>/reboot

The end of an era or the beginning of a new dawn?

Which ever way you look at it – my life has changed dramatically over the past month or so.  My job at Birkenhead Sixth Form College officially ended yesterday… so what next? What indeed?

I’ve already signed-up for an MSc in Computer Science at the University of Liverpool, starting in September.  Before that, I need a job (or two).  I decided to try and set myself up in the Vintage clothes/curios market – trading on eBay.  This is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time – so I might investigate about business start-up grants when I have my first (and hopefully last) Job Centre Plus interview on Monday.

I also decided to keep on with my ‘day job‘, working in Edu-Tech, and am setting-up as a Consultant Technologist – so if you want to contact me about any work you have or would like to discuss what I can do for you, simply drop me a line in whatever manner you wish.  I’m on most social sites as ‘colhawksworth’ or you can email/txt me if you already know me and I’ve given you my details.

Lights, Camera, Action

Image via Wikipedia

The ongoing saga of making a ‘self-promoting’ CV/Resume film.

I wonder what it is about the camera that makes some people freeze or become so self-conscious?  I’ve been interviewed on a live broadcast for the BBC and loved it (I ran on pure adrenaline + coffee, without rehearsal).  I’ve had some of my presentations recorded - I don’t mind that, I forget the camera is there.  I’ve been interviewed for web video content.  BUT – I can’t talk to the camera because I get really self-conscious…

Having just completed another collaborative Podcast via Skype, I realised how much more confident I was doing an audio recording, than a video recording.  It’s not about the content… I like to think I can hold my own in a conversation on any IT related topic.  It’s not about the tech… no problems there.    I’m not scared of my own shadow – so am I scared of my own image?

in the still of the nite

During the past couple of weeks I’ve been drawn toward research work in the (still) relatively new field of mobile learning; looking at work by Laurillard (2002); Vavoula (2005); Sharples, Taylor and Vavoula, (2007); Conole and Oliver (2007).

I’m interested in the concept of mobile learning in terms of the ‘learner’ being the mobile element of learning, rather than the technology – where the focus is on the mobile capabilities of the device.  Recently, I’ve heard conference presentations and papers tending toward a far more learner centered education model – so where does this leave the educator and the technology within the realm of mobile learning?

I intend to look deeper into this in another blog entry which might take me a few more days to publish – however, in the mean time, I’m sure I’ll receive plenty of really interesting comments from people who have already worked through this.

lunchtime lecture for laggards

Found myself, once again, revisiting a Blog post I made in early 2009. I’ve even renamed it ‘Early adopters or early majority?‘ I seem to be getting a lot of visitors to this page.  Perhaps I should have made it a Wikipage, rather than a blog entry?

Something that has been on my mind for quite a while now, is – how can we effectively move ideas, innovations, technology, research, etc. from out of the domain of ‘the few’ to the wider audience in education establishments?

Having been involved in many case studies and project reports, I often wonder how effectively they (case studies and good practice reports) are taken-up by the early majority, late majority and laggards at my own college and other education establishments?  I have voiced my concerns many-a-time, as I am genuinely worried about schools and colleges where there are no innovators/early adopters to help drive the take-up of new technologies and learning methodologies.  What happens to the learners and what effects are there on the staff in terms of embedding technology into the curriculum?

Now I guess you could argue that schools and colleges don’t need to be operating at the cutting edge in order to achieve results.  Which brings me round to wondering if education is about ‘results & statistics’ or about facilitating a ‘useful rounded education’ that prepares learners for life.

Anyway – that’s my lunch hour over… I’ll just get back to some un-innovative paper work.

Word(le) Up!

Word Cloud for 'The Journey to eMaturity'

Wondering what this word cloud means?

Check out my blog entry called ‘The Journey to eMaturity’, I posted it earlier this year after hearing the term eMaturity mentioned at a few conferences around that time.

I’m hoping that eMaturity refers to the positioning of and attitudes towards learning with technology at a given institution.

If it simply refers to the technology, then I’m afraid we’re going to be on a long journey.

• We research & implement emerging technologies, work with embedded technologies and phase out old or redundant technologies….

Making it Personal – elearning@greenwich #mip

#mip

I returned to the University of Greenwich for the 7th Annual e-learning@greenwich conference, having been inspired and enthused by last years’ conference.

The theme this year, was ‘Making it Personal’ – here are some high-lights:

KEYNOTE: ‘Personalization: the good, the bad and the ugly.’ Professor Johnathan Drori.

A fantastically unique Keynote – which is the delivery style I prefer – a Keynote to challenge your thinking and preconceptions, rather than just listening to someone give you their academic life-story or an overview of their most recent research.   He was witty (which is always good!) and went off on some very interesting tangents.

Session 1: ‘Learning, teaching and social networking.’ – Cheryl Reynolds and Liz Bennett – University of Huddersfield

The basic outline of this session, was that the MSc students did not find official course VLE (Blackboard), to be interesting or particularly useful as part of their course.  A Ning was created and students were invited in http://numanuma.ning.com

There was a noticeable increase socializing and freedom of expression within the Ning. It created a valid social learning space with increased activity and participation.  Students now had some ownership of their group, etc.  The photo below (with permission of Liz Bennett), is taken from the session and is quick round up of suggestions from the audience, as to ‘what makes a good teacher?’

What makes a good teacher?

Session 3: ‘Tag Clouds and Skill Conversations.’ – John Davies and Carol Shergold – University of Sussex

Excellent session on Tag clouds and how Sussex have created software to aid students recognise and build-up a personal profile by answering some questions about tasks and work they have completed as part of the course.  The software builds up their profile for them based on their answers.  Apparently, many undergraduates do not know what skills they posses.

http://www.sussex.ac.uk/skillclouds

#mip and #mimasmob09

Just an update on my interim update, so to speak.

Both entries for these conferences are now available on my Blog – please feel free to leave feedback/corrections, etc.

elearning@greenwich – 7th Annual eLearning Conference: Making it Personal.  July 8th, 2009 #mip

Mimas: Telling Tales.  July 9th, 2009 #mimasmob09

If you aint read this yet…

…you haven’t missed out on anything profound.

Just a little social experiment to see if I get any more readers, because of the titles of my blog entries.

Well, now you’re here, you might as well hang out a little while longer.  My blog seems to be taking shape now, after getting off the ground on WordPress about a month ago.  For those who don’t know, here’s the story so far…

Blog I – is a journal about my allotment, which I’ve been keeping for about 2 years now on Blogspot.  It needs a little updating – but I’ll get round to it – no rush.  Blog II & III were also hosted on Blogspot, they were for my MA work, but I found they were faltering on technical grounds and also I had sensed that Blogs written on WordPress look so much cleaner.  That’s what lead me here. So now I have consolidated my MA blogs (anything older than June 2009) and have begun some fresh blogging here on WordPress.

So, yes – it’s all taking shape nicely.  On reflection, I seem to be writing about educational technology/eLearning/mLeaning etc, weekdays and on weekends, I mix in anything and everything I’m doing – which has either an academic or a technological intererst.

Thanks for stopping by, have a nice day and check back soon.

Road Out! Use detour

I ‘m supposed to be writing my next blog entry about the ‘tech’ in technology but…

I took a left fork in the road… and came across this virtual classroom:

It’s not ‘tech’ but it is important in the context of what I’ve been blogging about recently.  Students in school now, are going to be coming to our college with the same ideas of learning and creating that these kids have.  I like the fact that at the end they all hold up signs with ‘ENGAGE me’ – kind of works well for us, we have an ENGAGE project

Anytime, Anywhere, Anyplace – Mobile, Managed, Mine

Learner feedback on Flickr: Adult Ed

Just been tidying up files on my Macbook and came across something that caught my attention.  I posted this up on a Flickr group last year – one of my colleagues runs an Adult Ed class in Digital Imaging and makes great use of Flickr with his students.

I was interested to know what they thought about using a 3rd party Web2.0 app as part of their course.  Here are the two initial questions I posed to them.  I’ll have to get back in the appropriate Flickr group to check out some of the responses.

•    Flickr is not hosted or operated by the college, and is openly available on the Web. Did this make you feel less inclined to upload your photographs to the site?

•    It is likely that most people who post comments on Flickr never actually meet the photographer/artist.  Does the fact that you meet face-to-face in a class, change the way you critique each others’ work on Flickr?