Institutional E-learning Strategy

I've been thinking about the basic strategy for an individual, group or institutional with their online learning design.  Trying to draw together all the principles, processes and techniques I recommend.  To plan strategically, think about the following.

Essentially, what you want to do is:

1. raise knowledge/understanding of the various online learning activity tools

2. educate staff about the design process itself

3. illuminate for them the strategic issues that need addressing in their context

And then:

4. work with them, guide them through a real learning design process.

What you often get is just the first of these points together with offers to help with the last point. The other points might be addressed in passing but often don't get enough attention. It's about educating before direct assistance in an actual process.
Now more on each of these points.

1. Knowledge of tools

This is knowing about how to use any online tool.  For a learning technologist, you want to do more than just demonstrating navigation. You want to help them understand how they can be used, how they are commonly used, show working examples, decontextualised templates, pedagogical affordances etc.

2. The design process

Educating about the design process is about:

• getting people to think in terms of time periods
• making judgements of teaching hours and learning hours
• ensuring understanding of asynchronous/synchronous and how to handle the different types of activities
• promotion of a scaffolded learning process
• Establish the basic building blocks of bespoke content and learning activities
• For content, raise awareness of the various types of media they can use for content
• For activities, explain what the tools are (this could include 1)
• Explain how assessment can be linked.

3. Strategy

• You want to think clearly about the rationale for altering your mode of delivery. Are you looking to open out into new markets? Are you looking to improve engagement through more flexible access? Whatever the rationale makes sure it’s clearly understood by everyone.
• Articulate your timeframes both for the design process and the course itself
• Identify and involve people that will teach on the course. Large-scale you need to organise a tutor training programme. This would involve raising knowledge/understanding of any online tools used and information about the learning design.
• It’s at this point you broach contextual cans of worms that needs talking about so they don't become elephants in the room. You would work hard in advance to talk about ways through these issues. The difficulty in HE is opening cans of worms that often fall across departments or even between departmental responsibilities. Engaging with marketing, engaging with IT, engaging with registration, engaging with assessment/exam boards, broaching issues such as academics time and space to design learning. A consultation role would highlight potential areas for scrutiny.

4. Doing the design

This is best done in face-to-face meetings with the individual or group designing the course.  Having the knowledge/understanding from 1-3 could mean they can undertake this alone but it's preferable for a learning technology type person to be present.

So how are 1-3 realised?

Face-to-face sessions

Common are events about particular tools, technologies explaining how, why and, if you're lucky, in what way you can use it. Now you need these. But be careful that this isn't all you do. Just doing this reinforces misconceptions about it just being about the technology. Sessions about 2 and 3 are desirable but rare (I do these). Pedagogically, I favour hands on workshop, and collaborate teaching involving activities and discussions.

Artifacts

It's common for institutional initiatives promoting blended/purely online learning to make stuff/make artifacts for people to engage with on their own: Stuff like advice documents, templates, case studies, videos, screencasts etc. I could talk about which ones I favour and the work I've done in this area. I worry about Institutional strategies which just do this and move on. Just as you would in an online learning activity, you need to support the process by helping staff one on one and in groups engage with any artifacts created.  This is to help them contextualise the artifact.  Without this process they are meaningless.

In an ideal world you would have an:

All emcompassing face-to-face event

If you're lucky, you can get design teams in a room at the same time with time and space to first learn and then to practice or actually do their own learning design. Effective strategies from the research include Leicester's carpe diem initiative which involved having a captive audience for multiple days. Essentially, this allows you to take people through a learning journey from start to finish then do so on this subject. Within such events you could engage in a variety of teaching methods to iteratively teach or facilitate the learning of the 3 main points. You could introduce and facilitate engagement with any artifacts you've created. All this before guiding teams of people of people through a design process whilst the learning is still fresh in their memories.

Finally a point about motivation.  A lot depends on the backing of the senior management. Not just hollow words, but financial commitment and resources. It's difficult to engage the majority of academics in blended/distance learning in their teaching and learning help of this kind would show that they are putting their money where their mouth is. It’s also important to utilize the trailblazers, peers who can show what they are doing and give validity to what’s new to others.

Social Media Supporting teacher CPD - 3

More on Tweeting for Teachers although it's more using it as a launchpad for my own reflections.

National and local policymakers should:

1.  publish guidelines and support for teachers and leaders to help them use social 
media in schools;
There are various social media strategies out there.  The emphasis should be on the potential for teaching and learning.  Most guidelines I've seen are about control and read like rules and regulations which put teachers off and fit with the "danger" ethos as its mantra.  It's true that to write informed guidelines about potential for the various types of tools but it doesn't have to be detailed just give encouragement and a green light to this area.  I drafted some guidelines myself which hopefully will be used by my institution in the future.  I share them here for anyone to look at.

2. consider how they will begin to unfilter social media sites for use in schools;
Consider!  Just do it.  It highlights a contradiction in the way we educate.  In formal education it's necessary to control communication - quiet in class, no chatting, pay attention.  Social media is extra communication channels.  So we control it.  The problem is we need to use them for teaching and learning.  Banning social media is like banning talking in schools.  Sure you have to control inappropriate use but we cut off all that learning potential by banning it.

3.  recognise and celebrate self-directed professional learning by teachers using 
online tools, and the role of social media in this learning;
Building a culture where this is valued is important.  There are lots out there but they are isolated and poorly known in the mainstream.

4. create a common online space where the whole education community can find each other;
This is a bit vague and I have visions of a controlled, unwielding space with poor usability if something is done at a national level.  In the case study about Edubuzz, I was hoping for some information about how to do this for myself because it's this kind of purposeful initiative that I could see working for groups of schools.


5. ensure that all Initial Teacher Training courses demonstrate a strong focus on the use of social media tools for ongoing professional development.
Yes, make this law.  Can't see this happening any time soon.

Social Media Supporting teacher CPD - 2

This post continues discussing the newly released report Tweeting for teachers.  They list 5 recommendations for school leaders and 5 for policy makers.  My first thought is how many school leaders will read this?  Probably very few unless they have a strategy for promoting it beyond a website.  I'll discuss each recommendation which you can read about on p30-33:


1.  School leaders should learn about and engage with the social platforms that their teachers, parents and pupils are using every day;
Yes, indeed.  The idea that springs into my mind is that what we need to do is get teachers in general using social media for themselves.  By using it for themselves ideas will spark about how they can use it in their teaching.  Trying to teach using something alien to the rest of their lives isn't easy but this is what we are often asking them to do.  Social media are ways of communicating, they are new communication channels.  Ways of communicating SHOULD be of interest to us in education.
The logical next step for me is to try and conceive of a training event which caters for this need.  This could be a sister session to my 21st century tools for teaching and learning session and would concentrate on how educators can use social media for themselves, in their own learning.  This would also fit nicely with the sentiment of this report.
As a bullet point to this recommendation, there is the old chestnut of justifying them using these tools themselves to understand the kids' world.  I remember saying this to National Professional Qualification for Headship (NPQH) participants 10 years ago.  It's true enough but many argue against it.  Practicing what you preach applies and it all comes down to a human beings unwillingness to learn after a certain age.  It's incredible how many resist it.

2. School leaders should use a social media tool as part of their communications with the school
community;
This would be a good way of establishing it's validity.  The problem is that the only relationship much of social media has with formal education is to be banned, it's associated with negative things.
  You have to stick your head above the paraphet to alter this.

3. validate and support their staff in using social media tools for ongoing professional development;
This is a positive strategic move which also give the mode validity for learning.  This could start with one tool that some people have good experiences and understanding of within the school or institution.

4. turn online activity into offline actions, in order to harness the benefits of face-to-face interaction alongside those of online interaction;
This is about using technology within the classroom.  Tablets will impact on this in the future.  However, this is whole new area in itself.  In the classroom or for homework there is scope for both but shouldn't be blurred together as both need carefully planned learning design.

5. implement robust systems for evaluating the impact of CPD on teacher effectiveness and student outcomes
No comment on this one.

The next post will consider the recommendations for policy makers.

Social media supporting teachers CPD

A fews days ago I went to an interesting event promoting a new report published by the Pearson Centre for Policy and Learning here in London.  It is called:  Tweeting for teachers; how can social media support teacher professional development?  I'm going to use it to reflect on the social media and education.

I'm going to give detailed analysis of the parts that interested me to help me reflect and articulate my thinking.

Overall, it's a useful and worthwhile read but it promises more than it delivers.  The overall message is noble and it could act as a inspirational call-to-arms for educators to start investigating social media. I saw some of this at the event and I hope the message can reach out there.  The recommendations are sounds although a little obvious.  There are also some interesting case studies about initiatives I wasn't aware of.  There is a deliberate link to teachers' CPD which is good and the review of research is interesting.  However, there's a distinct lack of 'how to'.  More on this later.

Firstly, the event I attended was well organised and free.  Their #tweetingforteachers worked well as they had dedicated people looking after it.  I ended up participating quite a lot as things occurred to me.  The usefulness of micro-blogging to facilitate communicate in events cannot be disputed.  It's a pity they didn't have the stream setup on the screen but there was a fair bit of interaction.  It helped that I got a good 3G connection.  Interestingly, most delegates didn't participate in this showing how far we have to go.

Next, the title - tweeting for teachers.  I don't like this.  It's catchy yes but it's a marketing phrase which is misleading as the overall scope of the report is social media. It's true that lots of the examples were about twitter but if the report wants to be about social media in general then it's not an appropriate title.  Tweeting for teacher is a great title if you were to extrapolate the bits about twitter and add practical guidance on the processes involved in twitter.

Overall, it's a report that can only scratch the surface of this subject.  Social media is a huge, huge area.  In a 36 page report it's not going to happen.  Also, the contexts with which it can be used a numerous.  The case studies consist of 3 people that blog and tweet for their own learning, a local authority blogging facility that worked well, a video competition, #ukedchat and Teachmeet.  Of these, #ukedchat and Teachmeet are the most inspirational.  They are both established synchronous events which can be engaged in.  The others are interesting but they would benefit from guidance on how to act if you're inspired to setup something similar.  Also, where are the dynamic image creation and sharing tools, the video creation, use of audio, mindmapping tools, social bookmarking, multimedia posters, social networking/group sites etc.  I worry about teachers will read this report and think that the case studies cover everything that's possible.

Finally for this post - categorisation.  with some about self-directed learning and personal learning networks and others about sharing, reflective learning and still others about synchronous event, the report is crying out for careful categorisation so that content is made "meaningful to teachers and manageable within the context of teaching practice."(p20 of this report).

This is the massive gap we have in education with learning technologies.  We have to make things easier for our teachers and academics.  We need to show them how and in their context.  Something like http://www.teachertrainingvideos.com/ and http://www.freetech4teachers.com/ are more useful in this regard.  There is a wealth of policy advice and a wealth of how to use tools advice but it's the middle ground of putting it in our context which is lacking.  I believe that largely teachers can do this for themselves but only if we promote and facilitate it.

In my next post, I'll reflect on the key recommendations from this report.

A VLE is like a gym membership - bought for show and used by a handful

Breaking off from my previous train of thought....

A VLE is like a gym membership - bought for show and only properly used by a handful of hardy souls.

For a few years now the Virtual Learning Environment is a must have for any self-respecting educational institution. For HEs, it's a behemoth of a walled garden where integration with registration and administrative systems takes more time and effort than the teaching and learning integration it's supposed to be about. The use is patchy at best. It's like a gym membership. Both are purchased with the best intentions. There is recognition that change is necessary for proper and fulfilling use. However, this recognition is tacit at best and romantic at worst. Realisation and readily to change the culture of your organisation or the way you live you life is often lacking. When the turmoil of such change comes into view the hard decisions are shied away from and the status quo continues with minor aberrations.

This metaphor just about works, but what's the point of it. It's useful to think about how HE is approaching the use of learning technologies. Where this metaphor is useful is that it highlights how institutions like to play up their use of technology without really understanding or intending to enact the changes necessary to realise what they say is happening or will happen.

Presentation on "Structuring an online course" and some prezi reflections

Last week I taught a session (with a couple of colleagues) called Structuring an online course: guidance and example. Here I wanted to share my contribution to this session: a prezi presentation and talk about it. it's not embedding well so I'll just link to it - Structuring an onine course: Guidance and example - public version


What I've attempted to do is group together different sections of the process with a view to helping educators organise their thinking on this issue. The hard part of this is knowing what to leave out. I see this as a work in process because I hope to get clearer about the issues and the relationships as I get more experienced. The point of this practically focused framework is to help a Higher Education institution in 2011 - I work at the excellent Institute of Education. The point is that many academics need help with the basics. Basics that aren't well defined or universally agreed. By basics I mean the key decisions that need to be made; the main structural decisions to take. Some may disagree with the phrases used in the structure but the point is to give a framework from which to work. Of course, it needs context. I work with individuals to give this context. However, I'm interested in the academic staff who aren't banging down my door to have these conversations and are only at this particular session. It's something for them to take away. I want to make the maximium impact I can; an impact that cover the foundations of what they need to know. If this is all the time I get with them I don't waste time focusing on a small piece of the pie before they have tasted a bite or all the slices (not sure that works).

It's true that the pedagogy is only implicit in the presentation, if at all. In an ideal world the pedagogy is the starting point and the structure flows from there. My rationale for leaving this out is based on my experiences working with educators over the years. Rarely do they want to talk in the abstract and apply these abstract principles to their teaching. My best guess is that most educators have only a sense of their pedagogical tendencies but have a firm grasp on what types of activities they like using. So what I deem important for a first stab presentation like this are the types of activity available to them in their context. For this scenario, this meant outlining the main communication/collaboration tools available to people in my institution. A footnote to this is that pedagogy is complex and discussions around is are complicated and challenging. All this takes time, and this could feel a waste if there is only this one chance of communicating with them.

My concern with any teaching session is to avoid cul-de-sacs of discussion on issues of minor importance. Often such discussions focus on processes which hinder the success of teaching online or strategic and sometimes philosophical standpoints. This leads sessions and discussions down a slippery slope. By presenting something like this first, the chance of a focused discussion are much greater.

So the prezi provided has the following sections:

Before designing section - Basically, what I'm concerned with here is ensuring that you know why you are designing a purely online or blended learning course. Our context has a focus of converting from face-to-face but it applies to creating something from scratch. The why question is a whole area in itself which I won't dwell on here. The other noteworthy issue is whether you replace what you are currently doing with whatever you are designing now. This refers to replacing something purely online with something face-to-face. Most will not want to teach solely online, this is not what they signed up for when they embarked on this career! So duplication is the preferred way to go. I will probably rework this section. I think most of important issues are there but I'm not happy about the title and some of the wording.

Structural considerations - The prezi above is minus screenshots of example structures within our VLE. However, we have the key considerations. In reality these considerations are not decided upon before the actually activity/content design. It is an iterative process.

An online course needs - bespoke content, activities, readings This is the meat of the presentation and the focus is on the activities. The categories feel a bit simplistic but I think they work. What I'm keen to do is to make the point that uploading your powerpoint from a face-to-face lecture isn't good enough for bespoke content. You want specially created documents or multimedia at the very least. So I describe this area as bespoke content. Because we are HE, readings gets it's own area (the things in this bubble refer to our systems). For the activities bubbles, my split between asynchronous and synchronous was an easy design choice. They are such different beasts that we need to talk about them seperately. What I've outlined are the main tools available to us in our blackboard VLE. Moodlers out there will notice that moodle has more to offer. C'est la vie. I probably should have put e-portfolios in there however. What this model doesn't acknowledge is the relationship between the activities and the bespoke content. A blurring of the boundaries here would have got in the way of the message but this can come out when you talk.

Finally, some reflections on using prezi for this presentation. I did a few prezis a year ago but haven't done any since. My intention here was to present large structures and show relationships which could then be used to focus on individual elements. Doing it this way forces you to think hard about how the pieces fit together. When I started I didn't know what these structures would look like and, to be honest, I had hoped for better. However, it was a valuable exercise and I think it has a better look and feel using this tool. With powerpoint you can often get away with casually listing things as they come to mind and talk about them. BTW, if you just jump of one thing to the next without any big picture there's no point using prezi. What's frustrating about prezi is that when you decide to move a bubble and all it's contents, it's a fiddly job. There's supposed to be a multiple select option but I couldn't get this to work so I was forever dragging things around. Perhaps sketching things out on paper first is a good idea.

Anyway, I hope you find looking at the presentation and reading these reflections interesting. Presentations without the talking can only be so useful but hopefully you can get something from it. Feedback would be gratefully received.

Proactive or reactive - the learning technology choice

How best to create an environment where educators feel comfortable and willing to embrace the use of technology in education is what my job is all about. There are various strategies you can employ. It's very easy to focus on the process of the particular project you are working on. So you prepare the environment (usually a VLE), show the tools, make sure everyone knows how to work the thing and look after the technical running of the space. It's important you do this for sure, but there are often larger issues that need to be addressed and it's important to establish yourself as a contributor to design, startegy and policy where this is coherent with other strategic areas of your organisation. This is difficult and messy and often fraught with problem and setbacks but it's necessary and the right thing to do. People in learning technology should not just be about processes. It can feel like tech support and, for the educator, this is exactly what you are.

I guess it boils down to a choice between whether you want to be proactive in your promotion of learning technologies or reactive. I like to be in the proactive camp but sometimes this is a hard stance to sustain for a variety of reason. One sad footnote is that there are often not enough people or enough time to be truly proactive.

Word Cloud of this blog

I did a wordle of this blog which is now sitting on the front page. There are no real surprises. Learning is the biggest word which makes sense. I always intended this blog to be about my learning so I use this word in this context and in the context of using technology for learning. Technologies is second which is an obvious dominant theme. The important point for me is that when thinking about technology in education thinking about the learning should always come first. Any technology is there to act as an appropriate communication tool through which the learning can take place. It's all about informed decision making when it comes to choosing the right tool (be it online, offline, face-to-face etc). This is where educators need help. Making an informed decision is hindered by lack of training, training that concentrates too much on how to use a technology or a pedagogical model, and not having the time and space to undertake reflection and course design.

Accelerated learning

It feels like the last few weeks I have experienced accelerated learning. This is mainly because I've had to create a lot of bespoke content for consultancy work lately. In many ways, this is the most rewarding work activity I have. I love to create and in my subject area I feel like I often have a blank canvas on which to draw together my experiences and knowledge. The creation process is about getting the message right - which is about broaching the subject at the right level - the subject being using technology in education.

I've always been a big picture kind of guy and recently I've been bolder in talking about the big picture with clients. This is vital and will never teach again without some reference to this topic. The big picture is basically about how the reality of the educator changes when delivering learning at a distance or through blended learning. When addressing nervous and disorientated educators this is good place to start because it shows empathy with their situation. In addition, I run through the basic arguments for using learning technologies. This is important because it forces them to reflect on why their company or educational institution is going down this road. The answer to the "why" question often gets lost. I also ask "how ready are you to teach using technology?" It's a good way of teasing out the problem areas and tenor of the group.

Much of what I offer to the educational world is still about giving people an opportunity to practice using different types of internet based tools which they may not have encountered and discussing their potential for teaching and learning. Where I feel confident of value is that much of what I see out there is either too technical or too pedagogical. I try to find the middle ground in an attempt to always be relevant.

This sounds like a sale pitch but it's written for me to help articulate my thoughts.

Balancing theory and practice in e-learning advice

Recently I've been involved in a project where I seem to have assumed the role of balancing theory and practice in the context of the design and delivery of educational use of learning technologies. It's not surprising that my natural tendencies have let me to fulfil more of the practical side of things rather than the theoretical pedagogical. This is partly because this is where my skills mainly lie although I am developing my pedagogical knowledge (what I call the academic underpinning). But it's also partly because I think this is the area that can often get lost where theory gets overplayed. In a course situation, you need that balance as there is a tendency to concentrate on the theory without allowing the participants the time and space to play with the various tools. In one-to-one consultation with educators approaching learning technologies from scratch you need a bias towards the practical. This may seem wrong but here's why:

I work in an academic culture where teaching is part of what the researchers do. You would think that such people would be minded to treat the use of learning technologies in an action researcher capacity (in the way put forward by Laurillard, 2008). But they don't. Teaching and the design of their teaching isn't something that your average HE academic will approach by reading about the pedagogical underpinnings or recent research into this or that use of a particular tool. They are more likely to ask their colleague what they used and what for (if anything). This is not criticism of them. It's a reflection on the culture surrounding all teaching I think.

In this regard, I would always advocate a practical approach when advising people about using learning technologies in their teaching. Using the phrase "this tool lends itself to..." is better than "this tool has the technological affordance of..." which in turn is better than "the pedagogical underpinning of this tool is..."

When I say better I mean in the context of talking to a sceptical, slightly negative academic who has been told to talk to you about this e-learning "thing".

Making sense of e-learning strategy

Also published on the Educational Technology and Change Journal

It's very common for the message to get confused or diluted when you try to introduce and encourage the use of learning technologies/VLEs into the Higher Education world. The main reason for this is that the message is inherently confusing. Ask two people tasked with encouraging their use and you'll get two different answers. There isn't a dominant reasoning across the sector. I have mine, but I know it's at odds with what others say. For me, there is a belief in collaborative pedagogies over the transformative/didactic mode. The learning is simply better, the teaching is simply better and the resulting graduate is a person better equipped to keep learning throughout their career. The problem with this is that I can't prove it and it would be fruitless to try. I just believe it and certainly it's true for my learning.

I'm not convinced that many of those who are prevalent deliverers of lectures with little or no interaction necessarily believe that this is the best way - although certainly there are some. It's just that lecturing and passive learning are, in the short run, the easiest options for both faculty and students. It's just easier, take less effort. They prepare the content and just speak it. I tweeted the other day "If you don’t ask questions, learners aren’t doing anything. Lots of questions, variety of questions." to advertise the blog post Key Steps to Preparing Great Synchronous Interactions. I don't think it's as stark as that but the sentiment is true.

Back to the confusing message. The pedagogy argument is difficult to make and obviously confrontational. Far easier to talk in terms of efficiency saving and money saving. So this is often where we end up and, for many, this is all we should legitimately seek to use learning technologies for. On this path, the result is often a simple case of e-administration.

So you have these two schools of thought. But what often happens is a illogical blending of the two. It doesn't work and it doesn't make any sense. One challenges the status quo, the other enforces it. They don't fit together. It's a tough one when you think about it because by exposing this tension I make my job harder. On the other hand, I'm not doing my job properly if I don't. And on a third hand, who am I to try and influence pedagogy!

A Learning Technologist in 2009 in Higher Education

I've just read an interesting post which has helped move my thinking on a bit. It's "Training" faculty to teach online by Lisa Lane and is about the nature of the usual offerings of "training" on teaching online. She distinguishes between Technical training, which is the mechanics of how to work and navigate a particular tool/artefact, and professional development for effective online teaching where the pedagogies behind them are explored. She says:

The misconceptions about the validity of online teaching are only encouraged by using the word “training”. It implies a false proposition: that instructors need to learn the tools first, and that once they have done so they will develop good online classes. Neither of these is true. Instead, instructors should be encouraged to examine their pedagogy as they begin to teach online, and be provided with extensive technical support as they develop courses based on their chosen pedagogy. And powers-that-be (accrediting agencies, Chancellor’s Offices, and our own colleagues) should be aware that the need is for creating a good environment for encouraging such practices, instead of certifying “training in teaching online”.

The weakness is one of understanding on the part of colleagues and administrators, and, in some cases, lack of meta-cognitive pedagogy (whether online or on-site) among faculty.

There's lots of good points here. Knowledge of pedagogy is lacking, knowledge of the values behind any Learning Technology is lacking, knowledge of Web 2.0 is lacking and personal ICT skills are lacking. These issues are just so huge! Where do you start? Well, the place most people is with the technical training. The problem is this is mostly where it ends. As Lisa argues in her post, perception of online training is often only about how to use a tool. We need more! But this is recognised. Not by the users or the employers.

Thinking about my practice and what goes on in Higher Education, things could be better. A lot of what I do ends up with showing how a tool work (technical training) and we often don't get beyond this. Mostly, people don't want me to go beyond this. Or if they are interested, there isn't the time. Should I force the issue? This depends on what type of Learning Technologist you are. If you are happy reinforcing the status quo, then trying to effect the way they teach isn't on the agenda. If you believe in the spirit of Web 2.0 and think that pedagogies and values behind it can have a positive impact on education then you MUST force the issue.

I think I'm shouting this word at myself more than anyone else. But it's hard. Hard to force the issue, hard to challenge how someone teaches, hard to annoy someone, hard to make your worklife more complex and more difficult than it needs to be.

So being a Learning Technologist in Higher Education in 2009 is all about challenging the status quo. But to do this properly feathers will be ruffled. I need to lie down for a bit!