Hiding behind my avatar

I joined twitter on 20th February 2009, three and a half years ago.

At the time I was very skeptical; I had no idea of the effect twitter would have on my professional life or the wealth of contacts I would build up in my Personal Learing Network (PLN).

Being a shy individual, an introvert in fact, I felt uncomfortable about using my own photograph for my profile image, so I chose an image that represented me: a cup of coffee. I do like good coffee, and sometimes tweet about it. The image certainly said something about me, as a person. I also felt somewhat protected, lurking on twitter, hiding behind my avatar, thinking I was unnoticed, anonymous in some way.

The cup of coffee lasted for about 6 months, until I met @vonprond at a conference in Galway. In fact, Ferdinand was the first person I followed on twitter. He commented that I looked completely unlike my image: he'd been expecting a large cup of coffee. I realised that my perceived anonymity did not exist and it would not be possible to separate my real life from my twitter existence. 

 

Still being a shy individual and uncomfortable using my own photograph, I created an avatar representing myself using the Mad Men Yourself avatar generator. After a new haircut, this was further updated to my current image, which I've used for about 2 years.

I have been told that I look a little bit like my twitter image (or should that be the other way round?). I have even been recognised at conferences, twice. But it's clear that most people don't recognise me when they meet me in real life. I'm fairly comfortable with that. But, I wonder if I'm still hinding behind the avatar and is it prohibiting me from a deeper engagement with my PLN when I meet them in real life? 

In some sense, my twitter persona is an alter-ego of myself. She says things in public that I would never say in a room full of people.

In the last year, or so, I've noticed more of my PLN using photos of themselves, and I'm wondering if it's time to change?  

There's another issue. Having used this image for about 2 years, it has now become my "brand". The image, in itself, is recognisable to my followers, even if they don't associate it with the real-life me. Would I be wise to change it now?

And so, dear PLN, I put the question to you. Should I change my profile pic to a real image of myself, or not? Let me know what you think. 

Related Post: I got a big response to this article and have written a follow-up, where I explain why I decided not to change my avatar.

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Welcome to the #cel263 class of 2012

This afternoon I am meeting with our new intake of academic staff on the Learning Technologies module. It looks like we have a great group of people this year and I'm looking forward to working with them to explore their use of technologies in teaching and learning.

This afternoon we'll be introducing ourselves and I'll run through the structure of the module - 7 workshops, each addressing a different theme. Over the next few months we hope to introduce participants to some new technologies and new ways to use those technologies to support teaching.

Today we'll also take a look at some social networking. Fiona will introduce an activity based around social bookmarking, and then we're going to have some fun using twitter. We're using the hashtag #cel263, so please keep up with participants by following the tag, and join in the conversation.

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Embedded twitter timelines in Blackboard

This week, I've been preparing for the start of our Learning Technologies module - offered to academic staff as part of our Higher Diploma in Academic Practice at NUI Galway. I have blogged, in the past, about the wonderful work carried out by participants on the module, and we have done some initial investigations into the longer term impact of the module.

Using the old twitter embed code

Twitter is just one of the many tools we use as part of the module, both to support communication between participants, and for them to reflect on how they might make use of it in their own teaching practice. Since we also use Blackboard as our VLE, it's useful to bring the course twitter feed into the Blackboard course, to help link various strands together.

In the past, embedding a twitter feed was not straightforward, but was certainly possible. A quick google search would bring up instructions, and allowed us to produce some nice results (see image).

So, I was really delighted to see that just last Friday, Twitter have announced a new way to embed timelines, making it easier to embed a public twitter stream into a webpage. The old embed codes will no longer work from March 2013.




Since I was already working on my Blackboard course for the current year, I thought I'd give it a try.

Step 1: When logged into twitter.com, go to your settings page and select Widgets from the left menu bar.

Step 2: Click Create New, to create and configure a new timeline widget.

Step 3: Choose a timeline source. In my case, I want to search for course related tweets, using the #cel263 tag. I leave everything else at the defaults. The preview is looking good so far!

Step 4: List the domains where this widget will be embedded. I use the domain for this blog, and also the domain for blackboard (which is on a secure server).

Step 5: Click on Create widget. Success, my widget has been created and I just have to copy the embed code!

Step 6: Now, in my Blackboard course, I create a new item and paste the embed code into it. I'm done!

Except that this wasn't really what I was expecting...a rather disappointing "Tweets about..." link.

Clicking on the link will open a new page, but produces a Blackboard error message.

It's not particularly elegant!

When I first encountered the problem, I tweeted about it. I've had a couple of replies from other people experiencing the same issue.

Anybody else having problems with new twitter embedded timelines in Blackboard? bit.ly/OmRuEi
— Sharon Flynn (@sharonlflynn) September 6, 2012

I also posted on the Official Timeline Questions blog, but to date have seen no reply.

Has anybody figured this out? Please let me know. For the moment, I'm sticking with the old embed code.

21 September 2012: Update

Hooray! The embedded twitter widget is now working for me. The problem, it appears, was with secure sites (https) but a fix has been implemented. Now, what I see when I insert the code is much, much nicer.

31 January 2013: Update

In response to a couple of queries, I didn't implement the fix, I presume Twitter did. The one change I did make in the narrative above is in the list of domains at step 4. This now looks like:

I don't know how important the last *.blackboard.com is, but it might make all the difference!


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Translation, Technology and Autonomy in Language Teaching and Learning

Congratulations to our team member, Labhaoise Ní Dhonnchadha, and her collaborators Pilar, Laura and Dorothy, on the publication of this collection of contributions on Translation, Technology and Autonomy in Language Teaching and Learning.The collection is based on a very successful conference that took place at NUI Galway in December 2010.

From the book synopsis:

This volume brings together contributions from academics, language teachers and practitioners from across Europe and beyond to discuss questions of autonomy and technology in the area of language learning and translation. The book focuses on English, French, Italian, Irish and Spanish language acquisition, but many of the essays also develop an interlinguistic perspective from a plurilingual point of view.
The book opens with key contributions from a number of leading scholars: Dr Daniel Cassany on critical literacies, Professor Henrik Gottlieb on translation into 'minor' languages, and Professor David Little on autonomy in language learning. These are followed by explorations of translation, technology, intercultural issues, autonomous learning and the European Language Portfolio. The volume represents an important contribution to the development of new plurilingual approaches to language teaching and learning.

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Creating video for teaching

Using video in your teaching can be a great way to get a message across and to enhance student engagement. There are some great videos available on YouTube, iTunesU or TED Talks, for example, that can be used to illustrate a concept or give additional information.

In the last year, we've seen an increase in the number of academic staff who are creating their own videos for use in teaching. See, for example, the NUI Galway Microbiology channel on YouTube, Derek Molloy's (DCU) award-winning channel on Digital Electronics, or setting up the oscilloscope in a Physics lab.

Certainly, recording something on my mobile phone and uploading it to YouTube is surprisingly easy. But how easy is it to create something a little bit more professional and useful for teaching purposes?

With these questions in mind, I went along to Irene McCormick's presentation at the EdTech conference in Maynooth in May. Irene is from IT Carlow and she is responsible for this NDLR-funded video, illustrating why you might want to use a tripod when recording video.


At her presentation, Irene gave some compelling reasons why we might want to bother with video: that it supports innovative methods of teaching, learning and assessment; it's good for our own professional development; it can involve students, particularly where they are producing video; and it can be good fun!

She stressed some important points, the main one being Keep It Simple. Don't use gimmicks, stick to the storyline and aim for high levels of continuity.

Creating video involves three stages. The planning stage is the most important to get right - never go out with a camera and start filming. Consider equipment, your team, dates, locations, actors and whether there is any A/V support available. Write a script. Irene recommends using something like celtx, which I will have to investigate.

The second stage is production, where you actually get out with your video camera. Again, Irene recommends a simple approach: no need for zooming; work methodically; and use a tripod.

The final stage is post-production, where you edit your video. Again, this can be kept very simple; no complicated transitions. Irene recommends Final Cut Pro, but if you're just starting out, Windows MovieMaker does pretty much everything you need (and it's free).

If you're based at NUI Galway, you can use our Kaltura connector on Blackboard to upload your final masterpiece to Blackboard for your students' consumption. Otherwise, YouTube, BlipTV or Vimeo are all possibilities for hosting video in the cloud.

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International Turnitin User Group Meeting

The International Turnitin User Group meeting took place on Monday 16th July at the Sage in Gateshead, just before the start of the 5th International Plagiarism Conference. This was a great opportunity to meet with Turnitin representatives as well as other Turnitin users, to compare experiences and find out about the product roadmap.

After a welcome from Will Murray (VP International), Christian Storm (CTO) gave an update on recent developments and current research in the Turnitin suite.

It's clear that there has been a shift in focus from plagiarism detection towards supporting assessment and feedback, with a view to improving student outcomes. Turnitin aims to be the complete solution for improving student writing and the best-in-class solution for grading. It seems that the company has really been listening to its customers, and my impression is that future directions are very positive and exciting.

Recent developments include voice based grading (which I haven't played with yet), fewer noisy matches and false positives, translated plagiarism (e.g. via google translate) and support for left to right languages (e.g. Arabic). Current research is looking at more advanced phrase exlusion, so that particular phrases (perhaps specific to the discipline, or "boilerplate" text) can be excluded from reports by assignment, or forever. Turnitin is also working on stylometrics, which can identify changes in writing style, to help address the problem of ghost writing.

On the integration side, Turnitin has been working on new APIs, meaning new integrations for Moodle and Blackboard. Different roles and views are also being considered, to facilitate double marking or read-only access. It was stressed that each institution has different workflows, which are a challenge to defining roles.

During the Q&A session there was lively discussion involving plans for globalisation of the product and adding more languages (must get Irish on the list); legal defensibility of decisions arising from originality reports; support for more varied filetypes and assessment types; PeerMark lite, allowing peer review earlier in the workflow; communication with customers about new product features (still not ideal); customer involvement in beta testing; improved workflow for anonymous marking; and bulk download of originality reports for archival purposes. And all this before coffee!

Somebody raised a question about a dashboard for policy makers - which might allow access to orginiality reports to support benchmarking for individual teachers, departments or even institutions. There was a collective intake of breath at this point. Turnitin executives hastened to reassure that this was not a likely development, and that it would require a huge a amount of data. However, there has been a focus on improved analytics, for students, staff and administrators.

The Product Roadmap
After the coffee break, Steve Golik (VP Product Management) gave us some updates on the product roadmap, repeating the vision of the company To be the world's more innovative and effective technology for improving students' written work.

One welcome development is the GradeMark interactive tutorial, which allows instructors to practice and get used to the functionality of GradeMark without worrying about live student work.

The new Instructor Dashboard is currently being rolled out, providing a more modern entry point and easier navigation. Unfortunately this is not yet available via integrations, but the interface looks clean and user-friendly.

On the horizon are common core rubrics, which will make the sharing of rubrics easier. Also, digital receipts will be accessible within the system, by both instructors and students, improving traceability. There will be more flexible grading and marking, including support for letter grades and decimal points.

Grading on an iPad
In the last 6 months I've been working with a number of academic staff to use of GradeMark to support electronic assessment and feedback for students. One barrier to this has been that the full functionality of GradeMark doesn't work on an iPad.

Perhaps the most exciting development is the new GradeMark iPad app, due for release in January 2013. Steve gave a demo of the current version, which looks very promising. This will be an instructor focussed, grading application, giving full support for grading, voice comments, text comments, access to rubrics, on-paper marking and with originality as a layer. An instructor can grade offline; the app will synch back to the web when the iPad has a suitable connection.

I tried to get a photo of the demo as it was happening, but the screen was just too bright for my camera to focus.

More on What's New with Turnitin is available online and by following @TurnitinProduct on twitter.

That, more or less, brought the User Group meeting to a close, in time for the start of the International Plagiarism Conference, but it was not the end of discussions about Turnitin. I'll blog about the conference in the next couple of days.

Cath Ellis has already written a number of blog posts on the event:

• iParadigms Focus Group
• 5th International Plagiarism Conference: Day 1 Keynotes
• 5th International Plagiarism Conference: Day 1 Sessions and Workshops
• 5th International Plagiarism Conference: Day 2 Keynotes

(I'm beginning to suspect she is WonderWoman)


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International Plagiarism Conference

This afternoon I am UK-bound again, this time to Newcastle, for the 5th International Plagiarism Conference. Having been to two previous events, I'm looking forward to catching up with some old friends and meeting some new ones. I will miss Jo Badge @jobadge, who has moved on to new challenges.

Although not strictly learning technologies, I will post my thoughts on the conference, and will certainly be tweeting from the event - the hashtag is #5ipc. Day 1, Monday, incorporates the Turnitin User Group meeting, and I'm looking forward to hearing about the roadmap for this product.

So, do follow me on twitter for updates. And if you are going to be at the conference, let me know so that we can meet up.

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Centre for Learning Innovation

Yesterday I attended the inaugural event of the Centre for Learning Innovation, a new organisation funded by Enterprise Ireland and the IDA, to bring together industry and research in the area of technologies for learning. The event was held at Croke Park, where the pitch was busy being prepared for the farewell Westlife concerts tonight and tomorrow. (That's not an omen - I hope.) The theme of the event was Learning for Growth, and the purpose was to launch the Centre for Learning Innovation, an organisation which has been in gestation for some years, and which only arrived at its name the previous evening. Yesterday it was announced that the government is to invest €6m in the Centre over the next 6 years.

The first keynote speaker, Donald Taylor (@DonaldHTaylor), chair of the Learning and Performance Institute, spoke about the many changes in Learning Technology in the last 13 years. He identified 3 major changes in that time, leading to new opportunities for the Centre:

1. Learning occurs in a boarderless world, but it's not just the classroom walls that have been broken down. The ubiquity of the internet means that information is available anywhere. Mobile technologies mean that we can access the internet from wherever we happen to be. Moreover, the boarders between work and social life are also breaking down, leading to a blur between formal and informal learning.
2. Information is free. There is no point writing/developing new courses that already exist and are freely available. Business models have got to change, because it will no longer be possible to sell content.
3. The expectations of learners have changed. People want immediate, focussed, social learning. Donald particularly noted the increase of video in "how-to" learning. Learner-generated content brings the notion of authority into question.

From my own experience, and within the context of Higher Education, I don't agree with everything that Donald said: I think it applies more to the context of training in industry.

Donald then looked at how the world is responding to these changes. In Learning and Development, the training model is moving from design, develop and deliver, to one of find, facilitate and filter. He gave some examples of innovative use of technology for training in industry (including Ericsson, Eskom and TTi) and mentioned briefly the Open Courseware movement.

The second speaker of the morning was Jonny Parkes, who is chair of the board for the new Centre for Learning Innovation, representing industry.  Jonny started out by differentiating between "best practice", which is what may be going on today, and "next practice", which means trying to see into the future. He spoked about 3 principles upon which the new Centre will be based.

1. Learn from the past. Jonny gave a very nice overview of learning technology since the 1980s, starting with CBT (interact), through multimedia in the 1990s (engage) and eLearning in the 2000s (connect). None of these were perfect solutions, but we can learn from each of them. What then is the next practice?
2. Be brave, but be open to change. The themes of the Centre will be social learning (search, interoperability, personalised); mobile learning (intelligent content delivery, location based, hands-on learning); immersive learning (agents, games & virtual worlds, augmented reality); metrics and assessments (is it working? are we improving learning?).
3. The need for smart people, including academic partnerships and industry-led collaboration. (Apparently the smart people are all in the heart of Dublin, but I'll let that go)

After the coffee break, Vinny Wade (TCD) gave more detail about the mission of the Centre for Learning Innovation, which will be based at Trinity College Dublin: it is to support breakthrough research for learning innovation, through collaboration with industry. It will not be another learning technology centre, but aims to be a hub for industry and research, with a focus on application and transfer to achieve real results. Vinny identified 5 factors crucial for success

1. Research excellence, achieved through partnerships with research groups in TCD, UCD, NUIG and WIT.
2. A deep understanding of learning and the learning sector.
3. Proven transfer success
4. Industry direction and partnerships
5. Need to lower the risk in technology adoption

Vinny spoke about ensuring that key challenges are defined by industry, while there is a need for use cases and authentic evaluations. The Centre will welcome further industry partners to participate with membership, collaboration and trials.

To date, the percolate project, a precursor of the Centre, has been working in the area of social discovery for learning. The final speakers of the day, Paul Mac Cartney and Lynda Donovan gave a good overview of the work so far in three areas: corporate, schools and higher education.

Focus on Technology
I'm still trying to get together my thoughts on yesterday's event. I can see a role for the Centre for Learning Innovation as a hub to bring together industry and research in technologies for learning. But I do think that the expertise in Teaching and Learning is missing. The "academic" partners of this initiative are research centres and, just because they are based within a higher education institution, doesn't mean that they have expertise in pedagogy or pedagogic research.

The canvas for online learning is certainly changing and moving fast. I found it strange that none of the presenters mentioned any of the recent developments in MOOCs; see this quick snapshot of advances in online education by Catherine Cronin.

Much of the talk yesterday focussed on technology, and there seemed to be a basic view that learning is a matter of finding the best content. But learning is much more than content, and teaching is more than delivery.

There was very little talk yesterday of the learner and no consideration of how people (children, students, employees) learn. This was particularly evident in the final presentation on the homework help system for children. From the evaluation of the system, it appears that it was of more use to "fast" learners than to "struggling" learners. It was suggested that this might be because children of high ability are more proficient at searching. For me, this immediately raises issues of digital literacies, of which there was no mention during the presentation.

So, I think it's worthwhile keeping a watch on this Centre for Learning Innovation. It will be interesting to see how it develops. But I am concerned to see such a focus on the technology and so little on the pedagogy.

All of yesterday's sessions were recorded and will be available on the Centre's website. For the moment, that website is www.percolate.ie.

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Learning about Digital Literacies at EdTech 2012

The last couple of weeks have been busy, between the EdTech 2012 conference organised by ILTA, our own CELT conference, and then a presentation to the WRSLAI event last week. I haven't had time to think!

So, before my memories fade completely, I'll write a couple of blog posts about all these events. I'm starting with the keynote speakers at EdTech 2012, compiled from my notes and tweets, using storify.




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Top Tweeters at #celt12

Using Martin Hawksey's twitter archiving google spreadsheet, we can now reveal the top tweeters at the 10th Galway Symposium: The Written Word - writing, publishing and communication in higher education.

The conversation is still continuing, using the #celt12 hashtag . So far, we have archived more than 1000 tweets from the event.


To see a visual representation of the archive, you can visit the Interactive Archive of #celt12 tweets (static image below). Click on any name to get a list of that person's tweets and interactions.

A full archive of tweets, though it's not particularly pretty, is also available.

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#celt12 Instructions to the Twitter Team

This is based on the original post by @derekbruff who has kindly given his permission to re-blog for #celt12.

Hello #celt12 twitter team (you know who you are) and thank you for agreeing to take part. We're looking forward to an active twitter stream at #celt12 this year and you will play a big part in keeping the backchannel going. What does it mean to be on the #celt12 twitter team? Glad you asked....

1. Take a few moments at several points in each day (during keynotes, during sessions, whenever) to share highlights of the conference.  What are you learning?  What useful resources are you hearing about?  (Include links when you can!)  What questions or answers are occurring to you as you  participate in the conference?
2. Don't forget to use the hashtag! It's #celt12.
3. You’re encouraged to tweet some photos of the conference if you have that ability. Having some photos in the Twitter steam makes the conference experience more concrete for folks not there.
4. Feel free to be critical when appropriate, but please always be civil.  If one of the keynotes, for instance, turns out to be a big dud, let’s not have any harshtagging or tweckling.  (See http://chronicle.com/article/Conference-Humiliation-/49185/.)
5. Engage with other #celt12 Twitter participants: respond to question and add value when you can.
6. Finally, if a conference participant new to Twitter starts asking you about Twitter, be ready to share your experiences. The conference is all about written communication in Higher Education, so demonstrate how Twitter can be a part of it.

#celt12 is the official hashtag of the 10th Galway Symposium, entitled The Written Word: Writing, Publishing and Communication in Higher Education.

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New Blackboard support site

Today we are very pleased to announce the launch of our new Blackboard help website. This site brings together useful documentation and resources on using Blackboard at NUI Galway. It can be found at the following location: www.nuigalway.ie/blackboard

Based on user feedback about our existing support site and on support calls and requests since the upgrade to Blackboard 9.1 last Summer, we have completely redesigned the website and developed new materials to help you find the answers to your most asked questions. The resources are grouped into categories, to help you navigate quickly to the required resource, and an A-Z of help topics is also available. It is also possible to use the Quick Search facility to jump straight to a topic.

We hope you'll agree that the new site is tidier and easier to use. We will continue to develop resources for this area, based on common queries and requests. If you have any comments or suggestions for the new website, please get in contact.

As we launch our new site, we are also introducing a new Blackboard @ nuigalway blog, at http://blackboardnuigalway.wordpress.com/ to coincide. The learning technologies team in CELT intend to use this blog to post regular updates and announcements, as well as quick tips and tricks to support and improve your experience with Blackboard. Our intention is that the blog will be a dynamic space for the Blackboard community at NUI Galway and we hope that you'll bookmark and follow our updates. Comments are especially welcome.

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NDLR Fest 2012: Let's talk about the learning

Poster by Andrew Flaus, NUIG

Last Wednesday, a group of us from CELT took the early morning train from Galway to Dublin to attend the 2012 NDLR Fest at Croke Park. A number of our NUIG Learning Innovation Projects (LIPs) from last year were included in the poster showcase, and we welcomed the opportunity to participate in an event to highlight the valuable work being done by academics across Ireland in the area of open educational resources (OER).

What was good about the event?
It seems that we are finally reaching a critical mass in terms of creating a culture of sharing and collaboration. This is wonderful to see, though I suspect it still exists in pockets of good practice, rather than being widespread.  

We are building up experience and data in the OER movement in Ireland, so that our practice can be evidence based. It was suggested that Ireland is currently "punching above its weight". I am not sure about this, but I think we are holding our own.

The OER movement is now visible to those in government, though it may have come as a bit of a surprise. Sean Sherlock, in his opening address, said he found the OER movement "refreshing" while admitting that sharing of knowledge is the foundation of higher education, and open sharing is a logical step.

What about the learning?

Panel with Paul Gormley and Catherine Cronin of NUIG

I was concerned about the way language was being used at the NDLR Fest. People spoke about developing, delivering, packaging and pushing (resources, content, eLearning). There was very little discussion of teaching and learning, and little mention of students (with some notable exceptions). Isn't this just reinforcing the student as consumer model?

There was a lot of talk about quality of the learning resources developed and what role there is for peer review. I think we are in danger of reinforcing the academic as gatekeeper of knowledge (as promoted by Mr Sherlock) instead of recognising that students will go to wherever they find the most useful information. We need to be thinking more about how we can teach our students to be digitally literate, to be able to evaluate critically whatever information they come across and how to gather it into useful collections. See this recent presentation from Dr Nick Pearce on Students (and Staff) as Content Scavengers.

Natalie Lafferty wrote a lovely piece recently Why can't learning repositories be more like Slideshare? We need to make it easier for academics to contribute and share their resources, and easier to find and access useful resources for their own context. This relates to Brian Mulligan's observation about a "rate my resource" tool, and his question which was given so little consideration during the panel session.

Why are we still talking about eLearning? 
During the event, the word "eLearning" was used by many to mean a package of content. But content does not imply learning!

Should we drop the 'e'? Or can we debate about what it stands for? Steve Wheeler wrote a provocative piece on this issue last year: Dropping the 'e'.

For me, it's all just learning. Some of it is face to face, some of it is online, some of it is formal, some informal. We don't need to differentiate, it's just a continuum of blending.

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#pelc12 : All about connections

Last week I spent 3 days at the Plymouth Enhanced Learning Conference. Since I came back, I find myself reflecting on the experience. At the time, it was a whirlwind of enthusiasm, inspiration and tweets. Now that I'm back at the day job, back in reality, I'd like to write down some reflections and share them.

For me, PELeCON 2012 was all about making connections.

Travel Connections
For a start, there was the travelling. Last year, @catherinecronin and I travelled direct from Dublin to Plymouth, at a civilised time of the day. This year, unfortunately, travelling to Plymouth from Galway was a little more complicated. We had to fly to Bristol at the unfortunate hour of 6:40am from Dublin. This meant a stopover in one of the Dublin Airport Hotels, after a bus journey from Galway to Dublin. We met up with @crumphelen at Dublin airport, ready for the early morning flight. Once we arrived in Bristol, we got a bus to Bristol Mead train station, then a two hour journey by train to Plymouth and finally a taxi to the hotel. All about connections, see?

What was a short journey last year, turned into an expedition this year. But, it was all worth it. As Steve Wheeler put it...

 ... and at just £160 @pelecon must be one of the best value 3 day international learning technology events in Europe. #pelc12
— Steve Wheeler (@timbuckteeth) April 24, 2012

People Connections
Then there were the people connections. It was a pleasure to meet up with twitter friends, some of whom I'd met before, and some who I was meeting for the first time. For myself, because I'm a bit shy, knowing people on twitter is a fantastic ice-breaker when you meet them in real life.

I was particularly pleased to be reunited with @crumphelen, @hopkinsdavid, @mattlingard, @drbexl and (of course) @boyledsweetie. Though we've only ever met a couple of times, they feel like old friends.

I was also pleased to meet many twitter pals for the first time, especially @suebecks, @romieh and @dcotton11 (who wasn't really at the conference at all).


Paper Connections
Another area where I was making connections was while listening to the fantastic talks, keynotes and parallel sessions. Because I was scheduled to speak in the final parallel sessions, I found myself making connections between the various themes and my own presentation. I identified where a speaker's message supported my own message, and also where there appeared to be conflict. I was determined to integrate all these into my own presentation, which meant that my head was buzzing and I got very little sleep on the second night.



For example, while I thoroughly enjoyed @simfin's call to action, I was very disturbed by his definition of a technophobe as a teacher who has given up. Simon's context is very different to my own, but this statement bothered me, particularly as I was classifying some of our academic staff as technophobes as part of my presentation. Well, the technophobes who take the #cel263 Learning Technologies module haven't given up; far from it, they have bravely opted to give technology a go, with a little support from us, and are thriving as a result.

Many staff report that lack of time is a barrier to integrating technology in their teaching. In his talk on Improving Digital Capability, @dajbelshaw suggested that time is not the issue; it's a matter of priorities. I agree! But I don't think it is the role of learning technologists to dictate priorities to academic staff. They are already getting the message, loud and clear, that they have to prioritise research. By the way, Doug Belshaw is keynoting at next month's EdTech conference in NUI Maynooth. It should be a great event.

Other connections on the issue of learning technologists supporting academic staff

• On the first day, Jason Truscott talked about the role of learning technologists to empower academics.
• Back to Doug Belshaw; he spoke about forward thinking institutions using (technology) projects to link to the strategic view, making the digital literacies movement sustainable. He also said that the best way to get somebody (an academic) started is to solve their problems. This is something we do every day!
• In her talk on Digital Identity, Privacy and Authenticity, Catherine Cronin said that not all lecturers feel they have the authority to make changes in their teaching. I think this links back to Jason's point; by empowering academics we can increase their confidence to allow them grasp that authority.
• Pat Parslow (@patparslow), in his session on Letters to Santa, spoke about communication barriers when technologists talk about technology. While he stressed that we shouldn't try to break down the silos that exist (particularly in academia), he said we need to find ways to link those silos. He also did a rather good rap!
• Bex Lewis (@drbexl) gave an impressive talk that incorporated Skype, prezi and video. She made some good points about embedding innovations across programmes.

Online Connections
Finally, there were the online connections in the firehose that was the twitter stream. I cannot imagine what this conference might be like for somebody who is not on twitter. It was constant, in the run up to the conference, during the event, and it's still going. I have a few thoughts and reflections on this as well, but I'll leave them for the next blog post. Coming soon.

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Assessing the impact of our CEL263 module

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Over the last three days I have been immersed in the very special conference that is PELeCON 2012. The theme this year was Create, Connect, Collaborate, and that is certainly what was achieved over the three days. The annual conference in Plymouth, organised by Steve Wheeler (@timbuckteeth, @stevewheeler), is well worth the long travel. It's also an event that can be enjoyed virtually, because the participants are so active on social media and, this year, all sessions were live-streamed.

More thoughts on the conference are to follow.

I presented yesterday (Friday) on our initial attempts to evaluated the longer-term impact of our Learning Technologies module (#cel263). While more in-depth analysis is needed, initial results from a survey of our alumni are very positive. In particular, we do seem to be affecting a change in culture, with the creation of technology champions within the disciplines.

Here's the prezi from yesterday. I already tweeted the link yesterday morning, and it's had more than 600 views in just 24 hours. Wow!

Assessing the Impact of a Learning Technologies Module for Academic Staff on Prezi

Please comment your response, either here, or on the PELeCON blog. As we heard so often during #pelc12, it's important to give back, in the form of comments. This was just one of my take-home messages.

EdTech Call for Papers: Deadline Extended to 7 April

Hi folks

Looking forward to seeing a range of NUI Galway-related submissions at EdTech2012: Digital Literacies for Life, NUI Maynooth from May 31st to June 1st.

The call for paper has been extended to 7 April. The EdTech organsisers are particularly keen to hear about interesting practitioner initiatives (and any lessons learned) that can be shared amongst the EdTech participants at the conference and online via http://ilta.net/

Submission guidelines and abstract links are available from here.

As an incentive, all accepted abstracts and papers will be included in a new ISBN eLearning journal being launched in October 2012.


Go for it!

Paul

NDLR Fest 2012 and Local Innovation Projects

Tweet I see from today's NDLR newsletter that Minister Seán Sherlock will launch the 2012 NDLR Fest in Croke Park on 2nd May. Of course, Seán Sherlock is infamous for signing the Irish copyright amendment (also known as the Irish SOPA) into law last month, without public consultation and despite more than 80,000 signatures on an online petition (stopsopaireland). It will certainly be interesting to hear his views on the notion of people collaborating and sharing freely their digital learning resources.

The NDLR Fest, now in its 6th year, is a nice event to attend. The community is friendly and open and there is a great buzz generated. The aim of the event, according to the NDLR conference website, is to showcase the wide array of free technology enhanced learning that has been generated across all subject disciplines in the Irish HE sector as well as celebrating the cooperative and collaborative process in which these resources have been developed, used and reused.

You can sign up for this one-day, free event by going to the registration page. 

This year, as well as hearing about the 12 Learning Innovation Community Support projects (LInCS),  we are also looking forward to showcasing six Local Innovation Projects (LIPs) from NUI Galway that received NDLR funding in 2011.

Our call for NDLR funded LIPs for 2012 closed two weeks ago. This year the applications for LIPs were competitive, with 14 innovative proposals being submitted for funding.  Due to budgetary constraints we have only been able to fund a total of 7 projects. A full list of the successful applicants is now on our website.

CEL263 Learning Technologies Symposium 2012

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It's that time of the year again when we hold our Learning Technologies symposium. This is when the participants on our Learning Technologies module (cel263) come together and present their projects, developed as part of the assessment for the PG diploma module.

During our workshop on video

Participants are asked to identify and complete a project, based on the material covered in the module, to incorporate Learning Technologies into their teaching. They are given free scope in identifying a technology or technologies and what they want to achieve. From the team's perspective, we aim to move each person beyond his/her comfort zone and to try something new in a supported environment.

This year, six people presented their work, using technologies such as social media, podcasting, screencasting, video and google earth.

Maura spoke about her plans to use social media to keep MA students engaged while they are involved in a field based module and away from the on-campus, controlled environment. Her plans to use a wiki space, which is their space and not controlled by staff, aim to provide "connection without intrusion".

Still shot from Eve's video

Eve showed us her very impressive project to provide a virtual fieldtrip for students in Earth and Ocean Science. She has created a video using real footage from a recent field trip combined with screencasts in Google Earth and imported data from the Geological Surveys of Ireland. That video is embedded into Google Earth and forms the basis of a digital map making exercise for students.

Kathy spoke about her plans for MA students to replace the traditional précis (500-700 words) with a regular blogging activity. She has found that the précis is of no real value to student learning, with a limited audience and no peer interaction. She is hoping that by getting her students blogging, they will reach a wider audience, provide an arena for reflection and stimulate collaborative learning.

Bróna is hoping to use regular podcasts to keep her Nursing students connected and motivated while they are on clinical placement. The aim is to motivate students to engage in their research projects earlier, even when they are not physically on campus. She's also considering using Facebook to keep them connected.

Vincent gave a very impressive account of how his German language students are creating their own podcasts, developping their spoken skills in the language. Engineering students are recording conversations in pairs, thereby improving pronunciation and spoken accuracy. The podcasts are posted on Blackboard, allowing the students to listen to each other - students learning from other students. This activity addresses a sometimes neglected skill in learning a language, the exposure to the spoken skill.

Finally, Anne gave a very honest account of her efforts to get students make their own videos of how to use a Total Station - an instrument used in surveying. Rather than providing them with yet another resource on how to use this piece of equipment, students have to demonstrate their understanding by making their own videos using mobile phones or flipcams. Although there was a mixed reaction from students initially, 69% of them admitted that making the videos helped them to learn the skills required, and 62% said it forced them to review practical sessions.

Hard at work in the video workshop

For the CELT Learning Technologies team, it is wonderful to see the work that our students have done and the plans they are making. We love to see them adopt a new technology or approach and use it to really support their students' learning. It reminds us that we are having an impact.

Guest Post: What use are QR codes in teaching?

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As part of our Learning Technologies module here at NUIG aimed at academic staff, this year I incorporated a session on QR codes, involving a QR code scavenger hunt. I intend to blog about how I did this very soon. Let's just say that we all had fun and came away with a better understanding of QR codes and what they can and  can't do.


My challenge to the group was to think about how they could meaningfully use QR codes with their students to support a learning activity. I was delighted with this response from Anne Wiseman (@annewiseman), lecturer in Construction at GMIT.

Reflections on Workshop 6
I have been thinking about QR codes and how to incorporate them into my teaching  since the workshop on 2nd December. While I can see their use while on the move or out in the field I'm not so sure of their application in the classroom. The main concern I have is that I'm not sure how many students have a smart phone and how fair it is to the students who don't? Also, if the students are in the classroom why not just access Moodle instead? Surely any link that is accessed using a QR code could be equally well accessed via Moodle. What is the advantage of the QR code over other internet access? Maybe I just need to experiment with it a bit? So I came up with the idea of using QR Codes to give students some extracurricular information and points of interest (a bit like tweeting) to see if it was a success.This way, if there are only a small number of smart phones in the class, it can be treated as a one off experiment.

The Ingalls building in Cincinnati, USA.

One of my year 3 modules is Structural Design and Detailing which is a calculation based module dealing with Structural Steel and Reinforced Concrete Design and as such is very calculation based. So to liven it up I thought I could use QR Codes posted on my office door to link to web sites showing various well known buildings, interesting facts and Youtube videos relating to this module to see how it was received by students.

My office is in the main student access area so has quite a passing 'trade', and well placed for this.

This morning I posted a QR code on my office door to see if anyone would notice, comment on the qr code or on the link. The link is to a photo and brief description of the Ingalls Building, Cincinnati, Ohio which was the first reinforced concrete skyscraper built in 1903.

This afternoon, three students stopped to ask about it. One had a smart phone so I explained about QR codes and how to get an app to scan it. They had seen QR codes before but didn't know what they were. Curiosity aroused , the app was downloaded and the QR code scanned to reveal the link. Very impressed, they then wanted to know how I did it. Without revealing how easy it was to turn a web URL into a QR code I challenged them to find out how to do it and put a code up for me  in answer. It would be great to get an exchange of interesting bits of news/information relevant to the module or programme in general. I have already sourced some Youtube videos (1-2 mins) on construction related topics to post in the next few days.

This is an ideal way to test the new technology before using it in the classroom where those that do not have the technology could feel alienated. It should be obvious very soon how many smart phones are actually out there! It was great to see the curiosity, interest and wonder and maybe it is the fun element of QR codes that makes them different to any other web access. I certainly think if I had posted the photo and description on my door nobody would have stopped.

Now I need to figure out how to check to see how many times the link is accessed! 

If you have any other ideas about using QR codes in teaching in Higher Education, please add them as a comment!

(Photo by en:User:Rdikeman, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.)

Serious Play at NUI Galway

Serious Play is a hot topic. As the official LEGO SERIOUS PLAY web site states: 'Serious Plan is an innovative, experiential process designed to enhance innovation and business performance. Based on research that shows that this kind of hands-on, minds-on learning produces a deeper, more meaningful understanding of the world and its possibilities' http://www.seriousplay.com/

I was delighted to be invited along an Operations Strategy class recently to see Serious Play in action. Mary Dempsey and John Hynes facilitate a multidisciplinary mixed group comprising business and engineering under- and post-graduate student in a purpose-built laboratory in the new NUI Galway Engineering building.

Students use SERIOUS PLAY 3D modelling techniques to build operational models; and from those models, together with the theory, the operations strategy is developed. The first task for the students was to model an individual 3D metaphorical representation of a McDonalds outlet within the stated timeframe (15 mins). On completion, all students articulated their ideas to the wider group while fielding questions and answers. The next challenge was to create a group representation of the outlet, to reflect the key values and priorities of the group team of 4/5 students (20 mins). A challenging and fascinating process.

It was very interesting to observe the Serious Play methodology which: follows a tightly structured learning design; necessitates quick deadlines for individual and group-based tasks completion; along with a number of presentation and reflective activities for students.

I am looking forward to the next Serious Game session in three weeks time, where the topic will move on to modelling the McDonalds of the future.

Exposure to the Operations Strategy has given me food for thought; particularly in the transferrable nature of the methodology to create competitive and fun learning activities.