iPads and the word eLearning

While our work here at the college continues with the iPad trials, I am always interested to read and discover from the work of others in using tablet technology. Not so much with regard to the use of tablets as really this is more directly the evolutionary transition of anyone’s tech experience, but more by way of how they could be utilised in improving outcomes in a way that cannot be readily achieved using the now more traditional desktop technology. So I was encouraged to discover a net article recently entitled ‘Technology makes a difference in student achievement’ from sourcenewspapers.com, where a teacher describes how she managed to improve here class outcomes from 81 percent with 100 percent, and attributes this to the use of iPads, an interesting though somewhat specialist approach however still very much worth a read. I felt.

Is it time to drop the e from the term eLearning? and this is a discussion that has been going on for some time now and one that I came across originally back in 2007 in a blog posting from Donald Taylor. If you would like to see that posting then you can find it here and so therefore I will not attempt to repeat the salient points in  this post. More to the point for now though are two other postings namely ‘10 Tech Skills Every Student Should Have’ and ‘10 Important Skills Students need for the Future’. It does seem to me that all to often we feel the need to ensure that teachers have the necessary skills for the creation of content and its  delivery, of what for want of a better term I will call eMaterials, but what do we assume about students. If you feel you have not considered that question fully enough then please follow the two links, and you may well find as I have one or two that you may not have given due consideration to.

That's all now now, but do please stay in touch with this blog and of course feel free to comment.

Lets try audio

Well back into the swing with the vle for the new academic year and time to try out some new I thought. The Assignment submission in Moodle is a really nice feature, students upload their work, that you can access and read, then you either feedback live using the text box and award a grade or alternatively download the assignment, hi-light and add connects the upload this as a more detailed way of guided response. It was last academic year that I went along to a Partner College event and saw a presentation on using audio feedback, in fact this had been part of a JISC trial and you may like to follow this link for a lot more information, guides and case studies on the use of audio feedback, under the headings of :-

• What are the benefits of audio feedback over written or verbal feedback?

• Are there any specialist skills that need to be learned?

• Is it time/cost effective?

• How do students feel about audio feedback?

So how can you record the audio feedback? Well I made use of Audacity and if you wish to export to MP3 format then you will also need to download the Lame MP3 Encoder plugin as well, all very straightforward. Depending upon your own approach to providing feedback, whether you read the whole document first or comment a section at a time, moving over to audio really makes little difference. My first impression is that this really is a better method when it comes to giving complex explanations; ideas can be developed in real time, and lends themselves a more personalised response.   As far as sheer volume of feedback is concerned, an average word count for the audio files revealed a figure of 671, and for my typical font size this amounts to about 1.3 sides of A4, I think more than I would usually do on average, or  without doubt at or above the upper limit of my handwritten or typed feedback.

Have you tried audio feedback for your own classes, if so then please feel free to comment and share your views.