Web 2.0 technologies have had a significant impact on me personally since I have been working in education. The most obvious example is the use of the OU Systems and all that studying and teaching with the OU encompasses. Boggs, Wikis, Virtual Classrooms and VLEs are now second nature. The introduction of Moodle VLE in my day job has been embraced by me but not by the students or many other teachers, I am afraid, a classic case of putting the technology in place and then providing little training to support its development.
A catalogue of errors have followed due to the lack of communications and sudden changes to the system being imposed. How for instance can all forums be deactivated overnight and the site administrator fail to work out how to switch on the facility to subscribe to a forum, beats me. Only this week the colour scheme has suddenly been changed and a fancy banner added to the top of each page that occupies 15% of every page that a student meets, why oh why is the branding more important than the learning.
Sadly such negative steps have a huge effect on the adoption of the technology by teaching staff, in contrast the OU have a forum to discuss changes and enable users to voice their opinion before embarking on any changes which by then will be well researched and thought out.
Back to work and I see rarely more than half a dozen people logged on to the VLE at any one time. This is driven I am sure by some of the factors that Conole (2009) identifies, including lack of time, a focus on research and concerns over the role of the teacher diminishing. Faster cheaper better I hear, mmm I wonder in what order.
I would like to report that despite this, there are plenty of academic staff who are experimenting with new technologies and trying out innovative approaches in their teaching, well they are few and far between. I put this down mainly to the barriers that are in the way, slow internet connections, restricted access and a complete ban on the use of keysticks. This on a day that I have been informed that Jing is not allowed on the network. Jing by the way enables short bite size screen videos with voice over that would improve the learning experience, I despair.
Still the wheels keep turning, the learners keep learning and the frustrations keep coming, but I haven't given up yet.
2 comments:
Steve, have you tried using the cloud with your jing?
Never give up they'd have won if you do and you cannot let that happen - that's from someone who rarely (i repeat rarely) plays games (do not like losing :))
Your comment 'putting technology in place and then providing little training' brought a smile, you have those numpties at your place of work too! SharePoint (Web 2.0) is about to be rolled out at my place of work. I got excited about the blogs and wiki's etc etc that as an organisation we will be able to use. And I as a trainer will be able to train it all. But alas a comment in a meeting from a big wig of not sure we would want the masses to know that they have the ability to do that'. Left me speachless - well it was difficult to comment with a colleagues hand over my mouth.
KR Joanne
Hi Joanne
Thanks for popping by
Outside of work I have and it works well but at work the barriers are up.
Sharepoint has been activated this year too but yet more barriers come with it.
How long before your big wig (laggard)retires. To be honest I have become outspoken on the matter and big wig or not I would happily make him/her aware of their stupidity, sorry lack of awareness.
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