A Week In The Life Of.... what's changed 2010 - 2015? #altc

In the ALT Online Newsletter there is a feature 'A Week in The Life Of...' http://bit.ly/1FlxQpY
It is an interesting feature as it gives an insight into the daily working lives of the people involved in Learning Technologies and how diverse the roles can be. There has been a recent discussion on the ALT email list about Learning Technologist jobs and how they have changed and developed over the last 5-10 years - the 'Week in the Life of...' articles reflect this.  Two of the most recent posts have been by Fiona Harvey and by Sheila MacNeill who are both ALT Trustees and it is very interesting to read about their 'day jobs' and the work that they are involved in.
I wrote 'A Week In The Life Of..' in October 2010 http://bit.ly/1NVSf49 and am now in the process of writing a 2015 version.  Much has changed in the 4.5 years - different job, different institution, FE to HE, more management, more strategic? In 2010 I was working as Head of Learning Resources at Middlesbrough College, now I'm Customer Services Manager, Information Services at Heriot Watt University.  It's interesting to compare and reflect on the changes that have happened.  I'm glad that I still work in an area that concentrates very much on the student experience and how important that is for learning technologies and for education.

ALT Learning Technologist of the Year Awards - interviews and judging

The Learning Technologist of the Year Awards are a great experience for the participants, winners and judges. It is worth entering yourself, your team or a colleague who deserves recognition for work and achievements in the field of learning technology.

ALT receives a high number of entries for the individual and team awards all of whom are carrying out exciting and often innovative practices. Therefore you need to 'show off' about what you do - this is often easier if someone else has nominated you - but in the interview make the most of your achievements. Entrants come from all sectors - universities, colleges,  schools, charities - so which ever sector you work in, you can be considered.

The judging panel ask a series of questions about what you do - really what we would like to say is 'Tell us about the fantastic things you do?' All of those short listed are of a high standard and could 'do the job' of Learning Technologist of the Year. The time available for each interview is quite short at 25 minutes, including a presentation so plan to show evidence and impact - show how how your practice affects learners, peers, your institution, the community etc.

The panel are always very friendly and encouraging. You can attend in person or online eg Skype. Once the decisions have been made then the successful candidates are notified but it remains confidential until September. The awards are presented at the ALT conference which is a great occasion.

Future of Technology in Education conference #fote13

Last Friday I attended the FoTE conference which was enjoyable and interesting. I attended in 2011 but didn't make it last year so was pleased to be able to shuffle work and travel and life to get there this time.
It is hosted by ULCC at Senate House, Uni of London. It's a beautiful building and has great memories for me as I used to spend hours in the library there in the 80s when I did my first degree at Kings College.




I like the event because it is for Learning Technologists and academics / teachers / educationalists who are involved and knowledgeable about learning technologies - it's not for the general overviewers but at the same time not cliquey. Also there is always a good back channel discussion via twitter.
The first speaker was Nicola Millard who is a futurologist. She was brilliant and engaging and talking about customers which is what I'm interested in. I do like an inspirational key note speaker to kick off an event, someone with an interesting take on the situation and with an appealing delivery. She talked about making things easy and effortless for customers and different sorts of effort such as cognitive effort. She mentioned email and that it would die out due to other channels being easier - not sure that I agree with that sweeping statement.....
A great point that she made was that you need 4 things in order to work - coffee, cake, connectivity and company. I agree entirely although would substitute tea for coffee. I think this idea is something library people should think about embracing - what sort of space is needed for you and for library users?
The next speaker was Alicia Wise from Elsevier who talked about Open Access. It was an interesting talk and quite difficult as the audience, I expect, are predominantly in favour of OA and see publishers as a barrier to it. But it was good to see them as part of the discussion.
The third speaker was Gwen Noteborn from Maastricht Uni talking about Webcasts in education: Mythbusters! It was ok and interesting but maybe covering old ground to some extent.
After the coffee break was the Fireside Chat with a real virtual fire in the background.
FOTE13 Fireside Speakers:
Yousuf Khan (Chair), Chief Information Officer, Hult International Business School
Adrian Ellison, Director of Information Technology, University of West London
Cathy Walsh, Principal and CEO, Barking & Dagenham College
Heidi Fraser-Krauss, Head of IT Services, University of York
Richard Maccabee, Head of ICT, University of London
There was some discussion around the idea that technology changes but working practices don't often change in order to develop along side. Again 'easiness' of using technology was mentioned - I agree in part, it has to accessible and available but I'm not sure it has to be simple - some of the appeal of technology is that it is challenging and complex - it can change the world, that is why it is enthralling.




After lunch Lindsay Jordan delivered a great presentation including a blue outfit and a piano. She talked about why people drop out of courses. Sustained learning needs motivation, organisation, self discipline - can we get these in an online environment? Possibly? She advocated face to face communication rather than email....again I would say it depends on the situation and the interaction.




Next presentation was by Martin King and was about diversity and connectivity - lots of interesting stuff.
Next presentation was from Kevin
Ashley from the Digital Curation Centre. He talked about the data deluge and the problem that we have is that the amount of data is outstripping the technology we have to store it.
After the coffee break, the final two presentations were about Moocs. Matt Yee-King and Marco Gillies talked about the Mooc that they created and delivered at Goldsmiths. It was a great insight into the practicalities of scaling up an online course and some of the issues and solutions they had encountered. This included changing deadlines which is easy for small cohorts but not for large numbers. Also the problems of negative comments on discussion forums - even if 1% make one comment, this can be large number of complaints.
The last presentation was by Diana Laurillard entitled The pedagogies for large-scale student guidance. The data from Moocs suggest that the majority of participants already have a degree or higher degree. This suggests that it is not for undergraduate study but for CPD. The drop out rates are high but registration is not the same as signing up. When scaling up the numbers involved in courses for Moocs, other factors have to be considered such as admin and support. Support costs are not going to go down but technology can innovate pedagogy. There needs to be investment in teacher innovation to make best use of resources and improve student outcomes.
All in all, it was a great day with lots of ideas to take away and reflect on. It's good to spend a day immersed in learning technology, listening and talking to people.








On the way back to the station I managed a very brief (10min) visit to the British Library - just time to stand and stare.

Why tweet from a conference or event?

When I attend a conference or event I try to tweet as much as possible for the following reasons:
1. As a record of what is happening for myself. I really don't want to be spending time writing or typing copious notes. This might be laziness but I want to concentrate on watching and listening to what's going on. However I need a summary of important points so use tweets for that then I can refer back to them later or storify them for a record.
2. As a record of what is happening for others. I like following other events via tweets with hashtags so hope that my tweets will be useful and interesting for people who can't attend.
3. To publicise the event and raise awareness of it. That's good for the event organisers and hopefully they will do the same for you. Also as a reminder that it is happening.
4. To find out who else is attending the conference - a quick way of checking out other delegates is to see who's tweeting - anyone you know or the people who are active tweeters.
5. To interact with others at the conference - retweet and reply. Sometimes it's a good ice breaker to meeting someone at a conference if you say that you've seen their tweets and thought you'd like to talk to them.
6. To share views and add that extra dimension or channel to the main event. It's interesting, and sometimes funny, to add comments and be able to be slightly less formal.
7. To ask questions or use a polling feature. At some events you can tweet a question to the organiser or moderators and then the presenter will answer that question.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Big ?'s about Technology Enhanced Learning #ocTEL

One of the activities for week 0 of ocTEL, in addition to writing an introduction about yourself,  is what is the most important question about TEL for you?  I'm not sure what my big question is.  Does technology enhance learning? Yes. Does technology enhance life? Yes. With the condition for both that it is used effectively and with consideration and 'for the greater good'. But that's true about everything.  So maybe the question is 'how can I/we use technology to the best effect to enable students/people to learn?'
I decided to have a look at what other people are saying about their big questions.
I looked on the ocTEL website first intending to go to the forums but got distracted by the Twitter Conversations Visualised which is 'a graph of the Twitter interactions using the #ocTEL hashtag' created by Martin Hawksey @mhawksey.  It's brilliant.
I looked through the various forum posts and picked out words and phrases that summarised the subjects that people were asking their questions about.
I then went to the jiscmail list and discovered that Tom Franklin had posted a table which summarised the recent posts of big questions and put them into categories.  Very helpful and another quick win for me.  
So here are a list of words that are the most popular big questions in alphabetical order.
It's interesting and reassuring to see that the most popular, apart from the directly relating to Moocs ones, are about engaging people either students or staff and ensuring that the engagement is effective and has impact.  
My big question is still how can we use technology enhanced learning to engage learners and enhance the student experience and this is a question shared by many other participants of this course and those involved in TEL.

TEL and Me

This post started off as the introductory activity for #ocTEL but ended up being too wordy so it's here instead.

I'm not great at drawing a distinction between TEL, eLearning, ICT, computing, technology etc. so  this post has aspects of them all - and the fact that they are all endlessly fascinating and useful.  When I first start using computers the thing that appealed most was that they could automatically work out codes and do something with a series of letters or numbers - that you could input an instruction and a task would be carried out - wow, how clever is that.  Also that you could create things that look or sound beautiful - again by inputting a series of instructions.

And, if that was not enough, you could find out about practically anything in the whole world and see a picture of it just by typing in a few letters!! Ok, so you've probably got the message by now - technology is a learning experience and learning is a better experience by using technology.

I first started using ICT when I completed my PGCE ICT and then went to teach ICT in a secondary school and sixth form college.  It was really good fun as well as lots of hard work teaching ICT even though it was mainly PC based before mobile and gadgets.  Despite the bad press lately, some of it justified, about the boringness of ICT in schools there is a lot to be learnt and gained from knowing the basics and building on those basics so that everyone has the know how and the problem solving / thinking skills to be successful.  TEL is an enabler - a way of learning that engages students and it's great to help people find out how it can work for them.  ICT / computing should have a broad scope so that it appeals to everyone from making video clips of performances to writing code to control robots - it all has value.  I still have mixed feelings as to whether it should be taught as a discrete subject. 

I then became interested in VLEs and staff training in ICT so moved onto an FE college and worked as an eLearning Manager.  The interesting aspect was seeing how the VLE could be used to provide access to learning from a variety of places and times - the 'anytime anyplace' idea.  But also how learning resources can be a variety of formats, that it didn't have to be text based in the form of a worksheet, that there could be images and sounds, that it could be dynamic and changing.  The VLE developed to include assessment and feedback and a platform for communication through discussion boards and forums and messages and texts and virtual classrooms.  My role developed to be Head of Learning Resources (eLearning and Library Services).  This opened up lots of opportunities for interacting with students and ensuring that they had access to high quality online learning resources.  The major development was the use of mobile technologies - resources that can be accessed in mobile formats and also mobile devices.

The Student Experience is the aspect of learning and student life that interests me the most and I currently work as Student Information Points Manager at a University.  The important thing is how information is communicated effectively - how can students access the relevant information in a timely manner in a suitable format?

Personally, I still think ICT/TEL/technology is fascinating and interesting and will continue to be so as it changes and develops.  Communication and collaboration using mobile devices is convenient and effective.  Learning should take place in formal and informal environments and should be accessible wherever and whenever it is needed or wanted.  

Moocs are a mixture, and reflect the advantages and disadvantages of online learning and the the use of TEL - they are easy to access but difficult to understand, they provide an environment for learning but it's sometimes difficult to work out what that learning is, there are numerous opportunities for communications but who are you communicating with and which is the best way to communicate, you can share but is there so much information it is sometimes too much to absorb or even acknowledge.  But it offers a place and an opportunity to experiment and reflect.

Utopian v Dystopian #edcmooc #MoocsAndMe

The #edcmooc task for Week 1 is to look at some resources i.e. videos and articles and review whether they represent a Utopian or Dystopian view of technology.
Utopian claims of Information Technology are intrinsically democratizing, neutral as democratizing global forces of information creation and maximize public access. Dystopian claims are that Information Technologies have anti democratic properties, that hardware/software ownership equals anti democratic control etc. etc.
First video - Bendito Machine - the characters treat technology as god like and have no choice but to follow.  It has a certain dark, satanic feel to the film but it was mainly a mixture of weirdly funny and negative 'same old same old' sort of feel, fantastical.  Dystopian.
Second Video - Inbox - funny in a soppy way. I don't think I would have considered it in a technology way although it was about connecting.  It would be great if you could just put an object in a bag and it went immediately. Or a person, teleporting.  Utopian
Third video - New Media - dark fantasy? Purpose? No idea. Dystopian.  
It is easy to make technology seem evil or dark because you can portray it as exerting control or power but I'm not sure that I buy into this view.

Chandler, D. (2002). Technological determinism. Web essay, Media and Communications Studies, University of Aberystwyth.
Technological determinism is the view that technology is seen as the only cause of change in society.  Reductionism / holistic - I usually consider technology and society from a holistic or mutually beneficial point of view but it was interesting to consider it as less advantageous.  It is interesting to think about philosophy and technology - it is a long time since I studied philosophy and then it was religious philosophy.  I hadn't thought that I should stand back and think about technology as a philosophical issue or concept so I'm glad that I read this as it has given me some direction to explore further.
One of the other articles suggested for reading is the infamous Prensky, M. (2001). Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants. On the Horizon, 9/5.
I'm hesitant to revisit this but I know that I should.  The 'digital native' phrase / idea / concept has become so well known not just in learning technology arenas but in common education circles and beyond that it is hard to consider it objectively.  In my opinion, and from the situations I've worked in, the digital native doesn't exist or more accurately does not exist as a clear and distinct entity.  It is not as simple as saying that a certain person born at a certain time when certain technology or digital devices existed is a 'digital native'.  I know from teaching ICT and from managing eLearning and libraries that all people, especially young people approach technology differently.  It is not the original article or research that is the issue, it is the fact that some people who know very little about learning technologies with the best intentions just blurt out the phrase as if it's a fact.  So tomorrow I'm going to read and consider the original and subsequent research again....objectively.

North East Learning Environments Group (NELE)

The North East Learning Environments Group (NELE) is an e-Learning Group with representatives from FE and HE institutions in our region.  The group meets regularly three times a year and until recently was at Northumbria University but is now moving around the region.  We have hosted it here at Middlesbrough College the last couple of times but it will be moving on next time.
It is a very useful group as it brings together FE and HE to share good practice and discuss issues around VLEs and e-Learning.  There is usually a number of presentations by members in the morning and then round table discussions in the afternoon.

New and Emerging Technologies in Education

The 'New and Emerging Technologies in Education' event was held at Netskills at Newcastle University and organised by JISC RSC Northern.  Unfortunately it was on 30th November which turned out to be a Strike Day which affected travel and also meant that I could only stay for part of the day. 
I had offered to do a presentation about our 3D Induction experience which we have successfully used since September.  It was created for us by Amazing Interactives which is a local company.  Pravin, from Amazing Interactives, was also presenting although because of travel problems we changed the order so i did my presentation first and then he showed more examples.
Our 3D Induction is based on a 3D model of the LRC and a walkthrough of the whole area with 3D 'instances' or events that happen to show the different services or resources we offer.

The next presentation was by Steve Boneham from Netskills about QR codes and Augmented Reality.
It was really interesting with good activities, resources and handouts.
http://www.netskills.ac.uk/content/about/publicity/news/articles/article333.html

Mini Umbrella - CILIPNE and Northumbria Uni

On 23rd November Tracey (Library Services Manager), James (e-Learning Manager) and myself presented at the CILIP Mini Umbrella event at Northumbria University.  It was a well attended event with some excellent presentations. 
http://www.northumbria.ac.uk/sd/academic/ceis/about/ceisnews/miniumbrella2011
The theme of the event was 'Bleak House or Great Expectations' and we decided to continue the Dickens theme on a positive note with our presentation entitled 'The New Curiosity Shop - what's on offer today?'
We outlined the services we offer, library / e-learning, to our students to meet their expectations and needs.  We concentrated on three areas 1. Minimum requirements - robust service 2. More with less - making the best use of the resources we have e.g. the VLE and the use of free resources 3. Innovations - investing in worthwhile new resources such as 3D and mobile applications.
Our presentation went well and we had positive feedback.  The best comment I thought was that someone said they admired our 'can do' attitude and our ability to make the most of everything.  Hopefully that sums us up and reflects the amount of hard work we do to provide our students with the best possible learning resources.  The most unexpected comment was that someone found our presentation 'amusing' - I'm not sure that was one of our aims but as long as it's positive, we'll take it.

It's ALL too much - social media and technology

It seems fair to say that by now we all agree that there is more 'information' out there than we know what to do with.  Millions of websites, more than a billion internet users, 150+ million blogs, billions of videos and images and billions of emails every day,
http://royal.pingdom.com/2011/01/12/internet-2010-in-numbers/
On the plus side, it is possible to find some information about anything although whether it is true or of any use is another story.  But it is impossible to even imagine how it all fits together into a coherent mass and the truth is that it doesn't.  The information is not in any order but swirls around constantly being shifted by the next person sharing or recycling or adding to it and passing it on.
Last week I read three or four posts around this topic, about the phenomenon of social media and social networking some of which were prompted by the recent introduction of Google+.  One was 'Losing interest in social media: there is no there there' 
http://www.elearnspace.org/blog/2011/07/30/losing-interest-in-social-media-there-is-no-there-there/
and another by simfin  'Google+ ? I don’t think so 'http://simfin.wordpress.com/more/google-i-dont-think-so/ both of which make the point that people only want and need a certain number of social networks to engage with if they are to have any meaning.  

Aleks Krotoski Friendship: why social networks are too crowded to get close http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/jul/24/aleks-krotoski-web-network-friendship explains how she thinks that social networks are changing and becoming less appealing perhaps by having too many connections.

The final post was regarding email and how, in order to keep email valid and to ensure the recipient interacts with the email, we should keep them brief or seek out other forms of communication.

Realistically If there is too much information being generated, it is not going to be possible to change that situation - and indeed why should we, the whole ethos of publishing on the web is that it is free and open and people should be able to do so (as long as they abide by ethical considerations).  It is nice to share photos and communicate easily and pass on good practice.

So the only solution is to build up your own defences and protection in order to limit yet exploit social media and networking to your own needs.  This should be a positive experience that benefits others as well as yourself but copes with 'information overload'. 

The difficult part is that I'm not quite sure how to do it.  I have to admit that I'm the sort of person who sleeps with their iPhone on the bedside table, that leans out of bed on a morning to check emails, Facebook, Twitter, blogs and the news before facing the day.  Luckily I do lots of other things too but I don't want to become disenchanted with all this technology which will surely happen without a plan.......