Are you listing?

I'm not entirely certain what people will use the new Twitter lists service for, but I can of course speak for myself. Personally, I intend to use it as a kind of filtering tool, so that I can click on my specific list and hopefully see tweets that are grouped around a particular community of interest of practice.

In creating this app, Twitter are merely doing what other services have already done quite successfully, including TweepML and Listorious. The only difference is that Twitter has integrated this into the side bar of its own home page, so that you can see all the Twitter lists you have yourself created, and click on them to quickly access your lists. At the moment, Twitter is polling those it has selected to test out the Beta version of the app. The results of the poll show that 17% intend to use it to find and follow other like-minded people. To find out more and receive updates live from Twitter, you should follow Nick Kallen who is @nk

Some will complain that Twitter lists are elitist. Others will welcome them with open arms, pick up the ball and start running with it. Most I suspect will shrug their shoulders and say - so what? Until of course, they spot that they are included in other people's lists, and perhaps their following is increasing. Twitter lists I predict, will consolidate many people's following numbers, and coalesce communities of interest together in a more coherent and usable way. We shall see if I'm right. In the meantime, here's an excellent video showing how to use Twitter Lists.

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Doing the research

I have just been through an extremely busy two weeks, with seemingly endless bus, taxi and car journeys, 10 air flights and I don't know how many miles travelled. In 17 days I have been to Cork, Barcelona, Frankfurt, Heidelburg, Darmstadt, Weinheim, Worms, London and Leeds.

Thankfully, my trekking is over (at least for a while) and I can now sit back and reflect on what I have learnt from my 'research'....

Experimental research: Firstly, I have discovered that students enjoy wine tasting, but don't know how to do it properly (spit not swallow) and I have gathered the empirical evidence to support this hypothesis. The photos of our trip to a vineyard and the bumpy ride around the countryside on tractors (made in 1941), belching fumes (the tractors not the students) and towing wooden carts equipped with tables and copious samples of wine, constitute the raw data which I am currently scrutinizing. The participants (n=24) were divided into two groups - a control group (those who drank alcohol) and an experimental group (those who drank even more alcohol and can't actually remember what they did). A caveat applies to this experimental design however. Students should never be allowed to drive tractors, because they tend to crash them and cause varying amounts of collateral damage. There is also a confounding variable of alcohol intake which proportionately influences this effect (Worms, Germany).

Social research: The research done naturalistically on the streets of Cork is worth a mention. The Irish are wonderfully friendly people who will do just about anything to help you out. So many times we were asked if we needed help, often we received it without asking, and once or twice we got help when we didn't need it at all. The taxi drivers were a real hoot, and the teachers in the school we visited were extremely dedicated professionals. Ireland's education system appears to be in good hands (Duglas and Cork, Ireland).

Experiential research. Feed enough 3 course dinners to a bunch of students and eventually they will get 'fed up' with it. That was the finding of the gastronomic reseach I conducted. Toward the end of the second week one of my student participants said he never wanted to see another 3 course dinner in his life. The Atlantis Project became known as 'Fatlantis' as we were all overfed each night due to the more than generous funding of 'Herr Oberst' Udo Bleimann (Ireland and Germany).

Cultural research: There is more fun to be had in Barcelona than you can shake a stick at. Making paella in a workshop restaurant, and then eating it. Strolling down Las Ramblas and gazing at the amazing architecture as you follow the footsteps of Antonio Gaudi, Pablo Picasso and Joan Miro - these are great memories of three days spent there this month. The summit meeting produced some challenging action points which will be published later in a respectable journal (Barcelona, Spain).

Corporate research: We visited SAP AG which was an excellent place to hang out for a few hours - it felt more like a university campus than a software company. It's one of the top multi-national software development companies and was recently voted one of the best places to work. The interviews we conducted with the Human Resources and Training personnel supported this as a viable claim. We could see why, and it was all I could do to prevent two of my group from absconding there and then (Walldorf, near Heidelburg, Germany).

Research into the spiritual domain: If you want to put the fear of God into your students, tell them they are going to be unreasonably charged by Ryan Air for overweight suitcases > 15 KG. They are observed to discard all sorts of stuff including toiletries, bottles of beer and hairdryers so they don't have to pay extra out of their meagre student grants. The study revealed that Ryan Air are not to be trusted though - the hidden charges they impose are ludicrous and they lack any consistency in their policies (Frankfurt Hahn Airport).

Research into e-Learning: Web 2.0 tools are being used for teaching in the physical sciences, and they are experiencing similar problems and successes as we have seen in teacher training. My keynote to the HEA Physical Sciences Centre conference at Leeds Metropolitan University was well received. I talked about some of the educational principles that underpin the use of wikis, blogs and other Web 2.0 tools and there was much animated discussion.

And finally, some autobiographical narrative: I'm very tired, and I am losing my voice (blame the laryngitis fairy), and yet I'm strangely satisfied by the entire experience. I've learnt a lot, and all the travel, onerous though I found it, was worth it in the end. And the sleeping animal in the picture? That's me, that is.

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Cooking in Catalonia

So here is the evidence you need. It's a picture of the langoustine and mussels paella I helped create for the hungry 30 or so participants of the 2nd Open Edtech Summit in Barcelona earlier this week. We were all invited to a workshop in the evening where we cooked our own 3 course Catalonian dinner.

This paella was one I made as a member of a small group which included Mark Bullen and others. We had a great time cooking it, and an even better time eating it afterwards. Other dishes created included the traditional potato and onion Spanish omelette and a cold tomato soup served with garlic and herbs. The entire meal was accompanied by a large amount of Spanish red wine, which of course was essential to keep the cooks on track during the preparation phase.


But we had also been cooking up some ideas for the future university right through the day. In four groups, we discussed a number of ideas about what the future university might look like and what recommendations we might make as a group of e-learning and open education experts from around the world. We posted almost 50 recommendations from which as a group we then voted for the 8 most important. Four that stood out for me all focus on Web 2.0 and personal technologies:

1) Annote, index and share rich media content.

2) Move to a paradigm of mobiles as personal learning environments

3) Enabled cultures of sharing

4) Extend multiple digital literacies.

These were the action points the group reached a consensus on as some of the most important general points most universities should consider as important. Others included the recommendation that the future universities base their award of credentials on outcomes rather than 'seat time' and that we should encourage risk taking leadership. The sound bite of the day (and there were many) was that 'teaching is a push technology, whilst mentoring is a pull technology'.

There are obviously many implications from this short list, and over the next few months you will see plenty emerging from the full list which has been captured as a result of the summit meeting. We will publish a document similar to the Open Edtech Summit document published in 2008: What does it mean to be educated in the 21st Century?

Africa goes mobile

The invited participants at Open Ed Tech enjoyed a very interesting opening Tech Talk yesterday from a young researcher based at Strathmore Research Centre in Nairobi, Kenya. Jessica Colaço is the principal researcher at Strathmore Research and Consultancy Centre (SRCC) and is a Mobile Technology Evangelist. Earlier this year, the magazine 'Business Daily' named her as one of the top 40, under 40 years of age women in Kenya's business scene. She has already spoken at prestigious events such as TED, is extremely good at presenting her case and convinced us that Africa is moving forward rapidly with mobile technology as they aim for wideranging social change. There are 370 million mobile phone subscribers in Africa so it´s a fertile ground.

Jessica told those of us present on the campus of the Open University of Catalonia about a number of innovative projects she has been involved in, including M-PESA (Pensa is Swahili for money) which enables users to exchange money without the need to either go to a bank or hold an account. Tangaza is a voice based transmission service - you can update your Facebook or Twitter status through voice recordings on your mobile phone. Several other recently created apps were also demonstrated, including fish tracking devices and other tools designed to help people gain information on the move about education, health and agriculture. M-Kulima for example, can enable farmers to store and retrieve information about milk sales prices and purchase dates, where previously they would have had to try to remember each transaction.

There is also M-Guide for tourists. Take a photo of an unfamiliar bird or animal in the game reserve and your mobile phone sends the picture to a server. The server sends back via SMS a description of the animal - there are some obvious educational applications to that one.

There was much discussion following from Jessica´s Tech Talk. One of the most insightful comments was that perhaps, because Africans have been largely passed over by the first few waves of technology, they are now only just beginning to be creative with their first computing device - their mobile phones - and therefore seeing opportunities to innovate which the Western industrialised nations cannot see. Open Edtech continues today.

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Digital futures

I'm off to the beautiful city of Barcelona tomorrow afternoon to participate in this year's Open Ed Tech Summit. It's the second in the meet ups, which draw around 40 international open learning and distance education experts from around the world. I documented Open Ed Tech 2008 post-event on this blog (See Muy Caliente). This year's event will be an intensive 48 hours of discussions and social events, all organised by the Open University of Catalonia. If it's anything like last year, we are all in for a stimulating, tiring but extremely enjoyable time together. The brief for Open Ed Tech 2009, written by Larry Johnson of the New Media Consortium is as follows:

The Scenario: Creating the University of the Future

You have been invited to serve on an international panel of experts advising the rector of a new university that will be established in the developing country of Futurolandia. Your invitation issues from the Ministry of Education and indicates that you are part of a handpicked team — a team that is meeting in person today to perform its task.

This university is meant to be the first of its kind, and will be established free from preconceptions or official constraints about how it will operate. Its mandate is to provide an excellent education in an environment of open access, built on four key ideas:

1. Access to high-quality education should be available to all, and open content is a key part of providing such access.

2. Informal learning and mentoring are effective and well-proven approaches to engaging with youth and stimulating critical thought.

3. Personalized learning is critical to student success, but will require learning standards that allow students to continue their learning where ever life takes them.

4. Tools such as digital video, mobile devices, social media, and the global network all have important roles in learning and should be available to all learners.

The rector has been asked to prepare a proposal addressing how the university will achieve this vision, and sees these ideas as core requirements for the institution she wishes to create. As part of the international expert panel, your task is to assist the rector by identifying ways to support each of the four requirements, examining the pros and cons of each proposed strategy, and presenting a summary of your team's recommendations to the rector, point by point.

We will of course publish our results in due course, just as we did for our 2008 Summit: What does it mean to be educated in the 21st Century? (pdf file)

What a Corker

I'm just back from a lively 5 days in Cork where we (the Atlantis Project team) have been involved in the first of two weeks of intensive study. And it has been quite intensive, with research workshops, seminars and project work from morning through to late afternoon, followed by social events around the city and beyond. I stayed at the wonderful Fernroyd House B & B where I was looked after very well indeed (Thanks Tony). For a group of computer specialists there were students with some interesting and relevant names such as Peter Google, Gareth Excell and Herr Flickr (OK.... I made the last one up, but the other two are real). The Irish are such wonderfully warm and friendly people, and we have all made some great new friends whilst there. We have been on several field trips, including a visit to the astounding high tech astrophysics centre and simulation basin at Black Rock Castle Observatory, near Kinsale (pictured above).

Yesterday I took my 9 education students on a visit to St Columba's National Primary School, in Dughlas, just outside Cork (picture below). In the 90 minutes or so we spent at the school, we saw a number of innovative practices which involved technologies such as interactive white boards. Every classroom has one - the result of determined fund raising within the community. We were all very impressed with the dedication of the staff (particularly those who were teaching the special needs children) and their innovative practices. The children were engaged and enthusiastic and were clearly enjoying their studies. Our thanks go to Coleen and the rest of the team for taking the time out to show us around and answer all our questions.

From the school, I went directly to University College Cork, and walked in to the oak panelled room followed by my entourage of 5 students. I introduced them as my 'research assistants', but I couldn't keep a straight face. I did a dry run using the 'It's personal' slides, which I was to use later for the PLE/PLN online symposium. The 50 or so academic staff present seemed to enjoy my presentation and there ensued a lively discussion/ Q and A session. My thanks to Rob Cosgrave for the unexpected invitation, which arose from his reading of my blog and realising I was in Cork this week.

The evening Elluminate session for the PLE/PLN online symposium, organised by Stephen Downes, George Siemens and Rita Kop, was a different affair entirely. It took place at the Atlantis base in Cork Institute of Technology. I had a few difficulties setting up the system and then uploading my slides, but the technology eventually worked in time for my presentation, and Stephen, who moderated, was in good form. The 30 or so German and Polish students and colleagues from the Atlantis project, who watched as my local audience couldn't grasp much of the conversation due to the audio quality, but generally they all found the presentation stimulating and some discussion followed after the online session had closed.

We have had a corking good time, and it's not over yet. I'm back in the UK until Sunday when I fly down to Barcelona for the Open EdTech Summit meeting, before flying up to Frankfurt on Wednesday where I rejoin the Atlantis team for week 2 of the intensive programme. If it's as productive and enjoyable as Cork was, I will be very happy indeed... and all the travel will be worth it. Even the Ryan Air part.

It’s Personal: Learning Spaces, Learning Webs

It’s Personal: Learning Spaces, Learning Webs

View more presentations from Steve Wheeler.

My slides for the upcoming PLE/PLN Online Symposium hosted by the University of Manitoba are now available for viewing above. In 'It's Personal: Learning Spaces, Learning Webs', I attempt to compare and contrast a number of learning philosophies, and define some of the (un)boundaries of informal and self organised learning - the fertile ground within which personal learning approaches flourish. Above is the scary baby from the cover slide: I will present this slide show with live commentary on Thursday from the Cork Institute of Technology over the Elluminate platform. I'm looking forward to hearing comments from those who are interested in this fascinating area of learning development.

Put a Cork in it

I spend too much time travelling around it seems. And tomorrow I'm packing my bags and walking through the metal detectors once again. This time I'm flying out to the Emerald Isle, accompanied by 9 (yes 9) of my third year student teachers. We will be taking part in a two week Intensive Programme of study which will start at the Cork Institute of Technology, Ireland and finish the following week at Fachhochschule Darmstadt, near Frankfurt, in Germany.

During the next two weeks, my students, together with their counterparts from Germany, Ireland and Poland, will discuss how best to develop and use new learning technologies and collaborative software to support learning and teaching. The group's collaborative content management project (CoCoMa) is one of Atlantis' recent successes and there are other developments in the pipeline. The Atlantis project, which is a rolling Erasmus student mobility project has funded travel for the last 3 years. It enabled more than 30 (yes 30) undergraduate and PhD students and staff to attend this year's Plymouth e-Learning Conference, where the Atlantis project members presented 14 (yes 14) peer reviewed research papers. They truly are an innovative and prolific bunch of young people and it is both a pleasure and a challenge to work with them. Above is a picture of me addressing the group at an evening meal. To my right is Professor Udo Bleimann, who is the chief architect of the project.

So from tomorrow we will be based in Cork, and then over the weekend the group will transplant itself to Darmstadt via the good services of Ryan Air. Over the 14 (yes 14) days of the Intensive Programme, the group will attend lectures and demonstrations, give seminars, discuss their projects and participate in a number of cultural visits. My students will visit one or two (yes 1 .... or 2) schools to see how primary school teachers in other countries manage their classrooms and use their technology.

For the rest of the academic year the group co-operate through a combination of Web based tools and video conferencing sessions. I hope they all behave themselves...

Textual harassment

I was interviewed recently on the back of a blog post I wrote on cyberbullying entitled Bully 4 U and the straw poll survey I conducted. The Evening Herald, a newspaper based in South West England features my interview in an article entitled: 'Tormentors who use technology'. Here's my full interview with commentary by reporter Cherie Gordon:

The traditional figure of the playground bully is a well-known sight for countless children. Over the past few years, however, a new type of bully has left the school corridors and entered the World Wide Web. Family computers have been hacked into by cyber bullies who attack their victims not face to face, but via internet chatrooms, network sites and online messaging.

"Bullying of any kind is destructive and can ruin lives, but cyber bullying may be the most insidious form," said Steve Wheeler, a senior lecturer in education and ICT. "Children can escape from the school playground bully, but they find it harder to escape from the bully who invades their home, their desktop, their mind. Cyber bullying isn't going to replace traditional bullying; it will take it to a whole new dimension."

Musing about the emergence of the cyber trend on his online blog, Mr Wheeler reports the findings of a poll he carried out, questioning other childcare professionals on the issues surrounding bullying.

"On my blog I was talking about keeping children safe on the internet," said the 52-year-old. "I asked what people thought the greatest danger for children was on social networking sites like Bebo and Facebook. There were several options to choose from including cyber bullying. The majority of those who answered – 36 per cent – thought cyber bullying was going to be the most obvious threat. It is very interesting that for over one in three it is the most important."

Bullying has always been a curse for some youngsters but now, with the internet's ability to reach into a victim's home, at any time, adults are also becoming targets. "I haven't had any experience of cyber bullying myself but I know colleagues who have," said Mr Wheeler. "I know of situations where people's careers have been virtually destroyed by it. I heard of a situation recently about a teacher in a school who experienced this. He was very respected and worked in a secondary school and the police came to arrest him. He said, 'What's the problem?' and they said two of his female colleagues claimed that he'd been sending them text messages asking them to sit in front of a webcam and take their clothes off. It emerged that two of the lads in his class had hijacked his SMS and sent these messages, just because they didn't like him. You can imagine the shock and horror and bad feelings in the staff room, even though he was innocent. Reputations can be damaged. It's quite insidious because it's anonymous."

Read more online here.

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PLEs join us online

I'm an invited speaker for the online PLE/PLN Symposium that has been organised by George Siemens and Stephen Downes for next week. I will be working in the Cork Institute of Technology in Ireland, and will be speaking via the Elluminate platform, next Thursday (15th October) at around 1600 BST. I'm looking forward to talking about my own concept of personal learning environments and personal webs in my talk which is entitled: 'It's Personal'. I will post my slides later on slideshare, but in the meantime here's a taste of what's to come taken from the symposium website:

A symposium will be held from October 13th till October 16th 2009 on Personal Learning Environments (PLEs) and Personal Learning Networks (PLNs). The interest in Personal Learning Environments has grown with the emergence of Web2.0 technologies. Learning technologists can see how PLEs can help learners to organize their own personal learning, rather than that formal education institutions control the technologies that are being used and the way in which they are being used. Speakers will include developers and researchers of PLEs. All events will be hosted in Elluminate and recorded for archives. A discussion forum will be hosted in Moodle for asynchronous interactions.

Other speakers include George and Stephen, along with Josie Fraser, Rita Kop, Mark van Harmelen, Scott Wilson and Graham Attwell. The full list and schedule are available on the symposium website. I hope you are able to join us for all, or at least some of the talks which I am sure will be thought provoking and stimulating.

Hand holding

As you will have seen from my previous posts, I spent 3 days in London this week, attending the HandHeld Learning Conference. I had some money in my research budget so I decided to avoid the numb bum syndrome this year, and fly up from Plymouth to London. I arrived at London City Airport at around 0930 where we landed in the rain. The Dockyards Light Railway took me to Bank and having looked at the map, I decided to walk the rest of the way to Chiswell Street. I wish I hadn't. No sooner had I emerged from the underground and turned a corner than a fine member of the London Transport drove by in his double decker bus and swamped me by driving through a puddle. It was my Bridget Jones moment, and for a second, I imagined myself wearing a white dress (Steady on now - Ed). I jest of course - I don't cross dress. I can't even cross the road. No, seriously, I was furious and called the bus driver a very rude name. He didn't hear me. Nobody else took any notice either. People walked by quickly with their heads bowed against the weather. Well, I told myself, this is London. And so I dragged myself onwards....

The walk up Moorgate, dodging the rain and the puddles and the maniac bus drivers, and on into City Road seemed interminable. At Moorgate tube station I did happen across a great fast food counter that served some of the largest vegetable samosas I have ever encountered (and at £1 each, superb value). Breakfast done, and wiping the crumbs from my face I finally wended my weary way, slightly damp and steaming, into the Handheld Learning venue - the Brewery. The gentleman in the bowler hat and top coat who meets and greets you outside in the cobbled courtyard is an excellent bloke - he is one of the best features of the Handheld Learning Conference - always cheerful and always willing to assist.

Inside, many people were already milling around in reception, where I was presented with a bag with my programme and a theme park style wrist band to wear. Wot no name badges? Nope. You are expected to introduce yourselves properly.

And introduce ourselves we did. It was great to meet up with so many Twitter people (Tweeple) whom I have got to know over the last year or so, and have enjoyed conversing with. This list is not exhaustive, but it gives you an idea, as I bumped into Simon Finch, Michelle Gallen, Drew Buddie, Ollie Bray, Leon Cych and Dughall McCormick - all of whom you should follow immediately, because they are jolly decent blokes (and I include Michelle in the blokedom of blogging). It was also good to mix it up again with Dave Sugden, Lilian Soon, Stuart Smith and the ever-present James Clay, all of whom put on a great show for the fringe events - HHECKL. I also got to speak to Donald Clark, James Paul Gee, David Cavallo and Zenna Atkins, all of whom were featured speakers at the event.

The talks I attended at HHL were generally very well presented (unlike this blog - Ed). I make a special mention to John Traxler here, whose talk on the role of student owned devices was excellent. The food was sophisticated although a long time coming, the drinks were overpriced, the entertainment from the band at the awards ceremony was excellent, and the wifi service superb. Not bad at all really.

Getting back to London City Airport through the rush hour traffic, and in the pouring rain (which never seemed to cease during my 3 days in London) proved to be a bit of a nightmare, but I wasn't going to risk the long walk back down to Bank and another Bridget Jones moment. My bowler hatted friend assisted, with umbrella in hand, risking life and limb to plunge himself into the fast moving traffic, hailing me a taxi. My taxi driver then did a stirling job veering in and out of the back-up traffic, to make sure I didn't miss my flight. Of course, I rewarded him appropriately.

So here's to next year's event - if it's anything like HHL2009, we are in for another treat.

The Atkins diet

Zenna Atkins is a particularly influential figure in the world of British education, yet her personal learning journey has been chequered. It was refreshing then to see her give the opening keynote at this year's Handheld Learning conference, in London.

Atkins is actually more of a 'mum' than she is the chair of OfSTED. At least this is how she portrays herself, and she laces her narrative with school from a parent's perspective, rather than sticking to the standard mantra that emanates from many government appointees. She has also been hailed by the press as 'a failed student who is now in charge of inspecting schools'. Zenna Atkins focused on the consumer power that has emerged around Web 2.0 services. It is both disconcerting and liberating she said, that patients often know more about their condition than their GPs, due to trawling around on Google. It will only be a short time, she warned, before a similar situation arises in schools. Teachers are often lagging behind when it comes to good use of learning technologies, but worse, they can no longer aford to represent themselves as the sole arbiters of knowledge.

Atkins cited an incident where her son streamed a live video of his classroom to her at home using his mobile phone. She was appalled to see a small riot raging unchecked in the classroom, whilst the teacher sat doing nothing, with his feet up on the desk. Incensed she phoned the school and alerted them to the impending disaster, and a senior member of staff was summoned. The lookout posted at the door told the teacher and when the senior staff member entered, all was calm and business-like. The school denied anything untoward had happened, and took disciplinary action against her son. Atkins was able to show the senior staff member evidence that her son was 'telling the truth', but her point is challenging... The power is now in the hands of the parents, regardless of whether schools ban mobile devices or not. The entire educational system is being challenged when parents are able to eavesdrop into classrooms using the technology that is currently available. What will happen when this becomes common practice? Good question.

Read also an excellent summary of the rest of Zenna Atkins' speech (by Terry Freedman).

All in hand

I have just returned from another excellent Handheld Learning conference in London. Because it was a conference focused on handheld technologies, I promised I would do an experiment and see if I could survive for three days without a laptop, and using only my newly acquired iPod Touch. Well, I survived, and some things worked, whilst other things were a little more problematic (the wifi service was second to none, by the way - congratulations to Graham Brown-Martin - pictured - and his team for this).

For example, I was able to Tweet live from the event, firstly with the standard Twitter application on my Safari web browser. A bright young thing then introduced me to EchoFon which I downloaded for free from the iPod App Store. This made my life a lot easier, and I was able to see more clearly what I was tweeting, who was responding to me, and I could also more easily reply, DM and RT other people's tweets. EchoFon used to be known as TwitterFon, and it's designed for mobile phone use, so it was ideal for the task.

Less easy was updating my blog which I found quite difficult. For some reason, Safari would not allow me to modify text once it was saved on Blogger. Not sure why that was, but James Clay showed me how to e-mail direct to my blog, including the posting of images as attachments, which I will try when I can pluck up enough courage.

I was also able to respond to e-mails until someone sent me 13 MB of pictures which clogged my university e-mail inbox, and then I couldn't send or receive anything. I would normally save the pictures onto my laptop, but of course, with only my iPod Touch this wasn't possible. Unless, of course, someone out there knows differently.

My hashtagging wasn't being picked up by the conference feed or Twitter either - someone told me that Echofon has some problems here, but I think there may be a more deep seated problem than that, and I'm sure someone out there has a solution...?

It was an interesting experiment to conduct, and I will do it again for other conferences. It was wonderful to not have to lug my laptop across airport lounges and drag it across London. Oh, what liberty, but at a small price of reduced functionality. More from the conference when I get some time to reflect and post my comments.

Karaoke culture

Handheld Learning 2009 has been special for a number of reasons, some of which I have already blogged about. But the opening keynote speeches this year, and one person in particular, took the proverbial biscuit. Malcolm McLaren is best known for his instigation of the punk movement in the UK in the 70s - the embodiment of anarchy, and is notorious as the manager of the iconic punk band the Sex Pistols. To invite him to speak at an event about mobile technologies in education would seem to be a little anachronistic, but speak he did, and he had a tremendous impact.

McLaren labels himself as an artist, which indeed if you examine his early history, is true. But he would be better labelled here as an agent provocateur - someone brought in to stir up emotion and cause a reaction. And that is exactly what he did. Looking more like an affable granfather than the angry man of punk, he took to the stage dressed in grey slacks, shirt and tie, and a comfortable wooley pullover. Gone were the wild corskscrew red locks, and the outlandish presence - it was almost as though he had assumed his place within the establishment. But nothing could be farther from the truth from the moment he opened his mouth and began to speak.

McLaren talked critically about the culture of Britain today - in his own words, often laced with profanity, it is a mediocre Karaoke culture - one in which there is no responsibility, and one in which reality shows hold sway, and instant success can be had for no real effort. This, he said was how the Blair government had functioned, and his remark about the inanity of Cool Brittania as a failed marketing ploy gained some audience approval. The instant gratification of the Karaoke culture, he suggested, was a huge problem for educators who are trying to instil a sense of achievement (even if it is a failure) into young minds.

His speech was at times rambling and self-absorbed as he reminisced over his time as a trainee wine taster, art student, musician and designer and eventually as instigator of the punk movement through his shop 'Sex', and his formation of the Sex Pistols. McLaren's ventures into the music and movie industries, and more recently, his full circle to return to his roots as an 'artist' have ensured he has been influential in all he has done, even though he is a self confessed educational failure. He has often been influential for the wrong reasons, and he admits that his forays into punk were calculated to destroy the comfortable complacency of middle class England and to challenge and undermine many of its social structures. He is a true anarchist in many ways, but is also perversely a part of the establishment, whether he accepts it or not. He has adopted the conventional, but without him, the present music and fashion industries may never have become what they are. Yes, the education system may have failed him utterly, but within his own account of his formative years, it is easy to spot how he also failed himself. He acknowledges this, but argues that failure in itself is not always a bad thing, and that the journey to discover oneself is sometimes more important. It was only when he became a student of art, he admitted, that he found his true identity.

McLaren had started his speech by admitting he knew very little about learning technologies. His parting comment though was telling, and resonated with many of his audience, even though many had been polarised. 'Don't becomes slaves to technology', he warned, 'see it for what it is. Use it as a tool, but don't become dependent upon it'.

Related posts

Authenticity vs Karaoke (Terry Freedman)

Malcolm McLaren and Education (Nick Kind)

Military-erotic wine-tasting education (mrjorgen Flickr video)

Edupunk won't go away... (Pontydysgu)

Web 2.0 and the defence of the realm

I enjoyed an excellent day out over at HMS Raleigh yesterday where I gave the opening keynote speech for the Tri-service DMLS (Defence Maritime Logistics School) Advanced Learning Technologies Symposium. I spoke on the subject of 'Learning 2.0 in a Military Context' and my slide show is available here.

All of the British armed forces were represented, and at one point I felt as though I was in some war movie giving a briefing before some secret mission, there were so many uniforms in front of me - "we attack at dawn!" Some had scrambled egg all over their hats and fruit salad on their shirts. These weren't decorations or medals - they were just messy eaters.

Other speakers at the event included our very own James Clay (Gloucestershire College) who addressed the issues of using mobile technologies for learning, and Professor Bob Stone (University of Birmingham) who spoke on serious games. Bob showed an impressive array of 3D virtual games and simulations and spoke on the effects of immersive technologies. He wasn't very keen on cumbersome headsets and other peripherals though, and demonstrated that learners could become immersed in gaming through simple screen, joystick and mouse technologies. His demonstration of Subsafe - a 3D simulation of a Trafalgar class nuclear submarine was stunning. I could tell you about it but then I'd have to kill you.

My own discussion with those present centred upon the tension between the chaos and democracy of Web 2.0 and the structure and discipline required in defence training. There was an interesting panel session also at the end of the day, where we talked about how trainers could convince their managers to adopt and implement new and emerging technologies within highly traditional training environments. The evening concluded with a splendid dinner in the Officer's mess - happy days. My thanks to Lt Stefan Gershater and the HMS Raleigh service personnel for organising such a good event and for inviting me to participate.

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