Presentation from Changing the Learning Landscape – Social Media in the Humanities workshop, 15th May 2013, Institute of Education University of London.

1. Changing the learning landscape
Social media and e-learning in history teaching in UK HE – filling a gap?
Dr Jamie Wood, University of Lincoln

2. Changing the learning landscape
TWO PARTS
• E-learning and history teaching in higher education: a
survey (2012-13, HEA)
• My experiences of using social media
• Questioning the Medieval using social bookmarking
• Other experiments
• http://www.slideshare.net/woodjamie/

3. Changing the learning landscape
PART I: E-learning and
history teaching survey
RESEARCH QUESTIONS
• What are benefits of e-learning for
student learning and staff teaching in
History HE?
• What are the challenges and
drawbacks of e-learning?

4. Changing the learning landscape
METHODOLOGY
• Survey (http://tinyurl.com/8kkz524) administered to 1st and
2nd year students at 5 UK History departments
– 38 students responded (11 x 1st years/ 27 x 2nd years)
– Mainly History, but also joint degrees
• Interview with 1 member of teaching staff at 5 UK History
departments

5. Changing the learning landscape
RESULTS (from students)
TYPES OF TECHNOLOGY USED
Virtual learning environments 37
Discussion boards 24
Video (YouTube etc.) 19
Audio (podcasts etc.) 12
Social networking (Facebook etc.) 8
Blogs 5
Collaborative document creation (Google docs etc.) 5
Document sharing (Dropbox etc.) 3
Wikis 2
Twitter 1
Photos (Flickr etc.) 1
Other 2

6. Changing the learning landscape
HOW IMPORTANT ARE TECHNOLOGIES TO YOUR LEARNING? (between
1 and 10, where 1=not at all; 10=essential)
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
importance =>
frequency=>

7. Changing the learning landscape
WHAT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT TECHNOLOGY FOR LEARNING?
• Virtual learning environments (31 responses); used as:
– repository (21 responses)
– site for assessment and feedback (5)
– means of communication (5)
– site for enhancing learning (3):
• ‘refreshing my memory’
• ‘enabled me to easily organise my learning’
• taking ‘own personal notes’ to learn by ‘observing things’
• YouTube/ online library resources/ databases/ university
portal (2 responses each)

8. Changing the learning landscape
EXTENT TO WHICH TECHNOLOGIES ENHANCED
LEARNING IN FOLLOWING AREAS...
(students provided rating from 1-5, 1=not at all; 5=a great deal)
• Preparing for class: 4.26 (staff: 8.3/10)
• Preparing for assessment: 4.26 (6.6/10)
• Working independently: 4.05 (6.9/10)
• Reflecting on learning: 4.03 (5.9/10)
• Subject knowledge: 3.79 (6.9/10)
• Skills development: 3.03 (5.2/10)
• Collaborative working: 2.45 (3.1/10)

9. Changing the learning landscape
SKILLS DEVELOPED
Independent learning (29)
Research skills (20)
Communication (8)
Knowledge and understanding (8)
No skills improvement (8)
No response (7)

10. Changing the learning landscape
NEGATIVE IMPACTS
• Technical issues
• Repositories are useful, but too much reliance on them:
• ‘sort of dumbing down or levelling out [...] these things might
encourage a bit more spoon-feeding’ (staff)
• Some skills are not developed:
• ‘hasn’t really developed skills that I believe are essential part
of uni process. i.e. teamwork, discussion and developing
your own interest of study’ (student)

11. Changing the learning landscape
STUDENT SKILLS, EXPERIENCES
AND EXPECTATIONS
SUMMARY OF STAFF PERSPECTIVES
• Students are not ‘digital natives’, esp. within discipline
• Researching using the Internet is challenging
• Over-reliance on e-learning can reduce independence
• A ‘narrowing’ effect, esp. among 1st year and weaker
students (the VLE repository contains ‘everything’)
• Some resistance to learning activities outside classroom
and to interacting with one another

12. Changing the learning landscape
• Virtual learning environments predominate and, in general, are viewed
positively by students and staff
• Issues, e.g.: ‘Getting all lecturers to embrace technology would be a step
forward‘
• Limiting features
• Staff AND students think that it doesn’t help that much in certain
areas (team-working; developing some skills)
• Narrowing/ a closed body of knowledge? Esp. for weaker students
perhaps
• Can promote teacher-centred/ transmission approaches
SUMMARY OF PART I

13. Changing the learning landscape
PART II:
Questioning the
Medieval using
social
bookmarking...
and other
adventures in
social (and not
so social) media

14. Changing the learning landscape
• Internet users manage
bookmarks of web pages
online (not on a browser)
using tags/ descriptions, not
folders
• Active engagement –
students have to do
something
• Online/ social element –
enables
collaboration, sharing and
visibility
social bookmarking
See Taha and Wood (2011)
for more on this

15. Changing the learning landscape
‘Challenges’ and
‘opportunities’ (or ‘problems’)
• Y1 lecture-based module in History
• My perception:
– Lack of student preparation or maybe lack of engagement with
reading
• Result:
– Difficult to plan seminars and to carry them out
– Over preparation; formulaic/ rigid structure; double preparation
• Solution = use visible & active learning – i.e. require the students to
do something outside class that we could all see

16. Changing the learning landscape
• Diigo education
edition
• Private, separat
e logins
• Sharing
• Highlighting
• Sticky-noting

17. Changing the learning landscape
Basic weekly activity
• Students find online resources
relating to the weekly topic
• Students ‘tag’, describe and
share resources
• Then post questions based on
reading to discussion forum in
diigo
• Resources + questions = my
seminar plan
• For some of resources see:
https://www.diigo.com/user/pag
ansxtians

18. But variety is key...
Locating and bookmarking source(s)
• Find and bookmark primary/
secondary source
• Add description and tags
Essay writing
• Respond to feedback on
essays by bookmarking a
relevant site
• Revise thesis statement
from first essay and post to
discussion forum
Non-written sources
• Find and bookmark a non-
written source (YouTube;
Flickr)
• In description, explain why
this source is relevant to the
seminar
Highlighting
• Highlight and comment on relevant
sections of a pre-selected document
Questioning
• Post a (specific kind of) question based on
reading to the discussion forum
...otherwise it gets boring
See appendix to Wood, 2011, for more on this

19. Changing the learning landscape
STUDENT FEEDBACK
1. Practical: for preparing
essays
2. Independence: enjoyed the
opportunity to find own
sources
3. Freedom: ‘There is more
freedom of choice about
what to read’
4. Variety: ‘it is much more
interesting, and because
you are not only reading, it
is easier to absorb
information’.

20. Changing the learning landscape
LEARNING FROM OTHERS
• ‘it has been good to see what other people have put
and there was probably more variation in the
questions than if the tutor was to set them.’
• ‘it allows you to see a wider range of issues that
come up from sources - some that you may not even
have thought about.’
+ 12 out of 15 students felt that their
research skills had improved

21. Changing the learning landscape
POSING QUESTIONS
AND SOURCES
• ‘it forces you to think about the
source material and be analytical
in response to it’
• ‘it makes you think about what
you're reading a lot more, and
opens up the area of reading to
different paths of thought.’
Taking charge of learning:
‘I used to prefer having the questions set for me but I think it
has been more useful setting them myself as it has made me
think about the reading more.’

22. Changing the learning landscape
WHAT’S GOING ON?
• Models disciplinary processes
– [+ it’s realistic and honest]
• Develops
– Disciplinary skills:
summarising; using sources
– Knowledge: students have to
read AND think
– ‘Generic’ skills: technology;
information literacy; research
For more on this see Wood,
2011 and Wood and Ryan, 2010

23. Another (brief) example: generative
learning objects (GLOs)
• GLOs: learning objects that can be customised, adapted, edited or
recombined (based on free templates at http://glomaker.org/)
• DIY: developed 2 GLOs (click on images below for links) based on the
Evaluating Multiple Interpretations (EMI) template
– Students presented with images/ information about a physical object
– Students complete questions/ activities
– EMI revolves around audio footage of experts offering their
interpretations of various aspects of the physical object.
• For more info click here

24. Changing the learning landscape
‘OUTWARD LOOKING’
LEARNING
• Theology and Religious Studies looking outwards:
knowledge transfer as a strategy for learning and
assessment in the curriculum (UoM/ HEA, 2012)
– Website includes links to blog and case studies
• Mini examples:
– Students create maps of historical events/ processes by adding ‘tags’
to Google Maps and annotating them: The Spread of Lutheranism
(collaboratively; 1 seminar)
– Students create a website using Google Sites: Women in the Middle
East (collaboratively/ independently; seminar series)

25. Changing the learning landscape
‘MAKING DIGITAL
HISTORY’ (UoL/HEA)
• Making ‘outward looking’ resources in collaboration
with students in the curriculum using Xerte toolkit
– i.e. like the GLO project above, but the student learn
by making learning materials for use by others
• Developing online repositories for primary sources,
– partially as a venue for dissemination of outward
looking work
– but also to enable more ‘open’ student inquiry online

26. Changing the learning landscape
CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
• Practice is piecemeal and not universally popular with staff/
students (‘new-fangled’; not what ‘proper’ History is about)
• But Social Media develops skills that VLEs don’t seem to (if
well-designed and supported):
• Constructive and ‘open’ research on the web
• Collaborative learning, developing team working skills
• Visible ‘outward looking’ products of learning encourage
students to think about audience, genre, register

27. Changing the learning landscape
MORE ABOUT ME
• http://ulincoln.academia.edu/JamieWood
(L&T and other presentations/ papers)
• http://staff.lincoln.ac.uk/jwood (homepage at
Lincoln)
• jwood@lincoln.ac.uk (email)

28. Changing the learning landscape