Archive for May 22nd, 2008

blogging from the boat…

May 22nd, 2008 by Cristina Costa
it’s a journey into knowing.
 
I am at the digifolio seminar and blogging from the  boat! connection: slooooooooooooooooow.
I wanted to twit live but there is no wireless and I’am not a mo-blogger YET .-(. BUt I am learning and micro-reflecting on the go. I jotted down some key ideas during today’s presentations, which I am now transcribing on to here. 
 
I need you to help me develop them. Your comments are therefore invaluable. I want and need to ’pick’ your brain while I show you what’s going on in mine too.
Keynote speakers said teachers think that if they could turn off cell phones completely in schools the problems would be solved, and then he asked: would it be solved?
 
hmmm…. I immediatelly thought: is it really a problem? and if so, to whom? 
 
I liked one of the keynote speaker’s remarks: To forbid our youngsters to use mobiles in schools is like having forbidden the older generations to use encyclopedias  when they were in school. Cool thought, I wrote. That was for me the highlight of the 1st keynote. ,-) 
 
On Maths eportfolios:
 
The speaker concludes students liked it better than regular assessment strategies. It was a fairer assessment, they said, because teachers were evaluating what they knew, not what they didn’t know. Listen to the kids, I say! It’s not about looking at failure, it is about emphasizing  their strong areas and working with them on their weak ones.
They also reported they liked eportfolios because they were sharing it with others. Cool or what?
 
Then I got bored!!!!!!!!!!! Because someone was reading their presentation. I wrote” A prof. who reads and gives me data in percentage is not able to keep me focused for long. Maybe 2 minutes…maybe even less.
 
Another presenter starts by saying she is very interested in the results. I think to myself: I would like to focus more on the process. That is what I aspire people I work with will do too. The path we have to walk is far more important than the destination we have to reach.
  
Next presentation focuses on eportfolios and PLEs. My first note: I like it already :-) .
They say: with web 2.0 tools, like netvibes, etc students can keep their digifolios even after they leave Uni. (And I am here thinking: just what I believe in….THANK YOU, it will make my presentation easier, although I think it might seem to be too ”out of the box” to some of the seminar delegates…according to what I have seen so far. They will think I am a nut case…well, I guess I am. Even the color and layout of my slides stnad out when compared with theirs…so academic and so structured. Mine looks like this. Colourful. Happy. Active. Pictorical.  As learning should be, I would assume…
 
Last presentation is about eportfolio tool developed for Moodle by Portuguese Institut. I think I like it. I need to check it in more detail though. You can do it here: http://eportefolio.ese.ipsantarem/pt/repe_en
Will blog more tomorrow.
Can’t wait for your comments. Loads of them! :-D

Posted in My Learning Journey | 6 Comments »

Hairdressing, Serious Games and Learning

May 22nd, 2008 by Graham Attwell

At a session at the Scil conference on serious games. Hope it is not too serious.

First up is Frederic Aunis on hairdressing. He works for L’Oriel. Kids end up doing hairdressing because they do not know what else to do or have failed at school. Hairdressers, he says, all over the world learn by doing. they need techncial and artistic skills, life and communication skills and a business understanding. But in schools business skills are not taught. Managers train apprentices in technical skills but not business skills.

Frederick has been developing a business game. His organisation is developing programmes for 20 million students (seems unlikely?). The game is called Hair Be12. It is translated into 13 languages and implemented in 10 countries. Now we get a demo. Choose a character and customise it. Then twelve episodes to the game. The first is on customer relations. A series of multiple choice questions. Then according to answers skills levels indicator moves up and down and turnover for business changes. No correct answers in game says Frederick. It’s like in real life. No-one complains but your turnover is hit. And there are bonus games. design your salon etc. At end get classification on the web based game – compared to others.

interesting that it did not really work as an individual self-learning game but took off when it was used in groups – it created, he says, “a wow effect.” And it has gone on to be used for facilitating meetings and organisational development within hair salons.

The topics have been ‘flattened’ to ensure game is applicable in different cultures.

Hm – not bad – looks quite fun, teaches something hard to learn any other way. At least it feels like a game. Maybe a bit limited in scope though. Big plus – he says it was relatively cheap to develop. My rating – cool. And a great presentation.

Contact url seems to be www.hair-be12.com – definitely worth a look.

Posted in Wales Wide Web, b-learning, e-learning 2.0, games | 5 Comments »

Has business changed?

May 22nd, 2008 by Graham Attwell

I am blogging ‘live’ from the Scil conference at St Gallen. Quite interesting in that the conference is very much geared at the HRD and business world – ‘communities’ I do not venture too far into often. The conference is entitled “The Changing Face of Learning – getting the right balance.” So is learning changing in the business world?

The first speaker up is Erlan Joergensen from Shell. I can’t say much sounds new. His slogan is Ask-Learn-Share. He is very much at pains to say that all learning has to be related to the needs of the business. This seems a step back to me. What he is saying that is new is to integrate – on a business basis – the informal and workplace learning together with formal learning within “global networks”. All courses will have a workplace component.

Certainly Shell do seem to using networking tools – wikis and bookmarks – and have embraced the idea that global networks can link tacit and explicit knowledge through peer assisted problem solving. The wiki, he says, provides the ‘business operational knowledge’ for the whole company. Interesting too, that he calls it “a wikipedia”! Shell are also looking at the use of Second Life.

The wikis are being used to develop communities on different topics with 27000 active users and 2500 new entries in the last month.

OK – time to make my mind up – what do I think? Certainly bringing access to knowledge sharing tools looks impressive. It is not quite clear how such tools and activities are being integrated into the blended courses. That there is a new focus on work based learning – and that supervisors are seen as important in this is not new but does represent a shift of emphasis. However, the relation between individual learning and organisational learning seems unclear. And there are still too many business buzz words for my liking.

Posted in Communities of Practice, Informal learning, Knowledge development, Wales Wide Web, e-learning 2.0 | No Comments »

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