Abstracts

Do learners dream of digital seminars? What do learners dream of?

Rhona Sharpe¹, Helen Beetham¹, Greg Benfield¹, Ellen Lessner¹, Eta De Cicco¹
¹Oxford Brookes University, United Kingdom,²Abingdon and Witney College, United Kingdom,³NIACE, United Kingdom

Learner experience research has developed rapidly in the last few years. The JISC Learner Experiences of e-Learning programme has been central to this and the phase 1 studies prompted further research with a wider range of students. The research approach of this programme aimed to address the learning experience in a holistic way, and as learners made sense of it themselves.The seven phase 2 projects have surveyed the experiences of almost 3000 students and collected rich data from 177 learners in post-compulsory education. The projects have taken care to develop methods which collect and capture learners' voices in their own words including video diaries, card sorts, email penpals and phone interviews. Each project has had a different emphasis, one looking at Master's students for example, another at the experiences of disabled learners, and another at how learners experience change through their learning journey. The overarching programme aims were detailed and ambitious and included: how are personal and social technologies used, what skills and strategies are developed, what critical choices are made and what role do institutional practices play in learners' experiences of e-learning?As the projects report their findings, this paper takes an overview, summarizing the key findings and relating them back to the programme aims. This research has shown us that the role of technology in society is influencing learners' expectations of technology in post-compulsory education. Expectations for ubiquitous access, flexibility, convenience and rapid response are high. Learners value access to academic digital content, consistency in use and a blend with face to face teaching. We saw evidence of the agility of some learners at personalising their existing tools and using their skills and social networks to support their study in innovative ways. However, we are concerned at a lack of basic information literacy for other learners, a resistance to changing established patterns of study and a narrowing and deepening digital divide. When combined with a tendency for learners to be largely led by their tutors in their choice and use of technology for learning, these findings have important implications for teachers, tutors and course designers.none