"Blended Teaching" - how to describe what is happening on UK campus?

 Yesterday I posted an edit of the BBC Radio 4 Today program with interviews about situation for UK students. Significant occasion as questions are being asked about value for money. Should online be cheaper? I included Donald Clark in the tweet and he has replied. This term " blended teaching" may be useful to describe what is happening. My impression has been that there was a genuine intention to go "back to normal" with online as an emergency alternative at various levels of concern for the pandemic. So the move online is not always part of a plan or design as recognised by those who have been working with online for a while. From recent book on AI and Learning I have found that Donald Clark favours searching questions to check if video / text has been understood. ( He also has confidence in AI to assess the answers.) So I can see why he needs evidence for learning.

How else to describe what is going on? This could become clear over the next few months. I still think "blended learning" is useful, if vague , but "blended teaching" is a way to continue conversation. Zoom with something added. Comments welcome.

Meanwhile I am thinking about Exeter as more radio shows are possible in the Phonic FM studio based at the Phoenix. this may change if forms of lockdown return but more seems possible. At he university there was Telematics for a while but now Digital Humanities seems the base for tech innovation.

Radio /sound also in some confusion. DAB is the future but how to improve the source? It is possible fewer CDs will be available. Many tacks seem to be streaming only, lots of content available outside UK in various forms. how to relate to a radio studio? My own approach may be to mix social media with an FM signal in Exeter. Sound quality will change but possible not to be surprising. I am not off topic yet, production methods relate to the campus. Universities can have better resources than local radio. Please send links or attach mp3 that could be included in shows.

Donald Clark book Artificial Intelligence for Learning Kogan Page website

Today clips edit 

First Notes on Manifesto for Teaching Online

 Yesterday was the first online discussion around the book version of a Manifesto for Teaching Online. Two more to come in October. I am on a sort of holiday at the moment, towards Lakes now in Kendal. So cannot do much video edit and only a few tweets. But I have been on a walk to the Kendal Castle, venue in my mind for the ruins of the Fortress University described by Peter Horrocks. The sci-fi future may be getting closer, not at all sure what is happening on UK campus. But anyway the standup Philosopher is in France so no performance possible till around December when he is expected to return to Devon.

So meanwhile back to checking facts. There seems to be no rethink on the Durham lecture by Peter Horrocks. Or his policy for OU and Futurelearn. He had to resign but his judgement seems valid now, moreso as time continues. We seem to have a set of policies to assume everything is back to normal, except several levels of emergency, each of which has a different level of online to be improvised as and when. I may be making this up, but cannot find UK policy to concentrate on online options.

The first Edinburgh set of talks included comment from Australia - Neil Selwyn. So I wonder if there could be comment outside UK on Seek Group, the Australian jobs website that invested in Futurelearn. No UK university was prepared to do so as it seems, so why did this seem a reasonable idea in Australia? Since then I do not think much has changed. Some negative comment on edtech, unicorns getting rich on HE scene, but no papers or reporting on how Futurelearn might be sound or whether UK HE should invest more in platforms.

Is Australia in the Pacific? Is it another time zone? Maybe a mistake? Any clues welcome.

Notes for Producer JD around Manifesto for Teaching Online

 Three edits for the Drama Show are already uploaded with mention of the Manifesto for Teaching Online. Continues through October-

Wed 16th Sept   re-coding

Wed 7th Oct    we are the campus

Thur 15th Oct  text has been troubled

Not sure which topics are in which week. From blog-

Our book is divided into five sections, within each of which are linked segments covering each of the points in the manifesto. Each segment is readable stand-alone with the detail of our theoretical perspectives spelled-out fully in section 1.

Section 1: Politics and Instrumental Logics, in which we use critical sociomaterialist perspectives to argue against the view of technology as tool, and education itself as an instrument. We argue that online teaching need not be complicit with the instrumentalisation of education.

Section 2: Beyond Words, in which we address how online teaching gives us space to re-think originality, textual stability, authorship and what we think we do when we assess or evaluate student work. Assessment is an act of interpretation, not just measurement.

Section 3: Re-coding Education, which challenges the idea of the digital ‘disruption’ of education, and surfaces the politics embedded in notions of scaling-up, automation, AI and ‘openness’ . Automation need not impoverish education but we need to be alert to whose interests it serves.

Section 4: Face, Space and Place, which takes on the idea that online education is ‘inferior’ to teaching which takes place face-to-face. We argue that online can be the privileged mode.

Section 5: Surveillance and (Dis)trust, where we suggest that surveillance regimes and architectures in wider society should not be replicated in universities, and push back on the creeping normalisation of surveillant practices in teaching.

So I think "re-coding" will include values and how HE relates to EdTech. #PlatformUniversity includes critique of some directions. #RuinsHE is my tag for a future Fortress University as described by Peter Horrocks. MOOC models could open up the existing campus and counter some problems. 

"we are the campus" suggests the social aspect can exist anywhere. "text has been troubled" might relate to troubles over sound sampling n music / reuse of clips in radio. I expect JD to have something to say, put possibly too late to prevent further problems.

Background on moving campus online

The situation of HE on campus is still not a topic. But maybe in background this week as Tech Exeter  / Digital Exeter continues online. I have noticed two reports in newspapers. Guardian guide to UK universities fails to mention the OU. This is normal, they have explained it is hard to compare. But recently there are more options online for degree courses. I don't think it is just the advertising for clearing / accommodation that influences the Guardian. The complete model is based on print and celebs up front. They offer evening events in person, now online but in similar format as far as I can tell. Recognising the design mix for online learning is too much of a challenge for their style of reporting.

Sunday Times front page scare story on how kids returning to school have been playing games on devices all night long and have to be reeducated in a pre - digital world. Behind a paywall but you may find it.

Adults are allowed to use a phone. School age probably more knowledge how to do this. HE level? things may be changing.

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Guardian Monday report on Napster, includes chart of physical / streaming music over last twenty years. Crossed over about 5 years ago. How to compare the MOOC etc. ?

Fortress University - comments on YouTube possible

 This week  there is another conference in Exeter on Tech and Digital. Online only though previously at the Business School on campus. I still wonder when the Business School will start to study what happens as learning moves online. But so far no signs of any shift. The student accommodation near Sidwell Street is almost ready. Co-op shop open.Seems ready to continue as previously.

Meanwhile I am still doing the drama show on Phonic FM. So I approach the HE scene as fiction. The Standup Philosopher may do a dram version of what I find. We are not sure what is going on. He will be back in Exeter in December so there may be a performance or something then. Shows pre recorded so I have a collection of clips. This one for Thursday

Any comments welcome. More blogs and live radio later in the week.

I am working with tags - #RuinsHE about the Fortress University and what became of it, set in future. See lecture from Peter Horrocks at Durham. Also #BlendCafe25 more of a comedy set in cafe on and off campus as blended learning becomes more of a norm around 2025. Also thinking about a sequence from one to the other. There could even be a picnic site more like a cafe though in the ruins. It depends how relaxed things seem. Hard to guess what the audience needs or would respond to. So the radio may seem vague or indirect. there will be an edit later.

Shift online clarity "this year"

 Writing online for the Guardian Jo Wolff has pointed out that ideas such as flipping the classroom may become established soon.

So far flipping the classroom has been tried only on a small scale by enthusiasts. This year we’ll see what happens when even the sceptics have to try hard to make it work. It may be here to stay, with wide implications for teaching practice.

The context is the pandemic and the way the campus has to adapt. It is possible that "back to normal" will shift into a continuation of earlier in the year. Meaning last academic year. We could see what happens by May 2021 in UK terms. My guess is that outside UK some people have already observed a shift.

Jo Wolff expects a possible time for online degrees in which the OU would do well.

A varied market could develop, with a couple of bulk providers offering cheap courses with little interaction and feedback, some mid-market operators replicating a standard university experience, and a few expensive, premium brands competing to provide a customised education and lustre to the CV, perhaps with residential bubbles of students and staff for a few months a year.

This could cause problems for investment in student accommodation. Also the scale and timing are unknown. How many international students will continue with the "premium brands" ? How many UK offers were made to replace the income? What is happening mid-market? Seems there is very little info made public as of now.

Meanwhile on Medium there is speculation about "Google University" and lower costs. Sayeed Ibrahim Ahmed reports that Google are working with Coursera, EdX and others on courses for data analysts, project managers, and UX designers. They will result in jobs , not sure about academic cred. Futurelearn is not mentioned but they have similar courses. There is a research aspect to this so again hard to predict. Various forms of "premium brand" are possible.

I am still working on script ideas for the Standup Philosopher to perform a talk imagined in a scifi future when most of the campus is in ruins , replaced by cafes and blended learning of some kind. He is busy with a London tour and then the South of France. But something may happen around December.

I am probably joining a MOOC from Cambridge on writing scripts for creative industry. It may help a fiction version or blog level journalism. Cambridge now working with EdX on "micromasters" so points for each module add up to a certificate that counts as part of a later course. Except most courses seem to be online at the moment. Previously Cambridge was at the Learning and Skills exhibition but stopped as it became more about Learning Technologies. Coursera and Futurelearn have since had stands. So far not EdX but something is changing.