Hi! We hope you are all keeping well and safe in these troubling times. The effects of the novel coronavirus and COVID-19 are being felt all around the world.
One thing the crisis has revealed very starkly is that it is the everyday that we value. It is not the expensive truffles you need now, but toilet roll. It is not the innovative silicon valley entrepreneur we value now but the person stacking shelves in supermarkets. There is a lesson in this for education too. I’ve seen people suggesting radical new ideas, innovative things to do in teaching and research. Now is not the time for your social distance jetpack idea. The best thing we can do for students, staff and researchers is to try and keep things as everyday and calm as possible. And by everyday I don’t mean ‘carry on giving face to face lectures’, but I do mean, no new fancy tech you’ve always wanted to try. Email lists might be all you need right now. For the Open University, while some of this can be realised, there is a big struggle to get all the support staff set up at home. This may be unsexy, non-innovative work but it is actually the stuff that matters. For researchers, reassuring them that they won’t lose grants or studentships is more important than suggesting they pivot their research to include a COVID-19 angle. Business near to normal would be the greatest achievement we could realise. To clarify – I don’t mean we should expect staff and students to carry on as if it is business as normal. Working or studying from home (with children or family around), being ill, or just the general psychological stress of living in a dystopian movie are going to mean people are definitely not going to be productive as normal. What I mean is that institutions and individuals who can, should focus on the mundane elements that will help people retain some sense of normalcy. Payroll is an obvious example, make sure that system is working if everything else goes down. Websites, and access to main systems. If your team has a regular Wednesday morning donut gathering, then replicating this online is more of a priority than ensuring the strategic review is still on track. These boring, everyday things we take for granted are the key to the next few months. When you live in extraordinary times, the ordinary becomes remarkable. It is time to get ordinary, get beige, get vanilla, get boring. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
So here’s my Covid-19 conspiracy theory – Jim Groom started it all to demonstrate how useful it is to own your own domain and tools. And also to relaunch DS106 Radio. Allow me to elaborate. Organisations, particularly higher education ones can be slow to react. Someone commented once that the OU was like the army or the health care system, it took its time but when all those elements aligned it was powerful, robust and effective. The OU, like every other HEI, has been dealing with the very immediate issues of the Covid-19 crisis, and doing it very well. This is where those industrial systems pay off. However, like many of my fellow academics, I’ve been receiving individual requests to help. This is difficult to manage, but also something we definitely want to do. And this is where having your own platform comes in useful. It is another instance of the principle I outlined with Guerrilla Research, namely that of not needing permission. By having a blog, Twitter and other tools (I have a licence for clickmeeting, but could be Zoom) you can effect some form of Guerrilla Support without needing to seek permission to use official tools, to check server loads, ask for IT set up or removal of existing access limits. You can just do stuff like impromptu drop-in sessions or gather resources, offer advice, etc. When the OU and other HEIs can focus beyond the immediate pivot and get their responses together it will be better than anything those of us with individual can do. But in the interim, a quick, agile response is facilitated by having your own domain and identity. So, yeah, thanks Jim. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
Yesterday I ran the first OU sector drop-in. The aim is to see if we can gather OU expertise and offer support to others who are attempting the online pivot. I deliberately didn’t record this one because it was a bit trial and error (mainly error on my part) and also I thought people may want to speak freely. But I think I will record later ones for those who can’t make them. This one was general, so people could ask any question, but we decided to theme later ones. I’ve set up a google doc so you can add suggestions for themes, format and useful links if you want: https://bit.ly/OUdropinideas The next session will be Wednesday 1st April 3-4pm UK time (I think the clocks go forward in the UK this summer, so check time in the handy widget below. At this stage I’m lucky if I know what day it is). Time converter at worldtimebuddy.comTime converter at worldtimebuddy.com The topic will be Student Support for half an hour and then general questions for half an hour. Same link: https://bit.ly/OUonlinepivot I’ve got these scheduled every Wednesday at the same time until the end of April. Once again, OU colleagues, associate lecturers and students it would be VERY helpful if you could drop in. Reminder though this is not for supporting OU staff, but rather those in other institutions. Hope to see some of you online on Wednesday! This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
In my framework of Modern Workplace Learning (see diagram on right) I use the term social collaboration to label an important new element of work of the modern-day L&D department. I deliberately chose not to label it social learning. So what is...
via GIPHY Several people (no, they’re not imaginary) have asked if the OU can make its expertise available to other institutions and educators as they engage in the online pivot. Of course, the immediacy of this shift is very different from designing a purposefully distance ed course with the luxury of time, so some of that expertise may not be appropriate. But some of it will. In addition, I think as the immediate implementation settles down people will start looking more medium to long term. Will the first semester next year be at a distance? Should we build in more distance ed options as part of our contingency planning? So I’ve press ganged some of my IET colleagues into saying they will join me. I haven’t had time to do a full recruitment, so ALL Open University colleagues please join and share your experience. I’ll see if it gets any traction, if it’s just me and the dog, fair enough, we can play solitaire. If more popular then we may theme later sessions and get in appropriate staff. At the moment they will start general. I have scheduled them for every Wednesday 3-4pm GMT in clickmeeting, starting Wed 25th March, using the same URL: https://bit.ly/OUonlinepivot This is unofficial I ought to stress, and if an official version comes along, I shall bow out. But in the interest of moving quickly and all that, I thought I’d start here. Note, it’s not aimed at supporting Open University staff, or students, there definitely are official things for that, which I wouldn’t want to cut across. This is help for those in other institutions: individual educators, ed tech support teams, student support, admin, library staff etc who are now faced with operating at a distance. Obvious caveat: we may well not have the answers to queries and anything we do say is not official advice. Hope to see some of you online – we’re winging this, but let’s wing together. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
At the risk of making this blog a Bryan Mathers fanboi site, I am devoting another post to his work. As I’ve mentioned, I’m the Chair of the Open Degree Programme at the OU. We got Bryan in to help us think through our joint principles. The aim was also to create some artwork we can use in presentations, that are social media friendly and illustrate key benefits about the open degree. So here they are with some thoughts: Brave learners – we like to suggest that open learners are brave, in that taking control of your own learning path requires a sense of responsibility. It is easier in some ways to follow a prescribed pathway for a named degree – you know if you do these modules they will give you an understanding of topic X. But choosing your own path means you have to make those decisions for yourself, which is a lot of freedom – and as we know, with great power comes great responsibility. Walk your own path – the freedom aspect is highlighted in this image. But it also emphasises factors which can influence a student’s choices. These are not necessarily the same for everyone, some people will be purely interest driven, others career focused and others will balance a mixture of these elements. Rebel degree – I like the idea behind this one, that open programme students are rebellious to some degree. It is likely to appeal to people who find the conventional pathways too constraining. Space cadet – this one tied in with the OU’s 50th anniversary in 2019 which was also the moon landing 50th anniversary also. It helps us stress that in fact the OU designed its courses to be multidisciplinary, specifically because the architects of this new university felt that it needed a new type of degree structure. Path of greatest interest – this ties back to my idea of situated degree pathways, in that students can change their degree pathway as interest or context suggests, rather than having it pre-determined from the outset. It also emphasises the many, many different pathways possible. Pick n mix – I sometimes refer to the open programme as our pick n mix degree, because a) I LOVE pick n mix and b) it is a useful shorthand for a lot of people. But it is probably worth noting though that some don’t like the metaphor because it implies a lack of connection between the components and perhaps a randomness in choice (they’ve obviously never gone through a pick n mix with me). Prof Weller – Bryan added in this one as a freebie, and I’ve adapted it as my Twitter avatar. It also features Teilo, so is obviously the winner here. I wanted to stress that Open is in our title and the open programme is central to our identity. And also that it is a concept that is particularly timely now and so if we didn’t have it, we’d invent it. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
The outbreak of COVID-19 has seen many universities closing campuses and shifting learning online. It’s unprecedented and suddenly puts ed tech front and centre in a way it hasn’t been before. For those of us who have been doing online learning or distance ed for a while it can seem a bit irritating to have been seen as second class for so long and then suddenly deemed worthy of interest. So I tweeted over the weekend: It’s interesting seeing all the unis that disparaged distance ed as not proper suddenly being converted to the benefits of online education — Martin Weller (@mweller) March 7, 2020 It was kinda snarky, but I’ll come to it later. I saw later that Lee Skallerup Bessette tweeted this, which I think is a fairer response: So I’m seeing a lot of “oh so now online learning is where it’s at?” tweets (some of which I’ve rt’ed). Look, I get it, it’s frustrating. But what if, and hear me out, this is our chance? — Dr. Lee Skallerup Bessette (@readywriting) March 8, 2020 So, in the interest of pulling together, I’m splitting this post into two parts, the (possibly) useful bit, and the moany bit. You can take your pick between them. The (possibly) useful bit It will be tough for lots of academics to teach online if they have little or no experience of it. Without the necessary support or development required in such a small time frame it is likely to be frustrating and full of potential errors, which makes educators and students feel vulnerable. So we should be helpful and show solidarity in this period. Here are some useful resources: University of Windsor open page – educators talking about the tools they use Online educator – MOOC from the OU and FutureLearn Thread from Sean Michael Morris Continuity plans (and upcoming course on 23rd March) from National Institute for Digital Learning at DCU CILT online teaching portal – lots of useful resources for teaching online Practical Teaching with Technology MOOC from University of London Crowdsourcing: Teaching Online with Care – a google doc curation of different resources compiled by Maha Bali and Mia Zamora Creating an Online Class or Conference – Quick Tech Guide – I’m not sure who wrote this, but google doc of various bits of tech and advice Advice for those about to teach online – from Tony Bates And here are just some thoughts from my own experience, many of which are obvious, but I’ll state them anyway: Activities that can be done quickly face to face take much more time online, particularly collaborative activities. In discussion forums you may find that people who don’t speak up in class, have more to say. Things you think are obvious, won’t be. If something can be misinterpreted, it will be. So if you can run things by critical readers, do so. If not, add in layers of explanation and be ready to clarify. Related – once a mistaken belief takes hold, it is very difficult to rectify, much more so than face to face, so get on top of it quickly. A distant, aloof air in classroom may be acceptable, but seems even more cold and remote online. Be friendly! Structure different types of activity and engagement. “Read this for two hours and then watch this for an hour” is hard going. Encourage peer to peer interaction, but you will need to monitor this if in public forums. Things can flare up quickly online. If you can, get people to meet f2f now – it helps later online working (I pinched this one from Doug Clow) Don’t try to just replicate the lecture course (if you have time), think about what the new medium affords you – asynchronous discussion, different resources you can draw upon, a range of tools, etc When this immediate crisis is over, take time to reflect on how, given longer you might change your pedagogy. Good luck! The moany bit One of the problems of this sudden pivot to online learning, is that as with much more serious infrastructure issues such as health, employment, and social care, it exposes the lack of investment and being taken seriously. So while we’re at this moment, let us consider what could have been done better at institutional level and then how this might be better going forward. Treat ed tech/instructional design units better – I complained before that such units in institutions are often shifted around, given new priorities and not involved in the discussion or direction of ed tech. The expertise of these units needs to be taken into account more, and they need to stop being the plaything for the latest Pro-Vice-Chancellor’s big idea, if we are to put the appropriate infrastructure in place. Stop treating online as second class – there is often an attitude, both at senior management level and amongst many academics, that distance, or online learning is not ‘the real thing’. The Open University experienced this snobbery when it was founded and it is still in evidence today. When done well, the online experience, performance and quality of distance ed is the same, if not better than f2f. So start treating it like that. Don’t go for the shiny – too often it is the glamorous, disruption side of ed tech that grabs the attention of senior management and the media. Artificial Intelligence, blockchain, MOOCs – these might all have their place, but what is needed is a focus on using the boring, mundane tech effectively. Make it human – related to the above, staff development should focus on how to construct engaging, fun, meaningful learning online for students. This is rarely much about the technology and more about thinking what works effectively. Read 25 Years of Ed Tech to have a better understanding of tech usage – oh come on, allow me this one! In short, most HEIs have the technology they need (maybe some extra server capacity will be required), but they lack the experience and practice. That could have been addressed long ago, but now we’re here it is time to ensure it is done properly. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
Open initiatives need open organisations Dr.Doug Belshaw #OpenBelgium 2020 @dajbelshaw mastodon.social/@dajbelshaw dougbelshaw.com http://bit.ly/2uRSjFH...
ALT The Association for Learning Technology (ALT) represents individual and organisational Members from all sectors and parts of the UK. Our Membership includes practitioners, researchers and policy makers with an interest in Learning Technology.
European Journal of Open, Distance and E-Learning. How Do You Know If Something Is in the Public Domain? [Flow Chart] Creative Commons Global Summit 2017. Jorum
Instructional Design is for designing instruction. But in the workplace we don’t just learn from instruction, i.e. by being taught in classroom training or online courses.
“Building community doesn’t mean that learning happens.” ~ from an audience comment at InstructureCon 2013 Learning in a MOOC Instruction does not equate to learning. This is the fundamental fly in...
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