E-Learning and Digital Cultures: Week 3 Reflection #edcmooc

I think I made a mistake in week three of #edcmooc. I was doing some travelling by train and decided to review the resources while in transit. Unfortunately, the Iarnród Éireann WiFi wouldn't let me access any of the videos, so I couldn't watch the film festival or Steve Fuller's TedX Warwick talk Defining Humanity.

Instead, I jumped straight into the advanced reading: Neil Badmington's introduction on Posthumanism. I read it twice, in full, and have gone back to sections since. But, I really don't think I have the necessary background to be able to make any sense of it at all.

Being Human, Humanism, Posthumanism and Transhumanism

As I read Badmington's introduction, I had fleeting glimpses of meaning and at times thought I might be approaching some understanding. But eventually I gave up. Is it possible to understand what posthumanism is without understanding humanism? I don't know, but all the different arguments got my head in a spin.

I was ready to give up at this stage. A couple of days later I did watch Fuller's talk and, though I still didn't understand many of the subtleties, was hugely relieved to hear that there is no agreed consensus about humanism.

So, my conclusion is, does it really matter? If I have a sense of what being human means to me, then I'm happy to leave the experts to their arguments.

Perspectives on Education

In contrast, the two readings on education were much more accessible. The Kolowich article from Inside Higher Ed describes the common belief that adding video and audio to an online course will help to provide the human element, which is missing from text-based materials. On the other hand, Monke's article laments the loss of interaction with our surroundings and with nature, as a result of increased focus on technology in schools.

The Talking Head V Being Present

The Kolowich article, as well as the recorded google hangout with the #edcmooc tutors, made me think about what does it mean to be human as a teacher in an online course.

It is certainly true that video and audio technologies can help to support the human element, whatever that might mean. Academic staff at NUI Galway have described how preparing podcasts for their students has allowed them to engage more deeply with the material and with their students. Webcam recordings,made  available to students via the VLE, can provide a personal touch. In both cases, the recordings are quick, with minimal editing, and specific to a group of people. Moreover, the purpose of the recording is to reach out to students online. The experience of the student is that the teacher is speaking, if not directly to him/her, but at least to a generic member of the class.

Lecture capture is something different. The lecture is being given to a group of people in the room, normally, but being recorded so that it can be accessed later. While some students may decide to watch the recording instead of attending the lecture in person, on the whole lecture capture is used as a revision tool. I am reminded of Andrea Sella's image of lecture capture as a time machine (at the Echo360 Community Conference Europe in 2011) , offering the possibility for students to go back and revisit those parts of a lecture that were unclear.

The recorded lecture has its use, but I don't think it provides the human element, as described by Hersh in the Kolowich article. In fact, a live lecture very often doesn't provide the human element either.

Contrast, within the #edcmooc coursera course, the recording of Steve Fuller's TedX Warwick talk and the recording of the week 3 google hangout with "the teachers". For me, as a student, Fuller's talk is a recording from 3 years ago, which doesn't speak to me at all. I couldn't watch the hangout live, but I got a lot from the recording and picked up on many points which had been previously unclear or that I haven't considered. Which one has the human element?

I think the important thing about the human element in teaching an online course is being present. This can be achieved through video and audio, but presence via text has been working in online learning for years. Presence via activity, comments and feedback in asynchronous discussion boards were strong features of my first experience of online teaching, almost 10 years ago. Video and audio technologies, among others, allow us to be present in different ways, but they do not, in themselves, deliver the human element.

Interacting with our environment

Finally, some quick thoughts based on Monke's article. Monke is arguing that we are focusing too much on technology in schools when children are better off experiencing the environment around them. I have some sympathies with his argument, but I think we need a balance. In particular, when it comes to simulations - why would we simulate an environment that the children can experience in real life?

I was reminded of the Windows 8 advertisement that is constantly on my tv at the moment. In it, a mother places a tablet onto her child's easel, so that the little girl can "paint" and print out her pictures. I know kids get messy when they paint, but this is crazy. We need a balance.


Mobile technologies offer huge opportunities when it comes to exploring our environment. While their use means that location becomes unimportant, it can also mean that location is of utmost importance. Students can be out in the field, interacting with the (natural) environment, and still be connected to the virtual classroom.

In conclusion

I found the week 3 material very tough and it took me a while to get to the stage where I felt I had anything to say. Again, these are completely my own ramblings; apologies if they seem completely confused. I'm off to read up on week 4.

References

Badmington, Neil (2000) Introduction: approaching posthumanism. Posthumanism. Houndmills; New York: Palgrave.http://www.palgrave.com/PDFs/0333765389.Pdf

Kolowich, S (2010) The Human Element. Inside Higher Ed http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/03/29/lms

Monke, L (2004) The Human Touch, EducationNext http://educationnext.org/thehumantouch/

Related
E-Learning and Digital Cultures: Week 1 Reflection
E-Learning and Digital Cultures: Week 2 Reflection
Being Human
E-Learning and Digital Cultures: Week 4 Reflection

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Learning Technologies Symposium 2013

Back in September, I welcomed the #cel263 class of 2012 to the Learning Technologies module, as run by the Learning Technologies Team at CELT.

Over the next few months we examined a range of technologies in the context of teaching and learning, and each participant was encouraged to complete a project to incorporate a technology into his/her teaching.

Five months after our first meeting, we again came together, this time for the annual Learning Technologies Symposium, where each participant in the course gives a 10 minute project presentation.

From Storify, read about it as it happened:





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Being Human #edcmooc

In week 3 of #edcmooc, we were asked to "create an image that represents or illustrates any one of the themes you have encountered in the course so far". Well, I'm not particularly creative when it comes to images, so I decided quite quickly that this was one part of the course that I might not take part in.

On Wednesday I struggled with some of the readings around humanism and post-humanism. I will talk about this in my blog post reflecting on week 3, coming soon (I hope). Anyway, I couldn't get my head around the theories and by Thursday morning was really feeling deflated.

On Thursday lunchtime I had an opportunity to go to a free lunchtime concent on campus, arranged by the Arts In Action group. The recital was given by Luisa Sello, a flautist, who has travelled the world as a recitalist and chamber musician. I had a lot of work to do, and I really thought twice about walking the few hundred metres to the venue, thinking I might be better to just work through lunch. In the end, I decided to make the effort, and I'm glad I did.

As she started playing, and the room went silent apart from her beautiful music, I felt myself relax. Before long, I was caught up in the emotion of the music. For that hour, it became clear to me what being human is all about. Through her music, Luisa reached out to my inner being, call it a soul if you like.

Thinking of the image competition, I quickly snapped a photo on my phone.

cc licensed ( BY NC SA ) flickr photo by sharonlflynn: http://flickr.com/photos/sharonlflynn/8474882391/

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E-Learning and Digital Cultures: Week 1 Reflection
E-Learning and Digital Cultures: Week 2 Reflection
E-Learning and Digital Cultures: Week 3 Reflection

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E-Learning and Digital Cultures: Week 2 Reflection #edcmooc

Interactive White Board of the future

We're already in week 3 of #edcmooc, and I'm behind. I have some train travel ahead of me tomorrow, so that should give me a chance to catch up on materials. But before that, I'd better write up some thoughts from week 2.

Week 2 continued on the theme of Utopias and Dystopias, this time looking to the future - of society and education. Looking at the materials, videos and readings, a lot of thoughts went through my head. I'm not really sure what this course is all about, and I don't have a lot of time to devote to it, so I find myself relating the materials to my own professional life working in academic staff development, as well as to my own experiences of education as a parent.

I did watch all five videos in the film festival. Two of these (A Day Made of Glass and Productivity Future Vision) are video advertisements, offering a very sanitised possible near future. I say sanitised because everything, every surface, looked so clean and shiny. I know what my iPad looks like if I've been using it all day, but evidentally this grubiness won't be a problem in the future.

The description for Productivity is particularly amusing:
Watch how future technology will help people make better use of their time, focus their attention, and strengthen relationships while getting things done at work, home, and on the go.
Technical determinism (see week 1) or what?

The next 3 videos offer more unsettling visions of a possible near future. In two of these (Charlie 13 and Plurality) surveillance of the general population has become the norm and there is evidence of some higher power that is dictating and controlling the use of technology. Sight, on the other hand, demonstrated a particularly nasty side of gamification.

Some thoughts on these and the readings:

Technology does not change education
The image of education in the future, and the classroom scenes in Day of Glass (pictured) in particular, still has the teacher at the top of the classroom, using a fancy Interactive White Board (IWB). So, even the advertisers at the fancy technology company don't have a vision for how their technology might transform teaching and learning.

In the last 5 years, a lot of money has been spent putting technology (such as IWBs and Classroom Response Systems) into classrooms. Parents (myself included) have put huge efforts into fundraising for the latest technologies, and governments have been berated for not providing resources. The truth is that we can make the classrooms as high tech as we want, but it won't make any difference until we can put the resources into changing the way we teach. Technology won't do that for us.

This is a very good example of a general belief in Technical Determinism.

Technology does not change society
From the two advertising videos, it would appear that better technology in the future will not only improve lifestyles, it will make us better people as well. We'll all be quite happy to entrust our personal data to anyone (via personal devices), and nobody will abuse that trust. Ahem?

Sight, in particular, shows us a more likely scenario. The young man in the story is nasty from the start, and he's still nasty at the end. Technology can't change human nature, and humans will use technology to amplify their behavioural traits.

Another thing that struck me from the videos was the clear digital divide. In the two advertisements, it's obvious that all the gadgets and technologies are expensive and it's reasonable to assume that only the affluent will benefit. In Charlie 13 and Plurality, the divide is not between rich and poor, but between the general population (the Proles) and those in control (the Inner Party).

The Technological Imperative
I was reminded, via the film festival and the Bleeker reading on the Internet of Things, of the notion of the technological imperative, which I enjoyed so much in week 1. To complement Bleeker's paper, this video from IBMSocialMedia explains the concept well.

In my mind, this demonstrates exactly the idea that the "ubiquitous technozealots" will continue to develop the technology, because they can, and because it's bright and shiny. Taking a dystopian view, this will inevitably lead to increased surveillance and embedded tracking devices. And society will always find a use for them.

Perspectives on Education
This leads us on nicely to education, which is always an easy application domain for the technozealots.

I had read the Shirky article (Napster, Udacity, and the Academy), and some of the responses, when they first appeared. I don't think the Napster metaphor is particularly helpful: it identifies education as a commodity, to be bought and sold or given freely via MOOCs. I think that Shirky has some good points, which are getting lost in his determination to stick with the metaphor. In particular, I agree that the future is inevitable, and MOOCs, for better or worse, are part of that future.

However, MOOCs will not revolutionise education, in the same way that technology cannot change education. I think that we (the universities, schools, colleges, places of education) need to take ownership of MOOCs and not leave them to the technozealots and the marketing guys. MOOCs could be a catalyst, forcing us to rethink teaching and learning and assessment, and even community engagement. But I'm not particularly hopeful. I'm thinking of a local school, with 16 new Interactive Whiteboards and a bank of 30 laptops, with which the children are learning how to use PowerPoint.

Disclaimer
The above ramblings are completely my own. I'm tired and have to get up early for a 6:30 am train. I'll start the week 3 readings then.


Bleecker, J. (2006). A manifesto for networked objects — Cohabiting with pigeons, arphids and Aibos in the Internet of Things. http://www.scribd.com/doc/14748019/Why-Things-Matter

Shirky, C. (2012). Napster, Udacity and the academy. http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2012/11/napster-udacity-and-the-academy/

Related
E-Learning and Digital Cultures: Week 1 Reflection
Being Human
E-Learning and Digital Cultures: Week 3 Reflection
E-Learning and Digital Cultures: Week 4 Reflection 

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E-Learning and Digital Cultures: Week 1 Reflections #ecdmooc

Back in early January, I heard Jeremy Knox speak at the Durham Blackboard Users' Conference about his involvement in the Coursera MOOC, E-Learning and Digital Cultures. It sounded interesting and, despite a heavy workload, I decided to sign up. I don't know if I'll complete it, but week 1 has been interesting and I'm still there.

I'll blog about the whole MOOC experience separately. For now, I just want to record my thoughts about the week one content and reflect on what I  might have learned.

First of all, I am a scientist by background, namely computer science and mathematics. While I love reading and the cinema, and I know what I like and what I don't like, I'm not used to analysing and critiquing them. I don't ever use the words "utopia" or "dystopia" in everyday conversation and I'm not comfortable using them. So, this is definitely new to me. I think I have a better idea, after week 1, of their meaning. I can see, I think, how they might be useful as a lens, but I also think the binary nature of utopia versus dystopia won't get us very far.

I tried to use the theme of utopia-dystopia when watching the four short films. I also dipped into some of the discussion boards to see what others were getting from the films (is that cheating?). Here are some very brief thoughts that occurred to me.

Bendito Machine III (see it on YouTube) This is an interesting little film, and definitely dystopian in nature and certainly has an element of technological determinism in it. The new machine has a life of its own, you can even see the "face" of the machine appear, and the impression is that the machine has a malicious intent. But, I'm more interested in the little guy who climbs the mountain at the start, like Moses, and uses his own little machine to somehow call down the new one. Who is this guy, and what is his role in pushing the new technology to an apparently primitive society?

Inbox (see it on YouTube) is a fairly harmless little love story, which inspired much discussion within the coursera discussion boards. Two people find a way to communicate via red shopping bags. It has something to say about the nature of communication in the technological world. Certainly the short messages written on post-its are very like direct messages on twitter. I thought it interesting that the young man felt the need to dress and groom himself before he felt comfortable to engage, as if he had to put on an identity. It was also interesting how quickly the young woman got bored with each form of communication. I don't see the film as either upotian or dystopian: it's just about two people using an unlikely form of communication, and says nothing about society as a whole. Am I missing something?

Thursday (see it on YouTube) I liked this little animation about a day in the life of two normal people in the not-so-distant future. It has some amusing little scenes, like the power cut, the guy not getting the hand scanner to work, the tweeting alarm clock. It could have a dystopian reading - people caught up in a system, going through a routine life, not aware of nature. But, it's a Thursday - maybe they go hill-walking at the weekend! The people seem content and I didn't notice any crime or anti-social behaviour on the streets.

NewMedia (see it on Vimeo) I love this film. Everything about it, from the soundtrack to the grey, desolate colours to the images, shouts dystopia. We have destroyed the world by creating New Media, which have evolved and taken over. Fantastic! Every time I watch it I see something new.

We were asked to think about utopian or dystopian stories of technology in popular films. What I find interesting here is that the best stories of technology told in popular films actually come from science fiction books and are almost all dystopian in nature. I don't think utopian stories would be particularly interesting. I love reading science fiction, in particular Asimov, Philip K. Dick, Iain M. Banks and William Gibson, all of whom have written stories with a dystopian view of technology. A particularly relevant one to this discussion is Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson.

Readings: Technological or Media Determinism
After watching the four short films I did move on to the readings. Again, I'm not used to this type of language and discipline, so I didn't find the readings easy, but they were thought-provoking.

The Chandler essay (Technological or Media Determinism) made me question my own language when talking/writing about technology. From Chandler:

Technological determinists interpret technology .. as the basis of society in the past, present and even the future.

This view seems to suppose that technology is the sole driving force for changes in society - that the technology (in itself) drives change.While I suspect that my language sometimes promotes the idea of technological determinism, it is not what I believe. I believe that technology is just a tool and that we, the users, determine how it will be used.

I found the notion of the 'Technological Imperative' very interesting and, as a computer scientist, I believe that it is true. From Chandler:

The doctrine of the technological imperative is that because a particular technology means that we can do something (it is technically possible) then this action ought to (as a moral imperative), must (as an operational requirement) or inevitably will (in time) be taken.

If something is technically possible, then somebody will do it eventually. It will happen even quicker if some agency decides to fund it. And yes, it does imply a "suspension of ethical judgement or social control", but when has that ever stopped something in the past? We have to believe that common sense will (eventually) prevail. Again from Chandler, "the mere existence of a technology does not inevitably lead to its use". Moreover, we often use a technology in a different way from what was originally intended.

I have to admit that I did start the second reading (Dahlberg), but didn't get very far. It's not that I couldn't read it, but rather I ran out of time. Maybe I'll come back to it.

Perspectives on Education

I thoroughly enjoyed reading David Noble's essay on The Automation of Higher Education. In it, he describes the commodification of higher education, that academic staff are being forced to make resources available online and that this will ultimately put them out of a job. This argument is very current, which makes it all the more surprising to realise that the essay was written in 1998 - more than 14 years ago. The promise (or threat) of digital education did not come to pass, though it is still with us.

I particularly enjoyed his paragraph about "the ubiquitous technozealots who simply view computers as the panacea for everything, because they like to play with them". They are still around today and still have the encouragement of their patrons:

... they forge ahead, without support for their pedagogical claims about the alleged enhancement of education, without any real evidence of productivity improvement, and without any effective demand from either students or teachers.

See the doctrine of the "technological imperative" above.

Final Thoughts

To finish off this post, a few last thoughts:

What I find interesting in the dystopian view of the future is the sense that somebody or something is in control and is dictating how technology is being used. I think there's more to say here, but have to figure it out.

With my new vocabulary this week, I think I am learning to analyse media artifacts in a new way. But it's very early days and I need to open my mind a bit.

I got through week 1 of a MOOC! I'm still here, and looking forward to week 2.

Related:
E-Learning and Digital Cultures: Week 2 Reflection
Being Human
E-Learning and Digital Cultures: Week 3 Reflection 
E-Learning and Digital Cultures: Week 4 Reflection

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Blackboard vs Facebook at NUI Galway

  by  pasukaru76 

For almost a decade, there has been continued debate about the future of Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) such as Blackboard, Moodle, and Sakai. As technology evangelists and futurists have prophesied the death of email, telephone landlines, and other ageing technologies, so too has the VLE been heralded to become as extinct as the dinosaur. It has come under sustained critique for its clunky user-interface; the walled-garden of authentication access, shielding it from the wider internet; the lack student ownership and autonomy; and more recently the absence of social features (e.g. ‘Like’ and ’Share’buttons) common to newer social media platforms. Will the VLE survive in the face newer platforms such as the ubiquitous and mighty Facebook?

In the spirt of questioning older orthodoxy, we asked the NUI Galway Blackboard user community to voice their views on the utility of Blackboard versus Facebook. Specifically, we asked, “which is more useful for exchanging academic information relating to your NUI Galway studies- Facebook or Blackboard?’. The poll was displayed online over the duration of a week (from the 21st to the 28th of January, 2013), featuring prominently on our Blackboard login page.

Here's what we found:

Results:
The numbers:

The figures in percentages:

Discussion:
Both above diagrams illustrate that 688 respondents (55%) voted in favour or Blackboard as the preferred platform, with 272 (22%) voting in favour of Facebook. Interestingly, a close 230 (18%) of votes were expressed for both as equal in utility to exchange academic course related communications. So there is room for replication and linkages across tools, rather than a dichotomy view of either/or.

However, Blackboard is clearly the dominant platform at NUI Galway, according to these expressed opinions. The respondents (in an non-representative, non-randomised and biased sample) report a clear preference for using Blackboard to exchange academic information relating to their modules to Facebook. The masses have voted - the VLE is perceived to be a more useful medium. Or at least to those who vote on Blackboard polls ;)

Are reports of the impending demise of the VLE slightly exaggerated? Perhaps for the time being.

Additional Reading: 
Selwyn, Neil (2012)‘Screw Blackboard... do it on Facebook!’: an investigation of students’ educational use of Facebook. Paper presented to the ‘ Poke 1.0 - Facebook social research symposium’, University of London, 15th November 2007 [Online] http://www.scribd.com/doc/513958/Facebook-seminar-paper-Selwyn

The Journal.ie (2012) Smartphones the future of internet – and 10 other predictions The Journal.ie, October 17th 2012 [Online] http://businessetc.thejournal.ie/10-predictions-for-internet-david-shing-dublin-web-summit-639108-Oct2012/

Notes from the Blackboard Mobile Users' Group meeting

cc licensed ( BY NC SA ) flickr photo shared by sharonlflynn

The Blackboard Mobile User Group met on Monday afternoon, 7th January, as part of the 13th Durham Blackboard Users' Conference. The meeting was organised by Peter Rayment, Learning Technology Manager at Cardiff University, and attended by about 20 people from higher education around the UK. I was the only person from an Irish institution.

The meeting took place in the impressive new Palatine Centre (see picture), which houses the Law School at Durham University.

We started by going round the room, each person giving a brief introduction and describing the current status of Blackboard Mobile (Learn and/or Central) at his/her institution.

We launched Mobile Learn at NUI Galway at the end of March 2012, at the end of teaching and just 4 weeks before the start of exams. With a promising initial take-up, we were interested to monitor its use during the teaching semester starting in September 2012. Three weeks into term, the number of logins were looking good and this continued to increase over the semester. On the first day of teaching in the current semester (Monday 7th January) there were more than 2.3K logins on Mobile Learn.

Going round the room at the user group meeting, different institutions were at different stages with Mobile Learn. Only a few had more experience than NUIG, with many having just launched or about to launch. The number who have implemented Mobile Central was much lower. I was interested to hear that a couple of institutions have their students paying for the Learn app through a personal licence, rather than having an institutional licence.

Julie Usher, Solutions Engineer with Blackboard Mobile, and formerly at the University of Northampton, gave an overview of recent developments and where the products are going.

• Blackboard Mobile is ceasing support on Blackberry devices for Mobile Central only. 
• 14 languages are now supported within both Mobile Learn and Mobile Central. This is particularly useful for international students.
• The Software Development Kit (SDK) for Mobile Central is now open for partner developments. More details about the SDK are available on the website.
• New documentation is available on the Blackboard Mobile website, including a new implementation guide for mobile central, best practices for mobile friendly courses, and client case studies.

With Mobile Learn 4.0, coming soon, we can look forward to a new user interface, to be built from scratch. This will include improved content handling, and a cleaner, clutter-free interface (no more corkboard on the iPad app). It will include a better display of grades and information for instructors about item availability. It will be possible to jump to a bookmarked part of a course and the course list management will be improved. All this will be ready by summer, ready for the 2013 student intake.

Blackboard Mobile will also revisit analytics. Currently, it's possible to monitor number of logins at different times of the day, and what devices are being used, but we can't see what activities are taking place. Are students just using the app as a notification device or are they actually engaging with content? More detailed information would be very useful.

The meeting then moved on to a discussion of issues and questions from the various institutions.

Mobile Tests:  there are now two separate test editors, one specifically for Mobile Learn. Existing Blackboard tests are not necessarily suitable for Mobile, but it should be easier to identify problem questions and have an easier way to convert for Mobile.

Support for Mobile Learn:  help enquiries from Mobile Learn go directly through to Blackboard. Some members of the group expressed the preference that these should be routed through the organisation first. From the NUIG perspective, we are quite happy that requests for help with the mobile applications are handled by Blackboard, but it would be interesting to have information about the number and type of requests. In fact, I suspect these are quite low.

Engaging Staff with Mobile: in response to a questions about how we cab encourage staff to engage with Mobile Learn, and to make content more suitable for mobile delivery, we were pointed to the best practices document on the website. We also heard from Alex Spiers about staff development sessions at Liverpool John Moores University, specifically on this topic, which have been successful. This prompted me to think that we haven't really been pushing mobile at NUIG, and maybe it's time to start thinking about this.

Asking Students about their use of the Apps:  Finally, coming back to the issue of analytics, there was an observation that we don't know enough about how students are using Mobile Learn. Maybe they just use it to notify them when new content is available. If we can collect more information on this it will be possible to advocate where it is appropriate for use, or to target particular groups of students!

The next meeting of the Blackboard Mobile Users' Group will be online, with a gathering organised as part of the Blackboard Europe Conference in Birmingham in April.

[Update on 22 January 2013] We ran a quick survey on our Blackboard login page, asking students about how they use the Mobile Learn app. The survey was available for a week and we got a great response. The results are available on our dedicated blackboardnuigalway blog.

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Twitter apps on an iPad: recommendations from the PLN

Today I asked my PLN to recommend a twitter app for the iPad, one that is good for multiple accounts. The results are collated in the storify embedded below.

If you have any recommendations, please tweet them to me (@sharonlflynn) or comment below.



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Kaltura Education Video Summit - My New York Adventure

View of Empire State Building

The last two weeks have been a bit surreal for me, and on Tuesday I spent a very pleasant day in Dakota Studio on 5th Avenue in New York City, recording a presentation for the Kaltura Education Video Summit. The summit will be a virtual event, taking place on 6th December, and you can register now for free. My presentation is on Supporting the use of video for teaching and learning (in the Blackboard LMS) and I am one of a long list of speakers, but the only one from outside the US, as far as I am aware.

So, how did this strange situation come about? Being in New York, pre-recording a presentation for a virtual conference to take place next month?

Well, just two weeks ago I got an email from Meytal Burstein, marketing manager with Kaltura, letting me know that my abstract had been accepted for the virtual Summit, and that I was invited to give a 30-35 minute presentation. I was very pleased, of course, and expected to deliver the presentation from my desktop, similar to the Blackboard/Kaltura webinar I was involved in a couple of weeks previously.

But, Meytal's email went on:
The entire content for the Summit will be pre-recorded in mid-November (most likely the 19^th and 20^th) in NYC. We will be happy to pay your travel expenses to NYC, of course. We will do the video shoot in a professional studio, and of course we will provide you with a copy of your professionally edited video, in case you would like to use it as a resource in the future. 

Believe me that I had to re-read the email a number of times, and make sure that it wasn't sent to the wrong person, before I could breathe again. I didn't even tell many people about the trip, I was so sure it would all fall through at the last minute.

From my Aer Lingus flight

However, Sunday found me heading off on a plane from Shannon airport, having already sent my deck of slides to Meytal, ready for the recording gig on Tuesday.

During the various social events organised for the speakers, I met some incredibly friendly and interesting Kaltura people, with a big shout out to Meytal, Zohar, Iddo and the other Zohar, who all made me feel very welcome. I also met the very impressive Michal Tsur, President and co-Founder of Kaltura. Forbes recently printed an interview with Michal on Female Leadership in the Tech Industry, which I know a lot of people will be interested in reading.

I also met a small number of the other speakers, and am looking forward to watching their presentations on the 6th December. I know that I was not alone in feeling completely nervous about the recording.

The Studio Recording

On Tuesday morning I arrived at the studio in time for my make-up! While my face was being transformed, I was able to watch another speaker being recorded (Nathan Sanders from the University of Utah).

Then it was my turn. I was given a clip-on mic and put standing on a small platform. In front of me was a mac with my presentation pre-loaded, and being recorded using camtasia. In front of me were two camera men. I was told to direct my presentation towards a target, which was just behind the head of one camera man. We did some audio tests and the lights were adjusted (Nathan is a good bit taller than me). Then Iddo used a clapperboard and Take One began!

Giving a presentation to two camera men, with an audio guy, a make-up artist and a couple of other technical people in a studio, is a completely different experience to standing in front of an audience. They have really no interest in what you might be saying. There is no feedback; nobody nodding their head letting you know they have understood; nobody laughs (politely) at your jokes; there is nobody to make eye-contact with. On the plus side, nobody falls asleep. When you mess up a line, or lose your train of though, you just stop, take a deep breath, have a gulp of water (trying not to mess up your lipstick) and start again. It is the most bizarre experience.

I really don't know how I did. I know I messed up a couple of times and I'm relying on some good editing. I'm sure I looked like a scared rabbit in the car headlights. I don't know how well I got my message across. All will be revealed on the 6th December.

Interview

After the recording in the main studio, each speaker was asked to participate in an interview conducted with Zohar Babin and also recorded on two cameras. This was a lot less formal and much easier to perform. Zohar asked a number of questions about video in education and about our experiences at the conference. It was very conversational in style and I actually relaxed and enjoyed the experience. At the same time, we could hear the sirens blaring from outside the studio on 5th avenue, which was quite amusing.

In the photo on the left, Catherine L Moran of the University of New Hampshire talks about using video with her students.

And now, I find myself back at my desk and wondering if I've just woken from a dream. I will be tuning in on the 6th, and making myself available to answer questions at the virtual summit. I don't know if I'll be able to watch myself though.

Abstract

In case you're wondering - here's the abstract for my talk. I'll post the slides after the conference.

Over the last few years, we’ve noticed a significant increase in the use of video in teaching and learning on campus. Using the right video can enhance a lecture and increase student engagement. But encouraging academic staff to create their own video, or to make use of shared video resources, means that we have to provide a clean, simple workflow with reliable supporting technology. This talk will describe how NUI Galway has been implementing a project to integrate Kaltura into the Blackboard VLE to provide this support for staff. I’ll demonstrate some use cases for the building block, including video lab demonstrations, student presentations, vodcasts and student assignments. I will give an overview of the issues that have been experienced during the project and the extent to which they have been addressed. A particular issue is staff development: now that we have the infrastructure in place, how can we encourage and support more people to use it?

Finally, I would like to very sincerely thank the lovely folks at Kaltura who gave me the opportunity to be part of this wonderful experience. If you ever decide to visit Galway, although I can't pay your expenses, you'll be assured of a warm welcome.

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Hiding behind my avatar - follow up

I've decided to stick with my avatar. Here's why... (from Storify)

 

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Using Video to Break Down Learning Barriers

Following on from last week's webinar, I'm very pleased to see the publication of a Blackboard/Kaltura case study on how we are using Kaltura at NUI Galway.

I'd particularly like to acknowledge Oliver Ryan (Physics) and Susan Folan (Acadamh) for their contributions to the case study.

Read the full case study to find out how Oliver and Susan have been using Kaltura to support their students' learning.

We have also been featured recently on the Blackboard blog, in a nice write up by Katie Drossos.

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Kaltura on Blackboard at NUI Galway

I am very pleased to participate in this afternoon's webinar, hosted by Blackboard, on how we are using the Kaltura building block for video at NUI Galway.

Here are the slides that I'm going to be presenting with:



To find out more about Kaltura at NUI Galway, take a look at our Blackboard blog. Our guide for instructor users describing the Kaltura building block can be found on our Blackboard support site.


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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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