English students and duo - Overview

I: Student awareness

Some of our students were aware of the potential of the Blackboard system (duo) long before we were, having been introduced to VLE resources and learning support from duo's early days in the university.

Individuals taking options in other departments (in particular, Combined Studies students, who often work across subject and faculty boundaries) first encountered the system as users--and thus had a far livelier sense of its nature and potential value. To a large measure, these students stimulated our trial of duo in the department. References to 'duo' had begun to surface in the Staff-Student Consultative Committee and in requests on module questionnaires, and these roused our curiosity. Our decision to commit ourselves to the project was confirmed by our wish to respond positively to such interest.

The university-wide surveys into students' general C&IT skills also demonstrated that many of our own students were more at home than many of their teachers in a range of skills - from Powerpoint to spread-sheets. Perhaps because of our own limitations, but also because, once at university, many students voice nervousness about computers, we found ourselves very surprised by these results. It is beyond the scope of this report to discuss these results in detail, but the statistics for our own student first-year intake for 2001-02 are available here (LTT tables, 2001). This cohort entered the second-year in the main phase of the project. Statistics for first-year entrants in 2002-03 (in their second year in the project continuation year) are also available here (LTT tables, 2002).

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II: Students' responses, and duo evaluation

Once we had introduced duo into the department, we used various means throughout the project to gather and evaluate student response:

• standard departmental end-of-module questionnaires (comments and statistics)

• formal and informal oral and written feedback

• subject-specific data made available by the Durham University Learning Technologies team, from their C&IT and duo university-wide surveys. We give full details of our students' responses on the evaluation pages. Time has not permitted us to conduct extensive comparisons with the results for all students across the university, but statistical data are available on the Learning Technologies' team pages on the Durham web-pages.
  
  Durham University LTT C&IT reports / LTT duo evaluation reports (Clicking these links will take you out of this report. Use your browser's back button to return.)

• Blackboard's facilities for statistical tracking.
  
  Project team's view of statistical tracking here.

• Although we decided not to make extensive use of these facilities, we include some examples here. As other VLE users report, they show students using duo every day of the week, indicating peaks, troughs and favourite working times for the different modules and year groups. Examples here.

• student suggestions for duo use, and materials in their assignments - these offered additional evidence of impact.
  

1. Pilot (2001-2002)

A range of English students tested duo for one or two terms, during our pilot year, ranging from Level 1 students taking an introduction to 'Classical and Biblical Background', to taught MA students on an Edith Wharton module. For more, see 'about project'.

As members of the project team taught or convened these modules, we could monitor them closely, and, in some cases, could follow in detail the route between initial stimulus or resource on duo, and its impact on student learning.

For most of our students in 2001-02, duo was entirely new or still a novelty and, as pioneers, they were interested in our efforts and forebearing about our attempts to elicit their opinions. They were willing to try out different activities and areas of the duo sites, and to make their input publicly available as sample dissemination material. They were also generally forthcoming and honest about any problems.

Student-initiated uses centred predominantly, but not entirely, on the communication facilities—mainly to share and circulate resources.

Although there were only a few students living outside the Durham area, students found duo a convenient, time-saving tool for getting in touch with others in their seminar (particularly those they did not know outside the classroom). In an MA group, where some students came from a distance, the discussion board became a distinct asset.

Overall, these uses, though small in themselves, helped cumulatively to contribute to a sense of a 'community' in the module, and to foster independent learning.

They included:

• active take-up of the group email facilities (e.g. tracking down notes, lost property, ideas for critical reading, other books on a topic);
• postings of individuals' interests on the discussion board, as MA students alerted each other to their own focus in the coming seminar;
• reports on the whereabouts of library books, and sharing single copies of required reading;
• queries about missing journal copies, and reports of results of investigations;
• postings of news of relevant exhibitions and public talks;
• creating resources for others: e.g. accounts of interviews, news on good links, drawing attention to relevant media items;
• Book recommendations.

Student assignments. Many of the most interesting essays used the recommended web-links imaginatively and enterprisingly; and for some students, the web had clearly become a significant research tool. While this is a year-by-year development, as students grow up with the web, we could trace specific interests in essays directly back to items we had first highlighted on duo.

Numerical evaluations showed improvement in the scores for 'IT and Library Provision' — traditionally an area of lukewarm response, even on high-scoring modules. e.g. the majority of respondents now gave '5' or '4' scores ['5' = highest] to 'Library and IT provision' on the undergraduate Children's Fiction and Fin de Siècle modules; and this area also reinforced other high scores on the Edith Wharton MA module — this now returned 100% '5's in every category.

Comments on the end-of-module questionnaires confirmed the general enthusiasm we had received in informal feedback throughout the year.

2. Main phase and further development (2002-)

The responses on the pilot set the project off to a good start, and our subsequent experiences have repeated and confirmed many of our initial findings. However, with the unanticipated early 'roll-out' of the VLE throughout the department, we have not been able to keep such a close watch on student response as was possible in the pilot when we were the sole duo users. Again, as we have not been in control of all the input, we have also seen some changes of emphasis, which have affected student use and perception. The comments and response data in the evaluations need to be read with the problems of 'dilution' of duo experience in mind.

With rising numbers of duo modules throughout the university, some students have become experienced users, and a few of these seemed already to be taking the system for granted. For those of us who have put a lot of effort into duo, some of their responses seemed rather ungrateful, even unfeeling. How much more would they expect from us?! Others, who had not encountered any developed English modules among their options, also made remarks which struck us with dismay (e.g. 'the english deparment does not utilise at all' - i.e. we hadn't been noticed!); others had registered the duo presence in English, but demanded more; others used and appreciated duo, but took its presence completely as a matter of course - where we hoped for gushing enthusiasm, they were simply matter-of-fact.

When we were in a position to question further, however, many students again took the trouble to reassure us.

Another sign of success was that, after the end of a module, students began to request continuing access to their familiar duo site -- usually to pursue an interest further in their dissertation. (VLE users from other institutions have reported similar reluctance about leaving a site.) A tutor could not simply re-admit someone as a site visitor. In the new site, the student would find a changed syllabus or different modes of delivery; even where a tutor intended to re-use resources, many of these would had now be back under wraps until the appropriate time in the current module. The module now 'belonged' to the new students, and a tutor could not distort their site to accommodate module alumni...

The LTT team at Durham have now addressed the logistics of 'continuation', solving these by allowing students to access the archive version of their module. For a well used site, a teacher might also want to think about the less practical issue of how to close the curtain - having spent a year building up a community, just to lock students out might seem rather abrupt. Students themselves sometimes spontaneously use the discussion board for their thank-yous and goodbyes.

Signposts:

• In our team meetings and discussions with colleagues, we have had to keep reminding ourselves that it is still early days and we should not let the more negative - or even the 'taking-us-for-granted' - responses overwhelm us.

• Where you have built a community on the site, you might want to give space for some 'goodbyes' to the module, as you do in a live seminar or lecture series.

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III: Continuing demand and conclusions on student response

Student demand has remained strong throughout the project, with many requests for further duo development, and imaginative suggestions about how to use it. While this is a very positive feature, when rising expectations are not satisfied students can be disappointed. Where there is uneven provision of VLE resources between modules, students need to be put in the picture, otherwise use falls off. If they know which sites are active and evolving, and which have 'static' information only, then they need not waste their time and energy opening the site, only to find hopes dashed.

Most of our students have recognised the pressures on staff; they have been tolerant of our inexperience, technical limitations, and lack of time; and have expressed generous appreciation of whatever resources and facilities individuals have mangaged to make available.

Sometimes, comments did, indeed, affirm our vision of what the web or VLE can do:

Such comments can give one heart when the drudgery of entering yet another announcement might hardly seem worth it. But they should not colour the picture unduly. When students fail to respond so appreciatively, there is no need to assume the whole venture is a waste of time.

Introducing duo as part of a project, we found ourselves sometimes tending to exaggerate its significance. For our students, as for us as teachers, the heart of English lies in the face-to-face discussions in seminars and tutorials, in the excitement of the lecture theatre, in the quiet of reading and writing. It is these activities that attract most student attention in questionnaires; used with imagination (and given time), a VLE may enrich or extend teaching, but it can be no substitute for creative practices elsewhere. Our students are not distance-learners, and even at their best, their duo modules are only a support to their central departmental experiences; and, as teachers, we should perhaps simply regard any praise as a pleasant bonus.

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Signposts

• Ask your students. As often, they can offer valuable perspectives. They might have had working experience of systems which many academics have met only on paper, and they will help you envisage the potential of the system.

• Once a few people are using a VLE, demand will spread quickly. The VLE can help build a community where students help each other as learners and as researchers.

• Offering VLE resources can raise expectations, and create disappointment and user fall-off if they go unsatisfied. Minimize this effect by explaining clearly the level of resources each site offers.

• Students will make suggestions and create resources which will build up the site for their successors.

• Keep a balance. Some students will become keen VLE users; others might not share your enthusiasm. The VLE works well alongside print, paper and talk.

• Even small efforts can be much appreciated, and can make a real difference.