EduBridge social - bridging social networks and learning management systems

The exponential growth of social media usage and the integration of digital natives in Higher Education Institutions (HEI) have been posing new challenges to both traditional and technology-mediated learning environments. Nowadays social media plays an important, if not central, role in society, for professional and personal purposes. However, it’s important to highlight that in the mind of a digital native, social media is not just a tool, it is a place that is as real and as natural as any real-life world place where formal/informal social interactions happen. Still, formal higher education contexts are still mostly imprisoned in locked up institutional Learning Management Systems (LMS), while a new world of social connections grows and develops itself outside schools. One of the main reasons we believe to be persisting in the origin of the matter is the absence of a suitable management, monitoring and analysis tools to legitimize and to efficiently manage the relationship with stud ents in social networks. In this paper we discuss the growing relevance of the “Social Student Relationship Management” concept and introduce the EduBridge Social system, which aims at connecting the most commonly used LMS, Moodle, and the most popular social network, Facebook.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Using learning environments as a metaphor for educational change

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to show that the online learning environment can be seen as the means by which higher education can explore the challenges and opportunities raised by online and digital society. Design/methodology/approach – The paper argues that the online learning environment can be seen as a metaphor for how universities respond to the requirements and challenges of the digital age. Current learning management systems (LMSs) are examined, and compared with the values found in web 2.0 and social media. Current thinking on pedagogy for online learning is then examined. The SocialLearn project at the Open University in the UK is then explained, which seeks to create a disaggregated, decentralised, social system for learners. Findings – The conclusion from the analysis is that there is a conflict between the centralised learning management system (LMS) and the requirements of online pedagogy. The traditional LMS can be seen as embodying the wrong metaphor, that of the traditional classroom. The paper concludes by arguing that such learning environments will be more useful to higher education in coming to understand its response to many of the changes being seen in society, which are facilitated by the new technologies. Originality/value – The paper provides a framework for considering LMSs and their relation to universities and pedagogy, and an argument for the promotion of more decentralised systems

Teachers defining mobile learning: Conceptualisations emerging in a development project

From a historical perspective, new ICTs have rapidly been introduced in the development of higher educational settings. Such introductions have led to new ways of bridging the boundaries of time and space. In recent decades, this development has conveyed that mobile devices and social media have found their way into the teaching practices of higher education settings. However, before being implemented in the ordinary activity of teaching practices of higher education, these applications are often embraced in development projects that aim to raise the quality of higher education. One particular problem that arises in such projects is how teachers understand and conceptualise the areas of focus of the projects. One issue in projects that emphasises the introduction of mobile learning in higher education relates to how teachers define and conceptualise mobile learning. This short paper emphasises aspects of this problem. It aims to discuss and analyse emerging conceptualisations and definitions of mobile learning in higher education teaching practices. The study deals with the research question: What emerging conceptualisations and definitions of mobile learning in the teaching practices of higher education appear among teachers who participate in a development project? The project is currently in the first stage, including preliminary results from the analysis of empirical data from interviews and from observations of online teaching within six courses in a Swedish higher education institution. The interviews comprised open-ended questions. Online observations include data taken from two sources; the first source includes online dialogues of students and teachers recorded in learning management systems and various social media applications; the second source includes documents related to the teaching in the sampled courses. The initial analysis indicates that in the studied development project, different conceptualisations and definitions of mobile learning emerged. Various meanings were emphasised by the teachers of what mobile learning means and how it relates to the design of courses and to their work as teachers. Such differences might relate to interests, knowledge, beliefs and how they link mobile learning to their own processes of life-long learning. Nevertheless, the emerging definitions of mobile learning from the included teachers are preliminary in this stage of the research. To reach a more thorough understanding of the research question, the empirical data need further analysis. Moreover, the results need to be illustrated with excerpts from the interviews and the data recorded in the LMS and the additional applications applied in the studied educational settings

The Impact of Cultural Familiarity on Students’ Social Media Usage in Higher Education

Using social media (SM) in Higher education (HE) becomes unavoidable in the new teaching and learning pedagogy. The current generation of students creates their groups on SM for collaboration. However, SM can be a primary source of learning distraction due to its nature, which does not support structured learning. Hence, derived from the literature, this study proposes three learning customised system features, to be implemented on SM when used in Higher Education HE. Nevertheless, some psychological factors appear to have a stronger impact on students’ adoption of SM in learning than the proposed features. A Quantitative survey was conducted at a university in Uzbekistan to collect 52 undergraduate students’ perception of proposed SM learning customised features in Moodle. These features aim to provide localised, personalised, and privacy control self-management environment for collaboration in Moodle. These features could be significant in predicting students’ engagement with SM in HE. The data analysis showed a majority of positive feedback towards the proposed learning customised SM. However, the surveyed students’ engagement with these features was observed as minimal. The course leader initiated a semi-structured interview to investigate the reason. Although the students confirmed their acceptance of the learning customised features, their preferences to alternate SM, which is Telegram overridden their usage of the proposed learning customized SM, which is Twitter. The students avoided the Moodle integrated Twitter (which provided highly accepted features) and chose to use the Telegram as an external collaboration platform driven by their familiarity and social preferences with the Telegram since it is the popular SM in Uzbekistan. This study is part of an ongoing PhD research which involves deeper frame of learners’ cognitive usage of the learning management system. However, this paper exclusively discusses the cultural familiarity impact of student’s adoption of SM in HE

Problems and Promises of Using LMS Learner Analytics for Assessment: Case Study of a First-Year English Program

Learning management systems (LMS) are widely used in education. They offer the potential for assessing student learning, but the reality of using them for this is problematic. This case study chronicles efforts by librarians at Marquette University to use LMS data to assess students’ information literacy knowledge in Marquette’s first-year English program

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

Virtual pedagogical model: development scenarios

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio