Expertise As Well as Equipment Needed for Productivity

Shahiduzzaman, Kowalkiewicz, Barret and Briggs conclude their analysis of the productivity of IT in Australia by saying: "... IT investment is not enough to make a positive
change to Australia’s economic performance. Knowing how to efficiently and effectively use IT capital requires the development of organisational, managerial and individual capabilities.". The authors seem to have misunderstood what IT is: it is not just computers and telecommunications equipment, IT also encompasses the skills in applying this to business and human aspects of making use of that equipment. IT professionals spend much of their time working out what the businesses does and how it can do it better with IT.

Many executives make the mistake of thinking they can simply buy IT from someone and then apply it to their business. But it is that application which is the hard bit. Computing students also tend to make this mistake: they will design what they think is the perfect computer program and are surprised when they see it does not work in practice, because people do not behave the way they expected.

One field where the productivity of IT is hotly debated is education. A question often asked is: "Students have laptops, tablets and smart phones, so why aren't they learning better?". Chen, Seilhamer, Bennett and Bauer (2015) conclude that "... students and instructors need technical, logistical, and pedagogical support for integrating mobile devices and apps." It may seem obvious that just giving students computers will not make them educationally useful, but it is a lesson the education system (and governments funding it) have to keep learning. Similarly CEOs and, worryingly, CIOs seem to forget they need skilled IT professionals for IT to be productive.

Reference

Chen, B., Seilhamer, R., Bennett, L. & Bauer, S. (June 2015). Students' Mobile Learning Practices in Higher Education: A Multi-Year Study. EduCause. Retrieved from http://er.educause.edu/articles/2015/6/students-mobile-learning-practices-in-higher-education-a-multiyear-study

 

Shahiduzzaman, M., Kowalkiewicz, M., Barret, R., & Briggs, A. (December 2015). Technology investment is not enough: Growing Australia's productive digital economy. Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane Australia.

Twenty Years of Professional On-line Conversations by Teachers

Lloyd, Skyring and Nykvist (2015) have written a history of the oz-Teachers mailing list. This electronic mailing list for Australian teachers was started at the Queensland University of Technology in 1995 and has been used for daily discussions and a source of inspiration for research over 20 years. The mailing list continues today, hosted on Google groups: http://groups.google.com/group/ozteachers/

Perhaps a researcher would like to carry out a similar analysis of the "Link list on Australian network policy and communication", which has been running at ANU since February 1995 (the month after oz-teachers started).

References

Lloyd, M., Skyring, C., & Nykvist, S. (2015). Teacher professional conversations – the oz-Teachers story. Australian Educational Computing, 30(2). Retrieved from http://journal.acce.edu.au/index.php/AEC/article/view/72

The e-Learning Sausage Factory

Willems (2015) argues that tertiary institutions have neglected the human aspects in implementing on-line learning. They argue that academics need to  “adapt themselves” with human communication skills for the online medium. The paper relates the experience of the "REdelivery" team at Queensland University of
Technology, which helps academics adapt their courses for e-learning.

While I agree that academics need different skills for designing and delivering on-line courses, I suggest this should not be a special "adaption", just part of normal teacher training. There will need to be advanced courses for e-learning specialists, but anyone who teaches at a university will need to know the basics of how to design and deliver an on-line course.




While it is useful to have specialized teams to help academics adapt courses, this is just a stop-gap measure. In the longer term those who develop courses need basic training in how to do this from scratch. My preference would be to "flip" the current training: teach academics how to design and deliver on-line courses first and then add the little extra they need to adapt this for face to face (F2F).



Within the next five to ten years almost all tertiary courses will be delivered on-line, with some F2F components (typically in a 80:20 mix). Academics will spend most of their teaching time involved with e-learning and so this is the primary teaching skill they need to learn.

It is much easier to covert an on-line course for F2F delivery than the other way around.Courses will therefore be routinely designed for e-learning, with any necessary, or desirable, F2F components then added.

There is too much emphasis in e-learning design on the academic as a video performer. Video makes no difference to student's learning outcomes, so we should not waste too much time on production values. Students certainly like video, but a good video, a bad video, or no video at all, makes no difference to how well the student learns.

Showcase open courses ("MOOCs") will need high production values as a marking tool for institutions (just as public lectures have always involved showmanship). But this should not be confused with real courses, for real learning.

References

Willems, C. (2015). The 'Gourmet' Sausage Factory: Keeping It Human. Journal Of Learning Design, 8(1), 79-94. doi:10.5204/jld.v8i1.197

QUT innovation space

Looking for more content on innovation, I came across a report on a entrepreneurship education (EE) program run by QUT (Collet & Roberts, 2014).

The report notes the need to:

1. "Evaluate the context of the type of EE program to be delivered and the student demand for the skills training ...
   
2. Create a community that builds on three dimensions: a physical space, a virtual environment and a network of mentors and partners.
   
3. Supplement the community with external partnerships that aid in delivery of skills training materials.
   
4. Ensure discovery of the community through the use of external IT services to deliver advertising and networking outlets.
   
5. Manage unrealistic student expectations of billion dollar products.
   
6. Continuously renew and rebuild simple activities to maintain student engagement.
   
7. Accommodate the non-university end-user group within the community.
   
8. Recognise and address the skills bottlenecks that serve as barriers to concept progression; in this case, externally provided IT and programming skills.
   
9. Use available on-line and published resources rather than engage in constructing project-specific resources that quickly become obsolete.
   
10. Avoid perceptions of faculty ownership and operate in an increasingly competitive environment.
    
11. Recognise that the continuum between creativity/innovation and entrepreneurship is complex, non-linear and requires different training regimes during the different phases of the pipeline. One small entity, such as the QIS, cannot address them all." From Collet and Roberts (2014, p. 5).
    

The most popular events were:

1. "Ideas & IP (workshop)
2. Pitching Practice (workshop series)
3. Thirsty Thursday (events)
4. Student Start-Up Night (events)
5. Design Thinking with Deloitte (workshops)
6. Story of a Start Up (guest speaker series)
7. Pitching Competitions (events/workshops)
8. Five day business course (course)
9. Innovation Boot Camp (two day introduction to entrepreneurship)
10. Open House (event/workshop/speaker series)"

From Collet and Roberts (2014, p. 39).

What is perhaps more interesting is exploring the activities which were not popular, as these could be ones which would be appropriate for an on-line course which complements the face-to-face activities. Detailed instructional design allows for the student to be taken through a learning experience which is not fun, like a workshop, but may be necessary for them.

 

Reference

Collet, C., & Roberts, J. (2014). The QUT innovation space: a trans-disciplinary learning environment for entrepreneurship education: final report. Retried from http://eprints.qut.edu.au/72840/