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What's better the online tutorial or face to face?

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Wednesday, 7 Dec 2011, 12:56

We're asked to consider this as part of the MAODE; it may even be a component of the EMA in H800, yet after three modules I had not experienced a face to face anything - the MAODE (Masters in Open and Distance Education) is entirely (stubbornly?) online.


It has been with trepidation and fascination that I find myself attending group tutorials or seminars, booking in for a Residential School and having to face an exam.

These are part of an elective, a 30 point module that forms part of the OU Business School MBA (Master of Business Administration).


I can say with complete conviction that there is no competition, though evidentially different, both the online and face-to-face tutorial meet the same objectives, albeit with significant differences. Both should be experienced before you pass judgement.


There are pros and cons to each.

Two face-to-face tutorials of two and a half hours each had me in a group of first 16, then 11. We listened a bit but interacted a good deal. I took notes but am still writing them up. Online you talk with you fingertips; I have met up with fewer at a time, six or less on Elluminate, more asynchronously in a forum. There have been threaded discussions of 100+ posts running to 16,000 words or more.


On the other hand, travelling to a tutorial 63 miles from home last week I lost a good piece of the day, caught in a traffic accident going in and a worse one on the M25 coming back. Then again I've had tutor group forums that have been badly attended by both the tutor and fellow students.

Research (Richardson, 2005-2011) shows that satisfaction rates for online or face-to-face tutorials are now matched: electing for or receiving one or the other, from the OU at least, students are just as satisfied.

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B822 Emotional Intelligence

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What's the point in thinking of myself as a creative ideas person if I am too 'sensitive' to handle rejection and too much of an ideas person to get a few ideas finished rather than many ideas begun? The module Creativity, Innovation and Change' (B822) is knocking me into shape. It's a management course. The first block runs questionnaires and inventories on you and where you work to establish where there's a fit or whether there's a mismatch. I am also reminded of the many teams I have formed or belonged to that have worked, literally generating ideas for a BT Think tank for example, finding the 'innovator' and 'entrepreneur' to get behind an idea and raising first £28,000 and then £100,000 for that project. Often the fit looks crude, even cliched, between the ideas person, the innovator sales/prefect director type and the entrepreneur who may hold it all together as a fledgling business.
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B822 9.2 Conceptions of development

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Tuesday, 22 Nov 2011, 19:49
  • Team Forming  (Henry, 2006:189)
  • Forming and storming in which members establish their identities (Tuckman, 1965)
  • Establish group norms and practices.

'Only after people feel recognised and norms are agreed is the group likely to perform well.  (Henry, 2006:189)

A problem to solve:

  • Problem exploration
  • Idea generation
  • Implementation
  • Analyse the situation
  • Define the problem
  • Develop options
  • Select a strategy
  • Develop an action plan

Parallel and sequential activities required for new product development.

Personal development:

  • Piaget (1929) referred to often and read for the MAODE (Masters in Open and Distance Education, with the OU)
  • Erickson (1959)
  • Maslow (1962)
  • Kohlberg (1969)
  • Perry (1970)

Development of society, civilisations, agriculture, and industrial.

'It is possible to subdivide the onotogenetic and phylogenetic stages differently'. (Henry, 2006:190)

  • Ontogentic means: 'The origin and development of an individual organism from embryo to adult'.
  • Phylogenetic: 'Relating to or based on evolutionary development or history: a phylogenetic classification of species'

(See more: Henry on 'Creativity, Management and Well-Being').

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Can blogging be taught?

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Tuesday, 20 Mar 2012, 04:48

Can you teach someone to swim if they won't get in the water?

You can take a horse to the trough, but you can't make it drink?

What therefore will motivate, drive, persuade, cajole, convince or oblige a.n.other to blog?

I'm seeking advice and help here as I am on a mission to initiate and nurture 12 new bloggers over the next four months. It feels like cheating to go on a quest for those who blog already and call them mine but surely this is the crux of the matter. I can preach to the converted, until then my words will fall on deaf ears.

Invite people to enjoy a variety of successful bloggers to help them find their way? How many do I have listed here? 100+ but where's the attraction in a list, you need guidance.

Define a blog?

Academics I quote and review here say you can't. They are beyond simple definition, but 'electronic paper' where people spill words, images, video (though not coffee), where they aggregate other people's content, majestic lists, dumb notes, a writer's journal, an academic's draft papers, a student's e-portfolio.

Is there a role for a blog buddy or blog secretary?

I believe Richard Branson has a blog and Twitter double,i.e. He doesn't write a word of it himself. That would be cheating. I can't write 12 blogs for other people (even if I write/produce or create some 16+ of my own).

Stuffing in things you've already written is fine with me.

I call up content from a diary I started in my early teens as well as from 2,000 odd blog entries posted from 1999 to 2004 and the 1000 odd posted since early 2010.

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How as an OU MAODE student the way I learn has been turned on its head

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Wednesday, 18 Apr 2012, 06:25
A year ago, maybe 18 months ago, courtesy of this student blog platform and forums in H808, H807 and H800, how I approached 'academic knowledge acquisition' if I may put it like that, was turned upside down. Being a blogger is part of it, disclosure or exposure comes into it (with discretion). Rather than study in isolation, assembling a rare, carefully constructed essay potentially only for the eyes of my tutor, tutor group or assignment assessors, I found value in sharing both my ignorance and my knowledge. There is no better way, I have found to come to love a concept that I hated, than to share my struggle and be sent in a variety of different directions, still sharing my incomprehension where it existed. Indeed I do find that the less I like the look of something when it first confronts me the more likely I am to become evangelical about it: take Engestrom's 'activity systems', I see them everywhere having (in this blog) started out as a skeptic. So, excuse my ignorance, that's why I'm here.
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B822 BLK 1 WK 1 Creativity - Can it be defined or contained?

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Saturday, 22 Feb 2014, 14:57

Though cryptic this means something to me and will jog the memories of my 12 or so fellow OU students on 'Creativity, Innovation and Change'.

The reference to 'Chizsentmehighly' refers to Mihaly Csikzentmihalyi and Chapter 1 of the Course Resource Book ' A Systems Perspective on Creativity'. Henry refers to the course Chair, Professor Jane Henry who also features in the 28 minute audio programme that I have now listened to FOUR times. (In surveys I come out extremely low on my ability with or liking of 'auditory' learning; give me a visual and some words, please).

In a subgroup and then in the form we discussed the meaning of 'creativity' (ostensibly in the buisness context). We found we needed to qualify it, to set parameters and have goals or outcomes. Are you, for example, creative if your ideas are in your head? Or if they are 'random acts of weirdness?'

We were made to think about use of models too, there are a couple in the Block 1 reading. The important thing I have learnt is to recognise that a model is one person's simplification of the complex. You may never get onto their wavelength, and if you do, recognise its failings. Figure 1.1 in the Csikszentmihalyi chapter is an example. Csikszentmihalyi (1999) Having studied Engestrom I prefer his Activity Systems. Tersa Amabaile in 'How to Kill Creativity' has a more easily understood Venn Diagram with 'Creativity' at the centre of Expertise, Creative Thinking Skills and Motivation.  (Amabile, 1998)

Context is important. Although I've put Apollo 13 here, we actually discussed some other example of ingenuity in a moment of crisis. This on the basis that creativity is often forthcoming at times of crisis (indeed one of the 'business guru's Jane Henry interviews charts innovation and creativity and puts in the need for pressure as delivery of a project is reached). The other examples remind me of the eclectic mix of backgrounds of my fellow students from whom some rich examples were given: the Army, Air Traffic Control, Manufacturing electronic lighting systems in Finland, TV, the NHS, Marketing, a County Council and so on.

Gwok Kann, Jackson Pollock, Greyson Perry and Travey Emin got a mention, as did Steve Jobs, James Dyson and Bill Gates. We got into pigeomn-holing people as 'innovative' or 'adaptive' and were warned of a 'two box thinking' (that we can quickly confine oursevels to a limiting debate).

Something similar was achieved by a Game where in groups we were given a set of nine cards: 7 with letters on them, one with a symbol and one blank. We were told to come up with a three letter anagram that would be readily understood by others. We did QE2, KPI and then by tearing the 'Pi' symbol in half and making it into an 'I' 'CIA'. In this instance we got into a conversation about how we set ourselves parameters, that we automatically follow rules and make assumptions even when there is no need to do so. We could have turned the cards over and written any letters we liked. The game had not come with a rule book.

Clearly I'll be adding to this, letting the tutorial act as a catalyst on the books, CDs and other online resources, as well as discussions in our tutor group.

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B822 All Change!

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Wednesday, 7 Dec 2011, 12:57

A few paragraphs into my first course book after a year of having everything online and I am once again drawn to reflect on the pace, scale and scope of technological advance on the one hand, while people don't change one jot, even to the degree that toppled dictators are shot in the back of the head (scenes my 13 year old son guiltily admitted to following on YouTube without the slightest concern for what my generation would have called a snuff movie and have censored all images, still and moving).

40 years ago: 'No mobile phones, no satellite television, no bio-engineered plants, Cloned animals, Micro-surgery or precision missiles that can hit a ventilation shaft from thousands of miles away'. Henry 2010:13

Just 10 years ago and there is no Facebook nor Google, no YouTube either.

It's getting to the stage when the speed of change is so swift that looking back only 4 years feels like a glimpse of another era without Twitter or iPads. I went from following the Japanese tsunami on various satellite channels, BBC24, CNN the Japanese NHK, to watching it from Smartphone content uploaded to YouTube.

Didn't people once fear that travelling at over 30 mph in a train they would disintegrate ?

Personally I feel that my mind risks disintegration trying to keep up with the rate of change, my mind fed by Zite and Stumbleupon, the spherical probably the latest thing to capture my attention and sustain my interest for longer than a week.

1970-2010

Growing up in the 1970s I often bemoaned the fact, and into the 1980s, that compared to my Grandfather (born 1896, died 1993), that 'not much had happened' OK, I had no desire to wish two world wars on us, but I didn't think colour TV, Stylophones and Space Hoppers were significant (A man or five on the moon was an achievement of course).

By comparison what had 1870-1910 seen?

Age 14 my Grandfather started work as the Office Boy, they had telephones, cars had appeared and were already hogging the roads, Airoplanes  were up and Bleriot had crossed the English Channel .There was no QWERTY keyboards, but movies were stretching to a second reel. 

The forty year stretch 1910 to 1950 saw the establishment of motor vehicles, Airoplanes and telephones,  cinema burgeoned and radio was everywhere with TV in  the wings.

REFERENCE

Ask via Google Yahoo by way of Google

Henry, J (2010) Creativity, cognition and Development. Book 1: 'Creativity, Innovation and Change'.

Wikipedia via Google 

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B822 WK Zero - 10 days Creativity and change from Newcastle-upon-Tyne to Kobe, Japan

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Friday, 21 Oct 2011, 04:18
I tried to describe what it is like to be about to embark on 150 hours of studying (or is it more?) with three assignments (and an exam?)
There is a buzz.
Like people in the lobby of a theatre ahead of a show.
I think of the Kathryn Tickell concert the other night, outside the auditorium at The Stables;
I think of my first RSC Shakespeare at the Theatre Royal, Newcastle. I still have the programme featuring Derek Jacobi, in Hamlet I think, so ... 1978?
But we are no audience, we are the Players.
Perhaps it would be better to think of us as members of a newly formed orchestra about to meet Sir Simon Rattle.
Ten days 'til the doors open; some have popped in to say hello then gone off to prepare for then sit an exam.
Many now add in brackets where they are:
Hamburg, Bratislava,   San Jose, Costa Rica, Kobe, Japan, Frankfurt, Newcastle, Kent, Bristol, For a module on creativity an international mix, with the widest variety of backgrounds, should result in fireworks. Meanwhile for the 1998 paper 'How to kill creativity' (Amabile) alone I feel the my working life exposed, enhanced and potentially 'enabled'. Decades ago I hung to the belief that I would learn by doing and three times set up fledgling production companies, too often these were conduits for my 'talent' yet I see that all of us needed to be gaining intrinsic value, indeed the most success came with non-commercial short films where this spirit had to be fostered.
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B822 WK ZERO Day -12 Action Stations eCrayons at hand

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Tuesday, 17 Apr 2012, 07:36

Let's say I'm going to blog this one by the day; not at all hard to do.

I am an habitual diary-writer with a 37 year track record. Can I, however, make this more of a tool and less of a toy, this is after all a module from the Business School and according to discussions (in the 'Open University Business & Law School') 'transformative' (alumni rave about it) i.e. more reflection and less indulgent 'stream of consciousness' monologue spoken through my QWERTY fingertips?

I stumbled into the module pages as an alert on my Student Home pages indicated that a message had been posted.

It looked ominously playful with each sentence a different Rainbow red, orange, purple or blue.

That's a first!

The Course Chair likes his e-crayon set.

(He did kindly resist using multiple fonts, though, research has shown that making something physically difficult to read improves retention of the information expressed because the mind has to work at extracting meaning).

To course notes

I ALWAYS make the a space of my own by cutting out and posting elsewhere the bits that matter to me: here is how my six months will be spent; two months each of:

  1. an introduction to the module concepts that focuses on the individual level of creativity, cognition, style and development.
  2. team-based and individual approaches to creative problem management.
  3. ways of developing organisational innovation and climate.

A box of resources, books and maybe a DVD awaits me at home (I away from home during the week) Let the FUN commence!

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Too busy to blog (again)

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Tuesday, 17 Apr 2012, 07:31

 

IMG_0316.JPG

Fig. 1. Display of the Olympic Village, ExCel, Custom House, London Docklands. Part of a display for the 3,500 Gamesmakers who are being recruited over the next months to support the Olympics next summer.

Not blogging is for me a loss as I have always used a diary (1974-1999) and then a blog (1999-to present day) to provide a record or archive of what is hitting my head every day.

This provides, during times of reflection, the opportunity to think over events. (With a diary I might not look back at a page for a decade, but at least it was there).

I have little doubt that this is because I am between modules. Creativity, Innovation and Change (B822) kicks off in November.

Many colleagues keep a 'daily log or notebook'. I used to, but found I'd fill them too quickly. I favour IT to assist, sort, store. I will 'forget about' something in the knowledge that I can draw it from my electronic 'brain'; this of course assume that the content has made it that far. So a blog is a repository. The problem is which blog? These have a habit of splitting into multiple folders.

Nor is this blog the place for Social Media and Online Communications (my role at the Open University Business and Law School). Though at times there is considerable overlap with all that I have learnt in the Masters in Open and Distance Education. (Modules H800, H809 and H807 completed).

Nor is it the place for my potential adventures with the London Olympics 2012, which had me (like a number of OU Colleagues) attending a 'Gamesmaker' presentation and interview yesterday. I have been lined up for the Press Office, potentially to contribute to the Knowledge & Information desk which will draw in educational value from the events to share with future Olympics, otherwise either in the Olympic Village editing/writing a regular newsletter, or at one of the venues 'door-stepping' athletes and getting their words to the media centre.

My summer 'vacation' 2012

A part solution to the failure to post a blog is:

1) I took notes (directly into an iPad for the most part, so no need to transfer/transcribe)

2) I took pictures (sometimes with the iPad, now with an iPhone, such grabs of presentation slides that I immediately upload to Picasa Web. These in turn would be best placed in a photo friendly blog in WordPress, FlickR or Tumblr, though currently they are saved into locked galleries online).

3) I keep a daily log/notes of my day, aggregating content of interest from RSS Feeds (LinkedIn groups and Blogs) as well as Google Alerts. This has always remained offline. I need to get it into FileMaker Pro so that is it more searchable.

The above to provide a catalyst for developing further any one of these topics at a later date (if at all), but usually easy enough to discover if blogged (private view), or put into a relational database software package such as FileMaker Pro.

I therefore have a record of events, meetings, presentations and so on, which include:

MONDAY PR and the words of students and alumni from discussions and requests to our growing groups in LinkedIn.

TUESDAY Interviews with Alumni (three of the 1996 graduation group reflecting on their experiences of the MBA and what they have done since). Brief a TV production company.

TUESDAY Creation of a blog for Open University Business Network. Kathryn Tickell at the Stables (or was that last week ?!)

WEDNESDAY Using Camtasia, Audacity, a MAC and the Institute of Educational Technology 'Podcasting Suit' to produce a video-version (animation/movie) of a presentation I gave on Social Media in Higher Education which I wish to induct academics (or their teams) to use to compress 45 minutes lectures into scripted pieces that are more 'Web Friendly'.

WEDNESDAY Tweet inaugrual lecture of Professor Cherie Booth and the acceptance speech of Leslee Griffiths BA.

THURSDAY Personas and Mental Mapping (an OU technique to understanding and predicting visitor behaviours when using online materials)

THURSDAY Communications, Leadership and Influence (a presentation by the new Director of Communications). I took from this the need to make the time and effort to empathise with colleagues with whom I work.

THURSDAY Open University Businesss Network (a series of quarterly breaksfast briefings for local business people that started on Thursday)

THURSDAY Edit of interview visiting fellow from Ghana

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Academic paper on blogging

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Birds of a Feather: How personality influences blog writing and reading. (2010) Jami Li and Mark Chignell. Science Direct. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies 68 (2010) 589-602  
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EMA Away!

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Tuesday, 27 Sep 2011, 07:37
I have a month or six weeks before B822, the shift I suppose into the application and management of innovative e-learning. After some silly hours over the weekend, which I wish I'd done a week ago, I 'crashed' by watching two E4 films back to back, falling asleep and catching up or falling behind by flicking between the movie and the movie+1. They both featured Spitfires, the first Alec Guiness and a Maltese girl - he died; the second Kenneth Moore and hearty British girl - he didn't die but he did lose his legs being a show-off in an Avro. Ian Kershaw's new book looks a good read; I've got through his biography on Hitler visiting my inlaws (he fought in the Warsaw Uprising), politics and the WWII are big topics. And I have this blog to sort out, migrating its contents over to www.mymindbursts.com
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3 steps to successful social media

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Sunday, 25 Sep 2011, 15:40

Listen - Engage - Create Simplified to a traffic light (see below) Listen%252520Engage%252520Create%252520SNIP.JPG

With the additional thought, 'you can't understand social media unless you do it'.

This IS the new TV, new Radio, new wordprocessing ...it will and is transforming the way we do things forever.

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Social Media in Three words

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Wednesday, 21 Sep 2011, 20:21

4030d6d17c210d2509d0a7a240325ca4.JPG

Listen - Engage - Share
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78 things to think about when it comes to e-learning

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Saturday, 3 Nov 2012, 06:33

Or should that be 64 things and 14 academics ? (a number that could be doubled from our reading lists with ease).

ELearning%252520MindMap%252520SNIP.JPG

What about the others?

What have I missed out?

Some tools:

  • VLE
  • Forums
  • Google Alerts
  • Bubbl.us

Do please add some of your own to see if I can get it up to the cliched 101.

 

 

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Four ways to be a 'Digital Scholar'

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Sunday, 16 Oct 2011, 05:05

If Boyer's four main scholarly functions were research, application, integration and teaching, then I would propose that those of the digital scholar are engagement, experimentation, reflection and sharing'.

Weller (2011 in Chapter 4, 20% of the way through, Kindle Location 1005. Is there a page number related to a print version? Amazon say not in a polite, informative and lengthy e-mail. What therefore is the answer to this referencing conundrum?)

Does Weller's suggestion make anyone who keeps a student blog and shares it openly like this a scholar?

Making us all digital scholars?

(I love the term as a hundred years ago in Census Returns it was used to describe anyone attending an academic institution, whether school or university).

Goals of the Scholarly Activity

  • Provide students with an opportunity to employ their unique skills and talents to pursue a project of their choosing under the mentorship of an expert in the field.
  • Provide mentorship and guidance for students interested in careers that integrate research, teaching, and clinical service (academic medicine).
  • Foster development of analytical thinking skills, rational decision making, and attention to the scientific method.
  • Enhance communication skills.
  • Enhance self-directed learning.

 

Reference

Boyer, E.L. 1990. Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate. The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Princeton, NJ.

Weller, M., (2011) The Digital Scholar

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The Digital Scholar (2011) Comments 1

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Sunday, 16 Oct 2011, 05:10

 

I've picked this out of Martin Weller's new book 'The Digital Scholar'. (2011)

This book is published under a Creative Commons licence that throws away the old concenpt of copyright and ownership, inviting people to do as they please with the content so long as he is attributed (indeed any of the other authors/academics he quotes himself).

He is either on a mission, or playing at the edge of digital scholarship by inviting others in, expecting more than peer review for his thinking followed by publication years hence in an academic journal.

The stance I take, is that the outside, the novice, someone from a different discipline or culture, can, act in many ways to amerliorate knowledge, either as a catalyst for seeing things differently, or by seeing things differently themselves and in time being able to articulate this in a convincing manner.

They don't have to wait for permission or acceptance, they just do it.

So long as we can see (as you can online, say with a wiki) the trail of changes (editing, additions) others coming to this fluid material may draw their own conclusions (if a conclusion is now ever possibly given that a work offered online in this way is never complete).

 

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H800 Forum Strengths & Weaknesses

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Friday, 5 Oct 2012, 23:34
photo%252520%25252816%252529.JPG
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eReader Referencing

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Best policy would to have all non-fiction, or certainly books from academic publishers, with the page number facility for citation. This or a change to citing practice. I have resorted to putting KL before a reference as in Kindle Reference so KL 2734 for example. I don't suppose this helps unless the tutor or examiner knows the exact font size, spacing and layout, but at least it shows I am trying to demonstrate the provenance of my source. They could simply do a search for the phrase within the book, if verifying the quote, fact or figure is required, but that of course requires them to own the book in Kindle form.
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24 Reasons to Blog

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Tuesday, 20 Mar 2012, 05:03

'Many if the characteristics which would be frowned upon in scholarly articles, such as subjectivity, humour, and personal opinion, are vital elements in developing a dialogue in blogs'. Weller (2011)

I had another stab at this (did one yesterday on the fly). This one I've given a bit more thought as I am keen to promote the idea of blogging to colleagues; the more the merrier to me. It goes under the title 'User Generate Content'.

I do wonder though if it isn't a mindset, that I'd have the same issues getting people to take up drawing or singing.

You either do or don't?

photo%252520%2525289%252529.JPG

I realise that to get this right in the learning context you must define who the learner is and put it in context.

QUESTIONS

  • Why do you blog?
  • If you've just started will you keep going?
  • What's the incentive?
  • Do you have an external blog too?
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Reflecting on illness

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Friday, 9 Sep 2011, 19:12
I appreciate that some reading this will have gone through months of being unwell or their condition is long term. I am simply using ideas taught to me during H808 a year ago to reflect on what I have been through: 15 days of a ghastliness that has included a day in hospital and three clinic visits. In hospital I counted the seconds and did so for nearly five hours. At home I crave fresh air but repeatedly ended up back in bed. As the last week or so shows I would read, comment and write - though until today my head has felt decidedly befuddled. So I did some digital housekeeping, all my mind could manage, mostly shuffling pictures, screen grabs and such around in Picasa Web, even referencing them properly. And I slept a great deal. I read Martin Weller's new book but know, and will see this from notes, that a second reading will have me picking out different things and adding different notes. We humans are unstable at the best of times, gender, age and background doesn't start to define who we are and how our state of mind, openness to learning, levels of self-esteem, can influence how we will 'perform' one week to the next. Consistency, for me at least, is a futile, even a stultifying quest.
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Talking about social media learning

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Thursday, 3 Nov 2011, 22:03

A call from a colleague with a major corporate and we talk social media learning for nearly three hours.

During this time I repeatedly search this blog, using the e-portfolio that it has become, sending charts and grabs from Picasa and from the iPad, creating a mind-map in Bubbl.us and balancing how the MA in Open and Distance Learning compares to the OU MBA he completed last year and the MRes he is doing now.

Just a phone call. We could have gone to Skype, Elluminate or even Google+. The phone freed up the laptop. Several photos picked up from workshops, as well as screen grabs, were emailed from the iPad which was also running.

Social Media Learning Bubbl.us Mind Map

Fig.1. Social Media Learning Mind Map

Timely as I am procrastinating over the ECA which will be on the use of Forums and Mobile devices in e-learning.

A reminder of how a synchronous conversation can achieve so much, especially when there were items set before our eyes to discuss.

We also discussed (I hadn't the energy to take many notes. In retrospect I wish I'd recorded it):

  • Belbin Team Roles
  • Activity Theory
  • Management Mindsets
  • Silos
  • Web 2.0
  • Learning on the periphery
  • Vicarious Learning
  • Medical Market Research
  • TV Production
  • The role of an Alumni Board
  • Narrative
  • Research
  • Assessment
  • Blogs as 'electronic paper'

It was invaluable to have the external point of view, someone from a global comany of thousands talking about social media learning. Looking at the devices we now have, such as smartphones and tablets, it was particularly interesting to be reminded of human nature, how devices may be used for things and in ways that they were not designed.

Whilst the iPad permits mobility, we often use it when static: in our favourite chair, recumbant on the sofa, even in bed or in the bath. Is this mobile learning? It's hardly getting out of the house, drawing down data on the run using augmented technology to enhance the environment your in. And simply having content on an iPad so that you can using the touch screen to open and close the text, enlarging text, flipping the screen size between portrait and landscape all the time - the joy of its tactile nature. Unable to sleep I use the light from the iPad as a torch to sneak away from the marital bed and passed the children's bedrooms and to find my way downstairs withouth having to put the landing light on.

It also was clear how both devices and approaches to learning cannot be isolated, we got our joint heads around Engestrom's 'Activity Systems'. The technology is complementary, the move to personalise everything through device and software choices.

I'd played Devil's Adocat a couple of times suggesting that 'nothing had changed' only to come away agreeing that many of my behaviours were/are different as a direct result of Web 2.0. I have gone from learning in private, hunched over my books never showing it to anyone to a situations where, more like someone tending a public garden, or at least one seen from the street, people can see my thinking. Ironically, it is the end result that often fails to appear because I'm not about to post TMAs and ECAs online.


Some authors I quoted/cited during the conversation:

  • Vygotsky
  • Engestrom
  • Richardson
  • Moon
  • Cox
  • John Seely Brown
  • Jonathan Swift

To which I subsequently add as a result of browsing the blog and so re-engaging with my own experience within the chronology of the module; it is this, after all, that is to be examined, rather than my knowledge from this and the preceding modules. A learning design fault?

  • H807 You diddle about with every instrument in the orchestra and several that have just been invented.
  • H808 You learn to conduct, or at least why a conductor is important (even if you can't play an instrument or read music).
  • H800 You learn to play an electronic keyboard

I quoted Swift as saying (paraphrasing) 'I don't know what I mean until I hear myself speak'. If anyone has any idea how to cite this please do offer your thoughts.

More authors to consider in this context (mobile learning, forums, e-learning, web 2.0):

  • Haythornthwaite
  • O'Reilly
  • Weller
  • Traxler
  • Gregory
  • Mason
  • Sharpe
  • Beetham
  • Belshaw
  • Hinchcliffe
  • Bacon and Dillon
  • Siemens
  • Boyer
  • Wenger
  • Bruner

Other topics that we should have discussed:

  • User Generated Content
  • Collective Intelligence
  • Apprenticeships
  • Problem based learning
  • Participation
  • Demand Pull

BEING DEVELOPED FURTHER HERE

http://socialmedia4education.wordpress.com/2011/09/08/social-learning-for-corporates/

Permalink 14 comments (latest comment by Jonathan Vernon, Thursday, 1 Sep 2011, 15:19)
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B-learning: as in bathroom, bed, beach or 'in the bath'

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Monday, 29 Aug 2011, 06:48

Could be bed-based learning too, even the beach, or on a boat; all tried for the purposes of testing the device and its possibilities.

TIPS FOR THE BATH

  • Spare towel for the iPad when you put the thing down. I find this is when the water gets cold.
  • Toe control of the hot tap.
  • Contact lenses in (glasses steam up).

The context lends itself to a variety of e-learning topics, the marketing of bathroom products, shampoos in particular.

photo.JPG

A glance might allow the sleuth to identify the make-up of family members.


Takes picture, though this could be uploaded directly to wordpress here I go for Picasa Web, then paste in the code.


DIY tips on a dripping tap would be handy, but isn't that e-training?


Otherwise normal bath activities apply:

  • read a book,
  • listen to the radio ...
  • sleep
  • wash


Surely 'mobile learning' in this context is a misnomer (or unnecessary nomer)

Was book reading ever called mobile or portable reading once cost and size meant that some people took the early printed books with them?

Being without a room of my own, or study even a habitable shed, garage or attic the advantage of having an iPad in the bath is that I am unlikely to be disturbed.

A laptop doesn't work, you get drips in the keyboard and sitting up spoils the point of the bath.

Where do you take your 'mobile device' and in what contexts, times and places is it suitable or conducice to learning?

I find a bench 'in memory to ... ' on cliffs looking over the English Channel at Hope Gap or the mouth of the River Cuckmere below the chalk cliffs of the South Downs known as the 'Seven Sisters' a place to write, especially at first light. For a couple of hours. Train journeys can be good too, so long as it isn't packed.

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Toilet Learning - Just 'situated' learning?

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Monday, 29 Aug 2011, 09:20

SURVEY ON USE OF SMARTPHONES BY US STUDENTS

photo%252520%2525288%252529.jpg

53% of students (mostly undergraduates in this survey of 573 in the US) with a smartphone, typically an iPhone or Blackberry, use it in the bathroom.

Only 28% say they never do.

My only suggestion is to do as in China and wash you hands both before and after.

This gives me t-learning or should that be 'seat-uated' learning.

Situated and contextual learning requires marrying up the place and the learning being done, which could therefore be National Geographic and 'The Oldie' online?

The posh may prefer 'lavatory learning' - which would be 'L-learning'.

Lavatorum Docet

The lavatory teaches

 

Permalink 2 comments (latest comment by Jonathan Vernon, Sunday, 28 Aug 2011, 09:25)
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What next regarding e-learning?

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Monday, 8 Oct 2012, 04:54

This has me thinking and going through http://www3.open.ac.uk/study/postgraduate/qualification/F10.htm

With the MA in mind I have done:

H807 Innovations in e-learning

H808 The e-learning professional

And will complete next month:

H800 Technology Enhanced Learning

For the 180 credits required for the MA there is no choice (unless I am misreading it) but to do the only two remaining 30 credit modules:

H810 Accessible Online Learning

H809 Practice-based  Research in Educational Technology

Or have I got that wrong?

With this in mind it's H810 in September then H809 in February 2012.

To confuse issues there are professional reasons to start the MBA programme from October. Decision time then as I won't be doing two courses concurrently. Something I tried by doing over a three year period the UKCC ASA Senior Club Coach (swimming) qualification ... 

Freedom is LACK of choice.

I look forward to H810. Search H810 in the OU Student Blogs for an idea of what it is about; we did a rich, engaging and valuable period on accessibility in H807.

I'd do H807 again as I feel it was wasted on me. It took me six months to get into the postgraduate groove and my IT skills despite being online for a decade were woefully inadequate. The disappointment is that the reading and activities cannot possibly be contemporary so that you feel as if it is 2005 at best, 2003 at worst. I expected technological fireworks; at least I understand why that is not realistic. Perhaps the model whereby a module that aims to be innovative is designed and reinvented continually?

H800 is the 60 pointer but I have found it LESS onerous that previous 30 Pointer modules, not only is it spread thinner, but the pace is adjusted, the roll-over and degree of repetition embeds the learning outcomes and a TMA as prep for the ECA is inspired.

What next is asked by many MA qualified postgraduates I am finding. We hanker after more but short of a PhD what can be offered? Indeed, I think there is a gap in Tertiarty, or should it be called 'quartertiary' education?

If offered a further choice of modules beyond the MA I'd do them ... Towards at MA+ or MA* ?? Though in truth for how the thinking is applied, as a form of CPD.

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