Distance Students - Options for Self-Assessment

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

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)

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

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:

1. 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.
2. 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:

• http://wodongatafe.wordpress.com/
• http://www.fullcirc.com/
• http://weblogg-ed.com/
• http://davidwarlick.com/2cents/

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

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

Leaving Penang Behind

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

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

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

Global Learn Conference (Melbourne, March 2011) - Notes

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

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

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

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)

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?

The Impact of Context

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

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

The Relationship Between Content and Innovation

View more webinars from michaelc.

eLearning10 (Sydney); Day 1 Wrap

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

(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

Test Pic
Originally uploaded by mikecogh