E-learning

Tutorials

Steve Hextall is a design manager for Miller Construction, responsible for 16 new schools which will be built in the next five years under the Leicester Building Schools for the Future programme. He is also studying a construction management degree by distance learning.

Hextall logs on three or four times a week to the college’s “virtual learning environment” through the internet. Although all the reading matter is stored there, few students use this as they will also receive a paper copy by post. The popular bit is the academic version of the chat room or discussion forum. Students can pose questions to their tutors and fellow students or post work for feedback and comment.

“It’s useful to see other students’ thoughts and what they’ve posted,” says Hextall. “I‘ve also met up with a few people locally through the forum. We’ve also met up to discuss course-related things.”

“Being able to keep in touch with tutors means that distance learning is not quite at the distance it was, students aren’t so isolated any more,” says Graham Hough, the course director for the BSc in Construction Management. He asks tutors to check the messages at least once a week. He himself answers questions every day.

Now in his fourth year, Hextall is working with two other students on an integrated management project which involves the three acting as a site management team to solve real-life scenarios and challenges together.

“It gives you the opportunity to upload a draft of the work you have been doing to date for comment for the team,” he explains.

“It generates discussion and means we can formulate a co-ordinated approach to the responses.”

The College of Estate Management has used software called Blackboard – used by many universities to create the virtual learning environment – for the past four years. Some of its courses are currently trialling assignments and online testing.

One of the next steps for Hough is to try to get more up-to-date images of construction projects from around the world.

g.f.hough@CEM.AC.UK

Contract management

Can you imagine a drier subject to teach than construction contracts? Well, Strathclyde University has devised a novel way to educate people up on the JCT contracts: a web-based contract management simulation game.

The game was developed for post-graduate architectural students who are preparing for their RIBA Part 3 exams. Students, in groups of four or five, are asked a series of 30 questions relating to likely scenarios over the life of a project, over the course of two days. The job is an office building, they have access to the form of contract and they can question the client, contractor and other consultants. The groups compete against each other to see who can get the most questions right.

Dr Andrew Agapiou, a lecturer in the university’s department of architecture who manages the simulation sessions, hopes to further develop the game for construction managers and for civil engineers, using the relevant forms of contract. Andrew.agapiou@strath.ac.uk

Town

More exotic is a project to develop a virtual town within which undergraduates will learn how to run their own businesses. A joint project between Strathclyde’s department of architecture, Glasgow graduate school of law and Glasgow school of social work, students from all three disciplines will interact with each other. For example, an architect may engage a lawyer or work on a project such as a psychiatric unit involving a social worker. Testing will begin later this year.

Andrew.agapiou@strath.ac.uk

Lectures

The University of Salford’s School of the Built Environment (SOBE) has led the university, and other universities, in e-learning. In the mid-1990s it was one of the first in the country to operate the Blackboard virtual learning environment to deliver its MSc in IT Management in Construction online. More recently, SOBE introduced a virtual classroom called Live Classroom, which really does try its best to replicate the experience students would get from a traditional face-to-face lecture. Live Classroom is web-based collaboration software that is ideal for distance learning. Students can see the lecturer making notes or presenting PowerPoint slides via an electronic whiteboard. The students hear the lecturer and can comment themselves using a virtual hand raising system.

SOBE lecturer and e-learning enthusiast David Dowdle has developed several tools to help his full and part-time undergraduate students get to grips with some of the mathematical subject-matter he teaches, such as heat transfer, acoustics and lighting. These include a game along the lines of Who Wants to be a Millionaire with questions related to the study topic, a tool for developing numerous activities such as interactive jigsaws, crosswords and flow charts and a tool that converts static PowerPoint presentations into more dynamic, interactive presentations containing quizzes and with the lecturer’s voice superimposed on the slides to give further guidance.

A very recent Salford development, called Nuggets, allows lecturers to show a short video and then pose questions and activities around it. Dowdle is very keen to formalise these developments and is actively seeking collaborative partners from academia and the construction industry.

d.l.dowdle@salford.ac.uk

What's so good about e-learning?

• 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
• Part-time students save time and money by not travelling to consult with tutors.
• Weaknesses can be targeted.
• Lessons can be stopped and restarted, repeated, fast forwarded or even skipped if the topic is one you are already familiar with.
• Role play scenarios, simulations, multiple choice questionnaires and interactive quizzes can be designed to provide constructive feedback to learners to help reinforce their learning.
• Studies can be organised to suit your lifestyle.
• Where time is precious activities can be short to cover just one topic. If you have more time longer activities up to 60 minutes can be developed.
• Learners can revisit activities weeks and even months later to check something before sitting an exam or before a new project at work. This “just in time” factor is very important to learners.

About this site

Way back when, studying for a degree involved lectures, note taking, the occasional reference to some old text books and the opportunity to demonstrate your total ignorance during group tutorials. Those wishing to skive the odd session or two had to befriend the class swot to get hold of a decent set of notes to copy.

But times have changed. Student grants are a thing of the past and universities have to accommodate students who miss the occasional session because they’re at work.

Which is where the internet comes in. Now you can get lecture notes online, quiz your tutor via chat-rooms and learn through interactive games and quizzes. No doubt about it, e-learning is transforming the way that students study.

For the construction industry, with its long and proud history of part-time study in many shapes and sizes, the potential benefits are huge. In fact, e-learning is ideal for more mature students, because for people to get the most out of this way of studying, they must have self-motivation.

Read on for a flavour of how e-learning in construction education is developing.