Enhancing Learning – RSC Eastern eFair

My keynote presentation from last week’s RSC eFair.

The world is changing.

Technologies are changing.

Learning is changing.

Our learners are changing. How they learn, where they learn and with whom they learn, all are changing.

Web 2.0 technologies allow learners to remove the social, geographical and physical barriers to communicate and learn with others.

Mobile technologies allow learners to be more mobile and be able to access learning and learning communities in ways which have never been possible before.

Both allow for an enhanced and enriched learning experience.

James Clay has extensive experience of mobile learning and has a vision that goes beyond mobile technologies and focuses on the mobility of the learner, blurring the demarcation between formal and informal learning. His current vision for education encompasses the use of Web 2.0 technologies embedded into an institutional VLE which can be accessed through mobile technologies. Allowing learners a focal point for their studying, whilst allowing the depth and breadth of Web 2.0 to bring a personalised learning experience to students at a time and space to suit them.

For the future, James hopes that institutions and others will allow for a flexible, personalised, accessible learning experience for all.

View the section of Martin Bean’s ALT-C 2009 keynote that deals with resistance to innovation.

e-Learning Stuff Podcast #053: Last week or so…

James talks about last week and stuff he saw, wrote about and found…

This is the fifty third e-Learning Stuff Podcast, Last week or so…

Download the podcast in mp3 format: Last week or so…

Subscribe to the podcast in iTunes

Shownotes

• 100 ways to use a VLE
• A five stage model for using the VLE
• Opinion: On Models and False Economy
• Sometimes it does go wrong…
• View the section of Martin Bean’s ALT-C 2009 keynote that deals with resistance to innovation.
• The 200 slide solution
• The “Lessig Method” of presentation
• 96 slides in 12 minutes – Presentation Styles
• Mobile Learning Boot Camp

Sometimes it does go wrong…

Today I delivered the keynote at the JISC RSC Eastern eFair at Hertford Regional College.

Though the presentation went down well, lots of positive feedback I did have a few technical hitches. Now I made the most of them and used it as an opportunity to talk about the issues of practitioners lacking confidence in the technology and not wanting to use it in case it went wrong. The point I made was that tradition, technologies sometimes fail us, but as professionals we compensate and change what we were going to do. For example if your marker pen runs out of ink on a traditional whiteboard, doesn’t usually stop someone from ever using one again. Likewise if someone has used a permanent marker on the whiteboard, does this stop you ever using one, because the one day you come across a whiteboard where this has happened will ruin your lesson. Practitioners sometimes decide they won’t use the VLE as sometimes it doesn’t work! Would they say the same about a physical learning environment ie a classroom? Sometimes they don’t work, like when it snows for example. So yes sometimes it does go wrong and as a professional you need to either fix it, or get someone else to fix it, or change quickly what you were going to do.

So what went wrong?

Firstly, though I was assured that once I had logged into the wireless network that it wouldn’t time out. It did. Took a minute or so before I could start.

The other issues was about two thirds of the way through the presentation Keynote on my Mac froze! I couldn’t move to the next slide. Without checking fully I think what happened was one of two things. Either the script auto-posting to Twitter was not working properly. Or Powerpoint which was also running on my Mac decided to “hog” all the resources and stop Keynote from working properly. Whatever it was it did mean that I couldn’t move my slide forward for a few minutes.

In the end the pause worked fine as we could discuss technical problems and also showed that tech problems happen to all of us.

Resistance to innovation

There has always been resistance innovation and I suspect it will continue…

Martin Bean last year gave an excellent keynote at ALT-C 2009 and in the first few minutes (from 3m 50s) described some historical views on innovation.

View the section of the keynote that deals with resistance to innovation from here.

Do you like books or do you like reading?

I recently gave a keynote at the CoFHE Circle Mid West event.

Do you like books or do you like reading?

eBooks and eBook Readers bring new challenges and new opportunities for learning technologists. Sony has the eReader, Amazon the Kindle and now Apple has the iPad. Publishers are now offering more titles as eBooks. There is a huge growth and interest in this new medium.

Some learners prefer physical books and the feel of paper, but do eBooks have the potential to offer more to the reader? Are eBooks a new way for learners to access information and learning? Are they just a digital version of print, ignoring the affordances of new technologies?

How can we use eBooks and eBook Readers? How do we promote their use with learners?

WWDC 2010 Keynote

Today is Steve Jobs’ Keynote at WWDC. It will be on around 6pm here in the UK. There is no live feed and I expect to follow the key announcements via Twitter or Engadget.

Traditionally we get to hear about new products and new software.

As might be expected the web is rife with rumours about what we will hear about. I’ll let you Google them to find what they are.

I am expecting to see a new iPhone, and though I am pleased with my iPhone 3GS will be thinking about upgrading to the new one if it does more than the 3GS does. Key new features for me are not so much the multi-tasking that we will see in iPhone OS 4.0 as that will work on the 3GS, but new hardware features. I would like to see a new camera with a better lense. The 3G camera is rubbish compared to the 3GS, but many other phones have much better cameras and I do use the camera on my iPhone a lot. Prior to retirement I used the camera on the Nokia N95 a lot too.

I doubt we will see the portable wifi hotspot that Android 2.2 brought to the Nexus One which is a pity as that is such a useful feature of that phone. Now using it more than ever.

Will be interested to see if there are any details on a new version of OS X and what that will bring to my Mac.

Not long now…

96 slides in 12 minutes – Presentation Styles

At a Becta LSIS Learning Innovation, Embracing Technology Conference at the NEC last year I had a twelve minute slot for a presentation on how the future of learning is mobile.

I did use slides.

Now the accepted model for powerpoint presentations is 2-5 minutes per slide, so if I was presenting according to the accepted model I would have had no more than six slides.

So how many slides did you have?

I used ninety six slides.

Did you really?

Yes I did.

I remember been asked to send a copy of my presentation to the organisers, which I had to do via a version uploaded to the web as it was too big for e-mail. I then got a “worried” e-mail reminding me that I only had twelve minutes and that I might have too many slides. I did in fact cut a few slides, I think initially it was over a hundred… so cutting to ninety six was quite tough!

Even at the event, I was taken to one side and reminded how important it was to stick to the timeslot I had been given.

Then it was time….

I use to have quite light slides when I started doing conference presentations, but was noted by someone else that my slides a few years ago were getting more text heavy… and it was true! I had more and more text on my slides.

So I decided to stop how I wrote my presentation slides and think again about how and what I present.

Most times text is on slides as a crutch to the presenter who may not know their stuff, or certainly doesn’t have the confidence to present without the security blanket of lots of text.

I decided that if I was using words I would use phrases or key words. Where possible I would use images.

So where do you get the images?

Most times they are images I have taken myself or had taken for me. But for a lot of images I use creative commons licensed images from Flickr. There is a wealth of images available on Flickr and they can be used to convey lots of different things. If I can’t find the image I want, I have been known to get the camera and go and take the image. I also upload my images to Flickr, not just so others can use them, but if I am out and about and I want to use one of my images I needn’t worry about having it on my computer as it may be on my Flickr account.

Images are very powerful and can convey and support what I am saying

But what about the text?

Presentations are not about text they are about presentations.

Word documents are about text, so write a Word document or a blog post.

I try to use a small number of words and where possible avoid bullet points.

I have seen too many presentations that consist of bullet points with lots of explanatory text, often too small to read!

But when I post my presentation online…

Come on, really who is the presentation for, the audience in the conference room or the online audience.

Remember that the core audience for a presentation is the live audience in the conference room. It is not the remote audience who will only read your presentation and won’t get the full benefit of your actual talk and any questions afterwards.

If it is necessary to offer a more detailed presentation online. then video or film the presentation. Or how about creating one text heavy presentation for the online audience who won’t hear you and one for the live audience who will.

Anyone who puts loads of text onto a slide so that it makes sense to someone who reads it online (notice the use of the word reads) then they might as well not present their work and just print it out and let us read it.

Presentations that are watched are different to documents that are read.

Use the right tool for the right audience and the right location.

I can’t take all the credit for how I create my slides for my presentations, one of the articles I read gave me a real insight into making a good looking presentation. The article talks about the different presentation styles of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs and reading it, it makes a lot of sense to me.

So what of the rules about 2-5 minutes per slide?

If you know the rules, you can break the rules.

So how did I do?

Yup, I delivered all ninety six slides in twelve minutes. Got lots of positive feedback as well. The feedback was on the content of the  presentation and what I said, and not on the presentation slides themselves.

Job done!

You can do what with the iPad?

Many people see the iPad as a BIG iPod touch, something that is used to view content on. Though it does have a microphone, unlike the iPhone is does not have a camera.

There is though one aspect of the iPad that Apple have announced that I think some people have missed and that will be the availability of iPad versions of the iWork applications. Apple will at the same time as they release the iPad, release iPad versions of their presentation software, Keynote, wordprocessing software, Pages and spreadsheet software, Numbers.

There are also rumours that Microsoft may be working on a version of Office for the iPad.

So what does this all mean?

Well is turns the iPad from a mainly content consumption device to a device that can allow the user to both consume and create content.

So what you may say, I have a laptop that does just that!

Well it’s pretty certain that the iPad is no laptop, even Steve Jobs in his iPad announcement says that the iPad sits between the iPhone and a laptop.

However I don’t see the iPad replacing my laptop all the time, but in some circumstances I can see it replacing it some of the time.

For example in meetings, the iPad is going to be more useful than a laptop for checking information, using Pages to make notes, etc…

Likewise in conferences (where there are in some sessions no tables), the iPad (with the long battery life) will make it easier to engage in the back channel, makes notes, check URLs, share thoughts and impressions, and all the other conference stuff that at the moment most people do with a notepad and a pencil.

For learners an iPad may be a better device to bring to lessons, with easy access to e-books (and these may be getting more engaging and interactive), internet access, web tools; the ability to also create notes using Pages, or enter notes using tools like Evernote more easily than on an iPod touch or iPhone, I can certainly see many learners preferring the lightweight feel of the iPad, over a heavier laptop. Then again they might want to buy a netbook!

I don’t use spreadsheets much so I don’t see much of a use for Numbers. However I do give a lot of presentations and having Keynote on the iPad makes a lot of sense to me.

I’ve always thought that Apple should have made a Keynote Presentation App for the iPhone; you would create your presentation on the Mac, sync to the iPhone and then on the iPhone would be a little App that allowed you to both view the App on the iPhone screen, or using the AV cable you can get, show the presentation through a projector or TV. One of the issues though with that is Apps can’t use the AV cable! I guess an Apple App could, but maybe not.

If Keynote on the iPad can use the AV Cable and hopefully then other applications will also be able to use the AV out.

Of course the Keynote App for the iPad allows you to create presentations, and I really do like using Keynote as my primary presentation tool.

Overall I think Keynote and Pages for the iPad, have turned the iPad into for me from a “maybe” purchase to a “more than likely” purchase.

Keynote Remote – iPhone App of the Week

Keynote Remote – 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 Keynote Remote.

Using Wi-Fi, Keynote Remote turns your iPhone or iPod touch into a wireless controller. In landscape view, see the current and next slides. In portrait, see the current slide with your slide notes. Tap to play and swipe to advance, wherever you are in the room.

£0.59

Now this is not the App I think it could be, there are limitations that I will cover later.

What this App allows you to do is to remotely control your Keynote presentation on your Mac from your iPhone over WiFi. So rather than be tied to the podium or the Mac, you can move around the room (or the stage) and even into the audience.

It also allows you to view your slide notes or the next slide. This is useful in a presentation depending on how you present.

I have used it a couple of times for presentations and when rehearsing it worked flawlessly.

The way it works is you create a connection over a wireless network between the iPhone and the Mac. You can then use the App on the iPhone to control the Keynote presentation. It allows you to start the presentation, move between slides (back and forth) and even jump to different slides. You can either view the notes field as you present or the upcoming slide.

So even though I love the concept and when I try it out, there are some things you need to consider.

This only works with OS X and only with Keynote ’09. If you have an earlier version of Keynote it won’t work and if you have PowerPoint for Mac, it won’t work with that. Of course this is OS X, so if you have a Windows PC then this is not an App for you.

You can either view the notes field as you present or the upcoming slide, however you can’t flip between the two as you present, it’s either notes or next slide, not both.

It also only works in WiFi, it doesn’t work on Bluetooth and neither does it work via USB (which though tethered could be useful). WiFi is alright, however it doesn’t always work as expected and does require the presence of a wireless network, that is not always going to be available in every location you need to use this. Even though it worked fine before two recent conference keynotes, due to the use of the WiFi network by others in the conference (ie all the delegates in the hall) I found that the Keynote Remote application couldn’t connect to the Mac over the WiFi and as a result I couldn’t use it!

Not really an App of the Week if it doesn’t work. However I am not sure if this is an actual problem with the App or just a symptom of an overcrowded and overused wireless network at the conference.

So the next time I use it I have either decided to use my own wireless network. Now this creates its own issues. If I also need internet access then using a standalone Airport Express or wireless router will more than likely stop me from doing that. Likewise though you can use Internet Sharing on a Mac to create a wireless network, this is only possible if you have administrative rights over your Mac, something that not every IT department allows. If you do have administrative rights then you can configure your Mac to share its internet connection (even if it doesn’t have one) over the Mac’s Airport to create a WiFi network. If you need internet then if you have a 3G Dongle or USB Stick then this could be used as the internet connection which is shared across the Airport to create a WiFI network and still have internet access. Another option I may use is to use either my MiFi or Joikuspot on my Nokia N95.

Tweetnoting at Ascilite 2009

So it was day three of Ascilite 2009 and this was a big day for me as I was delivering the final Keynote.

I checked that everything worked. Though I have given keynotes before, this was the first time I was going to tweet as I delivered my keynote. Using KeynoteTweet, an Applescript which in conjunction with Keynote will automatically send tweets as slides appear.

In the auditorium there were two projectors, one would have my slides upon them, whilst the other would have Twitterfall showing all the #ascilite09 tweets.

My slides were “new” but like other presentations I have delivered have either usually a single word or an image on them.

Twitterfall worked well, with a fair few people in the UK and elsewhere following the tweets from my keynote. Of course it can be “dangerous” having a live Twitter feed in your presentation, especially when it is behind you. However looking over the stream of Tweets it would appear everything went fine.

Gráinne Conole was very kind to live blog my keynote on Cloudworks and you can see the results here.

I enjoyed delivering the keynote and all the stuff worked from a technical perspective, bar one. So what didn’t work? I was hoping to use the Remote App on the iPhone, however I have found that this is unreliable when a lot of people are using the wireless network. In future I think I may create my own wireless network specifically for the presentation (I have a spare Airport Express I can use).

When I have better (upload) bandwidth I will upload the presentation to Slideshare and a recording of the keynote itself.

So what did others think? Well I have had some very positive feedback from people at the conference.