“Moodle Man!” came the cry from behind me. I cringed. I’d made the fatal mistake of walking through the campus helpdesk area during lunchtime on assignment hand-in day. I turned, clutching my meal deal, to see a student, and one of my regular customers, come barrelling towards me, laptop in hand. “How do I submit my assignment again?” she asked. “I really need a Jill Watson,” I said, abandoning my sandwich behind the desk. “Who’s Jill Watson?” came the reply. “Never mind, let’s have a look at your assignment”.
I don’t mind helping, partly because I like to feel useful, but mainly because it’s my job. I’ve been a learning technologist for six months now, at the new campus of a major university. What has struck me is the huge gap in the abilities of both students and lecturers when it comes to technology. Some lecturers are brilliant, always bugging me to help them find some new whizzy bit of tech to use. Others follow more, shall we say, traditional methods.
Research backs up what I’ve found, with UCISA’s TEL Survey 2016 citing cultural factors, a lack of vision and staff skills as reasons for less extensive use of technology to enhance learning. Meanwhile, the HEPI Rebooting Learning Report says that “pockets of innovation are found in almost every institution, but few have fundamentally changed how they teach”.
With students it’s the same – some I barely see at all, while others I support so much by their second year I’m expecting a Christmas card and by their third an invite to their wedding. I try to be proactive, providing resources online and running drop-in sessions, but this just scratches the surface of the issue and some students require more support than I’m given the time to provide. Like the one currently interrupting my lunch break.
That morning had started so well too. A lecturer and I introduced a role-playing computer game I had made to a group of students. She had approached me a couple of weeks earlier asking for a fun and interactive way to introduce a case study. After presenting her with several options, she liked the look of the game.
I’m a bit of a geek, especially when it comes to computer games. I’m currently obsessed with Legend of Zelda, so that’s what I based the game on. The students were given a fictional town to explore, complete with characters to meet and talk to. They had to find out about their various issues and at the end of the session they then presented ideas on how the people of the town could be helped.
This was our island of innovation and the students loved it, engrossed for an hour in a case study that would have taken them a couple of minutes to read and subsequently forget. We strived to make it as close to real life as possible, albeit with pixelated graphics and a cute theme tune. Other lecturers have seen our work and shown an interest, so our island is growing. But it is still an island and a flashy project rather than a true technological revolution.
There are some fantastic projects out there, like Coventry University’s Game Changers and Disruptive Media Learning Lab. But it feels like the vast majority of teaching taking place still uses traditional pedagogy. Is that really the best way? In my role, I’m focused almost entirely on the student experience both inside and outside the classroom, and I feel more and more that technology should be embedded much more fundamentally within the teaching process.
I’ve seen very few lecturers go beyond using the virtual learning environment to provide notes and submit assignments. All include a comprehensive reading list of books and articles for students to read. Would it be controversial to say that students don’t actually read books, they just pull them apart for quotes at assignment time? I know that’s what I did.
Alongside the reading list, how about a list of games to play? I have not yet thought of a subject that could not be taught through games. Instead of an essay submitted in Microsoft Word, how about an Adobe Spark digital multimedia story? When degree programmes are being developed, how about having a technology adviser present from the start?
Get technology at the heart of every programme specification, and get students and lecturers using it every day. Only then will skills truly develop.
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