Fight for your right to be accessible: the imperative of upskilling students for a more inclusive future 

As the landscape of tertiary education (UK FE and HE sectors) continues to evolve, the integration of accessibility and accessible practices has become a focal point for educational institutions. In part, this was driven by the introduction of the Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations in 2018 and by the social shift to inclusive practice over […]

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Tour de Bases – a charity bike ride

Having told everyone, I guess I should announce my charity ride on my website too! From Sunday 12 August, a friend (Dan) and I will be cycling 1000km over 7 days, in memory of my dad, and Dan’s mum who were lost to cancer. We will be starting in Newquay, Cornwall and criss-crossing the country […]

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Do you really care?

I’m going to ask you a question. I want you to answer the question quickly and without thinking about it. Please be honest, it’s only for yourself. Here goes: Can you teach someone without caring about them? Did you have a quick answer? Now you’ve had a moment to reflect on your answer, does it […]

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Digital Assessment Maturity Model v0.2

Release notes We released v0.1 of the Digital Assessment Maturity Model in March 2023, and spent the rest of the month talking to people from the sector and refining our initial work. This blog post lays out the version 0.2 of the model and outlines how it may be used. Current assessment landscape Assessment processes […]

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AI vs AI: a story

A bead of sweat trickled slowly down my forehead. I wiped it away quickly before reaching for the bottle of water in front of me. Taking a quick swig, I wished it was something a little stronger. How did it come to this? Across the table from me were two police officers. They couldn’t be […]

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1000 weeks and counting

This is a nascent blog post, or notes, from about 2017 that I've decided to share. 1000 weeks. It doesn’t sound much. 7,000 days. 168,000 hours. 10,080,000 minutes or even 604,800,000 seconds. If we go the other way, 1000 weeks is about 230 months, or just over 19 years. It represents the time from the […]

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Comment on Analytics: a report from the sector by Learning Analytics: what's in a name? - It's probably just ME

[…] first became interested in Learning Analytics (LAs) in 2013/14 when I was working on a student data project (http://wmed.co.uk) that I had entered in a couple of competitions (ed-invent and Jisc’s […]

Digital Assessment Maturity Model (alpha-release)

This originally appeared on the JiscInvolve Co-design blog When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in early 2020, it forced UK education institutions to shift teaching online. Many of us assumed that it might only be for a few weeks, but then as spring gave way to summer, it was clear that assessments would have to change […]

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Comment on My computer told me to say this… by An experiment with ChatGPT - It's probably just ME

[…] I’ll start off by saying that I am not a fan of AI – mainly because most of the ‘fan-boi’s are so non-critical and sometimes obnoxious – and I am certainly not a fan of private companies exerting power over people by controlling public spaces (looking at you Google and Twitter in particular). However, ChatGPT, and it’s underlying LLM (large language model) GPT3, are getting a lot of press so I thought I should dip my toe in that particular sea. I did make a prescient suggestion in 2017 about AI and assessment. […]

An experiment with ChatGPT

My experience of using ChatGPT to aid writing, and why it might not be so bad - if used correctly - and might be very useful for non-neurotypical types.

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Macro trends: scaling education

In education, we often hear the same issues cropping up again and again: lecture capture, learning analytics, internationalisation, and so on. These are all important, and we often approach them thematically, within their own bubbles. In Paul Bailey’s recent post about macro trends, he says “we believe that significant and accelerated change can be expected […]

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Getting ideas fast

On Tuesday 22 November, Harvey Norman and I were asked to run a session at the Jisc Student Experience Experts group in Birmingham. We took the opportunity to introduce the Pathfinders initiative and to give the delegates a chance to experience one of the many methods we use as part of our innovation process. With […]

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Comment on Facing a shutdown: thoughts about moving to remote teaching by marcus

In reply to <a href="https://marcuselliott.co.uk/blog/2020/03/14/facing-a-shutdown-thoughts-about-moving-to-remote-teaching/#comment-2031">SD</a>. Can't believe you don't have a spare horse, peasant ;)

Comment on Facing a shutdown: thoughts about moving to remote teaching by SD

‘Unless people have lab chemicals or a spare horse at home’ – ;-p Well written piece dude

Comment on Facing a shutdown: thoughts about moving to remote teaching by Sarah Broadberry

Provides a thought provoking perspective in challenging times.

Comment on Thinking about diverse learners by Keeping the diversity flag flying – digital academic

[…] (now at NTU) has begun to extend the Diversity poster, and shared the output in a blog post Thinking about Diverse  Learners. The work demonstrates the value of a creative commons culture of reuse and repurpose so all credit […]

Comment on [First draft] Defining boundaries by Jason Haynes

As I read the first portion of your post, I couldn't help but think of Weber: both what he cited Tolstoy as having said and the larger argument he lays out in "Science as a Vocation." Though I've never heard of a direct attribution for Tolstoy's words, Weber claims he once said "Science is meaningless because it gives no answer to our question, the only question important for us: ‘What shall we do, and how shall we live?'" From there, though, Weber goes on to lay claim to considerable ethical territory on behalf of science. What you're talking about though, and this becomes clear in the second half of your post, is that something else entirely is happening with science now. As science and technology have become commodified (commoditized?, I never know which one is better to use) the consumers of technological commodities have also been commodified--our data/identities have become the objects of commerce--and perhaps comodified--both our data and our identities are changed as they flow through the commerce of personal information. [Also, I'm sorry for using commodified and comodified in the same sentence. I've always had a tendency to play with written words that some people find annoying] The governmental sector may have created the foundations of these new technologies (defense, scientific, and educational research), but they are loth and probably powerless to curtail their evolution in a globalized/"world-wide" marketplace. How and whether edtech can maintain the kind of "non-overlap" you suggest is an interesting and important question. One of the lines I've heard several times (and have certainly repeated) is that, to date, most edtech developments have done little more than make traditional educational modalities more efficient. Nothing has really transformed the way people learn. I'm coming to increasingly believe that there might be a silver lining in this. Our defense against all that commodification (and the reification of "innovation") is remembering that talking to each other and doing things together has been at the heart of education for five thousand years or so. To the extent that technology in general, or certain pieces of edtech in particular, can facilitate "talking/listening" and "doing things together," we still have plenty to gain.

Comment on [First draft] Defining boundaries by marcus

In reply to <a href="https://marcuselliott.co.uk/blog/2018/07/10/defining-boundaries/#comment-1244">dkernohan</a>. Hi David, Thanks for the comments. I think you've hit the nail on the head regarding how edtech is marketed, and who to. Obviously, the argument is a lot more nuanced than I have represented it above, but there certainly feels like, for some, there is a huge distance between the vendors and the actual users. One that people in similar roles to me have to manage and support. Some of the conversations on twitter regarding this post have made me consider that I am using edtech as the 'battlefield' for the conflict between education and business. This whole situation may just be the playing out of that conflict. How do we encourage the cooperative, collaborative and social nature of learning and teaching in a space that presumes that 'value' is only in pure economic terms?

Comment on [First draft] Defining boundaries by dkernohan

Great post - thanks. I've been reflecting on this issue too - the divide has become more apparent in the past 8 or so years (background, I've worked in and around education technology since 2004). I feel that EdTech no longer attempts to sell to educators. It is marketed to two other groups - budget-holders (be they senior leaders, politicians or administrators) and learners/parents-guardians. Both of these respond better to the classic "implied deficit" marketing model... "You have a problem (here) this is a solution to that problem (here)". As with a non-expert audience the diagnosis of the problem can be kept on the surface ("we are falling behind!" "the world is changing!") or use basic emotions to trigger a need ("your classrooms still look like they did 100 years ago!" "Your learners expect digital but you can't give them it!", "the edtech you use is old"). Which such facile problem diagnosis the solutions don't actually have to really use technology at all ("We'll keep records of stuff because the data might say something useful maybe", "This is a current and fashionable buzzword you may have heard recently", "Oooh shiny things"). So edtech, as it currently stands, has very little to do with either technology or education, and everything to do with anxiety driven marketing. But, y'know, 2018 will *definitely* be the year of the MOOC. For real.

Comment on How not to come first by Marcus Elliott

In reply to <a href="https://marcuselliott.co.uk/blog/2017/03/31/not-come-first/#comment-783">Rosie Hare</a>. Hi Rosie, Thanks for the comments. You're right, neo-liberalism just leads to dumping on those 'below' you; that's a whole new blog post mind... I did write a post on failure, a valuable part of the learning process (if you are prepared to deal with it). Have a look: <a href="https://marcuselliott.co.uk/general/glorious-failure-abject-success-biography/">Glorious failure or abject success</a>. Hopefully catch up soon, M