I’ve been thinking about wisdom for a few reasons. The first is my previous post and the idea of a big picture. The second was the coincidence that three friends blogged about a similar issues this week (I’ll get to them in later post). The third was the Macquarie University Vice Chancellor’s Annual Lecture by Steven Schwartz this week. The speech was called ‘Wise up: Restoring wisdom to universities’ and talked about the changing curriculum at Macquarie to ensure students learned how to think. Students will be required to participate in activities other than just book learning. They will undertake a range practical learning applications to provide better understanding of themselves and those around them. A range of contexts outside the classroom will help develop life skills that will make them ready to take on a meaningful role in society.

Wisdom is special, an ability to distil something to the essence and apply it to a situation. And it doesn’t come cheap. It takes time to develop because it is, as Confucius suggests, the culmination of reflection, imitation and experience. Some of that experience comes the hard way, but we do learn best when out of our comfort zone. Reflecting on what we know & learn and practicing things to understand the consequence all take time – maybe that’s why the stereotype of a wise person, is an old one. But I don’t think that’s an excuse for us not endeavouring to learn how to apply our knowledge and experience in wise ways throughout our lives. I reckon wisdom takes courage too and there’s a level of responsibility to use this talent to benefit those around us. Maybe some of us are fortunate to have a disposition to better thinking processes.

Of course just being wise isn’t enough to be an active, informed, participating, member of society – there are many other qualities (virtues if you will) that make us complete, but being able to think is a great start. So, I think changing (or realigning) the curriculum at University is a wise move.

You can hear Steven interviewed by Richard Aedy on the Radio National program ‘Life Matters’. You can also follow Steven on twitter @macquarievc or read his blog at: http://www.vc.mq.edu.au/blog/.

At one level the implementation of a new LMS is fraught with risks – it’s a process that needs to be planned and managed so that there is a smooth transition and teachers and students can get on with their teaching and learning. So, should we be happy to accept this model of ‘let’s just get the course material migrated, the staff and students trained, and it’ll be business as normal’? I’d like to think not, but there a number of institutional pressures to have things working properly – and we’ve become risk adverse as we don’t want to distress our clients (students) and staff with a poorly implemented system. So, I understand we may want to work on an implementation process that provides a robust and working system and then focus on what we can do improve learning and teaching.

On an another level there is an opportunity to work with, and encourage staff to re-think their curriculum in light of the affordances of the new tools available in the new LMS. I see a challenge in helping academics come to understand the potential of different ways of designing learning activities & experiences to achieve outcomes using the functionality of the LMS. Maybe there’s a need to be subversive in all this – change won’t happen en mass – it requires a slowly slowly approach understanding that academics are time poor and looking for efficiencies. There also needs to be an understanding that this will involve some cultural change if new modes and models of teaching and learning are used. The level of resourcing required to develop a framework (and hopefully policy) as well as materials for professional development to support systemic change, will need addressing. It is only by stepping back, and zooming out to see the bigger picture, that we might be able to better understand the context and demands of university education. This includes; teaching, research, service, having work ready and beginning professionals as graduates, and as well as other things, achieving government and institution priorities. I hope that there is some institutional recognition of this and that appropriate resource might be directed to supporting not just an implementation but ongoing curriculum renewal.

So, my mission (that I wish to accept), is to support the introduction of a range of new tools available via the LMS that are intrinsic to holistic learning processes. This will lead to the development of better learning experiences while encouraging teachers to think about how they could adjust/ their curriculum design to develop higher order thinking and engage students more fully.

While I’m learning new ways to build courses, create discussions & quizzes etc., I’m wary of mapping old work practices onto new ones – I’d rather start again from scratch and ask the question, “What do you want your students to do?” The new system provides new choices – not just in how to configure roles and permissions but also in look & feel and tools to use. I’ve come to understand that there’s a lot of work to be done, particularly to do with course building and learning design.

I suppose we’re initially focused in getting it as nearly right as possible so that we can migrate and get all the courses, staff & student into the system so that learning & teaching can begin when we roll out next year.

There may be some compromises in the first instance, so that the mainstream are operational, but from then on we’ll have to tweak things as we come to understand the possibilities and respond to issues and requests. The system will allow for these adjustments and I’m looking forward to being able to fine tune things once we’re underway.

Photo credit: Marc Wathieu

On another matter, I tweeted this during the week,

“@colwar interesting the difference a simple explanatory conversation can make to clear up misconceptions. (let’s have more of them)”.

It was in response to a situation were I was able to explain how a certain new technology worked and give some people have a better understanding of how the technology functioned. I suppose I’m wondering why people don’t seek out good advice and want to know more about something, rather than rely on someone else to make a decision without explaining letting stakeholders know why. Maybe we all just need to make space (and/or go out of our way) to have more conversations and share the knowledge we have. I believe the spent spent doing that would easily cover the delays encountered vacillating around in the unknown.

Technorati Tags: communication, conversation, D2L, implementation, LMS, planning

So, I’m going to try and post every week on a Friday morning, and try to capture what’s happened during the past week. My intention is that this will become a ‘story’ of my journey as an educator and how I (we) might use of technologies to support learning and teaching. I also hope that I’ll provide information and reflections that are of interest to other educators/learners. I don’t think this is a huge commitment, but I understand that I’ll have to be disciplined to collect my thoughts (and resources) and set aside the time to write them down regularly.

Matthew emphasised that Web 2.0 is about connection and stressed that when thinking about Web 2.0 we need to take into consideration the 4Cs.

• Components: what feeds into the knowledge work system
• Cognition and Collaboration: thinking and working together forms the processing system
• Communication: the results of processing become public and the basis of audience reception and conversation

Matthew presented us with his top 10 Web 2.0 tools and gave us some great ways to use them for learning & teaching. It was useful to be reminded that it’s not about the tool, it’s about what you can do with the tool. Here’s his list – I was surprised that I was only familiar with only two of them. They may not all be mainstream, but they could add value to the learning activities/ experiences you develop.

1. xtimeline – xtimeline enables users to create timelines of events, in a constrained but flexible format, with collaboration features, and public communication options
2. listphile – “a powerful tool for organizing and collaborating around structured information. Call it a database tool, if you will (but please don’t scare anyone away)” [**I couldn’t access this link today, but will check again later]
3. slinkset – slinkset creates social news sites, private, shared or public like digg, with extensive yet simple to use design features
4. posterous – posterous is a powerful yet simple blogging engine with a particular emphasis on ease of posting: do it by email
5. mind42 – Mind mapping is … about entering ideas, arranging them … and refining and deepening ideas with colors, links and other attributes”
6. quizlet – quizlet is a flashcard production and use system, with inbuilt group and collaboration features and innovative ways of testing knowledge
7. reviewbasics – reviewbasics is a web-based service allowing users to work together to review documents, websites images with an emphasis on annotation
8. springnote – “wiki, word processing, and file organization [and] … sharing, having collaborators… to organize all the information you need at your fingertips”
9. knol.google – knol is Google’s answer to Wikipedia: editable, classified user-generated content based on the idea of a ‘knol’ (a unit of knowledge)
10. wiggio – comprehensive group collaboration tool: calendars, to do, sharing, online meeting and polling … people work as teams, not a group of individuals

You can also access the presentations on each of the tools on Slideshare, and a video recording of Matthew’s presentation capturing his discussion on each of the tools. You can follow Matthew on Twitter and read more of his work on his website (look for ‘writing’ tab).

Technorati Tags: activities, tools

After some feedback, the change was adjusted quickly so that only one login was required, but more than enough people sent round emails giving their two cents worth with regard to how inconsiderate people were in making the change without consulting, and that they wanted things reverted to how they were previously.

I found that explanations for the change weren’t readily accepted and that some people seemed to make comments just to make a comment, or get on the band wagon. There was no engagement with explanations, suggested work arounds, or an acknowledgement that the change may actually be useful – just some reactive, ill considered spaying that impressed no one. Who knows, maybe it’s a symptom of the busy, stressed workplace and taking any opportunity to have a go at someone (usually in leadership or a decision maker) else. What a waste of energy.

Anyway, the take-home for me? Have a think about the level of change you are implementing, and whether any communication is required at all – and if so, keep it brief and highlight the positive effects of the change. Then sit back and keep your head down till the noise goes away & the dust settles.

Apple have done it again and managed to raise a good amount of media coverage with the introduction of this new device. I’ve been reading so much about the iPad, I thought I’d add my own reflections to the mix. The reviews have been mixed as to whether the device is useful, how it might be used, the market position of Apple controlling apps & content, and if it meets with market/industry expectations. I suppose much of this is useful in helping inform someone thinking about purchasing the device, and arguing whether it might be useful in education or business use. What I find a little distracting in all the wordplay is that people seem to either love it or hate it. If you don’t want one or aren’t interested, that’s OK – you might even design your own alternative device. If you want one, it doesn’t help to fawn at the feet of the manufacturer – we need to keep them on their toes and provide feedback on shortcomings.

I see the iPad as a device designed to do a number of things, but generally see it to be a platform for consuming content. It’s a lot about the functionality and interface (see James Clay’s post) and it doesn’t pretend to be something it isn’t. I think that it will prove to be well designed and provide a great experience when using it. It will be much better to use that the iPod Touch and provide extra functionality. From an education perspective, I recognise that the iPad could provide some leverage in providing a platform for study, game-play, accessing content, and limited interaction.

I think there remains the question the ability of the device to support collaboration & content creation.In the end time will tell, and who knows – there might even ‘be an app for that’. But whatever they’ll cost, and whenever they become available, I’m sure I’ll be there to iBuy an iPad.

I believe the way I’m feeling has something to do with the ‘stories’ that people told. Too often we were presented with the outline of the paper as it was written for the conference, and people often read out their dot points from their slides. I would rather hear the story of the journey, the experience, how people felt while working their project, reflections from participants, about the new understanding they developed, and what changed about their thinking. An interesting story will always lead me to the paper and further investigation.

Narrative is core to our culture and we only need to look at the popularity of books & films to see how much we like a good yarn. While we in developed Western cultures have lost a lot of the oral tradition, it is still a common means of passing on knowledge and understanding. Maybe we would do well to focus a little more on developing stories through which to ‘deliver’ content, ideas, and findings in our educational institutions.

I believe a ‘presentation story’ is (should be) more than just about having a beginning, middle, conflict, resolution, and end, it’s about making it personal and sharing how your learning has effected, changed and evolved you. Sharing stories, or making a narrative out of what you want to say, helps provide authenticity and will connect with the audience, it grounds the presentation in lived experience. The story needs to be told within a context or setting, and the characters provide us access to the drama as we learn about it through their eyes. We get to understand the human element of the research, the impact to the participants and how learning has been improved, lives enhanced, innovation adopted, etc.

Is your story good enough to hold the attention of an audience? An audience of your peers at a conference, or an audience of students in a lecture or classroom. Are you able to engage your listeners in a (your) personal journey and make connections with others by inviting them to participate in your story? Do you have any good examples of a narrative presentation?

What do you think? Should we be focusing more on narrative in our teaching as well?

I’ve set myself the challenge of making the presentations I do next year, more like stories/narratives and will look forward to hearing what people think about them…

(these reflections don’t take into account the potential of a good slide deck to support a story, or whether there might be a Twitter or live blog, back channel in action while you are presenting – might cover those topics in a future post)

Technorati Tags: narrative, presentation, story

We began with short plenary session where Matthew Riddle reported on his Blackboard research grant where he asked student to record their ‘day experience’ using mobile technology. Some interesting initial findings that students spend a lot of time at home, and when on campus would like better access to the internet and to powerpoints for laptops in meeting places – particularly after hours. (watch this space)

I then attended a session on eportfolios that explored the benefits & value of the use of a space where students can be reflective learners, collect artifacts, demonstrate acquisition of graduate attributes and professional competencies, complete assessable tasks and developing showcases or representations of their learning to particular contexts. We were challenged to think about the questions that could be asked of staff & students before going ahead with an eportfolio implementation plan. I understand that there needs to be some clear articulation of purpose and context when talking about eportfolios so that people understand how they are to used in a particular way in a particular place/space.

I went to the symposium, ‘Thinking about a new LMS: Comparing different institutional models and approaches’ where we heard representatives from four institutions discuss their evaluation and implementation of a new LMS – all of them went for Moodle. All very interesting as the university where I work has just about completed the evaluation process and about to decide on a new LMS platform. What was useful, was hearing about the planning and implementation phase of these projects and the lessons learned. Lots of great do’s & don’ts and tips & tricks for getting the best outcome for an implementation. There were no papers or presentations available for this session but each institution took a different approach to evaluation and implementation – one complete institution-wide with all courses converted, and another staged implementation with staff having to rebuild their units. Main take-home points for me: communication is key, get buy-in from academic staff, have some departmental champions, have a committed executive sponsor, ensure everyone knows where they are heading, and communicate (in as many ways as possible). You might be interested in Mark Smithers’ blog post Public LMS Evaluations, where he has compiled a list of publicly available LMS reviews.

After another delicious lunch, James Clay gave the final keynote and asked us all to think about what the ‘mobile’ means in mobile learning. He outlined the advantages & disadvantages of (mobile) technology and wondered how well education is coping with the changes in work, culture, & society. It was an engaging presentation that asked lots of questions and challenged us to think about how we respond to this change and what we might do to prepare our students for the future. It was great to see James have the Twitter backchannel displayed during his talk. He used keynotetweet to have tweets from his Keynote slides posted to the #ascilite09 hashtag so that those not present, could follow his slide points in Twitter. Nice!

You can access the archive of tweets with the #ascilite09 hashtag at Twapper Keeper, and you can also access the programme and papers of the conference online.

The handover to ascilite 2010 was made and the host for next year is University of technology Sydney. Hopefully see you there!

Technorati Tags: eporfolio, LMS, mobile learning