The document summarizes Victoria Stringer's presentation on e-learning tools and technologies from the student perspective. It discusses various tools she has used to support her learning, including PowerPoint, lecture recordings, Twitter, Facebook, blogs, and Google Docs. It emphasizes making course materials accessible early, providing transcript for recordings, and using multiple communication channels that students prefer like Facebook, email, and Google Chat. The presentation aims to provide suggestions from a student viewpoint to improve e-learning implementation and design.

1. E-learning implementation and design;
the student perspective
Victoria Stringer
Accompanying notes for slides presented at the International Blended
Learning Conference on 15th June 2011

2. Contents
Slide 1 - Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 2
Slide 2 – powerpoint tip..................................................................................................................... 2
Slide 3 – making the case for early access to slides ............................................................................ 3
Slide 4 – explanations and examples.................................................................................................. 3
Slide 5 - Tools part 1 ......................................................................................................................... 4
Slide 6 – Tools part 2 ......................................................................................................................... 5
Slide 7 – making a case for voice recording ........................................................................................ 6
Slide 8 – Making a case for transcripts ............................................................................................... 6
Slide 9 - my twitter use and third party apps...................................................................................... 6
Slide 10 – Twitter how we used it ...................................................................................................... 7
Slide 11 - Facebook............................................................................................................................ 7
Slide 12 – wordpress, plugins and individual learning ........................................................................ 8
Slide 1 - Introduction
During the course of my studies I’ve used quite a few technologies both in projects for the change
academy for blended learning enhancement group (CABLE) and as a part of my personal learning
support.
Some were given to me as part of my study needs as a disabled student, others I’ve picked up myself
through research and a desire to try new things.
I see e-learning as anything that gets delivered electronically, it’s not all about shiny new fancy tools
and gadgets; just things that help us get the work done
Some of the tips and examples I’ll be offering today have been born out of frustration and the ‘I wish
they’d do (or) not do that’ observations through the personal experience of undergraduate study of
both myself and a few of my fellow students
Slide 2 – powerpoint tip
We all know there is no ‘one tool fits all’ no magic bullet.
Tailoring the tools to the situation will obviously get the best results; but there are a couple of things
that most tutors use without considering it from the student viewpoint; take Powerpoint for
example:
Students are expected to make notes in class, yet very few of us seem to be any good at making
concise and useful notes; there’s just too much information thrown at you in a lecture at too great a

3. speed to be able to take it all down. Some students don’t even bother trying because what you get
ends up being useless as you can’t remember what you were making the comments about.
Something as simple as visibly numbering the slides so we can write a point and say refer back to ‘x’
would be incredibly helpful.
We get told at the end of the lecture to put any questions in the VLE discussion forum – think how
much easier it would be to have a discussion headed “re slide ‘x’ on ‘date’ lecture, can anyone tell
me..” EVERYONE would know what you were referring to and what the context of it is. It’s a small
thing but my personal opinion is that it may help more than you realise.
Slide 3 – making the case for early access to slides
You’ll hear a few mentions of Sam during this presentation (@speedy_hawk) she’s a profoundly deaf
student that was in all my classes last year and still keeps in contact with me via twitter despite
graduating a year ahead of me; but I’ll be coming to Sam and twitter later.
The main thing is; slides are important, early access to them for some students is essential – make
them accessible prior to the lecture for all students as a habit. It’s something that is supposed to
happen here anyway but sadly general adherence to the policy is sketchy at best
Slide 4 – explanations and examples
There really is something to be said for the idea of learning styles; I learn better by reading and doing
than I do by listening but several of my friends prefer listening to reading; they say that’s how they
take things in best – I really can’t understand how that’s possible but they assure me it’s so.
I know it’s an obvious thing to say but every person in the room will be coming to the session to
learn, and they will be coming from different backgrounds and disciplines (think direct entrants,
mature students, international students etc)
How they learn and what they take away will be different; while you may explain things using what
you think is a perfect example, that example may only confuse other people in the room who don’t
have the same frame of reference or background experience that you do.
An example given by my web applications lecturer in semester A last year has stuck with me and
even though it was given as an example of why you should be careful when using icons in place of
text on a website, it’s a valid example for teaching as well.
(use arrow print out and ask the room the navigation question and demonstrate how up, down,
back, forward, previous and next can be mistaken depending on cultural background and contextual
viewpoint )
It’s also worth mentioning that tutors who teach different years and modules sometimes forget that
everyone in the room didn’t do the module they refer back to for some basic information – instead

4. INCLUDE that information as an accessible snippet either on the slides of in the course materials
elsewhere.
Slide 5 - Tools part 1
All of these tools I have personally used during my studies to help support my learning.
When it comes to asking questions and sharing information between students there seems to be an
even split between using facebook email/chat and google talk with the odd twitter conversation or
text chat thrown in; very few seem to bother with MSN now but it’s the one online tool that
everyone seems familiar with.
Basically we use what’s most convenient depending on who we’re talking to – we have multiple
channels open, trying to force us into using only one doesn’t work you need to be flexible.
It also seems a little handset dependent; students with blackberries seem to prefer BBM, androids
will google chat and everyone else seems to prefer facebook.
Twitter works for all of them but not everyone is on twitter – 2 Blackberry loving members of my
paws class signed up to twitter purely for the ability to easily communicate with the rest of us this
year; one of them used it to follow but not interact, the other has embraced it completely and now
uses it almost as much as I do – and I was an early adopter back in 2007.
But i’ll go into more detail about twitter shortly
Another app that’s come to my attention recently through other students and a lecturer is
‘whatsapp’ this is a cross platform chat application (http://www.whatsapp.com/) which works quite
nicely (though I did learn during coffee that iphone charges to download and install whereas it’s free
for the others for the first year)
During the CABLE group project (http://www.herts.ac.uk/fms/documents/teaching-and-
learning/blu/conference2009/Dominic_Cable_3.pdf) we made use of Elluminate not only for group
meetings but to schedule revision sessions, these proved to be so popular that even people who had
dropped out of the project and others who hadn’t even known about it in the first place attended in
the last week before the exam.
We use outside forums for queries more than vle discussion groups because there is guaranteed to
be a pool of more knowledgeable folk on hand to help:
I'm fortunate in that I have a twitter following that includes some very skilled folks in the field I was
studying; more often than not it was to those people I turned for help and support than my lecturers
- mainly because even if my tutors had the inclination to help, finding the time for a proper sit down
and wrestle with whatever my problem was just took too long.
On twitter I could arrange a face to face or online meeting with whoever was free and get my
problem sorted the same day - or at the very least I'd be given links to resources that would help me
find the solution myself.

5. People on the internet are there because they are available, this means they are an immediate
resource - unlike tutors who have set hours and even then those hours bleed into the time they
need to deal with research and other projects; i haven't met a member of academic staff yet who
wore less than 2 hats.
This is the main problem that causes migration to outside avenues of help; most lecturers know their
subject so well that they've forgotten how to pass on the basics; they've forgotten that not everyone
knows how to research or correlate data from diverse sources. 98% of the students they encounter
will barely know how to find exactly what they want with google never mind using academic
sources.
I have used my own personal blog as a way of writing up my revision notes and sharing resources
with other students (http://rosevibe.me.uk/blog/2011/04/07/wad-revision-time-again/ and
http://rosevibe.me.uk/blog/2010/06/20/revision-for-principles-and-applications-of-web-
services/#more-1510 )
During my FDsc they used the studynet blogs for our weekly project reports and the comments
section provided regular feedback without the need to schedule a 1-2-1 (though the option to do so
was still available) having that constant feedback was invaluable and took far less time and cost than
travel +meeting + feedback +follow up - with the added advantage that we could also comment on
each others blogs and although not many did; it was a real boost when it happened.
Even just a smiley face or a comment on a lack of posts to show the tutor had passed through was
enough to show that they not only cared about what we were doing but that they were on the ball –
which makes you feel very positive about them as a teacher.
Slide 6 – Tools part 2
Most of these are pretty self explanatory; Wikipedia, Google search and Safari are standard fare
when starting any research, what’s needed is some form of guidance on how to use these tool
EFFECTIVELY.
Screencast tutorials on how to use various software packages that I found on YouTube relates
directly to how I managed to get an A1 in my digital entertainment systems module last year. There
are other web services that have the same thing but YouTube seems to hold the largest collection
and there tend to be several different recordings to choose from so you can find the one that is best
suited to your learning preference; with/ without narrative, with on screen callouts etc
They also tend to have large comment discussion threads that help whittle down your choice before
even viewing the video. These comment threads may also offer suggestions for uses not shown in
the video – comment threads can be the best part of any online offering.
Google docs has been used for proof reading and critiquing assignments, sharing of lecture notes
and the creation of surveys for our final year projects (mention concerns about plagiarism and
collusion)
..Quizlet will be delved into later on when I describe my final year project.

6. You may wonder why I’ve added a voice recorder; I may have cursed the quality and length of some
of the lecture recordings I made, but having them proved far more useful in my revision toolkit than
not.
Slide 7 – making a case for voice recording
This little beauty is a life saver. I was ill and missed a couple of lectures but a friend collected this
before class and recorded the lectures for me.
At a recent HEA inclusivity event I ran an open session for all the other disabled students in
attendance and the vote was unanimous that lecture recordings were one of the most useful things
available (when they are available)
(play recording)
Just in case you didn’t hear that or the folk watching this recording didn’t quite pick it up:
The point was made by one girl that although she’d love to use them, she didn’t make use of this
needs adjustment because of the stigma of showing you were ’special’ and needed to have it – even
more so because other students wanted it but weren’t allowed it.
There is definitely a case for breaking down barriers and changing attitudes here by making class
recordings a basic requirement of every module.
The thing that would make it better for me personally is either having actual video/ screen capture
recordings of the lecture or at the very least a transcript of the recording; I lost count of how many
times I’d wished I’d asked my tutor to train dragon for me so I could get a printout of the lecture
recording to annotate instead of having to listen to a part over and over as I try to match it up to the
class slides.
..and I’m not alone in wishing this.
Slide 8 – Making a case for transcripts
The slide says it all.
Slide 9 - my twitter use and third party apps
(demo time check for # @ and RT. Or if time is tight offer to create/ share some resources via the
cloudworks site)
There is a need to watch out for the T&C of each of these; twitpic recently changed theirs to
basically state anything uploaded to the site is offered for commercial use sans payment, Yfrog on
the other hand understands that content belongs to the person uploading. Twitter themselves have
this month announced an inhouse picture and search service; I’ve yet to try it out but it will be
interesting to see what happens over the next few months as they work out any teething troubles.

7. You may also have heard that twitter recently acquired Tweetdeck – so far nothing appears to have
changed but I’m expecting them to implement their own picture service into it either in place of or
alongside the current provision to use yfrog or twitpic (see demonstration)
The beauty of using a smartphone twitter client is that you can still keep up with your subject while
on the move and keep interested parties informed of lateness/ concerns. We shared images of the
class whiteboard taken on our phones over twitter and last year I used twitter in conjunction with
google docs to describe what was happening in class to Sam (profoundly deaf girl) as her interpreter
had rung in sick without enough warning for a note taker to be assigned instead and I type quicker
than I write so was easier than passing hardcopy notes – following that lesson 3 of us started
uploading all our class notes to we could share and compare and still having that resource handy
helped me in my deferrals this year (so possibly an argument for use of a class wiki for each module)
Slide 10 – Twitter how we used it
There are numerous resources detailing how twitter can be used in class by tutors,
http://www.dontwasteyourtime.co.uk/presentations/presentation-twitter-in-education/ is one that
someone i follow tweeted back in 2009 and I saved to my favourites as a useful resource. I can email
a resource list to anyone who is interested in twitter.
This slide shows how some of us students used it over the last 2 years without any tutor input.
I mentioned earlier that a classmate picked up my voice recorder so I “wouldn’t miss a lecture”;
twitter is how she knew I’d miss it and why she offered to do this – she never tweets but she’s happy
to follow.
Last year I ended up having to defer semester B through illness and only 4 of us were using twitter
back then; the class was like a graveyard when the tutor asked a question even though we 4 had a
lively back channel going with all 4 sharing links that explained the ‘misunderstood’ material in a
different way to the lecturer – this was especially useful when in the larger lecture theatres holding
over 200 students.
More of us this year used twitter and I honestly believe that is the reason the paws class especially
bonded more as a group and why there was more interaction in this class – we felt comfortable with
each other and knew there was no need to worry about looking daft. The difference was we used it
more outside of class than in it
However, if you want the same functionality but in a more closed environment then perhaps
edmodo would work; but that would involve actually setting something up and forcing the students
to sign up but I’m aware this mode may not work for all disciplines; I’m on a tech degree so we tend
to like playing with things none techies may shy away from.
Slide 11 - Facebook
I see a lot of talk between educators on twitter about using Facebook in the classroom, every
university student I’ve spoken with about this immediately laughs. I’m quite a dedicated student but

8. even I can’t ignore Facebook chat, or messages, or pictures let alone the bejewelled and farmville
type games that other people get sucked into.
While there’s definitely an argument for its use in schools as a way of teaching them to use it in an
educational way before their habits have had time to set
http://theinnovativeeducator.blogspot.com/2011/06/using-facebook-in-education.html then check
out http://theedublogger.com/2011/05/11/the-why-and-how-of-using-facebook-for-educators-no-
need-to-be-friends-at-all/ or http://jeffthomastech.com/blog/?p=6887 for university and college
students.
Just using it as another communication channel OUTSIDE of class I can understand – that’s close
enough to the main use for most people that they’ll likely embrace it. Forcing it on them as another
classroom or trying to make it into a lesson in itself may not work.
Which brings me onto the design and implementation part of the session title because as part of my
final year project I created a business page on facebook for the music teacher whose website I was
redesigning; you can see a snippet of it on the slide there. (move to facebook page for Claire)
Having a private module page where you can pull in the RSS from your VLE news feed or for holding
discussions and gaining feedback would put some of the functionality of the vle in a place the
students are more likely to go – you can have polls and add content from other places via iframes
BUT only expect things like these to see real use during the revision panic period when reality kicks
in and we start reaching out for any help we can get.
My suggestion is; use the group message functionality for room change reminders/ important
module news and nothing else. Facebook is home not work. We all need somewhere to go to escape
the daily grind i’d say keep facebook for that and at the most use a group/ fan page to create a
doorway between the 2 should the students want it.
Slide 12 – wordpress, plugins and individual learning
I have just completed my project, the relevance of this to the talk is that I created a website for a
music teacher designed to hold tools and resources for her students that would complement her
lessons.
When I accepted the challenge of re-designing her site for this purpose I envisaged being able to
leverage online collaboration tools such as I’ve used with fellow students to support my own
learning – but when the requirements for her business became clear I was disappointed to learn that
although she teaches music, she had no need of this as all her students learn on a strict 1-2-1 basis
and played solo.
It led me to wonder how you could use electronic learning to support self study as most of the things
I’ve read and seen discussed by the teaching community on twitter deal with group and
collaborative working.
(http://tilby.co.uk) The wordpress site created with quizlet/ aural quizes/ tools/ slideshare
integration etc is still a work in progress aesthetically but the functionality has already proven useful;

9. so much so that despite being unfinished the teacher asked for its immediate implementation so her
LCM students could benefit in time for their exams.
Wordpress is an open source content management system that evolved from a basic blogging
platform. It has a very active development and support community and if there is a need you can
envisage there is likely a plugin already out there to fit that need.
It has a ridiculously simple interface; if you know how to send an email you should be able to write/
edit posts and pages.
I used a plugin called mTouch quiz for the multiple choice test functionality and added an mp3
player plugin so that I could make the tests suitable for aural tests.
There are numerous flashcard sites out there already:
http://www.ediscio.com/ and http://www.brainflips.com/flashcards.html to name 2, but
http://quizlet.com/ was the one chosen for various technical reasons.
I also used quizlet flashcards for my personal revision and downloaded an android app (Quizard lite)
so I could use them on the move without the need of net access – when I shared them with other
students on my course they were pretty enthusiastic and said they found the cards to be really
useful.
I also created an application for the tilby music tuition facebook page so the music flashcards from
the wordpress site could be embedded as some of her students said they were great but it was a
pain having to go somewhere else when they knew she had a facebook page already – couldn’t she
put them on there too so they could revise while doing other things, that way they’d know when
there was an update to the information too because facebook would tell them; key point is they
asked for it because FACEBOOK WOULD TELL THEM WHEN INFORMATION WAS UPDATED.