inspiring mind maps

I'm currently working on a workshop displaying the presentation capabilities of mindmap tools. 






The three tools I've used for presentations are;

1) www.Bubbl.us - web based, collaborative, basic (free).

 

2) www.Mindmeister.com - a map of web 2.0 tools - web based, range of useful features even with the free version. The premium version expands the feature set.

3) Buzan's iMindmap - PC based, but does have an iPhone app.  As far as I'm concerned this one has it all, and stays true to the underpinning theories of Tony Buzans mindmapping principles. It works both as a brainstorming tool, as you would expect, but also then turns a mindmap into an impressive  presentation. In presentation mode it looks not too dissimilar to PREZI, zooming in and out of nodes as you traverse around your mindmap. It even exports the map to a Powerpoint version.  The best I've used bar none.

As you can see from this example my techniques improved markedly after attending an approved Buzan mindmap session.  If you adhere to the principles, it really does help improve memory, recall, and trigger ideas off from all areas of your grey matter.

The best I'd recommend for teaching and learning was one I reviewed a few years ago, called mindgenius.  The ability to export skeleton maps to word documents allowed students to rapidly work round ideas, then export nodes as word subheadings. Ideal planning tools for both visual learners and anyone coping with dyslexia.

e-Portfolios and Education for the Professions

Creative Commons cleared image

This is the title for an event I attended last week in Bristol. And very informative it was too. A full on day choc-a-block of informative presentations. I've attached the programme (with abstracts) at the bottom of the page. All presentation resources will be available from RSC SW at URL: http://eportfoliorscswbuevent.ning.com

I'm going to run thro' the day with some snippets &  reflections I took from the sessions.

• First up was Dr Cheri Logan. Dr Logan ran through their 2008/9 eportfolio research study: http://evolve-e-learning.wikidot.com/del2-archive . Very interesting stuff in regards to how both staff & students perceived the usefulness of eportfolios. There were tensions abound in terms of being given "space" (blogs and eportfolios), but not sure whether this "space was fit for purpose. The imposition of a semantic ePortfolio structure was the main gripe – and rightly so. . While others jumped at the chance to use them (pebblepad). It seems that the general consensus in art & design that the traditional portfolio is now a hybrid beast. This portfolio now contains traditional (digitised) creative pieces to display to peers (to receive crit's), but is now a place to shoe development of ideas, and receive formal tutor & peer feedback. And just as importantly, a place that can be used to show prospective employers their creative ideas. Some are seeing the eportfolio as a "bridge" between undergraduate studies &  the scary world of work. This aspect of art & design students adopting a professional online status (using tools like blogs & Facebook) is very real in these difficult economic times. Eportfolios and blogs are being viewed as an important showcase medium by net savvy undergraduates. These students are acutely aware of the range of "external audiences" to their work. An ePortfolio/blog just makes it that much easier to do. Apparently http://www.formfiftyfive.com/ is the place to create an arty bloggy thingy :O)
  

• Next up Lisa Grey (JISC) talked about latest developments and additions to the JISC ePortfolio infokit , and she also mentioned the 5 threshold concepts of understanding/exploiting eportfolios. These are:
  

1. Purpose – closely aligned to concept
   
2. Learning activity design – meaningful (= assessed or not bolt on)
   
3. Process – e.g. the technical and pedagogic support for all involved.
   
4. Ownership – is owned, portable, choice of tools/skins
   
5. Disruptive in nature – new pedagogies need to be understood.
   

• 
  Following Lisa, was Dr Sue Martin who talked about how they (Bath Uni) were using eportfolios to help develop critically reflective learners (trainee teachers). The small scale optional study gleaned some very positive results. All staff & students involved in the ePortfolio pilot extolled the virtues of sed method and platform. Tutors reported higher levels and quality of engagements in reflective assessments. It seemed that the most important aspect was that busy trainee teachers could add reflective comments up to their blogs very soon after each session. And this enabled a much more reflective & self critical/aware internal & external discourse. Fundamentally this ensured that the 'folios were being created during study/placement and not left to the end – usually handed in & forgotten about. This echoes the work Julie Hughes as done at University of Wolverhampton with her trainee teachers. The tutors also set up a simple template to ensure all recorded work could be easily mapped against the professional standards. A general consensus that an ePortfolio is more dynamic than the (boring/dull/tedious) old paper version.
  Easy really – now why isn't everyone doing it this way?? Paper based portfolios should really be banished from all spheres of education and PDP.
  
  
• 
  
  
  Next up Catherine Gormley of RSC NI discussed a large scale teacher eportfolio pilot project that spanned many aspects of education right across Northern Ireland. The project was that big the proof of concept took from 2005 until now!! http://tepni.com/project-history/policy-context.html . Main findings = that a cultural change was need to fully understand and exploit the potential of such tools and processes –across the who province. A positive message was received by many participants, who took part in the proof of concept. And a reflective circular model of (Reflect & identify & develop) – similar to Kolb experiential cycle, has been developed as part of the pilot. A centralised ePortfolio system (in all schools) is being touted as the way forward, plus support & licence costs remain an issue. Much works still remains to be done from current findings.
  
• 
  
  
  The next two speakers Martin Leveridge (Teeside Uni) &  Dr Alex Furr (Southampton Uni), both talked about projects where a bespoke "ePortfolio system" had been developed. Each was in early evaluation stages, but both were reporting very positive findings. Again the Teesside Uni project used trainees teachers to use the new PDP system to record &  reflect. Piloteers were given new shiny netbooks to help them out. The Southampton Uni project took a similar bespoke route by mapping PDP / ePortfolio requirements into existing Uni systems. The resultant gap analysis revealed that there was a niche for a bespoke system that communicated directly with existing VLE + registry + other electronic learner data systems. This is really very clever work by Dr Furr, and proves that if you look closely enough at your existing systems, you'll find that in most colleges &  certainly all Unis' existing systems can be utilised by building middleware app's to stitch them (read exchanging data) together.
  
  
  
  Well it all sounds simple!! But it took them a while (last summer) to prove the concept; introduce a couple of Open Source tools , and then build a few more bespoke apps. Resulting in a "platform/ePortfolio" that uses existing Uni IT architecture + learner data, then mashes it with customised is OS apps ( wordpress + Tikiwiki), finallly chuck in a few little home grown apps. All developed using user centred design principles. Everyone is happy – well apart from the students who did not really understand the purpose of reflective writing!!! The early research data is looking positive, but they've got a long way to go. As it seems that old chestnut – expecting staff & students to RTFM did not work, coupled with little understanding or scaffolding reflective writing.
  
  Effective, targeted support is needed – for both system (interface), and pedagogy. But it looks good, as very elegant and pragmatic solution to a problem others would have just chucked money at and purchased and off the shelf model. Perhaps Dr Furr & his team need to have a look at those 5 threshold concepts above? Anyhoo, they're definitely heading in the right direction. Dr Furr & his team are ones to watch - praps they should set up a company on the side offering these types of solutions to other learning providers, like ULCC have done with their Moodle services?
  
  
  

• Following lunch Tricia Ellis from the NHS (Swindon) discussed the adoption of an existing NHS developed ePortfolio tool for junior doctors to help reflect upon, collate and maintain evidence during their two years of intensive training. Again very positive results have been recorded ,with comments cited upon the ability to continually record, reflect, its portability, and its application to a life time of CPD, and how it cannot be lost!
  
  
• Next up, Dr David Croot from Plymouth Uni discussed the initial findings of a series of eportfolio projects covering work based learning development in local authorities (firemen, police, etc). The HE5P project: http://www.recordingachievement.org/employers-cpd/he5p/articles.html . This is a huge project covering many areas of the UK. Initial findings were again very positive from the Plymouth. End users found PebblePad to be very intuitive and easy to learn, and found to be effective for mediating learning across the sectors. Colleges are seeing the value of a PLE NOT a VLE for these types of busy professional learners. Plymouth partner colleges are now seeing the value of the projects and are purchasing ePortfolio licences. One issue seems to revolve around advocacy of the personal ePortfolio, in regards that everyone values the importance of these foundation degrees, but senior managers need hand holding to engage with the value of continual reflection. Sounds a similar issue to the Northern Ireland wide scale project above.
  
  
• Alan Howe (Glos' Uni) delivered an interesting presentation on how the use of eportfolios in social sciences has been developing. Again a series of smaller pilot projects that worked on replacing the traditional paper based folios. Alan and his team have reported a tremendous amount of positive feedback from students and assessors over the old paper based system. Similar findings to the trainee teachers were uncovered, in respect of the eportfolio allowing for continual reflection, ownership, improving self critical awareness, and improved learner autonomy.
  
  

e-safety

http://www.o2.com/TheCybernuts/

E-learning and E-Safety (safe-guarding)

I've been keeping half an eye on this topic for a while now. And it's getting to the point where I really cannot just keep ignoring it!  Apparently most colleges are not sure how to handle the rise of web "learning/information platforms" such as Twitter, facebook and blogger!  Do they ban them all, or work out a policy for acceptable use? It's a real mess out there I can assure you.  And there's plenty of scaremongering going on.  All this is resulting in drastic  knee jerk reactions from schools, HE & FE to lock out the world of Web 2.0 until someone tells us all how to handle the torrent of Web 2.0 app's that staff & students want to use. 

RSC UK are in the process of pulling together a set of resource/links/blogs, etc, that will be the definitive RSC viewpoint. In the meantime have a look at RSC Wales blog posts on the subject, whilst RSC SW have some useful links to recent presentations & webinars, and RSC East Mid's have an entire Moodle course  they've loving crafted for your perusal.

As you may already be aware the government announced a 'Green Cross Code' for internet safety recently: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8398763.stm.

And it's also a good idea to keep tabs in JISC Legal as they are our definitive reference on all things legally e-learning.  Their section on legal aspects of Web 2.0 covers some of this remit (blogs, wikis ,social networks, etc..).

Whilst at a conference last week there was plenty of discussion on how employers now routinely use facebook accounts to screen prospective graduate applications. So, just ensure you look at those privacy settings before you post an image of yourself dancing semi naked in the pub on Saturday night - just to impress you mates! It could cost you a job/contract?!?!?

In fact art /design graduates are now using social media like face book and blogs to build a professional profile of themselves and their work during their degree studies, to get a head start in the tough job market. It seems that the magic word "EMPLOYABILITY" is starting to become very important when applying to Uni' and studying these days?

Game based learning

Game based learning is a hybrid area of development taking the best of games technology and trying to shoehorn it into some serious educational contexts.  This area of R&D is growing in popularity. See my previous posts on what Sony (PSP) are doing in this arena.

I attended a webinar the other day that was co-orgnaised by the www.elearningnetwork.org
 and www.alt.ac.uk.  

• Access the recorded webinar on ALTs own Open access repository 

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.

• Wii games developing book : : http://www.amazon.com/Nintendo-Flash-Game-Creators-Guide/dp/0071545255

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/

• UoE are using it on various projects : http://www.vue.ed.ac.uk/openvue/

• 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/

• I've attended a very good course on creating learning objects run by Rob Hubbard, who is an exceptional elearning expert.  He has designed a course using WEb 2.0 tools and thinking worlds. It's a very good course, and pushes the boundaries of learning platforms, social media abnd 3D/games integration.
  

• SL is also being used for some games design.

• 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.

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/13_tools_for_building_your_own_iphone_app.php

• Games salad-  create UR own iphone apps : http://gamesalad.com/landing/overview

• 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.

www.realprojects.co.uk/gamesbasedlearning

See also this useful video on hacking the wii:



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.

Links and related books:

• http://www.gamasutra.com/
• free book covers baisc principles : http://www.vancouver.wsu.edu/fac/peabody/game-book/Coverpage.html
• http://www.vancouver.wsu.edu/fac/peabody/game-book/Coverpage.html

• Understanding Video Games. Nielsen, Smith &  Tosca. (2008) . Routledge. ISBN: 0415977215. Gee, P. (2007) What Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and

• Game Design Workshop: designing, Prototyping and Playtesting Games Literacy. Palgrave. ISBN: 1403984530. Fullerton, Swain &  Hoffman. (2004) . ISBN: 1578202221

• edge magazine : http://www.edge-online.com/
• games tm magazine: http://www.gamestm.co.uk/
  

• http://wowinschool.pbworks.com/

• ARGs - the work of Nicola Whitton is excellent. new book (2010) just out. http://playthinklearn.net/

• + The cube   I love bees + NiN ARG (Wired article)

• http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/usersandinnovation/argosi.aspx - ARGOSI project funded by JISC -

• http://www.realprojects.co.uk/gamebasedlearning/alt-eln.php : this link has example thinking worlds materials and game documents that you can review

• http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/gadgets_and_gaming/article6934169.ece - Navy and psps -  article here on this -

• UK army gave personel DS Lites for eLearning: Developed by Epic (Stuart Chadwick) - won an award this year

• Digital games in schools - A handbook for teachers (looks useful)
  

Finally have a look into the future at Project Natal

visual tweeterings

I have recently become aware of some excellent tools that allows us to follow the tweetings of others without the need to sign up for anythng. :O)

And......... these tools also allow us to filter out the twitter wheat from the twatter chaff> Which in my view is using the web more intelligently. The first has been out for a year or more called tweetdeck. It allows you to filter and download tweets onto UR phone or PC. People who've used it report it being very good as a way at managing the avalanche of twitterings. But it requires an install- FAIL!

The next one I was told about at an online webinar with Elliot Maise recently. During the hour webinar someone told me he was using twitter to tweet about sed webinar - and I could catch them on Twitterfall. It's a website, that essentially aggreagtes tweets. Simple & effective. And agian you can apply all sort of filters to only receive the info you want. Neat.

The third one I stumbled across yesterday from a link of Paul Andrews who has an excellent wiki covering all sorts of elearning technologies, including this informative page on all things tweetery. Back to the plot >> that twitter visualiser is called http://visibletweets.com/ and looks visually stunning, with tweets updating realtime on a plain screen. Again filters can be applied to narrow the search down. Neater, like this list of other twitter apps. Some good.

Somehow Paul Andrews has managed to emebed this visable tweet into his wiki page. Looks impressive.

Aggregating pipes!

I’ve been experimenting with filtering RSS feeds using Yahoo pipes, as a method to search across Academy subject centres & JISC. There aren’t many subject centres with RSS feeds from them. Anyhoo, I took a few other web sites that may prove interesting to academics searching for resources, namely:

• http://www.engsc.ac.uk/rssfeeds/rss091resnewest.asp

• http://feeds.delicious.com/v2/rss/escalate/resources?count=15

• http://www.jisc.ac.uk/rss_feeds/collections_catalogue_web_feed.aspx

• http://www.intute.ac.uk/rss/intutelatest.xml

• http://obelix.lib.hku.hk/cdblog/?feed=rss2&cat=33

• http://obelix.lib.hku.hk/cdblog/?feed=rss2&cat=35

• http://www.opendoar.org/search.php?cx=016766439200934687091%3Aln-icm1qyko&q=economics&sa=Search&cof=FORID%3A11&filter=0#978

• http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/base/videos?q=psycology&client=ytapi-youtube-search&alt=rss&v=2

• http://www.videojug.com/tag/sports-medicine/rss

• http://feeds.technorati.com/search/learning+theory?language=n

• http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Economics&feed=rss&action=history

• http://feeds.delicious.com/v2/rss/deliboy/resources?count=15

• http://www.innovateonline.info/innovate.rss

• http://www.merlot.org/merlot/materials.xml?keywords=blended


Then I added a search filter (i.e., blended, injury, economic, ) to the next stage of the process & the results are at URL:

http://bit.ly/subject-search

So, the idea was to try and find as many resource portals or RSS feeds then use a methods such as pipes to apply subject specific filters (that was my “injury”, “blended” filters). So each subject centre could take a core set of feeds from JISC, HEA, Merlot, OU, Open courseware, etc, then create their own specific feed/ search?

The other way of running this is to use a search box as the initial filter:

http://bit.ly/type-search

This search is a clone of a Yahoo pipes search that someone had already done. I used the above list of feeds, and it kind of works? Has anyone done anything similar?



p.s. http://bit.ly/ is a useful URL shortener with added options to track click throughs, etc. Well worth a look.

MUVLE

MUVLE and MASHUPS



At last weeks second virtual worlds forum at Keele University we watched a presentation by Joel Cockrill of Movix Media. Based in Bangor, this media company has spent the past two years researching and developing a new Multi User Virtual Environment (MUVE ), a bit like Second Life , only much better ( they claim). Joel spoke at length about their involvment in Second Life projects, which has lead to the development of a new MUVE called MUVLE. They seem to have learned alot and have taken the best bits of SL and developed a completly hosted MUVE "solution". They are currently on the look out for beta testers in education. So if you are a College or University and want to host and develop your own MUVE within the safe confines of your institutional firewall, then MUVLE could be the answer? As an alternative you could also consider Twinity, or you could try Googles new app called Lively which may do the job?

At the same forum Mark Childs discussed the Theatron (Eduserv) project at King's College London, and his MUVE reseach at the University of Warwick. The theatron project allows educators to book time to used virtual theatres (eg, the globe) to run virtual performances in Second life. The ancient stages have been built to a very high degree of detail. You will need a good T1 connection and alot of (rendering) patience then?

Also of note, was a short presentation by Jerry Foss, who had managed to build the Birmingham Millenium Point in stunning detail, as part of a film makers course pilot study. Unfortunately no one can view it or even see it ( due to IP issues)! This was constructed by Daden ltd ,who was also showing off a mash up between SL and Google. David Burden of Daden was demonstrating a kind of sphere that rezzed up maps of local areas using 2D & 3D Google maps. Very neat stuff. You have to watch the video to really see what it can do, it's fab. An engaging way to teach geography, mapping, geotagging, data mashups, spatial awareness, 3D modelling, etc. Geography never looked so interesting.




Before I forget. Stuart Thomason of Keele University used SL in his teaching last year. An IT student used SL to create a virtual rubic's cube. This is one of the very few examples I've come across of SL being used in teaching (to attain credits). Although it was mentioned that Solent are using SLOODLE? Can anyone confirm this?





Continuing the Sim tip , I started..... I received a call this morning from sim venture Ltd. They won a BETT award this year for their business educational "games" based software. It's used right across the UK (in HE & FE), and is soon to be licenced by the excellent Bized website, that also hosts some sim type educational games.