Communication channels

With new technological developments comes a time of adjustment and it was ever thus!

Turns out smartphone addiction isn't new. Samuel Pepys (1665) was unable to stop checking his timepiece 100x nonstop pic.twitter.com/4D8wCreoUx

— Brian Klaas (@brianklaas) July 20, 2016

Over the holiday period I took a few days away from my laptop but still checked my phone. Getting online is how I interact with colleagues, friends and family. It is how I find out what I need to know (movie times, latest news). Even as I write this sitting in a very cold and noisy home surrounded by 2 heating engineers (boiler broke down just before Christmas and a new one is currently being fitted) I am communicating with my sons (stranded in their bedrooms as the floorboards and carpet are all lifted outside their doors) to check on them. I thought I would try to keep my fingers warm by typing a blog entry which has been in draft for a while. 

New communication technologies are a huge social challenge when they come along. Inevitably they are "sold" to us as the answer to every problem posed by distance, an efficiency we require to cope in the modern world, the industry takes care of that. Up to us then to try them out and express how much more complex human communication is than the software developers would have us believe. 

Humans like to choose their methods of communication differently, what works for some will offend others. Texting (SMS) grew rapidly in popularity and was welcomed by some as a means to encourage written communication between a generation who resisted reading books. However, it was not long before people were being unceremoniously dumped or fired by text message.

Email has become the default for formal correspondence in many workplaces, invoices, quotations and receipts can be emailed whilst "snail mail" has been reduced, business postage bills must have dropped dramatically but this shift has also brought new challenges - we have all had to learn how to manage these in order to stay safe and keep up with work demands. However, those who love email rarely seem to appreciate why others may find it intrusive and unhelpful. 

My hypothesis is email is not fit for work with multiple correspondents. Like all strong relationships it works better between fewer folks.

— Ernesto Priego (@ernestopriego) December 21, 2016

And now we are in the era of synchronous online interactions for work or play. Video conferencing for work has brought some interesting new takes on the meeting, beautifully illustrated in this video . The social norms we have long established over time, the reliance on body language and eye contact to help mediate our interactions, these forms of human feedback are replaced by a new need to understand the workings of our connection, hardware operation and indeed digital audio feedback!  Those who master these challenges, those with "communicative advantage" - especially between global connections - will undoubtedly have an advantage over others if they put their combination of technical and interpersonal skills to good use. All too often we see communicative advantage bring the wrong sorts of changes as we did in London thanks to the realisation of a particular messaging system but we must not fear or blame the tool, the fault lies with those who refuse to acknowledge and engage with the new channels, we only have ourselves to blame. If we do not inhabit physical spaces and leave them to be overrun by those who would do wrong we are complicit in creating ghettos and no-go areas, leaving mistrust and lawless behaviour to flourish. 

In the world of synchronous connection, there is great work already underway to restore the online spaces afforded by virtual connection tools to enable more open interaction and normalisation of such channels. I must mention at this point the work of Maha Bali and others, selflessly supporting intercultural discussions, helping to counter the inequity which blights us. Never has this research and exploration been more important for our world. It needs to inform and educate our young people to use such tools and communication channels appropriately for the good of us all. 

IT, ET and UT. Rethinking the control of technology in education.

Crossed wires.

A photo posted by Teresa MacKinnon (@profteresamac) on Jan 13, 2015 at 9:28am P

 Working in educational technology and teaching at this time of rapid change I often find myself in uncomfortable positions, trying to navigate conversations with people who have varying levels of understanding of technical systems and priorities that are not my own. I try to understand their point of view and, if they are interested, explain how I see things. Some conversations end happily, with increased empathy, others are awkward. Control is central to the awkwardness.

In educational institutions access to technology, how it is configured and used and by whom has long belonged to IT departments.  Over more recent years, technology deployed specifically for teaching and learning (Educational Teachnology, ET) has seen the development of new IT roles, often combining the skills of technical staff and teaching staff working side by side. This is not always an easy relationship but does provide a bridge between the two areas of activity, allowing (at best) increased understanding of how to provide engaging online systems which meet user needs. 

However, we are rapidly moving to a new reality. 

The era of UT - ubiquitous technology. Our smartphones are often all that is needed to capture and share a learning opportunity. We share and message each other, building our own personal learning environment as we select our preferred tools, sources of information and interactions. The educator's role in this context is changing, no longer the sole purveyor of wisdom (if we ever were) we have to keep pace with the ever proliferating access to more interesting content in order to engage our learners critical skills and earn our place in their information eco-system. The image below, shared on Steve Wheeler's post summarises the changes clearly: 

Originally shared by Teacher Toolkit http://teachertoolkit.me/

The debates and concerns about control of IT systems are really as helpful as my tangled mess of wires. If institutions are to cope with the changing landscape, those in IT and ET need to accept the era of UT and work constructively in discourse, respectful of the rights all have to participation and preferences in choices of technology. Sure, there will be core tools we may provide but control of all technical tool use in unrealistic and undesirable, especially when you are working with young people who have only known a world mediated by the digital. There are more important things to worry about than control - the learning and strength lies in co-operation and distributed networks. Effective collaboration is the key.

As a youngster I would often sit and untangle the box of wires my dad kept for his hobby of amateur film making. Seems like I find myself in that situation professionally now. 

ST

The e word.

I chose to look at enhancement and watched the video about xMOOC models. There are several viewpoints shown in the clip but the main focus is on the Stamford experience of Udacity co founder Sebastian Thrun and his stated aim was to democratise access to learning arising from his belief that "education is a basic human right". Whilst I fully support this premise (who wouldn't ?) I felt that some of the statements made rather simplified the success of this model and at times tried to compare it to a way of teaching that would be recognised by most teachers as failing learners . Traditional teaching was presented as students sitting in ranks, not allowed to talk to each other, lecturers transmitting knowledge from the front - surely these are clichés and any institution who maintains them is already on the road to obsolescence? Sadly in HE old habits (and business plans) die hard.

The elements of the MOOC model applicable in my context:
(I prefer cMooc to xMooc personally, as I see the latter more as an institutional marketing model to support business as usual) were:

• online delivery makes learning more accessible especially to those unable to take time away from work/life in order to study
• greater availability of content for replay/review
• more problem based learning, explanations afterwards, "flipped" delivery
• increased emphasis on interaction, making best use of technology, use of quiz 
• more economical, reach more students, make teaching a first class discipline again
• education a lifelong issue - more relevant to modern world, flexible and continuous 

Of course all these things also apply to good blended learning. The question here is how does one scale up the tutor time in order to deliver a personalised experience to thousands of participants? It would seem from the participants interviewed that they expected to get that interaction from each other. Possibly accepted as a trade off for not having to pay to learn? One interviewee commented that we "underestimate how powerful interaction can be online". I believe that to be the case having experienced several cMoocs now since 2011. If you invest the time in online learning, getting to know your fellow learners, if the course is aligned with your personal learning needs you can indeed make useful and productive connections which can foster deep learning. Thrun's experience must be quite chilling for the established order, as it questions whether the "best" universities really select the best potential graduates, his online students outperformed those turning up on campus according to his analysis. So as I have long suspected, there is much wasted potential as a result of our industrial schooling model. 

• problems anticipated

the business model: as soon as money is exchanged for learning a set of expectations arise which have to be met. Thrun's model implies that business as usual is required in order to fund this open free course model. Clearly new costing models would have to be established, I am sure the technology used isn't free and I guess he also expects payment for his work? This is at the heart of the issue and we need some suggestions more creative than simply trying to sell videos of experts in order to raise funds and draw attention to the institution. 

Ultimately, what is judged by learners to be "enhanced" learning opportunities will depend upon their experience of learning, not simply the content they have had access to. Interaction lies at the heart of that. Quality has never really been about institutional reputation, it is more personal than that.

Conducting a VLE review

A post for #octel week 5 based on reviewing Julie Voce's VLE review presentation. 

Julie's detailed and clear project report captured though audio and slides is extremely clear and well articulated. The complexity of the task is obvious, this was a large scale review and re planning of online provision for the teaching in a multi-site institution. I can fully appreciate the steps that were taken, there is a clear logic to the process and, despite some pain along the way the outcome was largely successful. I am very interested in the "failures" and "lessons learnt" slides as they hold useful messages for reflection.

Our language learning online environment Languages@Warwick was created three years ago to meet the needs of a small (by comparison) group of about 3,700 users engaged in a very specific activity: blended language learning. It was informed by my research into language teaching methodologies and learner requirements and developed through a piloting process with our teachers and learners. The aim was provide technologies that could facilitate best practice on language teaching and support innovative teaching. So the scale of our project was different. However, I do wonder if there is something else that can be learnt from our experience that may help those looking to implement institution wide VLE provision. Some of the details are presented in more detail on my CMALT e-portfolio. 

• Who were your stakeholders?

our learners (from across all degree programmes), our teaching staff, our institutional managers, our IT staff. 

• What resources were used?

our teaching staff (esp. those already using technology for teaching), our internal finance (income generating unit), an additional technical staff member recruited to help implement the project, external moodle hosting partner, technology advice using channels such as Jisc, ALT and listserves with other language centre contacts. 

• How clear/achievable was the project plan?
• What fallback position, if any, did you build into your plan in the event of full or partial project failure?

Given the narrow nature of the brief and the fact that existing online arrangements were not conducive to the best use of our resources (human or financial) the project plan was very clear and was monitored and reported on at regular intervals. It was also flexible and shaped by our stakeholders. The fallback position was to rely on institutional development which would have had a significant impact on our ability to compete for students so failure was not really an option!

• What methods did you use to evaluate your project?

We use both quantitative and qualitative data on an annual basis to review our project implementation. This is then shared with stakeholders in a variety of ways including papers/presentations to conferences, presentations at internal showcase events, and reports and documentation to managers. 

• How did you measure project success?

Success criteria include:

-the amount of engagement from our user base through the Languages@Warwick VLE (course resource counts, usage patterns, student feedback)

-the capacity for innovative language teaching (activity in research for Computer Mediated Communication, virtual exchanges)

-the developing digital skill set of our teaching staff

-addressing through suitable technical choices the relative advantage of digital teaching so that we maximise the engagement for all stakeholders.

• Did you celebrate your success and did this encourage further developments?

Celebrating success was a key part of the strategy adopted. From the pilot stage on, we encouraged tutors to share their experienced with their teams and the Centre. We used a youtube channel and a twitter feed to disseminate successes and these were aggregated back in to a core" Using moodle for language teaching" course to which all users were subscribed. 

However...

As Julie identifies from her experience and we certainly found in ours, even when you plan everything meticulously and execute with as much support as can be mustered there are still some major barriers that can emerge during such projects that can really take a toll on those charged with implementing them.

Communication: never as simple as it seems. As a language educator I was aware of the complexities of human communication, the close connection between communication and power dynamics. Too often we interpret the need to communicate effectively as simply providing a "push channel" - a space through which we broadcast decisions and information. This ignores the importance of "pull" communication channels, the means for interested parties to get the information that is relevant to them, giving them control and helping to enlist participation. If people do not wish to engage with your message you have to rely on hierarchical support which may or may not be there. If others are suspicious of the project agenda and feel it may effect their way of working, again there is a good deal of advanced communication to do! Our project was clearly aligned with our institutional Senior management vision and yet that was not enough to make the path to realisation smooth. Finding out what others need and listening to them is importantly and I think this was rightly prioritised in Julie's project even if it caused the time frame to slip. We need to remember we are all colleagues working together for an over aching aim and as such everyone is entitled to their opinion, concerns and input. Any project plan or gant chart that fails to take into account the complexities of implementing change in an institutional context ignores the vital ingredient - people. Great project management qualities include humility, patience and compassion as well as the steely determination to make things happen Such qualities ensure the project will not just succeed but it will last because others will want to help you make it so. 

Exciting development

Heard today that Russell Stannard is to join Warwick at CAL. Thrilled to get a DM on twitter on his first day. Looking forward to a good ol' chinwag!

A week of breakthroughs

We now have a moodle, complete with suitable logos and a choice group of users. We also have a suite of social networking tools for the Language Centre (facebook, netvibes, youtube channel and of course twitter has been going for a little while)All of a sudden we're off!