I then put the result through a screen visualiser and took a quick screen capture. I’m sure this process could be combined with a projector on stage with dance to make an interesting performance. Looking at the maths, design and collaborative working activities around these elements would be kind of interesting to start from in a lesson…

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Click to play

OK a bit of recursion - so seems to work - I need to include iPhone links every time now with the usual Flash stuff - great resource and useful for teachers who want to access resources beyond the school network. Sorted…

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This is the first one to come out - Lisa Stevens on having the courage to just try new things with technology and learning. Notice she talks about the community not the tech…

Click To Play

I love teachers like this, who have the courage to have a go, to try something new, who rise to a challenge - it really is as simple as that and the TeachMeet films will be an example of more and more people who are doing just that. Trying new things, experimenting and often with fantastic results. Show these films to your colleagues - it’s not about how well you do with technology - it’s about connecting with people and fostering learning in a postive way.

TeachMeet definitely marks the genesis of a whole new breed of teacher - one who is willing to take risks; to open out the variety of ways they can engage with learners and most importantly to have the courage to  learn themselves, knowing they may well make mistakes along the way. Lisa talks about validation, audience, learning in a heartfelt passionate way. I’m glad there are people like this teaching our children in this country. I hope these films inspire others to go down similar paths…

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Being drawn in

Joining the RSA as a Fellow has been on the fringes of my attention for some time now. A couple of years ago I was invited to a meeting to tenatively formulate ways forward to do things differently there by Steve Moore. Since that time I have been observing the process of OpenRSA from a distance - infrequently dipping into the emerging activity coming from that direction. So when I saw, what seemed a pivotal workshop, pushed out through Eventbrite on FaceBook (I think…), I decided to turn up and see what had had happened in the intervening time. I’m not a Fellow but I’m interested in becoming one - perhaps - so getting the back story, the current state of affairs and the debate around the concept of OpenRSA was very, very appealing. The fact that I wasn’t a Fellow and could turn up and have the opportunity to engage was a big plus. Certainly the Social Media mechanisms drew me in gradually like a small comet into a parabola of interest around the OpenRSA’s growing gravitational field - so whatever they had done to get my attention had finally worked - I was there and am now blogging about it in depth.

Similar patterns

It is interesting to observe so many similar patterns beginning to emerge in different contexts in various spheres around Social Networking this year. From my focus,  Education, E-Learning and EdTech, there is the growing TeachMeet phenomenon; smaller cadres of smart educators like the teachers at the  EdtechRoundup weekly Flash Meetings on a Sunday night;  larger and more aggregated events like Amplified (facilitated and recognised by NESTA) and, indeed, direct action like the recent writetoreply site rezzed up in a couple of days by people responding to a need within the community to easily feed back and comment on Digital Britain and other forthcoming interim government reports.

All this activity does seem to be pointing the same way like iron filings around invisible social magnetic fields and there are opportunities to effect systemic change from the ground up in a distributed way -  in part. But each group seems to share some of the same frustrations, cul de sacs and challenges that involve such emergent change.

Challenges

How to reach out to wider communities beyond the tech savvy individuals that inhabit these various worlds without alienating and excluding others used to more traditional forms of communication? How to gain the attention of and to co-opt top down initiatives to co-create new ways of working but have those emerging models break through into the mainstream and effect change so that the innovative and creative becomes more the norm? How to wrest power and resources from older centralised systems to empower more localised activity that is sustainable, configurable, extensible and can be given wider scope? All key questions in the overlapping Ven Diagram of groups I inhabit.

Events

I think people do lose sight of the fact that it really is about people - the solutions to smarter ways of connecting together both online and in the physical world - it does start from the local community - where these Social Networking tools do score is that they both help, drive and augment community involvement but initially at the point of need within the physical world to cement and reinforce engagement - use and takeup is most definitely event driven.

Digital Refuseniks

And I don’t have a problem with technological refuseniks - theirs is a healthy skepticism or obliviousness -  force of numbers and direct need will make many migrate over time when models of social use have been scaffolded enough by family and friends and significant opportunities or serendipity act as fortuitous drivers to effect change through face to face traditional meetups or ‘meatspace‘ as a few of my more wired colleages might say…  I do think Open Source software, Open Standards, Data and ubiquity of portable mobile devices may well underpin this.

Opening up opportunities

In the workshop people mentioned development of strategy and databases- yes - but underlying that, I believe, are those Open Collaborative opportunities - and they have to be exactly that, open, to have greatest effect. No more silos despite whatever economic conditions we find ourselves in at present. In my opinion the reason why Twitter has scored so highly recently is entirely because it drills down to the individual via iPhones et al and skips over institutional ghettos connecting peer to peer - it’s a technology that’s ubiquitous, accessible,  wired into you, highly personalised - highly configurable - highly extensible. For me its power lies in the ability to access communities of interest that I would never had access to before and on a global scale. Want an example? I sat with an academic recently and asked him to give me the most obscure term he could think of in his field. I did a Google search - nothing. I did a Twitter search and pulled up about 10 conversations around the subject; all people he could have the possibility of contacting or researching with further links out to communities from there.

Network weaving

And as someone also pointed out at the RCA Workshop, the ability to be able to weave these different forms of communication to optimise use and provide concrete solutions is probably an emerging profession. There is an opportunity there for the business of making things happen. People who are smart filters, enablers and can offer commutativity of ideas between both the online and physical will be in high demand. How that can be scoped beyond the individual is a challenge but that’s where top down facilitation comes in perhaps. But not everyone will have the grammar and syntax to use adopt and run with these new systems - good! that makes for opportunities for me and others to provide solutions…and to expand our networks and level of expertise and insight.

The RSA Workshop

Well from that long lead in I guess I should blog about my experiences of the day. The workshop was run by David Gauntlett (whose site I have just seen and I’m amazed I have never come across before!) and was excellent. I made a very quick mind map of the points people started to raise during the background that both Lauras (Billings and Bunt)  and Malcolm Forbes gave about the whole process up to that time (If you fancy adding to it or putting me right just mail me and I’ll give you access for collaboration). It’s merely my own personal note taking and reflection on the processes of the day. It doesn’t say how much fun it was though. As a teacher and someone who has spent quite a bit of time teaching early years children this was a lovely exercise in reflective thinking through the modelling of concepts in diverse media. This sort of thing always reminds me of John Davitt’s Learning Event Generator - it’s also an excellent excuse for breaking down barriers to social interaction through play or Serious Games.

As we modelled our ideas we fed back and reflected on and aggregated what we’d done. I will include all five videos of the event with pictures of the constructions below. Because they are all High Definition Vids it might take a few days to upload but you might like to return to get a flavour of the day as I upload them.

All in all I felt it was a very productive afternoon - am I going to become a Fellow?

Well quite possibly - this feels familiar territory to me - far more of a structure that I can work within. If you don’t know the work of the RSA then it may prompt you to investigate further - certainly for me in education - it makes more sense than any of the more traditional organisations I would want to be involved with.

I’ll publish the results of the plenaries as I upload to Vimeo - for the time being there will be placeholders with Flickr pics for each group. If you were there - you might like to click on the pictures which will take you to Flickr where you can annotate parts - or then again you might not…

Group 1’s Models

Plenary / Reflection / Elicitation / Explanation

First of several videos from the Plenary from the RSA Workshop 19th February 2009

Group 2’s Model

Group 3’s Models

Group 4’s Models

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Image Attribution dawn_perry on Flickr CC 2.0 non-commercial license

Learn 4 Life exists to document change and innovation in education in this country and the world. The site highlights ideas around ICT that challenge and question the current orthodoxies. It’s not simply a blog about the latest Web 2.0 tools or teaching techniques although it does encompass those things - the aim of the whole project is to document and disseminate significant pointers to future change in education. Virtual worlds is one area where this really is the case and I make no apology for highlighting any practice involving these environments.

Image Attribution Tadson on Flickr CC 2.0 non-commercial license

I personally believe that the current models for learning in schools are not fit for purpose and that a lot of the curricula around the current exam based systems are outmoded and, to be honest, anachronistic. But in order to move an education system on, you need to have people who have the vision, courage and determination to be curious enough to experiment with and investigate alternatives, no matter how fantastic or “wild” they may seem at first. Often these form the genesis of new orthodoxies and more effective and engaging ways of working that stress process over product and that lead to an environment where learning is bounded only by your own imagination and not just a series of irrelevant and end-stopped exams. Education is a lifelong process and anything that appears to nurture and amplify that and make it fun  deserves a very close look.

Virtual Worlds

Image Attribution Jan Beckendorf on Flickr CC 2.0 non-commercial license

A lot of what is written and reported about Second Life in the mainstream media really does often miss the point of how virtual worlds can be used to build communities in non-linear, less hierarchical ways far more in keeping with the distributed digital world fast coming up on the inside all around us. Let no-one lose sight of the fact that they are just another medium, albeit highly engaging and immersive, to try and reconfigure how we do things together in the name of learning. The radical thing about virtual worlds is that they enable the participants to evolve whole new ways of working with each other - for me they foster and encourage reflective practice on the part of many of the participants and also help form extremely dynamic community building at both a localised and a global level that is highly personalised. If you watch the interview you will hear Peter outline the successes in this area.

Peter Twining and the Schome Park Project

Peter Twining is at the forefront of research into new educational systems. I was lucky enough to be able to talk with him about the genesis and history of the Schome Park Project and how Second Life on the Main and Teen Grids became an environment for his focus. Peter’s vision is far from parochial or unambitious as you will hear throughout the interview.

One of the most important interviews of recent years

The Schome Park Project may seem a little under the radar in terms of educational change in the UK at present but I consider this one of the most important interviews I have given in recent years and the project to be an amazing foundation for how communities of learning may operate in the future.

Knowledge Age Skills

Image Attribution Bettina Tizzy on Flickr CC 2.0 non-commercial license

I really do believe that Schome and the vision behind it may well underpin serious development of virtual learning spaces and gradual evolution of Knowledge Age Skills for a truly 21st educational system.

Lightbulb Moments

Image Attribution Thomas Hawk on Flickr CC 2.0 non-commercial license

Peter talks about the history of the project and his several “lightbulb moments” along the way. He agreed to be interviewed in Avatar form in Second Life Main Grid and I mashed the video of his interview with images from the Schome Park Project Wiki, Forum and Blog. He kindly gave permission for images to be used.

Transcript and Video

Image Attribution Pixel Drip on Flickr CC 2.0 non-commercial license

A timecoded transcript of the interview can be downloaded from here or read it in the embed below. If you are interested in the use of virtual worlds for teaching and learning I would encourage you to download both the transcript, video , MP3 and, if possible, distribute them to anyone else you know who may be interested. Peter is at the forefront of this field and his research will be emerging gradually in journal and book form but before that just go to the Schome Park pages to see a number of case studies that will be released over this and next year.

Interview With Peter Twining Feb 09

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Joe Wilson, Head of New Ventures at the SQA - NB - video interview at the bottom of the blog

I recently interviewed Joe, whose new job is Head of New Ventures at the SQA. Joe looked a bit quizzical when I referred to the New Generation User Skills Report at the beginning of the interview but was too polite to correct me. It is, of course, the Next Generation User Skills report and I have blogged about this previously.

The gmail connection held up well and I appreciate someone as busy as Joe making time to give this interview with all the inherent risks and glitches that can happen over a live connection. (note: I did use the wonderful Levelator to re-level the sound because of the discrepancies in volume - try it it works wonderfully.)

Genesis of the NGUSR, Diva Project and Curriculum for Excellence

He talks about his background at the awarding body, his experience of using mutlimedia as a lecturer in a college for 20 years and how that helped him review the landscape for a User Skills Report. As well as the NGUSR he also outlines various initiatives like the Diva Project in Scotland and how he has worked with vendors but also how the NGUSR will feed back into the Curriculum for Excellence. His remit now extends to adults and lifelong learning as well which is what Learn 4 Life coverage is all about!

GLOW and dynamic curriculum

He also talks about GLOW and his vision of communities of practice, directories of subject specialists and a more dynamic curriculum development; the system being changed by the deliverers - one of the things I hinted at in asking Norbert Pacheler at the end of the film in my previous blog. One of the joys of my job is seeing how research, practice and trends all seem to be leading to change in various areas and the research coming out does seem to be backing up Joe’s vision. Interviewing people in the learning landscape at many levels does help give an insight into the learning maps that might evolve.

Google and vocational spaces

He is also looking at using Google in the vocational space in Scotland and e-portfolios - his work with the vendors in the Diva Project has proved a good grounding in this. He also shared his idea of how Scotland might use content in all sorts of different way with various stakeholders. Exciting stuff and Scotland has the added advantage of Glow that can hold and disseminate this, something that can’t be done in England as there is no pan-VLE like it. That is going to be a big challenge in the future.

Work based learning

I really wished I had talked to him more about work based learning but no doubt he will be blogging about that at his excellent Experimental Blog. I really would like to thank him once again for just giving me a taster of his vision for learning in the future.

Education and learning need people like Joe and as an addendum I spotted him lurking at the bottom of the EdTechRoundup FlashMeeting this Sunday and I know how busy he is! How many other policy makers would take the time out to gather intelligence about grass roots teacher innovators like this. He has my immense respect.

Click To Play

Please do check out the links in this blog and reflect how we would go forward in England in the light of what is so much innovative practice in Scotland. As Joe said - they do also have their own unique challenges but it was a fascinating 20 minutes. As part of my broadcasting plan/ personal professional development for 2009 I hope to do more of these mini insights into the world of policy makers in the future - watch this space…

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@eyebeams and @theokk working hard at MirandaMod - cough…

(photo attribution @theokk)

Live Streaming and videos from BETT MirandaMod seminars

Another major part of my activity at BETT was the live streaming and filming of a series of MirandaMod discussions going on throughout the exhibition, culminating in the seminar below given by Dr John Cuthell of MirandaNet and Norbert Pacheler of the IoE.

I have chosen to show the seminar first because all the discussions during the show follow on from that research. It gives an excellent context for the debate.

Terry Freedman also did an excellent job of chairing two sessions and introducing the seminar below.

During 2007 the MirandaNet Fellowship worked with members of the Naace, ITTE and MirandaNet communities to identify effective models of ICT CPD, and the critical incidents that had proved formative in respondents’ lives. Look at the Seminar and see how much of that prefigures what is happening with the TeachMeet phenomenon…

TeachMeet and MirandaMod - a place for reflection

In many ways these discussions are widening the scope around TeachMeet (which I also filmed on the Friday at BETT and coming soon!). The MirandaMod Moots encourage a space for reflection by practitioners  which perfectly complement and embrace that growing grass roots movement.

If you see both John and Norbert’s presentations below you will see how their research findings echo  activitiy going on now in the teaching community. Their research really does seem to have its finger on the pulse. That is why MirandaNet is so important.

But more than that - it was a joy to see practitioners from around the world pop in and join the discussion not only in person at the BETT exhibition, but also virtually as well. In fact Dai Barnes‘ class were viewing a session remotely at one point despite the patchy 3G connection for streaming and even managed to ask a question.

Dr. John Philip Cuthell Mirandanet and Norbert Pacheler IoE

CPD – Critical Incidents - Lightbulb Moments

Caroline Daly, WLE Centre, IoE; Tribal Group

CPD; Critical Incidents; Ideas That Make Things Happen.

This discussion leads on directly from the seminar above - the Critical Incidents or lightbulb moments that people had are fascinating = the personal narratives start with Bernard Dady, BSF Programme Director of Tribal Group

He talks about his early opportunities as a teacher in Sheffield to do action research and curriculum development. Learning through doing, learning through networks and learning through collaboration. He’s working with Mirandanet on Action Research and Accreditation as part of the BSF rollout.

Christina Preston’s Lightbulb Moment was when she was working as a consultant for ILECC an realised that one day courses had neither the depth or the breadth of her experience up to that time internationally and academically.

Lawrence Williams‘ lightbulb moment was in his ground-breaking work with the NHS with his colleagues when he could share the same aims but have different objectives and the collaboration between agencies.

I won’t precis everyone’s contribution you’ll just have to view the videos below and go along to MirandaNet and join. You’ll probably find a few people you know there and many you don’t.

Visual Learning, Multimodal Learning

Inspiration

Project Learning;

Christopher Binns, Oracle Education Foundation

Projects in Mobile Learning

Norbert Pachler, WLE Centre, IoE; Rachel Jones, Steljes

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At BETT last week I also attended the Pixel to Person meetup at the Greyhound pub in Kensington Square. I have written about this wonderful place in a previous blog but the most amazing thing about it are the people in Real Life who attended this session.

Real to Virtual and back again…

To get a flavour of the surreal nature of the evening here is a brief video of the sort of setup that was involved bringing together a real and virtual space…

Sloodle - Interview with Giannina Rossini by Mal Burns

I first met Giannina in Second Life a couple of years ago at the ISTE Island at about 3 a.m in the morning. We’ve been good friends ever since. Here she is talking about Sloodle to Mal Burns live on Mogulus streaming web TV as well. Mal runs 15 web sites to do with Second Life when I last counted.

Giannina is one of the hardest working people I know in Second Life, doing a lot of the background work to get Sloodle publicised - she has also built the Sloodle Island in Second Life, which as anyone who knows about building in there, is no mean feat.

Sloodle enables people to communicate between Second Life and Moodle and so much more. She is a key person in this highly innovative area. She constantly underplays her role but I know how much work she puts in and it is an immense effort to build new learning communities with these technologies. As with everyone else at Pixel to Person that evening she is unique and a very valued member of the community.

Second Life and Building Schools for the Future - Interview with Mark Mullis

Mark Mullis showed me his new BSF build on Teen Grid - exciting stuff. Mark shows his new BSF build built 2 years before the real one. He also talks about the 3D projection systems he is using to make SL come alive mixing virtual and real worlds. Again he is an early adopter/ innovator making things happen years before they become mainstream.

Interview with Slim Warrior AKA SlimGirlFat

This is a brief interview with the lovely Slim Warrior AKA SlimGirlFat. She was the first uk musician to play live in Second Life. Like Giannina, I think she confounds all the usual stereotypes of people in Second Life. A very personable, accomplished musician who has a deep and very detailed technical knowledge of how to broadcast live streaming over the internet. I had a listen to her music later and I’m definitely now a fan

Interview with Mambo by Mal Burns

Virtual Live Band is a real life band of 4 members from 3 different countries and 4 different locations playing at the venues of Secondlife. They use Ninjam Software to synchronize and stream their music into the Virtual World of Second Life.

The interview is in two parts because of the size of the upload.

Virtual Live Band is the first band of this kind and the only band in Secondlife to work in this way.

Mambo Welles (RL Trevor Tweedy): Based in West London,UK,Mambo has been playing bass for 25+ years. During the 80’s he worked with several unsigned bands in and around London. After a break from the music scene for a few years, in 2006 he returned to playing live with the rock covers band, Limeburner.

This interview is 20 minutes long and is absolutely fascinating - Mambo goes into quite some detail about how the Virtual Live band play together. They are the only musicians to do this in Second Life. Yet another amazing innovator.

Interview with Francesco D’Orazio, founder and CEO of Myrl and Victor Keegan technology columnist The Guardian.

Francesco D’Orazio

Myrl is a Social Gateway for Virtual Worlds,  it was released in September 2008.

Francesco has been working over the past 7 years as a strategic communication consultant and qualitative researcher specializing in social media strategy and immersive marketing.

He holds a Ph.D. in New Media Studies and Sociology from the University of Rome. His research has been focussing on immersive communication, mapping the pervasive and ubiquitous spread of immersive strategies and tracking down the history of immersion from religious rituals, planetariums and panoramic painting, up to ambient music, experiential marketing, alternate reality games and virtual worlds.

He is currently Lecturer in new media at the IULM University in Milan and is Senior Fellow at the McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology, University of Toronto.

Francesco explains here how Myrl’s Social Gateway offers people a way to keep track of their online activity in the different virtual worlds, sometimes even with multiple accounts in the same virtual universe.

Vic Keegan

Vic writes a weekly technology column in the Guardian, and also contributes to Guardian Unlimited’s Comment Is Free blog. He joined the Guardian in 1963 and since then his positions have included Business Editor, Economics Editor, Chief Leader Writer and Assistant Editor. For 11 years he was a member of the Scott Trust, owner of the Guardian, and edited the Online section of the Guardian for six years.

But here he describes his numerous projects in and out of world. Here he talks about his art gallery in Second Life and his NFP company World Film Collective which has offices in Second Life. World Film Collective runs a series of filmmaking workshops with groups of young people from marginalised and deprived areas of the world.

They aim to give students a voice through which they can present their lives, their passions, their interests and their messages to the global community. They can make films using mobile phones and show them through Second Life - as he said it is a very cheap way of having a centralised global office to enable people to communicate. Yet another fantastic idea - I’d encourage you to go along to the website and sign up.

We also had a brief conversation about poetry, economics and his proclivity for creating surreal Flickr groups. I put him in touch with John Davitt - I think they’d get on…

And that’s what I love about these events - the fascinating people you meet and the endless possibilities for networking and collaboration. Often it is difficult to fully socially engage when you are filming people - you can be so intent on getting footage and technical stuff right, that it only strikes you later, in post production, what incredibly interesting people and what ground-breaking projects they have been involved in.

Pictures of the Evening

You can see further pictures of the evening on the Flickr set here and read the Twitter feed here.

It was a pity I had to leave early as I was streaming/ filming the MirandaMod Moots at BETT the next day and gearing up for the same at TeachMeet (click the link for a teaser) - both those events I’m still post producing and will be covered in much more detail in subsequent blogs.

I really enjoyed videoing all these incredibly creative people. I’d like to say a big thank you to Kwame Oh again for allowing his pub to host the venue and all the other people I talked with that evening but didn’t get on video. I can’t wait until the next one where I might be able to simply sit and have a drink and non-digital chat for a change.

High Definition Video

As you can see I took a lot of High Definition footage with my new Flip Mino HD camera and one week on I’m still uploading a lot of it to my HD site. Unfortunately a couple of films did not come out including mine.

I have not enabled embedding of videos on other sites unless it belongs to the interviewee because High Definition footage over the web is still an expensive business and my allocation of 1000 views is rapidly decreasing!

It definitely proves that people want to see HD and Learn 4 Life content but it is getting rather expensive to broadcast at the moment. If you are a regular subscriber and would like to sponsor video views please do get in touch we have a number of advertising options in place. Otherwise please subscribe to view the content. We have a LOT of footage in the pipeline.

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Holodeck rezzed as Stonehenge on Learn 4 Life Island

Learn4Life Island has been in Second Life now for roughly two years and in that time I have put a lot of time and money into the building of the space to see what the possibilities are for education in the future. This year I am intent on building an imaginative community to work there on several ad hoc projects; they may come to nothing or they may evolve into bigger projects that can be co-opted into mainstream education.

In the first of these I am looking for any UK teachers who are very experienced with the Second Life platform. Ideally they will be working in the arts, media and science fields.  If you have basic scripting/coding skills as well that would be a big bonus. The idea is to have a play with and adapt, design, build Holodecks to make ARGlike environments that can be used for imaginative teaching in any areas of the curriculum - in and outside SL - so allied resources for building, cartoon making, filming, machinima and other stuff will be available as well - a lot of these will be web based, free, collaborative and Open Source applications that can be used to construct stuff both socially and virtually :). The process of building in the interactive/ collaborative activities away from the computer will be just as important as any ‘virtual’ build. You may never use Second Life in your teaching but the ideas and activities you evolve here will help with any future collaborative virtual environment you may use.

I personally will not have much time to run the project but I can offer secure resources such as land and holodecks/ media facilities in Second Life for you to have a play with and try to evolve some form of pedagogy around the concept. This will kick off (if it gets enough attention) end of Feb beginning of March 2009. Any LA or other commercial /non-profit or other interested organisations who want to become involved and offer funding/ sponsorship/ expertise would be most welcome too. Scripters and interested academics are invited too to lend any expertise they feel might be valuable. All results and resources will be entirely open and the whole process is as much one of professional development for yourself as well as the intended students further down the line. If you want to take the experience and formalise, research, exploit it, fine, but this project is not about that, it is about having fun and gaining insights to what does or doesn’t work - I’m deeply attached to idea of learning through play and this project is definitely about play and personal as well as professional development

I am beginning training teachers who are totally new to SL at that time as part of UK BSF (Building Schools for the Future Project) so there will be a totally newbie teaching community around to bounce ideas off as well. Look at the film and get in touch. This project will not involve students at this stage - only teachers…The scope is limited to the UK because of timezone differences but if that doesn’t worry you then please email, Twitter or DM me in-world. I’ll take it from there and orgainise some in-world and Flashmeeting dates.

We will probably looking to take some of these ideas into the EduSim platform as well for use by primary teachers and students later. So please do get in touch.

My contact details are available on the film below.

Click To Play

Links to the iPhone/pod version of the film are here for those who want to download and share by bluetooth as well…

http://blip.tv/file/get/Learn4life-Learn4LifeUKHolodeckProject375.m4v

3GP Version here:

http://blip.tv/file/get/Learn4life-Learn4LifeUKHolodeckProject166.3gp

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Open Source Schools - BETT Seminar January 19th 2009

Every once in a while you see something that makes you think: ‘Yes this really is going to change education in this country’ and it makes you smile inside because you know what is going to happen further down the line and how revolutionary it will be; it will touch the lives of so many people and transform learning - making it more effective, more engaging, more personal and build a sense of community far beyond the initial event itself.

Pivotal Moments

One such moment was on the saturday at BETT 2009, where a small but significant 45 minute presentation by 4 teachers (Miles Berry, Michelle Walters, Jose’ Picardo and Doug Belshaw) on Open Source Schools will, potentially, change the face of how schools use Software in the UK and beyond and its knock on effect for how people do business in the classroom. A big shout out must also go to Josie Fraser who I know was one of the consultants to BECTA on the project which is going from strength to strength.

Days of Lockdown are ending

For me the days of locked-in licenced computing and the lack of access to pupils to good professional quality software at home are a big issue. So this launch is timely - if you are mulling over the lack of funds in your budget for the year you must see this presentation - it will save you thousands of pounds and enable you to have a way of ensuring pupils can work from home to school and back again fluently with the software and kit without worrying over legal and compatability issues. This will save you money and raise the game in terms of home/ school learning.

Fiming and Mashing the presentations

I couldn’t attend because I was presenting about Second Life (with a live link to Tailand) elsewhere at BETT but Hannah Wise from the BBC kindly agreed to film the session and what a good job of camerawork she did! I’m glad we managed to capture it on video because I think the event needed documenting and the basic concepts spreading as far and wide as possible using that medium.

I’m passionate about the use of video in education to effect change - for me it is the underlying ethos behind this site. See something good, film it or record it to audio and then disseminate it to make things happen. So I Mashed the video with the presentations to create the results below. They will all be available on the Open Source Schools site, please go there for lots more resources as well and please download them and use them in CPD for consciousness raising locally. They are all free to distribute under a CC Education Commons licence. In this time of Credit Crunch and shrinking school budgets Open Source Software will be invaluable but more than that it will underpin and build your learning communities and that is what it’s all about surely? Show this to your head, head of department, LA advisor, parents, local firms, anyone who can make a difference in your local community.

Teachers are Heroes

The teachers in this film are special; early adopters who have given over hours of their time to show their vison for the future - people like this are my heroes - they make the difference and not for just one day but one day, one moment can change things, they have my immense respect. They are passionately engaged with their subject and, most of all, their pupils; they change people’s lives by their devotion and commitment to education. What they do needs to be documented and shared.

Open Source is about People and how they connect

Open Source is not about the software, it is about the people, the inherent freedoms of choice we make in our world and the lives of the young people with whom we engage and isn’t that one of the most wonderful things to pass on to another generation? Making these videos has been a labour of love I hope you find them of use and spread the word far and wide. But enough of this sentimental guff - down to practicalities; watch the videos below, download, show and share them with everyone you know.

The Presentations

Miles Berry, Michelle Walters, Jose’ Picardo and Doug Belshaw - Whole Presentation

Click To Play

Miles Berry’s Introduction (only) to Open Source

Click To Play

Michelle Walters explains what Open Office is and how to use it

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Doug Belshaw talks about his use of Netbooks and Linux in the classroom

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Jose’ Picardo talks about how to install and use Audacity the free Open Souce audio recorder

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Miles Berry talking about Moodle

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Michelle Walters on how to get started with Open Source Software

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Miles Berry talks about the Open Source Schools website

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NB: For those of you with a technical bent the links to an iPhone, WMV, OGG Vorbis and loads of other versions of these videos are available at the blip.tv site : http://learn4life.blip.tv/. Just have a look at the controls for embedding in the show player.

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Image attribution to Bill Gracey on Flickr under this CC Licence

‘The revolution doesn’t happen when society adopts new tools, it happens when society adopts new behaviours‘ Clay Shirkey

That pithy sentence uttered in the new UsNow film couldn’t be more true, especially in the world of innovation in education that this blog constantly addresses.

So far this year I have been pulling focus on informal learning outside the wire of traditional institutions - in 2009 I am going to be more concerned with looking at the research and opinion that surrounds this arena and focus on highlighting and amplifying ideas and practice from individuals that might contribute to change in those places of learning and show concrete examples of how that practice demonstrates workable innovation - I’ll be searching out, interviewing and pushing practitioners, policy makers and others to reflect on how they think change can be brought about and banging on about 21st century learning, identity, curricula and literacy.

I’m not a researcher and I’m not an academic but I do have a passion for digital media and a drive to show others’ innovative practice going on now in schools, colleges and HE institutions. I think the change is happening too fast for academia and part of what this site is about is documenting and mapping those pivotal changes as they evolve through the eyes of those individuals who have the vision to innovate.

I’ve been interviewing people for over five years now and I am beginning to sense a wider change starting to happen so I’ll be out and about interviewing people on video about how innovation, informal learning and bottom up practice might change education in the UK and how it could do that in practical and scalable ways.

I’m not really interested in formalising this activity but more about disseminating how such behaviours might effect change in some small way or get people to consider doing things differently over time in both strategic and localised contexts within their own communities.

I’ll also be challenging policy makers to enter the debate and show some interest other than just through traditional media, soundbites or third party buffers - that certainly will be a challenge.

It should be a busy year.

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Can you imagine teaching Digital Literacy using a chalkboard like this

Photo attribution aidan.expedition’s remasterfed Einstein photo on Flickr under this CC Licence

Anyone who reads this blog on a regular basis knows that I constantly monitor any references to Digital Literacy in the blogosphere and further afield. One of the recent tools I have been using to gather attention or smart focus on those two little words has been Tweet Beep, this alerts me via email to any mention of that phrase - I like to see who is micro-blogging, Tweeting, talking about this topic and any references to research that might be current. It winnows out the wheat from the chaff that comes out of the constant stream of information that is the Twitterverse and delivers the results right to my door in the form of choice tweets in an email.

One such one was this:

Joe Wilson's Twitter on NGUS

I follow Joe Wilson on a regular basis on Twitter and we have had some banter back and forth but I also follow nearly 600 hundred other people as well and sometimes I miss the nuggets that come out of this particular river of info. Tweet Beep helps me pan for gold and in this case it certainly filtered out a very rich seam indeed.

The Next Generation User Skills Report was commissioned by Joe - it is a pretty substantial piece of research just published and I consider it to be one of the most important documents to come out about Digital Literacy in the UK. It is a “must read” for anyone interested in our future.

Quite simply, what it does is examine the idea that there is a productivity gap in the Scottish workplace that Higher Order ICT skills could help close. Ostensibly this is a document produced for the Scottish Qualifications Authority but it is extremely pertinent to the UK as a whole and examines developments in US, Europe and the rest of the UK. It looks at defining a basic set of skills (Next Generation User Skills) and identifying the gaps that exist in provision in the run up to 2013. It doesn’t set out to attempt to solve how to do this but is a very thorough analysis of the lay of the land at the moment.

I particularly liked the fact that, together with a project in Yorkshire and Humber, they were able to break down and map those gaps in provision against existing qualifications, awards and pedagogy in the UK and see how that might project against possible needs of employers and other stakeholders- at last - some informed vision but it isn’t prescriptive in any way.

I also love the fact, unlike a lot of BECTA publications which have a lot of slick photos and very little thought about deep content, this publication has a lot of very simple diagrams, charts and visual representations of data that are right to the point - that’s a big plus.

There’s a lot of variety in there with a lot of thought going into visual representation especially with clear colour coding and shading but it’s not overly slick -  and design doesn’t overwhelm content.

You are also presented with open questions in the form of prompts for writing at the end of the report to enable you to reflect on the content in the light of the research - this worked for me - it made me actually think about/ make notes on what I had read. I have rarely seen so much thought put into the way information is presented.

So we are encouraged to think about Employability & workplace skills, pedagogy, qualifications, identity, informal learning, digital citizenship and a host of other variables – and reflect on what are needs in terms of filling the shortfalls by 2013, through the focus of IT & digital literacy skills. The way ICT is mapped onto the curriculum is very well covered and the suggestion is that ICT is no longer a discreet skillset to be taught, once ubiquity of conditions for learning with ICT becomes the norm, seems an obvious outcome.

I’m not going to go into any more depth because I haven’t the time here to precis the whole thing. Instead - download it from here and do that yourself now - it’s a 57 page PDF document but I repeat it is one of the best pieces of analysis of the Digital Literacy Landscape I have read in recent years.

It’s timely and it sparks a debate about where we go from here. At last someone has done the groundwork to prepare authoritative reflection on systemic and cultural change in this area.

If you are a policy maker in the UK and you do not read it - you will be seriously uninformed.

David Kay, Bob McGonigle, Walter Patterson  and Barbara Tabbiner have done an excellent job here.

Download and read it now!

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Becta’s new Next Generation Learning site.

Corporate lockdown

Photo attribution Chotda’s photostream on Flickr under this CC licence

It’s good to see this arrive as a baseline info centre for teachers, parents and businesses but am I alone in thinking there’s one thing missing?

Where’s the bit where the community can evolve around the content and localise it? Er - a newsletter signup or maybe a locked in forum down the line? We know that doesn’t work very well by now because content cannot be reconfigured for local community use.

I don’t feel churlish saying this - someone has to point it out and loudly and clearly until there is some engagement and dialogue on the matter and things change.

Unlike the Strategies Site which had the courage to introduce del.icio.us (and who are going to implement Diigo) and ratings,  and who also have lots of video exemplars and content that can be linked to and thereby RSS‘d for use by local communities - the Becta site is, in effect, “closed”.

I’m sorry to bang on about this but if that site were a web 2.0 service introduced by a startup it would be a massive fail in terms of audience reach. It is, in effect, a lockout and proprietary.

Yes, I realise the argument is that there is little takeup of these resources by parents and or teachers (certainly not employers). But unless you embed them in there it is not going to happen is it?

Fine grained pedagogy is smarter and more personalised

Photo attribution to alternativemeans‘ photostream on Flickr under this CC licence

Case in point of how other teachers are using Web 2.0 services to define what I call granularity of pedagogy in localised communities - watch this film:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=vYxw6qrWt14

Now if you were to transpose that process onto the Next Generation site you have active community use around the content or at least the foundation scaffolding of building one in tandem with awareness.

But of course that would be more open, collaborative and never do…or do the developers employed by Becta not get this?

Too complex and time-consuming for the average teacher

Photo attribution mrbisson on Flickr under this CC licence

The other argument that these processes are too complex or time consuming for teachers or parents to use is also redundant. This is exactly the sort of thing that should be going on at the NCSL, TDA etc in terms of “learning” for NQTs and senior management. Why isn’t that awareness there - maybe it is I haven’t seen it?

What a website should be

The bottom line for me these days with websites, is :

- is it open,
- is it transparent
- is it shareable
- is it remixable for local community use

The argument that this isn’t happening or there isn’t enough takeup is no longer good enough in my book and I’m going to say it long and loud. How can you ever expect users to engage with these smarter technologies of you don’t build them in from the start and at least make them a viable option?

Lack of strategic and cultural infrastructure

Photo attribution to Happy to be Saffanna’s pic under this CC licence

The infrastructure to bind these technologies in has indeed not been implemented yet or been built out. Why is this I ask myself?

The point is - if you are going to have a Next Generation learning site predicated on certain instances of technologies but you don’t build in the open interactive aspects of that technology you are not going to have much dialogue.

To have a signup whereby you get issued with regular updates is, in my opinion, out of the stone age.

I really am not trying to be provocative here - it just seems to me that if you do not build an infrastucture to reflect the distributed nature of your reach and audience you are going to stagnate from the start. I get paid to tell my business clients this…

I’m passionate about this and do wonder why there is such a lag on this aspect of interactivity from an agency that purports to be:

“the government agency leading the national drive to ensure the effective and innovative use of technology throughout learning.”

I hope I’m just not another voice crying in the wilderness yet again…

If government agencies are serious about building in strategic infrastructure that reaches out to wider communities this needs to happen.

It’s like building a brand new ocean liner without any gangplanks or access points other than the one at the front.

The individual, the local and the global - distributed communities and personalisation aggregated

Photo attribution to Scott Mcleod’s photo under this CC licence

For me it is all about linking local and global communities around a spine of centralised resources. This series of Outside the Wire posts have been specifically about that kind of infrastructure, thinking, scaffolding and engagement. But where is it in the current system? Well not anywhere as far as I can see - there is no recognition of the fact that digital, community, identity and how it interfaces or connects with institutions is changing and changing fast? Where is this debate - really - I mean it - where exactly is it?

What is needed is a digital cultural infrastructure that deals with this on a professional and personal level and we are nowhere near that yet. Institutions will begin to change and fragment in terms of teaching and learning with reference to digital culture and locking things down and out where there are smarter ways, is a complete and absolute dead end; a complete waste of time.

So I will say it again - where is the recognition that there needs to be a facilitation of the use of social media technologies to personalise and transform learning? Where is the smart use of open source community building tools? There seems to be no awareness of this…

Counter arguments

I can see the counter arguments arising and these usually are:

- sustainablility

- scalability

- persistance

- identity

- security

- “tech trauma”

And I will address these specifically in future posts with exemplars but not here today.

But I am tired of attending particularly wonderful sessions at BECTA, Futurelab, Handheld Learning et al where people say at the end - “but this has got to change” -  but never saying how - it’s all very aspirational but it gets people and communities nowhere.

Smart focus research that allows for distributed activity globally

I would suggest that a smart focus was put on the practitioners who are using these tools in isolation at the moment and see how they are binding them into their school communities within a globally distributed context.

Is research tackling this - if so where?

Photo attribution Watz under this CC licence

I see the problem as this at the moment, even with quantative and qualitative research in institutions. That individuals who are joining up and aggregating resources - rapidly sharing them with other individuals globally to effect change are the main drivers. It is not going on within institutions in enough numbers, yet, because there is no mechanism to understand this other than through institutional channels and this also needs to open out and change; academia usually turns its lens on institutions that are geographically placed within 20th century structures and do not see the granularity of the individual within a 21st globally aggregated educloud context - they are looking through the wrong end of the telescope.

To be specific - if your focus is on schools, and if one individual within a school is having an amazing effect on the teaching and learning of their pupils, then that research will miss that hidden infrastructure because it still has its lens and methodology turned on the institution and not the global back channel with those distributed individuals in it - again a parochial mindset. If people are researching this please send me links.

The traditional dismissal

The traditional view has been, “Oh they are charismatics or evangelists” - and once they try to scale up such practices within their institutions (unless they are part of a senior management team) then they usually hit a brick wall.

And yes, this has been the case in the past but what people are missing is that one individual is usually part of a much bigger global distributed community attached to a smarter educloud.

Validation, recognition and scalability

Photo attribution to zen under this CC licence

Yet there is no mechanism to validate and extend these individuals’ practice beyond their classroom or school because institutions are not geared up for that yet, and because the very nature of a distributed system requires radical social and cultural change.

It would seem an obvious model to me that the community building and learning outside the institution can be made to do the heavy lifting, but without the will and cultural infrastructure it is going to fail and stagnate into small pools of practice here and there.

What there needs to be here, is vision, experiment, trial and risk and I don’t see that forthcoming from anywhere in government or its agencies for change - and it’s a tragedy of missed opportunity if it continues in this way.

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Mark researches works at the  ICT&S CENTER FOR ADVANCED STUDIES AND RESEARCH, Salzburg, Austria  as a Research Fellow / Teaching Assistant and a lecturer at UPPER AUSTRIAN UNIVERSITY OF APPLIED SCIENCES [FH OÖ], Steyr, Austria. He’s currently engaged in Information Society / Web Science Research and actively researching and publishing within various interdisciplinary and trans-disciplinary academic fields, including: Communication Science, Computer Science, Political Science and Pedagogical Science. He’s responsible for managing the ICT&S Center’s academic reference and media-resource collection. He’s a highly participatory observer and active developer of mobile learning scenarios. In other words he lifecasts his daily experiences and talks with and videos nearly everyone he meets and not just fellow techies but all sorts of people on his travels.

But more than that he’s a good friend who has a boundless curiosity for social media and people. So when I wanted to test out the new Googlemail Video feature he was happy to respond - first we talked on a first generation Asus EeePc and then on a Macbook Pro for comparison purposes. But we got talking around the issues of kit and went on to wider social issues to do with how people connect and what his research involves.

In the two videos below the conversation meanders between several topics but the focus, as always is the use of Social Media, cloud computing and what its social ramifications are for educators and their community. As he says “So long as we keep the conversation going..” and that, for me is the most important point of all.

This blog is mirrored at the Socialmediaclassroom - I would recommend everyone to join up on there to continue the discussion

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I was waiting for others to download and plugin but already I have had two distance conversations between colleagues that might very well have taken me weeks to establish and formalise. Already I have had virtual meetings that have led onto agendas that I could not have explained as easily by email or would have passed me by if scanning text.  What it does is focus attention if used smartly. It’s different from asynchronous video and it seemed better to me than Skype and certainly scores over that by use of an embedded text box which I don’t have to hunt around for.

The quality of the video is superb and the sound very clear. In a 40 minute discussion with John Cuthell testing out the system we only had one break and that was soon re-established.

Where this scores for people like me is the synchronous, real-time nature of contact. It’s immediate, human and easy. Google have introduced something at one time so simple and ubiquitous that I can see its takeup will be popular in the teaching community.

When they make the plugin automatic it will be massive - I can guarantee that already.

Questions over network threading,  bandwidth load and client machines in institutions is another matter but that is what a wireless modem dongle is for…

I’m already trying to figure out to get Camtwist to show my desktop on it shouldn’t be a problem in the settings at the back end of Gmail. If it works you’ve got a desktop sharer as well - use other programs if you are using a PC - I haven’t tried it yet but here are the two settings in Gmail settings and Camtwist if they do - let me know.

Only problem I can see so far is that the dropdown on the Settings for Gmail video doesn’t recognise other cameras… so one to look out for or try to hack.

You can download it here - do it now and if you haven’t got a gmail account I would get one now.

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Serendipity is a wonderful thing - I am curious - sometimes too curious for my own good but today I had a few things happen that gave me an insight into the future of education and I’d like to share them with you. The first is an interview I did with an old friend, Alfie Dennan of Moblog.

He runs through how Moblog is used in Education in the film and we did talk further later about how effective Moblog is in schools. He even talked about the genesis of the business where he got together with his co-founder to solve a problem of getting data to a phone wirelessly but what intrigued me even more was his use of Moblog and other new API technologies to bind together community involvement to tell stories to change the way people do things. A culture shift in other words towards using social media and digital tech to effect change and build learning and awareness and all done within an ethical framework. Sound familiar - yes some core curriculum for the new digital literacies there I think and Alfie is a fine example of how to do it. I thoroughly endorse Moblog - I’ve been using it to put photos on the web for almost five years now from my phone.

Ethical use of Social Media

But now we come to the interesting part. We then talked about his campaign that used Moblog and its community and outside observers and interested parties to spread the word about XDRTB - an insidious disease but a mouthful to remember. He talks about the creative process that went into the campaign and I recommend you read about the genesis of the whole thing here. What is fascinating about this interview from an educational viewpoint is it is a case study in innovation. How ideas coalesce in someone’s mind to bind together a learning community for the common good. Watch the film and see how the idea evolved - it is a rare case study of how someone uses personal insight and creativity to work up a really engaging idea that binds together people in a common cause. It says more about the uses of Moblog than any dry demonstration of functionality could do - ever. And it’s inspirational.

What is fascinating about it is the way Alfie worked out how to mashup Google Maps aggregated map pin feature, Moblog and an entire community of very technically savvy people to tell a story through the medium of a low level ARG. It’s also for an ethical cause and I think it is one of many digital narratives that are going to be emerging soon. As you watch the film remember it was the back end community that made this story possible. Some people used highly creative ways to find the objects hidden in London and the ways they gave out and found the clues using GPS phones, photos, Second Life and even a fake number station is quite incredible. Here are a group of people who are highly technically literate contributing and collaborating in something more than just a game. At the end of the interview he also talked about the process of unboxing but more about that later.

Ramifications for Education

Now anyone who reads this blog will know I have been saying for some time that teachers should be embracing these social tech tools to bring together communities and where I find excellent exemplars I always highlight them. So just as I was finishing this blog - I noticed a post by Tom Barrett - Woices and Google Earth for Digital Fiction.

Mashups with maps and other apps

I had been aware Tom was up to something by his posts on Twitter so I popped over to have a shufti.

Basically a lot of the same elements as those used by Alfie above are there. Tom took as his inspiration Ewan McIntosh’s talk at the Scottish Learning Festival about Charles Cummings’ The 21 Steps. Which is essentially a Google Earth mashup with a very pretty skin and scripting from Penguin books.

His idea for mapping parts of James and the Giant Peach onto the landscape in the form of digital narratives is excellent. I first blogged about the uses of this process back in 2006 and it’s good to see some predictions coming true. And, of course things are getting easier and easier in the interim.

I would recommend people read Henry Jenkins’ Transmedia Storytelling 101 and stuff about non-linear narratives for a bit of background on this process.

This is where it gets techie - look away now

Now the third piece of the puzzle came with joining Howard Rheingold’s new initiative - Socialmedia Classroom - well worth doing! If you like tinkering with Open Source stuff on the web this is also an excellent site to visit.

In the developers forum Sam Rose posted a video on the Future of Drupal (and many other open source web applications) from the Drupalcon Boston 2008 conference.

Don’t worry if you know nothing about RDF files and triples  - it basically shows how information is becoming more contextutalised and how we can put it together and pull out information in a much smarter way. It’s part of the semantic web - Curriculum Online was meant to be based on a RDF standard but it never went down that route but then APIs weren’t in that much abundance then. But ignore all that tech talk and just look at the film.

Open Source the future

All of this has definite ramifications for education and Digital Literacy in this country. More and more people are finding it easier to install and run VLEs with help from Consultants and 3rd Party Services to put together the resources they want that reflect the community rather than a commercial product or solution that is generic.

It may not be the case now but I predict this will become more and more common in schools. Especially once they realise that they can be locked into unresponsive and non-extensible services that cost an arm and a leg in yearly licences.

No I can’t see a whole teaching force having these advanced skills but what I can see is the ability to clip online Web 2.0 apps together as easily as Lego in the future. It’s there in applications like Ning already. With the iPhone and now the G1 Android phone - these things are getting more and more ubiquitous in the teaching world and applications like Twitter are providing the glue for easier, speedier communications between distributed teaching and learning communities.

It is all about community based linkups not the tech remember but the ease with which the tech is helping the distributed links to glue together is driving community change as is obvious by the two examples above.

The Becta initiative on Open Source Schools is a small start. But what people have to understand is  that educational software, in the main, will wither on the vine in time unless it can do a job so simply and pertinently - otherwise the social aspects of teaching will just bind in, co-opt and collaborate with mashups outside of the system creating distributed networks of learning that more truly reflect the communities that use them.

Unboxing

Alfie Dennan talked briefly about “unboxing” and I’d like to include a link to a video of Ian Usher demonstrating in his usual inimitable way the whole process on Seesmic below.

And yes, he did give me permission - enjoy your week.

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I have started up a companion site to interview people in Second Life about identity, self, formal and informal learning.

It’s called accelerometer. So why is it called that? Well if you go over there you’ll find out - it’s a new initiative and I’m going to be doing one interview a week on a regular basis from inside SL.

I hope to build up a picture, over time, of how people use the Second Life platform and the learning process in there. I believe that there is a new Digital Culture of learning evolving extremely fast and that Virtual Worlds of whatever flavour will be the next stage in that process. Anyway if you want to hear case studies please pop on over.

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Photo attribution Mr Ush AKA Ian Usher on Flickr CC

Why you should use Twitter

I have just interviewed Drew Buddie (AKA digitalmaverik on Twitter) about his escapades with Twitter over the weekend at the Isle of Wight Conference. He also talks about his involvement at the e-competent tutor meeting today.

Twitter at the Isle of Wight Conference 2008

First off I have to say that I wasn’t at either event but I did talk with Joe Dale at the Isle of Wight Conference on MFL over FlashMeeting. The buzz at the meeting was nothing I had ever experienced before - Joe had obviously put an immense amount of effort into the conference and the delegates where literally ecstactic about the event. I appreciate the hard work that obviously went into that and it was an amazing success. It was a truly collaborative event with people using digital media like Twitter, FlashMeeting, and dynamic web pages to show the world how to run a CPD event for teachers. All that effort and collaboration really showed in the feedback delegates were giving on camera at the end.

Drew gave a session on Twitter and not only that his feedback forms were put online as well! He talks of how students showed teachers a few things as well. Excellent - this is just how to run a conference. I asked Joe if any SLT were there and it seems not. Let’s hope they get enthusiastic staff beating down their doors to demand this is the way they should do things in the future. Perhaps the upcoming NCSL Teachmeet in Nottingham May 2009 will turn a few heads but somehow I suspect word will have got around by then.

He also outlines what happened at the e-competent HE tutor workshop and how Ning was used to augment the day. You can pick up the Tweets of both meetings by clicking these links iowconference08 and ect08.

We need CPD like this now everywhere and for everyone

Both these events were excellent exemplars of how to do CPD. Highly dynamic, collaborative and engaging. But I won’t write any more just listen to Drew talking - his passion for what he does shines out. This is the start of a revolution in Digital Learning and I can see this threading through the teaching community just as the use of USB sticks did when they first came out. But don’t take my word for it - just listen to the podcast.

Drew’s Interview.

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Which one is real? - Click to play

The informal use of Social Media outside schools can be a very strong driver for change in learning. I want to give concrete examples of how our culture is changing in this area. All involve the spread of what Josie Fraser called in her recent SocialTech blog - Digital Literacy.

Mirror Worlds as effective informal learning spaces

In the previous post, I covered the Virtual Worlds Conference in London last week and the emergence of ‘ad hoc’, informal ways people met up to do business.

On the night before that particular conference happened, I was invited down to the Greyhound Pub in Kensington to attend a pre-meet, virtual-to-real or real-to-virtual, event. Depending on how you look at it; it can get confusing at times, but stick with me, this is highly relevant to teaching and learning.

The Greyhound Pub - - Click to Play

Virtual to real and back again

The very first thing I encountered was a massive screen in the back of the pub, showing me the virtual Greyhound Bar and all the Avatars there. And in the virtual bar there was a screen showing a live video feed of the customers at the real bar. The Greyhound in real and virtual space is owned by Kwame Oh, (Julius Sowu).

Where a real life place is copied in virtual space this is often called a Mirror World. Buildings and features are replicated to mirror the real world.

Entertainment and leisure as powerful informal learning?

Kwame Oh - Click to Play

Kwame Oh is an ebullient character committed to mashing up Second and Real Life for entertainment, tourism, leisure and business purposes. He’s a social media entrepreneur who understands that virtual worlds need a community context (at least to begin with), but he’s also an innovator and project manager who has a deep insight into the digital landscape. What is more he’s got a sense of fun and a spirit of innovation and creativity. Surely just the qualities needed to generate new business in this new, digital world?

Whilst some academics may reflect on how best to get teachers to navigate  the steep learning curve of Second Life, and there have been good initiatives recently to do this,  Kwame seems to manage it in other adults with an ease that’s enviable. His secret? - other people.

Informal facilitation in a fun space

The pub is a perfect place for some communities to meet and have real life facilitators introduce them in an informal situation to Second Life. It’s not rocket science - it’s all about people and community. You don’t need an orientation island just a pleasant informal social setting that builds on the real life context. This would work just as well in a coffee shop or cafe kitted out in much the same way.

People learn better when they are having fun

No amount of tech fiddling about with avatars is going to get teachers into a virtual world. What might, it seems, is other people, and in informal community learning spaces with real-to-virtual and virtual-to-real initiatives. It’s a trick other educators seem to have missed but seems, to me, to be a simple but vital component to success.

We all learn better when we are having fun…the informal takes off the pressure and creates an environment where everyone can collaborate without fear of failure.

Kwame co-opted Nik Hewitt, who built the Daily Mail building next to the Greyhound pub in Second Life. In the brief, informal, interview below he describes what he does.

Kwame convinced Nik to replicate the virtual space. Now Nik mashes up extremely interesting things, like running Open Sim from his iPhone for instance, so he was the perfect choice for a business partnership.

Nikk Huet AKA Nik Hewitt - Click to play

A new mindset and projection of self for new learning and business

Nina Allam AKA Brie Janick; Rachel Smith AKA Cleopatra Charleville

Click to play

Two of Kwame’s facilitators are Nina Allam and Rachel Smith - both are also known as Brie Janick and Cleopatra Charleville respectively. Brie is estate director for the London Sims and Rachel is the Marketing Director.

Their roles are changing and their jobs evolving with the takeup of the popularity of the space. Listen to their interview and see the mindset they have towards learning new skills and going out and getting new business. Did anyone “train” them for this. Well I doubt it, as virtual worlds haven’t been around that long…

This is what I mean about Digital Literacy and a Digital Culture. You have to have the mindset for a change of culture to be able to deconstruct and rebuild age old institutions. This is just one example.

This is how it happens - people take the initiative for change and run with it. Instead of being institutionalised and locked down to outmoded ways of working they refresh what they do in new and innovative ways. We need to allow our schools, management and teaching force to go down some of this route to effect change and drive the economy.

In the next post I will be highlighting how things are changing in education at grass roots level and the possibilities of co-opting these new ways of working into our lives. We cannot afford not to.

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