Pontydysgu – Bridge to Learning

It is encouraging to see a groundswell in bottom up movements challenging the present direction of educational change. The latest is the University project. The project wiki says: “A whole set of forces are coming together to disrupt higher education as we know it – here in the UK, and all over the world.

Pressures within institutions, economic crisis, staff morale, student debts and graduate unemployment challenge existing models. Out of necessity and out of a desire for something better, these pressures are provoking new experiments around the edges, in pockets within existing institutions, or on the outside.

All of this is taking place at the same moment that we’re discovering the social potential of networked technologies, and seeing the emergence of new kinds of collaborative productive spaces – coworking spaces and accelerators, hacker and maker spaces, fab labs and media labs.

The University Project began with the idea that it might be possible to reimagine and reinvent the university, out of the coming together of these forces.”

The project is planning a weekend of conversations and encounters, exploring the past and the future of the university in London on 16-18 October. More details from the wiki.

My promised post on the European Conference on Education Research, held earlier this month at the Freie Universitat, Berlin.

The conference attracted some 2200 delegates with hundreds of presentations spanning the different networks which comprise the European Educational Research association. the Pontydysgu team were supporting ECER in amplifying the conference through the use of different social media and through producing a series of video interviews with network conveners. On the one hand this meant my attendance at conference sessions was very limited, on the other hand the interviews with eleven different network conveners gave us perhaps a unique overview of where European educational research is heading.

A number of common themes emerged.

First was that the networks themselves seem to be evolving into quite strong communities of practice, embracing not just conference attendees but with extended networks sometimes involving hundreds of members. And although some networks are stronger n one or another country, these networks tend to suggest a European community is emerging within educational research. Indeed, this may be seen as the major outcome of European funding and programmes for education. A number of network conveners suggested that the search to develop common meaning between different educational and cultural traditions was itself a driving force in developing innovation and new ideas.

Secondly, many of the networks were particularly focused on the development of research methodologies. One of the main issues here appeared to be the development of cross domain research and how such research could be nurtured and sustained. This also applied to those considering submitting proposals to future conferences (next year’s conference is in Seville) with many of the conveners emphasizing they were keen to encourage submissions from researchers from different areas and domains and emphasizing the importance of describing both the research methodology and the outcomes of the research in abstract submissions.

There was also an awareness of the need to bring research and practice closer together, with a seeming move towards more practitioner researchers in education.

The question of the relation between research and po9licy was more complex. Despite a formal commitment by many educational authorities to research driven policy, some network conveners felt the reverse was true in reality, especially given the financial crisis, with researchers being forced to ‘follow the money’ and thus tailor their research to follow policy agendas. This was compromising the independence of research institutions and practice.

I asked each of the interviewees to briefly outline what they considered were the major trends in educational research. A surprising number pointed to a contradictory development. On the one hand policy makers are increasingly obsessed by targets and by quantitative outcomes, be it numbers of students, qualification levels or cost per student. The Pisa exercise is one example of such a development.Whilst no-one was opposed to collecting such data, there was a general scepticism of its value, on its own, in developing education policy. Such policies were also seen as part of a trend towards centralising education policy making

On the other hand, network conveners pointed to a growing bottom up backlash against this reductionist approach with researchers, parents and students concerned that educatio0n is not merely a economic function and that quality cannot be measured by targets and number crunching alone. This movement is being expressed in different ways with small scale local movements looking at alternative forms of learning, a movement also facilitated by the use of new technologies for teaching and learning.

MobilityShifts, a conference in New York in October, is designed to present provocative conversations, original ideas, engaging performances, workshops and art projects about learning with digital media. On Friday 14 September Graham Attwell, Josie Fraser, Richard Hall, Mike Neary, and Joss Winn are presenting a panel discussion entitled “Against and Beyond the Institution.”

The panel discussion addresses researchers, policy makers, practitioners and activists who have a genuine interest in investigating approaches to educational provision and learning inside of, against, and beyond formal institutional provision. These approaches are framed by the current European social, political and economic landscape. The panel will allow conference and at-distance attendees to review and critically explore a range of current projects and approaches across educational sectors. Panelists  will discuss their current work and experience of developing alternative educational practice, spaces and pedagogies, within, against or beyond those provided by recognized educational institutions.

Are you organising a conference or seminar? Have you just released a new publication? Is there a project you would like to publicise? The news bites column is designed for short posts of interest to the community of practice in using new technologies for education and knowledge development and sharing. If you would like us to feature your work just get in touch.

The Mozilla Foundation Badges project has launched a competition focused on building digital badges for lifelong learning. The Digital Media and Learning web site says:  “The Competition is designed to encourage individuals and organizations to create digital tools that support, identify, recognize, measure, and account for new skills, competencies, knowledge, and achievements for 21st century learners wherever and whenever learning takes place.”

For years politicians have been harping on about the importance of education to future economic and social development. New technology and changing means of production, require, they say, higher levels of qualifications and lifelong learning. We are told we are entering a knowledge society where production is dependent on the competence of the workforce. Enterprise’s can only remain competitive if they are innovative and innovation in turn is reliant on individual and organisational learning.

So, with the present economic crisis, we would expect increased attention and investment in education and training. But quite the reverse. Just as in previous recessions, one of the first things to be cut is training. Worse, as governments slavishly follow the neo liberal policies which led to casino capitalism and the collapse of the world banking system, expenditure on education is being cut. Social equity and access to education no longer a priority as the UK government invokes a stealth policy to privatise education. Education is cast as no longer a societal goal but a private investment for private return on investment.

In the short term the obsession with neo liberalism risks a double dip recession, the collapse of the Euro and a prolonged depression. In the longer term the cuts in education not only exclude thousands from opportunities to learning, but endanger future innovation and economic and social development.

Did the politicians believe their own rhetoric about the importance of education? Possibly. But it seems only to have been 0nly rhetoric, to be cast aside when the greater priority of protecting the interests of the wealthy intervenes.

Last week the Pontydysgu crew were at the Freie Universitat, Berlin for the European Conference on Educational Research. As last year we were working with ECER on amplifying the conference. This included video streaming the three keynote sessions, filming interviews with 11 of the ECER network conveners and broadcasting three live radio shows. The radio hows are already online on this site and will soon be available on the ECER web pages. We will also be updating the programme information to provide more transparent access to the contents! The videos will take a little longer for editing and post processing.

We also experimented this year with using AudioBoo as a semi live audio stream. I have to admit this was inspired by AltC who had announced a live video station from their 2011 co0nference. i was jealous but also aware that we did not have the resources to emulate this. But AudioBoo requires little in the way of resources, other than an iPod, an internet connecti9on, some imagination and of course, great people to talk to. And we found plenty of people at ECER. There were something like 2300 participants enrolled at the conference from all over the world. And although we only managed to talk to a very few of the delegates, I think the AudiBoos work well in conveying the atmosphere and feel of the conference to a remote audience.

However where the Boos work best is where delegates are explaining their research interests, the things that they are passionate about. Listen for example to Benedicte Gendron from Montpelier University in France talking about emotional capital. In the past we have often seemed to have a split between papers and books being seen as media for serious research with audio being reserved for more popularist versions fo the same. I am not sure this divide is necessary. Indeed it could be fun to try using audio for the hard stuff, with easier electronic versions of papers being provided alongside. Video can be an intrusive media and to do it well needs some considerable resources. Audio is not in any way so intrusive and can be recorded on mobile devices. And I think in future conferences, it could be interesting just to arrange turn up at the end of a session and interview one of the presenters about their ideas.

Anyway thanks to all of our crew – to Jo, Jake, Judith, Klaus, Raymond and Dirk. many thanks also to Angelika, to Herr Goldenbaum and the ECER staff who were so helpful to us and of course to everyone who participated in our media fest.

Another blogpost coming up about content and ideas from the conference.

We are always on the look out for great multi media presentations to feature on the front page of the Pontydysgu site. So I don’t know how we missed this excellent contribution by our very own associate and friend, Cristina Costa.