[GraphDesProject]

James,

I’ve just written a post in this forum about the same kind of thing – quiz questions for checking understanding. I have recently enjoyed these much to my surprise! But these will only work in sites of learning where there are convergent answers. In graphic design, for example, we like to encourage divergent thinking so you couldn’t have a machine-based answer to these self-assessments.

Sancha

[GraphDesProject]

James,

Yes, it does seem that way. It seems that learners who already understand that they can develop will act on it. But then the problem remains for us to find way sto encourage the others to respond to it just as well. I have had learners who were a bit “get by” at first but who did begin to respond better to feedback once they had made some (to them) “surprising” good move. Once the “penny dropped” they became the same as your motivated learners. I’ve also had learners who don’t take on board feedback because they are already good but who then don’t push forward and get overtaken by supposedly “weaker” students. So I suppose thinking about what we’ve done on learning styles and how we talked also about the affective zone, I think feedback should trigger there and in developing identity, not just cognitive prompts for skills etc.

Sancha

[GraphDesProject]

It seems quite hard to state which approach is generically used – like the Kolb learning styles it seems many of us move between one approach and another as the activity requires. I could not say with certainty where I’d be most based (though probably constructivist) but indeed use all methods when appropriate.

 

Would  this end up being confusing for a learner, or helpful, do you think?

Sancha

[GraphDesProject]

Hi Elizabeth and James,

Yes the public/private issue is really fascinating and needs to be watched. However, let me clarify that blogs are not the primary means of asessment with the f2f students. The Learning Outcomes have a proportion (variously 70%/30% and 60%/40%) in favour of the end product (ie a magazine spread, book jacket, signage etc), so most of the assessment goes towards the actual design itself. The blogs provide evidence of the journey with both practical and theoretical material. Strictly academic pieces, like essays and dissertations have written pieces. My learners don’t tend to use their blogs very much to help with these, despite there being good evidecne that dissertation in particular can be thought about and discussed through connectivist blogging.

 

Let me stress that the learners DO get lots of feedback rom us, usually verbally, so they are not either stranded or suffering public humiliation (most of the blogs are pretty good anyway!!). When surveyed the learners who use blogs all stressed that they much prefered it (inc the online learners). The main concern of my f2f learners in regards to the public/private issue is that they worry about the public stealing their artwork. They have got round this by adding watermarks to finished pieces. Though this, in  a negative sense, also makes them feel part of the community of practice as it is quite a common event.

 

Moreover, since they have been blogging more they have also been connecting more to other online sites for portfolio sharing (like Behance) and they often voluntarily ask for feedback from peers/strangers on Facebook etc etc. They also have aslo engaged in other online forums where the feedback can be ferocious and indeed pretentious. Harsh feedback can be part of design life (I’m not saying that is a good thing) and the learners seem aware of that. We have – hopefully – taught them to separate private and professional feelings.

 

And just before anyone mistakes what I am saying – our own feedback is always developmental. There was a research project at the Uni of Kent about the language of feedback, stressing that is should not be a fait accompli, but with strong or weak work should always show how a learner can take their practice forward. (CPD…)

Sancha

 

[GraphDesProject]

Leonie,

I guess a learner might interpret no feedback in the blog as bad if they weren’t getting verbal feedback a lot of the time. I have also heard that school students judge their blogging only by the number of comments they get back!

I judge a good blog probably in a very similar way as to how I also judge a good sketchbook (or any other supporting work). I look for evidence of research and analysis that is meaningful in that it is particular (not meandering) and helps inform the learner about whatever is needed – ie styles, techniques, theory, inspiration, audience and so on. I also look for conclusions, ideas, evaluation and reflection. These are generic to any project, but I’d also be looking for evidence that specific learning outcomes have been addressed usefully (or indeed, sometimes at all!).

I look for ability to self-regulate their design process, to take on board feedback and to reflect. I don’t look for “good” writing or spelling in the posts (only in the going-in-front-of-the-public pieces of design) because I don’t want to stifle the learning, or especially the creativity, by stopping to correct all the time. However, this is also a throw back to what went on in private sketchbooks and now I do have to remind learners about curating their public persona and spelling etc is, of course, part of that in a professional sense. So this raises another issue! Blogs are however, good for rehearsing writing styles and getting uses to making a rounded post. I also like to see learners taking ownership and using their blogs for linking to other personal or professional blogs or portfolio websites, or adding other topics and design portfolios within their blogs. The latter in particular is useful in a professional development sense.

Your last point about letting blogs slip is also very pertinent. Some people take to it naturally and fly with it. Others do, admittedly, slack if not prompted.  I have also started blogging with groups from other disciplines that I am not with all the time (ie a fashion group and a television group) and these only used their blogs patchily or even not at all. There was an article published recently (linked in #ocTEL Tweets – but I have forgotten the reference right now) which said that learners only use technology when prompted to by tutors. I think this may well be true as where my learners have been really persistently encouraged to they do use blogs well (not all do – they have a choice) and when not always prompted or when they don’t see the use, they quite often leave them. On my f2f graphics course all the staff refer to the blogs and they are used directly in summative assessment, whereas on these other courses only one or two staff did so they were not seen by learners as “necessary”.

Hope this helps.

Sancha (@GraphDesProject)

[GraphDesProject]

Imogen and Phil,

I quite like the idea of a VLE. We use Moodle with our f2f learners but it is totally one way – from us to them; they cannot upload anything to it so it’s just a “headquarters” for info and resources. They do all their input in WordPress (mainly) blogs or even is sketchbooks by hand. They strat to use Moodle and WordPress as soon as they get on the course (in fact, some of them start beforehand as we advise interviewess to set up a WP if they haven’t already got one and to rehearse what can be done with it).

However, with my online learners, who are all asynchronous, I as yet have no equivalent of a VLE. They don’t need it for course material and resources as that is all in a PDF. But they could do with a place for extra ad hoc info/news and indeed a place to meet up and discuss FAQ type issues. I’ve tried MyStudy Cloud which seemed great but – as you know – I have had endless troubles using it, so it doesn’t seem as user-friendly as it ought to be.

So I wouldn’t leave out a VLE; just keep it simple and useful. And yes, para breaks have driven me mad!!!

Sancha

[GraphDesProject]

James,

This goes right back to my “big question” at the start of ocTEL. Yes, it’s great if a person has knowledge and skills from open learning but how do they show that to an employer? In my field, graphic design (and other creative areas) anyone can make a portfolio or show-reel and can be employed on the basis of that concrete practical work, rather than on qualifications. But how might this work if you are a historian or marine biologist? Until the world of work decides to “assess” people and their abilities in other ways aren’t we stuck with closed qualifications?

A second thought – and please don’t think I’m anti-Open; far from it – how do you make sure that a  learner, for example, has all the sufficent knowledge to carry out a profession? If they have cherry picked their way through Open learning might they be missing something crucial? I know from experience that our new f2f HE learners will deny certain “boring” parts of the topic but they can’t be really effective without these.

As I say, I’m totally in favour of open learning and certainly have done much of this myself throughout my life. I’d just like to get it straight in my mind how this impacts on reality. My open learning has always boosted my closed learning. Not sure how I’d navigate this field totally on my own.

What does anyone think?

Sancha (@GrapDesProject)

[GraphDesProject]

My colleague, Tim Bones, does make website portfolios with our f2f students – this year he has shown them how to use Wix as well as, other open access software and these look really good too. But you can make some really strong portfolios simply from good old WordPress blogs anyway, so its all good!!

Sancha

[GraphDesProject]

Marius,

I totally agree. We have had so many dyslexic students that a non-dyslexic learner actually asked a colleague of mine if you had to be dyslexic to be good at design. One of the reasons that we encouraged blogging with our f2f learners was that this helped the dyslexic ones prepare and reflect on their processes much better than hand-writing into a sketchbook did. Many learners with writing difficulties or sheer dislike of writing have done much better by making small blog posts, or sometimes keeping InDesign documents (not “amateur” Word, you’ll note!). So typing can be much better for them and indeed working into the blogs etc at the time of actually doing the practical work is helpful to the design process and thinking more deeply (by having several windows open at once and just dropping screen-shots and notes in).

Blogging generally helps writing skills and we have had very good success with dissertations which many or may not have something to do with overcoming the fear of writing per se.

So, judging by survey results I have collated, I think that this does help not only watching and reflecting, but the ease or enjoyment of doing is felt as a positive. One learner wrote that she “loved” her blog and the fact that they can take ownership and include non-uni work in them or links to their personal blogs makes them feel that they are enjoying parts of the process other than simply making design.

I think the same can be said of Wacom tablets for drawing and even Instragram for photos (though I know there’ll be arguments against that). My point is yours, for some learners technology is very helpful in areas that they percieve themselves to need a prop, even though they would probably be able to come to do just as well without it. So again something in the concrete experience/feeling section!!

Sancha

[GraphDesProject]

I’ve had a thought while writing my forum post for Course Dimensions, that one of the  main things I do throughout my f2f and online teaching is to try to develop learners’ identities from being “passive” students to being “active” professionals. Keeping a blog and a portfolio helps this, as does working more and more into the skills of a community of practice. But surely identity is felt in the concrete experience realm and is a feeling. So to become professionalised is really to have developed enough skills and knowledge to make a learner feel that they have joined the community of practice. So I can gladly say that I am not trying to create a race of automatons, but I do use experience and feeling after all!! (Yes, that clearly worried me!)

Sancha

[GraphDesProject]

Phil,

Yes, I do think that some learners are better at certain aspects and always will be. Many young designers, for example, are really good at using online or peer-led tutorials and developing software skills. They “like” these because they are glossy and contemporary. If they cannot also make analysis and talk about meaning these are what the industry calls “Mac Monkeys”! But it takes hard work to begin to understand what this “means” (if anything, apart from style) and how it could communicate better. The internet is absolutely full of “inspiring  design” and this is great. But it also means that everyone sees the same old same old new stuff and repeats these styles. It is harder to find design with depth. So in this sense the magpie data collection is upped but the originality/communcation aspect is dumbed down. And quite a lot of internet sources are not very detailed, just posted for eye candy. When we challenge learners they occasionally make comments about us being old fogeys who don’t understand contemporary design…..!

I think it might be true that design students are aleady geared towards technology and the next new thing. I can certainly think of a few of my learners who are almost obessively like that. But we do still have many, especially illustrator pathway learners, who are quite afraid of the software and prefer to work by hand. I think one drawback of software as a tool of the trade is that some learners tend to rely on what the software can do to make a design look more “professional” (or jazzed up somehow) and we still try to get them to visualise ideas and concepts by hand so that it is them in control of the process,  not a type menu or Photoshop effect.

As for graphic design being the same online or f2f; this is what I have pretty much found. Of course, if you are in a studio with a real person you can see their work over their shoulder and comment and help develop it, whereas with online students you just wait for them to upload something and then comment, so you could miss part of their process ( I mean activity per activity in the process, not just set them a project and wait for the final!!). I guess that the concrete experience of Kolb’s learning styles, might be different at the start of a course for an online learner, expecially if they feel a bit lost (we all hark back to our first MOOCs!). But the overall delivery I think is quite similar, which is maybe why design courses are quite popular online. But colleagues who also teach both may disagree (I feel compelled to ask them now). It may also be simply that the online courses I have written and delivered – both HE and below –  have been based on the f2f courses and translated to online format. Perhaps this is a fundamental issue. However, they seem to be working OK.

Sancha

[GraphDesProject]

That’s a good question! I’m not aginst feeling per se! I think that if a learner or professional designer is able to work out analytically what works and what is effective against the brief then there is no harm in allowing some feeling into it – after all I doubt a robot could design as well as a creative person. The trouble is, design learners all too often want to evaluate against their feelings, being very subjective. This might be OK for art (howls of disagreement??). Pehaps the feeling, the concrete experience of seeing, feeling and understanding a piece of design is more important in the area of audience reception, so a design learner must be able to design something to activate this. So in that sense they need to be overtly aware of it. Enigma adverts, where the product is hidden or where the viewer has to work it out are usually succesful because of the viewer enagement.

The debate seems to be veering more towards the “affective” domain and I’m all for using this in any way necessary. I heard a quote recently that said learners don’t remember what was taught to them but they do remember how the teacher made them feel. I don’t think a person can avoid feelings when learning – whether these are negative or positive – and especially if they are doing hands-on skills I think there will be a huge amount fo feeling going on. But how useful is this without reflection too?

[GraphDesProject]

You’re welcome!

[GraphDesProject]

Elizabeth,

Yes, it was quite an eye-opener for me about the feeling aspect, when I came to think of it. I found the activity quite a challenge as, though not new to me, I hadn’t really thought if it in this way and it was alsmost impossible to divide it up across the quadrants.

 

I also noted that my f2f learners used mobiles to upload work to their blogs and that’s partly why they found them so convenient. I was asked the other day if convenience was a good enough criteria to use a piece of technology but I’d say hell yeah it is! So this must be impacting the way learners (and staff) feel about their concrete experiences with the tech.

Sancha

[GraphDesProject]

Tim, I’ve just uploaded my thoughts (Living in Tech Wilderness) and have mentioned our institutional issues. As I said there, it seems that there is the assumption that everyone has smooth, unimpaired access to technology (well, the internet at least) when the truth is quite far removed – so many ideological (institutional), logistical and also affective/skills issues impede. I also wonder about designing for people – too much to complicate the real issue of learning. I had a comment yesterday about students using blogs to the effect that could they not move on to “better” technology for their portfolios. Of course, better, smoother, more effective methods (tech or otherwise) are always welcomed. But sometimes I think things are pushed for the sake of newness, not for the sake of user friendliness.

Sancha (@GraphDesProject)

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