Silicon Affected Disorder

November 27, 2008 at 4:39 am (learning)

Do we/I rely too much on technology?

A less than obvious question from an already self confessed ‘Digital Native’. Perhaps I am at a point of saturation and simply need a break from this technological hurricane. If this is true then I couldn’t have chosen a worse time, with the PGCERT demanding even more online attention. I seem to be completely immersed in it and have been so for the last 10 years (and before if you include teenage musings over a Sinclair ZX Spectrum and all that followed).

Is it a fear of being left behind or more importantly, my fear that my kids might? Drawing it back to the student experience, is there a risk of them being swamped? Lots of questions, that seem to self-fertilize with every utterence. I’ll focus on the ones that I have mentioned here to begin with.

First of all, I have deliberately focussed on a question that directly links to me personally and my current learning i.e. Am I fearful of being left behind in the midst of technological innovation and implimentation? If I were at any other institution where e-learning had grown into it’s syllabus gradually, then the impact of this strategy would be less obvious. At the Academy, there was what I like to call ‘operational I.T.’ where basic provision was provided for with email and calander applications. It is only over the last 12 months that the dam has burst in an overwhelming tide of Web 2.0 content, being (in some cases hastily) implimented. Does change have to be so overwhelming that we loose sight of it’s potentially destructive nature? This is an ideal time to pause and reflect.

This may be the only time that I counter-argue the use of technology, but it is important for me to do so. Even if it only serves in confirming that it should be used.

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I wrote all of the above in a kind of mad panic this morning. On returning to it this evening (now) and consequently reading it back, I had planned to continue on the same vein. Unfortunately, it all reads like inane ramblings. This raises the question: “Is it wise to reflect in a cloud if emotion?” or better to do so when your frame of mind is calmer and more collect? Surely the latter lends itself to a deeper more considered approach. When my thoughts are flying, like they often do, I find it hard to focus. They swarm around me and are difficult to grasp. I must try to resist these moments and wait for that ‘calm moment’.

The importance of this particular post resides in knowing that I have used this mornings ramblings as a learning experience, brought about by the reflective process. I have turned it into something I had not intended, a learning moment.

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PG-Cert with Christina Mainka

November 22, 2008 at 10:56 pm (Uncategorized)

I was really looking forward to tonights class and was disappointed to feel a cold coming on when I awoke this morning.

Andrew had booked a guest speaker, who was a specialist in e-learning usinf Web 2.0 technologies. I was to meet Christina Mainka at 17:45 and asked to ensure the DTU and Boardroom were ready for web and general access. Which I did. Christina arrived and she wasn’t at all what I had expected. She had a a wild grungy look and proceeded to deliver her content in the same quasi-disorganised way. The class was reduced to three students (including myself). Barnaby and Hyeon were present, some had the RSAMD graduation ceremony to attend this evening, one had pulled out altogether and the rest were just absent.

The more enthused that everyone got with Christina’s presentation, the more excited she became. She jumped between concept to concept in an emotional barrage of information. I was particularly pleased when she presented a slide with the different and most popular types of Web 2.0 tools, to discover that I use most of them already. The rest I had already developed plans to instigate in the very near future. More importantly, I already had a firm grasp of why and how we should be using them and a developed sense of the pitfalls that may be encountered.

This was all very basic to me, but I could see the benefit that this would have for Barnaby and Hyeon. We briefly discussed our own experiences of learning and teaching, specific differences in approach between the two schools were glaringly apparent. Some of the others comments on teaching practice shocked me, especially the Schools blatant disregard for Student Centered Learning. I found myself feeling angered at the ‘Victorian finishing school’ attitude of the Music School. These students paid a small fortune to enlist in the Academy, only to be dictated to and shot down when the raised any sort of concern. What’s worse is that they appeared to be ’shot down’ academically. I also felt for the staff that deliver the curriculum, they also had to work under such conditions.

We moved to the DTU (Digital Training Unit) which always makes me feel more at home, as it is loaded with Mac’s. We began setting up WordPress Blogs and soon ran into network problems. The network simply froze on certain computers, accessing certain sites; I couldn’t access the rsamd.ac.uk website at all, some couldn’t access WordPress at all, or Wikispaces which we attempted to access later on.

I ended up showing a couple of video’s on my blog which I felt were relevant to our session. The first was about the development of digital text leading to Web2.0 technology The Machine is Us/ing Us. The second was a sociological vision of students today. Both were created by Michael Wesch and hit a powerful chord with thier simplified insight. I had actually emailed a link to the latter a few months ago, shortly after I found it, to all of the School of Drama staff. Those who had time to follow it, a mear handful, all responded positively, some emotionally. The few students I have shown it to openly welcomed its message.

We managed to dabble a little with Wikispaces, though only myself and Barnaby could access it. I had worked extensively with Paperclip and had made a large number of entrie’s on this Wiki site. So, we collaborated a little by uploading 10 top tips for teaching. The session ended with me feeling quite uncomfortable, not because of the session, but health-wise.

Now that I have had time to reflect on the session, I found it to be self-confirming, but little else. I had already had a year of being immersed in e-learning and have been forthright in my implementation of it. For my subject area, it is perfect. lending itself ideally to management. The more e-solutions I come up with, the more they present themselves to me. It also helps that this world is one in which these tools reside is one which I am wholly comfortable in, having a history in programming. However, as I have said earlier, it must have been either exciting or equally as terrifying to the others in the class.

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On Shakey Ground

November 17, 2008 at 9:29 pm (1st Year Experience, assessment, learning)
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It was the 1st Year PP1a Module Exam this morning and I still hadn’t read the questions (apart from my own). As I had a doctors appointment I missed the 09:30 kick off. Truth be told, I wasn’t a fan of the exam and I kind of liked the little informal quizzes that we had set last year. They were a light touch and done directly after the Introduction classes, this year there was a tense and worried feeling surrounding the 1st Years. I wasn’t at the ‘Setting the Scene’ session last year, which was apparently an energetic and dynamic endeavour. Steve twittered during it that it didn’t feel the same this year…. no wonder, they were all panicking about the exam on Monday morning. You cant really enjoy yourself with that looming. Anyway, it had been decided upon and it was far too late to do anything about it.

The decision to set an exam was to collate all of the intro classes into one big summative assessment and to integrate a competency series of compulsory questions based around Health & Safety. I think it was to try and appease Chris Wright in all honesty and have a documented competency log for each student in the most basic areas.

I read the questions that Ros had emailed to us all and some of them were ambiguous. This was not a good sign. I would have struggled with a few of them. There were a series of H&S questions in which the students had to get 100%, the rest were supplementary and subject specific in which 60% was required to pass. I’m still not clear on why 60% was chosen as a pass mark, the rest of our assessments have a 40% pass mark, it seemed high.

After the students had finished we decided to go through the answer’s with the students which was met by a general derision. They were even less happy to mark each others papers. Looking back I am quite sure that this was more to do with the general feeling with regards to the exam, rather than any other reason. They weren’t angry… they just looked ‘down’. As we had decided to do this at the last minute, we made a bit of a mess of it, bumbling through without clarity or detail. It very much sounded as if we were making it up as we went along (which we were) and any pedagogical reasoning soon evaporated.

The entire session was a great example of how not to plan and implement the reasonably simple task of compiling an exam. We had plenty of time but still cocked it up. There is no doubt that we are all extremely busy, but this is our remit. We shouldn’t be too busy to facilitate learning, that would just be ridiculous as it is our core business.

I left the exam feeling disgusted with myself, we had managed to get to the end of a very productive and enjoyable module, only to ruin it by placing a pointless exam at the very end and executing badly. We have panicked the students, causing them anxiety and for what?

However, that’s the rant over and I have sent Ros an email outlining my feelings. In response, she has arranged an evaluation session with the rest of the team. I want the exam withdrawn from the curriculum if the results prove to be as the early indications would lead us to believe. I realise that this isn’t a simple procedure, but one we should at least discuss. As with most errors, its an opportunity to analyse and adjust accordingly. With this one, we may have to start from the bottom and work up. We have a tendency to under plan a lot of what we do, instead of meeting and thoroughly evaluating every outcome. Our meetings tend not to be run that way. A lot of what we discuss seem to be operational issues and very rarely pedagogical, though that is changing. Too slowly for PP1a I’m afraid.

Lets hope we learn something this time around…

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