UPDATE

Here are the podcast versions of our two live radio shows from the PLE-Conference in Barcelona. More details will follow.

Enjoy it!

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

What does Institutional Pragmatics mean? The theme of the day was how can projects produce sustainable change at an institutional level and wider. What are the drivers of change and what are the barriers? How can these barriers be overcome. Who are the people who are important in a change process. Doe change occur from the top down or the bottom up or does it involve both.

The morning break out session heard presentations by different projects of their work. I was particularly impressed with the Erewhon and STEEPLE projects, both, if my memory serves be right, based in Oxford. Erewhon is an investigation into the deployment of existing university computing resources to mobile platforms, coupled with the implementation of relevant location based services and access to the Oxford VLE. The vision for the Steeple project is to streamline enterprise level podcasting and support a viable community around scalable, enterprise-level solutions, in the areas of automated video/audio capture, processing and delivery. But these are only two of more than 50 projects being funded by the UK Jisc. Details of all the projects, including the project blogs and access to outputs, can be found on the Support, Synthesis and Benefits Realisation (don’t be put off by the name!) web site.

The afternoon was largely given over to exploring issues around change. I was particularly interested in the question of whether we should be seeking to change thinking or practice. Whilst there obviously is a link between them, and thinking is important, for me it is changing practice which determines the way we teach and learn. It was also encouraging to note the importance given to engagement with students as both drivers but also as agents of change.

Our main role in the conference was to broadcast an internet radio programme, Sounds of the Bazaar, linking the different sessions, held on the Elluminate platform. Although the programmes were mainly music and chat, we made a number of interviews, which we are publishing here as podcasts.

They are well worth listening too. Two of the interviews, with Leo Care  from the  WeCAMP project and Mike Neary from the Learning Landscapes project, are both concerned with linking the physical design of university buildings to infrastructures for technology enhanced learning and about how design can promote learning networks. Wecamp has developed a Web-based interactive campus visualisation modelling platform to effect participation and collaboration. A major benefit, they say, is the ability to visualize scenarios being considered, aiding the communication with senior management and informing the decision making process. The e-modelling platform is designed to enable the University of Sheffield (UoS) to acquire and preserve over time its own organizational memory and knowledge in effective planning and uses of future learning spaces.Learning Landscapes is a research project looking at the ways in which academics work with colleagues in Estates to develop and manage innovation in the design of teaching and learning spaces in Higher Education.

The third interview was with James Wisdom about a consultancy report he has produced for SEDA in the UK on the Higher Education Framework proposals, unveiled by UK Business Minister, Peter Mandelson last week. These proposals may have far reaching consequences for the future of higher education in the UK, and in the thinking, for universities elsewhere. Thanks to all of them for agreeing to come on the Sounds of the Bazaar programme.

Music Playlist of the show:

1. “Put The World On Stop” (Piano Version) by Sean Fournier
2. “WalkOnFlames” by Markus Schmitt
3. “Fusion” by Cool Cavemen
4. “Anything But You” by Fresh Body Shop
5. “Still Und Schön” by Tom Oswald
6. “L’Odore della Morte” by Talco
7. “When Will It End” by Erica Shine
8. “The Great Deceiver” by Dennis Logan
9. “These Days” by Robin Grey
10. “50’s Life” by The Wookies
11. “Miss is a sea fish” by Ehma
12. “My Misfit Ways” by Christophe Marc
13. “reggae and unity” by Jahmac
14. “Broken Stereo” (Acoustic Version) by Sean Fournier
15. “Pain” by LA OLLA EXPRESS
16. “The Symphony” by Chris Skinner
17. “Incoherent” by Josh Woodward
18. “Roots” by Galdson

I rather rashly promised to publish the products from the symposium. It has taken a little longer than I had hoped, but here they are. The slides and links to the full papers are included in the text, the audio recordings of the presentations can be accessed at the bottom of this page.

The first speaker was Ricardo Torres. His paper was entitled “Using Web 2.0 applications as supporting tools for Personal Learning Environments.”

The abstract is as follows:

” This paper shows the results of a pilot study based on a proposed framework for building Personal Learning Environments using Web 2.0 tools. A group of 33 students from a Business Administration program were introduced to Web 2.0 tools in the context of an Information Systems class, during the academic year 2008-2009, and reflected about this experience through essays and interviews. The responses show evidence of learning and acquiring skills, strengthening social interactions and improvement in the organization and management of content and learning resources.”

You can download his full post here.

The second presentation was was by Cristina Costa from the University of Salford. Her paper was entitled “Teachers professional development through Web 2.0 environments. 

Her abstract reads as follows:

“Teacher professional development is no longer synonymous with acquiring new teaching techniques, it is rather about starting new processes as to engage with new forms of learning, reflected in the practice of teaching. With easy access to the panoply of online communications tools, new opportunities for further development have been enabled. Learning within a wider community has not only become a possibility, but rather a reality accessible to a larger number of individuals interested in pursuing their learning path both in a personalised and networked way. The web provides the space for learning, but the learning environment is decidedly dependent on the interrelationships that are established amongst individuals. The effectiveness of the web is reflected in the unconventional opportunities it offers for people to emerge as knowledge producers rather than information collectors. Hence, it is not the tools that most matter to develop a learning environment where more personalized learning opportunities and collective intelligence prospers as the result of personal and collaborative effort. Although web tools provide the space for interaction, it is the enhancement of a meaningful learning atmosphere, resulting in a joint enterprise to learn and excel in their practice, which will transform a space for learning into an effective, interactive learning environment. The paper will examine learning and training experiences in informal web environments as the basis for an open discussion about professional development in web 2.0 environments.”

You can download her full paper here.

The third presentation was by Tobias Nelkner from the University of Paderborn. He talked about the development of a widget infrastructure to support Personal Learning Environments. Here is his abstract:

“Widget based mashups seem to be a proper approach to realise self-organisable Personal Learning Environments. In comparison to integrated and monolithic pieces of software developed for supporting certain workflows, widgets provide small sets of functionality. The results of one widget can hardly be used in other widgets for further processing. In order to overcome this gap and to provide an environment allowing easily developing PLEs with complex functionality, the based on the TenCompetence Widget Server [1], we developed a server that allows widgets to exchange data. This key functionality allows developers to create synergetic effects with other widgets without increasing the effort of developing widgets nor having to deal with web services or similar techniques. Looking for available data and events of other widgets, developing the own widget and uploading it to the server is an easy way publishing new widgets. With this approach, the knowledge worker is enabled to create a PLE with more sophisticated functionality by choosing the combination of widgets needed for the current task. This paper describes the Widget Server developed within the EU funded IP project Mature, which possibilities it provides and which consequences follow for widget developer.

You can download his full paper here.

The fourth was Maria Perifanou from the University of Athens. She talked of her experiences of using microblogging for language learning. the abstract reads:

‘Learning is an active process of constructing rather than acquiring knowledge and instruction is a process of supporting that construction rather than communicating knowledge’. Can this process of learning be fun for the learner? Successful learning involves a mixture of work and fun. One of the recent web 2.0 services that can offer great possibilities for learning is Microblogging. This kind of motivation can raise students’ natural curiosity and interest which promotes learning. Play can also promote excitement, enjoyment, and a relaxing atmosphere. As Vygotsky (1933) advocates, play creates a zone of proximal development (ZDP) in children. According to Vygotsky, the ZDP is the distance between one’s actual developmental level and one’s potential developmental level when interacting with someone and/or something in the social environment. Play can be highly influential in learning. What happens when play becomes informal learning supported by web 2.0 technologies? Practical ideas applied in an Italian foreign language classroom using microblogging to promote fun and informal learning showed that microblogging can enhance motivation.”

Maria’s full paper can be downloaded here.

The final speaker was Graham Attwell from Pontydysgu. He talked about the European Commission Mature-IP project which is developing a Personal Learning and Maturing Environment. His paper was jointly authored with John Cook and andrew Ravenscroft from the Metropolitan University of London. Here is the abstract:

“The development of Technology Enhanced Learning has been dominated by the education paradigm. However social software and new forms of knowledge development and collaborative meaning making are challenging such domination. Technology is increasingly being used to mediate the development of work process knowledge and these processes are leading to the evolution of rhizomatic forms of community based knowledge development. Technologies can support different forms of contextual knowledge development through Personal Learning Environments. The appropriation or shaping of technologies to develop Personal Learning Environments may be seen as an outcome of learning in itself. Mobile devices have the potential to support situated and context based learning, as exemplified in projects undertaken at London Metropolitan University. This work provides the basis for the development of a Work Orientated MoBile Learning Environment (WOMBLE).”

You can download the paper here.

Podcast music is ‘Miss is a sea fish’ by Ehma from the Jamendo web site.

German speaking colleagues might know the BR online artmix.gallery series entitled “Hoerspiel und Medienkunst” I recommended earlier on the blog’s side bar (and kept it there as I am a collector). However, BR online now is on call for contributions for the “Techno Fossil” competition of the artmix.gallery:

“Media of communication usually disappear behind of what they’re trying to express: music, sounds, pictures.
Only when they refuse working, the machine itself attracts attention. Distorted pictures, noisy sounds, diffuse and disparate signals testify to the independent existence of the old apparatus. For this reason the new competition was created.

Dictaphone, cassette recorder, tape recorder, super 8 camera, rotary dial telephone, polaroid, shellacs, vinyls, commodore 64, cell phone: anything the analogue and digital range of technical devices offers.

By using allegedly “dead media” – reactivated, manipulated, maltreated – there are many possibilities to produce new radio dramas and videos, to create new stories and compositions.”

Please see here for terms of entry

Web site: http://www.br-online.de/hoerspiel

via BR Hoerspiel und Medienkunst-Newsletter

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.

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.

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.

Yet reflection is not always an easy learning process. It may be particularly sterile when learners are told to go and reflect! Whilst it is possible to teach or practitioner the skills involved in reflection – active listening, questioning, commentating – reflection is difficult to undertake on demand.

Furthermore, the forms that we use to report on academic learning – essays and papers – may either not be particularly conducive to immediate reflection or may be far too time consuming – especially for work based learners.

Personally I see reflection as a conversation, with myself or with others. And that works best for me out of the office or at the end of the day. That is when I think on what I have done and what it might mean. I often sit in my local pub with my iPod Touch or just a back of an envelope and furiously scribble notes or more often somewhat chaotic mind maps. The fact that I often never look at the results (and sometimes cannot read them anyway) does not seem to matter – it is the process which counts.

This is where I think audio can come in. I have been greatly impressed with the Jisc funded Sounds Good project.  The main aim of Sounds Good was to test the hypothesis that using digital audio for feedback can benefit staff and students by:

• saving assessors’ time (speaking the feedback rather than writing it)

and

• providing richer feedback to students (speech is a richer medium than written text).

The project has in general been extremely successful. But if speech is a richer medium for staff providing feedback then why not for students reflecting on learning.

And the increasing availability of easy to use recording technologies utilising mobile devices makes this process simple. Anyway here is a short audio reflection on e-portfolios and data security and on using audio for reflection!

Here is an audio comment from our colleague Jenny Hughes “Reflections on Reflection”:

OK it looks a bit underdeveloped. A basic web site and recording limited to the iphone. But it is a great idea – a youtube for audio. And so we bought a microphone for the ipod touch, signed up for an account and away we went. Here is the first offering. You may be relieved to know audioboo only allows you to only record 3 minutes at a time.

Rob Ward is Director of the Centre for Recording Learning Achievement. He talks about progressions routes and e-Portfolios in this interview.

Sandra Winfield is project manager at the Centre for International e-Portfolio Development at Nottingham University. She talks about the use of e-Portfolios to support work based learners.

Tony Toole, from the University of Glamorgan, talks about the use of mobile technologies and social networking applications to support work based learners in Wales.

Alan Paull is a consulatant who has been working on the development and implementation of the XCRI standard for exchanging course information. Here he explains what the standard is and how it can be used

Now we are releasing the full version of the interviews as podcasts. There is some rich material here for anyone interested in the use of technology to support e-Portfolios, work based learning, mobile learning, the exchange of course information etc. This is the first of two posts – the second will contain the remaining interviews.

Bob Bell is Fe in HE coordinator for the Jisc Northern Regional Support Centre. In this interview he talks about work based learning.

Clive Church works for EdExcel. He is particularly interested in the development and use of e-Portfolios.

Derek Longhurst is Chief Executive of Foundation Degree Forward. In this interview he looks at the challenges changing forms of learning and knowledge development pose for universitie sand discusses future policy options.

Lucy Stone is project manager at Leicester College, where she is introducing mobile technologies to support work based learners.

Lucy Warman is developing a Jisc project designed to involve students in sharing experience at the University of Central Lancashire.

Thanks to all the interviewees for their time and ideas and to Dirk Stieglitz for post production work.The music is called Musiques en Principauté de Boisbelle and is composed and played by DaCapo. It can be found on the Creative Commons music web site Jamendo.

The music is by

The issues discussed include

• the use of mobile technologies and e-Portfolios to support learners.
• engaging with employers
• Project mainstreaming and sustainibility
• developing and supporting work based learning
• changing the culture of higher education
• funding models and policies

and much more.

Guest include Derek Longhurst from Foundation Degree Forward, Clive Church from Edexel, Lucy Stone from Leicester College, Tony Toole from the University of Glamorgan, Bob Bell, HE in FE consultant for the northern region, Sandra Winfield from Nottingham University and Rob Ward from the Centre for Recording Achievement

the show also features a live panel discussion with Oleg Liber from CETIS, Claire Newhouse from the Lifelong Learning Network national forum and Andrew Ravenscroft from London Metropolitan University.

This was a pilot programme and is a little different in style from our sometimes raucous Sounds of the Bazaar. We would particularly appreciate feedback. Is this the kind of programme Jisc should put out? What do you think about the format? Is the programme too long (or too short) and what would be the best time we could broadcast on? What about the music – too much, too little (or too classical ). Do you have ideas for future Jisc radio shows? You can leave comments below or I would especially appreciate it if you could leave any comments on the Jisc e-Learning blog which also provides a link to the podcast feed.

The music is called Musiques en Principauté de Boisbelle and is composed and played by DaCapo. It can be found on the Creative Commons music web site Jamendo.

The programme was produced by Dirk Stieglitz.

EduCamp 2009 in Ilmenau was cool. Great people, wonderful atmosphere and engaging discussions.  I will be posting soon on the vent and what I saw as the major issues emerging from it. enough now to say that it was an event for EduHackers.

And of course Sounds of the Bazaar was there with a live Saturday lunchtime show. I think it was the best of the live shows we have done. Despite English being a second language for most particpants, they were queuing up to come on the programme. But don’t take my word for it. Listen yourself to the podcast below.

NB Thanks to all the production crew – Helen Keegan, Cristina Costa, Dirk Stieglitz together with myself, Graham Attwell. Thanks to to all the kind people from educamp which made this show so much fun to produce.

The music is by Cool Cavemen from their albums Raw und All Cool Hits. Youcan find more great Creative Commons music on Jamendo.com.

The show was presented by Graham Attwell and Josie Fraser.

It features George Roberts talking about the development of the JISC Emerge community, about building sustainable communities of practice in general and about Open Space technologies.

George is followed by Mark Van Harmelen talking with Graham Attwell about Personal Learning Environments. Mark reflects on the stage of development of PLEs and whether or not it is possible to prescribe the use of an institutional PLE. He goes on to describe the so called Manchester PLE that he is developing with support from the Users and Innovation programme.

Nicola Whitton and Rosie Jones talk to Josie Fraser about the potential of Augmented Reality Games for enhanced learning based on their work for Jisc on the Argosi project.

And Bob Rotherham from the Sounds Good project talks about the use of audio and MP3 recordings for giving feedback to students on their work.

Many thanks to everyone who helped out with the programme, including Steven Warburton who hosted the chatroom, Joe Roso who acted as producer and Dirk Stieglitz for sorting out the technical set up.

Music is by the Drunk Souls from the On Verra Plus Tard album from the Craetive Commons supported Jamendo web site.

This is a Sounds Special – being broadcast live from the Jisc Next Generation Technologies in Practice conference in Loughbrough, UK. The programme will be co-presented by Graham Attwell and Josie Fraser and will feature live interviews with George Roberts on Open Space Technology, Mark van Harmelen on Personal Learning Environments, Nicola Whitton and Rosie Jones on the potential of Alternate Reality Games for enhancing teaching and Bob Rotheram on Supporting learning using audio feedback.

You can listen to Sounds of the Bazaar live by going to http://tinyurl.com/6df6ar in your browser. The url should open your MP3 player of choice. And if you would like to join in the fun, Steven Warburton will be in our chatroom at http://tinyurl.com/sounds08.

Just add your name – no password required

We hope you can join us tomorrow

In the second part of the show Vance Stevens talks about multiliteracies and Andreas Auwaerter, Doug Symington and Matt Montagne talk about EarthCast09, a 24 hour live radio show from around the globe to celebrate Earthday.

Cristina Costa hosted the chat room and collected the following links from the discussion:

Open Habitat
http://www.openhabitat.org/
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/usersandinnovation/habitat.aspx

Dave White’s blog: http://tallblog.conted.ox.ac.uk/index.php/author/whited/

MOOSE
http://www.le.ac.uk/beyonddistance/moose/
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/usersandinnovation/moose.aspx

ThoughtFest 2009
http://www.pontydysgu.org/thought-fest/

Multiliteracy EVO Session
http://goodbyegutenberg.pbwiki.com/Week5

Earthcasthon 2009
http://earthbridges.wikispaces.com/
email earthbridges community at earthbridges [at] gmail [dot] com if interested in participating in Earthcast09

You may want to continue the discussion about MUVES here:  http://tinyurl.com/akjte

The music for this show is from the french Rock-Reggae-Band Drunksouls. We feature their album On verra plus tard …. You can find this album and a lot more music on the great Creative Commons music site Jamendo.com.

Full programme listings to follow. Many thanks to all who helped on the programme especially our technical team, Joe and Dirk and Cristina who ran the chatroom.

Photos to follow.

On Monday we broke new ground with our Sounds of the Bazaar radio show. We produced a special issue of Emerging Sound of the Bazaar entitled ‘Into the Dragons Den’.  The programme was a fly on the wall special following the progress of a Dragons Den session organised by the Jisc Emerge project. What’s it all about? Emerge supports a range of projects funded by the Jisc Users and Innovation programme. The projects are mainly focused on developing social software for use in education. Part of the support process has been through a four stage development model. As part of that model, at different times during the project development, project developers get invited to a session where they are quizzed by ‘Dragons’ on the progress of their project.

The Dragons Den session featured on Sounds of the Bazaar podcast is the Preview project which is developing and piloting models for Problem Based Learning in Second Life. Maggie Savin-Baden represented the project. Paul Bailey and Chris Fowler were the dragons.

I’m not sure the Dragons roared. In fact, I think Maggie slayed the Dragons. But judge for yourself.

As always many thanks to all those who took part in the programme including our phone in guests. Production and music by Dirk Stieglitz. (NB – don’t be offput by the volume on the first minute – I got overexcited).