Search results

Over 1,250 people with intellectual disabilities die unnecessarily every year in NHS care. The purpose of this paper is to develop higher-order learning amongst medical students to increase engagement with this disadvantaged group and redress this injustice in care provision.

The Psychiatry of Intellectual Disability input to University College London's (UCL) undergraduate medicine MBBS curriculum was re-designed. Materials were developed to broaden the students’ understanding of the stigma and health implication of intellectual disability and the affect it has on the care received by these patients. These were delivered in lecture and e-learning formats. The concept of psychological capital was used to frame the development of new materials with direct involvement of service users with intellectual disability. It is a management model designed to promote higher levels of learning, resulting in a deeper understanding of patient issues by UCL medical graduates.

Findings from the online survey that accompanies the e-learning materials suggests that students have overwhelmingly adopted a positive outlook towards patients with intellectual disability and consider training necessary for all doctors. The filmed scenarios with people with intellectual disability appealed to students.

The broadening of the educational materials required a re-design of the methods of curriculum delivery, a higher level of self-directed learning and student time commitment. Further assessments of the impact of the module are planned to include formative assessments of learning.

Medical lack of knowledge, personal attitudes and a reluctance to engage with people with intellectual disability have been identified as barriers to their receiving appropriate care.

A blend of organisational change theories has been integrated into the production of a new, multi-media, e-learning package.

This article proposes a new paradigm including the concepts of contextualized multiple intelligences (CMIs) and triplization for reforming education. A pentagon theory is developed as the base for learning and teaching, to help students develop the necessary CMIs in the new century. Then the article illustrates the concepts and processes of triplization, including globalization, localization, and individualization, and explains why they together can provide a completely new paradigm to reform school education, curricula and pedagogy and how they can substantially contribute to the development of CMIs, of not only students, but also teachers and schools. Finally, the implications of the new paradigm for changing curricula and pedagogy are advanced. It is hoped that the new century education can support students becoming CMI citizens, who will be engaged in life‐long learning and will creatively contribute to building up a multiple intelligence society and global village.

If initial attempts to incorporate reusable multimedia into university teaching were characterised by the efforts of enthusiasts, the growth of the “Learning Object” economy in recent years requires a more strategic and systems‐based approach. While all reusable learning materials have a value, both financial and educational, multimedia in particular is expensive to produce. Systematic production (based on ISO 14915 standards (2002a, 2002b, 2003) and evaluation of fitness for purpose, are paramount. Human‐centred design (HCD) methodologies, based on the ISO 13407 standard (1999), are now well‐established for ensuring that investments in technology result in benefits, and in particular lay heavy emphasis on the frequent use of evaluation. This paper reviews literature in educational multimedia production, interaction design, HCD, and pedagogy, and summarises ongoing attempts to standardise a definition of reusable learning objects (RLOs), with multimedia learning objects (MLOs) as a specific example. We conclude that evaluation must be central to the production and deployment of MLOs. We report on experiences applying an existing framework for effective production of multimedia learning resources, and propose revisions to this framework to add effective evaluation mechanisms.

This paper explores issues raised during the development and implementation of a new multimedia learning experience, outlining the context to the research and focussing on the changing roles for teachers and learners in the light of evolving new technologies. A backdrop of successive government policies to widening participation is provided to show the current rationale for higher education institutions encouraging staff to move towards on‐line learning. At institution level, this paper discusses the potential issues in the classroom that arise by asking both staff and students to change from more traditional ways of learning. Then the second part of the paper details the teaching problem behind the “INCOTERMS challenge” and covers the development of the multimedia tool. The final section of the paper reviews the evaluation of the tool by the students and discusses the findings in relation to the issues raised in the literature review.

This case study identifies factors influencing the implementation of e‐learning within the Australian Army training context.

A grounded theory approach was used to gain an understanding of the concerns of stakeholders involved in e‐learning implementation. This research included interviews with Army managers, course developers, instructional designers and instructors.

The main factors that were important for respondents involved in e‐learning management, design, development and delivery could be identified. This case study demonstrates the importance of maintaining focus on organisational priorities and learning goals while meeting the demands of change pressures.

This is an initial study to gain an overview of the main issues. More research will be required to understand the Army's e‐learning context and to confirm these findings. Further research will include other stakeholders, including trainees' perspectives and extend to other Army sites.

For effective implementation there needs to be a process of continual adaptation and alignment of e‐learning to reflect changing demands while meeting the priorities of the organisational culture and learners' needs.

This paper analyses the first independent external research into e‐learning in the Australian Army. Although this is a specialised context for e‐learning, the issues raised in this case study will inform research into other workplace e‐learning projects.

Flexibility, variety and adaptability is the name of the game in terms of attracting, retaining and motivating learners. Faced with a mind‐boggling choice of multi‐media solutions, training and human resources specialists are realising it is all down to finding the right blend and making sure it is well prepared. As the over‐riding aim of a blended learning training programme is to meet the training requirements of both individual learner and company, it is vital to ensure that the different learning media are employed appropriately and in the right mix. In order to benefit from a learning programme that will act as a strategic business resource, companies must invest in a blend created specially for them, their culture, their business objectives and their workforce.

An integrated Web engine (IWE) has been developed by the Internetworking program at Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada to deliver remote learning experience to geographically remote Master's students. The University intends to increase its student base through online education, retaining the same quality of interactions as the onsite program. To this end, the IWE accommodates three technology‐enabled learning environments that correlate with the three pedagogical approaches and types of onsite interaction. Discusses the e‐learning metrics, pedagogical and technical considerations that influence the design and implementation of the IWE environment. The IWE uses de facto networking standards, commercial and broadband Internet connectivity to ensure real‐time secure interaction with equipment and deliver lectures respectively. A four‐tier role architecture, consisting of faculty, local, remote facilitators, and students, has been determined to be appropriate and adapted to maintain academic integrity and offer the same quality of interaction as the onsite program.

In addition to providing a review of the literature recently published in the librarianship of non‐book materials this survey aims to draw attention to the characteristics, problems and achievements particular to the documentation and handling of non‐book materials (NBM) in many types of libraries. The materials are briefly described and considerations of selection, acquisition, organization, storage and in particular bibliographic control are dealt with in some detail. Other areas of concern to the librarian dealing with media resources, including the organization and training of staff, planning, equipment, exploitation and copyright, are also discussed. The past decade has seen the widespread introduction of NBM into libraries as additional or alternative sources of information. Librarians have been given an opportunity to rethink many basic principles and adapt existing practice to encompass the new materials. The survey reflects the achievements and some of the failures or problems remaining to be solved in this rapidly expanding area of library work.

Although digitalization in the workplace is burgeoning, tools are needed to facilitate personalized learning in informal learning settings. Existing knowledge recommendation techniques do not account for dynamic and task-oriented user preferences. The purpose of this paper is to propose a new design of a knowledge recommender system (RS) to fill this research gap and provide guidance for practitioners on how to enhance the effectiveness of workplace learning.

This study employs the design science research approach. A novel hybrid knowledge recommendation technique is proposed. An experiment was carried out in a case company to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed system design. Quantitative data were collected to investigate the influence of personalized knowledge service on users’ learning attitude.

The proposed personalized knowledge RS obtained satisfactory user feedback. The results also show that providing personalized knowledge service can positively influence users’ perceived usefulness of learning.

This research highlights the importance of providing digital support for workplace learners. The proposed new knowledge recommendation technique would be useful for practitioners and developers to harness information technology to facilitate workplace learning and effect organization learning strategies.

This study expands the scope of research on RS and workplace learning. This research also draws scholarly attention to the effective utilization of digital techniques, such as a RS, to support user decision making in the workplace.

The purpose of this paper is to outline a hierarchical model for developing essential e-textbook functionality and to offer important insight for e-textbook designers.

Guided by the SAMR model, five hierarchical functional layers are proposed in the development process for e-textbook to enable more effective and efficient teaching and learning.

Moving up from the substitution to transformation level, each layer extends the functionality of the underlying layers to unveil new features that support the learning processes and gradually transform e-textbooks from a self-directed informal learning tool to become a formal learning platform.

The hierarchical model provides e-textbook designers and developers with a guideline on how to surpass the present state of e-textbooks and offer additional value-added features for learners. The required technologies for each layer are also discussed.