Learning activities loosely coupled with Sakai @ UCT

1. Learning activities loosely coupled with Sakai @ UCT Andrew Deacon Learning DesignerCentre for Educational TechnologyUniversity of Cape Town

2. Developing learning activities at UCT • A story about learning activities at UCT…… and developmental support from the centre • Expectations • Process • Products (i.e., learning activities) • Approaches • Loosely coupled with Sakai (Vula)

3. Expectations: Healthy ecology • Showing signs of more than just… • sharing files and URLs • doing quizzes • Seeing learning… • as process involving scafolding and feedback • as developing a community or environment • Tutorial-style learning • Ideals of Socrates, Oxbridge tutors & robot mentor • Being able to practice with scafolded support

4. Process: Supporting curriculum projects at UCT • What curriculum projects? • Content specific to course & lecturer • Need learning design and additional support Something more (e.g., Sakai + support + learning design) Use standard offerings (i.e., Sakai + support)

5. Process: Pool of adopters • Over the last two years: • Projects: 10 involving some development • Grants: 24 approved • Many more discussions and people’s own projects • A fraction of: • Total Sakai (Vula) course owners (about 250) • Total creators of some educational technology (?) • Reality is its difficult for lectures to: • Know what, who or how to ask for support • Identifying suitable projects and allocate time

6. Case: History course - digital archives • History course using a digital archive • Wiki as introduction – students describe a document • Course site then used for announcements etc. • Interested in usability of the digital archive

7. Products: What is created at UCT What are typically developed: • Stand-alone applications • Classical desktop apps (less common now) • Specialist code libraries (from research) • Worldware activities • Adapt ubiquitous applications (e.g., Excel, PhotoShop) • Use scripting to add functionality (e.g., generate data) • Web applications • Websites (typically information with links) • Web applications (e.g., simulations)

8. Case: Biology course - gene mapping tutorial • Excel widely used for tutorial-style activities • Familiar, widely installed, easy to edit • Overlook usability, randomizing and automation

9. Case: Other Excel-based tutorials • Could have used Calc in OpenOffice – are cases • Attraction likely about confidence and autonomy • Examples from UCT • Statistics use with lecture demonstrations • Numeracy Centre create ~200 tutorials • Saving responses to a database • Automated assessment • Coupling with learning environments • Traditionally none or just downloads (is changing) • Psychology: used wiki as ‘shared database’

10. Approaches: How things often evolve… • Stronger focus on content and learning implies: • Simple approach to sharing data / information • Typically sharing files (straightforward) • Rarely data objects (more interesting) • Simple approach to access control • Typically global access • Rarely group access (can get complex) • Minimal administration support • Often little need but can become an issue • Little interest in standards • Often no benefits and to time to learn

11. Approaches: Cycle of expansive learning 7. Consolidating new practices Stabilization 1. Questioning 6. Reflecting on process Need state Challenges Yrjö Engeström 2. Analyzing 5. Implementing new models Constraints Adjustments & enrichment 3. Building new models as solutions 4. Analyzing and discussing models Breakthrough

12. Case: Film Studies - Director’s Cut • Film theory course (250 students) • Linking praxis & theory • Integrate editing, rational, quiz • Automate feedback and workflow • Other variants with similar learning design…

13. Case: Media Studies - News scriptwriting

14. Reflections: Different points of view • With strong focus on academic content… • Only needs to work for one student cohort per year • Incremental developmental cycle over years • Most familiar software used in research and admin • Software standards / architectures not always followed • Slow adopter of web services and new frameworks • Many ways to loosely couple components • Staff developmental role important

15. Reflections : Different points of view • What do keen ‘Ed Tech’ educators do… • Are modifying / customising software apps • Reflects very much their own needs & interests • What should designers do? • Cannot be seen as big-D Designers • Need many ‘disposable designs’ • Negotiate appropriate design choices • Use familiar, simple, cheap & fast prototypes • Using same tools gives bias towards same products

16. Conclusions • Functioning as ‘boundary workers’ • Draw in what people just do anyway (cannot change) • Encourage sharing of experiences (rhetoric appeals) • Trends observed… • Expectations: elusive indicators of learning • Process: starting points very different • Products: reflect local skills; available tools • Approaches: learning issues; choices under constrains • Loose coupling with learning environments • Need support for these processes