E-learning and traditional methods: special blends

Liz Polding, Oxford Institute of Legal Practice

Liz’s paper at Vocational Teachers Forum V on 6 January 2006 considered the issue of blended learning in legal education, focusing on the use of Moodle, an open source virtual learning environment, in the delivery of the Legal Practice Course at Oxford Institute of Legal Practice.

For further information on Moodle at OXILP see Liz’s papers Moodle: open source e-learning and Delivering blended legal learning by open source methods (2007), plus her list of Moodle links.

The use of IT in education at all levels has rocketed in recent years. The government is actively promoting the use of IT in schools, and further and higher education institutions are embracing learning technology. This is partly in response to the huge increases in student numbers in further and higher education, which have not necessarily been matched by corresponding increases in academic staff levels. E-learning can be a very useful way of providing quality independent learning opportunities and bridging this gap.

In addition, the inclusion of IT and e-learning is now expected, and no course is complete without at least some IT element. With regard to the Legal Practice Course (the LPC), reports of monitoring visits to LPC providers during 2003-05 indicated that the Law Society regarded e-learning as an important part of the course.

The word used most often in the Law Society’s documentation in relation to IT was ‘integration’. How much inclusion of IT is ‘integration’? How far do we need to go before we can regard it as integrated, and how much further would be too much? It is important to remember that the tutor is (and should be) still behind all this. At the back of effective learning, however that learning takes place, there must be an effective teacher, whether that teacher wrote the book, gave the lecture, designed the group exercises or created the electronic programme of study. The use of IT should not replace the tutor – it should provide a different and useful format for tutors to use in their teaching.

Blending, not displacement

The other issue here is that e-learning is somehow seen as special, different, ‘technical’ and not really part of the tutor’s repertoire. The misconception is that someone else must add on the e-learning. In fact, training and support can allow staff to determine how much e-learning is right for their course and how it should be used. After all, the subject tutor is the one who can best make judgments about where e-learning fits and where it does not. E-learning imposed on subject tutors by those with no real understanding of their subject and course will not work, and is likely to be counterproductive. It may even generate resentment and be seen as something introduced for its own sake, not because it will be useful. What an integration project should achieve is an empowerment of the tutor involved, equipping them with a way of including appropriate e-resources in their course so that their teaching is enhanced and supported and the end result is unified. A good experience with the inclusion of e-learning should result in more satisfied students and tutors.

Given the emphasis on IT, it is clear that as competent practitioners we need to ensure that we make full and effective use of the opportunities that it offers us. However, we need to ensure that we bear in mind two things:

• ‘traditional’ teaching methods are valuable and still have a place
• the use of IT must be driven by teaching and learning considerations, not by a requirement to include more IT
  So, if the computers are not going to put us out of a job, how are we to use them? Blended learning, as the name suggests, is about integration, but in a seamless way. The use of IT is complementary to the other elements of the course. What blended learning is emphatically not about is the IT. As with any other form of teaching, it is the quality of learning which is the paramount concern.

Various opinions about what blended learning is (and what it is not!) have been published and discussed. Some are very enthusiastic about e-learning, others feel that the term is too vague to be of any use. In this paper the term is used to describe a blend of various teaching methods to achieve a sound learning experience. That blend includes e-learning in some form.

Moodle and open source software

The e-learning package used by Oxford Institute of Legal Practice (Oxilp) is an open source VLE called Moodle – which stands for Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment.

For those of you not familiar with open source software, the concept may feel a little strange at first. Essentially, you can download Moodle and run it without having to pay a licence fee. However, there are terms and conditions – for example, the intellectual property rights belong to its author. The ethos behind Moodle is that it is a community, albeit a virtual one, and that there is a lot of mutual support for members of that community.

The annual UK MoodleMoot, a conference for Moodle users, has been run by Sean Keogh, the IT systems manager at Oxilp, and the author fIn Oxford for the last two years. Oxilp kindly provided all facilities in year one and some facilities in year two, when the event got a bit too big to hold it in one place. The Open University will be hosting the MoodleMoot 2006 on 25-26 July in Milton Keynes. The Moot is essentially an opportunity for people who have been talking to each other virtually all year to have actual conversations and share ideas with each other in a relaxed and supportive environment.

There are Moodle users all over the world and the number of users grows daily. In December 2005 there were 8,100 registered sites, and at least that number of unregistered sites. Because the software, including its source code, is free to download, it is widely used. The other thing about open source software is that organisations which adopt it help with its development. When an organisation develops a new function in Moodle they are required to make that development available to everyone in the same way that Moodle was freely available to them. The whole thing is therefore self perpetuating.

The announcement by the Open University that they wanted to use Moodle as their virtual learning environment has really helped to spark interest in the package worldwide. Prior to the announcement many organisations subscribed to the myth that open source meant inferior. Open source software, by its very nature, can adapt and respond to current thinking and security issues very quickly, because it is very flexible. The fact that there are no shareholders to worry about means that it can be innovative and try new things, which users can choose to download or not. Of course, Moodle is not the only open source VLE. Boddington is also widely used, for example, by the University of Oxford.

Managing course materials with Moodle

Moodle can be set up to provide external access to course materials for students and staff. For example, it can store handouts, copies of lecture outlines and any other documents you want students and staff to be able to access remotely. Examples of use on the LPC include putting all student course materials into a virtual archive in PDF files and using Word files to give students a template for submitting answers to their research questions, in both formative and summative assessments. The PDFs of course cannot be amended, but the Word documents can be saved onto the student’s roaming drive or a memory stick and used as a template for their answers.

In some cases, where answers to exercises were previously distributed by handing them out in sessions (disruptive unless you were planning on using them as an opportunity to go over key points), or by asking administration staff to hand them out in the faculty office (again, disruptive), they were loaded onto Moodle and students were e-mailed to let them know that the handouts were available. They then had the choice of when and whether they wanted to print them out.

Forums and discussion boards

Moodle also has facilities for forums and discussion boards, however students do not appear to participate with any real relish (or at all!) in discussion boards. Boards were trialled on the Financial Services and Markets Act (FSMA) module of the LPC in 2002-03, the first year in which Oxilp really made extensive use of Moodle. Participation was minimal, and confined mainly to the tutor putting up postings of questions and answers and new information. A discussion board for general student use was also set up, which proved similarly unpopular and was closed down after one year. It is likely that on a distance learning course, or a course where students have little face to face contact, the use of discussion boards might be valuable as a way of facilitating the discussions which need to take place if students are to learn from their peers. However, given the response from students, it is likely that this particular option will be shelved for now.

Chat rooms

Chat rooms are also available on Moodle, and during 2005-06 their use for hosting revision sessions will be trialled. Revision clinics usually take the form of drop-in sessions for students to speak to tutors about their queries. If the students have gone home to revise or cannot come in to see the tutor for any other reason they want to phone or e-mail the tutor during surgery hours. However, the tutor is likely to be dealing with face to face queries and will not usually be able to take the call or answer the e-mail. In a chat room situation it is possible to deal with queries online, and students can see your answers. Students are thus able to contact you remotely. In addition, the tutor could be somewhere other than at their desk, provided they have Internet access, making this a very flexible option. Using chat rooms in this way can address certain diversity issues – for example, for students with English as a second language, who might want a bit more time to think over what you have said, and for mature students, who might be trying to revise while simultaneously providing childcare.

Online submission and marking

Moodle can also allow submission and marking online, which again allows for work to be done somewhere other than on campus. Students can either type their answer into Moodle or attach a Word document to their submission on which the tutor can comment. Grades can also be recorded on the students’ submissions. It is possible to show the student only their own grade and comments, rather than put everything on open display. All tutors set up for a course can access this information without the need for it to be e-mailed round to everyone (we all have quite enough e-mails already!), providing a single, central record of all submissions and grades.

Interactive materials: MCQs and more

Possibly one of the most useful tools that Moodle has to offer is its multiple choice question (MCQ) facility. MCQs have a reputation for being rather simplistic, but good drafting of MCQs can mean that instead of being an easy option for students who are not really focusing on what they are studying, the intellectual engagement required can be very high. For example, MCQs based around a scenario or requiring the student to demonstrate a level of analysis can be quite taxing. A study carried out by Paul Catley at Oxford Brookes University (Catley, 2005) showed that undergraduate law students demonstrated improvement when MCQs were introduced into their course.

MCQs can be used in a number of ways:

• preparation
• follow up activities
• formative assessment
• summative assessment

In 2004-05 FSMA and the topic of professional conduct became a single, assessed subject area of the LPC at Oxilp known as PCFSMA. In the assessment of this area the Law Society permits the use of MCQs and SAQs. Prior to the introduction of a discrete assessment for this area MCQs were used to test student knowledge as a follow up to the webcasts that were used instead of live lectures. The quizzes have been retained, and mock and past papers for this subject have been put onto Moodle for students to practice on before they take the multiple choice assessment.

There are a number of advantages to using MCQs. First, Moodle marks them, so students get instant feedback without tutors having to take on extra work. Feedback, as we all know, is important for reflection and development. It is possible to make the feedback very detailed, so that the student can see why they got it wrong and where they need to go to review the point.

Secondly, Moodle logs every access and every attempt, and can provide tutors with an accurate report to show who did it, how they did and how many times they did it. This is useful not only for keeping track on who has done what but in allowing tutors to offer help to those who are floundering at an early stage.

MCQs for preparation

Where MCQs are used to prepare for sessions this reporting function can provide some very useful clues as to who is trying to free-ride and who is in need of more support , as well as highlighting particular points which all the students seem to be finding tough. For example, if everyone is getting a particular question wrong, that may indicate a problem with the area concerned and suggests that the tutor should be spending more time on this in class.

Moodle’s quiz options allow dates for the start and end of quizzes to be specified. Some assignments can be made invisible to all but the tutors of that course, so that when you are developing something new you can keep it out of the way until it is ready to launch. The start and end date function also means that you can give a cut off date for preparation, so that students who are not managing their time effectively and not preparing for sessions will get a bit of a reality check. The system is very flexible, so you can make things available again for revision purposes or because you feel it is appropriate to do so. It is also possible to access the same material from different course areas of Moodle if there is an overlap – or example, the material taught in the revenue law module at Oxilp is often required on the LPC business law course.

MCQs for follow up

MCQs are also useful for follow up work and can aid retention. For example, on the private acquisitions module, students seemed to have difficulty with the conceptual differences between a business sale and the sale of a company. Despite going over the material in a number of different ways using case studies, exercises, group work etc, some of the less able students just weren’t grasping the concept. The author wrote a series of quizzes with very detailed feedback to cover this problem. This seemed to have an effect, as students seemed to understood the distinction and its implications much more readily. In students who were less able but willing to work at it the quizzes seemed to help. Essentially, the feedback function offered by Moodle allowed the quiz to tell a student when the answer was wrong, but did not show them the right answer. Instead, feedback was displayed showing why the answer was wrong and some guidance was given on where to look to find the right answer. This approach encouraged active learning, rather than a passive review of the right answers.

Using Moodle with OUP test banks

Oxford University Press (OUP) has produced test banks of interactive questions for their LPC manuals which can be incorporated into Moodle, along with other material that OUP makes available on their test bank areas. For example, the business law and practice manual includes test bank material developed by OUP with Scott Slorach of the College of Law.

Embedding links and RSS feeds

Embedding links in Moodle is very straightforward, and we are currently working on making more and better use of this facility. For example, Really Simple Syndication feeds (RSS feeds) provide up to the minute news facilities that can be set to deliver information automatically – the BBC News website provides a good example of this facility). Links to useful websites and law reports can also be embedded. Butterworths LexisNexis research materials support their resources within Moodle, subject to the terms of the licence purchased.

Webcasting and podcasting

Moodle also supports more sophisticated functions, such as webcasting and podcasting. The FSMA course was, until its merger with the professional conduct course, delivered entirely by means of webcasts and embedded quizzes. The embedded quizzes could be done at regular intervals or at the end of the lecture, depending on the learner’s preference. The webcast was broken up into chunks, which could be fast forwarded or rewound depending on what the learner wanted to do. The relevant PowerPoint slides and copies of the lecture handout were displayed alongside the talking head.

The e-course had a mixed response. Dyslexic students, students with English as a second language, and those who wanted to review the material more than once for any reason gave the course very positive feedback. Some students felt that they could not possibly learn anything from a format other than a traditional lecture, so they were more negative about the course. Where all students on a course are full time the replacement of all lectures in a module removes the social element that students appear to regard as important, although student feedback suggests that benefits such as the ability to replay the material and to access at the student’s convenience were valued. However, it is worth considering that webcasts require significant commitment in terms of time and resources.

Podcasting is essentially a downloadable audio version of a lecture, which can be played on an iPod or MP3 player or direct from the VLE. It is intended that podcasting will be trialled by Oxilp over the 2006-07 academic year. The use of podcasts is less labour intensive than webcasting and more readily accessible to students off campus, due to the smaller file sizes and the fact that they can be downloaded onto portable devices.

E-portfolios

Moodle is constantly adding new features. During 2004 the author and the Oxilp IT Systems Manager were involved in a research project funded by JISC to test an e-portfolio tool to plug into Moodle. Their findings are now with Goldsmiths College, who are developing the technical specification of the product. The basis of the project was a mindmapping tool, Vmap (free to download from the Internet), which was adapted to provide an e-portfolio tool.

The Vmap tool explored by the project also allows the visual presentation of information. The students who tested the software, particularly those with dyslexia, responded positively to this form of presentation and said that they found it helpful. One student tester wrote that as a visual learner she found this form of presentation invaluable. Once the development on Vmap’s e-portfolio tool is complete it will be available to plug into Moodle and other e-learning systems.

The Law Society’s Training Framework Review suggested fairly strongly that they would be considering the use of portfolios for the training contract stage of solicitors’ qualification at least. JISC is exploring the use of e-portfolios as part of the lifelong learning policy adopted by the present government. Research into this area is ongoing.

Conclusion

As with any approach to teaching and learning, the quality of learning is crucial. A blend, rather than a single approach, is more likely to offer something to all the different types of learner, not just to the traditional ‘chalk and talk’ learners. Presenting information and providing activities in a variety of ways allows us to deliver a learning experience that is more valuable to more students. As our student bodies become increasingly diverse the need for a variety of approaches will also need to increase to accommodate different learning styles, overcome language problems and allow the flexibility of delivery that students expect.

Open source VLEs can allow institutions to meet these needs without the substantial costs associated with commercial systems and without sacrificing quality, allowing the delivery of a truly blended course which meets everyone’s needs.

More information about Moodle is available from the Moodle website, the HowToMoodle site and from pteppic.net, a Moodle and IT consultancy.

Bibliography

• Catley P (2005) One lecturer’s experience of blending e-learning with traditional teaching Brookes eJournal of Learning and Teaching 1(2)
• JISC (2004) Effective practice with e-learning London: JISC
• Mayes T and de Freitas S (2004) E-learning models desk study JISC
• Oliver M and Trigwell K (2005) Can blended learning be redeemed? E-Learning 2(1): 17-26
• Rossett A, Douglis F and Frazee R (2003) Strategies for building blended learning
• Valiathan P (2002) Blended learning models
• Weller M (2002) Delivering learning on the Net London: RoutledgeFalmer

Biography of Liz Polding

Liz joined Oxford Institute of Legal Practice in 2001 as a Lecturer, and was promoted to Principal Lecturer in 2002. She works with the IT team to integrate IT into the Legal Practice Course, using an open source VLE. She helps organise the annual UK MoodleMoot. In 2004-05 Liz worked on a JISC funded e-portfolio project, and she is now working with Oxford Brookes on a study of e-learning integration.

Last Modified: 4 June 2010