Just had this in from Paul M @ UCLAN:
"The year is 1995 and a new concept in teaching has arrived called the ‘classroom’
What are the benefits of ‘a classroom’
You can talk to many people at once…
…in real time!
The ‘class’ can ask you questions – there and then!
You can write your thoughts on something called a ‘chalkboard’ so learners can read it ‘asynchronously’.
“SO WHAT?” the teachers said.
“We’ve been using PCs to do this kind of thing for hundreds of years!”
More research is needed.
The year is now 2000 and more research was indeed done. Some teachers love classrooms. Some students love being in classrooms with teachers who love being in those classrooms with them. Some teachers take to classrooms naturally, but many don’t.
The people holding the purse strings worry a bit about not every one taking to classrooms.
“Yes but if we get really BIG classrooms we can achieve ECONOMY OF SCALE!!!” the enthusiasts said.
More research is needed.
The year is now 2005 and more research was indeed done
We still can’t get everyone to use ‘classrooms’ (or ‘crooms’ as they have become known). As fast as we can research how to best use crooms they keep coming up with new features (such as OHPs and flipcharts). All these new features are collectively known as crooms 2.0.
More research is needed.
The year is now 2008 and if you’ve read this far then I have to ask - shouldn’t you really be working? However if you’re looking for a point to this post it may be this…
Like many Learning Technology people I nearly always start conference presentations with the qualification “of course I have been involved in the web since 1994”. I think almost 15 years of involvement has given us distance to reflect on the trends. And the trend is that there will always be trends – and there will always be new and great things just on the horizon. It’s the point at which you commit that’s the tricky bit and I think this is what you are getting at in para 6.
Now I’m no academic but I know enough to know that universities are entering a fiercely competitive era (yes, even more so than now) where student choice means much more due to increasing fees. Learning technology is about choice. The choice to decide what blend is best for you and your students (diff’rent strokes for diff’rent folks!). At an institutional level this is reason enough to support.
I can’t think of any industry (I’m sorry but if we are charging that makes us an ‘industry’) where faced with these conditions the said industry hasn’t consolidated. At a national level this is reason enough to support (a quick look at the nature of national funding bears this out). Your dad has every right to ask “where’s the money?” (maybe Tom Cruise could play him in the film) and the answers you suggest in your final para are fine. One of the problems I see is in maintaining those ‘links’ between national and institutional initiative whilst working in an increasingly competitive environment."
Showing posts with label project management. Show all posts
Showing posts with label project management. Show all posts
Friday, 15 February 2008
Thursday, 14 February 2008
York: a triptych of reflections
I spent Tuesday and Wednesday in the company of Jon, in York, at the Pathfinder programme meeting. There are a triptych of observations that I'd like to make about finding a breathing space, Web 2.0 and external funding/sustainability.
1. In our presentation, on developments at DMU to-date, I tried to emphasise: the relationships between our project and our new e-Learning strategy, to stress the value of Web 2.0 tools in team working, and in making work more fun. However, perhaps more importantly, I wanted to pick up on our critical friend's view [Terry Mayes] that perhaps project had given us some breathing space, to think about support, sustainability and lessons learned for e-Learning within our institution. Perhaps it has enabled us to look at the maturity of e-Learning, and staff support for e-Learning, and professional development e-Learning, and our institutional systems for e-Learning, and to see what will stick in the medium term. In one year's time, I hope that the cultural changes we have begun to embed, which involve integrating tools like podcasting, social networking and wikis into the curriculum, and developing approaches like team working between academic and academic-related staff to enhance the curriculum, and building strategic developments like a consistent approach to staff reward and recognition, will enable us to meet the challenges laid out in our institutional strategic plan. After all, e-Learning is a grea vehicle to enhance student learning, and deliver institutional benefits.
2. My second observation is about the programme evaluator's comment on the second day, that at programme start-up more projects intended to focus upon Web 2.0, but in reality, they thought there was a view that "Web 2.0? Yeah, we know what that is, and we'll take it when we are ready for it." This raised a couple of eyebrows on our table, and from a couple of buddies in the hall. Equally, it made me think about how such a simple, throwaway comment can impact on individuals, especially those managing projects focused upon Web 2.0. There is a possibility, of course, that I would find it a particularly demoralising point to make so demonstrably within the setting of a programme-level meeting. If we do indeed know what that is, then I really have to ask questions about our funding. Now as it happens, if you were to ask our academic staff, and their managers, our web strategy group, and our students about the use of Web 2.0 in the curriculum, they would have a different response. That response would talk about the need to understand the interface between institutional and non-institutional tools; that response would talk about addressing issues to do with data protection and privacy; that response would talk about issues to do with course design and staff development; and that response would talk about ownership and democracy within an educational context. That response would certainly not say "Web 2.0? Yeah, we know what that is, and we'll take it when we are ready for it." But what do I know?
3. I had an epiphany on the second afternoon, when one delegate trotted out the banal, reductionist view that quality assurance stifles innovation. I simply cannot believe that we are still having the same anodyne, anecdotal issues being raised that I faced as a TLTP project manager, back in the 1990s and early noughties. At that time I worked in a consortium of 12 institutions, and since I have worked with staff in another six. I also work in a department of academic quality, and all of our systems (periodic review, validation and programme-enhancement) recognize and support innovation and risk-taking that enhances or makes more effective the student experience.
This triggered a related observation, around external, project-based funding. Throughout the two days many individuals made claims about the level to which they could continue to innovate and move e-Learning forward without ring-fenced, designated project funding. There was also a critical friend session on value for money, and whilst I didn't attend, it gives the impression of maintaining a discourse around the cost effectiveness of e-Learning, linked to project funding.
However, the programme evaluators twice mentioned benefits realisation, without ever explaining what they meant. This is critical. In my understanding, as an accredited programme manager, benefits realisation maps project outcomes to institutional change through a programme, in order to deliver business benefits, which are in effect a step change in capacity and capability. So, for instance, we might have a programme, which is geared towards embedding e-Learning to deliver a more flexible, work-based curriculum. This might have projects on professional development, building a cohort of e-Learning champions, administrative process reconfiguration, overhauling technological infrastructure, Estates development, and marketing to non-traditional audiences. As each of these individual projects produce outcomes, they lever changes to business practices. So, for instance, once the professional development strand has delivered new development approaches, and the champions strand has delivered a commitment to rewarding e-learning leaders, those outcomes will hopefully forge a step-change in staffing capability and capacity. So, articulated benefits are realised over the life course of a programme, as project outcomes are delivered.
Now I find this particularly interesting for two reasons. Firstly, is Pathfinder a "programme"that is actually going to deliver business benefits across the sector? Is it a research-project, a change-management programme or both? Shouldn't it be about change-management? Given that we have 28 different institutions doing 28 different projects with some synergies between them, I doubt that it will deliver a step-change in sector-wide capability. But that does not mean that we shouldn't try. Maybe, the special interest groups are a means to this end, but I wonder whether they are able to lever institutional change, or sector-wide change. Secondly, we still seem to be hung up on project funding, rather than the benefits that our paymasters need to see, and which, more importantly will benefit our students.
Is this desperate need to see more project funding disenfranchising? It certainly gives us the excuse not to go back to our institutional managers and say we now have to embed these approaches or tools, or address these staffing issues, in order to deliver certain business benefits. My own take on this is that the perpetual round of external project funding may have run its course, and that as an association of e-Learning leaders we need to look at our institutional strategic plans and our institution's e-Learning maturity and argue our case locally, or in clusters. We have had funding from HEFCE, via JISC, HEA, TLTP, FDTL, ILTHE etc. for years. Isn't it time that we stopped looking at this 1990s model, that says "we need more money, we need more time", and recognize all of the work that we have done, and all of the developments that we have made, and our own personal, professional development, and find our own way in this world?
A recognition of business benefits, and working with those as a starting point, would enable us to join project (where it exists) and institutional funding to engage that step-change in capability. My dad, aged 67, who has worked on countless factory floors and who still works as a car-parking attendant would certainly want to know what 10 to 15 years of project funding, some of it supported by his tax-pound, has actually delivered. I think it has helped us to mature as e-Learning providers, and in working with staff to make learning more effective. I want to be able to tell him that I've used DMU's Pathfinder Project funding to engage with institutional strategic plans, and institutional strategic management, to make a case to the institution in moving forward, supported by our e-learning teams and developments. Involvement in this project and working with the wider community has shown me the value of the work that I and other professionals at DMU have been undertaking. I feel more empowered to engage with our staff and our students to make the internal case for continuation and sustainability, and to link that to project funding, as appropriate, rather than seeing that project funding as the central mechanism for change. Enfranchisement and self-awareness are important things - maybe it's time to fledge.
1. In our presentation, on developments at DMU to-date, I tried to emphasise: the relationships between our project and our new e-Learning strategy, to stress the value of Web 2.0 tools in team working, and in making work more fun. However, perhaps more importantly, I wanted to pick up on our critical friend's view [Terry Mayes] that perhaps project had given us some breathing space, to think about support, sustainability and lessons learned for e-Learning within our institution. Perhaps it has enabled us to look at the maturity of e-Learning, and staff support for e-Learning, and professional development e-Learning, and our institutional systems for e-Learning, and to see what will stick in the medium term. In one year's time, I hope that the cultural changes we have begun to embed, which involve integrating tools like podcasting, social networking and wikis into the curriculum, and developing approaches like team working between academic and academic-related staff to enhance the curriculum, and building strategic developments like a consistent approach to staff reward and recognition, will enable us to meet the challenges laid out in our institutional strategic plan. After all, e-Learning is a grea vehicle to enhance student learning, and deliver institutional benefits.
2. My second observation is about the programme evaluator's comment on the second day, that at programme start-up more projects intended to focus upon Web 2.0, but in reality, they thought there was a view that "Web 2.0? Yeah, we know what that is, and we'll take it when we are ready for it." This raised a couple of eyebrows on our table, and from a couple of buddies in the hall. Equally, it made me think about how such a simple, throwaway comment can impact on individuals, especially those managing projects focused upon Web 2.0. There is a possibility, of course, that I would find it a particularly demoralising point to make so demonstrably within the setting of a programme-level meeting. If we do indeed know what that is, then I really have to ask questions about our funding. Now as it happens, if you were to ask our academic staff, and their managers, our web strategy group, and our students about the use of Web 2.0 in the curriculum, they would have a different response. That response would talk about the need to understand the interface between institutional and non-institutional tools; that response would talk about addressing issues to do with data protection and privacy; that response would talk about issues to do with course design and staff development; and that response would talk about ownership and democracy within an educational context. That response would certainly not say "Web 2.0? Yeah, we know what that is, and we'll take it when we are ready for it." But what do I know?
3. I had an epiphany on the second afternoon, when one delegate trotted out the banal, reductionist view that quality assurance stifles innovation. I simply cannot believe that we are still having the same anodyne, anecdotal issues being raised that I faced as a TLTP project manager, back in the 1990s and early noughties. At that time I worked in a consortium of 12 institutions, and since I have worked with staff in another six. I also work in a department of academic quality, and all of our systems (periodic review, validation and programme-enhancement) recognize and support innovation and risk-taking that enhances or makes more effective the student experience.
This triggered a related observation, around external, project-based funding. Throughout the two days many individuals made claims about the level to which they could continue to innovate and move e-Learning forward without ring-fenced, designated project funding. There was also a critical friend session on value for money, and whilst I didn't attend, it gives the impression of maintaining a discourse around the cost effectiveness of e-Learning, linked to project funding.
However, the programme evaluators twice mentioned benefits realisation, without ever explaining what they meant. This is critical. In my understanding, as an accredited programme manager, benefits realisation maps project outcomes to institutional change through a programme, in order to deliver business benefits, which are in effect a step change in capacity and capability. So, for instance, we might have a programme, which is geared towards embedding e-Learning to deliver a more flexible, work-based curriculum. This might have projects on professional development, building a cohort of e-Learning champions, administrative process reconfiguration, overhauling technological infrastructure, Estates development, and marketing to non-traditional audiences. As each of these individual projects produce outcomes, they lever changes to business practices. So, for instance, once the professional development strand has delivered new development approaches, and the champions strand has delivered a commitment to rewarding e-learning leaders, those outcomes will hopefully forge a step-change in staffing capability and capacity. So, articulated benefits are realised over the life course of a programme, as project outcomes are delivered.
Now I find this particularly interesting for two reasons. Firstly, is Pathfinder a "programme"that is actually going to deliver business benefits across the sector? Is it a research-project, a change-management programme or both? Shouldn't it be about change-management? Given that we have 28 different institutions doing 28 different projects with some synergies between them, I doubt that it will deliver a step-change in sector-wide capability. But that does not mean that we shouldn't try. Maybe, the special interest groups are a means to this end, but I wonder whether they are able to lever institutional change, or sector-wide change. Secondly, we still seem to be hung up on project funding, rather than the benefits that our paymasters need to see, and which, more importantly will benefit our students.
Is this desperate need to see more project funding disenfranchising? It certainly gives us the excuse not to go back to our institutional managers and say we now have to embed these approaches or tools, or address these staffing issues, in order to deliver certain business benefits. My own take on this is that the perpetual round of external project funding may have run its course, and that as an association of e-Learning leaders we need to look at our institutional strategic plans and our institution's e-Learning maturity and argue our case locally, or in clusters. We have had funding from HEFCE, via JISC, HEA, TLTP, FDTL, ILTHE etc. for years. Isn't it time that we stopped looking at this 1990s model, that says "we need more money, we need more time", and recognize all of the work that we have done, and all of the developments that we have made, and our own personal, professional development, and find our own way in this world?
A recognition of business benefits, and working with those as a starting point, would enable us to join project (where it exists) and institutional funding to engage that step-change in capability. My dad, aged 67, who has worked on countless factory floors and who still works as a car-parking attendant would certainly want to know what 10 to 15 years of project funding, some of it supported by his tax-pound, has actually delivered. I think it has helped us to mature as e-Learning providers, and in working with staff to make learning more effective. I want to be able to tell him that I've used DMU's Pathfinder Project funding to engage with institutional strategic plans, and institutional strategic management, to make a case to the institution in moving forward, supported by our e-learning teams and developments. Involvement in this project and working with the wider community has shown me the value of the work that I and other professionals at DMU have been undertaking. I feel more empowered to engage with our staff and our students to make the internal case for continuation and sustainability, and to link that to project funding, as appropriate, rather than seeing that project funding as the central mechanism for change. Enfranchisement and self-awareness are important things - maybe it's time to fledge.
Thursday, 27 September 2007
Project meeting: 25 September 2007
So we met yesterday to let the teams catch-up on each others' work-packages. The progress reports have now all been posted on our Blackboard-based Wiki. Team members who weren't there should read the reports. We are also using the Wiki for conference reports and to flag relevant project outcomes and issues.
Work-package headlines from yesterday are as follows:
1. WP1: There are issues of maintaining momentum with PG Cert HE staff who are planning to teach and actually teaching. The assessment for the PG Cert students has been revamped to include e-learning. The June group are editing action plans and we need now to offer them follow-up sessions. [Action: HC and RH]
2. WP1/WP6: Steve Mackenzie is delivering some synchronous development sessions on pedagogical and technological issues with members of the PG Cert HE and Faculty of HLS. We will evaluate this approach to test its sustainability. Library front-desk staff may also benefit from this approach, as their shift-work impacts upon access to professional development. [Action: SM and AB]
3. WP3: There are issues of maintaining momentum with Library staff who are thinking about using Web 2.0 approaches in their work. We intend to offer developmental sessions, linked to staff development reviews. [Action: AB] We also intend to review the ISAS approach to using Wikis as knowledge bases [Action: RH] The team also intend to review the non-technical issues around the conversion of extant support and training materials for a Web 2.0 age. [Action: JT, MYK and AB]
4. WP4: the iTunes issue for catching and feeding Blackboard-hosted podcasts t users has been resolved, so that the podcast tool now works with iTunes. A key issue is the apparent reticence of users to be recorded for the production of webcasts. We have feedback to suggest that some users do not like hearing or seeing themselves on-line, or committing to this type of “publication”. This is a potential issue that will require intervention with specific teaching teams in order to build effective local, coping strategies.
5. WP5: case studies will be produced for AAD, BAL, Hums and Library in the use of tools to support first-years in student-student communication. [Action: HC to talk to Jo Leese in DSU re: student reps' experiences of tools like Facebook]
6. WP6: Our Second Life Island has been purchased and activated, and staff who registered an interest have been invited in. Twelve staff are registered so far, and a user group has been formed. A building party is being held on 15 October. Subsequent staff development events will be planned and delivered by the user-group. A meeting was held with Howard Rheingold in the IOCT in September to discuss ways forward with SL. We intend to use his videos to prime some of our developments. Steve Mackenzie is delivering some synchronous development sessions. We will evaluate this approach to test its sustainability. The DMU e-Learning Pathfinder team have a Facebook group. There is no protocol for its use, but its development will be mapped as a project management and dissemination tool.
7. WP7: RH has been in contact with NIACE about the publication of the project’s findings. [Action: RH to meet with JC re: conference]
See also: http://www.pageflakes.com/dmupathfinder
Matters arising:
Work-package headlines from yesterday are as follows:
1. WP1: There are issues of maintaining momentum with PG Cert HE staff who are planning to teach and actually teaching. The assessment for the PG Cert students has been revamped to include e-learning. The June group are editing action plans and we need now to offer them follow-up sessions. [Action: HC and RH]
2. WP1/WP6: Steve Mackenzie is delivering some synchronous development sessions on pedagogical and technological issues with members of the PG Cert HE and Faculty of HLS. We will evaluate this approach to test its sustainability. Library front-desk staff may also benefit from this approach, as their shift-work impacts upon access to professional development. [Action: SM and AB]
3. WP3: There are issues of maintaining momentum with Library staff who are thinking about using Web 2.0 approaches in their work. We intend to offer developmental sessions, linked to staff development reviews. [Action: AB] We also intend to review the ISAS approach to using Wikis as knowledge bases [Action: RH] The team also intend to review the non-technical issues around the conversion of extant support and training materials for a Web 2.0 age. [Action: JT, MYK and AB]
4. WP4: the iTunes issue for catching and feeding Blackboard-hosted podcasts t users has been resolved, so that the podcast tool now works with iTunes. A key issue is the apparent reticence of users to be recorded for the production of webcasts. We have feedback to suggest that some users do not like hearing or seeing themselves on-line, or committing to this type of “publication”. This is a potential issue that will require intervention with specific teaching teams in order to build effective local, coping strategies.
5. WP5: case studies will be produced for AAD, BAL, Hums and Library in the use of tools to support first-years in student-student communication. [Action: HC to talk to Jo Leese in DSU re: student reps' experiences of tools like Facebook]
6. WP6: Our Second Life Island has been purchased and activated, and staff who registered an interest have been invited in. Twelve staff are registered so far, and a user group has been formed. A building party is being held on 15 October. Subsequent staff development events will be planned and delivered by the user-group. A meeting was held with Howard Rheingold in the IOCT in September to discuss ways forward with SL. We intend to use his videos to prime some of our developments. Steve Mackenzie is delivering some synchronous development sessions. We will evaluate this approach to test its sustainability. The DMU e-Learning Pathfinder team have a Facebook group. There is no protocol for its use, but its development will be mapped as a project management and dissemination tool.
7. WP7: RH has been in contact with NIACE about the publication of the project’s findings. [Action: RH to meet with JC re: conference]
See also: http://www.pageflakes.com/dmupathfinder
Matters arising:
- headsets and webcams for all team members;
- monies to be re-charged this week with covering letters to budget holders; and
- access to iTunes for all team members.
Friday, 31 August 2007
Tagging stuff
We have created a dmupathfinder del.icio.us account to enable us to bookmark relevant resources. It is viewable at: http://del.icio.us/dmupathfinder. We're tagging away in order to understand what vocabularies and ways of tagging emerge. At the end of the project we'll try to capture the themes, developments, redundancies and affordances of this approach.
- DMU Pathfinder-related blogs
- 5 blogs we think we should all keep in touch with regularly
- DMU Pathfinder del.icio.us bookmarks
- DMU Pathfinder del.icio.us tag cloud, which you can search for relevant/related sites
- Relevant reports
Tagging stuff
We have created a dmupathfinder del.icio.us account to enable us to bookmark relevant resources. It is viewable at: http://del.icio.us/dmupathfinder. We're tagging away in order to understand what vocabularies and ways of tagging emerge. Attheend of the project we'll try to capture the themes, developments, redundancies and affordances of this approach.
- DMU Pathfinder-related blogs
- 5 blogs we think we should all keep in touch with regularly
- DMU Pathfinder del.icio.us bookmarks
- DMU Pathfinder del.icio.us tag cloud, which you can search for relevant/related sites
- Relevant reports
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