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This paper reports on a pilot study that was conducted during a technical trial of a new ePortfolio system at a large Australian university. Students from a large (n = 325) first-year educational technology course were given the opportunity to use the new ePortfolio system weekly as part of their reflective practice at the end of the hands-on tutorial classes and also through a blogging assignment that required six posts throughout the semester. Although the students reflecting on their work and ePortfolios themselves are not new concepts, this paper reports how assessment practices can be improved using ePortfolios and how students can improve their reflective practice through simple and regular use throughout the 12-week semester that the study was conducted. From the class, 208 students responded to the survey with the results being positive. The students were able to use the system easily and did not report many problems with crashing or freezing. The lessons learnt form an important part of this study for future iterations with these reported in the paper.

This paper is a collaborative reflection on a graduate a/r/tographic (artist/researcher/teacher research project using vlogging as its means of inquiry into potential for subjective reconstruction. The initial study focused on shifting perspectives of self in times of solitude and new surroundings. Springgay et al.'s (2005) a/r/tographic renderings were used to methodologically investigate emergent perspectives and realities of Tyson Lepage's journey in grappling with repositionings needed to open himself to shifting courses of action. The initial study took place in Sydney and the North Coast of New South Wales, Australia from September 2017 to December 2017. This revisitation of Lepage's research results from subsequent and ongoing discussion and reflection between Lepage and his two graduate mentors, one in Australia and the other in Canada. William Pinar's scholarship on cosmopolitanism provides a theoretical lens for developing deeper understandings of a relational self and is used in both initial research and in this return to the research. The multidimensional movement of understanding self in relation to other, requires openness to the world but also to one's inner feelings and opinions. It requires individuals acting in the world with others while also cultivating solitude and independence of mind, the combined process of which, Pinar describes as worldliness, and which he claims is the pedagogical project of cosmopolitanism in curriculum theory. The authors revisit Pinar's worldliness and Lepage's renderings/findings from the initial research, to now extend their collective thinking regarding the research journey of making visual expressions of living a passionate and contemplative public life.

Reporting a Brisbane Catholic Education (BCE) project spanning 2018-2020, this paper looks at what happened when early primary English as an Additional Language or Dialect (EAL/D) learners were given eReaders with multilingual texts to take home to read together with their families. The shift in pedagogy to view our learners as multilingual and developing multicompetence rather than English language learners only, influenced our decision to make digital texts in community languages more readily available to our students. Although our increasingly digital world has led to improved access to information, texts in different languages and the opportunity for students to access learning in different ways, we realised that many students at BCE schools, particularly those from a refugee background, have limited access to these resources. Along with improved access for students, we also wanted parents to have access to reading materials in their home languages, so that they could read together with their young children. Our goal was not only to facilitate reading in both home languages and English but to create greater student engagement in reading, while strengthening home and English literacy. In the course of developing the BCE digital library, we realised that we needed to find out more about what helps our multilingual students with reading and gain a greater understanding of family literacy practices in our school communities. Our learnings about the sustainability of libraries, student progress in reading, and family literacy practices in Brisbane Catholic Education school communities has important implications for how we teach multilingual learners to read today.

This paper follows recent scholarship in youth studies in suggesting that young people's aspirations for the future are deeply enmeshed within a social, cultural, and economic articulation of what constitutes a "good" life that an individual ought to orient toward. It uses Ahmed's (2014) notion of "wilfulness" to consider how young people anticipate, plan for, and orient toward the future as a real and imagined space that is embedded within their relationship to everyday social, cultural, and economic practices. To do this, I draw upon digital blog and interview narratives collected across a seventeen-month period from three young women in their final year of secondary school in Victoria, Australia. These narratives take up the notion of "willed" space(s) to consider the capacities, energies, and projects that these young women tell about the future over time. Throughout, this paper argues that a willful lens is particularly productive for its capacity to move beyond an understanding of educational participation as a fixed site for realising aspirations to one that highlights multiple processes of becoming within novel spaces of identification and belonging.

Universities are placing increased attention on providing students with ePortfolios and online teaching platforms to enhance learning and employability. This paper reports on a study which aimed to investigate the views of dietetics students on the usefulness of PebblePad as a learning platform and ePortfolio tool for evidencing graduate competency and enhancing employability. This research was conducted within a multi-component design-based research framework. PebblePad was introduced to the Griffith University Bachelor of Nutrition and Dietetics four-year degree in 2016 as part of the eDGE project (ePortfolios for Dietetics Graduate Employability). Students enrolled in 1st and 3rd year courses utilising PebblePad in 2016 and 2017 were invited to complete an online survey at the conclusion of each course. Surveys were completed by 116 students (2016 n=50; 2017 n=66). Students perceived that PebblePad could impact on their employability through demonstrating their learning as well as assisting their understanding and competency development as a professional. This was more evident in 3rd year students than 1st year. The aspects of PebblePad perceived as most beneficial for employability were the ability to: 1) collate experiences and assessment; 2) evidence dietetics competencies via 'tagging'; and 3) facilitate reflection. The least beneficial aspects were: 1) usability and navigation of PebblePad; 2) lack of clarity around using PebblePad to evidence employability; and 3) belief that required reflections were excessive. ePortfolios and learning platforms such as PebblePad are perceived by students to be useful for evidencing employability. Potential improvements in assessment design could further enhance their use.

This paper describes a study undertaken within the education faculty of a mid-sized university in response to the recommendations of the Teacher Education Ministerial Advisory Group (TEMAG) (2014) that initial teacher education (ITE) graduates emerge with an evidence-based professional standards-focused portfolio of teaching competency. In concluding that current teacher educator usage of, and attitudes to, ePortfolios limit the capacity of this particular faculty to respond to this challenge, the paper proposes three critical conditions to revitalise a stalled ePortfolio program and prepare for an increasingly demanding future. In sharing this experience, the paper seeks to support discussion of how teacher educators can respond best to the professional portfolio challenge in an environment of increasing regulation.

This paper reports the findings of a project that investigated uses of electronic portfolios (ePortfolios) in the creative and performing arts at four Australian universities and raises four significant areas for discussion: engaging technologies as an ongoing requirement of planning, delivery and evaluation of teaching and learning in higher education; ePortfolios and their implications for curriculum planning; the influence of ePortfolios on learning, self-awareness and reflection; and differences in ePortfolio expectations and uses between the varying specializations of music study in higher education. Identifying marked differences between the four higher education institutions in this project and their applications of ePortfolio work, our discussion supports the hypothesis that ePortfolios cannot be applied generically across the arts; rather the ePortfolio requires qualification in expectations, roles, applications and theorisations. The paper makes recommendations for higher arts educators and highlights some of the strategies that heighten the development of professional practice and related learning.

This paper describes the evaluation of the use of an ePortfolio which was embedded across a speech pathology program and designed to enhance employability. Personal development planning (PDP) is a key part of employability and includes learning, reflection, goal setting and understanding the wider context. Students' perceptions of their engagement in this process were evaluated using a mixed methods approach. Qualitative data was collected through student focus groups and individual staff interviews, while quantitative data was collected via a student questionnaire (reported in Lewis & Strampel, 2014). Qualitative data was analysed using NVivo following the six phases of thematic analysis described by Braun and Clarke (2006). This paper reports the themes which emerged from the focus group data. A key finding of the study was that the platform used was not ideal for the ePortfolio purpose causing frustration and negative reactions from students and colouring their engagement with, and enthusiasm for, the ePortfolio activities. Students achieved some of the objectives of personal development planning, especially goal-setting, but it was not until students were in their final year that they saw the links with their future career and employment. Further embedding of key tasks would enhance employability aspects, including for example involving industry from the first year and modelling the PDP process with students.

Online digital platforms can increase access to educational opportunities for marginalised students, authors and communities, but digital platform design can further marginalise Indigenous knowledge because such platforms are structured according to western epistemological assumptions. They do not accommodate for Indigenous or alternative knowledge frameworks. In addition, the premium placed on openness by certain platforms and licenses contradicts the approaches preferred by Indigenous knowledge authorities who tie the sharing of some types of knowledge to the identity and authority level of the intended audience. Knowledge in this context is not understood as discrete units of information that can be abstracted from their communities, easily shared on public platforms, but rather as sensitive materials that can only be shared by recognized knowledge authorities for specific purposes. The processes by which Indigenous knowledge authorities engage with knowledge sharing on digital platforms comprise a complex landscape in which social justice concerns come into play. This paper discusses how, within institutional design contexts, open educational practice (OEP) by Northern Australian Indigenous authors can enable different forms of social justice and work incrementally towards achieving greater recognition of Indigenous intellectual sovereign acts with due respect to the wider significance of Indigenous Sovereignty (Rigney 2001). It examines three sets of Indigenous open resources to gauge the extent to which open digital platforms allow for the expression of Indigenous knowledge authority, one necessary feature for achieving social justice in the Australian context. It examines the resources using Fraser's social justice framework (2005) as modelled by Hodgkinson-Williams and Trotters' (2018) and Lambert's (2018) approach to educational resources, and how design decisions can result in greater justice in knowledge affirmation and transformation but originate in offline decision making.

This study explores the utility of employing a student-created experiential narrative ePortfolio as a multimodal tool for reflective practice in WIL. It does so by examining a case study situated within the performing arts, where WIL discourses are rarely adopted, and few examples are present in the literature. This paper introduces a circular mentoring framework that extends Kolb's experiential learning model, whereby learning is facilitated through the interchange of roles through rehearsal and reflection. In this study, participants prepared and performed an opera in a professional venue over a five-day period of intense creative studio work. The 2017 and 2018 "Inclusion Project" is an innovative teaching and learning opportunity that offered authentic industry-based experience to undergraduate music students in a closely monitored, non-placement WIL setting. Participants (n=18) undertaking a semester long elective, reported their experience through online journaling in an ePortfolio allowing them to create narrative responses. A qualitative analysis using narrative inquiry on the ePortfolio reflections indicated a direct benefit for student's career readiness as creative artists.

This paper describes an ePortfolio implementation strategy at Federation University Australia, Victoria (formerly the University of Ballarat). The authors combined a personal and practical viewpoint to elicit pitfalls, challenges, and recommendations for improvement. The paper is divided into three main areas in order to outline the experiments that occurred. The first section provides a standard literature review around ePortfolio adoption as well as a research-based analysis of available ePortfolio software at Australian universities. The second part depicts the University's ePortfolio implementation strategy that focused on "test-to-production" and technology dissemination phases. This section is based on the authors' personal viewpoint of ePortfolio adoption at a university where a "top-down management decision making model" (Slade, Murfin, & Readman, 2013, p. 178) was used. Third, the evaluation strategy is reported, which was based on similar research conducted at Australian universities (Hallam & Creagh, 2010; Hallam, Harper, Hauville, Creagh, & McAllister, 2009). This part is offered as a modest-scoped, mixed methods evaluation process. The paper extends on ePortfolio implementation strategies (Bell & White, 2013; Coffey & Ashford-Rowe, 2014; Jarrott & Gambrel, 2011; Lambert & Corrin, 2007; Ring & Ramirez, 2012; Slade et al., 2013) and software analysis (ACODE, 2011; Slade et al., 2013). Recommendations are made for the careful integration of pre- and post-rollout of ePortfolio programs with face-to-face ePortfolio tutor support, offering online resources and alternative portfolio-making options for students with poor broadband access.

Utilising appropriate Information Communication Technologies (ICT) as instructional tools in teacher education can be a challenging yet worthwhile endeavour. This paper reports the difficulties and benefits of a recent inter-university project requiring preservice primary teachers to construct professional digital portfolios using the support of ICT. Challenges with regard to communication and learning were numerous as 34 preservice teachers (PSTs) from three universities in NSW (situated in country towns, and in Sydney) worked together as a collaborative learning community. Meeting regularly face-to-face during the 12-month process was not always possible and so ICT resources were employed to facilitate instruction and communication. An action research methodology generated a data set of surveys, observational field notes, and student assessment artefacts. We share the findings in this paper so that others may learn from our experiences in using free access software and commonplace hardware when constructing digital portfolios with students who are some distance from campus. (Contains 2 figures and 3 tables.)

This paper firstly introduces the concept of constructivist learning which advocates that students actively construct knowledge themselves with teachers' assistance. Based on the six important elements of constructivist learning and teaching planning approach, detailed examples of designing the six constructivist elements of situation, groupings, bridge, questions, exhibit, and reflections for two units offered at school of Information Technology, Deakin University are provided. A conclusion emphasizing the learners' difference to be paid attention to while educators designing curriculum on CloudDeakin platform is made at the end of this paper.

Tocal College, as part of New South Wales Department of Primary Industries (DPI), provides training in agriculture and related disciplines across NSW and Australia. Tocal College delivers a wide range of full time, short course, and distance education courses, along with publications and study support materials. The rural and related industries in Australia operate in a complex environment and have many features which make training delivery unique and challenging. A particular challenge is servicing a clientele who are thinly dispersed over a very large part of Australia and providing relevant services to clients who have high levels of skills and knowledge acquired on the job through informal learning. As a consequence of these needs, external delivery of training and Skills Recognition (i.e., Recognition of Prior Learning [RPL]) have emerged as a key services delivered by the College. This paper will outline the development of the Tocal College Skills Recognition system from a paper-based to fully electronic system while maintaining a commitment to assessment by personal interview, client support, empowerment and respect, and active case management. The process of "going electronic" is evaluated from both the client and college perspective. The ePortfolio approach is proving to be a better way of delivering services, but it does still present some challenges to clients in regional and remote areas of Australia.

This paper discusses how ePortfolios, initially introduced to students in a Music Education degree program on a trial basis, are subsequently being integrated into subjects of this degree program. Discussion includes staff perspectives, and covers the varying ways ePortfolio components are utilised in a range of subject areas, issues staff encounter in introducing ePortfolios into their subjects, methods to adapt existing assessment assignments into ePortfolio tasks, and ways in which the inclusion of ePortfolio work leads to changes in learning and teaching practices. Challenges of assessing in an ePortfolio environment are explored, and a map of ePortfolios in the final years of the degree program is discussed. The mapping process, whereby ePortfolio work is perceived as transitioning into the content of this degree program, is explained and demonstrated. The paper covers the design of the map that targets the sequential development of students' ePortfolio skills through subjects in the degree program. Mapping assessment tasks for any degree program is ongoing, and researchers in this case rely on student products and formal and informal feedback to continue designing assessment tasks in a meaningful way to engage eLearners in developing ePortfolios for use inside and outside this degree program. The process is not about creating more work for students and staff, or re-inventing existing curricula by removing and adding tasks. It is about evaluating existing assessment tasks in this degree program and modifying them to act viably in an information technology environment to reflect and advance student learning. (Contains 3 tables, 1 figure and 4 footnotes.)

This paper deploys notions of emergence, connections, and designs for learning to conceptualize high school students' interactions when using online social media as a learning environment. It makes links to chaos and complexity theories and to fractal patterns as it reports on a part of the first author's action research study, conducted while she was a teacher working in an Australian public high school and completing her PhD. The study investigates the use of a Ning online social network as a learning environment shared by seven classes, and it examines students' reactions and online activity while using a range of social media and Web 2.0 tools. The authors use Graham Nuthall's (2007) "lens on learning" to explore the social processes and culture of this shared online classroom. The paper uses his extensive body of research and analyses of classroom learning processes to conceptualize and analyze data throughout the action research cycle. It discusses the pedagogical implications that arise from the use of social media and, in so doing, challenges traditional models of teaching and learning. (Contains 10 figures.)

Graduates need to be prepared for working in global organisations that increasingly rely on virtual, culturally diverse teams. This paper reports on a qualitative research study concerned with the perceptions of university business students who collaborated on a virtual and international project to learn about intercultural communication. The findings indicated that participants capitalised on the opportunity the project presented to find friends and to negotiate and deepen relationships. In addition, the analysis revealed that social interaction also characterised and influenced the learning experience itself and had implications for engagement. The paper concludes that the subjectivities of social interaction are powerfully embedded in the learning process and may play a part in engagement. Second, the project was perceived as a valuable way of preparing students for workplaces where developing intercultural communication skills and online, culturally diverse team relationships are required.

The research process and associated literacy requirements are often unfamiliar and daunting obstacles for undergraduate students. The use of social media has the potential to assist research training and encourage active learning, social inclusion and student engagement. This paper documents the lessons learned from developing a blended learning model for undergraduate economics research incorporating social media blogging at a regional university in Australia. Student surveys, interviews with colleagues and students, in addition to a review of higher education literature highlight key issues associated with the choice of social media platform, need for clarity in assessment design, and assumptions of student proficiency with social media. The process of applying these findings to the design of a new subject are documented, highlighting a number of unanticipated institutional obstacles. It is hope that our findings will be practical and useful for instructors to consider when contemplating the introduction of social media to their teaching and learning practices.

This paper presents findings from a qualitative study of ePortfolio experiences among health professions students at a major Australasian research-intensive university. This exploratory study of the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) aims to understand the experiences and perspectives of students introduced to program-level ePortfolios across multiple curricula in the health sciences. Six key themes emerged from the data: benefits of an ePortfolio at the curriculum level, ePortfolios as an enabling technology, the value of reflection, the role of user support, the speed and quality of feedback, and mitigating distance and isolation. These data show that a program-level strategy that embeds ePortfolios across a curriculum, including delivering assessable tasks in the ePortfolio platform, is beneficial to students when a scaffolded, structured approach is taken.

Textbooks have been used to enhance teaching in mathematics at all levels of schooling for many years. The use of textbooks enables the mathematics content to be presented in a sequenced, coherent and logical way. There are very few studies, however, that explore student thoughts about the use of electronic textbooks (e-texts) in secondary classrooms. This paper reports the results of a study that aimed to develop an understanding of the phenomenon of student experiences of using an e-text during mathematics lessons; specifically those aspects that dominate the experiences and the ways students perceive their relationships amongst themselves and their teacher when using a mathematics e-text. The results of this study suggest that students using the e-text had a very positive experience. The use of e-texts brings a renewed approach to learning by providing students with what they perceive to be a useful, empowering experience.

Recent reports on xMOOCs indicate that underprivileged learners in need of higher education have minimally been reached by these courses. While the "open access" agenda is needed to reach such learners, most MOOCs have been developed in societies that have shifted toward the "lifelong learning" agenda. In this paper, xMOOCs are positioned in both the "open access" and the "lifelong learning" agendas in a developing country context. Findings from ten xMOOCs are presented and discussed. The findings suggest that two of the ten xMOOCs may be adapted for direct use in opening up higher education within the open access agenda, and two xMOOCs may contribute indirectly to the same agenda. Nine xMOOCs were found to have the potential to contribute to the lifelong learning agenda. These findings may inform policies and practices that underpin opening up higher education and open education in general.

In 2014, the School of Medicine Fremantle of the University of Notre Dame Australia initiated a study to explore the curriculum underpinning portfolios used by first-year medical students. The School had used portfolios since 2005 and judged it timely to consider digital technologies as a mechanism to enhance student learning and improve efficiencies. A qualitative approach was adopted that investigated how the curriculum intersected with two ePortfolio platforms: Blackboard and Mahara. Data pertaining to the way in which Blackboard and Mahara ePortfolio platforms supported existing curriculum were collected from students through focus groups and tutors via interviews. As a measure of comparison, data were also collected from students and tutors who used the existing paper-based portfolio system. Findings confirmed that the curriculum should shape the way in which technology solutions are interpreted and implemented. It is posited that low-tech solutions are sometimes most appropriate for the curriculum context. However, exploring the potential of digital technologies helped the School to imagine other possibilities for curriculum renewal. Indeed, one outcome of the research was the development of a plan to re-invigorate portfolios, shifting the current task-based emphasis to one which recognizes the key role of reflection. The study may be of interest to teachers and managers seeking to explore ePortfolios as part of broader curriculum renewal initiatives.

The paper describes empirical investigations of how participants in a MOOC learn, and the implications for MOOC design. A learner capability to generate higher order learning in MOOCs--called crowd-sourced learning (C-SL) capability--was defined from learning science literature. The capability comprised a complex yet interrelated array of attitudes, beliefs, and understandings about learning that participants bring to a MOOC and which shape their behaviour and explain why individuals differ in their ability to generate higher order learning. The capability was formulated as a developmental progression describing behaviours associated with five levels, from novice to expert, charting the degree to which learners regulate their own learning, effectively exploit the scale and diversity of MOOCs, and harness opportunities for distributed teaching. Item response theory was applied to log stream data in two MOOCs to construct empirically validated measures of this capability, enabling each MOOC learner to be assessed for learning capability on a scale from novice to expert. The majority of participants did not behave in ways conducive to the generation of higher order learning, but the C-SL progression suggested principles to guide MOOC design to make them more efficacious, which, when empirically investigated, were found to be efficacious.

This paper explores teachers' use of textbooks in the digital age. After discussing student expectancies and needs, textbook use and the affordances of modern technology, the paper reports the results of a small-scale pilot study involving eight higher education teachers in Australia who discuss the use of textbooks in higher education in the digital age. The results indicate that textbooks are generally viewed as reliable tools which provide creditable information that supports and enhances students' understanding of critical concepts, and that they present bite-size chunks of information to cement student learning.

Distributed Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are based on the premise that online learning occurs through a network of interconnected learners. The teachers' role in distributed courses extends to forming such a network by facilitating communication that connects learners and their separate personal learning environments scattered around the Internet. The study reported in this paper examined who fulfilled such an influential role in a particular distributed MOOC--a connectivist course (cMOOC) offered in 2011. Social network analysis was conducted over a socio-technical network of the Twitter-based course interactions, comprising both human course participants and hashtags; where the latter represented technological affordances for scaling course communication. The results of the week-by-week analysis of the network of interactions suggest that the teaching function becomes distributed among influential actors in the network. As the course progressed, both human and technological actors comprising the network subsumed the teaching functions, and exerted influence over the network formation. Regardless, the official course facilitators preserved a high level of influence over the flow of information in the investigated cMOOC.

Designing and implementing successful online learning has been at the forefront of institutional agendas since digital learning increased in market demand over the last decade. However there is still ongoing debate as to the "how" of this arduous task. The Community of Inquiry (CoI) is one learning design method that has seen potential in the field, but practical implementation of designing for the important components of Social, Cognitive and Teaching Presence have yet to be fully realised. This paper researches an e-learning design strategy called E-tivities as a suggested possible method for designing for CoI components. The research explored recent online blog posts of experienced learning designers' and educators' experience in designing successful online learning using E-tivities. Results suggest the E-tivities do have the potential to cater for all Presences of CoI. Specifically when using E-tivities to design online learning Affective Expression was the highest reported Social Presence design factor. All four components of Cognitive Presence appeared to be present in E-tivities design. The most important component for adequate Teaching Presence factors was the initial Design and Organisation of the course. E-tivities and the 5-Stage Model provides a solid framework for this to occur.

The use of ePortfolios for recognition of prior learning (e-RPL) and for professional recognition (e-PR) is slowly gaining in popularity in the VET sector however their use is sporadic across educational sectors, disciplines, educational institutions and professions. Added to this is an array of purposes and types of e-RPL and e-PR models and practice. The aim of this paper is to build on the conceptual framework developed by Cameron (2012) for e-RPL and e-PR and to provide case studies for each of the four types developed within this framework: e-PR for Professional Accreditation; e-RPL for Workplace Recognition; e-RPL for Access and; e-RPL for Self Recognition. We use the case studies to explore the four types and the two dimensions or continuums central to the framework. The vertical dimension is a continuum between RPL as process and RPL as product and the second horizontal dimension is a continuum between formal learning contexts and low learner control as opposed to informal learning contexts and high levels of learner control. The case studies have aided the further development of the framework and its theoretical and practical applications.

Reflection is considered an inherent part of teacher practice. However, when used within professional development activity, it is fraught with issues associated with teacher confidence and skill in reflective action. Coupled with anxiety generally associated with technological competency and understanding the nature of blogging, constructive reflection is difficult for teachers. This paper focuses on the reflective quality of school teachers' blogs. It describes teachers' perceptions and engagement in reflective activity as part of an ICT professional development program. Reflective entries are drawn from a series of blogs that are analysed qualitatively using Hatton and Smith's (1995) three levels of reflection-on-action. The findings suggest that each level of reflective action plays a different role in enabling teachers to transform their ICT pedagogical beliefs and practices. Each role is defined and illustrated suggesting the value of such activity within ICT professional development, consequently reshaping what constitutes effective professional development in ICT.

From a fledgling technology with no proven business models, electronic books (e-books) have grown in importance usurping traditional formats as an acquisitions budget line in many academic library contexts. Business models include purchase, subscription, and pay per use. In academic and research libraries, web based e-book delivery is the dominant platform involving desktop, Netbook and iPad user agents. E-books are the hot property of today's academic library, forming the new wave in information services along with web scale discovery and institutional repositories. This paper reports the results of a preliminary analysis of transactional e-log data describing academic and student use of Ebook Library (EBL) titles at Edith Cowan University (ECU) Library, Perth, Western Australia. The data mined and analysed encompassing Semesters One and Two of the 2010 academic year. Analysis includes descriptive statistics and other metrics describing e-book usage patterns and user behaviour. The paper compares usage patterns observed with earlier studies and reports on the phenomenon of the "power user". (Contains 11 tables and 8 figures.)

This paper describes our vision for the new UTS Library opening in 2016/17. Preparations are currently focussed on implementing enabling technologies which will move up to 80% of the print collection to an automated storage and retrieval system. This will allow the physical library to shift from a space dominated by book storage to a vibrant space for people, and facilitate better integration of physical and digital collections, services and spaces. While underpinned by technology, our new library is about people, and this paper describes the co-design practices we are exploring to include our clients in the planning process and ensure we deliver library services which meet their needs.

Web 2.0 technologies have transformed the way people in information industries engage with their clients, collaborate on projects, promote their services and gather community knowledge. In this paper, we describe the impact of industry adoption of Web 2.0 technologies on an information management course. The students in this course are either already working in or plan to be entering information professions such as librarianship, archiving, records management, information architecture, and information and knowledge management. The lecturer and tutors for this course are changing the way learning is assessed and constructively aligning it with industry expectations for library and information graduates. Specifically in this paper we focus on the impact of the Web 2.0 affordances on student learning, the assessment process, and constructive alignment of intended learning outcomes with industry expectations in an information management blogging assignment. These findings are from the final stage of an Australian project where case studies of subjects that used Web 2.0 tools to assess student work were documented. Analysis of the students' blogs reveals exploration of the new tools used in a professional manner, greater collaboration and improved communication within the subject. (Contains 3 tables.)

Many Australian state primary schools have a policy to use generalist teachers to teach music as well as many other subjects, however research indicates that primary generalist teachers lack confidence and competence to teach music in their classrooms. Added to this, preservice teachers enter their initial teacher education course with little or no background in music education and low confidence to teach music. Skills, knowledge and attitudes that are learned in the preservice teacher education course are crucial to developing the students' confidence and competence to teach music. This paper presents one approach to addressing this situation, based on Kolb's Experiential Learning Model. A description of a primary creative arts teacher education unit is given, then results from a quantitative and qualitative student survey are triangulated with the students' online journals and are used to evaluate the unit in terms of the students' developing confidence and competence in music education, based on their learned skills and knowledge. Results indicated that the majority of the students (97%) developed their confidence and competence to teach music using this approach. Specific learning experiences that helped affect their sense of competence in teaching music included experiential, face-to-face and online training approaches to learning relevant skills and knowledge, which confirmed the importance of using Kolb's Experiential Leaning Theory as the basis for the unit.

The millennial generation is facing challenges in their career path and they believe that tertiary education can help them to equip better to tackle against. However, some students find it difficult to rush back to classroom due to work commitment. Fortunately, flexible education developed these years allows students to capture knowledge anytime and anywhere easier. In order to deliver courses in line with students' need, many universities have considered offering alternative studying modes, such as flexible method, to enrich the course delivery. Using a case study, this paper investigates the delivery approach adopted by a school of a well-known university in Australia. This School offers architecture and construction management courses and has successfully adopted the flexible approach, with the aid of various online teaching and learning tools: the Cloud, Elluminate Live!, EchoSystem, Mediawiki and ePortfolio, in delivering subjects. It is welcomed by various cohorts of students. Not only the student numbers have been increased, but the School is also the first preference when students opting architecture and construction management studies. Statistics also indicate students' satisfaction and course experience are improved. The success of this School proves itself to be an exemplar for other educators planning for flexible delivery.

This paper reports on a collaborative staff development activity run across two Australian universities, for academic staff integrating Web 2.0 technologies into their teaching. It describes a three-week long virtual workshop on teaching with wikis, where participants in two groups developed a group project as students and then assessed the work as teachers. Participants were guided through a central "Wikis in Higher Education" wiki which provided the resources and communication supports. The experience suggested that teaching in a Web 2.0 space requires new thinking about pedagogy and that peer learning and the development of an online community are helpful for effective professional development. In closing, the paper reflects on the successes and limitations of this virtual workshop model. (Contains 1 figure.)

Purpose: There is much hype about academics' attitude to Wikipedia. This paper seeks to go beyond anecdotal evidence by drawing on empirical research to ascertain how academics respond to Wikipedia and the implications these responses have for the take-up of Web 2.0+. It aims to test the hypothesis that Web 2.0+, as a platform built around the socially constructed nature of knowledge, is inimical to conventional power-knowledge arrangements in which academics are traditionally positioned as the key gatekeepers to knowledge. Design/methodology/approach: The research relies on quantitative and qualitative data to provide an evidence-based analysis of the attitudes of academics towards the student use of Wikipedia and towards Web 2.0+. These data were provided via an online survey made available to a number of universities in Australia and abroad. As well as the statistical analysis of quantitative data, qualitative data were subjected to thematic analysis using relational coding. Findings: The data by and large demonstrate that Wikipedia continues to be a divisive issue among academics, particularly within the "soft sciences". However, Wikipedia is not as controversial as popular publicity would lead one to believe. Many academics use it extensively though cautiously themselves, and therefore tend to support a cautious approach to its use by students. However, evidence supports the assertion that there is an implicit if not explicit awareness among academics that Wikipedia, and possibly by extension Web 2.0+, are disruptors of conventional academic power-knowledge arrangements. Practical implications: It is clear that academics respond differently to the disruptive effects that Web 2.0+ has on the political economy of academic knowledge construction. Contrary to popular reports, responses to Wikipedia are not overwhelmingly focused on resistance but encompass both cautious and creative acceptance. It is becoming equally clear that the increasing uptake of Web 2.0+ in higher education makes it inevitable that academics will have to address the "political" consequences of this reframing of the ownership and control of academic knowledge production. Originality/value: The paper demonstrates originality and value by providing a unique, evidence-based insight into the different ways in which academics respond to Wikipedia as an archetypal Web 2.0+ application and by positioning Web 2.0+ within the political economy of academic knowledge construction.

Purpose: This paper aims to introduce an enterprise-wide Web 2.0 learning support platform--SNAP, developed at Victoria University in Melbourne, Australia. Design/methodology/approach: Pointing to the evolution of the social web, the paper discusses the potential for the development of e-learning platforms that employ constructivist, connectivist, and participatory pedagogies and actively engage the student population. Social networking behaviours and peer-learning strategies, along with knowledge management through guided folksonomies, provide the back-bone of a social systems approach to learning support. Findings: The development of a cloud-based read-write enterprise platform can extend the responsiveness of the learning institution to its students and to future e-learning innovations. Originality/value: The full potential of e-learning platforms for the development of learning communities of practice can now be increasingly realised. The SNAP Platform is a step in this direction. (Contains 1 figure.)

Purpose: This paper aims to examine some of the strengths and weaknesses of the use of online tools such as wikis and blogs for assessment purposes, with the aim of proposing future developments and improvements. Design/methodology/approach: The paper utilises a case study approach by examining the outcomes of a new first-year course for all engineering students at the Institution Name that was introduced in 2008. The course, Sustainable Engineering Practice (SEP), gives students an insight into the disciplines of engineering and emphasises the skills required for working in multi-disciplinary teams. It introduces students to the profession of engineering and how it is practised within a sustainable context. Findings: The major assessment task for the course is the Engineers Without Borders (EWB) challenge and, for the first time in the engineering program at the university, wikis and blogs were used as assessment tools to evaluate student progress in meeting the course objectives. Originality/value: The evidence of student reflections in their course blogs, and the discussions of the staff teaching team in course meetings, have been utilised to consider the strengths and weaknesses of the pedagogy adopted. These sources indicated that the use of these tools for assessment was effective, but that some modifications were required to improve outcomes for both staff and students. (Contains 2 tables.)

The small but developing literature on weblogging underscores its potential as an effective learning resource for use in higher education. This paper contributes to these discussions through an initial case study of the authors' experience with the on going development of an educational blogging resource for use in a large cohort, undergraduate liberal arts subject. Detailing the theoretical aims, design, implementation and incipient evaluation of the project, the paper supports the argument for the educational use and value of blogging but also highlights potential limitations and problem areas. (Contains 2 figures.)

Global and digital connectivity transform Australian classrooms by creating rich environments for inquiry learning. Developing inquiry learning in this Information Communication Technology (ICT) context is an Australian educational goal. Recently the Australian Curriculum reform and the Digital Education Revolution has become a catalyst for teachers to overcome the ubiquitous disconnect between traditional and digital pedagogies and reconceptualise practice and curricula. The National vision for ICT in School Education (2008) creates opportunities and imperatives for transformative pedagogies to sync with key learning areas and raises questions about how ICT pedagogical disconnect may be overcome. This paper reports findings from multi-site case studies which focus on the bridging the pedagogical disconnect by investigating the ICT experiences and pedagogy of History teachers in K-12 Catholic schools.

This paper explores whether a professional development weblog could support work-based learning in a TAFE Library. The paper includes both a literature review of material dealing with work-based learning in the VET sector, weblogs and their possible use as a professional development tool and an evaluation of a weblog project devised to support professional development in the Library at Box Hill Institute. Analysis of the literature suggested that there were educational aspects of the practices of weblogging that supported some of the trends and learning outcomes of work-based learning in the VET sector. These included team learning and reflective and deep learning. Review of the literature also showed that concepts of knowledge management and information literacy have aspects in common with the educational practices of weblogging. During the weblog project, staff were actively involved in contributing to the weblog and evaluated their experience through a questionnaire. Staff reported that they had developed professionally from participating in the project, particularly in the areas of sharing knowledge and team learning and that there was potential for further professional development in the areas of archiving and reflective practice.

This paper reports on a study involving 74 third and 17 fourth year student teachers enrolled in a Bachelor of Education (Primary) course at an Australian regional, multi-campus university. These pre-service primary teachers completed the single semester, compulsory subject Managing the Learning Environment, which involves the application of behaviour management theory and research into the primary school classroom. The aim of the study was to investigate the experiences of student teachers using blogs whilst on professional placement and more specifically, the effectiveness of blogs to facilitate reflection on behaviour management. Data were drawn from focus group interviews and blog postings. There were mixed responses to the use of blogs as a learning tool; those who found it useful saw its utility in developing behaviour management strategies, venting emotions and supporting each other, while others considered blogs a time imposition and questioned the usefulness of peer advice. While blog postings demonstrated some evidence of reflection and aligning theory and practice, they were overwhelmingly used for the sharing of behaviour management "tips".

The University of South Australia and Purdue University (Indiana) launched the "Grammar Gang Blog" in June 2008, as a collaborative forum for talking about language. The blog reaches a far-flung community of learners from Australia to the United States, Brisbane to Bangalore and Ghana to Germany. The Grammar Gang--where Owls meet Possums--started as a practical way to share knowledge about the function of grammar in academic writing at university. Two years later, the collaboration has grown to include the University of Adelaide. The Grammar Gang demonstrates how social software has given us an easy pathway to interact globally with those who have a common love of language. This paper discusses the way in which social software can be used for learning and global community building between students, university staff and their institutions. (Contains 4 figures.)

Mobile and participatory cultures have led to widespread change in the way we communicate; emphasizing user generated content and digital multimedia. In this environment, informal learning may occur through digital and networked activities, with literacy no longer limited to alphabetic and character-based texts. This article explores adult learners' new literacies within the context of a digital mobile storytelling project. A qualitative approach is used to explore the artifacts and practices of nine adult participants who comprise the study. Participants created a range of fiction, non-fiction, poetry and diary-style content in a variety of modes and media. Outcomes from content analysis, interview and survey methods depict mobile digital literacies as characteristically situated, experiential and multimodal. The mobile and participatory nature of this project was catalytic to participants' imaginative re-interpretation of the world around them as sources for meaning making and transformation. This paper contributes a case example of mobile learning with adults in a community setting.

"Blogging"--a contraction of the term "web logging"--is perhaps best described as a form of micro-publishing. Easy to use, from any Internet connection point, blogging has become firmly established as a web based communications tool. The blogging phenomenon has evolved from its early origin as a medium for the publication of simple, online personal diaries, to the latest disruptive technology, the "killer app" that has the capacity to engage people in collaborative activity, knowledge sharing, reflection and debate (Hiler, 2003). Many blogs have large and dedicated readerships, and blog clusters have formed linking fellow bloggers in accordance with their common interests. This paper explores the potential of blogs as learning spaces for students in the higher education sector. It refers to the nascent literature on the subject, explores methods for using blogs for educational purposes in university courses (eg. Harvard Law School), and records the experience of the Brisbane Graduate School of Business at Queensland University of Technology, with its "MBA blog". The paper concludes that blogging has the potential to be a transformational technology for teaching and learning. (Contains 5 tables and 1 endnote.)

Background: The question whether old media are driven out of existence by new media has been a long concern in academic and industrial research but has received no definitive answer. Aim: This paper goes beyond most previous studies of Internet impact on traditional media, which have placed their relationship within a competition-based framework, to specifically investigate the complementary effect of online news and information usage on traditional sources. Method: Secondary data analysis of a national survey of 4270 Australians conducted in late 2003, employing hypothesis testing for the mean, partial correlations, and a linear regression analysis. Results: Online news and information usage at different usage levels is positively associated with the use of traditional news and information sources, especially those that are more information-intensive. Those who relied on the Internet the most for news and information still used traditional sources substantially. Conclusion: The findings suggest that even if a displacement effect takes place, there will be no replacement (absolute displacement): traditional media will still exist to complement the Internet in serving human beings' news and information needs.

This paper relates a teacher's story about a classroom-based research project undertaken with a Year 3 to 7 Special Area Resource class, located in a Mainstream Primary School in the south west of Adelaide. The class consisted of 11 students verified as students with disabilities under the DECS disability criteria. The students' age range (from 8 to 13 years), variations in physical growth and development, different experiences, intellectual abilities and disabilities make co-teaching this group a challenging undertaking. Another difficulty faced involved establishing a sense of cohesion amongst this group who are taxied daily to and from the class from a number of suburbs. Despite these differences, the students shared an interest in popular culture. This opened an opportunity to engage them in the literacy work of the classroom through the use of media along with information and communication technologies (ICTs).

The IMS Learning Design specification provides a potential means for capturing units of instruction in a machine-readable, consistent way. However, in order for the IMS Learning Design specification to be used widely by educators and instructional designers for whom it is intended, we will need effective ways for users to contribute to, access and adapt the repositories where reusable learning designs are collected and stored. This paper describes a project conducted to develop and test a prototype search model for learning design repositories. We argue for development of a controlled vocabulary to describe and label learning designs. In this way, designs can be accessed according to a variety of pedagogical, as well as topical criteria specific to the instructional purposes and perspectives of the user.

Although educational online technologies (EOTs) have transformed the delivery of learning in higher education, significant EOT challenges have impeded their effectiveness, preventing widespread implementation. The persistence of these challenges suggests that tertiary education institutes (TEIs) have experienced a gap in understandings about the reality of key stakeholders' EOT needs. This research made a phenomenological interpretation of key stakeholders' EOT experiences, to establish their current EOT needs and challenges and provide a basis from which to recommend methods for effective EOT support. It analysed the EOT experiences of 10 students and 10 teachers from New Zealand and Australia and interpreted the meanings of the phenomena through an abstraction and articulation of local and global themes. This paper is the first in a series of six publications that presents the local themes. It documents the interpretations of students' experiences with teachers, in reference to their use of four types of EOTs: online conference tools, learning management systems, blog sites and lecture capture tools. These interpretations, which include descriptions of stakeholders' EOT challenges, helped to inform a set of recommendations for effective EOT use, to assist TEIs in their efforts to address EOT challenges and meet stakeholders' needs.

In addition to providing a useful repository for learning products, ePortfolios provide enhanced opportunities for the development of advanced learning skills. It can be argued, however, that ePortfolios are not being implemented effectively towards fulfilling this important function. This paper presents an investigation of an ePortfolio environment that scaffolded the learning of pre-service teachers. The environment was embedded within the PebblePad platform and utilised the Blog function to provide students with activities that were designed to enhance and support the skills and dispositions required to undertake action research. Prompts were provided to students to scaffold the completion of an action research project and provide additional activities that supported the enhancement of reflective thinking. The research study utilised an eLearning Lifecycle that provided a cyclic framework of review and implementation. The purpose of this model was to identify design principles for future iterations of ePortfolio-based learning environments. Findings suggest that the prompts and the ePortfolio environment were effective in scaffolding students' reflective thinking. Additionally, design principles are suggested to ensure this research has both practical and theoretical significance for implementation in similar environments.

The oz-Teachers listserv, an email list for teachers, ran continuously for 20 years, from 1995 to 2015. It provided the technical infrastructure for professional communication with the majority of its members being Australian teachers based in classrooms across the country. An analysis of the list archives provides us with interesting insights as to how teachers learn from and within communities of their peers and how such communities offer social and educational affordances to allow teachers to generate and enhance their own learning. This paper begins with a brief review of the response to the announcement of the list's closure. It then moves to a report of the types of communication which emerged from the list over time with comparisons drawn from extant research, namely, an early analysis of email lists and a more contemporary study of teacher communication through microblogging. We identified 14 categories with eight of these being paired, namely, as asking/seeking and responding/giving. The key finding of this analysis was that the list, and its professional discussions, were sustained through reciprocity and collective intelligence, that is, sharing of information and resources and that this was evident through the life of the listserv.