Profile

 I joined IET in 2001 as a lecturer in educational technology. My first tasks were:

• chairing H804 Implementing Online, Open and Distance Learning - one of the modules in IET's MA in Online and Distance Education;
• leading the development of Introducing Teaching and Learning Online - a staff-development programme to support the university's elearning strategy.

In chairing the 'rolling remake' of H804, I found it very useful to have tutored Applications of IT in Open and Distance Education, one of the other modules (now superseded) in our MAODE. I was also a graduate of the programme itself: I hope it all helps to provide customer-focus.

I think the biog above makes me the only graduate-tutor-chair, but I'm sure my colleagues will correct me if I'm wrong!

Introducing Teaching and Learning Online. One of the interesting things about this staff-development programme was that we had a pretty blank canvas. There were clear goals that we had to achieve, of course, and reports to deliver to university boards. But we had considerable latitude in how we reached those goals. Again, we had a great team - applications developers for our innovative website, and excellent support for face-to-face workshops.

An interesting part of our model was the blend of online and face-to-face discussion and workshop. If it sounds interesting to you, there's a paper detailed on my Publications page. The paper gives the rationale behind our design, and includes data on participation by staff: it's quite interesting how long they spent online.

Before 2001? Apart from my day-job as an OU editor and website project-manager, I was a consultant in open and distance learning during the mid- and late 1990s in Singapore, South Africa and Zimbabwe. I worked on two courses that were being developed in Singapore in collaboration with the OU. And I was an author and editor on Classroom Text and Discourse, a print- and video-based course for Zimbabwean teachers. This was funded by Rotary International, for whom I also carried out a feasibility study in South Africa.

Since 2001? I've continued chairing H804, and working in the area of online conferencing for staff development, plus research into conferencing, mobile devices, and audio conferencing. Until it was wound up in 2005, I was IET's representative on the OU's Interfaculty eLearning Group. I'm now a member of the Faculty of Health and Social Care's Online Learning and Tuition Working Group.

Recent talks

During March 2007 with Robin Mason I am leading eight faculty-focused workshops exploring the strengths, weaknesses and potential of asynchronous and synchronous media for OU courses - with an emphasis on audiographics. The workshops are part of a major series that IET is providing to support the introduction of our VLE.

I have to work quite hard to get participants' attention, as you can see.

THE VLE/MOODLE

This is of course a big topic for the Open University at the moment, with activity on a very broad front. Working with colleagues, I designed and led two workshops for IET and other OU staff in May and July 2006.

Having recorded the presenters at the first workshop, we handed out DVDs to colleagues who were due to attend the second workshop. They could then view the recordings at their convenience beforehand. Evaluation suggests this was acceptable and has considerable potential for future workshops and educational development.

MOBILE DEVICES

My most recent external presentation was about our findings from research into how our MAODE alumni use mobile devices, within the context of Web 2.0 issues. This was at Ascilite in Sydney in December 2006.

Qualifications

I have an MA (of the BA-plus-3-years variety) from Cambridge where I read English Literature, and a BA from the OU. In 1998, I gained an MA in Online and Distance Education from IET.

Teaching

I chaired H804 Implementing Online, Open and Distance Learning between 2001 and 2006. When I took over the chairing we didn't have 'online' in the title. But since then we've:

• developed the course in that direction, and attracted students with a strong interest in online teaching/learning;
• increased the centrality of online conferencing;
• created new online activities;
• sharpened up the assessment criteria;
• almost completely replaced the set book list - the 'mini-library' - with books published in 2000 or later;
• and more.

Who says that distance-teaching courses can't be flexible when you're working with a great team of tutors and support colleagues, and students who - while expecting high standards - are up for a challenge?

I'm a member of the course team for Innovations in eLearning (second presentation February 2007). I've written some of the course material - reflecting my interest in innovation and web-based audio-conferencing.

Research

Current Research Projects

RESEARCHING MOBILE DEVICES

With my IET colleague Agnes Kukulska-Hulme, I'm researching the ways in which our students - that's past and present students on our MA in Online and Distance Education - use mobile devices for:

• teaching - formal and informal;
• learning - ditto;
• social interaction, including hobby- and interest-groups;
• work;
• entertainment - games, quizzes etc.

We are currently writing that up, including data gathered from interviews by our IET colleague Anne Jelfs, and presenting conference papers on it.

Agnes, Will Woods and I made a bid in 2006 to the PBPL Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, for funds to acquire (temporarily) a number of smartphones. With support from IET colleagues, we are exploring/researching how colleagues can use these to support their personal and professional development in IET. We're hoping this will also feed into greater understanding of the potential of mobile devices for OU teaching.

ONLINE TEXT-BASED CONFERENCING

Practice inside and outside the OU is of course continuing to evolve. I'm hoping that my research into the use of conferencing on a course in health and social care might make some contribution to that evolution. I'm gathering data from students, associate lecturers, assignments, and online conferences.

PRACTICE-BASED PROFESSIONAL LEARNING

'Practice, Writing and Assessment' project

With OU colleagues Pam Shakespeare (Faculty of Health and Social Care), Anne Storey and Judith Margolis, I am researching:

ways in which students, in their assignments, draw on evidence from their professional context;
markers’ reactions to, and feedback on, such assignments.
In July we carried out a marking exercise with twelve tutors from the four faculties, and are now analysing the data. The marking exercise and workshop were funded by the PBPL Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning.

Selected Publications

Selected Publications

2009

Kukulska-Hulme, Agnes and Pettit, John (2009) Practitioners as innovators: Emergent practice in personal mobile teaching, learning, work and leisure. Athabasca University Press.

2008

Pettit, John and Kukulska-Hulme, Agnes (2008) Do smart devices make smart learners?.

Kukulska-Hulme, Agnes and Pettit, John (2008) Semi-formal learning communities for professional development in mobile learning.

2007

Kukulska-Hulme, Agnes and Pettit, John (2007) Self-service education: Smartphones as a catalyst for informal collective and individual learning.

Pettit, John (2007) Helping themselves to audiographics: Students lead their own learning.

Pettit, John and Kukulska-Hulme, Agnes (2007) Going with the grain: mobile devices in practice.

2006

Pettit, John and Kukulska-Hulme, Agnes (2006) Going with the grain: mobile devices in practice.

Kukulska-Hulme, Agnes and Pettit, John (2006) Practitioners as innovators: emergent practice in personal mobile teaching, learning, work and leisure.

2005

Pettit, John (2005) Conferencing and workshops: a blend for staff development.

2004

Goodfellow, Robin and Morgan, Michael and Lea, Mary and Pettit, John (2004) Students’ writing in the virtual university: an investigation into the relation between online discussion and writing for assessment. Hampton Press.

2002

Pettit, John and Mason, Robin (2002) Virtual space, real learning: an introduction to VLEs. Kogan Page.

Further publications are available by browsing to http://iet.open.ac.uk/pp/j.g.pettit/publish.cfm.