Posts tagged change
What makes for effective learning & teaching?
Mar 25th
I have a very definitive view of what constitutes effective learning and teaching.
Effective learning and teaching experiences typically are:
- Active: Learners may, by design, cognitively influence the learning process.
- Collaborative: Learners are interdependent and reciprocally influence learning activities and outcomes.
- Authentic: Learners exhibit knowledge or perform a skill in a naturally occurring environment as possible.
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Loading ...Education Uses Less Technology than Coal Mining
Jul 18th
I try to not make a habit of reposting items or media I read or see on other blogs without hopefully adding value with my own thoughts. However, the first line of this video makes this one reposting. I first saw it posted at EduGeek Journal by Katrina Adams.
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Would you believe… Mobile Education?
Jul 16th
A couple of articles and blog posts I’ve read recently are perc’ing.
Sarah Robbins blogged recently about a lesson to be learned from Scrabble-maker toy companies Mattel & Hasbro’s collective lack of foresight regarding how technology may be used to promote their product. In short, Mattel/Hasbro “missed the boat” on the opportunity presented by technology to extend the reach of their product (Scrabble). Sarah’s blog is worth a read, and so are the sources she links to. At the end of her post, Sarah asks,
Are there tech communities in which your product/service could do well but you’re hesitating because you’re unsure or uptight? Could someone else compete with you in those spaces if you wait too long? How much will the damage to your reputation cost if you allow someone else to deliver your product better?
My first thought was to put a more specific, educational spin on her questions. There’s no question technology is impacting many businesses – their processes, products, services and more importantly, their ability to compete and profitability. As an educator and, more specifically, an instructional technologist, many educational institutions are slower to react. While most higher education institutions now have online admissions and registration, how many business processes beyond that have been impacted? How many insitutions have mobile support for email access, instant messaging? What about in the classroom? When I very informally survey my 30-60 students per semester with a list of 25 tech-related activities, why do they indicate they engage 20+ on a daily or weekly basis outside of class but indicate, at the same time, that they engage fewer than 5 for the vast majority of classes?
And, this is only going to become more critical for educational institutions. A recent report from Juniper Research (via Daniel Nations @ About.com) suggests there will be 1.7 billion mobile internet users in the next five years. We – education – have barely caught up with the first iteration of the internet (online learning); we seem – as an industry – largely behind on versions two (Web 2.0) and three (Virtual Worlds). What is going to happen as the increasing mobile market begins forcing new business models within education? Two notable quotes of which, as Sarah’s post suggests, education should take notice:
Established mobile players face increasing competition from web-based brands and will have to adapt their commercial strategies to accommodate greater collaboration with other members of the value chain, if future revenue growth in the mobile web 2.0 space is to be achieved.
This marks a fundamental shift for the industry towards the D2C (direct-to consumer) model and places growing pressure on mobile network operators (MNOs) and handset manufacturers in particular, to relinquish some of their control over the value chain . . .
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Wesch: A Portal to Media Literacy
Jul 10th
I really do not intend for this blog to turn into a “Wesch-groupie” site ;-) However, much of what he says and does strikes a chord with me and compels me to think and write.Professor’s Wesch most recent post highlights a video recording of a guest lecture he delivered last month (June) at University of Manitoba. I’ve watched about half of it to this point and will post more thoughts in this space in the near future, but I wanted to pass along the link at the moment. His guest lecture includes some of the comments and themes he shared in his keynote at the Educause Learning Initiative’s annual meeting back in February; I strongly recommend the hour plus it will take to listen to Dr. Wesch’s reflections on the “crisis of significance” and the approaches and tools he’s used to actively engage his students.
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Your Medium is Dying… Right, but Not Nice
Jun 27th
I typically don’t repost items directly from other sites; I prefer to tag those to resyndicated feeds (check the sidebar), but this short clip from The Simpsons is perhaps worth reposting. I noticed it while reading effectivedesign.org by John Curry, a friend and colleague.
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...ELI2008: Changing Learning Cultures on Campus
Jan 28th
I’m attending the Educause Learning Initiative Annual Meeting in San Antonio and wanted to share a few thoughts regarding this morning’s preconference workshop – Changing Learning Cultures on Campus from Theory to Practice facilitated by Dr. Dieter Euler from the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland.
St. Gallen began, around 1999-2000, engaging a significant institutional initiative to “change the pedagogical profile” of the institution; the goal was to move “from a culture of teaching to a culture of cooperative self-learning incorporating technology.”
Initially, this sounds like a learning signature for the institution which guides the mission of teaching and learning within the University. I’ve encountered a learning signature before at Cy-Fair College in Houston. I wonder if such an explicit declarative statement is common among higher education institutions, if any institutions K-12 included. I believe the lack of such an explicit statement is one that has inhibited change in several institutions in which I’ve worked. Identifying the pedagogical philosophy of the institution seems to be key; defining that signature seems critical to making progress toward enhancing the pedagogical practice of those within the institution. The challenge and difficulty is to get those involved to agree on a pedagogical profile.
To accomplish the goal, St. Gallen established a specific agenda with four key points:
- curricular changes: more context-related subjects (25%); self-regulated learning environments making up a considerable part of the curriculum
- learning platform – potential to support communication
- pedagogical changes – learning environments representing the new learning & teaching culture
- strict quality-assurance system: introduction of rigorous evaluation procedures
Those points provided the background from which the main activity for the workshop was generated. The focus of the workshop was a small group, interactive simulation on how to create change within an institution. The computer-based simulation was fantastic; I encourage any educational change facilitators to take a look at this simulation. More information available at:
http://elearning-reviews.com/projects/educhallenge-en.html
The primary take-away for me from the simulation focused on the notion of formally approaching, considering or developing strategy for the use of informal networks. Could or should technology integrationists track and keep a cluster chart of informal data? For example, if Professor B indicates they heard about a technology from Professor A, should educational technologists make a practice of documenting that relationship in some manner for future reference? Does it not also make sense for educational and technology change agents to track profile information on relevant individuals and potential adopters?
I’m familiar with many of the preferences and tendencies of the faculty with whom I work, but that’s different from making a concerted effort to document, track and analyze the inter-relatedness of professional and social networks within the institution.
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...A Vision of Students Today
Oct 13th
Dr. Michael Wesch (creator of The Machine is Using Us) has published a video focused on the relevance of digital culture to higher education; entitled A Vision of Students Today, the video was – as noted by Dr. Wesch’s blog Digital Ethnography – the result of a the following instructions:
… the basic idea is to create a 3 minute video highlighting the most important characteristics of students today – how they learn, what they need to learn, their goals, hopes, dreams, what their lives will be like, and what kinds of changes they will experience in their lifetime. We already know some things from previous research (and if you know of any interesting statistics, please list them along with the source). Others we will need to find out by doing a class survey. Please add whatever you want to know or present.
The blog describes the process and results of the survey which are used throughout the video. Definitely worth a read, a viewing and healthy resyndication ;-)
I discovered it reading Dean’s blog; Dean noticed it via a tweet from Bud.
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...IT/EdTech Departments as Initiators
Sep 8th
Hall & Hord (1987) describe three types of change facilitators: initiators, managers and responders. While they focus on K-12 environments and specifically the leadership style of principals, I believe there’s insight in their definitions and research review relevant to educational technology or information technology departments.
I believe it may be important for Edtech/IT departments to consider which of the three leadership styles/philosophies they’re going to embrace. More specifically, I think it’s critical for educational technology departments to act as initiators within their institutions. Before explaining why, let me offer a short summary of each leadership style, per Hall & Hord – quoting and paraphrasing liberally (230-232)”
- Responders get as much input as possible to be sure that everyone has had a chance to weigh-in. They provide a great deal of autonomy to instructors and focuses on their own role as being primarily administrative; thus, they believe their primary role is to support changes and innovations by providing student and instructor access to requested or required resources.
- Managers focus on providing basic support to instructors; they make sure instructors are informed about decisions and a more keenly aware of instructor needs. One result of that awareness is an effort to protect instructors from excessive demands; if they believe a change could potentially be disruptive or unwelcomed, they’ll dampen its entry into the environment. A the same time, they’ll also work closely with faculty to implement a proposed or required change.
- Initiators focus on clear, decisive, long-range goals they hold for their institution. They listen to input from instructors involved in a particular innovation and then make decisions tied to the long-range goals and vision they hold for the institution. Initiators push; they have strong expectations and strive to ensure that everyone involved is moving in a goal-oriented direction. They are creative in interpreting policies and work to capture as many resources and as much capability for their schools.
Hall & Hord do suggest that these are stereotypes, so there are shades of gray between the various types. They also highlight research which shows a continuum spanning from Overt Resistors in the Responders group to overly Autocratic leaders within the Initiator group. Essentially, too much of a good thing can be bad.
With that in mind, which approach or posture does your local IT or Educational Technology group assume?
I do believe the stereotypes Hall & Hord describe can easily be applied to the personality of a technology service groups – whether infrastructure or instructional; although, I understand there may be argument in that assumption. Moving past that assumption however, I believe my local institution’s IT/ET groups currently lie somewhere between responder and manager. Of course, that is largely because initiators become more involved in instructionally related issues which many will ask, “What business do technologists have in instructionally-centered discussions?”
I’m not suggesting that technology groups should be or should become instructional leaders within institutions. However, I do believe technology support groups can and should take a more proactive, initiator-type role.
The most basic justification for that is simply that faculty have expertise in their particular fields which are often not related to the art/science of teaching much less the use of technology to support and facilitate learning. English faculty have degrees in English; History faculty have degrees in History and so on. Are they not expected to spend their professional development time keeping abreast of changes and developments in their field? If so, is it reasonable to also require them to keep pace with the changes in the technology industry – to know which new technologies can be applied to learning environments? I personally don’t think so. And, if that’s the case, who should be initiating the discovering and experimentation with new learning technologies? IMHO, I believe that’s the contribution to educational leadership for which educational technologists must assume responsibility.
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