the challenge

May 2nd, 2008

I’ve decided to participate in the 2008 Comment Challenge! which is about challenging bloggers to become better blog citizens. I can see that this will need some energy and commitment but it’s something I’m prepared to invest in. I see it as personal and professional development.

I would class myself as a novice with regard to blogging and I’m only just beginning to understand the networking potential/possibilities that are afforded by responding to what I read on other blogs. I suppose I’ve been grazing for a while, dipping into a few places to read what I find interesting and informative. I see the value of doing the comment challenge in engaging with what I read (other people’s ideas/opinions/rants etc.) and having to think about how I respond to them. If I think I’ve got something to contribute, I’ll write a comment.

I’m hoping that after the month I’ll have a much deeper understanding of how the blogosphere works and where I may fit in this connected community. I hope to meet people and make authentic connections with those of like mind and having similar interests. These potential new relationships will be the BIG pay off. Proverbs 27:17 comes to mind when I think of how we need to interact with each other and bounce ideas around to come to deeper understanding of each other, ourselves and the world around us.

One of the other aspects of the blog/ger/ing learning curve is the need to choose from a range of application/technologies to maintain the connections – keep the lines of communication open if you will. I’m still discovering lots of things (as well as realising how much I don’t know) that will support and enhance my blogging and look forward to trying things out to see how well they work and how they might be put to use in an educational setting. I do subscribe to RSS feeds (using NetNewsWire for Mac) and have worked out that it’s important to also subscribe to comment feeds as well as the post feeds. If you’re not up to speed with RSS check out the and you may even find this video useful RSS in Plain English. [* note to self – must find out how to embed videos (I’m writing my blog posts in MacJournal) so I can post to the blog with having to edit the post there.]

I’ve also dived into Twitter and have had wonderful support from Sue Waters to get going (I’m using Twhirl to aggregate my Twitter ‘tweets’). This ‘instant message’ platform/technology/service is also starting to make sense in that we’re able to ‘keep connected’, and ‘in touch’.

How connected you keep is all up to you (and me).

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my iPod

April 28th, 2008

Understanding that others have written on the subject – I wanted to give my spin the on the (just about) ubiquitous iPod.

“A most underrated device the (Apple) iPod is“, (as Yoda would say), and I wouldn’t go anywhere without my trusty multi-media device. Other than these devices being cool, with great design, neat user interface and having some street cred, they are also immensely useful for teaching and learning.

I use mine to play music (sometimes), play podcasts (both audio and video a lot of the time), play video (TV, movies, presentations etc.), show photos, store files, and record audio (interviews). I won’t make any comments regarding the iPod Touch as I see it as an alternative to the way I use my iPod (and because I haven’t had enough experience with one to know it’s full range of functionality and/or limitations).

I can do all these things in a personal way (like, I’m the only person interacting with the device) or I can, through the Component or Composite Audio Visual (AV) cable, share everything with an audience. (NB* the newer iPod Classic require a new version of the AV cables).

I can use it walking, riding (the bicycle), traveling in the car (or on the train/plane), at home in the lounge or in the classroom/lecture theatre.

iTunes is the main piece of software I use to upload audio, video, and photos to the iPod, but I have some other software and hardware that allows me to add value to the iPod.

  1. The Belkin TuneTalk is a great little recording device that plugs into the bottom of the iPod and enable digital recording (but watch out for a new version for the latest iPod Classic).
  2. Then there’s the Griffin iTrip Auto (FM transmitter) that allows you to play your iPod through the car stereo system (charges the iPod as you go).
  3. And what about an Elgato eyetv digital TV tuner? I have the ‘hybrid’ model which does analogue and DTT (free view). This means I can capture of an old analogue VHS tape player and convert to digital and then save to iPod. You plug a co-axial cable into one end of the ‘stick’ and the other end goes into a USB port and via the excellent software you an watch and record free to air TV. Once recorded you are able to edit the recording (removing advertisements maybe) and then export as an iPod .mp4 file. If you have Roxio Toast you can also burn to DVD. This enables you to record something on TV in the evening and use it in your teaching the next day!
  4. Then there’s other handy things like a 3.5mm headphone jack splitter which effectively enables two people to listen to the iPod at the same time (you’ll need another set of head phones). You can pick these splitters up form an electronic store like Dick Smith Electronics.
  5. A small carry bag is also useful. I found a great design from Eagle Creek that’s got enough compartments and room for the bits and pieces. Not sure if they still produce the model I’ve got, but the Hip Check looks close.

I’ll probably go into more detail on the intricacies of exploiting the educational uses of the iPod in later posts (like creating & subscribing to podcasts) and in the meantime provide a couple of links to post by others… Kate Foy | Rob De Lorenzo | Manoj Jasra, and surely many more. Feel free to comment and provide a link if you’ve written something on the subject….

The bottom line: everyone (particularly teachers) should have one, or at least something that can do the same sort of things. I really can’t think of a reason why you shouldn’t. If you can think of a good reason – let us know!

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a/nother resource

April 27th, 2008

I came across the TED (Technology Entertainment and Design) Conference a while ago now (would be fantastic to get to one sometime) and try to catch one of their talks regularly because I find them inspiring and enlightening. The normal presentation format is to give speakers 18 minutes to get their presentation across (if there’s a performance piece it’s usually shorter). You can either listen to an audio or watch the video and there’s a huge range of topics and categories to discover.

The tag line of TED is ideas worth spreading and if you check out their mission statement you’ll find some suggestions on how you can use their talks and presentations.

“If you’re a teacher, consider incorporating TEDTalks into your classes. They are distributed under a Creative Commons license, and are freely available for such use, so long as you credit the source and do not distort the speakers’ intended meaning.”

Just to get you started I’d recommend a couple of thought provoking examples for you check out; the talk by Sir Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity?, then there’s the presentation by Hans Rosling: Debunking third-world myths with the best stats you’ve ever seen and don’t miss Evelyn Glennie: How to listen to music with your whole body.

If you like what you see, why don’t you join the TED community…

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making it happen

April 16th, 2008

I’ve been involved in a project that has seen the development of some real estate in Second Life (that parallel universe online). Aimed at providing opportunities for students to experiment with ‘other’ world possibilities (particularly in Arts Education), the project has been great fun and very is exciting for those involved as we break new ground and come to learn about the potential of the environment. Leigh Blackall is writing about his experiences in developing a space in SL and I like his approach to developing a plan…

Anyway, we’ve had a lot of help from Gary Hayes (& The Project Factory) who’s been great with his ability to listen, be creative, suggesting possibilities and leading us by the hand through a new landscape and develop an amazing space. We’re just about all set to go and do some stuff with students.

To get to this point though, we’ve had to negotiate our way through a fair bit of bureaucratic stuff to get things like finance, marketing and IT issues sorted out to create a space/identity and getting access through firewalls. I have read about others who were very impressed with the help and service provided by centralised systems. I do understand that there needs to be processes and procedures when implementing mainstream production type applications and systems, but when we’re pushing the envelope it would be useful to have an attitude of understanding and encouragement. I’m not suggesting that there aren’t well meaning and helpful people who do want to support this type of endeavour (thank goodness) as they are often the tipping point in making things happen.

After a recent conference presentation I was asked why we had developed a range of social software installations ‘in house’, that is, within our local area network (LAN). I suppose reasons included the ability to support, backup, control and provide a secure environment (for participants) were on the list. The suggestion was that all this was available in the public domain and surmounted the issues of getting external people to participate. Yes, this is an issue for in-house systems that rely on user management systems and corporate databases to control access, but we’ve found ways to overcome that with creative people coming up with solutions. It’s still a question of purpose, identity and intellectual property with good advice about implications provided to potential users.

I suppose the upshot is that consideration needs to be given to the investment of support and resources for/to/in those of us who are willing and able to investigate possibilities, and do the pioneering work of marking the trails for others to follow. It’s great when we can undertake projects through which R&D can be supported without having to resort to external resources & support.

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face to face?

April 14th, 2008

I met with some people from South Africa last week who were doing a benchmarking exercise on the use and development of multimedia materials for distance education (only). They were keen to hear how we did this sort of thing but the scale was so different (and we do teach face to face) that our conversation/experience only intersected a couple of times. Having students on-campus makes it much easier for us to be responsive and contemporary (to the day/week rather than semester/year) with the ability to provide students with commentary (recorded audio/podcasts) and even other digital objects (newspaper, TV, scans, and broadcasts etc) to support and enhance learning. While we do have off-campus students, the mix of materials we need to develop and the way we (often) integrate both modes into the online environment, mean we do things quite differently. They did want to know how to support students at a distance through online communication and it was good to be able to tell them a little about our experiences with a large corporate learning management system and our recent excursions into using open source social software (more on that in later posts).

It was interesting to hear their story and aspects of the logistics when delivering courses (and relevant material) to over three hundred thousand students (yep, 300,000)! Make a mistake with stock control and the extra mail-out will eat into the profit quick smart. There would certainly be some economies of scale with regard to return on investment for course development by selling it to so many students, but some of the logistics issues sounded scary. They did seem to have a nice model for course/material development which reminded me of we used to do it … ahhh, the good old days.

I also attended a seminar where someone shared their experience of a visit to the UK and meeting an academic from the Ultraversity. He had been quite taken with their model of offering one degree only (BA (Hons) Learning, Technology and Research) and wholly online. It does seem like it fills a market niche with three exit points and is full fee, with those living in the EU getting a good discount. Many of the students are encouraged to ‘earn while they learn’, there seems to be a focus on ‘action to improve your own workplace’ and the study is asynchronous to allow for flexibility and self-paced learning. The curriculum model is action research and involves personalised learning (negotiated with the student), inquiry/project based learning, online units of inquiry (with expert witnesses), and the assessment of learning is by e-portfolio and an exhibition for dissemination. This is sharing the inquiry finding with stake-holders and evaluated for input which all provides for real, authentic and potentially valuable learning/contribution. I like it!

Anyway both experiences were useful in exposing me to a couple of other models for doing education and learning and provided a bit of litmus test to help me see what we are doing. Looking through a different lens is always useful and you never know who you’ll meet.

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Post No. 1

March 29th, 2008

Welcome to a new blog (probably one of the thousand that were created today) that will be focussed on things to do with learning and digital technology. 

I’ve been meaning to get this going for a while and finally found some time to get things together. I intend to write about my experiences, thoughts, ideas and reflections on what it means to use technologies for learning. While I’m currently working in tertiary education, I’m interested in all things education and hope to use this blog to make connections between aspects of computer communication technologies (CCT) and how we can improve the learning experience. 

I hope my readers might be stimulated, provoked, entertained, challenged and encouraged to get started, or continue on, their journey of learning incorporating the new tools of culture. 

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