Working towards effective practice in a digital age
A guide to technology-enhanced learning and teaching
Sarah Knight
and Ros Smith,
e-Learning
Programme, JISC
Joint Information Systems Committee
13/04/2015 | | Slide 1
Overview of today’s session
 What do you think is important when embedding technology in learning and
teaching?
 What can we learn from current practice and how should this shape our
thinking about the future?
 What are the messages for the next decade of practitioners designing
learning for a technology-empowered generation?
 Introduction to new JISC publication, ‘Effective Practice in a Digital Age’;
 A case study of exemplar practice from University of Hertfordshire
 Guiding principles for effective practice in a digital age.
Higher Education Academy Conference 2009
slide 2
Please participate….
 Share your thoughts using
Twitter:
 #jiscel10
 Post –its!
Higher Education Academy Conference 2009
slide 3
JISC e-Learning Programme
The aim of the JISC e-learning
programme is to enable UK
further and higher education
to create a better learning
environment for all learners,
wherever and however they
study, in order to realise the
vision…
…The vision is of a world where
learners, teachers, researchers and
wider institutional stakeholders use
technology to enhance the overall
educational experience by improving
flexibility and creativity and by
encouraging comprehensive and
diverse personal, high quality
learning, teaching and research.
www.jisc.ac.uk/elearningprogramme
Higher Education Academy Conference 2009
slide 4
By 2012 within this environment…

Learners and teachers are using a mixture of
institutionally-provided and userowned technologies in a confident and
effective manner;

Course teams are effectively exploiting the
available technology in all aspects of course
design, development and delivery;

Technology-rich physical and online learning,
teaching and research spaces are accessible
and flexibly designed to reflect an
understanding of the learning styles
preferences and diversity of their users;

A wide range of learning resources is freely
available, easily discovered and routinely reused.
Higher Education Academy Conference 2009
slide 5
What we have been researching…
Course Design
 Institutional approaches to
curriculum design;
Session Planning
 Transforming curriculum delivery
through technology;
 Design for learning;
Activity Design
Learning Object
Design
Designing
for Academy
learningConference
in an institutional
Higher Education
2009
context (Beetham, 2009)
 Learner experiences of e-learning
and learning literacies in a digital
Age;
 Development of open educational
resources in the Open Educational
Resources programme.
slide 6
Activity
 Share examples of technologies
that you have used or seen
used recently
 Discuss what benefits the
technology offered
 What were the disadvantages?
Higher Education Academy Conference 2009
slide 7
Higher Education Academy Conference 2009
slide 8
Responding to Learners
 Learner Experiences of e-Learning
theme funded a total of 10 projects
from 2005 to 2009, to explore
learners’ perceptions of and
participation in technology-enhanced
learning in a digital age
 The projects piloted a range of
innovative methodologies and
techniques for eliciting the learner
voice
 Nearly 3,500 learners responded to
surveys, and around 260 were
involved in a sustained way
 www.jisc.ac.uk/learnerexperience
Higher Education Academy Conference 2009
13/04/2015 |
Supporting educatio
Responding to Learners
 Learners are immersed in a technology-rich environment and make use
of the technology available to them in a wide variety of ways to meet
the demands of study.
 Colleges and universities need to consider, beyond the basic
entitlement, how they support a wide diversity of technology practices at
both individual and curriculum level
 All learners emphasise the quality of the educational experience before
the use of any particular technologies
 Despite using technology extensively in their social and leisure
lives, most learners have little idea how they could use technology
in educational and innovative ways. In the main, learners rely on
their course pedagogies and tutors for guidance.
 Colleges and universities need to embed across the curriculum
support for the development of students' lifelong learning
Higher
Education Academy
2009
literacies,
inConference
an increasingly
digital economy and society.
Understanding practice in a digital age
‘Combine technology-enhanced
options with the best of
established practice and the
practitioner has greater capacity
to create meaningful and
transformative learning
experiences.’
Higher Education Academy Conference 2009
slide 11
Listening to practitioners…
‘It’s no use going back to yesterday because I was a
different person then.’ Lewis Carroll
Redesigning the curriculum…
www.jisc.ac.uk/resourceexchange
Higher Education Academy Conference 2009
slide 12
Please participate….
 Key points for effective practice in a digital age
 Appropriate use of technology to learners
 Having an institutional drive from the top – institutional culture
supports the use of tech
 Starting fresh – what can I do differently?
 Learning and teaching vs teaching and learning
 Encourage independencies of students – so they are able to
learn
 Organise their own learning = learning literacies
 Learners in control of the technology to create
Higher Education Academy Conference 2009
slide 13
The guide…
 Updates the 2004 Effective Practice with e-Learning
publication;
 Explores the process of designing learning;
 Includes ten new case studies featuring different
challenges and uses of technology - the ‘e-learning
advantage’;
 Which pathway shall I take? Case studies offer
different levels of complexity to reflect the different
circumstances of readers;
 Captures practitioner voices - where people currently
are;
 Introduces planning tools – looking to the future;
 Provides an effective practice planning template.
www.jisc.ac.uk/practice
Higher Education Academy Conference 2009
slide 14
The Effective Practice Resource Exchange…
 Supporting online resources that can be updated and
added to;
 Four video clips illustrating responses to design for
learning themes:
o Responding to learners;
o Rethinking learning resources;
o Redesigning the curriculum;
o Relating research to practice;
 Practitioner voices caught on camera;
 Podcasts;
 Extended case studies for deeper analysis and
discussion;
 Downloadable activity planning tool.
www.jisc.ac.uk/resourceexchange
Higher Education Academy Conference 2009
slide 15
Conclusion
‘You have got to make sure that you are using the
technology to enhance the quality of the face-toface... It’s a blend of what the institution can sensibly
provide, what is best done by the individual
academic and what is brought by the students in
terms of their expertise and interests.’
Professor Jeff Haywood, Vice Principal, University of Edinburgh
‘We still need constant innovation to see what’s over the
horizon... Often the newer things bring something fresh and
dynamic to meet students’ learning expectations.’
Professor Gilly Salmon, Professor of e-Learning and Learning Technologies,
University of Leicester
Higher Education Academy Conference 2009
slide 16
www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk/curriculum
Higher Education Academy Conference 2009
www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk/curriculum
13/04/2015
Find out more
A number of supplementary resources are available to
accompany Effective Practice in a Digital Age:
■Video clips
■Podcasts
■Effective practice planner template
www.jisc.ac.uk/resourceexchange
Text-only and PDF formats of Effective Practice in a Digital
Age are available to download from:
www.jisc.ac.uk/practice
For more information on e-Learning Programme
www.jisc.ac.uk/elearningprogramme
s.knight@jisc.ac.uk and ros.smith@gpisolutions.co.uk
Higher Education Academy Conference 2009
slide 18