Just a couple of impressions...
Thursday, 11 June 2009
#eden09 workshop Media Zoo Tour
Workshop: "Media Zoo Tour: innovation to practice symposium" by Gilly Salmon, Palitha Edirisingha, Sandra Romenska, Matthew Wheeler, university of Leicester, UK
Participants will have the opportunity to take part in a discussion and a range of creative activitites, based on the research and practice of the beyond distance research alliance at the university of leicester UK, addressing two tf the EDEN09 questions:
How to empower innovation within the huge diversity of different learning situations and settings?
How to use existing and emerging technologies to create new value for learning
Using an innovative presentation format the Beyond Distance team will offer the participants transferrable ideas for successful integration of learning technologies into teaching practices in higher education, using examples from their own innovation to practice experience.
The workshop lead by Gilly, Matthew, Ming and Ricardo was based on group discussion or better yet, on exchanging personal experiences in new technologies for learning.
I had the pleasure of being part of a dynamic and very experienced group, so we exchanged quite a lot of ideas and build upon each others experiences.
The format of the group was build around a given framework of the Beyond Distance Research Alliance team, a framework they put forward to the ministry to get funded (the framework was build in 2005 and has recently been adjusted to fit the latest developments in eLearning - look for the 4 piece structure in the movie).
To get everyone in an open frame of mind, the opening question was: who is which animal (at this point in time) related to learning (I felt I was a Bonobo monkey for instance: very peaceful and loving, creative, playful and always interested in using new gadgets, our group also had a fish, a mother goose, a bird and a dog for different reasons and ... this approach started us all thinking.
So, getting back to the 4 pieces, each of them was zoomed into by means of a pecha kucha kind off ppt (with music), after each part a question was launched to the group. After discussing this question for 5 minutes, one of the groups chaired there conclusions to the given questions with the other groups.
Feel free to look at the movie to get some more impressions :
Participants will have the opportunity to take part in a discussion and a range of creative activitites, based on the research and practice of the beyond distance research alliance at the university of leicester UK, addressing two tf the EDEN09 questions:
How to empower innovation within the huge diversity of different learning situations and settings?
How to use existing and emerging technologies to create new value for learning
Using an innovative presentation format the Beyond Distance team will offer the participants transferrable ideas for successful integration of learning technologies into teaching practices in higher education, using examples from their own innovation to practice experience.
The workshop lead by Gilly, Matthew, Ming and Ricardo was based on group discussion or better yet, on exchanging personal experiences in new technologies for learning.
I had the pleasure of being part of a dynamic and very experienced group, so we exchanged quite a lot of ideas and build upon each others experiences.
The format of the group was build around a given framework of the Beyond Distance Research Alliance team, a framework they put forward to the ministry to get funded (the framework was build in 2005 and has recently been adjusted to fit the latest developments in eLearning - look for the 4 piece structure in the movie).
To get everyone in an open frame of mind, the opening question was: who is which animal (at this point in time) related to learning (I felt I was a Bonobo monkey for instance: very peaceful and loving, creative, playful and always interested in using new gadgets, our group also had a fish, a mother goose, a bird and a dog for different reasons and ... this approach started us all thinking.
So, getting back to the 4 pieces, each of them was zoomed into by means of a pecha kucha kind off ppt (with music), after each part a question was launched to the group. After discussing this question for 5 minutes, one of the groups chaired there conclusions to the given questions with the other groups.
Feel free to look at the movie to get some more impressions :
parrallel session #eden09 thursday morning that I attended
"The use of a peer-assessment and a reflection report to measure collaborating learning efoorts an interdisciplinary project for studetns of the faculty of teacher training, the faculty of social work and welfare studies, and athe faculty of health care" by Kristof Uvijn, Hogeschool Gent, Belgium.
A nice person with glasses, a black shirt.
Problems: would they use it to promote the learning process, or only for evaluation purposes?
They have a midterm evaluation to get the students more at ease with the technology.
they used it at 150 students from 10 different courses (teacher, logopedist, nurses, ergotherapists, ...)
The students are not face-to-face, but only see themselves 5 times throughout the year. The students are all in their last year before finishing, so the better students.
Want to hear/see more, look at this vodcast (just uploaded the movie, so it might not be accessible yet, depending on the youtube upload capacity, but you can see it later for sure):
"Online Learning: variations in Groups of parcitipants and tools" by Miri Shonfeld, Ilana Ronen, Kibbutzim College of Educatin Technology and Art, Israël (ah, art already in the title!)
(this presentation wanted to go immediately into the wiki, but the connection did not allow it)
Students with learner dissabilities (Inge, try to get her contact details to be able to see it)
Blended learning with the classic face-to-face meetings at beginning and end an two virtual field trips.
The question for the students: construct a science teaching unit.
They use a synchronous teaching platform similar to Elluminate and also asynchronous possibilities.
The course resulted in learning outcomes that were amazingly better results for disabled students. So an analysis was made:
students with disabilities participate more in an online course than in a f2f-course.
These students also evaluated the course much more highly than the others.
The final grades were also higher than the others (the others included the 'excellent students'.
why: because disabled students had to learn on their own anyway, they were better at time management (they do not have to wait for pick-ups, or other time consuming actions).
online courses allow them more flexibility which is motivating for them.
A nice person with glasses, a black shirt.
Problems: would they use it to promote the learning process, or only for evaluation purposes?
They have a midterm evaluation to get the students more at ease with the technology.
they used it at 150 students from 10 different courses (teacher, logopedist, nurses, ergotherapists, ...)
The students are not face-to-face, but only see themselves 5 times throughout the year. The students are all in their last year before finishing, so the better students.
Want to hear/see more, look at this vodcast (just uploaded the movie, so it might not be accessible yet, depending on the youtube upload capacity, but you can see it later for sure):
"Online Learning: variations in Groups of parcitipants and tools" by Miri Shonfeld, Ilana Ronen, Kibbutzim College of Educatin Technology and Art, Israël (ah, art already in the title!)
(this presentation wanted to go immediately into the wiki, but the connection did not allow it)
Students with learner dissabilities (Inge, try to get her contact details to be able to see it)
Blended learning with the classic face-to-face meetings at beginning and end an two virtual field trips.
The question for the students: construct a science teaching unit.
They use a synchronous teaching platform similar to Elluminate and also asynchronous possibilities.
The course resulted in learning outcomes that were amazingly better results for disabled students. So an analysis was made:
students with disabilities participate more in an online course than in a f2f-course.
These students also evaluated the course much more highly than the others.
The final grades were also higher than the others (the others included the 'excellent students'.
why: because disabled students had to learn on their own anyway, they were better at time management (they do not have to wait for pick-ups, or other time consuming actions).
online courses allow them more flexibility which is motivating for them.
#eden09 keynote speakers thursday
Keynote speeches
(the lights went out when the first key note speaker began, so ... sorry for typo's, I could no longer see my )keyboard, I am somewhat of a blind typer, but still)
As I am writing, I will post my thoughts between brackets always introducing them with 'remark'.
"Learning and Creativity in a New Environment" by Anna Valtonen, Aalto Finland and Nokia, Finland
With textually heavy ppt (on slideshare?)
why is our educational environment new? She responds from a organisational university mindset, not pedagogical.
education needs to be reformed and in synch with changes in the operational environment
big issue: university will get larger autonomy
each university has to specialize
mergers are made, (remark: but although she mentions diversity in the university landscape, she does mention a merger between the three 'best' universities... so where does that strengthen or diversify the rest?)
The speaker gives an overall view of some Finnish universities which did not inspire me, but all of a sudden, she moves on to a much more interesting input...
(remark: trying small movies, pasted together to give a viewer the possibility of pausing and reading the text on the slides and still get some idea of the speaker's voice)
(remark: as soon as this speaker talked about design - her topic - her voice and her emotion as she spoke became more interesting. I would have loved to hear her talk on how new technologies could influence design and the overall city/street/housing landscape. She would do it with enthusiasm and it would be interesting - for me), in the end she mentioned it a bit.
She ends with an interesting question: What happens with creativity at the universities. She mentions interdisciplinary actions and people and ... architecture.
She mentions that students as well as staff could get space in the uni to play and develop their ideas, so whomever got an idea, could ask to develop it... that sounds really now and good!
She gives some multi-disciplinary examples and those are nice (an example in the movie).
What have we learned from it?
a great remark here that scientists need to be teachers, not purely writers (in movie)
so she mentions three key words: motivation, inspiration and responsibility
(lights in the concert hall back on... jeej)
"Beyond Removing Barriers: developing Conditions for Creativity and Innovation" by Claudio Dondi, SCIENTER, Italy
The european innovation gap: how to go from innovation desire, to innovation policy and eventually innovation achievement. Unfortunately each step is slower than the previous.
a bit of a monotone voice, so my hyperbrain runs off with me from time to time. He has grey hair and a nice suite.
there is a lot of new informal learning done with the use of social media, so the dreams of a lifelong learning society can become true (at least for some of our citizens).
So learning could become more organic at all levels (community, society, individual).
Claudio is focusing on 10 imperatives for change beyond 2010 coming out of the learning innovation conference in May, Brussels.
http://www.learnovation.eu
all interested stakeholders can contribute to the selection of the top ten imperatives for change
Claudio emphasizes that keeping an open mind is essential to allow innovation and especially innovation achievement.
"What must We Invent for Tomorrow? Five Critical Foces that will challenge the US Learning Community (and perhaps yours) to Innovate the Future by Nicholas H. Allen, University of Maryland, US.
Will disperse his slides later on he mentions.
eLearning is a revolution, but it is a revolution and change is in the work. So what needs will be addressed, what demographic shifts will make a difference, what about competition.
An interesting speech on the forgotten group of learners that are the online and lifelong learners. Educational policies focus on traditional education, but this no longer fits the bill.
The key factors he mentions that influence education are similar in Europe (immigration, aging population, educational needs, technological shift, financial and political pressure on educational institutions...)
(remark: ok, I definitely need to put my pension plan in action! Because Nicholas is right, when the 40's reeach retirement age, they will need to keep working due to financial pressure)
(remark: he mentions that tertiairy education will be a must soon... this is a possible blogpost. Where do we go if educational time is growing, and it must be balanced with a carreer?)
Mentions the explosion of mobile learning, touch screen technologies mimicing paper sizes...
the impact of social media.
Emphasises the important research results and tracking systems (there are no studies that indicate the impact of OERs).
(possible blogpost, is it useful to have OERs when learning gets more learner centered?)
(the lights went out when the first key note speaker began, so ... sorry for typo's, I could no longer see my )keyboard, I am somewhat of a blind typer, but still)
As I am writing, I will post my thoughts between brackets always introducing them with 'remark'.
"Learning and Creativity in a New Environment" by Anna Valtonen, Aalto Finland and Nokia, Finland
With textually heavy ppt (on slideshare?)
why is our educational environment new? She responds from a organisational university mindset, not pedagogical.
education needs to be reformed and in synch with changes in the operational environment
big issue: university will get larger autonomy
each university has to specialize
mergers are made, (remark: but although she mentions diversity in the university landscape, she does mention a merger between the three 'best' universities... so where does that strengthen or diversify the rest?)
The speaker gives an overall view of some Finnish universities which did not inspire me, but all of a sudden, she moves on to a much more interesting input...
(remark: trying small movies, pasted together to give a viewer the possibility of pausing and reading the text on the slides and still get some idea of the speaker's voice)
(remark: as soon as this speaker talked about design - her topic - her voice and her emotion as she spoke became more interesting. I would have loved to hear her talk on how new technologies could influence design and the overall city/street/housing landscape. She would do it with enthusiasm and it would be interesting - for me), in the end she mentioned it a bit.
She ends with an interesting question: What happens with creativity at the universities. She mentions interdisciplinary actions and people and ... architecture.
She mentions that students as well as staff could get space in the uni to play and develop their ideas, so whomever got an idea, could ask to develop it... that sounds really now and good!
She gives some multi-disciplinary examples and those are nice (an example in the movie).
What have we learned from it?
a great remark here that scientists need to be teachers, not purely writers (in movie)
so she mentions three key words: motivation, inspiration and responsibility
(lights in the concert hall back on... jeej)
"Beyond Removing Barriers: developing Conditions for Creativity and Innovation" by Claudio Dondi, SCIENTER, Italy
The european innovation gap: how to go from innovation desire, to innovation policy and eventually innovation achievement. Unfortunately each step is slower than the previous.
a bit of a monotone voice, so my hyperbrain runs off with me from time to time. He has grey hair and a nice suite.
there is a lot of new informal learning done with the use of social media, so the dreams of a lifelong learning society can become true (at least for some of our citizens).
So learning could become more organic at all levels (community, society, individual).
Claudio is focusing on 10 imperatives for change beyond 2010 coming out of the learning innovation conference in May, Brussels.
http://www.learnovation.eu
all interested stakeholders can contribute to the selection of the top ten imperatives for change
Claudio emphasizes that keeping an open mind is essential to allow innovation and especially innovation achievement.
"What must We Invent for Tomorrow? Five Critical Foces that will challenge the US Learning Community (and perhaps yours) to Innovate the Future by Nicholas H. Allen, University of Maryland, US.
Will disperse his slides later on he mentions.
eLearning is a revolution, but it is a revolution and change is in the work. So what needs will be addressed, what demographic shifts will make a difference, what about competition.
An interesting speech on the forgotten group of learners that are the online and lifelong learners. Educational policies focus on traditional education, but this no longer fits the bill.
The key factors he mentions that influence education are similar in Europe (immigration, aging population, educational needs, technological shift, financial and political pressure on educational institutions...)
(remark: ok, I definitely need to put my pension plan in action! Because Nicholas is right, when the 40's reeach retirement age, they will need to keep working due to financial pressure)
(remark: he mentions that tertiairy education will be a must soon... this is a possible blogpost. Where do we go if educational time is growing, and it must be balanced with a carreer?)
Mentions the explosion of mobile learning, touch screen technologies mimicing paper sizes...
the impact of social media.
Emphasises the important research results and tracking systems (there are no studies that indicate the impact of OERs).
(possible blogpost, is it useful to have OERs when learning gets more learner centered?)
Wednesday, 10 June 2009
#EDEN09 thursday blogpost schedule
This is my first time at EDEN, so really interested in what to expect.
Innovation and Creativity are keywords for me, so I have high expectations for this conference. The last conference that really blew my mind was mLearn08, so hoping for a similar experience.
(Gdansk is an incredibly beautiful city by the way! And the conference venue is a concert hall (see the picture), which fits in with the idea of creativity)
What will I be watching out for? Remarks on new learning methods that result from the new technologies we are using, using technology the way art people do (quite innovative and regularly out of the box), mobile learning that redefines the way we as learners perceive the world.
Remark, although I wanted to copy paste from the proceedings, allowing comments to be put in as the speakers proceeded, there is a very strict copyright on these proceedings. All eLearning conferences would benefit if they gave a bit more slack (in my opinion) and allowed people to redistribute content, by using a Creative Commons License for instance. So sorry, but I will not be able to copy/paste and add extra information, you will have to do with my sometimes chaotic way of writing.
So what is my agenda for this conference and what will I be tweeting/blogging about:
Keynote speeches
"Learning and Creativity in a New Environment" by Anna Valtonen, Aalto Finland and Nokia, Finland
"Beyond Removing Barriers: developing Conditions for Creativity and Innovation" by Claudio Dondi, SCIENTER, Italy
"What must We Invent for Tomorrow? Five Critical Foces that will challenge the US Learning Community (and perhaps yours) to Innovate the Future" by Nicholas H. Allen, University of Maryland, US.
The parallel sessions of today
"The use of a peer-assessment and a reflection report to measure collaborating learning efoorts an interdisciplinary project for studetns of the faculty of teacher training, the faculty of social work and welfare studies, and athe faculty of health care" by Kristof Uvijn, Hogeschool Gent, Belgium (sorry no picture, kristof get your stars out!).
"Online Learning: variations in Groups of parcitipants and tools" by Miri Shonfeld, Ilana Ronen, Kibbutzim College of Educatin Technology and Art, Israël (ah, art already in the title!)
Workshop: "Media Zoo Tour: innovation to practice symposium" by Gilly Salmon, Palitha Edirisingha, Sandra Romenska, Matthew Wheeler, university of Leicester, UK
Participants will have the opportunity to take part in a discussion and a range of creative activitites, based on the research and practice of the beyond distance research alliance at the university of leicester UK, addressing two tf the EDEN09 questions:
How to empower innovation within the huge diversity of different learning situations and settings?
How to use existing and emerging technologies to create new value for learning
Using an innovative presentation format the Beyond Distance team will offer the participants transferrable ideas for successful integration of learning technologies into teaching practices in higer education, using examples from their own innovation to practice experience.
this really sounds nice! (I will make small movies to give you some idea of what was going on)
Workshop "New methods and Approaches to the desing and evaluation of open educational resources" by Grainne Conole, Patrick McAndrew, Julliette Culver, Andrew Bbrasher, Simon Cross, Tina Wilson from the Open University of UK.
The workshop will introduce participants to use a range of tools, methods and approaches to designing and evaluating open education resources (OERs). The session will include an overview of the OLnet initiative which is a new global network of support for researchers, users and producers of OERs. Participants will have achance to try out some of the tools that have been developed as part of the OLnet and to discuss relevance and application to their own practice.
Big Question: is my time schedule ruled by the new media?
Big question of June launched by Tony Karrer via the Learning Circuits Blog is: where is your time spend? or how to cope with all the time that goes into using new media for different purposes.
This question comes at a very crucial time as my time seemed to be slipping between my fingers the last couple of months.
But let me start with the past. I never was a fan of letting instruments control my life. I used to unplug my phone, sometimes for a couple of weeks (while I was home, it is easy if you are on holiday), throw away my television set (sometimes drastically), unplug any appliance that could possibly interrupt the peace of mind I wanted to have for a longer period of time.
Once I began to use a computer for communication purposes, I just copied the above and unplugged the computer from time to time. No worries. But in the last couple of years the communication channels have grown exponentially and this has put my time on the line.
Why I can no longer throw my computer out whenever I want to
Apart from the fact that a computer/laptop/mobile device costs more than a television set, I hesitate cutting myself off from my social media tools. Because social media is so social, I feel that I am casting away my connections if I do not keep up with them within a 'reasonable' amount of time. So I made a time schedule to keep my professional, family and learning time well balanced. I swiftly scan my feeds for interesting information, I stop roaming for knowledge after a set time (depending on the priority and deadlines), and I plan at the beginning of each week.
And to gain time: I skipped reading three news papers a day (I keep up with one, while pulling in feeds from others based on keywords), the television set is off most of the time (I do watch documentaries while commuting). I rearrange my feeds every couple of months, keeping them as relevant as possible.... and other such time saving things. I increasingly depend on my (old) mobile device as well, as it shrinks the information down to a minimum.
... well, a lot of things are mentioned by all the other commenters on the Big Question, so let me become more personal, because what happens if your time schedule is scrambled by an inexpected human factor?
Life sometimes interferes with your time
So why did this question come at a crucial time for me? Well, my close circle of friends and my partner are essential to me. In their company I do not look strange, my dynamic enthusiasm does not result in remarks to become more at ease, they do not mind that I skip between topics or that I sometimes glow because I have a (what I think) incredible idea. So yes, they are essential to me. Unfortunately/fortunately, this suddenly scrambled my 2.0-time schedule. The last couple of months my partner fell ill. So all of a sudden I needed to keep the household running (normally we really divide everything: cleaning, cooking, washing...). This meant that by the end of the day, I just could not open my computer to start blogging, chatting... I was exhausted and did not want to risk becoming ill as well. So I did what I used to do: throw my home computer out of the door to disable temptation in an attempt to keep myself sane.
But as I mentioned above, this feels a bit strange. I seem to loose out on things, I no longer have the time to read every tweet, feed ... even filtering information is downsized to an amazing minimal. So I feel a bit disconnected, as if one of my dear friends suddenly does not get the attention they deserve... yes, the machine is a human.
The reason I blog now is because I am abroad, knowing that my partner is eating cooked meals I prepared and freezed to ensure a good vitamin intake. But is it normal to be soo anxious if your regular online time is downsized by very human reasons?
#EDEN09 conference is starting today with a book launch
The EDEN (10 -13 June 2009) conference is starting in Gdansk, Poland. You can follow the conference on the conference blog.
Today there will be a book launch during the welcoming reception (Distance and E-learning in Transition,Learning innovation, technology and social challenges looking forward to reading it.
To get an idea of what is being twittered about it, I made a 'twitter fountain'.
And here it is, the twitter fountain for EDEN with pictures of Gdansk in het background of the fountain.
Today there will be a book launch during the welcoming reception (Distance and E-learning in Transition,Learning innovation, technology and social challenges looking forward to reading it.
To get an idea of what is being twittered about it, I made a 'twitter fountain'.
And here it is, the twitter fountain for EDEN with pictures of Gdansk in het background of the fountain.
Sunday, 7 June 2009
proceedings of mLearn2008 on mobile learning are now free to download
Just a quick post that might interest all of you emerging themselves in mobile learning research:
The proceedings of the mLearn 2008 conference are now available for free download in pdf format from the conference website www.mlearn2008.org (note – it is a 10Mb file). Thanks to the conference organisers for making the proceedings available as a service to the mobile learning community.
Friday, 29 May 2009
#ela2009 thursday presentations: mobile learning for health care workers
Yesterday my esteemed colleague Carlos Kiyan gave the presentation on our mobile project in Lima, Peru.
As he is a very vivid speaker, it was fun to hear him present. He gave a holistic view of everything that comes into the equation if you want to start up a mobile learning project in an area that is not used to it.
Slides of the presentation:
As he is a very vivid speaker, it was fun to hear him present. He gave a holistic view of everything that comes into the equation if you want to start up a mobile learning project in an area that is not used to it.
Slides of the presentation:
#ela2009 workshop George Siemens: social networking technologies for teaching and learning transformation
One of the workshops in eLearning Africa 2009 was lead by George Siemens, a Canadian from the Manitoba University who was one of the organisers of the CKK08 massive course in 2008 in which I participated my two cents. He is always a source of innovative ideas.
The great thing about these slides is that it gives you a holistic approach of what learning embraces: experimenting, gossip, collaboration, debating, constructing ideas ...
It comprises a lot of names from the educational realm, so if you are interested in pedagogy, you want to look for new (or I like to see them as the historically old) ways of learning, just look up a couple of these persons and dive in.
A name I had to google was Seymour Papert, and it showed me again that learning is based on sharing knowledge through networks. I know I will never know all I am interested in, but I love exploring new information.
The slides of the workshop:
The great thing about these slides is that it gives you a holistic approach of what learning embraces: experimenting, gossip, collaboration, debating, constructing ideas ...
It comprises a lot of names from the educational realm, so if you are interested in pedagogy, you want to look for new (or I like to see them as the historically old) ways of learning, just look up a couple of these persons and dive in.
A name I had to google was Seymour Papert, and it showed me again that learning is based on sharing knowledge through networks. I know I will never know all I am interested in, but I love exploring new information.
The slides of the workshop:
Day2 Elearning Africa
View more OpenOffice presentations from gsiemens.
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