At the outset of every new semester, students in my face-to-face class always appear unsure about what to expect from my module. It is called ‘International Project Management’ but the titles of the texts range from the aforementioned International Project Management to Global Project Management and Mastering Virtual Teams. By the end of the first day they’ve pretty much come to the conclusion that the majority of projects by their very nature have an international element and that the topics to be studied will be of value working across all sorts of teams where there is a diversity of cultures regardless of location. The key takeaway is not to judge a book by it’s cover – dig a little deeper and you may be surprised at what you will find.
Followers of this blog will know that I have just completed a year of studies in Digital Education at the University of Edinburgh. Sticking with this theme I wasn’t surprised to find that the programme was formerly known as E-Learning and a dictionary search in google returns a definition as “learning conducted via electronic media, typically on the Internet.” Another search for a definition of the term Digital Education results in “digital learning is any type of learning that is facilitated by technology or by instructional practice that makes effective use of technology.” A third search for a definition of the term Technology Enhanced Learning proved a little trickier but as in the previous examples I took the first result presented and this time it was from the Higher Education Academy – “Technology enhanced learning (TEL) is often used as a synonym for e-learning but can also be used to refer to technology enhanced classrooms and learning with technology, rather than just through technology.”
The point of this exercise is to demonstrate that as with a literature search it’s important to be aware of the terminology and be prepared to focus wider so as not to miss anything. This week I’ve been lucky enough to have been offered a place on a structured Phd programme in E-Research and Technology Enhanced Learning at Lancaster University and I almost missed it since the title didn’t resonate with my initial list of search terms!
Dig deep and you may surprise yourself 😉
Featured image courtesy of Pixabay
Sandra Flynn 
Well done Sandra on becoming a PhD student.
And many thanks for another thought-provoking article.
An element of an effective research process usually invloves scoping out the range of key definition related to your topic and settling one/a set – by logically defending your decision – for the purposes of the study.
Another thought is that accepting that contrasting views exist around a particular definition, phenomenon, etc. highlights an appreciation for an interpretivist philosophy (the existence of multiple realities at once), as opposed to a positivist philisophy (one fixed reality).
The final thought is that knowing the names of things doesn’t constitute knowledge; e.g., learning by rote, and regurgitating this in an exam. I love Richard Feynman’s take on this:
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Richard Fenyman’s link to YouTube video, didn’t appear for some reason, so just type “Richard Feynman names” and watch his interview extract about the names of ducks.
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