onlinepivot
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25 Years of OU/Ed Tech – 2020: The Online Pivot
via GIPHY A “2 for the price or 1” post! As part of the ongoing 25 Years of Ed Tech project, I do one post that is based around the ed tech of that year that would have been included (the book stops in 2018 – oh and while you’re here, remember to check out the audiobook and podcast series of the book). I’ve also been doing my 25 Years of OU series reflecting on my career over 25 years at one institution. For this final post in the latter, and the 2020 entry for the former, there is a crossover of these two series, it’s like the time Magnum…
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Those Beaches Will Be Open For This Weekend
via GIPHY In an earlier post I played with the analogy of Jaws and the online pivot. In that I concentrated on the second act of the film, but watching the return to campuses, I think there is resonance with the first act also. In that first act, which takes place on Amity Island, the tension is between Chief Brody who wants to close the beaches on safety grounds and Mayor Vaughn who wants to keep them open for the 4th July and the local economy. It is perhaps unfair to portray principals and Vice Chancellors who want to resume campus study as the Mayor Vaughns in this situation –…
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It’s forever 1999 for online learning critics
via GIPHY One of the (many) things to surprise and disappoint me over the past couple of months has been the resurrection of so many bad takes on online learning that I had encountered in 1999 and thought we had moved on from. There was a piece in Wonkhe that argued online worked against widening participation. Online, with assistive technologies, where the student can learn in their own environment and at their own pace was somehow much worse for WP than making people come to one physical location at set times and study in real time. Apparently only f2f can realise WP goals, which was certainly news to all the…
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Online pivot – the future
via GIPHY After having done past and present posts, the real surprise now is that I am doing one on the future of HE. As I pointed out in the last post, one of the real defining characteristics of the current situation is that no-one knows what will happen. So it would be foolish to have a stab at predicting the future, especially when some people are so good at being so spectacularly bad at it. According to Elon Musk human language will be obsolete in 5 years time, so I can’t compete with that level of stupid. The biggest impact on higher ed is likely to be financial. The…
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Online pivot – the present
via GIPHY Following on from the look at how the past is important in understanding the online pivot, I’ll now shift to the present. HEIs now have to plan for multiple scenarios in September which include options around fully online, rolling half populations on campus and half online, fully on campus for some, fully offline for others, and all variations in between. They are also having to do this while imagining severe economic impacts arising from loss of international students, research funding and secondary income such as food, accommodation, bar expenditure from students. Oh, and then there’s the physical health of students and staff which is at risk if you…
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Online pivot – the Past
via GIPHY I thought I’d do a series of posts on thinking about the past, present and future of our current situation. I don’t want to go the full Downes, and say “what this pandemic is really about is me”, but in terms of thinking about the past, I thought I’d riff off my 25 Years of Ed Tech book. What the pandemic has revealed is the role of ed tech not as a funky, disruptive side hustle, but as boring, mainstream provision. In physical architecture terms it is less the cool, digital drop-in space with bean bags but more akin to the standard lecture halls and old refectory. It’s…
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Digital resilience in the time of pandemic
I took part in a very fun session last week, hosted by Tom Farrelly. It was an online version of the successful Gasta he runs at ILTA and ALT-C conferences which consists of a series of 5 minute talks with Tom acting as compere, getting the audience to count to 5 in Gaelic and cutting you off if you dare go over. The tone of all the talks was just right – playful, fun but also very informative and engaging. Congrats to Tom and all the team for a great evening. You can watch all of them here: http://gasta.me/ I built up my post on the robustness of distance ed…
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Jaws and the online pivot
Unless you are very new here you will know that I like a metaphor, and I also like Jaws. So, here it is, the Jaws/Covid19 online pivot analogy you didn’t ask for and don’t want. Jaws is a movie in two acts, much like our Pandemic response thus far. The first act takes place on the island of Amity, gearing up for its summer boom of the 4th July. Our central character, Chief Brody, wants to close the beaches, because people being eaten by a shark is a bad thing. The sartorially exemplary Mayor Vaughn wants to keep the beaches open because of the economy. People have been having some…
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OU drop-in session – long term vs short term
Last Wednesday I held the last of (for now) the OU drop-in sessions for the sector. We looked at immediate solutions versus longer term ones, and issues of care and avoiding burnout. The video of the session is below. We looked at questions such as: What is acceptable now? – Students and institutions will accept a more rough and ready offering now, given the immediacy of the crisis. Now the emphasis is on doing whatever it takes, helping students complete, and offering support and care. What is acceptable in September? – Come the new semester however, course offerings, particularly for first year undergrads, will need to be more substantial and…
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Online pivot & the absence of a magic button
via GIPHY Now we’re getting into the online pivot more substantially, higher education institutions are coming to terms that it may not be a short-term emergency shift. It looks like the first semester of the 2020-21 year may be online, and if Covid-19 flares up again, who knows how long it may continue. While you could get away with “sticking classes on Zoom” for the immediate emergency, that won’t cut it in the medium term. More long-term, the pandemic will make many HEIs review the overall robustness of their offering, and seek to move portions online as a possible response to any future crisis. In a lot of senior management…
