A set of slides by Sara Robbins has been widely linked in the web in recent days (. It draws an analogy between the battle of Agincourt and 21st century teaching. At Agincourt an old fashioned army of mounted knights met a new technology of massed longbows, and found itself bloodily obsolete. In 2009, the argument goes, 'old fashioned' models of knowledge creation are coming into conflict with new models drawn from the collaborative, open source, web driven world. A similar sticky ending is forecast.
Her argument is easy to critique and dismiss - simplistic, partisan and all that - but that doesn't make it wrong.
The web revolution is radically changing the way knowledge is created, spread (and destroyed), as the print revolution did before it. This isn't the same old change, not a "It wasn't like this in my day - the kids these days" kind of perpetual revolution. This is different. Industrialisation, the advent of mass tertiary education, globalisation - none of these changed the core knowledge business of the University like the web revolution will. It could be the end of us, as David Wiley suggests, but Universities are surprisingly agile beasts. I wouldn't bet on it either way.
But after the tea leaf reading of possible futures, her prescription is a good one. She suggests that all of us, luddite or technophile, need to think critically about the tools we use and whether they are the right ones, or simply the ones we used last year. Are those 30 year old acetates really the best introduction to your subject? Why exactly, are you making students contribute to an online discussion forum or listen to you on twitter? The right teaching tool is the one that helps people learn the most. That's not necessarily the one you used last time, or the new, new thing you want to try out so you can look cool and up to date with your peers.
Technology is tool use - everything from chalk to second life are learning technologies. If are pragmatic and adaptable about new tools and techniques for learning, then we can weather the storm technical, social and economic change and remain a useful institution. While half the French army died at Agincourt, half of them didn't. They ran away and had a bit of a think about it, and, as Stephen Downes on OLDaily reminds us, their children came back, 38 years later. With cannon...
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Success is like the Death Penalty. It's all in the execution.
..or, as the song goes "It ain't what you do, it's the way that you do it, and that's what get's results".
Commoncraft embody this idea in their work, and have rightly become iconic for it. If you haven't seen their work, please take a minute and check it out on Youtube.
Technically, it's little more than a stick in the sand. Web distribution aside, you could make it with a flip book. In many ways, it's no different to a powerpoint, but by working with pen and paper, away from the electrons, there is a creative element that is often sucked in Powerpointlessness. The Commoncraft team have been good enough to share how they do it in their blogs. Note in the pictures - the computer is at the edge of the desk - not at the centre.
Good storyboarding and scripting are essential. Don't get hung up on the technicalities of how to make it into a video. You can figure that out at the end (or if you work in UCC, it's part of my day job to help you figure it out). Pick something - a key concept your students have trouble grasping. Take out pen and paper, set aside one good hour, and see what you can achieve.
Commoncraft embody this idea in their work, and have rightly become iconic for it. If you haven't seen their work, please take a minute and check it out on Youtube.
Technically, it's little more than a stick in the sand. Web distribution aside, you could make it with a flip book. In many ways, it's no different to a powerpoint, but by working with pen and paper, away from the electrons, there is a creative element that is often sucked in Powerpointlessness. The Commoncraft team have been good enough to share how they do it in their blogs. Note in the pictures - the computer is at the edge of the desk - not at the centre.
Good storyboarding and scripting are essential. Don't get hung up on the technicalities of how to make it into a video. You can figure that out at the end (or if you work in UCC, it's part of my day job to help you figure it out). Pick something - a key concept your students have trouble grasping. Take out pen and paper, set aside one good hour, and see what you can achieve.
For sale: Baby shoes, never worn.
Short is sweet. Hemingways famous six word short story packs more of a punch than a booker shortlist. The Sermon on the Mount is four and a half minutes long. Smart students will condense your course down to under 10 pages for pre exam review.
If you had just four minutes to teach your class, what would you say? Can you really condense a hour or two of material into three minutes? Can you create a dense, depleted uranium slug of knowledge powerful enough to get through the students skulls and set their intellect ablaze?
The now famous 'Machine is Us/ing Us' (4:32) clip shows that you can pack a lot in ideas into a short, intense burst of learning. There is nothing technically fancy in the production, but the art is in the design, storyboarding and script. It takes longer to create short things.
It's also hard to condense your own content. It's tough for you, as an expert, to see the central essense among all the 'vital' details.. Rowan Atkinson's Shakespeares editor (5:50) sketch reminds us that great editors make great writers. Try working with someone at the level of your students to help you. Work with someone who can be a critical eye and help to pare back your script.
And remember, once you have covered the key point, just stop.
If you had just four minutes to teach your class, what would you say? Can you really condense a hour or two of material into three minutes? Can you create a dense, depleted uranium slug of knowledge powerful enough to get through the students skulls and set their intellect ablaze?
The now famous 'Machine is Us/ing Us' (4:32) clip shows that you can pack a lot in ideas into a short, intense burst of learning. There is nothing technically fancy in the production, but the art is in the design, storyboarding and script. It takes longer to create short things.
It's also hard to condense your own content. It's tough for you, as an expert, to see the central essense among all the 'vital' details.. Rowan Atkinson's Shakespeares editor (5:50) sketch reminds us that great editors make great writers. Try working with someone at the level of your students to help you. Work with someone who can be a critical eye and help to pare back your script.
And remember, once you have covered the key point, just stop.
Monday, April 20, 2009
What's this blog for?
This blog is about how to use ordinary technology to create an extraordinary teaching and learning experience. So much writing on eLearning and Technology Assisted learning is of the geeks, by the geeks, for the geeks - mostly about technical esoterica that simply don't matter in reality. I'm trying to avoid this and write for tertiary educators who are not early adaptors and technophiles - people who just want to get on and teach and aren't interested in technical tools as an end in themselves.
Many Universities have silent majority of staff who might user Powerpoint and upload slides to Blackboard or Moodle, and not a lot beyond that. I'm hoping in this blog to exhort, encourage and bully you to do more and try harder. The right technology, where appropriate, can add a lot of value to your students learning process. You can use ordinary technology to generate extraordinary results.
Blog pieces will be always be short, hopefully useful, and as frequent as need and time allows. Comments are welcomed, as are guest bloggers and topic or link suggestions. I'm pitching this at staff in my own institution (University College Cork - UCC) so I'm going to be unashamedly localised in my pitches, but hopefully readers beyond these wall will find it of use. All views and advice are of the author alone, and any similarity to official policy of University College Cork is purely accidental.
Many Universities have silent majority of staff who might user Powerpoint and upload slides to Blackboard or Moodle, and not a lot beyond that. I'm hoping in this blog to exhort, encourage and bully you to do more and try harder. The right technology, where appropriate, can add a lot of value to your students learning process. You can use ordinary technology to generate extraordinary results.
Blog pieces will be always be short, hopefully useful, and as frequent as need and time allows. Comments are welcomed, as are guest bloggers and topic or link suggestions. I'm pitching this at staff in my own institution (University College Cork - UCC) so I'm going to be unashamedly localised in my pitches, but hopefully readers beyond these wall will find it of use. All views and advice are of the author alone, and any similarity to official policy of University College Cork is purely accidental.
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