Slow Talking

Last weekend a group of people gathered in a house in Sydney and did something remarkable. We talked. For around 14 hours. We started out at the Sydney Writer's Festival to feed on some ideas - we went to sessions on making things, and resistance.

They were good starting points. Among the many common threads we explored in these two days of conversation, one of them was a feeling that we have collectively become disengaged from many of the basic processes of life. At the making stuff session the two panellists sat there and knitted and crocheted while they talked. I remembered a distant past when I knitted when I was about 8 years old. Crocheted too. I made a scarf I remember. But I had forgotten that I could do this once. And enjoyed it. Yes I played football, went fishing and did a heap of other stuff more  'normal' for little boys, but somewhere I fitted in the knitting.

I sat ruminating about the fact that I don't make much in my life - the occasional meal, but no permanent objects that you can see or hold. My excuse has always been that I sing. I make music - not solid or touchable but real. I write songs. But we are quite disconnected from where things come from in the city. Where things are grown, made, touched, loved - we walk into a shop and buy what we want with little thought of where it came from or who made it. So to see two people sitting there making something while they spoke seemed almost spiritual. It wasn't like that when I used to watch my Mum knit. And it also seemed that what was once politically incorrect and held back the advancement of women, had become cool again. Knitting is now politically correct. (You just have to live long enough!)

The other session featured speakers talking about researching or being part of a resistance movement. Reality is subjective but hearing the stories of Timorese women in the face of an occupied armed force it was clear their life was a much harder reality than the life we experience in comfortable gentle middle class Australia. (I love Australia for this!)  But what good is comfort and gentility if you feel angst living amongst it? There were plenty of positives among OUR stories over the next two days but it was the common thread of angst and concern - about our personal and professional lives and the society we live in - that brought us together. To talk. Without explicit goal. To listen. To whoever was talking about whatever they wanted to talk about. 

Community, or lack of. Loneliness. Frustration. Living on the margins of a society whose demonstrated values as evidenced by our mass media and those who supposedly lead us are at odds with how we feel. The OccupyMovement, Transitions Towns, ­ the protests in northern NSW against coal seam gas, the Men's Shed movement, and their antithesis - the moribund nature of our major political parties. Some of us feel disconnected, lonely even. Concern at the apparent lack of care for the well being of ordinary people in the face of cold hard economic rationalism that places less and less store on supporting lives that nourish the soul.

We went walking in the late afternoon and continued talking, but I was distracted by the potential of photographs in the 'long light'. Back at the ranch over pizzas the talk continued. When it came my turn to talk I kept it outside of myself - not too personal. Maybe I hadn't let go enough. But when it came John's turn he decided to lay it on the line and declare 1) that he no longer believed in God and 2) he felt lonely. I could certainly relate to point 1) but it had not troubled me. Thinking about it now I see a certain irony in believing that God was a part of an earlier evolutionary version of humanity and that we no longer needed it. The church in times of yore provided that communal link that brought people together, gave them a common sense of purpose. So if we have evolved to a point that the idea of God or church no longer makes evolutionary sense, what do we replace it with? What structures need to be in place to provide the solace and company that people still need if they forego religion? Perhaps the kind of event that we inadvertently stumbled on and were engaged in - an opportunity for people to speak their mind and share their feelings in a situation where time was not a factor. This was the thing that blew me out about this gathering - we talked for hours. Slow talking. No interruptions. No having to get somewhere for the next engagement of modern life. We turned back the clock and shut down the 21st century. For the most part we ignored the Internet and its disembodied connectiveness. We opted to be with each other for an extended period and listen to each other.

The conversation began again in the same mode the following day but it was not quite the same. It rained all day and prevented us from moving outdoors, and we knew the day would come to an end when we all had to move to wherever we needed to be next day. But for a day we let time stand still. We opted out of the business of appointments and getting things done. We decided to get nothing done except talk to each other. Priceless. Enervating. We must do it again.

If we were happy with the way the world is I wonder if we would have talked together for so long....:) Robyn, Stephan, Rose, Sean, Margie, Melanie, John - thank you.

A Wiki Project...but people don't contribute.

I tried this:

In January one hundred educators from around the globe were invited to meet in Austin, Texas to mark the tenth anniversary of the New Media Consortium Horizon Project and reflect on no less than the future of education. A Communique from the event listed 10 Major Trends that are having an impact on education globally.

WHAT ARE THE IMPLICATIONS OF THESE TRENDS ON THE GROUND?

What I am particularly interested in is how these trends translate into reality? What are the implications for each of these trends in your institution? What are you doing already to accommodate these trends? Or, what could you do to accommodate them? To this end, and to hopefully get your input into these questions, I have created a public wiki at http://globaltrendsineducation.wikispaces.com/, and invite you to add your thoughts there on these questions. I have attempted to create a structure on the wiki to make it easier to add content, but feel free to ignore the headings and structure I have suggested and just add your contributions below the tables. Or if wikis are not your thing just email your responses back to me and I'll add them to the wiki.

RESPONSE

After two weeks just one respondent (thanks Andrew!)

Leigh Blackall then wrote:

Michael, my hope was that you would act as the mediator between the contribution made in this forum, and the wiki that - to be honest, I am reluctant to leave a digital footprint on, and given I am on mobile so much, can't really manage much more than email. So, please feel free to document what ever I contribute here in this email space, into the wiki. This is what I do on my own wiki projects, when I gain feedback on research and writing, because I know it is very unlikely that I will draw others into the wiki.

My reply:

....after several tries at this kind of thing over the years I guess I have to reluctantly accept that, as you seem to have already discovered, people by and large do not voluntarily contribute to public wikis.

So I think from here on I'll do what you do - just ask people to send me stuff in an email and I'll collate it on the wiki. :(

Webheads Meet

Webheads Meet, a photo by mikecogh on Flickr.

Times when a webhead from far away comes to Australian shores are few and far between, but it happened last week in Melbourne. Jane Petring from Quebec and I met last week for dinner at a French restaurant with Vanessa, a friend and colleague of Jane's from Canada.

Jane came to Australia after a bicycle trip in South East Asia - mainly in Vietnam. We shared memories of places we'd both visited (Carla and co in Brasilia), Teresa and Joao in Lisbon, and Rita in Argentina, and Jane told me the story of how and why she became drummer....

We had a lovely evening, and as it so often is when meeting a webhead f2f for the first time it very quickly felt like being with an old friend. We all agreed that the food was excellent, but a little on the expensive side.

From here Jane journeys on to Florida, and then Colombia for a special occasion before heading home to Canada.

Jane said she loved Australia :) It was great to meet her. Any other Webheads want to come on down under?

PS I am a bit sunburnt in the pic above because I was at the football all afternoon in the surprisingly warm April sun.

The Future of Education - the Horizon Project Retreat

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,

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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

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....

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)

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 Sansom (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

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.

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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.