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This week I joined in the first meet-up of a new group in Wales. In case you’re wondering what ELESIG is, it’s a Special Interest Group (SIG) to Evaluate Learners’ Experience of E-learning. It describes itself as “an international community of researchers and practitioners from higher and further education who are involved in investigations of learners’ experiences and uses of technology in learning” and has over 1,200 people signed up.  ELESIG offers small grants for regional groups, and this new Welsh one has grown out of the universities’  Gwella programme to enhance learning and teaching through technology. ELESIG exists as a virtual community but there are also occasional face to face events – the ones I’ve attended in the past have been excellent so I had high hopes for this one.

The ELESIG Wales inaugural event on 21 March was a videoconference between Swansea, Aberystwyth and Glamorgan Universities plus Coleg Harlech, so we were able to enjoy a combination of presentations and feedback from across the country, interspersed with group discussion (and lunch) in our separate studios. This hybrid format has the advantage of being sociable without the need for long-distance travel, and avoids the hassle of a large, expensive venue. Most participants seemed to be from HE, but I noted a few from FE as well as HEFCW and JISC. In our Swansea studio we had about 20 folk from a variety of professional roles: learning technologists, academics and staff working on business engagement projects, to name a few. This mix of people made for lots of different viewpoints and I think we all learned something new.

The event kicked off with an intro from Chris Hall (Swansea University) who with David Lewis (University of Glamorgan) set up the group “to enable the Technology Enhanced Learning Community of Practice that has grown out of Gwella to develop further”. An official write-up will be appearing shortly, so in the meantime here are just a few of my personal reflections.

In the first discussion slot we swapped ideas on our hopes for the group and what it could do for us; key points were captured via a Google Doc and shared across all four venues. In a short time we managed a long wish-list and if the group can tackle even a small number of the issues, it will be doing a good job! Mor myself, one area where I see a “gap in the market” is a forum for sectors to come together to look at effective use of technology to enable and support learning, but which isn’t platform- or sector-specific. Such a forum seems useful given current moves towards the regionalization of HE and the breakup of traditional institutional and sector boundaries. Also on my personal wish-list would be learning literacies (“the range of practices that underpin effective learning in a digital age”), something that I reckon has to be fundamental to a truly Digital Wales and indeed a well-educated Wales.  More than ever, I think, we need good evaluation of new approaches and rapid, effective dissemination of projects, as well as a place to nurture creativity. Whatever our personal interests, the one strong theme coming through during this event was a strong will to collaborate!

After lunch we heard three short presentations, all looking at different types of ‘virtual classroom’: lecture capture; studio-based videoconferencing; and webconferencing. These are all areas which RSC Wales gets asked about, so it was all highly relevant.

Lecture capture

First up was Kate Wright of Aberystwyth University, talking about their experience of introducing lecture capture. They are currently using the Panopto system, mainly using just audio and slides rather than video, and their experience is well documented in a case study on the Panopto website. They’ve also got information on their excellent Nexus site, including a batch of Delicious links which will be useful to complement my own. Some points I picked up from Kate that are particularly worth spreading around (and could apply to other technologies too):

- start from pedagogical need, not what the technology can do

- make things as seamless and self-service as possible for staff

- use surveys and staff focus groups to gather evidence and guide implementation

- contrary to received wisdom, lecture capture doesn’t reduce face to face lecture attendance

Videoconferencing

David Gill of Swansea University was the next speaker, and he spoke entertainingly about the experience of collaborative teaching on a Masters programme in Classics, via studio-based videoconferencing. Points I particularly liked (and which can apply to other technologies too):

- remote delivery changes the class dynamics and can change the way we teach

- those taking part need to learn to communicate differently, and listen more

- the technology means that learners have access to more expertise, including international research

- collaboration through technology allows different organisations to play to their strengths.

Webconferencing

Finally, Mark Pelling at UWIC talked about their use of Adobe Connect webconferencing technology to deliver graduate-level courses to dental technicians. I blogged about this as part of an event report last term. UWIC’s recent JISC project, on which this work was based, has been making waves around the UK, so I was a bit surprised that it’s still not widely known about in Wales. Perhaps there’s a tendency to overlook the good practice on our own doorstep sometimes? I hope a group like ELESIG can help to draw out the expertise we have right under our noses. (By the way if you would like more information on webconferencing there’s a wealth of material on our Moodle resources area).

Back in our groups we reflected on the presentations before a plenary round-up led by David Lewis. It was good to hear that the group have enough funding for a few further face to face events in the coming year, based on suggestions put forward by members.

Judging by the day’s discussions, there’s no shortage of potential topics and a friendly, enthusiastic bunch of people keen to share. If we can ‘grow our own’ community of practice in Wales, that can only be good for the health of our education sector and could help to make our sterling efforts at innovation more sustainable. Admittedly, we already have active forums in Wales for FE (Learntech-Wales, Itsysman and FE-LRC-Wales), CELW (Community E-learning Wales), Moodle-Wales and Blackboard-Wales, but these have their specific remits, and there’s clearly room for a “broad church” that can embrace not just HE but others too.

Simon Wood of Cardiff University has shared some thoughts about the day from a learning technologist’s perspective on his blog . In addition some of us were tweeting using the twin hashtags #gwella #ELESIG if you want to catch some of the comments on Twitter.

I know some of our RSC Wales friends have already joined the new ELESIG for Wales and I hope plenty more follow suit. Anyone can join the ELESIG Ning http://elesig.ning.com: it’s free to register, then look under the Groups tab. There are lots of other ELESIG subgroups for topics such as first-year experience, research students and even one for research on FE/ACL students: some of these have even more cryptic acronyms than Gwella (iLExSIG anyone?*). I think this group has the possibility of a bright future – I look forward to future get-togethers. virtual or otherwise!

*International Learners’ EXperiences of e-learning Special Interest Group in case you hadn’t guessed!

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