A decade of E-learning policy in higher education in the United Kingdom: a critical analysis

Both as discourse and as practice, e-learning in Higher Education (HE) is shaped by many factors, the most critical of which are the political motivations driving its adoption. In this dissertation I attest that e-learning policies relevant to HE issued by government departments and non-departmental public bodies in the United Kingdom (UK) between 2003 and 2013 were predominantly underpinned by neoliberal ideology. The enquiry is grounded in the Critical research paradigm’s intention to expose, critique, and ultimately overcome sources of oppression. Thirteen policy texts were analysed via two critical lenses. First, via thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke 2006) of the corpus I identified recurring themes. These were then clustered around a trilogy of master narratives: Marketisation, Instrumentality, and Modernisation. Through an ideology critique of these master narratives, I uncovered and unpacked the motivations underpinning claims made in relation to e-learning. My second mode of analysis was a detailed Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) of each document. CDA sees the wider context as essential to making sense of a text (Bloor and Bloor 2007; Van Dijk 2008). My critique, therefore, considered each document within its historical and socio-economic context, and examined the extent to which the three master narratives were evident both over time, and across England, Scotland, and Wales. How policy is communicated and presented is as important as what is said (Barnett 2000). Indeed, ideologies can be both enacted and obscured by language (Jones and Stilwell Peccei 2004; Henriksen 2011). My analysis, therefore, also examined the role of visual presentation, lexical choices, and rhetorical techniques in communicating the policies. Taken together, the two prongs of my analysis demonstrate that − although there are variances in different contexts and at different times − overall, the policies considered were motivated by neoliberal imperatives aimed at placing HE within the realm of the market and enhancing the UK’s economic competitiveness. The policies also persistently reflect a deterministic and uncritical perspective towards technology. Furthermore, many of the claims made are exaggerated, unsubstantiated, contradictory, and even duplicitous, or are justified via reference to contested discourses. While neoliberal ideology is privileged and promoted across the corpus, alternative value systems are not. I argue that this problematic framing of e-learning is intensifying the negative impacts of neoliberalism on HE’s role as a public good, as well as exacerbating social inequalities. Furthermore, it is channelling e-learning into a restricted form that limits any possible pedagogical or egalitarian opportunities that the judicious application of digital technologies in HE teaching and learning might support. I reflect on the implications of this for HE and for society, and for the professional practice of Learning Technologists. Finally, I present an alternative vision for e-learning in HE

The Border of Lights Reader

Border of Lights, a volunteer collective, returns each October to Dominican-Haitian border towns to bear witness to the 1937 Haitian Massacre ordered by Dominican dictator Rafael Leónidas Trujillo. This crime against humanity has never been acknowledged by the Dominican government and no memorial exists for its victims. A multimodal, multi-vocal space for activists, artists, scholars, and others connected to the BOL movement, The Border of Lights Reader provides an alternative to the dominant narrative that positions Dominicans and Haitians as eternal adversaries and ignores cross-border and collaborative histories. This innovative anthology asks large-scale, universal questions regarding historical memory and revisionism that countries around the world grapple with today

Papel de los mundos metaversos como alternativa de generación de condiciones clave en la construcción de ambientes personales de aprendizaje

367 Páginas.El presente informe describe el proceso y los resultados de una investigación de naturaleza cualitativa, a manera de estudio de diferentes múltiples, acerca del papel que juegan los Mundos Metaversos en la construcción de Ambientes Personales de Aprendizaje. Luego de realizar una exploración teórica se encontraron cuatro condiciones clave que permiten su construcción y que se tomaron como las categorías de análisis de la investigación: la identidad, el flujo de información, las herramientas y la emoción

Concept Mapping Strategy For Academic Writing Tutorial In Open And Distant Learning Higher Institution

Universitas Terbuka (UT) an open and distant higher education institution of Indonesia conducts the in-service teacher education program. In order to complete the program, the students – mostly teachers - have to submit the final academic paper. In fact, most of the UT students have difficulty to write this academic paper. UT offers an academic writing course to solve this writing program. Most of the student view academic writing still as a difficult assignment. Most of the students view academic writing as a difficult assignment to complete. UT has to find an appropriate instructional strategy that can facilitate student to write the academic writing assignment. One of the instructional strategy that can be selected to solve the academic writing problems is concept mapping. The aim of this study is to elaborate the implementation of concept map as an instructional strategy to facilitate the open and distance learning students io complete academic writing assignments. A design based research was applied to measure the effectiveness of using concept mapping strategy in helping students to gain academic writing skills. The steps of research and development model from Borg, Gall and Gall which consist of instructional design and development phases were implemented in this study. The result of this study indicated that students were facilitated and enjoyed the process of academic writing used the concept map strategy

The impact of teacher and peer dialogue on online collaborative writing in an authentic science literacy learning environment

This research is concerned with authentic science writing, and in particular, investigating collaborative science writing at secondary school level, using an online collaborative-writing environment. Specifically, it investigates how measures of successful authenticity relate to (i) how close to the text-structure of a prototypical library report genre are collaboratively-written student papers (i.e., how close to the model students were taught) (ii) to what extent do the papers use the language of science as expected at this level of schooling, for example, use of nominalization, and finally, (iii) what is the degree of participation and contribution by students in a collaborative writing task? The research also examined how students' collaboratively written texts evolved, or changed, over time in terms of their textual structure and of their key linguistic features. The research provides some insight into how text changes and evolution could be explained in relation to online dialogue and feedback. Finally, the thesis identifies the implications of the above for pedagogy and policy, i.e., for (i) students' language development in science and the use of genre pedagogies, (ii) collaborative writing in science, and (iii) on line pedagogy

Proceedings of the 3rd international symposium for engineering education ISEE2010: Educating engineers for a changing world - leading transformation from an unsustainable global society

The twenty first century and beyond will present human society with a set of unprecedented challenges emanating from the unsustainable nature of the current societal model. Clearly society must find a transformative model to a sustainable future, and fast. Engineers, with their technical know-how and systems approach to problem solving, are well placed to lead this necessarily multidisciplinary and collaborative endeavour. However, engineering education must provide twenty first century engineers with the necessary tools to undertake the massive challenges ahead. The 3rd International Symposium of Engineering Education took place at University College Cork on 30th June - 2nd July 2010. This significant international conference explored a number of key issues pertaining to engineering education in the twenty first century. These include sustainability in engineering education, IT applications, pedagogical approaches & assessment for learning outcomes, Bologna and industry perspectives