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Where did you join the throng and what's missing?

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Fig. 1. The Video Arts development journey from linear storytelling on film to multisourced, chunked, networked and open learning.

Professionally I came in with VHS - shot on Umatic then Betacam, edited on 1" tape then digitally. In 1986 Abbey National still distributed staff news on an AV slide carousel - there has always been inertia, though today change, new versions and upgrades are built into the system - or an accepted way of life. Visiting a regional BBC TV Station in 1989 I thought it was behind the production processes used in Soho and Covent Garden - the advertising industry, events and training business were all quicker to develop.

DVD are missing, as are intranets. Computer based learning in house, in a learning lab, then dispersed on internal systems developed in the mid 1990s.  You can put the Philips Laser Disc in there too - mid to late 1980s before the CD-ROM took over.

Streamling and downloads needs to be expressed very differently too - I'd give it a very thin wedge to start with. Great expectations of bandwidth from 2000 for the next decade meant that the DVD quality of 3D animationa, video and so on was impossible - yet the DVD market died. Someone the ease of distribution and ease of response on the network was considered more important.

Production values remain the thing that set Video Arts apart - and humour. If you are not paying suitable attention to the messages then it is fun to spoke the likes of Emma Thompson and Hugh Grant playing bank branch managers or other actors whose names immediately escape you but you recall from a period drama or a sit come, pops up with their arm in a sling with a health and safety story or as a junior manager with autocratic behaviours.

The laptop, after the desk top, was our first 'mobile computer' of course and today as well as the tablet Smartphones are a devise that plays a role in learning - for a start, everything I can do and read here I can manage on a Smarphone.

You do find new ways to learn - my favourite, a genuine creative problem solving technique according to an Open University MBA module I took - is to express some ideas such as this, or have a first swing at answering part of an assignment - then nod of. A ten minute sleep will do it. Either sinking into unconsciousness or coming back to consciousness I will be aware that I am dwelling on some condundrum and I just may have figured something out. Just don't do this a few hours before an assignment is due and decide as a result of your 'dream spirits' that you are going to rewrite from the top.

 

 

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Design Museum

H800: 29 On Reading a book, cover to cover

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Monday, 29 Aug 2011, 16:02

I have no doubt that habit has something to do with it. My reading list before going up to Oxford perhaps. A stack of second hand books, a pen and notebook. I like reading a book cover to cover.

I am on my third MAODE module. You are pointed at a chapter here, a chapter there, loads of reports too, but no longer a book. We had books in 2001, a box of them and a CD-rom.

I have bought and read three topic related books. Do they now clutter up shelf-space? They are like oranges I have squeezed dry, for pulp, juice and pips.

I have bought eight e-books and have devoured two of these.

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It was reading Vygotsky's 'Educational Phsycology' that made me appreciate the value of reading a single author cover to cover. What is more, I enjoy the limitations of his own reading. This is 1926. How many people is he going to read and reference. Not that many, John Dewey stands out so will be my next read. There has to be value in engaging with a flow of argument from one mind over many thousands of words. Perhaps it is a relief where so much of my reading is prompted by Linked In Forum Messages, OU Tutor Group Forum Messages and feeds from blogs.

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'Rethinking Pedagogy for a Digital Age' is a compilation piece.

The K-tell album of e-learning authors.

All our favourites get to sing their song.

I enjoy how the editors introduce each new chapter, at least there is some attempt to bind the contributors to a theme. I wonder from amongst them if I have heard a voice I am interested in hearing again? i.e. once again, this suggestion that you tune into a person's way of thinking and expressing themselves and by doing so surely speed up the learning process?

What counts though are my highlights and notes.

Having read each cover to cover I am now going through the 350 highlights/notes on EACH. This gives me the chance to expand, delete, add and reflect. And for those poor people who Friended me on Facebook by accident rather than design, Tweet-like updates directly from the Kindle. I need to find a better way to manage these ... sending them here would be an idea, at least there's some relevance.

I am reading no fewer than FOUR what we might term 'popular' books on e-learning, the DIY books primarily aimed at teachers. One is brilliant, two are also-rans, but one is dreadful: Prensky gets headlines for his headlines (Digital Natives) ... there is no substance to him and I heartily wish the OU would drop him as a point of discussion.

Or is this the point?

You know you've learnt something once you've gone from nodding along with all he says to consigning him to the bin?

REFERENCE

Vygotsky, L.S. (1926) Educational Psycholgy.

Beetham, H., Sharpe, R (eds) (2009) Rethinking E-learning Pedagogy.

 

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H800: 20 Wk2 Learner-Centred Pedagogy in challenging environments

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Saturday, 27 Aug 2011, 12:31

H800 Wk2 Activity 5

BHUTAN

The Royal University of Bhutan has been established for 2 years. In some respect it is like the University of the Highlands in the UK, but students have to relocate so that they can study their chosen subject as they have no online technology beyond email exchange.

The issues in relation to introducing new teaching methods and technology include:

• sceptical of distance learning

• not used to the Western values of :

• +curiosity

• +rationality

• +creative approaches to learning.

The response to this should be to:

• Experiment with web-based solutions and wireless Internet.

• Nurture progressive and open education within the limits of the technology.

NEPAL

95% students attend Tribhuvan University in Kathmandu which has been established for 50 years. 89% of the population lives in villages with only 2% attending higher education.

Like Bhutan teaching methods are conservative with memorisation and exams. (Instructivist) and they:

• Can’t see worth of the degree.

• Scepticism

• Poor Internet.

The response to this has been to:

  • Experimenting with video links and wireless Internet

In contrast, in Africa, the University of Malawi has tackled the inherent problems of geography, demand, traditional teaching methods and poor resourcing with a willingness to try new things, championed by the Vice Principal (even if some of the rest of the senior management are negative). The result has seen a successfully adaption of more learner-centred approaches to teaching mid-wifery and agriculture, with more use of CD-Rom than unreliable Internet and digitised Open Educational Resources to overcome copyright issues and handling/storing/lending textbooks.

The University of Malawi UNIMA was established on independence in (1964). It has four colleges and a polytechnic. Demand for places has grown whilst access to physical and human resources is fixed for example, in 2009, 5,600 sat the exam for 1,152 places,

PROBLEMS INCLUDE

• A quota for spatial diversity (and its legal validity/value)

• Inadequate supply of copyrighted textbook leading to demand on reserve section of libraries and old books being rebound many times

RESPONSE

• Use of Open Education Resources (OER are teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or released under a copyright licence that permits their use and or re-purposing by others).

‘To include full courses, course readings, course materials, modules, textbooks, streaming videos, tests, software, and any other tools, materials or techniques used to support access to knowledge’. (The Use of Open Education Resources at the University of Malawi (UNIMA)p2

• train staff so they can exploit e-learning strategies

• overcome problems related to large class size

• provide students access to affordable, quality learning resources. (ibid p2)

 

UNIVERSITY OF MALAWI COLLEGE OF NURSING

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The College of Nursing developed a course that would move students away from having a purely theoretical knowledge to being able to apply their skills and knowledge clinically.

• Aim for one third theory and two thirds practical skills

• Incorporate a problem-based learning (PBL) approach.

OVERCOMING PROBLEMS

• Support to teach in a different way.

• Minimised any dependency on connectivity by using CDROMs

KEY CHANGE IN PEDAGOGY

‘The final product included an orientation section, which introduced the PBL methodology and spelled out how student involvement was different from traditional learning methods’. (ibid p6)

PROBLEMS WITH CHANGE

Piloted in February 2010, the midwifery learning environment generated a high level of interest among students.

Uptake in using the materials was slow as staff and students had to adapt to a different methodology of teaching and learning. However, a second piloting of the course occurred between June and August 2010 with a group of midwifery diploma students.

‘Integrating the PBL methodology might take some time, but there is growing consensus at KCN that using OER is a cost-effective way of creating high quality teaching and learning materials’. (ibid p6)

However, problems with Internet connectivity often made access difficult. (ibid p7)

BUNDA COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURE

• A series of writing workshops facilitated by OER Africa/IADP assisted

• BCA staff to source, analyse, and adapt a variety of existing

• OER to help craft the textbook.

Products and Outcomes

While it initially proved difficult to wean the writing team off their familiar copyrighted texts, the BCA team felt afterwards that there is a role for OER in the production of university texts.

ISSUES

• Time to search for and developed OER • Bandwidth at the college inadequate • Lack of senior management buy in • Lack of funding

SUCCESS DUE TO:

• Champion for ICT in Dr Emmanuel Fabiano

• Willingness to experiment and build on lessons learned

• Project funders OSISA, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and Ford Foundation.

REFERENCE:

The Use of Open Education Resources at the University of Malawi (UNIMA) 2009

Author/researcher: Andrew Moore & Donna Preston.

Editor: Neil Butcher & Lindsay Barnes

 

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