Pontydysgu - Bridge to Learning Pontydysgu.org

Its been a tiring last six days. First to Karlsruhe for the launch of the Mature research project and then on to Pesaro to teach on the last day of the five day course on materials production for open and distance learning. There were some 15 students from all over Europe. It was hard work but great fun. I did an initial session on Personal Learning Environments (more on that on this blog later) and then a session on podcasting. I got four groups to each storyboard a session and then each group recorded their session live on stage in front of the whole class.

The technology was a bit dubious - it was what I could set up from my bag in five minutes - but the participants were enthusiastic - despite it being a sunny Saturday afternoon, creative and very funny.

I have promised to publish their work. This is a very rough cut - I did it last night when I got home. The sound levels are all over the place and the editing is minimal but I think it shows the potential of using podcasting for creating and creativity. You are all invited to listen - however some of the humour is very much in-group. Sadly there was no time to run a session on editing but we are adding that to the wiki that Critsina and I have created for supporting our teaching and learning sessions.

Thanks to Elmo for organising the Pesaro course and to all the students for their willingness to play.

 

 Open and Distance Learning course - the podcast [15:38m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (256)

The first of the new series of Sounds of the Bazaar. In this new series we will be experimenting with our programme formats. We will be publishing a series of short podcasts around particular issues in learning and technology. And we will be podcasting as series of podcasts focused on practice. What makes some programmes so compelling and some so dull. Is it down to the technology? Is it a matter of following an instructional design manual? Is it the skills and personality of the teacher? How can social software and web 2.0 be used for learning.The first of the series features a dialogue with Helen Keegan (you can see her official profile here). Helen is a researcher and lecturer at Salford University in Manchester, UK. She has just designed and delivered a new module in advanced multimedia for audio and video students in their final year course at the University. And it certainly seems to have got that wow factor. What is Helen’s secret:

• contextualisation
• authenticity
• situatedness
• motivation
• identification

We are going to produce a series of case study support materials around this podcast. Watch this blog for more details. As ever thanks to Dirk Stieglitz for his sterling work on the audio. The interview with Helen was recorded in a hotel in Halle and was not the easiest file to work with. Again we found the music for this volume on the great site Jamendo. This time we featuring the artist Antony Raijekov with his album Jazz U. Thanks to all those musicians who release their music under a Creative Commons license.

 

 Sounds of the Bazaar 18 [31:06m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (311)

A quick post from the Online Educa conference in Berlin.

The experiment working with students from Koblenz producing podcasts from the conference is great fun - will report more on it later.

And yesterday I did a stand in key note presentation - Web 2.0, Social Software and Personal Learning Environments. A copy of that will also appear here soon.

And of course we are getting those podcasts out. Here is Sounds of the Bazaar 17 - a special edition on podcasting in education. This is a link to the full edition - if you want to access the individual items in the programme head over to the Bazaar site and listen there.

 

 Sounds of the Bazaar 17 ) - podcasting special: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (137)

It is already time for another edition of Sounds of the Bazaar.

This issue features a round table discussion with Jaan Netzow, from IBM Germany, Gareth Greenwood, IBM UK, and Bert de Coutere, IBM Belgium. All are involved in one way or another with the development, sales and support of software for collaboration - particularly in the workplace. Can IBM applications replace Facebook as a ‘managed social network?’ Should managers have the right to change employees’ personal profiles. All this and more in this round table.

The Sound of the Bazaar interview is with Rebecca Stromeyer. Rebecca has been involved with organising Online Educa Berlin since the start - in 1994. In the interview she tells of the origins of the conference and talks about what she enjoys about it all.

Website of the Month features the European Collaboration for Innovation project. And - this is a little embarassing - just at the moment we don’t have the url for the project to hand. But if you do want the url please visit us again when we have updated this page.

As ever thanks to Dirk Stieglitz - from stray hints in emails I gather that I made a mess of recording this issue and he had a bit of a technical struggle. And thanks to Beate Kleessen from ICWE for help in planning SoB this autumn and to Agnes Breitkopf from IBM for setting up the round table

 

 Listen to the full edition [43:17m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (263)

 

 Introduction to the show - Graham Attwell [1:38m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (138)

 

 e-Collaboration - an IBM Round Table [16:05m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (143)

 

 Web Site of the Month [7:13m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (135)

 

 Online Educa - the past and the future with Rebecca Stromeyer [12:04m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (140)

 

 Extro to the programme - Graham Attwell [2:11m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (140)

Not quite sure if it is 16 or 17 - and no time to post it here now. But if you can’t wait for the next edition of Sounds of the Bazaar head over to the Bazaar web site - and listen to the latest edition of our podcasting goodness.

This edition of Sounds of the Bazaar came out a couple of weeks ago. But it was just before we launched this web site. So I am republishing it now, for those of you who may have missed the original on the Bazaar site.  And, don’t forget, Sounds of Bazaar can also be obtained from the iTunes store.

Welcome to the second of our special series of autumn shows. This series is being produced in conjunction with Online Educa Berlin. Each edition we feature some of the themes and speakers form this years Online Educa conference, being held at the end of November in Berlin.

In this show we feature two contributors to Educa. Ruth Rominger is Director of Learning Design at Monterey Institute. Ruth talks to us about the development of Open Educational resources, social authoring, sustainability models and much more.

Steve Wheeler will also be at Online Educa. He is part of a panel looking at the potential of Multi User Virtual Environments, including Second Life, for learning. In the interview Steve talks about the development of a project on sexual health in Second Life.

Web site of the month is “not School, not Home , but Schome.”

We present the second part of our interview with Stephen Downes.

And I talk about the forthcoming Bazaar conference.

The musical mix which holds it all together is the work of Dirk Stieglitz. As a good tradition the music comes again from the great music site Jamendo.com and is published under a Creative Commons licences. In this volume you listen to the band Killing Jazz and their album “2nd Round“.

We hope you will enjoy the show.

 

 Listen to the full edition - including the music!: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (141)

 

 Introduction by Graham Attwell: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (95)

 

 The Bazaar Conference: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (101)

 

 MUVEs and Second Life - Steve Wheeler: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (107)

 

 Open Educational Resources - Ruth Rominger : Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (102)

 

 Interview with Stephen Downes: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (107)

 

 Web Site of the Month: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (104)

 

 Extro to the programme - Graham Attwell: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (103)

Here is the November 2006 edition of Sounds of the Bazaar.

I have spent quite a lot of time trying to improve the quality - better editing and better leads in and out of items. I hope you like it - I think this is the best issue so far.

I’m going to aim at a monthly schedule for the next few months and work on the quality - I want Sounds of the Bazaar to be the leading podcast in education.

Anyway in this months issue -

Graham Attwell (that’s me) in the first of a three part special series on Personal Learning Environments. In this part - entitled ‘The Industrial Revolution and teh Challenge to Education I argue that education systems and institutions are in danger fo becoming irrelevant through ignoring the changing ways in which young people are using technology for communication and knowledge sharing. Addtionally, the present curriculum organisation is looking incraesingly outdated. PLEs offer a new way to organise education but it will require profound reforms both to systems and institutions.

The Sounds of the Bazaar interview is with Ellen and Lydia - two young school students from the UK. They are pretty disappointed with the use of technology in school. They see the main factor in the digital divide as to whether or not kids have parents who can help them with computers.

Web Site of the Week - features the newly launched ELGG Spaces site which is offering free access to the ELGG social software for groups of up to 50 users.

December sees the third of the annual EduBlog awards. I talk to Josie Fraser about the awards and how you can participate

Listen to the whole programme [33:45m]:

Introduction to this months programme [1:58m]:

Graham Attwell on ‘The Industrial Revolution and the Challenge to Education‘ [8:08m]:

Interview with Ellen and Lydia - two UK based school students [7:14m]:

Web Site of the Week - ELGG Spaces [3:16m]:

Josie Fraser on this years Edu-Blog Awards [8:46m]:

End chat from this months programme [1:26m]: |