Abstract
The purpose of this study was to examine student use and perceptions of technology enhanced learning tools (TELTs), including their value for learning. Students enrolled onto a 12-week undergraduate science module had access to four TELTs each week, (i) a recording of the lecture (Panopto™), (ii) an animated mini review of the lecture (ShowMe), (iii) a multiple choice quiz hosted on Blackboard® (MCQ), and (iv) a module Twitter feed. Ninety-five students completed a survey at the end of the module, which included quantitative and qualitative questions, to examine whether they perceived the TELT to be useful for their learning. Analysis of the quantitative data suggest that Twitter was used significantly less than the other three TELTs (p < 0.001) with less people agreeing that it helped their learning (p < 0.001), whilst ShowMe and MCQ had a greater occurrence of an ‘agree’ rating compared to Twitter and Panopto (p ≤ 0.002). A thematic analysis of the qualitative responses identified assessment as a common theme across all four TELTs, being a positive factor for Panopto, ShowMe and MCQ, but negative for Twitter. Students highlighted ShowMe as being particularly useful for simplifying information. Based on this study TELTs similar to ShowMe (i.e. animations) are most recommended as this was one of the two highly rated TELTs (alongside MCQ), but may have more potential for crossover with other subjects, and students found it useful for more than just assessment.
Highlights
Technology enhanced learning (TEL) has the potential to enhance the student experience by facilitating self-paced learning, lowering inhibition thresholds for asking questions, and allowing access to learning on an as-and-when basis (Kamath, 2015), all of which are factors that may contribute to informal and incidental learning outside of the formal learning space (Peart et al, 2014)
The technology enhanced learning tools (TELTs) were chosen with the intention of each serving a different function, to allow an insight into for what purpose students accessed the TELTs, as opposed to which TELT they preferred for a given purpose
Significant cells in the contingency table were ‘Twitter – did not use’ (p < 0.001), ‘Twitter – agree’ (p < 0.001), ‘ShowMe – agree’ (p = 0.002) and ‘multiple choice quiz hosted on Blackboard® (MCQ) – agree’ (p < 0.001) (Table 2). These results suggest that Twitter was used significantly less than the other three TELTs with less people agreeing that it helped, whilst ShowMe and MCQ had a greater occurrence of an ‘agree’ rating compared to Twitter and Panopto
Summary
Technology enhanced learning (TEL) has the potential to enhance the student experience by facilitating self-paced learning, lowering inhibition thresholds for asking questions, and allowing access to learning on an as-and-when basis (Kamath, 2015), all of which are factors that may contribute to informal and incidental learning outside of the formal learning space (Peart et al, 2014). There is a body of research examining the role of the teacher in facilitating TEL, and a reservation or anxiety from staff has been described with respect to the technology acceptance model (Blackwell et al, 2014; Gong et al, 2004; Louw, 2015; Teo et al, 2008) Such problems may present a barrier to the promotion of TEL to support student learning. For example Cochrane (2005) evaluated two audio engineering LOs (interactive mixing desk and microphone chooser) and Nurmi and Jaakkola (2006) evaluated three LOs to teach fractions, the Finnish language and electrical DC circuits Such tools are typically designed to be used in the classroom, and as a result do not promote extra-curricular and informal/incidental learning
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