Tag Archives: practice

One Year Over the Top ; Reflections. The Joy of Not Being There: A September Without the Start of Term⤴

from @ ...........Experimental Blog

I've been feeling a bit guilty. I've done a bit of work over summer but mainly I've just chilled.  It was strange coming back from a foreign holiday and not having to check lots of work emails - but it is a really nice sensation. 

This September, for the first time in thirty nine years , I am not preparing for the start of term. No staff briefings. No last-minute system tweaks. No wondering whether staff will be more engaged, more challenging, more everything - and what budget cuts are coming down the line etc and mainly wondering if the students will cope and will staff actually step them through induction or leave them to sink or swim. And or the dreaded moment when we discover that something promised to support induction hasn't actually happened - but it's included in all our start of session materials. 

As I push on I am bringing opportunities back to the College sector and the folks I know will be receptive to new ideas.  

Time to for a quick reflection on what I said I would do and what I've actually achieved and what I have to catch up on - I am due a post both on ALT Scotland SIG meeting at end of June and on #OER25 which I keynoted at before heading off on leave. That will be my next tasks.

When I said my farewells I promised I would keep pushing on a number of fronts.  Here is a potted update and a report card. 

  • UNESCO - Continue shaping bid for project around better understanding of the open source code available for creation and management of Open Badges in support of Micro credentials. Bid completed and I anticipate publication appearing before Christmas.  This from work in Bilbao 
  • Continue work with UK Digital Badging Commission - input completed and work now published. Tied in well with UNESCO work and my fellowship with RSA. Led to some comms and  work with 1Edtech.  Scottish education seems miles away from adopting these approaches. 
  • Hopefully continue to support work of QAA around Scottish Tertiary Quality framework. Delighted to say I now have a part-time role as a Quality Assurance Specialist for QAA.
  • Champion Teachermatic and other AI approaches to changing learning paradigm. This is still work in progress have delivered a number of sessions and keynotes.
  • Champion Canvas by Instructure . I am still due to do a bigger deeper blog on Canvas and why it should be platform of choice. But enjoyed working with Martin Bean in Scotland and enjoyed my time in Barcelona at #CanvasCon 
  • Continue to support Open Scotland following Dubai Summit to encourage more Open practice in Scotland. I keynoted #oer25 in London in June ( post to follow) I've presented to Once for Scotland to see if we can re-engage policy makers across Scotland and hoping to pick up conversation with Lee Dunn in the current administration. I am presenting OERGlobal25 in November. 
  • Encourage better understanding of Adaptive Comparative Judgement - this probably one area where I haven't really pushed on. 
  • Offer informed input on shape and future of tertiary sector in Scotland.  I keep knocking on relevant doors. There really needs to be a wholesale change in approach. 
  • Continue as Chair of Association of Learning Technology special interest group in Scotland and do a bit more community building for ALT. Held two meetings this year. Summary of online conference April  - report on June Stirling Conference to come and I am co-chair of UK ALTC Conference coming to Glasgow for first time in October. 
  • Continue to offer support to  suppliers , institutions and staff who want to digitally transform their practice and the experience of learners. Some notable successes with Smart Technologies really down to quality of product and support available in Scotland and in dialogue with a number of other suppliers. I continue to work with lots of old friends from @Bett Conferences  and my network. 
  •  I've run a couple of College sessions but sector could do with a few more - still not really seeing blended learning to the fore.  I think I could do more on that front. (if anyone wants a short workshop on digital transformation for managers or teaching staff - please just reach out) 
  • FRSA - Support Glasgow branch around organising a series of events this and next year. Making progress civic reception at City Chambers and event at Citizens Theatre in planning - reaching out to Education contacts for RSA.
  • Continue as Chair of IWasGonnae and Old Hall Scout Group. - both organisations thriving - really down to the energy and skills of the teams there. 
I've done lots of travelling over the year for business and fun and hosted some guests in Glasgow. 

Here are two happy snaps of 

Kim William Gordon, PhD from EdTech Research Labs St Louis USA

Maria Soledad Ramirez Montoya, UNESCO Chair Open Educational Movement for Latin America







ALT Scotland 24th April Catch Up – Meeting Summary⤴

from @ ...........Experimental Blog

Here is a quick summary of what the Scottish ALT Special Interest Group Discussed on 24th of April 2025.

It's the curse of living in interesting times across the tertiary education sector. So many opportunities yet so much threatened. Our conversation covered a mix of personal updates, reflections on education, and ongoing challenges. 

But mainly some really useful insights from folks working across the Education sector with focus on learning technology. 

Much excitement that ALT Conference coming to Glasgow in October 2025. 

In all  a rich mix of policy concerns, educational debates, and technology insights

Padlet below here has relevant links we discussed and I highlight some of our discussion below. 

  • Key discussion points:
    • Our key themes are reflected in the embedded padlet. We discussed in the round  and I'll single some specific things out here
    • Policy background of cuts across sector and reforms to Education Scotland, HMIE, SQA , SFC but clearer guidance from QAA etc and routes to improved learning and teaching. By a  range of definitions we are all working towards blended learning through learning design but all feeling pinch of less funding and less staff. 
    • Concerns about new UKVI regulations causing confusion. There is a useful summary from WONKE included in the padlet - this is impacting on blend of learning and more fundamentally viability and access of international students to UK HE.
    • The conversation around learning design and the tendency for it to be more intuitive rather than methodically pedagogically planned. Staff are still reluctant to embrace digital skills and or accept new approaches to delivery.  Some useful past work from QAA on multi modality was highlighted - see padlet.
    • The rapidly changing trends in AI, Including its use in digital art and Facebook-based AI-generated content and on going sustainability and  intellectual property right issues. Specifically large-scale AI-trained book databases and impact on copyright. 
    • Challenges of open and AI - is this simply eshittification ? is it inevitable that our content will be exploited ?. We are assuming that AI is always the answer. We need to challenge this. Individuals and institutions need to make more informed decisions. Will using these tools really lead to personalisation or to a dull  homogenous approach to learning and teaching ?. There is a lot to question. 
    • ALT are about to revisit their ethical framework and hopefully some of these concerns will be addressed in latest review. 
    • There is a lot happening in space from AI Alliance and others in Scotland but does not appear to be strong connection with Education.  Highlighted recent AI playbook with number of commercial and or public sector examples of AI in action but none at moment from Education. 
    • On open education specifically - more threatened by institutional systems which favour closed rather than open and in a competitive environment fears and concerns around sharing are amplified. The latest concern that AI could eat our content is simply the latest barrier to supporting open practice. Focus tends to be on commercialisation rather than collaboration and sharing,  Telling that even with learning technology few Scottish institutions are sharing their training offers across the sector. Though all run online webinars etc for their own staff. 
    • There is  also a trend to move staff support guides from the open web onto closed SharePoint etc 
    • Roll out of AI tools at institutional level  Lack of clarity around even simple things like what bits of co-pilot are switched on or off at institutional level and how under 18s are managed in terms of access. ( my interpretation I think this is ok and part of an institutions Acceptable Use Policy) . Issues here around how IT and LT teams and wider organisation navigate things like local agents and Co-Pilot studio ( what are GDPR risks , hidden costs ) This moved to a discussion on productivity as a concept, with noted tensions and frictions.
    •  VLE etc  Jisc are offering VLE reviews to help institutions and staff make most of their virtual learning environments. Increasingly VLE offers come with embedded AI capabilities.  Main challenge though still around learning design and making effective sensible use of the VLE for learners.  
    • Staff Digital Skills It is an old chestnut. We talked around use and or lack of use of excellent surveys from Jisc.  The College sector (CDN)  has started a bit of work to find out what real barriers are to using these excellent benchmarking tools. This both for Digital Capabilities and Digital Insights Surveys. CDN and Jisc Scotland are going to bring back Virtual Bridge Sessions as Inside Sessions to support innovative practice in College sector.  There is a list of useful training sites on Padlet. 
    • Scottish AI Alliance is worth reaching out to with suggestions to raise educational pointers for their playbook.

    • AR and VR noted this still has a way to go to make real learner impact. VR content is still very expensive both to create and to access. AR is probably way forward.  Centres still generally reluctant to procure class head sets and still slow to make their own AR content even for use on flat screens. Still a  big fan of ThingLink in this space. 


    And some final ALT related plugs

    ALT Scotland SIG
    Save the date: Monday, June 16th, 10 AM - 3 PM
    Face-to-face event at Jisc's interactive classroom, University of Stirling.
    Booking arrangements and agenda to follow


    New online community for ALT Scotland
    Jisc is supporting a Microsoft Team to sit alongside the Jiscmail list please sign up here.
    ALT Scotland Community Teams site registration request

    We will also retire the Alt Scotland twitter account and a new BlueSky account and LinkedIn presence will appear in due course.

    #OER25
    Share your ideas on "Speaking Truth to Power: Open Education and AI in the Age of Populism" at #OER25 in London, 23-24 June. Spread the word to inspire more voices to join this critical conversation and or simply get along. Learn more: #altc #openscot

    #ALT-C Glasgow October 2025
    ALT-C is coming to Glasgow please reach out to all those who work in learning technology across institutions and into the public and private sectors. Collaboration is key.

Easy Writing⤴

from

Nearly there


Nearly there flickr photo by NomadWarMachine shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-SA) license

People often tell me that they wished they found it as easy to write as I do – because, they think, it’s obvious that writing comes naturally to me. And, actually, they’re right – I do find writing easy. Whether I’m typing at a computer or (more often) writing with one of my many fountain pens, I don’t have a problem getting words onto paper.

What is much more difficult is letting go of those words. Often, once I’ve written a blog post I don’t think it’s worth publishing – because I write in order to understand what I am thinking, and once I know I don’t need it any more, and I don’t think anyone else will find it interesting. Other times the words I have written don’t feel like the right words to publish – probably because I was ranting to myself as I was writing (which is good, as it helps me to write the frustration and anger out of my head).

So, yeah – writing’s easy. But writing the right words – that’s harder.

2024 In Review⤴

from @ ...........Experimental Blog



Graphic from Co Author Studio

Strange year, 2024. While Scottish education wrestled with AI's implications, I shifted back to consultancy after 7 years leading digital transformation at City of Glasgow College. The timing proved interesting - just as assessment anxiety peaked and international interest in Scottish vocational education grew and with the funding model for Colleges pretty much in crisis.

Some key developments from 2024:

In College -

• Supported Turkish Vocational Authority's education reform programme with workshops in Ankara.
• Led AI policy development at City of Glasgow College and continued to share this work internationally.
• Presented at QAA Conference on assessment in an AI world and delivered series of workshops on Active, Blended, Collaborative Learning for Tertiary Sector in Scotland and garnered welcome support too from SQA.
• Pushed on continued development of Canvas platform and staff digital skills against some interesting internal headwinds.
•Hosted ALT Scottish SIG - this time on-line from COGC.

Post College -

• Participated in UNESCO's Future of Education bootcamp in Bilbao and now authoring bid with international partnership around adoption of open badge framework to support micro-credentials.
• Continued pushing for open educational resources despite system inertia
• Supported hashtag#Canvascon in Barcelona and facilitated a tertiary sector workshop back in Scotland.
• Ran series of workshops for HE and Colleges on blended learning for QAA including online workshops - deploying model developed @cityofglasgowcollege. Active, Blended and Connected.
• Supported an enjoyable workshop on Future of Learning with Prof Martin Bean.

These posts from LinkedIn capture pivotal moments:

"It's not the end of learning design and blended learning - it is just the beginning." Moving back to consultancy while reflecting on 7 years of institutional change.
https://lnkd.in/eb4anc2y

"It was an amazing privilege to be invited to make presentations and chair workshops in Ankara." Supporting vocational education reform internationally while Scottish reforms continue.
https://lnkd.in/em6K23C8

"Scotland is still not even partly on the bus despite best efforts of hashtag#openscot. Yet we are a country proud of education as a public good." The perpetual challenge of advancing open education.
https://lnkd.in/evGZVnrJ

" It was great to have opportunity to be part of cross sectoral expert team to develop this resource for QAA and associated workshops"
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/joerwilson_planning-and-delivery-of-active-blended-learning-activity-7252070604621631488-6Uyb

Grateful to colleagues at City of Glasgow College and the team at Instructure Canvas who helped deliver real change, and to the broader Scottish education community still working to embrace open educational practices despite the obstacles.

Looking ahead to 2025: ready to help more institutions navigate AI integration thoughtfully while continuing to advocate for open education. The challenges around transferable skills and digital capabilities remain much the same as 20 years ago - but the positive relationships between learners and teachers still drive meaningful change.

Broadly I anticipate working with;
  • UNESCO - Continue shaping bid for project around better understanding of the open source code available for creation and management of Open Badges in support of Micro credentials.
  • Continue work with UK Digital Badging Commission
  • Champion - Teachermatic and other AI platforms , Adaptive Comparative Judgement and Canvas by Instructure as means of changing the learning paradigm.
  • Hopefully continue to support work of QAA around Scottish Tertiary Quality framework.
  • Continue supporting sensible policy and practice around adoption of AI in vocational system.
  • Following recent Dubai Summit working with Open Scotland to encourage more open educational practice in Scotland.
  • Supporting institutions and staff who want to digitally transform their practice and their learners’ experience
  • Continue as chair of ALT Scotland SIG and have a bit more time for community building - perhaps exploring new community platform.
  • Where I can, offer informed input on shape of tertiary sector and future of vocational landscape including qualifications. 
  • Continue having more me time - great trips since great escape to London, Berlin, Bologna, Viareggio, Lucca and France - along with business trips been a busy end of year.
To everyone working to make education more open and accessible: it is always the people who make the difference. Be as optimistic and cheerful as your learners.  

Here's to more progress in 2025.

That Digital Presence and Social Media Question⤴

from @ ...........Experimental Blog


We have become enthralled by the ceaseless hum of our electronic companions, those pocket-sized devices that have ensnared our attention and stolen our souls. We wander through life like sleepwalkers, heads bowed in reverence to the glowing altar of our screens, checking our social media, oblivious to the richness of the world that unfurls before us. 

Our digital avatars proliferate, each one a carefully constructed facade, a desperate attempt to assert our relevance in an increasingly disconnected world, and/or how you manage your digital presence actually matters. 

So, should you use; Twitter, Threads, Mastodon, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, SnapChat , TikTok or Tumblr, or just walk away, or be simply terrified by social media.

And what about good old-fashioned blogging?

I've been using social media since it arrived. In the last century incidentally - though none of the platforms that existed then were actually called social media and they don't exist anymore. (ICQ, MySpace, Vine and many more etc)

I once set out what I use and why and I think given the recent proliferation of platforms perhaps time to do that again. Amusement too by overhearing a teaching colleague on the importance of online networking for learners, but not them ;-) 

Some past observations 

You do need to manage your online presence; it is a good thing to do. You can see 30 years of avatars on some of these sites.
  1. I am old and uncool, I use facebook with friends and family and try to keep it that way. If I don't know you really well, we won't be friends on facebook, sorry and no link with this item.
  2. LinkedIn for professional stuff - no chit chat or jokes - some links that reflect interesting things I am doing professionally, and I link with like-minded professionals. Always useful, I have had some very genuine job opportunities come along through LinkedIn. Be over familiar and or unbusinesslike and you're off my contact list. I only accept contact requests from folks that look relevant. So sorry not looking for a new life partner. Strangely now 6500 followers and over taking ..
  3. Twitter - controversial perhaps - but with #hashtags for topic searching and an established network 4500 followers approx. I post things that matter to me and use it as source of information and for networking. If you want to get the news first twitter is still best. Still a really useful tool. Anyone can follow me on twitter, and I think with one exception, a supporter of Russia's war in Ukraine, I've never blocked anyone. You may have concerns about new platform owner, but system still works well.
  4. Mastodon - I like the idea but seems to be lots of islands and I've had very few meaningful exchanges - has potential but not enough yet to get me to switch off my Twitter account. Usual suspects educational technologists seem to be first of my extended community here. It's too early as some have publicly done to ditch twitter account in favour of Mastodon. Academic posturing? is that a positive or a derogatory term?
  5. Threads even more esoteric. As it brought across everyone that I am linked to on Instagram looks like it may useful and I'm very popular - but the jury's out. No tag searching etc - I am just not sure.
  6. Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok and Tumblr - I'm there - dig around and you will find me, but they are just not my thing. They are on my phone as my children wanted a look at these at some point. I can see appeal, but I am not making short video clips etc.
  7. Blogger and Blogging - Yes, I have my own domain and I can run instances of WordPress, but I stick to Blogger, it's simple and I've been posting since almost last century.  If you want to develop an idea and share it publicly, get a blog, would be my advice. You can do things just like this.
If you are a student or a teacher you really should have an awareness of how useful social media is - but it can make you or break you.  

What is your social media strategy ? Only you can figure this out but if done correctly it will help you personally and professionally.

And same sentiments mixed by Chat GPT 


Oh, the tangled web of social media! We've become prisoners of these pocket-sized devices that demand our constant attention, stealing our souls as we bow before their glowing altars. Life's a stroll in Slumberland, with our heads buried in screens, checking social media like clockwork, all while the world around us goes unnoticed.

Our digital avatars are multiplying like rabbits, each one carefully constructed to show off how relevant we are in this disconnected universe. Do we stay in this wild virtual dance, juggling Twitter, Threads, Mastodon, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, SnapChat, TikTok, and Tumblr? Or do we pull the plug and walk away?

Good old blogging! I've been at it since before the dinosaurs roamed the web. Back in the day, we didn't call it social media, and now those platforms are as extinct as the dodo. Time to lay out my online empire.

First up, Facebook – that's where I hang with friends and family, no room for strangers on my digital porch. LinkedIn's my playground for the business world, strictly no chit chat or jokes here. It's all about connections with like-minded professionals, and maybe, just maybe, some job opportunities, if you're lucky. No unprofessional shenanigans allowed, folks!

Twitter, the land of hashtags and 4500 followers. Here, I post what matters to me, find all the juicy info, and hobnob with other birds of a feather. I'm not one to block, but if you're a fan of Russia's Ukrainian war, sorry, but we're not on tweeting terms.

Now, let's talk Mastodon – an intriguing concept, but feels like a bunch of little islands. I've had a few exchanges here, so it hasn't wooed me away from Twitter's snazzy nest just yet.

Threads? Oh, that's an enigma wrapped in a mystery. Since it imported all my Instagram friends, it appears I'm a superstar over there, but I'm not entirely sold on the whole shebang. Jury's still out on this one.

As for Instagram, SnapChat, TikTok, and Tumblr, they're just not my cup of tea. My kids dragged me into these realms, but I'm more of a bystander, not a performer in the short video circus.

Ah, Blogger, my trusty sidekick. It's simple, it's reliable, and I've been rambling on here since the digital dark ages. If you wanna share your thoughts with the world, get a blog – it's just like this ramble you're reading!

For students and teachers, social media can be your best friend or your worst enemy, so plan your strategy wisely. It can catapult you to greatness or crash your dreams like a runaway train. So, what's your social media game plan, folks? It's a wild digital ride out there!

HeyPressto, a conference on Twitter⤴

from @ Sharing and learning

Pat Lockley (of the pedagogical and technical outfitters Pgogy Webstuff) and I did a thing last week: HeyPressto, a WordPress and ClassicPress conference which happened only on Twitter.  That’s right, a conference on Twitter: presentations were a series of 15 Tweets, one per minute with the conference hashtag, in a scheduled time slot. Adding images, gifs or links to the tweets allows presenters to go into a bit more depth than Twitter’s character limit would suggest. Replies to tweets, and other forms of engagement, allow discussion to develop around the issues raised.  It was also semi-synchronous–or asynchronous after the event if you like: the tweets persist, they can be revisited, engagement can be continued. One way in which the tweets persist is that Pat turned all the presentations into Twitter moments, so first thing you should do if you missed the event is to go to the schedule page and look at some of the presentations that are linked from it.

Ethos

“We want to be the best we can” was a phrase Pat used in describing our efforts.

We wanted to be inclusive. Having the conference on Twitter faciliates this through removal of financial, geographic and logistical obstacles to participation. However, we know that Twitter’s not a great place for people from many groups, and so we felt that a code of conduct was important even though we doubt who has the authority to set and enforce such a code for an open-participation conference. Our code came originally from the Open Code of Conduct from the TODOGroup, and has been through a few other communities (such as #FemEdTech and Open Scotand), so thank you to them for providing a broader basis than we could manage ourselves. We also set ourselves goals for accessibility and privacy that I hope we lived up to. I was pleased that these were noticed and commented on more than once, I think they set a standard if nothing else.

We wanted participation from all around the world, and not just in English. It was clear that we wouldn’t deserve this if the call was only in English, so it had to be translated. It wasn’t easy to chose which languages to translate into: we looked at which are the most widely spoken languages, but also tried to take into account which languages were spoken by the people furthest from justice.  We were half successful. We had presentations from India, Africa, Europe and North America, but not in the proportions we would have liked and all in English. It’s hard to get out of your bubble, to do this properly we would have to start with more diversity on the organization side.

We wanted to value people’s work and the environment. We paid for what we used (translations, for example). Pat found the susty theme, which is incredibly lightweight  and so easier on the carbon footprint with the bonus that it is lightning fast (a cache slowed it down). We’ll be planting some trees to offset the carbon that we did use.

Organization

This isn’t the first conference Pat has done on Twitter, he and Natalie Lafferty have run the very successful PressEd conference on WordPress in Education for three years, indeed it was my helping out a little on last years PressEd that got Pat and me talking about HeyPressto. As well as experience of all the things that need doing, Pat has a WordPress plugin for running the conference that manages lots of the submission process, communication with authors, scheduling and creations of pages for each presentation. I found myself trying to be as useful as could be around the core activities that Pat had sussed.

Starting with initial discussions in April, we chose a name (a few hours of discussion, and then Pat’s partner coming up with the right name in an instant), set up social media accounts (Twitter mostly, obvs), set up a domain (thank you Reclaim), email address, and ko-fi account. Pat’s artistic skills gave us great visuals and our mascot Hopful Bunny. We drafted the call for proposals, spent quite a while trying to work out what languages to translate it into. The call went out at the end of July.

It’s hard getting a Twitter thing going from zero to conference in a couple of months. Our networks helped—thank you friends, it wouldn’t have happened without your support, amplification and participation—but one of the things that we wanted to do was to reach beyond our own social, cultural and geographic bubbles. We got picked up by a couple of podcast channels, so you can hear us talking about HeyPressto on Radio EduTalk and the Sentree blog Thank you John and Michelle. (I think these were the first podcast / internet radio things I have been on, I’ve been pretty good at refusing them until now, and they were nothing like as stressful as I had feared). We picked up followers, and some who supported us quite actively. I want to give a special shout out to @getClassicPress because the engagement from the ClassicPress community strongly contrasted with the blanking from the big noises in the  WordPress community.

Perhaps because we were going outside our own community, there were quite a few folk who didn’t seem to get what we were doing. We listened and re-doubled our efforts to explain, provide examples, respond to feedback on what was confusing. I’m proud of our efforts to fix things that weren’t clear.

The rest was smooth running. Proposals came in steadily. Presentations were scheduled. Advice given to presenters who were unfamiliar with the format. We continued to promote and made new friends who boosted our message. Time zones were a problem. Introductory Tweets were scheduled. Presentations were presented (mostly at the right time), and I think the day went really quite well.

Personal Highlights

I’ve mentioned some of my highlights in the process described above. I’ld also like to call out a few of the presenters that I personally appreciated, without prejudice to the others who also did a great job:

Jan Koch, our opening presenter, did a fine presentation but backed it up with a video version of great professionalism. Superb effort, Jan.

Frances Bell and Lorna M Campbell gave a great presentation on #FemEdTech that  absolutely hit the spot on a number of problematic issues such as being equitable, accessible & inclusive in a place that can be “driven by algorithms & plagued by bots”.

Chris Aldrich whose presentation gave a name and coherence to something that I have long wanted to try, and providing enough hints on how to do it that I might yet get there.

Many presenters (too many to list , it turns out, without just reproducing the schedule page) gave really useful hints on approaches they use, or stories of their experience in implementing them, and inspiration for what I want to try next.

Speaking of what I want to try next, the ClassicPress presentations (roughly covering “why” & “how“) deserve special mention for their engagement with this baffling thing that a conference on Twitter is.

Finally, I think the most important presentation of the day was from Ronald Huereca on Mental Illness in Tech

The post HeyPressto, a conference on Twitter appeared first on Sharing and learning.

Resolutions⤴

from

It took me a long time to start doing the Daily Create. I wanted to participate, but I was not sure I should, or could. Although it’s an open community, I still felt that I’d be an interloper, rudely bursting into a private conversation (and I’ve heard others say this about similar situations, so I know that this is an issue for open educators, but I am going to side step this for today). And the people participating all seemed so proficient – they seemed to do it all so expertly and effortlessly that I was sure that my feeble efforts would not be worthy (again, there’s lots here to tease out that I will pass over for now). Still, I finally took the plunge on March 19th 2016, and now I have 1148 submissions under my belt. For the last couple of years I have made sure to submit something every single day. Sometimes it takes me a few minutes to submit my daily create, other days it takes a few hours, but every day I make sure that I do something – it’s now part of my everyday practice. Sometimes it’s a real struggle to find the time, and sometimes I feel that I am not putting in the effort that I should, but doing something every day helps me in ways I don’t always recall at the time.

So this is my resolution for 2020 – to keep on keeping on. To submit to the daily create every day, to continue with my doodling challenges, and to rejoice in playful learning.

Reindoodle⤴

from

More doodling – a reindeer today. Again I searched Google images and scanned through to get an idea of the basic shapes I wanted to draw. Then I sketched, quickly, using a Tombow brush pen this time (lovely pen, I am enjoying drawing with this). I grabbed a read crayon and coloured in the noses and hats.

reindeer

Then, when the first piece of paper was full I grabbed a pad of plain paper and drew another reindeer, coloured it in with pencils and scanned both sheets to my PC. Uploaded the results to Flickr and her we are.

reindeer

Poinsettia⤴

from

poinsettia

One reason that I like participating in daily drawing challenges is that it encourages me to try to draw something new, rather than doodling the same shapes that have become familiar to me. So when I saw that it was a poinsettia for Thursday’s drawing I was a bit daunted, but luckily I had a few minutes before going into a workshop to do and image search. I searched for poinsettia outline and scrolled through the results to get a feel for the basic shapes. Then I grabbed some crayons and a notepad and headed off to the seminar room. As the prof spoke, I sketched some basic shapes in pencil without worrying too much what the end result was going to be – I wanted to get the shape of the petal/leaf right. Then, when I was confident drawing them freehand I got out my 0.5 micron pen (I usually have one of these in my bag) and drew the basic outline. Then I got out my crayons (I could sense at this point how envious the others at my table were that I had something to occupy my hands!) and coloured it in. The end result is not perfect – I’d meant to sketch some more leaf detail on the red petals, but the workshop was over.

Imagine how pleased I was to see this post by Sheri talking about how she’d taken inspiration from my drawing – this is connected learning at its best.

PS: tomorrow it’s a narwal. Um, eek?

Flying cars, digital literacy and the zone of possibility⤴

from @ Sharing and learning

Where’s my flying car? I was promised one in countless SF films from Metropolis through to Fifth Element. Well, they exist.  Thirty seconds on the search engine of your choice will find you a dozen of so working prototypes (here’s a YouTube video with five).

A fine and upright gentle man flying in a small helicopter like vehicle.
Jess Dixon’s flying automobile c. 1940. Public Domain, held by State Library and Archives of Florida, via Flickr.

They have existed for some time.  Come to think about it, the driving around on the road bit isn’t really the point. I mean, why would you drive when you could fly. I guess a small helicopter and somewhere to park would do.

So it’s not lack of technology that’s stopping me from flying to work. What’s more of an issue (apart from cost and environmental damage) is that flying is difficult. The slightest problem like an engine stall or bump with another vehicle tends to be fatal. So the reason I don’t fly to work is largely down to me not having learnt how to fly.

The zone of possibility

In 2010 Kathryn Dirkin studied how three professors taught using the same online learning environment, and found that they were very different. Not something that will surprise many people, but the paper (which unfortunately is still behind a paywall) is worth a read for the details of the analysis. What I liked from her conclusions was that how someone teaches online depends on the intersection of their knowledge of the content, beliefs about how it should be taught and understanding technology. She calls this intersection the zone of possibility. As with the flying car the online learning experience we want may already be technologically possible, we just need to learn how to fly it (and consider the cost and effect on the environment).

I have been thinking about Dirkin’s zone of possibility over the last few weeks. How can it be increased? Should it be increased? On the latter, let’s just say that if technology can enhance education, then yes it should (but let’s also be mindful about the costs and impact on the environment).

So how, as a learning technologist, to increase this intersection of content knowledge, pedagogy and understanding of technology? Teachers’ content knowledge I guess is a given, nothing that a learning technologist can do to change that. Also, I have come to the conclusion that pedagogy is off limits. No technology-as-a-Trojan-horse for improving pedagogy, please, that just doesn’t work. It’s not that pedagogic approaches can’t or don’t need to be improved, but conflating that with technology seems counter productive.  So that’s left me thinking about teachers’ (and learners’) understanding of technology. Certainly, the other week when I was playing with audio & video codecs and packaging formats that would work with HTML5 (keep repeating H264  and AAC in MPEG-4) I was aware of this. There seems to be three viable approaches: increase digital literacy, tools to simplify the technology and use learning technologists as intermediaries between teachers and technology. I leave it at that because it is not a choice of which, but of how much of each can be applied.

Does technology or pedagogy lead?

In terms of defining the”zone of possibility” I think that it is pretty clear that technology leads. Content knowledge and pedagogy change slowly compared to technology. I think that rate of change is reflected in most teachers understanding of those three factors. I would go as far as to say that it is counterfactual to suggest that our use of technology in HE has been led by anything other than technology. Innovation in educational technology usually involves exploration of new possibilities opened up by technological advances, not other factors. But having acknowledged this, it should also be clear that having explored the possibilities, a sensible choice of what to use when teaching will be based on pedagogy (as well as cost and the effect on the environment).

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