InvenioTech

5 years on

2011-07-29T10:59:00.002Z

I’ve been in my current post over 5 years now and in a recent office move I found notes from a series of meetings from when I first started. After the previous VLE officer moved on, two e-learning support officers were employed, with one of the roles to expand the use of technology to support and enhance learning and teaching from a pedagogical rather than technology perspective. When I arrived, I discovered that the prevailing view in the department was that e-learning and the VLE were one and the same thing and anything outside that definition was not what would be happening here! One of us took on the VLE support role and the other one, me, was left in a kind of limbo. The VLE support didn’t require two people, even when training was included. So there I was, fresh off my masters, in a new city, an interesting sounding new job and ready to go but nothing to do. However, I’m not put off that easily. With the help of a keen and very supportive academic, I searched around for people with an interest in e-learning (I’m going to use e-learning as a term because I can’t be bothered to keep typing "technology to support and enhance learning and teaching" ) and asked if they would be happy to meet and share their thoughts. My aim was not to tell them what I wanted to do but just to listen and find out what was going on. I managed to find 10 people who were willing to give up some of their time. The notes I found have each person's comments divided into three categories - positive comments, negative comments and areas to explore. I'm not sure why I chose those categories but it obviously seemed like a good idea at the time.

So what did they say?

The positive

"It has changed out of lecture teaching. It's more efficient - I do different things."
"Initially it was time consuming but later not so bad."
"I use the VLE to deliver lecture notes, PowerPoint slides, spreadsheets for modelling and links to web resources."
"Some lecturing staff are very keen"
"The school has a group of believers."
"It's useful for seminar groups."
"Useful for links to websites."
"Nearly all lectures in my school use the VLE to some extent."
"It's useful for visually-impaired students who can print off in braille beforehand."
"I think many lecturers would be keen to move to the next level."

The Negative

"The VLE interface can be clunky."
"The VLE interface can be clunky." (No i didn't type this twice by mistake)
"Classes are too big for e-learning."
"Some lectures have problems such as the time it takes, not wanting to learn new skills, thinking 'it's not for me' and worrying that student won't come to lectures."
"Many lecturers are very anti the VLE."
"At the moment it's all about the tools in the VLE and not what the benefits of e-learning are."
"e-learning at the University is all just the VLE!"
"Not keen on the VLE. I don't see the point!"

The areas to explore

Virtual classrooms, podcasts and video for tasters of upcoming lectures
Virtual whiteboards
Interactive whiteboards
Blogs and wikis.
Collaborative social spaces for networking
More research into the effectiveness of e-learning
The University to run an MSc in e-Learning
JISC Plagiarism tool
As students have little contact with tutors during projects, explore the use of blogs and wikis to improve interaction.
Tools to ease content creation
Online surveys for module evaluation.
Use of audio to support students with accessibility issues
Would like to know more about what e-learning is.
Examples of good practice
Collaborative work
The use of video
Tools for content creation
More training
Want to provide something different for in and out of lecture time. Want to encourage students to think.
Keen to explore tools for formative assessment.
A question of knowing what's available
More flexible training schedule - one-to-one, department wide etc
Content creation tools
JISC plagiarism tool
Collaborative e-learning
Problem based learning
Scenarios
Easier content creation
Collaboration with outside partners such as the NHS
Use of streaming video in class - through the VLE?
Move beyond document store use of VLE
Learning objects to supplement class teaching
More advanced use of e-learning

So what does it all I mean? I'm not sure really. I'll take some time to think about this - about what's changed over the last 5 years, what's hasn't changed, what's new, what's worked and what hasn't - and return to it in another post.

The Hippocritic Oath

2011-07-09T11:48:00.004Z

Something a little different and not about educational technology. Unless I can pretend it's about the demise of old media....

The Hippocritic Oath- cyganski (2002)

I'll bring you down with poisoned prose
While I shove cocaine up my nose
and swear by the hippocritic oath.
I'll fill the page with your indiscretion
While I indulge my own obsession
It's all part of the journalistic game.
I'll stand in judgement on you all
and twist the knife again.

Then I'll run away
I'll always run away
I write my lies and ruin your life
And then I'll run away.

The story's out I've got it wrong
Have to tell the truth and then move on
To look my victims in the eye.
Do you really think I'd be contrite?
I'm a journalist. I'm full of shite
Don't expect honesty from me.
It's my right to judge you all
Because I've got an English degree.

And I'll run away
I'll always run away
I write my lies and ruin your life
And then I'll run away.
I'll always run away.

Mobile blogging

2011-06-19T12:57:00.001Z

Just testing apps for blogging to blogger

Published with Blogger-droid v1.7.1

Learning Technologists Anonymous?

2011-06-09T11:03:00.002Z

I've been in the process of migrating a Technology Enhanced Learning site to a more general Learning and Teaching enhancement site and wondered whether what's below should go on the new site?

It's designed to go against the fahionista element in learning technology, where learning technologists rush from one new technology to the next and where, if you are still using what they have just left, you are told, "Oh, that's so last year?"

"Facebook that's rubbish we all use Twitter now." "Twitter? We're all on Grunter darling!"

Something similar is raised in this interesting post from the Ed Techie Thanks to @MrSimonWood for the link.The same people who were shouting about ePortfolios have now moved elsewhere. Always promoting the next thing in the same way they promoted the last big thing they are now dismissing without pausing to examine what they are actually doing. Is is just self-promotion? Is it the result of a JISC project fueled culture? Is it insecurity, thinking that anyone can do this job so I'd better look busy?

Why are learning technologists always trying to sell something? The latest tool they have found or that a salesman has shown them. And why do they think that what works for them (or more often their son, daughter, niece, cat...) should work for everyone else too? Don't get me wrong I think technology can be really tremendously powerful in supporting and enhancing learning and teaching but perhaps learning technologists are the biggest barrier in it's successful adoption.

Anyway on to Learning Technologists Anonymous. The first step. My name is Chris and I'm a Learning Technologist.......

Many men and women have heard or read about the unique Fellowship called Learning Technologists Anonymous since its founding. People who once used learning technology to excess, finally acknowledged that they could not handle learning technology in its current form, and now live a new way of life.

Learning Technologists Anonymous use the following 12 step programme.

1. We admitted we were powerless over the latest learning technology -that our lives had become unmanageable.

2. Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

3. Made a decision to turn developing our strategies over to the learning community as we understood it.

4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

5. Admitted to the learning community and to ourselves the exact nature of our wrongs.

6. Were entirely ready to remove all these defects of character.

7. Humbly asked the learning community to work with us to remove our shortcomings.

8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.

9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

11. Sought through Appreciative Inquiry to improve our conscious contact with the learning community, to understand their needs and find ways to work together to support those needs.

12. Having had a ‘spiritual awakening’ as the result of these steps we tried to carry this message to learning technologists and to practice these principles in all our affairs

Moodle "Official" Music Video

2010-12-13T15:57:00.001Z

A class project, would you believe, from Taylor University

Do we need teachers in Higher Education?

2010-08-12T11:01:00.005Z

Interesting article by Paul Ramsden on the THE website about how "Producing graduates who are critical thinkers requires teachers who can bring scholarship and leadership to the academy."

As with many others, I have long thought that teaching is unbelievably undervalued and often poorly done in higher education. He argues in that although Student Satisfaction is now all the rage in the UK, universities are often barking up the wrong tree. How much marketing literature shows happy, smiling students studying on the beach and then walking off into the sunset with a good degree and a dream graduate job? The pressure to produce more happy students with a 2:1 misses what I think is fundamental about higher education. We could make students happy by handing out free beer at lectures, putting soft porn on the VLE and ensuring all students get a 2:1 but I'm not sure that would fulfill the mission of a University. We can often get dangerously close to thinking of students as customers to be serviced. However, when I go to a restaurant I'm not asked to think about the meal I'm about to eat. I don't have to go away and research the ingredients. I don't have to read about the great chefs who have cooked this meal in the past. I don't have to explore the cultural significance of the meal. I don't have to understand how to cook the meal and I'm not then asked to cook it myself, perhaps with my own individual take on the recipe. In a restaurant you are a customer, as student you are not a customer, more a partner in you own (and ideally the university's) development. As Ramsden argues, “Teaching in higher education should never fool students into thinking there is an easy path to success. Rather, it should make the hardest road enjoyable to follow by communicating complex ideas clearly and succinctly” and also that "Accomplished teaching is the single most important method of producing graduates who can reason and act for themselves, and can apply theory to practical problems - precisely the skills that any employer wants to see."

He also discusses the emphasis that is put on research to the detriment of teaching and argues that when interviewing successful researchers about their teaching he discovered that, “the researchers who were good at teaching - who went about it by focusing on students and their learning (rather than their own teaching performance or transmitting information) - were not those who necessarily produced the most research. They were the ones who focused on the underlying structure of their investigations, on the broad conceptual framework of their subject, rather than isolated individual problems within it - the ones who were scholars in their discipline.”

He concludes that, "The rationale for university teaching is not satisfying students, distributing information to them nor changing them, as some condescendingly say. Rather, it is enabling students to change for themselves." And that way to do that is through excellent teaching.

The learner experience of transition - ELESIG Summer Symposium

2010-07-21T08:57:00.002Z

Last week saw the 3rd ELESIG Summer symposium; this year in Leeds. ELESIG is “an international community of researchers and practitioners from higher and further education who are involved in investigations of learners' experiences and uses of technology in learning”. The website can be found at http://elesig.ning.com/

The first day was a mix of past projects sharing their stories and new hopefuls pitching their ideas

Terri Rees from Plymouth in her work with international students experience of e-learning talked about the how learners often have different levels of participation on and off line. Some individuals contribute less online than they do in class and some the other way round. She talked about the importance of rapport building before learners go online in order to build community.

Alice Lau from Glamorgan also talked about the experience of international students, with the iLExSIG project. Her presentation had the added bonus of having two students with her to talk about their experiences. You can find out more about iLExSIG on the ELESIG site.

The second day combined with the Aim Higher conference, with a keynote on Transition by Bill Johnston from Strathclyde. Among many areas he talked about were -

The need to look at transition in broad societal terms

The idea of Transition in and out of higher education. Do the careers service have an input?
Transition is about any aspect of the first year when individuals have to make a change – learning, social …....... many areas

Students often start excited but then dip in motivation and performance. “I only need 40% to pass that's me, I can get by.”There is a need to look more at what success is. Learning goals or assessment goals? Marks of real learning? Do we want students to learn or pass? Just passing will end up with everyone unhappy eventually.

Don't look at why students drop out, look at why they stay. What was it that made them stay, particularly if they were thinking about dropping out. Sounds like a case for Appreciative Inquiry to me :-)

He also asked what is success in higher education and illustrated his thoughts with a few quotes -

“to prepare students for lifelong, self-regulated, co-operative and work-based learning” Jan D Vermunt 2007

“used to think that academia, like the Vatican and prostitution, was great survivor of social upheaval”

“information literacy is the adoption of appropriate information behavior to identify, though whatever channel or medium, information well fitted to information needs leading to wise and ethical use of information in society” – Johnston & Weber

Hmmm…. Ethical? BP and RBS managers are graduates!

But how to embed Education for Sustainable Development and Global Citizenship (ESDGC)into the curriculum? He argued for an Information Literate University, which has information literate staff, curriculum, students and graduates. It’s much more than creating knowledge workers for an information society

This was followed by a very interesting workshop by Kyriaki Anagnostopoulou and Deeba Parmer from Middlesex University, where we looked at what could be done to help some fictitious students make the transition to university life.

One of things that Middlesex has done is to show the real university, warts and all, in bridging materials before students come. Obviously marketing didn't like this. “Where's the sun and happy students?” they cried. “This will put them off” To which the response was that if they are put when they arrive and leave, the university is no better off but if some have a more realistic view of university life, the transition process may be smoother and some who may have dropped out will stay.

Old videos never die...

2010-06-11T09:12:00.008Z

Just back from Gregynog 2010 - several days of library, IT and e-learning presentations. There were and number of good sessions and lots of interesting people. I don't know why but on Thursday my mind drifted to an old Lunch and Learn session ...............

Is Powerpoint evil? from Chris on Vimeo.

Sustainable e-learning?

2010-05-24T11:17:00.006Z

Last week I was at the 8th International JTEFS/BBCC Conference "Sustainable Development. Culture. Education at UNESCO in Paris. The picture is the view fron the UNESC canteen :-) I presented in the Education for Sustainable Development and E-learning strand, which looked at what are the challenges of e-learning/blended learning for higher education institutions? E-learning as the issue of non-formal education and E-learning and communication. My presentation was entitled "The Digital Natives Meme. Why context is more important than technology with the following abstract -

"Rising student numbers, greater funding pressure and an increasing consumerisation of education pose dilemmas for educators. Additionally, we are told that technology is going to transform education; that a new breed of young people, who have not known a world without pervasive electronic technology, are entering education; that this will lead to a paradigm shift and those unable or unwilling to make the change will be swept away. However, recent research shows this may not be the case. Using examples from an ongoing study of university students' experiences of using technology, this paper argues that a debate that is framed by thoughts of an army of homogeneous digital natives will produce technology 'solutions' that are unsustainable. It will go on to argue that a more context based approach towards the use of technology is needed in order to provide sustainable solutions to the issues facing educators in the 21st century."

The Digital Natives Meme. Why context is more important than technology

View more presentations from Chris Hall.

Overall the conference was pretty good with a number of excellent presentations from Dr Peter Purg(Slovenia),Dr Richard R. Jurin(USA) and Dr Mark Mifsud (Malta)

A final thougt

2010-04-23T11:09:00.001Z

A tag cloud from my posts on Poznan.

created at TagCrowd.com

And so the end is near....

2010-04-23T10:20:00.007Z

So, today is my last day at AMU. I can't believe that it has gone so quickly and I could quite happily stay longer. Just starting to get into the swing of things and now it's time to go home :-( It has been a great experience and I've been made to feel part of the team by Prof Włodzimierz Sobkowiak, Dr Przemyslaw Kaszubski and Dr Michał Remiszewski as well as the other staff at IFA.

I'm currently looking at some work being done by Dr Przemyslaw Kaszubski that 'provides a platform for annotated concordancing activities for EAP learners and teachers' http://ifa.amu.edu.pl/~ifaconc/ We're meeting up later, my final session, to go through the project in more detail.

However, my Erasmus trip is not completely over. On Wednesday we had some technical problems with the Second Life session so we have rescheduled it for a couple of weeks time. I wonder if you can get expenses for going into SL?

Is teaching online different?

2010-04-22T17:02:00.003Z

So, my final session with the MA ICT in EFL class and my final presentation of my stay here. They are a very nice group of students and it has been a pleasure to work with them, albeit briefly. This session was about what similarities and differences there may be between teaching online and teaching in a more traditional classroom situation.

MA ICT for EFL - Is teaching online different

View more presentations from Chris Hall.

It was an interesting session but I'm not sure if I 'performed' as well as the week before. I felt I got pretty waffley in the second half of the lecture when talking about blogging. We some very interesting discussions though, particularly towards the end when there was quite a debate on what constitutes a 'real' conversation. One student proposed that she liked the idea of using blogs for teaching and learning writing in English, as the 'conversation' between the blogger and those making comments would be more 'real' than in a rather more 'artificial' traditional writing exercise. This sparked another student who felt that any such 'conversation' could not be real in the way that a face-to-face conversation is. The debate flowed back and forth and interestingly mirrored some of the conversations the IFA staff had had about what it means to meet. All very interesting stuff that I left Prof Sobkowiak to deal with later in the course :-)

Research, development and IPR?

2010-04-21T22:50:00.007Z

Today, as well as planning for tomorrow's lecture for the MA ICT in EFL class, I had a chance to look at some very interesting work being done by Dr. Michał Remiszewski Assistant professor in the Department of Computer Assisted English Linguistics here at IFA, AMU.

He's working on a powerful assessment tool, which has great potential for teaching as well as providing a good deal of research material. I'll be very interested to see where this goes. It also led to an interesting debate on universities attitudes to Intellectual Property Rights. A recurring theme around the world I think.

More than just lecture notes........

2010-04-20T22:41:00.004Z

After fighting my way past the librarians (actually I've discovered it's just one who appears to be evil and all the others are actually very nice and helpful. Maybe all libraries have to employ at least one Evil Librarian? Is it a job title? Is it a vocation? Can you do Evil Librarianship Studies?) I put the finishing touches to today's lecture. I was asked to talk about how you can use a VLE for more than just lecture notes and also if I could use some real examples that I had taught with.

I talked about the TRIO Critical Thinking module I taught a while back and none of it was particularly new - thinking about the context(s) the learning will take place in, starting with the assessment and working back to the activities, socialising the students into the learning environment, getting the students to do the work, learning being a social activity and obviously the technology coming last in the process.

More than just lecture notes........

View more presentations from Chris Hall.

Once again after the lecture there was a really lively discussion that continued for around 45 minutes and covered the nature of learning, the role and future of teaching, what we mean by communication and the assumptions we make when talking about various forms of communication, virtual worlds and student perceptions of learning. It even got a little heated at one point, which is always the sign of a real debate :-) As with all good discussions it continued in the pub over a beer.

Sunshine, opera, beer and of course some work

2010-04-19T13:03:00.008Z

Poland is almost back to normal now as the official period of mourning is over, although many of the TV channels seem to be still devoted to it. The weekend was quite strange, as I thought Sunday, the day of the funeral, would be very quiet indeed. In fact the old town was full of Poles eating, drinking and enjoying the sunshine. Maybe they had all got a bit stir crazy with the wall to wall TV coverage? The weekend was very pleasant with a bit of sightseeing, an excellent version of Don Giovani, lots of good Polish food with far too much fine Polish beer with friends.

Back to work and today is a preparation day for me and I've been spending most of it in the Library (What is it with (some) librarins? All some of them need is a uniform, maybe a hat!) working on this weeks lectures and presentations. Topics include: How do online teaching and traditional teaching differ, a case study of a level one online module and Blackboard vs Moodle - I think we all know the answer to that one. Well, most of us do anyway :-)

So only a week left :-( Although given what's going on with the ash........

Jestem jaka jestem i jestem nauczycielem.

2010-04-15T23:07:00.003Z

It's Thursday so I must be teaching. The class was on IT for English language teaching, which is an elective for second year MA students. They were in the middle of doing some history of CALL but we jumped ahead to later in the course and I looked and using wikis for collaborative language learning. The standard lectures are 90 mins, so you have an opportunity to get students more invloved than in a 50 min lecture. This suits me fine as once a TEFL teacher always a TEFL teacher and the first part of the lecture involved lots of bits if paper and the students doing all the work. I'm not sure they are used to that sort of thing in a normal lecture and suspect they wondered what this mad Englishman up to. I think it went down well or perhaps they were just being very polite.

Although the University uses a VLE I chose not to use it for the class as most of the students are or will be teaching in primary and secondary schools, very few of which have a VLE. I thought it made sense for them to look at something they could try for themselves and with their classes. I used PB Works but could equally have used wikispaces as well.

I used the wiki for the presentation as well as showing a small number of example uses.
http://inveniotech.pbworks.com/

During the last half hour we had an interesting debate on the whys, wherefores and practicalities of group activities, with a number of contributions from the three members of academic staff who also came to the lecture.

After a planning meeting for next week that followed the lecture, I got back to my flat in time to get something to eat and then watch the election debate on BBC World. Interesting stuff but not nearly as interesting as the Presidential election in Poland is going to be. The Speaker of the Parliament was the favourite to win the next election against the former President who has just died , which has now been brought forward. However, as Speaker, he is now the acting President and has to arrange the election. It is also likely that he will be now running against the former Prime Minister, who happens to be the dead President's twin brother! Interesting times in Poland.

Poznan remembers

2010-04-14T15:47:00.006Z

Lectures were cancelled today as the public universities in Poznan joined together in mourning at the Senate. The Senate building is very impressive, as was the turnout which was standing room only. The proceedings included music from an excellent choir and organist as well as a number of speeches which, although I picked up some of, were quite hard for me to follow. The Senate session was followed by an open air public mass, which was notable for the wide age range there including young children and lots of students. Would that happen in the UK?

Tomorrow I'm lecturing on one of the MA courses on the subject of using wikis for collaborative language learning. Some midnight oil will be burnt preparing that methinks.

e-learning by the people, for the people and of the people

2010-04-13T22:00:00.002Z

First presentation today on some of our experiences of e-learning at Swansea and some of the lessons we have learnt. There was some interesting debate and the bottle of Welsh whisky I presented went down well. Wednesday will be a strange day as much of it will be taken up with a memorial service in the Senate, Thursday I'll be teaching on one of the MA courses on using technology in language teaching and Friday will be a planning day for the training sessions we'll be running next week. At the weekends a whole different set of students arrive at the university to take their classes, so teaching is really a 7 day a week job. I wonder what the UCU would make of that?

e-learning by the people, for the people and of the people

View more presentations from chrismh99.

Events dear boy, events!

2010-04-12T11:00:00.004Z

I'm not sure how my first week will pan out as, to quote Harold Macmillan, my trip has been affected by events. I'm giving a presentation tomorrow - e-learning for the people, by the people and of the people - so I'll be working on that today. Everything is quite subdued but people here in Poznan are getting back to work, so there aren't scenes like those in Warsaw. They may all be inside watching the wall to wall coverage on almost every channel on television - except one that seems to be showing non-stop vollyball.

As with Riga last year, I have arrived to wonderful spring sunshine. I hope it lasts but I fear I may have brought some Swansea rain with me.

Greetings from Poznan.........

2010-04-11T22:00:00.002Z

What is it with me arriving for an Erasmus visit? My trip to Riga last May stated interestingly and, after a good journey to Poznan via Berlin, so did this one. I arrived at the office of the flat I had booked (cheaper than a hotel and all of those were booked anyway) to find it closed. No problem I thought, I'll just call them. I tried to use my shinny new Android phone only to discover that those nice people at Virgin had decided to block it from roaming, so all I could do was ring for an ambulance. Although a little concerned, I didn't think there was any need for that just yet. A little later, someone else with a suitcase in tow arrived along with the building security guard. The fellow traveller, who spoke no Polish, was looking for a completely different set of flats but the security guard, who spoke no English and had that wonderful demeanor of Polish officialdom, insisted that this was where he should be. My basic Polish helped resolve the situation and I was just about to ask if I could borrow the other flat hunter’s phone, when he and the security guard promptly left! Ch****a! No chance of getting a new SIM card as all the shops were shut, for obvious reasons. Just as I was beginning to think about ringing that ambulance the fellow flat hunter returned, thanked me for helping him and let me borrow his phone :-) 10 minutes later I was in my flat - phew!

Not so grumpy?

2009-09-09T15:04:00.004Z

Not so grumpy today. That might be because the sun is shinning. (For those in Swansea, I'll take some photographs so you can see what it looks like ;-).

Started today with two really good sessions. One from Andy Ramsden on QR codes - could be really useful. The other was by the ever excellent David White on the 'Visitor-Resident principle.' It's always good to see Presnky's Digital Natives ideas get a bit of a kicking but rather than just rubbish the idea the Visitor-Resident principle gives a much more useful view of how people use the Internet. It has implications for educators and staff developers. Great stuff!!

Today was also my poster session. I had some interesting discussions and the '12 steps' seems quite popular.

ALT-C once again........

2009-09-08T16:39:00.004Z

I must confess I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with ALT-C. Whilst there are lots of interesting people to meet and much to talk about, there is an awful lot of twaddle and people admiring their navels. For example, there was a really rather pointless session on 'the VLE is dead' - all a bit playgroundy IMHO - let's get on with what we're doing rather than throwing stones at each other because of the technology we're using. That only leads to this. As Seymour Papert said, "If there is a why, any how will do."

There was a great keynote to kick of the conference by Michael Wesch, which I guess will be online at some point. The Chair then spoilt it a bit, in classic ALT style, by appearing to only take questions from people he knew. That seems to happen every time I come to ALT-C. I wonder if it's a policy or more an indication that ALT has an 'in' crowd so it's all about who you know?

Hmmm...... this seems like a bit of a moan. However, I am looking forward to tomorrow's sessions on QR Codes , the 'Visitor-Resident' principle and using Appreciative Inquiry with ePortfolios.

Excellence in Learning and Teaching?

2009-06-05T08:34:00.009Z

Tuesday saw the first Swansea University Excellence in Learning & Teaching Conference - part of a post RAE plan to raise the profile and status of learning & teaching. I only got to attend half the conference as I was chairing the sessions in one of the breakout rooms. Although it wasn't a technology enhanced learning conference, over half of the presentations involved the use of technology in learning and teaching. What I particularly liked was that, in the presentations I saw at least, it was about the teaching and learning use technology was put to not the technology itself. Technology Last - yay!

Reflective learning seemed to be an underlying theme of the conference and I really like Michele Raithby's idea of reflection as a pensieve.

"The Pensieve is an object used to review memories. It has the appearance of a shallow stone basin, into which are carved runes and strange symbols. It is filled with a silvery substance that appears to be a cloud-like liquid/gas; the collected memories of people who have siphoned their recollections into it. Memories can then be viewed from a third-person point of view. "
http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Pensieve

Could be a useful analogy for the PDP work here.

Overall a pretty successful day - the sun was even shining :-)

And so, the end is near..........

2009-05-22T08:35:00.008Z

My Facebook/Twitter gloating about the great weather in Riga and the rain in Swansea yesterday has come back to haunt me. It's pouring with rain and Riga has gone the kind of grey I thought only Warsaw could achieve. I'm told it will clear up later. Quite how long later will be I'm not really sure.

So, it's may last day at the University and it's a case of cleaning up the model and agreeing the direction to go in next. It's been great working here with different people who work in quite a different way. I've learnt a lot and hopefully we have the makings of a future collaboration. When I arrived in Riga I thought 3 weeks would be a long time but actually I could easily have stayed for twice as long. I've been made to feel very much part of the team here and I've already been exploring other funding options for a return visit :-) There have also been some subtle hints that I could stay and do a PhD here and I can't say I'm not tempted........

You're a bad man and you can't go in there on your own!

2009-05-20T07:54:00.005Z

I was too embarrassed to tell this story earlier but now that the end of my stay is near :-( I'm usually the first in in the morning, so I collect the keys to the office from the rather officious looking woman in very dark glasses at the front desk, who I always speak politely to in Latvian. (That doesn't mean I'm then rude to her in English) There are two keys on the very large, about 20cms long key fob. One for the office I work in and one for the the smaller office, where the coffee machine is. Not long after I arrive someone else usually turns up so both offices are generally open and whenever I've wanted a coffee I've just gone into the other office. On this day there was no one else in for quite a while. After doing some work I thought I would grab a coffee. There was no one in the other office so I used the second key on the very large key fob. I heard a slight buzzing and then all hell broke loose with the loudest alarms I've ever heard! After a short while a porter arrived and I was taken downstairs to be shouted at in Latvian. I was made to wait by the desk while a series of frantic calls were made. Maybe I was going to be taken to meet the Belarusian border guards after all! I was then taken back up to the office and given a long and angry speech in Latvian. Although I don't understand much Latvian I got the gist that I'm not allowed in the room with the coffee on my own. I must only go in the office I work in. I'm a very bad man and I'm not allowed in the office with the coffee on my own. And finally - I'm not allowed in the room with the coffee on my own!

When the others arrived later they all knew the story, Latvian grapevine, and thought it was very funny. They now joke whenever I go near the door to the office with the coffee that I'm not allowed in on my own.

To be or not to be..... the actor's role.

2009-05-19T07:57:00.007Z

While we've been developing the various EKD models we've also been looking at the research basis for what we are trying to do. One interesting piece or research from the USA is about non-credit courses in US Community Colleges. The article explores the use of non-credit education as a bridging mechanism to allow students who have performed poorly in high school to enter community colleges. They argue that noncredit programs have many advantages including "lower cost; greater accessibility, flexibility, and responsiveness; and greater access to immigrants." They cite a number of cases where learners have moved from non-credit courses into success in the mainstream college. This fits well with one of the concepts in our model that knowledge is free but accreditation costs and that making the barriers to entry as low as possible can lead to greater engagement.

Today's task is to look at the Actors and Resource model. This is used to describe how different actors and resources are related to each other and how they are related to components of the Goals Model as well as to components of the Business Processes Model (BPM). For instance, an actor may be the responsible for a particular process in the BPM or, the actor may pursue a particular goal in the Goals Model. The Actors and Resources Model usually clarifies questions, such as: who is/should be performing which processes and tasks, how is the reporting and responsibility structure between actors defined?

I actually left the office at 5pm yesterday and took a 30 minute train ride out of Riga to Jurmala and had a very pleasant evening strolling along the longest beech I've ever seen by the surprisingly calm Baltic.

Art and fish?

2009-05-18T08:29:00.000Z

Spent a bit of time at the weekend in two very different parts of Riga. The Art Nouveau district and the fish market - I get to go to all the best places!

Riga managed to escape the fate of many cities during WWII and it's medieval Old Town and Art Nouveau district are largely intact. The Art Nouveau district is fascinating and gives much of the city a very Parisian feel.

The fish market is part of the city market which is housed in 5 old WW1 zeppelin hangers. The fish market fills one of these and contains an amazing array of fish. The fish is all very fresh. As I entered the market I meet a fish trying to flap his way to freedom along the floor. All to no avail as he was quickly captured and returned to the stall. The fish are actually kept in tanks behind the stalls and the placed on the stall for sale. Very fresh indeed.

Is perfection possible?

2009-05-13T20:56:00.005Z

So, the perfect use of yesterday's model. Today we moved on to the Goals model, where we attempted to apply goals, then actors who would achieve these goals, to yesterday's concept model. We are also using the concept of eBig3, an RTU concept that follows on from some work in Ambient Learning and has some similarities with Glamorgan University's Work-based Access to Learning through E-Services. We've covered two of the Big3 but still have the web-based component to look at. This is where most of the issues with the model lie. Web-based e-learning has promised the earth but in many cases has failed to really deliver a significant return on investment or expectation. It is all to often the Creepy Salesman from Dr Ebenezer, who tells you that "e-learning can transform the learning experience, save you so much time you can do twice as much research, improve you students grades and it will even improve your sex life." Also, as Atis has often quoted Peter Chatterton as saying, "all e-learning projects are successful - once!" How come they never seem to last?

How many presentations of wonderful e-learning projects have you been to and then never heard of again? How much money has been spent on shiny new toys and expensive software, all shown off with impressive presentations to nodding administrators? Even though some projects show some seemingly impressive outcomes, most don't even come near to giving a real return on the huge investment put in. There seems to be a real disconnect between what would really benefit learners and what actually gets developed. Part of it is down to greedy software companies pushing the latest product but I don't think that is the main issue. Often those that make the decisions about where the money is spent and on what it is spent on don't really understand the consequences of the decisions they are making. A bit like the hospital administrator who wants to see the machine that goes 'bing'. I think the video pretty much sums up most major e-learning projects, with the doctors as the learning technologists and the poor patient as the learner or maybe an academic, depending on your point of view.

So before looking at the goals and actors for the web-based component, in a change to my beloved Appreciative Inquiry approach (it's always good to have your own assumptions challenged - so I'm told), we looked at the barriers to sustainability in traditional e-Learning (or TEL if you are reading this in Wales).

Tomorrow we'll see if our model can address the barriers and stop wasting money on the machine that goes 'bing'.

A new career in modelling?

2009-05-12T22:16:00.011Z

One of the areas the Riga Technical University are exploring at the moment is the use of Knowledge Transfer models and their application to the using technology to support and enhance learning. The task we have set ourselves for the next two weeks is to see if we can produce a new model for sustainable lifelong learning. We are using the Enterprise Knowledge Develpment (EKD) method as tool for building the model as this is something the team here have used many times in project planning.

EKD was developed by the Sorbone, UMIST (now Manchester) and SYSLAB/DSV in Stockholm. They argue that -

EKD is an integrated collection of methods, techniques, and tools that will support your process of analysing, planning, designing, and changing your business.
EKD supports your thinking, reasoning, and learning about the business.
EKD leads to more complete and consistent business designs.

And that EKD is not -

a “magic method” that relieves you from thinking and acting
a “software tool”
an approach that necessarily leads to a software system

There are various sub models within the overall model and we started with the concepts model. The Concepts Model is used to strictly define the "things" and "phenomena" that are being talked about in the other models. They are presented as enterprise concepts, attributes, and relationships. Concepts are used to define more strictly expressions in the Goals Model as well as the content of information sets in the Business Processes Model. The Concepts Model usually clarifies questions, such as: what concepts are recognised in the enterprise (including their relationships to goals, activities and processes, and actors), how are they defined, what business rules and constraints monitor these objects and concepts.

The planning process begins as a sort of organized 'thought shower', outlining the key concept preconditions that will underpin the model, which are written on pieces of coloured papaer. These are then stuck on a wall that has been covered in plastic so that connections can be drawn between the various concepts, as you can see from the photograph. Once complete, Visio is the used to keep a permenant record. I found the process a really useful and productive one - really quite engrossing. So much so that it wasn't untill 8pm that we decided to call it a day! The plan for tomorrow is to see if we can create a 'perfect' implemetation of the model.

Down to work......

2009-05-11T14:19:00.002Z

My first full day in the office. We started with a meeting to discuss type of projects we could proceed with over the next two weeks with ideas about peer supported lifelong learning – will have planning meeting tomorrow.

I was asked to take part in the weekly e-learning seminar. Atis then said would I mind presenting. Then could it be 45 mins to an hour. The seminar was at 5pm and included Liepaja University by video conference. I began by presenting a Swansea University shield and bottle of Scotch Whisky. Not knocking the shield but the whisky appeared to be the more popular! I talked about our experiences of e-learning/TEL at Swansea and there was a lot of discussion, which finally finished at 7pm.

I strolled into Old Town to get something to eat and hardly anyone there. I was the only person in the restaurant. At least the British larger idiots have gone.

It's the weekend!

2009-05-10T18:03:00.003Z

My first weekend in Riga and a chance to explore the Old Town. In the morning I met my new flat mates – 3 Spanish Erasmus students. Seemed very nice.

On Saturday I had a general stroll around the Old Town and visited the Occupation Museum and the War Museum and saw the Old Soviets celebration of end of war at riflemen memorial. They celebrate a day early for some reason.

Some time after I returned my new flat mates went out at for the evening at 1am They returned at 7.30! Spanish people are nocturnal?

On Sunday morning I went to what I thought was a Lutheran Church. However, there seemed to be rather a lot of crossing and sung responses – not very Lutheran at all. It turned out, of course, that I'd gone into one of the few Catholic churches in Riga. Very welcoming though, although they thought I was German :-)

Off my trolley?

2009-05-08T23:38:00.001Z

In the coffee break before the final session, I was chatting with a delegate from Estonia about her bother, who is a footballer in England. I didn't realise at the time but her brother is actually Mart Poom the former Derby and Arsenal goalkeeper, who has played over 100 times for his country.

The conference closed with the normal thanking everybody etc. I know it needs to be done but.... Next years conference is in Paris - could be worth a paper?

We were driven back to Riga via Livani and Cesis, both of which were very interesting. I arrived back in Riga at about 11pm and fulfilled a life ambition (well kind of) by travelling on a trolley bus, which seems to be the main form of public transport in Riga.

Dancing Latgalian style

2009-05-07T23:53:00.002Z

Day three of the conference and there was a very interesting presentation in the e-learning strand by Peter Purg. He talked about time as a resource ans students perception of the workload being dependant on how engaged they were. More to come on this. There was also an interesting presentation by Janis Kaperniks on 'just in time' learning using mobile phones.

The evening meal was very pleasant and then we were told we would be enjoying something typically Latgalian. Largale is a distinct region of Latvia which has had different influences over the years and has quite a distinct local dialect. We were encouraged to move to the next room where a band was set up to play. We were then lined up and spent the rest of the evening doing increasingly complicated Latgalian folk dances. The more complicated they were, the faster the band seemed to play and the more mistakes we made but that was all part of the fun - I think.

E-learning by the people, for the people, of the people

2009-05-06T23:33:00.000Z

Today was the reason I was at the conference, to present as part of the e-learning strand. E-learning was new to the conference this year and had two sessions with eight paper presented. My topic was "E-learning by the people, for the people, of the people" about developing an e-learning community of practice. There was a fair bit of discussion afterwards and I was surprised that by presenting I had become a member of the Baltic and Black Sea Circle Consortium and formally given my membership card.

The musical entertainment in the evening this time was a very good solo violinist. However, after the meal the Estonian group sang some impromptu Estonian folk songs, which sparked off a number of other groups so we had Finish, Latvian, Lithuanian and Hungarian folk singing. No British signing obviously!

I was invited back to the cabin in the woods again. This time we got completely lost heading straight for those boarder guards. Worryingly, I was the only one who had any idea where to go and was thus made the guide!!

Still alive!

2009-05-05T23:10:00.002Z

I'm still here - I survived my experience on the Lativian roads. A bit rough in places and a few hairy moments but it was OK. We arrived at the conference just as the keynote was starting. Atis said he'd planned it to avoid wasting time :-) The Conference is a little out my my normal area but as the keynotes progressed I realised that a lot of what we are trying to do at Swansea in building a community of practice and the follow up from the benchmarking, fit well with the concept of making things sustainable - in all senses of the word.

After the keynotes we had dinner followed by a recital by a local opera singer, who also sang some very impressive jazz.

Although I had booked into the conference hotel my colleagues from Riga Technical University told me that they had decided to rent a small house by a lake. The invited me to spend the evening there with them. What they had actually rented was a house in a former complex for Latvia Communist party apparatchiks deep in the woods near the Belarus boarder. Before we left Atis said I should take my passport with me as one wrong turn in the woods and we would come up against Belarusian border guards and that would be something we didn't want to do.
They complex was actually very nice, as you would expect for party bosses although the two rows of fencing each with an imposing set of gates was a little unnerving.

First Day at work!

2009-05-05T11:25:00.001Z

First day of work. Met some of the team and was given a guided tour of the Distance Education Study Centre. Down in the basement is a recording studio, complete with Cubase, a hardware controller, a Roland piano and some very nice Latvian made valve mics. I wonder if I'll get a chance to have a play? I have a lovely view from where I'm typing this in as in Soviet times there were weapons in the room, so they needed a clear shot.

Travelling to Daugavpils this afternoon for the Conference. According to the Rough Guide, the death toll on Latvian roads is terrible. Will I get to post again?

Hello! This is Riga calling. Here are the votes of the latvian jury....

2009-05-04T21:17:00.002Z

Arrived after a good flight, came out of departures and looked for Atis, who was meeting me. Hmm... no Atis and I only have his Skype and email but no mobile. OK I'll wait for a bit no panic. 20 minutes later – no Atis. Later still and all the other passengers have now left the building – no Atis. OK what am I going to do. I'll wait another 30 minutes, then catch the bus to the city centre and try and try and find where I'm going to be staying. Success 15 minutes later Atis arrives. Latvia is now part of the Schengen agreement and Atis was waiting at the main terminal. Only visitors from 'dubious' countries get sent to the terminal I was at. As we drove the short drive to the city centre I had very similar feelings to those I had arriving in Warsaw for the first time 10 years ago. There are clearly many differences between Latvia and Poland, not least the language, but the Soviets certainly left a mark on the architecture.

The room is OK basic but OK and about a quarter of the price of the hotel over the road.

It's also very close to the Distance Education Study Centre and a large supermarket.

Got some strange looks as I zigzagged around the supermarket trying to work out what things were. I can't remember any of the Latvian I tried to learn. All that comes into my head is Polish and that's not much help in Riga. It might be more useful in Daugavpils, where there is a sizeable Polish speaking minority. A bit like Slough then :-)

ALT-C 2007: Beyond Control

2007-09-17T14:02:00.000Z

I found ALT-C 2006 to be a massively inspiring event, which ultimately led to the start of the Learning Lab, a number of project bids and greater collaboration on e-learning within some areas of the University. So, how did ALT-C 2007 match up?

Bit of a curate’s egg actually. Some good discussions, interesting sessions and some of the most boring presentations I’ve even seen.

I did come to one overwhelming conclusion with a few colleagues but more of that later.

Presentations

2007-09-17T14:00:00.000Z

My typing is very slow, my laptop is very heavy, I can’t do shorthand and I didn’t get on very well with making notes on my PDA. Handily, just before the conference a colleague lent me an ACECAD Digimemo http://www.acecad.com.tw/products.html You write on paper using a special pen, upload your notes to a PC and convert them into word. It’s a good idea. However, it was only a partial success mainly due to the fact that I wrote too neatly when training the system. There’s quite a difference from my ‘training’ writing and the near illegible scrawl I used during the conference. I’ll have to retrain the machine.

I took notes during all the sessions I attended but only a few really caught my attention.

Dragon Slaying?

By far the most interesting session I went to was David White http://elgg.jiscemerge.org.uk/whited/ on the rather impressively titled ‘Cultural capital and community development in the pursuit of dragon slaying (Massively Multiplayer guild culture as a model for e-learning)’.

In World of Warcraft (WoW) http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/index.xml users gather together in guilds of around 25 people to complete tasks. These tasks are impossible to do alone so a guild must be formed in order to complete the tasks, which become progressively more difficult as the game goes on. During each task the guild members work together, each member with a specific role, and there is constant communication between the guild members. He argued that whilst he wasn’t advocating the use of WoW for learning, what was happening in the game were the kinds of things we wanted to encourage in e-learning.

Some of themes he touched on were -

Nexus of Multi-membership – we are all members of more than one community – school, work, football team….

No community exists in a single tool – in WoW the guilds organized themselves with website outside the game, used chat etc

He introduced the concept of Rhizomes vs Scaffolds? http://elgg.jiscemerge.org.uk/whited/weblog/598.html

He suggested that Multiple User Virtual Environments (MUVEs), such as Second Life http://secondlife.com , take some elements of WoW and can be used as a blank canvas.

He introduced his 10 musings on Second Life 10 Musings

The university campus already supports informal learning with bars, common rooms, clubs and societies etc

Some people are not interested in the social aspects and can work quite well without it. Although I think this raises the question of whether while the individual may be OK, the community is poorer without their involvement.

Whilst I found this session by a fellow ‘Emerger’ http://elgg.jiscemerge.org really interesting, I feel I must add a note of caution. Although I’m not Welsh, I did feel that, representing a Welsh University, I ought to have made some form of protest about dragon slaying being advocated at the conference J

Phoebe

http://phoebe-project.conted.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/trac.cgi

An online lesson planning toolkit

The presenter argued that the concept of the lesson is alien to HE so used the terms learning session or learning experience.

You can use anything to plan – pen & paper, mind maps, LAMS etc

Phoebe is designed to help ‘teachers’ with designing learning sessions or learning experiences and to be able to combine it with tools with which they are already familiar.

It has been used in staff development and for initial teacher training and may have other uses.

Whose e-learning is it anyway?

Talked about a mainly F2F module with a strong Blackboard presence.

The tutor had had a good experience with discussion boards but this had now decreased.

Maybe they were all in Facebook? Yes, the students had set up a facebook group which had social activity, support across year boundaries sharing and critical debate. The students felt free in facebook and the groups became like a community of practice.

The tutor was asked to join the facebook group and acted as a broker between facebook and blackboard. She checked facebook and brought the comments into the classroom.

She persuaded students to bring facebook posting into Blackboard.

Led to some issues –

The tutor was a young ‘facebook’ like person and was invited into the group. What about other tutors?

Without coaching in facebook what are students learning?

Is facebook divisive? Only 80% of the students were there.

Facebook is not very accessible

Should we ban or control facebook?

Should we ignore it?

Should we engage with it?

Could there be a facebook/VLE mash up?

Students seem to want a separate space for formal teaching.

Keynotes

2007-09-17T13:54:00.000Z

Dylan William - view keynote

By far the most interesting keynote was from Dylan William from the Institute of Education. He was both entertaining and thought provoking on the theme assessment and challenged the ‘anti-teacher’ sentiments of some of the delegates. He argued that one of the biggest influences on how well a learner does is the teacher; much more important than what school the learner attends or class size. His main point was that formative assessment is key to learning. Although I found what he had to say both interesting and informative it may be that I just liked having my own prejudices confirmed.

Peter Norvig - view keynote

Director of Research at Google, impressive CV, introduced as someone who hates boring presentations - wow, this is going to be good! Oh dear. After 5 minutes of a quite entertaining presentation, which he must have given a million times before, he drifted of into full ‘teacher from Peanuts’ mode. Either I missed the point entirely or he didn’t say anything I hadn’t heard before.

Michelle Selinger - view keynote

Although Michelle Selinger was generally rather disappointing, she did make a couple of interesting points.

Employers say they want the following -

Technical fluency 81%
Communication skills using technology 74%
Collaboration & teamwork 36%
Leadership 34%
Creativity 22%

However, she argued that those who have successful careers tend to be -

comfortable with cultural diversity,
High Tech/High Touch (people who have work-life balance
Have a sense of pride - excellence

She talked about ‘pedagogical imperialism’ (the attitude that the western model of education is best), something that Hans-Peter Baumeister highlighted later in the conference

She also showed a really good South Park video about 15-20 minutes into the presentation.

BETT 2007

2007-01-12T11:46:00.000Z

Just got back from BETT. The biggest learning technology show in the world apparently. It certainly felt like it walking around. Although it's mainly geared towards schools there was plenty of weird and wonderful stuff of interest to higher education. The main areas of focus this year seemed to be e-portfolios and podcasting. Futurelab had some interesting things to say about portfolios and PLEs (Personal Learning Environments) with their Learners' Charter. On the podcasting front Podium looks to simplify creating and distributing podcasts. Something completely different is Crazy Talk, which allows you to turn any photograph into an animated talking actor. Not quite sure how useful it will be at the moment but its good fun to play with.

They are just three of the hundreds of things I looked at and I'm still ploughing my way though the masses of literature and software that I picked up - training materials and resources from Microsoft, lesson planners, mind mapping software, Smartboard lessons......... I think it will keep me busy for a while.

Web 2.0: A meaningless marketing buzzword or the new conventional wisdom?

2006-12-15T16:28:00.000Z

My Space, You Tube, del.icio.us, blogs, wikis, VOIP, Flikr...... you may well have heard of these on the news and in the papers over the last year. Web 2.0 seems to be everywhere but what actually is it?

There has been a great deal of argument and hot air about what Web 2.0 actually means. Tim O'Reilly coined the term Web 2.0 at a conference way back in 2004 and attempts to clarify what it means here.

Wikipedia the online collaborative encyclopaedia (loved by some and hated by others) describes Web 2.0 as "a supposed second generation of Internet-based services—such as social networking sites, wikis, communication tools, and folksonomies—that emphasize online collaboration and sharing among users." Given that definition, Wikipedia itself is very much Web 2.0.

According to Webopedia, an online dictionary of technology terms (geek speak), Web 2.0 is - "the term given to describe a second generation of the World Wide Web that is focused on the ability for people to collaborate and share information online. Web 2.0 basically refers to the transition from static HTML Web pages to a more dynamic Web that is more organized and is based on serving Web applications to users. Other improved functionality of Web 2.0 includes open communication with an emphasis on Web-based communities of users, and more open sharing of information. Over time Web 2.0 has been used more as a marketing term than a computer-science-based term. Blogs, wikis, and Web services are all seen as components of Web 2.0."

The Learning Lab has an overview of some of the Web 2.0 tools

So if that's what it is, what can we do with it? How does Web 2.0 relate to university life? For a start you are using Web 2.0 technology now by reading this blog. The resources section of this website contains a wiki and an area within it, 'the Playground', where you can, well, have a play. For librarians what about Library Thing? Here people can connect though the books they read. Does this have implications and applications for university libraries? Then there is the concept of tagging. Democratisation of cataloguing?

In working life group activity is commonplace but group work in universities can often be a problem. How can you tell who did what? How can you ensure that the work is truly a collaborative effort rather than a collection of individual pieces of work. Wikis in particular lend themselves well to group work as Futurelab point out. Personal Learning Environments (PLEs) are also useful in the area collaborative working and can also be used for reflective learning. You can find more information about collaborative and reflective learning the Uses for e-learning section of this site.

This post has barely scratched the surface of what Web 2.0 might be and it's implications. In the past 'Content was king' and whilst content is still important Web 2.0 allows users to have power. Users no longer only have the option of reading or watching what has been created for them but can now create, edit, delete, connect, discuss.......... In the university context if we substitute 'users' for 'learners' in the previous sentence, the implications are great - in both senses of the word.

A tale for our time....

2006-03-27T08:32:00.001Z

Dr. Ebenezer dragged himself to bed. What a day! It was now 2am and at 9am tomorrow it would all start again. Teaching lectures with so many students that some had to sit on the floor with no way of getting to know the students or the students being able to work together, constant phone calls interrupting his work, exams to mark, students he knew were cheating but couldn’t prove it, students who didn’t really understand what they were doing or even why they were doing it. The list was endless and on top of it all some idiot had sent him a circular telling him how he had to ‘embrace the concept of e-learning’ to ‘enable students to fully engage in the learning process’. He’d fully engage them if he had a chance! As if he didn’t have enough to do.

“Why can’t I just teach and do my research” he thought. “I wish no one had ever invented e-learning!” His head was thumping and the pain in his neck was coming back again but, after what seemed like hours of tossing and turning, he eventually managed to fall into a fitful sleep.

He woke with a start. It was still dark outside and as he rolled over to turn on the light he felt something against his feet. There was an object at the end of the bed. He switched on the light and there, shining brightly, was a genie’s lamp, straight from Aladdin. Well, everyone knows what to do with a genie’s lamp. Maybe he could wish for an extra day every week, smaller classes and wish away all that e-learning nonsense. So he rubbed the lamp and out came, not a genie but a man in a sharp suit with laptop under his arm and winning smile across his face.

“Great” said the man in the suit “I’ve been waiting to touch base with you so that I can run some ideas up the flagpole that you might want to pick up and run with.”

“What?” said Dr. Ebenezer.

“You need to keep in the loop so that you can fully buy into the technological paradigm shift that Web 2.0 facilitates.”

“What?” said Dr. Ebenezer.

“Listen. Third generation e-learning can transform the learning experience, save you so much time you can do twice as much research, improve you students grades and why” said the man in the suit as he leant towards Dr. Ebenezer with a slightly disturbing glint in his eye “it will even improve your sex life.”

That was it. Dr. Ebenezer had heard some rubbish in his time but this was….. Suddenly all the stress of the previous week began to explode. He grabbed the creepy salesman by the throat and violently shoved him back into the bottle and threw it out of the window.

“Touch base with that!” shouted Dr Ebenezer as the bottle disappeared into the darkness below. Dr Ebenezer slowly returned to bed and attempted to get back to his much needed sleep. But not for long….

“Ehe ehe” came a coughing sound from the end of the bed.

“Ehe ehe”

“Not again!” thought Dr Ebenezer as he sat up and turned on the light.

But this time standing at the end of the bed was not the creepy salesman but someone who looked strangely familiar.

“I’m sorry to bother you” said the person at the end of the bed “but I couldn’t help overhearing your conversation.”

“What?” said Dr. Ebenezer.

“Sorry, I couldn’t help overhearing your conversation and I’ve got a few things you might find interesting.”

This was all starting to get too weird. Maybe the stress was getting to him or it was the cheese he’d eaten before going to bed.

“OK” said Dr. Ebenezer as he lay back down with a weary resignation.

“Er, right, yes. Erm, would it be useful to be able get students to check their work signs of plagiarism so that they can get a better understanding of what plagiarism is rather than searching through it yourself? It requires a bit of setting up but works pretty well”

“Well, that would be quite useful” thought Dr. Ebenezer.

“Would you like students to be able to work in groups outside lectures and seminars? Where they can work through problems by research and discussion and you can keep an eye on what they are doing?

“Hmm…, I’d need to think about it but that could be quite useful as well” thought Dr. Ebenezer.

“Would you like students to be able to work through some of the areas of the module at their own pace, be able to check on their progress as they go and then go back to any parts they didn’t quite understand? It takes a bit of work to set up but if you can use a word processor, you should find it relatively straight forward.”

“Hmm…, that’s sounds interesting” thought Dr. Ebenezer.

“Well, if you’re interested and want to find out a bit more get in touch we can go through the ideas in more detail”.

“Erm, thank you” said a rather bemused Dr Ebenezer

Then the strangely familiar person turned to leave.

“Before you go” said Dr Ebenezer. “I realise that this is supposed to be some kind of fable, so shouldn’t there be a moral?”

“Ah yes, nearly forgot. The moral of the story is -

E-learning won’t fulfil all the outlandish claims of the salesman but it can provide some real benefits to learning and teaching. There are some new skills to learn and some investment in time is required but it’s not rocket science. Unless of course you were talking about ionizing Argon by exposure to electrons provided by a cathode filament, then that would be rocket science”

“Anything else?” asked Dr. Ebenezer hopefully.

“No, sorry it can’t do that” she smiled as she left the room.

Little LAMY

2006-03-14T11:57:00.000Z

I am currently exploring the use of LAMS in higher education. It's an open source tool for creating online, interactive lessons. I can see some really powerful uses for this particularly with collaborative, problem based learning in areas such medical education and teacher training.

I've set up a test server and am beginning to have a play. We'll see what happens.

Long time, no write

2005-12-13T11:42:00.000Z

It's now December, cold outside and Christmas is coming. It's a year since I started this blog and my MEd is finished, I graduate this week, and I've started a new job in E-learning support at a British university. Not much happening at the moment, it's the end of term, but we'll see how it goes.

Make Poverty History

2005-06-28T11:25:00.000Z

Every single day, 30,000 children are dying as a result of extreme poverty. This year, 2005, we finally have the resources, knowledge and opportunity to end this shameful situation.

Join the band of people who are taking action to make poverty history. It only needs to take you a matter of minutes every month, but it will help us to literally change the world.

http://www.makepovertyhistory.org/

Procrastinate? I'll do that tomorrow....

2005-04-15T09:47:00.000Z

Dissertation again. Quite a few of the others on my course have already handed out questionnaires and are getting on with their research but I haven't even started yet!!! One of my colleagues puts the problem down to my procrastination. Harsh, but probably fair.
The ECDL thing doesn't appear to be working as I can't get access to the data. I've tried contacting various organizations but to no avail. The plan in itself is good but with no data it's going to be pretty pointless. I can either try again to get access to the data directly from training organizations or think up a new area of research entirely. There is a learning centre near me which teachers English and IT and uses IT to teach English. They are also an ECDL test centre. It could be ideal. I could either persue the ECDL plan with them or look at student experiences of learning English using IT. I've actually just applied for a part-time job there, which is either a good or a bad thing. I'm not sure. it could be good if I get the job and then have access to the data and co-operation from the centre. However, there could be problems or being an 'insider researcher'. It could also be a problem if I don't get the job. Should I wait to see if I get the job? Or will that be another example of my procrastination? Hmm....

Help! I've gone completely IELTS.

2005-03-13T20:57:00.000Z

Now, for my Databases and CALL module I've decided to design an 'activity bank' of exercises for the reading section of the IELTS test. This is partly due to the fact that I can't think of anything else to do. Not because I'm a lazy git, but because, whilst databases have many uses, I'm very skeptical of their usefulness in the language learning environment. Dictionaries are obviously one area as are massive databases of authentic language - corpora. However, apart from the three uses mentioned, I can't think of much else that is useful. I have seen many uses of databases design for language learning but they all have one thing in common - they're a bit crap. They mainly seem to be behaviourist drill and practice exercises, which help people to the learn the answer to the question but not a lot else. For example, why it's the answer! Luckily I have the opportunity to vent my spleen in a critique once I've finished the database.

I go IELTS!

2005-02-28T16:12:00.000Z

Back to the web site project. My latest plan is to base the site around the writing skills required for IELTS writing. If I want to follow a broadly constructivist approach, I don't want it to be just a list of exam tips. I envisage it being a series of example exam style questions accompanied by the questions that candidates may wish to ask themselves as they plan their answers. I aim to use Flash animation, partucularly for writing about prcesses in order to make the process to be derscibed 'come alive'. I feel it's perhaps best to start with section 1 - proccess writing and describing charts and tables. If I have time, I may move on to the various essay types required for section 2. I'm unsure about including actual writing exercises but maybe there could be some checking of model answers to questions the site uses in the 'thinking about planning' section. I plan to a aim the site at intermediate, and possibly upper-intermediate, students.

“Learning Polish has never been easier.…you may never feel like you're studying.”

2005-02-20T17:53:00.000Z

So says the website for Transparent Languages “top-rated language learning method”, which has been successfully used by “hundreds of thousands of people.”

So does it work? Can you learn a new language quickly and easily sitting at a PC?

Installation is straightforward and you are guided through the routine. You can install to the hard drive, for which you need 500MB, or if you are short of space you can install so that it runs from the CD-ROM, which only needs 35MB. The system requirements are very basic. There are PC and Mac versions which require Windows 95 or later, or OS 8.6 or later respectively. Basic sound card, speakers and microphone are required as well as an internet connection for the additional on-line resources. There is a manual, but unfortunately it’s a Word document that you have to print yourself.

There are two main sections – Titles and Reference Tools. The Reference Tools are somewhat disappointing. There is an animated alphabet and a Grammar Reference. Whilst the Grammar Reference is admirably comprehensive with links between related areas, it’s merely in standard Windows help format and has a fairly dry, academic style. It makes no innovative use of PC technology in it’s presentation. Hardly designed to make you “never feel like you're studying”. An accompanying grammar book would be of more use.

The Titles section is where the main action is. There are four tiles – two for beginners, one for intermediate and one for advanced. Each tile is then split in to five sections as shown in the screen shot. The Theater (sic) section is where the language is introduced with good, clear audio, text and graphics or somewhat dated video. The Reading section has the same text but with Grammar references, the Activities section has a number of games to practice the language presented in the Theater. The Pronunciation section gives students the opportunity to try and match the waveforms of their pronunciation of the language presented in the Theater with that of a native speaker; a virtually impossible task. Finally, the Conversation section allows the student to take part in the conversations they have heard. A rather controlled, unnatural practice environment contrary to the manufactures claim.

Help is available wherever you are in the programme. Whilst, like the Grammar Reference, this is very comprehensive, it is generic to all sixteen titles in the series and as a result it can be a little confusing when clicking on help for the Reading section to see an example using a Spanish text.

Just diving and trying to use the software can be quite confusing especially for a beginner as the beginner activities are far too difficult. I would suggest that they are more appropriate for a pre-intermediate learner. Perhaps to combat this the Theater, where the language is introduced, makes heavy use of translation, a rather outmoded teaching method for language learning, which goes against the supposed “immersion in the language” that the manufacturers claim.

On the positive side, once you have found your way around the system you can jump in and out of the activities and the software will remember where you have got to and links this information between the activities. So if you have reached a certain stage in the Theater and then move to the Activities section you have the option to only be tested on the language the Theater has introduced so far.

The Activities section has variety of ‘games’ to test how much you have learnt in the Theater and Reading sections. Each user’s scores are logged and can be viewed at any time. These are very much drill and practise tasks which continually repeat until completed correctly. This can lead the learner, particularly in grammar exercises, into merely giving the correct answer rather than understanding the target structures. This is a common problem with behaviourist style activities. At the end of each title, however, a link is included to a number of online activities. These are perhaps less ‘fun’ but are more structured and if the answers are incorrect the learner is directed to the relevant section of the title to find the correct use and explanation of the target language.

Overall this is a package best suited to mature, individual learners who already have a basic grasp of the language and are using it as a supplement existing learning and is not the revolution in language learning the manufacturers claim.

Dissertation Blues..

2005-02-16T19:28:00.000Z

I woke up this morning and had to start thinking, in earnest, about my dissertation. Hmmm.. IT and education. I'd like to do something about the effectiveness, or otherwise, of teaching & learning using IT. I'm planning on doing something about ECDL. ECDL can either be done in a formal classroom setting, with sts studying on their own in a computer lab with a tutor on hand, online or with a book and a PC. It would be interesting to look at the learning experiences of each of these delivery methods. How do pass rates differ? How do completion rates differ? What has the student experience of learning been? In what ways are the delivery methods different? Who chose the delivery method and why? Convenience? Cost? The major problem I can see is getting access to the data. I would need to give questionnaires to ECDL students, course providers and course leaders as well as possibly interviewing as well. Ideally it would be one organisation who use all the delivery methods so as to avoid the organisations approach being a factor. Not sure if many do this. I think I'll need to check with the BCS.

Dreams to weave

2005-02-09T13:50:00.000Z

The next task is to start planning an educational website. So, what to do? A site for language teaching? English? Polish?? Or maybe IT? Perhaps a combination of the two, an IT site for language learners or a site where learning English and IT go hand in hand? The key will be the delivery. It can't be loads of information with some behaviourist drill and practice exercises. It needs to encompass the concept of 'Invenio' - discovery, and be essentially constructivist with the learner in control as much as possible, with perhaps the site acting as scaffolding. It will also need to have a certain degree of interactivity. Not just point and click but real activity. However, that is easier said than done. True interactivity involves some form of communication between the user and the site and I'm not sure if my programming skills are up to that. A discussion forum would add interactivity but that requires a community and you can't manufacture a community for a site without driving traffic to it. PHP and MySQL? I think that's probably beyond the scope of this project. So, I'm planning to build an interactive site which enables users to discover English and IT in an environment which they have control. Hmmmm.... that shouldn't take long then.

Grammar a model for language?

2005-02-08T17:29:00.000Z

For one of my courses I was asked to look at the uses of modelling in my area of teaching. As I've spent the last few years attempting to teach English as a foreign language, I thought I'd look at grammar. On the face of it grammar should be the perfect model for language learning. Learn the model for sentence structure, pop in a few words and hey presto - language!

Here's a sentence structure for an English sentence.

Subject (S) + Verb (V) + Object (O) + Adverbial (A)

So.....

“The girl sang the song beautifully.”

..fits perfectly into our model. But what about...

“My cat teaches sausages on Wednesdays.”

It fits the model - but it means nothing. Unless you have a strange cat and a packet of highly intelligent sausages!

Then again, what about...

“Strong is Vader. Mind what you have learned. Save you it can"

This doesn't fit our model, but we can understand it and, more importantly, so could Luke Skywalker and he was thus able to save the universe.

Is language too complex to be modelled accurately by computers? Will chatterbots ever really be able hold convincing conversations? Should we bother? Should we not just talk to each other?

New Year ( well Chinese New Year anyway) New Blog.

2005-02-08T05:00:00.000Z

I doubt if anyone will be moved to read this blog as I Intend to use it as a means of compiling my thoughts during my MEd ICT course at a large university in North West England. Best not say where in case any 'pointy hairs' or Waterstone's management find out. However, if you are reading - Hello! The info here will be about the use of IT in education - I think ICT is such a crap term. A symbol of how education prides itself on being out of step with the rest of the world. Most of the stuff will be about the Internet, databases, modelling and language teaching. I'll probably also moan about how hard life is as a student, having to be at lectures by 10am - three times a week. "Oh the hardship" I hear you cry.