How does Transformative education link to my subject

• How does the model of transformative education relate to models you are already using as frames of reference?

The transformative approach to education is where students and teachers see their subject matter not only from their own viewpoint but also to consider the viewpoints of others who are different to them, racially, ethnically, economically, politically and gender-wise. I initially thought that law taught all of these things, that law was there to protect multicultural-ness in a diverse society. I am more at ease with the term multicultural rather than transformative education because it brings home the message clearer and has more impact. Although I still believe in an idealist way that law is there to protect society, all of society, we (law teachers) need to recognise multicultural and transformative education in a much more open and direct manner. I initially thought if you pushed it too hard the students would tune out of the lesson but instead I realise now that it is the whole point of law. To see the law and its application from different people’s views and perceptions is what transformative education is to me. It is as simple as discussing the implications for people from different racial backgrounds when arrested, when getting married, when applying for visa’s etc. For my subject money laundering and terrorist financing, multicultural education and transformative education is essential. I was naive in forgetting that other do not think as I do, that there is no different between people as we are all people. It is not that I did not realise there was a difference in treatment for different people but that it was not widely known and accepted. I am not sure I am still 100% clear on the issues but to understand that the students need to understand perceptions on the laws from other people is a good starting point. Working out how and detailing the curriculum will come. In Dennis’ paper I realised and understood the importance of having authentic assessment as a means of examining whether the students have understood as well as learnt. I was also happy to realise that the mixture of f-2-f teaching and online teaching/discussion allows for this as well as our oral and written examinations of the students.

Transformative Education - Multicultural Education - IoC

In week 2 of the course we are looking at Transformative Education - Multicultural Education - IoC. We are to read various papers on the issue and at first glance, I kicked back and thought, we do this in law. How could we not do this in law. How could we not incorporate different social, economic, political, racial, cultural norms into our students education. I read 2 papers from the specific reading list and by chance I read a paper by a friend in the US who sent me it to review for a conference. The paper that I am talking about can be located here: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1433850 Prof Johanna Dennis makes a compounding argument that multicultural education in the US is still not going far enough. My eyes were opened to the fact that law which I link to social, political, economic, cultural, ethical and racial elements is often ignored by curricula. How can this be so? How can we teach law, the protector of rights and values without considering multicultural elements. I thought I was doing ok on this front. That my courses were IoC friendly, that my students were as open minded as I am. This is not to say they are not. I have no evidence either way. However after reading this paper I realise that much more needs to be done.
I thought and was proud that law stood up for those who were often overlooked, ignored because of multicultural issues. However how can we be proud when we are not teaching our students, the lawyers of the future to accept and adapt to these societal changes and transformations. OK I capitulate - I'll read some more accept the ideas and do the work. Idealistic I hear you cry, yes me too for the last couple of weeks but have a read and see what you think then. 

UWE's approach to Internationalising the Curriculum

Our vision is to be the UK's best Knowledge and Learning Partnership University.

Our mission is to make a positive difference to our students, business and society.

Our ethos of genuine partnership working enables U+WE to successfully promote and drive opportunity, social justice, creativity and innovation.

Together U+WE will INSPIRE...

I - Innovation

N – Nurturing Talent

S – Student experience

P- Participation

R – Research

E - Exchange

Building on our international successes and enhancing the ‘UWE Global’ brand are key features of our Strategic Plan. To achieve our goals we will continue to strengthen our partnerships, to provide even more outstanding opportunities for work and study, supported by our excellent range of professional services. With approximately 3,000 registered overseas students, UWE is already a multi-cultural university. Our aim is to build on our strong base to increase opportunities and recruitment, both at home and abroad.

Why internationalisation?

Our graduates are entering a global society, and we aim to make sure that through our strategic partnerships they are prepared for and can make the most of this environment.

UWE itself is also part of this global society. Through our strategic partnerships we aim to extend our capacity to raise aspirations across the world; we aim to boost inter-cultural communication, awareness and understanding at home and abroad; and we aim to enhance our work in collaboration with our partners in emerging economies, to help support them as these develop.

Selected global markets

With these aims in mind, UWE has established a number of strategic partnerships, particularly in South Asia, most notably Vietnam and Malaysia. We also have well developed partnerships in Singapore, Hong Kong, China, Thailand, Taiwan, Pakistan and India. UWE is also engaging with developing markets in Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Nigeria and Ghana.

Accomplishing our internationalisation aims

Our International Development Office co-ordinate our international partnership activities and international recruitment. Through this coordinated approach we will achieve our aims by:

·                       Utilising the opportunities that our international partnerships provide.

·                       Increasing recruitment of international staff and students.

·                       Developing broader networks of international alumni and links with businesses overseas.

·                       Expanding our transnational provision through the UWE Global brand.

·                       Providing clear progression opportunities for overseas students into UWE  2nd and 3rd Years, fully supported by our Quality Management Enhancement Framework.

·                       Increasing our postgraduate portfolio development dedicated to the international market.

These activities will ensure we further embed internationalisation into the UWE mindset.

Defining IoC in relation to Law

• How had you defined IoC up to now?

I had originally thought that IoC (and indeed this course) was a way of preparing our teaching materials to make them more applicable to non-home students. I thought this was a good thing and that I would be more sensitive to teaching foreign students my subjects. Instead this definition is turned up on its head and it is allowing your subject to be seen not just in a domestic sense but an international inter-connected and multifaceted way. It is the awareness of others. I am lucky that teaching international banking and finance law I am already talking about how laws are inter-connected and joined up, having affects and implications on other nations and other people.

• What is new to you in the ideas presented in the readings?

What is new to me is conscious realisation that the materials I am teaching in my course is allowing students to become more global, realising the cultures and politics of other countries which impact upon their own. The global financial crisis has been a great leveller of laws and situations countries now find themselves in. UK students cannot help to know that the EU and EU countries have a profound effect on their subject. They cannot help but realise the impact of the G20 or the Basel I II or III on their domestic laws. For me it is the realisation that banking and finance in an international context is already contemplating social economic and political aspects of globalisation, and thus preparing my students for entering the work place equipped with the necessary international skills.

• Are there ideas here that you think you could find useful in your work?

I like the idea that this notion of globalisation should be a conscious and not subconscious part of the course. More thought should be given as to how we extend what is already being done on a subconscious level. In Clifford et al’s paper he speaks about “global perspectives included an engagement with issues of equity and social justice and the reduction of prejudice, stereotyping and discrimination”. These things are entrenched in not only the LLB law degree course but in each module for example, employment laws derive from Europe and well as domestic legislation and case law and also allows for discussion of social and equitable perceptions.

I agree also with Clifford who states that non-western students learn in a different way to western students who feel freer to question the lecturer. However in my experience I find that once the seminars are integrated with western and on western students they pick up on each other social norms and adapt to the situation at hand. The non western students asks more and the west students pays more respect and listens more out of respect to the non western student. This has to be a benefit to both students.

• Are there ideas here that you think might not be useful - why is this?

The IoC ideas are all useful and I believe that most law subjects are tackling these issues in a subconscious way however I am cautious as to the use of them being used in an overtly conscious way. By this I mean it is harder to enforce the nuisances that are created organically in a seminar group. The tutor has to be aware of the importance of global learning but to force students to do it would be detrimental to their learning. One of the greatest hurdles I think is to show that law lecturers are already teaching IoC in their courses.  I am not in any way saying law does all of this and we need not learn more but rather I was surprised as how much of my course I could relate to this paper and also how much of my own law degree I could realte.

I wrote down some quotes of the definitions supplied which I thought applied to law.

Luong et al (1996:1) Curriculum “which values empathy and intellectual curiosity”.

Nilsson (2000:22) IoC as “aimed at preparing students for performing in an international and multicultural context”.

Schoorman (2000) “knowledge and practice where societies reviewed as subsystems of a larger inclusive world”.

I have posted a tweet to my law students asking whether they think their LLB is internationalised and whether it is important to them for it to be. I wait to see how they respond. 

Internationalising my banking curriculum - my story - task one

This is the first day week one of internationalising your curriculum or IoC. There are four tasks this week.
1. To write my story of how I came to IoC
2. Defining IoC
3. How to include IoC in my curriculum
4. My institutions IoC position.

I have pondered over this course for a while, in terms of whether it would be useful or not. I thought that IoC would teach me about how to include overseas students in my classes better, to teach my curriculum in a better way to all students to be inclusive as possible and how to make it more applicable to my students who are learning on-line in another country. This is not to be. It is about determining how to make home students more international whilst creating a curriculum which is international. Banking laws by their very nature have to be international given their interconnectivity with other jurisdictions.
So confused as I may be here are my posting on the VLE from the course on task 1.

I am English and live in Hereford which is very typically country English however I have lived in London and worked for small periods in Hong Kong, the US, Malta, Cyprus and Spain. I teach international banking and finance and although the law is from a UK perspective international laws play a major part in the laws of the UK. I have come to this course because I teach on-line and my courses are being taught via distance learning. Therefore a) I want to ensure that my courses are internationalised both for my home and abroad students and b) I would like to be able to teach the students the interconnectivity of banking laws in a more dynamic and international manner instead of just looking at a set of laws which are outside the UK's jurisdiction.

Theory into practice

Well yesterday was a day of firsts. I took my first on-line class. It was for banking and finance LLM and it went really well. The class was three hours long which I think was too long for them and for me. It was very intense. Fast paced and really intellectual. I realised that the students did not need as many questions as I had pre set them as they generally discussed all the aspects they needed during an examination of a typical assignment question. They participated and interacted with me. I would like to have seen a greater interaction with each other but I hope that will come. I am now thinking how I should make the session more interactive with them. Is it familiarity with the system and with each other? Will this develop over time?I had one student before the session say there was too much reading and then after the session he sent a tweet that he could not keep up or follow, so today I am going to work out a strategy for him to enable him to develop his online learning skills. I hope the others on the course enjoyed it. They are keeping their wiki profiles up to date too which is good. There is so much that can be done for online learning that there is not enough time with the students to do them all. It has opened by eyes to a whole new way of teaching.

Internationalising your curriculum

Hello again, yes it is that time of year when I go on another course and learn more about on-line teaching. This time it is about internationalising your curriculum. For which I have been given a text entitled "moving towards internationalisation of the curriculum for global citizenship in higher education" by Clifford and Montgomery. It is with tepid anticipation that I embark upon this course due to the dire time I had on the last course. I have indeed started to teach on-line and hopefully some of my course students will follow this blog and comment on thier experiences as well as me blubbering on about my thoughts and feelings towards the course.
Anyway for now adieu and speak more next week. The course starts on the 12th with proper kick off on the 17th!

Let's stay positive and learn

Week 4’s task

Open Educational Resources OER’s

1. Ideas from Online Learning Task Force Case studies
• Partnerships with professional IT stakeholders to ensure good quality IT links and facilities
• Whole uni and staff buy in to the online learning – it is not piecemeal but productive and effective
• Student buy in – online learning is not seen as a cost cutting measure but as a means of teaching the student better – it is wanted rather than rejected
• Seminars rather than lectures are pre-eminent for online learning
• Synchronous learning as well as asynchronous is seen as important still.
• I like the idea if real time and your time. It makes it feel personal and specific
2. 3-5 questions to ask other group about their collaborative opportunities. Apply questions and ideas from task one for these questions. Identify and plan strategies for working collaboratively with stakeholders.
3. Locate OER which could supplement the activity of week 3 (twitter) and discuss issues of reusing them.
Open Education resources are digitalised materials offered freely and openly for educators to use and resource. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_educational_resources is this not what a book is for?
JISC and HEFCE project August 2010 -2011  http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/elearning/oer.aspx making freely available materials from pilot universities license permitting.
Wikieducator is an international online community project for the collaborative development of learning materials, which educators are free to reuse, adapt and share without restriction. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikieducator
Learning4Content wiki project which asks educators to provide materials and time to make information freely and openly available.
http://wikieducator.org/Learning4Content
Case Studies from HFECE Report 2011 on the integrated use of on-line learning . Read case studies. http://www.hefce.ac.uk/pubs/hefce/2011/11_01/
Open University http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=3636 This unit will help you to write a learning unit and provide you with links to various resources for open-learning materials. You will learn about the different purposes of self-instruction and receive advice about the techniques and strategies to help the learner.
Open Educational Resources – Opportunities
and Challenges for Higher Education  http://wiki.cetis.ac.uk/images/0/0b/OER_Briefing_Paper.pdf
Wikiversity http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Open_educational_resources

Reflections week 3 - searching for positives

I must admit I didn't enjoy this week at all apart from working with such a good group of people. It began and ended with a sense of confusion for me. I just didn't 'get' the task we were asked to do. Thankfully my group helped me through this and we managed to work together and to produce something which I am rather proud of. However I am still unsure of the actually crux of the task. I read the instructions about 20 times and I still didn't grasp it. I am not a stupid person (I don't think) and I just struggled. I have learnt some valuable lessons though for on-line learning from the point of view of my students.

* Instructions must be clear and concise as to the task required

* No question is stupid and if one is thinking it then others will be too - therefore a tutor should be on hand to guide and reassure. (I presume tutors can see what is going on in the groups)

* Students must talk to each other - this is easier for us as tutors to do this - for students admitting they have no idea what is going on may not be easy - the tutor therefore must be sensitive to this and pick up on these comments via the discussion board

* on-line tutorials should not be scheduled for first thing the day after the release of the instruction on the vle - give students a chance to actually participate - 24 hours notice should be given

I felt lost and isolated on Monday and Tuesday until I spoke to my group. I must say I am rather disappointed and disengaged by the whole task. I see the importance of learning design and activities but I did not see the context of it. For me as a lecturer who was wanting to see how to prepare online courses I feel I have not learnt things which will be of use to me. Perhaps those who have a clearer teaching and learning background will have. I felt like giving up this week but after talking to the voice of reason at home I have decided to stay and see the course out. Hopefully this week I will have a clearer idea of what is going on and I am trying to take the positives out of the last week.

Disappointed.com

Preparing on-line courses... not prepare to be disappointed. After an amazing course in January, I can only say that I am totally disappointed and disillusioned with the course this time round. The course is a) more designed for learning technologies who will prepare teachers for on-line courses and not lecturers wanting to prepare on-line courses as the module depicts; b) the instructions are far from clear and ambiguous at best; c) I have learnt relatively little in the three weeks I have been on the course. I have focused on who is my learners and most of all I have learnt how NOT to teach on-line. When I as well as many others on the course are clearly struggling and worrying about the work we have to produce by close of play tomorrow not one tutor has expressed their concerns or talked about the task. It is like wading through treacle blindfolded with no senses what so ever. The instructions to the tasks are bad they are unclear and after having read them about 20 or 30 times I am still unclear. So what am I doing. Well I shall not be beaten and along with my other foolhardy group we are ploughing ahead with what we think we should be doing but at a great time cost to us. Not to mention grey hairs! Umm not sure I really want to do the third course in Dec now. Now to decide whether to post this on my weekly reflection discussion board??? Comments please?

North Group - north by north west....

OK after several discussion posts which made me look very simple indeed I have a list of things that our group is needed to complete by the end of this week. It is Wed today. This list did not come from a tutor - no it came from the group leader who is very good at working out the work required by the course tutor....

1. We will design a learning activity to enable learners to meet the learning objectives we have agreed upon (i.e. the learners are tutors who want to use twitter to make available good quality sources of information to their students).

2. The group needs to decide which technology it will use to teach the task

3. The group needs to design the task based on the AUTC framework

4. The group needs to then create a poster/powerpoint/representation to demonstrate out outputs to Frances.

5. The group then sends a link to this final piece of work, to Frances.

I am meant to be a) specifying the task with the learning by 5pm on Fri and creating an output for the task by Noon Monday...arggggggg

I still don't know what it is we are doing - I am being so stupid. 

One good thing that has come out of this muddle is for me to learn to provide very clear and precise instructions for the students to follow. Honestly I was very close to giving up last night and I have never give up on anything in my life...

Wish me luck as my north group flies north by north west....

Week three's tasks

In this weeks task we have been asked (I think) to design a learning activity for our students using a learning framework. In truth I have no idea what is going on and I cannot get to the bottom of this course at all. I am losing heart with it all because I cannot follow the instructions, I cannot participate in the discussions and despite being on-line logged in and ready to work the instructions are so unclear and imprecise that I cannot fathom what is going on. I am not unintelligent and cannot understand what is going on. OK I am ranting but surely I should be able to grasp it.
I am working with a good group of people and have had a meeting and from what I can tell we are designing a learning activity to teach people about the use of twitter in education. This has nothing to do with the title of the course, preparing on-line courses. I think the course is much more designed for those learning technologist and not those who are actually preparing on-line courses.... I shall not give up though.

Student retention and on-line learning

In last weeks discussion boards we were talking about the issue of student retention should on-line learning not be suitable for the student. I have had an interesting discussion with a follow bod on the course who is doing research into this and I thought it may be useful for you to see the discussions. The thread was started after completing the quizzes last week to assess how ready you are.

Subject: Are you ready?	Topic: Are you ready?
Author: Barry Gregory	Date: 21 June 2011 11:42 AM

From a survey design point of view, I can see two problems with asking people overtly about their level of confidence/ability with certain tasks. The first is that people's assessments of their own skills are often unrealistic (especially if the tasks concerned are new or unfamiliar ones). The second is that once gaps in experience/skill have been identified, then what next? Does the student autonomously go away and 'skill up', or just feel anxious about these gaps ("Maybe I shouldn't be on this course at all!"). I agree with others here (Anne, Paul) that where there is scaffolding to be done, this is much better handled within the course.

I agree with Ben that the Muskegon quiz at least prompts learners to think about time management, and their own study environment - two things they CAN easily do something about.

Reply

Subject: Re:Are you ready?	Topic: Are you ready?
Author: Clare Chambers	Date: 21 June 2011 2:31 PM

I had this worry too Barry regarding student retention should they think they are not suitable for an on-line module within their degree. Also unless it is compulsory are they going to take the quiz in the first place.

Reply

Subject: Re:Are you ready?	Topic: Are you ready?
Author: Barry Gregory	Date: 21 June 2011 4:10 PM

Yes, that's a concern too. I wonder if there's a balance to be drawn that'll, on one hand, tell us something about students' initial level of confidence/competence, but on the other hand, not give them extra cause for pre-course anxiety.

I think the better approach might be to ask some questions that'd tell US something about their level of experience, and use this to better target support/attention/scaffolding once the course is underway.

The other danger, I think, is to go overboard once you start asking questions, and end up with a survey several pages long. Others have mentioned the dangers of 'quiz fatigue' and I can imagine the groans of students opening, say, the Muskegon quiz and seeing 'Questions 1 to 7 of 20'...

Coincidentally, I've been researching around retention for online courses lately and the issue of 'appropriate course choice' (i.e. are students on the right course for them in the first place?) seems far more fundamental. Any gaps in 'online-readiness' seem relatively easy to address in-course, provided the right support mechanisms are in place.

Reply

Subject: Re:Are you ready?	Topic: Are you ready?
Author: Clare Chambers	Date: 22 June 2011 8:10 AM

Your research into student retention sounds really interesting what are your main findings other than perhaps the course itself was not the right one?

Reply

Subject: Re:Are you ready?	Topic: Are you ready?
Author: Barry Gregory	Date: 22 June 2011 12:04 PM

Hi Clare,

I'd say that the clearest things to come out of it are:

a) make sure students are on the right course to start with
b) identify those at risk of dropping out early, and provide support to these on a pro-active, not reactive basis (given that those who need help the most tend to ask for it the least)
c) build in as much flexibility as possible, particularly around assessment deadlines (sounds obvious but 'work/family commitments' is the No.1 reason for exit)

I'm working on a table that sets 'Factors influencing retention' against 'What can be done to maximise retention in respect of these things?'. I can wing a copy to you if you like, although it is very much a 'work in progress' at the mo.

Reply

Subject: Re:Are you ready?	Topic: Are you ready?
Author: Clare Chambers	Date: 23 June 2011 8:24 AM

Hi Barry, thanks for getting back to me and if you could wing it to me that would great. It is clare.chambers@uwe.ac.uk 
I find your research really interesting. We do have an issue of students thinking they want to be Alley McBeal and then the reality of law school kicks in and we lose a lot of students. I want to use different methods of teaching to try and keep these students interests and engage them in a more dynamic manner than just lectures/seminars.
Thanks again
Clare

First time ever I am lost for words

The second task which we have been asked to complete is the following:

This wiki page is for Week 2: Task 2, where you are asked to extend the table below to bring it up to date. The table maps types of mediating technology onto the learning tasks they could help to support. A fuller version of the table is shown in Appendix 3 of Rethinking Pedagogy.

 To extend this table, you could:

·         Add links to examples of new tools in each media type.

·         Add links to examples of activities/courses you know of where tools have been used effectively. 

·         Annotate the potential advantages and risks, drawing on your own experience as a teacher and/or learner

My issue here is that I am new to on-line learning and use twitter, discussion boards, reflective logs and that is about it. Oh and hopefully pod casts. I am struggling to see where I can add any value in this task? I also am wonderinf what the purpose of the task is? In the previous course I learnt something new every day but on this one, we are covering two tasks per week which can be done (apart from this one) very quickly and easily. I am not sure I am learning anything. This task is an example of this as I have said I have posted a comment on the cafe space saying I am unsure what to write and the reply was not very helpful. I really don't see what I can add. Its rather down casting. I suppose what I can take away is how my students may feel and realise that I need to have clear instructions as to what do and if someone is unclear then proper help should be supplied. Here is what the others in the group have done so far....

 Media Type: Narrative

Learning tasks mediated by narrative technology	examples of technology	potential advantages	potential risks
Narrative tools can be used for assimilating, reproducing and sharing representations of knowledge.	powerpoint slides andslideshare	access at time and place to suit learner.	information overload, learners can access every presentation from every researcher in the field.
	Curation tools such as Storify	Gather together news from various social media into one place, to create a story.  Ephemeral, but often relevant  news can be gathered and saved in context.	Relies on a free service which is relatively new.
	Video Sharing tools such as YouTube	People can see other people's stories, views, perspectives. Can see visually exactly what people are talking about.	Almost anything can be shared on YouTube which can make it difficult to find specific things or limit what people see.

Sharing on-line journals. Can create a comprehensive discussion and get students to read around a relevant topic. Can be very time consuming for the student and not worthwhile if there are not specific questions asked around the journal

	Omnium - for online collaborative creativity	Promotes online collaborative creativity (even from different countries) and allows for dynamic interactions. Is ideal for use within disciplines that rely on high visual content (like visual arts and design disciplines).	No gradebook. Support somewhat limited with no means of incorporating backend admin support at institutional level.

Media Type: Communicative

Learning tasks mediated by communicative technology	examples of technology	potential advantages	potential risks
Communicative tools can be used to promote dialogue and reflection, which are central to learning.	Weekly reflective discussion forums in this course.	Dialogues recorded for review	Lack of immediacy and slow response times
	Online polling such as Poll Everywhere in a lecture of small group session	Allows for anyonymous comment, reflection and Q&Q, and allows for interactuion in a traditional lecture.	Free service limuited to 30 users.  Participants need access to a mobile device.
	Shared synchronous notepads like Open EtherPad	Very immediate and quick to set up, no sign up required.  Can collaborate uin real time.	Free service, could be withdrawn at any time/
	Collaborate mind mapping tools likeMindMeister	Allows groups to work on synchronous brainstorming
	Web Conferencing tools such as Adobe Connect or Elluminate	Allows people to meet either via audio, video or chat function synchronously for conversation, feedback and reflection. Helps people get to know their peers and build a community, possibly preventing feeling of isolation of learning online.	Synchronous nature can sometimes make it difficult to meet at the same time.

Media Type: Interactive

Learning tasks mediated by interactive technology	examples of technology	potential advantages	potential risks
Interactive tools give learners a response depending on their input.	online quizzes	engaging for learner, tailored feedback	learners don't engage with feedback
	short flash simulations	allows access to experience potentially dangerous/difficult/rare/expensive situations	no experience provided of the other factors that would be presented, such as stress and discomfort

Media Type: Productive

Learning tasks mediated by productive technology	examples of technology	potential advantages	potential risks
Productive tools allows learners to produce something e.g. manipulating data to promote analysis  e.g manipulating text and images to articulate and express themselves	digital storytelling	learners develop information handling skills
	Curation tools such as Storify	Gather together news from various social media into one place, to create a story.  Ephemeral, but often relevant  news can be gathered and saved in context.	Relies on a free service which is relatively new.
	Collaborative technology such as Titan Pad.	Allows students to all work together on document or page where they can each see their inputs and additions to the document as well as providing a chat function.	This is text based only, like a basic Word document. Doesnt allow for other types of input or media.

E-portfolio. Allows students to reflect on past learning, careers etc. Not all students will participate if it is not a formal part of the course.

	Mahara - ePortfolio Tool	Mahara is an open source e-portfolio system with a flexible display framework.  Other features – social networking system, blogs. Online learning communities.	Does not integrate well with Moodle 2

Media Type: Adaptive

Learning tasks mediated by adaptive technology	examples of technology	potential advantages	potential risks
Adaptive tools allow the environment to be changed by what the learner does	virtual worlds	can model real world complexity	simulations cannot substitute for real life
	Scenario based games.	Route taken by the student through the game or topic will depend on how the students has answered questions or performed tasks.	Students may be able to guess what is expected in order for them to progress.

Media Type: Integrative

Learning tasks mediated by integrative technology	examples of technology	potential advantages	potential risks
Integrative tools support the management and learning activities and recording of outputs and achievements	e-portfolios	record the learning journey through a programme	Individuals vary in their response. Can be seen as extra hoop to jump through.
	Wikis within a VLE.	These can be structured to a set format set my the tutor for the students to follow, particularly useful for work placements.	May be limited on different formats and media allowed within the wiki and therefore not being able to express themselves fully.

Blogs within the VLE or stand alone. Can chart the students journy and progression. Is time consuming for the students and needs to be made a formal part of the course if it is to be taken seriously.