Educational Development

Training Session - Google Documents

2010-06-11T14:48:00.003+12:00

A training session was held with a very enthusiastic group of administrators on 20 May 2010. There was a lot of interest in using Google Documents to save administration time, e.g., for meeting minutes and collaborative work - no need to send out multiple versions of documents. The full overview of the session can be viewed in the Training session Google doc. It is good to know that all file types are supported.

Good reasons for using Google Documents
The video - Google Documents in Plain English - outlines some good reasons for using the web-based programme.

In brief, some good reasons for using Google Documents are:

to save time - e.g., no need to send out multiple copies of documents and coordinate the editing process;
collaboration - several people can work on a document together, e.g., reports - use the share file facility;
meeting minutes - easily viewed by the group and additions or changes made with a click;
documents can be published as a web page for easy viewing - automatically update when changes are made.

To get started
Go to Google Documents at: https://docs.google.com
You will need to login in to set up a document.

testing feed2JS with Wikieds Travel and Tourism

2007-12-23T13:37:00.000+13:00

http://feed2js.org

View RSS feed

Trial of Google calendar

2007-12-05T12:16:00.000+13:00

wikieducator developments

2007-10-17T22:21:00.000+13:00

testing voicethread

2007-07-14T23:18:00.000+12:00

Kim's Bubble

2007-01-16T14:34:00.000+13:00

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Chainsaw maintainance

2006-11-15T15:28:00.000+13:00

Who knows about these projects?

2006-09-04T16:23:00.000+12:00

Was completing a little survey today, to help the NZ bosses decide where to spend money for teaching and learning. In it was a list of NZ projects asking if I was aware of them and were they a benefit to me. I hadn't heard of most of them, but now I have a list of things to look in to:

E-GROW Northland
Nga kiwai kete: the e-Learning Toolbox
The EXE eLearning XML Editor
NZ eLearning Quality Standards Framework and Guidelines
The Te Ako Hikohiko eLearning Research Capacity Building project
Open Source Courseware Initiative
The FLLiNZ fellowships
Generic Trade Training Modules (GeTT Mod)
The eLearnz Collaborative Tool Box
Delivering Applied eLearning in the Workplace: Polytechs and ITOs working together
Graduate Diploma in Applied eTeaching and Support
Open Source eLearning Environment and Community Platform
Critical Success Factors for effective use of eLearning with Maori Learners
The eLearning Leaders and Insitutional Capability Collaboration
The eLearning Collaborative Teaching Initiative
The eCDF Providers Forum

Good buy YouTube - Hello Blip.tv!!

2006-08-21T16:23:00.000+12:00

I dunno why it has taken me so long to realise. GNUChris pointed me to it a while back, they must have added a bunch of features since - or was I just a fool rushing through and didn't see the greatness of the free online video service Blip.tv!! Check my account out. Subscribe to the webfeed - I'm officially a Blip man now.

Not only is it fast to upload!! Boy its fast!
But it gives you back an quicktime.mov to save back down to your computer
It cross posts your video to your Internet Archive account!
It cross posts the video link to your del.icio.us account based on the tags you use for the video
It cross posts a frame image thumbnail across to your flickr account through your flickr account's email address!

There's more - I just couldn't wait to do the shout out for them!

Criteria for assessing learning resources

2006-08-07T14:32:00.000+12:00

Recently I was asked to provide a criteria for assessing learning resources on offer from another organisation. In my time I have come across many criterion for assessing such things - always very complicated and hard to understand.

Below are 3 general criteria I use. They are a condensation of criteria I have worked under in past projects. Those who know will probably see that behind them are some quite complicated processes - but to start with, I think the simplification is enough. It should help people come to terms with what they are looking for, without losing sight of why they are looking for it.

1. Accessibility and usability - Can these resources be easily used?
Have the resources undergone testing with students and facilitators, including those with a range of abilities, and those with a range of computer and connection settings? Are there clear and concise supporting documents such as study plans, facilitation guides, assessment guides?

2. Reusability - how customisable are the information resources?
Is the file structure simple to comprehend? Do the individual resources copy easily, including into other formats? If they are complex and interrelated resources, can they move as a whole into new systems? What are the copyright restrictions, if any?

3. Communications - What communications and feedback methods are possible?
Are the inbuilt communication options (if any) accessible and usable? Is it easy to communicate into the information resources, eg. can specific points be hyperlinked to, or otherwise identified in communications? Is there, or can there be a range of communication options used to support the information?

Please, if you think I have missed something in this initial 3 step - add it as a comment below and help me improve it. Any references to similar attempts to simplify learning resource assessment criteria would be much appreciated.

Manage your email group membership

2006-08-07T12:16:00.000+12:00

So we're up here in a Networked Learning workshop, talking about eGroups. A question has come up, how do you change the way in which you receive email from the group? How can I set it so a different email receives the notices?

Here's a quick demo (no sound) on how to manage and add membership.

In short, the steps are:

Sign in the Google Groups
Find your group listed in the left column and click it.
Click manage
Click browse membership, and/or add?invite members.

I have asked the people with me today, to post a response about eGroups to their own blogs and then forward that post through to us. Over to you.

Could it be? Networked learning workshops starting to be attended..

2006-08-03T13:36:00.000+12:00

Have had an encouraging turn out for the networked learning workshops lately. Today was webfeeds, which is probably the most important feature to know about in networked learning. The group looked at bloglines and how to use it to subscribe to multiple sources of regularly updated information - such as other teacher's blogs, student blogs, BBC news etc, the weather, the ski report, what ever. Basically, the use of web feeds in a service like bloglines enables us to take control of the types of information we want and need, and get rid of the rest. Newspapers are on their way out, and its about time.

Have a look at my Bloglines, and find things you think may be useful. If you also have an account with Bloglines, it will let you copy across my subscriptions as your own.

I didn't get to show another type of feed I have been quietly building, and that is a resource list of free, creative commons learning resources for each department. Here's a few examples for the people who came today:

Remember! Look for the RSS button at the bottom of these linked pages, and copy that link to your bloglines. Come to the tagging or finding digital resources workshops next week to learn how you could help build these resources...

Hopefully many of you are nearly ready to go the next step. To come up with a proposal that enables flexibility in teaching and learning your course or programme. Here's how, come and see me if you'd like to discuss things.

Programme Development

2006-07-28T16:07:00.000+12:00

The process for developing programmes and courses so that they are more flexible in terms of teaching and learning is becoming clearer to me now. Below is a flow chart depicting that process. Here is a small 1 meg audio file to go with that chart.

A wack of open courses from Japan!

2006-07-24T19:38:00.001+12:00

From the EdNA news feed comes a confirmation of a wack of (bi lingual) open course material coming out of Japan.

Now, if Otago Polytechnic decides to go a bit this way, we really must come up with something bigger and better. I suggest multi lingual, multi media wikis, to be truly open and far reaching.

Nagoya University OpenCourseWare (NU OCW)

The site provides free access to teaching materials used in selected courses. Teaching materials from twenty-five courses available, each set of courseware consists of a Course Overview, a Syllabus, a Calendar, Lecture Notes, Assignments, Grading and Evaluation Criteria, Related Resources, and Classroom Insights.

Waseda University OpenCourseWare

Waseda OpenCourseWare is linked to the university's electronic lecture information search system. Included are course materials for: Numerical Computation, Information Technologies, World Englishes and Miscommunications, Reading Simplified Japanese Characters, Circuit Theory, Numerical Computation with Guaranteed Accuracy, Coexistence in Asia.

University of Tokyo OpenCourseWare

A free and open educational resource for faculty, students, and self-learners around the world. Global Focus on Knowledge (Science of Matter); Medicine (Instruction to Pathology, Clinical Bioinformatics); Engineering (Applied Acoustics; Fundamental Physics for Electronics; Machine Design Technology; Statistics mathematical principle; Quantum Mechanics); Humanities and Sociology (Sociology of Care); Science (Molecular Computing); Economics (Business Administration); Arts and Sciences (Historical development of Spanish language; Geographical variation of Spanish language; World Model; International Politics); Education (Educational Administration and Finance); Frontier Sciences (Nonlinear Finite-element-method; Physics of Transition Metal Oxides); Interfaculty Initiative in Information Studies (Information Semiotics; Communication system; Evolutional Ecology Informatics).

Tokyo Institute of Technology OpenCourseWare

The site provides free access to course materials aiming at releasing the Tokyo Tech's high-level educational resources on science and technology as the world's public property. Included are course descriptions and lecture notes from the: Graduate School of Science and Engineering, Graduate School of Bioscience and Biotechnology, Interdisciplinary Graduate School of Science and Engineering, Graduate School of Information Science and Engineering, Graduate School of Decision Science and Technology, Graduate School of Innovation Management, and Common Course of Graduate School.

Osaka University Open Courseware

The site offers a collections of Osaka University's educational materials. Included are course materials from the Schools of: Dentistry, Economics, Engineering, Engineering Science, Frontier Biosciences Human Sciences, Information Science and Technology, International Public Policy, Law, Law School, Language and Culture, Letters, Medicine, Pharmaceutical Sciences, and

Kyoto University OpenCourseWare

Free access to course materials from Kyoto University. Included are materials from the: Faculty of Integrated Human Studies; Faculty of Letters; Faculty of Education; Faculty of Law; Faculty of Economics; Faculty of Science; Faculty of Medicine; Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences; Faculty of Engineering; Faculty of Agriculture; Graduate School of Letters; Graduate School of Education; Graduate School of Law; Graduate School of Economics; Graduate School of Science; Graduate School of Medicine; Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences; Graduate School of Engineering; Graduate School of Agriculture; Graduate School of Human and Environmental Studies; Graduate School of Energy Science; Graduate School of Asian and African Area Studies; Graduate School of Informatics; Graduate School of Biostudies; Graduate School of Global Environmental Studies; Kyoto University Law School; College of Medical Technology.

International Tourism good to go

2006-07-21T13:02:00.000+12:00

Had a third meeting with Hillary about the redevelopment of the international Tourism Course. In previous meetings we discussed ideas about wikis, videos, open courseware.. a range of things. This meeting was a catchup on where Hillary was up to.

Hillary filled me in on some of the situation - mostly details I can't put here. But we ended firming up commitments to prepare an application for programme redevelopment fund with the following ideas included:

Edit and reformat existing workbooks.
Record audio for slide presentations.
Improve visual design over all resources.
Publish at least 1 whole module to the course as open and easy access, ie. content directly on the website.
Prepare Blackboard courses ready for private communications for the courses.
Trial of staff and students recording interviews with public and industry about the state of international tourism in NZ etc - with a view to developing a podcast out from the Department.
Trial of student blogging for purposes of assisting general and multi literacies. Including possible contribution towards a cross department digital networked literacy student support service.
Development of a learning community to support informal learning in the field.

Hillary is to review these notes and extend or correct them in the comments, then we are to begin working on a Programme Development Fund application with a view to start work in mid August.

When we find the limits of print

2006-07-20T16:58:00.000+12:00

Ruth from vet nursing popped in today. She was having an issue with the texts that are used as primary handouts to the vet nursing students. They are developed in MS Word and contain many graphics and illustrations and the formating keeps getting lost when edits and updates are made. Everyone in the office testified to having experienced similar issues with MS Word when documents reached a larger size, and for Ruth the situation was serious in that students were receiving emailed attachments of the handouts with faulty layout and miss information.

To start with we discussed what would be need to fix the current handouts as soon as possible. We agreed that a comprehensive edit would need to take place, and recognised that this would be a considerable amount of work. Therefore we further discussed formats for the document, and consideration was given towards getting out of the MS Word doc format and into a more open format. We discussed the pros and cons of using Open Office to conduct the edits and probably decided that it would be the best option considering that OO could open the MS docs to a point, and happened to make very clear where the formatting issues were. Making the edits in OO also means that the document can be easily exported to PDF from any computer, can be imported to other editors more reliably - such as writely.com and can be saved in not only the MS word formats, but many other editing formats including cleaner html.

But the formating problems will likely persist if Ruth doesn't improve the images and graphics. At the moment the graphic elements are being achieved through the use of Word's text boxes and drawing tools. It would be best if Ruth were to learn an image editing program so that she can do the graphics separately to the document, compile the graphics in the editor and export them as single images for importation into Open Office. This will simplify the processing of the document, and provided the image/graphic edit files are filed well, will improve efficiency in updating the document.

Ruth and I also discussed the benefits of using a wiki as a electronic and multi media/multi authored learning resource. I showed her the web design resource being developed as a wikibook within wikiversity by staff and students at the Blue Mountains Campus of TAFE NSW. We also looked at YouTube videos on animal dissection and discussed how media such as this can be easily embedded. We discussed the merits of video - and in particular student generated content models.

This lead us onto consideration of the following.

Ruth and I will prepare a Programme Development Fund application for resources to edit and redevelop the Vet Nursing programmes. In that project will include improvement of the current handouts so that they can be distributed more effectively online. Also included will be a more careful consideration of the idea that the handouts be used to initiate the course, but that students be encouraged to write up the texts in their own words and style as a wikibook. At the end of the year, the student's wikibook will be used as the next year's print based handout, and the cycle repeats for the next year and so on. In a 2 - 3 year plan, it should be expected that through significant students and staff engagement the electronic resource will develop into a suitable resource for more and more use across other relatable courses.

Jean and Tony enhance their bogs

2006-07-17T16:30:00.000+12:00

Today's been a pretty fun day.

First of all, I caught up on a mountain of email after being away skiing last week.

Then I went to to see Jean in Midwifery. Jean needed some help working out del.icio.us. I showed her how to use it to bookmark websites, then she asked me how she could display her new lists on her blog. Del.icio.us provides a nice and easy script generator where you click a few boxes and then copy the text and past it in your blog. Check out Jean's work. I use the same trick for my page called links.

After lunch I went to see Tony from cookery and helped him tweak his blog, shot a video interviewing him about his plans, and added it to his blog. Check it out here:

Francesca uses odeo for audio

2006-07-05T17:41:00.000+12:00

Francesca has successfully used odeo to publish an audio recording of hereself stating her learning obtectives in the Designing for Flexible Learning Practice. Well done F!

The problem of project management

2006-07-05T15:03:00.000+12:00

Here is EDC we have 3 programme developers. Each of us have the responsibility to motivate staff to develop and/or redevelop their courses and programmes so that they reach existing students more efficiently, or new students all together. Flexible learning has been flagged as the most appropriate way to do this - and by that there seems to be an emphasis on online learning.

Now, one of the problems we have is that each of us meet with different people in the Departments and talk about different things, therefore progressing projects differently. We need a way to record and communicate progress effectively so that we can all have a chance to look in on each other's work. Meetings are one way, but we need more. I tried to inspire blogging as a way to record progress - but I think it is felt to be too time consuming. Another team member was quite enthused by the web based office suite writely, but now we are discussing the limitations of office type documents like spread sheets to track project progress.

A colleague in the EDC recommended we use a project management application. Seeing that most of the programme developers have little experience with such applications, and if we do opt to use such a thing, I would rather use a free, open source, or web based tool. That way I won't be learning something that I won't be able to afford access to at home or in another life.

I checked the TALO Tools wikilist and saw BaseCamp and remembered a colleague in another job used this quite a lot. He raved about it in fact. At the time I just couldn't pull myself together for project management software - nothings changed really, but now that I'm working in a project team the need is more pressing.

What is Basecamp?

Basecamp is a unique project collaboration tool. Projects don't fail from a lack of charts, graphs, or reports, they fail from a lack of communication and collaboration. Basecamp makes it simple to communicate and collaborate on projects.

The problem is, as with blogs, wikis, web based office suites, and now project management software, is that they are formats and systems of working that are different to the ways we have grown accustomed to working. For me, office applications are not as good as blogging. For others, blogging is not as useful as spread sheets. Perhaps for all of us, project management software is not as usable as we hope.

But then, we expect the teachers to get their heads around entirely new ways of teaching and learning. Surely we can find a new and effective way to manage projects collaboratively. I'm going to run with my old friend and colleague's recommendation for base camp. Test it out for a bit. If it looks like working for me - I'll put it to the others.

How to set a blog with Blogger

2006-07-04T10:19:00.000+12:00

Here's a screenrecording on how to set up a blog using Blogger.

Free and easy audio online

2006-07-03T16:48:00.000+12:00

Odeo, one of many ways to get audio online the free and easy way. Here's a screenrecording on how to use odeo.

Tourism Hospitality network

2006-07-03T16:07:00.000+12:00

Just met with Jean to talk about the Tourism Hospitality Network. Jean is the regional campus manager for outage Polytechnic. Jean was interested to learn more about the network and discuss way in which Otago Poly Tourism and Hospitality staff can collaborate. Jean seem impressed by the potential of the network and will invite Dunedin staff and myself to visit the Cromwell campus and discuss ideas toward writing a combine proposal for the development of Flexible Learning options.

Jude's BubbleShare

2006-07-02T19:40:00.000+12:00

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Videora to convert and compress video

2006-06-30T21:10:00.000+12:00

Lately I have been using the nice and easy video converter Videora Ipod Converter. It converts Camstudio recorded videos, which come out as high resolution AVI, into either of the 2 MPEG4 compressed files - which play in a quicktime player and on many portable video players like the iPod Movie. After making the conversion I upload the MPEG4 to YouTube and/or Google Video where it is converted again to the Flash Video format FLV. This makes it smaller again, but the quality is pretty poor. You are watching an FLV below. Here's a link to the original page where the movie below is coming from.

Camstudio workshop

2006-06-30T13:45:00.000+12:00

Am in H208b today, giving a demonstration in the use of Camstudio - the free and open source screen recorder.

If you didn't want to video record your screen, then Screenhunter4 is an excellent free tool for quickly photgraphing areas of your screen for use in print based handouts.

Here are the step by step notes I put on the white board:

Jude Cooke - Outreach

2006-06-27T14:18:00.000+12:00

I'm here with Jude Cooke who is running a 3 day workshop with Outreach workers from all around NSW. The participants are looking at Social Software for use in their work with disadvantaged groups. Here is a video of Jude talking about the project.

Video to PDA in the bakery

2006-06-24T14:27:00.000+12:00

With Dean Gibson from the Baking Section of the Hunter Institute of TAFE NSW. Here is a video of us talking about using Google Video for instruction in the course. Dean is a member of the Tourism and Hospitality Education Network where he aims to strengthen his role in an international network of trainers who are using these technologies. So far we have 2 people in Otago Polytechnic participating in that same network.

Testing Elluminate in DFLP

2006-06-15T14:12:00.000+12:00

So we used a trial version of Elluminate to talk online about the development of learning logs for the Designing for Flexible Learning Practice course. We talked about blogs, and other free and easy web based tools for creating and publishing content.

audio file not available

Links to some of the things we talked about:

Leigh's work blog - an example of a learning journal
Gliffy diagrams tool - a free web based, and great fun tool for creating flow chart and mind map diagrams
Metal Ed Blog - a new blog that will document a group of metal work teachers producing skills videos
Cmaps - a free and open source desktop application for concept mapping
Myomi - free and web based concept mapping
Leigh's bloglines newsreader - where Leigh gets all his info from
Networked Learning workshops - EDC workshops of these tools
Youtube videos and screenrecordings - videos that demonstrate how to do stuff on the Internet
Camstudio - free screen recording software
Australian Flexible Learning Framework - good site to find resources
Audacity - a free audio recorder
Open Office - a free alternative to Microsoft Office
Lulu - a way to produce printed and bound text books for free, and distribute for free, and receive royalties.
Jybe - a free web tour tool

Free and easy webconferencing - the holy grail

2006-06-15T09:58:00.000+12:00

First there was Macromedia Breeze (now Adobe Breeze)
Then there was Elluminate
Then there is Australia's answer to Elluminate called DiscoverE

So it went in the edu world...

The rest of the world went voice over Internet (VOIP), with Skype shooting through the roof with users. Now every Internet cafe around the world has Skype installed...

But skype's weakness is its closed standard, it won't communicate with other VOIP clients. Others promoted open standard VOIP like GizmoProject and Gtalk. The kids kept using MSN, the grown ups kept using Skype.

So it went in the real world.

Now there are tones of people working out ways to use Skype for webconferencing. The edu world meets the real world.

There is the webcast academy - a network of educationalists experimenting with free, easy and scalable web conferencing using Skype, Skypeout, Skypecast and 24k streaming. Its interesting and it works! They've been doing it for quite some time, and I've been talking (through Skype of course) with Dave Cormier, one of the lead fellas of the academy who is willing to demonstrate the set up for us.

Just yesterday, Unyte - a plugin for Skype that allows screensharing or application sharing came into my view. I tested it out quickly with Joe from Australia and it worked pretty well. Here's a screen recording.

So, any day now - free and easy web conferencing on multiple platforms, scalable and familiar to most not just a few, is around the corner.

First line management

2006-06-14T14:45:00.000+12:00

Opening course materials up for public viewing is a bit like allowing the public to walk into a library and sit down and read. You'd have to be a member to borrow - but you can sit down and learn for free. Unfortunately, online content is increasingly restricted to those who are members, those who have enrolled, those who have a login and password.

In this day and age, were some of the public have had nightmare experiences with online courses - perhaps its important that we let people try before they buy.

But how to do it?

Check it can be done with the systems you already have
Obviously the first step is to see if the courses that are already online can be opened for guest access. As it turns out, guest access can be done with our learning management system at OP, but it would be a special case. Guest access does not give entry to forums and assessment folders however.

Is the system you have ideal for Open learning?
The next thing to do is decide if making the learning management system course open is the best way to promote the course. What we want people to do most of all is decide if the content is for them. The last thing we want is for them to be turned off simply by stree and confusion with the system interface. But on the other hand we do want them to get a genuine feeling of what the course would feel like.

Build a learning community
Opening the course material up is one thing - its not like we'd be original thinkers in doing that - there are more high quality open courses than one can poke a stick at these days - but providing some level of human social interaction and supportive communication around those resources would be something unique. Setting up a tried and true email list, nurturing a community around that email list, and building it to a level of self organisation may be an effective way of establishing a social experience around your resources.

Make yourself the expert
Then you might like to set your academics towards establishing themselves online as prolific experts in the field. People who are a cut above - finding resources and helpful information, and pushing what they find out to the community, for free. For an example of a person who has certainly set them selves up as an international expert in the area of management, see Creating Passionate Users.

If all this increases the knowledge of your staff, currency of their information, extends your network, and promotes awareness of your courses, then it would be a good thing. If it actually generates increased enrollments in flexible learning courses, then that's a bonus. But at the least what you are doing is building an extended learning network, setting up an audience, making your academics experts within that audience, and promoting the courses they lecture in.

Think about RPL
And if the assessment activities in the open courseware were designed in such a way that the self paced learner (where ever they may be) is producing a portfolio of evidence for their learning, then you might like to streamline your recognition of prior learning process for such a person so that they come and see you for recognition and certification before anyone else. For such a person you would offer your assessment and accreditation at reduced rates...

Censorship

2006-06-12T11:16:00.000+12:00

Recently I was teaching a group of exchange students from Japan how to blog. The idea was they would keep web journals in English, not only to practice their English communication skills but to keep their families updated. I was aware that the Polytech uses censorware to control student use of the Internet while on campus so, I asked the lead teacher to request a check that both the blogspot.com and youtube.com were not included in the blacklist that determines censoring. Unfortunately on the day we discovered blogspot.com to be blocked. So I had everyone login as me so we could get going quickly.

I'm now on the hunt for some free and open source filtering software were 100's of users can be given the rights to administer to the blacklist. The way I see it is, in an adult education organisation, if we have to control student use we should think of a couple of options.

1. Are communal computing labs set up well enough so as to be able to manage classrooms effectively without having to censor use. Things like wireless Internet will help us eventually get out of the classrooms, but what about recessed monitor desks, and shared screen software? Recessed monitors may help manage the distraction of the computers in class. They would certainly remove the eye contact barriers between students and teachers and reclaim the use of a desk for more than just supporting a monitor. Shared monitors will give teachers the ability observe monitors take over its display to get attention on particular things.

2. Communal censorship should be the way we head in my opinion if we still think we need to control Internet use for the benefit of communal computer labs. Basically everyone (or all the teachers at least) have the rights to manage the blacklist, helping to block and unblock sites appropriately rather than waiting on the time and decisions of the few. While there may be a few bad apples in the organisation from time to time, it wouldn't be hard to track them down, and I reckon there are a hell of a lot less bad than good people in the organisation. The idea software for this would be something that installs a button or quick link on the browser so that when I came across a URL that should be blocked, I click the button, login, and submit. Likewise if I came across a site that should be unblocked.

So there's my suggestions to better manage censorship at Otago Polytechnic.
What I'm doing now is collecting links to articles and software that may support my proposals.

Hospitality Networked

2006-06-09T18:00:00.000+12:00

I've been really energised by Thanasi again. For a while there I was worried that he was putting our work on the back burner, but I get the impression he is back on board and raring to go with developing online courses, and more flexible learning options.

Looking at joining a network

Today I showed Thanasi the brief for the Hospitality Networked project in Australia in which the coordinator Steven Parker has invited Otago Polytechnic Hospitality staff to be involved with.

The Tourism Hospitality Network project covers the latest technological developments in the world of hospitality education and training. The project focuses on training a teaching team in the use of new technologies to enhance the facilitation of practical learning around hospitality work. The project is tied to the Professional Development project Teacher Connect as well as funding from CSHT&H division (Nerolli Cassidy).

Thanasi was keen to be a part of this so I listed off the pros and cons of involvement just to be sure:

Pros:

Meet other teachers working with communications technology is the area of hospitality
Find good training resources
Exposure to new ideas and innovations
Start mapping competencies and courses internationally

Cons:

Needs time and commitment
Need to learn new skills
Need to share resources
Need to communicate openly

Apart from the first con, the rest could be seen as pros actually. But time and commitment are biggies.

Thanasi then responded by explaining that "this stuff is what makes me tick - I have to be a part of it.."

So with that we looked at where to start so as to become involved.

Building a stronger online identity

I advised that he should start to build an online identity to assist in his networking and attract students to his courses. I showed 2 examples of New Zealand teachers using blogs:

http://mportfolios.blogspot.com/
http://artichoke.typepad.com/artichoke/

While these two examples are not so much geared towards attracting students, they are certainly helping the authors network internationally. My advise was that if Thanasi tried out blogging and thought he could sustain it, then this would naturally build up an online identity for his teaching work. This would help him network more easily with international groups such as the Hospitality NetworkED, as well as start building his profile as a subject expert to which people go to get training in his particular areas.

Ideas

We began talking about the potential, where school kids start getting referreded to Thanasi's blog for preliminary resourceses to support training in bar and cafe work. They download short skills videos, MP3s and picture stacks - high school careers advisors start pointing to the blog as a regularly updated source of new information and naturally this will attract students into the short courses for preparation into bar and cafe work - skills areas young people are particularly interested in and delivered in formats they are naturally comfortable with. Being networked internationally could also help Thanasi get his courses recognised in other countries thereby assisting some of his students to achieve their goals for working travel.

Looking at quizes.

The other reason Thanasi and I met was to look at quizzes. Thanasi want to use quizzes along with demo videos to help his students study and remember formulas and sequences. On my advise, Thanasi initiated 2 blackboard shells - not so much to take advantage of the quiz feature, but to start saving his course materials in. We did look into the quiz feature although (thanks Bronwyn for the just in time), and I think we came to grips with it enough for Thanasi to be able to use it as a formative assessment tool - and for his students to simply use for practice.

I put it to Thanasi that the Blackboard quizes may be a good place to start, but suggested that he begin looking towards more open tools seeing as he is not using the quizzes for any summative assessment or grading. With open quizzes, not only does he improve the chances of the public finding his courses, but for development collaboration with his international network. So I promised to go on the hunt for free web based quiz tools - so far this is what I have found:

Flashcardexchange - is an international network of teachers developing Flashcard resources for route learning and self assessment.
Zoomerang - is a survey tool that could be creatively used to formulate quizzes
Survey Monkey - Another free survey tool that is popular with many other teachers I have worked with, mainly for creating surveys, but could also be creatively used for quizzes.
HotPotatoes - is unfortunately not a web based application, but their free software can be downloaded and is quite easy to use in creating a variety of tests and quizzes in the form of a web page for uploading.

These tools come close to what Thanasi needs, and easily do what Blackboard offers, but it still is not perfect. I am still looking. The benefits of using free web based tools instead of the Blackboard tool is that Thanasi and his students would be learning how to use a tool that is more likely to be available to them outside their relationship to the Polytech. I call it value added learning for life. There may come a time when Thanasi's students need or want to use a quiz toolor learning resource again and they may remember Thanasi showing them a free web based tool and be able to find and use it themselves. This value can not be provided for if they were to simply learn how to use the Blackboard tool, as Blackboard would not be available to them once they are unenroled from the Polytech.

In saying that though, if Thanasi decided that he wanted to use a sumative assessment quiz, and needed to record student results and keep those results private and secure then he would be best to use the Blackboard feature.

Thanasi is now practicing the use of Blackboard quizzes while he waits for me to send him the perfect web based quiz too. He is also setting up a blog for his online identity and network development.

New book on DIY Wireless setups

2006-06-05T20:00:00.000+12:00

Wireless Networking in the Developing World: A practical guide to planning and developing a low cost telecommunications infrastructure.

The book was finished a few months ago. As soon as I saw it I uploaded the free PDF to my lulu account so I could get in printed and bound like a book. The authors have since done the same, and made it available very cheap!

We have wireless available at our work now. I havn't been able to get my personal laptop on with it though, but no worries with work issued laptops...? I'm hoping that a public and free WiFi net will be made available... perhaps this book offers some useful tips on the idea.

$100 Laptops coming

2006-06-05T19:59:00.000+12:00

A while ago now, I jumped up and down with excitement about the release of the $100 laptop project out at MIT. I wished for the opportunity to buy one myself even if it meant I had to spend more.

Well now that opportunity has arrived, as well as a new video of the first working prototype of the laptop. You can pledge to buy a $100 laptop for $300. I did. I just have to get my paws on one of these things.

The suggestion has been made that he also offer it for sale for ~$300 to the rest of us so that we do have an interesting machine and can help to support the cost computers for the developing world. If he does offer it, then I will buy one at three times the cost and thus contribute to supplying two to the proposed users.

I suggest that you might want to also pledge so that he would consider this "We Purchase, They Benefit" option.

Thanks Chris for the pointer.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons (Attribution) license.

So much open courseware

2006-06-03T19:09:00.000+12:00

There's no doubt about it, MIT's initiative in 2004 to make its learning resources freely available and call it open courseware has taken off. Now we have several other universities in the United States doing the same, several in Japan, China, Canada, South Africa, and this is just the few I know about. Check out what everyone else has been noticing. Open courseware makes a lot of sense on many fronts.

1. It meets the educational and research institutions social responsibility more readily and more globally.
2. It preserves the social role of the library, where password protected courses and their content is threatening the traditions of open access, open courseware is preserving the fact that anyone can walk in and at least look at books.
3. Its good marketing
4. It could integrate into the Institutions Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) when outside learners, having used the open courseware, make an approach for recognition of learning and eventual certification.
5. It helps the Institutions and their departments stay current, or high quality and relevant.

I have been watching the materials that become available open courseware and have been saving them into a resource list for each Department. If you're using Del.icio.us and are interested in open courseware, we could combine our findings by using the same tag words...

I'm yet to find any open courseware iniatives coming out of Australia or New Zealand.

Wouldn't it be great, given Otago Polytechnic's current drive towards flexible learning (especially being a rather content and techno centric drive at the moment) if we could integrate that iniative with an Otago Polytechnic Open Courseware iniative.

Not only would we be internationally noticed and perhaps benchmarked for it, but we could quite possibly tap into developing study markets both locally and internationally. Australia, South East Asia, New Zealand and Pacific regions are showing signs of higher numbers of people willing to study overseas. Get these people started using easily accessable and reusable learning resources - stamped Otago Polytechnic and with assessment activities streamlined with our RPL processes, and we could see an increase in student enrolement or RPL processing without having to do too much more than we are doing already. Just do what we are doing anyway (getting courses online) and make their content open.

If this idea interests you, then come along to the workshop on finding and reusing digital resources on the 2nd Monday of every month - 12 - 1pm, H523. That's this Monday by the way.

The only thing worth teaching is how to learn

2006-05-31T05:19:00.000+12:00

4am.. yep its another one of those sleepless mornings when counting sheep just won't settle the mind. Its like waiting for santa on christmas eve, or going through your paces before a big game... this time its what I'm going to say in the 10 minutes I've got today to sum up everything I represent in this game of teaching and learning.

I have 10 minutes to give a presentation in the first of 4 workshops as part of a course called Designing for Flexible Learning Practice. The course is part of a new certificate called "Graduate Certificate in Tertiary Learning and Teaching" being run in my place of work. It is a certificate that all teaching academic staff will likely be expected to have in our organisation, a trend of certification I am quite familiar with in Australia.

So anyway, I've decided to talk about the only thing worth teaching. My presentation is the last of 3. The others are talking to case studies in flexible learning design. One is talking about the development of an online learning resource, the other (I think) is talking about the development of an online learning community for a particular occupation area. The thing that has been worrying me (and the reason I'm awake at this hour) is that with a distributed and networked learning design (that's kinda what I want to talk about), it is difficult to find something that shows how it works at a glance.

That's why I love Jay Cross' graphic on informal learning. I intend to use this graphic to talk about what our organisation calls "graduate profile". A graduate profile is what a student will be like when they finish their time with us. It has statements in it about being a life long learner, a self directed learner, and stuff like that. I want to use that profile and combine it with Jay's illustration of informal learning, and set them up side by side and use them as the target learning outcome when designing for flexible learning.

So it might go something like this:

When a student comes to us, it is probably for one of 2 reasons. They are a novice learner and need support in starting out their learning in a particular area (a bus ride as Jay puts it); or they are an already expert learner (a bicycle rider as Jay puts it) and have to be here because some other piece of paper says they need this piece of paper. Not much I can do about the paper bit, and it certainly can be a demotivating distraction for some groups, but at least I can try to make the bus ride learning (designed for novice learners) interesting for bicycle riding self directed learners.

So, we have a group of novice learners in their first year. They are expert bicycle riders in other subject areas, but in ours they are confessing novice status and want to come on a bus ride (the lesson, or course plan). What we want to do as bus drivers is teach these people how to appreciate riding bicycles in our subject area. Make sense? Well it is 4:30am...

In short, we want these learners to be functional self directed learners in the field before they graduate. Our graduate profile is a bicycle rider.

What does this mean in real terms? It might go something like this:

In their first year (assuming we as teachers have the luxury of talking in years with our course plans) we join people to classrooms. These may be real 9 to 5 type classrooms or these may be virtual online classrooms. We start them off with presentations, lectures, our own learning materials, and otherwise passive/delivered information. But sooner than later we are asking them to start reproducing what they are learning and interacting with the subject.

In the second year (or phase) we introduce them to existing learning communities where they can witness a more informal learning process. It is here we start teaching how to learn this way. We wean them out of the classroom learning, building confidence around themselves and their understanding of the subject. We help them manage communications technology and the skills needed to work it to THEIR favour, and give incentives to use that technology in whatever informal learning they may already be involved in.

Finally in the third year or phase we add further incentives to now focus their informal learning processes on the subject. Taking their place in existing subject oriented learning communities, developing a voice within it and/or breaking away and starting a new learning community. The main point is to develop a person to be an expert self directed learner in the field before they walk out that "door" with a funny hat and a rolled up peice of paper.

Now with that seemingly obvious objective out of the way, what are some of the impediments to that happening? Well, the classroom for one. If by the end of the 3rd year or phase, your classroom or learning management system is still full, then the objective is still a long way off. You need to get as many as you can out of your classroom (bus) an on their own journey (bicycle) as you can in the short amount of tiime you have. In more than a few cases some people may take a lot longer to develop confidence in learning the field informally than others, a few of these may come to realise that your field is not what interests them. Other obstacles are in measuring learning or assessment, but these bureaucratic challenges are where the fun begins for a creative and energetic teacher.

So, its 5 am and I think I'll sleep on it for an hour or so now. But at least I have it out now. Its rough, and may not make any sense to anyone but me - I bet there are a bunch of people who are thinking that I have just contradicted myself in all this, but I have that in mind and I don't think I have. When I come to re-reading this, all puffy eyed and at work - we'll see.

Flash Cards for Health

2006-05-26T10:13:00.000+12:00

David from Community Health contacted me last week asking about ways to develop Flash Cards for his students. We talked about Peter Mellow's use of sms txt for mLearning flash cards, but David felt it was a bit beyond his needs. I then showed him Bubbleshare in response to his idea of students creating their own flash cards, but he felt it lacked the functionality he was after. So I went on a hunt, asking my network and within no time at all Michael Nelson from Australia passed me FlashCards.

Flashcards are study tools. Think of a small 3×5 index card with a question on one side and an answer on the other side. This web site is an internet application where you can create, study, print and download flashcards. See the introduction for more details.

David's response: "Perfect".

GCTLT Designing for flexible learning - ready

2006-05-25T15:38:00.000+12:00

Bronwyn and I have been hammering away at the plan for the Designing for Flexible Learning course. We have done up a course outline and plan using writely - which has been really useful for synchonously editing the document, and I'd say has made this step in the process very efficient.

I am now drafting up a welcome email to be sent out through the egroup. I have also set up a course facilitator's log specifically for the course to help with communication and course promotion. I have also made initial steps towards opening the course for outside participation, such as the blog, open publishing of materials, and public eGroup. I think we will need more people participating in the online discussions to make them effective and engaginig. Offering some of the course freely and openly (up to the point of assessment and creditation) could be a good way to get feedback, promote the course, and potentially increase fee paying participation if RPL processing and mapping to other quals can be achieved and result in assessment and creditation.

Free, easy, web based, flow chart. Oh, and a way staff ideas can access EDC and AQU

2006-05-25T09:54:00.000+12:00

Could you have a use for a free, incredibly easy to use, web based and therefore potentially collaborative flow chart/concept mapping tool? Who doesn't have a need for such a thing. I love this tool. Gliffy.com I love you!!

EPIC - The Evolving Personalised Media Construct

2006-05-24T10:39:00.000+12:00

"It is the best of times, it is the worst of times..."

The year is 2014, the New York Times has gone offline. The Forth Estate's fortunes have waned. What happened to the news and what is EPIC?

This 8 minute movie is pretty impressive and in many ways its predictions are already happening. (If the movie stops and starts it means your bandwidth is a bit slow. Let it play through once - no peeking - and replay it when its finished).

If you think you'll be around in 2014, trying to teach in that world, then you should probably watch this. After you've watched it and if you think you'd like to consider more on this topic, have a read of my article on the evolution of Internet communications back in July 2005.

What an interesting era we are in.

Ask Ninja, What is Podcasting

2006-05-23T12:06:00.000+12:00

You could ask Ninja, he might make sense, he'll certainly crack you up!

Otherwise, you could come to Networked Learning workshops lunch times for the first 2 weeks of every month! ;)

Languages Department has what it takes

2006-05-22T11:47:00.000+12:00

This morning I visited William's class up in the Languages Department, to talk with his students about Wikipedia. I was very pleased to see that his students were quite inspired by the wikipedia, with a few committing themselves towards working with the content and creating pages in their own languages. I'm hoping that they will be attracted to translating the Otago Polytechnic pages, as well as the Dunedin Page.

Here is some information about starting new pages in Wikipedia in different languages, as well as how to edit.

William then invited me to have morning tea with the language Department staff, and I must say how impressed I was by their willingness to talk with me, and the new ideas and practices I bring with me. The staff struck me as having exactly the right qualities needed to develop a truly innovative and useful online component to their classes.

In particular we spoke towards the idea of life long learning, and working towards building student confidence and competence in communicating in English, in the context of their lives. I think we agreed that students using the Internet to enhance their communicative reach and capabilities may not only improve confidence and competence, but may also work towards a more self directed learning ethos, and a student generated content model for the Languages Department.

I left a Notworked Learning booklet with them and explained that I am available to help them understand these new technologies and social communication methods, either at the times indicated on the fliers, or anytime they can arrange a group of 5 our more (students included).

I very much look forward to working with this Department.

The Spell of Morpheus

2006-05-22T10:20:00.000+12:00

Julie came around to see me to ask about ways to get her presentation The Spell of Morpheus online. Personally I am very interested in Julie's topic and think it to be socially significant. Aside from that, it was an opportunity to work with someone confessed to be afraid of computers and creating digital content - although I did find out later that Julie has been a big time user of chat rooms...

Our concept was to record Julie giving her presentation with the transparencies she already had. I would record the audio, and photograph the projections, then we would compile the presentation using flickr for the projections and ourmedia for the audio, then bringing it together in Julie's own blog. Unfortunately the recording of the presentation didn't work. We had limited audio recording resources at the time, and all the projections were not available making the photography idea impossible.

I did go ahead and upload what pictures I did get, just to demonstrate the workability. Julie downloaded Audacity and recorded her voice, and uploaded the PowerPoint and the audio to her own ourmedia account.

We will complete the experiment when Julie gets back.

Free web based white board

2006-05-19T12:53:00.000+12:00

Nancy White reports her favourable impression of free web based white board service Vyew.

Here is another tool to play with, Vyew.com - Free Web-Based Collaboration. A few of us have used it a couple of times during our regular teleconference calls. (We normally use the phone and a Skype chat room). It was easy to use and useful for sketching visual ideas. We wished for a shared write board as well as a whiteboard because using the text tool was a bit clumsy. But overall, I like it. Useufl for a quick, free shared visualization space. Free for up to 20 users at a time. Includes a chat panel (right side) and list of users (upper right side.) You can save screens and email them to yourself or others.

2006 E-learning Networks Project Overview

2006-05-16T16:42:00.000+12:00

Take a look at this project getting launched tonight. If you're interested in learning a lot more about networked learning, then watch that space. I hope to get Otago Poly staff involved in the mentoring network.

A Community of Practice (CoP) with the purpose of exploring Web 2.0 technologies in education and related learning theories, such as Connectivism and Networked Learning.

Based on peer-to-peer learning principles, the network will provide an opportunity for members to share skills and knowledge and mentor each other in new tools, practices and concepts.

The network will be built on the open web using Web 2.0 tools, modelling the process of creating networked learning communities based on personalised learning environments, thereby reflecting the underlying philosophy of learner-centred, self-organising, egalitarian networks.

Merrolee shows how to record audio with her phone

2006-05-16T12:46:00.000+12:00

Merrolee popped around the other day to talk about ways in which she can record audio using her standard issue mobile phone, and how to email that audio off her phone and onto a computer for editing and reformating.

If the streaming video above does not work for you, download the movie file here: 9 Meg.

the "enablement" principle

2006-05-15T09:25:00.000+12:00

In an email discussion with Terry Morris today, we talked about the enablement principle in teaching. We are devising a way to integrate the Networked Learning workshops into other teaching technology workshops, starting with the ones Terry is offering.

I really admire Terry's concept of starting off with what the participants generally already know well - that being traditional teaching methods. He then takes those methods and relates them to a particular communication technology - such as Internet broadcasting...

The introductory discussion of current teaching practices and a broad conceptual view of ICTs such as "Internet broadcasting" sits well with me. But even in the Networked Learning workshops, I have difficulty when it comes down to a specific technology. My difficulty is mostly to do with enablement. I want to find a way where participants feel enabled to choose their own technology and not be limited by what we or our employer says we should use. Is there an in between step that "should" be taken before we endorse by teaching Elluminate, Blogger, or MS Producer?

In a way enabling participants of the NetLearning workshops to choose their own technology is easy, because the criteria for the technologies are that they have to be free, web based and easy to use applications. Being free and web based obviously means that the participants can try out and swap around before settliing on the one for them.. easy to use is more subjective of course. The goal is to become fluent and confident in trying things out.

So for example:

eMail lists: We look at the history of their use, relate it to current teaching practices, then look at what free and web based serices are available. It is about here that I have trouble. It is hard not to just say "I think Google Groups is the best, so we should us it". Especially when it is clear that the younger ones probably prefer MSN groups, Yahoo groups, or MySpaces, not to mention the others who would prefer to host their own email list software!

3rd Design Meeting

2006-05-13T15:26:00.000+12:00

Terry and I went along to the Friday arvo design staff meeting this week to discuss online and flexible learning. I was particularly looking forward to this meeting as it was mt third, Terry's second with the team and at the previous meetings the staff had expressed interest in hearing more about open networked learning methods such as blogs, wikis and open courseware.

Unfortunately I was a little late for the meeting due to being held up recording a very worth while presentation on mobile learning by Peter Mellow. A few of the design staff were also at that presentation and were impressed enough by it to bring it up at the design staff meeting afterwards.

When I arrived, Terry was full flight into talking about Black Board. He spent a while going over the various benefits of Black Board and basically rehashing what we had talked about in the previous 2 meetings. He then showed 2 examples of Polytech Black Board courses, demonstrating examples of simple animated resources within them. He talked a little about the use of Course Genie to generate well ordered text base resources from word documents, and how Black Board automatically unpacks Zip files.

When a couple of the staff started expressing concern that their students would not engage with, or even get much out of the Black Board LMS, I took the opportunity to show examples of open networked learning resources. I showed Michael Nelson's Web Design course in Wikiversity and explained how the resource is constantly being updated and modified by Michael, his students and outside collaborators. Wikiversity generated discussion in the group with Product Design lecturer Mike Wilson bringing up MIT Open Courseware as an interesting model for him. We looked at the Open Courseware finder and discussed the benefits and issues with OP Design adopting such a model, and using other organisation's courseware.

The discussion then moved to how the Design Department needed a website, and how they had been waiting for quite some time to see that through. Given that we had been talking about wikiversity, I brought up the Wikipedia entry for Otago Polytechnic and showed them how they could use that entry to start building a website for the Department. This again generated an energetic discussion, with agreement that students would find such a collaborative environment engaging. While the wikipedia entry may not be suitable for the main Design Department website, everyone agreed that it would be a good tool in which to build up content to copy into a more formal website when it is available to them.

Over all I get the impression at all three meetings so far that the Design staff are considering using Black Board to administer and manage their courses, but are very interested in exploring open networked learning strategies in their courses.

Peter Mellows - StudyTXT

2006-05-11T22:11:00.000+12:00

Met Peter Mellows for dinner tonight. He is talking tomorrow about his StudyTXT project. Basically its a simple service in which students txt a course or subject code and get txt back a 100 or so character message with facts and figures. Here's a video of Peter demonstrating the service.

Here's a recording of Peter's inspiring 1 hour presentation made to Otago Polytechnic the day after. Starts off with the Dalai Lama talking about non violent action - which I found curiously though provoking, and in many ways caused me to think about my own work and the way I go about agitating for change in my own organisation...

Open day videos

2006-05-11T11:16:00.000+12:00

Otago Polytechnic had a little student open day on campus day before yesterday. I took the opportunity to orientate myself a bit more with what courses are on offer and the faces behind them, by running around with my pocket camera and video recording short vox pops of the people at the stands. Sadly I lost a few of the recordings because I saved the videos to my desktop and left them over night. Turns out large files get wiped from the desktop in a rather strange backup process. Sadly I lost the originals, so am left with only the compressed versions... oh well, leassons learned...

Anyway, I was able to salvage a few of the videos and have them uploaded to YouTube for free streaming and public networking/promotion. I'm still in the process of uploading the movies to OurMedia for free file serving so you can get a copy for yourself. To learn how easy it is to do this for your classes, come along to the Digital Video Recording and Editing workshops, 2nd Wednesday of every month, 12 - 1pm. In the mean time, here they all are copied below:

(If you have recieved this message in your email, you'll have to go to the original post "educational development" linked below. Also - you will need Flash and Java enabled on your computer to watch these movies, and if your bandwidth is too slow to stream them in, press pause and let them load ahead)

Rene Smit on IT Courses at Otago Polytechnic

Pete and Gary take us through the courses on offer at the Sports Institute at Otago Polytechnic

Kirsty Miller takes us through Technology Science courses offered at the Otago Polytechnic

Annetta Cowie talks about business admin courses offered at the Otago Polytechnic's open day

Mike Wilson talks us throughthe courses on offer in Design at Otago Polytechnic

Caroline McIntosh talks us through the Midwifery course offered at Otago Polytechnic

Audio video workshop

2006-05-11T07:44:00.000+12:00

Since the podcast about podcasting session, there's been an increase in the number of people at Otago Polytechnic interested in audio recording and publishing. We had a few people at the Digital Video Recording and Editing workshop yesteray. Merrolee wanted to find out how to make her mobile phone recordings available online. Julia is interested in how she can AV record her presentations and make them available online. Rachel is interested in current trends in video for use in her photography classes. Phil turned up to get ideas. Bronwyn was there as well. Ken couldn't make it because of a meeting, but her is interested in audio recording and podcasting lectures.

Seeing as this was the first workshop on digital video, I kinda held the floor for the hour going over all the different things involved, and explaining what it doesn't involve - for me.

I started off explaining how this workshop fits in the series of workshops in networked learning, and how there is an eMail list for the participants to continue discussion before and after workshops. I showed how everyone is a manager in that eMail list and urged everyone to invite and add others. I also demonstrated how to RSVP a time for workshops from the workshop calendar.

Then I moved into what the session is about. I pulled out my little pocket camera and explained my perspective on these camera's video recording capabilities. For the most part these cameras do a good enough job in terms of quality for use on today's internet. The fact that they can only record short lengths of video is a blessing in my view. Like the expense of film, storage issues for digital cameras means we are more careful and thoughtful in how we shoot video. This naturally leads us into a practice of in camera editing, which in the long run is a very good practice to get in to.

From that I showed YouTube. One of many free DIY video publishing web sites that offers free streaming for your videos. I showed some of my uses of YouTube and demonstrated the extra benefits of using socially networked services like YouTube - especially how when you upload a video of your own, it automatically relates your video with other videos like it, based on how you describe yours. This can be a valuable feature that will save we teachers from "reinventing wheels", and networking us with other video creators with similar interests.

I showed how I am largely using YouTube for screencasting. I use the free and open source screen recorder CamStudio to record demonstrations of using particular websites and software. I then upload the demos to YouTube and copy the code offered by YouTube and past it in this blog to display the video in context, as such:

If you are reading this post in your email, then it is likely that you cannot see the video. The email has been forwarded from the original blog post. Click the "educational development" link at the bottom of the email to see this post in its original context.

I then talked about the limitations of YouTube only really being usable to people who have access to broad band Internet. Unfortunately, YouTube does not yet offer a feature of being able to download the video to play offline. What we need is a service that will at least allow people to set their computers to download a video file so that they can walk away and come back next morning and have a video file to play.

So I showed OurMedia. OurMedia offers unlimited file storage, non commercially. It is the contemporary media capture arm of the Internet Archive, an impressive project working towards the goal of offering universal access to all human knowledge.

But before uploading video to OurMedia, it is a good idea to process our orginal video into a size and format that is optimized for the Internet. I use the free video converter Videora. Videora processes videos into the MPEG4 format which is playable in the Quicktime player, as well as the iPod video player. It is generally accepted to be the most widely used and playable format.

Once original video has been processed into MPEG4, it can be uploaded to OurMedia, and then the Universal Resource Locator (URL or Link) is offered by OurMedia for you to copy and use in your online communications. That is the link that people on slower connection can use to save the video to their computer for viewing later.

We talked about a whole bunch of other issues and potentials in the workshop, but hopefully these notes cover the core elements.

Survey for flexible learning development

2006-05-09T10:24:00.000+12:00

Bronwyn and Terry attended a Flexible Learning Committee meeting last week. The need for a survey to gauge where the Poly is at and where it might need to go in relation to flexible learning was actioned. The plan for the survey is due tomorrow, so Bronwyn, Terry and I have been working on a document in Writely.

At the moment we are working up 10 example questions for each of the following big picture areas:

These are the big picture questions which will be answered by the data to be gathered in the project.

What is the understanding of staff, students and other stakeholders about flexible learning?
What is happening now around flexible learning and teaching at the institution?
How can flexible methods further assist learning and teaching?
What is needed by staff and students to encourage and support them?
Where do the staff and students and other stakeholders see flexible learning and teaching taking the institution in the future?
Where does the institution fit nationally and internationally?
What is the best way to review flexibility in learning and teaching?

On another note, working in Writely has been very useful. Writely is a web based office suite where we can upload documents and collaborativley work on them without ending up with versions left, right and centre. A bit like a wiki but it has all the office formating tools. Now that Terry is on board with us in it, we should be able to get a lot more done asychronously, and not have to rely so much on meetings and then one person transcribing what we agreed.

Terry and I went to Cromwell

2006-05-05T19:24:00.000+12:00

Terry Marler and myself went to Cromwell Campus to talk with a small group of teachers there about flexible and online teaching and learning. Terry and I drove up the night before so we could get an early start there, and stayed to 3pm the next day.

In the session we talked about the future of teaching and learning in a networked world, online pedagogy, quite a bit of hands on with Black Board 6, using AFLF Toolboxes, Wikis, Blogs, image and video sharing and socially networked software.

Apart from some minor issues with filters Terry or I knew nothing about blocking some of the things we needed to show and talk about, It was quite a good day, overviewing quite a number of practices and issues in education. The group is very friendly, has a good moral, and over all seem keen to proceed with developing more flexible learning options for their courses.

Podcasting about podcasting at Otago Polytechnic

2006-05-03T18:53:00.000+12:00

Myself, Merrolee Penman, Ken Wysocki, Terry Marler and Bronwyn Hegarty got together this morning to talk about podcasting. I used my little pocket recorder, but the mic picked up a far bit of background noise which converts into a pretty loud digital distortion when the MP3 compression was finished with it :( But its audible. Badly need a good mic. Please have a listen and if there is something you think is important to link to from this audio, add it to the audio log wiki.

Here's the file: 8 megs.

Wiki workshop

2006-05-03T14:06:00.000+12:00

Unfortunately Rachel and Kevin couldn't make it to the wiki workshop today, but Phil (bless him) he made it - we talked about many things apart from wikis.. such as the use of the picture sharing service flickr and the video sharing service youtube in class settings.

If you intended to come, or are intending to get along to a wikis workshop, perhaps spend 20 minutes with these 3 videos:

A really interesting look at Wikipedia the free encyclopaedia
A look wikispaces, the free web based wiki service
A very quick look at PB wiki, a free web based wiki that offers login options

To book a place in any of the networked learning workshops just click the "calendar" link at the top of this website.

I've almost finished printing the info booklet and fliers for the workshops too, so keep an eye out for them in the next week.

Tomorrow's workshop is on web feeds. 12 - 1pm H523.

Here we are in a Networked Learning workshop about Blogging

2006-05-02T11:52:00.000+12:00

So Helen turned up today to look at blogs. We got side tracked quite a bit talking about ideas for OP to save money, and general discussion on working at OP. But now we're into blogs and have also looked at the news reader Bloglines and the email list service Google Groups.

Setting alarm notification in Groupwise

2006-05-01T10:32:00.000+12:00

Electronic tools make it too easy to make mistakes. If you're trying to tow the line and use you electronic calendar, but keep missing appointments because you forget to look at the darn thing, then you need an alarm notifier. This demo will show you how to do that with the email and calendar client GroupWise. While you watch this, I'm out looking for a way to get the thing to send a message to your mobile phone as well!

Watch the streaming video on YouTube.
or
download the mpeg video - 2 meg from Internet Archive

Essential listening: Brewster Kahle on universal access to human knowledge

2006-05-01T09:51:00.000+12:00

Audio file - 45 meg

Brewster Kahle initiated the Internet Archive, an amazing library archive, succeeding in its incredibly ambitious vision - to provide universal access to ALL human knowledge and information.

If you're a librarian, or someone who works with information and knowledge production, publishing, storage, archive, retrieval and reuse... that's everyone! Then you would be neglecting your post by not listening to this recording of Brewster presenting his arguments and vision at IT Conversations archives of the SDForum Distinguished Speaker Series.

Bill Kerr went to the trouble of transcribing Brewsters final word in the recording:

When I grew up I felt that life was happening to me - I got to watch TV, I heard from teachers, I read textbooks ... the newspapers were written by someone other ... it felt like things happened to me

It was only when I got to a technical college that I found people in the front end of a field ... it was very exciting, invigorating ... people answering questions that hadn't been answered, rather than, "Do it right kid, or you'll get a B"

It was exciting when I was in a crypto class and the teacher said, "In this class you're going to learn all these things ... and then we have a bunch of unanswered questions ... if you have any ideas on these unanswered questions, here's my home number" ... that's exciting!

The opportunity we have with the net and it's already happening is making it so that more people feel like they're at the front edge, that they're seeing primary materials, that they can talk and interact with the real guys, that they're building and making something new, that they have something to say that matters ... that the world is theirs to play with and build on.

The key thing for us is to make it Read / Write. You can read or comment or make something new. You deserve to be in the library too.

The key to happiness for me is satisfaction and being satisfied comes from doing things for others, that I could tell what their reaction was. One of the cool things about this WAIS system was you put up these things and you started to see the usage logs ... people were coming in from other countries ... they cared about me ... it was like that ham radio experience ... where are you?

We started to share things, making it so more people are on the front edge ... they are able to draw from the past and make new things

The downside, the evil, awful, how could it go wrong is cable television or DRM, where it's all locked up. You're allowed to experience it ... entertainment and being a consumer ... this is SICK, I don't want to be a consumer, I don't want to be entertained. That's happening to me. I want to be able to build on and show off to my friends ... and that requires easing up and being able to play with stuff.

I think ideas come from the commons. They're exploited successfully by Companies as Marx said ... but I'm a card carrying capitalist and I've been fairly successful. But I do know the limitations of what we can do in the private sphere.

The public sphere is something we really have to nurture. When I was first at an internet conference after coming out with WAIS in 1991, I remember putting up my hand and saying, "I'm the token dot com in the room, I'm here to help people make money on the net". But NOW, I'm the token dot org in the room! It's gone so far the other way that we've forgotten that it really requires the commons ...

That's my dream and hope that my kids have a better life than I have

Why OP learning content should be open and free

2006-04-20T15:25:00.000+12:00

Stephan Ridgway from the Sydney Institute of TAFE has recorded a presentation by Cory Doctorow made to the Australian Film Commission.

In it is the strongest arguement I've heard yet as to why Internet content should be free and open, and points to a new (old actually) economic model for educational learning content.

Essential listening!

Essential listening

2006-04-20T15:04:00.000+12:00

Stephen Downes produces recordings of his presentations that I think are essential listening for educators. In particular I recommend his eLearning 2.0 recordings.

Del.icio.us

2006-04-19T16:45:00.000+12:00

A quick look at socially networked bookmarking with Del.icio.us

If the video is stopping and starting all the time, it means your connection is a bit slow for streaming video. Just click the pause icon, and let the video load more. If it won't even start then perhaps going to the the source will be better. If you still have no joy, or you're on a painfully slow connection you could download the movie manually from here, or contact me for a CD.

Adjusting menus in the Black Web

2006-04-19T16:42:00.000+12:00

A quick look at how to adjust the menu in a Black Board course

If the video is stopping and starting all the time, it means your connection is a bit slow for streaming video. Just click the pause icon, and let the video load more. If it won't even start then perhaps going to the the source will be better. If you still have no joy, or you're on a painfully slow connection you could download the movie manually from here (TBA), or contact me for a CD.

Assessment of Prior Learning for Diploma of Fine Arts

2006-04-13T12:15:00.000+12:00

Just met with Kris Bennett, Kate Vercoe, and Rayna Dickson from the Centre for Assessment of Prior Learning (CAPL) to talk about ways in which communications technologies may help in the facilitation of an assessment of learning for past Fine Arts students of the Polytech.

These students have completed the Diploma in Fine Arts and now interested in the award of bachelor of Fine Arts. Having this award could assist those who have become Visual Arts Teachers in high school to achieve a higher wage bracket.

To achieve this award the applicants need to enter into a facilitated and communicative assessment process with Kate, with expectations being to articulate their learning, underpinning conceptual bases, theory of practice, and portfolios of practice. I went into some detail of how past methods of journal based learning (as is commonly used in creative arts courses) translates to the digital and networked mediums. ePortfolios, blogs, or digital journals/portfolios more generally. We also talked about ways in which those with a barrier to using such technologies may still have an opportunity to engage. I suggested that we just ask for a sharable journal to be one of the requirements, then offer workshops in a range of ways to do that, from word documents sent into group email, to audio visual blogs.

We also talked a bit about other communication tools such as telephones, sms, fax, email and eGroups, instant messaging, and voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP). We talked about the uses and limitations of such tools as Skype and Elluminate, talking about their relevance to life outside the Polytech, what would be more likely to be commonly used, and what would have added benefit to the participants life - and therefore motivation to engage with such technology.
Kate seemed interested in the idea of establishing an eGroup, supported by an initial face to face social, one to one telephone, group SMS, fax, and weekly instant messaging and possibly Skype meetings. The aim being to stimulate engagement with the eGroup and establish trust, social bonds etc, and build a healthy learning community. As an add on to this, the use of the digital journals would perhaps be optional. Kate was open to the idea of observing the Teach and Learn Online eGroup, and seeing an example of how a self sustaining online learning community might work, and using it to find connection with other teachers and examples of the model she is considering. I will join Kate to the eGroup and support her with any questions she may have.

Back with Thanasi

2006-04-12T12:46:00.000+12:00

Thanasi came to the digital video recording and editing workshop today, and we revisited the ideas discussed late March.

Today we solved the problem of the video format, by using WinAVI video converter for Ipod, PSP, 3GP, MP4. A joy of a program, making it very easy to convert Thanasi's MOD format to movies playable on video Ipod, Play Station Portable, mobile phones and Quicktime mov.

We created an MP4 (Quicktime playable) and uploaded it to Thanasi's YouTube account, and for those who don't have the connection speed of Flash player to watch the YouTube video, we also uploaded the MOV to Thanasi's OurMedia account for manual download rather than YouTube's streaming media. As Thanasi develops more videos, and browses the existing videos that he finds now that he is socially networked via his videos, he will burn them to CD for those with no connection at all.

Thanasi intends to attend more Networked Learning workshops, and explore ways of displaying his videos in a Black Board course.

Logging in to Black Board

2006-04-12T09:43:00.000+12:00

A quick demo on how to login to Black Board at Otago Poly

If the video is stopping and starting all the time, it means your connection is a bit slow for streaming video. Just click the pause icon, and let the video load more. If it won't even start then perhaps going to the the source will be better. If you still have no joy, or you're on a painfully slow connection you could download the movie manually from here (TBA), or contact me for a CD.

PB Wiki

2006-04-11T20:51:00.000+12:00

A quick look at the PBWiki and how it may be useful in the planning of an Interactive Media programme... PBwiki is another free wiki with privacy options and a few useful features. Learn more about wikis at the workshops being held in H523 the first Wednesday of every month.

Web Feeds

2006-04-11T19:11:00.000+12:00

A quick look at how to use web feeds, specifically looking at using Bloglines to subscribe to a Blog feed and a Del.icio.us tag feed.
To learn more about web feeds book in for the web feeds workshop running on the first Wednesday of every month (Subject to variation).

International Tourism update

2006-04-11T15:53:00.000+12:00

Had a follow up meeting with Hillary Jenkins today, revisiting ideas we discussed last time we met. Hillary was pleased to say that a go ahead had been given for the course she is to develop for flexible learning and told Terry and I about some of the limitations she expects with regard to some of the Open Courseware ideas.

We spent a fare amount of time reviewing the things we talked about, getting Terry up to speed and just rehashing where we were up to. Terry offered to help Hillary write up an action plan and they are going to meet in the next few days.

Hillary alerted us to some pretty extreme deadlines, so Terry I and will have to prioritise her project a bit. May 9 is an open day for the course! Hillary hopes to develop a short promotional video for the course by then, which would be a good thing in terms of marketing the course starting a small project to get familiar with video - a widely applicable form of media development. I advised Hillary to collect up to 30 minutes of stock footage, music, and stills that she has copy rights for, and take them to Will Marler to develop 15 second/30 second/1minute and perhaps even a 5 minute versions of the one promo video. To help Hillary source content for this project I pointed her to Flickr's Creative Commons search, and more generally the Creative Commons Find. These are places (and there are others) where Hillary will be able to source licenced music, photos, and video media to use in the promotional video. I also suggested that Hillary approach Communication Design and see if there is a student interested in taking this production on.

As well, Hillary should approach Jason Taylor and learn how she can manage the BTT website, with a view that she enhance the site with more information and even tasters to the course. Terry will also help Hillary start a Black Board shell for the course, and we will start Hillary off in working with Black Board - trying to find a balance between the closed and open resources and communications for the course. Given the very tight deadline, we are working through this one step at a time without devising a broad design for the course at this stage. We still need to get Hillary aware of the possibilities, so will be using the promotional preparations as ways to raise her general awareness.

I also showed Hillary the Travel Wiki and the Wikipedia entry for Otago Polytechnic as a matter of interest and to start her thinking about constructionist learning and assessment strategies for the course, revisiting some of the ideas of developing communication channels and student work portfolios that can exist beyond the life of the Black Board course...

Now for some light entertainment

2006-04-11T10:10:00.000+12:00

Took the dogs for a run along Alans Beach. Didn't plan to make a video, just shot some with my trusty little pocket camera. That night I had a video though, thanks to the charming tunes of Melissa Welch

CamStudio - free screen video recorder

2006-04-10T17:28:00.000+12:00

Trying out Camstudio - a free and open source screen recording software.

Midwifery

2006-04-10T15:06:00.000+12:00

Sandra Elias met with Terry and I today to talk about efforts to develop flexible learning options for 1st, 2nd and 3rd year midwifery students. The idea seems to be to offer as many opportunities for students to learn about Midwifery without having to move to Dunedin for full time study. The course would be aiming for a workplace training schedule, giving students an opportunity to make contact with a midwife in their area to support them in what they are learning.

There seems to be 2 aspects to the type of content in this course. Theoretical and practical skills. There are 6 theoretical components, 2 x Bio Science, 2 x research, and 2 x nutrition. and there are 30 practical skills components based on the skills assessments check book:

Extended discussion was had on ways to use video to support skills development, with an agreement that videos should not only be available online and that CDROM and DVD mail outs should be an option for students to elect. Likewise for online video, students should have an option to watch streaming or progressive download, or to download the video first.

The discussion of video moved to what other departments may already have, considering the more generic skills. Terry highlighted quite a few skills that VetNursing share and have already developed video for. Some discussion was had in exploring a partnership with other Departments and Schools in developing such generic skills videos.

We then moved to the more theoretical content and looked at ways to develop the best possible online resources based on the work that had already been done, and was likely to be done in the coming future. We talked a little about the use of PowerPoint presentations with me highlighting some of the accessibility and flexibility of use issues in the use of such a format for presentations. In particular, Sandra was interested in the option to add audio to her PowerPoint presentations. I first of all pointed out that developing the audio and slides separately (but designed to work together) would ensure a maximum level of flexibility for her students as well as for her future use of the resources. I explained that developing slides and recording audio all with PowerPoint or any application that exports to closed formats would be limiting her options for the content in the long term. To this end I suggested that Sandra use the free and open audio recorder Audacity to record audio, and to experiment with Open Office for exporting her PowerPoint slides to PDF and SWF. Embedding the audio with the resulting presentation files would still be possible, but in a way that ensures flexibility of use in the future - such as using the audio or slides stand alone.

I also suggested the use of photo sharing web services such as BubbleShare and Flickr in the consideration of online presentations. The use of these services not only make optimisation of images for efficient Internet delivery a straight forward process, but enables students to refer to specific slides in a series and even pull apart the presentations for their own needs. The use of these web based services like these would be an add on to the more standard presentation slides. I showed an example of my use of Flickr for presentations.

The time constraints of the Midwifery and Nursing staff was raised as a potential risk for the content development and online support of flexible learning options, especially in the development of content. Some unresolved discussion was had on how to manage this risk, with loose suggestions of spreading the involvement in the development to other areas, such as other departments buying in to video developments. To manage this initial risk, I have set up a resource feed for Midwifery teachers and learners to subscribe and add to, with the idea being that we build course resources initially based on what is already out there. Workshops in finding and reusing digital resources and tagging them for sharing are available monthly at the Polytech

Sandra Terry and I resolved to meet again, and work towards getting more of the stake holders in Otago Polytechnic involved in the planning and gathering of resources as possible.

Online Feedback Workshop

2006-04-07T11:27:00.000+12:00

Bronwyn, Merrolee and myself each gave talks at the Online Feedback seminar that Bronwyn organised for Polytech staff on Thursday afternoon. I recorded the talks as best I could with my trusty MP3 recorder with inbuilt mic. Would be nice to get one that can plug in a good mic though... have seen then around for $170..

I've uploaded the audio and created an audio log wiki page for others to edit the synopsis and time code log links that are mentioned. I plan to do this for all the audio tracks I record. Hopefully others will start doing it themselves as it takes a little while. It took me 30 minutes to do my own, but times 3 or more and it starts to take longer than is practical and sustainable. If each of us took ownership of our own recordings and logs however, then I think it is sustainable.

Here's the links to audio and synopsis as I have typed up in the wiki.

Bronwyn Hegarty on initiating online discussion forums.
audio file - 5 meg - 27 minutes - audio quality below average

Bronwyn introduces people to Black Board discussion forums, synchronous and a-synchronous ideas of communicating online, and other tools for online communication. Gilly Salmon ideas for online facilitation are used as a model to consider the stages of learning through online forums. Bronwyn demonstrates ideas and techniques she uses in courses she facilitates and flags problem, issues and things to consider.
NB. Questions and comments come in from the audience and might only be audible using headphones

Merrolee Penman on facilitating online discussion forums.
audio file - 4.6 meg - 27 minutes - audio quality average

Merrolee talks to an example of a discussion forum in a post graduate programme in occupational therapy. Merrolee gives tips and pointers on how to stimulate and sustain discussion in a Black Board forum context, and discusses issues about poor student engagement and participation.

Leigh Blackall on facilitating online communities.
audio file - 2.4 meg - 14 minutes - audio quality average

Leigh challenges listeners to consider what will happen to the learning communities they have developed after the course has finished. "life beyond blackboard" and "life long learning communities". Leigh spoke to an example of tertiary teachers grouping around the Teach and Learn Online eGroup, and how that group of teachers have developed a self managed learning community based on free flowing discussion, content creation, and open networking.

A snapshot of networked learning

2006-04-06T14:02:00.000+12:00

What is networked learning? Is it just another round of techno hype? Is it just another name for an older idea? Is it even useful considering the current condition of our schools and colleges?

I dunno really. Now that I'm working on the "inside" the view is different and these questions seem more important. From the outside they seemed pointless - networked learning is inevitable when you're on the outside. From the collective inside its a remote idea, let alone possibility, smelling of yet another round of hype, and yet another thing to "do".

But, taking a break from that work today, I tapped into my learning network and found a post to the TALO eGroup by gnuChris pointing to Bill Kerr's post calling for a graphic representation of the Internet, and considering the mind shift that being internationally networked can cause...

Apart from Bill's yet-another-excellent post, and exciting link to a book coming out, the device that gnuChris points to for generating a picture of your network is a lot of fun and a bit of an eye opener. Pictured is my network of learning. From this network I have learned more than I could possibly describe in any certificate or qualification... there in lies a problem really... how can we assess learning done in a networked environment? do we? should we? can we? probably not. So networked learning may just be yet another "learning style"?

Treaty of Waitangi

2006-04-03T15:59:00.000+12:00

I attended the first day of a day and half workshop on the Treaty Of Waitangi today. Personally I was looking forward to this workshop, as I have no previous experience or learning about the Treaty, and am interested in it from the perspective of an Australian who does not have a similar document in a history of relations between European and indigenous Australians.

I learned about the importance of the 1835 Declaration of independence in helping to formally establish Maori soverienty in New Zealand in the eyes of Europeans at least. Then we jumped to the 1840 Treaty and took a close look at the wording and interpretations, helping to see the gains and losses at stake..

While I'm sure it wasn't the intention of the workshop presenters, the contradiction of motives and outcomes between these two documents really strikes me. After looking more at the resulting conflicts post treaty, and the remaining hard feelings, I looked back at the Declaration of Independence and find myself asking why the Treaty should be considered of more importance than the Declaration. Is it more simply and easily caters to today's European majority?

The cultural aggression of the Europeans then and now is something I find myself thinking more about in all this. The Treaty, a document that was initiated by the British and sustained today by mostly European institutions could even be looked at as an aggressive element that fails to take into account what is really at stake, and even with the so called best of intentions, is inevitably enacted aggressively and in poor faith due to its origins.

I would prefer more status given to the Declaration. It was a document seemingly more in the interests of Maori represented by the United Tribes of the North, and is a clearer statement in favor of the interests of Maori. It would be interesting then to think about what a Treaty would look like coming more from the Maori and not the British perspective...

But in all, this is probably not a very helpful tact to take.. I'm looking forward to day two.

Derek's charts are very helpful

2006-03-31T14:42:00.000+12:00

Derek Wenmoth has posted another useful chart depicting the changing nature of education, and I find this one particularly useful for my work at Tekotago. With this chart I can clearly lay out the changes that are proposed by socially networked software and hopefully help teachers understand the significance more clearly. One thing I have suggested to Derek, is to add in Constructionist Learning theory between Connectivism and Social Constructivism.

Open Networked Learning presentation to KnowTips 2006

2006-03-31T11:13:00.000+12:00

I gave a 1 hour talk through Elluminate to the KnowTips Conference on Open Networked Learning today. I think it went pretty well, although we did experience a small problem with everyone not realising they they were meant to control the slides their end. To be honest, I thought I had control too. But eventually that was clarified and everyone was on the same visual page with regards to the presentation slides.

I was able to get through the presentation in 30 minutes and open the mic up for questions and discussion for the remaining 30 minutes which was good, we had some very good questions and discussion - thanks Bronwyn for being there and for the questions and comments, having you there calmed my nerves a bit.

So, you can listen and watch the recorded Elluminate session if you like. If you have trouble with getting Elluminate recording, download the MP3 audio recording (7mb) and follow along with the presentation slides.

The supporting Moodle space is also avaliable where you can find the introductory text for the talk, preliminary reading, and discussion forums currently running.

Hope you have the time to have a look and listen.

Ken from Nursing is considering podcasting

2006-03-30T13:43:00.000+12:00

I'm here with Ken talking about Podcasting out audio recordings of his lectures, to compliment presentations that are available for download. Here's some audio I recorded, talking to Ken about Podcasting, and demonstrating the podcasting process.

I showed Ken the audio/usb drive recorder I use
Loaded the WAV file to the desktop
Opened the free and easy audio recorder Audacity and exported the WAV file to MP3
Uploaded that MP3 to OurMedia.org
Took the link and posted here in my work blog.

The next steps are to go to Feedburner and obtain a Podcast feed so that whenever I load an MP3 to this blog, those who are subscribed to the Podcast feed will be able to just plug their player into a network computer and the audio files will automatically download for them thanks to the Feedburner Podcast feed we set up. Those who are not subscribed to the Podcast feed can still subscribe to the Blog's Feed instead, or simply manually come to this blog and download what they need.

I pointed out to Ken that there are regular workshops being offered by the EDC on how to do all this. Ken will look into the scheduled workshops and nominate which workshops he'd initially like to attend.

Ken and I also talked about Open Courseware and Creative Commons licensing. I showed Ken the Open Courseware finder, Wikiversity, and Wikipedia for tasters on how much free and reusable, quality content is out there. I showed Ken how some of the larger universities in the USA are using Creative Commons licenses to enable their Open Courseware initiatives, and how easy it is to use the license. I encouraged Ken to attend the finding and reusing digital resources workshop. I explained that at the moment our organisation doesn't have a policy that addresses Creative Commons or Open Courseware opportunities. We discussed the difference between the Intellectual Property of the Lecturer, and the Copyrights of the Organisation...

Here is an example of a Creative Commons license being applied to this blog post:

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License.

Enhancing Hospitality resources

2006-03-29T15:51:00.000+12:00

Met with Thanasi Balaphas from Hospitality for lunch at Brie Cafe today. What a keen customer he is! He has gone out and set him self up for digital media, and is raring to go for improving the digital resources that Tennyson St use. He straight out explained to me that he has had informal feedback from both students and industry that the resources need improving. He is keen to start up Black Board shells for a number of the courses, and populate them with short demo videos of things such as making coffee, and supporting those videos with quizes in Black Board.

Thanasi has started recording short videos of these skill demonstrations, and wanted to meet with me to discuss where to next. Unfortunately we soon discovered that the videos Thanasi's camera records are in a unique format, and therefore need to be processed into a more commonly used format, as well as compressed to a size that is reasonable for use online.

We managed to get one of the videos into a Real Media format, which is a start but still not ideal. The best format to go for is Quicktime or .mov extension. I gave a quick demo in using Premier to export into mov, but premier won't import the Real Media format. Thanasi will need to research his camera's software and find a way to get the videos he is recording into AVI or MPEG. Either of these formats can be imported into Premier for compression export.

There is a chance that his camera may have setting inside it for this already. Only the manual could say.

Once Thanasi has the correct format, then its a matter of uploading the videos to a web server. I demonstrated YouTube.com and pointed out that while it is heavily used by people from al around the world, and therefore the content there can get a bit challenging at times, as a whole it is good and clean. I explained that even though the video might be hosted with YouTube, they provide code for it to be displayed and played streaming on any other web site including a Black Board course. I also explained that while YouTube and other services like Google Video offer free streaming video hosting, its always a good idea to store another copy of the video to a static media server such as OurMedia so that if students don't have the bandwidth for streaming video, or if YouTube where to suspend service temporarily, then the manual download from OurMedia is the alternative.

So, Thanasi will now find out how to get his videos into AVI, MPEG or more generally a Quicktime or Premier supported format. Experiment uploading movies to YouTube (You tube support Real Media files), and look into setting up an OurMedia account.

Thanasi will also initiate Black Board shells for each of the courses, and develop quizes to support the videos.

I will keep in touch with Thanasi, and support him with help in this whenever he needs it. I have encouraged Thanasi to attend Networked Learning workshops, and he will try to make it when he can.

John Clayton (OSLOR and .elearning.ac.nz) visit to Tekotago

2006-03-29T09:38:00.000+12:00

John Clayton from the Open Source Learning Object Repository (OSLOR) came down to Dunedin today to talk about the OSLOR project and elearning.ac.nz hosting services.

I was quite impressed by the work John's team is doing, they are certainly innovative leaders in New Zealand working with LMS and learning object models for online learning and providing high quality internet services to small to medium learning organisations around New Zealand. The development work they are doing with Moodle, especially with the sharable learning object technologies, and the enhanced glossary index system, are significant developments, and the wider developments and add ons around Moodle going on around the world help to position elearning.ac.nz as a superior local provider of online learning system hosting in New Zealand.

While they are still in what I would call older web 1 and elearning 1 modes of thinking about their services, this is not an issue unique to John's team. Web 1 and web 2, as the names imply present operational tensions, similar to that of open source v's proprietary, and will eventually be faced by all areas of education. John appeared to be aware of this at least and is exploring emerging trends in socially networked software and how they might be brought into their models of eLearning. I agreed with John when he went to great lengths to articulate the importance of a healthy and active community around the services they are developing, but I'm not sure that I agree with the way in which they are considering it. A healthy and active community around internet services is extremely important to the success of the product and service it supports, but what remains to be seen is whether or not New Zealand can sustain the type of online educational community that is needed. I tend to think that New Zealands online participation may be too small and educational culture too disfunctional at this point in time, and that tapping into existing and more global online communities would be best. As for the need to develop a local dialogue around educational development issues and resources in New Zealand, I don't think engagement with international learning communities necessarily excludes that - clearly many such online learning communities at the moment are North American or Australian centric, but they are open communities and could be reshaped or balanced with facilitated NZ involvement. The main objective is to develop and sustain an online learning community in New Zealand, and I have my doubts that a locally focused and seemingly closed one at that will achieve what it sets out to do, or what it might gain from being internationally engaged. But this is part of the tension between web 1 or elearning 1 and elearning 2 models.

But that is really a big picture issue that is not immediately important for John at the moment. What John's team has achieved to date, and looks to achieve in the mid term is of importance in my view, and presents a middle road model that works now. John's use of Open Source technologies to develop and provide opportunity for commercial services is a success story. When I questioned John about OSLOR and elearning.ac.nz's progressive economic model around open source services, seemingly reinforcing older industrial economic models for education - John agreed with the observation and explained that they are attempting to be a middle range player for transitioning organisations into more open source models. If this is the goal of John's team then I think they should succeed. The challenge of integrating new modes loosely terms web 2 is still to come in New Zealand, and if their is a team in New Zealand that is positioning itself to handle those challenges, elearning.ac.nz looks to be it.

Learning Centre

2006-03-28T10:12:00.000+12:00

Met with Helen Lindsay from The Learning Centre this morning, to talk about ways to support her work with an online presence. Helen explained briefly what the Learning Centre aims to do, quoting from their website:

The Learning Centre offers a free learning support service to all students enrolled at Otago Polytechnic. One-to-one appointments, workshops and facilitated study groups are available in the following areas:
General study skills for your course
Test and exam preparation
Essays and assignments
Maths and Science
English grammar and literacy development

Helen explained her initial ideas in using Black Board to deliver supporting materials for these services. And then explained her objectives in doing this:

Making support resources for students available for finding and reusing across subject areas.
Building collaborative relations amongst staff to provide and co develop resources to support introductory levels in their fields

In consideration of these objectives I proposed that Helen consider developing up the Learning Centre website more, and look for digital resources where she has rights for copy, and make them available on that website. To compliment this, the Black Board communication features could be used to offer private communication and assessment to support learning with those resource if need be, as well as for the distribution of further resources where copyrights are unclear or restrictive.

I hope that by expanding the function and resources on the Learning Centre's website, we may improve access to their resources and chances for collaboration with both internal and external projects.

Helen stated that she understood some but by no means all of what I was talking about. I cannot be certain if my suggestions are what Helen was originally looking for. I left the meeting with the impression that she would:

Consider what I proposed and investigate the possibilities of expanding the Learning Centre's website.
Gather up resources from within the Polytech and clarify copy rights
Arrange her Black Board shell to more closely reflect the LC's services (menu bar listing subject support areas, and improving the welcome announcement).
Attend Networked Learning workshops for eGroups, Finding and Reusing Digital Resources, Tagging and Open Office.

We will meet again in 3 weeks time to check up on the progress of this, and revisit the proposal. In the meantime I have advised Helen that I am available to contact should she have any questions or need help in any way, as well as through the workshops.

International Tourism

2006-03-27T16:17:00.000+12:00

Met with Hillary Jenkins from Tourism today and we had a good talk about a City and Guilds course she runs in International Tourism at a Diploma and Advanced Diploma level.

Hillary wants to offer the course more flexibly so as to engage more students especially those who are already in the workplace. We discussed ideas of Recognition of Prior Learning processing people already in the workplace and then offering gap training at a discounted rate. We discussed Open Courseware business models as a way to market the course and capture potential students both locally and internationally. We discussed learner generated content as a model for updating and sustaining resources in the course.

Hillary seemed quite inspired by the ideas and will take them to a management meeting for pre approval. Upon approval we will commence reviewing current content in the course and work towards updating and opening up relevant content. Hillary will get her colleagues along to a Networked Learning workshop, and enquire about the RPL process as it may be used in this Open Courseware, learner generated, recognition of prior learning model for the International tourism course.

RSS Calendar

2006-03-27T14:37:00.000+12:00

Am trialing out the RSS Calendar as a free web based calendar that offers an RSS feed so I can display events in other websites and accept comments and RSVPs on each event.

To join an event choose one from the calendar list below, open the link and click RSVP, fill out your details and it will be stored for me to check later.

See the workshop schedule for more information on these events and workshops

Links feeding in

2006-03-27T14:28:00.000+12:00

Am using Del.icio.us to bookmark links and resources that are relavent to each Department. Del.icio.us provides script for displaying these links as here, while I bookmark them in my Del.ici.us account. I have set the links here to display everyone's bookmarks that are tagged tekotago[insert department name here without square bracketts].

Also, if you'd like to see where I'm coming from in my thinking, what I'm reading and where I am finding all this stuff - see my references.

______DEPARTMENT LINKS AND RESOURCES FEEDING IN______

Networked learning workshops

2006-03-23T17:24:00.000+12:00

Dates, times and room numbers have been confirmed for networked learning workshops. Ways to promote these remain unresolved. I did attempt to draw ALL EDC programmes into one list to use on the website and in other places. I have proposed a wiki is the better place and method to compile such a list for version control and to collaborate and maintain currency, but this proposal requires further consideration.

In the meantime the networked learning workshops begin in April, to coincide with the due date for staff individual development plans. I had hoped to get an EDC list out to staff to assist in the preparation of their IDPs, but now I am doing the best I can to get the networked learning list out.

Workshops in Networked Learning, as part of the EDC programme 2006 (starting April)

Leigh Blackall – Programme Developer for Educational Development at Otago Polytechnic

Hi, my name's Leigh Blackall and I'm a new guy around here. I've done my fire warden training, and have orientated myself around the Dunedin Campuses. I've had initial meetings with Departments who are interested in developing flexible options for their programmes and now I'm ready for a bit of teaching work to compliment that. so I've hit the ground running by offering this informal programme in networked learning.

Here are a range of workshops to help staff and students develop fluency in new information and communications technologies that are proving quite useful in the education sector generally. I have been using these technologies in my own teaching back home in Australia for the past 2 years.

We'll be starting the first day in April, with one running every day of the first 2 weeks of each month. If you were keen you could book yourself in for every lunch time slot in the first 2 weeks, or you could take it slow and come when you can throughout the year, either to the before lunch slot or during lunch or both, whatever suites you.

Hope to see as many faces as we can get there, and I look forward to meeting you.

eGroups
One of the oldest group communication devices on the Internet, email groups can still be the simplest and most effective tool for enhancing programmes with online participation. In this workshop you will learn how to find and join established eGroup learning communities, and create and manage your own.
Date: 1st Monday of every month, 11am - 12noon
Time: 11am – 12noon then 12noon – 1pm (come when you can)
Room: H523 (H201 - April 3 only)
Presenter: Leigh Blackall, Programme Developer
Contact: Leigh through edcenquiries@tekotago.ac.nz

Blogs
From travel diaries to teaching and learning journals, there are over 60 million blogs in the world today, a number that continues to rise every day. In this workshop, learn what they’re all about and discuss how they are already being used in training and education.
Date: 1st Tuesday of every month
Time: 11am - 12 noon and 12noon – 1pm (come when you can)
Room: H523 (H201 - April 4 only)
Presenter: Leigh Blackall, Programme Developer
Contact: Leigh through edcenquiries@tekotago.ac.nz

Wikis
Online collaborative authoring through a wiki can be a remarkable way to develop research and community engagement around subjects. From wikipedia.org (the free encyclopaedia) to small project specific wikis, this workshop will consider ways wikis can be used in training and education.
Date: 1st Wednesday of every month
Time: 11am - 12 noon and 12noon – 1pm (come when you can)
Room: H523 (H201 - April 5 only)
Presenter: Leigh Blackall, Programme Developer
Contact: Leigh through edcenquiries@tekotago.ac.nz

Web feeds
From simple web feeds to podcasting and videocasting, RSS is a powerful way to obtain and distribute digital media online. In this workshop we will look at how easy it is to use RSS in programmes, and how beneficial it can be to teaching and learning.
Participants who have attended the Blogs and Tagging workshops will be at an advantage in this workshop.
Date: 1st Thursday of every month
Time: 11am - 12 noon and 12noon – 1pm (come when you can)
Room: H523 (H201 - April 6 only)
Presenter: Leigh Blackall, Programme Developer.
Contact: Leigh through edcenquiries@tekotago.ac.nz

Podcasting
You've seen all those students wondering around with iPods, mobile phones and other MP3 type players right? This workshop will help you get your audio recordings onto those devices in a remarkably easy way.
Participants who have attended Blogs, Digital Audio Recording and Editing and Web Feeds workshops will be at an advantage here.
Date: 1st Friday of every month
Time: 11am - 12 noon and 12noon - 1pm (come when you can)
Room: H523 (H201 - April 7 only)
Presenter: Leigh Blackall, Programme Developer
Contact: Leigh through edcenquiries@tekotago.ac.nz

Finding and reusing digital resources
The Internet is a deep space with plenty of fertile planets of free and open teaching and learning resources to find (and even more dead rock and sordid crud to dodge along the way). In this workshop we will look at ways of finding free and open resources, and the legalities and practicalities of reusing them.
Participants who have attended the Tagging and Web Feeds workshop will be at an advantage here.
Date: 2nd Monday of every month
Time: 11am - 12noon and 12noon - 1pm (come when you can)
Room: H523
Presenter: Leigh Blackall, Programme Developer.
Contact: Leigh through edcenquiries@tekotago.ac.nz

Tagging
With so much available online, how on Earth do we find and manage what is useful? Tagging and folksonomies is one way. Folks what? Come along to this fun session take control of the Internet and make it work for you. Librarians especially encouraged to come.
Date: 2nd Tuesday of every month
Time: 11am - 12 noon and 12noon - 1pm (come when you can)
Room: H523
Presenter: Leigh Blackall, Programme Developer
Contact: Leigh through edcenquiries@tekotago.ac.nz

Networked Learning
Bringing it all together into a model for flexible learning. Participants who have attended Blogs, Wikis, Web Feeds, and Tagging workshops will be at an advantage here. Please note, this session is majority conversational. Participants are invited to bring their own WiFi laptop for these sessions.
Date: 2nd Tuesday of every month
Time: 12 - 1 pm
Room: H206A/H206B (H311 on April 11 and June 13)
Presenter: Leigh Blackall, Programme Developer
Contact: Leigh through edcenquiries@tekotago.ac.nz

Digital video recording and editing
There's no doubt that video can be an excellent way to communicate more complicated things to learners. In this workshop we'll use a range of recording devices and free and simple software to record and edit our own videos. You'll be surprised at how easy it can be. Participants are urged to bring along any digital image recording devise they may already own, as well as the cables it came with to plug into a computer.
Those who have attended Dale Parson's Camtasia workshop will be at an advantage here.
Date: 2nd Wednesday of every month
Time: 11am - 12noon and 12noon - 1pm (come when you can)
Room: H523
Presenter: Leigh Blackall, Programme Developer
Contact: Leigh through edcenquiries@tekotago.ac.nz

Vlogging
V what!? Take your digital video, add it into your blog and podcast it!
Participants who have attended Blogs, Podcasting and Digital Video Recording and Editing workshops will be at an advantage here.
Date: 2nd Thursday of every month
Time: 11 - 12noon and 12noon - 1pm (come when you can)
Room: H523
Presenter: Leigh Blackall, Programme Developer.
Contact: Leigh through edcenquiries@tekotago.ac.nz

Open Office
A free alternative to Microsoft Office, Open Office can not only be a great way for students to obtain affordable (free!) office software, but also a remarkably easy way for you to create PDFs and Flash movies!
Date: 2nd Friday of every month
Time: 11 - 12 noon and 12noon - 1pm (come when you can)
Room: H523
Presenter: Leigh Blackall, Programme Developer
Contact: Leigh through edcenquiries@tekotago.ac.nz

TBA or apon request for 5 or more people

VOIP – Voice Over Internet Protocol, on online telephone calls for the rest of us. VOIP is a good way to make free long distant telephone calls, and even tele/video conferencing! In this workshop we’ll look at some of the VOIP options (Skype, Gizmo and Gtalk). Leigh through edcenquiries@tekotago.ac.nz

Digital images online – Upload and distribute photos for free, use various features to create web resources. Find free and easy to use image based resources. Participants who have attended Brian Treanor’s Digital Images workshop will be at an advantage here. 2 hours. Leigh through edcenquiries@tekotago.ac.nz

Digital image editing - So you've taken a photo and have successfully transfered it to your computer. Now you need to edit it such as cropping, black and white and compress it for use online. In this workshop we'll use Google's Picasa and the free and open source alternative to Photoshop - GIMP (Graphic Image Manipulation Program). Participants who have attended Brian Treanor's Digital Images workshop will be at an advantage here. 2 hours. Leigh through edcenquiries@tekotago.ac.nz

Flash – Basic uses of Flash animation to create digital learning resources. Participants who have attended Leigh Blackall's Digital Video Recording and Editing, Dale Bennett's Camtasia, and Brian Treanor's Digital Images workshop will be at an advantage here. 2 x 3 hours. Leigh through edcenquiries@tekotago.ac.nz

Creative Commons, copyright and open courseware - With the vast numbers of high quality teaching and learning resources being made freely available by so many people and other educational institutions, what does content ownership and intellectual property mean now? Is there any advantage to restrictinig access to our content? Is open content and open courseware a better business and educational model? 1 hour presentation and discussion. Leigh through edcenquiries@tekotago.ac.nz

An open space conference in Dunedin, on The Future of Learning in a Networked World

2006-03-22T11:32:00.000+12:00

We've been having the odd talk, and our first meeting about an open space conference inviting influencial thinkers on the topic of the future of learning in a networked world. I have made initial contact with a list of people to check their availability from September 18 - 28. Below is a list of people who could be available. Added to this are a number of people coming to Dunedin for the annual TALO swap meet, and when this list is made known to members of that group, we should expect more key people from Australia will attend.

So from our first meeting we resolved that I would draft up a blurb for the concept (see below) and from that (if we are agreeable to that blurb) we would start chasing funding...

Here's the blurb as is being developed at the tekotago wiki. To obtain a password for that wiki, please contact me on leighblackallATgmailDOTcom

An open space conference on the future of learning in a networked world

Hey! let me drop some names on you...

Stephen Downes - Canada
Will Richardson - USA
Brian Lamb - USA
David Wiley - USA
Konrad Glokowski - Canada
Teemu Leinonen - Finland
Barbara Dieu - Brazil
Josephine Fraser - UK
JD Lasica - USA
Leigh Blackall Australia/New Zealand
Derek Wenmoth - New Zealand

We are working on bringing these people to New Zealand on September 18 to discuss the future of learning in a networked world. They have already helped to sustain a significant online discourse on the subject, now by bringing some of them face to face for the first time, we hope to give a boost to that exchange and record and capture the discussion for distribution to audiences in New Zealand and everywhere.

As a group these significant thinkers and developers will tour participating educational organisations in the South Island of New Zealand from September 18 - 28, making their way North to Wellington for eFest - September 27. The tour will be thoroughly documented online so as to demonstrate ideas and theories and to ensure online participants can remain as engaged as possible during and beyond the tour.

If you are familiar with some of the names on our list, we are confident you know how significant this tour will be. Join your organisation to the tour by sponsoring one of the following:

Flights, travel, accomodation and per diems ~ $4000 per person.
Need NZ$20 000 minimum, currently have NZ$4000...

Working on a Grad Cert in Tertiary Teaching and Learning

2006-03-21T14:06:00.000+12:00

So we're having a meeting this afternoon about the pretty impressive programme being developed here called graduate Certificate in Tertiary Learning and Teaching or GCTLT for short, or "tender loving teaching" for fun.

I have presented notes on a student generated content model. After talking broadly about what form that model might take, we then started talking about the course as it might look in the learning management system. Unfortunately we found it very difficult to get to any tangible to do list, or concrete concepts as far as the online support for the course goes. We did talk about ideas and issues generally though, attempting to grasp what the menu in the course might look like, and how we might use the common features like forums. I think we resolved that it would be useful to take hold of a few shells in the LMS and build the courses as we each see them, then discuss what we are attempting to achieve as a group. Having this very hands on approach will help us conceptualise the course as it is presented in the LMS more clearly.

Some quick notes on initial thoughts and ideas:

There will be an over all learning guide. Then smaller learning guides for each of the courses.
There will also be an over all general announcements forum, then separate forums for each subject.
Each subject will be self contained as a course on the LMS, in as much as links and resources, contact information, and forums will be listed in the main menu of each subject and not be contained in a space separate from the subject.
We will trial the use of collaborative social bookmarking for recent and current resource management.
We will plug in EDC workshops to support extra curricular learning (such as development of digital literacies) for this course.
Teachers will be called facilitators.
We will attempt team facilitation. Each facilitator will plan, monitor and evaluate their work with this course, (such as the individual development of LMS contained subjects) and feed back into the GCTLT team over all for group discussion and feedback. We are considering the benefits of facilitators journaling their efforts, thereby enhancing their team facilitation with online communications. A kind of peer review process using tools such as blogging for formative reporting, and then extracting exerts from those blogs for a summative report.

We have a tight time frame to find an agreed approach to the online components to the GCTLT, but it may appear that we have until May at a stretch. However dates for any face to face introductions between learners and facilitators will need to be arranged by the end of this week. In my opinion we should ask each facilitator to take ownership of their subject and develop an LMS interface as soon as possible, so that we can come together around that initial work and assist each other with further ideas and development.

Fire warden training

2006-03-15T16:25:00.000+13:00

Finished my fire warden training.

Here's a flickr slide show.
Click view as slide show, and then click an image when it appears to reveal the text explaining the pictures.

Here's the video loaded to YouTube in short individual chunks. Below them is another service I've used to edit them web based!

Here is the web based edited version.

Mechanical Engineering

2006-03-15T09:52:00.000+13:00

I just had a meeting with John Findlay over at Engineering. He is wanting to turn his night classes for Mechanical Engineering trades apprentices into a workplace flexible learning options. At the moment students come into the night classes and use the time to ask questions of the lecturer and talk as a group about the different theoretical components of what they do. The night classes are a mixed group of 1st through to 3rd year students.

John sees value in this "ad-hoc" approach to learning in the night classes, and backs those classes up with text books as a guide to making sure a minimum number of topics are covered. He finds that with the ad-hoc approach, sometimes learning goes beyond these texts. John therefore values the flexibility of topics covered in class, and would like to see this carried over if possible into the flexible learning option.

John is hoping to offer a flexible learning option by the beginning of second semester this year, so I asked him what he had considered doing to get started. He showed me one of the text books used to support the night classes as is, and thought he'd like to develop demonstration videos and other electronic resources for CD to compliment the books. He also mentioned the modern apprentice service offered by his Department, where a staff member goes out to the student's workplace and supports learning in the workplace. He said he'd like to expand this role for other staff members to take on, and offer it to more of the students in the flexible learning option.

I made the following suggestions:

Survey the student's use and value of digital media devices, such as computers, Internet, mobile phones and other devices, to gauge digital literacies, access at home and in the workplace, and general perceptions to technology in a learning context. From that we may detect things we that we might be assuming with this students group, and get an idea of what approach to take with regard to technology and digital resources used for self directed learning.
Invite a guest speaker from another institute who has, or is attempting similar things. Preferably someone who has succeeded with innovative uses of tachnology in a similar trade based training setting. Having a guest speaker will help to inspire teaching staff, and generate discussion where everyone is informed and "on the same page" rather than John visiting somewhere and bringing info back. The value of this was recently demonstrated in Design this week, with the visit of RMIT lecturer Dr Vaughan.
Rather than going straight into developing digital resources to compliment the text book - which can be a costly and frustrating exercise, I suggested that we do an in depth and sustained survey of available open courseware, sighting MIT's Open Courseware resources, and mentioning that there are quite a few others. I have started generating web feeds of new links and resources as they are made available for each of the Polytech Departments to subscribe to. EDC workshops offered from April aim to pass the skills and knowledge for the maintenance of these web feeds over to interested Departments.
Learner generate content models for sustainable resource development and sharing were also discussed, with John seeing quite a bit of value in the approach for his flexible learning classes. Students would be assigned learning activities, given a small number of varied resources to assist them in starting the learning activity, then asked to produce a learning resource for the activity to support someone else's learning in the activity. This resource would be used for assessment of learning for the activity. Students would be encouraged to develop resources in variety of media, such as an MP3 recording interviewing professionals in the sector, or a Pxt message capturing a sequence of tasks towards the fabrication of a product, or a journal entry of a workplace situation, etc. Digital literacy support for the creation of such media would need to be offered.
Terry Marler and myself have quite a bit of experience in generating, facilitating, and maintaining strong online learning communities. I suggested to John that he consider developing an online practitioners network for his teachers to engage globally with other teachers exploring similar innovations in teaching and learning. Simile, that the teachers generate and maintain online networks for the students, offering them an opportunity to communicate online and support each other's learning now and beyond their engagement in the topics. Basically, enhancing the face to face opportunities to learn in a social setting, by offering the opportunity to continue that social aspect of learning online - through eGroups, forums and/or mobile phone networks.

What to do in the next 2 weeks.

I will ask Emma Bennett for her services to develop a survey of the students.
I will focus on building an open courseware links and resources web feed specifically for Mechanical Engineering subject areas - with a view that John's staff will attend EDC workshops to learn how to maintain such a feed for themselves in the future.
I will investigate other potential resource areas (such as Toolboxes) and see what restrictions exist on their reuse.
I will contact my networks and find an innovative teacher in Mechanical Engineering (or similar trade based training) to visit the Poly Tech and speak with the Mech Eng Department. John will explore options for his Department funding such a visit - I will explore PolyTech funding.

EDC Swap Meet 0001

2006-03-14T15:30:00.000+13:00

We had our first swap meet today. A small turn out on account of leave and others being too busy, but it was a good opportunity to touch base with each other and for Leigh to introduce some of his work.
We talked about:

Issues with using open wikis to develop documents in EDC and teaching resources generally.
An extended but altogether brief look at Open Networked Learning and the nature of Leigh's past work.
This spilled over to a conversation about the need to have a focused discussion about issues that affect policy and direction of the Polytech. Maxine suggested a retreat. Leigh mentioned the September conference on Open Networked Learning being planned.
The need to get the EDC programmes published as soon as possible to compliment the Individual Development Plans due end of March.

The next swap meet is on 2 May at 12 noon at the Brie Cafe in Tennyson St.

Dr Laurene Vaughan speaks about her online design courses at RMIT

2006-03-13T19:11:00.000+13:00

Dr Laurene Vaughan gave a talk in the design building tonight about her work at RMIT developing online post grad courses in fashion design (no direct link available).

Laurene spent some time describing the types of students that enroll in her post grad courses, mostly people employed in the design industry or running their own design business. She therefore explained that there is a need for workplace education to offer such students a maximum amount of flexibility in their study.

Laurene spent about an hour talking about the various structures of the course, showing us examples and flagging issues along the way. But it wasn't until the end, when she started mentioning blogging, wikis, and other social network software that the attendees started to respond.

I was pleased to see quite a deal of interest in the design staff towards blogging and other forms of collaborative communication devices, and the potential for the reflective/process journal learning method, enhanced by Internet communications technologies.

After a short tea break we returned to discuss these things a little more, and I took the opportunity to pass around a print out of up and coming EDC workshops offering training in a wide range of social networking software like blogs.

Planning local course withing GCTLT - Designing for Flexible Practice

2006-03-08T14:56:00.000+13:00

Bronwyn and I had a pretty good meeting today about the approach we might take for the designing for flexible practice component of the new Graduate Certificate of Tertiary Learning and Teaching programme being developed by the EDC at the moment.

Basically our thoughts are around a learner generated content model, supported by an online learning community of practitioners, as well as regular workshops offered by EDC.

1. To learn through the production of content = constructionism
2. To learn through engagement with real and existing communities of practice = social constructivism

So a teacher today, or should I say facilitator is someone who focuses on building and maintaining a strong learning network around their topic, and assigning learners to create content based on what their learning, to feed back into that network.

The picture is one of a few grabed from the white board notes we brainstormed around. I've expanded on these pictures a bit with notes in the comments of each picture in the Flickr presentation.

Merrolee Penman on Flexible Learning

2006-03-07T15:26:00.000+13:00

Ken Wysocki on flexible teaching and learning

2006-03-07T14:39:00.000+13:00

Bronwyn Hegarty on flexible learning

2006-03-04T13:13:00.000+13:00

Leigh Blackall on flexible learning

2006-03-03T11:58:00.000+13:00

Random photos loading in from flickr

2006-03-02T21:52:00.000+13:00

Here's a bunch of photos I've taken around the place. I load pictures to my flickr account, and flickr gives me some code to display random pictures here in my blog.

www.flickr.com

This is a Flickr badge showing public photos from leighblackall tagged with tekotago. Make your own badge here.

Induction to Tekotago

2006-02-24T12:03:00.000+13:00

Take a look at this virtual tour of the Forth Street Campus in Dunedin. It uses the free photo storage and sharing service Flickr. If you like the look of Flickr, how about you join the Tekotago group and add pictures of life and work there.

After you've had a look at that, take a look at the Wikipedia entry for Otago Polytechnic (Tekotago) and help build the entry by adding what you learn and know to it.

The staff member who created these resources, also blogged the experience here.

Now, I really want to emphasize that it's not so much the finished, not even nearly finished content that I have developed here that is important - but the learning through creation of content I am undergoing.

It is using the process of creation to improve learning. It is Seymour Papert's constructionism.

About me

2006-02-17T21:00:00.000+13:00

Bronwyn, Leigh and Terry are Pragramme Developers in the Educational Development Centre of Otago Polytechnic. Their role is to research educational developments and help teachers develop online and flexible learning opportunities in their courses. This web log documents this work.