Ravensbourne Tomorrow

Miles Metcalfe, Ravensbourne College, @mmetcalfe

About Ravensbourne

• Specialist higher-education College

• Validated by the University of Sussex and City University

• Around 1,500 students in design and communication, mainly undergraduate

• In leafy Chislehurst, Kent

Users, learners, pedagogy, technology

A look into the crystal ball

100% buzzword compliant

Oh my!

learner-centred user-owned always-on mobile wireless ubiquitous community-engaged deep-learning vocational peer-supported research-informed personalised enterprising inclusive

software-as-a-service utility

User-generated content

Remember Haircut 100?

A revolution in visual culture?

Not with our computers

User-owned technology

The usual suspects

• Flexible learning spaces

• Serendipitous commons

• Ubiquitous wireless

What do we offer?

• Some of the money we spend on computer barns now subsidises personal technology

• Higher-end resources integrate with user-owned workflows

• Software as a service, open source alternatives, software loans

The network

• Of course the LAN has enterprise uses

• Many of our users simply want to:

• Use wireless to

• Connect to the internet

• And we block their ports

What is IT for?

• Defender of scarce resource, and arbiter of fair use?

• Magical enforcer of the VLE as destination?

• Agent of transformation?

• Service provider?

• Support for digital literacy?

Should we really build Faraday cages?

Learning 2.0

Digital literacy

So you think you want a revolution?

• New technology creates new opportunities for creative expression

• Out there, many opportunities are chilled by the “intellectual property” industry

• An industry safely ignored by learners

• As are new opportunities for creative expression

What works for us

• A coherent pedagogy that recognises:

• Learners become practitioners

• And negotiate a public identity

• Integrating extra-institutional practice into their institution-bound learning

A personal learning environment

• Learners bring a part of their environment with them

• Augment it through institutional services

• Reintegrate social software through a social stack

• Won’t work unless it’s practised by us

Education technology

• RSS, OpenID preserve the VLE panopticon

• Bounded systems give way to more open collaboration

• Think carefully about the technology

• Think critically about its uses and applications

Final thoughts

• OpenID is far from perfect

• Have you tried using it on a smartphone?

• It’s a better bet than Shibboleth

• Should we trust Google and Web 2.0?

• We should manage the risk

• And what about our staff?

CreditsThe JISC elearning capital programme

All at the OUCS

Google: North Greenwich image and map pin

Foreign Office Architects: Ravensbourne building image

“Workhouse” and “Flag” images found on the web, and used without permission

Apple: iPhone image

Headshift Ltd: Social Stack

Roger Rees and Ruth Catlow – Learning Enhancement at Ravesbourne

Thanks!

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