Wednesday, 8 October 2014
Wednesday, 3 September 2014
Association for Learning Technology (ALT) Conference - Day 1 #altc
The Association for Learning Technology (ALT) Conference 2014 took place at the University of Warwick 1st - 3rd September
https://www.alt.ac.uk/alt-conference/altc2014
The first day started with a welcome from the conference chairs - Sarah Cornelius, Linda Creanor and Joe Wilson - the 21st ALT Conference has arrived. They encouraged everyone to engage and interact with ideas and with other delegates and use the conference hashtag #altc plus #innovate #educate #community to share experiences.
During the Q&A session he was asked about how support will be offered on an individual / small group basis? The answer was that o ffering support to small groups is not feasible are not at
this stage or at least shouldn't be the focus.
It was an interesting talk - it shows that educational technology is higher up the list of priorities in Universities but presumably this because of financial considerations....and productivity....and globalisation
The other p resentations I went to were:
Linking the real world to the digital world: QR codes in non-standard teaching spaces
Dan Jagger - University of Manchester
https://www.alt.ac.uk/alt-conference/altc2014
The first day started with a welcome from the conference chairs - Sarah Cornelius, Linda Creanor and Joe Wilson - the 21st ALT Conference has arrived. They encouraged everyone to engage and interact with ideas and with other delegates and use the conference hashtag #altc plus #innovate #educate #community to share experiences.
Christina Hughes PVC T&L at Warwick University gave a welcome address describing the conference as a
'Smorgasbord of creative engagement'. She talked about the global power of MOOCs and open educational models.
The first keynote speech was by Jeff Haywood from the University of Edinburgh and entitled Designing University Education for 2025: Balancing competing priorities. He started with a quote from Terry Mayes 1995 'Learning Technology and Groundhog Day'. It takes patience and persistence to make progress and move forward - has learning technology changed in the last 20 years or is it a series of new and exciting initiatives which appear and then disappear? Since 2004 there has been an explosion in online identities and range of tools and
technologies. These tools and technologies are not educational but social consumables - they are part of the user not
the institution. It is the changes in those sort of things that will have an impact on education and learning. There is now a realisation that
it is a certainty that wholly online courses are possible and can be of high quality.
We may laugh at the 'trough of despondency' but often those technologies do come through, a steady maturity.
Students do have positive feelings about online courses but do employers trust online education and qualifications? There are a vast technologies, tools, applications - the conversation prism. 90% of technology in universities is brought in by and used by
the students in creative ways - they are student oriented rather than institution oriented.
He then talked about MOOCs at the University of Edinburgh. You've 'got to brag about MOOCs', everyone does and the slickness of marketing is
apparent much more than for traditional courses. Moocs have reopened a debate at policy level about digital education. Courses can be run at large scale, charismatic lecturers can touch learners. Technological innovation is coming out of MOOCs - tools and applications - we need
to capitalise on this as an opportunity.
How can we use the technology? Throughput of curriculum - learn at own pace, don't have
to wait. How do we increase the productivity of education system? However productivity is not the vision of many as their driver is to
increase the quality of the content and experience.
So what of the future - 2025 - he predicts that, education will be on demand, self paced, location
flexible, relevant to your life/ career, affordable, personalised, global and
local, high value added. Without technology then this would be undoable. A vision is needed at policy level otherwise nothing will transform - there needs to be a roadmap and investment. The 'M' will be dropped from MOOCs to OOCs meaning that students will
take at least one core module wholly online and universities will offer most courses as open online
courses.
The technology of the future that will most impact on education is in the areas of security and the internet of things. Students (and staff and courses) will have a Digital / |Physical co-presence.
What 'leaps' should be taken?
Invest in learning and instructional design, online
assessment and learning analytics
Riding the unstoppable WordPress wave - ePortfolios - Alex Furr - University of Southampton
Different themes for different groups of students and
different purposes eg medical students and language students. Promote
employability - badges. To be successful they need to be embedded in the core content of modules.
Dan Jagger - University of Manchester
The presentation was about creating video tutorials for use in sewing labs.
Instructions were created in a simple web page for each sewing machine and then these were linked to via QR codes.
Then two invited speaker sessions:
Bryan Mathers gave an interesting presentation and the slides were engaging with sketches and images
Performance or innovation - which culture for education?
Bucket or fire
Leadership - create a belief system
Make something awesome
Use images to explain ideas - a picture speaks a thousand
words
He also said that if you're running a business, don't run it as a democracy
He also said that if you're running a business, don't run it as a democracy
Fiona Harvey talking about the Watching the Moocs go by - and the ALTMOOCSIG
There are 43+ UK MOOCs plus others not on platforms, The Future Learn launch had a big impact on MOOCs in the UK. Should QAA have
a say on the quality of a MOOC?
People are looking at the technology and seeing what they
can use to offer courses?
Are you a teacher on a MOOC?
Participation rates are NOT a measure of success Massive
is about reach, how far your knowledge spreads
Pick and mix modules - Change the model for education.
Again a great presentation with images of hands presenting information.
Next the drinks reception and dinner and tomorrow's another day...
Sunday, 3 August 2014
Annual technology break #techdetox
The week before last I had a weeks holiday, a week off work and a few days away at a hotel. It was also designated as my annual technology break which is a week once a year when I don't send or receive any emails and don't engage with any social media and generally try to switch off.
This is no easy feat for someone like me who sleeps with their ipad next to the pillow and phone on the bedside table. So I delete all email accounts from my phone/ipad plus any apps that I may be tempted to use ie facebook, twitter, linkedin, pinterest, blipfoto, angry birds etc etc. In fact I switch my ipad off and disable everything on my phone except text for family to contact me in emergencies. I do take a camera for holiday photos.
It sounds a bit extreme to have to delete everything but I discovered about 3 years ago that I just use all these programmes/ applications / facilities automatically, without thinking. I just take my phone out of my pocket or bag and browse.
So how did it go? Well for the first two days I am really on edge and twitchy - it's weird. I find myself in situations where I subconciously pick up my phone to do something and then discover there is nothing to do....one or two text messages does not really constitute an engaging experience especially when the conversation is "hope you're ok?" "yes, fine, hope you're ok too". Standing in queues or waiting around for something or someone are typical situations when I pass the time of day by checking up on emails or social media. Checking to see if anyone is doing anything exciting. Posting photos, checking in, commenting on posts, blogging about the day etc.
After the first couple of days things settle down and I start to feel the benefit of switching off. It's definitely a feeling of less responsibility and being detached.
I read a lot - this time I read 5 books during the week
http://donlanlibraries.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/holiday-reading-books.html
We spend time walking and exploring places so it makes the most of being away from home and work. More time to talk and listen and meander aimlessly around.
It's stepping out of every day life and I think that's the point - being connected is part of everyday life, it's essential and I enjoy it - I wouldn't want to be without it. But it is important to occasionally disconnect and realise that is what you are doing and give yourself a break and time to reflect.
This is no easy feat for someone like me who sleeps with their ipad next to the pillow and phone on the bedside table. So I delete all email accounts from my phone/ipad plus any apps that I may be tempted to use ie facebook, twitter, linkedin, pinterest, blipfoto, angry birds etc etc. In fact I switch my ipad off and disable everything on my phone except text for family to contact me in emergencies. I do take a camera for holiday photos.
It sounds a bit extreme to have to delete everything but I discovered about 3 years ago that I just use all these programmes/ applications / facilities automatically, without thinking. I just take my phone out of my pocket or bag and browse.
So how did it go? Well for the first two days I am really on edge and twitchy - it's weird. I find myself in situations where I subconciously pick up my phone to do something and then discover there is nothing to do....one or two text messages does not really constitute an engaging experience especially when the conversation is "hope you're ok?" "yes, fine, hope you're ok too". Standing in queues or waiting around for something or someone are typical situations when I pass the time of day by checking up on emails or social media. Checking to see if anyone is doing anything exciting. Posting photos, checking in, commenting on posts, blogging about the day etc.
After the first couple of days things settle down and I start to feel the benefit of switching off. It's definitely a feeling of less responsibility and being detached.
I read a lot - this time I read 5 books during the week
http://donlanlibraries.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/holiday-reading-books.html
We spend time walking and exploring places so it makes the most of being away from home and work. More time to talk and listen and meander aimlessly around.
It's stepping out of every day life and I think that's the point - being connected is part of everyday life, it's essential and I enjoy it - I wouldn't want to be without it. But it is important to occasionally disconnect and realise that is what you are doing and give yourself a break and time to reflect.
Saturday, 12 July 2014
ALT Scotland SIG - Open Scotland event
I attended the Open Scotland event on 3rd June 2014 at the University of Edinburgh. The event aimed to "provide an opportunity for ALT Scotland SIG members and the wider community to come together and share ideas and experiences of adopting and promoting open educational practices across all sectors of Scottish education".
Notes from the best bits:
Jonathan Worth @jonathan_worth #phonar an editorial photographer gave a great presentation that was very engaging. He explained that images have different properties to photographs - what is the product? Anyone can take a photograph and it's not possible to limit the sharing of photographs once they are on the web so the photograph has to be an image with a value.
It is necessary to rethink what the product is as a photographer and
Rethink what product is as a teacher
Digital fluency of images
A library is just a room full of books until a librarian takes you through it.....
Take the class where the 'fish are already swimming' in the cloud and aggregate everything back to the hub
Sheila McNeil @sheilmcn - interesting presentation about the idea of a Digital University
Key themes - Digital Participation, Information Literacy, Learning Environments, Curriculum and Course Design.
'Glocalization'
Emerging themes
Infrastructure - digital and physical
Digital literacy - staff and students
Learning and teaching technology implementation plans
Data
Open Education
Cohering around student engagement
How we use our data. Map of online activity within a university. Sense of place as a digital hub.
Ian Stewart and John Johnstone, GLOWGLOW interesting problems
Data protection
Child protection
Engagement of teachers
Government, ip
Local authorities ip
Office 365 within email 365 accessed via GLOW
Lorna M Campbell, Cetis: Scottish Open Education Declaration
Open Scotland is a cross sector initiative
Open to everyone
Open Scotland summit 2013
Scottish Open Education Declaration drafted - an open community draft
Declaration.openscot.net
#OpenScot
Need a culture shift - Capacity building to enable educators to do this
Brand awareness - marketing - publicity
Openness - journey from informal to formal learning
Can support the declaration, can sign up to it
It's better to campaign for something than against something
Suzanne Scott, Borders College presented about Open Badges
It was a really interesting presentation and useful and practical - something definitely to try to introduce for cpd hopefully
I didn't take any notes as I was concentrating on the content so will have to find a link to the slides.
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