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!"

Locked out

It's been a week of lockouts. I spent most of last week over in County Kerry, on the extreme west coast of Ireland. It's beautiful countryside over there in and around Tralee, but it was bitter cold at times. (opposite is a picture I took of the Ardfert Friary ruins, northeast of Tralee). While I was there I shared a flat with three colleagues, one of whom is a professor at the University of Applied Sciences in Darmstadt, Germany. Poor man got locked out. Not from his room, but from his ensuite bathroom, inside the room. He spent the first 24 hours of his stay unable to access his shaving kit, shower, toilet etc. Eventually, he was relieved when the local repair man turned up and fixed the lock. Actually, we were all relieved.

Later in the week, I got locked out of the flat when I went over to the shop and realised I had forgotten my pass key. Our flat was two floors up, and no amount of shouting or heaving bricks at windows helped. It was very cold. Eventually, a passing student let me in and I began to defrost.

The worst lockout is four days and counting. My e-learning website is down along with just about everything else on the WWW2 server. I have spoken to the computing services who assure me all is being done to restore it. It's very frustrating, because some of my students want to access materials and documents, and of course, all they are met with is a message saying the site is being fixed. Perhaps I should call the Irish repair man in again. At least he only took 24 hours....

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....

England to win!

Well, I'm off on my travels yet again today, this time to the Fachhochschule Darmstadt, University of Applied Sciences, Germany. I'm involved in a transnational project called the Atlantis University Project, which connects students studying computer science in Germany, the UK, Ireland and other European countries. I'm going to act as a research mentor and provide some guidance for the project researchers. Not back 'til Sunday night, so I will probably miss the crunch match between France and England in the Rugby Union World Cup. I'm not sure how much the Germans are interested in men playing games with strange shaped balls, but I may be able to find it on a TV somewhere - maybe try an Irish pub.... Never mind, I will be there in spirit... Allez les Ros Bifs!