Online toolkits for learning design. Should we bother?

by Mr Mark Childs, Mrs Karen FIll, Mr Graham Lewis, Mr. Paul Riddy

Online toolkits for learning design. Should we bother?

Amongst the various aims of the JISC-funded Design for Learning
Programme is the goal of promoting the development and implementation of tools and standards to support the process of design for learning.
Evaluation of Design and Implementation Tools for Learning (EDIT4L), a project conducted by the Universities of Southampton and Warwick, is investigating various aspects of what is needed to achieve this goal.

Designs created using DPT can range from a single task to a complex learning activity, or a one-off workshop to a whole course. Activity sequences created within LAMS can be re-used in other LAMS systems and stored in learning objects repositories such as JORUM, the national, JISC funded repository. In Phoebe, users create learning designs by responding to a series of webpages which carry prompts. The responses to these prompts are entered on a notepad, from which a design report is constructed. The tools have been evaluated as part of these workshops, and participants responses to related questions collated. More details are available at http://www.edit4l.soton.ac.uk


EDIT4L has engaged with educators within FE and HE through two different types of workshops. Some of these workshops have been part of staff development programmes, others have been for a national audience. In both types the DialogPlus Toolkit (DPT) and LAMS have been used as tools to explore, and develop, the concept of learning design with members of academic staff and trainee teachers. In some workshops the potential of Phoebe has also been explored. The workshop participants have all taken part in an evaluation of the toolkits, and also been asked their opinions of learning design and online development toolkits. Although limited in number, the responses raise questions with the potential to open up and inform the debate regarding the role and design of online toolkits and their future development.

The status of these workshops within institutional programmes, and their incorporation into staff development provision has raised a number of issues. The presentation will also briefly explore our observations and what this reveals about the role of learning design and elearning in staff development.

In summary, the purposes of this presentation and discussion are three-fold:

1) to share the findings of the project with the e-learning community

2) to spark debate regarding those findings, some of which we anticipate may be controversial

3) to gather feedback on our findings and further develop our research.

For these ends, your contributions to the debate will be central to our presentation.

ID Number: 1234

Date: Thursday, 6th September 2007

Time: 0900

Location: Law and Social Sciences Building, Room A2

Theme: Designing learning spaces

Presentation: ALTC_childs_v2.ppt (The file which you can access from this link is the responsibility of the author of the Abstract to which the file relates, not ALT.