Musings for My Research

I think the biggest struggle while writing my PhD is the depressive feeling of impending failure due to the vast amount of task, effort and time needed.

What do I offer?
How is it accepted?
Do I plan systematically?

I have mature and learn to accept frustrations voiced by academics when they feel that they are forced to use the VLE. This happen during a workshop which I conducted last Saturday. Interpersonal skills are vital for the success of my work. ;-)

My research has turn towards the study of how I work as a learning technologist to support academics in their implementation of VLE. This support involves:

• technical,
  
• resource,
• and learning design.
  

My goal is to see how we can use VLE to encourage active learning amongst students and not merely as a platform for content delivery. There is a need for me to sustain the collaboration long enough in order for the academics to adopt a learning design that encourages critical learning skills. Basically I need to change their perceptions and understanding but to go about doing it, I need to build relationships, receive their feedback, learn new ways and propose new ideas. It does not work everytime but that is the goal of my research .. to see what works and why and vice versa.

Finally, I am able to start writing my dissertation. I have scheduled it for a year.

I thank God that my supervisor has given me the assurance and shown me the direction forward. I was really hopelessly lost for a few months, especially in January and February 2006, after returning from UK mid October 2005. That is a lot of time lost to my 'realm of uncertainties'. The clouds are clearing a bit after a chat with my supervisor. Hopefully, I will be able to complete my writing next March. Can't wait to see Europe again, but I really dislike to the long flights. ;-)

I need to add another section for learning activities. These activities will include self-assessed quizzes of each chapter, group tutorial questions, individual and group assignments. The last three activities involve knowledge construction via collaborative work facilitated by discussion forums.

Student Scholarships (ORSAS)

Welcome to ORSAS, the Overseas Research Students Award Scheme. The following pages provide up-to-date information about the Scheme including details on eligibility, the application process and the timetable for the 2005 competition.

APPLICATION PACKS FOR THE 2005 COMPETITION (FOR AWARDS VALID FOR THE 2005/06 ACADEMIC YEAR) ARE AVAILABLE FROM INSTITUTIONS FROM 15 NOVEMBER 2004. PLEASE CHECK THE CLOSING DATE FOR SUBMISSION OF APPLICATIONS WITH THE REGISTRY AT THE INSTITUTION THROUGH WHICH YOU ARE APPLYING FOR AN AWARD.

About ORSAS awards

Background

ORSAS was set up by the Secretary of State for Education and Science in 1979 to attract high-quality international students to the United Kingdom to undertake research. The Scheme is administered by Universities UK on behalf of the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) and is funded through the four UK higher education funding bodies (for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland).

The awards offer international students the opportunity to carry out a broad range of research at well-established UK academic institutions of worldwide recognition. Our awardholders make a valuable contribution, not only to the British research base, but also to economic, scientific, educational and other aspects of life in their own country. Meanwhile, their involvement in British academic life and the wider cultural experiences offered in the UK contribute to their personal development and can help increase their future opportunities.

plagiarism - students doing own work after being explicitly told that they will be assessed based on originality.

students did last minute work and assignment submission, attibuting to the flurry of activities. Many students send in through email and digital drop box.

Students did not complain about the assignment tool.

No way to lighten Li Peng's burden.
Manual marking assignment is more convenient but online assignment tools allow lecturer to view her comments. Spent time to guide lecturer on how to use assignment tool (reduc file size, adding comments, using assignment tools.)

Lecturer felt frustrated with the process of getting the dates set right in the assignment tool. Lecturer was bombarded with SMS on the day the assignment link is made unavailable. Lecturer did reply but got no rest on Sunday.

We asked ourselves the question on why we wanted students to explore. We then realised that we had not thought of an explicit answer either. After reflecting on it, the lecturer said her duty was to interest the students on her subject and perhap what they learn and explore now will be beneficial for their work later. I gave a different reason, I thought the exploration will allow students to develop higher order thinking skills such as comparing, analysing, synthesizing and concluding. I am more focused on students learning these metacognitive skills for their future because it is transferable across subjects. interesting discussion.

I believe that there is truth in the notion that knowledge is objective. This means that there is absolute knowledge and truth. I understand that many are proponents of the idea that knowledge is fluid and constructed socially in situations through the interactions of an individual with his or her environment. However, reflecting deeper on this issue, I tend to believe that there is absolute knowledge which is separated from the constraints of socialized individual constructions of meanings concerning the world around them. This does not mean that I reject the tenets of constructivism. I believe that our understanding of our world, our knowledge of it is actively constructed through socially motivated internal cognitive processes. Our understanding of the absolute truth or knowledge of something is always constructed and being constructed to achieve an absolute objective knowledge which I will term as 'truth'. Until our understanding reaches this stage of 'truth' from the murkiness of our knowledge morass, we will always try to construct our way towards it. In other words, constructivism is the process to achieve a perfect understanding of the 'truth' in our world. This opinion of my mind seems to border the age old Greek notion of 'logos' or 'tao' of the Chinese ancient philosophy. Most importantly, I believe this stems from my Christian faith and I think this opinion of my mine will benefit a society that is so encapsulated by the propaganda of 'radical relativism'.

The question is that they are still not using the VLE's potential to change the way students learn. Why and how can this situation be improved?

This research will look at the pedagogical model and educational settings. Students and lecturers pedagogical model will have to change for successful integration of VLE with F2F which will maximize the potential of VLE to inculcate better learning skills among students.

How do we change their pedagogical model? Does successful integration means the changing patterns of learning among students from being individualistic to collaborative, from being informed to actively construct? Does it mean that the measure of successful integration is the changing of pedagogical model among teaching staff and students?

Proposal of a design of educational settings that will lead students toward a change in their pedagogical model.

So the successful integration of VLE with F2F is not only realizing its affordances, but how these affordances can be used to change pedagogical model among students and staff.

Patterns of access is still very much focused on content delivery instead of using the VLE's potential to design, manage and evaluate learning activities for better learning outcomes.
Emphasis is still on individual learning through reading and memorizing materials provided by lecturers. It is still on acquiring knowledge individually through reading, understanding and memorizing. It is still content and lecturer-centered. The medium are notes and lectures. It is still content delivery approach.

Usability News - 6.2 2004 -- Blackboard Gets A Global Review:

"Verbeeten also suggests that successful interactions between the user and technology lead to optimism towards web-based education, thus assessments of perceived user satisfaction is necessary."

Can I use user satisfaction as a criterion for successful learning? Or are factors like user experience and satisfaction only feeding to the increased level of motivation, sense of purpose and interest which are the real influential factors underlying successful learning outcomes?

I have been thinking about the scope of my research where I could fit the design of learning materials. Perhaps the wider context is about how I could design online learning to support classroom or f2f teaching. What is generally known as blended learning.

I ran a search term on designing blended learning at Google and came up with some interesting results. Here are two of them.

1. Blended Learning at Department of Education and Training, New South Wales.

2. Bibliography of Distance/Online/Blended Learning Materials

How are learning materials currently used by lecturers in TARC?
As supplementary materials for reference during lectures or tutorials
As notes to represent the entire content of the subject.

How do lecturers expect these learning materials to be used?
Preliminary data collected through conversation with lecturers

How do students actually use these learning materials?
Partial preliminary data collected through indirect questioning in survey

What type of learning materials do students want?
Preliminary data collected through survey during 3rd semester

Why do they want these type of learning materials?
Partial preliminary data may have been collected indirectly in survey

How will their expectations of learning materials review or reflect their understanding of what constitutes learning?
This may be identifiable through subjective interpretation of the researcher

How can design meet these expectations?

How will design influence usage of these learning materials?
Preliminary data may be gathered from the current collaboration with lecturer
Preliminary data showed that design influence awareness of students towards certain tools and increased the exploration of these tools in the VLE.

How will design contribute to the changing of students' or lecturers' perception towards learning?

The term “pedagogical usability” has been used to denote whether tools, content, interface and the tasks of the web-based learning environments support various learners to learn in various learning contexts according to selected pedagogical objectives. Specific usability issues that impact on learning materials include:

• Any problems with use or navigation will prevent the student from employing the learning materials effectively.


• Using the materials effectively may be an essential component of a student course.


• The interface needs to support effective engagement with the learning materials over extended periods of time, some of which may be at home.

There may be a need for two different interfaces, one for the instructor to add material, and another for the student to view and interact with it.
This results in the following additional HCI guidelines (to appear in section 18 of the guidelines):

1. Support interruptions in workflow (e.g. to answer the phone, check on the kids)
[D1]

2. Organise pages into a main entrance, main work pages and other auxiliary resources


3. Arrange information in chunks surrounded by some space


4. Ensure course pages can be printed


5. Arrange information in a non-threatening manner so that users are not overwhelmed


6. Use a fixed screen layout so that navigation information is at the same place on each screen


7. Use location indicators and progress reports to let users know where they are, where they need to go, and how long it will take them to get there (e.g. how many questions in this section)

This is abstracted from an appendix of a JISC document (original web link here) which I downloaded. The pedagogical usability and its application to learning materials will be useful if it is to be used for the field of my research. I should probably blog this as literature review and my musings as well. :-)

I was musing over the placement of pedagogical usability in my research last night. The thought that came to me was assumptions. What are the assumptions I make regarding pedagogy usability design and learner experience or usage of learning materials online?

I assume that the design will enhance greater activity among the learners, greater interaction between the learners and the interface. So, what I am looking at is the relationship between pedagogical usability and learning activities, the amount of influence the design has on learning activities (what learners actually do).

I can also look at how learners' feedback can inform me on their assumptions and wants, basically what they would like to see and do. The only question is what if they do not like it at all. That will give me the opportunity to evaluate the degree of influence pedagogical design has on learning activities and motivation.

Hmm .... I am thinking aloud here, but I think this is a useful thought to ponder further.

Wow! There is such a term as pedagogical usability. Below are the search results from Google.

Google - search term (pedagogical usability)

Usability and Pedagogical Issues in User Interface Design

The Keys to Usability in e-Learning Websites

I will blog the rest of the literature as reviewed paper.

If the design of learning resources does not facilitate the activation of learning activities, then the design has failed as a resource for learning or considered weak in its pedagogical effectiveness.

If the design of learning resources does not assist or facilitate learners to participate in the learning tasks, then the design has failed to achieve its pedagogical usability.

I wonder it there are such terms like pedagogical effectiveness and usability?