What, no lectures!: experiences from a blended tablet PC classroom

Like many other institutions, teaching information technology at Charles Darwin University is still focused on transmissive rather than interactive strategies with the traditional model consisting of 6 hours contact time: a 2 hour lecture; a 2 hour tutorial; and a 2 hour practical. In subjects which require students to understand and apply concepts and principles of coding, the separation of the formal delivery of the information (lecture) with opportunities to explore, apply and practice these concepts and principles (tutorials and practicals) often means that significant re-teaching has to be done as many students are simply not able to understand and complete the tutorial or practical tasks. As Laurillard (1993) notes, lectures while possibly inspirational for some students, may also provide many opportunities for student errors in getting information and making sense of it. Similarly Ramsden (1992) observes that while lectures enable the teacher to ‘cover the ground’, they are not effective for deep learning outcomes needing activity, responsibility, or interaction as students are often passive and dependent. This case study reports on two variations of a blended learning approach to teaching first year Information Technology (IT) subjects that was an outcome of two successful infrastructure projects that originated two years earlier. In 2003, two School of Information Technology initiatives enabled a significant rethinking of how the teaching of some subjects could be restructured. As part of a broader strategy to attract and retain more students, three units were converted to a flexible online delivery mode (Evans, Tutty and White 2004). At the same time the school was the successful recipient of a Hewlett Packard competitive philanthropic grant receiving equipment that would enable the establishment of a mobile classroom that included 45 tablet PCs and associated wireless technology (Tutty, White and Pascoe 2005). These almost simultaneous developments led to the implementation of a blended learning teaching approach which integrated wireless enabled, mobile tablet PCs, interactive multimedia content web sites, an online learning management system with students learning in 3 hour face to face workshops

Effectiveness of online forum as a platform to exchange thoughts among university students

Higher education institutions such as UTM have developed elearning related website that has online forums to enhance teaching and learning. However, research has argued that online forums provided in the elearning@utm official website was not well utilized in classroom. Research on online forum has been neglected in the language classroom. Thus, this study investigated the effectiveness of using online forum to help tertiary level students exchange thoughts. The research has two stages firstly, whether the online forum help students to exchange their thoughts, and secondly, whether the shared thoughts can fulfill the task given in the online forum. The study was carried out using qualitative methods which included analyzing texts from the online forum postings by 27 students, and online reflections from 24 students who participated in the online forum using prescribed online questions. Analysis of students’ postings showed that majority of the students failed to fulfill the given task due to referring and copying of each other’s postings. However, analysis of the reflections showed that online forum indeed did help students to share their thoughts because it was convenient to use and provided more opportunities for them to share thoughts. Based on the findings, although the students stated that online forum can positively help them to exchange thoughts, they have failed to fulfill the given tasks which indicated that online forum used for this study was not effective. In the future, it is recommended that online forum can be used to encourage exchange of thoughts but, it requires involvement from lecturers to monitor students’ discussion to ensure the effectiveness of using this platform for learning

A formative evaluation of the UCT PMD Programme

Personal mobile devices (PMDs) such as tablets (also referred to as tablet computers or tablet pc) have become important educational technology components for university students. Although advances in wireless, mobile technology have resulted in PMDs becoming widely available and less expensive, PMD ownership still presents a substantial capital outlay beyond the means of many South African university students. Thus, there is a need to explore the opportunities low cost PMD initiatives present. Thus far, limited research has been conducted on if and how flexible learning is achieved through low cost PMDs in the South African higher education context, where access to technology and internet access is inconsistent amongst the student population. This study aims to evaluate the outcomes of the PMD Programme at the University of Cape Town (UCT). The programme aims to create a flexible teaching and learning environment for students in higher education, through the use of low cost tablets. This study focused on whether the programme's short‐term outcomes, namely, improved mobile technology knowledge, portability, mobility, communication, information sharing and collaboration were achieved. The extent to which the programme's medium‐term goals (digital literacy and access to course information) were achieved, were also investigated. Lastly, the degree to which students believed the low cost tablet was good enough for their studies was assessed. This evaluation found that the UCT PMD Programme plays a crucial role in providing students with access to affordable mobile technology in the form of low cost tablets and has demonstrated enhancement of students' ability to learn in a flexible manner. The UCT PMD Programme facilitated improvement in students' mobile technology knowledge, mobility of learning and portability of information immensely. Improved communication and collaboration between peers and lecturers were noted. Information sharing was not enhanced through the use of the tablet. Students' digital literacy skills increased and access to information improved immensely through using the tablet. Overall, through the use of the tablet, improvement in students' flexibility of learning was achieved and students found the low cost tablet adequate for their studies

UNDERSTANDING THE IMPACT ON THE WELLBEING OF STUDENTS WITH SPECIFIC LEARNING DIFFICULTIES THROUGH TEACHING INTERVENTIONS

The study set out to explore whether teaching methods can improve the wellbeing of students with SpLDs. This study addresses a gap in the literature, identifying wellbeing differences between different types of educational environment and SEN provisions. It explores whether there are benefits from inclusive education to student wellbeing, considering constructs of wellbeing relevant to the impact of SpLDs, synthesising pedagogic, psychotherapeutic and developmental perspectives. 74 student participants were recruited through the SEN departments of 4 UK schools - each with differing approaches to SEN support. Student participants completed two psychometric wellbeing questionnaires. They also engaged in photographic exercise, capturing scenes of importance to them, which contributed to semi-structured interviews. 8 teacher participants engaged in semi-structured interviews. These teacher participants also had their classroom practice observed. Parallel interpretative phenomenological analyses (IPA) were used to interpret the findings. Several themes from both student and teacher IPA analyses revealed a differences between 2 pairs of schools, which was supported by the same difference in psychometric scores and classroom observations. Schools environments were found to have common features of inclusion either absent or present which were recognised by both students and teachers within their own social world perspectives, which were predictive of wellbeing. This study identified that school aged students with SpLDs could articulate the relationship between inclusive teaching and their wellbeing

Experiences From a Wireless-Enabled Tablet Classroom

Traditional lecture/tutorial/laboratory format employed in many university courses, despite the best intentions of teaching staff, can place students as passive receivers of knowledge rather than active participants in the learning process. Wireless enabled tablet classrooms offer the opportunity to challenge the boundaries of traditional place-based instruction so that educational considerations rather than the physical infrastructure drive the teaching and learning process (Bleed, 2001). This paper reports the outcomes of restructuring the delivery of several courses taught by two IT lecturers using mobile tablet technology to create constructivist type learning environments. Not withstanding challenging technical problems in the first deployment, both students and staff were generally positive about the approach and willing to participate in future tablet classes