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H800 wk21-22 Activity 3 2011 Horizon Report

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Friday, 4 Nov 2011, 04:52

An hour and a half has been allocated to this; I have given it the best part of six.

I may have nodded off (ill with a heavy cold) but I reckon my mind just goes into cruise mode continuing whatever I was doing, mostly skating my fingers around an iPad dipping into pools of mind-mashing stuff.

The Masters in Open and Distance Education (MAODE) is to blame. At last we have a way to engage with the latest thinking even though the module was designed and written some years ago. We are asked to read and make notes in the 2011 Horizon Report from the New Medium Consortium. I've printed it off, but can see there would be no need just as soon as an A3 or Fulscap clipboard sized tablet is released.

I start by making notes in 'notes' on the ipad. In moments I feel a compulsion to Tweet some of this, and between url shortening and TweetDeck, then Linkedin and Facebook I fins I am sprinkling the electronic dust of enlightenment each way I csn think.

Horizon 2011 (My Notes July 2011)

The world of work is increasingly collaborate driven by increasingly the global and cooperative nature of business. Horizon 2011

The challenges of privacy and control affect adoption and deployment. Horizon 2011.

Digital media literacy continues its rise in importnce. Horizon 2011

The challenge is exacerbated by the fact that digital technologies morph and change so quickly at a rate that generally outpaces curriculum development. Horizon 2011

Reconciling new forms of scholarly activity with old standards continues to be difficult. Horizon 2011

New models of learning are presenting unprecedented competition to traditional models of the university. Horizon 2011

Keeping pace with the rapid proliferation of information, software tools, and devices is challenging for students and teachers alike. Horizon 2011

Given the plethora and wealth of user generated content ... There is a greater need than ever for effective tools and filters for finding, interpreting, organizing, and retrieving the data that is important to us. Horizon 2011

Three horizon lines are offered:

Near-term

E-books + note-taking, sharing, immersive engagement, changing our notion of what it means to read. (engagement)

Mobiles + everyone has one, access to affordable and reliable networks.+ increasdingly the first choice for Internet access.

Second Term

Augmented reality (spotify, 4squared) an easy extension of expectations and practices. Horizon 2011

Game-based learning +to foster collaboration, problem-solving, and procedural thinking.

Far Term

Gesture based computing

Learning analytics

Our research indicates that all six of these technologies, taken together, will have a significant impact on learning-focused organizations within the next five years. Horizon 2011

My view is that they have been cautious over the pace and readiness for adoption; I find I am wedded to mobility, the dexterity, manipulable and versatility of an iPad.

I churn though e-books in preference to TV as if the book was a new invention.

I read in multiple ways and sizes and speeds, skim reading, or takes notes, or just reading my notes and highlights. On long drives I wear a headset and let the book read itself to me. I find I take in something different, as if I've seen the bricks that construct the sentences and paragraphs, but now I'm getting the cement as a form of sense making.

As invited to do I click on www.Navigator.nmc.org and have been there ever since. I found my way here at visual complexity and have ventured into a dozen sites, ultimately downloading the App iWriter convinced by its sales blurb:

“iA Writer for Mac is a digital writing tool that makes sure that all your thoughts go into the text instead of the program. One of our goals was to create a writing app without settings. When opening Writer, all you can do is write. The only option you have is full screen and FocusMode. To increase the pleasure of writing is exactly what we intended when creating Writer. A better tool doesn’t make a better craftsman, but a good tool makes working a pleasure.”

and the quality of everything else I saw that the Information Architects (iA) team are doing.

Regarding the second adoption horizon I feel we are there.

I had it explained to me at UCL on Tuesday and could immediately relate to it and indeed have stepped into that mode already a few times. While 'game-based learning' is very much my son's world. I only permit the amount if time he is engage, because he is engaged, with a headset, in a team, constructing and deconstructing the worlds he is active in.

Which draws that horizon that is meant to be three or more years away far, far closer.

There is more reading yet to do. I cannot be. Told to read seven pages and then ignore the next 26. That's like going to a recommended restaurant, having a lyrical starter then sitting around while everyone else indulges themselves on the main course.

Talking of restaurants, the other product I want from iA is there Web Trend Map.

It uses the idea of restaurants to give weight to various web forces that are the given visual weighting and a spatial setting that overlays the Tokyo underground map.

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Design Museum

H800 wk22 Activity A2a - notes and cryptic thoughts

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Sunday, 1 Jul 2012, 17:47

Large scale open source e-learning systems at the Open University UK Niall Sclater (2008)

Welcome to a mega-university (Daniel, 1996)

Requires exceptionally feature rich, robust and scalable e- learning systems.

Founded in 1069 not 1970(JV)

(Slight slip on the iPad there, but an interesting idea that we might be able to trace the origins of The OU to 1069 rather than 1969, which would place The OU as an older institution of the founding universities of Bologna in that century and the Oxford and Cambridge Colleges of a century later)

'Creativity is mistakes'

(Greyson Perry 2011. Search this blog for more)

I applaud the mistakes we make typing at a thousand words an hour on a keyboard that's akin to ice-skating in well-worn calf-skin slippers. This aren't Freudian slips they're breaks and laughs in our stream of consciouness; ideas we didn't know that had formed that break-out.

The OU 2008 to 2011

Was 180,000 OU students in 2008 now it is 210,000.

Was 7,000 associate lecturers now more like 8,000 or is it 10,000?

Online conferencing and e-assessment expertise disparate systems vs consolidation and unity of design LMS to restrict, present and monitor enrolled students.

+ collaborative activities through forums, blog and wikis.

Control as a means to acceptance therefore Open Source rather than commercial software vs fears about systems nor people being ready for it after the failure of UKe university.

Mark Dougiamas and Moodle with the leadership drive and qualities of Linux Tordvalds.

  • Understand the entire application
  • Optimize at every opportunity
  • Spot new requirements

Ensure that they are fulfilled

  1. Functionality
  2. Usability
  3. Documentation
  4. Community
  5. Security
  6. Support
  7. Adoption

Enabling socio-constructivist learning

  • Prisoners and the visually impaired.
  • Enhancement to the calendar system so that students can keep track of their work and tutors can keep track of them.
  • Additions of an eportfolio and audio both now semi-defunct.
  • Issues over deadlines, over responsibility for key functionality,  over whether to incorporate blogs or not, the value or otherwise of comments functionality and the delays over seeking consensus.

To Wiki OU or to wiki SP?

NB How to move from a primarily print-based educational paradigm to one that also effectively exploits the dynamic, interactive and communicative aspects of the Internet. p9

Rather like saying that we want to integrate text books that pop-up and exercise books that deliver assessments as a kind of origami; at some stage like a glob of stuff in a lava-lamp the new platform will spawn an entirely distinct way of learning.(JV)

Many in the faculty have been engaged for large parts of their working lives in the development of text for a large part of their working lives and do not have the inclination or skills to think about delivering parts of their courses as podcasts or wikis. p9

NB Enhancing the learning experience for students.

Ensuring central quality control, copyright clearance, branding and good design and high- quality audio recordings often means that faculty and tutors feel they have less autonomy and can be less creative than they wish. p10

Or abandon the institutional LMS for PLSs. p11

Not so much food for thought, than a smorgasbord; not so much an hour and a half to ponder, but the weekend and beyond, including walking the dogs and when asleep.

I dream in page flips on an iPad.

I've been engaged in some bizarre dream world in which multiple varieties of fish leap from one pool to another. I presume this is some intellectual dance that is going on and ought to take time out to reflect on this.

I blame it on the level of digital interactivity, not just this QWERTY keyboard typing thing (which I do with my eyes shut as a party piece), but the way I constantly exchange hands when using an iPad, flipping the page from portrait to horizontal, opening the page out or closing it down, wiping the tip of my little finger across the page to flip a page or roll down through content.

I even wonder if six years playing the flute and piano with some seriousness haa not made this adaptation all the more easy?

All I need now is a mouth-piece, something like a gum-shield or orthodontic plate so that I am given additional control to select and highlight by moving my tongue.

Never so far fetched as you may imagine.

Now answer the following:

What criteria should we use to assess whether our LMS is meeting our requirements?

Might we be better served by a different (possibly open source product)?

What are the benefits and the challenges of our institution’s engaging with an open source community, given its inevitable compromises and delays?

In what ways are we using our LMS to control the experience of learners, and how are we using it to empower them?

How can we avoid getting tied up in discussions surrounding technologies and keep our focus on finding solutions that enhance the learning experience for our students?

 

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