Observing the development of ‘a situation’ recently, the risks of failing to check the assumptions made by each of the three contributing parties became apparent. Each party appears to have assumed that what the others understood to be the purpose, background and constraints of the project was the same as what they, individually, understood. No documentation was needed to clarify the scope the project. Unfortunately for all concerned those assumptions turned out to be false. That resulted in project delays, additional costs and dents in the professional reputation of those involved. The fact that all those involved were experienced in the field failed to ensure a successful outcome. In hindsight, this has clearly been a lose-lose experience for all concerned.
From the sidelines the solution is, of course, obvious and one of the first things a newby business analyst or project manager is taught. Always clarify and document the scope, expectations and assumptions before starting a project. Establishing this clarity of purpose at the outset of a project goes a long way to ensure its success.
Discussions about teaching and learning often consider behaviourism, constructivism and connectivism but one thing that is generally absent is a conversation about the businessisms inherent in the education sector.
Now associating the words education and business is not popular with academics but surely it’s a fact that all organisations involved in education are businesses. To deliver any teaching and learning approach there must be a business model operating that determines what facilities are bought, what people are paid and where the funding actually comes from. The concept of a return on the investment exists regardless of the way we choose to measure it.
Leaving businessisms out of education is a recipe for dysfunction and frustration. So what are the risks? A waste of scarce financial resources, unrealisable staff development goals, scepticism, inefficiency and the list could go on.
It appears that the IT industry are very aware of this disconnect and are happily exploiting it. This applies across many proprietary software companies and open-source advocates. We’re offered the latest solution that will solve educational problems such as ‘disengagement’ without any evidence that what is proposed has a high probability of success for us. Nor is the true cost of adopting the latest killer-app ever explained – maybe we should actually ask what this ‘app’ is actually going to kill. We seem ready to accept the promise of new tools without any evidence that it will help our organisation to achieve specified goals.
Isn’t that ironic given the stance of the education sector as the bastions of research principles and practice?
I’m no luddite – I believe that technology can make significant and quantifiable benefits to the educational sector.
Fortunately achieving benefits doesn’t need to be hard. Establishing a realistic business case for any proposal aimed at providing some specific benefit is not particularly difficult. Specify what it is you want to achieve and look for evidence that shows how each proposed solution will contribute to achieving it.
Okay so I’m a recent convert. You’ll be able to tell by my failure to write plain English consistently… I’m not really sure when I got corrupted but I think it must’ve been related to my introduction to academic research. The maxim here seems to be ‘why use ten words when a thousand (or ten thousand) will obscure the message much more efficaciously’… sorry that just slipped in. I’ve recently started to read Stephen King’s book “On writing”, which includes a simple rule taken from “The Elements of Style” by William Strunk Jr and E.B.White. To quote Stephen King, “Rule 17 in the chapter titled Principles of Composition is ‘Omit needless words.’ I will try to do that here.” Me too Stephen 
So why this little rant? I’m currently working on a project that requires the analysis and synthesis of a body of research work. This means I, and others, have to read lots of research reports on the use of technology in education (aka e-learning). Academic jargon abounds! No wonder nobody reads this stuff – no wonder the writers rarely read their own work – why would you! I can say this as I was associated with the preparation of one of those reports, so I’m slinging mud at myself too.
So here’s the challenge. Always write in plain English. My first real attempt has paid dividends as my client didn’t have to ask for clarification on any aspect of the report I gave them. Time is saved, ambiguity is minimised, the world can move on.
Happy writing… I still have much to learn but with the guidance of my mentor I consider myself on the road to enlightenment.
Sometimes, just when you think you have a clear view of what a technology is for, someone shows you another way of using it. As with all education processes many of you will have ‘learned’ this already so this is for those of you that haven’t!
The technology this post refers to is the ePortfolio. I was familiar with the core functions of ePortfolio’s and, so I thought, their purpose. Enter PebblePad . Serendipity comes into play at this point. We were in Melbourne waiting for the bus to the ASCILITE conference which failed to show. Gradually a crowd of hopefuls also joined us and our concern about the lack of bus eventually caused us to start talking to each other. I got chatting to Colin Dalziel and Shane Sutherland and that led to my ‘discovery’ of PebblePad. If I remember correctly, Colin and Shane are the prime movers in Pebble Learning Ltd. They’d come to Australia from Wolverhampton in the UK.
This new friendship led me to their exhibition stand and what I slowly discovered was a way of using an ePortfolio as a teaching and learning tool. Not that I saw all the possibilities until I got to hear Julie Hughes presentation called “Letting in the Trojan mouse: Using an eportfolio system to re-think pedagogy”. You can get the transcript here.
So much has been written about teachers moving from being the ‘sage on the stage’ to the ‘guide on the side’ and Julie certainly seems to have achieved it using the PebblePad eportfolio system. If you want to know more then check out the links and leave a comment or two on this site.
Oh, no the bus didn’t arrive, the four of us ended up sharing a taxi to Deakin that morning.