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.

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. 

1. Hardware > having the appropriate device for the work you are doing. 

2. Software > having the right software for what you are learning. 

3. Connectivity > having the connection to get online 

4. Having response TECH support when the student needs it

5. Having a trained facilitator/teacher with the necessary skills to deliver learning online and to support the learning. 

6. Having the space to learn.

Anecdotally the above are live issues and students are struggling. 

Emerging themes:

1. 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.

2. 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.

3. Surveys to quickly provide devices and connectivity where it is needed. 

4. All institutions should be listening to students. THEY are best placed to tell institutions what they should be doing.

5. Regular, clear communication is ‘so terribly important’ to navigate the situation created by Covid. 

6. 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.

WONKHE@Home

Debbie McVitty

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?). 

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 .

1. 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. 

2. Leadership commitment > not a dip of the toe in the water, but a commitment to the path with money and time. 

3. 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.

4. Legacy > have realistic expectations. It won’t change overnight. It won’t reduce cost.  

5. 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.

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'.

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.

Look no further. Most of this blog is nothing more than a ramble. What do the likes of Virginia Woolf, Norman Mailer and Henry Miller call it? 'Stream of consciousness' - a vomit of thoughts. There's rarely flow. I just find an idea is better off it isn't stored in my head. 

No word count to stick 2. No critical eye seeking relevance. But this is not a tutor marked assignment. Just as well, 'writing up my reading ...  in a descriptive formulaic fashion without exploring the content or the process .. [I] ... am going through' will not get a tick. Creme (2010) 

Looking at all I grabbed or mentioned on reflection 10 years ago I can see that I had little intention of following the guidelines. My modus operandi is to get it down however it comes out. Not for me a flow chart of prompts to get me from confused to enlightened in six clear steps or a spin cycle set on 'Cool Wash' to get me round the bend and not quite back where I began.

I'm a Dewey man. I just "turn a subject over in the mind". If I get lucky I even dream about it. These dreams are so vivid that I have been searching through my notes over the last 24 hours determined to find a recording, notes and screengrabs from an EdTec session that I believe I attended online on Tuesday afternoon which doesn't exist. Maybe the dream version will do for something, though getting a screenshot from my mind might prove tricky.

'A reflective thought' is nothing more than an 'active, persistent, and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it and the further conclusions to which it tends' (Dewey 1933: 118). Read that back. An editor would limit this to an 'active, persistent, and careful consideration of something'. 

REFERENCES

Creme, Phyllis (2010) 'Should student learning journals be assessed?', Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 30:3, 287 - 296

Dewey, J. (1933/1998) How we think (Rev. ed.). Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company.

Ask yourself some questions. Narrow the topic. 

Then go out and ask your respondents. One or two will do to start with. Take the view that you may interview two or 50. Sit them down. Record it. Ask questions and keep asking as long as they are willing to respond. Some of the greatest insight will come when they think it is over; something will come to them. A throw away thought, recollection or metaphor will put a smile on your face. THAT is what this research is about. And if you are their tutor/teacher too, that is fine. Don't let it get in the way. It shouldn't. Afterall, don't you listen actively to feedback from your students in any case? 

And to justify my approach I can provide a list of papers and quotes: 

In action research, the educator is both researcher and teacher (Kuhn & Quigley, 1997).

And try different approaches, say 'informed observation' - The Human Lab at the Institute of Education at the Open University have made a business of this. You put learners into a space designed to look like an office, or home, even a student's bedroom. Then you give them a device and ask them to fulfil various research and study tasks. By watching closely what they do, and recording it, you get an insight that might otherwise be impossible, on how people use the technology.

We don't follow our guinea-pigs into bed or the bathroom though. Yet, these are places where people 'work' too. 

'Ethnographic fieldwork' makes up part of this research process too. All this requires is that while teaching you make notes that go beyond the teaching framework in order to understand the context of what the students are doing. 

Victor Lally calls it a 'participatory and iterative approach'. (Lally et al. 2012 : 02) Something he undertook to understand how students interacted in the virtual world Second Life. 

‘Different methodologies can be taken to embody different views of the nature of meaning’. (Snyder, 1995)

Indeed according to Patton (1982), a framework should be created whereby "respondents can express their understandings in their own terms". 

A wide literature review is necessary. 

Not only does it give credibility, but it also finds out what has been done by whom already. If research such as this has been done before and elsewhere, in all likelihood it has, let's see it. 

"It should be extensively and systematically woven into the paper to provide background and balance and even trying hard to offer contrasting perspectives so setting out clearly the pros and cons of the methodology and past experiences with these techniques in this kind of setting." (I believe I am quoting myself from 2013). 

This is worth looking into:

Oxford Research: Department of Education 

Digital youth and learning

This area examines how young people are using new technologies in their everyday lives and the potential learning that occurs as a result of this use. Work in this area includes the Learner and their Context study – a 3-year study that explores how and why young people learn outside formal educational settings using technology. Previous projects include the ESRC seminar series The educational and social impact of new technologies on young people in Britain that was jointly run by the Department of Education and LSE.

Lally, V; Sharples, M; Tracey, F; Bertram, N and Masters, S. (2012). Researching the ethical dimensions of mobile, ubiquitous,and immersive technology enhanced learning (MUITEL) in informal settings: a thematic review and dialogue. Interactive Learning Environments, 20(3), pp. 217–238.

Patton, M.Q. 1983, (p. 205). Qualitative Evaluation Methods 

Wiggins, B J (2011) 'Confronting the dilemma of mixed methods', Journal Of Theoretical And Philosophical Psychology, 31, 1, pp. 44-60, PsycARTICLES, EBSCOhost, viewed 13 February 2013.

Digital literacy surveys of students may show high confidence levels but this confidence is often with highly intuitive apps rather than digital tools required for the world of work or independent learning.

As presentations go, this one broke the ground. Once I'd unstuck my jaw from my chest, I ordered his latest book (it arrived 22 hours later). I then got down to taking notes and grabbing screenshots.  They always say that a recording will be available later, but I have found that to be a half truth: later can be weeks, not days or hours and 'available' can mean after an edit. I need to reflect on this now, not after my brain has been scrambled several times more. 

Back then I become a snob about digital over analogue. I went all Kindle. Books were dead ... so were libraries. My library was Amazon. It saved me time but was expensive. 

A decade on I buy second hand hard back books if I want to read; I still don't go into a library (even if once again I have a student library ticket). The physical artefact matters. If I am reading a the physical thing I am better able to concentrate. On an iPad (long ago replaced the Kindle) I am always a click away from the news, emails and social media. 

If I really care about the author and what they have to say I may get an electronic version of the book too; different things are revealed on the screen compared to the page. Either way a collection of handwritten notes or Post Its are used to build up my impression of what I am being told. No longer do I trust 'highlighting' or note taking electronically as a way of engaging with the text; you don't. You just copy and paste, risk being caught by plagiarism software and more importantly learn little as what you produce hasn't been through the composting process of your mind. 

QQ: What does it mean to be reflective in education?

• The ability to reflect on an action so as to engage in a process of continuous learning. 

• Deliberate reflection is essential. 

Is that what I am doing here? Am I supposed to spend as long reflecting on a thing as I originally spent doing it? Is two and a half hours reflection on a class that lasted two and a half hours over the top? 

One 'active learning' exercise followed another. A pattern was established. We were going to have to think, to engaged our brains. There'd be no concentrated note taking while she talked, no lengthy quotes to grab from multiple authors. Though I have them here. 

QQ: Analyse why the process can be helpful (what happens if you don’t reflect)

ACT: Compare and contrast how mere reflection is different from critical reflection.

We were introduced to Kerouac: fixed mindset or growth mindset? 

"There should be a culture where mistakes are not frowned upon." 

And I stumbledupon Carol Dweck

In a tour de force example of the value of face to face teaching in a class over learning online our PGCE tutor took us through the power of reflection. Look at the title of this blog 'Reflection on e-learning'. 10 years and eight months ago I was keenly filling these pages (on an ever so slightly different platform) as I took the first module in the Masters in Open and Distance Education (MAODE). Search 'Reflection'.

Ten years on, while being invited to dig around in my head for an understand of the what it means to 'reflect', and while listening to my fellow students express their views and share their insights, we collectively construct and shape a meaning.

The beauty of this blog and its value ten years on and 5,000 entries later, is that I can search 'reflection' or seek out the tag 'reflection' and immediately be shown what I was reading, what I was being invited to read and what I was writing about it all. The beauty of this blog and it simplicity is that I can post and keep private, or post and share; it is as much as a private, even intimate scrapbook, mind dump and learning journal, as it is a potential resource for others. 

Reflecting on 'reflecting on teaching' and the profound differences between learning online (as it has so far been able to manifest itself) I see that one cannot replace the other, that certain elements are different to the point of being incompatible, that trying to recreate the class experience online is foolish and bringing the online way of doing things into the class just as wrong.

We have a long way to go yet to distinguish these differences and play to their strengths, rather than thinking one is superior to the other; neither is going away. The class I attended last night in which seven of us where there in person with the tutor and four were online is one I will return to again, and again for two reasons: first of all, to pick through what I was exposed to, what I was taught, the learning journey I experienced and the voices and words of others - everyone, in equal measure, was given the time and chance and encouragement to talk. And second of all, to contemplate the difference between the classroom and the online experience. What worked and what did not? What needs fixing to make it work better? 

50 delegates, a conference video call, with an interactive 'Miro' board. Frenetic, but engaging and balanced doing and therefore thinking with consultancy like top level conclusions offered. I took notes and screenshots throughout so plenty to digest or to post here PRIVATELY. Looking back it is extraordinary just how much we got through. Thank you Mark Ayton from JISC.