Anyhow, as I was preparing I was d tweeted by dr_neil  with a note about his latest blog posting which provided a superb and topical diversion, and I am now shamelessly printing it as prep material for the panel. If you would like an entertaining discussion about the pedagogy of VLEs and the role of senior managers in their procurement, and for those of you familar with the Emperor’s New Clothes (a metaphor used before by Neil and I to describe accessbility standards) take a trip over to Neil’s blog posting The Vice Chancellor’s New VLE it is a hoot…

Where we need to go - evolution of education

Student as both consumer and producer.

Disconnected in an interconnected world

Students say that going into class is like taking a flight, they have to switch things off and cannot access the outside world.

Students expect an interconnected (academic) life, they see the real world as incredibly advanced, when it isn’t they lose interest.

Technology Brings; Advance > Engage > Outreach

There as been as shift in power in the consumerisation of IT. New drivers for performance, productivity and collaboration include: Facebook, youtube, googleapps etc. IT depts are drilling through to adapt rather than taking it as the norm.

Students’ dorms are like mini IT departments.

Consumer technologies are setting the pace for students’ expectations.

Moving from context (80%) to core (20%). Core is the things that we must do (as HEIs) ourselves. Core is what makes HEIs unique. Apple suggest flipping the model.

Apple’s learning environment is? He didn’t say, I assume from the motherhood and apple pie image that it is all the products they have?

Miles started by discussing the college’s move to Greenwich. The innovative ideas for ICT include:

• Flexible Learnings Spaces (you had to hear the visualisation)
• Serendipitous Commons
• Subsidise personal technology
• high end reources integrated with user owned workflows
• Software as a service (google),  opensource alternatives to ‘money grabbing’ proprietory systems

The curse of the Mobile - Mobile Phones did away with the need punctuality.

Technology

• The VLE is no longer the whole answer
• RSS, OpenID preserve the VLEpanopticon
• Bounded systems give way to more open collaboration

Some parting shots

• OpenID is far from perfect
• I don’t trust these extra-institutional software as a service

Miles did an excellent and entertaining presentation which is available at http://www.slideshare.net/mmetcalfe/ravensbourne-tomorrow-fote-2008-presentation/

Not quite sure what is being said other than it’s been suggested that we revisit Vygotsky and apply it to the use of mobile technology in learning and teaching.

He asserts that education ‘will’ move toward a more consumerist based economy, and that the customer choice will be based on the use of technology, mobile technology. And that they will do this because they will have better job prospects.

..l and then he just stopped.

Why Portability Matters - Ian Forrester, BBC backstage

There is a revolution in tech, this is based on the user being in control. But are they?

• Data portability - principles



• Bill of Rights for users

Cloud computing - beware of propriety tools in the cloud, “how do you get stuff out of SL”, there is a lot of service lock in. Good quote from Stallman:

cloud computing forces people to hand over control of their information to a third party. His objections echo his longstanding belief in non-proprietary software. One reason you should not use Web applications to do your computing is that you lose control, It’s just as bad as using a proprietary program.

Likes Bascamp for project management and Yammer as an alternative for Twitter, BlipTV instead of youtube

Opening up the Web, James Broad, Yahoo

“Yahoo is my home,
my girlfriend hates my job,
I do css and stuff
http://www.carbonsilk.com/”

How lucky are we - tech innovation,  SatNav, Mobiles, sharing stuff across all activities

The Web 10 years ago, mostly read only, 1996 45 million users, mainly company websites, homepages, portals, basic webforms, Netscape or IE.

The Advances, Javascript, PHP, ASP, JSP, XML, RSS, Web Services, Communities, Tagging, Web Apps (The Web of today)

He seems to be trying to atribute a lot of social activity to tech advances, which it can, but.. “the web as gone through a a massive advancement (image of Facebook)”

We (Yahoo) realise that trust is a big issue

Dismisses encarta as something that we could have been ‘fed’, it could be biased by the author, whereas he asserts that wikipedia is something that is safer! He is very dissapointed that he didn’t have wikipedia during his education (I think he’s serious!).

A quick reflection on the title of the conference - I’m sure that he’ll make a reference to education.

Phil Butler

Lunch is Next (Phil’s first slide).

I’m not a technologist, I don’t even like technology.

The future of technology for me is something that does what it does when I need it to.

Harnessing Technology Review

It [technology] motivates learners
It opens up a world of resources and materials
Learning will be personalised

Learning culture is shifting

• individual > social
• information > communication
• passive > interactive
• insitutional tools > personalised tools

Q&A

Melissa Highton: Who should be responsible for teaching digital literacies

1. Harold - there is a new paradigm of digital culture
2. Ian F - the BBC is good, everyone needs to learn, a combination of teachers, friends and peers should be responsible
3. IanB - I’ve got a little sister and I believe in this, Yahoo answers is the answer
4. Phil B - Digital literacies - immigrants and natives, we’re all immigrants

Sam Peters from Google

What’s driving cloud computing:

• Falling cost of storage
• Ubiquitous Computing
• Democratisation of production

“We’re all part of the revolution”

Sam described how the previous technology paradigm was focused on products that did only one thing - this led into a description of google apps for education. She suggested that cloud computing provides leverage with existing infrastructure. She also suggests that the Cloud computing model allows us to break out of existing software cycles.

The challenge of moving to the cloud, Sam suggested how her grandparents kept their money under the mattress, whereas she uses a bank - this led to considerable mirth. Gartner suggested that in 2010 10% of all businesses will have their apps in the cloud. And that currently 70% of businesses are looking at the cloud.

Last Thoughts on a Cloudy future:

• Companies must focus on core business
• Employees need better tools
• The move to the cloud is imminent…
• …many are there already

Pauline Randal on Second Life

Pauline started by posing the question “Why am I in there?” followed by what are “we trying to achieve?”

Students will not be entranced by watching powerpoint slides whilst in Second Life

The killer question - is there a better tool? Pauline’s talk appears to be asking us to focus on user needs.

Her project is focused on bring mature buisiness  students together to familarise?

How to engage students:

• clear purpose to being there
• make it interesting and challenging
• have definite outcomes

Not that impressed with her case studies - but good on the user stuff.

Final thoughts:

• students need a proper induction, base it on your experience - how long did it take you to become familiar?
• Don’t make the activities too simple (average age of an SL user is 35 - are we sure?)
• Ask students for help

Hand’s up who’s using Second Life to teach?

There are several free generators on the web, I use Kaywa.  And there are also several free readers available for a variety of mobile phones, currently I’m using i-nigma. Andy Ramsden (University of Bath) is currently undertaking a small piece of work for the JISC Users and Innovation programme to develop a ‘beginners guide’ to using QR codes in education. So watch this space, and we’ll post information when it’s available. If you are already using QR codes in education please post information in the comments box and we’ll try include your details in the guide.

In the meantime, there is a prize of a box of chocolates for the first (UK based) person to contact me and tell me what the QR code is below.

Steve Bailey, a former colleague, opens his new book, “Managing the Crowd, rethinking records management for the web 2.0 world”, with the above scenario, which for many records managers, is a recipe for chaos.

The book covers a wide range of topics such as web 2.0 trends, the nature of change in IT systems, and approaches to the appraisal, retention and destruction of records. Helping records management professionals come to terms with a web 2.0 reality that many would not have wished for. Perhaps what is most useful in this volume is Steve’s 10 defining principles for Record Management 2.0 (even if I don’t like the 2.0 title). I won’t put everything down, but Steve identifies that RM 2.0 must be:

• Scaleable
• Comprehensive
• Independent of hardware, software and physical location
• Extensible
• Potentially applicable to all recorded information
• Proportionate, flexible and capable of varying levels of detail and quality
• Benefits led
• Marketable
• Self critical
• Acceptable to, and driven by the RM community

This approach seems highly pragmatic and achievable, and I recommend reading the book for further information. It’s available from Facet Publishing and Steve’s blog  is also a worthwhile read.

“Lawrie, you should get the JISC to do this every six months or so and make it compulsory for all project staff”

My response then, as now, was thanks for the idea, we appreciate your feedback, but are you deliberately trying give us a nervous breakdown. I also hope that the person fills in the feedback form, because if they enjoyed it that much we need to know so we can plan and improve for the next time.

One of the most interesting themes that I picked up from the people I spoke to was the amount of sharing of information going on outside of sessions, and how they intended to take things forward once they left the event. Thinking this through I realised that even though we provide an online forum allowing collaboration in a virtual space, it is difficult to replace the kind of discussion that was occurring in face to face – obvious to some, but important to note. The impact of this on some projects is that they default to a silo position, even though we try and avoid that. This event, with its “wide open spaces” and active encouragement to talk, allows some synthesis from those silos that I hope my U&I projects will carry forward.

Finally, being male and over 35, I love gadgets – so my new gadget was the Flip Video camera. Almost instant boot up and 60 minutes of video – I ran it for the two days capturing 49 videos and never ran out of power. Some of the reflections available include Simon, Mark, Robert and also we have Sarah and Bob talking about their projects.

“Punk-related ideologies are mostly concerned with individual freedom.”

Looking at the wikipedia entry for punk it identifies a plethora of social, political, fashion, music and philosophical standpoints all under the term punk. The views ascribed are not only diverse but in some cases diametrically opposed.

“Punk-related ideologies are mostly concerned with individual freedom.”

And so it is with great unease that I find that my educational technology inbox is filling up this month with a new phrase ‘Edupunk’, even the Guardian is on the bandwagon. I started to write this post because I was disturbed to find another fashion term on horizon that described what so many of our practitioners are doing, edupunk is another label, it comes hot on the heals of the 2.0 movement - you know, learning 2.0, learner 2.0, student 2.0 - and I’m as guilty as the next person for doing it. Here’s the irony, edupunk isn’t edupunk once it’s edupunk. The wikipedia entry as of today reads:

Edupunk is an ideology referring to teaching and learning practices that result from a do it yourself (DIY) attitude. Many instructional applications can be described as DIY education or Edupunk. It describes inventive teaching and inventive learning.

There it is, some ‘edupunk’ as defined it as inventive teaching and inventive learning. Here’s the thing – that’s been happening since the concept of teaching and learning. So that surely can’t be the defining thing? So do we mean, as some commentators have suggested, that edupunk is associated with the 2.0 movement. Web 2.0 tools in education are allowing individuals to make small changes in their practice - the ability to ‘do different’. That might work.

Back in the mid 90’s I worked with an edupunk, he built stuff himself out of toolbook and used these small homemade programs in his teaching, he retired before we had web 2.0, but if he was around now he’d love it. I suggested that John was an edupunk, but I was corrected apparently he was a protoeducpunk. Is the creation of labels and the advent of a ‘new cool’ really what we want to be the defining characteristics of innovation in eduction. I’ve ranted about language before, arguing that these terms form exclusive cliques, and here I think we go again. I actually believe  by inventing the term the originator thought they would do some good and that it was inclusive, however the debate started almost as soon as it was posted. I think the best thing I’ve read on this issue is from Bill Fitzgerald over at Funnymonkey:

…learning 2.0 is a useless expression that, like most labels (and I include edupunk as well, btw) reduces some useful ideas to bitesized pieces the marketing guys can sell…

I am not an edupunk, I work in education and try an make a difference through the use of technology in practice.

There were a lot of great sessions today and the keynotes were excellent. One of the presentations that got me thinking (and most did) was by Peter Reed and Richard Hall “Pathfinding: the impact of collaborative approaches in embedding elearning.” They discussed in detail the work they had done with web 2.0 tools. They used a lot of phrases and words that were user focused:

“Devolvement of responsibility for the technology”

“Trust”

“Ownership of web 2.0″

The way in which web2.0 was being deployed was extremely strategic and at the same time tailored to individual practice. Many of the learning activities that were discussed were independent of the institutional VLE.

I asked the question:

Is this an exit strategy for your VLE?

Richard responded that it wasn’t the intention and that if anything the approach is more about spreading risk.  This lead into a discussion about the role of the VLE in this instance, and the fact that should any of the web 2.0 tools cease to be or there is a loss of service, then the VLE was there in the background. But what if the risk were reversed? What if the VLE was taken away from the institution?

Richard replied that he had confidence that e-learning would continue, using the tools and approaches they had deployed. Thoughts…

This was a good conference for this type of discussion and I’m sure that lots of people had similar experiences. However, if this event should be on your calendar for next year, and you’re a vegetarian, bring your own Sandwiches