Considering the Smartphone Learner: developing innovation to investigate the opportunities for students and their interest

Ownership of mobile smartphones amongst the general consumer, professionals and students is growing exponentially. The potential for smartphones in education builds upon experience described in the extensive literature on mobile learning from the previous decade which suggests that the ubiquity, multi-functionality and connectivity of mobile devices offers a new and potentially powerful networked learning environment. This paper reports on a collaborative study conducted by an undergraduate student with the support of two members of academic staff. The research sought to establish the extent to which students are autonomously harnessing smartphone technology to support their learning and the nature of this use. Initial findings were explored through student interviews. The study found that students who own smartphones are largely unaware of their potential to support learning and, in general, do not install smartphone applications for that purpose. They are, however, interested in and open to the potential as they become familiar with the possibilities for a range of purposes. The paper proposes that more consideration needs to be given to smartphones as platforms to support formal, informal and autonomous learner engagement. The study also reflects on its collaborative methodology and the challenges associated with academic innovation

A snapshot of Australian nurse practitioners' extended practice activities

Introduction The Australian Nurse Practitioner Project (AUSPRAC) was initiated to examine the introduction of nurse practitioners into the Australian health service environment. The nurse practitioner concept was introduced to Australia over two decades ago and has been evolving since. Today, however, the scope of practice, role and educational preparation of nurse practitioners is well defined (Gardner et al, 2006). Amendments to specific pre-existing legislation at a State level have permitted nurse practitioners to perform additional activities including some once in the domain of the medical profession. In the Australian Capital Territory, for example 13 diverse Acts and Regulations required amendments and three new Acts were established (ACT Health, 2006). Nurse practitioners are now legally authorized to diagnose, treat, refer and prescribe medications in all Australian states and territories. These extended practices differentiate nurse practitioners from other advanced practice roles in nursing (Gardner, Chang & Duffield, 2007). There are, however, obstacles for nurse practitioners wishing to use these extended practices. Restrictive access to Medicare funding via the Medicare Benefit Scheme (MBS) and the Pharmaceutical Benefit Scheme (PBS) limit the scope of nurse practitioner service in the private health sector and community settings. A recent survey of Australian nurse practitioners (n=202) found that two-thirds of respondents (66%) stated that lack of legislative support limited their practice. Specifically, 78% stated that lack of a Medicare provider number was ‘extremely limiting’ to their practice and 71% stated that no access to the PBS was ‘extremely limiting’ to their practice (Gardner et al, in press). Changes to Commonwealth legislation is needed to enable nurse practitioners to prescribe medication so that patients have access to PBS subsidies where they exist; currently patients with scripts which originated from nurse practitioners must pay in full for these prescriptions filled outside public hospitals. This report presents findings from a sub-study of Phase Two of AUSPRAC. Phase Two was designed to enable investigation of the process and activities of nurse practitioner service. Process measurements of nurse practitioner services are valuable to healthcare organisations and service providers (Middleton, 2007). Processes of practice can be evaluated through clinical audit, however as Middleton cautions, no direct relationship between these processes and patient outcomes can be assumed

Smartphone feedback : using an iPhone to improve the distribution of audio feedback

The advent of accessible digital recording devices has made the production of audio feedback on students’ work more viable, Ref. 1. Previous research into audio feedback has concentrated on using PC recording software such as Audacity and mobile MP3 recording devices. However, effective use of these methods can be undermined by unsuitable technical infrastructure and the demand for special ICT skills, especially when distributing the finished feedback to students. Smartphones, on the other hand, combine the flexibility of MP3 recorders and the connectivity of a PC in a discrete handheld device, thereby suggesting their application as a user friendly tool for giving recorded audio feedback efficiently. This paper describes a smartphone feedback methodology and presents findings from research on its use with 130 Level 5 Engineering and Computing students. The study found that the smartphone was more suitable than other technologies to the various demands of feedback production and distribution, and that this helped the tutor to manage the exceptionally stressful time associated with marking and giving feedback on top of an ongoing teaching load. Its pedagogic integration also resulted in a good dialogical experience as evidenced through student testimony

Audio feedback for the iPod generation

On campus it is a common site to see the student population plugged into their life support machines: the iPod and the phone. From newspapers to radio, the media are recognising need to embrace the iPod generation to deliver content, and as Rupert Murdoch has highlighted, newspapers are in risk of losing out to the digital world. Should ink and paper continue to be the media of choice for our students? What can we do with audio? Is audio feedback the future to support the learning of the iPod generation? This paper compares the summative assessment2 results for a cohort using recorded audio feedback in formative and summative assignments to that of a cohort who received formative and summative feedback in an aural and/or succinctly, written form. The paper presents students’ reflections on the use of audio formative and summative assessment feedback for a module and considers whether this type of feedback had a pivotal role in the assessment process and a significant impact on their academic performance. The paper proposes a strategy for the integration of digital audio into assessment feedback to promote feed-forward student learning

Student audio notes evolution

The Student Audio Notes Project at Sheffield Hallam University encouraged students to act autonomously by using audio recorders to capture conversations relating to their learning. This approach was conducted in order to address the transient nature of significant conversations (Waterfield 2006). Digital audio is an accessible media that enables the learner to identify and record otherwise ephemeral experiences, so that they can re-engage later when they are ready to reflect and act upon the learning (Nortcliffe and Middleton 2009). Student audio notes, whilst having a similar potential to written notes in aiding recall (Intons Peterson and Fournier 1986), may be better suited to many situations. This paper highlights the evolutionary development of techniques used by students during the project. 52 students were given MP3 recorders to capture experiences that they identified as being useful, whether these were from the formal, semi-formal or informal curriculum (Middleton and Nortcliffe 2009). Many began by recording their lectures, broadening out to capture significant conversations of a formal nature including peer feedback and project supervision (Rossiter et al. 2009). Later less formal conversations and personal ideas were gathered. The paper discusses the approaches adopted by students, drawing upon an analysis of interviews and surveys. The audio methods will be reviewed according to their capacity to enhance learner autonomy. In conclusion, the paper highlights the evolutionary nature of finding technology-supported learner autonomy as the students became more attuned to the opportunities around them, and raises further questions for institutions seeking to encourage wider student participation in becoming responsible producers of audio learning notes. References Intons-Peterson, M. J. and Fournier, J. (1986) External and internal memory aids: when and how often do we use them? Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 115(3), 267-280 Middleton, A. and Nortcliffe, A. (2009) Audio, autonomy and authenticity: constructive comments and conversations captured by the learner. Proceedings of ALT-C 2009 "In dreams begins responsibility" - choice, evidence, and change, Manchester, UK, 8-10 September 2009. Nortcliffe, A. L. and Middleton, A. (2009a) ‘Understanding effective models of audio feedback’ in Rajarshi Roy (ed.) Engineering education perspectives, issues and concerns. Shipra Publications, India Rossiter, J.A., Nortcliffe, A., Griffin, A. and Middleton, A., (2009) Using student generated audio to enhance learning, Engineering Education: Journal of the Higher Education Academy Engineering Subject Centre 4(2) Waterfield, J., West, B., Parker, M. (2006) Supporting Inclusive Practice. In M. Adams and S. Brown (eds) Towards Inclusive Learning in higher education: Developing curricula for disabled students, London: Routledge, 79-9

“It allowed us to let our pain out”: perspectives from voice-hearers and their voices on the ‘talking with voices’ approach

The “Talking with Voices” (TwV) approach is a novel, formulation-driven approach to helping people who hear distressing voices. It is based on an understanding of voice-hearing as a relational phenomenon, often linked to trauma. Therapy involves facilitation of dialogical engagement between hearers and their voices. There are as yet few empirical studies of the approach

The Innovative Use of Personal Smart Devices by Students to Support their Learning

Research into the autonomous use of MP3 audio recorders by students in UK Higher Education demonstrated that students were innovative in their autonomous use of the devices. They used them to capture learning conversations from formal and informal situations to personalise and enhance their learning. However, today smartphones and other smart devices have replaced the necessity for students to carry multiply mobile devices including MP3 recorders. This chapter builds upon the earlier work and presents a small qualitative study into how students are autonomously using their smart devices to support their learning. The research explores the hypothesis that students are being innovative in the ways in which they are use their smart devices to support their formal and informal learning. The study involved five students who own smart devices who were invited to discuss their ownership of smartphone and tablet technologies and the ways they used them in their studies. The students first completed a short questionnaire and were then interviewed in small groups. The results agree with previous research into the student use of smart devices and describe autonomous engagement facilitated by personally owned smart technologies. The study identifies continuous patterns of pervasive engagement by students and concludes that more thought should be given to disruptive innovation, digital literacy and employability

Audio, autonomy and authenticity: constructive comments and conversations captured by the learner

This poster describes a university-wide project designed to develop learner autonomy. The Student Audio Notes Project (SANP) involved students recording personal audio notes and conversations at their discretion. It built upon work that considered approaches to the design of audio feedback (Nortcliffe and Middleton, 2008). Usually the tutor controls the process of recording and distributing audio feedback; however, in one successful approach involving the recording of lab or studio-based feedback conversations, it was noted that a transfer of responsibility from the student to the tutor had unnecessarily occurred due to the ownership of the technology. SANP set out to discover if and how students would use devices if they were in control and to what extent 'rich, relevant and real world contexts' (Herrington and Herrington 2006) would be evident in the notes.ApproachSANP gave away discrete, large capacity MP3 recorders to 60 students from across the faculties who joined the project following an open call for participation. Participants attended a drop-in induction session where they heard the ideas of other participants and recorded their own statements of interest. These initial participant recordings were used to seed a project podcast from the VLE, which also hosted guidance materials. Students were asked to keep a record of how they used the devices. Other data were collected through surveys and focus groups.Results from the year-long project will be included in the poster. They will reveal how the student expectations for the use of MP3 recorders compared to their actual use. Participants were encouraged to think creatively about their use of the recorders. For example, during project induction many explained that their interest came from a need to record lectures due to difficulties with note-taking. The project hopes to find out if participants recorded lectures, did they listen back? Did they attempt to summarise lectures? Did they involve other people? Did they share their recordings? The poster will report on these and other ideas proposed in the project materials, which included recording summaries of sessions with peers, recording group work decisions, and peer reflective reviews following assessment. Herrington, A. and J. Herrington. 2006. Authentic learning environments in higher education. Hershey, PA; London : Information Science Pub Nortcliffe, Anne and Andrew Middleton. 2008. A three year case study of using audio to blend the engineer's learning environment. Engineering Education, Journal of the Higher Education Academy Engineering Subject Centre, Vol. 3 Issue 2