The completion of the JISC project

The JISC project that has funded the initial development of this Foundation Degree and the research into social software has now finished. The final report can be found on the project website at:

http://ecomms-tsc.wikispaces.com/Final+Report+March+2009


The following sections are extracts from this report.

Outcomes and Impact

Outcomes

The Project aims

The Project had a very focussed aim which was to explore, implement and evaluate a range of social software as part of the provision of the online eCommunications FdA. It was successful in this aim. The course has now uses the following social software as part of the method of delivery and for student activity:

• an open source hosted wiki solution for collaborative student work
• an open source forum, used for course communication.
• a blog to record reflective learning

an ePortfolio solution was also chosen. It was decided to use a template ePortfolio in a Word document that was branded, using the same visual design features that are a hallmark of the other eCommunications online materials. This ePortfolio will continue to be used for the present. The College is however currently exploring all ePortfolio solutions used by the institution and seeking to rationalise this position and possibly see if it possible to develop a policy covering the use of ePortfolios and recommend a fewer number of solutions.

Blogger and phBB will continue to be used throughout the eCommunications FdA. PhBB has been adopted by all the academic online courses at the College and phBB is being explored as a potential for community involvement and enabling more student interaction through Learner Voice initiatives.

The course wiki has been less successful. Through the use of this wiki the students have produced excellent collaborative assessed work but the slowness of the wiki has continued to be a problem that has become more frustrating as the students have become more confident, more competent and more aware of other alternatives, such as google docs.

Currently Wikispaces is being explored as an alternative to Deki Wiki and it may well be that in future Wikispaces is used as an alternative to Deki Wiki. However, this exploration only began on 27th of March 2009 and can not be reported on here.


The project Objectives

The Project met its overall objectives.

New technology was explored that had not previously been used in online teaching by the College. This new software was integrated into the course and provided a greater opportunity for social inclusion and the inclusion of multi media. This technology is now embedded into the course.


The new technology enabled all the students on the course to fully engage with the course content, materials and activities. As the course is fully online, the technology had to be successful or be replaced by an alternative online solution. All the technology was successful; the wiki was very slow to upload content and open up new pages but it was nevertheless a qualified success. All of the students on the course successfully completed their studies and had their work validated at the appropriate exam boards.

Students on the course, some of whom are without work or in long term unemployment were able to engage in WBL through the use of social software, in particular a simulated WBL activity in the course wiki.

The Project evaluated the effectiveness of the new technology through trialling using project team members who role played being tutors and students.

Staff and student experience of the delivery of the first year of the FD was evaluated through questionnaires, face to face meetings and online forum discussions.

All the TSC tutors responded well to the introduction of this new technology. A few people were familiar with blogs and wiki, but for most this was a very novel situation and many engaged in a steep learning curve. All the team now posses new skills and have the confidence and are able and willing to consider further technologies to bring onto the course.

The skills, knowledge, understanding and expertise gained by the project team are being disseminated throughout TSC as part of the College’s new ICT strategy. This strategy has come about due to the success of the delivering of the eCommunications FdA through these new technologies.

All of these objectives are sustained as they are embedded into the course, or in the case of dissemination embedded into the College’s ICT strategy. Dissemination is also embedded into the ethos of the Online College, a part of TSC, which needs to continually disseminate its practice in order to expand and draw down funding.

Using the social software

At the beginning of the project the team were aware that the use of social software on an online course would require care and thought. Research was conducted into others’ experience of using social software in this way and as the technologies were integrated into the course consideration was given to exactly how these technologies could be exploited. The experience of delivery of the degree was very instructive and several lessons were learned. Some of these lessons redefined the position the team had taken at the beginning of delivery, some lesson were totally new. In the main the team found confirmation of its practice.

The most significant lessons were:

• All the students were capable of producing excellent user generated content for the course. This became apparent in week one of the delivery. The students were enthusiastic about finding useful websites, summarising information and producing their own content for the course.

• Care had to be taken not to create too much work for the tutors. As the course content was written, the tutors had been very aware of the workload that they were giving the students. They failed to fully appreciate the amount of work that they were creating for themselves. In part this was due to their unfamiliarity with the new technology. In part it was due to an eagerness to provide the students with a rich, varied experience.

• All activities needed well thought out scaffolding. Although the students were provided with details of learning Outcomes and the assessment criteria that followed from these, they benefited from clear scaffolding being given with each activity, even if this scaffolding was merely repeating instruction that had been given elsewhere.

• The technology needed to be matched to the activity. It was surprisingly easy to forget the purpose of a technology and to include it in an activity when variety was being sort, when that technology was in fact inappropriate. The best place to collaborate was on a wiki; the best place to discuss was in a forum.

• A sound understanding was needed of the purpose of the technologies and their capabilities. As many of the project team were new to these technologies, it was easy to forget how little that everyone really knew and how inexperienced everyone was. For some practitioners the use of wikis, blogs and forums was very familiar territory, but the project team it was not. It must be remembered here that this was a team that had been teaching academic courses online for between five and ten years. But even so there was a lot to learn. It was quite possible to know about some aspects of a new technology but not to have a full understanding of its full capability or potential.

• Thorough tutor preparation was essential. Before using a new technology, it had to be fully trialled by the tutors. This meant that if, for example, a wiki was being used for an activity, the activity had to be undertaken by the tutors. This was very time consuming but essential as only in this way could the tutors gain full understanding of what was required and what might go wrong. Tutors also had to explore how they would mark and respond to student activities.

• Students needed to be fully prepared for the activities. The use of the new technologies might be mainly intuitive but tutors needed to be aware what difficulties the students might face.

• Tutors were aware that students might have ‘spiky profiles’ in terms of academic skills. They failed to be fully aware that the students ITC skills might be spiky too. A student might be very proficient in using a wiki, helping others, creating and organising pages and producing an excellent PowerPoint presentation and yet be unable to upload the PowerPoint onto the wiki

• A balance was needed in the use of the technologies. It might be educationally a good thing to use a forum for an activity but if the students have been suing a forum continuously for several weeks, then a new activity and a new technology would be more appropriate.

• If work wasn’t assessed, it would probably not get done by all the students. The tutors knew that if work was assessed that it would probably not get completed by all the students. However it was important to set work so that the students engaged with the course. This is an essential feature of online learning. In the first delivery of the course, this issue was addressed by setting some assessed work that only carried a small percentage of the marks for a module. This however was not a good solution as it meant that there were too many assessed pieces and that it was possible for some students to produce a work that was just competent and pass the module and not engage in many substantial activities.

• While it was good to tailor an activity so that it could be completed in a wiki or a forum, the tutors came to realise that other technologies might be suitable too.

• It became clear that students did not always read all the material that they had been given access to or had been sent to them. Some students habitually skimmed instead of reading content.


Following the delivery of the first semester some content had to be rewritten in the light of student and tutor experience. The new materials are now more effective than during the first delivery. There is less assessed work and the use of the technologies is now more appropriate. New modules are being written in light of the experience of the delivery of the first two semesters of this eCommunications FdA. The new modules were written with an awareness of the students’ ability to create user generated content.

eNotebook activities were introduced to replace some assessed activities. These are activities that enable the students to engage with content but are not assessed. These activities are set several weeks before a major piece of assessed work and mirror some of the content or other requirements of the coming assessed activity. Students are encouraged to complete these activities and send them to their tutor who then marks the work with a light touch but includes in their feedback comments that will enable the student to be more successful in the next assessed activity.

It was decided to sometimes repeat key pieces of information throughout the course and not to assume that students had always read the information. This particularly applied to rules and regulations in the student handbook. In order to foster independent learning students would be referred back to online content where appropriate. As the course progressed, the students would be encouraged to be more independent.

Future authoring of this FD would need to take into account that students should be given the opportunity to negotiate using other technologies for an activity. The tutors also are aware that they will need to continually alter the course and the technologies used to respond to future developments and changes in e Communications.

Impact

All participants in the eCommunications FdA have easy access to appropriate, high-quality learning materials and to increasingly flexible learning systems and tools.

There is now an improved understanding at practitioner and senior management level of the potential of ICT to support learning and teaching at departmental and institutional levels and the strategic implications of this.

There is a growing awareness and competence in the Online College and throughout TSC of how ITC and in particular social software can be used to facilitate e-learning and how to manage this.

The College has accepted that e-learning is an integral part of their approach to widening participation, work-based learning, flexible delivery and personalised learner experiences. Following on from this an effective and responsive e-learning policy, system and structure is being devised at the College

Conclusions & Recommendations

Project aims

The Project achieved its aim to explore, implement and evaluate a range of social software as part of the provision of the online eCommunications FdA. The course has now uses the following social software as part of the method of delivery and for student activity:

• an open source hosted wiki solution for collaborative student work
• an open source forum, used for course communication.
• a blog to record reflective learning

an ePortfolio solution was also chosen

Blogger and phBB will continue to be used throughout the eCommunications FdA. PhBB has been adopted by all the academic online courses at the College and phBB is being explored for other college provision.

The course wiki has been less successful. It was, though, a qualified success. Further wiki alternatives will be investigated.

Project objectives

The Project met its overall objectives.

New technology was explored that had not previously been used in online teaching by the College. This new software was integrated into the course and provided a greater opportunity for social inclusion, full engagement with the course content and the inclusion of multi media. This technology is now embedded into the course.

All students on the course, including those without work, were able to undertake WBL through the use of social software.

The Project evaluated the effectiveness of the new technology through trialling using project team members. Staff and student experience of the delivery of the first year of the FD was also evaluated.

All the TSC tutors responded well to the introduction of this new technology and all now posses new skills and the confidence to deliver the course and promote further initiatives.

The College’s new ICT strategy has come about due to the success of delivering the eCommunications FdA through social software. This strategy is promoting the use of social software.

All of the Project objectives are sustained as they are embedded into the course, or in the case of dissemination embedded into the College’s ICT strategy. Dissemination is also embedded into the ethos of the Online College, a part of TSC, which needs to continually disseminate its practice in order to expand and draw down funding.

Using the social software

Significant lessons have been learnt from the delivery of the first year of this eCommunications FdA. These were:

• All the students were capable of producing excellent user generated content for the course.

• Care had to be taken not to create too much work for the tutors.

• All activities needed well thought out scaffolding.

• The technology needed to be matched to the activity.

• A sound understanding was needed of the purpose of the technologies and their capabilities.

• Thorough tutor preparation was essential.

• Students needed to be fully prepared for the activities.

• Students might demonstrate big skills gaps when using social software.

• A balance was needed in the use of the technologies.

• If work wasn’t assessed, it would probably not get done by all the students.

• Other technologies might be suitable for a set activity.

• Students did not always read carefully.

Course content was rewritten in response to this.

• Some assessed activities were removed
• Non assessed eNotebook activities were introduced to replace some assessed activities
• Key information was repeated
• Student independence was encouraged
• In future modules it was decided to offer students the opportunity to negotiate which social software to use.
• It was recognised that the course would have to respond to developments and initiatives in e Communications, such as the introduction of new social software.

Impact

All participants in the eCommunications FdA have easy access to appropriate, high-quality learning materials and to increasingly flexible learning systems and tools.
Many practitioners and senior management now appreciate, and have a growing awareness and competence of the potential of ICT to support learning and teaching in the College.

The College has accepted that e-learning is an integral part of their provision. An effective and responsive e-learning policy, system and structure is being devised at the College.

Implications for the future

As a direct result of the success of the eCommunications FdA, the College now has an ITC strategy in place, this has made it easier to develop and expand the online provision. At present further development is focussing around the production of two more online modules, taught using social software, that with enable a second pathway to be offered in the eCommunications FdA.

Another direct result of the Project is that the College is now funding the development of common online/blended modules promoting independent learning and taught though social software that can be used in its existing FDs. This is being done as it is considered that online learning can help promote independent learning with its emphasis on user generated content and its teaching the skills of discrimination when using online content.

The College has a long term aim of offering a suite of online/blended FDs, using social software that would have a common core of modules and which would be offered through an integrated online infrastructure. The achieving of this aim is someway off but the development of the new modules will help pave the way for this.

The Project has been successful in using social software in delivering an online FD. In particular it found that the following social software could be used successfully:

• an open source hosted wiki solution for collaborative student work
• an open source forum, used for course communication.
• a blog to record reflective learning

Other institutions might wish to use this example. Using DekiWiki caused some problems, though it was successful when used for collaborative work.

Staff delivering such online courses need to be adequately supported and they shouldn’t underestimate the time it might take to be familiar with new technologies. It is especially important that the technology is used for what it is intended and that staff fully explore the activities that they design and trail their use on the chosen technology.

Significant lessons were learnt from the delivery of the first year of this eCommunications FdA. These were would be useful to others developing similar course. The main lessons were:

• As much support as possible is needed from the institution. A college wide ITC policy is invaluable.

• Course content should be written with an awareness that students were capable of producing excellent user generated content. They should be shown how to do this and encouraged to do so.

• It is very easy to create too many assessed activities in an attempt to maintain student engagement with a course.

• Well thought out and tested scaffolding is essential for all activities..

• The technology needs to be matched to the activity.

• Staff need to know what a technology is capable of and know how to use it.

• Thorough tutor preparation is essential.

• Students need to be fully prepared for the activities, especially those using social software.

• Students might have big skills gaps when using social software.

• A balance is needed in the use of the technologies. Overreliance on one technology should be avoided.

• Students might not do work if it is not assessed. Alternatives might be needed here.

• Other technologies might be suitable for a set activity.

• Students do not always read carefully.