Engaging staff in technology enhanced learning: Workshop write-up
This is the write-up of a workshop I ran for the HEA’s Gwella programme in November 2009. The programme is a change programme supporting e-learning units to embed technology enhanced learning (TEL) at their institutions. As with all workshops I run, I got the delegates to do most of the work, so a big thank you to them.
There is a predilection for educational and staff developers to take a positivist approach to this kind of workshop, which for delegates can often seem at odds with, what may seem to some people, a deterministic institutional culture resistant to change. After having spent some time on the previous evening and earlier in the day with the delegates it was apparent that there was a huge amount of experience in the room, both in e-learning and wider institutional change processes. To try and explore discussions we don’t normally have I decided that a novel (for me) approach would be to identify those things that are less successful, starting with:
What’s not working?
Immediately eliciting a few comedic responses, or at least in part comedic:
“Making them bring their own sandwiches” Lunchtime sessions are a staple for staff developers, a poor lunch for people who are giving up their lunch hour will normally be met with negative feedback, which may seep into the rest of the session.
“Too much PowerPoint” we’ve all been there, we all know what that means, and yet, it is so easy for us to fall into the habit.
In groups we then started to pick-up some of the more serious issues
“Talking about technology they haven’t got” this had a lot of resonance with the audience, some people expressing annoyance at the ‘Macarati’ who always seem to be sitting and looking smug at learning technology conferences with their powerbooks etc. This is easy to translate institutionally, when many staff we work with in institutions have low powered or out of date laptops. It also manifests when developers start talking about packages they don’t have, such as “well if we had moodle here we’d be able to….” or “if we were allowed to use Skype here…”
“Technology demonstrations where the technology fails” or “telling them that this technology is cutting edge”
Giving the wrong expectations, such as “doing a session where the title doesn’t reflect the session” or “using a clever title that obscures the meaning”
One of the problems that some sessions suffer from is “a lack of authenticity”, where learning technology is being discussed in the abstract, or the session convener is not using the technology themselves, it may also be that the delegates need a strong discipline focus, after all each of the disciplines [feel they] have unique needs. This latter issue can sometimes be overcome by co-presenting with someone from the discipline. Similar issues include “learning from the session not needing to be applied until a much later date” and “session is not pragmatic enough”.
What we say and what they hear
Following the ‘not positivist’ approach, we had a discussion around how we interact (as technology evangelists) with senior managers, we put some examples up of what we say, and what the SMT [might] hear.
Technologist: “We need to move to a more learner centric, open source VLE”
SMT: “They want and excuse to get rid of xxx and spend all their time playing with code”
Technologist: “We should be investing in mobile learning and augmented reality”
SMT: “They want an excuse to buy an iPhone”
Technologist: “We should be podcasting all our lectures”
SMT: “Maybe I can cut staff”
Though these are partly tongue in cheek, they serve to illustrate the point that if we want change in TEL to happen in institutions it needs to align not only with the needs of staff who are teaching, but also with the strategic needs of the Senior Managers.
Confessions of a Staff and Educational Developer
We picked up some of the things that we know don’t work in workshops at the outset of the session, but as developers we also have to work in many other ways, having many tools at our disposal for making learning and teaching interventions. Here we “fessed up” to our ‘worst’ intervention.
I started the confession session by owning up to giving some staff the ‘tools’ to assess the accessibility of their materials in one northern institution – this, firstly, led to a fixed approach to accessibility, closely followed by the ‘ratting out’ of co-workers who didn’t have accessible materials.
Other confessions included:
“Developing a 40 page L&T strategy that nobody read” – could have had a one page summary.
“Running a session called ‘Pedagogical Modelling’” not ideal for staff who just want to use technology in their teaching, no one turned up.
“Showing someone how to put a quick link into the VLE for a resource, ended up by having 75 resources for one module”
“Running a session based on a technology that we didn’t have, nor were we going to get it”
What does work?
It would have been cruel and unusual to have left a session based only on the negative aspects of what we do (although some delegates thought they might try that in their host institutions), so after reflecting on the fact that we had looked at issues around our weaknesses and some of the threats to what we do and we finished by focusing on our strengths and the opportunities that afforded. We also recognised that the answers to supporting change lay within the room. So, what does work?
These were some of the suggestions from delegates:
“Focus on the issues that people want addressing, not technology”
“Understand the pedagogical goal”
“Demonstrate that interventions on the PGCert influence student feedback”
“Work with the Senior Management Team – see them as allies”
“Accept that academics are tribal, work in the context of their discipline”
“When you can work one to one, and when you can’t, relate what you’ve learned working one to one”
“Make the process a dialogue”
Rethinking Dissemination in Educational Technology Projects
What is the purpose of dissemination? For most of the projects that I have been involved with dissemination is about telling people about the project. But this idea of dissemination can be traced back to when the web was a unidirectional medium; most conferences in this field have been around, at least, since the birth of the internet. For most of the 90’s and the early part of this century to disseminate a project the most effective way was to go to a conference and hope that more than 4 people turned up to your presentation or workshop (I have been to several where that was the case, and in one particular case there were only the 5 presenters giving 3 papers in total and myself as the session chair).
In many of the bids that I’ve read there is an almost Pavlovian response to the question ‘how will you disseminate your project?’ Most bidders give you a list of conferences that they will present at (and assume that they will have their paper accepted – and of course some conferences will take as many papers as they can because they need delegates).
But how does this activity help? The best that can be hoped for is that someone asks you a question, and tells you that they may try your idea in their institution. And most of the time that is only way you’ll know if the project is having any kind of impact.
But what if… Instead of taking the team to XXX conference, which if there are 4 people could cost upwards of £3,000, you used that money to run 4 seminars/workshops in different institutions where you knew that people wanted to try your project? This approach is something that I trialled with my Users and Innovation Programme, and am trying with the Institutional Innovation. Instead of making dissemination a passive or serendipitous activity we are asking that the project identify partners and work closely with them to help them test their assumptions and trial the project.
Of course this relies on having people know about the project, and that was often done by mail list or at conferences. That need no longer be the case. I know the activities of almost all of the projects I manage through their blogs and tweets, and I’ve even been to a few webinars. Regular blogging and tweeting generates and maintains knowledge about the project in the cloud, and when it comes to finding willing partners it is easier than finding them in a bar at an event. Of course what I’m really talking about here is the idea of generating ad hoc communities around projects and clusters of projects which makes the embedding and sustainability of projects easier and more cost effective than turning up to a 3 day conference and hoping for someone who’s really interested showing up to your 20 minute presentation.
Go to conferences, for whatever reason, but not for the dissemination of your project. With the plethora of online tools and communities now available dissemination is most effectively achieved by careful management of the project’s online identity.
And what of conferences? At the JISC 2009 conference a delegate approached me and said “This event’s been great, a good keynote, not too many parallels and loads of space to network” and it was that last point that was the key. Conferences are still good for networking, as long as they aren’t too big, or even worse a clique; but generally a nice small (100 – 150 delegates) 24hr conference, with long lunch and coffee breaks is still a good way to meet like –minded people. And if you really want value for money, keep an eye on the institutional learning and teaching conferences, I’ve been to a dozen or so and found some real gems of ideas and practices.
Location Independent Working Conference (April 2009)
“…Work is not a place where you go but rather something you do”
Morgan R.E. (2004) Teleworking: An assessment of the benefits and challenges, European Business Review
David Morris introduced the day with a series of concise slides explaining the concept and also that his project was a 3 month pilot. A series of presentations took place that gave different perspectives from the institution.
The Basics
- LIW Is a formal recognising that work does not just take place on the campus and supports people in working from other locations.
- LIW staff give up their offices but have “touch down” spaces on the campus.
- Training the staff and managers involved in the pilot was essential.
Some Myths
- Everyone is doing it anyway.
- LIW is for everyone.
- It’s a recipe for avoiding work.
- LIW staff are never around and the rest of us can’t talk to them.
- LIW people get left out.
- Non-LIW colleagues carry the can.
Expected Benefits
Individual
- Improved Work-Life Balance
- Reduced commute time
- Reduced travel cost
- Reduced Stress
- Legitimisation of home working
Employer
- Improved work flexibility
- Improved recruitment (good working environment attractive to potential employees)
- Reduced absenteeism and stress
Environment
- Lower Carbon Footprint
- Reduced congestion and transport burden
- Improved teaching quality and innovation in teaching
The Process
At Coventry all staff went through a process to support them and the scheme. This involved Consultation with staff > Briefing Sessions > Expressions of interest > Decision Making (is LIW appropriate for members of staff) > Training > IT Consultation (what staff needed) > T & Cs (formal LIW Policy) > Set up and Start up
At Coventry….
120 people attended briefings, 52 expressed interest, 35 participated (25 academic, 10 non academic)
Lessons they learned
- Have a senior champion – who believes in it
- Create LIW spaces, both big and small (promote cross dept etc)
- A formal system is essential
- Training is important
- Dispel the myths
- Process for storage of University owned material.
The Day closed by looking at the “costs” of LIW
There was a caveat placed on the data in that individual costs can very enormously. In terms of carbon saving it was predicted that a saving of somewhere between 133kg and 785kg.
At Coventry University it estimated that, per member of staff, a notional saving of £1,061 could be made, per annum. This figure includes start up costs of the scheme, office space, heating etc.
Further details http://cuba.coventry.ac.uk/culiw/
An interview with the Project Manager Dina Shah
Leeds Learning and Teaching Conference 2009: Keynote Gráinne Conole
At the Leeds teaching and learning conference today, two of the U&I projects are presenting Reflect and Awesome. But the keynote is by Gráinne Conole, Towards Technology Renaissance.
Renaissance - revival or renewed interest, repurposing or rethinking. How does this apply to e-learning. What are the technology trends? Grainne talked about the increased complexity of mediation, making the key link between e-learning and communication (learning and communication). Refering to LeX research. Grainne seems to be advocating the idea of Digital Natives, Net Generation etc. Good point about the next generation being task-orientated coupled with cumulative.
Shift in communications, “we co-evolve with the tools and practice” email is for filing, twitter is for communicating. Learning in 2008/2009 is more about communication.
Learning Design Research. Grainne’s research is focused on tiangulating the visualisation, Sharing and guiding of design as a way of understanding design. I’d like to have seen something along the Downes’ and Siemans’ Participative design in web 2.0 environments. Good point about the fact that Case Studies are not enough to change practice.
Current Issues
- Transformation - not as great as hoped
- Echoes of past failures
A technology Renaissance? Can we use to technology to ‘tech-enable’ our current approaches? Is this the right question. Again, given the web 2.0 availability, and the knowledge of new learners (be them 18 or 80 ) what would a curriculum designed by the learner look like?
FOTE2008: 3rd Session
Mile Metcalfe, Ravensbourne
Miles started by discussing the college’s move to Greenwich. The innovative ideas for ICT include:
- Flexible Learnings Spaces (you had to hear the visualisation)
- Serendipitous Commons
- Subsidise personal technology
- high end reources integrated with user owned workflows
- Software as a service (google), opensource alternatives to ‘money grabbing’ proprietory systems
The curse of the Mobile - Mobile Phones did away with the need punctuality.
Technology
- The VLE is no longer the whole answer
- RSS, OpenID preserve the VLEpanopticon
- Bounded systems give way to more open collaboration
Some parting shots
- OpenID is far from perfect
- I don’t trust these extra-institutional software as a service
Miles did an excellent and entertaining presentation which is available at http://www.slideshare.net/mmetcalfe/ravensbourne-tomorrow-fote-2008-presentation/
FOTE2008: 2nd Session ?, Ian Forresster (BBC), Ian Broad (Yahoo), Phil Butler (ULCC)
Mobile technology, Harold ?
Not quite sure what is being said other than it’s been suggested that we revisit Vygotsky and apply it to the use of mobile technology in learning and teaching.
He asserts that education ‘will’ move toward a more consumerist based economy, and that the customer choice will be based on the use of technology, mobile technology. And that they will do this because they will have better job prospects.
..l and then he just stopped.
Why Portability Matters - Ian Forrester, BBC backstage
There is a revolution in tech, this is based on the user being in control. But are they?
- Data portability - principles
- Bill of Rights for users
Cloud computing - beware of propriety tools in the cloud, “how do you get stuff out of SL”, there is a lot of service lock in. Good quote from Stallman:
cloud computing forces people to hand over control of their information to a third party. His objections echo his longstanding belief in non-proprietary software. One reason you should not use Web applications to do your computing is that you lose control, It’s just as bad as using a proprietary program.
Likes Bascamp for project management and Yammer as an alternative for Twitter, BlipTV instead of youtube
Opening up the Web, James Broad, Yahoo
“Yahoo is my home,
my girlfriend hates my job,
I do css and stuff
http://www.carbonsilk.com/”
How lucky are we - tech innovation, SatNav, Mobiles, sharing stuff across all activities
The Web 10 years ago, mostly read only, 1996 45 million users, mainly company websites, homepages, portals, basic webforms, Netscape or IE.
The Advances, Javascript, PHP, ASP, JSP, XML, RSS, Web Services, Communities, Tagging, Web Apps (The Web of today)
He seems to be trying to atribute a lot of social activity to tech advances, which it can, but.. “the web as gone through a a massive advancement (image of Facebook)”
We (Yahoo) realise that trust is a big issue
Dismisses encarta as something that we could have been ‘fed’, it could be biased by the author, whereas he asserts that wikipedia is something that is safer! He is very dissapointed that he didn’t have wikipedia during his education (I think he’s serious!).
A quick reflection on the title of the conference - I’m sure that he’ll make a reference to education.
Phil Butler
Lunch is Next (Phil’s first slide).
I’m not a technologist, I don’t even like technology.
The future of technology for me is something that does what it does when I need it to.
Harnessing Technology Review
It [technology] motivates learners
It opens up a world of resources and materials
Learning will be personalised
Learning culture is shifting
- individual > social
- information > communication
- passive > interactive
- insitutional tools > personalised tools
Q&A
Melissa Highton: Who should be responsible for teaching digital literacies
- Harold - there is a new paradigm of digital culture
- Ian F - the BBC is good, everyone needs to learn, a combination of teachers, friends and peers should be responsible
- IanB - I’ve got a little sister and I believe in this, Yahoo answers is the answer
- Phil B - Digital literacies - immigrants and natives, we’re all immigrants
FOTE 2008: 1st Session Google and Second Life
Here at FOTE (Future OF Technology in Education) 2008, Welcome from Tim Bush (organised the event) and David Rippon the Director of ULCC.
Sam Peters from Google
What’s driving cloud computing:
- Falling cost of storage
- Ubiquitous Computing
- Democratisation of production
“We’re all part of the revolution”
Sam described how the previous technology paradigm was focused on products that did only one thing - this led into a description of google apps for education. She suggested that cloud computing provides leverage with existing infrastructure. She also suggests that the Cloud computing model allows us to break out of existing software cycles.
The challenge of moving to the cloud, Sam suggested how her grandparents kept their money under the mattress, whereas she uses a bank - this led to considerable mirth. Gartner suggested that in 2010 10% of all businesses will have their apps in the cloud. And that currently 70% of businesses are looking at the cloud.
Last Thoughts on a Cloudy future:
- Companies must focus on core business
- Employees need better tools
- The move to the cloud is imminent…
- …many are there already
Pauline Randal on Second Life
Pauline started by posing the question “Why am I in there?” followed by what are “we trying to achieve?”
Students will not be entranced by watching powerpoint slides whilst in Second Life
The killer question - is there a better tool? Pauline’s talk appears to be asking us to focus on user needs.
Her project is focused on bring mature buisiness students together to familarise?
How to engage students:
- clear purpose to being there
- make it interesting and challenging
- have definite outcomes
Not that impressed with her case studies - but good on the user stuff.
Final thoughts:
- students need a proper induction, base it on your experience - how long did it take you to become familiar?
- Don’t make the activities too simple (average age of an SL user is 35 - are we sure?)
- Ask students for help
Hand’s up who’s using Second Life to teach?
Reflecting on JIF08
This is a bit of an indulgence posting on my part, a few short reflections on the JISC Innovation Forum 2008. The sessions that I attended were excellent, and the diversity on show really made me think hard about what we do as the larger JISC Innovation Group. The really nice thing for me as a Programme Manager was meeting staff from the Users and Innovation projects and eliciting on the spot feedback from them. My favourite was:
“Lawrie, you should get the JISC to do this every six months or so and make it compulsory for all project staff”
My response then, as now, was thanks for the idea, we appreciate your feedback, but are you deliberately trying give us a nervous breakdown. I also hope that the person fills in the feedback form, because if they enjoyed it that much we need to know so we can plan and improve for the next time.
One of the most interesting themes that I picked up from the people I spoke to was the amount of sharing of information going on outside of sessions, and how they intended to take things forward once they left the event. Thinking this through I realised that even though we provide an online forum allowing collaboration in a virtual space, it is difficult to replace the kind of discussion that was occurring in face to face – obvious to some, but important to note. The impact of this on some projects is that they default to a silo position, even though we try and avoid that. This event, with its “wide open spaces” and active encouragement to talk, allows some synthesis from those silos that I hope my U&I projects will carry forward.
Finally, being male and over 35, I love gadgets – so my new gadget was the Flip Video camera. Almost instant boot up and 60 minutes of video – I ran it for the two days capturing 49 videos and never ran out of power. Some of the reflections available include Simon, Mark, Robert and also we have Sarah and Bob talking about their projects.
Solstice 2008 and Exit Strategies for VLEs
Today I’m at the Solstice conference, this is now an annual e-learning conference, but creating a lot deeper thinking spaces for people to engage in discourse. The event is usually preceded by a research panel session and this helps to frame the discussions in the main conference.
There were a lot of great sessions today and the keynotes were excellent. One of the presentations that got me thinking (and most did) was by Peter Reed and Richard Hall “Pathfinding: the impact of collaborative approaches in embedding elearning.” They discussed in detail the work they had done with web 2.0 tools. They used a lot of phrases and words that were user focused:
“Devolvement of responsibility for the technology”
“Trust”
“Ownership of web 2.0″
The way in which web2.0 was being deployed was extremely strategic and at the same time tailored to individual practice. Many of the learning activities that were discussed were independent of the institutional VLE.
I asked the question:
Is this an exit strategy for your VLE?
Richard responded that it wasn’t the intention and that if anything the approach is more about spreading risk. This lead into a discussion about the role of the VLE in this instance, and the fact that should any of the web 2.0 tools cease to be or there is a loss of service, then the VLE was there in the background. But what if the risk were reversed? What if the VLE was taken away from the institution?
Richard replied that he had confidence that e-learning would continue, using the tools and approaches they had deployed. Thoughts…
This was a good conference for this type of discussion and I’m sure that lots of people had similar experiences. However, if this event should be on your calendar for next year, and you’re a vegetarian, bring your own Sandwiches 
Research 2.0? Risks and Rewards of Using Emergent Technologies
This blog post supports a presentation at the UKGrad Yorkshire & North East Hub, E-Researcher Development Meeting, an e-learning day for trainers and developers.
The presentation will open with a brief introduction to the JISC Users and Innovation Programme and discuss the importance of eliciting user needs. This section uses an image from a Flickr user (pauliepaul).
The presentation then moves on to discuss the growth in 2.0 tools, not only in terms of the number of web 2.0 start-up companies, but also in terms of the number of areas that are using the ‘2.0’ suffix as a way of demonstrating that we are now doing something different. To illustrate the number of web 2.0 tools that are available the montages created by Stabilo Boss are used.
However, whilst some of the characteristics of web 2.0 as defined by people such as O’Reilly are discussed, for the purposes of the presentation the presentation centres on the existing web 2.0 tools that may be of use to delegates and their communities. This user centric approach is first illustrated by discussing ‘Ross’, one of the students who has worked with the programme and presented at JISC events. Are there a set of activities that Ross would need to do as a researcher that can be achieved with either greater ease, or more efficiently? These should be two primary drivers. However, there is a third – security.
So, having identified that there are things we want to do more efficiently or easier, what sort of activities might they be?
- Publishing and Disseminating
- Networking and Communities
- Collaboration
- Sharing stories (privately and publicly)
Having identified tools the idea of digital footprints will be covered and the implications that may have. The feedback from why PhD students think that online profiles are important:
- Collaboration: finding colleagues and peers to work with
- Advertising or Promoting ‘you’: a way of showing what you can do
- Dissemination: either of information or ‘products’, where products could be ‘papers’ or ‘software’
- Networking / Community Building: all online communities require you to have an online ‘persona’
- Contact: a way of people finding you, perhaps after seeing a presentation or reading a paper – often they will ‘Google you’
- Saving time, having an online presence is something you can send people to if they want to know more about your work etc, rather than you writing individual emails
- The Web is an established medium: “if you’re not on the web, you don’t exist”
Rather than cover many of the issues that were to be covered in the parallel sessions, this session looked at some of the issues around blogging as an example of some the things some research students are engaging with, including:
- as a way of building a literature review
- to share ideas with an overseas supervisor
- to practice English
- to get interact with the ‘subjects’
- to self promote
Finally, the session looked at some of the issues around security and some of the negative impacts that may occur of using the technologies.
The slides for this session are below
