Clippings

Mobile phones and learning

May 31st, 2011 by Graham Attwell
A good blog post from FurtureLab, providing practical examples of how mobile phones can be used for learning.
clipped from www.futurelab.org.uk

The traditional approach – mobile phones are a distraction, kids will mess around with them and therefore they should be banned – is the wrong starting point. It is ironic that for years schools have spent heavily getting more computers into classrooms and yet when their students come into schools with their own powerful handheld computers, which are cheaper and more portable than laptops, they are immediately instructed to turn them off. 

A more fruitful approach would be to enquire in what ways might the use of mobile phones support and strengthen the curriculum and develop 21st century skills in learners. What if our starting point was to reconceptualise them as anytime, anywhere data collection, content creation and learning tools?
  blog it

Problem Based Learning and microblogging

May 27th, 2011 by Graham Attwell
This is a great blog post, focusing not on the technological wonders of edmodo, but providing practical help in how to pedagogically develop Problem Based Learning using the microblogging tool.
Bianca put forward five reasons why PBL plus edmodo is awesome:
1. PBL is about collaboration
2. PBL is about formative and summative assessment
3. PBL is about creating products and conducting investigations as a team
4. PBL is about real-world audiences
5. PBL is about planning for success and reflecting on learning
clipped from blog.edmodo.com
PBL is hard because it requires quite a lot of planning as well as quite a lot of guts – you need to have faith in yourself as an educator and faith that your students will ‘go with’ your radicalised view of teaching and learning. Getting your students to work in small groups to complete a project that will be shared with a real-world audience is pretty daunting. But it is made so much easier, and made so much better, thanks to edmodo.
  blog it

How Open Data, data literacy and Linked Data will revolutionise higher education

May 25th, 2011 by Graham Attwell
This paper is an excellent introduction to the potentially transformation role of Open and Linked Data in education and research. Derek McAuley, Hanif Rahemtulla, James Goulding and Catherine Souch point to the importance of data literacy – defined as “the ability to identify, retrieve, evaluate and use information to both ask and answer meaningful questions.
They quote Meltzoff et al.who reported that “insights from many different fields are converging to create a new science of learning that may transform education practice.”
Linked data, they believe, will be central to such a transformation.
However they point to many challenges that have to be overcome citing Bechhofer who argues that we must bring our attention to bear on publishing requirements such as data provenance, quality and attribution.
clipped from pearsonblueskies.com

Linked Data, which uses familiar web-based URL addresses to provide links between Open Data sources, allows higher education to benefit from a ‘network effect’ as educational data is liberated from its traditional silos. Richer interconnected information environments will produce richer learning environments and a host of new opportunities: simplifying resource discovery and promoting personal exploration of material; supporting integration of distributed discourse while encouraging referencing skills; enhancing construction of both personal and group knowledge while promoting self-actuated learning; facilitating better argumentation and critical thinking skills through advanced reasoning over large volumes of resources; and because Linked Data represents a powerful tool for independent learning, it does all this with the added benefit of further disintermediating educators.

  blog it

Social and informal learning in the workplace

May 24th, 2011 by Graham Attwell
Useful article by jane Hart looking at the recent NIACE paper on workplace learning and summarising her won and her colleagues in the Internet Times Alliance’s work on informal and social learning in the workplace
clipped from c4lpt.co.uk

The NIACE paper starts by stating that “Learning is a troublesome
term”
and highlights the two extremes of our understanding of the term
“learning ” – from the “formalised, classroom-based activity in which
students/trainees interact  with a teacher or trainer
” to its use to
mean the “accidental and incidental nature of learning as part of 
everyday human activity
” – which the authors believe   “partly explains why many people, including
employers and policymakers,  find it hard to acknowledge that
meaningful learning can take place outside the  classroom”.

  blog it

The Post-PC era and informal learning

May 18th, 2011 by Graham Attwell
This report looks to the future of computers. I am particularly interested in the suggested movement from the formal to informal. This is going to have considerable significance for learning…..
clipped from www.guardian.co.uk
In a new Forrester report “What The Post-PC Era Really Means”, Rotman suggests that our computing experience is going to change dramatically: today smartphones and tablets, but in the future “wearables, accessories and surfaces”.
Using computers, she suggests, is moving from formal to informal, from “arms-length to intimate”, and from “abstracted” (via a mouse) to physical, via touch. It’s also becoming ubiquitous and casual – snatched in spare moments rather than requiring you to sit down.
What’s driving this? Social networking, the erosion of work-life boundaries, and the fact that we’re trying to do computing-related tasks in more places (eg when shopping).
That will also be enhanced by natural user interfaces (touch being only the start: what about facial recognition, perhaps even expression recognition?) and flexible displays.
blog it

Class the major detrminant of career apsirations

May 18th, 2011 by Graham Attwell
Yet another report confirming that social class is the major determinant for young people in career aspirations.
clipped from www.personneltoday.com

The “Broke, not Broken” report found that 26% of those from deprived homes believe that “few” or “none” of their career goals are achievable, compared to just 7% of those from affluent families.

According to the report, based on interviews with 2,311 16-to-24-year-olds from across the UK, young people growing up in poverty are significantly less likely to imagine themselves buying a nice house or finding a job in the future, highlighting a clear aspiration gap between the UK’s richest and poorest youths.

The poorest young people are almost four times as likely to think they will “end up in a dead-end job”. Sixteen per cent say that their family and friends have made fun of them when they talk about finding a good job.

  blog it

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