Personal Blogs

Recognising a disability is complex - they afe part of society and learning; they are not distinct or even always distguishable due to spectrum and nature of the impairment.

All communication has a significant visual component to it. Barriers can be reduced. Visual impairment is just that - it's on a sliding scale with only 1:5 blind people unable to see anything at all.

What is more, what can be seen may shift, so check as a course progresses as a person's sight may improve or deteriorate.

Assume nothing, the situation for each person will differ – so ask.

LD: Consider how to sequence information so that it is understood. Take care with unfamiliar language and new words.

Embed good practice and be vigilant about maintaining it through to the end.

Think about ways to recieve communication other than the written word.

Awareness, champion and leadership, policy and procedures.

H810 Activity 1.3

My role and context in education.

Without knowing it or going into teaching I have always found myself inclined to teach – an inclination towards being an educator. (I enjoy being a lifelong learner, always a student of something whether sport, writing, history, drawing and even performance. An interest in video production took me into corporate training, carrying kit around Windscale in my teens, shooting video at university, and learning from a BBC producer and members of the trade association the IVCA until I established myself as a professional director and writer. I have worked on every kind of training video production: health and safety in the nuclear power industry, legal training, driving a 4x4, induction in the Crown Prosecution Service, Asthma Awareness for patients and GPs, IT security and 'Green' driving for the Post Office, careers and education choices for 14 year olds, management training and so on. These were usually facilitated and often supported with workbooks. In due course they became interactive and eventually (a backwards step for a decade) migrated to the Web. However, I had no formal understanding of the theory of education, of learning design or of interactive and online learning in particular until starting with the OU.

How these relate to accessibility and online learning.

In many cases creating accessible content is a requirement which in the past meant either the inclusion of subtitles or a signer in vision for those with a hearing impairment or disability. For computer based learning, which in its broadest sense takes in desktops, laptops, tablet and smartphones, with increasing sophistication are we at times restricting access to some if not many disabled people?

What would I like to achieve from the module (H810).

Concluding module to gain the Masters in Open and Distance Education (MAODE) with graduation in 2013.

1. Practical understanding of the issues.
2. To help plan how the e–learning we produce meets the requirements of the DDA especially where this is a client request.
3. Helping to ensure that consideration is given to accessibility at the briefing and design stages and that such efforts are costed then applied as scripts are written and learning designs developed.
4. Provide support to colleagues when making accessibility a point in e–learning proposal documents.
5. Informed discussions with disabled people I know (colleagues, friends and swimmers) and what they make of accessibility online provision.
6. The 'Montessori' effect – by thinking how to improve access and communicate more clearly all learners will benefit – the confident e–learning designer may be the one who leaves out the bells and whistles.

Reading the biography of Dr Zbigniew Pelczynski is to gain a fascinating insight into a natural educator - an academic who is passionate about supporting and motivating learners. Faced with a cohort of students who were prodcing poor exam results he set up a couple of student societies where undergraduates could meet informally to here an inspiring guest speaker, have a drink and talk around the subject and what they'd just heard - it worked. Results began to improve in the termly and annual exam results.

1. This is what it requires for social learning to work online.
2. A champion to make it happen

The incentive of a great mind or celebrity academic to offer an insightful short talk as an incentive to the later discussion.

But what about the food and drink, nibbles and tea (it doesn't have to be alcohol). A couple of times in previous modules a bunch of us 'Hung Out' in Google+ and on one occasion we were meant to 'bring along a drink' while in on one memorable occasion, which was a giggle and truly innocent, one suggestion was to make it a pyjama party!

They key thing was to fix a date, which we co-ordinated in Google Events or some such, then be prepared to chill out, and keep the orientation on topic without the pressure of a formal tutorial.

How though to give it the continuity and impact of a student society? Given the session a name? How would we flatter, even pay guest speakers?

Or could we just watch a selected TED lecture first?

And why do results improve?

Motivation

Social cohesion and responsibility to the group?

The virtual swing-doors on my final OU module opened today.

Some time next year I will graduate with a Masters in Open and Distance Education - and unlike my undergraduate degree of many years ago I will feel that I have worked for it, earned it and want the thing - I'll even dress up for my first graduation ceremony.

I have been outside the course system for all of four months so it was with delight though suprise to find thst our virtual learning environment (VLE) has changed yet again. I will have screen grabs somewhere of what it looked like in 2010 and 2011 - I believe I even have seen a screen grab of when I was doing this in 2001.

On the one hand we are getting some 3D shading to lift the 'Learning Schedule' off the page, but we also have a plethora of minute and meaningless icons. I can't figure out what some of them are supposed to represent. Instead of going with recognisable images The OU appear to have tried to go one better but gone one worse - there is no point in replacing or even complementing a title or sub-heading with something that is incomprehensible nor recognised.

A load of stuff has migrated over to the left hand side of the screen - I know that research has long shown that this is where the eye first looks and expects this content to be.

The rest of it I'll discover and re-discover in due course. I prefer the minimalist approach - if it isn't vital don't show it, rather offer options to vall up extras instead of having them on the page regardless. Too many of these links I will NEVER use, except as an exercise in the first week. It's too like entering a grand house knowing that it has far more rooms than you will ever enter and where you risk getting lost.

Less is more.

I am however starting to think that I'll be able to do this almost entirely on an iPad (I don't have my own laptop or desktop and this is cheaper).

An APP for writing on this platform would help - like I have writing in Wordpress.

I love this simple, interactive guide to the Harvard Referencing System as if has every eventuality clearly covered - a bit late now to get to it 30 months AFTER I started my Masters with The OU!

I had to get this right

McCall, M., Eichinger, R.W and Lombardo, M.M., 1996 The Career Architect Development Planner, 3rd edition (The Leadership Architect Suite).

From this:

Source: M. McCall, R. Eichinger & M. Lombardo, Princeton's Center for Creative Leadership

I'd even give a link:

http://www.princeton.edu/hr/learning/philosophy/

How do we perceive and share knowledge? What matters most in this equation?

Society, the institution, department or the individual educator?

Learning occurs at the interface between individuals, between the teacher and pupil, between pupils and of course between the thinkers, the educators, researchers and academics.

This interface is expressed as an artefact: a lecture, a book, a TV appearance, a podcast, a chapter in a book or a paper – as an expression of a set of ideas. This interface is also a conversation, in a tutorial, at a conference or less formally in passing over a meal, or drink (in the Oxbridge experience at the High Table, in the senior, middle or junior common rooms, in halls and rooms where societies and loose groupings of people meet, as well as in studies and rooms). Recreation of this online as minds meet, discuss and share. Informal or proactive groups or societies coming together. People with people.

On the one hand we like to put the institution above the person, whether in academia or the commercial world we rank and recognise Oxbridge and the Russell Group 'above' other universities while, for example, in Law we put Freshfields, Clifford Chance and Herbert Smith in the top ten of 125 or 500 legal practices.

However, it is an the individual level, at the interface between one person and another, one mind and another, where the learning occurs, where the knowledge is applied and changed, and in various forms written up or written out to cause or record effect.

It is at this interface, where minds meet, where ideas are catalysed and formed.

Towards my own theory of learning ?

Or trying to get my head around Engestrom's Activity Theory that fits the bill for me?

Mind map based on two key chapters from 'Rethinking Pedagogy for a Digital Age' by Helen Beetham and Rhona Sharpe.

Click on the image for the Picasa Gallery and download. Created using the iPad APP 'Simple Minds'.

Why does the OU put the novice and expert together in the MAODE?

Although I praise this approach and after two years have been a beneficiary I wonder if the research points to the need for greater flexibility and mixing, more akin to several cohorts of students being able to move around, between their own tutor group, contributing to discussions with the newcomers while also being able to hobnob with the experts?

The learning theory that I am coming to understand does not favour a fixed approach.

It isn't simply a case of playing to the individual, though this is certainly very important as some people will favour being the teacher or the taught, or simply relish periods when they sit at the feet of the expert or stand up in front of newcomers. Rather it is apparent that people learn well within a peer group of like-minds, with people at a similar stage to themselves while having planned opportunities to hear and participate with 'great minds' while also from time to time contributing to the efforts and feeding off the enthusiasms of the 'new minds'.

Nothing is fixed, neither learning vicariously (Cox, 2006), or learning from the periphery to the centre (Seely Brown and Duguid, 1999).

Stage one of my approach to reading these days is to highlight, even share quotes and notes on Twitter as I go through a book.

I then type up my notes and add further thoughts either by cutting and pasting from the aggregates notes in my Twitter feed (eBooks don't allow you to cut and paste) or from handwritten notes I take on cards.

Then I share my notes here, tagged so that I can revisit and others can draw on my notes too or take the hint and read the chapter or book for themselves.

This too is but a stage - next step is to wrap up my developing thoughts, comments and other conversations and put a version of this entry into my external blog my mind bursts.

Sometimes an exchange here or elsewhere develops my thinking further - today I will be sitting down with a senior learning designer, one of five or six in the office of an international e-learning agency to talk learning theory and educational principles.

Chapter 2

Regarding Quality Assurance - there should be no inconsistencies between:

• Curriculum
• Teaching methods
• Learning environment
• Assessment procedures

So align assumptions:

• Learning outcomes
• Suitable assessment

N.B. Each outcome requires a different kind of theoretical perspective and a different pedagogical approach. L757

(Easy to say in theory, not so easy to deliver in practice?)

Three clusters of broad perspectives:

• Associationism
• Behaviourism
• Connectionism

Associationist: gradual building of patterns of associations and skill components. Therefore activity followed by feedback.

Simple tasks prerequisites to more complex.

Gagné (1985 and 1992)

• Instructional task analysis of discrimination, classifications and response sequences.
• Simpler tasks built step by step followed by coordination to the whole structure.

Instructional Systems Design

• Analyse the domain into a hierarchy of small units.
• Sequence the units so that a combination of units is not taught until its component units are grasped individually.
• Design an instructional approach for each unit in the sequence.

Then add:

• Immediate feedback
• Individualization of instruction

Behaviourism: active learning by design. Immediate feedback on success, careful analysis of learning outcomes, alignment of learning objectives.

The Cognitive Perspective

• Attention
• Memory
• Concept Formation

Knowledge acquisition as the outcome of an interaction between new experiences and the structures for understanding that have already been created. Therefore building a framework for learning vs. learning as the strengthening of associations.

Piaget (1970) Constructivist Theory of Knowledge.

‘Conceptual development occurs through intellectual activity rather than by the absorption of information'. L819

Vygotsky (1928:1931) Importance of social interaction.

Interactions – that e-learning teams call ‘interactivities’.

The Situative Perspective

• Learning must be personally meaningful
• Authentic to the social context

(problem-based learning and cognitive apprenticeship). L862

The concept of community practice

Wenger (1998) identify as a learner derived from the community. (Aspires, defines, accredited).

Mayes et al (2001) learning through relating to others. E.g. Master Class

Social-anthropological belonging to the community. L882.

Beliefs, attitudes, common endeavour, also ‘activity systems’ Engestrom 1993

Learning relationships

Identify, participate, individual relations. Dependent on: context, characteristics and strength of relationships in the group (Fowler and Mayes, 1999) L902

What was exotic in 2007 in common place today?

See Appendix 1 L912

Learning as a cycle through stages.

• J F Vernon (2011) H809 assignments and end of module assessment. The concept of riding a thermal of gently rising circles.
• Various references L923.
• Fitts and Posner (1968)
• Remelhart and Norman (1978)
• Kolb (1984)
• Mayes and Fowler (1999)
• Welford (1968)

If ‘as it proceeds from service to expert, the nature of learning changes profoundly and the pedagogy based on one stage will be inappropriate for another’. L923

Fowler and Mayes (1999)

Primary: preventing information

Secondary: active learning and feedback

Tertiary: dialogue and new learning.

REFERENCE

Beetham, H and Sharpe, R. (2007) Rethinking Pedagogy for a Digital Age: Designing and delivering e-learning.

Cole, M and Engestrom, Y (1993) A cultural-historical approach to distributed cognition. In G.Salmon (ed.) Distributed cognitions: Psychological and Educational Considerations, New York, CVP.

Cox, R. (2006) Vicarious Learning and Case-based Teaching of Clinical Reasoning Skills (2004–2006) [online], http://www.esrcsocietytoday.ac.uk/ esrcinfocentre/ viewawardpage.aspx?awardnumber=RES-139-25-0127 [(last accessed 10 March 2011).

Gagné, R (1985) The conditions of learning. New York. Holt, Rhinehart and Wilson.

Jonassen, D.H. and Rohrer-Murphy, L (1999) ‘Activity theory as a framework for designing constructivist learning environments’. Educational Technology Research and Development, 47 (1) 61-80

Seely-Brown, J.S and Duguid, P. (1991) ‘Organizational learning and communities-of-practice: toward a unified view of working, learning and innovation’, Organizational Science, 2 (1): 40-57

'Media Component' is the term, like e-learning, that I believe will supersede most others to define the activities, or 'e-tivities' (not sticking) Salmon (2002) that learning designers put into or developers and builders devise for e-learning modules or courses.

Media components are, if you like, the stepping stones that take a learner from ignorant to informed, with learning objectives the aim, but increasingly with effectiveness through greater engagement as we move away from the chronology of the stepping stone, itself a derivation of turning to the next page towards something more exploratory, game–like, intuative and where appropriate – in context for the learning. Where better to learn about health and safety for the nuclear power industry than in a nuclear power plant, where better learn to apply best practice in a retail bank than in the banking hall.

Twelve years ago these media components were described as Lego building blocks (Downes, 2000), though in practice they are more akin to Lego Technics (Pegler, 2002) - they do something. Coming from a background in linear and non-linear (interactive) video-based corporate training, I am trying to think what terms and expressions we used on the paper storyboard pads on which the interactions were devised?

Perhaps as they were added to linear video sequences and derived from scripts written in this form they were 'interactions' or 'interactivities'.

They were built into the narrative like an action sequence we shot as video.

For a while, as we migrated such content to the Web we called it all 'stuff' as a catch-all for content, whether it did something or not.

(A decade on I am yet to see anything as engaging or rich as the DVDs we produced in the 1990s with broadcast standard drama reconstruction or 3d animations, winners of IVCA Gold for their originality, impact and efffectiveness).

Today we are still producing the web-page derived equivalent of the leaflet or workbook, not least because it has taken broadband speeds and the devices and infrastructure a decade to catch–up.

The greatest shift has been to put the learning in our hands on Smartphones and Tablets and with this the desire for greater game–like tactility.

I wonder if another metaphor might be a sequence in music, a number of bars, a phrase that has a certain effect. This might be another way to design the actions.

An architect works on 2D blueprints to create buildings in three dimensions; composers use a score to lay–out music that surrounds us and touches us, film–makers have scripts and storyboards.

If we use PowerPoint to express a sequence or selection of interactivities, of 'media components' or 'learning activities' no wonder they are linear rather than exploratory.

We need to design onto maps and navigate as our heads do – independently.

From Lady Anne Clifford's Great Picture 1646

I am drawn to the image of a 17th century triptych, the Great Picture that expresses the life story of Lady Anne Clifford. There is logic to the left and right panels, Lady Anne age 15 and 76 respectively, while the borders, like going around a game–board give ancestors, relatives, and artefacts any of which, in the 21st century could be brought to life with a link at least or an interaction at best, even in Web 2.0 terms the opportunity to share with others synchronously or asynchronously.

I've heard the phrase 'sand-pit' used too, the thought that you do these things in a playful, perhaps even in an incomplete way, measuring effectiveness will be the driver - media components that work or sequences that have a ressonance for a topic or audience will be used again.

This should not however be at the cost of accessibility. Anyone can play in a sandpit, but not everyone can play in an orchestra or all the instruments in it.

Various metaphors have been applied and can be applied, like building with Lego blocks Downes (2000) though Pegler’s preferences is to make a comparison with Technic ‘Lego’ (Pegler, 2004:Loc4282) where each piece has a set of actions. Wiley imwgined them to be more like atoms (2001). The reality is more mundane, your e-learning module can be like a marathon or the 400m hurdles, with some imagination it can be a triathlon or heptathlon even the modern pentathlon.

The conclusion is that when construction e-learning we need to look for and create digital resources that are:

1. Easily sourced

2. Durable

3. Easily Maintained

4. Accessible

5. Free from legal limitations

6. Quality assured

7. Appropriate cost

8. Resizable

9. Easily repurposed

10. Meaningful

11. Engages the learner

12. Intelligible

To this list of qualities I would add a thirteenth: desirable - is it a media component or activity (e-tivity, Salmon 2002) that your colleagues want to use when building the module, let alone something users take to when faced eith it. And then can it be used too often or inappropriately?

And a fourteenth - they should be reusable too, readily combined, reskinned and rebranded like type in a printing press that can be reused, or a component in a game from picking a card, rolling the dice or answering a question correctly. Is this media component transportable?

In an e-learning module these are multichoice, complete a phrase, connect or put into order.

And a fifteenth – and surely at the top of the list: effective.

Which probably means a sixteenth – measurable, or accountable. We want to know how it behaves and derive meaningful anslytics from it.

Even a seventeenth – fashionsble, or at least of the age, suited to the user group, appropriate for the identified personas doing the learning.

Downes, S (2000) Learning Objects. Available from http://www.newstrolls.com/news/dev/downes/col;umn000523_1.htm

Littlejohn, Falconer, Mcgill (2008) Characterising effective eLearning (sic) resources

Pegler, C and Littlejohn, A (2004) Preparing for Blended e-Learning, Routledge.

Salmon, G (2002) E-tivities

Wiley, D.A. (2000) Connecting Learning Objects to instructional design theory: a definition, a metaphor, and a taxonomy. In D.A. Wiley (ed), The instructional use of Learning Objects. Available from http://reusability.org/read/chapters/wiley.doc

Content quality

Learning goal alignment

Feedback

Adaptation

Motivation

Presentation design

Interactivity usability

Accessibility

Reusability

Standards compliance

REFERENCE

Leacock T.L. and Nesbitt J.C. (2007) A framework for evaluating the quality of multimedia resources. Education Technology and Society 10(2) 44-59

This in 'Evaluation of e–learning materials. A holistic framework'. Bundsgaard and Hansen (2011) Vol 4. No. 4 Journal of Learning Design. Which is worth looking at in itself (I'll come back to it I am sure).

Who said your perspective on life changes when your parents are no longer alive?

It makes life feel terribly short.

You reflect on the life of the person who has just passed away (or is on that path)

Twice last year I create a 'Book of Condolences' for colleagues which in the immediate week and then for a few months gather some 100 or 70+ comments respectively.

As someone said, 'funerals are for the living'.

Sorry to sound downbeat, but I do wonder 'what is the point?' Short of completing the animalistic duty of reproduction. Growing old can be enjoyed with marriages, births and memorable anniversary but there comes a point when even the grandchildren are forging lives of their own and the generations forget that the oldest generation is still with us.

Especially if you are part of what I call the 'splat generation', those kids who went away to university (when the government and local authority was paying for it) and don't go back.

On reflection I'd have liked to have bound our extended family more closely, that having us in the same town/region or community would have benefited everyone, not least from the love, encouragement and 'life-lessons' we pick up from each other's behaviours (mistakes especially).

Fig 1. MY PLE

First Half 2012 (earlier PLEs in the blog here)

The blogs, Picasa, increasingly eBooks from Kindle on a Kindle and the iPad. Tweeted. This locates like-minds but also provides my notes in my Twitter feed. Google as ubiquitous as QWERTY. Facebook for social/family; Linkedin for work related groups, interests and contacts (e-learning, corporate communcations)

My OU Blog in the student environment and its mirror my external blog in wordpress IS a blog, learning journal, e-portfolio, forum and deposit. It can be a link to 'like-minds' too (and job opportunities)

I want an article I cut and paste the reference in Google.

If I can't have it I repeat this in the OU Library resource fist by title, then by author. I find I can, almost without exception, read whatever takes my interest. Brilliance for the curious and ever-hungry mind.

Increasinly I photo and screen grab everything, manipulate in Picasa then load online where I can file, further manipulate and share. A better e-portfolio and an e-portfolio as it is image based. My e-learning folder tops 350+ images.

When busy on an OU Module the 'OU Learning Environment expands to fill 1/3rd of the screen: the learning journey, resources, activities and student forums are my world for 6-9 months'.

In truth I need to video my activity and then do a time in motion audit. Tricky as I don't have a laptop or desktop anymore. All is done (most) on the move on an iPad or iPhone. I 'borrow' my son's desktop when he's at school or early mornings on my wife's laptop. Which explains why EVERYTHING is online, I could go to the library or an Internet cafe and work just as well.

'A university in my pocket'?

Or 'a university in the clouds', literally as envisaged in the 1960s by Michael Young et al and featured on BBC Radio 4's 'The New Elizabethans' (in association with the Open University of course)

• A pivotal role in the creation of the welfare state
• Groundbreaking work as a social scientist in the East End
• His creation of the Open University

P.S. Which reminds me: the Open University was devised for those with a fraction of the opportunities I have had so I need to treat it with huge respect.

Fig 2. My PLE July 2011

A year on my choice of blogs has greatly reduced. I still access Diaryland as it has 1,700+ entries to draw upon from 1999 to 2006. StumbleUpon I still use and need to add to the current PLE. I don't go near Xing. I haven't indicated the digital tools, the hardware I use to access this (these) online resources.

But what's more important, the phone or the conversation?

Yes, I dip into Wikipedia but frequently I scroll down for alternative equally valid answers from the long established sources that have finally got themselves online. TED lectures I've missed out too. I must watch several a month.

I haven't add family and friends because where they are part of my world, increasingly online through Facebook, they are not directly part of my PLE.

However, it would be foolish to ignore the vital role family and the context of family, community and school play in learning.

FURTHER LINKS IN THIS BLOG ON PLEs

Virtual Learning Environments vs. Personal Learning Environments

Virtual Learning Environments or Personal Learning Environments

Google+

Technology Mediated Learning Spaces

The reality check. Must PLEs be technology enables to qualify as PLE?

The Challenge Facing Course Design 1997 vs. 2012

What’s wrong with educational social networking?

My Personal Learning Environment (2011)

Sometimes only paper will do

Digital Housekeeping. Recording everything.

H800 EMA Images / Visualisation

H800 EMA Course Specifics

What’s wrong with Educational Social Networking? (EDU)

Fig.1. How you learn!

I set out with the idea of doing nothing more than making a face out of time, effort and motivation.

Then 28 months of the MAODE kicked in, as well as experience. How we learn is a rather complex affair. The influencing factors given above carry different weightings and change through time as events play out.

(This should be interactive so that you can adjust the size of each factor to suit your current circumstance, or circumstances you recall from past experience, at school say ... or that you hope for in the future. With this in mind I'll give the above a second shot in Bubbl.us)

Do we define 'success' as individual happiness or achievement through the education process and beyond?

SH1T happens.

To study learning we rock and roll between simplification and complication, in an effort to understand we create models, but the reality is always as messy as the individual, their mind and circumstances, when and where they were born and so on.

• An uncle takes the kids to a show, and one of them take as shine to performance.
• A child breaks an arm and goes to hospital and takes an interest in working in a hospital.
• A teacher makes and illustrates and interesting point about landforms and calls one an isthmus and another a peninsula and the idea of naming forms and understanding how they take place takes root.
• Then along comes World War 1, or you are hit by a bus and hospitalized or fall in love

And in all of this, some of us to respond to many of these external stimuli while other of us take a focus and lasting interested, whether as a hobby or career.

A work in progress!

I rather like the idea of trying to create the kinds of infographics produced by David Mcandless illustrated in 'Information is Beautiful'.

Please suggest factors and weightings!

If you are studying education or learning is there research on these factors, surveys that give weightings and importance to the different factors, or is everything a subset of something else?

H800-11B / EMA Tutor Group Forum / h800 overview framework Janet Gray Post 1. 26 August 2011, 16:01h800 overview framework (accessed 6SEPT2011) http://learn.open.ac.uk/mod/forumng/discuss.php?d=624853

From E-LEARNING