Welcome to Digital is not the future

I would also add infrastructure to that list as it is often one of the major stumbling blocks for the take up and embedding of new tools/pedagogies.

Hi everyone, I'd like to suggest that a key question is how we ensure that the right tech and innovative pedagogical processes are embedded in practice and policy at our institutions.

I don't personally have a problem with new tech/pedagogy being introduced to expand on existing practices - indeed I just read an Office of Learning and Teaching (Australia) research paper indicating that both students and educators find tools that help them to get on with the work of learning and teaching to be the most useful to them. (This includes online enrolment, information about classes, communications etc) (There's quite a bit in the paper that I question but the survey feedback on the "state of the actual" is pretty interesting)

http://www.olt.gov.au/project-what-works-and-why-understanding-successful-technology-enabled-learning-within-institutional

Don't get me wrong, I get as frustrated as anyone when I see the potential of a new tool or approach going to waste; I just have a sense that an evolutionary, scaffolded approach to innovation might yield valuable gains. (Which is also what my scant understanding of social practice theory indicates). Even if we manage to sell the VC on a new paradigm with our elevator pitch, I'd suggest that purely top-down change is far less likely to succeed than that which works more with the broader ecology of the institution.

@Colin - You are thinking along similar lines to myself and Peter when we set-up the hack. I agree that online enrollment etc is crucial stuff to get right and needs to be properly supported but let's imagine all of that is working, what then?

Assuming all "that" is working, administration processes are rendered as transparent and effortless (to teachers & learners) as possible, leaving learning relationships disintermediated. So, what are the learning relationships? Who are the relationships between? What is the measure of "better"? Quantity? How many learning relationships can be maintained? Speed (the faster horse)? Against Ford we might set another person of the era, Thoreau, for whom a faster horse probably wasn't top of his list. How can we bring about Institution-wide pedagogic improvement through technology is probably not the right question for large, heterogenous, complex HEIs.

I think there's a question about whether pedagogic improvement is the ultimate goal. I have posted in one of the threads about that.
I'm not sure what is broken about university teaching that needs fixing by improved pedagogy. Some teaching is boring. Thus has it ever been.
However, the economy, therefore the job market is rather broken, i think. So there is a problem for graduates.
When i think what "my" tools can do to support that situation, the answers feel different from the pedagogical lens.

You make some interesting points about the challenges of pedagogic improvement @amberthomas - tools aren't always pedagogy.

I think that we're in the middle of a significant shift in the way that people access information and create and share knowledge and long-standing approaches to teaching and learning aren't always going to be enough. I'm fine with keeping employability skills in the mix - it's the reason that most people are at uni - and I'd suggest that if we are to equip learners with the information/digital literacy and critical thinking skills that they need, we need to be open to new pedagogical approaches.

At the simplest level, how valuable are exams when outside the exam room, students can access anything they need to know? Yet, here are least, they are still a massive part of assessment.

Could creating more 'tailored' learning experiences, which better fit the specific needs and learning styles of each individual learner be part of the new pedagogic paradigm? Especially in the light of TEF?

Possibly, though the human resource implications are a challenge. I think it is probably more practical to think of the tailoring as being at the department or course level.

Thanks for making those points. I'd agree that we need to be very careful when talking about improvements. I think that kind of language makes the claim look unassailable and universal. Things might look quite different if we started getting into the details, and asking who benefits, and how - and who doesn't.

@David - no worries. Ok, well I'm assuming that everyone here is an ed designer or learning technologist or somesuch. I guess my main point is that our users - learners and educators - need to see the value in whatever approach is put to them. It has to meet their needs

This means that we have to understand their needs - particularly from an educational perspective - and be able to sell a new solution. Not only that, we have to be able to demonstrate that this solution addresses a complex set of competing and often contradictory needs. On top of this, purely rational, evidence based arguments grounded in the most solid research aren't necessarily going to win the day.

We're working with highly intelligent people in their disciplines - and their intelligence is their capital. Some of these people, when placed in situations where they have to admit that they don't know as much as you do (pedagogy, ed tech) get defensive and prefer to criticise the technology (it doesn't work, it's clunky) than learn to use it. As for being open to having it fail on them (and it does) and losing face with their students - this is definitely a thing they'd rather avoid. So sometimes we're going to have to meet their emotional needs as well. (Something else to consider is that some people genuinely enjoy their face to face teaching and do it really well)

Sorry, I realise that this seems a bit like a stream of consciousness.

My point is that if we are to advocate for more innovative attitudes in our institutions, we need to make sure that they are going to be the right ones. The worst thing that can happen is to get the executive excited about ed tech and then have them decide (and announce) that every student gets an iPad. Or we're going to suddenly put 10 language courses wholly online in 2 years time. Or every student has to complete a MOOC to graduate. Because the higher you rise in the organisation, in some cases, the smarter you have to look. You have to be the visionary. (Fortunately this isn't always the case but it's a real risk).

If, on the other hand, we have taken the time to understand the issues needing change and the opportunities to augment current effective practices and we have worked with stakeholders across the uni to get everyone on board, by the time it reaches the VC, maybe it's basically inevitable.