In the office

Once again this week has been mainly about writing workshop materials.

I’m running a workshop on behalf of the South East Regional Support Centre down in Winchester at the end of the month titled (deep breath) Using Technology to Support the Student Learner Experience. I’m calling it SSLE. If you want to suggest something snappier I’m all ears!

The title covers such a multitude of possibilities that it’s a question of deciding what to leave out. The premise is mainly about using technology to develop higher level learning (at least according to Bloom’s Taxonomy) so we’re going to spend a bit of time reflecting on changing student expectations and the current state of the attendees’ institutions as well as exploring Gilly Salmon’s work on e-Moderation. From a techie point of view we’ll be having a good old play with:

• Collaborative tools (mainly Google Docs but also more informal stuff like Scribblar and Wallwisher)
• Using tools like Myna and Audacity for giving students audio feedback
• Using wikis effectively
• Edmodo, as an example of creating a walled garden social network (also been investigating Wall.fm – jury’s still out)

The Google Docs bit has been the hardest to build activities round, mostly because I want to avoid spending ages getting the attendees sorted out with accounts on the the day so I’ve got a domain set up with some logins ready. I’ll need to road test it before feeling confident with it.

Google Wave was going to be an option but that doesn’t seem so relevant now, somehow.

The Digital Storytelling Workshop is parked for the moment but I did come across a good example from the Uni of Chester’ Derek France of using podcasting and digital storytelling to enhance geography fieldwork.

PRINCE2

In a couple of weeks I’m taking an intensive course on becoming a PRINCE2 practitioner as project management plays quite a big part in what we do at Netskills. Both Helen and I are attending. It’s going to be hard work and there’s quite a bit of pre-course work to get through. A week long session that crams everything in feels a very unnatural way for me to learn so I’m looking forward to it and draeding it in equal measure.

I’ve been using MindMeister to get my thoughts in order prior to the course. Here’s the monstrous mind map (work in progress).

Now I’ve mentioned it here I’ll have to pass it or look really daft!

…on a personal note

My daughter turns 6 today. My wife and I had a bit of a debate as to whether we should get her a Nintendo DSi but have decided on an iPod Touch. She’s already quite skilled at using my iPhone so the interface should be familiar and despite the lack of microphone and camera I still think it’s a more flexible device for learning and fun than the DS.

I think I must have been the only person on the planet buying a 3rd generation iPod Touch yesterday after THIS was announced the night before.

And I’ve been looking at bikes. One of the main benefits of moving to Newcastle was a vastly reduced commute (it’s about 3 miles, down from 23) so the plan has always been to get a bike. So far I’ve been all mouth and no trousers but it’s sale time so I’ve been into the Edinburgh Bycicle Cooperative in Byker and I’m humming and ha-ing between the Ridgeback Velocity and the Specialized Sirrus (pictured). Any suggestions?

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This week I have been mostly…

…writing workshops and training materials. It’s proving slower than I’d anticipated but I’m actually having to do quite a lot of thinking through the early stages and my reflective tendency means I have to mull things over for a while before taking action. The benefit of that is that the results are quite well formed. The downside is that it’s not a very dynamic process where it’s easy for others to get involved. I’m trying to achieve a better balance.

Online Activity

Being away for 2 weeks has meant I’ve been able to detach myself from the online world for a bit. I uninstalled all my twitter clients and turned off my work email just to stop me getting tempted. I realised just before I went on holiday that I’d got the balance wrong somewhere and focussing so much on Twitter was causing as much stress and unproductivity as it was helping me.

I’m going to be scaling back my use of Twitter and focussing more on blogging and reading other blogs.

This, of course, is all under review. Everything is always under review!

Year 2 as a student

I’ve enrolled for the PG Diploma year of Sheffield Hallam’s MSc in Technology Enhanced Learning, Innovation and Change (TELIC2). Really looking forward to it.

…and on a personal note

My brother’s in Japan and he and his wife had a wee boy on the 23rd August with all the punctuality of the Shinkansen (1am of the morning of the due date). I learnt that the Japanese health system doesn’t “do” pain relief. Ouch! All went well apart from that and we’ll be meeting him at Christmas.

Have you been to Dumfries and Galloway recently? Why not? We had a lovely week there. It’s beautiful and there’s plenty of stuff for kids. I highly recommend Cream of Galloway visitor centre for the ice cream and the Smuggler’s Warren play area which has to be the most inspired piece of fun-engineering I’ve ever come across. Oh, and the ospreys at Threave Castle – thrilling!

If you’re the camping kind try the Gillespie Leisure site at Sandyhills near Dalbeattie.

(BTW, the cows are Belted Galloways)

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

My weekly round up of things at work and beyond

At work

Collaborative Writing

We have a major project on at work at the moment and I found myself using Google Docs properly for the first time. I’m a little late to the party.

Initially, this was working collaboratively with @sboneham (who must be sick of me mentioning him on this blog). We have a series of documents to write on a number of topics and it seemed to make sense to do this together to get an idea of a format that would work.

It was a strange experience working in realtime on the same document whilst sitting in the same room but curiously energising. My usual pace of work is quite slow and reflective so this was a bit out of my comfort zone but well worth it. It forced me to think a bit harder but also not be so precious about ideas that I was putting down; not being afraid to put down half thought-out ideas and thinking “out loud”.

I also like the stripped down interface and the simplicity of the sharing options.

AR

I did a few posts on AR in the last week. I’ve found myself  thinking like a proper geographer, about how space is used and perceived, and it made me wonder what life would have been like had I actually decided to carry on and teach it.

Affective Context Learning

I’m still thinking a lot about digital storytelling and trying to find a way of explaining the importance of emotional responses in learning. Nick @shakletonjones expanded on his idea of an Affective Context Learning model with this video which offers an intriguing answer

Proper blog post on this coming shortly…

On a personal note

Walking

I spent a rare weekend with my Dad, tackling Ben Lawers (3982 ft)and BeinnGhlas (3618 ft) on the shores of Loch Tay (see pic); the first proper walking I’ve done for about 8 years, I reckon. It was wet and windy, slow going,  visibility was down to about 20m and it was completely fantastic! I tried out the MotionX app for the iPhone while we were up there. I can’t seem to work out how to attach the pictures I took using it but at least it’s some sort of evidence that  we actually made it (the battery only lasted long enough to get to the summit and have a bit of charge in case we got into trouble).

Click here to see our route in Google Maps

Contrary to disparaging comments from my sister-in-law I did NOT update my Facebook from the top of the mountain!

It was great to spend time with Dad and I’m looking forward to doing  more Munros in the future.

Spotify ads

I love Spotify and can handle the occassional ads…but I can’t help feeling that advertising music (heavy metal) that is completely different from what I’m listening to (Elbow) is pretty counter-productive.

I’m on holiday for the next 2 weeks. Whoop!

My overall impression was that I’m not going to get too excited about this first generation but I am looking forward to what’s coming.

Watching this future-gazing video made me realise a couple of reasons why AR still has a long way to go. (WARNING: gratuitous use of Coldplay!)

I said last week that one of the main shortcomings of the current crop was that they understood the spatial environment in terms of direction and distance. In real life if we’re navigating from place to place we do it along lines (roads, paths etc) and via nodes (junctions, bus stations) and avoiding barriers (rivers, walls, dodgy areas of town). So, two things; AR needs to be able to understand maps and REALLY good AR needs to understand MY perception of space by looking at my behaviour over time and recognising my choices.

The other issue struck me when I saw how “fixed” the points of interest were in the simulation. Not only did they not have the movement latency you get with the apps I’ve had a go with but they were pointing to doorways, adhering to the surface of walls, clinging to the edges of books etc.

From a technical point of view I guess a few things need to develop for that to happen:

• Processing speeds and connection rates in devices need to be substantially quicker
• GPS positioning and directional sensing need tightening

But more importantly, the app needs to be able to see the world as I read it, a little bit like facial recognition – spatial recognition, maybe. When I look at a shop I can recognise where the door is, I can read entrance and exit signs, I can distinguish between a war memorial and a dustbin. To get AR as good as it shows in the video the app needs to be able to do that too and that is a loooong way off!

AR apps need to understand better how us squishies use and understand our environment so I withold my satisfaction and unbridled excitement until that starts to happen. (Although I still think it’s all quite cool…)

NOTE: the video was flagged up on this post from the Writers’ Gateway blog and references a really good post by David Hopkins on Don’t Waste Your Time about whether AR has a place in education.

Digital Storytelling

Most of my attention this week has been geared towards writing materials for the forthcoming Digital Storytelling workshops I’m going to be running in November. That seems quite a way off but I’m determined to put this through a few iterations before presenting it.

The main thrust of the workshop will be looking at how to capture the whole process of digital storytelling, from research through to reflection and looking at different ways of making it assessable.

I’m getting a little stuck on issues of intellectual property. I’ll be bigging up use of Creative Commons but I’m looking for some examples of best practice for crediting images used – Creative Commons have a standard format but not many people seem to be following it. The other issue is regarding students’ copyright over their own original work.

I’ve been looking through JISC Digital Media’s guidance on it but may also put a call into JISC Legal.

On a related note, I posted a comment on Mike Herrity’s blog post about using Animoto and he turned it into a guest post! <blush> The teacher it refers to is Justin Banks, head of drama at the City School, Sheffield – someone I really enjoyed working with due to his innovative ideas and willingness to experiment.

The bitter sting of rejection

OK, that’s a little dramatic but a proposal I wrote in response to an invitation to tender from JISC was unsuccessful, I learnt at the end of last week. It would have been a good project to get my teeth into.  These things happen, though. I’ll take the feedback on board and have another go when the opportunity arises.

The sweet smell of success

My Sheffield Hallam Blackboard records page shows I have officially passed the PG Cert year of my Masters and am cleared for year 2. I’m really hoping that budget problems don’t cut a swathe through our small cohort, though. We’ve had a really good group.

I’ll do a review of the 1st year soon – many interesting and unexpected things learnt.

On a personal note…

This weekend we met up with some good friends from Matlock at the National Railway Museum. It was great just being able to pick up instantly where we left off with them. I miss Matlock but it’s definitely the people I miss the most.

…and we got the keys to our new house! Whoop! It was a slightly odd day, waiting till 3pm to pick up the keys only to turn up at the property to find that the previous owners were still there…which was awkward! So, we are now the proud owners of a lovely 3 bed semi in Newcastle, about a dozen large frogs (in the garden – see pic), some of the most outrageous ad hoc shelving I’ve ever seen and a to do list as long as the street (task 1: remove the shelving!).

There’s a shiny new app for the iPhone, iPod and iPad that looks really promising: Dragon Dictation from Nuance Communications. In a nutshell, it’s a tool for dictating text which can be added to a document or linked to social networking accounts like Twitter or Facebook. It’s spookily reliable (unless you happen to be a five year old girl – it had difficulty picking up my daughter’s voice generating gobble-de-gook sentences which she found heeeeeelarious!).

Dragon Dictation in action

James Clay has done a really good post on it which you should read.

2 things really appeal to me about this app;

1. It’s reliable enough for people with motor function problems to be able to quickly create large amounts of text giving all sorts of benefits for accessibility, inclusion and social participation in education (and beyond).
2. It’s another tool that moves the smartphone away from being primarily a content delivery system. On devices like the iPhone, text entry on anything other than short snippets of information is tricky thanks to small buttons small buttons so Tweeting is fine but blogging or document writing can be quite tricky. With Dragon Dictation you can get round more of those shortcomings and contribute more.

I’m looking forward to using this in the future and it’s sister application Dragon Search.