On Wednesday, July 21st, 35 people gathered online to learn more about ADMINS (Assistants to the disclosure and management of information about needs and support), a completed project funded by Microsoft and managed by the Institute of Educational Technology (IET) at The Open University (OU). The speaker of this seminar was Dr Tim Coughlan, a senior lecturer in IET, who was part of the research team leading the project. “But, who is Taylor?”– you may be wondering at this point if you are curious to know the answer to the question raised in the title of this post. Continue reading How can Taylor help students with disabilities in Higher Education?
All posts by Barbara Conde Gafaro
Can computers detect social bias?
The first 2021 seminar of the Special Interest Group focused on Artificial Intelligence in Education (openAIED SIG) was led by Josmario Albuquerque, a second-year PhD student at the OU Institute of Educational Technology, on Wednesday 7th July.
With a background in Computer Science, Josmario has been involved in IT projects related to Artificial Intelligence in Education, Learning Analytics, and the use of Computer Science to address social issues. His current research fits under the scope of these past projects, since he is studying group biases in online learning settings. During the seminar, Josmario suggested that human biases and stereotypes are still present in educational settings, diminishing several aspects of learning. Continue reading Can computers detect social bias?
CALRG 2021 Online Conference – Registration Open
The Computers and Learning Research Group Online Conference is coming soon!
15-16 June 2021 (MS Teams)
CALRG’s annual conference provides a forum for members and other researchers and practitioners in the field to present their work. The conference will consist of two days of presentations and interactive sessions across a broad range of topics relevant to educational technology in 7-panel sessions:
- Learning and research during Covid-19 pandemic
- Assessment
- Teachers’ education and professional development
- Learning analytics
- Teaching and learning in OU
- Supporting learners in online environments
- Innovative methods
The conference is free to attend. If you wish to attend, please register HERE.
This conference will not be live-streamed. Recordings of the presentations will be available after the event. For any query regarding conference presentation and attendance, please email calrg@open.ac.uk.
We look forward to e-meeting you!
L@S: The New SIG of openTEL
The launch of our new Special Interest Group: Learning at Scale (L@S SIG) happened on Wednesday, May 26th, 2021. Dr Shi Min Chua led the first online meeting of the SIG, which featured a presentation from a Senior Lecturer at The Open University (The OU). The interdisciplinary event welcomed 21 people across the university who had the opportunity to share their work on L@S with others.
Dr Anna Comas-Quinn kicked off the session with her presentation: Learning beyond the classroom: online volunteer translation. She shared findings from her doctoral research project that explored the experiences of a global sample of online volunteer translators. Anna also reported on two action research projects (Comas-Quinn & Fuertes-Gutiérrez, 2019; Cámara & Comas-Quinn, 2016) that piloted and implemented the use of online volunteer translation activities in language and translation teaching.
The meeting was then followed by a roundtable discussion with academics and researchers interested in learning more about the SIG. Attendees mentioned how their research and practice related to learning at scale. All the members in the meeting agreed that The OU is a pioneer of this learning modality, considering the large number of students taking distance learning modules at our institution since 1969.
The organiser also prompted the attendees to think of the aspects they would like to explore further in the upcoming sessions of the SIG. They mentioned the following topics for the L@S SIG agenda of 2021:
- Impact on learners & educators
- The methodology and data used to research L@S
- The context of L@S in developing countries, including F2F and community centres
- Automated feedback
- Learning Analytics
- MOOCs
- Digital badges
- Microcredentials
- Self-regulated learning
- Learners’ disposition and cultural influences
- Assessment at Scale
- The distinction between delivery and learning at scale
One of the members shared their thoughts on L@S and wrote: “What dimensions can ‘scale’ have? Obviously, the number of learners, but inspired by Anna’s talk and other comments, others come to mind. E.g. number of Learners, Teachers, Subjects (Sciences, Languages, Arts etc.), Pedagogical approaches, Technologies used, Communication media (audio, video, text, image, hypertext etc.), Distance (various forms: physical, transactional…), Languages, Emotions”. Another attendee shared an interesting article on students who set up their study support at scale in places like YouTube and Reddit. These platforms are part of The Study Web, “a constellation of digital spaces and online communities—across YouTube, TikTok, Reddit, Discord, and Twitter—largely built by students for students”.
The discussions from the meeting will inform the future SIG events. If you would like to keep up to date with the Learning At Scale SIG agenda, please email us to add your name to the new L@S mailing list.
Show & TEL 2021: Five presentations in a nutshell
Show & TEL has become an opportunity to learn more about the work of colleagues from The Open University (OU) and other researchers with similar Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) interests since 2015. This year’s event was not an exception. Members of openTEL hosted five online presentations on Tuesday, May 4th, 2021, from 09:00 until 13:00. The presentations included TEL-related topics, such as learning analytics, students’ success, chatbots and science. In a nutshell, we present here what you may have missed from these exciting talks on that day of the event.
Continue reading Show & TEL 2021: Five presentations in a nutshell