Experimental Blog

Ch..Ch..Ch. . Changes

2009-11-22T18:34:00.003+01:00

In the damp, dark, fag-end of the year it is easy to forget how much is going on in a wee place like Scotland to drive on the knowledge economy in School, College, University, Community and Workbased learning. Each sector is in its own way facing large transitional challenges

Schools - dealing with Curriculum for Excellence, New Inspection Framework and roll out of GLOW
Colleges - new Inspection Framework, national certificate developments, impact of recession and Curriculum for Excellence, emergence of Scotland's Colleges as a support agency.
Workplace - UK Vocational Reform Programme and impact on Scotland, impact of recession, emergence of Skills Development Scotland as policy and support agency.
Community Based - struggling with funding cutbacks at all levels and looking for new models of support
University - perhaps not enough change but deep anxieties around funding.

There can be high levels of introspection in each of these sectors which can detract from their support for life long learning and the needs of our citizens. Schools can overly focus on schooling whatever that may be without reference to wider economy and vocational needs of learners. Colleges and work-based learning on too narrow a vocational skill set without looking at core skills , personal and social development and transferable skills. Community learning on engagement with but not progression for learners and Universities stuck on research while being inconsistent on skills , retention and the learning and teaching experience they offer.

Some of these challenges are not new - but there are increasingly useful internal and external developments that can drive change.

E- Assessment in Practice

2009-11-16T12:58:00.005+01:00

Last week I spent two days attending and presenting at the E-Assessment in Practice Conference held at the UK Defence Academy Shrivenham. A few things jumped out.

MCQ ( multiple choice questions) Mainly in corporate space but now reaching down to most levels of employee, organisations around the world use on-line MCQ tests as a means of hiring, firing and auditing staff understanding of procedures ( compliance). Success at interview could be based on your personality profile and in some tightly regulated environments redundancy looms for those who cannot pass six monthly tests around procedures and product knowledge. For all the science and ingenuity that these systems have - I have seen this coming for a wee while, I am uncomfortable with the methodology and practices used here ( for instance American Real Estate Agents are traditionally tightly assessed in this way , go figure ! ) - but teachers and learners do need to know these are the standard employer practices that lie ahead.

Advances in on-line test generation and feedback systems for Maths , Physics and Engineering . Two or three systems were presented that allow both the automatic creation of mathematical problems and the automation of feedback to learners. These systems are really clever and feedback from learners does seem positive. These systems do seem very soulless but then I suppose this may be in keeping with the cold rationale of Science. They are designed to give learners almost limitless practice with computer generated feedback in areas like differentiation, algebra and calculus where undergraduates struggle. My question in this perhaps unfairly would be around the quality of the teaching input. Some of these systems look like closed loops that allow researchers to get on with research while undergraduates communicate with computers - but this may be unjustified cynicism.

Finally a few things sit better with my universe. Sarah De Freitas did an excellent presentation in developments in Serious Gaming worth looking out for Nano-mission, Flood Sim and the mind control offered by NeuroSky . The QCA presented some good guidance on on-line assessment available from the efutures website and the Open University showcased amazing work around language teaching and assessment http://www.webcef.org/.

And as final footnote of the innovative offerings present from BTL , Tag Learning , OpenSim and others perhaps with exception of NeuroSky we are working out on the frontiers with them.

Virtual World of War Poets 1914-1918

2009-11-03T12:54:00.001+01:00

A timely resource with Rememberance Sunday approaching but one that should also make us pause and think about our teaching pratice and how they are going to change - when learners can immerse themselves in world's like this or better still build resources like this ..

A Twibe

2009-10-18T17:04:00.003+01:00

Since last year's Scottish Learning Festival I've been encouraging everyone in hearing distance to develop some Scottish Community for educational twitterers in Scotland along the lines of the aggregation for blogs provided by Scotedublogs.

Really so folks can quickly hook up with other Scottish Educational Twitterers quickly and efficiently. I have been using Twibes for about a year with some other UK based projects and finally on Friday , as I was asked again who to follow in Scottish Education, I thought I might as well start the ball rolling.

So if you are reading this work in Scottish Education or have an interest in Scottish Education - schools , colleges, Further Education , work-based or other why not join our twibe.

Photosketch software

2009-10-08T14:36:00.001+01:00

Somethings are just too clever to explain

ePortfolios

2009-10-08T12:22:00.001+01:00

Here is nice explanation of an e-portfoilo and how Google could be the answer

Did You Know 4.0

2009-09-17T14:34:00.004+01:00

Useful wee resource for talking to paper-age- people

Michael Wesch - quote from proceedings of ALT-C 2009

"It took tens of thousands of years for writing to emerge after humans spoke their first words. It took thousands more before the printing press and a few hundred again before the telegraph.Today a new medium of communication emerges every time somebody creates a new web application. A Flickr here, a Twitter there, and a new way of relating to others emerges. New types of conversation, argumentation, and collaboration are realized. Using examples from
anthropological fieldwork in Papua New Guinea, YouTube, classrooms, and “the future,” this presentation will demonstrate the profound yet often unnoticed ways in which media “mediate” our conversations, classrooms, and institutions. We will then apply these insights to an exploration of the implications for how we may need to rethink how we teach, what we teach, and who we think we are teaching. "

The VLE is Dead

2009-09-09T16:05:00.003+01:00

Some sectors are just discovering Virtual Learning Environments so it is premature to hail the death of these systems. I think the most telling point is the question to academic audience

How many of you would go to your Virtual Learning Environment to learn anything ?

For this audience a VLE is barren closed sterile environment suitable for learners but not a place where they would go to learn.

Have a listen - excellent speakers and the discussion is really broader than a discussion about the technology it is really a discussion about the organisation of learning within an institutional framework.

This is another excellent session from ALTC2009 . As you might expect I think they are setting the benchmark for using technology to share sessions at the conference.

Transformational Educational Development and made in Scotland

2009-08-25T22:29:00.004+01:00

If you want to see a wee glimpse of what the future of learning is then have a look at this presentation
You can't fly through the virtual world depicted in this presentation but pupils and teachers in Scotland will be doing just that soon.

What is important about this isn't just the technological platform (but that will be engaging enough for many) it is the opportunities for learning and the potential for new kinds of collaboration and assessment that platforms like this offer. Well done Derek Robertson and Learning and Teaching Scotland. This is most exciting development I have seen in last couple of years and it is truly transformational.

The system won't change the skills needed to be a great artist - but in terms of providing a great platform for exemplification and sharing - this is it.

Have a look and be gobsmacked - looking forward to seeing the real thing.

Universal healthcare is terrorist recruitment tool

2009-08-14T14:54:00.001+01:00

I thought this was a spoof - but it is not . I have heard and dismissed criticism of American news coverage before - but this is unbelievable. Should be compulsory viewing for politics and modern studies students - how media is manipulated.
Q Is this credible and valid criticism of NHS in UK
Thanks @bengoldacre and @cdmilligan

Evolution Gif

2009-08-09T22:57:00.008+01:00

Found at http://www.changethethought.com/evolution-gif/
Now did this come before of after the Guinness Advert ?
and I do know it is not the reflection of the real evolutionary cycle - in the real one they get a pint of Guinness in the end .. thanks for emails

And The Rest ,,,

2009-08-04T22:30:00.004+01:00

Applications to make your life easier

View more presentations from Phil Bradley.

Some basic productivity tools that we now use across the organisation are Meet-O-Matic a huge time saver for admin staff trying to pin down teachers for meeting availability and Survey Monkey

You can also find me using Ning, Wikispaces, PBWorks when required and probably lots more I haven't remembered. Finally I use lastfm, Blipfm and Spotify to zone out.

Harvesting, Synthesising,Sorting and Sharing

2009-08-04T22:07:00.003+01:00

wheat is ready to harvest... "Photo: Bernat Casero"
Originally uploaded by Bern@t

I use Delicious and more recently Diigo to sort out and share useful links I come across. I restrict my following here to a select few posting on educational technology and I glimpse in once a month or so.

I stay on top of RSS feeds from a very wide range of sources with Bloglines I still haven't crossed over to Google Reader but I think this has huge potential. I review feeds from this for 20 minutes each day.

I use Flickr mostly for personal stuff and the occasional conference shot when I get the urge but I am more likely to be talking to folk than skipping around with a camera . I use Youtube on this basis too but in the main I crowdsource materials through these mediums Increasingly I use Slideshare and Scribd as sources for bits of information to start me thinking - I'll follow up with links to some good presentations from Slideshare.

In last year I have also been using Friendfeed to follow folk around me in Scottish Education. I have been impressed by @mikecoulter and colleagues in Learning and Teaching Scotland who are making really great progress in moving into this new learning and development space. They are mostly to be found in my Bloglines Roll at the side of this posting.

Web,Blogging and Twitter

2009-08-03T23:38:00.002+01:00

I have maintained a web presence since the early 90s. I used it as first a learner then a staff development tool. I keep this antique up to show how easy it is and it is a handy place if I need to put something up on-line quickly. It is a good history lesson too for those who have just got it ;-)

I have posted before about my use of blogger and twitter and I think my usage pattern remains pretty much the same -I am doing less blogging and I am more likely to share a snippet on twitter.

From each of these platforms - the website, the blog and from Twitter I continue to make valuable professional contacts.

Digital Identity and Personal Learning Networks

2009-08-03T21:18:00.004+01:00

The greek mask
Originally uploaded by giopuo

I am going to do a series of posts reflecting on how I currently use the web in a productive way as a senior manager and Head of New Ventures inside a non-departmental public body.
Please note this reflects what I do in my own comfort zone in balancing work, productivity and social space. It may not be the right recipe for you or for the organisation you work for.
If you work in most industries you will now have some digital presence either created by you, a friend who tags photographs of you at the office Christmas party, by a journalist or a commentator or simply from the footprints of attendances at conferences participated in. Ideally this is not in a news piece that combines all of the above which could be career stopping or stalling.

Whether you like it or not you will have a digital identity of some kind and this series offers some pointers on how you might manage this.

You should have an Online Profile that is maintained by you. You can choose how much or how little you share. I use Plaxo, Linkedin and Facebook.

Plaxo has improved functionality recently but I regard it as a legacy tool - I did use it to synchronise personal and work contacts when I was on the move - before my organisation gave me the facility to access my address book on the move.I am still hanging in there to see if it gets better.
Linkedin - I now use for professional workbased contacts and network building. It presents my professional face. I take my job seriously but not myself reflecting current trends I use a digitally enhanced image of myself as a Simpsons character. I use this as a link back to anything that requires a professional profile. Linkedin has been a useful tool for cementing relationships across the diverse sectors I operate in.
Facebook - I try to restrict to people I know well, close friends and family. The challenge here is that here are increasingly interesting groups on Facebook reflecting my professional interests. I also subject all my facebook friends to my twitter stream - which I am sure they will eventually complain about.

Destination ImagiNation - Leapfrog Institutes Collaboration

2009-07-21T12:21:00.001+01:00

These three projects have popped up on my radar a few times over last three years - particularly leapfrog programme - I'm not sure if UK schools are looking at programmes like these - let alone schools in Scotland but I have been impressed by vision and ambition of these projects and they sit well with Curriculum for Excellence.

Destination ImagiNation - Leapfrog Institutes Collaboration

View more documents from John Moravec.

CCEM Last Post

2009-06-22T15:58:00.002+01:00

As a final note and more of a plea to the organisers. This event shaped as it was around developing proposals from across the Commonwealth for Education Ministers would have benefited greatly from the judicious use of Web2 and other tools.

With noble exceptions of -
http://megaterawispanjialam.wordpress.com/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sanieazahari/tags/ccem
http://twitter.com/TimUnwin

CCEM Kuala Lumpur Opening Ceremony

2009-06-22T15:35:00.003+01:00

Home and reflecting on all the debate last week both the formal and the invaluable networking that happens at events of this kind. Some of the questions circulating at the conference we in Scotland have found our own answers too.

Most of the discussion was progressive and out on the frontiers of learning that in the main the Scottish education system operates in.

most developed systems doing some re-evaluation of school curriculum
have moved to QA inspection system based on self evaluation with external audit
ICT and on-line learning challenge same in most systems – few have been as bold as GLOW
Most countries developing qualification frameworks that embrace academic and vocational pathways for learners.
some see education as way to import and export talent and as critical for democratization , civil society, empowering individuals and as a wealth generator
transition challenges between primary and secondary and secondary and tertiary in most systems
debate on importance of 2-6 year old developmental period - some countries doing more systematic training of nursery teachers and putting curriculum frameworks in place.

Some of the questions suggested a legacy we may have left behind

I was asked if we still have an 11+ exam and without it what do our secondary schools use for selection .Another delegate described why learners sometimes need beaten and was surprised to know that corporal punishment was now banned even in Scottish private schools.

Others were the kind we still get on the home front about why we need National Qualifications – Bologna Process, European Qualifications Framework and Global Standards - is the short hand answer – but it is clear we have way to promote understanding when civil servants don’t understand systems.

Biggest challenge to my thinking is how far the private sector operates in developing countries in running education systems and how much private companies are penetrating even the English system. They offer everything from inspection services to the building and running of schools for governments and local authorities. I think we only have operations like this in the special school sector in Scotland but I am sure they will be looking to sell on services wherever they can. Staffed mainly by ex public sector folk – owned by and profit driven for public or private shareholders and in some cases former educational publishers – will be interesting to see how this manifests itself in our system.

Kuala Lumpur and Malaysia have transformed in 30 years and flying back through Dubai, a city that in 25 years has erupted in a desert – it is nice to know that both places have a thirst and affinity for UK awards. Malaysia wants to be an education hub for all of its neighbours by 2017 and I hope we can do a lot to help them meet their target. I met a lot of customers interested in offering Scottish Vocational Qualifications and lots of customers interested in learning more about the Scottish Education system.

The 17th Conference of Commonwealth Education Ministers

2009-06-17T02:48:00.004+01:00

On one level there is something strange about the diverse group of countries that form the Commonwealth and at least for me a bit uncomfortable when you think of the imperial past.

The Commonwealth is a family of 53 different countries among them 12 on the UN list of least developed countries in the world.

Yet when you meet the learners, teachers, university vice chancellors, Ministers and agencies from all of these countries you can see at once what we have in common and while we all start in different places the aims and ambitions of the Commonwealth for learners you can see at once how our simple common bond can help us work together.

The agenda is a simple yet complex one.

The millennium goals
· Advocating for 2015 to be the year that children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling.
· Affirming the importance of eliminating gender disparities in education by 2015
· Utilising the technology, facilities and efficiencies afforded by open and distance learning to overcome barriers and combating the digital divide in education.
· Improving quality in education through signalling the importance of the role played by teachers, addressing their status, retention and mobility whilst at the same time advancing the importance of the management, training and development of this critical resource in education.
· Supporting the assurance of education in difficult circumstances through addressing the challenges of education delivery during situations of crisis, conflict, post-conflict and natural disasters and providing guidelines to improve preparedness for emergencies.
· Mitigating the impact of HIV/AIDS on education systems by way of establishing the role and importance of education as a “social vaccine” against HIV/AIDS through professorial chairs for research and advocacy and dissemination of good practices in countries which address head-long the challenge of the pandemic in their populations

Some of the stories from conference are truly humbling –
Village Children in Bangladesh organizing locally to persuade a landowner to give them land to build a school and then selling their blood to a private hospital to raise the funds to build the school – so for first time the villagers have access to a primary school.
Growing evidence from countries stricken by famine that learners arriving in primary school have already been damaged developmentally through malnutrition.

Made me reflect on newspaper headline as I left that 1 in 9 learners in Glasgow come from family with addiction issues.

While we worry about changes in our own internal systems - we need to be aware of the challenges that educators face around the world. How can we leverage curriculum investment in Scotland to support the rest of the world ?

Sports 4 Life Moves Onwards and Upwards

2009-06-13T22:45:00.005+01:00

Sitting using the free wifi at Dubai Airport - and time to stick up this letter that went out a week ago up on the blog. Sports4life a game based on running a sportstore to teach basic business skills is moving on.

It was great fun pulling it together - a big thanks to all the teachers who helped in the pilot, including the intrepid bunch we sent to NZ, the football clubs who finally gave us their logos and the team at the Small Business Company in Christchurch New Zealand who were prepared to blaze a trail with a National Awarding Body on the other side of the world. Thanks too to Microsoft who gave us some funds to push the envelope a bit through Partners in Learning. Bob McGonigle in Scotland and Kirsten Weartherby at headquarters then - and now at Reading.

Over the last three years we have developed, supported and successfully piloted access to http://www.sport4life.biz/ the on-line business game for schools. The launch and pilot has been supported through funding from Microsoft Partners in Learning. This letter is to inform you that from August 2009 the Game will move to a subscription model to ensure its long term sustainability and ongoing development.

Earlier this week a communication went out to all SQA Co-ordinators and Heads of Centre, I had hoped to find a national sponsor for the game but in the current financial climate this proved too challenging.

The pilot has been an outstanding success. In the last year 380 Scottish secondary schools had registered for the Game, 639 teachers were using it with their classes and 35,000 students played 135,000 Games and gratifyingly the game has been picked up and adapted for use around the world.

In other parts of the UK schools already pay to use the Small Business Game (Sport4Life) £400+VAT per school for an annual licence. However, recognising that Scottish schools have taken part in the successful pilot at no charge, the Game will continue to be part-subsidised by The Small Business Company for the 12 month period commencing 1 September 2009. The cost for your school to use the Game is now at the discounted price of £200 + VAT for the year commencing September 2009.

Access will allow you to offer the Game and all its benefits to up to 1,000 students and teachers in your school, and the school will still be able to participate in the competitions that will run within the Game through the year.

To ensure your school continues to get full use of the Small Business Game beyond August 2009 please email Andy Coughlin ( andy@tsbc.co.uk ) requesting a licence for the Game.

How Twitter will Change the way we live

2009-06-08T21:37:00.003+01:00

Evan Williams and Biz Stone of Twitter

I have always been a sucker for new ways of communicating - but I do think there is something in this - It was great to attend an e-learning alliance conference today showing lots of ways that web2 social software is being used in College and University Classrooms - great to be able to tweet about it and great too that Theo Kuechel was able to confirm before I got back to the office that Voice Thread was worth another look

Practice is changing ..and it is wonderful to see - a great article on Twitter from Time Magazine
and a great antidote to today's awful election results.

Google Wave Developer Preview at Google I/O 2009

2009-06-03T04:54:00.001+01:00

Now if we could only get our stakeholders to cope with this - we could develop new curriculum in quick time and collaborate with educationalists and learners as we do it ..mmm

Web2rights.mp4

2009-05-26T21:22:00.003+01:00

Picked up this neat JISC video from Joan Walker in the latest Scottish JISC Regional Support Centre News Letter. There is a lot school sector could pick up from this monthly publication and from great work that JISC do all across UK. A lot of concerns around copyright and IPR have been addressed in FE and HE sectors.

Need to persuade them to add feed to Scotedublogs

It was great news that GLOW picked up an award and it is good to see too that Scotland won another prize at the IMS Global Learning Consortium for AccessApps and in addition that JISC UK Scooped a number of awards at the ceremony.

It easy to forget how much Scotland and the UK are pushing frontiers in on-line learning.

Glasgow & About

2009-05-24T22:26:00.001+01:00

Glasgow & About (32)
Originally uploaded by alasdairmarsden

Enjoying my pal Alasdair's Flickr Stream of Photos from around Glasgow - but pictures of Paisley Road tonight would have been interesting. Celebrations and Drowning of Sorrows at end of football season - fought out to last game by Glasgow's Old Firm - lots of very public drunkeness - shades of old hard industrial Glasgow and lots of police on the streets.

Don't think real life features in media enough

Silver Surfers Day

2009-05-15T16:28:00.001+01:00

With thanks to my friends at Digital Unite I promised to pass on this message

Watch Silver Surfers’ TV to find out, and see what Angela Rippon and Joan Bakewell have to say about the digital revolution in this video supported by Ofcom's work to promote media literacy.
Today is Silver Surfers’ Day, a day when older people across the UK are encouraged to try out computers and learn about life online.
Organised by Digital Unite, there are over 750 events across the UK aimed at helping thousands of older people get online and discover how computers can change their lives. Go to the Digital Unite website to find out about events near you.
There’s also a new initiative called Schools for Silver Surfers, which plans to link the UK's vast school network with older people not yet online. The project aims to help older people learn about new media and younger people learn about local history.
The Digital Unite website has something for everyone – including a co-operative Flickr album and a ‘Tell us a Joke’ blog.