06/07/2009

eContentplus

Meeting teacher educators needs with the ShareTEC system

• “Meeting real user needs is an issue that has come up within the ShareTEC project and that has been dealt with through the development of scenarios of use. This has proven to be successful in allowing the needed description, for establishing the requirements, of different activities that users could perform with the ShareTEC tools. The question still holds: are the real user needs met?” (Claire Bélisle, Evaluation Report)

06/07/2009

eContentplus

How to know what the target users want and what are their needs?

Goal• Meeting teacher educators’ needs with the Share.TEC system

How• Focus groups, interviews, questionnaire, case studies, etc.

Why • Gather teacher educators’ stories on how, why, what, and when

they look for and use digital materials and learn more about their experience of technology within their teaching/learning activities

CENEC Use scenarios: target users and their needs

06/07/2009

eContentplus

Focus Group in Venice (Italy)• Method: Focus Group

• Date: June 2009

• Participants: we invited 12 teacher educators: 6 who teach pedagogical issues (2 pedagogy, 1 didactics, 1 Assessment and evaluation, 1 Educational Policy, 1 Special needs) and 6 expert in teaching (1 mathematics education, 1 arts education, 1 economics educations, 2 information systems education, 1 foreign languages education). Each teacher had at least 10 years of experience.

• Recording. We decided to audio record the focus group because the videotaping is perceived as invasive.

• Data Analysis– summarizing the discussion following the focus group– transcribing the tapes soon after the focus group discussion– preparing qualitative data analysis

• Purpose of FG: preparing a questionnaire to gather information about the teacher educators, with the help of the partners

06/07/2009

eContentplus

Limit of Focus Group and ideas• Obviously, only one focus group is not sufficient to discover all the

behaviors, attitudes and needs of teacher educators regarding the features they would require from the ShareTEC system, but it is one good place to start.

• To know more, it would be necessary to employ:– a different focus groups with teacher educators from others countries, in

order to have a good picture about TE in Europe; – different focus groups with different purposes (i.e., about the relation

between digital content and education, DC and community, DC and sustainability, DC and teaching/learning etc.

– A forum, linked to our project website to collect feedback;• We have to take into account that there are many other way to

investigate the TE’s needs: interviews, questionnaires, case studies, etc.

06/07/2009

eContentplus

What did we ask TE’s in the Focus Group?

06/07/2009

eContentplus

• 1) Which kind of information and digital materials do TE search to plan and update their course?

• 2) How do TE’s look for information and digital materials?– 2.a What is your preferred reading language on the Web?– 2.b How is the teacher educator achieving the objective of development of digital

material? – 2.c Where do you save the digital materials? – 2.d Have you have published online the digital materials (text, audio, video, PPT

presentation, simulation etc)?

• 3) What type of item do you search for?– 3.a What type(s) of format (s) do you search for TE digital material? Text, video, audio

etc.– 3.b What type of item do you search for? Book, Handbook, Article, CD, DVD,

Digital/online content– 3.c In general what percentage have the resources in the construction of digital

materials in your TE course (e.g. lessons, tests, useful links etc..)

06/07/2009

eContentplus

• 4) What type of online engines TEs use in order to find information and digital materials

– 4.a What type of online engines do you use?– 4.b Where do you find good material? Do you have any preferred TE’s website?– 4.c What barriers, if any, did you encounter while searching?– 4.d If you must register in a portal or in a repository system in order to access materials,

does that discourage your interest?

• 5) Availability of a teacher to provide materials in a repository – 5.a Would you like to use a private online space to upload your digital materials? – 5.b Would you like to share your digital materials with other colleagues / users?

• 6) Availability of a teacher to participate in an online community in a retrieval system– 6.a Are you a member in the online community at the national or European level as

Teacher educator?

• 7) Availability of a teacher to purchase online– 7.a Do you buy digital materials online (books, magazines, articles, manuals etc.)?

06/07/2009

eContentplus

What did TE’s answer in the FG?

06/07/2009

eContentplus

1) What information and digital materials TEs look for to plan and update their courses?

In general, the Teacher Educators search information for the development of e-Learning material, including:

• material for classroom teaching (i.e. ppt) (60%);• development and designing of courses(40%);• continuous evaluation, upgrading and modernization of syllabi and

setting up of advanced laboratories for different courses(20%).

Specifically, they are interested to find material such as: • general information on the other courses in the same subject(30%);• objectives and lesson (syllabi) of other courses(30%);• education activities (individual and collaborative)(40%);• educational tools, assessment and evaluation, questionnaires,

exercises, tests, exams, case studies etc…(70%)

06/07/2009

eContentplus

2) How TEs look for information and digital materials?

• 2.a What is your preferred reading language on the Web?Italian 100%, English 100%, French and Spanish 50%

• 4.a What type of online engines do you use searching for?Google, Google Book, Google Schoolar.

• 2.b How is the teacher educator achieving the objective of development of digital material? The development of e-Learning material is done in two ways:

• producing reading material in print form, i.e. in word, or in pdf, or ppt etc. about particular subjects (e..g. what is constructivism theory?) to be uploaded on the elearning platform of the university(60%);

• creating e-Learning material for activities (they used web links, mp3, mp4 etc). These are usually used forcompletion of the reading material, i.e. how can I use the constructivism theory in language learning? O mathematics?(30%)

• 3.b Where do you save the digital materials? • Only own pc or an institutional server. (100%)

06/07/2009

eContentplus

4.c What barriers, if any, did you encounter while searching?

• Quality of digital contents: for example free digital materials are usually low quality (80%).

• Circles of life of educational materials: the subjects become old very quickly. TE’s need to constantly update lessons, activities, researches etc (70%).

• Educational material is only one part of teaching process because this is a “content” (object). TE’s need to know more about process in the education(30%).

06/07/2009

eContentplus

6) Availability of a teacher to provide materials in a repository

• 6.a Would you like to share your digital materials with other colleagues / users? • They would be willing to share their materials more widely, but they

seem not be confident in their own formats (i.e. lessons, activities, etc)(100%).

• The problem is whether their material would be suitable for a wider public (for example, research papers), because in general the digital lessons are accompanied by comments in the forum online or during front lesson (classroom)(50%).

• In their opinion, this would require additional work to prepare them a wider public(100%).

• In discussion, they expressed the fear that the materials might give other institutions a commercial advantage (60%).

06/07/2009

eContentplus

7) Availability of a teacher to participate in an online community

• 7a Are you a member of an online community at the national or European level as a teacher educator? • They are members of teacher communities for educational

mathematics, educational arts, etc. at the national level. At the international level they are members of communities for mathematics, etc., but teacher educators are not members of such communities as “didactic of mathematics”. They have personal contacts with their colleagues in other countries and they share issues with them and, sometimes, even educational material.

• They express a very strong interest in participating into a wide community in Europe about Teacher Educational field.

06/07/2009

eContentplus

8) Are TE’s available to purchase LO’s online?

• Do you buy digital materials online (books, magazines, articles, textbooks etc..)? • Yes, sometimes (80%). • They underlined that it is important to have a preview of the material

because it is possible to find a good title, but the substance of the material is not good.

06/07/2009