Social media and e-learning in history teaching in UK HE – filling a gap?

1. Social media and e-learning in history teaching in UK HE – filling a gap? Dr Jamie Wood, University of Lincoln

2. TWO PARTS E-learning and history teaching in higher education: a survey (2012-13, HEA) My experiences of using social media • Questioning the Medieval using social bookmarking • Other experiments • http://www.slideshare.net/woodjamie/

3. PART I: E-learning and history teaching survey RESEARCH QUESTIONS What are benefits of e-learning for student learning and staff teaching in History HE? What are the challenges and drawbacks of e-learning?

4. METHODOLOGY Survey (http://tinyurl.com/8kkz524) administered to 1st and 2nd year students at 5 UK History departments • 38 students responded (11 x 1st years/ 27 x 2nd years) • Mainly History, but also joint degrees Interview with 1 member of teaching staff at 5 UK History departments

5. RESULTS (from students) TYPES OF TECHNOLOGY USED

6. HOW IMPORTANT ARE TECHNOLOGIES TO YOUR LEARNING? (between 1 and 10, where 1=not at all; 10=essential) frequency => importance =>

7. WHAT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT TECHNOLOGY FOR LEARNING? Virtual learning environments (31 responses); used as: • repository (21 responses) • site for assessment and feedback (5) • means of communication (5) • site for enhancing learning (3): • ‘refreshing my memory’ • ‘enabled me to easily organise my learning’ • taking ‘own personal notes’ to learn by ‘observing things’  YouTube/ online library resources/ databases/ university portal (2 responses each)

8. EXTENT TO WHICH TECHNOLOGIES ENHANCED LEARNING IN FOLLOWING AREAS... (students provided rating from1-5, 1=not at all; 5=a great deal) Preparing for class: 4.26 (staff: 8.3/10) Preparing for assessment: 4.26 (6.6/10) Working independently: 4.05 (6.9/10) Reflecting on learning: 4.03 (5.9/10) Subject knowledge: 3.79 (6.9/10) Skills development: 3.03 (5.2/10) Collaborative working: 2.45 (3.1/10)

9. SKILLS DEVELOPED

10. NEGATIVE IMPACTS Technical issues Repositories are useful, but too much reliance on them: • ‘sort of dumbing down or levelling out [...] these things might encourage a bit more spoon-feeding’ (staff) Some skills are not developed: • ‘hasn’t really developed skills that I believe are essential part of uni process. i.e. teamwork, discussion and developing your own interest of study’ (student)

11. STUDENT SKILLS, EXPERIENCES AND EXPECTATIONS SUMMARY OFSTAFF PERSPECTIVES Students are not ‘digital natives’, esp. within discipline Researching using the Internet is challenging Over-reliance on e-learning can reduce independence A ‘narrowing’ effect, esp. among 1st year and weaker students (the VLE repository contains ‘everything’) Some resistance to learning activities outside classroom and to interacting with one another

12. SUMMARY OF PART I Virtual learning environments predominate and, in general, are viewed positively by students and staff Issues, e.g.: ‘Getting all lecturers to embrace technology would be a step forward‘ Limiting features • Staff AND students think that it doesn’t help that much in certain areas (team-working; developing some skills) • Narrowing/ a closed body of knowledge? Esp. for weaker students perhaps • Can promote teacher-centred/ transmission approaches

13. PART II: Questioning the Medieval using social bookmarking... and other adventures in social (and not so social) media

14. social bookmarking Internet users manage bookmarks of web pages online (not on a browser) using tags/ descriptions, not folders Active engagement – students have to do something Online/ social element – enables collaboration, sharing and visibility See Taha and Wood (2011) for more on this

15. ‘Challenges’ and ‘opportunities’ (or ‘problems’) Y1 lecture-based module in History My perception: • Lack of student preparation or maybe lack of engagement with reading Result: • Difficult to plan seminars and to carry them out • Over preparation; formulaic/ rigid structure; double preparation Solution = use visible & active learning – i.e. require the students to do something outside class that we could all see

16. Diigo education edition Private, separate logins Sharing Highlighting Sticky-noting

17. Basic weekly activity Students find online resources relating to the weekly topic Students ‘tag’, describe and share resources Then post questions based on reading to discussion forum in diigo Resources + questions = my seminar plan For some of resources see: https://www.diigo.com/user/pagansxtians

18. But variety is key... • Non-written sources • Find and bookmark a non-written source (YouTube; Flickr) • In description, explain why this source is relevant to the seminar • Locating and bookmarking source(s) • Find and bookmark primary/ secondary source • Add description and tags • Highlighting • Highlight and comment on relevant sections of a pre-selected document • Essay writing • Respond to feedback on essays by bookmarking a relevant site • Revise thesis statement from first essay and post to discussion forum • Questioning • Post a (specific kind of) question based on reading to the discussion forum ...otherwise it gets boring See appendix to Wood, 2011, for more on this

19. STUDENT FEEDBACK Practical: for preparing essays Independence: enjoyed the opportunity to find own sources Freedom: ‘There is more freedom of choice about what to read’ Variety: ‘it is much more interesting, and because you are not only reading, it is easier to absorb information’.

20. LEARNING FROM OTHERS ‘it has been good to see what other people have put and there was probably more variation in the questions than if the tutor was to set them.’ ‘it allows you to see a wider range of issues that come up from sources - some that you may not even have thought about.’ + 12 out of 15 students felt that their research skillshad improved

21. POSING QUESTIONS AND SOURCES ‘it forces you to think about the source material and be analytical in response to it’ ‘it makes you think about what you're reading a lot more, and opens up the area of reading to different paths of thought.’ Taking charge of learning: ‘I used to prefer having the questions set for me but I think it has been more useful setting them myself as it has made me think about the reading more.’

22. WHAT’S GOING ON? Models disciplinary processes • [+ it’s realistic and honest] Develops • Disciplinary skills: summarising; using sources • Knowledge: students have to read AND think • ‘Generic’ skills: technology; information literacy; research For more on this see Wood, 2011 and Wood and Ryan, 2010

23. Another (brief) example: generative learning objects (GLOs) • GLOs: learning objects that can be customised, adapted, edited or recombined (based on free templates at http://glomaker.org/) • DIY: developed 2 GLOs (click on images below for links) based on the Evaluating Multiple Interpretations (EMI) template • Students presented with images/ information about a physical object • Students complete questions/ activities • EMI revolves around audio footage of experts offering their interpretations of various aspects of the physical object. • For more info click here

24. ‘OUTWARD LOOKING’ LEARNING Theology and Religious Studies looking outwards: knowledge transfer as a strategy for learning and assessment in the curriculum (UoM/ HEA, 2012) • Website includes links to blog and case studies Mini examples: • Students create maps of historical events/ processes by adding ‘tags’ to Google Maps and annotating them: The Spread of Lutheranism (collaboratively; 1 seminar) • Students create a website using Google Sites: Women in the Middle East (collaboratively/ independently; seminar series)

25. ‘MAKING DIGITAL HISTORY’ (UoL/HEA) Making ‘outward looking’ resources in collaboration with students in the curriculum using Xerte toolkit • i.e. like the GLO project above, but the student learn by making learning materials for use by others Developing online repositories for primary sources, • partially as a venue for dissemination of outward looking work • but also to enable more ‘open’ student inquiry online

26. CONCLUDING THOUGHTS Practice is piecemeal and not universally popular with staff/ students (‘new-fangled’; not what ‘proper’ History is about) But Social Media develops skills that VLEs don’t seem to (if well-designed and supported): • Constructive and ‘open’ research on the web • Collaborative learning, developing team working skills • Visible ‘outward looking’ products of learning encourage students to think about audience, genre, register

27. MORE ABOUT ME http://ulincoln.academia.edu/JamieWood (L&T and other presentations/ papers) http://staff.lincoln.ac.uk/jwood (homepage at Lincoln) jwood@lincoln.ac.uk (email)