Effective course redesign - 2 factors for success

This afternoon I went to an excellent session on REAP presented by Catherine Owen from Strathclyde who showed a range of case studies where the change of learning design (primarily introduction of assessment technologies) had provided evidence of hugely increased retention rates, increased overall scores and improved motivation in students .
In this post I want to reflect on a conversation I had with Catherine after the talk about how she and her team were able to make such radical changes to the course design across such a range of disciplines and academic staff. Catherine proposed two fundamental factors:

1. Influential Friends

As a learning technologist I have experience and knowledge of course redesign, but suggesting to a lecturer that they reduce their lecture time by two thirds is always going to be met with alarm. What I need is credibility for the change - and Catherine thinks having an influential friend (the Head of Learning and Teaching, a Dean or the VC for example) makes all the difference. Permission and support from this influential friend will give the academic reassurance that enables you to run a pilot, and from the pilot you can build an evidence-base that the suggested changes make a demonstrable difference. After that (assuming you do get good evidence of improved grades/retention etc) no-one will object.

2. Make it Easy

This is a harder one for me to apply in practice. Catherine argues that you should basically do the work for the academics for the first run of the redesigned course. In one of her examples where 560 psychology students are split into 85 groups of 7, it was the learning technologist who managed the groups. In another example using a PRS system (clickers) in lectures, the learning technologist went to ALL the lectures to set up and help operate the kit. After the first run, the learning technologist then did all the evaluations to get the evidence needed to support the changes. After all that, the academic is on their own - but with the confidence of knowing how it all works. I have concerns about the resource and sustainability of this model, but can't argue that it doesn't make a lot of sense.

NOT - eLearning Champions

It's important that eLearning Champions are most definitely not one of the factors for success. Catherine even goes as far as to suggest they are a hindrance. Everyone knows who the champions are - and that they will try whatever the new things are. But everyone else is a bit tired of them and slightly resentful...they also probably aren't the ones who most need your help for the online redesign.

So my job now is to figure out how this model can work given the resources, experiences and courses at Brighton. And if you're 'influential', watch out, I'll be knocking on your door!

Top 10 Web 2.0 Relationship Issues

1. Ebay - do you check your partners feedback? You'll see what they've been buying recently, and it might have been for you...

2. iTunes - do you share an account? Do you share a music library? (many more thoughts on this one!)

3. Passwords - does your partner know your passwords?

4. Calendars - presumably you already have read access to each other's diaries, but do you have write access? And how do you handle entries for events you are both attending - it gets messy quickly.

5. Facebook/Twitter - it's very rude not to have read your partner's status updates, but socially inappropriate to comment one each other's stuff too much. (and it goes without mention that you're updates should never contradict your partner's especially if one of you has made an excuse about not going somewhere!)

6. iPhoto - if you're sharing a photo library, do you agree about face and place tagging and how you split events? Chances are one of you cares more than the other about these things...(and whose is the default Flickr/Facebook account linked to the library for uploading?)

7. LoveFilm.com - if you've managed to agree which DVDs you want to have posted to you, you still have to decide which order they should come in. Easiest to not set a priority unless you're both desperate to see it.

8. Games - is it ever ok to play a game using the other person's account when they've already unlocked loads of levels?

Ok, looks like this is just a Top 8 - any offers for any more?

eLearning Worst Practice Top 10

Inspired by Scott Wilson who suggested an education equivalent of websites that should never have been built, I present my top 10 eLearning Worst Practice examples...think about your learning environment module areas and (hopefully!) feel smug.

1. Forcing students to download a Word document or Powerpoint file when there's only one paragraph or one picture which could have been read much more easily on the website.

2. Creating an empty discussion board within your course and expecting students to use it without any input or guidance.

3. Not checking through your links regularly and expecting students to figure out where you meant the URL to go.

4. Leaving old content live and expecting the students to know which stuff relates to them.

5. Hiding things - structuring your online content in a way that suits you but doesn't reflect the way the content is taught face-to-face.

6. Poor grammar and spelling.

7. Failing to communicate - not using announcement mechanisms to let students know what new content is available, or replying to their messages.

8. Not telling the students your expectations - e.g. they should check messages twice a week, post on forums at least twice.

9. And giving them false expectations of how often you will reply to posts - if you only check weekly, they need to know that.

10. Overload! There are a lot of tools out there, but selecting the appropriate ones and turning off everything else removes confusion and focuses attention.

Tech-up your lectures

Yesterday I had my first opportunity to explore our new Huxley Building. I'm always excited by new University buildings, because they'll be full to the brim with new technology for me to explore. This building met my expectations - not only with it's solar panels and green roof, but also in it's teaching facilities.

The Huxley Building

This is the main 300 seater lecture theatre. Two projectors, a rack of kit and a ceiling mounted camera.

The 300 seater lecture theatre

The technology is all controlled from the lecturer's position at the front from a single touchscreen control interface. I've seen a few of these in my time, and this was very intuitive and focussed on making common set ups as easy as possible. For example, you can easily plug in your own laptop, project it onto the left hand screen, then use the visualiser to project an object onto the right hand screen, then reduce the lighting in the theatre to your favourite levels, point the webcam at yourself and record the whole thing down to DVD to carry home with you afterwards.

The audio, lighting and video controls

For those of you who like a bit of infinity, you'll feel the need to do what I did and point the web cam (direction also controlled by the panel above) at the screen and then project it onto the screen. [note: the webcam output is labelled 'DVD' as it is directed via the DVD recorder in case you want to record it.]

Webcam Infinity

And you'll also want to project your giant hand - the visualiser is most impressive.

The Visualiser

Finally, here's a quick look at the other teaching spaces. There are four teaching rooms, arranged in two pairs. Between each pair is a sliding wall, so you can open it up into a double size space and use the projector controls to duplicate the output onto both displays.

The teaching rooms

All of this relates to my previous post on creative learning spaces - true these spaces don't have smell-o-vision and beanbags, but they do have flexibility and modern kit, so I hope lecturers at least find out what their options are. I look forward to an opportunity to present something before too long in Huxley and try it all in anger.

Making Space for Creativity

Today marked the end of the Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) focusing in creativity project at the end of the University of Brighton.

The Creativity Centre undertakes research into aspects of creativity and its effective practice and application.

This is acheived through the delivery of creativity related events, sponsorship of creative projects, operation of a creativity fellowship scheme and through the administration of a dedicated creativity centre at the University of Brighton.

For just over three years we've had use of this "Creativity Centre", and it's been an important place for me because every event I've been involved in there has had me attempting to push the boundaries of what the space can do just a little bit further. From enticing conference delegates with peppermint scents through the smell system, to tinting the whole room green for a fictional society, to peering through gaps in walls for a drawing activity, I like to think I've come up with some innovative uses, and produced more memorable experiences as a result. And I am always inspired again when I see how everyone else uses it too, the room actually makes you feel guilty for not pushing it's limits.

To celebrate the work an e-book(pdf) and video have been produced, it's a great film, worth a watch, to remind us that creativity isn't just for artists painting pictures.

Making Space for Creativity HD720p from Docs & Pieces on Vimeo.

I find it interesting to think about what features in the room were most effective - that we could all use to add that magic element to slightly lower budget spaces where we live and work. For me, the ability to write on the walls - ALL the walls - opens up great possibilities. And everyone loves the beanbags - such a different dynamic to sitting in chairs. I'm minded to label our meeting room as a "creative space" and make people feel guilty for just standing up giving powerpoints. We should use the creative label as an excuse to try things out, make it different and play just a little bit more.

Thanks to Steve, Richard, Paul & Angela from the Centre for a great celebration today and for putting up with all my boundary pushing!

Do you use Facebook the way Facebook think you should?

The answer to that is 'yes' according to Associate Professor Rebekah Russell-Bennet from Queensland University of Technology, Australia. Facebook's market positioning matches user's perceived values of the service. If that sounds like marketing speak, it is, I've been to a seminar at our Business School entitled:

“The relationship between strategic positioning and perceived value of social networking sites”

Rebekah was presenting some recent survey results looking at users of Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and YouTube to see how they used and perceived each of the services and how this matched with the social networking sites own perceived positions.

I found the methodology very interesting - trying to make sure she had a truly randomised sample of the population - and not just a convenient sample meant that from over 1000 targeted consumers she ended up with less than 400 responses, most of which were Facebook and YouTube users.

The general findings were that Facebook and YouTube are more popular with users and users are clear what the services are for. MySpace users are less clear on it's position (and is on the way out) and Twitter users likewise have no clear idea of the values of the service but this might be because it's relatively new.

As an 'advanced' (can I say that?) Twitter user I was not surprised with the results, but am saddened as I know the value that Twitter has, but find it very hard to help others make the most of it. Either they aren't prepared to put the time into building up their network, or are unable to find like minded people to follow/follow them so end up getting bored knowing nobody sees their tweets.

I'd be interested in doing some more detailed research on Twitter looking at only users who regularly use the service (to rule out the majority of registered users who signed up a year ago and have tweeted once and didn't get it). I'd like to see how wide their network is, whether they successfully mix work and personal and whether there are strong pockets of subject specialisms on Twitter that aren't related to tech/information/communication.