This won't hurt a bit

I am in the process of ditching 10 years or more of accumulated junk from my office prior to our move across to the new Rolle Building, here on the main Plymouth campus.

You know what it's like - you come across something and think, shall I throw it out or shall I keep it? Well, I came across some old medical terms in some handouts from my days in the NHS and nurse training which I thought were interesting... So I'm throwing them out, but keeping them at the same time, because they now appear here on my blog...

Benign ... what you are after you be eight
Caesarean Section ... A district in Rome
Congenital ... friendly
Denial ... A river flowing through Egypt
Dilate ... to live longer than anyone else
Morbid ... a higher offer
Nitrate ... higher than the day rate
Node ... was aware of
Protein ... in favour of young people
Tumour ... an extra pair
Urine ... opposite to 'you're out'
Varicose veins ... veins which are very close together

There are some more which are just too darn rude to post on this very nice and inoffensive blog, but it makes you wonder. If that's the kind of handout they were giving out in the nurse training programmes, no wonder the NHS is in the state it's in...

Letting our hair down

We all enjoyed a great day out yesterday at the Faculty of Education Degree Award Ceremony for University of Plymouth students. As in previous years, the ceremony took place in the beautifully atomospheric Exeter Cathedral. We all processed in to the grand strains of the huge cathedral pipe organ. It was a spectacle indeed. Sadly, this will be the last time we hold the Degree ceremonies here, as the Faculty of Education moves to the main Plymouth campus next month.

Still, it was good to recognise the work of our students over the past 3 or 4 years, as they each stepped up to receive their degree certificates from our Dean, Professor Michael Totterdell. Some of my B.Ed (Hons) Primary ICT Specialist pathway students were there (pictured above), as were several others whom I have had the pleasure teaching over the last few years. They will now go off to their new jobs to start their teaching careers, and I wish success to them all. It was also a time for the staff to let our hair down a little, and spend some fun time together at the end of a very busy and challenging academic year. I was accompanied by my wife, Dawn, (pictured with me left) who is a lecturer in the department and met up with most of the teaching staff who had turned out for this splendid occasion.

The BBC EastEnders actress Pam St Clement (Pat Butcher) was present to add a touch of colour to the proceedings. She used to be a student at Rolle College (a former incarnation of the Faculty of Education at Exmouth campus) where she qualified as a teacher. She was there to receive an honourary doctorate for her services to entertainment and education. Next year we will be conducting our Degree Awards Ceremony at another historic location - on Plymouth Hoe. It will all take place in a huge marquee, and I hope it's anchored down well - the winds are strong up there at this time of the year. And I don't know how on earth they will manage to get a full sized pipe organ into the tent...

Fame again please

Well, they covered the story two weeks ago in one of the local rags. You know, local boy does good on the world stage. I am of course referring to the fellowship awarded to me by EDEN last month in Lisbon. So I get a call last night to say - do you know your picture is in the paper tonight? My first reaction was - you hum it, I'll play it.

But when I looked, there I was in full colour with a big headline in the Evening Herald. I didn't expect them to run the story again, but they have, this time with a photo. There is some journalese of course - 'Globetrotting academic', 'Lecturer nets fellowship', etc. Then there follows some editorial about what the jorunalist thinks e-learning is and how I can keep students away from lecturers through the use of technology. As if I would do such a thing... It's all the newspaper cliches I can't stand. But, I guess, all publicity is good publicity, at the end of the day, if you know what I mean.

Mouse droppings

So the cat's out of the bag, and it looks like the days of the computer mouse are numbered. According to the BBC News online article today, manufacturers are thinking of dropping the mouse in favour of multi-touch gesturing and facial recognition devices. The BBC article argues that although it may still have a purpose in the office, for home entertainment, the mouse is already a dead duck (?). I remember when the mouse first came on the scene and I asked what its collective noun was. 'Rodentia', said a rather pompous toad of a university lecturer who will remain nameless, because .... well .... his name escapes me.

Well, the mouse has served its time I guess, and for many there is a very real attraction to new and better devices. 'Out with the old, in with the new', they cry. I fear though for certain colleagues, family and friends out there who are still getting to grips with computers. My dear old octogenarian Dad has finally managed to master the mouse and focus his hand-eye co-ordination. Imagine the scene. There he is using his new found skills on his pc, to compile a catalogue of all his garden plants when ..... suddenly on his door come hammering the mouse replacement police. They burst in, forcibly remove his mouse (which is still twitching) and replace it with a multi-gesture interface touch screen. I tell you, Dad would never recover. It's bad enough he is having his analogue TV replaced with digital this year. Losing his mouse would be the last straw.

I guess it's progress and we all need to move on. But I hope that this is not the total demise of the mouse. I think there's still some life left in the old dog yet...

Fascination and boredom

One last reference to my delayed flight home earlier this week, and then I won't mention it ever ever again, I promise. I wanted to make a comment about the in-flight movie. It was the most boring film I have ever seen. There was no dialogue, no sound track. There were no actors in the film. I don't even know who directed it. It consisted of a tiny white plane flying painfully slowly across oceans and mountain ranges. It went on for hours and hours, and I confess I slept through some of it. Yet in a perverse way it was as fascinating as it was boring. I found myself gazing at it for long periods of time, in case something unusual happened in the 'plot'. Like an engine falling off. Or the plane suddenly disappearing into empty space. But no, the movie continued for 10 monotonous hours. There were no twists or turns in the plot. I won't be watching that movie again.

More interesting by far, it seems, are the two blog links I have been sent today by my new best buddy Flea Palmer (makes good tea too). One is the EDALT and Faculties Learning Technology Projects page, detailing what the blighters do with all their time. The other is the central Learning Technology Team Blog which contains random jottings and thoughts about learning technology, teaching and Web 2.0.

Much more interesting than an in-flight movie, and certainly more informative. IMHO.

Marooned

Well, it's been an eventful few days. I'm sat here in a wireless zone in the middle of Columbo International Airport, writing this, and have just spent 12 hours in Sir Lanka. I missed my flight from Kuala Lumpur to London you see. It wasn't the fault of Sri Lankan Airways, bless them. I lay the blame squarely at the feet of the agents - eBookers. They didn't inform me that Sir Lankan Air had changed the time of the Columbo flight from 0925 to 0840 did they? So like a lemon, I turn up at the gate early, as I always do, and guess what? I see my flight leaving without me. I had to spend an entire 24 hours in the terminal airside at KL International Airport, kicking my heels until the next flight. Now I begin to understand a little how the Tom Hanks character in the 2004 movie The Terminal felt. Marooned. Not my favourite colour. I paid through the nose for a hotel room which was so small, if you swang a cat in there all four walls would have needed to be redecorated.

Sri Lankan Airways came up trumps. I flew in last night to Columbo and was greeted by a driver who took me direct to the Brown Beach Hotel (pictured above) - an idyllic, though slightly run down holiday resort, paid for by Sri Lankan Airlines. I spent a relaxing evening sitting on the beach, watching the surf come in and laughing at the antics of the lizards, tree rodents and other fauna.

There is a line of palm trees that demark the boundary from the hotel to the beach. Cross it and you become prey to the colourful hawkers and opportunists that lurk along the beachline. I was accosted at least 4 times by people desperate to sell me cigaretts, towels, watches, T-shirts ... you name it. By far the best scam though was the little old man who engaged me in conversation on the beach. He claimed he was in the 1956 Ceylon Cricket Team that toured England - Jerry de Silva. He was the opening bat and the wicket keeper apparently. He knew all about those who played in the England team, Fred Truman, John Edrich, you name them. He knew them personally. Knew when they had died, what they died from, what their favourite drink was. Very convincing. Then he pulled out his pet 'charity' - a local school for the deaf, and asked me for a contribution! Well how could I refuse? Easily. I shook his hand, which was like a child's hand. Certainly not a wicket keeper's hand anyway.

Brown's Beach is certainly a nice place to be marooned though, even if I have missed a few appointments back in the UK because of the lack of decency from eBookers.

Waxing lyrical about Malaysia

I spent the day yesterday touring around the area with some of the delegates from the conference. Our first stop was the Putrajaya 1 Secondary School. They have a colourful blog (but it's all in Malay). Putrajaya is the administrative area of Malaysia and houses many of the government buildings including the Prime Minister’s residence. A picture here taken with some of the sixth form girls we met during our tour shows the residence in the background. In the picture with me is my new best buddy Torsten Brinda (University of Erlangen, Germany). We visited several classes which incorporate ICT into many of their lessons, and where English is the spoken language in the lessons. Their aim is to prepare the children to be citizens of the information society. The staff were very hospitable and knowledgeable and the students came across as extremely polite and friendly. Their uniforms were also a sight to behold, the school was well maintained and evidently they were proud of it. Quite an impressive school.

We went on to visit a Batik factory workshop and observed a number of artisans at work as they created their ‘artwork to wear’ – a combination of layers of dye which were demarcated with wax. Needless to say, many of us probably spent a small fortune on shirts, scarves, sarong wraps and other clothing items, because they were attractive, and very very inexpensive.

We moved onto the Open University of Malaysia where we were hosted by Dr Zoraini Wati Abbas, who heads up the quality and innovation centre. The University is very new, having opened in 1999 but already boasts more than 70,000 students, all studying in blended learning format across all the states of Malaysia. A combination of face to face tutorial meetings, correspondence mail outs and online learning using web based delivery and tutor moderated discussion groups is the standard format, redolent of the British Open University programmes.

Malaysia is still reflecting its colonial history, and if you disregard the beautifully wamr weather, it feels very British (it even rained on the last day). English is spoken by just about everyone here, and there is a heady and exotic mix of races who call themselves Malaysian. Not only are there the Malays, there are also the Chinese, the Indians, and even a large group of ex-pat Europeans and Arabs. It is truly cosmopolitan. They drive on the left too, and use power sockets exactly the same as ours. The country (at least the parts we were taken to see) is very new, ultra modern in design and has much to offer to its population. The twin Petronas Towers and other high rise buildings in the Centre of Kuala Lumpur are stunning to observe during the day as the sun glints off their stainless steel surfaces, but at night they are simply breathtaking (pictured). This was truly a memorable finale to the LYICT 2008 conference.

On a personal note: I visited a bookshop in the massive 1.5 million square foot, 6 storey Suria Shopping Mall underneath the imposingly impressive twin Petronas Towers, looking through the Education section, with Zoraini. We were browsing through ICT and learning technology books and comparing our finds. Zoraini suddenly picked out a book and said – ‘oh, this looks good ... The Digital Classroom!’ Then she did a double take and realised it was one of mine. I was pleasantly surprised to see that my humble jottings were on sale even over here on the other side of the world in Kuala Lumpur. To cap it all, one of the German Conference delegates actually bought a copy from the store and got me to sign it for him. A pleasant end to a very pleasant day.

Twisting by the pool

Still here in a very hot and humid Kuala Lumpur, attending the four day long IFIP LYICT Conference - 'ICT and Learning for the Net Generation'. Last night we had a memorable evening barbeque style Conference Dinner by the side of the hotel's luxury swimming pool. I don't wish to sound twisty, but it wasn't all glamorous. We had to send the wine back because it was off. And we were visited by plenty of insects too. Fortunately, I didn't get bitten once by a mosquito, for which I am truly grateful. The damn things can carry the dengue fever virus. Now they tell me...

I have eaten prawns every which way now. Even tried sushi last night, but I won't be doing that again. 'Be adventurous, Steve' said one of my hosts, encouragingly, pointing to a plate of large spider crabs. I looked closely. I thought I saw it move, so I did too. Sharpish. In the opposite direction. But generally the food here is great and the company is excellent. For the strong stomached among us, there is even Prawn Sambal (a very, very hot curry) on offer at breakfast.

I have met so many interesting people from every corner of the globe, and I am in no doubt that several friendships have been forged that won't stop here in KL. Today I spent an intensive but rewarding time chairing the first of two days of working conference, in which my group of 20 academics explored the theme of 'Digital Divides and Cultural Understanding'. They came up with some very interesting research proposals. The results will be up on a wiki over the next few weeks, but we are not sure what we will be doing yet, with our musings. There is the option to write joint authored journal articles, or more likely, proposals for conference papers for next year's IFIP event, which will be held in Brazil. We will see tomorrow when we do the wrap up plenary sessions.

In the meantime, jet lag is kicking in again, but later each day. Just in time for me to fly back and endure another four days adjusting at the other end. Oh, deep joy....

Thinking around corners

Edupunk is anti-establishment apparently, and is a response to the corporate and institutional efforts to contain education. It is about destroying the boundaries of our oh so comfortable education systems. It is about wresting control from central authority and liberating the learner. Edupunk is certainly about using tools and services that are outside of the institution, beyond the walled garden, so to speak. I have been doing that for a while, with wikis, blogs and the like, circumventing the university portal. So I certainly support this movement, if that's what it is. As I write this I am listening to Graham Attwell's Emerging Mondays podcast, where he is in converstion with Jim Groom (dubbed the 'poster boy' for Edupunk, whatever that means).

I was a punk the first time around, in 80s Britain (to be honest I was probably more new-wave actually, because punk was essentially late 70s - I played in a band that was fast, loud and furious, and we stood against the mainstream culture of the time). I still have the punk attitude, to be frank - that rebellious streak - and it has carried through into my professional life, so perhaps I am one of them there edupunks. I am against the sterile, meaningless Managed Learning Environments (read BlackBoard, SharePoint and yes, even Moodle) that universities and colleges push which are purpose built to maintain strict control. They constrain the use of materials, and ensure that only bona fide students are allowed in. The students don't like them, and only use them because they have to. Anything an MLE can do, the social web can do just as well, if not better.... oh, and did I mention, usually for free. I'm really thinking about my students and what's best for them.

And that is my version of Edupunk, so I'm glad Jim Groom coined the phrase. When you have a mysterious illness, it is often a relief to be diagnosed, so that you put a name to your illness. The same applies to my 'condition' - I often swim against the mainstream, and try to find ways to subvert 'accepted practice' and I like to 'think around corners'. So it is nice to find a word that describes my condition. Whether 'Edupunk' will survive as a movement or will be strangled at birth remains to be seen. But at least now I know that there are others out there who think the same as me.

There is a tension between the Web 2.0 culture and Higher Education control mindsets and it is difficult to know how this can, or will be resolved. The bottom line is this - the MLE is dead, and the corpse needs to be removed before it stinks the place out. Trouble is, the university managers don't know it's dead, but they know it cost a lot of money, so there it remains, quietly rotting away.

Check out more on Edupunk on Stephen Downes blog, here at Professors go edupunk, and also in the Wikipedia pages.

Interesting friends...

I'm sat here in the foyer of The Saujana Hotel, surrounded by palm trees (the foyer is completely open air) and there is birdsong and cicada chirping all around. It rained last night, which cleared the air for a short while, but the oppressive heat is returning with a vengeance.

Someone yesterday gave me an alternative to IFIP - 'International Friends in Interesting Places', and I guess that is what IFIP is really all about. I have had some very interesting conversations with colleagues from all over the world in the last 24 hours, and you can learn a great deal from those. Last night I was also voted in unanimously as the new chair for Working Group 3.6 (Distance Education) which now means I get to lead a group of almost 90 international researchers in this field. Wow - I hope I don't get above myself. I will have to make an appointment to speak to me if this goes on. Won't be able to get my head through the door, etc, etc...

Several of the IFIP 3.6 members are actively present at the LYICT Conference here in Kuala Lumpur. Two of my (yes, 'my') members impressed me yesterday with their presentations in the main venue. Thomas Ryberg (Denmark) presented a talk on Web 2.0 tools entitled 'Patchworking and Power Users', in which he reported on his PhD research project. It involved him closely observing a group of 8 young people as they worked through the problem of 'how to reduce poverty using ICT'. He observed them re-appropriate a large amount of resources, including graphs, photographs, music and video from the Internet as patchwork ideas that they laced together into a final report. He raised issues of copyright, ownership and plagiarism, and we had a healthy debate about the implications of the digital natives and their uses of technology tools.

Later in the same session Ana Carvalho (University of Minho, Portugal) spoke on how she had researched into the effectiveness of podcasting with K-12 students. Although she experienced great technical problems with the audio playback (which had me worrying too about my own presentation to follow), she aquitted herself well and got her message across strongly. Her students largely agreed that podcasting was easy to use but that they didn't want it to replace their teacher. 58 per cent listened to the podcasts twice, and 14 per cent three times, mainly to reinforce their learning, and to gain a deeper understanding of the material they were learning. 58 per cent (not the same 58 per cent, surely?) listened on campus and 28 per cent at home. She concluded that podcasting has an important role to play in K-12 education.

That's it for now - I'm back off to my room to change my shirt.

You can't give an apple to a computer

Can teachers be replaced by computers? Professor Ron Oliver (pictured left speaking earlier today) thought not and quoted Arthur C. Clarke: "Any teacher who can be replaced by a computer .... should be!" (I thought at the time that giving an apple to a computer is not quite the done thing). Ron, who is Pro-Vice Chancellor at Edith Cowan University in Western Australia, provided us with a very entertaining and incisive keynote at the LYICT Conference entitled: 'Engaging Learners in Open Learning'. He came from a traditional classroom perspective, arguing that good teaching is always required, whatever the learning context.

I have heard Ron speak before. Several times. And he is always fresh, amusing and thought provoking. If he can't produce furrowed brows, says Ron, he is doing something wrong. To engage students, we must produce task-oriented learning he argued. This can come in the form of complex tasks, ill-structured problems and a whole host of other online based exercises designed to keep the learner engaged at a high level of information processing - not just information access, which he considers to be quite passive, or even information organisation, which is getting there, but information processing, which involves critical enquiry and reflection as well as problem solving. He showed several learning models he is currently working on with colleagues, all of which resonated with real teaching and learning.

Ron suggested that good learning must take diversity into account, which may produce arguments (if we are lucky) and dissonance for individual learners. Ultimately, the end result must be diversity of outcome - where every students takes away new skills and knowledge which they can use within their own personal contexts. His talk completed, Ron sat down next to me on the front row. The audience applauded. He had to get back up again and walk out once more, though. They wanted to give him a gift (souvenir) for his speech. Not quite giving the teacher an apple. But well deserved none the less.

5 get a MUVE on

Well we did it. And it worked. Last time I was that nervous was when my (first) wife kept me waiting at the altar for 20 minutes over the odds, while her chauffer searched for a place to park. We are still married 22 years later, don't worry. Today was a technological success, where we linked 5 people together using Elluminate and managed a slightly flakey audio system in a very large and echoey hotel ballroom in Kuala Lumpur. I also did a successful in-world demonstration of Second Life for the LYICT Conference delegates here in Malaysia.

Graham Attwell (Pontydysgu) moderated the panel session from his eyrie in Bremen, Germany, whilst David White came in from Oxford to talk about design issues in SL, Helen Keegan spoke from Salford about augmented reality and mixing SL and real life, and Steven Warburton, who was in London, gave a presentation on the barriers to collaboration and participation in MUVEs. They all got up at a sickeningly early hour to participate due to the time zone difference. And it couldn't have gone any better, thanks to stirling support from the local technical team here in Kuala Lumpur.

Thanks to all concerned, for making this a memorable and enjoyable experience. A lot could have gone wrong, and I was a little worried about it, I admit. But is shows that you can take risks and it sometimes pays off. Next time, perhaps we will use Second Life as the presentation platform. When we have plucked up enough courage....

LYICT into shape

The LYICT (ICT and Learning for the Net Generation) Conference got off to a great start this morning with a keynote speech from the outgoing chair of IFIP Technical Committee 3 (Education) Jan Wibe. He spoke about the organisation that is the International Federation of Information Processing and pointed out that of all of the 13 Technical Committees, TC 3 (Education) is probably the least technical and the most socially and culturally sensitive. Jan touched on the subject of 'The Agora Approach'. Now let me briefly explain what all this is about shall I? Agora is a meeting place, and is conducted without chairs, where people move about and share ideas, argue and discuss, just like the ancient Greek market places. Some of the female delegates (pictured) are adding colour to the conference in their traditional constumes.

Later on this afternoon, I will be doing a joint panel session with some mates on Second Life - it's a bit of a re-heat of the panel presentation we did at Online Educa in Berlin last year, but this time with a difference. Only I will be physically present. The rest of the gang will be spread all over the place in their respective institutions, taking part via the Elluminate Live! Platform.

Life in the Sau(ja)na

Blimey - that was a long flight. Actually it was two flights, one from London Heathrow to Colombo, Sri Lanka that was 11 hours long. We arrived at 2 am local time and then there was a five hour lay over before my second flight from Colombo to Kuala Lumpur, which took another 3 and a half hours. I'm knackered, I can tell you. But it was worth the travel to get here. This place is Paradise on Earth (picture taken ten minutes ago as the sun was setting). The place I'm staying is the Saujana Resort Hotel - but the 'ja' should be removed, it's so hot and humid here. I'm not complaining through, because the air conditioning is superb, the views are stunning, and even room service has just turned up to change my towels and I have only been here four hours! All around there are the obligatory palm trees and other exotic flora, and strange creatures you don't see in England are shouting down at you from the treetops.

I'm here for a four day conference run by IFIP, entitled: ICT and Learning for the Net Generation (LYICT Conference). IFIP is an influential group I have been a member of its working group 3.6 (distance education) since 1999. The conference is two days of open workshops followed by what they call a 'working conference', and boy, do they make us work! Sessions are scheduled from 0900 through to 1930 on the first day and there are four focus groups to choose from: 'New Learning Environments', 'Best Practice in ICT and Youth Empowerment', 'Changing Role of Learners and Teachers', and one that I am chairing which we have called 'Digital Divide and Cultural Understanding' (nobody mention Borat, please...)

I have already bumped into two of the three keynote speakers, Jan Wibe (now retired but formerly at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, and currently chair of Technical Committee 3 - educational computing), and Ron Oliver (Edith Cowan University, Australia). I'm going to report their speeches and the rest of the event in this blog, so do come back and read some more...

SL in KL through Elluminate

There has been a change in strategy. I'm a little disappointed we can't use Second Life to do a Second Life panel - it would have been a challenge and quite risky due to technical limitations. So probably a bit 'adrenalined' (is that a word?). But the guys have made a sensible decision to use Elluminate instead, as it requires less bandwidth (we only have 2Mb ps in the hotel conference venue) and the audio and streaming media systems are superior and will be a little less prone to problems.

I'm looking forward to doing this session on Monday, at 0700 BST, but I'm not looking forward to the travelling. It will take me 4 hours to get to Heathrow and then there's the flight - it will take 19 hours to get from London to Kuala Lumpur, and that's before I get to passport control, the baggage carousel, customs, the taxi rank....

Anyone want to go in my place?

SL in KL

This is going to be quite a challenge, but we don't back down from them do we? I will be chairing a live demonstration and panel of Second Life in Second Life at the IFIP ICT and Learning for the Network Generation Conference in Kuala Lumpur on Monday (7 am GMT). The panel session will feature several friends from our previous bash at Online Educa Berlin last November. Steven Warburton (Kings College London), Graham Attwell (Pontydysgu), Helen Keegan (University of Salford) and David White (University of Oxford) will all be presenting as their avatars - and very colourful they all are too - and we will be using the JISC Emerge Island as our venue. I will appear as my new and improved avatar also - and although there are many technical issues to contend with and several things that could go disasterously wrong, we are going to take the risk and push the technology to see what it can do...

You are welcome to join us in world to take part and quz the panel as we explore some of the pedagogical, social and psychological issues that arise when Multi-User Virtual Environments are used for formal and informal learning activities.