I was amused to see today the first in a week long series of articles in one of Denmark's free newspapers 24timer investigating the behaviour of Danish expatriates in Sweden, Spain and a couple of other enclaves (widely re-reported for example here in Danish). The articles are seemingly based on the work of Karen O'Reilly, a sociologist at Aberdeen University who published a report (in English and Spanish) on the topic relating to British expatriates. Almost all the vices which Danes accuse their immigrants of are to be found in the mini-Denmarks in Spain and elsewhere such as an unwillingness to learn the language or to engage with local society, for example by voting in local government elections. Critics were quick to point out that these Danes have probably earned their right to be separate by being financially independent but I don't think that this totally excuses the degree of disconnect which obviously exists. On the other hand I think there is something to be learned from this mirroring exercise and I would hope that it convinces at least some people, that it is only natural to want to hold on to your native language, traditions and habits to a certain extent when you migrate.

The impact of instructional elements in computer-based instruction, Martin. Klein and Sullivan (British Journal of Educational Technology). I cannot access the full article but the summary given here by Donald Clark of a study done on the essential elements of an e-learning programme seem to me to be of the utmost importance. He reports:

"They removed:

1. Objectives

2. Information

3. Examples

4. Review

5. Practice

Removing any of the first four made little significant difference to the learning outcome and attitudes of the tested students. Removing ‘practice’, however, had a significant lowing effect on learning and attitudes. "

I must stop reading the free Danish papers. In yesterdays 24timer (when are they going to get a proper website? Later this month apparently) there was a big splash article advising Danish students not to include semesters abroad as part of their university education as these were not valued by Danish employers and resulting grades viewed with suspicion. I find it difficult to believe that in a country which is so export-oriented that this can be a true reflection of the majority view of employers. The article contained a classic quote from the employer's side which I've often heard expressed but which I am amazed anybody would willingly be quoted on to the effect that Danes believe they are the world's best and therefore there is no need to go abroad. This is also mixed in with the Danish concept of Jantelov whereby nobody is supposed to think they are better than anybody else. So no student should think that they have any advantage through the fact of having been abroad.

This is beginning to feel like tabloid journalism. I must start buying my own newspaper!

Update May 25: The Danish National Agency which administers educational projects for the government, the EU, the Nordic Council of Ministers and so on, has put out a press release (Danish) on May 9th to the effect that these reports are a completely wrong interpretation of the results of the research which was undertaken and that in fact the opposite was true. So foreign experience is valued by Danish employers after all. Tabloid journalism indeed.

Yesterday I attended a workshop session of the Hybrid Learning Room (Hybrid Læringsrum) research network. It was an opportunity to meet people interested in exploring concepts around learning and how it is changing due to advances in learning theory and technological opportunities. I discovered from one of the participants that mobile video is now an art form. From the speakers the following points emerged:

1. Learning is about communication (implications for digital communication)

2. Teenagers need the face to face element to establish their identity and level in the pecking order.

3. Games can achieve serious aims such as product innovation and entrepreneur training.

4. Games can be fun and the occasion for huge amounts of learning and/or adoption of effective learning strategies.

5. Virtual project management is hard work.

Those people who had contributed to the blog were awarded a bottle of wine. Mmm...

This is to remind you of the free online conference starting in a
few days, May 17/18-20.

Our theme this year is CONNECT: Conversations on Networking,
Education, Communities, and Technology, and though not specifically
mentioned in the theme, many members of the Webheads community of
practice, http://webheads.info, are practitioners in language
learning.

This is the second time our community has hosted a free online
conference. You can replay the first one at http://2005.wiaoc.org

This year we kick off in a pre-show event at 22:00 GMT May 17, with
the start of a Webcastathon hosted by http://www.worldbridges.net.
The conference itself starts at midnight GMT May 18 (evening of May
17 in the USA) with a keynote speech by Leigh Blackall and continues
for three days with more talks by Stephen Downes, George Siemens,
Etienne Wenger, Robin Good, Barbara Ganley, Teemu Leinonen, and many
other presenters whom you can see on the schedule at
http://schedule.wiaoc.org.

To attend the conference you can register for free at
http://www.webheadsinaction.org and use the calendar there or the
schedule link above, or our online help pages, to work out how to
access the presentations and make comments or join forums. The will
be a voice stream of most events available at
http://www.webheadsinaction.org , as well a live chatroom for use
during the conference, and we hope to have someone live online
available to assist you at any time during the conference at
http://www.tappedin.org

We look forward to your joining us May 17/18-20 for this unique
adventure in online professional development. We hope it will be
educational and F.U.N.

Connect stands for Conversations on Networking, Education, Communities and Technology and was the online conference organised by the Webheads in Action group of English teachers this past weekend in an ongoing, rolling, continuous stream. Therefore I was not able to catch all the sessions so I am really glad that most of the sessions were recorded so that I can catch up over the next few days. It was great to catch up on the work of my online colleagues and have the opportunity to hear from my online heroes.

Highlights so far have included hearing Chris Sessums and Stephen Downes and learning about the potential of pbwikis from Sedat Akayoglu in Turkey. I am certain that there are more highlights to come as I catch up on those sessions which took place when I was asleep or otherwise occupied. 

You can hear the raw audio of my own session at http://streamarchives.net/node/73 about using Talk Radio type podcasts, such as Absolutely Intercultural, in the EFL classroom. For the full blown version with slides and text chat, you need to join Learning Times, free and worthwhile, as well as downloading the Elluminate conferencing software, also free. Find the link to my session at http://home.learningtimes.net/learningtimes?go=1563545

This will be short post as I am blogging live and mobile from the 'Learning in the Workplace' conference in Copenhagen where we are being encouraged to be disruptive! Concurrent sessions aee being streamed and we have been encouraged to see what is going on in the other rooms! Just what we hate in classrooms, isn't it?
http://distans.wetpaint.com

Refreshing to hear about the use of blogs and wikis in the Nordic region. I was beginning to despair.

I am now back from the ‘Learning in the Workplace’ conference where I was very pleased to be able to see several examples of what mobile learning can mean. It is a topic which I have been reading about for over a year now yet I haven’t really got to grips with it. From the examples shown, it seems clear that mobile learning is well-suited to the more practical subjects such as building, carpentry, home help services and farming but that it also has applications in more academic professions such as hospital registrars. It is also clear that I must give much more thought as to how I could make my courses more visual in order to fit the mobile format. One of the main advantages of mobile learning was seen to be the shift away from text to help those with reading difficulties. Another advantage is that it is very far away from the traditional classroom format which is still very scary to many adults. Cost was not an issue for any of the presenters even though it is often the first obstacle I think of. But one telling observation was that learning through dialogue does not seem so successful in mobile format which is counter-intuitive to me but was mentioned at least twice in different contexts. Perhaps that is for the future. 

As a language teacher I was interested in the language learning application from ARM Lingua, though unfortunately I missed that session and have only visited the website. I sympathise with the basic philosophy that oral skills are very important for beginners but am wary of language courses which are over-structured and don’t allow for free speech or following learner interests. We are back to the lack of dialogue issue.

There was also a lot of talk about learning objects in this conference and I can certainly follow the logic of this when mobile learning seems to require learning to be divided into incredibly small chunks (max 2 minutes). I can also see the logic of learning objects for practical and technical learning. But I don't see a big place for learning objects in language learning. Many will immediately cite grammar at me, I'm sure, but I believe that even grammar learning should mainly be based on dialogue with the grammar book lying in the background to be reached for only in case of emergency.

 I am sure that there are more bicycles per head in Copenhagen than in Beijing!