Pontydysgu is involved in a great project at the moment using internet radio. The project, called RadioActive101 and funded by the Nominet Trust,  stemmed from a series of discussions regarding using radio for disadvantaged young people in Hackney in London.

We explained the ideas in our paper for the PLE conference (Ravenscroft, A., Attwell, G., Blagbrough, D. & Stieglitz, D. (2011). RadioActive -„Jam Hot!‟: Personalised radio ciphers through augmented social media for the transformational learning of disadvantaged young people. Proceedings of Personal Learning Environments (PLE) 2011, 11-13 July, Southampton, UK.) :

The aim was to develop a Critical Pedagogical Framework that would “empower the students, together with the teachers, to challenge marginalizing social contexts, ideologies, events, organizations, experiences, texts, subject matter, policies and discourses.” (Williams, 2009). Important in this was the development of an identity that is consciously critical through learners acting as active agents who can take control of the construction of their own being.

We are currently using this cipher concept as a metaphor for designing digitally enabled ciphers within RadioActive. This is a hybrid internet-radio and social media platform to support the transformational learning of disadvantaged young people.

Critical to this is the appropriation of technologies as a form of expression of popular cultures and their use of technologies within those cultures to explore and develop a critical approach. This re-formulation of Freire‟s (1970) seminal notion of developing a critical pedagogical framework in his work on literacy is an attempt to develop new critical literacies through the use of new media.

Over the last nine months we have been working with two youth clubs, Yoh and Dragon Hall, in London and have produced some six or so trail programmes. Now we are working on developing a regular broadcasting schedule. In a future article I will write something about this work.

Since the start of this year, we have extended the project to Europe through an EU funded project, RadioActive Europe, with partners in Germany, Malta, Portugal and Romania. Each country is working with different groups to develop their own internet radio station. To set these up we are holding kick off workshops in each country, with the objective of broadcasting an initial programme. The first of the workshops will be in Germany this Saturday.

The   Mehrgenerationenhaus website explains the idea (as translated by Google)

With the project “Internet Radio by citizens for citizens,” the MGH treading new ground. For this, the multigenerational people still look all ages who wish to participate. The kick-off workshop will be held on Saturday the 27.04.2013 at 10.00 clock in the MGH. At 13.00 clock then the first webcast (Internet radio) goes live on the air. Then the group will meet regularly with the aim of Internet radio reports to send to local issues. Accompanied and guided professionally in the long term, the project of Andreas Auwärter, Radioactive Europe, Knowledge Media Research at the University of Koblenz-Landau, an official partner of the multi-generational house.

Even programs designed to prepare first of all a lot of fun and is also very easy. The audio format offers a variety of design options, from interviews with experts on property reports and coverage to small acoustic scene games are open to all possibilities. And last but not least Radio is an interplay between mental cinema and stories. Make radio works best in a team. From this we learn not only methods to acquire and evaluate information, but also how to structure them, and presents. But the biggest compliment is to be dialogue with the listeners, who certainly can not wait too long.

There are many ways to contribute its skills do not end automatically at the microphone. A radio needs editors, interview Preparer, appointment coordinators, people with ideas and imagination, writers, presenters, audio designer and much more. Of course, this modern media are actively used all the people to give a voice to the spot. With years of experience of the group Radio Active Europe partners each participant has the opportunity according to their own prior knowledge to learn everything necessary at their own pace.

Radioactive Europe is a two-year research project under the Lifelong Learning Programme of the European Union, and especially the older generation would like to introduce them to modern information and Communication. Radioactive Europe has set itself the goal to actively use this medium to give people a voice. It particularly interested in those who are otherwise little heard.
Information and registration at MGH 02631 Neuwied call 344,596.

Follow us on Twitter or visit us on Facebook.

For more information, see http://de.radioactive101.eu

I have recently had a series of conversations with Cristina Costa on ideas around digital scholarship (we might even publish something together on this in the future!). And by luck I found this interesting presentation by Cristobal Cobo Romaní. The presnetation is based on a paper he has written. Cristobal says on his blog: “Widespread access to digital technologies has enabled digital scholars to access, create, share, and disseminate academic contents in innovative and diversified ways. Today academic teams in different places can collaborate in virtual environments by conducting scholarly work on the Internet. Two relevant dimensions that have been deeply affected by the emergence of digital scholarship are new facets of knowledge generation (wikis, e-science, online education, distributed R&D, open innovation, open science, peer-based production, online encyclopedias, user generated content) and new models of knowledge circulation and distribution (e-journals, open repositories, open licenses, academic podcasting initiatives, etc.).:

I was in New York last Friday presenting at a panels session at the Mobility Shifts Conference on In, Against and beyond the Institution. The panel was chaired by Mike Neary and comprised of myself, Josie Fraser, Richard Hall and Joss Winn. Somewhat surprisingly to me some 15 people turned up despite it being scheduled at se4ven o’clock on a Friday evening.

Joss presented the  Student as Producer project which re-imagines students role in the design, development, and critique of the curriculum. The process of teaching learning is decoupled from traditional power relationships so students become an integral part of the governance of an institution rather than solely its customer (there is a paper available on this written by Joss together with Mike Neary.

Richard considered how students and teachers might dissolve the symbolic power of the University into the actual, existing reality of protest, in order to engage with a process of transformation (for more see his blog).

Josie talked about the transformative aspects of digital literacy. And I looked at changing pedagogies in work based learning and developmental competence – the capacity of the individual to acquire and demonstrate the capacity to act on a task and the wider work environment in order to adapt, act and shape (design) it.

All good stuff. I found some of the ideas hard – and we certainly did not reach any conclusions. But the very fact that we are having such discussions – and the renewed interest in critical pedagogy – is testimony both of the crisis which pervades our univeristies and the growing opposition and questioning of the purpose and organisation of education including the role of researchers and teachers. To that extent I think the title – In, Against and Beyond – is helpful in linking the attempts to transform practices and roles within universities to growing protest movements outside the institutions – including the many initiatives – particularly in the UK – to explore alternative structures to the established universities.

More on this when I am less tired. in the meantime Doug Belshaw has written a  series of excellent blogs talking about some of the many wide ranging discussions which took place at Mobility Shifts.

The proliferation of new technologies and internet tools is fundamentally changing the way we live and work. The lifelong learning sector is no exception with technology having a major impact on teaching and learning. This in turn is affecting the skills needs of the learning delivery workforce.

Last September, together with Jenny Hughes I undertook a literature review on new pedagogical approaches to the use of technologies for teaching and learning. You can access the full (86 pages) document below.

The research was commissioned by LLUK to feed into the review then being undertaken of teaching qualifications in the Lifelong Learning sector in the UK. The review was designed to ensure the qualifications are up to date and will support the development of the skills needed by the modern teacher, tutor or trainer.

However, we recognised that the gap in technology related skills required by teaching and learning professionals cannot be bridged by qualifications alone or by initial training and a programme of opportunities for continuing professional development (CPD) is also needed to enable people to remain up to date.

The literature review is intended to

• identify new and emerging pedagogies;
• determine what constitutes effective use of technology in teaching and learning
• look at new developments in teacher training qualifications to ensure that they are at the cutting edge of learning theory and classroom practice
• make suggestions as to how teachers can continually update their skills.

Pedagogical Appraches for Using Technology Literature Review January 11 FINAL 1

The explosion of powerful, innovative and free to use social software has transformed the potential approaches to using technology for teaching and learning. Long gone are the days when e-learning meant logging on to a Blackboard system. However, this reliance on commercial providers, for many of whom education is not a major part of their business plan, has its downside.

Data security is obviously an issue, although I suspect most commercial providers systems are more secure than the average school or university. More seriously services may cease to be provided for free, overrun by intrusive advertising, or even cease operating. At some point or other, all companies, even Twitter will be looking to generate revenue. In Twitters case this seems to be through the introduction of new features like email notification that many of us do not want, to probably provide a new outlet for advertising.

What is the answer? Providing such services in-house seems a tall order, although some universities, see SAPO Campus, are attempting to develop social software as part of an approach to Personal Learning Environments. The problem here though is that many social software services depend on scale to provide real traction as a learning tool. Furthermore, it is doubtful as to whether institutions can continue to provide access and services, long after students have finished a course.

For some time we have been talking about the importance of learners being able to manage their own digital identity. Perhaps it is time this idea was extended to students learning how to steward their content, be it micro blogs, photos, video or other online content. The growing availability of cheap cloud based storage may make this task easier. But there may be a pedagogic gain to be made from looking more carefully at stewarding. Stewarding would involve thinking about what is important and what is not, and the interlinking between different aspects of online activity and artefacts. In other words it would involve reflection. And reflection on learning, whilst almost universally advocated as a learning strategy, has been far less easy to foster in practice.

I love this video by Howard Rheingold. Not only for the content which is fascinating. But also becuase of the use of video. I am very disappointed in the big push for recording lectures. Lectures have their place in teaching and learning, but the format does not lend itself well to video. This is a ‘made for video’ project by Howard – more work but much more effective. And it doesn’t need a high-tech studio set up.

Howard says: “I’ve become convinced that understanding how networks work is an essential 21st century literacy. This is the first in a series of short videos about how the structure and dynamics of networks influences political freedom, economic wealth creation, and participation in the creation of culture. The first video introduces the importance of understanding networks and explains how the underlying technical architecture of the Internet specifically supports the freedom of network users to innovate.”

I am looking forward to the next videos in the series.

I’ve been quiet on the blog lately. The last two days I have been rushing to finish a long – and behind schedule – report on pedagogic approaches to the use of technology for teaching and learning and the initial traini9ng and continuing professional development of teachers and trainers. And all last week I was in Blankenberge in Belgium, where together with jenny Hughes I taught on a course on the use of social software in the classroom.

The group on the course were great and I enjoyed myself greatly. More on that in a  later post. Thursday last week was Radio Day. I am more and more convinced of the use of internet radio for teaching and learning. Internet radio involves so many different skills and competences – from technical skills to interviewing, from researching to presentation, from planning competences to multi media skills. And above all it requires team work. We presented the day as a sort of role play. We were role playing researching, planning and broadcasting a 40 minute radio programme. Only we were doing it – for real. Producing a radio programme is authentic learning and is fun.

In the morning we split into three groups. The radio- heads went off with me where we started planning the programme, allocated different roles – floor manager, producer, anchor people, music producer, audio techy etc. We set up and tested the equipment and liaised with the other two groups who were developing content. One group was exploring the ideas around digital literacies, the other about digital identities. Each agreed to come up with 10 minutes worth of programme as a result of their workshops.

As the day went on the tension increased. Would we get it all together, would the programme really go out. The last hour before the broadcast was mad. And at 1600, right on queue Sounds of the Bazaar – Live from Blankenberge went on air. People were nervous but I think you will agree they all seemed to enjoy themselves. And afterwards we discussed how participants could use internet radio in their own teaching and learning.

Give it a listen. If you are interested in us running a  workshop or if you would like to give internet radio a go get in touch. Its great for pedagogy, its fun and it isn’t so expensive or difficult as you think.

In the meantime thanks to all of you who produced the show – too many to name. Thanks too to Audrey’s son whose music we played. If someone can remind me of the name of the band and the url we will give it a plug on this blog.

Sounds of the Bazaar Live from Blankenberge [ 44:49 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (665)

I am writing a report on new pedagogic approaches to the use of technology for teaching and learning. In particular I am looking at three key issues:

The report is divided into a number of different sections. And at the end of each section I am attempting to identify a series of ‘highlighted issues’ requiring more attention, thinking or action. I will publish the entire report when it is finished. But in a short series of posts this week, I will publish the highlighted issues in the hope of gaining feedback from the wider community.

The first section deals with how young people (and teachers) are using technology for teaching and learning. It also looks at new and extended definitions of digital literacy.

Here are the issues I have identified as coming out of that section:

Should learners or schools determine the adoption of particular technologies for teaching and learning?

There has been concern expressed that educational institutions are failing to meet the expectations and practices of learners in their use of technology for teaching and learning. Equally, some research has pointed to the requirement to use technologies and forms of communication and expression that may lay outside learners’ everyday practice and experience. To what extent should educational practice change to adopt to the expectations and practice of learners in terms of technology? And to what extent is it appropriate for educational institutions to recommend or make compulsory the use of particular technologies.

The changing contexts of learning and the social context of literacies.

Research evidence suggests that computers and mobile devices are being used for information seeking, communication and knowledge acquisition in different domains and contexts, including in the home, in the community and in work. How should educational institutions react to these different contexts for learning and how can informal learning and learning outside the institution be linked to educational programmes and courses?

Learners’ experience

Instead of a digital divide based on generation, research suggests a far more complex picture, with wide variations in skills, interest and practice in the uses of technology even by younger people. Access to technology and to Internet connectivity would also appear to remain a critical issue. How can educational institutions and teachers manage these different levels of expectation and experience and at the same time ensure a minimum level of digital literacy for all learners.

Managing myths

The continuing dissemination of myths and moral panics around the adoption and use of practice around new technologies is disturbing? How can we ensure teachers (and teacher trainers and managers) have access to timely and accurate research around these issues?

Digital literacies for teachers

Research is leading to wider ideas of digital literacy. How can we ensure that teachers themselves are digitally literate and that Initial Teacher Training and Continuing Professional Development is based on these ideas, rather than the older and more restricted digital skills agenda?