Commendation For Wintec PhD Thesis

Commendation For Wintec PhD Thesis

Tertiaries need to fully understand the impact on education of computers according to Wintec (Waikato Institute of Technology) researcher John Clayton. The escalation of computers in education, including the creation of virtual web-based learning environments, demands increased investments he says. Clayton says both fiscal and human resources are required by leading tertiary institutions such as Wintec if the networked environments are to positively impact on all aspects of teaching and learning.

Clayton has recently completed all the requirements of the Doctor of Science Education and his thesis The Development and Validation of an Instrument for Assessing Online Learning Environments in Tertiary Education: The Online Learning Environment Survey (OLLES) was passed unconditionally. John's work was of such a high standard it received a commendation from the Chancellor of Curtin University of Technology.

Clayton who manages the Wintec Centre for Emerging Learning and Teaching Technologies, says the challenge for educational institutions now is to address the impact this increased use of information and communication technologies are having on the educational experiences of learners as well as the quality of the learning activities they offer.
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These issues motivated him to investigate the development and deployment of an efficient, affordable and reliable tool to enable educational institutes
to ensure that the learning environments they are creating best meet the learning needs of their students.

Clayton said with the ongoing support of Wintec and encouragement from his colleagues, he undertook postgraduate study at the Science and Mathematics Education Centre at Curtin University of Technology in Australia.

John is delighted that now Wintec tutors and other educational providers have access to a simple tool that will quickly inform them of the efficiency and effectiveness of the tactics and strategies they are employing in the ICT- rich learning environments.

"There is no doubt that by using this tool the quality of the learning experience of the students increases," he says. "Tutors can now create learning experiences to match each student's needs. Most importantly the academic performance of individuals will be improved".

Wintec CEO Mark Flowers commended John on his dedication to improving the "Improving the quality of the learning experiences for every student is what leading tertiary educational providers like Wintec continually strive for and it is pleasing Johns contributions in this area have been appropriately recognised by other academics".

ENDS

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