Benbya et al (2020, p. 3) argue that digitial technologies do make a difference, including this point (among others)...more...
Over the last 12 months my work helping improve digital learning and teaching environments has relied heavily successfully integrating a variety of technologies. It has relied on mashing up different technologies into effective learning and teaching environments and experiences. The following reflects on that work and identifies three different types of mashups:...more...
The following is the content of my first solo journal article....more...
Feel free to play around with the following h5p interactive (one of the examples provided on the h5p site). I'm testing out if and how it tracks people's engagement with the interactive. What does it do when someone who doesn't have an account on this blog (and/or doesn't login) interacts? What data can I see?...more...
My last post introduced some early steps in exploring how to increase the reuse of design knowledge in design for digital learning (i.e. designing course websites). That post outlined the specific problem, the solution and linked it to work on constructive templates and patterns from the Hypermedia Design literature (Nanard, Nanard and Kahn, 1998). It closed with observing how the current solution was limited. It only provided scaffolding for the act of creating/implementing the specific design. It didn’t offer any affordances for the local context or design for configuration. This post details some early work to address this....more...
This post is test of some technology and an opportunity to save the following quote from (Solomon and Black, 2008)...more...
Happy to see the end of 2018. Time to figure out what 2019 holds. This is a first step....more...
What follows is a collection of ad hoc ramblings around learning analytics prompted by a combination of Col's recent post, associated literature arising from ALASI'2018, and "sustainable retention" project that I'm involved with as part of my new job. It's mainly sensemaking and questions. Intended to help me clarify some thinking and encourage Col's to think a bit more about his design theory for meso-level practitioners implementing learning analytics....more...
An attempt to briefly document an exploration into possibilities for enhancing my digital workflow....more...
"failure" (CC BY 2.0) by tinou bao...more...
A big responsibility for the new team I work with is the design, implementation and revision of Professional Learning Opportunities (PLOs) for teaching staff at our current institution. The PLO term has been gifted to us as part of the restructure process/documents that created the team. It's a term I quite like since I've chosen to interpret it as covering a huge range of possibilities beyond just face-to-face, synchronous, physical professional development. This is good because the team has been charged with doing something different....more...
The following a collection of resources associated with a 15 minute presentation to the other teams within USQ's Office for the Advancement of Learning and Teaching (OALT) explaining what people should know about the Educational Excellence & Innovation (EEI) team at this point in time, and what we'd like to know about the other members of OALT....more...
At some stage soon I need to start developing a report on "learning and teaching portals". i.e. how our institution deals with online resources around learning and teaching. There are a few issues with how we do it, and it appears that we're not alone...more...
The team I work with have been tasked to rethink how our institution does teaching awards, grants, and professional learning opportunities. i.e. the funding our institution provides to teaching focused staff in recognition of quality work (awards), to develop a good idea (grants), or learn something new (professional learning opportunities). Since I'm strange, we're using a slightly different approach (at least based on reactions so far) to what others are used to. The following is an attempt to explain the approach and what passes for the thinking behind it....more...
One of the significant challenges I'll be facing in the new position are around how to help the institution effectively engage teaching academics in relevant communication/professional learning that will help them. One of the immediate challenges from this task is identifying examples of good practice that have attempted to unify communication and professional learning for teaching at Universities into something user-centered and contemporary....more...
Jones, D., & Muldoon, N. (2007). The teleological reason why ICTs limit choice for university learners and learning. In R. J. Atkinson, C. McBeath, S. K. A. Soong, & C. Cheers (Eds.), ICT: Providing choices for learners and learning. Proceedings ASCILITE Singapore 2007 (pp. 450–459). Singapore....more...
Yesterday I helped out with the folk running the session intended to orient new full-time teaching academics to teaching at our institution. What follows are the slides, other resources, and some initial reflections on the session....more...
Albion, P., Jones, D., Jones, J., & Campbell, C. (2017). Open Educational Practice and Preservice Teacher Education: Understanding past practice and future possibilities. In Proceedings of Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education International Conference 2017. Outstanding paper award...more...
The following provides access to range of resources associated with the institutional process for supporting USQ staff considering applying for the 2017 Australian Awards for University Teaching (AAUT). The process started with two sessions...more...
PEBKAC (Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair) is just one of the terms IT folk use to express their frustration with the apparent stupidity of users. A frustration perhaps overshadowed by that felt by the end users who - as digital technology becomes pervasive within organisations - are increasingly frustrated by organisational technology that prevents them from performing the simplest of tasks and thus having to resort to calling IT for assistance and having experiences not dissimilar to that following....more...
The following starts with the following question raised from a colleague about a Moodle course site they have designed....more...
I've been using Trello for a couple of years to track manage personal projects/tasks. I've done this in an ad hoc way. I've even occasionally attempted using it (badly) for small groups. I now need to get a bit more professional about it. The following is an attempt to formulate an initial plan for testing out the use of Trello for a work project. If only so we can escape the desolate, unproductive waste that is Sharepoint and email attachments....more on this at the end....more...
Some time off doing too little and eating too much allows me to stumble out of 2016 into a new year and a new job. Still at USQ, but I'm leaving the School of Teacher Education & Early Childhood and joining the Advancement of Learning and Teaching (ALT) - not sure if it's a unit, department, office etc. Yes, for the second time I'm leaving the land of the faculty-based academic and venturing into the wilds of central learning and teaching. I'll leave reflection on the wisdom of that move to another post....more...