Evolving modes of student use whither the VLE

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Evolving modes of student use whither the VLE?
School of Computing FACULTY OF ENGINEERING

• Roger Boyle, roger_at_comp.leeds.ac.uk
• Royce Neagle
• (and Nick Efford)?

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25th November 2008, Primary computer
laboratory. 10.00-12.00 session Photo 1130
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Common study space no computers
provided. Wireless is ubiquitous
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Here, a slide of a UG bedroom
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Just one place

• September 2008, Amherst College UMass
• 99 of freshmen have Facebook presence
• 1 of freshmen have a telephone landline
• Peter Schilling, Director of Information,
  Amherst

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Effects

• the Net seems to be chipping away my capacity
  for concentration and contemplation.
• users are not reading online in the traditional
  sense new forms of reading are emerging as
  users power browse
• the replacement of complex inner density with a
  new kind of self, evolving under the pressure of
  the technology of the instantly available.
• Carr, Atlantic.com, August 2008

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Whats going on?
Quantitative findings of any material and energy
changes preserve their full context only through
their being seen and understood as parts of a
natural order. Walter Hess, Nobel Prize in
Medicine, 1949
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Whats going on?

• Digital Natives/Digital Immigrants Prensky
• used to receiving information really fast
• like to parallel process and multi-task
• prefer their graphics before their text
• prefer random access
• function best when networked
• thrive on instant gratification and frequent
  rewards
• prefer games to serious work.

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The Liquid world / 2nd modernity

• the shrinking of space abolishes the flow of time
• inhabitants live in a perpetual present
• people are constantly busy and perpetually short
  of time
• residents of the first world live in time space
  does not matter for them
• we occupy a world of communication networks in
  which social and physical space have diverged
• social networks are not being added on to the
  national container they are changing its nature
• a society preoccupied with the future with a
  variable trust in industry, government and
  experts
• Zygmunt Bauman, Ulrich Beck, Anthony Giddens

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Colloquially -
production of useless products for a throwaway
society contacts are hastier and
communication has less depth life is
characterised not by progress, but by a simple
continuation Queen Beatrix of the
Netherlands, Christmas speech 1997
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• History is more or less bunk. We dont want
  tradition. We want to live in the present and
  the only history that is worth a tinkers damn is
  the history we make today
• Henry Ford

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Does it matter?
Communities are bound by intricate socially
constructed webs of belief which are essential to
understanding what they do. Seely Brown et al.
1989
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Our culture

• students are too often asked to use the tools
  of a discipline without being able to adopt its
  culture
• Seely Brown et al.,1989
• student do not only learn knowledge in the
  classroom, they learn a set of practices
• Boaler, 2002

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Entering the Liquid World
students today are adept at multitasking and
expect to be connected in sophisticated ways any
attempt to circumvent these tendencies will
fail. G Jackson, CIO, University of
Chicago Well have to meet them halfway, at
least.
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• All that was all background
• What are we doing?

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VLE has arrived

• Nothing new
• But now University of Leeds has one for the WHOLE
  of the University
• Big opportunity for ...
• Data collection
• VLE sessions of every UG, TG and PG in the
  University
• Opportunity to see when and where students are
  doing their work
• What are we doing
• Pilot phase
• Developing software for web analysis
• Filtering for different levels of fidelity (by
  faculty, school, time, location,...)?

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University wide

• Medicine Health and Biological Science are
  larger schools
• Medicine Health embraced the VLE in August
• Medicine Health and Biological Science have
  actively pushed the VLE more vigorously

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Total usage by programme

• Average is consistent with the main programmes
• Each programme has a student log on nearly once a
  day (on average)?

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Analysis background

• School of Computing Undergraduate Programme
• Data is Login Sessions from 6 October 18
  November
• Off Campus
• Anything not in in IP range 129.11.0.0
  129.11.255.255
• Campus? (?)?
• Computers and clusters not associated with SoC
• Assumption ISS Machines running MS Windows XP
• Campus (Main lab)?
• Main SoC UG lab
• Linux running Fedora Core 9 (x86_64)?

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Session location
Year of study 1
Year of study 2
Year of study 3
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Session locations II
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Session locations III

• No guessing when the weekend is?
• Longitudinal data what next?
• What will happen in the main lab during the week?
  
• Will it continue to match Off-campus (assume
  home) during the week?

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Session locations IV
UG Year 1
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Login session times
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Login session times II
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Conclusion

• SNAPSHOT
• Snapshots are not interesting ...
• Charts and graphs stimulate questions?
• Longitudinal data is interesting
• What are the trends?
• Are working habits going to change?
• What would you like to know about students
  working habits?
• What will it look like one year on
• WATCH THIS SPACE