Tag Archives: language

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Phasing in and out – Weeknote #142 – 19th November 2021

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So this was my first full week back at work. Well I say that, but due to having to use a fair amount of leave  carried over from last year, I only worked three days this week. Still recovering from Covid this was actually a blessing as it meant I didn’t need to exhaust myself out.

I am spending time catching up with what’s been happening while I was off sick.

I went to the office on Monday, it was quite quiet. I am still phasing back into work (not quite a phased return, but certainly a slow return).

I worked from home on Tuesday and spent much of the day reading and writing.

I also headed to Bristol on Wednesday. I went in later and then met an old colleagues for drink after work, which was nice.

I wrote a few thought pieces this week.

I put down a few thoughts about transformation.

Success in digital teaching and learning is much about understanding about what is required for transformation to take advantage of the affordances and opportunities that digital can offer and not about taking what works in-person and making digital copies of existing practices.

I have written quite a bit about transformation and translation, but this post was more about the reasons why we more often just copy rather than transform.

The first Polish language dictionary (published 1746) included definitions such as: “Horse: Everyone knows what a horse is.”

One thing I have noticed working in further and higher education, is the assumption that everyone assumes that everyone knows what terms mean. The reality is that often there isn’t a shared understanding of key terms such as, digital transformation, digital university, online learning, blended learning, hybrid learning and so on…

I wrote another post about this shared understanding and working towards a clear (and shared) understanding.

The definition doesn’t need to be definitive, but the relevant stakeholders need to have clarity and a shared understanding of that definition.

At the beginning of the week I wrote some thoughts about student cameras.

During the pandemic there was a widespread culture of “cameras off” by students. As part of research we did,  in interviews, this was commented on by both staff and students. Staff felt that often they were talking to a blank screen as all the students had their cameras off and unlike in an in-person session they couldn’t see and read the students’ reaction to their lecture.

Though as the pandemic recedes (I know), maybe this becomes less of an issue for universities, but certainly going forward if universities are going to take advantage of the affordances of online and blended learning, the issue of cameras does need to be addressed.

My top tweet this week was this one.

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Shared understanding

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Photo by Helena Lopes on Unsplash

The first Polish language dictionary (published 1746) included definitions such as: “Horse: Everyone knows what a horse is.”

Within the world of digital and online learning, assumptions are often made that everyone knows what is being discussed and there is a shared understanding of the terms being used. The reality is that often everyone has their own understanding of a term, such as blended learning, but they are not the same.

This lack of shared understanding can result in very different experiences for students.

It is critical when planning a shared curriculum and programmes of study that there is a common definition of key terms being used so that across all academic staff and the student body are working from the same understanding.

This shared understanding becomes even more critical when additional terms, such as hybrid or hyflex, are used. As across the higher education sector, there is a lack of consistency in how such terms are used.

A simple exercise that can be undertaken is asking a room of people to write down their definitions of a key term, such as blended learning onto a post-it note and then for people to share and like which definitions they agree with. Second part of the exercise is to come up with a single clear definition that everyone understands, which will then be used going forward.

The definition doesn’t need to be definitive, but the relevant stakeholders need to have clarity and a shared understanding of that definition.

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I WON THE ELECTION – Weeknote #90 – 20th November 2020

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Official sources called this election differently

The US election continues to dominate Twitter though seeing less of it on the mainstream news. Saw a number of people on Twitter claiming to have won the election!

Five years ago this week myself and Lawrie were delivering the second residential of the pilot for the Jisc Digital Leaders Programme at the Holland House Hotel in the heart of Bristol. We had spent four days delivering that week. We also had some great cakes and pastries.

Even the coffee was nice. We learnt a lot from the process and spent the next few months iterating the programme, dropping and adding stuff based on the feedback we had from the pilot delegates.

Less than a year later we delivered the programme to paying delegates in Loughborough, again we reviewed what we did and adapted the programme again, before delivering to groups in Manchester, Belfast and Leicester.

Continue reading I WON THE ELECTION – Weeknote #90 – 20th November 2020 →

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They think it’s all over… – Weeknote #69 – 26th June 2020

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So what do you understand by the term blended learning? What about an online course? A hybrid programme? Could you provide a clear explanation of what student wellbeing is? At the end of last week I published a blog post on language.

Last week I delivered two presentations, one was a planned presentation for a QAA workshop, the other, well it wasn’t supposed to be a presentation, but due to a lack of response from the audience in the networking session I was in, I quickly cobbled together a presentation based on the slides I had used for the QAA.

I pulled together the idea into a single blog post. It is a combination and an expansion of the presentations I delivered about my thoughts of what happened, what then happened, what we need to think about and what we could do.

So we know many universities are planning for blended and hybrid programmes with some aspects of courses delivered physically, but socially distanced.  My question is this, where (physically) are those universities expecting their students to access those online aspects of their programmes, especially those which are synchronous? They will need a device and an internet connection, but they will also need a physical space to participate as well. This was the question I asked in another blog post I published this week. Though as the week went on we saw the government start to ease the lockdown restrictions. I suspect we will see some (or even most) universities follow suit.

Dave White

That Dave White (who also became ALT President this week) blogged about the lecture paradox which reminds me of his eventedness talk at ALT-C ten years ago.  Continue reading They think it’s all over… – Weeknote #69 – 26th June 2020 →

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A common language

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Image by Patrik Houštecký from Pixabay

So what do you understand by the term blended learning? What about an online course? A hybrid programme? Could you provide a clear explanation of what student wellbeing is?

In recent conversations, it has become more and more apparent that we are using a range of terminology across the sector and we don’t necessarily have a shared understanding of what we mean when we say phrases or words.

This was something we covered in early incarnations of the Jisc Digital Leaders Programme, when we discussed how something like “The Digital University” could mean very different things to different people within a university. For some people it could mean to them a university which maximises the use of digital technologies, or digital by default. Other people could see digital as equating to online, so a virtual (digital) university where students learn online.

It’s a similar challenge with terms like hybrid or online or blended.

I published a blog post about hybrid courses back in May, my definition was very much about a programme of study which would react  and respond to the changing environment.

With a hybrid course, some sessions are physical face to face sessions. There are live online sessions and there are asynchronous online sessions. In addition there could be asynchronous offline sessions as well. You may not want to be online all the time!

Some sessions could be easily switched from one format to another. So if there is a change in lockdown restrictions (tightening or easing) then sessions can move to or from online or a physical location.

Listening to a conversation someone was talking about hybrid courses as a mix between online and face to face, but didn’t mention the responsiveness or the potential flexibility.

Without a shared understanding we know that this can result in confusion, mixed messaging, with the differences in course design and delivery, as well as problems with student expectations.

So what can we do about this?

There are glossaries out there that can help, especially for a sector wide shared understanding.

The key with language is never assume that people will have the same understanding of the terms used that you have. Explanations of what terms means in documents and planning processes will ensure that everyone has a shared understanding of those terms.

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It’s not what you say you do, it’s the way that you do it!

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I was thinking the other day that I don’t have enough readers of the blog and insufficient engagement.

So the solution has to be that the name of the blog isn’t right. First idea would be change the name from “elearning stuff” to “blended learning stuff”.

Then again maybe I could choose “e-pedagogy stuff” or what a about “threaded learning stuff”. How about “hybrid pedagogy stuff”?

Do you think that changing the name will significantly increase readership and engagement on the blog?

No.

If I want more readers and more engagement, then maybe, just maybe I should think more about the content I write, the style, the questions I ask, the quality of the writing, the frequency of posting and so on…

So when we start thinking that the problem with the embedding of digital and learning technologies, is the name that we use, such as blended learning or e-learning the problem, then we probably have a bigger issue.

If staff aren’t engaging with digital and learning technologies as part of their continuing professional development, then changing the term we use will have some impact, but not significant. It may encourage some to participate, but it may confuse others. However the language we use, though can be powerful in some contexts, is not the reason why people decide not to engage with digital.

It’s like the reason that people often say about lack of time, when the solution is not about providing more time, but is about setting and managing priorities. It really comes back to the reasons why people choose to engage or not and the reasons they give.

If you are having challenges in engaging staff in the use of digital and learning technologies and thinking that changing the “name” we use is the solution, i would suggest you may actually want to spend the time and effort thinking about your approaches and the methodology you are using.

Of course the real reason people choose to change the language, is that it is much easier to do that, then actually deal with people!

What do you think, we now language is important, but is the problem the terms we use or is it something else?