LSIS – Excellence Gateway

Stalybridge Station Buffet Bar or bust

I was asked by David Sugden to join an advisory group investigating Social Media (Web2.0) for the LSIS Excellence Gateway.  Our first face-to-face meeting took place yesterday at Ashton Sixth Form College in the MoLeNET Academy. [ a very productive way to spend my day off ]

We have a great group of people from across the Post 16 sector, who all bring many different viewpoints, ideas and experiences of Web2.0 (which we are actually calling ‘stuff’, for now).  Without going into the subplot – we’ve established a few things about ‘stuff’… fundamentally – it’s difficult to put a finger on what ‘stuff’ actually is.  I know I’ll probably get people posting comments about what Web2.0 is… however – give a bunch of people a few hours and they’ll come away with very different views.

Do you want to know about the journey?  OK – The train from Liverpool to Stalybridge was on time until we got somewhere near to Warrington, then for some reason the train slowed to walking pace because there were a few leaves on the track.  Alright – I was 10 mins late, which didn’t matter really as I was technically still early for the meeting.

The return journey was far more eventful.  David mentioned the Stalybridge Station Buffet Bar

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- which is a sort of cross between a sweet shop & an olden-days pub.  It would have been rude not to make use of its facilities.  There was a nice roaring open fire, a few Locals, some strange beer (I had ‘American Werewolf in Wigan’) and unique decor.  There was even a guy from the Sunday Telegraph taking photos [keep your eyes out later this month]… However, the trains home were awful – either very late or canceled. I’m sort of getting used to eventful rail journeys home now, which is lucky really because they seem to be on the increase.

Anyway, as Ronnie Corbett would say – I digress.  Our meeting was productive, we’re currently collaborating online and will be meeting up again soon. Great to meet some new folk and catch-up with those I already knew.

I’m sure there’ll be another blog entry about LSIS Excellence Gateway very soon.

Notes from #RSCNW10

This year I was privileged to be asked to run a stand with colleagues from KGV College, Southport and also our own BSFC stand at the JISC RSC North West annual event. [I still like to think of this as our JISC NW annual conference]  Not only that – but Kev Hickey also asked me to ‘perform’ a Pecha Kucha… no pressure there then?

The slides I put together for this Pecha Kucha, we’re long forgotten about – so I really did have to wing-it on the day, thankfully after of 5 cups of coffee I felt the vibe.  But that’s what Pecha Kucha is all about.  Never tried doing one? I highly recommend it – you get a real buzz and no two presentations are ever the same.  I feel that the audience sits up and listens a bit more because of the short-sharp delivery style.  OK – I probably talk too fast and I know I have a habit of going off on a tangent – but I like to think that makes for a more interesting conversation.

Here’s the video of my Pecha Kucha – hope it’s a reasonable size and sorry about the sound quality (thanks to David Sugden for filming it for me) I returned the favour and filmed his – which will no doubt be available via his blog.

Dolly the sheep – and other replicated data

#10

Originally uploaded by colhawksworth

OK – 10 photos, taken during the recording of James’ podcast. I took them, they’re photos of ‘me’ and they’re on my Flickr area.

BUT… they’re now in the pubic domain. More importantly – I’ve #tagged them – they can be referenced and used by other people without my knowledge (or consent)?

I’ve always given my online content (where it is originally created by ‘me’) a Creative Commons license to be used for free, for non-commercial use only – so long as I’m attributed as the owner.

Do people pay attention to this license?
Do they even know what it actually means?

Licensing (especially in the UK) is an absolute unfathomable and often tedious process…

Something to think about – what images of yourself/family/friends do you upload?  Where to?  What privacy do you put on them? Do you give them a license?  Do you know how to complain about misuse of your own images?

looking forward to…

I’m really pleased to have been invited on James Clay‘s next Podcast (April 21st), along with David Sugden… I think we’re going to be discussing something about online safeguarding/online persona.

Also had a request to perform/do a Pecha Kucha at the JISC North West annual event in June.  I’m looking forward to that.  I’m also going to be on a stand with KGV and also working on our own BSFC stand – so that’ll be a busy day.

In between these events, I’m putting a couple of presentations together for our next BECTA TEN mini-network meet-up in London.  Going to be presenting on Moodle and also on using Apple PCs for music, podcasts, video, etc.

Oscar nomination/acceptance speech

I was reviewing some of my earlier funny work, last nite… and I got thinking that I really should thank a few folk who have really inspired me on my learning journey, so far:

• Professor Gráinne Conole
• Dr Rhona Sharpe
• Dr James Aczel
• James Clay
• David Sugden

Of course, there are many other people I respect, collaborate and interact with – but these people are my main source of inspiration.

Thanks everyone

Telling Tales – Mimas #mimasmob09

I have to admit, I wasn’t too sure what I had been signed-up to… I say ‘signed-up to’ because I quite literally was!  We had an exhibition stand at the recent JISC RSC NW annual event – I had just been off watching a few cool Pecha Kucha shows [David Sugden, Kevin Hickey, Liz Bennett] and came back to our stand, to be told I had volunteered and been signed-up for Mimas: ‘Telling Tales’ conference.  OK, I was going to be down in London for the elearning@greenwich conference the day before, so that was cool.

Of course, I looked-up Mimas and realised what the event was – mobile learning, with the added bonus of a James Clay presentation on ‘the future’!

I arrived, grabbed a coffee and sat at a table, said hello, etc. looked at names on badges – then looked at the running order.  The people at my table were ‘big players’ in the mLearning world – I suddenly felt a little out of place.  But then thought, why should I feel out of place?  Everyone seemed to know each other and I knew a few people, so just go with it.

What a great bunch of innovative, radical thinkers!  The day was excellent.  It was interesting to talk to some new contacts about general ‘learning with tech’ [I'm trying not to box and label, James]   One thing that stuck out for me, apart from the wonderfully interesting presentations, was that there appears to be plenty of funding bodies, willing to fund research projects – but they don’t appear to follow them up or apply the findings.  I’ve been to many conferences now and there seems to be a few Universities and Colleges doing similar research work, funded by different bodies – is there no cohesion at ‘the top’??

One interesting point raised towards the end of the day, during a reflection session, was that the kind of technology we’re currently looking at and researching will be so out of date by the time it comes to being embedded into learning.  Are we wasting our time and resources on researching ‘the tech’ (which will develop anyway as part of the consumer culture) when we could be researching the pedagogy?

Mimas: Telling Tales

To quote a Tweet exchange during the conference:

RT @jamesclay: #mimasmob09 @colhawksworth maybe we should ignore content and concentrate on activity first?

Thoughts, anyone?