Today, on arriving at work, I found a rather intimidating looking document in my post: a Higher Education document on intellectual property rights in e-learning.

The hardcopy booklet had been circulated to me obviously because of my fellowship and it gave me moment of reflection - 'yes - I am part of particular community'. I just hope I can make adequate contribution (those nagging doubts!). The document in question is not quite as imposing as its title may suggest. In fact, it is an extremely clear and direct document, including a number of useful templates for contracts and permission requests etc.  

Of course, given today's real task of thinking about reading matter for the Autumn's term teaching, I have to put the document to one side. It is there when I need it. I just hope, amongst all the papers that tend to avalanche over the desk (andbeyond)  I can find it again when the time comes. At least I have registered its existence in this post!

At this event I vocalised, for the first time, my thoughts regarding the Sony Reader. My collegues reactions were certainly all very positive - and since one of the fellows is a librarian of the University, it is certainly something I can consider in following up as a wider collaborative project.

In an article in the Times Higher (April 28 2006, pp.18-19) about the current status of course textbooks, there was a lovely cartoon depicting the contemporary student, who notably is more inclined to listen to an iPod than read the dusty volumes in the library. As one line of the accompanying aritcle read: ‘If your text doesn’t come with DVDs, CDs and podcasts, it won’t cut it in the student market’.

Given that I wish to link my e-learning materials directly to a book project, the article made for relatively good news - or at least helped further to rationalise my intended approach. However, there is a deeper underlying concern about the purpose of books fullstop. [ADD details of Publishers Association report?] With so much now available to read online, students are increasingly cutting and pasting materials from the internet. Putting aside the associated problems of plagarism, there is potentially a growing problem of knowledge becoming woefully decontextualised - all is available all of the time in the same place, leading - in historical terms - to a radical flattening out of thoughts and knowledge going back decades, even centuries.

A key premise of my e-learning project is to enable an enriched reading of the French cultural critic Roland Barthes. Athough his texts remain on university reading lists across all number of programmes, I feel his work has increasingly lost its fuller meaning. My initial idea was to design a virtual learning environment which would literally offer a space to read Barthes' texts (as arranged by the purchase of permissions) - in other words to create e-text versions of his well known articles. These would then be expanded upon through the use of hypertext links and various activities etc. However, very excitingly, something that has come to my attention since writing my initial proposal is the forthcoming launch of a new technology in ebooks.

Sony’s forthcoming e-reader uses a new technology of 'e-ink' which enables a screen to look almost exactly like traditional printed paper (making for a very comfortable read and in addition allowing for much extend battery life). The technology can in fact be produced in a flexible form as 'paper' (currently about the thickness of a mouse mat!). The e-reader Sony are due to launch, however, looks much more like a palmtop or even (though a little bigger) like an Apple iPod. In fact the iPod is definitely an important influence. Unlike previous e-book technologies (which amounted to little more than PDF computer files, which the general reader could only read, not write), Sony's new technology is going to be driven, like Apples iTunes (and the whole MP3 phenomena) by is flexibility as a software to deliver reading materials for author and readers alike. Alongside the launch of the hardware, Sony will be running a dedicated e-book shop, from which you can purchase books for download.

It is surely inevitable that the market initially will be in the download mainstream literature. However, with the right development, the implications for Higher Education could be huge. A student could arrive to university and immediately be kitted out with their own extensive, hand-held library. All essential reading could be delivered direct to the student. In addition, these materials could be digitally annotated to provide contextual information and linked up specifically to learning tasks.

Intended Action: to approach Sony directly about my project in order to try to develop an official collaboration!

For more information see: Sony Reader / Gizmodo Review / CNet Review

Inevitably perhaps, in line with my fellowship project, I left the session wondering how this may (or may not) fit in with with e-learning. In relation to Gilly Salmon's five-stage model (as discussed in a previous post here), I can see a direct link with the social constructivist approach to learning. Yet, how can PBL work effectively in the virtual, asynchronous world of e-learning? Savin-Baden's new book Problem-Based Learning Online (Open University Press, 2006) is perhaps one good starting place... (see: http://openup.co.uk/savin-baden)

The Teacher Fellowship has been awarded for the conduct of a 2 year project, for which I intend to develop electronic resources to supplement my teaching, specific to a module I offer to BA comparative media students. The module, entitled 'Words and Images', explores in both a theoretical and creative fashion the various complexities, relations and tensions between words and images. The first half of the module is based upon some key readings, with the aim to develop critical awareness of theoretical concepts and methods as they relate to a variety of topics; which include, for example, semiotics, textuality, visuality, visual culture and rhetoric, the photo-essay form, montage, and captioning. In the latter half of the module, however, and novel to the kinds of expections of my students so used only to writing essays, there is an opporunity to apply this knowledge in a 'creative' project with the specific outcome of a word-image based production of their own devising. For this final project the students are encouraged to use digital technologies and software for image/text production, manipulation, design and dissemination. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, it is a fascinating module to teach.

There are, however, numerous 'challenges' in its delivery, not least trying in the space of the 12-14 week term to get a workable balance between covering theoretical, conceptual matters and aiding the development of practical skills to students whose IT experiences vary enormously. In light of this problem, the project I am pursuing for the fellowship aims to develop supplementary learning resources specific to the reading of the theoretical subject of semiotics and in particular one of its key exponents, the French cultural critic Roland Barthes (see proposal summary document below). I hope over the coming year to develop various resources to aid directly the activity of reading the work of Roland Barthes, which will involve embedding contextualising hypertexts within his own original writings. However, the project also aims to explore the notion of visual semiotics, as different from mainstream linguistics-based approaches to interpreting sign systems. Overall, I hope the development of electronic pedagogic tools and the intellectual project of mapping a potential 'visual semiotics' can be brought together in a book publication, for which I am already in the process of devising. There is clearly very much work to be done...

** INITIAL PROJECT PROPOSAL SUMMARY **

Adventures in Semiotics - An Electronic Intertext e-learning Fellowship (York St John) The project is to develop a virtual-learning environment (VLE) as a tool to promote and enrich engagement with the conceptual ideas and possibilities of semiotics. In particular, it seeks to enable a more historically informed and deep-level conceptual appreciation of the late writings of the literary and cultural critic Roland Barthes (1915-1980). Semiotics has long been a foundational hermeneutic approach in the arts and humanities and Roland Barthes is a highly influential and enigmatic thinker in this tradition. Nevertheless, the subject can be difficult to grasp and the charged political and intellectual context of the 1960s and 1970s out of which semiotics properly arose is perhaps now difficult to fully comprehend. It is also the case that students are not easily given adequate means to critique or extend semiotics in any significant way. Adventures in Semiotics seeks, then, to enliven the subject and take it in new, creative directions. Working with students on the BA Comparative Media and Creative Industries Foundation Degree Programmes, the project works towards the design of a VLE that can offer multiple pathways and activities for the teaching and learning of a variety of texts and visual material on semiotics. Key attributes of the VLE will be its focus on activity-based learning and emphasis upon sharing and collaborating ideas and responses to the set materials; its means as a digital interface to enable 'interaction' between materials; as well as its overriding aim to reflect contemporary learner contexts and interests.