Tag Archives: futures

Towards a resilient higher education?


Posted by hallymk1

*Originally posted at Learning Exchanges on 25 November 2009

Preamble: energy and education

Joss Winn at the University of Lincoln recently blogged on What will Higher Education look like in a 2050 -80% +2c 450ppm world? In this post he raises issues of climate change and the need to reduce emissions, linked to what higher education will look like in a world that needs to reduce its energy use. Some of the key thinking in this area is focused upon consumption of energy rather than the production of carbon. This is important for two reasons: the growing threat of peak oil and the impact that will have on our ability to consume/produce, and on our energy security and availability; and the need to own the carbon and energy we emit/use, in order to combat climate change.

A recent JISC Tech Watch Report on Low Carbon Computing begins to engage with some of these issues, but is very heavily focused upon emissions and more intelligent institutional/outsourced technology, rather than the threats of peak oil or a need to reduce consumption by end users. One gap that it flags is our shared, disaster scenario planning for climate change, consumption and peak oil within education. Given the holistic, ecological nature and impact of these issues, we need ecological solutions that involve us all. I touch on this below, in terms of resilience.

The report highlights the impact of ICT on global emissions – this is said to be 2% globally, but in developed countries it is higher. As other nations develop, we need to consider the impact of globalisation and our approach to internationalisation, and education’s role in that. The Tech Watch report rightly notes that the use of carbon and energy is a complex issue, with embodied carbon throughout the supply and service chain difficult to monitor. With evidence of carbon sinks beginning to buckle consumption becomes much more important and yet education is predicated on productivity, as the Government’s Higher Ambitions framework suggests.

One of the key themes noted throughout the Tech Watch report is a focus on better technology, rather than restricted use. This has a tendency to reinforce a view that science will save us and that we can carry on producing/consuming technology and education at an increasing rate. So, whilst the report focuses upon: efficiency in technologies, use and services; renewable sources; and carbon capture; it is important for educators to address the growing realisation that consumption is an issue. As a result, it may be time to address issues of energy efficiency and energy use within higher education. As Warren Pearce notes about the discourse over cloud-computing in his posting Do you feel lucky? Over-reliance on tech in a finite world “What the Chrome OS story does is illuminate our wider reliance on an ‘always on’ energy supply, rather than the Fordist method of embedding a finite amount of energy in a ‘thing’. Something old-fashioned like, say, a ‘book’”. The key then is addressing Joss Winn’s issue of beginning to think about how to develop ‘resilient education’.

What do you do if your knowledge and networks are global and the global is shut down?

This question provides an interesting stating-point for any discussion about the responsibilities of higher education, in a world where always-on energy use is not a given. If our ever-expanding use of energy is under threat then we will need much bigger plans for our long-term future. We need to integrate the very necessary, but prosaic, thinking about:

  • improved, intelligent infrastructures;
  • data centre/enterprise architectures;
  • the need for thin or slim clients, and the use of shared PCs;
  • forced upgrades versus open source;
  • out-sourcing and migration to the cloud;
  • data and information storage (up to 35% of energy in data centres is simply storage);

to our view of what higher education stands for and how we, as actors, engage with or challenge it. For example, will our approach to technological intelligence and adaptation be driven by social inclusion/justice, energy security/availability, the environment or the economy?

These issues may shake-down when we wrestle with issues like carbon allowances, which may operate at departmental or Faculty-levels, and may impact resources available for learning and teaching. So, if the cost of carbon/electricity is in devolved budgets, how will those teams or groups manage issues like cooling capacity in data centres, electricity supply and the use of AC, renewing old kit and the need for high performance? Staff and students may have to evaluate when and which tasks have to be timetabled. How will this impact our developed view of anytime, anyplace, anywhere access and consumption? It may be that task and service optimisation impacts the personalisation agenda, from a requirement to power-down, rather than leave machines on-idle, to addressing renewal and embodied carbon/energy in our hardware, and re-evaluating the software functions/Operating Systems that we think we need. Will these be institutional impositions or locally negotiated and owned solutions?

Such integration of the prosaic with the meaning of higher education demands deliberation around what HE stands for. One example of why this is important is the embedded energy in the educational supply chain, especially where that chain is in a high-energy-use area [large conurbations] or is international. Can we guarantee efficient supply for core, local services and production? Have we risk-assessed or developed contingencies where access to outsourced information/data/networks may be impacted by access to power off-site? The vulnerabilities of that chain mean that educators need to think about risk and agency, and a curriculum of resilience. This is more so when we consider the resilience of the services we supply to staff/students, and whether those actors can serve themselves through resilient communities.

Towards a curriculum for resilience

Peak oil, climate change and energy consumption issues (framed by a global financial crisis that impacts funding for the public sector) radically change the ways in which we need to define the purpose of education. In his keynote at the JISC Innovating e-Learning 2009 conference, Charles Leadbeater prompted me to think about the need for educators to develop disruptive approaches to the curriculum before they are themselves disrupted. This involves new ways to work/serve or to live. He spoke about the need for relationships, and the development of social enterprise with education as a catalyst. One aim is to move education away from simply improving formal experiences, to re-form them. This highlights issues of relationships and power, of anxiety and hope, of social enterprise and community-up provision, rather than centre-down imposition.

This view of the interactions between peers in a community/socially-focused range of settings is central to a view of resilience, where global over-reliance may lead to fragility. This opportunity for the social/community connects to a number of other emancipatory arguments.

  1. The DEMOS Edgeless University report demands responsive, local missions for institutions that are then cast as focused upon renewal. Such a renewal might include engagement with informal opportunities for supplementing and then transforming the overall life experience. We can’t rely on schools/HEIs to change local cultures on their own but as part of broader community-focused agents they might win-out.
  2. Illich’s work on de-professionalising and de-schooling society offers opportunities to engage with a choice architecture of experience, where people chose where to act, make decisions and receive feedback. The context for choices is defined by the individual actor, not defined for her/him.
  3. Enquiry-based pedagogies (for example see recent Futurelab work on enquiring minds) enable opportunities for communities to come together to work for local solutions to recognised issues.
  4. Informal learning opportunities are central to a social democratic model. In part, this is about the development of consciousness about issues like peak oil and climate change that promotes an identity of interests between individuals. These associations and their consciousness about issues are key in enabling what Gramsci would call organic intellectuals who can develop ideas for a community.

Each of these areas hints at a curriculum for resilience. Resilience is social/environmentally-situated. It denotes the ability of individuals and communities to learn and adapt, to mitigate risks, prepare for solutions to problems, respond to risks that are realised, and to recover from dislocations. The recent DEMOS pamphlet, Resilient Nation highlighted that we live in brittle societies. Over 80 per cent of Britons live in urban areas relying on dense networks of public and private sector organisations to provide them with essential services. But our everyday lives and the national infrastructure work in a fragile union, vulnerable to even the smallest disturbances in the network, and both are part of a global ecosystem that is damaged and unpredictable.

The report argues that we have a choice between reliance on government and its resources, and its approach to command and control, or developing an empowering day-to-day community resilience. Such resilience develops engagement, education, empowerment and encouragement. The good news for those in EdTech is that social media offer reach, usability, accessibility and timely feedback, and may be a key to developing resilience.

Rob Hopkins, in his “Transition to a world without oil” TED talk, highlights the work of the transition movement. This focuses upon defining local problems and framing local solutions that are contextual, and not technology-driven. He argues for framing resilience around our ability to develop adaptability, to work virally and in ways that are open source, rather than reliant on 3rd parties. Resilience is “the capacity of a system to absorb disturbance and reorganise while undergoing change, so as to retain essentially the same function, structure, identity and feedbacks”. He focuses upon the local and the historic, and demands that we empower people to become self-organising. The key for Hopkins is that resilience is more crucial than sustainability – we need to be able to manage shock or disruption or vulnerability, and to find alternatives. This means that the local is as vital as the global. It also means that civil action rather than political action is the key to enfranchisement.

Hopkins suggests that social/community actors need to work in a context that promotes:

  1. Diversity: through a broader base of livelihoods, resource use, enterprise and energy systems than at present;
  2. Modularity: he is not advocating self-sufficiency, but rather an increased self-reliance; with ‘surge protectors’ for the local economy, such as local food production and decentralised energy systems
  3. Tightness of feedback: bringing the results of our actions closer to home, so that we cannot ignore them.

He states:

For many years, those writing and campaigning on relocalisation have argued that it is a good idea because it produces a better, more equitable economy. Now, as the potential impacts of peak oil and climate change become clearer, an additional and very strong argument has emerged: that as the net energy underpinning society inevitably contracts, so the focus of our economies and our daily lives will inexorably shift, at least in terms of manufacturing and trade, from the global to the local.

Rather than communities meeting each other as unskilled, unproductive, dependent and vulnerable settlements, they would meet as skilled, abundantly productive, self-reliant and resilient communities.

What’s more he is hopeful that:

By seeing resilience as a key ingredient of the economic strategies that will enable communities to thrive beyond the current economic turmoil the world is seeing, huge creativity, reskilling and entrepreneurship are unleashed.

Can we forge a curriculum for resilience?

In an excellent paper on the limits of partnership Jonathan Davis argues that empowerment may depend less on enhanced network democracy, which is managerial and driven by the power of specific cultures, than on strong independent community organisations capable of acting coercively [i.e. through lawful, direct action] against elites. He terms this an exit-action strategy that is developed and owned by communities, and which helps to overcome the colonisation of problems, resources and contexts by elites. The key for any debate on resilience is that defining a curriculum that is community-focused, may require institutions to become less managerial and more open to the formation of devolved social enterprises. This will need spaces for what Gramsci has called organic intellectuals, who can emerge from and facilitate community action that leads to political influence and overcomes agenda gatekeeping.

Learners and tutors may be just such organic intellectuals. In light of peak oil and climate change our learners and staff capabilities are key – what power do they have to develop resilience in an era of risk and threat, and also of communitarian opportunity? A key element here is what Davis terms “democratic ‘co-governance’” within civil action, but which might usefully be applied to education. How might this impact stakeholder roles within higher education?

The role of learner: this may become the ability to be, to co-exist, to survive and to thrive, within a range of communities, many of which will be locally-focused. In this context Habermas’ “lifeworld”, or those informal, unmarketised domains of life, that are social, voluntary, and truly participatory are important in situating the individual within a curriculum for resilience. The key facets are the ability to work with a range of peers to define problems and solutions, to make decisions and take action, and to receive feedback [for instance, journalists working with engineers to develop a communication plan for a flood-threatened town]. In this way the current focus on the learner-voice may need to be revisited to focus upon resilient community voices, which can co-produce civil society.

The role of tutor is as a more experienced other, able to provide good-enough support in context. The key is mentoring, modelling and nurturing co-production, co-governance and possibly [lawful] coercion. The key here is lobbying for new modes of curricula design and delivery that lever social enterprise and resilience. This is an activist role and focuses upon the voice of the community and proper democratic engagement in that community. This might include working with those, and in contexts, well beyond the institution. It will also shake up subject-specific working to catalyse new curricula and problem-solving.

The role of institution may be to facilitate social enterprise, affiliation, preparation, and resourcing for transformation within communities. To create a space within which a resilient curriculum is welcomed and actively encouraged. This may mean that the 360-credit undergraduate degree becomes ever-more redundant in a world where we need skill-matching, sharing and problem-solving for complex issues.

One area that frames this will be in energy usage. The Tech Watch report highlights that on a 2005 baseline, by 2020 we will only see 13% reductions in desktop energy consumption due to the impact of peripherals, laptops, iphones, netbooks etc. There is a desperate need for both dematerialisation and adding intelligence to performance/systems/services. This means changing cultures around approaches to information management, decentralised, local, micro-generation of energy that is DC, and more devolved energy management, especially for pervasive computing.

The role of the curriculum will be to frame socio-cultural opportunities for agency, community, decision-making, building relationships, and producing. As Hopkins argues, an energy crisis may be hopeful if it leads to emancipation. At issue is framing a curriculum that enables transformation through celebrating and validating the application of intelligence at the edges of networks that can in turn lead to creation and adaptation.

Postscript

There is a very real danger that we risk disenfranchising ourselves through a techno-determinist approach to peak oil and climate change. The more we wed people to technology and the perception that efficient technology will save us from a future of energy scarcity the less we focus upon the radical pedagogical changes that are needed. How do we develop the skills in social enterprise and community-working? How do we enable people to learning at a local scale? How do we build trust and dialogue, sharing and co-operation? It may be that we need to move away from reliance on the institution to self-reliance and local, voluntary responsibility.


Values and educational technology: away from a Whiggish view


Posted by hallymk1

*Originally posted at Learning Exchanges on 28 February 2010

Whiggish stories

In the Whig Interpretation of History, Herbert Butterfield railed against the congratulatory nature of that strand of British History which prioritised narratives and analyses of human progress. In particular, Butterfield highlighted “analyses” that stressed a move away from ignorance and over-bearing monarchical power towards prosperity, science and representative democracy. This was epitomised by the success of the Whig party in its opposition to the apparently corrupt, Jacobite regimes of the later Stuarts in the seventeenth century, and then in harnessing parliamentary democracy for the progressive benefit of England and, more broadly Imperial Britain.

In the round, Whiggish approaches to any study are reductionist in that they view any question at issue, through a determinist lens. In historical terms Butterfield argued that:

It is part and parcel of the whig interpretation of history that it studies the past with reference to the present; and though there may be a sense in which this is unobjectionable if its implications are carefully considered, and there may be a sense in which it is inescapable, it has often been an obstruction to historical understanding because it has been taken to mean the study of the past with direct and perpetual reference to the present. Through this system of immediate reference to the present day, historical personages can easily and irresistibly be classed into the men who furthered progress and the men who tried to hinder it; so that a handy rule of thumb exists by which the historian can select and reject, and can make his points of emphasis.

Positivism within a dominant discourse/ideology is therefore championed at the expense of complexity or acceptance of the validity of minority views, and this tends towards a kind of moral relativism, where particular cultural values or approaches carry more power. Moreover, it tends towards a relegation or negation of wider contextual issues because the past, in this case, is always framed through present concerns.

There is a danger that some within the strategy or management of educational technology demonstrate similar determinist or Whiggish approaches, especially in framing how specific tools or media are revolutionary or will deliver specific benefits, and are creating uncontested opportunities for personal or economic growth. The latter is demonstrated within, for example, the Government’s approach to Higher Ambitions, or HEFCE’s Online Learning TaskForce There is a tendency for the “how” to be elevated ahead of either the “why” or the constraints imposed by social or political economy.

As part of a rejoinder Selwyn (p. 67) has recently argued that we need to address “educational technology as a profoundly social, cultural and political concern.” This picks up on the comments of Ravenscroft (p.1) that practitioners need to consider “the current technological innovations as players in an evolving paradigm, and not necessarily clear solutions to well-understood problems.”

A classic example is the globalisation debate. Globalisation, ostensibly driven by trade and power over resources, has occurred using technology throughout human history. However, claims are made for the efficacy of social media as dislocating this paradigm, to support citizen participation and global networks. But is there really evidence for how such media are changing society, politics or political economy? Did it stop war in Iraq? Has it forced openness within the Chilcott enquiry? Has it led to changes in global or national banking regulation? It has given us insights into elections in Iran and earthquakes in China, but has it significantly changed what we personally or collectively value and why? Has it changed the meaningful action we take as a result? Or are we seeing just another set of tools owned by dominant players within dominant paradigms, which are predicated upon ideologies of growth and development? Are the millions of people now accessing social networks re-engineering and re-valuing themselves and their associations? Are they taking new action as a result of this belonging? If not, is this use of social media truly revolutionary? [See Säljö,p. 54]]

A revolutionary context?

The recent TLRP Digital Literacies Research Briefing made several claims for the extraordinary opportunities offered by social media and new technologies. It highlights the fragmentation of boundaries between operations, where the separation of concerns is fading: “The distinction between software engineering and the use of ‘applications’ has become more blurred” (p. 5). One result is seen in writing (p. 6), where innovation in user-control of new media forms is deemed “revolutionary”, as: texts become intensely multimodal; screens become the dominant medium; social structures and relations are undergoing fundamental changes; and constellations of mode and medium are being transformed. It is argued that “the consequences of this shift are profound”.

Selwyn (p. 66) is clear that we need more work on the place of social media in the idea of the university and the broader culturally-driven idea of the purpose of education: “the academic study of educational technology has grown to be dominated by an (often abstracted) interest in the processes of how people can learn with digital technology… the academic study of educational technology needs to be pursued more vigorously along social scientific lines”. To an extent this connects into the musings of the recent Horizon Report 2010 (p. 5), which stated that “digital literacy must necessarily be less about tools and more about ways of thinking and seeing, and of crafting narrative”.

Still the outcomes of the Horizon Report tend towards uncontested terrain. For example, on gesture-based computing it is argued that “Because it changes not only the physical and mechanical aspects of interacting with computers, but also our perception of what it means to work with a computer, gesture-based computing is a potentially transformative technology. The distance between the user and the machine decreases and the sense of power and control increases when the machine responds to movements that feel natural” (p. 26). At issue here is how to make best use of this technology, rather than a sense that contextual complexity may be at issue, and that growth in power and control might be problematic or inequitable for some.

It is interesting to review the TLRP outcomes on profound transformation in light of Crook and Joiner’s view (p. 1) that institutional or societal capacity and capability for take-up are crucial. They note “a recurring discomfort that these translations are not more widely taken up – that the education system fails to embrace new technologies with adequate enthusiasm.” This view sits uncomfortably against, for example, the outcomes of the PEW Internet and American Life project, Social Media and Young Adults report, which argues (p. 20) for transformation because “Access to the internet is changing. Teens and adults no longer access the internet solely from a computer or laptop. They now go online via cell phones, game consoles and portable gaming devices in addition to their home desktop or laptop computer”. More deterministic views can be seen in the work of Curtis J. Bonk: “Seems everywhere I go to speak, those in the audience ultimately ask about administrators, staff, and instructors who are more hesitant and what do to about them. When I get home, I send them the missing chapter titles “Overcoming the Technology Resistant Movement.”

The PEW report is interesting in that it highlights how: patterns of on-line activity have not changed significantly since November 2006; the majority of increases in content creation are to be found in older adults; and, on-line purchasing is a key practice amongst younger adults and teens. It then argues (p.5) that “the internet is a central and indispensable element in the lives of American teens and young adults.” It is interesting then to think about the contested reality of the “shift towards more diffused creative participation” outlined in the TLRP Digital Literacies Research Briefing (p. 10), in light of Crook and Joiner’s reporting (p. 2) of “the doubtful state of evaluation around these issues of impact.” At issue here is either projection from the present into an idealised future, just as Butterfield argued Whigs projected from the present onto the past, or a focus on a promise of educational technology that clouds or ignores the complexities of reality.

Alongside impact, another factor that is missing from much of the evaluation is value. What do we value as individuals, communities or societies? Is this simply to be reduced to statements around: access or empowerment or participation, which are all hugely complex and contested terms; or democracy and economic growth, which are problematic given the potential socio-economic disruptions that are on the horizon; or deeper human traits around forgiveness, respect, fidelity, trust, tolerance and generosity, which are much more philosophical?

A problematic context

I like Selwyn’s argument that we need a deeper understanding of the socio-cultural contexts within which educational technology is deployed. This connects into potential disruptions to our socio-cultural fabric, and political economy, which I have outlined elsewhere on this blog as riders to a discussion of resilient education [linked to Joss Winn’s analysis of peak oil, climate change and HE]. It might be argued that these problems are being amplified, as recent reports highlight issues around UK energy availability and costs, public sector debt and the affect of a zero growth economy.

Educational technology does not exist in a vacuum. Alongside the fact that our use of technology within and beyond institutions is pragmatically bounded by energy availability, security, and the impact of debt on HE teaching budgets, there is an ethical imperative to discuss the impacts of our use of technology on our wider communities and environment. Tim Jackson, in his keynote on The Rebound Effect Report, highlights the Ehrlich-Holdren sustainability equation: I = P.A.T, which tells us that the impact of human activities (I) is determined by the overall population (P), the level of affluence (A) and the level of technology (T). Jackson argues (p. 3) that “The IPAT equation appears to offer us broadly three ways of achieving overall reductions in energy demand (for example). One, reduce the population – not a popular choice. Two, reduce the level of affluence (again not high on political priorities). And three, improve technology: specifically to increase the energy efficiency of income generation, to reduce the energy intensity of the economy.”

However, a key problem is the dynamic of efficiency vs scale. Jackson notes (p. 3) that “Technology is an efficiency factor in the equation. Population and affluence are scaling factors. Even as the efficiency of technology improves, affluence and population scale up the impacts. And the overall result depends on improving technological efficiency fast enough to outrun the scale effects of affluence and population.” So these factors are not independent and “appear to be in a self-reinforcing positive feedback between affluence and technology, potentially – and I emphasise potentially – geared in the direction of rising impact” (p. 6).

So we have a very complex issue that frames growth, affluence, technology use and impact on the environment. There should be no escaping this issues by educational technologists and strategic managers, in their arguments for more technology [and hence more energy use] and for growth. In fact, it is possibly the ethical use of technology that demands deeper evaluation. The recent DEMOS report on Building Character highlights a view (p. 23) “that the ‘flow of novelty’ generated by today’s market-based, consumer societies is so strong that higher levels of commitment and self-discipline are needed to ensure that long-term wellbeing is not sacrificed for short-term gratification. As Offer puts it: ‘Affluence breeds impatience, and impatience undermines wellbeing.’” What are the impacts of always-on technologies in this view? Do we understand about wellbeing? Or are we tying our view of wellbeing to access to technology? What are the affects of our evaluation, operational and strategic practices? Is this all subservient to a view of economic growth?

In terms of where the focus for investigation or development might lie, the Horizon Report 2010 highlights the importance of openness, mobility, cloud, collaboration but argues that learning and teaching practices need to be seen in light of civic engagement and complexity. Facer and Sandford move his much further in looking at technology futures (p. 75): “the ‘imaginary’ upon which future-oriented projects are premised often takes for granted the contemporary existence of and continued progress towards a universal, technologically-rich, global ‘knowledge economy’, the so-called ‘flat world’ of neo-liberal rhetoric”. They ask much more critical questions of “the chronological imperialism of accounts of inevitable and universal futures”. This accepts the complexity of the use of technology, of societal development, and of political economy, and asks us to consider some of the ethical imperatives. In addressing these we have a chance to re-think our values.

What are the values that frame our use of educational technology

Elsewhere I have argued that “Technology changes nothing without a reappraisal of the “why” of HE.” Now, I also wonder whether those deeper humane values noted above, framed by the disruptions also noted above make this much more of an imperative. In Building Character, DEMOS state (p. 23) that a focus on wellbeing is critical: “Wellbeing is about more than having an abundance of goods and services; it is also about a ‘personal capacity for commitment’.” They also highlight how this is tied to equality, motivation, agency and application: “To the extent that careers are more internally driven than externally determined, the range of internal capabilities becomes more important” (p. 25). Facer and Sandford’s analysis of Beyond Current Horizons outlines scenarios that “require us to address the questions of what it means to become human and achieve agency in changed socio-technical contexts. Such questions suggest a need to re-engage the educational technology field with educational philosophy, with questions of sustainability and with concerns around social justice” (p. 88.).

So in-part I am brought to a reconsideration of the place of social media in civil society, in terms of the ideologies that frame our interactions and the values that we hold. In Inverting The Power Pyramid, Robert Douglas argues that we need to:

stop thinking of citizens as consumers: the consumerisation of civic society generated the very imbalance of Wants and Needs which we are all now struggling to re-calibrate, in light of build a more value-rich, sustainable and wellbeing world.

He argues that this underpins the recognition that as citizens we are equal partners in a drive for change, holding both business and Government to account, Moreover, within this view, digital technologies change the game, in promoting transparency and accountability, through new networks of citizenry. For Douglas this is important because “In very simple terms, nothing works in isolation anymore.”

A view of consumption versus citizenry is central, and is tied to an ideological debate about access and growth. In terms of educational technology, it is about recognising the full impact of the tools that we implement and the contexts in which that impact takes place. Growth, in terms of economic outputs and resource-depletion, and its affect on education, need reappraisal . Is our level of consumption of technology, and hence energy, carbon and oil, reasonable? Is it ethical?

The new economics foundation report Growth Isn’t Possible has flagged some of the issues that bound this discussion:

Endless growth is pushing the planet’s biosphere beyond its safe limits. The price is seen in compromised world food security, climatic upheaval, economic instability and threats to social welfare. We urgently need to change our economy to live within its environmental budget. There is no global, environmental central bank to bail us out if we become ecologically bankrupt.

Educational technology does not sit in a vacuum, offering us participation and inclusion at low- or no-cost. This ought to be part of a deliberation around what is important to us. In The Great Transition, the new economics foundation ask “What do we value? These are questions that as a society we do not ask often enough” (p. 36). These are questions that, as educators and technology-users we do not ask often enough. For the new economics foundation this is part of a recalibration way from a zero-sum game, in which we may be unwittingly partaking.

The collective is key here. Value in this sense is determined not by what we each want for ourselves – where this might be something that impoverishes another – but by what we agree is important for all of us, as members of society, to have access to – such things as a functioning ecosystem, a right to safe shelter, access to food and water and, ultimately, well-being. It also involves acknowledging that we will have competing interests that require government leadership to manage. We will have to become comfortable with trade-offs if we are indeed to redefine value in a meaningful and egalitarian way (p. 38).

Social Return on Investment is an interesting approach for auditing this impact, and it may be that we need to consider these types of audits as educational technologists, in order to address whether the futures we consider to be of value have disbenefits attached to them. The danger of an uncritical approach to the implementation of technology-enhanced learning for growth is that we ignore the ideologies and values that underpin it. Barnett’s work on supercomplexity is important here, in highlighting uncertainty and disruption, alongside power and knowledge, and frameworks for knowing, acting and being. This might be a place to begin a conversation around values, because it is predicated on the human and humane, rather than the technology.

In their work on Beyond Current Horizons, Facer and Sandford highlight some guiding principles that usefully help educators begin to deliberate and act.

Principle 1: educational futures work should aim to challenge assumptions rather than present definitive predictions

Principle 2: the future is not determined by its technologies

Principle 3: thinking about the future always involves values and politics

Principle 4: education has a range of responsibilities that need to be reflected in any inquiry into or visions of its future

Whilst they outline some scenarios and recommendations, these principles are hugely important in a shared re-valuing and in overcoming disruption. However, they demand that we become more self-critical about our practice, and evermore contextually aware in our research. As Butterfield stated:

There is a magnet for ever pulling at our minds, unless we have found the way to counteract it; and it may be said that if we are merely honest, if we are not also carefully self-critical, we tend easily to be deflected by a first fundamental fallacy. And though this may even apply in a subtle way to the detailed work of the historical specialist, it comes into action with increasing effect the moment any given subject has left the hands of the student in research; for the more we are discussing and not merely inquiring, the more we are making inferences instead of researches, then the more whig our history becomes if we have not severely repressed our original error; indeed all history must tend to become more whig in proportion as it becomes more abridged.


Taking forward change in technology-enhanced education


Posted by hallymk1

*Originally posted at Learning Exchanges on 1 April 2010

I had a great day yesterday in Bolton at a JISC-sponsored Strategy Cascade event for institutional teams, which was focused upon “the wider debate around what technology can offer our institutions, and how to most effectively harness technology in ways that are sensitive to the specific needs of institutions” and their stakeholders. The session, led by Keith Smyth from Edinburgh Napier and Mark Johnson from the University of Bolton, was an excellent example of grounded, deliberative action. It focused upon achieving an institutional understanding of the contested nature of technology-enhanced learning [TEL] as HEIs struggle to review their strategies and plans.

I was asked to kick the event off with some thoughts on the issues that I see as important in this debate. My slides highlight my activist, political position around the highly contested nature of the value of TEL, and against techno-determinism. The key themes I wanted to highlight were as follows.

  1. Values: do we understand the place of TEL in the idea of the University. Do we recognise and debate our institutional or educational or personal or humane values? How do technologies help us to realise or diminish these values? How do technologies impact the social relations that emerge around these values?
  2. Disruption: we are experiencing disruption, the scale of which may prove overwhelming. This is focused upon: massive public sector debt that will impact our spaces for action and activity; the realities of climate change science, which ought to affect our engagement with technology; peak oil and energy prices/security, which will impact our use of technology and our approaches to resource management; the impact of personal technologies on power and control at the centre or the boundaries of formal and informal classroom and curriculum settings, and the concomitant need for critical pedagogies; and the impact of non-institutional technologies on the value, place and space of the institution.
  3. Contestation 1: the policy and implementation landscape demonstrates complexity of use, expectation and delivery of educational technology within competing value-sets and practices. One space in which this is made manifest is the discussion over open educational resources, as a rider for discussions over the openness of higher education and HEIs that are [being set-up to be] competing. This discussion ought to take place against an ideological and political [small ‘p’] backdrop, which looks at what we stand for institutionally and societally.
  4. Planning: in thinking about institutional change Mark Johnson highlighted the work of Richard Gombrich [after Karl Popper] in developing approaches to piecemeal social engineering. I am concerned with how we are able to provide secure core institutional spaces that enable staff and students to position and become themselves, and to act in the world. Mark Stubbs at MMU has blogged about a vision of joined-up systems that is a powerful description of how institutions can support individuals in making sense of their institution [socially, administratively and academically], by aligning key events, data, processes and technologies, and how “mavericks” [an emergent participant-generated term] can be encouraged to innovate around the edges of the HEI within a supportive set of spaces. In taking this forward we need to see change as institutionally-led, and so as more than a project: it is a programme of work focused upon catalysing flexibility, diversity, modularity and feedback, which then delivers benefits aligned to key outcomes. At DMU we are developing a portfolio of projects to engage this approach.
  5. Contestation 2: we need to know more about the interplay between notions of personalisation and models of the curriculum. In thinking about this I highlighted some DMU examples of: mentoring as a key concept in learning design; thinking around technologically-flexible and modular “curriculum learning environments”; and recasting spaces for life-wide learning opportunities, where students can demonstrate activity in the world, and be accredited for it. This is complex and ill-understood, and techno-determinist approaches to its management are problematic.

I ended by focusing upon a series of issues related to power and emerging self-awareness and action. In particular, I was concerned to reflect upon whether institutionalised approaches reclaim and neutralise innovation within traditional, safe paradigms, and whether this neutralises agency. I wondered whether we know enough about the specific strategies that are deployed by learners using social media, as they become resilient learners and citizens. Finally I wondered whether we acknowledge and care for those who are marginalised or who risk marginalisation though our curriculum practices and values.

The activities that the participants undertook were focused upon: realising the value of different perspectives in the change agenda; our aspirations and who sets the agenda for change; the tensions between monolithic approaches and enabling diversity; and whether we do the simple stuff well enough to enable people to undertake meaningful activity. I was left with three key points that I wished to make as a plenary, with one caveat. These are captured in this Strategy Cascade plenary presentation.

However, I also added that we have travelled a long way in the last decade, in terms of developing the tools and communities that can engage with critical pedagogy and challenge the development of educational norms. There is much to hope for in this celebration of the possible.


Educational futures, educational technology and digital social media


Posted by hallymk1

*Originally posted at Learning Exchanges on 7 July 2010.

The application of Futures’ planning and thinking in the development of higher education is receiving more attention, and in particular is catalysing researchers and practitioners to discuss frames of reference, methods, and ethics for thinking about futures’ planning. The work of FutureLab on Beyond Current Horizons, was synthesised by Facer and Sandford in addressing technology futures. They critiqued much that was taken-for-granted in the use of educational technology, noting that (p. 75): “the ‘imaginary’ upon which future-oriented projects are premised often takes for granted the contemporary existence of and continued progress towards a universal, technologically-rich, global ‘knowledge economy’, the so-called ‘flat world’ of neo-liberal rhetoric”. As I noted elsewhere in challenging positivist views of technology, Facer and Sandford ‘ask much more critical questions of “the chronological imperialism of accounts of inevitable and universal futures”. This accepts the complexity of the use of technology, of societal development, and of political economy, and asks us to consider some of the ethical imperatives. In addressing these we have a chance to re-think our values.’

Our humane values are critical in defining the theory, methods and ethics of futures-oriented research in education. In the introduction to his latest e-book, The Biggest Wake-Up Call in History, Richard Slaughter highlights the values-driven, hopeful opportunities that underpin an integral approach. An integral approach might enable societies to take a respectful and generous stance to the interpretation of and engagement with the “‘signals’ that are being constantly generated within the global system, [and therefore] as we become aware of their import and actively respond to them, then a deeper, richer, understanding emerges”. Slaughter’s work is important for education, and those who work with technology, because his integral approach highlights the importance of taking a proactive role in critique and action, around transitions to new ways of being and living, in the face of climate change, peak oil and the dominant, neoliberal ideology of political economy. Education has to work with these external issues in planning its possible futures. One strand of this that needs greater critique is technology and digital social media.

Slaughter asks two important questions in addressing these issues.

  1. How can so many contributions fit together within a coherent whole?
  2. How can many different kinds of truth be honoured and adjudicated?

In respecting complexity, pluralism and difference, the onus is on us all to look at ways of planning for transitions rather than waiting to adapt to shock. This may involve taking on-board relevant historical lessons, in order to stand for a position of “Science and technology + foresight + moral courage”. This interrelationship of science and technology, humanism and the liberal arts is critical in any approach to futures’ thinking, in particular because difficult, inclusive, ethical decisions need to be made around the pressures of population, affluence and the environment, and the possibilities of technology.

One of the questions with which I have come away is how are those of us involved in educational technology and digital social media actively engaged in futures work? Is there a sense in which these communities are futures literate? How do these communities of practice enable the critique of technology and the possibilities for the uses of educational technology, in both the process of creating the future and the outcomes of those processes [what is actually done as well as how this happens]? In engaging with social media and in touting personalisation, how are we looking at values and customs in common?

I return to this issue of values because it is important and is one that technologists ought to address, especially in underpinning our activity and what we do in the world. In part, this reflects Holloway’s “power-to”, and his focus on doing as an emancipatory activity, in direct opposition to others’ “power-over” us and our labour. Doing and activity are crucial, but need to be seen in light of our shared humanity. Dowrick reminds us that the ways in which we live our lives should be driven by humane values that can help us overcome disruption, namely: courage; fidelity; restraint; generosity; tolerance; and forgiveness. Those of us who drive forward the use of technology has a duty to foreground these issues in ensuring that we do not contribute to individual alienation, the taylorisation of work, or the fetishisation of tools.

In engaging with technology and social media, I see decisions being made to enact our values. In this way there is space for activism, and the creation of pedagogies of excess, supported by the use of technology and social media. However, we need to ask more often what do “we” want to be and why? Why do we want to do what we do with technology? How does, for example, Twitter enable our shared humane values? How do we allow Facebook’s form and function to (de-)humanise us? Who is marginalised/empowered on-line in a virtual learning environment, and what does this outcome say about us? Do we allow mobile technologies to enable or prevent us from doing and creating? How does our understanding of the present and our work with educational technology in the present enable us to plan for the future? My use of “we” and “our” and “shared” is critical.

Analysing the present is an important issue. Do we properly understand why and how technology and social media are being (ab)used in the present, and how and why they help us to act/react now? Or are we simply accepting dominant hegemonic positions about the use of technology in education? When we make statements about engagement, participation, marginalisation do we critique those statements? How do we use those statements, and our approaches and needs, underwritten by our core, humane values, to help communities of practice to develop their own solutions to problems? I see this as a starting point for enabling a discussion about futures that utilises technology to enhance our humanity, and to move us from the fetishisation of the digital towards communal solutions to significant problems.