In any case, it’s often difficult to be a work-a-day teaching & learning technologist while trying to envision and plan for a brighter, better future. We have 45,000 Blackboard users at my instituiton. They use the system A LOT. We consistently hit 2 million quizzes / semester in Blackboard. We have 1.5 TB of content in Blackboard. The average student views each of their courses about once a day. We HAVE to keep it up and running.

There’s a lot of teaching and learning going on there. Does that mean I think we’ve achieved the ideal? Absolutely not. Is Blackboard everything it can / sould be? No way. We can all think of ways to make learning more open, flexible, dynamic, etc. Many of you are already doing things that move decidedly in that direction, UMWBlogs being a prime example. That’s what I love about this crowd.

So how do we get from here to there? Isn’t that the real challenge we face? I think it’s got to be parts evolution and revolution. My approach, FWIW, is to continue to push practice and the toolset in new, more open and flexible direction. For example, we’re piloting UPortal here. We’re talking about ways to make the portal a more open landing spot for teachers and students, freeing them up (incrementally) from the CMS.

That’s the evolution part. Then there are revolutionary things we can do / support. Our CS department on campus is using Moodle primarily because they want to us LaTeX. Dave W. on our campus teaches with MediaWiki. Others use blogs. How can we support these outside-the-lines efforts? We’re trying to do that by providing the connective tissue teachers and their students need to tie these various things together. For starters, we’re working on a stand-alone web-services-enabled gradebook. And we’re establishing a web services framework for our campus . . .

I’m in no way trying to suggest we’ve got it figured out. I’m grappling with the tension much like the rest of you. But we need to keep the smart people in academia to find the right synergy between evolution and revolution, methinks. If we lose the innovators, we had all better be patient enough to wait for evolution.

You see, I have a love/hate relationship with Bb. As an instructor, having a set of tools that I can pick and choose from in a closed environment is convenient- for those with basic tech knowledge it’s approachable (if not always intuitive). As a technical support lead, only having to deal with a set range of variables (and it’s a pretty wide set as it is) makes my life much more manageable.

As an IT, however, I prefer to introduce faculty to possibilities rather than “point-and-click” tech training. What do you want to do? WHY do you want to do that? Here’s some options you can choose from… THAT’S the stuff I live for.

I tend to describe my position as standing with my feet on two icebergs slowly floating away from each other- the disconnect just keeps growing. I must admit, I struggle with it more some days than others, and there’s nothing like a conference to remind me just how much is going on out there that I want to dig my hands into. *sigh*

“the role of the instructional technologist is effectively limited to routinized training that demonstrates the limited capabilities of any one system. All of which effectively makes the instructional technologist an administrative assistant providing technical help.”

and

“The point at which I start administering systems or training folks on BlackBoard on a regular basis is the moment I walk away from this occupation.”

To put it more crudely: “I am not your Blackboard bitch.”

You’ve basically described my reasons for leaving. Or at least about 70% of them. I believe there were probably faculty at my institution doing interesting things, interested in new technology, but the giant monster of the CMS swallowed up everything–my time, the conversation about learning with technology, etc. I’m proud of what I did with our WordPress Mu stuff and it’s being used a lot–but not by faculty. I don’t know. I still have issues, I think.

The two forks you’ve described are ones I’ve described over and over again to the many administrators who’ve wanted to talk to me after I announced my resignation. For them, though, everything is administration. I think good administration is important and I commend those who do it well, because in theory, that frees up time for innovation. I found myself drifting into more and more administration and found that even with innovative technologies like Second Life, the first question people asked was not, “How can this help me teach or help my students learn,” but “Will you manage this for me if I use it?”

I admire your continued enthusiasm for technology and learning within higher education. I just couldn’t maintain it any longer. I’m still enthusiastic about technology and learning. I’m just afraid that what we’re headed to is all about efficiencies. Learning is never efficient.

@Scott,
You use genius as lightly as I do, that said I know how you feel and sometimes it seems like careers are designed liked Ikea–>a pathway built to push you along in the name of consumption and progress. Sometimes it ain’t so easy to realize there is more than one way to approach your idea of a life worth living, and I think remaining focused on what’s important isn’t ever easy and always demands a struggle, and sometimes I feel myself slipping–so I go to the bavarchive.

@Luke,
Oh yeah, well if was so good I wouldn’t have had to Google Ron Carter. The fact that he was a bassist is very interesting, cause Gardner recently was talking about Count Bassie, and suggested that it is the bassist that you tap your feet to, not the vocals, guitar or drums, so I take that as the highest honor. I guess my instrument is inanity.

@Alan,
You’re not only an administrator, you’re a CIO! Scary!

@Jon,
Well that is too kind, yet the question of leadership is something that has always concerned me. I don’t necessarily have a problem with authority, I just don’t like to be told what to do more seriously, I’m always afraid that a lot of what a write will be read as an attack on administration, which it is not. It is rather a consideration of thinking through the possibility and cultivation of innovation as yet another space that is fostered that might remain outside of the more focused work of administration, yet because the university is often neatly divided between teaching and administration spaces like the library and instructional technology often far outside of their scope–and by default their identity remains unclear within the structure of the university. Administration (and I am thinking IT here) often has more to do with scale, efficiency, and reducing risk–at least to some degree. Whereas, a provost is interesting in teaching, scholarship and promotion–I would think instructional technologists would be more relevant working under an academic banner than an IT one (which is currently the case at UMW–but who knows for how long).

@D’Arcy,
Are you bragging again? You have been doing a lot of that lately on your blog, but now you bring it here, to my blog? Obviously the fame and fortune is starting to get to you

@Longtimereader,
Don’t get demoted on my account It’s funny how much folks here often miss the job they do once they have been promoted, with promotion often comes an insane amount of meetings. I’ve seen first hand how that sucks the time and energy away from experimentation –I know they are necessary, but damn they seem inefficient and ineffective.

@jstein
And I couldn’t ask for any more

D’Arcy: From your post I’ve learned to fear the snapping of your towel in the locker room. Seriously, though, edtech initiation should involve some hazing.

Jim, the only response I really have to your query is simply, It’s What I Do, and What I Do is Why I Do It.

So to put it in movie terms, it’s kinda like how James T. Kirk is promoted to Admiral in Star Trek I. He has a lot more responsibility but his first love is command of a starship. He ends up having to deal with the V’ger thing, the Khan thing, the resurrected Spock thing, and the whale thing. Along the way he destroys a lot of Starfleet property and is busted down to Captain in Star Trek IV. But, secretly, he thinks it’s awesome.

Anyway, not important. The fame and fortune are pretty intoxicating. And the power – knowing that my work is so fundamentally shaping the activities of my institution. That the people who run the show (or at least _appear_ to run the show) are coming to me for advice on policy and strategy. Oh, and don’t get me started on the whole ed tech groupie scene. At first I was a little freaked out by the celebrity treatment, but then I realized that so many people really value what we do, and we just need to let go and enjoy the ride.

Looking forward to the next retreat at Necker. Here’s hoping they have better yacht valet service than the last time – it took me forever to buff that scratch off the starboard bulwark after you sideswiped me last time. And stop making that annoying ARRRRR! pirate noise when you’re on board!