Abstract
Recognising and responding to behaviours and patterns of resistance is critical to the successful implementation of technology-enhanced learning strategies at higher education institutions. At institutional, academic and student levels, resistance manifests itself in a variety of forms, at best supporting a critical culture and at worst creating inertia and active disquiet. Through the lens of an institution-wide strategic learning innovation vision at the University of Greenwich, designed to enhance connectivity and collaboration, this paper will explore the modes and pathways of resistance that occurred in the process of implementing and embedding an openness agenda at a learning and teaching level. Through supporting experimentation and play with social media creation and sharing as a mechanism of curricula transformation, we identified a number of patterns of resistance to sharing and openness. Using an approach informed by grounded theory we have attempted to represent these patterns in the form of a model of institutional resistance to technology-led change.
Highlights
In the increasingly frantic, impossible and contrary debate around higher education pedagogy, social media is hailed by various protagonists as being both hero and villain
This paper will look at potential reasons for institutional and individual resistance to openness and technology enhanced learning, through the lens of data collected through the consultation and implementation phases of Greenwich Connect, an institution-wide vision for Learning Innovation at the University of Greenwich, United Kingdom
In the context of implementing a strategy that utilised open and student-led production and sharing of content through social media, there was not a single point or mode of institutional or individual resistance, but a number of critical pressure points that manifested themselves at an institutional, academic and student level
Summary
Impossible and contrary debate around higher education pedagogy, social media (which conceptually includes notions of self-presentation, production, openness, critiquing and consumption of media positioned in the wider context of an open ‘social presence’ [Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010]) is hailed by various protagonists as being both hero and villain. Some assert that it can offer a mechanism that may help the institution realise the potential of technology-enhanced learning (TEL) to support open and collaborative learning practices (Green and Hannon, 2007; Siemens and Weller, 2011) but alternately, might entwine the academy or its staff and students in a web of perceived (or real) risks and dangers (Hughes, 2009; Towner and Muñoz, 2011; Ralph and Ralph, 2013) This paradoxical understanding of the role of social media exposes disconnects in the way TEL strategies and practices are implemented and subsequently evaluated within higher education. These pressure points were visible where we encouraged and supported staff and students to experiment and play with content creation, sharing and collaboration in an open environment
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