Teaching, learning and ILT/e-learning

Begin your journey

The Learning JourneyThe Learning Journey

Personal reflections

on a practical approach to

Teaching, learning and ILT/e-learning

The way ahead?

The key questionsThe key questions

• What do I really need to know?

• How do I unlock creativity?

• How do I avoid getting lost in an alphabet soup of jargon?

• How do I make it work for ME and MY learners?

Starting point: The learners

• We are working in a new climate… our learners were trained from an early age to be conversant with ILT/e-learning . . .

• ..they bring these expectations to our organisations!

• But we have the equipment, the creativity and the professional skills…

• …to develop materials and tasks that are interactive, educationally sound, interesting and which make them think!

What can ILT/e-learning do for me as a professional?

• Motivate learners

• Challenge learners in new ways, embracing modernity

• Enhance learning skills and delivery methods, including assessment

…And a ‘Wow’ effect!

There is a positive value added..

Interactivity: Learners’ skills

• Annotations on diagrams

• Matching (drag-and-drop, drop-down) …and developing

• Progression and development

• Amplification, illustration, clarification

• Rearrange, reconstruct

• Synthesise, speculate

• Summarise

Our mission!

“For adults of all ages, both those of workingage and senior citizens, from all kinds of backgrounds, e-learning arrangements of the highest calibre should be on hand to support their lives, extend their choices, enrich their competencies and strengthen their autonomy at home, at work and in the community.”

–Chairman's Foreword, DELG Report, 2002

Which means…

“We want to see teaching and training which inspires, excites and enriches learners from all parts of society, and provides the skills for a modern economy.”

– DELG Report, 2002

So what are the benefits?

• Up-to-date examples

• More varied lessons

• An active and engaging approach to learning

• Enhanced learner enthusiasm and participation

• Access to a range of resources (especially WWW)

• Learning plans adjusted to different abilities and learning styles (tracking)

• Enhanced confidence in self assessment

• Online learning materials free up class time (time saved can be used for discussions, role play and other time consuming - but important – activities)

But what does it look like?

The Learner

A learner’s day…?

• Arrive at college, log on and check emails for update on collaborative learning

• Continue to check intranet or VLE to find resources and details of the module they are studying

• Search the LRC on-line catalogue for traditional resources, and pick up some book reviews from the Internet

• Attend class. Register is taken electronically. Teacher delivers a short session using interactive whiteboard and challenges the group to speculate on outcomes

• A discussion develops and the teacher enhances the points the group make by calling up web pages

• The group create a bulleted list on the interactive whiteboard. This is sent at the end of the lesson to the email ‘conference’ site

A learner’s day…?

• Learner leaves college. Uses a mobile phone to discuss details of an assignment

• At home, the learner logs on and picks up, via remote access, his/her college desktop. S/he uses email to share work with friends

• The Internet is used to acquire more resources. Skills from college enable him/her to be discerning

• The learner creates an e-assignment answer and emails it to his/her teacher.

A learner’s day…?

 1. The Origins of Lenin’s PartyThe Social Democratic Party believed revolution was the solution to Russia’s ills There were many discontented groups in Russia before the First World War. Urban

workers, the proletariat, endured long hours, low pay and sometimes dangerous working conditions. Overcrowded slum accommodation added to the misery. Yet to these somewhat typical industrial problems were added the inequalities of the political system. The Russian people were deprived of a voice for their grievances. Intellectuals and the middle class were as disgruntled as the seething masses of the cities and the countryside. Only a devotion to the Tsar seemed to keep the country together. The Social Democratic Party, most of whom lived in exile, believed the solution was for Russia to pass through this period of industrialisation, for the workers to develop a sense of class consciousness (an awareness of their misery that bonded them together in class solidarity) and to effect a revolution.

TASK! Create your own summary of Marx’s ideas. You could highlight and copy this into a word file. Use tools > autosummarize to create a list of the headings and key points. Try 40% but don’t forget to edit your results in case anything has been missed out.

Lenin’s ideasLenin’s ideas Read this section: there are three tasks to complete at the end. If you hold your mouse over the underlined links they will give you a summary of information. Clicking the link will take you to a more detailed explanation.

‘Hearken, hearken, peasants. ...‘This is the way the Tsar talked with his people...‘All the troops of Petersburg were raised to their feet. Thus the Russian Tsar girded himself for the talk with his subjects…‘200,000 workers moved to the palace.‘They were dressed in their Sunday best, the grey and old ones and the young; the women went along with their husbands. Fathers and mothers led their little children by their hands. Thus the people went to their Tsar.‘Hearken, hearken, peasants!‘Let every word engrave itself on your hearts.‘All the streets and squares, where the peaceful workers were to march, were occupied by troops.‘“Let us through to the Tsar!” the workers begged.‘The old ones fell on their knees.‘The women begged and the children begged.‘“Let us through to the Tsar!”— ‘And then it happened!‘The guns went off with a thunder.... The snow reddened with workers’ blood. ...‘Tell all and sundry in what way the Tsar has dealt with the toilers of St. Petersburg‘Peasants, at your meetings tell the soldiers, the people’s Sons who live on the people’s money, that they dare not shoot at the people.’Questions: 1. What phrase has been used to show that it was the Tsar’s decision to shoot on the unarmed crowd?

2. How did Trotsky convey the idea the crowd were innocent? There were women and children

accompanying the men and they pleaded to be let

through to protest on their knees

The 1905 Revolution: Source analysis Read the sources below on the 1905 Revolution in Russia. If you click on a form field and then on F1 you can get hints on what to select as an answer. Once you have selected all your answers, print the document and submit it, or email it to your lecturer.

Source A Trotsky tells a group of peasants of the fate of a peaceful procession of men, women and children who collected outside the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg in January 1905.

Historians of the Liberal school of thought, the prevailing view in the West during the Cold War, would point to Lenin’s ruthlessness and arrogance [*1]in the events of 1917. He dismissed the peasantry as they did not fit in his conception of the party, class struggle or revolution. He argued bitterly with colleagues about the question of land ownership. He refused to accept that the Bolshevik party’s unpopularity diminished his right to assume power. He spoke openly of the need for a dictatorship and admitted that the dismissal of the Constituent Assembly, at gunpoint, was the ‘frank liquidation of the idea of democracy’. Although the opening of the Soviet Archives in the 1990s has reinforced the picture of an arrogant and ruthless Lenin, revisionist historians and biographers[*2], such as Robert Service, have been prepared to support the idea that, regardless of the flaws in his personality, Lenin was a key figure in the events of late 1917. His sense of timing was uncanny – Kamenev and Zinoviev thought the October coup was premature – and he was utterly decisive once he (or rather Trotsky’s MRC) had taken control of Petrograd. Lenin was therefore an effective leader, if for no more reason than his ability to exploit the changing situation in Russia’s most turbulent year[*3].

 

Task! Ø   1. Using the opening sentences of each paragraph, reconstruct the essay plan for this essay. Ø   2. What alternative arguments and approaches could have been used? Construct a new essay

plan that shows that Lenin did provide effective leadership between 1903 and 1917. Write this into a new word document and print them. Alternatively send them to

Robj@richuish.ac.uk [*1] The first argument is reiterated. [*2] The Revisionist school of thought allows a switch in the argument to be

illustrated. [*3]The final comments are consistent with the opening argument

More ideas…

• Gap Fill: scan a section of text (say, 2 sides of A4) and convert to a Microsoft® Word document and delete some key words.

• Post this version on an intranet or email conference site. Get learners to fill in the gaps.

• This will test comprehension and give them a full set of notes for revision. Confirm answers with them through discussion.

Hitler’s Ideas Hitler believed the idea that nations were essentially racial groupings. The supreme group were the Aryans, and the _______ peoples in particular (Austrian and German, but also to some extent Scandinavians and English), since they had produced the greatest leaders and artists in history. Other races in the world were weaker and produced fewer, if any, ‘great men’. At the bottom of the scale for Hitler were Slavs and Gypsies from Eastern Europe, and below these were the Jews. Hitler believed that the Jews were so degenerate as to be ________ (Untermensch). Their blood was so corrupted, he thought, that if contained and only allowed to breed with themselves, they would soon die out. Conscious of this, they spread themselves amongst the Aryans and ___________ with them, eroding the brilliance of the Aryans and ensuring their own survival, like a parasite. Hitler wrote that this was the cause of Germany's social and problems. It had allowed itself to become ‘infected’ by Jewish _________.  

Hitler believed the Jews would use any method to achieve their aim of racial mixing. The _____ ______ ____, Hitler believed, had been designed to kill off Germany's best – it was a Jewish plot. Communism was designed to enslave Aryans by enforcing common ownership, thereby stifling the Aryans gift for creativity. Equally, capitalism was designed to enslave Aryans by harsh terms of employment, the burden of debt and the misery of _______.

More ideas…

  Mind map

Make a mind map arranged around the head of a famous individual related to the course (use MindGenius software). Ask the learners to design the artwork and text.

 

Classical world of psychologyActions have a motive

Motives are mental states, hosted in

our minds and controlled by our minds

Motives express an imbalance in the

mind, between desire and reality

Action is an attempt to regenerate

balance by changing the reality to

match our desire

So... Dreams?

Problems remain:

... neurotransmitters act

on the surface of the cell,

whereas genes lie in the centre

of the cell…

How do they communicate?

Freud asked: How is the unconscious created?

How are some motives selected over others?

How are motives repressed but kept active?

Freud focused on content not on form/mechanism

Freud

More ideas…

 

Matching

Using small chunks of text, ask learners to match a mixed group using drag-and-drop on the screen (or under two or three headings).

Complex ideas can be engaged in this way, eg revolutionary theory and theorists.

 

Karl Marx

V.I. Lenin

Rosa Luxemburg

Leon Trotsky

Theorists

The masses face forces too great to overcome on their own, and they must be led by a disciplined revolutionary guard.

The masses must acquire a state of class consciousness before they spontaneously revolt.

There will be certain external preconditions that will initiate a revolution but it will be a spontaneous expression of the will of the workers.

The masses will overwhelm not just the forces in their own country but will be able to inspire the workers of other nationsleading to permanent revolution.

Theory

Karl Marx

V.I. Lenin

Rosa Luxemburg

Leon Trotsky

The masses face forces too great to overcome on their own, and they must be led by a disciplined revolutionary guard.

The masses must acquire a state of class consciousness before they spontaneously revolt.

There will be certain external preconditions that will initiate a revolution but it will be a spontaneous expression of the will of the workers.

The masses will overwhelm not just the forces in their own country but will be able to inspire the workers of other nationsleading to permanent revolution.

Theorists

More ideas…

E-journal

Challenge learners to create an e-journal in the style of academic journals on a series of problems or issues. Articles can deal with a part or the whole matter, be illustrated, hyperlinked, and enhanced with tool tips or floating textboxes.

‘How successfully did the Elizabeth I manage the threats to her rule between 1558 and 1603?’ The threats to Elizabeth’s rule differed in their nature and required different responses. Open rebellion, such as the northern earls rising in 1569, clearly demanded firm military action, but conspiracies, such as the Throckmorton Plot (1583) and Babington Plot (1586) required vigilance and an effective counter-intelligence network. The external threat of invasion posed by the Spanish Armada in 1588 could only be seen off by naval power.(1) However, the threats to Elizabeth concerning the succession, and the more subtle machinations at court, demanded a blend of skilful diplomacy and strong leadership. Indeed, in each case, Elizabeth herself must be credited, at least in part, for successfully neutralising the threats to her power and authority.  The Northern Earls Rising: Religion or anti-centralisation?Although there is a great deal of evidence to support the idea of a ‘Catholic’ rebellion in the north, Lawrence Stone argued that the rising was really a rejection of the centralisation of English government in London, represented by the appointment of William Cecil, Elizabeth’s Chief Minister over northern England….(2)

Plot or Rebellion: the greater threat?A Plot or Conspiracy might be defined by its clandestine nature, in contrast to open rebellion. The plot involves the secret enlistment of a relatively small group who seek, in the manner of a coup d’etat, to remove the head of state. The rebellion involves an appeal to the widest possible number and the seizure of power through armed insurrection. The former might suggest assassination, the latter may require a decisive battle.

The Armada, 1588: National Maritime Museum

But how is it done?

• Began in 1996 with a meeting with the IT Manager…

• Aim: to enhance delivery but maintain standards

In addition: reduce burdens

•..avoid reinventing the wheel

Naming of parts: Lesson 1

The Wheel

Reality check!

• We realised we needed to make adjustments to our organisation and teaching and learning culture

• We had to raise our own expectations and standards (…not just ‘handouts on-line’)

• We needed to acquire appropriate skills through training that was exciting and inspirational

The solution

• We decided to ‘phase in’ ILT/e-learning over several years

• We carried out research into what was available and what was possible: We formulated an ‘action plan’

• We laid the emphasis on the learners’ experience and needs, and the demands of the courses we offered

• We trained our staff!

Learners

• What skills and expectations?

• What support do we currently offer?

• Where could we use ILT/e-learning?

• …quickly established that learning was happening everywhere (college, class, home)

• Knew we could use ILT/e-learning to break down complex areas, carry out assessment

• … and put emphasis of learning onto adult learners.

What technology do we have?

• What have we got now?

• Are we maximising what we have?

• What are we going to get and when?

• Where can we get advice and support?

…we soon realised that we could make more of the simplest software, including assessment ‘programs’.

Staff training

• Personal skills audit (The Ferl Practitioners’ Programme (FPP))

• Regional Support Centres and other agencies

• In-house training

…needs to be on-going, not limited to training days. Support should be available when needed!

Architecture

VLE/intranet

VLE/intranet

Course structureand information

Interactive materials

Web portals andfiltered sites

Assessmenttools

Skills advice

Architecture

MIS tracking AttendanceProgression

Learning plans

Email: Conferencesite and group communication

Learner assignments

Remoteaccess

VLE/intranet

Course structureand information

Interactive materials

Web portals andfiltered sites

Assessmenttools

Skills advice

Architecture

Delivery: SMART Board(Video and Sound) Access to ILT suites

Interactive materialsand co-op with

Key Skills

MIS tracking AttendanceProgression

Learning plans

Email: Conferencesite and group communication

learner assignments

Remoteaccess

Course structureand information

Interactive materials

Web portals andfiltered sites

Assessmenttools

Skills advice

Architecture

VLE/intranet

Blended Learning

e-Learning Traditional learning

Action plan

• Advice: ask for help!

• Get senior management on side

• Prioritise: what can we do now?

• Training: do we have the skills we need?

• Time scale: when should we aim to have completed certain objectives by?

Staff training with FPP

• Raising awareness of the benefits

• Different environments for learning

• Different delivery technologies and their potential

• IT skills required by your learners to make effective use of ILT/e-learning

• Identifying appropriate ILT/e-learning opportunities

• How to create and adapt engaging content

• Issues of accessibility

A possible route?

• ...authoring own materials, took time and skill…

• Now more is available (NLN, FERL, RDN, EEVL, SOSIG, Humbul,…)

• ILT Champions, E-Guides and enthusiasts will lead…

• Senior managers … control the purse strings

• FPP across college,…ILT suites, staff and learner computer ratios,…interactive whiteboards and projectors…

• Content creation… case studies and lesson plans.

Application

• Careful study of ‘curriculum’ demands and resource needs

• Set up activities for pre-class learning, … in-class interactivities…ILT suite interactivities,… private study assignments

• Quality tested by colleagues and learners …ensured high standards!

• Shared ideas within subject and Faculty, then outside college

• Reviewed how well the ‘blending’ was working… demanded some joined up thinking and honesty.

• Recognise and work through our own reactions

• Concentrate on what we can control

• Start creating a plan of action

• Share our experiences

As staff we need to ...

• Find opportunities to embed information and learning technologies into our own practice

• Share ideas and effective ILT/e-learning practice with colleagues inside and outside our organisation

• Become involved with local and regional ILT/e-learning events

Personal Practical

• Improve quality of the learning experience

• Increase learner retention, attendance and raise achievement

• Upgrade staff skills

• Reduce workloads and bureaucracy

Pressures on today's educationalists

“At the end of the day, all the vast potential and investment in technology, despite the great brains that go into it, will not make a jot of difference, if learning is not as pervasive as the technology itself.”

Chris Yapp, March 2002

Teaching, learning and ILT/e-learning

- End of presentation -

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