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.

A great research tool that sits within Firefox and can be accessed both on- and offline. Like del.icio.us, Zotero automatically captures citation information from web pages and allows you to add notes, tags and attachments. Unlike del.icio.us it also stores copies of Word and PDF docs, images and other files.
Zotero’s main window consists of three panes. The left pane is your library and holds your collections. This is a repository of all the webpages, files, articles and books you have added.

The middle pane displays all the items in the currently selected collection. It’s also a working area, where you add new items and edit existing ones. Use the New Item button on the top of the middle pane to add a new item, which can be a journal article, webpage, podcast, map or book. The other buttons on the toolbar, allow you to add the currently opened Web page to the collection, take a snapshot of the Web page, create a standalone note or do an advanced search.

In the right hand pane you can add notes (I often cut and paste the first few lines of a webpage in here), attachments and tags to a item. This pane also displays all the bibliographic information about an item such as publisher, edition, date, ISBN, and URL.

Another neat feature of Zotero is that it can detect items within the currently open webpage. For example, in Amazon a book icon will appear on the address bar when you are looking at a book. Clicking on this automatically adds it to Zotero, with all the bibliographic information. This feature works on a large number of other sites.

The only drawback with Zotero at the moment is that your entire library is stored on a single machine so, unlike del.icio.us, it can’t be accessed from anywhere.

Download Zotero from here.