@timbuckteethnz

Well, here I am in New Zealand. Thanks to the crafty footwork of Robyn Pascoe (@serendipitynz) I'm here in Hawke Bay, Napier, to present the first keynote for the New Zealand Applied Business Education Conference (#nzabe10). It's a gathering of further and higher education business studies educators from all over New Zealand. Robin convinced conference organiser Professor Mark Neal (another Brit @markneal100) that I was just the kind of guy he needed. He asked her where she had met me, and she replied 'on Twitter'. Well, we finally met face to face last night for the first time in a Thai restaurant, in the excellent company of Joyce Seitzinger (@catspyjamasnz) who is also acting as a sort of minder for me. A lot of Kiwis (for that is what they call themselves) use the suffix 'nz' in the Twitter names. Perhaps I should do the same. Let's see - @timbuckteethnz. Er... no, perhaps not. Makes me sound as though I'm still jetlagged and snoring quietly in the back row of a cinema.

Anyway, I have just watched the sun rise over the placid bay and the photo above is one of the shots I took to capture the moment. New Zealand is certainly one of the most beautiful parts of the world, and it's also a happy place. Most of the people I have met so far have been bright, smiling and very friendly.

At the conference today I'm going to talk about - yes you've guessed it - social media and how it can, and will, transform many practices in further and higher education. I'm going to approach it from both perspectives - teacher and student. I want to highlight the problem that faces all teachers - how can we prepare young people for a world of work we cannot clearly describe? Change is rapid and merciless, and we simply cannot accurately predict what the job market will look like in 3 years time. All we can hope to do is examine the trends, and try to ensure that students are encouraged to be as flexible, creative and adaptable to learning as they can possibly be. It's learning to learn - and it's a lifelong deal. This means examining their expectations of education, and how this contrasts to what they actually need to succeed. How they manage their own learning through the use of social media will be important. So will the choices they make. I will discuss the range of new digital literacies they will need to acquire and master to survive. How will they make sense of their subject in an increasinglu complex connected world? How will they manage their impressions and maintain their digital identity? Avoidance of the time when they apply for their first job, and their potential employer checks them out on Google, and comes across Facebook pictures of them falling out of a nightclub at stupid o'clock - will not be standard recommended social media practices. Rather, it's a managed, professional and scholarly impression they need to garner in their personal shop windows we call social media.

So I'm enjoying my 2 days stay down here in the Hawke Bay area - and I will blog more from my tour of New Zealand as the days unfold.

@timbuckteethnz by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

House of cards

Our first keynote speaker this morning had a very appropriate title for his talk, given the unseasonable wet weather we've been experiencing here in Brisbane. In 'Bringing the Cloud down to Earth' Nick Carr - author of The Shallows, and controversially, an article entitled "Is Google making us stupid? What the Internet is doing to our brains.''- raised a number of issues about technological change and agency, and tracked the history of similar innovations through history. Ironically, one of his illustrations was a picture of one of Google's data centres. Carr's declaration that Cloud computing is the most important innovation since personal computing was not challenged. 'PCs put the power of computing on your desk' he said, 'and cloud computing has put the power of a data centre in your hand'. And it's true. Businesses are in the process of seceding their data and computing resources to the care of centralised, remote services, in much the same way businesses did with their energy needs when the first big centralised power stations began to draw in their customers. By implication, education is also in the throes of surrendering its content and connections to the Cloud. Carr discussed the risks and the benefits. He convinced most of us that the benefits outweighed the risks. If we are in the mind set iof lease, buy and manage, he said, then working remains fragmented. As a disruptive technology, he promised, the Cloud will easily outstrip any previous technology and quickly take its place. Fragmented working has had it's day, and the Cloud is replacing it as companies and institutes outsource all their computing power. The Cloud is here to stay, and as Bruce Hornsby put it, 'that's just the way it is'.

The second keynote of the day came from Sir John Daniel, whom I had bumped into as he emerged, slightly confused, from the lift earlier in the day. He smiled when he recognised me, and after a few pleasantries, then asked if he was on the correct floor for the convention centre. I showed him the way, and then, in his keynote, he reciprocated by showing all of us the way. In a brilliant, erudite and critical evaluation of a number of school computer projects, he posed the question; 'Computers for Secondary School Children: A busted flush?' Daniel pointed out in his opening gambit that around 400 million children between the ages of 11-17 years have never been to secondary school, and don;t stand a chance of ever doing so. Primary school is the only mandatory schooling for many emerging nations. When secondary specialities need to be taught, they are often found to be too expensive for the state funds of most poor countries, so children past the age of 11 don't get the opportunity unless their parents can pay.

But, he asked, do initiatives aimed at trying to provide computers for such children to offer escape routes from this poverty trap actually help? Well, yes and no, was Sir John's answer. No, in the case of Nick Negroponte's One Laptop per Child (OLPC) project, which was aimed at an ambitious 150 million, only 1 million have actually been distributed. Yes, in the case of 'Slum Dog Professor' Sugata Mitra's hole in the wall project. The difference between the them, said Sir John, lay in the concept and theory behind the two projects. OLPC was premised on the theory of constructivism, where the child, as a solo explorer, could use his laptop to learn independently. Mitra's project on the other hand, discovered that children actually learn best (and even teach themselves) when they are in small groups. Minimally invasive education has been shown to be better than direct instruction for promoting intellectual maturity. Thus, said Sir John, social connectivism trumps constructivism for third world child learning. Oh, and by the way a busted flush is not a leaky toilet - in a card game it's a seemingly good thing which fails to reach its full potential.

More reporting from the World Computer Congress tomorrow.

Image source

House of cards by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Down under, over and out

Well, here I am, downunder in Brisbane - in the so-called sunshine state of Australia, soaking up ... the rain. Just like England in the Spring then. I feel very at home here, because Brisbane has been suffering record downfalls of rain in the last two days, but it looks like easing off and returning to normal by the end of the week.

I'm here in the Gold Coast of Australia to participate in the IFIP World Computer Congress, which is being held in the Convention Centre. It's a four day event and as usual, attracts delegates from every corner of the world. Most are IT professionals of one kind or another, software engineers, computer scientists, hardware specialists and our lot - the experts in pedagogy. Technical Committee 3 or TC3 of IFIP is the education committee, and it has several sub committees or working groups (with me so far?). I'm the chair of IFIP WG 3.6 (Distance Education) which boasts around 80 members worldwide.

The Learn IT strand of the conference - Key Competencies of the Knowledge Society (hashtag is #kcks2010) - is running for 4 days parallel to the rest of the event, which in total has about 16 parallel streams of conferences. It's massive. The convention hall itself is immense and as I sit here writing this, I can see about 100 metres in each direction - that's just the mezzanine foyer. The main one downstairs is even larger.

Today we are in Day 2 of the event, and I'm looking forward to a keynote speech from the former Vice Chancellor of the Open University, Sir John Daniel, whom I bumped into in May down in Windhoek, Namibia. He will be speaking about computers for secondary school children, and there will be a discussion panel following, with the title: 'Personalisation of learning - are we there yet?' I'm intrigued to know what they will discuss and decide...

Yesterday went by in a bit of a jet lagged fog to be honest with you. I met several people I know and some I had only met before on Twitter, including Carol Skyring and Steve Hargardon, and had some interesting chats. One of the best moments was listening to one of my Glaswegian colleague speaking in fluent Portuguese to a Brazillian delegate. Whilst eating meat pies. Respect. I managed to keep awake long enough to give my own 2 papers in #kcks2010 at 16.00 local time (having essentially gone without any decent sleep for 48 hours) and people said I presented with a sharp focus and without any signs of tiredness. That's adrenaline for you. Either that, or the audience was also jetlagged. Today, after a splendid breakfast at the Rydges Hotel, connected to the conventional hall, I feel a lot more human and ready to face the day ahead. I will blog more from the event as things unfold.

Image source

Down under, over and out by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Turn and face the strain

Below is an extract from a forthcoming chapter I'm publishing soon in a book edited by Manuela Repetto and Guglielmo Trentin, on Web Enhanced Learning. My chapter is all about change that is brought about by the introduction of new technologies in formal learning settings, and how it affects learning and teaching. It has the optimistic title of: Teacher resistance to new technologies: How barriers to Web Enhanced Learning can be overcome.

Abstract

This chapter will address the question of how a transformation in teachers' use of information and communication technology can be achieved. There is evidence to suggest that the use of information and communication technology (ICT) in higher education can enhance and extend the learning experience. There is also evidence that although many teachers recognise this, many resist using ICT in formal education contexts, resulting in a shortfall in the adoption of technologies. An analysis of the barriers and constraints, and how they might be managed and overcome will feature during the discussion. A particular emphasis on Web Enhanced Learning (WEL) approaches will be made and strategies for university-wide adoption of social software (Web 2.0) tools and services will be presented.

The Nature of Change

Change is often painful, and most people avoid it if they can. This is human nature. People feel more comfortable with routines they have developed, and trust their own methods before they will trust those of another. Notwithstanding, Web Enhanced Learning (WEL) has the potential to revolutionise higher education at a number of levels.

At the pedagogical level – where we are concerned with how learning takes place – there are indicators that WEL and other technology enhanced approaches have the potential to transform the quality of learning. WEL provides a flexibility of pace and space that was previously unattainable. Further, WEL enables students to more directly participate in, and take control and responsibility over, their own learning processes.

Formal and Informal Learning

This emerges through formal and informal learner activities such as online discussion, user generated content, active social tagging and the sharing and exchanging of digital artefacts direct from user to user. We can observe this in the interpersonal dialogue that is common on social networking sites such as Facebook, in the user generated encyclopaedia pages of Wikipedia and on video and photo-sharing sites such as YouTube and Flickr. Not only do students enjoy using these tools informally, they also use them within formal education contexts, and often during lessons or for the purposes of completing their assignments. Engagement with learning at this level is a departure from the didactic, passive, instructional methods often seen in higher education. Students are now using WEL tools to engage more deeply and actively with their learning, and through their quick and easy to set up social networks, can call upon help and support to collaborate while they learn. It seems a shame that there appears to be a gulf growing between the expectations and activities of students within the social web, and the expectations and practices of university staff within the lecture room.

The book will be published soon, and I'm looking forward to reading the chapters by the other authors in the volume.

Image by Banksy: source

Turn and face the strain by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

When worlds collide

In yesterday's post I gave the first part of a review of the latest issue of the journal Interactive Learning Environments, which is a special issue entitled: 'Towards eLearning 2.0 University'. There are 7 papers in the issue, each of which focus on social media that are being used to support and enhance learning in higher education. I promised I would continue the review today, right here on this blog, so here goes...

The research by Wopereis et al, with the title 'Weblogs as instruments for reflection on action in teacher education' set out to analyse how student teachers used them during their training. The paper concludes that although some reflective content was created by students, blogs do not naturally promote deeper forms of reflection without some scaffolding through tutor intervention. Interestingly, the students reported that they found the blogs useful for reflecting on action, and the authors postulate that with tutor support over a greater period of study time, meta-reflection might emerge as a result of prolonged blog writing, and revisiting of content.

Two papers reporting on research into the implementation of personal learning environments using social media provide a little controversy for the special issue. The first, by Valjataga and Laanpere, focuses on learner control of the environment, and how it poses a challenge for instructional design. This is reminiscent of the discussions held at the recent PLE conference in Barcelona, where some theorists attempted to defuse the tensions between didactic institutional provision and individualised PLEs by proposing a compromise. To reconcile the two seemingly polemic positions of learner control vs institutional provision, the authors of this paper propose that the PLE requires an elaboration, which 'integrates important instructional functions for learner control'. They argue that learners are in varying stages of readiness to create and adopt their own personal learning environments and that a deeper understanding of this is required to ensure future success.

The second PLE paper by Cascero et al, proposes an even deeper form of compromise, suggesting a middle ground between institutional provision and personalised tools and spaces. The iPLE (institutional PLE) sounds like a contradiction in terms but the authors are actually proposing 'a shift from the monolithic model of traditonal virtual learning environments to a more heterogenous and open model'. The authors propose a conceptual architecture of the iPLE and show how they propose it could merge the best functions and features of both worlds. Cascero et al justify the iPLE by arguing that 'iPLE is an attempt to build a PLE from the point of view of the university, so that every institutional service can be integrated, but flexible enough to interact with the wide range of services learners could consider important during their lifelong learning'. Sounds like two worlds are about to collide....

An institutional PLE? Impossible or feasible? This last article certainly offers a controversial and fascinating read, and will doubtless provoke some fierce debate.

Image source

When worlds collide by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Wikis in eLearning 2.0

The latest issue of the journal Interactive Learning Environments is a special issue entitled: Towards eLearning 2.0 University, and is guest edited by Adriana Berlanga, Francisco Garcia Penalvo and Peter Sloep. When I first saw this proposal I was immediately enthusiastic and it didn't take long for Joe Psotka (my co-editor) and I, to commission it. Now the three have brought the issue to fruition, and an excellent one it is, exactly as I anticipated. The seven papers and editorial focus on how Web 2.0 social media can, and are being used to enhance, extend and enrich learning in higher education. It's dedicated to the question of how universities are integrating social media into academic practice, with the aim to foster eLearning 2.0 - where the student is placed at the centre of a more social, personal and flexible learning process. I'm impressed by the scope and scale of the projects in this issue.

The first paper, by Lim et al, focuses on new digital literacies and asks whether social practices are lagging behind expectations. There follows an erudite explanation of socio-techno-spatial relationships, where learners shift their dependence away from their tutors to their peers, and where teachers in turn have to learn new pedagogical practices to keep up with the changes taking place.

Another stand out paper in the issue is an exploration by Karasavvides of the use of wikis in higher education, and the attendant barriers and difficulties that need to be overcome for full acceptance and embedding into the learning process. The author identifies seven types of problems from a recent wiki study, including time management, student resistance, plagiarism and lack of collaboration.

Similar findings are presented by Huang and Nakazawa in their paper entitled: An empirical analysis on how learners interact in wiki in a graduate level online course. The study investigated how learners initiate and manage learning activities in wiki environments, and predictably, discovered a significant qualitative difference between learner-learner and learner-tutor interactions. Students clearly interacted more with their peers, leading to speculation on what role tutors should adopt in such learning environments. Students also encountered the problem of losing momentum because they could perceive no actual ending point to their assignment. The authors call for further research to be conducted into that quality of interaction within wiki type learning environments.

More from this issue tomorrow.


Wikis in eLearning 2.0 by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

I'm no Superman

I don't need x-ray vision to see that I'm going to be extremely busy in the next month or so, as I travel to Australia and New Zealand and back, for a 3 week speaking tour.

Hey - you'll believe a man can fly! I'm not looking forward to the longhaul flights or the jetlag, and I'm left wishing I could actually fly like Superman, around the world in seconds. Mind you, but once I'm there, I'm sure I will have a great time. I'll be touring around, meeting people, learning all about their work, and of course sharing my own ideas.

That's always the best part - meeting people who are doing similar things to you, but in other parts of the world. Usually turns out they have the same problems, and run into the same barriers as you do, so you don't feel so alone.

So I'm looking forward to speaking to others involved in implementing, designing and researching technology enhanced learning environments, and perhaps learning some new tricks and tips to improve my own practice. If I can share any of my own ideas and positively influence someone else's practice, I will be very happy.

My speaking itinerary is quite a good one, with some time built in to see a little of Brisbane, visit the New Zealand side of the family in Auckland and see a few of the sights. But I'm no superman, and I anticipate being very tired by the end of it.

For those interested, here's my speaking schedule:

20 September: 2 papers at the World Computer Congress, Brisbane Conference Centre, Australia.

22 September am: Keynote speech (online) for the Connect, Communicate, Collaborate Kaplan University Village Conference, USA

22 September pm: Invited seminar at University of Queensland, Australia.

27 September: Keynote speech for the New Zealand Applied Business Education Conference, Hawkes Bay, New Zealand.

29 September: Invited seminar at Waikato University, Hamilton, New Zealand.

30 September: Invited seminar at Auckland University of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand.

6 October am: Invited research panel, Ulearn Conference, Christchurch, New Zealand.

6 October pm: Keynote speech, Ulearn Conference, Christchurch, New Zealand.

7/8 October: 2 workshops for the Ulearn Conference, Christchurch, New Zealand.

So there you have it. I'm thanking all my hosts in advance for the hard work they have put in organising flights, accommodation, transfers, etc. They are a great bunch, these Aussies and Kiwis! If you are intending to go to one or more of these events, please say hello to me. I'm house trained and it's been years since I bit anyone. I fly back to the UK on 10 October, in time to speak at a Teachmeet at the University of Plymouth on the morning of Monday 11 October. If I'm still compos mentis, that is.

I'm no Superman by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

ALTernate reality

This year's Association for Learning Technologies Annual Conference alternated between highs and lows, controversy and comfort. Let me explain: One of the most controversial parts of the conference was the opening keynote, which I and many others have already reported on. I have heard just about every possible reaction to Donald Clark's speech, some mirroring the invective he unleashed, even the profanities. Enough said.

Other (slightly less) controversial aspects included a difference of opinion from delegates about the merits of the live Twitterwall in the main auditorium. Some considered it a distraction, a few thought that it was tempting subterfuge, while many more decided they liked it as an additional amplification feature - a conference back channel if you will. My own session, a panel presentation shared with John Traxler, Frances Bell, Andy Black, Karl Royle and Mark Childs (pictured), discussed issues around ethics in Web 2.0 interventions and research. While arguably less controversial than last year's VLE is Dead debate, the symposium still attracted over 100 delegates, and there was some cut and thrust from all those involved.

Many predictably complained about the poor quality of the student accommodation offered on campus. I suppose I didn't help matters by boasting to anyone within hearing distance that my bed and breakfast room was a double en suite, with wifi, satellite TV, microwave oven, refrigerator and a private car port right outside my ground floor window. And I paid less for it too. I digress.

There were also many highlights during the conference. Besides enjoying the energy generated by a gathering of over 500 passionate, inquisitive and knowledgeable learning technology professionals and academics (heat and light were generated in equal measure), there was the opportunity to meet other like minded individuals from all over the world, and to say - Yes, I have that problem too! It was the start of many friendships, and probably a lot of future collaborations and creative liaisons too. Many met for the first time people they had connected with for months or even years online. It is always a great experience when that happens. The now traditional Fringe ALT meeting of Edubloggers took place at the Nottingham Playhouse, with impromptu debates where participants names (and surprise topics) were drawn from a bucket. We all had to think on our feet that evening.

Sugata Mitra (University of Newcastle) delivered what was promised in his Day 2 keynote. A wry, inspirational and thought provoking presentation on the promise of self-organised learning mediated through 'hole in the wall' web enabled computers. I won't say any more here, as this speech has been better documented by others elsewhere, but I will say that many people left the room smiling, relieved that keynote 2 was as divorced from keynote 1 as Cheryl and Ashley.

The individual Learning Technologist of the Year was awarded jointly for the second time in as many years. Cristina Costa representing Higher Education (University of Salford) and Kevin McLoughlin, working in the compulsory education sector (St Peter's CofE Primary School in Whetstone) shared the accolades of their peers for their leading edge work in learning technology. The team award was picked up by David White and the TALL team at the University of Oxford. The full list of awards can be found here. The conference dinner was a triumph as usual, with cooking, presentation and service of a very high standard from the local catering college students.

Unfortunately, our final keynote speaker, Barbara Wasson, could not attend the conference due to illness. In her place, 6 stawarts of learning technology sat in a panel and took on all comers around the question - what would you concentrate on as the one activity that could bring in a sea-change? Gilly (1000 years of experience) Salmon, John (my middle name is Nigel) Cook and Haydn (shouts across the valleys) Blackey and their colleagues regaled us and provoked us, and the Twitterwall rolled, live on the wall, for all to see.

ALT-C 2010 is history now. All that is left is an empty suite of rooms at the East Midlands Conference Centre, littered with plastic cups, empty dishes and discarded vendor flyers. They will be cleared up by the large team of helpers, but the true detritus of the event will be whether what has been said and done in the last 3 days actually does cause any semblance of sea-change in education, through the intervention and use of learning technologies.


ALTernate reality by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Speaking through the holes

At the start of Sugata Mitra's keynote today I joked on Twitter that he was about to speak through a hole in the wall. I have seen one of his previous speeches about his famous 'Hole in the Wall' projects and I know how astounding the results are. But my joke turned out to be quite apposite, because in my estimation, Professor Mitra spoke through many holes that are appearing - in the wall that we call formalised, traditional education.

It's important to grasp the significance and impact of Sugata Mitra's ongoing studies on our concept of education and how it should be conducted. Essentially, he has placed computers in the slums of India, and in remote places in other countries, and has made videos of how children interact and learn when they are left alone with the technology. He has discovered that children very quickly learn how to use the computer to search and find content, and learn from it in a self organised way. In one case he cited, he equipped a computer with voice recognition software, but only flat, unaccented English was acceptable to the machine. The children he observed, not only figured out how to learn to speak some rudimentary English using the computer, they also taught themselves how to eliminate their strong Indian accents too. In another experiment, he discovered that children could learn very complex concepts such as scientific principles, without the attentions of any qualified teacher. He warned though, that the best results were always obtained when children were gathered around the computer in groups of 4 to 6. Some of the teachers who worked with the Hole in the Wall children reported that they were increasing their test scores, and also writing in a deeper, more analytical style, as a result of their exposure to self organised learning using the computers.

Teachers were not redundant, Mitra was at pains to stress. They will need to take on different roles, he said, but the truth is this: All the answers are already out there on the Web. What it takes to enliven this is the teacher asking the right questions and the children finding and then making the connections by learning the answers. In a very endearing, humourous, slightly self deprecating style, and with lashings of great story telling, Sugata Mitra restored many delegates faith in the true place of the keynote at a conference - to inspire, provoke and entertain all at the same time. Just looking around the packed auditorium and seeing the smiles on people's faces showed that he had succeeded. Professor Mitra's work can be explored in more detail here - it includes a link to his excellent TED talk.

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Speaking through the holes by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Donald .... Duck!

Donald Clark's opening keynote for ALT-C 2010 essentially polarised his audience this morning. Some loved his earthy, no-quarter given demolition of an host of established theories of learning. "Maslow's hierarchy of needs is only popular, because triangles are easy to put into Powerpoint slides" he opined. "Socrates was a bully" he claimed, and he also lashed into other long accepted and well established models, much to the delight, and also the chagrine of those assembled. What really rankled though with many of those present (and some of those watching via Elluminate) was his critique that academics do not question learning theories, not are they suffiently critical of them. (Picture above: Donald Clark appeals to the Gods of Pedagogy).

Clark argued that lectures are a relic of the medieval age, and complained that modern university teaching rooms are not tech friendly. Where are the power sockets in this room? he asked. Fair point. And how can you get students to interact when all the seats are bolted down and facing the same way? Another good question. But his outright dismissal of the lecture as a legitimate pedagogical method left many of the delegates reaching for their laptops and harsh tagging him. There was plenty of 'tweckling' from all parts of the hall, and I suppose that by now, Donald Clark has read these comments, and knowing him as I do, is ready for the next round. For he is in a fight, no doubt about it. He cited Donald Bligh's seminal book 'What's the use of lectures?', but failed to mention that Bligh goes on to describe several important ways to improve the lecture and make it more interactive and participatory for students.

Was he too opinionated? One delegate suggested Clark had given ALT-C a 'Glasgow Kiss', but that may be going a little too far. Donald certainly fuelled much disciussion, and became the human equivalent of a hand grenade tossed into an otherwise placid melange of academics and professionals. It certainly had the desired effect. He tore down a lot during his keynote, but many were left questioning whether Donald Clark actually built anything up? When asked what the alternatives were to the lecture, he didn't seem to answer substantially, to the satisfaction of those who were listening.

One final observation: Donald Clark seemed to consider it acceptable to lace his presentation with a number of profanities. It intensified as he became more passionate and warmed to his subject. However, for some in the audience, his style stifled his substance. They were more intent on the language he was using than they were on what he was actually saying. Never the less, whatever your opinion about 'the lecture is dead' rant, it caused a few waves and a lot of dissonance for the 550 or so delegates at this years event. More later. And in the meantime, to lighten the mood, above is a picture of Stu Johnson with an Apple device.

Donald ... Duck! by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

New wine in old bottles

I'm speaking at ALT-C this week in a symposium called 'New Bottles, Old Wine?' which will take the form of a debate over the ethics of research and intervention in Web 2.0 environments. I'm going to argue that it is in fact new wine in old bottles we need to concern ourselves with. Let me explain...

I'm going to argue that using, and researching the use of Web 2.0 tools is a difficult prospect to try to work through with many grey areas. There are a number of reasons. I'm going to raise a few issues: For example, users do not always behave consistently in different contexts. Students change their identities as they move from site to site, and the student behave differently depending on the communities within which they are members. Facebookers for example, generally use their real names and images. Flickrites on the other hand are often anonymised, using psuedonyms and images to represent themselves. It is often the same person, but they represent themselves differently. Is being a member of so many virtual clans confusing? Do they perceive themselves as acting differently in different environments, or simply complying with different digital sub-cultures? Such shifting digital identities can be subtle, but with the result that researchers have a problem trying ascertain whether students are presenting themselves truthfully online.

Another issue is whether participants modify their behaviour when they know they are being watched. In conventional research environments, we know this happens. Do such demand characteristics alter the results of Web 2.0 studies? That behaviour has a persistence in online environments. It's not as though the research has observed it once and then it's gone. It's there, archived for all to see and keep coming back to. Do we need a new set of methods to cut through these issues, or is it new wine in old bottles?

Another ethical issue is where students who are creating their own content may wish to keep that content to themselves. When placed within a shared, collaborative environment, such as a wiki, some students may not wish to have their work subsumed into a larger corpus of work. I have published several of my own papers on this topic. Students in my sample groups reported that they wanted to be awarded credit for the work they had done. They argued that they didn't want their work deleted, diluted, extended or otherwise modified by other students. Is it therefore fair to ask them to participate in any study involving openly editable websites, where collaboration was mandatory? Do researchers offer participants in such scenarios the right to withdraw without penalty?

Another ethical problem arises when researchers 'eavesdrop' on Web 2.0 users. In such situations, should researchers have total access to all a user's content? Should they see all a student's Facebook photos for example? Or have access to all their discussion posts, private messages etc? If they don't have access, can a full picture of life online be obtained? When students sign up for this kind of research, are they fully apprised about what they are letting themselves in for? A comment from a recent conference in Spain was about a camera that had been set up to capture and live stream a keynote speech. The camera was open for a long time before the speech began, picking up off the cuff remarks, and broadcasting on the web as the speaker set up his slides. One viewer remarked that they felt a little like a 'voyeur'. How does this kind of event amplification reconcile itself with ethical research? Upon whom is the onus for the maintenance of correct ethical behaviour in such cases? And if it's not research, is it still covered by ethical protocols?

Finally, I want to raise the issue of Twitter as a conference amplification tool and back channel. The tweckling or harsh tagging of keynote speakers has been discussed previously by a number of commentators. My blogpost Weapons of Mass Detraction cited some notable cases where the wisdom of crowds can very quickly descend to the stupidity of mobs, if a few harsh remarks are allowed to take hold. Before they know it, conference organisers have a car crash keynote on their hands. Again, are there any ethical guidelines for this kind of eventuality? It's a new problem, so again, I ask - is it new wine in old bottles? Do the new environments require new guidance, or are the old protocols sufficient?


New wine in old bottles by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Got the bottle?

Another punch-up is brewing at this year's ALT-C Conference, which kicks off tomorrow at the University of Nottingham. Last year, several of us had a dust up on the future of institutional VLEs, and apparently we caused a bit of a stir. This year, I'm on another debate panel, this time with John Traxler, Frances Bell, Karl Royle, Mark Childs and Andy Black, to discuss ethical interventions in Web 2.0. Will this be about the ethics of Web 2.0 use, or the ethics of researching the use of Web 2.0, or about using Web 2.0 tools to research, or about .... er, well, you'll just have to come along and find out...

The title of the symposium/debate, which is scheduled for Wednesday 8th, at 09.00 in the main auditorium, is New Bottles, Old Wine? You can check out this and all the other conference sessions, venues, times and also who will be attending each by going to the conference Crowdvine site. There is also a link for you to participate with the live events online, if you can't get to the conference this year. We are expecting 550 delegates, according to the latest bulletin from ALT. Here's a sneak preview:

Frances Bell will identify private/public as complex reflexive student practice in personal and education use of social media, e.g. Youtube (Lange, 2007) and explore the role of the educator in students’ ethical development.

Andy Black will expose the issues relating to the transnational use of technologies approaches where users will have access to very different levels of technology and even if technology used is the same or similar the way it is deployed is culturally different. The concept is that these differences will decline or morph over time to become transnational & transcultural, resulting in usage that is woven into a global cultural thread.

Mark Childs will raise some of the ethical issues that influence creating learning activities in immersive virtual worlds and offer viewpoints to be debated on the potential responses to students' unease concerning the experience, cultures and perceptions of virtual worlds, the appropriate balance between authenticity and pseudonymity in virtual worlds and the responsibilities of teachers with respect to protecting those within virtual worlds from the impact of our teaching within them.

Karl Royle will argue that the ethical considerations of gaming are inherently bounded and regulated by the inherent rules of 'the game' and that as such are disposed to self regulation, and are about trying to do good or at least minimise harm in achieving a win state.

John Traxler will argue that the universal experience of mobility and connectedness in our societies is leading to transient, ephemeral and overlapping communities each with its own ethics; there are no longer grand narratives of ethics, only partial and local expressions of values and preferences. It's new wine, new bottles, new drinkers.

Steve Wheeler will take a cognitive stance to the issue of ethics in emerging digital environment research. He will hold that users interact and represent themselves in different ways depending on environment and context, switching between identities. Steve will argue that new technologies and tools present new affordances and expectations, and therefore require new approaches.

Do you have the bottle for a debate? You're welcome to join us, f2f or online.

Got the bottle? by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Locked and loaded

Next week is the annual bash for learning technologists here in the UK. ALT-C 2010 looms, and Nottingham beckons once again for a gathering of the clans. The last time we all went to the University of Nottingham campus for ALT-C, I met several people for the first time, including James Clay (who had his car broken into), Graham Attwell (who didn't have a car), Sam Easterby-Smith, Josie Fraser and Cristina Costa. I have worked with many of these on a regular basis since, and count them among my most valuable colleagues, as well as great friends. ALT-C (you see) is not just about attending to hear about the latest trends in technology supported learning, or watching cool demonstrations of the latests gadgets and gizmos, nor is it about listening to great (and sometimes not so great) keynotes. It's also about making new friends, forging alliances and extending your personal learning network. And coffee. Here's the ALT-C Crowdvine site delegates are using to connect before the event even starts.

So I'm locked and loaded and ready to drive up the autobahn to Nottingham next week, and here in the picture, is what I'm taking with me: 12 essentials I will be using to keep me out of mischief while I'm at the conference. 1) A four gang mains extension cable. The more sockets you have, the more friends you make. 2) The all important Acer Netbook. Small, but perfectly formed, and powerful when in the hands of the right blogger. 3) Sony Cybershot camera. Small, compact, and very versatile. 4) My trusty Nintendo DS, for use when the keynote speeches get deathly boring. (Look, Sugata, Donald - I'm joking OK?). 5) Power supply for said DS. 6) Power supply and cable for netbook. 7) Camera/netbook cable. I'm not that sophisticated yet. 8) Ethernet cable in case my guesthouse doesn't have wifi. Yes, guesthouse. I am not staying in student accommodation again. Ever. 9) Power supply for iPhone, iPod Touch and other Jobby things. 10) Wireless presenter and laser pointer. For keeping the audience in check. 11) iPhone. 12) iPod Touch. My iPhone is not enabled for internet. Don't ask, it's a long story, involving O2, a bowl of custard and a nun. 13) There is no 13. If there was it would have been my memory stick, but I forgot to put it in the photo.

So there you have it. My travelling companions for ALT-C. What are you bringing? Oh, and I lied about the nun.


Locked and loaded by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.