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Account of student engagement at Tessside University

Page history last edited by Anna Gruszczynska 12 years, 7 months ago

In order to document student engagement with OERs at Teesside University, Mike and John have chosen to conduct a focus group with the students focusing on issues related to technology-enhanced learning, an overview of that discussion can be found below:

 

"Technology-enhanced practice is likely to encompass a wide spectrum of activities, from supporting traditional practice to blended learning (the combination of traditional and e-learning practices) to learning that is delivered entirely online” - this is  what the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) say in The Effective Assessment in a Digital Age, p. 8.

 

As part of a broader discussion of how Teesside students experience all aspects of technology-enhanced learning, we used a focus group to explore how students used technology and what experience (if any) they had of OERs. The interview was conducted by Michael Teague and Philip Makinson in March 2011. We wanted to explore the degree of knowledge of TEL do students have and what they thought of Teesside’s use of technology? As part of this, we asked students about their their experience of OERs.

  • For OERs, in particular, students were not previously aware of this label.
  • Their initial reaction was that they had not used OERs. 
  • This may be viewed as an example of the frequently made criticism that those supporting OERs have not done enough to promote them effectively (for example the view that "OERs will not be able to help countries reach their educational goals unless awareness of their power and potential can rapidly be expanded beyond the communities of interest that they have already attracted." - UNESCO and COL promote wider use of OERs". International Council for Open and Distance Education. 2010 Retrieved from Wikipedia March 31, 2011).
  • Further discussion showed that they had, awareness of the term 'OERs' notwithstanding, our students in practice often used learning, teaching, and research resources that were in the public domain, given that this definition included course materials (often but not always accessed via the VLE), YouTube videos, streaming videos, textbooks including Google books, and other material which provided knowledge and information. This certainly gave a sense that the reality is OERs are gradually becoming incorporated and integrated into the learning and teaching process. The students generally had used resources in the public domain (although, interestingly, not resources that have been released under an intellectual property licence allowing their use or re-purposing).
  • In a broad sense, students told us that in terms of resources, they considered that their learning and teaching needs were generally being met. There was no evidence that students felt that a greater emphasis on OERs might assist them and a single student articulated the perception that the use of OERs by staff might somehow be 'cheating' and not a resource which had been explicity designedwith them in mind.

 

 

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