Tag Archives: technology

Google, Microsoft and HE: outsourcing the student and staff experience


Posted by hallymk1

*Originally posted at Learning Exchanges on 13 August 2009

The issue of outsourcing technology-provision is emerging as a major issue for higher education managers. I know outsourcing has been around for a while – institutions have outsourced data networking and equipment maintenance since the year dot. Moreover, SOAS and Glasgow Caledonian outsourced email to Google in 2007. However, it’s only now that our institutional managers are grappling with the issue of student email provision, and as a result have to recognise the cultural and managerial implications of outsourcing the student and staff experience.

Outsourcing the student and staff user experience is what a pact with, for instance, Google, implies precisely because a Gmail implementation opens up possibilities and pressures for implementing the rest of the Google suite, and thereby changing the face of institutional communication and interaction. The impact on the core business of an institution will be seismic. Whilst such a pact may offer up opportunities for wider associations and networking, it also threatens those areas of an institution that may need to be closed (e.g. data management and processing for awards).

Outsourcing a technological solution has implications: for service provision; for data protection, privacy and confidentiality; for levering institutional, technological extensions [in Google’s case a burgeoning set of apps that have affordances for learning and teaching, rather than simply email]; and for institutional visions/blueprints of learning and teaching, especially where users can opt-in or out. It is critical that we recognise for whom this is being done and why.

There are a number of issues then in the migration of a major technological solution like student email to, say, Google.

  1. The first is the nature of the risk assessment that has been done, linked to the full business case. In fact, is there a full business case that focuses less on cost savings and more on real value? The key focus should be on the relationships between staff, students and resources within appropriate learning communities that are open and/or closed to the institution, programme, or individual. How are these best organised and supported? Outsourcing on cost alone should be a non-starter, although it seems that this isn’t always the case.
  2. Implementing, for instance, Gmail opens up opportunities for extending the rest of the Google suite that includes recent changes to iGoogle, Google Reader and Google Wave. This impacts any proposed blueprint for technologies that support an institutional vision/ethos, and which also engages non-institutional networks or communities. This has to be properly assessed by key local stakeholders in-line with their needs, rather than jumped on because students feel Google is sexy, shiny and better. Moreover, where new services have pedagogic implications, this impacts our development not only of existing tools, but critically our engagement with, development of, and support for academic and support staff. What will the services that we provide for staff and students look like, so that neither group are left behind?
  3. Oxford have argued that Gmail is not a viable solution for them for staff email given privacy and confidentiality issues. With the amount of shared group-work and collaboration needed by staff and students, delivering dual systems is not an option in their context. Given that other potentially-shared Google services are available, it is critical that both students and staff are engaged in a planned way, in order to avoid opening up a digital divide in the services are offered to support learning and teaching. That deliberation has to be set within an institutional culture that may be at once open and/or closed, and which frames decisions about data or relationships that need to be held in-house.
  4. There is a very real risk that managers are bedazzled by identification with, for instance, the Google brand, and new developments like ‘caffeine’. Google has been criticised over privacy, copyright infringement, hacking, censorship, DRM etc.. Hence the value-set of any association or affiliation needs to be deliberated properly across all institutional stakeholders. Anil Dash’s excellent piece on “Google’s Microsoft moment” asks whether Google is moving to a position where it is “favoring what’s convenient for [its] own business goals” rather than that which matters to its real-world users. He goes on to add that “The era of Google as a trusted, ‘non-evil’ startup whose actions are automatically assumed to be benevolent is over”. Most tellingly of all, he states that Google’s “protestations of ‘but it’s open source!’ are being used to paper over real concerns about data ownership, and the truth is that open code doesn’t necessarily imply that average users are in control”. We are not yet at the point of transition to the university of the people, where there is no need for closed positions. There are bigger issues here that impact local, educational user engagement, set within validated and purposeful institutional cultures.
  5. A final issue here is that of openness. Dave Cormier argued at OpenEd09 that open educational resources, including tools and contexts, are often not open for creation or re-creation or re-formation, and at best they are simply static and accessible materials. By focusing institutionally or within a community upon one service or set of services, we are in danger of excluding or marginalising by locking people into or out of specific ways of working. Empowered decision-making about relationships, technologies, services and resources demands contexts that scale choices for learners (for instance in safe, free-ranging environments). Cormier argues that the personal processes involved in learning and in engaging with communities are complex and messy. If he is right then decisions need to be made about institutional openness and engagement with shared resources, services and toolsets by a range of stakeholders, not just those who operate in isolated pockets.

This all needs clear planning with key stakeholders, with a clear rationale developed for any link with Microsoft, Google or whoever, which is based around institutional need and an institutional blueprint. Managers need to know for what issue(s) outsourcing is a solution – a technology or service or organisational change or cost saving? Why this technology and why now? What are the dis-benefits?

The implementation of, for instance, gmail is not neutral. It opens up possibilities for new technological developments. Those developments are also not neutral – they impact the management of identities, services, staffing, organisation, processes, data etc. at a range of levels, from the personal to the institutional. Some of these issues are raised by the JISC Legal Tutor Guide to Web 2.0, and again impact this debate.

Now it may well be that Google supplies solution for some of the things for which Universities need social media. I use Google services both personally and to manage the information/communication needs of a Homeless Hostel for which I am a Trustee, and I am very happy to do so. However, our Trustees have risk assessed this decision in terms of our data and resources, their management and the critical nature of our work. I see merit in an affiliation with for example Microsoft or Google, in terms of personalisation, scale and flexibility. However, there are huge cultural, curricula and working ramifications in any proposal to outsource an element of local practice to such an organisation. This is, I believe, a risky strategy that needs proper deliberation, so that institutions are not just pawns in on-going business battles.


Social media mores and cultures, and the role of higher education


Posted by hallymk1

*Originally posted at Learning Exchanges on 27 August 2009

Two “events” have crossed my radar in the last week that have made me think about educators’ responsibilities for enabling a good-enough socialisation of students as they enter higher education. This is critical given the importance of HE for developing independent, associational and deliberative decision-making and actions by students, and also given the proximity of the start-of-term.

1. @Aggerscricket vs Will Buckley

This summer’s coverage of The Ashes [bear with me – I’ll get to the point] saw a growth in the use of Twitter, either by punters tweeting using the #ashes hashtag or by following commentators like Jonathan Agnew [@Aggerscricket] or David Lloyd [@bumblecricket] or cricketers like Graeme Swann [@swannyg66]. This enabled cricket lovers to keep in-touch with both information, in terms of what was going on at each test match, and expert opinion, alongside framing communication around specific issues.

One outcome was an emerging conversation between songstress Lily Allen and Agnew that ended with a discussion on Test Match Special on Radio 4/5Live Sports Extra during lunch on the Saturday of the final, Oval Test match. At least it would have ended there, had Will Buckley not written a piece in The Observer that stated that Agnew’s relationship with Allen had appeared “pervy”. Agnew subsequently used Twitter to “out” Buckley and to get the apology he wanted, levered through the power of the crowd, which commented on Buckley’s piece [usefully using the fact that “Comment is Free” in The Guardian and The Observer] and used email to pressure The Observer Sports Editor. Agnew declared: “What an eye-opener this has been for all… to the power of new media. It is here and will change the way news is responded to, in particular. This showed what twitter can do.”

The message: firstly, don’t print spiteful things, think about whether what you have to say is kind, true and necessary; secondly, social media is a powerful tool for engaging users – why and how it is used is morphing, and this has implications for socialisation, deliberation and our cultures.

2. Inappropriate use of Facebook and Twitter

A *news* item came across my desk that focused my thinking about privacy issues in social media. It concerned a new sexual relationship between two *friends* on Facebook. Details ended up on each other’s Facebook walls, which was then screen-captured by a mutual *friend* and went viral via Twitter. One of the couple felt ashamed that these statements were public within a localised friendship group, let alone the mortification that would follow when it went worldwide. This person did not understand how the wall worked or how privacy settings in Facebook work.

The item arrived on my Twitter feed, with one of those who re-tweeted it stating to me that “I thought it was funny; and I saw that it had just gone up on Digg ”, the implication being that others were forwarding it anyway so he might as well do so. What a mean, thoughtless and salacious response this was. My discomfort in this approach was matched by a fellow Twitterer who noted “everyone else was doing it? Seriously? You think that’s an excuse? Cliff. Jump. Would. You?”

The message: firstly, do you really have to print or forward spiteful things? Think about whether what you have to say is kind, true and necessary; secondly, how individuals engage with rules and settings, and cultural norms within social media matter. Whether we like it or not some users need and deserve our help and common humanity.

These two issues have implications for our approach to socialisation in HE. New students, many of them unsure of their place in the world, are coming into a very different, independent-yet-networked learning space, from those which they are used to. Part of the role of HE should be to engage these users in a discussion around the ways in which social media can be used and about how they can ensure their own safety. In part, this connects into the broader debate about the death of the VLE and the rise of the PLE. My own take on this is that whilst a radical manifesto that supports personalisation is needed for developing pedagogies for HE that are fit-for-purpose, we need to help our learners make good-enough decisions about tools, rules, signal-processing and approaches. This may involve structuring and closing down some learning in contexts within which they can free-range, but it also involves negotiating with them shared rules of engagement.

Defined environments for learning, built around or including a VLE or PLE, are unique to each learner based on their learning aims. These environments are fused from personal associations that are both formal and informal, and that use social media to process rule-based signals into action. Illich rightly argued that education was owned by an individual when s/he became a self-aware actor, and he also argued that the questions individuals are empowered to ask coupled to the socio-technical tools available to them, supports her/his personal emancipation. Social media, in whatever form, afford tools for encouraging individuals to associate with each other in contexts that support doing, questioning and re-conceptualising. However, this is risky because we have to make decisions about how we and our data are used and represented on-line.

HE ought to be a space in which norms, rules and cultures can be discussed safely, in order that co-operation and emancipation are enabled. This is important because HE has a duty to help make the world a better place.


Forget the technology and focus on the human


Posted by hallymk1

*Originally posted at Learning Exchanges on 2 September 2009

I recently commented on the work of the 52 Group on post-digital futures. They argued that “We are moving towards a postdigital age where the tools driven by the microprocessor are common to the extent to which they will no longer be noticed”. This aligns with the view of Russell Davies that: “There are a lot of people around now who have thoroughly integrated ‘digitalness’ into their lives. To the extent that it makes as much sense to define them as digital as it does to define them as air-breathing. ie it’s true but not useful or interesting.” As educators, learning technologists, managers, our hang-ups about tools and technologies, trends and horizons, risk deflecting us from meaningful conversations about learning and teaching, and personal/social empowerment.

In fact, conversations about people, communities, associations and outcomes ought to be central to our discussions around the role of higher education. Technology should only ever be secondary. It is unfortunate that, according to the 52 Group, “the speed of the change [to a digital, Web 2.0 world] has left us with the mistaken belief that social change was somehow ‘created’ by the digital rather than simply played out on a the canvas of the digital.” This is important because digital and analogue tools offer possibilities to focus conversations around issues like: agency; emancipation; involvement; enterprise; and democracy. The key is integration into user-defined environments with a focus on the human.

We need to open up a space for deliberation around a vision for HE, in terms of what our institutions stand for and what our curricula look like. From there we can begin conversations about the processes, procedures, technologies, organisation and information that we need to support that vision. Educational technologists and practitioners need to shift the discussion away from tools towards the types of learning/pedagogic spaces that are good-enough to help staff and students make appropriate decisions and take action.

An element of this deliberation is the extent to which students and their/our perceptions of technologies should be driving the agenda. It can be argued that students and technologies are too fleeting and transient in their lifecycle/existence within HE to drive decision-making about sustainability agendas or effective pedagogic practice. They are important indicators of possibility within a system [HEI], but they offer much short-term variation and uncertainty within that system [HEI]. Decisions should be made about technologies, services etc., in order to manage uncertainty as it trends, but not to second-guess its management based on immediate whim.

Balance in the system demands that we align meaningful data from both students and technological horizon-scanning, with the strategic role of HEIs, and their visions, cultures, subjects and staff. The latter are more grounded and secure in anchoring institutional planning for sustainability and capability-building than either the latest technology trend or the technological expectations of current students. HEIs need conversations with students about practices, in order to empower those students to negotiate decisions about technologies as one strand of a conversation with staff about their curriculum. We risk skewing the debate over the purpose and future of HE if we base strategy and implementation either on the primary authority of the student as service user/client [validated by the NSS], or on reductionist/populist technological solutions, neither of which can anchor deliberation.

One risk is that a prevalent or dominant view of technology, in terms of what is and isn’t *enabled*, is validated above wider academic ownership and innovation. We also risk focusing on the shiny and the new, or what’s just over the horizon, rather than thinking about how trends can be embedded within an enabling environment, in order to offer flexibility going forward. Rather than a contested PLE-VLE debate, which fetishises tools and services, we desperately need to re-focus our thinking on developing both curricula and a vision for HE with staff and students, that are fit-for-purpose beyond 2010. As a result we may ditch the digital to debate the implications of a post-digital view.


Technology-enhanced learning: the emergence of ideology?


Posted by hallymk1

*Originally posted at Learning Exchanges on 9 September 2009

ALT-C 2009 is billed as “in dreams begins responsibility”. The first day got me thinking about responsibility linked to rights and roles within a shared value system. This was amplified by the main messages that I took from Michael Wesch‘s keynote. Wesch highlighted the work of Charles Taylor on The Ethics of Authenticity and the emergence:

  1. of self-centred modes of self-fulfillment; and
  2. of the apparent negation of all horizons of significance.

Wesch went on to note that these two outcomes of late modernity led to disengagement and fragmentation amongst the citizenry, with individuals flocking together over specific issues rather than aggregating in persistent blocks.

This view of flocking for a purpose maps onto public policy research into associational democracy, where deliberation over issues occurs within and across associations of apparently fragmented people or groups,  and where affiliation may become a powerful connector. The work of Bauman on liquid modernity and Barnett on the need to rethink the relationship between the institution and the individual informs this complexity of this debate, as fragmentation and disengagement loom.

This view of 21st century HE is messy and complex. It aligns with both the DEMOS report on The Edgeless University, which suggests that Universities have to rethink their roles, values, and purposes, including their affiliations, and the recent SOMUL working papers, which develop the concept of parallel universities existing within the same physical and virtual space. To reiterate, the headlines here are: that managing and living within 21st century HE is messy and complex; that our working roles are messy and complex; and, that our responsibilities are messy and complex.

Wesch went on to talk about his teaching and learning strategy trying to overcome a “participation gap” between his students and his curriculum, and therefore him. The value I take from this is the power of relationships that enable learners to define themselves. New media are important because they offer the opportunity to build new relationships and ways of working, and thereby, in Barnett’s terms, to become themselves as an agent in the world. This is crucial because it aligns with the work of Winnicott on the value to the individual of an enabling environment where s/he can be held whilst making sense of the world. This act of holding is based on trust and engagement within a secure space, that is engaging and not fragmented. Both the environment and the relationships have to be good-enough to enable the individual to make sense of themselves and what they feel and want to achieve.

This is important beyond ALTC 2009 because the responsibility is for individuals at all levels within an institution, or a society, or an association, to be good-enough in their relationships to enable others to decide and act, within a set, or sets, of shared values. This accepts a range of desires, hopes, confidences, expertise etc across an institution, with that institution able to hold the individual whilst s/he makes sense of her/his place in it.

The institution’s ability to hold its associates, affiliates, staff, students etc. is tricky. However, this demands that it configures its services, technologies, information, policies around a vision of what it stands for and what it intends to do in the world. All other conversations are secondary to this, even if every university is trying to do and stand for the same thing. We still need a set of ideas that we are responsible for and can take action around. In short we need an ideology for HE, in an age when we allegedly run the risks of disengagement and fragmentation that atomise our needs and experiences.

The impacts debates for learning technologists, or e-learning co-ordinators, or heads of technology-enhanced learning because these people have the responsibility to enfranchise those they support in-line with a meaningful vision. All else, from discussions of progressive pedagogies to the technologies that support them, from how to frame enabling contexts for learning to the information we need to make decisions and the policies that are in place to govern those decisions, is secondary. In fact the clear danger is that with no ideology we become reductionist in our view of technologies, and that we predetermine the tools we will prioritise and sell based on personal whim or fragmented context. The allied danger is that we are determinist about why this tool works and that one does not. This carries over into the discussion over VLE-PLE where concepts like marginalisation, participation, democracy emerge but are not deliberated. We then risk the twin dangers:

  1. that we declare the PLE to be democratic and inclusive without assessing whether it disempowers some people, and the VLE to be controlling without appraising how it enables. One risk is technological dogma; and
  2. that we negate the very flexibility to which we claim to aspire because we close down certain avenues.

In fact, it may be that technologies are both transient and transitional in their use within and beyond curricula, for individuals and groups, as they gain and lose utility. A tool or toolset is useful where it enables me to achieve something in a specific time and increase my self-awareness and move on. However, the lack of proper deliberation over values, ideas and ideologies damages our debates over responsibility.

Technologies then amplify other more critical issues around:

  1. ideology and what we stand for;and
  2. power and control.

Technology changes nothing without a reappraisal of the “why” of HE. The responsibility of learning technologists or educational developers or heads of technology-enhanced learning is to work with senior managers on their vision for their institution, and to align technologies to that vision. Otherwise all we do is chase the next new tool or toy or trend, whilst perpetuating the mythology that innovation is stifled by large institutions and their administrators and that we are somehow better placed if we are counter-cultural.

A central element of this is to engage with Wesch’s view of the flock, and the development of a new localism that aligns tools and approaches to the needs of local communities or associations of practice. These local groups might be module teams or programme cohorts, or networks of e-learning champions, or departmental staff or faculties. An institutional ideology that enables localism augments the view of parallel universities, and of the local needs that so often pervade devolved institutions. In turn this demands flexibility in the deployment of technologies and our engagement with staff or communities of practice. Managing this flexibility demands that those responsible for technology-enhanced learning ask why, rather than how, and begin a deliberation around the ideologies they are confronting or supporting or enabling.


Thinking about 2015: some issues for HE and EdTech


Posted by hallymk1

*Originally posted at Learning Exchanges on 16 October 2009

I heard the excellent and inspiring Keri Facer at a JISC Curriculum Design and Delivery Programme event on Wednesday. There were three areas that made me sit up and think.

The pre-HE learner and their context

Keri described some recent work on the pre-HE learner and their context that is highlighting:

  • the impact of ”play” in its many forms;
  • the cultural context outside school, and the role of mentors or coaches rather than experts, who can engage learners individually or as members of social groups in developing their engagement with digital technologies in order to adapt it to their needs; and
  • sources of frustration, lack of skills and lack of opportunity that separate many other learners from the benefits of the same new technologies.

Keri went on to discuss an *idealised* view of children born in 1997, who would enter HE in 2015. She argued that the value of schools often existed in their ability to offer spaces that develop maths and critical literacy/evaluation, alongside safety, routine etc.. She also raised the issue of children having dual identities, between home/personal and school/performance/delivery. However, schools offer technology that is not the same as home technology, reflecting the fact that in the debate around personalisation and curriculum design and delivery, disconnections or dislocations might be amplified.

This may also be impacted by socio-economic differences, social justice and inclusion agendas. What does it say about our society if children and learners of any age or background get left behind? We do well to reflect on that term “left behind” because it points towards abandonment.

A recent summary of OfSTED reports on the importance of ICT noted that pupils’ achievement in ICT was good in over half Primary Schools, but that children in secondary schools were not being stretched; rather a consolidation of skills was the norm. Whether further collaboration between schools and pupils, in distributing the development of personalisation and engagement with ICT would shake things up to develop higher-level evaluative skills, is a moot point. This does have implications for learners entering HE.

However, the development of skills that frame agency, autonomy and decision-making is perhaps more pressing give the availability of alternative models for information gathering and *schooling*, like 5min.com, 12sec.tv, school of everything, home-schooling and Steiner education. The value given by coaches, mentors and teachers is now vital throughout life. Keri pointed to the huge demographic changes that are shifting towards an older and longer-lived population. At issue here is how a homogenised view of a Google generation within institutions tallies with a demand for later-life education, and intergenerational learning, and a focus on personalisation. These tensions then need to be squared with the implications of social learning.

A curriculum for human-machine relations, and a focus on the Self

One intriguing point Keri raised was our need to get used to working and living alongside machines, and outsourcing some activities to machines. She mentioned “a curriculum for human-machine relations”, and this got me thinking about a mash-up between Asimov’s 3 Laws of Robotics to provide governance and an approach for developing an integrated, educating self. I argue for the latter because one thing that Web 2.0 or the read/write web screams at me is who am I? What do I stand for? Who is my Self?

I need to do more work integrating Bloom and Winnicott with Illich, Wenger and Barnett, in order to make sense of this for my Self. In part this is because we have the opportunity [which might also be a risk over overload and #brainfail] to know more stuff about more stuff. The key is integrating this stuff within a secure self, as well as within a secure space. This becomes more resonant for me in the context of discussions around the development of a personal cloud. I interpret this to be a space, context or frame-of-reference that enables the learner to exist, learn, be and do. It is organised around the learner and not the HEI/organisation. A secure Self can then engage with this development. How do our curricula enable this to emerge?

Challenging economic narratives

Keri’s final point focussed upon addressing the challenges to the education and knowledge economy narrative. She highlighted how a polarisation of workforces may be in-train, with high and low-skilled workers and outsourced systems/services impacting the ability of specific individuals and groups to develop autonomy and make decisions. Keri asked “how does education respond”? This made me think about the value of education beyond the economy and beyond the formal economy – to focus upon collaboration and local social engagement, and demonstrating values of social enterprise.

She left us with 3 big questions that all JISC projects need to grapple with. Moreover, we need some collective aggregation of the outputs of our projects to see whether there are ways forward for the sector in addressing them.

  1. What sorts of relationships between people are we encouraging? What are our negotiated roles/responsibilities in a differentiated curriculum and beyond? Should we migrate our focus to coaching and mentoring? Who gets left behind if we do?
  2. What sorts of knowledge/understanding do these learners need to be effective agents in society?
  3. Can the curriculum work for a mixed demographic, with some networked, mobile learners, operating in information-rich environments and preparing for highly-polarised workplaces? If not how do we respond?

Towards a resilient curriculum for HE


Posted by hallymk1

*Originally posted at Learning Exchanges on 8 December 2009

Preamble

In his recent blog posting on Oil and the story of energy, Joss Winn highlighted the work of David Mackay and his Five Energy Plans for Britain. Joss argued that two factors will squeeze our society as we manage the transition from oil to other energy sources, in any peak oil scenario.

  1. How long it will take to replace our current oil-based global energy infrastructure with something we think is a viable alternative. Joss quoted Robert Hirsch, who in 2005 stated “The peaking of world oil production presents the U.S. and the world with an unprecedented risk management problem.” Hirsch highlighted price volatility linked to unprecedented economic, social, and political costs, with “Viable mitigation options” needing to be implemented “more than a decade in advance of peaking.” Do we have the will for this?
  2. The net energy that can be extracted from other sources of energy, such as nuclear, solar and wind both as a direct replacement to “keep the home fires burning”, and as a composite used in the manufacture of plastics, fertiliser, medicines, rubber, asphalt and other useful products. As a replacement for oil in products other than fuel, nuclear, wind, solar, etc. are not viable. Can we contemplate this as we frame ourselves around the consumption of more systems, services and technologies?

Disruptions to economic norms, to the climate and our carbon-related consumption and energy security provide a counter-point to the determinism of always-on energy and technology use. So we have a scenario where falling energy supplies exacerbates issues around energy security, availability and cost, but also where availability of oil for manufacturing goods that support services and lifestyles upon which we have based our cultures may not be viable. One impact may be on the availability, use and supply of non-essentials like new technology, especially where hoarding or use only for essential activities becomes the norm.

How soon these issues will impact is a moot point. Whether a peak oil, energy-scarce model, or a techno-determinist, economic-growth position, or a scenario that lies somewhere in between, comes to pass, the lives that we live in 2030 seem likely to be framed by uncertainty. So how does this square with the curriculum in HE and the idea of the University? Can a focus on resilience help?

Towards a resilient curriculum? Determinism and technology

In Searching for a Miracle, Richard Heinberg notes “Over the long run, static or falling energy supplies must be reflected in economic stasis or contraction”. This is critical in thinking about the development of a resilient curriculum in HE. At present the dominant HE ideology is neo-liberal and driven by consumerist models. There have been Ideas of the University proposed that are more socially and culturally constructed, and which focus upon the University as spaces where reflexivity and enlightenment are valued. However, their ability to gain traction in a competitive educational market that is focused less on social enterprise and more on market economics is problematic.

This then impacts on the development of curricula that enable a learner to manage disruption and uncertainty like a transition to a post-peak oil scenario. At present, innovations in curriculum design and delivery are technology-driven and assume that the dominant discourse of energy availability and increased energy use will continue. Other major curriculum development strategies, like employer engagement and workforce development, and widening participation, are also focused on employability and the economy, and upon developing the individual’s economic value. This is echoed in the value attributed to technology-enhanced learning, or on-line learning/training, in the Government’s policy and is amplified through the current HEFCE online learning taskforce.

This deterministic, positivist, progressive approach demands that energy use is not only maintained but increased, if only in order to pay off the UK’s huge national debt. Not increasing energy use, even if we are expected to make significant cuts in carbon emissions, is not an option in economic recovery. However, in the peak oil scenario painted by Joss, it is difficult to see how this focus on always-on energy can remain unchallenged in the medium-term.

The value of “always-on” technology then frames the provision of services, which are increasingly outsourced. As Keri Facer has noted, developmental technological processes have catalysed core functions or services being outsourced away from the individual and towards machines or data-processors. A classic example is the use of SatNavs rather than maps, and the use of search engines for pretty much everything. This is not to say that, for example, the Geographical Information Systems implemented within HE leave GIS students de-skilled, but there may be a reliance or even dependence upon specific forms of technology and on using those technologies for specific tasks. Any dependence on always-on services within our curricula and within life more generally is a risk.

This dependency on tools and services underpinned by oil is possibly the most concerning in any peak oil scenario. A focus upon energy efficiency and intelligent technology moves us away from scenario-planning around the development of a meaningful curriculum for resilience. For instance, the latest JISC Strategy is economically-framed and paints a scenario where energy security and availability, and the increased manufacture of technologies are not at issue:

“The UK is at risk of losing its world-leading reputation for education, unless it continues to invest in digital technologies to meet the ever-changing needs of modern learners, researchers and the academic community… The strategy outlines a vision of the future whereby a robust technological infrastructure is required to meet the shifting needs of the 21st century education community. JISC believes it is crucial that the UKs education system continues to compete on the international stage by investing in innovation, research and increasing the availability of online resources.”

A key statement in this Strategy is “the ever-changing needs of modern learners”. This relentless, restless, dynamic picture is not energy-neutral, it implies constant curriculum re-definition and re-design, and the availability of renewed, always-on technologies. My concern in a world of uncertainties like peak oil is whether we are doing enough to prepare learners for the fact that this may not always be the case, and that they may need to master different tools and skills.

The case of Illich: tools for conviviality

In developing mastery, the Russian thinker Ivan Illich questioned the extent to which institutions, curricula and technologies (de-)humanise. In Tools for Conviviality he prioritised the use of tools for “autonomous and creative intercourse among persons, and the intercourse of persons with their environment”. In part this catalyses social learning through the development of learning webs. In part it focuses upon the place and role of the individual in her/his communities. Illich’s view of autonomy and creativity framed a counterpoint to a dominant consumerist paradigm, in which individual relationships are mediated though consumption, and towards a focus upon shared resources and skills and more community-driven interdependence.

This focus upon the use of tools to redefine our approaches to socio-cultural, and economic, engagement, enables meaningful personalisation and a diversification of skills. Illich argued that “A pluralism of limited tools and of convivial commonweals would of necessity encourage a diversity of life styles.” This view of diversity and commonweals or communities defining needs and using shared skills is interesting in light of the types of literacies flagged in the Learning Literacies for the Digital Age project. The project final report (p.3) highlighted the urgency of supporting a differentiation of identities and engagements in multiple spaces:

“there is a tension between recognising an ‘entitlement’ to basic digital literacy, and recognising technology practice as diverse and constitutive of personal identity, including identity in different peer, subject and workplace communities, and individual styles of participation.”

Illich saw this as critical and believed that a “convivial society should be designed to allow all its members the most autonomous action by means of tools least controlled by others”, in order to overcome regimentation, dependence, exploitation, and impotence. He saw tools as mediating relationships, and as emancipatory where mastery of them in a specific context could be achieved. The LLiDA project report contextualises this for the digital age (p. 7): “Literacies emerge through authentic, well-designed tasks in meaningful contexts”. So the nature of the curriculum and the learner’s engagement with it is key in developing their resilience. The types of literacies involved/developed/modelled involve foundational skills, cultural awareness, communicative practices, practice-based action, self-transformation and self-awareness. In this, authenticity and participation shine through (p. 9). So what might this mean for a curriculum for resilience in HE?

A curriculum for resilience in HE

In an earlier post on the issue of resilience in HE, I wrote that

“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.”

There is a complex interplay between the theoretical opportunities of social media for personal emancipation through engagement in contexts for narrative and authorship, and our understanding of how those tools are deployed and owned in reality (See the issues raised in the special social media issue of JCAL from January 2009 on social media). One key issue is how technologies are (re)claimed by users and communities within specific contexts and curricula, in-line with personal integration and enquiry, and in an uncertain world.

It is perhaps this focus upon uncertainty that should drive the creation of a resilient curriculum. Barnett argues, in a Will to Learn, for the learner’s engagement with uncertainty and anxiety, and he re-frames this around spaces for an individual’s will to develop, and in which they can be and become in a meaningful way. The key is engendering reflexivity in an authentic context. In light of this, peak oil, climate change, energy scarcity, economic disruption all demand different approaches to existing, surviving and thriving.

So some emergent questions for the curriculum are as follows.

  1. What sorts of literacies of resilience do people as social agents need, and what is HE’s role in framing them?
  2. What sorts of relationships enable these resilient literacies and modes of being to emerge?
  3. What sorts of knowledge/understanding do these learners need to be effective agents in society?
  4. Are our traditional modes of designing and delivering curricula meaningful or relevant?

So we begin to think about how to frame a curriculum that enables individuals-in-communities to learn and adapt, to mitigate risks, to prepare for solutions to problems, to respond to risks that are realised, and to recover from dislocations. This demands curricula that may be:

  • authentic and meaningful, framed by decision-making and agency;
  • enquiry-based, in which skills, approaches, decisions and actions are developed and tested in real-world situations that demonstrate complexity and context;
  • cross-disciplinary, and linked to a guild or craft-style experience rather than a Fordist, factory approach;
  • negotiated in scope, governance and delivery within authentic, rather than false, communities;
  • accredited through the specification of expertise and experience developed within real-world processes and outcomes;
  • framed by mentoring and coaching; and
  • focused upon co-governance, rather than co-creation.

In thinking through the qualities of a resilient, differentiated curriculum, I am minded of the specific outcomes from four curriculum interventions at DMU.

  1. Framing programme, rather than module-level, communities of practice in Game Art Design. Finding spaces and technologies that enable co-governance of projects and co-creation for project deliverables, in negotiation with tutors and a wider, industrial community, supports the implementation of authentic outcomes. It enables innovation and risk and responsibility through mentoring. Personal ownership within a negotiated social space is critical.
  2. The fusion of affective and cognitive approaches to learning in first-year History, where learning logs focus upon the development of the student-as-person, hinging around evaluations of summative performance. The role of learning logs and reflection on action in enabling student to become themselves, as resilient performers and agents is key. This fusion frames the integration of affective and cognitive learning.
  3. The development of story-telling and therapeutic relationships between more experienced peer-mentors and their mentees, re-defines who has power to help and nurture in HE. These relationships demonstrate the power of dialogue in developing motivation, self-efficacy and problem-solving within and beyond the curriculum.
  4. The development of a UCPD in work-based learning for Placement students in Pharmaceutical and Cosmetic Sciences begins to value explicitly the reflection on the application of theory-in-practice, within a different learning context. A different approach to accreditation, valuing the affective and the reflective in a hard, experimental, scientific space, using industrial and academic supervisors as coaches is central.

These are not revolutionary in scope. However, I am interested in how a resilient curriculum might focus upon social enterprise, not in a return to localism, but in enabling solutions and responses within specific communities. The Cabinet Office notes that social enterprises are “businesses with primarily social objectives whose surpluses are principally reinvested for that purpose in the business or in the community, rather than being driven by the need to maximise profit for shareholders and owners.” This definition enables social enterprises to define and catalyse projects that are community-oriented, inclusive, negotiated, and enquiry-focused.

So I am interested in how a new, first-year Historian at DMU might work with her/his tutors and more experienced peers, and also with students in other disciplines, to define projects within specific communities in Leicester or the East Midlands or nationally or internationally. These projects might focus upon contextualising specific community issues and framing development or renewal projects, in terms of different histories, and might subsequently involve decision-making and negotiation with other agencies [NGOs, Government, business], in order to take authentic action. This may involve work with media production or journalism students on communication, and with those involved in social care on engaging and representing the user voice in decision-making. It prioritises an integrated and social, rather than a subject-drive, approach to processes and solutions, and it respects the different skills and aspirations that individuals-in-communities offer. It also prioritises meaningful and developmental agency.

A key in building resilience is engaging with uncertainty through projects that involve diverse voices in civil action. Clearly discourses of power will impact the values we place on certain skills, and upon our negotiating positions, and upon the nature of the projects that should be undertaken. A role for HE curricula is framing an understanding of these discourses and the contexts in which they emerge so that they can be challenged, and so that co-governance as well as co-creation is enabled and tested. In a world of increasing uncertainty, where peak oil threatens our approach to always-on technology and connection, engaging the individual in authentic partnerships, mentoring and enquiry, and in the processes of community and social governance is central.

Postscript

@Fulup has blogged about Peak Oil and Digital Preservation, and the hard decision that will need to be made in a world of scarcity. Scarcity of energy will impact availability of: digital resources; always-on services;  capacity for and scheduling of  high-end processes; out-sourced technologies/services. Such availability will impact the skills and capabilities of our learners, and their contextual decisions and actions.

A key question for the HE curriculum in the 21st century is whether it needs to address scarcity, and the possibility that the always-on access to services, networks and technologies that it promises is not viable. Do HE managers have appropriate risk/disaster management plans available? So much of our curriculum infrastructure is tied to oil and plentiful energy. So much of our curriculum design and delivery discourse is about personalisation in an always-on world. Are we helping our learners to exist in authentic, social communities and spaces where the switch may be turned off?


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.


Scoping the relationships between social media and open education in the development of a resilient higher education


Posted by hallymk1

*Originally posted at Learning Exchanges on 14 June 2010

With Joss Winn, I have had a paper accepted for the Open Education 2010 conference. This paper begins to open up a space for us to discuss some of the revolutionary possibilities for open education, linked to the production and sharing of socially-useful open educational resources, upon what we might term the academic-social commons. I am pleased to note that the University of Utopia have also had a paper accepted on Opening Education beyond the property relation: from commons to communism. I can feel the unease and shifting in seats at the mention of the ‘c’ word. However, the UoU’s focus is political, based upon a discussion of openness in production and sharing as a site of resistance to individual alienation. The key is to develop a “critical social theory on which to build a really open society”.

Joss and my paper connects into these ideas of the political economy of openness to ask whether open education, or approaches to the production of open educational resources, can enable learners in higher education to overcome disruption. In engaging with this issue I have been reminded of my historical research into the place of commons, commoners and communities in the political world of the early eighteenth century, with a case study of Yorkshire electioneering.

In this, work on common right, enclosure and social change is important because common usage/sharing of resources was a form of social, and potentially political cement within and across communities, based upon local custom and which added to the difficulties and differences of political control. At this time, the commons were crucial for rearing sheep, oxen, horse and pigs, as well as providing thatch, bricks, and sundry extras which bolstered the local economy. Moreover, if the commons were crucial to the psychological and personal well-being of the individual and the community, then its defence was all-important no matter whom the attacker. The commons gave the individual and the community a chance to live of their own and to survive a dearth. They also gave the chance to have an economic independence that underpinned political autonomy.

I view the open education project in a similar light, as giving individuals-in-community a chance to share and to resist dominant and domineering discourses, notably around economic growth and the subservience of higher education’s social values and relationships to the invisible hand of the market. Perhaps its most important role is psychological, as the manufacture and sharing of resources for socially useful ends frames well-being and purposeful living.

Anyway, details of our paper follow…

140-character abstract

HE faces complex disruptions. Can open education and social media enable individuals-in-communities to develop resilience and overcome dislocation?

Proposal

Higher Education faces complex disruptions, from the growing threat of peak oil (The Oil Drum, 2010) and the impact that will have on our ability to consume/produce (Natural Environment Research Council, 2009), and from our need to own the carbon and energy we emit/use, in order to combat climate change. These problems are being amplified by energy availability and costs (The Guardian, 2009), public sector debt and the effects of a zero growth economy (new economics foundation, 2010).

One focus for response is the use of technology and its impact upon approaches to open education, in developing resilience. The Horizon Report 2010 (New Media Consortium, 2010) highlights the importance of openness but argues that learning and teaching practices need to be seen in light of civic engagement and complexity. Facer and Sandford (2010) ask critical questions of inevitable and universal futures, focused upon always-on technology, and participative, inclusive, democratic change. There is an ethical imperative to discuss the impacts of our use of technology on our wider communities and environment, and to define possible solutions.

Educational technology might be used to address some of these issues through the development of shared, humane values that are amplified by specific qualities of open education, including: relationships and power; anxiety and hope; and social enterprise and community-up provision. These areas are impacted by resilience, which is socially- and environmentally-situated, and 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 (Hopkins, 2009). This focuses upon defining problems and framing solutions contextually, around our abilities to develop adaptability to work virally and in ways that are open source and self-reliant. This means working at appropriate scale to take civil action, through diversity, modularity and feedback within communities.

The key for any debate on resilience linked to open education is in defining a curriculum that requires institutions to become less managerial and more open to the formation of devolved social enterprises. This demands the encouragement of what Gramsci (1971) called organic intellectuals, who can emerge from within communities to lead action. Learners and tutors may emerge as such organic intellectuals, working openly with communities in light of disruption. An important element here is what Davis (2007) terms “democratic ‘co-governance’” within civil action, but which might usefully be applied to education, in the form of co-governance of educational outputs. One key issue is how open education is (re)claimed by users and communities within specific contexts and curricula, in-line with personal integration and enquiry, within an uncertain world (Futurelab, 2009).

The following questions emerge, catalysed by open education.
1. What sorts of literacies of resilience do people as social agents need?

2. What sorts of knowledge/understanding do these learners need to be effective agents in society?

3. Are our extant modes of designing and delivering curricula meaningful or relevant?

This paper will address these questions by examining whether open education can enable individuals-in-communities to recover from dislocations.

References

The Oil Drum 2010. http://www.theoildrum.com/


Inclusion, social relations and theory: issues in mobile learning


Posted by hallymk1

*Originally posted at Learning Exchanges on 16 June 2010.

I had a great day on Tuesday at Mark Power’s Jisc CETIS mobile learning symposium. Mark has uploaded the presentations from the day to the wiki via a slideshare link, including Tim Linsey and mine on our Mobilising Remote Student Engagement project. There is also an overview of issues posted by Paul Richardson from RSC Wales.

Thinking about our presentation I raised 4 matters arising.

  1. The importance of transitional engagements and activities, in managing students’ migration into remote working, either in fieldwork or placements, from the academic environment. These remote spaces might be group-based or individual, and as such transitional moments need to address socialisation, engagement with technology, and the nature of doing, being and becoming at a distance. The role of students as more experienced others or mentors, in leading and framing transitional activities is critical, as is the role of employers and supervisors. Crucial here is the way in which mobile technology, coupled to social media can enhance respectful partnerships.
  2. The importance of recognising that not everyone is working at the leading-edge of the technology curve, and that many students do not have cutting-edge technology. Clearly where they have such kit, learners need support in making academic/practice-based sense of it. However, there is substantial research on the digital divide between rich and poor, and a serious concern that moves to give free computers and broadband access to low income families under, for example, the Home Access scheme will be cut by the current Government. Those of us who work with leading-edge technology need to consider the impact of poverty and inequality, and how we plan for those who do not have such access, so that they are not left behind. In this way an obsession with the new, as a commodity to fetishise, risks leaving the economically and pedagogically vulnerable behind. I wonder whether a focus on a core set of technologies alongside specific approaches to content and communication delivery, rather than an obsession with chasing specific kit, is more beneficial. So the mobile becomes a strand in curriculum delivery, to which staff/student engagement/development is geared, but not its centre.
  3. The importance of mentors. There is lots of work on mentoring and the engagement of more experienced others in doing/shaping the curriculum. The MoRSE project encourages a process of engaging the values and understandings of those who have already been on placement and fieldtrips, in the process of socialisation, in utilising technology, in planning task-work, in capturing and analysing detail, and in reflecting on practice.
  4. The value of doing and acting. One of the key elements of fieldwork and placements is work or activity – in a very clear way, taking action in the world. As part of a critical pedagogy this helps us move towards the learner as an active partner in shaping the world, in producing and critiquing the real-world. If individuals are to overcome disruption this is vital, and mobile learning has a powerful place in this approach, through framing opportunities for doing. How can this then be applied to non-vocational and non-practice based learners and programmes? What projects might historians or English learners be engaged in, in order to take action and make decisions? How might mobiles affect these strategies?

However, I was left with two issues from the day, wholly de-coupled from the specific mobile technology.

  • We need to theorise our positions around educational technology and within that mobile learning. The key question is not, “what is the business case for mobile learning”. If you are a programme/project manager the vision and the blueprint prime the business case, which is only ever a test of viability after, it has been decided that a project is the right thing to do [the why of an intervention]. The vision for the transformation of the organisation is key, NOT the business case. In this way the latter needs to be part of a broader programme mandate for technology-enhanced learning within the curriculum. However, if you are a critical pedagogue, where the power of pedagogy to change the world through social relationships and action is central, then a business case reduces education to commodity and should be resisted. The beauty of a engaging a theoretical position is that it enables the critique of evidence and positions taken around technology, and helps to counter overt techno-determinism, or the belief that technology is inherently and unquestioningly a good thing. Again techno-determinism, often based on weak evidence, leads us back to fetishisation. That isn’t say that that examples of how mobiles affect our lives are redundant, just that when we argue that they are “game-changing” we need to ask for whom, and at what expense. In terms of the latter I’m thinking about the velocity of our existence, and our commodification/exploitation, and the damage to our personal, social relations, exemplified in a post about “why I Returned My iPad“.
  • Linked to this more theoretical position is a need to evaluate technology meaningfully, without being drawn into a desperate need to demonstrate impact. Too often this is tied to business cases, and economic determinism. Research in the social sciences is notoriously problematic, and meaningful positions need to be taken up and contexts for research and development carefully articulated. The role of champions in this is key, as is the role of students as evaluators, and placing any study of mobile technology firmly within a critique of technology-enhanced learning and the curriculum as a whole. Scoping and shaping the curriculum as a process should be our aim, as should a move towards good-enough TEL provision. Where we are driven by impact, we are outcomes and growth-focused, and tend to make statements based on poor data/evaluation. A great example of the possible in educational technology research is the special edition [25(1)] of JCAL on social software from February 2009. The methodologies deployed highlight how complex our engagements with technology are, and how we need to avoid a focus on impact to speak about a process of engagement and development.

I guess for me a key element is seeing mobile tech as part of a broader approach to TEL, tied to professional development and student engagement, and that is what we are hoping to achieve at DMU through our programme of work. That said I encourage you to critique the presentations at Mark’s excellent event on Tuesday, and to check out the #jisccetis tweets.


Learning Technology as Tax or Enabler? Reflections on an ALT Policy Board meeting


Posted by hallymk1

*Originally posted at Learning Exchanges on 19 June 2010.

I went to the Association for Learning Technology Policy Board meeting at the LSE yesterday. The event was tagged with a focus on “Technology in Learning and Teaching. An Enabler or a Tax”, which was a pragmatic focus given our current fiscal concerns. It was also relevant given the current ideological attack on the public sector. This attack has been fore grounded elsewhere in relation to, for instance, pensions. It can also be seen in the general tenor of the current Administration’s approach to education through privatisation, and the increasing and uncontested role of private business in the delivery of learning opportunities.

The meeting itself left me equally frustrated and hopeful. Frustrated in that the discourse of the presentations was wholly uncritical and techno-determinist, presenting a world in which we could do more-for-less without evidencing how or why, or what the consequences would be for social or economic relations, or for those who are vulnerable. Hopeful in that the discussion at the close of the meeting offered some space for rejection of these deterministic positions.

Professor Dame Wendy Hall kicked off with a focus on the development of the web, and the move towards the semantic web, and she highlighted the profound changes that the social web had made. However, whilst she talked about the web linking people, at no point did she highlight what they were being linked for. It was as if the technology was an uncontested given, an uncritical, apolitical good, divorced from issues of social and political power, or equality of access. Moreover, there was no focus on the impact of technology on carbon emissions, or the impact on technology in HE of public sector cuts, and of peak oil or of projected energy costs.

As I reflected on the fact that we always seem to be chasing the front of the technological curve, a point highlighted by David Harvey as a key thread in the narrative and reality of capitalism, the question “what is it for?” was screaming at me. This was especially the case given the language that was used: “productivity”; “growth”; “doing more with less”;“mission critical strategic operation”;“change the way technology interacts with students in the learning process”;“leverage”;“technology-supported execution”;“growth”;“realign our working practices to maximise efficiency”. The discourse was around consumption, and learning technology being a driver and a realisation of that economic relationship. The focus was always outcome and never process, of commodification and not being.

This discourse of commodification and of uncontextualised redefinition of perceived educational success and failure was pushed to a ludicrous conclusion when one speaker argued that a 50 per cent pass rate at A-C at GCSE signalled systemic educational failure. We were told that “in the world of manufacturing” this would be unacceptable, and that the automated methods of efficiency demonstrated by, for instance, learndirect provided the solution in “driving quality up and driving effectiveness up”, whatever that means. The linking of innovation to outcomes-driven education, taking an automated and materialist approach to learning, with a focus on units of production and no recognition of the complexity of personal and educational backgrounds, was made uncritically. The discourse of the factory, of the taylorisation of education, leaves no space to deliberate what it is for beyond profit through efficiency. So what does do more-for-less actually mean?

The mantra that we were left with was that “more for less means doing things differently”. Differently did not mean asking whether our vision and our construction of what education was for was right or wrong, but that the ideology of economic growth through privatisation and factory-driven approaches was now the only game in town. What “more” actually equates to is never defined. More education? More outcomes? More profit? So the focus is on “the power technology” has for efficiency savings, rather than on the social power and agency of individuals; it is on “tutoring and not teaching”, and the de-skilling of teachers-as-mentors in the educational process; it is on flexibility and “learners as consumers”, with the very real risk that educationalists are complicit in a new reality of economic exploitation.

In a session on strategic leadership in HE, and the impact on technology, we were informed that the sector had to “grasp the opportunity of technology”, and that this would generate capacity for culture change through “smarter businesses”. Again there was no sense of what this change was for or how it would enable our values? The discourse of change was for economic growth in ignorance or in spite of major disruptions, rather than addressing our broader societal needs. Moreover, it is a very narrow view, focused on innovation at the leading-edge of the technology curve, because we are told that we need to “innovate about the business model”, and that in some unevidenced, ahistorical way we can realise a win-win of growth and inclusion.

There was no recognition shown that learning is a difficult and traumatic process, or that education should focus on equality. We were left with the view that technology, and the private sector’s involvement in it, is about equality of opportunity, with no sense that this further alienates and disempowers those who have no access to that opportunity. This then crystallises the objectification of those involved in the educational process through the mantra of “learning as consumption” or “learners as consumers”. The focus on data, on administration, on economic value, on innovation and growth, on efficiency, on more-for-less, amplifies an outcomes-obsessed, object-driven, alienating approach to higher education, with technology as a driver of this economic and determinist agenda.

The level of techno-determinism, of change, innovation, growth, chasing the next technology, efficiency, effectiveness, which apps we can sell, which OERs we can sell for “business gain”, needs to be resisted through a realisation of critical pedagogy focused on social relations. There is a morality at play here that is about more than money. The recent Centre for Alternative Technology report on a Vision for a Zero Carbon Britain by 2030 states clearly the need for us to recognise our “ethical responsibility” towards powering-down and de-carbonisation. With the threat of peak oil and energy costs, and the fact that three million children in the UK are below the poverty line, educationalists have a moral duty to reframe education and to act in society for democratic, inclusive ends. This means recognising the contested and critical nature of learning technology, rather than allowing it to be co-opted unopposed by those who wish to taylorise it.

So we need to ask more critical questions of our use of technology. What is it for? What power does it have to be socially, rather than economically transformative? How do we enact our social values, of generosity, trust, respect, co-operation, fidelity, through technology, rather than simply using it for economic growth and hiding behind the objectification of learners and learning? How do we enact an activist, scholarly society in order to challenge the dominant view of technology as a lever for growth, rather than equality? How do we resist these dominant models in our use of social media? In our development of learning communities? In our framing and delivery of the curriculum? In our actions in our communities and associations? In our contribution to institutional values, policies, practices and technologies?

I was left feeling hopeful because there was a sense that this was a political role for ALT. However, the 10 discussion points flagged as next steps for ALT were again heavy on a neoliberal economic agenda as being the accepted reality for UK HE, rather than seeing a possibility for resistance around a model of social justice. So, terms like “cost-effectively”, “the successful delivery of ‘Higher Ambitions’”; “modern learning”; “leverage”; all featured without any critique. It is this level of critique that must be central to our use of technology in HE. The recognition that this is a political project is critical, and is one that groups like the ALT Policy Board must address.