JISC

Start date: 24 April 2006

End date: 26 October 2007

Funding programme: e-Learning Pedagogy programme

Project website: http://confluence.rave.ac.uk/confluence/x/eBU

JISC theme(s): e-Learning

Ravensbourne College of Design and Communication is a small, vocational, practice-based, institution in South East London serving the creative sectors of design and broadcasting. The College’s teaching and learning strategy favours a blended approach that recognises the broadly social-contructivist pedagogy of the institution.

The institution uses Moodle as its VLE, and several units of study are already delivered all or in part online. Experience with Moodle has suggested to learning designers that there are some shortcomings using a VLE in a creative, practice-based environment.

The unspoken assumptions of VLEs, particularly when approached by learners and teachers who are used to a visual and face to face learning style, namely, a text-orientation and a modular system of “boxes on screen” can entrench poor pedagogical practice, and can frustrate naïve users who feel they must work exclusively online in the VLE.

Contemporary VLEs may be considered as analogues of the classroom, and do not effectively support reflective and public exhibition of work that is a critical feature of creative education.

Those working in the field of elearning will see that “reflective and public exhibition”, a well established tradition in creative education, has close analogues with eportfolios. Moreover, it is increasingly recognised that creative practitioners will use online tools to manage their reputation and connect with creative communities, clients, and employers. For example, professional musicians used My Space as an important promotional and reputation-building tool.

In general, a blended elearning approach in a practice-based creative institution is sound sense as the creative industries must increasingly recognise the effect and the potential of digital technologies. Existing VLEs, however, do not entirely mesh with an important part of the learning journey, that is, reflective and public exhibition. In order to encourage adoption of elearning tools in such environments, it is important to establish systems and designs which enable good practice and meet the expectations of learners and teachers.

Building on the open source VLE Moodle, open source blogging tools, and the JISC-developed RELOAD tool-chain (including the more user-friendly WCKER), the Designs on Learning project intends to provide toolsets and exemplars for learning designers to embed blended elearning successfully in practice-based education.

Aims and Objectives

The project aims are to develop, implement and evaluate an institutional programme to:

• Establish best practice in develop blended elearning designs for practice-based education
• Pilot offline tools for implementing and participating in these designs
• Evaluate and implement an open-source blogging system linked to Moodle
• Provide a community-reviewable online resource to help learning designers embed good practice
• Provide learning designers with effective training in tool-use
• Evaluate the practice model, tool use, and learning designs, and make recommendations on their adoption and use
• Disseminate the results

The project objectives are to achieve:

• A collection of exemplars, case studies, and model learning designs
• An integrated blogging/VLE service
• A project wiki as a knowledge base and community resource for best practice
• Practitioner workshops to promote effective techniques and designs
• A documented trial of learning designs in practical use
• An evaluation report
• A series of disseminations on tools, technologies, and designs

Project Methodology

The overall strategy is to focus on pedagogy and good practice rather than prescriptive or technology-driven approaches to tool use and learning design. This maximises benefits for teachers and learners, and facilitates generalisation, and therefore wider applicability to the JISC community. Nevertheless a guiding criteria are interoperability and open standards. There are three phases to the work:

1. Development
2. Implementation
3. Evaluation and dissemination

Deliverables

Aim 1: Establish best practice in develop blended elearning designs for practice-based education.

• A corpus of exemplars, model designs, and case studies;
• Training materials for practitioners, and supporting information for learners.

Aim 2: Pilot offline tools for implementing and participating in these designs.

• Recommendations for proven tool-sets;
• Guidelines on tool-use;
• Bug reports, suggestions for improvement, and feature requests for tool developers.

Aim 3: Evaluate and implement an open-source blogging system linked to Moodle.

• Technical design and implementation of open-source blogging system with institutional integration;
• Report on the selection;
• Report on, and documentation for, the implementation.

Aim 4: Provide a community-reviewable online resource to help learning designers embed good practice.

• An open, usable community site containing all documentary outputs in the form of a wiki that encourages participation, comment and review;
• A project blog open to comment.

Aim 5: Provide learning designers with effective training in tool-use.

• A report on the training, highlighting successes and failures, and including recommendations for similar programmes at other institutions.

Aim 6: Evaluate the practice model, tool use, and learning designs, and make recommendations on their adoption and use.

• Evaluation conducted across diverse college programmes;
• Evaluation report.

Aim 7: Disseminate the results.

• A written report summarising the project and its findings;
• A series of dissemination events including conference paper delivery, workshops, and publications.

Stakeholders
Ravensbourne College IT Research and Development; Ravensbourne College Faculty of Design; Ravensbourne College Faculty of Communication; Ravensbourne College senior management; LRC and elearning advisory group; Students; South East London creative cluster – the practice-based institutions in South East London: Trinity-Laban, Rose Bruford College, and Ravensbourne College.
Software Developers
JISC-RSC London