FOTE 2008: Final Session
Building 21st Century Learning Environments, John Hickey, Apple
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?
FOTE2008: 3rd Session
Mile Metcalfe, Ravensbourne
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/
FOTE2008: 2nd Session ?, Ian Forresster (BBC), Ian Broad (Yahoo), Phil Butler (ULCC)
Mobile technology, Harold ?
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
- Harold – there is a new paradigm of digital culture
- Ian F – the BBC is good, everyone needs to learn, a combination of teachers, friends and peers should be responsible
- IanB – I’ve got a little sister and I believe in this, Yahoo answers is the answer
- Phil B – Digital literacies – immigrants and natives, we’re all immigrants
FOTE 2008: 1st Session Google and Second Life
Here at FOTE (Future OF Technology in Education) 2008, Welcome from Tim Bush (organised the event) and David Rippon the Director of ULCC.
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?
