Join the club

If there’s an online social network/application/tool out there, I’ve probably joined it.  I never thought of myself as ‘a joiner’ but, over the years I’ve surprised myself.  You see, I always identified with the Woody Allen introduction to Annie Hall (one of my all-time favorite movies).

I often wonder what I’ve signed up to, what is happening to my personal data, who can read it?  etc. etc.  But then I started not to worry about that… after all – If anyone wanted to find out about me, there are easier ways than browsing random Web2.0 sites.  I got more interested in has data storage and archiving.  Not ‘What’ is happening to my data but rather ‘Where’ is is stored?

I began to try and unsubscribe from these sites.  Needless to say – I couldn’t remember which ones I’d signed up to.  3 hours later… I think I’ve removed myself from everything I no longer use… I must admit – I rashly signed up to a lot of sites with the intention of using them, but never did (research?)

I’m back at a core set of services that I use regularly… most of which can be found as links on this site.

Will anyone ever come up with the Killer-App, that enables you to customize and organize your entire online life under one roof? I could’ve gone to the one site and selectively unsubscribed.

Gadget Show Live 2010

I joined my brother & nephew at the ‘Gadget Show Live’ in Birmingham (UK), last week.  I didn’t plan on going to this event, my brother invited me – he’s really into the Gadget Show.  The event was at the NEC, in about 3 of the large halls – pretty impressive and there were certainly plenty of people there (we did go on the opening day!)

I’m not quite sure what I was expecting really.  Having been to plenty of education conferences and events, perhaps I’d been used to stands where people actually have a chat with you about what they have on offer – rather than these sales reps and imaginatively dressed ladies handing out advertisements, who were clearly not there for an in-depth conversation about technology.  I guess I should have thought on that it would be a giant trade fair…

Perhaps I was going to see some really cutting-edge gadgets (not yet available in the shops) – but no.  Anyway, we had a good time. My nephew enjoyed the Game Zone, which I believe had some brand new titles to try-out.

In the main arena, the general feel was that 3D TV is currently the big thing.  There were some really impressive systems to have look at.

For me, the highlight of the day had to be a live event going on in the Game Zone.  A large crowd had gathered, there was an almighty guitar blazing away and live video feed of some incredible fretwork.  On the overhead screens, ‘Guitar Hero’ was blasting through 10,000 – 20,000 points…. (apparently, that’s your score without any mistakes!)  The song was incredibly fast and technically complex.  The crowd was going crazy.  Finally, the music stopped and the MC thanked ‘The Guitar Hero World Champion’ – as the crowd began to break-away, I expected to see some long-haired, leather-clad rock-god.  There on stage, stood a lad of about 16 in a rugby shirt and jeans!  Fantastic!

This is him winning the World Championship… ff to the last few minutes and you’ll see what I mean.

To me, there is a clear technology trend toward interactive home entertainment and gaming.  Not necessarily hand-held devices, rather the opposite – beast-like 3D TV sets, with immense speaker systems.

Check-out my Flickr photos of the event or listen to my iPadio Phlog live at the event

mobile learning: people and technology

Just an explanatory note about this blog entry:

I was working on this just before Easter and totally forgot to update it – I still have a lot more to write-up (but this can be a blog in progress).  Basically – I was reading from two books – which are listed at the foot as further reading… I’ve picked out a few areas that I want to expand on at some point… I thought I should really make this entry live, in order to embarrass myself into finishing it.  I think the problem was – I had no reason, other than my own idle curiosity, to write this up and subsequently it got forgotten about over the Easter break.

I’m working on the general premise that ‘people’ are the mobile element in Mobile Learning, not the technology.

A theory of mobile learning

…According to the National Research Council (1999), effective learning appears to follow a social-constructivist approach – learners in the active process of building knowledge and skills via practice within a community: (p.223)

• Learner-centred – Builds on skills & knowledge of students, allowing them to reason from their own experience.
• Knowledge-centred – Curriculum based on sound validated knowledge, taught efficiently with inventive use of concepts and methods.
• Assessment-centred – Assessment matched to the ability of the learner, offering guidance that builds success.
• Community-centred – Successful learners from a mutually promotive community, sharing knowledge and supporting less able students.

With convergence of education and the ubiquitous use of personal and shared technologies – …A theory of mobile learning could be tested against the following criteria: (p.225)

• Is it significantly different from current theories of classroom, workplace or lifelong learning?
• Does it account for the mobility of learners?
• Does it cover both formal and informal learning?
• Does it theorize learning as a constructive and social process?
• Does it analyze learning as a personal and situated activity mediated by technology?

The authors offer a tentative definition of learning within this context, “the process of coming to know through conversations across multiple contexts among people and personal interactive technologies” – here the focus is NOT on the learner, NOR their technology, but the communicative interaction between these to advance knowing.

Vavoula (2005) states that 52% of everyday learning episodes involve one or more pieces of electronic technology.

Extracts from:

1. Sharples, M., Taylor, J. and Vavoula, G. ‘A Theory of Learning for the Mobile Age’, in Andrews, R. and Haythornthwaite, C. (eds.) (2007). The SAGE Handbook of E-learning Research. Sage Publications Ltd.

Further reading:

1. Andrews, R. and Haythornthwaite, C. (eds.) (2007). The SAGE Handbook of E-learning Research. Sage Publications Ltd.
2. Conole, G. and Oliver, M. eds. (2007). Contemporary perspectives in e-learning research: themes, methods and impact on practice. The Open and Flexible Learning Series. London, UK: Routledge.
3. Laurillard (2002) Rethinking University Teaching: A Framework for the Effective use of Learning Technologies, (2nd Edn). Abingdon: RoutledgeFalmer.

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.

reasons to be cheerful, part III

This is a follow-on from my post about the BECTA ‘Time to Innovate’ Conference 2010.

Reasons to be cheerful, part I

OK, I’ve slept on it – perhaps I came to the conference full of optimism due to the success and scale of the 2009 BECTA conference?  Perhaps I was interpreting ‘time to innovate’ as a call to arms – “be innovative with learning technology”!  Perhaps I was feeling good because we’ve been part of BECTA TEN Phase 1 & 2 and we have a MoLeNET Phase 3 project, and also had good case studies written about our effective practice with technology.

Reason to be cheerful? I know that we’re on the right tracks and are committed to utilizing learning technologies for all the right reasons.  I’m lucky that I’m allowed space, time & funding to be innovative in my job role.

Reasons to be cheerful, part II

It was interesting that James Clay posed a question to the conference Q&A panel, on the lines of – ‘How can we innovate, learn and progress, if funding streams, statistics and OFSTED, etc. penalize innovation?’ correct me, if I totally misrepresented that, James There were also some good Tweets within the conference stream which were still questioning and challenging, rather than just (virtually) nodding along with what the speakers had to say.

Reason to be cheerful? People are still prepared to be innovative and challenge the conventional.  I’ve always worked to a personal maxim: “If I don’t innovate, I stagnate”.

Reasons to be cheerful, part III

I’m back at my desk, facing some new challenges… the coming financial year will be tight (we all know that), changes at the LSC mean we go back under Local Authority control from April 1st -  I’m not yet sure what that will mean for us.

Reason to be cheerful? I have a great job, have wonderful staff, am involved in some amazing projects  – and possibly most importantly… I am part of a fantastic extended community of practice stretching around the globe – fellow practitioners and educators who are prepared to be innovative, share what they are doing and encourage others to do the same.

If you’re happy and you know it – clap your hands

Shibboleth Implementation at BSFC

BECTA TEN Profile

MoLeNET thin.clusion

the future is bright, the future is augmented

[Vimeo=http://vimeo.com/8569187]

Augmented (hyper)Reality: Domestic Robocop from Keiichi Matsuda on Vimeo.

There are a couple of threads about ‘the future of the web’ & ‘mavericks/innovators’ on the ‘BECTA Technology Exemplar Network’ Ning – which unfortunately for those outside the project, is a closed Ning group.

James Clay posted up this incredible video of the potential future for augmented reality in the home. Is this the kind of future you want? How should technology interact within your own personal space?

Cellphone; life-style; advertising

I used this as an introductory item.  20 years ago, this was the technology and lifestyle being sold to us… Did the tech really ‘set us free’? Some would argue that it has been a key driver toward our 24/7 lives. We talk about blended-learning in education, what about our blended-work/life?

A very slick Ad. This is where we are, 2009… a converged device. How many more functions are there? Does the guy in the Ad actually make a call on his phone?  I used this to show the lifestyle now being sold to us – fast-paced, multitasking, social, young. Compare this to the first Ad which was aimed at an older affluent, professional (city) worker.

Interesting… what market is this Ad aimed at? Are they selling a phone or a music player?  I guess that the emphasis is on life-style rather than work – possibly because this is a Sony Ericsson device, perhaps it is modeled on the prior success of the Sony ‘Walkman’ brand.

'Teens' verdict on Twitter? They don't give two Tweets – Apparently.

There have been a few articles circulating on the web this week about teenage use (or rather – not use) of social networking, etc. I’m still reading over a few of the articles and going to dig a little further on this, as it is of interest.
Watch this space! Back soon… Meanwhile, take a read of some yourself – see what you think, then post me some comment.

• Pontydsgu – Bridge to Learning
• BBC News Facebook Mobile
• Generation Y and Twitter
• Computers and Student Learning
• Digital natives?

Wow – there is a great debate going on with colleagues and friends on my Facebook page, since I’ve posted this blog entry up…. I’m hoping they might let me use their views to further construct something on my blog or wiki page.

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?

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