...Connected Cultures

This is the fourth and final part of the Introduction for the forthcoming book 'Connected Minds, Emerging Cultures', which will be published later this year. It is an edited volume with contributions from a number of leading practitioners and thinkers in the field. The Foreword is by Howard Rheingold.

In the final section of this volume, Part 4, we present four case studies drawn from contrasting training and learning cultures, examining the cultures of corporate e-learning, cybercriminality, language evolution and social networking.

David Guralnick and Deb Larson represent the corporate training sector view in chapter 14. They write from the perspective of the company employee and explore the cultural basis of corporate e-learning. Guralnick and Larson describe the current state of employee cyberculture and propose that companies would be far better off using a strategic design approach to e-learning and corporate intranets, one based on helping employees and engaging them in their work. By doing so, companies will be able to integrate technology into employees' work lives in a way that improves their performance and boosts their morale and commitment.

Steven Furnell’s chapter ‘Cybercrime in Society’ presents a disturbing account of the current risks and threats to e-learners, and society in general from a number of criminal activities, including malware (viruses), hacking, and identity theft. There is a suggestion throughout that a criminal culture exists alongside other cultures within online life, waiting for the opportunity to transgress by exploiting network weaknesses. Through this chapter, Furnell provides a timely wake-up call for any user of the Internet who believes themselves to be safe, and suggests ways in which we can all protect ourselves from the more unsavoury elements of the online culture.

The penultimate chapter by Tim Shortis offers an explanatory framework for the re-spellings associated with new technology text formats such as email, internet chat, SMS text messaging and instant messaging. He considers some of the features and patterns of British adolescents’ uses of such writing and technology enabled semiotics. Shortis argues that technology has encouraged an extended set of orthographies which users draw upon to inflect their purposes and project their identities. He holds that such re-spelling is not a new phenomenon. Shortis goes on to consider the contextual pressures which act on users’ choices and argues that technology has re-regulated what counts as spelling, which challenges the official educational discourses of literacy, particularly where they apply to orthography.

The final chapter in this volume is entitled ‘Imagined Worlds, Emerging Cultures’. It was written as a collaborative project between Steve Wheeler and Helen Keegan who used Google docs to write together across the distance. In this chapter they present perspectives on cyber cultures as ‘imagined worlds’ in education and focus on how emerging online social spaces impact upon individual perceptions and practices. Wheeler and Keegan pay particular attention to the social networking and multi-user virtual environment cultures, where imagination is unleashed, but where friendship can be superficial. They focus upon old and new media cultures and the shift in perception over issues such as ownership, intellectual property, copyright, personal identity and privacy. The chapter examines cultural values such as privacy, identity and ownership and highlight two 'digital clan' cultures – FaceBookers and Flickrites. They analyse some similarities and differences in an attempt to explore how tribal cultures develop around and through imagined worlds.

Such a spectrum of perspectives on cyberculture must hold something for everyone. It is our hope that readers will find the ideas contained within the book challenging and inspiring. Ultimately, we hope that teachers and lecturers and indeed all those involved in education will be able to take at least some of these ideas and apply them to their own professional practice. The result, we trust, will be a better understanding of the practices and processes that are inherent in online life, and that this better understanding will ultimately encourage better teaching and learning.

Emerging Minds...

Here's the third part of the Introduction for the forthcoming book 'Connected Minds, Emerging Cultures', to be published later in the year:

Part 3, entitled Cyber Perspectives, opens up the debate about cyberculture through a number of contrasting views and philosophical positions.

In Chapter 10, entitled ‘Emerging Online Practices’ Viv Tucker draws upon her experience as an online tutor, to take a post-structural philosophical feminist position as she describes her approach to online postgraduate initial teacher training. She introduces a model that critically resists the limitations of the instrumental approach and argues instead for a teaching and learning model where contemporary post-structural theory can radically inform emerging online practices.

Ken Gale takes a post structural perspective as he examines cyberculture in the context of online learning. Gale’s chapter draws on postmodern philosophies in order to secure a deeper understanding of cybercultures through their use of various deconstructive strategies. He argues that nomadic inquiry can nurture ever changing structures of multiplicity and interconnectedness in online environments. His chapter explores a number of possible ‘folds and intersections’ between post-structural philosophies and digital learning practices. Gale proposes that new technologies can create many new learning opportunities that bridge the space between the institution and enquiring mind.

Vasi van Deventer’s chapter is entitled ‘Cyborg Theory and Learning’. In this pivotal chapter, he describes the evolution of the human cyborg. He draws on the history, theory and philosophy to argue that theorists are correct when they assert that we are a lot further down the road to becoming cyborgs than we may think. Van Deventer discusses the implications for education and concludes that human minds have an adaptability and plasticity, enabling students to interface with any technology that is useful to their purpose. He also argues that these students actually become ‘learning cyborgs’, developing a symbiotic relationship with technology that blurs traditional distinctions.

Chapter thirteen concludes Part 3 with a narrative entitled ‘Transfer through Learning Flexibility and Hypertextuality’. Written by Gorg Mallia, this chapter argues that hypertext and hypermedia are causing transformations that reach a long way beyond the well-researched and largely accepted social interaction types. Malia suggests that technological immersion is causing social and cultural change, and fears that this may contribute toward diminishing personal user participation in society.

... Emerging Cultures

Here's the second extract from the introduction to the forthcoming Book 'Connected Minds, Emerging Cultures', which will be published later this year by Information Age Publishers, Connecticut, USA.

Part 2, which has been designated ‘Roles and Identities’, covers a range of ideas about how the individual copes within the new cyber landscape. Several key questions are addressed: How do learners maintain a constant identity in an ever shifting digital world in which multiple identities and roles are possible? Do they adopt alternative personae as easily as they create new avatars within multi-user virtual environments? Does the creation of an avatar create something new within the identity of the individual? And are real life identities influenced by what the individual does whilst within a cyber identity?

Hugh Miller and Jill Arnold open this section with an investigation into cyber identities and the presentation of self within online environments. They show how social rules governing presence in virtual environments are as important as those that apply in embodied life. Miller and Arnold argue that people construct and reconstruct themselves in cyberspace in ways that are subject to cultural restrictions on both sides of the screen, as well as being influenced by the affordances offered by new media. They suggest that to learn not only requires gaining a new understanding of the world, but it also requires a re-adjustment of one’s self.

In chapter 6 Steve Wheeler takes the reader on a journey through the various digital tribes and virtual clans he believes are emerging due to intensive and sustained use of new technologies. He argues that new tribes and clans are emerging as a direct results of sustained interaction with technology. He contends that tribal identity shapes individual identity in cyberworlds, and that digital tools and networks provide ideal environments within which new cultural transmission propagates. Clans tend to emerge within tribes as cultural definitions and the generation of artefacts become more pronounced. Finally Wheeler asserts that there may be one single ‘digital tribe’ in the broadest sense of its meaning, but analysis of the many social activities found on the web indicates that many sub-sets of this large digital tribe exist – the ‘virtual clans’.

In a robustly written chapter on the digital gaming cultures, Nicola Whitton explores how games can be positioned in higher education. Chapter 7 considers the acceptability of computer game-based learning in the context of university education. Whitton discusses the potential of computer games in relation to theories of learning, and examines the conceptions of a cognitively different type of learner. She challenges the notion that these learners find computer games the ideal environment in which to learn. Whitton discusses student game preferences in terms of genre and the types of computer game that may be more appropriate for learning, and aspects of computer game design that may influence student use. The chapter concludes with a consideration of the benefits and challenges of computer games for learning and teaching in tertiary education.

In Chapter 8, Leon James describes the creation and management of an ongoing course-integrated Web community at a college social science course in Hawaii. Each student enrolled in the course automatically adopts cyber-community membership by reading, processing, and identifying with the reports of prior generation students, and then contributing their own reports to the cumulatively expanding ‘generational curriculum’ topics. The benefits of such an approach are discussed in terms of psychological models of acculturation, identification, cyber-citizenship, and the student as scientist model functioning in a Web environment that is increasingly shaped by human social processes. James concludes that the project demonstrates that a course-integrated online learning activity can be effective in producing cybercitizens by managing the students’ interactional procedures through the generational community-classroom approach.

Graham Attwell conducts the reader through a journey that examines the social dimensions of personal learning environments in Chapter 9. His chapter examines the social impact of Personal Learning Environments. Attwell expects that Personal Learning Environments will exert a profound influence over established teaching and learning systems and will radically change pedagogic approaches to learning, knowledge development and sharing. He suggests that the emergence of PLEs and the widespread interest in PLEs are a reaction to the changing ways in which people are using technology for learning. He argues that PLEs result from new societal demands for education and are a response to changing forms of knowledge usage within society.

Connected Minds ...

'Connected Minds, Emerging Cultures' is a new book several of us have got together to produce over the last year. In the next few blog posts I will present an extract of the introduction to give you a flavour of what you can expect in the book when it is published at the end of the year through Information Age Publishers (Greenwich, Connecticut, USA):

In the opening section there are four chapters about digital subcultures, the first of which focuses on learning within the collaborative online spaces increasingly popular in education. The chapter showcases some of the recent research into the use of wikis in higher education and Steve Wheeler approaches this topic armed with an extensive data set derived from the discussion group postings of his online teacher trainee groups. He concludes that wikis are a powerful and as yet relatively untapped online collaborative tool that has the potential to promote deeper engagement with learning.

The second chapter, written by John Traxler, dwells on the realities and possibilities of the mobile culture, made possible by cellular and wireless technologies that are now pervasive in the Western world and in the process of becoming a global phenomenon. Although the future of mobile technology seems robust, Traxler raises a number of important questions about its impact on learners, teachers, communities and society in general. He offers to evaluate this impact through an exploration of the impact of mobile technology on culture, community, discourse, identity and their educational implications. The author attempts to reconcile the perception that discrete mobile subcultures exist with the perception that all cultures are somehow transformed by mobility.

Chapter 3, written by Palitha Edirisingha, reveals that a ‘listening’ sub-culture has grown up around the increasingly popular podcasting technologies. In his chapter, Edirisingha traces the development of podcasting through media, entertainment and technology industries and the transformation of a broadcast tool into a learning tool. He identifies a variety factors that have an impact on the formation of such a listening culture. He highlights some of the lessons learned from empirical studies, predominantly from an international study called IMPALA. Edirisingha concludes by offering insights into how podcasting can be effectively used for learning, with a focus on higher education.

Part 1 concludes with chapter 4, in which Mark A M Kramer explores the ways students are beginning to harness mobile networked enabled technologies to create new cultures of learning and collaboration. Kramer argues that these new movements can best be understood as a ubiquitous and pervasive learning culture in which anyone can engage in a form of learning that takes place independent of time and location. He concludes by suggesting that this new culture of ubiquitous and pervasive learning is inevitable, but warns that it may take time to become established in education.

More tomorrow from the Introduction...

A shower in Bath

I have just arrived back in the UK via Bristol airport and have driven straight over to the beautiful city of Bath. Tomorrow I will be speaking at a staff development workshop on Web 2.0 at the University of Bath, on the invite of the Head of e-Learning, Andy Ramsden. I keep bumping into Andy all over the place, so it will be nice to finally get to see his set up and see how they do things there.

I'm staying at the delightful Tasburgh House guesthouse, which overlooks the city from its high vantage point. I have had a shower and a change of clothes after the dreadfully bumpy flight back from Warsaw, and I am feeling very much more human thank you very much. The hostess is charming, and has already brought me tea and cake, whilst I sit here in the conservatory writing this blog post. Gentle saxaphone jazz is playing in the background (Stan Getz if I'm not mistaken), there are potted plants all around and I have excellent wireless connection - what more could a boy need? (Above, complete with cake and tea, is a picture of my well travelled laptop in situ, - it has already been to Portugal and Poland in the last ten days - are there any other countries beginning with 'Po'?)

Tasburgh House is certainly the place to chill out. There are stunning views all around. In a nice touch, the rooms are all named after British authors. I am staying in the room named after Eliot (George Eliot who was a girl of course...) and each room has a teddy bear who represents that author. You should see Charles Dickens (and Lord Tennyson is to die for) ... More from Bath tomorrow when I have presented my workshop and seen around the university...

Warsaw was raw

Enjoyed an unexpected treat tonight here in Warsaw. It's midsummers festival here ('Slaska Noc Swietojanska' in Polish, I'm told, but I don't know if it's true, cos it's all Greek to me) and the entire population of Warsaw it seems is out on the streets celebrating. The whole place has gone crazy with fireworks and street shows, and in the words of the famous palindrome - Warsaw was raw.

Many of the young girls (and some of the nicer young men) are wearing garlands of flowers on their heads (Garlands on the Vistula was the headline), and there is a tradition of casting a huge (and I mean HUGE) ring of flowers on floats into the river and watching it disappear down to the sea. There is also a huge festival here, mainly composed of beer and other falling down substances which are flowing freely. A biplane with it's tail billowing white smoke was also a feature of the festival, but I hope he didn't touch the falling down stuff, because he was busy for about ten minutes buzzing low over the vast audience of tens of thousands of spectators.

The highlight of the evening for me was undoubtedly the free rock concert which featured among others, the highly impressive Polish singer Kayah. If you haven't heard of her, you probably never will, but she's world famous here in Polish land. In Europe she's gone platinum although her hair remains jet black. I will let the photograph do the talking for the visuals, but you will need to download her music and hear it to believe it. It's a fusion mix of jazz, techno and funk with some Arabic wailing from a megaphone thrown in for good measure. Polish TV covered the event live and I'm glad I was there to witness it (the festival, not the TV coverage). It was a great way to end the week... and I'm going home tomorrow.

Poles apart

The city of Warsaw has a reputation for being a beautiful place, and indeed it is, but the part of town I am staying in seems stern and forbidding. Some of the architecture is a stark remnant of the Soviet era, and the ghost of Uncle Joe seems to leer at you from the solid buildings, and from across the vast, open squares (Yeah, I know, hit the link for Uncle Joe - and it's one big joke...I just couldn't resist). I hate to think what it's like here when the bitter cold north winds bite down from the Baltic in the winter. Warsaw has more than its fair share of large, square edifices which glower down at you like stone sentinels, and I can imagine them during communist times daring you to mutter a word against your totalitarian masters. It must have been bleak here during the Cold War, and even now, with Poland a recent addition to the European Union family, there are parts that still feel a little cold.

I have to walk past the American and Canadian embassies twice each day, and the queues of hopeful locals waiting to secure visas, attests to the fact that some people want to get out. I am staying in student accommodation and the entire place looks very tired and worn-out. It’s very similar to my experiences staying in Czech accommodation. Touch something and it either comes off in your hand or just doesn’t work. The bedside lamp doesn’t come on. The TV is on the fritz. The curtains hang away from the rails. I suppose I am spoiled. Last week’s Lisbon hotel (The Holiday Inn Continental) was absolutely superb, and the staff fell over themselves to make you feel at home.

The people are very friendly here when you get to know them though, and I have enjoyed talking to folk over lunch and dinner about their research into electronic delivery. There are also a large selection of bistros, cafes and bars to hang out in if you care to walk a little distance down toward the old town (Stare Miasto) and into the chic boulevards such as Novy Swiat where you can enjoy a coffee and talk to the locals.

Stare Miasto (picture of the old town square left) is another matter altogether. It is poles apart from where my lodgings are, and is charming, mysterious and magical all at one time. The pictures accompanying this post give you a sample of some of the wonderful buildings in that 'old part' of Warsaw. Interestingly many of them were rebuilt faithfully in the 1950s from old photographs, because unfortunately, the whole place was bombed flat during the war. Streuth, but they did a good job. You can hardly see the joins and the scotch tape is well hidden.

There is currently an outdoor exhibition of 136 huge United Buddy Bears – glass fibre 3-D canvases in the shape of bears, one representing each of the countries recognised by the United Nations. (How do you recognise a country...? Oh, there’s Germany over there. I can see the sausages hanging out). They are on a world tour in the cause of world peace and have so far raised over 1.2 million dollars for the UNESCO Save the Children fund.

I have met one or two familiar faces at this conference.... Anna Grabowska (University of Gdansk), whom I met up with and blogged at last week’s EDEN conference is here. So also is Kzrysztof Amborski (Warsaw Polytechnic), who I had the pleasure of working with in Ireland in February. He and I have roles in the Atlantis University project which is organised by Fachhochschule Darmstadt, to be research mentors for Masters and PhD students in computer science and e-learning. I'm home in a few days, and onto my next engagement speaking at Bath University. I will actually return to Poland, but not until next June for the next EDEN conference which will be held in Gdansk.

A Spaniard in the works

‘Successful Virtual Universities: Some Key Issues’ was the title of the second keynote of the morning given by Albert Sangra who is at the Open University of Catalonia, in Spain. Albert talked about the experiences gained at his university, which is fully online and therefore ‘virtual’. Albert’s main concern was that teaching and learning is not about technology, but about whether we can develop new approaches to delivery, which involve technology. Better to start separately and then merge methods and technologies once the needs have been identified.

There are four main reasons whay universities try to use online education, said Albert:

· To increase access to education
· To improve university economic expectations
· To respond to the technological imperative
· To improve quality of education

The second reason he said, is sometimes a mistake, because online education is often more expensive than face to face education. E-learning is an evolution of the use of technology in education, from the humble correspondence course, through telephone, CD ROM and now of course, the Internet. Use of any new technology inevitably promotes changes in universities. It involves redefining roles, administration processes, teaching methods, restructuring educational design and ultimately, changing the university itself, he said. Technology, organisation and pedagogy are the three key areas of change, and should not be thought about separately. The OUC has adapted delivery through ICT to the needs and profiles of their students, who are predominantly mature and working people. Delivery is fully asynchronous at OUC, and there is a division of labour between course developers, advisors, (showing an emphasis on student support) and administrators. OUC is certainly very successful, so this is a tried and tested model of distance education.

Above is another picture taken last night in the old town area of Warsaw.

French Polishers

We are in the second day here at the Polish Virtual Universities Conference in Warsaw. Ronan Chabauty (FIED – Federation Interuniversitaire d’Enseignment a Distance: A French Distance Teaching Organisation) talked about France’s national conceptualisation of distance education, which is the one the French Education ministry has approved for funding. His keynote involved discussion of the old quadrant model of ‘same time, different place, etc’. He espouses two classic typologies, one of which is the competence model of enriched learning through technology, whilst the other takes a location dependent position of ‘reduced face to face’ and ‘quasi non-existent face to face’. I'm not sure what he meant by this, as there was no time for elaboration. However, I think this essentially means that distance teaching for the French is an alternative means to face to face and as Ronan said, 'has to be distinguishable from face to face teaching'. A little 'old school' I thought and perhaps not acknowledging some of the new technologies that are reducing conceptions of what distance actually is. I had to get up on my hind legs and I ask him what his position was then, on the blended approaches that are so prevalent in the UK? He replied that students who are away from the campus receive the 'enriched learning through technology' delivery - not so much a distinction then, as an alternative method of delivery. Students are changing and we need to change our delivery methods, he said, which first involves changing the minds of colleagues. A perennial problem which I think affects all institutions.

Ronan concluded his talk by saying that in France (and also most other places) there is still a great amount of work to do to ensure that anyone and everyone can study from wherever they are located and therefore participate fully in lifelong learning.

Oh, and by the way, the photo above is one I took last night as the sun was setting on the old Stare Miesto (old city) of Warsaw.

Pole position

It’s the first day of the Polish Virtual Universities conference here in Warsaw and I must admit I’m feeling a little lost. I opened the conference with the first keynote of this three day event, and then it was all downhill from there in. The audience was disturbingly quiet, but I’m told that this is the way they listen to speakers. They applauded heartily at the end of my speech, but no-one dared to ask a question. It’s a different culture, a different reaction, so get over it Steve.

There are 140 delegates registered for the conference and 136 of them are Polish. So naturally the entire conference is also in Polish, and I don’t understand a word of it of course. At other conferences there is usually an interpreter, but I am the only Brit here, so I shouldn’t expect anything else should I? OK, there are also a couple of other keynote speakers from France (Ronan Chabauty) and Spain (Albert Sangra) and they will also present in English, but apart from that, nada. There are over 70 papers and posters due to be presented here, and also 8 keynotes. I have managed to decipher some of the paper headings, which include podcasting, blended learning, e-portfolios, wikis, 3-D storytelling, Second Life, and several others have Web 2.0 in their title.

Oh how I wish I could hear them, or at least be able to read them in English.

Over my shoulder

It's time for me to reflect on the conference, and looking back over my shoulder, but what will I remember?

Firstly of course, there is the city itself.... what could be said that hasn't already been said? Complex, colourful, aromatic, noisy, spectacular, manic, steeped in culture, ultra-modernity, ancient and bold. All of these describe beautiful Lisbon, but none of them can quite encapsulate its unique atmosphere. I vow to return one day.

Secondly, there were the people. I have renewned some old friendships this week, and made some very good new friends too. All of the following I shared taxis, trams, buses and metro cars with: We spent time together talking seriously about e-learning, our families and homelives, life, the universe, everything. We also spend a lot of time laughing and joking, simply having fun, letting our hair down in the evenings. These guys helped make EDEN 2008 so memorable.

I met Dianne Conrad (Athabasca University, Canada) on the first day at breakfast - Gila Kurtz (Bar Ilan University Israel - pictured with me above on the first day of the conference) introduced us, and I'm glad she did. Dianne has a lot of energy and is committed to excellence in e-learning. It was a pleasure to spend some time with her. I also met Dirk Schneckenberg (Rennes, France) at the same breakfast meeting, and spent a great deal of time with him and his colleague Ulf-Daniel Ehlers (University of Duisberg-Essen - and a well deserved recipient of the EDEN Fellow award this year). We will definitely collaborate together on some projects in the near future. We have already agreed it. Finally, there was another new friend, Mirjam Hauck (UK Open University). She was my 'partner in crime' on the EDEN blog - in fact Mirjam had the idea originally to set up a blog for the conference - I am sure we will be doing the same thing again next year, but bigger and better - wait and see! It was a rare pleasure to spend time in such inspiring surroundings with such smart and passionate people. Thank you, all of you!

Finally there was the conference itself - not always what one expects it to be, but always a pleasure and an experience to remember. The papers were sometimes surprising, sometimes disappointing, sometimes inspiring. All shades of academia (and sometimes none) were represented at the conference in the paper sessions, but it was often the informal netwokring that once again proved its worth at EDEN. Shamefully, I managed to turned up late for my own session, due to a miscalculation with the time (I was struggling with the conference blog and the wireless connections at the time). No harm intended, but I managed to put one presenter's little nose out of joint I hear, but .... we all got our 20 minutes, so no damage done I hope!

To all who made the conference and the social events memorable, my grateful thanks. Here's the next year in Gdansk!

Interaction, impact .... and irony

Well, it's all over bar the shouting (which will happen during the post luch Annual General Meeting of EDEN - look, I'm only joking,OK??) The foyer downstairs is bare and few people remain. It's a little like Second Life (Now I am being serious)

The social web has had a huge impact on the way we see the world of education, and business. In his keynote today, David White from the EU commission used the analogy of Amazon.Com which encourages online book reviews. He says this has changed the business model for book selling, and that education needs to undergo a similar transformation so that the needs of lifelong learners and e-learning in particular can be addressed. He doesn’t know a great deal about e-learning but he does know a little about the lumbering edifice that is Europe. Europe consists of its people and the task in the European Union (and supposedly its governments) is to create the space, provide the instruments and give the support that liberates and sustains social and individual talents that make us all human. Europe has within it a wealth of culture and a creativity of spirit that is second to none and the challenge here is similar to those working within e-learning and distance education on a global basis. Our aim must be to encourage and support every individual as they realise their self potential so as to enable them to collectively contribute toward the common good. This was certainly Euro-centric and rejoiced in the unity of the continent and its potential to participate on the world stage. Delivering this speech directly in the wake of Ireland’s rejection of the Lisbon treaty yesterday, took some courage. It is rich indeed, and as his speech was actually given in Lisbon, with David hailing from Ireland, it certainly has a delicious irony.

Marci Powell, who has replaced John Flores as the new president of the United States Distance Learning Association, examined the interface between academia and industry. USDLA did a survey of 431 human resource directors in the USA. She concludes that the future workforce is here, now, but it is ill-prepared. The 3 R’s are not enough - a new digital literacy is needed, and there is also a new set of interactive skills (in what I will call the 4 ‘C’s) – collaboration, critical thinking, creativity and communication that is required. The problem is that the technologies children will work with probably haven’t even been invented yet, and we need to prepare them for this. This is an impossible task. The impact of Globalisation on jobs is severe, and competition is fierce. E-learning has created an open field of opportunity where the traditional catchment areas of student populations have been eroded. State funding is gradually draining away for universities, so the established institutions will need to be creative and innovative to survive. This will involve clear and open negotiation with the corporations to discover what new skills and knowledge they require us to deliver. This is the task set before distance educators. One of the answers is to connect people of all cultures through the global meeting place – the Internet.

These were at times controversial and thought provoking speeches, which reveal the complex problems of living and learning in a connected world. David White may have misjudged the mood o the conference. Marci Powell on the other hand tapped into our expectations. More problems were offered than solutions, but the EDEN crowd are pragmatists and didn’t really expect to have any real answers delivered on a plate. It may be a brave new world we inhabit with many problems to address, some of which appear to be intractable. New learning cultures are emerging which bring with them new sets of problems we didn’t anticipate. Education is not cheap to deliver, and e-learning is only a part of the solution. Yet it is a necessity for global well-being. If you think education is expensive, you should try ignorance...

Hot tools, hot topics

Entitled ‘Technological Culture: Web 2.0 tools and social media’, this was the last parallel paper session before the final plenary event at EDEN – day 3. The session should have been less well attended than previous ones, because traditionally most people begin to leave for the airport around this time. It’s difficult with last day sessions – often known as the ‘graveyard’ slot. Most of the presenters also had to dash away early to catch their flights. Yet there was a very healthy turnout, with an almost full room which is a testament to the fact that Web 2.0 is a red hot topic at this conference.

The first paper with the somewhat impenetrable title ‘Web 2.0 environment with workflow language’ – was presented Pritt Tammets from Tallinn University, Estonia. He talked about visual language and visual thinking which tap into the intuitive and emotional learning. Tammets’ aim was to develop a suite of visual language tools that could integrate into Web 2.0 applications such as wikis. This is a tool for designers, but became a little too complicated, he reported. Results were mixed and the system didn’t work for large scale delivery.

The second paper in the session was also focused on the use of wikis to support the learning of English as a foreign language. Igor Balaban (University of Zagreb, Croatia) borrowed Gilly Salmon’s ‘e-tivities’ concept to characterise student engagement with wiki tools. Wikis are good for interaction, collaboration and to share content with a wider audience he said, but in second language learning they are considered less useful. The EngWiki project aimed to discover how they could be optimised so his team developed a taxonomy of wiki activities (a bit of an anachronism perhaps when the chaotic and folksonomic nature of wikis is considered) to support the learning. Igor presented some very interesting wiki activities such as analogies, vocabulary trees, narratives and role playing. The results were very positive showing that students engaged more actively with the course. I will definitely be in touch to discuss their research.

The third paper, ‘A wiki as an intercultural learning environment’ was the result of collaborative research between Spanish and Australian universities. Presented by Guzman Mancho (Alcala University, Spain) the project highlighted problems with learning English through technology. Making two different semester structures coincide between the Spanish and Australian universities, assimilating the culture of the other university and overcoming lack of funding were all issues addressed. Collaborative editing was required so an ‘institution free’ wiki – MediaWiki – was selected. Students practiced collaborative writing in English which had very useful outcomes, with most producing useful content and completing the course successfully. However, there was lack of interaction between students, difficulty in assessing the degree of intercultural ties and many students lacked experience in wiki use.

The final paper, entitled ‘Disrupting the technological culture’, was presented by Stella Porto of the University of Maryland, USA. She focused on staff support (the majority are part-time professors) to train their online tutors. Social software tools are overwhelming in number and scope, but applications are becoming friendlier and can be used to build communities. Scalability was an issue – providing training and support for 2500 teaching staff was difficult. Many teachers had no technical background and some were technophobic (not recommended for online tutors). The university is now trying to bring the open social tools under their control (happening in many other universities probably because they are scared of being left behind in the technological flow) which challenges the question of ownership of content (e.g. e-portfolios) access to materials (e.g. e-portolios), and interoperability across platforms (e.g. e-portfolios!). When we are using social software, who needs protection?

Hot tools and hot topics, yes. But so many questions yet unanswered...

Another day in Paradise

The EDEN conference is coming to an end and with one more day to go, it is almost time to reflect on the event. I will do so in more detail when all the usual detritus of winding down from a conference ... the hotel check out, travel home and unpacking etc ... have been dealt with. I will be home for only one day before flying out again on Tuesday for my next engagement as keynote speaker at the Polish Virtual Universities Conference in Warsaw. I have already spoken to Albert Sangra (Universidade Oberta Catalunya) who is the other keynote speaker for the event. He is also here at EDEN.

The EDEN conference blog is a great success with a growing repository of comments, posts, pictures and hyperlinks in its pages. Do have a look and comment when you have time. It is another day here in Paradise, with the sun shining and the purple blossom of the Jacaranda trees sharply contrasting with the red and yellow of the older buildings in Lisbon. It has been quite an experience here, and has lived up to every expectation I held about the place. I would like to thank the organisers of EDEN this year for their attention to detail. Apart from the unreliability of the wireless network (which everyone seems to be complaining about) there are no grumbles. Only good memories, excellent contacts with people doing real research, and a sense of satisfaction.

Questions, questions...

How do we learn? Where do we learn? These were the questions addressed this morning at the EDEN Conference in Lisbon.

The hugely impressive Grande Auditorio is the venue for the plenary sessions. It soars high above the audience and there are illuminated balconies rearing up four stories on both sides. It is an arena in which the invited speakers must attempt to set the tone of the conference and address the themes. Were they successful? Some of us are not so sure.

The first speaker, Anna Kirah, who is from ‘Future Navigator’ and based in Denmark, talked about exploring people centred concept making and was particularly scathing of existing education systems, because they stifle creativity. She made an appeal for schools to bring back the ‘why?’ in learning so children can see connections between what they are learning and what they are actually doing in real life. Where e-learning is concerned, she advocates that we should no longer be making content for people, but with people – which of course is a central tenet of the social web. Borrowing shamelessly from social constructivist theory, Anna boldly declared that e-learning which does not involve conversation is not worth the space.

Alan Tait from the Open University of the United Kingdom was more circumspect in his address entitled ‘Where do we learn? At work’. The title said it all really, and Alan dwelt on the idea that work is core to human experience and that it is inevitable for learning to occur at work. He wanted us to move away from competencies and skills to see learning at work as a part of the lifelong learning process and a means of managing one’s livelihood. Learning at work contributes significantly to personal well-being he said, and it is important to move beyond the fruitless distinction between training and informal learning.

Some people complained that there was nothing new in these presentations. Others were more enamoured with the content, but it is a decidedly difficult task to try to please all of the people all of the time. By far a more pressing question today is: are we going to have sufficient access for everyone on the wireless connection today. Probably not...

Shift happens again (and this time it’s personal)

In the EDEN plenary session this morning, Lani Gunawardena talked about language, identity and gender in synchronous cybercultures. She's from the University of New Mexico and her research focuses on how students and the general public from two cultures, Moroccan (n=55) and Sri Lankan (n=50), communicated through live chat with people they didn’t know. Lani argues that identity plays a key role in trust building, self disclosure and the way language forms were used to generate a sense of immediacy. Identity she says, is expressed by age, sex and location. The continual shifting and malleability of personal online identities seemed to be a pervasive phenomenon, she discovered.

Anonymity gave participants more freedom to express themselves online and enabled them to avoid all of the above. Stereotyping she claims, takes place more easily in text only environments. Mohammed for example, was labelled a ‘terrorist’ by some other users, so a change of name to ‘Green Python’ sanitised his identity and enabled him to connect more readily. Some users changed their online identities to appeal to, and connect with different audiences. Some posed as Europeans and even changed their gender so they would not be marginalised by other online users.

The techniques online chatters use to detect imposters involve asking a series of questions and then repeat them later on to check consistency. Mobile phones are also used to verify the authenticity of the person at ‘the other end’. Over emphasis and exaggeration is often an indicator that someone has manipulated their identity online.

Self disclosure and trust building enhance social presence Lani argued, and interestingly, anonymity increased the ability to self disclose personal details. However, it also encouraged superficial relationships to grow at the expense of deeper social ties. The use of idioms increased when users felt they could begin to trust each other. Emoticons were used to convey meaning when text alone was insufficient, but interestingly mobile phones and other devices were used to increase a sense of social presence and immediacy.

This was quite an interesting study, but it remains to be seen how this kind of knowledge can be used to improve or even transform the delivery of e-learning. It is a limited study given the small samples size, and may be overly prescriptive in its conclusions. However, it highlights some important principles for educators to consider when they embark on the use of synchronous methods.

Sardines, Swordfish and Minnows

As usual the sun is shining brightly and the water is glistening here in Lisbon where we are holding the EDEN conference on elearning and distance education. It is day two of the conference and I am sat in the morning plenary session to listen to the four keynote speeches. More of this later....but first:

Last night several of us stayed out until the small hours to sample the atmosphere in the middle of the mayhem, mania and madness that is the Feast of San Antonio. Parades, concerts and general merry making in the streets of the city are the norm and no-one is allowed to be unhappy. We arrived via the metro, which was our first mistake, as the entire platform and the metro train itself were a seething mass of humanity. (Hand on your wallet, avoid the elbows, and try to keep standing upright – if you start falling over during the sudden stops, you are finished). I admit I felt a little like the proverbial Portuguese sardines, with far too many people crammed into too small a space, yet in a strange kind of way, it was fun.

We finally managed to reach the centre of old Lisbon and took the funicular up to the Bairro Alto, where all the best cafes and bars are situated. The aromas that assail the nostrils in the pleasantly warm evening air of Lisbon have to be experienced. Every step it seems brings new ones, charcoal burners, roasting meat, the scent of the flowers in the trees, and even some less savoury ones – all add to the ambience of this beautiful and captivating city. Walking through the back streets, you also see the less palatable character of Lisbon. I was approached by a rather unsavoury looking character who half whispered ‘Cocaine?’ ‘I’m sorry,’ I replied, ‘I don’t have any to sell you...’ He looked a little bemused to say the least.

The restaurant was excellent with a choice of several kinds of exotic sounding fish and meat dishes. I have now sampled swordfish, calamari and monkfish and am now looking forward to trying out some of the dishes I can’t even begin to pronounce. The service was excellent also, but the company at first was a little subdued, and for good reason. We had three Germans in our party you see, and we had just sat cringing in a riverside bar to witness their soccer team being defeated by the Croatian team, who until yesterday could best be described as ‘minnows’ in the Euro 2008 competition. My German buddies put on a brave face, and I tried to encourage them by saying that the Croatians had actually put the English team out of the qualifying round, so were probably stronger than we thought. At least the German team were actually playing I said. I don’t think it worked. They cheered up significantly when the wine arrived however, and a jolly good time was had by all.

Finally arriving back at my hotel at stupid o’clock, my pillow was a very welcome sight, I can tell you.

Blogging mad

We are blogging like mad things here at the EDEN conference in Lisbon. It's one of the best e-learning conferences in Europe, and we have around 550 delegates here from all over the world. It is certainly the place to catch up with all the bright minds in e-learning, as well as rubbing shoulders with some of the great and good. There are somewhere in the region of a dozen official EDEN bloggers who will document the proceedings online, and the first posts are already up on the official blog. So it's official then....

Any way, watch this space and we will keep you informed of the conference proceedings as they happen, with some nice pictures to capture the scenes and keep you entertained. Mirjam Hauck (Open University of the UK) has done a stirling job getting us all together, and keeping us in line. Must be like herding cats.

Above is a nice picture of us having a meal out last night in the Bairro Alto area in central Lisbon. Mirjam is on the right, and also pictured are some Dutch and German delegates. The picture was taken by a sudden waiter...

Jolly good fellow?

Well, I picked up my EDEN Fellow award last night. They warned me it was coming. A crowd of over a hundred colleagues was present. The cameras were there to capture the moment. President Alan Tait beamed as he shook my hand and presented my certificate, so I smiled serenely and acknowledged the ripple of applause. (Pictured left taken by Tom Wambeke). On the certificate it reads:

“The Executive Committee of the European Distance and Elearning Network acknowledges the contribution of Steve Wheeler to the professional development of open, distance and e-learning in Europe and the valued commitment and support to the evolution and progress of EDEN by awarding him the title of EDEN Fellow”.

Wow. What the.... who....? Do they have the right person? I’m supposed to be an ambassador for the organisation now, but am I the right man for the job?

I’m not telling them my room number. They may be back to retrieve it later on when they find out they have made a mistake.

You see, I found out from Grainne Conole last night that there is another Steve Wheeler she has been corresponding with these last few months. He’s doing a course with the OU and she asked me how I was getting on with it. She thought I was him. Maybe I am. But I don’t think so. It’s all so confusing, and I haven’t even started on the famous Portuguese port yet. This is all a dream and I am going to wake up in a minute, I swear. Seriously, I will keep the award and put it up on my wall at home. I feel honoured that EDEN should reward me this way. I’m not good at being conventional and towing the party line. I’m considered a bit if a heretic in most circles. But for EDEN at least, I will endeavour to be a jolly good Fellow.

Trail blazers

The EDEN Conference in Lisbon this year runs like a Who’s Who in of Distance Education and so it should. EDEN is one of the largest of its kind and everyone seems to flock here each year to rub shoulders with the good and the great. OK, so I’m waxing a little lyrical, but last night I had conversations with some long serving distance educators and what many would consider pioneers in the field, and it is a little humbling to think how much they did to lay the foundations of what has become a huge global force in education.

Tony Bates is here, and tells me he celebrates 70 years on this planet next year. Michael Moore is here, taking a sabbatical in the UK this coming autumn, before his final year at Penn State. I met them both for the first time at a conference in Turkey in 1997, and didn’t know who either of them were. I do now. Got their books, collected the handshakes.

Desmond Keegan is on the list of delegates and so is Torstein Rekkedal, who picked up a Senior EDEN Fellow award at the reception event. Alan Tait presides over the EDEN family in his perpetually genial mode. I also met Lani Gunawardena for the first time, over from New Mexico to take part, and look forward to hearing her keynote address later this week. There are others here who would probably love to be mentioned in the same blog as these uber-professionals. But I won’t. There is a subtle shuffling for position from some of the younger pretenders, but the simple fact is, most of the above people were in distance education before it was called distance education, and most of them grappled with connecting remote learners when there was little to choose from but correspondence courses and audio conferencing.

With the advent of Web 2.0, mobile phones and wireless technologies, their theories and exploits may seem a little dusty and out of date. But make no mistake, without their dedication and prescience, we would not be in the healthy position we are in now with virtual universities, e-learning and any-time, any-where education. So raise a glass to the trail blazers of distance education. I’m glad I met them. Oh, and the picture above is one I took over the parapet at St George's Castle yesterday. It's a view across the north of the city. Wish you were here?

Getting there

The taxi driver who got me from Airport to my hotel must have been either a Hollywood stunt driver, or a getaway man for the mob. He would have put Lewis Hamilton to shame. He didn’t say a word, but his actions spoke volumes. Time is money, they said. He drove like a demon through the streets of Lisbon, weaving a breakneck speed through the traffic, trying to make me part company with my British Airways packed lunch. He didn’t succeed, but I almost left him a small deposit to show my appreciation. I have been warned about drivers in Lisbon, but nothing can really prepare you for the experience. The number of narrow escapes and near misses he crammed into the 10 minute journey from A to B must be a world record. He avoided collision with a large bus by millimetres and the sudden drops into the tunnels were reminiscent of the clear air turbulence I hate so much when I’m flying.

He got me safely to my hotel and I proffered a 50 Euro note for a 6 Euro taxi bill. He looked at me as if I had just informed him that Portugal had no hope in the football championships and that Christiano Ronaldo couldn’t take a penalty to save his life. I had nothing smaller. I thought quickly. Gesturing toward the hotel lobby, I got out and rushed in. I gabbled in fluent Portugese (a bare faced lie) to concierge that I needed some change to pay the taxi driver and smaller notes were pressed into my hand. The demon driver was paid off and disappeared in a cloud of dust to inflict his particular type of torture on his next victim.

I was glad to get to my hotel room, I can tell you. I have turned grey over night. My wife will not know me when I return home this week. My children will shrink away in horror, because I have aged significantly from the experience. However, Lisbon is a city to die for (and I nearly did). At night it is positively breathtaking and during the day it is totally captivating. The choice of the venue for this year’s EDEN conference has been inspired. Congratulations to the EDEN executive for your decision. I’m looking forward to the experience. I’m not so sure about the taxi ride back to the airport though...

The silos start to tumble....

There will be a special blog for the EDEN conference this week in Lisbon, and I will be contributing toward the content. I'm actually quite looking forward to the conference this year, as it promises to be memorable for all the right reasons. The city itself is new to me - I have never visited Portugal, and have heard a lot of good things about Lisbon. The conference themes are also appetising, with e-portfolios, open libraries, cultural contexts for e-learning, digital literacy and e-inclusion all making an appearance. The one that really gets my attention though is entitled 'breaking down the sectoral silos'. I have visions of midnight raids on unsuspecting farms and torrents of grain falling down from monstrously huge (and protected) storage areas. The question for consideration is 'what impact has Web 2.0 had on institutionalised learning and training'. Well ... there's the death of the Learning Management System to start with. It's the end of the walled garden folks. The impact of Web 2.0 has just begun and SHIFT HAPPENS. In the words of my teenage kids... It's MASSIVE man!! (you have to point your fingers in all directions as you say this, for adolescent emphasis I'm told).

By far the best part of the event for me at least, will be to attend the opening reception to pick up my fellowship award from EDEN in recognition of my contribution to e-learning in Europe. So I would just like to thank my wife, my three children, my hamster, the vicar of our local church, our local pub 'The Pig and Piston', the ceiling, the walls, the.... etc....etc...

Emerging Mondays

I'm taking part in a live podcast on Monday evening for Pontydysgu using Skype direct from my new wireless laptop, if I can get the blasted software to download.

I'm going to be talking about social software and open content for e-learning, and will be in conversation with the show's host, Graham Attwell. This was a session I agreed to do with Graham earlier this week whilst attending the Edumedia conference in Salzburg. Graham has already posted an invitation on his JISC Emerge site and I see the show will also feature Jay Cross from Internet Times who will be talking about informal learning, Hank Horkoff from Chinese Pod in Shanghai on personal Learning Environments and language teaching and learning and a 'culture spot' with the Last Poet in Oxford (I suspect it's George Roberts, but one can never be certain).

Just one thing though, Graham. I'm not from Plymouth College (it doesn't exist anymore and I left there over 12 years ago). I'm now working for the University of Plymouth.... Oh, it doesn't bode well at all.....

Salzburg, Soccer and Sachertort

A lot of decent things came out of Edumedia 2008 this week in Salzburg. Ralf Appelt has posted a useful blog reporting on the highlights of the event, and Graham Attwell's team are cooking up a whole host of sounds and interviews from the conference for podcast. Adesigna's Flickr photos are particularly evocative (this picture of the river at night is simply beautiful). One of the most innovative aspects of the event for me was the introduction of the Twemes application to capture an aggregate of all the best snippets (Flickr photos, Delicious tags and Twitter posts) from the event. The Edumedia Twemes page has grown with a number of useful artefacts from the event. The Salzburg Tagit project was interesting to hear about, and it was great to finally meet up and have a few beers with the likes of Jay Cross and Marcus Specht.

Tell you what though, I'm glad I'm out of Salzburg with the Euro 2008 football tournament starting. The place was swarming with paramilitary and police yesterday as I took one final wander around. There are barricades everywhere around the fanzone and the place is thronging with people wearing flags, football shirts and ...yes... shaven heads.

Salzburg will be remembered by me for some good thought provoking presentations, plenty of constructive and challenging dialogue (I was interviewed, photographed and videod more times in two days than ever before - Mark Kramer even has a Qik video of me talking at coffee about social software) and some stunning Alpine scenery. I visited the bier garten and tried the Stiegel beer (accompanied with the eponymous frankfurters) and also sampled the Sachertort in a wonderful little cafe just off the main tourist drag. I even sat with some colleagues atop one of the hotels over looking the river at night, and looked over the city as it dazzled with a thousand lights below. All memorable. Ein Schon Stadt. I just hope it doesn't get wrecked by the footie boys....

Twemes means memes

We have been enjoying using the Twemes (Twitter Memes) application here in Salzburg these last two days. Although the wireless network connections have been playing some games with us, several of us here at Edumedia have been able to Twitter and then direct our tweets to Twemes where they are aggregated in with a stream of images (Flickr) and tags (Delicious) from the conference. Anything on these tools that is tagged with #edumedia08 is fed directly into Twemes. Pictured are Graham and I, with me in full flow talking about some research I have done on blogs and wikis for nomadic learners (Picture taken by David Roethler and uploaded direct to Flickr via Shozu).

Graham Attwell, Veronica Hornung-Praser and I have just done a session on mobile self organised learning which will be podcast by Graham via his Bazaar webcasting service later this week. The weather is a little cooler today, but the discussion is just as hot, centred upon self organised learning and social software. This morning, in our first session, we enjoyed two hours of World Cafe discussion, where the white table cloth became our notepad and where the groups constantly rotated around the room discussion key issues. A fabulous idea in every way!

Hot, Cross and bothered

We are cooking here in Salzburg. The weather is just as warm and humid as it was yesterday. But we are cooking in another way too. We have just enjoyed a very good and very interesting opening session at Edumedia 08 here in Salzburg. Jay Cross has just spoken about informal learning and made some interesting and thought provoking points. He tells the story of how an American professor told two groups of students to read a paper in preparation for an examination. He also told the second group that the paper was controversial and not to be trusted. On average, the second group of students scored higher grades. His conclusion - uncertainty creates better learning engagement.

Jay made the point that with the exponential rate of change in the world, particularly in technological terms, knowledge is rapidly and continually going out of date. He argues that instead of teaching students knowledge and content, we should be training them how to adapt to changes instead. The connections, he remarked, are more important than the nodes. In other words, people communicating with each other in conversation and collaboration is more important than content. Content becomes important to the students when they generate it themselves. Then it becomes personal and personally relevant. Presenting challenges, said Jay, is more effective than offering solutions.

To the left is a picture (courtesy of Stefan Karlhuber) of me with Jay Cross, Graham Attwell and Marcus Specht, in an unconference mode. I have had a devil of a job Twittering from the conference though, as you will see if you have tried to follow my comments. The connection from my iPhone to the network has been atrocious, and I am hot and bothered by this, because I have lots of thoughts, and cant get them posted very easily. Graham Attwell and Mark Kramer have both had much more success, the rotters. Graham tells me he used Skype, and it worked a lot better than my iPhone....

Oh, and I was mentioned in dispatches. My photo (taken last night by him in the beergarden) was featured in one of Jays slides. Makes me feel a little better...

EduMedia in the Alps

Its all quite beautiful here up in the middle of the Austrian Alps. I am in Salzburg to speak at the EduMedia conference this week. The weather is hot and sunny and the birds are singeing in the trees. The theme of this conference is Self Organised Learning in the Interactive Web. I have already enjoyed some interesting and stimulating conversations with the likes of Jay Cross (USA), Mark Kramer (Austria) and Wolfgang Greller (OU Netherlands) and I am looking forward to listening to the first keynotes in approximately 10 minutes time. Jay actually did a video interview of me over breakfast which he says he will post up on his website later on. Hope I dont have egg on my face....

I will try to blog and twitter from the conference as the sessions go on, but network connections here are a little flaky at times. More later, including some stunning photgraphs of the area....