Pandemic Ripples (Asynchronous Session)
Potential of QR Codes Applications in Self-help Groups Training to Enhance Learning Experiences View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Eunice Owino
COVID-19 pandemic is considered to be a crisis of profound magnitude. The pandemic has disrupted learning and training for self-help groups (SHGs). The ‘pile-on-effect’ of COVID-19 on learning and training could have long term implications— food insecurity, collapse of SHGs, stagnation of SHGs among others. Amidst this the growth and use of mobile technologies and Quick Response (QR) codes, have great potential to improve teaching and learning because mobile technologies enable learning across multiple contexts, through social and content interactions (Crompton, 2013). This nature of technology has the power to improve the lives of people by enabling access to knowledge. In this study, the use of QR codes and mobile devices will be studied and analysed in the training of SHGs to enhance learning in this COVID-19 era. The general objective or the study is to investigate the application of QR Code and mobile phones in SHGs training to enhance learning experiences. Specific objectives include: 1. To identify the various forms of learning through new technologies on SHGs 2. To investigate the use of the QR Code and mobile devices as a learning technique for SHGs 3.To analyse the effect of QR Codes and mobile devices application in SHGs training to enhance learning Methodology Participants will be drawn from five counties in SHGs. Purposive sampling is used. The research data was collected with surveys and interviews.
Using Learning Analytics to Manage the Transition to Online Learning During COVID-19 in King Abdulaziz University
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Norah Al Malki, Lamya Baharith,, Hisham Bardesi
The paper reviews the learning analytics key performance indicators (KPIs) which King Abdulaziz University has created and monitored to track students’ engagement with content, assessments, and collaborative activities during the shutdown caused by the pandemic, and the subsequent transition to e-learning to ensure the provision of its academic offering. Also, it reflects on the decision-making process and outcomes which relied on the data retrieved; especially, with relation to such processes as support, training, policy design, and the continuous investigation of potential educational wastage.
‘Mixed-tape Methods’ for Data in Post-digital Times of Disease View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Kathryn Coleman, Kristal Spreadborough, Amanda Belton, Thomas Cochrane
In 2020, our teaching and research moved almost exclusively online. Zoom was a must have tool for communication. The shift online has impacted our academic, research, and teaching practices. But can the data traces generated by this shift be leveraged to understand and enhance how we work in and for education? We propose that, as knowledge makers, relational feedback loops and ‘mixed-tape methods’ can create new ways for do-ing, be-ing and know-ing from one data site to another. Doing research during a time of disruption using an iterative approach allows us to adapt the methods as our work and life circumstances changed in response to the pandemic, throughout the uncertainties of life in lockdown we collaboratively co-designed our work. The work of co-designing feedback loops in partnership highlight how the digital enables experience and engagement that generates new experiences and engagements, enabling us to establish new ways of exploring new possibilities with/in. The uncertain unknowns of a covid-normal arts sector means that co-designed arts education gives some solid ground for teachers and learners to create and navigate their future paths. We will present and perform the effects of these experiences and engagements on artists and the arts community in a pandemic and explore the affects of these experiences and engagements for education. We acknowledge that we live and work on the lands of the Wurundjeri people that hold stories across time and space. #Datacreativities is a co-lab of interdisciplinary digital research cross faculty partnership, we examine #datacreative using feedback loops.
“Play Is the First Casualty”: Pedagogical Encounters with Miro as a Speculative Middle View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Angela Molloy Murphy, Melissa Van Bergen, Sarah Williams
In a time of social precarity and isolation, how can educators put collaborative online learning platforms to work in support of equitable, collective, and innovative pedagogies? Drawing from data provocated by the pandemic, three educators generatively encounter their theory-building with students and Miro classrooms in various educational contexts. We present a practice-based consideration of Miro, an infinite digital whiteboard, that provides a captivating space for conceptualizing place and proximity in the time of COVID. In this study, we offer a compelling window into Miro classrooms that were created to support collective and democratic social imaginaries for and with young children, education professionals, and tertiary students, discussing the pedagogical intentions therein. Across our varied contexts, we discover the whiteboard’s speculative capacity holds the potential to transform learning into a dynamically multidimensional sphere. Our findings imply that using Miro as a way of being together/apart evinces a sense of playfulness, risk-taking, and experimentation among learners across the ages. In a digitally collaborative landscape, a portal to pretend opens, empowering the learner in relation to their unique spacetimematterings. This paper considers how Miro holds the potential to illuminate the formative and interdependent nature of social constructivism, centering equity and curiosity, and confronting the indelibly entwined aspects of teaching and learning. We propose/wonder how designing and learning with digital technologies such as Miro, affords a captivating platform for revealing the expansiveness of the thinking we might imagine about ourselves, each other, and learning.
It's not All Zoom and Gloom: Pre-service Teachers' Reflections on Learning How to Teach Online
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Peter Tiernan
COVID 19 represented a challenge for many educators, with teachers needing to pivot rapidly to using online learning tools. This was particularly relevant for teachers completing their initial teacher education (ITE), whose programmes of study did not include online teaching components. In response, the author developed a module titled ‘teaching in online and blended learning environments’ for post-primary teachers currently completing their ITE. This paper examines the key areas impacting the delivery of online and blended learning, including: online learning theories and approaches; and the technologies needed. Next the author explains the module, outlining the tools, strategies and activities provided, including online micro-teaching components, which formed a major part of students' learning. Following the module, students completed reflections on their experiences using digital tools to teach, the learning achieved, potential impact on practice, and remaining challenges. Findings from these reflections show that students engaged fully with the module, with a sense of relief and gratitude that support was provided in a time of need. Many students were surprised by how quickly they adapted to delivering content online, feeling that the module gave them the push they needed to engage with online teaching. While challenges remain, for example (online) classroom management, students felt more prepared for online teaching. They noted that being introduced to the tools available for online and blended learning, held value not only during the COVID 19 crisis, but also as tools for their future teaching practice.
Our Pandemic 2021 Versus 1984 - Technology, Interconnectedness, and Social Ineptitude : A Case of History Repeating Itself View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Jytte Holmqvist
A number of reviews of Orwell’s totalitarian tale 1984 – with a filmic sci-fi drama based on the book released in 1956 - interpret it in an antisemitism-oriented light. In his symbolic, classic yet timeless narrative, Orwell leaves us with a political message and shows “how the possibilities of human nature are undermined by the overwhelming power of the political order that surrounds us” (White 2008, 11). Narrated as a fable, 1984 is a sombre reflection on a utopia turned dystopia where power falls into the hands of a privileged elite. Fast-forward to 2021 and as COVID-19 impacts on the world at large, it has triggered a plethora of new inventions as we operate under new conditions in an increasingly technocratic society. In today’s New Normal or era of interrupted realities 1984 offers many insights. The oppressed are yet again the masses yet while the minority crushes the majority in 1984, the current virus conquers the world without prejudice. With our reality resembling science fiction, we are alienated from one another in real time yet approach each other virtually. Technology our guiding star, we have gained increased sets of transferrable skills and become technologically savvier by the minute yet may become all the more socially awkward – perhaps even inept. This paper makes a sweeping comparison between pandemic overreliance on technology and the future society envisioned in 1984; Orwell’s fable now stepping away from the page, seeping into or current context and becoming our reality as we (didn’t) know it.
