Grand tour

I'm off on my travels again later today, this time on a grand tour taking in the length of Europe. After a brief visit into the University of Plymouth, to shake hands with my Vice Chancellor and collect my Teaching Fellowship award, it's a quick dash off to Bristol Airport to catch my afternoon flight to the land of the midnight sun. Yes, Helsinki (via Brussels) is my next port of call where I will be working for a few days at the invitation of the Finnish Research Academy. I will be working in a team of Education experts from Sweden, Denmark, the UK and Greece, to evaluate a number of recent large scale research proposals. I hope I can get some sleep during Finland's white nights.

On Sunday it's down to Frankfurt and a meeting with my old friend Sigi Jakob-Kuhn (follow her as @Networking_Lady on Twitter) in Wienheim, before moving onwards the next day to Heidelberg to attend the International Networking Conference and chair some of their sessions on e-learning. I will meet up with several old friends there too, including my colleagues from the Atlantis Project, Udo Bleimann, Tillmann Swinke, Ingo Stengel, and of course the University of Plymouth's very own Steven Furnell.

It's all change again on Wednesday 7th July when I fly from Frankfurt down to Barcelona to participate in another exciting event - the Personal Learning Environment Conference. A whole host of well known activists, (reading like a Who's Who PLE researcher list) will be speaking at this event including Graham Attwell, Alec Couros, Ismael Pena-Lopez, Dirk Stieglitz, Paulo Simoes, Ricardo Torres Kompen, Palitha Edirisingha, Cristina Costa, Wolfgang Rheinhart, Carmen Holotescu, Gabriela Grosseck, Sebastian Fiedler, Dave White, Jose Mota, Chahira Nouira, Su White, Manish Malik.... I could go on, but you can read the impressive list of speakers for yourself at the link below. There will be some alternative sessions including a speed-cafe style presentation set. We have been told we need to make our own personalised badges too, in keeping with the PLE flavour of the event. You should see my full colour @timbuckteeth badge - it's a corker!

The full programme for the @PLE_BCN event is here at this link. It's going to be a very busy, tiring but enjoyable 10 days for me on my grand tour.

Image source

Grand tour by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at steve-wheeler.blogspot.com.

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.

Image source

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.

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...

Atlantis rising

There is still time to submit a 300 word abstract for the Plymouth e-Learning Conference - deadline is 30 November, but time is running out. We have had some interesting proposals so far under the theme of: 'Boundary Changes: Redefining Learning Space'. The keynote speakers are already booked, and we are working on a spectacular conference dinner too. Several attractions are already planned during the event including special sessions in the Virtual 3-D Immersion Cinema on the university campus.

There is also at least one special track planned - it will be reserved for the students of the Atlantis University Project - an Erasmus funded transnational computer project which involves students not only from my own Faculty of Education, here at the University of Plymouth, but also from the University of Applied Sciences, Darmstadt, Germany, the Institute of Technology at Tralee, Ireland, and the Warsaw Institute of Technology, Poland. The Atlantis students are doing some very interesting research and development into areas such as collaborative content management and online shared learning spaces. They will be presenting several papers showcasing their work (some of them are pictured above in February, on the beach near Dingle, Ireland). Slots for other special tracks, panels and symposia have also been reserved. All you need to do is contact us at the conference website above, and propose the session, with a title, list of speakers and a chairperson. We will do the rest.

And so, in the words of the sublime but slightly rediculous Delia Smith "C'mon - let's be 'aving you!"

Sausages and mash(up)

I'm sat here at the University of Applied Social Sciences, in Darmstadt, Germany, (land of the sausage - we sampled some great ones last night!) surrounded by bright young things - around 30 post-graduate students from Germany, Poland, UK, Ireland and Latvia, all studying at Masters or PhD level in computer science. Leading this event for the European Union funded Atlantis University project is Professor Udo Bleimann, who is for want of any better word - 'dynamic'. Udo seems to be able to generate innovative e-learning and computer based projects on the fly, and is a real 'ideas man'. Udo works as a consultant for the University of Plymouth, is a member of the Information Security and Network Research Group here, and he has graciously invited me out to observe what goes on in their face to face meetings. The essence of Atlantis is 'learn your own way' - and the University provides a flexible and blended (extended blended actually) approach which also incoporates collaborative project based learning.

For their project, one of the groups of bright young things has come up with an idea they have called Wiki ++. I ask politely what the "++" stands for, and they show me... it is an extended open architecture in which several versions of a wiki page exist simultaneously, so there is potential for endless mash-up, ? multiple versioning and possibility of editing beyond text into other media (hmmmm...). I need to find out more about how this will develop, and at first glance, it appears to be an overcomplication of a simple idea. However, I am open to how it might contribute towards better collaborativel learning in online environments, and will watch as it develops....