Papers by Louise Drumm
EDEN Annual Conference Proceedings , 2023
The pandemic accelerated the use of digital tools for teaching, learning and assessing in univers... more The pandemic accelerated the use of digital tools for teaching, learning and assessing in universities, but the future of digital education is being challenged by user-friendly large language models and generative artificial intelligence (AI) platforms such as ChatGPT. The progress in digital education practices is under threat from uncertainty, such as how to assess students' learning when materials can be, partially or wholly, generated by AI platform. There is little knowledge currently about students’ attitudes and experiences of these emerging technologies. This paper concerns a research project conducted across a Scottish university in early 2023 which collected and analysed student attitudes to, and experiences of, ChatGPT and their own studies. Students were invited to contribute posts anonymously to an online 'Amnesty Padlet' on their experiences and thoughts about ChatGPT. The preliminary results are presented as emerging themes and framed against existing literature on learning, assessment and artificial intelligence. Key findings and recommendations from the research will be offered and this paper foregrounds the importance of listening to students at this time to ensure digital education is future-ready and students are equipped with skills for their own futures. This research project includes a student co-researcher who is also a co-author of this paper.
Effective Practices in AI Literacy Education: Case Studies and Reflections, 2024
A foundation in artificial intelligence (AI) literacy among all academic staff is essential for s... more A foundation in artificial intelligence (AI) literacy among all academic staff is essential for supporting students’ AI literacy effectively. As tools like ChatGPT increasingly influence academic work, educators need to understand prompt engineering and reconsider assessment designs. However, many lack the necessary training or time to engage with courses, limiting their ability to design assessments that leverage these technologies while maintaining academic integrity. This project investigated the impact of prompt training on university academics’ abilities to craft prompts and redesign assessments within a Scottish university. A two-hour workshop on prompt engineering was conducted for academic staff, during which participants graded AI-generated content before and after they received training. Results indicated a significant improvement in the quality of prompts crafted by participants post-training. Qualitative feedback revealed mixed reactions, highlighting both the potential and limitations of AI in academic settings. The study demonstrated the need for ongoing staff development in AI literacy.
Theory and Method in Higher Education Research, 2024
This chapter explores Deleuze and Guattari's rhizome as a multifaceted approach within educationa... more This chapter explores Deleuze and Guattari's rhizome as a multifaceted approach within educational research, suggesting it as an alternative way of mapping complexities, limiting structures and messiness which may not always be surfaced in more traditional theoretical frameworks, methods, and methodologies. Despite its potential to enrich higher education scholarship through non-linear and interconnected perspectives, adoption has been hindered by the perceptions of its dense philosophical language and ideas and the fear of 'doing it wrong'. By offering a primer on rhizome theory and its potential for methodological and theoretical frameworks, this chapter seeks to demystify it for scholars new to Deleuze and Guattari, acknowledging and building upon previous work in this field. A case study illustrates the rhizome's capacity to challenge traditional epistemological assumptions, presenting a more holistic and connected view of teaching with technologies in universities. The chapter concludes with a critical discussion on the limitations of rhizome theory and suggests opportunities for its broader application in higher education research. This exploration recommends rhizome's potential in reflecting the dynamic, complex nature of educational scholarship and practices.
Research in Learning Technology, Nov 29, 2023
The first issue of Research in Learning Technology (RLT) was published in 1993. Over 30 years, th... more The first issue of Research in Learning Technology (RLT) was published in 1993. Over 30 years, the journal has comprised an informal research and development facility for new ideas and practices in technology enhanced learning. This paper takes nine published articles from RLT: the three most downloaded in the period January 2021-March 2023 (but published at any time); the three most downloaded articles published from January 2021 to March 2023; and the three most cited articles published from January 2018 to March 2023. The aim is to identify different areas of current interest and influence, different areas of practice, and different scholarly approaches. The authors are the journal's current editorial team. This paper identifies diversity of technology enhanced learning-related subject matter and different approaches, too, but with ongoing interest in efficacy and in the 'how' of technology enhanced learning: how technology can be applied to truly enhance learning, comprising an approachable community, generating influence.
Research in Learning Technology, Nov 29, 2023
The first issue of Research in Learning Technology (RLT) was published in 1993. Over 30 years, th... more The first issue of Research in Learning Technology (RLT) was published in 1993. Over 30 years, the journal has comprised an informal research and development facility for new ideas and practices in technology enhanced learning. This paper takes nine published articles from RLT: the three most downloaded in the period January 2021-March 2023 (but published at any time); the three most downloaded articles published from January 2021 to March 2023; and the three most cited articles published from January 2018 to March 2023. The aim is to identify different areas of current interest and influence, different areas of practice, and different scholarly approaches. The authors are the journal's current editorial team. This paper identifies diversity of technology enhanced learning-related subject matter and different approaches, too, but with ongoing interest in efficacy and in the 'how' of technology enhanced learning: how technology can be applied to truly enhance learning, comprising an approachable community, generating influence.
Journal of Perspectives in Applied Academic Practice, Feb 22, 2023
An accessible book, this open online volume would appeal to readers whether new to feminist pedag... more An accessible book, this open online volume would appeal to readers whether new to feminist pedagogy or not. It centres on personal experience and offers a variety of windows into what feminist critical digital pedagogy can look like in practice. Indeed, some of these chapters would be suitable additions to reading lists for teaching in higher education programmes. It is commendable that the editors have challenged the notion of a book as a finished artefact, instead offering it as an open and ongoing 'evolving' document, with further contributions encouraged. This offers the exciting prospect of the book documenting a conversation with itself as it is augmented. This review was of the book as published in August 2022. 'The University can't love you: Gendered Labour, Burnout and the Covid-19 Pivot to Digital' by Brenna Clarke Gray, the first chapter, is an honest account of her experience mapped against selected literature and framed within the dysfunctional relationships staff members have with the university and its structures. Introducing the useful idea of 'moral stress' from health care literature, Grey aligns this to the cognitive dissonance many experience when their values are in contradiction to the practices they enact. This chapter serves to shine a light on these issues rather than provide answers, but it proves an excellent opening for what follows.
National Teaching Repository, Sep 9, 2021
This poster explores The Summer of Ukuleles, an enquiry-based learning project that adapted to be... more This poster explores The Summer of Ukuleles, an enquiry-based learning project that adapted to become a Covid support group. Participants were sent a ukulele and learned to play online, using a range of freely available online resources, curated on Moodle. This led to community strum-a-longs, and was something that participants could do in their own homes, in lockdown. The authors also discuss the project in a YouTube video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTfth4f7Bd0<br>This poster was presented at the 2021 online Improving University Teaching international conference.
Learning, Media and Technology, Jan 2, 2022
The inequities rooted in our education systems and wider societies have been thrown into relief b... more The inequities rooted in our education systems and wider societies have been thrown into relief by responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper presents four situational studies of the FemEdTech network, asking how we characterise activities of the network, what they tell us about the nature of diffuse, convivial networks, and what opportunities they provide for challenging inequities in the field of technology and/in education. The study draws on practices and materials produced through FemEdTech activities from 2017 to 2020. Data and its analysis are presented as a spiral of ‘turns’ which fold back on each other to create connections between lines of research, moving fluidly between the objective and subjective.The four studies present shared curation, collaborative writing and purposeful reflection as contested fields of action. On one hand they build solidarity and shared resources – ‘holding up’ the flow of knowledge in networks, potentially redistributing the capital of attention and connectivity. At the same time, they underscore the costs of shared work which are different in open networks from those that operate in the reified, accelerated production cycles of academic roles – yet connected with them, not least because they always involve investments of care
Journal of Perspectives in Applied Academic Practice
An accessible book, this open online volume would appeal to readers whether new to feminist pedag... more An accessible book, this open online volume would appeal to readers whether new to feminist pedagogy or not. It centres on personal experience and offers a variety of windows into what feminist critical digital pedagogy can look like in practice. Indeed, some of these chapters would be suitable additions to reading lists for teaching in higher education programmes. It is commendable that the editors have challenged the notion of a book as a finished artefact, instead offering it as an open and ongoing 'evolving' document, with further contributions encouraged. This offers the exciting prospect of the book documenting a conversation with itself as it is augmented. This review was of the book as published in August 2022. 'The University can't love you: Gendered Labour, Burnout and the Covid-19 Pivot to Digital' by Brenna Clarke Gray, the first chapter, is an honest account of her experience mapped against selected literature and framed within the dysfunctional relationships staff members have with the university and its structures. Introducing the useful idea of 'moral stress' from health care literature, Grey aligns this to the cognitive dissonance many experience when their values are in contradiction to the practices they enact. This chapter serves to shine a light on these issues rather than provide answers, but it proves an excellent opening for what follows.
Scholarly work in the area of learning technology has a somewhat dubious reputation. The immature... more Scholarly work in the area of learning technology has a somewhat dubious reputation. The immature sibling of educational research, the field has been critiqued for lack of criticality (Selwyn, 2015). Pockets of stand-alone research embedded within specific contexts (Selwyn, 2012) can result in findings that are neither transferable nor generalisable (Ashwin, 2009). Research in this area often retains a pragmatic focus: the application of technology to solve a ‘problem’, but the underpinning positivistic paradigms are more often assumed, than made explicit and technological determinism can creep into the language (Bayne, 2015).This problem is compounded by the natural multi-disciplinary backgrounds of researchers and authors. As the education sector turns its scholarly eye upon learning technology and the vast knowledge gained during the Covid-19 pandemic, there is a need for a plurality of voices and experiences to be explored through research and publication. However, there are pit...
Scholarly work in the area of learning technology has a somewhat dubious reputation. The immature... more Scholarly work in the area of learning technology has a somewhat dubious reputation. The immature sibling of educational research, the field has been critiqued for lack of criticality (Selwyn, 2015). Pockets of stand-alone research embedded within specific contexts (Selwyn, 2012) can result in findings that are neither transferable nor generalisable (Ashwin, 2009). Research in this area often retains a pragmatic focus: the application of technology to solve a ‘problem’, but the underpinning positivistic paradigms are more often assumed, than made explicit and technological determinism can creep into the language (Bayne, 2015).This problem is compounded by the natural multi-disciplinary backgrounds of researchers and authors. As the education sector turns its scholarly eye upon learning technology and the vast knowledge gained during the Covid-19 pandemic, there is a need for a plurality of voices and experiences to be explored through research and publication. However, there are pit...
Learning, Media and Technology, 2022
This poster explores The Summer of Ukuleles, an enquiry-based learning project that adapted to be... more This poster explores The Summer of Ukuleles, an enquiry-based learning project that adapted to become a Covid support group. Participants were sent a ukulele and learned to play online, using a range of freely available online resources, curated on Moodle. This led to community strum-a-longs, and was something that participants could do in their own homes, in lockdown. The authors also discuss the project in a YouTube video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTfth4f7Bd0<br>This poster was presented at the 2021 online Improving University Teaching international conference.
Forum theatre was established by Boal (1985) as way to draw an audience into debates by using sho... more Forum theatre was established by Boal (1985) as way to draw an audience into debates by using short plays as provocations. As this conference recognises, feedback should be a process of dialogue, consultation and mediation, but identifying how to manage these communications can be difficult. Improving dialogical aspects of feedback has been argued as a possible solution (Nicol, 2010). This workshop will present a series of brief scenes performed by University of Greenwich drama students which demonstrate instances of problematic communication around feedback. Participants will be guided in joining the actors to explore alternative strategies for giving and receiving feedback.
Developing Technology Mediation in Learning Environments
Technology can be used to bring people closer together yet can also come between them and push th... more Technology can be used to bring people closer together yet can also come between them and push them apart. In an age where discourse around our relationship with technology is becoming more widely discussed as problematic, what are the experiences of educators when they use technology for teaching? This chapter discusses influential conceptions of technology and maps them onto digitally mediated teaching. Tensions are identified within the relationships between educator, technology, and learner, and sociomaterial approaches are presented as a means to navigate these areas. Using a research project to demonstrate how sociomaterialism can work in practice, digital teaching was found to be re-distributed over space and time, resulting in consequences, not all of which were intended. This chapter proposes a more interconnected understanding of how people, technology, and learning are enmeshed and makes recommendations for further work that could be done in this area.
Research in Learning Technology
The gap in knowledge about how learning theories relate to everyday digital teaching practices in... more The gap in knowledge about how learning theories relate to everyday digital teaching practices in universities inhibits scholarly and practical developments in this area. This article reports on part of a qualitative research project which identified patterns across teaching modes, descriptions and accompanying rationales. It found that learning theories played a minor role in educators' rationales, even though many of their teaching practices could be described as pedagogically 'sound'. Although social constructivist approaches were strongly represented in the data, the most widespread rationales for technology uses were folk pedagogies and pseudo-educational theories. This contradicts much of what scholarship and 'edtech' culture espouses as pedagogically led technology use. Such educational technology orthodoxies hinder the progress of theory use in this area and fail to address the realities of how lecturers use digital technologies. While it may come as no surprise that educators did not articulate their practices referencing learning theories, the dominance of pseudo-theories in this research represents a threat to the criticality of scholarship and practice in this area. This article recommends that critical and scholarly approaches to digital teaching are encouraged, and that folk and pseudo-theories are acknowledged and leveraged in the support and development of digital teaching.
Technology can be used to bring people closer together yet can also come between them and push th... more Technology can be used to bring people closer together yet can also come between them and push them apart. In an age where discourse around our relationship with technology is becoming more widely discussed as problematic, what are the experiences of educators when they use technology for teaching? This chapter discusses influential conceptions of technology and maps them onto digitally mediated teaching. Tensions are identified within the relationships between educator, technology, and learner, and sociomaterial approaches are presented as a means to navigate these areas. Using a research project to demonstrate how sociomaterialism can work in practice, digital teaching was found to be re-distributed over space and time, resulting in consequences, not all of which were intended. This chapter proposes a more interconnected understanding of how people, technology, and learning are enmeshed and makes recommendations for further work that could be done in this area. Teaching Across Time and Space: How University Educators Relate With, and Through, Technology Louise Drumm https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3523-8572 Edinburgh Napier University, UK KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS VLE: Virtual learning environment. Used by institutions and contain webpages, tools and files. Common VLE products include Moodle and Blackboard.
This ongoing doctoral research project is concerned with theoretical understandings of university... more This ongoing doctoral research project is concerned with theoretical understandings of university teaching using digital technologies. Lecturers are adopting a range of tools, both in-house and external, for the purposes of teaching and learning but the rationale and influences behind their choices has been largely underexplored. This research considers how theory could be employed to understand technology use and identifies where there are gaps in our knowledge. The project places an emphasis on how factors such as discipline, institution, policy contexts and personal attitudes contribute to these teaching practices. As technologies develop and become more pervasive in all areas of life, it is important that the expanding use of digital technologies in teaching is underpinned by scholarly appraisal of the educational and socio-cultural theories behind these practices. By addressing this question in a range of disciplines across two national contexts, Ireland and Scotland, this research contributes to knowledge on how best to support and develop academic staff in their use of technology for teaching whilst also counteracting technologically deterministic approaches which assume the presence of digital tools ensures quality teaching and learning. This is a qualitative research project which explores how lecturers report their practices, attitudes and experiences. 25 lecturers from multiple disciplines have participated in semi-structured interviews. Participants have been drawn from two universities: one in Scotland and one in Ireland. Lecturers have been selected on the basis of having some experience using digital technology for teaching purposes in any of the following modes: face to face, blended or distance learning. The research employs rhizome theory (Deleuze & Guattari 1987) as a theoretical lens to examine how lecturers operate in a complex and dynamic environment. This paper will present some initial observations from the data.
Conference Presentations by Louise Drumm
Proceedings of the Fourteenth International Conference on Networked Learning, 2024
This workshop is for those looking for alternative ways of engaging with the debates, problems an... more This workshop is for those looking for alternative ways of engaging with the debates, problems and speculations about generative artificial intelligence (AI) in education. No special knowledge is required, just a willingness to collaborate, create and be curious. Workshop description May 2024 finds us eighteen months on since the release into the wild of unregulated generative AI models and their chatbot front-ends. While Higher Education (HE) has been playing catch-up in terms of policy and regulation (e.g. Russell Group 2023, Conrad 2023, EU 2022), those who work in higher education have been grappling with the consequences for learning, teaching, assessment, and research on the ground. Between the hype from big tech on the one hand, and a sense of despair on the other, alternative, critical and ethical activities have begun to emerge (
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Papers by Louise Drumm
Conference Presentations by Louise Drumm