Reflections

Midday 5th October

Agency for academic staff to choose tech for teaching is removed from them and there are a number of assumptions that have been made for them as to how they will be teaching and who their students are

Commuter Students are not one kind. There are variants on their intersectional disadvantage

The distance from the person deciding that a purchase is an option is far removed from the people who are using it and those who are supposed to benefit from it

Assumptons are made about the kinds of students at the institution and what their needs are and how they will access it.

Most instututions provide access to 1) digital tools (mainly laptops) and 2) some support for skills to use it. The final aspect of digital access as an outcome of 1 and 2 is not measured or evaluated so not easy to tell how their endeavours have provided results

It is difficult to see how someone from a different organisational culture can make decisions about the value of a particular technology for teaching and learning as we drift further and further away from the purpose of the intervention. If you have never taught anyone in a course which leads to a recognised/high stakes assessment then it is impossible to empathise and appreciate the complicated nature of teaching

PM Oct 5th

Having just had two interviews today and one with Maggie I thought I should write this down. I can see that there is a lot about teaching staff and how they teach with technology but nothing about how students are learning. Lots of about lack of resources for students (using mobiles etc) but Michelle was the only one today that mentioned the lack of resources which was interesting. I was asking about the connections between those away from the people who are teaching and learning and I don’t know if its because I am not aksing the right people but they don’t seem to know or take for granted that whatever they do they are doing the right thing.

The two really useful interviews I had were with Pamela and probably Amanda because they both were very honest. In fact, I’d say that Amanda was most honest and she was very frank about the money and politics aspect. I discovered from Pamela about how the UK HEIs negotiate together to ensure the value for the products like VLEs I guess and so that was interesting. But also would mean that they would have to use them.

The students are not really the customers in their minds but the recipients. I think depending on where you are in the tree, you see yourself as the customer - IT professionals are the customer not the students

Language

The language and translations between us and them is stark. Theres a specific language which serves a purpose and helps to obsficate the intention of the systems. Students don’t have the confidence to say that they don’t know something or not sure how to engage with something so they won’t say anything and by the time they have worked it out they will be leaving anyway. Definitely clear to me that there are different languages being spoken and the final outcomes of peoples roles dictate which language you speak and how accountable you are for the decisions that are made. I cannot see how students are customers when they are unaware of the possibilities and they shouldn’t be the customers.

There was something that Michelle said about the purpose of a university and the language of the IT people in relation to customers but she referred to the knowledge expansion as purpose which I think is right. Need to remember that aspect as a lens kind of thing (or dimension!)

Access and Participation is completely seperate in most cases it would appear from the students digital expereince and yet digital is integral to it. No one has any idea what is in their APP and no one needs to.

Classifications

I need to review or have a think about how I classify the roles (as in senior leadership team or middle management etc)

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