New and Emerging Learning Technologies

In education too often the wave is over our heads before we realise. We really don't have any excuse now - here is a superb presentation from  Steve Wheeler on the shape of some things to come - should be enough to put  any educational leaders on to the front foot or poised to surf the next wave.

eXtending the Web - New and Emerging Learning Technologies

View more presentations from Steve Wheeler.

Maths and more Game Apps on iStore

Lots of meetings in last few weeks and playing catch up. I spent some time with Euan Mackenzie the CEO of  3MRT ltd who was pleased to let me know that they have released a number of game playing aps designed to support SQA Maths Candidates and he thinks as he would that he has achieved a few  firsts-

We have our first Scottish based apps on the iStore and the first press

reviews are universally positive.

You can jump off to the apps here: http://apps.inquizitor.com/

Save on Travel Desk Top Webconference

Just did one of those quick and dirty surveys of what staff are using to communicate with range of stakeholders across UK - worth sharing as it probably gives quite a good picture of desktop web conferencing systems being used accross UK Education. Remember focus here is on desk-top systems not Video Conferencing Suites.

Scotlands Colleges have been using http://www.elluminate.com/  for last two years - though they sometimes also use  http://www.netviewer.com/ 


GLOW ( in the area branded GLOW Meeting ) was using the Marratech System and is now going to make use of Adobe Connect http://www.adobe.com/products/adobeconnect.html So most mainstream Scottish Schools will have access to this.

There is also an active community across Education using the hosted Open University Flash Meeting service http://flashmeeting.open.ac.uk/index.html  . This is a free service which allows you to set up meetings as well as attend meetings - the Open University offers this service for free to the world wide education community.
It is used to record and broadcast quite a lot of events as well as for hosting meetings.

Finally there is a growth in wholly on-line conferences to get a flavour of these would be well worth signing up for JISC's  Innovating e-Learning 2010 Online Conference http://www.jisc.ac.uk/elpconference10

The Best of EdTech Web 2010 #ediff

Resources like these are arriving every day and they can change education
as we know it.. thought this was a great set of new tools..

Best of the EdTech Web 2010 - With Links

View more presentations from Richard Byrne.

Useful Perhaps Observation from Across the Water #ediff

Thought this graphic gives nice picture of how a larger economy is struggling with #ediff
challenges.

Useful graphic from http://www.onlinecollegesanduniversities.net/technology-in-the-classroom/
was taken down last night.  The graphic presented  the challenges in integrating technology into American Classrooms. Where internet access in schools is much lower than Scotland.

Via: Online Colleges and Universities

Scottish Government Technologies for Learning Strategy #ediff

A few folks have aleady had a go at summarising discussions around Friday's event.
Neil Winton ,  Fearghal Kelly ,  Andrea Reid  and I'm sure more will follow.

The focus was on what schools and learners  (think nursery, primary and secondary schools ) should have access to and how a government with limited resources can support the necessary initiatives and investment to support this access.

The best bits.. that there is still broad support for the vision of a Scottish Schools Intranet and the notion that institutions, learners and teachers need to be trusted much more and have greater access to the internet. Expressed as a dimmer switch that could be turned up or down to protect learners as they progress through education. ( this has been aired lots of times and  in lots of ways  before)

This was a gathering of like minds from the Scottish educational  blogosphere. We can like all educators fight over the number of angels that can dance on the end of a pin ..but we didn't have to do too much justification on whether more technology is good for learning and learners.Yes we agree that play is central to learning and that there is a place for games based learning in schools ( and beyond serious games happening more and more in workbased learning)

What we didn't have time to do but I hope will be done was strip the  discussion down to the things that need to be in place

• Without reliable broad band access across all schools vision cannot happen.  There should be guidelines on what learners should have access to in nursery, primary and secondary across Scotland.
• Without guidelines on "the dimmer switch" most local authorities will opt for the standardised web filtering policies that keep most learners and teachers in the dark
• A minimum national intranet should allow interaction between teachers, learners and relevant agencies at a national level 
• It wasn't said in this way but one of my own - If Starbucks can do wifi why can't Scotland's schools - learners should be able to use their own devices to access their school platform.

 The outputs of what was a full day stimulating debate - not short on big words - and big ideas from Pat Kane @theplayethic  are captured in David Gilmour's photographs of the  flipcharts.

We didn't touch much on the support available through the internet itself - there are offerings from Microsoft, Intel , Cisco, Oracle, Google and more aimed at building up the digital literacy of teaching staff and learners and we only began to consider the growing open educational resource movement. Nor did we spend much time talking about what assets the learner takes in this domain from primary into secondary or the eportfolio they could usefully take into College or workbased learning.

Most of this audience have at some stage or continue to take a professional risk in blogging , adopting twitter or more modestly asking for some webservice or other to be unblocked. I think the education hackers or edupunks are live and well in Scottish education but need more encouragement. They are still a challengingly small minority of voices - echoing , re-blogging and tweeting each other. There needs to be a cultural shift and more support from the agencies that look after standards of access and the teaching standards in Scotland.

I hope this debate moves on at pace. We are not being ambitious enough for our learners in this space. The savvy ones can already do a lot of their own learning in their own time on their own devices in a place and time that suits them. The debate is not about schools staying technologically relevant it is really about the continiuing relevance of our education system.

Open Education #ediff

Some folks in Scotland will know the amazing work done by Brigham Young University in widening access and playing a major role in changing American Society. It is great to see this institution leading from the front in the Open Education debate here is David Wiley's presentation from last week's Educause Conference . Hope it helps some folk understand what I was getting at when I suggested that more and more learning resources would be free and accessible in the futureEducause 2010 - Openness, Data, and a Sustainable Future for Education

View more presentations from David Wiley.

Viral Education 2.0

Getting to the stage where I find a profound presentation like

this every month or so - chimes well with debate we had in

Scotland yesterday about the future of technology and education.

I'd love to see some more of these presentations coming out

from Scottish institutions - I still get the sense we're being stoic

and canny around the place of technology in learning when

we should be jumping right in.

AXA brings print ads to life

Just think what this technology could bring to interactive learning

and what a great way to sell and Apple Ap

IronWorkz

Oldie but goodie - reminds me a bit of digital natives discussion.

European Association Of Test Publishers Conference

Halfway through this conference and pleased to hear that we in Scotland are actually doing pretty well in the domain of innovative on-line assessment and in who we have chosen to work with as technical partners. Many of our testing and development partners are here.

I am writing this for those who don't know the commercial side of the computer based assessment industry. This is big multi-national business spanning the organisations that provide pychometric and selection tests to industry , those who provide specialist regulatory tests for different industries ( SQA is included here) to those who work in mainstream education providing the testing systems that support national awarding in the school, college or vocational learning space. ( we feature here too)

It is all here for a price - from the vast aircraft simulation assessments for pilots and ground crew, to the professional tests for global professional associations, to those who offer selection tests for lots of different kinds of employment or for national driving tests and for .. the list goes on...

Tests can be built , beta tested for valididty and realibility and delivered through the medium of the customer's choice to a testing centre for high stakes tests or even out to mobile devices as authentication and on-line proctoring systems develop.

The main changes in the market globally

• Main move is towards more immersive assessments using virtual worlds or augmented reality - but they are very expensive to develop but allows increasingly authentic assessment this stretches out to serious gaming.
• Greater regulation CPD and mandated testing in growing number of occupational areas around world.
• Moves to mobile and Wi-Fi based testing you can now have mobile test centres using i-pads and other devices. 
• Video Proctoring - allowing candidates to take assessments where ever they wish to tackle these.
• Costs of hardware going down for equipping test centres from about £6oo to £300.
• Massive opportunities in places like India and China where the delivery device of choice will be mobile phones.

The good news is that we have thought about most of this. The challenges as ever are not the technology or the ability to change the system but the willingness of those in the training and education systems to embrace change. When assessment on demand is a reality will your institution be ready ?

Scottish Learning Festival

Gathering my thoughts on another successful Scottish Learning Festival. For me the opportunity to network around the event is its main attraction. Here are some of my personal  favourite bits from rushing in and out of the conference over the two days.

Still awaiting some really cool SLF t-shirts playing on the Stiff Little Fingers Logo of the 1980's.

• Sugata Mitra  - Should challenge everyones thinking catch his keynote on conference website.
• Teachmeet - made 15 minutes of this before I had to scramble off to Scottish Training Federation Awards and Dinner. Check out wiki and flashmeet
• Ollie Bray and Derek Robertson's infectious enthusiasm - catch the dance..
• David Cameron's ( @realdcameron on Twitter) perceptive sessions on what Curriculum for Excellence is really all about
• Finally good to see NQ Games Sessions , Katie Farrell's work on using the new awards  , and the SQA Computing team getting around the event and blogging about it
• Ewan McIntosh  trying to stay in the debate while flying over to the west coast of America to deliver a keynote
• Stephen Heppell and his friendly supportive ways

I'm sure a simple Google #SLF10 or #SLF2010 will throw up much more - I had a sense there was more blogging and tweeting going on at this event than any of the past ones and great to see keynotes up on LTScotland Website.  Particularly liked  John Johnston's perceptive post on teachmeet -Looking forward to next year already.

Scottish Training Federation Awards

On Wednesday night I was humbled as ever by the work that training providers across Scotland do. The organisation I work for uses SVQ Awards and national occupational standards as an important part of our staff development processes as do many organisations across the UK. 

However, the work of Scotland's training providers in supporting training in the workplace is  largely unreported. We need to shine a light more often on the hard graft that is involved in achieving a modern apprenticeship and the challenges that are involved in supporting candidates in the workplace.

E-Cert Programme

Interesting project that creates an e-certificate and controls management and verification systems - can operate across different institutions and awarding authorities . Some really useful example uses from across UK  Allows educational organisation to issue these , learners to access these and  employers and institutions to use these - can be used to verify exam results, project work , e-portfolios . Candidate can submit their certification and the work that they have completed - can see lots of applications for this.
Potentially useful links to Bologna process and E-Certification E-pass work.

Donald Clark Plan B at ALTC2010

Donald Clark opens ALTC 2010 Conference in Nottingham.

Founder of Epic an early on-line educational publisher which he sold on for a modest fortune now has an excellent blog at http://donaldclarkplanb.blogspot.com/ always controversial.


Don’t Lecture Me ! - Why we need to move away from the lecture theatre - a rabble rousing opening address.

I’ve heard some of this many times over the years and have experienced lots of awful teachers, lectures and conference presentations over the years. Donald does an entertaining spin through the challenges of getting individuals and institutions to move away from the lecture theatre. I agree with many of the challenges he identifies – but think we still have to find a way to move pedagogy on – and not least the  the pedagogues who like giving lectures when they can .. even in schools.  So not an easy challenge.

Hardly anyone who teaches in a University believes in any scientific methodology of teaching and learning or even tries to apply any of it. Collection of anecdotes rather than a data driven empirical approach and if any theories are used then they are half-baked. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs gets a doing it only survives because it is easy to put on a power point. Teachers always focus on what they are going to teach they hardly stop and think about how they are going to teach it.

Great use of teaching clip from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-S54bbX6eA

The Crazy English Movement fills stadiums with 25,000 in China
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/crazy-english-how-chinas-language-teachers-became-big-celebrities-1777545.html

Recommends  "The Media Equation " – book http://www.amazon.com/Media-Equation-Television-Information-Publication/dp/1575860538 some good ideas on applying new technologies to learning.

Teachers ask pseudo rhetorical questions and don’t really challenge learners. Lecturing grew from preaching in the middle ages and it has never really moved on. Was associated with reading and then instruction – but still a meaningless monologue.

Isaac Newton – was brilliant but no-one turned up to his lectures as no-one could understand them and his delivery was very poor – he often delivered them to empty rooms . Why put brilliant research scientists who can’t teach in front of undergraduates? Problem is not just people it is about methodology Richard Feynman teaching physics through lectures is almost an impossible task has to be through active learning.

Even the new recordings of lectures in YouTube are mostly rubbish – but it is still better to see a first class lecture on video than a mediocre one in the flesh. Russell Group Universities attendance drops to just around 50% among first years over a year.

Institutions should be looking at learning success rates and looking at how they can use technology to time shift Youtube.edu http://www.youtube.com/edu look at Lewins Lectures http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Lewin_Lectures_on_Physics , i-tunes u , MIT , Open Learn OU Don’t pad out cognitive overload - hardly anyone knows how to use text, images, sound etc in learning - there is lots more we could be doing to improve learning.

The Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve – keep coming back to this

Carol Twigg – Pew Research – move to active learning approach and redesign your courses around learning http://www.thencat.org/  actually a lot of potential in this work for curriculum for excellence in schools.

People need to be able to study at a distance in a much more enlightened way and universities need to share resources in much more creative ways – most medical faculties still have art /publications departments drawing and digitizing representations of the human body in a massively inefficient ways. When capital expenditure cuts come at least it will stop lots of monument building that has been going on campuses around the country.– most university buildings run at under 50% capacity which is scandal.

The Open University model is the way ahead.

And now 63 minutes later I've forgotten half of it

Assessment Futures , New Ventures and ALT-C

I'm on my way down to the Association of Learning Technology Conference on Monday.  It is probably the best place for ideas and theory sharing across the UK Learning Technology community . I've been engaged with ALT since mid 1990's . But this post is not an advert for ALT it is to set up discussions with colleagues at the conference and beyond . The post will be picked up by the excellent Crowd Vine tool that is being used.

So if you are at ALT-C here is flavour of things we are up to and areas of my immediate interest at the conference.

As you would expect from National Awarding and Accreditation Body there is quite a lot of work going on around looking at different models of assessment.   By the current nature of our system this is largely work we are doing in  Further and Higher Education , Community and Workbased learning spaces - but a quick flavour of some of the themes that are emerging

• Exemplifying models of holistic assessment utilising range of different mediums.
• Exploring use of E-portfolios and their application across institutional boundaries - portfolio moving with learner.
• Describing and exemplifying Assessment strategies beyond the written word video or other evidence capture mechanisms including Virtual Worlds
• Demonstrating use of Wki and Blogs for assessment of collaborative and group work
• Piloting and creating models for test item sharing in (maths , sciences and computing ) how far can we share/ re-use  items between institutions /continents/ education systems  ?
• Further exploring potential of Games Based Assessment

These areas of work and some broader work around building and defining Digital Literacy across  the spectrum of life long learning.and how qualifications support this. 

Always interested in anything out there that can inform our work in these areas - and welcome input from ALT Colleagues and broader blogosphere.

N'IMPORTE COMMENT - THE TOXIC AVENGER FEAT ORELSAN - "OFFICIAL VIDEO"

Facebook Boogie from France - fantasist view of virtual worlds but interesting for all references made to social networking

21st Century Education in New Brunswick, Canada

I met some of the folks leading this change in New Brunswick at a conference a few years ago

They have done a lot to modernise all of the public services across the state, not just schooling.

Useful clip for Scottish staff rooms in schools , colleges and universities.

Race to Infinity

Race to Infinity
Originally uploaded by The iconoclastic yet iconic ionic icon

The media is jumping around on results, curriculum changes, funding challenges, job shortages, institutional restructuring , funding threats and all the topics that have probably been educational media fare for the last two centuries.
We overlook that it is probably the most exciting time to be engaged in learning and education perhaps since the renaissance. We now know how education transforms lives, civil society and boosts individual and national economic capability and we have access to an almost unimaginable set of resources - on-line courses, videos, virtual worlds, games, data visualisations, primary sources, walk through maps of the world , augmented reality , even interactive maps of the universe.

The resources are there to support innovative engaging individualised routes through learning and if you can't figure out how to do this there are global networks of learners and teachers emerging offering peer support. There is not an occupational area that is not being transformed by technology. I was delighted to hear last week of a colleagues daughter moving out in to the economy confidently stating "my blog is my CV "

I predict this year will be a great year for open educational resources and for many more open minds on the changes that are happening across life long learning. It would be great to see more stories on the transformations that are happening in the UK and around the world.

Open Educational Resources

I think this image originates from some JISC CETIS Work - I used it as part of a presentation this week .

The question I would ask is how ready is your organisation to

A. Make the most from this global movement of open innovation

B However modestly how do you and your organisation contribute - (educators and learners need to become creators as well as consumers of Open Educational Resources) Are you ready ?

Shh ! Blog Posting

shh
Originally uploaded by Kradlum

I've been off blogging regularly. A combination of the technicalities of moving host, diary commitments and a reflection too of some of the more confidential discussions I have in my new role. Since Easter I've had some really great meetings with existing and new partners and we've been pushing through some business cases through our internal processes. This combined with conference season in June and a round of award ceremonies has kept me quite silent.
All poor excuses I know. In the past I have tried to make blogging a natural adjunct to life and work - twitter has taken over a bit of this and I've got to say SQA has got a bit better at using blogs and social media too ( but still room for improvement)
Anyway back from holidays and back to some projects that can be shared - expect to hear more from me over the next six months.

This is my first post on Amplify! I've really no idea how this works but here is a test posting http://amplify.com/u/8eod

Lest we forget the barriers to skills development in the Workplace

A UKCES ( UK Commission for Employment and Skils)  discussion paper from earlier this year said that in a perfect market, individuals would do their utmost to participate in skills development activities. This would provide them with a stronger chance of more secure, well paid, and more rewarding employment, and would also provide them with the wider benefits associated with ‘good work’. However, the paper acknowledged that this was not the case, and set out the barriers to skills development.


Barriers to Skills Development

Intrinsic
• Social barriers: learning perceived to go against social, gender, or family norms
• Lack of knowledge of what is available
• Lack of awareness of the benefits of engaging in skills development
• Lack of confidence
• Lack of expectancy that engaging will result in desired outcomes
• Fear of failure due to educational inheritance from previous experiences
• Perception of being too old to learn
• Perception that there is no need for further skill development
• Gaps in basic skills
• Lack of motivation due to personal priorities

Extrinsic
• Lack of time
• Cost/lack of financial support
• Lack of provision of appropriate quality, relevance, and content
• Employer unwilling or unable to resources training or time off
• Lack of space or resources for work-related training
• Lack of work culture that encourages skills development
• Lack of job ownership/autonomy to effectively deploy skills
• Lack of formal systems for progression/rewarding skills development
• Inappropriate allocation of skills development opportunities by management
• Lack of support/advocacy from unions, peers, management

Social Media Revolution 2 (Refresh)

I'm not sure how many times we need to say this before folks get the message
Fat Boy Slim helps make the point

OECD Report On Technology in Our Classrooms

The headlines make some interesting reading but there is some really useful meat in this report.

The other  thing to note is as data collection and analysis becomes easier we are going to get lots more studies from OECD and other organisations looking at how education systems and learners are performing around the globe. These are the big things that economists and politicians love.

Global trends are one thing - but folks need to remember that literacy, numeracy and ICT skills are things than can be tackled locally ..worth looking at these and taking some positive action , with your own skills , in your class room/training centre , across your school,college, workplace  , in your local authority or within your sphere if influence local , regional , national .

The report has six key policy implications:

1. Raise awareness among educators, parents and policy makers of the consequences of increasingly ICT familiarity;
2. Identify and foster the development of 21st century skills and competences;
3. Address the second digital divide;
4. Adopt holistic policy approaches to ICT in education; Adapt school learning environments as computer ratios improve and digital learning resources increase;
5. Adapt school learning environments as computer ratios improve and digital learning resources increase;
6. Promote greater computer use at school and experimental research on its effects.

I finally moved

It has taken me a few months to decide whether to dump blogger for another blogging package. In the end I plumped for a domain through Google and to keep on using blogger rather than Wordpress or one of the other tools out there.
I'll keep my old demon.hompages site for nostalgia or in case I need it for a project at some point.

On the move itself, thank goodness I was able to get back to my blogger file on the old site to post a "this blog has moved notice" and I remembered some HTML. I only realised I had not done this after I had moved everything across to the new domain and I could not get back to make this edit through blogger and had to fall back to looking for Blogger index file and editing it.


I wonder how long it will take folks who follow original blog with RSS feed readers to notice I have moved. It will probably take me a wee while too to sort out redirects and with other tools I use.

This blog has moved

This blog is now located at http://www.joewilsons.net
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For feed subscribers, please update your feed subscriptions to
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Jeff Jarvis on Future of the Lecture from TedX

TeachMeet Second Life 2010

Great Idea / experiment would be good if folk dropped in from FE and other sectors too

A Brief History of Pretty Much Everything

This might be just about last post to this blog til I find a new way to host and post. In the meantime here is a wonderful bit of creativity from a school pupil Jamie Bell.
Thanks to Jane Hart for link

Happy New Year

Shared with Flock - The Social Web Browser
http://flock.com

I haven't blog posted since early December - but what an amazing time I have had in between.
A holiday of a lifetime with our family in the Philippines -6 islands, an ascent of a live volcano, amazing city life, wonderful beaches to canoe and snorkel off , all the Christmas and New Year Celebrations with a local twist and the food - fantastic everywhere - including a feast at the home of the national celebrity chef Claude Tayag.



We can't thank the Lazatin, Tayag and Fernandez famillies enough for sharing a very unique Philippino experience with us.

Then a return to a snowy cold Glasgow some frantic sledging with friends , two days in office to try and catch up with all that happening in Scotland and then a week in London at the excellent Learning and Technology World Forum and my annual round of meetings at BETT10.
Lots to report and the year has just started.