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Are you a digital polymath?

I think it might have been an bit of a radio interview early one morning a couple of weeks ago that got me thinking about polymaths. It was one of those just waking up moments so I didn’t get a lot of context, but I now have figured out that it probably was a bit of BBC trailer disguised as in interview thing, for a programme aired early this week on Radio 4 – Monkman and Seagull’s Polymathic Adventure.

The hosts, Monkman and Seagull led teams on last year’s university challenge and both were memorable for their quizzing prowess and become almost instant social media celebs (well in the UK anyway).

The half hour programme is a good overview of the history, rise and fall(?) of the polymath. Well certainly from a Western European perspective and is well worth a listen.

Through conversations with a range of academics, and ubiquitous polymath, Stephen Fry our hosts tried to get answers from questions such as, is it possible to be a useful know it all in the 21st century? is the notion of the polymath an outdated concept harking back to the renaissance? Even by the 18th century there was a developing discourse around the need for specialists as opposed to polymaths. At that point it was felt that the world was too complex for anyone to have in-depth cross disciplinary knowledge.

So in the 21st century when knowledge and information is being created and shared at an ever increasing rate is there a role for the polymath? Is it even possible to be an expert across multiple domains just now?

There was a really interesting thread running through the programme about the differences between specialists and polymaths. In terms of education are we forcing specialisms at too early an age? There was a striking comment that actually that any paradigm shifts in any discipline might actually need the input from those with a broader perspective.

When talking about the characteristics of the polymath, Stephen Fry described himself as someone who has “learnt a lot not someone who knows a lot”. His greed for knowledge he likened to putting on epistemological weight (sic).

Of course underlying the whole programme and concept was education. The conclusions, were around the challenges of contributing to new knowledge and making connections/communicating knowledge between specialists and new audiences. That sounds quite a lot like a large part of a learning technologists/educational developer role to me.

I can’t remember if it was Seagull or Monkman who concluded that for it it was ultimately about “what you do with what you know and make a positive difference in other people’s lives”. Sounds a lot like teaching to me.

The whole programme got me think about digital capabilities too. Perhaps that is where the future of the polymath may lie. The focus an developing digital capabilities could help us develop a new 21st notion of a digital polymath, someone who has a broad knowledge and in-depth understanding of using digital tools, which in turn should help many, not just the few make a positive difference in their own and others lives.

I often feel that my role is a bit like being a jack of all trades, so the notion of being a digital polymath does help make sense of that a bit. I still won’t ever make it onto University Challenge . . . but I can live with that.

NMC Digital Literacy take 2: the power of a good rant

I was pleased to spot last night that the NMC has published its second Horizon Project Strategic Brief on Digital Literacy :

a follow-up to its 2016 strategic brief on digital literacy. Commissioned by Adobe, this independent research builds upon the established baseline definitions of digital literacy from the 2016 brief, examining digital literacy through a global and discipline-specific lens to reveal new contexts that are shaping the way learners create, discover, and critically assess digital content.

Now, dear Reader, you may remember when their first one came out last year, it provoked me to have, as they say here in Glasgow “a right good rant“. My rantiness seemed to strike a chord and, as wordpress likes to tell me now and again, got my stats booming. It’s also caught the eye of the folks at NMC who got in touch and we exchanged a few emails about my concerns with the first report.

The second version is much better. It isn’t being driven by products (one of my main concerns about the first report) but by international research and practice. I was particularly pleased to see the work of Helen Beetham and Jisc featuring.

Now I know that my rant wasn’t responsible for this change of heart, but it is always gratifying when one of my (quite frequent) rants actually seems to chime with others and more importantly I can see something tangible a few months later. Just shows that sharing your views does matter and can make a difference.

2Oth Century fiction and 21st Century Facts – trying to find the words

Sometimes it is hard to write. Like many people I am struggling to comprehend and article what is going on in the world right now. Catherine found some beautiful words as did Anne Marie calling it like it is. Audrey reminded us of the need to teach history. Being able to connect with the Hybrid Pedagogy folks last week once again reminded me of the joy, simplicity and complexity of connections and context.

During a conversation last week I mentioned that I had never read any John Le Carre. The next day I was given a copy of Call for the Dead, the first outing of his quiet (anti) hero, George Smiley. Reading that book which is set post WW2, pre cold war, in a post cold war, as close to the start of WW3 as we’ve been this century, almost a century on from the end WW1 was quite something. Particularly for someone who grew up during the height of the cold war. I have been reflecting if that is why I’ve never really engaged with thriller/espionage fiction. It all comes back to context.

The narrative is still relevant, governments are still involved in covert operations based on political and economic ideologies, but the pace is almost surreal in the 21st Century. Our hero gets bashed on the head, spend three weeks in hospital and is still able “hot on the trail” when he sort of recovers. In our instant, internet age that would never happen? Well it would be very unlikely and certainly in fiction, everyone would have been “locked and loaded” within about 3 minutes.

Last night just before listening to the fabulous radio adaptation of Midnight’s Children (again particularly relevant as we mark the 70th anniversary of the partition of India), Salman Rushdie said in relation to the current political climate in India

“the world is full of things no one saw coming but here they are”

But maybe we did see them coming, we just didn’t want to talk about the consequences of displacing millions of people, the consequences of a President not condemning white supremacists, a government using “the will of the people” to justify an weak, unstable and unplanned exit from the European Union.

We need to talk, we need to call out, we need to share, we need to be able to contexualise – as educators we need to help our students contextualise this increasingly crazy world, to understand the need for context for politics, for action, to question status quo news narrative, to help create and share the truth.

I still don’t have the right words, but I do know now, more than ever our political leaders need to find them. They need to be able to articulate their views, to lead with compassion, with humanity, with grounded understanding of history and the consequences of inaction, of meaningless and provocative soundbites. They will be judged, but by then it might be too late for the rest of us.

Getting #creativeHE

If you need a bit of inspiration this week then you should check out the #creativeHE google+ community. A week of activities to stimulate discussion, sharing and production of creative learning and teaching ideas. I signed up for the last iteration of the event earlier this year, but didn’t quite manage to participate, however yesterday lunchtime I dropped into the google+ community and I’m glad I did.

I think creativity can be quite a scary word for many. It has so many connotations, and an awful lot of associations with visual outputs. As I was exploring some of the selected resources yesterday, and admiring some of the creative works already being shared, one word kept coming to mind – care. To be creative you have to care. You have to care about the process of creativity – not just the end product (sledgehammer analogy with learning and assessment, I know)

Anyway, today’s theme is around play and games. One of the suggested activities is to think of game you enjoyed as a child and think about how you could re-purpose it for a teaching context. I find this very difficult. I’ve never been much of a game person, still don’t know how to play chess, or WoW, or any other game really. I have to confess to a bit of candy crush habit that I’m managing in my own way – I don’t actually have to play it everyday, but it seems to help.

Maybe I have been a victim of too much enforced corporate fun. This episode of A Point of View from Will Self, “The fun of work – really?” captured many of my feelings in the insightful, laconic way that Self brings to everything. I was also fascinated by this report of research into creativity that showed that attempts to force creativity might actually have just the opposite effect.

There are of course many ways to introduce fun into all of our lives, one simple thing we can do is just change our location and go outside (weather permitting). It’s actually sunny in Glasgow today so that’s why that came to mind. Just wondering if I dare suggest going outside my meeting this afternoon . . .

caitlin-oriel-31955

An Introduction to How Sheila Sees IT

I’ve been blogging for a number of years now as part of my role at Cetis, and Sheila’s work blog is a record of the many adventures I have in and around educational technology. However, as from 1 August 2013 my position with Cetis is taking a bit of a sideways step (read more in this post). So I’m setting up this blog as a a space to share my ponderings from the world of educational technology in HE, other non Cetis work I’m involved with, and generally rant about various things that catch my attention, and share how Sheila sees IT.