Personal Blogs

Some of the software is too clever by half. All of it has foibles.

Docx might punch some useful quasi-intuitive tools but it smacks of Apple pixie dust sprinkled over DOS. Failing to share docx word and excel docs with others with older software on PCs, let alone with MACs harks back to the early 1990s when this kind of incompatibility was common and a constant frustration in the 'creative industries' between those who were MAC based and those on a PC.

Up at 3.56am. Potty. But a couple of hours later and if I have been distracted I can only blame myself. The dog is asleep at my feet, the family sleep above me, though my head is full of domestic grief, not ours, but my daughter's boyfriends family starting a messy break-up with him temporarily ejected from his home and seeking sanctuary which we feel unable to offer.

Back to business.

My response too often is quick and emotional, this can apply to domestic life as well as work. I lead with the heart. I am learning to do otherwise, to make the time, to try to be rational, to avoid tipping from radical alternatives of hate and love, yes and no ... there is always a middle way, however hard it may be to negotiate or to my mind however dull 'middle of the road' might feel.

Middle of the road gets things done, with drama, in a professional manner, which may be the point in a module on the 'e-learning professional.'

H808, UNIT 6 A COLLABORATIVE EXERCISE

Having had some successful experiences I know what it takes, what skills, tools, timekeeping and commitment works. Where in the past I have been introduced by others to some simple online tools to share, collaborate and contribute work in an engaging way, both synchronously and asynchronously ... it may be my turn to get out of the passenger seat and take the wheel. Often you find the 'vehicle' drives in automatic, Skype and sync.in for example, Google Docs too, are far easier than you may at first imagine.

Tools for co-ordinating availability between people on opposite sides of the globe anyone? Personally I operate as if in three places ... spending a few hours on the Indian subcontinent, a few hours in the UK .... then reappearing on the West Coast of the US!

The 24 hour economy should not mean that you work for 24 hours. Or does it? Perhaps we'll reach the stage where we keep links with people permanently open wherever we go, as if they are sitting on our shoulders, forever at our side, omnipresent and god like (in the Greek sense).

‘If all you have in your toolbox is a hammer, the problem tends to look like a nail.’

Are Liveski and Joyce (2003) saying, with a sideways swipe at Salmon’s (2002) Five-stage model of e-moderation, that these approaches, pre-assembled, or pre-set course production guidelines or online tools, are somehow pre-empting and therefore skewing courses that may be designed with them, that the parameters are limiting, not freeing and allowing for innovation?

What Liveski and Joyce fail to envisage in 2003 is that we are not talking hammers and nails, with the Salmon Five stage model the hammer to crack all online learning nuts. We are talking instead of a multitude of seeds of e-learning possibility scattered across rich or poor ground ... some flourish, some do not. The authors fail to recognise the wealth of interactive learning development and computer based learning that was being produced long before Salmon came along and offered some practioners and simple approach to adopt.

REFERENCE

Salmon, G. (2002). E-tivities: the key to active online learning.

Liveski, B and Joyce, P (2003) Examining the five-stage e-moderating model: Designed and emergent practice in the learning technology profession

So there's a word for it. Courtesy of the Today Programme, BBC Radio 4 in the last few minutes (08.56)

People who deliberately play music without headphones as a form of bullying, saying 'sod off' to the world and an act of aggression.

Five or six years ago someone sat down opposite me doing this and I asked him to turn it down. If looks could kill ...

I moved down the train. He moved to a seat behind me.

I got off the train and moved to a different carriage. He followed again. This time I sat with my back to the wall. His pursuit ended when he reached his destination.

This weekend eight hours on the train I just got up and moved ... three times, to dodge leaky headphones, not even sodcasting.

You may say that the answer is for me to plug in too.

This is to do with e-tools. The hammer is some gargantuan piece of software that tries to do everything (and might), or that quirky Open Source tool you've come across that does one thing brilliantly.

The reality we need a bit of both. But which bits?

Sometimes I find software (and hardware) to be like unwanted flotsam and jetsam on a shore. You want someone to go in and clean up the mess. Perhaps the likes of Google and Facebook and of course Microsoft do this - they offer you a one-stop shop for everything in return to cash, you mind, or your wallet (or all three).

Then you find a gem or too that for a while become a vital part of the way you do things.

It's a messy business.

I liken this to the development of the automobile on speed.

The big players and small players, the manufacturers and the person in their garage, battle it out for our attention.

Increasingly we, the punter, will rely on brand names. I'm guilty of liking all things Google (to a degree), but loathing all things Microsoft (too empirical and geeky ... maybe Google's going this way). I'm not into Facebook because I was happy with the forerunners and in truth find little use for it.

It is certain however that IT skills should be placed alongside the three Rs. People need IT, unless they are too young (or too old). Or ... given the access issues (cost, Internet access) too poor.

The have's vs the have-nots, the north/south, east/west divide is not one of cash, but of access to IT.

Just when we thought we could rest comfortably at night, I would come across a compilation of what a group of some 600 e-learners consider to be the current 'Top 100 e-learning tools.'

http://www.c4lpt.co.uk/recommended/

Like all lists it's reassuring to see ones you use and like, of interest to find something new, worrying if something you swear by isn't on the list at all.

How can you create and store evidence of your engagement with different media in the following types of activity on H808?

Contributions to online discussion

• Select and export to MyStuff
• Screen Grab. Date and name.
• Export to word, cut and paste. Store on hard drive.
• Note any references, when accessed and URL
• Cut and paste into PebblePad
• Title and tag for easy search at a later date

Personal blog postings or comments on others’ blogs

• As above
• Or leave them where they are with links to the page(s) concerned.

Contributions to the course wiki

• Link to course wiki where current content, history and edit history can be viewed.
• Screen-grab of edit page
• If not self-evident highlighter tool of contributions made (though this is hardly the point, its a collaborative effort, what your left with on the screen may be minimal if your contribution was to edit) i.e. the history of participation is more important than words you may 'claim' as your own (which you can’t and shouldn't - you wouldn't have written them if you hadn't been prompted by others ... and ohters might have written it if you hadn't) by the end of the thing,

Notes and informal reflections written by hand

• Scan, label, store and back-up (as above)
• Turn hand-drawn mind maps into bubbl-us or Compendium documents.

But why on earth keep all of this stuff?! At what point deos the storing and collating of assets become a neurosis or obsession? What matters is the end result (though not apparently in learning). Once was a time you teacher or tutor knew you were doing the work a) you turned up b) you wrote the essays c) you could talk intelligently on the topic in class and tutorials d) you passed exams e) you submitted a thesis. Do we know need a webcam grab to prove we are sitting at the coputer? An image of us in a library taking out a book?

Examples of formal writing (TMAs, reports, etc.)

• Copy and paste into MyStuff
• Upload into MyStuff as a file
• Put in a file on hard drive.
• Back up specific folder and/or hard drive

Extracts from PowerPoint presentations

• Screen grab, date and label.
• Note any references.
• Cut and paste selected slides, content and notes.
• Download the entire PowerPoint presentation and flag the slides/notes that are of interest
• Store as above. (hard drive, zip, url link, as animation/movie in YouTube)

Extracts from audio presentations

• download as MP3 files
• transcribe and store as text
• store online or offline as a podcast
• Store or link in podcast host such as Podbean

Extracts or screen dumps from websites or video presentations

• download to desktop
• store in any of a variety of video playback tools

Link to YouTube favourites

• link or add to Flickr
• Cut and paste URL with dashboard into your blog or elsewhere online.

Comments from peers and tutors

• Attached to the saved document where the comment(s) occur as a file or cut and paste into MyStuff
• Downloaded onto hard-drive and saved/backed-up to zip drive.
• Save/export selection into MyStuff, label, include access date and tag.

Extracts from published sources (images, newspaper/magazine stories etc.).

• Linked or flagged in proprietary webpage
• downloaded as text or saved as HTML
• Scan and load as JPEG in any photo gallery (Kodak Easy Share, Picasa, Flickr, Tumblr etc

This has nothing to do with a personal desire to self-harm, being a reformed alcoholic or druggie, nor even being maudlin, but I heard Johnny Cash performing 'Hurt' a few days ago (Johnny Vegas on Desert Island Discs) and now have the tune lodged in my head. I think, from the German, this is an 'ear-worm.'

(Earworm, a loan translation of the German Ohrwurm,^[1] is a portion of a song or other music that repeats compulsively within one's mind, put colloquially as "music being stuck in one's head." ) Wikipedia.

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/2341604/johnny_cash_hurt/

A few moving YouTube clips, then I'm off to MusicNotes to download the sheet music. This tool is magic, it plays the tune karoake style and allows you to transpose the song at a click of a button. As a result after six months not touching the thing my guitar is having an outing and the pads of my fingers on my left hand are burning. (Metal stringed acoustic guitar). Finger-nails on my right hand suitably long and ready for action. Its a three-chord song. To get it exactly right another website runs through the precise order to pluck the strings. It'll take a little while to crack, as I'm rusty, but I'll do it. I love to relax this way.

Are the pads of my finger-tips getting fatter? I've never had such a problem keeping them on one string before. I may have to turn to a cat-gut strung classical guitar with a wider bridge.

Ho hum. Hum.

Alternatively I can ditch the guitar and get a friend who used to be a professional musician to play his. Team work. Theme of the week.

A decade ago creating a commercial website generally required you to buy in the services of a specialist agency; this was certainly the case 15 years ago. Gradually however businesses found they could do it themselves, indeed the development of internal and external communications was so integral to a company's activities that it had to be in some cases. An internationally successful TV production company used outside suppliers initially to build its website. However, as the creative drive for this site needed to be part of the business and as the site become a TV channel of sorts, it was necessary to bring control in-house.

1999-2002 was an interesting period as some organisations let their IT department go, not considering it one of their 'core activities,' while others brought the process in-house, sometimes buying up their web-agency for the purpose.

Creating a website, developing software, communications and business function merged. Specialist functions developed internally may have found a market elsewhere and products could be bought in 'off the shelf.'

If the functionality of the software and web-pages are integral to an institution's competitiveness and development it is understandable if some things they develop in-house, while others they buy in.

ITC is highly fluid, progressive, aggressive and organic. You want control of the beast. Do you have the personnel and department as part of your institution, or do you hire in the specialists? Or do you split your loyalties and commitments across several suppliers, buying products off the shelf? How do you achieve your goals? How do you control costs? How do you differentiate yourself from others if you're all shopping from the same place? And in education, where there is a political, ethical and moral inclination to want to do it all for free - how is it paid for?

In relation to recommending an e-portfolio set-up or package or system to an institution there are a myriad of deciding factors which could result in the valid choice being any one of:

• develop our own using our thinking and skills
• buy in the services of an agency to create a platform for us
• purchase a ready-made product off the shelf
• use Open Source and tailor it to our purposes
• none of these - students, staff and any other potential e-portoflios bring their own, on their laptops or in their own space in the 'cloud.'

The latter happens whatever you provide.

As a result of using the OU's MyStuff and trying PebblePad, as well as reviewing the reviews of several other packages, whilst it is possible to recommend what a particular client's e-portfolio should be able to do - it is less easy without understanding the institution's financial position, commercial requirements, staff and student development, professional and academic needs and ambitions.

To what degree are people storing and collating material in a loose collection of files and platforms, some online, some off, some linked in to several folios, each with a different outlook.

Once we lived in a more linear world and we would logically take in then draw from the academic institutions where we studied and the places where we worked. To a significant degree, even if we possessed portfolios as physical entities containing art work or assignments, our achievements and potential were locked in our being ... our experiences, accreditations, behaviours and potential were entirely contained in our heads and enabled by our bodies. Increasingly it is the case that the sum total of our achievements, our record, our actions, can be collated, shared and given an existence beyond us. If we think of the ultimate eportfolio as 'the contents of our brains' in a cloud, like a geostationary satellite, forever 'out there' do we not begin to mutate and duplicate, especially if some, or many parts or all of this is shared?

Will we not, in a cyber-world of hundreds of millions, not only find like minds, but aggregate to think alike in some instances? Where then is the copyright and plagiarism? And here's a dilemma for the inventive or creative mind. Do you pool you thinking for others to exploit, share the process by which you draw your conclusions which may fast track another to a similar, different or better result?

I appreciate that I am drifting into la-la-land and the realms of science-fiction, that I am feeling my way, that I am letting my own stream of consciousness take me wherever it will. If this finds resonance with others, if others comment and build on this ... or reflect it, then it is as if those collection of neurones and synapses that are creating this are connecting beyond my being.

If there is commercial worth in 'the contents of my brain,' an e-portfolio that might contain everything I have ever done, who benefits if they use this to create something original?

In conclusion

1) The e-literate will already, whether they know it or not, have the makings of an eportfolio through content they have generated about themselves, their ambitions and friends, the work they would like to do and the work they have done. A link to discrete parts of this can quickly generate a number of e-portfolios, just as it could generate a number of bespoke CVs. The less e-literate by dint of their presence at the doors of an institution, enrolement or employment, or if freelance, their contract or engagement, will have wittingly shared components of a potential eportfolio it only paper through letters, CVs and evidence.

2) Institutions, academic or business, may offer portfolios that are wedded to that organisation's culture. If designed, to look and function within this context it will be easier to compile, share, access and assess while there. No longer, if ever it were necessary, to print off, duplicate or photocopy reams of paper to have back-ups, let alone to apply simultaneously to more than one place. However, is not these ease of sharing problematic? Could not a multitude of people claim something to be their’s ? Or is that the point. We become a name on one of those credit lists that runs and runs after a CGI-rich film plays out.

3) There is no definitive answer, no panacea, when it comes to an eportfolio: create your own, buy off the shelf or let staff and students bring along what they have or don’t have. As a consultant e-professional (sounds far grander than it is), it is the requirements of the organisation you are working for that dictates the answer. Is the problem financial? Is it retention? Is it attracting students in the first place? Or holding on to staff? Is it assessement? Is it learning? Is it departmental? Is it a cohort or a group? Is is driven by your trustees? Government? Or a current fashion in pedagogy? Is it political? Does it put the student first, at the centre of things? If they have 20 years to pay off their student loan, do they carry the same e-portfolio with them for the duration, Sage accounting an add-on to whatever other functions their e-portfolio offers?

Do you want the way my mind works, or the conclusion? Is there one? If one thing defines e-technology it is that it is always in a state of flux, indeed like Macbeth clutching at that dagger before his eyes, you can never quite get your hands on it. An IT specialise shared her thinking with me in Linked In. A thought I have come across before. Whilst her role is to ‘speed things up’ for businesses, she can never say what it is that will speed up ... or that what is achieved was predictable. The important thing is to move on, progress, don’t stagnate, don’t over think a thing ... nor over-commit.

My recommendation to an institution questioning its use of eportfolios would be to be in all camps simultaneously, to have an inhouse eportfolio, to engage with external suppliers and permit individuals to have their own. What matters is the required functionality and outcomes. My recommendation to an individual is to have in their control anything they are placing elsewhere.

Is not the choice, when it comes down to it, one of selecting this handbag over that one? This satchel over that one? However it functions, whatever it looks like, only the contents matter. If you drop your one and only portfolio of photographs or drawings on the way to an interview, you can pick up the pieces and make do with cardboard and a roll of duct-tape. If your one and only eportfolio fails you lose the lot. Or do you? These assets, this ‘stuff’ what is it anyway? Text, images, programming (which is text) ... If you are digitally-savvy and have an online presence how easy is it to reassemble such a portfolio? Very, I’d suggest.

So, yes, as I suggest, you have a version for work, a version where you are studying, a version embedded in your website or Facebook page, a version on the hard-drive or you computer, and one on a zip or flash driver.

Ho hum.

I shall go and sleep on it. Always the right approach after this middle-of-the-night brainstorm.

What kind of e-portfolio would you recommend to the following?

• Use in a prison by inmates serving at least three years.
• Use for advertising and marketing creatives at a ‘school of communication arts.’
• Use by trainee gymnastics coach who is a volunteer with a local club working with young children.
• Use by a trainee solicitor.
• Use by an actor hoping to get into RADA
• Use by someone returning to work after a six year career break.
• Use by Leonardo da Vinci, Douglas Adams or Stephen Hawking
• Use by a politician

Why not come up with your own. The trickier the better.

• Use by someone who is losing their eyesight
• Use by someone who has terminal cancer
• Use by a child at primary school
• Use by someone in a retirement home
• Use by someone with depression
• Use by someone with ambitions to be a professional footballer, or designer for Apple, or ... TV producer, or ... happy.

Is an e-portfolio the next web page?

You've got to have one, even if you don't know why? At least you don't have to by a domain name.

And what brought this on?

Other than the requirements of H808 ...

The launch of a platform for swimming teachers and coaches across competitive swimming, water polo, diving and synchro.

The new Institute of Swimming (www.theiosonline.com) website not only streamlines the course booking process and offers some courses online, but embedded in the new platform in a way that is even more integrated the the OU's add-on MyStuff, is an eportfolio.

You complete your details and find in so doing that you have begun your profile in something called My IoS.

It will contain a CV, evidence of qualifications, assets that can specifically include video ... and the word 'e-portfolio' is not mentioned anywhere. Yet this is what is. And as for interoperability and transfer ... all of that is just a cut and paste, or link away is it not, as ever? And being a 'portfolio worker' in any case, the last thing I want to do is to merge one of my two (or is is three) other lives with this or any of the others.

It simply is.

The Bottom Line on Thursday night had guests Alex Cheetle, Jasmine Montgomery and Robin White. They were poked by Evan Davies and consequently shot out words as if from a submachine gun on the topics of new media (social networking largelly) in advertising and marketing and the role of optimism in business.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/i/v1rg1/

These are people who pitch for business all the time.

They aren't just at ease with the terminology, but are evangelists. Not being an Opera buff I can't immediately think which one, but these four leaping in and out of each other's conversation felt at time like a scene from an opera. It had might as well have been in German.

Having listened over twice and taken extensive notes certain phrases and ideas are coming through.

I liked being reminded of what 'stickiness' is - nothing more complex than 'loyalty' and 'engagement.'

I am always interested to tag a few more ideas onto my understanding of 'branding,' as I am convinced this will be the deciding factor for most people choosing a product or service. Which is why and how the likes of Google and Facebook continue to dominate, while familiar 'sexy' brands like Adobe may muscle into creative industries education in an even bigger way by offering e-portfolios.

Can we as students reach the stage where we can talk with such enthusiasm and as lucidly about 'e-learning,' and as its the current topic, about 'e-portoflios' in particular?

School-leavers will have an electronic portfolio showing their achievements and best work, giving a clearer insight into what they can do in the workplace (DfES, 2005, p 12).

Without the support of adults this is futile. Too often technology tries to eliminate the need for relationships for things to happen. Sometimes the technology is an attempt to replace people with things, with stuff, with systems.

An e-portfolio won't say well-done; an e-portfolio will no identify strengths and weaknesses and with care offer positive feedback; an e-portfolio might use up time, but it doesn't give of its time ...

Who historically has known what a person can achieve? Their teacher, parent, or grand-parents, a close friend or partner?

What do e-portfolios lack?

A heart, a head and a hug.

In the early 1990s something called 'The Choices Card' was launched across the North East of England by the now defnct Tyneside Tec. This creidt card and chip held a basic CV, had training credits on it and was meant to be a young person's passport between school, training and/or a job.

This was an e-portfolio in microcosm. The most important component of it was the person, the adviser who took the 'candidate' through the process.

There are plenty of people in the country, many of whom will have more sense and achieve greater 'stickiness' then a collection of amorphous software.

It is tool. A clever too. An engaging tool. A valuable tool. And a resource. And a gateway. But it is about a person and should be applied through engagement with the right 'other' people. If guided alone through social networking sites what kind of decisions will be taken?

We'll see. Because this is what will happen.

It's easy enough to be on Facebook while doing homework, to be on Facebook while completing a job application or writing a CV. Who are the influencers here?

We'll see.

My abiding image of cyberspace is of an ocean.

A product, a collection of tools and services, such as an e-portfolio, is but a few drops in such a digital ocean.

There are no barriers, except artificial ones ...  the movement between desk-top, smart-phone, VLE, e-portfolio, picture album, music gallery or whatever else should be seamless.

I'm reaching the stage where I feel I may have to type entries such as this in Word and then paste them in. Why? Too often it closes before I save or finish and everything is lost. My loss, not yours.

Just owning up to buying an annual subscription to PebblePad. All the pointers say it is the right step to take, I can see that it will absorb everything I've put into MyStuff these last seven months about (700 pages) and allow me to do much, much more with it.

The movies that run you through how things work are clear. The buttons and actions seem intuitive and desirable. For example, when it comes to reflect I can follow the prompts. Even I can do this. And in relation to building evidence, once again, I will follow this H.E. inspired creation to perform as a graduate should.

Otherwise I'm finding Filemaker Pro as easy as when it first came out in Clarisworks in the 1990s and the various versions I've used since. It's just a pain and a shame that I'll have to buy a new version once the 30 day trial is over and a greater pain that details of 800 swimmers and 44 teachers/coaches will have to be added manually. (I may be able to get around this only if I very carefully ensure that most of the many fields I use match. Though refreshing my memory with the swimmers and deleting out of date records might be worth the effort as poolside all this stuff has to be in your head).

Today I've had fun with Bubbl.us and have been introduced a a slide-sharing tool - both courtesy of fellow student Lesley Morrell. Always one to want first hand experience of a tool before I can recommend it, I plan to take the Bubble I created on Reflection (see below) and work it through with Compendium, seeking out and adding reports and references as I go along. Whether the end result can be written up as a 500 word report is quite another matter.

This and plans to have a professional crew video a number of swimmers above and below water to then put through a broadcast post-produciton house come to fruition. The plan is then to generate material for a substantial 'reusable learning object' or what Salmon (2002) wants us to call an 'e-tivity.'

So a busy day.

Risotto done, Mushroom soup to make.

SuppActs. Unit 3.3: 2nd -15th Oct