CALF: Creating Academic Learning Futures
Institutions: University College Falmouth and University of Leicester
National teaching Fellows: Gilly Salmon and Elizabeth Anderson
“Tomorrow's pedagogy is typically a theme explored through speculation, clouded by doubt, guided by prejudice and spun by marketing.”
Prof Stephen Heppell
“The best way to predict the future is to invent it.”
Alan C. Kay, Fellow at Apple Computer Inc
1 A statement of purpose and a definition of the innovation
Creating Academic Learning Futures (CALF) addresses the fundamental questions of:

Can learners help Higher Education (HE) to consider the future?

How can HEIs prepare to create learner-centred learning and teaching approaches?
The first wave of web technologies – Web 1.0 - changed many aspects of learning and teaching in universities. Web 2.0 is more challenging as it promises new ways of knowledge creation and student contribution.
We know little about how to prepare for changes in learners’ expectations, including what, in the huge range of technological opportunities, is significant and what is not. There are few authentic voices from learners interpreted into feasible approaches. Meanwhile, our HEIs, with their natural conservatism and concern for quality, change slowly. Hence we need to look beyond the obvious in order to prepare for the future.
Problem/Issue Definition
It is difficult to get a holistic picture of our present … and harder to get a realistic or plausible vision of our future. And yet it has never been more important because of rapid changes in resourcing and approaches to learning. Adoption of Web 2.0 technologies in learners ’ everyday lives outstrips HEIs’ understanding of appropriate pedagogical and systems approaches. We know about student demographics and their current needs as learners, but little about their expectations and choices for their modes of learning.
There are few authentic voices from learners interpreted through feasible approaches (Rudd and
Colligan, 2006). Learners are often uninvolved and largely inactive in shaping the future of their
1

educational processes, leaving room for stereotypical views – the ‘net generation’ knows how to learn through digital media and experienced teaching staff cannot embrace teaching with new technologies.
CALF will challenge these perceptions, inspired by the Learner Experience of e-Learning (LEX) Project at Glasgow Caledonian University. Creanor (2006) highlights “ the increased engagement demonstrated by learners where they were presented with choices an d … control over their learning”.
CALF’s Purpose:




To explore viable and learner-preferred futures for learning.
To involve all stakeholders including students in imagining viable and achievable futures for HE.
To engage student voices and surface and articulate views about the future of learning in HEIs, within the highly-diverse campus and distance based learning communities at UoL and those at
UCF with its creative practice-based courses within a rural environment.
To build results into strategic and pedagogical work at both institutions.
CALF utilises:


Trends and predictions from established sources to present futures ideas and options to learners.
Creative processes that engage learners, helping them make choices about their preferred learning futures.
2 The methodology for conducting the work
The project methodology has two main thrusts: a) Scanning the environment , especially for ‘weaker signals’ by:
 bringing together the multiplicity of statements and approaches into usable accounts through synthesis, interpretation and representation;
 filtering information about emerging trends, continuities and discontinuities relating to pedagogy
 and technology that impact directly on student learning; and addressing emerging changes in a systematic and systemic process, modelled in a transferable b) way and embedded into an HE-specific context.
Deploying real tools in practical projects - Creative Partnerships Leicester has agreed to contribute experience of creative decision-making, and inform creative events for at least 500 learners in the two institutions.
CALF’s research methodology is based on cognitive mapping (Eden and Ackermann, 1992) to present individual and group ‘maps’ and monitor changes in respondents’ views, feelings and experiences over time. This method ology is grounded in Kelly’s theories of personal constructs (Kelly, 1955) and
2

supported by the ‘Decision Explorer’ software - a tool for managing and presenting qualitative information that surrounds complex or uncertain situations.
The result is a fresh perspective, with a creative focus on the key issues and solutions and a sense of journeying to the future (Shaw et al, 2003). It is richer, more accessible and useful for creative approaches and working with students for change research than conventional questionnaires or interviews.
3 P artners’ roles and contributions to the project
CALF is a collaborative bid that includes the University of Leicester, University College Falmouth,
Creative Partnerships, international organisations, research and technology partners. These are partners with proven success in working together, in twos and threes, and who wish to address CALF ’s aims under the leadership of NTF Gilly Salmon.
CALF dr aws on Prof Gilly Salmon’s extensive creativity and change work at the OU and UoL. It utilises the UoL experience as a pilot e-learning benchmarking and pilot pathfinder institution, and builds upon
BDRA research projects.
CALF also draws on the current UCF work on Phase 2 of the HEA E-learning Benchmarking Exercise, focussing on the particular uses that can be made of e-learning and learning technologies within the creative disciplines of art, design and media.
3

Table illustrating the organisations contributing to the project and their roles:
Organisation Role Contributions Named individual leads
University College
Falmouth
Beyond Distance
Research Alliance,
University of
Leicester
Creative
Partnerships
Leicester
CISCO Systems
Lead Partner
Key
& research partner
Learners from practice based, creative courses; Focus on widening participation and retention; Creative approaches to imagining the future for learning;
Dissemination and impact.
Project Management; Learners from diverse groups in
Leicester (including distance & work based learners);
Lead on communities of practice;
Environmental scanning;
Dissemination and impact.
Associate partner
Creative methodology; Links across schools.
Technology partner
Expertise; Future directions; Unified Learning
Proposition.
Technology partner Expertise; Future directions;
Media Partner Expertise; Technology support; Media presence.
Toshiba
TwoFour Media
GAID network and NABU
(knowledge transfer beyond boundaries)
School of Design
Studies, University of
New South Wales,
Sydney, Australia
International organisation network
Artist-in-residence
McGraw Hill
Hawaii Research
Center for Futures
Studies
Caledonian Academy
Publishing partner
Researcher support
Steering Group
Wider research contribution
Steering, dissemination,
Links with other projects.
International and developing countries; Links for scanning and dissemination
Provide graphical representation to the project and advice on creative events.
Perspective from forward-looking educational publisher.
International and long term views of the future for learning.
Build on LEX project
Overview, support, guidance, monitoring
Anne George, Director of Academic Services
Prof Gilly Salmon (NTF), Professor of E-Learning &
Learning Technologies, Head of BDRA, with Dr Liz
Anderson (NTF) Inter-Professional Education.
Richard Clark, Leicester Director, Creative
Partnerships http://www.creative-partnerships.com/
Lee Simpson and Jonathan Taylor
Richard Williams
Richard Wallis
Prof Salmon is advisor both networks. The BDRA is running a project to support the aims of the networks
(ELKS) www.gaid.org
Rick Bennett
Shona Mullen
Stuart Candy www.futures.hawaii.edu
Linda Creanor (Development Director Caledonian
Academy) www.academy.gcal.ac.uk/
Prof John Fothergill, (PVC), UoL;
Christine Fyfe PVC, UoL; Prof Stephen Heppell,
Creative Partnerships; Dr Susan Clayton, Director,
Creative Futures Ltd;
Prof Eric Spiller, Vice Principal, UCF.
4

4 Deliverables, dissemination and impact contributions
4.1 Deliverables
4.1.1 To developing policy and strategy

Practical recommendations to inform HE policy and strategy around the use of learning technology, student engagement, learning experiences and expectations, offering new hypotheses and avenues for exploration and future research. Findings will inform UoL ’s elearning, personalized learning and outreach strategies, as well as its developing IT strategy.
Results will also influence UCF ’s deliberations with Dartington College of Arts and inform the unique nature of a University of the Arts in the South West.
4.1.2
To raising awareness of student voices and engagement with choices


Models of social networking and software for dissemination and exploration of Learning Futures, including choices and timelines and informing
UCF’s work on
Listening to the Student Voice .
Sets of guidelines and frameworks fo r exploring students’ use of new technologies and approaches to learning, including social networking, informal, experiential, mobile, 24-hour, trans-literacy and e-literacy skills.
4.1.3 To raising HE sector awareness of engaging learners about the future

Recommendations to inform HE sector policy and strategy around the use of Web 2.0 learning technology, student engagement, learning experiences and expectations.

Holding online and Second Life events leading to the building and nurturing of communities of practice.
4.2 Dissemination
The dissemination targets include students, academics, practitioners, learning technologists and policy and decision makers in HE. However, findings will be of interest across all educational sectors and to industry and commerce.
Dissemination strategies will include:

A blend of face-to-face and online opportunities using a variety of technologies. The UoL Media
Zoo (in its physical space, web space (www.le.ac.uk/beyonddistance/mediazoo) and 3-D
Second Life space) will be a focal point for dissemination and an experimental environment.

Conference presentations and workshops – including UoL conference/seminar/workshop series,
Prof Salmon’s keynotes, the HEA Pathfinder projects, Subject Centres, CETLs, NTF network.

The UoL-led CULN network will provide dissemination to FE, representing the single largest grouping of FE and HE institutions in the central Midlands; similar dissemination will take place using the Combined Universities in Cornwall (CUC) structure to highlight and discuss findings across FEIs/HEIs in Cornwall and Devon.
5



Publication in Prof Salmon ’s book on ‘Learning Futures’ (McGraw Hill, forthcoming 2008).
Contributions to the HEA’s new e-learning Research Observatory and the Leicester Research
Archive (LRA) projects.
4.3 Impacts


CALF will inform:

The next stage of e-learning strategy development at both institutions.
Learning and teaching design using new technologies across all disciplines in both institutions.
E-learning/learning technology strategies and policy, practices and pathways across HE and FE
 sectors.
T echnology providers’ and publishers’ FE/HE plans.
Specific impacts will include:
 Development of ‘thought leadership’ in the area of ‘learning futures’, with contributions on the need for learner engagement and the pathways and change processes needed to achieve this in HEIs of the future.

Measures and models of how learners can be involved in the planning, re-shaping and assessment of learning and technologies.

Defining future research questions related to impact on student learning of the newest technologies.

Reworking of the UoL curriculum and revision of the learning materials and approaches, to better serve the student learning experience.

Support the detailed planning of UCF's Phase 3 proposal for a Design Innovation Lab in its development of the Tremough Campus, in which practitioners, businesses, researchers, staff
 and students work together on collaborative projects.
Inform the planning of new structures for delivery of UCF's undergraduate and postgraduate courses, and the development of the concept of work-based learning within a single merged institution, combining the subject strengths of UCF and Dartington College of Arts.
5 Finance and contribution
CALF requests a grant of approximately £66,667 per year, for 2008-2011, totalling approximately
£200,000 for the entire project.
The direct funding will cover the salary and on-costs for 1.0 FTE
Research Officer based at Leicester for three years and for 0.40 FTE Project Manager based at
Falmouth, as well as the costs of the consultation events, the web-based dissemination media.
Matched funding support from the partner institutions is expected to cover the time of the NTF(s), the project lead at Falmouth, the Media Zoo, estates and indirect costs. Other partners will contribute costfree time and expertise, thus presenting exceptional value for money for a potentially high impact for the partnership, the universities and the sector.
6

6 References
BDRA research projects (2007): SEAL (www.le.ac.uk/seal); WOLF (http://moodle.lec.ac.uk/wolf/);
ADELIE (www.le.ac.uk/adelie); PROWE (www.prowe.ac.uk); IMPALA (www.impala.ac.uk); and ADDER
(www.le.ac.uk/adder).
BECTA seminars (e.g. http://collaboration.becta.org.uk/docs/DOC-1135 ). T
Creanor, L.; Trinder, K.; Gowan, D. and Howells, C. (2006) L E X. The Learner Experience of e-
Learning. Final Project Report . Accessed 23 rd August 2007 at: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/uploaded_documents/LEX%20Final%20Report_August06.pdf
DfES (2005) The e-Strategy 'Harnessing Technology: Transforming learning and children's services' .
Available at http://www.dfes.gov.uk/publications/e-strategy/ accessed 23 rd August 2007.
Eden, C., Ackermann, F. (1998), Making Strategy: The Journey of Strategic Management , Sage,
London.
Franklin, T (2007) Web 2.0 and Policy . Accessed 21st August 2007at: http://franklinconsulting.co.uk/LinkedDocuments/Policy%20Briefing%20paper%20on%20Web%202.pdf
HEFCE (2005) HEFCE strategy for e-learning . Accessed 23rd August 2007 at: http://www.hefce.ac.uk/pubs/hefce/2005/05_12/05_12.pdf
.
JISC (2005) JISC welcomes the new DfES e-learning strategy . Accessed 23rd August 2007 at: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/news/stories/2005/03/news_estrategy.aspx
JISC (2007) http://www.jisc.ac.uk/techwatch accessed 23rd August 2007 . see particularly Anderson
Feb 2007. What is Web 2.0? Ideas, technologies and implications for Education (TSW0701).
Kelly, G. A. (1955) The Psychology of Personal Constructs . New York: Norton.
Lohnes, S., and C. Kinzer. (2007). Questioning assumptions about students' expectations for technology in college classrooms. Innovate 3 (5). Accessed 23rd August 2007 at: http://www.innovateonline.info/index.php?view=issue&id=20 .
Martínez, M. and Bunderson, V. (2000) Building Interactive World Wide (Web) Learning Environments to Match and Support Individual Learning Differences. Journal of Interactive Learning Research 11(2) pp163-195.
Rudd, T. Colligan, F. and Naik, R. (2006) Learner Voice Handbook , Future Lab Bristol.
Sharpe, R., Benfield, G., Roberts, G., and Francis, R. (2006) The undergraduate experience of blended e-learning: a review of U.K. literature and practice . HEA. Accessed 23rd August 2007 at: http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/research/Sharpe_Benfield_Roberts_Francis_SUMMARY.pdf
Shaw, D., Ackermann, F. & Eden, C. (2003) Sharing knowledge in group problem structuring . Journal of the Operational Research Society , 54 (9) , 936-948.
For more on the Decision Explorer software, please see: http://www.banxia.com/demain.html
Final word count: 1888
7