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Welcome to Digital is not the future

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An open document?
We have made this thread open for anyone to edit. This is a conversation that will be made better by involving more people. The aim of the platform is to frame the discussions and debates we need to have at our institutions in order put innovation and the digital at the heart of the institutional approach to learning and teaching. There is a case to be made that institutionally, we have failed. ‘Traditional’ custom and practice is legitimised in the digital, whilst practice based innovation can be banished to the fringe or the grassroots. Techno-solutionism is equally legitimised, where ‘solutions in a box’ and services drive our activity; an activity that often replicates existing practice rather than transforming it. This widens the gap between ‘academic’ practice and the changing nature of learning in a digital era, masked by the procurement of new, and by implication, ‘innovative’ technologies

What do you have to do?
What we seek from the physical and online hacks is a form of radical pragmatism. You are in the room, because you are the institution, you are the senior management, you are the expert.

The rules of this hack are simple.

Rule 1: We are teaching and learning focused and institutionally committed
Rule 2: What we talk about here is institutionally/nationally agnostic
Rule 3: You are in the room with the decision makers. What we decide is critical to the future of our institutions. You are the institution
Rule 4: Despite the chatter, all the tech ‘works’ - the digital is here, we are digital institutions. Digital is not the innovation.
Rule 5: We are here to build not smash
Rule 6: You moan (rehearse systemic reasons why you can’t effect change - see Rule 3), you get no beer (wine, juice, love, peace, etc)

We have chosen 5 common scenarios which are often the catalyst for change in institutions. As we noted above, you are in the room with the new VC and you have 100 words in each of the scenarios below to effectively position what we do as a core part of the institution. Why is this going to make our institutional more successful/deliver the objectives/save my (the VCs) job? How do we demonstrate what we do will position the organisation effectively? How do we make sure we stay in the conversation and not be relegated to simply providing services aligned with other people's strategies? Anyone who has been around the system for any length of time will recognise these scenarios and will have been through many of them. They are critical junctures at where momentum for change peaks.

GR

George Roberts Tue 5 Apr 2016 5:19PM

A key question is what exactly is the "nature of learning" that is changing in the digital era? Is there a recognisable post-digital epistemology? What are its characteristics? Another question is whether "techno-solutionism" is (or is not) bracketed with resistance to change and to the digital generally?

DL

Donna Lanclos Tue 5 Apr 2016 5:23PM

I think what's changed is less the "nature of learning" and more the frame around which teaching and learning are allowed to take place--digital tools and places become ways of controlling rather than facilitating within techno-solutionist neoliberal approaches.

GR

George Roberts Tue 5 Apr 2016 5:36PM

I think there has been some epistemological evolution. There is enough smoke around "liquid modernity", "bricolage", multi-tasking, shorter attention spans, sharing cognitive load, distributed collaboration (as here) and other similar themes to suggest that there may be something burning. Is it change in the nature of learning brought on by the digital, or is it more to do with contemporary political economics?

DL

Donna Lanclos Tue 5 Apr 2016 5:46PM

enh, I don't think that policy is being moved much by epistemology. I think a lot of people who write about education in non-policy contexts think about it. But I think it's much more political economy driving things from a "what happens within institutions" perspective.

DW

David White Wed 6 Apr 2016 7:16AM

Policy tends to focus on how to perpetuate existing paradigms via the tech. My view is that the Web has changed what it means to learn (within a formal frame) and we need to respond to those opportunities. The idea of the hack is to develop a 'pitch' which explains this in language which senior staff can comprehend. (This is my take on the hack anyway)

AT

Amber Thomas Mon 11 Apr 2016 10:31PM

I think you might be right that learning has changed.
I think working has changed too: all the professions have changed, the types of work have changed, the micro-economics of work contracts have changed. I'm not afraid to say that universities should respond to that.
Employability might be a dirty word, but since i think higher education is a social good, the relationship between learning and employability do need looking at.
This leads me to a defense of ther VLE as an organisational system that needs to be learnt, in the same way other systems have to be learnt.
What does learning to learn feel like in todays world? How do we prepare people for the next stage in their journey?
I think there should be some friction expected in the student experience: it should be designed in.

GR

George Roberts Tue 12 Apr 2016 9:01AM

Yes, there may be a "metapedagogy" around the use of the VLE as a proxy for knowledge management systems in some broad fields of employment: consultancy, financial services, engineering...

GR

George Roberts Wed 6 Apr 2016 6:54PM

Difficult because I suspect it is probably both, and in different proportions in different places and people. As the UCL Why We Post project has shown, Internet use has spread way beyond the "global north".

PB

Peter Bryant Thu 7 Apr 2016 3:41PM

Welcome to all the new people who have joined the group. The process here is simple, but I suspect the practice will be much harder. How do we embed technology and innovative pedagogical practices within the strategic plans and processes at our institutions. What are the messages we need to move technology from being a nice to have or an administrative solution in a box to influencing the strategic, educational and organisational direction of the institution? How have we done this? we have set up 5 scenarios, pick and choose what one/s work for you and put up a 100 word elevator pitch for what we do as critical to the future of the institution, then let everyone else agree or disagree. Who will be first? Who will pop their head above the barricades and start us of?

PB

Peter Bryant Thu 7 Apr 2016 3:53PM

I think policy is but one of the pillars that can reinforce organisational behaviour and determine the use and relevance of technology (and innovative practices) within institutions. If we add budgets and strategies to that list, then we have quite the array of powerful magnetic forces that can make technology bow to the entrenched positions of process, reporting, accountability and resistance.

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