E-PTLLS

1. E-PTLLS Consortium Annual Conference in association with HEA Seminar Series 2011-12 Marta Menor Rodriguez & Karen Veneziale Accrington & Rossendale College 29/06/12

2. Background to the project • Project funded by the Consortium • Rationale and aims • The staff • The schedule • The design • The process of selection of students • Piloted on a group of 7 students • The structure of the programme

3. The model Adapted from Salmon (2011)

4. Access and motivation Objective: to enable participants quick and easy access to the system • Induction day (5 teams involved): • Technical issues • Password setting • Navigating around the VLE • Course structure and requirements • Points of referral • Library induction • Ground rules(participation) • Ice breaker(first messages successfully posted)

5. Online socialisation Objective: to provide a strong social ‘scaffold’ and a safe online space to socialise • Face to face socialisation during induction • Two arrivals after induction: these were integrated into the group through online ice breaker • Students’ own space for online discussions • E-moderator (tutor) interventions

6. Information exchange Objective: to enable participants to appreciate the broad range of information available online and promote active participation • Interaction with course content: • Links to websites • Online resources • E-tivities • Beware: potential information overload • Interaction with people: • Skype facility • Bulletin boards • Emails • Online discussions(very well utilised at this stage) • Mid point evaluation

7. Knowledge construction Objective: to develop high level constructivist collaboration • Participants engage in more exposed and participatory ways • Clear engagement with relevant concepts and theories • Some develop the confidence to express potentially controversial views • E-moderator’s participation limited to sustain the group and encourage constructivist approaches

8. Development Objective: to enable participants to become responsible for their own learning • Participants feel more confident in providing feedback to e-moderator • Become more technically demanding • Engrossed in the preparation of the micro teach • Towards the end of the programme participation decreasessignificantly

9. Evaluation • Selection process successful • E-moderation activities time-consuming • Standard of written work above that of traditional PTLLS • Three potential outstanding microteaches • Clear attempts to integrate new technologies and constructivist approaches in microteaches (see Owston et al, 2008) • Strategies to support participants manage the “Information exchange” stage needed • Structure of the course needs to be revised to possibly incorporate more face-to-face • Stage 5 (development) not fully achieved

10. What the participants said • Development of literacy [precision of expression (Stacey & Gerbic, 2007)] and ICT skills identified as a “side effect” • High quality resources provided a good starting point • High quality peer interaction • Discussions motivated participants to do the wider reading and get involved • Working at own pace highly valued • Induction extremely useful; departments involved were well coordinated • Excellent support throughout • Issues around the functionality of the VLE and structure of online discussions need to be addressed • Mid point face-to-face session needed to keep high levels of motivation

11. Further reading • Owston, R., Wideman, H., Murphy, J. and Lupshenyuk, D. (2008), 'Blended teacher professional development: A synthesis of three program evaluations', Internet and Higher Education, 11, pp. 201-210 • Salmon, G. (2011) E-moderating. The key to teaching and learning online, London: Routledge • Stacey, E. and Gerbic, P. (2007), 'Teaching for blended learning – Research perspectives from on-campus and distance students', Education Information Technology, 12, pp. 165-174