Welcome to the IMPS Workshop One Website!
This material in this website summarises the conclusions of a collaborative investigation undertaken by our learning set over the last six weeks. Our learning set was formed on the basis of a shared interest in the issues involved in implementing on-line teaching and learning. All the members of the learning set were considering how networked learning could be used to support teaching and learning in their particular professional context and wanted to explore how this could be done most effectively.
The methodology section below gives a detailed description of the scope of the project and the approach that we adopted to meet our objectives. The sites section contains a description of each of the sites that were selected for analysis followed by an evaluation of the educational, design and technical issues involved. We have concluded with an assessment of the extent to which we think that each site has met its objectives and an analysis of the general principles of good practice that we believe can be derived from our investigation.
In preparing this website for the project, we have accepted that the summaries that appear here cannot capture the richness and depth of the discussions that took place in Lotus Notes. We have therefore attached relevant extracts from the databases as appendices. More importantly, however, we also acknowledge that the process of carrying out our investigation taught us just as much (if not more) about the process of learning on line as the outcomes of the investigation itself. Some of the themes of workshop one (such as learning communities and the internet as a social space) were addressed explicitly by us in the course of the project, but others (such as self managed learning and action research) were explored through the dynamics of the investigation itself. We propose to reflect on what we have learnt from the process of collaborative learning back in the IMPS database, but the discussions are also presented here as the raw material of our learning process.
Methodology
A general strategy for the collaborative project was developed during our face
to face meetings at the residential week. It was agreed to analyse existing
examples of on-line courses with the aim of identifying general principles for
good practice in implementing teaching and learning. Once the title and the
objective of the project had been agreed, the learning set devoted considerable
time during the initial on-line period to refining the methodology for the
investigation. Parallel discussions took place in the Project Management topic
about the selection of sites and the criteria that should be used in analysing
them.
Site Selection
Candidates for analysis were deposited in a specific topic area for
consideration by the learning set and then members of the group nominated, with
reasons, three courses of their choice with for a short list.
This phase of the selection process was accompanied by a discussion on the nature of the sites being selected. The difficulties in analysing courses which were not predominantly web based quickly became apparent. Several on-line course organisers were contacted, but none of them were willing to allow us even restricted entry to their material for evaluation purposes. It appeared that the only way to have incorporated examples of non web based learning environments would have been to have canvassed the views if developers and users, and in this was not though to be feasible in the time available for completion of the project.
Although there was some concern that confining our studies to web-based learning environments might limit the generalisability of our conclusions, the learning set were agreed that a project focusing on web based sites would still be a valuable exercise. The web is the main public forum for on-line courses and we were satisfied that the multiplicity of open access learning environments could produce sufficiently diverse material for analysis. It was suggested that other on-line learning environments, such as case studies of learners’ experiences, was an area that could be investigated more fully in the co-operative projects.
The three final selections are covered in depth in the Sites section of this web site.
were made by mutual agreement. The reasons for choosing the sites are listed in the introduction to each of the site evaluations. In making the final selection it was also considered important to find sites that were suitably different in design and ethos against which to judge the evaluation criteria.
Criteria for Analysis
The criteria used for analysing the sites were based on a six point typology
developed by Sandberg (A. Sandberg, Educational paradigms: issues and
trends, in: Lessons from Learning, R. Lewis, P. Mendelsohn, eds, Papers
from the IFIP TC3/WG3.3 Working Conference, Amsterdam, 1994.), amended to
include design issues:
‘teacher’ component; providing guidance and instruction (either through teaching staff, Intelligent agents or texts)
‘monitor’ component; to ensure learning takes place (through the tutor, self-discipline of the learner or through a secondary software program)
‘fellow learners’ component; providing peer-contact, enabling group discussion and analysis
‘learning materials’ component; the actual subject content including lesson and task oriented material and problem solving exercises
‘external information sources’; additional materials not necessarily contained within the learning material (e.g. Internet-based resources, handbooks)
‘tools’; any resources in addition to the learning materials which may help facilitate the learning process (e.g. communication software, calculators)
‘design of resource’ (including ease of use, feel)
The learning set agreed that these criteria were a starting point from which to base the analysis and that one of the objectives of the project was to consider whether they were adequate and sufficient to evaluate "Good practice in on-line teaching and learning". These criteria were then divided up between the group and applied to the sites chosen for assessment. This division of tasks was achieved on a voluntary basis, with each member of the group appending his/her name to one or more of the criteria listed above. Individual group members then applied the relevant agreed criteria to each of the three chosen sites and reported back to the rest of the group his/her findings in the Site Assessment category of the Lotus Notes database.