Learning to learn :: Blog

… yet another shameful blogging hiatus (it’s been over a month!) and I’m determined to be a better blogger this year – as opposed to a one-way blogger, which is what I’ve been so far. It’s not been intentional – I just didn’t realise that many people actually read it until fairly recently when I was alerted to the fact that I was listed in Janet Clarey's 'Women in the edublogosphere' post (and TBH, used the blog mainly to keep a note of things I love but don’t have the time to write a full academic paper on, but would like to do so in the future – i.e. never happens because there are always so many other things to do). I’m so appreciative of people that have commented as I rarely comment on other blogs due to being spread so thinly across a myriad of online communities, so after spending a day in the company of Ewan McIntosh blog supremo, I feel really enthused, enlightened, and determined to engage in community discourse, as opposed to ‘hey, this was really good and I’m excited (yet again)’.

The reason for the ‘Ewan Effect’ (should that have a trademark sign after it?) is that he came along to the kick-off meeting for the VITAE project, which finished a couple of hours ago. Three days of project-based discussions (which I’ll report back on after this – too much to write here) and heated debates with – among others - my new friend and expert on all things intercultural Laurent Borgmann (the reason I mention him specifically is that due to certain ideological differences we argued so much – in a good way!). Laurent runs the award-winning Absolutely Intercultural (podcast) site, along with Anne Fox, coordinator of the VITAE project - one of the loveliest, chilled-out women I’ve ever worked with… the whole team’s ace!

*Inner voice says STOP! You said you were going to leave this for another post!*

SO, the hiatus meant that I didn’t blog about:

a)       The supa-dupa BAZAAR conference in Utrecht, mid-December. Probably the best (un)conference of the year – i LOVE this project. Open content for all – SHOW THAT YOU SHARE! I was a workshop leader, along with Josie, Wolfgang Greller, Marco Kalz, Steve Wheeler, Veronika Hornung, Graham Attwell, Ray Elferink and George Bekiaridis, and it was a superb event. Thanks so much to the Bazaar team for inviting us – you’ve done a fantastic job guys! Hey, the ‘Sounds of the Bazaar’ show has come out of this, and it’s essential listening for all us EdTech types, thanks to Graham’s well-informed interviews, choice of interviewees, and all-round production skills. For pics see the world's greatest photo sharing site...

b)      FLICKR!!!! Anybody that knows me on a day-to-day basis knows about my passion for all things Flickr. Although most people (in EdTech-land) will only know one account (work-related), I’m actually the ‘proud owner’ of 4, and after 3 years of being a Flickrite I’m finally about to embark on a small Flickr-related research project based..

c)       Finishing work for Xmas and immediately coming down with Flu. Yet again. Why is that?

Holy Moly – after saying I’m going to avoid the ‘hey, this was really good and I’m excited (yet again)’ route, I’ve done just that. Some habits are hard to break… like New Year resolutions – easier said than done ;-)

 

Feeling over the moon today after a session with some of my final year students where they presented group research projects (authored on wikis) to one another via a web-conference. Although I’ve taught various tech/multimedia modules for some years now, I changed my approach with this one and rather than focus on specific tools (software such as Dreamweaver/Flash/VB.Net, which we’ve covered in earlier modules), decided to focus on the general principles of the web and social software, and how they impact on professionals in the broadcast industries.

In the very first session, I asked them to fill in questionnaires to find out what they were interested in, what they wanted to do professionally, and their experiences and uses of different technologies (inc. online). Although I had developed the framework, I wanted to try to fill it with relevant (to them) and professionally useful information, so this was a great help in deciding which areas to focus on (audio and video being extremely broad in scope!)

The session themselves were pretty fast-paced, using various media and mixing talking, demonstrations, YouTube videos, group discussions and class exercises (e.g. ‘in 20 minutes find 3 blogs that you would subscribe to – doesn’t matter what it is as long as it’s something that really interests you’ then using NetSupport to let students sit at their PCs and talk the rest of the class through the blogs, considering design, functionality, content, audience, style etc. – in a sense they gave the class themselves, to one another…).

The first half of the module was largely blog-based, and the students developed online CVs and work showcase sites, complete with matching business cards, and through the hands-on elements they explored issues of digital identity and the presentation of the self online, mashups, copyright and licensing – with a big push towards Creative Commons (naturally!)

In the second half of the module we moved over to wiki-based research projects, which the students presented to one another today from different labs, using radio mics to take questions etc… it was great! My colleague Cristina Costa helped out with the web conferencing, we took photos and the students really got into the spirit of things – wonderful atmosphere… open, supportive to one another, engaging and FUN! (Also thanks to Stephen Downes, whose ‘How to Create an RSS Feed With Notepad,a Web Server, and a Beer' article made an appearance or two and was very much appreciated by the students).

Many of the students have their own studios and already do a lot of production work, but I was really impressed by their dedication and intentions to carry on developing their sites as part of their business/future careers. They are fantastic bunch, the sessions have been so enjoyable and one of the most rewarding aspects (for me) has been learning about what they do outside of university… all the ‘informal learning’ which is massively influential in terms of who they actually are.  To be able to see them demonstrate everything that they do through developing the ‘digital self’; to demonstrate their understanding of issues explored in class through blog-based critical reflection; and finally to see them really enjoying and engaging in the web conference (despite some initial scepticism) where they were questioning one another about their research wikis and learning from each other – this has been the most satisfying module to develop/deliver…. And I’ve got loads of new ideas for next year’s cohort – yay!!!

 

 

This is fun... now in SL (and writing this) attending the in-world Edublog Awards on Jokaydia Island, hosted by James Farmer, Josie Fraser, and others - and the audio is crystal clear! Very impressed...

 

It's possible to attend the awards from a variety of online 'locations'; Worldbridges, Terra Incognita (alternative SL location), Twitter, Skype... i love the fact that the audience are distributed across a variety of platforms. 

(10 minutes later): 

Gah! Spoke too soon... lost the sound, now the cystal-clear audio has turned to shards of glass... think an incoming in-world voice call threw my settings somehow. Will have to log out and back in again - although no guarantees i'll be able to return as the sim is full.

*sigh*

Ah well, will try to visit from another location if all else fails.... these awards are incredibly important within the Edublog community, so well done to all of the winners, and James, Josie et.al. for hosting the ceremony across multiple locations!

Just arrived home from the veritable smörgåsbord of EdTech delights that is (was) Online Educa Berlin 2007. Although OEB has a rather more substantial ‘tradeshow’ element than some of the more research-focused events (such as the EDEN Research Workshops, or ALT-C), it’s a great conference, and a welcome opportunity to meet up with colleagues just before Christmas, being a refreshing respite from the ‘day-to-day’ - and in glorious surroundings…

I was there along with Graham Attwell, Dai Griffiths, Steven Warburton, Steve Wheeler and David White to speak at a special focus panel session entitled ‘No Life in Second Life?’, and it went really well (I think?) – or at least we enjoyed ourselves! Diverse panel, diverse set of SL experiences – but luckily it all seemed to fit together rather well and there were plenty of questions and discussion with the audience – no mean feat with an audience of several hundred! Luckily Graham took on the role of ‘roving mic’… along with a last-minute keynote later on in the afternoon, which he delivered with his usual rousing aplomb... More pics on Flickr…

 

Professor Sugata Mitra delivered an awe-inspiring (and extremely witty) keynote where he presented his well-known ‘Hole in the Wall’ experiments, which ran across India over a number of years. In each experiment, he would place a high-speed computer in the wall, connect it to the Internet, and watch who, if anyone, might use it. Within minutes, children would fathom out how to point and click and by the end of the day they would be browsing the internet. Mitra replicated his experiment across India, in other settings, each time with the same result. Within hours and without any instruction, children would be browsing the Web. Mitra’s mission to overcome the digital divide in India is a reminder that children CAN self-instruct; with children, the most important word in education is ‘if they WANT’ to, and learning is often a question of triggering the right emotions…

The idea of learner empowerment - children or otherwise - is becoming increasingly prevalent, and for good reason. Graham presented us with some wonderful examples of student work centring on comic books, blogs, wikis, podcasts… with warm and fruity undertones of Illich, Freire etc.

Luckily, Andrew Keen (another keynote speaker) was on hand to warn us all of the perils of shifting the emphasis from the ‘authority’ to 14 yr-old monkeys tapping away at typewriters… and of listening to the ‘utopian, anti-authoritarian, ex-hippies’ who champion Web 2.0 in education.

Err... that'll be us then.

... just came across an interesting jigsaw diagram relating to 'Identity 2.0' at http://ulik.typepad.com/leafar/2006/10/ulik_unleash_id.html

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large version on Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=261399491&size=o#

A couple of weeks ago I was lucky enough to witness Paul Sermon’s latest interactive public video art installation incorporating Second Life users in a real life environment. The event took place in All Saints Gardens, Oxford Road, Manchester, for the Urban Screens Festival. The description on Paul’s site is as follows:

“The merged realities of ‘All Saints Gardens’ on Oxford Road, and its online three-dimensional counterpart in ‘Second Life’ will, for the first time, allow ‘first life’ visitors and ‘second life’ avatars to coexist and share the same park bench in a live interactive public video installation. Entering into this feedback loop through a portal between these two parallel worlds this event exposes the identity paradox in Second Life. ‘Liberate your Avatar’ examines this new crisis and reflects the history of ‘All Saints Gardens’, relocating Emmeline Pankhurst as an avatar within ‘Second Life’ where she remains locked to the railings of ‘All Saints Gardens’.”

Does this sound as good to you as it did to me? It certainly didn’t disappoint...

Quite a crowd had gathered, sat in the park, watching ourselves on a huge screen – together with avatars! Using clever trickery (i.e. chromakeying) Paul had us all mixing together… at least we were when we looked at the screen. It was so engaging that we forgot the avatars weren’t actually there physically. The visual blend of ‘us’ (real) and ‘them’ (virtual) was incredibly powerful – hey, they were even sitting on our knees! – that I think we all felt as if we were all in the same space. The mix of RL and SL on the screen was so compelling that the sensation of being ‘there’ – or the avatars being ‘here’ felt…. Well, almost normal I suppose. A glimpse into the future…?

Emmenline Pankhurst even put in an appearance - chained the railings as she had been in this very park 100 years ago… so we were, in a sense, reliving history through our very own feedback loop. The potential for this kind of project in terms of history education is pretty obvious.

One of the things I loved about the whole event was that it was staged in a public space, and anybody could partake – which they did. Oh yes, we had the lot – including the odd resident drunk, one of whom couldn’t quite get a grip on what was happening so watched himself on the screen pouring his Special Brew onto an avatar… who wasn’t actually there. The wonderful Carol Batton also turned up, and added her own inimitable take on proceedings. Carol is a very well-known Manchester poet and a bit of local legend really. Brilliant woman and I can’t wait to read her poems based on this event – she was quite taken by the whole thing ;-)

 

So big thanks for Paul for this event/installation. It was very special indeed – and a welcome burst of inspiration for all those who were lucky enough to be there and have an interest in Second Life.

BRING ON THE FUTURE.

… two more excellent offerings from Mike Wesch (creator of “The Machine is US/ing Us.”):

Information E/Revolution which "…explores the changes in the way we find, store, create, critique, and share information": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4CV05HyAbM 

A Vision of Students Today - a short video produced in collaboration with 200 students summarising "how they learn, what they need to learn, their goals, hopes, dreams, what their lives will be like, and what kinds of changes they will experience in their lifetime." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGCJ46vyR9o

... i'm currently writing a paper on information and communication overload, so it's a welcome relief to revisit these themes via a different medium (i.e. video)! Welsch opens the 'Visions of Students Today' video with a quote from Marshall McLuhan (1967):

"Today’s child is bewildered when he enters the 19^th century environment that still characterizes the educational establishment where information is scarce but ordered and structured by fragmented, classified patterns subjects, and schedules”

I'd be interested to hear from others about their experiences of information and communication overload, particularly in terms of student feedback with regards hyper-connectivity and learning networks/multiple network membership. I know that for myself, and many others I have spoken to in the EdTech community our ability to connect and be connected is sometimes as stressful as it is energising! Also, I sometimes worry that constantly multitasking (and to some extent, information 'grazing') means that i'm only paying continuous partial attention at the expense of deeper levels of reflection... Do our students feel the same?

 

Today’s Guardian runs a piece on a new Facebook app Dramatic Whitespace - the ‘best app ever’ (yes, another one) according to Valleywag…

“Dramatic Whitespace is more than just a bit of silliness (though it's certainly that). It's a sly comment on the net's reigning design ethic: the cramming of as much stuff as possible into every bit of available space. The thought that a pixel might go to waste seems to fill site owners with dread. The worst examples of data overload can be found inside the social networks themselves. At Facebook's main rival, MySpace, people seem to compete to create the densest, ugliest pages imaginable. Photographs, videos, music snippets, wacky fonts and assorted digital bling are thrown together into eye- and ear-assaulting jumbles.”

… views no doubt shared by web-usability guru Jacob Nielsen. Carr then goes on to say:

“One thing's clear, though. In this age of endlessly abundant information, what's becoming most scarce is scarcity itself - the absence of data. That's why Dramatic Whitespace seems so compelling. It speaks to what we're most in need of today: a small, quiet clearing amid the digital brambles, a place where, to quote the poet Derek Mahon, "a thought might grow".”

So in the spirit of postmodernism I’ve just installed the app, but instead of getting a tranquil clearing of white space, I just get a message saying ‘No content to display’...???

Will persevere….

Last Tuesday evening I went along to the inaugural lecture of Paul Sermon, the Professor of Creative Technology here at the University of Salford. Paul’s telematic art uses videoconferencing technology to “challenge people's ideas of personal space and their own self image”. It was a great lecture, as Paul demonstrated some of his work from the past 15 years, beginning with ‘Telematic Dreaming’ from 1992 (an installation/performance piece with a ‘human avatar’), before moving on to ‘Telematic Vision’(1994), which deals more with the notion of telepresence, using the screen/monitor as a portal to a shared mental space.

Paul doesn’t use sound in his work, which forces participants in the artwork/installations (who could be located anywhere in the world) to react a lot more physically in terms of the way that they express themselves, as they are using the body to communicate without having to speak. This was demonstrated by his showing of videos from There’s No Simulation Like Home (1999) and some rather comical footage from BBC’s ‘Trouble at the Big Top’, where some people seemed immune to the wonders of being able to beam their faces across the world via blue cushions, instead preferring to have pillow fights….

Other works included ‘A Body of Water’ (1999), a piece which ran across 3 locations, where people scrubbed one another in the shower – images were chroma-keyed together via videoconferencing and projected on to a wall of water; the ‘Teleporter Zone’ (2005) and ‘Headroom’ (2006).

Paul ended by demonstrating his work in Second Life at The SYLGRUT Centre (a venue for contemporary media art and critical theory), before bringing us almost back full-circle by showing a ‘real-life’ photographic image of a normal room with chairs, tables…. And blue and pink (male and female) pose balls littered around the place…

I’m really looking forward to Friday, as ‘Liberate Your Avatar’ Paul’s interactive public video art installation (incorporating Second Life users in a real life environment) will be shown on giant screens in Manchester:

“This completely unique project brings together fifteen years of telepresence research by artist and Professor of Creative Technology at Salford University, Paul Sermon, with his current experiments and experiences in the online three-dimensional world of Second Life.

In this new project, Paul Sermon will recreate the actual All Saints Gardens on Oxford Road within Second Life, allowing both members of the public and virtual inhabitants (‘avatars’) of Second Life to coexist and share the same park bench in a live interactive installation.

This installation will transform the ‘Urban Screen’ situated in All Saints Gardens into a portal between these two parallel worlds. The installation will also investigate demonstration and how it has changed from real into virtual environments. By positioning the ‘Urban Screen’ as the mediator of change, the installation will examine the history of ‘All Saints Gardens’; relocating Mancunian Suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst as an avatar within Second Life. Here she will she remain locked to the railings of the park, reminding us of the need to continually evaluate our role in this new online digital society. ‘Liberate Your Avatar’ examines this new crisis whilst drawing upon the history of the site, creating a rich, provoking and entirely innovative, interactive experience.”

I’m sure this is going to be something rather special - it’s great the way that Paul’s work has evolved and now he can bring his experiences into SL – and I particularly like the way that he converges technologies, blending the real and the virtual into various mixed realities...

 

Here at the University of Salford, like many other institutions, we’ve been having a bit of a re-design when it comes to our ‘learning spaces’. While I’ve long been an advocate of designing spaces with communication and collaboration in mind, until now it’s largely been based on gut-instinct and also inspired by seeing what’s going on elsewhere...

Today a colleague from another Manchester university came in for a couple of hours for a general EdTech chinwag/catch-up (we’re both enthusiasts…), and we were walking around the campus and decided to pop in to the Learning Technologies Centre in our main library building. When we entered the main space, which has very recently been refurbished, we were greeted by the sight of 4 students engrossed in something on a laptop.

What could it be…?

… a hilarious (for them)/humiliating (for somebody else) video on YouTube?

… the latest MySpace gossip? (although to be fair many students who I’ve spoken to in the past few weeks have deserted MySpace for Facebook…)

Unable to resist, we walked over and started asking them what they were doing….

Answer: They were working on a group project - a 3 minute video.

We asked “will you put it on YouTube when it’s finished?”, to which they replied… “Probably not, as we’re using some images from elsewhere so we need to be careful about copyright”.

HALLELUJAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I think they probably thought we were slightly mad (!), wondered what all the fuss was about…

Anyway, we disappeared off for a general chat with staff in the LTC and wandered back out a couple of hours later and THEY WERE STILL THERE!

Still collaborating, still communicating, still learning, still engaging.

We thought it was absolutely brilliant – late in the day on a Wednesday, didn’t have to be there, deadline not-at-all imminent… they were there because they wanted to be, and because the space ‘felt right’.

At this point we asked if we could take a picture… they said yes (as long as we promised not to show their friends ;-)