BETT 2007

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?

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....

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

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

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

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

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.

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!

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.”

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..

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

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?

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.

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.