Appropriate Technologies for Collaborative Learning (Bloomsbury) ::   Blog | Members | | Aggregator | Profile | Page

Next generation technologies present exciting opportunities to enrich teaching and learning in Higher Education. However, there is a need to identify the factors that influence their effective introduction and productive use by the teachers, researchers and learners of the future. This community site outlines an approach that aims to help better understand the collective needs of these key stakeholders with the intention of informing the development of new models of personalised and appropriate technologies.

The project will use the collaborative tools of the new Web 2.0 platform to create an interactive dynamic environment for the key stakeholders to collaborate within. The intention is to use a wiki like interface for teachers and researchers and learners in the Bloomsbury Colleges to start sharing experience. What is unusual about this approach is that there will be distinct student, researcher and teacher wiki strands but these will be interlinked and woven to create a collective wisdom and knowledge base. This will take an additional dimension in beginning to weave in links between stakeholders in the different Colleges.

The objective of a collective wiki will be built using a similar methodology to that proposed in the User and Innovation Development Model. This will include: Observation, User Needs Analysis, Stakeholder Analysis, Brainstorming, Paper Piloting, Building and Testing. This process will take place within the first phase of the project with the three intended outcomes:

• A working collaborative wiki being piloted by teachers, researchers and students at each of the six Colleges;


• Feedback to the wider JISC CoP on the value and constraints of using the Development Model as a framework for adapting new technologies for use in an academic setting;


• Provide a test bed for new technologies and approaches identified by the JISC CoP or being of potential value to teaching and learning.