UNSW Systems and Technology

Tags:elearning, teaching, TELT, technology

Many teachers want to use  technologies in their teaching, but don’t know where to start. But they already have a sound knowledge of educational principles, and an appreciation of the context in which teaching will take place. They are therefore well placed to recognise which particular technology will best achieve each of their learning and teaching  goals, and to select the right technological tool for the job. If they make an informed choice, learning how to use the chosen technology themselves, and manage its introduction and use in their class, will be much easier.

The UNSW TELT or Technology Enabled Learning and Teaching platform emphasises the benefits that educational technologies can bring to learning and teaching practice. No single educational technology will address all learning and teaching needs. Yet often institutions focus solely on one platform, usually a learning management system (LMS).

A rich array of technologies can now be used to support learning and teaching, whether courses are face to face or online. Students can engage with technology in simple ways, such as using a digital camera. In your teaching, you can also employ a range of complementary and connected tools and spaces. Your challenge is to identify what your course needs to achieve, then select the technology that will maximise good learning outcomes.

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What's on the TELT platform?

The TELT Platform is a dynamic, evolving solution to meet UNSW's learning and teaching requirements. It will ultimately offer a suite of integrated applications and systems, ensuring flexibility, accessibility and an enhanced student experience.

Many of the applications proposed for the TELT Platform already exist across UNSW. A centralised, integrated approach and enterprise-level IT support and infrastructure are now being developed. An innovation / research and development platform will be an integral component. This will enable continual improvement in a constantly changing field.

We will keep on identifying emerging technologies, and trial and evaluate them in small Faculty based pilots. If they are suitable, we will migrate them to the TELT Platform, and integrate, support and maintain them as part of UNSW enterprise IT infrastructure.

TELT applications currently supported or being piloted include:

  • Blackboard Learn v9.1
  • Moodle v1.9 and 2.0
  • UNSWTV
  • Echo 360 (and Lectopia)
  • Turnitin
  • Maple TA
  • Respondus
  • Web Conferencing (VC)
  • Mahara (ePortfolio)
  • Omnium
  • LCMS
  • QMP
  • Assessment Tools

At the same time as we pilot new applications, we will identify, by ongoing systematic evaluation, which TELT applications are approaching end of life and require replacement. For further information on these applications, please visit the TELT Gateway

Support and Faculty reference groups

We plan, in the coming years, to develop a range of support strategies designed to encourage teachers to take up the TELT applications, and to ensure their success in using them.

These strategies will include:

  • "on-demand" resource repositories
  • a database of good practice and case studies
  • "community of practice" networks, in which teachers can hear about others' first-hand experiences applying educational technologies to their learning and teaching practices.

To ensure that we hear and respond to Faculty needs, we've established a series of reference groups related to the development of various aspects of the TELT platform. We'll maintain these as part of the University's overall TELT development strategy.

Vision

Online learning make no significant difference as long as educators:

  • simply replicate traditional approaches online, and
  • treat all students as though they are identical in terms of interests, abilities and motivation.

Pouring enormous amounts of time and money into online learning will create no more than small incremental changes, unless we respond to the special challenges and opportunities of online learning in new ways.

Educators in general regard quality, access and cost as three separate and distinct issues, but they are very much interrelated. Adding more lecturers, facilities and resources increases the cost of producing educational solutions, which in turn increases the cost of accessing an education.

A one-size-fits-all approach to learning limits access to each learning activity and experience. Students have diverse learning styles, abilities and interests, and it is essential that we treat them as individuals rather than as homogeneous groups.

It's crucial that, instead of holding on to a fixed view of what students want or need, we are flexible and create environments that enable students to have deeper and more rewarding learning experiences. Today's technologies have very real potential to fundamentally change the role and purpose of learning so that it responds to students' individual needs.

As university and vendor solutions demonstrate, the problem with realising student-centred learning models is that most lecturers have been forced to teach with information and communication technology (ICT) rather than through it. We need to develop new design approaches and delivery architectures to:

  • directly support the processes of learning and teaching
  • enable a student-centred, personalised learning framework that caters for the unique needs and preferences of every student
  • ensure that all students are connected to a diverse community network of students, lecturers and mentors.

As Jay Oglivie says in Think Scenarios, Rethink Education (OECD 2006):

In the future, there is every reason to believe that we will have learning tools that will allow us to diagnose each individual student in ways that permit us to treat each student individually, every hour of the day, with just those educational tools and lesson plans best suited to his or her needs and aptitudes.

Aim of the TELT platform

UNSW recognises that learning design and support processes are moving towards highly flexible, interactive, responsive, learner-centric modes of delivery.

Our learning content strategy aims to enhance students' intellectual and personal development using adaptable, reusable, platform independent learning resources with which teachers can deliver inter-disciplinary, collaborative, self-directed learning environments, accessible at any time and in any place.

To provide flexible learning options, when we design, develop, store and deliver content we need to use strategies that acknowledge learners' emergent need to develop knowledge creation and thinking skills, and that respond to evolving perspectives on the role of teaching and the purpose of learning.

Further resources

The TELT Gateway provides links to a range of systems and technology to support teaching.