Down the road…

Over the next two days I am attending the JISC Regional Support Centre South West Summer Conference 2009 which is just down the road for me in Rookery Manor in Somerset, just South of Weston-super-Mare.

I am presenting (with David Sugden) a keynote tomorrow morning and running a workshop later on in the day.

This afternoon I am on an expert panel which will be interesting as I have no idea about what we will be asked!

Today’s keynote is from Derek Law who is going to be running the JISC Services Management company which goes live in August.

Was quite interesting, now onto the workshops.

e-Learning Stuff Podcast #021: Goldilocks, what’s that all about then?

So what do you understand by inclusion? Can we use learning technologies to improve inclusivity?

We discuss the ILT Champions Conference at Gloucestershire College, including the unconference format used and the learning spaces seen at the college. Do we need big names at conferences? Do we need keynotes? How do we make conferences financially viable?

We move onto planning. Do you plan your lessons a week, a month or a year in advance? Is planning a good thing or does it hinder creativity?

This is the twenty-first e-Learning Stuff Podcast, Goldilocks, what’s that all about then?

Download the podcast in mp3 format: Goldilocks, what’s that all about then?

Subscribe to the podcast in iTunes.

James is joined by Dave Foord, David Sugden and Nick Jeans.

Shownotes

• The ILT Champions Conference took place on the 21st April at Gloucestershire College.
• What is an unconference?
• The Ofsted report on VLEs.
• James’ keynote at the RSC Eastern Mobile Learning Event.
• James will be presenting a keynote at ASCILITE 2009 in Auckland, New Zealand.
• Ewan McIntosh was at the JISC Conference.
• James’ blog post on Twittering at conferences.

Informal Unconference

This week was the ILT Champions Conference at Gloucestershire College a national event that had ILT Champions from across the UK descending on the college to share what they do.

Unlike other conferences which have a strict agenda with keynotes, presentations and the odd workshop. We decided (well more I decided) to do something different, to run an unconference.

With this kind of event it is the delegates (the audience) decide the agenda and what will be presented.

I did consider that this may have one downside in that what we want to see and discuss might not always correlate with what we need to see and discuss. This is not so much about dictating what the audience should see, but ensure that they are informed about issues and subjects which they may have not considered fully or dismissed as not relevant (though it might be).

This is something I may consider for future events, combine free flowing sessions with some more formal presentations. This still brings up the question is how and who decides the content for the formal presentations.

Packing

Well I have started packing for the Plymouth e-Learning Conference. Well less packing and more charging. I seem to take more and more equipment to conferences these days. Some of it will be used in my workshops, some I will use to blog and twitter, and some I will bring because I think I might use it, but generally don’t.

Apart from the workshop equipment I usually like to have the following on me at conferences (and a jacket with big pockets to carry it all).

Laptop – though I have a selection of micro-laptops or UMPCs I generally always fall back on my reliable MacBook Pro. In the main as it has a decent keyboard, partly as I have a spare battery for it and it has a built in camera.

Phones – normally two, this year three. Not for making phone calls mind you. I have my work Nokia which is what people at work will be able to call and SMS me on. I have my home T-Mobile Nokia N95 which I use for internet, either on the device or configured as a wireless router, a digital camera, a video camera and a broadcast camera using QIK. This year I will also be bringing an iPhone!

Digital Camera – despite having the 5MP Nokia N95 I do like to have a proper digital camera with a proper lense. I would love to bring my Canon DSLR, but it’s too heavy, so I have a little Sony pocket camera which does the job.

Video Camera – I have found my little Panasonic HD camera a great tool for conferences, at the ALT Conference I used it to create a little video that I then edited on my MacBook Pro (another reason to carry that around). Quick and easy to use, and records to SD cards so video clips can be easily transferred to the computer.

MP3 Recorder – I always carry this, thinking I should record some podcasts when I am at the conference and never seem to get round to it… this conference I hope will be different.

Chargers – as batteries never seem to last as long as the conference.

So what do you bring to a conference?

JISC Conference Ramblings

So here I am at the JISC Conference 2009 up in Edinburgh in Scotland.

So far we’ve only had the keynotes, well two introductions and a keynote really.

Though we are not in Telford, the wifi is not perfect, and I am getting intermittent dropped connections and slow loading times, but to be honest I was expecting that.

Lizbeth Goodman’s keynote is interesting and demonstrates a range of technologies being used in a vastly different areas and groups.

Covering more than just HE and FE, covering a lot of work being done in schools across the world.

More later….

JISC Conference 2009

On Tuesday the good and the great (and me) will be descending on Edinburgh for the JISC Conference.

Usually the JISC Conference is in Birmingham, this year for a change it’s North of the border.

I am flying up on Monday from Bristol, as the early flight on Tuesday is way too early for going up for one day; and there are pre-conference events on Monday too. There is a good programme and I am looking forward to it.

I am attending the session on student retention.

The need for improving retention is identified in the National Audit Office report on Student Retention (Feb 2008). The funding councils already provide additional funding to support institutions in meeting retention and widening participation targets. JISC projects have shown that technology has an important role in providing the administrative processes and support facilities that make learners feel better supported when starting a course in higher education. Several projects have demonstrated that the costs of small investments in technical infrastructure and processes can be covered by reducing student loss by just a few learners. This session will explore several examples of universities using technology to support students and, in doing so, helping to improve retention. We will hear feedback from the learners and discuss the potential of these approaches to make greater impact across the sector.

In the afternoon I am going to the Web 2.0 legal session.

Cultural perceptions about the relevance of legal issues in a Web 2.0 environment, and practical obstacles in locating authoritative resources about these issues, can present some of the biggest challenges in engagement with next generation technologies to support teaching, learning and research.

How do we encourage engagement by staff with these issues?

How can we engender a culture of mutual respect for creative works, as well as one recognising the need for pragmatism and a managed approached to risk?

Where can we go to find authoritative and appropriate resources and, once found, what tools should be used, when and how?

To address these issues the Web2Rights project, with support from JISC Legal, has taken an innovative approach by harnessing next generation technologies to develop an advisory toolkit and associated resources. Come along to find out more.

As per usual I hope to be blogging a few blog entries there, I will probably take a few photographs too, certainly will be Twittering and I may make a video or two…

I am having a coffee…

Yesterday I gave a few online presentations (conferences) for the MoLeNET programme.

One was on microblogging, entitled I am having a coffee…

The presentation covered blogging, RSS, Twitter, Jaiku, Moblog and even Flickr.

Starting mLearn 2008

So the conference proper has started after the disappointing pickled cauliflower reception.

Alas there is no free wireless, so though I can use my 3G phone, I can’t use my laptop or iPod touch. Though I can enter text on my phone, I am terrible at writing on a 1-9 keypad so I am writing this using a word processor.

So far we have had a (very long) five minutes introduction to the conference and now John Traxler is going through the housekeeping and is now introducing Diane Laurillard.

Diane Laurillard presenting her keynote, “towards a pedagogy-driven account of mobile learning”.

Digital technologies are not typically optimised for learning or teaching… but are optimised for business and leisure.

Now presenting a common framework of representation.

Diane now presenting her conversational framework.

Question, can you describe informal learning?

Diane says her conversational framework challenges the learning design.

What are mobile technologies good for?

Personally I think she misses the point.

A lot of arguments against digital tools can be equally applied to non-digital tools such as books, journals and blackboards.

Tools are tools regardless of whether they are physical or digital.

She seems to be applying traditional learning design to designs which use mobile devices.

She seems to have missed that mobile learning is (or should be) about the mobility of the learner.

I wonder if she has heard of Web 2.0?

Her example misses the fact that learners who are not even at the art gallery can contribute and join in the learning activity.

Digital technologies for not typically optimised for learning. Nor are most physical technologies and environments.

Her model seems to miss the point of the real advantages of mobile learning.

Here at ALT-C 2008

So it’s ALT-C time again and this time I am in Leeds.

So far the conference has got off to a good start, I did enjoy the mobile learning pre-conference workshop I went to yesterday.

I also attended the F-ALT session in the bar and that went well as you can see here, here and here.

Off to do my working soon.

MoLeNET Dissemination Conference – 18th September

If you check my tag cloud on the right you will see the tag MoLeNET and you may have wondered what that was about.

Well MoLeNET (which is short for Mobile Learning NETwork) is, to quote the LSN:

A unique collaborative approach to the implementation of mobile learning via supported shared cost mobile learning projects within a wider community of practitioners and experts.

Gloucestershire College has had a MoLeNET Project, the Glossy Project which has been looking at mobile learning.

Well on the 18th September there is a MoLeNET Dissemination Conference in London (see attached PDF).

The aims of the conference are:

• To disseminate nationally the good practice, lessons learned, research and evaluation findings, tips, tools and advice arising out of the MoLeNET programme in 2007/08
• To demonstrate technologies, systems, learning materials and techniques
• To provide a platform for practitioners to share and an opportunity for networking and building of future partnerships

I do expect to be there in one form or another, so if you are coming do come and say hello.

MoLeNET Dissemination Conference (PDF)