Reflections on 2021 #oerxdomains , #phygital , #Fujitsu , #openscot , #Bett22

The end of another strange year - this year without the lockdown beard. 

It's all been a great team effort. This year topped and tailed by two College Development Network Awards both reflecting well on the work of the Learning and Teaching Academy. 

Amazing really as the team have battled the frustrations and heartbreaks  of  CoVid like everyone else.

    

Highlights 

• Continued staff support for webinar training and development .
• Chairing #OER21 
• Launching College Fujitsu Hub.
• Sourcing speakers , open badges and chairing sessions at  #Phygital conference
• Staff and Student input to business case that led to procurement of Canvas.
• On going cross College work on transition to Canvas. 
• Trying to figure out what hybrid learning and teaching actually means.
• On going sanity checks from colleagues in College  and  from ALT and many others across the sector ( you know who you are) and patience, kindness, consideration and teamwork.

On personal level - I am still frustrated by the Scottish systems ongoing disregard of Unesco's guidance on Open Educational Resources - startling really in year of COP26. I will keep doing my bit at institutional level and through Open Scotland. 

We once again missed our French fix on the Ile De Re and had none of our usual foreign jaunts and as CoVid restrictions are back in place in Scotland there will be no #Bett22 for me this year. 

We did manage two great escapes to Isle of Raasay and to Isle of Lewis. We also juggled cases of household CoVid - we still are, currently spending Christmas and New Year in splendid isolation.  

I know 2022 will bring more challenges.  I think the main message in these strange and disrupted times is not to be distracted, keep your eye on the horizon and show compassion for all those around you. 

And just noticed this marks 21 years of blogging ;-). Open reflection and blogging will eventually catch on. 

Happy New Year to one and all when it comes !  Slainte ! 

Sign Up for Scottish Association of Learning Technology SIG Event with a difference 22nd of June

Learning technologist in a University , College , local authority schools or other learning environment ? 

Could you please take a few moments to upload a video of yourself talking about what has helped you with the transition to remote learning and teaching, either from an individual or institutional perspective?

https://flipgrid.com/25a5af2e 

Don't be shy - we want to hear your voice ! 

If you are really shy - wear a disguise ;-) 

Is that asking for trouble ;-) 

And look forward to seeing you in person at the ALT Scotland SIG 

ALT Member Groups Check out this Flipgrid! flipgrid.com

Please also remember to register for the event:

https://www.alt.ac.uk/civicrm/event/info?reset=1&id=530

If you are reading this message - could promote the event within your institutions too that would be great!

Very best wishes,


ALT Scotland Special Interest Group Co-Chairs
Joe and Vicki



Dr Vicki H.M. Dale,   University of Glasgow
Joe Wilson MA, MBA , DipEd , PGCSE City of Glasgow College

Association of Learning Technology Annual Conference Edinburgh University Sept 2019 #ALTC

#altc 2014 University of Warwick

I've supported and/or attended the Association for Learning Technology conference since the last century when folks interested in technology and learning were really on the outer fringes of education or even  mainstream learning - at institutional level just starting to come out of cupboards where the audio-visual technicians lived or like me realising that as electronic typewriters vanished there was more we could do with computers in the classroom.

Without prejudice (I along with   Linda Creanor and Sarah Cornelius  was a conference chair )  I think the conference went really well this year. The venue , accommodation , food , wifi and technology on site all worked well . The keynotes , each in their own way pushed on the boundaries of learning and teaching while highlighting the opportunities and pitfalls that lie ahead. While the other sessions provided great insights into a broad range of current practice , highlighted useful changes in institutional and government policy or simply explored the challenges of big data , learner analytics , open badges and other new forms of delivery in the post MOOC - yet non apocalyptic world of learning.

They are worth tuning in to - I think they set the tone for learning for the next decade . Not the opening bit but skip to Jeff Haywood , Catherine Cronin and Audrey Watters keynotes


The three things that made me think most - beyond the excellent keynotes - were

1. The Big Red Balloon - offer on-line support for school pupils who have been marginalised by bullying and cannot attend mainstream schools .  Made me think about the support that is available for learners in schools in Scotland - it is a great example of how the world of on-line is transforming school education and supporting learners in new ways

2. The FE day focused on FELTAG - ( it could be  some new select perversion - ) but the feltaging debate was to a degree shaped by the non appearance of the new government minister in England . In corners around the conference there was a lot of private and public feltaging going on.

 The previous minister Matthew Hancock had laid out an ambitious vision for 10% of all further education in England being available on-line in the coming year with targets for 70% being available on-line by 2017.  The realities on ground from the sessions I attended are very different . The big institutions are making some headway but are not sharing learning materials . The private creators of content are touting their wares to fill the void and lots of policy,  not least changing regulations forcing folks to focus on more traditional methods of assessment make the ambitions hard  or expensive to achieve . What seemed lost in a lot of this debate was a sense of the learners . Too much discussion,  particularly those  by organisations with a commercial interest in these changes start off with revenue sharing models or cost cutting models or looking at other efficiencies none of which  benefit learners. It would be good to see more use of open educational resources and some sensible open on-line course activity in the English FE Sector . They could learn a lot from their colleagues in Higher Education.

3. I probably covered this in opening - but really just overall sense that in all sessions technology is now at the heart of all things learning related , not an adjunct , not a bolt-on but something that all institutions have strategic plans for and something that learners expect when they decide they wish to engage with learning.

There was a very active twitter stream and it is great to see all the other themes that caught folks attention.

My biggest disappointment was the poor turn out from Scottish FE. I think this is probably just a temporary blip given the scale of restructuring that is just coming to a conclusion in Scotland. I hope by next year and Manchester 2015 the regional colleges will not only have settled down but will already have a range of on-line offerings to offer both their region and beyond. There is a lot of great work happening in Scotland we could have used a few more voices shouting out about it.

If you missed this year's conference you can see the keynotes and much more on the conference website. An an individual or institutional membership of ALT is invaluable in providing an overview of learning technology both across the UK and internationally,  it  gives you a personal learning network who are active in solving practical problems,  pushing at the frontiers of learning , drafting policy at institutional or national level all to make learning better and more accessible to learners.Maren Deepwell  , Martin Hawksey and the ALT backroom team are a pleasure to work with too.

Donald Clark Plan B at ALTC2010

Donald Clark opens ALTC 2010 Conference in Nottingham.

Founder of Epic an early on-line educational publisher which he sold on for a modest fortune now has an excellent blog at http://donaldclarkplanb.blogspot.com/ always controversial.


Don’t Lecture Me ! - Why we need to move away from the lecture theatre - a rabble rousing opening address.

I’ve heard some of this many times over the years and have experienced lots of awful teachers, lectures and conference presentations over the years. Donald does an entertaining spin through the challenges of getting individuals and institutions to move away from the lecture theatre. I agree with many of the challenges he identifies – but think we still have to find a way to move pedagogy on – and not least the  the pedagogues who like giving lectures when they can .. even in schools.  So not an easy challenge.

Hardly anyone who teaches in a University believes in any scientific methodology of teaching and learning or even tries to apply any of it. Collection of anecdotes rather than a data driven empirical approach and if any theories are used then they are half-baked. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs gets a doing it only survives because it is easy to put on a power point. Teachers always focus on what they are going to teach they hardly stop and think about how they are going to teach it.

Great use of teaching clip from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-S54bbX6eA

The Crazy English Movement fills stadiums with 25,000 in China
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/crazy-english-how-chinas-language-teachers-became-big-celebrities-1777545.html

Recommends  "The Media Equation " – book http://www.amazon.com/Media-Equation-Television-Information-Publication/dp/1575860538 some good ideas on applying new technologies to learning.

Teachers ask pseudo rhetorical questions and don’t really challenge learners. Lecturing grew from preaching in the middle ages and it has never really moved on. Was associated with reading and then instruction – but still a meaningless monologue.

Isaac Newton – was brilliant but no-one turned up to his lectures as no-one could understand them and his delivery was very poor – he often delivered them to empty rooms . Why put brilliant research scientists who can’t teach in front of undergraduates? Problem is not just people it is about methodology Richard Feynman teaching physics through lectures is almost an impossible task has to be through active learning.

Even the new recordings of lectures in YouTube are mostly rubbish – but it is still better to see a first class lecture on video than a mediocre one in the flesh. Russell Group Universities attendance drops to just around 50% among first years over a year.

Institutions should be looking at learning success rates and looking at how they can use technology to time shift Youtube.edu http://www.youtube.com/edu look at Lewins Lectures http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Lewin_Lectures_on_Physics , i-tunes u , MIT , Open Learn OU Don’t pad out cognitive overload - hardly anyone knows how to use text, images, sound etc in learning - there is lots more we could be doing to improve learning.

The Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve – keep coming back to this

Carol Twigg – Pew Research – move to active learning approach and redesign your courses around learning http://www.thencat.org/  actually a lot of potential in this work for curriculum for excellence in schools.

People need to be able to study at a distance in a much more enlightened way and universities need to share resources in much more creative ways – most medical faculties still have art /publications departments drawing and digitizing representations of the human body in a massively inefficient ways. When capital expenditure cuts come at least it will stop lots of monument building that has been going on campuses around the country.– most university buildings run at under 50% capacity which is scandal.

The Open University model is the way ahead.

And now 63 minutes later I've forgotten half of it

The VLE is Dead

Some sectors are just discovering Virtual Learning Environments so it is premature to hail the death of these systems. I think the most telling point is the question to academic audience

How many of you would go to your Virtual Learning Environment to learn anything ?

For this audience a VLE is barren closed sterile environment suitable for learners but not a place where they would go to learn.

Have a listen - excellent speakers and the discussion is really broader than a discussion about the technology it is really a discussion about the organisation of learning within an institutional framework.

This is another excellent session from ALTC2009 . As you might expect I think they are setting the benchmark for using technology to share sessions at the conference.

ALT-C 2008: Rethinking the digital divide

Leeds, UK, 9-11 September 2008

I am missing ALT-C this week - but will follow what I can through twitter and bloglines. I enjoyed spell on the executive and still follow many friends from this time. I spotted this piece on the digital divide - some of the creativity across UK elearning is fantastic - (hit more button) and watch the section on eportfolios ( in Wales every one has one already ) I think this is a neat explanation for school pupils. Amused too that it looks like they are having an ALT equivalent of Teachmeet F.ALT.
(hosted on a wetpaint platform, it and Ning are really cool and easy to use at moment)

There has been some consistantly great and useable stuff coming from Pontydysgu the Welsh Educational Research Institute.

Reminds me too that there is still too much of a digital divide among those who work in Education and Life Long Learning. If you are interested in the broader UK community and interested in learning technology across the learning arena then ALT is worth joining.