23 November, 2010

Quickly Updating the Files in Blackboard Using WebDAV

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I've been asked how to update files in Blackboard using WebDAV, and though it worth sharing the instructions more widely. We have not used this method much and so are not aware if any problems and complications may occur. Let us know of your experiences if you do try and use it.

WebDAV allows quick updating of files on Blackboard through the familiar Windows Explorer interface. I'm not sure if this method will work on on other operating systems than Windows.

The first step is to find the URL for your Blackboard section. This video (which has no sound) shows the process in Blackboard version 8 which we currently use. Watch it full screen.



In Learning Edge/Blackboard 9.1, you can find the URL in a slightly different way.


When you have the URL for your Blackboard section, you can add it to your network places following these instructions.


Does blogging make better teachers, nurses, managers?

1 comments
Andy Carvin's learning now blog on a screen at National School Boards Conference
I’ve just started following someone widely regarded as a bit of an e-learning guru: Stephen Downes.   The first email update I received inspired me enough to create this posting.

Stephen pointed me to a post by Dean Shareski:
“ … suggesting that the way to make better teachers is to get them to blog.”
I’ve just read the article – perhaps something to consider across all professional courses at Edge Hill?  (Can I can hear ethical alarm bells ringing!?)

Comments sought, kindest regards,

David
Image by Steve Rhodes

17 November, 2010

"Have You Googled Yourself?": Online Presence and Online Identity

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We ran a session today for 3rd Year Students to introduce concepts around their online identity, which was approached from the perspective of them looking for work.

The supporting slides are below. Select 'View on Slideshare' for the opportunity to see in full screen view.

Firstly we noted the evidence that some employers search online for information about potential employees. The case for freelancers needing an online presence is more obvious, but was also mentioned.

We asked the students to search for themselves online using Google, Cluuz and a tool on the MIT site, and asked them to think about what they found about themselves and the impression that might give to the world.

This led on to talking about ways of developing a web presence either though a website, a profile on something like LinkedIn, or a collection of their accounts and published work on a Google or claimID profile.

Next we moved on from static resources and looked at the role of engaging with your community. LinkedIn have created the 'brandyousurvey' quiz to help you think about the way you network online, and the students went through this. This led to looking at ways that you can connect with a global community such as writing a blog, reading and commenting on other's blogs and real-time tools like Twitter for sharing resources and conversations. The links between these tools and lifelong learning were brought up.

Finally students were asked to think about steps that they want to take to develop their online presence, and make a plan.


Has anyone else had experience of running sessions along these lines? Do you have any advice that might help our sessions in the future?

09 November, 2010

“Facebook for books”

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LibraryThing, a site described as “Facebook for books”, is a cataloguing and social networking site for book lovers.

Users can; create personal collections (up to 200 with a free account), discover new books (by tags, ratings, reviews and recommendations), and get involved in conversations about books. There is even a ‘local’ search so you can find book stores, libraries and book related events near by.

For more info visit the site and take a tour.

Did you know… that the Edge Hill Library Catalogue also uses LibraryThing for Libraries?

The new feature was added in the summer and gives you another way to find books in the Edge Hill Catalogue – browsing by tag.

When you find an item record in the Edge Hill Catalogue, if it’s been tagged, you’ll see a tag list at the bottom of the page – click on one of the tags to open the ‘Tag Browser’ window.

On the left you’ll see the item’s tags and related tags. On the right you’ll see items that match the selected tag. Click on an item to go to the library catalogue record or continue browsing by tag, by clicking on one of the tags shown or using the search box*.

*You can search for a word (adventure), a phrase (children’s fiction), or a combination of words and phrases (adventure, children’s fiction). You can also demote (-Harry Potter) or remove words and phrases (–19th century). 

Take a look next time you use the Library Catalogue.


28 October, 2010

"YouTube meets Wikipedia"

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WatchKnow-Logo
WatchKnow.org looks like a great place to search for educational videos suitable for children from 3 to 18.

A large range of subjects are covered including, English Language, Literature, Maths, Science, History and the Arts. You can search by age and by category and there is an option to limit the results to 'school accessible' content only - so the videos you find can be accessed in schools where content from sites like Youtube or Google Video can often be blocked.

WatchKnow was launched last year (October 2009) by the co-founder of Wikipedia, Larry Sanger who describes it as "YouTube meets Wikipedia".

The site aims to make finding high quality educational videos easy to find. So instead of needing to visit lots of different sites, like YouTube, Schooltube, Google Video, Teachertube, National Geographic, etc. and searching through educational and non educational videos you can visit just one site and search through only educationally relevant resources.

The site invites students, parents, teachers, librarians, and everyone interested in the education of children to use and help develop the resource. (Sign up for an account to get invloved.)

I did a quick search for children's book ages 4-6 and found a large number of results; I particularly liked... Michael Rosen Performs 'We're Going On A Bear Hunt' and The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams.

Take a look.
:)

01 September, 2010

Open Courses and Web 2.0

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Over the last few years there has been a massive amount of research and discussion about how new social web tools, sometimes referred to as Web 2.0, can be used in education.

Often though we get focussed on the tools and can miss some important reasons why these tools are so powerful, an example being the fact that they tend to grow in value as more people use them.

One online course that opened it's doors to allow people who weren't registered students to participate was Stephen Downes and George Siemens' Connectivism course which we've mentioned before. The recent article in The Chronicle of Higher Education talks about their experiences in more detail as does this research paper from 7th International Conference on Networked Learning 2010.

This course is interesting as we see some of the effects of running their course this way, with issues arising such as privacy, behaviour (one person joined to criticise the course) and inflexible licences for platforms like Blackboard (a problem we've struggled with in the past).

So clearly, seeking to using social web tools to their full potential is not without potential problems, but reading the research paper we can see courses and modules delivered this way can offer a different learning experience which might be beneficial. As George Siemens himself said "The question for me is ... ‘what are the implications of people being connected in a certain way?'". The Web gives us different ways of connecting as well as new tools, and it is worth thinking about situations where these new ways of connecting could enhance learning.



[image by umkcofficial]

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12 August, 2010

The PGCE Survival Guide

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This free eBook: 'The PGCE Survival guide' looks like it could be a really useful read for our Teacher Trainees.

It's a crowd sourced book, meaning that the content was largely generated by the online education community - specifically twitter. The idea itself being that of Tim Handley (@tomhenzley / www.classroomtales.com), who has only just completed his PGCE at the University of East Anglia.

It's pretty impressive to learn that Tim is only just about to start his NQT year. My experience with teacher trainees leads me to believe that proportionally few truly understand and exploit the benefits of online technologies - and are so busy once they begin their programme, they struggle to find the time to learn.

I think this is an inspirational effort and great contribution to the educational community. It clearly demonstrates the benefits of engaging with a community of dedicated and committed education professionals online. I will be sharing it with the faculty here, hoping that it will inspire our trainees to investigate and embrace technologies like twitter, blogs and other online networks which can be so useful to them.

@MegJuss
;)

29 July, 2010

The Web is Mine!

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The nature of the web has changed!

Users are no longer mere recipients of the static web, but agents and co-creators of the Social Web, or Web 2.0. Old school transmission is replaced by community feedback through comments, as in this article itself, and in some cases, content creators, editors and publishers.

wikipediaSome time ago David Wiley identified Wikipedia to have only two employees for its 15 million articles (over 3.3 million in English) - almost all of which have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world. By you and me. Our teachers and our students. This demonstrates unparalleled cooperation amongst global communities of practice, and yet because of this very strength, many traditional academics scoff at the thought of Wikipedia, and other user generated sites, as reliable sources for educational content. However as a starting place for research into a topic, I struggle to find a more appropriate single source as Wikipedia. For example, researching teaching and learning theory leads me to Behaviourist approaches (Pavlov’s dogs and Skinner’s rats), through to the constructivist approaches of Piaget and Vygotsky. youtube Quick searches at other sources such as You Tube might return a Von Glasersfeld talk on radical constructivism. As an introduction to a topic, I now have a basis to explore books and dare I say it, peer reviewed research articles.

This is where the web is educational! The web, educates.

Is there a boundary where web content is simply web content, and educational content is somehow subcategorised into something else? No. The Web is the most powerful educational resource one could imagine. A source which pulls together the thoughts, opinions and research from a global community of users, is shaping our everyday lives. The Web has changed! Such a community could never be achieved, heard or published, without such digital communications. Exemplifying this very point, You Tube suggest 24 hours of user generated video are uploaded every minute.

It is these chunks of content; educational, reusable, repurposable, that brings me to my key point – the openness of the web. The openness of such content can impact upon teaching and learning like no other approach. Like no other technique, tool or technology. Creative Commons Through user generated movements such as the open source movement, came the Creative Commons - a series of licenses that users/authors/developers can freely apply to their works to legally allow re-use, re-mixing and re-sharing.

Listening to Peter Hartley recently, a Professor in of Education Development at Bradford University, I was intrigued at his openness towards his own knowledge, or limitations thereof. A classic study into Social Psychology by Dr Zimbardo, is an area of particular interest for Professor Hartley, and one in which over the years, he has crafted a thought provoking lecture. In the Stanford Prison Experiment, Zimbardo researched ‘What happens when you put good people in an evil place? Does humanity win over evil, or does evil triumph?’ However, as Professor Hartley candidly admits, his knowledge in the topic is ‘limited’, for want of a better word. As he didn't take part in the actual research, he cannot describe the feelings of inmates, the feelings of being dragged off the street and ushered into a police car, the feelings of prison guards watching over the jail cells. Professor Hartley can only convey his understanding, albeit of high regard. His challenging lecture of Zimbardos prison experiment has received somewhat of a facelift since discovering some open resources through the Open University iTunesU pages. There he was, Dr Zimbardo himself discussing his reasoning, his rationale. Leading commentators debating methodologies and ethics of the study. And in a few clicks, subjects of the research, inmates and guards, discussing and reflecting on their mental states throughout the experiment.

So how can anybody teach this topic any better than its primary researcher, Dr Zimbardo? The job of the academic in this instance, is to shape a session which asks the right questions of the learners, or even, encourages the learners to ask the right questions (of the research, other learners, the teacher). His job is to structure resources to engage learners and encourage interaction and reflection.

The richness of such a learning experience is unequalled, and yet there are many questions... But what does this mean for the role of the traditional academic? Who is comfortable with reusing other sources of knowledge than ones-own, with fears of credibility and legitimacy?
But none should reign through more than this: How can I restructure my lectures and seminars to take advantage of such powerful resources?

The answer lies in the changing practices within Institutions.

  • The new academic and multi professional teams, where people work smarter, where the lecturer is not the font of all knowledge, but where curriculum development is a joint venture between academics, learning technologists, media developers and information specialists.
  • Changing practices where ‘new’ skills are encouraged: those of searching the complex web, finding, reviewing and reusing appropriate resources, and structuring them in the learning environment.
  • Changing skillsets in encouraging and harnessing learner exploration, reflection and discussion around topics.

Of course many of the high quality resources available come from those places with the resources to do so - the Open University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Oxford, and other well funded projects. But what about the individual academic who does not have such wealthy resources at hand?

Search, explore, find, retrieve.
Create, share, discuss and debate.
Remix and repurpose.

The web is not a closed book with strict copyright. The web is mine. Yours. Everyones. Just look for the little cc logo :-)

CC BY

27 July, 2010

Educational Technology Links: Cakes on Twitter

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When writing posts for Cakes we have usually tried to create something original and substantial rather than merely passing on links to articles. However there is a place for a stream of news from which you can pick out interesting articles, resources and tools from, and so we have set up a Twitter account as a way of passing on links that we have found interesting and relevant.

You can keep track of our posts either by following @CakesLTD on Twitter or subscribing to the Web Feed in your feed reader.

If you are wanting to use a Twitter account in a similar way in your course, you can easily connect it to your Blackboard section or other course pages. This screencast (without any sound) shows you how. Try watching in full screen view.






[image by LittleMissCupcakeParis]

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21 July, 2010

SOLSTICE Conference 2010: Videos

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Back in June the SOLSTICE conference 2010 took place, and if like me you missed the keynotes you'll be thrilled to know that they are now available online.

In the first keynote Professor Gilly Salmon points to the evidence and enablers for learning in Higher Education to be fit for purpose for the rest of the 21st Century.

The second keynote was by Professor Peter Hartley and looked back at 5 years of the SOLSTICE project.

If you enjoy those videos, there's more to come! The 6th SOLSTICE conference is planned for 9th June 2011.

16 July, 2010

Making Paper Books Nearly as Good as eBooks

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While I understand the sensual pleasures of holding a real book, smelling the ink in new books or various unidentified scents in old ones, and placing on a real shelf to ornament your house, I think that from a practical perspective eBooks make studying easier in many good ways. You don’t need to wait for them to be returned to the library, or travel there to get hold of them. You don’t need to spend time searching through the book to remember where the quote that you liked was. You just go online, read, and use the search tool to quickly find the section you remember allowing you to focus on the important aspects of studying and learning.

However, many of us still like libraries and paper books and want to get the most out of using them. The good news is that using barcode scanning apps on our Smartphones we can add enhanced functionality to paper books that previously only existed in eBooks. For example ‘Barcode Scanner’ from ZXing Team (which you can find in the Android Marketplace app store) makes it easy search through the text of a book by photographing the barcode on the book in question, and clicking on ‘Book Search’. You are then taken to the Google Books page for the book in question where you use the search feature to search through the text of that book. It’s like having an enhanced index. Or you could just go to the Google Books page directly, but that’s less fun.

I’m sure there are other good pieces of software for the various platforms, which do similar things. Anyone want to share their knowledge and experiences of these?

By the way, to find your way to Google Books for mobile devices, you can use Barcode Scanner to follow the link encoded in this barcode created at Kaywa.















[top image by guldfisken]

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02 July, 2010

Russell Prue – Keynote at RSC Annual Event 2010, Bolton.

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This is just a collection of notes I made during Russell's keynote - not really a ‘Keynote’ as I’d expect it – rather a collage of interesting technologies wrapped between some poignant stuff. Russell is difficult to pigeon hole – perhaps ‘Entertainer’ with an educational evangelist theme. My jury is out on his radio stuff, which he seems to be pushing from all angles, but perhaps I can see the educational potential in communication, team work etc …

So – here’s the poignant notions that I think might be relevant to us at Edge Hill – and the bits in square brackets I’ve added in post-conference:

  • There are 27,000 unemployed graduates in the UK [the Guardian says up to 40,000 new graduates will fail to find employment within 6 months of graduating - http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/jul/02/graduate-unemployment-rise-recession-jobs]

  • Employers are looking for staff who are literate and numerate, both in traditional and new technologies. Employers are looking for leaders who can motivate, help create stuff and innovate.

  • This led to Russell urging us to ditch the [Victorian] education system - to move to create autonomous ‘self led’ learners (but not suggestions about how). Perhaps a new system may address the current learners (and future employers?) needs in the 21st century.

  • Technology can make a good message grow rather fast – ref Lauren Luke who started selling makeup on eBay in 2007, create a YouTube channel the same year, and now as a 60million following: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lauren_Luke

  • Plea to stop being precious about education – don’t ‘Ban’ YouTube, Skype and Face Book.

  • Students to be involved in the creation of an Acceptable Use Policy. Further, Russell questioned the use of filtering systems to ‘protect’ children in schools – stating that the UK and France are the only two counties to use such systems. [However, are these filtering systems more for the protection of the school than the child?]

I note these snippets:



Other snippits too numerous to mention – listed on Russells technology blog: http://www.andertontiger.com/technology/default.htm

Out of all of these, my favourite at the moment is xtranormal.com - have a go ... and get back to me with if you use this in your practice.

Apologies for a bulleted list – but I got Russell’s stuff as a mosaic – hence the format above.

16 June, 2010

Research into Virtual Worlds in Higher Education: The Cloudscape

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Cloudworks is a kind of social network for educators, which enables people to create 'cloudscapes' - that is collections of links to resources (clouds) about particular topics. Clouds can be added to cloudscapes by anyone with an account and an included discussion tool encourages conversation around the resources.

I've been collating research on using 3D Virtual Worlds in Higher Education, and used Cloudworks to both make the list available and enable others to add to it. If you are interested in using Virtual Worlds like Second Life for learning and teaching, this list might be useful to you or you might like to develop the resource further.

If you're not sure what we mean by 3D Virtual Worlds, have a look at the session notes for 'The World of Virtual Worlds' beginners guide session. This goes through definitions, examples, uses and contains lots and lots of links to resources.

23 April, 2010

Data Liberation and Online Learning

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In my own formal and informal learning, free web based tools are really useful. For example Feedreaders like Bloglines are a quick and easy way to follow updates from a large number of web sites, journals, and other sources, and social networks on Ning are useful to keep in touch with communities of practice. In my teaching I use Google Docs to create and distribute materials, as each document can be given a web address and easily shared, and even worked on collaboratively.

However as we've mentioned before, nothing lasts forever and whenever you create important data using a tool or service that is out of your control you need to consider how you can back it up and export it to another service.

I write this now because Bloglines has been 'down for scheduled maintenance' for a while now which indicates it might be closed, meaning anyone who hadn't backed up their data from it might have lost it. Also Ning has announced that it is closing down the free ad supported section of it's business, which was used in a small way here at Edge Hill University and by many educators around the world.

Whenever you look at using at any online tool in your teaching or learning, the ability to back up and export your data to another service (you should always have a Plan B) is vital.

----------

Update: Bloglines is back up now at 3pm BST on 23rd April... but still export your OPML file as the owners don't seems to see it as a priority and it might not be here much longer.

26 February, 2010

Matching Learning Tasks with Learning Technologies

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There are a wide range of tools and technologies available to support all types of Technology Enhanced Learning, but that range of tools can be overwhelming even to those teachers who are experienced users of technology.

There are some simple methods that Learning Technologists use to help teaching staff understand the potential uses of web based tools. Presenting categories of tools is useful. If you can look at technologies in terms of, for example, those designed for synchronous versus asynchronous uses, you can think more easily about which you will use for a certain purpose. If you can identify Twitter as a tool for public interaction rather than private you can think better about what information might it be appropriate to carry. If you categorise it as a Microblogging tool it allows you to then ask if other Microblogging tools might be more appropriate to use for your purpose.

Sarah Robbins-Bell showed a possible way to structure this way of looking at tools, based on work by Herring (2007 ), which in turn was based on work by Ranganathan (1933). She used Faceted Classification to look at dozens of tools that were identified as Virtual Worlds [presentation slides], and saw 10 facets emerge that would help users understand if each tool would match their learning tasks and objectives. They will only be of interest to those working with 3D Virtual Worlds, but are:
  • Dominant content form - Either Text or Image or a Mix
  • Dominant user to user communication form - Text / Voice / Mix
  • Stigmergy - Stigmergic / Non-stigmergic / Conditional stigmergy
  • Object ownership - Private / Public / Sharing
  • User identity formation - Static / Conditional / Custom
  • Access - Public / Fee / Limited
  • User relationship with other users - Competitive / Conditional / Collaborative
  • User relationship with environment - Competitive / Conditional / Collaborative
  • Access to groups - Private / Public / None
  • Number of groups - Many / One / None
If you look at pages 33 and 34 of her ReLIVE08 conference presentation slides, you can see that she uses the 10 facets to compare Second Life and World of Warcraft, making it easy to demonstrate that two very similar looking tools are different in many ways that might not be immediately obvious to someone who had not used them much.

This same process could be done for other categories of tool, like synchronous communication tools, collaborative document creation tools and content dissemination tools. This could be a useful resource in a conversation about which of these tools might fit the needs of a certain learning activity. The following table is a very brief example of one for online learning activities requiring synchronous communication.

Facet Second Life Blackboard Chat Yahoo Messenger
Text or Image

Public or Private


Text or Voice



Of course exploring needs and requirements is a very subtle process, but this kind of thing could play a part in making it easier for everyone involved to understand the decision making process.

Another model for matching tasks with learning technologies was put forward by Bower (2008) in "Affordance Analysis - Matching Learning Tasks with Learning Technologies". In this article categories of affordances of learning technologies are put forward along with a methodology for practical application.


[image by Pink Sherbet Photography]

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17 February, 2010

Rewiring Inclusion: Barrier Free Learning

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The Rewiring Inclusion conference in Notingham a couple of weeks ago was a refreshing look at the subject of accessibility. Perhaps it was refreshing because the word 'accessibility' was barely mentioned, and holistic, responsive ways to produce 'barrier free learning' and 'digital inclusion' were discussed.

I think that the sessions that I attended illustrated two different sides to accessibility very well.

On the one hand there is creating resources and software that can be accessed using a wide variety of input and output devices, as the user requires. The importance of this was talked about by Dr Dónal Fitzpatrick from Dublin City University.

The development approach that Google use was mentioned by Julian Harty from Google. They have a general focus on wider usability and accessibility for all, with post release improvements over time. This means that they wouldn't hold something back from release because not everyone could use it, but would aim to make it more usable for all users over time.

Julian's presentation proved to be a little controversial, as some people thought that Google weren't taking accessibility seriously enough. It is certainly a different approach than that talked about in Higher Education, perhaps due to our need to support every single student. Google users have a choice whether to use new Google services, while our students have to use the VLE for example.

Another side to accessibility that was covered was making changes to the way activities run, to meet the specific needs of individual students.

Dr Trevor Collins and Dr Jessica Bartlett talked about the Open Universities work making geology fieldwork available to students who for whatever reason, cannot travel out to the field.

They talked about working in areas with no mobile phone signals, and setting up wireless Local Area Networks to enable this. It was fascinating and showed that no-one needs to be left out of such activities.

So what should Edge Hill University's response be to all this? Is there a need to look at how can we make our online learning resources and activities more inherently accessible to a wider variety of people? How could we go about that?


[image by campuspartycolombia]

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04 February, 2010

Web 2.0 in the primary classroom

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One of the more enjoyable aspects of my role is helping design innovative approaches to teaching and learning.

A while ago Chris Russell (Education) had the idea of exploring the use of web 2.0 technologies in the classrooms of some of his trainee teachers. However, Chris fell foul of an age limit for the Ning and Facebook services, both requiring users to be 13 years or older.

So we looked at a different approach using Google Docs. This service, combined with notions of the Smart Mob (Wesch, 2009) was thought likely to engage the learners (school children) and offer a more “Social Constructive” approach. The idea is to split up a project into small tasks so that small groups of pupils could work on these and then add their work to a single document containing the work of all groups.

I think google docs is particularly suited to this application because several people can work on one document at the same time, editing the same space, akin to writing on a class whiteboard. I envisage the creation of the final class document will be a highly engaging event, perhaps having the document displayed on the data projector so that pupils will see their contributions appearing as google docs refreshes content from all the contributors.

Chris raised the issue of assessment – how do you assess each child’s contribution to a joint document? I suggest a “… reflective piece …”, possibly using a writing frame, where each child can describe what their contribution was, how they found the experience etc. Further, perhaps year 3 could use the lower stage of Moons stages of learning (ref), and later years use later stages?

By David Callaghan (and collaboration from Chris Russell)
Image by popofatticus

Postscript

A word of caution: Google’s terms of service says “You may not use … Google’s products, software, services and web sites … and may not accept the Terms if … you are not of legal age to form a binding contract with Google.” More info on: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13739_3-9902548-46.html

However, a colleague (Peter Beaumont) pointed out that Google contradict themselves by “Selling” google services to primary schools:

http://www.google.co.uk/intl/en/schools/primary.html

It’s your call …

An alternative you might want to consider is WikiSpaces. This service provides free, advertisement free and password protected wiki’s for K-12 education. However, the downside is that using a Wiki, the last edit becomes the current version, possibly causing pupils to become disillusioned and disengaged in a synchronous classroom environment.

References

Moon, J. A. (1999) Reflection in learning & professional development: theory & practice. London: Routledge.

Wesch, M. (2009) ‘How to get students to find and read 94 articles before the next class’ Digital Ethnography. http://mediatedcultures.net/ksudigg/?p=202 [accessed 4th February 2010]

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15 January, 2010

Emerging Technologies: Horizon Report 2010

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Each year the Horizon Project releases a report that looks at technologies and tools which are likely to impact teaching and learning over the next few years. The technologies that are highlighted in this 2010 Horizon Report are:

0-1 Years to Adoption: Mobile Computing and Open Content
2-3 Years to Adoption: Electronic Books and Simple Augmented Reality
4-5 Years to Adoption: Gesture Based Computing and Visual Data Analysis

Why is this important to a Higher Education institution? Well, it advises us on which technologies might be at a realistic stage of development and uptake to adopt in our teaching and learning. It also gives educators new to a technology or concept a brief overview of how it relates to our context.

Looking at the Mobile Computing section, this seemed to resound with me most, perhaps because I've been using my own devices to access the internet for my own learning. The report mentions 3 areas that smart phones might be used:
  1. An alternative method of accessing resources - which in Edge Hill University's case would require a complete change in the way our own resources are prepared and distributed. Roger C. Shank thinks that real learning wouldn't take place and that this would not be worthwhile. However this might be down to personal preference as I've not had a problem reading books on my iPod Touch, and can see room for Microlearning activities where they are relevant.
  2. A way of connecting students to each other and the institution - See the iPhone project at ACU and the project in Houston for examples.
  3. For fieldwork - perhaps ideas along the line of Walking Through Time.
While there are some cases where using mobile devices in learning are appropriate now, the Morgan Stanley 'Mobile Internet Report' expects internet access on mobile devices to overtake PC access within 5 years. So while we can use mobile devices in appropriate situations, we're not dealing with a situation where students all want to access everything on their phones right now.

[image by James Nash (aka Cirrus)]

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