Best of ASCILITE 2023

The 

Te Pae Christchurch Convention Centre, 
Photo by Klajban, CC BY-SA 4.0,
via Wikimedia Commons

Australasian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education ASCILITE 2023 Conference starts next week at the Te Pae Christchurch Convention Centre. I have to make difficult choice as to which of the parallel sessions to attend, and the luxury of not having to present (although I expect I will have to chair something). 

MONDAY 4 DECEMBER

0845 - 1000 Plenary - Rakaia Room
0930 -1030 Keynote address: Being effective isn’t authentic: Building digital education culture David White

1030-1100 Morning Tea + Poster Viewing

11:00 AM Conway 4, Assoc Prof Dawn Gilmore, Academic Director, RMIT Online

Qualifications, Interpersonal Skills, and Career Pathways: Building a Competency-Based Tool for the Recruitment and Career Development of Learning Designers

1:30 PM Rakaia Room Dr Shannon Rios, Lecturer, The University of Melbourne

Authorship Verification in Software Engineering Education: Forget ChatGPT and Focus on Students' Academic Writing Profiles

3:40 PM Conway 4 Dr Kashmira Dave, Lecturer, Academic Development, University of New England

Beyond Appearances: Unveiling the Hidden Biases in Hiring Academics in Australian Universities

ps: I will be in and around the 3 to 6 December. Happy to catch up with people, and give a talk, if someone has an audience and venue. 

In Christchurch NZ for ASCILITE 2023 3 to 6 December

Te Pae Christchurch Convention Centre, 
Photo by Klajban, CC BY-SA 4.0,
via Wikimedia Commons

What is there to do in Christchurch in December? I will be in and around the Te Pae Christchurch Convention Centre, 3 to 6 December for the Australasian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education ASCILITE 2023 Conference. I don;t have a paper to give, just a Mobile Learning Special Interest Group (MLSIG) session to contribute to. Happy to catch up with people, and give a talk, if someone has an audience and venue. 

Kits to help teach computing to schoolkids

Sarah Washbrooke
presenting to ML Sig

Greetings from the ASCILITE Mobile Learning Special Interest Group where Sarah Washbrooke is presenting on Byteed Play Code Learn kits. These are for primary school students to learn computer programming. They use cards and board, like a game, plus augmented reality, based on tablets, or tablets. This looks a practical, low tech approach, which would not be too intimidating for teachers who are not confident with computers.

Blockchain for Microcredentials

Greetings from the Australian Computer Society (ACS) in Sydney. I am a member of the ACS Blockchain Technical committee and taking part in a workshop with people from industry and academia. We were looking for use cases, so I suggested education, specifically blockchain for micro-credentials.

Educational qualifications much shorter than current diplomas and degrees is a hot topic in Australian vocational and higher education. What takes this beyond a theoretical discussion is New Zealand recognizing Micro-credentials from 22 August 2018.

A NZ micro-credential is equivalent to about 1 to 8 weeks study. So in addition to accumulating perhaps a half dozen macro-credentials during their career, an individual may have hundreds of micro-credentials. It would be cumbersome to manage these on paper, or through a centralized computer system.

The micro-credentials may then be automatically checked for some jobs by automated systems. I will touch on this in my talk on mobile education for the Computer Society of Sri Lanka  National IT Conference (NITC 2018),  2 to 4 October. Students could study and be tested via their mobile device and then their digital certificate provided via the same device. 

New Zealand to Recognize Micro-credentials from 22 August 2018

The New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA) proposes to recognise micro-credentials from tertiary education organizations from 22 August 2018. This follows a consultation paper and feedback.

What is not clear to me is how micro-credentials will fit with existing university and vocational education and training (VET) qualifications. The NZ micro-credential is 5 to 40 NZ "credits", where a year full-time study is 120 credits. This make a NZ micro-credential is about one hundredth, to one tenth, of a three year degree, making it a deci- or centi-credential (a literal "micro-credential" would be about 30 minutes study).

In the Australian system a common sub-degree qualification is a "certificate" (or graduate certificate) requiring half a year study. This would make a NZ micro-credential between 8% and 67% of a certificate. An Australian university year is commonly 24 weeks of study, making a NZ micro-credential equivalent to 1 to 8 weeks study. An Australian VET Certificate IV requires ten "Units of competency". So a NZ micro-credential would be between half and four units of competency.

Micro-credentials may well "disrupt" the higher education system, by providing shorter, cheaper, more convenient and relevant qualifications. Hopefully this can be done with protection for the students, teachers and the community, from exploitation. It needs to be kept in mind that qualifications are not just about students getting a better job, they are about ensuring the community receives the safe level of service expected.

Australia has experienced exploitation of students in vocational courses, where they were signed up for overpriced worthless qualifications, and exploitation of students in the "gig-economy" workforce, where they were underpaid (and threatened if they spoke out). If not carefully regulated, micro-credentials could create perfect conditions for further exploitation of students.

"Micro-credentials	Characteristics
Educational elements	Certifies achievement of a set of skills and knowledge Coherence of the skills and knowledge required Purpose statement required Learning outcomes required Strong demonstrable evidence of need by industry, employer and/or community required Does not typically duplicate current quality-assured learned approved by NZQA
Credit values	5 to 40 credits
Entities who may deliver or arrange training	Tertiary education providers and Industry Training Organisations can seek approval of micro-credentials through the training scheme rules and consent to assess rules Non-Tertiary Education Organisations (TEOs) - Equivalency service only
Administration	Yearly review of quality-assured micro-credentials Quality-assured micro-credentials published on a public register Micro-credentials with an equivalence statement (delivered by non-TEOs) published on a separate register"

 From: "Recognising micro-credentials in New Zealand", NZ, 2018

Educational Leadership Getting Personal at EdTech Posium 2017

Greetings from the opening of EdTechPosium Conference 2017 at UNSW/ADFA in Canberra. The theme of the conference is "Fitting the Tech to the Teaching", but Kim Tairi, Librarian, AUT in Auckland, started her keynote on a more personal note. She discussed how she came to be the Librarian of a university and issues with taking on a leadership role. Kim emphasized the human aspects of scholarships, proposing "Circles of Kindness". This gives my more confidence about taking the person approach in my presentaion on "Dogfooding" at 11:25 am.

New Zealand Educational Entrepreneurs

Greetings from the Griffin Room, overlooking Lake Burley Griffin at the Australian National University in Canberra, where Steve Thomas is speaking on ‘Putting a Value On It’. The value that New Zealand educational entrepreneurs plan to create. He started by defining social entrepreneurship, in terms of innovation, revenue generation for improving welfare. He said there was not much research on this.

He is studying "Partnership Schools" (Kura Hourua)  (PSKH). These allow more flexibility in teaching, with different teaching hours and unregistered teachers. Examples included military style schools, farm based and Mauri and pacific inland culture orientated schools. Some schools plan to use Wraparound Services to address health and low socio-economic status.

Steve pointed out that some of these services are not new, but are being delivered in new ways. But it is too early to show this works.

I asked Steve about use of e-learning in NZ schools, given the NZ Education Department developed the Mahara e-portfolio software. He commented that several of the people interviewed had commented they were looking at IT use, but did not seem to be clear on how to do this.

Australian Bids to Run NZ ICT Graduate Schools

The New Zealand Government has announced $28.6M to set up three Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Graduate Schools. NZ Tertiary Education Commission and the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment will run a tender process for education provider/industry partnerships to provide the grad schools. Under the ANZ Closer Economic Relations Trade Agreement (CER), Australian and NZ organisations have access to each others markets. So it may be possible for Australian universities and companies to bid to run the NZ grad schools.