Am I odd or something?
OK I know the answer to that one.
Here I am lapping up the feeds and podcasts of a world community exploring learning technologies with such enthusiasm and beautiful pedagogy, and in my own instituion (hundreds of staff) the interest is virtually zilch. And this at a time when moodle is being rolled out. I know online services and learning services are dead keen, but why so little engagement by staff? (That’s as of mid September 2006.) Unless I’m missing something and they’re all discussing this in a coffee shop I don’t know about. But in our staff discussion area in Moodle I’m almost talking to myself!
…………..tumbleweed…………..
But given that elearning is kind of a ‘good thing’, even if for no other reason than Ofsted and QAA say so, why the lack of interest.
A. Staff think it’s a waste of time, technology is over-rated, always going wrong. Get back to chalk.
B Staff think it’s just too tekkie to use and only for nerds.
C Staff think it’s a great idea but too tekkie to set up.
D Staff think it’s a great idea but would take too long to set up.
I could, of course, survey staff along these lines but I’d then face the problem of why they won’t engage with a technology survey.
So I’ll 2nd guess it: staff are generally enthusiastic about teaching and learning with technology, but their job role is to teach and assess, not to publish. Where is the support to get things started - and they don’t mean more training, they mean actual technical assistance to set it up, going on to classroom support for both them and their learners to use it. That’s not a huge expense - some hours spent with tutors in their classrooms to assess how best to integrate moodle and online activites, then actually set the bloody thing up for them. It is strange that a tutor is expected to design his or her own moodle area, while similar control over the hardward is barred.
Other barriers - rooms with computers that work. So forget computer labs, but move towards 1-to-1 laptops. Here’s a comment on this matter - I’m sure there’s other research too. Update - yes, found this also from future lab.
October 5th, 2006 at 3:26 am
At least you know the answer.