Archive for November 2nd, 2007

Networks, Communities & Learning: Show that you Share!

November 2nd, 2007 by Graham Attwell

Don’t miss the Bazaar confererence on 14 December in Utrecht. The major aim of the conference is to promote dialogue and exchange between ‘experts’, researchers, developers, practitioners and learners. The organisers say they are particularly keen that learners
and junior researchers are given an opportunity to discuss and exchange their ideas. They aim that the content of the sessions is driven and created by the participants rather than the traditional ‘presentation and five minutes questions’ format with content determined in advance by a single organiser, or a small group of organisers.

Graham Attwell form Pontydysgu will be speaking at the event. For more details see this post on ‘Networks, Communities & Learning: Show that you Share! on the World Wide Web blog.’

Networks, Communities & Learning: Show that you Share!

November 2nd, 2007 by Graham Attwell

Pontydydysu is a partner in the European funded Bazaar project and I will be speaking at the project conference in Utrecht in December. This looks like a great event. I am really happy that people are getting more imaginative in how they organise these type of events. The conference is free. Please do try and come along. The conference flyer is attached with this post.

The conference will take place on 14 December 2007, Utrecht, the Netherlands from 9:30 – 16:00, at Boothzaal, Utrecht University Library on the University Campus de Uithof, Heidelberglaan 3. It is jointly rganised by the Bazaar project and IVLOS, the Institute of Education of Utrecht University

The Conference Objectives are:

• To provide a space for participant-driven discussion and debate
• To promote critical enquiry and discourse
• To allow for the presentation of ideas in progress
• To provide access to peer expertise and opinion

The five main themes are based on key and emergent issues identified by Bazaar:

• Hey Dude, Where’s my Data? On data security, privacy
and sustainability
• Social Software, Tools and Content Creation
• OERs and the Culture of Sharing
• Interoperability and Metadata and OERs
• PLEs, ePortfolio’s and Informal Learning

The major aim of the conference is to promote dialogue and exchange between ‘experts’,researchers, developers, practitioners and learners. We are particularly keen that learners and junior researchers are given an opportunity to discuss and exchange their ideas. We aim that the content of the sessions is driven and created by the participants rather than the traditional ‘presentation and five minutes questions’ format with content determined in advance by a single organiser, or a small group of organisers.

Workshops and Round Tables include:

- Social networking services & social search – led by Josie Fraser, EdTechUK, UK
- THINKing and UNDERSTANDing the internet – led by Helen Keegan, Salford University, UK
- Building an infrastructure for lifelong competence development – led by Wolgang Greller, Open University, NL
- Developing Open Educational Resources – led by Marco Kalz, Open University, NL
- The use of wikis and open architecture spaces to promote a culture of sharing – led by Steve Wheeler, University of Plymouth, UK
- Creating and sharing Open Educational resources – led by Veronika Hornung, Salzburg Research, AT
- Personal Learning Environments – led by Graham Attwell, Pontydysgu, UK
- How can we use IMS Learning Design? – led by Raymond Elferink, RayCom BV, NL
- The future of Learning Management Systems – led by Geoge Bekiaridis, Ergon KEK, GR

The Conference is free but we would ask you to inform Raymond Elferink if you intend coming (not least of all because we are providing a free lunch).

Details of accommodation in Utrecht etc will be posted on the Bazaar Web site.

Networks, Communities & Learning: Show that you Share!

Test results for third of primary students wrong, says study

November 2nd, 2007 by Graham Attwell

There is nothing surprising in the report in the Guardian on a study by Cambridge University on standards in primary school. Perhaps most shocking is that it has taken so long fro someone to say this. And that in the face of all the evidence the UK government still refuses to acknowledge that the test and target regime introduced in English schools is a failure: a failure in raising standards, a failure in imposing unreasonable stress on students, a failure in terms of constraining pedagogic approaches and a failure to trust in imagination and learning.

“As many as one in three primary school children is given the wrong marks in national tests, according to a report on standards in primary schools.

Sats for seven- and 11-year-olds, which are used to assess their progress and feed into national school league tables, are unreliable, put pupils under psychological pressure and have had little impact, the report says.

The researchers accuse the government of ignoring academic evidence, backed by the then Statistics Commission, that the dramatic rises in results in the run-up to 2000 were “exaggerated”.

The report commissioned for Cambridge University’s review of primary education comes after the prime minister pledged to put testing at the heart of the next phase of the government’s plan to eradicate failure. Ministers believe that without nationally comparable tests teachers are not able to target pupils who are falling behind.

The reports document research showing that up to one in three pupils is given the wrong mark at the end of the tests. Short papers with questions that have a narrow range of possible answers mean that pupils’ skills are not rigorously tested, leaving a wide margin of error.”

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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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