ALEA

ALEA Voki Muriel Wells 2013

[|ALEA 2013] ALEA 2013 Muriel Wells ALEA 2013 Muriel Wells Presentation Title: Making the Most of a Learning Management System: Teacher and Student Perspectives Research paper – 40 minutes

Within the conference theme: Capitalising on New Technologies ALEA 2013 Muriel Wells Acknowledging Traditional Owners We are committed to supporting reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australian people. In keeping with the spirit of Reconciliation, we acknowledge the Turrbal, Jagera/Yuggera, Kabi Kabi and Jinibara Peoples as the Traditional Owners of the lands where QUT now stands - and recognise that these have always been places of teaching and learning. We wish to pay respect to their Elders - past, present and emerging - and acknowledge the important role Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people continue to play within the Australian community. Abstract Online education is perceived by many educators as an innovative strategy that has considerable potential for enhancing teaching and learning. However, the quality of online Learning Management Systems (LMS) is often subject to scepticism and criticism. Headlines about Victoria’s Learning Management System such as “Vic Auditor fails Ultranet, $180m e-learning disaster”(Dec, 2012) are part of thi s criticism that feeds the scepticism. This paper reports on an investigation into the usage of an online LMS and other digital technologies in a small rural school in regional Victoria that challenges this deficit assumption. Abstract – cont. Snapshots of digital practices as described by both teachers and students will be used to consider the pedagogical approaches used by the teachers in relation to the LMS and students’ access and use of digital technologies at home and at school. The article concludes by reflecting on the teachers and students perceptions of the value of this Learning Management System in their school context. Online education is perceived by many educators as an innovative strategy that has considerable potential for enhancing teaching and learning. Casey argues that Online education is premised on the idea that authentic, creative knowledge work can take place in school classrooms – knowledge work that does not merely emulate the work of mature scholars or designers but that substantively advances the state of knowledge in the classroom community and situates it within the larger societal knowledge building effort (Casey, 2011). Casey, G 2011, 'Knowledge-building: Designing for learning using social and participatory media', eLearning Papers, no. 27, pp. 1-7. LMS – Victorian Auditor General However, the quality of online Learning Management Systems (LMS) is often subject to scepticism and criticism. Headlines about Victoria’s Learning Management System such as “Vic Auditor fails Ultranet, $180m e-learning disaster”(Dec, 2012) are part of this criticism that feeds the scepticism. (article) How are LMS such as the Ultranet used in primary schools and what value might an LMS be in a primary literacy education?

Research Methods The data used for this presentation was collected through a larger project that looked at school improvement. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews with teachers and students. One of the foci for at this school was wider implementation and use of the Ultranet for teaching and learning within an overall school focus of improving student learning. The data used here was collected fro: 4 classroom teachers and 7 students in year 5/6. Interview transcripts were transcribed and then analysed in preparation of a commissioned report for the larger project. Teacher and student comments related to the Ultranet were isolated in the large body of data about a short cycle of school improvement and re-analysed for this presentation. Context:

This paper reports on an investigation into the usage of an online Learning Management System (LMS) and associated digital technologies in one small rural school in regional Victoria. Small rural primary school committed to ‘school improvement’. School data including the ePotential

survey showed evidence of low use of Ultranet and other online technologies. The Ultranet What is the Ultranet is a Learning Management System implemented by the DEECD Victoria. The DEECD describe the Ultranet as follows: The Ultranet is a statewide, secure website that students, parents and teachers can access. It provides a new learning space and more opportunities for information sharing across the Victorian government school system. All teachers in Victorian government schools now have access to the Ultranet. Schools are bringing students and parents onto the Ultranet in line with their local implementation plan.

The Ultranet gives students access to the latest online tools and personalised learning activities within and outside the classroom, while parents can access to up-to-date information about their child, including their attendance, timetable, homework, teacher feedback and learning progress. Teachers have access to online learning spaces and digital resources that they can use to extend their classroom teaching.

From [] The Ultranet When it was first implemented the DEECD described the following objectives and benefits. Objectives of the Ultranet: improve responsiveness to individual learning needs provide better information to parents, the school system and Government improve efficiency of the learning environment and school administration adopt an enterprise approach to intranet development exploit previous ICT investments. Key benefits of the Ultranet to the community: establish a school environment for the future improve the educational outcomes of Victorians reduce the administrative burden on teachers and school leaders reduce the future cost of education improve educational opportunities for regional, rural and remote Victorians. The Ultranet was announced in Labor’s Financial Statement as a $60.5 million project for Victorian government schools. (Web archive – accessed 27 Jan, 2009)

Snapshots of digital literacy practices as described by both teachers and students will be used to consider the pedagogical approaches used by the teachers in relation to the Ultranet and students’ access and use of digital technologies at home and at school.

How is the Ultranet being used in primary schools and what value might an LMS be in a primary literacy education? The Teachers’ perspectives It’s a school goal … to get the Ultranet up and running so this is why we’re doing it. The Ultranet ... obviously we use it just about daily in the classrooms now … as a way to improve the student learning and engage them … We do the literature circles … reading .. set up is all done on the Ultranet. So we’ve got a message board… where the students can communicate … where they’re chatting about their writing.. to each other. We put up links to articles and stuff they can read… Homework’s all done on there so we set it up and then the kids can upload their homework done from home on the Ultranet….it’s just like a big reference library so…
 * The teachers’ perspectives are presented first.**

We’re trying to develop them into 21st century learners and students realising that you know it’s just the way of technology and the way of life’s going to be. We have a regional Ultranet coach so there’s been times where she’s come in and helped us. The team leader described the move to make more effective use of the Ultranet in this way: So we’ve created a grade 5/6 page which is a one stop shop and the kids can get on there and add things. So whatever topic we’re doing we put on there .. we put up what we’re actually learning … so the activities that we’re doing. And we made videos and we had kids submit stuff through discussion/message boards to have a discussion on the topic that we’re doing. It’s only a system that allows you to put things on. The Ultranet’s not going to teach the kids ... it’s what you put up on it and how you use it that matters.
 * Teachers 2**

Yeah well the Ultranet was one of the focuses so that kind of went in with and we had um...a literacy focus as well so that it kinda tied in together. So now that’s [The Ultranet] where the students go to choose their articles and they can choose anything from all the different topics on the side ... nonfiction/fiction. There is a fiction one that they can choose ... but lots of them like to choose non fiction which is good because their comprehension has been lower in non fiction … so then they’ll just click on there to submit their reports.... And so it will have the little Voki here to say what the focus is....... It [the VOKI] actually tells you what the literacy focus is. The VOKI says: Your main focus in each literacy circles class is to further develop your reading comprehension, reading understanding and word bank. During each session students will work in groups of four reading a particular text. During the reading each student will also complete a role which will develop your understanding of the text. [|ALEA VOKI]
 * Teachers 3**

So it’s not a secret anymore what we’re teaching them. They know in advance and they know these are our topics and this is what we’re learning about. With the Ultranet I said, “We’ve just got to start doing something so we started and then Xxx and I just got addicted to it and then it’s just kind of rubbed off onto our other colleagues. This (the VOKI) sits outside the Ultranet as well as being linked to from the Ultranet. It’s got an embed code. So you can see these teachers are now moving on to quite complex uses of sites inside and outside the Ultranet. The team leader of the grad 5/6 was a very keen user and one of her young graduate teachers was very skilled. So it was a coming together of like minds, at the right time and the right place.
 * Teachers 4**


 * Snapshots of digital literacy practices as described by the grade 5/6 students**

Well last year we would just write our goals and on like a sheet of paper and stick in our notebooks but this year we’ve got the Ultranet. We’ve got reading goals. Like I need to improve my comprehension … we do a thread on the Ultranet. This year we’re doing everything in the Ultranet and like ...we set our goals in our own personal space on the Ultranet, and we have a numeracy goal and a reading goal. Last year we had to write a goal and stick it in our books which is a bit annoying. Now we just go onto the Ultranet. You could be working and then you could be like ”Oh I just achieved my goal”, then you’d go and see the teacher and then the teacher would say, “Oh you can set a new goal”. Now, instead of getting your book out you can just click onto a new tab and just set your new goal. So it’s so much quicker ... We just do all our evidence onto the Ultranet too [to show we have achieved our goals] with .. links to our goals so instead of just searching through books all the time you can just click on a hyperlink and then it’ll just come up. He [the teacher] can just click on it and it opens it up straight away and it’s not wasting paper. (Some like(s) and um(s) removed for clarity)
 * Students**

At the start of the year we weren’t using the Ultranet as much so we had a writing goal in our book but now we’ve got the Ultranet it’s easy. When you achieve your goal you don’t even have to get out of your seat, you can just email your teacher. You say hi Mr *.... I just achieved my goal. Is it okay if I set a new one? And then he might email back, yes sure what are you thinking of? And then I’ll just email him back … and then he’ll just say, “Yeah that’s fine, go and set it now.” When you go onto the Ultranet you got your own personal space where you can keep them all (your goals) in order and also it’s quite easy to organise and it’s more neat on the Ultranet than trying to write them in your books. (Like and um removed for clarity).
 * Students 2**

Interviewer: How do you demonstrate that you achieved your goals? Um well we we’ve got like this table thing and it says “what’s your goal” like what topic is it and then there’s a box saying how you’ve achieved it and so it will be the evidence that you’ve achieved the goal. Interviewer: And what sort of evidence might there be? Oh you could do, you could do video or take photos of your work. We can just add in links to our work, so say we were doing a word document like say it was our writing goal was to write more complex procedures or something then if we, cos we do a lot of our work on the computer, if we did it on a word document and then that showed that we achieved our goal then we can add a content link which is like a hyperlink to our work. So that’s kind of a quick way instead of just printing it out and giving it to the teacher.
 * Students 3**

I had a goal to correctly structure my persuasive writing towards the start of the year and I achieved it and it was really easy and I had heaps of evidence and .. We have a section with like what we have to do to achieve our goal and I was practising at home, cos the Ultranet made it a lot easier. You can set up blogs and you can email mates to help you and stuff.
 * Students 4**

I achieved that (goal) by using our iPads and there’s an app called Show Me and I did it on that so you record it and you can draw on the it’s like a white board on the screen that you can draw on. I showed it to the teacher and put it on the Ultranet as my evidence. Students show the researchers’ their work on the Ultranet That’s our home page so down here there’s all these little tags and so that’s where you upload your work and all of that. There’s a library of learning and if you click on that, it comes up with this and this is all the spaces that us students can access that the teachers have let us access. This is where we do our literacy work and our writing and so on. Then if we go over to goals … then you can also hand in your homework and under the homework tab on the Ultranet. Well I used to always do it [homework] in my book and I’ve done it on the Ultranet and it takes me like less than half an hour and it used to take a couple of nights to do.
 * Students 5 - Evidence**

Teasing out why it is different/quicker Why is it different? I dunno you just cos you got access to heaps of different website and different things you can do which so if we’re doing spelling yeah well you got to do a couple of activities for your spelling words and so I found I just searched. Cos I like graffiti stuff I found a graffiti web site and I typed in all my words and it just came out awesome– and then there’s like you can make it move and different backgrounds and stuff. Does it take you less time? Yeah. So why does it take you less time? Just cos like I’m not sure, you can just type a letter and then .. Do you concentrate better though, is that part of why it takes you less time? Probably I reckon Also we enjoy it because you’re on the computer it’s like you’ve got all access you can instead of getting stuck, you can enjoy it now. And you see with the homework you have all the resources. You don’t have to go to like the library and find them.
 * Students 6**

Students capability with the discourse of the online system: Well that piece of paper thing there well, that was my spelling activity and that was a page plug-in. What’s a page plug-in tell us about that? Page plug-in is kind of like well it’s like a note generator so you type in what you want to be a note and then you like you can change all the colours and stuff and you can choose what kind of thing you want so I chose like a dynamite exploding. A child showed the researchers how he created a shopping centre: And this is my shopping centre I designed on Google sketcher and that’s the front entrance and it’s really big and there’s like a escalator going up here. And there’s shops all down here and stuff...... So you can go in all directions and all dimensions. You can design rules and all that.
 * Students 7**

Students – how using the computer overcomes a physical disability And I’m like a computer nerd … I love doing stuff on the computers cos it just makes life a whole lot easier. Instead of writing in a book cos I’m a bit lazy … Um I’m not very good at handwriting and stuff … Yeah cos half way through writing my shoulder gets sore cos I hurt it a couple of years ago and when I start to write it just gets heavier and heavier and then I just drop down. But when I’m on the computer I can just type cos my shoulders just resting…
 * Students 8**


 * The language of reflection**

Teacher-student communications

There is an acceptance and expectation of seemless use of the LMS within everyday classroom practices and outside of school. Role of teacher is not devalued but it is changed. Quote from Buzzard ((2011) According to Peterson, Albaum, Munuera, and Cunningham (2002), “any new instructional technology should allow a student to learn more, learn faster, and/or learn easier” (p. 14). Is this what we are seeing? Are the students using technology to” learn more, learn faster, and/or learn easier”? Student comments would seem to indicate that they are. At a minimum we may be seeing at attempt to understand the operation of the modulatory machines that Deleuze argues are now operating in disciplinary terrain of schooling rather than the performative ‘terror’ that causes participants in the education game to burrow deeper into the disciplinary space of the classroom –much like the Deleuzian mole that symbolises the disciplined subject’. (Deleuze 1992, in Thompson & Cook, 2012).
 * You may well be thinking, ‘So what?**

New technologies have the potential to change the way teachers teach and learners learn. They offer a highly interactive medium of learning that can be customised to meet the individual needs of students. These systems may influence the selection and development of online resources and affect traditional teaching practices, while also introducing a new layer of complexities into teaching. Currently however, many of these technologies are tending to focus on the delivery of information rather than on improving the teaching itself. Heirdsfield, A, Walker, S, Tambyah, M & Beutel, D 2011, 'Blackboard As An Online Learning Environment: What Do Teacher Education Students And Staff Think?', Australian Journal of Teacher Education, vol. 36, no. 7, pp. 1-12.
 * The Potential of Learning Management Systems**

In recent research the difficulty associated with learning how to use Learning Management systems has been identified as a key limitation of these systems. Teachers argue that they do not have the motivation or time to become expert users of online systems thus limiting their use as innovative pedagogies. The barriers to the use of innovations are understandable and teachers need to be convinced of the value of learning management systems if they are to realise their potential. .. . skill and confidence meed to be developed before innovations become a routine part of teachers’ experience. As the users of technological innovations move towards sustained implementation, there appears to be a shift away from task-related concerns related to technical issues towards more pedagogical concerns. It is at this point that users focus further on thinking about more creative ways to use the innovation to improve teaching and learning. Two of the teachers in today’s study were thinking about more creative ways to use the Ultranet to improve teaching and learning. Heirdsfield, A, Walker, S, Tambyah, M & Beutel, D 2011, 'Blackboard As An Online Learning Environment: What Do Teacher Education Students And Staff Think?', Australian Journal of Teacher Education, vol. 36, no. 7, pp. 1-12.
 * Reflecting on the teachers’ perceptions of the value of this Learning Management System in their school context**

May lead increase student engagement if it is used appropriately and effectively. Can be used by teachers to establish “back channels” that foster discussion and surface ideas that some students are too shy or intimidated to voice out loud.
 * Student Engagement**

Educators can answer students’ questions via social media, post homework assignments and lesson plans, send messages and updates, schedule or announce upcoming events, and share interesting Web sites and multimedia content.
 * Improve Communication Among Students and Teachers**

Even though Learning Management Systems similar to the Ultranet may be positioned by some educators as ‘a problem’, some schools and some teachers and students in these schools have used them effectively to promote student learning and to provide students with opportunities to take more responsibility for their learning. In doing so teachers have relinquished some older forms of control and entered into more collaborative learning relationships with their students. If Leu et al. are correct in their suggestion that, “The most profound influence on life in the 21st century may turn out to be the Internet” then glimpses into classrooms such as this provide opportunities to see how this may play out in primary school settings.
 * Conclusion**

No previous technology for literacy permits the immediate dissemination of even newer technologies of literacy to every person on the Internet by connecting to a single link on a screen. … no previous technology of literacy has provided access to so much information that is so useful, to so many people, in the history of the world. The sudden appearance of a new technology for literacy as powerful as the Internet has required us to look at the issue of new literacies with fresh lenses. The speed and scale of this change has been breathtaking (p.3). In 2008 Coiro et al. predicted that “If this rate continues, almost half of the world's population will be online by 2012, and Internet access will be nearly ubiquitous sometime thereafter.” We are now in the ‘thereafter’. Coiro, J, Knobel, M, Lankshear, C & Leu, DJ 2008, ' Central issues in new literacies and new literacies research', in Handbook of Research on New Literacies, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Taylor & Francis Group New York, USA, pp. 1-21.
 * Let us finish with some words from Coira et al.**

Coiro, J, Knobel, M, Lankshear, C & Leu, DJ 2008, ' Central issues in new literacies and new literacies research', in Handbook of Research on New Literacies, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Taylor & Francis Group New York, USA, pp. 1-21. Heirdsfield, A, Walker, S, Tambyah, M & Beutel, D 2011, 'Blackboard As An Online Learning Environment: What Do Teacher Education Students And Staff Think?', Australian Journal of Teacher Education, vol. 36, no. 7, pp. 1-12.) Leu, DJ, O’Byrne, WI, Zawilinski, L, Greg, MJ & Everett-Cacopardo, H 2009, 'Expanding the New Literacies Conversation', Educational Researcher, vol. 38, no. 4, pp. 264-9 Thompson, G & Cook, I 2012, 'Spinning in the NAPLAN Ether: ‘Postscript on the Control Societies’ and the Seduction of Education in Australia', Deleuze Studies, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 564-84.
 * References**