Learning and Educational Technology in Higher Education
Posts tagged Strategy
Reforming the university: evolution or revolution? – A Response
Sep 8th
Licensed Creative Commons by FrenchKheldar
As a ‘disenfranchised insider’ I really enjoyed reading Tony Bates’blog post ‘Reforming the university: evolution or revolution?’. In it Dr Bates discusses change in universities from a stakeholder point of view and considers Faculty, Students, Government and the Economy. He concludes by saying:
My view is that universities do need to change quite radically, and some form of direct intervention is needed to speed up the reform of the university. In other words, we need to build on academic contributions that suggest the need for and methods of change, and move these into some kind of movement for change. The stakes are high. Those countries that move quickly and successfully to bring about the much needed changes in universities will reap enormous benefits, educationally, economically and socially.
He then goes on to ask four questions of his readers.
- Do universities need reform? Are they meeting the needs of the 21st century as well as can be expected, or do they need to change more quickly?
- If they do need to change, what models or visions can we offer? What role should technology play in these models or visions?
- If change is needed, what is the best way to bring about change in a timely and orderly manner? Or should we not worry about whether it is orderly?
- Who will join me on the ramparts with my banner?
I have commented on Dr Bates’ blog but I do think it is worth expanding on some of those comments in my own post. So here are my answers to Dr Bates’ question. More >
Selling Solar Panels to Oil Sheiks
Aug 22nd
In a reflective mood on my Friday evening commute home I tweeted that:
Being an advocate of #elearning and #edtech in universities is a bit like trying to sell solar panels to oil sheiks
Mark Smithers
marksmithers
Response to: ‘Anatomy of a PLE’
Jul 11th
The following is a response to a blog post by Steve Wheeler (@timbuckteeth). I tried to post it as a comment but it was too large so here it is instead.
A Draft Educational Technology Landscape Map
Jun 28th
Educational Technology Landscape Map
I’ve been working on educational technology strategy and implementation for what feels like as long as I can remember but one thing I have always intended to do was to develop a visualisation of educational technologies in the form of a ‘map’. There are a number of such maps around already. Some of these are very good but they were never quite what I wanted. Specifically they focussed on the product rather than the tool or technology. So you would get a map that nearly always showed the LMS/VLE product at the centre with an eportfolio, some streaming media and some other technologies around the edge. I wanted something that showed the tools but also showed where they fitted in the landscape. Whether they were learning tools or management tools and whether the tools were focussed on the student or the staff member etc. I also wanted to get away from the LMS being at the centre of the tool map becuase the LMS is basically a collection of tools in one product that combine some management and some educational functionality. This isn’t because I am against the LMS as a concept but because I wanted to show that there are alternatives and that not everything needs to fit within an LMS. More >
Some Ways Universities Will Change Over Ten Years
Aug 3rd
As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I am currently working on a roadmap for educational technology in my university over the next ten years. Of course when looking over such a period it becomes crucial to try and anticipate the changing roles and functions of universities over that period so that we can think about the effect on educational technology.
Many commentators have speculated that the next ten years will be one of fundamental change for universities. Comparisons are made with the record industry ten years ago and the publishing industry at the moment – both faced with the hugely disruptive changes being bought about by new ways of learning and sharing on the internet.
I thought I would put my head above the parapet and share some of the thoughts I am having about the way universities might change and some of my initial conclusions. I say initial because my thoughts are changing all the time as I try and rationalise the very wide range of factors that may come into play over the next few years.
Many of the ideas have come from the The Tower and the Cloud, The Edgeless University (PDF), Stephen Downes work on forecasting the future for higher education and numerous blog posts, particularly from those listed in the sidebar.
I’ll do this in a series of posts because to write them all down at once is just too hard at the moment. Today I’ll start with two of the most important; open content and assessment.
Information Technology Leadership in Universities
Jul 16th
I’ve been re-reading the Tower and the Cloud over the last few weeks and was intrigued about the positions of the authors. It is interesting to note the number of Chief Information Officers (CIOs) that have contributed chapters to the book as well as prominent academics, consultants and higher education writers. Perhaps even more interesting is the number of CIOs who are also members of the academy. This seems to be a more common occurrence in US Universities than elsewhere. I guess it is reinforced for me by the fact that in many of the universities that I am familiar with the position of CIO does not exist at all at Vice President or equivalent level. Often Directors of IT are located in a resources portfolio along with other non academic service areas.
More >
A Strategy for Migrating Existing Course Content to Online Delivery
Jun 10th
Two obstacles to the increased uptake of online delivery of learning material in universities are:
- the heavy investment by academic staff in their existing lecture material and an understandable reluctance to redevelop this from the ground up for online delivery,
- a lack of understanding by academic staff about how to actually migrate their content online easily and in an engaging way.
Over the last two years, whilst working at La Trobe University’s Division of Nursing and Midwifery, we developed a strategy that would enable academic staff to leverage their existing lecture materials in such a way as to allow them to move into flexible, online delivery relatively easily. I have called it a strategy; it is actually such a simple approach that it barely deserves the term strategy.
More >
