Systems
Understand that we live and work within systems of cause and effect in which actions may have multiple origins and consequences.
EDTEC 684: Management of Educational Technology
Curriculum for Collaboration Timeline (158KB PDF)
This timeline was developed by my team for an EDTEC 684 project, Curriculum for Collaboration. The project was to develop a national program to foster collaboration among museum, library, and public broadcasting personnel. On one level, the timeline is a simple schedule. On another level, it represents a complex system of live broadcasts, online conferences, certification, continuing education, and other resources intended to support collaboration among this audience.
Perhaps it’s because I’ve spent thousands of hours testing systems of computer hardware, networking, connectivity, communications, operating systems, and software applications that I’ve internalized the concept. I see systems within systems within systems everywhere, in the electrical system in the car next to me on the freeway, in the pinon pine in an isolated forest on top of a desert mountain, in this web page in my portfolio on the internet. Although I may not always be able to see how, I know everything is interconnected and that it’s not as ludicrous as it sounds to ask, “Does the flap of a butterfly's wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas?” (Lorenz, 1972).
I’ve also had some experience with developing and implementing a Microsoft SharePoint client portal and a national education conference. So, when my EDTEC 684 team was charged with coming up with a plan for developing and implementing this project, images of systems within systems within system came to mind with little prompting.
As shown in our timeline, we broke the overall system into subsystems to make the job of developing and implementing the project more manageable:
- Practitioners and Partners (P&P) Track – Knowledge Commons
- P&P Track – Collaboration and Partnership Conference Sessions
- Professional Certificate in Non-Profit Collaboration and Partnership Development
- Community Collaboration Grant (CCG) Track – Knowledge Commons Courses
- CCG Track – Online Conference Session
There are two tracks to address two audiences, CCG and P&P, and a lot of interconnectivity between and within them:
- The CCG audience is a subset of the P&P audience, those practitioners who have been received collaboration.
- Both audiences use the Knowledge Commons, a Learning Management System (LMS) for delivering course content.
- Within the P&P track, the courses mirror the conference sessions.
- Practitioners and partners can take a course or a session of the same number to satisfy the requirements for certification.
- Any of the practitioners or partners, including CCG recipients, can qualify for the certificate.
In a system, the inputs come from many sources. In this case, it’s convenient to put the sources in these categories:
- The people – the developers, the administrators, the conference staff, the instructors, and the students.
- The infrastructure – the Knowledge Commons, the broadcast studios, the internet, the broadcast networks.
- The curriculum – the courses, the conference sessions.
- And a lot more.
The intent of Curriculum for Collaboration was to leverage these inputs toward one positive consequence, collaboration among museum, library, and public broadcasting personnel. It is only though careful, thoughtful, planning and development with an understanding of the systems that such an end can be accomplished.