The Lecturer is Dead; long live Web 2.0 and the VLE!

Hi and a Happy New Year to all.

The next meetings of the Educational Development Discussion Group (EDDG) will be taking place on Friday 15th January at 1.00pm and on Wednesday 20th January at 12.15pm. Both meetings will be held in the Enterprise Centre in Suite 3 (Friday) and Suite 4 (Wednesday).

Just a reminder that EDDG is an open forum for staff to meet and discuss issues associated with the practice and research of learning and teaching.

For our next meetings we have chosen the theme of:

‘The Lecturer is dead; long live WEB 2.0 and the VLE!’

Educational technology tools are being invented on what seems like a daily basis and will probably be developed even faster in the future. However…..

· Can we learn how to use them all effectively?
· Do we want to?
· Are our students desperate for these new technologies to be used in class?
· Is training to use these various tools the answer?
· Is the technology to entertain our students or to enhance learning and teaching?
· Are we frightened of looking stupid in front of our students?

Research carried out by BECTA in England seems to suggest that there is strong evidence linking the use of technology to improvements in learning and outcomes for learning. Educational establishments that are opting for a systematic, premeditated approach to the use of technology supporting the learning are achieving better outcomes. Other findings suggest that students don’t want lecturers replaced by technology and that young people are not as highly skilled in the use of technology as we expect them to be. You may want to have a look at the publication that I have attached below from BECTA – ‘Evidence on the impact of technology on learning and educational outcomes’. Although it was based upon research carried out mainly within secondary schools it still has interest and meaning for FE.

I hope we can look forward to lively discussions based around this topic and tea and coffee will be available. If you are aware of any other articles that would be of interest please e mail them to me in advance or you could post them to our EDDG blog @ http://mail.stevenson.ac.uk/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://eddg.blogspot.com/

Finally I’ll leave you with this quote:

‘The most profound technologies are those that disappear. They weave themselves into the fabric of everyday life until they are undistinguishable from it.’
Weiser, M. (1991): The Computer for the 21st Century


Click on the following to access the BECTA report on Evidence on the impact of technology on learning and educational outcomes

BECTA is a UK-wide organisation with responsibility for supporting the effective use of technology in learning. Click here to find out more about them.