A doorway to something new.

These 2 posts (Part 1 and Part 2) by Tony Bates, consider the need for change in Higher Education and the role that technology has in supporting that change.

In reading Part 1, the current 19th Century industrial model of education that universities still cling on to is all too familiar.  While many will see what Bates is proposing as being too radical and unlikely to be achieved, it is exactly what many of us are working to achieve in our roles as teachers and educators within the HE system. The idea that a model designed for an era of elite education, when around 8% of 18 year olds entered university, can still be effective in an age of mass education, when around 40% now take up university places, is one that is difficult to fathom. Over the past 20 years or so,  universities have spent increasing amounts of their budgets kitting out their teaching and learning spaces with technology. However, this has brought about little or no change in the way we educate. The technology has been used to do what we always have done, rather than to bring about change ( see an earlier posting on this subject). What has been missing is the vision and leadership needed to bring about transformative change.

In Part 2, Bates goes on to describe the “visions” that are required from the various stakeholders in HE., e.g. government, academics, students, administrators, IT managers, in order to bring about change. While technology can support this change, it requires structural and cultural changes before the current model can be dismantled and a new one put in place. In describing the implications of such change for institutions, Bates outlines 10 things that will change as a result of his own vision. I think that the most significant one relates to the changes that would take place in the way we assess learning. At present, we insist on a one-size-fits-all model, usually in the form of an end-of-course exam or a set essay. For me, I don’t believe we can realistically expect any change until this model is replaced by one that involves student choice and negotiation in how they demonstrate to us, not only what they have learnt, but also to what level of understanding they have learned it.

While I agree pretty much with everything Bates puts forward, I think that he misses the point that, within his vision of universities of the future there will still be a place for the niche institution – one that continues to offer a traditional, 19th Century industrial educational experience.

At the heart of this change is the fragmentation of information. No longer does information only exist in a pre-packaged format, such as books, CDs, newspapers or even as a course. Information is now available in a whole range of formats, and this information can be “personalised” by editing, adding, re-designing so the user ends up with information in a format that makes sense to him.This creation of  “personal frameworks of coherence” by users is one of the most important drivers for transformative change within the HE sector. No longer is the creation, delivery, validation and dissemination of information under the control of the lecturer, expert or university. The growth of user-generated content, Google, Wikipedia,  Open Educational Resources, Web 2.0 technologies, social software and mobile technologies means that the individual is now in control.

Information Fragmentation and Coherence

The Handbook gives a good overview of the pressures bringing about change and how these impact on the learning process. The discussion on the role of technology in teaching and learning goes a long way to summarising where we are at at the moment and provides some useful guidelines on its effective use. The use of technology by lecturers and departments can help bridge the gap between the traditional and the, as yet undefined, role of education in the future.

The final paragraph really brings home what we in HE are all trying to grapple with:

“Through a process of active experimentation, the academy’s role in society will emerge as a prominent sensemaking and knowledge expansion institution, reflecting of the needs of learners and society while maintaining its role as a transformative agent in pursuit of humanity’s highest ideals.”

The other four technologies covered in this report are:

• geolocation technology
• the personal web
• semantic aware applications
• smart objects (see recent post on QR codes)

The report describes the relevance of each of these technologies to teaching and learning, as well as providing some useful links to examples of educational applications.

Developed by Denso Wave in 1994, they are used in industry to store customer and shipping details on products and are now starting to appear around us on various consumer products as more devices have QR code scanners. Some Nokia phones have had barcode readers for a while now and it can’t be long before they also include QR code readers.

Andy had us discuss the educational potential of QR codes. Examples from the audience included:

• attaching a QR code to electronic feedback, e.g. Word doc,  so a student can scan their phone over the code and have it sent direct to their phone
• marketing of courses
• multiple choice tests allowing student to do it on their phone and then send their answers via text.

Further information on this can be found on Andy’s blog.

Transformative innovation is radical and challenging. It is the kind of innovation that challenges our assumptions about how we do things and causes us to question our accepted notions about education. Although radical and challenging, transformative innovation is informed by knowledge and awareness of the issues facing education, and aims to bring about improvements to the education system.

One of the main drivers for transformative innovation is the need for our education system to respond to the social and technological changes that are happening around us. Creating a culture of transformative innovation within the institution is essential, where the innovations are aligned with cultural values and beliefs of the organisation, and are not seen as being externally imposed.

This model differs from the commonly used “best practice” model which generally promotes a set of ideas originating from outside the organisation itself, rather than ideas that are central to the core goals and values of the organisation and the people within it. The culture of innovation that leads to transformation is built on a cyclical, iterative and reflective process involving:

Insight - identifying a problem, exploring solutions and finding tools to deliver

Invention - thinking out the box, thinking creatively, challenging existing practices

Application – developing strategies and organisational structures to implement new approaches and practices.

Reflection and communication – regularly reviewing and refining strategies to ensure that they are effective. Ensuring that communication networks are in place to ensure that innovation is embedded throughout the system and can be sustained.

Much of what is written in this paper is applicable to HE and could provide a useful model for managing transformative innovation within our institutions.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Mike Wesch’s latest Youtube video, A Portal to Media Literacy, is essential viewing for all educators. He describes so clearly why we have to change and challenge the present system of educating our young people. He is clearly a passionate teacher and someone who understands the world in which his students move.

His dismantling of the idea that “to learn is to acquire information”, the basis of our exam-driven school and college system and our institution-centred university system, is a joy to listen to.

He argues that our students might know how to use Youtube, Facebook, Blogger, Digg and MySpace for their own entertainment but they don’t know how to use them to learn or to create something interesting or new. So, in this sense they are no more “natives” than we are. We can’t assume that our students are media literate – even though they use Wikipedia all the time, many don’t realise it’s a wiki and can be edited.

The challenge for Higher Education, and indeed our 5-18 system, is to create “platforms of participation that allow students to realize and leverage the emerging media environment”. Moving our school, colleges and universities out of their “content delivery” model to one where students are participating, collaborating, sharing, creating and evaluating is how we develop an education system that is relevant to the next generation of learners. As I have said before, we have undersold and largely failed the Google generation – those who are in the system at the moment. But it is not too late to do something about the ones who are coming along after them. Put aside some time and watch the entire 66 minutes of this video – in 67 minutes you’ll be inspired to do something!

Watch a guided tour with Emelie.

The OU has become the second UK university (after UCL) to make its content accessible through iTunes U. It joins other world class universities such as Yale, Stanford and MIT in making course materials available for free download. It plans to have 500 video and audio materials from 50 courses on iTunes U by the end of July. In the longer term, some of its research activities will also be published on the site.