Rising to the challenge of the digital age
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Keynote to the Irish Learning Technology Association Conference, EdTech 2016, Dublin 27 May 2016.
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Rising to the challenge of the digital age
- 1. Rising to the challenge of education in a digital age: who are the leaders now? Professor Rhona Sharpe Oxford Brookes University rsharpe@brookes.ac.uk @rjsharpe
- 2. Building on the Jisc FE Digital Student Study Kodak by Tara R on Flickr, CC-BY-NC 2.0)
- 3. Building on the Jisc FE Digital Student Study Kodak by Tara R on Flickr, CC-BY-NC 2.0)
- 5. The path of disruptive innovation Christensen, C. M. and Eyring, H. J. (2011) The Innovative University: Changing the DNA of Higher Education from the inside out. Jossey-Bass: San Francisco.
- 7. What kind of digital leaders are you: knowledgeable
- 8. What kind of digital leaders are you: knowledgeable Score 6-9: Digital leaders don’t have to be geeks but you do have to know enough about technology to seize opportunities and make good decisions on behalf of your organisation. Consider trying at least two new technologies you have seen used by teachers, learners or other leaders. Soon you will be talking like an expert! Score 10-14: You have a good understanding of the technologies in current use and can find out more when you have to. But you may lack time to explore emerging technologies or break out of current ways of thinking. Consider exploring at least one new trend in terms of its potential to enhance your organisation.
- 10. Can we build it? http://www.brookes.ac.uk/brookes-virtual-gateway/
- 12. Why is the pace of innovation slow in HE? Deeply entrenched culture of conservatism Resistance to change among large parts of ageing academic workforce Constraints of inflexible organisational structures, systems and processes Risk aversion of leadership teams and governing bodies.
- 13. Can we build it? “The key message to emerge was that institutions felt the substantive challenge was not the pedagogical model they chose to use for open and distance learning (ODL), but planning the configuration of the supporting infrastructure, resources and business models required to support the development and delivery of ODL programmes.” White, D., Warren, N., Faughnan, S. & Manton, M. (2010) Study of UK Online Learning: A report for HEFCE. http://www.hefce.ac.uk/media/hefce/content/pubs/2010/rd1710/rd17_10.pdf
- 14. New markets and products? Products Markets Present New Present Market penetration New product development New Ansoff’s growth vector matrix (Ansoff, 1957)
- 15. Can UK HEIs plan for growth? https://www.ucas.com/sites/default/files/jan-16-deadline-application-rates-report.pdf
- 16. New markets and products? Products Markets Present New Present Market penetration New product development New New market development Diversification Ansoff’s growth vector matrix (Ansoff, 1957)
- 17. Exploring the discursive construction of the ‘MOOC’ in newspapers “the findings point to a predominant portrayal of MOOCs in relation to the massification, marketization and monetization of higher education, rather than engaging in debate of either ‘technological’ or ‘educational’ issues such as online learning and pedagogy, instructional design or student experience.” Selwyn, N., Bulfin, S. & Pangrazio, L. (2015) Massive Open Online Change? Exploring the discursive construction of the ‘MOOC’ in newspapers. Higher Education Quarterly, 69 (2), 175-192.
- 18. What kind of digital leaders are you: enterprising d a
- 19. What kind of digital leaders are you: enterprising d a Score 6-9: Technology is being used to make incremental changes in your way of doing things but there are structural barriers to innovation, especially a risk-avoidant culture. In this climate you will need to push for developments that have already been proven effective by others. Listen to the examples at this conference.. Score 10-14: Technology is well embedded into your organisational processes and you are generally able to bring about change when there is good evidence that it will work. You need now to develop a more agile and innovative approach so that technology trends can work to your advantage. Speak to another digital leader or to an innovator in your own organisation and ask what are the real barriers to change.
- 20. What’s the big idea? Pockets of innovation in education and pedagogy are no longer sufficient. Organisational responses are needed to the challenges of the digital age. We all have responsibility for this (shared leadership).
- 21. What’s the big idea? Pockets of innovation in education and pedagogy are no longer sufficient. Organisational responses are needed to the challenges of the digital age. We all have responsibility for this (shared leadership). Prepare learners to contribute to the global, networked society (market penetration). Ensure that new business models meet the needs and expectations of digital learners (new product development). Make it easier to disrupt institutional practices (develop and diversify). 3 possible responses
- 22. Prepare graduates to contribute to a global, networked society So, as far as you remember, your essay is on one of the university PCs. And, you think I should be able to find it…
- 23. Prepare graduates to contribute to a global, networked society Photo credit: Rhona Sharpe
- 24. Prepare graduates to contribute to a global, networked society Photo credit: Rhona Sharpe
- 25. Prepare graduates to contribute to a global, networked society Photo credit: Rhona Sharpe
- 26. The functional access, skills and practices necessary to become a confident, agile adopter of a range of technologies for personal, academic and professional use. https://wiki.brookes.ac.uk/display/slidacases/Oxford+Brookes At Oxford Brookes University, digital and information literacy is defined as ..
- 27. What’s at the top of the triangle? Beetham & Sharpe (2010) Bennett (2014), Sharpe (2014) Engaged Connected Confident Adaptable Intentional Self-aware
- 29. Brookes Survey of Student Engagement 2014
- 30. Ensure new business models meet (and manage) learners’ expectations Perfect. Profile picture sorted. I wonder where the hotel is?
- 31. Ensure new business models meet (and manage) learners’ expectations 92% satisfaction with VLE Brookes Barometer 2014 Students value: ability to access materials & contact tutors out of class time Students dissatisfied: downtime Inconsistency in use
- 32. Ensure new business models meet (and manage) learners’ expectations Careful, empirical examination of what learners actually do is largely absent’ (Oliver, 2015, p. 367) Oliver, M. (2015) From openness to permeability: reframing open education in terms of positive liberty in the enactment of academic practices. Learning, Media and Technology, 40 (3),
- 33. FE Digital Student Project
- 35. Meeting the needs of all learners Don’t assume we are digitally literate We need ongoing development We want to work with lecturers… Ask us what we need… Prepare and support learners to study successfully with learning technology. Learners typically do not have the digital skills that are often associated with the younger generation.
- 36. Make it easier to disrupt institutional practices Welcome to everyone who’s come in today. You’ll be delighted to know that we’re joined by Adele, on the sofa with her table Ben, In Ibiza with his smart phone..
- 37. Make it easier to disrupt institutional practices We persistently and perhaps increasingly reinforce the very behaviours we find frustrating by responding to students’ consumers’ desire for content, structure, and especially assessment.’ (Molesworth & Nixon, 2009, p.169)
- 38. Make it easier to disrupt institutional practices We persistently and perhaps increasingly reinforce the very behaviours we find frustrating by responding to students’ consumers’ desire for content, structure, and especially assessment.’ (Molesworth & Nixon, 2009, p.169)
- 39. OCSLD Open Online Courses - Online mentors employed by several universities (OBHE, 2013) - Expert participants (Waite et al, 2013) - Certificates and badges - Light touch quality assurance - Shared modules and credit transfer - Ability to negotiate staff roles, responsibilities and workload - ‘Third space professionals’ (Whitchurch & Gordon, 2013).
- 40. What kind of digital leaders are you: enabling (score range 6-36)
- 41. What kind of digital leaders are you: enabling (score range 6-36) Score 6-9: When we are lacking in digital confidence ourselves it is difficult to empower others. You know enough to make good decisions, even if you could not implement the technical solutions yourself. Consider identifying and bringing together at least four people - in different roles - who can help you to bring about the changes you want in your organisation. Score 10-14: You already know that digital technology can change organisational practices. Take a moment to identify the potential change agents within your organisation - people with the energy and commitment as well as the know-how to do new things with digital technology.
- 42. Building digital capability at Oxford Brookes
- 44. Building digital capability at Oxford Brookes
- 45. What does this mean for us? policy makers TEL managers practitioners researchers government industry reps learners
- 46. Some practical ideas (take your pick) Use your communications team to publicise how learners develop digital practices through their programmes and put them to use after they leave. Offer support to course teams with aspects of digital literacy that are difficult to develop e.g. online collaboration, using technology to reflect on and record learning. Provide faculty academic managers with more freedom to allocate funding and allocation of staff time to experimental projects, which might require staff to work outside of their usual roles Locate TEL innovations within the third space, taking advantage of the fluidity of roles and structures which allow new educational models to be developed and implemented. Conduct regular investigations of learners’ digital practices and integrate the findings into the key decision gateways for course design and delivery.
- 47. Developing our digital leaders Access the course resources www.moodle.openbrookes.net Register your interest in a future course http://bitly.com/1HTQanc
- 48. Acknowledgements Cartoons by Bob Pomfret, Oxford Brookes University ‘What kind of digital leader are you?’ quiz by Helen Beethem for the ETF/ELMAG/OCSLD online course ‘Developing Digital Leaders. www.moodle.openbrookes.net Digital Capabilities website developed by Richard Francis and Mark Childs, and presented to Jisc Student Experience Experts Group, April 2016, https://www.jisc.ac.uk/events/student-experience-experts- group-meeting-20-apr-2016#resources
- 49. References Bennett, L. (2014) Learning from the early adopter: developing the digital practitioner, Research in Learning Technology, 22: 21453 Molesworth, M. & Nixon, L. (2009) Frustrated aspirations: discovering the limits of a virtual learning environment in V. Bamber, P. Trowler, M. Saunders & P. Knight (eds) Enhancing Learning, Teaching, Assessment and Curriculum in Higher Education, pp. 164-171, Maidenhead: SRHE/OUP OBHE (2013) Horizon Scanning: What will higher education look like in 2020?, Observatory of Borderless Higher Education. Oliver, M. (2015) From openness to permeability: reframing open education in terms of positive liberty in the enactment of academic practices. Learning, Media and Technology, 40 (3), 365-384. Sharpe, R. (2014), What does it take to learn in next generation learning spaces?, in Kym Fraser (ed.) The Future of Learning and Teaching in Next Generation Learning Spaces (International Perspectives on Higher Education Research, Volume 12), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, pp.123-146. Sharpe, R. & Beetham, H. (2010) Understanding students’ uses of technology for learning: towards creative appropriation. In Rethinking Learning for a Digital Age. Chapter available to download from http://bit.ly/1RhiRNP Waite, M., Mackness, J., Roberts, G. & Lovegrove, E. (2013) Liminal Participants and Skilled Orienteers: Learner Participation in a MOOC for New Lecturers, Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, 9 (2), http://jolt.merlot.org/vol9no2/waite_0613.htm Whitchurch, C. & Gordon (2013) Staffing models and institutional flexibility, Leadership Foundation for Higher Education: London.
Notes de l'éditeur
- When I was looking at your conference theme ‘rising to the challenge’, I was reflecting on the 20 odd years I’ve spent working in educational technology and what the challenges have been: The challenge of access; years living in rural communities waiting for broadband to arrive in our village (Cornwall, RATIO) (and then waiting all over again for super fast fibre broadband The challenge of technological determinism (the belief that technology is the driver of societal change) and trying to get colleagues to take a more proactive stance in shaping our use of technology in education The challenge of being a lone voice saying ‘look at this ftp things, it’s brilliant’ and then being overwhelmed with so many voices it’s hard to keep up and everyone’s trying to predict the future ‘scenario planning’ and trying to decide whether to invest in power sockets in the arms of sofas or secondlife. The challenge of hearing student voices in all this, and finding ways to uncover and give value to learners’ experiences. These are all valid challenges but I the one I’ve chosen to focus on today is the challenge of making an organizational response to educational technology. I’ve chosen to focus on this because it seems to clear to me that in order to rise to the challenge of education in a digital age, innovation & pedagogy are not not enough. We need whole organisation responses. So who are you picturing around this table making whole organisation responses?
- Certainly the senior management team. Here are my SMT yesterday doing their first staff development webinar for us, as part of a new programme on ‘HE the wider context’ for professional services staff. They are talking about Brexit… (I’ve got my Irish passport application in.. Just in case...). Certainly having senior staff with digital capabilities is helpful, but we all have responsibility for leading our organisational response. We all need to be thinking about what new services we need to plan for today’s learners and structures that need to be in place to scaffold learner development. The other thing I want to say at the start, is that I agree that education is a challenging sector to be working in at the moment. I work in HE (and a little in FE, 16-19 yr old skills)..
- .. And image like this do come to mind… Will all HE providers be able to respond to the challenges of the digital age? Kodak is famous for not moving fast enough in response to digital photography. Will all of our organisations be able to move fast enough in response to the needs of employers for graduates who can use industry standard technology, or will they prefer to educate their own (e.g. higher apprentices?). I worry for Music Technology, and Cyber Security courses.
- Nokia famously was completely knocked sideways by the iphone. Nokia built good Nokia phones but none of us had any idea how the touchscreen of the iphone would overtake all other ways of using a phone. When the next disruptive technology comes, will we be quick enough to move, or will it be left to the private providers….
- There’s been lots of talk of disruptive technologies in education. I remember being shown a video-disc. I still have an early PDA, lots of gadgets don’t become mainstream. We are familiar with predictions about technology being characterised by a cycle of ‘hype, hope and disappointment’ (Gouseti, 2010, p. 351). But let’s not be complacent. Bill Gates (information highway), John Daniels (convergence of computing and telecomms), Mike Sharples (mobiles) This diagram. Christensen says that “Most of what Universities are doing is standard management practice, give customers more of what they want, watch the competition.” But need to watch the bottom of the diagram as well.. Who is serving the non-customers? Who is educating those learners who are not choosing education from your organisation? This is often where disruption happens. So, are we so focussed on making our VLE sincrementally better, that we are not watching what the learners who never use a VLE are doing? That we haven’t spotted those learners who aren’t looking for 3 year degrees. Whose experience is one that is demanding flexibility and mobility. Our challenge is to assess the role that technology has to play in the choices we make, not just about how to teach, but also about what education products to offer.
- If I sound like I’m treating education like a business, that’s because I work in UK Higher Education. The White Paper for Higher Education released last week cleared up any remaining doubt there might have been about the government’s intention to create a competitive market for higher education and treat students like customers. - with specific measures proposed to lower the barriers to entry for other providers (DBIS, 2015). The proposal to create an Office for Students reinforces the challenge to higher education institutions (HEIs) to manage their teaching and learning in ways that meet the student expectations. The application of Competition and Marketing Authority (CMA) rules to higher education University leaders have to make strategic choices about how to respond to this changing external environment
- So, how knowledgeable are we all as digital leaders? Can you list key trends in learning technology and explain their impact on your organisation? Can you, like my senior management team,
- Score 15-18: You don’t need feedback do you? You are already well informed about technology trends and you are probably seen as an opinion former within your organisation. Use this conference to connect with other digital pioneers and to make sure that you are sharing ideas and learning from each other. Also consider looking beyond your own sector for emerging trends and the latest approaches to learning.
- Now, people who work in education usually are knowledgable, and HE is certainly a hub for innovation. But is that enough. We also need to be able to mobilise ourselves to change when needed.
- We have been talking for year about Personalised Learning Environments, Adaptive Learning, Virtual Reality And yet our student portals still look like this – we are only getting incrementally better a bit better each year. Can you see I’m worried? Do you think I’m right to be worried? Well VCs are worried too..
- PA does an annual survey of UK VCs. Talks about pockets of innovations, not very good at generalizing (to 2.09ish) Also, a lack of confidence from VCs about how they are going to make the changes that are needed, and a feeling the UK is falling behind the rest of the world.
- WHY? - Struggling to make the case the change Inflexible systems
- The PA consulting report isn’t really a surprise… In the UK universities have been slow to provide online education. In a comprehensive desk study, White et al. (2010) found online learning provision in the UK was almost exclusively in pockets of postgraduate and continuing professional development courses, explaining that these online distance learning (ODL) ‘offerings have evolved from a ‘cottage industry’ style approach with developments led wholly at departmental level.’ (p. 2). White et al. go on to explain that:
- Market Penetration Problems: Growth restricted until recently by government student number controls. Difficult to make long term plans with interventionist governments. Very little differentiation between services that HEIs offer. Fee cap restricts growth. Potential: Branding to bring students’ expectations into line with the organisations’. Communicating the successes of the product i.e. graduates/alumni e.g. through stories. E.g.. Digital literacy Product/service Development Problems: On campus growth restricted by removal of HEFCE estates grant. Fee cap and falling of international market means. Potential: Relationship building and reputation management. Engage students in dialogue about what they want and need. e.g
- No of 18yr olds will fall until 2020, then not return to 2006 levels until 2027ish
- Market Development Problems: Difficult to explain quality of services. Poor indicators of quality. Price is not an indicator of quality. Market development directed by government targets e.g. widening participation targets. Potential: Develop better quality metrics e.g. learning gain. Publicise benefits of a higher education more. e.g. overseas campuses, ODL Diversification Problems: Financial uncertainty and discourages investment, risk taking and innovation. Potential: Build on reputational factors that are important to student choice. Build a values based brand based on employees and customers shared values and aims about learning. e.g. University of Cambridge Chemistry sets, MOOCs
- Perhaps the technological innovation in higher education that has received most attention in recent years is the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC). MOOCs are short online courses offered to learners who are not registered university students. Although the academic originators of the MOOC would argue that it is their pedagogy of openness which is the defining characteristic of MOOCs (Downes, 2013; Knox, 2013), their rise has been dominated by commentary on their role in providing fresh income streams to universities, either directly through offering accreditation or as a marketing activity (Marginson, 2012). In an interesting analysis of press cuttings, Selwyn, Bulfin and Pangrazio (2015) took a critical discourse approach to understanding the way in which MOOCs have been portrayed in the English language international mainstream press. They concluded that MOOCs have been predominantly portrayed in relation to the ‘massification, marketization and monetization of higher education’ (p.175). It is clear then that MOOCs are seen by many as a way of providing additional income for universities.
- Score 15-18: You already take an enterprising approach to the leadership of change. It may be time to examine how decision-making processes can be reformed to ensure a more agile and responsive organisation over time. Commit to bringing the learner voice into the heart of decision-making about digital issues. Also look at how you can support interest-based groups to take forward their own ideas for change, and how you can make multi-role project teams the norm for getting things done.
- Christensen and Eyring (2011) explain that universities have an integrated approach to developing and delivering their products and services which makes them relatively inflexible and slow to react to a changing environment.
- I wanted to present these are doable, so nothing too off the wall here. Prepare graduates to contribute to global, networked society, and market this (Barnett, 2014) (ODL isn’t the only distinctiveness, Graduate Attributes project) Make it easier to disrupt institutional practices. Separate development (innovation) from delivery (implementation) partner with private providers, locate innovation in the third space (the MOOCs story at OBU) Ensure new business models meet the needs and manage the expectations of digital learners. (learner experiences and expectations) Develop the digital capabilities of leaders to do all of the above (JISC/NUS ELMAG course)
- MLF lastminute.com chancellor of the OU Gov digital champion CEO Doteveryone
- Useable outputs of the evaluation on the website
- Ummed and ahhed over whether to show this one at all – quite embarrassing PVC has picked up on this and prompted TEL Steering Group and programme of work to develop staff digital literacies Real power of the NSSE is in giving data to local course teams Hoping to see improvement in
- Oliver observes that ‘Careful, empirical research of what learners actually do is largely absent’ (Oliver, 2015, p. 367) and uses extracts from a year long ethnographic project to argue persuasively that we need to understand the reality of students’ academic practices in order to be able to design learning activities, resources, spaces and tools for them. Gourlay (2015), drawing on the same research project, explains that superficial research can lead us to talk about binaries such as digital/paper, face to face/online, which do not exist for students themselves. She warns that we are in danger of making grand scale policy decisions about technology use without attending to what learners actually do. The arguments for investing in evaluations of learners’ experiences have been presented by researchers but are not yet informing discussions about the development of innovative models for education. A classic case is FELTAG’s ambitious target for all programmes in UK further education to have 10% ‘wholly online components’ in 2015/16 rising to 50% in 2016/17 (FELTAG, 2013). Gourlay (2015) drawing on studies of learners experiences, explained that learners do not have these binary divisions of f2f or online. Rather learners are concerned with mobility, accessibility, flexibility and choice. These considerations should be driving the development of new models. It is also clear that students’ digital practices are changing so fast that there is need for regular evaluations. For an institution like OBU, where teaching is valued and developing broad attributes is a key feature of our courses, we could be leading the way with online courses which are designed with learners’ needs uppermost. OBU should Conduct regular learner evaluations of their experiences and uses of technology, using a mixture of small-scale qualitative research and learner analytics. Integrate the findings from learner evaluations into the key decision gateways for course design and delivery.
- The FE sector is awash with reports Not research based (because of no funding since 2007) In recent years there have been numerous reports from sector organisations, calling for: a policy roadmap (ETF, 2014) support for FE college leaders (Fordham and Martin, 2014), developing teachers’ competence and confidence (Rebbeck, Ecclesfield and Garnett, 2012), self-assessment tools (Coralesce, 2014), and using technology to hear from students about their experiences (LSIS, 2013). There is tendency in sector reports to present learners as confident, positive and motivated about the use of technology. For instance, in the eLearning & IT Strategy of one FE college it is stated that “modern learners expect and are familiar with technology and global communication” and that “social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Myspace are regularly accessed by young people and adults”. The strategy aims to capitalise on learners’ use of media communication and meet their expectations (Inst., ELearning & IT Strategy, 2009). This language is typical of the way in which learners, especially young learners, have been characterised, as if they have access to technology, are proficient in its use and have ideas to contribute about its role in learning. Even the Further Education Learning Technology Action Group (FELTAGunder-exploitation of learners’ skills, devices and technical knowledge when it came to the use of learning technology’, explaining that ‘the greatest resource available to FE and Skills providers in this domain is their learners.’ (BIS, 2014, p.5)) report referred to the ‘. This generalisation ignores the complexities introduced by considering all learners. For a sector which sets out to ‘provide flexible curricula tailored to individual needs’ (Jisc, 2012, p.1), it is essential to understand how the environments provided are experienced by all learners.
- For higher education researchers turning our attention to the FE sector, there are two things that are striking. First is the lack of recent empirical research. Where HE has seen an exponential increase in carefully conducted learner experience research (e.g. Beetham, White & Wild, 2013; Hosein, Ramanau & Jones, 2010), FE has seen the little investment in research and the closure of Becta in 2010. Although FE is responding with enthusiasm to the digital age, with many examples of creative uses of technology in the classroom captured in case studies, their reported findings are rarely supported by formal evaluations and there is a lack of emphasis on the learner’s voice. Second, there seems to be an overreliance on the voices of exceptional students who put themselves forward for roles like ‘digipals’ (Blackburn College) or digital learning ambassdors (Procat College). While we agree that learners’ voices are key tools in improving teaching and learning practices, it is important to be able to access and represent a wider spectrum of learners’ experiences and views.
- Research is important because it helps us to understand where we might be making assumptions or over generalising previous findings. Of the learners that we spoke to in the focus groups, very few presented themselves as ‘digital leaders’. They asked us to take care not to make assumptions about their experience with or attitudes towards technology. In general, they told us that they are less confident and need more ongoing support than their lecturers expect. Indeed for some learners their experience of the digital environment is still dominated by issues around access. We met learners who need to be shown basic skills in using computers, VLEs or specialist software in order to access the learning opportunities that are provided for them. It is likely that these learners will need support which is targeted at their specific access needs. For most learners, their experiences are dominated by issues around use. They can access technology but left on their own, their use of technology is passive and superficial. They recognised that there was much more for them to learn and looked to their College and their lecturers to provide them with ongoing development. Lecturers have a crucial role to play here in devising creative technology mediated activities. In consultation events, staff reported concerns that their colleagues lack confidence for this task, looking to Jisc to provide support and resources, to their managers to provide time and access to modern technologies, and to teacher training courses to prepare a new generation of FE lecturers who are capable and confident to use technology. For a minority of learners who are skilled and enthusiastic in their use of technologies, their experiences are dominated by the extent to which they are able to appropriate their personal and social uses of technology for learning. We met some learners who no longer use books or pens. These learners often are taking subjects related to their interest in technology. Learners such as these are well supported when they are set challenging goals and given the freedom to explore and use technology independently. Through the consultation events, it appeared that some college infrastructures struggle to meet the demands of such learners who find their college learning environments restrictive and not representative of the industries they are preparing to work within. It is vital that we listen to our own learners in order to inform our choices about how we plan, support, introduce and facilitate learning activities, and to engage learners in the decisions that we make about their learning environments. Crucially, we need to understand what all learners bring to the learning context and to be able to understand how different learners interpret our planned activities, resources and environments.
- There are plenty of examples of technologies being adopted in HE to support existing practices e.g. in relation to assessment, VLE use and lecture capture (Hughes, 2014). Hughes concludes that ‘educational change has often been accompanied, but not driven by, new technologies’ (p.170). Here, lecture capture What else?
- This is beautifully illustrated in a case study retold by Molesworth and Nixon (2009) who, frustrated by use of VLE to deliver content, set up online spaces with no hierarchy. They anticipated that all community members (staff, students and practitioners) would use these spaces to initiate and join in free-ranging discussions around the degree subject. In reality, with only a few very exceptions, the students were passive unless they were asking questions about assessment Molesworth and Nixon reported that ‘We persistently and perhaps increasingly reinforce the very behaviours we find frustrating by responding to students’ /consumers’ desire for content, structure, and especially assessment’ (p. 169). The authors discuss their findings in terms of education as a ‘performance’ where the players were unable to break out of their fixed roles (after Goffman, 1959). They conclude that although technology provides scope to provide new educational spaces, more substantial efforts are needed for people to change the way in which they operate within established roles.
- OBU was one of the first UK universities to run MOOCs and yet faculties have been slow to adopt this form of online course. Even after senior management funding and support to extend the early pilots to other subjects, faculties found it difficult to support their development within current institutional structures. The final report from the Open Online Courses project explains that the reason for the stalled progress in some faculties was an uncertainty of which budgets development of MOOCs should be coming from (teaching or marketing?) and how to allocate staff time within the workload planning framework (Roberts et al., 2015). The resource allocation model is dominated by the delivery of academic programmes and developments that sit outside of this are difficult to embed. There are currently only three MOOCs running from OBU: two are the original courses developed by the central educational development unit for university lecturers (547 students over 6 cohorts) and the other is ‘Biodiversity Monitoring’ from the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences (83 students in the first cohort).
- Notably, many of the additions to extended teams are the ‘third space professionals’ identified by Whitchurch and Gordon (2013). Hughes (2014) argues that third space professionals are well positioned to mediate between support and academic staff and so can be influential in facilitating change. In order to improve their agility to respond to change, HEIs could build on the distinctive third space within HE and the professionals that work within it. Third space professionals have more fluidity and flexibility within their roles and can move easily between university spaces and functions. They could be ideally positioned to take forward the development of new business models. One option for institutions that struggle to break out of their existing structures is to form partnerships with other organisations. For MOOCs, universities can develop and deliver their courses with a third party provider such as Coursera, FutureLearn, edX or Udacity. Universities looking to provide accredited online courses are going into partnership with private training providers or publishers e.g. University of Liverpool with Laureate Online Education, University of Essex with Kaplan, and Birmingham with Wiley. These partnerships allow the university to concentrate on academic and quality matters while the partner provides a platform, technical and marketing expertise (Yuan, Powell & Olivier, 2014).
- Score 15-18: You are already working with a range of digital change agents and helping learners to play a role. Decide now how you can bring these people together in a new alignment to get something done. It doesn’t matter whether this is a project, an initiative, or just an exploratory meeting. Commit to making this happen and use your action plan to note down your vision and your goals for it.
- Used the Jisc/NUS benchmarking tool because Comprehensive Recognised provenance Looks at TEL from student experience Combines aspects that relate to teaching staff, librarias, IT support, all in one framework
- Staff development which: Adaptable, light touch, contingent on needs, flexible and adaptable, Develops staff skills as a corollary of changing teaching Be continuous throughout career Self – audit, Identify next step Click for resources…
- Engage with the community Your priority area for the year (PETAL?)
- What does all this mean for us? the policy makers, TEL managers, practitioners, researchers, industry and government agency representatives working across all sectors of education… Well, I think it’s unlikely we are going to be able to predict the future of technology, the next big disruptive influence We do need to understand the context that we are working in, whether that’s the marketplace of the UK or the …. (whatever I’ve seen today about Ireland) Market driven: Understand where our products/services fit into the market. Are you trying to develop a new market or develop a new product for an existing market? We need to create (allow?) our institutions to be a bit more flexible in how they are responding to the technological and societal and financial change. Can you work out what it is that is stopping you being flexibly (remember it was the RAM for us about OBU with our OOCs)? Society driven: I’ve argued that our context isn’t just to provide education that meets employers needs, but that meets society’s needs in preparing learners for a global networked society. We need to really understand the needs and expectations of our learners – about what they want from education. And develop curricular and extra curricular activities which are based on a thorough understanding of learners’ experiences and needs