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Ok so here's what I sent to Alan answering much the same point!!
[in suggesting we leave McLuhan out of it] I think my aim was to suggest that we avoid wrapping e-learning in some sort of Steiner language in order to elevate its currency (I think of Baudrillard's 'hyperreality' and the 'simulacrum' here!). Similarly, it is all too easy to be impressed by an individual's practical techno-competencies and dazzled by the lamination of cleverly presented work, without framing it in ways that set it apart (above?) established norms and daily practices. Within this scenario, it is understandable that some of us are intimidated by the challenges of acquiring new ways of seeing and doing even though these will inevitably evolve to become norms over time. At the end of the day, the processes of learning (equally prone to all manner of jargon) are invariably and lamentably seconded by more measurable outcomes.
Thanks Theo and Roger. Your posts are making me think more about how media giveth and taketh away. Personally, I still want to say the message trumps the medium, and that media are, essentially, carriers of messages, but media do have important consequences (good and bad), and they do frame the nature of interaction and communication.
Jayne, I apologise for being an irritant. I appreciate that you are looking for resources and tips, and because of that I think I understand why you said “let's leave McLuhan out of this: it is not the message we are seeking but the way the mode itself widens the lenses of understanding and the means through which we can communicate and express ourselves.” But that was his point – modes, media, carriers, all have important effects; it’s not just about the message.
I think this jiscmail is a good example, because it gives us (a community of practitioners) fantastic opportunities to interact and develop our knowledge and understanding, but when we debate (rather than just transmit information) we don’t see the whites of each other’s eyes; we can’t interpret body language; and there are no gestures with which to judge sincerity and commitment. These are important consequences of having our communication framed in this way.
In which case (if we want more than just information transmission) we either acquiesce to this, or reject the medium altogether, or we develop new ways to ensure that we put/keep the medium in its place, so to speak.
I hesitate to even suggest that - perhaps - we all at least agree on the last bit of the last sentence (with appropriate doff capping body language)…
Best
John
John Lea
Dear all,
I very much share Theo’s view” how easily its use for building real learning communities could be overlooked - in favour of confining its use to enhancing and accelerating information transmission. “.
For several years I have been monitoring my students’ use of the VLE with concern and see both students and staff drifting towards information transmission as a coping strategy for issues such as growth in numbers and marketisation.
My rule is to appraise technology on the basis of “is it solving a problem or just a new product looking for a problem” in the belief that if the need is real uptake will follow. Broadly, was it created to meet a demand or manufactured to create a demand.
Best wishes,
Roger
Dr Roger Penlington
BEng PGCertAP PhD FSGT FSEDA SFHEA
Associate Professor,
Department of Mechanical & Construction Engineering
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On 14/02/2020, 09:46, "Online forum for SEDA, the Staff & Educational Development Association on behalf of Theo Gilbert" wrote:
Dear Colleagues,
What an interesting thread! Thank you Virna! What interests me as we move faster towards the inevitable use of Virtual Reality in some teaching and learning/classrooms is, how easily its use for building real learning communities could be overlooked - in favour of confining its use to enhancing and accelerating information transmission. Given the issues our students face with mental health difficulties, disconnection from each other (e.g. by ethnicity), and the valuing in a lot of HE of relentlessly competitive individualism (for both staff and students) Virtual Reality in education could play a MUCH bigger role in training staff and students in how to dismantle the HE cultures and common group psycho-social processes that generate these very problems - problems the NUS pinpointed in Race for Equality (2010). Sorry for any cross posting here but the 20 min film below demonstrates what we are therefore currently transferring into VR training for staff and students, with trials in HEIs here and abroad going ahead this year. The software is going to be free, just saying ...
Theo
Dr Theo Gilbert, SFHEA
Associate Professor, Learning and Teaching,
CAE; Academic Skills Tutor
School of Humanities
University of Hertfordshire
de Havilland Campus Room R323
AL10 9AB
https://compassioninhe.wordpress.com/films/
From: Online forum for SEDA, the Staff & Educational Development Association <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of Virna Rossi <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, February 13, 2020 8:31 PM
To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: IDEAS??? Encouraging staff and students to engage with LT
Good morning
Just to say thank you for the exchange, amusing and thought-provoking at once.
Going back to Jayne's original question, and as a follow up on some of the points raised, I remember a conference address by Susannah Quinsee, where she suggests to 'ban' the word technology from new initiatives to do with technology.
Here is the link, it is an excellent address I think. Particularly from around 9' to 14' she discussed technology:
I know it is a few years old, which in new media terms is an eternity (!) but I emailed Susannah to get an update on her ideas and she thinks it is still all relevant, in fact she says it is even more relevant today.
Have a good Friday
Virna
On Thu, 13 Feb 2020 at 22:43, Lea, John ([log in to unmask]) <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Agreed. This thread took such an early drift left side…which sparked my interest.
I can’t disagree about the white men, but what I was saying – cryptically perhaps – was that Warhol’s comment was a throwaway line, whereas McLuhan’s point was the result of years of analysis of mass communication. I’m no fan of McLuhan, but it maybe that it’s only now that we are seeing some of the most troubling examples of his point – e.g. the damaging effects of social media platforms – not only on individuals but on our whole social fabric. I’m sure that people who signed up for Facebook when it first started weren’t thinking about algorithms.
Over to the experts…
Best
John
John Lea
From: Celia Popovic <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: 13 February 2020 22:12
To: Lea, John ([log in to unmask]) <[log in to unmask]>; [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: IDEAS??? Encouraging staff and students to engage with LT
Oh yes, John, thank you - I’m sure you are right about the quote. Sorry hard to tell the difference between all those white men sometimes....:)
Can we get back to Jayne’s point and help her with her original question? There are some great examples of ways to engage faculty and students with or without tech for those who want to. I’m sure many on this list will have ideas to share
Celia
Get Outlook for iOS
From: Lea, John ([log in to unmask]) <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, February 13, 2020 11:06:21 PM
To: Celia Popovic <[log in to unmask]>; [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: IDEAS??? Encouraging staff and students to engage with LT
I haven’t read McLuhan since I was an undergraduate…
I want to agree that a painting, drawing, photo, can all convey the message, BUT we would miss something if we didn’t consider the full effects of the changing medium each time. I think that was McLuhan’s point.
Wasn’t it Andy Warhol who said `famous for 15 minutes’? I think he said `in the future…’. Which reminds of the person who said that if the expansion of Elvis Presley impersonators continues at the same rate, then by 2025 everyone will be an Elvis impersonator…
Uh Huh Huh
John
John Lea
From: Celia Popovic <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: 13 February 2020 21:44
To: Lea, John ([log in to unmask]) <[log in to unmask]>; [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: IDEAS??? Encouraging staff and students to engage with LT
To take up your question John. You may not be able to take a photo without a camera but you can draw a picture. A photo might give a more accurate representation but you wouldn’t know that if you hadn’t seen a camera or have access to one
I did say I don’t disagree about the negative of using tech for tech’s sake, I am arguing that what Jayne suggests could be helpful for the teachers and students at her institution
As for Marshall McLuhan didn’t he also say we all want our15 mins of fame? Not all statements should be treated as absolute truths!
Regarding preparing people for work, David - I think I’d be hard pressed to find an industry that doesn’t communicate at all using technology.
Celia
Get Outlook for iOS
From: Online forum for SEDA, the Staff & Educational Development Association <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of Lea, John ([log in to unmask]) <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, February 13, 2020 9:49:13 PM
To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: IDEAS??? Encouraging staff and students to engage with LT
Marshall McLuhan famously said that the medium is the message. I always wanted to disagree with that because the message is the message; surely?
But I have to concede that sometimes the message only exists because of a certain medium – after all, you can’t take a photo without a camera; can you? And that’s what McLuhan partly meant; wasn’t it?
But – for a lot of the time – a medium just facilitates a message – which could be delivered in multiple (and often more effective) ways; doesn’t it?
But McLuhan would surely counter that if a message IS communicated through a certain medium - a technology – we take our eye off the ball if we just focus on the effects of the message, because the medium always has its own distinct - often unintended - effects as well; doesn’t it?
So, I think I want to agree with both Celia and David on this.
I don’t feel very qualified to talk about learning technology, only to say that when people talk about LT today, I think they mostly mean `digital’ LT. After all, a pencil is a piece of learning technology; isn’t it?
Best
John
John Lea
From: Online forum for SEDA, the Staff & Educational Development Association <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of David Roberts <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: 13 February 2020 19:49
To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: IDEAS??? Encouraging staff and students to engage with LT
Hi Celia
Well, the logic stands up, I would suggest with a degree of frivolity; the discussion started about technology, and if there hadn't been technology there would have been no need to have this discussion. There is technology, of course, and what I seek more than anything else here is that we do not suborn what is a social process (pedagogy, the communication of learning and meaning or however we wish to define it) to a technological determinism or hegemony.
As per this discussion, technology may facilitate our conversation when we are not side-by-side but not direct what we talk about, wherever we are, in my view 🙂
Best wishes
David
Dr. David Roberts,
Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
Senior Lecturer in International Relations
Loughborough University (Room BE141)
[log in to unmask]
From: Celia Popovic <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: 13 February 2020 19:20
To: David Roberts <[log in to unmask]>; [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: RE: IDEAS??? Encouraging staff and students to engage with LT
Truly? I can’t agree with you on that
I enjoy the many conversations that take place on this list, I don’t respond to all of them, but I do read them
We don’t limit our discussions to issues around technology
Celia
From: David Roberts <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, February 13, 2020 7:59 PM
To: Celia Popovic <[log in to unmask]>; [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: IDEAS??? Encouraging staff and students to engage with LT
Without technology, we wouldn't be needing it 🙂
Best wishes
David
Dr. David Roberts,
Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
Senior Lecturer in International Relations
Loughborough University (Room BE141)
[log in to unmask]
From: Celia Popovic <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: 13 February 2020 18:42
To: David Roberts <[log in to unmask]>; [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: RE: IDEAS??? Encouraging staff and students to engage with LT
Well we wouldn’t be having this conversation without technology, would we?
Celia
From: David Roberts <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, February 13, 2020 7:40 PM
To: Celia Popovic <[log in to unmask]>; [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: IDEAS??? Encouraging staff and students to engage with LT
Hi all
I think that's fair enough, as it long as it facilitates, rather than directs, the learning and teaching process. I don't feel comfortable at all privileging technology because it's A/there and B/in vogue. In the case Celia identifies, supposing we encouraged them to actually talk directly with each other, using something else that is there already but isn't technology - something which builds trust and allows human-to-human interfacing without technology (eg, non-violent communication approaches)? Crafting safe spaces, building paths that allow interaction beyond judgement etc.
I'm never really sure that technology can provide truly social solutions. And if we are preparing them for a workforce as well as trying to educate them in a discipline, we might do well to equip them with social tools for a social world, instead of encouraging them to retain that remote 'connection' to their peers. They have to be challenged to become people who can interact with other people, as people. Sometimes I think that encouraging them to talk to one another digitally does not do them any service.
I'm a fine one to talk. Most of my communication these days is done via Facebook...
Best wishes
David
Dr. David Roberts,
Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
Senior Lecturer in International Relations
Loughborough University (Room BE141)
[log in to unmask]
From: Online forum for SEDA, the Staff & Educational Development Association <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of Celia Popovic <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: 13 February 2020 18:06
To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: IDEAS??? Encouraging staff and students to engage with LT
I don’t disagree with the sentiment, but I do think there is a case for showcasing what is possible using technology.
After all, we don’t always know what we don’t know
So for example, if we didn’t know it was possible to get students to talk to each other using the VLE we wouldn’t ask them to do so, even if we might like to encourage greater student interaction.
The assumption here seems to be that there will be someone on hand to say, yes great idea to do X, did you know you can use technology to help with that? Not all universities are able to offer that level of support, and even if they do not all faculty avail themselves of one on one assistance
Celia
From: Online forum for SEDA, the Staff & Educational Development Association <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of David Roberts
Sent: Thursday, February 13, 2020 7:01 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: IDEAS??? Encouraging staff and students to engage with LT
Re Tomkinson email
Thanks for this contribution. I've for years had an uneasy feeling about being pushed into any given medium, especially IT-orientated, instead of the material. It's felt like the cart pulling the horse or the tail wagging the dog. It does seem to me that the material we want to convey should direct the means with which we convey it, and that consideration should come in that order. Technology can successfully be a tool of this social process, but it should not be the structure that determines the nature of that process.
Best to all, as ever 🙂
Dr. David Roberts,
Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
Senior Lecturer in International Relations
Loughborough University (Room BE141)
[log in to unmask]
From: Online forum for SEDA, the Staff & Educational Development Association <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of Bland Tomkinson <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: 13 February 2020 17:31
To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: IDEAS??? Encouraging staff and students to engage with LT
Why?
Getting staff and students to engage with learning technology is a non-starter. Try starting with what you want them to learn and then evaluate the ways in which this could be achieved, rather than sarting with the medium. I do not go to a bus station and jump on the first bus that comes along - I plan where I want to go and then the most appopriate means of getting there, which may or may not be by bus.
Forcing people to use an approach that they do not see as necessary or desirable is a sure way to build resistance!
Sincerely
Bland
C Bland Tomkinson BSc BA MEd PFHEA FAUA
Visiting Academic, Department of Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering
University of Manchester
Special Consultant, Southeast University, NanjingJoint Principal Editor, Perspectives
Associate Editor, HERD
Co-Editor, IETI
From: Online forum for SEDA, the Staff & Educational Development Association [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Virna Rossi [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 13 February 2020 13:46
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: IDEAS??? Encouraging staff and students to engage with LTHello
lots of interesting questions. Just tackling one aspect here:
Technology is moving fast. We are all used to the immediacy of WhatsApp, Twitter etc. Our VLE, Aula, mimics this and I like this immediacy, with a central feed just like common social media. We have had a 150% increase in VLE use since we switched from Moodle.
When we used Moodle, my reservation was that unless I set up a particular discussion forum, students were not able to simply ask each other questions in a free space. I found it too teacher centred, because students could not initiate conversations themselves, they could only comment in pre-set fora. However, I am told that Moodle can indeed be set up with that functionality. But I do not know how.
In my case, participation in online discussions through the VLE is a requirement on PGCert, and I ensure we use it in class, to post, discuss posts etc. I have many examples of student-generated content which have enriched the course. It is not a s simple repository of materials, but a living part of the course. We have blended mode delivery: one week face-to-face, one week VLE activities. Yes, I need to invest time to set it up and plan how to integrate it in each phase of learning, but it pays off and I think it supports learning very well.
Best
Virna
On Thu, 13 Feb 2020 at 13:21, Jayne Richards <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Dear Colleagues,
I am looking for ideas and suggestions for encouraging staff and students to become more active on our VLE and with learning technology of all kinds. RBC is a small specialist HE college focussing on theatre and performance. While some programmes make good use of learning technologies others steer clear claiming that it is all too complicated.
We use Moodle which many claim is 'clunky' but at present I am sure we are not making full use of it. My first aim is to try to bring resources together and to make them more 'user-friendly'. I am creating very simple guides for beginners, sketches of how the resources might support each programme, and ideas of ways we can bring in other useful platforms, link directly to mobile resources and so on.....
I am looking for ideas and suggestions on
· what to include
· what to leave out
· how to organise things to encourage use
· ideas of how I can ensure the resources best serve our work and that of our students.
If you have any ideas at all, and, in particular, any useful resources you want to share, suggestions on why students/staff find the VLE challenging, please let me know.
With many thanks.
All good wishes,
Jayne
SFSEDA, FHEA, CeLP, ALT.
Jayne Richards
Programme Director
Rose Bruford College
Lamorbey Park Campus
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