Over engineering learning computer solutions?

I would guess that there are still software engineers and developers who harbour the ambition of engineering the human out of more and more processes. You often hear the retorts that a process would work really well, if only people were not involved. Doubtless there are people too, who would like to be engineered out of particularly tasks and procedures to a point where everything is automatic. But is that really a desirable objective?



The car is now massively advanced from the days when cars had to be cranked up to start by hand. You could imagine we will get to the point where it would be possible to point our car at a destination and, with a combination of satellite navigation and automatic controls, get to where we want to go almost without thinking. Is that really what we want? Isn't part of the enjoyment of a car journey and what captures our interest having to make decisions.

Making decisions can therefore be good and it is important to remember this when engineering computer-based learning solutions. Take e-portfolios for NVQs as one example. There are some systems that in essence make the decision for the assessor, if you have this and this, the following is automatically satisfied. There are others which require an assessor to make a genuine judgement. From a learning pedagogical perspective and in terms of motivating the assessor and learner the latter approach must be better. Providing helpful tools and guides is good, as is removing unnecessary paperwork but if we are over-automating any learning process we are in real danger of turning off all those involved in the learning journey. 

Part of the creativity in developing computer software for learning lies in managing that difficult balance, between automating processes to reduce what the learner has to do but not to the extent where the learner becomes disengaged from the whole process.  

Jamie pays attention to Education

So, yes, it is all artificial and unreal and, yes, there would be few other schools with resources like this and the capacity to bring in top people in their profession, but there is something about this programme that means it is authentic. This week David Starkey’s genuine and successful attempt, to find better ways of engaging with young people and the dramatic impact on a young person, of being told that they have an A plus, not least because they know it is deserved.



I watch the programme from two angles. One, as a former leader of a Second Chance School (2CS) in Leeds I am intrigued to see the parallels between that experience and what is taking place in the Dream School. Already the claims that the staffing levels at the 2CS were too large for the young people we were dealing with, is starting to look suspect. They, as does this group, needed that level of support to try and unpick what had happened to them previously in schools, so that they are enabled to start to learn again. The desire to learn and achieve that is apparent in the students at the Dream School, despite all their disruptive behaviour, was also apparent in the young people in the 2CS.


I am also interested in the use that Jamie is making of technology - or not. Symbolically Jamie’s first action in his class is to collect all the mobile phones, because of the way that the mobile was seen to be disrupting learning across the school. Computers although always seemingly available are not being used in the learning. This is, with the exception this week of the photography class, where technology was partly used, to deliver the most powerful lesson so far, in which the group demonstrated brilliant skills in producing self images.


It is a fascinating ‘experiment’ and now has me glued although I do not have to wait until next week for what comes next, because there is a blog, website, Facebook page to look at. Where shall I start?

It is time that JISC started to provide responsible leadership for the use of technology for FE/HE.

A couple of years ago I found myself presenting a seminar on e-portfolios alongside the person tasked, for this region, with developing good practice in technology, to support the delivery of FE/HE. He produced a bamboozling presentation on the way you could use technology like google mail and other ‘free’ software to create an e-portfolio.



His diagrams were certainly confusing to someone like me with some knowledge of e-portfolios and software development and it’s only purpose appeared to be, to demonstrate that you could do for free, what nasty commercial companies were delivering for excessive amounts of money. To my knowledge, since his presentation, no one has successfully applied this ‘blueprint’ to produce a solution that is ‘working.’ In contrast one of the FE Colleges there at the same seminar decided to buy into our solution.


It would appear from the programme for the latest JISC event ‘Towards a New Horizon: Using Technology to deliver HE in a Changing World’ that he is still mounting the same campaign. There is a session about e-portfolios which is introduced in the following way;


‘The traditional method of assignment work submission is costly in resources and imposes constraints on staff and students alike. However, most of the workable, E-Portfolio solutions available are prohibitively expensive and often difficult to set up and administer, giving no appreciable saving in cost, effort or resources. But there is another way of approaching this problem, using existing resources and knowledge, which is elegant in its simplicity – email.’


Now I accept that this maybe an introduction to a session that someone other than a JISC member of staff is delivering. However the fact that it is has been allowed to be timetabled by JISC, suggests at the very least that this is being promoted as a worthwhile approach to the region. There is also an implication that those learning institutions that are using these E-portfolio solutions are being irresponsible with public money, not least because they do not deliver any appreciable benefits and there is a simple solution,- e-mail.


I am aware that I am in danger of prejudging the session that is about to be delivered but the notion that e-mail can accommodate all the complexity of groups, roles and permissions that are required to deliver robust and quality assured assessment beggars belief. In that process e-mail has a role to play and we use it for witness testimonies to authenticate work based evidence and confirm embedded practice. However this is not without its challenges. Spam filters have a habit of ‘disrupting’ e-mails particularly where there is a complex chain of communication and addresses.


There is a reason why charges need to be made for the e-portfolios that capture effectively work based assessment. It is because to capture that process and make it simple requires highly sophisticated and well engineered technology.


JISC would serve the sector better by recognising that, rather than by giving airtime to half baked and ill thought through proposals. To return to the theme of a previous blog it is about time they found a way of working collaboratively with companies who have been developing truly elegant technology based solutions for many years.