open education – sue watling

crossing creative concepts and learning to be brave #creativeHE

Sue Watling / October 24, 2015October 24, 2015 / MOOCs, open education, Teaching and Learning in a Digital Age (TELEDA)

Engraving of the atmosphere from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epiphany_(feeling)#/media/File:Flammarion.jpg — Looking through the edge of the known world to see what lies beyond from L’Atmosphere: Météorologie Populaire bt Camille Flammarion (Paris, 1888). Source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epiphany_(feeling)#/media/File:Flammarion.jpg

This has been a ‘concept crossing’ week on the Creativity in HE course.

I’m in a subgroup looking at creativity and emotions. Two words I wouldn’t have previously put together. Before this course I ‘d have associated creativity with areas like art, music, dance, theatre and knew Einstein had described scientists as artists. It seemed creative approaches to knowledge were needed in order to see connections which hadn’t been seen before but I’m realising this was a surface approach. I’d accepted other people’s views about creativity but hadn’t questioned or reflected on them for myself.

In terms of engagement Week 4 has been a bit fractured which can be a risk of extra-curricular activity. I adopted a strategic approach to the task and waited for others go first. A good example of how staff regress to student behaviours, like sitting at the back of the room on my night class – because I can. Not entirely entirely sure if I should be participating or facilitating with the task – or both – I was feeling a bit lost. Another good reason why prospective online teachers should try to have some online student experience first. Knowing I was still struggling with defining creativity, rather than listing ways it manifested itself, I did some reading.

In the paper Carl Rogers, Creativity and the RSA, Rowson (2014) ) refers to creativity as a novelty which is initially a subversive activity – because it’s different and goes against the norm. So with regard to creativity and emotions, confidence is required. Being creative involves not being afraid to be different. I realised I hadn’t been thinking about creativity from the inside. I could recognise how personal styles, e.g. impressionist art, were examples of innovative ways of seeing the world, but hadn’t made the leap from knowing to understanding. When I wrote my blog post about being less creative than I thought I can see now this was also saying I’m less brave than I’d like to be.

Creativity is much more connected to emotions than I’d realised. It’s about having personal courage, confidence and conviction so is intimately connected with individual identity. I enjoy the power of words to describe, resonate and challenge. I like writing performance poetry; tricky line rhymes in iambic pentameter for speaking out loud. But I get nervous about performing. In my head I’m always looking for creative ways to do presentations. I get ideas but don’t put them into practice. Instead I stick to what’s worked before, believing it’s more likely to work again. I don’t take risks so my performances don’t stand out as much as they might if I was more brave.

I can see how being authentically creative, or taking a creative approach, requires emotional as much as cognitive expertise. It’s having the passion and personality to go public, because creative agency is validated by the structural processes of institutions and the media. As well as the ability to think laterally, creativity is about what you do with the outcomes. We are all creative but we deal with it in different ways. Thanks to taking part in this fascinating open online course, I’m starting to see how ultimately being creative is about being human.

Like an amoeba we are creativity in action #creativeHE

Sue Watling / October 16, 2015October 16, 2015 / eteaching, open education, Teaching and Learning in a Digital Age (TELEDA)

The open online course Creativity and Higher Education is making me think. Chrissi asks what is the difference between face to face and online? I say it’s the pedagogy of uncertainty – there’s so much you don’t know and can’t predict. Then Chrissi asks what is the difference between traditional online and open courses? Even more uncertainty. The open structure – emergent ideas – changes in direction – we’re creating as we go along – responding to the unexpected – like an amoeba the course is alive and moving about, ever changing its shape. How exciting is that? We are ‘creativity’ in action.

Last week I blogged about feeling less creative than I thought. This week’s activity reaffirmed it. Identify 3 things you would not use in your teaching.* It was so difficult. I thought everything could be used to demonstrate some point or other. The best response was Jonathan Purdy (from Australia but distance means nothing online) who used categories. What do his teaching tools need to do and does the object support it. I took the question literally and thought Jonathan’s more lateral approach was a perfect example of creative thinking.

In my early HE days as Widening Participation Project Officer I worked with John Knowles who coordinated a Day at University for school pupils in Hull and Lincolnshire. These days were creativity in action. I still remember counting in Japanese! The #creativeHE activities remind me of De Bono’s Hats and Buzan’s paperclips from those days. It was the turn of the century – 2000-2004 – when the internet was new and social media hadn’t happened. How much has technology changed what we do? Have VLE encouraged or dissuaded creative approaches to learning and teaching?

Google site header — Feel the google-fear and do it

On the course I’m setting up a group looking at digital creativity (yes that’s right folks – feel the google-fear and do it!) At the SRHE Conference in December I’m presenting on the the Digital University and at Bett Technology in January I’ll be talking about TEL adoption. One of my themes is the creative use of VLE – or the absence of anything posing a serious challenge to the dominance of the Lecture – so this might be a useful opportunity to share ideas.

Lectures remain the commonest teaching activity in higher education. Often accompanied by presentation slides – usually powerpoint, for many this is the limit of their digital discoveries. Lecture content might make it onto the VLE – before or after the main event – but there are still those who believe if they put their lecture notes online their students won’t attend.

The commonest word in the literature of VLE is transform e.g. the transformative power of elearning and VLE as transformers of higher education but we’re still waiting. Most VLE resemble digital document dumps. Examples of the creative digital campus are isolated in pockets with widening divides between those who do and those who don’t (i.e. get the whole digital thing).

I feel for anyone who teaches or supports learning and is told here’s the VLE, get on with it. Affinity for digital education is not intrinsic. If tech is not part of your life or subject-expertise how can you be expected to develop digital confidence. It’s a question which has taken a long time to be asked. The risk is those with the answers are not those who understand what techno-fear feels like. We need more creative ways to manage digital adoption.

Next week in the group I’m going to ask for member’s thoughts on creative digital environments. Discussions might go off in directions I haven’t even considered. This is the challenge, the fun and the power of digital education. For a short period of time we have come together in a virtual collaboration. When the course is ended we’ll go off in our separate ways, but hopefully richer and more creative for having taken part in this unique learning experience.

* Activity – name three things you would not use in your teaching

Alcohol – during my first degree a psychology lecturer asked for a volunteer to drink vodka so we could assess the influence on cognitive abilities – during the hour she became more impaired and struggled for the rest of the day. It felt wrong then and still does – I like a glass of wine on a Friday night and another one (or three) over the weekend but for me alcohol and work never go together.

creepie crawlies and slidey slimies – I couldn’t bear the thought of carrying them around never mind having to study them close up – yuk!

Unlike Mrs Heerkens in Holland, I won’t be stripping down to latex body suit any time soon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRtW4D0ycA8c

Will virtual badgery catch on? The art has a long way to go for linguistic maturity

Sue Watling / January 17, 2014 / digital literacies, open education, PhD, Teaching and Learning in a Digital Age (TELEDA)

codeacademyFirstLessonAchievement codeacademy Exercises10Achievement

I’ve been badging. Like buses, there were none for ages then they all come at once. I can’t embed my javascript animation on this page but to prove my new found skills here is the code.

var red = [0, 100, 63];
var orange = [40, 100, 60];
var green = [75, 100, 40];
var blue = [196, 77, 55];
var purple = [280, 50, 60];

var myName = “suewatling”;
var letterColors = [red, orange, green]
if(15>5) {bubbleShape = “circle”;
}
else {bubbleShape = “square”;
}
drawName(myName, letterColors);
bounceBubbles()

It was an interactive template so not as clever as it looks. But it does look clever! Here’s a screenshot. Thank you Code Academy for the illusion of skill. Click here for the full animation.

The language of code intrigues me but this post is about badging. I gained my rewards for working through the first Code Academy lesson. They’re badges but not as I know them; these are PNG images with no metadata. Mozilla woz not ‘ere. Since Doug Belshaw’s visit in December I’ve dug deep into Cloudworks to find my OLDs MOOC site: DIY Multimedia for Teaching and Learning and made a retrospective claim so my Mozilla Backpack now looks like this.

Not much is it? I’m not really a collector. The ultimate question with all collections is what to do with them? The language of badging hasn’t caught on. My Thesaurus only recognises ‘badgers’ as animals or 50 shades of botherance – such as bedevil, beleager, bore, bother, break and bug. I entered ‘badging’ and was asked if I meant bagging, banging or bandaging. The art of badge collection has a long way to go before it reaches linguistic maturity.

Will virtual badgery catch on? Who can tell. Virtual reality is a slippery substance. There’s a risk a proliferation of badging will dilute their impact and create confusion. When is a badge not a badge? To badge or not to badge? Why badge in the first place? Alternative accreditation is a serious issue. Badging a serious attempt to create an authentic assessment system. But it’s open to people taking advantage and awarding badges here, there and everywhere for all aspects of human endeavour like arriving on time or breathing. My Code Academy badges were fun but that’s about all. The OLDS MOOC badges may have more credibility but are not fully mobile and can only be shared on Twitter, Google+ and Facebook or through my personal Open Badges URL I can’t put them where I want them which is my LinkedIn Profile and this WordPress blog.

So I’m relinquishing badge collecting in favour of…….well, I’m not sure. There’s something irresistible about gaining rewards without tears and at least they don’t have nicotine, calories or alcohol units. But like a virtual stamp album, there isn’t the appeal of something you can hold in your hand or stitch on your sleeve or backpack. When badges can be anything you want them to be then – to be honest – who’s really going to be that interested?

Bursting MOOC bubbles are good; time to talk about the value of VLE

Sue Watling / January 3, 2014January 3, 2014 / MOOCs, OER, open education, PhD, Teaching and Learning in a Digital Age (TELEDA)

The MOOC bubble is bursting. See Online Revolution Drifts Off Course or Completion data for MOOC For some time there’s been evidence of a shift in MOOC attitudes eg MOOC Star Professor defects and Professors Won’t Use a Harvard Professor’s MOOC It will be interesting to watch FutureLearn; the UK HE MOOC consortium’s 36 free online courses.

MOOC have been good for online education. They’re raising key issues around the value of VLE where VLE can be institutional like Blackboard or any combination of free software. Bursting MOOC bubbles mean it’s time to talk about the big questions. Like do VLE enhance learning? How best can face-to-face practice be transferred? What might digital pedagogy look like?

For me, one of the strengths of the VLE is in widening participation; opening up potentially 24/7 opportunities for those unable to commit to a campus based education. But this can’t happen without appropriate support for the shift of traditional lecture and seminar content to online delivery. VLE need investment in digital literacies, scholarship and pedagogy. UCISA reports into Technology Enhanced Learning show since 2010 the top two barriers to TEL development are lack of time and money. The JISC Digital Literacies Programme released the Summary of the Professional Association Baseline Reports last year showing the main challenges for professionals becoming more digitally expert were lack of time, speed of change and training not being available, timely or relevant.

A lot of staff who teach and support learning at Lincoln have a DIY approach to technology; learning to use it effectively and integrate it into their lives. There are also those who are less confident. The adoption of a DIY model privileges the innovators and risks excluding those unsure about digital change. Taking the time to do things differently using Blackboard might not seem a viable option when it works doing it without. The issue of self-selection poses a risk. If you’re unsure of your VLE you’re less likely to go to digital workshops or seminars, attend digital technology conferences or apply for research funding in the area of education technology.

Often there simply isn’t enough time, resource, or role recognition attached to developing digital expertise. One way forward might be to highlight the development of an ethos of support and resource for shifting to digital ways of working. The University of Lincoln has a new Digital Education Plan. The VLE procurement process has highlighted the need for additional support for virtual teaching and learning. Thanks to the MOOC bubble bursting, there’s renewed interest in what works well and less well in online education. One thing is clear; ‘Staff expertise is the most important asset in a university and without it literally nothing can be achieved.’ (Blackmore and Blackwell 2003: 23) I cautiously predict exciting times ahead for Lincoln next year with TELEDA at the heart of discussions about all things pedagogically digital.

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Blackmore, P. and Blackwell, R. (2003) ‘Academic roles and relationships’ in R. Blackwell and P. Blackmore (eds) Towards Strategic Staff Development in Higher Education, Berkshire: SRHE and Open University Press pp 16-28

image from http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-IkBJU72UN-g/T2A_sxbti7I/AAAAAAAAAwU/IJSOMgz33tQ/s1600/burstbubble.jpg

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Where enthusiasm can be a disguise….

Sue Watling / December 14, 2012December 14, 2012 / open education, Teaching and Learning in a Digital Age (TELEDA), Uncategorized

FutureLearn Ltd is the brand name for the twelve UK universities getting together with the The Open University to provide free online learning opportunities – now commonly referred to as MOOCs. The MOOC twelve are Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, East Anglia, Exeter, King’s College London, Lancaster, Leeds, Southampton, St Andrews and Warwick. It’s early days with little information about business models or other structural essentials but FutureLearn Ltd will be majority owned by the OU who are providing initial funding and technology. With their long standing experience in delivering education at a distance, the OU are in a good position to make this happen and exert influence over the processes of design and delivery of materials. UK universities in online launch to challenge US from the BBC tells us courses will be offered on the FutureLearn online platform next year with the twelve universities being responsible for their own content, quality, accreditation and cost of courses. Cost? Not truly open then? The article goes on to say there will also be social networking-style communities for students and materials will be designed for portable devices, such as iPads or mobile phones.

All of this represents a huge shift from traditional HE with massive implications for curriculum design, content production, teacher education, learning development and ICT support. Not to say this shift isn’t already happening, but those universities taking the lead will be those who already have already taken steps to ensure support is in place. Online distance education is so much more than filming a 50 minute lecture and uploading a powerpoint presentation. It requires a different approach to constructing content and social networking-style communities don’t just happen, they require shaping and supporting if they are to have relevant form and function. If open education is to work it needs appropriate support and resources around digital scholarship and digital literacies. MOOCs are the word of the moment and care needs to be taken so initial enthusiasm for the affordances of online learning are not disguising some of the potential problems underneath.

UK e-University and MOOCs; polar opposites in philosophy and practice

Sue Watling / December 7, 2012 / open education, Teaching and Learning in a Digital Age (TELEDA)

Moocs are in the news again. They are dominating Guardian Online Education where the latest headline is UK universities are wary of getting on board the mooc train. MOOC should win a prize for the unlikeliest, and possibility ugliest, acronym of 2012. Putting that to one side, MOOCs, and the philosophy behind them, cannot be ignored. The speed at which MOOCs are developing makes it almost certain the Massive Online Open Course bubble is going to burst but it’s not yet clear what will make that happen.

Hindsight is enhanced with time and it’s now over eight years since the closure of the UK e-University. Two key documents tell the story; The real story behind the failure of the UK e university by Richard Garrett and Lessons to be learned from the failure of the UK e-university by Paul Bacsich.

Times have changed. The UK e-University was complex involving massive amounts of investment, partnerships, market research plus the building of a new technology platform, all with multiple drivers including hefce and the government. Compare this with MOOCs. User generated content and social media networks have revolutionised the internet in a very short space of time. Uploading content and enabling platforms for discussion and collaborative working has never been so easily achieved while the production and distribution of multimedia has been democratised.

We live in changing times and MOOCs reflect this. In 2004, an e-university was conceived of as a company following traditional organisational structure and practices. In 2012 that model has been thrown out of the window. Open education is becoming a reality for those with means of access. Open Educational Resources and publishing is making quality content freely available online. The UK e-University and MOOCs are polar opposites in philosophy and practice. Somewhere between the two is a workable model but we haven’t yet recognised quite how that will look.