It was a much busier week this time, with a lot more travelling, including trams, planes, trains, buses, cars and walking. At least the weather wasn’t too bad, but there was certainly some rain and wind about.
University of South Wales
Monday I was in Wales for one of Jisc’s Stakeholder Forums. It was interesting to talk to colleagues form universities and colleges about how they felt about Jisc and the services we provide them. I really enjoyed the session delivered by my colleague on big challenges and co-design and on my table we had a really insightful and interesting discussion about a Netflix style model for education.
After a busy week travelling up and down last week, this week was, you’ve guessed it, more travelling and back to London for a meeting preparing for another larger meeting which is taking place next week. I am running a one hour session on Education 4.0 and what universities and colleges need to think about and start doing to aspire to the potential benefits that the fourth industrial revolution will have on learners, students and institutions.
I really like this video clip from the BBC Archive on a 1963 view of what 1988 would look like.
#OnThisDay 1963: Time on Our Hands looked back on the events that had shaped idyllic 1988, like the Russian moon landing, the rise of the mega cities of Milford Haven and Holyhead, the great tea shortage and the coming of the machines. pic.twitter.com/fRWyxVWLWC
It really demonstrates how difficult it is to predict the future. Some stuff you get right, most things you get wrong, and timeframes are really hard to judge. Part of my role is planning for a future that we can’t accurately predict. I have in the past spoken about these challenges. About the only thing we get right is that things change.
Tuesday I was flying up to Edinburgh, I was intending to go to our Bristol office, but the meeting I was going to attend was cancelled, so in the end I spent the morning working from home.
EasyJet at Bristol Airport
I was intrigued to see the changes to Bristol Airport as I think the last time I flew from Bristol was well over a year ago. Some of the restaurants have changed hands and there are some new ones as well. I did quite like how there was a big seating area for the Starbucks so I could get some work done whilst I was waiting for my flight. I was slightly annoyed that I was charged an extra 5p for having a paper cup. I don’t actually disagree with the concept of charging extra, it was that I didn’t have a choice. I would have actually preferred a proper china cup. I didn’t realise so I hadn’t brought with me my reusable cup either. Should note there are also water fountains to fill reusable water bottles.
From the airport I caught the tram to the centre of Edinburgh where my hotel was.
Edinburgh Tram at Haymarket
It’s a pity that the tram network in Edinburgh never got further than it did. It had huge potential. It certainly makes life much easier now travelling from the Airport to the city centre.
I really like the architecture and buildings in Edinburgh, the buildings have a certain darkness and charm about them.
It was an early morning meeting in Edinburgh, so I was glad I had spent the night before in a hotel. We were meeting with the Scottish Funding Council who part fund Jisc’s work, and it was time to provide an update and progress against our plans.
It was then back to Edinburgh airport for the flight home. I spent way too long at the airport, waiting for my plane. I think next time I do this, I should plan better and do something, or meet people.
Coming into land at Bristol Airport flying over Sand Bay, close to Weston-super-Mare
On the subject of change, on September 18th 2007, twelve years ago I was working in Gloucester and I took some photographs around the docks area including this one of the boarded up offices.
Boarded up offices in the Gloucester Docks
It may have been a pub or hotel at one point. I was curious what it looked like today, especially as the whole area was part of a major development since 2007. So using Google Street View I found it had changed quite dramatically.
Google Street View of Gloucester Docks
It’s now a Bills restaurant, but I was amazed by the restoration and development of the building, the only constant is change
Thursday I decided to work from home and caught up with correspondence and reading the numerous memos that were in my in-tray… otherwise known as trawling through my email inbox.
Friday I was back in the Bristol office for various meetings and discussions.
The city centre saw a huge demonstration in support of stopping climate change and the passion an enthusiasm was plain to see.
Climate Change march in Bristol
I spent some time working on the Education 4.0 roadmap notes in preparation for a meeting next week.
Another Monday and another day back in London. The weather was awful, it’s June, it’s supposed to be dry and sunny, but all I had on Monday was rain and then more rain.
Tuesday was going to see me flying off early to Edinburgh for a meeting on Wednesday, however a last minute cancellation, meant that I changed my travel plans. I was also supposed to be going to our Harwell office on Friday, but that meeting was cancelled as well.
We had a short meeting about place, I mentioned in a previous weeknote about the Bristol One City project.
Having more time this week, enabled me to crack on with some reading and writing, as well as reflection about future events and meetings I am attending. I was reading and reviewing a range of internal documents.
One document I reviewed again was the government’s EdTech Strategy.
For me some key areas need further discussion and development, how does technology support learning and teaching and the importance of digital leadership (which is not quite the same thing as leadership).
Friday saw us discussing the usage of Teams in higher education as a… Well I was going to say replacement for the VLE, but that implies that the VLE is one thing and Teams is another thing, but they are not the same thing.
I have always thought of the VLE as more of a concept rather than a specific product. A virtual learning environment (VLE) can have a range of functions and services. Certain products and fulfil some of these functions, others may plug into the product or live alongside it. So you could have Moodle as your core within your VLE, but have WordPress connected in to provide a blogging platform and Mahara to be the portfolio tool.
Microsoft Teams has many functions that enable it to be used as a core of the VLE, into which other functions could be connected or plugged in. It has all the functions you expect from a VLE or LMS, such as content, communication (individual and group) and assessment.
The Apps ecosystem certainly enables a much wider range of functions, though certainly apps and functions appear to be “missing”.
Microsoft Teams is the digital hub that brings conversations, content, and apps together in one place. Create collaborative classrooms, connect in professional learning communities, and communicate with all staff – all from a single experience in Office 365 Education.
There are already universities and colleges out in the sector using Teams as their VLE, I am interested in not just who is using Teams as their VLE, but also how they are using it, and how embedded it is into practice.
One of the feature of Amazon Photos which I use to back up my digital image archive is it shows what photographs you took on the same date in previous years.
Twelve years ago in 2007 I was drinking coffee at my desk in the old Gloucestershire College Brunswick building in the heart of Gloucester Anyone else remember BBC Jam?
Fifteen years ago this week I was taking photographs of a building site to demonstrate the differences between a range of digital cameras.
This photograph was taken with a Sony Cybershot camera.
This one was taken with the digital photo feature of a digital video camera.\
This was taken with a Canon EOS 300D DSLR.
I also used a proper DSLR lens with optical zoom to show the difference between optical and digital zoom.
This was taken from the same location as the photos above.
My top tweet this week was this one.
Ooh the outside of the WHSmith in Weston-super-Mare looking very nice. Re-opens on Monday, looking inside though, not much has changed they still have the same @WHS_Carpetpic.twitter.com/Gy1UMc2WMx
One of the key things about getting staff to use technology, is to remove barriers.
One of the barriers is a lack of familiarity.
When asked by a member of staff if they could use one of our Sanyo CA9 cameras to film themselves in the recent Gloucester Docks Dragon Boat race, the answer was of course, and here is the result.
The next stage will be to take that video and show the member of staff how mobile versions can be made. This will include tools we already have in college and possibly using MoLeTV.
As a result we now have a member of staff who will be confident in the use of video technologies and the use of video with mobile devices.
Oh and a video for use on our atrium’s Knowledge Tree.
