The Future Will Happen

Greetings from EdTechPosium at the Australian Catholic University's new teaching building in Canberra. Dr. Carol Russell from UWS is discussing "Online learning and the student perspective". Dr. Russell related her experience in the 1990s at the Open University UK (OUUK), with early online learning (later codified by Salmon).

More recently, UWS has a new campus at Paramatta with no lecture theaters and Dr. Russell commented staff will therefore need to change their teaching technique. My worry is that with some incentive and training staff will not change their teach techniques: the poor quality lectures in rooms not designed for them. 

Dr. Russell showed a photo of a paper based examination at UWS. I was a little surprised with this, not that they were using paper for an examination, but that UWS was still having examinations at all. I stopped using lectures and examinations in 2008. 

Dr. Russell asked how to assess skills in the new university environment. The way I have been doing it since 2009 is to get the student to demonstrate the knowledge and skills they will need for a job, ideally in the workplace actually doing the job. This approach is also used with ANU computing interns and TechLauncher group projects. With these the students have a real boss (or "client") and a real task. This not just a matter of the student spending time on work experience, they are assessed against curriculum requirements.

ps: It happens that I have three books from OUUK on the desk beside me:

1. Reconstructing Professionalism In University Teaching, Walker, 2001
2. On Becoming An Innovative University Teacher, Cowan, 2006
3. Making Sense of Academic Life: Academics, Universities, and Change, Taylor, 2000

I borrowed these from the new ACU Library. This is just below the large flat floor classroom where EdTechPosium is being held. This was invaluable during my time studying for a MEd, due to its excellent collection of works on education (ACU generously provides staff of other universities with borrowing rights). These books are about a revolution in higher education which has been happening for decades and is still in progress. Many of the issues are still current and have been discussed at EdTechPosium 2018.

One of the delegates, skeptical of futurism commented "The Future Will Happen".

EdTechPosium: My Schedule

EdTechPosium starts 9:30am Monday, 29 October at the Australian Catholic University's new teaching building in Canberra. I will be giving a quick demonstration of my ICT Sustainability course. The conference organizers are using Sched, which helps keep in touch with other delegates and plan which activities you will attend. Here is my schedule:

Monday, October 29

8:00am Registration

9:30am, Welcome to EdTechPosium 2018 – Design, develop, play! Patrick McArdle

9:40am,  Acknowledgment of country Grace Burton

9:45am,  Keynote 1: Pedagogy, Peers, Professionalism, Platforms and Practice… and the Workshop Activity Julian Cox

10:45am,  Morning tea

11:15am,  Modern learning experiences using H5P and Google UI Robbie Coombs

11:45am, Let's make an LTI activity - developing external tools Ricky Vuckovic

12:15pm,  Lunch

1:15pm, Museums, learning and digital experience Fiona Bowen • Robert Bunzli • Amanda Dennett

2:15pm, Building the academic community for educational leadership Judith Norris

2:30pm, Open source educators, digital technologies and rethinking teacher training Luke Mooney • Garreth John Wigg

2:45pm, Design for engagement, design for support, design for learning: the development of National Guidelines for improving student outcomes in online education Cathy Stone

3:45pm, Afternoon tea

4:15pm, Design and evaluation of robust online e-Exams with Moodle Mathew Hillier

4:45pm, Australian Curriculum for Digital Technologies, NAPLAN and the impact on higher education in future years Michael de Raadt • Russell Waldron

5:15pm, Drinks and Games

Tuesday, October 30

9:45am, ‘If you spend your life looking behind, you don’t see what’s up front’: How we own, shape, influence and participate in the possible futures for higher education Peter Bryant

11:15am, Is Silence Golden? - Reporting back on the use of audio-visual feedback by both staff and students in a first year foundation unit Stephanie Kizimchuk

11:45am, Exploration design on course sites: Building positive learner experience Janene Harman • Rebecca Ng

1:15pm, Online learning and the student perspective Carol Russell

2:15pm, Serious Play Stephen Dann

The Best of EdTechPosium 2017 in Canberra

The EdTechPosium Conference 2017 on a theme of "Fitting the Tech to the Teaching", starts 30 October in the "Camouflage Building" at the Australian Defence Force Academy in Canberra. Here are my picks from the two day program:

Day 1

10:50 “What are Blockcerts again?” — The role of communication in introducing new technologies for teaching at tertiary institutions. Rebecca Ng, Australian National University

11:25 Dogfooding: Learning to design for internationalstudents by being an international on-line student. Tom Worthington, Australian National University

13:10 Motivating and inspiring students to work collaboratively on assessment items. Dr Scott Rickard, University of Canberra


13:45 Moving from Face-to-Face to e-learning. William Batten, Department of Defence


14:55 Simulations, Gamification and Creative Problem Solving. Sudantha Balage, UNSW Canberra

15: 25 Opening professional learning in Australian higher education using Open Educational Practice: A cross-institutional collaboration. Emma Power, University of Southern Queensland, Dr Katie Freund, Karlene Dickens
& Janene Harman, Australian National University


16:00 eLearning 101 — professional development for busy academics and technology-enhanced learning educators. James Nicholson, Australian Catholic University

Day 2

10:40 “Let’s See What Happens”: Introducing students to interactive online tutorials. Stephanie Kizimchuk, University of Canberra

11:15 Four embeddings and a mural: OK2A — A course layout informed by Constructive Alignment delivering better blended learning. Roderick Huggett, Centre for
Defence and Strategic Studies

11:50 What have we GotS here? New ways for delivering Information Literacy at the University of Wollongong Library. Laura Lidden & Nick Zografos, University of Wollongong

14:45 ePortfolios — Where to next? Jenny Edwards, Australian National University, Shane Nuessler, University of Canberra

Impact through empathy

One exception to the usual fluffy kitten approach to university marketing is the Australian Catholic University (ACU), with their "ACU I Impact through empathy" campaign. This depicts the ACU's graduates, in health and education, helping people. It still shows study in a positive light, but is much more serious and sober than some of the sillier advertisements of other Australian universities. One point ACU glosses over is its origins in religious education: although the Vatican is briefly shown.

One of the more entertaining parts of higher education are the advertisements universities use to attract students. However, students have high rates of mental health problems. Depicting study as something fun, social, and easy, with instructors always to hand, may contribute to the problem.

University study is not fun, easy or pleasant: it is hard work, frustrating and lonely. Instructors cannot be as available, or helpful, as students would wish, due to resource constraints and the need for students to learn though their own efforts. As a result students may think there is something wrong with them.

ACU's approach is not just a matter of marketing. When studying education I made use of ACU's Canberra campus library and sat in on some graduate student sessions (one day I accidentally also sat in on an undergraduate teacher training class). There is a sense of caring and sharing which pervades the campus and the approach of the staff, different from a typical university. This may be just a matter of size, with a small campus able to be more personal, or it may be due to the caring disciplines the institution teaches.