SharePoint LMS

at South Cheshire College

Who are we?South Cheshire College

• Over 3000 full time learners

• Over 2000 part time learners

• 2500 learners are 19 or below

Our e-learning history• Granada Learnwise• PebblePad

New 21st Century Learners

K-12 Learners Surveyed (4-14 years old)• Email teachers 25%• Use online text books 22%• Email-IM classmate about a project 40%• Check on a grade 22%• Take an online class 9%Tomorrow’s students: Are we ready for the New 21st Century

LearnersJulie Evans, Chief Executive Officer, Project Tomorrow – Net Day

25/10/07

The Google Generation… • Horizontal information seeking– Skimming activity – one or two pages from an academic site and then

`bounce’ out• Navigation

– As much time spent finding their bearings as actually viewing what they find

• Viewers– New forms of `reading’ are emerging as users `power browse’

horizontally through titles, contents pages and abstracts.

Digital Natives…The Net Generation…

The Google Generation (continued)• Squirreling behaviour

– Squirrel away content in the form of downloads• Diverse information seekers

– Log analysis reveals that user behaviour is very diverse: geographical location, gender, type of university and status are all powerful consumer demographics.

• Checking information seekers– Users assess authority and trust for themselves in a matter of seconds by

dipping and cross-checking across different sites and by relying on favoured brands (e.g.Google).

Looking Forward• A unified web culture

– It is self-evident that by 2017 the internet will have come of age for all ages and be completely integrated into most homes.

• The inexorable rise of the e-book – Outside of leisure markets, we expect print sales to diminish

sharply as electronic publishing initiatives such as blogs, RSS, integrated media players, podcasting and publishing-on-demand devices become established parts of the information landscape.

Looking Forward (continued)• More content explosions

– User-generated content is growing much faster than publisher or content with inevitable consequences.

• Emerging forms of scholarship and publication– Distributing it through non-traditionaloutlets such as

institutional repositories, blogs, wikis and personal websites

Looking Forward (continued)• Virtual forms of publication

– University tutors, are engaging with Second Life to provide services for members of that virtual world and many see a long-term future in this kind of virtual publishing and broadcasting

 • The Semantic Web

– A system where, currently, humans express simple searches in everyday language, to order groceries, reserve a library book or look up a railway timetable, could be superseded by a system in which computers become capable of analysing all the data on the web

Pedagogy behind SharePoint LMS• Etienne Wenger ‘Communities of Practice’

– Communities of practice are groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly.

• Computer-supported collaborative learning– Learners take initiative and are individuals but competition is less likely

as the sense of collaboration is high. Personal knowledge is emphasised and the development of learners is central. Classes are social units and dialogue and interaction is very important.

Interface Design• A website can offer the latest technology and include

exciting interactivity and multimedia, but without consideration of the audience of users, the site is doomed to fail. On a more positive note, applying a user-centred design methodology results in websites that meet user expectations and contribute to the success of the site.

(McCracken and Wolfe, 2004: p10)

Personalisation• User-defined interface (eg iGoogle)• An interface which supports multi-task

learning• Tagging resources for personalised

material exposure

LMS Interface

ReferencesEducause (2007) Tomorrow’s Students: Are We Ready for the New 21st Century

Leaners? [accessed 13th January 2009]

http://hosted.mediasite.com/hosted4/Viewer/Viewers/Viewer320TL.aspx?mode=De

ault&peid=ce8f0201-7d54-4abb-b1b0-4f8a0479f481&pid=06155cca-0a78-4cd5-880f

d4c5ce23ba9c&playerType=WM7#

UCL 2008, Information Behaviour of the Research of Future [accessed 13th January 2009]

http://www.bl.uk/news/pdf/googlegen.pdf

Wenger Communities of Practice: A Brief Introduction [accessed 13th January 2009]

http://www.ewenger.com/

McCracken, D & Wolfe, R (2004) User-Centred Website Development London: Pearson