Launch of the LED Website!

LED Website

The front page of the website

The LED Research Group worked hard for many weeks on creating a website that reflects our emerging identity in our first year of working together, and also represents our approach to research into learning technology. Following Reeves & Oh (2017), we have come to pursue theory development/synthesis goals, design/development goals, action/evaluation goals, and descriptive/interpretivist goals. Our rich and multifaceted approach meant that we had to work carefully through the design and development process, so that we could create a user-friendly, unified site.

Our first step was to decide on a platform to create and host the site. As a new but vibrant part of the Ohio State University, we opted for the university’s U.OSU platform, which is available to all students, staff and faculty at the institution, and which offers templates that are coherent with its well-established visual brand. This design choice allowed us to affirm our commitment to the university’s long tradition of research excellence and innovation, and our desire to make a strong contribution to it.

After that, all of the members worked together in building a showcase for the many types of work in which the research group engages, as we designed an intuitive navigation structure, and created textual and visual synopses of our multiple projects. We wanted to showcase not only the research group members, but also the research and development projects that they conduct, and the places where they present and publish their work.

We also chose to keep a LED blog as a way to document the many accomplishments and activities of the group, to share content with the scholarly community in Learning Technologies, and to write about our experiences as a research group that is passionate about deep learning, i.e. learning that focuses on underlying or implicit meaning, that forges connections with prior knowledge and other information, and that foregrounds real-world or authentic applications.


Reeves, T. C., & Oh, E. (2017). The goals and methods of educational technology research over a quarter century (1989–2014). Educational Technology Research and Development, 65(2), 325–339.

LED interactive session at Innovate 2018

The Internet is a powerful democratizing force, allowing people in disempowered positions to discover their voice and power to shape their community. Yet, often within online classrooms, the traditional teacher-student hierarchy is not simply preserved but intensified. Teachers have sole control over course design and content creation, which they present as a finished product for students’ consumption.

Learning & Experience Design research group presented at Innovate 2018. This was a 45 min session on “Shifting the Balance: Engaging Students as Collaborators in Online Course Redesign” that attracted more than 100 participants who engaged in collaborative design activities. 

This session introduced participants to an alternative, presenting a case study where students in an online graduate-level program at a research university participated in redesigning a course they have taken or are going to take. The instructor introduced the case, and then the students shared stories of how they have co-designed, are co-designing, and will co-design the course and the benefits they gained from it. The session concluded with a discussion and Q&A around practical strategies that participants can use to involve their students in redesigning educational content.

Live tweets

 

Live tweets

Karen Bruce Wallace Graduates!

On 6 May 2018, Karen Bruce Wallace graduated with her Master of Learning Technologies, after successfully completing all the requirements for the degree. She is grateful to all of her professors and peers in the MLT program for helping and supporting her through the journey, and particularly to Dr. Ana-Paula Correia for being a wonderful, inspiring advisor.

Ana-Paula Correia receives OSU’s Office of International Affairs Academic Enrichment Grant

Ana-Paula Correia was awarded OSU’s Office of International Affairs Academic Enrichment Grant to collaborate with the University of Minho, Portugal on an entrepreneurial project that bridges the learning of Portuguese culture with the prevalence of heritage tourism.

Paço Vitorino, Ponte de Lima, Portugal.