Author: Sue Watling

Blackboard Blog

Sue Watling / / Blackboard

As a BB system administrator I’m used to being on the receiving end of perceived problems rather than lavish praise. After all, it’s only when something doesn’t work that it gets attention – which is then usually from a negative point of view. You don’t praise a tool when it lets you down. But in all fairness, many criticisms of BB do turn out to be explainable errors. As a VLE it’s well embedded across the institution with the majority of courses having a presence and plenty of innovative online collaborative learning experiences.

It takes time to embed change. The move from the Virtual Campus involved a different way of working with different systems integration – it wasn’t going to happen overnight and it didn’t. But we’re getting there and the majority of staff now use BB on a regular basis.

I feel the need to defend BB from its critics. Yes – it’s a corporate behemoth of VLE but we don’t use it to its full capacity. Yes – it’s not the most visually exciting of environments but it isn’t meant to be, it’s a means to an end, not the end itself – that comes from the ways in which it is used. And yes, it may look like a repository of digital documents, but that shouldn’t be used against it. The recent JISC 3 R’s report Recruitment Retention Results supports the provision of electronic information saying

‘Resources in digital format (even simply class lecture notes) are inherently more flexible and accessible than paper-based resources, supporting differentiation and a range of learning styles.’

So uploading documents to BB is good practice, it’s supporting diversity and enabling users to take advantage of the inherent flexibility of digital data to be customised and personalised to suit individual preferences.

We should be proud of BB. There are a great team of people supporting it and we should take advantage of its affordances rather than being overly critical. At the end of the day it does what it’s meant to do and talking to staff and students across the university shows that – it does it quite well.

Letting go of books…

Sue Watling / / digital divide

The Long Hall in Trinity College Dublin is less a Library and more a museum. You would need a good head for heights to work here; the mezzanine structure gives a whole new meaning to ‘books on the top shelf.’

It’s sad but I believe books have had their day. Just as monastic scribes gave way to the printing press, so books are becoming digital and the Kindle will be spoken of alongside  Gutenburg in the history of communication. We will tell grandchildren about a place called a Library, where we borrowed real books then took them back and borrowed some more; if we were late we had to pay a fine and in a Library you didn’t talk, you were quiet. It was a contemplative place, a bit like a church, only they’re going out of fashion too. Today, Trinity College Library occupies that space between utility and relic. Visiting the Library is tagged onto seeing the Book of Kells and neither are free. Prepaying 9 euros over the Internet makes no difference to the system. You still need a ticket with a barcode. One of many things the Internet can’t do is remove the need to queue.

The Book of Kells, four illuminated Gospel manuscripts, offers a tangible link with the past but you can’t touch it. Over 1200 years old, it represents a heritage from a different age.  What were once valuable and rare sources of communication are now even more so. The Book of Kells lies behind glass in a darkened room, no photographs please, a symbol of a different age when access to what passed as knowledge was limited to church and state. Today we take such access for granted but the nature of the book itself is changing; the idea of an individual volume in your hand is being replaced with a digital reader containing multiple volumes downloaded from the Internet. The Public Library is under threat and not just because of government cuts to front line services. We need to take care because the any-time any-where, instant gratification of digital data comes at a cost. 

We need to hold onto our memories of libraries; shafts of sunlight in dusty reading rooms, the card index catalogue, the shelf upon shelf of hardbacks, some borrowed frequently, some never at all, the escape from the noise of the traffic and the bustle of the High Street with the promise of further escape into literature. Humankind has always loved stories.

The Internet is enabling a dangerous social shift. As we moved from oral to print traditions, so the move from analogue to digital culture risks the loss of what was once valued. Books are more than artifacts – they are a symbol of our times. They represent the communication of ideas and without ideas we are nothing. We need to hold onto what matters. Letting go of books is to let go of more than we might realize.

Learning Development takes centre stage

Sue Watling / / digital literacy

The 8th ALDinHE Conference (the Association for Learning Development in Higher Education) ‘Engaging Students – Engaging Learning’ took place at Queen’s University Belfast 18-20 April 2011. ALDinHE is the organization for professionals engaged in the development of learning within the higher education sector. The provision of Learning Development varies across institutions; some have teams of variously named coordinators, supporters or advisers, both in central positions or placed in Faculties, others have less or none. For the latter, that may be about to change because Learning Development is about to take centre stage. No longer the Cinderella of higher education – with rising fees and increasing focus on the student experience – the ways in which learning can be supported and developed are about to be revisited.

The main problem with Learning Development is a linguistic one. Most people refer to it as Skills – learning skills, academic skills, literacy skills – whatever the prefix there’s no getting away from the subsequent association with deficit or lack and from there it’s a short step to that dreadful word ‘remedial’ – when it isn’t about any of those things. Learning Development is about the qualities which make the higher education experience so unique; critical thinking, reflective practice, independent learning, problem solving, time organisation, motivation, transferable skills – oops there’s that word again – it has to go! 

There’s another driver for revisiting and rethinking institutional provision of Learning Development and that’s digital literacy. A colleague has recently asked for a context free description of what is meant by digital literacy. I would suggest analysis, synthesis and evaluation with regard to digital data would be a reasonable start and that Learning Development is ideally placed to support the digital literacy of students (and staff) alongside more traditional higher education requirements. In an uncertain world, one thing we can be sure of is the increasing influence of the Internet and universities need to be at the forefront in making sure the Internet is seen for what it is – a chaos of information with no controls over content and with every day that chaos increases. We need to learn to pick our way through it with care and that requires the sort of critical thinking which lies at the heart of the higher education experience.

Digital literacy will be the making of Learning Development. It’s the opportunity for the profession to stand at the front of the stage and be recognised as a foundation of university education.  If you want to engage students – do it digitally. Learning Development is about to have an identity make-over and ALDinHE will be leading the way. http://www.aldinhe.ac.uk/index.htm

What’s in a name?

Sue Watling / / digital literacy, equality and diversity, inclusive design

Quite a lot actually.  Juliet may have said ‘That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.’* but you need to choose its substitute with care. Dogwort is the prettiest of spring flowers but would you recognise it? Exactly! Whereas everyone knows a rose even if your only experience is modern hybrids which are all colour and no scent.  

Fancy fonts are a bit like todays roses; all style and no substance. Fonts are like people; they have their own characters and personalities. The problem starts when  the font you choose says more about you than the message you want to put across. A disaster in the art of communication.  Naming is a tricky art; a conundrum which lies at the heart of marketing – how best to deliver the message succinctly and with style?

How best to name a staff development workshop where it needs to convey the message that attending is worth an hour or two of your time. I’ve developed a session which looks at working with digital data and ensuring the information we put online can be accessed by everyone, regardless of the ways in which they use their computers. It’s about recognising difference and diversity but in relation to operating within digital environments. Take-up on the sessions isn’t great. Paul Stainthorp has suggested this could be symptomatic of the lack of importance placed on accessibility, usability and access issues in general. I think Paul is right – but public institutions have a responsibility to ensure digital content follows inclusive practice guidelines. Which is why a little awareness raising is not a bad thing. But how best to get the message across?

With hindsight maybe the title Promoting Inclusive Practice with Digital Data isn’t the best of choices. I like the phrase Digital Literacy but first responses suggest it’s making the same mistakes. The meaning is clear to me but I’m not standing outside the box. I like Know your Fonts but it’s not much better – I know what I mean but how can I be sure that meaning is explicit? Maybe there isn’t a title with universal appeal. Maybe we’ve all become too set in our digital ways. I don’t yet have the answer. But you have to appreciate the subtle irony that a workshop about getting the digital message across successfully has a title which is failing to get that message across in the first place!

* Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2)

Festival of Learning 31 March 2011

Sue Watling / / Uncategorized

Student as Producer Festival of Learning took place on 31 March 2011. A mixture of student led events took place across all Faculties with a closing Keynote by Dr Monica McLean. In the Science Building, I met students Sam, Kirby, Francesca, Kathryn and Emma, was fingerprinted, had my cells stained with Methylene Blue dye, visited the Blood-Spatter room and Lancelot the skeleton.

Festival of Learning Festival of Learning  Festival of Learning

Up Steep Hill at Chad Varah, with my colleague Andy Hagyard, we met students on the Conservation and Restoration course including Robin, Georgina, Josh, Caitlin, Jess and Benedict who between them were working on a fascinating mixture of objects including an 18th century military helmet, a fragile early 19th century Japanese doll, an early paper map of Saffron Walden, a lacquer and mother of pearl cupboard door and a 1930’s King from a nativity scene at All Saints Church on Monks Road in Lincoln. I also encountered a fully restored 18th century statue of St Dunstan from Goldsmiths Hall London and saw how a wall sized covering from the Beaumont Chapel Hotel in Windsor was being conserved an repainted and mustn’t forget the nearly completed Victorian model boat which will be on display at the student exhibition on 21st May.

Festival of Learning  Festival of Learning  Festival of Learning

Finally, Andy and I called into Thomas Parker House where we met Emily, Mike, Jack and Sam, Creative Advertising Students, and sat in on a Sonic Sound Spaces session with students from Graphic Design. Thanks to Chris Robinson at Chad Varah and to Gyles Linguard and Tim Fabian at Thomas Parker House for making us feel so welcome and taking the time to introduce the students with all their brilliantly creative work and ideas.

Festival of Learning Festival of Learning Festival of Learning

To see all the photos from Conservation and Restoration at ChadVarah,  Creative Advertising and Graphic Design at Thomas Parker House and Forensic Science and Bio-Medical Science in the Science Building visit the Student as Producer website http://studentasproducer.lincoln.ac.uk/events/

Beware the Internet, it’s rotting our brains…

Sue Watling / / digital literacy

Beware the Internet, its rotting our brains, or at least reprogramming our neural pathways to work in different ways. So say writers like Nicholas Carr, Andrew Keen and Clay Shirky. The concept isn’t that difficult to believe. As a species we’re designed to evolve and the societies in which we live don’t stand still either – they evolve and morph – as evidenced by changes from oral to print traditions – from agriculture to industry. There’s an inevitability about the digital challenge to the printed page – and whether it’s academic research like the CIBER report or writers like the above named – I can’t help but agree – the Internet is changing the way I work and the way I think and the way I live my life. I’m permanently online and if I’m not I miss it. I’ve become accustomed to Internet access. My mobile technology means I can be on the move and still in touch with email, facebook, twitter, bbc news, igoogle, itunes, local traffic updates, the list is endless. I don’t use Google Latitude but it’s a prime example of digital lifestyle meets social media equals Wow! The only time I’m free of the Internet is when I’m travelling and then I deliberately cut the link; otherwise I can’t absorb the strangeness of different places, I can’t leave behind the problems and the daily grind. I can’t feel a different country and its culture. But the minute I’m home the laptop is on and I’m reconnected.  

There is something about the mass of information on the Internet that’s addictive; the continual process of linking, the search for the next bit of content which will have exactly the answer I’m looking. It encourages surface browsing with the resultant sore eyes from too many hours at the screen and a dull headache from a surfeit of mental stimulation and resultant ideas. At least, that’s how it is for me. But at least I know the Internet is a machine. It has no morals or values or empathy. They are our responsibility; it’s up to us to ensure our digital experiences are for the better and not the worse. 

We’ve come a long way from the weekly trip to the public library. I’m not suggesting we should go back; revisiting the past is never a good idea. We need to stay in a forward trajectory but we also need to remember our analogue roots. People matter, health and relationships matter, the Internet is no substitute for family and friends.

It’s Friday night and it really is time to open the wine and close down my browser – now where did I put my phone???

Giving by HM Government; a fairy tale

Sue Watling / / digital exclusion 2010, nothing to do with work

Government is promoting cultural change. They’re calling it social action. Otherwise known as giving. They have ‘new technologies at their disposal’ and ‘insights from behavioural science’ with potential to show how ‘obstacles to giving can be overcome’ and ‘tap into our motivation to give’ (p7).  Giving is government’s green paper designed to make givers of us all.

Government recognises it can’t compel people to social action – no, it has to be built from the bottom up (p7) a reference it’s hard to take seriously.  Social action is what local organisations and communities do already –have always done – and will continue to do regardless of the latest government smokescreen for cuts – known colloquially as the Big Society.

Back to the giving report. Don’t worry if giving isn’t your thing. Government recognises that some groups ‘face different barriers to participation’ for example barriers ‘associated with health or disability’ or ‘a lack of time due to caring responsibilities’ (p10). If you identify with these barriers, please don’t think you’re being excluded from any extra-curricular ‘social actions’ on top of your day to day struggles. Government will ensure ‘opportunities to give that are accessible for all’ and what’s more they’re ‘excited by the potential for this created by new [Internet] technologies’ (p10)   

Don’t have the Internet? It’s not a problem. But don’t get too excited. Government won’t provide it, you’ll stay digitally excluded. They’re just going to use more ‘traditional methods of providing information’ (p11) about opportunities to give. And don’t go worrying about any lack of ‘organized social action’ in your neighbourhood. Government will ensure those living in less active communities receive the support they need to ‘galvanise’ that social action into happening.

Not yet convinced that giving is for all and all are for giving?

Government has saved the best till last. They tell us (and you can feel the smugness seeping off the page) ‘Spending money on others, including charities, makes us happier than spending on ourselves; we get something back – the ‘warm glow’ that comes from giving.’(p15)

So you heard it here first. Get out there and get giving. Regardless of your personal situation, your health or your lack of facilities, giving will make you make feel good about yourself. Why? Because ‘evolution has endowed us with a social brain that predisposes us to reciprocate acts of kindness (p15).

We’ve also evolved to recognise bullshit when we see it…

Student Rep Conference meets Student as Producer

Sue Watling / / Blackboard, conference

The Student Rep’s Conference (2nd March) provided space for students and staff to talk to each other. I hope there’ll be lots of dissemination in online/offline student/staff publications because it was worth it. It’s not that students and staff don’t talk to each other – they do – in lots of different ways – but this event raised the quality of those conversations.

In the afternoon students talked about Student as Producer; the Lincoln led, cross-institutional, project which looks to redesign the curriculum along the lines of research engaged teaching. It’s like UROS has become infectious and spread across the university. Under Student as Producer, the opportunity to apply for a bursary to undertake a UROS project has been reintroduced (closing date 11 March see http://studentasproducer.lincoln.ac.uk/funding for details) but the real value lies in plans for restructuring teaching and learning. This is less radical than the language used to describe it. Teaching informed by and engaged with research is not new. The only difference is Student as Producer raises its profile and emphasises research as the primary organising principle of practice.

I’m reminded of a parallel movement across the sector a decade ago;  the push for embedding virtual learning environments. It reminds me because Student as Producer can appear on first encounter as something new and radical, almost verging on unsafe because of the revolutionary language it inspires.  But looking back over the history of technology in education, you see a similar mixture of adoption of new ways of working. Before Dearing, people were already engaging with digital environments, in the way that teaching already engages with research. What’s needed is time. Adoption of innovation is often less about changing practice and more a shift in emphasis on what people are already doing.  

Using Roger’s model of diffusions of innovation, Student As Producer is currently with the innovators and early adopters. As it spreads out across the university via events like the Student Reps Conference, and the Festival of Learning planned for the end of March (details here http://studentasproducer.lincoln.ac.uk/events) it will pick up more interest from whose practice already aligns with its organising principles. It’s  ‘stickiness’ will increase until the tipping point  is reached. You can see this with technology enhanced learning. At Lincoln, the push towards adopting the institutional VLE has finally got there. Recent surveys conducted by the Student Union and CERD suggest a high level of embedding of Blackboard into daily practice. This has taken time but the shift has happened. Student as Producer is in its early days but given time it will become as ubiquitous as Blackboard has done alongside all its potential opportunities for enhancing the experience of teaching and learning across the whole institution.

Graduate School Conference 25th February 2011

Sue Watling / / CERD, conference

Live blogging can be an effective tool as demonstrated at the Graduate School Conference (http://gradconf11.blogs.lincoln.ac.uk/) but there’s also value to be had from reflection and blogging after the event. I felt the conference was a huge success and the high number of people returning to the auditorium at 4.15 was testament to a great day. I can’t select a highlight – there were so many!

Anyone who’s attended a student based conference will know the value of an eclectic range of presentation content and style. The mixing and matching of subjects and expertise provided audience experiences which were in turn provocative, intellectual, surprising, entertaining and above all educational. I learned so much – all of it relevant and interesting. Limiting presentations to quarter of an hour and maintaining good time keeping meant the parallel sessions ran well. The Arts, Sciences and Humanities were all represented and the attendant mix of home and international students with academic and support staff provided opportunities for discussion on a wide range of issues. The conference theme was networking and that was indeed the primary function of the day.

 I think, on reflection, what I took away and has stayed with me, is the importance of balance. Opening the conference, Mike Neary quoted Castells on how we are all living in a networked society with increasingly digital lifestyles and ways of working.  Mike suggested increased levels of contact through digital networks is leading to disconnection on the ground. The sense of community is getting lost. The processes of online social interaction are not only gaining dominance but are becoming divisive, leaving behind those with analogue roots and privileging the manipulation of digital communication and control. Ironically, the participation in digital networks is ultimately a solitary one. What is missing – and is needed – is the balance between digital and human interaction. Together they make a whole and that lies at the heart of the university experience; opportunities to take disparate approaches and put them together, to investigate alternative practices, try something you’ve never done before, learn something you didn’t know but which adds quality to your life.  Well run, well organised, student-based conferences like this one offer the essential exposure to difference which reminds us that diversity really is what it’s all about.

48 GO GREEN is an avant-garde Festival that gives the opportunity to speak up against the ecological destruction taking place on our planet.

Sue Watling / / Uncategorized

48 GO GREEN is an avant-garde Festival that gives the opportunity to speak up against the ecological destruction taking place on our planet.  Their 48 hour film competition took place last weekend; entrants had just 48 hours to produce a short video. Take a moment to watch this entry. To vote go to http://www.48gogreen.com where it only takes a minute to register and support local creative talent.