conference

2010-04-30T10:04:00.004+03:00

Yesterday I attended the conference and I have to say it was more than intriguing and knowledge inspiring than I expected. Specifically the 3rd session "challenges in the connection of environmental education with sustainable development and environmental protection was fantastic. Mr. Papadakis presented the important work of the cretaquarium in terms of bridging the gap between formal and informal education in terms of developing learning activities that could be realised in science centres like the cretaquarium. It was wonderful how learning is taking place in such setting without the restrictions of the classroom where students are actually doing things, they experience the diveristy of sea speciews and they can understand how they leave, behave and act through a variety of hands-on examples. I was really amazed by such action-based learning activities that really do exist beyond the borders of the classroom.

Then Mr.Tsagliotis presented his fanscinating work at the 9th elementary school in Rethimno, Crete where he actually created an organic garden within the school from the scratch. He showed how the place seemed before the garden, and how it actually looked like after the process completed. His presentation was so interesting and motivating that everyone in the panel admitted that indeed there are teachers who really are innovative in the way they teach, despite the finaciaal and political challenges they encounter. Mr.Tsagliotings showed pictures of the students who were really engaged in the process, they were planting, seeding, making compost or even helping with the construction of the greenhouse! This is what is learing all about and this is how it should be reflected into practice. As Mr.Tsagliotis argued, "In every garden there is a school' afterall...

Then, Mr. Tassis presented his experiences in creating an organic garden at Ellinogermaniki Agogi. He articulated the way the organic garden has been developed and he has also discussed the importance of showing to the children during their primary learning experiences the importance of engaging different learning instances as during those ages, children are really interested in learning things!

Then the practical sessions followed, where I presented my work in terms of helping teachers to create structured learning patterns for courses related with environmental education. During these sessions, teachers were very positive to build their lesson plans based on pre-structured templates desined for them. They felt more confortable in designing learning activities through a design guide. Although they were notfamiliar with the term 'learning design' they seem to be positive in consciously realising the learning design process, and thinking about activities that would like their students to do and relating them with learning outcomes.

Organic.Edunet

2010-04-14T14:08:00.009+03:00

Small Corner Flower Shop in Paris

As previously mentioned, I am also involved in the Organic.Edunet project funded by the EU (http://portal.organicedunet.eu/index.php)that deals with the provision of access to digital content related with Organic Agriculture and Agroecology. The aim of the project is to create associated interfaces for fascilitating the access, search, share and creation of digital learning resources which are described in repositories. We have created a tool which we named Confolio where registered users can upload digital content (texts, pictures, videos, pdfs, .ppt, learning scenarios in .doc)and describe them with metadata. It is a neat way to store, share and reuse learning objects related with environmental science. We have also created users' communities for schools (inspired by the notion of Communities of Practice Wenger (1998)) where teachers, especially from rural areas, can join and exchange content and ideas regarding Agriculture and Agroecology. The Greek Rural School User Community can be accessed here. Among the different objectives, my task is to create a user's guide for teachers including guidlines for stimulating teachers' interest to design their own learning scenarios using constructivist educational approaches such as inquiry-based and game-based learning. The so called 'Handbook for Scenario implementations' which you may find here elaborates some new ways of teaching by blending conventional teaching with e-learning. In particular, it develops some pre-structured templates for users to design their own learning scenarios. As teachers need to see a new approach or a new tool in action in order to change, the handbook presents some 'best practice' examples of learning scenarios related to organic gardens in a form of a template for facilitating the process of learning design as well as to enhance the process of developing meaningful digital content. The handbook is in a draft form at the moment and will be at its final form during
July when the project ends.

Pskills

2010-04-13T13:38:00.002+03:00

StephanPlatz just before Christmas
Since October, I am working on a project that investigates the use of Educational Programming Languages in schools. It proposes a refinement of the computer science curriculum based on student-centred pedagogical approaches (i.e. problem-based) and it aims to provide a training framework for educating teachers to adopt constructivist principles when teaching prorgamming. Many educational paradigms have been explored and a wide range of EPLs have been identified. After a survey and a gap analysis by the consortium it was decided that the Scratch is user friendly for teachers to use as well as it can trigger students' interest in learning programming. Now, the consortium will define the training requirements needed for implementing the scenario development methodology.

During Monday 19th and 20th of April 2010 the 1st project meeting of the Pskills project will be held at the premises of EA.

For more info about current pSkills activities are availabe at the pSkills site

Catching up

2010-04-13T12:00:00.005+03:00

Hearts hanging on the trees in Vienna
I am back again - its been some time since my last blog so its time to swiftly mention some of my latest experiences. Since late September, I am working as a researcher mainly involved in projects that are related with technology enhanced learning in Schools. Currently I am involved in 2 ongoing projects (Pskills and Organic.Edunet) and soon I will be invlolved in a third one (Natural Europe) which all of them will be extensively blogged here. Also publications, presentations, conferences and project news will be blogged here for general interest purposes as well as for project's dissemination purposes.

PS. I got my PhD finally after 4 1/2 years of hard work. The VIVA went as hoped and the outcome was pass with minor amendements. Very intensive and fruitful experience, the whole process, was engaging and knowledge intensive. Many things I have learned from the process which will, hopefully, find its context as a way of realising its impact...

A Phenomenographic Inquiry into Computer Science Teachers' Conceptions of Teaching using virtual learning environments

2009-04-06T19:09:00.001+03:00

My PhD study has finally completed, although waiting for viva exam in 15th of June, 2009, and there were some interesting findings regarding Greek computer science teachers conceptions of teaching using virtual learning environments. I will make an effort to blog about my experience of doing research and at the same time I will try to reflect on analysis aspects of my findings that would act as issues that need further attention for my viva exam.

Although the phenomenographic approach proved to be powerful tool in terms of eliciting conceptions of teaching; and relating them with different dimensions that would likely influence participants' experiences, certain issues could be strengthened for clearly showing how contextual elements influenced approaches to teaching in each category of description. I will highlight the issues that needed to be more streamlined and i will discuss them in detail in future posts:

Variation in technology influence (how the type of VLE used infuenced approaches to teaching? what elements of technology were in focal, secondary or in the background of awareness)
Variation in level of students (How level of students appear in structure of awareness in each category?)
Variation in nature of the course (how the nature of the taught course appears in structure of awareness. How the VLE is used in relation to soft courses and how it is being used in relation to more computational courses? how this relation is depicted in structure of awareness?
How the structure of awareness in relation to technology, level of students and nature of course appear for each category of description?

conceptions of and approaches to teaching online

2008-08-13T03:24:00.000+03:00

An interesting article about teachers' conceptions of using the Web. The study builds on previous research (Prosser, Kember, Roberts etc). A phenomenographic approach is used to find relationships between conceptions and approaches to teaching between conventional teaching and teaching using the Web. The researcher presented three 'modified' conceptions of teaching using the Web, as he calls them, from a teacher-centred to a student-centred ways of perceiving the use of the Web. Conrextual influences were also mentioned as barriers and/or enablers for using the Web for teaching and learning. However, disciplinary differences were regarded that did not influence approaches to teaching online.

The link can be found here

conceptions of and approaches to teaching online

2008-08-13T00:30:00.002+03:00

Conceptions of Teaching using Virtual Learning Environments: a Phenomenographic Inquiry. Paper Presented in Networked Learning Conference

2008-06-25T18:23:00.001+03:00

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Emerging technologies for teaching and learning

2008-02-04T15:08:00.001+02:00

The new Horizon-Report 2008 discusses some new emerging technologies that will be used from orgranisations. GrassRoots videos, collaboration Webs, data mashups etc are some of the new technologies that may alter the way learning and teaching is perceived. Collective intelligence was highlighted as a new trend in education where explicit educational applications - wikipedia - will contribute to collaborative knoledge building as well as implicit collective applications - cell phone locations - which are passively obtained. Collaborative learning was emphasised as a new way of developing new forms of interaction and assessment, which, however, create certain kind of implications:

"The results are encouraging, but more work is needed on the assessment side before the full potential of these kinds of activities can be realized. Issues like ownership of collaborative work and certification of authorship present difficulties for evaluation. Further development of social networking and other collaborative tools will continue to facilitate this kind of
work, and opportunities for interaction will only increase; the challenge faced by the educational community is to seize those opportunities and develop effective ways to measure academic."
The paper can be found in pdf format here: http://www.nmc.org/pdf/2008-Horizon-Report.pdf

A vison of students today

2007-11-01T15:39:00.001+02:00

Following Michael Wesch's paper "Human futures for technology and education" a video called " A vision of students today" describes the scarcity of information that exists and how students view their world (in combination with their learning world). Also the importance of new approaches to teaching and learning such as the use of facebook, laptops during classroom etc, that would make the student exprerience more adaptive to students' needs. Also issues about teachers' use of the blackboard are raised in terms of "making the teacher to move frequently."Also by using collaborative tools such as google docs, students can work for a particular assignement collaboratively by editing and writing their own opinions. The issue that this video depicts is that teachers should be able to find other teaching strategies, tools and techniques to trigger students' interest towards their own need as learners and to promote a more social activity between students and the teacher. Therefore,i believe that one of the basic issues that this video focus on is that social learning processes may be necessary for students' learning process. But how these strategies may be adopted? I mean because students reported that they use more web pages than books, this means that only e-tools should be used to create collaborative activities. What about f2f discussions or group projects or discussing an article in class. I am wondering what is the relation between software tools like google docs with teaching strategies and studends' needs?. I do not think that teaching strategies should only be focused on using technology, but using technology in combination with a more holistic approach that is taking place within classroom.

You can find the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGCJ46vyR9o

Using Technology in English Classroom

2007-10-19T17:41:00.001+03:00

While I was reading this article by Michael Umphrey, I was thinking how useful is to use ICTs for teaching and learning. Michael Umphrey, described so simple and accurately how tools, especially social software tools, may be used for teaching English. I found the article very useful in terms of reflecting how technology can be used productively and inspirationally when a teacher has a teaching purpose. For instance, there are some exceptional examples on how wikis and blogs are used for submitting, correcting learning tasks or even creating digital portfolios. The paper can be found here

Reflections on phenomenographic analysis

2007-10-12T20:11:00.001+03:00

Thanks to Dr.Levy, I have a number of issues that needs to be referred in terms of improving my phenomenographic analysis:

Primary caregories of description should describe a pedagogical conception. For example, like Prosser and Trigwell, categories should be in the form of a teacher centered or a student centered approach. Therefore, within categories i may include the different approaches that reflect this pedagogical conception. My primary category "blended learning" does not reflect a pedagogical conception rather a "technique" that teachers adopt for their course. For instance if it is a face-to-face approach, a blended approach or a distant approach. However, since our sample is not concerned with fully distant approaches, which again could not be characterised as a "pedagogy", the category should be re-constructed in order to reflect a pedagogical conception as well as for the other emerging categories.
Dimensions of variation such as student, teacher, technology, subject, information, developing skills should be further analysed in order to identify the meaning of each variation according to the category that it represents.
the providing support category does not denote something that teachers do. For example, it should have a continuation like providing support for transmitting information or providing support for finding information.
Analysing means try to discover the meaning behind a particular experience and not only identifying what the participant said. For example, what is the meaning behind "using scripts for helping students to collaborate?Perhaps, a meaning to that particular experience could be the provision of process support guidelines.
if a particular experience is only reflected by one participant then it does not mean that it does not have to be included as a particular conception.

Re-using learning objects

2007-09-28T19:50:00.001+03:00

As I was searching JCAL, I found an interesting article about the problem of reconfiguring existing learning objects. Tompsett argues that there is an inherent problem when practitioners re-develop courses from other courses. The problem is due to different teaching and learning conceptions of each author. For example, those who support the social-constructivist model argue that courses are situated and cannot be supported by generic designs. On the other hand, scientific models argue standard designs may support reuse. Tompsett, argues that regonfigurability of learning objects is not just a problem from socio-constructivists but a general problem to the design of learning objects.

Tompsett, C(2005):"Reconfigurability: Creating new courses from existing learning objects will always be difficult." JCAL, 21 440-448

student expectations study

2007-09-21T18:58:00.001+03:00

Ipsos undertaked a reserearch study for JISC among university students to understand levels of ICT provision at universities and the difference between ICT provision and that which is provided by HE institutions.

The research found, among other things, that traditional methods of teaching are not outmoded. Face-to-face teaching was seen as crucial for their learning process and also a group of students argued that if all learning is mediated through technology, this will diminish the value of the learning experience. The study also showed that are positive with technological tools which will assist and complement their studies, but not by ones which complicate them or inhibit them regarding teaching and learning.

Students were able to discuss issues regarding social networking and compare their experiences. Their are using Facebook and MySpace for creating networks and communities.

In terms of editing online content, may of the students maintain a blog. Therefore participants argues that the idea of communities has a social implication which could not be replicated by technology. Few had heard the idea of Second Life. It is worth mentioning that some were not positive by the idea of collaborative learning, and this was not related with technology. This may has to do with a lack of understanding learning methods, rather than ICT provision. For a detailed analysis see http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/publications/studentexpectations.pdf

photo by petros

Research Observatory for e-learning

2007-09-20T15:33:00.001+03:00

The Higher Education Academy is ready to establish an e-learning Research Observatory , funded by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), for developing the e-learning research centre. The e-learning observatory will comprise two elements:

the establishment of a research observatory function for identifying, collating, assessing, and disseminating national and international e-learning research
the introduction of a research investigation programme.

For more info visit http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/ourwork/learning/elearning/elro

JISC's "In their Own Words publication"

2007-09-11T17:25:00.001+03:00

JISC (the joint information systems committee) announced the "In their Own Words" publication which presents findings from the JISC learner experience studies in terms of students' experiences, beliefs and motivations in relation to e-learning. In particular this publication is useful for:

Staff development activities
planning and debating e-learning policy and provision
further research into the learner's perspective on e-learning

The publication can be ordered in a CD-ROM format but also can be found in pdf format here

In addition to the pre-mentioned publication, JISC also published two information sheets introducing the benefits of social software, personal tools and technologies. The first one is entitled "understanding the issues and benefits of social software" which:

defines key terms
explores the benefits for learners
outlines the issues for institutions

The sheet can be found here

The second information sheet "understanding the issues and benefits of personal tools and technologies discusses personalised technological tools, tools that are not controlled by the university such as instant messaging VoIP, laptops etc. The scope of this document is to:

define key terms
explores the benefits for learners
outlines the issues for institutions
explains how to find out more

The paper can be found here

photo by petros: flowers blossomed

Challenging the five stage model

2007-09-09T17:03:00.001+03:00

An interesting article by Moule "Challenging the five stage model for e-learnin: a new approach highlights Salmon's five stage model and argues that the model is becoming the dominant template for the design of online teaching and learning. Therefore, Salmon's model is contrasted with the "e-learning ladder model". The basic difference of this model is that it acknowledges a range of educational theories starting for instructivist and moving through constructivist learning approaches. This is important, as Moule argues, because not all e-learning is constructivist, and in each step the learner adopts different learning apporaches. The structure of the model is not inclusive, meaning that the learner may not follow all th steps hierarchically. Although the pedaogogies reflected to each step inter-link each other, they can also decelop over time to allow the incoporation of new learning methods and approaches. Moule.P (2007):"Challenging the five-stage model for e-learning: a new approach". ALT-J 15 (1): 37-50

picture by petros: flowers ready to blossom

JISC inform repositories and Web2.0

2007-08-03T20:40:00.001+03:00

The Joint Information Systems Committee recently published the JISC Inform 18 where Professor Bone talks about national repositories and their importance to UK research initiatives as well as bringing significant economical benefits to UK. He continues to argue that repositories have important implication for lifelong learning and life-wide learning. The usability of repositories can help educators and students to manage and reuse materials in a more efficient and flexible way. Thus, learners can be aware easily what materials exists. He concluded that Universities UK, are following the JISC initiative for repositories with over 80 institutional and subject based repositories in the UK. An interesting article that focuses on the growth of national and subject based repositories is provided by Bates et al.,(2007) "Attitudes to the rights and rewards for author contributions to repositories for teaching and learning" ALT-J 15, 1, 67-82.

Inform 18, among other issues, refers to web2.0 services and its contribution to a more active pedagogy. The pdf of JISC's inform 18, can be found here

photo by petros: South side of Koufonisia, Greece

Indexing Australian Education in a Web2.0 World

2007-08-02T16:17:00.001+03:00

Education.au published some interesting papers regarding new developments in social bookmarking for managing information resources , using a Taxonomy - Directed Folksonomy. The paper is entitled Folksonimies and tagging: New developments in social boomarking. Also, another paper presented at the Australian and New Zealand, provides the challenge of Australian Education for indexing web resources, learning objects and teacher - created resources for being accessible and discoverable by students and educators. Another important issue that this paper addresses is how to ensure specific vocabularies to describe curriculum resources and how to keep pace with terminology to describe learning objects with the use of technology. The paper can be found here. Other papers from education.au include issues regarding information literacy in a Web2.0 environmemt and a power point presentation describing the importance of web2.0 and why it should not be ignored by HE. These resources can be found at: http://www.educationau.edu.au/jahia/Jahia/home/pid/482

Photo by Petros: Flowers on the floor, Koufonisia, 2007

E-Learning 2.0

2007-07-31T13:51:00.001+03:00

E-learning has seen a radical change recently. This change is due to the transformation of the Web itself. There have been efforts to transform platform based applications to web-based applications. The dominant way of technology enhanced learning is through learning management systems, which are also called Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs), for storing and exchanging digital and multimedia content. However, due to the nature of the Internet and the way people are using it, e-learning is starting to be approached by teachers and students working collaboratively online. This new users' approach sometimes called "generation-we". A very interesting article by Stefanie Olsen describing the way "digital kids" interact and learn with each other can be found here.

Also Stephen Downes in his article E-learning 2.0 describes in a great detail the current state of e-learning, conceptualising it as little bits of learning content that could be organised together to form a learning object. Then he explains briefly current trends such as the Web2.0 and then he defined e-learning2.0 as something that is related with the community of practice paradigm proposed by Etienne Wenger in his popular book: Situated Learning. Then he gives some examples of forming online communities of practice where, he argues, students using social networking tools such as blogs,wikis,social bookmarking, e-portfolios are becoming content-authoring tools instead of a content consumption tool.

Photo by petros: Beach in Koufonisia island, Greece, July, 2007

Networked Learning Conference

2007-07-20T00:06:00.001+03:00

This year the Network Learning Conference is held at Thessaloniki Greece 5-6th of May, 2008. One of the keynote speakers is Diana Laurillard author of the famous cited book "Re-thinking University Teaching. Papers investigating networked learning, collaborative learning, through interaction via group based activities and collaborative construction of learning experiences. Some of the main themes include:

Learner's and Teachers' experiences
Learning Theories and Processes
Methodologies for Researching Networked Learning

For more information visit the Networked Learning Conference Website

Web2.0 and social software

2007-07-14T19:46:00.000+03:00

There is a significant debate over the potential advantages of web2.0 and social software into Higher Education. For example Mark Van Harmelen in his article Web2.0 for content for learning and teaching in higher education argues that it would be a mistake to consider Web2.0 as the only driver for improvig teaching and learning in Higher Education. Other drivers may include an ongoing development of better teaching and learning methods. Despite this, he proposes several reccomendations through which universities could adopt for implementing web2.0 system regarding policy, learning and teaching and technology. The article can be found at: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/programmes/digital_repositories/web2-content-learning-and-teaching.pdf

Stephen Marvin in his article social software - is enough, enough? identified the notion of "Generation We"; a group of young people who grew up in a pesronalised, diversified and hyperconnected virtual environment. He divides social software in two models in terms of user and content focused or a mix of either. The former is designed for interaction purposes whilst the latter is provides practitioners the potential to conduct reesearch or to harvest content relevant to instruction. The remaining of the article presents some social software tools such as bogs, wikis, folksonomies and how they can be used for educational practice. The article is available at: http://www.ifla.org/VII/s2/pub/s2-newsletter-July07.pdf

The century of sciences...without scientists

2007-07-09T15:18:00.000+03:00

There was an article in the newspaper "To Vima tis Kyriakis" Sunday 8th of July 2007 6 (52) where Mr. Kafadaris made some arguments regarding the transformation of European educational processes. He supports that education is being transormed from the teacher-centered, content - oriented approach to what it is called Enquiry-based learning or the Socratic mehod. This approach can improve students' learning by questioning ,reflecting and rethinking learning experiences. The author of this article argues that inquiry based learning can be applied in practice by using the Web. The procedure of finding information from the Web and transforming this information into knowledge is more effective than the acquisition of subject information from books and other static resources. However, this is difficult to be achieved since teachers do not have the training that is necessary to allign their teaching practices towards the new model. Therefore, there is a suggestion that the model of inquiry based learning should be gradually introduced in institutions, with sensitivity and teacher training, for the transition of the current educational model to the post-modern era of education, is needed. These reflections regarding the usage of technology as a tool for promoting enquiry-based learning is further discussed by Sten et al., (2007): "Creating shared understanding through chats in a community of inquiry" Internet and Higher Education (10) 103-115. Also Dr. Phil Levy from the University of Sheffield has established a centre of Inquiry Based Learning where various tchnological tools are used for developing student's learning in arts and social sciences (CILASS)

Online discussions

2007-07-05T00:20:00.000+03:00

As I was reading an interesting article by Robert Ellis investigating the relationship between face-to-face discussions and online learning, I realised that there might be a coherence between face-to-face and onlne discussions. This coherence is apparent by the introduction of blended learning where teaching and learning can be practiced beyond classrroom. The issue that crossed my mind is how online discussions are experienced in relation to classroom teaching. Are they used for extending discussions that were held during classroom that is for providing new insights and new ideas based on searching online resources? or by creating discussion groups for giving a collaborative flavour to online discussions? Another issue that cross my mind is what other tool(s) may be used for engaging in effective online discussions? Educational providers using blended approaches to learning are more often using discussion boards and forums. What about new tools such as wikis or blogs? how can these tools may be used in a way to provide meaningful discussions between teachers and learners? What is the relation between student and teacher experience in using these tools? what is the relation between teacher/student conceptions of online discussions and how these are used?

Ellis research did not show any inconsistencies between how students/teachers conceived of discussions and how they are using it. But what about discussing in different contexts (i.e. in different levels of learning experience) results to different use? This suggests that a teacher/student may have a different approach in relation to the different context. As I perceive it, I do not believe that it is only a matter of a particular learning approach but also about of the context that the teacher/student finds himself in. In other words, it is possible not to have a direct consistency between conceptions and approaches as Ellis found. This needs closer investigation in further studies. I mean why online discussions "should" only support "deep" learning? Particularly it can be ragarded as unsafe to assume that online discussions are designed only to support deep learning? what about classroom discussions? How they can co-exist with online discussions to produce deep learning approaches? What about the teacher in terms of the activities he designs in order for having meaningful discussions? If there was a larger sample to this study, there may be some more useful insights about online and face-to-face discussions.

Informatics Education Europe II Conference

2007-07-04T14:01:00.000+03:00

I am going to do some blogging about the IEEII conference which is taking place at Thessaloniki on 29-30 November 2007. This is a good opportunity to discuss about current trends in e-learning including some of the changes in terms of the technological infrastructure in South East Europe. Young researchers are also invited to submit an abstract in relevant themes of educational informatics.