Today I had a bit of fun "reviewing the new and; very funky logiech SPHERE webcam. Not the most technically indepth review, but as you can guess I liked it. Oh and BTW it was recorded using the simples Iflip video camrea. The face tracking function kinda works, if U don't dance around the office! Ideal for those webinars?
Looks like LMS' (VLEs) are in gradual decline in the business arena as well as education! No one really "likes" them, tho' they all feel that the LMS is here to stay, but will be part of a larger collection (cloud) of e-systems (incl' plenty of Web 2.0 apps). The word free application seems to resonate with our cash strapped training/learning and development dept's. Strangly tho' not many seem to understand that eportfolios are part of the answer!! Most seem to be gravitating towards informal learning or Presonal learning Environments (PLEs ) - aggregated social networks, etc, as an anitdote to shrinking training budgets - but not really understanding far reaching implications. And no mention of underpinning pedagogies/scaffolding.
There seems to be a collective thought that, "if we find the right tools (Yammer, Huddle, etc), they will come - and all learn informally hapily ever after!! Tho' many cite internal communities of practice - and knowledge of, are needed to drive business efficiencies. Another Web 2.0 / elearning bandwagon is being jumped on, with little thought as to why - apart from most of these tools are free!
But some are more cautious tho' - citing our frivolous trends in this rapidly changing web 2.0 world, i.e. friends re-united was hot, now it's not - is that what will happen to Facebook in a couple of years time? One company blocked access to Facebook @ work and reported an immediate 11% increase in productivity . And plenty of talk about what impact e-learning is having on business upskilling and driving efficiencies. No one seems to be evaluating past e-learning successes, to their peril, as senior managers still don't "get it" - as the strong businesses cases are not being promoted. The age of BS "smoke and mirrors" selling e-learning to business is well and truley over. Strong tangible business benefits is what SMT are only (and have always been) interested in.
IMPACT is the new mantra. Implement, anaylse, and evaluate, or die trying. If you don't do this, the bean counters are more likely to say, "why sould we pay for a new microblogging platform" when we've got email?" Unless e-learning companies or inhouse dept's can present quantitave data clearly illustrating improvement in business efficiences and cost savings, those bean counters, are quite at liberty to say.
"No thanks, we'll stick with our intranet, email, free web 2.0 tools, and less (more focussed) F2F training. "
And who could blame them? That goes for UK education as well. "Will this new web 2.0/ Open Source tool save us money ? If so how much?"
Informal learning, internal knowledge transfer, eliminating travel to training, Communities of practice are "trending" - but very few have cracked it - apart from BT's "Dare2Share" social networking portal. See also the vid below:
That's the main feeling - but e-learning business is still strong - as training dept's are being forced to use e-learning due to reduced budgets and reduced personell -and they are doing it well! Blended and distance training (webinars) are looking stronger - with good reports of trainees really taking to these new methods. Pricewaterhousecoopers ran an excellent presentation on their global training stratgey - drastically revamped to use primarily webinars. So, at last, it's taken a global recession for business to start being forced to use e-learning to make significant training and devleopment savings. With the added benefit of employees actually taking to it!! There's hope for us all, maybe the education sector is next - considering cuts in funding are iminent. HFECE has announced serious cuts today - and it's splashed all across the news. Time to blend learning UK HEIs , time to give some serious thoughts to integrating "e" solutions into F2F delivery, rather than ignoring it/us, and hoping we'll go away to play with shiny ipads - we wish!
I took some notes from the webinar & would like to share them with you plus some related videos that will feed into this blog post neatly.
Scott Hewitt from : http://stressmeless.org/?page_id=308, gave a first half presentation encompassing some very interesting topics and some current projects and platforms.
revising to combat revision stress - Flash based learning game. It included easter eggs + combination scorings. planning revision breaks was paramount - they scored higher if they did this.
Scott then talked about another tool Open simulator : http://opensimulator.org/wiki/Main_Page currently in alpha version - create own virtual environments - d/load onto own server - Open Source - similar to SL. Can build your own "worlds", and make it private - UK Army are experimenting with it. BCU have built Shareville as a 3D immersive world as a learning resource: http://shareville.bcu.ac.uk/
Unity : multiple platform development tool - very advanced, but need some experience to use it. A widespread community. http://unity3d.com/
Thinking worlds (Caspian) : a rapid development engine, SCORM output, scoring and links to LMS to record scoring, shallow learning curve - advantageous to elearning devleopment teams (and as a teaching + learning tools) . Using with Students - pushing the boundaries: http://www.thinkingworlds.com/
Blackberry, iphone, ipod touch are all being used for innovate games design, in schools. Flash support for iphone comming soon, which will help release more applications, quicker and easier.
Can you develop a game in a day? Yes they did with 35 games design students, see the project @ URL:
http://www.realprojects.co.uk/gamebasedlearning/eln%20resources.php , see 1/2 way down page for brief they gave to students to deign the games. They used thinking worlds for this. Split into roles and went through the whole process, including narrative, rewards, learning outcomes, flowchart, storyboards, testing and pilot, etc. All groups (about 6 in each group) did at least 1 game each in 1/2 day. nb/. dentisry looking at the wii controller to teach techniques.
Second half of the session was run by Steve Harris - Northumbria Uni. His talk was equally interesting, but focussed on the underpinning principles of effective games design he teaches. High level concepts about game design and how education can benefit from these high level principles. Some notes I made:
Pace of learning - using games for differentiated learning design.
Recouperation is good for this- command and conquer, ie. intense period of action, then relaxation to reflect. Don't throw a constant barrage of info' at learners. Give time to reflect.
Motivation - fallout 3 game: sense of freedom (like ps2 game) - sense of discovery (not critical to quest) like easter eggs! Player feels as if they are in more control of the narrative - like GTA. ie. medical sim game - delivering medicines - add other medicines. They can discover to use in other situations.
Conflicts : places player in a situation where they have differing situations - like mad dash racing. Developing tactics and strategies to cope with rules of games. Helps to develop thninking, by allowing them to develop specifc skills i.e. time management.
Condorcet Paradox in gaming : remove dominant strategies: few number of paramenters create larger number of possibilities. Don't allow the learner to always win. Desgin in simple strategies.
Reward systems - fundamental in games: Operant conditioning - the more you use a technique or method, the better you become. It has to be balanced with other strategies to make you follow game rules. And Xbox 360 gamer acheivements online tag, to show others your skills. Simple to bolt on to a platform.
Apply thorough testing: ie. Halo 3 heat maps : bungie has these heat maps on their web site - in relation to specific weapon use - live payer date captured to allow you to learn from others. Intelligent use of gamer data.
Player assistance: i.e. player 2 can take temporary control to help player 1. Works with young and special needs games design.
Look at existing board games for ideas for effective learning/game design.
I posed the question "are games designers utilising existing educational pedagogies to make their games educational?" The answer was a no! Which I thought was very strange indeed. It seemed like a one way street, i.e. educators are looking for games based applications/platforms/technolgoes/graphics to make learning objects or content more engaging, but why are'nt games designers looking at the many (thousands of years) of teaching and learning experiences to make their games better? Or are they? Let me know.
Any presentation needs to be short – 10 minutes – focused with clear points for consideration set up at the beginning so that you are listening with a purpose.
If you want to present for longer then there needs to be gaps between major talking points.
Twitter type text needs to be set up so that it is about the presentation and not whether it is sunny.
If there are breaks between key points then when the new point begins the text messaging is relevant to the new point.
There should be a facilitator who can summarise points and act as a conduit between the presenter and listeners.
Animation does not translate to the conference therefore powerpoint slides need to take this into consideration.
Slides should not be too text based and should enhance the presentation not provide subtitles to it.
The conference should have a ‘master of ceremonies’ who calls the conference to order, introduces the speaker and makes sure that communication is as effective as possible.
Each presenter could have a blog set up for further discussion – the posts being the key points in their presentation.
With large audiences keep the conference for transmission with online follow up rather than expecting large numbers to contribute.
When taking part in a conference, either as organiser or participant, enlist a colleague to maintain a check on twitter-type chat and conversations to note key points of use and/or interest.
ja.net services are offering Access Grid Nodes allow people to communicate through visual images and sound exchanged between different computers. There is no theoretical limit to how many nodes can be linked, and the number of people at each site is limited only by room size and hardware present.
Access Grid (AG) in simple terms is an advanced videoconferencing application that uses audio and video tools allowing people in different locations worldwide to meet in a virtual venue (virtual meeting room). In these virtual venues participants can see and speak to each other in realtime, use online chat and share applications simultaneously.
The image above typifies this application in action. It looks impressive.
RSC-MP3 A monthly summary of HE focused e-learning news and events
Each month we will interview a guest speaker and also record a conversation between us discussing current issues contained in our blogs (see links below). This month we interviewed Professor Terry Mayes emeritus professor at Glasgow Caledonian University. Professor Mayes discusses the current shape of higher education and the challenges of 21st century learning as well as some of his current work with the Higher Education Academy. Click here for the interview with Terry Mayes in full. Listen to our chat using the player on the right of your screen.
Here are some free web based applications (i.e. you don't have to install stuff) that busy educators can use to create engaging presentations. Both Viddix & ScreenToaster combine video with either what's on your screen or a synchronized slide presentation. See examples below. Alternatively you can create what's called a "slidecast" using http://www.slideshare.net/. Simply upload you powerpoint presentation you want to share, then use the online tools at your disposal to add a voice-over /narrative to accompany the slides. Simple, easy to use and effective.
Today I gave a "training session" to some local trainers using a live "webcasting tool". Well, it was more like an informal walk through of the capabilities of a synchronous webcasting tool called DimDim (which is free for basic use). I think everyone enjoyed it, and we had some excellent ideas for using such a tool in teaching and learning. Everyone who took part could see genuine benefits in using such software with their particular roles. This type of tool would help out employers and training in general, and perhaps help lift the train to gain initiative into the 21st Century? Read more about the current state of play in the edecxel policy watch.
When I read the speech that John Denham (DIUS) gave the other day at the AoC conference, he never mentioned the option of maximising the opportunity for training by exploiting technology at all? When he eventually did mention innovation, all he spoke of was the work going on in new builds to improve local training provision. Somehow I feel that the point is being seriously missed here. Move the information (zeros & ones) around, not the people, Mr Denham! Using live webinar tools such as DimDim is far more efficient, innovative, and greener that focusing on the physical infrastructure of organisations. We are in the 21st Century after all! Well some of us are. If we are ever going to match up to the 2020 Leitch goals, someone is going to have to think laterally, and that means exploiting e-learning tools to up-skill the UK. The new High skills - high value DIUS policy also discusses this burgeoning requirement.
A moodle block called Marginalia and standalone application, which is an open source Javascript web annotation system that allows users of web applications to highlight text and write margin notes.
NEW BUILDS
Have a look at the IntelligentBuilders (NB all one word) channel on Youtube http://uk.youtube.com/user/intelligentbuilders - many videos can be found on the eLearning experience at Oaklands College including on New build, eLearning generally and the award winning eMentors scheme. Or try :
The Web 2.0 Projects book contains nearly 60 projects using Web 2.0 tools, organised in age groups.
Professor Gilly Salmon gave a live presentation using Elluminate on the subject of forecasting trends in education. Her team @ Leicester will research this and post results in the CALF website. Seven meta trends are:
Users as content producers (web 2.0 principle)
Games as pedagogical tools (hurrah, I loved Halo 3)
Communications between humans and machines
Ubiquitous platforms
3 dimensions of computing
Collective knowledge generation (another web 2.0 principle)
People connecting via the network
When asked about engaging senior managers at FE colleges, Gilly responded by promoting the use of research based evidence to persuade SMT to change practice. So all of those posts about new research centres should be worthwhile?
The latest release of the popular Open Disc software is out now. This is a DVD image download, choc full of quality OS softwarez.
And perhaps in an attempt to claw back some market share from the free webcasting tool DimDim, Abobe are giving away the crown jewels!! Abobe Connect the very versatile and robust webcasting tool is now free: http://www.adobe.com/acom/connectnow/
I've had a go with Adobe connect, and it's a quality bit of software. It was number 2 in my list of webcasting tools, close behind DimDim. But that was only due to the relative cost. All you need to run it is the Flash plug-in for your browser.
In my old blog I discussed the new'ish browser based webcasting tool called DimDim. Since then We've evaluated it extensively both as the Moodle plug-in and as the standalone browser version. It's been very good to use, apart from the desktop sharing feature, which causes everything to sloooooooooooooww down or even crash the session – they may have fixed that issue now in these latest release of upgrades. Overall it's been one of the most stable and easy to use webcasting tools I've used. In my old post I compared it to others, and more recently, I compare it to a couple of newer webcasting tools. Did I mention it's free.
As a result of all this testing we've put together a handy list of user protocols you may find useful when using webcasting tools.
Earlier on this year I posted an overview of DimDim the excellent and free webcasting tool, that IMHO is as good as some of the 15k - 20k established products out there. Well, just today, my good elearning friend @ Stafford Uni, Helen Walmsley gave me a quick demo of WizIQ . I'm impressed (again) - easily done! It works well, and also incorporates a kind of social networking angle into the software, buy attempting to get you to sign up to their network to share ideas, resources, etc.
If you host a meeting you don't have to install a client bit of software (As you do with DimDim), but it doesn't have desktop sharing that DimDim offers. Apart from that it's very similar to DimDim. Neither of them (video) record the whole session that some of the top products do. But I suppose you could use Wink or another "screencam " tool to do this? --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- STOP PRESS - WIz IQ can record & archive sessions - my apologies - see comment at bottom of this posting.
I also sat through a demo of Adobe Connect recently which pitches Connect up in the top 3 webcasting products out there. Adobe connect can handle multiple webcams synchronously, and be able to split larger groups into smaller breakout "rooms for discussions. It can do more , but those two worked well i nthe demo.
The recent Adobe Connect archived conference session run by RSC SW is also well worth a look to experience what a recorded session looks like. Watch it @ URL : http://www.eduweb.plymouth.ac.uk/p75106536/
You can also see what the interface for Connect looks like during the video. Melanie Roberts ( elearning technologist at RSC SW) facilitated this session, which was done using a wireless connection! Scary stuff (wirelessly), but apparently it worked. Melanie contributed to our protocols (see below).
Finally, if you are thinking of using webcasting to present/discuss/teach at a distance, please peruse the list of protocols we have put togehter. Following these should make your session run much more smoothly. Please contact me if you want to contribute to these protocols.
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