TEL-lingit like IT is

The BERA EdTech SIG met at the Open University on 7 April . It's taken a while to get to this post because of the holiday and return to work I had in the intervening time... This was the first SIG meeting for some time, and the central location (Milton Keynes) made it very accessible. The event was over-subscribed! No wonder it was popular. The theme of "Critical and theoretical approaches to research" is both timely and interesting, and the invited speakers - Prof Martin Oliver, Dr Sarah Hennessey and Prof Eileen Scanlon, with opening comments from Prof Jill Jameson - are quite a line-up. Jill started with some opening comments framing the day's theme. Drawing in particular on the works of Carr , Selwyn ( 1 , 2 ), Feenberg and Bulfin et al (all recommended reading!), Jill proposed that many in TEL reflect an "evangelistic positivism", and that much research can be described in terms of "a lack of problematisation, with superficial and naïve an...

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...

Kortext have released a report, University of the Future: Transforming learning and improving value ( here to go straight to the PDF ). Main finding, from "the UK's leading provider of digital textbooks and learning solutions" is, surprisingly - " 89% of students would be more likely to attend a university that enables online collaboration and note sharing and access to the latest editions of textbooks". I wonder where they might find a vendor for such a service...? OK. Way too much sarcasm. Let's unpack the report. To begin with, the report has been researched independently by 3GEM . I have no doubts as to the validity of the responses. The headline findings are also arresting at first glance - until you try to extend some of them... "69% say that getting core textbooks included in course fees would represent greater value for money." So, 31% believe that spending on texts in addition to course fees would not represent greater value...? ...

I was fortunate to attend BETT late last month. I missed the speakers, as I could only attend one day and my primary interest wasn't software or education systems. I was interested in hardware developments . These, I think, represent very significant shifts in contemporary TEL. About a decade ago I was, I admit, somewhat bemused by the interest in mobile technologies. I was interested in the work of Traxler  and Herrington & Herrington , but these were the days before the iPad, and touch-screen technologies were not ready for everyday consumers. Talk of mobile learning was restricted to media availability through iPods; text message; and IM. Tablet technology was in its early stages, and laptops were still very bulky. There was potential, but it was, at least to me, piecemeal and multi-device dependent. Oh, how things have changed. Yes, we have had the recent explosion in iPad and Android tablets. Mobile phones are now incredibly powerful by processor, RAM, storage, screen...

Interesting to see this report just released from HEPI , with a focus on the use of technology in support of campus-based education. The reports makes seven recommendations: Higher education institutions should ensure that the effective use of technology for learning and teaching is built into curriculum design processes. This should include consideration of win-win methods, which offer both improved outcomes and lower costs. To support this, the UK higher education sector should develop an evidence and knowledge base on what works in technology-enhanced learning to help universities, faculties and course teams make informed decisions. Mechanisms to share, discuss and disseminate these insights to the rest of the sector will also be required. Institutions that do not currently have learning analytics in place should give consideration to adopting it at the earliest opportunity. Education researchers should consider how the learning analytics big dataset can be harnessed to provi...

In my previous role I was responsible for the development of distance education courses in an institution exploiting Agile project management for its software development work. Note the capital 'A'; this was Agile as a noun, not as an adverb! Before I left, we had several important internal conversations about how Agile methodologies might apply to course design and development across what was a classically industrialised process. At the time we were working within the Scrum methodology, and we had successfully experimented with scrums, t-shirt-sizing and regular stand ups within our existing course development workflows.  In my current role I've maintained this interest in how Agile might be applied to course design and development. Module design here at the Open University continues to partner academics with TEL, editing, media development and project specialists. The multiple people involved lends things nicely to a team-based Agile approach. Both Open Polytechnic an...

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...