A colleague wanted to know how we could progress with the use of iTunesU at the University of Cumbria.

“I completely agree that we should be driving forward with these kinds of ideas while we have the enthusiasm in the Faculty to do it. But the article just goes to show the extent of international online competition already established – something I’m not sure we could, or should, directly compete with. So the question comes back to not ‘which technology?’ but what are our aims by moving towards a virtual campus? I think we have to focus on developing those programmes at UoC that are augmented by online but that are still meet our institutional aims and tap into what Cumbria has that no other University does. Wouldn’t it be nice to incorporate wifi throughout the lakes so that people could come on ‘learning escapes’! More realistically, it would be good to focus on online developments that enable greater flexibility for learners in local industry– e.g. like the work with GenII. But it has to be a white hot online performance – otherwise people will go elsewhere – this is where established tech like iTunesU might come in. In other words the rationale is to widen participation, not diversify provision. Thinking about it know, this is probably why the OU have been so successful – they were just widening participation of what they already did not trying to enter a new market. We need to work out how this technology benefits us in our market.”

A couple of sparks came out of this.

Firstly that you have ‘learning escapes’. Imagine if there were wifi hotspots throughout the Lake District – on campsites, near pubs, hotels… on top of the Gateway campuses in Ambleside, Barrow, Energus. People could take themselves to a beautiful place to engage with learning materials form the Universirty of Cumbria. Teams from industry could go for away days and deploy mobile training materials whilst out.

Secondly was the notion that at Cumbria we need to try to view the introduction of a virtual campus and access to online learning resources as a way to widen the participation in our current market. The OU and MIT have had success in leading the way with online learning because they have widened participation in a market that they were already strategically placed to target. At its inception, the University of Cumbria had a focus on ‘playing a prominent role in the growth of the regional economy and enhancing its skills base’. Perhaps we need to think about the difference between diversification of provision and widening participation. My preference is to focus on developing courses that meet our strategic aims and really utilise the uniqueness of UoC. Keep it focused. Make it different. Make it exceptional.

This week’s Times Higher has delved into the emerging role of social media in the Higher Education sector. There are clearly many advocates of the benefits of sharing online, particularly when that happens quite quickly. The evidence of social media relevancy is obvious by its subscription. Whilst many are consumers – passive digestors of information produced in the community, an ever increasing number of people are realising that social media empowers them to be the publisher. This is the crux of the power of all social media, and its allure. Never before have so many been able to share so much, with so many. Individuals with a computer and the Internet now have access to audiences that publishers 20 years ago could have only dreamed of. This is a powerful notion for lecturers and institutions who are under increasing pressure to make teaching and learning more relevant to students who have had the power of the Internet at their fingertips their entire lives. For these students, social media is culturally embedded. They do not need to think about why they use it, for them it just ‘is’.

I am currently deciding how to best capture the student voice in order to help meet expectations of prospective and new students at the University of Cumbria. As a by-product, it is hope that this will help to improve retention of first year students who cite failure to meet their expectations as a big reason for packing it all in. Social media seems to fit the bill. The trick is to find ways of harnessing the empowering affordances of social media in a localised way, whilst simultaneously connecting it to a larger network.

…welcome to Sparks & Clouds

Trowler, P., Saunders, M. and Knight, P. (2003) Change thinking, change practices, Learning and Teaching Support Network Generic Centre. Available online at: http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/York/documents/resources/resourcedatabase/id262_Change_Thinking_Change_Practices.pdf (accessed 9 July 2010)

The report provides a useful overview of different conceptions of change and the implications for viewing them through certain lenses. I would argue that actually, they are sociocultural lenses (e.g. kaizen, technical/rational, economic, diffusionist/epidemiological, holistic) that also reflect the beliefs of those conceptualising change models both implicitly and explicitly. This is also very true of organisations – e.g. kaizen in japanese companies, tensions between economic and complex models in the hierarchy of HEIs, described as ‘loosely coupled organisations’ because they have social agenda to accommodate diversity.

Reading the change document is fascinating because it really does reinforce my thinking about the process of change from a strongly sociocultural perspective. This is significant to my practice because of our position in the University as ‘change agents’. Our role often calls upon the implementation of innovations which frequently strongly challenge the beliefs and values (as exemplified in their current practice) of the wider ‘client group’, or as I would prefer to term them, my colleagues! The authors explore the notion that, “it is important for them to have a value commitment rather than instrumental compliance to a proposed change.” (p17) The emphasis on changing beliefs and values over the ‘endgame’ – or a focus on the result of change also reinforces the emphasis on importance of change as process not product.

Relating to my service in UoC, there are a number of instances where this is particularly relevant. For example, currently there is an attempt to suggest to staff that online submission should be adopted. This has been met with some resistance from some quarters, but currently no exploration into this resistance in context with existing beliefs has been undertaken. I would argue that it is perhaps even unreasonable to expect the imposition of such a change to be well received because it doesn’t resolve the process for people. The reaction subsequently reinforces an underlying resistance based on a lack of understanding about the principles behind the change. Perhaps a more productive approach would be to implement the change process –which in this instance has not yet been identified– before releasing the intended aim of the change.

Likewise in teacher education, and my own practice, we are seeking to develop teachers’ understanding of their professional identity. In fact, we are asking them to change their practice to align with the professional roles outlined by the wider community. This is articulated through the professional standards (a cultural tool) and mediated through the PgC and the way that we deliver it.

So this has some big implications for my practice. This sociocultural view of change has to underpin pedagogy (I want to explore the extent to which it does in my assignment). Considering this will be useful in foregrounding my propositions for changes in practice. I feel that this document is part of the landscape that will inform that response and progress my understanding further.

The feedback also prompts me to think about my developing understanding of these concepts, which is fantastic, because that is what I have been concerned with since completing the assignment – that already I no longer think quite the same way as I did when I wrote it. For me, this is hugely significant as it identifies that there is no ‘right ‘ or ‘wrong’ answer. Unlike the exam culture many of us are used to, it is our ability to articulate our current understanding that is of value. In doing so we are able to acknowledge the connections that have contributed to our knowledge and understanding whilst simultaneously being able to benchmark for future reference.

Looking ahead, my initial ideas for TMA02 are aligning with this notion of making meaning and being able to shift that, being open to the development of my understanding rather than seeing it as a black and white ‘this is wrong’, ‘still wrong’ ‘ now you’ve got it’ approach (transmission).

According to Bruner, ‘a choice of pedagogy inevitably communicates a conception of the learning process and the learner. Pedagogy is never innocent. It is a medium that carries its own message’ (Bruner, 1996, p. 63)

This seems to support what I was thinking about. However, even since completing the assignment I have developed my view of what these perspectives on learning mean. To help clarify where I am up to with this, this is how I would define the two:

Social constructivism is a view of learning that suggests individuals make meaning and develop understanding for themselves by participating in a social context. Teachers create the dots that learners join up. In other words, we make meaning and understanding from our prior knowledge.

Socioculturalism is a view of learning that reflects a layer of influences visible in the cultural scripts followed and tools employed by learners in social settings. In other words, the way we make meaning depends on our past experiences and situations.

As the course guide suggests, (p.141) the implication is that a sociocultural view of learning is ‘potentially ubiquitous’, but I think it is also typified by tacit understanding. So a sociocultural view is more congruous with a view of how we learn to adapt our participation in social settings as defined by their cultures. This is quite evident to me in some education settings, such as those in creative arts disciplines, for example. Here there are strong historical practices in the education setting that are recurrent across many institutions, and over time. However, it is very difficult to articulate what precisely that entails, and even more challenging to compare it to another educational setting. But we know that different things are going on in a Fine Art studio compared to the lecture theatre.

So where does pedagogy fit into all of this? Well I guess that is what section three is all about…!

As I progress on the course, I hope to explore a dualism of my own. Entwined with beliefs about the nature of being – ontology – is a theory of how knowledge is created and survives – epistemology. In both sociocultural and social constructivist views of learning or teaching, this duality is evident.

However, I do think it is a good starting point for some thoughts further down the line so I felt recording it here was good for now.

Note: I think the course suggest using MyStuff for collating Action responses, but having been there before I think I’ll stick to the blog this time round. It will mean that some entries are password protected for privacy.

I was particularly interested in the use of Morgan’s five metaphors (p.16) for organisations as a lens for contemplating Conole’s main point of her chapter. These five (organisation as machine, brain, organism, culture and political) are certainly evident not only in metaphors for e-learning, but also common in everyday life. The question that arose for me was, are these five examples appropriate for e-learning or should we focus on those metaphors which have their origins in the context being discussed? For example, Sfard’s (Acquisition and participation) metaphors for learning.

Also, a key lessson should be learned form Sfard’s work about the danger of theorizing several metaphors then choosing one or other to work with. I think Conole makes a similar implicit suggestion. She refers to the complexity of e-learning landscape (p.19) and the need for exploring many metaphors to help us understand it.

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I’m writing my ECA about learning technology in context with HE art, design and media, so I’ve just put a couple of links in here to marry up some thinking with some more focused articles – metaphors in art and design.

Logan, C. (2008) ‘Metaphor and pedagogy in the design practicum’, International Journal of Technology and Design Education, Vol. 18, No. 1, pp. 1–18

Sagan, O. (2008) ‘Playgrounds, studios and hiding places: emotional exchange in creative learning spaces’, Art, Design and Communication in Higher Education, Vol. 6, No. 3, pp. 173–186