Engaging the 'Xbox generation of learners' in Higher Education

The research project identifies examples of technology used to empower learning of Secondary school pupils that could be used to inform students’ engagement in learning with technology in the Higher Education sector. Research was carried out in five partnership Secondary schools and one associate Secondary school to investigate how pupils learn with technology in lessons and to identify the pedagogy underpinning such learning. Data was collected through individual interviews with pupils, group interviews with members of the schools’ councils, lesson observations, interviews with teachers, pupil surveys, teacher surveys, and a case study of a learning event. In addition, data was collected on students’ learning with technology at the university through group interviews with students and student surveys in the School of Education and Professional Development, and through surveys completed by students across various university departments. University tutors, researchers, academic staff, learning technology advisers, and cross sector partners from the local authority participated in focus group interviews on the challenges facing Higher Education in engaging new generations of students, who have grown up in the digital age, in successful scholarly learning

Digital communities: context for leading learning into the future?

In 2011, a robust, on-campus, three-element Community of Practice model consisting of growing community, sharing of practice and building domain knowledge was piloted in a digital learning environment. An interim evaluation of the pilot study revealed that the three-element framework, when used in a digital environment, required a fourth element. This element, which appears to happen incidentally in the face-to-face context, is that of reflecting, reporting and revising. This paper outlines the extension of the pilot study to the national tertiary education context in order to explore the implications for the design, leadership roles, and selection of appropriate technologies to support and sustain digital communities using the four-element model

Teaching and Professional Fellowship Report 2004/5 : An Investigation into the feasibility of developing a Virtual Newsroom - An e-learning tool for journalism

The aim of my fellowship was to put the idea of developing a Virtual Newsroom – an online means of teaching journalism -- to the test. I began work on this idea some six years ago after many years of using computers in the teaching of journalism. At that time, I developed, together with the IT Research and Development Unit (ITRDU), at the London Institute (now University of the Arts London), an e-learning prototype based on the ‘breaking story’ exercise – a fundamental exercise for journalism teaching. In tests on students the early prototype proved to be an effective method for learning journalism skills. The students found the prototype programme a worthwhile and stimulating experience. Teachers of journalism saw it as an innovative way of teaching journalism, but were hampered by the fact that there was no way, with the programme as then developed, they could get behind the scenes to change any of the content, or other elements of the exercise. It was essential then, that in any future development, the programme would have to have enough flexibility to enable journalism teaching staff to easily manipulate the content. It also became clear that, six years on, it was necessary to determine if any new developments in online learning for journalists had superseded my original idea

Knowledge Based Systems: A Critical Survey of Major Concepts, Issues, and Techniques

This Working Paper Series entry presents a detailed survey of knowledge based systems. After being in a relatively dormant state for many years, only recently is Artificial Intelligence (AI) - that branch of computer science that attempts to have machines emulate intelligent behavior - accomplishing practical results. Most of these results can be attributed to the design and use of Knowledge-Based Systems, KBSs (or ecpert systems) - problem solving computer programs that can reach a level of performance comparable to that of a human expert in some specialized problem domain. These systems can act as a consultant for various requirements like medical diagnosis, military threat analysis, project risk assessment, etc. These systems possess knowledge to enable them to make intelligent desisions. They are, however, not meant to replace the human specialists in any particular domain. A critical survey of recent work in interactive KBSs is reported. A case study (MYCIN) of a KBS, a list of existing KBSs, and an introduction to the Japanese Fifth Generation Computer Project are provided as appendices. Finally, an extensive set of KBS-related references is provided at the end of the report