[Offtopic] What students & teachers want from e-learning (fwd)

[stephen at melbpc.org.au]

Regarding ICT for education,

Tom writes,

In "Listening to Students’ and Educators’ Voices: Research Findings",
Kathryn Moyle and Susanne Owen (for DEEWR) provide useful, timely and
credible information about Australian student and staff access and use, 
and also views on information technology for education: 

<http://www.deewr.gov.au/Schooling/DigitalEducationRevolution/Resources/Do
cuments/ListeningToStudentsVoices.pdf>.

The research is from 2008, and covers primary and secondary schools,
vocational education (TAFE) and universities:

 http://www.aictec.edu.au/aictec/go/home/priorities/pid/233.

Communication and group work activities were one commonly valued use for
email and discussion lists. 

Online games, social networking and media sites were also of interest.

There was an interesting split with most primary students indicating
social networking sites are for fun, not learning, and should not be
accessed at school. 

In contrast adult students believe social networking can be used for 
education. 

But all levels expect to have access to computers and the Internet at 
educational institutions and home. 

They also expect the teachers to be be able to use the technology to 
communicate with them.

Unfortunately the research is reported in the form of a large, hard to 
read PDF document. I have extracted the executive summary of the report 
as plain text at: 

<www.tomw.net.au/blog/2009/11/listening-to-students-and-educators.html>


Tom Worthington FACS HLM, 

Adjunct Lecturer, The Australian National University

Computer Science http://cs.anu.edu.au/people.php?StaffID=140274

--

Cheers, Tom
Stephen Loosley
Member, Victorian
Institute of Teaching