very ready for some inspiration and stimulation

October 29th, 2008

It’s been too long since I wrote a blog post and tonight’s going to change that. I suppose I’m thinking about, and looking forward to attending the Learning Technologies Conference 2008: Learning Connections hosted by Sunshine Coast TAFE in Mooloolaba next week. It will be great to have some time away from work, learning new things, meeting & networking with people, catching up with twitter friends and looking out for inspiration and new ideas. Watch this space…

… but, I’ve been asking myself why I haven’t been writing, and think that there are a number of factors.

My professional work has been very busy as I adjust to a new role and I’ve needed to be closely involved with operational aspects of our learning management system. I’ve also started a research project and spent time developing an ethics application and creating an online survey using an open source tool called LimeSurvey. A fairly steep learning curve for all, this but things are starting to come together.

I wonder if my activity on Twitter has diverted some attention away from my thinking more deeply on subjects. Probably not, but it hasn’t led to me picking up ideas and running with them. I know this has been written about by others elsewhere, but believe that I may need to consciously make an effort to work at developing some of the ideas I come across, into blog posts rather than just leave it to 140 character tweets. I suppose what I’m saying is that I need to develop my one-liner tweets into more substantial missives (blog posts) and continue my professional journey narrative/story with longer chapters rather than individual sentences.

I do need to say though, that I’ve been getting great engagement with, and feedback from the (educational/technology) community I’m part of through Twitter, and see that it’s become an important part of my Personal Learning Network (PLN).

Another reason for lack of posting to ‘learnerbytes’, may stem from the fact that I’m posting regularly in other forums at work. Participating within the institution with colleagues has also been useful for me (and hopefully for others) and I hope to maintain my level of contribution there. Maybe I could post some of the topics/missives here on this blog, and link out to them from our internal forums. Hmm, food for thought.

So, that brings me to what I might write about next. I’ve been keeping a bit of an eye on what other people are posting on their blogs and that has made me think of a few things I’d like to write more about. Topics such as; portfolios (’e’ or otherwise), PLNs and how valuable/necessary they are, learning in higher education (what should we be trying to do?), mobile devices and the possibilities they might bring to learning and collaboration in education, communities of practice and how social software can support them, the mix of learning technologies for learning, professional development for educators, learning management systems, etc. Oh, and my research of course.

Any of those topics of interest to you? Anything you’d be able to contribute to my thinking about them? I would like to hear from you.

Talk to you soon…

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there’s more than one way to deliver a podcast

August 24th, 2008

I recently attended an Apple Roadshow that was focussed on the introduction of iTunes U in Australia. I was interested in what they’d tell us about the ‘program’ and also to see what they could provide as support for ‘workflow’ (getting podcasts uploaded).

While a little cynical about our institution having to be locked to delivering podcasts through iTunes, I was pleasantly surprised to note that this wasn’t necessarily the case. We could link to a podcast (kept in iTunes U) directly from a unit section in our LMS. So, each object has the ability to be accessed via an individual url rather then through the iTunes feed.

The other thing they told us about was the ability of iTunes U to provide access to both public and private podcasts. This means that we would be able to tag some of our material as public and freely available (say more for marketing and communication purposes), while other material could be tagged as private and only available for registered or authenticated users.

They also have a nice feature in the iTunes U server software/application called Podcast Producer that tops and tails, and watermarks each podcast to provide a uni/faculty ‘livery’ to each object. This would save a lot of time in getting podcasts delivered to production, and at least give some consistent ‘look’ to what was made available.

I suppsoe iTunes U is a lot like Lectopia (the system we currently use to record lectures live) in regard to processing the recordings, but it doesn’t do the actual lecture theatre recordings – it’s more suited for individual desktop work. I did come away with a different view on what Apple were providing and can see there could be benefits for those involved in the program.

As our institution hasn’t yet signed up for this service, it would be useful for us to at least encourage our leadership to enagage in talks and examine the usefulness of such a service for our university, both for teaching and learning, and for marketing.

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a month is a long time between posts

August 9th, 2008

I’ve convinced myself that I need to write a blog post today, or I’ll feel bad for the rest of the year. My last post was a month ago, which to me seems far too long! I’ve jotted down a few ideas for posts over that time and I’ll get to them soon – but for now it’s just a matter of getting some words and thoughts down so I can sleep tonight. In between weekend chores, watching the Olympics, and catching up with what’s happening to my friends via Twitter, I haven’t spent any time preparing or thinking about this post so, here we go (might have to rely of some ‘stream of consciousness’?, or how’s this for an idea? As this blog is about my observations and reflections, I think I might write about some of the more significant aspects of my work that I’ve experienced over the last month. Hope you find it interesting and maybe even useful…

I attended a workshop on e-Assessment by Geoffrey Crisp who presented as a part of his ALTC fellowship project. We were given a good overview of assessment and how you might create new possibilities for immersion and activity using e-assessment as well as enhancing social interaction (through using a wiki) and even adding value to learning by doing something other assessment can’t do. You can visit his website, register as a user, and check out the resources available.

The university where I work has three campuses and I regularly travel between the one I’m based on (Geelong @ Waurn Ponds) to our main campus in Melbourne. This is usually a 75 to 90 minute commute and I try to hitch a ride with someone who’s driving a university vehicle (to keep one extra car off the road and for the opportunity to talk on the way). Because there’s quite a few people traveling on a daily basis, the university has undertaken a trial for three months of running a bus (12 seater) between the two campuses. I’ve used it a couple of times since inception, and I think that it might catch on. There’s always the opportunity to meet and chat with people from other areas of the university, but the IT people have installed a mobile wireless internet connection on board (this is the cool part). There’s a wireless router (connected to 7.2 NextG card) so everyone with a wireless laptop connection can connect into the uni network while zipping up the highway. There were four of us checking email (me also keeping an eye on my Twitter friends) earlier this week, and after a day of meetings it’s nice to get some of that correspondence out of the way before getting home. There are plans to also provide a couple of laptops on the bus for those who don’t have them, and they are also going to provide a couple of IP telephone handsets so we can call the office over the network instead of using mobile phones. Apparently the cost of maintaining this mobile wireless connection annually (excluding the card and router) would only be around $600 as part of our telco contract. Cheap! All we need now is an AC power supply to plug in the laptops in case batteries run out – and maybe even an espresso machine. 😉

I also managed (with a couple of colleagues) to get a paper written and submitted (by the end of July) for peer review for the ASCILITE Conference at the end of the year. Don’t understand why there’s such a long lead time but I understand that there will probably be well over 200 papers submitted.

I partcipated in the The Knowledge Bank online conference 2008 which was focused on Web 2.0 in education: what it is, how it’s being used today and its potential to radically change education. The event was facilitated through Elluminate (sessions were recorded and available from the website), featured live blogging and is supported by a wiki. It was a great (learning) experience to be part of a group of nearly 200 people from all over the world listening to a range of speakers/presenters. The event was well managed and with a few moderators and presenters (with their slides) went more smoothly than I thought it might. It was fun to hear school bells ringing in the background as teachers participated live (and included their students!). Nice to experience what’s possible.

I’m also on a group providing feedback and support to the implementation project for a learning repository for the university. We’ve been discussing project scope and milestones, metadata, workflow, digital objects, permissions, and training etc. Will be nice to have this available by the end of the year.

I also attended a training session/workshop on using our new powerlink for Blackboard/Vista that enables us to create a Drupal/SMF and/or a Mediawiki installation in our units/courses that integrates within the system. This will be a good enhancement to the LMS ad provide opportunities for some authentic collaboration between students, particularly those studying off-campus/remotely.

I also attended a couple (brown bag) lunch time seminars; ‘multiple choice questions – cultural, linguistic and item writing factors’, and ‘designing, facilitating and assessing group assignments’.

Well, that’s most of the exciting stuff (I’ve probably missed a few things) and looking back reasonably interesting. As second semester settles down I’ll be writing more reflectively on these experiences.

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I need to know what you don’t know

July 9th, 2008

Just read a post by Britt Watwood where he reflects on the mood post NECC 2008. Apparently some of leading lights in the education technology field felt less than enthusiastic afterwards. I’m sure though, that many people would have enjoyed the conference and come away inspired and champing at the bit to try out new things.

Anyway, Britt’s post was reflecting on Everett’s, Diffusion of Innovations theory with the innovators, early adopters etc. It reminded me of Geoffrey Moore’s book Cross the Chasm, and while he’s on about marketing, I see his idea as useful for us who are encouraging change in education. How do we innovators and early adopters get the early and late majority across the chasm? Moore suggests that we need to know the market, understand the product, position the product, have a marketing strategy, determine a distribution channel and the price. It’s fairly easy to adopt this to education and I think there’s a range of ways we can apply it (but that’s for another post). In the past a colleague and I determined that an integrated learning environment could actually become a professional development vehicle for staff to use to help cross the chasm.

But, then I came across an article by Alex Iskold who suggests that maybe early adopters are currently being diverted by so many new technologies that they can’t keep up, and they keep abandoning good technology to try something new. Thought provoking stuff. Sometimes I think that maybe this is why I feel a little frustrated and just overwhelmed with all that’s out there.

For me it’s a about helping people come to know what they don’t know. They don’t know what questions to ask, or how a new technology might be useful for them. I need to get alongside them and we both have to invest time in talking about what’s possible, working out what they do know, so I can help fill in the blanks/unkown to help them cross the chasm.

Anyway, I feel good about being able to write about this, having access to what other people are saying and realising that they may also be struggling with the same challenges and issues. I believe we do need to maintain the passion and look for ways were we can keep energised and learning ourselves (those “Ah, ha!” moments) and that’s where our social networks are so valuable.

So, to all of you, thanks for sharing – I appreciate and enjoy the encouragement.

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what we need is a system bypass

July 3rd, 2008

Events have recently had me thinking about the LMS and CMS and what they can do for us with regard to student learning, and teachers being able to facilitate this. I’ve realised that we need to recognise these tools as systems and that while they can manage people and content, they need a fair bit of thinking about to be used effectively for learning.

At the university where I work we have an institution-wide implementation of Blackboard (Vista 4) which works quite well (supplemented by Elluminate and Lectopia to provide extra functionality and access to resources), and helps us manage our units/courses and student/staff enrollment etc. Often a template is applied, the class ‘delivered’ via that structure because of the convenience, and the model keeps getting replicated.

My thinking has been encouraged by a recent article by Lisa Lane (in EDUCAUSE Quarterly) called Toolbox or Trap? Course Management Systems and Pedagogy and Britt Watwood’s blog post, Moving Beyond Access and Convenience to Learning. In these two pieces the questions are raised about the potential problems/issues/constraints raised by the use of the ‘management system’ and how they can stifle creativity and learning. Both suggest that many web 2.0 and/or social networking applications are better suited to providing more meaningful learning experiences and allowing students more opportunities for collaboration and inquiry learning.

What is exciting me, is that we’ve recently implemented a project (supported by a Blackboard Greenhouse grant) that has enabled us to make a couple of powerlinks available so that teachers can create drupal/SMF and mediawiki installations within their learning context.

So, I’m looking forward to working on the rollout of this, and hoping that we might get past the tools and functions to some good learning. Being able to go beyond the management system to places where we can encourage conversation, collaboration and community. Where students are able to make sense and meaning through working together…

I’m now looking for good ideas, strategies, and examples to help teachers come to see the possibilities of the social (networking/collabotaive) software they have at their disposal. Anyone able to point me in the right direction?

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we’re gonna have a rev-o-lu-tion

June 3rd, 2008

Spent a day communing with educators at the ACER (DEEWR) Digital Education Revolution seminar on Tuesday 3rd (it was subtitled: Realising the possibilities, Managing the realities).

Keynote was by Mark Pesce (he’s kindly made his talk & video available) who gave us a great overview of where our school kids are with respect to their hyper-connectivity and challenged us to think about how we might continue to engage them in ‘doing school’.

We had a few concurrent strands to attend and saw some of the work being done in schools through integrating technology into the curriculum and exploiting the kid’s ICT literacy.

More presentations and records of the seminars (being held nationally) will be available from education.au after 13th june. Knock yourself out.

The question remains, (and was raised by some teachers at the forum), while it’s OK for the federal government to allocate funding to increase the level of technology in schools (and probably a good thing to do), what about the change in culture that’s required to make effective use of the technology. Who is going to pay for that? How does school leadership, and the teacher in the classroom, make sense of the rapid shift in connectedness that kids embrace everyday? How do we bridge the divide between what it means to use these tools socially, and using the tools pedagogically?

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