What you missed if you missed Online Educa Berlin

Last week the Intercontinental Hotel in Berlin was descended upon by 2,000+ motley e-learning types, all attending the annual Online Educa Berlin (OEB) conference. It was an extremely well-run conference (just as you’d expect in Germany), and had some memorable moments (just as you’d expect in a gathering of that size with people from over 90 countries present, all of whom are doing interesting things in e-learning). So I thought I’d share my potted list of highlights – bearing in mind that it was only possible for one person to attend a fraction of the sessions, so the list may appear a bit random.

The keynote addresses were without exception stimulating. On Thursday, David Puttnam showed us some moving extracts from a recently released film, We Are the People We’ve Been Waiting For, and made a plea for educators to use moving images in their teaching, and to encourage their students to create moving images. Brian Durrant gave an impressive overview of how the schools in London are all linked up on a single, streamlined platform, which is enabling collaboration amongst teachers and students, as well as giving students the opportunity to access more materials from home. The system has been enthusiastically received by students and teachers, and the combined platform has been a huge cost saver for individual districts. Zenna Atkins spoke entertainingly and persuasively about the need to recognise both the needs and contributions of children who have grown up ‘digital’. With deliberate and delicious irony, she contrasted her experience as a mother with that as Chairman of Ofsted, leaving the audience in no doubt as to the limitations of the school inspection body in effecting meaningful change in the education system.

On Friday, the University of Leicester’s Gilly Salmon gave the first keynote address, along with student representative, Aaron Porter. Gilly’s metaphoric ‘tree of learning’ showed beautifully the long way that education has come since our forefathers made cave paintings, and she had the audience twittering about her question as to the two great wonders of education… (Answers anyone? The famous library at Alexandria and… the Internet.) Artur Dyro, from Young Digital Planet in Poland, successfully resisted the temptation give a sales spiel, and spoke engagingly about what the publishing industry can learn from today’s learners. (And it wasn’t what your run-of-the-mill, copyright-defending commercial publisher would want to hear…) Lizbeth Goodman then showed some intriguing footage of people in wheelchairs dancing with able-bodied people, demonstrating how technology can empower disabled people. This went down well, although her decision to read a rather sentimental voice-over, apparently for atmospheric effect, caused some mutters on twitter. (Twutters?)

The Beyond Distance team from the University of Leicester had a rather visible presence at OEB. Apart from Gilly’s keynote address, she also led a half-day pre-conference workshop with Sandra Romenska-Aggarwal, in which delegates looked into crystal balls to glimpse some insights into learning futures, guided by preliminary findings from the CALF project. The Beyond Distance team also led a Learning Café, in which several of our research projects were described, giving audience members a brief taste of everything from the use of e-book readers in higher education, to what Psychology students can learn from evacuating a burning oil rig in the virtual world, Second Life. Finally, the OTTER project (putting the University of Leicester’s teaching materials on the web under open licences) and IMPALA (podcasting) project were described in more detail in longer presentations. All the slides from these sessions are available here.

The most provocative session of the three days was the Big Debate, in which Aric Sigman zealously warned the audience against the harmful consequences of too much social networking on children’s brains, and was capably countered by Donald Clark, who identified numerous points of false logic in Aric’s argument. I think the defining moment was when Aric, with some pomp and ceremony, showed us photos of some kids at school in North Korea and Bhutan (the latter playing with guns) and held them up as example of “well disciplined” school children, supposedly better off than kids who have easy access to the Web. This really doesn’t warrant any comment here, but if you’re interested, you can read Donald’s detailed version of the debate or an abridged account (written with feeling) by another OEB-attendee, Iain.

A couple of other highlights were Clive Shepherd talking about the nonsensical way in which many corporations have implemented e-learning for so-called ‘compliance training’, and Inge de Waard talking about the value of Web 2.0 applications that exist outside the ‘walled gardens’ of our institutional VLEs. (I heartily agreed – and was particularly excited to meet Inge, being a long-time follower of her blog.) Another exciting session was the one on breaking down intercultural barriers in e-learning. I was particularly impressed by Thorsten Randel’s description of the ambitious Scoyo project, in which a virtual team comprising members from India to Germany to South America, and many countries in between, worked for a year to produce 12,000 hours’ worth of language teaching materials for children. Randel’s project management process included solving 60,000 ‘issues’ during this time!

Unfortunately I missed the Battle of the Bloggers session, which promised to be interesting, but I see Clive Shepherd has already blogged on it here.

Apart from the sessions described, my main take-home from the conference was a new understanding of the role that twitter can play at such a massive gathering. I found myself getting quite hooked on the twitter stream (when I was able to get a connection, which wasn’t all the time), both to read the running commentary on the session I was in, and also to see what I was missing in the other sessions. There was one attempt at getting the audience to use a separate back channel (Cover It Live) – presumably to prevent the distraction of tweets from other sessions, but it was only used by a handful of people, and when audience members wanted to write less-than-positive comments in this session, they reverted to twitter (which I found interesting!) I gathered via twitter that at least one conference member was sitting in one session and watching a second session that was being streamed live, simultaneously. That kind of thing does my head in, just thinking about it… Oh, and one last thing: twitter lived up to its reputation as a subversive element, being used to recruit people to a more interesting session after they had tweeted their dissatisfaction with the sessions they were in…

Gabi Witthaus / 7 December 2009

ELKS Seminar on Lifelong Learning for Senior Citizens in the Digital Age

I thought you might be interested in our next ELKS (E-Learning and Knowledge Sharing Community) online event scheduled for the 15th of December at 11am to 1230pm GMT. Come and join this pre-Christmas ELKS seminar. Our colleague Ricardo Torres Kompen from Spain has kindly agreed to share his and his colleagues’ work on the use of ICT with senior citizens. The URL for the seminar is on the ELKS website at http://elkscommunity.wetpaint.com Please read the abstract below.

Seniorlab: Lifelong learning for Senior Citizens in the Digital Age

Speaker: Ricardo Torres Kompen, i2Cat Foundation, Barcelona, Spain, and The Education research group at Citilab, Cornellà, Spain

Senior citizens are usually the group with less experience in the use of the Internet, as shown by numerous studies. Society’s image of senior citizens is, in general, shown in a negative light, mainly because of social prejudice and economic factors, that associate old age with a plethora of negative concepts, such as burden, dependency, cost, illnesses, obsolescence and lack of productivity. On the other hand, this growing segment of the population is being perceived as a potential market for service companies, and is also being addressed by governments, which are providing support for the social and health needs of this age group.

The objective of Seniorlab project is to put senior citizens at the centre of the knowledge society, under the belief that senior citizens should not have to adapt to new technologies and tools, but rather that these should be adapted to senior citizens’ needs, and it should also be taken into account what they can provide to society. Seniorlab is, in this context, a social innovation that regards people – senior citizens in this case – as the drivers of social and cultural innovation.

In this seminar, we will provide an overview of the Seniorlab project and its planning and development phases followed by a description of methodologies and participants. We will outline how we use project-based learning, Living Lab methodologies and social networking. We will also provide results from evaluations and future plans for the Seniorlab.

About Ricardo

Ricardo Torres Kompen is a researcher in the field of technology enhanced learning and multimedia. Currently enrolled in a Doctoral programme in Multimedia Engineering at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Ricardo’s PhD thesis is focused on the personalisation of learning through the use of multimedia and technology. He works as e-Learning cluster coordinator for the i2Cat Foundation, Barcelona, Spain, and is also involved in the Education research group at Citilab, an innovation center based on Cornellà, Spain. He collaborates with the Seniorlab project, a project whose aim is to help senior citizens use ICTs in innovative ways, and also coordinates the Hort Digital project (The Digital Orchard), a living lab approach to helping high school teachers use technology in the classroom, by developing innovative projects and strategies.

Ricardo collaborates with the Beyond Distance Research Alliance at the University of Leicester, UK, since 2008, on the PELICANS project.

Palitha Edirisingha, 6th December 2009.

Dear Father Christmas…..

As always I’ve been a good girl and decided that a seasonal approach to my final blog entry of the year would be appropriate.  Below is a (short) list of some technology that I’d like to find wrapped up for me on Christmas day:

• Sony PRS-600
  This is the latest version of the Sony e-reader, we’ve been using the Sony PRS-505 as part of our DUCKLING project (http://www2.le.ac.uk/departments/beyond-distance-research-alliance/projects/duckling), but this latest version features a touch screen which I think will make it more intuitive and easier to use based on how I’ve seen people try to initially use the PRS-505.  The Kindle is reported to be the ‘most wished for’ Christmas present (http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/dec/02/technology-gadgets-for-christmas), we might be seeing students coming back with e-readers after the holidays ready for University produced e-books?
• Universal Solar Phone Charger
  I’m forever running out of battery on my phone and on my iPod, very annoying when you’re expecting a phone call, listening to music on a long car journey, or tweeting during a conference.  This handy little gadget will enable me (hopefully) to keep my technology charged, or at least until I can get back home.  With our culture seemingly becoming more dependent on technology this means we never have to face the panic of being without.
• Microsoft Surface
  Because a girl can dream that she can afford these things! Microsoft Surface lets you touch the surface of a screen which is on a horizontal surface to move files, edit video, even ripple water!  If you can afford it, this could revolutionise the way you interact and collaborate in education and business.  
• High Definition Eyes
  This might not be on my Christmas list quite yet (I still have 20-20 vision), but I’ve included it to show the advances in technology and that advances will always be made.  This news story is about an ‘artificial lens’ made from light sensitive silicone which can be fine tuned to each individuals prescription.  Reading a brief history of cataract surgery (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cataract_surgery#History) people have always been curious and felt the need to advance, and it makes me wonder what will be next? 
• Etre Touchy Gloves
  Why are these on the list?  Basically because they’re fun! These are gloves with the tip of the thumb and index finger missing to enable you to keep your hands warm in winter while still being able to press the buttons on your mp3 player, phone or whatever device you are using.

Hopefully you’ve seen something that you like and can see how some of these gifts would be used for education, I’ve given a brief reason how and why I think they can be used.  I used the Guardians Christmas Gift Guide for inspiration: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/gallery/2009/nov/27/christmas-gift-guide-gadgets?picture=356240049 and I hope that you all get everything you want for Christmas (if you’ve been good that is)!

One last thing to add to the list that will improve your New Year: Registration to our Learning Futures Festival Online – registration closes the 23^rd December.

Emma Davies
Learning Technologist

Mixed Messages about Elearning

Do we know what’s happening to elearning out in the wide world? I’ve been getting mixed messages. Here are three US ones for us to reflect on, and another from South Africa.

The US market for self-paced elearning will reach $16.7 billion in 2009 according to a new report by Ambient Insight*. The demand for online training is growing by 7.4% annually and revenues will reach $23.8 billion by 2014. “We see the highest growth rate in the healthcare segment, followed by Pre-K-12 and higher education,” comments CEO Tyson Greer.

The EDUCAUSE Center for Applied Research in Boulder, Colorado, has an annual report on US undergraduate IT use*. It is in its fifth year and now includes some data on mobile technology use. Students “consistently report that they prefer only a moderate amount of IT when it comes to their courses”.

Here’s a summary of a report on the 21st-Century Campus*, based on a survey of 1017 US students. This finds that only 38% of students indicated that their instructors “understand technology and fully integrate it into their classes” although, in contrast, the higher education instructor view was that 74% “incorporate technology into every class or nearly every class”. 52% of students said they use social networking tools for education, but only 14% of faculty members said they use social networking for teaching purposes.

I can’t say I’m at all surprised to hear these statistics: while IT producers and sellers push their wares, staff and students in higher education live in the real world of widely varying provision and have to get by with what they’ve got. And more isn’t always better.

I was pleased to have news, however, from the University of Cape Town’s Centre for Educational Technology of Facilitating Online*. It is a course written to train educators as online facilitators of fully online and mixed mode courses . It comprises a Course Leader’s Guide and a specimen website. The guide contains the course model, week-by-week learning activities, general guidance to the course leader on how to implement and customise the course and specific guidelines on each learning activity. Tony Carr, who has visited BDRA, is one of the originators of this course.

And a forthcoming internal event at the Open University will showcase very interesting uses of Google Earth, iTunes, image galleries, Elluminate, structured content and interactive DVDs, all in the Arts Faculty, not always the one that first comes to my mind. By the way, iTunes U for the OU has just recorded its 10 millionth download since launch 75 weeks ago: now that’s mass elearning for you! Have a listen for yourself.

David Hawkridge

PS I need more training in inserting URLs into blogs, but if you want any of these, just email me at d.g.hawkridge@open.ac.uk, please.

Now is the time to remove the highway tolls

While passing a radio a week ago, I heard that Swindon – a town in the UK – will be offering free wireless broadband for all its 186,000 residents. Several days later, my colleague David Hawkridge mentioned that, while not free, Finland  (and Spain) will make affordably priced broadband of 1 Mpbs available to every citizen by 2011.

For a number of years now, Singapore, where an excellent telecommunications market exists largely as a result of government strategy, has forged ahead in terms of broadband access. Intelligent Nation 2015 will ensure that, by 2010, virtually every citizen will have high-speed broadband access.

Here in the UK, and following on from the Digital Britain White Paper published in June 2009, the Digital Economy Bill promises a universally available broadband service in the UK by 2012 achieved through a public fund.

Whether it’s the free model of Swindon or the market-manipulated Singaporean example, one fact is inescapable: for a state, institution or individual to realise its full potential, online access is crucial.

For educators in the UK, where many of our work-based, part-time, distance learning students do not have access to the stable on-campus Janet network, this is even more important.

I very much hope the new bill achieves what it claims it will (or rather that its clear desire to concentrate on copyright infringers allows it the time to do so).  

Because this is where  true innovation is needed. One can only imagine how society would benefit if online access were as free, easy and second nature as breathing. For me, the benefits to a state of having universal broadband access far outweigh any cost of subsidising this access.

In a gold rush, those who sell the pick axes and pans make the fortunes, and only rarely do those who use the tools to dig out the gold. As a taxpayer, I’d much rather ensure the tools – primarily the broadband access – were freely available so that everyone could get at the ‘gold’ of the Internet.

Can the free market model do this? I doubt it very much – it couldn’t save the bankers. That job fell to the state and the taxpayers.

Simon Kear

Learning Technologist

Malcolm Read visits the University of Leicester

Dr Malcolm Read, Executive Secretary of JISC, visited the University of Leicester on 25 November. He and Norman Wiseman (Head of Services and Outreach at JISC) spent some time with us at Beyond Distance, where they familiarised themselves with the work on our current and previous JISC-funded projects. Dr Read then inaugurated the new Postgraduate Media Zoo in the David Wilson Library. He also gave a very interesting presentation on the strategy and vision of the JISC, which was attended by colleagues from across the University.

JISC is one of Beyond Distance’s main funders. It was fantastic to be able to engage these senior members of JISC with our project work and share some findings with them. It was also reassuring to hear that our research is on the right track and very much in sync with JISC’s vision and strategy. The DUCKLING and the OTTER projects, which are having major institutional impact, are very good examples of this.

Dr A Armellini
26 November 2009

Using the back channel effectively in presentations

Earlier this year the Beyond Distance team had an ‘away day’, during which we all gathered in Leicester’s leafy Victoria Park and carried out several activities to help us give better presentations – much to the amusement of passers-by. Activities included giving a presentation to an imaginary audience located way above us on the 18th floor of the nearby Attenborough Tower, and experimenting with different kinds of body language while talking to the flowers. (Good for improving our voice projection and stage presence, as you can imagine, not to mention addressing any inhibitions about public speaking!)

With presentations coming up at two major conferences in the next two months – one face-to-face (Online Educa Berlin) and one online (Beyond Distance’s Learning Futures Festival), I appreciate these strategies. However, I am also aware of the need to learn to use the so-called ‘back channel’ (twitter in live events, and the instant messaging chat box in online events) as a positive force.

For a great summary of the lively discussion taking place in the blogosphere about the use of twitter in face-to-face presentations, see this piece by Olivia Mitchell. Perhaps the most important point she makes is that one cannot ignore the back channel. Whether you choose to have the twitterstream projected on a large screen while you are presenting, or to specifically ask the conference organisers not to do so (both of which are legitimate choices), your audience will be interacting with one another – and the outside world – while you are speaking. Mitchell recommends asking a colleague, or a member of the audience if necessary, to play the role of twitter monitor, and stopping your presentation to respond to questions or comments from time to time. She also suggests telling the audience at the start of your presentation how and when you will respond to their tweets.

If you want to be more proactive about the use of twitter, you can integrate the twitterstream into your presentation, as described in an earlier blog posting by Terese. A further option is to actually schedule your own tweets that will be sent when you click on a particular slide.

If you are presenting online (for example in Elluminate or Adobe Connect), your audience is more likely to use the internal instant messaging tool than twitter, and it’s worth having a strategy for keeping up with the comments here too. In the ELKS seminars coordinated by Palitha Edirisingha at Beyond Distance, we have found it essential to have one person dedicated to monitoring the back channel, and summarising the questions and issues for the presenter at regular intervals.

Finally, don’t forget to archive the twitter stream (e.g. using Twapper Keeper) or to keep a recording of the online event for future reference.

Gabi Witthaus

REGISTER NOW FOR THE LEARNING FUTURES FESTIVAL
Learning Futures Festival Online 2010
Positively Disruptive
7–14 January 2010
More networking, more keynotes, more workshops, for less cost, less effort…
www.le.ac.uk/beyonddistance/festival

A Media Zoo for University of Leicester Postgraduates

The Beyond Distance Research Alliance Media Zoo is a place where members of staff from University of Leicester can learn about new technologies for teaching and learning and try them for themselves. Now, the University’s postgraduate students will have a Media Zoo of their own. Wednesday 25^th November 2009, 2pm, sees the launch of the Graduate School Media Zoo in the Graduate School Reading Room, first floor of the University’s David Wilson Library.

This new Zoo is a joint endeavour of the University Library, the Graduate School and Beyond Distance. Daily on-site drop-in or prearranged support will be provided by my able and enthusiastic colleague Emma Kimberley who rejoices in the title of Research Forum Facilitator.

 A series of workshops will be on offer over at the Zoo, geared to help postgraduate students explore time-saving and innovative technologies for their research work. Workshop topics will include “Blogging for Research” and “Social Networking in the Research World.” Additionally, the Graduate School Media Zoo has a growing and interactive web presence, including a Facebook group and a blog, so that postgraduate students who are studying at a distance can also benefit.

The Zoo will be formally inaugurated by Dr Malcolm Read, Executive Secretary of JISC, which has funded many of Beyond Distance’s research projects, followed by a workshop on “Keeping ahead of research in your field using RSS feeds”  led by Information Librarian Sarah Whittaker.  There will also be opportunities to test-run one of several eBook readers, podcasting methods, and Second Life, in the new Zoo.

Postgraduate students are perpetually busy and hard-pressed by the demands of both research and part-time teaching. Finding the time to learn about innovations and technologies which can facilitate networking and collaboration with others in their field can be a challenge. We hope that by virtue of its accessibility in the library and its web presence, the new Graduate School Media Zoo will help meet this challenge, and will equip Leicester’s postgraduates with research tools to enable them to achieve more not only as researchers but as academics of the future.

Terese Bird, Learning Technologist & Assistant Media ZooKeeper

Audio feedforward for distance-learning assessment support

Recently my BDRA colleague Ming Nie posted an item about the use of audio files or podcasts for feedforward. This was based on work with distance-learning psychology students in the DUCKLING research project, providing dissertation and module assignment support. She highlighted two key benefits in terms of encouraging students to ‘think ahead’ and also providing them with reassurance about being ‘on the right track’.

For the past six months, I have been an online module tutor on a distance-learning course supporting master’s-level management students. As a relative novice in the podcasting arena, this provided a good opportunity to see how audio files could be used to support students’ work on their assignments, coupled with the VLE Discussion Board for assignment and other questions related to the course materials. Some students have access to local tutor support, but others do not. However, for distance learners the assignment is always a potential source of anxiety. So providing resources to complement both the assignment brief and the facility to post discussion board questions seemed likely to be received positively.

The approach comprised three separate audio files, one on assignment process issues and one on each of two assignment questions. At 10 to 14 minutes in length, these would be classified as ‘long’ using the 10-factor model for podcast development (1) derived from the IMPALA research project. However, given the ‘distance’ aspect involved and likely levels of discussion board traffic, providing fewer if longer audio files was a ‘justified compromise’.

It is still early days, but the following observations can be made:

• The relevance of audio files for non-native English-speaking/English as a study language students, who are able to ‘rewind’ and listen repeatedly to help develop their understanding of the language and of the assessment requirements.
• The ability to ‘start-stop’ and make notes while listening and then to refer back and use the notes as a reference source or checklist when developing the assignment.
• The more personal nature of listening to a spoken commentary, compared with reading course materials or asynchronous discussion board Q&A episodes, thus increasing the diversity of teaching media available to students.
• Students identifying aspects of academic research and writing that their professional background and previous work experience have not highlighted, thus cultivating a different outlook and learning from the study experience rather than from the course materials as such.
• The use of audio files as vehicles for student discussion in locally-based face-to-face study groups or via ‘closed’ social networking sites set-up by students at the start of the course.

To date, the investment made in interpreting the assignment brief and reflecting on what might be helpful for students seems warranted. Conceptually, this feels no different from preparing personal notes in advance for a class or workshop teaching session where assignment questions might arise, but instead recording the thoughts for wider distribution and remote access.

Roger Dence / 20th November 2009

(1) Edirisingha P, Salmon G and Nie M (2008) “Developing pedagogical podcasts” in Salmon G and Edirisingha P (eds) (2008) Podcasting for learning in universities, SRHE and Open University Press/McGraw-Hill, Maidenhead, 222pp.

Welcome to Wednesday

What do you do on Tuesday evenings? When I can, there’s a roundtable discussion on (and in) Second Life. This week I was talking with a teacher in New Zealand about her subject – language teaching in SL (my Tuesday evening was her Wednesday lunchtime so the conversation included one of those SL-surreal phrases: “Welcome to Wednesday”).

We were speculating on why people would run a language class in Second Life in a sterile classroom, rather than a relevant environment – a Parisienne café, German railway station, Mexican “Day of the Dead” festival for example. One possibility is that they are so enthused about the opportunities for distance learning in Second Life that they don’t consider all the possibilities.

In fact, I’m coming to a tentative conclusion that there may be an institutional learning process that everyone goes through with Second Life (and probably virtual worlds in general). It would run something like this:

1)      Get excited about being able to fly, be with people from anywhere in the real world, create anything you can imagine and interact with it as though it was real

2)       Recreate the real-world institution one belongs to using Second Life, only better (minus rust, potholes and mess, plus trees, classrooms in the sky and quacking ducks)

3)      Recreate real-world teaching – lectures, tutorials, group work

4)      Suddenly realise that teaching could be lots better if the unique environment were fully utilised

5)      Start building environments to support field trips, context for learning and experiences

The switched-on institutions go through this process as a thought exercise and begin their Second Life work further down the list.

It’s good to be switched on!

Dr Paul Rudman
19th November 2009

(See the Second Life group Virtual Worlds Education Roundtable)