CMALT in Action

An understanding of the constraints and benefits of different technologies

Learning technologies is a double edged sword. It has its advantages, but it also presents many challenges. Learning technologies can be quite helpful and, if people perceive its potential and benefits, it can offer great possibilities in terms of how people can learn and teach in a more interactive and collaborative way. However, when its meaning and value is misunderstood, the use of learning technologies can lend itself to misinterpretations where its potential and added value are concerned.

That is, I think, the greatest challenge a Learning Technologist has to face on a daily basis. Although ICT is a growing factor in our educational culture and practice, it is also true that it is not the technology per se that should be the main focus of ours institutions and staff, but rather the learning and teaching design and strategies, i.e, the pedagogy, which needs to be revisited and readapted according to the challenges the Digital Age brings.

Acquiring technology is easy. Training people on how to mechanically use it is also not hard. The challenge, however, resides on how people perceive the use of such technologies as added value so that they can menaingful engage with it as to give their practice an innovative touch.

But such transformations never come easy. They mean taking people out of their comfort zone. Often in times, they are understood as “corrections” to one’s work, rather than a natural evolution of things. It all takes time and patience for it to grow as part of ones culture and practice. But all of this also needs guidance and mentoring. [Changing one’s practice is a hard job!]

In the last decades Universities and educational institutions in general have acquired recent technology. Most of them have their own Virtual Learning environment (VLE), and even other web tools that are being trendily used within the educational realm. However, the easy access to different new technologies does not always benefit the new teaching and learning pedagogy. Often in times, the different tools available are used at the light of the traditional teaching methods, which are rooted on a philosophy of knowledge transmission and delivery of expert information. Yet, the greatest potential of such technologies is the interaction and collaboration possibilities they offer, as well as the communication channels for open participation, and creation, they enable.

But just like everything in life, not only what’s new is good, and not all that belongs to the past is bad. We learn in a continuum, and we also learn from less successful experiences. And the truth is that good and bad learning and teaching experiences have always existed. The biggest plus of introducing the new approach of Learning through Technology in an educational environment is that, for once, there is an opportunity, and also an excuse, to guide and mentor staff to adopt a more interactive and dynamic approach when it comes to their learning and teaching practice. By the same token, we also have the chance to invite students to leave their comfort zone as information consumers and step forward as co-creators of their learning path. How we, Learning Technologists, address this ‘assignment’ is crucial for the success of staff development and their practice as educators.

At the University of Salford I have been involved in training and mentoring of staff through courses I offered, which staff members could freely join. I also do peer-to-peer sessions or personalised group training for members of staff who have a particular need or wish to learn about learning technologies associated to their own context. Independently of my audience, there are always a set of questions I ask people to think about when applying technologies to their practice:

1. How their students are (the participants… who might have formally have been known as target groups or audience, as Ian Forrester said in a recent presentation)
2. What they want their students to learn (the content)
3. How they want their students to engage(the context)
4. And what they aim to achieve (the purpose)

I think these questions are essential, not only because they will help with the design of the learning activities, but because they also help us to focus on the teaching and the learning, rather than on the technology. If we know what we want to do first, then we can think which technology would suit our purpose better. Often in time, most training sessions focus on the tools than on the learning and learning environment they can enable, when applied in the right context, to develop the desired content and achieve the final goal. And that is to say that no tool per se creates a rich learning environment, although it can provide the space for it.  A learning environment is dependent on how we engage our learners and which contexts and purposes we ‘challenge’ them with.
Technical knowledge and ability in the use of learning technology

My strengths in the filed of Technology enhanced learning have always been related more with the pedagogical strategy rather than with the technical part. As a matter of fact, I cannot code from scratch (I only have very basic knowledge, which I developed informally)or solve advanced technical issues without the help of others. I come from an educational background, and throughout the years I have taught myself, as well as learnt from and with others about the technical side of technology. Be that as it may, understanding and exploring the pedagogical side of emerging technologies is my focus. Nevertheless, I have learned a great deal in terms of technical expertise. I know enough to use the tools and add some changes to it to fit my didactic objectives. That is probably what gives the people I work with that extra encouragement to engage with the technology, because our focus will always rely more on how people learn and how we can assist them in that learning, than on the technology. It is he human side of the technology that I am interested in explore and share with others.

It is true that without the tools we cannot create online learning situations. The tools represent the platform on which learning can happen online, but they are only appealing if easy to manage. As far as my experience in assisting staff goes, the tools have to be easy to use and  still relevant when it comes to achieving the learning goals. Hence, the tools educators and I choose to use when working on a new module or project are directly dependent with their teaching/ discipline context, e.g: the type of learning activities and outcomes envisaged. Only after determining the what’s (what is this course about / what do we want to achieve), who’s (whom is this course for / who will be facilitating this course) and how’s  (how are learners going to learn / how are learners going to be accessed), do we look at the technology. Before such courses are delivered, the educators themselves often learn and engage with the technology. This is something I quite insist on, so that they can experience first hand the advantages and also the challenges such technologies might offer. Furthermore, it gives them the know-how and the confidence they need to lead in a technically dependent environment. Although they know they can always rely on me for help and trouble-shoot, I see a great advantage in involving them first hand with the technology. Educators grow more independent and also more creative when taking more responsibility for the managing of the online environment, and that is important as part of their teaching strategy. While doing so, I am able to pass on some technical knowledge to them, and also learn from it as educators usually challenge me with questions and ideas I had never considered before.

Supporting the deployment of Learning Technologies      

In the last four years I have been planning, developing and delivering teacher training sessions and mentoring both online and face to face. This has made me realise how important it is for institutions to offer their staff this kind of support. It is crucial to have a team whom you can contact and ask for a piece of advice concerning such issues. That is exactly what I consider to be one of the main aspects of my work, here at the University. I think it is vital to be able to provide support both to educators and students across the university. In this sense, I do a lot of peer mentoring and small group sessions. I find them useful and people also seem to like such personalised sessions. Not only does it make it easy to reach out to people; it is also interesting to see how people become more open to share their questions as well as come up with new ideas they are not sure if they are possible to put in practice.

In the last years I have been working closely with small teams of lecturers and professors in the design of their online sessions and respective strategies. In the course of my activity I came to realizs many important things which have helped be understand my target audience better. Generally, people are not against technology, they are just reluctant of trying something they do not know if they are going to be good at. Partly, this arises from their past experiences, in which they were not provided with much support concerning their teaching. This usually leads them to think that won’t change either once they start using the technology. However, when they realise that they will get the initial help they need, as well as ongoing support and mentoring, they start feeling more relaxed and more open to try new things. That is when it starts getting excited to all parties involved. The more we work together on the technology within the context we agreed upon before, the more relevant they find these experiences, and the more ideas they bring to the development of their modules. We take a lot of time looking at the type of content students are supposed to interact with and construct, which outcomes they should be able to achieve and how that can be achieved with the use of participatory media. Crucial to an efficient programme is also staff’s levels of familiarity with technology. Hence, as part of their training session, we learn about the tools by using the tools in contexts that are relevant to them. They learn by exploring the tools their students will potentially use to learn and develop content they already know about. So, as I usually tell them, no matter how savvy their students are about the technology, they will not go far without their guidance when it comes to content and knowledge construction. Educators have a crucial role in facilitating learning…more than teaching. Students may be experienced using technology, but that is not the same as saying they are proficient in using them for their own learning. Their lecturers have a role in helping them realise that.

Furthermore, cliches do not always help. And HE students are not all quite proficiency with technology; some do struggle with it. That was the particular reason why I also started giving support to the students enrolled to my staff’s module. I have recently been assigned to focus more on research staff and students. Hence, I have also been hosting special sessions related with he use of the social web for PhD students, as part of their generic research training. ICT also has a very important role in the development of one’s webpresence and research dissemination strategies, in other words, their professional, digital ID.

Supporting the deployment of learning technologies is my main mission here at the university. This is something I am really committed to, but my emphasis is never on the technology per se, but rather on how it can help develop a pedagogy rooted in peer participation and collaborative work. Thus, it is important to mentor staff about the new teaching and learning philosophies, and provide them with the understanding of the advantages and pitfalls of technologies. There is not such thing as a perfect world, but we sure can make the best of it. As we work together on their skills and teaching strategies, we also explore the technical side of ICT, from a user’s point of view. While doing so they also become technically more proficient, hence more confident to take this approach forward with their students.

Ultimately, as they succeed and enjoy such experiences, their learning stories also start to influence their peers, who slowly start enrolling for the mentoring sessions and other web 2.0 staff development courses. Step by step; byte by byte we are getting there.

Understanding and engaging with legislation, policies and standards

I must say this might be the section I will have less to share. I have attended several session on legislation , policies and standards here at the university. Every time there is a new session being offered on this thematic I try to attend it, because I think it is important to know the latest information within this context, as one of my roles as a learning technologist is to support and mentor staff to act according to the current legislation, policies and standards.

Copyright laws has been the sub-area I have devoted more time, especially to the use licensed materials in online environments, as well as the production and reproduction of content in a digital format. That is an issue I address with all the people I work with here at the university. We need to be aware of the copyright issues. In this sense I have developed this wiki page with relevant information staff can access. I also use it as part of some of my training workshops.

I believe it is important to make people aware of the kind of licences there are for online publishing and refer to the growing phenomenon of Creative Commons licensing  which is also changing the way academics and Educational Institutions are sharing information and opening up their content to a wider world. We have the example of MIT’s , Yale’s or Open University’s open courses, which are all licensed under a creative Commons licence. Although we are still not all there (most universities still operate quite closed within themselves) I share the idea this will be the way forward.

Prof. Laurence Lessig’s blog is one of my frequent readings, not only as part of my personal development, but also as a strategy to keep up with the latest developments in online law. we need to follow our mentors and read their ideas.

Related posts:

Happy Open Access Week

• Training, mentoring and developing others;
• Community Support.

To be honest I don’t feel a specialist in anything. I feel an eternal apprentice who is fortunate enough to belong to an international learning community, and a distributed network which feature learners of the most diverse background and with the most incredible experiences to share. Faced with such realty I can only feel an eternal apprentice. Now, if you’d ask what I like most about my job, I would have to say that it is all the “education-based conversations” and learning exchange opportunities the work I do grants me.

I started my online learning venture in the year of 2003 after I got my first job at the the School of Naval Technologies. I was hired to do something I knew little about. Having come from the translation background I was commissioned to teach. That was a reality I needed to adapt to as soon as possible. Finding proper, just-in-time training in my local area was not easy.  Online, however that was fairly easy and doable. These days, it is even easier. All it takes is willing. It was this way I started my self-initiated, peer-supported training while I waited for the next University  post-graduate degree  to start. Participating in online learning environments, getting to know other people who were working in the same area as I was and who, I realised, shared the same kind of questions I was trying to find answers to, gave me some reassurance about my venture. I felt I could do this, and most importantly, that I would pursue my lifelong learning journey in good company. These experiences online proved to be as fruitful, if not more - I’d risk to say more - as any other formal course I did later on. More important still was my joining the Webheads in Action in 2004. That is where I felt the real power of the community. How important it is to have a group that supports our learning while we support theirs. Learning is a two-way road. It’s about learning with other’s answers as well as with their questions, as we engage in this dialectic of giving and taking. In 2005 I took part in the annual online workshop Becoming a Webhead 2005 and learned immensely about supporting people’s learning by observing how the moderators welcomed, communicated and helped people feel at ease as they struggled with the weekly tasks. Their warm, friendly approach as a response to people’s anxieties and reluctance to show their learning in progress (the prejudice of not knowing it all…) helped transform the learning spaces into a cosy environment as the bonds and interactions amongst people in the group also deepen. The special touch with which they guided the participants in their learning and inspired spontaneous participation by the other members helped that group of ‘strange’ people  go through an incredible metamorphic process, turning it into a coherent community. Throughout the weeks I witnessed the flourishing of people who, before joining the workshop, had little notion of the potential of the web for learning. From that moment on, I realized that learning happens effectively through conversation. That’s the key to foster an inspiring environment in which people feel compelled to share, to collaborate and co-create. Attached to this is, of course, their willing to be part in that joint activity too.

We also learn by example, by reflecting about the experiences we have made with other people. This workshop was an incredible eye-opener to my activity as a teacher trainer and especially as an online moderator later on. After that very first experience, I co-moderated the following 3 Becoming a webhead Workshops. In 2006 and 2007 I  also co-developed and co-moderated several workshop for Knowschools. 2007 was also the year I helped moderating another EVO workshop (Blogging for educators), along with an inspiring moderating team.

At the university I have hosted several workshops for staff and students throughout the year and also reserved periods of time to provide personalized peer support. That is something I want to keep doing.

Addendum - December 2009

In 2009  I co-led an International workshop on Digifolios and Personal Learning Environments for the first time.
The interactions and learning exchanges the group was able to develop were just amazing. Above all we tried to give participants the floor - and let them express their learning goals at the same time they would shyly unveil their questions and help one another find answers.  The idea was to facilitate conversations which would simultaneously inspire the individual and the group.  As part of the moderating team, we decided on a flexible structre, which allowed us to adjust and change strategies as we went along, based on the reaction and ’signs’ the participants implicitly gave us through their participation.  So our strategy was to focus on people and their reactions, and the situations they help develop. It was a conversation-based workshop with lot of ‘listening to’. That is indeed the greatest advantage of online environments: the fact that online people find more instances to express themselves and develop their voice. Listening to is, in my opinion, key to a successful learning experience. When involved in training, mentoring and developing others we need to show that we care and that what people have to say does matter. That is also about paving the way to collective and personal reflection.

Important to my moderating experience is also the dynamics I develop with my co-moderators. It is crucial to establish a good relationship and a philosophical approach which will enable us to adop similar moderating styles. Not everyone is willing to yield their teaching status, even online, whereas it has been my experience, especially in teaching training, that once we start acting as a ‘peer’ it is when both the personal and collective learning is enhanced, becomes more “real” and thus more meaningful.

b) An understanding of my target learner

“It’s not like a factory anymore. One-size-fits-all schools don’t work. … Schools are being built with a variety of spaces that meet the needs of individual learners.”

J. Lackney

In the University context, my direct target learners are lecturers and professors; My indirect target learner are students, mostly PhD researchers. When I first started working at the University I had a very narrow attitude regarding the way I started approaching my role as a Learning Technologies Development Officer. I can hardly believe how short sighted I was!!! Having come from the teaching background and being a Webhead used to action, I soon forgot about my former workplace where teachers were not at all keen on using ICT as part of their practice… Having been able to interact with enthusiastic people from all over the world, I assumed that would be the kind of people I would be meeting at the new job. I thought the University staff would be really ahead of school staff in terms of using technology. I almost took for granted students would be appreciative of such cutting edge approaches. In a way, I think that when I arrived I was ready to ‘preach to’  a crowd that, as I came to realise, was not looking forward to being converted! In a way I think I can say I assumed too much, and was not ready to see the academic world through anyone’s world but mine. However, it didn’t take me long to realise I had to change the approach and look at my target audience with a more understanding eye. This has been quite a learning curve for me, but equally a challenge I have embraced with great pleasure. From that point on I learned not to take anything for granted or assume anything. Hence, during these 3 year journey, the greatest lesson I have been able to extract from all the experiences I have made is that what is really important is to be able to listen to people, and to find ways to let them know without really tell them that they can trust you and that it is OK not to know everything. They might not master the technology, but they sure master the content and in their particular way are able to establish a learning atmosphere with their students. What we then need to work together at is on how to transfer and augment that learning atmosphere to an online setting, while contributing to a friendly learning environment where students are compelled to take part in. Although the technology might scare some, my main message to the staff I work with focuses on the conversational tone and the learning dialectic we need to work on to achieve real and meaningful learning.
The idea is to create a more relaxed environment and also to focus on three main issues which have little to do with technology. Before I start looking at the technological possibilities we might use as part of their modules, we work on trying to understand the module spec. and also answer the following questions:

1. Who the students are (are they mature students, full-time/part-time students, etc)
2. What do we want the students to achieve (what are the goals, what should they learn)
3. How do we want them to achieve those goals (is it through open collaboration, group work, peer support, access to a wider audience, etc)

Once we establish this, then we start looking at the web possibilities: which tools could be used, and especially which examples I have in store to show them. Examples of innovative practices  usually  motivates some. But more than motivating, what we really need is to lead to the change of the teaching and learning culture.

What is also amazing is that once we get to this phase, and especially after getting acquainted with some examples of someone else’s practices, they end up coming with some very interesting ideas of their own. That is what happened, for instance, in one of my very first projects in this new job. We were supposed to develop an online module on Research Methods. This module was being offered in a face to face format and each year it counted with less and less students. When we started looking at it, we realised the module was structured in a very dry lecture style, in which student participation was almost inexistent, except for the essay they had to hand in at the end of the course! [and that was most likely seen as assessment, not as participating as part of one’s learning process]. From the very beginning, it was obvious we needed to get the students on board and make them feel they were part of that course. They needed an active role. Thus, we started re-thinking the course. Still we needed a strong mentoring and guiding component as this course was also targeting at students who were starting doing research for the first time. It would also work as a motivation driver. In the end we decided to host weekly online talks with two experienced researchers, and invite students to collaboratively engage in a wiki without losing the focus of their own research. The structure was quite minimalist, but what we were aiming at was effective engagement by all parties involved, and not really at the use of a panoply of web tools, which could overwhelm even the more enthusiastic.
The talks were hosted in a virtual conference room and they always started in a very traditional way with the two speakers taking the floor with their own remarks, ideas and personal stories about their own research experiences. Students were regularly asked to pitch in with their thoughts and questions. As they grew more accustomed of this way of “learning through conversation”, the online talks became more interesting. After each session a new challenge was posed to each one of the students and it usually consisted of doing a small task related to the topic presented. The task should be submitted to the wiki and students should also help one another by leaving feedback (comments) on other students’ work (pages). As this course englobed students from different areas of the social sciences, the topics of research were different, but still people were able to provide constructive support to one another. This was a different type of collaboration as each student had his/her own specific goals; yet they would take time to understand what the others were doing and also provide support. Nevertheless, their feedback didn’t come spontaneously. Only after a brief exchange of emails with the students about their freedom to comment and provide constructive feedback to their peers’ work, and make the wiki their space without having to maintain a formal tone, did they start to be more active in one another’s pages.
The other interesting fact was that each challenge contributed to the final essay (the final assessment). Most students reported they found it useful to have done the weekly tasks as it made it easier to finish the final one.
Of course not everything in this experience was well succeeded. But we also learn with our mistakes.
Although the online conversations between 2 speakers went extremely well, the same didn’t happen in the few sessions in which we only had the module leader. Being used to lecturing, he sometimes forgot to invite people to convert his monologue into a dialogue. However, this was something we analysed after each session and something he got better at. Old habits are not easy to change and we need to take special attention of those.
Technology is also not easy, and although I was present at all online synchronous sessions  and available to provide support throughout the course, some students were put off by the fact that they had to deal with the technology when the rest of their degree was totally face to face. However, those who allowed themselves to engage in this experience provided extremely positive feedback at the end of the course. This experience was an eye-opener to know my target-audience better. I realised that:

• Staff needs a lot of hand-holding and mentoring;
• my main job is to listen to them, to make them know that I am there to help them achieve their goals (not mine);
• Students are still not that techy-savvy when it comes to use technology in academic settings. They might use MSN, email and Facebook, but when they are not used to use it as part of their (more formalized) learning they also need a helping hand.

In this sense, I have been offering a series of blended workshops on how to use learning technologies to aid them in their research and academic work. Staff has also been offered mentoring sessions which occur in a blended format.
Nevertheless, there is still a long way to go. There is still a lot to do to get students and staff on board. I am particularly fond of working with people in context and it is always easier to get people on board in a more meaningful way when they have a specific goal to achieve. As part of a new project I hope to start this year, I would like to see the University include, as part of their strategy, an online induction module for students. It would also be useful if incentives were created for staff to take part in more mentoring sessions where they would learn about TEL issues, and especially start actively giving their practice a more 21st century touch. For that to happen, we also need to change the curricula, strategies and reinforce the type of support the university can provide.

Related blog entries:

• You can lead a horse to water ….
• Cooking up a Storm in Education - Bee’s presentation in SL
• What kids want…

a) An understanding of teaching, learning and/or assessment processes

“I never teach my pupils; I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.”

A. Einstein

There is no doubt that learning technologies can be quite useful in teaching and learning, especially if our institution wants to show  they are pushing forward the new educational paradigm to which the 21st Century Skills tag is attached. ICT literacy has become the “must do’ of education, and I feel many educators feel rather put off by this new trend which many times comes forward as the “latest fashion”.
As a Learning Technologist, and as an educator, I would be lying if I said I disagree with the integration of ICT in and outside the classroom. To be more exact, I believe in embedding it in such a way that technology does not even have to be necessarily referred to as technology [we no longer say we need to use the phone every time we need to talk to someone  who is not physical near us…it just takes time to adapt to change, I guess!!] However, what I have realizsed is that when people are only introduced to the technology itself (shown the technical capability of a tool, for instance) most of them don’t really use it to its full potential, but rather tend to ‘force’ it into the existing teaching situation by using the technology in a rather directive way, especially if that is the way they teach.
The fact is that throughout the times there has always been good and bad teaching, and therefore poorer and richer learning situations, which not all the times are reflected by the current assessment strategy, as it most times resembles a memorization exercise. And that is probably one of the biggest issues we need to address in education. But its change cannot, of course, occur without the changing the teaching and learning practice too.
For many years we have chosen to train/teach people in a rather automated way, that is, by providing them with relevant information and demanding the receptors of that information (students) prove they had been able to acquire it. Most times this information provision was deprived of any context or resemblance with the individual’s reality. If that was the way they learned, that was also the way they would teach. With some outstanding exceptions, that is exactly what most of us have experienced throughout our course of formal educational. We might have been able to get away with that for a long time, but the fact is that such strategy is proving less efficient as the years go by. And that happens for the simple reason that the more we advance in the future of technology, which enables individuals to be more autonomous and in charge of what they do and inevitably of what they want to do, the less relevant the traditional schooling model seems to be. If for nothing else, because it is completely detached from one’s contextual reality.
I share the idea that the context is as important, if not more, as the content. It is the context that helps give personal meaning to the information provided. Acquiring information is easy; making sense of it and transforming it into personal knowledge is the real challenge and should also be the principle of education.

Schools, Colleges and Universities should not be “information factories”, but rather knowledge-construction centers where people would congregate to develop deeper understanding and make sense of their areas of interest. This learning (knowing) should also be supported by a practical approach (through direct interaction with their learning objects), being the outcomes of that enterprise the best assessment strategy any institution could offer as part of their accreditation.
Nothing this is new, and many authors have devoted time to this issue. As it stands today, learning, teaching and assessment have not yet been totally adjusted to meet the needs and standards of a challenging society, which, more than ever, demands from individuals the ability of multi-tasking and constantly re-adjusting to a reality in progress.
For that to happen we need to prepare our educators to teach to learn (mentoring, guiding…); not preach. I believe teachers have a crucial role in education, but their role will definitely not be that of pouring unquestionable facts in our heads, but rather of helping us formulate questions, and consequently guide us to look for the answers. Learners need experienced people to support their path as much as they need their peers to walk that path with them. A learning environment aiming at on-going debates and sharing of experiences focusing on critical, personal thinking is still not a given in formal education, although this is mostly what happens in reality learning. Once in the workplace we commonly say we learn with/from the ‘School of life’, and the way we assess that learning is by looking at the results of our practice. Curiously enough, many of the formal assessment focuses on theory.
Although theory is important, it becomes more relevant to the individual when combined with practice in a given situation (the context).
Learning is not linear and so cannot what the teaching institutions are offering be so prescriptive and statically structured through handbooks and outdated curricula. Learning happens in conversation. Meaningful dialogs are most likely to occur in spaces populated by people who help turn it in a friendly-atmosphere/ environment. The key for a better education system relies in the way teachers regard their role and teaching practice, the way learners envisage their learning and welcome participatory learning opportunities, and the way the educational systems adjust to certify their ‘customers through a more realistic assessment system, which will definitely call for the re-thinking of the curriculum, the re-structuring of learning spaces, the provision of ongoing development of their teaching and mentoring staff and also closer contact with the real world.

In my humble opinion technology can help bridge the connections and develop a more innovative approach. But above all, we need to understand that technology per se is not the solution. The way it is approached and used to enable meaningful learning relationships is both the added value and the biggest challenge educational institutions face. How many of us who work in this ‘business’  haven’t got a  VLE  installed in their institution? And how many of us have not come to face the grim reality of such expensive technological system is being used as a mere deposit for old documents newly scanned?
Adopting technology is not the hardest (it largely depends on the budget); changing people’s attitudes towards their practices is.

That is what I have been trying to do at Salford by developing some mentoring sessions, which mainly aim at listening to people talk about their practices, help them reflect about how technology can help innovate what they do according to their current goals, and then help them develop coherent strategies, which will also include supporting them in getting familiar with the technology.  Hopefully this will enable them to create more active, exciting and learner-focused projects. The same happens with students who have grown used to receive information and who have developed strategies to show evidence of that ‘teaching’, not of their learning. They too don’t like to change their practice. Being taught is much easier than having to learn. As part of the Salford Postgraduate Research Training (SPoRT) programme I have been offering a series of blended workshops about using ICT to aid research. We have been especially focusing on providing the view of the web as a window to a bigger learning community and a wider diversity of networking opportunities. However, I have noticed that some students still join the sessions in search of a tool that will magically help them write their dissertation. The tools obviously can’t write your papers, but the interactions they can establish with other researchers and experts in their areas might give them ideas to conduct better research. The willing to learn also emerges from our role models and in that sense it is crucial  supervisors also inspire their students to explore their learning path in a connected way.

Above all, I think Learning technologies serve as a good platform to enact learning. However, its use only becomes relevant when it allows all parties involved in the learning process to improve what he/she already does (well) as part of their practice (be it as part of one’s teaching role, the learner’s experience, or in the institution’s mission).

This conversation is also taking place here

Related blog entries:

• VLE? What do you exactly mean by a VLE?
• My reflection for PLANET Project

Projects that I co-moderate:

• Trainers in Europe
• VITAE Project 
• Digifolios & Personal Learning Spaces

Communication leads to community, that is, to understanding, intimacy and mutual valuing. by Rollo May

As I sit here, trying to make sense of what I want to write for the communication section, I realise that communication and working with others plays a major role in my daily practice as a learning technologist, as an educator, and also as a researcher. To collaborate we do need to be able to effectively communicate with others while we work and learn with them.

These days I use several channels to communicate with those I work and learn with inside and outside the University.

I could actually provide numerous examples about how communication plays a very important role in my professional, and also personal, life. Today, however, I decided I should reflect about the latest group of people I am informally collaborating with and with whom I have been able to establish real communication. I think all of us are actually benefiting from this situation which started a couple of weeks ago, after I attended a Summer School on Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) for PhD students in Ohrid/ Macedonia.

It was quite a rewarding experience to have been granted a scholarship to take part in this event and be able to meet many other people, who otherwise I would probably not have had the chance to. What was interesting about the entire week of events was actually not so much the lectures or the sessions which had been planned for us as attendees, but all the unplanned connections and discussions that took place during that week, both online and on-site. Those were almost parallel sessions which ran informally and which spontaneously took shape, according to people’s needs to talk, discuss and make sense of topics in which we were interested in for several different reasons. It helped us in a way to bond and feel more inclined to work together.

During the summer school some of the participants used twitter and twemes (a site which helped us aggregate twitter messages, flickr photos and del.icio.us bookmarks based on a specific hashtag) to provide immediate feedback about the sessions that were taking place at the very moment. It not only generated a lot of on-the-fly reflection, it also enabled participants to bond with each other.

Now, after the summer school, some of us are still  carrying on with the unstructured discussion in two different online spaces, where we have the opportunity to share with others what we are up to (and this not only includes resources and opinions, but also humorous conversations spiced up with giggles, planning of future get-togethers, etc) .

Thus, some of the summer schoolers are still in touch through twitter, and a new twemes, ( a micro-blogging aggregator site) and through a written  skype channel, where we keep sharing resources and points of view related to our fields of research and professional interests.

I think most of the conversation that followed after the summer school has been quite important and relevant, not only in terms of the content shared and produced, but also because we have explored ourselves the potentials of such technologies to bridge communication and collaboration.

I think communication is key to any learning relationship. It is important we keep the channels open and make people comfortable enough to share their fears and anxieties, report about their experiences, and give and receive feedback about their practices. Communication is core to collaboration, a good working environment and keep the people’s leraning spark going (motivation).

In my role as a learning technologist I also try to convey the message that I am always willing to talk to people, and more importantly, to listen to what they have to say. In the last year I have also started using skype with the people I work with. It enables them to contact me at the spur of the moment, independently of their whereabouts. The fact that they can see my skype icon in an ‘online mode’ also gives them the reassurance I am virtually present and reachable in case they need to get in touch with me.

From this initiative, many some internal collaborative approaches have developed. Besides being connected to staff through skype, we are also now offering online tutorials and support via skype to students on study skills. Furthermore, we have also provided mentoring for students to start their group skype channels for project collaboration, as reported here.

In all, communication and working with others is really a very important part of my day to day work, and I thoroughly enjoy it. :-D  By using such channels, it not only helps me convey the message “I am approachable and am here to support others in their learning and practices”, it also enables me to constantly benefit from what others also have to offer. Thus it keeps me motivated while learning about this evolving world which is more and more reliable of the web as an important means to establish meaningful communication.

In the near future we are looking at reaching out to university staff through others means, in which communication and collaboration will continue to be the focus.

Communication is key to any learning relationship 

Addendum - December 2009 

Since I last wrote this post, many more things have happen regarding how I communicate with those around me, and how I am trying to help staff and students to communicate amongst themselves and also their research and activity.

We have recently started working on an interdisciplinary project which brings together 1o institutions and students from Literature, Science and Medicine in an open forum. The project leader want to design a strategy which would enable  students to communicate with other as well as have access to the tutors in a continuum, and not only during the face to face sessions or through the exchange of private emails which might not reach the entire group, or more widely. Hence, we started looking at the possibilities the technology could offer based on the context and goals of the project as well as those who it aims to reach. We end up creating a collective space for social engagement, i.e., a space where students have access to other students and tutors, and equally where they have their own space (=blog). The idea was to bridge communication between face to face workshops and also provide a space for those who won’t be able to attend the physical sessions. Further, the purpose is to give students and tutors alike ‘equal rights’ to start new discussion threads, share their reflections and even create groups of interests within that space. The project will officially start in January. Yet, we already have more than 30 people enrolled to the space, and quite a few are already participating in the ‘challenges’ the tutors are posing them. The interesting part of this project is also to observe how the tutor themselves engage in this engage of information as ‘just another participant’. The tutors are taing part in the discussion, giving constructive feedback and also sharing their reflections on the blogs, and not at all acting as ‘the one who stands at the front of the room and talks to the audience’.  in LitSciMed there is no audience. They are all co-producers.

Recently, I have also managed to convince my colleagues to start a Blog for the Graduate Studies Team. It has been an exciting experience. We have all taken up the challenge with enthusiasm and it is interesting to see how our blogging voices are developing in the context of our blog’s thematic. Our goal is to keep posting throughout our staying at our institution.

2010 will be an exciting year where ‘communication’ is concerned. Our goal is to improve our communication strategies with our research students. It is also in our plan to enhance their research profile and create new opportunities for research students and staff to make their research more visible with the use of the participatory web.

Related posts:

• WeDoTEL - A Skype group for TEL Researchers
• Broadcasting myself all the way to Moscow
• The power of the community
• Reach out to us through twitter!
• EduTalks
• Reaching out to Japan