TEL-lingit like IT is

In a logical turn of events, Udacity, the online educational service founded by artificial intelligence guru and ex-Googler Sebastian Thrun, is offering a new set of tech degrees that guarantee a job in six months or your money back. ( ElecCafe.com ,  Code School Udacity Promises Refunds if You Don’t Get a Job ).  Now this is very, very good news. It demonstrates how achieving career qualifications can finally overcome the unsustainable and, let's face it, unjustifiable debt that characterises higher education worldwide. Education is clearly in need of a "gale of creative destruction", to quote Schumpeter . There is much to applaud here. However, philosophically there is also much to be concerned about. The same article exposes the underlying assumptions around the approach taken by Udacity's Sebastian Thrum: “The ultimate objective of education is to find people a job” Hmmm. Finding a job is a great outcome, and in purely economic cost/benefit analysis it...

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...

In 2001 I wrote Teaching for learning , a self-published eBook considering good practice in resource-based learning (RBL) design. I had just finished my Open University MAODE, and was inspired by the readings related to how the internet might reshape distance education. The book received good reviews [ one ], [ two ]... and, reflecting some 15 years later, its principles still seem contemporary (unlike my dress code at the time) and relevant to TEL. Some of the examples and suggestions are now passe, such as digitising and editing raw tape footage onto a CD-ROM(!) to accompany a printed workbook... but, hey, Moore's Law spread over a 15 year time-frame was bound to change the context! Here's a free link to the book, you're welcome to a copy: Teaching for learning PDF . I'm now a wee bit embarrassed by the 'best practice' stuff, so let's pretend the book was concerned with what was 'good', So, the elements of the good practice in RBL model from th...

Of fundamental importance of TEL implementation is the context in which it is applied. I like to draw a distinction between resource-based and lecture-based contexts. Both make different assumptions of how TEL should be implemented, and ultimately determine the shape TEL takes in education. The distinction between resource-based and lecture-based education was first made in: Seelig, Caroline, and Mark Nichols. “New Zealand: Open Polytechnic.” In Perspectives on Distance Education: Using ICTs and Blended Learning in Transforming TVET , edited by Colin Latchem. Vancouver: Commonwealth of Learning and UNESCO-UNEVOC, in press. Resource-based provision: Has a team of experts responsible for learning design; tends to be based on a division of labour Focuses on the generation of (usually written) course materials Typically assumes an independent learner Lecture-based provision: Has a lecturer or academic as subject expert and author; may also involve additional spec...

It's a curious thing, the acronym TEL. The 'Technology' part comes first. I much prefer "Learning Enhanced by Technology" for the subtle reason that it puts the horse in the right place. Anyway. In this blog, it's the 'Learning' bit that leads. So, an orientation to learning as I consider it. Learning is one of those terms used rather too casually, a word with such broad and everyday use it can describe almost anything. I recall the most memorable learning experience of my MA: defining the term "interactive", in the context of e-learning. Is merely clicking on something interacting with it? From a certain perspective, yes... but true interactivity implies reciprocation. The thing being clicked should be able to also interact with the one clicking. Once you think about "interactive" in this term you become that much more critical of claims related to it. How we define terms ultimately reveals our assumptions about them. For the...

OK, so the title’s try-hard. TEL is “Technology Enhanced Learning”, an aspect of education I’ve been professionally involved in since 2000. IT is “information technology”. This blog explores TEL from the perspective of a practicing theorist. I’ll try not to be too clever with the word plays. This blog’s domain is probably bad enough for geeky cleverness to be entirely out of my system! What I will always try to be, though, is informed by literature and primary studies. It’s important that I give some context for what will follow. I agree entirely with Anderson & Zawacki-Richter that online distance education: is a discipline in its own right. may apply a broad social sciences-based research methodology, and although it is most appropriate, the field is eclectic and should allow for, and value, a multiplicity of research paradigms including positivist, interpretive, critical, and pragmatic research paradigms. is relevant to both distance learning and information and co...