#036 e-Learning Stuff Podcast: Cultural Change

With James Clay, Mick Mullane and David Sugden.

It’s not just about the technology, it’s also about the culture of the organisation when it comes to embedding learning technologies and e-learning. Cultural change often needs to happen if there is to be transformation within an educational institutiuon.

This is the thirty sixth e-Learning Stuff Podcast, Cultural Change

Download the podcast in mp3 format: Cultural Change

Subscribe to the podcast in iTunes

Shownotes

• You can follow James Clay, Mick Mullane and David Sugden on Twitter. Also now follow all the ILT news from Gloucestershire College by following @gcilt.
• BBC report on the Ofsted report on e-safety. My blog post on the subject, To block or not to block.
• DimDim or Wiziq for when it snows.
• Facebook for supporting learning.

Clipart, bin it, you know it makes sense

Clipart is often used to allegedly “enhance” learning resources and presentations. You’ve all seen it used somewhere. Clipart is often downloaded from the web or used via Microsoft Office.

I would describe clipart as cliched, stereotypical, ghastly, offensive and just plain bad…. and that’s been nice about it!

So should you be using clipart? Personally speaking and in my opinion, I say no!

I have a preference for photographs and photographic images. I would use a digital camera and take some photographs rather than use some awful clipart. I would prefer to use a photographic image from an image collection rather than use some jokey style clipart.

You can see I don’t really like clipart!

Check the last magazine you purchased, how many articles or adverts used photographs and how many used clipart?

Clipart, bin it, you know it makes sense.

100 ways to use a VLE – #14 Writing a blog

I is writing a blog!

Though you may be reading this on my blog, for some practitioners and learners using a blog is an alien idea and they may not even know what a blog is, or what blogging means.

A VLE can be a quick and easy way for practitioners and learners to start blogging and learn the value of blogging.

A blog is an abbreviation of web log (weblog) and to put it simply is a log of commentaries, observations or reflections that is placed on the web.

Maintaining a reflective journal, thoughts about assignments, or writing notes about lessons; these activities can all be done on a blog.

However…

Not everyone has the confidence or the technical ability to start a blog.

Now I know that starting a blog is a piece of cake, however that may be easy, it is not necessarily such an effective practice for a complete class, curriculum area or a whole college.

Some institutions may consider putting a WordPress MU Server for blogging purposes. However this may not be an option for all colleges. If a WordPress MU Server is put in, then you can link to college systems to ensure that every learner can create their own blog.

Though one issue is not just technical confidence, but also confidence in what is being written. It’s one thing to write a reflective journal and be very open, it is a fundamentally different thing to post those reflections on an open blog for all to read. A learner is likely to be less open if they know everyone, their mum and their employer is going to be reading it. So you might want to close it off to just the learner (or learner group) and the tutor. This requires a modicum of technical confidence; can we assume that every learner can do this?

So though blogging systems such as WordPress or Blogger are great tools for individuals, they don’t really scale with groups or whole colleges.

This is where the VLE can come in.

It’s already configured with logins for learners, so that’s one job done, learners and staff who already use it have a familiarity with it as a tool.

You can use included blogging tools, but for some learners even a discussion forum might be a useful starting point. Advantage of built-in blogging functionality will be (hopefully) that it generates an RSS feed.

Blogging has real potential to enhance and enrich the learning experience of many learners; the VLE can be the right tool for some practitioners in introducing the concept to their learners.

Regardless of the above, if learners want to use other tools such as WordPress, Typepad, Blogger, instead of using a provided blogging tool on the VLE, then practitioners need to consider how they are going to incorporate these blogs into the learning activity. An obvious route is to use RSS feeds from these blogs.

The VLE is not an ideal blogging tool, but for many practitioners and learners it can be a useful and scalable blogging tool.

Photo source.

PSPs at St Helen’s College

Interesting and informative podcast from RSC NW about St Helen’s College use of PSPs.

Gill explains how these devices came out of the MoleNet funding stream and why she finds them better than some other devices for capturing and playing back video evidence.  She explains how easy to use these devices  to display PowerPoint presentations, screen shots and photographs as well as capture high quality video and sound.

Accessibility

Even a simple Word document is more accessible than a printed/written handout. With an electronic document, the learner can very quickly change the typeface, the colours (background and font) , the size of the text, it can also used with a screen reader

Using learning technologies can improve accessibility to learning content for a wider group of learners. Understanding how to present resources to ensure that they are accessible is important for all staff.

Well worth looking at the JISC TechDis website.

The JISC TechDis Service aims to be the leading educational advisory service, working across the UK, in the fields of accessibility and inclusion.

Our mission is to support the education sector in achieving greater accessibility and inclusion by stimulating innovation and providing expert advice and guidance on disability and technology.

There are some nice case studies on the JISC RSC YH Excellence in Inclusivity site.

Welcome to the JISC RSC YH Excellence in inclusivity portal which has been developed to help promote best practice and share knowledge to support enhanced inclusivity. This portal provides a simple route to accessing a range of case studies which show how inclusivity has been enhanced through the use of appropriate technology.

In conversation…

The video version of the conversation between myself and Alan Graham that was recently published as an audio podcast.

Will the iPad have a camera?

So will Apple’s new iPad have a camera?

The original announcement back in January, no mention was made of any kind of camera.

So what’s changed?

Well in the recently released (and very quickly removed) iPad SDK from Apple there is a photos App. Well nothing new there, the iPod touch that doesn’t have a camera also has a photos App. There is a mention in the photos App for a camera.

Now I am not sure if there will be a camera in the first generation iPad, we already know there’s going to be a camera attachment to allow you to plug in a camera via USB or read an SD Card.

I suspect that this is the reason for the camera tab.

I can’t see from the design of the iPad and how it will be held how a facing camera would work, it’s not like the iSight in an iMac or a MacBook Pro. I guess an iPhone camera on the “back” could work.

If the iPhone is anything to go by, we’ll probably in a year to eighteen months see a “new” revised iPad with new features. I don’t think we’ll see a camera in this first generation model.

myStarbucks UK – iPhone App of the Week

myStarbucks UK – iPhone App of the Week

This is a regular feature of the blog looking at the various iPhone Apps available. Some of the apps will be useful for those involved in learning technologies, others will be useful in improving the way in which you work, whilst a few will be just plain fun! Some will be free, others will cost a little and one or two will be what some will think is quite expensive. Though called iPhone App of the Week, most of these apps will also work on the iPod touch.

This week’s App is myStarbucks UK

Free

For some unknown and arcane reason (well some comments I made on Twitter I believe) it has come to pass that across the e-learning world (and beyond) that I am a coffee addict.

Or it might be that I don’t touch instant coffee with a barge pole and only drink what I believe to be real coffee! You know the kind made with beans…

Now I do visit Starbucks, but to be honest it is not my first choice when I buy coffee, but it isn’t as bad as some places I have been to.

There is now an official Starbucks App on the iTunes store.

The official UK iPhone application from Starbucks! Want to find a store that’s open nearby or near a place where you’re meeting a friend? Now you can do that and more with myStarbucks. Explore our whole bean coffees, find delicious food and nutrition information, and build your own perfect drinks. Want to share? You can send your drinks to your friends by email, SMS, and via Facebook and Twitter directly to their iPhone or iPod ®Touch.

The only real reason to get this app is to find your closest Starbucks, and that’s about it.

You may recall, back in February 2008, I wrote about a proposed Starbucks App.

Imagine going to Starbucks having already ordered your drink from your iPhone?

Well this App doesn’t do that. It does list what drinks and food you can buy, but doesn’t tell you if they have sold out of a particular muffin or sandwich.

However if you do like drinking Starbucks coffee (maybe you are a fan of their Frappacinos) then this is certainly one useful App if you are ever in a place you don’t know and want a coffee.

Books that teachers can rewrite digitally

The New York Times reports on the introduction by Macmillan of DynamicBooks.

Macmillan, one of the five largest publishers of trade books and textbooks, is introducing software called DynamicBooks, which will allow college instructors to edit digital editions of textbooks and customize them for their individual classes.

Professors will be able to reorganize or delete chapters; upload course syllabuses, notes, videos, pictures and graphs; and perhaps most notably, rewrite or delete individual paragraphs, equations or illustrations.

I have in a previous blog post, just before the release of Apple’s iPad discussed Sports Illustrated’s concept of a digital magazine. Current e-Books are either very much plain text with simple diagrams (designed to be read on e-Book Readers) or can only be accessed through a browser (such as Ebrary).

Since seeing the iPad, and having talked about e-Books in the past, I can see future e-Books being more than text, with animated diagrams, video clips. DynamicBooks allows practitioners even more control in these new e-Books.

Interesting to note that:

The modifiable e-book editions will be much cheaper than traditional print textbooks.

This may mean that there will be a first choice for many practitioners and learners.

Cheese

Do you remember ever playing Trivial Pursuit?

You recall the general knowledge quiz game, where you had to fill in your six pieces of cheese (or cake) covering six different subject areas.

One of the traits of playing the game was that you favoured certain subject areas and avoided others. You liked History and Geography, but avoided Arts & Literature. As a result you answered many questions on the subjects you liked and virtually ignored the subject you didn’t.

When it comes to embedding of learning technologies (ILT) into a curriculum area, managers of those areas do something similar.

They may be excellent at pushing the use of interactive whiteboards with their staff and teams; but as they don’t like the VLE that much, it gets ignored or only paid lip service.

Likewise when using learning technologies to solve issues in the area; you may use it to solve some areas, whilst ignoring other areas.

The same happens when it comes to writing ILT action plans for curriculum areas. These plans will favour particular technologies and some problem areas. Other technologies and other problem areas will get ignored.

In order to avoid this happening, we have decided to make use of the cheese concept for Trivial Pursuit in order to ensure that curriculum teams make best use of the range of technologies available, ensuring none are left out; likewise ensuring that learning technologies are used to solve issues in a range of areas, rather than one specific area or a few areas.

The areas we have chosen for our cheeses are based on the needs of our corporate college ILT Strategy.

We have two sets of cheese, one with a technology focus and one with a learner focus.

Technology Focus

Learner Focus

In later blog posts I will go into more detail about the different cheeses and exemplar action plans for those cheeses.

The key though for managers is that they MUST plan and COMPLETE action plans for each of the twelve cheeses. They can’t just ignore a cheese because they “feel like it”.

This should have the result that across the college there is a more holisitic approach to embedding of ILT into the curriculum. That weaker areas are not ignored in favour of stronger areas. Eventually the whole college will be moving forward in the use of ILT to enhance and enrich the learner experience; something that is essential as the world of technology is moving too.

We’ll see how this goes…

Photo source.