Pontydysgu – Bridge to Learning

I have been watching quite a few of the TED talks lately, having participated in the TEDxKids event ten days ago in Brussels as a guest reporter on Twitter. And I am struck by the vast and seemingly goring gulf in the discourse between those advocating the imaginative use of computers and mobile devices for learning and the official discourses of education administrations. Whilst TED speakers promote creativity, the need to make mistakes, active making and learning, the use of games and collaborative approaches to learning, official discourses, at least in England and it seems in many other countries too, talk of outcomes and testing, curriculum, of behaviour and discipline and so on.

It is hard to see how these different discourses can be resolved.It is also sometimes hard to see the spaces in the official education systems for the creative spaces for experimenting that are needed if we are to introduce new pedagogic approaches to teaching and learning.

Politicians don’t really get the internet. And governments fear the freedom of expression teh internet provides. Last week President Sarkozy of France joined those calling for the internet to be subjected to governmental regulation, however that could be done. already France has joined other European countries in imposing ever more draconian laws against file sharers to try to uphold copyright laws propping up long business models and forms of production.

But whilst they continue to pursue file sharers, governments seem to turn a blind eye to the one thing they could do to help develop creativity on the internet – BAN SPAMMERS. According to Wikipedia, Cisco reported in 2009 that 7.7 trillion spam messages originated from Brazil and 6.6 trillion from the USA. Surely these countries could so more to stop such misuse of the web. Not only does it waste an incredible amount of bandwidth but forces us to waste valuable time setting up filters and anti spam blockers, rather than being able to promote richer conversations and interactio0ns.

Our spam protection works pretty well on the Pontydysgu site, every day filtering out spam messages which are manually posted (robots are automatically blocked). But this weekend we were deluged by spammers registering accounts, forcing us to temporarily suspend new account registration. We will find a way to block the spammers out and reopen registration for those genuinely wanting to contribute but once more we are being forced to waste ti9me and effort on things we would rather not be doing.

The UK press has becoem obsessed with the issue of press freedom and super injunctions. the so called super injunctions not only legally ban the press from reporting about a particular person or issue, but also ban them from stating that such an injuction exists. But such draconian legal measures have become somewhat ineffective in the face of social network services like twitter which do not recognise UK borders or to that matter injunctions.

However the debate is confused, not least because of the UK press obsession with chatter about the private lives of celebreties. Ordinary people have no access to legal redress to ban press reports. And the real issue is not so much privacy but our abilities and rights to control our own digital identities. And that debate will not go away.

timbuckteeth (aka Steve Wheeler) provoked another round of the Digital Natives debate on Twitter this morning. It does seem bizarre how prevalent the digital natives myth continues to be. Prensky counterposed young people growing up in the so called Digital Age to older people who he saw an Digital Immigrants and postulated different behavior by the groups. Digital natives, said Prensky “are used to receiving information really fast.  They like to parallel process and multi-task.  They prefer their graphics before their text rather than the opposite. They prefer random access (like hypertext). They function best when networked.  They thrive on instant gratification and frequent rewards.  They prefer games to “serious” work.”

Yet there is no serious research to support Prensky’s ideas. indeed most research refutes such different behavior based on age. Instead we find people of all ages embracing digital technologies and people of all ages who are less confident in their use. Equally some people thrive on instant gratification and frequent rewards, some do not. But once more this is not age related.

How has the Digital Natives myth become so prevalent. it may be because what Prensky offered was an instant soundbite for journalists eager to reflect on the impact of technology on society. It may be due to the slowness of sociologists in understanding the profound changes in our society as a result of what could be seen as a technological revolution. And it may be that in a period of rapid socio0-technical change people want a simple answer. In any case the idea of digital natives and digital immigrants is not the answer and is not helpful in debating much needed pedagogical and institutional change in our education systems.

Today, I greatly enjoyed watching the video and listening to the internet radio commentary of a village cricket match from Wray, a small village in Lancashire in the UK. The hashtag #Twicket trended on Twitter.

Wray was chosen because it has fast up and down connectivity to the internet. The event was truly absorbing, even though the quality of the cricket could have been better!

Organiser John Popham explained: “The serious side is to demonstrate that it can be done, it IS possible to live broadcast events like this using relatively cheap equipment and a good internet connection. It will also demonstrate the importance of good internet connectivity in rural areas, and the need for fast UPLOAD connections if we are to realise the aspiration to use the internet to enable more people to produce their own content.”

The event certainly showed that. And it provided a glimpse into the future, where we are freed from the domination of big business entertainment providers. It was especially heartening to see so many on the Twitter feed asking can we do this? Congratulations to all involved.

It is not often I write about hardware. There are quite enough web sites for that already. But, I am greatly saddened to read of the demise of the Flip camera. I have three of these excellent cameras and regularly use them in workshops and events. They are lightweight and robust. But most importantly they are extremely easy to use. I can teach someone who has never used a video camera before how to use a Flip and download the content in about 3 minutes. And that frees them up to think about the content and pedagogy, rather than worrying about their technical proficiency.

So why has Cisco decided to stop manufacturing the Flip. It is profitable, albeit with a falling volume of sales. The answer it seems is that with the rising use of mobile phones for filming and uploading video content, Cisco do not see a long term future for the Flip.

Last week I wrote in the editorial how I saw no future for dedicated educati0nal technology. But perhaps I was wrong. Even if mobiles do have advanced video capacity, for teaching and learning they are no competitors to the Flip. Biut it seems the educational market is too small and insignificant for manufacturers such as Cisco.

In a reply to my post last week on Donald Clark’s article about ePortfolios Ben Werdmuller said “From reflection, to privacy, to institutional feedback and portability, these are all things that the wider web is working on, and it makes no sense at all for the elearning sector to be tackling them on their own – except for the worst kind of closed business motivations.” And I think he is right.

For some time now I have been questioning the idea of educational technology – of technology development specifically focused on education. That is not to say there is no place for research on the use of technology for learning – nor of implementation of insubstantiations of technology specifically in a learning context. But the educational technology community can only be the poorer for developing ideas and applications based on use cases posited in a silo – outside of the rest of the world.

Indeed, I would suggest that the reason this came about was because of a focus on control and management of learning – and thus on replicating and reinforcing institutional practices, rather than supporting the learning process itself. Whilst institutional practice may be quite particular and confined to the educational sector, learning processes take place throughout society. If we start designing for learning, their is nothing in the use cases of those designs which separates them from the home or from work or the wider community.

And if we take our main focus as design for learning, then we have a far greater chance of developing technologies which can transform learning, rather than reinforcing the class and technology divides which inhibit access to education.

All software is a beta. And we are forever messing with the structure of the Pontydysgu web site. So here is a new innovation. We are going to use the front page right hand column for short news items and announcements (please feel free to send in anything you would like to be posted there). And that frees up this news column. For what? For an editorial column, I think. Or an excuse for a rant.

And here goes rant number one. I am ever more dismayed by projects claiming to use technology to measure competence. Why? Because firstly I think we should be using software to develop imagination, to let people play, to encourage creativity, not restricting the idea of what is or is not legitimate learning or achievement. And secondly simply because I don’t think we can measure competence through software. Inevitably such attempts become just lists of tasks or formal knowledge which can be ticked off – with or without the help of evidencing. Such check box lists tell little of what people can really do and next to nothing about their ability to use skills and knowledge in real world situations. It was that approach which led to the near demise of the first wave of e-Portfolio development. And it is time we learned from that lesson.

Here endeth the first rant

What a rush. The Bremen Mobile Learning Conference is starting in two hours time with a social event. And with over 100 people attending it promises to be a lot of fun. If you can’t attend don’t worry. Some of the sessions are being stream – follow the #MLCB conference tag for details.

And we are broadcasting two internet radio shows from Sounds of the Bazaar live from the conference. With features, guests and interviews we aim to bring you the best of the conference. The radio shows go out at 1300 – 1335 Central European Time (1200 – 1235 UK time) on Monday 20 March and Tuesday 21 March. To listen in just point your internet browser to http://radio.jiscemerge.org.uk:80/Emerge.m3u and the stream will open in your MP3 player of choice (e.g. iTunes). looking forward to you being there.

Every day I receive emails notifying me about call for papers for different conferences and events. It is difficult to know what to support, let alone what events to attend. But here are two events which Pontydysgu is supporting over the next few months.
The first, Mobile Learning: Crossing boundaries in convergent environments’ takes place in Bremen in Germany on March 21 and 22. The conference is focused on the challenges of developing new pedagogic approaches and on the potential of mobile devices for learning in formal and informal contexts.
The conference, organised by a consortium including Pontydysgu has a great line up of speakers and workshops. It costs only 50 Euro including lunch and there are still places available. For more details and to register see the conference website.
The second is PLE2011 taking place at the University of Southampton. UK, from July 11th ¬ to 13th 2011. The PLE Conference is intended to produce a space for researchers and practitioners to exchange ideas, experience and research around the development and implementation of PLEs – including the design of environments and the sociological and educational issues that they raise. The deadline for proposals is March 26th, 2011. Full details from the conference website.
The final conference in this news round, courtesy of Sigi Jacob via Skype, is the German moodlemoot conference being held in Elmshorn from 14-15 April, 2011. Happy to see Steve wheeler is keynoting at this event. Full details from the moodlemoot website.