Archive for August, 2010

Is a degree still worth it?

August 10th, 2010 by Graham Attwell
This quote in a Belfast newspaper seems a bit of a contradiction in terms.Telling graduates now that real world experience is what they need, having just run up debts of £20000 to go to university is a strange way of reassuring them. And the full article is about a scheme to give unemployed graduates up to 6 months work experience – on minimum wages.
clipped from www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk

Economist John Simpson highlighted the advantages of a third level education:
“Pessimism is thoroughly unwarranted.

“Everyone who is now a graduate should understand the advantage in the labour
market over those without third level education. Real world experience is
not a waste of time.

“Graduates will appreciate when they look back in 10 years time that even a
job not drawing on talents still gives the opportunity to learn and gain
experience.”

  blog it

Training teachers in effective pedagogic practices of use of technologies for learning

August 10th, 2010 by Graham Attwell

I am doing a literature review at the moment focused primarily on pedagogic processes for using technology for learning in vocational education and training and in adult education. In particular I am interested in how we can provide both initial training and continuing professional development for teachers and trainers in teaching and learning with technology. I think such a study is apposite – whilst previously teachers have been often seen as a barrier to the introduction of Technology Enhanced Learning because of their perceived lack of skills in using such technologies, we are now coming to realise that the need for new pedagogic approaches is perhaps the biggest challenge, especially since most new teachers are confident in their own use of computers.

Here are some of the issues I am looking at:

  • Teacher training and continuing professional development
  • eLearning and pedagogic approaches to the use of technology for learning
  • The development and use of social software and web 2.0 technologies and its impact on education and learning
  • Future technologies and trends and their possible impact within education

Specific issues to be examined may include (but will not be limited to):

  • Pedagogic theories of use of technologies for learning and implications
  • Effective Pedagogic practices of use of technologies for learning and implications
  • Effective Practices in different sectors / subject areas
  • Use of technology for initial training of teachers and CPD
  • Impact of technologies on pedagogy in practice
  • Digital literacies and digital identities for teachers
  • Present qualifications for teachers and approaches to pedagogy and use of technology for learning
  • Effective practices in initial teacher training and CPD in use of technology for learning
  • e-Assessment and evaluation

I would be very grateful for any references, reports or other materials you think I should include in such a review. I would be particularly grateful for references to studies or reports on the training of teachers in other countries than the UK. All help will be gratefully acknowledged and in due course I will publish the results of the review on the Pontydysgu web site.

Clippings new on Pontydysgu site

August 10th, 2010 by Graham Attwell

A couple of weeks ago I followed a link from Pat Parslow’s twitter to a clipping he had posted on Amplify. I hadn’t seen the site before and was well impressed. Amplify, the site blurb says, “is the place to spark conversation about news, thoughts, ideas, photos or anything else that’s on your mind. And whilst the offer of a microblog, blog or email entry are pretty standard, what caught my eye was the clippings tool.  “Add Amplify to your browser to clip and share your take on articles, blog posts,  videos or anything else you find on the web.”

Neat and ideal for those things which you don’t have time to blog about but warrant more that 140 characters with a tiny url on twitter.

The only thing was that I didn’t really want to set up yet another web space – we have plenty of those already – but wanted to post my clippings directly to the Pontydysgu site. And I found there is a way to do that. Clipmarks, who are the people behind Amplify, produce a Firefox plug in to let you clip and annotate directly from a web page.

It works very well. The only problem is that it does not support categories. In the end we have got round that by allocating the ‘uncategorised’ category to our clippings. Anyway to see the results just click on the clippings tab on the main menu bar. And if you have any ideas for how we can improve this feature please get in touch.

Critical Pedagogy

August 9th, 2010 by Graham Attwell

Neat video introduction to Critical Pedagogy from the Freire Project.

Internet safety and Facebook

August 9th, 2010 by Graham Attwell
A useful article in the Guardian newspaper putting moral panics about the dangers of the internet into perspective.
clipped from www.guardian.co.uk

Facebook handles 2m reports through its site every week, and 80% of those are false. But of those cases that are genuine, by far the biggest issues are cyberbullying, addiction, oversharing and ‘sexting’ – when girls are bullied into sending photos of themselves to ‘boyfriends’. Balkam cites research by Ncmec, the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children in the US, which found that 1% of child victimisation cases involved the internet. “Those cases are shocking and disturbing and they make the nightly news, but therefore they seen a greater problem than they are.”

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Blackboard, Elluminate, edupunk and PLEs: looking to the future

August 9th, 2010 by Graham Attwell

George Siemens has written a blog post about Blackboard’s take over of Elluminate and Wimbla.I agree with him in saying this is an astute move by Blackboard – however I am not quite sure what he means when he talks about integration allowing mangers to buy the educational process. OK – so Blackboard moves beyond being just a VLE. But the educational process is still dependent on pedagogy, whatever tools are integrated in a single application.

I am also very dubious about his view on the evolution of online learning environments. George says:

Over the last eight years, the market has experience enormous change (web 2.0, virtual worlds, social media, networked learning). But many things have settled in the process. Some universities are beginning to focus on a big-picture view of technology: making learning resources available in multimedia, integrating technology from design to delivery, using mobile technologies, and increased focus on network pedagogy. Blackboard (and LMS’ in general) have been able to present the message that “you need an LMS to do blended and online learning”.

To counter this view, the edupunk/DIY approach to learning has produced an emphasis on personal learning environments and networks. To date, this movement has generated a following from a small passionate group of educators, but has not really made much of an impact on traditional education. I don’t suspect it will until, sadly, it can be commoditized and scaled to fit into existing systemic models of education. Perhaps Downes’ Plearn research project, or OU’s SocialLearn project will prove me wrong (I really hope they do!!). For the purposes of this post, however, the brave new world of online learning will be dominated by LMS like Moodle, Blackboard, Desire2Learn, and regional players like Fronter.

I have never seen edupunk being a movement which would move in and takeover the traditional education system. What edupunk does provide is an alternative to traditional pedagogy as well as showing there are other routes than commercialisation of education through technology. I don’t expect any institutional manager to announce a new policy based on edupunk? But what we are seeing is increasing numbers of teachers using social software for tecahing and learning. The impact of that is far harder to measure than the number of VLEs adopted by different educational institutions. It will also probably have a far more profound impact of tecahing and learning and pedagogic approaches to using technology.

The second impact of PLEs, edupunk and social software is in the developing ideas and practice around Open Learning. Knowledge and learning is escaping from the institution. And long term that will be the greatest impact of all.

PLEs and Personalised Learning

August 7th, 2010 by Graham Attwell
This is important – personalised learning as Wendy points out is still controlled by Institution. But within a PLE there is still need for support for learning through scaffolding.
clipped from teachweb2.blogspot.com
I believe personal learning environments are different from personalized learning environments in that the learner controls the learning process.  He or she constructs the learning environment based on what will be learned and who will be invited to participate in or support the learning.
  blog it

Assistive technologies

August 5th, 2010 by Graham Attwell

I have been in Swindon for the last two days, visiting my elderly parents. My mother is having some problems walking and my fathers eyesight has deteriorated considerably.

Unable to get out often , my father misses particularly being able to read.  And this is where assistive technologies should come in. Surely in this MP3 driven world of connectivity he should be able to find a something to read him the football news in the morning or read a historical novel. Except no – it would seem.

The present range of assistive technologies seem to assume the ability to operate a computer. Furthermore few devices are designed for those with visual difficulties. In fact my fathers favorite gadget is a watch with two buttons to press for an audio version of the date and the time. He does get some audio books on CD ROM from a local charity. But he has no choice of what book they give him. And although the lcoal library also has CDROMs for audio books, he is unable to see to select them (and my mother unable to walk to select them!).

I know the EU is funding a research programme strand on assistive technologies. I am going to be looking with some interest in what they are actually producing. Because it seems to me that in the commercial world, developers and manufacturers are more interested in maximising their profits on the mass market, than in designing for those with disabilities.

NB I would be very grateful for any ideas you might have on this.

Physical Electronic Energisers

August 4th, 2010 by Graham Attwell
I am not sure what I think about this project. On the one hand it is a brilliant idea and I can see it working. On the other hand there is something which just seems uncomfortable about it all….
clipped from futurelab.org.uk

Fizzees (Physical Electronic Energisers) is a prototype project that enables young people to care for a ‘digital pet’ through their own physical actions. In order to nurture their digital pet, keep it healthy and grow, young people must themselves act in physically healthy ways.

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Reflection, metacognition and critical pedagogy

August 4th, 2010 by Graham Attwell

Apologies to those of you who have been unable to access the Pontydysgu web site over the past couple of days. We have some issues with our Apache server which we are trying to track down. Hopefully we should get a permanent fix soon (may thanks to Raymond Elferink for all his efforts to help us).

Some more quick notes on pedagogy – an issue that is somewhat obsessing me at the moment.

One of the issue which is constantly arising is that of reflection. Reflection is seen by many as a powerful tool for learning and especially for metacognition. Yet reflection is seen as problematic. As teachers we cannot force learners to reflect. And many teachers – especially in the upper school systems and in universities complain that students do not want to reflect – they want just to be told what they have to learn to pass their exams.

I have taught in many sectors (or domains) in the education system. I have worked as a detached youth worker, in adult education, as  as a teacher trainer and as a trainer for continuing educational development. I have also (occasionally) taught undergraduate students in university. And what strikes me is  very different approaches to reflection and to pedagogy in those different domains.

We seldom talked about reflection when I was working as a youth worker or  trainer. We often talked about reflection when i worked as a university teacher. Yet despite this, there were far higher levels of refection in training courses I have run than on university courses I have taught on. Why?

University courses are geared around a subject based curriculum. Essentially we are involved in dividing up that curriculum into chunks and providing lectures, seminars and assessed assignments to ensure the curriculum is fully covered in a semester or module.

In contrast trainers – be it in professional development or in youth work have a very different starting point and pedagogic focus. Essentially trainers are concerned above all with designing learning. This includes

  • A focus on the needs of the learners, rather than the demands of a syllabus
  • The development of aims and objectives for learner achievement
  • The design of the learning environment
  • The design of learning activities
  • Formative assessment for learners to measure their own (both individual and collective) progress
  • Mechanisms for evaluation, feedback and iterative programme development

In terms of activities we were often looking for active and authentic learning activities – activities designed to help learners develop their own ideas. And we would build in methods for discussion and exchange of ideas. Programme planning and design used to take much longer – in professional development we had a rule of thumb which said two days development time for each days delivery. Of course this is resource intensive. But would a change to focus on the needs of the learners and to design authentic learning activities not facilitate the kind of reflective learning to which we aspire. That might mean tearing up rigid curricula. It might mean developing new learning environments outside a classroom. It might mean moving away from individual assessment. But it might be worth it.

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    News Bites

    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.


    Learning and New Technologies

    Graham Attwell is delivering a keynote presentation on Learning and New Technologies to the ‘Encouraging participation in continuing training in Romania, with focus on disadvantaged employees’ project in Bucharest on Wednesday 7 December.


    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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