Blog 9: The beast can be tamed

Blog Thing 9

1. What do you think of the ideas behind CamTools (Sakai)? What "ideas" hide "behind" the tool?  I suppose the same objectives underpinning other similar tools: technological integration of communities of learning.  Regardless of this objective, however, the tool could in principle be adopted beneficially for sharing academic resources (including audio) in the context of an academic course or a dialogue among scholars.
   What was your impression? If you already used CamTools before, did it change your opinion? Had barely linked to it in the past in order to download a conference document.  I now see the potential for adopting the platform for a course--esp. to share files (both texts and audio) with students, and possibly come colleague.  I am still weary of adopting software as a means for students to dialogue.  Let them dialogue face to face (no "facebook"), or write directly to the educator without (or with minimum) "peer pressure".
2. In what ways do you see this being useful to you as a course organiser? (i.e specifically about the ability of letting you pull together and use various curriculum design tools?) Were I to have access to the profiles of various courses via CamTools, I might find handy suggestions therein when preparing my own course.  Otherwise, the platform would be helpful in sharing course material with students, and to receive feedback on it.
3. What would you like to see from CamTools? "Like to see" of what I do not?  A straightforward means to link to educators across the UK or even abroad via a  "research subject" search.  Thus, e.g., in case I were seeking a scholar who has been working and/or teaching in the area of Ancient Ethics, perhaps (one day) CamTools could prove instrumental to my acquiring relevant data (including inter alia, previous course outlines to refer to in editing my own).
4. What do you think of the possibility of having a specific CamTools site where lecturers and course organisers could share curriculum design outcomes, preparations and ideas? (e.g. a specific CamTools site that would allow you to do that?) I would be mostly interested in shared course resources (texts, images, recordings) helping me (and other educators) see what some colleagues find most relevant to specific areas of discussion/investigation.  The software might also prove handy in sharing course resources.   I wonder, however, to what extent students' direct exposure to an indefinite variety of sources could prove distracting, not to speak of the bad habit of rejecting *concentric* speech (revolving around central/cardinal problems) as an evil, in favor of unbound diversity or dispersion of interests (or dissolution of focus) ad infinitum.

Blog 7: PHOEBE, or: When a goddess becomes a community tool.

Blog Thing 7

1. What do you think of the ideas behind Phoebe? What was your impression? THE IDEAS behind the radiance of Apollo/Phoebus: "this is exactly what our tool sets out to do: provide timely and informed guidance on designing learning experiences that make appropriate use of technology.
   However, we envisage Phoebe above all as a community tool, owned by individual departments and colleges who will supplement the advice and examples that we have supplied with material directly relevant to their own context" ("Phoebe" site).  
   
   
   The "idea" behind the use of the term "appropriate" appears to be <serving the interests of our departments' own context>.  But did the departments themselves ask for technology's help?  Is Phoebe's vision ("we envisage...") shared by my department?  Or is the vision in question a product to be sold to departments that otherwise would see (and indeed have) no need for it?  
   
   
   I cannot help but doubt whether a divinely neutral or pure tool descending upon departments of academic learning uncalled-for from the summit of the mount of bureaucracy might not prove, upon careful reflection, to be fundamentally unhelpful.  
   
   
   Can any universal "form" meaningfully "supplement" the particular "matter" of any field of investigation UNLESS said form is first shown to emerge out of the real needs of this or that field of investigation itself?  I see a need for our new Phoebes to show me before all else why my department would need to change the way it has been or currently is presenting course outlines.
   
2. What template(s) did you think were (most) useful? Or did you think there weren't any useful ones and would you consider creating one yourself?  The BASIC DESIGN TEMPLATE (cloned as "Template for 1066"), which came across as the simplest or most straightforward.  As the "tool" becomes complicated, it comes to distract from the educator's end--especially when the tool is constructed in vitro, instead of arising out of the field in which it is to be used.  Unless the tool is to serve as a Trojan Horse...                   
3. What are your thoughts about using this to share Cambridge (or your course) specific templates and designs; as a tool to share your learning designs? I suspect some general suggestive guidelines would suffice to support educators in preparing course outlines.  If, on the other hand, the goal is to synchronize/monitor all educators within a network of bureaucratic expectations, then I am left with asking if educators will have the choice of sticking to antiquated course outlines?  Or must these, too, be digitalized?  Finally,must it be paranoia to suspect that Phoebe's "tooling" is a covert step in the direction of online courses--the ultimate bureaucratization of education?
4. How do you compare it with learning design tools or systems you're already using; is it better or worse? In what way? Compared to others we have been presented with, this one seems to have the greatest potential for obtaining its goal.  Here, a menu of templates for course outlines is (or can be) presented for an educator to select and fill out one template, just as he would with most other online forms.

Thing 5 - Pedagogy Profile Widget

Blog Thing 5

1. What do you think of the idea of 'pedagogy profile widget'? A further attempt to digitalize learning environments.  If the tool at hand serves the interests of "authentic learning" (cloudworks), then to what extent if any does the expression in scare quotes indicate something other than "marketability" or "fitness in the ongoing stream of productivity"?
2. What do you think of dividing the rows into 'modules', 'terms' and so on; or do you think the original idea of using 'weeks' works best?  Perhaps a colored pie-shaped graph for every week could be used, instead.  Something resembling this (first sample off the internet)...

3. How does it compare with any other methods you're using to balance learning aspects across the spread of activities etc?  The tool at hand adds sophistication and complexity there where I would rather seek simplicity and flexibility.  As far as I can tell, the assigned categories for learning-aspects are strictures justified only relatively to institutional demands to set up a system of pre-emptive responses to students' doubts concerning assessment criteria.  In other words, the digitizing may serve to mask, rather than reveal, the real Art of Assessment, which, if properly exercised, remains "off the chart" insofar as it has its roots in the student's strength of mind or intellective virtue.  Thus I would find it more helpful to ask: is the student really thinking?  To the extent that he is thinking rigorously about the course subject, he will be able to give evidence of this thought to the teacher who has ears to hear; and he will be receptive to the assessment given by the teacher who knows how to speak to students who have ears to hear, as well as to students who remain rather dismissive of the art of listening.
4. Filling out your own pedagogy profile, did you find it illuminating or frustrating? Are there any ways you would change it to better reflect what you do? Simplify!  Fewer "numbers." Convert the "profile" back into prose-form.
5. In what ways do you see this being useful to you as a course designer? Alas, N/A.

If you're interested...

• Add the .jpg of your own 'Pedagogy profile' to your blog post (hint: use the 'save as .jpg' button and afterwards upload it to your blog post using the 'image' icon in your blog )

...TO BE CONTINUED

• Look up 'Pedagogy profile' on Cloudworks (here's a link) and share your response directly with the OULDI team there

Thing 4

Responding to:   Blog Thing 4

1. What do you think of the idea of Course Map?  
2. How does it compare with any other representations you have of your course?
3. Filling out your own course map, did you find it illuminating or frustrating?  Are there any ways you would change it to better reflect what you do? 
4. In what ways do you see this being useful to you as a course designer?

1 and 2. The map resemples a computer flowchart.  As such it tacitly invites students to approach their course of studies as a digitally compartimentalized entity, rather than as a place for serious, "organic" thinking.  For courses spilling out of any mechanistic network of instruction, I see no reason to abandon the prose-style of a more traditional Course Outline.
3.  "Frustrating" in the respect that genuine learning resists digitalizing/marketing devices, just as an honest course of learning discourages the habit of approaching subjects of learning piecemeal as merchandise. 
4. After considerable thought: None.

P.S. I would have pasted my personalized "Map" if only I knew how to.  Tried to save it first as a "Picture" but could not find the precise option (I am given the option of saving the powerpoint as GIF, JPEG, TIFF, etc. but none are accepted).
UPDATE: Finally managed to upload a sample Course Map (for whatever it is worth).