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Discussion
Discussion
I've developed a comprehensive understanding of the tools available within the Open University virtual learning environment (OU VLE), initially through experience in my previous production roles, and have turned this towards understanding activity design affordances and how technology can support pedagogy in my work as a Learning Designer.
I've taken a leading role in developing our TEL In Practice (TiP - a technology enhanced learning and design practice sharing site) Tools resources and design guides. We identified a gap shortly after I joined the team between the comprehensive technical guidance available to production staff, and information for authors that focuses on how to use the tools in activity design. I've spent the last three years gradually filling in these gaps by creating and curating ‘Tool Design Guides’ for each of the distinct tools, which offer an author focused, non technical guide to the design affordances, considerations and challenges that each tool introduces – along with potted case studies and links to different use cases of the various tools within our current practice.
In order to best understand these challenges and affordances, I worked closely with our Product Development Managers to get an understanding of the design intent of tools, activities and functions, as well as their limits. Where my evaluation duties allow, I also measure student engagement with these tools and activities in order to best advise teams on how the different use cases are playing out with students in live environment.
In the wider context, I completed the Educause LX Pathways Learning Architect Pathway in early 2021, which gave me the opportunity to engage with different VLE environments (Canvas, Blackboard and vanilla Moodle), discuss the relative strengths and limitations of the different platforms – and generally get a broader view of the learning technologies available outside of The Open University.
'Education technology' - Generated by Ado
'Interacting with technology' generated by Adobe Firefly
REFLECTION
REFLECTION
In my role as a Learning Designer, my understanding of VLE and production tools has been valuable, both in my current position and in previous roles. It has allowed me to establish a unique niche within our team. I've made efforts to share my knowledge through meetings, workshops, and the design guides I've created.
I've worked to share my knowledge with other teams, in meetings, workshops and through the design guides I’ve created.
Over the last two years, I've been focusing on improving my coaching skills and sharing resources within my team. We've had new team members joining, which has provided a great opportunity for me to share what I know. In the past, I was hesitant to do this due to dreadful imposter syndrome, but positive feedback and interactions with our fab new team members has helped boost my confidence. I'm now more visible in this area and motivated to contribute.
My approach to sharing technology pros and cons has evolved over the years. Instead of traditional workshop presentations, I now use a flipped classroom model. I record screencast walkthroughs of relevant tools and activities, which teams can review beforehand. During online meetings, we discuss and demonstrate the tools further. This approach gives teams the flexibility to go through the materials at their own pace and align them with their teaching objectives.
While I think this is moving towards an optimal state, I don’t think I’m making best use of the asynchronous resources (TiP Tools) that I have been developing to fully support it. Embarrassingly, I think some of that is shyness (I’m generally happy sharing resources made by others, get very self conscious when I’m sharing my own!), and also a bit of perfectionism (I really want the whole of TiP Tools to be in a decent state before I share it with the world). Something I’ve resolved to be better at this year is to relax my quality criteria a bit, and share things that are scrappy and unfinished – on the basis that they are often more useful than nothing (and a growing understanding that my idea of acceptable quality might be a few steps higher than is really necassary).
With regards to my broader understanding of the constraints and benefits of the different technologies, much of my knowledge is very Open University focused, which limits transferability. The transferable element of understanding with any tool, will chiefly be how the use case interacts with and supports the pedagogic intent – and I feel this is a level of understanding I can and should continue to develop. It’s difficult to abstract this within the context of my current work (where individual tool focus is so clearly delineated) but I've found Pedagodzilla a useful space to discuss these wider concepts with colleagues across other universities, and broaden my horizons.
Examples, Evidence and Impact
Examples, Evidence and Impact
'Digital Tools Power Hour' Session
I regularly ran sessions which discussed the design affordances, strengths, limitations and breadth of tools available on the VLE, as well as introducing a methodology for ensuring tool selection was led by pedagogy, rather than led by technology. The feedback below is from an expanded one of these sessions I ran for an entire ECYS (Education, Childhood Youth and Sport) School in 2020. As well as the presentational material it included group activities to discuss how subject area specific disciplines that could be supported by the new tools, and the teams came up with some exciting and innovative suggestions.
Impact: As you can see, it was well received - and led to followup conversations within the school, that ultimately resulted in teams exploring more innovative VLE tool use in their teaching. I ultimately saw more use of VLE tools in teaching within the school with modules I supported, which led to more engaging and varied teaching.
Responses to VLE Tool guide walkthroughs (for academic authors)
As remote working became the norm, I started delivering 'flipped' sessions, where I would send authors a screencast of me talking through the constraints and benefits of the whole toybox of VLE activities - with some discussion prompts for the following session. The following was in response to one of my early 'flipped' tools sessions. I was very chuffed.
Impact: As you can see, the session went well - and I developed and refined the formula further to focus in on specific teaching needs, and the different kinds of interactions and activities different tools within the VLE would allow.
Flipped classroom presentation for training new team members in the use of the Learning Design tool and workload mapping
The following is an example of one of the slide decks I use to teach new Learning Design team members about our new Learning Design tool, and the odd tech legacy in the old tool. This particular one is in the background of a screencast usually, with me blathering through as I go. You might notice that I take a slightly loosey goosey playful approach in my language with these - I try to be as informal as possible in these training sessions! Also you've probably guessed by now that this is the way I write anytime I feel I can get away with it.
Impact: The rollout of the new tool has been going really well, and this and other training resources I created to support it have helped embed understanding of it within the team. The new Learning Design tool is a potent tool for managing student workload, so long term I'm expecting this to have a tangible, positive impact on the student experience - most particularly on modules and qualifications where heavy module-directed workload has resulted in student attrition.
VLE Tools guides
In both the VLE tools guides I produce, and the guide templates I've made for other team members, I'm keen to stress the pros and the cons of the technology from an activity design perspective. It's easy to get caught up in evangelisation of the tech and forget the pedagogy!
Impact: These tool guides have been essential in building understanding of the affordances of our digital toolset - and have supported the Learning Design team in understanding and discussing the options they present with module teams. To further reinforce impact, I've recently been asked to adapt these to form part of a training programme for new staff.
This includes pros, cons and use cases - and serves as a good discussion point to guide my discussions with teams, and help them select the right tool for the job.
I've found question style design considerations to be a useful way of discussing tool use in modules. They're the kind of awkward questions us Learning Designers ask to help academic teams to make sure they've considered all the main pedagogic angles. There's probably an activity theory framework to be mapped to this at some point...
Pros and cons around specific use cases have been a good conversation starter with a few of my teams. There's normally no such thing as a perfect tool for the job, so working out the one that's going to align least painfully with the learning objectives is usually the best approach.
Educause LX Pathways - Learning Architect Pathway completed
The below screenshot shows the completed modules to the LX Pathways course - Learning Architect pathway (which no longer appears to be live). Rather annoyingly they were supposed to send me a series of digital badges, and despite a few chasing emails on my part for the badge, or some form of completion certificate this is all I have to show for it. (Grumble grumble). Still, it was very useful - lots of handy resources (and some ironically terrible learning design in places).
Impact: The impact here is more personal than institutional. This course, while it was in many respects, a bit of an ill designed turkey, gave me a great understanding of the fundamentals of instructional design outside of the OU context.
Feedback (and impact) from Gill Macmillan (previous line manager) April 2022
A really lovely bit of feedback, from my previous line manager Gill MacMillain:
'Mike has extensive knowledge of technology to support teaching and learning – this includes a wide range of VLE tools such as OpenStudio, Quizzing tool, Workshop/Peer review tool, Video & audio recording tools, and he is very familiar too with the underlying Structured Content framework which has a wide range of native activities available. He is also adept with 3rd party tools to enhance collaboration and discussion in sessions with Module teams – so he uses collaborative tools such as Padlet and Miro, and all the key facilities within MS Teams and AdobeConnect. When supporting individual module teams in the use of tools, Mike always starts from the pedagogy – he works with the module teams to understand what kind of activities they want the students to do, and for what purpose, and then identifies the relevant tool(s). Mike’s knowledge of learning tools has led to him being asked by Faculty to run School-wide sessions to demonstrate the different ways technology can support teaching and learning. The first one of these sessions was in June 2020 – a mix of pe, April 20dagogy-led presentation and discussion. Feedback following the workshop (see below), which I received a copy of as his line manager, illustrates how well received the session was, and the potential impact.
“The presentation was really well delivered, lots of energy and enthusiasm for the content and discussions. The chat box had some great conversations going on and everyone seem to be really engaged. I hope this will translate into impact on presentation and the use of tools. Will be great to try and track this somehow and see how we could follow this up further. I would really like to put the recording of the session onto our new digital pedagogy blog once that goes live for others to watch”
Mike also supports module teams in this area by creating short, engaging screencasts – again, extremely well received by faculty colleagues.'
~Gill MacMillain April 2022
VLE Tools training session aftermath
The screengrab below is the output of one of my 'VLE Tool training sessions', delivered to new members of the Learning Design Team. You can see everyone has had fun creating subpages, activities, and generally started to understand some of the possibilities (and limitations) offered by our fab VLE.
Impact: Feedback from these sessions has always been really positive, and colleagues who've been through these sessions tend to come to me for advice on VLE tool use in activity design.
Learning technology podcast episodes
The following episodes of Pedagodzilla discuss learning technology:
Minority report or majority thought? The didn’ts and mightses of the future of ed-tech (What didn't land, what might - and why)
Ghost in the TEL (The concept of technology enhanced learning, and transhumanism)
Principles and values
Principles and values
A commitment to exploring and understanding the interplay between technology and learning
Works to understand and bridge the gap between technology and pedagogy, and support others in making those connections.
A commitment to keep up to date with new technologies & an empathy with and willingness to learn from colleagues from different backgrounds and specialist options
Maintains regular dialogue with Product Development Managers to keep abreast of technology development within the OU
Explores systems and application of tools in teaching outside of the OU, through podcast discussions and Educause Pathway
A commitment to communicate and disseminate effective practice.
Creates and disseminates guidance on constraints and benefits of technologies and application in design within the Open University via the TEL In Practice resource site.
Provides training for academic teams and new Learning Design team members in the selection and use in design of tools and technologies.
Discusses the interplay between technology and learning via the Pedagodzilla podcast.
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