A pessimistic optimist’s journey through learning, teaching and technology
As part of the missing Ps framework, in the “People” category, I’m planning to talk about how the decision making around adoption of course management systems (CMSs) is always posited as a rational act. When, in fact, most people involved in and the decision making processes around CMSs is far from rational. In a discussion
Continue reading Decision making, problem solving traps and course management systems
The following is the first cut at developing a submission for the 2007 EDUCAUSE Annual Conference in Seattle, Oct 23-36. The theme for the conference is “Information Futures: Aligning our Missions”. Proposals are due February 6, 2007. In this presentation I’d like to do something along the following lines Enterprise systems – including ERP systems,
Continue reading Enterprise systems and shadow systems: What can the miner's canary tell us?
It’s that time in my thesis work (trawling through references for the lit review) when I have finally come back to the “LMS Governance report” written by Lisa Wise and James Quealy. This went through the blogosphere a while back. You can access the PDF of the report and a MediaWiki based annotated bibliography from
Continue reading LMS Governance Report – a summary and reflection
The adoption, implementation and support of e-learning is a difficult and extremely complex act. A variety of metaphors and models are drawn upon by participants to reduce the difficulty involved. These metaphors and models represent fundamental understandings of the participants and directly influences the decisions they make. The position I’d like to take for a
Continue reading Metaphors and models considered harmful for e-learning
Starting with a review by Will thalheimer I came across the book The Six Disciplines of Breakthrough Learning: How to Turn Training and Development into Business Results by Calhoun Wick et al. I won’t bother summarising the book. The review by Will thalheimer does a good job of that and the Amazon link lets you
Continue reading Breakthrough learning – what lessons for staff development of academics?
I’m currently working on a paper/idea which is essentially seeking to argue that the herding cats metaphor. This metaphor’s most famous instantiation is the EDS herding cats commercial. It is a metaphor/phrase that is often used within higher education, especially when someone has tried to get academics to do something. It’s often equated to herding
Continue reading Freeze and unfreeze – one problem with herding cats
For at least the last 5 years there has been an increasing drive for university academics to have formal credentials in learning and teaching. The essential argument is that you wouldn’t go to a medical doctor who hadn’t been trained in medicine, so why should you be taught at university by a person who has
Continue reading A problem with credentialism around teaching and learning
Just working my way through Pettit (2005) which tells the story of how the OUK used online conferencing for staff development around e-learning. What I’m finding useful to my situation is the literature review which covers some of the issues around this issue and which connects nicely with some earlier ideas. For example academics must
Continue reading Issues around staff development for e-learning
Simon (1996, p 130) writing about the connection between what is designed (product) and the process used to designed it, says What we ordinarily call “style”? may stem just as much from these decisions about the design process as from alternative emphases on the goals to be realized through the final design … both the
Continue reading Process and product are inextricably linked
Origins Teemu Leinonen has a good post about Participatory Design and Scenarios in Learning. It outlines some norms behind participatory design, explains the use of scenarios and makes connections between participatory designs and other “paradigms” (e.g. social constructivist theory of learning and open source development). Relevance The value I take from the post is that
Continue reading Participatory design as the basis for staff development and course design
Thinking outloud