Mike Caulfield has a good post about how Facebook and siloed social media got traction in ways the blogosphere circa 2005-2008 never maintained. He has a good point about the user experience - people aren’t going to go look at 10, 100, 1000 different websites with different graphic designers, publishing models, and navigation structures. That’s where the simplified UX of Facebook comes in. A single stream, pulling stuff from everyone a person cares about. And that jerk from junior high.
I have a stack of old CD-ROMs from projects ranging from 1995-2003. I wanted to save a few of them to add to a portfolio of projects, before the projects were lost forever. It’s ironic - back in the olden days of multimedia, we burned fancy new CD-ROMs that were sold as “100 year archive medium” - costing $30 or more per disk back then, and we figured it was money well spent. Now, just 20 years later, most of those archival “green media” disks are completely unreadable, having degraded already. Thankfully, I have several projects that were commercially distributed, meaning I have actual pressed CD-ROMs rather than DIY burned disks. These disks read just fine - and should for decades to come.
I’m not going to write a year-in-review post. It’s been an epic year on many fronts, and next year is already shaping up to be bigger, more amazing and even more exhausting. In great ways.
So. What about 2015? For me, it was a year that I became more internally-focused. I traveled less. I worked more on the local campus context. And that’s a great thing. I plan to travel even less in 2016. I think the biggest impact I can have is in helping to foster active networks and communities on my own campus, and to connect people across faculties and contexts.
I was lucky to have been taken to a masters’ student seminar by Tatiana Karaman yesterday 1, to see some work on a number of her related neuroanatomy projects as part of the Computational Media Design Program at the University of Calgary.
Porter, W. W., Graham, C. R., Bodily, R. G., & Sandberg, D. S. (2016). A qualitative analysis of institutional drivers and barriers to blended learning adoption in higher education. The Internet and Higher Education, 28, 17:27. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.iheduc.2015.08.003 Retrieved from http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S1096751615000469
An article from the future! (it’s not 2016 here yet, but articles from next year are already showing up. Go go, Gibson!)
Interesting paper, tying technology adoption stuff into professional development and support. This leads directly into our Learning Technologies Coaches program. Good timing.
We have been doing a lot of work on ePortfolios within the Educational Development Unit. The most visible result of that work is the EDU’s in-development department ePortfolio. As we talked about what we wanted to do in order to document the activities of the department, and to connect these activities to our strategies and priorities, it became clear that an ePortfolio was the best way to do that. And it also became clear that we needed more flexibility than was possible in the D2L ePortfolio tool. So, we built it as a site on UCalgaryBlogs, which runs WordPress.
We’re looking for a rare combination of technical skills and strength in collaboration and consultation on the use and integration of a wide array of technologies in the new Taylor Institute building. It’s going to be an extremely important role, working with everyone in the Taylor Institute, and from across campus, to effectively use the shiny new stuff that’s being installed in the building (literally - right now, installation is under way!). Mobile collaboration huddle stations. High end audiovisual systems - with laser powered projectors! Working with folks who are making cool stuff in the Faculty Design Studio. And lots of other stuff that we’ll all be figuring out together once the building opens in April 2016.
His work on helping to transition from critical to loving thinking is extremely important. I’ve watched his TEDxYYC talk a few times, and revisited it again after this week’s Beakerhead theatre workshop rehearsal of The Extinction Therapist - an event led by Patrick, with actors presenting their early interpretation of Clem Martini’s unfinished script. The play was interesting, weird, and thought-provoking - all things we need more of.
[caption id="" align=“alignright” width=“475”] possibly Jim and Tim at work running Reclaim Hosting. Or some other guys.[/caption]Edtech (and tech in general) is largely hostile to humans. It has evolved to try to lock people in so that data about them can be sold and resold. This is why Reclaim Hosting is so important - Jim nails it with a mini-manifesto for the company:
Tim and I aren’t “businessmen” (though I joke about it), we’re edtechs who have an intimate understanding of higher ed. We have a strong sense of where technology and teaching converge in interesting ways, and remain committed to augmenting what we’ve helped build at UMW and share it far and wide.
In late 2013, our Provost struck a Learning Technologies Task Force, to develop a plan to sustainably implement and support learning technologies across all faculties at the University. The result of that task force was the production of the Strategic Framework for Learning Technologies in the summer of 2014 - a document that lays out some high level priorities and specific strategies to address them. Much of the document directly guides the work of my team (the Technology Integration Group in the Taylor Institute for Teaching and Learning, Educational Development Unit) - I keep a copy of it handy, and have a poster version of the priorities and strategies pinned to the wall in my office. One of the interesting aspects of the Framework is the emphasis on combinations of learning technologies and spaces - that we need to consider the physical as well as digital aspects of the learning environment.
Mike Caulfield has a good post about how Facebook and siloed social media got traction in ways the blogosphere circa 2005-2008 never maintained. He has a good point about the user experience - people aren’t going to go look at 10, 100, 1000 different websites with different graphic designers, publishing models, and navigation structures. That’s where the simplified UX of Facebook comes in. A single stream, pulling stuff from everyone a person cares about. And that jerk from junior high.
Patrick sets up the rehearsal for The Extinction Therapist Beakerhead rehearsal session