ALT
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ALT’s 30th – looking back to ALTC 2018
As part of ALT’s 30th celebrations, there are some posts looking back to ALT-C’s of the past. I’ve chosen 2018, although it was not a great conference for me personally, an alternative title for this post might be “when life gets in the way of conferencing”. It was a memorable conference for ALT, as it was their 25th anniversary. As a special conference it was chaired by the then President (me!) and Chair (Sheila MacNeill), and with Maren as one of the keynotes. It took place at the University of Manchester, which is a great venue, but, and this will become relevant, not particularly easy to access from Cardiff where…
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What the ALT survey tells us about the online pivot
The Association of Learning Technology conducts an annual survey. This is always a useful tool to track learning technologists (and their institutions) attitudes towards different technology. This year though they had a special section on Covid, and the results of that are worth noting. They provide an interesting historical snapshot, at the end of 2020. It will be informative to see how we feel about them this time next year. Here are the key findings: 87% of Members feel Learning Technology is more positively perceived. Infrastructure and technology has won most investment over recruitment and CPD (with 53% reporting a reduction in permanent posts funding) Learning tech budgets often increased…
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Emotional support in the time of crisis
Amidst the excellent advice and community spirit shown for the online pivot, it has also become apparent that non-specific, non-academic support is going to be valuable. I blogged before that with our GO-GN network we know that emotional support is as valuable as academic support. In a PhD it is as (if not more) important to find people who understand you, and what you are going through as it is to find advice on your chosen methodology. For students and educators, as we go through this unprecedented global convulsion, this type of emotional support will be more valued. Not because it will help students stay on the course or get…
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The GIF(t) of Impact
Back in 2017 I blogged how ALT had taken a different approach to developing strategy which had made the often dry, boring process more engaging and meaningful. Well, it’s now nearly 2020 and we’re developing a new strategy, so ALT have handily updated on what they achieved over the last strategy period. And as well as a nice report, we have GIFs! It may seem trivial, but I think being able to boil your outcomes down to some GIFs may be both a useful exercise in practising clarity of message, and also make them more social media friendly. It’s a practice I may adopt on other projects too (although one…
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The meticulous informality of ALT-C
I was at the annual ALT conference in Edinburgh last week. I’m often slow to appreciate things, so I accept this is not a revelation to many, but one of the aspects of ALTC that has struck me over the years is the informality of it as an event. I go to many conferences which have very formal opening ceremonies, dignitaries speaking and a carefully represented hierarchy. This is often what people want, so I don’t knock it, but I appreciate the contrast that ALTC offers. This informality is manifest in many ways. The keynotes included one of our own in Sue Beckingham, Jesse Stommel sitting casually on the stage…
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25 years of EdTech – 1996: CMC
I’m revisiting the previous post on Bulletin Board Systems slightly here. One of the interesting things about this series is the way others are bringing great stuff to my attention. For instance, David Kernohan has covered much of this in better detail than I can (sometimes I hate that guy with all his knowledge stuff). The reason I’m revisiting Bulletin Board Systems with the concept of Computer Mediated Communication is that it’s a good example of how a technology develops into a more generic educational approach. CMC became a popular phrase around this time and represents higher ed really beginning to engage with online tools in a theoretical, conceptual manner,…
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25 years of EdTech – 1995: the Web
Before someone jumps in and says “actually the web was invented in 1989”, this series isn’t about when they were invented, but when I feel they became relevant in ed tech. So don’t be that guy. It’s now 1995, in my personal history this is the year I joined the Open University. At the interview I said “so have you thought about using the web to deliver courses?” I think they interpreted this as me knowing more about it than I did, but hey, I got the job. The web browser was becoming reasonably common now, with Netscape (*sniff*) dominating. I won’t go all nostalgic about the early promise of…
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25 Years of EdTech – 1994: Bulletin Board Systems
Continuing my 25 years of Ed Tech reflections, it’s now 1994. The web is just about to break in a big way, and the internet is gaining more interest. One of the technologies that old ed tech hacks like me go all misty eyed over is the Bulletin Board System. These were popular for the nascent discussion forums online, and mark the first real awareness of education to the possibility of the internet. They often required specialist software at this stage, were text based and because we were all using expensive dial-up, the ability to synch offline was important. At the OU (I was yet to join) they were experimenting…
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25 years of edtech – 1993: Artificial Intelligence
This year marks the 25th anniversary of ALT. I’m co-chairing the ALT-C conference with Sheila MacNeill, which celebrates this in September. This got me thinking about the changes I’d seen in that time, and so I’m going to attempt a series of blog posts that use this as a vehicle to explore the developments in ed tech over the past 25 years. It may end up like Sufjan Stevens project to write an album for every state, and I won’t get past two or three, but let’s give it a go. Also, in order to fit it in, there may be some twisting to fit a tech into a year,…
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Rewilding EdTech
At ALT-C I was having a conversation with Amber Thomas about our mutual friend Ross MacKenzie’s interest in rewilding in Scotland. There are many different approaches to rewilding it turns out, but the two main ones are top down – reintroducing the big fauna such as wolves into a habitat, or bottom up, where you start at the bottom of the food chain and reintroduce small scale flora (and remove invasive species). Anyway, that’s my very basic understanding of it, my apologies if I’ve got it completely wrong. This got me thinking that rewilding might be an idea we could take to ed tech. Much of the early enthusiasm around…
