The CMALT Guidelines state that:

"You should show how you have used (or supported others to use) technology appropriately, given the constraints and benefits it provides within your context. This might include how you selected particular technologies to meet the specific needs of users (students or staff)."

This seemed such a wasted opportunity - I wanted the the VLE sites to be more than just an information repository and assessment tool, and be a useful blended learning tool to support teaching and learning. It was clear that a more effective system was needed.

My priorities for this system were that it should:

• be user-friendly for both students and staff
• allow tutors flexibility to provide tailored materials for their students’ needs
• provide an efficient way to give formative feedback on student work
• support active and collaborative learning, not just be a file dump for course materials
• be already centrally supported by the UoY, in order to provide security, ensure tools are available to students and provide access to technical support

Candidate systems

The systems I considered:

• VLE (required for summative assessment)
• Google Classroom integrated with other Google tools

I selected these candidate systems as they are centrally supported by the UoY, In addition to the points above, this also means there is also no additional costs involved. Both also have very detailed documentation, which was also useful. As I was quite new to LT, I thought that limiting myself to these two systems was enough to start with!

Solution: a hybrid system

After a period of experimentation with Google Classroom and a wider range of VLE features, the final set of modules I created for 2018-19 used a hybrid of the two systems. One of these modules took a fully blended learning approach, where all course materials were presented with this system.

This hybrid came about as the two systems complement each other well in relation to my priorities above:

The VLE was used for more static course materials such as the syllabus, common weekly materials and summative assessment. A Google Classroom site for each class group was used to give tutors flexibility to tailor the course for their group, for collaborative tasks and to monitor and give feedback on formative work. Specific materials and tasks may vary, consistency in layout and function means that tutors and students in different classes have a broadly similar experience. Although the VLE is required for assessment, there was no requirement for tutors to use Google Classroom (although most did), so tutors had freedom to teach in a way that suited their preferences.

Recently, I’ve also begun supplementing this with Google Sites for skills development materials that are useful across modules.

Evidence:

• 1a_VLE module site
• 1a_Google Classroom site

Here are some examples of how I've implemented this hybrid system:

I’ve used various methods to monitor and evaluate the success of this hybrid system.

Student feedback

I’ve used both formal and informal feedback from students to evaluate the system. For example, students in the early modules reported that the Journal feature was really complicated to use, and that they struggled to find their feedback. I looked for an alternative, settling on using a Doc template in Google Classroom assignments. This is easier to use, and tutors can easily monitor work and give feedback with comments. In a student survey in late 2018, 62.5% of students on my module reported that they could very easily access this feedback, so it seems to be a good solution.

Evidence:

• 1a_Survey - finding feedback in Classroom

Staff feedback

I had regular meetings with tutors about their perception of the VLE and the hybrid system, which was useful to monitor the application of the system and drove many of the changes. For example, tutors reported that the VLE Journal tool was very frustrating and time-consuming to use, and that it was hard to give feedback on students’ work. I looked for alternatives that would give a better experience for tutors and students and support formative feedback, and settled on the Google Classroom assignment tool, as described in the ‘Formative work’ example above.

VLE usage rates

VLE usage rates have greatly increased from the early modules. This shows that students are more engaged in the modules, and also that tutors make more use of them in class. For the 2016-7 LS1 module, students spent an average of 1.8 hours on the VLE site over the whole module. This was very heavily skewed by two users though; the median active time was only 0.22 hours. Compare this to the 2018-9 LSS2 module which implemented the hybrid system, where students spent on average 19.58 hours on the VLE site. I was very pleased with this dramatic increase, as it shows that the VLE is much better able to support learning. High usage at the weekends also shows that students are using the VLE in their independent study, which was one of my objective for the system. Weaker students tended to spend a lower time on the site (the chicken or the egg?), so if I was still at the IPC my next step would be to think about how to engage these students more.

Evidence:

• 1a_2016-7 LS1 VLE usage report
• 1a_2018-9 LSS2 VLE usage report

Monitoring going forward

It's important that my successors at the IPC continue to monitor the success of the hybrid system. At the end of the first modules to use this blended learning approach, I would recommend that they gather feedback from students and staff regarding their experiences. As well as seeing what has worked well (or not so well), they should continue to explore new VLE and Google features that become available. They should also focus on how to integrate the two systems further to improve usability (see below).

I feel quite proud when I think about the progress made from my first VLE sites to the blended learning approach that the hybrid VLE-Google Classroom system allows. I think this has provided a much better learning experience for students, which I hope means they are better prepared for their degree studies.

The benefits of this hybrid system in terms of my initial priorities have been:

• User-friendliness: using Google Classroom and other G Suite tools allowed me to replace the fiddly Journal and Test features with more intuitive and easy to use tools.
• Flexibility: combining a VLE site for the whole module and a Google Classroom site for each class allows tutors to tailor content for their own group. Self-paced materials created with VLE Learning Modules or Google Sites also supports individualised learning.
• Formative feedback: the Google Classroom assignment tool has been a much more effective way to monitor formative work and provide feedback. As documents are shared between the student and tutor, this allows the tutor to monitor throughout the process, and is logistically simple. The VLE remains in use for summative assessment and feedback due as it’s not possible to fix a finished document in Google Classroom. Audio feedback is being used more commonly now as an efficient way to give more in-depth and personalised comments. This would be interesting to explore in the future, but I feel in this context it would be stretching the digital comfort zone of both tutors and students.
• Active & collaborative learning: the co-editing nature of Google Docs and Slides has been really useful to create engaging group activities.

This hybrid system offers more functionality and a better learning experience than either of the tools in isolation, but its biggest drawback is that both tools are needed. Many of my students are not as technically competent as I would have expected, and some got rather confused about which tool to use in which situation. I fear that this meant they they found the system hard to navigate the system without the tutor’s guidance, and the additional cognitive load also causes inclusivity issues. Going forward, it would be ideal to find a single tool that encompasses the functionality of the hybrid system.