The big news today, which I subtly alluded to in my post on change agency, is the fact I’ve been seconded to the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at UNSW as their one and only educational technologist. I am incredibly excited about the opportunity, trust, appreciation and fairly open license I’m being given to work with the faculty and am already buzzing with ideas about the possiblities. The faculty has apparently been long without local support and expertise in elearning and were all too happy to bring me into their fold. So in many regards I’m beginning with a blank slate and am being encouraged to go forth and engage with the community. Not to overlook or devalue the highly innovative – not to mention subversive – efforts of people like Mat Wall-Smith and Andrew Murphie on the New South Blogs and Digital Literacies projects, there are some very encouraging pockets of enthusiasm and practice to build upon. So the depth and scope of the landscape is truly vast. Likewise the diversity in subject matter is equally fascinating to me, with FASS comprising five schools – Education; English, Media & Performing Arts; History & Philosophy; Languages & Linguistics; and Social Sciences & International Studies – as well as several research centres and cross-faculty collaborative programs. There is little dout that FASS will teach me as much, if not more, than I will teach it. These are very exciting times for me.
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Great to hear Mike. A new challenge; new possibilities – just what the ‘doctor’ ordered. I’ll look forward to future blogs on how you are going. BTW, UTAS has a fantastic flexible learning design team working in Fac of Arts / Fac of Bus. I can put you in touch if you like
It makes a huge difference working within faculty doesn’t it. This gig at UC is my first go as well. A little like going to work in NZ the size of the org your working with is more manageable. You have more of a chance to build better trust. Dunno about your new environment, but in mine one thing that make a big difference is that my boss literally blows a trumpet when i join a meeting or am introduced. This obviously is a massive help in establishing quickly, and asuming a position of leadership. Indeed, if you are the only one assigned the role, your boss would do well to blow a trumpet for you too – at least to do what they can to pave your way for success working with staff.
Regarding the survey, if In your heart you already know what needs to be done, and your gut is telling you the boss and staff are expecting you to lead the way, I would do away with the srvey and work with the first person who shows interest. Build a success there and the others will come. the survey imho wont give you much, and could undermine your leadership role.
Good luck hey. I hope your road is clear.
@bjdavies: Thanks very much, and yes I’d be very interested in hearing/seeing what UTAS is up to with regards to flexible learning design.
@leighblackall: Leadership. Wow your comment has totally thrown me for a loop. Not in a bad way mind you, just one I hadn’t really considered.
For instance, I’ve never considered myself to be a leader. Certainly I see things differently to most people, and am not afraid to set out on my own, or stick up for the ideas or ideals that I believe in – but that’s not necessarily leadership.
Certainly we hear the term “leader” and “leadership” used quite extensively in education. Institutions, faculties and schools all include this as missions or objectives for their own areas of expertise – to be recognised global leaders – but what do we really mean by this. What does it look like in practice. What makes a good leader?
I’m not saying that to be facetious or sarcastic, and I’m certainly not in disagreement with you on this. I’m really grappling with the idea. What does the notion of “leadership in education” mean to you?
Perhaps the notion of leadership that I had been thinking of is too narrow, too myopic and in fact leadership is a much broader concept that incorporates modelling, demonstrating, and leading by example and by deed as much as by word.
Thanks very much for raising the point – it’s given me a lot to think about.
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Mike,
Warning: Contains “words of wisdom”. Take them with a grain of salt…
Start from what you know and move forward. You know more than you realise.
Listen to everyone and everything around but filter the noise. It will take a while to determine who the important people to listen to really are…
Find champions of your causes but choose them wisely. They need to be leaders themselves. If you choose to work with mavericks you in turn may be seen as a maverick.
Use your gut instinct of what is right and what is not so right when deciding on pathways. You are the leader after all. (relates to point about knowing more than you think)
Be tenacious. Follow through. Always finish what you start…
Get organised early – unlike me
Decide early on what style of leader you want to be (I have some readings on this if you want to look in detail at what research and academia say about leadership styles – this will greatly influence how you are seen. You essentially need to create a realistic persona (whether real or not) that fits with you…
Do get involved in politics but don’t let it affect you. Try to use politics to your advantage even though this may be very hard at the start. You need a good mentor and manager. This is hard as you don’t get to choose the manager…
Be careful of lead by example. Lead by example if the example relates to what people do directly. Some notions will likely go over peoples heads… Be wary of concentrating on the tech or you will be thrown on the geek pile.
Network outside the faculty as much as you network inside the faculty. You need ideas, you need help, you need support.
Lot’s of other suggestions but note I work at the micro level within a specific program so am not expert in faculty wide ed leadership…
All for now…
@Andrew Chambers: Thanks Andrew, that’s some really sage advice – especially considering how well you know the local landscape and internal dynamics.
The literature on leadership you mentioned sounds really valuable. So if you would be willing to pass that along I’d greatly appreciate it.
Thanks to everyone, in fact, this discussion has been really insightful and very helpful. So thanks a lot!
One thing to concentrate on as well as all of the above is finding ways to make the time poor academics life easier. That will be your hardest job. You will need to play the role of grand persuader. A very hard task… Best way is probably through champions. Some academics will most likely take note of other academics and their experiences. But I’m sure you know all this already…
@Andrew Chambers: Re: Time poor academics. Indeed. The recurring notion of “what’s in it for me?” was a key learning outcome from my LRC days. So I’m quite conscious of that reality and perspective in academia.
It’s also one of the areas of the greatest conflict that I can see – especially with regards to integration of more social elements and social media (democratisation). By nature they require far more time investment initially than some of the other locked-down, centralised models and systems – and after that the nature of distributed systems and “streams” of data are such that ongoing engagement is much different and can require more time investment as well. That is unless models change in where students sit relative to teacher and institution. So I’m thinking hard and carefully about ways to resolve it, but also how to frame it in the discussion.
That latter point is particularly squirrely too I fully admit – and must be broached very carefully. Certainly going with the innovators and change agents is a way to introduce the notion more widely – but there is so much fear and contention about changing models of classroom and education that you can’t be casual about the discussion.
I’m working on a master plan in that respect, so watch this space for brainstorms. Ultimately the thoughts I outlined in Change Agent are really driving the discussion. Encouraging people to expand their horizons, try different things, and we willing to consider alternative perspectives are all important tasks I want to approach – but there is a danger in pushing people too far, too fast.
Lots of ideas brewing on all this