Archive for September, 2006

Digital Stories in ePortfolios

September 28th, 2006 by Graham Attwell

One of the big issues in e-Portfolio development is how to foster reflection. Everyone talks about it – but there are few examples of how to do it. I think story telling – or the use of narrative – lays at the heart of the issue – these definitions of reflection are a useful starting point for considering how we can incorporate story-telling as a strategy for reflection.

Reflection is the “heart and soul” of a portfolio. Digital storytelling is a highly motivating strategy that can make reflection concrete and visible. Some definitions of reflection:

  • Careful thought, especially the process of reconsidering previous actions, events, or decisions; an idea or thought, especially one produced by careful consideration of something. (Encarta)
  • One of the defining characteristics of surface learning is that it does not involve reflection. (Moon).
  • Reflection is an active process of witnessing one’s own experience in order to take a closer look at it, sometimes to direct attention to it briefly, but often to explore it in greater depth.(MIT)
  • Reflection is what allows us to learn from our experiences: it is an assessment of where we have been and where we want to go next. (Wolf)

Digital Stories in ePortfolios

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Aircraft food horror stories

September 28th, 2006 by Graham Attwell

A new feature on this blog – a series on aircraft food. Please feel free to send photos of your experiences.

Jen Hughes kicks off with an email”

“Stop press news …. KLM have got new sandwiches which are about 3 times more inedible than the old ones. After triangles in plastic came oblongs in bloated wax paper bags and now we are moving into a new paradigm of round ones in boxes. The new ones are circular sweet brioche things with salty cheese in them, melted in the microwave and then allowed to go cold. And along with the toothpick, coffee stirrer, napkin and plastic cutlery you also get a small wooden pencil. Uh?

Technology providers finally get the idea of user generated content

September 28th, 2006 by Graham Attwell

Guardian Unlimited Technology | Technology | Home videos, beauty contests and party stunts: the future of mobiles:

I don’t know whether to be sad or sorry. Having spent the last two years talking about user generated content, the big technology providers have themselves suddenly got it:

From the Guardian on-line:

“Mobile companies have been watching the rapid growth of networking and video-sharing websites such as MySpace and YouTube. They have realised that content created by users themselves might be just what they need to persuade their customers to do more with their phones than make calls and send text messages.

The mobile industry has spent billions of pounds on licences to run new services over 3G networks, and reassured nervous investors that the future of mobiles in markets where everyone already has a phone is based on customers downloading videos and accessing the internet. But the take-up of such products has been slack.”

“Having invested in high-speed networks, user-generated content is an obvious next step, whether they do it themselves or work with existing online brands,” says Frédéric Huet, managing director of industry specialist Greenwich Consulting UK. “It’s very cheap to set up and it very quickly gets high usage.”"

As the idea of user generated content mainstreams, the issue for education is how we use such content, store and share content and how we ‘judge’ the quality of content. This has quite profound implications, given that the traditional model was to trust in academic qualifications and names, to provide approved lists of materials or to trust in publishers kitemarks.

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Storytelling and Knowledge Sharing

September 22nd, 2006 by Graham Attwell

Storytelling – KM toolkit: inventory of tools and techniques – Knowledge Management – NeLH Specialist Library:

I.m writing a paper with Ray Elferink on an ‘Architecture of Participation’ for the Blogtalk conference in Vienna.

Part of the paper is trying to explain our ideas about how to use Web 2.0 tools and social software to support knowledge development but at the same time trying to show the background research which our work is resting on. This includes Activity Theory, research into Communities of Practice and Storytelling.

Searching the net for resources on storytelling ( which are remarkably sparse) I came on this great web page published on the UK national Health System’s Knowledge management Library:

  • Stories communicate ideas holistically, conveying a rich yet clear message, and so they are an excellent way of communicating complicated ideas and concepts in an easy-to-understand form.Stories therefore allow people to convey tacit knowledge that might otherwise be difficult to articulate; in addition, because stories are told with feeling, they can allow people to communicate more than they realise they know.
  • Storytelling provides the context in which knowledge arises as well as the knowledge itself, and hence can increase the likelihood of accurate and meaningful knowledge transfer.
  • Stories are an excellent vehicle for learning, as true learning requires interest, which abstract principles and impersonal procedures rarely provide.
  • Stories are memorable – their messages tend to ‘stick’ and they get passed on.
  • Stories can provide a ‘living, breathing’ example of how to do something and why it works rather than telling people what to do, hence people are more open to their lessons.
  • Stories therefore often lead to direct action – they can help to close the ‘knowing-doing gap’ (the difference between knowing how to do something and actually doing it).
  • Storytelling can help to make organisational communication more ‘human’ – not only do they use natural day-to-day language, but they also elicit an emotional response as well as thoughts and actions.
  • Stories can nurture a sense of community and help to build relationships.
  • People enjoy sharing stories – stories enliven and entertain.”

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    News Bites

    From a Jisc press release:

    Over 14,000 items of archived TV footage from 17 European countries are now available via the EUscreen online portal for teaching, research and general interest.

    EUscreen – the result of a collaboration between 36 partners across Europe – provides a rich insight into Europe’s television heritage with content dating from the 1920s to the present day.

    The portal includes rare footage and commentary on key events in history, including a 1962 interview with Martin Luther King about racial discrimination in the US.

    John Ellis, Professor of Media Arts at Royal Holloway and principal investigator on the EUscreen project, said: “This is a valuable resource for anyone interested in social history or indeed TV history, as it brings together tens of thousands of clips from across Europe. The portal is available to anyone (not only academics) and it is very easy to get absorbed and spend hours browsing all of the footage.”

    The expansive footage has also proved popular as a learning aid for foreign language students, with clips available in 14 languages.

    By the end of September 2012, there will be around 30,000 items of digital content freely available on the portal as the European providers continue to add carefully selected material.

    Explore the EUscreen footage


    Open online seminar

    Jisc are hosting an open, online seminar on ‘Making Assessment Count (MAC)’ on Friday 3rd Feb – 1-2pm. The presenters are Professor Peter Chatterton (Daedalus e-World Ltd) and Professor Gunter Saunders (University of Westminster).

    The mailing for the seminar says” “The objective of Making Assessment Count is primarily to help students engage more closely with the assessment process, either at the stage where they are addressing an assignment or at the stage when they receive feedback on a completed assignment. In addition an underlying theme of MAC is to use technology to help connect student reflections on their assessment with their tutors. To facilitate the reflection aspect of MAC a web based tool called e-Reflect is often used. This tool enables the authoring of self-review questionnaires by tutors for students. On completion of an e-Reflect questionnaire a report is generated for the student containing responses that are linked to the options the student selected on the questionnaire.”

    You can find out more ans sign up for the seminar at  http://jiscmac.eventbrite.co.uk/


    EC-TEL 2012

    The EC-TEL 2012: Seventh European Conference on Technology Enhanced Learning 21st Century Learning for 21st Century Skills takes place on 18-21 September 2012 at Saarbrücken in Germany.

    The focus for the conference includes:

    - How can schools prepare young people for the technology-rich workplace of the future?
    - How can we use technology to promote informal and independent learning outside traditional educational settings?
    - How can we use next generation social and mobile technologies to promote informal and responsive learning?

    The deadline for proposals is April 2.


    Visitors and Residents

    David White (University of Oxford) and Dr. Lynn Silipigni Connaway (OCLC) have been attracting quite a stir with their JISC-funded work on Visitors and Residents: What Motivates Engagement with the Digital Information Environment?, being undertaken as part of the Developing Digital Literacies programme webinar series.

    Slides, audio and a recording of the Blackboard Collaborate session where they presented some of the findings of their work can be found at http://bit.ly/jiscdiglitvr.


    ECER 2010

    The keynotes, videos, radio shows and interviews from the ECER 2010 Conference in Helsinki:

    On the ECER 2010 website.

    Taccle handbook for teachers order form

    Here you find the Taccle handbook for teachers order form.

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