Adelaide, Education and Life

The Future of Education - the Horizon Project Retreat

2012-01-28T15:08:00.004+10:30

During this past week about one hundred past members of Horizon Report Advisory Boards from approximately 20 countries gathered to examine the future of education to celebrate the 10^th anniversary of the Horizon Report. As you can imagine a staggering number of perpectives were shared and documented over the 2 days and much of it will be publicly available soon. I just need to get down my thoughts on this event before too much time passes.

THE OVERWHELMINGLY OBVIOUS

On the second day the group spent some time sharing what trends we thought were operating on the current educational landscape. Just a glance at some of these trends tells me it is obvious that most of them (I'd say about 80%) fundamentally challenge the current structures and processes of educational organisations. For example,

emphasis on openness – open resources, open styles of management, open processes, open courses – the list goes on. Most organisations are a far cry from being open in any of these senses of openness, and in fact are positively threatened by the notion of openness.
Collective and collaborative (networked) approaches to decision making, lesson planning, resource creation, professional development, etc that reach out beyond the borders of organisations as opposed to the in-house, closed, top down method of management and teaching that characterises many workplaces.
Personalisation of learning: the growth of informal learning, students planning their own suite of courses/skills, decreased emphasis on whole qualifications, proliferation of tech devices and desire to use them on campus.

I could go on but the point is this:

Management

It is educational management and administrators who need to be made aware of these trends as a group. (Not only teaching staff.) People who make the decisions (as Bryan Alexander put it – those with power) should be given the chance of discussing the implications of these trends, and consider their response. This is what to me is OVERWHELMINGLY OBVIOUS – these people must see this information.

In my own work context, I have grave doubts if it is even possible to assemble all the stakeholders at one time, but nonetheless this information needs to be disseminated so managers and bureaucrats are informed at least. (Knowledge is power.)

Neutrality

On the first evening of the retreat we were asked to share what aspects of working on previous Horizon Report Advisory Boards we had found valuable. I said that I had been surprised, pleasantly, that the approach in assembling the reports was a neutral one. It was not a compilation of technologies and trends that has been pushed or advocated by anyone – it was simply a report on what a particular advisory board had thought to be true at the time.

There seemed to be a feeling from some present at the retreat that HR advisory boards, as a result of their deliberations and discussions on technologies of the future, should be advocates of change in their educational communities in the name of the Horizon Report. I'm not sure if this would be wise. Such a 'political' leaning towards a position of advocating change could compromise the results of the HRs. It may compromise its neutrality.

Making recommendations that change may be needed in the light of the data from HRs makes perfect sense. That is, educators can be urged, sensibly, to prepare for the changes ahead, but any activity that sniffs of a HR advisory board being advocates of wholesale systemic change runs the risk of them being seen as a group that finds trends to support beliefs they already have.

The Process

It was always going to be difficult to get the voices of all participants heard. The facilitation was excellent – David Sibbet's graphic facilitation was superb – but as one who felt unable to contribute to the whole group sessions I feel compelled to comment. I'd venture that about 30% of participants did not offer any comment in the whole group sessions, and there were many of them. Without going into the reasons why, I learnt years ago that in groups of more than 4 or 5 I become a passive listener. This is classic introvert behaviour. I am not shy. I will quite happily do a conference presentation to 200 people, but ways need to be explored to give the introverts more say. I was a lot more vocal in smaller group discussions, but these too sometimes became too large for meaningful input from everyone.

The following may help:

More sticky notes types of activities where ideas are written down then shared. (Thiagi is a wonderful resource for such strategies.)
more smaller group activities
identified and/or trained facilitators in the group discussions

Still, a wonderful event, and it was a great privilege to be part of it. Stay tuned for more as the data shared at this retreat gets posted in the coming days.

Bad Management

2011-12-17T00:45:00.003+10:30

SCENARIO

Government wants workgroups to save money and cut excess staff.

Workgroup sees it as a good opportunity to cut under performing staff and submit model of a process to be followed

Human Resources (HR) reject the workgroup process and implement one of their own.

Result: several better performing staff are culled from the workgroup leaving an inferior workgroup. Under performing staff are still employed!

Equals BAD management :(

Wouldn't it be nice....

2011-12-11T23:36:00.004+10:30

Wouldn't it be nice if you worked for an organisation that:

Crowd-sourced ideas on how to implement change and find solutions to externally imposed imperatives
Used flat organisation wide communication tools like Yammer
Flattened the hierarchical nature of bureaucratic structures
Trusted the wisdom of colleagues and peers
Operated within a culture of trust
Openly shared content between and within the various arms of the organisation
Offered staff opportunities to expand business rather than just constantly asking them to cut costs
Had managers that showed educational leadership and modelled the use of elearning and social media tools
Respected and supported individuals who choose to use their own preferred technologies to conduct their business
Acknowledged that it is no longer a world where one size fits all
Encouraged shared decision making at all levels of the organisation
Had employees that spoke up honestly and respectfully about ideas imposed from the top which they know will not work
Had teachers who stood up for what they know to be sound teaching practice, and refused to do things that interfere with their ability to be good teachers
Encouraged teaching rather than training and focused on producing good citizens of society rather than workers in an economy.

Unedited Notes from !DEA11 Conference (Melbourne)

2011-12-01T21:34:00.007+10:30

KEYNOTE PANEL (30/11/11) – Challenges and Ops in ICT in Ed

Tony Cook (DEEWR)

Matt Farmer (DEECD – Vic)

Challenges – there are none ;) technolgies can do everything

reaching the end of the age of predicatability
by the time we implement our plan it won't be needed anymore (we take too long!)
language: we need to be in conversations, not lectures; a test for tech: how will this X tech to have a better conversation?

Greg Whitby

look after the present and the future will take care of itself
only one skill matters: learning and re-learning
to change a culture you have to stand in it (the tech culture)

mobility (bring down the walls); integrate
“teachers teach”
we need professional learning networks
desperate need for good OL teachers; “teachers as pedagogical designers”
even the poor have mobiles; personalised learning will kill the dig divide

Learning Futures

3 anchors:

1)diversity – there is no one size fits all
2)learning/teaching (student/teacher/content - Elmore)
3)cloud

“mutate or get out of the way”

copyright, ownership etc is playing catch up in a world that has moved on
write up strategic plans at the end of the year!!!!!!; 5 yr plans are gone forever

Learning Futures – Seizing the Moment

Anne Mirtschin (Hawkesdale P12 College, Vic)

great Net activities with kids in rural school; links kids worldwide, brings in experts eg NY author on story writing

Mike Seyfang

seize the day has become seize the moment; be agile;
#qantasluxury – what to learn?
What do we do from an institutional perspective?

Howard Errey

smart phones, ipads > cloud (circumvents IT/helpdesk)
provide structured support for those moving into the 'new world'

“mutate”! (Whitby)

Why are we so obsessed about changing people who aren't interested????
libraries shd be into collecting info not just 'giving it out'.......

Larry Johnson (NMC)

check key trends section of H/Report eg perceived value of innovation and creativity is increasing ***
Challenges: personalised learning not supported by current practice; inertia of the status quo ('the system')

“the network will change us” “change us” “is us” (aka Wesch); the network has come to represent freedom; is everywhere

3G is replacing the Internet; 71% of world phones have HTML compliant browsers.
Biggest users of mobile are in Asia
for grandchildren (eg Luc and Marcus) the Internet is air.
Make kids' jaws drop ;) ie magic! - “that's all that matters”; (what about Mike Wesch's view about the environment
?)

Susi Steigler – Peters (Gen Manager), Telstra

'change wedges' – seems like a clumsy phrase – 'fries with that wedge'? (or salad?)
learners love to personalise, collaborate, innovate (based on Telstra 'research')
suggests personalised learning pathways – sure, but can you do this for everyone???
Telstra can help broker a “New Education Architecture”

Cost!=s Larry J $100/day just to do his work!!!!!!

!DEA! - allocate a problem for each table!!!!; a la 35 Things - this would work better...(too much one way talk)

DAY 2

Rob Abel – IMS (interoperability made simple)

“If you don't make IT happen IT will happen to you.”

Yes Rob but - the tools outside the school are often better than the tools the school offers

ebooks are their own special category

Larry Fruth – School Interoperability Framework (SIF)

technology is always ahead of policy

Sean Casey – NBN: Broadband Driven Education

will take 9.5 yrs to roll out over the whole country
move from Physical > Digital
post > email
DVD > download
music > iTunes

Science 360 (app)
Google Art Project

school used to be centre of a child's social scene; often no more the case
NBN could enable 3D walk-through of a heart
online ed is a business
NBN obviously has great relevance for flexible learning – anytime/anywhere becomes more possible and better quality

EASSESSMENT STREAM

Darrall Thompson (UTS)

Anne Murchison does agreat job of 'front end' teaching, but got nervous about how she assessess...

Q: What do our assessment processes say about what we value?

Assessment has moved from content > capacity building; addresses a broader range of graduate attributes; ie away from marks > 'interpersonal operability'
ideally shd cross subject boundaries
UTS has developed assessment tool that teacher and student can use and compare; when students can see % (grade) they don't read comments!!
make criteria explicit

Owen O'Neill

many barriers are not technical
how to move people to 'high-stakes' assessment

Melanie Worrall

add 'intentionality' to your assessment processes (a la Nancy White)

Delia Browne

p2pu – peer to peer university http://p2pu.org/en/
social, personal, dynamic, creative – domains of assessment
trying use of badges to verify/validate assessment/achievement
wd be interesting to design a course here WITH participants
are using funding from Hewlitt foundation

[put CC badge on bottom of every slide ***]
people are getting jobs after doing p2pu courses
they are happy for orgs to be involved

OPENING UP LEARNING CONTENT

Martin Dean (Pearson)

students expect to be able to remix/repurpose – so what are Pearson to enable this treatment of content???

Delia Browne – Open Education Resources

30% of the planet are under 15; student uni numbers will peak in 2025; (we will need 4 new unis/wk for the next 15 years to cater for these numbers!!!!!)

[Creative Commons for Educators – guide[check]; http://www.smartcopying.edu.au/scw/Jahia/lang/en/scw/go/pid/956

Helen Lynch – User Generated Content

ugc = homework/assignments !!
Open resources sometimes get used in a manner that was not originally instended

MAKING CONTENT DISCOVERABLE

AUSTRALIAN CURRICULUM CONNECT (Robert Randall)

site has diff points of entry depending on type of student, subject, type of school, etc; parents for example could check what their child is doing in yr 1

DAY 3

DESIGNING FUTURE LEARNING SPACES (REAL AND VIRTUAL)

Phil Long (UQ)

learing is regulated by biology and ecology; learning = development
Amazon now sell more ebooks than print

“active learing spaces”
non-formal learning spaces are critical
redesign to make group work in large spaces
there's a need for theory building – we are not sure yet what works
how do shapes reflect what teacher believes? - some of which are outside!

Many design firms include anthropologists on design teams (cf Mike Wesch)
#learningspacedesign on Flickr (4000 images)

Lee Sanderson (Blair Athol Birth to Yr 7 School)

“campfires in cyberspace” (Book by David Thornburg)
calling classrooms 'studios'/learning commons/piazza/watering hole/cave/mountain top
they are using the Khan Academy!!; call teachers 'learning advisers' (?)
contemplating smart tables; using Xbox ad Kinect for Phys Ed and Music
encouraging literacy with multiple devices
Studywiz is their LMS
think about the Qantas Lounge model.....
[check Apples iweb] [maybe see if she would like to do an interview for SIT?]
what about exploiting outdoor learningspaces via landscaping etc?

Pauline Farrell (Box Hill)

StudentWeb (designed by students) – includes Moodle (customised), epfs (Mahara), t/tables, results, how to connect with each other – integration and simplification were critical – nothing too fancy; worked from student wishlist

228 training sessions in 3 months – to give teachers 'love' while you stole their stuff and put it into a repository (Equella?)

StudentWeb allows tracking of learning analytics for each student!!
GPS Learing Pathways ????
refers to Learning Styles :( for each teaching area; shd be learning preferences
have 7000 students using epfs
test each student's digital literacy!!

Jo Dane (Woods Bagot Architects)

lecture theatres are 1600 yrs old!; at that time only the teacher had the knowledge!! so lecture theatres were approriate
'flipped classrooms' – lecture at home; activity in classrooms
other spaces could be capsules, booths, kiosk (scanning, uploading, recharging)

Justine Isard – MyLearning

before we start knocking down the walls....
21c learning spaces favour boys because 1) tend to preference active learning 2) include greater use of technology
if you don't consult about changes people feel disconnected from the changes and will resist it (as is happening with the intro of the Skills for All in TAFE SA at the moment!!; though people in charge of the implementation will argue that there has been consultation.)
advocates keeping the LRCs!!! - they are quiet communal spaces, and is where the info experts are

[check YT video on 'The Twitter Experiment']

RAMONA PIERSON (Promethean)

it's hard to learn to see again
if you consider the mobile as the primary device there is no dig divide
students are cognitively diff to adults (??) rewired?
Can you make technologies do what you want, or are you a victim of it?
OECD countrries have tripled expenditure on ed but outcomes stagnant; reason – focus on 'book learning'?
Edu trends driven by crisis – do more with less, dig content revolution, employability readiness
PARADIGM SHIFT:
schools are adjusting to needs of students (rather than the opposite)
creators to curators
personalised learning

next generation will need to leverage the cloud – ie share not hide

you learn best at the point/moment of failure!

SHIRLEY ALEXANDER (UTS)

Learning Futures: where to from here?

Each new ed tech makes similar claim – self paced, student centred, ete etc; but in essence it hasn't really changed
NBN – will that make the difference??
predicts that 5 yrs on funding will be outcome based
current students are time poor (eg working); they grab moments of learning eg 10 mins on mobile device; degrees taking much longer to be completed
student attendance at lectures decreases over the course of semester!

Stanford's MOOC model a little diff from MIT ie students can do exam [check further]

refers to data analytics [ compare with learning analytics]

PHOTOS FROM THIS EVENT

Distance Students - Options for Self-Assessment

2011-11-07T22:26:00.005+10:30

AUDIO

Phone blogging tools can be a useful way for students to post regular audio reflections. The one below uses Hipcast (a paid service).

Other free options for audio are ipadio, and Audioboo, which is used via a smartphone app.

VIDEO

Options for using video include:

iPhone or other smart phone as the camera:

POV Technology

Other Portable Video Recorders such as Flipcam:

The Wonderful World of Flickr

2011-08-21T23:09:00.003+09:30

Because I have suggested that an online facilitation group have a look at my blog I thought I'd better post something! So - just a couple of resources:

1) a video I created recently about how to find Creative Commons images using Flickr, and

2) an older more general resource about Teaching with Flickr.

My Flickr site.

ED-MEDIA (Lisbon); Moodle Moot (Sydney)

2011-07-22T22:44:00.010+09:30

I’ve been a-wandering quite a bit later, and along the way there have been 2 conferences – the ED-MEDIA Conference in Lisbon, and the annual Australian Moodle Moot in Sydney. Having been in the elearning game for 14 years now it gets harder and harder to learn much from the average conference presentation. I go mostly for the keynotes. Two of the keynotes at ED-MEDIA were excellent.

George Siemens was there heading the research stream, and as ever, George presents new perspectives. It is the fourth time I have heard him speak now and he always has something new to say, unlike some keynote speakers who can present basically the same thing years apart.

George's presentation was aimed at researchers and how they might use the open web and social networking tools. He asked how do you get greater impact: publishing on YouTube a la Mike Wesch, or via the traditional means and publish in journals? He acknowledged that for younger academics still establishing their reputation and tenure, it might be unwise to go down the Mike Wesch route, but older established academics could follow the lead of people like Terry Anderson from Athabasca who will only publish in open journals.

He added that if you want to increase your profile then the information that shows up about a researcher on a general Google search is more important than the 'academic you' that is uncovered by a search on Google Scholar. He added that the profile that he himself now enjoys began by blogging

Another really engaging session was from Alan Law from the Open University UK. He replaced Denise Kirkpatrick who had double booked, but it actually wouldn’t have mattered who had done the presentation – it was more about the wonderful work the Open U does and it left me thinking how much I’d like to work for them. Such simple and engaging ideas. Eg entertaining animated cartoons on YouTube about lying that outlines the various philosophical standpoints one can take in relation to telling lies with a strategically placed ‘would you like to know more “ link close by that whizzes you off to the further info and enrolment pages for their philosophy courses. Smart.

There are no entry requirements for OU courses and still they manage to be among the top 5 unis in the UK for successful outcomes, and for research. Quite a remarkable success story.

Another initiative that really appealed to me was their iSpot program. Designed to get people interested and form communities of practice around local flora and fauna by photographing relevant subjects and posting to the iSpot site, it coincides with my new obsession for taking photographs and sharing them on Flickr. They are looking to expand the program beyond the UK, and perhaps beyond just flora and fauna, so I will be keeping an eye out for this in my neighbourhood.

Alec Couros was also on the keynote bill. I had heard Alec talk online before so I knew he’d be good, and he was. But I did find myself thinking that I knew several people who could do the job just as well but who don’t have the profile. And they’d be much cheaper. [Please see comments below for more on this.] I don’t think he made a convincing case to support his keynote title either – Why Networked Learning Matters. His summary slide seemed to consist mainly of loaded statements that are easily contested. Eg networked learning promotes ‘open access’ and have ‘high impact’. Whether I agree or not is not the point – offering open access as a reason for networked learning just describes it; it doesn’t explain why it is a ‘good thing’ or why it matters. Someone could just easily read that open access is connected to networked learning and conclude that it is not what they or their students want. “High impact”? On whom? Or what?

Another example – courses become ‘shared, non-local, learning events.” Again, this is a description, not an argument for why it matters.

Another person I saw present was Bert Kimura. I worked with Bert a few times in the early days of the TCC online conferences out of Hawaii, of which Bert is the pioneer, so it was good to share the same physical space with him.

Bert and team were reporting on a project that looked at Cross-Cultural Collaboration using video and social networking. Interesting to hear about, but like so many presentations from Higher Ed folks that report on research it was based on a very small number of participants that doesn’t allow anyone to make any valid conclusions about its usefulness for bigger numbers of students.

MOODLE MOOT

In contrast the keynote speakers at this year’s Moodle Moot were disappointing for me. For Mary Cooch (the keynote on day 1) however, the Twitter stream apparently was in general very appreciative. Somewhere between 70 and 90% of delegates were attending their first Moodle Moot (this was the third) and it could be that a great majority of those first time attenders are reasonably new to elearning. For them Mary’s address may well have been right on the mark.

It’s interesting after a conference to simply see what you remember what was of value without referring to any written notes. In this case just 2 things stand out:

1) Mark Drechsler from NetSpot’s excellent session on the new approach to files in Moodle 2.0 (No longer any central file manager; files will need to be stored in a Content Management System [CMS] like Equella, or Alfresco [OS], or elsewhere in the cloud.

2) The fact that several organisations have installed Big Blue Button on local servers and are supporting it to become the Open Source alternative to dear departed Elluminate which has been sadly bought by Blackboard. (I thought the moment that Elluminate went t o the dark side that one of the positive outcomes from this would be that an OS product would grab the chance and seize the mass market deserting Elluminate. It would be nice to see a mature OS virtual classroom product integrate with Moodle. It will happen. It’s just a matter of time. And it could well be Big Blue Button.)

There was much more but that's all I have time for right now :)

Final Week of Facilitation Course

2011-06-13T17:07:00.007+09:30

Well here we are at the final week already! It’s been a valuable experience for me so far, and I get the impression that it’s also been valuable for many of you. You’ll get the chance later in the week to share your opinions about the course via an evaluation.

Hopefully this week’s activity will round the course off neatly.

HOSTED EVENTS

The main focus for this week will be the 5 hosted events:

Tuesday, 14/6 at 12.30 in Centra (Trisha D) The Garnaut Report
Tuesday, 14/6 at 8.00 pm in Centra (Rob Beckett) Reading and Interpreting Plans
Wednesday, 15/6 at 8.00 pm in Moodle Text Chat (Tania M) Fleas!
Thursday, 16/6 at 4.00 in Centra. (Shirley E) How to start a Conversation
Thursday, 16/6 at 8.00 pm in Centra (Peter D) Using the Break Out Tool in Centra

As I wrote before, please do your very best to attend as many of these events as you can. The more participants there are in an event, the more authentic the facilitation experience for event ‘hosts’.

VOLUNTEERS?

Ideally two tasks from last week need to be summarised:

The wiki discussion on the Critical Factors that influence your blended learning model needs to be condensed into an annotated list of dot points that we can take away as a resource.
The excellent Facebook discussion needs to be summarised.

Any takers? No one is obliged to do this of course, but you might also like to consider this strategy with students to offer extra credit or bonus marks or some other incentive to take on leadership roles. It may be appropriate for some kinds of courses.

BLOGGING

In the promo for this course it mentioned that you would get some awareness of the issues involved around facilitating blogs. So:

The Moodle Blogging Tool – universal opinion is that it’s a pretty dreadful excuse for a blog. It has two big problems:

Whatever you write in it can be seen by everyone on this Moodle (ie everyone across TAFE SA)
It has no comments feature – an essential component of a ‘proper’ blog.

Apparently the blogging tool in Moodle 2.0 will be infinitely better.

In the meantime if you’d like to try it just begin by selecting Add New Entry from the Blog Menu on the right hand site of our Moodle site.

Other Blogs

To get an idea of other blogs you might like to check my average effort at http://mikecogh.blogspot.com/

There are thousands of educational blogs. Some I look at occasionally are:

The easiest place to set up a blog is Blogger (blogger.com) , though many educational bloggers use

http://edu.blogs.com/edublogs/http://edublogs.org/

Why not have a go at setting one up? If you do be sure to let us know where we can find it.

PORTFOLIOS

Any spare time you have this week can be spent working on your portfolios. (Note: those who host events are not required to submit a portfolio, but are very welcome to if you’d like some feedback on what you’ve learned from the course.)

I won’t repeat everything I wrote in the Announcements forum last week – go there to read information about content and the format of your portfolio. (http://moodle.tafesa.edu.au/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=21893)

EVALUATION

As mentioned above, an evaluation tool will be available towards the end of the week.

Good luck to everyone hosting events this week. See you all in there!

Blogging from Phone Using Blogger

2011-05-12T10:46:00.000+09:30

Let's see. Text here and will try to attach image.

Leaving Penang Behind

2011-05-12T10:24:00.000+09:30

Leaving Penang Behind, a photo by mikecogh on Flickr.

Leaving Penang on Air Asia last week. Penang was wonderful - has the opportunity of presenting itself as an example of 'old Asia' that other cities have lost. Parts of it could be World Heritage listed.

Guitar Hands

2011-04-07T20:39:00.001+09:30

Guitar Hands, a photo by mikecogh on Flickr.

Testing the long forgotten Flickr to Blogger link. Shot taken a few weeks ago during lovely afternoon of music in the Adelaide Hills.

Placeholder Post - iPads for Learning

2011-04-07T16:30:00.002+09:30

Go on over to Podding Downunder's latest episode to hear more

Global Learn Conference (Melbourne, March 2011) - Notes

2011-04-05T21:54:00.010+09:30

GLOBAL LEARN ASIA-PACIFIC CONFERENCE (29/3/11- 1/4/11)

Keynote: Rick Bennett (College of Fine Arts, Uni of NSW; Omnium

College of Fine Arts have 30 online courses, incl complete Masters degree
Collaboration not always the solution: “Group work can hinder the creative process.” (Paul Rand)
Cautionary tale: spent a fortune developing software but couldn’t sell it due to the rise of the FOSS (free and open source) movement

Outreach Program:

Kenya
brainstormed with students and via liaison overseas how to design materials for people in developing world to be more aware of diseases like malaria – children’s games, flash cards, stickers, football jumpers

Philippines:
• worked with students and women in Philippines to create an installation of embroidery panels for a wall at Manila Uni
• worked with student s and women who collect paper rubbish in Manila to create a paper flower display; display is now in Sydney Botanical garden.

(photos of these projects)

These projects came to fruition by using collaborative tools between students and people in other courses, and key people in developing countries

Note: all of this was achieved by creating an outside of organisation body (Onmium) and without asking permission of the university.
[Can you work with your class to do projects that benefit the local community?]

ASSESSMENT AND TEACHING OF 21ST CENTURY SKILLS
(Jon Price, Intel Corporation, USA; Patrick Griffin, The University of Melbourne, Australia; Martina Roth, Intel Corporation, Germany)

Shift from manual skills > critical thinking and collaborative practices in workplaces
Project examined the topics with the following broad headings:
WAYS OF THINKING
WAYS OF WORKING
WAYS OF LIVING
TOOLS FOR WORKING (see image)
Specific skills noted (and these sound very much like the Employability Skills); all linked to production, consumption, and distribution of information ie not physical products
Collaboration, problem solving, creative thinking, communication, networking (social) – learning through digital community (there was a reluctance to use the phrase social networking; critical thinking, adaptability, self-management, self-development, ‘systems thinking’

There has been an increase of abstract tasks in workplaces, and corresponding decrease of routine/manual tasks as much of that (eg manufacturing) has gone off shore

Project is working on metrics to measure these 21c skills eg Collaborative problem solving involves social and cognitive skills – and these can be broken down even further

Also working on how games can assist in developing and assessing collaborative skills

MASS POVERTY AND THE ICT REVOLUTION (Marika Vicziamy)

Told 4 interesting stories that had obvious conclusion: technology alone will not alleviate poverty; it is more a consequence of ritual hierarchy – this is what has to be addressed; not just technological access

Interesting case study (story) of how beauticians and Tiffin carriers in India were increasing work and income with the use of mobiles; AND how the lead boy in the famous ‘hole in the wall computer’ story is still living in poverty

YOUNG PEOPLE AND THE NET (Luciano Pangrazio, University of Melbourne)

Habitus: how an individual interlocks with elements of society, OR ‘learning the rules of the game’

Merspi - http://merspi.com.au/ “ a social learning hubfor the VCE community to ask questions, answer them and learn – regardless of VCE subjects or schools” (Victoria)

Neopets http://www.neopets.com/: 180 million users; aimed at kids and encourages them to spend real money

Identifies 3 kinds of young Net user:
1. The overawed consumer
2. Bricoleur (remixer; person who creates from multiple sources)
3. Deconstructionist – this is what we need to assist people to do: deconstruct the medium, know what and how operates on us, and reconstruct it. √√√

LIFE AT THE INTERFACE (Cathy Adams, Uni of Alberta)

Based on phenomenology
[Ref: Natural Born Cyborgs, Andy Clark

Metaxu: in between-ness (ie media); both divides and allows connection)
Diaphanous: see throughed-ness (transparent)

When one writes on a chalkboard the hand disappears

SECONDARY TEACHERS USE OF NEW MEDIA IN AN AGE OF ACCOUNTABILITY (Nicola Johnson, Monash Uni)

Very early stages of this research; someone should do equivalent research for VET

VOICETHREAD PRESENTATION (Henrik Pallos, Kanazawa University, Japan; Linh Pallos, Doshisha University, Japan)

The approach taken here – moving people from anonymous feedback to real and f2f could be used to combat the f2f fear of expressing opinions identified by Turkle.

THE SOCIAL NETWORKED TEACHER (Valère Awouters, Ruben Jans, Sebastiaan Jans & Andy Veltjen, Limburg Catholic University College, Belgium)

Stressed the acquisition of 21st c skills via social networking, but argued that books and other tools need to be used
A large part of what will make web 3.0 different will be 3D (with emphasis on co-creation)

Issue: should teachers be friends with students on Facebook? Can you assess a ‘friend’ on FB? IMO – yes. I used to have students write journals in pre-Nehttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gift days, and they were often v personal. Besides, FB ‘friends’ are not really friends – they are something else.

KEYNOTE: GILLY SALMON - AUSTRALIAN DIGITAL FUTURES INSTITUTE

future's institute is about creating a preferred future based on openness, mobility, digital communities
based on the Tree of Life metaphor <=> Tree of Learning (includes technoshine over it all)

check the OTTER Project

rise of informal learning will threaten existing structures
some European unis have been in the same place doing the same thing for 1000 yrs (Cambridge, Oxford, Bologna)

"The aims of wide access, high quality and low cost are not achievable... with traditional models”

“the educated end up beautifully equipped for a world that does not exist” (Hoffer) http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/9843.Eric_Hoffer

"When it comes to change there are those who make it happen, watch what is happening, and wonder what happened"

Gilly's Predictions for the next year or so (or actually her avatar, Genevieve):

• learner voice, partnerships
• 3d + real world
• renaissance for voice – v/boards, podcasts
• OER
• greening of learning

ONLINE COMMUNITY (Sofia Pardo, ideasLAB, Australia; Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach, Powerful Learning Practice, USA)

used open source software called Pulse to code communications within the Community to track who was talking to whom
examined interaction in what they called 'public' and 'group' spaces

majority of conversations were on
• professional learning, and
• resources
• teaching and learning

'average members' happier and communicated more in private spaces
categories of conversations – sharing opinions, mentoring, guided advice, negotiation of meaning
interesting thing to do but I wonder whether the results are worth the effort???

AUTHENTIC ELEARNING IN A MULTICULTURAL CONTEXT – Jan Herrington et al

9 elements of authentic elearning (also book with Ron Oliver)

includes multiple roles/perspectives, reflection, articulation, coaching/scaffoldng

differences were more the result of the subjects studied rather than the country or culture

Western methods of processing knowledge are more text based than Eastern methods which rely more on knowledge visualisation

USE OF IPADS @DEAKIN: A STUDY OF LECTURER ENGAGEMENT (Dr Ferial Khaddage)

Central q: how did use of ipads enhance t and l?
Ipad apps being developed at a greater rate than iphone

Ed Apps

• Mental Note
• Audio Note: like Livescribe
• Kindle
• Penultimate: notes and email
• Pages: word processing + doc syncing

reaction of teaching staff is mixed

there are privacy and security issues – as it's w/less; cost and bandwidth

THURSDAY, MARCH 31st

KEYNOTE PANEL – WHAT WILL LEARNING LOOK LIKE IN 2020?

learning on the run, increase of individual agency <=> decrease of role of institution; it will be the future that we create

HOW HAS SOCIAL NETWORKING HAD AN IMPACT?

SN is driving creativity; young people have no patience – have to download/have it now; “video is the new text” (Prensky); Bonk: but we are reading more than ever (blogs, Twitter, Google Docs, etc); students have always used paralled systems (Gilly)

SHOULD ORGS BE LOOKING FOR INTERACTIVE TOOLS FOR PERSONALISING LEARNING V LMSs?

• New ways of mentoring/coaching? BUT...there are forces ranged against the new regime!!!! Students will opt for the alternative more flexible models, but this assumes that there will be alternatives!!! So...we need a Global Learn 'rebels conference' (Curt)

• do we 'work as a worm from the inside' to bring on change? Or do it as an 'other' or alternative operation?

• LMSs need to become more like Ning ie social networking tools

• (need to remember that much of the world has slow or unreliable Internet eg Indonesia)

UNPREDICTABLE FUTURE

Impact of increasing use of mobiles??

ipad is cheaper than the iphone!! Ipad is the cheapest tech Apple has produced – they are aware of the coming future cheap versions that will inevitably come from China

mobile (smart) phone is the tool that cuts across generations and cultures (Salmon)

ARE TECHNOLOGY AND EDUCATION BECOMING INSEPARABLE?

70-80% of what we learn is informal (Jay Cross); therefore only 20% of learning takes place inside institutions

technology raises issues that have been around for 40 years!

KEYNOTE PANEL – WHAT WILL LEARNING LOOK LIKE IN 2020? - Part 2

USQ offer lectures as just one of the delivery options for students
technology is an added layer; it offers another choice – it doesn't replace anything
students are driving the change, so do we give them what they want?

Gilly; when students were asked/surveyed via trad means about what they wanted their needs matched up with what policy was saying; when conducted using technology then answers were quite different!

Addressing E-Assessment Practices (Vanessa Chang – Curtin)

(mostly a lit review)

mod learning setting – stds feel empowered when they can collaborate and do self-directed activities . assessment tasks need to be redesigned accordingly (need to foster reflective learning, experiential and socio-cognitive learning – includes games and story telling

ALICE is still alive!!

Assessment Models

• evidence centred
• domain analysis
• domain modelling
• Conceptual Assessment Framework (ALICE uses this) – inncludes another 6 models
• CSCL: computer supported collaborative learning
• CMC
• wiki based CSCL

Intercultural Learning and SN (really just Facebook) (Jason Lee – Nanyang Uni, Singapore)

Digital Ethnography – examines status updates of 20 Malaysian students studying in the US
sycnh/asynch and private/public access – where does social media sit? (in the middle)
just examining status updates reveals a great deal of one students experience of the US
issue – privacy concerns about researching personal data

IMPROVING ELEARNING CAPABILITY (Clint Smith)

Models of Change Management that don’t work:
1. (e)tug trying to nudge the giant organisation in a new direction
2. Performance Improvement
3. BECTA Matrix (tool to get a snapshot of the use of technology within organisation
4. Strategic Gap Analysis (SWOT) – generate great data but too slow, bureaucratic and expensive
5. Teach the Teachers: “throw some tools at staff and hope that some will stick” ; can be called Immersion Therapy

What does work?

The No-Fuss Model (8-12 weeks to get up and running)
1) Get your bearings – what is elearning? What type of elearning do http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifwe need? What are we trying to achieve? What are the specific benefits?
2) Pick winners (a la GippsTAFE) ie courses that are more likely to work
3) Setting Up – what are the delivery options? What tools will we need? How long till we’re ready?

Note: Blanded Learning: putting notes online!
m-learning: as yet no discernible distinct pedagogy
Ref: Towards Maturity “to help you improve the impact of learning technologies at work”

What are the e-Advantages from a corporate point of view?
• Delivery to dispersed locations
• Reduction of costs
• Train more people in a shorter time
• Provides trail of evidence

Note: there is no reference to advantages for the learner!

What are the Knock Out Punches that will ensure success?
• Is there leadership and management support
• Do you have available materials?
• Are you able to get staff sufficiently skilled?

If the answer to any of these is NO then YOU ARE GOING THE WRONG WAY

Factors that ensure that training staff in elearning skills works:
• Management support (scored 67% in survey)
• Motivation (45%)
• Break things down into projects – focus on courses, NOT people processes

INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN AND WEB 2.0 (Daniel Light, Education Development Center, USA)

Based on 39 teachers over 2 years in schools
Teachers were using web 2.0 to
• Create a Learning community
• For meaningful communication betw teachers and students

Successful activities had:
1. Had a class blog (not individual blogs – students lacked motivation to maintain or read; also v concerned about who reads their work –happy for teacher to read individual blog but that’s all)
Daily practice
2. The Community is the audience and the audience matters
Students DID NOT want class work joined on Facebook. Reason: FB is about pretence and image; class work on the other hand was real!
3. Clear behavioural guidelines; f2f etiquette > online space

AUGMENTED REALITY (G. Jan Wilms, Union University, USA)

Check:

• Photosynth - http://photosynth.net/
• Hallmark Greeting Cards - http://www.hallmark.com/online/webcam-greetings.aspx

Educational:
• Larngear - http://www.larngeartech.com/
• Kinect: http://kinecthacks.net/kinect-skeleton-test/

The WOW Factor

2011-04-04T22:01:00.003+09:30

I was recently asked for my thoughts on the WOW factor in the field of educational technology and thought I'd record them here....

......my personal relationship with the WOW factor stems from a time several years ago when I came to believe that the WOW factor was very much underrated when attempting to engage people in educational technology. I was always hearing ' you can't let the technology' lead, and yet all my most exciting moments, and those I observed in others, where when that it is exactly what we did - we followed the technology FOR ITS OWN SAKE and discovered wonderful things! New avenues and new approaches to teaching would appear before us. The politically correct mantra of 'the pedagogy must determine what tools you use' does not take into account the magic of technology. Arthur Clarke once said, "Good technology is indistinguishable from magic, " and that's why its pull can be so powerful. Its WOW factor a source of wonder, joy and insight.

So for some years I have been urging people to ditch the politically correct mantra and let the technology, and its WOW factor lead. I have since learnt that my position can be described as technological determinism, and I have been enjoying descriptions of this and other philosophical positions on the role of technology in Personal Connections in the Digital Age by Nancy Baym. I am not sure of his exact position on this, but Philip Towndrow, an educational researcher in Singapore and a recent speaker at the Webheads Sunday sessions proclaimed "technology IS the context" within which educators in the developed world now work.

Now, for a more comprehensive treatment of related ideas go see Vance Steven's blog post from March 10th.

On the Way to Tom Ward

2011-03-04T16:53:00.003+10:30

TOM WARD REVIEW

Talk about bringing classical guitar to life. From the opening seconds Tom Ward launches himself on his beautiful battered guitar with energy, flourish, and gusto. A young man with a cheeky smile transforms into a deeply musical soul that skips effortlessly across centuries and cultures to bring us music from Spain, Italy, Russia and Japan, with some original interpretations thrown into an entertaining and eclectic mix. At times this is achingly beautiful music, and Tom plays it with his whole body – his head jerking back to add emphasis, sometimes almost resting on the curve of the guitar in slower parts, his graceful left hand stretching across frets and caressing the neck. And yet, amongst all of this artistry, he conveys a sense of fun and daring. “Pure gold” indeed. And were they holes in his guitar where a scratch plate would normally be??
Final Word: Superb

Mother, Wife and Complicated Life

2011-02-23T23:18:00.003+10:30

Mother, Wife and the Complicated Life is a wonderful production playing at the Star Theatre as part of the Adelaide Fringe. My review:

Two highlights of many in this wonderful show stand out – writer/composer Amity Dry shows a wisdom way beyond her years, and how natural it felt as a musical. No awkward moments in this production. The way the four women cast sing, relate and interact with each other in word and song just seems totally appropriate. The songs are great, there are lots of laughs, and the balance between poignant moments of love and despair, joy and frustration strikes just the right tone that mirrors ‘complicated life’. The connection between the cast and live musicians is palpable. There is so much to like about this show. Sentimental yes, but it doesn’t hide the fact that reality often bites. It is a female perspective on love, birth, kids and relationships but men – listen and learn! Highly recommended.

====================================

A song of mine on YouTube that attempts to cover the same territory about the duality of life.

The Audreys at the Adelaide Fringe (13/2/11)

2011-02-21T00:30:00.002+10:30

The Audreys – Sometimes the Stars @ Garden of Unearthly Delights - Spiegeltent

Sometimes the Stars is the title of their most recent CD, and features the two original Audreys, Taasha Coates and Tristan Goodall. Tristan spent most of the set on guitars playing delicious catchy licks while Taasha embellished the songs with a golden, pure voice. She also occasionally added a continental feel with the melodica (related to the accordion). They’ve won ARIA awards in the blues and roots categories, but for me (and I know what these labels mean can change over time) their lovely songs range freely over folk, pop, country, rock and jazz, with a strong emphasis on melody. About 45 minutes in I started to let the powerful emotional content of these songs wash over me and it felt good. Taasha sings from the soul, the songs are mostly gems, and there is a delightful chemistry between the two. Just wonderful.

What Can Education Learn from 20 20 Cricket?

2011-02-07T13:39:00.002+10:30

The Impact of Context

2011-02-04T15:56:00.003+10:30

I write here with gay abandon. I do correct spelling and try and make sure it reads clearly but as to the tone and the opinions being expressed I really don’t care. I shoot from the hip.

I just tried to compose a blog post for a new blog we’re starting at work and within seconds found myself struggling with questions like what the correct tone should be, what kind of impression will this create, will I be harming the reputation of my work team or the wider organisation? Is it OK if I express my own opinions, do these opinions represent those of the work team.....and a whole host of other concerns.

I had been quite keen on this idea of starting an elearning blog for our organisation but I’m now not so sure. Having to worry about these kinds of questions is a real downer. It gets in the way of almost every phrase – it this too informal? Is it creating an impression that is too casual? Etc etc. One could get quite neurotic about it. I guess it’s a separate skill – being able to understand the wider context and write in accordance with that brief. But right at this minute it feels quite limiting and I’d rather just write this instead!

(Creative Commons image courtesy of dibytes)

Recent Changes Camp, Canberra

2011-02-01T10:16:00.011+10:30

Hosted by the University of Canberra January 28th – 30th

Facilitator: Mark Dilley

Who else was there?

Why I wanted to be there? (video)

Wikis can be seen as a manifestation of the unconference or open space approach – people gather, craft an agenda together, and engage in the process of collective dialogue. Experts may be present, but they do not deliver sessions. Their contributions become part of the collective input in an organic process of knowledge creation.

WIKICULTURE - elements

90% of edits done by 10% of the people
wikis are the province of volunteers – people come and go; no reward or recognition
assumes good faith: people will add content of value and respect individual edits/editors
people need permission to act – this creates a participative culture
wikipedia started in 2001; the first known wiki was created in 1985
the content people v culture people: the content people don't care about the development of community; if there is meaningful community there'll be better content surely?

Should wikis be neutral? Ie descriptive only?

Wikis are more about process, not product; yet product is what we mostly concentrate on.

I hadn’t realised just how many large scale wikis there are. To name a few:
WIKIA (topic specific), WIKIPEDIA, WIKIBOOK, WIKIEDUCATOR, WIKIVERSITY, WIKIHOW, WIKISOURCE, WIKITRAVEL, APPROPEDIA (sustainability and international development) just to name a few.

KEY FACILITATION STRATEGIES IN WIKIS
Though this session was about facilitating wikis, these strategies are applicable to most online facilitation contexts.

awareness of emotional content
read between the lines of online text
don't just trust your own judgement - check or test your assumptions
assume good faith
identify when people get labelled and are therefore excluded from the system (this just escalates conflict)
acknowledge people who want to belong to the system
respect everyone
be comfortable with conflict
listen to all sides of the question
own your own reactions
develop trust

A really enjoyable and enlightening few days. As essentially an end user of large scale wikis, principally Wikipedia, I had not stopped to consider the huge and complex issues that need to be addressed by mostly volunteers working for nothing behind the scenes on wikis because they simply care about them. In this light it is extraordinary that large scale wikis like Wikipedia ever happened, let alone continue to work and grow. I tip my hat to them.

Rethinking Content Development - The Relationship Between Content and Innovation

2011-01-01T22:52:00.002+10:30

The Relationship Between Content and Innovation

View more webinars from michaelc.

eLearning10 (Sydney); Day 1 Wrap

2010-12-24T23:30:00.000+10:30

NOTES FROM EPORTFOLIOS AUSTRALIA CONFERENCE Melbourne, 3rd-4th November, 2010

2010-12-14T21:34:00.004+10:30

(Image CC licensed by theother66)

Just a month late but here they are. (Spoken summary over at Podding Downunder)

Tom Cochrane

• there are political and socio-political drivers; several revolving around quality
• issues around retention
• recording competencies
• massification??- opposite to individualism, give students a chance to record/document their experience, that they had value, generated a sense of intimacy, relevance, durability – (this makes sense vis a vis the VET sector – not such a sense of massification)

Bret Eynon (LaGuardia Comm College) – High Impact Practices and the Integrative ePortfolio

• cc's in US use epfs less than higher ed, but increasing in all sectors
• the 'field' is growing; there is now a journal

Types

career/credential, learning, assessment- integrative includes all 3 of these aspects

epf can join personal and prof life plus community life
epf also a connecting tool – to other students, and to teaching staff

can be divided into 'working portfolio' where you add reflections and other data, and the public bit that is a final, edited version

(VET: the export from course to epf function is critical so the student does not have to reprocess/rewrite); eg each student involved in Cinderella this morning (E's class) would record something of their experience and use it/retain it for assessment, and beyond

clash with epf best practice with (again and as usual) organisational constraints

'epfs' have always been part of the deal for art and media students

LaGuardia data shows that epf activity has increased engagement and critical thinking, AND IMPROVE PASS RATES

(are the gains sufficient to disregard issues of proprietary tethering, universal tool for all, etc. Should it be mandated and a partic product endorsed???); are there students in Aust VET who don't have sufficient interest in learning? Or is the epf the tool to change that?

“Design backwards” to promote critical reflection
eportfolios are a disruptive technology – it does result in change #eac2010

BEVERLEY OLIVER (Curtin Uni)
Engaging Students for graduate employability

focus is moving towards evidence and outcomes of learning (yuk!)

how did I (we get our jobs??????)
employers don't need to look at epfs to give them value, because this is where you store info that you use in job apps and interviews

what gives you early professional success? (graduate employability)

(CLA = collegiate learning assessment; a new initiative)

Margaret G – Mahara Case Studies

her epf is several sections of her filing cabinet!

1) example 1 – CEMONS SKILLS CENTRE
Hairdressing – used POV; Mahara used with Google apps – Gahoodle!
Finding that spyglasses are too 'mobile' – prefer hand held cameras – thus losing POV perspective
students using epf for reflection
students love using media for evidence **

Streamfolio for storage of vids? http://www.streamfolio.com/

2) ICS Professionals (ICT) – online course run in Moodle

South Western Sydney Institute

using Mahara

learning the skills was a significant issue
also giving feedback in online environment; (presume t's had not done online courses, and were supporting f2f students in an OL environment ) *
again, hairdressing were participants
Gen Y are not necessarily tech savvy (except for Facebook)
all NSW TAFE students have access to Mahara sandpit

Created templates for students to use
epfs involves a PARADIGM SHIFT :)
Com Serv interested but have no time (!)

[If you have a learner who has stuff scattered all over the place do they need to 'join the program' and use the endorsed product?]

Chris Cowper – privacy and epfs

privacy – incompatible with the Net? Outdated? “Scott McNeally (Sun) ” - you have zero privacy anyway – get over it (10 yrs ago)
privacy is about control; you choose your friends (not ur relatives!); when to be alone, when to be intimate, etc

“The Great Risk Shift” - Jacob Hacker http://www.greatriskshift.com/

shift towards the individual
Aust has a plethora of orgs dedicated to privacy and safety of the individual

Privacy Possible?

15 – 18 yr olds just as worried about privacy as older people, but are more likely to disclose personal info than older folks (Zogby Poll) http://www.zogby.com/

intentional leaks by 3rd parties???? a la Wikileaks (Mahara, ELGG – really???)
new concept – Privacy by Design (PBD)
see http://www.trustguide.org/

Victor Callan Keynote

Lumps elearning, e-assessment and epfs in the same title – and asks about challenges??!!
Higher ed a step behind in responding to skills and approaches that industry wants

INNOVATION:

Generation and execution of good ideas - to make a diff, OR produce economic return

• Experimental, disruptive
• Connectedness, collaboration
• We need to be failure tolerant
• Because there WILL be failures!

80% of all innovation that has anything to do with org change fails

How do you make innovation stick?

• Quizzes are most dominant form of e-assessment, YET epfs are what VET practitioners want most!
• Need a plan (strategy), snr leadership support
• Business case
• Etc etc etc – V mentioned several other factors...put them all together abd you have something of an impossible, or at least, Herculean task!

Gordon Joyes (Uni of Nottingham)

JISC epf consultant 2007

JISC epf study director 2007 – 11

If epfs are such a good idea why don’t we see more evidence of them?

· “weak central influence on local pedagody”

· They are disruptive (again)

· Some orgs are using an epf process but not epfs

Barriers to implementation:

A range of processes to be understood

THRESHOLD CONCEPTS like

· Purpose

· Design of learning activities needs to change

· Process

Neither teachers nor students know how to do this!!

Represent troublesome knowledge

· Ownership

· disruptive

Refers to an epf ‘movement’!

Many employers and colleges don’t value epfs

Liz Smith (Engineering – Uni SA)

Assumed that entering students could cope easily with IT requirements:

· 98% have home Net access

· 90% comfortable with PCs

· 93% have Facebook account…BUT…

This did not translate to facility with epfs.

Began with wikis/blogs; graduated to Pebblepad (which had too many features, stds did not adapt well, GUI needs fast connection speed.

Feedback: “too much of a pain . I’d rather use MS Word!”:

Stds did not see the link betw epf, assessment, and life after uni…until

They switched to using a template and they found this much easier

Note: marking epfs takes longer than marking papers!

Test Pic

2010-12-07T22:15:00.001+10:30

Test Pic
Originally uploaded by mikecogh

Why I Post to Flickr

2010-12-01T23:52:00.003+10:30

“Sharing a photo by making it available online constitutes sharing even if no one ever looks at it.

This “frozen sharing” creates great potential value. Enormous databases of images, text, videos, and so on include many items that have never been looked at or read, but it costs little to keep those things available, and they may be useful to one person, years in the future. That tiny bit of value may seem too small to care about, but with two billion potential providers, and two billion potential users, tiny value times that scale is huge in aggregate. Much creative energy that was previously personal has acquired a shared component, even if only in frozen sharing. “

Clay Shirky, Cognitive Surplus

Thinking Deeply about the Shallows

2010-10-28T10:52:00.006+10:30

Presentation and discusssion based on ideas from Nicholas Carr's The Shallows, and Larry Sanger's Individual Knowledge in the Internet Age. Mobilizethis10 Conference, October 2010.

Thinking Deeply about the Shallows

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Audio from this session available under Friday's program list at http://mobilizethis.wikispaces.com/2010_Program

Batchelor Life :)

2010-10-25T16:24:00.003+10:30

Me suffering in the Northern Territory last week.

Notes from VET Teaching Conference

2010-06-08T21:07:00.006+09:30

NOTES FROM VET TEACHING CONFERENCE (Brisbane, May, 2010)

Kay Giles – No Two Days are the Same

Diversity leads to a degree ofgeneralisation – harder to be specific about what you do; goals of organizationbecome diffuse

“The illiterate of the 21^st century will be those who can't learn,unlearn, and relearn” (Toffler)

quality is a cultural concept. In the UK =reputation; for French, Italian = luxury; Japanese = setting a standard andachieving it; US = size (joke)

Australia: fit for purpose;relationships/trust

(at this point a reference came through on Twitter on the neutral nature of quality by Christopher Alexander, architect, but I can't find it :)

Notion of agility a better word/concept toreplace ‘flexibility’?

VET has a lot of offerings that are nolonger suiting customer/client need (eg 3 wk blocks)

[usevis as intermission! - should have related point though]

Keynote 2 Day 2: Assessment forLearning - Revitalising the Link Beween Assessment and Learning (Rob Stowell)

build a picture of competency

ask open questions – link to self-assessment

scaffold feedback piecemeal over time

Stages of Presentation

Quality Assessment

Relationship between T and L and assessment

Practical ideas for improving assessment inVET

– he has been looking at qualityassessment

Quality Assessment:

1) benchmarks (standards)

2) validity, reliability,fairness, flexibility

3) assessment decision based onevidence

4) quality assured

5) assessment an integral part ofthe t and l process; not separate

6) quality judgements (not sure what this means)

7) should be informed by practicebased research (ie not uni research!)

LEARNING: Deep v Surface

we need people with grasp of principles thatcan link them together

What kind of assessment leads to deeplearning?

1) builds on what learners know?

2) Approach that helps people'make meaning'

3) active and social

future assessment: will assist learnersdevelop capacity to make judgements/problem solve

Assessmentfor Learning requires that students:

understand the competency to be achieved

where they are in relation to the competency

how they can achieve the desired level

KEYNOTE DAY 2 : BeckySaunders (Murdoch Uni)

Contemporary VET Learning – Strategies for now and thefuture

[check Joyce and Showers Skill Training Model]

“people are where they are for good reasons” (the questions ofvalues!)

Concerns Based Adoption Model (CBAM)

Talked about what seems to be a wonderful PD model that runsfor over a year (can be up to 4 yrs!); focused on Instructional Intelligence (IT) [check Barrie Bennett –

Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto]

IT is about ‘how people learn’’ it has 2 aspects:

1) emotional

2) behavioural

it’s a career long journey!

It takes 3-5 yrs to embed systemic change, and this kind ofchange is messy and organic

Links with Appreciative Inquiry and Open Space Methodology

“who among you is willing to bell the cat?” ie challengeexisting structures and authority

TERRY O’HANLON (CEO of Australian Trade College – an independentnon-profit): International VET – Meeting Global Needs

TNE = Transnational engagement

- large increase in offshore VET students since2006

Philippines

Only 20% of HE students get jobs; 3000 people leave thePhilippines every day to work abroad

International VET programs mean people in developingcountries can do ‘Australian quality’ training for a fraction of the price; ieit’s affordable

All content for all their courses is online

AFTERNOON KEYNOTE DAY2 – TIGA BAYLES

“we’re hands –on people” (ie indigenous)

Study of a Study

2010-04-13T18:18:00.001+09:30

Study of a Study
Originally uploaded by mikecogh

Will this arrive in Twitter?

Notes from IDEA10 Conference

2010-03-13T22:04:00.003+10:30

IDEA10 Conference (Melbourne, 11/12 March, 2010)

Katrina Reynen (DEECD Innovation, Vic)

No longer acceptable to have 2 lessons plan – 1 for technology; 1 without

teachers still focusing on blockers that prevent them adopting technology

digital education is about bringing people into classroom – not about Blackboard, LMSs, etc

teachers have not yet made the pedagogical shift

consultants report that teachers learn from each other (more than other occupations?)

employability skills = skills you need to succeed in work, AND be happy in life!!! eg collaboration, teamwork, etc

“be the connectors” (the conduits!)

Dr Larry Fruth (SIF Association) [SIF = systems interoperability framework]

Emerging Technologies to Address the Information Generation

“the global need to address 'global citizenship'

the teachers are the digital divide (or at least the purveyors of it!); kids use the Internet when they get home, not at school

LEARNING DESIGN = PERSONAL + ENVIRONMENT + SOCIAL

technologies promote converesations about teaching that didn't occur before!

Gordon White – Shared Service (ACT) in response to Larry:

interested in getting each student a unique personal identifier (eg an ID number)

SESSION: What Technology do Teachers Want?

CHAIR: Dennis McNamara

Panellist 1: Andrew Douch (Wanganui Park Secondary College)

5 questions to ask when evaluating new tech?

1) does it save time? Or is it quick/

2) does it enable me to do anything I couldn't do before?

3) Can I just pick it up and use now?

4) Desire path (students go where they want to go) eg phones and Facebook are things students want to do anyway

5) ?

Which tools answer these 5 questions?

referred to kids being part of a learning community, but should that be 'network

Pannellist #2: Dr Shirley Reushle (USQ)

sees herself as both 'technologist' and teacher

does what teachers want reflect what students want?

teachers come with “diverse values and beliefs”

Teachers want tech that

• supports and enhance learing

• make job easier

• easy to use (intuitive?)

• stretch imagination

teachers want:

• time

• safe places to practice (sandpits)

• JIT learning

Panellist #3: Harriet Wakelam (eWorks)

“there is a casual disrespect for content” (quoting Frank Furedi)

despite new technolgies fundamental needs of students don't change

the job of technologies and systems people is done when everything is done and it works seamlessly in the background

Question: if you use web 2.0 how can you keep copies of stuff outside the web?

Are eportfolios the answer? As long as they all talk to each other (ie interoperability)

how do we convince the media and wider society of the value of an open approach?

“a good teacher leaves their ego at the door” (Shirley); “teachers need to loosen up a bit”

education is being democratised (Douch) cf From Blogs to Bombs; the nub of the problem: the locked down/centralised/controlled systems v individualised/personal/decentralised/democratised nature of much of today's web

There is no privay anymore (source of quote?) - we need now to deal with the new public nature of private lives.

RESPONSE TO ABOVE PANEL

Can what teachers want be built?

Michael Kirby-Lewis (UNSW)

UNSW has moved from single LMS focus with a 3-4 yr cycle; now multiple technologies and continuous adoption/evaluation; focus now on the pedagogical needs rather than the tool

You are never going to keep people happy with one solution (therefore should TAFESA keep Janison and Moodle???)

David Appleby (Westone)

Moodle in WA has been adopted by school teachers (Janison was resisted) because they don't need the whole course up at once, they want full control over their content- ability to edit and contextualise. (This is Moodle's greatest strength.)

How come Moodle has been successful?

* OS, uncontrolled, non-system approach
* OU (UK) spent several millions of dollars on it!!! ????

SESSION: WHAT INFRASTRUCTURE IS BEING BUILT?
CHAIR: Dr Nigel Ward

Rodney Spark (eWorks)

estandards: “realising the full potential of elearning”

estandards has aided the development of LORN stuff, Toolboxes, accessibility (still content based), mobile content

estandards in training doc: http://e-standards.flexiblelearning.net.au/docs/2008-commonly-used-elearning-apps-v1-0.pdf This is a diff kind of standard – having some agreement about a commonly used tools – not interoperability type standards.

Bruce Rigby (DEEC Vic)

Ultranet - http://www.education.vic.gov.au/management/ultranet/default.htm a student centred electronic learning environment that supports high quality learning and teaching, connects students, teachers and parents and enables efficient knowledge transfer. It will establish a schools environment for the future that improves the educational outcomes of all Victorians.

James Dalziel (Macquarie)

ALTC Exchange http://www.altcexchange.edu.au/

looking at how research data can be stored/categorised/tagged/described so it can be found quickly

Moodle has community around it – thousands of tech people are part of it; passionate community of teeachers contributing to an iterative process.

James' Concerns:

1) Connection with Web 2.0 and LMS/SSO will probably not happen

2) broad uptake of LORs still not there

3) lots of duplication of big bucks infrastructure projects

Desires:

1) have nationally hosted cloud of apps that teachers can try on demand

2) open content and CC – increased use of

Greg Black (formerly ed.au now Education Services Australia)

data shows that a very small percentage of teachers are actually using technolgies in a way that makes a difference

SESSION: IF IT IS BUILT WILL WE PLAY? (Chaired by Jerry Leeson)

Olivia O'Neill (Brighton Secondary School, SA)

* Brighton has wireless across the school!!
* moved from low risk behavour to high risk
* have eliminated IT Coordinator position
* have adopted 24/7 laptops for kids ($350/yr)
* have used Alan Noble (Mr Google Australia) create an LMS called Gee Whizz; incoporates curriculum, content, student management

Colin Warner (Glenn Waverley Secondary School)

use ICT to transform teaching and learning practice

video shown full of shots of students in front of computers – this will not help those who oppose this approach

“connectivity into the home” - ????

'3 strike rule' – if a teacher experiences 3 tech failures they're gone forever

SESSION: HARVESTING EDUCATIONAL FLORA

Panel Chair: Stuart Tait (Learning Fed)

Paula Bray (Powerhouse Museum)

* Use of Flickr; everything CC licensed; users create mash-ups; re-use (and notify the museum)- great example of the benefits of sharing/giving/OER approaches/CC licensing
* have learnt that one size does not fit all!! as applied to licensing and copyright!!

Liam Wyatt (Wikipedia) wittylama.com
Handing out Paints

* “if you handed out paints on the street there'd be a lot more painters'! And then if you ban painting then you'll have lift off!
* Use wikipedia as a starting point for your research, not an endpoint
* everything on wikipedia is royalty free

QUESTION: we have heard about the huge success of Moodle (OS), Wikipedia OS)l iTunes Ed Store (free), Flickr (free). Why bother with systems, interoperability, standards, when free or OS stuff is already out there and in use.

DAY 2

SESSION: International Perspectives on Interoperability

Chair: Greg Black

includes things like import/export portability of UGC

Dr Rob Abel (IMS Global Consortium)

Lowering the barriers for the Next Gen of Teaching and learning – Now

* in terms of LMSs we are at the bottom of the evolutionary tree
* new IMS base assumption – the cloud is basic infrastructure
* new approaches (Common Cartrideg, LTI, etc) enables importing oof content into LMS, and other applications like Facebook – as long as the platform supports LTI
* we need the 'app store of education; or the iTunes of ed?

Peter Croger (Croger Associates)

Why is interoperability important?

* Interoperability is about the ability to work together; it's about connecting and sharing
* tensions that need to be balanced (good slide – need to chase it)
* Amazon, Apple, Google etc are not interested in working with ed directly – they go direct to customer. So 'standards work' is operating in a world divorced from the really big players

REMOTE PRESENTATION EVOLVING LEARNING – Gilly Salmon

(facilitated by Prof Philip Candy, USQ)

- the 'tree of learning'; an accout of the history of learning; Erasmus was in a sense the father of pedagogy (“On the Method of the Study”)

– the oldest Tweeter is 104

* pic of japanese school bus (pcs on board) [check this slide!]
* this is an Age of Transition
* predicts a renaissance for voice – iTunes, voiceboards, podcasts

Evan Arthur: “the Internet is a standard”

SESSION: Reflections on Technology Impact

Preety Agarwal (Learning Fed)

Scootle – repository for school resources

James Dalziel – LAMS

* world's leading learning design system; 80+ countries
* offers list of pedagogical approaches and advice on how you might use them in practice (a 'Pedagogical Planner')

Peter Higgs (Tasmanian Polytechnic)

Sagrada Familia (Barcelona); began in 1883 and is still being built; open source (ie publicly funded) < > parallel with the standards movement

SESSION: SHARING OUTCOMES, EVIDENCE AND ASSESSMENT

Chair: Nick Nicholas

Dr John Ainley (ACER)

thinks students and teachers will adopt the CoP model for mutual learning and support (would be nice if this is true)

Allison Miller

VET: 3000 RTOs, 200 of which are TAFEs that deliver 80% of the training

myapp (UK): students have access to data shared betw training org and govt

Heather Watson (Learning Fed)

* driver: whole new cohort of students with diff expectations
* all of the new national curriculum will have potential to be delivered digitally

Is the infrastructure in place now to share this kind of information?

Heather: infrastructure exists to share resources (ie inputs), but not outputs? She says if teachers want good resources in a hurry that they do go to LORs......

Standards people do the work so we don't have to.

Things have to be designed so things can be changed at a moment's notice; so flexible standards! ( a contradiction in terms?)

NATIONAL DIRECTIONS FOR DIGITAL ED AND RESEARCH

Evan Arthur (DEEWR)

Reflections:

we are an enormously long way from 'being there'; ie daily and ongoing effective use of ICT in classrooms

the complexity of what we are trying to do

Work has to happen on standards because

1) ed is a collective activity (philosophical)

2) the only way we can achieve 'scale' (practical)

Rodney Sparks

2 themes:

1) evolution – things in state of constant change; towards what? How do we accommodate tech that doesn't exist yet?

2) Sharing – web 2.0 exploits human desire to share

Storytelling with Jon Bennett

2010-03-05T00:56:00.002+10:30

Jon Bennett – Storytelling with Jon Bennett
Sugar, Fri Feb 19th
More a sit down than a stand up comic, Jon Bennett declares that he has no jokes and that he will indeed just tell stories. True stories. Like that wonderful SBS program, Front Up, this show is testament to the fact that all our lives are full of stories that are worth telling, and that can make us laugh and cry. The knack is in the choosing of the detail to share and the timing and weight of events, and Jon Bennett has this knack in spades. A refreshing change to see someone not needing to perform or create an act, but rather just rely on their authentic experience of life to entertain others. Delightful stuff.
Final word: charming and laid back.

Single Admissions

2010-03-05T00:43:00.001+10:30

Lazy, Young and Talented - Single Admissions
Holden Street Theatres – The Studio, Sun Feb 28

I well remember the angst of the singles dating scene. Lazy, Young and Talented meet it head on. Not that they dwell on the angst. In fact these three young women have a lot of fun with it in a fast-moving dynamic piece of performance art. Playing themselves, mothers, aunties, competitors and casual acquaintances on the ‘slut bus’, they document the struggle of binge drinking, one night stands, looking for meaningful relationships, and the Facebook culture of false friends. Wonderful music and dance routines, and clever use of mobile clothes racks as windows and frames into a perplexing world. Loved the balance between the sad and the funny, the romantic and the raunchy. Great show.

FINAL WORD: Dynamic

Around the World on 80 Quid

2010-03-05T00:36:00.002+10:30

Aindrias, Around the World on 80 Quid
The Stables, Mon Mar 1

Irish Aindiras tells the tale of how he exploits his swarthy complexion while travelling the world from Ireland to Italy to cruise ship to Romania to Bangkok, imbibing vast quantities of alcohol and drugs as he goes. This frequently lands him in strife, and while his fiddle does sometimes get him out of trouble it’s amusing to hear how being pigeon-holed as an Irish fiddle player continually lands him in Irish pubs. His stories are neatly linked by music from the places he’s visited, and despite the fast paced delivery he has time to involve his audience in his adventures. Arriving in Australia finally affords him the opportunity of detoxing so he we all leave with the politically correct message!

FINAL WORD: Entertaining

Click Tease: Log on, Get Off

2010-03-05T00:33:00.002+10:30

Rebecca Meston, Click Tease: Log on, Get Off
Electric Light Hotel - Bartini, Wed Mar 3

This had to come – theatre that explores the boundaries between the online and offline self. The audience looks in voyeuristically, as if from the other side of a webcam, on the bedroom of Abbie, a cautious Gen Y woman played by Nikki Britton. Abbie creates Debbie89, her more vivacious online identity/avatar (played by Kate Skinner), to mediate racy interactions on Facebook et al. Amusing, beautifully crafted dialogues between her online and offline selves ultimately lead Abbie to an awkward face to face meeting with SlutboyJimmy (Ray Chong Nee), and the discovery that her real self is actually doing OK. Shut down the laptop, turn off your phone, and go and enjoy this entertaining and important new play.

FINAL WORD: Important

Tripping Switches

2010-03-05T00:30:00.002+10:30

Transition Theatre, Tripping Switches
Metropolitan Hotel, Tue Mar 2

A series of briefly profiled characters are superbly played by an outstanding cast. A surprise and appropriate beginning for a play about privacy in public spaces finds us on a tram where a chance encounter of commuters establishes a narrative that is interrupted by digs at authority and interviews with the police under the intrusive light of mobile phones – symbolic of a world where we are all at once so connected and so distant from each other. When do you say hello to strangers? When do you give your name? Ask someone’s name? Should one give money to beggars? Bystanders drawn into the offbeat behavior of strangers reveal frailties lurking just beneath the veneer of their public personas. Poignant. Entertaining. Amusing. Wonderful theatre.

FINAL WORD: Outstanding

iexist.com

2010-03-05T00:25:00.002+10:30

I Must Not Theatre, iexist.com
Holden Street Theatres – The Studio, Mon Feb 22

This short powerful work combines dialogue, mime, dance and music to delve into the lives of teenagers who spend much of their time online because they find the offline world too hard. It presents a series of scenes and images that alarm, amuse, and instruct, while creating a dream-like and often cacophonous world of online chatter where everyone talks at once. There are moments full of depth and tension – facing the prospect of real-life eye contact for the first time, and a superbly choreographed avatar sequence. A more light-hearted dance routine gives new meaning to the ipod shuffle. It might take a second or third viewing to unravel all the threads of this complex show, but it’s a strong, compelling piece of theatre.

En Route

2010-03-05T00:18:00.003+10:30

En Route, Adelaide CBD, Sun Feb 21

We don’t all have to be in the same time and place to share a similar experience. En Route participants are guided by SMS messages and clues in the physical environment in a treasure hunt like experience through city streets. As you listen to a wonderful selection of carefully chosen music you’ll find places you have never been (even if you’re local), and become immersed in a soundtrack that connects you to the places and people around you. Anyone who has ever questioned why people wander through life connected to an ipod should try En Route. This is a totally enthralling experience. You slowly become aware that you are part of the show – as both observer and participant. Cannot recommend this show highly enough.

Final Word: Brilliant

For more about En Route.

Is Feminism Dead for Gen Y?

2010-03-04T23:52:00.006+10:30

Note on the audio: I meant to say, "On the other hand, the theatre shows I have been to have been outstanding."

Best of the Fest Late Show
The Gov, Fri Feb 26

There was a misogynistic theme running through this show. Peter Berner rose above it. Daniel Townes told how he’d been accused of it. Carey Marx tried to obscure it with a sort of clever defence of using offensive language that was still in the end just offensive. Lindsay Webb’s opening line was “I can see your vagina” to a woman seated at the front - though he is skilled at building a funny set around audience interaction. It was the late show and much of the crowd were boozed, so any reference to sex or vaginas brought guaranteed laughs. There were funny moments, but Berner aside, this show would be a huge hit at local footy clubs - a sad indictment. Still, the crowd laughed uproariously all the way through.....

A Visual Portfolio?

2010-01-13T00:03:00.000+10:30

Ever Changing Flickr Badge

2010-01-07T11:32:00.000+10:30

A Few Summer Flip Thoughts

2010-01-07T00:44:00.003+10:30

The Sun Goes Down on 2009

2010-01-02T00:26:00.002+10:30

The Sun Goes Down on 2009
Originally uploaded by mikecogh

I initially refused to accept the invitation to join the Flickr 2009/365 photos pool. I thought there would be no way I could keep up with posting a photo a day. After a few days mulling it over I decided what the hell and launched into it. I can now say categorically that it was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made!

I had no idea what good would come from it. Over the course of this year, and because of my involvement in this project I have:

• Become a better photographer
• Opened my eyes to the world around me in a way I imagine children do naturally all the time, and in a way I can’t remember doing for a long long time
• Have enjoyed hundreds of photos from fellow group members
• Made many ‘Flickr friends’, as a result of sharing the minutiae of our daily lives
• Experienced the cycle of the seasons as I watched the photos change from summer to winter and back again over the course of the year
• really appreciated the support and tips from other group members
• used Flickr has a visual Twitter and more readily turned to Flickr rather than Twitter to know what was going on in my network
• eagerly looked forward to my daily walk with my camera to not only get needed exercise, but to take that daily photo
• learned so much about other places I have never seen
• Learned to look forward to every day as an opportunity to catch that special or unusual sight or moment
• Learned that images can connect people with very few words
• Learned that if I took the time to comment on others’ photos then people would reciprocate
• Eagerly Looked at Flickr every day for responses to my photos
• Become more assiduous with tagging and naming all photos

In short, I now appreciate the world around me more than I used to!

I would like to especially thank those who regularly dropped by my
stream, and offered me so much support and encouragement, and information about their lives. To name a few - @konarheim, @dibytes, @siavogel, @azmichelle, @carlaarena, @beedieu, @suehickton, @susanvg, @JanBran, @bgblogging, @windsordi, @lynnjake58, @loonyhiker, and @gibsongolfer. And of course Alan at @cogdogblog for getting this ball rolling in the first place!

I will stay on as a more passive member of 2010/365, and free myself from the commitment to post a photo a day. As much as I have loved it, it has been a significant time commitment that I would now like to allocate to other tasks. But I will be there peeking around at your pix :)

Thank you everyone so much. It has been an absolute privilege to be part of this project and part of your lives.

All the very best for 2010, and keep on Flickring. I will.

Notes from Australian VET eLearning Events (Nov/Dec 09)

2009-12-26T22:05:00.002+10:30

EDAYZ (SA)

Martin Westwell

• we are now answer rich and question poor
• socialisation has emerged as the primary reason fro using the Net, not information transmission
• violent games DO cause violent behaviour, but can develop 'attentional capacity’

Mark Drechsler (Netspot)

• Moodle partners contribute to the funding of Moodle
• BOOK Module allows printing of blocks of content

Nancy White

• In contrast to Communities, Networks more objectified; less about the persona; community more about ‘we’n, networks about ‘me’
• we need to create content or we'll miss out; we communicate because of content

Julian Ridden (Moodle)

• if there is no personal connection for student they will fail
• consider removing institution branding to maake students feel like its theirs!!

TASMANIA

Clint Smith - How to write an Innovations Application

1. sus out the funding body (what do they want out of it?)
2008-11: emphasis on increasing capacity to deliver, and delivering more courses
2. pick the right track (business partnerships, or empowering learners; about 50% funding in each)
business partnerships: you're delivering to employees; should build on an existing relationhip; often elearning 1.0 (ie not facilitated)
empowering learners: ie enrolled students; about embedding elearning in an RTO; extending market reach; usually facilitated learning ie not self-standing; should have a target group

• show you've done the r and d; that you’re ready to go, and have got the skills and a plan
• main outcome is a successful elearning delivery solution
• count e-posteriors (ie virtual bums on seats)
• state where this is leading

Tip 5 - Innovations : explain the change

could be business development OR delivery approaches (emphasis is more on business development)
Survey on why people did previous projects revealed that 57% were about developing content

Tip 6 Design - Provide an e-solution
(refer to Designing eLearning site) http://designing.flexiblelearning.net.au/
Types of Corporate learning
• self-paced
• informal learning

(conclusion - it will be a range of solutions with a variety of tools ie not a single solution)
most common form = blended and support (47%)
facilitated online quite rare (13%)

why add facilitation to elearning offerings?
• assessment
• gp learning
• support
• more motivating

Cathy Moore Workshop

don't state the obvious; get them to DO things
Check readability Indices in spellcheckers
aim for a readability index of around 65
use more verbs, shorter sentences, more people; use active rather than the passive voice
“happiness is boring?” - add people to the scenario and make them suffer!
Ideally use real-world stories

Brad Beach : Tips for Online Facilitation

• is the blended learning model the best model? Or just an excuse to just not do wholly online?
• Who has ever been through a course and neither the teacher nor students said a word?????? So - respond!

Online Community

• community or network? Me or we? Me more related to community
• when trying to work out what is good online practice Brad likes to think back to f2f situations as a reference point

Creating an engaging Discussion Topic

• begin with statement or summary
• ask a single question
• discussion topics in asynch forums more suited to debate rather than content or 'concept clarification' ; ie convergent or divergent thinking; convergent better in real time
Lurking
• even if it is your preferred learning style you should be challenged to try some other method
• a teacher would not allow someone to sit f2f silent for extended periods, so don't online either

WA

Central Institute of Tech (Jeremy Sorensen and ???)

See-Fit Project (not content creation)

• use technology to support trainees (metro and rural)
• used POV, real time OL vid assessment
• vid evidence can be transferred to other contexts (email, YouTube, DVD, etc) and can be used for auditors
• video exemplar - great idea; shows students exactly what is needed for assessment
(YouTube owns the copyright of uploaded content.)

Cyber Assessment (SW Regional TAFE)

Online workplace delivery and assessment; used Moodle, Elluminate and POV glasses, and SMS (no content creation as main focus, but Moodle courses were created in)

Building Studies
Childcare
Metal Trades
Science

Seems like a project where people learnt to teach online/study online, but I wonder how many teachers were involved?
SMS communication draws an immediate response from students! (unlike other channels)

Digital Dogging and Rigging (Sandra Downes) ) Great Southern TAFE

Used the Learning Table (approach) for RFID tags to trigger media

(seems to be content creation; albeit sexy content creation using cutting edge technology)

Sewing program also uses RFID tags for triggering videos

e-Compliance (Abby Chasen; from HBF)

• Gen Y unhappy with current training delivery; dispersed workforce
• not sure, but it's content creation!! boring content was put online (but she says it's interactive...)

VICTORIA

Andrew Douch - ICT Innovations at Secondary College in Victoria

• has won MS Innovative Teacher of the Year Award
• 2 changes in the world and they are converging
• to date, ed has emphasised the left brain (logical, sequential � Maths, Physics, English etc) > left brained careers (Doctor, lawyer etc) ie NOT actor, artist, musician etc
• rise of machinery (took over the role of human strength) and promoted knowledge economy
• here's the Gen Y 'need to be connected story again – is it true, or just a stereotypical view?
• uses MSN with his kids after hours
• use ipadio for phone blogging
• took 3 weeks for his biology podcast to reach #1 on iTunes! With no IT training or tech skills
• 1 minute of Andrew's time = hours for students ie many students can listen to podcast over and over
• simple audio (mp3 tool)
• we need to change assessment methods
• @andrewdouch (Twitter)

Participatory Change - Uni of Ballarat

• using a mentor model - people get 1.5 days/week to improve skills
• but has also realised that PD workshops don't go anywhere (creates a sense of dependence)
• the trick is to get people to realise that they have a role in what elearning looks like in the future!!!!!; referred to the concept of 'consciousization'

Wolf Cocklin - How the ABC Uses Twitter

• Twitter - a combination of stalking, ADHD, and narcissism
• ABC uses Twitter for reporting, monitoring, broadcasting, engaging

ePortfolio Showcase Reflections (Melbourne, 16/10/09)

2009-10-20T23:22:00.005+10:30

Allison Miller and Michael Coghlan share their thoughts on the day.

Moodleposium Notes

2009-09-26T23:44:00.002+09:30

For what they're worth, my notes from the recent Moodle conference in Canberra. Least I now where they are!

Denise Kirkpatrick (Open Uni): Moodle @ OU

OU is now 40 yrs old; no campuses; 220000 students; 1200 central academics; 8000 associate lecturers
Open to people, places,methods, ideas
no prerequesites to studt at OU (people)
study from anywhere (places)
students do not to have to attend any f2f event/location; ie distance ed (methods)
Challenges for UK Higher Ed: more effective leadership
chose Moodle in 2004
couses at OU managed by a team of people; lecturer cannot operate independently (!)
all tools are piloted and tested for scalability
have developed a virtual microscope (excellent for geology for example)
OU has all admin tools in Moodle so staff become familiar enough with Moodle to teach with it
OU uses Elluminate

Social Networking

strong SL presence (doesn't using SL conflict with the philosophy of it must work for everyone?)
OU's version of Moodle is customised and particular
OU has students in all 5 socio-economic groups (UK) ie people at the top and people at the bottom; for students in lowest gp they will supply laptop and net BB connection!
90% of students just enrol in the one subject they are interested in

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Group Work – Fairly Assessable? Amanda Burrell (UC)

gets students to work fast (Thiagi like maybe?)
Students require strategic and creative skills
groups have private forums
each student allocates effort 'mark' for each gp member weekly
there is no guaranteed group grade

Kerry Trabinger – Getting them in and keeping them talking

(Kerry used to work with Qantas College Online); currently working at FlexEd as part of the Centre of Education and Excellence at CIT)
Context: class and community (separate)

Community Driven development towards...... (Martin Dougiamas)

check Moodle tracker for summaries of issues being talked about in the Moodle community

Moodle 2.0

ADMIN

increased modularity; other app access – eg iPhone

CONTROL

conditional release will be added

INTEGRATION

pushing and pulling content in and out
test.moodle.org/filemanager
record straight into discussion forum and post!!
integration with Google Apps (SSO); (Google uses Moodle for its internal training)

USABILITY

consistent navigation
collapsible navigation menu (big tick!!!); configured as blocks

PEDAGOGY

most people just focus on content, a passive forum, or quizzes/assignments2
how about collaboration, sequencing activities, active forums bring in the content from the Net? Or co-create content? Use survey tools?

COMMUNITY HUBS

courses can be sent to a Hub that makes course available to others!! you could choose, download, and self-install course on your Moodle server

Julian Riddle – Communicating in Moodle

the CHOICE tool
St Ignatius (Sydney) use this to run student elections – great idea!!
SPLIT FORUM TOOL try it
J recommends we use the Dialogue tool (but it's a plug-in); t can provide private feedback/commentary within a discussion post

DAY 2

10 minute presentations

1.Glossaries (Andrew Reid)

can be used in assessment activities; students get marks for adding entries

2. Margaret Robson (CIT) – Engaging Interfaces

some really good interfaces on some courses – quite customised (we need to improve in this area); done with CSS/style sheets

3. Minh-Tam (Uni of Canberra)

have customised 'my courses' view; this would be handy for me!!!

Julian Riddle – Adding Flavour to Moodle

“Moodle is elearning's Swiss Army knife”
Accordeon Format – helps collapse topics
Lightbox Gallery – image gallery/editor (like this one)
add Skype to your profile

Derek Chirnside – Lightwork

downloads all assignments to local PC, so they can be marked and resubmitted to Moodle
allows inline comments in Word, (and Adobe PDFs?)
looking for orgs to trial from October

Mark Drechsler

Utilising Web 2.0 – Tips and Tricks
Moodle wiki can be replaced by Ouwiki (from Open U)
Nwiki
no course blog currently in Moodle
tag feature drags content sharing that tag into one place
Mahara can be used for multiple blogs; better features and access control
using external tools means better features but increased risk and less control
Compare: feature set, usability, risk

Avoiding the Scroll of Death

use link to directory
use Book module
use Label or Summary Tool to break up lists
use Course Menu
use Wiki tool !

FLNW3 - the first week

2009-08-22T12:33:00.001+09:30

We have spent the last 3 days driving and walking around beautiful Washington state. Conversations have flowed around numerous topics – fall out from the Open Ed conference in Vancouver, and sundry issues as they occur. There has been no agenda, and no grand manifestos. It would appear that none of us has a burning desire to achieve any major goal other than to engage in professional conversations across our fields of expertise and interest.

Leigh has written on OER as the new colonialism how the well-intentioned use of Creative Commons licensing may inadvertently be forcing content creators in the developing world to pay heed to copyright in a way they never did before. My own reservation about what I saw at the Open Ed conference (an otherwise excellent 3 days of consistent high level discourse about learning and methodology) was the fact that it was dominated by well-meaning white folks from the developed world espousing a philosophy that at least in part is supposed to benefit those less able to produce quality content. So why was this conference held in North America? Why wasn't it held in somewhere like Mexico that may have enabled participants from central and South America? Or Nigeria? Or Laos?

I did learn that 'openness' is not just about creating content that is freely available to all, but also an attitude that acknowledges that all nations have educators with talent and enthusiasm that we can exploit together on a level playing field in the sense that we all have something to learn from each other, and further, that it's about an approach that acknowledges the role of the learner in crafting educational offerings, and other multiple resources that may make up an individual's PLE.

We have already explored what a future FLNW event may look like – modelled on a broad unconference approach that would include streams outside of education such as the arts, tourism, and trades. Central to this would be the inclusion of multiple streams running concurrently in different spaces, and examples of how a new model of teaching may look. It was very noticeable once again that the Open Ed conference consisted mainly of stand and deliver presenations – as excellent as they were – but it's time to model what is so often suggested, but rarely seen in practice at conferences.

In our travelling group we have touched on what the world would look like if all schools were closed, the propensity of some to create technical changes because they can (eg single sign-on, learning object repositories) and whether we need them, and the recurring problem of bringing in others less disposed to engage in teaching with technology. We have the gold, we all appreciate the wonders of what the technolgy can bring, but still armies of educators in all sectors resist our advances. “Don't worry about people stealing a new idea.. If it's original you will have to ram it down their throats.” So why is this? After 10 plus years of this technology being available we are still pushing the proverbial uphill. Clearly not everyone is going to adopt this technology in any way that instances significant change. Why not? Is it a teacher's personal values? Is it not as fundamentally good as we converts believe? Is the 'gold' too far away in 'them thar hills.'

We are questioning our assumptions (Nancy is great with clarifying questions and reality checks), pushing each others' boundaries and being honest with each other. Lots more I coud add.....but more to come next time.....

Peter Ellyard - Educational Leadership in the 21st Century

2009-08-06T08:12:00.001+09:30

Peter Ellyard - Educational Leadership in the 21st Century

TRIC09 Test

2009-08-01T22:47:00.001+09:30

TRIC09 Test

USER GENERATED CONTENT AND THE WORLD OF WEB 2.0 - Facilitation Issues

2009-07-05T23:34:00.005+09:30

USER GENERATED CONTENT AND THE WORLD OF WEB 2.0

What is User Generated Content (UGC)?
User Generated Content “refers to various kinds of media content, publicly available, that are produced by end-users.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_generated_content

It has been made possible by the profusion of technological applications that make the production and distribution of content to a wide audience within the reach of anyone with access to a mobile phone, digital camera or the Internet.

Clay Shirky writes eloquently on the impact this has had on society in general in Here Comes Everybody. (Andrew Keen presents a somewhat opposite view in the Cult of the Amateur.)

IMPLICATIONS FOR FACILITATION

This widespread availability of media and text production tools has important implications for facilitators of online communities, and some of these implications are yet to surface.
What is clear is that where not so long ago an online community (or online course) could be housed within a single chosen space (e.g. an LMS like Moodle), it is now quite possible that members of a class or community publish content (blogs, podcasts, wikis, photos, videos) to a number of different Internet sites.
From this point on online educators and facilitators will need to accept that their class or community members may already have a scattered digital presence across the Internet, and be flexible enough to allow that content to be a legitimate part of how people present themselves online to their class or community.
Community or class activity online is no longer confined to a single ‘controllable’ space that tended to be instructor-centric. The new approach acknowledges that an individual operates in other environments they have chosen themselves and that better suit their needs.
This is not to say there is no place for a central space that is the class or community home, but its centrality and degree of importance may be tempered by the attachment and ownership that individuals may feel towards their own chosen spaces.
Web 2.0
This user generated content phenomenon is part of what is known as Web2.0, or the read/write web – the web that we all contribute to and that is a more interactive environment where we all have ownership and the ability to create and modify Internet content.

Can you teach Web 2.0?

The discrete skills of how to blog, podcast, upload photos and videos etc can be taught. For someone to truly know what it is like to be an active participant in this kind of connected world however is a much more complex process. My own belief is that this is best achieved by active immersion in the world of UGC . This is the only way someone can experience the realisation that the world has changed to a place where much of the way we access and process content has altered, and that the production and evaluation of content is no longer the domain of trained experts in their field, but the domain of us all, of everyone.
Facilitating a class or community implies a central role of the person facilitating. Though the role of facilitator (or moderator) is somewhat different to that of teacher (the term teacher has been replaced by facilitator in the online environment for good reason), there is some lingering legacy that a facilitator teaches the members of the class or community. That may still be true, but it should be within the context of a community or group facilitating each others’ learning. Learning in a community of practice (on or off line) is a group activity.

Possible Discussion Topics

1) What do you see are the challenges for online communities in the Web 2.0 world? Are there advantages that we can exploit? How does the role of the facilitator change in this new environment?
2) Is it a case of ‘collective wisdom’ or the ‘stupidity of the masses’? Where do you sit?

Thoughts on Educause Australia Conference

2009-05-12T21:27:00.004+09:30

I was going to try and blog about all the sessions I attended at last week’s Educause conference but if I wait for when I have enough time to do that I’ll never do it. So instead I’m going to do a Leigh Blackall and shoot from the hip. And I’ll probably say a few things that people may not like. However....

Educause is principally a higher ed conference so most of the presenters are from the university sector. And it just has to be said. Many of the presentations were appalling. I have never seen so many ppt slides stacked with bullet points which were read to us. I couldn’t believe it the first time, and it kept happening over the 3 days. They were classic examples of what not to do and this is what has given ppt a very bad name. Where have these people been?

The worst offender was a keynote speaker from Microsoft. His presentation was salvaged somewhat when he finally got to the interesting stuff in the last 15 minutes about lifestreams. He and colleagues have calculated that we live a 4 terrabyte life! That is, if we documented everything we ever saw, said, photographed, and filmed each life would accumulate approx 4 terrabyte of data.

And while on the subject of keynotes – it is clear that the organising committee paid no mind to presentations skills when they were selecting their keynote speakers. I’m sorry, but from keynote speakers I expect some semblance of presentation skill, but some had had little or none. And DELL and VM Ware could only have got a keynote slot because they paid a bunch of money for it. They should not have been a keynote event.

There were good keynotes though – Prof Peter Reimann from the University of Sydney spoke about improving students' ability to collaborate effectively. They have developed a wonderful tool that visualizes a student’s participation in a wiki, and I’m sure would also motivate a student to participate more. (Don’t think it’s commercially available.) Leo Plugge from Holland was also engaging, and inspired envy from Australian delegates as he talked of the national initiatives in Holland to provide superfast broadband to all educational sectors. See SURF. Mr Moodle (Martin Dougiamas) gave us a glimpse into the world of Moodle 2.0 and I like what I saw. It is clearly more porous to the outside world, and among other things allows for embedding media from external sites in discussion posts. So finally we may be able to see the discussion form freed from the tyranny of written text. There is a great opportunity for the VET [Vocational Education and Training] sector here – where many students are not great readers/writers but may be quite proficient in creating social media for discussion and assessment. (Or am I dreaming?) Michelle Seliger from Cisco was great too – delivered a strong message on Innovation, Collaboration and Partnership. (Though I did arrogantly think that she was basically delivering the same ideas in keynotes I have given in China and India over the last 2 years.)

Re concurrent sessions, apart from the 'read the ppt dot point bores', Rob Phillips from Murdoch University gave an engaging session where he sadly delivered the message that the use of technology had not yet transformed the nature of teaching and learning. (Should it? Will it?) This message was echoed by Martin D – he says that 90% of Moodle courses around the world consist of nothing more than static content and the occasional token nod to a broadcast style forum (i.e. non-interactive). Garry Allan from RMIT also gave a great session on eportfolios (they are FIRMLY on the agenda – a total of 5 sessions on this topic at the conference) where he talked about the Uni of South Australia and RMIT eport partnership. He asked whether asking students to conform to a one size fits all epf was sustainable in a world where tools are changing so quickly and students are likely to have artefacts spread all over the web in various blogs, wiki, social networking suites, etc. (Frankly I don’t think it is but I like the development of tools like Mahara, and can see them being really useful for many students when it is fully integrated into Moodle 2.0)

There were some other good concurrent sessions too, but these are the ones that stand out without having to go back and check my notes. And if I wrote about all of them I’ll never finish this. Pru Mitchell from ed.au was good on Sustaining Social Networks (“Web 1.0 was organised around pages; web 2.0 is organised around people.”) Peter Tregloan (Uni of Melbourne) was refreshingly honest about their Chemistry Flickr project – staff were positive about the project but many students did not think using Flickr was particularly relevant or useful. Kathleen Bacer (Azusa Pacific Uni) gave an energetic presentation on using Visual and Auditory Tools to Engage 21st C Learners, and urged us all to “break the online silence”.

TWITTER

Twitter is almost as common as the daily paper these days and there was a coterie of around 20 'tweeters' communicating on the back channels. Personally it really added to my enjoyment and appreciation of the conference and issues raised, but there was a strange moment during one presentation where comments on the Twitter stream started to get a little critical. Not long after there seemed to be a collective realisation that this was a little weird (unethical?) to use the backchannel to knock someone up there talking to you who has no idea that it's going on and the critism petered out. But it begs the question - is this legit behaviour for people using Twitter and other live blogging tools like Cover It Live? In this day of the backchannel should speakers realise that it is a possibility and maybe have an 'ombudsman' in the audience to keep them in the loop?

Overall I’m glad I went. It crystallised a lot of ideas for me about where VET stands in relation to other sectors, and their use of web-based technologies. So much so that I scrawled 3 pages of notes on the plane on the way home about a keynote that needs to be given called VET and the NET. :)

EXAMPLES GOOD PRACTICE COURSES USING MOODLE?

2009-04-19T23:56:00.003+09:30

I’ve been trying to assemble a list of good practice Moodle sites without much success. Several people have offered examples of well designed Moodle sites with a list of courses that are not publicly accessible without an enrolment key. So I can’t actually get inside the courses themselves. And that of course is one of the beefs of the anti-CMS/LMS lobby. That CMSs and LMSs of any kind, even open source alternatives like Moodle, largely operate behind closed doors. Having to go to moodle.org and log in to see examples in there is a hassle. (Compare with this fully open course)

In addition, many educators are reluctant to share their work because they don’t feel confident that others will value what they do. I know some great sites, but the teachers concerned would rather not make them public. (There is also the issue of getting students’ permission.)

So, here are a few I’ve found that you can cruise straight into. If you would like to add a site you know to the list please send it to me, or add it yourself to this public wiki.

1. Open Learn – the Open University http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/
Lots of unfacilitated open courses to browse. Check out their excellent list of Learning Tools.

2. On Moodle’s own demo site at http://demo.moodle.org/ there are just two courses offered (use logins provided at site):
i) a Moodle Features demo
ii) Film Studies Module

3. On the Moodle commons I found this good example on Digital Photography
http://moodlecommons.org/course/view.php?id=5

That’s all I’ve been able to find that I think are worth showing. There have to be hundreds more. PLEASE ADD THEM HERE

Reaching a Bigger Pond - Tools and Technologies for Forming Community

2009-04-10T01:05:00.001+09:30

Keynote presentation given at ACE elearning showcase. Melbourne, 20/3/09

Technology and Community

View more presentations from michaelc.

"You're no one if you're not on Twitter "

2009-04-08T23:20:00.000+09:30

Trying out Trippermap

2009-04-01T00:36:00.000+10:30

Get your own Trippermap!

Mikidache

2009-03-09T01:34:00.002+10:30

Mikidache
Originally uploaded by mikecogh

As it was once some several years ago, one of the highlights of this Womad for me was the music of the Madagascar region - Mikidache from Mayotte, a small island near Madagascar. I love the music from this region. So joyous and melodic and eminently singable. Quite different from the mostly rhythm based music of neighbouring Africa. The other group that blew me away years ago was the Justin Vali Trio. I wonder if I lived in Madagascar in a former (musical) life!

Other musical highlights for me this year were Australia's own Geoffrey Yunupingu, and the wonderful sounds from the Balkans by Paprika Balkonicus.

Rhino Room - Gordon Southern

2009-03-06T00:37:00.002+10:30

Rhino Room
Originally uploaded by mikecogh

Gordon Southern: The Unofficial Annual
Rhino Room Downstairs, Tue Mar 3
Gordon Southern is always going to deliver a value-for-money show. He’s sufficiently at ease to try gags that may or may not fly. There were a few curious moments when it felt like the audience was being auditioned for some of his newer material. But mostly he just cruised through entertaining routines that included stories, one-liners, jibes, jingles and a couple of ads. An obvious affection for Adelaide and Australia gives him license to target Australians, but everyone has fun while he assails airlines, Americans, Singapore and of course the hapless George W. Highlights include a wonderful send-up of Australian pollies and a hilarious take on eastern European immigrant workers in the UK. Great stuff!

Bakehouse Theatre - Bad Company

2009-03-06T00:35:00.002+10:30

Bakehouse Theatre
Originally uploaded by mikecogh

The Adventures Of Dead Jim/This Place
Bakehouse Theatre (Studio), Tue Mar 3
Two great short plays presented by local group Bad Company. Dead Jim is a black comedy that involves some superb physical manoeuvres with a corpse, while drawing attention to substance addiction and mental illness. Fake bravado, agitation and fragility are played out beautifully by the two ‘living’ actors. This Place is perhaps the stronger piece of the two. Its effective split set reinforces the thin line between madness and sanity as a psychiatrist watches the charade of a stable home life descend into confusion and paranoia at the same time that the patient he is treating at work recovers. Great performances by the cast of three. Decidedly good company for 90 minutes of excellent theatre.

Point of View Cool

2009-02-19T13:03:00.003+10:30

Point of View Cool
Originally uploaded by mikecogh

Used these POV glasses to make this short demo. Leigh Blackall models another version of POV glasses.

Stobie Memorial

2009-02-13T00:17:00.001+10:30

Stobie Memorial
Originally uploaded by mikecogh

In South Australia 'stobie' refers to the kind of concrete and steel telegraph poles we have here. They, sadly, can be lethal when cars hit them. Named after a man named Stobie - www.samemory.sa.gov.au/site/page.cfm?u=274 These kinds of memorials to accident victims have become quite a common site around Adelaide in the last few years.

My Twitter Network

2009-01-31T10:10:00.002+10:30

Created using Twitter Network

Checking in from Luang Prabang

2009-01-06T16:16:00.003+10:30

The Blogging Revolution - Antony Loewenstein

2008-12-27T01:05:00.003+10:30

Initial thoughts on a new book.

Demise of an Email Discussion List?

2008-12-18T23:44:00.001+10:30

Just sent to TALO members

------------------------------------------------------

Hi everyone.

I have been a member of TALO (Teach and Learn Online) for about 2 years now. When I first signed up I was amazed and invigorated by the level of healthy debate about elearning issues. It was a great place to learn. Since then I have seen the gradual decrease of any stimulating debate, and the number of postings reduced to a trickle.

Some of the people who created this group, and who drove the wonderful discussions of the past, have either moved on from this list or no longer engage with it. It has left a void that no one seems willing to fill. This list has currently 1272 members, and increases by about 15 new registrations each week, and yet the email traffic is minimal.

This may be because there is a range of new tools that many are using to communicate – especially Twitter, but also includes blogs and Second Life. But I suspect too that many newcomers to this list are not sure of the ‘culture’ here; not sure whether to initiate discussion because they are waiting for others to lead the way.

But I think right now there are no leaders in this group. There is no culture. It is up to people who are still here, and the many others who have joined in recent months to make this group live.

So how about it? Why not post what you’re thinking about? Say what you feel? Ask questions about things you want to learn about. This list is YOURS.

If we keep on getting new members and nothing is happening I do wonder whether there’s any point in staying here. Maybe it would be better to close the group and we all move on to other spaces?

But this space, if it is to survive, needs reinvigorating.

Over to you!

Letting go of what we know: the importance of unlearning

2008-11-24T15:51:00.001+10:30

Brad Beach on Virtual Worlds - Live Blog from Big VETes

2008-11-24T12:41:00.000+10:30

Should I Stay or Should I Go? (Mark Harris)

2008-11-24T11:17:00.000+10:30

JF Live Poll

2008-11-24T10:30:00.001+10:30

Create interactive meetings at Poll Everywhere

Al Upton at Learntel - Authentic Risks; Authentic Learning

2008-11-07T14:00:00.000+10:30

Mark Keough at Learntel

2008-11-07T12:04:00.001+10:30

Stewarding Technology for Communities (Nancy White)

2008-11-07T09:12:00.000+10:30

Covering it Live at Learntel - Garry Putland

2008-11-06T12:07:00.000+10:30

Covering it Live at Learntel

2008-11-06T09:05:00.001+10:30

Cover it Live Test

2008-11-02T22:28:00.000+10:30

Moodle Moot AU 2008

2008-10-06T00:02:00.002+10:30

Some thoughts on the recent Moodle conference in Brisbane, Australia. Audio (7 mins 37 secs) provided from Utterli, and images from the conference provided by Slideflickr

A New, Free, Web Based Polling Tool

2008-10-03T18:07:00.000+09:30

Slidecast - Voice Tools for Language and Literacy

2008-09-26T22:13:00.003+09:30

I have just managed to synch the audio with the slides from a recent presentation on Online Voice Tools for Language and Literacy. The original session was held in Skype. I recorded both sides of the conversation (me and online participants) and uploaded the audio to the Internet archive.

I uploaded the slides into Slideshare and used their synching audio and slides tool to create a slidecast. I'm really happy with the result and now I know how to do this I'll be doing it again. Here is the final product.

(It's 45 minutes long.)

The Internet archive also provides the embedding code so you can listen to the audio only right here:

Utterz Re-Test

2008-09-09T22:31:00.000+09:30

U Stream TV Test

2008-08-21T00:16:00.001+09:30

About 9 and a half minutes.

Good Will Bonking :)

2008-08-07T23:10:00.004+09:30

The following are a few notes from the recent interview that Will Richardson conducted with Curtis Bonk. It’s about an hour long and the audio is a bit of a struggle initially but it does improve in the second half.

Curt has just released a new book called Empowering online learning The interview touches on issues raised in the book but is not about the book.

CB: George Siemens' Theory of Connectivism is more a description of what’s happening rather than a theory.

WR: How does knowledge construction change in online communities?

CB: Learning is more informal than formal. People share stories

WR/CB: Books like Seymour Papert’s Mind-Storms (published 1993) feel like they were written today! It has taken this long for ideas of people like Papert to gain respectability and currency. Technology has made possible theories that have been around a long time.

WR: How do we unlearn traditional assessment approaches?

CB: Peer/extended network assessment. But there is still a place for traditional teacher-centred approaches

Reference: Darren Draper – have you been paying attention?

There was some discussion of new models of publishing. Curt himself is trying to decide how to publish his new book. Options include:

* Wiki + html (web) pages + book
* Pdf + comments facility
* Hypothetical: Blog daily for a year and compile into a book

Question left unanswered: will mainstream publishers accept these models? (Curt is conscious of the fact that he will be seen as a hypocrite if his next book is not an ‘open book.’, and is investigating new models with different publishers.)

Other Publishing Models:

Flat World Knowledge
Scribd - a ‘YouTube for text.’ (CB)

Other Titbits

Jay Cross and his work on Informal Learning has been pivotal in the move towards understanding new models of education.

* Manila is the chat capital of the world (SMS)
* Wikipedia is built in to mobile devices (Africa)
* You don’t need Internet access to benefit from the Internet (phones, download to CD, etc)
* “Googlization of knowledge” (CB)
* Students in Michigan have to take an online course to graduate.

Learning Object Repositories (LORs)

Curt not convinced of their usefulness. Prefers sites with peer reviewed resources like Merlot.

Second Life/Virtual Worlds
Curt thinks they’re too hard for a lot of people and is watching Google’s Lively

Online Language Learning

CB: Is exploding across the Internet; arrangements where learners of Chinese are matched up with teachers of Chinese who want to learn English and swap services are becoming more common; predicts even further growth

WR: Where will be 20 years from now?

* Jack Cummings, Indiana Uni Dean, dropped in briefly and said that now Harvard had joined those institutions adopting an open content policy others will follow suit. (There are 57 mirror sites of MIT’s open courseware initiative in sub-Saharan Africa.)
* As networks of personalized learning become more widespread there will be 24/7 access to subject mentors around the world, who won’t be aligned to a single institution.
* Cell phones will become more to central to provision of educational content.
* The move to synchronous education approaches will increase
* More and more visualization tools – of thought, networks. (MC: some of these already exist.)

(image at top courtesy of Oliver Ding's Freesouls slide show)

The Anthropology of YouTube

2008-08-02T00:46:00.003+09:30

Michael Wesch at the Library of Congress. Brilliant. Inspiring. Insightful. Important.

"Media mediates human relationships."
"loss of community"
"networked individualism" > "cultural tension"
"context collapse"
Cognition and recognition. (McLuhan)
"We live lives constantly against the law in an age of prohibition." (Lessig)

55 minutes. Find the time and watch it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPAO-lZ4_hU

Ha Ha

2008-07-30T22:19:00.000+09:30

Audio Post via Hipcast - still working?

2008-07-19T22:14:00.003+09:30

This post has arrived by phone using Hipcast.

Cover It Live

2008-07-19T21:39:00.000+09:30

What is the Internet Doing to Our Brains?

2008-06-15T00:54:00.003+09:30

Picked this up from Will Richardson’s blog. This article from Nicholas Carr needs to be read and contemplated by all Internet educators.

I know exactly what Nicholas Carr means. More and more I find myself engaged in what I call horizontal learning (skimming multiple resources, multitasking), and have to force myself to engage in vertical learning (prolonged focus on a single topic or resource.) There is indeed a change afoot.

Implications? Identify, make explicit, and teach both approaches. See slides 13- 16 of this presentation for more on horizontal v vertical learning.

Addendum to this post

On a related note I just came across this article today - Society Hard-wired for a fall. More on what computer use may be doing to our brains.

Using the Moodle Book Module

2008-06-10T23:30:00.000+09:30

Click To Play

Twitter Fountain #2 - Adelaide (with background images of Adelaide)

2008-06-04T14:46:00.002+09:30

Twitter Fountain - Adelaide

2008-06-04T14:38:00.003+09:30

The Digital Education Revolution (DER)

2008-06-02T23:50:00.002+09:30

The Digital Education Revolution (DER) is an Australian Federal Government initiative worth $1.2 billion to advance ICT in Australian schools. Education au is currently sponsoring a series of symposia in Australian capital cities to get feedback from practitioners about what is being done, and what they want to see happen.

I was present for the first part of the symposium in Adelaide today. Sheila Willaston outlined some of the key policy elements:

Online curriculum content (I hope this doesn’t gobble up too much of the money)
Professional development for teachers (I hope this includes new teachers to be in training programs)
Web portals for parental participation (great idea)
Fibre connections to schools piggy-backing on the much talked about broadband rollout (if it ever happens)

Targets of the program include

Reducing the computer to student ratio to 1:2 in the next 2 years
100 MB connections to all schools

Mark Pesce was next on the podium. Some highlights of Mark’s presentation:

About four years ago YouTube, RSS, BitTorrent, and Wikipedia did not exist. In previous eras any one of these applications would have been considered seminal changes of the generation. These days an equally powerful application appears at least once a year. (eg Google Earth). This is the world generation Y have grown up in – where “the only constant is change.”

Referring to data gleaned from Mobile Phones in Japanese Life, he mentioned the notion of co-presence, where people use communication tools to connect and communicate constantly. Pesce argues that this practice is nothing new – only the tools are new. [David Attenborough refers to humankind as the ‘compulsive communicators.’]

The hidden curriculum of banning and blocking the use of these connection tools in schools is “denying kids the connectivity they experience in their daily lives.” There is an “invisible argument going on between school and life.” “The classroom has lost respect for their lives and (so) kids have lost respect for the classroom.”

I AM ONE OF THE PUSHERS

Pesce then confessed to being one of the pushers of a tool that mahy educators and parents just see as something that promotes cyber-bullying and MySpace suicide pacts. :)

TWITTER

Twitter is now being used for purposes way beyond what it was designed for. For example, the recent earthquake in China was announced 30 minutes before the major news networks got hold of the story. “The street finds its own use for things” [A recent perspective I heard about ethics: “Ethics should not judge what is good or bad, but rather observe what people are doing.]

[“People no longer subscribe to magazines; they subscribe to people.” (The Human Network) ]

Mark did say that he thought he was probably preaching to the converted, and it did have that feeling, but his presentation was intended as a springboard for further discussion by symposium delegates for the rest of the day to come up with ideas for implementation as part of the DER . @theother66 twittered towards the end of the day that Gerry White was doing a great job of gathering all the ideas together in the final session. I look forward to seeing them.

Many thanks to education au for another great symposium.

eBeam Smartboard Thing

2008-05-24T13:38:00.001+09:30

eBeam Smartboard Thing
Originally uploaded by mikecogh

This really is quite neat. Place the gizmo (see top of pic) on a table top and the tabletop (or any flat surface in theory) effectively becomes a whiteboard. Anything written on the table will appear on the pc it's connected to. And therefore remote users could see it while it was happening. The thing is - can anyone think of a useful application for this? www.electronicwhiteboardswarehouse.com/ebeam.htm

I am not a blogger

2008-05-06T20:44:00.003+09:30

I am definitely not a blogger! Five weeks away in Japan (Nagoya, Tokyo), New York, Scotland, York, Cambridge, London and Scotland and not a note. Hundreds of photos though and I guess that’s how I prefer to blog – visually, or by incorporating widgets like Apture, the software that’s allowing me to add all these media links (are they hyperlinks?). Paralinks maybe?

So that’s what’s prompted me to write now. Highlights were meeting many Webheads f2f for the first time, spending time with Jonathan Finkelstein of LearningTimes fame, enjoying the space and grandeur of the Scottish highlands around Oban, the classic heritage of the built environment in York and Cambridge, and a wonderful spring day in London enjoying the sunshine with thousands of others in St James Pk.

And yes, as Will Richardson wrote, I did think in advance about what I wrote here. I chose words and items that were likely to have existing web content about them!

Dipity - a nifty Timeline Tool

2008-05-01T23:04:00.003+09:30

This is a really smart tool (though the limitations of Blogger's display don't do it justice here. Create events with dates and pictures, state the location of an event and Dipity locates it for you using Google Maps. You can view it as a straight timeline, series of images, or on a map. Very cool. See a quick trip through some of my life:

Remembering Marie Jasinski

2008-03-10T00:27:00.008+10:30

On Thursday last week about 70 friends and colleagues gathered at the Port Adelaide TAFE campus to bid farewell to Marie Jasinski. Marie had lived the last 20 years of her life living and working in Adelaide and there were a number of people who were not able to attend her funeral in Hobart and needed the opportunity to share memories and acknowledge her significant role in our lives.

Former MindMedia colleague Jeff Catchlove mc’d the event and appropriately used a Thiagi whistle to call us to order and introduce some levity into the occasion. We watched a video of Marie and Marty’s wedding, and Adrian Marron, TAFE Adelaide North Director, spoke on behalf of the institute, the wider department of DFEEST, and the Australian Flexible Learning Framework. He told of being 'ambushed' by Marie at 8 o’clock one morning when he was compelled to listen to her tales of a recent overseas trip and all the exciting iniatives TAFE SA could implement based on her discoveries and new contacts. The last director of the now defunct Douglas Mawson Institute of TAFE, Mike Mulvihill, then spoke with eloquence and simplicity about how Marie had changed all our lives, and inspired a love of learning in us all. Mike also mentioned how he used to try and avoid sharing the stage with Marie because you were always upstaged - whenever Marie stood in front of a group of people she turned it an event of laughter and learning!

We then played a spoken tribute that Robby Weatherley, Marie’s long time friend and colleague from early LearnScope days, had sent down from NSW. This was followed by an opportunity for all present to share anything they wanted about Marie – a colleague from 1989 mentioned that even then Marie had shown by example and encouragement that one should always try and improve what you did.

Marie’s legacy to her colleagues in SA and beyond is clear. She was a living example of how one can be dedicated to teaching and learning, and her willingness to take risks and innovate to improve the lot of teachers and students was unremitting.

Marie’s husband Marty closed proceedings with a touching account of how Marie had added to his life – even if it had meant embracing chaos and complexity in the home! Marty added that Marie was one of those people who realized how much love had to be put into life to get it back. He then played a Photostory of Marie’s last months in Hobart. Marty – thank you so much from all of us for being part of this day. Though it was important that you were there to share an important event with yours and Marie’s colleagues, it could not have been easy.

After the ‘official’ business we all retired to the staff lounge for drinks and eats and more memories of wonderful Marie. Many took the opportunity of dropping some petals into the Port River as a final mark of remembrance to a remarkable person.

There is talk of a small mosaic being installed on the dock outside the Port Adelaide campus as a more permanent reminder of someone we don’t want to forget.

A sincere thank you all to those who attended. I think many of us now can move on – as Marty said – with any of Marie’s dreams that we care to take with us in our pocket. Marie had asked Marty to pass this message on to her colleagues. I think we can rightfully say that Marie would have approved of this event, and that is no mean feat. As Mike Mulvihill said, she was a class act.

Vale Marie. And from all of us who worked with you, thank you for your inspiration, support, guidance, and friendship. I don’t think any of those present last Thursday, and countless others around the country and the planet, will ever forget you.
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There are a number of photos of this event posted at http://flickr.com/photos/mikecogh/sets/72157604054284876/ If there are any images there that you would rather not be public please let me know and I’ll remove them.

(pic at top courtesy of Nancy White. Taken when Nancy was in Adelaide in 2006)

Others remember Marie

Mile High

2008-02-27T22:33:00.002+10:30

It's Festival time in Adelaide and I've been reviewing some of the shows on offer so I'll drop some of them here. Here's the first one:

MILE HIGH
Holden St Theatres (The Arches), Sat Feb 24

Dan and Daisy set out for New York with the usual feelings of anticipation and trepidation as any couple might at the prospect of a two week dream holiday preceded by an 18 hour flight in economy class. Dan (Sebastian Goldspink), the nervy but experienced flyer, and Daisy (Megan Alston) the excited and excitable newbie, begin as normal – discussing the food, the cabin staff, past memories, Americans, plans for New York – and then the alcohol kicks in. After an eventful high talk drifts inevitably towards the relationship, and stuck like battery hens in the middle of the night they have to face the storm. Directed by Byron Kaye, this racy little play is very engaging. Despite their differences the chemistry between the characters is palpable. It’s as if you’re a fellow passenger observing them slyly without being seen – a kind of sneaky privilege. I’m tempted to down a few Bloody Marys and regale the person next to me the next time I’m on a long flight to see what happens. Really enjoyable.

Conversation about implementing web 2.0 in China

2008-02-25T22:41:00.002+10:30

Leo Kottke

2008-02-23T00:19:00.001+10:30

Tonight I went to see one of my musical heroes – Leo Kottke. I fell in love with his music when I was in my 20’s and the love affair has never ended. This clip shows Leo as a very young man but he plays even better now. No one plays like this guy. Thanks Leo. (There are lots more Leo clips on YouTube if you look around.)

PLE - process not product

2008-02-16T09:43:00.006+10:30

PLEs and their companions, ePortfolios, are back on people’s radars at the moment. I had a go at spotting the difference between the two some months ago, and Leigh Blackall and Mark van Harmelen have being describing PLEs on the TALO list this week.

Leigh wrote:

"First and originally there is the software development line largely coming out of the UK and Europe that is looking to develop a single solution in terms of software that captures the intent of a Personalised Learning Environment. Things like ELGG. Through both the name PLE and the software developmental approach it is easy to see the influence of the Virtual Learning Environment or Learning Management System. It is this association that critics use against this approach.

The second, more recent, and deeper line of thinking with regard to the PLE ……is more interested in the PLE as a process. A process of establishing an online presence (with what ever is readily available), expressing yourself, and collecting tools, information, finding channels.... and in the process building relationships and networks around your expressed interests so as to develop a personalised learning environment.

To me, the second line of thinking is near enough the same to Networked Learning: Networked learning is a process of developing and maintaining connections with people and information, and communicating in such a way so as to support one another's learning. Wikipedia Feb 2008."

Mark adds:

"The integrated systems approach to PLEs (eg ELGG) is not at odds with the view of assembling resources, and the two co-exist well. In fact jumping over to wikipedia you'll find a definition (of mine) that captures the conjunction of the two 'views':
"Personal Learning Environments are systems that help learners take control of and manage their own learning. This includes providing support for learners to
• set their own learning goals
• manage their learning; managing both content and process
• communicate with others in the process of learning
and thereby achieve learning goals.
A PLE may be composed of one or more subsystems: As such it may be a desktop application, or composed of one or more web-based services."

What I'd particularly like to point out is that the PLE movement, whatever its 'guise', has settled on an approach that stresses independent learning (ie self motivated, often self directed) learning rather than teacher controlled learning. Teachers can assist and facilitate, but not control. Peers can assist and facilitate. This to me is the real nub of a PLE, as a tool / set of tools that enables this approach. So I'm not hung up on precise system characteristics, and I'd suggest that a system classification sidesteps the real and deeper and more meaningful and enduring value of the PLE movement." (my italics)

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I’m not hung up on system characteristics either – a single all encompassing tool or a collection of web applications are both fine – but we all know that the organizations we work for are going to push option 1. They will want their staff/students to use the tool they have paid for or developed so they can control security, standards, etc. I guess in the spirit of PLEs as expressed by Leigh and Mark, students should be free to choose the endorsed tool or their own collection of scattered personal artefacts, and be supported in whatever choice they make. It is about process after all, not end product. Though I find that hard to accept sometimes. I love the process, but I also get a lot of satisfaction from looking at end-product I have created. For example, I’m gonna love proof reading this post and seeing it as a end-product that represents people’s thoughts on this topic right now, but also feel excited at knowing that it will be superseded within days. Such is our ‘habitus of learning’. (Norbert Pachler) But I’d hate to see Blogger fall over and never be able to find this post ever again!

Another Tool - Gifup

2008-02-11T22:46:00.000+10:30

Made with images from Flickr (tag: FLNW08)

GIF animations generator gifup.com

The Classroom of the Future

2008-02-09T00:08:00.001+10:30

Over at http://voicethread.com/share/42094/ is a wonderful example of how Voicethread can capture multiple voices on a topic, and a great selection of opinions on mobile learning and the role of the teacher/classroom in a digital world. Courtesy of webhead Dave Winet the founder of EFI (http://study.com/)

My Facebook Friendwheel

2008-02-07T12:32:00.001+10:30

myfacebookwheel
Originally uploaded by mikecogh

Ever wanted to be at the centre of the universe? Facebook has made it possible.

BAW Voicethread

2008-01-24T17:34:00.000+10:30