New Horizons

• I am moving from the impersonal to the personal by sharing insightful experiences.

• I am moving closer to myself but moving away simultaneously. "What enables also constrains" e.g. a supermodel - what can she eat?

• When writing an analytical essay I need to focus on a driving idea e.g. Marx's "Man is free but everywhere in chains."

• Arguing versus assertion or opinion.

• I need to seduce or convince the reader that my argument is worth elaborating on. This is the hook.

• Am I on to something here? Is the hook counter-intuitive i.e. does it go against common sense? e.g. obligation to community Vs business focus.

• Linear cumulating is where one driving idea may unpack into four themes.

• I need to drive a big idea through with an unbroken thread and take the reader with me. A broken thread reduces the seduction.

• My intro could be a simple statement e.g. "In 2006 a hotly contested issue.........". Then I tell the reader I'm going to explore that issue and tell them how I'm going to explore it. e.g. I'll do that by asking four questions. I could use my assignment criteria here.

• Humorous quotations about education will make the reading more enjoyable.

• Revise what I've written and keep looking for the compelling hook. Why is it important - what am I going to do with it?

• Each paragraph should have an open and close link. My point should be the first sentence of the paragraph. Then I need to elaborate on that point and give evidence. The final sentence is the "so what" and this takes me to the next paragraph where I start with my next point.

• Don't start a paragraph with the work of another author. Use my own points.

• Remember I have to convince a knowledgeable reader. What counts as evidence can come from my own field or from experience.

• Use sub-headings for each theme.

• The conclusion is the final "so-what" and it can be very brief.

• If the work is to be confidential, say so.

Use databases from Business Management and Education for 2nd assignment.

Subject Guide>Business>Management

Key resources will be in:

• ABI Inform>Global

• Medge (via Informit)

• Emerald full text (use a keyword search with Emerald - there's not much under authors). It's mainly business but there's some education.

Subject Guide>Education

• ERIC - This is the core education database for education journals

• A+ Education via Informit - This searches for literature published in Australia

Professional Development

• Proquest - Education Journals

Look for names of journals in library catalogue.

Seek affiliation of authors.

Personalised feedback is important to students and so is the speed of this feedback. Peter Taylor The Learning Innovator lecturer mentioned that students surveyed felt the most valuable feedback was "pushing" by their peers in discussion forums. A well designed conversational process was also highly valued.

QUT Student Services sent a fortnightly email to students asking if they could help students re the library. The students felt there was no sense of community because of the use of mass email.

Students are looking for a personal response. It takes a lot of time for personalised feedback.

Each time a student is weak on a point the teacher could go to the student and give the extra touch - use technology here! I would set up a group in Blackboard for each student and each group would have just me and one student in it. I had this in the MOOM course and it worked really well for personalised feedback.

Our fourth & final presenter on 24 April for The Learning Innovator was Cathie Doherty from QUT.

Cathie drew on the work of B. Bernstein (warning! horrific to read) , Franz Christie and Joe Muller. Christie and Muller built on Bernstein's work.

Trouble No. 1

Innovation creates the need to re-socialise.

In education we have rich processes of socialisation i.e. natural routines and certain conventions. For example if a teacher produced butcher's paper, students would all "know" they were going to do some group work! Routines = socialisation. If these are undone we need more time to do things a different way. e.g. When decimal currency was introduced in 1966 we all converted from the old currency to see how much something really cost. Three years on in 1969 we were all resocialised and didn't need to do these sums.

Trouble No. 2

The chain of re-contextualisation (distortion - Chinese whisper)

Knowledge is produced then recontextualised. There is a loss in translation. The more agents the re-contextualisation passes through the more dilution of the original knowledge.

Shane Dawson was our third presenter on 24 April.

1. We are all online learners now.
2. Prensky's digital natives or digital immigrants.
3. www.Sticky.net.au - a QUT website for digital creativity.
4. Univ of Ontario in Canada is the first university to include a laptop for each student in their enrolment fees. Observations of how those students use the laptops has shown they all multi-task while they are in lectures.
5. Focus on the learning - only see tools you actually need!
6. Shane drew an interesting diagram with "Technology" on the Y axis and "Time" on the X axis. He then drew lines representing staff, students and vendors. Result - There is a digital void. Students and technology vendors learn all about the technology in a quick timespan. Staff don't have the time to work up the technology axis which results in a digital void. The students are up there with the technology vendors. I personally think that is too broad a result - it depends on so many variables!!!!
   
7. As leaders/change brokers what processes are we going to implement?
8. Keeping up with our neighbours!!

I didn't get much out of Shane's presentation. If I could get a handout it might be useful!

Our second presentation on 24 April was from Lisa (can't remember her surname).

Limerick's textbook "Changing Agendas" - leadership in the post corporate era.

• Collaboration - shared/distributed leadership because one person doesn't have all the skills. I thought about the portfolio approach I take with the Library Managers - now I understand why it works so well!!! Also relevant to "partnering" mentioned in the White Paper.

• Individualism - Levinson refers to the "new age of self reliance" that hasn't been in the workplace for 40+ YEARS. Proactive autonomous workers who gain personal satisfaction but collaborate as individuals.

• Innovation - Andy Hargraves says "Innovation is learning to do things differently in order to do them better." Innovation needs to be purposeful with follow through. One doesn't have to be a pioneer - one can borrow ideas from elsewhere. Innovation doesn't need to be global.

• Human Centred Leadership - "Without people organisations don't exist." Trust is vital. It can't be contrived collegiality. Ethical principles - centrality of relationships. I thought about the "Seven Heavenly Virtues of Leaders" book and think it could be useful to bring home.

Implications for Leaders

1. Need for new mindsets (learn to learn).
2. Manage meaning (create and convey compelling images)
3. New competencies (networking, strategic alliances, sharing leadership - have to be BIG enough to say "I don't have all the answers".
4. Encourage and celebrate achievement.
5. Ethical practices
6. Self evaluation and reflection
7. Be open to possibilities
8. Welcome change

During discussions after the presentation, Lisa mentioned the Chief Scientist from CSIRO. We need to encourage more organisations to come up and reward those who try and subsequently fail.

Peter talked about three spaces for innovation:

1. Mainstream (standard)
2. Middle (experimental) - procedures are feral but community can come in & try and then migrate them into the mainstream. All resources are here - "we'll watch what you're doing and if it works try and implement in mainstream".
3. Feral (avoid)

Peter also feels discontinuous change (i.e. change of leadership) is a HUGE ISSUE e.g. Chris Robinson and the White Paper - what happens re continuity of the work being done if Chris leaves the role. If someone is acting in his position they won't make decisions!!!!

Our second lecture for The Learning Innovator was held on Monday 24 April. Four of Peter Taylor's colleagues gave presentations. Here are notes from the first presentation from Kar-Tin Lee.

Changing Pedagogical Practices: How far down the track are we and how can technology help?

1. If everyone in your organisation likes you, you are not fostering enough change.
2. If you never fail, you are not taking enough risks.
   
3. Leaders redefine people's paradigms about what is possible.
4. It's all about process rather than the tools!
5. How do we help Y gen create knowledge?
6. How do students learn today?
7. A teacher's learning environment is about communicating and collaborating, finding out how to assemble digital resources into structured sequences. It's about IP and digital objects. It's learning how to tap into technology for assessment.
8. Everyone has different definitions for "What is e-learning?". When I asked this question of a student focus group at Southbank Institute, they all thought it meant having to go to the Internet to access and print out their course notes!!!
9. Kar-Tin gave four key points about technology and learners. My favourite is to provide personalised feedback.
10. Informal learning Hole in the Wall (Sugata Mitra, NIIT, India) (Rennie & Mason, 2004 pp.118-121).
11. How do we think?

When questioned after the presentation, Kar-Tin suggested it was good practice to survey students to find out their learning styles. However after a few years she has come to understand the blend. A suggestion was to get students to undertake an online learning styles survey in week 1. This will not only help guage their learning styles but give them the opportunity to engage online.

The Learning Innovator - Week 1 – Peter Taylor

1. Whatever we pay attention to, becomes more important to use.
2. We are living in a state of continuous partial attention.
3. Our sub-conscious operations are responsible for the "Ah! Ha!" moments in the middle of the night.
4. Unconsciously we "act" and then think about it later. When we are fluent at doing something our performance will degenerate once we start paying attention to doing it. (I thought about when I tried to change my backhand in squash and by concentrating on that I found my whole game fell apart!)
5. Issues we give attention to are framed by past experiences.
6. Leaders of change go through deep learning. (I've been on my new learning journey since late 2000 !) Need a different timeframe around our thinking - if it took me time - it's going to take Faculty Directors and other Business Unit Managers longer!!!
7. Routines of older teachers are so automatic and will be very hard to change!
8. Easier to lead rational changes - harder to lead emotional changes. We move from stability to chaos to stability. We have to acknowledge that old relationships will break down and we will build new ones!
9. There is great value in diversity. In a business - if a product is identified as a loser it is "killed off".
10. A group is more powerful than individuals only as long as individuals can speak their own mind. (Don't start with a conclusion.) If a working party comes up with a recommendation, don't toss it out. Allow groups to make decisions.
11. Knowledge is a capacity for effective action.
12. Refer to Peter Senge's Model of Change
13. We have to let go - look around and explore issues. Confusion and uncertainty are part of any good learning. We need to engage in open discussion and constructive confrontation.
14. We have lunch breaks - some companies have "hunch breaks" - time for people to be innovative i.e. not a forcep's birth to innovation. Microsoft example was quoted.

The Learning Innovator - Week 1 - Erica McWilliam

1. There's too much going on to quote mantras to each other e.g. "facilitators". (Concentrate more on what's going on!)
   
2. End of a traditional life narrative e.g. go to school, get a degree, start a job, save for a house, get married, have children!
3. We need to unlearn as much as learn.
   
4. Today's young people want things instantly - NOW - their decisions etc are fast - no delay! They want to wear technology.
   
5. There's a major shift from providing content to building capacity. Knowledge is embedded in technology today e.g. if my sewing machine is broken I can't fix it like I could the old one because there's a computer in it. Therefore "knowing what to do when you don't know what to do is really important!" (Guy Claxton, Bristol Univ)
   
6. We need a disposition to learning e.g. the old "rat in the maze story" what would happen if the walls were put on castors and were constantly moving?????
   
7. "What to do if you need something to do" now appearing on classroom walls.
8. There's been a shift from the normal supply chain to networks. Erica has a good article on Networks by Greg Hearn (available on request). No couch potato consumerism. People will by-pass you if you don't add value.
9. "Learnacy" a term invented by Claxton - being a "resilient learner" and "learning from constructive complications of failure".
   
10. Guy Claxton, Robert lePage, Rushkoff and Brad Haseman all talk about multi-tasking and being inter-generational. We need to edit a meaningful world rather than master content.
11. Learners need a simple front end that's unpackable.
12. Michael Gallagher - what would we stop doing on our learning journey? (Erica thought this was a good question for us to work with.)
13. It is anticipated that young people today will have seven careers.
14. What is the future of podcasting? (Stanford University have a great website detailing a podcasting experiment.) Is their an audio uprising? (Good questions Erica).
15. We have to give people access to good ideas and they will be called "good ideas" if they are understood. They'll probably be called "theory" if not understood.

I commenced a Graduate Certificate of Education (Learning Futures) with QUT and had my first lecture for Cyberlearning: Information and Knowledge in the Digital Age on Monday 27 March.

I am going to use this blog to record my progress and post some of my key learnings on my way to completing my Masters of Learning Innovation.

Thanks to Talia Love-Linay one of my fellow learners, for inspiring me to resurrect my blog that I haven't used since May last year.

Lyn

701 e-Learning Tips is a free Digital Book edited by Elliott Masie. Some of the tips I really liked are:

Chapter 1 - the ABCs of "e"

1. The e in e-Learning stands for education.
   
2. Start small, grow later. Target a course that's small but highly visible in my organisation. After it's been deployed successfully, developing future courses will become more easily acceptable.
3. Focus on people, then on corporate needs, then on technology.
4. E-Learning will represent a behaviour change for most employees.
5. Make sure you experience being an e-learner yourself before you deliver a course online.
6. What's hardest about e-learning is getting learners motivated and organisations energized. Spending time on the "people" side of e-learning will pay great dividends.

Chapter 2 - Strategic Planning vs Leading Willy Nilly

1. If you have a wonderful new idea, prototype it first, then ask for budget to develop it further. Chances of receiving budget dollars for something executives can see is much greater than for something they have to imagine.
2. Create a Learning Consultant position for each Faculty (could this be the liaison librarian??) so that users have a person to help them become aware of, locate, use and benefit from e-learning experiences available to them.
3. Critical success factors include lots of communication and change management; having a skilled e-facilitator, good content, not too bandwidth intensive and excellent project management.
4. Challenge and validate all levels of ownership at each & every stage i.e. CEO, Directors, Faculty Directors etc.
5. Imbed an e-learning culture into the culture of the business - without cultural acceptance it will never be successful.
6. When doing a risk assessment in project management plan, ask "Who will have influence over the success and process of the end product and think about how to best communicate with them to maximise their support and buy-in.
   

I'm up to number 86

1. Design to a PROCESS rather than CONTENT.
2. Go for two versions of a course: audio enabled and audio disabled.
3. Good solid testing prior to launching course - include one of the learners the course is written for.
4. Approach Marketing Dept for graphics and pictures to be used in our courses.

This Quick Guide from the Australian Flexible Learning Framework looks at effective online facilitation and its importance in online teaching and learning.

Robert Pulling and I wrote this Quick Guide in late 2004.
Online Mentoring - Helping the New Online Teacher