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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Friday, 29 Jun 2018, 06:43

Students from GB MET showcase their work

End of Year Fine Art & 3D 2018, York Hall, Greater Brighton Metropolitan College

The first stitch of the images and the magic begins. Choices have to be made over labels, over direction or the words used with each tag. Still testing what can be done already I see the need and value of some deeper planning. If this is to be seen by prospective students and parents then some indication of practice would be helpful - in fact the kind of information shown in the cards on each student: what they studied, where they are going next and a little about their learning experience.

And some gamification: a quest, in which a range of art materials have been placed around the hall to collect, or a quiz, and some video as well as the planned mid and close-up shots.

In brief, it requires a brief. To avoid the criticism of 'so what?' I need to address these questions:

What is the problem?

Who are we speaking to?

What do we want to say?

What do we want them to take away from this message?

I might answer:

Future students and parents don't realise the quality of achievement possible and the paths that this opens up to an arts student.

We are speaking to future students and their parents, rather than celebrating the work of those shown here - who have, after all, made the next step already.

We want to show and say what a wonderful experience it is to be a student at GB MET.

We want them to apply. We want them to feel enlightened and excited about their immediate future.

 

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The Power of Persuasion

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Tuesday, 4 Nov 2014, 08:17

 

From E-Learning V

Fig.1. The art of persuasion - sometimes devious, often from advertising, needed in open e-learning to get then hold your attention

Some of the most memorable classes of my school years were delivered by inspired and enthusiastic teachers. Decades on I realise that they would have made terrific salesmen. Perhaps that's what they went in to?

They used the power of persuasion to get our attention, keep it, plant some useful ideas and leave us hungry for me. I had an English teacher like that, for a term. I had an art teacher like that. Quite a keen sports coach. Geography was OK. Physics too. And most especially Maths, yet, looking at straight As in Maths and Add Maths I cannot logically see why I took no interest beyond O' Levels - incompatible with English and Art? A brother who had done Maths at A' Level and done disastrously badly? 

The power of persuasion is what is needed in e-learning too, especially if this dynamic, response human being at the head of the class isn't there to hold your attention: think Robin Williams in 'Dead Poets Society'. So turning to OpenLearn and FutureLearn are these courses not simply getting your attention, but holding on to it? Best of all 'converting you' into a student who buys the book and signs up for the course?

Anyway, once too often I've become engaged in something online that has the stickiness of a Chameleon's tongue on a bluebottle's back. You can get so drawn into these, the empathy, the survey, the sincerity ... and you are slowly reeled in like the proverbial sea-trout at the end of a nightlong vigil on the Esk.

Write a novel in a month is doing something similar, but in a less devious way. In fact, Write a Novel in a Month is a service, as well as a tool. I could imagine getting through to a 50,000 word count with it by the end of November and then feeling OK about making a donation. 

 

From E-Learning V

Fig.2 41,631 words to go to complete a first draft by the end of November

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Some struggle to create a social business, others go viral. What does it take?

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Friday, 9 Sep 2011, 13:01

Having followed Dion Hinchcliffe for a couple of years I'd now happily shadow him. A combination of sonud thinking, a business background (IT), a polished and dense writer with authority who tops it all off with one-stop graphics like this.

Dion%252520Hinchcliffes%252520Social%252520Viral%252520CHART%252520%252520%2525282011%252529.JPG

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Dion Hinchcliffe's Social Networking Charts

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Monday, 18 Mar 2013, 06:19

 

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Dion Hinchcliffe Social Enterprise networking thinking

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hinchcliffe/the-promise-and-challenges-of-benioffs-social-enterprise-vision/1722?tag=search-results-rivers;item0

 

____________________________________________

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Dion Hinchcliffe keynote speech (2011)

http://dionhinchcliffe.com/2011/08/31/dreamforce-11-live-blogging-the-benioff-keynote/

 

____________________________________________

 

Whizzy charts from Dion Hinchcliffe in Flickr

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dionh/6093074681/

 

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How best to use social networking in an intranet

http://www.ebizq.net/blogs/enterprise/2011/05/making_an_intranet_more_social.php

 

____________________________________________

 

 

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_______________________________________________________________________________________

 

How viral is your social network?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dionh/6069343004/in/photostream/

 

 

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Dion Hinchcliffe design social business capability

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dionh/6046080068/in/photostream/

 

 

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Dion Hinchliffe social enterprise workforce engagement

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dionh/6029463580/in/photostream/

 

 

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Dion Hinchcliffe key social business trend
s

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dionh/5951245850/in/photostream/

 

 

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Dion Hinchcliffe Attributes of Modern Communication and collaboration methods

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dionh/5716256964/in/photostream/

 

 

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Dion Hinchcliffe Social Business Ecosystem Chart

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dionh/5653961068/in/photostream/

 

 

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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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Immersive Learning

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Friday, 25 Nov 2011, 15:19

I was hopeless at languages but knew that going on a French exchange would do the job; it did I had three weeks in France, then he had three weeks back in England and the friends I made in France had me back for seven weeks over the summer, camping and hitchhiking. Then a gap year working in a busy four star hotel.

Immersive learning, learning by default.

I didn't expect to feel this way about my MA course. I've had some intensive days online, but I know find myself challenged my entire waking day, whether online or not.

I am in the university town of Milton Keynes; I'll call it that, because my perspective it is. I'm in a house that has five students in it, and it transpires there are houses up and down the road that do the same thing.

I get up and read on my Kindle.

I'm just about through Chris Pegler on Blended Learning (recommended). I walk in with a mechanical engineer and then spend the day in meetings at the OU Faculty of Business and Law on how it is received online, from students, assistant lecturers (tutors) and fellow academics and prospective candidates. 

I have lunch in 'The Hub' and cannot help but overhear what sounds like an impromptu tutorial on genetics. And then I register at the OU library and enjoy that distraction of wondering the shelves, then as you approach the title you want you discover a couple of other items that could be of interest. Can serendipity be written into the code of someone studying online? It's preferable to the 'Amazon Recommends'. (Too pushy)

I return to the house and find myself engaged in the content of a thesis on how teams collaborate in creative activities.

Were the first universities at all akin to this?

Bologna in the 11th century, students staying in the town, in lodgings.

(Had I been at home there would have been several distractions. One person here says how she gets away from home so that she can work on her thesis. Do you require space to learn, just as authors need space to write? Who was it who said you need periods of nothing at all before you could write anything original?)

I need now to engage with the MAODE.

After a two and a half hour discussion on the value of blogging and other social networks in education I wonder if I have the mental energy or desire to do any more. I feel that I can knock a few holes in my head and rather like draining the milk from a coconut just give my head a shake over the keyboard.

A week ago I put 'the contents of my brain' online, either in dropbox, or Google docs, on the ou e-portfolio My Stuff, even here ... a blog is as good a place as any to store content. Just go tag crazy so that you can find it.

How to encourage others to blog?

Recommend some great academic, student orientated blogs. Martin Weller's name came up. I'd recommend Doug Belshaw from the JISC. Then there's Terry O'Sullivan on marketing. And Les Budd. 

As I come across others (and locate the links for the above), I'll offer more.

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Paint never dries

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Wednesday, 30 Mar 2011, 03:09

'Paint never dries' is how one theatre-goer described the sequel to Phantom of the Opera 'Love never dies'.

Catch a feeling and put it well and it goes viral. The wise digital marketeer responds, but how?

'There is an inverse relationship between credibility and control,' according to Martin Sorrell (2008). 'The more control you keep over the message, the less credible it is. And Vice Versa.'

It is known that negative ideas have more impact than the positive; the professional though will share negative feedback wrapped in the positive.  How I'd respond to the above if it is what I felt I don't know. These shows are locked and they not? Does dropping a scene or two or a song improve matters.

As Larry Weber (2009:58) puts it, 'ignoring nagative comments is the equivalent of 'No Comment,' which is the biggest communications mistake executives make.

Max Clifford in a lecture to students says that his PR work is almost entirely damage management - people publishing lies.

I wonder how he'd deal with the above?

Might it be a question for a student of digital marketing?

Ethan (in Webber 2009:218) offers the answer. 'When you have actively engaged an audience, your biggest supporters will actually become very vocal and will step up to your defence.'

'Old news keeps like fish', they say. When it comes to a negative comment online is it just a fart in the wind? It passes. or is it hot gossip that grows?

REFERENCE

Webber, L. (2009) Marketing to the Social Web (2nd Ed) Wiley & Son

Sorrel, M. (2008) Public Relations: The Story Behind a Remarkable Renaissance. Institute of Public Relations Annual Distinguished Lecture, New York, November 5, 2008 in Argenti P,A and Barnes C, M.Digital Strategies for Powerful Corporate Communications. (2009) McGraw Hill.

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Blogging - cover to cover

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Friday, 2 Nov 2012, 08:26

It'll not come from one book, or two or many. Having blogged for 11 years and six months I should know some things. I share some ideas here alongside some thoughts from Argenti and Barnes's 2009 book 'Digital Strategies for Powerfurl Corporate Communications' that I have read cover to cover these last few days courtesy of Kindle.

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Digital Strategies for Powerful Corporate Communications

Blogs and social communities have sparked ‘a complete overhaul of the business environment, especially in the context of communication.’ Agenti and Barnes (2009:K168)

K = Kindle ... they don't give a page number. How could you in a e-Book?

Education is changing too, blurring the lines between school and the workplace, and encouraging workplace learning with distance learning specialists and online courses from members of the Association of Business Schools surely set to grow

The difference between web 1.0 and web 2.0 – observation versus participation, status versus dynamic, monologue versus conversation. Agenti and Barnes (2009)

What is most relevant to corporate communications managers is as relevant to other institutions, whether government, education or charity.

Twitter%2028JAN11.JPG

You need to be using:

• Blogs (such as WordPress. Edublogs, Diaryland)

• Microblogs (Twitter)

• Social Networks (such as Facebook, MySpace)

• Video-sharing platforms (YouTube, Vimeo)

• Search engine marketing and optimization

• Corporate web sites/ online newsrooms

• Wikis • Mash-ups • Viral/word-of-mouth (WOM) marketing.

The trick is to find ‘a middle ground between a completely centralised and a wholly decentralised structure is the best way to maintain an effective communications strategy in today’s environment.’ K593

My take on this is that to succeed organisations need to be:

• Informed

• Engaged

• Responsive

• Frequent

• Authentic

• Relevant

• Appropriate

• Pithy

• Real (neither journalistic, corporate or academic in style)

• Understanding

• Passionate but not obsessive

• Media Savvy

• Connected

• Tooled up

• With a give, take, try anything and receive mentality.

• Tag it all

• Optimise out of habit

• Have fun, be playful with surveys, questionnaires and polls.

The view Sir Martin Sorrell takes is ‘The more control you keep over the message, the less credible it is. And Vice Versa.’ Martin Sorrell (2008: K1520)

There are three skills sets required to take advantage of this:

1. Identifying influential bloggers 2. Building relationships with them 3. Engaging with them with the intent of receiving positive coverage

Points 1 and 2 was the experience I had in Diaryland.

Here from 1999 bloggers teamed up with designers, where the two functions were recognised as different, like the copywriter and art director in advertising. Here you could form groups and join groups, link to friends for a myriad of reasons, but best of, in the list limited to 70 friends you were/are updated constantly on the status – it helps to know that you’re in a group where people update regularly. It is largely from the community of those who write, that you find people who also read and comment, they are various consumers and emitters of content.

So much that I experienced here has migrated to other blogsites.

Things that work, as well as buddies and buddy updates, are the surveys and groups, creating engaging or fund questionnaires to share with others and forming groups too, where for example I set up lists for those to be the first to make 500, then 1000 and then 2000 entries … Fun too are the banner ads you can make and use to promote interest within the Diaryland community. Perhaps Andrew’s (its creator’s0refusal to allow advertising is what is causing a Diaryland demise.

‘Metaphorically speaking, RSS is the gateway drug of experiential online monitoring’. Agenti and Barnes (2009:K1183)

My view is GoogleAlerts does this better, it spread the net for you, whereas with RSS you need to have found the feed first. What is more GoogleAlerts feeds you snacks of information that are easy to consume, note, reference, keep, pass on or over.

In emails the authors interviewed Courtney Barnes and Shabbir Imber Safdar.

‘You need to understand that it’s not a cut-and-paste job. You need to participate in the conversation and adapt the content for the environment. ‘ Thus said (Agenti and Barnes (2009:K1159)

Look, listen and learn ... engage

To do this engagement is the first things, so blogs and Twitter, social networking and video, photographs … even some family history and reuniting with school and college friends. Then you tools like Technorati and Goole Alerts.

 

Technorati%20uses%20GRAB.JPG

 

Technorati

Google Alerts

Search out appropriate keywords

Joined Linked In too.

Having been engaged with four/five groups I made the mistake of joining and dozen and will have to drop most of these. Some post several times and hour 24/7 and I have ceased to see the worth of reading that much from one group, especially if the same question is being answered a thousand times. Managing this maelstrom is a task in itself, being alert to the new, dropping the redundant, buying into and out of the right people and places as their influence and quality of comment waxes and wanes.

Forrester Research on 90 blogs of Fortune 500 companies. June 2008.

Most company blogs are ‘dull, drab and don’t stimulate discussion’. • 66% rarely get comments • 70% only contain comment on business topics • 56% republish press releases or summarise news that is already public.

REFERENCE

Argenti P.A. and Barnes M.C. 2009 ‘Digital Strategies for Powerful Corporate Communications’ McGrawHill.

Sorrell. M (2008) ‘Public Relations: The Story behind a Remarkable Renaissance,@ Institute for Public Relations Annual Distinguished Lecture, New York, November 5, 2008.

 

Meanwhile I've got these two to read.

Kindle%20GRAB%20Social%20Networking%20and%20Social%20Web.JPG

 

And why books cover to cover?

I'm sick of snacking from a smorgasbord. I want a consistent voice, something up to date, that leaves an impression. A book does this for me, an article never does.

A year later

‘You need to understand that it’s not a cut-and-paste job. You need to participate in the conversation and adapt the content for the environment.' This said in Digital Strategies for Powerful Corporate Communications' Agenti and Barnes (2009:Kindle page 1159).

As I go through 33 months of postgraduate blog posts (the Masters in Open and Distance Education with the Open University), I stumble upon a great deal that some might call aggregation, but a year or so ago was linking and tagging.

In the module 'Innovations in e-learning' we were give a list of aggregating tools to try. Personally, the curator - and potentially their team, as in the real world of museums and galleries must surely add value above and beyond the mere pulling of content using a set of terms in an off-the-shelf bundle of software?

Over the last week or so since the meet up I have returned to various tools and tried new ones. I've gathered screen grabs and given it some thought - and largely concluded that as a result of this exercise I will be dropping them all in favour of reading a few choice blogs and receiving feeds from them - blogs where an opinion is expressed, you can leave a comment and expect feedback. At the heart of this is socially constructed learning.

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New Media marketing

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Friday, 2 Nov 2012, 19:01

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

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

 

These are people who pitch for business all the time.

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

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

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

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

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

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