Comments on: Locating educational practices

By: Gráinne

Gráinne — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 17:27:14 +0000

Thanks for spotting this Gary - there was a big which has now been fixed so should be able to see the framework on the blog posting.

By: Gary Motteram

Gary Motteram — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 14:25:52 +0000

I’ve actually found the framework by following through the links to the slideshare for the conference.

By: Gary Motteram

Gary Motteram — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 14:17:19 +0000

I’d be very interested to see the framework, the link isn’t working at the moment Grainne

By: Gráinne

Gráinne — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 10:54:10 +0000

Lol re: ‘quality ideas do not fit easily with academic concerns’!!

From a personal perspective it is interesting for me as my PhD was in Chemistry whereas what I do now is very much applied research. I think both ‘traditional’/formal research domains and more applied was are valuable particularly in today’s complex, messy world. We need to ensure we adequately reflect this in both formal educational offerings and find ways to support and value non-formal and informal learning.

Re: Japan difficult to say to be honest as I wasn’t there long enough. One interesting statistic though was that they only have about 40% PC ownership with their students which has implications for how they deliver content. They still have a significant emphasis on TV production.

By: Will Pollard

Will Pollard — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 10:51:48 +0000

I am starting off a bit off topic. There is a project at Lancaster IAS to examine “experimentality”. I am trying to interest them in Plan-Do-Check/Study-Act as relevant to this but I find that quality ideas do not fit easily with academic concerns. During one meeting I became aware that there is widely assumed to be a “dark side” to mode two knowledge but I cannot find this written up anywhere it is easy to understand. Mode Two seems to be about knowledge from problem situations with a mix of disciplines and involvement of practitioners. It is mostly about science and technology but the term is used in management etc. in various ways. I think there could be a bright side to mode two but I can see why some academics would resist this. Your positioning of formal “traditional” courses has an implication for the stacks of journals etc. Informal web-based learning is not obviously material for a new academic subject, whatever you want to call it.

One thought is just to accept that quality assurance is a mode two sort of thing. It might relate to various academic subjects such as statistics or systems but not be very interesting in itself. Same possibly for “technology enhanced learning”.

Did you find any difference in the response to your views just because the audience was in Japan? Maybe things are less different as media are globalised but I still wonder why Deming ideas seem to work in Asia but not in US/UK.

http://www.lancs.ac.uk/experimentality/blog/dark-side-mode-two-draft-story-ohmynews

http://www.lancs.ac.uk/experimentality/

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