CELT ExPedR 2009

ExPedR09 - Report from the University of Wollongong

2009-09-28T09:32:00.001+01:00

ExPedR09 - Report from James Cook University

2009-09-28T09:30:00.000+01:00

ExPedR09 - Final Team Report from HERDSA

2009-09-28T09:29:00.000+01:00

ExPedR09 - Team Report from HERDSA

2009-09-28T09:27:00.000+01:00

ExPedR09 - Final Report from Griffith University

2009-09-28T09:25:00.000+01:00

ExPedR09 - Report from Griffith University

2009-09-28T09:24:00.000+01:00

ExPedR09 - An Introduction (from Griffith University)

2009-09-28T09:22:00.001+01:00

Not forgetting the ones back home:-)

2009-09-24T16:05:00.002+01:00

It is great to see the progress that the team made on their HERDSA visit. Networking is an invaluable way of developing research.

From the trip, Gary met up with Sandra Jones from RMIT in Melbourne and she is helping us to develop our Change Academy project drawing on her experiences. She will also be visiting Newport on October 6th to meet with the ADs L&T, present a seminar and to discuss her ideas.

Dr Julian Green - HERDSA Presentation

2009-09-24T12:34:00.003+01:00

A photo video extract of Dr Julian Green's poster presentation at the HERDSA Conference, Darwin, Australia, on Tues 7th July 2009. Julian was a Learning Technologist in the School of Health and Social Sciences at the University of Wales, Newport, and a member of the CELT ExPedR 2009 team. He has since moved to the University of the West of England.

The Creation of Technology-Enhanced Mentorships and their Effect in Improving Perceptions of Social Inclusion and Skills in Older People and in New Undergraduates

Link to abstract: http://conference.herdsa.org.au/2009/concurrent01.html#3281

Prof Simon Haslett - HERDSA Presentation

2009-09-24T10:08:00.000+01:00

A video extract of Prof Simon Haslett's showcase presentation at the HERDSA Conference, Darwin, Australia, on Thurs 9th July 2009. Simon is Director of the Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching at the University of Wales, Newport, and a member of the CELT ExPedR 2009 team.

Undergraduate student mentor training and accreditation: the experience of Welsh Higher Education institutions and beyond

Link to abstract: http://conference.herdsa.org.au/2009/concurrent07.html#2302

Dr Nicola Woods - HERDSA Presentation

2009-09-24T09:28:00.000+01:00

A video extract of Dr Nicola Wood's workshop presentation at the HERDSA Conference, Darwin, Australia, on Wed 8th July 2009. Nicola is Associate Dean for Learning and Teaching in the School of Education at the University of Wales, Newport, and a member of the CELT ExPedR 2009 team.

Culture, Communication and Customs of Learning

Link to abstract: http://conference.herdsa.org.au/2009/concurrent06.html#2298

Dr Gary Pritchard - HERDSA Presentation

2009-09-24T08:55:00.000+01:00

A video extract of Dr Gary Pritchard's showcase presentation at the HERDSA Conference, Darwin, on Tues 7th July 2009. Gary is Associate Dean for Learning and Teaching in the School of Art, Media and Design at the University of Wales, Newport, and a member of the CELT ExPedR 2009 team.

All Students Are Talented: Exploiting The Strengths Potential Via A New Lens For Learning And Teaching

Link to abstract: http://conference.herdsa.org.au/2009/concurrent03.html#2301

Views from the bus to James Cook University

2009-07-28T11:05:00.000+01:00

HERDSA Report - Day 2

2009-07-23T06:30:00.000+01:00

Caught the Conference bus the next morning from central Darwin to the Casuarina Campus where the 200 or so delegates were welcomed by the DVC of Charles Darwin University. They have campuses all over the Northern Territory (Alice Springs and Katherine as well as Darwin) and have a mobile campus that visits some 170 remote settlements. They have about 20,000 students with 70% over 25, >50% part-time, and >50% are studying in the community.

Each delegate was given a keypad to allow the audience to respond to questions and as the Conference was entitled ‘The Student Experience’ we were asked to indicate, against a pre-drawn up list, what we considered to be the main challenges surrounding the student experience. The top 3 challenges were: 23% academic work demands, 17% student diversity, and 15% work-study balance (n = 170).

The first keynote followed by Prof Ron Oliver of Edith Cowan University entitled ‘Taking the distance out of off-campus study’, which examined the use of technology to engage students but with a focus on the activity and not the technology. He asked us what we thought were the main barriers to student engagement off-campus and the top 3 were: 32% limited engagement with learning, 24% limited interaction with other students, and 20% limited interaction with lecturers (n = 203). He went on to discuss the ‘learning engagement continuum’ from information access through organisation to processing by students. Although his research suggests most courses concentrate on providing access to information, he argued that students don’t learn efficiently until they have to process information, and controversially argued that learners learn best when they’re relatively pressed and uncomfortable! He finished with a discussion of learning designs and signposted ‘reuseable learning designs’ (http://aragorn.scca.ecu.edu.au/tsldb), and asked us what main message we would take home from his talk: 48% all learning should be planned and designed, 24% learning engagement is critical, and 14% it’s all about the learning tasks (n = 203).

After coffee the parallel sessions started (8 parallel sessions). The first I attended was by Pauline Hagel and colleagues from Deakin and La Trobe Universities on ‘Collaborative inquiry using learning projects’ where they were developing staff communities of practice in a Business Faculty spread over 3 campuses over 300km apart. They discussed Wenger’s (2000) model of review, practice, evaluation and reflection to base projects on. Somewhat related, but dealing with students, was the following talk by M. Kibby of the University of Newcastle in Australia on ‘Developing a research culture through first-year curriculum’ that looked at getting students to find, process and make conclusions from information by doing action research. In questions, Prof Angela Brew (Macquarie University) questioned whether this constituted a ‘research culture’, but the students seem to benefit nevertheless.

After lunch, I attended Gordon Joughin’s talk on ‘Student experience of assessment: what we don’t know’. Gordon is from the Centre for Educational Development and Interactive Resources (CEDIR) at the University of Wollongong, which I’ll be visiting later in the month. I had met Gordon before, who is well-respected in the field of assessment, and I was keen to hear what he had to say. He examined the ‘historical’ literature on assessment and dismissed the erroneous idea that has developed that assessment drives student learning. Assessment can be used to drive a surface approach to learning, but not a deep approach. His main message was that researchers should revisit original sources rather than rely on subsequent mis-readings of these works.

Slee and Smith of Charles Dawrin University then gave a presentation on the use of multiple-choice tests and presented a case study they had performed using the BlackBoard Virtual Learning Environment and provided useful information for anyone thinking of doing the same. They were working with off-campus learners and had particular issues related to student remoteness.

The last presentation I attended for the day was by Izabel Soliman, a co-editor of the journal Higher Education Research and Development. She talked about ‘Reviewing for HERD: shaping scholarship in higher education’ and examined the selection of reviewers and dealing with their comments, ironing out biases and reaching equitable editorial decisions. She invited delegates to visit the HERD website and sign up as a reviewer as they always needed more.

The first full day was very interesting altogether and the lunch and refreshment breaks were great opportunities to meet new colleagues, and the ExPedR Team from Newport also got together in the evening for dinner to discuss each others experiences of the day.

HERDSA Reports - Day 1

2009-07-23T06:29:00.000+01:00

Flew into Darwin on the afternoon of Monday 6th July and checked into my hotel. Went to the Conference reception at 6pm at Parliament House. Met up with colleagues there, and had meat pie au dervs and cold beer. The local aboriginal tribal leader welcomed us onto their traditional homeland and treated us with local aboriginal dances. This was followed by a trio of students from Charles Darwin University who gave us their personal insights into the ‘student experience’. Nice way to start the conference.

Update from Nicola in Tokyo

2009-07-18T12:16:00.000+01:00

The stopover in Tokyo went well and I had a very productive day at the University of the Sacred Heart - a women's Catholic university located in the centre of the city. I met many colleagues and also attended the departmental meeting of the English faculty. My colleague (Toshiko Hamaguchi) had arranged for me to visit the University Palace, where students learn traditional Japanese Arts. I was privileged to be given a full tour of the beautiful rooms by the university's expert historian.

My presentation on the pragmatics of English conversation was attended by students and staff in the English Department (where my book on discourse analysis is used as a course text). The students were delightful and we had great fun comparing the social conventions and customs of English with those characteristic of Japanese conversation (not least, the different conventions for expressing politeness and respect).

Toshiko and I will maintain contact so as to consider opportunities for collaborative research and L&T initiatives (we share interests in discourse analysis). I thoroughly enjoyed my day and am sincerely grateful to Dr. Hamaguchi for making it such a rewarding experience.

This is the end of my trip and so my final posting. All has gone well - we have put our CELT on the map and have worked hard to establish scholarly networks and opportunities for future collaborative research.

Best wishes to all,

Nicola

Oz Because

2009-07-14T01:25:00.000+01:00

So having done the Darwin HERDSA conference - some great contacts and some good sessions, arrived in Melbourne for the next leg. Nice city too - very cosmopolitan, friendly and fab food! Had a full day back-to-back meetings with RMIT colleagues. Very warm welcome despite the fact that they are going through a restructure and everyone was in a state of flux on jobs/ etc.

Agreed to explore student exchange possibilities and staff collaboration/research. Photography at RMIT is Australia's best, so some natural connection there with Newport. Also agreed to pass on details to other Schools in Newport - student exchange is a great experience for cohorts if they can fund the flights etc. Melbourne is ideal for this - no language issues, although with the exchange rate - not a cheap place to live.

This is the end of the business end of the trip - returning home via Hong Kong.

Great experience - hope we've helped put our CELT on the map and cemented a long relationship with RMIT

Update from Nicola

2009-07-13T23:24:00.000+01:00

The HERDSA conference was interesting, my workshop went well and the presentations by the guys were very well received (Julian is arranging for video clips of us all giving our presentations to be posted on the blog, so watch this space!). We met colleagues from all over Australia (as well as from NZ and beyond) and, between the four of us, established many good leads for future research relationships and networks. It was exhausting but worthwhile!

I arrived in Tokyo last night (culture shock after Darwin, to put it mildly) and will be giving my Linguistics presentation - The Characteristics of English Conversation - at the University of the Sacred Heart tomorrow. I'll also be meeting colleagues in the English and Education departments as well as visiting the University's PALACE, where the all female student population of the institution learn traditional Japanese arts. It will be fascinating, I'm sure. I'll report back soon.

Sending very best wishes to all,

Nicola

Final report from Griffith University

2009-07-13T06:40:00.000+01:00

Although it seems awhile ago now, I thought I had better write about my last day at Griffith University (3rd July) prior to flying to Darwin for the HERDSA Conference. I spent most of the morning meeting with Dr Calvin Smith, the Associate Director of the Griffith Institute for Higher Education, and we got on very well indeed and signed an agreement to foster closer links between the Griffith Institute and the Newport CELT. Indeed, he pledged that either he or a colleague would visit Newport before the year was out! After a successful meeting, I said goodbye to Calvin, Christine and their colleagues at the Griffith Institute, with a promise to put into action the agreement we had signed.

I then made the most of being at Griffith to visit their respected Centre for Coastal Management, which reflects my subject interests as a coastal geographer. My host at the Centre was Dr Hong Zhang of the School of Engineering, whose research specialises on coastal hydrodynamics. Hong kindly took me to lunch with her colleague Dr Graham Jenkins, whose father was, incidentally, from Newport! After lunch, I delivered a lecture on my research on the Severn Estuary, and with the current debate over the pro's and con's of the proposed Severn Barrage, was of interest to the 20 or so engineers present. After questions from the floor, Hong and I exchanged reprints of our papers and I suggested that I put the Newport Engineers in touch with her School.

My last task for the day, and indeed my visit to Griffith University, was to undertake some higher education 'field work' and have a look at the learning spaces provided by the campus library. Immediately as one walks in, you are confronted by rather unconventional furnishings and layout with soft furniture and virbant colours. There is an area they call the 'Tech Park' and a 'Laptop Lounge', but there weren't many students around because I was visiting in a vacation period. They also had a cafe style 'Journal Lounge' for consulting periodicals, journals and newspapers, with Friesian patterned flooring! There is also a general seating area called the 'Club Lounge', which has airport-style seating interspersed with chairs, soft cushions of different shapes, and wide open spaces that allow students to organise and manufacture their own learning environment. There is also some toghtly-packed lounge seating that seems conducive to lively student discussions.

The Library also provides an area with more traditional office-style tables and chairs, and whiteboards; and for those that feel more at ease perched on a bar-stool, the Library provides what I can only describe as a 'Learning Bar', which wouldn't seem out of place in a night club! I was also interested to see the modern designs of their 'Group Study Pods'. I have seen these in other libraries, but none quite so sci-fi looking as these. All of these different learning spaces were on the ground floor and, apart from periodicals, I didn't see a single book on the floor - they were upstairs. It seems the Griffith Library is an exciting place for student learning to take place in.

I really enjoyed my two days at Griffith University's Gold Coast Campus, made some good new colleagues in the Griffith Institute of Higher Education, and the Centre for Coastal Management, as well as getting some good ideas about learning spaces that I'm sure will be of interest back at Newport. I left Griffith looking forward to the enxt leg of the ExPedR trip and the HERDSA Conference in Darwin.

2009-07-06T06:02:00.000+01:00

Nicola's Visit to Charles Darwin University

2009-07-06T06:00:00.001+01:00

Hi,

I’ve just spent a very interesting day at Charles Darwin University. Further to arrangements made before we left on the CELT expedition, I met first with Margie Maher who is Associate Professor in the Education Department. Margie and I spoke about our students and found interesting similarities: many mature learners, students working full time as well as studying and, in general, students from many different cultures and walks of life.

I spoke about Newport’s exciting new Welsh medium programme in our Initial Teacher Training Department, and was interested to hear from Margie about Darwin’s ‘Growing our Own’ indigenous teacher education course – I’ll fill you in on the details as soon as I return. This led us to think about indigenous concepts of knowledge and what it means to be ‘literate’ in different societies (I feel very fortunate to have the chance to speak to colleagues on such intrinsically interesting and important matters).

At Margie’s invitation, I wondered around the campus and spoke to groups of students sitting outside enjoying the sunshine – so interesting to hear their narratives of learning and stories about the educational journeys that had led them to Darwin…

I was also very pleased to meet and speak to Robyn Philip of Darwin’s Teaching and Learning Quality Group (TLQDG). Robyn is an Education Developer in the unit and we discussed its organisation and, specifically, the role the unit plays in CPD. The Multimedia Development Team is part of the TLQDG: an important aspect given that a very high number of students are distance learners (more on this when I return….)

Both colleagues were interested to hear about our new CELT (as well as initiatives in our School of Education) and are keen to liaise in the future to establish research networks and pursue collaborative endeavours (Margie Maher is particularly interested in the linking Education and Applied Linguistics).

I shared a taxi on the way back with a group of colleagues from Deakin University (Victoria) – we talked about initiatives in TEL for distance learning and, finding that we’re staying in the same hotel, have made plans to catch up later today.

The HERDSA conference begins tomorrow and I give my workshop – Culture, Communication and Customs of Learning – on Wednesday.

Wish me good luck!

I’ll keep in touch and send very best wishes,

Nicola

Morning campers

2009-07-05T23:02:00.000+01:00

Is everyone planning to attend the Welcome Reception tonight (5.30-7.00)? If so, shall we all meet there or perhaps get together briefly beforehand or afterwards?
Nicola

2009-07-05T04:57:00.001+01:00

So arrived at Darwin hotel at 4.00am this morning from Singapore. Feeling pretty blitzed but happy to have the long flights behind me. My hotel seems to be about a 20 min drive from the uni, so need to suss out transport. Also need to write my powerpoint - might be useful for my talk on Tuesday!

Are we all meeting Monday morning somewhere? Look forward to catching up with you all - _ should have most of my senses back by then (no jokes please).

See you tomorrow

Hi from Griffith University

2009-07-03T01:15:00.000+01:00

I arrived here yesterday morning at the Gold Coast Campus of Griffith University, about an hour south of Brisbane in Queensland, Australia. Griffith is considered to be an innovative University with around 36,000 students and 1500 academic staff spread over five campuses in Brisbane and along the Gold Coast. It has a strong Community Education ethos and a notion of what it calls 'public scholarship'.

I'm here to visit the well-known Griffith Institute of Higher Education (GIHE) that supports the University's staff by providing high quality development programmes and resources in learning and teaching, much of which is based on the research undertaken by the 30 or so staff at the GIHE. They engage with academics through professional development activities that enhance the quality of learning and teaching at the University, and provide advice and support to academics to assist them in achieving high academic standards.

I'm really grateful to Christine Grimmer for inviting me to give a workshop on pedagogic research and writing here at the GIHE yesterday. Starting with lunch at 12 noon, the workshop went through the afternoon to finish with tea around 4pm - so quite a session! Around 20 academics particpated from right across the University, with colleagues attending from ICT, Engineering, Tourism, Health, as well as Education. Also, a couple of students came along too, which was great.

As well as talking about our institutions, we explored the links between research and teaching, unpicked the idea of research-informed teaching, and examined the concept of the research-teaching nexus. We also spent time discussing and reflecting where our own individual teaching practice sits within these concepts, and began to appreciate the value of the scholarship of learning and teaching, and pedagogic research, and why it is important to write about this for publication in scholarly journals and books. We also discussed the academic writing process itself and how to approach publishing your work.

In terms of exchanging good practice, Christine and I had some valuable conversations, and I guess if we were to chose one thing from the GIHE and the Newport CELT, Christine particularly liked the CELT publications (the Newport CELT Journal and the Newport NEXUS Conference Proceedings), and I was impressed by the series of short 'good practice guides' produced by the GIHE covering a range of topics from 'Internationalising the Curriculum' to 'Teaching Large Classes' - Christine kindly gave me a copy of each of these that I will bring back to Newport and distribute.

I'm really excited about today too, as later this morning I'm meeting with Dr Calvin Smith, the GIHE's Associate Director, to discuss possible ways in which the GIHE and the Newport CELT might forge links to work together in the future.

Darwin arrival

2009-07-03T00:39:00.000+01:00

Darwin update:

After an entertaining taxi ride where the driver took great delight in enumerating the many and varied ways of being stung, poisoned, bitten, eaten, chased and generally knocked around by the indigenous insect, reptile and fish populations, I arrived in Darwin late Wednesday evening to the sight of exploding fireworks. They really make you feel welcome here, I thought to myself. Sadly, this amazing spectacle wasn’t for my arrival in Darwin but was for their Territory Day – 1st July.

The climate here is very humid and hot – 35c – you may be complaining back home, but here it is really oppressive when you leave the shelter of the air con in the rooms, shops or buses. On arrival to the hotel, I saw the walls adorned with photographs of what appeared to be the aftermath of Hiroshima. It wasn’t; it was the devastation unleashed by the Darwin cyclone of Christmas eve 1974. All of this conspires to make you realise, comparatively, just how safe the UK is.

Well, today, I’m going to work on my conference presentation. If I have time, I will wander into the city and maybe go and have a look at the crocs in the crocosaurus viewing centre. And, in keeping with all things extreme here, they offer visitors the chance to go in the ‘cage of death’ – a plastic enclosure which lets you immerse yourself ‘safely’ with the giant crocs – some around 5m long… I won’t be doing this!

Nicola's Visit to the University of New South Wales

2009-07-02T13:50:00.000+01:00

2009-07-02T13:42:00.000+01:00

Hi,

Arrived in Sydney on Monday morning (having left Llangybi on Saturday lunchtime!) and all is well. Spent yesterday at the University of New South Wales which is located 10 km or so south of Sydney city centre: 40, 000 students (66% PT, 20% International) in 9 separate faculties and an L&T centre with 6 core staff and, wait for it Simon, approximately 40 support (including TEL) staff (with own suite of offices used for hosting L&T events, workshops staff dev. etc)!

I met with Dr Jacqui McManus of the L&T Centre (who kindly explained many of the current initiatives in L&T) and Prof. Prem Rambruth, who is Associate Dean for Education in the Business School (Prem’s background is in Applied Linguistics and we share interests in the relationship between culture, communication and patterns of learning). It was really a great opportunity to speak to both colleagues – I told them all about Newport, our new CELT and our ambition to establish international research networks. I’m pleased to say that both colleagues expressed interest in undertaking scholarly collaboration and visiting Newport when they are in the UK (both Prem and Jacqui mentioned that they visit quite often).

The UNSW campus is huge and very impressive – lots of clean open spaces, plenty of information for students (located where students like to be) and masses of student centred resources (including student study lounges, dedicated spaces for PGR students (Allan would be impressed!), shops, banks and varied food outlets selling reasonably priced international dishes. All showed a real commitment to the ‘student experience’…..

I've been trying to attach pics here but no luck. I'll send through in a separate posting.

I’d better run since I’m flying to Darwin this morning…. to meet colleagues at Charles Darwin University and then the HERDSA conference next week, of course.

I’ll keep in touch and send very best wishes to all,

Nicola

James Cook Uni - Part II

2009-07-01T04:20:00.000+01:00

Yesterday I met Dr Jason Holdsworth, a lecturer in IT. We swapped IT tips and e-learning tips and he told me about his e-learning research using mobile phones - pretty impressive stuff. I have his journal article to disseminate when I get home.

This is a view from Jason's building - rather spectacular isn't it!

Visiting James Cook University

2009-06-29T04:59:00.000+01:00

This first video is from the bus on my way to James Cook University from Cairns. It's very hot here, probably around 29c, although I understand it's probably not far off back home at the moment. No internet in room so am having to use internet cafes where possible - this is being sent from JC Uni thanks to the kind folks in the JC library.

I have just been talking to one of the e-learning people here, Mark Collins, and found out they don't use Moodle !! Surely this is heresy in the country that gave birth to the mighty Moodle? Instead they use BlackBoard - apparently so do the high schools too.

Also, we talked about Second Life and they found that there were two significant problems to its uptake with students and staff: hardware capabilities and broadband bandwidth. The locals are mostly functioning on copper cable dial up and there are no signs of it getting any faster. There is some use of satellite broadband, which is good for uploading but not for downloading, Mark told me.

Video of me outside library - my first tiny docu video so don't judge too harshly!

Singapore!

2009-06-25T11:45:00.000+01:00

Arrived at Singapore airport and am using the free internet terminals here. Good flight and managed to sleep for a few hours. As I write, it's currently11.47am UK time but 18:47 local. Very strange. I fly again at 20:25 Singapore time. Will write again when in Oz - which will be Friday!

Preparation!

2009-06-24T11:54:00.000+01:00

I've just spent most of the morning collecting together all the documents and emails that I'm going to need in Australia - it's taken quite a while! Institutional contacts, maps and directions, conference details, travel documents, insurance, etc ....

First day of Oz trip

2009-06-24T10:21:00.000+01:00

I am about to finish packing and am then going to get Australian dollars from post office. After that it's the National Express from Cardiff to Heathrow for the first leg of the odyssey - two days on a plane. Oh joy!