Pontydysgu – Bridge to Learning

First a warning. This is the beginning of an idea but by no means fully tho0ught out.It comes from a discussion with Jenny Hughes last week, when we were talking about the future direction of work on Personal Learning Environments.

Jenny came up with three ‘dimensions’ of a PLE – intra-personal, inter-personal and extra personal which I presented at the #TICEDUCA2010 conference in Lisbon

The first – intra-personal – describes the spaces we use to work on our own. This includes the different software we use and the different physical spaces we work in. It is possibel that our intra personal spaces will look quite different – reflecting both our ways of thinking and our preferred ways of working. one interesting aspect of the intra personal learning environment is the importance of aesthetics – including the look and ‘feel’ of the environment. And whilst many of the3 developers I work with undertake usability standards, I do not think they really ever consider aesthetics.

The third dimension – extra personal – refers to the things we do out in the web – to our publications, to blogs like this, to the videos we post – to the things we share with others.

But perhaps the most interesting is dimension is the intra-personal learning environment. This is the shared spaces we use to collaborate and work with others. All too often such spaces are imposed – by teachers or by project coordinators or those responsible for web site development. And all too often they fail – because users have no ownership of those spaces. In other words the spaces are not seen or felt of as part of a PLE. How can this be overcome? Quite simply the inter-personal space needs to be negotiated – to develop spaces and ways of working that everyone can feel comfortable with. Of course this may mean compromises but it is through the process of negotiation that such compromises will emerge.

The problem may be that the PLE has come to be overly associated with personalisation rather than negotiation and ownership and too little attention has been paid to collaboration and social learning. I think it would also be interesting to look at how ideas and knowledge emerge – or as the Mature project would say – how Knowledge matures. In developing ideas and knowledge I suspect we use all three dimensions of our Personal Learning Environment – with new ideas emerging say from reading something in the extra PLE, moving ideas back to the intra PLE for thinking and working and developing and then sharing and working with others in the (negotiated) inter Personal Learning Environment. Of course in practice it will be more complex than this. But i would like to see how these processes work in the real world – although I suspect it would be a methodologically challenging piece of research to carry out. Anyone any ideas?

Here is the first in a series of videos we are going to be featuring looking at the present economic and social crisis and the future of educatio0n. In this video comedian Stewart Lee talks about university funding and the arts and refers to government policy as a deliberate strategy to rid us of “troublesome thinkers and artists.”

The latest production from the Pontydysgu studios! Regular readers may recall that in August we worked with the European Educational Research Association on ‘amplyfying’ their annual conference, the European Conference on Educational Research, held in 2010 in Helsinki.

One of the things we did was to make a short ‘impressions’ video, intended both as a record of the conference and as a trailer for the 2011 conference to be held in Berlin.

Most of the video used here was shot on a Flip camera and was edited with Apple’s iMovie ’09 software. Great work by Jo Turner-Attwell.

You can see more multimedia from Helsinki 2010 and find out about the 2011 conference on the ECER web site.

Last weekend I spoke at the #TICEDUCA2010 conference in Lisbon, Portugal about PLEs. I greatly enjoyed myself and even may have developed a couple of new ideas (more on this later this week). But first a few impressions. I have to say this is a very subjective viewpoint as only the keynote sessions – mine and Helen Barrett’s were interpreted. Having said this, I had the perfect excuse to hang around the coffee bar and ended up having many fasci9ntaing conversations – some of which I am now continuing by email.

Firstly something about the composition of th3e conference. from a quick straw poll it appeared a majority of the participants were teachers. Thus many of the discussions I had were closely related to the practice of teaching and learning. And there was certainly great interest in the idea of PLEs, even if there was some confusion about how exactly a Personal Learning environment differed from say Moodle.

Most of the teachers I talked to were enthusiastic about the potential of using technology for teaching and earning. This may to some extent due to the Portuguese policy of providing subsidised laptops and broadband  connections for  teachers, school children, and adult learners.According to Dan Tapscott nearly nine out of 10 students in Grades 1 to 4 now have a laptop on their desk. Don also points out that there has been heavy investment in teacher training to use the technologies for teaching and learning and I found teachers ready and eager to discuss pedagogic approaches. Having said that, some pointed out to a continuing gap between the policy aspiration and the reality, especially when it came to how the computers were being used.

Many of those I spoke to saw PLEs as a fresh approach, particularly for linking learning in school with informal learning outside the institution. Yet the issues and barriers were only too familiar. How do we motivate students who may be disillusioned and disengaged with schools and formal education? How do we develop a more expansive enquiry based pedagogy whilst at the same time delivering a prescribed and more limited curriculum? How can we develop collaborative learning whilst meeting assessment regulations focusing on individual competence?

None of these questions are new. But it is encouraging that so many teachers are engaging with these questions. I came away impressed with  so many ideas from researchers and teachers I was lucky enough to talk to – but still wondering how we can harness their ideas to make change happen?

A quick summary of some of the recent research on mobile learning.

Mobile devices are becoming ever more important due in main to their ubiquity. The number of mobile phone subscribers will increase to five billion people this year thanks to the growth of smartphones in developed nations and mobile services in poor nations, according to the United Nations (2010).

Industry predictions are that the sales of smart phones, able to access internet services, will surpass that of ;ordinary’ mobile phones by March, 2011. Added to this is the rapid development and take up of all kinds of different mobile devices, ranging from tablets such as the iPad and book readers such as the Kindle.

Although in an early phase, the potential of these devices for teaching and learning is being recognised (indeed so much is being written, it is hard to keep up to date with the research)
Alan Livingston, writing in Educause Quarterly (2009) says:

“The past decade has witnessed two revolutions in comunication technology. The first — the Internet revolution — has changed everything in higher education. The second — the mobile phone revolution — has changed nothing. We’re vaguely aware that our students have mobile phones (and annoyed when they forget to turn them off in class), but it hasn’t occurred to us that the fact they have these devices might have anything to do with our effort to provide them with educational experiences and services.

HELLO? as our students sometimes say when trying to communicate with someone who’s being particularly obtuse. Mobile phone usage among our students has become virtually universal. Isn’t it time for us to stop ignoring and start taking advantage of this fact?”

The definition and scope of mobile learning is central to the debate over the pedagogic use of such devices.
According to MoLeNet, mobile learning can be broadly defined as “the exploitation of ubiquitous handheld technologies, together with wireless and mobile phone networks, to facilitate, support, enhance and extend the reach of teaching and learning.”

The London Mobile Learning Group (LMLG) have been working on conceptualising pedagogies for mobile learning.

“Mobile learning – as we understand it is not about delivering content to mobile devices but instead about the processes of coming to know and being able to operate successfully in and across, new and ever changing contexts and learning spaces.m And, if it is about understanding and knowing how to utilise our everyday life-worlds as learning spaces. Therefore in case it needs to be stated explicitly, mobile learning is not primarily about technology (Pachler, Bachmair and Cook, 2010, p6)

The London Mobile Learning group have developed the idea of a “social-cultural ecology of mobile devices” based on the  triangular relationship between structures, cultural practices ad the agency within which they conceptualise the use of mobile devices.

In this approach they say “learning is understood as the process of coming to know and being able to operate successfully in and across ever changing contexts and learning spaces as well as understanding and knowing how to utilise our everyday life worlds as learning spaces. It is viewed as a process of meaning making through communication / conversation across multiple contexts among people within a triangle of social structures, cultural practices and agency as well as an augmentation of the inner, conceptual and outer semiotic resources – increasingly with and through mobile devices.” (Pachler, 2010)

Socio-semantic tools including language, material artefacts and technology mediate the actions of learners as they seek to augment their conceptual resources.

John Cook (UK) develops the idea of mobile phones as mediating tools within augmented contexts for development further through a re-conceptualisation of Vygotsky’s notion of a zone for proximal development as “responsive situations for development’ in recognition of the socio-cultural, economic and technological conditions of the early 21st century.” (Cook, 2010)

Other writers have looked at mobile devices as offering a pedagogy for the social inclusion of at risk groups or people socially marginalised.. Margrit Boeck (2010) says mobile devices are:

• making learners mobile so that they are able to expand their horizons
• engaging learners on their own ground and addressing them as people who are learners already and as knowledge makers;
• according them full recognition in their position and achievements in their lives; as well as of their position as learners and makers of knowledge. In this context,learning means being mobile, being able to change.

Reporting on a symposium on m-learning, Laurillard (2007) reports Geoff Stead as arguing that mobile learning is important for access, personalisation, engagement and inclusion providing learners with control over learning, ownership, and the ability to demand things, and thus meeting the rights of the learner.

Naeve (2005) points to the ability of mobile learning to support more learner centric interest oriented and knowledge pulling types of learning architectures. The traditional educational architectures are based on teacher-centric, curriculum-oriented, knowledge-push. The new demands are largely concerned with a shift along all of these. (Naeve, 2010).

Diana Laurillard (2007) has highlighted the mobility of digital technologies in providing “opportunities for new forms of learning because they change the nature of the physical relations between teachers, learners, and the objects of learning.”  (p1).

Nial Winters (2007) suggests we have to address three mobilities in mobile learning – learners, technology objects, and information – and the objects can be differentiated by being in:

• regional space – 3-dimensional physical space;
• network space – the social space of participants and technologies; or
• fluid space – learners, relations, and the object of learning.

At a practical level there are many discussions, often in social media such as community web sites or blogs suggesting how mobile devices can be used in teaching and learning (see for example Hughes, (2010, a). Hughes (2010, b) also provides a useful summary of the arguments for and against the use of mobile devices in the classroom.

The presenters at a 2006 Kaleidoscope Convergence Workshop on Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning, entitled ‘Inquiry Learning and Mobile Learning’ collectively offered a wide range of learning activities that could be supported through mobile digital tools and environments (Laurillard, 2007):

• exploring – real physical environments linked to digital guides;
• investigating – real physical environments linked to digital guides;
• discussing – with peers, synchronously or asynchronously, audio or text;
• recording, capturing data – sounds, images, videos, text, locations;
• building, making, modelling – using captured data and digital tools;
• sharing – captured data, digital products of building and modelling;
• testing – the products built, against others’ products, others’ comments or real physical environments;
• adapting – the products developed, in light of feedback from tests or comments; and
• reflecting – guided by digital collaborative software, using shared products, test results, and comments

There is a growing body of research over the use of mobile devices for work based learning. Sharples et al, (2005) say “Just as learning is now regarded as a situated and collaborative activity (Brown, Collins, & Duguid, 1989), occurring wherever people, individually or collectively, have problems to solve or knowledge to share, so mobile networked technology enables people to communicate regardless of their location.” (p5).

Liz Kolb (2010) links the use of technologies for learning to the way we communicate, not just in education but in the world of work: “…many are still shying away from this new literacy (even dismissing it as a negative form of communication). Knowing that text messaging is fast becoming the #1 form of communication reminds me that it will also be an important literacy for the 21st century job force.”

Winters, (2007) points to the potential of mobile devices for learning in the workplace to: enable knowledge building by learners in different contexts. and to enable learners to construct understandings. Mobile technology, he says often changes the pattern of learning and work activity.

Naeve (2010) also points out that mobile devices can link learning to knowledge management.

“At the same time, within most organisations, new demands are being placed on effective and efficient knowledge management. Promoting the creation and sharing of knowledge in order to assure the right person with the right knowledge in the right place at the right time for the right cost is the overall aim of these demands.” (Naeve, 2010).
Attwell (2010) has pointed to the potential of mobile devices for developmental learning in the workplace. This allows the bringing together of learning from different context and domains, including the informal learning which is developed through work processes. He outlines the design of a “Work Based Mobile Learning Environment” (WoMBLE).

Perhaps the greatest impact of mobile devices may be in changing the relationship between institutional or classroom based learning and learning in a wider society. Steve Wheeler, in his presentation on Web 3.0. The Way Forward? (2010) says that whilst in the past we have brought the world into the classroom in the future we will bring the classroom into the world.

References

Attwell, G. (2010). Work0based mobile learning environments: contributing to a socio-cultural ecology of mobile learning, in Pachler, N. (ed) Mobile learning in the context of transformation. Special Issue of International Journal of Mobile and Blended Learning

Boeck, M. (2010). Mobile Learning, digital literacies, information habitus and at risk social groups, in Pachler, N. (ed) Mobile learning in the context of transformation. Special Issue of International Journal of Mobile and Blended Learning

Cook, J. (2010). Mobile phones as mediating tools within augmented contexts for development. in Pachler, N. (ed) Mobile learning in the context of transformation. Special Issue of International Journal of Mobile and Blended Learning

Kolb, L. (2010). From Toy to Tool: Cell Phones in Learning. http://www.cellphonesinlearning.com/.
Laurillard, D. (2007). Pedagogical forms for mobile learning, in: Pachler, N. (ed) (2007) Mobile learning: towards a research agenda. London: WLE Centre, IoE

Livingston, A. (2009). The Revolution No One Noticed: Mobile Phones and Multimobile Services in Higher Education. Educause Quarterly, 32(1).

Naeve, A. (2010). Opportunistic (l)earning in the mobile knowledge society, in Pachler, N. (ed) Mobile learning in the context of transformation. Special Issue of International Journal of Mobile and Blended Learning

Pachler, N., Bachmair, B., & Cook, J. (2010). Mobile Learning. Structures, Agency, Practices. New York USA: Springer.

Pachler, N. (2010). Guest editorial, in Pachler, N. (ed) Mobile learning in the context of transformation. Special Issue of International Journal of Mobile and Blended Learning

Sharples, M. Taylor, J. Vavoula, G. (2005). Towards a Theory of Mobile Learning

Winters, N. (2007) What is mobile learning? In M. Sharples (Ed.), Big issues in mobile learning (pp. 7–11): LSRI University of Nottingham

As regular readers will know we have been doing some research lately looking at the use of technology for teaching and learning and the training of teachers and trainers. As always one o0f the problems is definitions – what do we mean by technology enhanced learning, what is

So Jenny Hughes has been busy writing a list of definitions. I think it is pretty good. But we would welcome feedback. Do you agree with Jen’s definitions? How could they be improved? What other terms do we need to define?

The use of technology for teaching and learning
We have used this as a preferred term for ALL activities relating to the management, organisation, design, implementation and support of learning and teaching which make of information and computer technologies. This will include institutional use of ICT as well as using ICT at the point of delivery.

e-learning
We have used e-learning to describe the use of ICT by learners and teachers at the point of delivery and, by implication, where the use of the technology is a dominant feature of the teaching or learning or where the pedagogy is dependent on the use of the technology. That is, it is a sub set of ‘the use of technology for teaching and learning’ but does not include organisational use of tools and processes to manage learning.

technology enhanced learning
This is used in preference to e-learning when the use of ICT is to add value to the learning process rather than the learning being dependent on it or where the technology is the basis for the design of the learning activity.

programmed learning and computer based learning
Both these terms have been used to refer to stand alone learning programmes, either web based or on a CDROM / DVD, which are designed to be used by individuals working autonomously or with a minimum level of support. They are often designed by commercial developers for a mass audience or may be heavily customised for a particular context. This was the predominant use of ICT across all sectors in the 1980s but cost of production, among other reasons, has seen a reduction in their importance in the education sector. However, they are still used extensively in the business sector.

blended learning
Learning programmes that combine e-learning methods with face-to-face delivery or traditional learning and teaching methods.

braided learning
A form of collaborative learning whereby online communities combine to answer a question or respond to a learning problem. The resultant ‘braided text’ is characterised by heterogeneity of style and multiple perspectives and it is left to individual users to construct their own meanings. That is, no effort is made by the learners to develop the kind of overall style that formal reports or academic research documents would traditionally demand.

distance learning
This is a term which is less commonly used and one which we have tried to avoid because of its ambiguity. Traditionally, distance learning has been used simply to describe a learning situation in which teacher and learner are geographically separated, often where the identity of one is not known to the other. It does not necessarily involve the use of ICT but may do. It is often, unhelpfully, set in opposition to face-to-face learning but the use of on-line synchronous learning technologies where learners and teachers may be ‘face-to-face’ in a virtual rather than physical space has blurred these boundaries.

formal learning
Learning which takes place within an institution or organisation or other context the designated purpose of which is to provide education or training. It is characterised by the existence of curricula, differentiation of role between teacher and learner and a prescribed relationship between them.

informal learning
learning which takes place in a context which is not externally structured by a learning institution, a teacher, a curriculum or by a particular relationship between teacher and learner. This typically includes learning occurring in the home, in a social context or in the workplace and embedded in activities which are part of a learner’s everyday life. The learning is more likely to be unstructured or structured internally by the learner and is continual.

non formal learning
Learning that occurs in a formal learning environment or context but is not formally recognised or determined by a curriculum or syllabus. It typically involves workshops, community courses, interest based courses, short courses, conference style or seminars and participation is usually voluntary rather than prescribed.

domain
Earlier definitions of formal and informal learning were based on the location in which learning takes place, that is, whether learning occurred in a ‘formal’ learning environment, such as a college, or an ‘informal’ one such as the home. However, this was limited because a lot of informal learning will also take place in institutions which are designed as formal learning environments. Domain is therefore a preferred term to describe the particular physical space in which learning occurs.

workbased learning / workplace learning
In further education these terms are often used interchangeably and refer to two different situations. Workbased learning (WBL) is more typically used to describe employer-led training which may include both on- and off-the-job learning. It is often used to used to distinguish that training sector from the FE colleges. Workplace learning (WPL) is an increasingly used term for teachers learning within their own institutions rather than on external courses. This is an imperfect definition as obviously colleges and adult education centres are employers as well as providers but we have maintained the distinction for convenience.

teachers
The word teacher has been adopted as a generic term that includes adult education tutors, lecturers, trainers and anyone whose core role is the design and delivery of learning experiences. We have used the specific terms where it is necessary to distinguish between them or if we are discussing a particular context where they are in common use.

trainers
We have used trainer in two different ways. Firstly to describe individuals who deliver initial teacher training or continuing professional development i.e teacher trainers. Secondly, to refer to individuals working in the private training or industry sectors when it is necessary to distinguish them from college lecturers or adult education tutors

educators
A broader term covering the all the individuals who have a direct responsibility for the learning of others, whether covered by the qualification framework or not. This may be all of their job (such as a private free-lance trainer or college lecturer) or a small part of their job (for example, a shop-floor craftsman who acts as a mentor.)

education professionals
An even broader term which covers teachers, trainers and educators (see above) but also includes managers (e.g training officers or college principals) and professionals from other disciplines who are working in the education service but who do not have direct responsibility for teaching and learning at the point of delivery

personal ICT skills
By this we mean the capabilities and the technical skills of individuals to use technology. A reasonable level of personal competence in the use of ICT is a necessary but not sufficient baseline for designing and delivering e-learning in the same way that the ability to read is a prerequisite of being able to teach someone else to read, which requires an additional set of skills.

continuing professional development
CPD is taken to mean the conscious process by which individuals update their professional knowledge and develop professional competences throughout their working life in order to respond to a changing work environment. It may be compulsory or voluntary, formal or informal, regulated or flexible.

It is also used to describe the provision of learning opportunities which are designed to maintain, improve and broaden the knowledge and skills of employees and develop the personal qualities required in their professional lives.

personal learning environments
An individual’s combination and use of tools for the purposes of learning. Personal Learning Environments are systems that help learners take control of, and manage their own learning. This includes providing support for learners to set their own learning goals, manage both the content and process of their learning and communicate with others in the process of learning.

learning management system
A Learning Management System (LMS) is a software tool, typically web based, which helps to plan and deliver learning events and to ‘manage’ learners by keeping track of their progress and their performance across a range of learning activities. It also facilitates interaction between teachers and students and among students themselves. Formerly called Managed Learning Environments (MLE)

virtual learning environments / learning content management system
A Learning Content Management System (LCMS) is a software system that supports teaching and learning by facilitating the development, management and publishing of the content that will typically be delivered through the LMS. It provides teachers and trainers with the means to create e-learning content efficiently and provides learners with the means to access it. Formerly called virtual learning environments.

In practice, it is normal to find software solutions that combine learning management and learning content management systems.

web 1, web 2.0, web 3.0, web X
These terms are used to describe paradigm shifts in the ways that people use the world wide web and also the changes in the technology that simultaneously drive and reflect those changes.

web 1
A retrospective label for the first stage of development of the world wide web which was based on linking information. Web users accessed that information and were essentially passive recipients of content and media products created by experts – as they would visit a library or watch television or go to see a film.

web 2.0
The term ‘2.0’ mimics the way developers label new versions of software. However, web 2.0 does not refer to an upgrade in the technical specification of the web, it is a metaphor used to describe how web designers and web users are moving in a new direction. Web 2.0 is based on linking people. A key feature of web 2.0 is the development of social networking software which promotes the development of online communities and allow people to work collaboratively.The other major change has been that web 2.0 applications allow users to generate and publish their own content rather than just being consumers.

web 3.0
The emerging paradigm, still in its infancy, based on linking knowledge. Also called the semantic web, it is enables users to combine data from different sources in innovative ways to generate new meanings.

social software
On-line tools designed to enhance communication and collaboration. These include social networking sites, blogs, wikis and user-generated taxonomies or ‘folksonomies’

communities of practice
Social networks of individuals who share common interests, purposes, artifacts and practice and are a rich source of learning for members of the community. Social software has provided the tools to facilitate the development of on-line communities of practice made up of dispersed users.

digital identity

the aspect of digital technology that is concerned with the mediation of people’s experience of their own identity and the identity of other people and things.

e-portfolios
A purposeful collection of digital items representing ideas, evidence, reflections, feedback, etc, which presents a selected audience with evidence of a person’s learning and/or ability.

pedagogy
We have used this as an umbrella term to cover the processes and practices of teaching, the strategies, methodologies and techniques that are used and also their theoretical basis.

scaffolding

Scaffolding is a term to describe those activities which provide structure and support for e-learners and can include both technical tools and processes. Acquiring and deploying the knowledge and skills to scaffold learning is one way in which e-learning is changing the role of teachers and trainers..

dispositions
Disposition is used [about teachers and learners] to describe the tendencies of individuals to behave and react in a certain way and to take up particular positions. Teachers’ dispositions toward e-learning will be be made up of their attitudes towards technology, their habits as teachers and as technology users, their state of readiness, level of preparation and previous learning history. This will be manifested in the way that they use technology for learning and teaching and the diversity of dispositions needs to be reflected in the design and delivery of teacher training.

I’ve heard about xtranormal.com a few years ago and tried it out. I have to say that students enjoyed using it and watching some movies from the site. Mostly they enjoy using it because it’s easy to use and straightforward with the tools it gives you (animations, expressions, looks, sounds, etc.).

I enjoyed using it because it really gets the creativity of students working. It can bring them together while working on a project and it can teach them many important skills they definitely will need in their future jobs, such as teamwork or target-oriented interaction when working on a project.

Here are video tutorials on how to start using xtranormal.com and some tips on how to use it:

How to start

How to create

How to save

How to preview

Inside the classroom

• you could prepare a movie on the topic of your lesson and use it as a lead in.
• you could make a movie only by adding expressions or animations to it and let the students add the dialogues to the movie. They watch the movie created by you and discuss what the actors might say.
• if your class is equipped with at least one computer for a student, you can ask them to work together in groups or pairs and create a story, a dialogue focusing on different points, such as: small talk, turn taking, debates, agreeing and disagreeing, giving advice, etc.
• you can ask them to create dialogues for different books. If you give your students some books to read then ask them to retell the story of the book in the form of a movie with dialogues. Students will practise their summarizing skills in this activity.
• tell them to choose a famous historical conversation(you can look for some before the activity and give them some support by giving them some examples) and role play it with two actors in xtranormal. The conversation should give the public the feeling that it’s really similar to the original one (they could watch some on youtube before engaging into the activity)

Outside the classroom

• ask your students create a feedback movie on the lesson. They could give you feedback in the form of a conversation. They could try to predict what your reactions to their feedback would be and then give them feedback whether they got it right or not.
• you could ask them to create a movie on a certain topic you would like to discuss the next lesson. Let’s say you want to talk about ‘Generation gap’. Ask your students to use their creativity and create a movie based on the topic. Award them for the movie closest to the topic.
• ask them to work in groups and create a movie made up of at least 2 or 3 parts. You can extend this to a short TV Series with students giving them a title and subtitles to all of the episodes. They could create a TV Series based on their classmates and their weekly learning experience (they could create an episode every week or maybe twice a week).  This really strengthens their abilities to interact and to work in teams making decisions together for the project. In the end, after finishing the TV Series, they could share their experience with the others on how they managed to work together and how difficult or easy it was working in teams on a long-term project.

Graham and I have just got back to Germany after a meeting of the Politics project team in Cardiff. We were following Wednesday’s demonstrations against the proposed hike in university fees live on TV at Cardiff airport – both of us getting very excited and cheering a lot.

The occupation of the Conservative Party headquarters in London was an impressive piece of collective action so to all those involved in the organisation and to all those that turned up on the day, a message of support from Pontydysgu!

However, it did make me wonder how we ever used to do all this without mobile phones, computers or social networking media. Apart from using print media, I seem to remember a lot of organising time spent in public telephone boxes pressing button A and button B. In fact, one of my early ICT competences was learning how to tap the receiver rest up and down to mimic the operation of the dial in order to save the 4d (less than 2p) it cost.