Learner Bytes

Post #10 – where the author ponders life & death

I didn’t mean to write another deep & meaningful post, which may be where this might be going, but let’s see what happens.

Destruction is easy. On the weekend I cut a tree down with a chainsaw and it took all of a few minutes. A tree that would have been 40-50 years old, felled in a moment. I didn’t just drop the tree, (while it was now dead) it also once provided shade, was a habitat, as well as being a food supply. It had grown slowly and serenely over an extended period and had become part of the eco system of the bush. It didn’t take very long to bring it down. I guess dropping it means that the site is safe from falling limbs and we have some timber as fuel supply. There is loss, but there is gain. New trees will be planted to replace the lost tree, and in time we’ll have our shade, habitat and the food supply (for Koalas) back.

The point I want to make though, is that there’s going to be a forty year time span between replenishing the forest from it’s current state. There should have been some planning to replace the old-timer trees with new ones a long time ago. For having disregard to the long term future health of the bush, we will need to wait a generation (or longer) before it’s back as it was.

I guess we call it succession planning in management speak and I see the problem becoming app rant in higher education and in particular learning and educational design. Many of us are getting older and there’s a lot of experience, knowledge, and (might I say) wisdom to be passed on. There will always be ‘young one’s’ coming through to replace us as we get older and move on, but how well is this planned for? Let’s hope our managers recognise the importance of having a range of maturity and experience available, and not have a generational gap in the #highered workplace ecosystem.

What’s left after chainsaw inflicted destruction. 

Word of the Day is: ‘prevaricator’, which means a person who keeps making excuses. 

Post #9 – where this tired writer contemplates hard work

Spent some time in the bush over the weekend and enjoyed some respite from the regular routine of normal weekends. Nice to wake up to the Kookaburra’s call and then watch a wallaby slowly make its way up a slope quietly grazing and stopping to listen every now & then. A coffee and some chocolate and then into some hard work dropping some dead trees and cutting them up in manageable pieces. There were a few of us, so lots of talking, thinking and planning about how to get these large trees down without taking out too much other bush. It was good to work as a team and with the appropriate tools we were efficient and managed to get quite a bit done in a few hours. We’ll be planting new trees shortly and will be looking forward to see the forest regenerate after being denuded by Koalas. For now though, I have some aches & pains from the exertion. 

Another example of teamwork and collaboration were a number of strange little chimney shaped piles of sand excavated by ants. An amazing flared shape that is built grain upon grain through the efforts of individual ants to create an entry to their burrow. It seems a shame how transient these beautiful structures are – once it rains, the shapes get washed away and the ants have to start again. Hard work, but necessary.

An amazingly shaped excavation in sand by industrious ants…

Word of the Day is: ‘strident’, and if you want to know what means – why don’t you go and look it up!

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? 

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.