Academic Involvement

When starting major University pilots, it might be useful to propose for academic involvement.  We have all these skills here in the University so it might be time to utilise them.  For example the social networking project, it could be useful to try and get a psychologist involved, or for the QuestionMark project we could get an e-assessment expert.  This would provide a comfort for the academics in the pilot and allow for a an easier involvement process.

As an e-department and learning technologist we have skills in multiple areas but are generally experts in none.  This is where these resources could come in useful.  Whether we pay for them or that is in their interest I think the way we go about these things could be improved.

e-learning Overload

Much as the same as us techie's becoming overloaded with 2.0 tools, the same thing seems to be happening with academics and e-learning tools.  We throw so many tools at academics that a lot of them dont really know where to begin or how to fit it in with their modules.

There is always going to be the next big thing, but in the sense that average joe lecturer who designs their module, they dont need constantly inundated with e-learning progaganda, recently a few collegues have came up to me and said that they simply dont have the time to look at anything.  This is due to staffing reductions and more responsibility being put on them.  There seems to be a fine balance of filtering these tools out to everyone, we should give academics a chance to breath..

The worse is when you have multiple tools that basically do the same job, yet we advertise them separetly, all this casue confusion to the user.

Anyway like a tide that will never cease the e-learning onslaught continues..

Using Data visualization within Education

With the high end graphics and data manipulation the internet/ computers today can handle and process a lot of data. What has been progressing over time, is an increase in the knowledge and easiness to create data sets and visualize the data in an easy to understand format. The most common of which and is dying slowly is the tag cloud.

The tag cloud is just one example, others include the advanced communication world map which was released recently. Imagine if you could create that on a small scale see, use it to see which departments communicate with others, which student access materials the most etc the list goes on. I feel that does not happen enough within the University and would help in the change that technology gives us.

Evidencing against predefined criteria

With the JISC eApel project underway within the department, I have an opportunity to look at it from a side perspective.

The process to evidence oneself against predefined criteria using e-Portfolios is in itself, very innovative. The methodology could be used for so many subject and in so many different way's.

Take for example Job Applications, if you have ever applied for a job, you will have noticed that you have to evidence yourself against the criteria, the employer is looking for. It would be a lot easier if an application listed the predefined criteria and forced the prospective employee to write against them. At the moment in time, this process is done in a generic way which judges the skills that are being advertised along with the hidden skill of reflection. The e-Apel project focuses the reflection and allows the weaker writers an opportunity to easily show their experience.