The Web 3.0 Social Network

I couldn't resist re-posting this article which first appeared exactly a year ago, on April 1st 2009. I hope you enjoy it... :-)

For many people the Social Web is simply far too complex to organise. Many of us have unwanted or unused Facebook, Myspace, Flickr or Bebo accounts 'out there' that we haven't visited or done anything with for a very long time. These stagnant accounts clog up the Web and use up valuable memory on someone's server somewhere. Messages, pokes and invitations for vampire food fights wait forlornly for an answer. Some complain that they find it difficult to follow Twitter, update their LinkedIn site and carry on blogging, because there is just not enough time in the day. Some people are completely confused over the whole Web 2.0 thing and simply don't get it. They fail to make optimum use of their social network because they don't know enough about its potential. Well, all that is about to change with help from the Semantic Web.

Software company Avinuon have just announced a new Web 3.0 tool that will give you more time by doing your social networking for you. Plonkr will not only organise all your web tools and services in one place, it will also regularly update dormant sites on your behalf using the latest, state-of-the-art intelligent agent software, even without being asked. Plonkr is 'intelligent' enough to send responses back to your network buddies in a manner that perfectly emulates your own style. Are you drinking in the pub when you should be working? Use Plonkr, and your boss will think you are still hard at work in the office. Using recurrence plotting and fuzzy measure analysis the software will be able to predict what you want to say even before you say it, or in some cases, according to its critics, whether you really want to say it or not. One critic of the new service, Dr Frank Lee, of the Paliamentary watchdog FIDO (the Federated Independent Digital Observatory), believes Plonkr may be a step too far. 'Call me a luddite if you like', he said, 'but do we really want machines doing our thinking for us? Here in Parliament we are quite capable of making our own mistakes without the aid of computers, thank you very much'.

Kurt Prilalofo, CEO of Avinuon, is clearly more positive about his new service. 'We are looking at the future of Web 3.0 social networking, right here, right now. This is a seamless, costless service that is at once both seamless and costless', he said. Prilalofo's new intelligent agent software algorithms are expected to break the mould of previously available systems, enabling people to 'literally be in more that one place at the same time' he said. Whilst this is neither here nor there, Plonkr seems like a great idea, and may well be the beginning of something truly monumental.

Keeping it real

I spent most of today over at the University of Portsmouth, where I led a 90 minute seminar/workshop on 'Learning 2.0: Web 2.0 in Education'. I was well looked after by several University of Portsmouth staff, inlcuding Manish Malik and his lovely wife, Emma Duke-Williams (not his wife - please refer to the separating comma), and the two Colins, Colin White and Colin Clarke. This morning Dr Clarke and his colleague Lucy Bailey took me on a tour of the ExPERT Centre (a Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning), which was absolutely fascinating. One of the defining features of the Centre is its several simulation suites, including a fully equipped representation of an operating theatre, used to train student Operating Department Practitioners and Paramedics. The suite comes complete with a manikin that talks back to the students, breathes and mimics a number of other, um.... 'bodily functions'. In fact, just about the only thing it can't be programmed to do is act like my teenage daughter and constantly demand cash handouts, car rides to her boyfriend's house and back, and er... more money. All of the manikin's bodily functions can be programmed from the attached Mac computer, and the instructor can even programme in a sudden 'crisis' for the students to deal with. There are other simulated environments on the campus, including a courtroom for legal students to train in. In the ExPERT Centre I also saw a microbiology lab simulation and a simulated nursing ward. All of the above are equipped with remote controlled digital cameras and observation suites sited behind one-way mirrors.

The great thing about these kind of simulated environments is that students can build their confidence as well as their skills, while at the same time immersing themselves in realistic situations with no real risk of doing any harm. They learn by their mistakes and they also learn within situated contexts. They can also view back video footage of their performance so they can reflect on their actions and the consequences. This is clearly an expensive, but extemely powerful and effective use of technology to train professionals. In my own university next week, during the Plymouth e-Learning Conference, delegates will get the chance to visit our Dentistry school and use the Phantom Head training manikins - possibly even doing some fillings and/or pulling teeth! Simulation is obviously where it's at when it comes to the training of professionals.

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Tools of my trade

For a while now I have been thinking about the impact Web 2.0 has had on my life and my career, and often wherever I am speaking, I talk about one or more of the tools I have listed below. Here they are - the 10 Web tools I could not possibly do without...

Facebook - I tried several other social networking tools before Facebook, including Myspace and Bebo, and toyed with LinkedIn like everyone else. Although I'm a little tired of Facebook now, I still use it to keep in touch with friends and to send occasional messages. I got hooked on Farmville for a while, but it became a time-sink for me, so I have now kicked the habit. Facebook has a lot of potential to be harnessed as a learning tool, but there are questions over whether such an informal tool could, or should be used in formal education.

iGoogle - I use this tool to organise my weblinks and other content. It's simple and easy to use, and keeps all my important tools, including currency converters, news feeds and language translators in one convenient space.

Wiki - I use this tool (usually Wetpaint or Wikispaces) as an open, collaborative space for my student groups to work with. Several exercises are built into and around the communal use of wikis to create content throughout a module, and students generally get to grips with it very quickly and produce some valuable content, which they can return to time and time again.

Google Scholar - I come back to Scholar time and time again, often several times in one day, particularly when I'm doing some literature searching for an article, or simply to see who has cited who on a particular topic. You can track through the history of an article, and get a full picture of its influence and impact.

Flickr - I keep all my favourite photographs on four Flickr accounts such as this one and this one. Again, as with all Web 2.0 tools, Flickr allows people to share their content, and receive comments back from viewers. You can also join groups that have a similar interest to you, and exhibit your photographs to a specialist audience.

Delicious - Once I have found the stuff I want to keep, where better to store a link to it than on Delicious? If you haven't tried it yet, you will find that it is quite easy to use, and all you need do is to copy and paste the URL you wish to keep into the appropriate box. Once you store it, you can return anytime to access the content, and you can also see who else has stored it, search through their favourites, and find related stuff that is just as interesting to you.

Slideshare - I love this tool, because it enables me to keep all my slideshows, and also other documents, such as published articles (usually stored as pdf files) in one place. I can share them with anyone who is interested in seeing them, and can track the number of people who view them, receive comments from them, and converse with them through the discussion tools on the site.

Blog - My blog (Learning with 'e's') is probably my most powerful tool for reflecting, learning and professional development. Right here is the space on my personal web where I put down all my thoughts, ideas (some of them half-baked) and questions and share them with my personal learning network. The comments I receive back from you and other readers are invaluable to me, often cause me to think again, and provide me with further fuel to go away and create more ideas and content. Don't forget to comment today :-)

Search Engine - I almost always use Google, but increasingly other search engines are on the horizon for me including Bing and Yahoo. The concept of a search engine is not new, but we now tend to take it for granted, and it would be an impossible or extremely time consuming task to try to find what you are looking for in the huge storehouse of knowledge and content that is out there on the Web without the humble search engine.

Twitter - For me, Twitter is the ultimate tool for social networking, because its simple and easy to use, concise, and yet has a substantial power behind it. Many people don't get Twitter, because it takes some effort over a period of time to build up a critical mass of contacts within your personal network, but once you get over that hurdle, it is amazing how much content you can receive and send. Used in combination with other tools such as bit.ly (a URL shortener), Echofon or Tweetdeck, it is a deceptively powerful web tool.

I use all of the above tools fairly regularly, and most on a daily, or even hourly basis. Without their combined power of connection, sharing and amplification, it would be impossible for me to do my current job. In fact, I would go as far as to say that my current job would not exist without these tools. They are the tools of my trade. What are your top ten?

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Up Pompey

When I was a lot younger I was a guitarist in a rock band. We were touring in 1982, and one of our bookings took us to play in the main hall of Portsmouth Polytechnic. It was a time of great celebration in Portsmouth (known by sailors as Pompey), because the Falklands War had just ended, and all the naval warships were returning home. After the gig, the band went down onto the seafront for something to eat before the long trek home, and I decided I would try a doner kebab for the first time. So there we were sitting in the back of our Transit Van, perched on the speakers and amplifiers, chomping away in the dark. I wasn't aware that there were any rules to eating doner kebabs, so I just chewed away at the pitta bread. Suddenly I was aware of a burning sensation. In the dark, I found a pile of steaming hot meat, coleslaw and chilli sauce in my lap. I had eaten away the underside of the pitta bread, and it had all dropped out.

Look, it's no laughing matter. It could have been fatal - the lethally hot chilli sauce could have eaten right through the denim of my jeans and caused untold damage to my future prospects. Driving home from Portsmouth to Plymouth covered in grease and chilli sauce was extremely uncomfortable. Time has moved on. Portsmouth Polytechnic is now the University of Portsmouth, and I still play the guitar, but I now try to steer clear of eating doner kebabs, particularly in the dark in the back of a transit van.

I'm back in Portsmouth this week as an invited speaker at the university. I will be hooking up with old pals Emma Duke-Williams (world famous in Portsmouth for her portrait of me as 'multi-me') and Manish Malik (with whom I have just written a paper on Cloud Learning Environments). Remember 'Wisdom of Clouds'? - Manish wrote that as a guest blogpost. I will be speaking on the topic of 'Learning 2.0: Web 2.0 Tools in Education', which will essentially take the form of a workshop and seminar. The session will take place on Wednesday 31st between 15.00-16.30. There will be some games and exercises for people to do, and some questions and answers time too. I hope to explore some of the possibilities and potential of tools such as blogs, wikis, microblogs and aggregators, and will also explore mashups, social tagging, and concepts such as 'wisdom of crowds' and folksonomies. I'm going to try to place all of this in the context of higher education, student engagement and communities of practice. It will be a tall order, I'm sure, but I'm confident it will be OK. After all, I have survived a direct hit from a doner kebab, and that's serious stuff.

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...including me

One of my B. Ed Primary education students, Catherine O'Connor, is going to present a paper at the Plymouth e-Learning Conference after Easter. Catherine has been doing research into how technology is used to support children with special educational needs. Her paper focuses on an evaluation of assistive technologies in primary education. The paper, Promoting inclusion in the Primary Classroom through the use of Assistive Technologies, does exactly what the title says. It's a discussion around the benefits and limitations of specially adapted technologies to support those who have special educational needs. Some SEN children do particularly well and have their learning experiences enhanced or extended through assistive technologies. Some unfortunately are stigmatised, singled out and made to feel vulnerable and 'different' as a result. Several questions need to be addressed: What is the balance - can such technologies exclude as well as include? How can we best use such technologies to support those who have specific difficulties? I think a lot of teachers and parents would like to know the answers to these questions.... including me.

Here's the abstract:

Schools are increasingly focused on the need to include all learners. The UK Government’s Every Child Matters agenda (see Barker, 2009). ensures that all schools meet the individual needs of children, including special educational needs and disabilities. As Radabaugh (1988) has argued, “For most people technology makes things easier. For people with disabilities, however, technology makes
things POSSIBLE.”

It is vital then that teachers become proficient at using a number of learning technologies, to enable them to meet the educational needs of children of all abilities. Assistive technologies are generally those that have been adapted or designed specifically to support disabled children.

In this paper we investigate how primary school children with various disabilities (e.g. dyslexia, autistic spectrum disorder) might be successfully supported in their learning through the use of assistive technologies. Using a semi-structured interview method, we talked to two primary school children about their experiences in using assistive technologies, discovering what the technologies actually enabled them to achieve. We also asked them about their feelings toward the technology and gained insights into some of the less positive aspects of using these tools.

We will discuss the tensions between enabling learners to achieve to their fullest potential through assistive technologies, and the potentially stigmatising effects such technologies may impose. We also discuss some of the digital divide issues that emerge whenever new technologies are introduced into traditional contexts. We hope that through this study, teachers will gain a clearer insight into the affordances and constraints of assistive technologies in primary contexts.

References
Barker, R. (2009, Ed.) Making Sense of Every Child Matters: Multi-professional practice guidance. London: Polity Press
Radabaugh, M. (1988) Cited in National Council on Disability: Study on the Financing of Assistive Technology Devices and Services for individuals with disabilities (1993). Available at: www.teacher.net.gov.uk/_doc/3165/Final%20%Report%205%20December%20CK3Dec2.doc (Retrieved 12 January, 2010)

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It takes all sorts

This is a post for Ada Lovelace Day, celebrating women in technology and science. Today I feature three of my female students and some excellent research they have been doing...

You may have noticed that over the last few days I have been posting abstracts from my third year B.Ed Primary education students. You've probably guessed that I'm very pleased with the way they have applied themselves to the task of identifying key e-learning research areas, and then designing their projects as self-organised studies. They have been involved with the international Atlantis Project for the past year, which among other things took them to Cork in Ireland and Frankfurt/Darmstadt in Germany for 2 weeks, where they were engaged fully in international collaborative e-learning research. Well now it's payback time, and they are all preparing to present their papers in the special Atlantis Track of the Plymouth e-Learning Conference in two week's time. Today's blogpost features a paper from Claire Spiret, Elizabeth 'Tizzy' Logan and Catherine Moore which focuses on individual differences in young children's learning through technology. The title of the paper, A critical analysis of learner preference tests in children's use of ICT, reveals that they have not taken an easy road - they have challenged some of the assumptions we make when we attempt to categorise learners into learning preference modes. Learning styles is a controversial area of research and they have critically evaluated the widely accepted VARK model. Here's the abstract:

Over the years, several theories of learning preference have been presented, but many are aimed at adult learning (e.g. Kolb, 1984; Honey & Mumford, 1992), and controversy surrounds their validity and reliability (see Newstead, 1992). Arguably the most accepted and popular learning preferences model is the VARK model (Visual, Auditory, Read/Write and Kinaesthetic). VARK attempts to explain how learners differ in their approaches to learning, but unfortunately, it may also label learners with the result that teachers fail to provide them with full and varied opportunities to learn. Further, the environment(s) within which children learn change in context, a variable which the VARK model may fail to accommodate.

In this study, we have created a version of the VARK learning preferences test, which is specifically aimed at 5-11 year old children. We used this in 2 UK schools with children (n=60) on two occasions, eliciting 120 responses in our data set. To accomplish this, we tested children during both computer based learning, and non-computer based learning, repeating the test to detect any differences in learning preferences within participants. In this presentation we will discuss the findings from our research, paying specific attention to the varying learning environments and contexts, and how children changed their learning styles to accommodate these variables. We challenge the notion that learning preferences are set and immutable, and counsel that VARK and other learning styles models should be used with caution.

References
Honey, P. and Mumford, A. (1992) The Manual of Learning Styles. Maidenhead: Peter Honey.

Kolb, D. (1984) Experiential Learning. Englewood Cliffs, NJ.: Prentice Hall.

Newstead, S. (1992) A study of two "quick-and-easy" methods of assessing individual differences in student learning. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 62(3), 299-312.

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PLE vs VLE

Three of my third year B.Ed Primary education students, Adam Skill, Danny Houton and James Carhart, have created a most excellent video to accompany their paper for the Plymouth e-Learning Conference next month. It gives more than a nod in the direction of the Lee LeFever Plain English videos, but it's still quite original in its own way as you will see....



The paper is titled: Integrating Personal Learning Environments into the Primary Classroom and goes beyond web tools, and even personal learning networks. It examines what happens when children are allowed to choose the ways they wish to learn and what tools they want to help support their learning. It was a bold project, and there are some interesting conclusions to be made. Here's the abstract:

The Personal Learning Environment (PLE) is a concept that describes how learners create and sustain their study through individualised tools and resources. Each PLE by its nature is unique, with each individual choosing their own preferred approaches. Moreover, there is disagreement about the concept of PLEs and controversy over the term ‘personalised’ (Johnson & Liber, 2008). Here we will argue that PLEs are not restricted to web based tools, but can include personal experiences, conversations and other resources such as newspapers, television and radio. Many traditional school environments are based on trial and error, experimentation and discussion?" all of which can be encompassed within a PLE, with computers used as a medium to connect ideas and produce quality presentations for assessment. Collaboration with other learners is also made easier through the use of personal web tools within the learners’ PLE.

In this presentation we aim to explore these ideas and enable teachers to begin thinking about how they can tap into a range of approaches to implementing PLEs in their classrooms. We will also discuss how children can be empowered to manage their own learning goals through the use of PLEs.

To explore the notion of personalisation, we went into three primary schools, where we used two contrasting teaching modes with each class. The first mode was didactic and teacher-led and the second mode was learner-centred, offering the learners their own choices of activities and resources.

From the data gathered we show how children responded to each mode of teaching and their opinions and preferences for each approach. We pay specific attention to the ability groups within each class, and discuss how preferences contrasted within each group. We discuss how individual learner preferences and personal agency can impact upon the ability of children to become more proactive in their learning. We conclude by arguing that the use of PLE approaches can support individual learners to achieve their full potential.

Reference
Johnson, M. and Liber, O. (2008) The Personal Learning Environment and the human condition: from theory to teaching practice. Interactive Learning Environments, 16 (1), 3-15.

Child friendly technologies

Along with some of my third year Primary education students I'm presenting four papers at the Plymouth e-Learning Conference later this month. One of the papers, co-written by Gareth Excell and John Edwards, is entitled: How can child-friendly technologies enhance children’s learning? I'm particularly excited by this one, because the notion of 'child friendly' technologies has not been addressed that often in the recent literature. It may even be a new term for educators to consider. Fact is, most technologies children like to use informally, are banned by most schools.

I had a conversation with a veteran secondary school teacher last night about the use of personal technologies in schools. He came to the conclusion that although devices like mobile phone could be used to great effect during lessons for texting dialogue, he and his colleagues would be very reluctant to do so, unless they had total control over what students could text and who they could text it to, during the lessons. Regardless of the reticence, child friendly technologies will come to the fore I believe, and it is important for teachers to begin discussing now, what the pedagogical potential is, and what safeguards they need to employ to make them a success.

Here's the abstract of the paper (comments are very welcome):

Technology is now a central component of the Primary teacher’s toolkit, and there has been a significant increase in the use of learning technologies in classrooms in recent years (John & Wheeler, 2008). However, several technologies have been viewed as undesirable when viewed in a formal education context. Such devices, including Nintendo game consoles (Wii and DS), mobile phones and iPod Touches can be identified as ‘child-friendly’ technologies, because they are fun and culturally relevant to children, yet they are perceived as either troublesome, or having little relevance in a formal education setting. Teachers often use technology to support their own teaching, but may often fail to see the relevance of child-friendly tools as a means to support children’s learning. Further, many schools have banned the use of such devices due to a perceived threat of misuse and abuse.

In this paper, we contend that child-friendly technologies should be considered as serious learning tools in the formal learning environment of the primary classroom. Several previous studies have established that handheld and mobile technologies have relevance in formal education to encourage collaborative and project based learning (Norris & Soloway, 2004) especially when coupled with social media (So et al, 2009). Such studies reveal that children collaborate more freely, engage more readily and enjoy learning more.

Our study initially involved identifying the range of child-friendly technologies available, and then theorising how the most popular devices might be successfully embedded into the Primary classroom. This was achieved by delivering the same lesson to two groups of children, once using the child-friendly technologies, and once using no supporting technology. We hypothesise that children will engage more with learning when they are able to access technologies they are comfortable and familiar with. We will reveal our results from this study during the presentation.

References
John, P. D. and Wheeler, S. (2008) The Digital Classroom: Harnessing the power of technology for the future of learning and teaching. London: Routledge/David Falmer.
Norris, C. and Soloway, E. (2004) Envisioning the Hand-Held Centric Classroom. Journal of Educational Computing Research, 30 (4), 281-294.
So, H-J., Seow, P. and Looi, C. K. (2009) Location matter: leveraging knowledge building with mobile devices and Web 2.0 technology. Interactive Learning Environments, 17 (4), 367-382.


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World Health 2.0

I'm very pleased to see that a paper I have been working on with colleagues was published this week in a very specialised health related journal: Computer Methods and Programs in Biomedicine. It's one of a suite of papers Maged Boulos and I have been working on with colleagues around the world over the last 3 years, and this one is particularly exciting because it shows how to harness Web 2.0 tools, mashups and aggregators to predict localised social trends such as flu epidemics. I have to admit I was inspired when I first heard of the concept of Techno-social Predictive Analysis (TPA), and even more intrigued when I saw how it worked. We wrote it around the time of the Swine Flu reports last year, and we hope the paper has some impact on how Web 2.0 tools can be used in new ways to benefit society as a whole. Have a read of the abstract, and then make your own mind up how much positive impact this approach might have on the future health and well-being of the planet...

Social Web mining and exploitation for serious applications: Technosocial Predictive Analytics and related technologies for public health, environmental and national security surveillance

Maged N. Kamel Boulos, Antonio P. Sanfilippo, Courtney D. Corley and Steve Wheeler

Abstract
This paper explores Technosocial Predictive Analytics (TPA) and related methods for Web “data mining” where users’ posts and queries are garnered from Social Web (“Web 2.0”) tools such as blogs, micro-blogging and social networking sites to form coherent representations of real-time health events. The paper includes a brief introduction to commonly used Social Web tools such as mashups and aggregators, and maps their exponential growth as an open architecture of participation for the masses and an emerging way to gain insight about people's collective health status of whole populations. Several health related tool examples are described and demonstrated as practical means through which health professionals might create clear location specific pictures of epidemiological data such as flu outbreaks.

Keywords: Social Web; Web 2.0; Disease surveillance; Technosocial Predictive Analytics

Other Boulos and Wheeler papers:

Kamel Boulos M N, and Wheeler S (2007) The emerging Web 2.0 social software: An enabling suite of sociable technologies in health and healthcare education. [Abstract] [Full Text] Health Information and Libraries Journal, 24 (1), 2-23.

Wheeler S and Kamel Boulos M N (2007) Mashing, Burning, Mixing and the Destructive Creativity of Web 2.0: Applications for Medical Education. [Abstract] [Full Text] Electronic Journal of Communication, Information and Innovation in Health, 1 (1), 27-33.

Kamel Boulos M N, Hetherington L and Wheeler S (2007) Second Life: The potential of 3D virtual worlds in medical and health education. [Abstract] [Full Text] Health Information and Libraries Journal. 24 (4), 233-245.

Kamel Boulos M N, Maramba, I and Wheeler S (2006) Wikis, blogs and podcasts: a new generation of Web-based tools for virtual collaborative clinical practice and education. [Abstract] [Full text] BMC Medical Education, 6 (41).

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Stop calling it ICT!

I very much enjoyed following the NAACE Annual Strategic Conference via Twitter earlier today. Those present gave a flavour of the event and all that was being discussed via a tagstream labelled #naace2010, and I engaged with the discussion a few times. One of the most interesting discussions came out of a remark made by OFSTED's ICT Advisor David Anstead, who gave the second keynote of the day. He apparently said that we should remove the 'C' from ICT, and this predictably provoked a few responses. What on earth did he mean by this? Perhaps someone who was there and heard it first hand could comment on this blog?

There then ensued a Twitter discussion on whether ICT was the right term to use now that technology and its pedagogical applications have moved on. Doug Woods (@deerwood) suggested that the 'I' could also be removed. Then he came back and said let's remove the 'T' as well - which leaves only learning. I agreed publicly on Twitter, and then suggested that perhaps ICT should be ditched completely - let's call it Learning Technology - I said. Ben Nunney (@bennuk) made a good point that some kinds of computing should still be taught in schools, but it's more appropriate to teach things like networking and programming than it is to teach how to create a PowerPoint slideshow.

A flurry of comments went back and forth. Doug Dickinson (@orunner) agreed that ICT is a passe term, but others weren't so sure. Dave Garland (@thegreatgar) asked if ICT as a subject could break the mould in a curriculum which seems to be stagnating. I responded that I didn't think ICT should be a taught subject at all, but that it should be embedded into the rest of the curriculum, related to and underpinning all subjects. John Rudkin (@montydoodles) liked this idea, and said that all subjects should be integrated. He extolled the virtues of 'challenge based learning' saying they should be siezed. I assume by this he meant what I would call problem based learning, in which case, I fully agree. Paul Luke (@pluke17) made a neat comment: We should also stop using the name e-learning, he said. 'There's only one 'e' in learning.' Mira Danon-Baird (@mdanonbaird) made one of the most incisive comments when she remarked: 'Key issue: Embed edutech till it's invisible and the learning isn't. Simple'.

@deKay01 remarked "Learning Technology"? Why don't we just call it what the kids do: "Pooters, Innit"? I responded with '... and DS, and Wii, and XBox, and mobile phones...' meaning that it isn't just about computers anymore, and hasn't been for a long time. It's about the whole spectrum of what we have for so long called ICT. But to me, ICT doesn't cut it anymore. It's no longer an adequate term for what we see happening. Information and communication are merely outcomes of learning through technology. Technology Enhanced Learning is another term proposed, but again, this is a byproduct of learning technology that is appropriately used. It's still all about the learning, but we are using technologies to support that learning. When we do, let's stop calling it ICT - let's call it learning technology.

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On camera

Back in 1985 (strewth, is it that long ago?) I started using video with groups of nursing students. I would ask a group of 3 or 4 to go out and record a short (3-5 minute) on an important topic related to nursing, video, edit, caption and narrate it and then present it at the end of the day to the rest of the group for discussion. Sound like an easy task? No - it was actually quite complex. The students recorded their work on VHS tapes using bulky old cameras with unreliable batteries. People were a lot less familiar with video then than they are now, and editing the tapes was tedious, time consuming, and frought with technical difficulties. All of this didn't help when the groups were working against the clock. The learning pay-off though was amazing. Students developed and improved a lot of transferrable skills including problem solving, negotiating, team leading, decision making, technical troubleshooting, creative skills, time management and presentational skills. All of these were later used in their professional practice as care givers.

25 years on, it has all come full circle. It was great this evening to attend a seminar/workshop presented by Professor Derek France (Chester University) who spoke to us about using video (or in his words digital storytelling and video podcasting) with students on geography fieldtrips. Derek gave us an insight into some of the benefits and constraints of using these methods. He advised us that if we wanted to make this effective then staff should develop a few basic technical skills. He emphasised the importance of students creating storyboards, and said that assessment of the final product should be appropriate. At the University of Chester, the digital component makes up 30% of the mark (the remainder is on the written research report). We also discussed copyright and IPR issues, and expored how creativity in video could be assessed fairly.

Students who participated in this kind of technology enhanced learning reported that they thought it was a good use of their time (86%), that it encouraged better group interaction (95%), that it made the topic easier to understand (66%) and that it increased motivation to learn (70%). This is a form of personalised learning, said Derek, because some students are more articulate in front of the camera than they are on paper. It's great to see that the art of integrating video into higher education is not dead. I only wish I could have got my hands on Flipcameras, Audacity and Moviemaker 25 years ago....

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In theory...

Intuitive teachers generally have a reasonable understanding of the processes of learning and how humans acquire knowledge and skills. Any teacher training course worth its salt has a significant element of learning theory within its programme. Teachers who seek excellence should aspire to understanding how learning experiences can be optimised to promote good learning outcomes. There are many who are expert in learning and teaching though, who have scant appreciation that in technology mediated learning environments, things can be very different. A lot of teachers do have a working knowledge of how electronic media can be used to support learning, but how many know when to use them and how to optimise their effects?

There are many established theories and models we could use to explain learning and a few specialised theories about how learning can be enhanced and extended through electronic media. But many are theories that were relevant to education in the last century. Time has moved us on. We need to go further than a mere exploration of established learning theories if we want to gain a better understanding of learning within various e-learning contexts. We need to get our hands dirty at the interface of e-learning to begin to understand some of the complexities. In online learning modes for example, some of the rules of traditional learning no longer apply, or are changed or extended. Some new phenomena will be encountered, which can cause teachers to throw their hands up in confusion, force them to modify their expectations and opinions of how students learn within electronic environments, or cause students to behave in ways that would not be possible or even acceptable in traditional settings. George Siemens and Stephen Downes present us with connectivism - in their own words, a 'theory for the digital age'. It's not what you know, Siemens argues, but who you know that's important. Others like Scott Wilson say that Personal Learning Environments are a counter proposition to the institutional content management system (VLE), while still others are theorising about what PLEs can possibly look like (me included). Then there are those such as Marc Prensky, Dave White and Mark Bullen who lock horns and argue whether today's learners are respectively, digital natives and immigrants, residents and visitors, or none of the above. I could go on.... there's a lot of new theory about and we need all of it.

My own teaching experience has led me to theorise why certain things happen. I have seen several things happen that are departures from traditional learning behaviours. Students who previously collaborated willingly on a single piece of work for example, may decide to be more protective of their ideas and work when it's placed in a shared online space such as a wiki. Some students lose all their inhibitions when they post content onto Facebook or Myspace. People who are quite vocal in traditional classroom situations may suddenly have a crisis of confidence in an online setting. Drop-out rates for distance education programmes are as high as 50% in some universities. And yet the literature suggests that there are no significant differences between traditional and online forms of learning. e-Pedagogy is not an easy field to understand, but it is on the increase, and we need new theories to help us understand.

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Lifeline

I have discovered that successful technology mediated interaction between learners is more likely when students are unable to meet face to face and it's the only option they have left. It may sound obvious, but when students are geographically isolated, they tend to take every opportunity to communicate with each other to share experiences, collaborate in project work, discuss the issues raised by the course, trade short cuts and study tips, and generally engage in social dialogue. It's like a lifeline to them. Many of my distance students have told me that it's good to know that other students 'out there' are in the same situation as them, and that they can communicate across distance at the click of a mouse. But it's not all good news….

Rena Palloff and Keith Pratt (1999) studied the effects of collaborative working and the development of online communities in learning. Some of their groups learnt in hybrid (blended) mode - that is, the groups studied predominantly online but occasionally gathered together to meet in a more traditional campus based setting. Palloff and Pratt reported that some of their student groups hardly ever communicated in face to face mode, but rather stored up their comments and contributions for the web based discussion group instead. Palloff and Pratt expressed disquiet about this state of affairs, because although interaction in an electronic environment is both desirable and powerful, it can be a lesser experience than face to face contact if this is available.

Personally, I can't see the problem. If students want to interact with each other they will do so, using whatever means they are most comfortable with. The job of the online tutor is to ensure that students can interact, regardless of their location, and to make sure that the tools are provided for all the possibilities.

Reference

Palloff, R. M. and Pratt, K. (1999) Building Learning Communities in Cyberspace: Effective Strategies for the Online Classroom. San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass.

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A balancing act

In two previous posts this week I tried to identify some of the reasons why students fail to engage in collaborative online learning environments, and also tried to suggest some possible solutions to the problem of social loafing. I thought Dean Groom's response - Why aren't they doing anything? - yesterday was particularly useful because it highlighted that there are differences between engagement in formal learning environments and informal environments such as massive multiplayer online games. I agree and suggest that it must be to do with different kinds of motivation. MMORPGS are designed with massive participation in mind and are usually more fun. Today I want to talk about some of the ways online groups work together.

Some previous research can shed light on these issues. In 1994 McGrath and Hollingshead showed that groups interacting using technology tend to take on specific roles within the group, and this often occurs spontaneously. They quote the theory of TIP (time, interaction and performance) which regards groups operating continuously and simultaneously within the three separate functions of production, member support and group well-being. There are in fact three types of support required by online learners (Carnwell, 1999). They are academic support, emotional and social support and technical support. I have observed with my own student groups that the last two are often taken care of by the members of the group themselves. It's the first one that is the sole preserve of the e-tutor.

Palloff and Pratt (1999) discovered that in many of their online student groups, individual learners emerged to take on specific roles in the support and group well-being functions, such as 'encourager', and conflict 'mediator'. They also saw that there are students who take it upon themselves to chase up other students when they have not been seen participating for a while in the online group discussions (akin to the student self-policing I mentioned yesterday). It would be interesting to discover whether such students would also adopt similar roles in a conventional classroom setting, but Palloff and Pratt offer no information on this. They do however, comment that the emergence of these roles is a strong indicator that community is forming within the online community, and that this mirrors the processes that occur in traditional community settings.

It's often the case that online environments mirror what happens in the real world. Online tutors often find themselves in a fine balancing act - they should be aware of these issues, intervening when necessary, but knowing when to step back so that the virtual group can self-regulate.

References

Carnwell, R. (1999) Distance education and the need for dialogue. Open Learning, 14 (1), 50-55.

McGrath, J. E. and Hollingshead, A. B. (1994) Groups Interacting with Technology. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Palloff, R. M. and Pratt, K. (1999) Building Learning Communities in Cyberspace: Effective Strategies for the Online Classroom. San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass.

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Lurking and loafing

Yesterday in Hitch-hiking across cyberspace I started discussing some issues around student engagement in collaborative online learning environments such as wikis and discussion groups. Today I want to explore some of the reasons why we believe some students don't pull their weight.

The reasons why people freeload were investigated in a series of experiments by Latane, Williams and Harkins (1979) who described the effects of what they termed 'social loafing'. Social loafing is recognised by many as the reverse of the old maxim 'many hands make light work'. In effect they suggest that the more people there are within a group, the less effort each will put into performing a given task. In one experiment participants were asked to clap their hands as if in applause. In another experiment, participants were required to cheer as loudly as they could. In each experiment observations were made on individual participants, pairs, groups of four, and groups of six. The observed effort in all cases dropped significantly as the size of the groups were increased. Latane et al surmised that each individual participant assumed that their own efforts would be less identifiable the larger the group they were in. Could a similar effect be observed in online discussion or wiki groups? And might there be an optimum number of students?

Online learners who 'lurk' during a discussion event, whether synchronous or asynchronous, could be said to be loafing. As with freeloading, lurking is frowned upon by students and instructors alike, and tends to be actively discouraged. Lurking is a term used to describe those students who access a discussion group or chat-room, but don't actively engage in the discussion. They are similar to the silent student who sits in the corner of the traditional classroom, observing but not contributing, or the participants in Latane et al's experiments who produced less effort as the group size grew. Often there are no complaints about such behaviour in conventional social settings so it is interesting to discover that there should be objections in online settings.

But putting to one side the moral and ethical objections to freeloading, we can raise an important question over the learning pay-off for both the contributors and the lurkers and freeloaders. Some discussion group members tend to 'stay quiet' and lurk, primarily because they are fearful of being criticised for what they have written (Pearson, 2000), whilst others may simply lurk because reflection is their learning style, and they would probably also stay quiet in a conventional classroom. For those who do participate, feelings of anonymity may encourage greater participation, and create more equal opportunities for contributions, with no interruptions from the more vocal members of the group (Pearson, 2000).

It is far from inevitable that larger groups will cause social loafing, say Harkins and Petty (1982). Through their studies they identified two methods to reduce the tendency to disengage, or put in less effort. The first method Harkins and Petty suggested was to increase the difficulty level of tasks and thereby make the task more challenging. Secondly, a differentiation of tasks within the group can improve individual performance. Asking each group member to perform a slightly different task will increase their perceptions of being 'back in the spotlight' and cause them to increase effort. These findings have obvious application to the e-learning context, where students can each be given a separate topic to comment upon, or different roles, such as a rotation of the responsibility to moderate a discussion forum, as well as an increasing cognitive element to gradually raise the level of difficulty in the discussion or online tasks.

Related posts

Why aren't they doing anything? (Dean Groom)

References

Harkins, S. G. and Petty, R. E. (1982) Effects of task difficulty and task uniqueness on social loafing. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 43, 1214-1229.
Latane, B., Williams, K. and Harkins, S. G. (1979) Many hands make light the work: The causes and consequences of social loafing. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 37, 822-832.
Pearson, J. (2000) Lurking, Anonymity and Participation in Computer Conferencing. In D. M. Watson and T. Downes (Eds.) Communications and Networking in Education: Learning in a Networked Society. London: Kluwer Academic Publishers.

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Hitch-Hiking across cyberspace

“This is your Captain speaking so stop what you're doing and pay attention. First of all I see from our instruments that we have a couple of hitchhikers aboard. Hello whoever you are. I just want to make it totally clear that you are not at all welcome. I worked hard to get where I am today and I didn't become captain of a Vogon constructor ship simply so I could turn it into a taxi service for a load of degenerate freeloaders. I have sent out a search party, and as soon as they find you I will put you off the ship. If you're very lucky I might read you some of my poetry first. ”

Douglas Adams: The Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy (1979)

I love Hitch-Hikers Guide, because it speaks to me on so many levels. I used the Vogon Captain monologue because it reminds me of some of the behaviours I see online when students work collaboratively. Or .... when they don't, and simply live off the back of other people's hard work. It is not hard to understand the reasons why some students get really hacked off when they work hard to contribute meaningful and considered contributions to a wiki or online discussion group only for others who haven't contributed to also take credit. That's sometimes the problem with group based collaborative work.

In some user groups and online circles, this practice is called 'freeloading' or free riding - essentially hitching a lift at the expense of others. In paper form, using someone else's ideas without their permission or without acknowledgement of the source is referred to as plagiarism. It's a practice that in education world we call 'academic dishonesty.' It's is generally frowned upon in academic circles and can be punished severely. Plagiarism is fairly clear cut, but freeloading on someone else's ideas in the virtual or online world is more difficult to detect. It's not quite the same as plagiarism, because students are not actually copying the work of others, they are taking the credit for it. Freeloading in a collaborative group is often hard to deal with, and although tools such as wikis have tracking devices to show who contributed what and when, many tutors do not have the time to go into these records to check.

Often though, the tutor doesn't need to do anything, particularly when the group decides to police itself. When the members of a group detect that someone is not 'pulling their own weight', they soon tend to get a little resentful. The same applies to virtual learning groups. The wiki is a great tool, but it has a lot to answer for. I have seen students fall out big-time over issues that involve ownership, lack of contributions or disagreements about who wrote what. It has even been known for some students to be ejected from a course for persistent episodes of freeloading (not by me I hasten to add - I tend to read them my poetry instead), in much the same spirit as the Vogon Constructor Ship Captain intended to be the fate of the two stowaways in the Hitch-Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy. I want to continue along this road in tomorrow's post, talking about some of the psychological principles - the reasons some students try to hitch-hike across cyberspace.

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Engaging the digital generation

I'm a keynote speaker for a conference being held at the University of Middlesex on June 29th. The conference is entitled: Engaging the Digital Generation in Academic Literacy, and looks like it's going to be a very interesting event. Other speakers include Tara Brabazon and William Wong. Below is the title and abstract of my keynote:

Digital Tribes and the Social Web: How Web 2.0 will Transform Learning in Higher Education

The Social Web is transforming the way students interact with others, and is challenging traditional pedagogies, values and practices. An analysis of students’ uses of social networking tools (e.g. Facebook, Myspace) and video/photo sharing sites (e.g. YouTube, Flickr) reveals the emergence of collective digital literacies. These include filtering content, new textual and visual literacies, managing multiple digital identities, representing self in cyberspace and engaging in new modes of interaction. In this presentation I will argue that identification through digitally mediated tools has become the new cultural capital – the set of invisible bonds that ties a community together. It is this ‘social glue’ – such mutual understandings and exchanges that occur on a daily basis within social media – that build the digital communities, and create new learning spaces, nurturing the habitus of a new ‘digital tribe’.

Emile Durkheim suggested that it is easier for tribal members to project their feelings of awe toward a totem than toward something that is as complex as the tribe itself. For digital tribes, their totem – the traditional rallying point for all tribal activity – is patently the Social Web. The digital spaces found within the Web are in themselves objects of intense interest and become meeting places for the tribe, but they also act as transmitters of units of cultural knowledge – memes.

Max Weber once remarked that culture should be construed as a ‘web of significance’ spun by the individuals who constitute the culture. Significantly, the increasing role the World Wide Web plays in the shaping of modern tribal culture causes Weber’s notion to resonate. In this presentation I will argue that digital technologies and electronic networks provide fertile environments for the transmission of memes and that new literacies are needed to receive, interpret and comprehend them. Such new literary practices of communication rely heavily on shared spaces, shared symbolism and the viral nature of the social web.

I will explore how the new digital literacies impact upon teaching and learning in higher education, and discuss the implications of a growing gulf between traditional teaching and the expectations of the new tribe – the digital generation. I will pose the questions: What will be the new roles of academics in a world where the boundaries between novice and expert are blurring? and what new digital literacies will scholars need to harness the full potential of the social web?

Related posts:

The tribal web
En masse, online
Digital tribal identity
Virtual clans

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A moving experience

Whilst reading David Crystal's book 'Txting: the gr8 db8' yesterday, I came across the txting expression 'a3' which apparently means 'anytime, anywhere, anyplace'. It sounds like the strapline for a glitzy advert from the 1980s for Martini - 'anytime, anyplace, anywhere, there's a wonderful world you can share'. In other words, you can totally get off your face anywhere and at anytime, so just go for it. Whilst the glamourisation of hard liquor and drunkenness is not something I'm likely to espouse (No, really? - Ed), I can appreciate the sentiments of the 'a3' notion when it comes to learning. In particular, technology mediated learning has never been so 'a3' as it is right now. Smart mobile technology, touch screens, context aware systems and fast access to the Internet are just a few of the features that are drawing us ever closer to the holy grail of ubiquitous learning (u-learning).

But why on earth do we need a3 learning? Is it because we are all so busy that learning has to occur on the move, or in shifting contexts? Is it due to our increasingly nomadic lifestyles? Is it perhaps because learning informally is becoming more and more vital in our everyday lives, and must become more achievable beyond the bounds of the traditional institution? I believe it is all of these ... the context of learning is changing because our lifestyles are changing.

Several years ago I adapted the work of the late Professor Dan Coldeway (I had the pleasure to meet him on one solitary occasion when I was invited to speak at his university in South Dakota in 2002). Dan's quadrant model of 'same time, different place' contexts was quite simple, but very useful in visualising all the possible combinations of locations and times in which learning could take place. I mapped a variety of tools and technologies over this model, and it allowed me some thinking space to help me to see all of the possibilities of technology mediated learning. I called it the martini model. That was over a decade ago. Time has moved on and so has the technology. And so, I might add, have our expectations. We now carry extremly powerful little devices in our pockets which we can use to access information, communicate and discover, while on the move. Although a3 learning is not fully with us yet, due to constraints in bandwidth, patchy provision, variable cost and some human factors, it is on its way, and it won't be long, I predict, before students will be able to experience seamless, transparent learning that does not vary in quality, wherever they are, and at whatever time of the day or night. It shouldn't matter where we are or what the time it. We should be able to access the same resources wherever and whenever we are. Equivalent experiences should produce equivalent outcomes. Think I'm wrong? I'm waiting for your comments...

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One Foot in the grave

I'm in Swansea today, and tomorrow I will be an external examiner for a PhD viva on e-learning at the university here. I'm looking forward to it, as I always do when I meet and talk to people who are as passionate as I am about learning technology.

But some quite co-incidental things have just happened. I travelled up from Plymouth to South Wales this morning, and arrived to hear the sad news that former leader of the Labour Party Michael Foot had just died at the age of 96. Now the co-incidence is not that I joined the University of Plymouth in '96, nor is it that 96 happened to be my average speed on the M4 today (look, I'm only kidding, OK?). No, the strange co-incidences are that firstly, Michael Foot was MP for Plymouth before losing his seat and then coming to South Wales to become MP for Ebbw Vale (the exact same journey I just made on the morning his death is announced - spooky or what?). Secondly, I sat and had coffee this morning with a colleague in the Isaac Foot restaurant (named by the University of Plymouth in honour of Michael Foot's father, Isaac Foot, who was a prominent politician and reformer, and champion of the poor in the first part of the last century. And lastly, Isaac Foot is remembered for rebuilding the Elim Chapel in Notte Street near the Barbican - where I was dedicated when I was a few weeks old.

I admired Michael Foot's subversive, radical approach to life. It's one I adopt myself in my own life, particularly in my research - take nothing for granted, question everything, don't accept that the status quo is the only way it should be done. Foot went out on a limb (excuse the pun) several times to stand up for his beliefs, and was ridiculed and praised in equal measure. He was even criticised for wearing a donkey jacket on one formal occasion. He was a champion of among other things, the campaign for nuclear disarmament (for which he arguably lost 1983 general election in a heavy defeat, receiving a mauling from the Iron Lady), the Miners, and the National Health Service. I like a man who sticks to his guns.

Just one more 'footnote' if I may - Foot was also a passionate supporter of Plymouth Argyle Football Club (Going down, going down...), and many a time I would see him and say hello to him at the matches, home and away. He was hailed as the Green's number 1 supporter but that couldn't have been true. There is only one number 1 supporter of course, and that's me.

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Inspired learning

Anyone who has been involved in academic life for a while will tell you that research interests change over time. Mine certainly have. When I first became involved in learning technology research in the early 1980s (it was called 'educational technology' in those days) personal computers were in their infancy, and multi-media was breaking as the next 'big thing' in education. I spent my time developing software packages for 'computer assisted learning' which were text heavy but interactive, and then assessing how effective they were as tools to engage learners. I wanted to know why students were interested, excited, inspired, and why they got bored or demotivated.

Moving on into the 1990s, I began to get interested in distance education and open learning. I changed jobs and became less technically oriented, more learning focused. Over this time, I met several leading lights in the field and through a number of conversations and extensive reading, I began to develop an interest in human behaviour, cognitive processes and then human perception in learning environments. My subsequent degree in psychology then led me on into doing a research degree specifically studying these effects in distance education.

With the advent of the Internet, I began to develop an interest in how people learn in environments where they draw on a number of different sources, such as the Web, television, video, and audio. I could see early on that everything was pointing to convergence. My time spent between 1996-1998 on the RATIO project firmed up my ideas on distance learning, and how students could be engaged remotely using a choice of tools.

Press the fast forward button to the early days of Web 2.0, at the turn of this century, and my thoughts turned to how learners could be engaged in social and collaborative environments, where the rules of ownership were being fractured and where notions of authority and knowledge expertise were being challenged. The emergence of concepts such as personal learning environments, many-to-many broadcasting and user generated content all piqued my interest, and that is the point I have now reached. Most of my current talks and presentations centre on the new technologies and how they engage learners. And that to me, seems to be the theme that has threaded its way through my entire research career - engaging learners. Whatever the technology, whichever the environment, if learners are engaged (motivated, captivated, excited and inspired) I want to know how and why. That's why I'm a researcher in learning technology.

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