Learning by Dancing

It has been a standing joke in R&D that we - someday - should dance a presentation. Yesterday, as part of our chain-letter Learning by Dancing was mentioned. This morning, my Canadian Professor Dr. Cleveland-Innes shared a presentation in which she wants to integrate a great video about Leadership and Dancing.

Yesterday, I invited R&D to look into my blog. Hopefully, some of you will watch this great video http://sivers.org/ff  - while you all enjoy your Easter holiday.

Collaboration and Applied Research

Today, I have had a great seminar with R&D.

After a rather traditional introduction, a story about our unit was presented. It has been written over the last two weeks as a chain letter. So it has been send by e-mail and everybody has contributed to the story. It was very interesting to hear the different narratives about our work, our identiy and our shared goals. Wonderful that everybody has contributed with such positive and surprising stories about engagement, curiousity, and diligence in our work.

After a debate about the narratives, we individually painted the picture of our work-life. All the interesting contributions showed that we have different perceptions of our common work and workplace. This part was followed by a group-discussion about the three most important dimensions of our work.

We then enjoyed a great lunch - and afterwards I had a 5 minutes presentation, then I was interviewed in 5 minutes by two of the followers and finally I answered questions from everyone in 5 minutes. It was all about how we shall work with applied research and innovation in the future. The presentation, the interview and the debate were video-recorded, so that people who were absent can hear it. I also look forward to hear if I said anything coherent and sound! Furthermore, I expect that the discussions will continue and I am sure we will find new ways to improve our work.

In the final part of the day, we had a group discussion and we painted pictures of how we currently collaborate. Finally, the three groups presented their visualizations of how collaboration is perceived.

Thanks to Ulla and Kristian for designing and conducting the day. Great job!
Thanks to everybody for contributing in such an enthusiastic way. It confirmed my motto: that it important to have fun at work. It also ensured me that we will do a great work this spring to enhance collaboration and  learning in R&D.

UniSIM

Today, I have send the final draft of our case-study to Gabriel. Yesterday, I uploaded an earlier version in Moodle.

We have worked with SIM University for more than 7 weeks. It has been an interesting journey - and I have learned so much about leadership, project planning, Singapore, distance education, culture, faculty and leadership within higher education.

In our work, we have compared globale trends and findings in higher education with local Singapore findings - and as part of my own reflections I have of course compared it with a Danish context.

We have overcome the timezones. Eventhough poor Gabriel had to eat his late dinner while we where Skyping. I have also overcome my problems with Skype - realizing that I have to use my sweet husband's Mac instead of my own because my IT-Department has put some kind of firewall on my PC. The first time we Skyped, I had to restart my computer 5 or 6 times. Thanks to Gabriel for being such a patient person - waiting and waiting and still smiling - eventhough the last time it was a rather stiff smile.

In all the other modules at Athabasca University, we have also collaborated about presentations, papers, teaching activities, analysis, and reviews. It was a great experience to teach master students together with Maria last term. I have also enjoyed all my previous work with Derm and Maria. However, this case-study about leadership in higher education has been the most challenging and most interesting assignment from my point of view. So, I am very happy that I firstly listened to Dr. Cleveland, when she told us it would be a complex assignment designed for more than one person. Secondly, I am glad that I had the choice to work on Gabriel's case. During the process I have sometime thought about how the process would have been if I had worked with I-Space, Operation Move or one of the other projects from my own organization. Something would have been easier. But for sure I would not have learned as much as I have learned in this process.

Operation Move

Today, 80 students, lectors and leaders participate in a meeting about Operation Move. Interesting to hear that the lectures emphasize the need for concrete acitons - and for leadership; especially transformative leadership.

Operation Move, began in December 2011. The CEO hired an external consultant who is entitled to bring UCL closer to a focused strategy. Strategical Educational Forum (SEF) first met the consultant on January 16th where the agenda was presented and discussed. As part of SEF, I participated in the meeting. One of the project's slogan was presented as: "from 400 to 40 projects".

One of the main tasks in the project is to establish an overview of all projects in UCL. In R&D, we already have a project-database containing 200 R&D-project but all the projects in the educational programs were not registred. The consultant developed a new database based on new criteria and all project managers were asked to fill it out. We now have a database with approximately 250 project.

I am part of the steering group, representing R&D and Further Education. However, the agenda is highly defined by the educational programs and how they can collaborate across campus on some of the existing strategic goals.

Since January, I have participated in 11 meetings about the project - including three day seminars. I am frequently used as  a sort of case in the project, because I am the project-owner of more than 50 projects. It is repeatedly mentioned by the consultant and the CEO that nobody can have the overview of more than 5-10 projects. So, I am very curious to see what the future will bring me. On Septmeber 14th, Operation Move will be presented to the entire organization and I will be so much wiser.

Distance Education in Danish Universities of Applied Science

Over the last five years, the structures within Danish higher education (HE) have changed radically. Seven universities of applied science (UAS) cover the educational programs, which 120 independent institutions took care of before 2007. In all the new UAS, all graduate and postgraduate programs are delivered in a combination of face-to-face and web-based learning.

Some programs are designated as Distance Education (DE) which primarily means that the combination of face-to-face and web-learning differs from the traditional on-campus programs. The students have to meet on-campus during week-end instead of on week-days.

At UCL as well as the other five of the other UAS, there are only few fully-on-line-programs. So, DE is in context of Danish HE primarily used as a term for programs with other structures and interactions than the majority of programs. One of the exceptions is found at University College Sjaelland where a fully-on-line program for social workers has been delivered since 2009.

In the region, in which UCL is located there are remote areas and it is problematic to attract young men to higher education. Increased use of DE could be an important part of a solution to the challenges. However, it will require coherent strategic choices and concrete actions from the leaders in the organizations in the region.

Effectively identifying the need to change goes to the very heart of leadership. (McRoy & Gibbs, 2009 p.692)

They have the point that in complex and turbulent contexts it is important that the leader can decide what is not to be changed.

References
McRoy, I. and Gibbs, P. (2009) Leading change in higher education Management Administration & Leadership, 37 p. 687-704 

Papers 2012

Yesterday, we got one paper accepted to the IDC 2012 Interactive Technologies for Children with Special Needs Workshop. It is called I-Space: Designing for and with Citizens with Special Needs.

In the paper, we focus on how user-driven innovation and design-based research can be combined using a quadrant model consisting of four different phases: Observing, constructing, co-constructing and re-constructing - to develop new technologies which can enhance learning of citizens with special needs.

Today, we got two papers accepted to EDEN Conference Closing the gap from "Generation Y" to the mature Lifelong Learners http://www.eden-online.org/2012_porto.html.

One paper is called  I-Space - Learning by Developing Across Organizations, Educations and Generations. Here, project I-Space is presented in relation to learning by developing and a heutagogical approach. The second paper is about project InnovationAlliance. In this paper, we focus on organizational knowledge creation (Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995) using web-based video in research, documentation and education.

Both projects are designed and conducted in partnerships engaged in Ambient Assisted Living. I-Space covers a partnership of three higher education institutions, two muncipalities, two private companies, one NGO. In InnovationsAlliance, two higher education institutions, six muncipalities and a NGO collaborate.

I am looking forward to participate in the conference, networking and get new inspiration from all over the world.

References:
Nonaka, I., and Takeuchi, H. (1995). The knowledge-creating company: How Japanese companies create the dynamics of innovation. New York: Oxford University Press

Project Planning

Project planning for changes within an educational context and project planning for changes in general seems to be two different things. In this posting, I will emphasize some of the differences

Latchem og Hanna (2001) refers to several critics (Bates, 2000; Cohen and March, 1974; ) of strategic planning in higher education (HE). One of the strong arguments is that universities are 'organized anarchies'.

Beaudoin (2005) claims that effective leadership in HE is transactional, since , as he argues, faculty feels “little pressure to adopt new ways ” and a transactional leadership “tends to minimize any innovation” (p.94). In contrast to transformative leadership that enhances innovation.

This is to some extent supported by Collis and Moonen (2001) when they claim that top-down changes are “difficult to carry out in university contexts” (p. 61). Faculty is used to autonomy and will therefore always believe that they have found the right solutions. Accordingly, they feel “that the ways they have always taught are in fact the appropriate ways to teach their own discipline” (p. 61). It leads Collis and Moonen to the conclusion that faculty needs more than abstract visions to change their practice. So, for faculty visions for future of society or university are no drivers for changes:

Change for abstract reasons such as the future of the university does not weigh heavily enough to convince them to teach in what they feel will be an ‘inappropriate way’ for their course and habit (p.61).

According to Latchem and Hanna (2001), innovation in an university setting depends on support, reasonable timelines and learning infrastructures developed for the specific faculty. It is essential that the leaders acknowledge experience and build on the good practices already developed within faculty. Faculty needs a responsive feedback and encouragement corresponding with the actual situation of the faculty member and the entire faculty. Dhanarajan (2001) expresses a similar view on good leadership when he states that the leader must look “on the horizon but their feet must be firmly on the ground” (p.185).

Collis and Moonen (2001) belief that it is important that a higher education institution (HEI) “commit itself to a change” (p.29), at the same time they conclude that the overall motivation to enhance flexible learning in HEI is that “you can’t not do it” (p.29). However, nothing will actually change unless the changes are grounded “in pedagogy and sound implementation strategies” (p. 43)

References:

Beaudoin, M.F. (2005). Reflections on research, faculty and leadership in distance education. . Oldenburg: Der Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg – BIS – Verlag.

Collis, B., and Moonen, J. (2001). Flexible learning in a digital world –experiences and expectations. London: Kogan Page.

Dhanarajan, D. G. (2001). Partnerships for change. In In C. Latchem and D.E. Hanna (Eds.) Leadership for 21st century learning. Global perspectives from educational innovatiors (pp. 177-186) New York: Routledge.

Latchem, C., & Hanna, D.E. (2001). Processes of organizational change. In C. Latchem and D.E. Hanna (Eds.) Leadership for 21st century learning. Global perspectives from educational innovatiors (pp. 41-52) New York: Routledge.

Technology and Security for Patients

Today, I have been a jury member judging 30 groups of students presenting new innovative solutions in relation to security for patients in hospitals. 500 students have worked in groups across nationals, disciplins, gender and interests with concrete cases. Students from all over Europe and Asia, collaborated across programs as MultiMediaDesign, Nursing, WebDesigner, Occupational Therapy . We have seen great solutions - and even greater presentations.

In our region, we focus on entrepreunership and Ambient Assisted Living, so it is great that our higher educational institutions can collaborate to provide the students with possibilities to develop essential competencies during their studies.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIXwOBQMWUg 

President of AU

It was very interesting to hear President of AU Dr. Frits Pannekoek speak last night. I have not received and heard the recording yet. However, I will here on my blog give a summary of what I heard in the session in Adobe Connect on March 22nd.

Firstly, the Presidents emphasizes strong and clear values as something important in leadership in a higher education institution (HEI). In the case of AU, it was obvious that the mission to change educational patterns so that more people can get a degree from a HEI is a strong driver for Dr. Frits. For him success is when AU enrolls students from families without any educational background, because it increases the possibilities for their children to get educated. Therefore, he criticizes the ranking-systems for universities focusing on output rather than on outcome.

Secondly, I think it was great to hear Dr. Frits speaking about his own leadership. How he values empowerment. Therefore, he depends on a dedicated and engaged staff. For him it is an indicator of success if he can leave the institution for one month without anyone hardly noticing it. He also mentions the need for ethical leadership – in a period of time – where there is lots of different economic and political pressure on HEI. It was also very refreshing to hear him speaking about students learning, culture of learning and higher quality in DE as essential parts of his work.

Eventhough Dr. Frits finds that leadership theory tends to be common sense, he recommends a book: Paul, R. (2011) Leadership Under Fire: The Challenging Role of the Canadian University President Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press. I have not read the book yet. However, Tony Bates http://www.tonybates.ca/2011/10/26/book-review-ross-pauls-leadership-under-fire/ gives an inspiring review which supports Dr. Frits' recommendations of the book. So, I will ask my liberary to buy an example of the book to learn more about Canadian Higher Education.
Finally, he points at integrity as something very important for a leader in HEI.

Through Dr. Frits' interactions with the cohort and the answers he gave us  on the questions we had posted to him, he supported his points of views and therefore he was a great illustration of an engaged, authentic and visionary leader - from my point of view.

Now, I look forward to receive the recording – and to compare his actual words with the words I heard and have reflected on today.

Transformational Leadership

Burns (1978) was a pioneer within transformational leadership theory. Burns' thinking is based on the assumption that leaders and followers can contribute to the growth of each other. Transformational leadership (TL) seems to be an appropriate approach when fundamental changes are required. TL is based the assumption that a vision can transform followers and lead to transformations in an organization, a field which can mean paradigmic shifts and new direction.

It is supported by Harms and Crede (2010) when they describe transformational leaders as "mentors to their followers by encouraging learning, achievement, and individual development they provide meaning, act as role models, provide challenges, evoke emotions, and foster a climate of trust" (p. 6)

Beaudoin (2007) discusses the advantages of a transformational and transactional leadership approach in academia and concludes that the most effective leadership style depends on the position of Distance Education (DE) in the institution. In an institution where DE is accepted, Beaudoin argues that a transactional leadership approach can be useful focusing on reinforcing and rewarding of the followers who have transformed their practice. Whereas the leader benefits more from a transformational leadership model if the followers have to be motivated to go into DE and the leader therefore has to move the followers to think and act in new ways.  According to Beaudoin, a third useful leadership style is the transitional which links the transformational and the transactional approach.

Given (2008) states that "a transformational leadership style will have a positive impact on:

·         organizational citizenship behavior/performance

·         long-term commitment, a sense of purpose, and the mutual interest of leaders and followers

·         organizational vision

·         on empowerment

·         job satisfaction

·         commitment

·         trust

·         on self-efficacy beliefs

·         motivation" 

In a review of leadership theories, Avolio, Walumbwa, and Weber (2009) equate transformational and charismatic leadership. It is not clearly described, why they make such a narrow link between transformational, which points at the processes of leadership and charismatic, which covers the personality of the leader. However, they provide a brilliant overview of theories such as servant leadership, authentic leadership, cross-cultural leadership and e-leadership

Furthermore, the authors highlight four essential leadership issues in future research across the different theories they present in the review:

1. More future research in leadership will be mixed methods.

2. Determining the causal mechanisms that link leadership to outcomes will be a priority.

3. Assessing and developing leadership using evidence-based strategies will be a target focus.

4. Examining strategic leadership as a process and person will be an evolving area of theory

and research (p.442).

We could add the need for research in self-directed leadership - at a micro- and macro-level.

References:
Avolio, B.J., Walumbwa, F.O. & Weber, T.J. (2009). Leadership: Current theories, research, and future directions, Annual Review of Psychology, 60, 421-49.

Beaudoin, M. F. (2007). Reflections on research, faculty and leadership in distance education. Oldenburg: Der Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg – BIS – Verlag.

Burns, J.M, (1978). Leadership, New York, N.Y.: Harper and Raw Publishers.

Givens, J. R. (2008). Transformational leadership: The impact on organizational and personal outcomes Emerging Leadership Journeys, 1(1) pp. 4-24.

Harms, P. D. and Crede, (2010). Emotional intelligence and tranformational and transactional leadership: a meta-analysis. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies 17(1) p. 5-17.

Entrepreneurship

Drucker (1985) is very specific about the differences between entrepreneurship in business and in public-service institutions. Service institutions, such as schools, universities, municipalities and labour unions, may actually need innovation and entrepreneurship more than business does. However, it is more difficult to innovate within a service institution where it is hard work to stop what 'we are used to do' and to start work in new ways with new issues.

According to Drucker, we have been used to that innovation in public-service institutions came from outside - represented by newcomers or catastrophes. It is, however a fact, that the public-services institutions have become too important and too big, growing fast since World War II. Therefore, there is an urgent need for innovation from inside the public-service-organizations which leads Drucker to conclude that entrepreneurial management is one of the most important tasks in our time:

To build entrepreneurial management into the exisiting public-service instituion may thus be the foremost politcal task of this generation (p. 171)

On Saturday (March 24th), I'll go to the final day of InnoEvent. 700 students from different programs have worked for a week with developing technological solutions for increasing security for patients in hospitals. I am part of the jury, and I look forward to see and judge all the great ideas and solutions. With this kind of projects, we support crossdisciplinary, authentic solving of problems and an entrepreurial mind-set. The leaders who have actively supported InnoEvent meet Drucker's requirements.

References:
Drucker, P.F. (1985). Innovation and entrepreneurship, Oxford: Butterworth Heinemann.

Management Behavior

According to Yukl (2008) the management's behavior and the climate the management supports are factors with high impact on the staff's creativity and innovation. It is very important when we look at the implementation and institutionalization of new products and processes:

Management programs and systems can enhance the effects of direct leadership behaviors. For example, encouraging innovative thinking (called “intellectual stimulation” in transformational leadership theory) is much more likely to increase innovation when an organization has a program to facilitate innovation, a climate of psychological safety for risk taking, and appropriate rewards for creative ideas about improving products and processes. In their absence, employees may doubt that innovative ideas about products or processes will be supported and eventually adopted by the organization (p.713)

It is essential to facilitate innovation with reward systems as well as a support the learning of all employees. No organization can be stronger than its weakest part. However, the management and the collaboration within the management is the most important part in a learning organization:

First, organizational learning occurs through shared insights, knowledge, and mental models. Thus organizations can learn only as fast as the slowest link learns. Change is blocked unless all of the major decision makers learn together, come to share beliefs and goals, and are committed to take the actions necessary to change (Stata, 1996, p. 318)

As consultant in many projects about organizational learning and educational changes in colleges and higher education, I have seen that collaboration within the group of decision makers is depending on the CEO's capability to motivate and support changes. Ethical and visionary CEO's set the learning climate of the organization.

In my own unit, Research & Development (R&D) we have just initiated a project to enhance and improve our collaboration. It is designed with inspiration from action learning tools and methods - and will be based on a design-based approach as fare as we will adjust the initiatives and activities through out the processes.

Our first seminar is on March 30th. The process has been designed by a team of two members of the staff and me. All members of the staff has been invited to comment and adjust. Last friday our plan was discussed in the group and afterwards the plan was re-designed according to the comments.  Why do I mention this project here? Because managemental behavior, shared goals and belief are also important in changing processes like this.

References:
Stata, R. (1996). Organizational learing. The key to management innovation. In K. Starkey (Ed), How organizations learn. London: International Thomson Business Press.

Yukl, G. (2008). How leaders influence organizational effectiveness . In The Leadership Quarterly 19, 708–722.

Last Years Reflections

At IADIS 2011, I presented a paper about strategic work in my organization. The final reflection was the following:

The strategic framework is about innovative planning and risk taking to enable emerging results. Technology can change the world of education. We have to realize that there is many myths and rhetoric in this educational field, and we have to face the pros and cons in a concrete work with new technologies to avoid being engaged in the rhetoric traditions. If we want to use technology to our advantage, we should look at how we can change structures, roles, and processes within education. Technology within learning is not about adding something to established systems, it is about changing practice. Strategic choices are about scaffolding and enabling these changes. Then we can be dancing with the devil not the other way round

 
I still think it is important to combine the strategic work with concrete activities in order to innovate and change organizations - and ensure implementation and therefore institutionalization of the changes. This point is supported by Latchem & Hanna (2001) when they empasize how important it is to "think strategically and act immediately" (p.45)

References:
Latchem, C., & Hanna, D.E. (2001). Processes of organizational change. In C. Latchem and D.E. Hanna (Eds.) Leadership for 21st century learning. Global perspectives from educational innovatiors (pp. 41-52) New York: Routledge.

Tellerup, S. (2011). Still Dancing with the Devil? In Proceedings of the IADIS Conference e-Learning 2011 (pp. 95-99)

Nice Quotes from last Week's Reading

Ultimately, however, the proof leadership lies not in the words but in the actions; everything the leader may do, however casual, will be taken by staff as planned and meaningful (Latchem & Hanna, 2001a, p. 55)

Perspectives on leadership are coloured by many factors but, as our contributors remind us, most especially by assumptions deriving from the cultural lens through which we view the world (Latchem & Hanna, 2001b,p. 240)

Good leadership fosters change that is both transformative and sustainable. It can be concerned with moral or organizational matters. It can define the college’s role in the world beyond its walls, or it can determine their internal dynamics of the institution. Most importantly, it requires a worthy goal-vision, if you will -but it also requires persistence. (Ekman, 2003, p.2)

Early in the 21st century, the theory of transformative leadership has been consistently articulated as a form of leadership grounded in an activist agenda, one that combines a rights-based theory that every individual is entitled to be treated with dignity, respect, and absolute regard with a social justice theoryof ethics that takes these rights to a societal level (Shields, 2010, p. 571)

Complexity leadership theory also provides a pathway for respecting diversity, not only through its formal emphasis on heterogeneity, but also because cultural respect is much easier to cultivate through one-on-one interactions than it is to consistently enact through one-to-many leadership exchanges.

(Lichtenstein, Uhl-Bien, Marion, Seers, Orton, & Schreiber, 2006, p. 8-9)

References:
Eckman, R. (2003). Standing up when it matters. Council for Independent Colleges Newsletter, .

Lichtenstein, B. B., Uhl-Bien, M., Marion, R., Seers, A., Orton, J. D., & Schreiber, C. (2006). Complexity leadership theory: An interactive perspective on leading in complex adaptive systems. Management Department Faculty Publications 8

Latchem, C., & Hanna, D.E. (2001a). Leadership in open and flexible learning. In C. Latchem and D.E. Hanna (Eds.) Leadership for 21st Century Learning. Global perspectives from educational innovators (pp. 53-62) New York: Routledge.

Latchem, C., & Hanna, D.E. (2001b). Lessons for the future. In C. Latchem and D.E. Hanna (Eds.) Leadership for 21st Century Learning. Global perspectives from educational innovators (pp. 235-240) New York: Routledge.

Shields, C. M. (2010).Transformative leadership: Working for equity in diverse contexts, Educational Administration Quarterly, 46, 558-589.

Project-Planning - in an Asian context

It has been very interesting to compare the first project-plan I developed for the transformation of UniSIM with the result we now present after having researched the needs and expectations of the stakeholders (students and faculty). Now, I realize that my intuitive project-planning is based on a general western tradition. The Confucian leadership provides the leaders with more responsibility and influence than I am used to. It is important to consider in the planning phase. So, working with distributed leadership and horizontal learning processes is another challenge in this culture than in Scandinavian context. The variety of tools and methods for involving different stakeholders and their perspective has to be broader in Singapore. As a leader you cannot expect the followers to express their opinions eventhough you ask them to. In a Scandinavian context, you can be sure that everyone expresses an opinion - eventhough they were not asked to.

In my daily work, user-driven innovation and design-based research are in focus. If I should work in this way in an Asian context, I should re-think many of the procedures and methods usable in Western Europe.

The Implementation Leader

According to Collis and Moonen (2001),

"The implementation leader should have practical and personal experience of what he or she is asking others to do, and should speak from his or her own experience and skill base. This is a serious problem with many implementation initiatives. the pioneers with personal experience are not the managers or central-support unit directors who are typically given project resonsibility. The pioneer has the experience, but not the central-unit position (and probably not the managerial skills) to be the leader of the implementation team" (p. 60)

It is an interesting problem of high relevancy for Operation Move and the development of my institution. We have to consider how this problem can be solved. It might be a good idea to slow down changes so that it is possible for other persons than the pioneers to take active part. On the other hand, it might stop the change processes. So, it is a real dilemma.

Collis and Moonen add further perspectives when they characterize academic staff as people who don't want to change just because someone claims that it would serve the future of the institution. Top-down changes are accordingly "difficult to carry out in university contexts" (p.61)

Collis and Moonen provides 4Es as a solution to the challenge of implementation:

Effectiveness - which covers concrete measurable targets, expected concrete benefits and a supporting reward-system
Ease of use - user-friendly technologies, access and connectivity is supported 24/7
Environment - the vision and the support level enhance the use of technology for learning
Engagement - personal engagement in technology for learning related purposes

It is a clear coherent model. However, the model requires leadership - from visions to concrete actions.

References
Collis, B. & Moonen, J. (2001). Flexible learning in a digital world. London: Kogan Page.

Nice Quotes from This Week's Reading

When the leaders have led well, the people say we did it ourselves, Lao Tzu

I'm a strong proponent of 'wysiwyg' style of leadership (...) The number one priority for leadership in distance and open learning is understanding how people learn, what motivates them, and what keeps them learning. We'd think it ridiculous to have a sports captain or coach who didn't understand the fundamentals of the game (Poley, 2001, p. 137)

Entrepreneurs see change as the norm and as healthy. Usually, they do not bring about the change themselves. But – and this defines entrepreneur and entrepreneurship – the entrepreneur always searches for change, responds to it, and exploits it as an opportunity (Drucker, 1985, p. 25)

As team leaders, middle managers are at the intersection of the vertical and horizontal flows of information in the company. They serve as a bridge between the visionary ideals of the top and the often chaotic market reality of those on the front line of the business. By creating middle-level business and product concepts, middle managers mediate between what is and what should be. They make reality according to the company’s vision (Nonaka, 1996, p. 31)

Education is fundamentally characterized by a quest for improving the human condition. It is to overcome social and human condition. It is to overcome social and economic challenges, resolve inequities, promote societal power and prowess and allow for individual development (Schofield, 1999)

I-Space 2010-2012

Project I-Space is a research project designed and conducted in a partnership of two higher education institutions (HEI), four small and medium-sized enterprises (SME), two municipalities, and a non-governmental organization (NGO). University of Southern Denmark (SDU) is lead partner. The purpose of the project is to develop new technologies, which can enhance learning and motivation of mentally impaired adult citizens. So, I-Space is part of an overall regional strategic action related to ambient assistant living.
http://www.welfaretechregion.dk/en/projects/ispace
I am the project manager of UCL's part of the project Videos from the projects shows the prototypes and how the citizens and the professionals work with the technology.

2011: http://webtv.ucl.dk/video/1345961/i-space
2012: http://webtv.ucl.dk/video/4313835/asabo

Students from UCL have participated in the project together with academic staff in cross-disciplinary work developing technology, practice and education.

A paper entitled Triple Helix in Action? has just (12.03.2012) been accepted for presentation at http://www.icchp.org/as a Full Paper. The paper is written together with Niels Henrik Helms. In July 2012, we will present it in Linz, Austria.

Strategic Work

As part of my work as Head of R&D, I have developed a web-based tool called the GoalCompass(http://www.plan-k.dk/maalkompas/ ) which aims to 1) support the transformation from strategic goals to concrete actions 2) enhance the project managers' and participants' reflection on the dynamic processes 3) support collaboration within the R&D-teams. All followers from my unit, as well as lectures from University College Lillebaelt have been invited to contribute to the development of the tool.







In Rome 2011, I presented the tool on IADIS-Conference : http://www.elearning-conf.org/2011/Program_EL2011.pdf

In November 2011, I presented the tool and the thoughts it is based on at a national conference: http://www.phmetropol.dk/Professionskonference_2011

The GoalCompas consists of  11 strategic goals. Every goal has to be ranked based on a taxonomy of five indicators. It has proven to be a very strong and dynamic tool for reflection in the project teams in UCL.

e-Learning and Visualization

From 2004-2006, I was project manager of the project Integrating Media in Education http://medieintegreret.socialfonden.net/default.asp?ID=58 - a project with focus on mobile technologies and informal learning in SME's

I developed a web-based tool for analyzing the culture in an organizational context
http://medieintegreret.socialfonden.net/files/upload/kulturanalyse.swf

In 2007, we summed up some of the experience and findings in a paper about e-Learning and Visualization - Bringing Change to Adult Vocational Education ? for The World Conference on E-Learning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare, and Higher Education 2 (http://0-www.editlib.org.aupac.lib.athabascau.ca/p/26453..

Since then, I have worked with visualization and web-based use of videos in several contexts. In 2008, I fundraised a large project U-Site in which we developed a web-site where our students could upload videos about their lives and studies. The project was conduced by three higher education institutions and two centers for study guidance and lasted for two years. http://www.usite.dk/

As a result of the U-Site project, video was integrated as part of our research-activities from 2011. Popularity and ease of use make YouTube an exciting tool for collaborative partnerships. We have illustrated this in several projects. In InnovationAlliance - a project I designed 2010 - UCL works together with six municpalities and a private organization to document and learn from best practice in the area of Ambient Assisted Living. InnovationAlliance was presented on a national conference 2011. Hopefully, we will present it on EDEN's conference i June 2012. All the videos from the project will also be shown at eHealthWeek in Copenhagen in May http://worldofhealthit.org/2012/

Guide to e-Learning and other Publications from the Past

In 2002, I wrote a publication about e-learning based on my experience as a designer and coordinator of DE-programs as well as my experience as DE-instructor. A study at FernUniversität Hagen, seminars with Otto Peters as well as Peters' research was an important inspiration to me.In 1999, I wrote a publication about Distance Education together with Jens Joergen Joergensen and Niels Henrik Helms. In the publication, we summed up our experience from projects and educational programs.

In 2006, my publication about the Portfolio Method was published

My interest about portfolio and especially e-portfolio began when I first meet Roger Elmin in 1998. For more than two years, I was part of a Scandinavian Consultant-Network. I have worked with portfolio as a teacher, I have worked as consultant and researcher on several projects about portfolio evaluation and implementation.

In 2000, I wrote the publication Learning Together - together with Niels Henrik Helms ttp://pub.uvm.dk/2000/samspil/

In 1999, my publication Dialogue and Collaboration - a Cultural Challenge was published http://pub.uvm.dk/1999/samtale/

DE in Denmark 1999-2001

In 1999, I participated in a research-team which interviewed 20 experts from universities, colleges, and companies about DE in Denmark. We carried out desk studies and summed up our own experience within the field of DE.

This work lead to a paper as part of the national conference about DE held in Denmark 2000 http://www.iebc.eu/iebc_pdf/dist.learning-dk-future.pdf

The paper was modified and presented at an international conference (WCCE) held in Denmark in 2001
http://www.informatik.uni-trier.de/~ley/db/conf/wcce/wcce2001.html

The model below is part of the papers and presentations. Here, in a Danish version

 

Papers I have edited

For the national conference in May 2000 and for the international conference in June 2000 about DE, I edited papers from some of the grand old men within DE:

Peter Jarvis: Distance Education & its place in a Global Economy http://www.iebc.eu/iebc_pdf/michael_moore.pdf
Michael Moore: Distance Learning - Trends in the US http://www.iebc.eu/iebc_pdf/peter_jarvis.pdf
Otto Peters: New Learning Spaces
http://www.iebc.eu/iebc_pdf/peters-new_learning_spaces.pdf
Otto Peters: A Pedagogical Model http://www.iebc.eu/iebc_pdf/peters-a_pedagogical_model.pdf

Vienna 1999 19th ICDE World Conference

In a paper for the 19th ICDE World Conference on Open Learning and Distance Education1999, my colleague and I presented the results from an action-learning project about how we developed a programme for developing the pedagogical use of ICT within the sector of vocational education training.

Competencebased Training of VET-Teachers with ICT
Senior lecturer Niels Henrik Helms & Senior lecturer Susanne Tellerup
We are both working for The Danish Institute for Educational Training of Vocational Teachers (DEL).

DEL is a semi-governmental organisation under the Royal Danish Ministry of Education. DEL develops educational products including general training, educational counselling and specific subject related programmes for teachers in further and higher vocational training. DEL operates close with the schools in it’s remit where it provides a direct consultancy facility and promotes joint research and development projects.

The Teaching Context
First of all, we will concentrate on a short description of the context. The purpose of the project is to develop qualifications, plans and networks for the pedagogical use of ICT in the sector of vocational education. We have chosen to present the KOM.IT project because we think that the KOM.IT-courses are relevant examples of how to introduce new technology within the sector, and how some of the major problems have been solved, while others maintain. And we have both been involved in the KOM-IT project.

ICT- and The VET-Sector. The Historical BackgroundAn external commission highlighted the situation within the educational sector in Denmark in general – among their findings relating to the sector of vocational education were:

· The basic level of hardware in this sector was very good (computer-pupil ratio 2.8-1)
· All the schools had access to ‘The Sectornet’[1] at 64 Kbp/s minimum
· Most students and teachers had their own e-mail address

Nevertheless, there were problems in the pedagogical use of ICT. The schools had all the gear but what should it be used for? How did it affect the schools and their ability to collaborate? How did it change the learning approach? What was the role of the teacher? To cope with such questions the Ministry of Education formulated a strategy plan in 1996. This plan of action contained several different objectives: the new role of the student, In-service training of teachers, development projects, “The Sektornet” etc.

Following this we were asked to develop a programme for developing the pedagogical use of ICT within the sector of vocational education training.
The tasks were listed:

· We had to define the learning objectives
· We had to identify the learners
· We had to design the learning process
· We had to choose the relevant media

And the KOM-IT project emerged. The following part of this paper will focus on the emerging and development of the project. How the first course succeed, how the relationship between the choice of technology and educational goals were realised which changes we had to made in behalf of renewing the second course and why some changes were difficult because of the construction of the consortium.

The Learning Objectives and the Needed Knowledge
The learning objectives were closely related to the fact that we were dealing with professionals. It wasn’t students but adult people who had their trade and needed to do things differently. They had knowledge and the knowledge they processed embedded in practice.[2] The transfer of the knowledge was closely related to their practice. Which means that it is very difficult to understand or comprehend the epistemology of learning here as objective. We were dealing with a sort of subjective knowledge[3], a way to do things. And this way of acting had to be qualified and often also had to change. This is also related to the fact that we were dealing with organisations and not individual learners.

Knowledge within an organisation is often learned by experience and can not amply be transmitted in any form. Such knowledge remains often exclusively as “”tacit knowledge” in the words of Polanyi[4]. That kind of knowledge becomes collective meaning structures. In order to access these meaning structures, new information should be generated through common action by key-actors in the organisation. There should then be a process of integration and interpretation of the information, which leads to the decisive step where responsible action is taken[5]

New ways of organising the learning environment taking into account the potentials of ICT, changed behaviour of the learners and new demands from the labour market. Or in general if we speak about teacher training: In the information society knowledge is expanding quickly, and therefore the teachers can’t only be providers of information. The new technologies give access to so much information. It is therefore necessary for the teacher to cope with a more comprehensive role. The modern teacher has to be an adviser, a tutor, a mentor and especially the facilitator of learning. The role of the teacher is changing rapidly.

In the future, it will be necessary that the teacher concentrate on the development of different skills. Not least the skills of knowledge navigation will be of importance.

Bates seems to touch an import point, when it is noted that one of the major barriers to the use of technology is the fear because of “the lack of an appropriate conceptual framework to guide the use of technology”[6].

The KOM-IT projects were meant to be the context, in which the teachers could develop such an appropriate framework, so they could use the technology more effectively.

We summed up the learning objectives as:
· Qualify the teachers to use ICT in a competent critical way
· Qualify the teachers in using ICT by doing it
· Develop a strategy for the use of ICT in the college
· Develop infrastructures which enabled colleges to let this development happen
· And establishing (virtual) networks among teachers internally in colleges and among colleges

The Learners
We have already touched that question. But we identified the learners as persons who were ready to use ICT. But it should also be persons who had the necessary power to generate development in the use of ICT among their colleagues. The problem with these persons are that they have very limited time. They are the core teachers of the colleagues therefore they have very limited time. We agree to some extent with Bates,[7] when he claims that training is costly, but not the training as such but the time spend which could have been used for “production” (teaching, development work or management).

We are talking about adult learning and adults in general have a special attitude to learning. Which could be summed up the way Rogers did; Learning is episodic, the goal is usually some concrete task, aimed at solution of specific problems, adults tend to adopt a particular range of learning styles and strategies, their interest in overall principles is relatively small.

Compared with the children of today, adults seem to have more barriers to overcome coping with the computers in a constructive and critical way:

“Children today take what they understand to be the computer’s psychological activity (interactivity as well as speaking, singing, and doing math) as a sign of consciousness. But the still insist that the breathing, having blood, being born, and as one put it, “having real skin” are the true signs of life. Children today contemplate machines they believe to be intelligent and conscious yet not alive. Today’s children who seem so effortlessly to split consciousness and life are the forerunners of a larger cultural movement “[8]

And if the teachers in the sector of vocational education want to be part of the cultural development and also influence the so called movement, they have to develop both their learning and teaching styles. If they remain unaffected by the ‘the online world, they and their school might get redundant within a short time! Working with the training of managers and teachers confirms these assumptions therefore it is very important to have their own practice as the subject matter – and to add some new (and perhaps provoking) perspectives to their own practice.

Furthermore, it is of importance that the managers and teachers understand the meaning of the KOM-IT project. KOM-IT stands for Communication, Information, Technology, and last not least the name has been chosen to point out the commitment of all the participants. When computers are used as a communications and learning tool, the participants have to be committed if they don’t want to waste their money. The selection of the participants therefor has been of vital importance. We wanted to avoid situations like Evans describes:
Some employees may be dragooned into courses, other may volunteer. Some employees may regret they were not chosen, others may regret that the were[9]

The Team and the Individual Learner
Apart from being the VET-SECTOR we offered the project to institutions and not to individuals. We emphasised the need for the schools to recruit teams and also to spend same time in order to make it into a team.
The team was made responsible for the project on the schools. That meant that the team should ensure that the individual projects where important for the individual otherwise they would not allocate enough interest and time. But they should also reflect on how the individual project could benefit the overall strategy-project. Management should be represented in the team. We have learned from experience that unless we do that it will be extremely difficult for the participants to “sell” the project to the organisation and also to get the necessary resources.

Then we asked the college to ensure that the team had the following competencies or that they were in the process of getting them:[10]

· The team should be capable of motivation
· The team should be capable of creating security and drive in the process of change
· The team should be political powerful inside the organisation
· The team should be keen on the use of IT in learning
· The team should know basic IT

This is very interesting to have a focus on teams as opposed to individuals. This may sound somewhat propagandistic but we have spent a lot of time on consultations with the schools in order to secure that they had a team with enough power and imagination to spearhead the development.

Identifying and Designing the Learning Process
We were talking about a process, and from a theoretical point of view it could be described as a constructivnist learning process. It was orientated towards practice of the participants, but it was also a social process, that could be described in the words of Mason:

“...the constructivnist model is based on a theory of learning in which meaning is derived from and embedded in context . It therefore places more emphasis on group activity in the learning process, peer exchange and social networking, and enhances rather than devalues the contextual and social factors of the learning environment.”[11]

Accepting this and the description of the learners this also meant that it should be a collaborative learning process. Again, the recruitment of teams instead of individuals became important. We were then talking about a kind of third generation distance education. Where we are talking about distributed collaborative learning. Learning materials are available, counselling as well but where the most import issue is the social process among the participants this called for a solution with CMC (Computer mediated communication).

Designing the learning process then had to cope with the problems stated above. We found that we had to design an ACTION LEARNING programme with an electronic infrastructure, able to facilitate the counselling and collaborative processes.

We have been developing Action Learning as a way to qualify professionals in the sector of vocational education for many years, but now it had to be combined with the possibilities in ICT and especially the WWW. The overall framework looks consisted of five important elements:

· Preparation: Recruiting the team and introducing them to the idea. Identifying projects with learning potentials
· Individual projects: Projects dealing with ICT and learning. These projects generated input to the ICT-Strategy.
· ICT-Strategy: The overall project knitting the whole process together
· Consultants: Guiding the team through the process
· Conference-days: Meeting the other participants, learning in workshops, listening to keynotespeakers

The model we use for Action Learning is very much inspired by concept of experiential learning, developed by David Kolb. To a large extent we learn by doing things, getting experience from that doing, reflecting on the experience and finally getting some knowledge out of it. Furthermore learning is as well an individual as a social process. And with CMC it is possible to work on your own and to interact with your team, other teams and the different specialists – advisers or tutors.

What the organisers must do, is to help the learner to choose the activities from which he or she can learn in and from and to organise effective reflection processes. The experience and the knowledge are for the learner to get. And they get it if: The information they get is a difference that makes a difference (Gregory Bateson)

It means that the learners have to notice things first (focus on it) and after that they must want or need to do something about it. If that happens the learners get more knowledge, but how much they get depends on what they knew beforehand, how interested they really are, how important the issue is etc.

David Kolb shows it as illustrated in the figure.









We then had to find activities, from which there could be learned. We defined these as development projects dealing with learning and ICT.
The second step was to work actively with reflection. This would be done by working in peer-groups and being coached and counselled. The third step would be to conceptualise. The coreproject would be a strategy-project formulating a pedagogical ICT-strategy this would then be supported by and have input from other projects dealing with teaching and ICT.

How to Deliver? - The Choice of Technology
Summing the main-points up lead us to the following:

· We needed a programme based on distance learning for two reasons:
- Time and flexibility
- The need to see the learning potentials within the new technology

Looking at the learning context for this project and the choice of media make some decisions quite obvious – audio and television were never relevant. We needed an ICT set-up for the reasons stated above but which and how?

The set-up should enable the learners to:
· have access to learning materials
· communicate
· network

We came up with several suggestions. And the result was a homepage with access to learning materials and electronic distance learning programme, where all dialogues, arguments, discussions and counselling should take place. Topclass was chosen, because it seemed appropriate, and because UNI-C (the technical advisers) meant, that Topclass could meet all the demands. Obviously, it wasn’t the most appropriate choice – the platform had to – and still has to be developed to meet the demands in the most suitable way.

The digital infrastructure for the KOM-IT project was accessible to the learners in a technological sense. They were all connected to the Internet through the socalled “Sectornet” and it was a on-line system. A higher degree of transparency was however needed.

To get a sense of how we tried to realise the objectives, you have to visualise the following: 120 teachers from 20 vocational colleges having access to a large amount of electronic learning materials, establishing an educational project pr. person, and a strategic project pr. college having access to different virtual discussion forums and joining 5 days on campus (conference-days) for a period of 5 month.

The use of ICT in a critical and constructive way was encouraged by our feedback to the processes and the products. Each KOM-IT-consultant was tutoring 4-5 teams (20-35 participants), and the tutoring was first of all an electronic communication. But also some of the campus-time was used for dialogues between the KOM-IT-consultant and the learners.
Both the learning materials placed on the homepage and the days on campus were meant to give professional and special inspiration to the learners work with their different projects.

And the different discussion forums together with the days on campus were constructed in a way so that they could encourage the establishing of networks across the schools. None of the goals could have been reached without the use of the Computer Mediated Communication (CMC), or at least it would have been less effective, less meaningful, more difficult and more expensive, to try to reach the same goals without any use of the new technologies.

Conclusion - Limitations and Potentials of the TechnologiesAt this moment, we have ended the KOM-IT-courses. It is obvious that there are some limits, when you want to use the technologies in connection with the principles of action learning.

First and foremost, the participants are in control. This is no limitation – it is one of the major potentials and consequences of as well CMC and action learning. However, action learning with CMC is different from a common action learning course, because the consultant doesn’t have the personal knowledge about the participant. This causes some problems by the idea generation, linking and structuring. When a learner generates an idea, which he wants to follow and make the key of his project, it is very difficult for the consultant to decide whether it is a relevant problem. Or whether the learner just want to go the easy way and the learner is in other words just doing what he already know/does. In the classroom, the consultant will give such a learner plenty of time. Certainly the consulant cannot avoid the learner in following such a project, but in a dialogue he/she can make the consequences clear.

You can as an consultant feel the lost of control as a problem, because you really don’t know if the learners are in action. Of course you can see if there are visiting the homepage, but if the learners don’t contact you or the other participants you don’t know, how their learning process develops. And even if you want to help – give good and relevant advises – it isn’t possible. Of course you have some similar problems in the classroom: you don’t know whether there is any mental activity at all. You can ask some questions – and with some luck some learners respond. But the rest doesn’t react. They couldn’t care less, the questions are too simple or too complex? The teacher in the classroom doesn’t know. He reflects on the fact, but somehow it is easier to accept silence in the classroom. Perhaps because at least you can see some human beings – and therefor you know there is living activity. When you faces the computer and there is no one needing you, no one to talk to perhaps the teacher feel another kind of emptiness, loneliness, lack of control and especially the lost of authority.
In fact, it is difficult to find many limitations, which aren’t already in the classroom. Of course you don’t have the same social contact – and at the same time it is a potential that you don’t generate any bias. Actually CMC makes the interaction more unprejudiced.

At an early stage of the project, we developed a rather simple model in order to understand the relationship between Technology, Process and Product. We thought that it could be understood the following way: First technology, then process, then product.This meant that unless you design the technology with an emphasis on access and user-friendliness - you can forget about process and product. This conceptual understanding lead us to use a lot of energy in changing the digital set-up for second round. The learners were too silent! We had problems with access –We were right but only to some extent!

We had created a learning situation where the learners should work closely in teams. Why should they then write anything? The participants worked face to face, they reflected face to face in their own context. And when they needed something from their consultant they just wrote an e-mail! They did come up with the results we had anticipated: strategy, infrastructure a.s.o. So why should we bother? Because we wanted the learners to use the digital framework, they should learn to act in a kind of Digital Distributed Learning Environment. They also needed this for networking with other colleges. We then came up with different suggestions:

· A more simple and user-friendly framework with emphasis on access and flexibility
· A compulsory Introduction
· An Assignment Model

We don’t want to maintain that the computer-mediated communication is an easy one. As a consultant you have to make many decisions forwards – and in the classroom it is easier to change your decisions, if you see that something doesn’t act the way you wanted. Also the evaluation has to be more distinct, if the teacher shall use it to modify some decisions.

Finally it is important for the consultant to be member of a team, and it is fare more important than if it is a face-to-face-course. Some of reasons are that the whole framework must be created before the course begins, that the consultants must work closely together to build up a learning material, which contains the different elements for an action learning course.

But after designing and participating in the KOM-IT projects, we are convinced of that a developed model of Action Learning & CMC is the right way to go, when you deal with teachers training. The major part of the participating colleges moved from a rather traditional concept of the use of ICT to a new concept of learning environments. Individual and collective structures of meaning were challenged and often changed. Competencies were developed.

Bibliography
Bates, A.W. (1997) .Technology, open learning and distance education, Routledge: London and New York.
Burge, E.J., and Roberts, J.M. (1993). Classroom with of difference, University of Toronto Press: Canada
Dixon, N. (1994). The organizational learning circle, Cambridge
Edwards, J. (1991). Evaluation in adult and further education, The Workers’ Educational Association: Liverpool.
Entwistle, N.(1988). Styles of learning and teaching, David Fulton, Publisher: London
Evans, T.(1994). Understanding learners in open and distance education, Kogan Page: London. Gergen, K. J. (1991). The saturated self, BasicBooks.
Giddens, A. (1996). In defence of sociology, Polity Press.
Jacobsen, J.C. (Ed) (1997). Refleksive læreprocesser, Forlaget Politisk Revy: København.
Kolb, D.A. (1984). Experiential learning, Engelsewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall.
Polanyi, M. (1983). The tacit dimension, N.Y.
Rogers, A:(1986).Teaching adults, Open University Press, Oxford, 1986
Rowntree, D.(1994). Preparing materials for open, distance and flexible learning, Kogan Page: London
Turkle, S.(1995). Life on the screen, Touchstone.
Vygotsky, L.S. ”(1964, in danish). Thought and language
And visit the KOM-IT Homepage: KOM-IT.dk
[1] For the last four years all Danish schools ( primary, sec..etc) have been connected by a electronic network, which among other facilities provide internet access
[2]In understanding the process in wich people transforms from being craftsmen etc into being VET-teachers we have been very inspired by Jean Lave & Etiennne Wenger “Situated Learning. Cambridge 1991
[3]Pratt. D.D. Five Perspectives on teaching in Adult and Higher Education
[4] Polanyi, M. ”The Tacit Dimension”, N.Y. 1983
[5] Inspired by Nancy Dixon ”The Organizational Learning Circle”Cambridge 1994 p.44 ff
[6] Bates p. 245
[7]Bates p. 26
[8] Turkle S., 1995, p. 84
[9] Evans, 1994 p. 95
[10] According to the theories of ”The Zone of proximal development” Vygotsky, L.S. ”Thought and Language”(1964, in danish)
[11] R. Mason Using Communication Media in Open and Flexible Learning” Opcit in Sorensen: “På vej mod et virtuelt læringsparadigme”(in danish)