EdTechUK

Alt-C 2006 Edinburgh edubloggers meetup

Frances Bell & Anne Hewling, originally uploaded by Josie Fraser.

Despite some logistic Ceilidh-related issues on the night, a bunch of us managed to get together to talk about out current projects and do some planning for the December conference, which will be scheduled to tie in with the third Edublog Awards show.

Chat around the table was about platforms, projects and what’s next, and themes and schemes for the big conference next June.

Andy Pullman, Andy Worth, Steven Warburton, Russell Dyas, Jenny Booth, Graham Attwell, Anne Hewing, Frances Bell, Christopher ‘witness protection’ Sessums, Brian Kelly, me and Terry Wassall all managed to follow the trail of crisps to the edubloggers table.

What is pretty urgent is that we come up with a new name for blog.ac.uk, for two very good reasons:

1. It’s obvious to everyone that the focus and interests of the group have superseded blogging. Two years ago, the landscape was very different – as were the common tools and practices. Blogging is now only one element – and for many people, not even the focal element, within the web 2.0/read-write web landscape/arsenal. Personal Learning Landscapes (PLEs) represent a really significant conceptual shift with respect to this – taking the implications and possibilities of distributed conversations, communities and identities of practice and thinking them through in terms of formal, (as well as the existing, already extensive, informal) experiences of learning.

2. ac.uk is only available to FE and HE institutions within the UK. We want to be an inclusive organisation that recognises the importance of working across sectors, institutions and qualifications. We had a big discussion again about the shelf life of the organisation in terms of the development of fractions and more focused sub-groups. For me, the organisation is an essentially transient one, like most of the other communities I’ve belonged to. It’s being put in place to deliver some specific objectives – primarily around raising the profile and strengthening the network of UK educators who are passionate about the use of new and emerging technologies to support learning and promote learner communities and autonomy. I’ll be more than happy to see it made redundant and dismantled by its members once more useful way of working emerge.

Edublogger Meet-Up! Edinburgh 5 September 2006

If you’re going to ALT-C at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland this year, or are in the area, why not come along to the next Edubloggers meet-up? Delegates should plan on getting together at the ALT-C evening meal on campus at 6.30pm on Tuesday 5th September and then adjourn to the Lectern Bar for 8pm, which is open to non-delgates.

As always, the meet up will be extremely informal, all bloggers and friends of bloggers are welcome. Come and get the heads up on plans for the new edubloggers directory and blog.ac.uk activities. Turn up on the night, contact me directly or leave a comment if you’re able to come along, and do spread the word.

WikiVille

John Bidder, adviser for ICT & Innovation in Bolton Local Authority, set up WikiVille recently - a project largely run by young people who's mission is to paint a picture of life for them in their part of town. School representatives were recruited to run introductory workshops, at which learners determined their own Rules of Engagement.

There are already a bunch of international participants, and the site welcomes learners of all ages and abilities. It would be a really fun way of introducing students to wiki's and global citizenship while covering geography or social science. 

I was interested to learn that Lancashire food is considered strange and unhealthy (although the author neglected to say by who) and that mushy peas are known as Lancashire caviar. I also enjoyed the brief list of names for bread rolls in different parts of England - variously called batch, balm cakes, bap, we call them cobs in Leicester. 

Will Richardson was over helping out, and Scott Wilson missed him.

e-Portfolio roundup

There’s a frenzy of e-Portfolio related activity in the UK at the moment. I’ve picked out some recent highlights but this list is by no means exhaustive.

The UK Government’s e-strategy, Harnessing Technology outlined a clear commitment to ensuring learners have access to Personal Learning Space (PLS) where they can “store coursework, course resources, results, and achievements…with the potential to support e-portfolios”, available in every school and college by 2007-08. It’s proved to be a popular idea – with many intuitions engaging in research and investigation, and even becoming early adopters of the currently available e-portfolio products. There isn’t currently an agreed definition of PLS or e-portfolio functionality and standards: however, guidelines, ideas and recommendations are fast emerging.

The cynical money is on the provision of little more than storage space for learners to keep documents and files, with options for privacy and sharing - a straightforward, unimaginative solution that fulfils the letter if not the spirit of the governments requirements. Personalisation should be more ambitiously approached – luckily there is vision and the buzz surrounding the topic at the moment, focusing on the idea of Personal Learning Environments (PLEs) – accessible and interoperable institute hosted systems which would not only enable the learner to engage with institutions, projects and individuals, but also provide the ability to accommodate learner selected and preferred technologies – in-system tools or externally hosted services – for example blogs, feeds, and  photo sharing programmes.

My advice? If you are investigating e-portfolios at the moment, hold on to your money. The only product I’d currently recommend is the excellent Elgg – a freely available, open source personal learning environment, suitable for use with all ages of learners which has a ton of unique and innovative features (easy podcasting for instance) and many more on the way, including Moodle integration.  It’s currently being used worldwide, and is a flagship e-learning product for the UK.

• Derek Morrison recently interviewed Oleg Liber about the Personal Learning Environments project. There’s an audio file of the interview and a discussion about the disruptive potential of VLEs.

• Becta have just published an introductory guide for schools and colleges:  Becta's View: E-assessment and e-portfolios (pdf)

• Four new guidance papers for specific professional groups by Helen Richardson and Rob Ward of the Centre for Recording Achievement (CRA), are now available. These are based on what has emerged as the key framework document for e-Portfolio development in the UK 'Getting what you want: Implementing PDP through e-portfolio'.

1. A starting point for technical managers in HE

2. A starting point for MIS managers in HE

3. A starting point for students in HE

4. A starting point for Personal Development Planning (PDP)

• The most recent Association for Learning Technology (ALT) newsletter included An electronic learning curve: implementing ePortfolios by Richard Ingram.

• The e-Framework for Education and Research (a joint initiative of JISC (UK) and DEST (Australia)) Newsletter 2, January-February 2006 is now available and has an e-portfolio update.

• The JISC 'Legal Study to Explore the Legal and Records Management Issues Relating to the Concept of the Lifelong Learner Record' (pdf) has produced a new report which outlines the results of a consultation of selected professional associations on national developments regarding lifelong learner records and e-portfolios. A selection of professional bodies were interviewed about their perceptions of the legal issues relevant to e-portfolios / lifelong learner records; their particular areas of legal concern; benefits they envisage gaining and risks involved in entering into formal co-operation with the education sector in this area.

Edublog Meetup3

 Chris Ofili Turquesa 1999-2002
© Chris Ofili - Afroco and Victoria Miro Gallery. Photo: Dave Lambert, Rod Tidnam

Appologies to everyone for the late itinery - as usual, it's been a logistic nightmare. If you plan to join us let me know as soon as possible when and where, so I can make sure there are enough chairs!

Edublog Meetup3: Saturday Febuary 4th, London.

12pm visit to the Tate Britain (free)
Exibitions including Chris Ofili and Jamie Shovlin

3pm City Inn, Westminster
This is a working meeting for the summer edublogger conference and a couple of other community activities/projects.

6.30pm meal at the City Café (mains approx £10)

10pm: Blacktronica at the ICA (£6)

Confirmed are Stephen Downes, Scott Wilson, Steven Warburton, Stella Lee, Stephen Powell, Catherine Howell, Leon Cych, Juliette White,  David Jennings, and me. Lisa Hall & Ade Omotosho will be joining us at 6.30 onwards. 

Skype + iRiver

Equals ingeniously simple audio file construction! Rob Wall of the Edtech Posse has just posted a nice picture of his set up and a handy how too. I'm going home now to try it out. His previous post also rounds up a bunch of other suggestions from Dan Weinstein for recording your Skype conversations and conference calls.

UK based edubloggers directory

Thanks to Adrian Lee we have wiki space - http://www.camaban.co.uk/wiki/

I'll put some entries in myself as soon as I have 2 minutes to spare but in the meantime, if you're edblogging from England, Ireland, Scotland or Wales, as a researcher, teacher, edtech, administrator, academic or learner, or facilitating education based blogging, please head over and leave your details. There's even an expat slot (James)! Please also do publicise this and get your edubloging mums, colleagues and friends to sign up - I'm after a reasonably comprehensive overview of UK educational blogging. This information is useful and valuable! Especially for collaborating, developing the community, sharing local knowledge and innovative practice.

If anyone wants to contribute a button that would be great too . Appreciate the help! 

The blast off image comes from the Cincinnati Museum SPACE exhibition website

Wikipedia in the news

Following the recent bombings, there's been a resurgence of attention drawn to how well the Wikipedia and Wikinews communities did in delivering clear, up-to-the-second coverage, particularly in comparison to legitimate media (actually looking more and more like an unfair comparison for the poor old regular news channels - given Wikipedia's scope, resources, and community based commitment to accuracy).

Derek Morrison convinced me to go read Clay Shirky's interview for On the Media (there's a Real Audio file as well as the transcript, but it was down when I visited), Get Me A Rewrite. It briefly covers wiki's, Wikipedia, and why people should know about both.

Wikipedia often comes up in a variety of workshops I run as an example of an new application and practice that educators need to be aware of - whatever the view they eventually take after investigating it. Students are already using it, and that's the bottom line. They need to be in a position to discuss what it is and how it works and how it should be referenced - or to offer viable alternatives.

A great activity, for both staff and students, is to assign a relevant Wikipedia entry to individuals or teams, and get them to verify the content and offer an alternative version. The work can then be used to lead discussion on finding and evaluating information online (BTW, Stephen Downes has just written a great resource, Principals for Evaluating Websites, which would support this approach perfectly).