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BAM - Blog Aggregation Management is a project I started in early 2006 to play around with two sets of ideas:...more...
I'm currently struggling with writing the "Place" component of the Ps framework as part chapter 2 of my thesis. In wondering the literature, as I tend to do while writing, I've come across an article (Gilbert and Geoghegan, 1995) that has some interest for me. Gilbert's description of the paper is...more...
This posts contains the last content of what (I hope) will become the "Past Experience" section of Chapter 2 of my thesis. Previous content for this section is already on the blog, including: History of technology-mediated learning, Paradigms of e-learning, e-learning usage - quality, and e-learning usage - quantity....more...
The week since my last PhD update has been a good one. The most productive (in terms of completed first drafts of thesis sections) since I started this series of updates. I feel I'm getting into a routine and slowly developing pragmatic ideas and techniques for producing a thesis that is "good enough". In reality, I'm probably still to far up the scale towards "too good", but I'm getting there. It's a journey....more...
This post serves as a brief placeholder of ideas and also to remind me to follow up further on this paper (Cavallo, 2004). The paper seems to offer a very interesting and informed perspective on issues that are of great interest to me, including the "Process" used in implementing e-learning within Universities and the "grammar of school"....more...
The following post is a continuation of posts from the "Past Experience" section of chapter 2 of my thesis. This part of chapter 2 is looking at the usage of e-learning within higher education. A previous post provided the introduction to the section and also covered usage from a quality perspective - i.e. how good is the learning and teaching....more...
The following post is a continuation of posts from the "Past Experience" section of chapter 2 of my thesis. It follows on from previous posts including: Ps Framework, History of technology-mediated learning, and the paradigms of e-learning....more...
I've just skimmed through a recent paper by Convery (2009) titled "The pedagogy of the impressed: how teachers become victims of technology vision". This paper resonates quite strongly with a growing sense of concern I have about simplistic, ill-informed practices around e-learning. In particular, there are (for me at least) direct connections with some of my recent posts about how a new LMS will improve L&T, the paradigms of e-learning, the fad cycle in higher education and its application to technology-mediated learning, the technologists alliance (more on this soon) and the idea of technological gravity and technology I, II and III....more...
I'm currently working on chapter 2 of my thesis - the literature review. Mine is using the Ps Framework as the organising structure and also as part of the contribution of the thesis. I'm currently working on the "Past Experience" component of the Ps Framework. Recently, I posted the History of technology mediated learning section. It provides a brief overview of technology-mediated learning prior to e-learning - defined as using the Internet....more...
Anyone who knows me, knows that I have a particular disdain for the perspective that e-learning within a university can be treated as an IT project and in particular as the implementation of an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP system). i.e. the LMS is an ERP and should be implemented as one. Some previous rants can be found on this blog, including:...more...
It's now been 2 weeks since my last "weekly" PhD update. The public holidays, minor surgery and a general malaise contributed to by on-going issues at work have meant that work hasn't progressed as quickly as I'd hoped and it would have been pretty pointless to post an update last week....more...
The following is a section from my PhD thesis. It is part of the "Past Experience" section of the Ps Framework. It aims to give a potted history of technology-mediated learning and show how it connects with e-learning. Since these terms are somewhat overused, it starts with some definitions. The plan is that this history will be used to identify lessons from history, which e-learning (generally) hasn't learned....more...
Given my pre-occupation with the thesis, which involves the formulation of a design theory for e-learning. It's of little surprise that I have an interest in the theory, practice and e-learning. Came across the following quote this morning in checking some literature, and I like it - new quote for a thesis chapter....more...
I told myself I wouldn't blog anything more not directly related to the PhD - I'm breaking that promise because a few things I've read over this weekend resonate strongly with the problems that are frustrating me the most with the current practice of higher education and its management....more...
This is not good. It seems that Wordpress.com is starting to eat posts....more...
It appears that this post and its use of a poll has broken the RSS feed for this blog. Am hoping that this post will knock that post out of the feed....more...
The following is a summary and perhaps a bit of a reflection on McDonald and Gibbons (nd). This is a journal article that has been accepted, but not yet officially published. It appears to be based on the PhD thesis of McDonald....more...
Level 1 of Biggs knowledge of teaching is "blame the student". i.e. there are good and bad students. One of the common complaints I hear from academics at universities go something like this...more...
In a previous post I gave an early conceptualisation of a cycle I was seeing in the history of educational technology I've been working on as part of the "Past Experience" section of the Ps Framework - chapter 2 of my thesis. In this post I try and give an overview of a similar cycle already well established: Birnbaum's (2000) Life Cycle of the Fads Process....more...
For the PhD I'm essentially proposing that the current industrial model of e-learning adopted (almost without exception) by universities is a complete and utter mismatch with the nature of the problem. As a consequence of this mismatch e-learning will continue to have little impact, be of limited quality and continue to be characterised by 5 yearly projects to replace a software system rather than a focus on an on-going process of improving learning and teaching by using the appropriate and available tools....more...
The following is a summary/overview of Shurville, Browne and Whitaker (2008) - a paper title "Employing the new educational technologists: A call for evidenced change". One of the authors has a blog....more...
I came across the discussion underpinning these thoughts via a post by Scott Stevenson. His post was titled "Measuring the design process". It is his take on a post titled "Goodbye Google" by Doug Bowman. Bowman was the "Visual Design Lead" at Google and has recently moved to Twitter as Creative Director....more...
In the next week I've promised to get a more complete and academic version of the following onto the blog. But I have 30 minutes to spare so I thought I'd get a rough and ready version out....more...
This update is being posted a day early due to the author being incapacitated over the next couple of days. This marks the start of a couple of shared weeks in terms of PhD effort/time. Not only does next week bring Easter, it also brings 2 days of introductory Moodle training (having designed, developed and supported LMSes for the last 13 years, I'm not sure how useful - regardless of quality - two days of basic Moodle training will be)....more...