Exploration of the student experience of e-learning: beginning to bridge

...the learning divide
Lynne Jump, Malcolm Ryan, Rita Headington, Mandy Atkinson, University of Greenwich
I think this is the Pathfinder project (ELISIG?).
(The room for this was so far across campus I could smell the curry houses of Bradford).
The symposium was a useful format to discuss the questions:
1. What is effective learning within a context of digital technology? 2. What are the myths and truths about the identity of today's learners? 3. What practical changes need to happen in order to see real change?
Some of the outputs of the discussion:
Q1: Learner autonomy; meaningful activity; clear navigation of content, module and experience; activity; involvement; strong sense of ownership. Quite a lot of consensus around these responses but noting the huge divide between such beliefs and the practice that exists and the tools institutions provide. There are some useful survey results from this work that I think will be useful in informing some of our work. It is worth trying to find this, tho I expect Helen and Liz are already up to speed on this.
Q2: Discussions resulted in plenty of myths that needed to be busted. I challenged the basis of the discussion that suggested institutions needed to decide how they were going to meet the needs of the Google Gen by going with either institutionally provided tools, user selected tools, or a mix. I think what we really need to do here is learn about how students want to engage with the people around them by observing their behaviour - not the specific tools they use to support their behaviour. Tools come and go, but behaviour is longer lasting. Everyone seemed to agree that the Digital Native ideas had been useful, but to a point and that it was now time to be more sophisticated in responding to the diversity of our students, including that not insignificant section of the population that still have no access at all to digital technology.
Q3: Responses included: flexible institutional approach to technology provision; promoting horizontal learning - the expectation to learn from and with peers; EBL, PBL; informal learning spaces; IPR! [note I don't necessarily agree with all this!]