LAMS Foundation

 Case Study 1: Introducing LAMS to Indigenous Learners

 Case Study 1: Introducing LAMS to Indigenous Learners

A discussion with Sam Altman and Angela Voerman from Warawara, the Indigenous Support Unit at Macquarie University

Angela Voerman and Sam Altman have been using LAMS for two years. They joined the trial at Macquarie in 2004 and were keen to use LAMS again in 2005. Both Sam and Angela teach in the Community Management degree/diploma program for Indigenous students. Angela coordinates the Year 1 Sociology unit Understanding Organisations and Research Methods and Applications for Year 3. Sam teaches the Year 3 Management unit Managing People and coordinates the program as a whole.

Sam and Angela initially decided to use LAMS as they had attempted in the past to introduce technology into the Diploma program, but found access issues for students between the residential periods on campus too difficult to resolve. Also, they weren’t convinced that using WebCT during the on-campus sessions would meet their needs. However, LAMS appealed because of its ease of use and collaborative potential, and ‘this is the way we work together’ Angela commented.

I asked Sam and Angela how they felt about using LAMS the second time. While Angela edited and amended her sequences for this second offering, Sam reused the two sequences exactly as they were. He wanted the students to collaborate in constructing questions for a survey instrument which students’ could then take back with them to their own work places later on. The topic was occupational health and safety. Students focused on the issue of ‘emotional labour’ and how Indigenous workers and managers can provide support for their communities, while at the same time preserving space for their own private lives separate from their employment – a difficult task in a community setting. Sam’s observation of the ‘LAMS class’ this time was that while students once again shared experience of the workplace readily with each other, within LAMS sessions and otherwise, the critique of fellow students’ contributions – using the LAMS forum - had much more depth. Students took time to make suggestions about the proposed survey questions, reword questions and offer new ideas for the final list of survey questions. The outcome was a substantial contribution to a useful survey instrument. Forty per cent of the assessment is allocated for participation in this course, and part of that mark was for contributing to LAMS, so it was in the students’ interests to engage with LAMS. ‘But the students enjoyed it very much’ Sam said. ‘They went on for hours working on the task.’ He added that ‘The benefits of using LAMS will be evident (or not) in the next assignment. The students have to come up with five resources and evaluate each. So the quality of their writing will in part be due to how well the sessions went during the block on campus.’

Enjoyment and engagement in the blended classroom experience using LAMS was evident in Angela’s classes as well. ‘We began with a chat session, where they were talking about the meaning of “Community Management”. They chat on lots, typing in things and talking across the classroom… Using LAMS has shown me that it all takes longer to process ideas than you think. But when you look back at the chat there’s so much good stuff in there.’ Angela went on to say that the students became ‘energised’ through the discussion – an important outcome, as teaching and learning in the 10 day block on-campus sessions is a real challenge: student interest and enthusiasm has to be maintained over an intense period of study.

This year Angela added a new sequence, making three in all to be attempted in the September on-campus session. The students have also been given access to LAMS while they are studying at home after the block, so they can complete or refer back to the sequences and their responses.

Angela used LAMS in several ways: for debriefing after a simulated Land Council meeting; to help students engage more deeply with selected prescribed readings; and to develop students’ research skills in relation to the Library electronic (e)-reserve repository.

In terms of quality of outcomes, student responses to the debrief in LAMS following the simulated meeting and role play impressed Angela. In past years students have debriefed face-to-face in class, but by using LAMS she has been able to hear (or read) what all students thought about the experience, and there is more tangible evidence (recorded in the Forum and Q&A tools in LAMS) of the students integrating experience and theory. These written contributions can be revisited when students are ready to write up the experience in a subsequent formal piece of assessable writing.

In the e-reserve activity, Angela used the Question and Answer (Q&A) tool to first revise content from lectures and readings on community management; she then used the Share Resources tool to introduce the Library online e-reserve section, using the instruction box option displayed above the web page in LAMS to guide students into e-reserve, and to get them to log in and locate course readings. She then used Forums and more Q&A to engage students in discussion about a specific reading they had downloaded, all the while scaffolding process and improving critical reading skills. Angela said that student responses to this task were positive as it is often difficult to get them into the readings. There was a problem with one of the functions of the e-reserve facility, however, when accessed from inside LAMS which seemed to limit some processes.

I asked Sam and Angela if they experienced any other difficulties second time around – either technical, logistical or pedagogical. Sam indicated he had troubles with the naming of sequences. By mistake he ended up running two sequences concurrently with the same name, so the class was unintentionally split: half the class entered one sequence, the other half joined the other. They resolved this with much in-class discussion, with students volunteering to collate the relevant data for the group. Angela had problems with her first sequence - perhaps because it was based on an early version of the LAMS software. As the sequence was completed students progressively lost the ability to add comments to the Forum. In another sequence the cut and paste function for sharing URLS in the Share Resources tool did not operate. In both cases it was possible to work around these tasks and complete the work face to face, or use what work had already been contributed.

Angela and Sam intend to use LAMS again next year and expect to use it as a means of maintaining contact with students between on-campus sessions, and encouraging students to spend more time on task when they are away from the University. LAMS will also be integrated into most of the 22 units that make up the new Bachelor in Community Management (BCM) over the next three years. They said that based on their experience trialing LAMS in the Diploma units in 2004 and 2005, they are recommending that all degree units in the BCM use LAMS because:

1. “The BCM needs an educationally robust online system able to effectively deliver unit teaching and learning strategies to students both on-campus
   and between blocks.

2. LAMS provides a user-friendly collaborative interface particularly well-suited to BCM students; and

3. LAMS sequences provide a sustainable teaching model that is easy for new staff to learn and adapt. This is particularly important for the BCM which has a heavy reliance on casual lecturers, both from inside and outside the University.”

Robyn Philip
Macquarie E-Learning Centre of Excellence (MELCOE)
November 2005

(Close)

Case Study 2: Student authoring in LAMS and assessment of chat sessions

Case Study 2: Student authoring in LAMS and assessment of chat sessions

A discussion with Leanne Cameron and Nick Hutchinson, School of Education, ACES, Macquarie University

We have seen a growing number of staff willing to try LAMS as a small part of their curriculum. But few have yet taken the plunge and fully integrated LAMS as a core technology. Leanne Cameron and Nick Hutchinson from the School of Education at Macquarie, using a design originally conceived by Dr Donna Gibbs¹, have now used LAMS intensively in their ICT course for pre-service teachers. Their second year students have not only been learners in LAMS, but have authored sequences themselves. Students experience the learner and author/teacher perspective in LAMS, making judgments about the design of online or blended learning environments and devising strategies for implementation which they might use in a future classroom of their own. The positive results of their initiative have encouraged education staff to repeat the experience in 2006, having learnt quite a number of lessons on the way!

Students come to the education units with varying degrees of information and communication literacy, and varied attitudes to the technology. Because they are pre-service teachers does not mean that the students either like or know about educational technology. This all adds to the challenge for Leanne and Nick, particularly in Information and Communication Technologies and Education (EDUC261). In this unit students were introduced to LAMS as one of the many technologies teachers might use in and out of the classroom. However, LAMS was also used for course delivery, to assist students' discussion and reflection on the theory underpinning technology usage, to support investigation of other technologies, and to aid collaboration in small groups. Usage of LAMS was embedded in the assessment regime: three chat sessions of the prescribed readings accounted for 20% of the total marks (and will be lifted to 25% in 2006); authoring of a LAMS sequence was compulsory, but marked only as pass or fail, with an accompanying analysis and reflection of the pedagogical design worth 35%.

Teaching strategy for chat sessions

The strategy used by Leanne and Nick to improve discussion of the prescribed readings is of particular interest. Staff were not convinced that students ever made the best use of the prescribed readings in this course, so they designed a series of LAMS chat sessions to address the problem. Students were given three opportunities to use chat, two during class and one outside of class time. Only the latter two discussions were included in the assessment mark. It is unusual to assess chat sessions as they are often more suited to short exchanges and usually contain much irrelevant material ('chatty' conversation). However the 'chatting process' can be an important part of the journey into real reflection on practical and theoretical issues, and if students are given space to throw ideas around and experiment with concepts they can often come up with powerful insights. These discussions may also take on a lighter vein including humour. This in turn can promote creativity and new perspectives, and perhaps unexpected outcomes.

In the first chat session students in groups of six practised exchanging ideas about the readings based on a set question. They were able to do this in an informal and social way during class time. They shared ideas about the literature, assessed LAMS for its possibilities and limitations in the educational context, and reflected on the marking criteria to be used for the chat sessions. This was a compulsory activity, but worth 0%. Nick commented that students were finding their way in this preparatory session and outcomes were mixed for both staff and students.

For the second chat session a few weeks later, groups were reduced to a more manageable four students, and a new set of readings was discussed. Each student was assessed for 10% of total marks and students completed this activity as an 'asynchronous chat' outside of class. While 'asynchronous chat' seems to be an oxymoron, students were consulted on the technology to be used for the discussion, and voted for the chat tool. Students familiarity with the tool perhaps accounts for their choice second time round. Also a record of chat sessions is preserved for the learner in LAMS - which is not the case for most other available chat tools. Nick commented that students were more confident in this second session and had easy access to their readings at home while they chatted. This chat was marked online by the teaching staff. The quality of the interactions was assessed as being of a high standard.

The third and final chat was again 10%, with four students per group, in class time, without access to the readings, and students were expected to discuss and integrate their comments, not just paste statements about the theory into the chat tool. Leanne and Nick both commented that one of the best results of this final discussion was that they had readily accessible evidence of students' understanding of the prescribed readings. Additionally, as with many online activities, this type of discussion gave some of the quieter students more space to demonstrate their interpretation of the literature.

Student entries in the last chat were often quite large paragraphs - very different to the more rapid, staccato exchanges usually associated with chat. Some would think that an asynchronous forum (rather than a chat) would have been a more suitable format for this assessment, but chat did allow for a greater liveliness, and students still managed to contribute considered reflections to the discussion. It was an interesting blend of synchronous and asynchronous discussion. Leanne noted that assessing discussions has rarely worked in face-to-face situations. The examination that later followed these online discussions also indicated that students had engaged more with the readings and lecture content overall, and both staff members pointed to the assessable discussions as important activities in that process of information integration.

In terms of lessons learned, Leanne and Nick noticed that Non-English Speaking Background (NESB) students were less likely to do well in the chatting tasks than a formal essay, and next time they would look at ways to scaffold these particular students more through the exercise. In marking the discussions, the lecturers also noted that some students brought along prepared answers on disc to paste into the chat. These students were not always advantaged by this as they did not necessarily integrate the prepared answer into the on-going discussion. To reduce marking time in the future, but preserve the quality of the discussions, students will be asked to select a number of entries from the chat sessions and give their reflections on these plus justifications for why these selections are of relevance, given pre-determined criteria.

Student authoring

There were many issues that came out of the student authoring experience that Nick and Leanne will discuss in an academic paper in the future. Undoubtedly students were given a sound basis for developing their own online methodologies, and students' level of teaching experience was evident in the kind of activities they designed. In reflecting on some of the methodology classes (History, English, Human Society and the Environment, Languages, Computing and Science) Leanne commented on the importance of saving work constantly when authoring in LAMS. One group in particular did not realise that they needed to not only click 'OK' as they added content and instructions to the LAMS tools, but they also needed to click the 'SAVE' button on the top menu so that the whole sequence was saved onto the server at regular intervals. There were some disappointed students when they realised that over an hour's work had been lost. This is one of the cruel lessons of technology - but better learnt as a student rather than in the rush of the school day as a 'real' teacher!

Some of the student sequences from EDUC261 have been added to the LAMS Community website in the K-12 section and are well worth looking at. They include sequences on Ancient History (the Peloponnesian wars), Economics and personal finance, Geography and conservation, King Lear and one of the novels set for the English curriculum, the Australian gold rushes, Year 7 Science and the planets, the digestive system, personal independence and technology.

Cameron and Hutchinson are preparing a paper on more of the issues arising from their use of LAMS in the School of Education. Subscribers to the LAMS Community will be notified when this is available.

 

Robyn Philip
Macquarie E-Learning Centre of Excellence (MELCOE)
February 2006

 

¹ Associate Professor, Dr Donna Gibbs, from the School of Education at Macquarie, has been a key academic in the initial development of LAMS and its early trials.

(Close)

Case Study 3: Using LAMS with Young Learners (K-6)

Case Study 3: Using LAMS with Young Learners (K-6)

A discussion with Debbie Evans, Principal, Glenorie Primary School, NSW.
Prepared by Karen Baskett

Glenorie is a small Primary School situated on the rural outskirts of Sydney. There are currently 203 students enrolled, 8 classroom teachers and 5 support teachers. The school community strongly supports the school's efforts to be equipped with the most modern resources and technology plays a strong role in this direction.

Debbie has been using LAMS at Glenorie Primary School since the beginning of 2004. Debbie saw a demonstration of LAMS towards the end of 2003 at Macquarie University and ran her first class the following year. Debbie and another teacher, Karen May then participated in a micro trial run by The Centre for Learning Innovation in the first half of 2005. By the end of this trial, all of their stage 3 learners and 1 Kindergarten class were using LAMS. In second semester 2005 Debbie trialled homework sequences using LAMS. This year (2006) Glenorie's use of LAMS has expanded to well over half the school using LAMS.

The Glenorie teachers have been using LAMS in a variety of interesting ways which include;

• A synchronous environment at the school in both a computer laboratory and in the classroom. This is combined with the use of Smartboards.

• Homework sequences, where students work asynchronously,

• Creating online parent discussion communities,

• Completing the annual Department School report

When commenting on the use of LAMS for completing the annual Department of Education school report, Debbie remarked that each school is required to choose an area to report on and then survey students, parents and all teachers. They chose technology and school life. The surveys are normally paper-based and Debbie noted that usually there is a very low return rate of completed surveys. Debbie converted the paper-based surveys into a LAMS sequence and received a 95% response rate from parents, which previously would have been 'unheard of'. There was a 100% response rate from students and teachers as the LAMS sequences were conducted at the school. Additionally Debbie was impressed with the amount of time saved during the process as there was no need to tally up the responses, LAMS does this automatically, and she was able to copy and paste the charts that LAMS produces straight into the final report.

As Glenorie Primary School is situated in a rural area, many of the parents drive over an hour each way to drop their children off at school. The parental online discussion communities were created through a need for parents to communicate effectively without having to be physically present at the school. For example, parents were able to successfully organise the Year 6 farewell and the community fete through using the Forum tool in LAMS.

The use of LAMS in general, but particularly to complete homework sequences, has had a big impact on the school community at Glenorie. Every Monday a LAMS homework sequence is run. Students are also given a paper-based copy of the homework sequence incase there are technical difficulties or they don't have access to a computer. Debbie estimates that at present 80% of their children have a home computer and access to the Internet. For those students that don't have access at home, extra class time is made available and access to a computer given at lunchtime to complete the homework sequence. Several students have succeeded in getting their parents to buy a home computer because they want to be able to complete their LAMS sequences like other students. Parents have also upgraded old software when necessary.

The students are highly motivated to complete their homework sequences using LAMS. They are often finished by Tuesday and students that are away from school through illness are still eager to complete their homework. When students no longer had to be pushed to do their homework but were begging to get on the computer, parents began asking what LAMS was all about. Debbie invited all parents to a Parent and Teacher information session at the school and explained how LAMS worked. For the most part, parents fully support the use of technology for their children and a lot of the pressure to expand the use of LAMS now comes from the parents themselves. For example parents with two children at the school who have one child using LAMS, want to know why the other child (in a different class) isn't also using LAMS. In essence parents are excited that their children are excited about learning. The homework sequences have been instrumental in initiating this excitement. Once students are using LAMS at home, there is a bigger parental interest level. One example of a sequence that both parents and students found really valuable was regarding an upcoming excursion to Canberra. Debbie included information and pictures on the venue where the students would be staying and parents and students found this not only reassuring but also stimulating.

Debbie does admit that there are some families that want to monitor their children's homework and they feel that they can do this better through the traditional homework book. Debbie attempts to address these issues at the Parent and Teacher information sessions and also by maintaining open classrooms, where parents are welcomes to come and see how LAMS works.

I asked Debbie what the teacher perspective on using LAMS was and if it created more work for teachers using LAMS and technology in general. She answered that yes, it definitely takes more time but that the rewards are worth it. Debbie also admits that some teachers are uncomfortable using not only LAMS, but technology in general and she feels that gradually this won't be a problem as teacher turnover happens and younger 'digital natives' take over teaching roles. I also asked Debbie about the 'sustainability' of using LAMS and that if she left Glenorie, whether she felt the use of LAMS would continue. She answered that despite training being provided that some teachers can't use technology (LAMS, Word, Excel and so on). She feels that as parent pressure is getting so strong now that soon, not using LAMS won't be an option and that teachers will be forced to learn how. Debbie felt confident that there are now enough innovative teachers using LAMS at the school for its use to continue even if she left.

Finally, I asked Debbie what had been the main benefits that she perceived using LAMS. She answered, the ability to get in anytime to check the progress of the students and if necessary to get in early and find out why there were problems and try to help resolve these. She also loves the opportunities for collaboration that LAMS has provided. For example, she has created 'help' sequences for homework which mainly take advantage of the Forum tool. Students can post questions about their homework and expect answers anytime of the day or night from parents, other students and their teacher. Debbie also created a 'Reading' forum where students post on what they are currently reading. Using a traditional homework book, this would be a two way interaction between teacher and student, but with LAMS, other students and the teacher learn about different reading from each other. As Debbie says 'That's collaboration!'

If you would like to see examples of The Glenorie teacher's sequences, there are lots to download on the LAMS Community site in the K-12 sector.

(Close)

Case Study 4: Year 9 Geography Kemnal Technology College, UK

Case Study 4: Year 9 Geography Kemnal Technology College, UK

Prepared by Russell Francis, Oxford University

Mr. Markham is a geography teacher and the head of key stage 4 at Kemnal Technology College, a secondary comprehensive in south London. Despite a past history of low attainment, the school has made dramatic improvements in recent years facilitated, in part, by the innovative use of new technologies. Mr. Markham was among the first teachers in the UK secondary sector to use LAMS to support teaching and learning in a synchronous classroom context.

On one occasion, Mr. Markham used a LAMS sequence to allow a low ability geography group to conduct a web based investigation into the 'causes of bad weather'. The night before had seen heavy rain in south London and all the students were drenched going home from school. Mr. Markham saw this as an opportunity to hook the pupils' interest. He made a few minor adaptations to a LAMS sequence he had prepared on a previous occasion for a higher ability group. This was up and running as the pupils trekked into the room at the start of the first period.

Within minutes students had logged on and began the lesson with online chat room discussion about the causes of bad weather. LAMS then guided the group towards pages on the BBC weather and Met. Office website. They then cut and paste their findings to an electronic board that became instantaneously available for all to see. Finally, each pupil produced their own weather report, using PowerPoint that was subsequently uploaded and posted to Mr. Markham using the LAMS submission tool. No books, handouts, printers, pens or paper were required for this lesson.

The additional layer of structure provided by LAMS offered an individuated layer of support. Pupils tended to remain on task and progress through an activity at their own pace in LAMS. Mr. Markham stressed that transitions between activities in other contexts could be difficult to manage and stressed how pupils were prone to stray off task. In contrast LAMS allowed multiple inter-related activities to be designed and managed within a single lesson with minimal disruption between transitions.

For Mr. Markham, LAMS was 'no substitute for a good teacher'. However, it did provide him with a powerful tool that allowed him to design and deliver a tightly structured and well managed web based learning experience. He argued that the use of LAMS 'allows the kids to have access to a range of resources in an hour session, in a computer room, which is well managed' and stressed 'My kids today will be able to have an online chat, they'll be able to answer questions which I've been looking at, they'll use the internet and web pages, then they'll upload a weather report to me ... all within the space of an hour.' He added, 'how could you do that in any other environment?'

During the lesson pupils could call upon the teacher for additional help. Having delegated responsibility for leading the lesson to the pre-designed LAMS sequence, Mr. Markham was often available to respond to individual requests for help within seconds. This seemed to fundamentally change the nature of the teacher/pupil relationship. Mr. Markham described this process in terms of giving a student more ownership over their own learning:

If you make someone feel like its their own idea, its their lesson, even when you're speaking to adults, if you make people feel like its their idea to maybe put a new strategy in place then they are going to take it up much more whole heartedly and actually run with it. Whereas, if you actually tell someone and stand there and say,' this is what I want you do to - this is what you should do' ... they are going to be a little bit more stand offish ... this way it's their lesson. They're taking ownership of what's going on. Therefore, they are more enthused by it, they feel like it's actually their lesson.

There were no confrontations or discipline problems during the course of the lesson. One pupil, lets call him Sam, described as 'one of the most difficult in the year group' sat contentedly, tapping away at his computer throughout, whilst the pre-designed LAMS activity sequence guided the pupils, like an invisible guiding hand, through a series of tightly structured activities. As oppose to an authority figure, the pupils appeared to see the teacher as a valuable additional resource, often recruiting his assistance and discussing particular points arising from their growing understanding of low pressure systems.

The pupils described the activity as 'fun' emphasising that they liked the way they could share ideas, see what their friends had written and chat without getting told off. The atmosphere was calm and relaxed throughout. As the lesson drew to a close, Sam insisted on showing me his PowerPoint weather report. It incorporated information from the BBC weather site illustrated with an animated flashing lightening bolt and a graphic of a thundercloud.

(Close)

Case Study 5: Using LAMS to teach Bioinformatics

Case Study 5: Using LAMS to teach Bioinformatics

Prepared by Dr Peter Miller from the University of Liverpool

Dr Peter Miller from the University of Liverpool in the UK used LAMS to develop a new advanced undergraduate course in the field of bioinformatics. Bioinformatics uses information systems to analyse biological information, including the immense gene sequence databases as well as data from new high throughput techniques that focus on how these genes do their work. It is a rapidly evolving field that has become a prerequisite for research in the molecular biosciences.

'Bioinformatics makes heavy use of web-based information systems as a core research tool,' said Dr Miller. 'So it makes sense to use web-based learning activities that build on the same research infrastructure that students will use in their projects and subsequent careers,' he said.

Dr Miller has been part of a recent trial of the Learning Activity Management System (LAMS), a new generation of open source e-learning software that facilitates a structured flow of student tasks. The trial has been facilitated by the UK Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC), with support from Oxford University and LAMS International Pty Ltd.

The trial has involved a range of institutions across the UK from higher education, further education and adult and community learning. The focus of the trial has been to investigate how LAMS can assist in 'designing for learning'.

In Dr Miller's case, LAMS has been used mainly in a blended learning context to support students with a structured series of online tasks, searching different gene databases and analysing the results. A key advantage of LAMS has been the ability to provide a unified, structured flow of tasks. This has been used either to reflect the normal sequence of an analysis or to illustrate particular facets of the subject. Online collaboration between students was designed explicitly into some activities and encouraged generally.

'LAMS gave me the opportunity to create a structure for students to work through that hopefully helped build their knowledge and skills progressively. In unfamiliar and challenging subjects like bioinformatics, I think the LAMS approach is preferable to a traditional learning platform or website where there is little control over the 'flow' of tasks for students,' said Dr Miller. 'At the same time, some students want to take charge of their learning once they've grasped the basics and I'm confident LAMS will be able to accommodate this as well. This year we ran a student-led group-based mini-project looking at the ethics of gene patents in parallel with the main course. Next year I want to extend this approach into the more technical aspects of the subject too.'

Another advantage of LAMS was that each set of activities created by Dr Miller was stored as a 'digital lesson plan' or 'sequence' that allowed for easy re-use and adaptation (an activity in LAMS is a building block that might be, for example, a self-contained chat session or MCQ; a sequence is a structured set of these activities). 'Once I'd built the first sequence, it was straightforward to elaborate on it for later ones and I think the students found a degree of consistency helpful. Certainly they had few problems with the LAMS interface and the need for training was much less than I expected. The seamless management of groups and opportunities for collaborative activities opened new avenues I hadn't considered before. One thing I learned early on is that less (shorter sequences) can be more (effective) in LAMS; so many of the avenues remain to be explored! The monitoring interface meant I could easily check student progress through the sequence and the built-in voting activity meant students actually influenced my choice of websites for some of the later sequences, something I hadn't really planned in advance. I think being able to brainstorm activity sequences based on LAMS's palette encouraged me to be more innovative and ultimately more reflective. I'm really looking forward to rejigging some of the lessons for next year and, in particular, replacing some of the remaining lectures with face-to-face sessions using LAMS. I hope that the Open Source aspect to LAMS will encourage continuing development of both generic and subject-specific activities as there is a very strong Open Source ethos in bioinformatics,' said Dr Miller.

Professor James Dalziel, inventor of LAMS and Director of the Macquarie University E-learning Centre of Excellence in Sydney, Australia, has been very pleased with the use of LAMS in bioinformatics at the University of Liverpool. 'This example illustrates how innovative learning technology can be used in creative ways for advanced new fields such as bioinformatics. Peter's combination of IT for both research and teaching purposes creates a seamless student experience that enhances overall learning outcomes in a way that would be difficult to replicate in a traditional classroom,' he said.

As a result of the good experiences from the trial, there are now plans to implement LAMS in a range of courses at the University of Liverpool in the coming year, and to expand the range of online activities for students in future bioinformatics courses. The JISC will release a formal evaluation of the LAMS trial in April 2005.

(Close)

Case Study 6: Using LAMS in Teacher Training

Case Study 6: Using LAMS in Teacher Training

Prepared by Dr James Dalziel

As the inventor of LAMS, one of the great pleasures of my role is seeing LAMS in action with teachers and learners 'at the coalface'. One of my recent experiences of this was for a fourth year unit from the Teacher Education Program (TEP) offered in the School of Education, Australian Centre for Education Studies (ACES), Macquarie University. The students in this course had already had considerable practical experience in schools and were seeking new skills and knowledge to enhance their teaching and to receive their Graduate diplomas. Many of these trainee teachers were studying part-time while teaching during the day.

Maree Skillen, the course convener, invited me, together with my colleagues Robyn Philip and Associate Professor Donna Gibbs, to meet with this group to explore the use of LAMS at a face-to-face unit seminar. Together we built a sequence about 'What makes an effective teacher?' and then the teachers participated in the sequence as students (during the face-to-face seminar) by working with computers to debate the question and share ideas and resources with each other about the qualities of an effective teacher. This was a great example of trainee teachers understanding the system's potential through the experience of being students in LAMS themselves.

After using LAMS in this way in their face-to-face unit seminar, there were two follow-up tasks. First, the trainee teachers were to continue to use LAMS as students over the coming weeks to discuss ideas online while they were away from the face-to-face seminar. This meant that the discussion started in the seminar could continue beyond the constraints of time and place imposed by the limited time available for the face-to-face session. This illustrates one of online learning's best-known benefits.

Second, all trainee teachers were given an assessment task which was to author their own LAMS sequence that could potentially be used with their K-12 students. They were then to share this sequence with the seminar group, and explain the rationale behind their design choices. They found this a fascinating challenge, as LAMS raises many interesting questions of both pedagogy and technology during the authoring/design process.

As a result of this experience, a number of these trainee teachers have subsequently used their sequence with K-12 students in their daily lives as graduate teachers. This illustrates the complete circle of using LAMS in Teacher Training: initially trainee teachers learn about LAMS by being students themselves, then they begin to author sequences of their own, and then they run these sequences as teachers with their own students.

An exciting aspect of this example is the way that teachers can be exposed to new educational technology during professional development, such as in a university Teacher Training course or degree, and then experiences during this course can be transferred to their daily lives as teachers working with K-12 students.

Macquarie University is not the only example of this 'virtuous circle' in action; Simon Walker from the University of Greenwich in the UK recently discussed similar experiences of using LAMS in Teacher Training as part of the UK JISC-sponsored evaluation of LAMS.

My own sense is that this example of using LAMS may have far reaching consequences for Teacher Training in the future. There is much to recommend the 'virtuous circle' of using educational technology within Teacher Training courses, followed by course participants 'walking the talk' by using the technology itself in their own teaching with K-12 students.

I imagine a future where the educational tools used for training tomorrow's teachers can be immediately used by these teachers themselves during their own practice teaching. Because the LAMS software is freely available to all, there need be no constraint on the transfer of technology used in Teacher Training to the 'coalface' of classroom teaching.

Another exciting prospect of this 'virtuous circle' is that not only can teachers use the sequences they develop during Teacher Training within their own classroom teaching, but that teachers can share these sequences with each other, hence disseminating good practice among teachers from a grassroots level, and from university-based Teacher Training courses to the classroom. This sharing of sequences has the potential to begin a new wave of educational transformation through dissemination of good practice - but in a revolutionary new format we could call the 'digital lesson plan'. That is, the good practice being disseminated is not merely a textual description of good teaching ideas, but rather it is presented in the form of the actual processes of implementing the educational activities through technology. Teachers who receive digital lesson plans from colleagues can immediately 'run' them with their students, or adapt them to suit their local context.

While Teacher Training has already begun to use educational technology, the LAMS approach provides a powerful new tool for both Teacher Trainers and teachers themselves. The distinctive feature of LAMS, which is unlike all other educational technologies, is that it creates digital lesson plans that can facilitate a flow of collaborative online learning activities. Further, these digital lesson plans can be shared among teachers, much like paper-based lesson plans were in the past, but with far greater impact through their implementation via technology. The transformational potential of LAMS arises from this revolutionary digital lesson plan approach combined with its use in Teacher Training and its 'flow on' to the classroom.

(Close)