1b A9: Reflecting upon and learning from your experience

Activity 8 Tables (stitched)

1. To what extent have the teaching practices you encountered and your own ways of behaving as a learner influenced the ways in which you now support the learning of others?

A few years ago, when I began to teach Graphic design at FE, I based my teaching on my experiences of being a student, particularly whilst studying on a degree programme. I found myself emulating my lecturers and using similar methods to promote learning. This had some success, but I felt at the time that I did not have a fundamental grasp of how these methods linked with broader pedagogy.

Since this time, I have developed an understanding of my own learning through studying on a PGCE, and continuing practice in other roles such as the one I occupy now (research assistant). The skills of analysis and evidencing understanding have been underpinned by reflection and pedagogical theory, and this has latterly been demonstrated with more resonance in recent workshops I have facilitated. Writing this now, I feel this metacognitive awareness has played a big part in my professional development in the past few years, and this has been reflected in the delivery / support work I have been involved with.

2. How have your practices (as a learner and/or as a supporter of learning) changed over time, particularly in terms of your use of various digital technologies and resources?

My uses of web based resources and technologies have grown considerably. However, I realize that this is largely due to the environment that I am learning / teaching in. I work in an office with access to the Internet, and I deliver workshops in the field of e-learning, so it makes sense that I use relevant technologies. I operate in a distributed community of practice so I have adapted the use of blogs to include this. However, learning a language was an informal thing, and the only dedicated time I knew I would be able to expend on this activity would be whilst I am driving. I only have a CD player in my car, so I bought a CD set to help me learn the language. (As it happened I did not get very far!)

3. Can you derive any useful lessons from your personal experiences about the impact of technologies upon teaching and learning practices?

From my own experiences of implementing technology use, and acting as a catalyst for change in teaching and learning practice, I have begun to realise the significance of collaborative learning and being present within a community of practice. An incident working with drawing students helped me to see that prompting a group to investigate a principle of learning may have unexpected results (in this case they used a different technology to the one we proposed and tested), but it does yield results nonetheless. The critical component to this is allowing flexibility in response. However this does present a similar tension to that which I encountered in critique sessions in art and design. Community responsiveness can deviate from specific learning objectives.

Activity 8 Tables (stitched)

1a A6: Net generation webcast

Notes on Ian Rowley’s presentation:

I made a few notes on the webcast for this activity. As well as the compare and contrast bvetween webcast and paper-based, I thought there were several points of interest. Rowley expained how people, generally, are good at coping with change and he referred to the time and research space that this change may occur in for those in new roles or information environments. This resonates with me because I have been involved in significant (at least to me) change > an institutional merger and all that goes with it.

I also really liked the idea about ‘brand conviction’, that people from the so-called Google generation see libraries as something with aprint legacy, and that searching is something that occurs through Google and the web. I wonder if this goes for other things too, such as teaching delivery – how deeply embedded is the brand conviction of being ‘taught’, through lectures, for example? (this goes for both students and lecturers).

Another interesting point raised was the use of abstracts and metadata as critical for searching for information. The idea of ‘power-browsing’ > again I can identify with what was said about this in the webcast. The irony that these elements were being used as sources of information when they were designed to be the devices that make full content more visible and searchable is also fascinating and I would like to investigate this in my own work.

Someone at the end of the presentation commented on ‘digital dissidents’ being like luddites, but I think he got the wrong end of thwe stick completely. I liked the term used because it represents a group of people who, I believe, are expert searchers but whose uptake and shedding of tools is incredibly quick. It is these people that I would refer to as ‘digital dissidents’, those who have tried and tested, and rejected technology for a reason.