EdCompBlog

Grumpy Old Man

2009-11-09T20:36:00.003Z

Grumpy old man rant coming up rather than something educational… How can it cost less to buy Gillette three blade disposable razors than it does to buy Gillette three blade replacement blades?

Azor - The Razor with Personality
Originally uploaded by Simon Starr

After looking around for longer than is sensible trying to get less expensive replacement blades, I finally decided to buy a whole new razor. This worked out to be even cheaper than buying the disposable razors (and even came with three extra blades in the pack). Throw away culture or what?

In case anyone cares, I bought an Azor from King of Shaves which was on special offer. Quite apart from saving me money compared to buying new blades, it is a fantastic razor. It does a great job and is both comfortable and easy to use.

Honest, I'm not on commission from them, but if you find your replacement blades cost more than a new razor, I can highly recommend the Azor. If that's not enough, when you look at it from behind, it looks like it's smiling at you.

Normal EdCompBlog service will be resumed shortly. :-)

Fun On Friday #48: Too Big For My Boots?

2009-11-06T22:34:00.005Z

John and David have done a smashing job with EDUtalk and I honestly just posted an audio file because I thought it was a good idea. However, apparently, I won the competition. :-)

I am well pleased but, as the saying goes, pride comes before a fall. Today's Fun On Friday site is therefore perfect. It will cut me down to size and stop my head becoming too inflated: Despair Inc.'s Demotivators. Just what I need.

I think the Winners poster is the most appropriate. What do you think?

An EdCompCast for EduTalk

2009-11-04T11:21:00.006Z

I happened to notice a Twitter message on Monday announcing the arrival of EDUtalk. After the success of SLFtalk, John Johnston and David Noble decided to set up a more general site to provide a location for educators to post audio material to the web. They were aware that not everyone has the skills or the time to create a regular podcast, so they aimed to make it as easy as possible to get audio material on the web.

The Googly eyePod
Originally uploaded by DavidDMuir

EDUtalk is simply a website which gives as many ways as is sensibly possible to post audio. You can email directly to the site with an audio file as an attachment, or you can use one of a number of existing phone/audio blogging tools and EDUtalk will pick up your post and, after a moderation stage, post it on EDUtalk too.

As stated above, if you can create an mp3 on your computer, you will be able to email it to EDUtalk. Other ways to post to EDUtalk currently supported are:

During the launch FlashMeeting, David and John were asked why would someone, who could already post audio material on their own site, want to post to EDUtalk? Two possible reasons were given. The first reason was that it would increase the audience for the audio, which is probably true. However, I found the second reason more compelling: it gives a location where audio related to an event can be aggregated. Certainly, one of the reasons SLFtalk was such a success was that you could go to one location and access audio material from a range of contributors - much easier than chasing round umpteen blogs.

In theory, I have been meaning to produce more EdCompCasts for a while now but it's been about a year since I published the last one. I have material recorded that I meant to turn into a podcast but never got around to it. The launch of EDUtalk seemed like a good excuse to give it another go and, in the spirit of EDUtalk mobile audio blogging, do something quick and simple.

As it happened, I was going to talk to some Computing Science students at Glasgow University the day after EDUtalk's launch, so I decided to record some of their questions. Today I did a minimal edit, put a top and tail on it and saved it as an mp3 file. Here it is here as an EdCompCast:

EdCompCast09Eps01 - Questions from Computing Students

In a few moments I'll email it to EDUtalk and I'll update this post as soon as I see it's been moderated.

Since it's been a while since the last EdCompCast, I thought I'd remind you how to subscribe to the podcast. I've added a button to the sidebar (second from the bottom, below the Subscribe To section which is intended for the text posts on this blog). You should see a link to iTunes that will add EdCompCast as a subscription for you.

Remember to answer the students' questions as well as letting me know what you think of EDUtalk.

Update: The audio from this post is now live on EDUtalk.

Fun On Friday #47: But Is It Art?

2009-10-30T23:36:00.003Z

Daughter Number 2 brought this one to my attention: We Feel Fine. The site's tagline is: "An exploration of human emotion, in six movements" - which is at least intriguing if not downright interesting.

Big Heart of Art - 1000 Visual Mashups
Originally uploaded by qthomasbower (away - ill)

I'll quote a fairly large chunk from the site's Mission statement, however, you really have to see it, and play with it, yourself to get an idea of what it is all about:

Since August 2005, We Feel Fine has been harvesting human feelings from a large number of weblogs. Every few minutes, the system searches the world's newly posted blog entries for occurrences of the phrases "I feel" and "I am feeling". When it finds such a phrase, it records the full sentence, up to the period, and identifies the "feeling" expressed in that sentence (e.g. sad, happy, depressed, etc.)...
The result is a database of several million human feelings, increasing by 15,000 - 20,000 new feelings per day. Using a series of playful interfaces, the feelings can be searched and sorted across a number of demographic slices, offering responses to specific questions...

If you haven't done so already, go to the We Feel Fine site, open it, and explore!

Fascinating and mesmerising... but is it art? I think probably yes. What do you think?

BEd, Handheld Learning and Frozen Laptops

2009-10-28T21:50:00.005Z

Today I intended to talk to the BEd 4 group about handheld learning. I was talking mostly about mobile phones but touched on Nintendo DS, iPhones and a few other bits and pieces as well. Unfortunately, the session started badly and went downhill from there! The ultimate fail happened when my laptop froze completely because the hard disc was full.

I said I'd try to note down a few of the things I talked about (or meant to talk about) and pass them on.

For information about Nintendo DS and handheld gaming, I of course referred them to Derek Robertson, the Consolarium as well as his Brain Training research and Nintendogs activities. I also talked about a couple of mobile phone based games that I like: Myst and Guitar Hero. For more information on Myst in education, have a look at the stuff Tim Rylands did and for the Guitar Hero, see the Guitar Hero @ MSG page.

I also talked about mobile blogging - or moblogging. I referred to some commercial tools but tried to emphasise how much could be done free (or next to no cost) with a moblog - see for example the PGDE(P) moblog as well as do it yourself solutions with Twitter and TwitPic.

I also spent a bit of time talking about how mobiles could be used as Interactive Voting Systems and demonstrated Poll Everywhere (with the students voting via Twitter) but should also have mentioned SMSPoll, Powerpoint Twitter Tools and TwEVS.

I also did a quick demonstration of QR Codes and described how you could use a QR Code generator to make codes for classroom posters, homework sheets and letters to parents. With the right software on your phone (I use i-nigma) you can use its camera to take a picture of the code to connect to an associated website. For example, the above code will take you to my Delicious page.

Towards the end of the session, I sent the students out on a "field trip". They were to find a janitor and send his or her name back by texting a message to Twitter from their mobile phones. I didn't spend long enough explaining the exercise so it didn't quite go to plan but we got a few messages before the end of the class.

Finally, some reading. For more details on mobile gaming, see TeachMeet08@SLF: Mobile Games and for advice on how to build a good personal learning network on Twitter, see Nine great reasons why teachers should use Twitter and Seven Ways to Find Teachers on Twitter.

So have I missed anything? What do you think the key aspects of handheld learning are?

Fun On Friday #46: Tessellation - Creativity and Mathematics

2009-10-23T18:00:00.003+01:00

Tessellation with squares - easy. Tessellating triangles - a doodle. Tessellating hexagons - even bees can do that. But tessellating rhinoceroses - now that's tricky!

Escher Symmetry
Originally uploaded by Pieter

However, if you head over to the Tessellation website, you will find instructions on how to create tricky tessellations. The sample image they use is... a rhinoceros. Brilliant.

So, if you've ever wanted to produce something approaching Escher like complexity, grab some tracing paper and get busy.

I'm looking forward to seeing what you produce.

Guitars and Online Learning

2009-10-23T10:25:00.004+01:00

The last time I said something about trying to learn the guitar I cross posted the same message here and on my Music blog. It seemed appropriate since it was about learning and about music. I've just posted a progress report but rather than just duplicate the post, I thought I'd discuss some of the education issues it raises here instead.

Problems

199/366: First try with an amplifier
Originally uploaded by DavidDMuir

I've been using GarageBand to learn guitar and there are many things about it that I really like but I'll start with a couple of frustrations. First, the lack of feedback that you would get from a "real" tutor is a problem. I'm sure a real tutor would have picked up and dealt with many of the bad habits I have developed, and that I am now trying to unlearn. For example, some chords I manage to form by putting all my fingers in the right place more or less at the same time, but others (e.g. the G chord) I seem to form by putting one finger on at a time. Clearly for smooth transitions, it would be better to develop the muscle memory and form the chord in one smooth movement but unlearning the bad habit I've already developed is extremely difficult. I suspect a tutor would have spotted and nipped that particular problem in the bud.

Similarly, the gap in my strumming pattern would have been picked up by another pair of ears listening to my efforts. I wonder if there's a GarageBand forum/Ning/whatever somewhere where learners could post video/audio and ask for feedback from the community of learners. {Thinks: must have a look around and see what I can find.}

My only other real frustration with GarageBand, is that I'd like a few more backing tracks/tunes so that I can consolidate what I've learned. I learn a few chords, practise some strumming patterns, get fairly good at playing along to the backing track... and then it's onto the next lesson. It would be good if you were given the choice of a few tunes that used the same chords but perhaps different styles of strumming so that you can consolidate what you've done.

The Good
Other than these reservations, I am very impressed with GarageBand's lessons. The directions are clear, the videos helpful, the tutor easy to follow and tools like the tuner and the playback speed adjuster are fantastic. I especially like the idea of learning to play tunes by getting lessons from the artists who wrote and performed them. For example Sting will teach me to play Roxanne (which is listed as "Easy", so I may try this soon) and Alex Lifeson will teach me to play Tom Sayer (listed as "Medium" and if I ever get that far, I will be well chuffed).

...And finally
To summarise, learning the guitar using only online/computer based resources is not without its problems but I'm enjoying trying.

And, once again, I have to put in a plug for the guitar I'm playing in the videos. It's the one Daughter Number 2 built at Bailey Guitars - the one I won from Rock Radio. It is gorgeous to look at, it sounds great (when played by someone that knows what they are doing) and it is easy to play - much easier to play that the Squire Stratocaster that I generally practise on. I cannot recommend Bailey Guitars highly enough.

Personal Learning Network

2009-10-20T22:09:00.004+01:00

From my earlier scepticism about Twitter, I find I am now pushing Twitter as a useful tool for teachers. How did that happen?

House Sparrow
Originally uploaded by Gordon McKinlay

It is experiences like Vote with Twitter that have convinced me... and the response I got today when demonstrating Twitter to some BEd students helped confirm it for me. Today I posted the following comment:

Say hello to a group of BEd student teachers and tell them an interesting educational website. #BEd4

The first response came in a minute after I posted this message with @katiebarrowman recommending Glow. In the space of half an hour, we got twenty responses. While these responses were coming in, I got the students to sign up for Delicious. By the time they were set up with Delicious, they had a whole pile of recommendations from Twitter to save to Delicious. Brilliant!

Thank you to all the people who responded on Twitter.

Have you got any success stories to share about how Twitter was useful in learning and teaching?

Fun On Friday #45: My life as a Lego man

2009-10-16T21:54:00.002+01:00

I have a feeling that I've done this before... It's déjà vu all over again. If you can find where I've talked about it - can you show me where? :-)

This week - it's the Mini-Mizer. Create a character in Lego form. Here's my techno-geek teacher man:

If you have a go, share your creations in the comment section.

Computing: The Science of the Digital World

2009-10-16T14:41:00.004+01:00

What is Computing? What is at the heart of the subject? What distinguishes Computing from ICT and what is the place of Computing in the Curriculum for Excellence developments?

break SPACE
Originally uploaded by diebmx

I have referred to these issues before (for example Computing Science and Games Programming and Computing is... again!) but, although I haven't blogged about them in a while, they have continued to niggle away at me. Discussion about a subject's place in the inter-disciplinary world of Curriculum for Excellence is of course not unique to Computing (see for example Curriculum for Excellence: the end of Integrated Science? and ~~something from Fergal Kelly I think but I can't find just now!~~ Curriculum for Excellence: the end of Separate Sciences? Thanks Mr Hood for this link and for correcting my spelling of Fearghal!) but I think it is worse in Computing because people do not have a clear view of what our subject is about.

I was talking to a chap today, who has been out of the classroom studying and is going back to teach Computing next week after a year's absence. I stated again that I like the definition proposed after the Schools Computing Workshop (which took place over two years ago!):

Computing: The Science of Our Digital World

This seems to me a good balance between being simple enough to be grasped quickly while still leaving enough room to be expanded in complex ways. The chap I was speaking to seemed to think this was a useful focus for our subject, however, he asked how we expand this definition to define the core of the subject in a bit more detail. For example, in CfE speak, Chemistry was defined as: Our Material World including uses and properties of materials, sustainability, the chemistry of life processes and the applications of chemistry in society.

Of the top of my head I suggested:

Our Digital World including programming as an exploration of formal defined languages, digital communications, computer systems and hardware, and the implications of Computing and ICT in society.

Programming is about problem solving and the control of computers using a formally defined language. I would therefore take a very broad definition of programming which would allow the study of application software to take place under this umbrella. By including applications in the programming topic we would hopefully avoid the danger of merely learning button pushing skills and be able to focus instead on computer applications as powerful problem solving tools.

Digital communications would allow the study of networks and communications - including the the mechanics of data transmission as well as the practical application in aspects such as Web 2.0 technologies.

Systems and hardware would include the physics and electronics side of things for example in the consideration of microchips and binary as well as peripheral devices, interfacing and operating systems.

My final social implications section was questioned and it was suggested that this aspect might be subsumed in the other three areas.

So that's my definition of Computing. What do other Computing specialists think? Perhaps more importantly, what do non-computing specialist think? Does this sound like a reasonable starting point or does it sound like someone trying to justify their existence?

It's all about control...

2009-10-13T22:55:00.005+01:00

Who controls the learning environment?

Einstein's blackboard
Originally uploaded by Garrettc

I came across two posts today that seem connected. The first was from an ex-colleague - Now learners control their VLE/LMS. In this post, Naill argues that:

"Much of the criticism levelled at virtual learning environments / learning management systems relates to the control of the environment by the institution rather than the learner. The individual student has minimal ability to upload their own content or to set up collaborative tools unless this has been pre-ordained by the institution..."

I immediately thought of Strathclyde's VLE (currently Blackboard/WebCT) and of Glow.

It has always seemed to me that Blackboard/WebCT is very much about content delivery. I am the one with the knowledge. I'll post it on Blackboard/WebCT. You can access it and benefit from my wisdom. Perhaps a slightly unfair characterisation of our VLE but not entirely without foundation. Although we are currently using Blackboard/WebCT we are about to move to Moodle. Hopefully, when we move, we'll install the Shared Activities module that Naill describes.

Then there's Glow. It has the potential to be about more than a information delivery... but the limited customisation features available are frustrating. Also, it not clear yet how much of the Glow content will be pupil generated... And that brings me to the second post that caught my eye - Growing and Glowing:

"Glow will soon support user blogs and wikis, allowing pupils and classes to create web pages and online diaries to showcase their work to other schools across Scotland. Promoting individualised learning and collaboration, this will be the first time Scotland has had access to a national education blog and wiki service."

I'm not sure about the last bit of that quote but making it easier to get pupil generated content on Glow sounds promising. Of course, Local Authorities can opt out of bits of Glow, so it will be interesting to see how many adopt these new tools and what encouragement or obstacles will help or hinder pupil use.

What do you think? Who is in contol of the content on the VLE that you use?

Fun On Friday #44: Make your own font

2009-10-09T22:50:00.006+01:00

This is brilliant. Go to fontcapture, print out a font template, write in the boxes, scan, upload and Flo's your aunty. :-)

Here, revealed for the first time, is DavidFont - which I am ridiculously pleased with:

It then occurred to me that you didn't need to draw letter shapes. So here is MuirDoodle - half drawn by me and half by Daughter Number 3:

As you can see, we made some of them a bit too big and they got decapitated. but it was good fun coming up with doodles and I think we'll have another go tomorrow.

What fonts can you come up with? What about a music font or a hand drawn maths font, or map symbols or... Let me see what you come up with.

Questions from the back-channel

2009-10-06T21:57:00.007+01:00

I recently gave a lecture where I had a back channel for students to make comments and ask questions. I was arguing that schools should be more open to using technology like pupils' mobile phones to support learning and teaching.

Noo Possession
Originally uploaded by Saad.Akhtar

However, in the back channel there were a number of comments/questions expressing concern about the potential disruption this could bring. Some of the messages are copied below.

do you not think mobie phones used in the class distract pupils from learning ?

phones maybe a useful piece of kit but as proven wit happy slappin it is a dangerous piece of kit

is this not open to abuse such as 'sir your a pure knob'?

the porn comment is why we switch off phones
{Note: Concerns about accessing pornography were raised verbally as well as in at least one other message. Given the recent court case, should we add taking inappropriate pictures to this comment? - DM}

What about child protection stuff? Are pupils and parents happy for photos and videos to be taken on phones in class and posted online?

I've already responded to all the comments but how would you answer these concerns?

Fun On Friday #43: The plot thickens

2009-10-02T22:42:00.004+01:00

Apparently everyone thinks they have a novel in them, however, perhaps some need more help than others. If you are struggling to come up with a plot, let Slate come to your rescue with the Interactive Dan Brown Plot Generator.

The plot I chose is:

An ancient puzzle at the heart of Paris.
A ruthless cult determined to protect it.
A white-knuckled race to uncover the Boy Scouts of America's darkest secret.

The Hidden Cipher

When renowned Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is summoned to the Eiffel Tower to analyze a mysterious ancient script—drawn on a calling card next to the mangled body of the head docent—he discovers evidence of the unthinkable: the resurgence of the ancient cult of the Baalifori, a secret branch of the Boy Scouts of America that has surfaced from the shadows to carry out its legendary vendetta against its mortal enemy, the Vatican.

Langdon's worst fears are confirmed when a messenger from the Baalifori appears at the Arch of Triumph to deliver a deadly ultimatum: Deposit $1 billion in the Boy Scouts of America's off-shore bank accounts or the exclusive clothier of the Swiss Guards will be bankrupted. With the deadline fast approaching, Langdon joins forces with the lithe and enigmatic daughter of the murdered docent in a desperate bid to crack the code that will reveal the cult's secret plan.

Embarking on a frantic hunt, Langdon and his companion follow a 500-year-old trail through Paris's most venerable statues and exalted churches, pursued by a Romanian assassin the cult has sent to thwart them. What they discover threatens to expose a conspiracy that goes all the way back to Davy Crockett and the very founding of the Boy Scouts of America.

You read it here first so no stealing my idea. Go and generate your own!

ECER 2009: Some thoughts (#ecer2009)

2009-09-30T09:48:00.006+01:00

Introduction
It's the final day of ECER 2009 and I fully intended to go to an 8:30 session. I distinctly remember hearing the alarm. I remember switching it off... and then an hour later, I woke up again. Oops!

ECER 2009: Main Building
Originally uploaded by DavidDMuir

I went in to the University of Vienna anyway thinking I'd join the session after the first paper but when I got there, I had a closer look at the programme and realised the paper I was most interested in was the first one. Decided to write up some of my thoughts on the conference instead while it was still fresh in my mind.

Electronic presence
First, I'd like to echo what Graham Attwell said in his blog post. ECER is a major education conference with over 2000 people attending and thousands of presentations. Many sessions are delivered in parallel and in the case of ECER 2009 they took place in three, different buildings. The buildings were relatively close to each other but it would still take about five minutes to walk between the two furthest flung buildings. Add to that the sheer size of the programme, and almost inevitably you will miss things that would be good to hear. Some you will miss because you are choosing between two sessions that are happening simultaneously. But some you will miss because you just don't know they are on. The papers are organised under one of 27 networks. I mostly attended presentations in Network 16: ICT in Education and Training but tried to keep an eye on Network 10: Teacher Education Research too. I probably should have had a closer look at Network 27: Didactics - Learning and Teaching, and Network 6: Open Learning: Media, Environments and Cultures, and … But there are only so many hours in the day and in general I decided it was best to pick one Network and mostly stick to it.

However, this meant I missed a session on Digital Identity that sounded really interesting. I missed it because it was in Network 2: Vocational Education and Training (VETNET) - a network that I didn't consider looking at and, although I am interested in ideas of digital identity, it was not a search term I thought of using when searching the online programme.

How do I know it was on then? Because I saw Graham Attwell's Tweet about it and subsequently was directed to an online copy of the presentation by a Tweet from maresta. It would have been good to see more of this type of online activity but as Graham said in his excellent blog post, there were very few people Twittering from the event and, so far I have only found four of the presentations online: Grahams', Alana James', Norm Friesen's and mine. In contrast, there is the Scottish Learning Festival, an event mainly for teachers rather than educational researchers, where there was a small but active community posting material online (see for example SLF Live!). The organisers of the conference recorded some of the sessions - webcasting some of them live - and set up a Flickr pool for people to share their photos of the event. Even the TeachMeet fringe event at the Scottish Learning Festival generated more online content than the whole of the ECER conference!

Speculation
Why was the use of social networking tools at ECER so low? Graham speculates: "I suspect that the culture (or community) of educational research has not yet embraced these technologies." I wasn't convinced by this and offer CAL '09 as a counter example. There was a reasonably active Twitter presence at CAL, a Cloudworks page was set up during the conference, the organisers had set up a graffiti wall where messages could be posted electronically to be viewed in the poster presentation area and you could email photos to share with others. Perhaps Andy's comment is closer to the mark. It may be that social networking tools are yet to have a big impact elsewhere in Europe. It will be interesting to see if next year's ECER is better represented on Twitter and elsewhere.

Conclusions
I didn't mean this to be so grumpy and I originally intended to talk about some of the sessions I attended. It was a good conference. The facilities were good and the free wi-fi coverage excellent. I have plenty to think about, research to chase up and (hopefully) some contacts to pursue. So, I'd like to conclude by thanking the organisers and presenters. However, since it is unlikely that I will be able to attend ECER 2010, I hope the electronic coverage will be more impressive next year.

P.S. I finished this post at Vienna airport where there is good, free, wi-fi access to the internet and the hotel where I stayed also had free wi-fi. I have yet to find a UK airport offering free internet access and most of the UK hotels I have stayed at seem to charge too. I hope that as uptake of social networking spreads from the UK to mainland Europe, mainland Europe's enlightened attitude to wi-fi spreads to the UK. :-)

Playing the game of panoptic performativity? (#ecer2009)

2009-09-29T16:16:00.006+01:00

Live blog live blog capture of a session by Matt O’Leary, from the University of Wolverhampton, United Kingdom

Playing the game of panoptic performativity? Perspectives on the grading of observations of teaching and learning...

The focus of this session is the graded observation of teaching and learning in Further Education and its impact on the professional lives of those working in the sector. Graded observations are a very contentious area in FE. The overwhelm use of lesson observation in FE colleges is for internal quality review and is often sold to staff as a way of driving improvement.

The grading of observation is felt to be divisive - particularly when the grades are mde public - it can lead to labelling. People with grade 1s are then asked to allow people to observe them teach and to run staff development etc. It can be seen as a poisoned chalice.

Concerns were expressed about inconsistency and reliability of grading and feedback. Also, there was evidence of people playing the game and ticking boxes. There is also concern about who owns the data, who was involved in the process and the time and resources allocated.

Colleges are using the OFSTED criteria but they are quite vague. In general, no attempt to triangulate with students views as this was seen to be too threatening.

Comparing Transitions: the Professional Development of Teacher Educators (#ecer2009)

2009-09-29T16:12:00.004+01:00

Live blog capture of a session by Vivienne Griffiths* (Canterbury Christ Church University, United Kingdom); Stavroula Kaldi (University of Thessaly, Greece); Simon Thompson* (University of Sussex, United Kingdom)

Comparing Transitions: the Professional Development of Teacher Educators in the UK and Greece

Most teacher educators in the UK move into universities have a dual transition: first the move from school to university teaching; second is the transition from school teacher to academic and researcher. Often there is a poor induction into academia and teacher educators often have a lower status in universities. This is not so common in other EU countries, for example, in Greece most teacher educators come from a research background.

Case study approach. Looked at the previous experience of UK teacher educators. Most had extensive school experience most were working on Masters level (or higher) qualifications which they started after arriving at university. Only one had managed to get promotion in university. (Contrast with coming from promoted positions in schools.)

In comparison, in Greece, only one teacher educator had come from school. There is an expectation that they have PhDs and school experience is seen as a requirement rather than compulsory. However, in Greece, tenure is very difficult to secure - some working for ten years or more on temporary contracts.

The issue of tenure is becoming more of an issue with UK teacher Educators with more being employed on temporary contracts. Greek educators were expected to be leading major research projects and their teaching was largely supervising research students. UK teacher educators were more typically involved in direct teaching and administration.

Skills and Strengths: Greek teacher educators valued theoretical knowledge and research skills whereas UK educators valued pedagogical experience and practitioner perspectives.

Challenges and Barriers: UK educators had low confidence in their research skills and felt the pedagogical skills they had were not valued by the university. Greek researchers found there was a lack of formal support both in terms of research mentors and administrative support (although there may be informal support.)

Recommendations

Buddying, structured induction, a balance of teaching and research and more funding. The study indicates the importance of: collaborative research; the need for better integration of research and teaching; mentors modelling research practice; strong institutional support for research as well as valuing teacher education; an active research culture.

Question Session

Do teacher educators have to leave their teacher identity behind, to become researchers, in order to progress in the university.

Podcasting and Reading on the Internet (#ecer2009)

2009-09-29T08:26:00.004+01:00

Live blog captured during presentation by Carita Kiili*, Leena Laurinen and Miika Marttunen from University of Jyväskylä, Finland

Podcasting and Reading on the Internet

Discussed the need to develop web-literacy skills. The researchers wanted to support students internet reading skills: to help them search more effectively, to process the text they find appropriately and to collaborate on making sense of what they find.

Reported on the analysis of episodes, i.e. thematic entities that serve particular function. They analysed how students acted in the set tasks. For example how much time did they spend on gathering the information, considering concepts, proposing solutions, presenting and evaluating arguments, ... Some groups were very focused in their approach wheras others were more fragmented. Most of the students time was spent on gathering information and proposing or evaluating arguments.

They found evidence that students were co-constructing knowledge and that metacognative co-regulaton took place. They found that argumentative task instruction, especially when working in groups rather than researching on their own, seemed to support students' text processing ability.

Podcasting as a new educational means (#ecer2009)

2009-09-29T07:25:00.003+01:00

Live blog captured during presentation by Raphael Struck, Heikki Kynäslahti*, Olli Vesterinen and Seppo Tella from University of Helsinki, Finland.

Podcasting as a new educational means — Students as content producers

Investigated mobile learning in the 1990s - using mobile devices to collect and transfer information. Also interested in student's pedagogical thinking (a new area of study) that becomes more important in Web 2.0 and user created content.

Comes from research on pedagogical thinking which considers that something has to sit between teaching and learning - studying. The student's pedagogical thinking supports their studying.

Worked with media education students who made podcasts in groups on a topic of their choice from the module they were studying. Research looked at what they learned while creating their podcast rather than what they learned from listening to others. They developed a number of skills: they developed pedagogical thinking, learned to express themselves in a concise manner and developed technical skills.

Mobility was not as great as expected - in general they created the podcast on a computer rather than a mobile device. However attitudes to mobile methods, especially listening, were positive.

The researcher considered where conflicts may arise. For example, if a student's pedagogical thinking considers the use of ICT to be important but teachers do not require it, there could be conflict.

The researchers think they could have explained why the podcasts were to be created and the students found it frustrating that nobody listend to their podcasts.

Blackboard to Monitor (#ecer2009)

2009-09-28T15:56:00.006+01:00

Live blog captured during presentation by Roman Svaricek and Jiri Zounek from Masaryk University, Czech Republic.

Blackboard to Monitor, or Empirical Research of E-learning in University Level Teaching

{I think the title refers to the move from teaching using a physical blackboard to using virtual tools accessed through a monitor. - DM}

The researchers analysed 430 courses from the Faculty of Arts. They studied a variety of types of courses including distance, blended and face to face with electronic support.

They identified a number of advantages such as the mediation of materials, monitoring of student work and motivating students. It gives power to the teacher - for example "ICT is fun" and can be used as a reward {Not sure I have understood the point he was making here. - DM}

They also identified three types of teachers: Constructivists (consciously using constructivist methodology), Intuitivists (unaware of constructivist theory but using aspects in their teaching anyway) and Technologists (using the technology with no real understanding of the pedagogical issues).

They found that some people were beginners with eLearning systems but through themselves enthusiastically into using the system and spent many hours developing the system.

They see eLearing depending on the activities of an orchestra of people - tutors, students, IT support, ... eLearning systems should not just be about the delivery of stuff but be the medium that supports learning.

The Informal use of Social Networking Sites for Collaboration on Initial Teacher Training Programmes (#ecer 2009)

2009-09-28T15:21:00.005+01:00

The Informal use of Social Networking Sites for Collaboration on Initial Teacher Training Programmes.

Coles, Anthony: Birmingham City University, United Kingdom

The researcher's university pushed staff to create Facebook presence since students were already there and using tools like Facebook for academic purposes. Not all staff were comfortable with this. The researcher gathered data from his students to see what their views were.

In the past, the course has had some issues with professionalism, i.e. inappropriate discussion on the universities Moodle discussion forum. However, in general, the feeling was that communication should be improved because there's time for thought, allows simultaneous contributions and it is inherently democratic (see Joiner 2004). But lack of social cues may lead to less socialisation, lack of pedagogic strategies and lack of elearning skills.

The majority use social networking sites (mostly Facebook) and most used it daily. There were distinct group: one group had 70% plus of their network friends coming from their course but a similar sized group had less that 10% of friends from the course.

What academic work did the students discuss online? Issues discussed? Number 1 was assignments in progress. Also discussed placement (both non-teaching and teaching issues), taught sessions, tutors (which is what concerns some academics), future career, other students...

Focus group said they used their social networks to organise meetings with other students. They said they saw the university VLE as a place to catch up on classes not a place to network. They found Facebook etc. was god for general support, e.g. simply by changing online status you can find out others are stressed by assignments too. They said that often part of meeting new students was to swap Facebook pages. They also liked that their own networks were controllable {I think this is in terms of skins etc. - DM} unlike the university's Moodle.

The researcher find that attempts to improve the social structures of the university have not been particularly successful. However, informal social networks do grow up around courses. The familiar nature of the tools (for the students) is one of the perceived advantages. It also allows them to draw their own boundaries and embody their own identity. However, it could lead to a blurring of professional/personal divide.

Point was made in the post presentation discussion that there are some students you would go for coffee with and others you wouldn't - same with online contact. :-) You don't have to respond positively to every friend request! It may be useful to know how students use these spaces to support their learning but it may not be necessary to participate in order to encourage educational benefits.

Do Doctoral Candidates Use and Benefit From Online Social Networks (#ecer09)

2009-09-28T14:51:00.002+01:00

Do Doctoral Candidates Use and Benefit From Online Social Networks as an Aid Their Thesis and Dissertation Process?

James, E Alana: ReinventingLife org, Ireland (Republic of)

If they need it, they will learn to use it and they will come.

Personal Learning Environments - based on S ieman's Connectivist ideas. There are two ways to look at Personal Learning Networks (PLN) - ether something the student puts together him/herself; or can be more structured with tutor putting things together.

The researcher found that she started out with four distinct social groups but over the course of time, the four networks started to interact with each other.

She found it a win/win situation: it encouraged students to "think outside the box" and it made mentoring more fun - allowing her to deliver something once but share it with many students,

Cmaptools software in the Teaching of Chemistry to Teacher Training Students (#ecer2009)

2009-09-28T11:17:00.007+01:00

Cmaptools software in the Teaching of Chemistry to Teacher Training Students

Aguirre-Pérez, Constancio: University of Castilla-La Mancha, Spain

There are a variety of kinds of map (e.g. hierarchical, flow chart, spider diagram...) and they can be used for a variety of purposes, for example: Selection, Range, Assembling, Arranging and Linking & Labelling.

The researchers uses Cmap - a free tool. This allows the creation and sharing of concept maps. Researcher found that the sharing and studying of concept maps helped encourage consensus. It helped improved understanding of the topic mapped. Helped with reasoning ad higher order skills - encouraged them to go beyond memorising.

Question asked was would different subject areas tend to favour different types of maps? Researcher admitted that most of the Chemistry maps were hierarchical but wasn't sure if different subjects would use different types of maps.

Perceptions about Computer Teachers and Their Teaching Profession (#ecer2009)

2009-09-28T10:37:00.005+01:00

Computer Teachers, Other Subject Area Teachers and Administrators’ Perceptions about Computer Teachers and Their Teaching Profession

Yildirim, Zahide (Middle East Technical University, Turkey);

Yalcinalp, Serpil (Baskent University, Turkey);

Kilic, Eylem (Middle East Technical University, Turkey)

Looked at two approaches ICT as a separate subject and integrating ICT in all subjects. Younger EU countries tend still to teach ICT older EU countries have moved towards integration.

In Turkey, computer teachers were assigned to schools, now they tend to be technology leaders and/or IT coordinators. They tend to have a teaching load themselves but are also responsible for organising maintenance, IT training for other teachers, preparing materials and running training sessions.

The researchers looked at IT Teachers perceptions of themselves, how they perceive their administrators and their fellow teachers. Also looked at others perceptions of IT teachers. It is a descriptive study. Collected data from the three largest provinces in Turkey where there are 1086 teachers and 288 administrators. IT teachers number 255 - aprox. 50:50 split male and female and 90% graduated after 2002. Issued three questions consisting of musltiple choice and open ended questions.

IT Teachers questionnaires collected demographic data, as well as perceptions about their own department, physical conditions of school, perceptions of their fellow subject teachers and perceptions of other professionals.

Findings: About one third felt their departments were not meeting the needs of their pupils, that they did not have adequate teaching practice and that their was poor compatibility with programmes elsewhere in the school. IT teachers preferred computer application courses but over a quarter preferred programming and two-thirds had this as their first or second choice as an elective course. Not surprisingly 52% chose IT Teacher as their first choice for their role but interestingly 42.8% listed Multimedia Designer as their third choice.

In general, they think administrators are supportive of IT Teachers. The area where they get most requests of help from other teachers is for Personal Development. Technical support also featured strongly but requests for educational support was more limited.

here are a number of conclusions but one is that the definition of their role is still unclear.

Computer teachers’ attitude toward ethical use of computers (#ecer2009)

2009-09-28T10:18:00.006+01:00

Computer teachers’ attitude toward ethical use of computers in elementary schools

Ozer, Niyazi; Beycioglu, Kadir; Ugurlu, Celal Teyyar
Affiliations: Inonu University, Turkey

The researchers looked at teachers attitudes to ethical uses of computers and tried to describe attitudes and understanding. (There are 60 female teachers and 81 male teachers in the study.) Looked at beliefs and behaviours.

Only 5 people had courses related ti cyber ethics in higher education and only 39 had had any cyber ethics training while in post. Most therefore used printed or visual material (e.g. internet) for information on cyber ethics.

Females showed a statistically significant more ethical beliefs about ethical computer use. Teachers who had pre-service course also showed more ethical beliefs {Should add to ITE courses? - DM}. Younger teachers also show more ethical attitudes to computer use - possibly to do with increased access to computers among young people and the development of cyber ethics courses in recent years.

Definitions of cyber ethics include things like copyright, respecting privacy, plagiarism, software theft, ...