Pontydysgu – Bridge to Learning

Any of you into Math learning. Watch this great video with a song from Tom Lehrer to find out about the new math. And if you are a teacher this gives a new perspective on how to present new learning.

Yes, F-Alt is back by popular demand. F-ALT is a fringe event organised to coincide with the annual UK Association for Learning Technology annual conference. This Year ALT-C will be back in sunny Manchester!

As the F-Alt09 wiki says: “Spurred on by the fantastic success of F-ALT 08, we’re looking forward to an even more fabulous series of unconference events.”

F-ALT 09 will consist of a variety of sessions held in public, conference and university spaces. Delegates are encouraged to experiment with format, with slots focusing discussion and allowing participants and bystanders to experiment with an alternative conference format. Participants pick the topics they are most interested in debating and negotiate session delivery on the F-Alt wiki.

So don;t forget – if you have session ideas – stick them up on the wiki and the detail can be worked later. And if you are coming to F-Alt, don’t forget to signup

Last week we hosted a series of radio shows to accompany the Jisc SSBR Institutional Innovation project conference on Institutional Impact.

And here are the podcasts.

The lunchtime programme features interviews with Jisc programme managers, Lawrie Phipps and Ruth Drysdale.

The afternoon show has an interview with Howard Noble from the Green ICT project.

Guests on the evening show include:

• George Roberts providing reflections on the conference and much more
• Miles Berry on Open Source Schools
• Ana Garcia from the University of Madrid talking about coaching and innovation
• David Morris from the University of Coventry on Location Independent Working
• Pekka Kamarainen from the University of Bremen on innovation in the training of vocational teachers and trainers
• Paul Bailey from the Jisc Institutional Innovation programme on innovation and sustainability

Dirk Stieglitz selected the music, produced the programme and undertook the post programme processing.

My thanks to Dirk and all my guests for making a great series of programmes.

SSBR Lunchtime Radio [ 27:50 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (1289)

SSBR Afternoon Radio [ 13:44 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (1269)

SSBR Evening Radio [ 1:02:04 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (1181)

Lately I have got excited about the potential of mobile devices for learning. Partly this is due to the accessibility of such devices and their growing functionality but more it is because of the potential of mobile devices to enable situated or contextual learning. Elearning until now, perhaps because of the domination of universities and to a lesser extent academic schools in implementing educational technology, elearning has focused on academic or disciplinary knowledge. Yet much of the knowledge we use is vocational or occupational in nature. Mobile applications can take advantage of different aspects of context. Of course this is a challenge to institutions, as well as for developers. I have been discussing these issues over the last four or five weeks with John Cook and Andrew Ravenscroft from London Metropolitan Univeristy.

And yesterday at the Jisc Instiutional Innovation conference, John Cook presented both ideas and examples of his work in this area. The abstract for his presentation read:

“How can learning activities that take place outside formal institutions, on platform of the learners choice, be brought into institutional learning? New digital media can be regarded as cultural resources that can enable the bringing together of the informal learning contexts in the world outside the institution with those processes and contexts that are valued inside the intuitions.The big problem is that reports show that Social Software and Google are not enabling the critical, creative and reflective learning that we value in formal education.”

Here are the slides from his presentation. And below you can find a podcast of his keynote.

John Cook Keynote [ 55:31 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (1781)

Yesterday we held the first of a series of online conferences for the Jisc SSBR project which supports the 40 odd projects presently being funded under the Jisc Institutional Innovation programme.

We gad about 70 attending the confernce which used Elluminate as the main platform. I have organised and participated in a lot of on-line events over the past 18 months and though we have much experience in organising such events by now we are still, I think, in a learning curve. Therefore it is worth a  few reflections on what works, what doesn’t and what might be improved.

First something (short) about my main role in the event. We ‘wrapped’ the conference in an internet radio show, broadcasting before the conference opened, at the coffee, lunch and tea breaks and with a  follow up evening programme. the daytime broadcasts were also streamed into Elluminate and we continued on internet radio in the morning to allow those not registered for the conference to listen to John Cook’s keynote speech on ‘Surfing the Moble Wave’ (podcast available here shortly). I think this worked well. To get the stream into Elluminate is easy – we merely hijacked the feed as a microphone in Elluminate. Although the sound quality in Elluminate is not great, from what people tell me the radio provided continuity to the conference.

In the main event the presentations went well. we are well rehearsed in organising and moderating these by now. The one thing we were most nervous about was moving people into breakout groups in the afternoon. Somewhat surprisingly this worked well at a technical level. However people felt that these sessions were too short. And one session in the morning where we invited people to give short reports to the whole room was not so successful. Overtly the problem was technical, with sound breaking up and poor quality audio at other times. I am not quite sure what the problem was. It may be lack of bandwidth from participants although elluminate claims to work on low bandwidth. More likely I suspect, was poor quality headsets. The quality of the microphone seems to make a huge difference for online presenters. I also think that 70 is too many people to organise a high degree of interaction in online events. Merely managing so many provides problems. If we want to organise interaction, participation and discussion in large online conferences, it is probably better to divide into groups with feedback in short plenaries.

As always in such conferences when technical problems occur, people were extolling the virtue of various different platforms. I am unconvinced that any are better than Elluminate. However some rethinking of the user interfaces would be helpful. especially to make groups management easier (allowing people to move themselves int0 a group would be good – anyone listening at Elluminate? – and also a larger chat box).

At the end of the day, organising and managing online confernces is not that different form face to face events. But there are some significant differences and we still need to keep thinking how we can best facilaite interaction in online events.

Yesterday I received a message from Miles Berry reminding me I had agreed to deliver a keynote at the Open Source Schools conference in Nottingham on 20 June (have to admit it had slipped my mind!). So I searched the web to dig out what the conference was all about and arrived at the conference wiki.

What a fabulous site! This is an unconference with contributors being invited to develop themes, presentations and and collaboration around sessions being through the wiki. This exemplifies what I have been banging on about for the last few months. We need to use technologies – not just as a teaching tool – but to shape and reshape our own practices. As a community of practice we need to explore how we can use the potential of social software in our own daily practice for collaboration, for our own (collective learning) and for developing and sharing knowledge within our community. And that practice will inevitably change how we have traditionally organised our work – for instance through conferences seminars and publications.

This is also true of research into technology enhanced learning. It is almost impossible to research the use of technologies for learning  without experiencing the use ourselves. This not only means using technology as an adjunct or aid to more effective research practices but also rethinking methodologies towards a more action research oriented approach.

Congratulations to Miles and his colleagues for having a go!

Tomorrow – Thursday 9 July – we are broadcasting four live radio shows to accompany the Jisc Institutional Innovation programme online conference on Institutional Access.

The first at 10.00 until 12.15 (all times Central European Summer Time) will feature the keynote presentation to the confernce by Professor John Cook on ‘Scaffolding the Mobile Wave’. John’s presentation is scheduled for about 1055 until 11.55.

The second programme will be from 14.00 to 14.30 and will feature interviews with programme managers from the Jisc Institutional innovation programme.

The afternoon show, from 1600 – 1630 features interviews with projects both in the UK and in Portugal.

The final broadcast from 1930 – 2030 will be informal with music and a round up from the conference plus chats with project developers from other European countries.

You can access the internet radio feed by going to http://radio.jiscemerge.org.uk:80/Emerge.m3u in your browser. This will open the stream in your MP3 programme of choice (e.g, iTunes).

Please feel free to just sit back and enjoy the show. But if you would like to come on the show live to provide your reflections and ideas about the issues being discussed then please skype or email Graham Attwell – graham10 [at] mac [dot] com or GrahamAttwell on skype.

This Thursday features a day of LIVE internet radio to support the Jisc Institutional Innovation programme online conference on Institutional Impact.

We will be broadcasting four programmes during the day.

The Morning Programme

The morning programme starts at 10.00 CET (9.00 UK Summer Time) and will run until 1215 CET. The will feature music and chat. At around 11.00 CET we will brodacst Professor John Cook’s keynote speech on “Scaffolding the Mobile Wave”

• How can learning activities that take place outside formal  institutions, on platform of the learners choice, be brought  into institutional learning? New digital media can be regarded as cultural resources that can  enable the bringing together of the informal learning contexts in  the world outside the institution with those processes and contexts  that are valued inside the intuitions. The big problem is that reports show that Social Software and Google  are not enabling the critical, creative and reflective learning that  we value in formal education.
  

The Lunch Time Show
The lunch time broadcast will be from 1400 – 1430 CET (1300 – 1330 UK Summer Time. The show will feature interviews with Ruth Drysdale from Jisc and David Morris plus more music.

The Afternoon Show
The mid afternoon show from 1600 – 1630 CET (1500 – 1530 UK Summer Time)  will feature guest slots from Howard Noble from the Low Carbon ICT project and from Luis Francisco Pedro form Portugal on introducing PLEs throughout the institution.

The Evening Show
The evening show kicks off at 1930 CET 18.30 UK summer Time. Besides providing a chance for quick reflections on the conference, it will also be featuring interviews with leading researchers and practitioners on institutional innovation from all over Europe (we have some great gusts lined up – I will try to provide you with a trailer for them tomorrow). From 2000 CET (1900 UK Summer Time) onwards it will also be streamed into Second Life for participants in the Institutional Innovation conference social event. The show ends at 2030 CET (19.30 UK Summer Time).

How to listen to the programme.
You can access the internet radio feed by going to http://radio.jiscemerge.org.uk:80/Emerge.m3u in your browser. This will open the stream in your MP3 programme of choice (e.g, iTunes).

Please feel free to just sit back and enjor the show. But if you would like to come on the show live to provide your reflections and ideas about the issues being discussed then please skype or email Graham Attwell – graham10 [at] mac [dot] com or GrahamAttwell on skype.

This year, Ars Electronica celebrates its 30th anniversary and as you might know, the city of Linz is Europe’s 2009 Capital of Culture. However, the invitations for this year’s festival on Human Nature have been disseminated and I’d like to share the following abstract on HUMAN NATURE by Gerfried Stocker, artistic director of Ars:

“We are entering a new age here on Earth: the Anthropocene. An age definitively characterized by humankind’s massive and irreversible influences on our home planet. Population explosion, climate change, the poisoning of the environment and our venturing into outer space have been the most striking symbols of this development so far.
But to a much more enormous extent, the achievements of genetic engineering and biotechnology are the truly indicative markers of this transition to a new epoch. Now, we’re not only changing our environment; we’re revising the fundamentals of life itself—even our own human life.
Humankind has appropriated the mantle of Creator. Though we just barely understand how this functions, we’re already modifying entire genomes, constructing new organisms, cloning, creating and inventing new life.

We’re using innovative high-tech methods to observe the human brain while it thinks, so that we can now look behind the veil of our consciousness and see how our mechanisms of perception and decision-making capacities are reflected in our neurons. The long-established boundaries segregating nature and culture are breaking down, and we are once again confronted by the question of the essence of humanness and the nature of the human being.

Thirty years after its founding, this globally established festival’s mission remains the same—we are steadfastly dedicated to the pursuit of the curiosity that is so deeply rooted in humankind’s nature, and we continue to intrepidly peer far into the future. Our immediate objective: to once again foment a fruitful, fascinating dialog at the interface of art, technology and society.
The new Ars Electronica Center that debuted at the outset of this year plays a key role in this endeavor, in that its extraordinary exhibition concept is totally focused on the question of how scientific findings and methods are changing the way we see the world and our views of humankind.

Linz is Europe’s 2009 Capital of Culture. As a major contribution to our city’s big year, the festival’s first project is already being launched on June 17, the day the 80+1 Base Camp is being set up on Linz’s Main Square as the point of departure of a virtual ‘round-the-world journey that, following completion of its 81-day itinerary, returns to Linz just in time for the festival. There, 80+1 will culminate in a globally-networked symposium on cloud intelligence.

2009 also brings us to a joyous milestone: Ars Electronica’s 30th anniversary! As befitting this occasion, an intense retrospective look at the dynamic development of media art will be a key component of the festival program.

Led, curated and produced by artists and scientists—and inspired by their work—the festival’s jam-packed lineup of fascinating events constitutes, as ever, an expedition into hybrid reality and the future of our world.

So, just what is this going to be like, this new nature that human beings are going about engendering?”

See also for the virtual around the world journey 80plus1.org project.

via ARS

Web site: http://www.aec.at/humannature/index_en.html

Concerning LEF: We are about to finalize the program of LEF@Ars, the Leonardo Education Forum, a working group of Leonardo/ISAST, the International Society for Arts, Science and Technology. Soon there will be an update on our LEF@ARS09 panel to take place over 4-5 September, hosted by AEC (Nicoletta Blacher, head) as well as by the Kunstuniversität Linz – university of art and industrial design, Department of Art Education (Prof. Dr. Angelika Plank, head of the Department of Art Education).