Age 17 or 18 in the learning centre at Appleby I had a go with the reel to reel black and white Sony video camera to record a video of me showing someone how to create a slide show ... using a box of physical slides. This is like writing a book to tell someone how to cave paint.
Four decades later, even if they are digital, why or why are we so hooked on the 'slide'.
Anyway, these are useful suggestions on how to make the most of them > Ted 10 Tipe for Better Slide Decks
Age 17 or 18 in the learning centre at Appleby I had a go with the reel to reel black and white Sony video camera to record a video of me showing someone how to create a slide show ... using a box of physical slides. This is like writing a book to tell someone how to cave paint.
Four decades later, even if they are digital, why or why are we so hooked on the 'slide'.
Anyway, these are useful suggestions on how to make the most of them > Ted 10 Tipe for Better Slide Decks
By the end of this week, you should be able to:
understand the benefits of networks to the online teacher
discuss the concepts of communities of practice and network weather
develop useful online networks to augment your teaching practice
Teacher who has tried:
Private Facebook Group for pupils and pupils parents
A community within the students
Students supporting each other and congratulating each other on their successes.
Teach academic subjects online via Twitter > astonished.
Conferences
Fellow professionals
Aspergers, Austic High Functioning End.
‘Most of the benefits of networking can be divided into two generic categories: connectivity and sharing’. (Kozierok, 2005)
As you will have seen in the previous weeks of this course, teaching online requires thought, planning, and perhaps a little bravery in trying new technologies and techniques.
‘Communities of practice are groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly'.
JV: We need a digital campaign to inform and persaude.
I have five years experience in the production of such a newsletter to a community of over 6,000 and quickly recognised that recreating something that by design looks like it should be printed off is hugely limiting. There should be analytics attached to the item so it is understood what is opened (if at all) and by whom.
We need 'shared domains of interest’
There is no shared repertoire of resources: experiences, stories, tools, ways of addressing recurring problems – in short, a shared practice.
A shared domain of interest
An active community, sharing and exploring the domain
A shared repertoire of resources.
They go on to say that ‘it is the combination of these three elements that constitutes a community of practice. And it is by developing these three elements in parallel that one cultivates such a community’.
(Wenger-Trayner and Wenger-Trayner, 2015)
Conversations should be just that > a two way dialogue with meetings centred aroun an agenda and action points resulting.
Where might you begin to look for easy networking opportunities that may be available to you that you simply don’t yet know exist? In which of these would you wish to begin as a ‘lurker’? Are there any that you might feel sufficiently confident to actively participate in now?
A shared experience works at The Western Front Association because of the last three years we have built up a community centred around someone with the time and energy to oversee activities and bring others in. I have been a lurker in a number of groups, and after a time I have gravitated towards their centre, indeed being given ‘moderator’ status in a massive LinkedIn group on elearning. I have also set up a number of such groups and facilitated and moderated discussions.
What networking activity do you already participate in that could be modified or refocused to bring you networking benefits?
For The Western Front Association I put out two to five Tweets a day and manage the ensuing conversation. I have a 2,000 member LinkedIn group on swimming which sort of looks after itself. I have tried to instigate the creation of a Lewes District Green Group with no success. What I have learned from managing such groups, and setting them up, is that it requires time and energy > 8 hours a week is my benchmark starting point.
How could you harness the power of the ‘weather’ that is already around you to benefit your online teaching practice?
The ‘weather’ is bad with poor wifi, low speed computers, poor desktop setups and in general a limited desire to improve things from the grassroots up - instead everything if thought of ‘on high’ and imposed from above.
Connect with like-minded people by establishing and developing networks.
How to Tweet (what we used to call microblogging)
You'll need to identify the tasks you wish to perform:
gathering information on a particular subject:
make a list of keywords or hashtags that you may wish to search for (hashtags can include phrases and acronyms, but always without spaces, for example #teachingonline, #OpenLearn or #cccotc18.
following and learning from experts in a particular subject:
list the names of the experts you wish to search for.
making connections with people in a similar position to yourself: brainstorm how you might find those people – how will you search for them? You may need to combine some keywords or hashtags into a single search, to enable you to filter out information that is related but not precisely what you are looking for.
sharing your own work: identify precisely which items you would like to share, list some keywords and hashtags that might describe your work, and practise creating a short microblogging message of the correct length that describes your work succinctly.
There are of course other tasks you may wish to do as well, such as following particular celebrities or information sources unrelated to your work environment.
If you wish to use Twitter, these instructions could help you to maximise the benefits. If you wish to use a different tool, the principles of the instructions will remain valid, but you will need to alter the method and tools to suit your platform.
Create an account (on Twitter, or your preferred microblogging site).
Use your Twitter account to register with Tweetdeck. Tweetdeck is a very good way to make sense of the vast amount of information rushing by on Twitter, and helps you to arrange the information you need in easily managed columns.
Use the search function in Tweetdeck to generate new columns relating to your keywords or hashtags of interest, or search for experts and follow them – all tweets from accounts that you follow will appear in your Home column in Tweetdeck, in chronological order.
If you are looking for peers, first find and follow likely individuals – with any luck they will follow you back (it is good Twitter etiquette to follow individuals who follow you). Once you are familiar with one another’s tweets you could then suggest forming a List (a column in your Tweetdeck that gathers together the tweets from your selected individuals, and that others can subscribe to).
If you want to share your own work, learn from how others do it, observe how they use their tweets, how they ask for feedback or for others to retweet them. You need to have built up a good number of followers before sharing your work, so that their retweets will exponentially increase your reach
Think about any networks and communities you already belong to (formal and informal). How do these communities share information? What tools do they use? How could they use other channels or media to improve that flow of information?
How could you increase your connections and reach? How might tools like Twitter, Weibo or other social networking sites help you?
Each of marketing and digital put out a newsletter and what I can only call a flyer - it is not readable. It is content chosen for consumption in a one way fashion and about as readable as the back of a packet of cereal and uses similar design skills. Neither group talks to the other. Elsewhere recognising the difference with digital is that you can change the shape, length and nature of any emailed communication, and change when it goes out, we have learnt to communicate in long or short form, just with text or more magazine style with images … but we do not try to create a magazine or flyer that looks like it would normally been printed out.
The Western Front Association uses Facebook and Twitter extensively, Instagram a bit more and should open up LinkedIn. It is absolutely the case that by driving traffic to the website and having new contact all the time, we have built our followers considerably and our membership too. All if this task time and skills, not least to listen to the audience before ‘writing’ to them and be prepared to feedback, discuss or debate rather than having communications that are entirely one way,
In education, authentic learning is an instructional approach that allows students to explore, discuss, and meaningfully construct concepts and relationships in contexts that involve real-world problems and projects that are relevant to the learner.
There are four basic types of communities:
Helping Communities. provide a forum for community members to help each other with everyday work needs.
Best Practice Communities. develop and disseminate best practices, guidelines, and strategies for their members' use.
Knowledge Stewarding Communities. ...
Innovation Communities.
Kozierok, C. (2005) The TCP/IP Guide [Online]. Available at www.tcpipguide.com/free/t_TheAdvantagesBenefitsofNetworking.htm (Accessed 10 Nov 2017).
Wenger-Trayner, E. and Wenger-Trayner, B. (2015) Introduction to communities of practice [Online]. Available at www.wenger-trayner.com/introduction-to-communities-of-practice/ (Accessed 10 Nov 2017).
Next week I have FIVE x 90 minute sessions with students. All of this will take somethign I have picked up from Open Learn's 'Taking Your Teaching Online'. I will be seeking to help students augment their slide presentations by adding audio, or making a video or using screencast technology.
Today it was a belate introduction to their new Tutor - me. I used this as an excuse to talk about how we should all try to understand ourselves. The only error was to think the students could see my profile on LinkedIn without signing up to the platform themselves, I should have used the two or three slides which would have introduced this.
As I have a recording I have something to offer for obsercation too.
I was shaking by the last 30 minutes I was so pumped up on adrenaline. A mixed outcome and too many technical hiccoughs, but I survived.
1) Low barrier technology > flip the classroom
Camera on a tripod with a white board
One record
No need for fancy cameras and editing which will put most off
2) Requires a deeper level of thinking
Gets to the essence of what you have to say.
Brief, treatment, script, know what you want to say.
3) Utilises the power of note taking
Increase retention of information
vs the density of notes on PPT.
Vs printing off and handing notes.
Develops handwriting
4) Benefits of Video
Eye contact
Facial Expressions
Gesturing to keep the student engaged
Teacher
Screen Capture with the teacher in a thumbnail
5) Modeling a low barrier creative process
Focus on the content not the technology
Beware the overwhelming possibilities it is NOT about the font or colour that matters.
Freedom is lack of choice / keep it simple
Substitution | Where technology is used as a direct substitute for what you might do already, with no functional change. | Slides, now Peardeck or Prezzi. Same thing. |
Augmentation | Where technology is a direct substitute, but there is functional improvement over what you did without the technology. | Link to sites Add audio Embed video |
Modification | Where technology allows you to significantly redesign the task. | Web page(s) Quiz |
Redefinition | Where technology allows you to do what was previously not possible. | Podcast Short video A quiz A VR interactive tour Blog it |
Eight Principles of Effective Online Teaching
A Decade-Long Lessons Learned in Project Management Education By John Cable and Clara Cheung
I'm finding this Free online course from Open Learn reall handy. I feel under pressure to take a few classes online myself and will do this via Google Meet, but as we are told all the time, and I know - teaching online cannot be the same. The content is so different. Rather than winning over a captive audience with our charms we must hold their attention through lots of activities, good ommunication, doing just a little at a time, taking breaks and getting them to do stuff.
This is an old concept but it is worth revisiting.
We understand that it makes sense to deliver education in small chunks with clear learning outcomes. The BBC understood this with BBC Bitesize.
In "Taking Your Teaching Online' Open Learn shows that a learning object is not a list of ingredients, or a recipe but all of this and instructions on how to do something.
A learning object online used only to be text, then we could add graphics.
The we advanced to adding video, with audio or animation
All of this made even better with interactivity where a quiz can be added, students can choose learning paths and connect with others.
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)
I'm over at Open Learn clicking through the free course 'Taking Your Teaching Online'. I am spurred on by the need to be taking a class this Friday, and then five next week, entlirely online with a group of 17 and 18 year olds.
I have run workshops online with adults (staff, colleagues) so this will be different. I must not see the students as 'the enemy' but I must also be forewarned and forarmed. It looks like this course will give me some of the insights and amunition that I need.
Set aside some time to play and familiarise yourself with the tools you expect to use.
Engaging and motivating students online > https://youtu.be/DvJuzE-g7OM
I've just cracked on through the first week of 'Understanding ADHD' with King's College, London completing it in a little over 2 hours. I think I can conclude from this that I am not ADHD, that I am feeding my curiosity and therefore defeating my greatest bugbear - boredrom, at every turn. That's not to say I don't present with some of the symptoms. That I take on too much. Am impulsive. Sometimes a little paranoid. Misread people's motives and have more of a 'flight' than 'fight' response to circumstances. But was this course ever about me? I think it is about another family member, and recognition that a number of diagnoses disorders run through the extended family. And I will come across it poolside with kids age 6 up and in college with teenagers.
I only wish we lived in a culture where more was done inside the extended family to accommodate our disorders and differences rather than expecting sociatel conformity. We cannot expect the community or the state to pick it all up. They never had to. If ADHD is a human trait then it has been around for ever. What happend if you were ADHD in the time of the Pharaohs or Romans? You'd not have to worry about being spolit for chocie as a slave. Is ADHD a disorder of easy times?
Education coming out of Covid will put 25% to 100% of their content online, whether or not students come in for classes or workshops, the go to place will be digital and online. It can therefore be used as flipped or blended learning and will replace textbooks. In some instances colleges will go down the Open University model and close their estate and put everything online.
The role of marketing to sell digital to students and staff, or at least the skills of advertising, marketing and PR to get and then hold the attention of users is becoming all the more important. This is not just a case of getting the message out on digital platforms, but getting our wishes in front of students the traditional way too: in posters, displays and with electronic signage - but in a coordinated rather than a fragmented manner.
Teachers will have to become facilitators and moderators of content created by others. For example, taking Geography in the UK. How many teachers does it take to get 240,000 students through their GCSE in Geography? And how many of these also support the 36,000 students at A'Level? In the physical world I'm guessing 1,300 or so?
Online Barbara Oakley created 'Learning How To Learn' module on Coursera. 2,649,556 have enrolled on the course. A handful of people created the content, with Barb as presenter, writer and lead producer, a resident expert to offer further weight to the science, some greenscreen presenting and some simple graphics and animations. There has been a 'moderator' role - I have done this on a volunteer basis having taken the course but it is being down played and even discontinued by Coursera. These are designed to be self-paced courses. It's simple and it does the job. Why look elsewhere to 'learn how to learn' ? Who is doing this for other subjects? Well, there the Khan Academy for Math. What about History, or Biology?
Ok, we cannot have 75% of students dropping out in the first week! This doesn't mean we can't use the very best online content out there, it simply means that the role of teachers should be collectively to make the experience even more engaging without simply recourse to holding the interest of a captive audience in a classroom.
And a module on Coursera is not two years of education delivered over three terms a year. It will take time an investment to create the content. Are the likes of City & Guild Kineo, and Pearson not doing this already? And what about universities that have committed to 100% online, such as the University of Coventry in the UK and Duke University in the States - and not forgetting the Open University (as everyone does) who have been online since 2001.
If teachers are creating their own content from scratch, beginning when they set out as trainees, are they not reinventing the wheel every time? Have their predecessers not produced materials already? Lesson plans to follow? Top notch resources? If not, why not? I see the value and pride of ownership of this work, of reliance on it to deliver in the class. Can one standup comic hand their material to another? Or might I be saying, the comic presenter has his or her team of writers? What if teachers deliver scripts others have written and that we all work to perfect?
The model and financing will be more like the Open University producing high quality and engaging content. The issue for teachers is if this is seen to undermine their role, their lead role in the class and their pay. The issue for college is paying the licence fee for such content - unless of course it is pre-paid for and offered as a free Open Education Resource.
I'm hazzarding a guess that if we with with the Bell curve of normal poplatoin distrubution in a cohort of teachers 70% will find a way to treat going digital and getting it online as part of their job, the rest will split into two camps: 15% who would prefer to leave - to take early retirement, the resist the change and technology absolutely - while the other 15% of ‘outliers’ are already ahead of the curve when it comes to creating content. They may even feel the benchmark has been set too low.
There is a need to collaborate with others in order to deliver the class. Teachers should not be expected to achieve the Google Certified, Microsoft Certified or Apple Certified Educator Level I, II or II but rather educators should be supported by a larger team of coders and designers in order to deliver content, but rather they feel supported by someone with the skills: like a director working with an editor to deliver the content.
There are some who think that the creation of materials should go down the OER path. There are issues with IP over content created by teachers. They want to be paid up front for their time, not put on some option or share deal.
One way or another, things are going to change. It ought to change for the better for the student, where the student who gets behind receives support, while the student who gets ahead is offered an ever greater challenge to feed their curiosity and desire.
Some viewing, some note taking and then yet more reading to add to another stack!
My eyes and ears are forever on the alert for content related to Black History. Lewes Town Council, and The Western Front Association we got behind 'Black History Month' in October. My intention is to maintain some momentum towards this event each year, while picking up on it in February with The Western Front Association for a second time to tie in with when this event is run in the US (we have US members and followers).
This blog auhot masked up to video a demonstration of using resin to create a fibreglass jacket.
It's been a frenetic and insightful day being able to double up with a class observation for my PGCE while videoing a demo of how to create a 'fibreglass jacket' with resin for Stageprops and efx at Northbrook MET.
Google them for their website and Instagram where all their goodness and greatness is on display.
My task, once requiring a team of at least four, was to video and publish. The team of three would have been camera, sound, lights and a producer/director. But that was three decades ago making video demonstrations for the health & safety team at BNFL Sellafield! Where the full suits worn once the site was active resembled the above.
Several lifetimes ago.
Then it was into a Meet to discuss and share outcomes from Wonkhe@Home conference and what this tells us about how to develop and support a vibrant 'Student Voice' during and post-Covid. The world of learning is a-changing.
Onwards.
With frustration my intentions and wish to attend tonight's PGCE class in person I have needed to come home and be online. With brilliant tutors you come to relish being in their presence. The difference between the online and face to face experience could not be more stark: in many situations the learning context, the feeling that you are part of a collective experience, and seeing the tutor and others so that you can 'read' their face and body language all counts for something. So much of this naturalistic impact is lost when you go online, at least with current systems.
What is needed is quality 360 for image and sound so that you can feel you are there. And in the room to be a laptop open on a trolley (I'e been told a partner of a law firm has been meeting staff like this) or more Sci-fi in approach, an iPad glued to a panel ... or at least the back of the chairs where we may have otherwise sat.
Some institutions, the banks and top law firms and ad agencies are no doubt doing this already > not in undercapitalised FE colleges though.
I am spending 60 hours in front of a screen a week - at least. This is Monday to Saturday. I try to stay off screens all day Sunday but may end up doing a coupe of hours before I can ditch it (expect for the weather, taking photos and taking phone calls).
This 60 hours is not spent at my desk - where I stand. It is spent at my desk on a two screen iMac, on a sofa (or in bed) with a laptop, all of these places and out and about with an iPad and iPhone.
Yes, I work in the bath. Yes, I work in cafés. Yes, I might even dismay our dog by dealing with things on a park bench out somewhere.
But I get stuff done.
What I DO NOT MISS is time wasted commuting. It isn't just the time spent in the car, in traffic and getting parked (getting petrol), it is the time spent getting ready to go out > get washed, shaved and dressed (appropriately).
I am not fit. Damage to my knee on a walk a few months ago testifies to that. But I do eat healthily. Just two meals a day. Nor do I drink (or not for the last 11 weeks). I drink far too much coffee.
Josh Fleming, Head of Strategy and Oversight, Office for Students (with Sir Michael Barber).
(This is a preliminary review of a report that will be published next year).
Triggered by the pandemic response while looking ahead. Digital poverty, definition:
Six elements that make up digital poverty.
Hardware > having the appropriate device for the work you are doing.
Software > having the right software for what you are learning.
Connectivity > having the connection to get online
Having response TECH support when the student needs it
Having a trained facilitator/teacher with the necessary skills to deliver learning online and to support the learning.
Having the space to learn.
Anecdotally the above are live issues and students are struggling.
Emerging themes:
Training for staff. There is a correlation between student engagement and the better trained the staff are and the better that staff feel that they are supported.
Asynchronous learning is vital for anyone needing to be able to work around their studies especially if they are having to negotiate over who uses the one computer in the house and can do so on the kitchen table and not be disturbed.
Surveys to quickly provide devices and connectivity where it is needed.
All institutions should be listening to students. THEY are best placed to tell institutions what they should be doing.
Regular, clear communication is ‘so terribly important’ to navigate the situation created by Covid.
The potential is a huge opportunity. Over a five to ten year period, say taking disabled students, it can be transformative for them and for learning around the world.
We expected to find subject bias. The anecdotal bias of humanities vs hands on technical degrees, we have been surprised at how well the creative arts have transitioned so that lab time is far more effectively utilised in a way that helped with their pedagogical approach.
With international students, asynchronous learning can be really good if there is a different time zone, but synchronous learning does aid with any sense of isolation.
Use of AI to augment human instruction to free up staff time to concentrate on the higher order learning and to improve the student experience. The students of the future may not be taught by Bots, but they will be supported by Bots.
Razan Roberts, Senior Director, Strategic Engagement and Communications, Salesforce.org Research findings. Link to PDF for this interim report available. Full report Spring 2021.
The challenge of providing a sense of belonging when everything is digital and virtual. A community approach is easy to introduce and scale.
In the nordic countries 21%, in the UK 31% and Spain 39%.
A community feeling is easy to implement and scale.
There is a widening trust gap between institutions. The trust gap was poor before and is widening. 40% between them and the leadership and 50% saying it is getting bigger. 37% staff are feeling this gap. Optimistically institutions have an opportunity to make changes now, to drive with transparency and clear plans to close the gap.
Holistic well-being. Top of mind. 73% maintaining their wellbeing is their top challenge now. 72% financial concerns. 71% just finding a quiet place to work - yet it is such a simple problem to solve. Universities are taking this to heart. E.g. LSE. Community Club or Experience Club service beyond just reviewing assessments.
Students expect more flexibility in grading, course assessments and course content. So new business models are forming.
The Immersive hybrid > all the learning is online. Blends digital and the physical. Every single service being reviewed that goes to students. What is best served online, and what is best served in person.
Subscription model so that people can go in and out of training depending on the life and career plans.
Revisiting career and education plans.
Students are Looking for learning with internships and direct job opportunities.
Students are looking for contact with alumni and employers.
What are the barriers to universities?
Online learning, Zoom and others. But more like a bandaid. So they have to rethink the concept of what is online learning, more project based and interactive.
Digital Transformation. The fuller view of the students who have such a poor experience because they repeatedly find they have to tell one person after another who they are.
Human interaction and empathy.
Effective communication. How do we rebuild the trust? The sense that they are looking after staff and student
Frequent personalised communication. Knowing the words to use and the channels to use. Creating the connections.
Students are not feeling the support, which they could get in the past in person.
Find a way for the interaction and communication to bridge the gap.
Keep the students, and staff - safe and convincing people that this is the priority.
Coming out of Covid we will land somewhere in the middle. Some things will never go back. Many institutions are using data to enrol more students and to find a better match with the right academic programmes for them and help them feel they belong to that institution while opening up new markets - not least for the millions who need to find a way back into employment with further training. With insights and data we are better able to identify students who are being challenged and need support - and this can be scaled and will be used.
A blended model is the future, rather than all online or all in person.
linkedin.com/in/debbie-mcvitty-59769146
Debbie McVitty introduced the panel with the following preamble. We would be reflecting on digital transformation: organisations, cultures and practices.
That technology imposes on every aspect of our lives.
What this means for university cultures and how we teach and communicate with students.
A warning that Covid has created a crisis condition that has forced us onto a testbed preemptively - not everyone was ready for it.
And the difficulty of trying to add change to old platforms and practices. (The recommendation is to start again on an entirely different space and then fold the successes into the university online space).
The first speakers were:
Patrick Mullane, Executive Director, Harvard Business School Online
Rebecca Galley, Director, Learning Experience and Technology, Open University.
My own reflection on this is that it helps to have an understanding of the 'diffusion of innovations'. Going digital with has been a clear case of innovators and early adopters (The Open University, Coursera, Duke University, Coventry University ), as well as late adopters (Oxford and Cambridge University) and laggards (FE colleges and Secondary Schools?).
Rebecca Galley, Director, Learning Experience and Technology, Open University.
linkedin.com/in/rebecca-galley-16021b149
It is hard for an organisation to deliver online until it changes how it does things offline.
Two years ago a failed attempt at digital transformation began again looking at everything from first enquiries through to alumni. It wasn’t possible to implement the change required where there were so many silos in the organisation. It required a very different approach, an holistic one, that integrates marketing, business, IT, Data Security …
Co-design with students to improve the experience, not with the different business units. To adapt to suit their expectations. Students want simple, elegant and intuitive
Activities on site must be complemented by experiences online and work together.
All units must be working towards the same aims otherwise you end up with a very fragmented and unsatisfactory student experience.
An enterprise approach to digital, data and data governance to enable seamless integration in order for students to be successful and happy online.
Work to horizontal value chains, not KPIs to particular units which result in a fragmented experience.
Take a UX, or service approach, so that you have a very clear understanding of the what the personalised student experience will look like rather than buying off the shelf and plugging everything into it. Rather understand what you want your UX to look like and build it. An enterprise approach is to make it as simple as possible: a single data hub for all university dataL various content stores managed in a consistent way, and then you can be flexible in the way it is offered to students.
Chatbot being used across universities for all courses and throughout the course, not just part of it, because that’s what students expect.
Look at how the Open University do it. Simple! Students have what they need to study on one page without the need to click through multiple times or having to use a search function for anything.
You do not start at the Open University Home Page, or a Student Hub. What you see relates to what you have studied and are studying and the links to support you need for this.
Digital Transformation in action : Part of WONKHE@Home Online Summit
Patrick Mullane, Executive Director, Harvard Business School Online > linkedin.com/in/pjmullane
We teach digital transformation, it is NOT about platforms but about everything that wraps around it. The Covid experience may set us back as so many institutions rushed to get online and created a poor experience .
Pedagogy > the way you teach when it is technology enabled. Lectures are dull in person, deathly online. Simply putting what you do face to face online will be dreadfully boring.
Leadership commitment > not a dip of the toe in the water, but a commitment to the path with money and time.
The Core competencies you need online are different to online> If you do not make digital marketing a key competency within the university you will not succeed/ There must be a robust marketing facility internally to let students know what there is. We made incredible platforms and spent a lot of money expecting students to turn up and they did not.
Legacy > have realistic expectations. It won’t change overnight. It won’t reduce cost.
Restructuring for the new world > it is not enough just to have the technology. If you are doing something new it will be better to do this somewhere else. When successful, fold it back into the current structure … which may have to be blown up so that you can start again.
You will be planning a path where there will be failure.
Having a technology department is NOT the same as having people who understand pedagogy and can design student centred learning.
Harvard used the ‘Aristotelian - the case method’ in which a tutor leads a discussion and with the students you reach an ‘aha’ moment. Inductive learning required ways for students to take part, to challenge each other …
Interaction is essential.
A lot of support, in the community, makes for the overall learning experience.
Simplicity for the students creates complexity in the backend. But the end objective has to be the simplicity for the student.
Students know how to crowdsource answers to questions so once the platform has been created the faculty can walk away.
Don’t let complexity get in the way.
Bespoke platform built by Harvard Business School online.
Have a clear idea of what success looks like at each stage and build on that. Commit to two or three experiments. Either commit and do it well, or fail. Certificates for example are inevitable.
Such is the life of speculative web design. They didn't ask for it, so wy should they use it?
There are three approaches to fixing this:
1) Only design based on a clear creative brief which has identified a genuine communications problem which the website resolves.
2) Get the intended audience involved in the creation of the website, generating content for it and talking about it. These days social media will do. Facebook or LinkedIn have great ways to keep the conversation to a limited circle.
3) Push it and develop it relentlessly using all the skills or PR and marketing.
Historically, as anyone might recall from the MAODE days, I was always the student how tried to handin a piece of work 5 minutes before the due date - at midnight of course. And then things would go wrong. Or I'd be the student asking for an extension days before.
I am a changed man! I am three days ahead here and feel confident I've not missed anything that matters to the module assignment. It could always be better, but I'm not going to fret about that. I've given it my best shot under the circumstances and in the time could give it.
I have to say, that this blog has been an indispensbile resource. I can search a word or academic and up comes what I know about that thing or person from notes I have taken over the last ten years; it is surprising how much comes back to me and even more of a delight the way this knowledge has embedded itself in my thinking. I feel moire fluid and confident about it then I ever did ten years ago.
I also matters hugel that for the last two and a half years I have been in a teaching environment where the theory of education is tested daily - and in an FE college, that means being 'tested to destruction'.
A teaching team of two (at least) is what teaching requires in 2020. Digital changes everything, whether online or off, as soon as it goes on a screen it has to compete for the 'attention of eyeballs'. Not only that, it isn't a cliché that 'two heads are better than one'. Advertisers know that it takes a write and an art director to create a compelling idea. For something compelling to work online it need the write, visualiser and coder. A team of three might be asking for too much, but the point remains.
How many people does it take to create a module of online learning at the Open University? The figure is more than one. Why therefore are teachers and tutors expected to do everything themselves?
The ‘Brookfield’ Lens Theory of reflection was introduced to us
We are told that we see things as we are …
I ponder this and reflect on that fact that artists literally see themselves in others as when they draw and paint people often bear a resemblance to them, whatever the age or gender of the person portrayed.
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