Project Name: Flexilearn

Lead Institution: University of Westminster

Project Lead: Gunter Saunders

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The main aims of this project were to exploit and plot a successful implementation path for a new mobile learning application (app) and generate debate in the broader area of flexible learning using this new online learning tool as a catalyst for action. Success would be measured by the number of students using the app and the degree to which the profile of mobile/flexible learning could be raised among academic staff and within institutional strategies and structures.

 

Background - Just before the start of the academic year 2011/12 the University of Westminster invested heavily in its virtual learning environment (VLE). This included external hosting of the VLE (Blackboard) and the addition of Blackboard Collaborate and Blackboard Mobile Learn to the internal 'tool set'. Prior to this the University had reviewed the use of its VLE, in relation to a new Learning & Teaching strategy that placed an emphasis on developing flexible learning opportunities for the future.

 

Blackboard Mobile Learn is available as an app for all commonly used mobile operating systems (Apple, Android etc) and devices (phones and tablets). Once installed on a device it can be used by students to access information (documents, slides, videos) within the main web based Blackboard Learn system. They are also able to receive ‘push’ notifications of changes to any of their Blackboard sites (new announcements, new documents, release of marks and feedback) on their mobile device. In addition students can read and comment on blogs through the mobile interface and take online tests. Staff can do all of the above but in addition can add announcements through the mobile interface and read and respond to student posts on discussion boards.

 

In common with the experience of other institutions in the sector, Westminster was expecting the mobile interface to the VLE to prove popular with students, fitting in as it does with the busy lifestyles of students in Central London by providing the capability to access key information, and sometime to make contributions, ‘anytime, anywhere’.

 

Aims and objectives - This project had two objectives, focused around mobile and flexible learning. One objective was simply to get as many students and staff to start making use of the Blackboard Mobile Learn app in order to support fundamental communication and dissemination of information. The second objective was to explore ways of promoting a discussion across the institution of the potential for mobile learning approaches to underpin the development of more flexible delivery of the curriculum.

 

Context - The University is a diverse centre for study in Central London offering undergraduate and postgraduate provision to around 22,000 students collectively representing over 140 countries. The University prides itself on its widening participation approach, underpinned by the mission to educate for professional life through providing excellent face to face learning opportunities. The University currently offers very few distance learning courses and this means that the staff and students tend to see online learning as an adjunct to face-to-face classes, rather than as a means to enhance the face to face experience. Relatively recently, Westminster, like other institutions, has recognised the need to make its provision more flexible for those whose lifestyles and/or locations increasingly lend themselves to a 'learn anywhere anytime' approach.

 

The business case - This was strongly made through a process of review of the institution's VLE between October 2010 and August 2011, culminating in a report to the University's senior executive that recommended a range of enhancements to the available online learning tool set. The enhancements identified were all derived from a general stakeholder desire to make learning more accessible and flexible. The recommendations of the VLE review were informed by focus groups and individual meetings with appreciable numbers of both students and staff at the University. The student voice was very strong around the need for greater consistency across the Schools in online provision of learning materials and activities in order for them to have the capability to learn from multiple locations. During the review the staff consulted tended to share the view that the institution needed to deliver more learning in ways that new students might reasonable expect, as a consequence of their experiences at School and their widespread use of online systems for social activities.

 

Key drivers - Student expectations and the desire of staff to work towards satisfying those expectations, have been strong drivers for this project. In addition the marked financial investment that the university has made in its VLE in the past 18 months underpins the push to make use of the new tool set to facilitate flexible learning approaches. External circumstances have also caused the institution to move and act in the ways that it has. Specifically there is a strongly held view that students will expect more as they progressively pay more for their studies. It is a generally held view that technology will underpin much of the 'more' not only because of student expectations but also because technology is considered to be a means to greater efficiency, effectiveness and quality.

 

The financial investment made by the University in its VLE is substantial overall and Blackboard Mobile Learn represents a relatively small proportion of that investment. The institution is already beginning to see some tangible returns from the wider investment in the VLE, specifically in the area of online coursework submission and marking where various processes have become more efficient. It is harder at this stage to speak confidently of the specific impact of the work with Blackboard Mobile Learn or indeed some of the other investments made in the VLE. However, the surveys we have done during this project, and the feedback at student focus groups we have conducted, all strongly suggest that students find the mobile interface to the VLE useful in, as a minimum, keeping them regularly up to date wherever they are.

 

Whether this actually translates into a clear return on investment with respect to Blackboard Mobile Learn will need to await the outcomes from future measures of satisfaction from students in relation to their experience at the University (e.g. through the NSS). In turn the institution will need to undertake work with that generic collection of data to attempt to unpick the undoubtedly complex array of initiatives, tools and systems that could all in some way contribute to changes over time in the student experience.

 

JISC resources/technology used

 

Initially members of the core project team used a number of JISC resources that were specifically focussed on mobile learning to gather ideas for moving forward with the project in its early stage. These resources helped us in deciding certain paths that were already in our minds (e.g. formation of a practitioner group) and gave us some ideas for quick wins. In addition the resources were used as sources for the report prepared by the project team to provide a basis for engagement with the wider university staff community.

The JISC resources explored were:

 

Mobile Learning infoKit; - this was the core resource and helped us to consider where quick wins might be made. For example this resource prompted the generation of the VLE newsletter for staff and students and also began to make us think of implementing a secure SMS service for use by staff.

 

Effective Practice in a Digital Age – this provided some useful information for the theoretical aspects of the report referred to above and also made us promote the use of You Tube for storage of videos that would then display on mobile devices.

 

JISCTechDis’ Go Mobile! – again this provided useful background for the report and also was an important resource to cite in highlighting generally the advantages of mobile learning to students with accessibility issues.

 

Sustainability Toolkit; - the project director was very familiar with this resources having worked with a major contributor to the resource for some time. We were able to draw therefore on the individual concerned to guide us quickly through key points to ensure sustainability which in part has led the project to work ever more closely and become a small part of wider institutional initiatives. An early eye on sustainability also led us from the outset to ensure the Flexilearn work was connected to key institutional committees (in this case Information Strategy Committee and Learning, Teaching and Student Support Committee).

 

Outcomes - Investment by the University in a texting solution integrated with the institutional VLE that can also be used for in class polling; inclusion in the new University policy on use of external web 2.0 tools a recommended list of systems that can support delivery of content to mobile devices; formation of a Mobile Learning Practitioner Group (The Flexilearn Group) linkage of the practitioner group to work of the University's Learning, Teaching and Student Support Committee and Learning Futures initiative; linkage of the project to the work of the University's Information Strategy Committee.

 

Achievements

 

The Flexilearn project achievements to date comprise:

 

• Increasing the number of unique users of Blackboard Mobile Learn at Westminster from approximately 8000 at the start of the project to over 20,000 currently
• Completed surveys of undergraduate students from across all Schools in the University that collectively provide a clearer understanding of the mobile hardware that students bring with them to university and in addition provides an insight into the kinds of Web 2.0 tools and systems that students are familiar with
• An enhanced understanding of the student view with respect to the value of the Blackboard Mobile Learning app and some broader ket questions related to flexible learning delivery thorugh the conduct of student focus groups designed in part to examine themes emerging from the student surveys conducted. 
• A completed survey of staff attitudes to and use of mobile/flexible learnng approaches
• A report compiled by the project team that presents some theoretical background to mobile learning and summarises initial views from staff and students in relation to achieving the broad aims of the Flexilearn project
• Initiation of  mobile/flexible learning pilot projects within 5 Schools at the university, that collectively aim to demonstrate the achievement of a range of fundamental learning and teaching objectives through the use of mobile technologies both within and outside of the classroom
• The initiation of a mobile learning strategy for the entire Law School building on the decision to provide a mobile device to each new student on arrival at the University for academic year 2013/14 
• Planning and delivery of a webinar series on flexible/mobile learning to highlight areas of good practice and to promote the use of Blackboard Collaborate to promote flexible learning opportunities 
• Further investment on the part of the University in additional systems to promote communication to students via mobile devices and to facilitate the collection of student responses both in and outside of the classroom
• Tight linkage of the work of the Flexilearn project to the institution's Learning Teaching and Student Support Committee, Information Strategy Committee and the university's Learning Futures strategic initiative
• Revision of the University's Technology Enhanced learning strategy to include specific objectives in relation to mobile learning approaches (see appendix for further detail) 

 

Benefits

The perceived benefits to date include:

• Raised awareness amongst academic staff of the importance and affordances of basic mobile learning approaches to enhance flexibility in delivery, underpinned by a better understanding of students use and understanding of Web. 2.0 tools and their desire to receive information and carry out tasks on devices that they always bring with them to university
• Significantly greater buy-in from staff and students in the utilisation of Blackboard Mobile Learn
• Further sustained investment in the online tool set to support options for communication with students via mobile devices
• Recognition at institutional level that the specific area of mobile learning merits reference in the institution's Technology Enhanced Learning strategy and that this strategy will be central to the work of the institution's Learning Futures initiative
  
  

Drawbacks

 

There have been no obvious drawbacks of the Flexilearn work. The funding and support from JISC has been very significant in gaining engagement from stakeholders and in raising the profile of mobile/flexible learning. Whilst initially there may have been some concern that the project may focus too much on tools rather than pedagogy, what has emerged through the academic pilots and the wider discussion amongst the practitioner group, is a recognition that understanding and being confident in the systems available is the essential prerequisite to considering changes in learning and teaching approach.

 

Key lessons

 

Perhaps the biggest lesson to learn in relation to the project has been the desirability of ensuring that the aims and objectives are linked to related internal initiatives. In some respects this has been straightforward (e.g. the project director has control over significant internal resources and has been able to align these with the work of the project). Whist many projects benefit from the involvement of very senior staff (and Flexilearn is no different in that respect) it is possibly more critical to have middle managers with cross institutional oversight of work being undertaken and planned as well as a good understanding and involvement in relevant strategic planning.

 

However, other internal projects and significant initiatives arise at what seems like frequent intervals and from myriad sources (School based projects; change academy projects (externally and internally funded) and most recent (and possibly most significant) the Learning Futures initiative. Keeping abreast of all of the different groups working to push forward the use of technology in learning and teaching is hard enough, ensuring connections between the different pieces of work so as to avoid overlap and duplication is a very difficult task.

 

Another important lesson to keep in mind is that it can be easy to make what seems like good progress but to only affect a small number of stakeholders. Engagement with the wider community within the institution is obviously a key objective and can again be more readily achieved through the involvement of high profile staff with a cross institutional role that encompasses a combination of strategy development and delivery/implementation. These are not always the most senior (in terms of position) staff in the institution.

 

Looking ahead

 

Sustainability

 

The project is well positioned to ensure that its work is sustainable. This is primarily due to the strong linkage between the project and strategic work of the two major institutional committees and the sponsorship of senior staff, driven by the work of other staff working at the interface between 'policy and practice'. The project director will remain the business owner of Blackboard Mobile Learn within the institutions and will ensure through working with a range of student services that Blackboard mobile Learn continues to be promoted to new students as they arrive. 

 

There are 2 major challenges for the project to address. Having now gotten underway a number of pilot projects with mobile/flexible learning themes, gathered information from students about their ownership and use of mobile devices and introduced the concept of mobile learning into an institutional strategy document, the team will need to focus on wider embedding and dissemination. Linked closely to this is the need to steer a path for the project that brings it ever closer to the institution's Learning Futures initiative whilst maintaining a clear identity for the project actions and outcomes. An indication that this has happened is the joint branding of the webinar series referred to in the achievements section above. These are jointly branded as a Learning Futures and Flexilearn programme.

 

In addition it is clear from the student focus groups that students value the Blackboard mobile app primarily because it allows them to keep up to date with news and developments around their taught modules. There tends to be a limited outlook from them as to the utility of mobile approaches for more active, collaborative learning. This tends also to be the view of the majority of staff which highlights the need for a campaign across both groups of stakeholders to highlight the further the possibilities and potential of mobile learning to engage and form an essential of an overall blended learning approach.

 

Appendix

 

The revised draft Technology Enhanced Learning Strategy (2012-2015) includes as a main strategic objective - 'To integrate mobile learning approaches into the mainstream'. Further, amongst the University actions identified:

 

• Prioritise on the support of TEL that enhances the face-to-face experience through providing opportunities to change and improve the nature of classroom contact. Utilise mobile learning approaches to underpin ‘anytime anywhere learning’.

and

  

• Focus effort and support on the engagement of staff in the utilisation of online tools which facilitate student activity and collaboration in an online environment (e.g. the use of Web 2.0 technologies such as blogs, wikis and e-portfolios and mobile learning approaches that facilitate in class and out of class activities as well as situated learning experiences) drawing on the good practice already demonstrated in a number of schools and by providing staff development courses focused on successful applications of technology.