This year to save me from tears, I am touting the ‘advent of technology’ hashtag. (Not particularly successfully it has to be said).
My best festive themes feature ‘raise a glass for our Google Glass project’, ‘choose your tools carefully with our Christmas TREE‘ and ‘be careful of your digital footprints in the snow’. Jo gamely joined me with some sterling ‘elf sciences work.
Cornucopia by John Mooney in University of Edinburgh Art Collection http://images.is.ed.ac.uk/luna/servlet/s/949mhd
I am excited to say the University is working with Google to explore and promote innovation in learning and teaching in Higher Education. Edinburgh students and staff will have a unique opportunity to experiment with Google Glass, one of the most talked about developments in wearable technology in recent years. Our reputation as a leader in strategic innovation in digital education is growing worldwide and we have a number of strategic partnerships with the international companies who develop new technology for users.
Wearable technology is exciting for academia because its designed for people being active, moving around and needing to be hands-free. So where we do active field work, sport, performance, complex experiments, medical procedures, explorations, digs or where we move around in large and small spaces (landscapes, city, architecture, public transport, exhibitions, collection, art installations) it can transform the way we work in gathering and using data and information. The technology functionality and usability is still developing and it is exciting to be involved at this early stage to shape how the features and applications can be used for learning, teaching and research.
Learning technologists from LTW, Information Services are working in partnership with students and staff across the whole institution to evaluate the potential for technologies like Glass to support and enhance a wide-range of educational activities and experiences.
Throughout January we will be inviting students in all disciplines to share their innovative ideas by submitting 3-minute video proposals. Some of the best proposals for using Google Glass will go forward to become live projects within the University.
This is an exciting opportunity for students to shape the way new technology is integrated into learning and teaching. We would encourage you to experiment and be inventive, Edinburgh University’s vision for digital education will be shaped by our students’ creative potential. I expect we will see a range of perspectives and discuss many aspects of seeing, light and dark.
You can find further information about the project and how to participate by visiting glass.ed.ac.uk
Picture taken by me in the street. No rights reserved.
My vision and strategy skills were tested during my trip to Online Educa in Berlin after Lufthansa left my luggage in Frankfurt and I stupidly, left my glasses and contact lenses in that luggage. I found myself taking a very myopic view of MOOC strategy, and trying not to fall foul of any immediate tripping hazards.
Luckily the luggage returned before I began my next leg to London.
At the conference I presented a high level overview focusing on the role of the public intellectual; the ways in which we can use digital initiatives to develop town and gown relations; the ways in which we add value to online courses; and the importance of research universities in sense-making in a maelstrom.
I used broad strokes to paint a colourful picture, but that may be becasue everything in the distance seemed slightly blurred.
Many friends and partners from the LERU universites were there, and there continues to be a wide interest in our experience at University of Edinburgh of living with MOOCs.
At ALT I’ll explain why peer-review is good for your soul. As an Aurora role model I’ll explain why table manners are important. In Berlin I’ll explain how MOOCs are changing management in higher education.
I have a very varied job and will be packing several pairs of shoes.
Women Singing at a Table (Waulking the Cloth) by Keith Henderson http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings/paintings/women-singing-at-a-table-waulking-the-cloth-94160
Last night I had dinner with some very clever women of my acquaintance. I mentioned to them that I had been on “unconscious bias’ training. ‘What does that even mean?’ they asked. Luckily, I was able to clarify as I have now had 3 different men mansplain it to me.
The University is on an equality and diversity kick. I have now been to 2 sessions on the topic. One much better than the other. I’ll be sending my feedback in. In today’s session I asked whether unconscious bias was the new name for prejudice. That didn’t go down well.
Clearly there are no women who can deliver unconscious bias training to senior university managers, which surprises me, since you would think it was a rich area of work. Perhaps all the female presenters and trainers are being kept in reserve for the Aurora sessions and Athena SWAN sessions.
One thing I have noticed though is that colleagues in the sessions seem reluctant to use the word ‘women‘. I have heard ‘girls’, ‘ladies ‘and ‘females’ repeatedly.
It was the repeated use of the word ‘girls’ and some rather off-colour anecdotes about lesbians which makes me mark down the second set of presenters. That, and some very uninspiring pedagogy. Surely we can do better than this.
Virginia Woolf wrote ‘a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction’*. A room of ones own is a luxury which few could afford at the time without help from husband or family.
As a woman who values enormously the space I have from which to write my blog, I am particularly keen to do what I can to lower the barriers and restrictions which stop any individual or group writing openly.
I was in Virginia this week to hear more about the ‘Domain of One’s Own’ project at the University of Mary Washington. The project provides all incoming freshmen with their own domain names and Web space. Students have the freedom to create subdomains, install any LAMP-compatible software, setup databases and email addresses, and carve out their own space on the web that they own and control. The University picks up the cost of paying for the domain as long as the student is a student. When they stop being a UMW student, they can choose to take over paying for the hosting or let it lapse. In the meantime they have learned valuable digital literacy skills and contributed web-based user-created content to all or any of their courses and activities. The university is not afraid of what the students might do in the space.
It seems to me that this approach is very much in line with University of Edinburgh’s recent ‘Digital Footprint’ campaign, and if we chose to follow it, would build on our commitment to developing the student experience. It is certainly one of the more interesting ways to link student use of the web to their time as part of the university community.
Screen shot of OpenSpires (C) University of Oxford CC-BY
Over the summer a couple of the interns we recruited to work at IT Services, University of Oxford have been working with IT Services staff and academic colleagues to create a new website which draws together in one place all of the Oxford massive online open collections (MOOCs), open educational resource (OER) initiatives, open science, open source and open data projects. Oxford began publishing OER in 2009. The work over the last 5 years includes everything from podcasts to crowdsourcing schemes, educational materials to whole digital archives.
The site serves as an excellent showcase of projects and initatives which have taken a proactive and deliberate approach to openness in line with the University’s mission to maintain and enhance its standing as a university of international reach in teaching, research and knowledge dissemination.
Unique creation by Sophie of Kellogg. Commercial use by negotiation.
Last night I dined at Kellogg again. Now that I am a visiting fellow rather than a resident one I was pleased to be invited to be guest Chamberlaine for the evening.
It was Scholars evening, so we celebrated the many generous gifts of donors to the College, some of whom are alumni, and others who just believe that the work of the College and the work of these individual students is worth supporting. I had lovely company at dinner sitting with social policy champion Amanda and Heather, Desmond Tutu Scholar and Wikipedia researcher.
I chose the importance of voting as the theme for my after dinner speech. We had a number of guests from Somerville College so I was able to make reference to Mary Somerville’s campaigns for women’s suffrage as well as the recent MCR elections, the Scottish independence referendum and the imminent general election.
I was also able to remind the current University of Oxford students that until 1950 as a graduate of that ( and this) university you would actually have had 2 votes in a UK general election. One for the area of the country where you reside, one for the university constituency.
The university constituencies, Oxford, Cambridge, University of London, the ancient Scottish universities and Queens Belfast all sent elected MPs to Westminster.
This was a wheeze started by the Scots and imported to England following the union of the crowns. It went on for a very long time. Several Cromwells, Pitt the Younger, Lord Palmerston, Francis Bacon, Issac Newton, Robert Peel and Ramsay MacDonald benefitted from the arrangement. Needless to say, it did nothing for the town and gown relations in any of the cities and was all ended by the Representation of the Peoples Act in 1948.
Flayed man holding up his own skin. (c) Royal College of Physicians, Edinburgh http://images.is.ed.ac.uk/luna/servlet/s/7bxti3
A fun day out with my team at the eduwiki conference. The conference was opened by Peter McColl, University of Edinburgh Rector who spoke about the role of civic universities in promoting and contributing to the knowledge commons.
During the day we learned a lot about the various features and extensions which make Wikipedia a ideal platform for open practice in learning, teaching and knowledge dissemination. We noted that there was no activity from Scottish universities listed in the Wikipedia courses list. Several colleagues quickly signed up to become wikimedian campus ambassadors, so that may change.
There were a number of Wikimedians-in-Residence at the conference and we soon began to think of projects for a residency at Edinburgh if we can tempt someone to wiki with us. Martin Poulter (previously resident at Jisc) chose an article about the Edinburgh Resurrectionists as an example to use in the conference to show the talk pages and engagement options.
It was fun ( and not at all scary) to dig down into the bones of Wikipedia for #Halloween
The Book of Salvation Opened, 1772 http://images.is.ed.ac.uk/luna/servlet/s/1zx3cb
The University’s mission is the creation, dissemination and curation of knowledge. As a world-leading centre of academic excellence we aim to: Enhance our position as one of the world’s leading research and teaching universities and to measure our performance against the highest international standards; Provide the highest quality learning and teaching environment for the greater well-being of our students; Make a significant, sustainable and socially responsible contribution to Scotland, the UK and the world, promoting health and economic and cultural well-being. As a great civic university, Edinburgh …will continue to look to the widest international horizons, enriching both itself and Scotland. (University Mission)
‘Educators worldwide are developing a vast pool of educational resources on the Internet, open and free for all to use. These educators are creating a world where each and every person on earth can access and contribute to the sum of all human knowledge. They are also planting the seeds of a new pedagogy where educators and learners create, shape and evolve knowledge together, deepening their skills and understanding as they go.’ (Capetown Open Education Declaration)
The sharing of open educational materials is in line not only with University of Edinburgh’s mission but also with a global movement in which research- led institutions play a significant role. I’d suggest an OER vision for University of Edinburgh might have three strands, each building on our history of the Edinburgh Settlement, excellent education, research collections, social responsibility, enlightenment and civic mission.
1. ‘For the common good’: Teaching and learning materials exchange to enrich the University and the sector.
To put in place the support frameworks to enable any member of University of Edinburgh to publish and share online as OER teaching and learning materials they have created as a routine part of their work at the University. (E.g handouts, teaching materials, lesson plans, recorded lectures, research seminar content, blended-learning content, datasets, problem sheets and tools).
To support members of University of Edinburgh to find and use high quality teaching materials developed within and without the University.
2. ‘Edinburgh at its best’: Showcasing openly the highest quality learning and teaching:
To identify collections of high quality learning materials within each school department and research institute to be published online for flexible use, to be made available to learners and teachers as open courseware.(E.g. Recorded high profile events, noteworthy lectures, MOOC and DEI course content).
To enable the discovery of these materials in a way which ensures that our University’s reputation is enhanced.
3. ‘Edinburgh’s treasures’: Making available online a significant collection of unique learning materials available openly to Scotland, the UK and the world, promoting health and economic and cultural well-being.
Identifying a number of major collections of interdisciplinary materials, archives, treasures, museum resources to be digitised, curated and shared for the greater good and significant contribution to public engagement with learning, study and research. (E.g. Archive collections drawn from across disciplines e.g History of Medicine/Edinburgh as the birthplace of medicine/ Scottish history/ social change)
To put in place policy and infrastructure to ensure that these OER collections are sustainable and usable in the medium to longer term.
I suspect the expertise ( although not the resources*) to deliver each of these strands exists within the University through partnership between Schools and Information Services. This vision would build upon work, custom and practice already in place within the University but offers an opportunity to take a strategic approach to publishing open educational resources at scale. What else should be included?
*The annual cost of running MIT OCW is about $3.5 million
