Evidence of Learning 1

Self-Assessment of Past, Present and Future Teaching

Digital learning is learning which is facilitated by technology or by teaching or instruction that makes effective use of technology.  The latter defines digital teaching.  Digital teaching and learning are meant to enhance learning, not simply continue it via a digital means.  Strategies include blended learning, flipped learning, personalised learning, and others that rely on digital tools to a small or large degree.

This section of my portfolio involves personal reflection in order to self-assess my knowledge and skills in digital teaching and learning, as a lecturer in early years and education and learning.  This focuses on my use of the following:

• Moodle 
• Turnitin
• Adobe Connect
• Padlet
• Presentation software,  Powerpoint and Prezi

as examples of digital tools and technologies, frequently utilised by myself, on courses that I teach or have taught.  I have taken an 'initial assessment' approach, reflecting upon my knowledge and skills at the start of the Lamar University course in Technology Enhanced Teaching.  Implications for education at further and higher levels are considered, and areas for further development. 

As technology rapidly grows and influences every day life in the 21st century, it is paramount that digital tools and resources,  including those available on the web, are utilised effectively as part of teaching and learning.  The digital environment must also be a safe one for our learners.  Consequently, it is not only important, but vital for educators to regularly assess their knowledge and skills in digital teaching and learning.  

Blended, Flipped and Personalised Learning: Moodle

Moodle is a virtual learning environment (VLE) that allows educators to create courses online.  It allows content such as course handbooks, timetables, module guides, module resources and reading lists to be easily uploaded to course pages, providing a constant and easily accessible reference for students to consult.  It also offers a number of interactive tools, such as forums and wikis, to get students engaging with course content and collaborating with their peers.  As it is available online, 24-7, Moodle can provide students with access to anytime and anywhere learning.

How does it work on my courses?

Moodle courses include sections which may represent particular modules or units.  Learning outcomes and assessment methods for the latter are included in relevant module guides or briefs.  Each section provides further information and links including but not limited to: reading lists; indicative sources; lecture slides; websites; videos; and, activities.  Assignment submission facilities allow students to upload work and assignments to Moodle as part of their summative assessments.  These are also returned to them via Moodle following marking and moderation.   Turnitin is available to use as an assignment facility or a plug-in.  It is set up as both for my foundation degree course, with the former set up as an assignment draft submission facility which enables students to check their work for plagiarism.

Considerations

A common comment from my learners is that they find Moodle 'clunky' with an uninspiring layout.  Moodle may therefore be under-utilised as a repository for learning resources rather than for learning activities such as forum discussions.  Inclusion, learner needs, data integrity and virus protection are considerations when sharing resources.  A benefit of the latter however, is that students can engage with learning resources such as reading materials or videos, prior to discussion in a traditional classroom environment.  However forum discussions can be used in a similar way.  Whilst the latter are asynchronous, they can enable contributions from students anytime and anywhere as long as they occur by a deadline.  This can also enable tweaks or refinements to ensuing sessions.  In this regard, Moodle can be used to promote flipped learning or 'just-in-time' teaching.  I have used forum discussions as part of a distance learning course that I facilitated on equality and diversity.  A few sessions took place whilst I was on a college overseas residential in the Philippines, whilst my students remained in the United Kingdom.  

Real-time synchronous discussions can take place within the chat facility on Moodle.  This has previously been used by myself to facilitate weekly remote 'e-tutorials' with students on an early years foundation degree course that I taught, as part of an effective blended and personalised learning approach.  Following on from this in 2012, as part of my PG Cert in Learning and Skills, I conducted small-scale research to examine the impact of e-tutorials with my Level 3 early years students.  My study found that there were potential positive gains to achievement as well as student attitudes, although access to computer hardware and the time for access by students was a constraining factor.   I would however consider using the chat facility on Moodle again, if I had to resort to doing remote tutorials.  However, I do need to investigate other activities on Moodle such as quizzes, polls and awarding badges, the latter of which I understand may be used to potentially motivate learners.  Adobe Connect and Skype both provide an alternative for synchronous discussion.  Although I have yet to use the latter for educational purposes, and would like to explore the possibility of doing this, I have used the former regularly as part of a blended-learning approach on another early years foundation degree course that I used to teach. 

BLENDED LEARNING: ADOBE CONNECT

This is a web conferencing system that allows students to participate in a lecture or seminar, a 'Webinar' remotely.

Web conferencing is particularly useful for distance-learning activities taking place as part of a blended-learning approach.  Webinars enable teaching to occur regardless of geography and may thus increase the potential number of students accessing the session or lecture.  Access may be provided via sharing a link via a platform such as a VLE or through email or text message, with an optional password feature providing another layer of security.  Student collaboration may take place through peer-to-peer and 'break-out' activities.  Recordings of events are made available for standard and mobile devices, providing a valuable resource for reinforcing learning.

Features of the web conferencing system include: 

• Two-way audio
• Interactive whiteboard
• Sharing of PowerPoint slides
• Customisable screen interface
• Sharing hyperlinks to access external sites, such as Padlet, Pirate Pad Wiki or Moodle
• Electronic voting
• Session recording
• Break-out rooms available for one-on-one time
• Multi-point video
• Text chat.

The interactive whiteboard and text chat provides accessibility options in the form of different fonts, font sizes and backgrounds. 

I have included a couple of short videos to show how I have used Adobe Connect Webinars.

Considerations

Unfortunately, the further education college that I currently teach in does not offer Adobe Connect, but I would endorse its use because of its many features, as listed above. 

A webinar however, can be difficult to manage without prior experience or practice, with a principal consideration being not only the access, but the engagement of all student-attendees.  As you cannot see each student 'in person', you are reliant upon their their honesty to remain in the webinar to the end, after their initial log-in.  There have been a number of occasions when a student has found themselves to be the only person when I have instigated a break-out room activity.  Attendance should therefore be checked at relevant intervals during a webinar. 

I would also schedule a webinar to run for no longer than an hour and a half, as they would usually take place after normal work hours, between 6-9 pm.  As webinars are live, they require a reliable Internet connection otherwise some features, in particular those that involve the sharing of video, may stall or crash.  I have also experienced some instances when students have been inadvertently 'kicked out' of the webinar, due to a weak or lost internet connection. 

Flipped learning opportunities are also accessible by making available resources in advance of the webinar.  However, in order to ensure their effectiveness, ground rules must be established at the start of the (blended learning) course to ensure that students do engage with the reading in advance in order to be prepared to contribute to discussions occurring during the break-out and main sessions.            

Padlet

Padlet is online software than people can use to share content with others.  It has been likened to a virtual bulletin board in which collaborators can simultaneously create and organise posts of varying content type, such as text, documents, images, videos, links as well as others.  A Padlet 'wall' can be accessed by sharing the URL.  Walls are semi-private by  default, so an extra step is needed to ensure total privacy for student users. 

Because it facilitates simultaneous collaboration, Padlet supports social constructivism and connectivism.  Connectivism, (Siemens, 2005; Downes, 2010) as a learning theory, aims to explain how Internet technologies have created novel opportunities for people to learn and collaborate, sharing information across the World Wide Web and amongst themselves.  The technologies and tools implicated by the theory include Web browsers, email, wikis, online discussion forums, social networks and any other tool which enables the users to learn and share information with other people.

In connectivist learning, a teacher may guide students to information and answer key questions as needed, in order to support students learning and sharing on their own.  The teacher here could be described as a 'more knowledgeable other' or an MKO in social constructivist theory, which is part-based on the ideas of Vygotsky.  “The MKO is anyone who has a better understanding or a higher ability level than the leaner particularly in regards to a specific task, concept or process.  Traditionally the MKO is thought of as a teacher, an older adult or a peer” (Dahms et al., 2010).  However, the MKO can also be viewed as a learning object or social software which embodies and mediates learning at higher levels of knowledge about the topic being learned, in comparison to what the student currently possesses.  Learning occurs as the student is enabled to bridge the 'zone of proximal development'.  This is the gap between ‘actual developmental level’ which a learner can accomplish independently and the ‘potential developmental level’ which a learner can accomplish when they are interacting with the MKO.   Whilst students may initially be encouraged to seek out information on their own online and express what they find, much learning also takes place amongst and within their online peer networks.  A connected community around this shared information often results.

Considerations

Padlet is free, easy to use and has an intuitive interface.  Once a wall has been set up, teachers can use it, for example, to facilitate a discussion activity around a particular concept or idea.  I have frequently used Padlet in this way.  Another way that I have used it is as an 'exit slip' to gather feedback about a session.   

One method of using Padlet that I would like to develop further involves using it for project work both within and outside the classroom.  in doing this, I envisage that students would work in small groups to communicate with each other and undertake multi-media research of a particular negotiated topic.  They could then add the media onto their group's shared wall, and present their findings to the class at a designated future session.  In this way, Padlet would reflect Puentedura's (2013) SAMR model:

• Substitution: Students create their own Padlet with text-based posts (rather than using paper post-it notes)
• Augmentation: Students continue to work on Padlet outside of class/college over the next few weeks
• Modification: Students then give one another’s posts feedback directly on the Padlet
• Redefinition: Students use the feedback to improve their work and then decide whether or not other posts need to be developed further.

Two factors would need to be considered however, when using Padlet outside of college: access and student self-motivation, the latter which is needed to make a sufficient and relevant contribution towards that of the group.    

Powerpoint and prezi

PowerPoint is a Microsoft software program that creates a slideshow of important notes to display during an electronic presentation.   It has been around for decades and is the most popular presentation software used worldwide.  It is readily available via Microsoft Office suites or Office 365, and thus may require a purchase fee. 

In a classroom context, the slideshow would accompany the oral delivery of the topic.  Text is featured in focused and concise parts on each slide, which also allow for graphical designs, including images, charts, graphs and tables.  Design templates aid customisation, although this is also achievable through the use of a range of varying 'tools'.  Different content such as URLs, narration, music and videos, may also be embedded on slides and I have begun to do this with the latter.  Printing options enable the provision of a range of handouts to students and notes pages for the speaker to refer to during a presentation.    

Internet access is not required in order to present a PowerPoint presentation.  It is however required to present a Prezi one.  Prezi's online software uses 'zoom', motion and spatial relationships to bring a presentation 'to life'.  For me, this presents the most significant visual difference between a PowerPoint and Prezi.  Prezi provides different packages to suit different types of users, but at its most basic level, it is available for free.  Student access to a Prezi is via a hyperlink, which I normally would provide through the college VLE.

Considerations

In order to break out of a 'traditional' linear arrangement of ideas, PowerPoint presentations may incorporate action buttons or hyperlinks that enable access to different concepts within the slides or external sites, where Internet access is available.  As with other visual mediums, inclusion and accessibility are factors for consideration.   Fonts, colours, backgrounds may need to be changed across an entire presentation for different audiences.  Being able to print handouts and send or download a PowerPoint file in electronic format may also help to meet student's individual needs.  This provides a distinct advantage over Prezi, which only allows for individual slides to be printed in PDF format.  

Highton (2006), writing for the University of Leeds, states that good practice with presentation software in enhancing teaching and learning "depends upon  on using it to substantially change the student experience and to change what students do with that experience".  As part of this, Highton asserts that educators should consider whether their presentations help students to improve their reading and note-taking.  For example, the presentation should include materials or ideas, that the student would not otherwise see.  The presentation should also have key points, terminology and diagrams clearly presented to students, in order to help them recall information more efficiently.  Making presentations available to students before and after the sessions can also support flipped learning and reinforce concepts.

I will be exploring a range of PowerPoint features and also Sway as part of a suite of Microsoft and Office 365 tools that are new to me.  I am therefore looking forward to widening my repertoire of presentation skills and resources in doing so.