All posts for the month August, 2009

Learning and teaching at the speed of Twitter

Afraid of drowning in a sea of urgent trivia, I had successfully avoided becoming an active twitterer until last week. But when my colleague Sandra invited me to join in a twitter session with a group of her students on the CALF project, I capitulated – and then immediately regretted it as I felt the addictive pull of instant gratification, when my first tweet garnered an unexpected response from a long-lost friend in France. So now I’m hooked.

I watched, intrigued, as my tweets contributed fleetingly to the Twitter timeline, and then unceremoniously disappeared out of view. As web usability guru, Jakob Nielsen points out, the timing of the messages you send to Twitter is critical, if you actually have something important to say. Clicks on links sent to Twitter by Nielsen’s team showed a high degree of ‘click decay’ after a few minutes, as the message dropped down out of sight.

While this has clear implications for the use of Twitter for marketing, what does it mean for learning and teaching? Perhaps we owe it to our students to give them the tools (both technical and conceptual) to select, annotate, filter, store and retrieve information – and rapidly. The same tools are needed for using RSS feeds effectively.  I think these are essential skills for learning, no less important than critical thinking, making connections, seeing patterns and asking questions, but often overlooked – perhaps because they appear so obvious.

By Gabi Witthaus

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by ILI Leicester on August 31, 2009  •  Permalink
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http://beyonddistance.wordpress.com/2009/08/31/learning-and-teaching-at-the-speed-of-twitter/

Mobile thoughts

I was astonished when I read in the Commonwealth of Learning’s ‘Connections’ news sheet that “two-thirds of mobile phone subscribers live in the developing world, with subscriptions in Africa growing fastest.” What immense opportunities for socialisation and mobile learning! I’m sure you agree, Dick Ng’ambi (at the University of Cape Town).

Then I noticed that the Learning Lab at Wolverhampton University is holding a symposium in Telford, Oct 14-15, for those just starting to do research in mobile learning (Mobile Learning Early Researcher Symposium <http://www.learninglab.org.uk/asp/homepage.asp>). Yes, we do need more research into what is feasible in using mobile phones in this way.

Learning by ear

An older technology still offers much to learners who are mobile: a distance-education programme delivered by radio, Learning by Ear <http://www.elearning-africa.com/newsportal/english/news197.php>, is reaching out to a potential African audience of more than 33 million people. The productions are based around ten key themes, including: globalisation in Africa, environment, women and girls in Africa, health issues, political participation, and computer and Internet technology. The programme’s popularity lies in its broadcasts of true-to-life stories on these themes, whether as features, interviews or even soaps.

New for old?

But what if some kids swap their iPod or MP3 player for an old Walkman <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8117619.stm>?  Thirteen-year-old Scott Campbell swapped for a week, discovering: “As I boarded the school bus, I was greeted with laughter”; “I mistook the metal/normal switch on the Walkman for a genre-specific equaliser, but later I discovered that it was used to switch between different types of cassette”; and “It took me three days to figure out that there was another side to the tape.”

The Tablet, not the Pill

Is Steve Jobs about to launch the Apple Tablet (The Independent, August 26, 2009)? If so, will it be able to serve mobile learners as a phone, a radio and an MP3 or MP4 player? As well as doing everything else we wish for in mobile learning? What an opportunity for creativity!

David Hawkridge

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by ILI Leicester on August 31, 2009  •  Permalink
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Posted by ILI Leicester on August 31, 2009

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Sony e-books going wireless

It’s the end of my first two weeks here at the University of Leicester as the new Learning Technologist on the OTTER and DUCKLING projects (I’m either a DOTTER or an OTTLING, whichever takes your fancy). It’s been a busy two weeks with plenty of information to take in but combined with lots of friendly faces and a nice, relaxed working atmosphere to help settle the first day nerves.

While I’ve been having plenty of meetings and discussions about both projects I’ve mainly been working on DUCKLING, specifically the creation of e-books for the Sony Reader.

I’ve written in more detail about the process that I’ve used for this on the DUCKLING blog. Before being appointed to this post I had limited dealings with e-readers; I’d used e-books but had read these on my computer and not found them a replacement for other online information such as tutorials.

So I came to the Sony Reader fresh and without any previous opinions on the hardware, or indeed really on the e-book software.

Getting the opportunity to get my hands on any new technology and play with it is always good. So being able to use the Sony Reader 505 and read through and add books to it was a novel experience (pun intended I’m afraid!). I’m always looking to improve my skills and am looking to focus on my web development skills in the future.

The ability to access books or tutorials converted to e-book formats would be incredibly useful while sitting at the computer using things like Dreamweaver as I can refer to the screen and at the same time refer to multiple e-books rather than having to either switch between screens or switch between books.

I can see how something like this would be an advantage also to someone writing a dissertation or a thesis as they can, in essence, have a mini-library at their finger tips. Although being someone who enjoys reading in the bath, I’m not a 100% sure how effective e-readers would be at this and I haven’t come across any waterproof ones, yet.

Reading the Metro on the train into work this morning I came across an article about Sony Readers. Sony is just about to launch their first wireless electronic reader which also includes a touch screen and the ability to store up to 1,000 novels. In the article, Steve Haber, a Sony president, said the e-book market was expanding rapidly, ‘Momentum is building tremendously. It’s just a matter of time.’

With 400,000 of the previous non-wireless e-readers sold since January the market does appear to be growing, the article also mentions the Amazon Kindle which is also popular but with the company not providing figures it is hard to say the exact level of growth and also to see the sales war.

I was interested to see this article for a number of reasons, partly to see something that is in an emerging market being talked about relatively prominently in a free paper. Also Seeing the evolution of e-readers and how this will impact on education, both with the learners and providers.

Finally thinking about whether these developments change the purpose of e-readers. The reason I say this is because e-readers are to an extent self-explanatory: their purpose is for reading. To me the idea of wireless connection and a touch screen move slightly away from just reading, whether this is a good or bad thing depends on your own purpose for using an e-reader and how the product targets and addresses that purpose.

Coming from a web design and development background I’m also interested to see how things such as CSS, JavaScript and even Flash could be utilised by this kind of technology. CSS can already be used in the process of converting files to an e-book format, so it will be intriguing to see how far styles can be applied and again whether they change or affect the purpose of an e-reader.

With mobile technology, specifically mobile phones, design-heavy websites have been replaced with content-lead websites, but applications for these phones combine content with design and with e-books being able to be read on an iPhone and iTouch (see http://www.teleread.org/2009/06/03/two-weeks-with-a-sony-prs-700-reading-epub-and-lrf/ for a more detailed overview), it will be interesting to see whether the e-reader gets seduced into branching out into related but different areas and how successful this will be.

Personally I would like to see the e-reader branch out, as depending on what I’m doing I will be doing other things while reading: if I’m reading for pleasure I tend to listen to music at the same time; and if I’m reading for study then I’ll tend to be on the computer.

So to further move to these things would attract me to an e-reader. It also makes me wish I could predict the development and then try and tap into it, as I feel that there is an emerging market of e-reader support, development and add-ons waiting to break through.

Emma Davies

Learning Technologist

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by ILI Leicester on August 28, 2009  •  Permalink
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Posted by ILI Leicester on August 28, 2009

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Podcasting with Google Android phones in rural Africa…

We are working with the Royal Veterinary College (RVC) in London on an exciting project to investigate how podcasting technology can be used to improve the veterinary and farming practices in rural Africa. The project leader is Nick Short at RVC, and although the project is only in its initial phase, I thought I should share this exciting news.

RVC has been working quite closely with Google and their Android platform to develop a device that can be used both as a surveillance tool and an ‘information source’ in rural Africa. The idea is to record podcasts on the farm and in the village straight onto large memory cards on the phone and to play back from the phone and distribute through other means such as iTunes U and various internet services. Podcasting technology has the advantage over other means of information gathering and delivery in countries and contexts where the literacy rate is low and where many languages are spoken. As an audio (and as video in the case of video podcasts) medium, podcasting can indeed benefit from a rich diversity of local languages.

As I write this, a group of Vet students and staff from RVC are on location in Zanzibar planning their podcast recordings with livestock farmers.

Watch this space for an update on the project.

Nick and I thought we could do with an animal name for the project! Any ideas please? …email me at pe27@le.ac.uk

Palitha Edirisingha
27 August 2009

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by ILI Leicester on August 27, 2009  •  Permalink
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Online Conferences: Why waste a good economic crisis?

From 7th through 14th January, 2010, Beyond Distance will hold its 5th Annual Learning Futures Festival. This year, for the first time, the festival will be completely and only online.

Is it good to have a conference in a completely online format? How can sitting in one’s office in front of a computer monitor, clicking, typing, discussing, watching and listening to something taking place many miles away be preferable to actually traveling to that distant city, booking in for the nights, sitting amongst rows and rows of participants all listening to a single speaker on the podium, standing in a queue for the finger food – to say nothing of the expense? The fact is that online conferences are beginning to look more attractive, especially in these days of economic challenge.

But saving money is not the only benefit. Participants report other benefits, such as: more in-depth, more detailed, and more inclusive discussions; participation from delegates further afield; time flexibility; and having a permanent record of proceedings. Online conferences tend to challenge the sage-on-the-stage model of presentation by offering every delegate more direct access to the speaker as well as to every other delegate – in real time and in his own time.

I had an interesting online conference experience this week. I assisted as my colleague Gabi Witthaus served as a keynote speaker for the National Association of Distance Education and Open Learning in South Africa (NADEOSA) annual conference. (See Gabi’s OTTER project blog post about this.) This conference, while not an online conference, was online for me and Gabi – the conference took place in Pretoria, but Gabi and I were in the Media Zoo at University of Leicester.

Gabi had sent a good-quality video file of her presentation to South African colleagues, using filemail, so as not to disappoint if a live presentation connection to South Africa did not work. It was a good thing Gabi decided on a belt-and-braces approach. The first difficulty was that filemail, though always rock-solid, proved problematic for South African colleagues; in the end they settled for a low-resolution version of the file. The second issue arose with the live question-and-answer session; we tried various conferencing software, but all proved unstable. We had hoped to at least connect via a phone landline, but there was no landline in the auditorium where the keynote was to take place. Finally we settled on Skype – with video in the Media Zoo so that Gabi could be seen and heard in Pretoria, but with sound only in the auditorium so that Gabi could hear, but not see, the delegates.

In the end, the keynote presentation, though not without its difficulties (Skype dropped the call several times but we quickly reconnected), was a great success. We wondered if the audience, simply watching a movie of a presentation, would feel engaged enough. The many in-depth and insightful questions revealed that they had engaged. We were indeed at a very lively and thought-provoking conference with an auditorium full of academics, even though it was only two of us in the Media Zoo with a laptop, thousands of miles away. The fact that we fruitfully participated with colleagues with much less access to technology than we have underlined the need to continue exploring online conferencing in higher education. Please watch this space for upcoming information on our own Beyond Distance Learning Futures Festival Online – and plan to join us!

Terese Bird

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by ILI Leicester on August 23, 2009  •  Permalink
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Posted by ILI Leicester on August 23, 2009

http://beyonddistance.wordpress.com/2009/08/23/online-conferences-why-waste-a-good-economic-crisis/

Podcasts for feed forward

Using podcasts for feedback has been discussed a lot recently. Findings indicate the benefits of being able to deliver clearer and more detailed information, and make feedback feel more personalised, interactive and connected through voice. Another type of podcast – podcasts providing feed forward information – is understudied. In DUCKLING, Psychology has produced dissertation podcasts providing instructions in guiding students through the dissertation process and assignment podcasts explaining module assignment, both types of podcasts are to provide feed forward information.

I talked to a small number of Psychology students and they reflected on what was considered beneficial to their learning by using feed forward podcasts.

1.       Thinking ahead

Feed forward podcasts are particularly useful for students to plan and think ahead. As one student said about assignment podcasts,

“I think it was easier because you have it before you start doing anything [rather than leaving it to] the most panicking stage…”

The dissertation podcasts have a similar impact. Students can listen to it and start developing ideas even though they haven’t started their dissertation process. This is particularly beneficial to distance students as they can think ahead in an organised way, as one student pointed out,

 “I haven’t started developing ideas, and [I’m] hoping to start in the next few weeks, and that’s why I listen to the podcasts… A has broken down the different types of dissertation. I find that very useful. It’s kind of giving you an idea what kind of areas you can look at. It’s kind of making you think in an organised way. It’s just starting to think how I’m gonna approach it and where I should start thinking about this.”

2.       Reassuring

Students also find feed forward podcasts reassuring. As they pointed out in the interviews, ‘They set you at the right direction’, ‘They reconfirmed a lot of what I had read already’, ‘They reassured that I was on the right lines’, and ‘I feel comfortable that I’m on the right track’.

I’ve only spoken to a few students so far; the research is still in its early days. One of my colleagues, Roger Dence, provided similar types of podcasts explaining module assignments to his distance students studying for an MBA. He has already collected some evidence from students. It would be very interesting if we can compare and contrast our findings from different studies.

 

Ming Nie              20 August 2009

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by ILI Leicester on August 20, 2009  •  Permalink
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Making the virtual transition

I recently had an enjoyable discussion about Second Life with someone who I can only describe as a ‘deep thinker’. For me, a deep thinker is someone who leaves slow-burning embers of intellectual curiosity upon which to cogitate, and that subsequently engage my usual goldfish-worthy attention span.

DT was explaining how, in an environment such as Second Life, users will reach a point where they stop questioning the unreality – albeit virtual – of interaction, movement and appearance. And this transition to acceptance is usually very sudden.

(This brought to mind another comment I’d mentally filed, from a learning technologist at a different institution as it happens: “There’s nothing that Second Life offers that I can’t achieve in real life.”)

So through your SL avatar, you can fly, breathe underwater and of course you cannot hurt yourself. You can even choose to appear in outlandish human forms or as a non-human. And not surprisingly, these are things upon which newbies initially concentrate.

But what happens at the point at which these things are no longer so fascinating and become merely functional?

For me, an analogy would be learning to drive. At the beginning, driving is made up of a number of separate actions, each of which require (or at least seem to) an independent thought process. Take pulling off from a parked position, which requires the following (presented in no particular order):  engaging the clutch, slipping into gear, checking the mirrors, indicating, turning the wheel, pressing the accelerator, etc.

There comes a point for most people (my sister, thankfully no longer driving, being one the exceptions) when this series of movements becomes one action, thereby requiring one thought process. So before you know it, the student driver who not long ago nervously ‘kangaroo-ed’ around the estate is today thrashing a Skoda down the M1 to London. Operating the car is merely a functional means of getting to that club in the West End.

In my experience, this transition is also very rapid.

In SL, once this transition happens and the experience is completely immersive for the user – when the unusual environment is no longer being questioned – learning can take place. And then the opportunities offered by the learning environment of MUVEs such as Second Life really become apparent.

I realise I am saying nothing new. And I’ve avoided introducing terms such as routines and sub-routines. But DT encouraged me to think a bit harder – never a bad thing – and of course I realised I’d  seen this sudden transition in action in the Media Zoo.

And to SL sceptics, I’d say this: make sure the transition happens first, and then make the judgement.

Simon Kear

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by ILI Leicester on August 18, 2009  •  Permalink
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Posted by ILI Leicester on August 18, 2009

http://beyonddistance.wordpress.com/2009/08/18/making-the-virtual-transition/

President Obama joins the OER evangelism movement

I was stunned to learn recently that President Obama has become a convert to the open educational resources (OER) movement. The Chronicle of Higher Education has reported on plans by President Obama to pump over $500 million into freely available web-based courses.

Whilst the move by the Obama administration has attracted a backlash at the Annual conference of Distance Teaching and Learning, what is notable is that President Obama subscribes to the principles of open access to educational resources.

The fundamental objective of President Obama’s initiative is to make higher education freely available to all and not only to the privileged few. It is reported that whilst institutions such as MIT have been successful at the publication of over 19,000 courses made freely available online, the huge cost of developing an open educational course – $10,000 per course – has impeded progress at the community-college level with the result that a huge proportion of the college population is not being served by OERs.

The plan of President Obama’s administration is thus to open up higher education to all students and also pursue its goal of giving the United States the highest proportion of college graduates in the world by 2020. Reported benefits of the program include:

  • helping students explore new careers
  • improving retention of students
  • lowering the cost of a degree
  • spurring alternative ways of awarding credit
  • guaranteeing standards “whether you are in a more impoverished, under-served, or remote area of the country”.

There are many questions and challenges which are yet to be addressed such as whether new courses are necessarily needed, the cost of producing new learning materials, how to provide learning support for students in a self-paced learning situation and privacy issues of learning in an online environment.

The challenges notwithstanding, it is welcome news  – to OTTER especially – that OERs are attracting global political attention from the likes of President Obama.

Samuel Nikoi

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by ILI Leicester on August 18, 2009  •  Permalink
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Fuel for e-learning

The Zen newsletter for August says that, by 2020, it is estimated that technology and consumer electronic products will account for 45 per cent of domestic energy use. The same newsletter notes that electricity consumption of datacentres resulting from the explosion of Internet use is also becoming a major issue. “Big technology vendors are hurrying to build giant datacentres that will enable them to offer more Internet-based services to consumers and enterprises over the next few years. Google, Microsoft and Amazon are ignoring the recession and leading a global ‘cloud computing’ datacentre construction race that they believe will change the face of business and consumer computing.”

This news makes me wonder whether, given the threat of global warming and the need to reduce carbon emissions, there will be fuel for e-learning in my grandchildren’s lifetimes, which I hope will last into the 2070s if not beyond.

The pilot study by Nikoi and Wheeler*, that yielded provisional carbon footprints for on-campus and e-learning students, understandably did not take into account all factors. It was designed to draw attention to what a university like Leicester might do to make its activities greener. It didn’t show that e-learning was greener than learning on campus. The picture is confusing, but fuel is needed for e-learning, without doubt.

*Nikoi, Samuel and Wheeler, Matthew (2009). How green is your learning? Pedagogical options for environmentally sustainable education. Paper presented at the EDEN Conference, 10-13 June, Gdansk.

David Hawkridge

16 August 2009

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by ILI Leicester on August 17, 2009  •  Permalink
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Posted by ILI Leicester on August 17, 2009

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Beyond Distance welcomes an Ottling

Today Emma Davies joined us as the DUCKLING/OTTER Learning Technologist. Working on both of these projects, as I do, she has the distinction of sharing the nickname ‘Ottling’ (or, on occasion, ‘Dotter’) with me ;-)

Before joining us, Emma worked at Birmingham City University as an account manager and content developer, working within the Media Content Lab to produce print and web-based media for internal and external clients. Her work focused on developing content for a range of different websites, as well as helping to create brand identity.

Emma’s role at Beyond Distance will involve supporting course teams in the use of podcasts, Second Life and e-book readers for curriculum delivery (that’s the DUCKLING part), and assisting in the publication of Leicester’s open educational resources through JorumOpen and other open repositories (the OTTER part).

On a personal note, Emma has shared with us that she has an ambition to visit every city in the UK. She had never been to Leicester before, so that’s one she can tick off her list! We’ll be watching out for that city-hopping blog…

We are all looking forward to working with Emma and learning from her on the Ottling journey.

Gabi Witthaus

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by ILI Leicester on August 17, 2009  •  Permalink
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