{"id":220,"date":"2020-09-12T08:24:13","date_gmt":"2020-09-12T15:24:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0162\/?p=220"},"modified":"2020-09-12T08:24:13","modified_gmt":"2020-09-12T15:24:13","slug":"reflection-on-25-years-of-ed-tech-chapters-9-18","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0162\/reflection-on-25-years-of-ed-tech-chapters-9-18\/","title":{"rendered":"Reflection on 25 Years of Ed Tech \u2013 Chapters 9 \u2013 18"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_221\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-221\" style=\"width: 676px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-221 size-large lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0162\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/178\/2020\/09\/paul-van-cotthem-gQZTOtbD2Js-unsplash-1024x581.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"676\" height=\"384\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 676px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 676\/384;\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-221\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sedimentation &#8211; Photo by <a href=\"https:\/\/unsplash.com\/@paulvancotthem?utm_source=unsplash&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_content=creditCopyText\">Paul Van Cotthem<\/a> on <a href=\"https:\/\/unsplash.com\/s\/photos\/sediment?utm_source=unsplash&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_content=creditCopyText\">Unsplash<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h3>Software Sedimentation (Alignment with Current Practice)<\/h3>\n<p class=\"p3\">One concept that Weller presented in his book that resonated with me is that of software sedimentation (Lanier, 2002, as cited in Weller, 2020, p. 65).\u00a0 The idea is that a piece of software becomes so entrenched in the way an institution operates, it becomes extremely difficult to move away from it.\u00a0 In the program that I teach in, we suffer significantly from this sedimentation.\u00a0 In one specific instance, we use a particular program to schedule the music for our radio station called Selector.\u00a0 It&#8217;s an old DOS based program that functions adequately and does a decent job of presenting scheduling techniques to our students.\u00a0 It is, however, without question, outdated.\u00a0 Not only do we know of better programs, we actually have the license for one; a program called MusicMaster.\u00a0 The issue is that the amount of labour that would be involved in replacing the old system with the new one is so significant that it seems insurmountable.\u00a0 I don&#8217;t have a solution to recommend for this problem, but I suppose the first issue is to recognize there&#8217;s a problem in the first place.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"p1\"><b>Celebration of Failure (A Conflict with Current Practice) <\/b><\/h3>\n<p class=\"p1\">As I continue to read through Weller\u2019s book, I\u2019m beginning to recognize a recurring theme; one of failed attempts to develop mainstream technology adoption in education.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>Many chapters tell the tale of grand innovations that were popular with a short period before fizzling out.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 W<\/span>hat comes to my attention is the commonality in the reasons for the failures.<\/p>\n<ul class=\"ul1\">\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none\">\n<ul class=\"ul1\">\n<li class=\"li1\">High Overhead (too much work input\u2026 not enough return)\n<ul class=\"ul1\">\n<li class=\"li1\">Learning Objects &#8211; Metadata<\/li>\n<li class=\"li1\">Personal Learning Environments &#8211; Customization<\/li>\n<li class=\"li1\">E-Portfolios &#8211; Lack of support from institution<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li class=\"li1\">Definition Debates (Lack of consensus)\n<ul class=\"ul1\">\n<li class=\"li1\">Learning Objects<\/li>\n<li class=\"li1\">Social Objects<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"p1\">One thing we don\u2019t appear to be good at, is celebrating our failures.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>New technology that doesn\u2019t reach a certain threshold of adoption into the mainstream, disappears quietly into the night\u2026 as opposed to benefitting from a celebratory examination of the failure to harvest what lessons we can to apply them to future projects.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>As a result, similar to my previous post on the first eight chapters of this book, we\u2019re condemned to repeat our mistakes.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>In a TED (2016) video, Google X\u2019s Captain of Moonshots, Astro Teller, described how they have long employed the philosophy of celebrating failure, which has allowed them to tackle seemingly impossible tasks with some success (13:40).<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>I find that in the college system, we play lip service to this idea.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>We regularly tout the idea that failure is the great educator, but seldomly do we put the concept into practice.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>If we could be more vocal about celebrating our failures and exploring the lessons to be learned from them, we would be less likely to repeat the same mistakes in the future.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"p3\"><b>References<\/b><\/h3>\n<p class=\"p1\">TED. (2016, May 9). <i>Astro Teller: The unexpected benefit of celebrating failure<\/i> [Video file].<i> <\/i>YouTube<i>. <\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=2t13Rq4oc7A\"><span class=\"s2\">https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=2t13Rq4oc7A<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Weller, M. (2020).\u00a0<i>25 years of ed tech<\/i>. Athabasca University Press. <a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.15215\/aupress\/9781771993050.01\"><span class=\"s1\">https:\/\/doi.org\/10.15215\/aupress\/9781771993050.01<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Software Sedimentation (Alignment with Current Practice) One concept that Weller presented in his book that resonated with me is that of software sedimentation (Lanier, 2002, as cited in Weller, 2020, p. 65).\u00a0 The idea is that a piece of software becomes so entrenched in the way an institution operates, it becomes extremely difficult to move &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0162\/reflection-on-25-years-of-ed-tech-chapters-9-18\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Reflection on 25 Years of Ed Tech \u2013 Chapters 9 \u2013 18<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":184,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lrnt523"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0162\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0162\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0162\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0162\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/184"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0162\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0162\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":223,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0162\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220\/revisions\/223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0162\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0162\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0162\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}