So I really enjoyed the SOLSTICE conference today and my preso on institutional collaboration went really well. I really liked thinking about institutional spaces and whether we are trying to force new, web-based tools into old spaces and pedagogic approaches, without changing our curriculum design and delivery. e.g. Wondering why a blog or social network does not work when it is disconnected from the learning and assessment processes, so that we maintain a traditional studio or lecture plus essay/project approach, rather than a social networking/problem-based and patchwork assessment approach.
We are moving towards a position where e-learning professionals are confident enough to push progressive pedagogies - we need to accept that students are learning and developing literacies and self-efficacy and agency in new environments and networks. Moreover, there is a risk that the spaces and tasks that we use to develop academic literacies are disconnected from our students social spaces and networks and literacies. In delivering these types of connections we need to rethink pedagogic paradigms to focus meaningfully upon participation and user-centred pedagogies, in order to connect problems to actions and tools, and to connect networks or collaborative efficacies and concepts to individual outcomes and attainment.
The other points that struck me were the role of structured play in learning and teaching - how to make the use of technologies and the interactions they promote as "fun" [as noted in our e-learning strategy]. There is something to be said here for the themes and principles promoted by the EYFS and how they impact on our understanding of technology-enhanced learning. More will follow on that.
Finally, my good friend LP argued that my preso, which argued for the spreading of a social networking approach and culture across an HEI involving broad academic and academic-related teams working, sharing and collaborating through Web 2.0 tools, demonstrated that we were preparing an exit strategy from the institutional VLE. I argued that we were working on upskilling staff and especially programme teams to collaborate to make better decisions about the tools that they use in the curriculum. These may be Blackboard-based or Web 2.0 tools. This means that we have an institutional maturity, based upon acceptance, experience of and engagement with e-learning tools, that allows us to migrate technologies if we have to. Moreover, those staff are better able to make informed, devolved, empowered decisions now because of the spread of tools and people to advise on their use.
A move towards participation and local engagement means that I might become redundant!!
Showing posts with label sustainability. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sustainability. Show all posts
Thursday, 5 June 2008
Friday, 15 February 2008
External funding and sustainability: another view
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."
"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."
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.
Wednesday, 5 September 2007
ALT Conference Nottingham
Hi all,
I'm currently writing live with a wireless Internet connection from a symposium at the ALT-C 2007 in Nottingham.
Here are some quotes from the debate that is currently taking place before me "Just where are institutions going with e-learning?" that some people reading this blog may find interesting:
Re Pathfinder Projects
"Getting funding from bodies enables room for risks..."
Where as central funded projects may not allow such opportunities.
"However many-a-time with these 'time-constrained' funding, lots of innovation is produced, however no long term sustainability strategies are not in place to embed it in the institution"
So year 2 and 3 must be thought of in the first few months for projects to succeed.
"We've now seen lots of repositories, VLEs, Wikis, and blogs, what we need now is leadership in course design and programme design, so not tell people how to do things but provide frameworks and models in course design and programme design".
Will try and post more from the conference if I get an oppurtunity (and Internet connection).
Mohamed
I'm currently writing live with a wireless Internet connection from a symposium at the ALT-C 2007 in Nottingham.
Here are some quotes from the debate that is currently taking place before me "Just where are institutions going with e-learning?" that some people reading this blog may find interesting:
Re Pathfinder Projects
"Getting funding from bodies enables room for risks..."
Where as central funded projects may not allow such opportunities.
"However many-a-time with these 'time-constrained' funding, lots of innovation is produced, however no long term sustainability strategies are not in place to embed it in the institution"
So year 2 and 3 must be thought of in the first few months for projects to succeed.
"We've now seen lots of repositories, VLEs, Wikis, and blogs, what we need now is leadership in course design and programme design, so not tell people how to do things but provide frameworks and models in course design and programme design".
Will try and post more from the conference if I get an oppurtunity (and Internet connection).
Mohamed
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