Caroline Steel
Caroline Steel is a Strategic Educational Consultant in the Asia Pacific Region with Blackboard and holds an Adjunct position in the School of Education at the University of Queensland (Brisbane, Australia).
Caroline was formerly President of the Australasian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education (ascilite) from 2012 - 2015 – see www.ascilite.org.au. She was an ascilite Executive member since 2006 and was previously Vice President for 3 years. She was also on the Management Committee of the high calibre ascilite journal AJET (Australasian Journal of Educational Technology) and on the Editorial Board for the Association of Learning Technologies (ALT) in the UK .
Research:
Caroline’s research is focused on the integration of current and emerging learning technologies into university learning and teaching. She is interested in the role of teacher and learner beliefs and practices, affordance theories and designing for learning with a focus on the future. She spent several years investigating language students' digital practices and literacies (especially mobile technologies and applications) and experiences of using technologies for learning languages at a tertiary level. Her PhD topic was the interrelationship between university teacher’s pedagogical beliefs, beliefs about web technologies and web practices.
Teaching:
Caroline designed taught a Masters of Educational Studies course ‘Creating classrooms of the future with educational technology' (2008-2010) and taught a highly innovative undergraduate course on 'Languages and Technologies' in the School of Languages & Comparative Cultural Studies (2011-2013). This latter course was designed to help language students discover the affordances of new and emerging technologies for supporting their language studies and to assist them to better understand themselves as learners in digital environments (including digital literacy skills and the ability to self evaluate their digital practices).
Supervision:
Caroline has supervised 5 PhD students and 3 Masters students. Topics include:
- Teacher beliefs and ICT practices in Malaysian Smart Schools
- Refugee students and inclusive education in an Australian context
- Engagement, learning and academic performance of successful Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) students studying Pharmacy at an Australian University
- Persistence: The experiences of distance education learners in Botswana
- Teaching Intercultural competence using the affordances of new and emerging technologies in a Vietnamese EFL context
- Arab Students Willingness to Communicate in an EFL context (Completed)
The three Masters level students (all completed) studied in the areas of English for Specific Purposes (ESP), Language learner strategies and Teachers' experiences of teaching refugee students in QLD classrooms.
Caroline was formerly President of the Australasian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education (ascilite) from 2012 - 2015 – see www.ascilite.org.au. She was an ascilite Executive member since 2006 and was previously Vice President for 3 years. She was also on the Management Committee of the high calibre ascilite journal AJET (Australasian Journal of Educational Technology) and on the Editorial Board for the Association of Learning Technologies (ALT) in the UK .
Research:
Caroline’s research is focused on the integration of current and emerging learning technologies into university learning and teaching. She is interested in the role of teacher and learner beliefs and practices, affordance theories and designing for learning with a focus on the future. She spent several years investigating language students' digital practices and literacies (especially mobile technologies and applications) and experiences of using technologies for learning languages at a tertiary level. Her PhD topic was the interrelationship between university teacher’s pedagogical beliefs, beliefs about web technologies and web practices.
Teaching:
Caroline designed taught a Masters of Educational Studies course ‘Creating classrooms of the future with educational technology' (2008-2010) and taught a highly innovative undergraduate course on 'Languages and Technologies' in the School of Languages & Comparative Cultural Studies (2011-2013). This latter course was designed to help language students discover the affordances of new and emerging technologies for supporting their language studies and to assist them to better understand themselves as learners in digital environments (including digital literacy skills and the ability to self evaluate their digital practices).
Supervision:
Caroline has supervised 5 PhD students and 3 Masters students. Topics include:
- Teacher beliefs and ICT practices in Malaysian Smart Schools
- Refugee students and inclusive education in an Australian context
- Engagement, learning and academic performance of successful Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) students studying Pharmacy at an Australian University
- Persistence: The experiences of distance education learners in Botswana
- Teaching Intercultural competence using the affordances of new and emerging technologies in a Vietnamese EFL context
- Arab Students Willingness to Communicate in an EFL context (Completed)
The three Masters level students (all completed) studied in the areas of English for Specific Purposes (ESP), Language learner strategies and Teachers' experiences of teaching refugee students in QLD classrooms.
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Language Learners' Digital & Mobile Technologies by Caroline Steel
This presentation examines a number of these new developments relating to the development of the listening skill with a dual focus on design and use. Generic software tools for listening will be considered as will the pedagogical design of podcasts that blend content with pedagogy using a variety of approaches to facilitate structure and sequencing. A podcasting blog is also an option, and learners may create their own podcasts. These various alternatives will be examined and compared with an emphasis on their practical value for language teachers and learners.
‘... both in Australia and internationally there has been a great deal of rhetorical attention paid to the need for collaboration and innovation in the provision of teaching of languages other than English. By contrast there has been far less systematic examination of what exactly effective and sustainable collaboration involves…’ (Lo Bianco & Gvozdenko, 2006, p.10)
According to Hajek, Slaughter and Stevens (2008, p. 23): “The primary rationale for the introduction of the collaborative provision of languages is a commitment to the provision of a wide range of languages in the tertiary sector. This includes supporting languages of smaller candidature, which may have a fairly specific target group,…”. There are other advantages too—especially when one considers the limited resources available and the potential for sharing those resources—and yet collaboration, especially between universities in close proximity to one another, is often complex and challenging for all parties involved.
This paper reflects upon the experience of collaborative provision of languages in South-East Queensland in relation to the Brisbane Universities Languages Hub (BULH), a 3-year agreement between the University of Queensland, Griffith University and Queensland Institute of Technology. In the presentation, areas of focus will include: 1) providing the most effective administrative arrangements and structures <Phase I>, and; 2) developing deeper collaborations around teaching and learning <Phase II>.
"
A survey was distributed to 2,114 language students and 587 completed responses were received (28%). In the survey, students identified the technologies they used to support their language studies. Students then differentiated between in-class and out-of-class use. Next, they ranked the three technologies they perceived as most beneficial to their language studies. Quantitative results were aggregated and will be presented in a tabular form. Findings were then compared with data presented in published papers from the 2006 comparator studies.
Our comparison revealed some distinct and more subtle changes across the technology landscape between 2006 and 2011. While some technologies and practices have become more normalized (Bax, 2003), others have been reinvigorated, a few have disappeared, some have not experienced anticipated take-up whilst others have emerged and changed the possibilities for where, when and how students learn languages. Certainly, students are now using more of their own personal technologies and moving away from institutionally provisioned ones. This shift is not necessarily mirrored in current research directions in CALL.
References:
Bax, S. (2003) CALL - Past, present and future. System 31: 13-28.
Conole, G. (2008) Listening to the Learner Voice: The ever-changing landscape of technology use for language students. ReCALL 20 (2): 124-140.
Peters, M., Weinberg, A. and Sarma, N. (2008) To like or not to like! Student perceptions of technological activities for learning French as a second language at five Canadian universities. The Canadian Modern Language Review, 65 (5): 869–896. "
The findings of the current study point to the autonomy and independence of the language learners in this cohort and the re-emergence of CALL tools, both for in-class and out-of-class learning activities. According to this data set, learners appear to have become more autonomous and independent and much more able to shape and resource their personal language learning experience in a blended learning setting. The students also demonstrate a measure of sophistication in their use of online tools, such that they are able to work around known limitations and constraints. In other words, the students have a keen awareness of the affordances of the technologies they are using.
The arguments for the discussion are supported by the use of empirical data taken from a large-scale survey conducted in 2011 (n=587) where comments from students were obtained on why and how dictionary-type resources were accessed and used (see also Steel & Levy, 2013). The paper restricts itself to the quantitative and qualitative data gathered on mobile phones, translators, dictionaries and web conjugators and related items (e.g., discussion forums). The particular functions that students’ use and the ways in which they use them are described and categorized with the discussion supported by student comments.
The data exhibits a remarkable range of resources available to students to look up unknown words or to see translations and, consequently, our understanding of what exactly an electronic dictionary might comprise is challenged. Many students’ comments demonstrate a sophistication and knowledge about the effective use of these dictionary tools together with a keen awareness of their limitations.
Over three iterations of an undergraduate class (2011– 2013), language students selected and actively evaluated current and emerging technologies for their potential for assisting language acquisition. Simultaneously, students were encouraged to gain pedagogical intelligence (Hutchings, 2005) about themselves as learners and how they were taught languages. Increasingly, students selected mobile devices and commercial applications as the focus of their evaluations. In pairs or individually, 63 students created a total of 36 radio-style podcasts to share their discoveries with language teachers. Approximately 25% of these students were from Asian countries such as China, Korea, Japan and Vietnam.
This chapter presents the perspectives of regionally-diverse and pedagogically intelligent learners on enabling effective mobile language learning. Their wants, needs and recommendations are summarised for institutions, teachers, learners and mobile learning application developers in the Asia Pacific Region who are seeking to enable effective mobile learning.
Curriculum Innovation & Transformation by Caroline Steel
This blog post was inspired by a conversation, and later an interview, with a first-year student who experienced a highly successful flipped classroom in first semester and then a major flop in the second one. The interview used six framing questions to understand why her flipped classroom ‘flopped’ and what characterised a successful flipped classroom from her perspective.
This presentation examines a number of these new developments relating to the development of the listening skill with a dual focus on design and use. Generic software tools for listening will be considered as will the pedagogical design of podcasts that blend content with pedagogy using a variety of approaches to facilitate structure and sequencing. A podcasting blog is also an option, and learners may create their own podcasts. These various alternatives will be examined and compared with an emphasis on their practical value for language teachers and learners.
‘... both in Australia and internationally there has been a great deal of rhetorical attention paid to the need for collaboration and innovation in the provision of teaching of languages other than English. By contrast there has been far less systematic examination of what exactly effective and sustainable collaboration involves…’ (Lo Bianco & Gvozdenko, 2006, p.10)
According to Hajek, Slaughter and Stevens (2008, p. 23): “The primary rationale for the introduction of the collaborative provision of languages is a commitment to the provision of a wide range of languages in the tertiary sector. This includes supporting languages of smaller candidature, which may have a fairly specific target group,…”. There are other advantages too—especially when one considers the limited resources available and the potential for sharing those resources—and yet collaboration, especially between universities in close proximity to one another, is often complex and challenging for all parties involved.
This paper reflects upon the experience of collaborative provision of languages in South-East Queensland in relation to the Brisbane Universities Languages Hub (BULH), a 3-year agreement between the University of Queensland, Griffith University and Queensland Institute of Technology. In the presentation, areas of focus will include: 1) providing the most effective administrative arrangements and structures <Phase I>, and; 2) developing deeper collaborations around teaching and learning <Phase II>.
"
A survey was distributed to 2,114 language students and 587 completed responses were received (28%). In the survey, students identified the technologies they used to support their language studies. Students then differentiated between in-class and out-of-class use. Next, they ranked the three technologies they perceived as most beneficial to their language studies. Quantitative results were aggregated and will be presented in a tabular form. Findings were then compared with data presented in published papers from the 2006 comparator studies.
Our comparison revealed some distinct and more subtle changes across the technology landscape between 2006 and 2011. While some technologies and practices have become more normalized (Bax, 2003), others have been reinvigorated, a few have disappeared, some have not experienced anticipated take-up whilst others have emerged and changed the possibilities for where, when and how students learn languages. Certainly, students are now using more of their own personal technologies and moving away from institutionally provisioned ones. This shift is not necessarily mirrored in current research directions in CALL.
References:
Bax, S. (2003) CALL - Past, present and future. System 31: 13-28.
Conole, G. (2008) Listening to the Learner Voice: The ever-changing landscape of technology use for language students. ReCALL 20 (2): 124-140.
Peters, M., Weinberg, A. and Sarma, N. (2008) To like or not to like! Student perceptions of technological activities for learning French as a second language at five Canadian universities. The Canadian Modern Language Review, 65 (5): 869–896. "
The findings of the current study point to the autonomy and independence of the language learners in this cohort and the re-emergence of CALL tools, both for in-class and out-of-class learning activities. According to this data set, learners appear to have become more autonomous and independent and much more able to shape and resource their personal language learning experience in a blended learning setting. The students also demonstrate a measure of sophistication in their use of online tools, such that they are able to work around known limitations and constraints. In other words, the students have a keen awareness of the affordances of the technologies they are using.
The arguments for the discussion are supported by the use of empirical data taken from a large-scale survey conducted in 2011 (n=587) where comments from students were obtained on why and how dictionary-type resources were accessed and used (see also Steel & Levy, 2013). The paper restricts itself to the quantitative and qualitative data gathered on mobile phones, translators, dictionaries and web conjugators and related items (e.g., discussion forums). The particular functions that students’ use and the ways in which they use them are described and categorized with the discussion supported by student comments.
The data exhibits a remarkable range of resources available to students to look up unknown words or to see translations and, consequently, our understanding of what exactly an electronic dictionary might comprise is challenged. Many students’ comments demonstrate a sophistication and knowledge about the effective use of these dictionary tools together with a keen awareness of their limitations.
Over three iterations of an undergraduate class (2011– 2013), language students selected and actively evaluated current and emerging technologies for their potential for assisting language acquisition. Simultaneously, students were encouraged to gain pedagogical intelligence (Hutchings, 2005) about themselves as learners and how they were taught languages. Increasingly, students selected mobile devices and commercial applications as the focus of their evaluations. In pairs or individually, 63 students created a total of 36 radio-style podcasts to share their discoveries with language teachers. Approximately 25% of these students were from Asian countries such as China, Korea, Japan and Vietnam.
This chapter presents the perspectives of regionally-diverse and pedagogically intelligent learners on enabling effective mobile language learning. Their wants, needs and recommendations are summarised for institutions, teachers, learners and mobile learning application developers in the Asia Pacific Region who are seeking to enable effective mobile learning.
This blog post was inspired by a conversation, and later an interview, with a first-year student who experienced a highly successful flipped classroom in first semester and then a major flop in the second one. The interview used six framing questions to understand why her flipped classroom ‘flopped’ and what characterised a successful flipped classroom from her perspective.
Though there are multiple factors that impede or facilitate immersion, one of the key factors is the ability to engage multiple senses. Chris Dede (2009) has described this as ‘sensory immersion’. An environment that produces a greater sense of sensory immersion, will produce a greater feeling of presence (Witmer & Singer, 1998: p. 228); a psychologically emergent property of immersion (Zhu, Xiang, & Hu, 2007: p. 265). It has been shown that the more sensory information provided by the virtual environment, the higher the sense of presence (Franceschi, Lee, & Hinds, 2008: p. 6) and that as more sensory modalities are stimulated presence is similarly increased (Steuer, 1992). It can therefore be expected, that
MulSeMedia, engaging a range of senses, should enhance presence. Evidence can be extracted from the extensive literature pertaining to gaming and presence, and the work surrounding user interfaces enabling haptic feedback, tactile precision and engaging other sensory modalities.
This chapter will begin by unraveling the relationship between ‘immersion’, with a special emphasis on ‘sensory immersion’, and ‘presence’ in relation to MulSeMedia. In addition, it will look at the nature of the sensory stimulation provided by MulSeMedia in relation to the amount of immersion it engenders. For example, sound that is directional will have a positive effect on immersion and sensory feedback that is not conflicting will further enhance the immersive experience.
about its potential for transforming pedagogical practice and improving student learning
outcomes. A critique of the rhetoric accompanying the evolution of 3D virtual world education
reveals a similar pattern, with the initial hype based more on rhetoric than research demonstrating
the extent to which rhetoric matches reality. Addressed are the perceived gaps in the literature
through a critique of the rhetoric evident throughout the evolution of the application of virtual
worlds in education and the reality based on the reported experiences of experts in the field of
educational technology, who are all members of the Australian and New Zealand Virtual Worlds
Working Group. The experiences reported highlight a range of effective virtual world
collaborative and communicative teaching experiences conducted in members’ institutions.
Perspectives vary from those whose reality is the actuation of the initial rhetoric in the early years
of virtual world education, to those whose reality is fraught with challenges that belie the rhetoric.
Although there are concerns over institutional resistance, restrictions, and outdated processes on
the one-hand, and excitement over the rapid emergence of innovation on the other, the prevailing
reality seems to be that virtual world education is both persistent and sustainable. Explored are
critical perspectives on the rhetoric and reality on the educational uptake and use of virtual worlds
in higher education, providing an overview of the current and future directions for learning in
virtual worlds.
Educational technologies in university education are widely promoted for their potential to enrich, enhance and extend student learning experiences (Hedberg, 2006). In the last decade, Learning Management Systems (LMS) have become a standard educational technology solution at most universities. While LMS have been purchased with enthusiasm, they have not always been integrated into university teacher practices with the same enthusiasm, and little work has been completed to assess differential effects across individual teachers, contexts and disciplines. If universities hope to encourage uptake of LMS and other technologies, studies are required to examine how teachers reconcile and translate their beliefs in these environments. Research into university teacher beliefs has suggested that belief systems infiltrate teacher thinking, planning, decision-making, behaviour and their application of educational technologies (Bain, McNaught, Lueckenhausen, & Mills, 1998; Reeves & Reeves, 1997).
This study explores these ideas through examining the interrelationship between university teacher’s pedagogical beliefs, beliefs about web technologies and their web practices. Rich qualitative data was collected from six case study participants who were using an LMS in their practice. The data collection procedure required participants to create blended (open and closed) concept maps to represent the two belief systems under investigation. These maps served as scaffolding for interviews on their belief systems as well as providing an alternative and visual representation of their knowledge structures and the relational propositions between their belief concepts. A retrospective stimulated recall task was used to explore participant’s course websites. Analysing this qualitative data individually and across cases revealed important insights into the interrelationships under investigation. Affordance theories particularly, offered an accommodating view of how teachers make decisions about their web practices with reference to their beliefs and their whole teaching and disciplinary context. The findings have strong implications for academic development and teacher education related to technology integration. The findings clearly show that there is no ‘one size fits all’ teacher development approach that will enable our teachers to successfully express their individual pedagogies in web environments. There are many complex factors at play that are interactive and recursive.
often regarded as all encompassing. How university teachers reconcile their beliefs about such technologies with their pedagogical beliefs remains a relatively unexplored
area. This study draws on three cases from various disciplines to uncover faculty beliefs about the roles, affordances and limitations of these technologies and how each
teacher adapted these to their learning designs within an LMS environment. The overall aim is to reveal the relationship between teacher beliefs and learning designs
for web technologies such as LMS. This research contributes to the conceptual understandings that underpin faculty teacher development for technology integration. It provides insightful accounts of the kinds of teacher beliefs that underlie effective
learning designs for quite large classes. The resultant stories themselves hold great potential to promote reflection and discourse on the use of technologies in university teaching.
Together, these realities indicate that there are significant barriers to the effective use of LMSs, especially for teaching and learning purposes. To overcome such barriers, the complex and less visible internal space of teacher beliefs must be understood in relation to teachers’ pedagogical contexts and the affordances they can identify. This paper reports on the findings of six qualitative case studies of teachers at different stages of LMS integration and the extent to which teachers reconciled their beliefs. The results highlight the need for technology environments that better accommodate teacher diversity.
This study explores these ideas through examining the interrelationship between university teacher’s pedagogical beliefs, beliefs about web technologies and their web practices. Rich qualitative data was collected from six case study participants who were using an LMS in their practice. The data collection procedure required participants to create blended (open and closed) concept maps to represent the two belief systems under investigation. These maps served as scaffolding for interviews on their belief systems as well as providing an alternative and visual representation of their knowledge structures and the relational propositions between their belief concepts. A retrospective stimulated recall task was used to explore participant’s course websites. Analysing this qualitative data individually and across cases revealed important insights into the interrelationships under investigation. Affordance theories particularly, offered an accommodating view of how teachers make decisions about their web practices with reference to their beliefs and their whole teaching and disciplinary context. The findings have strong implications for academic development and teacher education related to technology integration. The findings clearly show that there is no ‘one size fits all’ teacher development approach that will enable our teachers to successfully express their individual pedagogies in web environments. There are many complex factors at play that are interactive and recursive.