Online Learning
Collaborative Online Academic Reading : Learning from the Social Reading Experience of Teacher Education Students
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Noeline Wright
A common frustration in tertiary education is that students tend to be reluctant to read and engage with, assigned academic texts. This presentation asks: Would this reluctance alter if students could collaboratively read, and comment on, an academic text online? From a thematic analysis of students’ online posts about the online reading task, three key findings emerged. Firstly, sentence starters rather than questions made it easier for students to begin a response about the text, Secondly, students believed that by being able to comment together about the text, created social spaces in which they interacted with the text more deeply and actively than they might otherwise. Usual practice, the admitted, was often a cursory skim reading rather than purposeful and engaged critical reading. The major downside was that each group needed someone to begin the commenting to initiate the collaborative responding, and whoever initiated this, felt exposed regarding their opinions and observations. On the other hand, other group members enjoyed reading the text with a peer’s thoughts and views in mind, making it easier to read more deeply themselves. Overall, sharing perspectives about the text helped make the reading experience more positive and rewarding.
Interaction Key to Learning a Foreign Language in an Online Environment
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Weihsun Mao
Online learning has emerged recently as a particularly appealing and popular method of pedagogy. Despite this, effective online instruction has remained a complex and unresolved issue for instructors. Foreign language instruction may be a particularly difficult subject for the online environment, as the online setting precludes many of the pedagogical devices accepted for effective teaching in traditional, face-to-face environments. That the predominant demographic of online course participants consists of part-time students may further exacerbate the difficulties of foreign language pedagogy. Thus, there is a clear need to develop a deployable pedagogical framework that can meet these challenges. We hypothesized that an online environment constructed specifically to demand and foster robust interactions between and amongst students can increase the effectiveness of foreign language instruction, specifically in the context of introductory Mandarin for part-time, English-speaking students. To do this, we implemented a wide range of online learning tools, including those using built-in course management system (CMS) software, as well as innovative assignments. The effectiveness and impact of these strategies over eight semesters were evaluated from detailed student feedback. Over 90% of students from 15 different sections perceived a positive effect of these strategies on their participation, interaction with peers, learning, and mastery of the language. The results of this study provide blueprints for web-based learning modules, which we show significantly enhance the effectiveness of online foreign language pedagogy.
Using Social Media for Teaching and Learning in Public Schools
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Gedala Mulliah Naidoo, Avashni Reddy Moonasamy, Hemduth Rugbeer
South Africa’s Basic Education has faced many difficulties such as infrastructure, students’ performance, and overcrowding. Many classrooms are not adequately equipped with furniture and a shortage of resources: such as textbooks and other important learning materials. While the shortage of resources has increased, the classrooms are continually being filled with a new grouping of children which are referred to as “Generation Z” (iGens). Social media has become an integral part of communication and has transformed how one communicates. Innovative technology provides opportunities to maximize creativity and innovative learning strategies in the classroom and a positive supplement to bridge the gap between education. The paper focused on how social media can be augmented in transforming the classroom of yesterday into a more interactive classroom today. The research was conducted through a quantitative approach using a questionnaire as an instrument and semi-structured interviews. The results indicated that social media will assist and benefit the teaching and learning process. A total of 79% of the sample asserts that newer methods of teaching work better than older methods. This is largely due to the change of the classroom makeup. It is recommended that private schools in South Africa have already begun implementing ICT’s as part of the curriculum; learners at public schools are therefore at a disadvantage and this needs to be remedied so that we can prepare our youth to succeed both nationally and internationally. The education sector should earnestly embrace this and continue to keep abreast with developing social media technology.
Choosing Technology for the Mature Classroom: Students’ Motivations and Barriers
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Rachel Staddon
Mature students (aged 26 or above) have become a recent focus in widening participation. Mature students are often stereotypically viewed as having negative attitudes towards technology and subsequently avoiding it. Since HE is continuing to move towards a widespread embedding of technology, it is vital to find ways to make university teaching involving technology age inclusive. This paper presents the findings from a qualitative study exploring mature students’ attitudes towards technology and their motivations for choosing or avoiding technologies. The following research questions were posed: What are the attitudes of mature students to technology enhanced learning compared to younger HE students? and, What factors affect their attitudes and confidence with TEL? Students from a range of age groups were invited to be interviewed about their experiences of technology and technology enhanced learning. In total, eleven participants were interviewed (six of whom were mature). A thematic analysis was carried out on this data. Emerging themes have been identified surrounding students’ motivation to use technology generally, as well as choosing specific technologies. Further themes have been identified around barriers and challenges to using technology, the importance of familiarity and exposure, the design of technology, and its ability to facilitate interaction. These findings will be useful to educators internationally who teach groups that may include mature students, and are concerned with using and developing resources that are inclusive of mature students’ needs.
