Organisational approaches to e-learning in the tertiary sector: An annotated bibliography

Tertiary sector organisations have developed a range of approaches around planning and implementing eLearning. This report gives an overview of some of the research literature relating to a variety of approaches.
The executive summary for the report reads as follows:

The key findings of this annotated bibliography are:

• The most common organisational approach to e-learning is where high-level objectives and supporting policies and plans are set centrally but the responsibility for implementing these is at the faculty or departmental level.
• Organisational approaches to e-learning are more likely to be successful when they are supported by institutional strategies, policies, plans, monitoring and evaluation. E-learning strategies are more likely to be effective if they take into account organisational culture and are underpinned by a rationale that has strong support from stakeholders.
• Organisations need to consider student preferences. They also need to ensure students have the skills and capabilities needed for success in e-learning. It is also important that organisations provide relevant and timely support, particularly technical, for both their students and staff.
• Organisations need to provide infrastructure that supports their e-learning objectives and meets stakeholder and learner needs. It is important that organisational ICT systems can link with each other and with students’ information technology devices.
• Staff development and support are essential if organisations are to adopt e-learning successfully. Organisations should consider providing incentives for staff to adopt e-learning and participate in associated development. Staff efforts in adopting e-learning also need to be recognised. Staff must be given time to explore and experiment when they are adopting e-learning.
• Benchmarking of e-learning capability has been used by a number of organisations. Benchmarking can be used not only for comparisons with other similar organisations but also to more clearly identify performance in an e-learning context.
• It is unclear if organisations can save money through e-learning. While it requires investment in infrastructure, staff development and the creation of supporting materials and resources, cost savings are possible. Savings are derived not only from economies of scale but also from other measures such as reuse of materials.

Source

Image: 'workstation' Found on flickrcc.net

Untangling notions of the flipped classrooms

Having done a wee bit more research around the Flipped classroom that centre around videos, I found this rather thought-provoking blog post by Jackie Gerstein entitled Flipped classroom full picture: An example lesson

Jackie quotes Harvard Professor Chris Dede (Global Education 2011 keynote) who said the following about the flipped classroom . . .

I think that the flipped classroom is an interesting idea if you want to do learning that is largely based on presentation. You use presentation outside of the classroom. Then you do your understanding of the presentation and further steps from the presentation inside the classroom. I think it is a step forward. It is still, in my mind, the old person.  It’s still starting with presentational learning and then trying to sprinkle some learning-by-doing on top of it.  I am interested more in moving beyond the flipped classroom to learning by doing at the center than a kind of the intermediate step that still centers on largely on tacit assimilation.

It is also worth reading "Setting the flip straight" (Aaron Sams), who writes:

Educators should always continue to evaluate the efficacy of an adopted model of instruction. This goes for Flipped Class, Inquiry, lecturing, Unschooling, or whatever educational model you use. I have been a teacher for 12 years, and I have modified my instructional practices every year based on my own reflection, feedback from students and emerging educational practices.

He goes on to caution that the flipped classroom is way of thinking about learning...and teaching, rather than a specific way of doing things, that are reliant on specific technologies.

Jackie then provides a detailed step-by-step example that shifts away from the didactic presentation model to one that focuses  "on the students’ personal experiences, interactions with other students, and acquisition of tangible life skills". Well worth having a look at, as it has some really practical hints (including the use of mobile devices), as well as images of the students participating in the activities.


Examples of other users of the flipped classroom approach

• Why I flipped my classroom - a simple and compelling case for the flipped classroom.
• Flip the math content for 4th grade students
• Dr. Lodge McCammon's FIZZ - Flipping the Classroom and Innovative Education Techniques - that can significantly improve outcomes
• Reflections on the flipped classroom 
• The Flipped Classroom: Preparing for Friday's lesson on Tuesday! (English blog for year 6)
• Flipped instruction and Screencasting: beyond math
• 15 Schools Using Flipped Classrooms Right Now

Other posts about flipped classrooms

• How the Flipped Classroom is Radically Transforming Learning by Jon Bergmann and Aaron Sams
• Are you Ready to Flip?by Dan Spencer, Deb Wolf, and Aaron Sams
•  "The Flipped Class:  What it Is and What it is Not" by Jon Bergmann, Jerry Overmyer and Brett Wilie
•  "The Flipped Class: What Does a Good One Look Like?" by Brian Bennett, Jason Kern, April Gudenrath and Philip McIntosh
• Private School Math Teacher Flips Learning by Stacey Roshan
• Flipping Out – Reflections on the Flipped Classroom

Virtually Engaged! Building Virtual Professional Development Communities

This is the Prezi I developed to go with a presentation I gave at Shar-E-Fest. The Prezi resource was designed to be used as a presentation at the 'top' level, but if you look closer, and drill down (a bit like a treasure hunt), you will find heaps more detail. Have fun!!!

The abstract reads as follows: "Current models of Professional Development (PD) provision are being evaluated. As a result, one of the mainstays of education intuitions, the generic workshop, has been identified as having number of fundamental flaws. Hand-in-hand with this is the request by teachers for increased PD to help them with ICT Enhanced Learning and Teaching (ICTELT) projects. The Virtual Professional Development (VPD) Model has been developed in response to these factors. VPD is based around a community of learning, with a goal to provide peer-supported PD around ICTELT.

There are currently ten tertiary, secondary and primary school teachers from a variety of locations ranging from Kaitaia to Canterbury involved in this pilot initiative. The national facilitator works with these teachers to develop their own highly-contextualised learning plans. After an initial face-to-face meeting the group now meets regularly using the Internet based webinar tool Adobe Connect to share skills, experiences and ideas and to enable peer mentoring relationships to build. Facilitated sessions are at a time and place which is flexible to each teacher\'s needs. These exchanges are complemented by interactions within a social networking space (Ning), as well as through access to their own \'sandpit\' courses in a learning management system (Moodle), where they have the opportunity to experiment and try out skills before going live with learners. Skill-sets and experience vary in the VPD group, and this is offering great opportunities for participants to take on facilitator and learner roles.

The main factors that are becoming apparent from the evaluations to date is that the VPD model could be effective for future PD initiatives. However unlike generic workshops, VPD is mainly 1) about affective factors - community, belonging and relationships; 2) a personalised, contextualised curriculum; and 3) an experience where upskilling takes second place to a teacher\'s own learning \'journey\' which is all about their identity as educators and their beliefs about learning."

Virtually Engaged! Building Virtual Professional Development Communities on Prezi

Please cite as: Owen, H. (2010, 27-28 September). Virtually Engaged! Building Virtual Professional Development Communities. Paper presented at the Shar-E-fest Conference.

Sharing effective practice between education institutions: Why and how?

One noticeable shift that has been underway for the last few years in education institutions in New Zealand and globally is the increasing awareness of the benefits of sharing effective practice, hand-in-hand with a growing willingness to share. The following are examples of this trend toward sharing, and both cite benefits, but are there any drawbacks, and what could this sharing 'look like' in the future?

To be part of this conversation, first watch  the video and then read Darren Sudlow's blog post "Why Communities of schools?". Next, post your thoughts around what you see as the benefits and barriers to sharing between education institutions.

The description from the site reads: At the First Federation in Devon, four primary schools have formed a hard federation in order to improve standards across the board. This allows them to share good practice by arranging senior leadership meetings, joint staff meetings and even video conferencing to allow schools to link up and increase dialogue. Staff are able to change schools within the federation, which means that their knowledge can be shared further. Meanwhile, at Bishop Stopford School in Kettering, they have joined the Leading Edge Partnership Programme started by the SSAT. They work closely with four schools in their local area to share ideas and make a coherent strategy both at management level and for teaching and learning. The partnership also allows them to team up with local businesses,share lesson starters and brainstorm ideas to improve lessons and make them relevant for the world of work.