Tag Archives: short and sweet

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Why don’t you – Weeknote #169 – 27th May 2022

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I was in Manchester this week, running various meetings and sessions relating to the Jisc HE sector strategy.

Had an excellent planning meeting with our Student Services team.

sweets
Image by El Sun from Pixabay

I published a blog post reminiscing about the short and sweet sessions I had developed and delivered at Gloucestershire College when I worked there.

The use of digital technologies for learning and teaching, doesn’t just happen. Staff don’t always instinctively pick up the skills and capabilities to utilise the range of digital tools and services available to them. In a similar manner the application of pedagogy to mobile, remote and online delivery is not as simple as translating in-person pedagogical practices.

Do we have a shared understanding of what we mean by digital transformation? It was on this point that I wrote a reflective piece on the digital transformation of music.

When it comes to digital transformation in education, I wonder if we can look at what happened to the music retail industry and the impact of digital over the last few decades.

cassette tape
Image by snd63 from Pixabay

I looked at how the retail music industry had moved from vinyl to CD, to mp3 and onto streaming services. So, what does this mean for education? Well don’t make the mistake of equating music tracks with something like a lecture. Digital transformation of education is not about the Napsterfication of lectures or creating an education version of Spotify. What we can learn from digital music is reflecting on the differences between the digitisation of education, the digitalisation of education and then the digital transformation of education.

I participated in the LTHEChat and Advance HE tweetchat about wellbeing in higher education.

The next day I wrote a very similar piece to my music post (I think a better one though) on the digital transformation of the television watching experience.

So to remind us, when we look at digital transformation, it becomes obvious that focusing on the hardware or technology is actually quite limiting. So when looking at the digital transformation of education, we really want to focus on the transformation of education and how digital can enable and enhance that transformation.

television
Image by Panyapat Rattanaprom from Pixabay

On Friday I attended Wonkhe and Adobe’s Education Espresso event on Pedagogy and playfulness.

My top tweet this week was this one.

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Shortness and Sweetness

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Photo by Joanna Kosinska on Unsplash

The use of digital technologies for learning and teaching, doesn’t just happen. Staff don’t always instinctively pick up the skills and capabilities to utilise the range of digital tools and services available to them. In a similar manner the application of pedagogy to mobile, remote and online delivery is not as simple as translating  in-person pedagogical practices.

Of course learning technologists and academic developers will know this and design and deliver a range of training programmes and guidance, and provide support to academics in their use of digital.

However on a recent post on a mailing list an educational technologist from an university outlined some of the challenges they were facing.

They found that academics were not attending staff development sessions, they thought that this might be perhaps because staff are very busy with preparation, delivery, marking, research.

Busy is one way to describe this, prioritisation might be another. They may well see the advantages of such staff development activity, but indicate they don’t have time to attend such development sessions. It’s not then an issue of time, but one of priorities. When you have a full week of “stuff” to do, finding that gap to do staff development may not always be possible. 

Another challenge mentioned was about academics not seeing the benefit of training.

Picking this apart, some academics may feel they already “know” how to use the tools and services, and don’t see the value of further training. They may not know what they don’t know. Often the technical skills required to use a tool are quite easy to pick up, however the advanced skills to take advantage of the affordances, the potential of tools, and benefits it can being, may not always be apparent.

Another angle on this, was you might invest the time in staff development, only to discover that you either knew it already, or it wasn’t relevant to your role. That “risk” often means that the decision to attend not not to attend a staff development session, you err on the side of caution, and decide not to attend.

A further challenge was one of visibility, just because you send an email about staff development activities, doesn’t mean the people you want to read it, actually read it!

sweets
Image by congerdesign from Pixabay

Thinking about the challenges faced by this educational technologist, I was reminded of the “Short and Sweet” sessions I use to run at Gloucestershire College.

Back in the day, when I worked at Gloucestershire College I faced similar challenges with limited or non-existent attendance at staff development sessions. 

The solution for me was to take those staff development sessions, shorten them to fifteen minutes and take them to the practitioners. 

I created a menu of sessions that I provided to curriculum managers, with how they could incorporate them into their meetings. It was a pick and mix type approach. Combined with the term short and sweet, we did go down a sweets theme in the look and feel.

These sessions were then delivered in their team meetings. I ensured I kept to time and only used the time I was allocated. This was important in getting invited back. I also made a note of requests for further follow up training sessions.

What I found was that the practitioners who were interested got some useful information about the practice or the tools which were demonstrated. Those who didn’t know about it would potentially learn about the potential, and could consider finding out more. Then those staff who were not interested at all, wouldn’t be wasting a whole day or a morning, it would be just fifteen minutes. 

The impact was readily apparent with practitioners telling me about their implementation within days (or even hours) of the fifteen minute session.

Short and Sweet” sessions lasting fifteen minutes were not the only model of development we delivered, there were also sessions lasting an hour, half a day and the odd whole day development. 

They were a little techno-centric, but they could cover anything, so as well as technology they could be pedagogy as well. It worked really well and many other teams started to use the term, saying things like “should we “short and sweet” this training?”

I am aware of a couple of universities that “borrowed” the concept for their own training, for example the University of Oxford.

So do you do something similar to the short and sweet concept?

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Sweet reminiscing – Weeknote #168 – 20th May 2022

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A busy week with travel and stuff.

Tuesday I headed off to Cheltenham to run the first drop in session on our sector strategy. These sessions are about supporting staff at Jisc to see how their work supports the delivery of the strategy.

sweets
Image by congerdesign from Pixabay

I was reminded on a mailing list of the “Short and Sweet” sessions I use to run at Gloucestershire College.

Someone was asking about TEL staff development and getting staff involved, and engaged. Often they would not attend staff development sessions.

Back in the day, when I worked at Gloucestershire College I faced similar problems. The solution for me was to take the staff development sessions, shorten them to 15 minutes and take them to the practitioners. These sessions were then delivered in their team meetings. I kept to time and also made a note of requests for further follow up training sessions.

Short and Sweet” sessions lasting fifteen minutes were  not the only model of development we delivered, there were also sessions lasting an hour, half a day and the odd whole day development. They were a little techno-centric, but they could cover anything, so as well as technology they could be pedagogy as well. It worked really well and many other teams started to use the term, saying things like “should we “short and sweet” this training?”

I am aware of a couple of universities that “borrowed” the concept for their own training, for example the University of Oxford.

Also there is this week note of mine which reminisces on the concept.

On Wednesday and Thursday it was off to Birmingham for a lunchtime to lunchtime away day for our leadership team. This was the first time we had all met in-person as a leadership team.

We were looking at our priorities for the next year (and beyond) and how we would work together.

I was on leave on Friday and off to London for the day.

My top tweet this week was this one.

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We built a treehouse – Weeknote #45 – 10th January 2020

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Image by Th G from Pixabay
Image by Th G from Pixabay

It’s a new year and a new decade.

I am still a little surprised that it’s 2020, as it appears to be so futuristic, but we seem to be living in a Children of Men or Handmaid’s Tale future rather than the utopia of the future that I imagined in my youth.

Monday I spent the day catching up with e-mail, even though most people had been off over the festive period, a lot seemed to have started back on the 2nd (when I was still off). I also took the time to get back into gear and work-ready.

I wrote a first draft of a blog post for the Data Matters 2020 conference , that is taking place on the 5th May 2020. The essence of the post is the importance of thinking about data now, in the contect of future needs of data. This isn’t just about the technical aspects of data, but importantly the people aspects as well.

I was reminded that this week ten years ago we had some of the worst snow for forty years…

Snow

Tuesday I was travelling to Leeds where I am attending the ALT Learning Spaces SIG on Wednesday. Leeds always seems a lot further away than I think it is. The ALT Learning Spaces SIG was on Wednesday and this was an interesting get together.

As well as hearing about the challenges facing universities such as Leeds and Loughborough, there was also a excellent workshop in the afternoon looking at the challenges in converting an existing formal learning space (which wasn’t working) into an informal space for learning. I started to draft a blog post on this workshop. The concept we looked at was building a treehouse.

LSSIG Meeting in Leeds
LSSIG Meeting in Leeds

Continue reading We built a treehouse – Weeknote #45 – 10th January 2020 →

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Short and Sweet

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Short and Sweet

So just how long should a training session be? 15 minutes, half an hour, an hour, all day, a week?

It is a challenge to both design training that covers what needs to be covered within a set timeframe, but also to ensure that it is sufficient, robust and effective. Also no one has all the time in the world for development activities, so compromises have to be made, yes a day’s training would be ideal, in reality you have an hour.

There is also no one model that fits all needs, so though this blog post is on “Short and Sweet” sessions lasting fifteen minutes, this is not the only model of development we deliver, there are also sessions lasting an hour, half a day and the odd whole day development.

One of the problems we have faced is that what we want is staff attend a training session, get all excited and inspired, hopefully then embedding the ideas and tool into their practice. However with any training session of an hour or more there is an assumption that the practitioner will find the session useful.

They might not know if it will be or not, and won’t until they attend. As a result they are likely to be cautious and probably won’t book in or attend, they don’t have the time! Of course providing information on the training in advance can help, but there is another assumption that they are aware of the training and read the information; that doesn’t always happen.

Sometimes practitioners don’t actually need training, did you ever get training in using iTunes for example, but need inspiration. They will then think about what they were shown and work on it in their own time.

Time, no one has any time anymore… I could argue for ages about how it isn’t “lack of time” that’s the problem, but “prioritisation” which is key, but you and I don’t have the time!

It was these concepts that made us think about revisiting training that was delivered to teams at a time and place to suit them (okay at team meetings), on demand, from a menu and to be quick and digestible.

I came up with the name, “Short and Sweet”, the idea was that there would be a selection of choices, and teams could pick and mix what they wanted. It also allowed me to theme the training with sweets. Well initially I was going to do just sweets, but I did think about healthy eating and all that, so I also used fruit too.

Each session was to be no longer than 15 minutes. The concept was to provide a taster, to tease and to inspire. Where possible there would be a follow up session available so that if so inspired they could then go to a more in-depth practical session.

I am also going to “digitise” some of the sessions and make them available to view on demand and on a mobile device.

I delivered my first few sessions of “Short and Sweet” and they worked well, and I did get some positive feedback. It will take as little longer to see if they have had any impact. It will also take longer to see if the concept lasts.