Conceptualising the role of information and communication technologies in the design of higher education teaching models used in the <scp>UK</scp>

Caird, Sally; Lane, Andy

doi:10.1111/bjet.12123

Cited by 30 publications

(29 citation statements)

References 7 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Equally, from the 1990s onwards changes in ICT began changing the ways in which distributed distance learners could collaborate both synchronously and asynchronously. Indeed, this technological change has led to many modules being partly or wholly delivered online (Caird & Lane, 2015) as is the case for the two modules involved here, and with much effort being put into the aspiration of designing virtual activities to offset the loss of similar or related, possibly more authentic place-based activities.…”

Section: Teaching Em At the Open Universitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Teaching Environmental Management Competencies Online: Towards “Authentic” Collaboration?

Bell

Lane

Collins

et al. 2017

European Journal of Open, Distance and E-Learning

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Environmental Management (EM) is taught in many Higher Education Institutions in the UK. Most this provision is studied full-time on campuses by younger adults preparing themselves for subsequent employment, but not necessarily as environmental managers, and this experience can be very different from the complexities of real-life situations. This formal academic teaching or initial professional development in EM is supported and enhanced by training and continuing professional development from the major EM Institutes in the UK orientated to a set of technical and transferable skills or competencies expected of professional practitioners. In both cases there can be a tendency to focus on the more tractable, technical aspects of EM which are important, but may prove insufficient for EM in practice. What is also necessary, although often excluded, is an appreciation of, and capacity to deal with, the messiness and unpredictability of real world EM situations involving many different actors and stakeholders with multiple perspectives and operating to various agendas. Building on the work of Reeves, Herrington, and Oliver (2002), we argue that EM modules need to include the opportunity to work towards the practice of authentic activities with group collaboration as a key pursuit. This paper reports on a qualitative study of our experiences with a selected sample taken from two on-line undergraduate EM modules for second and third year students (referred to respectively as Modules A and B) at the Open University, UK where online collaboration was a key component. Our tentative findings indicate that on-line collaboration is difficult to ensure as a uniform experience and that lack of uniformity reduces its value as an authentic experience. Whilst it can provide useful additional skills for EM practitioners the experience is uneven in the student body and often requires more time and support to engage with than originally planned. Abstract in PortugueseA Gestão Ambiental (GA) é ensinada em muitas instituições de ensino superior no Reino Unido. A maior parte dos cursos são estudados em tempo integral em aulas por jovens adultos que se preparam para um subsequente emprego, mas não necessariamente como gestores ambientais, e esta experiência de estudo pode ser muito diferente da complexidade das situações na vida real. Este ensino acadêmico formal ou desenvolvimento profissional inicial em GA é apoiado e reforçado pela formação e desenvolvimento profissional contínuo dos principais institutos de GA no Reino Unido orientados para um conjunto de habilidades técnicas e transferíveis ou competências esperadas de profissionais. Em ambos os casos, pode haver uma tendência para se concentrar nos aspectos técnicos mais manejáveis da GA que são importantes, mas podem revelar-se insuficientes para GA na prática. O que também é necessário, embora freqüentemente excluído, é uma apreciação e capacidade de lidar com a confusão e imprevisibilidade de situações de GA reais envolvendo muitos atores com múltiplas perspectivas e ope...

show abstract

Section: Teaching Em At the Open Universitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Teaching Environmental Management Competencies Online: Towards “Authentic” Collaboration?

Bell

Lane

Collins

et al. 2017

European Journal of Open, Distance and E-Learning

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Many universities are increasingly adopting learning technology as part of their curricula delivery, and educational researchers are focussing on how learning technology might enhance teaching and learning by using videos, animations, simulations, online quizzes, etc, and/or by integrating VLEs into their courses (Jackson & Fearon, ; Rutten, van Joolingen & van der Veen, ). One of the key questions that researchers in educational technology address is how we can use technology in order to enhance teaching and learning (Caird & Lane, ; Kirkwood & Price, ). For that purpose, educational researchers may follow different research approaches based, for example, on quantitative or qualitative research.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The initial part of the questionnaires' design was the study of what other educational researchers had examined from the students' or teachers' perspectives on the use of learning technology and VLEs. Various researchers have studied the above topic either from the students' or teachers' perspectives without comparing them for a specific university and/or have studied the topic by examining student engagement in learning technology in relationship with teachers' conceptions of effective teaching (Antonietti & Giorgetti, ; Caird & Lane, ; Gerbe, Saroyan & Bracewell, ; Jackson & Fearon, ; Roberts, ; Shelton, ; Tynan, Ryan & Lamont‐Mills, ). They examined, for example, students' or teachers' perspectives on the use of VLE for educational purposes; however, the aim and objectives of this investigation were to examine both groups' perspectives in order to study how teachers use educational technology and at the same time to determine if this use of educational technology by teachers was compatible with what were the students' perspectives on using learning technology for their own learning.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In this step, questions/statements were generated in order to cover the findings from the literature review and to make the connection with the objectives of the investigation. The majority of UK universities have adopted a face‐to‐face mode with blended learning as the dominant model for learning; however, little work has been presented in the literature to assist researchers to conceptualise the complex role of ICTs in Higher Education either because of the complexity of teaching and learning by using different digital technologies for innovative pedagogies or because of the different ICT ways of adoption in Higher Education, for example, distance, online and blended learning (Caird & Lane, ). In order to assist researchers in conceptualising the complex role of ICT in Higher Education, the questionnaires which were prepared to capture students' and teachers' perspectives about the relationships between technology and teaching/learning concentrated on the following key points: identification of the current teaching and learning: students and teachers provided information about their current use of technology in their learning and teaching; perceived ease of use of technology for educational purposes: students and teachers provided information about how easy they use technology in learning and teaching respectively; satisfaction for the use of VLE for educational purposes: students and teachers provided information about the usefulness of the use of VLE in their learning and teaching; perceived ease of use of VLE for educational purposes: students and teachers provided information about the use of VLE in learning and teaching; and IT capabilities: students and teachers provided information about their IT abilities and competencies. …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Datasets reflecting students' and teachers' views on the use of learning technology in a UK university

Limniou¹,

Downes²,

Maskell³

2015

Brit J Educational Tech

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Maria Limniou is a lecturer in Learning Technology in the School of Psychology at the University of Liverpool (UK).Her research interests include the influence of technology on the teaching and learning process and especially on how people learn, how people can be facilitated to learn and how technology design assist students to learn. She has authored or co-authored more than 15 journal articles and 6 book chapters in the field of her expertise (Virtual Simulation, Multimedia, Virtual Reality, Virtual Community, Communication Tools, e-Assessment, Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs), Computer-Supported Collaboration Learning (CSCLs), Computer-Assisted Teaching and Blended Learning). Also, Maria acts as an editorial board member and a reviewer to various educational journals. John J. Downes is Reader in Cognitive Neuroscience and for the last four years has been Head of the School of Psychology at the University of Liverpool. His early research was concerned with understanding the nature and underlying neural substrates of memory impairment using a range of methodologies and focusing on both the neurodegenerative diseases, such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease, and individual cases with more selective brain lesions. More recently, there has been a shift from disordered memory to normal memory and the mechanisms of learning in young adults whose interaction with and dependence on technology is radically different from previous generations. Understanding how available technologies can be used to optimise learning and the long-term consolidation of complex knowledge networks which in turn underlie the development of higher level cognitive skills, is a key aim of this work. Prof Simon Maskell Network. Simon's involvement in these cross-cutting organisational entities exemplifies Simon's interest in interdisciplinary research. Indeed, his research interests are centred on the analysis of data to improve decision making across the wide range of applications where such research has potential utility. Current funding is associated with applications in, for example, defence, cyber security, healthcare and insurance. The associated projects involve researchers with backgrounds in statistics, engineering, computer science, particle physics and psychology. Simon's specialist expertise is in the development of novel numerical Bayesian techniques to iteratively analyse datasets from a range of different sensors with the aim of offering useful compromises between computational cost and algorithmic performance. Simon is associate editor for two engineering journals and regularly organises conferences and reviews proposals, books, journals and conference papers. AbstractNowadays, the use of datasets is of crucial importance for the advancement of educational research. Specifically in the field of Higher Education, many researchers might share through online data repositories their research outputs in order for data to be reusable, accessible and accountable to educational community. The aim of this paper is to describe ho...

show abstract

“…Despite of the widespread expansion and use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) mainly in the last 20 years (Caird and Lane 2015), a relatively limited number of studies on the role of Distance Learning (DL) and Environmental Education (EE) is described in the literature, as can be seen in Fig. 1.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Environmental education in distance learning in Environmental Engineering at Federal University of São Carlos, Brazil: potentialities and limitations towards a critical techno-scientific education

Zuin

Borgonove

2016

Braz J Sci Technol

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The inclusion of concepts related to sustainable development, techno-science and the socio-environmental crisis in the curricula of Higher Education Institutions (HEI) has fundamental meaning since the training of the most diverse professionals, who shall be in direct contact with those issues, takes place in this level of education (Brandli et al. AbstractIncorporating Environmental Education (EE) in Higher Education Institutions syllabi has been a great challenge for educators. Despite of its importance and the diversity of didactic approaches to build sustainability knowledge and skills in Higher Education, there is a lack in the literature related to the role of Distance Learning (DL) in this process, especially in engineering programs. In this context, the article presents a case study aiming at analising the potential of an EE module to promote critical educational processes in environmental engineering undergraduate course via DL at Federal University of São Carlos (UFSCar), São Paulo state, Brazil. More specifically, the potentialities and limitations of a module in the formative processes of environmental engineers have been analysed, taking into account their views about sustainability and EE concepts based on the Critical Theory. The methodology of this case study research consisted of the analysis content, employing the assessment activities of the students along and at the end of the module, as well as the application of their concepts in a social-educational intervention project. The results pointed out that even though a single module may not be considered responsible for a complete critical EE, there are significant contributions of such DL approach for the understanding of environmental engineering as an ample, critical and participative process by the students of the undergraduate course, specially to enable insights on the deepest causes of the socioenvironmental crisis and on the complexity which involves the proposals to change such reality.

show abstract

Conceptualising the role of information and communication technologies in the design of higher education teaching models used in the UK

Cited by 30 publications

References 7 publications

Teaching Environmental Management Competencies Online: Towards “Authentic” Collaboration?

Teaching Environmental Management Competencies Online: Towards “Authentic” Collaboration?

Datasets reflecting students' and teachers' views on the use of learning technology in a UK university

Environmental education in distance learning in Environmental Engineering at Federal University of São Carlos, Brazil: potentialities and limitations towards a critical techno-scientific education

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About