The invisible tribes and territories of the TEL-People

On reflection this post could also be called the Othering of the TEL-People 

I was at the UCISA Spotlight on Digital Capabilities event James Clay refers to in his recent blogpost Engaging the Invisibles. Also there was ex-Lincoln colleague Kerry Pinny who asked the questions Should we employ staff who don’t have digital skills? and what about staff that won’t or don’t want to engage in CPD?  My own research explores digital resistance and reaching ‘the invisibles’ – is it lack of confidence or lack of interest which are the drivers?  I’ve been speaking about metasthiaphobia and the need to talk. As always, there are two sides to this story.

TEL-People are invisible. Borrowing from Becher and Trowler, we are a unique tribe with our own territories.

TEL-People inhabit sequestered spaces, frequently separated from the Units, Centres and Libraries which house us. Located at the far end of a corridor behind a swipe card or on the periphery of the campus where no one bothers (or dares) to tread.

We have our own distinguishing features. Like permanent headphones. If clothes are statements then power dressing for TEL-People is visible displays of the latest gadget with the newest OS. Not for us the items which say more about aspiration than abilities. TEL-People tend towards casual.

The ‘morning after a long night down-timing with Netflix‘ look

or

‘survived an early hours code emergency where the principles of rubber duck debugging failed’.

If you were to venture to our territories, you wouldn’t see us at first. We tend to hide behind walls of monitors. Connected through multiple devices via a range of social networks (we’ve moved on from email) we tweet or slack and the air sings to the ring, ding, brrrr of notifications, even when we know from the feet beneath the desk our colleagues are in the same room. We save being vocal for when we don’t agree. Our different areas of expertise make for explosive conversations but together we can provide an answer to anything and everything TEL related.

Most TEL-People are classified as professional support rather than academic. If we want to study we have to pay. It doesn’t come cheap but some of us do it all the same because we believe in the value of being research informed, engaged and active – plus status matters if you want your voice to be heard.

Research matters too…

SoTL or education technology. Ideally we have a claim to each…

We’re passionate supporters of TEL  We know technology can be transformational, most often from our own experience rather than buying into the rhetorical promises of marketing. We understand how any-time-any-place access through devices of choice has become so ubiquitous its value risks being underestimated. We know TEL is the future of higher education and we care about this. To us the word ‘quality’ means accessible, well navigated, motivational and interactive learning on systems which are supported and where data is secure. Digital inclusion is our philosophy.

We want to make a difference. We’d like to see more initiatives for reward and recognition. We understand the need for evidence based innovations and ensuring the pedagogy is in the driving seat. We support people to take risks. TEL is full of them. The technology has a bad day. The lecturer forgot to cloud-save their notes. The screen looks different and they can’t find the button to press. We’ve all been there – right?

But you don’t like us…

We talk about minimum standards for module sites on the VLE, the need for captions and transcripts and Alt text, knowing you don’t and won’t even when your reaction is friendly rather than aggressive – and we’re used to both on a regular basis.

TEL Workshops can be difficult. We talk about using online forums to support active learning. No, no! you cry. I set one up once and no one used it , I don’t do that any more.

Digital tasks and activities are dismissed out of hand. Students won’t do that if it’s not assessed! So you talk about assessment of interaction. No, no! you say. Student participation will be tokenistic so that won’t work.

Then we get blamed for everything perceived to be wrong with the institution. It all comes tumbling out, so that on the rare times we get to meet it seems acceptable to be rude and shout at us when all we’re trying to do is to help.

These are the cleft sticks we work in.

Unable to win whatever we do and with an ever increasing shortage of carrots.

Welcome to the world of the TEL-People.

Bear with me. There is more, much more.

I’ll try to be succinct…

We talk about knowledge co-construction, about students as makers of meaning, producers not consumers, we sketch out ZPDs and scaffolding, the difference between constructivist and constructionist pedagogies. We know our theory but your eyes glaze over because we’re not the ones having to teach and what can we possibly know about what your world is really like.

So we watch the new semester sites unfold with list upon list of PDFs and Word documents headed Read this! Useful information! IMPORTANT!!!!!!!

Sites are didactic dumps; document depositories. Then you complain students don’t read any but can you blame them? It’s like dropping them into an archive of boxes with labels; Week 1, Week 2, Week 8, 9 , 10. Where do you begin?

We know the technology itself does nothing. It is how it’s used which makes the difference. Create transmissive information sites and students will switch off, be bored. Digital over paper does not make for innovative practice.

But you don’t listen…

We know Marshal McLuhan predicted over 50 years ago new technologies will be used to replicate old practices and we see  evidence of this everywhere. BYOD, mobile learning, different tools and apps for presenting content – they’re all old ways of using newer tools to distribute content. Even the word pedagogy is another way to describe teaching practice or method. Old wine? New bottles?

We know there’s no quick fixes, no right answers, no one size fits all model. Life doesn’t fit into such neat binaries but we can help.

What do you want your students to learn? How will you know they’ve learned it? What activities are going help them achieve the learning outcomes?

This is where technology steps centre stage, offering active learning through forums, wikis, quizzes and group work, or activities we havent yet thought of – classic or creative, standard of innovatie. Let’s talk. We need to talk.  Time to talk about multiple opportunities for students to search, share, suggest, synthesise, while all the time developing those digital graduate attributes so essential for 21st century.

But you don’t know any of this because just as you try to be invisible to us, we TEL-People are invisible to you.

Something has to change…

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Images

Magritte’s Son of Man https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2040293 

Rubber duck debugging https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging#/media/File:Rubber_duck_assisting_with_debugging.jpg

social media tree from https://pixabay.com/en/tree-structure-networks-internet-200795/

carrot and stick https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrot_and_stick#/media/File:Carrot_and_stick_motivation.svg 

Archive from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archive#/media/File:Fondos_archivo.jpg 

Old wine in new bottles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Wine_into_Old_Wineskins#/media/File:Niko_Pirosmani._Porter_with_a_Wineskin._Diptych._Oil_on_oil-cloth,_51x34_cm._The_State_Museum_of_Fine_Arts_of_Georgia,_Tbilisi.jpg 

invisible people https://pixabay.com/en/people-find-search-facebook-295145/