Showing posts with label academic-related. Show all posts
Showing posts with label academic-related. Show all posts
Wednesday, 30 April 2008
the forgotten generation?
Amidst all of the heat and light about the learners' experiences of technology, and the almost semi-divine regard for the student voice, I wonder whether the voices of academics are being lost. Even worse, are they being ignored?. I'm not sure that I have evidence that this is the case. However, I just get a sense that we are so very focused on the Google generation and its experiences of Web 2.0 world, that we are in danger of forgetting that their education experiences are mediated by teams of academics. What is more, those academic teams are now having to deal with fragmented and diversifying institutions that work beyond any notional Google generation, to engage differentially in a variety of contexts, for example with SMEs, in providing flexible and work-based learning and foundation degrees, through UCPDs and knowledge incubation. Providing our academic teams with access to networks of people and data with whom they can associate, in order to develop their pedagogic practice, is critical.
Wednesday, 6 February 2008
Update on Work Package 2
Update on Work Package 2
Last week, our team met at the Learning Technologies Conference 2008 in London, making use of one of the breaks from a hectic schedule to catch-up on what we’ve done so far and how we envisaged the project to pan out in the future.
The aim of our work package to recap is:
To implement professional development strategies for staff in Human Resources, Information Systems and Services (ISAS), and Library Services, for the integration of institutional and non-institutional virtual spaces.
There were various scenarios in which we could have addresses the aim however we thought that we’d tackle something that was a common problem that would involve all our departments. Therefore we settled upon the task of digitising and repurposing of multimedia training/learning materials whose content was still valid but medium had somehow become, or was becoming obsolete. After digitisation, the multimedia would be converted to various formats that are common presently, but also perhaps valid for any future devices. We all agreed that the technology industry was headed towards mobile devices as being one of the primary way of delivering content to.
So far we have investigated:
• The types of mediums used for training/learning materials in our support departments:
o VHS
o CD-Rom (Flash, Shockwave etc)
o DVD
o Digital Video (mp4 , mov, wmv etc)
• We identified DVD (video/ROM) and CD-ROM share similar characteristics; and VHS and Digital Video share similar characteristics and so the process of conversion of Digital Video and VHS should follow a similar route and be prepared and uploaded on a streaming server. Where as a DVD (video/ROM) and CD-ROM should be uploaded to an ‘application networking’ server such as IRIS.
• For trial purposes a VHS training material was digitised and uploaded to the streaming server, and a CD-ROM on the Library’s Citrix server.
• Digital video was optimised to stream rather than downloaded to the device, as ISAS had seen a substantial growth with streaming video rather then downloaded to a device.
Some of the outputs that we have produced:
• “How-to” manual for staff to convert their old multimedia titles to newer mediums.
• A report in exploring the limitations of copyright policies for converting training/learning multimedia.
Future Work planned:
• Test converted multimedia on a range of devices
• Update “How-to” manual with recommendations for optimal devices
• Write to creators and vendors to negotiate for relaxing of some copyright policies by introducing a new pricing model (Pay per view) for older titles.
• Presentation of “How-to” manual at e-learning symposium
Last week, our team met at the Learning Technologies Conference 2008 in London, making use of one of the breaks from a hectic schedule to catch-up on what we’ve done so far and how we envisaged the project to pan out in the future.
The aim of our work package to recap is:
To implement professional development strategies for staff in Human Resources, Information Systems and Services (ISAS), and Library Services, for the integration of institutional and non-institutional virtual spaces.
There were various scenarios in which we could have addresses the aim however we thought that we’d tackle something that was a common problem that would involve all our departments. Therefore we settled upon the task of digitising and repurposing of multimedia training/learning materials whose content was still valid but medium had somehow become, or was becoming obsolete. After digitisation, the multimedia would be converted to various formats that are common presently, but also perhaps valid for any future devices. We all agreed that the technology industry was headed towards mobile devices as being one of the primary way of delivering content to.
So far we have investigated:
• The types of mediums used for training/learning materials in our support departments:
o VHS
o CD-Rom (Flash, Shockwave etc)
o DVD
o Digital Video (mp4 , mov, wmv etc)
• We identified DVD (video/ROM) and CD-ROM share similar characteristics; and VHS and Digital Video share similar characteristics and so the process of conversion of Digital Video and VHS should follow a similar route and be prepared and uploaded on a streaming server. Where as a DVD (video/ROM) and CD-ROM should be uploaded to an ‘application networking’ server such as IRIS.
• For trial purposes a VHS training material was digitised and uploaded to the streaming server, and a CD-ROM on the Library’s Citrix server.
• Digital video was optimised to stream rather than downloaded to the device, as ISAS had seen a substantial growth with streaming video rather then downloaded to a device.
Some of the outputs that we have produced:
• “How-to” manual for staff to convert their old multimedia titles to newer mediums.
• A report in exploring the limitations of copyright policies for converting training/learning multimedia.
Future Work planned:
• Test converted multimedia on a range of devices
• Update “How-to” manual with recommendations for optimal devices
• Write to creators and vendors to negotiate for relaxing of some copyright policies by introducing a new pricing model (Pay per view) for older titles.
• Presentation of “How-to” manual at e-learning symposium
Thursday, 6 December 2007
Future forces affecting jobs in education
In November I was invited to the Institute for the Future in
Interestingly for me in relation to transliteracy, they say that mobile geocoded technologies mean that learning will get increasingly physical, and this digital-physical fusion will enable the community to truly become the classroom, very much echoing my own belief that the separation of learning from life that happened in the late 19th century can now be remedied via technology.
They anticipate that learning will change massively. Urban communities will be become VUCA focal points (VUCA = Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous) and that in VUCA communities young people will become the mentors for older members in new methods of urban survival such as urban computing, urban agriculture, and new literacies for building cooperative strategies (this last is their work with Rheingold). Public places will become personal spaces, which of course we are already seeing, and educational content will become context-specific, aligning personal learning needs with physical spaces. We can expect new forms of networks supporting the aggregation and remixing of knowledge and they are quite insistent, rightly I think, that brain research will soon be very instrumental in designing learning experiences based on individual needs.
And who will facilitate all of this in the education environment? Where will the e-learning jobs be?
IFTF say that the new approaches derived from these changes will challenge many teachers because they require ‘unlearning’. This process will cause disruption at all levels including trade unions, who will have to decide whether or not to support the diversification of educational roles. They write:
“As education is unbundled into a constellation of functions and roles to meet the needs of the emerging learning economy, the teaching profession will experience a creative breakout. New administrative, classroom and community roles will differentiate educational careers (providing new jobs) such as content experts, learning coaches, network navigators, cognitive specialists, resource managers and community liaisons”.
I’m curious to know how much of this is already recognizable at DMU, and whether the new roles described above are already happening here or in other HE institutions. Everyone reading this is involved in e-learning, a role that didn’t exist 10 years ago, but what kinds of ‘e-learning’ jobs do you expect to see at DMU in 10 years time, or even in 5?
Something to ponder on as you transit through the winter solstice this year.
Season's Greetings!
Thursday, 27 September 2007
Burnout: key messages
What an interesing article about humanity that Steve Mac has posted this morning. In particular the article picksup on theimpact of technologies on DL tutors, but it has resonance for us all in environments that are "always on" and where the expectations of those who cannot look you in the eye and connect with you may be out-of-step with what you can deliver.
The article focuses upon:
1) emotional exhaustion;
2) depersonalization; and
3) personal accomplishment.
It goes on to highlight that institutional managers must:
"1. Consult with online faculty on matters directly impacting their learning environment (i.e., curriculum development);
2. Provide adequate resources to support online instructors (i.e., technology support resources);
3. Provide detailed job descriptions and faculty expectations to reduce role ambiguity;
4. Create and maintain clear lines of communication between online faculty and administrators by providing
performance feedback;
5. Facilitate professional development activities (i.e., mentoring, advanced training using online technology); and
6. Reduce teaching load and number of students per online course."
Given the impact of new technologies and approaches these human issues have a real resonance for staff.
The article focuses upon:
1) emotional exhaustion;
2) depersonalization; and
3) personal accomplishment.
It goes on to highlight that institutional managers must:
"1. Consult with online faculty on matters directly impacting their learning environment (i.e., curriculum development);
2. Provide adequate resources to support online instructors (i.e., technology support resources);
3. Provide detailed job descriptions and faculty expectations to reduce role ambiguity;
4. Create and maintain clear lines of communication between online faculty and administrators by providing
performance feedback;
5. Facilitate professional development activities (i.e., mentoring, advanced training using online technology); and
6. Reduce teaching load and number of students per online course."
Given the impact of new technologies and approaches these human issues have a real resonance for staff.
Burnout
An issue that is of importance, especially if online learning is not given due respect and consideration in any faculty or institution delivery strategy
Exploring burnout among university online instructors: An initial investigation
Exploring burnout among university online instructors: An initial investigation
Tuesday, 25 September 2007
Web 2.0 and me: a sordid tale of attraction and fear.
Now I don’t want to appear like one of those retired colonels sitting in his leather wingback chair snorting with derision into his Daily Telegraph but I am beginning to feel that the brave new world of my students and my own children is just plain incomprehensible. Just like your Grandad wearing jeans and white trainers, I feel that I ought to keep up and know what’s going on but I know I will probably look rather ridiculous in the process. I am never going to be “down with the kids” but I ought to try…hadn’t I?
So, I have been reading quite a lot recently about Web 2.0 and social networking. I am interested in the way that a new generation of users is taking the technology and bending it to their own needs rather than using a pre-packaged product that Bill Gates provides for us. It strikes a chord with me; it is a new high-tech version of do-it-yourself – a reminder of the freedom and anarchy of punk. Yet it also raises interesting pedagogic questions for us as teachers and educationalists: what can our students already do as they sit before us on day one of a new academic year? What are they used to regarding access to technology? What do they expect us to provide and use? Importantly these questions raise challenges for us: How are we to respond to these expectations? Indeed should we respond at all?
Michael Wesch, Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State University is a cultural anthropologist and media ecologist who, according to his website (http://www.ksu.edu/sasw/anthro/wesch.htm), has been “exploring the impacts of new media on human interaction”. He has posted an interesting and thought-provoking video on YouTube called The Machine is Us/ing Us
( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLlGopyXT_g) which illustrates the power of Web 2.0 technologies and the way that it is different from the previous incarnations of the WWW. What is equally interesting is the response that there has been to this posting. It is, according to his webpage, “the most popular video in the blogosphere”. It is true that the postings on Youtube are many and various but there are also an increasing number of video responses – fellow enthusiasts or detractors using the technology as a vehicle for talking creatively about the technology; all very post-modern I am sure.
The British Educational Communications and Technology Agency (BECTA) has produced a range of publications on the way in which technology impinges on education in general and schools in particular. Their 2006 report Emerging Technologies for Learning (http://publications.becta.org.uk/display.cfm?resID=25940&page=1835) uses a series of case studies to illustrate the ways in which Web 2.0 technologies are starting to impinge on the learning environment. In one case study Geoff Stead describes a near future in which advances in the hardware allow students to have wider access to mobile technology and where, as a consequence, there will be a greater pressure on those in education to use this facility in the delivery of provision. In another Leon Cych discusses the growth of social networking, a development which Web 2.0 technologies easily facilitate. This second idea is taken up and discussed at greater length in a 2006 JISC funded report by Paul Anderson, What is Web 2.0? Ideas, technologies and implications for education (http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/techwatch/tsw0701.pdf)
Now I can see that such advances will allow those students who are traditionally hard to reach or for whom physically attending college or university is not always possible or appropriate more easily access to educational provision and their fellow students and that has to be a good thing. But I also worry about two things: for the student there appears to be an opportunity to replace the face-to-face experience with a remote, isolating experience and I am not sure that is always the best way to learn; and for the tutor there appears to be an unspoken pressure to use the new technologies just because they are there rather than because they are appropriate.
For me this new technology should be regarded in the same way that the biro was or even laptops and data projectors – they should be used when they prove to be better than what went before. I fear that we may be caught in the same trap that resulted in the classic disease, Death by PowerPoint: a pressure to use something just because everyone else does. Not to use it seems to imply incompetence whereas poor or inappropriate use publicly shows the very thing we are trying to avoid! So I heartily recommend the three sources mentioned briefly here, they provide a stimulus for an interesting debate. For me though it is the debate that is of primary importance, for out of that will hopefully come a conscious decision to use the technology or not because it is appropriate for the subject matter and the students involved; in other words it will be a decision based on pedagogy – now that does sound old-fashioned, even reactionary!
Nick Allsopp
So, I have been reading quite a lot recently about Web 2.0 and social networking. I am interested in the way that a new generation of users is taking the technology and bending it to their own needs rather than using a pre-packaged product that Bill Gates provides for us. It strikes a chord with me; it is a new high-tech version of do-it-yourself – a reminder of the freedom and anarchy of punk. Yet it also raises interesting pedagogic questions for us as teachers and educationalists: what can our students already do as they sit before us on day one of a new academic year? What are they used to regarding access to technology? What do they expect us to provide and use? Importantly these questions raise challenges for us: How are we to respond to these expectations? Indeed should we respond at all?
Michael Wesch, Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State University is a cultural anthropologist and media ecologist who, according to his website (http://www.ksu.edu/sasw/anthro/wesch.htm), has been “exploring the impacts of new media on human interaction”. He has posted an interesting and thought-provoking video on YouTube called The Machine is Us/ing Us
( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLlGopyXT_g) which illustrates the power of Web 2.0 technologies and the way that it is different from the previous incarnations of the WWW. What is equally interesting is the response that there has been to this posting. It is, according to his webpage, “the most popular video in the blogosphere”. It is true that the postings on Youtube are many and various but there are also an increasing number of video responses – fellow enthusiasts or detractors using the technology as a vehicle for talking creatively about the technology; all very post-modern I am sure.
The British Educational Communications and Technology Agency (BECTA) has produced a range of publications on the way in which technology impinges on education in general and schools in particular. Their 2006 report Emerging Technologies for Learning (http://publications.becta.org.uk/display.cfm?resID=25940&page=1835) uses a series of case studies to illustrate the ways in which Web 2.0 technologies are starting to impinge on the learning environment. In one case study Geoff Stead describes a near future in which advances in the hardware allow students to have wider access to mobile technology and where, as a consequence, there will be a greater pressure on those in education to use this facility in the delivery of provision. In another Leon Cych discusses the growth of social networking, a development which Web 2.0 technologies easily facilitate. This second idea is taken up and discussed at greater length in a 2006 JISC funded report by Paul Anderson, What is Web 2.0? Ideas, technologies and implications for education (http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/techwatch/tsw0701.pdf)
Now I can see that such advances will allow those students who are traditionally hard to reach or for whom physically attending college or university is not always possible or appropriate more easily access to educational provision and their fellow students and that has to be a good thing. But I also worry about two things: for the student there appears to be an opportunity to replace the face-to-face experience with a remote, isolating experience and I am not sure that is always the best way to learn; and for the tutor there appears to be an unspoken pressure to use the new technologies just because they are there rather than because they are appropriate.
For me this new technology should be regarded in the same way that the biro was or even laptops and data projectors – they should be used when they prove to be better than what went before. I fear that we may be caught in the same trap that resulted in the classic disease, Death by PowerPoint: a pressure to use something just because everyone else does. Not to use it seems to imply incompetence whereas poor or inappropriate use publicly shows the very thing we are trying to avoid! So I heartily recommend the three sources mentioned briefly here, they provide a stimulus for an interesting debate. For me though it is the debate that is of primary importance, for out of that will hopefully come a conscious decision to use the technology or not because it is appropriate for the subject matter and the students involved; in other words it will be a decision based on pedagogy – now that does sound old-fashioned, even reactionary!
Nick Allsopp
Friday, 22 June 2007
Library 2.0
I had a chat with Linda Butt in Library Services yesterday about the need for updating and informing academic-related staff about academic, curricula developments. This is tied into our third Pathfinder aim and is one of the most interesting developments for me, because it is about connecting and engaging people.
Anyway, she fowarded me this blog: Stephen's Lighthouse, which includes this video of education in 2020 - http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7281108124087435381 The video is thought-provoking, and a wake-up call for those staff who don't want to engage with technology in the learning context.
She also highlighted this Library 2.0 report. There's some great stuff going on, if we can just capture some of it...
Anyway, she fowarded me this blog: Stephen's Lighthouse, which includes this video of education in 2020 - http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7281108124087435381 The video is thought-provoking, and a wake-up call for those staff who don't want to engage with technology in the learning context.
She also highlighted this Library 2.0 report. There's some great stuff going on, if we can just capture some of it...
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