Personal Blogs

Two weeks ago I was pleased as punch to be able to travel from Lewes in East Sussex to Milton Keynes for £7.50 (RETURN!) OK, four hours in a train and a choice of diddling around with a Milton Keynes bus at the other end (an hour from the station to the campus or 15 minutes and £7 by taxi). Last week £17.50, same timetable, I hoped I'd got the bus figured, but still an hour to the campus. This week? I cannot for the life of me find a train (return, outside peak hours) for less than £75. Consequence? I have no choice but to drive, leaving home at 5.00am tomorrow, or even tonight. Much later than 5.00am and a 2 hour motorway schlep can take 4 hours The joke is that I could do my job brilliantly while orbiting earth in Thunderbird 5. I've been online all weekend in mini and micro moments picking up RSS fed conversations from various sources, following colleagues and contacts as they up date blogs ... and I receive Google alerts to an iPad (mobile around the house, train, bus, car); iPhone shopping, walking the dog ... (I have an answer on how to relax: competitive sailing in the English Channel. I've done it, injury, tactics and exhaustion concentrate the mind).

If only a 6,000 word assignment could be written by assembling all your evidence, research and notes, putting in the criteria for this four parter, then hitting a button

This is the Wordle version

I wonder if by doing Wordles of our work it would be possible to differentiate between a lower and a higher grade assignment on the basis of the size (and therefore frequency) of certain words?

P.S.

Discussing mobile learning with my 13 and 15 year old I told them about loading all course books onto an iPad (becoming common place in Schools across North America); they both said it would be too distracting as you'd want to chat or play games.

I said what about an e-Reader, and they said that was boring, what was wrong with a real book

To cap it all my 15 year old has gone retro, both in her dress sence (her version of hippie or punk depending on her frame of mind), and insists on using a throw-away film camera or a functiong 1970s Polaroid camera.

The motivation has to be the content, not how it is delivered, and the end result in terms of grades, the university and career of their choice etc: I like the analogy of mobile content being like 'Chicken Tikka': whatever the means of delivery the expectation is that it is still Chicken Tikka.

'Whicever mode of delivery I choose, the meal I eat will still be Chicken Tikaa'. Luckin et al. (2005:122)

REFERENCE

Luckin,R., Brewster,D., du Boulay, P., Corbay, S.  (2005) in Mobile Learning. A handbook for educators and trainers. Edited by Agnes Kukulska-Hulme and John Traxler.

 

Mouse-free learning anyone? As well as being so portable I like the iPad for the touch screen. I need an iTouch though as I get cramp/ numbness in my supporting hand. What are your iPad experiences? One unexpected use I have found for someone who is often up in the dark is to use it as a torch.

Every time I read about the course materials others have received I become more jealous. Studying Masters in Open and Distance Education everything is online. We get nothing .... and everything. Actually, in 2001 I made at start on this and I too got a box of goodies: hard back and softback books, CDs too. I felt I had arrived, that my money had be well spent.

Which is where I trip myself up.

Learning entirely online I am staggered, overwhelmed by the quantity and quality of course materials and the links to materials now readily available online. In the early days I bought myself a few books and printed stuff out.

I now have the skills and confidence to have it all 'up there' in a cloud, readily available, my stuff and the OU's whenever and whenever I want it.

Whilst in the past I printed off out of habit, I now stick it into a blog (Private) or into dropbox. This means I know I can get to it wherever I may be. This has been from a laptop until recently, though now it goes to an iPad. I am gobsmacked the way I can read documents as PDF files and hold these in my iPad library.

One change I'd make: a smartphone is too small and an iPad is too big for the kind of mobility I am after. On the other hand, I also want an iPad the size of a Clipboard, with another, literally, a touchscreen desktop. Basically iPad versions A5, A3, A2 and A1.

And lighter.

With a longer battery.

And with the screen of a Kindle (glare is a killer).

I find myself engrossed in the App, Zite

I understand too how and why Apps are making Google redundant.

Why search when what you are looking for is served up to you?

Having selected a few categories what is offered I find engaging, stimulating, relevant and quotable.

I have my aggregated stories on e-Learning and social media, of course, but also the arts and writing, science and technology.

Such a tool drawing on the contents of The OU Library 'Education' section would be even more precise. A sort of electronic serendipity, instead of browsing the aisles the articles are offered up to be to suit my predilection.

The only issue is when do I stop to think, to write and share instead of hitting the IN, Twitter or Facebook buttons?

Follow me on Twitter jj27vv, or in Linkedin where all the best stuff is shared.

Do the same.

My key spheres of influence of e-learning, social media, education, literature and the arts, and business.

 

Is it sensible to be writing on Friday what I did on Tuesday?

I've face this dilemma a thousand times after 35 years of keeping a diary.

Better late than never if the events are of value (they are) and worth sharing (they are) and of educational value to My M.A (they're that too).

I took notes all the way through a day long workshop on Social Media in Higher Education with Tracy Payle of Pickle Jar.

I even held the iPad aloft to take screen grabs of her presentation, as well as grabs of any exeercises I worked on with my colleague from Imperial.

The 'Heads Up' for me were the exercises we did anda the results we collectively produced. We must see those who could become engaged in social media as a plethora of types with different inate skills and interests.

Then play to their strengths.

Not rocket science, but a reminder.

We might hsve more than a library of content to put out, but better only to offer what we understand, believe or know thst our audience want.

Then to see the long-term engagement with people as they think about, become inspired by, then sign up for a qualification ... And their journey onwards as a student and alumni.

(all being was initially written off an ipad. Without fingers like chopsticks editing and correctng is impossible. I know present this as a draft to fix later. I can't use html or any of the dropnox tools either. I undersetood that the OU were 'tablet agnostic'. At the moment, at least in the VLE, they are not fully iPad).

SEE MINDMAP ABOVE

H800 WK21 Activity 2 ep

How does your representation compare with the tables of tools and functionality described in the Conole chapter you read earlier in Activity 1b?

All of these st some stage and more especially using a tablet and Apps, or laptop away from my desk.

+ e- readers

+ RSS feeds

+Google Docs

+picasa dropbox

+Blog as eportfolio and exercise book

+Blog for presentstion and wiki-like

+flash online shared calender

Intranetmicroblog Yammer

+ Skype

To what extent are you using Web 2.0 technologies?

Extensively

Send notes as email to blog and others

Outlook remotely

Blogs to aggregate and share

RSS feeds aggregating messages

Online Forums frequently

How far are you using Mobile 2.0, as explored in Week 19?

Extensively using a 3g enabled tablet In what ways has your own practice and use of technologies changed in the last five to ten years? An early adopter once more. Professionally necessary to take an interest in everything Blogging since 1999 so used to putting content online

Apple started this journey in 1988

See pics and videos of the iPad Ancestors

From materials and commentary prepared by John Pettit (2008)

Of courses it is learning if it is on a mobile phone or any other device. Do we mean informal or formal learning? Vicarious learning or didactic? Stumbling across knowledge, or reading formerly to pass an exam? Does it matter? These devices blur the distinction between a means of educating that may eventually look dated and specific to an era.

Do we need campus based universities?

Kids can have their kicks in Ibiza then study online while holding down their first job.

Give the campus over to the retired and unemployed.

Do we need schools?

And if so, instead of being at the centre of a child's education, perhaps they become as tangential as a visit to the leisure centre of supermarket because you are better linkedin to the educators and the content when you're away from the place and all its distractions.

When do you ever not learn even if you don’t know it?

It depends entirely on what the device is being used for. Apps have shown how versatile we are at throwing activities and qualities at these devices. People want this stuff.

Is a laptop mobile? What about the old Apple Classic? I used to take it out into the garden on an extension cable and view it inside a cardboard box while sunbathing. Was that mobile? I can read in the bath on a Kindle and click through RSS feeds on the iPad while the Kettle boils. Might it simply feel as if all these people are following me around?

There are degress of mobility. Working in TV we carried around with us monitors to watch content back during a shoot. The thing was no more portable than a hod stacked with bricks.

When I read formal and informal learning I wonder if this equates to whether the learning is hard or easy. I have acquired knowledge in a formal setting and had a laugh, equally in an informal context without the self-motivation and will I have found informal learning very hard to do.

It is sometimes claimed that handheld digital devices allow students to learn at anytime, anywhere. A more nuanced position argues that the devices have the potential for ‘any time anywhere’ learning but that many other factors come into play.

For example, some devices may be easy to handle but have small screens that don’t allow easy reading.

Far from being hard to read the small screen is better suited to the narrow field of close vision that we have. So what if it is like looking through a letter box. If you want to concentrate why look at more?

A device can become too small. Too portable. As a video producer I have seen kit shrink so much that a device the size of a child’s shoe will generate a HD image and for $75 a day you could hire a camera that delivers 35mm quality. Making a film though with a device so small creates instability, you need some weight on your shoulder if you want to keep the image steady.

The portability and size of screen is less relevant than the affordances of the device, the fact that an iPad doesn’t support Flash, or Android is having problems with Google Apps, that is, if you are using learning materials that require specific functionality that isn’t working.

As for screen size, people may watch a blockbuster movie on a giant screen at the Odeon Leicester Square or on a Smartphone or palm-sized gaming device that is no bigger than a spectacle case; here what matters as with any movie, is the quality of the narrative, not the size of the screen.

Where a device’s portability comes into its own, as the person who recently made a phone call from the top of Everest, is the portability. Another extreme might be a cave diver with a device the plots the route for a cave system, or a glaciologists relaying pictures of a feature in a Greenland ice-sheet to colleagues thousands of miles away that informs the research.

‘Patterns of usage differ widely, and the fit between people’s lives and the devices they use can be very close.’ (Pettit and Kukulska-Hulme, 2007, p.28)

Is an apt way to express a new term being used in the Open University Business School to describe applied or practice-based learning that gets away from the ‘distance’ tag, that is to call it ‘nearness’ learning. (Fleck, 2011). I also like the idea of ‘intense but provisional,’ people’s attitudes are brand specific, with the Mac vs. PC split of computing now a split between Windows, Mac and Android (and others).

People chose brands to simplify the choices that have to be made between a plethora of devices, between Sony, Nokia, Goole and Windows, as well as between network suppliers, be that O2, Vodafone or others.

There is another way of looking at it though, if you come to see that all these devices offer the same sets of services and tools, from QWERTY keyboards, to a camera, from messaging to phone calls, to the hundreds of thousands of Apps, and in the case of the latest Windows phone … Windows software from Outlook to Docs, PPT to Excel.

Is size such an issue?

People have managed needlepoint for centuries and once painted miniatures. There is an appeal for the tiny sometimes, just as there is for the massive. In this respect the device becomes a reflection of the person’s personality, as well as the depth of their pockets, the availability of others services, from a signal to 3G (or not), even to the power to charge batteries.

Personal choice, celebration of variety, offering a smorgasbord rather than the continental breakfast.

‘That well-known random-access device consisting of ink on bound sheets of paper may still have plenty of life in it yet!’ (Pettit and Kukulska-Hulme, 2007, p.28) expressed in 2007 is how in 2011 writers in the e-magazine Reconstruction 6.4 describe the ‘long-tail’ of the blog, that definitions have become meaningless, suggesting that the varieties of ways to do or have what we have continued to call a ‘blog’ is as varied as the ways we have over many centuries come to use paper.

Drawing on a paper written in 2007 on research presumably undertaken a couple of years previously, it strikes me that ‘the world has moved on’, to say the least – though not enough. This exercise is looking at the extraordinary capabilities and uses for a device that in 2011 can offer somewhat more than was possible four years ago. This doesn’t mean to say we have the things.

From my own perspective I came into the MAODE (this time round) with an eight year old iBook that had trouble with some software, things as simple as PDFs and the latest versions of Flash as I was unable to upgrade the operating system. Working from a smallish screen I found myself printing off too. For the second module I had access to a better laptop and plugged it into a good-sized screen that allowed me to see a page of A4 at a time or to swivel the screen and have two windows open side by side. During the course of my third module (this one) I found myself without a particular device, but with access to a desktop, a laptop, even an iPad (and have used a Kindle to read some 16 books). Here I found myself putting everything online, into a blog and e-portfolio so I could access whatever I wanted wherever I was (or whichever device was available), as well as having the cataloguing, aggregating, sharing affordances that this has given. Any device, however mobile, and whatever size, can tap into this content.

The problem now, isn’t simply, for me at least, is the overwhelming volume of content I have put online, which despite adopting various approaches to keep track of it, has split into a number of blogs (OU, Blogger, WordPress, and Tumblr), a number of cloud galleries/warehouses in the sky (Flick, Dropbox, Kodak and Picasa Galleries, My Stuff, Pebblepad).

It is apt that I blog under the name ‘my mind bursts’, because it has, and is.

Like having a thought, or recalling some event or fact seemingly on a whim, I find I stumble across these ‘mind bursts’ quite by accident, forgetting the number of blogs, for example, that I for a period started only to abandon so that ‘serendipity’ has a role to play through the myriad of links I’ve also made. None of this has helped by finding myself with three Facebook accounts and unsure how to delete the ‘right’ one.

The attitude can only be to ride this like the web surfer of a decade ago – to run with it, rather than try and control it. You meet friends coming off a training a Liverpool Station, you do not need to know who else is on the concourse, the timetables for every train that day, week or year. To cope with the overwhelming quantity of stuff tools to filter out what matters to you at that moment is coming to matter most.

Currently I find myself repeatedly drawn to the activities of Hugo Dixon, a former Economist and FT journalist, who set up a business he called ‘Breaking Views’ to counter what he already by then perceived as a deluge of online information and the old print-based expression ‘Breaking News’; we would come to need as some pundits predicted fifteen years ago, ‘information managers’ or ‘information management systems’.

I wish I could reference the expression properly but ‘Freedom is lack of choice’ is one of my favourites; sometimes filters and parameters have their place. I enjoy using a Kindle as much for its limitations; it is something I can take to bed knowing that it’ll send me to sleep, while an iPad keeps me up all night.

REFERENCES

Fleck, J (2011) Association of MBAs Conference Video 2011

Pettit, John and Kukulska-Hulme, Agnes (2007). Going with the grain: mobile devices in practice. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 23(1), pp. 17–33.

Simply to offer a different insight while acknowledging the above, I was, in 1983, introduced to the wonders of the University Computer Lab.

'Back then' this wasn't an elective, but rather signing up to some additional, extra-curricular training.

It did not appeal one bit; I could imagine to some degree where it was going and its necessity in one of my options (remote sensing from space), but to achieve anything (I am neither computer literate or mechanically minded), it struck me, as was the case, that your required a certain mindset (that of an engineer or mathematician). Because it was in little demand, not networked, bespoke to a project and housed in one place it was akin to joining the stamp club and about as exciting. It was however 'on request,' rather than compulsory and could with ease be ignored.

I wonder if a more laissez-faire approach would work?

More of an internal market in an organisation where choices are offered to individuals so that the decission making could be more bottom up than top down? i.e. you have a budget, you pick the kit you'd like, the software you need rather than being prescribed a piece of kit and software and obliged to learn it.

I imagine the moment I can afford to buy a Mac I'll do so.

The simplest analogy would be is that I feel I've been told I have to use a Rotring pen and a ruler, but I'd prefer to use a soft HB6 pencil and a pad of cartridge paper. The end result, the task or peice of communication I have to deliver will be the same, I just get there 'my way,' rather than 'your way'.

My university experience from the 1980s, to that as student and now insider thirty years on at the OU is different, however, invited to meet a group of Associate Lecturers yesterday to have my mind picked regarding web-conferencing, Elluminate and synchronous learning in general, I was struct not by how things have changed, but how what matters hasn't changed at all - there are educators who are fascinate by and passionate about what they do.

There is a desire to do the best by their students and to get their heads around what tools could be used to improve or enhance this experience. Even speaking with my 85 year old father-in-law, a former prof who still 'teaches' I am struck by this vocational zeal, which is shared whether by email and Skype, by snailmail or a tutorial, collaboration on a book, or giving a talk (still) at a summer school.

The lesson I have learnt therefore is never to let the technology get in the way of this experience, that between educator and student, the knowledgeable and the less knowledgeable, playing on this inhate human desire to share our experience and knowledge whatever that might be.

Increasingly, when discussing the merits of kit or software, I return to this theme, that people have not changed and that the natural relationships that form between people in markets, in villages, in communities, is what we crave and repeatedly recreate online in a multitude of ways.

There must be industry reports that can give a more current 'state of play' for use of mobile devices (smart phones and tablets in particular) ... though not necessarily confined to use in education.

The Kukulska-Hulme et al 2011 report 'Mature Students using mobile devices in life and learning' may be a recent publication (International Journal of Mobile and Blended Learning Jan-march 2001) but draws its conclusions on research undertaken in between May 2008 and April 2009.

Technologically and in relation to the potential for e-learning a great deal has happened since then.

In industry would we not expect a report, say from Nielsen or Monitor, to have been done in the last six months?

In the technology sector old news is redundant.

By 2009 PDAs were virtually extinct and we were about to experience the launch of the iPad. Since 2009 smart phones have graduated - they're bright in many ways.

Like their users?

Bright people with the means quickly find ways to put these tools to work, extending their reach to their online course, for materials, forums and assessment alerts, to organise their study time around their diary.

FROM THE ABSTRACT

'In today’s global marketplace, educators must know the technology habits and expectations of their students, including those from other countries.' (Kukulska-Hulme et al, 200x1:18)

FROM THE INTRODUCTION

"Learners can be active makers and shapers of their own learning. They should be supported in using technologies of their own choice where appropriate". (JISC, 2009, p.51)

Mobile (as they were) will not necessarily be readily adapted for learning.

Ergonomic, pedagogical, psychological and environmental facts and the issue of cost (Stockwell, 2008)

More widespread adoption by students and teachers is likely to follow. (ibid 2011:19)

A convenient and powerful tool for learning.

In an age when "communities are jumping across technologies" as needs and trends evolve (Wenger, 2010), educators and researchers also have to stay informed about how learners use personal technologies as members of communities that may be social, work-related or educational'.

Decreasing institutional control

Jones, Ramanau, Cross and Healing (2010) have critiqued the 'new generation' arguments, concluding that "overall there is growing theoretical and empirical evidence that casts doubt on the idea that there is a defined new generation of young people with common characteristics related to their exposure to digital technologies through-out their life (p.6)

Notable minorities

- Internet to download or upload materials (major minority)

- Contribute to blogs and wiki and engage with virtual worlds (ibid p.21) (minor minority)

'We consider that learners who use handheld mobile devices (e.g., their phones and mp3-players) to support their learning constitute a minority at the present time. We agree that their age seems less important than their position as early adopters and instigators of change through their influence among their peers and through their networks'. (2011:19)

Students registered on such programmes would be particularly strong. (Distance learning).

The sample was purposive.

For key areas:

- Learning

- Social Interaction

- Entertainment

- Work

- Interplay between them (Kukulska-Hulme & Pettit, 2009)

'Learning' is not an unambiguous term ... instead of the double negative why not 'learning is an ambiguous term'.

Does the rhetorical device of the double negative make the statement less assailable?

'We were interested in gathering data that might challenge the still widespread opinion amongst educators that mobile devices are of little use for academic study. Activities such as web browsing, reading e-news, article reading, book reading, and note taking are valued in the academic world but often considered implausible on handheld devices.' (2011:20)

Until more recently that his study which was carried it 2009.

Since the survey was developed, other devices including notebook computers and e-book readers have become popular, making it even more difficult to draw boundaries between 'handheld learning', laptop learning' and 'desktop learning'. (2011:21)

As if such a distinction was ever necessary? They are all computers, just different sizes, affordances and capabilities.

I liken this loss of boundaries, or the blurring, to drops of ink in a tank of water that gradually swirl about each other and merge.

We are able to highlight some differences that became apparent

Conversations with their students

Students do not always realise the potential of new tools and this is an aspect where educators can help (Trinder, Guiller, Margaryan, Littlejohn & Nicol, 2008)

Questions covered:

- About yourself

- Use of mobile devices

- Being part of groups and communities

- Specific uses for mobile devices

- Mobile devices for learning

- Open questions enabled participants to write a response in their own terms.

A total of 270 students complete the questionnaire.

Over all the report notes that:

- There are receptive, productive and communicative uses

- Respondents are using mobile devices to capture ideas and experiences

- Mobile devices have a useful function as tools that remind he user about what she/he has to do.

- Respondents make use of a range of applications for informal learning.

- One function of games is to fill gaps in the day.

- Some respondents appear to be drawing boundaries around disparate uses

- The mobile phone features as an alternative means of communications and to sport physical mobility, e.g. as an alternative to having a land line or when work involves travelling.

RE: LEARNING

- Contact with others

- Access to information and answers

- Reading e-Books

- Listening to Podcasts

- Scheduling

RE: MORE UNUSUAL USES:

- Recording one's voice

- Replay on iPod

- Taking photos

- Contacting experts in other fields

- Uploading notes to blog

- Facebook

- Windows Live Messenger

- MSN

- Skype

- Language learning

- Finding information

- Headphones to shut out distractions

- Productive activities

'Reported benefits of using mobile devices to be part of groups or communities include spontaneous communications, flexibility, speed, stimulation and use of technology to cope with changing arrangement'. (2011:27)

27 Distinct uses of mobile devices (ibid, 2011:28)

The three most intensive uses are very clearly sending text messages, browsing websites and listening to music ... and reading e-news. (2011:28)

Responses included well established advantages such as convenient access to information or to the Internet and the ability to contact people whenever needed. Specific new/innovative aspects notes by respondents included (2011:29):

- Permanency of taking notes: paper is easily lost

- Multipurpose; you can take your work/entertainment with you

- Can combine work with a run with listening to a podcast

- Podcasts give access to unique historical/scientific content

- Suits auditory learners

- Closer relationship between students and teacher

- Multimedia in one small device is a timesaver for teachers

- Instant documentation of whiteboard notes

- Taking photos of overhead slides

- Help with learning disabilities

- Alternative news source/breaking news/immediate first hand reports

- Helps maintain a public diary with a community dimension

- Quick way to learn

- Gets you outdoors

- Field trips become more fruitful and challenging

DISCUSSION AND REFLECTIONS

Mobile devices are shown to support informal; and community learning

While the predominant se for mobile devices is communication, it seems that other aspects of social interaction can benefit, such as the ability to share media between mobile devices directly or blended across other social networking technologies like Facebook.

The research confirms the global popularity of SMS, browsing websites, listening to music, taking photographs and making notes. It also highlights that reading e-news and listening to podcasts are relatively frequent activities among some students, and that article- and book-reading, once considered implausible on handheld devices, are popular among a minority. (2011:30)

What is interesting is that there appear to be many ways in which users are employing technologies to generate products. Bruns (2005) coined the term 'produsers' to denote both of these approaches. One survey shows that mobile devices are enabling users to create resources for teaching purposes, write blogs to keep their friends up to date with events, take and distribute photos and videos, and make and take notes and recordings'. (2011.31)

New practices compared to old studies (2007/2009) include:

- Using apps on the phone including Facebook and MSN

- Using GPS to find places

- Watching movies, TV, shows, vodcasts

- Listening to audio books, podcasts

- Being part of microblogging communities e.g. Twitter

- Browsing websites

- Using location-based services, e.g. to find nearby taxis, banks, restaurants, etc.

- No longer having a land line.

- Mobile device use is a fast-changing field that reflects rapid social changes as well as the increasing availability and smarter marketing of new devices. (ibid, 2011:32)

Micro-blog - are becoming more widespread, and we would expect these uses to figure more prominently in the future. (2011:32)

Slate devices Apple iPad.

Several universities now offer 'apps' for smartphones using platforms such as Campus M.

‘Our findings indicate that institutions planning to offer mobile apps should build on the existing preferences of students for social communication. Listening to audio, watching video and reading short texts if the apps are successfully to enhance the learning experience’. (2011:32)

When students are offered appropriate mobile resources then they will use them. (2011:32)

We agree with Kennedy et al (2008) that 'an evidence-based understanding of students' technological experiences is vital in informing higher education policy and practice.' (p. 109)

Pressures of study and assignment deadlines lead them to seek effective solutions to immediate needs on the go. (2011:33)

Avoid a 'proadoption bias'

‘Furthermore, since the use of a mobile device represents a new technological means of reading books, articles and news, this might have an impact on how, and how much, students read, however further research would be needed’. (2011:33)

The landscape of mobile devices has changed since our survey with some devices (standalone PDAs) becoming almost extinct and others (handheld GPS) endangered. (2011:33)

In favour of smart mobile phones and tablet devices.

REFERENCE

Bruns, A. (2005) 'Anyone can edit': understanding the produser. Retrieved from http;//snurb.info/index. php?q=node/s86

Conole, G (2007) Describing learning activities: Tools and resources to guide practice. In Beetham, H, & Sharpe, R (eds.), Rethinking Pedagogy for a Digital Age: Designing and delivering e-learning (pp.81-91) London, UK: Routledge

Kukulska-Hulme, Agnes, John Pettit, Linda Bradley, Ana A. Carvalho, Anthony Herrington, David M. Kennedy, and Aisha Walker. "Mature Students Using Mobile Devices in Life and Learning." IJMBL 3.1 (2011): 18-52. Accessed (May 22, 2011)

JISC. (2009). Effective Practice in a Digital Age: A guide to technology-enhanced learning and teaching. Retrieved from http://www.jisc.ac.uk/publications/programmerelated/2009/effectivedigital-age.aspx

Rogers, E.M. (2005) Diffusion of innovations (5th ed.) New York, NY: Free Press

Jones, C.R., Ramanau, R., Cross, S., & Healing, G. (2010) Net generation or Digital Natives: Is there a distinct new generation entering university? Computers & Education, 54(3), 722-732. doi. 10.1016/j.compendu.2009.09.022

Stockwell, G (2008) Investigation learner preparedness for and usage patterns of mobile learning. ReCALL, 20(3), 253-270. doi.10.1017/S058344008000232.

Trinder, K., Guiller, J., Margaryan, A., Littlejohn, A., & Nicol, D. (2008). Learning from digital natives: bridging formal and informal learning. Retrieved from http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/York/documents?LDN%20FINAL%eport.pdf

Wenger, E (2010). SIKM community presentation online. Theme: Rethinking Ourselves (KM People) as Technology Stewards. Retrieved from http://technologyforcommunities.com

 

 

I'm grateful for being introduced to this highly interactive 'pop-up' eletronic book for the iPad. It was suggested that I should show it to my 12 year old son.

I got a one word response 'cool' - said in a tone of voice that implied he was both impressed and intrigued.

From 'Pop-up Press Publications'.

Is this the danger though?

That it's an electronic pop up book?

Engaging enough, but will any of the messages stick?

Is there not a need for a level of effort and endeavour in education if the content is going to stick (or mean anything)?

It is the question/activity you put to the student(s) that tcreates the educational value.

Something like, our towns going to go for 100% green energy, what do you suggest drawing on ideas from this Al Gore 'book'?

Some learning design issues:

1) Expense

2) How easy is it to update the content

3) How easy is it to share pieces of the content to build you own versions of this i.e. engagement, making it student-centred, rather than technology-centred.

(57268)

It ended here.

It began with this.

And this

Preparation IS everything.

The poster for Reed sums up my current mode - new positions, whether on my own account or employed, freelance or in a business, whether an agency or in-house. My conviction is that I have most to offer embedded in an international organisation's Learning & Development Department using the substantial external 'creation' and production experience that I have while exploiting some knowledge and insights from coaching swimming; the Open University MA in Open & Distance Education binds them; each new module is another thread that makes me a cohesive bundle. H800 opened its doors yesterday. H807 and H808 are done. Practice-based research in educational technology (H809) may follow.

Yesterday at Learning Technologies I felt like a minnow ...

Today I felt like a Manta Ray, sliding between seminars and stands seamlessly, observing, taking notes and pictures, having thoughts that I jotted down or shared with a colleague.

Paper and bumph. Would it have been different armed with an iPad? Suprisingly few were being used. It was all Smart Phones and occasional netbooks or Flip cameras.

Surely 'bumph' in a bag could be reduced to a PDF file blue-toothed wirelessly into a portable device?

We're not there yet.

I'll be dipping into a referring to this material, its content and contacting the people I met and have subsequently Linked In to for many weeks.

Freindships and professional relationships may result. Business will be done. We'll have fun.

I hope so.

ON REFLECTION

The Open University should have had a major presence here.

I began the MA ODE in 2001 as a form of business training; I recommend the MA in Open & Distance Education to anyone who will listen. It would complement the careers and interests of hundreds of the thousands attending Learning Technologies 2011, both visitors and those on stands.

Next time?

Next event?