Author Archives: Colin Simpson

Ed Tech must reads – column #20

First published in Campus Morning Mail 1st Feb 2022

How not to write about HyFlex or online learning from Bryan Alexander

While most academic discourse follows intellectually rigorous conventions, there is one area that seems resistant to them. Commentary about technology enhanced and online learning, particularly from those who are new to it, often reveals a lack of understanding of the field and dwells instead on anecdata and laments for the good old days. Bryan Alexander steps through some of the most common flaws in these kinds of pieces in this entertaining post that calls for better conversations about this space. 

Reverse engineering the multiple-choice question from The Effortful Educator

Multiple-choice questions (MCQs) are invaluable for making assessment at scale manageable and providing learners with quick feedback about their understanding of material. As learning tools though, they can be superficial and rarely reflect authentic uses of knowledge. The alternate approach to MCQs laid out in this post asks students to craft questions that use provided answers instead – the Jeopardy! approach to quizzing perhaps. While it may be more labour intensive to assess, this adds a richness to these kinds of questions.

Framework for Ethical Learning Technology from ALT

As the education technology market has grown and usage has become the norm, valid questions have been raised about factors beyond learning and teaching benefits. What are the drivers for businesses and university leadership in using them? How do we ensure that the focus stays on what learners need? The UK’s Association for Learning Technology (ALT) is developing a framework in four quadrants – Awareness, Professionalism, Care and Community and Values – to help guide thinking in this brave new world.

Contemporary Approaches to University Teaching MOOC 2022 from CAULLT

Many universities offer some form of educational development to their teachers, but if yours doesn’t or you would like to supplement it, this MOOC developed by 10 Australian universities under the auspices of the Council of Australasian University Learnings in Learning and Teaching is a particular rich free course to consider. Enrolments for the 2022 offering (28/2 to 29/7) are now open. It covers everything from Teaching your first class to Collaborative learning and The politics of Australian Higher Education.  

Best puzzle games // 10 indie puzzle games you need to try from Cutie Indie Recs I’ve long believed that education can learn a lot from game design in terms of creating engaging and enriching learning experiences. This nine minute video from Cutie Indie Recs showcases some of the incredible variety and creativity that can be found in PC and mobile games now. I’m not entirely sure how to convert these to teaching but maybe inspiration will strike.

Thoughts on: Praxis, Practice and Practice Architectures (Kemmis, 2014)

It’s been a while since I’ve dived into the literature but now that I’ve analysed my pilot survey data and have made some sense of it, it feels as though theory might make a little more sense. A big part of my research is looking at what edvisors do and how this shapes them and their world. The practice theory that I’ve looked at so far – mostly Shove (Social Practice theory) and Schatzki (more general practice theory) – broadly states that there are three parts to practice. These are the material things you need to perform the practice, the knowledge you need and the surrounding cultural context in which the practice occurs.

Given that I’m also very interested in how edvisors work together and with others, the fact that Kemmis thinks that something he calls “relatings” is a key part of practice makes his work worth further exploration.

I have to start by saying that I’m not fond of Kemmis’ writing style. The ideas are there but it is a slog to get to them.

From here I’m largely going to transcribe the notes I took as I read this chapter, adding pertinent quotes along the way. To be honest, it may not make a lot of sense, given that I’m also working out how it connects to the analysis that I’ve done, which I haven’t discussed. Mostly this is for my own notes.

Praxis – practice transforms the practitioner, as well as the practicee. It (may) also transform the world. This is praxis.

Aristotlean praxis – an action that is morally committed and oriented and informed by tradition in a field
Marxist praxis – action with moral, social and political consequences for those involved in and affected by it.

Schatzki (2010) calls an activity a temporalspatial event – because it occurs at a point in time and space.
Practices have material, semantic, social elements (2010 ,p.51)

Social practice – an open, organised array of doings and sayings.

A practice has 4 parts:
1) Action understandings – knowing how to perform the action, how to recognise it and how to respond to it.
2) Rules – instructions/directives to do or not do certain actions
3) A teleoaffective structure – acceptable or prescribed aims and ways to achieve these aims, as well as acceptable emotions/moods relating to it
4) general understandings about matters germane to practice

Kemmis – P.30
“Making ‘relatings’ explicit brings the social-political dimensions of practice into the light, draws attention to the medium of power and solidarity which attends practice and invites us to consider what social-political arrangements in a site help to hold a practice in place”

Practices are enabled/constrained by three kinds of arrangements that occur at sites – cultural-discursive, material-economic and social-political.

My thoughts – If teleoaffective relates to the common ends of practices – or clusters of practices – maybe this could be applied to the different kinds of pedagogical activities split between LDs and ADs

Internal goods and teleology can be considered as the project of a practice/s – what it is trying to achieve

Kemmis sees a practice defined by the relationship between practitioners in a practice. Where they use language tied to the practice (sayings), do things in a suitable place/time (doings) and engage with others tied to the practice (relatings). This forms a practice architecture.

Kemmis’ working definition of a practice (p.31)

A practice is a form of socially established cooperative human activity in which
characteristic arrangements of actions and activities (doings) are comprehensible
in terms of arrangements of relevant ideas in characteristic discourses (sayings),
and when the people and objects involved are distributed in characteristic arrangements of relationships (relatings), and when this complex of sayings, doings and
relatings ‘hangs together’ in a distinctive project.

“Characteristic arrangements of relationships” – relatings
I’m not sure these are so well defined for edvisor practices. This chapter leans very heavily into the idea of projects driving practices – I don’t know if this aligns very well with a lot of business as usual edvisor support work. Can something be a project if it doesn’t have an end date?

Practice traditions further shape practice architecture. I think I prefer Shove’s take on all of this.

My thoughts – Cultural-discursive arrangements – these are the knowledge areas I am tying to the activities. It kind of fits but not quite – less about how to actually do the thing.
I think Kemmis is missing the skills aspect in this discussion about practices.
If Kemmis is right about practices being part of projects, what do perceptions about project management tell us. (My survey data indicates that LDs and ADs don’t think ETs do much project management, ETs disagree)

Kemmis says Schatzki says practices are always contextual, shaped by the where and when in which they occur – “activity timespace”

Kemmis says the sayings, doings and relatings are already in the site and practice picks them up and orchestrates them? So it doesn’t bring them to the site?

Practice architecture:
Sayings – Cultural-Discursive – the why (and when/where??) (Meaning)
Doings – Material-Economic – the how and what
Relatings – Social-Political – the who
Not sure if this as my understanding of it all quite tracks with the theory yet.

My thoughts – I don’t like the assertion that a practice has a tidy beginning, middle and end. I guess a performance does though.
Also still struggling with this idea that the practice is the “site” (p.36) – bringing together the semantic space, the physical location and the social space.
“In these ways, the practice engages with and becomes enmeshed with the practice architectures in a site, becoming part of the living fabric of the place. Within the place, the practice is itself a social site organising what happens: the practice is a site that meshes together a semantic space, a place existing in physical space-time”

“Dispositions”
Sayings – Cognitive knowledge
Doings – skills and capabilities
Relatings – norms and values

I think sayings and doings can be seen in the knowledge areas. Relatings need to be teased out further in next phases of data collection. Overall though, this definition seems to explain things better than the last 20 or so pages have.

Dispositions link to Habitus

Relatings means that a practice is about all the people involved, not just the practitioners.

Ecologies of practice – Knowledge and activities are distributed among participants. Participants and participation are distributed in particular kinds of relationships to each other.

Ultimately I think this chapter gives me the language to link my ideas and findings to theory, so that’s something.

Ed Tech must reads – Column 19

First published in Campus Morning Mail, 25th Jan 2022

Vignette – Blogs for cogs from Lexi Keeton

While there is a lot of discussion about replicating face to face learning in the online environment, this misses the point that there are rich opportunities in this space to rethink education entirely. The Internet is a space where, for good or bad, everyone has a voice. Student work no longer needs to be read by a teacher and nobody else, it can be part of a bigger conversation – “learning into a megaphone” as Deakin Education student Lexi Keeton puts it in this insightful reflection on using blogs as part of her assessment. 

What does ‘academic freedom’ mean in practice? Why the Siouxsie Wiles and Shaun Hendy employment case matters from The Conversation

If you’ve been fortunate enough to miss it, online discourse around the pandemic in the last two years has been an utter cesspit. As with other areas of science, academics offering public commentary about COVID19 have found themselves abused and threatened. This article from Jack Heinemann discusses employers’ responsibilities and academic freedom through the lens of a recent employment case brought by two academics at the University of Auckland about whether their institution has failed in its duty of care to them.

Does digital education research have an integrity problem? from Neil Mosley

Research surrounding education in Higher Education sometimes occupies a strange liminal space. While it should ideally be objectively evidence based and geared towards ever better learning and teaching practice, it is often diminished by educators that perhaps don’t like what it has to say about their existing practice. This is doubly so when it comes to online and technology enhanced learning and teaching. As with most things though, it’s much more nuanced than this and Neil Mosley, a UK based digital learning designer steps through some of the complicating factors in this thoughtful piece.

Time to reboot and start the new semester from The Educationalist

Yes, it is still January and there are weeks to go until ‘normal’ semester 1 starts for many educators, but this list of bite-sized actions that you can fit around research and other responsibilities right now will serve you and your students well. Alexandra Mihai offers tangible steps to reflect and renew your upcoming course in this brief post, as well as links to many other valuable resources.

Discord Educational Toolkit from CUNY

Online communication between educators and students most commonly occurs via email, Zoom/Teams meetings and discussion forums in the LMS. For the most part, these are perfectly acceptable and get the job done. In the world outside the institution, you may find that your students connecting with their sub-communities in platforms like Discord, which was initial built for online gamers. Discord can see daunting at first, throwing around terms like ‘set up a server’ but it has come into its own as feature rich space for group communications. This in-depth resource from CUNY steps you through setting it up and using it effectively in teaching. Just be mindful that you probably won’t be able to get help from your institutional IT team if you have technical problems and you should probably also be mindful of institutional privacy and security policies.

Research update #62 – The importance of faculty/central

I haven’t posted one of these for a while but the work has been rolling along. In the last month I’ve written ~25k words of analysis on two questions (two big questions) in my pilot survey.

After all that, something hit me just now. I was writing about my surprise that academic developers and learning designers downplay project management activities and knowledge among education technologists, suggesting that they see this work more as reactive, 1:1 support focused. Now for me, knowing how involved big projects relating to implementation or analysis/evaluation of education technologies can be, this seemed to be a clear example of lacking awareness of what is happening in your backyard. (And there are big blind spots between all role types)

But these big projects are generally something that occurs in central teams, at an institutional level. Perhaps also among Ed Techs at more senior levels. If ADs and LDs are reflecting on what the ETs they interact with the most are doing (and knowing) on a daily basis, and these are the ETs in their faculties, it makes sense that they may have quite a different perspective.

In hindsight, this all seems painfully obvious but whoa.

Ed Tech must reads – column 18

First published in Campus Morning Mail on 18th Jan 2022

On Reading the Syllabus: A Pedagogical Thread from Twitter (@ec_leininger)

Academics often complain the students never read the unit outline, and from time to time a story will crop up about someone adding something quirky to get their students’ attention. Late last year a senior academic at the University of Tennessee posted a photo on Facebook of an unclaimed $50 note in a locker that he had included the code for in a boilerplate policy section about not making allowances for COVID. Better educators like Dr Liz Leininger were underwhelmed by this and shared this helpful thread about getting your students to read your syllabus by making it engaging and interactive instead.

Online Program Management Firms Are Thriving. And These Democrats Want Answers from The Chronicle of Higher Education

OPMs are third party providers that are increasingly partnering with Australian universities to build, deliver and administer their online course offerings. This article is American in focus so there are undoubtedly differences in systems and context but it does bring to light some questions that are being asked in the halls of power about these relationships.

We know why you hate online learning – and it has nothing to do with quality from Edugeek Journal

Nearly two years into the pandemic and we are hearing a growing chorus in some circles of people who are just tired of everything to do with online and remote learning and want to return to the old ways. These discussions are frequently wrapped up in rhetoric around the superiority of in-person teaching. Matt Croslin from EduGeek Journal dove into the research literature and spent a little time exploring the validity of these claims.

Learn programming in a codable music video from TikTok

This is a basic tool in some ways but I’m a sucker new interactive applications of coding and video in the service of better learning and teaching, so here we are. The latest music video from Doja Cat for her new song Woman allows people to change a number of variables coded in CSS, Javascript and Python at different points that change the appearance of things in the video. It’s a fun way to introducing programming structures and concepts to a new audience of learners. The joy of the person discussing it in this TikTok video is something that needed to be shared as well.

How to win at Wordle using linguistic theory from The Guardian

I recently saw Wordle described as the sourdough starter of the Omicron era – the new craze people are latching on to as a social distraction from the world. If you haven’t seen it, it’s a simple, free, one-a-day word puzzle with elements of the old Mastermind game. The addition of a simple share function that lets people show their success without spoiling the answer has led to an explosion of Twitter posts with grids of green, yellow and white squares. This article from David Shariatmadari explores some handy linguistic strategies for Wordle success.

Ed Tech must reads – column 17

First published in Campus Morning Mail Tuesday 7th Dec, 2021

Three Lenses on Lurking: Making Sense of Digital Silence from International Perspectives in Online Instruction (paywall)

The practice of reading the discussion in an online forum without engaging with it is sometimes referred to as ‘lurking’. I’ve never been a fan of this term as it casts a shadow on what can be perfectly reasonable behaviour. Kuhn et al essentially agree in this thoughtful chapter which examines lurking in online learning spaces – where ideally there is a greater need for students to be active participants. They offer some valuable nuance to the types of ‘lurker’ behaviour that offer opportunities to rethink how we create welcoming spaces for students.

Aussie gov takes on trolls from Vertical Hold: Behind the Tech news podcast

Given the current government’s track record in the technology/defamation space, it’s unsurprising that the recent announcement of plans to hold social media platforms more accountable for defamation on social media platforms have a few people wondering what the end game is. Monash Uni’s Emily van der Nagel shares her thoughts on these proposed changes relating to privacy, power and moves toward ‘banning anonymity’ (2:38 – 18:22)

Open/Technology in Education, Society and Scholarship Association Journal from OTESSA (open access)

This shiny new Canadian Open Access journal comes from OTESSA, an organisation formed “with the goal to provide an inviting community to drive innovation, research, and practice in areas where either technology or openness intersect with education, research, and, more broadly, within society.” The first edition covers topics ranging across video-conferencing technologies, online faculty development for effective graduate supervision, and Open Educational Resources in mathematics and learning communities.

50 Most Common WordPress Errors and How to Fix Them from Beginner’s guide for WordPress

WordPress has quickly become a ubiquitous platform for blogging and web publishing and it often fills the gaps when officially sanctioned institutional education technologies can’t quite do what educators want. Skimming through this handy list for troubleshooting WordPress for beginners, I recognised at least a dozen things that I could/should do to quickly fix my own site.

Dream app for easy AI art from Wombo

A few months ago, I shared some information about VQGAN+CLIP tools that let you use AI to generate art from basic text prompts. These are great but can be complicated, so it is little surprise that there are now simple apps that let you do this in a couple of clicks. The outputs don’t go through as many iterations as the full tools do and there is speculation that the company sells the ‘artworks’ as NFTs (the 21st century Tulip mania) but if that doesn’t bother you, it’s a fun tool that lets you download your images in seconds.

Ed Tech must reads – Column 16

First published in Campus Morning Mail on Tuesday 30th November 2021

Edtech people weekend challenge – Twitter discussion

I found this stimulating discussion started by @BenPatrickWill on the weekend. “If you (hypothetically) had 15 mins to address your university senior managers about the future of edtech, and it was your best chance to bring in some critical perspectives, what would you highlight?” If you’re a leader, and you ever wondered… (Or if you ever wondered what you’d say if you were trapped in a lift with them)

How to hold a better class discussion from The Chronicle of Higher Education

Class discussions can be a lottery – one day everyone is excited and engaged and the next, you struggle to extract one-word responses. Jay Howard shares some invaluable practical advice in this piece that draws on 30 years of research. Some top tips – put the work back onto the learners, ask more complex questions that support creativity, encourage students to call out great ideas from their peers.

 Why aren’t Professors taught to teach? from Tech & Learning

The fact that I thought twice about sharing this piece, which is fairly inoffensive in itself, says something about the politics around this in Higher Education. Institutions do, of course, offer a range of services and specialists that provide support to academics in teaching and ed tech – this is part of the work that I do and this is my community. This article asks the questions that I’ve been hearing a lot recently – are we doing enough and where do we go next?

Pedagogy for Higher Education Large Classes (PHELC) 2021 proceedings from PHELC (Open Access)

One of the areas where pedagogy/andragogy and technology enhanced learning veers dramatically away from K-12 learning is when it comes to large classes. The PHELC21 symposium was held in June and the full proceedings are now available. This collection of papers includes work on engagement, course redesign, problem-based learning at scale and drawing classes.

Ed Tech must reads – Column 15

First published in Campus Morning Mail on Tuesday 23rd Nov

Working paper: What does it cost to educate a university student in Australia from MCSHE & Pilbara Group

One of the common concerns raised (or benefits posited) around online and technology enhanced learning is that it is cheaper than face-to-face teaching and is introduced to cut costs rather than raise standards. People working in the space have argued for years that this isn’t the case (in either instance) but there has been something of a dearth of reliable data about the costs of teaching in HE. This working paper from UniMelb’s Centre for the Study of Higher Education, in partnership with the Pilbara Group, suggests in proud academic tradition that ‘it depends’ – based on degree level and mode. The paper also delves into a range of other factors including discipline, campus location and funding clusters.

Is the ADDIE model outdated or still relevant? From TaughtUp

When I started working in the learning design space, the ADDIE model (Analysis – Design – Development – Implementation – Evaluation) was somewhat considered the be-all and end-all. It offers a useful set of steps for thinking about the creation of a learning resource or activity but also seemed as much a linear project management system as anything else. This article outlines the history of this model and what has come to replace it as development has moved to more iterative AGILE-oriented approaches like SAM (Successive Approximation Model). As with many things, it still has its place.

Digital higher education: a divider or bridge builder? Leadership perspectives on edtech in a COVID-19 reality from International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education

This article examines the use of education technologies starting out from a position that vendors overhype their products but it eventually comes to the conclusion commonly held by people working in the sector that this doesn’t actually matter and a judicious combination of technology, pedagogy and capability building can in fact make a difference in education. Laufer et al. interview and survey Higher Ed leaders from 24 countries for their perspectives on the impact of education technologies in the last two years, covering opportunities and barriers for both individuals and institutions. Well worth a read for the big picture overview.

Webinar – Pathways to Learning Design (and more) – skill or luck? Thursday 25/11 12 noon AEDT

ASCILITE’s TELedvisors Network wraps up the 2021 webinar series with a bang, with Prof. Michael Sankey (CDU) and Jack Sage (JCU) sharing the findings of research they undertook this year into what it takes for people to enter the growing profession of Learning Design (and adjacent roles) in Australian Higher Ed and what the future looks like for these kinds of roles.

Science Fiction is a Luddite Literature from Medium

Respected author in the tech ethics and society space, Cory Doctorow, makes some valuable connections between the Luddite movement of the early 1800s and some key tenets of science fiction – namely that it is generally all about the meaning of the impact of technology on the world than the tools themselves.

ASCILITE 2021 Conference Day 3 – notes on the fly

(Oops, I thought I’d published this on the day)

Lines of thought: the emergence of meaning through collaborations and remix – Wendy Taleo and Sarah Honeychurch

Looking at learning with technology through the lens of creative projects

Remixed into representation in colours

Remixing the collaborative poem into music

Sustainable learning design in large transformational teaching and learning initiatives – Courtney Shalavin and Elaine Huber

Birgit acknowledges that describing the spread of innovation as a virus probably isn’t the best thing to do these days 🙂

Exploring industry-university partnerships in the creation of short courses and micro-credentials – Rachel Fitzgerald and Henk Huijser

This feels like another one of these discussions that haven’t changed for a decade. I’m glad that it is still on the agenda but is this a fundamental flaw of research – a hesitancy to take a position and move forward?

I asked Henk why movement has been so slow in this space – he feels it comes down to a lack of shared understanding and challenges for unis in dealing with the business models needed

Lots of rich discussion – this is clearly something that still has relevance to a lot of people.

Creating presence, currency and connection in digital learning with video blogs – Jo Elliott and Chie Adachi

Reflection on the design process

https://www.deakin.edu.au/course/master-digital-learning-leadership#tab__1–2

Nice

And that’s it for me – sadly, the real world is calling.

Thanks to everyone that has shared their ideas and work, it has been great. Thanks also to ASCILITE for putting this on.

ASCILITE2021 Conference Day 2 – notes on the fly

Awards

Ah, this is why Beth was asking whether edvisors value CMALT yesterday.

Congratulations also to Keith Heggart for the Emerging Scholar award

Poster from Kate Coleman, Kate Mitchell Kelly Anderson, et al. If unis are saying they are transformational/innovative, does this match the reality

Find the whole poster online at

https://twitter.com/kateycoleman/status/1465095576815431684?s=20

OES work on Learning Analytics

Martin Bean calling for competency based education and authentic assessment in Higher Ed. Can’t argue with that

Lovely set of Pecha Kucha (pronounced Peh Cha Ku Cha) slides from Carmen Vallis in meme format. (There are some older memes there but they check out)

Another handy tweet about some of the conference posters

Back to what? What STEM and Health teaching academics learnt from COVID – Christopher Bridge, Birgit Loch, Dell Horey, Brianna Julien, Belinda Thompson and Julia Agolli

Wide range of practices under consideration post – COVID

Deakin Launch Network: an employability network that improves engagement, graduate outcomes and wellbeing by connecting and leveraging the expertise of diverse students and alumni – Trina Jorre de St Jorre

Nice presentation about students that meaningfully included student voices

Well that was a diverse Day 2

We also had a big discussion in the TELedvisors community around our aims and some future possibilities – more on that in time