Students’ Perceptions of Learning Processes as Co-Authors of Digital Tabletop Activities

We conducted a small-scale study in order to explore students’ perceptions of the learning processes when engaged as co-authors of content for collaborative higher order thinking skills learning tasks. We specifically designed the process to allow for self-critique – where authors can observe their creations being solved and therefore understand where they may improve their design. We collected data over a three-day period from a sample of twelve thirteen year olds, working in teams, authoring content for Digital Mysteries (a higher order thinking skills collaborative learning application based on the digital tabletop). The study was structured to follow Bloom’s taxonomy, a continuum of cognitive skills that develop during a learning process. We found that 1) rather than follow this continuum, skills developed in a non-linear manner due to the abstract nature of the authoring activity, and 2) the students’ demonstrated good metacognitive insights into the authoring task, technology and collaborative learning as a whole

A Rheme of One’s Own: How ‘Original’ do we Expect Students to be?

Current discussions of plagiarism in the university have taken something of a criminological turn. At the same time, there is a tendency to focus on technological solutions. Against these trends, we argue that plagiarism remains, fundamentally, a philosophical and pedagogical issue for universities, related to understanding the meaning of originality and using sources for different disciplines. Toward this goal we place the notion of originality in its historical and disciplinary contexts, and question the view that it is a natural and universal quality of good writing. The practice of assessing undergraduate students on their ability to produce ‘original’ texts depends on a notion of originality that is unstable and uncertain. We examine a sample of statements about originality given to students and explore the nature of the demands placed on student writers in the internationalised university

Analysing the 'text on the page': Some directions from applied linguistics

Abstract not available

Guides and climbers: development of an online resource for thesis writers and supervisors

No Abstract. South African Journal of Higher Education Vol. 21 (8) 2007: pp. 1166-118

Students as Web 2.0 authors: Implications for assessment design and conduct

Students now have at their disposal a range of Web 2.0 authoring forms such as audio and video podcasting, blogging, social bookmarking, social networking, virtual world activities and wiki writing. Many university educators are interested in enabling students to demonstrate their learning by creating content in these forms. However, the design and conduct of assessment for such student-created content is not straightforward. Based upon a review of current literature and examples in the public domain, this paper identifies key challenges for academic assessment that arise from students' use of Web 2.0 authoring forms. We describe and analyse selected cases where academics have set assessable student Web 2.0 activities in a range of fields of study, noting especially the inter-relationship of learning objectives, assessment tasks and marking criteria. We make recommendations for practice, research and understanding to strengthen educational quality and academic integrity in the use of Web 2.0 authoring forms for assessable student learning

Web 2.0 authorship: Issues of referencing and citation for academic integrity

Web 2.0 authoring forms such as wikis and blogs, social bookmarking, and audio and video podcasting pose a challenge to academic authorship traditions. This paper reviews the provisions made in major academic referencing and citation style guides for acknowledging content and ideas that may be published using these new web authoring forms. It offers an overview of features of web 2.0 authoring forms and explores concepts of authoring that can help academics to understand the challenges of working with these forms. It provides examples of referencing and citation in scholarly and scientific communication, and concludes that the conceptual basis of referencing and citation as expressed in current systems and standards needs reform in order to bring academic integrity to the use of these new forms of authorship