Rhetorical relationships with students: A higher education case study of perceptions of online assessment in mathematics

Some students perceive that online assessment does not provide for a true reflection of their work effort. This article reports on a collaborative international project between two higher education institutions with the aim of researching issues relating to engineering student perceptions with respect to online assessment of mathematics. It provides a comparison between students of similar educational standing in Finland and Ireland. The students undertook to complete questionnaires and a sample of students was selected to participate in several group discussion interviews. Evidence from the data suggests that many of the students demonstrate low levels of confidence, do not display knowledge of continuous assessment processes and perceive many barriers when confronted with online assessment in their first semester. Alternative perspectives were sought from lecturers by means of individual interviews. The research indicates that perceptions of effort and reward as seen by students are at variance with those held by lecturers. The study offers a brief insight into the thinking of students in the first year of their engineering mathematics course. It may be suggested that alternative approaches to curriculum and pedagogical design are necessary to alleviate student concerns

Self-Efficacy and Expectancy of Engineering Students in Higher Education: A Case Study of the Perceptions and Beliefs of Lecturers

Online assessment is intended to enhance the learning experiences of students and improve the manner in which feedback is delivered. This paper reports on an international project, undertaken in three countries, to examine the beliefs held by engineering mathematics lecturers about the self-efficacy, and constructs of expectancy of their students. The research provides a comparison with beliefs on these topics held by students in the first year of undergraduate Bachelor of Engineering programmes. The interviews were semi-structured to stimulate conversations around a set of pre-determined themes. The thematic inputs to the lecturer interviews resulted from interpretative phenomenological analysis of the beliefs, experiences and perceptions of 127 students, gained from a series of questionnaires, and interviews. The aims of the engineering mathematics lecturer interviews were to examine current practices in terms of assessment of mathematics, and the provision of feedback, in both online and face-to-face formats. A particular focus was to determine if the self-efficacy of students is considered within the process. The research highlights differences in understanding of the assessment process held by lecturers, and students, particularly in the early stages of the first semester. There is also evidence that students’ meta-cognitive functions evolve over the first year of study, and that this may reduce the differences identified between students’ and lecturers’ perceptions. The implications of these findings are discussed

Using pattern languages to mediate theory–praxis conversations in design for networked learning

Educational design for networked learning is becoming more complex but also more inclusive, with teachers and learners playing more active roles in the design of tasks and of the learning environment. This paper connects emerging research on the use of design patterns and pattern languages with a conception of educational design as a conversation between theory and praxis. We illustrate the argument by drawing on recent empirical research and literature reviews from the field of networked learning

ADOPTION OF E-LEARNING IN SAUDI ARABIAN UNIVERSITY EDUCATION: THREE FACTORS AFFECTING EDUCATORS

Information and communication technology (ICT) is an important if not crucial trend in 21st century learning and education. The adoption of ICT as an educational process has led to improved teaching and learning processes, both inside and outside the classroom. Among the many advantages of ICT technology is that it allows students and teachers to communicate outside the classroom and utilise new techniques and skills. The adoption of ICT in teaching has undoubtedly improved learning and teaching processes, on the other hand there are some factors are hindering the successful implementation. This paper reviews the literature as it pertains to factors affecting effective application of eLearning for educators and students in educational institutions in Saudi Arabia Universities. Through a search of academic databases, 32 relevant literature studies and reviews were identified for the Saudi Arabian context; most were directly concerned with Saudi Arabia’s higher education sector, while others country-specific studies were included when deemed appropriate. Based on the review the literature, this paper concluded that ‘lack of time’, ‘lack of training’ and ‘lack of institutional support’ were the major factors influencing faculty members’ decision to adopt and utilise ICT in teaching practice. In terms of solutions to the challenges identified, reducing academic staffs’ workload to allow them to have more time to use E-learning tools, alongside the provision of sufficient and practical training and institutional support for academic staff should be considered as essential to the successful implementation of technology in education.   Article visualizations

Interdisciplinarity and technology-enhanced learning: reflections from art and design and educational perspectives

The main focus of this article is our project of reimagining higher education for ourselves and our students using the central theme of technology-enhanced learning (TEL), which is inextricably linked to education in the present and in the future in many contexts. We argue that interdisciplinarity and interdisciplinary working are central and essential features of TEL and, yet, they are largely invisible in the TEL literature. TEL itself is still largely invisible in the sociology of education literature and, hence, suffers ‘dual invisibility’. We suggest that this may be connected to the crisis that has beset TEL research and pedagogy. We examine the power of theory in TEL work, citing the use of cultural–historical activity theory (CHAT) in our own TEL work. A detailed account of an interdisciplinary, theory-informed TEL project is provided, and this is analysed to explore how the weave between disciplines, particularly art and design, and education, and interdisciplinary project working can be mutually beneficial in our project of reimagining higher education for work and study

PERCEPTIONS OF SAUDI STUDENTS TO USE SOCIAL MEDIA TOOLS FOR LEARNING

The purpose of this study was to examine the perceptions of Saudi students regarding the advantages of using social media tools at an emerging university in the south of Saudi Arabia to support their learning and the important role that these tools can play to facilitate the educational process. Another purpose of this study is to examine the barriers that students could face during the use of social media tools in the educational process were examined. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 5 male and 5 female students from the college of education at the emerging university to collect data for this study. The current study found that all the interviewees had very positive perceptions towards using social media as tools for e-learning and felt that these tools are extremely effective instructional tools and should be integrated into the university curricula. Another important finding was that students do not see any clear reasons that prevent lecturers to use and integrate social media tools in learning. Participants stated that lecturers should start using them as tools to aid the other learning environments. Also, it was apparent from the results of this study that the participants stated that there were some major barriers behind using these tools in learning including distraction, language and culture barriers, privacy issues and cyberbullying. More information is needed on the current use of social media tools for learning at other Saudi universities to investigate factors and barriers that might affect Saudi students’ attitudes toward using social media to support learning. This would help to establish a greater degree of accuracy on these issues.  Article visualizations

The Realities of Researching Learning Transitions in Challenging Settings

This paper presents findings from a recent research project to illustrate how the Internet can be used to create and sustain a virtual research community of young people, and how this can support their creative endeavours in challenging settings. This paper is based upon research undertaken for the Inter-Life project between 2008 and 2012. The ESRC/EPSRC-funded Inter-Life Project (TLRP/TEL Phase; 2008-2011; see http://www.tlrp.org/tel/; Sclater & Lally, 2009) focused on the development of an integrated inter-cultural ‘context’ in a 3D platform (Second Life™), in order to investigate how young people can use it creatively - individually, and collectively - to assist in understanding and navigating their key life transitions, sometimes in challenging settings. The central aim of Inter-Life was to create a community space or ‘youth centre’ in a modern and engaging online environment, where young people could (within the ethical frame of the project and by negotiation with the team) pursue their own research agendas. The team chose to work in a ‘virtual world’. Virtual worlds are avatar-based, and networked, social spaces. Avatars in this context are animated graphic representations of participants that they can move around in the virtual world under their own control. They are often in human form, but can be animals, birds, or other entities. They can be modified and customised by participants at will. Young people’s use and understanding of the Internet is still under-researched. In a very extensive review of media literacy, Buckingham et. al. (Buckingham, Banaji, Carr, Cranmer, & Willett, 2005) concluded that there is still a significant paucity of research about how young people evaluate, interpret, and respond to the Internet. Social class and economic status are well identified as limiters to their access to the Internet, more than to other media such as radio or television. However, less is known about other potential barriers to use, including the role of individual subjectivities and motivations. The Inter-Life Project needed to develop a theoretical framework that would be powerful enough to help us understand and analyse the activities of the young people with whom we worked. Activity Theory was identified as a promising candidate, using an approach to theory selection developed by Halverson (2002). Activity Theory (AT) focuses on the constituent influences on activity, and places the participants and their goals centrally in ‘systems of activity’. These systems include the tools used by young people, their motivations and goals, ideas and values, the community context, and the artifacts that they create. Within this general framework, we focused on creative practices as tools to support reflection on social justice issues, the use of virtual worlds as a community context and the development of young people’s voices through creative practices as goals. The young people with whom we worked co-opted the tools and community setting for their own use, and began to articulate their own goals during the workshops. The research question was: how do young people work creatively to develop their own agency and subjectivities in a virtual research community and apply this agency in challenging real world settings

Technologies, learning and culture: some emerging themes

This paper reflects on some of the themes emerging from a consideration of recent research at the nexus of technologies, learning and culture. The authors comment on the expansive nature of the concept of learning spaces in papers featuring an investigation of technology enhanced learning (TEL) and communication design studios in the UK and Australia, the use of interdisciplinary research collaborations to develop novel implementations of TEL learning spaces, and the challenges of developing an e-university in Malawi. They also examine a comparative study focused on classroom-based learning spaces augmented by computer-based assessment technologies, and the role of TEL both within and in response to protests at universities in South Africa. Massive open online courses are then considered as distinctive educational designs that may offer diverse student experiences, either formal or informal. The next emerging theme considers the sources of tension and richness arising from the widely divergent values that can be embedded in TEL. This is followed by consideration of infrastructural issues and the technologies–learning–culture nexus, followed by the use of theory in TEL work, leading to interdisciplinary theory-informed TEL projects that may be beneficial in the wider project of reimagining higher education for work and study. Finally, the paper examines the theme of mobile TEL and the hegemonic issues surrounding the building of sustainable and authentic foundations for learning with mobiles in the globalised South. The theme points to the methodologically challenging and problematic aspects of this hegemonic analysis and considers how the arguments may be further developed

Computing science

More than six years have now passed since the centenary of Alan Turing’s birth in 2012. At that time one of the important things to say about Computing and Information Systems education in Scottish Schools was that it was on the cusp of change. Alan Turing, the ‘father’ of modern computing, was a little known British genius, who is commemorated in one of the leading schools of Informatics in the UK, at the University of Edinburgh (The Turing Room). Turing’s contributions to the country’s future, both as a computer scientist of genius, and a wartime code-breaker, are seminal. Yet, despite this, it continues to be the case that his reputation does not extend far beyond Computer Science. In a way, a similar fate has befallen Computer Science education itself. As an area of study, it continues to be somewhat neglected beyond the universities, yet there remains little doubt that the skills of Computing Science (CS), Computing education and computational thinking more broadly, are of considerable and increasing importance for Scotland’s economic and scientific futures. Therefore, it is crucial that new curriculum developments in this field support and enhance the talents and abilities of all Scotland’s young people

Lifelong learning as a tool for the development of smart cities: technology enhanced learning as an enabler

This paper considers the ubiquity of technology as an enabler for lifelong learning in modern society and the impact this dependence on technology has on the strategic design of learning systems. The role of lifelong learning in modern economies and the diversity of activities associated with lifelong learning requires targeted resourcing and understanding of the meaning of lifelong learning. The dominance of technology enhanced learning in modern education is accepted as a de-facto component in the design of any learning programme. The literature on the technology enhanced learning – smart city nexus explores the technology in depth with a strong focus on learning analytics and big data applications. Evidence of the pedagogical paradigm requirements is not quite so visible and this lack of understanding of the complete model creates tensions in the design of lifelong learning systems. The agency of active learning is considered in the sense of the triune of human, education and economic, systems for the sustainable growth of a knowledge economy. Structured approaches to learning are demonstrated and comparison is drawn with smart city projects in Ireland and the United Kingdom