TILT2008

UCL Teaching and Learning Conference TILT 2008

Friendly enough bunch, though, but, you know. Some of the presentations are a little along the me-too type. The remit is wider than technology though, which might explain the relative lack of innovation. I guess I expect to be constantly amazed at events like this.

Some personal highlights:

• Was gladdened to hear that podcasting at UCL seems to be just round the corner. Jeremy's got a stack of shiny servers and software (e.g. like Anystream's Apreso, as used by Winyard et al) that do all the mashing and mixing of sources. The talks at this very conference for example. Woo, at long last. Let's hope the efforts don't get mired in endless fretting about IP. UPDATE: the server workflow has eaten its own fingers, so the podcasts are borked, for now. UPDATE UPDATE: they fixed it. Grab them while they are hot.
  
• Had fun with the personal response systems. Who wants to be a millionaire poor academic? Let's ask the audience.
• Felt sorry for those locked into WTS, who can't even get audio on their machines, let alone all this fancy stuff.

• Looked forward to effectively outsourcing online reading lists, c/w hyperlinks and scanned bits, to the Library where it belongs. Hope they don't make it a wobbly heap of complexity like the exam papers (couldn't that be made look like a plain list, hmm?)
  
• Resolved yet again to try and introduce CBM into teaching, probably Project Management to start with.
  
• Got the urge to incorporate more Objects, either QT-VR blobs of space hardware from photos (we've got lots of good stuff, but it's all in Holmbury) into teaching, or even art objects (via the print collection? They've obviously got lots of good stuff).

• Found myself ranting about the empty phrase "the video was good quality". What?? I thought we were supposedly learned grown-ups. There's No Such Thing as "good quality", unless it's understood what the use might be. Puh-leaze read Garvin, or anything about Requirements and then come back and say something meaningful. You are permitted to say "the video was good enough to do X, but not Y". I reckon folk see the moving flashes and are hypnotised into bliss, hence the nonsensical utterances. Take the podcasts of these talks. Yes I can see the head, and the lips moving around a bit, and the big text, but not the little bits, or the texture in the image. I can see how many hands the presenter is holding up, but not whether she's sweating slightly. It's not the same as being in the room. If I'm bovvered, I'll do a dummies guide to video quality, and a checklist of AV qualities, note the plural, that might be relevant to teaching. It'll have to distinguish Functions from Features, and cover image, text, sound, colour and search. It might use metaphors in music performance or some other thing, like the concept of computer-mediated sex, to bang home the point. /rant

• Followed many course developments elsewhere - especially those of Peacock (converting a course to online mode), Dunsmuir (collaborating to produce an accredited course) and Federighi (developing a course where curriculum drives teaching, not vice versa). I'll 'ave summa that.
  

• Watched the Big Fight : some real challenges to the implied build-it and they will come approach to some of UCL's recent branding/mission/strategies. "Global Citizenship" for example. Tom Gretton was the cheerful lad who in this case pointed to the emperor's allegedly draughty arse (Citizen = defined polity, rights etc . Global = nothing of the sort). I much prefer the concept of the metaphoric city (a place of meetings), which being virtual, could be global. UCL as a city of learning that's open to, and for, the world. Hard to fit that in two words though. Maybe that's the point. More on the blog it is officially hoped. Though I doubt it : blogging hasn't really caught fire at UCL. CASA (undescribable, go and look) and John Wells (the non-department of Phonetics) are about the only decent UCL blogs I know of (tell me another, please).
  

Onwards.