Me as an infographic!
May 29th, 2013 by Cristina Costa
Archive for the ‘My Learning Journey’ Category
Today a new abstract…
May 28th, 2013 by Cristina Costa
…one day, who knows, maybe a full paper? But where should I publish it?
Open Access Cookie by Flickr ID Bliblioteekje (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
I wasn’t sure I should do this, but I decided I could!
I just came back from a writing session with colleagues from the School of Education and it was rather refreshing. We discussed and practiced the writing of abstracts. This is what I came up with:
The field of academia is punctuated by implicit and explicit goals and rules that aim to regulate academic practice.
This paper draws on data from a qualitative study involving academic researchers who challenge the notions of research practice through their use of the social and participatory web as well as through the epistemologies of practice they develop as networked learners.
Using a Bourdieuian lens, I discuss how research assessment exercises, as an example of symbolic practice, enables the field of academia to preserve or accumulate symbolic capital by (explicitly) promoting traditional forms of scholarship.
I suggest that the tensions between the field and the habitus of digital scholars not only hinder digital innovation in research, but also in learning and teaching practices. I conclude by arguing the need to align institutional, national and international research benchmarks with the practices and principles proposed by and for the so called digital society.
[Please note this is work in progress… always a good disclaimer (cough)]
The abstract above is based on my PhD research [as if you hadn’t had enough of my PhD by now!…but there you go]. I have submitted a paper recently and now want to start working on another one…potentially focusing on the topic described in the abstract. But I still have no idea where to publish it. I just know that it needs to be in an Open Access publication. Any ideas, suggestions where to publish it are very welcome. Critical feedback on the abstract is equally appreciated. 
Thank you. x
Conferences, Digital Champions, and MOOCs
May 26th, 2013 by Cristina Costa
The last few weeks have been really enriching at a personal level in the sense I have participated in several different events. Some as a speaker/trainer; others simply as a delegate. These days, it is hard for someone to go to an event and not have an active role. Usually we go to present our work; and not solely to absorb the experiences others have to share. In a way, this is unfortunate because I think sometimes I spend more time stressing over my presentation than I do concentrating on other people’s contributions. Yet, sharing our work is also important as it enables us to establish new contacts, talk to people who might have similar experiences, etc. In short I can’t decide which one is better, the stress of presenting or the comfort of being a delegate. I think both are important.
A couple weeks ago I went to Southampton to attend the Digital Literacies conference organised by CITE (Hugh Davis, Lisa Harris, and Fiona Harvey). It was a magnificent event. I loved the fact that they are developing really innovative initiatives that really put the learners at the centre. It’s nice to see this happening in Higher Education and having the support of the people above (the management team). The Digital Champions initiative is a proof of that. I wish (or better, I hope) that in the future we are able to develop a similar approach in my own institution.
As part of the event students enrolled on to another really impressive initiative – the multi-disciplinary module on Living and Working on the Web – presented their experiences in developing digital literacies and what it means to their present and future careers.
To know how to use the web smartly is becoming more and more important. And this not only applies to young generations, but to people from all ages, different sectors and backgrounds. The problem here is to convince not only such target audiences, but also those who are managing lifelong learning programmes for their communities. There is still a lot of prejudice about offering such opportunities to older, more experienced generations under the pretext they aren’t really into it. Yet, if this is the way forward aren’t we letting down those who want to up skill or re-skill in a market that is increasingly digital? I still don’t have a lot of answers, but recent talks with peers in and outside my own institution tells me this is becoming an issue as our own perception of who should be using social media is the first real obstacle. 
I started a MOOC this week… well I started a week late because I was reliant on a notification from the course leader that either never arrived or landed in my spam box. Anyway, after experiencing the pre-MOOCs via the Webheads in Action (to whom I owe all my enthusiasm for social forms of learning and the media that can support it) I did have a go at the first MOOCs in 2008 and 2009… but I was never really convinced by them simply because they were rather overwhelming, not only in terms of the number of people they attracted but also, and mostly, because of the cliques it managed to generate. Learning technologist learning about learning technologies is a bit of a biased practice. It can become a vicious cycle of reporting about the same experiences all over again, without much of a challenge.
When Coursera and other similar initiates came along, I resisted it! Or better put, I signed up to some of the course simply to observe how they were being conducted… I did not engage.
A couple of weeks ago I made the conscious decision of enrolling to a course I know very little about. I chose the History of Rock – Part I because it is a topic that appeals to me (not that I can play or sing any kind of music. I can hardly dance too, but I like a good gig!). As I mentioned before I arrived late to the course… in week 2! But I have now started using the resources. I like the videos. They are short and concise in the message they aim to convey, and Professor John Covach is an eloquent speaker. [The teacher as a performer is content for another post though …] The quizzes are also OK as a mini challenge… as a form of testing myself. But that is just for me. There are also discussion fora but I haven’t yet had any patience for those. The threads either don’t interest me or have grown too long for me to plough trough. My fault, I know. …
As far as this MOOC goes, I like it. I like it for its subject area. Yet, I don’t think there is anything there that is new or radically different from other forms of enabling learning in the classroom. And maybe that is not the purpose. Yet, I’d like to see more of the idea of “students as creators” in MOOCs …but then we would have a problem of support! [having said that, I do like watching the videos. It’s like watching youtube videos, something I have grown quite fond of as part of my learning strategy…]
This week Professor Martin Weller wrote a very thought provoking post about the role of MOOCs if education is/were free. I think that is a very good point. I don’t see MOOCs as replacing Higher Education. They are not inclusive at all. And in most cases, they are used as a marketing tool, thus, in my opinion, defeating that philanthropic purpose of “openness” . The way I see it, the value of Universities offering open courses is in providing opportunities for people to learn subjects they would probably not formally enroll to or pay for … as in my case with the “history of the Rock”!! I’m simply curious. I have no potential of becoming an artist or even a music historian. I like the fact that I can do it without the pressure of formal assessment. So I see MOOCs as a way of HEIs, as publicly funded institution, proving a service to the wider community. Yet, I fear that MOOCs are mainly serving those who are already highly educated and see this as an opportunity to enhance their skills. Moreover, what I miss in MOOCs is the familiarity of smaller networked learning initiatives where people really develop learning interrelationships based on the affinities they share. I am sorry to say this, but nothing tops the Webheads in Action on this matter. Yet, I recognise that things have moved on. The “web population” has increased dramatically since their first course in 2002… but I feel we need more human touch in the way we deploy these technologies for learning. As Ursula Franklin so rightly puts it, Technology is not only an artifact, but a system of social practices!
*Apologies for the ramblings. It has been extremely difficult for me to write in the last few weeks. I’m going through yet another “writer’s block”, I guess.
Critical thinkers in the 21st century …
May 18th, 2013 by Cristina Costa
The last few weeks have been extremely hectic but also rather exciting with participation in some EC projects, the writing of a new module for our Masters in Education and participation in events both in and outside my institution. I promise to translate those experiences in blogpost during the weekend [There you go. I’ve declared my intentions in writing, now I have to do it!]
Meanwhile I want to share the diagram below from mentoringminds.com because I think it’s a very useful one to have in mind for my future courses.
Courtesy of: Mentoring Minds
This week someone told me you cannot teach young children Critical Thinking. I disagree. I think everyone is capable of it … even if the degree of depth might vary according to the knowledge and experiences we manage to accumulate. All it takes is to create the appropriate learning context for it to happen and allow learners to engage with it. Having said that, sometimes that accumulated experience can also get into the way we think… critically! I think the use of digital technologies in education is a good example of that.
I am yet to develop a convincing message for those who see technology as a threat [and me as a lunatic]. Technology, or the Web for that matter, as a form of accessing information or allowing teachers to create sleek content seems to be popular amongst teachers. Everyone likes that feature. But when it comes to use the web as a form of participation, networking and co-creation of knowledge people’s opinions seems to change… almost radically, because apparently children and teenagers might not be ready for it!! …that is for me when that critical thinking vanishes, minds are no longer open to new ideas and new experiences do not materialise because people refuse to accept that using the features of the current web implies to re-think their approaches to practice.
I participated in several events in the past weeks where technology in education was discussed. For me all of those events were marked by one single sentence: “I’m useless with technology”. I have heard variants of this sentence time and time again in the last few weeks. It’s a popular statement. One that is culturally accepted between many educators too. I was puzzled that it seems to work as a perfect excuse not to look further into how technology can add something to the teaching and learning experience. Would we allow our pupils and students to say they were rubbish at maths or spelling and let them get away with it? … the answer is “certainly not”. So why can we?
As you can note from this post, I’m frustrated with such attitude, but I am even more frustrated with myself for not being able to convey the message in an effective way. But I will not give up. I’ll keep working and refining my message…
Search Pontydysgu.org
Social Media
News Bites
Cyborg patented?
Forbes reports that Microsoft has obtained a patent for a “conversational chatbot of a specific person” created from images, recordings, participation in social networks, emails, letters, etc., coupled with the possible generation of a 2D or 3D model of the person.
Racial bias in algorithms
From the UK Open Data Institute’s Week in Data newsletter
This week, Twitter apologised for racial bias within its image-cropping algorithm. The feature is designed to automatically crop images to highlight focal points – including faces. But, Twitter users discovered that, in practice, white faces were focused on, and black faces were cropped out. And, Twitter isn’t the only platform struggling with its algorithm – YouTube has also announced plans to bring back higher levels of human moderation for removing content, after its AI-centred approach resulted in over-censorship, with videos being removed at far higher rates than with human moderators.
Gap between rich and poor university students widest for 12 years
Via The Canary.
The gap between poor students and their more affluent peers attending university has widened to its largest point for 12 years, according to data published by the Department for Education (DfE).
Better-off pupils are significantly more likely to go to university than their more disadvantaged peers. And the gap between the two groups – 18.8 percentage points – is the widest it’s been since 2006/07.
The latest statistics show that 26.3% of pupils eligible for FSMs went on to university in 2018/19, compared with 45.1% of those who did not receive free meals. Only 12.7% of white British males who were eligible for FSMs went to university by the age of 19. The progression rate has fallen slightly for the first time since 2011/12, according to the DfE analysis.
Quality Training
From Raconteur. A recent report by global learning consultancy Kineo examined the learning intentions of 8,000 employees across 13 different industries. It found a huge gap between the quality of training offered and the needs of employees. Of those surveyed, 85 per cent said they , with only 16 per cent of employees finding the learning programmes offered by their employers effective.
Other Pontydysgu Spaces
-
Pontydysgu on the Web
Our Wikispace for teaching and learning
Join our Sounds of the Bazaar Facebook goup. Just click on the logo above.We will be at Online Educa Berlin 2015. See the info above. The stream URL to play in your application is Stream URL or go to our new stream webpage here SoB Stream Page.