Studying aint what it used to be - its better

Studying aint what it used to be - its better Studying aint what it used to be its betterPosted April 13, 2015, by Marni WilliamsThink back to when you were last at TAFE or university. If it was mora than 10 years ago, then its quite possible that memory involves a suited figure standing down the front, wrestling with an overcrowded PowerPoint thats crying out for a graphic designer, and some of the longest hours of your life. Maybe you loved every minute of those lectures sure, Ill never forget the time one of my lecturers decided to abflug our modern art course with a Dada performance that involved him wearing a bucket on his head but maybe youre also remembering all those times you nodded off in the dark, the frustration you felt at elend being able to ask potentially embarrassing questions before the lecturer moved on to the next topic, or those awkward silences in tutorials when it was clear no one had done the reading. If this is your impression of tertiary education, the n youre certainly not alone. But if you think thats what you have to endure in order to get qualified these days, then I have good news for you youre behind the times.Todays students have demanded changeWhen does change start to become real? When the consumer demands it. Everyone these days expects technology to make their lives more convenient and their experiences to be richer, and that includes their education. Add those expectations to the greater prevalence of degrees and the increased competition in finding a job after graduation, and the old methods start to look just a little too dusty. The academic-led New Media Consortium has been tracking developments in education for over two decades, and their latest NMC Technology Outlook for Australian Tertiary Education indicates weve reached a tipping point As the workforce has evolved, calling for a mix of highly technical and communication-centric skill sets, student expectations of the traditional university degree are changing. There is less perceived value in large lecture hall courses and a greater emphasis on campus experiences that invoke more hands-on, immersive learning experiences that either simulate the real world or are part of it. I guess we all figure that if an algorithm can plan the perfect road trip, and we can tour the worlds museums or find our ancestors birth records from the comfort of our living rooms, then maybe traditional study has some catching up to do. But has it caught up? On one hand, the NMC suggests it has Over the past several years, there has been a shift in the perception of ansprechbar learning to the point where its value is now well understood, with flexibility, ease of access, and the integration of sophisticated multimedia and technologies chief among the list of appeals. However, delivering courses online is really only the beginning todays technology is about much more than improved delivery methods. Ive been tracking some of the most important changes that are m aking their way into the tertiary sector and some of them are so exciting they might just make you want to give it another go. And I promise you, were well past PowerPoint.5 game-changing trends in education1. Open learningOpen learning is all about getting resources and research out to as many people as possible, for free. While the term encompasses developments in sharing such as Creative Commons and the increase in open online journals, the hottest word on everyones lips in 2012 was MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses). unterstellung hugely popular free online courses may not have brought traditional university models crashing down, but they certainly have given them cause to consider making their content more available. The NMC report says open content is considered to be an extremely important topic in Australia and the government has even published guidelines and stipulated that certain government-funded research must be made accessible to everyone. Some open-access pioneer s include La Trobe University, which has piloted a program using Wikiversity and the Wikimedia Foundation Projects, and Adelaide University, which has transitioned its science textbooks from print to open-source. Want to find open educational resources? Check out OER Commons.2. MLearningIf we shop, bank, socialise, read and work from our mobile devices, then why shouldnt we be able to learn from them in a formal way? It seems mobile learning is already making its way into our hands, as the NMC reports All three of these projects expert panels a group of 145 acknowledged experts strongly agree that mobile learning and online learning, in some form, will likely tip into mainstream use within the next year. Mobile learning not only allows learning to take distributions-mix easily off campus and on-the-go, it allows students to work it in with traditional methods on an individual basis. For example, mobile learning has been used by Curtin University to deliver individual polls dur ing class, testing each students understanding of the content in real time. Practical lessons are also benefiting Dr Peter Teasdale at Griffith University has developed an app called H2GU to allow his students to collect and test water samples while in the field and medical students at the University of Melbourne are even managing patient records via their mobile devices while they make their rounds. As universities and TAFEs develop apps and make their existing sites mobile-friendly, stand by for more palm-based pedagogy.3. Rich content for the flipped classroomThe concept of the flipped classroom is the next big step from blended learning, and, when combined with rich content such as audio and video, this reversal of the traditional lecture is proving to be popular with students. Where blended learning allows students the flexibility of learning in their own time, the flipped classroom goes one step further it not only provides online resources for students, it requires them t o direct their own learning outside of class, leaving class time only for personal interactions such as practical training and discussion. The School of Nursing and Midwifery at the University of Western Sydney has turned to the flipped classroom model in order to dedicate one hundred percent of face-to-face time to clinical practice. And for the Australian National Universitys McComas Taylor, flipping his Sanskrit lessons over to an e-textbook has left more time for speaking (and chanting) in the classroom. The inclusion of rich media has been a key development here McComass students can replay snippets of video and sound recordings of individual Sanskrit words as they are spoken, allowing them to see and hear them over and over, in their own time, slowing them down to each syllable until they can understand and replicate them in class. McComas e-textbook has been so successful that he can now claim to be the only academic to export the teaching of Sanskrit to students in India And with all his rich media delivered in a mobile-friendly way, he has even reduced the time that needs to be spent on revisions as he has found his students remember almost all the