November 20, 2008
Sounds of the Bazaar Special - Into the Dragons Den
Next Monday we break new ground with our Sounds of the Bazaar radio show. We are producing a special issue of Emerging Sound of the Bazaar entitled ‘Into the Dragons Den’. The programme is a fly on the wall special following the progress of a Dragons Den session organised by the Jisc Emerge project. What’s it all about? Emerge supports a range of projects funded by the Jisc Users and Innovation programme. The projects are mainly focused on developing social software for use in education. Part of the support process has been through a four stage development model. As part of that model, at different times during the project development, project developers get invited to a session where they are quizzed by ‘Dragons’ on the progress of their project.
The Dragons Den session featured on Sounds of the Bazaar is the Preview project which is developing and piloting models for Problem Based Learning in Second Life. Maggie Savin-Baden will represent the project. Paul Bailey and Chris Fowler wil be the dragons. It is going to be great fun.
The programme, whih will last about 45 minutes, goes out at 19.00 UK time, 20.00 Central European Time. To listen to the programme just go to http://radio.jiscemerge.org.uk/Emerge.m3u in your browser. The stream should open in your MP3 player of choice. And if you’d like to chat during the programme Crsitina Costa will be in the chat room at http://tinyurl.com/soundschat. Just add your name in the text field (leaving the password field blank) and chat away.
Corporate Reinforcing Greed-Feed(back) Loops
I reallly like this work by Ambjörn Naeve called A greed upon reality - the real (e)state of the economic system. The screenshot is taken from his Conzilla (www.conzilla.org) systems model, although sadly I can’t get it to open on my Mac.
The work, Ambjörn says, is mainly based on the New(tonian) economics provided by Lisa H. Newton: Permission to Steal - Revealing the Roots of Corporate Scandal.
http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/publicphilosophy/newton/default.asp
November 19, 2008
Edublog08 awards - our nominations
Firstly, many thanks to Martin Weller and A J Cann for your kind nominations for Pontydysgu for best group blog for this years Edublog 2008 awards. Much appreciated here at Pontydysgu Towers.
We also greatly appreciated Martins comment: “they’re Welsh, they like edupunk, they do a crazy internet radio show and have challenging posts. What more do you want?.”
And now on to our nominations (although we may come back with more in different categories later this week). For best individual blog we nominate ictology by Ismael Peña-López. Just watch that man’s live blogging. Awesome.
Our best resource sharing site nomination goes to Zaidlearn - just look at this list of 90 posts about learning tools.
And here is our nomination for best educational use of audio. This goes to Andreas Auwarter and all the students who work on the wonderful Bildung im Dialog website. With limited resources, Andreas uses podcasts to teach students from all disciplines storytelling, media, production and much more. OK - it is in German. But it would be great if the Edublog awards could acknowledge the work being done in other languages than English.
Managing information or maturing knowledge?
There have been a number of reports in the wake of the failure of public services to prevent the tragic death of child in London. The story below from the Guardian looks at the impact of the introduction of Management Information Services in social services in the UK. What it reveals is that professional workers are forced to spend increasing amounts of time completing tick box tracking report forms on computers. The result is not increased efficiency and effectivenesss but a failure to sharing information with those that need it. The MIS becmes the centre of attention, not the task - in this case the protecion of vulnerable children.
This is not limited to social wok. Studies we have carried out in the eduction sphere reveal the same tendency. Professional wokers are being diverted away from what they see as their job in the requirement to fill in tracking reports on ill designed Management Information Systems. The inormation held by the MIS is seen as primarily for tracking and funding pruposes. raher than helping with the work. Littlle attention is paid to how an MIS might assist in developing and maturing knowledge. Natural knowledge sharing and development processes, through dialogue and networking are left behind. Often staff develop their own informal systems, to exchange the knowledge that they need, in parallel to official procedures.
We need to review the purpose of such systems. Do we develop systems to help professional wokrers in their job or merely to collect infomation? What is the purpose of the information being collected? Who is it for and why? How can we design systems based on the abilities of ‘knowledge workers’, rather than relying on the number crunching outputs of the machine? And what approaches are need to the design of such human oriented systems? These are not just academic questions, as the report below tragically reveals.
“A government computer system intended to improve the handling of child abuse cases has led to social workers having to spend more than 100 hours for every case filling out forms, cutting the time they have to make visits.
Reports by two universities have revealed that the Integrated Children’s System (ICS), launched in 2005 following the death of Victoria Climbié, is so laborious it typically takes more than 10 hours to fill in initial assessment forms for a child considered to be at risk. A “core assessment” takes a further 48 hours on average, according to government-commissioned research by York University. The system, which cost £30m to implement, creates deadlines that further restrict the time available for family visits.”
“But the pressure on social workers, effectively tied to their desks by bureaucracy, reveals systemic problems in child protection. “Workers report being more worried about missed deadlines than missed visits,” said Professor Sue White, who is studying five child protection departments for the University of Lancaster. “The [computer] system regularly takes up 80% of their day.”
ICS replaced a system where social workers wrote case notes in narrative form, which many argue made it easier for different officials to quickly pick up the details of complex cases.
In the review by the University of York of the first authorities to adopt the system, the use of tick boxes was criticised because of “a lack of precision that could lead to inaccuracy”. It added that the system “obscured the family context”.
The level of detail demanded by ticking boxes “sacrificed the clarity that is needed to make documentation useful,” it concluded.
“If you go into a social work office today there’s no chatter, nobody is talking about the cases, it is just people tapping at computers,” said White.
One social worker interviewed by White’s team said: “I spend my day click- clicking and then I’ll get an email from someone else - say a fostering agency- asking for a bit more information on a child: ‘Could we please have a pen picture of the three children’. It’s horrendous.
“It’s impossible to get a picture of the child,” said another. “It’s all over the place on the computer system … That coupled with the number of people involved in the case makes my life very difficult.”
Eileen Monroe, an expert on child protection at the London School of Economics, said some local authorities are petitioning the government to allow them to drop the system. “The programme is set up to continually nag you, and the child’s misery just doesn’t nag as loudly.”"
November 14, 2008
Integrating personal learning and working environments
I have been working with Cristina Costa to write a review paper on Personal Learning and Working Environments. The paper is now avaiable online on the Research section of this web site.
This review paper part of a series of papers commissioned by the Institute for Employment Research at the University of Warwick under the title of ‘Beyond Current Horizons – Working and Employment Challenge’. In turn, in forms part of a larger programme of work under the banner of Beyond Current Horizons that is being managed by FutureLab on behalf of the UK Department for Schools, Children and Families. The brief was to cover:
- The main trends and issues in the area concerned;
- Any possible discontinuities looking forward to 2025 and beyond;
- Uncertainties and any big tensions;
- Conclusions on what the key issues will be in the future and initial reflections on any general implications for education.
We had also agreed that we would produce such a paper to inform the work of the European Union Mature project which is looking at knowldge maturing and developing Personal and Organisational Learning and Management Environments.
It is a longish paper and covers such issues as:
- new ways of learning using Web 2.0 schools
- deschooling society
- workbased learning and the social shaping of work and technology
- organisational networks and communities of practice
- Personal Learning Emvironments
- the future of universties
- informal learning
- knowledge development and sharing
We were given a wide brief to look at what might happen up to 2025 and what developments we thought were likely and what were desireable. We have used the opportunity to think a little more freely than is often possible within the scope of traditional academic papers.
Annotate this paper
We would be very interested in your views on the ideas in this paper. We invite you to use Diigo tools to annotae the paper. If you have not used Diigo before for annotating and leaving comments here is a short introductory video. We invite you also to join the Diigo e-learning 2.0 group and to share your bookmarks through the group.
But we knw some people still prefer paper publications. So you can download an Open Office and a PDF version of the paper below.
workandlearning - PDF vesrion
workandlearning - Open Office version
November 12, 2008
Training teachers and technology enhanced learning in Bejing
Photo: Yeweni
As promised a new podcast in our Sounds of the Bazaar series. Dr Jile and Mr. Tian from the Institute of Vocational and Adult Education in Bejing dropped in yesterday to talk about technology enhanced learning.
I couldn’t miss the opportunity to get them in front of the microphone. And it is truly an interesting talk. Many thanks to both of them,
Intro and extro music New Generation by ‘Souled Out‘
MOOCs might prove a practical answer?
I had a fascinating meeting with two representatives of a Bejing school district last night. They are in Bremen as part of a European programme which including other things is developing a programme for the Continuing Professional Development of vocational teachers in the city.
They came to visit us to discuss e-learning and how the use of new technologies might help in their project.
The big issue that emerged was that of the scale of they challenge they face. Most of the teachers in vocational schools have received no pedagogic training at all, gong straight from university to become a teacher. Because of pressures on the system, the CPD programme is being organised out of school hoursd. Attendance is voluntary. And the teachers are keen. A recent seminar held on a Sunday attracted more than 800 particpants! The biggest issue is that there are not enough resources to organise a tradtional CPD programme. There are simply too many teachers who want to participate and not enough trainers. And that is when we started thinking about Massively Open On-line Courses (MOOCs). The infrastructure and access to networks and computers is relatively good in Bejing. Teachers are open to new ideas. Could we organise a programme that combined face to face events with on-line provision open to all who wished to attend? How could support be organised? What kind of platforms and tools would be required?
I started out as a sceptic about MOOCs but the meeting last night has changed my thinking.
If you are interested in hearing more about the project, we recorded a quick podcast with the Chinese colleagues and we will try to get this online in the next couple of days.
Training teachers and trainers
Lsy week I helped organise the on-line conference on the training of teachers and trainers. And thanks to hard work from Dirk Stieglitz and cristina Costa the proceedings of the conference are now all on line on the Network of Trainers in Europe website. It is well worth checking out the web site and especially looking at the online exhibition which accompanied the conference.
We have been doing an online surevy to help in the evaluation of the conference and I will post some of the results this weekend.
In the meantime, if you missed the conference here is your second chance to see what happened.
5 November 2008
Theme: The changing role of trainers in learning
Morning sessions (for Elluminate sessions click here) featuring:
- Professor Alan Brown, Institute for Employment Research, University of Warwick
- Barry Nyhan, Ireland
- Lorna Unwin, Professor Alan Felstead and Nick Jewson, Professor Alison Fuller
- Can anyone be a trainer?: towards a more embedded role for vocational trainers (ppt)
- Can anyone be a trainer?: towards a more embedded role for vocational trainers (ppt)
Theme: Support for the professional development of trainers
Afternoon sessions (for Elluminate sessions click here) featuring:
- Seija Mahlamäki-Kultanen and Anita Eskola-Kronqvist, HAMK, Finland
- Prof. Eduardo Figueira, University of Évora Portugal
- Eileen Luebcke, Pontydysgu, Germany
- Summary of the first day By Graham Attwell (mp3)
6 November 2008
Theme: E-learning for trainers
Morning sessions (for Elluminate sessions click here) featuring:
- Cristina Costa, University of Salford / Pontydysgu, UK
- Doris Beer, Lohberger Unternehmerinnenzentrum e.V., Germany
- John Pallister, Wolsingham School, UK
- Vance Stevens, Petroleum Institute, Abu Dhabi
Afternoon sessions (for Elluminate sessions click here) featuring:
- Carla Arena & Mary Hillis, USA and Japan
November 09, 2008
MOOCs, Connectivism, Humpty Dumpty and more - with Dave Cormier
Last weeks Emerging Mondays seminar was on the topic of MOOCs and Open Course Models. The speaker was Dave Cormier from the University of Prince Edward Island.
Dave spoke about his experiences, so far, of the CCK MOOC on Connectivism and Connected Knowledge, the technological platforms being used to support participants, the tensions that exist within the course design and the peer support models that are being embraced. Dave’s introduction led to a wide ranging discussion including the nature and furture of courses and communities, issues of scale, how to support learners, open accreditation and the future of open education - and …Humpty Dumpty and Alice in Wonderland!
If you missed the session - or would like to hear it again - we are providing you with three different versions. You can watch a replay of the event in Elluminate. This provides you with access to the sidebar chat discussion as well as to the audio.
Or - if you are short of time you can listen to an MP3 podcast of Dave’s introduction.
Or you can listen to the full session inline or on your MP3 player.
This is the link to the Elluminate version.
November 08, 2008
More on hairdressing and serious games
Some time ago I wrote a post entitled ‘Hairdressing, Serious Games and Learning‘. It was not because I knew anything about it but because I was live blogging a conference presentation. Frederic Aunis who works for L’Oriel presented a game they had developed for teaching business skills to hairdressers. t was a good presnentation and a good game. The problem is that he game is owned by L’Oriel and access is retsricted to those with a contract to the company.
The post is - somehwat embrarrsingly, one of the most popular I have ever written. Yet, I am afraid, it gives no help to those who are hitting it - presumably becauase they are searching for games to help them in teaching hairdressers.
I don’t know a lot about hairdressing but I have gleamed a little from research colleagues at the University of Warwick. Hairdressng is a very polular vocational training course. In part it is a course chosen by those who do not know what to do. But in part it is because people envisage owning and running their own business. The sad factor is most do not make it and whilst hairdressing businesses can be very profitable the reality fo rmany emloyees is lng hours and low pay (OK - if you don’t agree please feel free ot comment!). And whilst most trainees take well to the practical elements of the course, they struggle more with the theort - especially science - and have little interest in learninga bout how to run a business.
Hence the idea of a game. And according to Frederic it works. But, back to the problem. We need open source games which can be used by all. I am not a hairdresser or a games designer. But I know a little about both. The European Lifelng Learning programme is now on call. Is there anyone interested in a project to design an open souce game for teaching hairdrssers about running a business. I am looking for hairdressers, hairdressing teachers and trainers and educational games deisgners. Just leave a comment or email me if you would be interested in such a project.
November 07, 2008
Trade unions are fun!
I love this photo. From the excellent LabourStart Web site.
“Robert Day, a branch secretary with the British public sector PCS in Birmingham, is the winner of the first-ever Labour Photo of the Year competition organized by LabourStart, the news and campaigning website of the international trade union movement.
Day’s photo — entitled ‘Trade Unions are Fun!’ — shows trade unionists marching through Birmingham, led by banners and drummers, on 24 April 2008. Here it is:
November 06, 2008
The power of learning
We have just finished the two day online Conference on the training of teachers and trainers organised by the Networork for the Training of Traners in Europe and Evolve.
It was - at least I felt - an inspiring event. Although I don’t have accurate figures I guess at least 70 people attended at some art of the conference - including particpants from more than 20 countries. Despite the usual technical annoyances, the technology never got in the way of the exchange of ideas. In fact, rather the reverse. The discussion was more interactive and reflective than in most face to face events I have attended. We had 15 presentation in four two hour sessions - allowing about 15 minutes presentation and 15 minutes discussion for each presentater. As we had hoped, bringing together researchers and practitioners in the training of teachers and trainers and e-learning practitioners allowed for a productive interchange of ideas and practice.
We will be provding access to the outcomes of the confernece in a variety of different media over the next seven days. Here are just a few of my impressions about the themes of the discussions.
One theme was the increasing prevalence of work based learning. This is expecially so as the divide between initial training and continuing training becomes blurred. As learning becomes embedded in work processes then it becomes increasingly bound by context. Technology can help greatly in capturing learnng from practice in the context it occurs. But this does not really fit with the idea of predeterminded outcomes specified in qualifications. Furthermore the competences required today are changing with a focus on collaboration, working in teams and the ability to support others in their learning and work. Two different approaches were put forward to deal with this. One was to support more community based learning with facilitalors to support enquiry based learning. Another was to move from seeing learning as primarily a question of individual qualification to see it as an integral aspect of innovation. An inovation approach would lead to a focus on learning rich work.
The role of teachers and trainers is also changing with a move from didactic teaching to supporting learners especially in scaffolding learning and developing learning pathways. In many ways we are all beoming teachers and learners. The best teachers, it was said, are learners. It is no longer possible to merely absorb a body of knowledge, especially given increasing job flexibility. But how much employees need to acquire basic competences before being able to learn from work and what those competences are was an issue around which there was no agreement.
Given that more and more people are having responsibility for supporting the learnering of others, the issue of how they are supported in that role becomes an issue. Traditional training the trainers courses are not enough. Rather there is a switch to encouraging peer group support and facilitating the development of communities of pracice. The many web 2.0 tools are valuable in this repect. However, many teachers and trainers are not confident in the use of such tools. There are different approaches to how to deal with this, ranging from targeted courses, the provision of interactive web based resources and fostering self directed learning networks. For all this motivation, the willingness to invest time and effort and above all self-reflection are critical. There is an issue about in whose time learning should take place and to what extent we should be personally reposnsible for our learning and employability. Web 2.0 tools can allow us to link self directed and networked learning to practice. Especially important are the wide range of open learning opportunties being developed through the web.
Three buzzwords emerged from the conference - sharing, collaboration and openess.
Sorry for all I have missed. But please feel free to comment below and add to what I have said - or correct me if I misrepresented what people said.
November 05, 2008
Open Online Conferencing
It was the first day of the on-line conference on the Training of Trainers, sponsored by the Network to Support Trainers in Europe and Evolve.
Not bad. Particpation in the different sessions varied between 25 and 45 people. This compares to the 110 who have registered for the conference which is about in line with other free and open online events I have organised. People either choose whch session interests them most or work around various meetings and other work activites. And of course, some people register but then find something else has come up.
We had some technical problems with firewalls but that is par for the course. A few people got lost in the sandbox but we managed to dig them out and get them to the right place.
We had the usual problems with sound levels and microphones not working. But - once more as usual - these settled down as the day went on. And - most interestingly for me - the techncial barriers seemed no worse with the conference particpants who were for the main part researchers in education and training - and not educational technologists - thean we have had with techy online conferences in the past.
The presentations were good and the discussion even better. I would go as far as to say the discussion was better than at many face ot face conferences I have been to. Once again the use of the back channel provoked lively exchange.
We are presently editing the audio and creating slidecastsso that the conference proceedings will become Open Educational Resources.
So my conclusions - online and open learning using video conferecing is mainsteaming. Lets build on it!!
November 04, 2008
Trainers in Europe Conference
It os certainly a busy online time. Last night was a great Evolve seminar with Dave Cormier about Massively Online Open Courses (MOOCS). I will post a few ideas about that later.
Tomorrow and Thursday is the the first annual on-line conference on the Training of Trainers, sponsored by the Network to Support Trainers in Europe and Evolve.
When we first launched the conference I was rather doubtful of how many would come. After all this was not an event targeted at the EdTech community. Most researchers and practitioners working in this field have never been involved in an online conference before. I have been overwealmed by the response. To date some 110 articticapnst have registered from I guess about 20 countries. I don’t suppose all will turn up for a free event but I still expect a sizable turnout. For me this represnets two things. The first si the mainsteaming of online conferencing technologies which are now being embraced by researchers and practitioners in many diverse dicplines and subject areas. The second is to reinforce the idea of open events - I huess you could say this conference in a mini-MOOC!
We have been fairly conservative in the conference programme for which I am grateful. One issue which arose in the conversation with Dave Cormier last night is that size matters! It is not easy moderting discource with 100 peole online. I am sure we will hit some technical problems but we will juts have to overcome these as we go.
If you would like to attend the conference please register as soon as possible. The registration page is online here. It is free and open, but we need some record of who came for our project reporting.
We also have created a conference exhibition on wikispaces. Have a look - there is some neat stuff there. And if you would like to contribute to the exhibition please get in touch.
November 02, 2008
Moocs and Open Course Models
Its a busy time for events - tommorow is the latest of our on-line Evolve seminars.
This month it’s about Moocs and Open Course Models
When: 3rd November 2008, at 1800 UK Time (check your local time here)
Where: Elluminate (enter here)
Speaker: Dave Cormier, University of Prince Edward Island, Canada
Dave will be speaking about his experiences, so far, of the CCK MOOC and touch on the technological platforms being used to support participants, the tensions that exist within the course design and the peer support models that are being embraced. Within this discussion he will interweave some of his perspectives and theories around education and attempt to place the course into the context of other open courses being taught around the world.
More about our guest speaker:
Dave is well known as an innovative thinker, active researcher and practitioner in the field of the technology enhanced learning. His major research interests include the tracking and development of educational technology, the examination of planned and unplanned online communities, and open-source multiuser virtual environments (MUVEs). His most recent work has been the development of the concept of rhizomatic education and the community as curriculum. He is also one of the main discussion leaders on the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) - Connectivism and Connected Knowledge (CCK) - with George Siemens and Stephen Downes.
October 31, 2008
More about learning 2.0
Another post on the IPTS seminar on Learning 2.0 in Seville. This workshop was interesting becuase it brought togther researchers and practitioners from all over Europe. And, somewhat to my surpise, there was a fair degree of consensus. We agreed social software provided many opportunties for creating, raher than passively consuming learning. We agreed that learnng opportunities were being developed outside the classroom. We even agreed that the locus of control was switching from institutions to the learners and that this might well be a good thing. We agreed we were moving towards individual learning pathways and that learners needed to be supported to finding their pathways.
We agreed that the context of learning was important. Mobile learning would become increasingly important with the development of context sensitive devices. (Also see Serge Ravet’s post on User Generated Content or User Generated Contexts).
But there were also limits to the consensus. Whilst there appeared agreement on new roles for teachers, no-one was sure what that role was?
Much of the discussion centred on the scaffolding of learning. How much support did leaners need and how much of that support would come from teachers?
Neither were participants agreed on the future role of institutions. More critically, was Learning 2.0 something which happened outside the school, and had only a limited impact on institutional practice, or did it pose a fundamental challenge for the future of schooling?
There was even greater disagreement over curriculum. Should there be a curriculum for basic skill and knowledge that everyone should learn? Did learners need a basic grounding in their subject before theyc oudl develop their own learning pathways? Who should define such a curriculum? What was the role of ‘experts’ and who were they anyway?
And perhaps the greatest disagreement was over assessment and accreditation. Many of us felt that we needed to move towards community based formative assessment. Employers, we said, would be more interested in what people were able to do than formal certicates. Others, pointing to occupations such as doctors and plumbers felt there should be some form of standards against which people should be assessed and accredited.
A final comment on the form of the project. Although the work is about Learning 2.0 the present form of the work is decidedly Research 1.0. This research is important enough that it needs to be opened out to the community. It seems a wiki is being d veloped and when it is up I will blog here about it. In the meantime here are some of the photos of the flip charts used for brainstorming around different issues at the workshop. I will pass on any comments on this post to the project organisers.
October 30, 2008
The web is the platform
I am still at the IPTS seminar on Learning 2.0 in Seville. Much of interest and I wil write a few more blogs on this. But one issue, which has just come up, is this of platforms. The director of IPTS has asked us what platforms we see being used in the future.
And we have said - we know the platform. It is called the World Wide Web. I think that is very important. We do not need more and more platforms. We do need control over our own data and the ability to be able to develop and use that data.
October 29, 2008
What technologies change people’s lives?
There are some interesting issues kicking around at the IPTS workshop on the impact of Web 2.0 innovations on Education and Training in Europe.
there are plenty of examples of innovative practice. But there is little example of any findamental change at either a systems level or even at the level of the institution. This raises a whole series of questions:
- is it possible to change pedagogic processes and improve opportunities for learning through the use of social software within the present system?
- or as Roberto has just said what is the disruptive technology which can spark such chnage in peoples lives.
It may be that such change will not origin within the education system but will happen from human interactions in the wider communities through different ‘value propostions’ - through ideas, approaches and technologies which add value to people lives.
Are we hung up with systems approaches?
As always it is the extra curricula activities which are the highpoint of conferences. And i don’t just mean in the bar. I had an interesting lunchtime conversation with Martin Owen where we were talking about the problems with the classificatory systems being put forward for analysing a database of practice examples developed for the IPTS study on the impact of Web 2.) innovations on education and training in Europe.
One issue we discussed is the continued use of systems approaches for defining research design and analysis. All too often findings which do not fit into a pre-defined system are just viewed as ‘noise’ and therefore ignored. But it may be in that noise that cannot be analysed in a systems driven approach that the real issues lie. It is how learners are using social software that is critical to me and not how the system adapts or more often rejects the use of such software.
Teaching or learning?
I am at a workshop on Learning 2.0: The impact of Web 2.0 Innovations on Education and Training organised by the Institute of Prospective Technology Studies in Seville.
They have done a lot of work. however, I feel that in focusing on the use of technology for learning within the existing educational organisations they miss the main issues. How do we bring together informal learning and learning from formal sources? How do people not enrolled on courses use technologies for learning? How do we transform institutions? How can we empower learners to structure their own learning? How can we open up educational resources - materials but not just resources - to the wider community.
How also can we develop research designs and methodologies to address these issues?
