altc2023, ipad, twitter

If you could wave a magic wand, what would you change in learning technology?

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Image by Karolina Grabowska from Pixabay

Expanding on the ALT-C #LTHEChat

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.

Q2 If you could wave a magic wand, what would you change in education / learning technology?

What has always frustrated me has been the focus on consumer technology fads or jumping on the latest bandwagon.

A simple example, tablets have been around since 1973, but no one really got engaged with them until 2010 when Apple released the iPad.

The focus was always on the hardware, not how they could be used.

You still see this today with edtech companies, who talk about the features of the technologies, and less on how it actually helps and supports learning.

Of course the way in which the iPad was (and still is) marketed, actually is often less about the technology, but much more about how it can enhance and improve what you do. I want to watch a film, the iPad allows me to do that at a time and place that suits me.

If I had a magic wand, I would really like people to focus on the potential and possibilities of technology and then focus on what they are doing, and then working out how technology could improve, enhance, or enable that. This isn’t about putting the pedagogy first, this is about the context of the role of technology in supporting teaching and learning. Often you need to know about, and understand the potential of technology, but it is the pedagogical challenges that need to be prioritised, then think about how technology can make that happen.

The other aspect of the frustration of following fashion, is when people don’t understand the research and work that has been in place already.

Like many people in the 2000s I was looking at how mobile technologies could be used to support teaching and learning. I was using Compaq (later HP) iPAQs for doing stuff.

Compaq iPAQ
AssetBurned, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

These were Windows CE devices that actually could do quite a few things, but the lack of connectivity, storage capacity meant they had limitations. However the potential of these meant that when a device like the iPhone, the iPod touch, or the iPad came along, the experience of those using devices like the iPAQ could be transferred to using these newer more powerful devices.

The reality was that more often than not, the lessons learned using these earlier devices was ignored and then the research and understanding was duplicated, again and again.

altc2023, twitter

What was your first experience of learning technology in a work setting?

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Expanding on the ALT-C #LTHEChat

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.

Q1 What was your first experience of learning technology in a work setting?

This was a bit of a challenge to answer as I have been working in this field for over twenty years, and before that I was an academic using learning technology, and before that I was working in schools supporting teachers.

I wrote this on the Twitter.

How do you define learning technology? I used a laptop in 1992 to create learning materials using Aldus PageMaker. Does that count? I also remember the solitary 286 PC and dot matrix printer we had for the whole department in 1994.

I had been working in a school creating resources and I borrowed the headteacher’s laptop to create content. Eventually I was given my own laptop. In the main I used WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS, but also did content using Aldus Pagemaker.

I remember how powerful WordPerfect 5.1 was, of course being a DOS based piece of software, it wasn’t WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) and I remember pressing the keystrokes for the print preview quite a bit to check the page was looking as I needed it.

There were plenty of keyboard shortcuts that you had to use (no mouse or button bars here).

I also used WordPerfect at (what was then) Brunel College. I was in the Faculty of Business, Food and Hairdressing and initially we had a single 286 PC that we all had to share. It did’t really help that the only printer we had was a dot matrix printer that didn’t really do the job.

So, like many academics of the time, I used my home PC and also bought a budget laser printer to print things off.

I did add another post to the Twitter thread.

Later that decade we had a luggable projector and screen, which I remember heaving to my classroom and connecting my home PC tower, so I could show video using a Rainbow Runner video card embedded into a presentation.

I would on a regular basis bring my home PC into work to show off presentations.

I was reminded writing this blog post that I did this back in 2021, my edtech journey.

One of the most influential pieces of software I used back in the 1990s was PagePlus, a budget DTP software for Windows.

I was using technology to support learning, was this a learning technology? Is using standard business hardware and software something different to hardware and software for learning?

If this was technology that was specific to education was probably the FirstClass LMS in the late 1990s. That was my first introduction to a virtual learning environment.

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Twitter is dead – Weeknote #234 – 25th August 2023

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I have been on leave for previous two weeks, so this was my first week back at work and I spent a lot of time in the office in Bristol. It was a lot busier than I thought it would be, which was nice.

While I was away on leave, we saw more and more changes to what was called the Twitter and has now been rebranded X. It’s got to the point where I am practically not using Twitter anymore. I did say back in 2009 that Twitter would eventually wither and die. I gave, what I thought were ten good reasons, why Twitter would not survive. Nowhere in that list was that a billionaire would take over the company and kill the brand and community in just a few months. Shows what I know!

I have been using Threads, though isn’t quite there for me yet. Not the level and depth of engagement that I would like. I do realise some of that is on me.

The analytics (stats) are also not working correctly, so doing my top tweet of the week has become nigh on impossible. I also checked that I can’t even do my top ten tweets of the year either, so 2022 was the last year for that.

coffee
Image by David Schwarzenberg from Pixabay

I published a blog post on coffee, analytics, and wellbeing          .

Could we use data from coffee machines to deliver a better retail experience to students and maximise their wellbeing.

Slightly tongue in cheek, but coffee analytics is in fact a thing.

Asked on Wednesday to log into Slack using SSO, when I moved in 2019 from (what was) Digital Futures in Jisc to a different team, I really stopped using Slack, as the team I was in mainly used Teams. I did, in the first few months, popped in now and then, but working on different things meant that engagement went right down. I did log in, but didn’t stay…

Finished my Q4 review paperwork. I use these weeknotes and a combination of weekly updates to confirm progress on my objectives and other areas of work across Jisc.

Have been thinking about my objectives for the next review year.

My top tweet this week was this one.

coffee

Coffee beans, data, and wellbeing

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Image by Karolina Grabowska from Pixabay

Could we use data from coffee machines to support wellbeing?

Some students live on coffee during their time at university, many would say it supports their wellbeing. Student wellbeing is a key priority for the Higher Education (HE) sector. The Stepchange framework, created by Universities UK, calls on all universities to make wellbeing a strategic priority which is “foundational to all aspects of university life, for all students and all staff.”

We know that good data governance provides the foundation to build new wellbeing support systems that can respond to the needs of students – helping more people more quickly while maximising the use of available resources.

As well as the usual suspects that universities can use to collect engagement data, such as the VLE, library systems and access to learning spaces, could universities use the data from other systems and services to deliver better services and support wellbeing? Could we use data from coffee machines to deliver a better retail experience to students and maximise their wellbeing.

coffee

Coffee analytics is a “thing”

It might be a surprise to many that coffee analytics is a real “thing”. Companies such as Bibe Coffee and Flow Coffee have products that enable retail outlets, such as university cafeterias, to analyse their coffee machine activity. A simple IoT (Internet of Things) device is added to the machine, and data on how the machine is being used, when it is being used, bean consumption and other measurements are collected, usually sent to the cloud and then can be analysed. As you might imagine the focus is very much on reliability, consistency, wastage, and other business factors. However, these services are also capable of measuring usage, types of coffee being made, time of production, and other information on the quantity and types of coffee students are buying. These data points can provide a valuable insight into the peak demand for coffee by students. When are they buying coffee, where are they buying coffee on campus, and what types of coffee are they drinking.

coffee
Image by Engin Akyurt from Pixabay

The importance of coffee, and snacks

You can imagine the scenario when a student who is facing challenges on their course, and decides to visit the café in the university library, only to find that the coffee machine is on a cleaning cycle, or they have run out of coffee beans.  This disappointment can lead to annoyance. This small negative experience could potentially impact on the wellbeing of the student. They are probably not alone, as other students (and staff) are equally frustrated and disappointed.

Of course it isn’t just coffee, it could be vending machines, chocolate, crisps and even healthy snacks. If you want something and you find the machine is empty, this can be annoying and frustrating.

Maintaining energy levels, or the positive impact of caffeine; the importance of eating and drinking while studying shouldn’t be underestimated. Ensuring students are hydrated and have the energy to learn is a critical component of a successful student experience. Coffee is one part of this equation.

stove espresso maker
Image by Karolina Grabowska from Pixabay

Using data on coffee to support wellbeing

Analysing the data on coffee (and other food and drink services) could provide a valuable insight into ensuring that when students need coffee the most, the coffee machine is available, and can support wellbeing. Universities could use the data to ensure that when the coffee machine is needed to be taken down, for cleaning, that this is done at the best possible time, for the minimal impact on student wellbeing. Data on coffee usage could also ensure that over time the retail services could predict when there is peak demand for coffee, ensuring that the availability of the machine is enabled for that time. Over longer periods of time, they may want to bring in temporary coffee machines when demand for coffee peaks, such as the revision period before exams.

Coffee isn’t the answer

Of course, when it comes to improving student wellbeing, just having data about the coffee is most certainly not going to be enough. Data on how students interact with online systems and services, what spaces they are using, the resources they engage with, all provide a wealth of engagement data. We know that engagement is one measure that universities can look at to understand if there is a story behind a student’s dis-engagement with the university and work to improve that student’s wellbeing.

As Jisc said in their blog post on data governance,

If their new university does not use data intelligently to improve their day-to-day experience, students could be disappointed, which reflects badly on the institution.  

Universities should reflect on all the data they collect, and decide what the data can tell them about the student experience, and importantly what interventions they need to make to positively impact on student wellbeing. Running out of coffee isn’t the end of the world, but combine many small negative impacts on the student experience, students will not be happy and wellbeing could suffer as a result.

Read Jisc’s framework and code of practice for data-supported wellbeing – which outlines how to promote ethical, effective, and legally compliant processes that help HE organisations manage risk and resources.

altc2023, weeknotes

It’s a new year – Weeknote #231 – 4th August 2023

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As I was about to go on leave for two weeks, I ensured that everything with a deadline was done, and that my inbox was empty.

I made a start on my Q4 Review paperwork, which also covers the previous 12 months. Our new year starts on the 1stAugust. I also started some planning and scaffolding for the next 12 months as well. This included creating a new Confluence site for my objectives and my work, as well as a new JIRA project. I have been using the same JIRA project for the last few years, but as a result it was getting complicated by previous years’ work. So decided to start afresh.

As part of our Cyber Essentials accreditation, I had to return some old kit, so spent time erasing and cleaning an old Microsoft Surface tablet and an iPad. The Windows machine, which can’t run Windows 11 was a really nice machine, and I quite enjoyed using it over the years, so it was somewhat sad when I had to hand it back in. It was also relatively easy to wipe and clean.

I spent some time reading and reviewing QAA briefing: Reconsidering assessment for the ChatGPT era: QAA advice on developing sustainable assessment strategies.

This paper sets out QAA’s advice for providers on how to approach the assessment of students in a world where students have access to Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools. The principles set out here are applicable to both higher and further education. This resource develops a theme first introduced in our earlier advice – Maintaining quality and standards in the ChatGPT era: QAA advice on the opportunities and challenges posed by Generative Artificial Intelligence – published in May 2023, around the (re)design of assessment strategies to mitigate the risks to academic integrity posed by the increased use of Generative Artificial Intelligence tools (such as ChatGPT) by students and learners.

I am planning to attend ALT-C, so have been planning, researching, developing, and preparing my presentation for ALT-C.

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.

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 [online] eLearning Stuff.

My top tweet this week was this one.

 

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A sense of belonging – Weeknote #230 – 28th July 2023

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I spent much of the week in London, attending meetings at our Fetter Lane office and visiting some London university campuses incognito.

We had our quarterly leadership meeting, always nice to have it in-person. The team is quite geographically distributed, so we rarely have the opportunity to meet in-person or even co-locate to work together. Yes we have Teams and all that, but there is something nice about the ad hoc, happenstance of working together in the same office.

I undertook some more desk research and field work for smart campus and belonging understanding.

Spent time organising and developing a Leadership Masterclass with Training and Development Team.

I did some more planning and scaffolding for the next year, our planning year ends on the 31st July.

My top tweet this week was this one.

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Threading a discussion

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Threads
Image by Myriams-Fotos from Pixabay

I joined Threads from Meta partly to try it out and partly to ensure I had my name as my username. 

Back in the day I would talk about early days of the Twitter. Of course back then no one (as in normal people) used Twitter. It was full of chat and status updates. There was the odd joke or three. 

Those first few days of Threads it did to me feel like those early days of Twitter. Though the main difference was that rather than a chronological stream of postings from people I followed, on Threads it was a stream of postings from people and companies I wasn’t following. Meta were filling my stream for me, in a similar way they do on Facebook and Instagram. 

I did quite enjoy some of the threads, Channel 4s social media team seemed to be really enjoying themselves. In the past on Twitter these postings would have come from parody accounts. Today on Threads the companies are parodying themselves. 

I haven’t really got into a Threads vibe and am not posting as I did in the early days of Twitter. 

Popping in now and then I have noticed how Threads is like an accelerated Twitter model. I see people constantly posting about how and what you should and shouldn’t post on Threads. That use to happen all the time on Twitter. 

There is a constant stream of posts and requests from people basically asking if Threads could have all the features and functionality of Twitter. Is Threads just going to become a copy of Twitter? Will that actually work?

Sadly I am also seeing a lot of the toxic postings that I would see on Twitter appearing now in Threads. Like the for you stream on Twitter the algorithm is pushing this content into my Threads stream as it is getting engagement and traction. 

I will give Threads time and engagement, as experience tells me it takes time for a social media platform time to bed in and become part of people’s lives. 

So are you on Threads? You can find me there maybe talking about coffee.

coffee

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