Paul Browning from Bristol pointed to this symposium — Colston Symposium 2004, held recently at Bristol.
The theme is near and dear to our hearts, I think: “The Evolution of Learning and Web Technologies: Survival of the Fittest?”
Looks like a deep site to go through… but I’m glad to have been pointed in its direction!
Link received via a mailing list, the presentations from Sun’s 2004 Worldwide Education and Research Conference, held March1-3, 2004, Madrid, Spain. The presentations represet a mix of Sun Microsystem and Education sector speakers. Some interesting pointers to projects in Grid Computing.
The talk by Ferran Ruiz i Tarrag
After more than a year of planning, meetings and conversations, we’ve established a Steering Committee, as outlined in: New Steering Committee Launched to Guide UBC’s Course Management System .
We have very high hopes for this model. UBC obviously has a special relationship with the course management system. We use WebCT widely, and have built up a lot of internal competency and a sense of ownership of this system. Because WebCT was invented here, though.. the scale and depth of use is not as appreciated as it might be…. this structure will help us tackle that!The Steering Committee model reflects our culture…
We are quite decentralized her at UBC — most of our Faculty units (Agricultural Sciences, Arts, Science, etc.) have a unit that provides instructional/pedagogical and technical support for using technologies – particularly WebCT. We’ve even developed a tool that allow for decentralized administration of the system (See CTConnect, particularly the Help section).
More centrally positioned organizations like the one that runs me (Office of Learning Technology), concentrate on facilitation & coordination, and/or providing unique expertise/services/compentencies (technical systems, faculty development, etc.). It is UBC’s belief that this “decentralized collaborative” model encourages innovation and engages community more effectively than centralized models.
The committee structure reflects a shared ownership that aligns with the culture. Its mandate is:
To ensure our UBC course management system works well for all students, faculty, and staff by making university-wide decisions in consultation with local units.
Note that the committee makes decisions; it is not an advisory group to the IT organization.
This may seem to be a fine distinction, but it is not. Ownership implies both freedom, and responsibility…
Our distinct challenge with this model is communication… ensuring that we are engaging the community, not just informing.
We are focused on the CMS, but I think believe that we are creating a framework that will help us make good decisions about university-wide learning technologies moving forward. Time will tell on that part of the equation…. we have to get the CMS part right first!
Funny what happens when you get your head above water and look at your own blog again…
You find out that one of your friends has a cool weblog. Ok, I think he actually told me that he did.. but …
Dave Lee, my friend and former boss (yup, you are right to be sympathetic, that was not an enviable positionat all), has a weblog called e e learning, focusing on the corporate space…
He may need to check his computer though… his shift key must be busted… and caps lock is definitely gone…
Somthing that Cyprien may find of interest…
BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Biology society to go digital
The Linnean Society’s collections comprise almost 40,000 specimens of plants, insects, fish and shells, many of which date to the 18th Century.
The society was founded in London in 1788 and takes its name from the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus.
Can’t wait to find out more!
Saw this in eLearnSpace – and enjoyed reading Sarah Robert’s article on the emergence of weblogs at Duke University, Campus Communications & the Wisdom of Blogging. This was originally published in August.. and I remember seeing it then.. but a re-read was good!
Our experience with UBC is emerging as somewhat similar, as outlined in a few of Brian Lamb’s articles in the e-Strategy Newsletter:
Beyond the hype: what’s in a weblog?.
(Sept 17, 2003)
Five winning ways people are using Wikis at UBC
(March 24, 2004)I appreciated Roberts’ the cautionary note at the end of the Syllabus article:
As blogging and blog-like site development and content management takes off, it will remain to be seen what its impact will be on institutional systems already in place. With thoughtful planning, careful monitoring, and the support of strong policies and guidelines, such systems can avoid being disruptive or threatening to publication and collaborative technologies already in place. Demand and interest in them will guide their usage, but those charged with the creation and maintenance of such systems must continue to be mindful of the power of the medium, the nature of the content, and the audience that may ultimately access it.
The times, they are a ‘changing — !
I’m pretty sure the author meant that we need to concentrate on supporting the mainstream faculty that are using these technologies, and helping them understand the changes and new opportunities, as opposed to disrupting the technologies themselves (thats my interpretation of this, anyway!) — and the point is well taken.
Our conversations should be about supporting this suite of technologies that enable new ways of communicating and collaborating – – dialogue and the academy go hand in hand.
We are mired a bit in the technical right now:
— What kind of servers do we need?
— What type of redundancies should be in place?
— What and when are acceptable down times?
— How do we manage the communications associated with this to ensure that when changes are needed, we can be sure that the message is sent and received?
I am hoping our course management system experiences will help us through this… but we’re still working through developing good policies for that system – and ensuring we have an effective governance model… now this!
Reminds me a bit of the old Robin Williams routine when he goes into hyper-improv mode. He pauses for a second, squints and peers to the back of the room, pretending he is someone sitting back there watching himself, and says something like “…. what the heck is he doin’ now?”
He throws his head back, laughs maniacally, and says “Ha ha ha! Catch up!”
And continues on…
Fun times, fun times….
Nothing like change to keep one moving forward.
My buddy Paul has started to look seriously at blogs…
He has developed out an interesting Blog feature list….
Harkens back to to the Edtech list discussion on weblogs .. particularly the “matrix“
Should have pointed to this earlier…
The latest issue of our e-Strategy Newsletter has a set of summaries of a number of ongoing elearning projects…
Celebrating e-Learning at UBC: Highlights from the e-Strategy Open House and e-Learning Salon.
The projects described include:
Ok, so we are gearing up more and more to launch an integrated lab network – providing students with access to major scientific instruments online…
I guess the ultimate examle of this is happening as we speak on Mars…
Analytical Chemistry on Mars
Preparing students to learn a whole new way of doing science is certainly taking on new meanings all the time…
