The Auricle

by Derek Morrison, 14 January 2010

Tag clouds (or weighted lists) provide a visualisation of a word’s frequency in a document. As well as providing an aesthetic and navigation artefact for web sites they may also provide useful meta information about the relative emphases in the content of a document, e.g. the textual analysis of a political speech. One service which makes the job of creating such visual artefacts really easy is the online Wordle service. Although the Wordle service modestly describes itself as a “toy” it appears to be being employed in some interesting ways by some interesting people. For example, in Wordles, or the gateway drug to textual analysis (ProfHacker, 21 October 2009) and Using Wordle in the classroom (ProfHacker, 13 November 2009) both describe Wordle as a useful pedagogical tool. In the UK, Aberystwyth University which is one of the HEIs taking part in the Academy’s Gwella initiative is also employing Wordle in several contexts, e.g. Welsh and other language teaching.

So for this posting I’ve employed the online service at Wordle to generate a rudimentary visualisation for each chapter of the UK Higher Education Academy’s new book Transforming Higher Education Through Technology Enhanced Learning. You can either click on each thumbnail to view a full-size image or I have aggregated the text, hyperlinks, and all the images into a PDF file available for download at the end of the posting so that readers can then zoom the images for offline display purposes. Hopefully, there won’t be any surprises for the authors about the relative emphases of what they have written. I’ve also provided links to downloads of the full book as well as the individual chapters.

• Complete book (PDF, 2.9 MB)
• Introduction (PDF, 152 KB)



Section 1 National policy in the technology-enhancement of higher education

• Chapter 1 The policy landscape of transformation (Jane Plenderleith and Veronica Adamson) [PDF, 182 KB]



• Chapter 2 Quality assurance, enhancement and e-learning (Harvey Mellar and Magdalena Jara) [PDF, 216 KB]



• Chapter 3 The Benchmarking and Pathfinder Programme and its role in institutional transformation (Derek Morrison) [PDF, 196 KB]



• Chapter 4 All in the mind: programmes of the development of technology-enhanced learning in higher education (Terry Mayes) [PDF, 181 KB]



• Chapter 5 Transformation through technology-enhanced learning in Australian higher education (Shirley Reushle, Jacquie MacDonald and Glen Postle) [PDF, 214 KB]



• Chapter 6 An exploration into key issues in the adoption of good practices in virtual campus and e-learning related initiatives (Mark Stansfield and Thomas Connolly) [PDF, 192 KB]



Section 2 Institutional transformation of learning and teaching through technology

• Chapter 7 Benchmarking e-learning in UK universities: the methodologies (Paul Bacsich) [PDF, 220 KB]



• Chapter 8 Intermediaries and infrastructure as agents: the mediation of e-learning policy and use by institutional culture (Laura Czerniewicz and Cheryl Brown) [PDF, 191KB]



• Chapter 9 Mind the gap: staff empowerment through digital literacy (Susan Westerman and Wayne Barry) [PDF, 207 KB]



• Chapter 10 The Carpe Diem journey: designing for learning transformation (Alejandro Armellini, Gilly Salmon and David Hawkridge) [PDF, 293 KB]



• Chapter 11 The Change Academy and institutional transformation (Irene Anderson and Peter Bullen) [PDF, 182 KB]



• Chapter 12 The role of research in institutional transformation (Harvey Mellar, Martin Oliver and Christina Hadjithoma-Garstka) [PDF, 174 KB]



Section 3 Transformation through technology-enhanced pedagogy

• Chapter 13 The impact of learner experience research on transforming institutional practices (Rhona Sharpe) [PDF, 190 KB]



• Chapter 14 A blueprint for transformational organisational change in higher education: REAP as a case study (David Nicol and Steve Draper) [PDF, 226 KB]



• Chapter 15 Learners in control: the TESEP approach (Andrew Comrie, Keith Smyth and Terry Mayes) [PDF, 208 KB]



• Chapter 16 Scoping the connections between emergent technologies and pedagogies for learner empowerment (Richard Hall and Heather Conboy) [PDF, 264KB]



• Chapter 17 Podcasting for pedagogical purposes: the journey so far and some lessons learned (Jethro Newton and Andrew Middleton) [PDF, 194 KB]



• Chapter 18 Digital storytelling and its pedagogical impact (Phil Gravestock and Martin Jenkins) [PDF, 414 KB]

Corrections and Amplifications

In chapter 3 (page 36) of Transforming Higher Education Through Technology Enhanced Learning the third ordered list item should of course credit the Association for Learning Technology and not the Association of Learning Technology. The digital downloads of the book have been updated to reflect this change.

Download
Book chapter visualisations and hyperlinks [PDF, 1.77 MB]