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See Itslife Library for other reading
See General Teaching Skills section for general sources which may well contain this topic
e-journey on e-learning Describes itself as follows - 'This e-journey is a free guide to e-learning (also called e-learning or eLearning) written by Derek Stockley. E-learning is explained, the major fields of expertise are explored, gurus and experts are listed and a comprehensive range of links is provided. It is designed to provide general information and specific design tips. This online training course/program assumes a basic knowledge of how the internet operates, however the e-learning content is suitable for both the novice and experienced user. It is an example of computer based training. Web education should be fun. Enjoy!' At http://derekstockley.com.au/eindex2aa.html
e-learning workbook for Adult and Community Learning at http://www.aclearn.net/skills/workbook/
GUIDE TO E-LEARNING. This includes the latest on Government policy as well as information on personalised learning, overcoming the barriers to successful e-learning, using online resources and examples of good practice. You can also find out more by reading our latest guides to key issues around e-learning:
Guide 2 E-learning: Policy and strategy
Guide 2 E-learning: Overcoming the barriers
Guide 2 E-learning: Personalised learning
Guide 2 E-learning: Teaching and learning with online resources
More at http://senet.lsc.gov.uk/topics/topicelearn.cfm
Guide to e-learning in Further and Higher Education - Jane Knight (Download here - pdf)
The Practical guide to e-learning for industry describes itself as follows: 'an effective set of information screens, checklists and links that will help any business, large or small, to get started in e-learning, or to improve existing e-learning programs. This Practical guide was developed as a response to feedback from industry that they needed information on how to get started in e-learning. It is not intended that the Practical guide be a fixed resource. At http://industry.flexiblelearning.net.au/guide/about.htm
ACLearn.net is a really useful site for all of us, but especially for those of you working with Adult and Community Learning (ACL). It is there to provide e-learning support for the ACL sector. It's at http://www.aclearn.net/about/
British Educational Technology and Communications Agency (BECTA) - the national organisation for 'educational technology' at http://www.becta.org.uk
The e-Learning Centre is home to a large collection of selected and reviewed links to e-learning resources focusing on e-learning in the Workplace, for professional development and in Further and Higher Education.
These are categorised into 5 main sections: Library, Showcase, Products & Services, Events andBookshop.
A useful site with many links and resources featured on it. The library section is particularly comprehensive.
The centre is at: http://www.e-learningcentre.co.uk/index.html
E-learning is dead. Long live learning! A challenging and thoughtful piece by Teemu Leinonen on the Surf web site (via the ALT Fortnightly Digest). Extracts:
When implementing learning - with "e" or without it - the focus should be on building communities, offering people spaces and facilitating their advances in the community's area of interests. At the same time, the community should involve new generations, have them take part in its activities. Unfortunately in e-learning we too often pay most of our attention to such issues as technology, e-learning platforms, ready-made content, standards, management of learning and automated assessment.
In future we will see more companies and universities that will consciously terminate their e-learning projects. This does not mean that these organizations would not be interested in using ICT in their learning-related operations. The products and services offered under the term "e-learning" simply do not serve their needs.
Read the article at: http://www.edusite.nl/edusite/agenda/13987
Evidence for E-learning Policy VANESSA PITTARD British Educational Communications and Technology Agency, Coventry, United Kingdom
Abstract: E-learning is becoming an increasingly mainstream feature of educational delivery. The launch of a national e-learning strategy in England signals the Government's commitment to maximising the potential benefits of investment in information and communications technology (ICT). The vision for e-learning set out in this strategy is ambitious. At this time, research has the potential to inform related decisions about e-learning at many levels, though achieving evidence-informed policy and practice requires meaningful dialogue between researchers and policy makers and practitioners. Robust evidence of the impact and added value of e-learning is at a premium, set within the context of broader educational objectives, like widening participation in learning and raising educational standards. This is not a straightforward exercise, due to the difficulties of researching complex social contexts and interventions. The challenge for researchers is to develop methodologies which both recognise the complexities of e-learning implementation and produce robust measures of impact or added value. Greater understanding is needed of the conditions under which ICT deployment impacts positively on attainment, the relationship between learner needs and e-learning, the effective deployment of staff time, assessment in an e-learning age and e-learning in post-16 education.
Further Education Resources for Learning (FERL), which is intended to be 'A resource for FE practitioners, which promotes the development of electronic learning resources in teaching and learning. Here you'll find information, examples of good practice illustrated by real college materials and a forum to share your ideas. ' A very good source of resources of all kinds relating to using ILT in teaching. At http://ferl.qia.org.uk/
e-strategy - the government policy on e-learning http://ferl.qia.org.uk/display.cfm?page=808
Experiences of Technology Enhanced Learning: What Went Wrong?
A paper from the European Conference on Technology Enhanced Learning held in September 2007 in Crete, presents four case studies of projects that were not wholly successful and analyses why they failed.
HOW DO ADULTS USE ICTS FOR LEARNING? New research shows that ICT-use continues to be patterned largely according to long-term pre-existing social and economic factors. This suggests that, at best, ICT increases educational activity amongst those who are more likely already to be learners rather than widening participation to those who have previously not taken part in learning. http://www.cf.ac.uk/socsi/ict/surveysummary.pdf
How's the E-learning Baby? Factors Leading to Success or Failure of an Educational Technology Innovation - an interesting article by Alexander J. Romiszowski. Educational Technology, January-February 2004 Volume 44, Number 1, pp. 5-27. (Download here - pdf)
Hot Potatoes - The Hot Potatoes suite includes six applications, enabling you to create interactive multiple-choice, short-answer, jumbled-sentence, crossword, matching/ordering and gap-fill exercises for the World Wide Web. Hot Potatoes is not freeware, but it is free of charge for those working for publicly-funded non-profit-making educational institutions, who make their pages available on the web. Widely used in the sector, and FREE: http://web.uvic.ca/hrd/halfbaked/
The International Centre for Distance Learning (ICDL) The OU's International Centre for Distance Learning (ICDL) ceased most of its activities from 1st April 2003 as its external funding has come to an end. ICDL's literature database will continue and be maintained. The web site is at: http://icdl.open.ac.uk/
INFOBITS is an excellent e-mail news letter from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Center for Instructional Technology. Each month the CIT's Information Resources Consultant monitors and selects from a number of information and instructional technology sources that come to her attention and provides brief notes for electronic dissemination to educators.
INFOBITS is also available online on the World Wide Web at http://www.unc.edu/cit/infobits/ (HTML format) and at http://www.unc.edu/cit/infobits/text/index.html (plain text format).
Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) JISC works with further and higher education by providing strategic guidance, advice and opportunities to use ICT to support teaching, learning, research and administration. The overall web site for JISC is somewhat limited in terms of immediately interesting sections, but taking a browse around the projects section is certainly worth doing, to keep up to date on IT developments.
The guide 'Effective Practice with e-Learning' is built around a sequence of ten case studies illustrating practitioners' solutions to day-to-day challenges. (download pdf 380k)
JISC is at : http://www.jisc.ac.uk/
JISC Operates a number of Regional Support Centres around the country, and they are described as follows:
Different RSCs have their own web sites and ones, and the range and quality of the sites is somewhat variable, but if you start at the clickable map of centres, you can see for yourself it's at: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/index.cfm?name=rsclocation
RSC Northwest is a good example (partly because it includes Itslife!), and it is at:
Learning Technologies - the Learning and Skills Development Agency (LSDA) specialist site, which supports the development of a sector ILT staff development programme. This is a useful site, although it has many categories and sections with not very much in, which actually has a specifically Post Compulsory focus, and which can help you keep up to date with events, developments, research and the latest news. http://www.learningtechnologies.ac.uk/
POWERPOINT: GOOD OR EVIL?
Edward Tufte, author of several works on information design, and artist and musician David Byrne square off on PowerPoint. In "PowerPoint Is Evil: Power Corrupts. PowerPoint Corrupts Absolutely"
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.09/ppt2.html Tufte argues that the "standard PowerPoint presentation elevates format over content, betraying an attitude of commercialism that turns everything into a sales pitch." He laments that even schoolchildren are using it in lieu of essay writing.
The essay "Learning to Love PowerPoint" http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.09/ppt1.html describes Byrne's discovery of PowerPoint as a "metaprogram, one that organizes and presents stuff created in other applications." Although he started by making "presentations about presentations," he moved on to using the program to create pieces that ran as short films. Unlike Tufte, who believes that PowerPoint "routinely disrupts, dominates, and trivializes content," Byrne sees PowerPoint as an "artistic agent" that lets him manipulate his content more creatively and easily.
PROJECT EAGLE A project based at St Petersburgh Junior College in Florida which describes itself as follows:
Project Eagle is a multi-year strategic initiative by St. Petersburg Junior College to build a national model for increasing access to four-year degrees and workforce training for students attending community colleges. Access is enhanced by educational opportunities that are increasingly flexible -- with courses, programs and support services to be delivered at a time and place and in a way at a pace best suited to the needs of the individual learner. \The site has much useful and well explained advice, information, case studies and useful materials relating to what is described as 'technology mediated' teaching and learning.
Highlights include BEEP (Best Educational e-Practices), a newsletter packed with useful tips, examples advice and resources the latest edition is at http://www.spjc.edu/eagle/research/beep/current_beep.htm
and there is a particularly good edition called
'Shrouded in the mists of someone else's vision' - Teachers using learning technology in post compulsory education (Jim Crawley Bath Spa University) Paper presented at the British Educational Research Association Annual Conference, University of Manchester, 16-18 September 2004
Introduction
This paper presents the view that teachers in Post Compulsory Education (PCE), far from being at the forefront of the e-learning revolution, are often 'shrouded in the mists of someone else's vision' (Le Gallais 2002) and pressured to move in a direction they are not necessarily convinced is the right one. Whilst accepting and endorsing a number of the key elements of such a vision as potentially positive enhancements of a teacher's role and responsibilities, the paper argues that there is a significant, and probably growing, gap between where the vision expects teachers in Post Compulsory Education (PCE) to go, and where a significant proportion of them actually are. Ongoing research by the author, into the views of teachers in PCE on Learning Technology, suggests that many are in reality ill prepared, practically and psychologically, to embrace and utilize e-learning, and often unconvinced of its value in their teaching.
Available on line at : http://www.leeds.ac.uk/educol/documents/00003709.htm