This week, due to engineering work, there were no trains between Weston-super-Mare and Bristol. I also took a day’s leave bizarrely enough to travel on a steam train.
Quite a few meetings were cancelled this week, which I find frustrating.
I spent time this week on preparing a session and designing a presentation for a Leadership Masterclass, entitled Operationalising your Strategic Vision. This is an internal ninety minute online session about strategy and operationalisation of that strategy. Some of that masterclass will be based on this blog post on breakfast.
I also made the decision, rather than record the masterclass, it will be a rather interactive session, which a recording won’t capture.
Instead I will create a new and “proper” recorded video of the session that can then be used.
Attended a pipeline call with a team about their current future work.
I went back through and reviewed sessions I attended at ALT-C. This year they recorded all the sessions, so there is an opportunity to go and watch sessions I missed.
Had a call about a proposed session idea at Digifest 24.
I had to undertake various software and security updates. Took the opportunity to update the iPhone to iOS 17.
Had a short meeting on software licensing.
I have been working on some objectives for the next twelve months.
I have been reflecting on what good is, what it looks like, how would we know, what do we mean by good, how would we define good. How do we know something is good. What are the criteria we are using to base that judgement on?
I have decided to call it a day with what was the Twitter. So no more top tweets of the week. There’s a blog post there. Maybe.
York is a place I have visited and lived in over the last forty five years. I first went to York on a school trip in 1979 and we did lots of different things. We went to the Railway Museum, the Castle Museum, went up Clifford’s Tower. We visited Mother Shipton’s Cave and Fountain’s Abbey. I made a return visit to York in the summer of 1987 when we had some Yugoslavian Scouts over.
In October 1987 I studied Economics at York University for three years. I stayed in halls in Langwith College in my first year, rented a house in Osbaldwick for my second year, and stayed at St Lawrence Court in my final year.
I made a return visit to York in July 1993, I stayed on campus and did various things including a return visit to Fountains Abbey.
It was quite a few years later before I visited again, and this time it was a fleeting visit to the university in March 2006 for a meeting. I had flown up to Leeds and hired a car to drive to York and then drove back, all in the one day.
I also was there for a mobile learning workshop in April 2009, and stayed at the hotel by the Railway Station. We did a family holiday to York in March 2013.
This was my first visit back to York since then. We had a team away day at a hotel near the racecourse. Our last two away days had been in Leamington Spa.
This was an excellent away day with lots of engagement and interaction. Sometimes, you can find yourself in passive mode when attending team days, but this time we were discussing, and interacting. Making the most of the time we had in-person together.
As I was up in York, I spent some time exploring the campus and reflecting on how the campus has changed over the last forty years and what the implications of this are for the student experience, infrastructure, and overall campus experience.
I did some planning for a Leadership Masterclass – Operationalising your Strategic Vision that I am running in a couple of weeks.
Had a meeting about a panel session for EDUtech Europe 2023 in October.
Didn’t really tweet this week, travelling, away days, and the such. I think my use of the Twitter which has been declining over the last year or so is approaching the point of asking myself, why am I using Twitter.
My top tweet this week was this one.
So did anyone at #altc23 notice that the Prime Minister was at the University Warwick yesterday on the same day we were there? pic.twitter.com/QZvuyiqOwG
This year is the thirtieth anniversary of the Association of Learning Technology (ALT) and it also marks twenty years of my involvement in ALT. It started off with attending ALT-C 2003 in Sheffield. I think I might write a reflective blog post on those two decades of engagement and working with ALT.
Most of this week I was at the University of Warwick for the ALT conference. I’ve not been to every conference over the last twenty years, but I have been to most.
I have written conference packing posts before, I did a post in 2009 and wrote an updated version in 2018. I also a post for last year’s conference in Manchester.
So here are some suggestions on what to pack if you are attending the conference in-person.
Six-Way Gang – I still think a six way gang is an useful thing, instead of fighting people for the power sockets, you can immediately make five friends! Having such an adapter is also useful in the accommodation when you want to charge everything up for the following day and you have limited plug sockets.
With so many devices reliant on USB charging then an USB charging station could be useful, but then I have a laptop that needs a proper plug socket. If you are coming from outside the UK, then a trick I do (going the other way) is to bring an extension gang and then you only need one UK plug adapter.
Power Bank – Though in normal usage your phone might last the day, I have found if you are using your device for photographs, using the Twitter, accessing the conference Discord, checking e-mail, and so on; your battery will be hit hard. A charged power bank can be used for restoring those battery bars on your device.
Coffee – I don’t drink instant coffee and usually that it is what is only available in the university accommodation at Warwick. In the past I have taken a cafetière mug or coffee bags. I have to the amusement of others started taking a coffee machine with me when staying away. Well when I am drinking great coffee, who’s laughing now with your Nescafé instant stuff! Should point out that I also take some decaffeinated green teabags as well with me.
It’s also useful to take the time to see what independent and local coffee places are near to the venue, which can be used instead of queuing for that awful conference coffee. At Warwick there are a few coffee places to choose from.,
Snacks – I also bring a few snacks with me as well, as that solitary small pack of biscuits you usually get is never enough! These days though I have found that the increase in (small) supermarket branches means buying snacks locally is much easier than it use to be. Warwick has an onsite supermarket, Rootes Grocery Store, which has a wide choice of not just snacks, but a range of food and drink items. Just off campus is a Tesco Superstore.
Chargers – Don’t forget your chargers, expensive to replace, difficult to borrow, make sure you pack yours. The other thing about power is investing in a higher powered adapter (or borrowing one from a friend). As Apple says here
Using an Apple 12W or 10W USB power adapter charges some Apple devices and accessories faster than a 5W power adapter.
I find that when charging my iPhone using the adapter that came with my iPad Pro and it charges the phone so much faster, which is an useful thing to know for a conference. This means you can do a quick “supercharge” of your iPhone ready for the next keynote. Also useful to know that the 5W power adapter potentially can charge your iPad Pro, but only if you aren’t using it for eight hours or more….
Photography and Video – I use to take a camera to conferences, today I use my phone. If you take a lot of photographs then check you have a lot of storage space on your phone, or at least one way to take the pictures off. I now use iCloud storage for my photographs so that’s one less worry.
Connectivity – I am sure that the WiFi at the conference venue will be fine, however what about in the accommodation, the train… Technological changes means that connectivity is more important that in the last few years. I normally use tethering on my iPhone and make sure I have enough bandwidth to do that. Luckily Warwick has eduroam so that should make life simpler.
Notepad and pens – Though I am happy to take some notes on my phone, laptop, or iPad; there are times when I think I would prefer to handwrite notes, so I always check I have a notepad and pen. Sometimes you can pick these up in the exhibition space, but not at every conference.
Sharpies – Many times I have attended workshops at conferences, and we have been given some flip chart paper out, but the choice of pens is disappointing. It is at this point I get my pencil case of Sharpies out.
I actually bought these back in 2017 for £6 from Tesco. Still going strong.
Paracetamol – Some of those presentations do give you headaches…
In previous incarnations of this post I would talk about bringing an USB stick with your presentation on, the reality is that security considerations means that we’re not allowed to plug in USB sticks to the presentation machines, I had to upload my presentation last week.
I am attending the Association for Learning Technology conference at the University of Warwick this week.
On Wednesday in OC0.02 between 12 and 12:30 I am presenting a session entitled Looking through that digital lens.
The pandemic crisis gave universities serious challenges and required creative thinking to provide solutions. Universities have needed to act at pace and scale. They’ve needed to do this whilst staff and students are coping lockdowns, social distancing, and restrictions. One aspect of higher education that gained more prominence during the emergency response, was the importance of digital. Knowing that digital has been critical to dealing with the challenges of the pandemic, the question now remains: how and what role will digital play in the post-pandemic strategic priorities of the university?
There are two key questions facing universities?
Does the strategy still meet the needs of the university in this new, changing, and uncertain landscape?
What role does digital play in helping universities achieve their [new] strategic aspirations?
Any departmental or methodology strategy should always link back to the organisational strategy and how the objectives and actions will support the organisational strategic aims. If you apply a digital lens to the corporate strategy, you can demonstrate how digital technologies can enable that strategy. So rather than talk about how you are going to increase the use of digital technologies, the strategy talks about how the use of digital technologies will enable the strategic aims (Clay 2018). Digital does not exist in isolation and there may be other strategies, such as teaching and learning, assessment, environmental, wellbeing or community. The concept of a lens can be used here as well. The digital lens approach, as outlined by Jisc (Phipps and Clay 2018) can enable effective and transformational behaviours to emerge by helping staff to understand and develop their capabilities and confidence in the context of their own work. The results can include an improved status quo and the identification of new goals for individuals and their organisations. There is a history of people talking about applying a lens to challenges, to look at things differently. (Phipps and Clay 2018) To give a different perspective on what has been written or talked about. In this session we will reflect on the various ways in which universities can respond to these questions, you may want to create new strategic priorities, which reflect the new landscape in which universities will operate. A question that we will also discuss is, do universities need a separate digital strategy? There are challenges with having additional strategies that are an addition to the core strategic priorities, and with more strategies in place it is sometimes easy for things to fall between them. Additionally, the provision of a new strategy, with new digital priorities, may be seen as some kind of extra or addition to what staff are already doing. The end result is that the digital strategy is often ignored or left to one side (Clay 2018). In the session we will look at how this can be avoided. In this session participants will gain an understanding of the importance of digital in strategic planning and decision making.
After the conference I will provide more insights and an overview of my presentation. The slides will be pretty much useless on their own as I am only using images (again).
The essence of my talk is to provide a retrospective on my own digital strategy journey, the development of strategies in the different roles I have had, operationalisation, and the concept of the digital lens.
If you are interested please join me in my session at the conference.
A shorter week this week as there was a Bank Holiday (in England).
I had planned to be in our Bristol office and even visit our London office this week, however due to some mechanical issues with my car, I spent the week working from home.
I had my Q4 review for 2022-2023, I do find that these weeknotes are useful in preparing for those kinds of meetings. I did reflect that I haven’t been doing much writing in the learning technology space, so for next year I am planning to do some more researching, thinking, and importantly, more writing.
I spent time preparing for ALT-C next week, my presentation is on Wednesday and I am chairing a session on Thursday. Due to a variety of reasons and compounded by the car problems, I am having to sort out some logistical issues.
I also attended an internal Jisc briefing on ALT-C, there are quite a few Jisc sessions at the conference, as well as two stands and some afternoon tea.
On Wednesday 30th August there was an #LTHEChat hosted by the ALT-C 2023 co-chairs, Santanu Vasant and Lawrie Phipps. I had initially planned to participate, but in the end, I went to the cinema instead. So the following morning I did some responses to the prompts from the chat. I thought though I would expand on some of my answers to the different questions in a blog post to go beyond the character limit on the Twitter.
I still think what I did at Gloucestershire College in changing the culture and approach to the use of technology in the organisation. Approaching it from a holistic whole college approach. Lots of small steps from everyone. Anchoring the change.
There is one talk though that has stuck in my mind and even many years later was from ALT-C 2020 and was given by Dave White.
I did think that this process was useful in preparing for ALT-C next week.
I have been looking at learning spaces, so spent some time reflecting on ideas for learning spaces thought leadership and content. The focus on interdependencies and the compromises that flexible learning spaces bring to the student experience. I made some notes and planning for a blog post on the flexible learning space compromise.
I have been planning a Leadership Masterclass – Operationalising your Strategic Vision session that I am delivering later in September.
On Wednesday 30th August there was an #LTHEChat hosted by the ALT-C 2023 co-chairs, Santanu Vasant and Lawrie Phipps.
LTHEchat will host a summer special chat led by #altc23 Conference Chairs Santanu Vasant and Lawrie Phipps. Dual hashtags will be used #altc23 and #LTHEchat. This special summer special takes a look back at 30 years of educational technology as the Association for Learning Technology (ALT) celebrates 30 years, as do Jisc, and the Staff and Educational Developers Association (SEDA). Educational or Learning Technologies have shaped higher education, especially in recent years during the pandemic, but the history of educational technology goes way back. In this LTHEchat, we ask you to remember your first experiences of learning technology in a work setting, what learning technology might be, if we had unlimited financial resources, what new ‘next big things’ didn’t take off and what do you remember from previous ALT Conferences?
I had initially planned to participate, but in the end, I went to the cinema instead.
So the following morning I did some responses to the prompts from the chat. I thought though I would expand on some of my answers to the different questions in a blog post to go beyond the character limit on the Twitter.
As a result I have written six different blog posts.
Q6 Which talk, presentation, workshop or person do you remember from previous ALT Conferences and why?
There are quite a few keynotes, presentations and workshops across the twenty odd years I have been attending the ALT Conference that stick in my mind. Some that I participated in probably stick in my mind the most.
There is one talk though that has stuck in my mind and even many years later was from ALT-C 2020 and was given by Dave White.
“Sailing against the trade winds? How online distance learning could help maintain the character of higher education in stormy seas.” Invited speaker session by David White, Senior Manager: Development with Technology-Assisted Lifelong Learning (TALL) at the University of Oxford
The talk by Dave followed the infamous keynote from Donald Clark about HE lectures. Donald Clark had opened the conference with his keynote, and riled people and annoyed them with a blanket attack on the lecture. What Donald Clark did was to challenge our perception of the lecture, and it appeared to me that the over-whelming consensus of the audience was that the lecture still had some place in the delivery of education.
Dave with his extensive experience with TALL at the University of Oxford certainly well qualified to understand the benefits and limitations of online delivery. However he discussed during his talk the importance of the social benefit that physical lectures provide for a community of learners. The phrase he used, which I have borrowed numerous times, was eventedness. The synergy and social impact that happens when a group of people come together physically for an in-person experience This is though not impossible to recreate online, is very challenging.
This was something that came up again and again in our research during the covid pandemic, talking to students about their digital and online experiences. The students often spoke about how they missed the lecture, digging deeper it was apparent that what they were missed was the eventedness of that in-person lecture, and this wasn’t being recreated online in the Zoom and Teams calls they were attending. As Dave said in 2010, recreating that eventedness online isn’t impossible, but it is very challenging, and it isn’t about creating a digital copy of the analogue physical experience. You have to do different things to build that community taking advantage of the affordances that online and digital can bring, making the most of asynchronous discussion for example.
The presentation from Dave is the talk that I remember most from the ALT Conference. I should add that the Web 2.0 Slam sessions from 2007 and beyond were a very close second.
On Wednesday 30th August there was an #LTHEChat hosted by the ALT-C 2023 co-chairs, Santanu Vasant and Lawrie Phipps.
LTHEchat will host a summer special chat led by #altc23 Conference Chairs Santanu Vasant and Lawrie Phipps. Dual hashtags will be used #altc23 and #LTHEchat. This special summer special takes a look back at 30 years of educational technology as the Association for Learning Technology (ALT) celebrates 30 years, as do Jisc, and the Staff and Educational Developers Association (SEDA). Educational or Learning Technologies have shaped higher education, especially in recent years during the pandemic, but the history of educational technology goes way back. In this LTHEchat, we ask you to remember your first experiences of learning technology in a work setting, what learning technology might be, if we had unlimited financial resources, what new ‘next big things’ didn’t take off and what do you remember from previous ALT Conferences?
I had initially planned to participate, but in the end, I went to the cinema instead.
So the following morning I did some responses to the prompts from the chat. I thought though I would expand on some of my answers to the different questions in a blog post to go beyond the character limit on the Twitter.
As a result I have written six different blog posts.
Q5 What would be one piece of advice you’d give yourself in the past about learning technology?
It’s always about the people. Always.
With technology it is easy to focus sometimes on the hardware, the software, the shiny.
When discussing learning technology about their experiences with technology, I often found that whilst my peers were messing about with computers in the 1980s, I ignored the Commodore VIC-20 we got as a family Christmas present and was more interested in other stuff. Really didn’t see the point of computers, apart from playing the occasional game.
For me technology was a solution to a different problem.
Being able to create edit a document, rather than using a typewriter, well WordPerfect was perfect for that. The problem was that I wanted to create something, and WordPerfect allowed me to do that. Looking at cashflow forecasts, Lotus 1-2-3 meant that I could make quick changes to the forecast and the spreadsheet would automatically recalculate the cashflow forecast. If I wanted to add graphics and pictures to a document, something like PagePlus would allow me to do that so much more easily.
One thing I did discover as I started to use technology more and more, was that there were people who were interested in the technology and what it could do. However, there were a lot more people who were not interested in the technology, but were interested in something else, and once they recognised how technology could enhance what they were doing, or make it easier, or make it faster.
That really became my focus, working with people on their challenges, problems, and issues; then seeing if technology could make a difference.
On Wednesday 30th August there was an #LTHEChat hosted by the ALT-C 2023 co-chairs, Santanu Vasant and Lawrie Phipps.
LTHEchat will host a summer special chat led by #altc23 Conference Chairs Santanu Vasant and Lawrie Phipps. Dual hashtags will be used #altc23 and #LTHEchat. This special summer special takes a look back at 30 years of educational technology as the Association for Learning Technology (ALT) celebrates 30 years, as do Jisc, and the Staff and Educational Developers Association (SEDA). Educational or Learning Technologies have shaped higher education, especially in recent years during the pandemic, but the history of educational technology goes way back. In this LTHEchat, we ask you to remember your first experiences of learning technology in a work setting, what learning technology might be, if we had unlimited financial resources, what new ‘next big things’ didn’t take off and what do you remember from previous ALT Conferences?
I had initially planned to participate, but in the end, I went to the cinema instead.
So the following morning I did some responses to the prompts from the chat. I thought though I would expand on some of my answers to the different questions in a blog post to go beyond the character limit on the Twitter.
As a result I have written six different blog posts.
Q4 Which ‘next big thing’ that didn’t quite take off do you most remember?
I probably have a list….
PLEs
MOOCs
OER
Second Life
There was often a lot of excitement about these technologies, but they never had that big impact that people thought they would.
For those of us involved in extreme e-learning or technology enhanced learning, we sometimes focus on the innovative, the exciting, the new, the shiny stuff. Well it’s where we want to be isn’t it, cutting edge and all that? We want to be using iPads, Android Tablets, the latest and best Web 2.0 tools and services. We get so excited at times that we even do projects and research on them, before writing it up, putting the stuff on a shelf and moving to the next new shiny thing.
So thinking about this tweet I was trying to think of something that did take off….
Probably PowerPoint. The use of email is another thing that did take off.
The main reason why these technologies are important is that the majority of practitioners within an institution will not be at the cutting edge, will not be using all technologies innovatively. This means when planning training and staff development it is vital that dull technologies are included and allowed for. Just because we are bored with something doesn’t mean that someone else in your organisation will find it exciting and just the thing to solve the particular problem they are facing.
Dull as in not shiny rather than, dull as in boring.
On Wednesday 30th August there was an #LTHEChat hosted by the ALT-C 2023 co-chairs, Santanu Vasant and Lawrie Phipps.
LTHEchat will host a summer special chat led by #altc23 Conference Chairs Santanu Vasant and Lawrie Phipps. Dual hashtags will be used #altc23 and #LTHEchat. This special summer special takes a look back at 30 years of educational technology as the Association for Learning Technology (ALT) celebrates 30 years, as do Jisc, and the Staff and Educational Developers Association (SEDA). Educational or Learning Technologies have shaped higher education, especially in recent years during the pandemic, but the history of educational technology goes way back. In this LTHEchat, we ask you to remember your first experiences of learning technology in a work setting, what learning technology might be, if we had unlimited financial resources, what new ‘next big things’ didn’t take off and what do you remember from previous ALT Conferences?
I had initially planned to participate, but in the end, I went to the cinema instead.
So the following morning I did some responses to the prompts from the chat. I thought though I would expand on some of my answers to the different questions in a blog post to go beyond the character limit on the Twitter.
As a result I have written six different blog posts.
Q3 What’s been your biggest achievement in learning technology to date and why?
I wrote this on the Twitter
I still think what I did at Gloucestershire College in changing the culture and approach to the use of technology in the organisation. Approaching it from a holistic whole college approach. Lots of small steps from everyone. Anchoring the change.
At Gloucestershire College I was asked and I delivered a digital learning strategy, well back then it was called the Information and Learning Technology or ILT strategy. Historically it had come about because of funding from Becta to colleges was given on the basis of colleges writing an ILT strategy. This was often distinct from the IT strategy. The IT strategy was usually focused on the technical infrastructure to support the college business, whereas the ILT strategy was focused on the embedding of technology into teaching and learning. What often happened though was that both strategies weren’t linked together and weren’t always linked to the corporate strategy, of if they were those linkages weren’t always clear. The end result was that sometimes these strategies were at odds with each other.You had an ILT strategy was advocating a student BYOD policy and the IT strategy was clear that non-organisation devices could not be connected to the wireless network. It wasn’t just the IT strategy, I am aware of heated discussions between managers, where the ILT strategy was advocating a student BYOD policy and the Estates strategy was clear that non-organisation devices could not be plugged into the power sockets.
I also wrote this tweet.
Too often I see pilots, limited projects, small scale approaches, champions, and so on. When it comes to embedding digital technology, I approached it from an all-college approach. Everyone doing one small thing has more impact that one person.
Over the years I have written about the problems of having a pilot mentality.
How many pilots do we need? Or is it more a question that we need to run a pilot at our institution before we think about “rolling” it out across all curriculum areas. I am also aware of successful pilots in one curriculum area which have been followed by virtually identical pilots in a second curriculum area… Why? Well the learners are different! Really! How different, they have two heads or something? That actually raises a question on any pilot, well successful pilots have resulted in a roll out across the whole institution?
Much of what I experienced and learnt at Gloucestershire College, as well as other experiences and my work at Jisc, is feeding into my ALT-C presentation next week.
news and views on e-learning, TEL and learning stuff in general…
