e-Learning Stuff Podcast #043: Keep Calm and Carry on

Recording of the Keep Calm and Carry on debate at the Plymouth
e-Learning Conference.


During the Second World War, the British government sought to use
appropriate communications tools to convey policy to the
populace, whether via posters, newspapers, radio, or legislation.
Resource restrictions meant that there was not always a free
choice in which to use.


Sound familiar? It should.


As James Clay indicated in a blog post on January 10th snow,
floods and swine flu all have the potential bring our physical
campus to a halt, for valid health and safety reasons.
Institutions announce via local radio and the web that they are
closed to students and staff. In most institutions such crises
effectively bring the entire workforce to a halt. Despite the
digital options available, the word ‘closed’ implies that no
(formal) activity will take place, and sends the message to staff
and students that they do not need to go to work, or even do any
work, even if they could.


Culturally, most institutions do not incorporate online or
virtual learning into everyday working cultures, at any level:
management, staff or students. Those who do not routinely use
digital options can’t see that closing the physical institution
need not have a significant impact on the business of the
institution, if that business can be carried out at home or
online. The issue is not to focus upon contingency planning, but
to focus on changing the way people work when there isn’t snow
and changing the way people think when there is. Although this
debate will centre largely upon Web 2.0 methods, it will take an
outcomes-focused approach, rather than a tools focused approach,
in line with William Morris’s quote “Have nothing in your house
that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful”.
We consider what is necessary, not just in times of crisis, but
in implementing everyday e- practice to meet learning and
teaching needs.


With a focus upon communities rather than machines, and a
recognition that no tool offers “one size fits all”, each
panellist will focus upon a specific relationship, specifically
‘Institutional Representation’, ‘Collaboration’ and ‘Teaching
Purposes’. What institutional cultural factors will need to be
addressed? What do electronic communications approaches offer
that previous methods haven’t? What drawbacks are acknowledged in
the use of each with regards to the outcomes required? Which tool
is most appropriate for the outcome required, and what are its
pedagogical purposes?


With James Clay, Bex Lewis and Carolin Esser and of course
delegates from the Plymouth e-Learning Conference.


This is the forty-third e-Learning Stuff Podcast, Keep
Calm and Carry on


Subscribe to the podcast in iTunes


Shownotes


Plymouth e-Learning Conference

“million-to-one chances happen nine times out of ten”

Snow

Floods? Snow? Swine Flu? Terrorist Threats? “Keep Calm and
Carry On”