Varying the texture: a study of art, learning and multimedia

Art Explorer is an innovative multimedia system being designed and developed within the Institute of Educational Technology, at The Open University. Based on an analogy to dreams, Art Explorer is structured into several episodes. Each episode is designed to help beginning students of Art History foster personal constructs about paintings and develop a richer understanding of how their perceptions of paintings work. This discussion focuses on the pedagogic rationale motivating Art Explorer's development and is structured around two strands of a design story. First, it highlights the research behind the design. The reported research is about learners' problems - most specifically about the varying conceptual, perceptual and affective challenges learners face as they begin to study Art History. But, more broadly, it is about the problems faced by learners as they begin academic study and seek to engage with the knowledge and methods of discipline experts. Secondly, and it is argued, as a second pedagogic priority, the spotlight shifts to multimedia. The discussion tracks design decisions that aim both to exploit the potential of the medium and to match pre-identified learner needs. The ingredients of Art Explorer are described to illustrate some of the rich potential of the medium for negotiating understanding between teacher and learner

Integrating Information Literacy into the Virtual University: A Course Model

published or submitted for publicatio

Scaling up a learning technology strategy: Supporting student/faculty teams in learner‐centred design

Many post‐secondary institutions are experiencing the challenge of scaling up their learning technology initiatives without a matching increase in staff resources. This mismatch is particularly acute at the design stage of projects, where both domain knowledge and instructional design expertise are needed. To address this, we are developing structures and tools for a small cadre of instructional design experts to support a growing number of learning technology projects developed by student/faculty teams. One of these tools, the Learner‐Centred Design Idea Kit, is an interactive WWW‐based resource now in a fourth iteration of use in an undergraduate course, Designing Learning Activities with Interactive Multimedia. The course and the LCD Idea Kit which supports it are part of a larger institutional strategy to introduce technology‐enabled change in the learning process, working ‘bottom‐up’ with individual faculty and using the LCD Idea Kit to scale up the course across multiple university departments. In this paper, we describe the course and the Kit in detail and provide and overview of our current status and lessons learned

E/Valuating new media in language development

This paper addresses the need for a new approach to the educational evaluation of software that falls under the rubric "new media" or "multimedia" as distinct from previous generations of Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL) software. The authors argue that present approaches to CALL software evaluation are not appropriate for a new genre of CALL software distinguished by its shared assumptions about language learning and teaching as well as by its technical design. The paper sketches a research-based program called "E/Valuation" that aims to assist language educators to answer questions about the educational effectiveness of recent multimedia language learning software. The authors suggest that such program needs to take into account not only the nature of the new media and its potential to promote language learning in novel ways, but also current professional knowledge about language learning and teaching

Teaching and learning in information retrieval

A literature review of pedagogical methods for teaching and learning information retrieval is presented. From the analysis of the literature a taxonomy was built and it is used to structure the paper. Information Retrieval (IR) is presented from different points of view: technical levels, educational goals, teaching and learning methods, assessment and curricula. The review is organized around two levels of abstraction which form a taxonomy that deals with the different aspects of pedagogy as applied to information retrieval. The first level looks at the technical level of delivering information retrieval concepts, and at the educational goals as articulated by the two main subject domains where IR is delivered: computer science (CS) and library and information science (LIS). The second level focuses on pedagogical issues, such as teaching and learning methods, delivery modes (classroom, online or e-learning), use of IR systems for teaching, assessment and feedback, and curricula design. The survey, and its bibliography, provides an overview of the pedagogical research carried out in the field of IR. It also provides a guide for educators on approaches that can be applied to improving the student learning experiences

Responsible research and innovation in science education: insights from evaluating the impact of using digital media and arts-based methods on RRI values

The European Commission policy approach of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) is gaining momentum in European research planning and development as a strategy to align scientific and technological progress with socially desirable and acceptable ends. One of the RRI agendas is science education, aiming to foster future generations' acquisition of skills and values needed to engage in society responsibly. To this end, it is argued that RRI-based science education can benefit from more interdisciplinary methods such as those based on arts and digital technologies. However, the evidence existing on the impact of science education activities using digital media and arts-based methods on RRI values remains underexplored. This article comparatively reviews previous evidence on the evaluation of these activities, from primary to higher education, to examine whether and how RRI-related learning outcomes are evaluated and how these activities impact on students' learning. Forty academic publications were selected and its content analysed according to five RRI values: creative and critical thinking, engagement, inclusiveness, gender equality and integration of ethical issues. When evaluating the impact of digital and arts-based methods in science education activities, creative and critical thinking, engagement and partly inclusiveness are the RRI values mainly addressed. In contrast, gender equality and ethics integration are neglected. Digital-based methods seem to be more focused on students' questioning and inquiry skills, whereas those using arts often examine imagination, curiosity and autonomy. Differences in the evaluation focus between studies on digital media and those on arts partly explain differences in their impact on RRI values, but also result in non-documented outcomes and undermine their potential. Further developments in interdisciplinary approaches to science education following the RRI policy agenda should reinforce the design of the activities as well as procedural aspects of the evaluation research

Advances in Teaching & Learning Day Abstracts 2004

Proceedings of the Advances in Teaching & Learning Day Regional Conference held at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston in 2004