I was on leave this week, so no weeknote this week.
My top tweet this week was this one.
Phygital is not a word, ever…. – Weeknote #221 – 26th May 2023 – eLearning Stuff https://t.co/x2NSjGIadw
— James Clay (@jamesclay) May 26, 2023
All posts by James Clay
Phygital is not a word, ever…. – Weeknote #221 – 26th May 2023
Quite a busy week all in, including some time in London.
I liked this post by Lawrie on accessibility and inclusion: If you set a minimum standard…
The thing that we keep confusing is that accessibility is not the same thing as inclusion. In reality, we have not moved beyond the traditional concept of accessibility, something that is measurable, something we can benchmark, such as web accessibility “regulations” to a broader notion of inclusion. Accessibility has been a crucial stepping stone in creating environments that accommodate individuals with disabilities, but its language and approach can sometimes inadvertently complicate the goal of achieving true inclusion.
Talking about with a colleague about physical spaces, we discussed how ramps can make a building accessible, but doesn’t mean that the building is inclusive.
I was supporting colleagues interviewing for a position within their team. I haven’t done interviewing for a while now, so was an interesting experience.
There was quite a bit happening in the intelligent campus space this week. On Wednesday I was running the Intelligent Campus Community Event in London. Over 15 delegates attended the event, and there was lots of positive feedback.
Just wanted to say thanks for running that event yesterday – I thought it was very useful, also I was glad to make some new friends with similar interests! You did a great job on running it!
On the same day, the Building the future intelligent library guide published on the web – bringing together existing systems with innovative applications to improve learning, support the research lifecycle, enhance physical environments, and maximise resources.
To support the guide an Intelligent Library blog post published on the Jisc blog – Libraries are the beating heart of every university and full of staff who are often proponents of digital-first thinking; so, they could take a leading role in exploring these exciting new avenues – deciding which technologies to adopt, how and why.
On the same day as the Intelligent Campus Community Event I was also delivering a presentation for the Advancing Blended Learning in Higher Education Event. I did a pre-recorded video for the event which was running at the same time as the community event.
I just wanted to say a huge thank you for being part of the event yesterday. Thanks for preparing such an engaging video. It was a really great addition to the event.
Spent some time trying to resolve internal and external problems registering for ILTA EdTech Conference in Dublin next week, having had a paper accepted. The end result was, no resolution and no time, so had to withdraw my paper from the conference. The main problem for me was the short window from having my paper accepted and the date of the actual conference itself.
Have been writing up notes from the personalisation workshops I have been running over the last two weeks. Analysing content from workshops and formulating plan and next steps.
Started writing up notes from the intelligent campus community event as well.
Caught this tweet from Lawrie and responded with a GIF.
— James Clay (@jamesclay) May 22, 2023
People have enough trouble having a shared understanding of terms such as hybrid we really don’t need to create new words such as phygital.
I have blogged about train wifi quite a bit in the past, I wrote this blog post in 2010.
I did wonder why CrossCountry Trains didn’t put in wifi as you find on the East Coast Main Line services and Virgin Trains Pendolino. Well it appears that providing wifi was part of their Franchise agreement with the Department of Transport. CrossCountry Trains was suppose to have wifi in place by November 11th 2009. They failed to meet this deadline!
I also asked about the lack of train wifi on First Great Western (now GWR).
My question though is much more, why isn’t there wifi on First Great Western services from the West Country to London and why wasn’t it in their franchise agreement? I travel with First Great Western much more than I do CrossCountry and would really like it if they had wifi.
Eventually both companies put wifi on their trains. However, the BBC published an article this week that said train wi-fi at risk as part of cost-cutting move.
Rail users could lose access to wi-fi on trains in England as part of cost cuts after the government said it was a low priority for passengers. The Department for Transport says cost pressures mean it will review whether the current wi-fi service “delivers the best possible value for money”.
Most times I travel by train these days I am more likely to use my own 4G or 5G connection as I still find train wifi unreliable. However I still think it should be on trains for those that don’t have their mobile connectivity.
A question for you to ponder this week.
What do you think is the difference between adaptive learning and responsive learning?
My top tweet this week was this one.
A1 #LTHEChat I was the IT Education Officer for a hands on science centre in Bristol and did more than just IT. One day I would be talking about urban regeneration to a local history group, the next I would be doing mummification with five year olds. pic.twitter.com/9qui50iqcx
— James Clay (@jamesclay) May 24, 2023
Even more personalisation – Weeknote #220 – 19th May 2023
A normal length week! What’s that all about then? A full week next week as well… Well at least the week after that we have another short week.
I reviewed the communication plan Intelligent Campus and Intelligent Library, as well as guides, there will be supporting blog posts and events. I wrote a draft blog post for the comms team.
I ran two personalisation workshops this week. One was a shorter online workshop, the second was an all day workshop in Bristol. In the first instance we were running the internal personalisation workshops to explore the following:
- What do we mean and understand about personalisation?
- What does personalisation mean in higher education?
- What help and support do our higher education members need to deliver on personalised learning and the personalisation of the student experience?
- What help and support can Jisc provide to our members in this space?
- What was the past work Jisc has done in this space, what is the current work, and what future work is planned?
Following the workshops I spent some time writing up the notes.
On the 24th May I am running an Intelligent Campus Community Event in London. I spent some time planning and organising the event.
Also on the 24th I am presenting at an online event, Advancing Blended Learning in Higher Education. For that event I am doing a pre-recorded video, I spent time planning, recording and editing the video. I would like to have spent more time on this, but realised I needed more people to get the effect and impact I wanted.
I enjoyed reading Kerry Pinny’s reflections on ALT-C 2016.
#ALTC2016 was my first annual conference. It was held at the University of Warwick in September 2016. While I had been working in HE in IT Training and learning technology roles for ~6 years, I was not aware of ALT or the conference. My colleague introduced me to ALT and it remains a surprise (and source of shame) to me, all these years later, that I had not heard of the organisation at any of my previous institutions.
My first ALT conference was twenty years ago in 2003. I wrote about it in this blog post reflecting on my own ALT-C experiences.
The first Association for Learning Technology Conference (#altc) I attended was in 2003 in Sheffield. ALT was ten years old by now and well established in the world of what we called e-learning back then in the higher education sector, less so in further education. I was in the middle of a project called FAIR Enough part of the JISC FAIR programme and had been asked to deliver a short session on the issues of copyright that we had found as part of the project on sharing resources across our college consortium.
Alas my memory of the conference was one of disappointment, I found it overwhelming, very clique, way too much happening and spread too far across the Sheffield campus, lots of walking. Oh and the conference dinner In the Town Hall was a something of a disappointment.
I didn’t know many people and it was “quite hard” to get to know people without dropping into conversations over coffee, which can be challenging. What I did learn from this is this how other people, new to ALT-C must feel?
Pleased to see that my ILTA EdTech Conference submission was accepted.
Why does no one care about my digital strategy?
The pandemic gave universities challenges and required creative thinking to provide solutions. Universities have needed to act at pace and scale with restrictions. Digital gained more prominence during the emergency response. Now the question is 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 a changing and uncertain landscape?
- What is the role of digital in the strategic aspirations of universities?
The digital lens approach can enable effective and transformational behaviours. 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. Some universities will want to consider creating a digital strategy, or giving their existing one a major overhaul.
Phipps, L and Clay J (2018) Delivering digital change: strategy, practice and process. Senior leaders’ briefing paper Jisc
Clay J (2018) Why does no one care about my digital strategy? – eLearning Stuff – eLearning Stuff.
Another quarter goes pass that means another review meeting, so I did the paperwork last week, these blog posts are very useful for that.
It was with minimal disappointment to read in my inbox this from IFTTT.
Starting on May 23, all free users will be limited to 2 Applets and unable to access Twitter Applets. We hope you understand this change is designed to help us support our community and continue to focus on improving IFTTT. To ensure that your existing Applets continue without interruption, consider upgrading to Pro or manage your Applets via My Applets.
Though I like IFTTT I don’t use it enough to justify paying for it. So, expect less photos in my Twitter stream form May 23rd.
What do you mean “Yay”?
My top tweet this week was this one.
I "Bard" it…
Then I remember Buzz…
Reader…
Wave….
Jaiku…
Bard, it was nice knowing you… https://t.co/aqLCp89f3V
— James Clay (@jamesclay) May 18, 2023
Personalising – Weeknote #219 – 12th May 2023
Another bank holiday, which resulted in another shorter week this week.
I had a blog post published on the Jisc website, Laying the foundations for an intelligent campus.
The pandemic changed the whole concept of the campus. From being a physical hub for staff and students, the campus is becoming more of a platform for extending teaching and learning. As a consequence, the importance of data analytics to enhance the learner experience is increasing.
I was in London this week running a personalisation workshop. I spent some time this week planning and organising the workshop. I decided to go for an open and conversational approach to the workshop. We did ramble now and then, but I got some real insights into what some colleagues think and feel about personalisation.
I was reviewing another draft of the Intelligent Library guide. This was originally written a few years ago, but last year we did some additional research and updated the guide. Even to I had to research some broken links and sources for the guide. It’s at times like this that I wish I had a date based search engine that could search like it was the past, so, search the web as though it was 2013.
I have been planning and writing Intelligent Library blogpost to supplement the publication of the guide.
On the 24th May I am running an Intelligent Campus community Event looking at the guide and providing feedback on what Jisc should do next.
This community of practice gives people a chance to network, share practice and hear what various institutions are doing. You will have the opportunity to discover more about intelligent campus projects and our work in this space. The focus of this community event will be where do we go next? You can read the new guide to the intelligent campus and reflect on your own journey in this space, and where you feel we can provide help and support. This will be an opportunity to discover more about the history of our past and current work in the intelligent campus space as well as hear from others about their work on this exciting topic. People working in the area of the intelligent campus who have an interest in the work being undertaken in this space.
Another quarter goes pass that means another review meeting, so I did the paperwork, these blog posts are very useful for that.
This week was Jisc’s Connect More, I attended a few sessions and chaired some more.
Read some interesting thoughts on Generative AI from Jisc and HEPI.
Jisc published a Generative AI Primer.
Publishing an intro to generative AI is a challenge as things are moving so quickly. However, we think things have now settled down enough for us to bring together information in a single place, to create a short primer. We aim to publish this as a more formal guide that will be updated regularly, but we are posting an initial version as a blog post to get feedback on whether it is useful and if there is other information you would like included.
HEPI published a blog on How are HE leaders responding to generative AI?
Given some of the recent media coverage of the rise of generative AI and its potential impact on universities, especially around assessment and academic misconduct, it would be easy to fall into the trap of thinking that university leaders are running scared in the face of ChatGPT. However, when the Jisc-Emerge HE edtech board of higher education leaders met recently to discuss the potential and pitfalls of generative AI, instead of a discussion about the assessment arms race, there was real curiosity and enthusiasm to explore the potential of the technology and what it holds for universities and students.
I am more than likely going to attend ALT-C this September. I read this update from the conference co-chairs.
Many of you who engaged with us in putting in proposals will have noticed we avoided using terms such as digital transformation, and digital strategy. This is because even though we know that staff at the conference will undoubtedly influence and shape those things, we wanted to use the conference to take a step back and recognise that we can not build strategies and roadmaps without first understanding the topography of the digital landscape and the people it will affect. That landscape is still being carved, by the unyielding forces of things like generative AI, political pressures and ideologies, and even social justice, and climate change, which are forcing us to rethink our relationship to educational technology.
My top tweet this week was this one.
Smashed avocado, heritage tomatoes, chilli, slow poached Lycroft Farm eggs, rye sourdough toast. https://t.co/YecKFWBXo5 pic.twitter.com/gLQgxzrfAC
— James Clay (@jamesclay) May 5, 2023
CX – Weeknote #218 – 5th May 2023
I had a shorter week this week, as there was a bank holiday and I took a day’s leave.
The rest of the week was spent in London doing Customer Experience training.
My top tweet this week was this one.
What I got compared to the photo of the dish on the @coalkitchenuk Insta feed.
This from the set menu was supposed to be
Chicken Tacos – 2 soft tacos, marinated chicken, lettuce, tomato, pickled chilli & harrisa yoghurt
However not sure where the tom… https://t.co/yUGDcitLj2 pic.twitter.com/xhkS2qKZZJ
— James Clay (@jamesclay) May 1, 2023
In the spotlight – Weeknote #217 – 28th April 2023
Attended the UCISA DCG Spotlight 23 event in Leeds. Excellent event with some interesting insights into blended learning.
Did some sketch notes of some of the sessions.
Spotlight 23 – The Office for Students Review of Blended Learning, 2022
Spotlight 23 – Moving forward with Blended Learning
Spotlight 23 – a practical view of what teaching can look like using Microsoft Teams
Spotlight 23 – Adventures in audio
Did some more support and planning for Jisc’s Connect More in May.
Reviewed Intelligent Campus blog post for the Jisc website.
Reviewed the first draft of the Intelligent Library guide.
Attended our monthly leadership meeting.
My top tweet this week was this one.
My sketchnote of the Moving forward with Blended Learning @ UWTSD session here at #UDigCap pic.twitter.com/IMSVeCjssj
— James Clay (@jamesclay) April 26, 2023
Spotlight 23 – Moving forward with Blended Learning
Spotlight on Digital Capabilities 2023: Blended learning – are we getting it right? is an event put on by UCISA. I did a keynote at this event back in 2016.
At Spotlight 23, UWTSD delivered a presentation on Moving forward with Blended Learning.
This is my sketch note of the presentation.
With campuses throughout south-west Wales and others in Cardiff, London and Birmingham the University of Wales Trinity St David (UWTSD) is committed to delivering high quality blended learning – and to supporting learners and staff to develop their digital skills and confidence to study and work remotely. For this presentation, the Digital Learning and Digital Skills teams will take you through their approach in promoting digital pedagogy and skills to staff as well as students. This is supported by a rolling programme of training, webinars and drop in sessions as well as the development of online resources; allowing staff and students to access a range of support at a time and a place that suits them.
Spotlight 23 – a practical view of what teaching can look like using Microsoft Teams
Spotlight on Digital Capabilities 2023: Blended learning – are we getting it right? is an event put on by UCISA. I did a keynote at this event back in 2016.
At Spotlight 23, Mary Hill, Digital Skills Manager, Sheffield Hallam University did a session called: Using IT effectively to deliver engaging and impactful teaching: a practical view of what teaching can look like using Microsoft Teams.
This is my sketch note of the presentation.
“Online or a blend of in-person and online teaching can be highly effective if the educator has knowledge of and confidence in using online tools and functionality. Knowing, and importantly seeing, what is possible can help us design courses to make full use of these tools and functionality, rather than just delivering in front of a webcam material previously designed purely for in-person delivery. This session will show what online teaching can look and feel like by exploiting the functionality of Microsoft Teams before, during and after the event. Do you know how to make a teaching session using Teams flow well, have an engaged and interacting audience, and convey its messages impactfully? This session will show you the art of the possible.”
Spotlight 23 – Adventures in audio
Spotlight on Digital Capabilities 2023: Blended learning – are we getting it right? is an event put on by UCISA. I did a keynote at this event back in 2016.
At Spotlight 23, Rebecca Snelgrove, Content Developer (Digital Education), Keele University gave a presentation on podcasting, entitled, Adventures in audio: the interdisciplinary approach shaping engaging real world experiences for students – a podcast and radio production module case study.
This is my sketch note of the presentation.
Post pandemic there’s still considerable debate about what the future of higher education looks like, in particular the student learning journey. Our presentation focuses on our experience of hybrid delivery of a module, to showcase our reflections on what module design and delivery may look like. We put student experience at the heart of the module, using various strategies to build an inclusive, community environment, both online and in person. We engaged with industry experts to create authentic experiences, from interviews for asynchronous learning content to a synchronous pitching and feedback session with a panel of industry experts.
Spotlight 23 – The Office for Students Review of Blended Learning, 2022
Spotlight on Digital Capabilities 2023: Blended learning – are we getting it right? is an event put on by UCISA. I did a keynote at this event back in 2016.
At Spotlight 23, Melissa Highton, Director of Learning, Teaching and Web Services, University of Edinburgh gave a talk on The Office for Students Review of Blended Learning, 2022.
Dr Highton was part of the panel who met with staff and students in a number of universities of varying size, shape, age and mission. They developed a set of questions to collect the data necessary to get a clear understanding of blended learning approaches being taken. The technology context was different in each provider, and this technology context was essential for understanding how blended learning provision was enabled, quality assured and available equally to course leaders and students across their institution. This presentation will tell the story of how the review was done and highlight practical suggestions for moving forward.
This is my sketch note of the presentation.
