Student Experiences of E-learning “E-learning needs to do more than improving access and learner control. It also needs to improve the process and outcomes of learning.” “The focus of this literacies approach[…] is on the students’ background and prior experience […] and familiarizing students with the academic practices of that subject area …” Student Experiences of E-learning Readings “The only thing that matters in education is the quality of what learners do” “… when associated with learning and assessment, technologies are always sites of textual practice” These slides introduce the readings and activities in the ‘Disciplinary Thinking’ resource, Student Experiences of E-learning – Readings. The resource consists of a collection of readings on student experiences of e-learning, together with questions intended to prompt reflection and discussion. The readings represent different ways of looking at the student experience and are labelled: Discipline and the e-learning experience; Literacies and e-learning; The net generation? and Conceptions and approaches. All of them are openly available, either in open access journals or elsewhere online. The slides would not be needed by an individual learner but might be useful if the readings were being introduced in a workshop. The quotations on this slide are from two books that influenced the choice of reading and are recommended further reading. Goodfellow and Lea (2007) look at the student experience and practices in terms of literacies. Reading 2 (Jones & Lea, 2008) is an example of this approach. Ellis and Goodyear (2010) view the student experience as part of an ecology; they do not separate “students” and “environment”, but view the university as a kind of eco system in which people are part of the environment. The book contains a review of data from a number of large surveys of student experiences. Reading 3 (Kennedy, 2008) is a report on such a survey in one institution. The other two readings: Reading 1 (Conole et al., 2008) considers disciplinary differences in students’ digital practices. Reading 4 (Ellis et al., 2007) sits in the tradition in which student conceptions of and/or approaches to their learning are investigated in relation to the quality of their learning. The focus here is on students’ approaches to online and face-to-face discussion. Suggested questions are included in the resource but you may wish to substitute alternative questions to suit your context or area of interest. The resource ends with a suggestion for a short piece of writing which could perhaps contribute to a portfolio for assessment.  The next four slides just show details of the readings with quotations from each of them. “It soon becomes clear that there is no homogenous ‘net generation’. Universities and teachers should not let themselves be conned by pundits into believing that the incoming ‘digital natives’ know what they need or that their needs are uniform or radically different from anything we have seen before.” Goodfellow, Robin and Lea, Mary (2007). Challenging E-Learning in the University: a Literacies Perspective. Maidenhead & New York: McGraw Hill, Society for Research into Higher Education, Open University Press. Ellis, R.A. and Goodyear, P. (2010) Student experiences of e-learning in higher education: the ecology of sustainable innovation. London: RoutledgeFalmer

“Disciplines, by their nature, privilege some skills and ways of knowing over others ….. Use of subject-specific resources and web sites is evident across all the disciplines, but their use of tools varies and can be related to the nature of the subject discipline” “The level at which different subject disciplines and their tutors recommended using the web for research varied greatly” “I search for what I need using Search Engines and Wikipedia, and build up a list of things that I need. I reference those through to Word, and send the file to my peers through IM, where I get feedback and additional info. on what’s going on and how the things I’m researching relate to the current area of study” Reading 1: Discipline and the e-learning experience Conole, G., de Laat, M., Dillon, T., and Darby, J. (2008) ‘Disruptive technologies’, ‘pedagogical innovation’: What’s new? Findings from an in-depth study of students’ use and perception of Technology. Computers & Education, Volume 50, Issue 2, February 2008, pp.511–524

“Participants in the study were found to interact with multiple and hybrid digital texts within and across both curricular and digital spheres” “…exploring the practices of writing and reading and the production and negotiation of digital texts that are involved in the day to day business of being a student ..” “Their communication can be as informal as the Instant Messenger communication suggests but the group reports they produce have to comply with institutional and disciplinary conventions, engaging in a range of practices common to the production of academic texts” Reading 2: Literacies and e-learning Jones, S. and Lea, M. R. (2008) “Digital Literacies in the Lives of Undergraduate Students: Exploring Personal and Curricular Spheres of Practice.” The Electronic Journal of e-Learning Volume 6 Issue 3 2008, pp. 207 - 216

“An important consideration in this discussion is student equity.” “… for a number of activities, the proportion of students who have never used a particular technology-based tool outstripped those who had.” “It is increasingly recognised that while the majority of incoming university students possess a core set of technology based skills, beyond those a diverse range of skills exist across the student population [….] Moreover, it is recognised that core technology based skills do not necessarily translate into sophisticated skills with other technologies or general information literacy.” Reading 3: The net generation?   Kennedy, G.E., Judd, T.S., Churchward, A., Gray, K., Krause, K. (2008) First year students’ experiences with technology: Are they really digital natives? Australasian Journal of Educational Technology 2008, 24(1), pp. 108-122

“…the growth of […] ‘blended learning’ in higher education has resulted in a need to devise new ways of measuring and investigating qualitatively different learning experiences of students when they are expected to follow a learning activity across different learning contexts.” “…students can learn through reflecting deeply on the online submissions made by others if they understand the purpose of the activity and approach it in useful ways.” “Without understanding why they are discussing, and how to approach the discussions appropriately, in both face-to-face and on-line contexts, students find it difficult to see the connections between the discussions in class and online and what they are supposed to be learning.” Reading 4: Conceptions and approaches   ELLIS, R., GOODYEAR, P., O’HARA, A., PROSSER, M. (2007) The university student experience of face-to-face and online discussions: coherence, reflection and meaning. Research in Learning Technology, North America, 15, mar. 2007

Learning Resource Metadata Field/Element Value: Title Student Experiences of E-learning - Readings Description Slides that could be used to introduce the four readings Theme Student Experiences of E-learning Subject HE - Education Author Jane Hughes & Colleen McKenna: HEDERA, 2012 Owner The University of Bath Audience Educational developers in accredited programmes & courses in higher education. Issue Date 20/04/2012 Last updated Date 28/07/2012 Version Final – v1 PSF Mapping A2, A4, K4 License Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 UK: England & Wales License. Keywords ukoer, education, discthink, disciplinary thinking, hedera, university of bath, e-learning, learning technologies, student experience, TEL, technology-enhanced learning, e-learning practices, digital literacies