July 5th, 2010
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Here’s one for politicians, leaders and project/programme managers of all types everywhere.
Success is ephemeral but the possibility of chaos is eternal (paraphrased from Niall Ferguson’s High Financier: The Lives and Time of Siegmund Warburg, 2010, Allen Lane).
One of the great “benefits” of accumulating years is that you get to be a participant in, and observer of, many periods of transition and change – some turbulent, some with positive outcomes, and some less so. I’m therefore, inclined to be with Ferguson/Warburg on this one.
Pessimistic optimism seems a good maxim lest Hubris calls forth Nemesis 
May 20th, 2010
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by Derek Morrison, 20 May 2010
Any views expressed in this online essay are those of the author alone and should not be construed as necessarily representing the view of any other individuals or organisations.
Today’s posting is an addition to my de facto segue on ebooks, words and techno-anxiety a topic I’ve addressed at different levels in Same as it ever was (Auricle, 21 March 2010), No Country for Old Readers (Auricle, 28 February 2010), and Ebooks what ebooks? (Auricle, 21 February, updated 24 February).
The growing presence of mobile devices like smartphones and ebook readers reminds me of my deliberations about the impact of MLE/VLEs way back in 2004 when I first launched this iteration of Auricle as a blog. In summary, my concerns expressed at the time was that Higher Education had allowed itself to become locked into an immature and, at the time, invariably proprietary construct of what a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) or more accurately a Managed Learning Environment (MLE) – alias Learning Management System (LMS) should be. Wind forward to 2010 and I find myself interested in whether mobile devices and portable e-readers have the rather confusing potential to either disrupt or reinforce the LMS concept. Or indeed in some cases to become a key facet of an ever evolving online learning environment. But why would this be the case?
May 3rd, 2010
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Television did it. It remains an enormously powerful medium. It brings human beings — their eyes and faces and thought patterns and personal effects — into your very living room. It shakes up existing feelings. It floods the frontal cortex not with policy but with personality.
Whether I always agree with him or not does not prevent me from thinking that Andrew Sullivan is a fine writer and commentator. The above quote is contained in Nick Clegg catches the angry transatlantic wind (Sunday Times, 26 April 2010). Putting aside the political context of this media column I think this quote highlights the particular capacity of some media forms to reach deeply into the emotional centres of our brains.
April 26th, 2010
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by Derek Morrison, 26 April 2010 (updated 30 April 2010)
Any views expressed in this posting are those of this author alone and should not be construed as necessarily representing those of any other individual or organisation.
I recently gave a presentation on the future uses of technology to enhance students’ learning experiences at a university workshop with the theme “Technology to Enhance Learning in 2015″ (Northumbria University, 21 April 2010). Rather than leave delegates with the traditional handout or presentation files I instead referred them to a URL offering a minor variant of this posting. One key benefit of taking this approach is that the original material can be considerably enhanced by providing extended responses to the questions asked by delegates and any related interactions which follow. There’s an opportunity, therefore, to continue to add value to resources which may have been initially generated for one context and event, but which also may of wider utility or interest. The following posting, therefore, offers a synopsis of this presentation plus my extended responses to questions asked.
So what can, should, or will, we offer the digital generation by 2015?
April 17th, 2010
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by Derek Morrison, 17 April 2010
So what’s are those strange objects embedded in this posting? Why are they there?
The Tales of Things web site went live yesterday and so I’m using this posting to try it out. Tales of Things is part of the EPSRC funded TOTeM project which is exploring aspects of how physical objects can become part of the ‘internet of things‘. Tales of Things is being realised through a consortium of UK HEIs, i.e. Brunel University, Edinburgh College of Art, University College London, University of Dundee and the University of Salford.
April 10th, 2010
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by Derek Morrison, 10 April 2010
The following posting reflects the perspectives and opinions of the author alone and should not be construed as necessarily representing the views of any other individual or organisation.
In my short essay ELESIG puts head (or toe) in the Clouds (Auricle, 23 March 2010) I reflected on some of the issues relating to ‘ownership’ and preservation of the archives of content and interaction generated by social network implementations such as Facebook and on a smaller scale the OU hosted Cloudworks. So thanks to my colleague Terry Mayes who brought to my attention Wendy Hall’s recent contribution to the BBC’s World Service Forum (14 March 2010) which explored some of the issues in considerably more depth than my own humble posting. Wendy Hall is one of the alpha thought leaders, along with Tim Berners-Lee, regarding the development of the semantic web.
But as important as such weighty issues as the semantic web is the BBC World Service itself; it is an understated national gem. It receives a fraction of the main BBC radio budget, it doesn’t appear to do “star’ presenters with gross remuneration packages but, yet, the quality of what it produces is usually outstanding. The BBC World Service, however, has a typically eccentric British funding model. While the rest of the BBC is funded from the mandatory UK Licence Fee paid by UK television owners (it’s a criminal offence not to pay it) the World Service does not receive any income from that source. Instead the World Service is funded by a Parliamentary grant-in-aid, administered by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) of the British government (i.e. another taxpayer-funded channel). It transmits in languages decided by the FCO but editorial control remains with the BBC and consequently that includes, at times, being critical of UK government policy or representing the views of the “other”. Long may the eccentricity continue.
April 8th, 2010
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by Derek Morrison, 8 April 2010
Clay Shirky’s online essay The Collapse of Complex Business Models (1 April 2010) should perhaps give all leaders of all types of organisation serious pause for thought. The key message of Shirky’s piece appears to be that leaderships and elites are comforted by organisational and bureaucratic complexity but that this also creates the conditions for inflexiblity and inability to adapt to change and, therefore, ultimately leads to failure of even previously successful societies and organisations. Shirky comments: In a bureaucracy, it’s easier to make a process more complex than to make it simpler, and easier to create a new burden than kill an old one … when the ecosystem stops rewarding complexity, it is the people who figure out how to work simply in the present, rather than the people who mastered the complexities of the past, who get to say what happens in the future.” Whether we agree or not with Shirky’s premiss it’s a thoughtful piece and well worth a read.
As well as being adjunct Professor at New York University, Clay Shirky is an established author, commentator and broadcaster on the social and economic effects of Internet technologies.
April 6th, 2010
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by Derek Morrison, 6 April 2010
The following posting reflects the perspectives and opinions of the author alone and should not be construed as necessarily representing the views of any other individual or organisation.
In an earlier posting Are you digital natives paying attention? (Auricle, 6 February 2010) I highlighted the excellent US PBS Digital Nation project. Digital Nation has proved to be the tip of an impressive iceberg of high quality resources offered under the banner of the Forum Network a joint initiative by PBS and NPR. Forum Network offers different views of its resource collections with the Lectures and Series tabs providing a virtual cornucopia of material that’s well worth exploring. For example, there are some 40 audio and video lectures offered in the MediaShift series. MediaShift is a public media service of the US PBS & NPR which in short form: “tracks how digital media, from blogs to podcasts to citizen journalism, are changing society and culture, and raising legal and ethical questions in connection with their use.”. Or, in longer form, it describes its purpose as:
April 2nd, 2010
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by Derek Morrison, 2 April 2010
I’m always interested in sources of good quality material particularly those which wouldn’t normally be the first port of call for those seeking material related to learning and teaching in a digital world. The London School of Economics’ Podcasts archive is one such source. LSE is building a sizeable archive of public lectures by thought leaders in different domains. Below I highlight the MP3 downloads which I think could be of interest to those of interested in the perspectives of those analysing and synthesizing some of the the twists and turns of our increasingly digital world. I also include the odd non-digitally oriented lecture because what we do and what interests has, in the end, to be realised in our analogue world. Be warned these are not 5 minute conveniently chunked packages – they are long lectures; they all, however, merit our attention. LSE also offers a video archive of some of its public events.
March 23rd, 2010
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by Derek Morrison, 23 March 2010 (updated 24 and 25 March 2010)
The following short essay reflects the perspectives and opinions of the author alone and should not be construed as necessarily representing the views of any other individual or organisation.
The Open University’s Cloudworks is an application of the social networking concept which is attracting some interest both nationally and internationally. A new entry to the world of “cloudscapes” and “cloudstreams” is ELESIG (Evaluation of Learners’ Experiences of e-learning Special Interest Group) who have extended their reach from their current Ning base by establishing two spaces on Cloudworks. The first is is titled ELESIG – Readings for members and others to “share and discuss publications in the field of learner experience research”. The other cloudscape isn’t open for business yet but it’s titled ELESIG – Resources to “share and discuss resources produced by the ELESIG community”.
While I’m a big fan of Cloudworks the fact that it is a hosted entity by a major UK HE institution with a respected provenance is itself worthy of reflection and discussion. Although considerable respect is due for the genius idea and the Open University’s willingness to host Cloudworks, there’s also a “Catch 22″ here.
