… that’s what they’ll strive for. I was recently asked how I would change something to make the accessibility elements more in line with inclusive principles. The honest answer is I don’t know. The problem is that the purpose of the thing was to get people to change things, to change practice or technology etc. And…
Read moreTag: learning technologies
Zoom and Room: hidden labour
We need to recognise the labour involved in these emerging practices; existing teams are great at making things happen, making it feel possible, and making it as simple as they can for those of us who are experiencing it as users. But if the practices are to be embedded and widespread, that extra labour needs to be recognized and accounted for. People often can’t just turn up and flip a switch. And those who are told it’s just that easy are being sold something. In some institutions I am seeing a lot of recruitment in learning design and technology enhanced learning roles, in some I am seeing restructures with no overall increase in numbers, and of course some are either not changing or even reducing their numbers.
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Reflecting about adopting more technology
This is just me thinking out loud… My wife went for a run at the weekend. She does that. I do not run, for the record. She’s an orienteer (running with a map and compass), she’s also a former British Champion at night orienteering. Orienteering is a very social sport, so the pandemic had an…
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A Provocation for Digital Leadership
On 6th December 2019 Jisc launched a Digital Leadership community. As the instigator of the Jisc work in this space I was invited to offer some provocations to kick the community off. I have been around the education technology space for a while, and I thought a retrospective on my personal pursuit of EdTech Unicorns…
Read moreThinking aloud: MS Teams, Domain of One’s Own and EdTech
Back in 08 Myself, Cormier and Stiles asked a question about virtual learning environments (VLEs). Extinction or Evolution? Some might have seen the question as a tautology, certainly at the time of writing we anticipated that the VLE of 10 years later would have evolved and changed and look very different, but have the same…
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“Accessible” is not the same as Inclusion
Do we consider all learners when embedding digital into teaching, learning and assessment? If they don’t have the newest device, good connectivity, unlimited data, can they still participate, engage and learn, what if they have a disability? When practitioners start to use innovative practices and technologies is everyone included? It’s not often that I talk…
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Getting started with digital – some thinking aloud
An academic recently approached me and said: “I have been doing things this way for a long time – I want to do some digital stuff, I am on Twitter, I use Facebook I have good skills in Office and Google, but how do get started with changing my teaching?” It got me thinking. We…
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Will Digital Colonialism kill pedagogic innovation?
A couple of weeks ago I was quoted in the Times Higher decrying Virtual Learning Environments. There is a wider context to this. For one thing I referred to most “Learning Technologies” and didn’t intend to single out the VLE. VLE’s were essential to confronting the serious challenges facing the online educator in 1997., They…
Read moreReframing the debate? Learning Technologies part 2
Last week Donna Lanclos and I had our session accepted to ALT-C. It builds on a debate around whether Learning Technologies are fit for purpose? We know this is not a new debate: Previous debates around this subject have been focused on the ‘purpose’ of the Virtual Learning Environment. As argued by Stiles 2007: I…
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Making the Change: Technology Enhanced Learning
The Changing the Learning Landscape programme was a multi-agency approach that sought to help institutions bring changes to the student experience through the appropriate use of technology. As well as being multi-agency from the external perspective, the success of the programme was also in large part due to the participation of multiple agents in the…
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