I have just spent a couple of days with Lesley (Ultralab), and John and Chris from Bournemouth University – Centre for Excellence in Media Practice) fleshing out how the Ultraversity model will be adapted for Bournemouth’s proposed MA in Digital Creativity.

What impressed me was how clearly the team at Bournemouth could articulate why the ‘traditional’ approach to Masters level education is destined to dwindle and decline. Media practice is one of the fastest moving professional disciplines that there are where employability depends upon keeping up-to-date with the cutting edge technology, development and production processes, as well as the creative heartbeat of the industry.

Given all of the above, and it applies to many professions to a greater or lesser extent, why would anyone chose to place their careers on hold for 12 months becoming out of touch with what is happening in their profession and into the bargain exchanging a good income for tens of thousands of pounds of debt?

The approach being developed at Bournemouth from the experience of Ultralab’s Ultraversityproject is an online, workplace degree using action research methodology and critical reflection as its approach to learning. That is professional’s using authentic workplace problems and issues as a focus for their studies. Implicit in this approach is a recognition that students must design their own learning, identifying what is relevant to them in their own professional work context.

This approach to learning is made possible through the development of an online learning community of inquiry where students, learning facilitators, and expert witnesses come together to discuss their practice, share their experience and ideas to help students arrive at innovative solutions to real issues.

In our discussions about the proposed programme and, the significant points that came to the surface were:
- Be technologically agile, adopting open source, and free web services technology – don’t be bound into a Universities preferred ‘monolithic’ proprietary system

- focussing technical capacity on developing tools to empower students to use web services – aggregate RSS feeds, compile e-portfolio

- develop module intended learning outcomes that cut to the heart of what is intended

- ensure the programme will enable students to fit it into their ‘rhythm’ of their workplace demands

- develop an approaches to assessment that values the product as well as the process – outputs are important, and so is the knowing why and how to

- employers need organisational innovators – critical thinking, collaborative working, self awareness, and interpersonal skills promote this

There is nothing like trying to explaining something to start really understand it yourself! I was talking to a colleague the other day about the next Ultraversity cohort of researchers (the 4th) and how we help them get to grips with action research/action inquiry as the methodology at the heart of the Ultraversity pathway: Ba., Learning, Technology and Research. For me, two of the key components are developing the practice of analytical, and reflective thinking. As a part of the action research cycle these two skills are intertwined but different.

When analysing we are seeking to classify or categorise data with the hope of then being able to identify patterns and relationships to help us interpret and explain what we see. Once the data has yielded what it can, we can more easily synthesise different sources of information from other research and from our previous experiences to help understand a particular problem or issue that we are inquiring into. Analyses helps us see the ‘wood from the trees’, synthesis helps us see the trees in the forest!

Reflection is much more than just thinking about something. At its most powerful, when we reflect we begin to dig beneath the surface and the obvious to see things from different perspectives. This can lead to real insight through challenging the assumptions and beliefs that inform our ‘first thoughts’. These ‘multiple voices’ could be thought of like the contrasting views of football pundits who have just watched the same match but arrived at very different interpretations of it. It isn’t a question of right or wrong, but an understanding that the different viewpoints or ‘lenses’ through which we see the world are legitimate and are informed by our experiences, the purpose, and the stand point from which we view something.

On the one hand we have interpretation through a process of analysis, and on the other hand insight through a process of reflection. Both equally important aspects of action research, both requiring practice to develop the skills required. The above diagram implies linearity, but in reality the process is likely to be a fluid and intertwined one with analysis feeding reflection and reflection feeding analysis.

Building a website by committee

Sat in the Anglia room with about 40 Ultralab (old website) staff building a new Ultralab webiste by committee! No a promising prospect you might think, however the challenge of enabling a whole team to feel ownership of a website is no mean task. Why is this important? Richard Millwood, the director of Ultralab has set us the task of building a world class educational website where we engage with other passionate people in a dialogue about innovative educational practice. We want people who visit the website to be inspired by the ideas. More importantly though, we want to discuss them with us.

It is the general truth that there is far more known than can be written down and in this reports and research papers in themsleves are perhaps best seen only as an introduction to the knowledge of a domain.

If this website is to work we need to get all Ultranauts to want to share their work and join with others in dialogue about it in an open forum. The Ultralab website – a community of inquiry!