LSE PhD Resources :: Blog

http://madrattling.wordpress.com/2008/11/05/pedagogy-web2-staff-dev/

I’m currently ‘attending’ an online conference with the tag line: Learning in a digital Age - are we prepared?.  On day one I focused on the session “Does Web2 fundamentally alter the learner-teacher relationship?” which included a presentation with accompanying notes and some pre-recorded audio discussion between the two presenters followed by an ongoing online [...]

http://elearning.lse.ac.uk/blogs/clt/?p=305

From tomorrow I’m ‘attending’ an 4-day online conference Innovating e-Learning 2008.  I’ll be blogging about the conference here and on my own blog.

I’m not sure about online conferences, this is the third one I’ve attended and I haven’t found them as useful as traditional face-to-face ones but I think this has been partly due to my approach as well as the format.  There are some clear advantages: you can attend from anywhere (subject to connectivity); for many of the sessions you can attend at anytime as they are based around asynchronous discussion; you can attend multiple sessions simultaneously and leave sessions whenever you like without being noticed!

So on the plus side, I’ve already listened to (part of) the conference welcome - an audio file.  These welcomes never keep my attention even face-to-face! I’ve browsed the list of attendees and said hello to a couple I know (via email).  The programme descriptions and much of their content -slides, papers, audio files have been available for two or three weeks so I’ve already decided what sessions I’d like to focus on and looked through some of the material (right). (more…)

http://madrattling.wordpress.com/2008/10/30/hashtags-backchannels/

One of my favourite things about using twitter is the hashtag as highlighted by this tweet of the two-days-ago.
Adding a hashtag to a tweet links tweets together.  So, earlier this week at the University of Leicester there was a face-to-face seminar to discuss a facebook study carried out there.  The hashtag #ormfb was used by [...]

http://madrattling.wordpress.com/2008/10/29/turn-your-name-into-a-face/

Turn Your Name Into a Face does what it says!  Thanks to @AJCann on Twitter for this, which makes this my Tweet of (Yester)day. The site also includes a link to bomomo for which I enjoyed playing with…
Posted in Fun, Multimedia, Tweet of the Day      

http://madrattling.wordpress.com/2008/10/28/cloudworks/

Cloudworks is a project from the OU’s Institute of Educational Technology.  It’s described as:
a place for people to share learning design tools, resources and examples of learning activities…. a place where people can showcase their designs and related work, and obtain inspiration and advice when creating new designs
Although the site is essentially a repository, the [...]

http://madrattling.wordpress.com/2008/10/24/tweet-of-the-day-241008/

Really a Tweet of the morning, with apologies to this afternoon’s top tweets.  This morning my twitter stream was full of tweets on a Twitter vs blogs debate.  For me it all started with this one:
The post on Wired by Paul Boutin suggested that:
The blogosphere, once a freshwater oasis of folksy self-expression and clever thought, [...]

http://madrattling.wordpress.com/2008/10/23/tweet-of-the-day/

I’ve written about Twitter before (all my Twitter posts) but to help me convince some twitter-sceptics I’ve decided to introduce Tweet-of-the-day to my blog.  Hopefully this will also get me blogging a bit more again…
Today’s tweet of the day comes from Graham Atwell:
It’s advertising an episode of his radio show ‘Sounds of the Bazaar’ on [...]

http://madrattling.wordpress.com/2008/10/02/100-e-learning-professionals

It’s hard to fathom but I don’t appear on the 100+ (E-)Learning Professionals to follow on Twitter created by Jane Hart.  And actually 100+ = 180.  Perhaps I’m a) not professional enough b) talk too much about lunch…  I can take comfort in the fact that I do at least follow a decent handful of [...]

http://elearning.lse.ac.uk/blogs/clt/?p=303

Last week I attended (and presented) at Web 2.0 Senior Managers Workshop - Liability and Law a JISC Legal event.  The session focused on the legal implications of using Web 2.0 services (e.g. Facebook & YouTube) in teaching and research.  My 5-min overview of Web 2.0 use in HE was followed by scenario-based presentations from Alison Bryce & Gillian Cordall from Maclay Murray & Spens LLP.

The scenarios & presentations touched on a wide range of potential issues including data protection & privacy, intellectual property, discrimination against students with disabilities, liability for content and copyright.  Further details of the issues are available on the JISC Legal website [link to follow].

The main problem identified was not the Web 2.0 services themselves but a lack of understanding about how the services worked and the potential issues.  It was suggested that there are two approaches needed to deal with the legal implications of using Web 2.0: Regulation & Education.

Regulation - institutions should make sure their IT conditions of use for both staff and students encompass Web 2.0 services.  It was suggested that this might include some kind of a “Web 2.0 Project” policy that requires staff to sign an “agreement of understanding” (my phrase!)  if they are going to use external services in their teaching or research.

Education  - the main focus, and the one that interests me, needs to be guidance & support.  As the lawyers pointed out really it’s all about informed decisions.  We need to make staff & students aware of the pitfalls and regularly.  Having a policy is fine but making everyone aware of it and understanding the issues is key. This is quite a challenge… ‘Web 2.0 & the Law’ workshops are unlikely to pack them in, so we need to be more subtle. For me a  key approach is to get staff taking advantage of these services on a personal basis - which would both sell the potential benefits for teaching and allow the issues to be highlighted.  Our Web 2.0 sessions in the Library’s  e-literacy programme already do this but it’s an area we’ll be looking to expand on this year.

http://elearning.lse.ac.uk/blogs/clt/?p=301

Earlier this week I attended the annual conference of ALT (the Association for Learning Technology) which I previewed last week on my personal blog and I have already written one post there on the first keynote and the digital continuum.

Staff development

The conference session on the latest survey (PDF) from UCISA /JISC: 2008 Survey of Technology Enhanced Learning for higher education in the UK highlighted the following conclusion:

Staff skills were overwhelmingly noted as the greatest challenge that these new demands [in particular streaming media, mobile computing, podcasting and Web 2.0] would create, with staff development and strategies being seen as the primary remedies

At a symposium on staff development by Sue Westerman from Canterbury Christ Church reported on the DEBUT Project.  This has focused on improving digital literacies amongst staff, something that’s also done here as part of the e-literacy programme.  However the format of the Canterbury programme is quite different and appealing. Staff attend a short introductory session and then are given a choice of 25 tools from which they have to choose the 6 most relevant to them.  Training is then provided in different formats depending on the tool: tools & formats (PDF).  Sue reported that in addition to significant increases in understanding the programme has also resulted in greater integration of these technologies into teaching.

Typing Exam Essays

At Edinburgh University Nora Mogey has been investigating the use of computers as an alternative to hand-written exams (for essays).  Students spend all year word-processing (including coursework) but then for their final exams they have to pick up a pen.  Edinburgh carried out a pilot last year on some mock exams and this year they will be extending this to some final exams.  Students on the pilot were offered a choice of hand-written or word-processed (with the computer option using special software - exam4 - installed on students’ own laptops to lock them down).

The research from the pilot concludes:

…variation in marks between handwritten and typed scripts is negligible compared to variation between markers and therefore offering students the choice to write or type should be feasible. This means that variation in typing ability need not be a major concern…

The practical problem of having a suitable location was also raised: multiple power sockets!  The use of the students’ own laptops is recommended so that students are familiar with the keyboard (which also tend to be quieter on laptops).

Other bits and pieces

The above UCISA / JISC survey also reiterated that we are not alone in our switch to Moodle:

Blackboard continues as the most used enterprise or institutional VLE. However, when also including VLEs that are used more locally, e.g. within departments, then Moodle is most used with a rapid rise since 2005

In Formative Audio Feedback: is FAF a faff?, Robin Johnson from Manchester Met reported on his use of audio recordings for providing students with feedback on dissertations and other (draft) assessments.  He was using a voice recorder & email but it’s something we could do here with the Wimba Voice Tools in Moodle.  He found that the audio recordings either saved him time or allowed him to give more detail.  The feedback from students has been positive and he plans to continue and encourage other colleaguers to join him.  He highlighted the need:

1. For a clear introduction


2. To control emotions


3. For a method for naming the parts of the document


4. To think about the structure of feedback

One delegate suggested that although it might be less work for the teacher it was potentially more work for the student, as audio feedback would be more difficult to navigate in conjunction with the written text then comments written/typed in-line.