DMU Learning Exchanges

2009-01-28T17:00:00.004Z

At our last e-Learning Symposium in May 2008 we decided to continue and extend this blog to incorporate e-learning and technology development at DMU. In that spirit we have now finally migrated the DMU Pathfinder blog [located here] to a new site called DMU Learning Exchanges, which will incorporate a blog, with reports on projects and faculty developments, as well as help and guidance for staff and students.

As a result there will be no further extensions or postings to this blog. We'd like to thank you for reading and hope that you pop over to DMU Learning Exchanges to find out what we are up to going forward.

The 2008 Horizon Report

2008-12-12T08:37:00.003Z

Just finished re-reading the 2008 New Media Consortium Horizon Report. I decided to cut-and-paste some quotes around the six technologies highlighted within a short, medium and longer-term time frame. I found these quotes thought-provoking with clear implications for our practice at DMU. They are pretty self-explanatory.

grassroots video and collaboration webs, both on the short-term horizon

"The effect of all these developments is that the capacity for video production has been distributed to the grassroots level, to the point that even major news outlets routinely feature audience-captured cell phone videos of breaking news stories."

"A virtual collaborative workspace for a course or study group can be assembled quickly using tools, or widgets, that can pull information from a variety of sources... The same tools can be used to set up a personal portfolio where a student can display his or her work in any form — photos, blog posts, shared videos, and more can be pulled to the page by widgets that grab the student’s contributions on other sites."

mobile broadband and data mashups, both on the mid-term horizon

"The combination of social networking and mobility lets students and colleagues collaborate from anywhere they happen to be. Add to that connectivity the multimedia capacities of phones, and the storage they offer for podcasts, videos, photos, PDF files and even documents and spreadsheets, and it is not hard to see why phones are increasingly the portable tool of choice."

"The power of mashups for education lies in the way they help us reach new conclusions or discern new relationships by uniting large amounts of data in a manageable way."

collective intelligence and social operating systems, both on the long-term horizon

"Two new forms of information stores are being created in real time by thousands of people in the course of their daily activities, some explicitly collaborating to create collective knowledge stores like the Wikipedia and Freebase, some contributing implicitly through the patterns of their choices and actions. The data in these new information stores has come to be called 'collective intelligence' and both forms have already proven to be compelling applications of the network. Explicit knowledge stores refine knowledge through the contributions of thousands of authors; implicit stores allow the discovery of entirely new knowledge by capturing trillions of
key clicks and decisions as people use the network in the course of their everyday lives."

"Social networking systems have led us to a new understanding of how people connect. Relationships are the currency of these systems, but we are only beginning to realize how valuable a currency they truly are. The next generation of social networking systems—social operating systems—will change the way we search for, work with, and understand information by placing people at the center of the network. The first social operating system tools, only just emerging now, understand who we know, how we know them, and how deep our relationships actually are. They can lead us to connections we would otherwise have missed. As they develop further, these tools will transform the academy in significant ways we can only begin to imagine."

There are some other quotes that I like, which should shape or impact our pedagogic engagements, as curriculum facilitators or mentors, with learners who are utilising social media tools, or who would benefit from their affordances.

"learning-focused organizations who want their content to be where the viewers are" [does that include a VLE?]
"data mashups that will transform the way we understand and represent information" [are we too hung up on plagiarism?]
"expand our understanding of ourselves and the technologically-mediated world we inhabit" [do we do affective learning in HE?]
"base the organization of the network around people, rather than around content" [but we are obsessed with subject-specific content in HE]
"The expectation is that advances in technology over the next twelve to eighteen months will remove the last barriers to access and bring mobiles truly into the mainstream for education" [best crack on with our JISC project, MoRSE then]
"it is critical that the academic community as a whole embraces the potential of technologies and practices like those described in this report" [does this demand a change in institutional commitment to professional development?]
"This is more than merely an expectation to provide content: this is an opportunity for higher education to reach its constituents wherever they may be" [see 1 above - the structure and operationalisation of the traditional University appears friable]
"The renewed emphasis on collaborative learning is pushing the educational community to develop new forms of interaction and assessment" [I'll raise a glass to that if it involves proper deliberation between learners and mentors]
"Web-based tools are rapidly becoming the standard, both in education and in the workplace. Technologically mediated communication is the norm. Fluency in information, visual, and technological literacy is of vital importance, yet these literacies are not formally taught to most students" [wow! The subject is king, so engaging with 6 above is critical]
"The gap between students’ perception of technology and that of faculty continues to widen. Students and faculty continue to view and experience technology very differently" [Is that really true throughout institutions?]

Obama, social media and pedagogic change

2008-12-12T07:50:00.002Z

Last month I blogged about whether the manner of an Obama victory had any implications for higher education. Since then, several reports have followed analysing the Democrats use of web and social media tools to connect their followers and organise campaigning. the excellent blog, ReadWriteWeb has analysed Obama's Social Media Advantage with several interesting outcomes:

the demographics of democratic support aligned with the demographics of social media users;
the number of people wishing to be connected with Obama rather than McCain, using social media, was demonstrated by the number of blog postings mentioning him and the number of Twitter and MySpace friends he had;
the second act of Obama's use of social media, namely his engagement with citizens as President through change.gov, highlights that "the Obama campaign may have found another way to continue the conversation that they started".

The change.gov site highlights Obama's commitment to ongoing conversation: it argues for "the great things we can do when we come together around a common purpose". The site asks people to share stories and goals, and focuses upon crowdsourcing new agendas. Old ways of looking at the world are under pressure from social media and extended networks.

To be honest, this is a relatively simple, democratic approach that utilises established social tools and political ends, coupled to an apparent willingness to listen. This holds out hope for social change that might underpin progressive pedagogies with distinct characteristics.

The design of meaningful, whole programme curricula, rather than atomised modular courses, which start from the learner within her/his social networks. Empowering the learner to make sense of how units in a curriculum might build to something more will then scale personal involvement in decisions about: materials to be analysed and produced; tools to be utilised; educational networks to be developed (possibly from social networks that already exist); and tasks and activities that enable actions to be taken.
This links to a greater emphasis on negotiated, personalised assessment, which might be linked to patchworks and portfolios, which connect to, include and celebrate informal learning opportunities, and which can be represented in multiple media forms.
Linked to this is an engagement with an enquiry-based curriculum for personal change, and more of an emphasis on learning agendas set by individuals through personal enquiry. Negotiating a curriculum, or a set of problems that will support change in the individual, and enable that individual to achieve a set of personal outcomes requires the type of socio-constructivist scaffolding that is central to the use of social media.
Critical in the emergence of a curriculum that is co-managed by the learner is the partnership role of an experienced adult as mentor or facilitator. This mentor may be and more experienced student or tutor, but the key is for that facilitator to negotiate with the individual learner around: problems and concepts within an enquiry-based model; relevant social, educational and subject-based methods for analysing these problems; how to develop an appropriate social, educational and subject-based approach to knowledge creation; and the social networks and tools that can enable personal understanding and change.

The choice of technologies and networks, participation within multiple social forums and associations, a personalised definition of learning within a subject-specific context, and the development of critical literacies, are a function of partnerships between learners, mentors and institutions. For the institution, the mentor and the learner, the possibilities for empowered, pedagogic autonomy are strengthened by an active engagement with social media.

ECEL 2009

2008-12-08T21:04:00.002Z

Thought I'd highlight the 8th European Conference on e-Learning (ECEL 2009) to be held in Bari, Italy, next year. Papers on the read/write web (or Web 2.0 if you must) are especially welcomed, after an excellent conference mini-track last November.

There is also a Twitter hash-tag: #ECEL09, and I'll be tweeting some more @ http://twitter.com/HallyMk1

Review of current and developing international practice in the use of social networking (Web 2.0) in higher education

2008-12-08T16:46:00.002Z

I just finished reading this review of social networking in HE. After the previous Franklin Consulting review of Web2.0 for content for Learning and Teaching my expectations were raised. The key outcomes for me are as follows.

The Executive Summary notes that the report provides " an assessment of the relative position in the UK and the likely attendant consequences". It's a real shame then that the UK report focuses upon the usual Web2.0 suspects in HE and shows an obsession with UKOLN events and reports, like they are the only game in the read/write web town. It was particularly disappointing not to see the outcomes from HEA-JISC Pathfinder or Benchmarking noted here, or links to the plethora of other read/write web reports that are out. Given the limited data and context, and the lack of student input, the assessment is very relative.
I also despair that assertions like " Facebook, it seems, is becoming a mainstream service for use by institutions", are made based upon the numbers of fans of universities on Facebook. Isn't this lazy research?
The report clams that HEI "Usage to date has been driven primarily by the particular interests of individual members of staff rather than institutional policies" Again with no reference to projects arising from the JISC e-Learning Programme or HEA-JISC Pathfinder or Benchmarking, this statement appears to be an assertion. Not sure that it is true here at DMU for example, where there is a mix of academic and institutional drivers.
The report clams that " The mind sets and frameworks of reference that we have used hitherto are no longer adequate". In part this is because of the impact of Web2.0 tools on: social and professional lives; privacy and safety; user identity; institutional policies; a lack of new pedagogic models creating uncertainty; time constraints; a culture shift for academics; and issues for students. Actually, I reckon the issue is less in terms of the creation of uncertainty for users and HEIs, and more the use of these tools for managing uncertainty in the world. This type of research needs to be underpinned by Barnett, Friere and Illich.
There is also a focus on informal learning, whatever that is.
There are apparently three key advantages of the read/write web: affordances that are not found in other technologies around the co-creation of knowledge; students are already using these technologies and are therefore engaged with them; and, many tools are free to use and come without the restrictions found in many institutional systems. Now the first of these runs the risk of becoming an extension of the old, conservative, empty-vessels-to-be-filled-up-with-knowledge model of education. There are other, progressive pedagogies on offer that focus less on content and more on power, like the empowerment work of Mike Wesch, the TESEP project, and that noted on this blog last month in the wake of Obama' victory. There has to be more than content, surely?!
The report notes the fears that some technologies will disappear "giving concerns over the longevity of others". I've never really understood this argument, for two reasons. Firstly, staff here generally use: Facebook; MySpace; wikispaces; WordPress; blogger; YouTube; Twitter; nig.com; grou.ps. Why are these any less likey to be around in 5 years than Blackboard? Secondly, aren't we all in game of trying to empower people (staff and students) to make decisions from which mortgage to take, to which tool to use, and what to say/do in the world? So what if tools die? That's life - flexibility in managing content, materials, identities and PLEs is part-of-life.
"The rate at which technologies and products are appearing is difficult for people to keep up with." Is this really true? This strikes me more as perception than reality. The core tools are pretty steady - see 10 below. However, I will buy the argument that staff are still concerned about how they can be used effectively in learning and teaching.
"Use of external systems can mean that students have to make use of many more user names and passwords and that their learning space becomes atomised." Given that there is no student evaluation data in the report I struggle with this assertion. It is certainly not the case with the students I have interviewed here at DMU, where students have a keen sense of their own PLEs. The Ravensbourne Learner Integration model highlights one cognitive model.
The authors' highlight that Gartner's emerging technology hype cycle suggests that Web 2.0 is falling into the "trough of disillusionment". It has broken out beyond the enthusiasts and is being more widely taken up. Whilst wikis have entered the "Slope of Enlightenment", no tool has yet made it to the "Plateau of Productivity". I love this stuff.
I did like the focus on a lack of social capital as a barrier, and the fact that HEIs need to engage with read/write web tools and cultural approaches in order to build the social capital that they need to overcome uncertainty and innovate.
The South African report is really interesting in terms of highlighting a clear pattern of division between those that are connected, and those that are not, and that the mobile phone might provide a more promising trajectory for integrating the social web into education. A key question for me is how the West is helping developing nations engage with new tools and ways of working, to enfranchise the dispossessed on their terms and NOT ours. As Czerniewicz & Brown (2005) note "by coming to grips with the digital identities of local youth and by understanding what kinds of new practices students bring, we can better design appropriate educational interventions." [Czerniewicz, L. & Brown, C. (2005). "Access to ICT for teaching and learning: From single artefact to interrelated resources." International Journal of Education and Development using Information and Communication Technology, 1(2): 42-56.]
"Lecturers on the other hand lack some of the social drivers for familiarising themselves with these new tools, and given their teaching and research loads, may not invest in learning new tools if their relevance and use is not immediately obvious. Typically, lecturers rely on their institutional e-learning support departments to identify suitable tools, and provide training and ongoing support. However, not all institutions have the capacity for extensive training and support or the ability to support newer Web 2.0 tools. While students will develop the needed skills to communicate with their friends, lecturers are not as likely to use Web 2.0 tools for social uses and will need to expend more effort into familiarising themselves with these technologies." Fair point.

Facebook Connect

2008-12-05T08:50:00.001Z

Facebook Connect. Well - I don't know what to write, so I'll tag: privacy; data protection; PLE; portal; content; diversity.

Mike Wesch: inspiring good questions and anti-teaching

2008-12-05T08:27:00.003Z

An interesting video on inspiring good questions and anti-teaching featuring Mike Wesch from Kansas State. His focus is on harnessing the collective power and intelligence of many individuals to ask good questions through participation. I think that this leads to good decision-making, and using tools to enhance collaboration and participation, through "love and respect", clearly enables people to colonise and create inspiring spaces. As Wesch say, the spaces we have are changing so fast that we need spaces and tools for sharing and inspiration. Moreover, they do need to be playful and fun.

World Internet Report: Pioneering Report Finds Remarkable Similarities and Significant Differences Globally

2008-12-05T08:12:00.002Z

Some headlines from this report from13 partner countries or regions, issued by the Center for the Digital Future at the University of South California.

40 percent or more of users said that one-half or less of information on the Internet is reliable.
Larger percentages ranked the Internet as an important or very important source of information compared to television, newspapers, and radio.
In 10 countries and regions, more than 70 percent of students who are Internet users go online for school-related work at least weekly, and in nine of the WIP countries and regions, more than 30 percent of students go online daily or several times a day for schoolwork.
Nine of the WIP countries reported 22 percent or less of non-users who said they don’t go online because they don’t know how to use the Internet or they are confused by technology.

One stand-out issue for me is whether in a broadband, and mobile-rich West we forget the diversity of problematic personal, economic and cultural experiences that exist for internet users.

Web2Rights animation

2008-12-03T14:55:00.002Z

Good work by the JISC Web2Rights project in this Intellectual Property Rights in the Web 2.0 world animation. It focuses on the importance of considering IPR in the use and re-use of interactive, user-generated read/write web content and read/write technologies. Don't forget to check out the diagnostic tool.

The Digital Student: or the impact that new media technologies are having on young people

2008-12-02T11:38:00.003Z

I'm grateful to Andrew Clay who lectures on "Studies in Digital Technology" in our Faculty of Technology for this list of resources about the impact that new media technologies are having on young people, including today's Guardian supplement. I've added a few things I like to each resource in the list.

1. Digital Student - a supplement printed in today's Guardian newspaper and available online at http://www.guardian.co.uk/digitalstudent.

Almost every article is written by non-students. Do the experiences of new technologies that are described ring true with what our students and tutors are doing, I wonder? A key quote comes in the podcast article: 'iTunes U could "question the role of the lecturer" because unless someone sets the information in context, learners won't get much benefit from it.' There is very little discussion of progressive pedagogies in the supplement - after all this time we are still fixated on the tools and traditional power relationships. But then maybe this supplement is about opening up a discussion.
I love this quote from Lawrie Phipps from the JISC about the value of Second Life: " The nice thing about Second Life is that the tangible benefits are whatever you need them to be." This reflects the fact that tangible benefits of e-learning and technology are so often difficult to nail down, but also that progressive pedagogies for virtual worlds still haven't taken off. Will they ever mainstream? Especially given the view from one of our design tutors that: "Five of my final year students are working on a business internship building assets and environments... suffice to say it looks generations better than Second Life". Plus we are seeing more-and-more bespoke business/corporate worlds being developed.

2. The Digital Youth Project's report on how young people are using new media at http://digitalyouth.ischool.berkeley.edu/files/report/digitalyouth-WhitePaper.pdf

I love the trichotomy of participation framed by "Hanging Out, Messing Around and Geeking Out". Educators who are serious about engaging progressive pedagogy with play should read this in-light of the EYFS.
I created a wordle image for the white paper. I like the fact that it highlights: new: youth; media; learning; participation; messing; and around; as big tags.
The implications for education are critical: Social and recreational new media use as a site of learning; Recognizing important distinctions in youth culture and literacy; Capitalizing on peer-based learning; and New role for education?

3. The CarPhone Warehouse's Mobile Life Project 2008 report 'Exploring our relationships with modern technology in a wireless world'.

Interesting to review this in light of the NSPCC's Children and the internet [Internet Safety] briefing, on access for young people and their structured participation.

27 must-have collaboration tools

2008-11-28T15:39:00.001Z

A list of 27 must-have collaboration tools noticed byTim L at KingstonUniversity. And they are all free...

Online 'time' for teens...'good'

2008-11-25T10:46:00.005Z

A BBC report see here.

Communication now increasingly digital it is now vital that these skills are developed - (and they are being developed younger with the toy/game industries already constantly exploding us with new 'toy's & 'accessories') We more a less have come to the point that to complete a HE course successfully access to these 'technologies' are required. The market is not just for the 'social and leisure' scene - its in the learning zone too... I can see though how young learners don't want us (teachers) to step into their social online spaces and we should respect that. We need to ensure that if we are to take advantage what these 'online spaces' allow us to do that we clearly define how 'we' are to use the tool and for what purpose. This has been discussed before - but the basics fundamentals of how and why, bundled with expectations of any 'method' and 'tool' needs to be understood by all those participating for the desired outcome.

YouTube: an anthropological introduction

2008-11-24T08:22:00.003Z

If you are interested in participation, community, place, engaging users in creating content, developing strong networks of independent users, YouTube, the read/write web or anthropology, then you have to watch Mike Wesch's wonderful anthropological introduction to YouTube.

Flip video cameras

2008-11-19T10:28:00.003Z

I posted a while back about YouTube for Duffers, in which I highlighted how to make some easy videos using a Nikon Coolpix, some shareware and Windows Movie Maker.

However, the arrival of the FLIP video camera makes life a little easier for us all. The help and support site is pretty good, but to be honest this is video production for complete duffers. There is a great review on YouTube from ComputerWorld. The Flip comes with in-house editing software, but TBH my approach is to ignore this, as it doesn't let you do much, and go straight for this approach.

have a single focus for each video, within a larger theme;
capture video handheld or using tripod;
plug the Flip camera into my PC using its USB arm;
open-up the folder structure using My Computer;
import .avi files to Windows Movie Maker, by dragging and dropping;
edit videos, spliced with simple transitions;
embed user-feedback along the way;
embed photos taken with Nikon Coolpix 7600 as appropriate;
add extra audio recorded with Plantronics DSP500 headset and audacity [producing mp3 files] as appropriate, by dragging and dropping;
login to YouTube [you need an account but you can create one with your google account]; and
upload from your homepage and wait for the video to load.

This book launch video took 30 minutes to record 10 minutes of footage, 30 minutes to edit and seconds to upload. Give it a go - it's great fun!

Video resources:

DIUS reports: On-line Innovation in Higher Education

2008-11-17T10:00:00.004Z

So, I had an e-mither about the DIUS reports that John Denham commissioned on the future of HE. There is also an accompanying HE Debates blog on which you can comment. Once you have read the On-line Innovation in Higher Education report, you should also read Tony Hirst's OUseful blog posting. However, my thoughts follow.

Now don't get me wrong, content is important, and I'm a fan of open-learning, open standards and re-use, but the whole report confuses me about content and e-pedagogy - are they, in fact conflated here, or is e-pedagogy the servant of open content? The stall for the whole thrust of this is set out in the Executive Summary that states: "We lag behind in generating and making available high quality modern learning and teaching resources." The report argues (p. 9) that "To exploit ICT it follows that UK HEIs must be flexible, innovative and imaginative" (whatever that means - e-pedagogy or epistemology are barely fleshed out in 3.27/3.29 (p.15) and Annex a, iii. How ICT can Support Improved Pedagogies), and it goes on to argue that "effective, imaginative, widespread and critical use of this infrastructure, which crucially includes a critical mass of very high quality open learning content." A link is appearing here between information management structures and e-research strategies that will enhance the provision of open-content. Moreover, it appears to be argued that if we hitch innovative e-pedagogies to this wagon, then UK HEIs will corner more of the market. I wonder whether this captures the power of good curriculum design, highlighted in-part through the JISC Curriculum Design and Delivery programmes, to be more tha simply tutor-driven and content-based.
This brings me to my confusion about the report's link between e-pedagogy and content. The report focuses upon (p.14) the institutional control for content: "real costs related to establishing an appropriate legal framework to address IP/rights management issues, sustainability and ensuring high quality and compliance with agreed technical standards." It predicates pedagogic innovation on content, but doesn't think about the impact, writ-large in all areas of the curriculum (and not just within creative industries), on the role of students, or non-professionals, in the co-creation of knowledge. The work of the TESEP project stands out in focusing attention upon pedagogies that extend, enhance and empower learners to create. The report does mention (p. 24) "[students] in the role of active, skilled and collaborative creators of knowledge", but the focus is on technology and not pedagogy or epistemology. I can see that the flexible availability of content that can be repurposed might enable this to happen, but will students as creators of knowledge want to present their work beyond the open-access institutional repository? Our Music Tech student do so on MySpace, our Game Art students do so on Facebook. If we move towards controlled places for open learning materials what do we risk losing? The beauty of the read/write web is its ability to enable people to be fleet-of-foot. Quality control risks squashing this agile presentation.
This, in turn, brings me to the possible disconnect between pedagogies that see formal and informal work as separate, and those that fuse those spaces. This report appears to work towards a separation of concerns. How will the processes we put in place enable us to deal with the dichotomy or links between formal and informal learning? Mash-ups don't just exist in content, they exist in the use of specific content in time, place and space.
There is another, large elephant in the room, which is the power of research-led universities. The document mentions these HEIs 3 times, and doesn't mention resources to enable WP or transitions into HE once. The alternatives offered are HE-in-FE or distance learning. It's almost as if they don't know what to do with the rest of us, other than place us in extended networks of excellence.
One of the report's key thrusts is on "the UK must have a core of open access learning resources organised in a coherent way to support on-line and blended learning by all higher education institutions and to make it more widely available in non-HE environments. This needs to be supported by national centres of excellence to provide quality control." So no place for trusting academics to do the right thing? This final, big, bald statement focuses the discussion and roots it in a discourse of QA rather than enhancement. How will this impact onteh HEFCE's Opening-up resources for learning theme?
Centres of Excellence seem fine in principle, but what about the networks that exist of Pathfinder and JISC teams? Is this yet another chance for the lucky few to get more funding? Will these be pedagogically- or content driven? How are they to define excellence? Who will chose them? Who will lead them? How do we know they will actually be used by staff?
Allied to this, for whom will the "Review to identify key players in HE elearning" take place? Will this identify those key players who make a difference to local students? Or just those who make the biggest noise nationally and internationally?

The report rightly mentions (p. 23) reward and recognition as a key issue to address. Along with a discussion of what is meant by excellence in e-learning, for specific stakeholders, perhaps the impact on students and staff of this report's recommendations is the place to start.

Obama dodges Sarah Palin on a snowmobile

2008-11-17T09:56:00.001Z

The internet generation who helped propel Barack Obama to the presidency have been wondering what to do with themselves since the excitement of election day. Now Obamamaniacs and political junkies can replay the battles of the past few months in a new video game called Super Obama World. The retro styled game sees an ever-smiling President-elect take on Sarah Palin in the frozen wastes of Alaska.

TLRP: Education 2.0

2008-11-17T09:42:00.002Z

I quite liked the “Commentary by the Technology Enhanced Learning phase of the Teaching and Learning Research Programme” called “Education 2.0? Designing the web for teaching and learning"
Some useful stuff on social networking, socialising themes within Web 2.0, issues around cultures of trust, virtual worlds and the semantic web. Not enough on radical pedagogies though.

Woman divorces husband for having a 'virtual' affair on Second Life

2008-11-14T09:35:00.001Z

Woman divorces husband for having a 'virtual' affair on Second Life - Telegraph

A woman is divorcing her husband after catching him having an affair with an imaginary, animated woman on a computer game.

JISC Curriculum Delivery Start-Up: MoRSE

2008-11-14T07:09:00.006Z

We have a Curriculum Delivery Project, in partnership with Kingston University, called Mobilising Remote Student Engagement [MoRSE]. In short, KU are using mobile and read/write web tools to support Geography and GIS students on fieldwork, and we are using these tools to support Pharmaceutical and Cosmetic Sciences placement students.

The start-up event at Warwick has a 70s TV theme. This has been different and like the curate's egg. What I have learned is that:

having a customisable, colonisable, informal space is a neat idea, but bean-bags are an uncomfortable gimmick after you have been sitting on them for 6 hours;
the TV pitch that each project had to make about its future work was a good ice-breaker, but I didn't learn enough about the projects. Note to self: must do homework and read all project briefs before I arrive;
at the start of a project it doesn't really matter which other projects you are buddied with - links are going to emerge with relevant projects over time. Perhaps the key is who you connect with, in order to share stuff/tools/strategies/outcomes later on, and a lot of this has to do with who you can have a laugh with in the bar. Our cluster [West Anglia, Kingston College and Lewisham] are going to challenge us on implementation and WP agendas I think, and that is good for us. Hopefully we will enable them to engage with transitions into HE. However, the ESCAPE party at Hertfordshire, looking at new drivers and strategies for assessment, and the guys at Newcastle on the dynamic learning maps project investigating semantic webs, diagnostic tools, tagging taxonomies and ontologies, and approaches to personalised learning, will be of interest. They also happened to be the people I smiled a lot with and that, at this stage, is crucial. The more I think about it that was one of the reasons why I connected with certain HEA Pathfinder projects. Personal engagement is critical;
which brings me to the huge elephant in the room: the [lack of] appearance of the critical friends [CF]. The CF role in each of the projects I have managed has been crucial. The personality and drive, the value-set and ability of that person, in meeting our project teams half-way, rather than imposing a particular framework for viewing the world, has been so important. We have been told to define what type of CF we want, but if the friend has already been allocated that might be a redundant exercise, although I would like to see them as reflexive practitioners. I'm not saying that I want to enter a bidding war for specific CFs and I recognise the psychological and group-based literature that notes the value of challenging others who are not friends but work colleagues. However, my experience of Pathfinder is that there are certain CFs with whom I can connect because they have a similar world view, and others whose work-plan, view of technology and politics is too off-beam for me. This is important because we are talking about a 2 year plan of work. But maybe it doesn't matter, and as Oddball says in Kelly's Heroes "Why don't you knock it off with them negative waves? Why don't you dig how beautiful it is out here? Why don't you say something righteous and hopeful for a change?"

Sushi

2008-11-13T13:38:00.001Z

While I was waiting around for a training DVD to burn, on my virtual travel for inspirational material, I came across a short 8 minute video about sushi. Apparently this video’s won awards and it is sort of a light-hearted humour on Japanese tradition. But for me it was the way they’ve directed the video that is the appealing part. The instructional design is remarkable, and I honestly came away feeling knowledgeable about the subject. Something that all e-learning developers (or those involved in teaching) should endeavour to do.

If you’ve got a few minutes then take a look, and let me know what you think please. Do give it a little while to get rolling – as it starts off quite slow and literal.

If you can't send the video below then click on this link: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=E8c2fMDatoU

sushi

Does the manner of an Obama victory mean anything to HE?

2008-11-11T08:57:00.002Z

The read/write web is being used increasingly to promote active citizenship and shared political involvement and decision-making. MyBarrackObama.com is a classic example and I think highlights how 20th Century McCain looked by comparison to Obama. In fact the BBC's coverage, both on-line and on-screen looked positively 20th Century compared to Sky, who made a point of highlighting when Obama's text to his supporters thanking them came through. Organisations such as Amnesty International and Oxfam regularly use social networking software like Facebook, MySpace and Bebo to lever individual agency for their current campaigns.

Now this isn't a political blog, but don't you get the feeling, in that well-worn phrase of the moment, "change" is upon us? I have the feeling that the possibilities for extending community-based organisation, and extending the democratic connections between those communities were made concrete in the election of Obama last week. In part they were made so because of the interplay between these organisations, or sub-networks within them, and their favoured web applications. This, in turn, enables disparate groups of individuals to associate voluntarily with each other around themes or interests. In coming together to discuss, make decisions and act, individuals are beginning to acknowledge their own power as part of an organised "crowd", and the hope is that they will be able to respect personal differences.

The wonderfully named Jemima Kiss, writing about "Why everyone's a winner" in the Guardian, noted that "The web has helped to inspire and empower a generation that has rejected political apathy. Obama's team used technology to make issues personal and relevant by giving people ownership of the campaign. It wasn't a complicated strategy." Now I don't know, as yet, the demographics of Obama's vote, so I can't say that all the guff written about his team's ability to get the "kids" to the polls is wholly true, but the focus upon emancipating the young and the politically disconnected through social media frames the types of democratic pedagogies that higher education should be focusing upon (c.f. Friere; Illich). It offers the hope of a pedagogy that empowers individuals to ask meaningful questions using new networked tools. Moreover, it might also offers the chance to emancipate the learner’s role in her/his educational experience (Haggis).

The key may be the design of meaningful, whole programme curricula, rather than atomised modular courses, which start from the learner within her/his social networks. This will then scale personal involvement in decisions about: materials to be analysed and produced; tools to be utilised; educational networks to be developed (possibly from social networks that already exist); and tasks and activities that enable actions to be taken. Within curricula that are managed by the learner with a facilitating tutor the possibilities for empowered autonomy and a strengthened civil society are opened up. Clearly there will be an impact on professional development both for the use of social media and for new, epistemologies and pedagogies, but as US Politics enters the 21st Century maybe now is the time.

In pursuit of a better way: sounds like we need an Angel

2008-11-08T05:57:00.006Z

With the heightened awareness of politics, due to the recent american presidential election, I'd like to borrow and re-engineer in typical web 2.0 generation style a phrase from the political world - "it's all about the learning, stupid....."

http://tonysuess.com/2008/02/14/angel-lms-prepare-to-be-impressed/

And my point is... Technology can be a massive hinderance to learning. Usability (Interface and functional design), technological robustness and reliability for both learners and learning designers (teachers) is vitally important. Perhaps the use of Angel is a better option in combining the administrative needs of a higher education institution, the learning needs of the students and the learning design needs of teachers - Well Tony Seuss seem to think so. Not have used angel myself i am nevertheless impressed with Tony's observations in his blog post.

Crew sacked over Facebook posts

2008-11-03T10:28:00.001Z

Crew sacked over Facebook posts

Thirteen cabin crew staff have been sacked by Virgin Atlantic over their use of a social networking website, it has emerged.

It launched disciplinary action last week following claims staff had used Facebook to criticise its safety standards and call passengers "chavs".

Learning virtually hands on can be a life saver

2008-10-28T09:42:00.003Z

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7686595.stm

Kingston University & the University of London are using Second Life to train paramedic students.

Schools & FE - Open Source Software

2008-10-27T14:03:00.003Z

http://www.opensourceschools.org.uk/

On the e-pulse - informative site. It quotes Moodle is used in 56% of schools and FE.

Attention Economy: The Game

2008-10-27T08:10:00.002Z

Attention Economy is a game developed by Ulises Mejias and designed to let students explore the dynamics of building a reputation on-line and to understand how roles impact hubs and newbies in social networks.

Man being sued for libel over comments on eBay

2008-10-24T10:21:00.001+01:00

Here's another! Two in one day. To be honest in my previous posting, a thought deep inside me was that this can only happen in places like Japan. What'd you know someone is sueing another person for using eBay's feedback feature claiming libel. I mean that's what a feedback facility is there for isn't it?!

Woman in jail over virtual murder

2008-10-24T09:37:00.001+01:00

As virtual worlds and real world merge in our everyday life, so is transgression. The BBC reports that a woman was arrested in Japan after she allegedly became furious and killed her virtual husband on an online game after he divorced her.

Amazing!

Blogs ...cont'd

2008-10-23T08:42:00.008+01:00

Seen this? http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=403827&c=2... its no surprise academics tread carefully in blogging where they are known in their profession and on institutional systems as with any profession their is a code of conduct; your audience of your blogging entries affects how and what you may write. Uncertainly can arise from both corners (students/tutors) using the blog in a learning context and on institutional platforms if objectives, expectations and guidance is unclear and feedback is irregular. ..the good news is a lot of studies have shown the benefits of blogging for students when these concerns are addressed...

EDMODO? - another microblogging tool

2008-10-22T12:52:00.001+01:00

http://mashable.com/2008/09/18/edmodo/

Will need to have play...

Blogs are alive and kicking!

2008-10-22T10:04:00.001+01:00

Interesting points raised in the Wired magazine article that the previous blog posting links to. Yes I know blogs are reaching saturation perhaps, and 90% of users never go beyond the first page of search results in search engines. So if your blog or website is not on Google's first page then is it really not worth existing?! Well I personally think not.

Blogs can be used for a variety of things - for example personal reflection is one where ever you have an internet connection (most modern mobiles support mobile blogging). Project logs, niche areas where audiences will be small.

I suppose those who are in for the vanity writing will need thousands of visits a day to motivate them to write. But many of us upload to blogs for a niche i.e. this blog, With a marginally small audience compared
to the big boys. Even if there weren't any readers, I'd still use a blog for a place to bookmark important pages and stories for myself, if others want to benefit then they are most welcome. But for me this blog
is a conveinient virtual area to store my findings and ideas to assist recall in the future.

Robert Scoble and Shel Israel in their book remind us that blogging is about having conversations - even at the least, with yourself; apparently Mad scientists got their name because they wanted to talk to rationalise there theories, but couldn't tell anyone because of the fear of imitation, so they talked to themselves.

Comparing blogs to modern methods of communication - some of us have conversations with the entire world (media moguls and news editors), some of us to organisations (newsletters), some to groups (lectures and seminars), and some to ourselves (diaries). In the same way that it would be difficult for me to create a media empire and converse with the world, blogging has somewhat shifted phases now and to reach a wide audience may have become somewhat difficult. But that doesn't mean blogging is dead, blogging is reaching maturity where the serious are being separated from the frivolous, the committed from the uncommitted. Blogging is here to stay plain and simple, whilst twitter and facebook will perhaps suit others.

blogs are dead?

2008-10-21T23:21:00.002+01:00

Kill your blog, apparently, unless you happen to be a pro-blogger with hundreds of readers. In order to get through to people and be heard you might as well Twitter and comment on the big blogs, which have taken all the bandwidth anyway. If having an audience is what you want then forget it or join the big boys. Or maybe you just want a diary and a few trusted commentators...

Web content 'disturbing children'

2008-10-20T08:23:00.001+01:00

The charity wants websites to direct children to help and advice

Three out of four children have seen images on the internet that disturbed them, an NSPCC.

Read More...

Institutional Use of Web 2.0 Tools

2008-10-19T17:25:00.002+01:00

Some interesting points made on the Epic blog about introducing Web 2.0 tools. Sensible, but I wonder whether we are better off ignoring 1 [Engage your policy makers from the very start] and just doing it anyway. Let custom and usage hold sway - a truly democratic approach, as befits the extension of civil society that is the read/write web. As for 4 [Pilot the use of social media tools initially on a small scale using cheap, readily available tools] why introduce your own tools rather than letting people aggregate and congregate their own spaces on the web? I know, I know, IPR, data protection, SPAM, but doesn't creating your own spaces negate the power of 8 [These tools (and their use) are always evolving so see the entire process of adoption as an ongoing pilot ] and 10 [The value of social media tools can far outweigh the risks ]?

http://socialmediaclassroom.com

2008-10-18T10:21:00.003+01:00

This is Howard Rheingold's new development designed, according to the site, to:

"to create more free value" through "an integrated set of social media that each course can use for its own purposes";
"to grow a public resource of knowledge and relationships among all who are interested in the use of social media in learning"; and
accommodate those with "a common interest in using social media to afford a more student-centric, constructivist, collaborative, inquiry-oriented learning".

It has a classroom and collaboratory containing integrated read/write web [they use Web2.0] tools. I am intrigued by: "the conviction that an integrated set of tools would make it far easier to integrated multiple new communication modes into the learning process, and to the discovery that the use of these tools and collaborative inquiry hold the potential for engaging students more actively and passionately in learning, by making them responsible for formulating and pursuing questions, rather than for memorizing a body of knowledge". Intuitively this seems right, but I'd like to see the research evidence.

This is just the kind of thing Blackboard would say, huh? But they are for-profit, whereas socialmediaclassroom is open source and not-for-profit and Web2.0 and community-oriented and student-centred...

...and states that "Knowing how to use social media productively is becoming more and more important to business enterprises and civil society. " I'm disappointed that it's business first, civil society second. Elsewhere it talks of "the emergence of a market for intelligent information-filtering and knowledge-dissemination". Not sure what form the transactions in that market will take. The site is quiet on that one and I'm concerned about that to be honest, as more stuff gets uploaded and more transactions take place. In part this is because I just can't find the IPR/copyright/creative commons statement on the site. But then I couldn't find the tomato ketchup for my eggs this morning either...

I'm also not sure what I think about the risks of this community-Web2.0-extended-VLE approach rather than tool/RSS aggregation, facilitated by a tutor, that lets student aggregate their resources in their own places having made their own decisions. Or maybe we do want some more free ranging in a controlled environment rather than lone ranging on the web by students - the risks are maybe higher in an unlimited, de-regulated web.

Anyway, I look forward to the robust, pedagogic evaluation of the SMC. Moreover, I look forward to the modelling that might appear around a centred, one-stop-Web 2.0-shop, as opposed to an aggregated approach. But for the moment I'll carry on with Netvibes, Twitter, Facebook, grou.ps and the rest...

mash-ups and sample - what does noise-thievery tell us about digital plagiarism?

2008-10-17T12:09:00.004+01:00

An excellent discussion of music-sampling and mash-ups, alongside approaches to creative expression and re-editing, with some thoughts on lazy approaches to music generation, on this week's "In New Music We Trust", hosted by Pete Tong last night. I found the notion that where a producer/artist does not, for instance, have the skill to create their own bass line, or where the one they want already exists, they might borrow/sample/re-edit it in a new format. Digital technologies make this easier and more accessible. Which makes copyright-management, citation, acknowledgement important.

The "cutting and pasting of styles" in forging a new style is really creative, apparently, although it can also encourage a lack of creativity and laziness. So do we need new rules or approaches to producing and assessing creative, digitally-manufactured content, given the portable, user-friendly, fleet-of-foot technologies that we have?

Cotil project start up HEA

2008-10-16T16:29:00.001+01:00

Yesterday saw a trip to York for the start up project meeting for our Cotil ( Web 2 - Connecting Transitions and Independent Learning) project - we are one of seven funded in the current round by HEA e-Learning Research Observatory. We’ve actually started well into the Cotill project with what appear to be two good case studies in the Faculty of Humanities.. one in Education Studies with student mentors (along with the DMU Transitions team) and another with Chris Goldsmith’s Politics students .

The startup was all about consolidating plans, sharing ‘issues’ and identifying commonalities with representatives from the other projects - ( Sheffield Hallam, Exeter, Anglia Ruskin, Leicester, UCLAN and Writtle College), as well as tips and updates on completed projects. We had much in common with UCLAN and Writtle on transitions-related research, but other themes were of interest to work going on across the faculties, such as on feedback, feed foreward and colleagues at Leicester are building on previous Impala4T project on podcasts, which will have synergies with an upcoming project here at DMU. Exchanges were lively and informative and in general quite a laid-back day (except for Richard, whose train journey was a little too laid-back for his liking).

Fifty Ways to save money online

2008-10-13T10:58:00.001+01:00

OK so I know this blog is dedicated to e-learning at DMU. But I supposed that there would be a connection. First of all many of us do work or study in an Educational establishment, we tend to be always the suckers for good bargains, and if your reading this blog then you probably tend to do lots online, and you probably read The Guardian too (ok I may be wrong here).

But I came across this and figured that many of you would find this article useful in finding bargains online, especially in these financially testing times we're in. I particularly liked pricecutreview.com/uk as it helps finding bargains at Amazon, with Eid, Diwali, and Christmas coming up I think with a bit of pre-planning you be able to save a few bob.

Enjoy and use the comments feature here to let us know any special bargains you got online.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2008/oct/09/consumeraffairs.internet

Google - Things to do

2008-10-13T09:47:00.001+01:00

"Just Google it!" - How many times do you here that nowadays. Google has become more or less synonymous to searching on the internet! But what else can you do using Google! Here is a page I found on the Internet with some video clips of all the weird and wonderful things you can do with Google.

Blogs and online diaries should be part of school curriculum, says thinktank

2008-10-09T15:12:00.001+01:00

The rise and rise of the YouTube generation, and how adults can help

"Schools, universities and businesses should prepare young people for an era where CVs may well be obsolete, enabling them to manage their online reputation," says the report.

Social networking sites to link recession redundancy victims

2008-10-09T14:44:00.001+01:00

Social Networking sites are set to become the virtual solace zones for swathes of people becoming redundant in the current recession. LinkedIn a site dedicted for those who fear they're to be made redundant, was until recently an underdog in the SN market, has recently claimed that it's had 28 million sign-ups lately especially from people from the finance industry.

Obama uses iPhone to win support

2008-10-09T13:09:00.001+01:00

The US presidential candidate Barack Obama team have devloped an free to use application for the the iPhone as a political recruiting tool. I wonder if the same can be done for students attending lectures or receiving alerts for updates from their tutors etc.

iTunes U Education

2008-10-07T11:02:00.003+01:00

Has this been blogged about before? Reason I'm saying this is because its apparently been around since 2006 available in the US. The latest news is that the University of Oxford have their own section in this read more at http://www.macworld.co.uk/education/news/index.cfm?newsid=23052.
Education podcast, vodcasts for free (I've not checked it all though!) . Find out more here http://www.apple.com/education/itunesu_mobilelearning/itunesu.html

One thing about having free publicly available podcast's etc is that it gives your institution exposure and publicity and therefore could be used as a marketing tool; oh yes as well as an educational tool!

Mohammed has blogged about this too!

Oxbridge lectures play on iTunes

2008-10-07T10:18:00.001+01:00

A growing number of universities are distributing lectures through iTunes

Oxford and Cambridge University are to make lectures by leading academics available through iTunes.

Vodcasting & Podcasting in schools

2008-09-22T13:56:00.002+01:00

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/tayside_and_central/7625680.stm

If you have the technology we should use it!

Social media and corporate mores

2008-09-19T11:51:00.002+01:00

Just found this great blog posting about BT's use of social media. I particularly like the notion that: "The extent to which a company adopts user generated tools is bound to become a barometer of company culture for those looking for suitable employment in the future".

Interactive Work space

2008-09-19T10:01:00.006+01:00

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2008/sep/17/itforschools.elearning

Can have many uses which allow for student participation in lectures; collaborative work and simulations of the real world - no more squinting at the screen from the top of the lecture theatre! there is lots of potential for this - the customised expense... hmm
Having these in school, make sure the kids master the art of writing first before they move things around by finger! actually encouraging writing through using the finger and having the letter talk back to you once its correct can be great fun so I'm all for it! Those into gaming and pushing buttons do have a more engaging experience as they 'believe' they are doing powerful things and are in control so I can see its appeal...I think it can work well in the learning environment users being interactive rather than passive, making the learning activity more meaningful and therefore more likely to be retained (this has been said before!)

Intute integration with Blackboard

2008-09-17T10:24:00.002+01:00

Warning sounded on web's future

2008-09-15T10:13:00.002+01:00

The internet needs a way to help people separate rumour from real science, says the creator of the World Wide Web.

Google backs cheap internet for emerging markets

2008-09-12T16:26:00.003+01:00

This one's for you Hally and your South African children project. ;-)

A new project will help three billion people around the globe gain access to the internet.
Google and Europe's biggest bank HSBC are to back a plan to help three billion people in Africa and other emerging markets gain access to cheap, high-speed web access

iPod roots traced back to 1970s UK

2008-09-12T16:13:00.002+01:00

Apple has admitted that a British man played a part in developing the iconic and extremely profitable iPod, although he has so far received no money for his invention.

Google News blunder triggers airline sell off

2008-09-12T16:12:00.002+01:00

United Airlines share price tumbled after Google News recycled a six-year-old story about it going bankrupt.

The mighty powerful media eh!

the kids are alright

2008-09-10T16:00:00.002+01:00

I had a conversation with a couple of students at the JISC Users and Innovation seminar about what they thought the e-aware or e-competent tutor should be about, and what attributes would be appropriate for 21st Century HE. Their top tips included the following - they aren't rocket science, but they are usefully re-stated.

A willingness to take risks and explore new tools and techniques with students - a facilitation role in managing decisions about learning.
A willingness to involve students as mentors in learning, and thereby facilitate sharing and co-operation. This should happen across programmes as well as within modules.
The deployment of interactive technologies and techniques in the curriculum.
Give e-learning tools (e.g. Blackboard) a point.
Be responsive to the students' attitudes and approaches - empower them to use personal tools in the curriculum.
Use social tools that help them personalise their experience and share ideas beyond the programme. We need to pull students in, rather than push them.
Give students responsibility for the development of modules and programmes - give them choices and decisions to make about curriculum content and delivery.
Rather than focusing on telling, focus upon students' active involvement in doing and creating. Trust will help build ownership and engagement. Students doing and creating rather than listening is key!
Make better use of technologies to enable non-contact time activities and tasks.

They also pointed out that institutions need to enable the aggregation of tools and content, in order to give students safe places to share, pull in widgets and play.

a day without Google? Impossible surely?

2008-09-10T08:22:00.001+01:00

Rob Dubbin tried a day without Google, although he needed to check one last thing.

He concluded: "I went into this experiment fairly certain that it would require the cursory change of an odd habit or two. I learned that my dependence on Google runs deeper than that, encompassing not only my personal Internet use but the nested dependencies of the people and institutions surrounding me. This is perhaps less a celebration of Google's tenth birthday than it is the harrowing revelation of our tenth anniversary. So goodnight, dear Google -- congratulations, and sweet dreams."

JISC-sponsored Users and Innovation Seminar

2008-09-08T18:36:00.002+01:00

So I'm in Leeds, not attending ALT, but instead at a lovely seminar/symposium organised by Lawrie Phipps of the JISC Users and Innovation programme. We're discussing new agendas/directions or maybe themes for U&I in 21st cntury HE. So far, I've been taken by a few ideas:

Bob R's notion of useful or meaningful "teachable moments" struck me as transferable to other moments in time when the impossible became possible. I need to think more about that and institutional maturity for pedagogies or technologies.
Scott, Pat P and Vania D spoke about how we engage students with content aggregators, tags, the wisdom of crowds etc. in order to produce/manufacture agents (virtual, human, intelligent) that might empower the agency of individual students;
how do we/students validate or generate trust in information and communication channels, and what are the implications for practice?In-line with this what are the implications for pedagogic practice that might be about cognitive frameworks that map to technologies?
what is our desired change from any pedagogic/technological innovation?

The only issue for me so far is that there has been lots of talk in the sessions I was in about staff or tools, and not the impact, epecially the affective change, in the students. This is my issue, but I wonder whether we are not yet in the moment with this type of research.

Google's Street View Gets Green Light

2008-09-03T10:33:00.001+01:00

The Information Commissioner's Office has given the go ahead on Google's Street View mapping service. The service which takes pictures of streets and uploads them to online maps was heavily criticised by privacy campaigners. However, the Information Commissioner said that it was 'satisfied' that Google had put in place safeguards to avoid any risks to the privacy and or the safety of individuals. This article serves to remind the FE and HE sector on the importance of privacy rights afforded to individuals. Full details on this news story can be accessed here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7534755.stm

[Excerpt from JISC Legal Information Service]

New CLA HE Licence for e-Books and e-Journals

2008-09-03T10:30:00.001+01:00

From 1 August, the new Copyright Licensing Agency Comprehensive HE licence will provide HE institutions with extended rights for the use of digital material. The new licence includes photocopying, scanning, and for the
first time, copying from e-books and e-journals. This enhanced licence means that HEI’s can make use of their paper and digital holdings for teaching.

Further details can be found on the CLA website at - http://www.cla.co.uk/news.php?id=60

[Excerpt from JISC Legal Information Service]

Report on Harmful Content on the Internet and Video Games

2008-09-03T10:29:00.001+01:00

The Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee published its report investigating harmful content on the internet on 22 July 2008. Although the main aim was to consider the dangers posed to children, the results are of equal interest to FE/HE institutions starting to make use of Web 2.0 technologies in particular, such as social networking. The ability of mobile network operators to monitor and control access and occasions on which they may choose to do so is discussed, along with cyber-bullying and mechanisms for making a complaint. The full report is available on the select committee website at:

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200708/cmselect/cmcumeds/353/35302.htm

[Excerpt from JISC Legal Information Service]

Realtime Generation Report 2008

2008-09-02T10:46:00.003+01:00

Some thoughts from Suki on the Logicalis Realtime Generation Report 2008:
"I’m wondering as to whether digital identities established elsewhere pre HE in their social group – they may be less inclination to develop another digital identity at university unless it is part of their course. I do believe that social networking site will remain ‘social’ and will not worked ‘mashed up’ with a system perceived for learning. I think we can learn from the social from the flexibility that it gives for feedback and support and access to other plug-in systems that we use as an institution. Scaling online institution communities targeted at programme levels (peer-to-peer) may have some scope for building networks and engagement.

"It’s obvious that the degree of technology experienced pre HE will affect and determine university choice and we need to keep an eye on trends at secondary schools/colleges. These students are only young!!! I can understand how many are not sure what they expect from a university technology wise as they may not even know what a university may have to offer! There should be should a study done for mature students and international students so that comparisons can be made on the digital experience."

London set to become mobile internet capital of the world

2008-09-01T16:48:00.003+01:00

An interesting article in the Independent yesterday about mobile internet. In particular the theme of active mobile browsing alongside the need for content managers or producers to rethink their approach for mobile technologies grabbed me.

2008 survey of Technology Enhanced Learning For Higher Education in the UK

2008-09-01T16:22:00.002+01:00

The 2008 UCISA survey of Technology Enhanced Learning For Higher Education in the UK is now out. Its key findings can be seen on pp. 7-8, but those which interest me most include:

"the rise to prominence of e-learning strategies", which stands as a rider to the growing use of the term technology-enhanced learning;
"Post-92 institutions have larger Education Development Units (EDUs) with greater numbers of academically-oriented support staff. Pre-92 institutions appear to provide more support locally suggesting a more devolved provision" - so we stand-out as unusual in the post-92 sector, with a very small, devolved team aspiring to empower staff to engage with new tools and approaches;
"there is a vastly reduced range of VLEs and similar systems in use since 2005... The tools that have increased significantly in usage are those for podcasting, e-portfolios, assessment, blogs and wikis";
reward and recognition are issues for everyone; and
"support, streaming media, mobile computing, podcasting and Web 2.0" are the new matters arising for HEIs.

Online maps 'wiping out history'

2008-08-29T09:27:00.001+01:00

Internet mapping is wiping the rich geography and history of Britain off the map, the president of the British Cartographic Society has said.

Modern maps are accused of lacking detail - image courtesy of Google Maps

Read more...

Slideshare - some slides that I've viewed - thought I'd share!

2008-08-28T12:02:00.002+01:00

http://www.slideshare.net/heyjudeonline/creative-web-20-learning/

There are some other related ones which may be worth perusing...

Your printer is lying to you

2008-08-26T12:28:00.001+01:00

Out of ink? Already? When Farhad Manjoo's Brother printer abruptly stopped zipping out prints, he began to wonder if the printer wasn't simply lying that it was out of toner in order to trick him into buying more before he needed it. The prints hadn't been fading at all, but the printer simply refused to go on without a new cartridge.

Read More...

MIT students' gagging lifted

2008-08-26T11:25:00.001+01:00

An academic paper by three students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) which explained how to use the Boston subway for free can be aired, despite the attempts to block it.

Read More...

YouTube for duffers

2008-08-25T12:05:00.003+01:00

I've decided that YouTube is my poison this year. So I decided to make some rough-and-ready videos that will form a discussion of my growing disenchantment with football, and how I feel disenfranchised from the team I have followed for 30 years, Walsall FC. Now the subject matter is irrelevant, but the process of making the videos has been eye-opening.

I captured and edited them in a way that is easily low-tech, to prove that with limited resources it is possible to make something useful and more media-rich or user-focused. So my process is:

have a single focus for each video, within a larger theme;
use a Nikon Coolpix 7600 in video mode;
capture video handheld or using tripod;
use RAD Video tools from Bink Video to convert files from Quicktime to .avi, as I am using Windows Movie Maker - no need for extra whistles/bells in this project;
import .avi files to Windows Movie Maker, by dragging and dropping;
edit videos, spliced with simple transitions;
embed user-feedback along the way;
embed photos taken with Nikon Coolpix 7600 as appropriate;
add extra audio recorded with Plantronics DSP500 headset and audacity [producing mp3 files] as appropriate, by dragging and dropping;
login to YouTube [you need an account but you can create one with your google account]; and
upload from your homepage and wait for the video to load.

The first video took 30 minutes to record, 4 hours to edit and a while to upload [I went away and had a cup of tea, so lost track of time]. The second took 30 minutes to record, 2 hours to edit and an hour to upload. Give it a go - it's great fun!

new name

2008-08-25T11:50:00.003+01:00

Okay, so our Pathfinder project is over, but our work goes on. Julia in Art and Design suggested that we rename the blog to Learning Exchanges, and we liked that so here we are. In the near future we will be moving the blog to WordPress and hosting it locally so that we have more control and can move our work forward with plug-ins.

We intend to use the new site to showcase good and innovative practice in using technologies in the curriculum. So if you have some examples, email us at dmupathfinder@dmu.ac.uk

We also have a new project funded through the HEA e-learning research observatory call for 2008/9 , called "Connecting Transitions and Independent Learning: an evaluation of read/write web approaches" [CoTIL]. In essence the project, with our Transitions Team and NIACE, will be looking at the use of Web2.0 tools with new students, as they engage with academic life and transitions into HE. We'll keep you informed of how this one goes.

Do schools kill creativity?

2008-08-21T16:00:00.001+01:00

This video is awesome and a must watch for those that have or know children in education.

Predicting the next 5,000 days of the web

2008-08-21T15:56:00.001+01:00

Visual search engine is photographer's best friend

2008-08-21T09:55:00.001+01:00

A new visual search engine could help photographers keep track of their photographs whenever, and wherever, they appear on the internet.

The TinEye search engine, developed by Canadian company Idee, allows users to search by uploading a picture rather than typing in a keyword. It then conducts a pixel by pixel search across the internet, flagging up all instances of that image even if it's been cropped, merged or digitally altered in some way.

Read More...

21st century learning and the Walsall Gigaport

2008-07-15T15:49:00.004+01:00

Ok, so you might think that I'm trying to cram two stories into one here, but I am interested in how local and national strategies can be fused to improve life locally.

The power of technology to enhance local regeneration is highlighted by the Walsall Gigaport project, which is described thus: "Ambitious proposals have been unveiled to create 'Walsall Gigaport', a 21st century technology platform to attract new industries to the region." Big broadband, wireless. mobile plans that we hope have knock-on effects beyond business incubation into schools, colleges and the public sector, as well as upskilling local people and not simply replacing them with new knowledge workers. An integration with the aims of the Community Broadband project and the outcomes of the Onsnet project in Nuenen would really help engage hard-to-reach communities with the potential of 21st century thinking, learning, playing and acting.

This type of technical infrastructure underpins the world that has been highlighted in Charles Leadbeater's report for the Innovation Unit on 21 Ideas for 21st Century Education. Leadbeater makes some big points, some important points that we all need to think about. A few, for me, are as follows.

"Children need to be able to rely on ‘relationships for learning’ at school, home and in the community. That is why a learning strategy for this century cannot solely focus on school, and school itself needs to be radically reformed. The idea that education is just a system of schooling invites the idea that the best way to improve it is through the techniques of mass customisation, efficiency and quality improvement, driven on by central targets, national strategies and inspection regimes."
"[Innovators] seek to achieve these outcomes by ensuring children have the relationships they need to motivate them to learn. That is why so many of these efforts to refashion the school are creating new ‘communities of learning’ akin to villages or neighbourhoods... Strategies need to take account of the whole set of relationships children have which could influence their learning".
"Pragmatopians: are propelled by a vision of learning as a route to personal liberation and creativity but they are canny enough to know they have to deliver results."
Student leadership, mentoring and personalisation supports "learning where and when it is appropriate to any family in the town and to change aspirations and ambitions to learn", alongside collaborative "shared curriculum around key competencies and social skills such as self-management, collaboration, teamwork and creativity."
Critically, it is the timing, pacing, settings, styles, aims and technologies for learning that need to be renewed.
Participation, being cared for, recognition and motivation for individuals stem from learning networks with schools as community hubs that support enhanced personal and communal learning.
"The school leadership provided an igniting sense of purpose to propel innovation and encourage managed risk taking to develop new approaches... That kind of ‘igniting purpose’ is vital when innovation is such a highly collaborative, cumulative endeavour, which relies on mobilising and motivating staff, pupils, parents, partner agencies, other schools... Collaborative innovation relies on the participants having a strong shared sense of purpose.
Innovation stems from the combination and recombination of ideas... The most fruitful source for these new combinations are often ideas that come from the ‘margins’ and are then applied in the ‘mainstream’... Innovators have to create a ‘change wedge’ [UGH!?!?] – enough resources to allow them to plan, develop and experiment with new approaches...
Capacity for innovation must be built up across the school, especially among teachers."

Leadbeater's 21 ideas start on p. 52. I especially like his take on:

emotional resilience in learning [do we do this in HE?];
peer-mentoring [the power of stories we trust and relate to is huge];
personalisation that leads to ownership of learning [feeding forward into personal development, not wasting time on meaningless data];
schools and HEIs as productive, rooted, situated enterprises;
community-based learning and engagements/spaces between formal and informal contexts;
devolved leadership.

So much of Leadbeater's work offers hope for movement towards an inclusive curriculum that connects formal education to informal opportunities, and that does not prioritise types of knowing. Equally so much is person-centred and echoes the strands of the Early Years Foundation Strategy. As he argues:

"Relationships for learning would promote learning all over, all the time, in a wide variety of settings, from a wide range of people. Pupils would have more say and more choice over what they could learn, how, where and when, from teachers, other adults and their peers. Learning would be collaborative and experiential, encouraging self-evaluation and self-motivation as the norm.

"What is on offer here is not a trendy account of alternative education. It is a deeply practical approach developed in good schools in challenging circumstances, an approach that offers a way out of the current stalemate: the attainment plateau and ingrained inequalities in outcomes and aspirations. The route to a more socially just, inclusive education system, one which engages, motivates and rewards all, is through a more personalised approached to learning. Learning with, rather than learning from, should be the motto of the system going forward: learning through relationships not systems."

Health and Life Sciences awayday

2008-07-10T14:45:00.004+01:00

Malcolm and I led a session today at the Health and Life Sciences awayday, looking at new directions for e-Learning at DMU. There was a great mix of experiences, expectations and aspirations for the use of technology in the curriculum. Both Malcolm and I hold a position, which states that technologies should be used progressively to empower staff and students, and that the decisions about which technologies should be used need to be owned by programme teams. We also believe that these decisions should be made in negotiation with students.

However, an interesting discussion ensued with the 20 participants. The critical areas for discussion focused upon:

a concern that students are not reading and evaluating enough. Shafi responded to this, stating that he had used a combination of online journals and commenting through wikis to motivate students, and he used the lovely phrase "unfolding a story". This clearly connects into personalisation and ownership of a learning process, where feed-forward is as important as feedback;
Rob argued that getting students to read more is an aspiration with a long history of disappointment. The key is to stimulate their appetite, and the use of appropriate tools may act as motivation;
Simon argued that writing does not deteriorate due to online work, as long as the appropriateness of academic writing and academic literacy was highlighted by staff;
Peter wondered what students' experiences were prior to higher education - perhaps we need to look at BECTA and DEMOS and JISC;
Tilo was undertaking participative research with young people who have a culture of using these tools to engage with new ideas, and wondered how read/write Web tools might help the research process;
Malcolm noted that we were about to buy Penfield Hospital from the University of Huddersfield, and this virtual hospital simulation should help empower students decision-making.

This was a really useful discussion session. However, the key is for academic staff teams to understand the technologies that enhance their teaching, and their students' learning and to engage with those enhancements. In order to understand the technologies, and in order to make better decisions about them and their curriculum, targeted and focused professional development for academic teams may be the order of the day.

Charles Leadbeater

2008-07-08T11:54:00.002+01:00

I always find it affirming when I "bump" into affirming or interesting ideas and stories - especially those that connect with my own. The Guardian Education is carrying a story about Blue Skies Learning focusing upon communities and leadership, and empowerment of learners. More liberal hand-wringing huh? But it opened up a new channel for me in the work of Charles Leadbeater who focuses upon leadership and participation and the role of the web.

I am really looking forward to his report for the Innovation Unit on the future of learing in England launched July 10th, entitled WHAT'S NEXT ? : 21 Ideas for 21st Century Education. Comment will follow...

Blade376 on Blended Learning and 21st Century Education

2008-06-30T20:06:00.003+01:00

Well, you know, there's a nice, you know, video put together by Blade376 about his experiences at the Blended Learning Unit conference. I blogged about this last week, but Myles' vlog is part personal diary and part exploration of progressive pedagogic engagement. Now it's, you know, a long piece, but it shows you how the medium (YouTube) can be used to engage "real people with real views". The comments and community that develop around Myles' vlog and that maybe envelop his vlog shows how connections can be developed and strengthened and help users evaluate and build their own literacies.

Stick to the end, because there is a great exploration of how Web2.0 and versioning is meaningless to current digital natives - are we are trying to force 21st Century tools into our world, rather than engaging with its power for our students?

So here we are. Again. End of Pathfinder "celebration"

2008-06-27T10:08:00.003+01:00

Back in November 2005, Heads of e-Learning attended a Town Meeting at the Higher Education Academy in York. at this meeting, we were informed that there would be a benchmarking and Pathfinder programme initiated from the debris of the UK eUniversity farrago. I was one of a limited number of people who expressed, either at the meeting or via e-mail, concerns that benchmarking meant metrics, which in turn meant measurement and effectively a new column in a league table. A central concern for me was that any focus upon metrics should be subservient to, rather than lead, our enhancement/improvement agenda. Moreover, where metrics were deployed they should be used in context by HEIs to plan and deliver enhancement.

During the implementation of Benchmarking and Pathfinder at DMU the threat of the deployment of metrics and measurements receded. I felt that we embarked upon a process of understanding our own narratives, and helping both staff and students to come to terms with 21st century technologies to enhance their learning. We formed part of a collective, participant-led agenda for change, which for me was about:

empowering staff and students to make good choices about the technologies they deploy;
learning from others; and
developing e-pedgogies that demonstrate fitness-of-purpose and fitness-for-purpose in the 21st century.

The joy of our engagement in this national project has come through meeting other practitioners and celebrating their stories. I had hoped that this would be an outcome of our Making a difference day in London yesterday. Despite being talked at for over two hours in the morning session, we did get the opportunity to engage with people who are trying to change lives at the chalk face in the afternoon.

In the morning we heard from John Selby from HEFCE, who highlighted how institutions need to think about value the money, efficiency and latterly enhancement. Now maybe he didn't mean it in that order, but that's the order in which he spoke about these issues: money and metrics first, enhancement second. Dr Selby also highlighted that the Educating Rita model of curriculum delivery was outmoded and inefficient. Sadly he did not note that the politics of Educating Rita, and the empowerment of Educating Rita and the emancipation of that student in that story show its true value, more than the resource implications of one-to-one teaching.

Dr Selby did also highlight how the sociological power of technology-enhanced learning needs, more emphasis. He hinted at a pedagogic shift; one that takes notice of complex behaviours, and thereby empowers people to make their own decisions. This, I believe, is the next step for us. How do we engage with progressive pedagogies? How do we rethink higher education that has relatively static models curriculum delivery and design, in a world that is ever more networked? Do we have a 19th-century model of education in a 21st-century world?

The afternoon was powerful and important - we talked with and learned from other projects - theworld becomes a better place at the chalkface - we need leaders who can empower us there. The afternoon was also depressing. I had a crushing sense that we were back to where we had begun in November 2005, ostensibly due to a single unchallenged comment by John McLaughlin, from DIUS. He was asked, in effect, how we could engage with senior managers within universities to embed change and move the lessons that we have learned forward. His answer was that we have to talk about students as consumers. We have to talk about students in terms of value-for-money. We have to talk about our students in terms of metrics that would deliver efficiency.

Now at the PRHE conference last week, I heard an empowering 10 minute talk from the Vice-Chancellor of Liverpool Hope University, Professor Gerald Pillay. In it, he argued for a higher education that focused upon the mind, body and spirit of our students. My thinking about what Professor Pillay had argued relegated metrics, in the form of retention and progression, and value-for-money, to a secondary means of ensuring enhancement where measures supported our staff in improving learning. When we highlight our students as consumers, we raise up the power of metrics, and relegate the mind, body and spirit of our students. We all lose something in this argument; notably, we lose the opportunity to set progressive agendas about opportunity and meaning.

Sarah Porter, from the JISC, argued clearly that we need to know our strategic plan in order to engage with our strategic managers in an effective way. However, it was left to the QAA to offer a sensible and meaningful way forward. It is totally remiss of me not to remember the name of their assistant director who was speaking, but Icannot. However, his argument was that we had "a problem with the rhetoric". He argued that we have to focus upon giving our students "something of lifelong value". A constant, persistent focus upon metrics and outcomes, where those issues define and shape the landscape of higher education, demeans the work that we do every day with our students and staff. It reduces us all to units of measurement, or to actors in a process of measurement.

So, I feel like I let myself down by not challenging Mr McLaughlin. I feel like saying to him that all of the work we have done as practitioners since 2005 has been focused upon enhancing the life chances of our students, through a process of learning from each other. It has only been about costing models, or value-for-money, or efficiency gains, where each of these has been driven by something more humane, "something of lifelong value".

Speed Read

2008-06-24T15:06:00.001+01:00

Don't you just envy those collegues who boast about reading a whole book, or two in a day. I couldn't imagine how they could manage do it. For me perhaps cancelling-out all interuptions, meetings, lunch, family and all, whilst being drip-fed would perhaps free as much time needed in one day to finish half of the book - max. I was beginning to despair until I came across a web 2.0 tool that might be what I've been looking for; something that would make me into a super reader, a reader on steroids! Well daydreaming is also good sometimes....

Spreeder.com is a free to use service where you would typically copy and paste the desired text into a prompt window. At a click of a button, Spreeder flashes the words in sequence to you at your chosen speed removing the tendencies to subvocalise or backtrace.

Do give it a go and let me know how you get on.

[Addendum: Another good article on Speed Reading can be found here]

World PC count exceeds a billion

2008-06-24T09:17:00.001+01:00

World PC count exceeds a billion according to Gartner report. Emerging markets to account for PC growth , whilst there are concerns over lack of recycling.

Read More...

Social networking coming to your Nokia

2008-06-24T09:03:00.001+01:00

As part of its major push into offering location based services, Nokia, the world's top mobile phone maker, has agreed to buy social networking start-up Plazes.

Read More...

Brief thoughts on Blended Learning Conference 2008

2008-06-22T17:07:00.003+01:00

Definitely an international feel at the University of Hertfordshire with plenty of food for thought, including interesting keynote from Peter Goodyear in Australia, focusing on current research in learning designs. As already mentioned by Richard, Ravensbourne College of Design and Communication are using wikis for personalised student profiles and cvs that can be used beyond university life. I would think this very useful for placement students, who could potentially create vlogs and podcasts linked to their experience in the workplace. Another interesting contribution from Andrew Middleton focused on digital media for providing student feedback. Malcolm Andrew (DMU) presented on his podcasts in Pharmaceutical Microbiology. The four students who participated in the Q&As, provided a realistic and candid view of attitudes and use of the podcasts.

Reflecting on our own paper, The impact of read/write web approaches on the curriculum priorities of PG Cert HE students (Richard, Pam, Heather), there was a good deal of interest and some helpful comments. Julie Hughes (Wolverhampton), for example, suggested giving participants the time to fully formulate their action plans on paper first, recognising that people may be reticent to post publicly for critique (initially at least). Also a query about our constructivist approach - perhaps we could incorporate more scaffolding? One thing we thought we might have explained better was how this all fits in with our particular institutional context (elearning focuses more on embedded co-ordinators and ‘champions’, rather than a team of learning technologists as in some institutions).

The most inspiring conference presentation I have ever seen

2008-06-18T15:56:00.004+01:00

I'm currently at the Blended Learning Unit conference in Hatfield, with Heather and Malcolm from DMU. We are presenting on the impact of new tools on our PGCertHE and M-level Pharmacists. I've discussed formal and informal education, participation and association with some great guys from Ravensbourne, who have a lovely model for understanding the connections between tools, users and spaces. I'll be following that one up.

However, I also attended a session on vlogging by Myles Dyer, a second-year Psychologist at Herts who uses YouTube to "have the chance to inspire". The man is a real inspiration and the kind of student and social leader who should be cherished. He made me realise how fortunate I am to be involved in a business where we get to engage with the energy and drive of young people.

Myles uses YouTube to speak to the world and to connect with, and crucially to understand, networks of others on a range of issues that are personal to him. His channel focuses upon acceptance, investigation, discussion and adaptation of concepts, views, knowledge and values. Myles highlighted two important, political statements for me:

"this type of work helps us to develop as people";
"[I work and collaborate] in the hope that people will be true to themselves".

In this view Myles is opening up spaces for people [him] to becomes themselves [himself] and relate to others and take meaningful action. This is powerful stuff, beyond the banalities of "me and my learning environment", towards a progressive, hopeful pedagogy, to which Friere, Barnett, Illich and Sachs could all sign up.

Both Myles and Ruth/Roger from Ravensbourne made me think that we desperately need to rethink our curriculum, in order to move away from a nineteenth century factory model towards an engagement with those Web2.0 mindsets and approaches that are afforded by a raft of personal as social tools, notably:

an extended, critical user-focus;
meaningful, active participation;
democratisation;
networking; and
hope.

Myles highlighted how his creation of videos had made him thoughtful about his relationship with others, and how he presented himself, and how he evaluated academic and non-academic knowledge. It had enabled him to make better decisions and take meaningful actions. Myles' talk reinforced to me the powerful impact of Web 2.0, or the read/write web, on learner agency in educational environments that are at once connected and networked and informal and formal. Grasping these affordances is a crucial part of education as a democratic, political project, and in empowering our students' through facilitating their development of personal literacies.

Money talks, but at what expense? - Education Standards

2008-06-18T11:32:00.003+01:00

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7458286.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7358528.stm

UK games industry needs brains

2008-06-18T09:41:00.001+01:00

Video game production is booming globally, however due to the shortage of the 'right' graduates in the UK, our industry-leading country could see her share dwindle if the supply to demand is not met. The British video-game production industry currently makes more money than our movie production, so what is going on? Can students from De Montfort University help fill the vacuum?

Watch Video...

Why women quit technology careers

2008-06-17T10:40:00.001+01:00

Just stumbled across this article and was quite simply shocked by it. To draw a comparison I thought to myself of the Pathfinder project with around half of the team being women; and without their great contribution, the Pathfinder project wouldn't have simply been anywhere. It is a sad state of affairs that women still feel discrmination and are eventually forced out of the industry due to mainly persistent subtle discrimination by men whom dominate the industry... Read the article below for more...

----------------------------------

What if half the men in science, engineering and technology roles dropped out at midcareer? That would surely be perceived as a national crisis. Yet more than half the women in those fields leave -- most of them during their mid- to late 30s.

Read More...

YouTube stripping supply teacher banned

2008-06-12T17:46:00.001+01:00

A supply teacher was caught on video stripping off and parading semi-clothed in front of his teenage students.

The film of the English teacher dancing topless in front of a class of 13 and 14-year-olds was then posted on the YouTube website.

Read More...

Ofcom Publish Report on Social Networking

2008-06-12T17:41:00.001+01:00

[Exracted from Jisc Legal Newsletter]

The Ofcom report highlights the high percentage of children under 14 and other users in general, who join the social networking sites with little awareness of the need to protect their privacy. The report makes some best practice recommendations to the social networking firms in order to tackle the issue of security and privacy. The full report is available on the Ofcom website at

http://www.ofcom.org.uk/advice/media_literacy/medlitpub/medlitpubrss/socialnetworking/

Studies in Digital Technology

2008-06-12T11:55:00.003+01:00

News just in from Andrew Clay in Media Production...

TECH2002 Studies in Digital Technology 2007-2008

‘Studies in Digital Technology’ is a contextual studies module for media students in the Division of Technology in the Faculty of Computing Sciences and Engineering. The module aims to apply critical concepts to the study of digital media texts, services and products. In recent years, this has meant an increasing focus on the technologies associated with the concept of ‘Web 2.0’.

Students took part in a group project that was assessed through an individual coursework portfolio. The project involved making and/or using media technologies combined with the insight of critical reflection. The groups had to choose one of six technological areas (identified by the 2007 Horizon Report) associated with network media such as the web and mobile phones identified as a focus:

user-generated content
social networking
mobile phones
virtual worlds
new modes of electronic publishing
massively multiplayer online gaming.

The most popular topics were social networking, mobile phones and virtual worlds.

Students used a number of Web 2.0 tools. A group blog and wiki in Blackboard was used to plan and prepare group assessments, and to analyse current developments in digital technology. Individual notebooks were also kept using Tiddlywiki to log and reflect upon their personal progress through the project. I used my own blog and wiki in Blackboard to feed ideas and good practice to the students.

It was suggested that the student blogs could be used as communication tools to think aloud and write about their research, sharing it with others, but the blogs tended to be used more like email than reflective journals. The wikis were set up to be information storehouses for publishing the group’s research. The wikis were very slow in developing and the students had to be prompted to work on the presentation, content and navigation of the wikis to make them more effective in time for assessment, and this got a good response.

Students were encouraged to think about two critical frameworks – Critical Technical Practice (CTP), the hands-on analysis of the values that are designed into technologies and how they might be altered, and Experience Centred Design (XcD), or a concern for user experience in technology with an emphasis on felt experience. However, most groups found it difficult to apply these methodologies with any confidence. But there was some good reflection on experience and primary research. One group compared living with and without mobile phones and social networks, another group held a party in Second Life. Overall, traditional weaknesses were exposed. Poor organizational, critical and writing skills were in evidence. Some were empowered by the use of social technologies, but others were as challenged as they would have been by more traditional forms of learning and assessment. Just as with traditional reading and writing, we cannot assume that students will be comfortable with the literacy of read/write web tools, especially where use is prescribed. It will be interesting to see how students will respond to a greater freedom to choose appropriate tools as a framework of assessment as the module develops next year. Is it going to be possible to foster critical literacies and informed decision making about the use of appropriate social tools in response to providing evidence for assessment purposes?

Learning is a risky process

2008-06-10T17:05:00.002+01:00

The Guardian education blog is carrying an article entitled: Web2.0: boon or bane for universities?

Whilst the article highlights the opportunities for networking and user engagement with these tools, it also goes on to highlight some perceived dangers for HE. Let's have a look at these.

"One institution reported three examples of serious problems in one year involving students' use of the new technology including the victim of a student scuffle using Facebook to identify the address of his attacker, and getting his revenge." I can see that this is an issue, but aren't we in the business of trying to support our students' critical thinking, at university and in the world? In any case, I am not sure why this is a problem for higher education rather than society, and most institutions will have regulations covering social relationships on-campus, or where they are directly linked the university.
"it tends to be individual academics who are driving innovative use of the technology in learning, which can present problems when those academics move on, or when they want support from their institution's centralised IT systems." It tends to be individual academics who are driving innovative use of learning and teaching. The technology is secondary, and in any case Web 2.0 tools tend to flatten hierarchies, so that learners are more in control of their learning. Moreover, these tools also have a low entry level, so that they are easy to engage with. It is the academic implications that need addressing, whether you are using a VLE or external software. One way to get around this is, of course, to ensure that programme teams are fully engaged rather than leaving it to one interested individual. HEIs need to find ways to devolve, to reward and to disseminate innovative practice.
"Assessment also becomes more difficult when academics are not merely having to assign marks to a heap of scripts but to wade through student podcasts and video clips or Second Life presentations." I would love to see the evidence for this nonsense. A meaningful assessment strategy, perhaps allied to a patchwork text approach,would not be heaping Web2.0 production techniques and artifacts, on top of traditional techniques and artifacts. It would be providing the students with the scope to demonstrate, perhaps through a patchwork assignment or portfolio or personal learning environment, their achievement of learning outcomes. The critical issues here are less workload, and more copyright, security, plagiarism and IPR.
"There is also the fear that, if students have access to podcasts and YouTube videos of lectures, they may not bother turning up to the real thing. And who owns the copyright to these podcasts - the lecturer? The institution that employs him or her to lecture? No one?"Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. Hasn't this been said about e-learning and technologies since time began? There is plenty of evidence highlighting that where videos and podcasts enhanced the curriculum, rather than replacing elements of it, student attendance is not damaged, but is engaged. As to the issue of copyright, UCU certainly suggest ways for managing this issue, and we have a collective agreement on the issue.
"Meanwhile, there are issues over who should be responsible if students or lecturers say something online that results in litigation against the university." Agreed - and we don't really want this to go to case law do we?
"Then there is the issue of control. A lecturer involved in a discussion on a public social networking site is operating in a forum that belongs not to his or her institution but to the students, and, ultimately to the private company that runs the site. This company may at some point decide to make commercial use of the information on the site, or to withdraw its services." That is a real risk, and it is one of the roles of e-Learning managers to appraise programme teams of these risks, in order that they can make smart decisions about technologies. It is also part of their role to ensure that those programme teams and their students are able to bring evidence forward of assessment for learning and assessment of learning, into institutional learning environments. This will enable guarantees to be made about security and backups. The terms of use of technologies like Twitter and SecondLife highlight their right to use your content in perpetuity, but state that it is yours to exploit. Again, individuals need to make savvy decisions. Equally, who is to say that that our VLE isn't going to be sold/merge/die?

The more interesting control issue, is the democratic power of these tools, where a progressive pedagogy is implemented. One that is participative and empowering of students as actors, able to collate and critique examples of how they have met learning outcomes and make learning decisions.

Wiki international symposium 2008

2008-06-10T14:04:00.001+01:00

Well if you can't be there in body may be in online spirit and be involved:

http://www.wikisym.org/ws2008/index.php/Public:Wiki

UK university lectures on iTunes

2008-06-06T09:15:00.001+01:00

University College London, the Open University and Trinity College Dublin are putting lectures onto iTunes.

Educational content is already available in the United States through the non-charging "iTunes U" section of the music downloading service.

But European universities are now joining, providing video and audio material for students to use on iPods or computers

Read More...

Institutional maturity and exit strategies

2008-06-05T22:23:00.004+01:00

So I really enjoyed the SOLSTICE conference today and my preso on institutional collaboration went really well. I really liked thinking about institutional spaces and whether we are trying to force new, web-based tools into old spaces and pedagogic approaches, without changing our curriculum design and delivery. e.g. Wondering why a blog or social network does not work when it is disconnected from the learning and assessment processes, so that we maintain a traditional studio or lecture plus essay/project approach, rather than a social networking/problem-based and patchwork assessment approach.

We are moving towards a position where e-learning professionals are confident enough to push progressive pedagogies - we need to accept that students are learning and developing literacies and self-efficacy and agency in new environments and networks. Moreover, there is a risk that the spaces and tasks that we use to develop academic literacies are disconnected from our students social spaces and networks and literacies. In delivering these types of connections we need to rethink pedagogic paradigms to focus meaningfully upon participation and user-centred pedagogies, in order to connect problems to actions and tools, and to connect networks or collaborative efficacies and concepts to individual outcomes and attainment.

The other points that struck me were the role of structured play in learning and teaching - how to make the use of technologies and the interactions they promote as "fun" [as noted in our e-learning strategy]. There is something to be said here for the themes and principles promoted by the EYFS and how they impact on our understanding of technology-enhanced learning. More will follow on that.

Finally, my good friend LP argued that my preso, which argued for the spreading of a social networking approach and culture across an HEI involving broad academic and academic-related teams working, sharing and collaborating through Web 2.0 tools, demonstrated that we were preparing an exit strategy from the institutional VLE. I argued that we were working on upskilling staff and especially programme teams to collaborate to make better decisions about the tools that they use in the curriculum. These may be Blackboard-based or Web 2.0 tools. This means that we have an institutional maturity, based upon acceptance, experience of and engagement with e-learning tools, that allows us to migrate technologies if we have to. Moreover, those staff are better able to make informed, devolved, empowered decisions now because of the spread of tools and people to advise on their use.

A move towards participation and local engagement means that I might become redundant!!

It's now confirmed: The Television is in Intensive Care

2008-06-05T12:57:00.001+01:00

The television is dying, some say it is already dead. In yesterday's post there was mention of the the prospect of DVDs being displaced by download and streaming services, today the Beeb announced that they would start streaming BBC1 live on to the internet. This is not the first recently where the BBC has managed to stray into hot waters; the BBC iPlayer - the "watch later" service - has got it's fair share of attention with Internet Service Providers (ISP) whining how much bandwidth drain the iPlayer has caused lately. I think the iPlayer is a great service which allows you to watch progammes that you have missed on television.

ISPs should now brace themselves, and get a move on with upgading their networks; yesterday Apple announced full-length movie downloads via iTunes to iPods in the UK at competitive rates to DVD's. What next? Live stage performances on the Internet too?!

Goodbye DVD, hello download

2008-06-04T13:57:00.001+01:00

by David Evans - British Computer Society

What will happen if (paid for) tv/film downloads go mainstream?

I don't usually like to dabble in technology/market prediction, but I was intrigued by an article in the Guardian today about the prospect of movie downloads displacing DVD as format-of-choice. As the article points out, people still like having something physical to buy/give, and while it may be easy (but perhaps not convenient) for me to get it to the TV screen, it's not easy for the less technically literate. The BBC iPlayer has undoubtedly created a wave of people watching TV in new ways, so it takes little imagination to see it would be possible to make it easy for the masses.

Read More...

Determined bloggers

2008-06-02T22:13:00.002+01:00

A great blog on the Guardian [again] Bad Science site about determined bloggers breaking news stories ahead of the mainstream press:, demonstrating "timeliness, accuracy, relevance, effort, ethics, and stupid names". The power of user participation in supporting the vulnerable and in taking meaningful action in the world. For me this keys into the progressive pedagogies demonstrated by Paolo Friere, John Dewey, Ronald Barnett et al., where our ability to seize technologies for purposive action in a connected, social world underpin productive change.

Tag – you’re it!

2008-05-29T13:26:00.003+01:00

Childs play, remember those days well and were still playing it! In a sense this describes how some new piece of technology can be the flavour of the month (actually we should say week, looking at the rate I get email updates on new tools!) or seen to be the ‘tool’ that we can make the best use of in the educational context – and why not? Open up your tool box (your PC!) and see what is available for you to use, a tool may be viewed as of great use to one and be used more in their ‘trade’ in comparison to another. To choose the appropriate tool you will need to have knowledge about how the tool works so you know as to how and where it can be applied (learning task).
My thoughts trailed this way as we are looking into SMS technologies and possible Facebook integration. Maybe this can be raised as part of discussion of informal/formal learning spaces, we can be seen as tagging on ‘spaces’ ‘devices’ as students happen to be using them – mobile phones– tag, social network space – tag, ipod – tag! I’d be interested to hear from students how and which ‘space/device they prefer to be tagged on the most by us! I guess it’s a matter of which learning activity or notifications works best in using these tools. I hope we can elicit this type of data when we make use of such technologies available. We really need to hear the student voice on this e.g. would they want to be texted about every assignment deadlines? I guess with our scale of audience and practitioners the onus has to be left to the tutor to decide. I would hate to think that we would impose (and I don’t think we will) a rule at any level. Issues – Evaluating the effectiveness of these technological tools that surface in our context, which tools are applicable and can be used for which learning tasks? And dare I say processes (contacting students) – through participation and collaborating together this has lead to a number of pathways and opportunities and great developments. For some staff the current technology that they are using for their teaching if not used for some time gets forgotten and thus need refreshing (its human nature, we all forget). We need to be wary and understanding that the array of what’s available does not become a blur. ‘Students happen to be using them’ – this says something about our cultural change in this technological age. We need to be clear on what our role is in this so that we are not ‘gate crashing’! So the process of having pilots, student focus groups are essential to see the viability and usability of applying any ‘e tool’ for learning and its great that we are listening to what students are saying about these tools (i.e. Malcolm Andrew’s Podcast student evaluations – they provide the key as to where the tool can be best applied i.e. revision, lecture synopsis for which we can make recommendations. Alas, let’s not forget the ‘academic’ they too will have to know about the applicability and suitability of the tool and have their say after all it’s their ‘trade’…

User-generated what?

2008-05-28T16:26:00.002+01:00

According to the Guardian Networking blog [you spotting the theme to today's postings? Well, ok it was in the Observer] amateurs who move towards making a living from their on-line presence risk attacks from readers who make it their business to critique self-publishers [self-publicists?], who then are left burned out and blogged out. The article goes on "The backlash started in earnest last year when Andrew Keen, a former dotcom entrepreneur, published Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet is Killing Our Culture, an attack on what he sees as a noisy crowd with little interesting to say."

I've little sympathy for Keen - publicly and professionally we have the ability to avoid, ignore, forget about the babble, in the same way that we can avoid Heat magazine and the dross of the Premiership if we want. However, the telling point for me is enabling our staff and students to understand how to present themselves in a context of risk that they recognise and accept, be that using Ning.com or facebook, blogger or Twitter, or Scribble. Publish and be damned.

Content or communications? Let the supreme court decide!

2008-05-28T16:19:00.004+01:00

Well it might not go that far, but the Guardian Technology blog has highlighted how the spat between Viacom and YouTube is resonant of the "increasing conflict between those seeking to protect copyright and advocates of the internet as an open communications medium. Mike Masnick, a copyright expert on TechDirt, said media companies still thought of the internet as a content platform, whereas internet companies saw it as a communications medium."

Aren't we all mashing our approaches as well as our applications these days? Apparently not. Will all this case law, or out of court settlements maintain a happy equilibrium? Maybe - I guess it depends on how much we collectively value ownership.