sharing worldwide learning and research: informal, formal, individual and social learning, mobile, learning analytics, MOOC, AI, maker-based learning design... I love it, and combine it
For the researchers out there that are interested in using online sources to build up their research, this is a great meeting point: the Web Research 4 Beginners Online Conference.
What can you expect? Starting 22 June up until 26 June, during five days, two presentations a week will be given by a variety of speakers. The conference is hosted by the University of Manitoba, home of Web Research conference. They even have a conference tab for any kind of following purposes: WR4B09.
The conference is multidisciplined, with international speakers and it can all be followed wearing your pyjama's or any which way you want to.
Let me just copy from their homepage:
"Is web research for me?
Ever consider online data collection for your research? Can web research be practical for longitudinal studies? Could one implement a clinical treatment online? Are ethical issues tractable? What features are important in survey research software? These and other questions will be addressed by this online conference, which is designed to provide the curious web research novice with an overview of the issues, promise, and pitfalls of online research.
The convenient conference format will allow you to:
participate from a personal computer anywhere,
attend two presentations each day for five days,
hear expert speakers talk live,
watch their slides at the same time, and
ask questions by text or voice.
Compelling reasons to attend:
Speakers with academic and private sector backgrounds from 6 countries;
Today I tried out the newly launched Opera Unite application. It got to my attention through Chris Mills from Opera who published the introducation to Opera Unite just today.
The general idea is quite straight forward: you download the latest Opera Unite version for your OS and you install it. After that you enable the Opera Unite server by using the Opera Browser, clicking on the 'tools' tab, choosing 'opera unite server' and enabling it. At this point you do need to subscribe to this service (giving your username, password, e-mail address) like you would with any other social media app. From that moment onward you can share what you want with who you want.
What is this app about? Well, it gives you the possibility to build user/learner groups and exchange files (documents, pictures), use chat-service, leave notes... without having to go through another one's server. Opera Unite makes your computer into a web-server in which you can host both websites, chats and file transfers.
Once you launched the Opera Unite service, you can try out some of the ready made features, but the people at opera also offer the possibility to roll up your sleeves and start developing your own set(s) of tools.
So what does this add to the already existing landscape of apps? To my knowledge it will give me the possibility of instantaneously starting up a learner group, keep in touch with people I need to work with closely and within the 'natural' environment of the web. And of course Google comes close, but lets face it ... this is Opera, jeej!
Although Opera mentions that the Unite server does not have trouble with firewall settings, I have not tried it thoroughly enough, but it does seem to live up to that claim.
In a nutshell you can see how they promote their general launch in this post. I only started it, exchanged some files and photos and I must say it works swiftly and quick. At first glance, I like it!
a collaborative platform for designing ubiquitous learning by Haruo Nishinosono, Institute for Learning Development, Kyoko Saio and Kunio Nakamura , Japan
(Grey haired, glasses wearing man in a beautiful black suite and with a very sensitive way of speaking in which you can feel the grandeur of sensitive Japanese phrasing to highlight critical thoughts. It reminds me very much of my grandparents way (strong Protestant) of touching sensitive issues.)
While he looks at designing ubiquitous learning, quality is mentioned as a key factor:
Ubiquitous learning aims to realize a learning process and/or outcomes free from teachersʼcontrol and intervention.
Despite such characteristics, ubiquitous learning should be designed to achieve quality learning outcomes and a high level of learning.
How can we describe such high quality learning without alluding to instructional objectives?
So he looks at the conversion from a teacher lead instruction to a teacher growing by learning his/her practical experiences, while looking at learners that want to become teachers.
I taped rather a lot because this presentation also gave an overview of how the shift from teacher/student went into more autonomous learning.
The presentation focused on the mentality shift from the more teacher-student oriented approach to more autonomous learning and especially the process Haruo Nishinosono went through as he was trying to make this change happen. So he takes the audience along his ever changing educational approach leading up to where it is now. This feels like a necessary process, as history or the processes behind a result are sometimes forgotten or not archived.
Although the quality of the movie is not optimal, I do hope it adds an extra layer to the slides.
In addition I found slides from a previous presentation, some of the slides are similar, others different with more text, so the combination of both the movie and the other slides, I found complimentary. I hope you do too. Meanwhile I will ask the shown slides as well... I'll keep you informed.
Calling for your help, because there is this weird feeling that I cannot seem to put my finger on. I think that as educators we can promote others, we can promote our learning, our projects... but we loose the ability to sell ourselves.
This week I got selected as one of the ten luckiest employees in Flanders, which is motivating in itself, but something happened during the interview, and that has happened to me when I apply for a job.
So my question to you is: how do you sell yourself (as a person who is into eLearning/learning) and is it easy for you to do so?
Let me tell you why this question came to mind or first let me situate the setting... The 10 luckiest employees were chosen based on a written, more general statement and the writing part is somehow easier to produce, because it focused on the institute that I work for and I can sell that, because I like it. After this selection a personal interview followed. All ten of us laureates of this competition (the real finalist will be chosen next week and is chosen based on an interview they took from all of us) needed to do an interview with a jury of 5 people. They asked questions, I answered and after the interview I suddenly found myself wondering about what I said and especially what I did not say?
This made me think... I did mention my employer during the interview, I did talk about a lot of things, but I somehow managed not to talk about the things that make me get out of bed and jump into eLearning and into work? How strange is this? I did NOT mention the fact that I use new media with great pleasure, that I can travel, that I can discuss my research with peers in many ways, that I love the international aspect... all of these factors make the difference, so why did I just focus on the working environment in general and very little on myself?
Why could not I sell myself in the same way, based on the facts that really do it for me? Apparently, being in education and working mainly to motivate learners has made me focus on benefits for others. Give me a group and I dare to say I can get the energy flowing, but everytime I need to sell myself purely for myself, I forget things, and mostly the facts...
The same happens when I go for a new job, if I am not 'headhunted' (= asked by someone who knows my work), I have great difficulty telling people why I would be a good addition to their team (and let me assure you, I really suck at it. My friends have a great time when I tell them what happened during those interviews - sigh), what I do is go for how great they are...
So is anybody out there having the same experience? Could this be part of being an educator that is mainly focused on improving others?
New online book on mobile learning -available for free download by Jan Herrington, Anthony Herrington, Jessica Mantei, Ian Olney and Brian Ferry (editors), New technologies, new pedagogies: Mobile learning in higher education, Faculty of Education, University of Wollongong, 2009, 138p. ISBN: 978-1-74128-169-9 (online)
It is fully downloadable from this site either as individual chapters or as the whole book in pdf form.
This online book describes a study, funded by Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC), that involved teachers in the Faculty of Education at the University of Wollongong implementing innovative teaching approaches to support mobile learning. Palm Smartphone and Apple iPod technologies were used by undergraduate and postgraduate students to assist their learning across a range of curriculum areas.
The book outlines authentic activities, assessment strategies, and professional learning approaches that teachers across the higher education sector can easily adapt and implement within their own discipline areas.
Thanks to IAmLearn to send this new information around.
This is a link to the poster presentation I gave today at EDEN09. During this conference mobile learning was not really mentioned a lot.
I also put in the movie of my (always moving) body as I present. The movie was filmed by Kristof who I filmed yesterday, so he put his foot down and told me I needed to put myself and my way of presenting stuff out there as well. So yes, I have problems with standing still... (amongst a speech impediment that is enlarged by my camera microphone, huge glasses, rather chaotic, ... but hey, that's me :-)
keynote speakers Friday (any thoughts I might have during the speeches will be noted between brackets proceeded by 'remark')
"Here and now or wherever and forever. Dilemmas of Universalism in a global world" by Krzystoph Zanussi, Polish producer and film director, professor of European film at the European Graduate School, Switzerland and the Silesian University in Katowice (great, film in the description!) (A smooth talking, grey haired, glasses wearing, man in suit) He talks about 'human rights' being discussed for being not universal, but some elementary rights are elementary universal. He mentions this because the conference is located in Gdansk, a key city to stand-up for change. In 2000 a chart of human rights was constructed, but it was not too popular because obligations could be linked to these rights
So how universal is our consciousness and how do we use it for education? The right to be not-informed is also a human right, yet because of the rise of the media push we know things we do not really need/want to know. Access to information is ok, but more importantly the filtering of information becomes essential (see this part in the speech in the movie) His question: the future of our community, what is it? 19th century had a fixed set of ideas: more freedom, more health, more education. The quest for freedom was clearly stated. If we look at us now, a lot of us lives in good situations, but ... what if everyone hops on this 'developed' way of live? So, what about the genotype? Should we look for something better with scrambling the genotype. So do we use technology for improvement or not? And, what is improvement? This is a mental question, it is philosophical. Are we sincere in striving to get better human rights? No, not most of us, because we cannot give everyone cars, poluting technology... But if all new wealthy people in the world would want to spend their time at the beach, there would not be enough beaches. Museums would not be able to cope with all the interested people, virtual visits are the solution... so what does this mean, This means that some of us now use the means that not all of us can use.
Than he said something about climate change in a talk with NASA official (see the movie below)
Does anyone have thoughts on what Kriszoph talked about? I am plee for more ethics, but indeed it is not easy to walk the talk.
"Best of times, worst of times... for open learning" by Gilly Salmon, University of Leicester, UK (I will be quite critical on this speech. This is not that fair, as I like and admire Gilly Salmon a lot, but being critical is part of me and this is how I build my mind. And knowing what Gilly knows, I have of course very high expectations). Quoting Charles Dickins (1859) from 'tale of two cities' intro... really beautiful to use. We have the responsibility to deliver the 'best' resources for education (remark: but what is best, because the cultures are not equally placed to dive into new (technological) learning. The tale of two cities was written part by part (published in parts for magazines) low cost gadgets are the way to try out new learning techniques She pleeds for herassy, as herassy is the way research and science moves forward (think Darwin, see part of the movie). (remark: the examples of people that used technology or innovation (Charles Darwin, charles Dickins, ... are anglosaxens from an imperialist era... so how does this relate to ethics in a new learning world searching for 'best'?) Synetics are essential: bringing together learning and technology, the idea of creativity and technology and pedagogy. The virtual world of the Media Zoo is shown. Gilly stops with a question to implement more art and other disciplines in learning (I am cheering when I hear this! Yeah!!).
"Social Innovations in Online learning: sharing individual progress plans, learning partners and global students profiles with NKI distance education" by Morten Flate Paulsen, NKI DE, Norway presentation is posted by Morten and he asks you all to comment on it, great! http://home.nki.no/morten/ Mentions that online students get better grades. He links to cases of succesful students, which is nice. He mentions that the first lms in his uni was built in 1986, the first web-based courses in 1996. Look at the ppt if you are interested in the NKI innovations and especially the student cases. He ends with saying that transparency promotes cooperation.
"Welcome for the web" by Russ colbert, Polycom, Only personal questions here; Why is Polycom a head sponsor, yet they do not stream any of the sessions? Why does an eLearning conference play a pre-recorded speaker (yesterday) during a plenary? Why not put a link to that speaker prior to the conference, with the option to send her/him remarks that can be answered by that speaker. This way that specific recorded speech might generate more interest than the others. But just watching a very one-frame set movie in which one person talks not altogether dynamic does not make much pedagogical, learning sense. And why did the live polycom connection go to New York, when I know Polycom enables users in low resource areas to connect as well, so it would have been an extra to also go to a different global world. They could put themselves more in the picture I guess.
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.
This was a nice workshop, because it immediately gave the participants a better insight of what design is and how it can impact OER. Now, I know you think 'I know what design is...' but this workshop pushed the fact that you need to make the design as explicit as possible, to enable the learners to adjust the design (if you want to, but is nice if you want to go student-centered).
(Gainne Conole has a chemist background, glasses and curly hair)
connundrum with OER: only very limited material is re-used bridging the gap: redefining openness: open source, shared, collaborative a mediating layer:
group activity think of a resource you have created describe its inherent design share with the person next to you share with the wider group
although design is a core aspect, it is very difficult to describe the design process. So how do we go about to improve the design, to increase learner demands/needs. sometimes design needs to be rethought while the course is running. Additional problem, the teachers or SME that are asked to design a course by themselves... it is not there core business.
So OU UK has been looking at ways to describe design (visual representation is given). What they do is that the design is explicitely clear for the learners as well. Because the OER's design is explicit, you can test it and ask students to enter the design. So students are asked to give their description of a resource, this is coupled back to the other students and this results in a the overall description. With this explicit design, the teachers are asked to get to work with an explicit design in mind.
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 :
