e-learning heat3 project 08-09

The final report for our Heat 3 project is available from here: http://www.bath.ac.uk/lmf/download/33847

Please note, there are a number of other deliverables to be disseminated on this blog. Therefore, the blog will continue to update progress on;

• guidelines for inclusive use of A.R.S
• guidelines for inclusive use of SMS
• Mobile Moodle Project

The evidence (see previous post) suggests is the use of Audience Response Systems will be growing in popularity in lectures as a formative learning technology. Give this trend the question of designing in good practice for this technology in face to face teaching becomes more important. The following is a list of ideas, and thoughts fom Emma Cliffe and Nitin Parmar – both at the University of Bath – concerning how to ensure the activities are inclusive.

• Read the question out aloud
• Give students enough time to read the question, process, decide and vote
• Allow students to work on their own, even if it’s a paired/group activity
• Tell the students at the outset that their responses to questions are completely anonymous
• Show students how the clickers work
  • Put an image of the clicker in your PowerPoint slides and highlight key areas of the clicker – The e-Learning team could provide this as a default slide
  • Let them know about the ‘green light’
  • Put a couple of ‘test’ questions/votes, just to make sure that the students are using the clickers correctly
• Have an option on the slides marked ‘I don’t know’ and/or ‘Abstain’ to give students possibility to opt out
• Provide students with a choice so if they do not wish to take part in voting (for a particular question, or the exercise), it’s ok.
• If possible, provide a hard copy of the questions… so that students can read these in front of them, instead of having to read from the projected image
• If possible, upload question slides onto Moodle before or during the lecture so that students can download them onto their laptop and… change colours, increase size of text etc.
• Let students know at the start of a lecture course that some sessions will use clickers (explaining what this would involve) to give students who might need assistance in using the clicker/accessing the slides time to put this in place – either by approaching you or Learning Support.

They’ll be working these ideas up into a more formal set of recommendations / guidelines over the next few months.

In terms of the Heat3 project, a very important question is, what types of technologies are being used in teaching at Bath, and how are these being used? The question is important, because if we are going to ensure more inclusivity in the teaching experience we need to identify how technologies are currently being used.
To answer this question a survey was undertaken (27th Nov 08 to 18th Dec 08) of staff at the University of Bath. The survey was promoted to staff enrolled on our Staff Moodle Course. Given the timing and promotion there will be a bias towards staff using Moodle. However, the results are still an important indicator. There were 69 respondents, of which 20% were from the School of Management and 14% from Biology and Biochemistry.
In terms of the respondents, the average size of the largest class they taught was 115 students, the average number of students in the smallest class they taught was 29, and the average number of years they had been teaching was 14.
The word cloud visualises the free text responses concerning how they lectured. In particular, the style they adopted and the technologies they used.

It is evident this sample group tending to approach large group teaching in a very traditional way. In terms of lecturing (talking, discussing, and asking questions), providing handouts and notes, and using technology as a presentational aid (powerpoint, and slides).
When questioned on the technologies they use in teaching (first Semester 2008-09), the majority used Powerpoint.
•    Powerpoint – 50 people (%)
•    Audio recording – 16 people (%)
•    Video or animation – 35 people (%)
•    Accessing a web site – 38 people (%)
•    Using a graphic (still image) – 34 people (%)

A technology we are particularly interested in at the University is the use of audience response systems to collect instant feedback. The responses indicated this would be a growing area of interest. In terms of current use, 7 people (11%) had used it. When asked why they hadn’t used it, 17 responded they weren’t aware of the technology, 17 responded they were aware but didn’t wish to use it, and 19 responded they planned to use it in the future.
In terms of the use of SMS (texting) then none of the respondents had used this technology.
When asked how they collect electronic feedback (without using ARS or SMS) the vast majority said they didn’t. If they collected feedback during the session is was verbal. While a few used Moodle discussion forums for post session feedback.
Finally, the survey tried to quantify if people made supporting material available online for their lectures, and when they made them available.
It emerged that 48% of people consistently made their material (slides, links, multimedia) available on Moodle (or online) before the lecture. While 78.1% of those that didn’t make them available before the lecture did afterwards.
So what does this tell us about technologies in teaching and inclusivity? It can be argued it clearly shows access to presentational material is very important, for instance, powerpoint, audio and video. It also indicates at the moment (and in the future) the main use of classroom feedback is using the Audience Response Software. Therefore, we need to ensure staff are aware of good practice in the design and delivery of questions. Finally, Moodle needs to be as accessible as possible, especially to small screen devices.

Since starting with LTEO/eLearning in february, one of the things I’ve been doing is looking at the Moodle theme – both in terms of where we’ve got to with mobile access following the ‘Heat 3′ project and also to see if futher usability/accessibilty enhancements would be desirable/feasible.

The Heat 3 work on our Bath Theme by my predecessor and other colleagues has ensured that the system is accessible to mainstream mobile devices for the type of activity we might expect/hope to achieve:

• Users can login and access their courses e.g. start from homepage, navigate through the menus/search for courses
• The theme has a high enough level of mobile compatibility that access is possible by enthusiastic mobile technology adopters, not just ‘hard-core techies’
• Bath are subscribers to the EduTxt (SMS send/receive) service. We’re evaluating the Moodle ‘block’ to streamline use of the tool by academics, thus removing a step that may otherwise discourage its use
• QR code access embedded in every page provides the opportunity for a really personalised learning experience – the codes can be grabbed by most recent-ish camera phones from screen printouts or the majority of regular computer monitors (i.e. LCD, reasonable definition ones)

This means we have a Moodle installation that can be included in more mobile-oriented teaching activities, as well as providing students greater flexibility of access to Learning.

Going forward, there are a number of enhancements we can consider to futher improve the Moodle mobile experience, particularly as the core system functionality is increasingly more stable/closer to our ideal through application of Moodle community updates and our own in-house bug fixes and feature additions:

• There is some potential to further improve the [W3 XHTML & accessibility] standards-compliance of the system. This will be of benefit to users of all types of device and help to improve access by assistive technologies
• If further time is devoted to styling the mobile access route, we may increase the appeal of mobile device access/make creation of mobile-specific learning activities more streamlined
• A mobile theme which either selectively presented, or imposed alternative ordering on, page elements would be desirable to help users access content/functionality efficiently on their mobile devices

The Heat3 work enables us to effectively target the areas outlined above as ones that are of significant value to our users.

We’re currently finalising plans for further development starting this summer, which can be broken down into the following stages:

• Re-work the current theme implementation/configuration to fix glitches, improve standards compliance and allow greater flexibility of user theme selection in future
• Develop a theme that targets the key activites, identified as most frequently used by/useful to users, which will present these appropriately to smaller-screen devices/assistive technologies
• Building on the above, allow users greater freedom to select a theme suited to their individual requirements

Once the first part is complete, we’ll be able to try out other themes (which will build on the base Bath Theme) on the live system with selected users without altering the experience for other users mid-semester. Potentially, it would be possible to create themes targetted to very specific learning activities – whether for mobile access or other routes - and by the end of the next round of developments, we should be in a position to assess the feasibility of this/have a good idea of the timescales involved.

Background

The aim is to develop a number of recommendations for people to consider when designing their face to face teaching sessions to ensure the interactive activities they undertake are as inclusive as possible.

The likely uses can be divided into the following scenarios;

1. the lecture is using web based material to illustrate / demonstrate. Therefore, the student will be viewing this material either on the projected space or on a device that they own. Increasingly over time, staff will be using Moodle as the tool to collect and present these resources.

The questions that need to be answered include; is moodle accessible to the range of assistive technologies used at the University of Bath? How accessible is Moodle to other devices that the student might own? The outcomes will result in changes to the Moodle system, and informing staff of the issues of when they deploy these technologies in the teaching space.

2. the lecturer uses technologies to interact with the class. For instance, the use of audience response systems and SMS.

The question that needs to be answered is, what does the lecturer need to consider when designing these activities to ensure they are inclusive and are effective learning activities?

3. The lecture starts to create video assets in their lectures that are to be distributed to students afterwards.

The question that needs to be answered focuses on ensuring that activity is designed so people can participate effectively in the creation process, and are able to access the products.

The timeline

October

• Survey of 10 academics who teach large classes. Identify if they use Moodle or Confluence directly in the session, and how they use it. Also identify what web based resources they use.
• Develop a Moodle course that includes the primary uses of how Moodle might be used in lecturing. For instance, to store web links, to display a forum activity, to access a powerpoint. Led by Andy. Input from Roger & Nitin
• Develop a set of style sheets which are designed to improve the accessibility and usability of these activities for people using assistive technologies and non-PC devices. Led by Matt.
• Engage the wider community through our poster at MLEARN 2008. Led by Matt
• Focus group with Learning Support where they experience the use of the audience response system, and the different uses of SMS in face to face teaching. Key question, what are their first thoughts from the perspective of range of disabilities. Led by Andy

November

• Complete literature review on Moodle accessibility. Led by Andy
• Work with Learning Support and those who support people on using the assistive technologies for their assessment of the experience of accessing and using Moodle based resources. Led by Andy
• Survey 10 academics to identify what type of class interactions they use. Led by Andy
• User test the mobile / assistive technology styleheets.

December

• Take stock, write up reports, findings and observations. Plan next steps. Led by Andy

Set up the Nintendo DS Lite Web Browser last night. Just trying to understand the interface and navigating on this type of device.  Then we’ll start to draw up a test planning for the new range of Moodle stylesheets.

I received the hardware for testing some of the changes we’ve made on the Moodle system, and also future proofing our advice to staff.

We’ll be user testing our developments on an IPod Touch, and Nintendo DS Lite. As well as our existing test environments as Pocket PCs, Tablet PCs and a rannge of assistive technologies.

Part of the HEAT3 project will be to ensure that Moodle can be accessed by a range of technologies. This is because over time more lectures are using Moodle directly in their lectures. The approach that we plan to adopt is to test that the most popular moodle activities work with a range of assistive technologies and devices. Over time we will enhance the expereince through making changes within the style sheet(s) within our primary Moodle themes. If changes can not be made then we’ll advise users about the issues of accessing certain activities.

The first stage is to identify which are the most common activities. This will inform us where to place the initial effort. Based on the Module Activity data through the administrators Moodle interface, the top 7 activities are;

1. Resources (68.2%)
2. Label (13.6%)
3. Forum (10.0%)
4. Quiz (2.7%)
5. Assignment (2.2%)
6. Wiki (0.9%)
7. Personal Journal (0.6%)

Carol in the Learning Support Service forwarded me a breakdown of students registered with the service by disability. This is important as it will give some initial focus as we start to develop our thinking on how to design in inclusivity within our face to face learning activities. The data highlighted where initially we will focus our efforts, as these are more likely in large group teaching. The disabilities are;

• Dyslexia (50.5%)
• Wheelchair user/mobility difficulty (3.8%)
• Mental Health difficulties (2.0%)
• Dyspraxia (1.9%)
• Specific Learning Difficulty (1.5%)
• Blind / partially sighted (1.5%)
• Deaf / hearing impairment (1.5%)

The next stage will be to work up some likely user scenarios – based on the literature and current activity at Bath. These can then be discussed through with the Learning Support Service and the academics to identify the pedagogical effectiveness of the activity and the inclusivity aspect based on the disability.

I had a really constructive meeting with Susannah Doyle, Team Leader of Learning Support Service (http://www.bath.ac.uk/learning-support/) at the University of Bath. She’ll be sending me a breakdown of those registered with the Learning Support Service by Disability. This will help inform where to place the priorities within the scenarios which are being worked up with the academics. Also, it sounds like the we can work creatively with the team who support the assistive technologies at the University. This is essential for when we work up the first iterations of the classroom learning designs. We need to ensure that these are technically viable before usability testing with students and staff.