Adapt and adopt: flexibility, opportunism and companionship on the research journey

Research starts as a well planned journey, a bit like a guided holiday, but, as you get on your travel, it turns out to be more like an adventure in the outbacks. Every day is a new day, a new opportunity, a new discovery, a new challenge. And along the way, you meet others who like you are walking the same path, and you walk together, adapting and adopting new ways of doing things, new thinking, never really knowing where you end up to, but enjoying the feel of knowing together.

Reflecting on reflecting on reflecting

As part of the Network Event bringing together the Learning Enhancement and Innovation projects funded in the academic year 2019-20, we have been asked to reflect on our project progress so far. I am in two minds (or more) about reflection. While I encourage my students to reflect, I am also conscious that the exercise can be superficial, mechanistic and self-referential. There is more than one way (and plenty of models) to think about reflection.

One way of thinking about it is drawn from physics and it is the ‘the throwing back by a body or surface of light, heat, or sound without absorbing it’. Here one goes with the motions but learns little from the exercise as learning moments bounce back without ever scratching the surface.

A second way is to think of reflection as the act of giving thought and consideration to our actions. More akin to introspection, this mode of reflecting can, paradoxically, become entangled with so many re-fractions of  our reflecting self that we lose sight of the bigger picture as we go deeper into our subjective self-perceptions. If done well, however, it allows for self-critical appraisal as we can have, metaphorically speaking, an out of body experience and see ourselves in a detached way as others see us, or how they see our project.

While clearly in research we aim to achieve the latter, there is a danger of fulfilling the former.

In between, there is a more pragmatic and functionalist type of reflection, which demands to check, control, monitor progress and acknowledge progress as outlined in the initial plan. Here, progress is viewed as linear and uncontested. The various components of a research projects fit into place like a perfectly complex jig-saw. Action-driven and outcome-bound, this reflection serves as a steering wheel ensuring you and your project do not go astray.

 

Research is progress in a complex world

Let’s be frank. We all start a research project believing that we will move almost effortlessly from A to B, and C and D, all the way to our ultimate goal. Of course, we are all somehow deluding ourselves, but it is the belief that we are on the right track and moving on it that sustains researchers on their ups (surely there are some) and downs (more than we imagined). The point I am trying to make here is that despite much to the contrary there is no alternative to making progress however imperceptible, unplanned, and unasked for, and however unexpected the twists and turns of a research journey can be.

And so it was one of such unexpected twists and turns that changed the TECH4ALL#2 course and took it to a new and much more exciting experience. The opportunity arose out of the complexity and chaos the higher education sector finds itself in. Riddled by surging new initiatives, burdened by new ways of collecting data on everything, and marred by staff’s and students’ overload, universities tackle the high waves of an unpredictable future with a mix of reassuring bureaucracy, steadfast belief in the power of innovation, and the impossible task of keeping a balance between both.

I would go as far as saying that while complicated systems of knowing are planned to know what we know already, complex systems of knowing allow for chaos and serendipity to take the researchers onto new and unexplored lands. And so it was that the TECH4ALL#2 team took the plunge and moved forward.

• At first there were 5

The first few months of the project developed more or less as we expected. Although the initial plan had to be changed a little, the team – mainly the students – planned a pilot with the aim of testing the waters on what students understood by digital literacy. I sought the ethical approval and dealt with Unitemps and HR about hiring the students as research assistants. We also worked on the PR aspect and created the blog, a twitter and an Instagram account. To be honest, the last two have not served us well so far and maybe we could have done more with them. Yet, it is difficult to share what looks like basic research routine tasks. Sharing results on issues related to your own university is then fraught with all sort of problems. We stuck to the blog instead.

• and then there were 6

It so happened that while we were busy doing our project, Rob Howe was busy doing his survey of students’ digital capabilities. On a chat in the LLS open space office we exchanged ideas and little by little Rob came on board. Now a fully fledged honorary member of the team, Rob and the team have been sharing ideas and survey data with the aim of understanding better what the various stakeholders in our university think digital literacy is, what skills are required and how we can support students and staff to develop it.

While this was happening, two of the four students designed and carried out interviews with key stakeholders to understand more about how digital literacy is perceived and supported across various departments.

• and then there were 7

While the students were busy planning and carrying out the pilot, creating a PR campaign, and designing the interviews, I received a request by a colleague in Spain, Juliana Raffaghelli, to be part of her project looking at academics’ digital literacy in a number of EU countries. This was a great opportunity to show case the TECH4ALL#2 project and if all goes well, we will then exchange visits and workshops.

 

Adapt and adopt: flexibility, opportunism and companionship on the research journey

TECH4ALL#2 is only half -way completed and we are not sure what our final destination is going to be. What started as the continuation of TECH4ALL on making technology inclusive, has now moved beyond simply finding out what as a university we mean by digital literacy. In the spirit of our project, we have moved across and created new e-cologies of learning by taking every opportunity which came our way. We adapted ideas, and adopted new members and in doing this we had to be ready to innovate, that is to take risks while staying close to the values and goals we had close to our heart. Like a light brigade we have been flexible and took opportunities when they came. Along the way we made new travel companions and more will come.

We are now at the point of thinking where we want to go next. Because the TECH4ALL#2 team was moved by the desire to support students and staff to develop their practice in regard to the use of technology, we know that we want to share our findings with students and staff and we are thinking of delivering some workshops.

But we are already thinking about TECH4ALL#3 and how what we have done so far about digital literacy and technology can address the call for social innovation. How can we use technology to teach future generation in a socially innovative and socially responsible way?

Research is by nature a leap in the dark, a stumbling in the unknown. It is by working together that we can shine a light.