OU blog

Personal Blogs

Design Museum

Learning at the speed of need

Visible to anyone in the world
Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Wednesday, 2 Dec 2020, 04:30


I used this phrase like this some years ago. I should dig it out. It might be in a 2001 blog. It was in a response tgrigger to studying elearning. If not 2001 when I started the MA in Open & Distance Learning, then certainly in the first module of the MA in Open & Distance Education that I began in 2010 and completed in 2013. 

I was then still wedded heart and soul into corporate learning and development. In the mid 1990s I did a lot of video work for Unipart who were developing their logistics capabilities fast and were adopting and adpating Japanese manufacturing methodolies. All I did was take 'just in time', a Japanese approach to car manufacture that was being applied and think of it in terms of learning on the job; it should not be done in the class, but called up instantly as needed.

It can be now. We do have the answer at our fingertips - literally. 

This is easily applied to business. By forever asking, 'what is the problem'? you look for a fix and apply it to the issue. Is that not hypocondria on an industrial scale? Is it helpdul to be forever thinking there is something wrong? Actually it is 'continual improvement' that is meant to be the drive. The desire to be quicker, faster, more effecient - to be better than the competition.

Now I'm getting a nasty taste in my mouth. This is NOT something to apply to education surely? People are not machines; by definition they are the exact opposite. Perhaps this is the point; people need time. And different people need different time in different amounts.

What if everyone could have their own tutor, their own governess? There was a time, not so long ago, when 'homeschooling' was the best choice - at least until you were old enough to be sent away to school. I should compare and contrast the 'life of hard knocks' experienced by Ely Green whose autobiography I am reading and that of Lady Anny Clifford in the 16th century - education was the exception, not the norm. The gulf between those who got an education and those who did not was vast. In the case of royality and nobility it is what set them apart.

There is a growing digital divide, between those able to race ahead because of ready access to the Interent, the right kit, the best wifi and access and even the money to pay for the courses. 

All of the above has been brought on by panic at the prospect of running a 90 minute online Meet for a class of 17 year olds; I remember what I was like age 17 - not quite as bad as the 15 or 16 year old. 

I'm back on this subject 7 years later - is the answer to all problems a question posted to a smart speaker? 

My inspiration, or urgency, is the need to hold the interest of 20 17 year olds in a 90 minute class without telling jokes or taking my clothes off (metaphorically). I feel myself inching towards the advertising 'Creative Brief' to bring a Churchillian one page answer to the task; what is the problem, what is the opportunity? what do I want to say? how do I want them to respond? How will I say it? 

Ref: Learning at the speed of desire (2013) 


Permalink Add your comment
Share post
Design Museum

The Changing Landscape: The Future of ELearning

Visible to anyone in the world
Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Thursday, 19 Nov 2020, 08:19



This an industry series of presentation and panel discussions hosted by Kineo showing how far ahead the world outside education has advance in terms of online training, developing its staff and solving business problems. 

The Changing Landscape 

Keen to include what industry is doing with elearning to compare this to learning. This is the from the Kineo website. Digital First 

  • Increased agility – ability to respond to ever changing needs at great pace.

  • Learner-centric UX – content and delivery are in a medium that suit and engage the learner.

  • Self-service approach – access to content, where and when learners need it.  

  • Enhanced collaboration – facilitate better learning, knowledge sharing and problem solving.

  • Improved impact – better results for business and employee performance.

  • Increased satisfaction – higher levels of engagement through improved experience.

  • Innovation – continuous improvement, adding value faster with less disruption.

  • Reduced costs – a shift to just in time delivery and learning in the flow of work.

ELearning in industry is not produced and delivered by a teacher; it is designer, producer and managed by a team within a business


Permalink Add your comment
Share post
Design Museum

Training workshops that were held after school!

Visible to anyone in the world

Ha! if it isn't during a teacher's sessional hours when the stdents are on holiday the training won't happen. And in the holidays they are not paid to come in. So what is the incentive to learn new tech skills other than for personal satisfaction, curiosity and ambition?

Just in Time Support for Teachers 

 

Permalink Add your comment
Share post
Design Museum

H800: 60 Week 13*14 Activity 1a Attitudes to and integration of technology into the classroom and lecture hall

Visible to anyone in the world
Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Sunday, 8 May 2011, 16:37

As you watch the video consider and make notes on how it relates to the more general findings from the broader research literature discussed earlier.

Also consider the following questions:

  1. Is the message being presented in this visual way any different from the primarily text-based presentation of findings used so far this week?
  2. How important is the medium and the technologies themselves in terms of conveying messages about this research area?
  3. What are the implications for your own practice?

Catchy music. Well exectued. Memorable. Viral.4.5 million views to date.

The execution is persuasive; this is how advertisers do it. You have a message, you find a director who knows how to put it over in way that works.

I've done this myself a few times.

The music is crucial and often not considered in the budget.

Library music might, but rarely works.

Far better to pay for a peice to be composed; I have worked with plenty of student composers who've created a terrifc mood, what I wanted, cued to a click track and the images on the screen. I've also used copyright music and begged persmission from composers, such as some Michael Nyman music I wanted to use.

As a teaser or catalyst at the start of a week (or module,or course) this kind of thing is fantastic, but it is a trailer ... it is not an objective report. The music dictates how the director wants us to think.

JV27VV%20YouTube.jpg

These underviewed clips could do with a bit of TLC.

I also need to afford to have them transferred to a higher defintion.

Here's a simply exercise to demonstrate who the music skews the mood, impact and desire outcome; turn off the sound and play the video to 'Anarchy in the UK' the Sex Pistols, or 'She's Like a Rainbow' Rolling Stones. Do you feel so sympathetic now?

Is not this the kind of music played to claw at our heart strings when our charity is being requested to house the homeless and feed the poor?

If you think you can turn a report or piece of research into an objective and compelling piece of TV you are wrong

a) There must be a narrative

b) There is a need for conflict

c) Controversy helps

A polite debate to a live audience that gets out of hand does the trick, but this is hardly the Jeremy Kyle show.

Increasingly, though my background is the spin of advertising and stakeholder communications, I want to learn how to research and present sound, objective facts - the kind of evidence upon which people can act on the basis that the thoroughness and professionalism of the approach has isolated the problems which others can then address.

The nonsense spoken about 'The Net Generation' et al. implies that arming one cohort with laptops (a 1999s thing), now with tablets (preferably an iPad) will deliver.

This ain't how it happens. Never has with technology and never will.

Were I the Headmaster of a school I'd want to see technology used to play to the strengths of the subject being taught.

In art classes and music they are going to get a pad of A3 cartridge paper, some soft pencils, putty rubber and a knife; in music they're going to get an 'unplugged' music instrument to master.

In Chemistry they can have a white board that shows interactive animations of chemical processes taking place in what would otherwise be dangerous experiments.

In H807 I bemoaned the fact that I wasn't being hit with the kind of gizmo-worlds I'd been brought up to create for corporate clients - they want to see their money on the screen. We 'read' for the Masters in Open and Distance Education. When faced with a video, if a transcript isn't provided, I have to take notes verbatim ditto podcasts.

Reading and the technical demands of typing and word-processing might be as far as it needs to go.

Where any technology is less intuitive or easy that word-processing then don't bother. Nor assume people have the 'right' skills - having had a Mac since the early 90s I find some Microsoft software like being presented with a unicycle with a square wheel.

I like the phrases 'disruptive technologies', 'catalysts for change' and 'pedagogical innovation'.

The thing to remember is that one size does not fit all, indeed the technology ought to offer additional variety, not replace what has gone before.

Some 'services' I am so familiar with, as well all, that I wouldn't have thought to suggest they had a role in education; mobile phones, laptops are put of the landscape in work, school and the home. Not all, but many. We must remember the notable exceptions to owning or becoming familiar with these tools.

As for PDAs and memory sticks are these not history? PDAs replaced by SmartPhones and memory sticks replaced by portable hard-drives and the 'cloud'. And thus the demise of Pagers, floppy discs and zip drives.

I still crave a Psion.

Will an iPad fill that gap? Or a Nokia E7? I'm looking for a keyboard and screen that I can treat like a spec case with the power to put people on Mars.

Any suggestions?

*

*

*

*

Meanwhile, but to the activity at my fingertips:

(We mustn't call them tasks I'm told, sets the wrong tone. So why not e-tivities? Do I need to ask?! I came across someone referring to e-quality and wanted to report them to the abuse of the English Language through the prefixing of 'e.')

The dichotomy between students and staff is slowly disappearing - perhaps it has gone.

There never was a Net Generation in my book, often if is (as we would expect) the teacher who is the master of the technology ... they should be. This is the role we adults have before our children. We teach and nurture them, not the other way around. They generally learn from us, we have to crack it, add and embellish.

Were the students of the 'Pill' Generation in the 1960s not more rebellious then this lot?

Taught by teachers born between two World Wars, the differences must have been extreme. There are of course some biological reasons why until the students are adults, there will be significant barriers and differences. And whose to say, person by person, when intellectually maturity sets in. I'd say that I've only got there in my 50th year - I've enjoyed being a boy too much, until recently I could only be taught like a first year A' Level Student (spoon fed).

Sharpe et al (2005) is a must read for the Masters in Open and Distance Education.

I don't know why it and a couple of other books are boxed up and sent out to anyone who registers early. It is reassuring to return to authors whose voices you come to trust over the 18 or so months.

We learn that students have:

  • A mixed view about technologies
  • Feel pressured to do more (there's little faster or more efficient that simply reading a paper)
  • Have mixed experiences and expectations of their tutor (someone remind us, we are POSTGRADUATES)

Pedagogy (does it work?)

Learner differences (which can be extraordinarily diverse compared to a cohort of undergraduates terming up on campus with the same accent, same outlook, same educational background ... and not that long ago in some Oxford Colleges, the same gender too).

Beetham et al (2005) should be another set book.

By reading MAODE blogs I've spotted in advance the books that are most often refereed to and bought them. I have around a dozen now and had I a hand in reinventing the MAODE far from spending £100k with some of the top video production companies and web agencies in the land to 'pimp it up,' I'd been handing out these books and e-books.

'Distributed collaboration' here we come.

I've often likened the experience of MAODE, or is it just postgraduate learning with the OU, as my head being like the chocolate shaker at Cafe Nero. I've had chocolate pixie dust tipped into my head and someone keeps lifting me up by the ankles like a new born baby and giving me a good shake. My ideas have been turned on their head, not least the desire and interest in sharing whatever I think. It serves a purpose not to be previous about what you think. Not quite like getting it wrong on National Radio and being correctly by a few thousand emails, but you are often set right, or put on the right path, by hearing what your fellow students think.

Find me on Linkedin. I'm forever joining groups and discussions and find the feeds from the busiest groups

Oblinger and Oblinger (2005) Educating the Net Generation sounds like a must read. What are the reviews? I couldn't find it. Or is it a paper? There are plenty of texts written on the theme - most I'd give a wide birth.

Their points are:

  • weaving in the technology to current practice
  • kids who've grown up with it
  • its becoming ubiquitous
  • they use the web for homework (so what, we use it for work and pleasure too don't we ... and did from the start. The kids are copying Mum and Dad when they learn to touch type by the age of 6, NOT the other way round. They crave to get online because their parents do; it was ever thus.)
  • there is more surface level learning (right through to university ... and at the BA level too often, students learn what they are told to learn, from the surface, whether from the web, a text book or print out ... whatever it takes to pass the exam. Why I am told the Oxbridge BA sees itself as an MA programmer for undergraduates.
  • More visual. I would love papers to be illustrated, just a photo or apt cartoon above the abstract. Why shouldn't academic writers hook their readers too. Randy Pausch did in a paper he wrote while at Disney working and researching the skills of an 'imagineer'.
  • they want 'just in time' answers and it needs to be experiential (Conole & Dyke 2004; Gibson, 1979). We should celebrate this achievement ... its what managers in business have been trying to incorporate into business practice for decades.

 

 


 

 

(54622)

Permalink Add your comment
Share post

This blog might contain posts that are only visible to logged-in users, or where only logged-in users can comment. If you have an account on the system, please log in for full access.

Total visits to this blog: 11300096