no.8 winter
11
New Director for the DEHub
Dr Rosalind James has commenced as the new Director of the DEHub: Innovation in distance education. Like many in the distance education field, Rosalind comes from a strong research background established in other disciplines. She has been a part of the UNE community for many years, having worked as a course co-ordinator and lecturer in the Foundational Pathway course in UNE’s Teaching and Learning Centre (TLC), an academic mentor for transitional students and a Research Fellow with Project 2012: Flexible and Online. Prior to that, she has been an archaeological consultant and a lecturer in Archaeology and Environmental Science and has worked in diverse companies and government departments around the world as a senior manager and technical ICT consultant in the commercial arena. Rosalind has been involved with DEHub since before its inception, having assisted in writing the grant for its funding and has continued that association by helping DEHub researchers write successful grants and eventually becoming a DEHub Research Fellow herself. Her current research, and publications interest, is in the implementation and integration of ICT in learning, in general, and Web 2.0 and social networking technologies, in particular. This research also covers business use of technology and its implications for graduate attributes and professional development for academics teaching by distance. Projects under Rosalind’s direction that have a direct focus on the
DE
uarterly
This winter edition of the DEQuarterly publishes five articles presenting a range of views on the use of social media in distance education and online learning. The general focus is on how social media can enhance the learning and teaching experience. The articles discuss various attributes of social media, such as providing student support through enhanced engagement, as well as making strong arguments for greater evidencedbased research on the benefits of social media.
Articles three to five discuss more specific uses of social media in distance education: the Noeline Wright article explains how student self-reflection can be cultivated using social media; the article by Rhonda Leece and Edward Campbell focuses on the usefulness of social media to enhance student engagement.; and the Garry Falloon article on social presence provides an outline of the diversity of applications offered to distance educators by the various forms of social media.
The first article discusses the benefits of using social media, particularly as it is implemented at the University of Maryland University College (UMUC) in their Master of Distance Education program. The second article, also providing a thought-provoking perspective, questioning the validity of the claimed benefits of social media in distance education and pointing out that there is a lack of validated research in the use of social media in distance education. Both articles support the use of social media in distance education but the second article notes that “we cannot assume that all distance education students will benefit from the use of social media methodologies”.
Dr Noeline Wright reflects on her study of microblogging with teacher education students, exploring their development of self-reflective practices as a result of tweeting. The outcomes of her study reinforce the belief that tweeting, while limited in the extent of a message, does have positive results in focusing the student on what is happening in their own student practicum. The effectiveness of self-reflection, review and adjustments to teaching practice are central to this article.
mission of the DEHub are the ICDE’s Regulatory Frameworks for Distance Education in the Southwest Pacific/South East Asia region and a large collaborative project to develop EduONE, a community education portal offering open educational resources for lifelong learning.
Rosalind replaces the former DEHub Director, Professor Belinda Tynan, who has accepted the position of Pro Vice-Chancellor (Learning, Teaching and Quality) at the University of Southern Queensland (USQ). The DEHub staff wish Belinda all the best in her new role at USQ.
The fourth paper by Rhonda Leece and Ed Campbell has a strong focus on student engagement through the use of Facebook and Twitter in the Early Alert
Funded by the Australian Government Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations
engagement retention program conducted from the Student Services department at the University of New England. The authors argue that the debate about social media use in education is redundant and that the important issue is how we capitalise on the advantages delivered by social media. Their argument is support by a series of feedback comments from students extolling the beneficial support they received by utilising social media. Dr Garry Falloon presents the final paper, describing the outcomes of a study in the use of a virtual classroom environment with two groups of teacher education students. He notes that the use of Adobe Connect Pro raises an interesting perspective on how one defines social networking and what constitutes social media technology. The outcomes from the study indicates that students find this form of networking particularly useful. He found that providing limited open access to the Adobe Connect tool could also enhance student self directed group study opportunities.
For further information on DEHub please contact: Director Dr Rosalind James dehub@une.edu.au +61 2 6773 3196 Project Manager Mr Alan Wylie dehubpm@une.edu.au +61 2 6773 2810