The use of Technology and
development of a Community
of Practice
Wendy Fisher COLMSCT Teaching Fellow and
Staff Tutor in Technology
Two Strands
•
•
•
•
Strand A – The use of Technology
Use of Tablet PC Technology - eTMAs
Using Technology to work with Pedagogy
On-line, challenging assessment areas; mathematical
formulae, scientific nomenclature, diagramming
• Strand B – Developing a community of practice
• Supporting distance lecturers with on-line forums and
Web2.0 Technology
Strand A - The Use of Technology
• To establish how lecturers use a PC and keyboard in
marking
• To evaluate the use of Tablet PC Technology in marking
eTMAs
PC and Keyboard - eTMAs
• Currently where do Lecturers provide feedback in
eTMAs?
• Embed comments
• Macros
• Tables
• Track Changes
• Additional comments page as Appendix
• Use of ‘Comment’ in Word
• Combination of above
PC and Keyboard - Examples
Tablet PC Technology - HP 4200
Tablet PC - Assessment
Tablet PC - eTMAs
• Established that Tablet PC can be used to;
• Annotate eTMAs including mathematical formula,
scientific nomenclature, diagrams
• Write anywhere on a student’s script; margins, between
lines
• Use pen input to record a lecturer’s feedback
• Software to recognise handwriting and convert to typed
text
• Diagramming the potential for re-drafting
Tablet PC - Examples
Student Feedback - Project
• Over 80% respondents to questionnaire found use of
Tablet PC in assessment to be a good experience
• ‘My tutor using the Tablet PC was able to put comments
in that felt more personal being that they were
handwritten right in with the questions’
• ‘Handwritten text gave it a more personal feel’
• ‘Personally, I did not like the way feedback was made, it
looked messy and untidy’
Feedback at relevant point
Importance of feedback positioning in relation to point
being raised
100%
80%
Very
60%
Fairly
40%
Not Very
20%
Not at all
0%
Tutor
Conventional
Student
Conventional
Tutor Tablet
Student
Tablet
Lay-out
Importance of maintaining Lay-Out
100%
80%
Very
60%
Fairly
40%
Not very
Not at all
20%
0%
Tutor
Student
Tutor Tablet
Conventional Conventional
Student
Tablet
Other outcomes – Interface
“You know it’s a direct connection between the
brain and the finger….immediate flow of the
keyboard or the mouse or the tablet, it’s just an
extension of my hand. And you know, my
thoughts…..because you can edit…. if you want to
change something when you’re saying something
you can just go back and delete it. So it basically
gives a direct link between my brain and the
students, you know what I mean?”
Strand B – Developing a
Community of Practice
•
•
•
•
•
Lecturers work at a distance
Geographically isolated
Develop on-line community of practice
Asynchronous on-line forum
Project development - Use of wiki to generate content
through collaboration for dissemination – ‘Using Tablet
PCs with the eTMA system’
On-Line Forum - Aims
• Set up on-line First-Class Forum for asynchronous
communication between members of the project
• Set up at start of project in Winter 2005
• Share the manual – How to use a Tablet PC and WiFi
Connections
• Provide on-line staff development opportunity
On-Line Forums - Outcomes
• Team supported each other with technical issues
• Manual found very useful for finding out how to use
Tablet PC
• Getting connected with WiFi no comment
• Team shared different approaches to providing feedback
• Team members show that approaches to marking highly
individual and personal
• WiFi connectivity and mobility – take it or leave it
On-Line Forum - Examples
Initial Phase-Lecturers Comments
• ‘I’m not always as imaginative as I could be and seeing
what other people do gives me ideas as to how I can do
something similar and whether I would want to do that,
or sparks me off with, “Ooh now I like that, but what if I
did this as well?” to take it a little bit further.’
• ‘I have been looking around all these conferences and
the wiki to try and find any thoughts/comments on
marking TMA02/06J but can't find any.’
What is a Wiki?
• ‘A wiki is a web-site that allows visitors to add, remove,
edit and change content, typically without the need for
registration. It allows for the linking among any number
of pages. This ease of operation makes a wiki an
effective tool for mass collaborative authoring’
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:About
Wiki - Aims
• Provide and opportunity for lecturers to work together at
a distance and collaboratively on a web document - wiki
• To generate their own content and edit existing content
• Use co-authoring opportunity to up load screen dumps
directly to the wiki rather than as an attachment in an email to the on-line forum
• Provide a visual bank of creative ideas for marking
eTMAs and build on this learning
• A document for future dissemination to OU lecturers
Wiki - Outcomes
• Initial content for wiki authored by Project Manger
• Contribution to content from two other members of
project team with ideas for annotating eTMAs
• Screen dumps of annotated scripts have been uploaded
• Wiki found a useful resource for ideas by other
members of project team
• Some lecturers working collaboratively, others reluctant
to edit existing content
• Hints and Tips Section
Web 2.0 Wiki - Example
Web 2.0 Wiki – Annotated Script
Further Findings
• Further findings on developing a community of practice
using on-line forums and a wiki will be discussed at the
conference
COLMSCT CETL
The Open University
Walton Hall
Milton Keynes
MK7 6AA
www.open.ac.uk
w.a.fisher@open.ac.uk