I work at LJMU as a learning technologist. This blog contains personal reflections and research conducted around the theme of learning technology
Friday, 27 August 2010
Marking on screen? journal article says the is no difference
Wednesday, 25 August 2010
Simple use of podcasts makes a big difference to students and staff
Students; responded to the personalisation, clarity, 'livening up' the learning, reducing feeling of isolation and mobility Successful podcast ideas include tips for writing a dissertation and 'why you should love your handbook' Reference Nie et al (2010) the role of podcasting in effective curriculum renewal, alt-j, vol 18, no 2, pp105-118 Additional notes
Action based research method was McNiff & Whitehead 2006. All you need to know about action research. sage Good literature review on page 106 including negative results from Cann 2007 and Deal 2007. Links to research into drop out rates on distance learning courses, for example, 20-50% dependent on nature of course (Xenos et al, 2002; Pierrakeas et al, 2004) Also the idea of running a learning technology festival.
Tuesday, 24 August 2010
Article Spinning - the mass production of repeated texts - Orwell would be proud
If the use of the tool grows, the result could be a whole chunk of badly written documents. Which you could say already exists. The use of this tool to intentionally plagiarise are therefore low. Tools such as turnitin can detect the sequence of joining words that are difficult to change. . The loss of the original - or a new original?
The last type of spinner requires the author to write in a different way using calls a new skill, or authoring process that forces them to build into the document different permutations. Previous to this the author would write and select the exact phrase that captures the meaning. This process of trimming and shaping, reduces and defines the text and meaning. However, imagine including those permutations as part of the process. The original become a very difficult document to managed and read. Perhaps this tool could be used in a creative way, how abot spinner poetry, or short stories.
Monday, 23 August 2010
how to evaluate learning spaces - evaluation frame work from Centre for Effective Learning Environments, Paris, France , May 2009
International Pilot Study on the Evaluation of Quality in Educational Spaces (EQES).
http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/4/2/42859375.doc
(Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, Centre for Effective Learning Environments, Paris, France , May 2009)
Provides a guide for those involved in the International Pilot Study on the Evaluation of Quality in Educational Spaces (EQES): national coordinators and research teams, teaching staff, students, school principals, and others. The purpose of this pilot project is to assist education authorities, schools and others to maximize the use of and investment in educational spaces. The manual describes four research tools: 1) priority-rating exercise for quality performance objectives, 2) educational facility analysis. 3) student and teaching staff questionnaires, and 4) focus groups. For each tool, this manual presents the tool's objectives, research questions, expected response time, step-by-step instructions on how to implement the tool, and presentation of results in the final report. 71p.
10 youtube url tricks you should know about
How to embed a movie and loose the related movies that turn up at the end http://flirtationcreations.com/blog/2010/03/10-youtube-url-tricks-you-should-know-about/