About This Page

This page was use in the "Enough Talking - Let's Use The Next Generation Technologies!" workshop session at ALT-C 2006. It was used by discussion group 4 to keep a record of their discussions. In the first exercise the groups identified what they wanted to get out of the session. In this exercise they used the 'six thinking hats' approach to address the issues from six perspectives.

Exercise 2: Six Thinking Hats

Goal: learn about something new.

White hat
Available data
New Web 2.x stuff, exciting stuff, enthusiasm evident

Past trends
Always new stuff to be excited about, what next we wonder?

Gaps in the data
There are going to be new things we haven't yet discovered, new ways to use the things we have discovered. How do we use this stuff, how do we know or validate how we use it?

Red Hat
Intuition
New toys are often fun to play with, Are we excited because of the novelty or because of the functionality?

Gut reaction
WOW!

Emotion
WOW

Black Hat

Its just a time waster. Old wine in a new vessel. A sheep dressed up in Wolf's clothing. Weren't we doing this in the 70's anyway? There's nothing new. It will never take off. It won't work. People won't take it seriously. If its doesn't cost anything no one will appreciate it. The new version will be different, and we will have to start again.

Yellow hat

This is fun, it works, its entertaining, its going to be effective, it will do away with Librarians, Its free! it will promote diversity and sharing. Are jobs are secure! The learners will turn up to their lectures (which they won't need anymore)

Green Hat

We could do this with paper, Doing nothing isn't an alternative. Use it or lose it. Teaching and learning can become activity based, content is less important. Just do it.

Blue hat

Choose the education your way - remove outdated and unpopular learning environments, new or virtual.