Educational institutions are now enormously complex technological organisations - particularly universities. They are generally so complex that few people in the university really understand how everything fits together. Computer services will have teams who understand individual systems, although it is unusual to find someone in a computer services department who understands how it all fits together technically. Even less likely is it to find someone who understands the divergences of digital practice either in the classroom by teachers, or among professional service staff who process marks (and often organise assignments in the VLE).
Of course, despite the lack of any synoptic view, things keep on going. This works because whatever complexities are created by different systems, an administrative workforce can be summoned up to handle the complexity. Providing marks are entered, exam boards are provided with data, and students progressed through their courses to completion, it might be tempting to ask whether a lack of a synoptic view matters.
This is where technological infrastructure, human factors and organisational effectiveness meet. An effective organisation is one which organises itself to deal with actual demands placed on it. An effective organisation manages its complexity, understands its environment, and has sufficient flexibility to adapt to change. In a university, it can be very difficult to define "demand" or be clear about "environment". At a superficial level, there is demand from "students" for teaching and assessment. This demand is increasingly framed as a "market". However at a deeper level, there is a demand from society, and the politicians who steer it (and the policy for higher education). What does society demand of education? In recent years, the answer to that question has also been framed around "the market" - but many commentators have pointed our that this is a false ontology. Society has a habit of turning on institutions which extend their power beyond reasonable limits. There is no reason to suppose this might not happen to universities, which have extended their power through a variety of what Colin Crouch calls "privatised Keynesianism" - individualised debt to pay for institutional aggrandisement such as real-estate (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-856X.2009.00377.x)
Then we should ask "What is the actual demand for learning?" A commonsense answer is that a student should expect to be able to do stuff which they weren't able to do before. But this is a very vague notion. As a crude example, how many of the many thousands of computer science graduates can actually program when they graduate? How many creative writers will make it as authors? How many architects will build a building? Now, of course, this is unfair. There are many "transferrable skills" from a degree - people will go into other walks of life, buoyed by their new-found self-confidence. Apart from those who become so worn-down by assessment and institutional rigidity that their mental health took a knock in education. So there is a first demand: "Education should not leave me feeling worse about myself than when I started".
It turns out to be surprisingly hard to organise that (https://www.hrmagazine.co.uk/article-details/students-regret-going-to-university) Teachers do their best, but within constraints which they and everyone else in the system find unfathomable. Today, many of those constraints are technical in origin. The computer has swamped the natural human pattern of communication which kept institutions viable for centuries. The space for rich intersubjective engagement - whether it is between teachers and students, or between staff, or even between students and their peers - has been attenuated to lights on a screen and clicks and flicks. And with the problems that this creates, the answer is always the same - more technology.
So do we reach the stage where the art of teaching becomes the art of designing a webpage in the VLE? Instructional design would appear to have a lot to answer for. Deep human virtues of knowledge, openness, generosity and revealing of uncertainty do not fit the digital infrastructure and get unrewarded. Flashy new tech sells staff with ambitions and a latent drive for everyone to "do it their way". Some of these people become senior managers and appoint more like them. It's positive feedback.
The equations are simple. All technology creates more complexity in the guise of offering a "solution" to a problem created by some prior technology. Human beings struggle to deal with the complexity, and demand new technical solutions, which often make things worse. How do we get out of this?
The importance of a synoptic view is that it must entail clear distinctions about the system, its operations, its demands and its boundaries. As long as we have no clear idea of the problem to which we want to put technology to address in education, we will be condemned to repeat the cycle. So what is the purpose? What's the point?
It's probably very simple: we all die. The older ones will die first. While they are alive they can communicate something of how to survive in the future. Some will do things which speak to future generations after they are dead. But this can only happen if people are able to live in a world that is effectively organised. In a world of ineffective organisation, complexity will proliferate and the intergenerational conversation will die in a torrent of tweets and emails. There is a reason why the ice caps melt, the stock market booms, and the world is full of mad dictators.
Of course, despite the lack of any synoptic view, things keep on going. This works because whatever complexities are created by different systems, an administrative workforce can be summoned up to handle the complexity. Providing marks are entered, exam boards are provided with data, and students progressed through their courses to completion, it might be tempting to ask whether a lack of a synoptic view matters.
This is where technological infrastructure, human factors and organisational effectiveness meet. An effective organisation is one which organises itself to deal with actual demands placed on it. An effective organisation manages its complexity, understands its environment, and has sufficient flexibility to adapt to change. In a university, it can be very difficult to define "demand" or be clear about "environment". At a superficial level, there is demand from "students" for teaching and assessment. This demand is increasingly framed as a "market". However at a deeper level, there is a demand from society, and the politicians who steer it (and the policy for higher education). What does society demand of education? In recent years, the answer to that question has also been framed around "the market" - but many commentators have pointed our that this is a false ontology. Society has a habit of turning on institutions which extend their power beyond reasonable limits. There is no reason to suppose this might not happen to universities, which have extended their power through a variety of what Colin Crouch calls "privatised Keynesianism" - individualised debt to pay for institutional aggrandisement such as real-estate (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-856X.2009.00377.x)
Then we should ask "What is the actual demand for learning?" A commonsense answer is that a student should expect to be able to do stuff which they weren't able to do before. But this is a very vague notion. As a crude example, how many of the many thousands of computer science graduates can actually program when they graduate? How many creative writers will make it as authors? How many architects will build a building? Now, of course, this is unfair. There are many "transferrable skills" from a degree - people will go into other walks of life, buoyed by their new-found self-confidence. Apart from those who become so worn-down by assessment and institutional rigidity that their mental health took a knock in education. So there is a first demand: "Education should not leave me feeling worse about myself than when I started".
It turns out to be surprisingly hard to organise that (https://www.hrmagazine.co.uk/article-details/students-regret-going-to-university) Teachers do their best, but within constraints which they and everyone else in the system find unfathomable. Today, many of those constraints are technical in origin. The computer has swamped the natural human pattern of communication which kept institutions viable for centuries. The space for rich intersubjective engagement - whether it is between teachers and students, or between staff, or even between students and their peers - has been attenuated to lights on a screen and clicks and flicks. And with the problems that this creates, the answer is always the same - more technology.
So do we reach the stage where the art of teaching becomes the art of designing a webpage in the VLE? Instructional design would appear to have a lot to answer for. Deep human virtues of knowledge, openness, generosity and revealing of uncertainty do not fit the digital infrastructure and get unrewarded. Flashy new tech sells staff with ambitions and a latent drive for everyone to "do it their way". Some of these people become senior managers and appoint more like them. It's positive feedback.
The equations are simple. All technology creates more complexity in the guise of offering a "solution" to a problem created by some prior technology. Human beings struggle to deal with the complexity, and demand new technical solutions, which often make things worse. How do we get out of this?
The importance of a synoptic view is that it must entail clear distinctions about the system, its operations, its demands and its boundaries. As long as we have no clear idea of the problem to which we want to put technology to address in education, we will be condemned to repeat the cycle. So what is the purpose? What's the point?
It's probably very simple: we all die. The older ones will die first. While they are alive they can communicate something of how to survive in the future. Some will do things which speak to future generations after they are dead. But this can only happen if people are able to live in a world that is effectively organised. In a world of ineffective organisation, complexity will proliferate and the intergenerational conversation will die in a torrent of tweets and emails. There is a reason why the ice caps melt, the stock market booms, and the world is full of mad dictators.
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