Pontydysgu – Bridge to Learning

For those of you who have not been there, On-line Educa Berlin, which claims to be Europe’s biggest event on Technology Enhanced Learning, is a mix between a party, a meet up, a trade exhibition and oh yes, a conference. this year there were once again over 2000 delegates, which, considering the price of the conference for non presenters is over 800 Euro and the general impact of the recession is impressive. Is e-learning standing up despite financial cutbacks? According to the organisers the largest ‘country group; was the Netherlands, followed by the UK, Finland and Norway – although I don’t know quite what this signifies.

Online-Educa is probably not the place to go for cutting edge research and development. Rather it tends ot rflect what is main-streaming and this make sit all the more interesting. the following is a highly impressionistic account fo this years trends / non trends and general goings-on.

Probably the biggest trend is the movement away from a  focus on VLEs towards looking at the use of social software for learning. And, linked to that, is a growing realisation or concern about the gap between the way (not just) young people are using social software for  communication, leisure, information seeking and learning and the way educational institutions are stumble trying to manage learning through the walled gardens of LMS systems and VLEs. Equally, many speakers pointed out the growing availability of  free resources for informal and self directed learning and the need for institutions to rethink their role and how they facilitate learning. None of this is new. What is new is that the idea has moved from being a fringe or minority viewpoint to at least entering the mainstream educational technology discourse. Indeed, in this respect it is interesting to see the recent Guardian newspaper article by Victor Keegan. Keegan says”

“  … YouTube is developing into a kind of University of the Grassroots. Instead of learning being a top-down process, dictated by institutions and governments, it is evolving into a bottom-up process driven by users.

If you want to learn, say, the Python programming language (often used in mobile phones) then your first move may not be to sign up at a local educational institution but instead to look at one of the YouTube videos and benefit from the reactions of other viewers. Education has been slower than other sectors to respond to the digital revolution but, as elsewhere, the direction is being dictated by users….

It is difficult to predict what effect all this will eventually have on education but it could be profound. It must be questionable whether you need three years to complete a PhD when you have instant access to so many archived books as a result of Google’s book-scanning programme. …But, increasingly, the basic street-wise skills people will need during the digital revolution may more easily, and certainly more quickly, be learned from the People’s University of the Internet than from an academic institution.”

In the sessions I attended, there seemed to be more of a focus on pedagogy or suing technology for tecahing and learning, than using technology as a starting point, as in sessions I attended in recent years. Equally, there was less product placement and less focus on corporate learning than in previous years: whether this is the result of the recession or because of a concious decision by the conference organisers I am not sure.

Last year there was a big buzz around Multi User Virtual environments such as Second Life. The bubble has burst this year: presenters were still enthusiastic about the potential for tecahing and learning but the feeling was that present commercial worlds were just not good enough (in this respect it is interesting that Linden Labs did not even have a stand).

Wandering around the extensive exhibition area there seemed to be little new. One surprising omission was the paucity of attention paid to the potential of mobile devices (apart from Blackboard promoting their mobile platform integration). Despite many of teh delegates sporting their iPhones few seemed to have thought about how they might be used for learning. However, perhaps that just is a reflection of Online-Educa: mobiles have not yet entered the mainstream!

For me my internship with Pontydysgu has been more than just work experience, it has also been about gaining valuable life experience through learning to communicate in another language and living away from home. And so far my time with Pontydysgu has taught me more than I ever could have imagined, which was partly because I had no idea what to expect as I struggled to fully understand what Pontydysgu do, something that now I understand but struggle to explain because of the wide range of areas Ponydysgu covers. This diversity of the company has worked in my favour as it has allowed me to develop professional interests I didn’t know I had, such as working with Multimedia or social networking in education.

The most important thing I have learnt from my internship is to reflect on the things I learn and do. This isn’t really something I feel I experienced in school, particularly at the higher levels as my aim was to pass my exams and to jump through the necessary hoops to do so. Graham Attwell’s very different ideas on PLEs, social learning and reflective learning have led me in a completely different direction and in the process of learning about these things I feel I have begun to use them without even realising.

Now one of the things discussed in the very official Pontydysgu ‘meetings’ in the local pub was how I would compare my learning in Pontydysgu with the way I learnt in school. After much reflection I think the lack of official assessment contributes a great deal. My motivation to learn has changed. I am not trying to learn the necessary facts and methods to pass a certain exam, I am trying to best use the opportunity I have been given to expand my knowledge and experience. Much of the work I find I do in Pontydysgu is more valuable to me than the company. For example I am encouraged to blog and share my ideas so people can add and contribute to them or even upgrade my video editing competences from iMovie to Final Cut. It certainly improves the quality of my work for Pontydysgu but it has a far deeper value for me as an individual in the longer term.

This in my opinion is what is so essential about internships or the German Praktikum. It teaches you how to cope with that change of motivation from passing single exams to personal development.

My latest task within Pontydysgu was to attend a two day meeting on a current European project, as the other members of Pontydysgu were away doing internet radio at Online Educa Berlin. This project was on the development of toolbox to help with the process of a Praktikum for university students. This inadvertedly made me assess the value of my own internship experience, and the value that it holds for me. I think what makes these practical work experiences so important is that taste of the real world. All the support levels that the universities wanted to provide to make this transition easier showed me that this transition from pure learning to work can be a very big step whatever age the student is and work experience if properly managed can help bridge this gap.

It also provides an opportunity to bridge age gaps. Often students have a fresh perspective, particularly within the area of education. Having student interns work on projects for students seems so logical. They add a new but essential view point to the table for such projects. At the social of this meeting it was said to me how pleasant but unusual it was to have someone of such a young age socialising with the project members as an equal, and that many adults are afraid to take a gamble on young people. However I think internships do have the potential to provide valuable contributions not just for the student but for companies as well, if not just because we are cheap labour.

This expectation of very little from students can also work in our favour. I in particular find that working with under the name ‘intern’ makes my life far easier, because of my lack of experience people provide me more room to make mistakes and if I do or say something intelligent people are always incredibly impressed, when these sorts of comments are expected from full time more experienced employees. I am not trying to claim that this is necessarily a good title to hide behind, but rather it for me has held less pressure and will mean I feel more prepared when entering a full time job after I finish my studies, whatever area this may be in.

Internships can vary a great deal and I feel very lucky that mine has turned out so well and that I am learning so much.

Online- Educa Berlin tends to be one or two years behind the research in Technology Enhanced Learning. But it is a great indicator of what technologies and ideas are mainstreaming. This year there is little or no discussion of Virtual Learning Environments: all the talk is of the use of social software for learning.

And with that discussion, comes concerns over users control of their own data, of data security, of privacy and safety – and of course issues related to digital identities.

In this respect, it is very good to see Jerry Zuckerberg’s open letter on the future of Facebook, pledging to provide greater and more fine grained control for users over who can access their data.

However Zuckermann’s letter, or rather the responses to it illustrate one of the big problems facing Facebook. At the time I looked at it, it had 33858 comments. And, as far as I can see, the vast majority were spam (see selection above). If Facebook cannot provide Jerry with user controls to prevent spam, what hope is there for teh rest of us?

Some great presentations at Online Educa Berlin. And over the next ten days we will be bringing you some of the slides and videos. This presentation, by Cristina Costa looks at Digital Storytelling.

Just a quick post to be extended later. It is the second day of the ONLINE EDUCA Berlin 2009 and we just finished our todays LIVE Internet Radio programme. And you can listen here to todays show and our yesterday afternoon programme as well. Yesterdays we had little problems with the mixing deck at our stand. Very huge and proper live signal to the speakers but the signal to the streaming software was very low. But anyway enjoy listening to Sounds of the Bazaar.

Find now also our third and last live programme from this year’s ONLINE EDUCA Berlin here as a podcast.

Music Playlist of the show:

• “Put The World On Stop” (Piano Version) by Sean Fournier
• “WalkOnFlames” by Markus Schmitt
• “Fusion” by Cool Cavemen
• “Anything But You” by Fresh Body Shop
• “Still Und Schön” by Tom Oswald
• “L’Odore della Morte” by Talco
• “When Will It End” by Erica Shine
• “The Great Deceiver” by Dennis Logan
• “These Days” by Robin Grey
• “50′s Life” by The Wookies
• “Miss is a sea fish” by Ehma
• “My Misfit Ways” by Christophe Marc
• “reggae and unity” by Jahmac
• “Roots” by Galdson

Sounds of the Bazaar LIVE at the ONLINE EDUCA Berlin 2009 Day 1 [ 39:42 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (447)

Sounds of the Bazaar LIVE at the ONLINE EDUCA Berlin 2009 Day 2 [ 39:14 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (414)

Sounds of the Bazaar LIVE at the ONLINE EDUCA Berlin 2009 Day 3 [ 45:07 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (417)

I was fascinated by a presentation by Elizabetta Adami on issues on literacy in the contemporary semiotic landscape at the workshop on ‘Technology Enhanced Learning in the context of technological, societal and cultural transformation’ at the Alpine Rendezvous at Garmisch Partenkirchen.

Here are my live blogging notes on her presentation. Her slides can be found here and their is a longer discussion around the workshop on the workshop Cloudworks site.

Part 1

“L.iteracy has extended meaning – but only in English! Literacy as fruit of power relationships. Literacy same meanings as competence in Italian.

Confused and diverse semiotic practices used for communication in different countries. Some practices become institutionalised if approved by elite and then become genres with conventions.

Descriptions are important in a genre as proscribed and prescribed practices – this is what is taught in schools as literacies e.g. CVs, academic articles, newspaper articles but also dance, architecture etc. Vertical power relationships – texts policed by limited number contributors or elite. Standards change but always is a standard. Literacy is to know the established conventions. schools teach the norms of a society.

Power relations in new media more horizontal – developing wide variety of types of text which do not have established conventions – eg podcasts, text.

Shift from competence to given norms to creative ad hoc agency.

If schools are to teach new literacies what norms can they teach to and what generalisations are possible? If was to be possible is it desirable to keep cycle of institutionalisation going?”

Part 2

“More from Elizabetta – media have affordances for new shared social practices. Many devices enable us to produce great variety multi modal artefacts and distribute in social spaces – all share copy and past – ability to select, represent and  recontextualise. Changes in mechanism for representation have led to changes in mechanisms for communication. Leading to individualised participation in networks / chains of semiosis according to participants wishes. But shared understanding becomes less important than usability. Leads to scattering of coherence patterns. Cooperating becomes less important than using according to ones interest. Browsing is not coherent – but related to our interests in links we encounter whilst browsing.

Collecetd (and often incoherent) artefacts define online identity.

Questions – moving from coherence in contents to forms in contexts. Does this lead to a lack of wholeness. What capabilities are developed most and least. Is coherence still useful and where is it needed?

1. What is gained and what is lost?

2. Where are we headed to?

- do we teach the most required abilities

- or do we teach the lost-in-transition abilities

3. Is the description – pre/proscription cycle avoidable”

I am in a workshop at the ‘Alpine Rendezvous’ on “technology-enhanced learning in the context of technological, societal and cultural transformation.” Long words. More interesting stuff than it sounds – though I am struggling with some of the media theory. I am also trying to work out where the theory and practice match – if they do at all.

Anyway, my presentation here was based on work for the Mature-ip project around a Work Oriented MoBile Learning Environment (WOMBLE). And I have focused on work based learning and the potential use of mobile devices. I will post the slides juts as soon as I have recorded an audio track to accompany them. Without that the slides will make little sense. I will also try to provide an overview of the workshop (although that is going to be hard).

For now, just a quick note about hardware and software on mobiles. We really do seem to be back in the grim days of the browser wars. A Work Oriented MoBile Learning Environment would preferably run natively on an iPhone or android phone, or indeed a Symbian or Windows based machine.

The reality is that to develop applications for all the platforms will take too long and cost too much. Therefore we are looking at developing a browser based PLE, using server end and javascript applications.

I have my doubts that this will work. Handling browsers on mobiles is still a clunky experience compared to running native applications. But i see little other choice.

We urgently need standards for phone based applications. the present situation only provides more power to propriatary platforms and pllaication providers.