Technologies for Learning: Student Inductions 2014/15

We've just finished our Student Induction sessions. As part of the process we collect information from the sessions, and report back. The reflections for 2013 are available from:

• http://ucselevate.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/elevate-team-student-inductions-student.html

After much discussion we followed a similar task and tool mix used in 2013. The slides for this year are below. A new drive this year was to make reference to e-safety and our Social Media Guidelines. During the induction period this was managed through a number of routes, including A5 flyers in their planners, and reference in these sessions.



We also ask a number of questions during the sessions using the Clicker Technologies. The aim of asking these questions is to help create a profile of our new students. The questions and answers are below. The sample population was across five cohorts, and 122 students (out of 963 first year students). The background is 91% had a social media account, 4% did not, and 5% wouldn't tell us.

A question we ask was could they rank the top 3 most common tasks they've undertaken from the list in the last three months. The results indicate for this cohort the most common tasks are; accessing email on tablet / phone, taking and sharing a photo on your phone, writing a word doc and installing an app on your mobile device. This is exactly the same pattern as the 2013 Cohort.

The next question we ask is around if they can classify their technical ability.

• I’m a power user. I’m very competent with Microsoft Word, I update blogs, I’ve added content to youtube and I use Google Docs (17.4% in 2013)
• I’m a novice. I’m very good as some aspects of Microsoft Office, I read lots of material from web sites, I access multimedia (video and audio) online, and I have used skype (37.5% in 2013) 
• I’m a happy amateur. I tend to use UCS computers and software, and share most of my word documents as email attachments. It meets my needs (39.9% in 2013) 
• I’m rather stressed and anxious when it comes to technology. I don’t feel in control, and what I’m currently doing isn’t very satisfactory (5.2% in 2013)

The results (admittedly not statistically significant) indicate there has been a shift from the previous year with more people rating themselves as being more technical (digital) literate.

Given the length of the session varied (from 30 to 60 minutes), we ask the question, where would they like us to place the emphasis. Interestingly, this year, the focus was on Google Docs.
As part of the process, we'll reflect on the session in terms of its effectiveness and focus for the Semester 2 intake.

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With Thanks - Image - http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/52/Company_Information_Session_in_Japan_001.jpg

Student Inductions 2014 (February Starters)

The Elevate Team attended a total of six student inductions this month to introduce a new influx of students to some technologies they could use to enhance their learning outside of UCS. The tools that were on offer to the students were:

• Using Twitter as a Personal Learning Network
• Social Bookmarking with Diigo
• Collaborative working using Google Drive

There has been a change this year to the lineup of tools, we moved Mahara out of the list of options to choose from and added it as a mandatory item, mainly to raise students awareness of the tool and encourage it's use away from the tools they have to use for their UCS studies. We used to mention it as an option students could pick from to discuss (Chosen using audience response clickers) further in the presentation, however it was a rarely chosen item.

The structure of the sessions runs through a couple of the services here at UCS, we don't run through any how-tos or tutorials, simply highlight the fact they are available and what they provide students.

We then move onto some tools that can be used outside of UCS to enhance the students learning, such as the above mentioned tools.

The idea was to then raise Mahara's profile to round-off the session focusing on bringing in some of those experiences and evidence into an e-Portfolio service. However after answering the influx of questions during and after the demo of two of the tools, we've found we regularly run out of time to discuss Mahara in any great detail.

Taking the above into account, we will look at rearranging the session again to bring Mahara back into the front of the presentation but explicitly removing any attachment to it being a mandatory UCS learning tool and more of a space 'provided' by UCS. We can then adjust the demo accordingly to how much time we have left, as we would rather leave out less important features from the tools rather than lose the pitch we could give Mahara give an allotted position in the session.

Elevate Team Student Inductions, Student Digital Literacy and the messages we take

The Elevate Team provide a student induction workshop for new and returning students at UCS around the topic of using technologies to enhance their learning. The slides are available from:

• Innovative technologies to enhance your learning

Part of the session involves the use the audience response system to gather information from the students on a range of technology enhanced topics. This is to help steer the workshop and give a quick heads up in terms of evaluation. We have been doing this for a number of years.

So based on this years replies, what messages can we (Elevate Team) take from it?

1. the session seems to be achieving its aims, is it relevant and fit for purpose
2. we need to ensure the focus of our student surgeries and the software services we provide contain a mobile device dimension
3. the provision of our student digital literacy courses must accommodate the full range of needs, from those who classify themselves as power users, to those who are stressed and anxious when it comes to technology

We use a number of measures to identify the current level of engagement of technologies for the new intake. The simplest indicator is is they have and use a social networking tool, such as facebook or Twitter (n=330). The responses indicated 81.2% had, with another 7.6% not willing to tell us, and 11.2% not having an account. This is a very similar pattern to the results from the September 2011 inductions (Yes 85%, No 10%, Not telling 5%).

The next question asks them to classify their technical ability against the following classifications (n=328):

• I’m a power user. I’m very competent with Microsoft Word, I’m a master of the pivot table, I update blogs, I’ve added content to youtube and I use Google Docs (17.4%)
• I’m a novice. I’m very good as some aspects of Microsoft Office, I read lots of material from web sites, I access multimedia (video and audio) online, and I have used skype (37.5%)
• I’m a happy amateur. I tend to use UCS computers and software, and share most of my word documents as email attachments. It meets my needs (39.9%)
• I’m rather stressed and anxious when it comes to technology. I don’t feel in control, and what I’m currently doing isn’t very satisfactory (5.2%)

This is a complex process and is very subjective, however, it is interesting the spread across the range with relatively large percentages of power users (17.4%), and those who are stressed and anxious when it comes to technology (5.2%). We need to accommodate this when planning our student focussed sessions. These results are not dissimilar to those in September 2011; 11.5% Power Users, 66.3% Natty Novices, 17.3% Happy Amateurs and 4.9% Technology Anxious)

A question we included this year was to try to identify some common tasks students completed. There was a number of drivers for this, in particular the hope of being able to feed any support needs into our emerging digital literacies course.

We asked the student to select the top four tasks (most common first) they’d completed from the list. The results are outlined below (in rank of most common across the cohort). It is interesting to identify the dominance of tasks being completed on mobile devices. The scores are in brackets. I’d suggest this is an indicator of how often the top four tasks are completed.

1. access your email on a phone or tablet (2149)
2. take a photo on a phone and share it (2028)
3. write a document in word (1951)
4. download an app to a mobile device (1470)
5. create a video on a phone and share it (587)
6. embed a picture or video in a presentation (465)
7. use google scholar (192)
8. none of the above or other (178)

In terms of where the students would like us to place the emphasis when we deliver our workshops (n=301), the most popular was on collaborative writing in Google Docs (42.9%), compared to using twitter to develop your personal learning network (25.9%), reflective blogging and note taking in Mahara (21.6%), or social bookmarking using Diigo (9.6%).

The session is evaluated as part of the wider Student Induction Programme, however, we do ask a question to gauge initial interest in the areas covered. This question is, to what extent do you agree with, “after this session I will look further into what has been discussed to bring into my learning” (n=325). It was very pleasing to see 61.5% Strongly Agree, 29.2% agreed, and only 4.3% either disagreed or strongly disagreed.

A number of twitter posts from students mirrored the view the sessions had achieved the aims of encouraging students to think how they might use technology to enhance their learning.

• Would like to thank @thedavidmullett for introducing me to google drive and a better use of twitter today :-)
• @thedavidmullett thanks for todays talk, interesting stuff. now a google drive convert
• @thedavidmullett fab presentation yesterday! Never even knew google drive existed but I can see it being a life saver from now on! Thankyou

Students embracing Web 2 Social tools for Learning

Just a small post to mention more good feedback regarding our (Elevate) Student Induction sessions, the session has been rolled out this year to try and empower students to think about some web 2 tools and how they could use them for their studies. The big hitters that always come up in the sessions are Twitter and the use of Google Docs for collaborative group work, although sometimes we do go into the use of Diigo for social bookmarking and Wordpress for reflective blogging. The use of Clickers or audience response system lets the students in the session decide what we put the emphasis on.

Although it has been hard to judge any sort of uptake for Google Docs, Twitter has been great in the fact after our sessions, we are getting students follow not only ourselves but the Elevate Twitter as well.

Here are a couple of examples from our/their public Twitter accounts:





At one session, the students were so enthusiastic asking so many questions that the session ran into their coffee break!



We had multiple students add us on Twitter..



We do have more in depth feedback from a student who after attending one of our sessions, embraced the use of Twitter as a Personal Learning Network. You can read the students here -->  http://wolseyweb.ucs.ac.uk/blogs/elevate/?p=15093

We'll be using this feedback to help inform the role of the Elevate Team with respect to digital literacies at UCS.

New students, learning technology and digital literacies

During the Student Induction period the Elevate Team have been running sessions across UCS on how technologies can enhance your learning. As part of this we have used the Clickers (Turning Point) software to gather information.The aims of using the clickers included; demonstrating a technology they will use in their learning, and a rough snapshot across the first year student on technology use, and their perceptions.

Over 11 induction sessions (UCS Ipswich only) we collected a total of 617 people (students) votes on a number of questions.

The questions focused on the following key areas;

• what technology have you used in your learning?


• are you registered on Web 2.0 technologies?


• how would you rate yourself in terms of technology?

The outcomes indicate the need to develop effective student development programmes around technology based learning and digital literacies.

In terms of what tasks they have completed previously in their learning, they where asked, “previously had you completed any of the following in your studies?”a) Been told to access some web based reading resources
b) Had to submit some work electronically for marking
c) Maintain an electronic portfolio

The results (n = 590), indicated the majority of the audience had been instructed to use web based resources in their learning (45.9%, and 33% when combined with answer b). While the number who had previously been exposed to electronic portfolios was very low (1.4%).

It must be stated the question design was poor, as it did not include a not used any of these options, and the multiple answer made it difficult to identify patterns. However, it did give an indication of low awareness around what is an e-Portfolio. A message which must be taken on board when staff roll out Mahara within their teaching.

An increasing trend within teaching is the combined use of internal and externally hosted software. For instance, our Induction focused on how students could take ownership of their learning and use Web 2.0 technologies to achieve a number of learning outcomes. A simple indicator of engagement with Web 2.0 technologies was to ask, have to a facebook account? The rationale being, if yes, they must have created an account, and therefore, engaged with Web 2.0 services. The results indicated our student base has engaged with Web 2.0 technologies, as 85% have a facebook account, 10% do not, and 5% would not say (n = 599).

A limitation of this question was they might not be on Facebook, but use other Web 2.0 services. This question didn’t accommodate this scenario.

The final question focused on how students perceived their confidence with using technology. They were asked how they would rate themselves, as either a technology (software) power user, novice, happy amateur or being anxious.

The definitions were as follows:

• I’m a power user. I’m very competent with Microsoft Word, I’m a master of the pivot table, I update blogs, I’ve added content to youtube and I use Google Docs


• I’m a novice. I’m very good as some aspects of Microsoft Office, I read lots of material from web sites, I access multimedia (video and audio) online, and I have used skype


• I’m a happy amateur. I tend to use UCS computers and software, and share most of my word documents as email attachments. It meets my needs


• I’m rather stressed and anxious when it comes to technology. I don’t feel in control, and what I’m currently doing isn’t very satisfactory

The key differences (when we explained to students) was the power user was a content creator, compared to the novice. While the happy amateur tended not to use intranet based information.

The outcomes indicate the majority of students rate themselves (n = 617) as a novice (66.3%), compared to a happy amateur (17.3%), a power user (11.5%), or rather anxious (4.9%). Many observations can be drawn from this, including we tend to have a new intake who have a really good grounding in software (desktop and web based).  It also indicates the need to devote resources to a well designed student support package, as 22% are not engaging with web based material would rate themselves as anxious and stressed with respect to technologies in learning.

Overall, there are some lessons we need to take on board. Although, these are good indicators for learning technologies, there are still a large group of students, who are not confident or digitally literate, around the use of externally hosted solutions. Therefore, we do need to ensure our student support mechanisms are fit for practice.

Lastly, the ice breaker question … how did students like our shirts? This question was asked by the Elevate Team member when they ran the session. The majority didn’t care (67.9%), while 5.3% hated it! The sample was 585 people ... a lesson for use next year.

The start of Student Induction Season

The start of September brings with it the colder winds and rain, as well as the start of Student Induction season.

This year we have changed how we deliver our induction sessions to new students, in the past we have mainly concentrated on a basic point and click around Wolsey,  spending up to an hour showing students how to move around the VLE, what each tab does and where they can find things.  New for 2011 we are trying to incorporate a much wider area of interest, as the relatively newly formed Elevate Team, we want to show students more of what is available to them, to help them enhance their learning experience.  Not only with institutionally owned systems such as the VLE and ePortfolios, but many of the Web 2.0 technologies that they can own themselves.

Our sessions are planned around the following system/ideas

• Welcome and aims of session


• A simple question to get them used to the Audience Response System


• A question asking about technology uses during previous study periods


• A question about Facebook usage


• A question asking how the students would categorise themselves as technology users


• Giving information about Institutionally owned software




• Wolsey - VLE - A 10 minute screencast is shown, showing what Wolsey is and how it can be used


• Mahara - ePortfolio -  A short cartoon video showing what ePortfolios are




• Information about Individually owned software




• A vote is taken to see where we should emphasise the next part of the session, choices are:




• Using Personal Learning Networks - Twitter


• Social Bookmarking - Diigo


• Reflective Blogging - WordPress


• MindMapping and/or Google Docs




• Depending on the result of the vote we spend time talking through them in order, showing our own examples and real time use




• A QR Code is on the final slide that loads the presentation if scanned

Observations

To date, we have run two of these new sessions, both David and I ran one each on the first day, these were run at the same time, hopefully allowing us to demonstrate the excellent collaborative features of GoogleDocs, but unfortunately the sessions didn't run completely to plan.

The two sessions were quite different, David and around 10 students in a small teaching room, where I had around 80 in a large lecturer theatre, overall we left that our sessions both ran well, although my session probably not quite as well as David's.  The smaller more intermate nature of David's session seems to fit better with way in which we choose to run them, I find that larger groups in bigger spaces tend not to interact or take part as much as the smaller groups.  However, they all seemed to really enjoy using the "clickers", it made them feel part of the session.  We both suffered from Powerpoint crashing on the same slide, the last voting question, unfortunately losing the session data that we were hoping to use after all sessions were finished.

David's group really enjoyed the session and at the end, the students were really starting to see how they could use these Web 2.0 technologies to help in there teaching, it sounds like it was a very productive session.  My session was slightly less productive as I suffered from the previous speaker over running by some time, then finding out half way through my presentation that the students had to "get a bus in 10 minutes".  Although this wasn't ideal, overall I think the students were taking in what they were seeing and could see how these technologies could help their learning.  Unfortunately with my session starting late we were unable to demonstrate the collaborative features in GoogleDocs, but I was able to show how it works and show version/history controls in documents.

Summary

Overall I think this new format to our induction sessions really does work, it opens up students' minds to the potential solutions out there for them.  Also, the materials that we've produced to use in these sessions, can also form the basis of other sessions and FAQs.