When Gráinne Conole, who becomes head of Leicester’s Beyond Distance Research Alliance in September, started her academic career in the 1990s there was no such thing as e-learning. Then, as a new lecturer in inorganic chemistry, having studied for a PhD in X-ray crystallography, she had little knowledge even of more long-standing educational theories. “I did not even know what a learning objective was,” she says.
It was through her efforts to find effective ways of conveying her subject to a class of undergraduates that prompted her to switch her attention from chemical formulas to those involved in successful teaching.
She started creating interactive tutorials for students and developing her use of the web. Gradually she became increasingly interested in how to design effective learning tools, and in the emerging technologies that were becoming available to help.
The transition from the traditional, hard science of chemistry to the brand new, more practice-based discipline of e-learning was difficult, she says. But over time she found herself at e-learning’s cutting edge.
First, she was involved in creating an MSc in Education Technology and Society at Bristol University, where she was director of the Institute for Learning and Research Technology. Then she set-up the MSc in Educational Innovation and Practice and was Professor of Educational Innovation in post-compulsory education at Southampton University.
Since 2006 she has been Professor of e-learning at the Open University, researching the use of ICT and e-learning and its impact on organisational change. She has received funding from a range of sources, including the Joint Information Systems Committee, the research councils and the EU. She is just about to finish a book Designing for learning in an open world (due from Spinger in November 2011) which lays out a new learning design methodology aimed at helping teachers to think more effectively about using technology in their teaching.
Taking the job at Leicester seemed a logical step. She knows her predecessor Professor Gilly Salmon well and there is a strong synergy between Gilly and Grainne's research interests. Grainne has been doing research in the field of Open Educational Resources - digitised educational materials offered free online for teachers and students - which dovetails nicely with the work of the Leicester team. Now, she hopes to build further on this, while adding her personal stamp. She is particularly keen to find out what people across the university want from the Alliance, and on building a strong brand for it both within the university and outside.
Use of social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, and of mobile phones in learning, are likely to be important areas for future research, she predicts. Another important area is 'learning analytics', which involves looking at online data to see how students interact with learning technology.
She says it is important for Leicester, which she feels is 'on the up', to look at all these trends at a strategic level, putting forward a vision about where it wants to go.
For her, there are also practical attractions in the Leicester job. Just an hour’s commute from her home in Northamptonshire, it means she will not have to move her two daughters from their school and can continue her hobbies of walking, swimming, sailing and cooking.
It is a similar combination of practicality, intellectual curiosity, and making educators’ lives generally easier that lies at the heart of her work in e-learning.
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