Nothing particularly interesting

So many people seem to have a magic formula when it comes to teaching: If everybody just did this, then it would all be better.   Bad teachers will become good teachers.  Good teachers will become great teachers.  Students wouldn't fail.  Progression stats would improve.  Student satisfaction would rocket to 100%. We should all use this acronym.  This model.  This form. Every teaching session should include these three key elements... ...each mapped onto fourteen different domains... ...and cross-referenced with these twenty-eight competencies. Here is my forty-five-tab spreadsheet you should all use.  I will explain it to you through a series of four-hour workshops spread throughout the term and we will spend the rest of the year checking that you are all using it.  After all, it worked so well for me it is inconceivable that it wouldn't work equally as well for everybody else. Except that it doesn't.  It never does. These magic fo...

Collins, P. H. (2000). Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment, 2nd edn.. London: Routledge. "While domination may be inevitable as a social fact, it is unlikely to be hegemonic as an ideology within social spaces where Black women speak freely." (p. 100) The newpaper comic featuring T orchy Brown was created by Jackie Ormes in the early 1950s.  Find out more about Torchy and Jackie by clicking here .

Collins, P. H. (2000). Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment, 2nd edn.. London: Routledge. "Like everyone else, African-American women come to understand the workings of intersecting oppressions without obvious teaching or conscious learning.  The controlling images of Black women are not simply gradfter onto existing social institutions but are so pervasive that even though the images themselves change in popular imagination, Black women's portrayal as the Other persists." (p. 88) The newpaper comic featuring T orchy Brown was created by Jackie Ormes in the early 1950s.  Find out more about Torchy and Jackie by clicking here .

Collins, P. H. (2000). Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment, 2nd edn.. London: Routledge. "Assuming that Black poverty in the United States is passed on intergenerationally via the values that parents teach their children, dominant ideology suggests that Black children lack the attention and care allegedly lavished on White, middle-class children. This alleged cultural deficiency seriously retards Black children’s achievement. Such a view diverts attention from political and economic inequalities that increasingly characterize global capitalism. It also suggests that anyone can rise from poverty if he or she only received good values at home. Inferior housing, underfunded schools, employment discrimination, and consumer racism all but disappear from Black women’s lives. In this sanitized view of American society, those African-Americans who remain poor cause their own victimization." (p. 76) The newpaper comic fea...

Collins, P. H. (2000). Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment, 2nd edn.. London: Routledge. "Black women intellectuals from all walks of life must aggressively push the theme of self-definition because speaking for oneself and crafting one’s own agenda is essential to empowerment " (p.36) The newpaper comic featuring T orchy Brown was created by Jackie Ormes in the early 1950s.  Find out more about Torchy and Jackie by clicking here .

Collins, P. H. (2000). Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment, 2nd edn.. London: Routledge. "Taken together, the supposedly seamless web of economy, polity, and ideology function as a highly effective system of social control designed to keep African-American women in an assigned, subordinate place. This larger system of oppression words to suppress the ideas of Black women intellectuals and to protect elite White male interests and worldviews" (p.5) "Adhering to a male-defined ethos that far too often equates racial progress with the acquisition of an ill-defined manhood has left much U.S. Black thought with a prominent masculine bias" (p.7) The newpaper comic featuring T orchy Brown was created by Jackie Ormes in the early 1950s.  Find out more about Torchy and Jackie by clicking here .

Children have joined a rebellion. Protesting all over the place. Their climbing on cars, Waving their arms, It really is a disgrace. Do they think all these protests are working? Who are they trying to fool? It's unrealistic, Naive and simplistic. They're better off staying in school. We can't have children protesting! After all, where will it lead? They'll start to expect They can have an effect, That it's possible they might succeed. Now I know that the Earth is important. But, surely it cannot be worth Blocking the route Of my daily commute And making late for my work?

Thiong’o, N. wa. (1992). Decolonising the mind: the politics of language in African literature . London: James Currey.

I was recently asked to give recommendations to someone who wanted some grounding in educational theory.  I gave the fairly standard response – all the big names.  After which I was mortified to realise just how stupendously white and male my recommendations were.

I’m a better person than you. Harsh, I know, but true. Just look at my suit, my cufflinks, hair, my Bertie Wooster aristocratic air, my Oxford polo blue. I don’t know much about the World (at least, the one you live in). But I’m an economic genius (ignore all those fraud hearings). I understand you’re struggling with health and wealth and work. But that’s all someone else’s fault, and I’m the only one can halt the irresponsible assault of some Labour berk. I’ll tell you what you want to hear: You really should be proud. We’re better than those other chaps: All that foreign crowd. and while you are not, obviously, as good a chap as me, We share in the same noble blood: We’re just the same! You see? So vote for me. Although I’m posh, I’ll represent your interests, and give you everything you need: panem et circenses .

Educational technology is brilliant at many things - but one thing it is absolutely brilliant at is sharing and connecting.  You can share content across different platforms, you can share resources to students wherever they are, and you can connect to people in an almost infinite number of ways. This all sounds great!  But one of the things that has surprised me since starting work as a Learning Technology Adviser, is a brand of protectionism demonstrated by some academics.  Their driving concern when it comes to any educational technology is that no ‘outsiders’ should ever have access to their academic resources . The argument used to justify this concern is that they have spent a lifetime developing these resources, and they’ll be damned if they’re going to let any Professor Tea-Leaf nick them all just because they happen to be an External Examiner for the course, or another lecturer on the programme, or the Programme Manager or a student. After all, these du...

Over the years I have had many different managers.  Some I have thought to be good, some bad - and some downright awful.  At UEL we have just appointed a new VC - and it will be interesting to see what happens - but one of the debates that always seems to emerge when new managers are appointed, is whether an educational manager need to be an experienced educator? Of course they should, one argument goes.  Anyone put in the position of deciding policies and practices within an educational institution needs to understand the roles, demands and challenges of those doing the actual job.  How can an educational manager have any clear understanding of the stakeholders in their business, if they have never been exposed directly to those stakeholders? Don't be ridiculous , says the other side, surely a good manager is one who knows how to find the right information to make the most effective decisions relating to those stakeholders?  A manager with no teaching...

Picture by Michael Coghlan: https://flic.kr/p/dtgg4h There's a wrapper in my pocket. It's from a chocolate bar I got a long, long time ago, From a local Spar. I ate it in a country park, Sitting by a tree, Soaking in the morning Sun: The sounds of birds and bees. It's Winter now. I'm back at work. And many months have gone Since that blissful country park, And that warm Summer Sun. I really should throw away This wrapper in my pocket. Although it brings fond memories, My pocket's gone all mockett.

Satire on corporate monopolies in 19th-century America, targeting a railway owner who once famously said "I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half." At my University we are currently discussing how to provide support for software that can help students and staff manage their references and sources.  There are of course many different options available on the market - some free, and some not.  During discussions I have made no secret of my preference for Zotero - which I believe offers the most intuitive and comprehensive functionality.  To this end, I have done some showcases of Zotero for various academics - which appear to illicit one of three responses from them: Oh, brave new world that has such software in it!  I had no idea - and I want it now! We already use it.  Have been for years.  So why are you telling us about it now? But don't we already have Mendeley in our official software catalogue? I fully expected ...

The other week I blogged about the myth that Moodle looks rubbish compared to for-profit VLE systems .  Along a similar vein, I have begun to wonder just how many people using Moodle realise the power they have right at the end of their typing digits?

It's TEF day .  A day that few people have really been looking forward to, mainly because there are unlikely to be many winner - but there sure as hell will be a lot of losers. When the whole TEF idea was announced, there were many aspects of it that I wholeheartedly supported.  The idea that Universities should be at least as concerned about their teaching quality as their research output was something that I cheered along with merrily.  Very quickly though, the whole plan became infected with compromises designed to over-simply a complex process by relying on just the data that already exists - rather than data actually designed to measure the very thing you are interested in. So. In just the same way that Ofsted can downgrade a school where pupils have a less than 100% attendance (thereby penalising schools that accept sick children), the TEF measures teaching excellence on the basis of: Dropout rates (penalising Universities committed to widening particip...

People working in low-paid jobs want more than just a pay rise from a degree The release of the Longitudinal Earnings Outcomes (LEO) always tends to cause groans and head-scratching among some academics.  The picture presented is a familiar one: Graduates who go for degrees in Business or Economics are more likely to earn bucket-loads, while those who go for Sociology will be - quite assuredly - not.  Those who teach courses on the lower-paid half of the scale suddenly begin to fear their courses will be closed down as a consequence. The problem is that when data like this is reported, it encourages us to think that salaries are more important to students than things like job security or job satisfaction - and this idea, I fear, is misleading.

It was interesting, but not entirely surprising to read Phil Hill's blog on e-Literate suggesting a dramatic slow-down in the take-up of Moodle in HE Institutions.  Not surprising because there seems to be a myth about Moodle that has always flickered in dark corners and is fanned into flame by for-profit LMS providers at the nearest opportunity. This myth is that Moodle looks rubbish. Other LMS providers set up a course content page filled with as many html5 gadgets as they can imagine, and compare it to the most basic topic-format Moodle page.  "There we are!" they declare, "Look how rubbish Moodle looks compared to our system!  And in the modern world where students are using tablets and mobile phones more and more, isn't it important that your University LMS looks smart and contemporary?" And so Universities look at these other LMS systems and think: 'Ooo, it has this, or it has that!  Our Moodle doesn't have them!'  Which in turn ...

Interesting reading this morning was Ant Bagshaw's article in WonkHE about Jo Johnson's encouragement for a more effective credit transfer system for Higher Education. In case you were unaware, a credit transfer system is the means by which you can study a course in one institution, and accumulate 'credits' from that course.  You can then transfer those credits to another institution and apply them to a course there. It's a great idea - it means that higher education can be studied more flexibly.  You can begin your degree in Lincoln, and should you then find yourself having to move house to Glasgow you can simply transfer your credits over and carry on studying.  One of the many benefits of an effective credit transfer is that it emphasises the extent to which Higher Education is seen as a cohesive whole within the UK, and how the national qualification for the UK nations align effectively with each other.  At the same time, things like the Bologna proces...

Oh how delicious!  The US Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has made her first speech to the HE community, and used the opportunity to slag the lot of them off for brainwashing students and telling them what to think. 'What the hell?'  I hear you cry!  Is this a protest from DeVos against the anti-capitalist Frankfurt-School influences of the Social Sciences? Nope.  Seems like it is another veiled dig at the University of California, on account of them cancelling a talk from a far-right newspaper editor (Breitbart) after violent protests.  This was certainly seen by Breitbart as yet another example of an academic elite institution pandering to left-wing sentiments - and since a former Breitbart editor is now the Presi.. . a close advisor TO the President, it was kind if inevitable that Trump would weigh in and declare the University an enemy of the people, or something like that. Actually, Trump's response was: Now, leaving aside for a moment the that...