ASSOCiate YourSELF

My third posting connected with the ALT-C 2008 conference. This presentation caught my eye as it featured the words collaborative learning + teacher training in the title. And that's what we do? Kind of. Anyhoo, the sesson was looking at a community of practice, namely trainee teachers, and how they were supported using technology.

ASSociate Online are a HEFCE funded collective of a number of HE organisations, that also contribute to the Huddersfield Centre for Traineee techers - HUDCETT. This is all quite confusing as our host organisation Wolverhampton Universiy are a part of this group. Surely they should be part of the WMCETT we have started to collaborate with? Can someone please explain?

Anyhoo, back to the plot. HUDCETT have a fantastic Moodle created to allow trainee teachers to collaborate under their subject specialisms. Their Moodle has been set up to allow collaboration and locaton of existing reosurces, etc. There should be one of these in every CETT in my opinion, that all HE and Colleges training teachers send their trainees - to find their study buddy! We were given a quick demo, and it's impressive. They also run an emoderators + ementors scheme, and encourage subject specialist to join on a contractual basis. You can join now.

You can try out a demo site here : http://oursubject.hud.ac.uk/login/index.php


The last part of the presentation involved the Director talking quite candidly about the poor [pedagogic] uptake of VLEs right across academia. She discussed the challenge facing all educators/trainers, attempting to promote the use of VLEs for teaching and learning. We all chipped in with some ideas of our own why this is the case. Here are some quotes;

• " The staff that embrace technology are racing ahead - the staff that are scared of technology are being left behind. The students suffer as their miss out of the power and opportunities of E-Learning and VLEs."

• "There is a digital divide between Staff that embrace new technology and Staff that are scared/fear/misunderstand technology."

• "pedagogic models are primary transmissionist. VLEs = no f2f contact. Students want to socialise @ college, plus a lack of good practice, inlcuding a lack of time to change pedagogy to student centred modes."
  

• "getting 'lost' in the system. Fragmented versus holistic approach in design."

This is my favourite

• Often a sandwich with no filling:

----------Resources (PDF/Word) on the top------------

+++++++++++No learning in the midde! ++++++++++++++

---------- Discusssion forums on the bottom------------


We did discuss benefits of VLEs as well. And I thought it was just me being a little to negative about lack of uptake for VLEs!

Sounds Good?

Another couple of back-to-back presentations I attended @ the 2008 ALT-C conference were connected with using short podcasts to give timely and personalised feedback to students. Bob Rotheram of Leeds Met Uni' "sounds good" project highlighted exemplars of good practice, namely;

• use short (less than 5 mins) podcasts
  
• Use a good quality Mp3 digital recorder/dictaphone . you can roam, and save in Mp3.
  
• Students liked receiving rich arual feedback, compared to written. They felt it was more personal!
• in most instances the short recordings can save marking time
• in most instances staff developed skills easily
• seek approval from course leaders before launching on a big project, there's lots of privacy issues here.

Some useful links were given out on a handout;

• http://sites.google.com/site/soundsgooduk/Home
• http://www.evoca.com (free web based audio recorder)
• http://www.impala.ac.uk/outputs/podcasts.html (learn from those who been doing this very successfully)
• 7 things you should know about podcasting
• Resources for educational podcasting
• Resources for developing podcasts for learning and studying (IMPALA)
  

Contact Geraldine Jones or Andrea Taylor of Bath Uni to obtain their staff guidelines on working with digital audio.


The second presentation also discussed the shift in pedagogy to more of a constructionist mode, whereby the students are the authors of the podcasts. Again, a move away from a primary diadactic delivery would help embed the use of podcasts in modern teaching.

There is also a Special Interest Group (SIG) on Podcasting for pedagogoc pruposes centred in Chester. Access a wealth of resources here: http://pppsig.podomatic.com/ , or from their wiki http://podcastingforpp.pbwiki.com/. You could also try exploring the art of podagogy @ this blog : http://blog.podagogy.com/

and.. spookily I just learned that Professor Gilly Salmon has just edited a new podcasting book :

http://www.atimod.com/podcasting/index.shtml

Wikis @ ALT-C

This is a short report on some of the presentations I attended at the recent ALT-C 2008 elearning conference. This year I mostly listened to people who had attempted to use wikis or Web2.0 software to enhance learning. Some successful, some not so. Read on...

The first presentation I attended was a summary of a massive (thousands of students) programme to roll out distance learning across vast swathes of rural USA. This was very interesting to see how mentors and students had been trained up to use the distance learning tools. It was early days, but results were looking favourable. One thing I noted was the use of a pre-online survey tool. This tool : http://www.cma.charysma-online.com/nlst/core/main.htm is promoted to gauge the online "readiness" of prospective students, and also by the look of it as a training tool for online mentors and facilitators to alter their pedagogy to much more of a student centred approach. I've only come across this type of tool once before to gauge suitability of potential online learners. No idea where, but someone could leave a comment if they know of one.

The second presentation I attended was given by some HE academics from Australia, who had attempted and failed to get staff to collaboratively edit a wiki. FAIL. Nice idea, but poorly executed.

I then watched a researcher from the OU discuss how he used a wiki to get engineering students to collaborate. The authentic task that was also assessed. The task was created to replicate the way industry uses wiki tools to create product documents. Overall a useful experiment, with some interesting results gleaned;

• attach a discussion area to a wiki, to enable true collaboration.
  
• Students requirement of initial training,
  
• the need to keep a wiki structure simple,
  
• assessed tasks help galvanise and focus principles (should have seen this one comming!)
  
• all students liked using a wiki & the associated learning experience, with examples of deeper learning taking place.
  

The last workshop I attended on the subject of wikis was conducted by Oxford Brookes Uni business school academic staff. They had tried a number of different methods to get their biz students to collaborate on text and presentations. After analysing the result of the wiki use, all they [students] did was cooperate using a wiki. i.e. they met up F2F , discussed the nature of the task , then went away to compose their individual bit of the report, then pasted it into the wiki. This was recognised as an issue for improper instructional design. They needed to design out methods for meeting F2F and ensure collaboration was done online (they should speak to the OU man above). Another idea the academic staff tried was to allow student to create presentations using as wiki. The results of this were again not so good. I'd guess is that they are using the wrong tool for the job, here. It sounded like a case of "ohh look , we've discovered wikis" now let's use them for anything we can think of". After analysing the results of these two types of wiki use , they concluded some fairly useful observations;

• Most group work was not collaborative, just cooperative,
  
• Don't use a wiki for online presentations, especially if you are unfamiliar with the basic features (read staff!!),
  
• Add a discussion board to a wiki to allow collaboration,
  
• Heavy scaffolding (read training ) required, in a blended context,
  
• Construct a task that cannot be done F2F (to ensure online collaboration) – or at least reduce F2F contact.
  

Overall an interesting set of presentations, but again what I find astounding at some of these presentations is that some basic level research has been omitted from the process of implementing these tools. If only they had taken note (for example) of the basic Gilly Salmon 5 stage model to help scaffold and orientate the use of wikis, I'm sure the results would have been better. The myth of digital natives as expert users of the "web" again takes another beating!

You can now use an itneractive version of this popualr 5 stage model : http://www.atimod.com/e-moderating/fivestepflash.htm

free warez

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.

Features include:

• Unique meeting room URL

• Remote control

• Integrated audio choices

• Screen sharing

• Whiteboard

• Chat pod

• Video conferencing

• Screen sharing palette

• Portal into the 4th dimension
  
  
• Tea making facilities
  

Staff and student expectations

A recent report by UCISA (from a JIC project) have come up with some interesting, if not seemingly obvious results in a new report. A few of the findings are;

The report shows that key success factors include:
• a dedicated local champion to help promote and develop technology enhanced learning within higher education institutions
• enabling academics the time to learn and develop the skills to use technology based tools
• strategic direction is needed to guide academics on the best use of web 2.0 technologies such as streaming media, mobile computing and pod-casts to aid teaching and learning.

Read the full article online



On a related note we had a visit from Dr Fergus McKay who heads up this new'ish department, which is linked to (and funded by) the QIA website/agency. For those who don't know what WMCETT are, this is taken from their website :

"WMCETT operates across Coventry, Warwickshire, Worcestershire, Herefordshire, Shropshire and South Birmingham. WMCETT includes COVES and other organisations that have already made influential contributions in their field, with staff that are recognised as outstanding practitioners."

They have 4 priority areas: FE, WBL, ACL, and skills.

Fergus partners with organsiations that proivide CPD/training and promoting CPD to all educators across the West Midlands region. The results of previous research , projects and initiatives can be accessed from their website. They also provide limited funding for small scale action research projects. Links with the QIA and IFL are obvious and they are even looking at ways to help academics to use the ILF reflect tool. Fergus is working with us on a blended technology for teacher training event we are running, funded by the Academy.