Theory disputes and the development of the technology enhanced learning research field

This paper contributes to ongoing debates about theory application in technology enhanced learning (TEL) research. Such debates routinely highlight that the use of theory in the TEL field is problematic, and suggest that the issue is of fundamental importance to the development of the field. Yet different accounts within these debates are oriented towards ostensibly disparate issues and often, in themselves, have a somewhat fragmentary nature. This paper, therefore, seeks to synthesise and systematise a wide range of the arguments that are evident in the literature. A preliminary analysis highlights that the debates are occurring against a particular backdrop: a desire to newly re-constitute TEL as a bona fide scholarly discipline. Four key points of dispute are subsequently identified, which, it is argued, should understood against that backdrop. Those key points of dispute, whose analysis constitutes the core of the paper, are concerned, respectively with the continued implications of a theoretical ‘canon’ whose pre-eminence in the field is long-established; the problematic relations between the field’s ‘empirical’ and ‘theoretical’ discourses, which are positioned as often occurring in parallel; a need to better recognise the varied functions that different theories might play, whether in research projects or across larger research agendas; and the extent to which the TEL field should be theoretically aligned with other academic fields of enquiry or seek to position itself as, in some way, ‘exceptional’. Those four points of dispute are each disaggregated, within the analysis, into a range of distinct stances, and the relations between the stances and the points of dispute themselves are discussed. The paper concludes by considering the implications of the analysis, both for those TEL researchers wishing to engage with theory, and those scholars for whom theory application in the field is a distinct research object

Decoding learning: the proof, promise and potential of digital education

With hundreds of millions of pounds spent on digital technology for education every year – from interactive whiteboards to the rise of one–to–one tablet computers – every new technology seems to offer unlimited promise to learning. many sectors have benefitted immensely from harnessing innovative uses of technology. cloud computing, mobile communications and internet applications have changed the way manufacturing, finance, business services, the media and retailers operate. But key questions remain in education: has the range of technologies helped improve learners’ experiences and the standards they achieve? or is this investment just languishing as kit in the cupboard? and what more can decision makers, schools, teachers, parents and the technology industry do to ensure the full potential of innovative technology is exploited? There is no doubt that digital technologies have had a profound impact upon the management of learning. institutions can now recruit, register, monitor, and report on students with a new economy, efficiency, and (sometimes) creativity. yet, evidence of digital technologies producing real transformation in learning and teaching remains elusive. The education sector has invested heavily in digital technology; but this investment has not yet resulted in the radical improvements to learning experiences and educational attainment. in 2011, the Review of Education Capital found that maintained schools spent £487 million on icT equipment and services in 2009-2010. 1 since then, the education system has entered a state of flux with changes to the curriculum, shifts in funding, and increasing school autonomy. While ring-fenced funding for icT equipment and services has since ceased, a survey of 1,317 schools in July 2012 by the british educational suppliers association found they were assigning an increasing amount of their budget to technology. With greater freedom and enthusiasm towards technology in education, schools and teachers have become more discerning and are beginning to demand more evidence to justify their spending and strategies. This is both a challenge and an opportunity as it puts schools in greater charge of their spending and use of technolog

Vorsprung durch Technik: multi-display learning spaces and art-historical method

The trajectory and heuristic success of Art History as a discipline has always been inseparably linked to the technical means of visualizing the material that is at its core. When in the late 19th century first analogous, then double-slide projection was introduced, associated methodological opportunities were identified and formalised through debate within the discipline. This led to a profound change in the discipline’s analytical rhetoric, installing vis-à-vis or comparative viewing as the primary mode of art-historical inquiry throughout the 20th century. In contrast, the more recent move to PowerPoint or equivalent linear digital presentation has not received the same form of attention within Art History. Whilst the impact on disciplinary rhetoric is undeniable, the affordances these technologies offer to the analytical frameworks of Art History are not well understood, nor have they been used to develop the discipline’s methodology further. In this paper we examine the intricate relationship between analytical method and mode of visualisation. We begin by examining two types of inquiry prevalent in contemporary art-historical scholarship — semiotics-based visual culture studies and critical iconology — and focus on their specific affordances with regard to subject matter and mode of inquiry. Next, drawing upon our experiences of using Multi-Display Learning Spaces (MD-LS) within postgraduate visual arts education, we consider two types of current digital presentation tools: PowerPoint, which is commonly associated with the linear presentation of sequences of single slides, and Multi-Slides, a multi-display system designed to allow the shared viewing of multiple visual materials simultaneously. We propose that MD-LS, which encourage critical reflection upon displayed material by generating spatial configurations which afford orchestrated interaction between audience and materials, are better suited to facilitate contemporary modes of art-historical inquiry than linear presentation systems, which foster excluding forms of analytical rhetoric. We conclude by proposing the informed use of digital presentation tools to engage actively in the deliberated authoring of perception. We wish to stitch what we term ‘multiple perspective inquiry’, in which the presentation of multiple pieces of visual evidence creates the conditions for complex argumentation within learning and research, into the discipline’s use of visual presentation technology. Finally we explore the implications of this technological shift for thinking about and practicing some of Art History’s most fundamental methods

The rhetoric of multi-display learning spaces: exploratory experiences in visual art discipines

Brett Bligh and Katharina Lorenz of The University of Nottingham, present the Multi-Display Learning Spaces (MD-LS) in this article. It comprises technologies to allow the viewing of multiple simultaneous visual materials, modes of learning which encourage critical reflection upon these materials, and spatial configurations which afford interaction between learners and the materials in orchestrated ways. They argue that Multi-Display Learning Spaces support complex, disciplinary reasoning within learning

Studies in Technology Enhanced Learning: A project of scholarly conversation

Starting a new academic journal is, at any time and in any academic field, a serious venture: some might say audacious. How will the journal recruit and persuade those with the time and inclination to write for it? Will it find any kind of readership among its target audience? What mechanisms will it use for production, and what effect will those have on how authors publish, and readers access, its content? How will it differentiate itself from other titles in the area? In this editorial, we seek to address questions of that nature in respect of the new journal Studies in Technology Enhanced Learning. Clearly, it would be both premature and presumptuous to suggest, within an editorial appearing in the inaugural issue, that we have attained any kind of success in relation to the challenges attendant upon establishing a new title. Yet we do contend that the concept behind the journal is novel for the field of technology enhanced learning (TEL). On the basis of that concept—a ‘scholarly conversation’ with the particular characteristics of critical integration, self-awareness and connectedness, all terms that we elaborate below—we aspire to mobilise and nurture a community of researchers around the journal. By doing so, we wish, in turn, to intervene to challenge the existing body of knowledge on TEL, and to develop the field into a more recognisably ‘scholarly’ area of enquiry

Future Learning Spaces: Space, Technology and Pedagogy

Learning can and does happen anywhere. Sometimes that learning occurs in classrooms (formal learning), other times it results from face-to-face and virtual encounters and interactions between individuals away from lecture halls and seminar rooms (social or informal learning). Space – whether physical or virtual, individual or shared – can have an important impact on learning. It can bring people together; it can encourage exploration, collaboration and discussion; it can also frame an unspoken message of exclusion, disconnectedness and disengagement (Oblinger, 2006). Higher education institutions are growing increasingly aware of the power of “built pedagogy” (Monahan, 2002) – the ability of spaces to shape and define how educators teach their students – and with it an attitude underlining the orthodox view of higher education learning spaces that has tended to treat space and learning as two related but separate domains of academic life

Debating the status of ‘theory’ in technology enhanced learning research: Introduction to the Special Inaugural Issue

This Inaugural Special Issue of Studies in Technology Enhanced Learning has a particular focus on ‘theory’—a contentious matter. Occasionally disparaged as obscure, or alienating, it seems fair to say that theory has never been so deeply embedded in Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) research as it has become in many other areas of scholarship. One reason is that TEL is often conceived as a ‘practical’ field, with ‘theory’ negatively counterposed against other priorities: methodological innovation, ‘evidence’, ‘best practice’, or, more recently, imperatives towards being ‘data driven’. Furthermore, the use of theory can often be a stumbling block for many novice researchers: even those inclined towards ambition in their use of theory can struggle in getting to grips with the attendant vocabularies, or when actually using particular theories in their own research. Many may come to wonder whether doing so is really worth the effort. The impetus for the present issue is a contention that ‘theory’ really matters for TEL. That contention is widely shared by members of the Centre for Technology Enhanced Learning , a research centre at Lancaster University, UK, which, while part of the Department of Educational Research, has members drawn from a variety of disciplines. Indeed, the initial idea for the issue grew out of a longstanding sequence of discussions within the Centre—which the two present authors, at the time of writing, jointly direct—which have expressed a desire to emphasise the importance of ‘theory’ to others. One earlier idea, for example, had been for the Centre to write a “report” on theory in TEL research. The current Special Issue was taken up, instead, as we came to realise that the idea of collectively writing about ‘theory’ might dovetail with the idea of launching an open-access journal, and that a Special Issue might allow for a more multi-vocal consideration of the subject matter

Formative computer based assessment in diagram based domains

This research argues that the formative assessment of student coursework in free-form, diagram-based domains can be automated using CBA techniques in a way which is both feasible and useful. Formative assessment is that form of assessment in which the objective is to assist the process of learning undertaken by the student. The primary deliverable associated with formative assessment is feedback. CBA courseware provides facilities to implement the full lifecycle of an exercise through an integrated, online system. This research demonstrates that CBA offers unique opportunities for student learning through formative assessment, including allowing students to correct their solutions over a larger number of submissions than it would be feasible to allow within the context of traditional assessment forms. The approach to research involves two main phases. The first phase involves designing and implementing an assessment course using the CourseMarker / DATsys CBA system. This system, in common with may other examples of CBA courseware, was intended primarily to conduct summative assessment. The benefits and limitations of the system are identified. The second phase identifies three extensions to the architecture which encapsulate the difference in requirements between summative assessment and formative assessment, presents a design for the extensions, documents their implementation as extensions to the CourseMarker / DATsys architecture and evaluates their contribution. The three extensions are novel extensions for free-form CBA which allow the assessment of the aesthetic layout of student diagrams, the marking of student solutions where multiple model solutions are acceptable and the prioritisation and truncation of feedback prior to its presentation to the student. Evaluation results indicate that the student learning process can be assisted through formative assessment which is automated using CBA courseware. The students learn through an iterative process in which feedback upon a submitted student coursework solution is used by the student to improve their solution, after which they may re-submit and receive further feedback

Formative computer based assessment in diagram based domains

This research argues that the formative assessment of student coursework in free-form, diagram-based domains can be automated using CBA techniques in a way which is both feasible and useful. Formative assessment is that form of assessment in which the objective is to assist the process of learning undertaken by the student. The primary deliverable associated with formative assessment is feedback. CBA courseware provides facilities to implement the full lifecycle of an exercise through an integrated, online system. This research demonstrates that CBA offers unique opportunities for student learning through formative assessment, including allowing students to correct their solutions over a larger number of submissions than it would be feasible to allow within the context of traditional assessment forms. The approach to research involves two main phases. The first phase involves designing and implementing an assessment course using the CourseMarker / DATsys CBA system. This system, in common with may other examples of CBA courseware, was intended primarily to conduct summative assessment. The benefits and limitations of the system are identified. The second phase identifies three extensions to the architecture which encapsulate the difference in requirements between summative assessment and formative assessment, presents a design for the extensions, documents their implementation as extensions to the CourseMarker / DATsys architecture and evaluates their contribution. The three extensions are novel extensions for free-form CBA which allow the assessment of the aesthetic layout of student diagrams, the marking of student solutions where multiple model solutions are acceptable and the prioritisation and truncation of feedback prior to its presentation to the student. Evaluation results indicate that the student learning process can be assisted through formative assessment which is automated using CBA courseware. The students learn through an iterative process in which feedback upon a submitted student coursework solution is used by the student to improve their solution, after which they may re-submit and receive further feedback

A study of effective evaluation models and practices for technology supported physical learning spaces (JELS)

The aim of the JELS project was to identify and review the tools, methods and frameworks used to evaluate technology supported or enhanced physical learning spaces. A key objective was to develop the sector knowledgebase on innovation and emerging practice in the evaluation of learning spaces, identifying innovative methods and approaches beyond traditional post-occupancy evaluations and surveys that have dominated this area to date. The intention was that the frameworks and guidelines discovered or developed from this study could inform all stages of the process of implementing a technology supported physical learning space. The study was primarily targeted at the UK HE sector and the FE sector where appropriate, and ran from September 2008 to March 2009