Name: Dr Bex Lewis
Conference: Exploring collaborative learning in Higher Education media education programmes

The HEA funded TESTA (Transforming the Experience of Students through Assessment) has worked across 22 programmes in 8 universities. TESTA has built a community of practice (CoP) interested in assessment and feedback processes at a sector level. FASTECH is a new JISC-funded project which builds upon this CoP, and starting with 15 core programmes, seeks to use standard technologies that have already been piloted to address the problems identified in TESTA: quantity of effort across the course, quality and quantity of feedback, usefulness of feedback and appropriate assessment.

The wide range of programmes from TESTA has provided a holistic overview of the student experience of assessment and feedback, data which can then be incorporated at a programmatic level. As TESTA has demonstrated, improving practices within particular degree programmes enables us to work with the grain of teachers’ subject interests, disciplinary emphases, and departmental loyalties, and to address the full course experiences of students. FASTECH, drawing on internal and external expertise, seeks to ensure fuller collaborative working across modules, identifying and incorporating individual processes, particularly those using technology, at a programmatic level. Successful processes are provided as case studies to enable those across the disciplines to benefit from the lessons learnt. Both staff and students benefit from engagement with wider communities of practice enabled through social media and other Web 2.0 technology.

Student expectations have risen with increasing fees, and assessment expectations have to fit, amongst others, the employability agenda, which emphasises strong communication skills. As such assignments, including blogging and other social media engagement, need to reflect what is required in the workplace, encouraging students to use the tools critically as part of their Personal Learning Environment (PLE). Drawing upon Wenger’s (1998) notions of a CoP, where there is a “shared endeavour” for professional excellence, and an improved student experience, the paper will focus upon the challenge of engaging whole programmes collaboratively with the feedback and assessment agenda, rather than initiatives enforced from the centre out. Informed by theoretical underpinning the paper will draw upon examples from a range of programmes at the Universities of Winchester and Bath Spa, including media studies.

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Higher Education Academy Discipline Seminar: Thursday 3rd May 2012
School of Media and Film, University of Winchester and the Higher Education Academy.
Collaborative learning is a key pedagogic activity in many media education programmes at universities and higher education establishments in the UK. Research indicates that when well executed, collaborative work enables students to learn much from each other (Gokhale, 1995; Johnson and Johnson 1999). Likewise, media educators argue educational practices and approaches should evolve and shift better to suit the networked nature of contemporary media (Merrin 2009; Hong and Sullivan 2009; Jukes et. al. 2009; Christen 2009). Though collaborative learning activities have raised concerns over increasing the risk of plagiarism and of students not contributing equally to a task, these issues these can be addressed through the design of the assessment process (Brooks & Ammons, 2003; Oakley et al. 2004).

While a variety of methods may be used to foster collaboration, one key way in which collaborative learning can be facilitated is through the use of social media and other web 2.0 technologies. Research on information skills education indicates that social media offer a useful means of building skills in students (Buzzetto-More, 2009; Sumar et. al. 2009; Burton Browning, 2010). Moreover, social media constitute a considerable element of the contemporary media environment and developing criticality in the use of them is now considered an important aspect of media education (Jenkins, 2009).

This one day seminar will allow for academic staff from different higher education institutions across the UK to convene and to discuss the benefits, problems and pitfalls of collaborative learning in media education. Particular attention will be paid to the sharing of good practice and to how technologies (including but not limited to social media) can be used to facilitate collaborative learning.

Papers are sought that examine:

• The theoretical underpinning of using collaborative work in teaching
• The advantages and disadvantages of using collaborative work
• Old and new technologies for facilitating collaborative work
• Social media and collaborative work
• Planning, trouble shooting and pre-empting problems in collaborative teaching
• The impact of collaborative learning on other aspects of learning and teaching
• Case studies of the successful (and unsuccessful) use of collaborative activities.

Key-note Address: Prof. David Gauntlett (University of Westminster) “Social media ¡V making, connecting and learning”

Selected papers will appear in an edited collection published by the Higher Education Academy. *We have already been informed that we will be providing a 5-6000 word paper for this. 

In April, we have the annual Plymouth Enhanced Learning Conference. The following abstract has been accepted:

Abstract:

Speakers

Talk submission to Greenbelt for 2012.

Finding Your Own Digital Paradise: Tribes, Digital Sabbaths & Crowd-Sourced Worship

Panel Session: Is there such a thing as ‘digital paradise’? How does the digital allow us to do things differently? Who do we connect with and not get lost in a Christian bubble? How do we ensure that we gain from partaking, rather than getting exhausted?

Confirmed contributors: Dr Bex Lewis, Rev Joanne Cox, Bryony Taylor & crowd-sourced content

Media, Religion, Culture Conference 2012
http://mrc.anadolu.edu.tr/
Format: Presentation, leading to discussion.

I was alerted to this conference at the weekend, and had about 24 hours to pull together a conference proposal. We’ll see if this ticks any of the right boxes… 

We live in a ‘digital age’, in a world that is increasingly defined and shaped by the digital. When we talk about ‘unplugging’, we are giving the impression that the effects of digital culture on our life are optional. This paper asserts that the digital is a ‘space’ or ‘culture’, and that there is no such thing as ‘virtual’ and ‘real’ worlds: only online and offline space/cultures. It uses the Christian context as an example of how cultural change is being encouraged through engagement in the digital spaces.

For many in the Christian church, the rise of the digital age, in particular social media, has been seen as something to be feared, if not ignored as an irrelevance. David Wilkinson (CODEC) emphasises that God is a communicating God, a God who is extravagant in communication, not a silent God who has to be tempted into communicating with people. Importantly, however, God looks to communicate in the right context, something that Christians often get wrong, and preach into the wrong context.

Sharon Watkins, head of a Christian order, said “God never told the world to go to church; but God did tell the church to go to the world.” Accommodation theory calls for us to accommodate to the world in which we live, to be part of the conversations, rather than trying to protect ourselves in the bubble of our own faith.Technology is not the problem, not the answer, but it is the reality for most in our world, and therefore those of faith need to engage with it.

The Centre for Christian Communication in a Digital Age (CODEC) undertook a Biblical Literacy Survey in 2009, which demonstrated that although 75% of people have access to a Bible, only 18% read their Bible daily. The Big Bible Project emerged through a desire to get people reading the Bible, making use of the widest range of social media tools, already used by millions every day. What questions do people have, and how do we make our faith, and our religious texts, more accessible through online tools?

Religions need to stop blaming the media for poor representations of their faith, and get involved. We all have something to contribute to the digital space: a digitally enabled laity is powerful. In a world where hierarchies are collapsing, we can draw on a range of voices, rather than adding this to the ‘to-do list’ for the leadership team. Elizabeth Dresher identified three characteristics, creative improvisation, participation & distributed authority that have made broadcast media unsuitable for many mainstream Christian churches, that are assets in a social media world, offering space for questioning.

The Big Bible Project has engaged over sixty ‘digital disciples’, those who seek to live out their Christian faith in the digital spaces, in conversation. We would like to open some of the topics of debate that they have raised with conference delegates, including questions of authenticity, appropriate behaviours, mobile device etiquette, the power of images and words, and whether these are similar concerns across other faiths. What does it mean for faith voices in the digital space?

Dr Bex Lewis, Blended Learning Project Manager, The Big Bible Project, CODEC, University of Durham. Bex.Lewis@durham.ac.uk

Themes: Broad Tents & Strange Bedfellows; Making Things Happen (ALTC11)

This paper has been accepted.

This paper reports on attempts by a digital steward (Wenger, White and Smith 2009) within a university to increase her expertise in the deployment of social media for education (Conole and Alevizo 2010), through collaboration by means of social media with digital stewards in other institutions. The development of collaborative communities can be described with the framework of ideas associated with the notion of a Community of Practice (CoP). It was envisaged that a CoP of utility to a digital steward might be established through intensive activity with a social media tool and for this Twitter was chosen.

This activity has continued for some two years and has latterly been cast as an action research project with the aim of learning lessons of help to others similarly placed having a need to promote digital technology with limited resources. Data has been collected about the extent of various types of interaction through Twitter. Observations have also been made of the cross-linking between social media tools that arises organically as one tries to make effective use of a single tool.

Several categories of data relating to Twitter use have been analysed in order to find indications of community formation. For example the similarity to the stated interests of the observed Twitter account of the interests of the account’s followers characterises the commonality (or lack of) purpose of the group. Further insight has been gained through examination of the extent of: interaction, both electronic and non-electronic, with followers; the retweeting of tweets by the account holder and the followers; and the accessing of linked material on other social media sites.

One implication of this work is that in an era of readily accessible social media there will be less utility for people to come together in a defined social space, but that they will rather start by using these facilities to create what might be called a personal CoP. Secondly it has been found that one social media tool by itself is unlikely to be adequate to create an effective social network; rather, several interlinked media must be used.

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Conole, G. and Alevizo, P. (2010) A literature review of the use of Web 2.0 tools in Higher Education, Available from http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/EvidenceNet/Conole_Alevizou_2010.pdf [Accessed 30/9/2010]

Wenger, E., White, N. and Smith, J. (2009) Digital Habitats: stewarding technology for communities Portland, Oregon, CPsquare.

SHORT PAPER ABSTRACT ALTC-11 (Revised Submission)

Theme: Making It Happen

Submitted with Andy Wilson, University of Loughborough

This paper reports from the recent cross-institutional JISC-funded project ‘BODGIT’ (Bringing Organisational Development Guidance into IT), which was part of the larger EMBED IT project hosted by SEDA.[1] The implementation of new IT platforms or software is rarely regarded as a change project, but this workshop will encourage delegates to consider the application of Organisational Development strategies when undertaking such implementations.

All change projects involve people, and commonly heard phrases when attempting to implement new systems are: ‘… but this is the way we’ve always done it’, ‘but it was a good deal…’, ‘why do I have to change?’, ‘why is the change not faster?’, and ‘what are the benefits?’.  Often new schemes are tainted by previous failed ‘initiatives’ because a strategic and overarching policy approach has not been taken. With IT initiatives particularly, software systems are often implemented without strategy, policy or detailed project planning. Using the case study of a software implementation which was proving difficult, three universities were involved in discussions and workshops investigating opportunities to apply Organisational Development principles.

This paper will draw out the general findings from across the institutions. Different change models were discussed, including the PESTLE and MORTAR and DICE models.  Of key importance when undertaking any change project is the need to undertake a stakeholder analysis, whether those stakeholders be institutional, personal, or corporate. We will demonstrate the ‘Stakeholder Straplines’ exercise, drawing upon discussions from the workshops, and consider the differing approaches/tactics that need to be undertaken with different kinds of users: enthusiasts, pragmatists, traditionalists and New Luddites, especially with the current pressures upon staffing time.

PELC11: Digital Futures: Learning in a Connected World
Dr Marcus Leaning and Dr Bex Lewis, University of Winchester
Strand: Higher Education // Web 2.0

“Sit still and listen!”

 Traditional learning approaches stress that the teacher is the source of all knowledge, that there is a fixed path to learning.

“Stand up and join in!”

Lifelong learning emphasises that educators are guides to sources of knowledge, which people learn by doing, in groups and from each other.

Manipulating media is a new course taken by all first year media studies students at the University of Winchester. Students taking the course work upon a number of live team briefs that present problems that require the use of academic literacy to be solved. The projects make extensive use of collaborative online learning. Students produce and deliver work using a number of web 2.0 applications and platforms, including reflective blogging. The course has proven very popular with students and there are clear indications of the development of academic literacy in students.

Previously, academic literacy, which comprises the core skills of critical thinking, evaluation of sources, referencing, analytic and critical writing and self directed learning has proven a difficult and often unpopular aspect of introductory years for students in higher education. At PELC10, there was much discussion of the contested notion of the ‘digital native’ , particularly as to the use of social technologies for learning. This paper explores one successful way in which a combination of social media and project based learning have been used to teach academic literacy to media studies undergraduate students at the University of Winchester, overcoming the sense of ‘disconnect’ between the substantive elements of a media studies degree and the ‘drier’ academic style and skills required.

The following abstract has been submitted to the Plymouth E-Learning Conference. The panel has been in development for some while – we’ll see if it makes it!

Floods? Snow? Swine Flu? Terrorist Threats?  “Keep Calm and Carry On”

During the Second World War, the British government sought to use appropriate communications tools to convey policy to the populace, whether via posters, newspapers, radio, or legislation. Resource restrictions meant that there was not always a free choice in which to use.

Sound familiar? It should.

As James Clay indicated in a blog post on January 10^th snow, floods and swine flu all have the potential bring our physical campus to a halt, for valid health and safety reasons.  Institutions announce via local radio and the web that they are closed to students and staff. In most institutions such crises effectively bring the entire workforce to a halt. Despite the digital options available, the word ‘closed’ implies that no (formal) activity will take place, and sends the message to staff and students that they do not need to go to work, or even do any work, even if they could.[1]

Culturally, most institutions do not incorporate online or virtual learning into everyday working cultures, at any level: management, staff or students. Those who do not routinely use digital options can’t see that closing the physical institution need not have a significant impact on the business of the institution, if that business can be carried out at home or online. The issue is not to focus upon contingency planning, but to focus on changing the way people work when there isn’t snow and changing the way people think when there is.

Although this debate will centre largely upon Web 2.0 methods, it will take an outcomes-focused approach, rather than a tools focused approach, in line with William Morris’s quote “Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful”. We consider what is necessary, not just in times of crisis, but in implementing everyday e-practice to meet learning and teaching needs.

No tool offers “one size fits all”, so each panellist will focus upon a specific relationship, for example communication between institution/staff, tutor/student, student/student, institution/external, and identify some of the most appropriate tools, and the pedagogical purpose that they serve. Which tool is most appropriate for the outcome required? What does that the approach provide that previous methods haven’t? What drawbacks are acknowledged in the use of each with regards to the outcomes required? What institutional cultural factors will need to be addressed?

PANEL:

The exact panel is to be confirmed, but will include: James Clay (ILT & Learning Resources Manager at Gloucestershire College), Dr Carolin Esser (Lecturer, English, University of Winchester) Dr Bex Lewis (Lecturer History/Media Studies, Blended Learning Fellow, University of Winchester). The panel will be allocated less than 10 minutes each, before strongly encouraged debate from the floor, building upon discussions which will have started beforehand online.