Photos
October 30th, 2007I didn’t realise that this page was blank. But coming soon – a very fine set of photos taken by Jenny Hughes in Afganistan. I think you’re going to like then. So please come back soon.
Introduction
Photos
Learning Mindmaps
March 31st, 2010 by Graham Attwell
As some of you may have seen from my twitter stream, this week I have been in Bucharest. The main reason for my visit was to speak at the launch event of a new European funded project on Lifelong Learning (more on that tomorrow).
But, on Monday, I was luck enough to be invited by my friend Magda Balica to the university who teaches a seminar based course on pedagogy.
This week she was looking at the use of mindmaps and she set the students a groupwork task to draw a mindmap with ‘learning; at the centre. I was extremely impressed with the results, and als0 with the willingness of a number of the groups to produce the maps and report on them in English for my benefit.
It was interesting that most of the groups recognised the diverse sources of learning and the different contexts in which they learnt. Interesting too, and less encouraging, was how separated the different contexts appeared to be. If joined at all, learning from different sources and contexts was seen as mediated, for instance by friends or classmates. The students were in general fairly scathing about the quality of formal education in schools in Romania, although I am doubtful that the response of German or UK students would be much different.
These were some of the comments in their report backs, as recorded in twitter:
- Student in Romania – fame is important as the result of your learning and career – recognition
- Student in Romania – you can live more from life than from school
- Student in Bucharest – we want to leave Romania – we have no education, no health system, just a promise of improvement
- Student in Bucharest – in school we learn as little as we can
Although many of the students had Facebook accounts, none had seen Twitter before and there was general excitement about getting ‘real time’ feedback from people in different countries.
Anyway, I promised to post the mindmaps on this blog (click on any of the photos below for a larger version). Thanks to all who made my stay in Romania so interesting and enjoyable.
Leave a Reply
Augmented Reality Open Online Seminar
October 27th, 2009 by Graham Attwell
This Thursday sees the final session in our autumn series of open on-line seminars run jointly between the Evolve network and Educamp.
The seminar, which takes place on the Elluminate platform, is on Mobile learning and Augmented Reality, with presentations from Mark Kramer and Same Easterby Smith, both of whom are leading developments in the use of this technology for learning.
Mark says: “The application of computer-generated imagery in live-video streams on mobile devices, as a way to expand the real-world, is finally available for the masses on an affordable basis. Augmented and mixed-reality scenarios are now a common fixture of our technology arsenal of methods to acquire information about our surroundings. This emergence of augmented reality (AR) also has great potential to support individual and group learning. I will share thoughts and experiences on how AR will change the way we view and experience learning in a situated context.”
The seminar takes place at 19.00 (UK time) / 20.00 (CEST) (check your local time).
Link to Venue: Elluminate
Link for more information: Seminars
Leave a Reply
What does a Personal Learning Environment look like?
October 7th, 2008 by Graham Attwell
I’m doing two presentations on Personal Learning Environments this week – one in Braga in Portugal and one on line at Bar Camp Berlin. Regular readers will know these are not my first presentations on PLEs. And lately I have been concerned that the debate has been stalling a little. We have been very good at saying what a PLE is not – it is not an instititional learning system etc. but rather hazy on just what it is. So that is the theme of the all brand new – new words, new pictures presentation. I will release the slides in Friday and try to get an audio version out in next two weeks. One of the points which I am at pains to make is that a PLE is not just a technical infrastruture – indeed it is possible to imanagine a PLE which involves not computers what so ever. Anyway here is a picture Jenny Hughes drew for me of her PLE>
Leave a Reply
Afganistan
March 23rd, 2008 by Graham Attwell
This beautiful and thought provoking set of photos were taken by Jenny Hughes in 2006 whilst working on an evaluation contract for the United Nations Development Programme.
Leave a Reply
Search Pontydysgu.org
News Bites
MOOCs and beyond
A special issue of the online journal eLearning Papers has been released entitled MOOCs and beyond. Editors Yishay Mor and Tapio Koshkinen say the issue brings together in-depth research and examples from the field to generate debate within this emerging research area.
They continue: “Many of us seem to believe that MOOCs are finally delivering some of the technology-enabled change in education that we have been waiting nearly two decades for.
This issue aims to shed light on the way MOOCs affect education institutions and learners. Which teaching and learning strategies can be used to improve the MOOC learning experience? How do MOOCs fit into today’s pedagogical landscape; and could they provide a viable model for developing countries?
We must also look closely at their potential impact on education structures. With the expansion of xMOOC platforms connected to different university networks—like Coursera, Udacity, edX, or the newly launched European Futurelearn—a central question is: what is their role in the education system and especially in higher education?”
The cost of austerity and privatisation
There is growing concern over the consequences of the English (Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have different policies) government’s cutbacks and privatisation of careers guidance for young people. The International Centre for Guidance Studies reports on a discussion paper called ‘Cost to the Economy of Government Policy on Career Guidance: A Business Case for Funding and Strengthening Career Guidance in Schools‘ from Lizzie Taylor who is an Careers England Affiliate Member. “The report claims that the economic consequence of current government policy on career education is an escalating annual cost to young people in reduced and lost earnings, reaching £676m p.a. in 2018 before dropping back slightly to £665 m p.a.2022. The total cost in reduced and lost earnings to young people in the period 2013 to 2022 is estimated as £3.2bn.”
Open Education 2030
The Institute for Prospective Technological Studies (IPTS) –part of the Joint Research Center of the European commission – is calling upon experts and practitioners to come up with visionary papers and imaginative scenarios on how Open Education in 2030 in Europe might look with a major focus on Open Educational Resources and Practices, in different education sectors.
The foresight scenarios submitted can be normative or descriptive, idealistic or provocative, critical or imaginary, reflective or polemic, imaginative or concrete, comprehensive or selective, general or specific. They should be both inspiring and scientifically sound.
Submissions are free to choose any angle, subject, approach, but they say the future vision and/or scenario should address the key question of how Open Education in 2030 in Europe might look, and include the role of OER.
More details from the EU Europa website.
PLE Conference Update
I wasn’t overoptimistic about the Personal Learning Environments Conference this year. Discussions about PLEs have been subsumed in the hype over MOOCs. And most conferences are struggling with the ongoing recession. But I am delighted that we have received 59 submissions including a number of great proposals for interactive workshops.
The PLE Conference takes place on 10 and 12 July in Berlin.
Twitter
- The Graham Attwell Daily is out! http://t.co/mhRAVfptj1 ▸ Top stories today via @pewresearch >>
- Mathagogy http://t.co/gaOhjOi1eR one minute mathematics education. Submit your video via @catherinecronin >>
Other Pontydysgu Spaces
-
Pontydysgu on the Web
Watch the Pontydysgu Videos
Our Wikispace for teaching and learning
Join our Sounds of the Bazaar Facebook goup. Just click on the logo above.Our next programmes will be live from the Online EDUCA Berlin 2012. We will broadcast at 11.00 CET on the 29th/30th of November. Here the stream URL: http://uk2.internet-radio.com:31022/live.m3u