What I am doing this month – September 2011

Implementing:

Evidence-based service design for learning technology at Warwick. Initial surveys of learning technology activity in all 30 departments. Writing initial reports to be fed back to departments. Designing student surveys and interviews. Developing the methodology. Creating a maturity model for classifying the status of existing and developing technologies, and a maturity model for describing learning technology use in academic departments.

Designing:

The E-learning By Design Tool-kit. A set of Open-space Learning style activities to help teachers in designing e-learning enhancement projects. To be used by participants on the E-learning in Academic and Professional Practice course.

Enhancing:

• History of Art undergraduates, creating an online exhibition.
• MA in International Performance Research, using Webex videoconferencing in live sessions with students at Warwick, Amsterdam, Belgrade and Helsinki.
• Thinking Aloud, humanities PhD students creating audio and video podcasts that investigate academic topics.
• E-portfolios for History undergraduates.
• Virtual Research Environments (History, French Studies, Theatre Studies).
  
• Using Mindjet Mindmanager on iPads to transform a research-based module in French Studies.

Teaching:

How to support student academic film making (techniques, issues, copyright, technologies), for the Learning Grid Advisors.

Presenting at:

A conference on Teaching Political Economy, about Virtual Learning Environment v Extended Learning Ecology.

Creating a presentation on:

1. Research-based learning - what this means at Warwick.
2. Telepresent Tehran - using WebEx for inter-cultural research-based learning.
3. Going beyond the early adopters.
4. Meeting the challenge of creating and sustaining an Extended Learning Ecology.
   

Writing about:

How an Extended Learning Ecology both requires and enables design thinking.

The Constructivist Epoch: design thinking, learning, thriving.

Read:

Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn by Cathy N. Davidson, Duke University.

Learning Futures: Education, Technology and Social Change by Keri Facer, Manchester Met.

Taking notes on:

How Designers Think (Fourth Edition): The Design Process Demystified by Bryan Lawson, Sheffield University.

Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory by Bruno Latour.

Reading soon:

Excellence by Design: Transforming Workplace and Work Practice, Bridging the Boundaries of Work, Process and Space, by Turid H. Horgen, Michael L. Joroff, William L. Porterand Donald A. Schon.

Creating and supporting Service Improvement Proposals:

• Wizards and Templates in Sitebuilder, supporting students in creating their e-portfolios.
• Extending Formsbuilder to assist research projects.
  
• System for generating online snapshots of research databases, to support community-research engagement and impact.

Planning:

• Battle of the Presentation Tools - a balloon debate considering which presentation tools we should encourage students to use (Powerpoint v Prezi v "naked human") - as part of Warwick's Postrgraduate Certificate in Academic and Professional Practice. Probably lunchtime 23rd November in the Teaching Grid.
• Running a learning technology design competition for students at Warwick.
• Design thinking sessions for the MA in Global Media and Communications.
• Teaching film making as part of a Politics and International Studies module that will investigate the use of documentary techniques.

Robert O'Toole : 19 Sep 2011 11:32 |  Tags: What I Am Doing Now |  Comments (0) |  Report a problem