About - Outcomes & Conclusions

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Additional outcomes and successes (2002-O3 onwards)

Much of the interest of the project lay in the kinds of awareness and reflection it provoked, and in individuals' experiences of trying out a different teaching and learning tool. [More details on main pages: students, staff, uses, dissemination]

More concrete outcomes included:

• triggering registration of all English Studies modules on duo

• peer-training in basic VLE use throughout the department

• survey of colleagues' responses (taken up for integration into LTT university-wide survey)

• helping to launch highly successful adminstrative modules in department, transferring all internal business to the VLE

• creating a site for part-time teaching assistants' support

• creating learning support resources, course materials, and suggestions for teaching activities (both module-specific and transferable to other colleagues)

• innovation and experiment (in some modules)

• giving support to students with dyslexia and hearing problems - having supplementary, 'in-your-own time', resources on the VLE proved helpful (as researchers suggest) to these students; visiting non-native English speaking students also expressed appreciation

• unexpectedly broad dissemination e.g. through presentations at conferences, show-cases, dissemination events with university, English Subject Centre and colleagues in Durham and elsewhere

• project materials used as examples in LTT training sessions for Blackboard™

• virtual visits to other VLEs (e.g. FirstClass Learning site at Deakin University, Australia, WebCT visit to Sheffield University) and guest visits to duo; dialogue with e-learning innovators within the university, the English Subject community, and elsewhere

• web report and plans for articles/book chapter.

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Conclusions

Although some of us would have tried duo without duologue, introducing a VLE as a project gave us a formal structure for reflection on the process, and led us to more extensive systems of support. The project itself took up far more time than any of us could have imagined, but it also kept us going, and we enjoyed experimenting. For all its imperfections, we now have a system in place, something on which to build (or from which to depart), and networks in place for ongoing support and fresh ideas. If students are now taking our efforts for granted, that is also a base for integrating the useful elements of the VLE more seamlessly into our teaching and learning. If we, too, have grown used to the system, we have also gained confidence, and will take from it what we find useful, and jettison others.

Using on-line teaching and learning methods is often labelled as 'innovation' in itself. The project has made us more cautious about this kind of self-congratulatory rhetoric. However, in thinking about how to transfer lively face-to-face practice to electronic media, and in how most creatively to use those media in interesting ways, we have found the challenges of the VLE refreshing and invigorating.

We were also delighted when a university review (November 2003) praised the department for its innovative use of duo in administrative support for students, and all reviewers rated our most advanced project sites as 'superb'.