Reflections - Activity 6.3 - what does a learning technologist do?

Sources

Lisewski, Bernard and Joyce, Paul (n.d.) ‘Examining the five-stage e-moderating model:
Designed and emergent practice in the learning technology profession’, [online] Available from: http://learn.open.ac.uk/mod/resourcepage/view.php?id=90970&direct=1 (Accessed 24 November 2008).

Oliver, Martin (2002) ‘What do Learning Technologists do?’, Innovations in Education and Teaching International , 30(4), pp. 245-252.

What do learning technologists do?
I've only been assuming this postion for a few months now and I can really relate to both the Oliver and Lisewski articles.

Yes... I see a big part of my job as a Education Technology Specialist (i.e. Learning Technologist) is having a certain amount of autonomy in how I interact with "clients", yet little if any authority to direct change, instead its a matter of presenting experiences, ideas and suggestions (expertise) to "guide" a "client" to another way to realize their instructional objectives. They typically seek me out formally (via email requesting an appointment) or informally (over lunch or a chat in the hall). Yet critical to it is fostering a non threatening relationship with potential "clients" so that they feel comfortable about discussing such things. It sounds curiously similar to a relationship that you might find between a patient and a therapist, where there's a need for "confidentiality", and the building of "trust" or building a non threatening, safe environment for open dialogue because in many cases, the potential client feels insecure about raising the issue. They often apologetically present themseleves as unfamiliar with something, feeling vulnerable in doing so, so that they realize they need to learn more, that they are depending on me for guidance.. yet ultimately the final decision on "if" they will move forward rests with them.

Curiously enough, I've never seen such a "soft skill" presented in any LT job description. While the expertise, experience and rhetorical discourse are important, I've discovered just how critical nurturing this sort of relationship is to realizing the next step - being "invited" to enter into such a dialogue and then present one's expertise or opinions to help inform opinion. Thus the point made about "investing considerable time in building goodwill and strong collaborations across the institution" (Oliver p 249)

I'm equally curious about how many others in the cohort share this observation.

I also see a strong need to be challenging things ... even those presented by my colleagues in the department. They have been tempting me to use "off the shelf" solutions (with best of intentions I might add) .. yet I've resisted on the very grounds mentioned by Lisewski - the need for them to be challenged as to their relevance to our context. At issue here, is the use of screen cams from Atomic Learning and my insistence on the need to use self authored screen cams using Jing. This on the grounds that Jing produced resources are easy to produce, easier to access and invite greater familiarity and thus more built in support for our end users - namely faculty. Atomic Learning videos are more difficult to get to (require password and then navigation to a set example), and are not context specific .. thus requiring the "target learner" to build the relevance and context themselves .... to understand the purpose of the support resource.