Transitioning - a liminal space

 

Navigating the landscape - photo by @warwicklanguage CC BY SA

The academic year 2024 has just started. Not for me though. For me this is the third year of retirement and I am still in the process of transitioning from the professional me to the personal me - identities which have been enmeshed for so long it is tricky to navigate. When I read this post from Alastair Creelman, I was reminded that I need to continue to work on my navigation skills. I always found his blog really helpful and I felt rather sad to read that he would no longer be posting, although I fully understand and respect his reasons. I tried to add a comment to reflect how important his thoughts have been along the way but sadly it did not appear. So if you read this Alastair please know I am grateful for your open sharing and for how you helped me. 

Another blog post which influenced my own thoughts on transitioning came from another open hero of mine, Martin Weller. This post  is so significant as it captures the ongoing challenges of our time and reminds me of the importance of fighting for open practices. This has been an aspect of my professional life which transcends the "employment" phase and is deeply embedded in my personal psyche. I have reflected often as to whether, post retirement, I should continue to research and publish. I am still in two minds on this. I don't lack things to do to be honest!

There is one area of openness however where I feel progress is not where it needs to be yet and where I can hopefully continue to be of use. It is the area of open recognition. I think I find this so important because it goes to the very heart of my commitment to self determination (both political and psychological). The technical mechanisms include ownership and curation of an eportfolio and collection and curation of open badges. For me these tools have so many uses:

• fostering community belonging and pathways to self development
• offering recognition and encouragement in online fluency
• supporting creative activity in assessment and knowledge creation
• providing safe spaces for experimentation and individuality

Life in the age of AI will bring bigger challenges and some temptations which we must review critically. Spoiler alert: Open AI - it is NOT Open, nor is it Intelligent. This is an age which must relish in the nature of the human, must celebrate our creativity and diverse intelligences. Academia and our educational instutions must embrace the opportunity to be on the right side of history. Money and league tables must matter less; values and integrity must dominate your futures. 

I can see my next steps more clearly now. Funny how blogging helps. 

Staying on board

                

My teaching career began in the 1980's and, as I have mentioned on this blog before, I was an early adopter of technology in language teaching. The Internet was not widely used in education for some years to come but my professional teaching career was to be hugely shaped by it's birth. I lived through the "advice" which came our way, some of it helpful, much of it erroneous and lacking in awareness of the contextual realities of teaching in the 20th Century. The 21st Century picture is not hugely different. Change is never easy, the future is "not very evenly distributed" The video remix above is just one example of the issues educators face with the challenges of working in the digital domain. Legal and ethical issues as well as practical choices continue to make the teaching ad learning environment one which requires collaborative effort, critical awareness and co-operation. I consider myself to have been fortunate to find and participate in great networks to support my understanding of learning technology such as EUROCALL and ALT. I was fortunate enough to be able to research and publish in my academic field whilst working at the University of Warwick.

I am no longer employed in schools or University, having retired at the end of 2020 after 30+ years but I don't feel able to step away completely at this stage. I continue to offer my skills, such as they are, to organisations such as EUROCALL as a Trustee and member of the Executive, and to the not for profit UNICollaboration . I am also proud to be able to contribute to the voluntary work of Future Teacher 3.0 and #LTHEchat.  The continuation this offers has enabled me:

• to maintain a sense of belonging
• to keep my knowledge up to date
• to enjoy fellowship with kindred spirits

I write this post to share the changes I have experienced since retirement as they may be of interest to others. 

Firstly, as I no longer have an institutional affiliation, I have of course lost access to some of the privileges I enjoyed as an academic staff member. Most significant of these is access to academic publications which live behind paywalls. As I favour open publishing I am glad that I can still read the work of those who share openly. 

Secondly, as a pensioner I examine my budget regularly and no longer use Microsoft products. Expensive licences are not justifiable for personal use, I prefer to pay less and get great value from Google storage and Chromebook use. I use my more limited means to support great folk such as Bryan Matthers and his Fabulous Remixer Machine  to campaign for greater fairness and sustainability and to maintain my own websites. 

Finally, I use my knowledge and skills to help newer practitioners make informed choices and to warn of the dangers of technological evangilism. I do so by sharing openly on my blogs and through maintaining curations such as my Tool Parade dynamic document and my Pearltrees account. I worry that education has a shorter memory than ever before as experienced teachers are considered to be too expensive and retention is now a huge issue. Never mind the impact of AI on our sector! 

I guess I won't be around forever but at least I can leave a digital legacy.

 

#InnoConf21 keynote. Carving a better future from dark matter.

 

Who would like one? Will not be able to send them until mid-Sept. https://t.co/Slwt4Y922c pic.twitter.com/PYJZtg3gml

— Dr. Donna Lanclos (@DonnaLanclos) August 25, 2018

 

I'm very excited (and a little nervous) about my next challenge. I will be opening tomorrow's #innoconf21 which is hosted by Reading University with a keynote which will address the use of educational technologies (edtech) in language teaching. I am very grateful to the organisers for giving me this opportunity to curate resources, reflect and present my insights into the work of language teaching and I hope that by the final plenary we will all have a clearer vision for how the next 5-10 years of language teaching could look. 

Here is the abstract for my keynote:

Carving a better future from dark matter. 

A dramatic turn of events beset our lives in 2020, a global pandemic. Everyone had to face a new and daunting reality that touched every aspect of our lives, both personal and professional. Our working lives faced huge disruption and, in order to continue to function at all, we all became more reliant on technical “solutions” to connect us to each other. For some this was a continuation or extension of familiar territory, for others this was a new endeavour. For all it brought huge challenges, long days and complicated negotiations with students and colleagues. The “pivot online” revealed many areas of university teaching which were unresolved, from “delivery” to assessment. Intensive innovation was the order of the day and such rapid change is not without pain. As we face an emerging reality in which ongoing disruption is likely, how can we be better prepared for a more positive future in which our processes and pedagogies support learners and staff alike? 

 

In this keynote, I will not shy away from the very real challenges we face.  I will however offer hope for a more sustainable future for language educators through collaboration beyond our usual hierarchies and borders. 

Slides:

In my preparation I have drawn on the work of many people, curating a padlet wall of resources which includes links to additional sources for those who want to dig deeper. I will be inviting participants to join the conversation in the zoom chat and also respond to some shared questions through the vevox poll. My slides will be shared online tomorrow morning, look out for the #innoconf21 tag.

The pandemic has of course been hard for everyone. Many are now gearing up for further challenges in coming academic year. As I stand on the sidelines now I am hoping to use this platform to inspire and support my colleagues.

In keeping with our focus on shaping the future for modern languages I would like to encourage all participants to arm themselves with the tools to carve out their future, both individually and collectively so we can sustain our important role in connecting the populations of the world for the huge challenges hurtling towards us. Use the force!

 

EuroCALL 2019: Critically open - designing for learning with your eyes open.

How do you choose your digital tools?

This coming week I will ask this question to those attending EuroCALL2019 in Louvain La Neuve, Belgium. Their input will update the word cloud above. I am interested to find out what or who influences our tool selection - do we use what we know? what we are told to use in our institution? what we have heard about from others?  When do we change tools? Does student interest or advocacy play a part? Are we aware of how some tool choices may negatively impact on student engagement? Do we think about whether a resource created using for example an authoring tool may not be accessible to some students? Perhaps we have limited choice.

I hope my presentation gives rise to discussion about how we can ask better questions when designing for learning in digital environments.

A favourite resource from Future Teacher 3.0 UK on this subject is available here.

You see sadly there is little training for web developers into the accessibility needs of those using learning resources, little awareness amongst learning designers and practitioners of the importance of accessibility and therefore the online resources which have been assumed to help support learning can sometimes just further marginalise  learners. Increasingly as the technology gets more complex, more "magical" thanks to algorithms and artificial intelligence we understand less of what is going on inside the black box. I believe that if we use digital tools we need to ask better questions, to uncover some of what is hidden from us. We need to use and promote critical digital literacy

I have been curating some of the conversations on twitter which relate to #criticaldigilit. I hope you find them useful.

Stating the unspoken #oer18 #knowhow Sowing the seeds for a fairer world.

Having returned home from the #OER18 conference where I presented this session I have decided to clarify some points which I may not have made clearly on the day as time was short and I had to rush to run another session elsewhere. 

I shared the experience of running a small staff and student investigation into open educational practice at Warwick. I believe there are aspects of the way this was done which were exemplary and effective. There were also aspects which could have been improved were it not for internal tensions and confusion over roles, responsibilities and mission. I am not blaming anyone, just looking to surface the points where barriers appear which can prevent us from achieving our aims. 

What went well:

• the bringing together of people from different parts of the institution over coffee to share our perspectives
• the freedom for participants to choose which project aims they wanted to contribute to and when to do that
• the agreement to create a metaphor and communication channels we could all embrace and understand
• the open validation and publishing of contributions, leaving a legacy which can be built on by all.

What could have been better:

• the insecurity of some participants due to job changes and political climate (Brexit, funding etc). 
• the lack of shared understanding of open education and evident suspicion of a hidden agenda.
• confusion over whether the project's internal communication should also be cleared by our external communications as it would be openly available. 
• Delays in funding had a knock on effect on spending, staff and student time is limited and when funding is delayed and time limited it can prevent the possibilities which we had planned being realised. 
• internal alignments of this project were clearly with agendas such as those of academic technology, skills development and research support and yet there is little evidence of follow up from those areas.  

I can see that the emphasis on compliance in institutional discourse creates fear and lowers confidence, it cripples innovation, makes individuals afraid to take risks. If we are to realise the win-win that is open educational practice we must bridge the gaps of understanding, sharing and mainstreaming (as identified by Nacimbeni et al, 2014) at the most basic of grassroots levels to align practice with a clearer confidence in our mission and greater understanding of our values. 

More stories of connection

And so to phase 2 of my Clavier story for Simon +Simon Ensor 

When you look at the literature around the use of technology in education you will soon come across references to disruption. Having been an early adopter of technology in language teaching I have experienced this and my Master's research (on the user perceptions of voice over the internet) also identified that embedding technology in learning design does require a return to first principles if it is to be embedded successfully. As such it is a useful mechanism if you need to focus teacher attention on why we do what we do. This perspective from IMS Global on disruption clearly assumes that there is something inherent in the existing status quo in education which needs a shake up and gives an industry insight into learning technology in the business of education. Many of us working "at the chalk face" felt that disruption was "a good thing" I'm sure. After 30 years in education the never ending re-invention of wheels and flow of buzz words takes its toll. However, taking a more critical stance we need to challenge that underlying assumption - what do we value about education that needs to remain in place?

The next phase of my Clavier journey saw new connections, collaborations and co-creations. (This story is not chronological you may have noticed, it is thematic). The serendipity of networked practice together with a heightened attention to the importance of protecting the place of human interaction in education resulted in many conference presentations and publications . The Clavier experience had ignited a spark which fed an intellectual curiosity. Central to this was a realisation of my own agency in progressing educational opportunity for all. I decided to be an open educational practitioner and again my network - an international collection of educators in many different contexts - were reliable in getting involved. This internal event about teaching excellence at Warwick saw staff exploring physical and virtual spaces, connecting virtually with Marcin Klébin @makle1 in Poland; the doors to the EuroCALL conference were opened this year thanks to collaboration with Maha Bali +Maha Bali and Virtually Connecting, my students have created open educational resources and even contributed to online conferences, the WIHEA #knowhow project (see https://storify.com/WarwickLanguage/warwick-window-on-teaching) produced resources and connections to help others decide on a path to opening up their work. Having found my voice in the academic community and a means to engage in the meaningful deployment of my abilities across institutional and national boundaries thanks to the open internet, I have made yet another career "modification" - one where I can pass on a new perspective to students considering teaching languages.(https://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/modernlanguages/applying/undergraduate/crossschool/ln306/) I do not wish to be a "teacher trainer" but rather a co-learner in order to support the sustainability of a profession which I have loved throughout my career. Clavier has been part of that unexpected sequence of events and the network which has stretched around the world has seen me working with colleagues in Egypt, Poland, Sweden, Australia, the USA, Spain, Finland, Canada and the UK! 

Sustaining teaching through little OER

Image: Open CC BY 2.0 on Flickr by Fatimah Fatih

Soon I will be presenting on the sustainability of teaching and recent months have seen lots of talk of austerity, business models for public good which have all been relevant to my thinking. I have been curating a pearltree to capture the many facets of the discussions and engaging with various individuals about open educational practice or practices. There is an issue of definition which makes it tricky for practitioners in education to see the point of working in the open. The concern is there though.

Thanks for advocating for languages! Some of us language teachers worry about our future! @RickSmithShow @BadassTeachersA https://t.co/pv2FVrtOq0

— Amy Lenord (@alenord) February 28, 2017

For too long, teachers have been disempowered by an education system that is controlled by politicians who know nothing of how to inspire and lead young people. The barriers to professionalism and the confidence to create have to be removed. This suggestion moved me to creation!

@OERCommons @Bali_Maha ¿How about an open textbook on how to teach without textbooks?

— Mark Johnstone (@mcjsa) March 5, 2017

So how do I break free from teaching a coursebook which students cannot afford and reclaim my confidence in guiding students to the necessary competence in my subject? Well, here's my textbook creator guide (slightly tongue in cheek but you'll get the point when you take a look) 

Just do it - practice openly and others will help to improve and remix. Join your community and surface what matters through little OER.