Professional Literature

Library Hi Tech News

ISSN: 0741-9058

Article publication date: 23 January 2009

68

Citation

(2009), "Professional Literature", Library Hi Tech News, Vol. 26 No. 1/2. https://doi.org/10.1108/lhtn.2009.23926aae.001

Publisher

:

Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2009, Emerald Group Publishing Limited


Professional Literature

Article Type: Professional Literature From: Library Hi Tech News, Volume 26, Issue 1/2.

Article Summaries

Enhancing the curriculum: shareable multimedia learning objectsNiall MacKenzie and Andrew Walsh, in Journal of Systems and Information Technology, v. 11 (2009) issue 1, pp. 71-83

Computer-aided learning and teaching resources were first introduced in the 1970s. However, despite general enthusiasm for the principle from educators, the phenomenon has been described as recently as 2005 as a “revolution in progress”. Too often investment in IT systems has not been matched by investment in training, meaning equipment is underused as the proliferation of learning objects drawing on a limited range of presentation technologies turned face-to-face sessions into glorified reading exercises, leaving in their wake swathes of victims of “death by PowerPoint”. Meanwhile, doubts have been cast on the assumption that technology automatically improves learning outcomes, and on the willingness of teachers to share and borrow such resources. Likewise attempts to promote shareability across disciplines by stripping out much of their social context seem to fly in the face of Vygotsky's now well established theory of learning. To address such issues, the Birmingham City University (BCU) set up a project to produce shareable learning objects targeting pre-registration students in the Mental Health Nursing Division (MHND), in collaboration with the university's Centre for Enhancing Learning and Teaching (CELT) and based on a survey of attitudes to existing e-learning resources.

One early identified factor was students' approach to learning. “Deep” learners tend to examine evidence critically in their search for meaning. “Shallow” learners, on the other hand, try to memorise, appearing to know what they may not understand thus contributing to a theory/practice gap. For nursing in particular, while recognising the benefit of experience, it is nevertheless essential for health and safety that a person is “fit to practise at the point of registration”, including competence in collaborating with service-users and their families. With numerous studies suggesting no significant difference in knowledge between students exposed to interactive resources compared to traditional teaching, and employers' concerns that nursing graduates lack “soft skills” like team-working and negotiating abilities, one major challenge for e-learning objects is to adopt a problem-solving approach which is as realistic as possible, with learners able to work cooperatively and the tutor acting as facilitor. As a result, MHND and CELT agreed three core criteria: the resources must be (a) relevant to a discursive, problem-based learning environment; (b) specific to the mental health nursing context and (c) the problems should be realistic.

Situated within CELT is the Student Agency for Learning and Teaching (SALT), which employs media students to work with lecturers under the direction of a project coordinator in order to create advanced multimedia content. Like the core objectives of the learning objects produced, key to the success of any SALT project are the “real world” nature of the tasks, their relevance to the media students' personal goals as well as to their clients, and the inherently collaborative approach they engender. Each project begins with three-way negotiation, exploring how to stretch both the expectations of the client department, such as MHND, and the knowledge and skills of SALT members.

As regards the features of resources, anecdotal evidence suggests that learners' concentration span is shorter for e-learning objects than when attending a lecture; and experience points to 20min as a maximum practical duration. Likewise, for projects to be economically viable, even when employing students, the resources produced must be reusable by a number of staff across different courses. For example, resources developed for courses on housing and planning, though highly specific in parts, included a module on the use of theodolites, equally applicable to the needs of archaeology or civil engineering courses. Transferring information in this way, especially if it would otherwise be difficult to communicate or demonstrate effectively to large groups, means staff members are released from having to go over old ground with those who maybe could not see, focusing instead on addressing students' higher level needs.

The SALT project approach has also been successfully applied to help bridge a theory/practice gap for students in the BCU's Jewelry School for example, by adding video to an electronic version of previously hand-written notes on the principles of welding. Similarly for the more traditionally academic Law School, SALT worked with lecturers to create an interactive company enabling students to grasp more easily the complex concepts behind the UK's new Companies Act by representing the different roles with people seated around a virtual boardroom table. As noted above, such learning objects encourage “deep” learning not to replace face-to-face teaching, but to allow lecturers to focus more on group work than on simple information transfer.

After development, which always includes exploring opportunities for sharing and at least notifying all possible interested departments of its existence, each resource is stored in the central Repository of Online Learning Objects (ROLO), where it can be linked to, edited and maintained. In the case of MHND resources, statistics of usage are positive, with 51 per cent of students saying they use them “a lot” and a further 37 per cent “sometimes”, while 34 per cent find they relevant to a “large extent” and 55 per cent to “some extent”. Only 3 per cent of respondents never said they used them and so could not comment on their relevance. Certainly transactions for MHND resources on ROLO have increased dramatically from 2,000 in 2005 to 50,000 in 2006 and 110,000 in 2007; and, as a result, the initiative is being extended from learning objects limited to the pre-registration phrase to devise materials for the curriculum as a whole.

The existence of ROLO has been a significant factor in the sharing and reuse resources, with active consideration being given to making them available on Britain's national repository, JORUM. Furthermore, the BCU's drive for more flexible learning means that most staff are redesigning curricula and teaching methodologies to incorporate shared resources. However, in view of the costs involved, the authors recommend that careful consideration be give to the following issues:

  •   Does a perceived need for such resources exist?

  •   Will they significantly enhance and “deepen” student learning?

  •   Are the pedagogical reasons for their introduction sound?

  •   Can they be readily adapted by other departments and reused?

  •   Are rapid technological advances, especially in the discipline taught, likely to mean they become obsolete too soon?

The wrong answers to these questions suggest that the costs of rewriting curricula to fit the learning objects will be difficult to justify.

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