ICT-enabled learning: the student perspective (original) (raw)
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The Modern University in the Digital Age - Briefing Papers 2012
The position of the university as being a three year experience beginning with registration and ending with graduation is under challenge. Learners bring with them devices, skills, practice and knowledge that can support their development through the university experience. They leave the university with those skills enhanced, developed, challenged, repurposed and ready for sharing. Yet, at the completion of the qualification, aside from an alumni process, the university rarely engages them in continuing to interact with new learners or with the networks they formed whilst studying. The ability of web 2.0 technologies and social media to facilitate the formation of these networks, develop and nurture connections within a community and maintain a current and relevant personal web presence for individuals is unquestioned and well evidenced. The challenge for the modern university is to build this type of connectivity into the practices and strategic direction of the institution. From new arrivals experiences, through to curriculum design, learning, teaching and assessment, social interaction in and out of the ‘classroom’, infrastructure strategy and learning spaces and post-graduation processes, the ability of the learner, the academic, the administration and management, the employer and the community to interact, engage and maintain connections is central to the ability to flourish in the new environment. There is significant potential for developing a USP around the development of networks and networked learning with strategic alignment in particular between teaching, learning and assessment and technology.
Scenario 2: Sink or Swim: Digital Dilemma in Higher Education
Winzenreid, A. Visionary Leaders for Education., 2010
Universities began as a need to concentrate resources. A concentration of scholars who worked together; a concentration of students who learned together; a concentration of resources in libraries; a concentration of expensive specialist equipment in laboratories. The need for the university to occupy a coherent single space was central to their development. It was late in the twentieth century before technology began to change that. Film and radio allowed lectures to be delivered off campus; cheap international travel allowed at least some students to study away from the campus at least some of the time. By the 1960s in the United Kingdom, the Open University used a combination of television and summer schools to allow degrees to be taken through technology. But even here the Open University has a major campus and students still have local tutors. Most universities now offer some online programs, while others, such as the University of Phoenix, specialise in that approach. And now the web has completely altered the fundamentals of the concept of the university as a host of institutions rush to create virtual spaces in virtual worlds such as Second Life.
Students staying home: Questioning the wisdom of a digital future for Australian universities
1998
The understanding of the role of global digital technologies in the future of Australian universities mirrors the international debate as exemplified by some of the articles in this special issue of Futures. However, this debate between cautious optimists on the one hand and supreme optimists on the other is misleading, because the future for universities lies neither in a grudging acceptance of technology's inevitability nor a mindless embrace of it. The complex evolution to a true 'knowledge supernetwork' requires an understanding of the socially constructed nature of technologies including the social technology known as learning. Moreover, it requires us to reinstate a perspective missing from both the articles in this issue and from the debate in Australia, namely that of students.
Sink or Swim: Digital Dilemma in Higher Education
2010
Universities began as a need to concentrate resources. A concentration of scholars who worked together; a concentration of students who learned together; a concentration of resources in libraries; a concentration of expensive specialist equipment in laboratories. The need for the university to occupy a coherent single space was central to their development. It was late in the twentieth century before technology began to change that. Film and radio allowed lectures to be delivered off campus; cheap international travel allowed at least some students to study away from the campus at least some of the time. By the 1960s in the United Kingdom, the Open University used a combination of television and summer schools to allow degrees to be taken through technology. But even here the Open University has a major campus and students still have local tutors. Most universities now offer some online programs, while others, such as the University of Phoenix, specialise in that approach. And now the web has completely altered the fundamentals of the concept of the university as a host of institutions rush to create virtual spaces in virtual worlds such as Second Life. So, for the first time in five hundred years, there is a need to fundamentally review what it is that a university as a place exists for. A recent encouraging report on the so-called 'Edgeless University', sees this as an opportunity. JISC (The Joint Information Systems Committee), which commissioned the report, described it thus: Technology is changing universities as they become just one source among many for ideas, knowledge and innovation. But online tools and open access also offer the means for their survival. Their expertise and value is needed more than ever to validate and support learning and research.
The University in the Digital Age
2003
The university's value, we claim, lies in the complex relationship it creates between knowledge, communities, and credentials. Changes contemplated in either the institutional structure or technological infrastructure of the university should recognize this relationship. In particular, any change should seek to improve the ability of students to work directly with knowledge-creating communities. We offer a couple of examples of currently successful Internet-supported teaching that suggest how technology can do this. Then we explore some hypothetical institutional arrangements that might enable the university to take the fullest advantage of these emerging technological possibilities.
Issues Arising from the Use of University Ilectures: A Case Study of One Australian Campus
Australian Journal of Teacher Education
Australian universities have moved towards greater reliance on technology as a learning tool. The use of podcasts or recorded lectures (sometimes called ilectures) is now common practice in both on-campus and online modes. Using a qualitative approach to data collection which included recorded interviews, an online survey of open-ended questions and the researcher's own reflections on using ilectures, this study investigated 1) the impact of ilectures on the teaching and learning practices of both academics and students 2) student attendance in recorded lectures and 3) the responses of lecturers and students to being recorded. Findings highlighted a mix of reactions to, and experiences with, the ilecture learning tool, underscoring the need for lecturers and students to receive guidance in its use and for those driving the use of this technology to be fully mindful of the impact such a tool can have on teaching and learning.
The Digital Turn in Higher Education
Digitalization is affecting our world and thus our individual lives to an increasing extent. We may envisage a digital turn leading from the book-based Gutenberg Galaxy to the `internet-based´ Digital Age. This ongoing change affects the academic field as well as all other parts of society. Not only research and knowledge communication but also teaching and learning in higher education are increasingly `going online´. The digitalization process alters the media upon which learning processes are founded. In higher education, digitalization permits decentralized, action-and product-orientated teaching and learning. To implement this kind of modern, digitally based learning, it is essential to develop scientifically grounded approaches to teaching and learning in a digitalized world. This challenge requires suitable theoretical, epistemological and ethical foundations as well as practice-oriented methods. Alongside such possibilities, digitalization also presents a challenge for higher education. One objective of modern higher education is to ensure that students acquire the media skills they need for professional life in the Digital Age. Apart from the harmonization of Europe´s higher education, the employability of students is a major concern of the Bologna Process. The harmonization process itself requires an international and interdisciplinary discourse on changes in higher education at the dawn of the Digital Age. This discourse necessitates critical thinking-an essential feature of any scientific perspective on the world. Drawing on Derrida´s concept of an unconditional university, the university can be understood as a space in which to reflect on digitalization and its effects on society. From this perspective, universities could provide the discursive space for analyzing the societal impacts of digitalization and discussing the ethical dimension of changing media. Consequently, the university may be expected not only to react to digitalization but also to become an actor in its own right. As a forum for scientific, critical thinking, universities also represent a space for innovation. Higher education can itself play a key role as a driver of innovation. Learning scenarios implemented and evaluated in higher education can become best practice examples to be adapted for the professional world. It is clear that digitalization challenges higher education on multiple levels. One aim of this book is to address the challenge by providing a multidisciplinary , international perspective on higher education during the digital turn. It therefore presents epistemological, ethical and theoretical approaches, and best practice examples, from universities in different countries (Poland, Denmark, France, Germany and the USA) using different learning strategies (including problem-based learning, mobile learning, heutagogy, and inquiry-based learning). The book can be understood as an international and interdisciplinary collection providing heuristic strategies for handling the digitalization of higher education in theory and in practice. Individual contributions are introduced below.