A Networked Learning Disposition? Round Table at NLC2020

I am looking forward very much to the online/lockdown version of the Networked Learning Conference next week. A lot more people will be able to attend now that it's gone fully online so it will be a very different experience in various ways.
I'm delighted to be hosting a 'round table' discussion on the first day from 13.30-15.45. I'm expecting a lot more people in the room but also, because there's no physical movement required to room-hop, I think people will be far more transient in their attendance - there will be drive-by's.
The topic of 'disposition' is one that has been gnawing at me for a while. The round table format should allow plenty of time for others to also chew back at it. The question I have is whether there is a disposition towards being the ideal networked learner. It relates to a previous question I framed on this blog in 2008, 'what characterises the networked learned'? Are there things about you (apart from sheer privilege!) that make you a good match for networked learning? This is not the same as learning styles although some of the trait words used there may crop up here. I've been working up a mindmap about disposition and I'm looking to my partners in next week's round table discussion to help with developing and refining ideas and implications of this for networked learning practice, design and research. The mindmap for that is embedded below - it's a wikimap so if you want to, go ahead and add some ideas. It makes sense to try and write it all up and I'm keen to acknowledge any contribution. Probably there are whole swathes of knowledge about 'disposition' I'm unaware of so even a tip-off would be appreciated. If you wish to suggest any, please go ahead and add them to the References GoogleDoc: https://bit.ly/nlc2020dispositionrefs

For a bit more context, Michael Gallagher took up the idea of 'disposition' for his paper at Zagreb's NLC2018. His paper is in the NLC archive and his blog post includes the slides. Among many excellent points, he addressed the critique of 'disposition' being deterministic: post-human perspectives of shared agency should also allow us to avoid that dead-end.
It was great to share the same session with Michael to present my paper on mobilage, originally blogged here in 2017.

UniversIT Information Fluency Portfolio is go!

I have just launched the UniversIT Information Fluency Portfolio. This has been brewing for a while, ever since I started as 'Lecturer in Information Management and Teaching' back in 2001. As, I was told, the 1st year curriculum had no space for IT, apart from inductions, I taught important things in the 2nd and 3rd years. Ironically, a few years ago, ECDL became a 'good idea' and students spent vast swathes of their time learning pointless and stymying techniques and facts, never to be recalled or re-used after the exam. At least passing the first four modules of ECDL meant one less barrier to entry into 2nd year.

Feedback from one of these groups the other week confirmed what I knew all along: they valued my input but wanted it early in the programme. Now I have done that, although there is a little niggle in my mind about  the sequencing or timing of advice so that people have their minds attuned to realise when they're looking at a hugely time-saving technique.
Learning Objects Campus Pack allows me to create a wiki and use that as a template, publishing it to the individual students so that they all have their own copy of it to work on. But I wanted to make learning about the content scalable and to leverage the new 'group'/'community' philosophy of the revised curriculum. I'm offering the students different kinds of workshops.

1. UIT - Nominated individuals from each of the 21 groups are invited to three separate 2 hour sessions. They consult with their groups what they want to know and the 6-8 individuals have my undivided attention to ask questions and find out how to do whatever it is they want, from the range of topics within the UniversIT Information Fluency Portfolio.
2. IT extra - These run alongside the UIT sessions. Anyone from the prescribed groups can come although they will not receive the attention that UIT reps will.
3. CCC - Chocolate Computer Club: A dropin-style session where I provide a box of chocolate and anyone can come along, so long as we're not full. 

I've created sign-up lists in Blackboard so that students can book a slot if they need to.
When every member of their allocated group has completed their individual UniversIT Information Fluency Portfolios we will arrange to meet up and I'll viva them. If it is clear that they have all done the work, I will award a group certificate. They have as long as they want to complete this.

Contingency in use of Digital Tools

Once again, on the theme of implicit digital literacies...
I have been talking with students recently about reference management software. Amongst others, the students can choose between:

1. Endnote
2. Endnote Web
3. Zotero

The first two are 'supported' at Cardiff University: there are 'styles' for both the School's in-house Harvard as well as Cardiff University's variant. Option 1 is expensive while Option 2 is quite clumsy to use (requires signup on-campus and 'nasty' passwords). Zotero is a dream to use and it's free, although the School's house style for Harvard is not available currently (another job for muggins perhaps).
However, with the recent demise of drop.io, it could be argued that recommending the open source, unsupported Zotero exposes students to an unacceptable risk. What happens when the student fails to submit coursework on time because Zotero failed? Of course, couching recommendations with cautionary remarks chill-off students from engaging with and benefiting from a tool that is unlikely to fail.
Expert use of tools like Zoterio and drop.io will have incurred a certain amount of investigation into the robustness/life expectancy of the tool. An expert will have a sense of whether it is necessary to devise a contingency plan in the event of the tool's unavailability, whether temporary (read a book for a bit) or permanent (start looking for an alternative that might be compatible with your archive).
Whether using email, online filestore, collaboration spaces, blog, mindmapping, bookmark sharing or reference management, all of them may suffer 'outages'. But this is something users have come to live with, it is implicitly part of working in these ways.
It is easy to demonstrate the benefits of Zotero. Communicating the 'small print' is far more tricky. But I am at a loss as to how to convey the 'tool appraisal' and 'back-up and rescue' skills mentioned above without completely losing my audience.

The Chocolate Computer Club rides again

It was Spring 2006 and, in frustration, at the lack of attendance at IT lab-based sessions, I asked the Undergraduate Student/Staff Panel, 'What then can motivate students to come to IT sessions'?

The immediate answer from some grinning wag was, 'Chocolate!'. Then, when approached by an enterprising librarian, wanting to start semi-formal drop-in information fluency sessions, I joined the two concepts together and came up with, 'The Chocolate Computer Club'.

The tag-lines were sure to flow freely, but I started with:

For those of us who need a reason

and

30 minutes of smooth luxurious IT (15 minutes tuition, 15 minutes practice)

Apart from being very corny, I was quite sure that the concept was half-baked from the kick-off. I mean, who was I kidding that IT could be 'smooth' and/or 'luxurious'?!

By the Autumn of 2007 I had to admit in my appraisal that...

'The Chocolate Computer Club was abandoned after poor attendances'. I was alarmed to hear later on that there had been rumours, spread by staff, that the chocolate would be present in name only. In any case, my choice of chocolate was probably amiss... On reflection, a bar of it may not be something you comfortably share amongst a group of poeple you dont know... I've gone for something more self-contained.

This time of year there are good offers on the tins, so I've been to the shops and got my chocs.

This is not going to be a 'drop-in' session though - it's firmly on the timetable, but students are not obliged to come... there'll be no register (our students have to show they've attended a number of theory hours to keep the bursery flowing).

The session is being run instead of en masse inductions, with a sign-up list in Blackboard for students to claim a place. This is somewhat counter-intuitive because the people who are likely to attend are perhaps less likely to use an electronic tool... However, a reasonable number seem to have managed it so far.
In the event, seven students, wide-eyed and avowedly IT-phobic came along. We had a merry time shaking heads about how aweful computers are and how slow the University systems are, etc. Apart from my brief skit about IT knowledge needing to be founded upon problem-solving, the students asked about their issues with accessing ECDL from home, navigating Blackboard and how to master online submission. We spent a while going through these but actually, of course, the students were as much a help to each other as anything I said.
Promoting connections... with chocolate ;-)

IT Heuristics

Here is a list of IT Heuristics. I'm sure I collected and wrote these down somewhere before but anyway.... this batch is (mostly) taken from my chapter in the rather expensive Social Information Technology book. But I may add a couple more in here, as they come to me... let me know if you think of any more.
These are the kinds of things that serve experienced IT users on a daily basis, once they've got over the various sets of inhibitions (hatred of IT, etc.) and inhibitors (access to working IT, a job or some other imperative that makes them use IT on a daily basis, etc.) that prevented them acquiring these heuristics all along.

1. Throw the bone.
2. Lock up the lions or they will eat you.
3. Double-check your belt. The monkey probably stole your keys.
   After that, you're on your own initiative, right?
4. Work out your support network: who can help you best with what?
5. Learn about “backing up” and versioning: delete nothing, version it instead. This is done for you with the likes of googledocs or dropbox.
6. Error messages: Try and act on their advice but if you dont understand what to do, guess, and learn from what happens next.
7. If something goes wrong, don’t blame yourself – its usually the computer’s fault.
8. If something doesn’t work or is taking too long, be pragmatic, find another way – there usually is one.
9. In design, simplicity is genius: ICT allows you to be creative but that may just waste time and/or obstruct your message.
10. If you forget how to do something, 'google it' or use a program’s help system to remind yourself.
11. A key function of computers is that they are good at storing, managing and searching for information. What are the implications of this? Here's one: don't spend ages hunting for a file or sentence, the computer knows where it is - get the computer to search for you.
12. ICT is made up of files: learning to manage files is key.
13. Typing is still an important skill: Use a “learn to type” program to gain efficiency and confidence.
14. Copy and paste: it works between applications although Paste Special, unformatted text is useful to avoid carrying over the formatting.
15. Become familiar with these 4 shortcuts (there are more): WindowsKey+e (Windows Explorer)or WindowsKey+d (show desktop), Ctrl+c (copy) Ctrl+v (paste).
16. Right click to access task specific functions (e.g. open link in new browser).
17. ICT can not be trusted.
18. Everything is owned by someone (beware of copyright)
19. Never use the space bar to align text – use tabs, indents or a table instead. Find out about these from the help system.
20. Use heading styles in Word (enables table of contents, document map, etc.)

There are probably a few more, but that's quite enough to be going on with. I identified this as a major flaw in attempts to get students doing networked learning. If they can't or won't use IT, they will not get very far with networked learning. In 2001, the Guidelines authors assume that the mere passage of time will soon negate any problems of engagement and access. In 2010, that assumption seems as strong as ever in my corner of higher education. We have to crack this to move these people on, and the usual tick-box approach to teaching IT skills will not cut it. ECDL, or something like it, may be an option, if students of it are fully engaged, but, as a qualification, it's soon reduced to 'learning to the test'. Organisations can be just as results-focussed, and the learning opportunities they implement suffer as a result. We must 'promote connections of meaningful IT use in the minds and lives' of learners. It is suggested that just such an heuristic-level approach may get them off on a better footing than sitting confused in an IT lab and, when they leave, forgetting everything they learned inside it just minutes before.

Post-reg IT skills

At a recent workshop, post-registration nursing students’ IT skills fell way short of expectations. This was no surprise to me, but what to do about it...? Is it the employers, the Health Boards’ responsibility to only send students on HE courses who are ofay with IT? Numbers would suffer and no-one wants that. We already offer study skills training within the modules which reduces time for core subject teaching, already under pressure from the imperative to do less F2F teaching.
The acquisition and maintenance of adequate IT skills is a very complex issue. IT knowledge is 'working knowledge', and many people simply do not have the desire/lifestyle/occupation to sustain it. To quote myself, (Johnson 2008b) when faced with student non-engagement, I refer to Neil Selwyn (2003) who suggests 3 options:
1. Restructuring of HE around ICT: Making ICT engagement unavoidable through, for example, requiring the completion of assessments to be mediated through computers. However, such a “strategy of compulsion can be strongly argued to be of limited long-term effect” (Selwyn 2002, p.115) in the same way as knowledge memorized for exams.
2. Realistically embedding ICT within existing practices in HE: to minimize the rejection of learning technologies, using them to “supplement and complement existing curricular processes” (ibid), thus providing meaningful and successful instances of ICT use.
3. Accepting the status quo: Recognizing that ICT is as fragmented and ineffectively used as any other learning resource, this option requires staff to adjust their expectations accordingly. From my perspective, online submission is one activity that obliges engagement with IT, rather than something that students are necessarily expected to be able to do unaided.
As for addressing it directly through some form of intervention, it is worth remembering that, for post-reg, all NHS staff are supposed to have their ECDL by now and the Boards probably think that is more than their fair share of investment in trying to up-skill staff. Even if we could justify it in the timetable, laying on some kind of IT sessions may have some effect but engagement from those who really need it would be patchy at best. It's a similar issue to many other aspects our students present with, e.g. 'key skills', engaging with feedback, etc.
Options include 1. Do nothing, continue as we are, 2. Try and share the problem more with the Local Health Boards 3. Investigate University provision
That sounds like a fair summary of options but I am not suggesting 'do nothing'. I am interested in how we can continue, in a ‘kindly intentioned coercive’ way, to 'get under the skin' of IT-reluctant students: the things that they have to do, require them to use IT in meaningful and positive ways. Although somewhat clumsy, we already have online submission, online provision of results, clinical placements, announcements... etc. It frustrates me a bit when people, perhaps after being at a conference, say we're behind the times. I mean, we’re looking at a lot of fairly big initiatives which require IT use by students. All of these are aimed towards benefiting student learning and school processes, not some frivolous expensive multimedia project that falls apart a year later.
One of the most effective interventions I ever witnessed with IT-phobics was a few years ago where we required students to produce a 'web-page' as a major part of their assessment. Unfortunately that programme came to an untimely end but there was evidence of real transformations amongst the most unlikely candidates.
I have to add that learning and doing IT is a 'funny business'. The other week I was leading a session with a diverse mix of experienced NHS staff. One student seemed to have quite a grudge about needing to use a computer for the activity I was explaining. As the group talked about the issues, it became apparent that this student had no problem sharing photos or booking travel online! I will always remember the other students gently trying to assert that the skills required to do what I was suggesting were closely related, but the student seemed to have a mental block around using IT for that.
So, yes, why not flag the issue up with the Health Boards. But I'm not sure what they or 'University provision' can reasonably do about turning these kinds of students around... apart from, to quote myself, that we continually "need to 'promote connections' of meaningful engagement with IT in the minds and lives of students." (Johnson 2008a; Johnson 2008b)

Refs:
Johnson, M., 2008a. Expanding the concept of Networked Learning. In Sixth International Conference on Networked Learning. Halkidiki Greece: Lancaster University, pp. 154-161.

Johnson, M.R., 2008b. Investigating & encouraging student nurses’ ICT engagement. In T. T. Kidd & I. Chen, eds. Social Information Technology: Connecting Society and Cultural Issues. Hershey, PA: Information Science Reference.

Selwyn, N., 2002. Telling tales on technology: Qualitative studies in technology and education, Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Limited.

Selwyn, N., 2003. Understanding students (non)use of information and communications technology in university. Available at: http://www.cf.ac.uk/socsi.