We provide the evaluation support for JISC's Curriculum Design and Delivery Programmes. (There's an interview with the programme managers in e-Learning Focus, which gives an overview of the background and intent behind these programmes.) As part of that we were recently asked how technology makes a difference to the processes we are focused on. We see technology as vital in our evaluation support role. Zoho Projects is our online project management tool and we use it to do the usual kinds of planning and tracking of tasks. It is also a key part of how we co-ordinate our interactions with project teams - and with 15 Curriculum Delivery and 12 Curriculum Design projects that is vital!

As well as using technology to manage our work, we use it to scan what projects are doing. Project blogs are an excellent source of updates on the thinking behind project developments, and the support team have recently put up Netvibes pages that provide aggregrated feeds for the Delivery projects and Design projects blogs. A great way of finding out what is new, without having to visit every blog individually. Twitter also plays a role, giving more personal insights from individual team members, or just for getting a flavour of what is being discussed within project clusters (#dcb09 is the hashtag Cluster B are using to pinpoint their exchanges). I've been experimenting with Mixero for filtering what is happening on Twitter - great so far! This kind of scanning helps us to keep track of how projects are progressing, suggest evaluation activities they may want to consider at any given time, and to provide evaluation support in an ad-hoc way.

Finally, we are exploring how to provide an interactive mapping of projects' evaluation activities using Web2.0 features. Spicy Nodes, which is a bit like a movable mindmap, is one option. Here's the beginnings of how that might develop, with a sample of Delivery projects.


Watch this space for updates!

Labels: Blog, elearning, evaluation, hashtag, JISC, Project management, Twitter, Web 2.0

In the past week, the issue of the uptake of innovation or technology has arisen in two of our projects - one considering implementation of new LMS in the NHS, and the other at the usage of e-portfolios (and other e-assessment) in Further Education Skills for Work courses.

So, I've been reading round the subject, looking at a variety of models - the most well known probably being Rogers' Innovation Curve (or Technology Adoption Lifecycle), and have just found
"The pencil metaphor". I like this idea, where Lindy McKeown uses the idea of a pencil (and related puns!) to demonstrate ICT uptake in Education. Some aspects of her ideas match up well with Roger's model, particularly at the 'sharp' end!

Labels: adoption, assessment, education, elearning, furthereducation, ICT, innovation, innovationcurve, model, NHS, technology, uptake

Back in March, I attended the JISC 2009 conference, aptly entitled Opening Digital Doors. It was one of those mega events, where you spotted people across the hall, but got caught up in the melee before you could speak to them. That said, I quite liked the informal nature of the drop in demos in the foyer, even managing to find out what QR codes really are, courtesy of Andy Ramsden.

The morning session I sat in on showcased three projects that had trialled very different approaches to using technology to improve student motivation and retention, all under the theme of "Every Learner Counts".

Nicola Whitton described how alternate reality games (ARG) had been used for supporting University student induction, one of the key stages in retaining students. The Argosi project setup urban challenges, and other "purposeful activities" for meeting people and working together, which wasn't necessarily around going to pubs! There was also mention of an ARG framework/toolkit for supporting student induction, which presumably will be released soon.

Hesan Yousif talked about the SPLASH project (student personal learning and social homepages). SPLASH is essentially a social software portal, where academic information is juxtaposed alongside local information and student generated content, with students deciding what they want on their own homepage. Like an iGoogle for students at Sussex. This is an initiative I'd looked at before, as we have done some other work on the potential of web2.0 portals for learners in the NHS. Great to see a working version, and Hesan gave us some interesting anecdotes to how students are using it. He highlighted how blogs had facilitated a sense of community on campus - topics covered experiences of life on campus, student union engagement, politics, photos, etc. He also noted that staff had picked up on the facility, suggesting they might like a similar resource.

Finally, Lucy Stone from Leicester College described the outcomes from the WoLF project (Workbased Learners in Further Education). On the JISC website this is billed as Pocket PCs to support portfolio development by work-based learners in FE, not such a good acronym but perhaps a better description. This project was focused on teaching assistants in early years settings, many with years of experience, but all subject to the strong governmental driver for minimum qualifications for education workers. As they are only in college four hours a week, every minute (as well as every learner) counts. Also key was keeping in contact with learners. Hence learners were given PDAs, and Moodle was set up as a platform for sharing (see the WoLF site, which also contains much of the project outputs, including this literature review of workbased mobile learning). As all students and tutors were new to moodle, there was an induction session. Given the time issue, it was essential that this was purposeful in relation to the course, and those tutors who really engaged with the concept saw this as well as the value of induction. Benefits could be seen in the use of a reflective journal within moodle, which meant that tutors could gauge student skills earlier than the standard model of course submission. This also enabled students to receive rapid feedback very early on in process.

Labels: #jisc09, conference, elearning, FE, HE, induction, mobile learning, Moodle, motivation, retention, web2.0

Update from Innovating e-Learning 2008

The closing days of JISC online conference saw some deep discussion. The session we were facilitating asked whether we should free the maniacs (or students!). Prof Mark Stiles was interested in the reasons education tended to be "controlling". He saw a downward spiral where embedding innovation led to regulation, which could act as a barrier to further innovation. Mark felt a philosophy of "minimum control" within institutions was the way forward.

Various examples of control (and concerns over relinquishing it) were cited, with the inference that we need to 'unpick' what is meant by control. Mark offered a spectrum of control to act as a guide:

• Control - to exercise restraint or direction over; to hold in check
• Manage - to take charge or care of; to govern, or control in action or use
• Facilitate - to make easier; help forward (an action, a process, etc.)
• Enable - to give power, means, competence, or ability to; to make possible or easy
• Recognise - to identify from knowledge of appearance or characteristics

He highlighted that "as [organisations] move up from merely 'recognising' something happens to having a fully 'controlled' institutional approach that we stop at the LOWEST level needed". Peter Bullen (Mark's co-presenter) reminded us that while controls are normally introduced for a good reason, they can become embedded and later, as organisations change, the original reason can be forgotten and the control can become unnecessary. A clear example of why process improvement or continual review is essential.

Both presenters had outlined the change processes introduced within their organisations. With particular emphasis at the University of Hertfordshire of involving students in this process. This process is called CABLE (Change Academy for Blended Learning Enhancement) and is described in detail in 'CABLE: an approach to embedding blended learning in the curricula and across the institution'.

Labels: #jiscel08, conference, control, elearning, online conference, transformational change

Although details aren't yet available on the eLearning Alliance site, the next annual conference sounds to be a must attend event! Entitled Jock Tamson's Bairns (a reference to a Scot's saying meaning "underneath we're all the same"). The conference aims to question whether Web 2.0 marks a transformation in approaches to learning. Will this present further challenges in providing access across organisations, considering that learners could come from across four generations?

Headline speakers include Clive Shepherd chair of the eLearning Network and author of The Blended Learning Cookbook and Stephen Downes renowned eLearning expert. This slideshow is one of Stephen's more recent on the development of online community since the mid 90's, and includes lots(!) of examples of Web 2.0 tools in use for education and learning.

Labels: conference, digitalnatives, elearning, futures, scotland, web2.0

It was a week for assessment events - the e-Assessment Association Glasgow seminar, and a joint Assessment meets Enterprise meets Portfolio CETIS meeting. While the eAA is perhaps more focused on schools and colleges, and CETIS relates more strongly to HE, there was still some interesting links between the two events.

Helen Ashton and Cliff Beevers gave a presentation at the eAA that covered some of the history, current status and future of e-Assessment. This wasn't just the technology though, Helen talked us through the pros and cons, referring to the three stages of generational change proposed by Randy Bennett in his forecast on the future of large-scale educational assessment, published in 1998. Even ten years on, we are some way off Bennett's "Generation 'R' Tests (Reinvention)". Yes, assessment is being "administered at a distance" and it does "use complex simulations, including virtual reality". But, can we really say that assessment is "integrated with instruction (teaching)" and "designed according to cognitive principles"?

Helen went on to talk us through how paper-based assessment questions had been converted for delivery online. There were quite a few examples from maths (she is a mathematician afterall!) but it all served to demonstrate that we need to remember to look at comparability, and Helen gave an overview of various comparison studies. Cliff and Helen's presentation is available as a pdf.

The first presentation at the CETIS event concerned forthcoming calls for studies from JISC. One of these was described as a mixed methods study regarding the 'Quality of e-Assessment'. It was suggested that it is intended to address some of the "deep-rooted concerns" regarding quality amongst those sceptical of e-Assessment. It sounds as those members of the eAA are already working in this area.

Labels: assessment, conference, education, elearning, futures, organisation

I've just come across an interesting post from Rowin Young of CETIS about using World of Warcraft (WoW) for online conferencing. It is an interesting idea and follows on from work looking at using virtual worlds in an education context (for example see the video Rowin points out about the use of WoW, or check out a recent article in Escalate news by Sian Bayne and Fiona Littleton about the use of Virtual worlds (specifically Second Life) in Education).

It's great to see these innovative approaches being investigated (a recent Elearning Alliance event to discuss the use of Second Life held at Edinburgh University demonstrated the high level of interest), but beyond the draw of "intrigue" as Hamish Macleod (Ed University) put it, the added value - if any - still needs to be assessed in more depth. Further discussion of the possibilities of Second Life, and some reflections from the team at Edinburgh can also be found in this recent Guardian article, and current uses on the Second Life in Education wiki (which I came across thanks to ScotFEICT).

Labels: elearning, online conference, online gaming, second life, virtual worlds, world of warcraft

Yesterday I attended an interesting presentation by Ewan McIntosh (his edublogs site is worth checking out) run as part of the Urban Learning Space seminar series (a podcast of it will be available soon).

What I found refreshing was his discussion of how emerging technologies (social software in particular) is really just another development in a long line of 'in-things' (from sliced bread in 192x!) whose use seemed daunting, unusual or even inappropriate initially.

What I took from his talk was that maybe educators tend to take the use of emerging technolgies too seriously, treating them as an all-or-nothing. Overplanning the use of technolgy, putting so much emphasis on the need for them to be successful (or the need for it to not fail) means that the flexibility, spontaneity and innovative use of technologies is often stifled in the learning environment. And yet our learners are displaying exactly these traits in their personal use of the technologies - from using their blogs to publish creative writing, to producing videos for youtube sharing their comments on current affairs, and using some impressive technical features to showcase their talents. Maybe it is time we learned from them and see it as a creative medium rather than looking for the way to assess it and 'prove' the value of the excersie... maybe the value is it can engage the interest of learners!

Labels: digitalnatives, education, educators, elearning, freedom, internet, IT, learnerexpectations, online, web2.0

The Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills have announced £3.9 million in funding to support the Technology Exemplar Network jointly led by Becta and LSC.

This inititative will aim to create a national support network to enable those who have successfully embedded ICT in their teaching and learning to share their experience with other practitioners and thus encourage use of learner-focused technology in education.

Read more at PublicTechnology.net

Labels: education, elearning, IT, networks, online, practitioners

Terry Freedman (and others) have publised an online book about Web 2.0 from an educators point of view, called "Coming of Age: an introduction to the new worldwide web".

It includes intriguing sounding chapter titles such as:

- What Are Rss Feeds And Why Haven’T I Heard About It?(Rss Feeds From An Educator’S Perspective)

- Virtual Support Via The Blogosphere

- Diary Of A Potential Podcasting Junkie

- Video Blogging: Terry Freedman Interviews Paul Knight


The book was completed in April 2006, but Terry is working on an updated version as we speak. To download the 2006 publication you do have to complete a short questionnaire (5 or so questions) by following this link.

Labels: education, educators, elearning, internet, practitioners, web2.0

It's that time of year again, time to look out your brollies and head down to the SECC in Glasgow for the Scottish Learning Festival 2007 (formerly SETT).

Seminars this year are grouped around key themes in Scottish education (with a strong schools based focus, as to be expected by a LTS organised event):

* Towards the Curriculum for Excellence
* Excellence and Ambition
* Support for Teachers and Learners
* Leadership
* Skills for Work and Life
* International Perspectives

The festival will run on the 19th and 20th September, at the SECC in Glasgow. See the Scottish Learning Festival website for more details.

Labels: conference, elearning, LTScotland, schools, scottish

The Scottish Online Journal of e-Learning (SOJEL) is a new peer-reviewed online journal which aims "to reflect and inform research and best practice in e-Learning in Scotland (and further afield)". SOJEL will be published twice a year, and is free to access.

The first issue (Vol 1, no. 1) was published in June 2007, and includes articles on social software, VLEs and e-learning in local government.

Labels: elearning, journal, online, scotland, scottish