Archive

A portable touch anyone? 2

Published
by
nick
on September 4, 2008
in Mobility, eLearning and mLearning
. 0 Comments

Just to follow up on my last post, just read this article discussed in Ubiquitous Thoughts, a blog dedicated to thoughts and ideas about teaching, learning, and ubiquitous computing.

The article: An iPod Touch for each student? School would tap it as learning tool, discusses a middle school (Grades 6, 7 & 8 = Year 7, 8 & 9) in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, which could become the first in the country to give an iPod Touch to every teacher and student…

The article is not directly related to the use of the Touch for eportfolios at all, in fact the schools seem a bit vague on how the iPods will be used! Oh the potential though… read the full article, and think of what you could do if every student and teacher at your school had one…

Photo courtesy: http://www.flickr.com/photos/michellzappa/

A portable touch anyone?

Published
by
nick
on September 4, 2008
in Mobility, ePortfolios and mLearning
. 0 Comments

Having just made my breakout selections for uLearn 08, I was pleased to see 3 sessions dedicated to the use of mobile phones and other portable technologies.

I am particularly interested in this breakout: Using the I-Pod touch to instantly inform parents of their child’s learning… by Paul Wright.

I see a huge potential in how mobile technologies can contribute to this area and it relates closely to some of the core beliefs I have about ePortfolios. The ability to share, for the purpose of receiving relevant and constructive feedback to improve learning, can only really happen if the learning is shared or made available almost immediately.

The web can make his happen. A blog post with embedded media takes minutes and then it’s there, ready to share. But a web based portfolio does not necessarily mean that parents will view it and share in the learning. And if they do, will they leave a comment? Will they view the learning with their child?

The physical presence of a portable device, like an iPod touch, could significantly change this.  A child bringing home an iPod containing their learning gives an opportunity for sharing, not dependent on a broadband connection, taking only on a few minutes of time with mum or dad. Feedback is instant. Praise here and a suggestion here. Done.

If I think of a typical Year 3 child that takes home a reader to read with mum or dad. Why not slip an iPod Touch into the reading folder too and share some learning?

I look forward to this breakout to see how successful the pilot programme has been.

Photo courtesy of: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nirak/

ICAS Computer Skills

Published
by
nick
on September 1, 2008
in ICT
. 0 Comments

Today I saw for the first time an ICAS (International Competitions & Assessment for Schools) Computer Skills 2008 test. Take a look here for yourself if you have not previously seen one:

icas1.jpgicas2.jpg

Wow. Once again I am amazed by how different people’s perspective of the role of computers in teaching and learning is. This is a test of computer skill knowledge only, and very MS Office’ish at that. What purpose does it serve?

My biggest fear is that parents will see this test and think that the use of computers in schools consists of a skill based programme where children are taken through a prescribed list of skills to learn.

Can you imagine, “No sorry class, you don’t make podcasts until year 5. Today we are gong to look at how to change the font, size and style.” Eeeeek.

I hear you say, “But those children will need to know how to do that in order to get a job and…” Really? How can you be sure what technology will be around in 2020? That is when today’s year 6’s could be finishing a degree at university…

Technology is their for us to support learning. To engage and motivate students. To allow them to connect and collaborate. Find information, reorganise, compare, create, share. Not because someone has decided that it is a skill they need, but because it is helping them to learn.

We shouldn’t learn about computers, we should learn with them.

Networking teachers

Published
by
nick
on August 28, 2008
in ICT, Teachers, Web 2.0 and eLearning
. 0 Comments

Today I had a really good discussion with some other staff from school. We were discussing the best solution for pooling together the wealth of information teachers often collect individually to help facilitate a new learning context, especially web links and tools.

The night before I had read this post Helfant’s Weekly Tech Tip - Delicious as a Network Beginning, which used these graphics that really sum up the essence of our conversation.

That is, the first step for moving teachers from here…

…to here…

…is through using a tool like Delicious in order to better facilitate networking, collaboration, sharing of resources in a central location.

A simple place to start constructing this network is with social bookmarks. Delicious and Diigo are two great applications and you can’t go wrong with either. However, the simplicity of delicious and the singularity of purpose make it more suitable for first steps into creating a learning network.

 The full blog post is worth a read as it ties together 21st Century skills within a 1 to 1 programme.

Google Reader in plain English

Published
by
nick
on August 28, 2008
in ICT, Web 2.0 and eLearning
. 0 Comments

Common Craft have released a new explanatory video to add to their stack of excellent ‘explained in plain English’ videos, this one on Google Reader. Where would we be without them!

iPhone Apps

Published
by
nick
on August 25, 2008
in eLearning, ePortfolios and mLearning
. 0 Comments

The iPhone is pretty cool and as noted here, pretty revolutionary:

“…the iPhone is hands down, without a doubt, the single most powerful mobile development platform EVER.”

But as I have been explaining to people, its real educational value comes in the potential of using, or developing, the downloadable apps that pull together the phones capabilities to make its use more learner focused. For example, the WordPress app for use on these eportfolios for publishing and sharing learning.

This post is really to explain to those people who don’t understand what an app for the iPhone is. The video example shows a game being downloaded and played but you should get the picture… Don’t forget the apps that are already loaded onto the phone or touch as well.

Welcome. Here’s your iPhone

Published
by
nick
on August 25, 2008
in Mobility, eLearning and mLearning
. 0 Comments

An interesting article in the New York Times, Welcome, Freshmen. Have an iPod, highlights the increasing occurrence of students being given iPods or iPhones to assist in their learning and help facilitate course and school administration.

There is, as noted, the additional marketing ploy:

Basking in the aura of a cutting-edge product could just help a university foster a cutting-edge reputation.

And good on them. Why not take advantage of the way students want to learn and do learn in the ‘informal’ manner of social networking, interaction and sharing?

Four institutions have indicated that they would be issuing iPods or iPhones to new students this semester. There are plenty of others who are actively investigating the use and trialling it in smaller numbers. One of these is the already established iPhone programme at ACU.

Reactions to these exciting initiatives are unfortunately mixed, as one can imagine if you cast your mind back to what university lectures were like for you! Feeling threatened anyone?

Robert S. Summers, who has taught at Cornell Law School for about 40 years, announced this week — in a detailed, footnoted memorandum — that he would ban laptop computers from his class on contract law.

Ban laptops! And we are not even talking about phones yet! Oh no! Hang on… he continues:

“I would ban that too if I knew the students were using it in class,” Professor Summers said of the iPhone, after the device and its capabilities were explained to him.

It’s not the technology mate, it’s how you use it! No wonder the students are bored. Wouldn’t you just pull your iPhone out and engage yourself? A student states:

 …that professors might try harder to make classes interesting if they were competing with the devices.

Thankfully, they are not all dismissive of how this technology can engage and motivate students and transform the way you teach:

“We had assumed that the biggest focus of these devices would be consuming the content,” said Tracy Futhey, vice president for information technology and chief information officer at Duke.

But that is not all that the students did. They began using the iPods to create their own “content,” making audio recordings of themselves and presenting them. The students turned what could have been a passive interaction into an active one…

The debate of using mobile phones in education is ongoing. I see their use as inevitable and look forward to being in a situation where I can use them. But I am not an expert in this field, just an interested observer. I have blogged previously on how I think the iPhone would make an excellent tool for accessing and creating your eportflios, but it would best to click one of the links below!

Firstly, you might like to point our browser here to read a summary of How mobile phones help learning in secondary schools by Dr Elizabeth Hartnell-Young or download the full research report, to get her expert opinion.

Alternatively head over to another 2008 efellows blog to get ongoing insights into how mobile technologies can enhance the learner experience.

eLearning and ePortfolios

Published
by
nick
on August 19, 2008
in Assessment for Learning, Formative Assessment, ICT, eLearning and ePortfolios
. 0 Comments

I presented to a group of Hawke’s Bay principals today on how my research and implementation of eportfolios is beginning to effectively pull together the strands of elearning, assessment for learning and the NZ Curriculum. This will be increasingly so as the process of facilitating learning through eportfolios is increasingly embedded in the teaching and learning process.

When putting this presentation together I used the coloured pencil as a visual metaphor for the themes and elements of elearning, assessment for learning and the NZ Curriculum. There are lots of different coloured pencils out there just like there are lots of options for designing your schools curriculum delivery model…

The coloured pencils had something to do with this post on presenting and presentations.

Elgg 1.0 released

Published
by
nick
on August 19, 2008
in Web 2.0 and ePortfolios
. 0 Comments

Elgg, an open source social networking platform, has released its long awaited update available here.

Elgg allows you to create and customize your own social networking site. User blogs, forums, file repository, friends, activity feeds, bookmarking, messaging, plus a host of other features allow you to create your own Facebook-like site. Except you host it yourself giving you complete control.

This is a significant release bringing with it a multitude of enhancements over what is now called Classic Elgg. It supports all the common protocols of interoperability for social networking sites including OpenDD, OpenID and OpenSocial.

Curious? Here is an example of an Elgg site for all those rugby fans out there, rucku.com, or the well known Eduspaces for education.

Classic Elgg, when used with the excellent Folio plug-in, is still a great solution for an eportfolio system, with the added addition of social networking built in. (This feature is missing from the WordPress MU that we are currently using, but projects like BuddyPress are currently being developed to remedy this).

The blend of eportfolios and social networking seamlessly allows friend or peer feedback and assessment to take place on learning artifacts that are shared with other users, or alternatively made public for others to comment on.

When selecting a solution for our eportfolio requirements, Elgg rated very highly. It did not become the favoured option above WordPress MU, for the reasons noted here in my research notes:

An excellent application with all the features required to effectivly create a learning portfolio (when using the Folio plugin). Has the additonal benefit of the social networking environment to facilitate learning conversations between learners. The support is poor and the documentation virtually nonexistant. Also some examples of learning such as podcasts, could not be embedded in the pages only a link could be provided for downloading the file. With more support and documentation, this product would be very hard to beat.

I really look forward to Elgg 1.0 being developed further. Hopefully we can look forward to some fantastic plug-ins being developed to fill in the gaps of the developers and make the software more suited to a wider range of applications. I say this from an eportfolio perspective! The developers have created a fantastic product and if I were looking for just a social networking platform, then it would suite me very nicely.

Why not try it out on the demo site to give you an idea.

The benefits of Web 2.0, RSS, XML, Atom, tags & categories in ePortfolios

Published
by
nick
on August 15, 2008
in Research, Web 2.0 and ePortfolios
. 0 Comments

As a follow up to my last post I have just read the following article as part of my efellow research.

This may be of interest to those of you who would like a further and much more detailed (yet easy to read) explanation of using the benefits of Web 2.0, RSS, XML, Atom, tags, categories for organising ePortfolios and promoting learning.

In the right environment the social networking potential of the learning landscape and eportfolio-related tools are features that facilitate and enhance the making of connections and the linking together of people, ideas, resources and learning… (pp. 30)

The Learning Landscape: A conceptual Framework for ePortfolios.

Chen, H., Haywood, J., Light, T., Tosh, D., & Werdmuler, B. (2006).

Available in: Handbook of research on ePortfolios. Hershey PA: Idea Group Reference, pp. 24-32.

Well worth a read if you can get hold of it. There is certainly a lot more worthwhile reading in the full handbook which contains contributions from over 100 of the world’s leading experts.