Opening keynotes

Well the first session is just over.  Michael Wesch gave an excellent presentation and his style of delivery is very pleasant, gentle but authoritative. He gave a similar overview to his talk to the Library of Congress earlier in the year, but with a little diversion into his parallel work on the cultural and social anthropology of remote communities in Papua New Guinea, showing how the advent of literacy and a national census has impacted on daily lives, including the physical realignment of houses, the adoption of personal names, etc, reinforcing the old Marshal McLuhan truisms about media shaping society. The implications for learning, or rather the opportunities to focus on the key aspect of moving students from being knowledgable to being knowledge-able were the focal points of his message. The issue of 'serious play' and the strength of weak ties in networking were brought out in the following presentation by Prof. Norbert Bolz of the Berlin University of Technology who spoke on the transition from knowledge management to identity management.

The session was concluded by the usual ad from Roger Larson, the boss of Fronter, a Norwegian VLE supplier and also a 'platinum sponsor' of the conference. At this stage, many who had heard the 'ad' before turned to their laptops and mobile devices, exactly as Andrew Wesch had described students in lectures!  One of the issues, for such a tech-savvy and new media group as this is that the Fronter slides and screen grabs looked so dull and unimaginative in style (not that any learning management system looks fascinating these days - how quickly they have become part of the basic infrastructure/furniture and how few people have hangups over particular products - the debate has moved on as more and more users and institutions become somewhat platform-agnostic, which in itself is an interesting development). 

One point made though was important and that was to stress that openness and the 'web 2.0' freedoms are fine in principle but in practice when you are dealing with students formally enrolled in programmes, especially those still at school (a big market for Fronter's products) then personal confidentiality is not only vitally important but also a legal requirement, so there still by necessity need to be those 'data silos' which protect the individual and which store the educational products, reports and signs of progress, feedback and development of individual students and school pupils.

Anyway, time for a quick coffee before the next session...

photo (CC) by wrubens at flickr, oeb2008

First Podcast from Berlin

I spoke with Christine Fischer of Die Volkshochschule im Second Life. Christine was demonstrating their virtual space at the Linden Labs' stand at the conference. She walked me through some of their learning environment and demonstrated some of the objects and atrefacts which they have created and use in a range of adult education programmes. 

Unlike so many other educational institutions' approaches to SL, they have at least tried to make extensive use of the construction tools and have designed a number of simulations and environments, using voice tools for communication with the students.

http://www.vhs-sl.de/ 

Snow in real life, heat in conference life and adult education in Second Life

Snow on the outside and boiling on the inside - welcome to Berlin's Intercontinental hotel where the conference workshops and trade stands are buzzing. I visited Linden Labs'  first ever conference stand and saw some examples of good work in Second Life that are a little more interesting than the usual simulated lecture theatres and crudely posted PowerPoint presentations.  One of the examplars was from Die Volkshochshule and I spoke with Christine Fischer for the first of the podcasts from this year's event.  Photos to follow shortly.

Online Educa 2008

Well, it's that time of year again when I realise that even that extra jumper isn't enought to stave off the Easterly wind that whips along Unter den Linden after sunset! 

Back in Berlin for what is now the 14th Online Educa conference and associated workshops and gatherings of research partners. The early morning start required to catch the first flight from Shannon is beginning to take its toll on an aged blogger like me, but still the impressive sights of Berlin are rejuvenating. This is the view from outside Humboldt University  in the square where the infamous book-burnings took place.

The delegates are beginning to sign in and the trade stands are being erected.  Little do they know that I'm stalking the corridors with my digital voice recorder in search of interviews for our podcast series.  This year I'm travelling lighter as technology continues to advance. I'm field-testing a Dell Mini 9 netbook instead of carrying my usual (already quite small) Sony Vaio. The keyboard is a bit bunched, especially for my right hand, but the build quality is pretty solid and the response, when not overloaded with things like Google Desktop, Audacity, Skype, Chrome and Picasa running at the same time (oops, got carried away) is actually pretty good. Thus far it is impressing for the price of only 349 Euros as a  laptop replacement.

Tech support rap

no so lively now!

Sadly, just as we were having a bit of fun with it, Google has decided to pull the plug on its virtual world "lively". Lots of suggestions have been made regarding its inflexibility in terms of user customisation, etc, but interesting to see an example of a virtual world being extinguished. 

How many more of the 'beta' tools that are in widespread use at the moment will ultimately be withdrawn?

Desktop videoconferencing and more for free

Adobe Connect is a powerful system built on Flash which is used for a range of communications and training purposes. It can provide desktop videoconferencing with multiple participants including document and desktop sharing and has already made quite an impact in the commercial sector. However, it is expensive to run a full system and hence its uptake in education has been pretty constrained by budgetary limitations. Adobe have now, however, provided a limited free option called "Adobe Connect Now" which let's you host small meetings (maximum size three participants) but this might be enough for simple communication and tutor/technical support. The advantage over many other systems is that being built on Flash means that most browsers can handle it without additional software downloads or installations. If you have a webcam and microphone you can be up and running in seconds.

To give it a try visit http://www.adobe.com/acom/connectnow/ 

Crunch 2.0

Now that reality is dawning in the world of global finance, what of the ultimate in 'Emporer's New Clothes', those companies that base their value on the promise of profit 'some day real soon'  and in the meantime do little other than shuffle electrons?  Or Web 2.0 start-ups to be more specific. Well Tim O'Reilly and Al Gore have been discussing the issue at the Web 2.0 summit in San Francisco, as reported on the BBC website. In summary? Time for folks to get serious with applications that have real value and make a needed contribution and a space for alternative revenue models to the dominant advertising approach whose returns are dropping in value with the plethora of sites available.

(Photo: James Duncan Davidson - attribution details)

Top 100 Tools for Learning 2008

Jane Hart has published her top 100 tools for learning for 2008. This is based on contributions from 223 learning professionals worldwide. Top of the list is del.icio.us, the social bookmarking tool, followed by Firefox, down one from last year.

The list is also organised by category: Web Browers, Social Bookmarking, RSS Tools etc. The top (most popular) FREE tools in 25 categories is also available.

Wiggio - Making it easy to work in groups

Wiggio is a free, online toolkit, developed by students at Cornell University to support groupwork. From the site:

Wiggio lets you use the following group tools, and it's all for free!

• Messages— send mass text messages, voice messages and emails from wiggio
• Calendar— keep a shared group calendar that will send you text message reminders before all your meetings, practices, rehearsals, games and other events
• Poll—survey your entire group and get their responses as they answer
• Folder— dump all your groups’ files into one folder and never send another attachment
• Meetings— never walk 15 minutes through the snow to get to a 10 minute meeting again… setup free conference calls and web chats on Wiggio
• Links— keep a shared favorites folder

Watch the demo on YouTube.

Using Blogs to Enhance Education

This is a nice post on using blogs in the classroom, on Openeducation.net. It is based on an article by Ruth Reynard at Campus Technology, Avoiding the 5 Most Common Mistakes in Using Blogs with Students.

What is said, in both articles, makes a lot of sense. The context has to be authentic and should be aligned with the desired learning outcomes. A blog can be very powerful when you want your students to reflect. At the same time, the blog needs to be carefully planned and managed by the instructor. The students need clear expectations and guidance, in particular if their contributions are to be assessed.

On assessment, Ruth Reynard gives a useful classification of statement types that could be used in a grading rubric:

• Reflection statements (self positioning within the course concepts);
• Commentary statements (effective use of the course content in discussion and analysis);
• New idea statements (synthesis of ideas to a higher level); and
• Application statements (direct use of the new ideas in a real life setting).

Both articles are quite clear that blogs are not always the most appropriate tool for collaboration, but provide an "individualised" space for students to reflect on topics and to find their own voice.

Having just started using blogs in my own teaching, I found that these articles have confirmed my own thoughts and support (to an extent) the approach I have been using.

Learning Innovation Network (LIN) Conference - 10 October 2008

The Learning Innovation Network (LIN) held its first annual conference in Athlone on 10 October under the theme of 'Fostering Learning – A Student Centred Experience'. The LIN project is a 3-year SIF funded collaborative project between the 13 IoTs and DIT which aims to enhance the delivery and quality of core educational activities through common infrastructures and collaborative activities.

It was great to see large numbers in attendance from the IoT, university, industry and government sectors. A wide variety of interesting student-centred initiatives were showcased in the following stands: 'Innovation in Teaching and Learning'; 'Working Within a Modular Environment'; and 'Assessment Within a Modular Environment'.

Prof. Ray Land's morning keynote investigated threshold and troublesome knowledge concepts in the context of curriculum design; Dr. Richard Thorn addressed current economic concerns with regards to workforce education and lifelong learning under the banner 'Somebody Should, We Could, We Can'; while Prof. Sarah Moore gave an inspiring and interactive closing keynote 'Fresh Approaches to Learning in Third Level Settings' discussing the complexities inherent in the expert/novice relationship and calling for a 'less is more' approach to allow for student reflection and self-analysis of their learning contexts.

Keynote podcasts and parallel session presentations will be available shortly from the LIN website.