Professor Matthew Allen
2008 ALTC Teaching Fellow

Associate Professor Allen is Head of Internet Studies, School of Media, Culture and Creative Arts in the Faculty of Humanities at Curtin University of Technology. Associate Professor Allen is also a recipient of a 2000 Australian Award for University Teaching.

Learning in Networks of Knowledge (LINK) - improving student educational outcomes in online learning, using Web 2.0 concepts and a knowledge-networking approach

The Learning in Networks of Knowledge (LINK) Project will develop, trial and assess new methods of learning via the Internet. It assists the re-invigoration of university-level online learning by updating techniques and underlying pedagogic approaches to take account of the changing nature of the Internet in society today.

Education has, largely, failed to take account of the fact that the Internet's capability to host networks of knowledge is the real foundation for its capacity to make learning more effective. To successfully exploit the Internet's capacity for enhanced student learning, the project focuses on the pedagogic challenges of creating a student experience that is centred on knowledge production in a networked environment, with an emphasis on assessing students' learning through ongoing participation, while providing effective cognitive scaffolding within which their learning occurs.

Founded in experience gained over several years with existing online learning approaches, LINK aims to help Australian universities adjust to the new possibilities for Internet education in the late 2000s. LINK involves a sophisticated trialling of new ideas about learning via the Internet, utilising the most recent forms of online knowledge activity. Its primary outcomes will be broadly applicable pedagogic methods, confirmed and corrected on the basis of the trial, and expressed as examples and guidance material for other academics across the university sector.

ASCED Field of Education: 020399 Information Systems, 100799 Communication and Media Studies

Fellowship Discipline: Communications, Internet studies, Media studies, New media

Institutions: Curtin University of Technology

Fellowship completed: Mid 2011

Professor Matthew Allen
2008 ALTC Teaching Fellow

m [dot] allen [at] curtin [dot] edu [dot] au

Curtin University of Technology
Western Australia