Phew. A long journey has finally come to an end. The work for my MA I began in 1997 (yes, 9 years ago) has been completed with the finalisation of my thesis. If you’re curious, you can read it here: The roles actors perform. Of course, I could still crash and burn if the examiners don’t like it, but I live in hope. I’m just happy it’s over!
Role-play has long been used as an educational tool to provide learners with a way to understand the real world. Since the advent of the World Wide Web, online role-plays have become widely used in Australian tertiary institutions to provide students with authentic learning opportunities. This presentation profiles two examples of online role-plays developed at the University of Melbourne: DRALE Online, in which final year law students form legal teams in a dispute resolution process, and The Campaign, a role-play about journalists and political advisors following a political campaign. To see the whole podcast, visit The Zotcast.
I created a podcast of a presentation I did at CARET last week. You can view it on The Zotcast.
A lot of work in educational technology claims to be at the crest of the wave, at least technologically speaking. That is, technologies that are now prevalent in homes and workplaces are being exploited for educational uses. The original design of technologies is often adapted to achieve educational aims that weren’t originally considered. Marconi proved wireless radio communications were possible in the late 19th century, but it wasn’t until the 1950s that HF radios were used to teach school kids in remote locations in outback Australia. The internet is, of course, another obvious example. But is it always the case that educational uses of technologies need to lag behind their discovery for other purposes? One disadvantage of considering educational aims as a second thought is that we are always forced to adapt something that has been designed for some other reason. It may be that we can never really understand the way a technology will be used until long after its invention, but at the very least we could start to look at emerging technologies and their possible educational uses much earlier than we typically do. A list of emerging technologies might include:
I’m just at the end of my 5th week at Caret, but already I feel like I’m getting my teeth into some interesting stuff. Looking back, it did take a while, but at this moment I feel as though a lot has happened. Today was a highlight, with our second observation of a role-play in action, complete with film crew and student interviews. Or interview, as it turned out that most of the students we lined up beforehand had to cancel. We’ll have to do follow up interviews next week. So why are we doing this? Well, we’ve spent quite a bit of time looking for high quality learning resources, and identified some role-plays conducted in the MPhil courses here as candidates. We want to identify key elements of these exercises, including important learning advantages of the approach, as well as any problems encountered. With that information we hope to build up a picture of how the resources that support the exercises can be used in other institutions. It’s a fun project, and the outcomes are tangible and potentially very useful, so I’m enjoying it a lot.
I’ve recently moved from Australia to the UK to work at the University of Cambridge. I intend to use this blog to reflect on my time here, and talk about issues in educational technology along the way. I’m an educational designer, and have been working at the University of Melbourne for about 13 years. My new job is as a research associate at the Centre for Applied Research in Educational Technologies (CARET).
This was the first entry in my blog over on the Educause site, which I no longer update.
Namedropping has got to be one of the most common pastimes at Cambridge, if my first week of work here is anything to go by. On Sunday we were walking between the city centre and Granchester Meadow and I looked up to see Steven Hawking directly in front of us on the path. I only realised it was actually him right as we were walking past him, but it was incredibly cool to see him just tooling around campus. Then today we went down to the Judge Business School for my first look at an actual Cambridge class in progress. It was a role-play simulation about the privatisation of British electricity in the 1980s. But this was a role-play with a difference. They’d invited a couple of VIPs to take part, including Lord Wilson of Dinton, who played the role of Permanent Secretary to the Department of Environment. If you’re a fan of Yes Minister, Permanent Secretary was the role that Sir Humphrey played in that series. The thing is, Lord Wilson was the real one. It added a certain sense of realism to the whole thing, I have to say.
Today was definitely one of the most interesting and motivating days I’ve had in a long while working on my research project. I sat in on the Strategic Political Communication class and took a bunch of field notes, so I felt like a real researcher on the job. But more than anything I had a real sense of what my interviews were going to be like by seeing the students first hand. They are an interesting bunch from a lot of different places. Very talkative and informed about media and communications, so I think the simulation would work well with them.
One of the most interesting things that came up was actually that the students recognised that there was a technical problem with the system allowing them to see things ahead of time. This potentially breaks down the authentic feeling of the simulation — or does it? I was really interested to see that they knew it was a problem but were not necessarily going in and checking out stuff that they shouldn’t. Virtually the whole class knew there was a problem. The other main thing this brings up is the importance of things such as chronological order to a simulation of this kind, and the potential therefore of the system to add a great deal of confusion when it malfunctions. I think this is a theme I need to write something about in my discussion and the whole story about just what happened when this did crop up should make wonderful reading. The students basically lead the discussion, showing the lecturer exactly what the technical problem was and how to subvert the system. Excellent stuff.
The other thing I was paying a lot of attention to in the class was the ways in which the roles were reinforced by the way that people addressed each other face to face. At a number of stages the students were referred to as Journalists or Advisors. There wasn’t any real first person “role-playing” going on at all, though. No side-jokes with students pretending to hate/like each other or anything of that nature. It was all very much as though they viewed the exercise as something to ponder and reflect on rather than “live”. I want to know whether that illusion of living in the shoes of an Advisor or Journalist is any more real in the online exercises.
Here’s a lesson plan I developed for troupe.
Learning Objectives:
1. Enhance competition and performance skills.
2. Improve dancing to fast music.
3. Develop use of phrases.
Activities
Round 1
Two or three couples are partnered up randomly and must dance for 2 phrases each to a medium tempo song.
3 of the dancers act as judges while the others dance the song. Judges use criteria provided under 5 headings: Musicality, Balance, Innovation, Connection, and Entertainment. Each judge must rank each couple.(5 mins)
The 3 judges then swap in and repeat the exercise with 3 new judges. (5 mins)
Feedback
A simulated judge’s conference: each judge must justify his/her choice for the top couple based on the criteria. The Facilitator moderates the discussion. (5 mins)
All Skate
Partners rotate. Each dancer attempts to put into practice at least 2 tips they got from the Feedback session. Medium tempo song. (5 mins)
Round 2
Two or three couples are partnered up randomly and must dance for 2 phrases each to a fast tempo song.
3 of the dancers act as judges while the others dance the song. Judges use criteria provided under 5 headings: Musicality, Balance, Innovation, Connection, and Entertainment. Each judge must rank each couple.(5 mins)
The 3 judges then swap in and repeat the exercise with 3 new judges. (5 mins)
Feedback
A simulated judge’s conference: each judge must justify his/her choice for the top couple based on the criteria. The Facilitator moderates the discussion. (5 mins)
All Skate
Partners rotate. Each dancer attempts to put into practice at least 2 tips they got from the Feedback session. Medium tempo song. (5 mins)
Here’s an interesting theory on how to introduce a new element to higher education. Why not have an impromptu Lecture Musical? Oh, and no need to let the lecturer know in advance.
image: detail of installation by Bronwyn Lace