Personal Blogs

All my schemes and ideas to tackle odd socks have failed: days of the week, patterns, colours, all black (they fade and stretch in individual ways only known to a sock) ...

The answer of course, in summer at least, is not to wear them - I prefer 'deck shoes'.

The other response, something my son adopted years ago, is to wear odd sock and not give a damn. Here the answer is at least to wear odd socks from the same set.

 I then rather wonder if I couldn't have odd trouser legs to match? 

Is it then a case of the problem being in the eye of the perceiver?

That to the colour blind (or blind) there is not problem. The socks are all clean. They are all the same size (odd that in a family of four, but between my wife, daughter and son we do fit the size 6-8 sock).

That one solution to a problem is to ignore it.

Seven modules later and in four years I believe I have had ONE face to face conversation with a fellow student. A couple of weekends ago I sat with a friend who creates learning content for a national museum: I realise know what a bore I became as over two hours I fear I turned every conversation back onto learning in general and e-learning in particular. 

Finding like-minds online is one thing; having them in front of me is another. 

I've noticed something awkward too - a couple of friends with whom I share all sorts through Facebook who I see around town; in the past we'd greet eachother, catchup on personal and family news, even have a coffee - now we grunt, mention something we caught online and move on. As if by knowing so much more about our goings on that small talk is pointless, and more intimate chat now redundant and likely to be repetitive.

Returning to 'like-minds' and the value, even craving to 'let it all out' - this is where there is significant value in the residential school. It matters to have the opportunity to put your enthusiams and problems with a module in words and to see and feel the response from others.

Temporarily I suspect, my teenage children, 18 and 16 respectively over the next fortnight, are learning how mutually advantageous it can be to help eachother out - stronger academically our daughter at our son's request is sitting down with him a couple of times a week to go through his GCSE English papers. There's much laughter, rapport and work.

It made me wonder about the age of a teacher in relation to students - the power of peer support from your own generation, young students who have just successfully 'passed through'. And then the value of empathy between younger teachers and lecturers.

Not meaning to sound sexist and agist, at primary school all my teachers were elderly and female - in a boy's school. I do rather think that we would have responded better to younger male teachers. My son at a co-ed school never had a male teacher in five years - there only ever was one male teacher in the entire establishment who retired to be replaced by a young male teacher who left after a year.

I know I will be told that other qualities overide age and gender, but where empathy and rapport matter would not a thorough mix of ages, gender and other qualities work best of all?

At our level, postgraduate and graduate, 'social learning' far from being of benefit to your studies it is a distraction. Yes, fraternise with fellow students, but don't imagine that 'a bit of a chat' or gregariosness will take the place of the time you must spend on your own with your problems and thoughts. 

For all the effort the OU makes to bring us together, or to generate relationships within tutor groups, far more effort should be given to promoting and supporting your solo efforts - helping you to understand that results are the product of your ability to set aside ample time when you can be on your own, undisturbed and without distraction. And then, on how best to use this time.

Mild panic helps rather than hinders.

I'm reading a new book on education - stress is better than being spoon fed, it matters that you worry you don't understand, that the reading list is too long. By trying to overcome such problems, and tight demanding deadlines that take you out of your comfort zone you form lasting memories, youn engage multiple zones of your brains and draw on your own experiences.

Working with a fellow student we can share each other's notes, but here I question their worth, that coming from your personal choices and sensibilities that should trigger in you the original reasons why you picked a thing out, they often appear disjointed and illogical to another. Perhaps when you sit down together like pushing a couple of combs together the mesh offers a third interpretation from which you can then work?

That's two 69s in the same week - from the OU this is so far from a distinction of 84+ not to warrant consideration, whereas from the University of Birmingham 69 is one mark short of their hurdle of 70 to call it a distinction (my previous effort for them got me to 67).

Was I ever cut out for writing about about education? Is it too 'wishy-washy' for me?

By comparison I find far higher scores achievable in subjects such as History, Geography and even Art. I like the essay/assignment where you pick ONE question from twelve or more and get on with it, whereas repeatedly with the OU I find I am not picking one question, but having to answer 60 questions each with a sentence or word, and then somehow hold this together in a compelling narrative. At least that is how the MAODE has panned out, and H818 in particular. 

Art is a performance, once you can demonstrate the required skill levels the 'grade' is subjective. 

The exception to this was the research into e-learning module where a 93 in an TMA had my tutor saying 'you are made for this kind of thing'. I should have been a barrister, that's what. 

With no plans for further e-learning modules the aim now is to go back through four years of blogging in order to consolidate my thinking and experience. I feel like an ant being asked to draw a map.

I use the metaphor of essay writing being like sewing a tapestry but wonder if making a house of cards wouldn't be better? In many respects this is how I now write: notes from copious reading reduced to frames in a presentation, and even notes on Rolledex cards that are in time grouped into a coherent argument and then 'stacked' into shape to form an essay. Looked at in this way an essay is a case of assembling the right parts in a logical order. Looked at this way, on reading through, you can identify a card that is out of place or faulty. It takes great care if the entire edifice is not to fall, or, however reluctantly, you have to dismantle the thing and build it up again from scratch. THIS is where I fail to get the illusive distinction - faced, inevitably with such a house of cards, I am loath to fix that card, wherever it might be, knowing that to reassemble the 'house' will take time and effort and a degree or repeating a task you thought was done.

• YouTube

• Michael Young

There are millions of 'user generated' how to ... videos on YouTube that are the perfect shape, size and tone for applied, just in time learning.

I forget how much it is a default source for problem solving around the house from fixing a leaking tap, to the pronunciation of a word. 

Michael Young undertook research to back ideas that led to the creation of the Open University and the National Consumer Association, to support the democratisation of higher education and to keep us from being ripped off. Not e-learning, more a visionary lime Lord Reith who founded institutions that make Britain 'great'.

Wordpress

Etienne Wenger

Wikipedia (A snowman)

Martin Weller

Web 2.0, Web 3.0, Web 4.0

Web Sciences

Yorick Wilks

H G Wells

Wired Sussex

Having blogged since 1999, then on Diaryland, I lived through the blogging revolution of 2002-2005 when a plethora of platforms came along. I tentatively tried several, including LiveJournal, Blogger, Tumblr and EduBlogs before settling on WordPress in 2007. It remains the most versatile, open, viewed blogging platform of them all. So easy that it is my default platform for a range of interests: learning, swim teaching and coaching, the First World War and more - a couple of 'Books of Remembrance' even and a multitude of other themes, issues and intersts. Try it. And like here, remember there is one very important option: public or private, in both cases it is still a blog, but when private it can be a diary and a portfolio. Mine is both a learning journal, and a journal. As a resource its value grows with regular use and maintenance - like a garden

When it comes to e-learning academics then there are few bigger names than Martin Weller, but when it comes to a demonstration of global reach through 'user generated content' shared by  hundreds of thousands of people forming interest groups and communities then for me, Wordpress, rather than Wikipedia is the e-learning blogging platform of choice.

I've called Wikipedia a 'snowman' as I had called e-mail a 'snowball' in the same sentence; one you aim, the other last as others add to it. Is it still the default for students? The problem now is that the content is like a granite cliff - unassailable it beleived in its scholarship and increasingly inaccessible as the editors become so entrenched - addressing eachother rather than a specific audience. There needs to be a dial that allows you to tone down or filter the content depending on whether you are a primary school student or have a PhD.

Web Sciences is a subject specialism at the University of Southampton.

Yorick Wilks has developed some interesting ideas on Artificial Intelligence and is at the Oxford Internet Institute.

H G Wells is a visionary, the Douglas Adams of his time.

Etienne Wenger - Communities of Practice Wenger, E. (1998) Communities of Practice, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Martin Weller - The Ed Techie

Tapscott, S. and Williams, D. (2007) Wikinomics; How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything, London, Atlantic Books.

Pearce, N. (2012) ‘Developing students as content scavengers’, OpenCourseWare Consortium Global 2012/OER 12 Conference, 16–18 April, Cambridge.

Wilks, Yorick (ed.), Close Engagements with Artificial Companions: Key social, psychological, ethical and design issues. 2010. xxii, 315 pp. (pp. 259–286)

The on going story of the heavy metal umlaut on wikipedia.

http://jonudell.net/udell/gems/umlaut/umlaut.html

• Virginia Woolf

• Vygotsky

• Van Gundy

• Video Arts

• Video

• Virtual Worlds

• Virtual Careers Fair

I add Virginia Woolf as she makes a very good argument for having 'a room of your own'; this can be difficult to achieve, a laptop might help then you can make any space your own. An iPad better still as I will work in the bath. But best of all, a room, even a cupboard-sized room, with a desk and a shelf is what you need. Not an e-learning thing. Just a thought on learning.

Vygotsky should be read from the original translations. He was writing in the 1920s. The translations came out in the 1970s.

Van Gundy is one for creative problem solving.

Video Arts went interactive but kept their roots in drama-reconstruction of business scenarios using top talent from TV and film. It's surprising who you find has done one of these in the post student drama school days. 

Video in e-learning. Of course. But the lessons are that if watching TV worked there'd be more of it. Watching tv is too passive; you have to do something, not least make an effort, if you brain is going to engage. Video is good for variety, for motivation and inspiration, but not all the time. Back to back talking heads bores students. Often a 'how to ... ' video is the only way.

Virtual Worlds have come from gaming. Very expensive. Can become out of date both from the technology and the look and feel. But they engage people. As with video, not all of the time though.

Monk’s House, Rodmell

VanGundy, A.B. (1988) Techniques of Structured Problem Solving, 2nd ed, Van Norstrand Reinhold. Te hniques 4.01, 4.06, 4.57

• Ugly Fonts

• Universal Design

• User Generated Content

• University in your pocket

• Upgrades

• User Centred Design

Ugly Fonts is directly related to learning and the idea that something that is harder to read is more likely to stick as information. For me this puts into question every kind of 'spoon feeding' information from the TV or slide show, to games that supposedly teach instead of getting students to stand at their desks and take notes with a pencil for an hour at a time. Seriously, properly directed effort is the way to support learning. Technology can make it too easy; it ought to make it hard(er).

Universal Design is a philosophy and if variety and difficulty, as I suggest above, is what matters, then why might I think that 'Universal Design' has a role? Universal Design makes for transferability. 

The 'University in your pocket' is how an MBA student described the Open University MBA he was doing while on service in Afghanistan (a colonel in the Royal Marines).

'User Generated Content' - such as this, provides multiple voices. If, for example, you seek out blogs on a subject that interests you each will have a different voice. You find the voice that expresses things in a way that makes sense to you and follow. You want to learn something, so you get a fourth and fifth opinion if you like. 

UGC can be anything at all, from a blog post or a video, to the kind of annotation of an iconic First World War photograph I've done above. It is a blog, or shared student project, it is teacher content and lecture notes too. Shared content offers a reader a multitude of ways into a subject until they find one that fits the bill for them. 

• George Siemens
• John Seale
• John Seely Brown
• Rhona Sharpe
• Situated Learning
• Anna Sfard
• Gilly Salmon - all things 'e'
• Spellchecker
• Synetics
• Second Life
• Social Learning
• Surface Learning
• Scaffolding
• Semantic Web
• Surveys
• Sandpit
• Smart Phones

• Nova Spivak

• StumbleUpon

• SatNav

I wonder. Students separate their digital and student lives. I might see the potential and value of the smartphone as a 'university in your pocket' but this does not mean it is used in this way. Faced with a grand piano people are still going to play chopsticks. Mobile Learning I've covered in M.

Social Learning is the obvious one, though to some degree it applies to the above. The student's social life is distinct from their academic one. Though they will naturally learn a good deal from friends: life skills, such as how to buy and sell on Asos and stream movies you don't pay for The OU had a bash at launching a Social Learning platform - and gave up a few months later (it was pants). We had or have by now a multitude of our platforms to share a collaborate with and from:  Linkedin and Wordpress are the learning, sharing, collaborating, curating, platforms I used to discuss and write. Many would say Facebook.

Is John Seely Brown and 'S' or a 'B'. An influential educator, not strictly 'e'.

George Siemens supposedly coined the term 'connectedness' that is the learning theory of the Web 2.0 age so I have dealt with him under 'c'. I wonder that if 'network theory' as it has become a science, is what is going on here though. 

Rhona Sharpe and Gilly Salmon are authors in e-learning, with Gilly Salmon known for her terms 'e-tivities' and 'e-moderator'. I feel that when and where the 'e' is dropped as a prefix these interlopers will be first to go. Find me a GCSE or A' Level student who even differentiates the learning types by platform - it is all just learning, whether in class from a teacher, from a webpage or page in a book, whether they write their essay in longhand or in Google Docs.

Surface Learning - A surface approach to learning is where a learner is concerned to memorise the material for what it is, not trying to understand it in relation to previous ideas or other areas of understanding.

Second Life offers more than I have given expression too. It is an augmented, e-learning platform too.

Surveys are an interesting one. In 2001 or thereabouts the blogging platform 'Diaryland' (launched 1999) introduced surveys and the several thousand members, myself included, went crazy about them. We created a multitude of surveys then amassed responses and comments. I did one on interpreting your dreams. There were many on depression. And sex lives. Surveys are interesting because the internet allows you to get to so many people. Were surveys made for the Internet?

Is the semantic web getting anywhere?

Then there is 'spellchecker' - in this environment it is done for you. Where is the button? IT or LTS removed it some months ago. Are there other automated practices that 'teach' us in the background? My spelling has improved because after relentlessly having certain words corrected I no longer get them wrong in any context; occasionally comes to mind. 

Then, come to think of it is SatNav.

Think about it. In the background. It takes you somewhere. You repeat the journey and after a few goes could (and should?) drive it SatNav free. You are shown the way. This is what teachers do. They show you the way, many times and ideally in a few different ways. They find ways around the obstacles, the traffic jams and road works. They help you get your vehicle to where it needs to be. So SatNav is both a learning platform, intuitive, in the background, solving a problem ... and a metaphor for e-learning?

REFERENCE

Lally, V, Magill E, (2011) Inter-Life: Learning in 3D Virtual Worlds (editorial – Guest Editors).  In preparation for Journal of Computer Assisted Learning (Special Issue) pp5.   FUNDED by EPSRC/ESRC RES-139-25-0402

Sclater, M. & Lally, V., 2009. Bringing Theory to Life: towards three-dimensional learning communities with ‘Inter-Life’. In G. Rijlaarsdam (ed.) Fostering Communities of Learners: 13th Biennial Conference for Research on Learning and Instruction (EARLI). Amsterdam: Graduate School of Teaching and Learning, University of Amsterdam, 190. Presentation available at http://www.inter-life.org/blog/?p=98

Lally, V. & Sclater, M., 2009. Inter-Life: where Second Life meets real life. Learning in Digital Worlds: CAL 2009. Brighton, UK: Elsevier. Presentation available at http://www.inter-life.org/blog/?p=83

Sclater, M. and Lally, V. (2013) Virtual Voices: Exploring Creative Practices to Support Life Skills Development among Young People Working in a Virtual World Community. International Journal of Art & Design Education  32 (3) 331–344. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1476-8070.2013.12024.x [OPEN ACCESS]

Salmon, G. (2002). E-tivities: the key to active only learning. Sterling, VA : Stylus Publishing Inc. ISSN 0 7494 3686 7

Salmon, G (2002) e-moderation

Seale, J. (2006) E-learning and Disability in Higher Education: Accessibility Research and Practice

Situative Learning - ‘Several decades of research support the view that it is the activity that the learner engages in, and the outcomes of that activity, that are significant for learning (e.g. Tergan 1997)

Sfard, A. (1998) ‘On two metaphors for learning and the dangers of choosing just one’, Educational Researcher, vol.27, no.2, pp.4–13; also available online at http://libezproxy.open.ac.uk/login?url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/1176193 (last accessed 10 December 2010)

Sharpe, R. Rethinking Pedagogy for a Digital Age.

Siemens, G. (2006). Connectivism: Learning theory or pastime of the self-amused.Retrieved February, 2, 2008.

Siemens, G. (2010). Teaching in social and technological networks. Connectivism: networked and social learning.

Siemens, G. (2009). Open isn’t so open anymore. Connectivism. Retrieved from http://www.connectivism.ca/?p=198