TEL-lingit like IT is

TEL isn’t just about the techie stuff, though I do like that. As I mentioned in the second post to this blog , TEL is predominately about learning, even though the ‘Learning’ part of TEL comes last. I try to read up on learning as much as I try to keep up with technological developments – and I admit that I often find the learning literature more interesting! A few years ago I purchased Daisy Christodoulou’s book Seven myths about education  (see The Guardian's review here ). The book is brief, authoritative, clear, and punchy. Christodoulou suggests that there are seven pervasive myths about how students learn, and how teachers should teach. The myths find their expression in education ministries, teacher's colleges, and right across the schooling system. I reckon the same myths are equally applied across the HE sector.  Critically, the myths are in opposition to good education practice. Her book is well worth the provocation; here’s a quick overview.  M...

The day began with a series of back-to-back keynotes; livestream here . Keynotes were all excellent and drew from their existing work: Paul Prinsloo's "The Increasing (Im)Possibilities of Justice and Care in Oopen, Distance Learning" drew on his and colleagues' IRRODL work Educational Triage in Open Distance Learning: Walking a Moral Tightrope and Big(ger) Data as Better Data in Open Distance Learning .  Isa Jahnke's "Studying Learning Expeditions in Cross Action Spaces with Digital Didactical Designs" from her book Digital Didactical Designs:  Teaching and Learning in CrossActionSpaces . Looks so good I bought it from Amazon...  George Veletsianos's "A Scholarly Life Online" drew from his own web site's  scholar's use of social media  (also, his keynote slides here ).  The first parallel session I attended was excellent, with two presentations. Kristie Naidoo from UNISA gave a presentation called "Integration of Learni...

ALT-C 2016 is my second ALT, though I'm more likely to be able to remember this one. I was in Manchster for ALT-C 2007, and can mainly recall jet lag. I went fresh(?) from a 24-hour series of flights directly into the first session. I overcame my jet lag the day after the conference, just in time to board for my return to New Zealand. This year's one-hour drive up the A5 was so much better! The day started with a warm welcome from the conveners, then it was straight in to Josie Fraser's keynote: " In the valley of the trolls ". It was interesting and disturbing to be introduced to the tragic tale of TayTweets  (overview from Wikipedia ,  here , here  and here ). Josie's keynote was an unexpected one for me, though its topic quickly became relevant and it generated a lot of debate and discussion among delegates (which is always a sign of keynote success). One interesting comment from a colleague was whether Tay's sad demise was the result of multiple tro...

I recently finished reading Make it stick  by Peter C. Brown, Henry L. Roedigger III, and Mark A. McDaniel, published 2014 by Harvard University Press. The Kindle version is available here ; a summary version is also available on Kindle here . What I like about the book is summed up in this paragraph: Much of how we structure training and schooling is based on learning theories that have been handed down to us, and these are shaped by our own sense of what works, a sensibility drawn from our personal experiences as teachers, coaches, students, and mere humans at large on the earth. How we teach is largely a mix of theory, lore, and intuition. But over the last forty years and more, cognitive psychologists have been working to build a body of evidence to clarify what works and to discover the strategies that get results (p.7).  The difference is between common sense (likely a projection of our own preferences!) and evidence when it comes to promoting effective learning. Wi...