{"id":413,"date":"2011-09-08T14:20:42","date_gmt":"2011-09-08T14:20:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.cetis.ac.uk\/adam\/?p=413"},"modified":"2011-09-08T14:20:42","modified_gmt":"2011-09-08T14:20:42","slug":"preparing-for-a-thaw-seven-questions-to-make-sense-of-the-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hilltop-cottage.info\/blogs\/arc12\/preparing-for-a-thaw-seven-questions-to-make-sense-of-the-future\/","title":{"rendered":"Preparing for a Thaw \u2013 Seven Questions to Make Sense of the Future"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Preparing for a Thaw \u2013 Seven Questions to Make Sense of the Future&#8221; is the title of a workshop at ALT-C 2011. The idea of the workshop was to use a simple conversational technique to capture perspectives on where Learning Technology might be going, hopes and fears and views on where education and educational technology <span style=\"text-decoration: underline\">should<\/span> be going. The <a href=\"http:\/\/altc2011.alt.ac.uk\/talks\/22314\" class=\"broken_link\">abstract for the workshop<\/a> (ALT-C CrowdVine site) gives a little more information and background and there is also a <a href=\"http:\/\/is.gd\/7QHandout\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"broken_link\">handout<\/a> available that extends this. The workshop had two purposes: to introduce participants to the technique with a view to possible use in their organisations; to gather some interesting information on the issues and forces shaping the future of learning technology. All materials have Creative Commons licences.<\/p>\n<p>The short version of the Seven Questions used in the session (it is usual to use variants of one form or another) are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Questions for the Oracle about 2025 [what would you ask?]<\/li>\n<li>What would be a\u00a0 favourable outcome by 2025?<\/li>\n<li>What would be an unfavourable outcome?<\/li>\n<li>How will culture and institutions need to change?<\/li>\n<li>What lessons can we learn from the past?<\/li>\n<li>Which decisions need to be made and actions taken?<\/li>\n<li>If you had a &#8220;Magic Wand&#8221;, what would you do?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Fourteen people, predominantly from Higher Education, attended the workshop; their responses to the &#8220;Seven Questions&#8221; are all online at <a href=\"http:\/\/is.gd\/7QResponses\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"broken_link\">http:\/\/is.gd\/7QResponses<\/a> and there is an online form to collect further responses at <a href=\"http:\/\/is.gd\/7Questions\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"broken_link\">http:\/\/is.gd\/7Questions<\/a> that is now open to all. This blog post is a first reaction to the responses made during the workshop, where a peer-interviewing approach was used. A more considered analysis will be conducted on September 14th, taking account of any further responses gathered by then.<\/p>\n<div class=\"mceTemp mceIEcenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hilltop-cottage.info\/blogs\/arc12\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/7questions_all_ws.png\"><\/a> <\/p>\n<dl><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hilltop-cottage.info\/blogs\/arc12\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/7questions_all_ws.png\"><\/a> <\/p>\n<dt><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hilltop-cottage.info\/blogs\/arc12\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/7questions_all_ws.png\"><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hilltop-cottage.info\/blogs\/arc12\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/7questions_all_ws1.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-416\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hilltop-cottage.info\/blogs\/arc12\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/7questions_all_ws1.png\" alt=\"Wordle of all responses to the &quot;Seven Questions&quot; that were made during the ALT-C 2011 workshop. (NB: four words have been eliminated - &quot;learning&quot;, &quot;education&quot;, &quot;technology&quot;, &quot;technologies&quot;)\" width=\"404\" height=\"202\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.hilltop-cottage.info\/blogs\/arc12\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/7questions_all_ws1.png 808w, https:\/\/www.hilltop-cottage.info\/blogs\/arc12\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/7questions_all_ws1-300x150.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 404px) 100vw, 404px\" \/><\/a><\/dt>\n<dd>Wordle of all responses to the &#8220;Seven Questions&#8221; that were made during the ALT-C 2011 workshop. Click image to open full-size.<br \/>\n(NB: four words have been eliminated &#8211; &#8220;learning&#8221;, &#8220;education&#8221;, &#8220;technology&#8221;, &#8220;technologies&#8221;)<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n<p>My quick take on the responses is that there are about half a dozen themes that recur and a few surprising ideas. These appear to be:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Universal and affordable access to education and the avoidance of a situation where access to technological advances favours one section of society (or region) was a concern. There was support for ensuring access to connectivity and hardware for everyone, that this should be an entitlement. This was a very strong theme in the &#8220;if you had a magic wand&#8221; responses.<\/li>\n<li>The need for improved digital literacies amongst teaching staff but also across the institution as a whole came out several times. Similarly (but distinct from this) is a desire to be more effective with teacher education and staff development.<\/li>\n<li>There were questions about whether there would be &#8220;learning technologies&#8221; in 2025 and whether there would still be &#8220;learning technologists&#8221;, at least as defined by their current role.<\/li>\n<li>The transformation of assessment and accreditation was also drawn out as an uncertainty.<\/li>\n<li>Several responses wondered about the dominant devices that would be used in 2025 and the kind of interface (mouse, gesture,&#8230; what next?).<\/li>\n<li>An increasing potential role for using data was tempered by concerns about unethical or exploitative use of collected data.<\/li>\n<li>There was interest in multi-direction, collaborative education and the role of technology in that.<\/li>\n<li>The risk of educational institutions holding onto established (old) models came out several times.<\/li>\n<li>I wasn&#8217;t the only person to mention &#8220;interoperability&#8221;.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The workshop participants seemed to enjoy the approach and I was pleased at how well the peer interviewing worked, although I can see that this might not be right for all groups. I&#8217;ll also be watching out for differences in response that might be present between peer interview and solo completion of the online form. 1 hour for introduction, reciprocal interviews and closing discussion was rather restrictive but it seems to have surfaced some good materials and it certainly gave a good indication of what could be achieved with a little more time.<\/p>\n<p>A more considered and detailed write-up will be published soon; I&#8217;ll add a comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Preparing for a Thaw \u2013 Seven Questions to Make Sense of the Future&#8221; is the title of a workshop at ALT-C 2011. The idea of the workshop was to use a simple conversational technique to capture perspectives on where Learning Technology might be going, hopes and fears and views on where education and educational technology &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hilltop-cottage.info\/blogs\/arc12\/preparing-for-a-thaw-seven-questions-to-make-sense-of-the-future\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Preparing for a Thaw \u2013 Seven Questions to Make Sense of the Future<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,21,32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-horizon-scan","category-jiscobs","category-telmap"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hilltop-cottage.info\/blogs\/arc12\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hilltop-cottage.info\/blogs\/arc12\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hilltop-cottage.info\/blogs\/arc12\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hilltop-cottage.info\/blogs\/arc12\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hilltop-cottage.info\/blogs\/arc12\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=413"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.hilltop-cottage.info\/blogs\/arc12\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hilltop-cottage.info\/blogs\/arc12\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hilltop-cottage.info\/blogs\/arc12\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hilltop-cottage.info\/blogs\/arc12\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}