All 36 entries tagged Warwick University

Google Print – free books

Writing about web page http://print.google.com/

Google are moving into the digital library business, and I am one of their first authors.

More plans for world domination are emerging out of the Google Incubator. Google Print, they intend, will eventually contain everything ever printed! Maybe, but at least I can confirm that already even the work of very obscure philosophers is in their easily searchable system. For example, a search for O'Toole results in this kind of slightly rabid Deleuzianism (this link seems to have stopped working, and in fact any links to the search form have disappeared from the print.google.com homepage).

Perhaps one day I might receive some royalties? Although this publication is already available for purchase from Routledge as various electronic formats, so only selected pages are in Google. In fact, they seem to have included enough to make it useful, and left out just enough to make it worth buying.

: 28 Apr 2005 15:39 |  Tags: E-Learning Warwick University |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Learning Designs Blog created

Follow-up to Loosely coupled and lightweight learning designs patterns from Transversality - Robert O'Toole

I have now registered a blog that will be used to record interesting learning designs. I hope that others will contribute to it. Rob Johnson has already compiled a long list of interesting patterns in his blog.

I have started off with an example, illustrating the suggested format. This has an overview in bold, followed by a procedural list of actions. The format is necessarily simple.

Robert O'Toole : 25 Apr 2005 07:36 |  Tags: E-Learning Emerging Requirements Warwick University |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Loosely coupled and lightweight learning designs patterns

Follow-up to Learning design patterns – keeping it simple from Transversality - Robert O'Toole

More reasons to support the gathering and sharing of simple, lightweight learning design patterns (just renamed the concept!). This follows a discussion with Rob Johnson about how best to document and communicate good practice in PDP learning design.

As previously described, a learning design pattern is a simple high level description of a type of learning and teaching activity. It lists the key interactions between those involved in the activity, transactions between them, the range of contingencies, and outcomes. It could be documented in a short text, or a simple diagram.

A single pattern should not describe activities at too many levels. For example, a pattern that describes activities at the curriculum level should not also describe activities at the seminar level (justification for this to follow).

Why we need patterns

Currently, discussions about improving teaching through applying technology tend not to be effectively focussed. They fall into three classes:

1. concerning vague notions about generic approaches that are for no apparent reason assumed to be good things to do, but which are too disconnected from actual teaching and outcomes to make a discernible difference;
2. concerning very specific new features and provisions that are not useable beyond the context for which they are developed, which develop few transferable skills outside of the context, and which add an additional support burden;
3. complex and expansive new systems and grand visions that involve the rapid adoption of many tightly coupled components.

If we encourage the focus of discussions to be on learning design patterns, followed up with suggestions and support for the appropriate application of technology to support the implementation of the patterns, then we should be able to:

• ensure that we are doing work that has definite and appropriate outcomes within the specific teaching and learning context;
• avoid the development of unsupportable and insufficiently re-useable services and features;
• apply as far as possible the available services and features to real situations, getting feedback on their suitability;
• share good practice in relation to tried and tested solutions;
• encourage more experimentation – people don't have to buy into large scale redevelopment to try out a small scale pattern – the paterns are loosely coupled.

More arguments for simplicity

As previously argued, simplicity and lack of contextual information is important. The principle is that the consumer of the pattern should be intelligent enough to apply it to their own situation, and not be distracted by the patterns origin and application in another context. It is also the case that pattern providers (lecturers) are more prepared to share a simple pattern, without having to be responsible for explaining the contextual detail (which they may not want to share for other reasons).

We can add to this the fact that, if the learning design pattern were to become a common currency for describing teaching techniques, then we need to encourage many people to start exchanging them. This exchange needs to happen both in formal contexts, but also informal contexts (chatting). It must therefore be easy, at least in the first instance, to share such a pattern quickly. Then the law of network effect may come into play, with it becoming advantageous for many connected people to talk in these terms.

: 19 Apr 2005 17:09 |  Tags: E-Learning Warwick University |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Warwick Blogs Experience, slide show online

Follow-up to Shock of the Old Conference, 2005 from Transversality - Robert O'Toole

Robert O'Toole : 14 Apr 2005 16:22 |  Tags: E-Learning Warwick University |  Comments (5) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Learning design patterns – keeping it simple

Writing about web page /stevencarpenter/entry/e-orientation_event_notes/

Over the last two days the E-learning Advisor Team have been presenting to and discussion with a group of Warwick lecturers as part of an eOrinetation programme. One of the recurring features of this was that lecturers would describe a favoured approach to teaching, in quite simple and abstract terms, and this would provoke a discussion of ways of implementing that design pattern.

Main text

A great example of this came from Les Warrington of the Warwick Manufacturing Group. He described the following pattern:

1. Divide the students into two groups;
2. Assign a different resource to each group (perhaps presenting something from two different perspectives);
3. Send the groups away to prepare a report on a single topic based on the resource given to each group;
4. Bring the groups back together to present and compare their reports.

Some may think that such a simple description would be inadequate. I disagree for the following reasons:

• Warwick has a big diversity of teaching contexts, each with its own very specific characteristics;
• our lecturers are smart enough to be able to instantly see a pattern and know how it applies (or not) to their own context;
• further subject specific detail about the pattern should be created locally within the context of the department as it is used – this knowledge could be shared, but the first objective is for people to take the idea and run with it in their own direction;
• giving too much detail in the first instance discourages people from considering the pattern in their own context, and discovering new things about it;
• the best patterns will come from lecturers themselves, we don't want them to have to do too much work in describing them.

Why is this of interest to the ELAT? If we can effectively capture the popular teaching patterns, it will be easier for us to give advice on how technology can be fitted into an implementation of them. We may even be able to turn some of those implementations into templates that can be reapplied and modified. In fact we already do this with one core pattern – the module (and its web reperesentations). Note that we have no interest in giving people authoritative advice on which patterns are best, that advice needs to be generated by people out in the teaching context, in departments and other groups.

Having a common approach to this will make our work much easier, and increase the efficiency with which IT is introduced into current practices to improve efficiency and quality.

: 13 Apr 2005 09:59 |  Tags: E-Learning Warwick University |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Process more important than content in Warwick e–learning?

Follow-up to Response to Derek Morrison's argument about the attraction of non–institutional elearning services from Transversality - Robert O'Toole

In a presentation to a small group of lecturers from around the university, John Dale emphasised that it may be that developing useful academic-IT processes (and tools to support them) may be much more important for Warwick than developing content.

Main text

John's argument for this is that:

• in Warwick teaching, most content changes rapidly, therefore is not suited to capturing definitively;
• the content is complex and expensive to reproduce online;
• the important content is emergent from the interactions of staff and students.

I would add to this Derek Morrison's argument that IT in HE should aim to support higher level skills, which are social, creative and emergent.

This explains the development of services that support informal, self-organized, emergent learning, such as Warwick Blogs.

Robert O'Toole : 11 Apr 2005 11:17 |  Tags: E-Learning Warwick University |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Response to Derek Morrison's argument about the attraction of non–institutional elearning services

Follow-up to Shock of the Old Conference, 2005 from Transversality - Robert O'Toole

In his keynote speech at the Shock of the Old conference at Oxford, Derek Morrison argued that much of the current elearning infrastructure does not support the kinds of high-level social process that HE users require. And as a result, they are turning to services not provided by the institution. In a question at the end of the presentation i responded by saying that at Warwick we have observed this, and that in some areas we are attempting to provide the kinds of services that students want, but with valuable additional functionality that only university can offer. I now add to this the further argument that students do also value good guaranteed support.

Main text

We have observed that students, and to a lesser extent lecturers, are using external services in a self-organized way. However, they are quite smart about the risks in doing so.

I have had discussions with students who are maintaining blogs on both external systems and on our Warwick Blogs system. They understand the dangers of being tied into external services that are run for profit. They also know the limitations of free services, and the lack of guarantees that they offer.

They are, therefore, less likely to use such external services for critical activities. They are used heavily for less formal and less critical (although often important) activities.

On the contrary, now that our IT Service department is being much more serious about stating and maintaining levels of service, whilst offering the kind of services that student want, I suspect that students will start using our provisions more fully. The trick is to get the right provisions, with added functionality beyond external offerings, and furthermore, to support interoperability with the informal learning that students are carrying out on non-university systems (the filling-station model is an example of where we must get this interoperability right).

Robert O'Toole : 09 Apr 2005 22:59 |  Tags: E-Learning Warwick University |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Qualrus – automated essay marking

Writing about web page http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/4425423.stm

Responding to student demand, the University of Missouri have introduced an automated essay marking tool. Claims concerning its abilities can be believed. However, does that necessarily mean that it is a good thing?

Main text

The Qualrus system is capable of pattern searching and semantic analysis of an essay, identifying the depth and exactitude of the domain knowledge contained in it. The developers are keen to stress that this only covers one part of the assessment process. A human expert still needs to consider creative and innovative aspects of the essay. That may welll be the case, and indeed could give the markers more opportunity to concentrate on these aspects of the student's work. However, the danger is always there that the machine's assessment will be trusted too much, and the human dimension will be forgotten due to a lack of time.

Unsurprisingly, students in the US have responded positively to the system. After all, it the aspects of their work that the system rewards, repetition of fatcs and content, are much easier to understand and perfect than the higher level skills that the machine cannot analyse. Worse still, it seems that the students are allowed to submit their essays into the system as many times as they like until the deadline is reached. Hence they may be adapting their work to meet the assessment criteria of the machine, which are inevitably limited.

My conjecture is this. Lecturers often do not want to be too explicit about assessment criteria. There is a chance that such over-determination stifles student creativity and innovation, precisely the characteristics of intelligence that higher education is supposed to develop. Machine marking may well act against this.

Robert O'Toole : 09 Apr 2005 22:09 |  Tags: E-Learning Warwick University |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Nostalgia for MoveableType excerpt feature

Follow-up to Shock of the Old Conference, 2005 from Transversality - Robert O'Toole

In this entry I recall the 'show only excerpt on home page' feature of the MoveableType blogging system. I consider how this could be a way of addressing the problem that 'compartmentalizing' people have with a wide range of subjects and activities being represented in full on their blog homepage.

*My confidence in this entry:* 80%
Importance of this entry to me: 70%

Main text

Actually, nostalgia for just one particular feature of MoveableType: the ability to set up the blog homepage so that only the first part of each entry is shown on it. MT entries can have a (slightly misnamed) excerpt field. This is effectively the first part paragraph of the entry, which tends to be used as a short introduction or overview explaining what the entry is about, with the effect of giving a sense of what kind of entry it is and what kind of people should read it.

Only the excert is listed on the homepage, with a link to read more. For example, see how it is used on the Auricle blog

I liked using this for four reasons:

1. it makes the blog homepage less cluttered;
2. it encouraged me to give an overview of the entry, making more sense of it;
3. readers could quickly see which entries were of interest to them;
4. it makes it easier to keep a blog with a diverse range of types of entry and topics – readers aren't turned away by seeing one of my mad philosophy entries filling the whole front page, instead they can just read an excerpt and decide to read one of my more sensible entries.

Now that I'm using my blog for so many different reasons, including containing long well developed texts alongside random brain-dump bucket lists, the excerpt feature would be really useful.

I suspect that others have the same problem. During my Shock of the Old presentation I put forward the argument that a blog is a good place to join-up, or at least contain, aspects from the different parts of my 'spaghetti-like' life – work, academic and social. The response to this was interestingly split. Many people could see themselves doing just that. But many others would not want to combine these different aspects in one place. They are what i would call 'compartmentalisers'. They like to seperate things out. They would use a blog for a specific purpose, for example, sharing family stories and photos. But they feel uncomfortable about putting that on the same page as work. I suspect that many students have this problem with the idea of putting academic things on their blog next to their social blogging.

Obviously they could use categorisation, however, they didn't seem to think that would be enough. The entries would still appear in full together on the homepage.

But using an excerpt approach would help to alleviate that problem, and may well encourage more of those compartmentalizers to blog.

For now, I'm going to start writing a brief intro to every entry that I write, clearly identified as the 'overview', and i'll see if it makes a difference.

: 08 Apr 2005 08:52 |  Tags: E-Learning Warwick University |  Comments (6) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Shock of the Old Conference, 2005

Writing about web page http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ltg/events/shock2005/index.xml

What a great conference! I presented a paper yesterday at the Oxford University Learning Technology Group's Shock of the Old 2005 conference. My presentation was ostensibly about 'The Warwick Blogs Experience', largely from the perspective of a student who uses Warwick Blogs in his work. But the subtext was that for universities like Warwick, we necesarily need to shift the emphasis of our development work away from top-down systems that seek to organize and extend formal/beaurocratic learning processes, to creating systems that support the kinds of self-organized and informal learning activities that are actually much more common and important in a top-end university. The kinds of independent and creative activities that embody what HE at this level should be about.

It wasn't at all a coincidence that Derek Morrison of Bath (author of the Auricle blog) gave a presentation before, also saying exactly that (report coming next). This is something that i really believe in, and i'm so happy to hear other people agreeing. It was interesting to note that the most enthusiasm came from delegates from places like Bath, UCL, Imperial, Edinburgh, OU.

Here's a few of the points that i covered:

• The 'network effect' (if you have friends who use a system, you are more likely to start using it) is important, use it;
• Informal learning (even ranting) leads to better formal learning – this argument seemed to go down well;
• High end learning is very personal, social, and involves a big investment by the student;
• Blogs give an attractive place in which to do this, students need to find the system attractive and exciting, need to have a sense of ownership over something so personal and so social as there own learning;
• Bucket model – just get them to record stuff, use blog as a bucket – blogs help with this, and its a valuable thing to do. Joe Talbot of LTG is also using his blog in this way, but has made some modifications to make it easier;
• Too much processing can be a bad thing- just write it without thinking, blogs are sufficiently informal for people to feel comfortable about this;
• Blogs can help deal with complex experiences and a complex multi-faceted life (such as that of a student);
• Learning at this level is mainly about 'conceptual modelling' – recieving, creating, understanding, recording, explicating, testing, modifying, joining-up and contextualizing conceptual models;
• PDP is meta-modelling of this modelling behaviour;
• This is difficult, but blogs can really help;
• Blogs is just the environment in which this can happen in many different ways, suited to different people;
• Blogs provide a sandbox in which students can try things out, a slightly less official and authoritative environment;
• As we are asking students to take risks with there thinking, such a sandbox is reallly important;
• The concept of the 'star blogger' is preventing lesser mortals from using blogs in a risky, experimental way or as a bucket;
• Making blogs to institutional and too close to formal learning will detract from this sandbox role;
• To make this work we have to hand over control, trust the students;
• Biggest blockers are student expectations and attitudes – students are end-product focussed – they need to become more concerned with the processes that get them to the end product;
• Can blogs help to overcome this?

As you can see, I covered a huge range of points, some of which are quite radical in the learning technology world. But the response was very positive.

Some responses afterwards:

• "Come and do that presentation at our university, we'll pay you to do it".
• "I really like your educational theory and can see how blogs fits in".
• "We want to try that, is there any open source software available" – there was in fact an interesting open source developer present;
• "Its so good that you can get to do that kind of development";
• "I really enjoyed the presentation" – although credit for this should really go to Kieran, Hannah, John, Karen etc for building WB and doing the publicity material.

There were philosophical aspects to my presentation (and Derek's). This actually seemed to go down well, and several people asked me about it later. There was even a Hegelian/Heideggerian (former Warwick Philosophy student) in the audience!

And some interesting points that were raised:

• Compartmentalism – some people like to keep different aspects of their lives seperate – eg social and work, they don't like the idea of a single blog for everything – we should investigate this further, as it may be preventing many people from blogging;
• We need stronger links between the blog and the formal objects that we want students to blog about (finished documents, work in progress, concept maps, plans, online module content, ePortfolios) – several people mentioned wikis – possible links between blogs and wikis need to be explored;
• WiFi and ubiquitous computing will make blogs even more useful, as it will be possible to blog more imediately;
• Warwick Blogs is creating lots of research data and interesting behaviour, it would be good to more formally investigate it;

The one thing that i missed out from my planned presentation due to a lack of time was a discussion of Warwick's development methodlogy. I think this is actually more than just really really really important, and worthy of a presentation in itself. But more interestingly, its actually similar to the kind of approach to learning that i am advocating. More on that soon.

: 08 Apr 2005 06:13 |  Tags: E-Learning Warwick University |  Comments (6) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Analogy for Warwick Blogs e–learning development

Trying to communicate how the development of WB as an e-learning tool puts the emphasis somewhere completey different (ie on independent and informal student processes not formal lecturer processes). Here's an analiogy:

Most people have developed shopping malls, instead, we built a youth club.

: 07 Apr 2005 06:28 |  Tags: E-Learning Warwick University |  Comments (5) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Some basic requirements for a system to support the student academic process

Follow-up to Argument for shifting emphasis of e–learning development work from Transversality - Robert O'Toole

My next conjecture will be that we can define an efficient and succesful independent student academic process. This concerns how students recieve, use, test, extend and create models – domain specific subject content, domain specific meta-models of modelling procedures, generic meta-models of academic processes, and meta-models of how those processes relate to the individual's personal development and plans.

1. A student gathers experiences from a range of sources (learning inputs) into a single location, even though the experiences may not be simply structured or understood (the significance of the experiences may not even be obvious),
2. In some cases, the student leaves the experiences relatively un-processed until some later date (just get them into a 'bucket' from which they can easily be retrieved and processed);
3. Regular processing (or alternatively incubation) of the recorded experiences is encouraged and supported;
4. The student processes the experiences with reference to a model received from an authoritative source or developed personally – (they have to be able to choose the appropriate model);
5. The student’s understanding of the model is tested, assessed, and modified in relation to the experiences;
6. The model itself is tested, assessed, and modified in relation to the experiences;
7. The student can connect a set of models together based on experience;
8. The student can seek or develop new models to fill the gaps where necessary;
9. The student can consider the same and related experiences and models as recorded and processed by others.

These activities themselves are recorded in the process of carrying them out, such that the student can reflect upon the effectiveness and appropriateness of the recording and processing activities, and aim to improve them.

But most importantly, all of this must take place in a sandbox or dmz, away from assessment, away from judgement.

: 06 Apr 2005 06:30 |  Tags: E-Learning Warwick University |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Argument for shifting emphasis of e–learning development work

Writing about web page http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ltg/events/shock2005/

This is first potentially controversial argument that I will present as part of the Shock of the Old conference.

1. There is increased pressure on students to be successful (degree costs), so they are less prepared to take risks with uncertain study methods – currently this is much more obvious with international students;
2. Students often ask for definitive knowledge transfer (lecture notes) – a low risk solution; sometimes, they resort to plagiarism;
3. But top-level higher education is supposed to be about the student learning how to construct their own answers, with a creative research-based methodology;
4. And furthermore, it deals with complex and cutting-edge knowledge that can be difficult to summarize definitively, and which changes often;
5. Academics will not be able to, and may not want to, do much more work to extend their teaching if that involves the development of online learning activities that attempt to definitively capture their teaching.

Implications: a move away from lecturer/content focussed e-learning development. With more emphasis placed upon technologies that support the student’s own processes.

6. So we tell the students that they must be research-oriented, independent and creative learners;
7. But they are rarely equipped with such skills from school (A-level mentality), and are only taught them implicitly in the undergraduate (and graduate) curriculum;
8. Students are increasingly end-product oriented, do not understand the importance of the process that leads them to the end-product;
9. Hence this must be countered by teaching the best possible and demonstrably effective study, research, thinking and writing skills;
10. In a way that interests, engages and excites the students;
11. Matched with the best available technology to support those activities;
12. In fact the provision of new technology may help to make these skills more attractive to the students, if we can create good enough technologies that really engage them.

: 06 Apr 2005 06:21 |  Tags: E-Learning Warwick University |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Using a blog as a particular type of mental bucket

You can use a blog as a bucket for thoughts and experiences that are not yet fully dealt with or considered. This is an important technique. You can empty them from your mind, whilst being assured that they won't disappear entirely. Later, you can return to them and try to process them. Processing means:

• discarding them as useless;
• connecting them up with other thoughts;
• planning further actions to be taken on the thoughts;
• building them into a wider argument or project;
• expanding them further to be revisited at a later date;
• just putting them into incubation.

You can do this with an old-fashioned paper notebook, but a blog has some key advantages:

1. it can be shared, groups of people can do the work of sorting through and processing the thoughts, leaving helpful comments or writing linked entries – blogs are shareable thinking, but best suited to that early indiscriminate stage of thinking about something;
2. it has a nice format that forces you to write neatly;
3. you can link your thoughts to web pages outside of the blog (link them to news items, other people's blogs, module web pages, learning objects – hopefully one day calendar items, words in glossaries, concept maps);
4. you can link your entries through time;
5. you can categorise your entries (keywords and links to glossaries would extend this further);
6. you can easily include images and diagrams – take photos of whiteboard drawings and upload them;
7. you can edit your entries and comments, deleting the junk;
8. you can easily reuse text from a blog in another document without having to type it back in – I just wrote the first paragraph of my thesis in my blog!).

The downside of using a blog for this is that it doesn't quite feel as safe and personal as a paper notebook. But Warwick Blogs has features that help you to feel that sense of ownership.

So how do you use a blog in this way? The key is to just get stuff down into it, without having to think too much right away. The virtue of blogging, and of Warwick Blogs in particular, is its speed. Worry about processing the stuff later, when you need to (to help with a decision, writing a more formal text, or a presentation). For now, just get it off your mind. Some advice:

• don't treat it as a container for finished products (there are other places for them);
• don't record trivial stuff that should only be a single phrase in a simple list of stuff (a simple list bucket);
• don't use it for recording well-formed project tasks or actions that need doing, use a proper project log, plan or some other project task bucket for that;
• don't assume that you have to identify exactly what each entry is for or what it is about (don't worry to much about categorisation);
• don't think that you have to be right all the time, or sound like you know what you are talking about (if you are worried about looking stupid through your blog, limit access to your entries);
• record real-world events, even when they refer to many distinct concepts, people, or projects;
• use well identified keywords (put them in bold) to identify the references to distinct concepts, people and projects when mixed together in a single entry (better keyword idenitfication system please!);
• if you can't record your notes directly into your blog (more wifi please) then have a system for getting them down or on a pda, then adding them to your blog;
• if you really do have to write a rant, try to be honest about the events that caused it, otherwise that particular piece of history will be irretrievably lost;
• be a little disciplined about processing (or at least re-reading) the stuff you put in your blog.

And finally:

• just blog it.

: 22 Mar 2005 17:16 |  Tags: E-Learning Warwick University |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Concept Mapping – an agile presentation and thinking tool

Writing about an entry you don't have permission to view

Concept-mapping is really good. I've used it in a way similar to that described by John, basing a presentation around a map. There is a very good reason for doing so. It is a technique of thinking, writing and presenting that provides a significant cognitive advantage. As John notes, it doesn't force you into an overly linear discourse in the explication of an argument.

Why is such linearity bad? The form of the argument often becomes more important than the argument itself. The need to keep the text on track, moving along, linear, over-rides the content that it is trying to develop. This leads to:

1. A suppression of subtle details, which when considered properly, turn out to be much more important;
2. A suppression of connections and their implications. For example, if strand A of the argument relies upon strand B (which has already been introduced, or which is to be explicated later), the implications of accepting strand B in the service of strand A are not necessarily clear. It should be easy for the presenter or the audience to understand what is at risk by implication when accepting or rejecting part of an argument;
3. A suppression of feedback. The audience or the presenter may identify a weakness or previously unknown aspect of one strand of an argument. It may be the case that the new point is trivial, or belongs somewhere else in the argument. It can therefore be passed over. However, without being able to see the connections, implications and weightings, the judgement concerning the triviality of the new issue is made without proper consideration. The tendency is to ignore the new point, to avoid the possibility that its consideration might de-rail the linear progression of the argument, consequently leaving a big scarey hole.

I have seen this happen in many philosophy presentations. You can even see it in the texts of many good philosophers, although one suspects that they are well-aware of the power of the linear form, and use it cunningly. Ironically, many texts that are written about the philosophers of non-linearity, principally Deleuze and Guattari, are horribly linear and just
downright oppressive. Their own works are famously not linear. In fact I suspect that they used some kind of methodology akin to concept-mapping (the consistency of their very complex conceptual assemblages over 40 years of work suggests that they had some kind of system other than text).

The result of linearity dominating is often merely a sense of disatisfaction amongst the audience. But occassionally someone decides that contriving with the presenter to keep things on track would result in having to accept just too many significantly wrong assumptions. Things then turn nasty.

More seriously, in arguments that are used to support projects, policies and expenditures, the linear form may result in expensive and disruptive mistakes.

So what is the alternative? A technique that MindManager supports is as follows:

1. Create a map that records everything you know about the topic, starting with a top level set of nodes, and drilling down into the detail through several levels. Nodes can easily be moved around, edited, deleted and added, so develpoment is rapid and responsive;
2. In the presentation, start with only the top level nodes open, the lower level nodes are all closed (easy with MindManager). Either this top-level is uncontroversial, or provides some work for the more detailed levels to do in justifying the top-level carve-up of the topic (remember, its easy to move or edit nodes, so you don't have to be too concerned about getting things wrong and having to respond to feedback as the presentation progresses).
3. Do a high-level pass through the top nodes, giving an understanding of the basic distinctions uppon which the presentation is based – look for problems at the top level! Don't gloss over them – if you do, the audience won't be with you;
4. If there is an issue with the top level nodes, open up the next level and see if the detail contained in them can be used to resolve the top level problem. Keep drilling down into detail if necessary. Jump across nodes to show how different components at the different levels are connected transversally;
5. If no problem is found at the top level, do a pass through the second level of nodes, again looking for problems.
6. Keep going lower until you run out of time or everyone is satisfied.

This should result in thoroughness, bringing the audience along more succesfully. It also allows for the presentation to flexibly and genuinely respond to problems and new ideas, without the possibility of it being entirely waisted by an unforeseen issue (remember, you can re-draw the map as you go along). The presentation can, in this way, be much more productive. In fact we could say that with this approach there aren't problems or difficulties, only opportunities (as Ted Simon would say, "interuptions are the journey").

: 22 Mar 2005 11:31 |  Tags: E-Learning Warwick University |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem