Thanks

Many people gave their time and expertise to make the 10th Middlesex University Annual Learning and Teaching Conference happen. Enormous thanks and gratitude to everyone involved especially those mentioned here...

Conference organising committee
Above, l-r, Caroline Reid, Kirsteen Macdonald, Carole Davis, Steve Chilton, Judy Wilson
Below, l-r, Joanne Mullarkey, Professor Barry Jackson

Thanks to :

Laurie Johnson and Michelle Johnson for helping the day run so smoothly. They were completely unflappable unlike most of us!

Karen Ridout for sharing her expertise and support on the day

Kathryn McAnulty, Catherine O'Reilly and Maggie Walkowska for helping with registration

Angus Macdonald and John Parkinson for filming and producing the keynote sessions (Cat Hill for the loan of an extra camera)

All session presenters and chairs

Joyce Clancey for her guidance and support

Neesha Kodagoda and Yoney Kirsal for persuading participants to allow their conference impressions to be captured on video

Louis Slabbert, Leonard Miraziz and media support services at Hendon

Colleagues in the Centre for Educational Technology for their support, contributions and report writing

EFMS and Chartwells' Catering Services

Barry Jackson's closing remarks

Summary of the closing session

Barry is our Pro-Vice Chancellor and Director of Teaching and Learning. His drive launched the series of Learning and Teaching Conferences at Middlesex ten years ago to celebrate good practice in teaching and learning, and to support the demand for continuing change and adaption. He stresses that there is no one solution to the challenges of Higher Education! This is Barry’s last week at the university as he is retiring, so many of us listened to his closing remarks with a touch of sadness.

However, his summary focused on this really positive day, which embraced the styles and beliefs of many varying speakers and presenters on the positive and negative aspects of the digital world on academic literacy. Consistent within all the conflicting viewpoints was the need to constantly promote student engagement in the information explosion in ways which are creative, self-enhancing and promote thinking.

One of the strengths of the day was the use of interactive media and Barry enjoyed the twitter feed - placing himself in the Digital Immigrant community. This concept was one we played with throughout the day. Whilst we were encouraged to be cautious with the generality of the term ‘Digital Immigrant’ it did provide a useful stereotype to which many of the audience could immediately connect. Interestingly all the keynotes made us question our stereotypical views of students and in particular consider the diversity in the expertise of our students interacting with the continual proliferation of online environments.

Many short video clips had been recorded throughout the day and are available on this blog. Barry introduced a couple of short clips which along with the tweets showed the speed in which technology can provide immediate feedback on events. An interesting reflection of Barry’s is that this feedback will be received differently by those who attend and those that view the blog of the day but could not make the event.

Barry was thanked for his contribution to Learning and Teaching and given a small token of appreciation from his Learning and Teaching colleagues. We wish him a wonderful retirement which allows him to explore and enjoy his artistic and musical talents.

Judy Wilson
Learning and Teaching Strategy Leader,
EIS, Middlesex University


Professor Barry Jackson, Middlesex University

Report on events of the day

Click to view the report on the ALTCMU conference by Nazlin Bhimani, Academic Liaison Manager (School of Engineering and Information Sciences and Institute for Work based Learning), Learning Resources, Middlesex University

Video from William Wong

Professor William Wong, Middlesex University

Report on William Wong's keynote address

What matters?
William Wong


(click to enlarge)

William Wong is Professor of Human Computer Interaction Design, and researches and designs computer based systems for use by people. He is concerned with creating positive human-computer interaction experiences. Historically within such study there has been a big focus on user goals, however now the wider concept of the user experience when actually working with technology and how this really manifests itself in the real world rather than in an experimental environment, is being sought. Thus William’s keynote explored the affective side of digital information and the sensory, sense making and emotional connections evoked for students engaging in digital literacy. The strong psychological component of such digital approaches to learning.

The ideas presented synergised with those of the preceding keynotes, whereby William's keynote aimed to provide empirical evidence for the key features necessary for successful research/study of those engaging, and interacting, with the use technology. Building on work undertaken to define the ‘seven habits’ required by a good researcher, William transferred these habits the role of students and teachers.

So what matters ? is the development of seven habits. Competence; control; courage and confidence; co-discovery; communicate; creative and initiative; critical thinking.

Competence, developing underpinning knowledge and skills. Control over how they act, respond and learn. Courage and confidence, courage to apply and ability to learn from their mistakes. Co-discovery, collaboration and working in teams to discover or accomplish together. Communicate, the ability to articulate ideas and to co-ordinate and implement them. Creativity and initiative, being a problem solver and lateral thinker. Critical thinking, slice and dice, analyse and dissect, distinguish between ‘shades of grey’.

Caroline Reid
Head of Learning Development (HSSC)
Middlesex University

What matters ?

View more presentations from Steve Chilton.

More feedback

Paula Bernaschina, Middlesex University


Nicola Barnard, Oxford Brookes


Carole Davis, Middlesex University

Slides for Paula Bernaschina's workshop

Paula Bernaschina's presentation

View more presentations from Steve Chilton.

Report on Kristian Sund's workshop

Attendance, Employability and Learning Technologies: Are we getting it right?
Kristian Sund

Kristian Sund, Middlesex University

Kristian, Senior Lecturer in Strategic Management in the Business School, had carried out a survey among final year undergraduate students and presented the findings as a starting point for discussion in this workshop. Low student attendance was evident to Kristian and with this study he wanted to explore some of the reasons students may have for this, and how the use of learning technologies may contribute to high or low class attendance levels.

Are our graduates ready for employment – or not? Based on to Kristian’s study, corporations expect graduates to have the soft skills, e.g. communication, interpersonal skills, team working skill etc. required for work when they start their job. So how will students further develop these important life skills during their time at university with low or even no attendance? If the attitude with some students is that there is no need to attend a class when you can down load all the materials then are we therefore making it too easy for our students to avoid attending?

What can academics, many of whom are ‘Digital Immigrants’ do in supporting these ‘Digitally Native’ students when using learning technologies and at the same time encouraging attendance? This workshop echoed some of Steve Wheeler’s keynote discussion, in particular, the development of a facilitator role for lectures where the boundaries of expert and novice are blurring?

Findings of this interesting study could not offer definite conclusions or solutions but it raised many important questions for all those working in HE. It also highlighted the worrying trend of low student engagement in their studies - and created some passionate viewpoints and discussion in the workshop.

Thank you Kristian – carry on the good work with your students!

Pirkko Harvey
National Centre for Project Management
Middlesex University

Video feedback

Martin Loomes, Middlesex University


Tony Side, Middlesex University


Harvey Thornycroft, Ministry of Defence

Report on Steve Chilton's workshop

Learning to Learn Online

Participants at "Learning to Learn Online"

This Workshop entitled: Learning to learn online was used to disseminate information regarding a new module being developed at the university to address certain core skills necessary for the ‘digital’ student to excel in a modern university. The workshop was not however just an overview of the module itself, rather a look at it’s pedagogical underpinnings as well as highlighting a number of points such a module would need to address in order to be a success. Points such as:

• How to ‘teach’ students to keep on task and not to be distracted by other media.
• How do we make Students aware of what Feedback is within a University and how do we make them realize when they are receiving it?
• Online activities such as those to be utilised in an online only module (such as this) are great for ‘reflection’ – Caveat; do our students know how to reflect?
• Students need to be critical – professionals demand ‘thinking’ not just knowledge.
• Communication is more than just an exchange – it is a discussion of relevant question.
• Students need the skills to be able to; select, analyse, critique and justify the use of primary sources.
• The need for students to realise the necessity to take notes and have the ability to paraphrase.
  

Steve did offer forward one task he was asking the students to take the module to do in order to truly engage with a piece of literature. Students were to read a 1500 word document and to initially condense this into a short 100 word document. This meant they would need to analyse and be critical of the original and decide just what the major points were. On completion of the 100 word document students were to further edit this into a single ‘tweet’ (statement of 140 characters or less). This task was a point of discussion with the majority of people thinking it was an excellent way of asking students to engage with a piece of literature.

Finally, what I believe to be a very powerful point was made: We (as educators) do not currently reaffirm or reinforce the core academic skills often or adequately enough with our students.

Dave Westwood
e-Learning Research and Innovation
Middlesex University

Learning to Learn Online

View more presentations from Steve Chilton.

Steve Chilton presents

Video from Steve Wheeler

Steve Wheeler, University of Plymouth

Report on Mike Howarth's workshop

The Self-Editor: A strategy for improving reflective writing.

Mike was inspired to create his self-editor ‘tool’ to help students who come to writing tasks as part of their studies having little or un-practiced writing skills. His own students were often submitting first assignments with poor writing but very valuable content.

His aim is to help students with the process of “externalising the internal mish-mash of story and experiences”.

The editing process

The self-editor process is based on a light touch ‘tricks of the trade’ approach to help structure content, rather than a more formal academic writing, or ‘basic skills’ approach.

Mike touched on some underlying concepts; the brain searches for clues (patterns) in words, chaining and linking (key words) and computer navigation (via text).

The session was enlivened with Mike’s ‘thole’ and other props in an effort to portray The Experiential Metaphorical Concept. The group were also immersed in an individual editing task, which included as one of the steps, the active process of walking around.

References: Chapman, 1987, p.83, Lakoff and Johnson, 1980, p.19

See information on The Self Editor at: www.mhmvr.co.uk

Louise Merlin
e-Learning Development
Middlesex University

Report on Anne Flood's workshop

Turnitin 2

Anne Flood previews Turnitin 2

Anne began the session with a rundown of some of the new features in the new version of Turnitin. The key changes are:

• The format of the original submitted document is preserved
• There is a new intuitive menu structure
• Search results in the originality report are clustered (by Primary Sources) to reduce ‘noise’. An improved drill down system allows you to click on these clusters to see the matches within
• There is a single view for all tools – the originality report, Grademark and Peermark can all be displayed on the screen together or separately

The Classic view will also still be available.

Anne then went on to discuss the various Turnitin implementation methods. Screening all submitted work for plagiarism ensures that the work is that of the student who submitted it, and means that plagiarism should be easily identified. However this can lead to an increased work load for staff involved in the submission of work and in dealing with the plagiarism cases thereafter. Some institutions prefer only to screen work that appears suspicious for some reason – this leads to less workload but some well-written plagiarised work may be missed by the initial checking. Screening a fixed percentage of work as a sample is a good method for quality checking but will miss most cases of plagiarism. Some institutions even pay the licence fee for Turnitin and use it as a deterrent to prevent students from plagiarising their work, but do not actually make use of it.

Anne recommended that Turnitin be implemented in a formative way, and that students are fully supported in its use. This way students will be more aware of the issues surrounding plagiarism and how best to avoid it in their writing, and will receive formative feedback in a timely manner. In a survey of 3,000 students, 87% of students supported the use of Turnitin for plagiarism checking, and 76% felt it would discourage the submission of unacknowledged content. Anne also stressed that the interpretation of originality reports is very important as the match percentage does not always tell the whole story.

Paul Smith
e-Learning Support
Middlesex University

Report on Steve Wheeler's keynote address and FULL VIDEO

Steve Wheeler’s keynote explored his take on Digital Tribes. He discussed transformation and inspiration – in an entertaining and informative session. His view was that we are preparing students for a future we cannot clearly describe. He characterised what is happening as the establishment of not one digital tribe but many sub-sets or virtual clans. There were interesting sidetracks into an analysis of Wikipedians and the modern nuclear family not sat round watching the TV, but still acting in a similar way (with a slide neatly entitled “Wii are the family”). On a more serious note he provided an excellent synthesis of some of the thoughts of many prominent contributors to the digital debate. One of his suggestions was that you could be your own VLE – IF you know how to bring the various tools that are available together. I recommend that you view the video of his keynote presentation, and view the slides to get the full range of his discourse. On a personal note I was pleased to see that he both credited all his impressive images with their sources, and also made the presentation available under a Creative Commons license, to allow folk to use the content with appropriate acknowledgement to the author.

Steve Chilton
Manager e-Learning Academic Development
Middlesex University

Keynote slides




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Video feedback comments

Jo Parker, Open University

Maureen Smojkis, University of Birmingham


Sarah Ison, University of Brighton

More video feedback

Jonathan Garnett, Middlesex University

Video from Tara Brabazon

Tara Brabazon, University of Brighton