the weekend is time to relax

June 7th, 2014

Post #7 – where a change in focus takes place

I think I may have got a bit serious in yesterday’s post, so have decided to chill a little and behave like it’s the weekend. You know, that time when you get up a little later, newspapers and coffee after breakfast and a slow morning – lovely. Love my coffee with some (dark) chocolate or apple crumble & cream, and enjoy dipping in & out of the paper – checking a few favourites like Leunig, the ‘Get it’, the Travel & Drive sections, the magazines etc. (yes, still get the print version on the weekends). Then it might on to the chores or out for an excursion. 

For something different after lunch we went to the community centre and participated in a paper lantern making activity. Lots of mums & children and a good number of facilitators to help guide us in putting our bamboo frames together with masking tape, and then coat them with paper that had been painted with pva glue & water mix. We even had a break and some afternoon tea half way through the construction (a great idea as it gave the kids a break and the parents could get on and have a chat). 

What was interesting for me is what can happen when you engage in conversation. You find out that it’s a small world – had friends in common with one person, find out that you work in the same place with another and then realise that you all know a close relative mine! Very interesting to think about those degrees of separation and how sometimes the first one or two can take you completely by surprise. So, new connections were made and commitments were made to say hi to friends in common. Excellent!

Tulip

Don’t you just love the tulip season?

Our Word of the Day is: ‘crapulous’… 

PS – I was relieved and happy that the Cats got up last night…

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does the future inform the present?

June 6th, 2014

Post #6 – where this writer has a pressing deadline

It’s Friday night and I need to write this post to ensure my commitment to #blogjune is maintained. A busy week and looking forward to the weekend. Is there anything of interest that I can scribble down to make your visit to this blog worthwhile? Maybe there is…

I think I need to reflect a little more about an experience I had during the week. I was challenged to think about how higher education is responding to the digital revolution (whatever that is). I was presented with a number of provocations on how technological developments might change the world as we know it. Wearable technology, mobile devices, personalised experiences, robots replacing humans, and in particular in cognitive computing and the development of a capacity to transfer our minds into artificial bodies. We were also reminded of the pending technological singularity when machines become as smart/er as/than humans. 

What I found disconcerting about all this was that it’s in the realm of speculation and hypothetical (for now), and didn’t relate much to the problems we’re trying to solve today. It is important to be aware of technological developments and to consider how these might effect aspects of higher education. It’s too easy to be distracted by the hype (cycle) and take your eye off the ball and forget that we’ve got things to do now. I’d rather discuss the best ways to leverage the systems, applications and devices we have to ensure best practice and outcomes for all. It’s important to ensure we keep an eye on the present, and tweak the tools we have to provide the best environment for learning we can. What about you? 

Spectrum

Winter sunshine created this spectrum as it focused through some glass onto a wall.

Word of the Day is: ‘peregrine’, I’ve felt very peregrine during some of my travels, particularly in Niger.

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are you a maker?

June 5th, 2014

Post #5 for #blogjune – where I reflect on makers and making

This evening I went along to the opening of the Scarf Festival 2014 exhibition being held at the National Wool Museum in Geelong. This is a popular event for those who have an appreciation of things crafty, and there’s always some amazing scarves to be seen. What struck me in the opening remarks was that the festival is a celebration of the maker, the person who makes things by hand. The person who is creative and works through that process of concept, design, & creation to finish with an artefact or product. This piece has a personal investment, it reflects some of the maker, it will have an aesthetic, have significant time invested, and usually has a function. Any visit to a craft/night market will provide an insight to the huge range of (some) hand made things, and it’s encouraging to see. I like the idea of buying something that someone has made, something of quality, and something unique. Yes, is easy to by a mass produced cheap product off the shelf, but it just not the same – that product just doesn’t have enough soul. 

I also wanted to recognise the maker movement/culture that highlights a growing movement of people inventing their own products and services using cheap and accessible technology. This is also an interesting development, and I believe something we could encourage in education. I guess you can’t go past what Sir Ken Robinson says about creativity in schools. If you are one of the nearly 27 million people who has seen his TED talk you’ll know what I mean, if you haven’t seen it yet – spend the next 20 minutes watching it now. 

Still, I want to try and relate this to education and #highered and I want to ask what we expect our students to make. I guess most of the opportunities we give students to be makers and to create, are in assessment. Do we allow them to be creative, to be expressive and add their personality to their making? Do we develop rubrics and marking guides that allow for difference and creativity and, dare I say it – what about levels of subjectivity in making and grading? I think we should be able to build the concept of maker into learning outcomes and graduate attributes. Wouldn’t students still be able to demonstrate a competency and of assurance of learning. What do you think?

329 scarves

329 scarves on display at the Scarf Festival 2014 exhibition.

Our very special Word of the Day is: ‘onomasticon’, Hey, Jake, Frank, Jane, Sue, George, Sylvia, & Stephen – do you like it?

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some things I thought about today

June 4th, 2014

Post #4 for #blogjune – where I just rattle off some random thoughts..

“What am I going to write today?”, I ask myself. Who knows, I’ll just going to keep typing for a few minutes and see what happens…

One thing in the back of my mind today is the paper I have to finish before the end of the month. It’s basically written, but stills needs some tweaking and a few hours of editing. I’m going to submit this for the ascilite2014 conference which has the theme of ‘Rhetoric and Reality’. It’s a good theme I think, and hopefully the conference will give us a good reality check against some of the rhetoric we see in higher education circles concerning education & learning with technology. I find some of the (rhetorical) discussion often distracts us from the real work of determining what works well and improves student learning outcomes. It will be good to be at an event where ideas can be presented and discussed – looking forward to it.

I believe there’s an ongoing discussion to be had about how we structure learning and assessment in this new (digital & social) age. How do we create authentic learning activities that apply some cognitive load and engage students enough for them to enjoy the hard work of learning? Are our students ready for this? What do they expect to do?

I’ve also been thinking about work-place culture and how we induct new academic staff to the ‘business’ of teaching. It’s quite a deal to start work in a new place and have to get your head around the IT systems involved, the teaching spaces and associated technologies, let alone the online learning system/space. There’s a significant overhead to get up to speed with these things, and I have been struggling with how to distill the essentials to ensure staff have enough of a grasp of things to get underway. Organised workshops can address some of the need, but I’ve found that face-to-face and at-the-elbow interaction is a productive way to help staff come to understand and gain confidence with their new environment. The BIG question for me is, does senior management recognise the need for staff support and professional development, and are they willing to invest resources for this? What are your thoughts and experience on this?

A rope in the grass

Came across a rope in the grass on my walk today – not a snake to be seen.

Today’s Word of the Day is ’sparge’ – I hope, dear reader, that you’re enjoying the sparge of ideas in these series of #blogjune posts.

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to be part of the gang…

June 3rd, 2014

Post #3 for #blogjune – where I was wishing I was there, sort of…

I had half an eye on the twitter stream and the #edutech, #edutech2014 and #edutechau hashtags today (the organisers could have organised that better). Things were flowing! I guess with ~5000 delegates at the conference there was going to be some noise. Had to have the crap detector on, but people were definitely getting into sharing the love. The great thing about social media is that everyone can participate and it is a great way to get a sense of what’s happening out there…

Lovely to see lots of my Twitter ed-tech & e-learning friends attending and catching up with each other – it made me want to be there. There is something about being part of the gang at a conference, fun times, networking, exchanging ideas, being challenged, and testing our assumptions against others. Then there’s the presentation sessions where you get to hear from speakers – peers as well as keynotes – who usually give us something to consider. I always come away from such events with renewed enthusiasm and a sense of community having spent time with those of like mind. 

For now though, I’ll need to be content with attending the conference vicariously via the twitter stream and hope to catch some of those pearls cast before me. It’s a busy time in the office preparing for Semester 2, so plenty to keep me desk bound. But, come later in the year, the plan is to make it along to ascilite2014 where I’ll be able to catch up with friends at one of those conferences. 

Edutech tweets

The three columns in my Twitter feed that kept me in touch with my friends and proceedings at the #edutech conference. 

…and today’s Word of the Day is ‘embroil’, nothing wrong with a little embroiling at the appropriate time.

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learning to solve problems…

June 2nd, 2014

Post #2 for #blogjune – where I feel like it’s going to be a struggle…

Today I sat in on a Problem Based Learning (PBL) session where a small group of medical students had to finish off working through a patient case. PBL is a useful pedagogy that has been around for a while and does encourage students to investigate a range of issues involved in diagnosis, causes and treatment as a doctor would do. It does depend on all members of the group participating and a facilitator ensuring everyone is able to make a contribution. 

It was interesting to note that when students are post-grad and already have a degree such as optometry, nursing, physiotherapy or pharmacy, the other team members often look to the ‘expert’ to answer questions. This can shortcut the hard work of investigating the (learning) issues of the case so a facilitator helps keep things on track. 

I’ll be involved in the facilitating of such a group in semester two and wanted to see how the sessions run – I’m certainly going to have to brush up on my cardio-respiratory knowledge. 

In the meantime we are investigating if Team Based Learning might be a useful alternative as it’s a slightly different model and can provide better learning outcomes for weaker students. One issue that will need to be taken into account is the flexibility of learning spaces and how large the cohort of students is…

Walkies

Today I managed to get a walk in during lunchtime and strolled through this little forest – very fortunate to be in a workplace that has a parkland campus.

Oh, and the Word of the Day was ‘gnomist’ – nothing to do with studying little garden statues…

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