Developing the vision: preparing teachers to deliver a digital world-class education system

In 2008 Australians were promised a \u27Digital Education Revolution\u27 by the government to dramatically change classroom education and build a \u27world-class education system\u27. Eight billion dollars have been spent providing computer equipment for upper secondary classrooms, yet there is little evidence that a revolution has occurred in Australian schools. Transformation of an education system takes more than a simplistic hardware solution. Revolutions need leaders and leaders need vision. In this paper, I argue that we must first develop educational leaders by inspiring future teachers with a vision and by designing our teacher-education courses as technology-rich learning-spaces. A multi-layered scenario is developed as the inspiration for a vision of a future-orientated teacher-education system that prepares teachers to deliver a \u27worldclass digital education\u27 for every Australian child. Although written for the Australian context this paper has broad relevance internationally for teacher education

GOOGLE+: A BOOST TO E-LEARNING EDUCATION & TRAINING @ COVENANT UNIVERSITY

Just as the advancement in Information Technology (IT) continues to evolve and change rapidly over the past few decades, the art of learning, acquiring and dispersing knowledge and information have also continued to evolve rapidly. These rapid innovations and improvements in IT were designed with the aim of boosting knowledge and education at just the click of the button. Some of the most outstanding innovations and inventions in the (IT) world, which have influenced education and learning in this decade are found in social networks such as Yahoo, Google, Face book, twitter, You Tube, to mention but a few. However, recent studies conducted in this regard revealed that these current innovations and advancements in IT have constituted grave challenges to the knowledge and learning process. The teachers / lecturers of this century, during the process of seeking to transfer knowledge to their student, are often faced with the dilemma of finding how best to gainfully occupy the minds of their students within and outside the class room environment. The students who more often than not, distracted by incoming messages, videos, picture of friends, or simply text messages from friends via iphones, laptops, i-pods, or even i-pads etc. The respondent instantly cannot resist the urge to quickly read and send back a reply via either of the means mentioned here. Other students who log on to either of the networks for a specific task are easily distracted or carried away by say, a fresh advertisement or alternate information which dramatically catches the attention of the students. Consequently, they are drawn and carried away by the new piece of information that drastically - in most cases - changes their trend of thought before they are fully aware of the harm done by the distraction. While applying the simple survey methods of research, this paper shall examine the findings of an ongoing study with two groups of students who offer University Wide Courses (UWC) here at Covenant University. Results from the pilot study conducted gives us reasons to argue that a resent product by Google simply known as “Google+” may be that much desired formula that teachers and lectures all over the world, need to boost the teaching and learning experiences of both teachers, students and researchers within and outside the classroom environment

Managing educational leadership and online teaching in a diverse technological society

This paper consisted of an overview of leadership and its definition and\ud a discussion of who and what surrounds the leader in a diverse society of everchanging technology as he/she make decisions that impact the students, teachers\ud and staff of school districts and other educational institutions. The discussion\ud supported the notion espoused by Thomas Freeman that the world is indeed truly\ud flat and getting smaller through instant communication. Leaders interested in\ud applying the best practices in communicating are now able to utilize the internet in\ud ways that can save time, energy and money. Selected technology and best\ud practices from various disciplines were outlined as examples of how leaders can\ud bring about positive change and focus on cutting edge techniques for classroom\ud and business applications. Methods were discussed in the use of an analysis of a\ud business or corporation, to the use of bringing experts to students, university\ud professors, managers and chief executive officers via the internet and other\ud electronic devices. The author included several examples of best practices for use\ud with the adult or P-12 learners in the classroom, or managers of a Fortune 500\ud organization. Examples of how to conduct live, online international connections\ud were presented in detail. Key concepts such as defining leadership, who controls\ud leaders, and the managing leadership in a diverse society as contradiction were\ud discussed

Developing sustainable business models for institutions’ provision of open educational resources: Learning from OpenLearn users’ motivations and experiences

Universities across the globe have, for some time, been exploring the possibilities for achieving public benefit and generating business and visibility through releasing and sharing open educational resources (OER). Many have written about the need to develop sustainable and profitable business models around the production and release of OER. Downes (2006), for example, has questioned the financial sustainability of OER production at scale. Many of the proposed business models focus on OER’s value in generating revenue and detractors of OER have questioned whether they are in competition with formal education. This paper reports on a study intended to broaden the conversation about OER business models to consider the motivations and experiences of OER users as the basis for making a better informed decision about whether OER and formal learning are competitive or complementary with each other. The study focused on OpenLearn - the Open University’s (OU) web-based platform for OER, which hosts hundreds of online courses and videos and is accessed by over 3,000,000 users a year. A large scale survey and follow-up interviews with OpenLearn users worldwide revealed that university provided OER can offer learners a bridge to formal education, allowing them to try out a subject before registering on a formal course and to build confidence in their abilities as learners. In addition, it was found that using OER during formal paid-for study can improve learners’ performance and self-reliance, leading to increased retention and satisfaction with the learning experience

Open educational resources for all? Comparing user motivations and characteristics across The Open University’s iTunes U channel and OpenLearn platform.

With the rise in access to mobile multimedia devices, educational institutions have exploited the iTunes U platform as an additional channel to provide free educational resources with the aim of profile-raising and breaking down barriers to education. For those prepared to invest in content preparation, it is possible to produce interactive, portable material that can be made available globally. Commentators have questioned both the financial implications for platform-specific content production, and the availability of devices for learners to access it (Osborne, 2012). The Open University (OU) makes its free educational resources available on iTunes U and via its web-based open educational resources (OER) platform, OpenLearn. The OU’s OER on iTunes U reached the 60 million download mark in 2013; its OpenLearn platform boasts 27 million unique visitors since 2006. This paper reports the results of a large-scale study of users of the OU’s iTunes U channel and OpenLearn platform. A survey of several thousand users revealed key differences in demographics between those accessing OER via the web and via iTunes U. In addition, the data allowed comparison between three groups: formal learners, informal learners and educators. The study raises questions about whether university-provided OER meet the needs of users and makes recommendations for how content can be modified to suit their needs. As the publishing of OER becomes core to business, we reflect on reasons why understanding users’ motivations and demographics is vital, allowing for needs-led resource provision and content that is adapted to best achieve learner satisfaction, and to deliver institutions’ social mission

Teaching and learning in virtual worlds: is it worth the effort?

Educators have been quick to spot the enormous potential afforded by virtual worlds for situated and authentic learning, practising tasks with potentially serious consequences in the real world and for bringing geographically dispersed faculty and students together in the same space (Gee, 2007; Johnson and Levine, 2008). Though this potential has largely been realised, it generally isn’t without cost in terms of lack of institutional buy-in, steep learning curves for all participants, and lack of a sound theoretical framework to support learning activities (Campbell, 2009; Cheal, 2007; Kluge & Riley, 2008). This symposium will explore the affordances and issues associated with teaching and learning in virtual worlds, all the time considering the question: is it worth the effort

Transforming pre-service teacher curriculum: observation through a TPACK lens

This paper will discuss an international online collaborative learning experience through the lens of the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) framework. The teacher knowledge required to effectively provide transformative learning experiences for 21st century learners in a digital world is complex, situated and changing. The discussion looks beyond the opportunity for knowledge development of content, pedagogy and technology as components of TPACK towards the interaction between those three components. Implications for practice are also discussed. In today’s technology infused classrooms it is within the realms of teacher educators, practising teaching and pre-service teachers explore and address effective practices using technology to enhance learning

How can we create the university of the future?

Higher education is facing change across the world, but nowhere more so than in the UK with the impact of changing funding structures, a changing student body and diminishing resources. It is not just the Browne Review though that heralds these changes, UK HE has already been subject to new circumstances over the past ten or more years but it has not always responded as a sector with agility and speed. What is clear, though, now is that we need to radically rethink our current models and consider what the University of the future should look like. This paper will outline the key note lecture I presented which considers the changes that HE has faced over the past fifteen years, describes some of the challenges we are facing now and looks to some models of the future in response to those current challenges. It includes feedback provided by hose present at the lecture in terms of their views for the past, present and future