Building Mobile Learning Capacity in Higher Education:E-books and iPads

The growing popularity of e-books, e-book readers and tablet devices is forcing a reappraisal of the various functions of ‘the book’ in education. Furthermore, e-books are becoming a more salient element in the ecology of mobile learning, as new devices make reading a more comfortable and sociable experience. We report on the results of an 18-month project (2010-12) undertaken as part of The Open University’s Building Mobile Learning Capacity initiative. The project introduced a group of Associate Lecturers to interactive e-books produced by the university and to the iPads® on which they could be accessed. The proliferation of increasingly interactive e-books and e-book collections calls for an examination of their evolving pedagogical purposes; an important aim of the project was therefore to enable this group to form ideas of how these resources could be incorporated in distance education and professional development of academic staff/faculty. The project used surveys, focus group meetings, online forum postings, blog posts and wikis to enable participants to record their experiences and ideas. One project output has been the identification of a spiral of six key use case areas for e-books. In particular, the categories ‘situational reading’, ‘collaborative/group learning’ and ‘e-book production’ inspired a collaboratively designed group activity for a face-to-face outdoor tutorial, which was trialled and is described in this paper. The experience has relevance for the design of blended learning as well as for mobile learning activities in many other settings

Online and Distance Education for a Connected World

Learning at a distance and learning online are growing in scale and importance in higher education, presenting opportunities for large scale, inclusive, flexible and engaging learning. These modes of learning swept the world in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. The many challenges of providing effective education online and remotely have been acknowledged, particularly by those who rapidly jumped into online and distance education during the crisis. This volume, edited by the University of London’s Centre for Online and Distance Education, addresses the practice and theory of online and distance education, building on knowledge and expertise developed in the University over some 150 years. The University is currently providing distance transnational education to around 50,000 students in more than 180 countries around the world. Throughout the book, contributors explore important principles and highlight successful practices in areas including course design and pedagogy, online assessment, open education, inclusive practice, and enabling student voice. Case studies illustrate prominent issues and approaches. Together, the chapters offer current and future leaders and practitioners a practical, productive, practice- and theory-informed account of the present and likely future state of online and distance higher education worldwide

Second language learning at a distance: Metacognition, affect, learning strategies and learner support in relation to the development of autonomy. Volume 1: Introduction to the published work

This work is based on nine articles, two book chapters and one set of conference proceedings published between 1998 and 2007 on independent language learning in universities. I also refer to papers I have published that are concerned exclusively with language learning and teaching in adult education in order to contextualise my research. The publications selected for this work chart my evolution as a researcher and teacher, moving from a conventional adult education setting to self-access in a new university and finally distance learning at the Open University, UK. At each stage of this educational journey, autonomy took on an increasingly significant role, with distance learning at the extreme end of the spectrum, a setting which required autonomy to be firmly embedded in theory and practice. The thesis is divided into two main parts: (1) autonomy (2) metacognition and affect, strategies and learner support. The narrative draws together these themes, and explores links between the constructs, and their interrelationships. Publications 1-5 focus on the concept of autonomy and the issues it raises for learners and teachers in both self access and distance learning settings. The first three articles investigate autonomy in self-access contexts. The fourth and fifth publications concentrate more specifically on the distance language learning context. These five articles and chapters examine definitions and interpretations of autonomy; its psychological and social dimensions; its relationship to critical reflection; its place in successful language learning; and its function as a key transferable skill for vocational and other purposes. Finally, the role of autonomy and its practical application – self-regulation or self-management – is discussed in specific relation to distance language learning. Publications 6-12 explore metacognition and affect in independent learning settings, the role of language learning strategies to promote self-regulation in the development of autonomy, and issues for learner support. In this section, the focus is mainly on distance language learning, (reflecting my move to the Open University, UK), although many of the arguments are equally applicable to independent language learning settings in general. The role of metacognition is discussed from the dual perspective of knowledge of self, and skills used to manage the learning process (Flavell, 1976). Affective factors, notably beliefs, anxiety and motivation, are explored in relation to the special characteristics of the distance language learning environment, in particular the call on affective resources in the absence of a teacher. This leads naturally to an examination of the strategies that distance learners employ to cope with the demands of their learning setting, and to implications for learner support. This work makes an important contribution to the field of distance language learning through its focus on the centrality of the learner, the processes involved in second language acquisition (SLA) at a distance, and the need to explore related concepts from the learner's perspective. The empirical studies I have carried out using both quantitative and qualitative research instruments take forward the state of current knowledge in the field by offering original insights into the perceptions, thoughts and feelings of distance language learners and the strategies they use to manage in a distance context. Underpinning my research is a view shared by a growing number of researchers in applied linguistics today that 'language learning, more than almost any other discipline, is an adventure of the whole person, not just a cognitive or metacognitive exercise' (Oxford & Burry-Stock, 1995: 18)

S-TREE: Self-Organizing Trees for Data Clustering and Online Vector Quantization

This paper introduces S-TREE (Self-Organizing Tree), a family of models that use unsupervised learning to construct hierarchical representations of data and online tree-structured vector quantizers. The S-TREE1 model, which features a new tree-building algorithm, can be implemented with various cost functions. An alternative implementation, S-TREE2, which uses a new double-path search procedure, is also developed. S-TREE2 implements an online procedure that approximates an optimal (unstructured) clustering solution while imposing a tree-structure constraint. The performance of the S-TREE algorithms is illustrated with data clustering and vector quantization examples, including a Gauss-Markov source benchmark and an image compression application. S-TREE performance on these tasks is compared with the standard tree-structured vector quantizer (TSVQ) and the generalized Lloyd algorithm (GLA). The image reconstruction quality with S-TREE2 approaches that of GLA while taking less than 10% of computer time. S-TREE1 and S-TREE2 also compare favorably with the standard TSVQ in both the time needed to create the codebook and the quality of image reconstruction.Office of Naval Research (N00014-95-10409, N00014-95-0G57

Stochastic network formation and homophily

This is a chapter of the forthcoming Oxford Handbook on the Economics of Networks

Affect and strategy use in independent language learning

Affect is about emotions and feelings, moods and attitudes, anxiety, tolerance of ambiguity and motivation. For some it is also connected with dispositions and preferences (Oatley & Jenkins, 1996). It is generally accepted that the affective domain encompasses a wide range of elements which reflect the human side of being, and play a part in conditioning behaviour and influencing learning. We are becoming more knowledgeable about the importance of attention to affective factors, but there is still a huge gap in terms of our knowledge of the affective strategies that students use or could use to promote more effective language learning. Moreover, the research that has been carried out into affect over several years has largely concentrated on language learning in the classroom (Arnold, 1999; Ehrman, 1996; MacIntyre, 1999; Young, 1999) with very few studies devoted to independent learning settings. Independent language learners, whether learning through self-access, distance or other modes, are a fast-growing group, and we need to know more about them, in particular the ways in which their affective needs differ from those of classroom learners (Harris, 2003; Hurd, 2002; White, 2003). This chapter investigates affect and strategy use in independent settings. It looks first at the concept of affect and its interrelationships with other domains, continues with an exploration of strategy definitions and classification schemes in relation to affect, and concludes with a study carried out with a small group of distance language learners using think-aloud verbal protocols

Reviews

Managing Change in Higher Education: A Learning Environment Architecture by Peter Ford and eight other authors, Buckingham: Society for Research into Higher Education and the Open University Press, 1996. ISBN 0–335–19791–4. 161 pages, paperback. No price indicated

Innovate Magazine / Annual Review 2010-2011

https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/innovate/1001/thumbnail.jp