interview€¦ · web viewinterview: bd_technology_and_teaching_practice_buchan_16_09_11....

Interview:BD_Technology_and_Teaching_Practice_Buchan_16_09_11

Participants:Q: InterviewerF: Female ParticipantsM: Male Participants

(Note: Gaps in transcript due to faint recording of group discussion conducted via electronic link up. The interview is completed at the 1 hour 22 minute mark – however the recorder is left recording – not transcribed.)

Q: So I’m just the recorder on now so I don’t forget, so hopefully that will capture it all right. Look, let’s just go around the rooms and introduce ourselves so we know who’s here and then I think we’ll get started. Do you want to start at your end Janet?

F: Yes, I’m Janet …(unable to understand – too faint)…-

Q: And focus on hers. Okay, Burlington?

F: I’m Jill …, I’m a lecturer here in Language and Literacy.

M: I’m Will …-

Q: Thanks Will. And here in Wagga – now are we all in view?

M: Just about.

Q: Just about; we need a little bit of panning which way – is it working? So Sue Ying, would you like to introduce yourself?

F: I’m Sue Ying, I’m … School of Education.

M: G’day, I’m Darryl South, I’m a … casual lecturer in the School of Education for the VII team.

M: I’m Barney Dalgarno, School of Education.

M: I’m Will …, Educational Designer with Learning and Teaching Services.

F: I’m Christina Davidson, School of Education.

M: … make it work, that’s very annoying. And Will, you’ve got the bridge at …-?

M: Nearly.

Q: Nearly. You’re on-

M: Emailing …-

BD_Technology_and_Teaching_Practice_Buchan_16_09_11

Q: Yeah, you’re on track but it’s just taking a long time for the binary digits to go across the ocean.

(Interruption – another person joining focus group via electronic link up)

Q: Is that somebody joining via telephone?

F: Yeah, Barney it’s Marilyn Charles here.

Q: Hi Marilyn.

F: Hi.

Q: Marilyn, you’ve got Janet, Jenny and Lisa in Albury; Jill and Will in Burlington and Suzi and Darryl, myself, Will Aslong and Christina Davidson here.

F: Hi.

Q: And there’s a bridge it session called TT Research.

F: Okay, going in now.

Q: Okay, over to you Janet.

F: Thanks, oh thanks for the opportunity to share some of I guess my research and I other parts of my life … education finders and managers and various things to do the technology. To start with I’m going to give you a little bit of an overview of my area that I’m looking at for my PhD over the last few years I suppose. I’m very aware that I’m rather passionate and enthusiastic in trying to do it all in 90 minutes. I’m going to try and avoid that and if I get too far off course, and you think it’s a bit impractical then stop there – and just talk about that a bit longer, then do wave or yell because to make it very casual. First, I’m just trying to share a few ideas and very much visual ideas … handed down. I guess, fortunately I have found something that I’ve written and published a fair bit over the last few years and I’ve got quite a bit of it written and, so if you want the finer detail you can delve into that and the reference is on the website and various other things, but not everything is published yet so we are sort of maybe trying to get a fair bit of it written at that time … (unable to understand – too faint). So I just did, so the topic of my thesis is Developing Resilience and Managing Change in Technology Enhanced Learning Environments and so I’m going to give an overall perspective of the … - I guess I’ll keep an eye on the … - 30-40 minutes to talk … has opened a lot of discussions so people can see. My pick up is that … might be relevant to your … I suppose and yes so I think … I began purposely with a nice image of our … campus because I do love driving in here today. It also guess that’s where it really began. When I first started as an educator I was … about … nine years ago I think I started in the School of Business in … of Environmental Sciences and so on before seeing the light and moving into the Education Faculty, but what it came down to was being exposed to higher education sector and … from high schools and so on – you are trying to understand … about all these decisions that are made – I hadn’t really thought about sort of why people suddenly stop subjects and stop courses and all the … big


pictures – what does that all mean? And at a conference came around at the end of 2003 – my professional organisation actually opened the Business Learning Association of Australia and I feel that was lessons from nature developing more lessons towards I think it was developing a sustainable learning environments and I thought okay right … married to an ecologist as I am and use some education and put the two together and started then thinking about adaptive … and a few other things, so the first paper that I wrote was Essence from Nature – developing an Adapt Management Model for Sustaining Quality Learning Environments. It was very much a conceptual paper but that was really just trying to – not really wanting to get into research but just have a few ideas and that’s where I … began and very much on the practical side – you know young kids at that stage who have now grown up a bit more – want to really manage our learning environments for future generations, so bringing very much the primary focus but thinking of what is that learning environment as such? And yes it’s been a long time since I completed my teaching diploma and we really didn’t do it in such depth as … nowadays when you talk about learning environments. This is coming back into it and reflecting on it from a different angle. So I’m going to read you a story now because this is one of the first bits of my research – probably one of my first research questions was to describe the technology … learning environment at CSU? What, is there such a thing? And I’ll just read you a bit of a story which is in probably Chapter 3 I guess at this stage because I’m changing it around a bit as one does:

Monday, 8:55: in Albury, Lecturer Simon, not his real name, enters the … the first lecture in final semester. It’s his first chance in a new building so takes time to find the cabinet containing the controls of a computer and … projectors and the new lecture recording equipment. There haven’t been any training sessions on how to use it yet in that new building. … (unable to understand – too faint) decides to only use one. He notes that … over a quarter of the students are carrying laptops and at the start of the year there were only two in the class. Students were excited about the new … and amazingly they all connect first time to a high speed wireless system. It’s almost lunch time by the time the day breaks up and Monday classes are unfair … supermarket shelf packing that pays the bills. If I was ever … and download the online lecture notes and the subject …. With the … in mind and recorded the lecture on the MP3 recorder …. He sends a few SMSs on his mobile phone to friends to organise a study group for the afternoon’s tutorial and logs back onto this laptop to sign off on why … subject … tutorial. … but he makes a note to talk to someone about getting … technology in that new classroom. Yes, who is IT is … assistance using … to the lecture theatres. Luckily he is pretty good with these things. So casual staff member, … casual lecturer really struggled. … assistant for the first two weeks of term. … checks his emails and … afternoon …, and goes on to … spends …. This is much easier than …. (Unable to understand – too faint and background static interference). On reflecting, … learning and teaching workshops it’s all about technology. Some people do amazing things with that … Twitter, Podcast and other … can be part of a name. It makes me feel a bit guilty – are his students missing out?

Tuesday at 9:50: with kids off to school, out on the farm we have … is about to start her study for the day. She is got a big assignment to complete and has already had an extension because of …. … (Unable to understand – too faint) she received a food package with all her … and


study guide. … was excellent. The video, audio, interview, lots of pictures and in the new subject everything’s online so she has to … herself and that’s costly. Many … meets up with other students in class and interacts around shared accommodation at the upcoming … school. She informed me that she wasn’t the … looking for someone so …. I’ve got … really struggling as well. There’s no hope for … students of technology except an online site that you really want to …. She said about lecturers using mobile phones and iPods … for some subjects. She said has had to try and work out how those go. … definitely … classroom … videoconference that would … the classes on the three campuses are connected up to date with … expert. It is pretty … educator designer who … training in using the technology and …. The IT help line is useful but only … telephone in the classroom ….

Wednesday, 11:40 am: … setting the final tutorial for the day in Albury. The student …. Back in her office … free student periods before getting into the car at 12.30 for the drive north to Orange. A lack of staff in Orange means the times … established …. … but she takes the opportunity to … for a podcast … for a Grad Cert in the university learning and teaching. … would not be possible without technology to keep up with the … of studies. If she wants a promotion she needs to get a teaching publication. Last that night in her hotel she … and quickly did … online for she knew … contributed comments from fellow students around ….

Wednesday, 4 pm: A visit into town to start her … assignment … to get to know … her last assignment has been marked. She began … her assignment electronically but … assignment’s … internet could be a problem.

So I think you’re getting the picture and … over three hours. The day began at 8 am with the video conference at the … Learning and Teaching …. At … the video conference happening to … easier to … video conference, so in the evening – it’s an early evening meeting so … Wednesday … so for them it’s another late finish. Janet tries to send a telephone teleconference for … and gets emails from … to indicate she can’t get into 10 o’clock …. Plan B emails Sarah … to set up the teleconference in her office. Tracey and Janet … in the short time they’ve … and Paul joins up on his mobile phone. In between … he apologises for the quality of the reception because he stopped on the side of the road … campus at the telephone so after the meeting … mobile learning project. 12.01 pm Janet was in the service desk …. … I guess but I think many of you in this room can probably see yourselves in there somewhere and I have changed names, faces and campuses a little bit but I guess that is the learning … technology … learning environment but I guess we live and work in and I suppose then …, those sorts of things that we learn online and when you have to start writing it down and … you start to … for what I’m doing, especially for me anyway in the role that I play. The research questions, like any students who start off with a fairly long list of questions that could fill three different PhDs. After about a year and a half when you get your confirmation of … sort of get down to these questions and … is how the contemporary technology and … environment should be described. … and strategies can you … and institutions used to maintain and manage the constant changing technology and then … environments and attitudes which brings the values of alternative management strategies and obviously you want to make sure that the questions are answerable and so … done that sort of exploratory phase when it comes down to that. … approached the study and my first


year is actually presenting it. I’m very happy to be challenged and if you have any queries I think it’s very important at this stage that people – to get people sort of asking questions – how do you say that? What does that mean? and … advice and … forget when somebody asks a question and trying to revisit it and justify it, so be nasty if you can. Yes it is qualitative research and … approach with a single case study which is CSU. The approach I’ve taken is now recorded as an active approach in that … adaptive management … and so it fits in with the … graphic approach where you start off with a certain idea with objectives and then gradually … emerge and they capture … and change. I guess that’s the nature of the beast. Much research or pretty much this is adapted because you’ve got to have those really quick feedback answers to continually improve … change things as needed. I was … an … approach and so with the design was very much a little … of experience of … study, so I don’t know if that’s enough background as part of the general approach first. I don’t know if anyone wants any more detail as in more detail around the research and questions they’d like to find out about that but you probably just want to get up to sort of where’s the interesting bit. Data collection, I like that end – it doesn’t … my office and probably my … as well. I find it really reassuring to discover the data and I think well the ordinary bits and pieces of information found in the environment and that really helped me because you know that you do have a large amount of data with … purposefully collected and it really did help with this. Not always as competent as … what is this stuff called data? The timeline of the study is 2007 to I guess 2010 is the data collection time service … primarily … but I sort of keep writing notes and finding new information. Most of that is … I guess interrogating in some of these … can’t find anything new to report on so even that narrative that I read out to you, that was written about a year and a half ago and so that would have changed … that I … didn’t have then and I came into … now …, so things were changing very rapidly and then it took my PhD to sort it out. I used four … and … connection methods, a reflective journal and what I call observation and meeting notes and that’s really just diary notes of every time I’m in a meeting and scribbling this down. There’s more happening than just making notes of the things that I have to do but it’s also some … of reflection and so on, so that’s – and I’ve kept the reflective journal – writing up that as I go and the observation meeting notes … I transcribe my diaries and that’s quite a lot of – it’s rather scary how many meetings I’ve been in over the last four years and it’s also scary coming to meetings and you don’t have much proactivity as well, so that’s another aspect of it all, and then documents. You will see shortly that another one I’m doing – it’s not just sort of a four year period where I need to get into the history to know what’s happened before and what’s happening. Really what we’re doing now where things are going in the future. So access to a number of university documents; things that come across our desk that might be emailed and also going into the archives back to about 1998 when the university first mandated that every listed subject needs to have an online presence and that was just for them to be pushed …. There’s probably over 400 or so documents that I had access to but for me … ethnically you sort of use the contents of those in any big way, but it’s the timeline as it were, the journey … changes, and then a very very important … part of the research … collection was the interviews and so I interviewed 16 people from a variety of areas that are involved – academics, senior academics, educational designers and other support staff as well and there were four sets of interviews. I think the first people were general


interviews and what I was trying to do with the interviews was to get people perspective on change in general and how we can adapt technological change and how we manage change in the institution and how could we manage it better. Not necessarily wanted to make vast improvements at CSU specifically but in general trying to take the specific stuff that people are experiencing so that it becomes more general avocation in that and that is the main job in the research really is the end of sort of the ethical stuff … and how you use that information that you get … extremely powerful time to understand how individuals experience change and adapt to change and it’s a very important part of it. I did do follow up interviews with a few of those participants to explore further aspects as well, so you know – so what’s a unit of study? I mean you’ve got CSU and all its professors and … graphic design and technical studies but I go to what I call my sphere of influence … which is something that I guess – it was in 2003 that was when I first had an idea of – trying to sort of work out how the system and how to actually get past … and effectively in any environment has a central part of the student teacher learning resources there, that’s the central part. Outside of that … a sphere of influence within that technology whilst … learning … of those people are experiencing. Outside of that you’ve got the school and the faculty level or you might have divisions, depending on when you sit and then part of that you’ve got the organisation and then of course you then have what I call the external environment. That’s just another way of detecting the environment which I’ve been studying and I’ve tried to take a slice of it all the way through – all of those areas and should extend down to the external environment and that’s a cross section of the-

(Interruption with technology)

M: …-

F: That’s fine. I’m just talking about the … of studies. That’s the reason why it’s really important to meet and try and understand that slice of study which I was trying to work out last year and with all this data, what do you talk about? What’s … and what’s …? So that was … so it’s not part of the … that’s directly associated with managing change in … of technology … environment then that’s out of scope, so I’ve had to try and stick to that … but that helps.

M: Sorry, can you just clarify-?

F: Your objectives – just looking at the time there – look at them in detail because … objectives are how to enact the research questions and in order to do that I … change in … led to my principles and … writing any objectives and all that stuff used as objectives so that I know when I can apply and understand and manage in all those … students are due and I have decided I’ll put that on myself and try and do that. Yeah, a few little frameworks …. That’s the only thing – the more practical end of the theory is a good metaphor because at our last meeting we talked about theories - practical theories and I can – I’m using metaphors not theories because I didn’t want to try and compete with a big theory.

M: Is that a quote from Alan Bain?

F: Metaphor is a centre of management … - a very well used management technique in environmental management it simply is – it’s very basically


its plan, implement, monitor and learn. Now you’ll something in that with adaptive management is simply … research title particularly … important … and adaptive management is managing – saying well we’re managing but this is an experimental thing, so we’ll try this and if it doesn’t work we’ll try something else. It’s not like action research – or the outcome is different though but it’s an ongoing management process. Jenny, John … and myself – we did a scholarship in teaching on a project two years back and I sort of used that as part of the framework for the study for the … - and that was continually involved and … and at the end of it we came up with the adaptive management framework – we came up at the end of that and with this study … learning and the outcomes of that … and put that into the project which you can access from the CSU website as well, so the framework is to benchmark, plan, implement, monitor and review each stage you learn, so it’s very quick … feedback process rather than a … for three years to review where we’re at and I’m actually using this as a time … change management strategy towards the implementation of … so that will be interesting to see how that goes. It’s one of the … that are being used to develop that plan. The other really important - … what I did with … management was I … a big idea several years ago of the instrumentation of interactive … sales and that’s never happened and never been appropriate but I did use it – I test it a little bit in some of the project teams and see well can you use … management of the project management of CSU. No you can’t but it’s worth trying. Not appropriate but that’s okay to sort of trial and knew that it would be worthwhile …. The most important thing and if you ever – the most important thing I … (unable to understand – too faint) – I really love that book and the … of other references and it’s the concept of resilient thinking is very powerful and it’s not … as in an educational … and so on. Really it’s no different than as in how do you actually manage changes in the environment but … really simple – the short stuff that comes out it was … and basically one of the things that it’s a ball in the basin model, so you can imagine your system – each of these … circles are dotted lines in the system – in the basin and the ball – if you’re in that system you might be … around. Now depending on how phonemic the system is and how close you are to the edge is how close – how easy might be for you to get tipped out so if that basin is tipped around a bit and … out it popped into another system and … somewhere else and if you’re right down – deep down so effectively depending where you are in the system and your system is constructed, you could have it a whole lot of movements. Now the ball could be at the bottom and at the top and you could have a lot of movement there before the system actually changes into a completely different perspective and – let’s go back in – so that’s just one end. I guess … and I guess we think about … the feel was – I guess our technology at CSU – to think of each of these basins are say as a faculty. If the new technology comes along, how much will take to … completely new basin as it was, and for some people … interact is a really big thing and for others not as much, and what that means is that where you’ve got good strategies and you take on board new stuff, whereas other people might find it very difficult or just when you introduce an interactive model and other things happening at the same time – restructures and staffing changes … it becomes less easy to actually get the resiliences down, so those are just one of the aspects I was exploring. The third I guess metaphor is social ecological systems approach and all that is is simply have social systems and ecological systems and where they meet in social ecological systems. I … from the bio metaphor managing aspect and of course in … environment


management where … just manage the environment for what was out there and then you suddenly realise that brings a people factor to it and if you actually bring the two together it makes a whole lot more sense and you will see that of course … the systems all the way along and I suppose it’s only relatively recently really that I’ve really understood what systems are all about and although I’ve talked about systems and I’ve been learning and putting systems, I haven’t really sort of figured out … how important this system aspect is … and it is a systems approach and that’s important. The social ecological systems need juristics – there’s five juristics – two dynamics which are … and the adaptive … and then the properties which complete the dynamics of the system are resilience, transformability and adaptability, and so really what my studies … down to it’s all about adaptive management and intensive … so that’s what I’m doing. It has been testing these characteristics.

M: Janet, can you hear us?

F: Yes.

M: Oh good, we had some technology problems before and we couldn’t. Where does the sort of emergent properties of a system fit into that model?

F: Oh very much on the emergent problems of a system would be this here - … technology enhancing environment. Actually, I’m going to share a lot of the … of that because I’m just busy working on those at the moment, but for me this is the really big area that I want to explore further and that’s the emergent properties. I guess this is what it is – technology enhancing environment is a complex system – that’s what it is and it’s got variable tendency detractions and connectiveness and see that’s where the emergent properties fit in. … and I’ve got some stuff that I’m still sort of working on and trying to write up at the moment so then I guess we’ll be able to share I guess our work but yet for me I think that’s probably where it fits … so we’re just … in the last few months really. I hadn’t sort of thought very much about it until I watched a TV program … gaming and then I sort of thought “Oh that emergent stuff that’s interesting”. And learning a bit more about that but I thought “No I mustn’t get distracted, just stick to this”.

M: But it does seem to me that you look at say the MSI as a classic example of system implementation that just went horribly wrong in a lot of ways and maybe it’s the sort of – you know I’m a bit blurry on contact systems theory, but my understanding is that the sort of emergent properties – they’re sort of things that are unpredictable system changes and therefore the way you were modelling the systems-

F: Actually they’re not that unpredictable that being humans we know it’s going to happen and we do it anyway. You know I think that’s a classic case of MSI …-

M: You reckon you could tell it was going to go all bad?

(Talking over each other)

F: To be honest with you … we did it anyway.

M: Maybe.


F: When we did do that, that’s an area that were … - I don’t know much about emergence of that but perhaps I could talk to people about that one. I suppose some of the stuff here … and some of the answers to that might come in the areas – I’m going to just describe a little bit about the – very quickly – a little bit about the theory of the metaphor … and the other four juristics that also just explain as I go trying to sort of link that to what it might mean for your work and teaching and technology and teaching teachers how to use technology or … environments of technology so they’re continually changing. … is a manufactured word and in one of my favourite books it’s … which is … understanding transformations in human and natural systems by Gamison and …. It’s just really describing and understanding the dynamics and cognitive relationships and the interests of a variety of factors on the environment, and there’s lots and lots of ways one can do that, but … does which is something which I haven’t seen a lot of in my area is that … and spatial aspects along with the interactions, so this is a not very clear view of the hierarchy of the education in … is taken directly from the book so it looks … spatial 1,000 kilometres over looking at ten thousand years … and the particular education structure, so I really like that idea and as I mentioned there’s a connecting document and some over the last ten or more years from CSU, you can start to … that these sorts of pictures and what I did was develop it a bit further using my data and develop something for para analysis … and this is what Barney was mentioning is the fact that the way the … goes so horribly wrong – if you look at the … aspects, if you look at the group of technologies and transform … that … that you can go back to the paper. What I’ve tried to do here is to have a temple depiction of the technologies that we have introduced over the last – since 1998 along with what I can an impact … and I’ve still got a fair bit of work to do on that, actually working out impact factors, so this is more of gut feeling – that the size of the bubbles and the depth of the bubbles and the … and the height of the bubbles in how many people effectively impacted or perceived to impact across the university. So introducing some new thing like … or institutional repository or the …. There’s probably a large number of people that … just the impact … - not to forget that it’s a positive impact on technology sometimes we’d like to think. … actual methods of measurable tool but the design of some of these things there’s other factors. So there’s the teaching and learning stuff which is … solid …; administrative assistance which is the easy … (unable to understanding – too faint and static interference) and for me what support is to bring in what’s happening behind the scenes and one of the scenes … 2006-2008 in the faculty restructures we had the USM … came in and 2009-2010 they were before the other influences. This is just one very small snapshot and I thought – I think this is the one I draw from … of an education and design … perspective of an academic. There will be things in there which don’t affect us at all but do effect you and so and so. It’s a very useful way of detecting it … a fair bit into the education, obviously we’re very proud of the technology but when you look at it – where are we at now? I mean MSI came in 2009 you’ve got all these other things that are happening and what isn’t in there is the restructure of LCS and that was a contributing factor for … and supporting …, so that’s interesting way of depicting it. Organisational structure changes … 2009 … how we can support technology at the university. Pre 2009 we had CIT, we had … and we also had … 2009 we brought that education technology into the learning and teaching services with strong links into … and this very unusual model but very


effective model – just unusual because most universities don’t spend anything as cohesive as that for technology and so on, but the change … since 2009 and so we’ve always continued to change and that’s okay. It needs to. This is an interesting concept …. … to be … shortly but this is a way in which assisted it. When you’ve got interlinked systems and … systems influence each other and I think that’s … very easy to talk about the … example first and get back to the forest. The … cycle is another major dynamic of systems and … again from the environmental area – it’s been very well developed this one. Very simply adapts to … just as far as the dynamics of the eco system and in nature you might have a rapid growth base of – think of … , so there would be a rapid growth phase of vegetation comes in … come in first - … and you will get other things but eventually you’ll get back to the … if all goes well. So from that rapid growth phase you move into – they call it the conservation phase. The conservation phase is that ongoing stand off phase … resources …, but any natural system is not going to last as it is forever. Something will happen. There might be a drought, there might be a flood or a fire or something comes through and so then there’s a major – there’s a change rapid or slow into what we call a release phase and then that’s – let’s say a fire goes through – it’s going to release nutrients in some ways – some things will be destroyed and as things come back you go through a major re-organisation phase and at the re-organisation phase gradually turns into the rapid growth phase. That’s a very simple version. The complex version I’m not going to go through too much detail, but I’ve got … which really does give a lot of detail on that if anybody’s interested in finding out more about it, but for me the importance is the transformation that during … from that conservation or from stable base which I call institutionalisation – move from that into that creative destruction thing – chaos, … whatever you want to call it but … destruction from a positive way of looking at it because when you’re forcing change upon people that you need to sometimes change things about and then move into the newer phase and then reactive growth phase. So looking at that cycle and I can go through it very quickly because I know what it means, but what’s important about these … because the more stable you are the more connections you have, the less flexibility you have to absorb change; so you’ve got a really good stable structure and so how do you – I guess … how do you have a flexible organisation, now I think a mutually … organisation … to do that, but that’s what you need to do. … something – that’s one of my goals is agility. This is perhaps the way in which … agility and work through that. Of course it’s wonderful to pull things apart and getting …, throwing them on the floor, … but it’s very understandable how you’re doing that. The innovation and … phase is the interesting one because with this group here – for me that’s where you guys sit and that’s when your roles are very very important. As your research – that’s the innovation and … people in the institutionalisation area and I’m good at that, so let those people do that bit first. Those people that are critical innovation and new ideas and stuff – you keep doing that and working predominantly in the space and then we take … and people like us take those innovations and sort of spread them out to other people and that brings in the rapid growth and then you find processes, so the showcases, the CSU publications, research …, you take that and then you mainstream that and so for me what’s important – that’s where there are … and remember comes in. … and remember is where you have – the innovation … is that we are working small and fast – rapid changes … and we need to do that. … educators … keep bringing in new technologies or … about the danger of systems for


me but we’ve got to move very quickly and adapt so that we can bring in that change and the way the system works is that definitely you’re feeding up and feeding up into the bigger systems but remember … introducing the institutional processes – the slow processes and … lasting a long time. It’s not always … have a bit of a balance, so that was … cycle which was probably one of the …. Resilience, I’m not going to go through that in any more detail except just to recap on what it means within – I’ve taken the environmental definition out of it and that’s the capacity of a system to experience shocks and to absorb disturbance while retaining the same functional structure, … and so on and I need to do a lot – I’m not 100% sure because obviously trying to sort of say it can be … direct from the environment into the education fields and management fields where I need to change it and I probably need to change it a little bit, but transformability … adaptive cycle which is really fundamental to all. Lesser capacity to create a … of the new system when the existing system is untenable and of course what you do find and I can show that through the research you can see and from the stuff that I have already written, is that the different parts of the cycle we went through – different parts of the organisation went through changes as we speak and I have indicated that you have got your change agents and have to move through fairly quickly and others move through fairly slowly, but overall … and I suppose it’s – a whole lot of forms in innovating and you’ve got each of them moving in its own organ so … environment seem to – you have problems but perhaps the change in season and so on is a good thing because that tells me you’re not all going to get into one big vortex together. That would be a good thing and … move individually can be good but transformability, I have to sort of think carefully about the next section … is to think about where does the new system actually … because those changes can be so gradual that they … move into a different phase. I think that’s probably the essence. Adaptability is … something I said … talk … and include a reference to that took me back to 2009 … workshop … up at Bathurst and it was on strategies for achieving widespread institutional change through technology and … interacting across the …, and there was one exercise which we asked people to do which was to look at where they’re going and where they are and transforming learning and teaching and we got quite a backlash on that because basically and rightly so because we’ve … the whole thing on the fact that you need to transform learning and teaching and people actually did …. They don’t need to transform. They maybe need to change and do different things and so on and so I …. I don’t know … have that new system …. The adaptability has been the nicest part to research and that’s really the capacity of a social component for the system to manage resilience and that procedure is talking to people about how they have coped with change; how we perceive change better and things like that and … on one of the many … back in the early days … workshops and we’re going to have another bonding session as … restructuring … and so on, but it really is very – it has been very interesting thing, especially for management. I mean there’s been various … and research and … I suppose. I’m just – I mean the area which I found as an individual is four distinct areas that converged around change and adaptability in general and people’s feelings about change, … people’s personal assessment of ability to adapt, their personal strategies for managing change. How do they do that? There were pages and pages of those and personal strategies for managing technological change, so those are the areas in which I sort of back in the days from …, getting out and … most of the areas that … to make sense. At the institutional level, the adaptability is … perceptions


and personal assessment of institutional … to change and the perceptions of the effectiveness, especially … politically sensitive and too complicated. I mean it’s there but whether I can actually use it the research, I will have to look at that. Institutional strategies in managing change was a … complex self organising systems. There’s some very good examples actually that I … it can actually happen and so how do we carry it on … that and use that and then there’s the institutional strategies – managing sort of – good institutional … is important; … management so I suppose – now looking at the time and thinking you want to start talking and discussing so I think I might have connected a little bit into sort of what might be of interest to you today, but the significance that I see is that first managing change and uncertainty – that’s a universal problem so whether it’s your – what you’re doing in your … is really universal although a case study in technology at CSU … I think the outcomes are fairly universal and obviously I think is really … for management … - how we manage things. Managing the introduction of new technologies with sympathy … aesthetic tools that you can use for analysis and prediction and so that’s something that I’m …. I’ve got a couple of workshops and I have used a couple of these tools and someone here’s used them and you find that everyone … cycle …. … analysis doesn’t – there’s other tools. It’s just a set of tools … and what might make sense and I think that visual representation … when you’re trying to demonstrate to hide their … certain aspects as well. … contextual theory and …. … and your confident with what you’re doing but complexity you’re certainly looking at … education. As far as research into … - that’s the area that I’m particularly keen on following up on so I guess … future research but I think has another potential in trying to understand how that system works, the factors and the variables of interactions but particularly … is an interesting concept anyway, and also relooking and tying that into … interact too and our new learning environments and so on, so watch this space for ideas …. So we probably leave it there and there’s a few other areas which … - that’s enough. I might leave it there because that’s given you an enough of … and what … a complex … is I suppose, but do you have any questions, any ideas, anything that strikes a cord?

M: Okay, fire away people. There’s a lot in that.

M: I really enjoyed that and I can see how a number of those lenses – I find quite interesting and I can see they could be quite potent and they sort of bring a new clarity to some of those things that have been happening around us and so sometimes chaotic. Implied to all of it though I think has been your desire to create positive change and benefit through those perspectives and you can probably have some examples of how your work has illuminated or brought forward different possibilities for managing technology introduction or something of the sort that would show the benefit. Can you talk about one or two?

F: Yeah, well certainly I think some of the lenses that worked well – I still – there’s a number of lenses … but the most important thing is you focus that … in level in changing … but when it comes down to focussing at that individual level, I mean I’ve learnt so much by talking to people about their adaptability to change. With technological change; the most significant thing that I’ve learnt was the fact that – when you are implementing a widespread change in particular you’ve got such a vast array of people and … with such different standards you’re certainly going to find it very difficult to keep everybody happy and


implicitly a large number of people are … adapting to change …. Even though they …. There is a very small group of people … exist who are saying “Well I’m very grateful you have adapted that – managing change and adapting to change if I agree with it”. And that’s something for management because it is really important … it’s intuitive until you actually …, but as far as – as you can see, it’s interact … one focus and you’ve got so many different technologies that we’ve been through. Certainly it seems that it’s not just my work but I think it’s … convergent evolution and when people are sort of thinking and know that sometimes you haven’t done things in the best way at CSU. That change management around Interact II will be very interesting since … helping us to develop that stand but very much because we now are at a certain stage, I suppose looking at the second stage … have transformed and that’s how the measurements are set. Have transformed learning and teaching, teaching will never ever be the same again at CSU. … because … and so now that there’s a certain base level of expertise and understanding and use the online technologies and … and so some of these things in … is to try and … and work very hard in the coming months and sort say well … be … and you know that they’re there – actually start saying them and … negative messages so … a request for finding out about what people have been doing and … education showcases and things like that, so that’s a very important part is to know where you’re at and then need to be, so I guess that’s part of using that adaptive management framework as part of the strategy to guide the change management plans to say to benchmark – where are we at and where do we need to be and I guess how we get there? – a really simple thing of benchmarking is really important to know where you’re at and that’s a needs analysis and where the gaps are. Nothing new – it’s just a different way of doing it I suppose and probably ….

M: Oh thanks, I will hand over to somebody – the next person-

M: I’m interested to get Alan’s perspective on some of this just because I know you’ve used complex systems theory a bit in understanding change in schools. Does some of what Janet’s doing sort of gel with some of your work Alan? Does the metaphor work in the same way? You’re on mute I think. Can’t hear you?

M: Maybe that’s what that red light is.

M: Sorry I missed the first part there. There are a number of things that are certainly resonant. I think one of the things I … is what William is saying is that, and I goes to what you were talking about Janet in terms of benchmarking – I think I have a fairly strong empirical argument that suggests that teaching … hasn’t been transformed by technology and that’s not … CSU. That’s basically the evidence around education generally suggests there hasn’t been much transformation. There’s been a lot of automation, so I think it goes to a lot of … make about benchmarking, which is that you have to I guess first decide – actually study the dynamics of change – what’s going to be changed, what constitutes a successful change process which can also be emerged in – that doesn’t have to be preordained and also then look very carefully at the dynamics of the change process, so more specifically in what you’re talking about … - the thing that maybe worthwhile to think about in the different metaphors and the different approaches you are talking about is the role of feedback and successful complex systems that adaptation to changes on the landscape is all about


feedback, and feedback not in the sort of jargonistic educational sense of filling out a form or taking a test but the fact that the system has … in its design the capacity to constantly generate emerging feedback which means that it’s part of an ongoing strategic that allows a system to remake itself constantly and that it’s simple rules, its design is under constant change as a function of that feedback flow. I would argue that … for example, one of probably the many reasons that that could be deconstructed in terms of the challenges or issues but what I … is that our systems don’t really have that emerging capacity, and I guess the third thing I would say is that agency in complex systems is … complex systems is very something also to consider, and that is what’s the nature of agency, what’s the nature of mutual accommodation to allow the person to function … of a system, what role’s do agents play and how do they change in … and how is that – it brings me back to my first point – how is that adaptation consistent with where the intent of where the change of process is, so I think it’s a lot of information and complex systems still simply resonate this kind of work.

F: …-

F: I guess pick an approach and work with that and then it comes to down to – I think the size of study and then interrogated all the way along with all these other things about complicating and too much with the-

M: One of the things for successful complex systems is that there’s an elegance and simplicity about their rules. The word complex is actually easy to misinterpret in complex systems theory – it’s not about a system that look like an unmanageable blueprint of connected boxes and unwieldy relationships. They actually have a relevance because they’re usually distinguished by some very simple rules and that what’s complex about them is the sophistication in the way the information flows change happenings that allows them to adapt, including adapting to simple rules that they set out to function with, so what we see here is - the reason we talk about complex systems is that with a complex behaviour seems to be possible from any interaction or feedback agency has simple rules in … organising ways. It’s not often necessarily out the actually complexity of the system, in fact there’s a lot of literature that shows that when systems get too complex in that literal sense they actually become dysfunctional. They can’t adapt successfully to change. They reach equal of their conditions and they fall off the edge of chaos.

M: That sounds like CSU.

F: Certainly when you said there’s such a … about complex system and certainly that’s when the real thing that changes in us – working on the basis of the building environment and what does that mean and putting the facets and then sort of came down to the four dimensions and the connections we’ve got out there and that there when I suddenly realised that half of that – it is a complex system but it’s just the four dimensions that are connected with it which they tie into the adapted cycle so for that was very useful to … that a bit further.

M: Um, Will and Jill you haven’t really said much. Would you like the opportunity to ask some questions or make comments?

F: Marilyn here, I think I have a question around methodology. Um, Janet, one of the things that you referred to quite earlier in the piece


particularly when you referred to Miriam’s quote about … data being sound in the environment, and I was interested I that because I thought listening to your presentation – clearly you’re a researcher located in the … of the research and the idea of data being found in the environment is a kind of notion like cherry picking off the pre existing tree, and that’s a particular sort of thinking space about research whereas you could have chosen some kind of quote that was about constructing that out in the environment, and because you’re closer to research, you’re accounting for yourself because you read out early on a story that included you, and clearly you’re doing a case study on the institution within which you’re employed and you know people, but I just sort of saw a tension between the … graphic approach which about the notion of constructing what you’re finding within a theoretical framework or finding the data as if it was pre existing and I just sort of wondered what you were thinking this tension I believe exists in all qualitative research, so I sort of wondered how you were thinking about that, given the tensions that you must be dealing with at the level of methodology?

F: … I guess a bit more about. I think it comes down to perhaps – the first phase of the research was exploratory. Initially as I said this was exploratory research and all the way along. It’s only discovered that actually it’s not exploratory because I really want to test the insertion into another systems approach and those five phases and the first phase on exploratory – … at looking at certain things and then a strategy … and these other things, so I think perhaps the tension which is possibly answered to some extent by the so called phases in the study – just off the top of my head but I think that it comes down to in time to test – I think I wrote it down somewhere - … one of my supervisor’s wrote something for me that … - so the first group it came down to was just trying to in test in a social ecological systems approach – one does then I suppose – I don’t know maybe I should ask you people – you’re the experts at that, so can one then just cherry pick the … to try and illustrate the social ecological systems that those five characteristics can be used to describe – can it … fit the environment, so in the questions from my supervisor, … can a social ecological approach be used and describe the manage change in technology … within any environment. Does it explain managing?, how does it explain that? Can it predict the patterns so I suppose that would probably be my first answer is to choose the data to try and illustrate that but knowing that probably might be a whole lot of other stuff that that you’re missing out on - I’m not sure. … to think about it more and talk more about it.

F: I mean I think it’s a tough one; there’s the whole idea of whether or not data is constructed or found – constructed or discovered is an interesting one but I’m sure but I think there are a lot of juicy debates in that particular area and with all of us sort of respond to those questions I think in different ways depending on how we think about what doing qualitative research means, and I’d be interested to hear what other people think. I think it’s always interesting to have a good chat about that kind of methodological framework.

M: Christina, I know you’re fairly good on methodology. Have you got anything to say on that?

F: No.


(All laughing)

F: But I have a question for Janet and it’s related. Janet, when you were presenting your findings I was interested that you had first of all – I think it was something to do with the individual and then the second was so do with the institutional and I noticed that the words perception popped up in both of those, so I wondered if you could talk a little about the individual in the institutional, if that makes sense and-

F: When I first … I experienced the whole thing on … - I prepped the idea of the research on the fact that … resilience and the individual and it’s the institution, so the whole … before I sort of got … discovering social ecological systems futuristics. I think when it comes down to it, I mean clearly individuals make the institution but the institution itself as an organisation – there’s organisational learning and it has a certain capacity of its own. The place of the individual in the institution I guess is as one of the many components that makes it go on being … we also work together, but the institution itself I mean it’s people that have the ideas and think of it light and poncy who can actually go through the … and stuff around learning teaching and you mentioned you picked up on the word perceptions and so what I have done is … policies and strategies and things like that to see well how does CSU actually perceive its learning environment, so if you go through the strategy … go through the strategy and create operational plans around that and operations plans and … operation plans and action plans, then operational plans and all those sorts of things, so just really wanted to know what the institution … that they see because if they see that the direction is lending flexible learning or just flexible learning does make a big difference as to what … so I guess … in the individual in that is that we – you know the institution has to some extent does form our directions – should form our directions in some way although good academics are always going in their own direction as far as they can … pulled back … making progress – if you’re the early part of the institution I suppose. I don’t know if that helps?

F: So to come back to, I think it was Marilyn’s comment and questions and someone who’s in the research – did your – in seeking to understand the understand the case study and you being in it, would you say that there were things about you that were to do with individual, the individual experience of change and things in it about you as an institutional being, if you like or to use … term an agent for change perhaps?

F: Yeah, I think that’s useful perspective – yes – I mean … must be very aware of the individual and the passion and … fact that one wants to achieve certain goals but then you have an institutional role, and the way in which I’ve addressed that in some of the writing is to use the internal boundaries – crossing boundaries where I guess I started with … educational designer edging on the role of what was then the … coordinator - … and crossing a boundary into a technological area and then ended up sort of in … in managing certain projects and … something crossing the boundary into an area with more technical aspects and then across the … into management and … into the faculty … changed our models, so that’s perhaps where you’ve got the individual but you’re aware by crossing the boundaries you’re getting an insight, not just looking in but you’ve actually … whereas perhaps sort of trying to


address that in the writing of it, but I’ve still got a bit of work to do with that but then I don’t want the need to be in there too much. I just want to try and report on it because I think … is important.

M: Now I’m aware of the time. I want to run a couple of things past people.

M: … wanted to add but I know you wanted to get Canada in so-?

M: I did, I want to bring Canada in but I also want to leave a couple of minutes at the end just to talk about our next couple of meetings for the year, so could I maybe go to Canada for a quick question, quick response and then give me five minutes just to run a couple of things past you for our future meetings. I know there’s probably – we could talk about this topic for a lot longer but time’s tight – so let’s go to Canada.

M: Thanks Janet for the … and correct me if I heard it wrong but I felt like when you started talking about resilience, you said you know you were going on the concept from an ecological model and that might be the more the kind of common notions of resilience and education, and I just wondered, was that because you examined those notions and they weren’t useful or because the ecological model held such appeal that you went that way.

F: Um, it’s really because I’d got stuck in the ecological model and that was the – I just wanted to say that’s what I’m using but I mean I have been addressing the literature review when I visited the educational stuff but I suppose for my purposes and so on I didn’t want to just get side tracked too much but you do need to see what’s useful there, so technically … in the literature review.

M: Well look let’s draw that conversation to a close, but when the blog goes up there’s an opportunity to add additional comments and continue some of the discussion, so please let’s join with me in thanking Janet for a really interesting presentation.

(All clapping)

M: And I’ll just – I just run past you my thinking about the remaining meetings for the year. We’re sort of trying to go about monthly, so I think we can fit one in about October and one in November and then I’m hoping me might have a day long symposium in December, so I will talk about the symposium in a minute. So the next of these meetings I’d really like to have a literature discussion around the notion of affordances. It’s something that comes up in a lot of different work. The concept comes from James Gibson but it’s used quite loosely by a lot of people in different ways and I think this would be a good forum for looking at the Gibson notion, probably also Donald Norman’s sort of slight adaption of the notion, and then also the way it’s used in relation to technology and learning, and some people say misused. I know some people who refuse to use it because they think it’s been corrupted, so I have seen nods around the room here, so are people happy with that as the topic for the next?

F: Great.


M: So that leaves November up for grabs and if anyone’s got a research presentation that sort of they’d been keen to do then, we could do that in November, so let me know that but also bear in mind that the symposium in December, I’m thinking will be a day long opportunity for a number of different people to give presentations about research they’re doing or thinking they’re doing in relation to technology and teaching practice. I’m not everyone’s aware but we’ve got a visiting scholar coming to Wagga – a Guy Merchant, whose done a lot of work in areas of social networking, blogs, identity and so on around that and I’m really keen to have him as a sort of key note speaker at that symposium, and I sort have in my head I have got a topic idea around something like the “Communicative affordances and constraints of offline tools”. Now that’s probably a misuse of three of four different words, but I’m painting a picture of an idea and what I’m imagining there is it could encompass Guys’ work in identity in social networks. It could also encompass some of the work I’m doing in sort of trying to look at the comparative affordance of the collaborative learning of web conferencing, virtual worlds and video conferencing. It could encompass case studies of the use of online tools for different purposes. It could encompass sort of pedagogical underpinnings of collaborative learning and how this plays out in an online environment and you can see there’s quite a bit of breadth to what could be covered. How do people feel about that. I mean can you think of any way I should change that or reword it to make it more inclusive or more interesting?

F: Can you just say it again?

M: The communicative affordances and constraints of online tools. I guess what I’m thinking about is is online tools is a communication in a learning context. What are the issues? What are the – and they might be interesting things about the technologies and the different ways that the technologies afford different types of communication with each other or compared to real communication, but also the sort of people issues around communication in an online sphere and it’s only going to work if we’ve got enough people that have got something to say about the topic or something to report. I’m seeing some nods here. Yep, do you want to go away and have a think about that? And I’ll send an email around so you’ve got it in written form rather than in verbal form and feel free to sort of suggest changes, so I’ll send an email with that sort of title but also with those different sub themes that I’ve got under it, so what I’m imagining is that I’m thinking either about the 14th of December or the 15th December which is probably the second last week before we shut down. Guy’s here until Friday the 16th. I’m thinking one of those days. I’m thinking it will be in Wagga. We’ve got funding for Faculty of Ed people to travel to Wagga for it, probably not from Ontario Will and Jill but if there’s interest we can try and video conference into Ontario. I’m thinking probably use a space like the Grape and Wine Industry’s Training Centre or the Convention Centre, and I’m imagining a series of presentations, somewhere between half an hour and an hour. Maybe give Guy an hour and the rest of us half an hour and then some sort of a plenary session where we try and capture different bits and pieces that have come out of it and talk around the implications of practice and we think about ways we might do something with that at the end. I think we’d make it – encourage the people that have been attending the group’s meetings to attend but make it open to others as well and yeah. Does that sound like a good format and so on.


All: Yep, yep, sounds great.

M: Yep, so that’s good, but I will send stuff around about that and you can sort of add to the ideas and as I said if you’ve got an idea for a research presentation for November but if you’ve got something that fits in with the symposium. I’d probably prefer saving it to them, so if you’ve got something different or alternatively if you’ve got a good literature discussion for November. I think the literature discussions are helpful in terms of getting us all on the same page in our thinking about literature and I’m really hoping that the group evolves down the track to the point where we’ve got a number of sort of collaborations happening within the group – that my idea is to build that up through the sort of conversations around research to begin with.

F: Barney, another idea – I’ve just been in Brisbane working with the ARC team and Professor Susan Danby is interested in coming to Wagga to meet Guy Merchant, so she might potentially come for that day and then we could perhaps have a presentation to do with our young children and web searching, which is the – some angle on that, so she might be another person who runs – could attend.

M: Yeah, well that’s – we do have some funding where we could bring, and I had in my mind some possibilities for an additional person to bring, because Guy’s already here. That’s a good idea and maybe, I mean if you think about that topic including sort of individual difference as groups for example young children, older people and the different ways that they interact on line and so on. If that’s made it inclusive within that sort of topic that’s certainly a possibility if you need funding for Susan to come.

F: Okay.

M: Okay, well I think we’ve just about finished and let’s have a smooth ending rather than a video conference facilitated ended. Thank you all for coming and I’ll send you the date. The next one I’m thinking the 14th of October but I’ll send you a meeting request within the next week or so you’ve got that in your calendar. Okay thank you and thank you again Janet.

F: By guys.

All: Thanks Janet, bye.

(At the 1:22:30 min mark to end of recording 1:23:38 - recorder left recording after interview completed – not transcribed).

(Recording stopped)


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