{"id":5303,"date":"2017-09-21T17:30:20","date_gmt":"2017-09-21T07:30:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sydney.edu.au\/education-portfolio\/ei\/teaching@sydney\/?p=5303"},"modified":"2017-09-21T17:30:20","modified_gmt":"2017-09-21T07:30:20","slug":"spin-cycle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/educational-innovation.sydney.edu.au\/teaching@sydney\/spin-cycle\/","title":{"rendered":"Surviving EdTech’s spin cycle without losing your mind."},"content":{"rendered":"

From the early mechanical teaching machines<\/a> of Sidney Pressey<\/a> (1926) and B. F. Skinner (1953) through to the current spate of apps, games, VR and AI \u2013 educational\u00a0technology has repeatedly traversed a well-worn cycle of hype and hope, fad and flop. As tools are built, claims are made, papers written and careers forged it is easy to get lost in the maelstrom. Similar to high-tech\u2019s oft-parodied claims to be \u201cmaking the world a better place\u201d<\/a> (thank-you to HBO\u2019s Silicon Valley\u00a0<\/em>for the parody) education too is quick to declare how its new tools and approaches are building the \u201cclassroom campus\/university\/\u201d of \u201cthe future\/21st<\/sup>Century\/etc.\u201d. At times this language can be so standard as to appear to follow a\u00a0pro-forma. For example, the\u00a0question begging of whether\u00a0\u201chigher education is ready for\u2026\u201d (insert; millennials, Gen Z<\/a>, learning analytics, digital natives, etc.). Alternatively, there is a continual recourse to claims of things \u2018being dead\u2019 (e.g.\u00a0the lecture<\/a>, the university<\/a>, the campus<\/a> etc.). This combined hype and speculation,\u00a0creates the impression that technological change is a\u00a0tsunami that requires an advanced warning system, revolutionary infrastructure or – for many – a retreat to higher ground.<\/p>\n

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Pressey Testing Machine (c. 1920s) Photo by Gomer Bolstrood (Sep 2006)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Though big titular claims on the ‘future of learning’\u00a0<\/em>are heavily caveated in the fine print, the chasm between the future as envisioned by experts and the current realities of the faculty floor can be vast. This gap can be exacerbated by the usual swarm of buzzwords that heralds the arrival of yet another tool or future. And, while all disciplines have their own sets of jargon and terminology, for education this language can be especially excluding:<\/p>\n

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The Economist (22 July 2017) – The Future of Learning<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Few topics are as beset by jargon as education. If education were intended for a select few this would not matter. But when, rightly, we want everyone to be involved in education, it matters a great deal (Baker, 2001<\/a>).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And this is the problem. Change, whether invited or not, impacts on all of us. Academic and professional staff, casual tutor and tenured professor – the disruption of changing economic climates, industries and new technologies does not discriminate. It is both unrealistic and undesirable for universities to remain static or immobile. However, knowing what to do, whether as an individual or as an institution, is incredibly difficult. How do we know that today\u2019s flipped classroom is not tomorrow\u2019s 80s perm? The problem is, is that we can never be entirely sure.<\/p>\n

In the case of technology, legitimate and significant changes to the world we live in can resemble fads in their infancy. While some trends and their buzz words will pass on into ignominy, others will fledge the nest and take flight into both the mainstream and the dictionary. Knowing which is which is tough. For\u00a0 an example of this look no further than the BBC\u2019s 1999 Newsnight interview with David Bowie<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Paxman: <\/strong>you don\u2019t think some of the claims about it [the internet] are being hugely exaggerated [\u2026]\n

Bowie: <\/strong>No, you see I don\u2019t agree. The internet. I don\u2019t think we\u2019ve even seen the tip of the iceberg. I think the potential of what the internet is going to do to society \u2013 both good and bad – is unimaginable. I think we\u2019re on the cusp of something exhilarating and terrifying<\/p>\n

Paxman: <\/strong>\u201cIt\u2019s just a tool though isn\u2019t it?\u201d<\/p>\n

Bowie: <\/strong>No, it\u2019s not. No. It\u2019s an alien life form [\u2026] is there life on mars? Yes – its just landed here<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Before adoption into the mainstream, innovations are<\/em> alien. Yet for every Facebook and Twitter are a litany of failures. Take 2007, when the belief that the future of the university was to be found in second life.<\/a>\u00a0For those who enjoyed\u00a0The Sims\u00a0<\/em>and Second Life <\/em>for doing lots of things you’d\u00a0never do IRL\u00a0(for horrible examples see\u00a0here<\/a>), some imagined that people would\u00a0relish the opportunity to walk an avatar into a classroom and sit at a desk for half an hour. Though Minecraft has had some educational success, albeit\u00a0in a different format, the second life university never really took off.<\/p>\n

So how, as universities, faculties, and educators do we know where to place our bets? The answer it seems lies not in revolution, but evolution \u2013 of small changes,<\/a> trial, error and dialogue. We know that technology is no silver bullet: no one-size fits all. Flipped classrooms, for example, though supported by video technology, are not in themselves particularly revolutionary. Students have long had pre-work and homework \u2013 albeit in a written, rather than a video, format. Likewise, good taught lectures were always responsive to what was going on in the room and not rolled out in\u00a0unresponsive one-size-fits-all model that some of the ‘flipped classroom’ narrative suggests. Rather, what allows learning to happen is not the \u201cflipped model\u201d but how and with whom it is applied. This has always been true. The difference between a good and bad ‘chalk and talk’ lecture had little too do with the chalk or the blackboard. Instead of bandwagons we need to do what good learning and teaching has\u00a0always\u00a0<\/em>done – and that is return to the needs of the student and working out how and why a new technology or method might suit this cohort, year group, or student.<\/p>\n

More widely, we need, at all<\/em> levels, to do a better job of talking about the change that technologies bring. Of recognising that it can be tiring, frightening, or overwhelming. That not all people are \u2018techies\u2019 and that what looks great on paper may fail to translate into the classroom. An\u00a0activity or technology may work in one unit, only to\u00a0flunk in another. Similarly, until new buzz words, jargon, and \u2018education speak\u2019 makes its way into the mainstream, this language will continue to exclude and alienate. As the\u00a0tools we use to learn and teach continue to\u00a0shift it is worth remembering that we have time to adapt, learn, test \u00a0fail, critique, revise and talk in full sentences. In this way we might see change, not as a tsunami to resist or submit to, but as a wave that we, as the human authors of such tools, create, use and harness.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From the early mechanical teaching machines of Sidney Pressey (1926) and B. F. Skinner (1953) through to the current spate of apps, games, VR…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":5322,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59,57],"tags":[227,51,65,194],"coauthors":[464],"class_list":["post-5303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-teaching-research","category-teaching-tips","tag-blended-learning","tag-edtech","tag-educational-technologies","tag-online-learning","post-item","post-even"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/educational-innovation.sydney.edu.au\/teaching@sydney\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/educational-innovation.sydney.edu.au\/teaching@sydney\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/educational-innovation.sydney.edu.au\/teaching@sydney\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/educational-innovation.sydney.edu.au\/teaching@sydney\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/educational-innovation.sydney.edu.au\/teaching@sydney\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5303"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/educational-innovation.sydney.edu.au\/teaching@sydney\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5303\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6396,"href":"https:\/\/educational-innovation.sydney.edu.au\/teaching@sydney\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5303\/revisions\/6396"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/educational-innovation.sydney.edu.au\/teaching@sydney\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/educational-innovation.sydney.edu.au\/teaching@sydney\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/educational-innovation.sydney.edu.au\/teaching@sydney\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/educational-innovation.sydney.edu.au\/teaching@sydney\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5303"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/educational-innovation.sydney.edu.au\/teaching@sydney\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=5303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}