Locked and loaded

Next week is the annual bash for learning technologists here in the UK. ALT-C 2010 looms, and Nottingham beckons once again for a gathering of the clans. The last time we all went to the University of Nottingham campus for ALT-C, I met several people for the first time, including James Clay (who had his car broken into), Graham Attwell (who didn't have a car), Sam Easterby-Smith, Josie Fraser and Cristina Costa. I have worked with many of these on a regular basis since, and count them among my most valuable colleagues, as well as great friends. ALT-C (you see) is not just about attending to hear about the latest trends in technology supported learning, or watching cool demonstrations of the latests gadgets and gizmos, nor is it about listening to great (and sometimes not so great) keynotes. It's also about making new friends, forging alliances and extending your personal learning network. And coffee. Here's the ALT-C Crowdvine site delegates are using to connect before the event even starts.

So I'm locked and loaded and ready to drive up the autobahn to Nottingham next week, and here in the picture, is what I'm taking with me: 12 essentials I will be using to keep me out of mischief while I'm at the conference. 1) A four gang mains extension cable. The more sockets you have, the more friends you make. 2) The all important Acer Netbook. Small, but perfectly formed, and powerful when in the hands of the right blogger. 3) Sony Cybershot camera. Small, compact, and very versatile. 4) My trusty Nintendo DS, for use when the keynote speeches get deathly boring. (Look, Sugata, Donald - I'm joking OK?). 5) Power supply for said DS. 6) Power supply and cable for netbook. 7) Camera/netbook cable. I'm not that sophisticated yet. 8) Ethernet cable in case my guesthouse doesn't have wifi. Yes, guesthouse. I am not staying in student accommodation again. Ever. 9) Power supply for iPhone, iPod Touch and other Jobby things. 10) Wireless presenter and laser pointer. For keeping the audience in check. 11) iPhone. 12) iPod Touch. My iPhone is not enabled for internet. Don't ask, it's a long story, involving O2, a bowl of custard and a nun. 13) There is no 13. If there was it would have been my memory stick, but I forgot to put it in the photo.

So there you have it. My travelling companions for ALT-C. What are you bringing? Oh, and I lied about the nun.


Locked and loaded by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

PeLC's digital footprint

I'm sat here exactly one week after the 5th Plymouth e-Learning Conference - #PeLC10 - ended, and reflecting on another great event which everyone seemed to enjoy and learn from. As part of my reflection on the event I have been looking at the digital footprint the conference has left on the Web. There are blogposts, images, videos, and a huge Twitter stream searchable through the #pelc10 hashtag.

I'm sure there will be more accounts, images and videos posted (including the official videos of the two great keynote speeches by Josie Fraser (see the Video here) and Dave White (see the Video here) links of which will also appear soon on the conference website.

Here are just a few of the blogposts and other remnants of the event for you to revisit if you were there, or get a flavour of, if you were not able to attend this year...

Privacy has gone by James Clay

Don't feed the Pelicans by James Clay (includes a podcast and interviews)

Keep calm and carry on by James Clay (Podcast of debate)

Taking a step back by Fleur Corfield

Twitter is dead... Really? by David Hopkins

Learning without limits by Malinka Ivanova

PeLC10 e-learning debate by Bex Lewis

The view from our window by Our Lesson

5th Plymouth e-Learning Conference by Zak Mensah

Mypelc10 - Day 1 by Flea Palmer

Mypecl10 - Day 2 by Flea Palmer

5th Plymouth e-Learning Conference by Mark Pannell

Busy month ahead by Pat Parslow

Make sure you see the Pelican (Part 1) by Dan Roberts

Images of PeLC10 on Flickr by Dawn Wheeler

Community, privacy and identity by Steve Wheeler

Pushing all the right buttons by Steve Wheeler

Angels in the architecture by Steve Wheeler

There is also an aggregation of #pelc10 Delicious tags, Flickr images and Tweets here. And finally, here is an interesting statistical breakown of all the tweets that were tagged #pelc10 during the conference, courtesy of Andy Powell from Eduserv. It's a clever little application you can use to compare the #pelc10 statistics against those of other recent conference tags such as #jisc10 and #mootuk10. It is interesting reading indeed. If you know of any other pelc10 artefacts that are out there on the Web, please post a link in the comments box below.

PeLC10 final plenary session photo courtesy of Dawn Wheeler (from L to R: Steve Wheeler, Thomas Fischer, Josie Fraser, Dave White). The link to the uStream video of the final plenary session is here.

PeLC's digital footprint by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Pushing the buttons

The 5th Plymouth e-Learning Conference has drawn to a close, and it's time to reflect on what I think has been another great conference success. So many new friends have been made and so much discussed over the two days it is difficult to know where to start. I have been following the very busy Twitter stream of the event, and have been impressed by the amount of traffic, and the varied commentaries flowing out of, and back into the conference venue. This conference really was participatory I think, not only because of Twitter and the blog posts that have resulted, but also because of other technology support such as the streaming video we used to cover both keynotes, and several of the breakout sessions and discussions. BECTA even picked up on #pelc10 and called it the hashtag of the day.




Dave White's keynote this morning pressed so many buttons, it's hard to summarise what was said and discussed. I will leave it to the video capture (we will post both Dave's and Josie Fraser's keynotes as soon as we can to the conference website and link to them via this blog). There have been some great images posted from the event too, which will help us all to recall a memorable gathering of learning technologists, teachers and academics in the months to come. I will ensure that the official photographs from our two photographers will also be posted up and shared through the conference website soon.


We enjoyed an excellent and hard-fought debate today in the Jill Craigie Cinema (yes, a real Cinema on campus) where Tara Alexander, Dave White and I argued the toss over Prensky's Digital Natives/Immigrants theory, against Dave's Residents and Visitors model. Many of the audience engaged with us in a very useful exploration of the ideas, and we all went away with more questions than answers, which was exactly the required outcome. I was also very proude of all my own students who presented their research in four separate papers at the conference. They were met with glowing praise, great questions, and useful feedback from delegates.


Next year we are doing it all again, and the publicity is already there, on the back of the abstract book. The date for the 6th Plymouth e-Learning Conference is 7-8 April, 2011. We hope you will be able to join us as we continue this increasingly popular and exciting conference series. I'm off now to put my feet up for a few days... Thanks to everyone who took part!


Image source (courtesy of Daniel Kennedy)



'Pushing the buttons' Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.
Based on a work at steve-wheeler.blogspot.com.

Community, privacy and identity

Day one of the 5th Plymouth e-Learning Conference was very successful, and as usual, a very very long day. Our keynote speaker Josie Fraser did not disappoint with an eloquent account of communities, privacy and identity on the web. Josie talked about a number of potent issues around engagement with social media, and cited a number of key contributions to our understanding from the likes of danah boyd, Scott Wilson and Nicola Whitton. The ensuing question time lasted a full 30 minutes, during which we explored these issues thoroughly. Time does not permit me here to go into details, but a fuller report will follow, and there are of course, other, much more erudite commentators than me blogging as we speak. I will try to find their links and join them to this post.

Numbers of attendance at this year's event are slightly down on last year, with around 140 delegates present. Highlights so far have included two visits to the Vision Immersion Theatre, and excellent sessions, from amongst others, Simon Finch (Northern Grid for Learning), Dan Roberts (Saltash.net) and Tony McNeill (Kingston University). It's unfair perhaps to single these out, because the standard of papers and presentations at this year's event have been particularly good, but for me, trying to get around to all the papers, these three stood out as exceptional in both content and impact. More on this also when I have more time...

Today, Day 2, is dawning bright and clear, and the weather will hold. We are all looking forward to our second keynote speech, from Dave White, and various discussions and papers from delegates. We will close off today with a streamed plenary session where Josie Fraser, Dave White, Thomas Fischer (Erlangen-Nuremburg University, Germany) and I will tackle questions from all-comers. Should be fun.

Limitless learning

We're holding another conference in Plymouth next year! The theme for the 5th Plymouth e-Learning Conference is Learning without Limits - we will address the notion of anytime, anyplace learning. The conference will highlight the growing number of contexts in which learning can take place, and how technology is playing its role. PeLC10 will take place on April 8-9, 2010 in the iconic Roland Levinsky Building on the main University of Plymouth campus. We will focus on the challenges and opportunities brought by formal and informal learning, social networks and personal technologies, mobile learning and innovative on-campus education, virtual and real teaching & learning scenarios, and how teachers and learners are harnessing the power and potential of new and emerging technologies. Our two keynote speakers are Josie Fraser and Donald Clark - the conference website holds further details of costs, joining instructions etc.

As in previous years the conference welcomes proposals for papers, workshops, symposia and demonstrations from across all sectors of education and training, focused on topic areas such as:

Emerging Learning Technologies
Classroom Learning Technology
New Pedagogies and Practices
Mobile Learning, Ambient and Pervasive Technologies
Games for Learning
3D Multi User Virtual Environments
Social Web and Social Networking
Multi-Media
Digital Literacy
Digital Identity

We hope to see you in Plymouth for 2010. The deadline for proposals (300 word abstracts) is 15th January. Get your proposal in soon, and .... book early!

Join the Pelican Fringe

Image Source

...and my nominations are...

Here are my nominations for the 2009 Edublogger Awards:

For best individual blog I would like to nominate Martin Weller, who on his blog The Ed Techie, has been consistent in his posting and always manages to provide some food for thought. He is @mweller on Twitter.

For me, the most influential blog post of the year contained the video (Movie) of the ALT-C debate on the death of the VLE. Recorded and posted by James Clay onto his blog e-Learning Stuff, the video has been downloaded countless times, and copied/embedded into dozens of other websites and blogs around worldwide. You can find him as @jamesclay on Twitter.

In the best New Blog category I nominate Donna Hay over at The Web 2.0 Optimist for her honest, insightful and thoughtful ideas and comments on Web 2.0 tools and their many applications in school settings. You can follow her on Twitter as @dwsm.

Best Group Blog this year should go to Pontydysgu who under Graham Attwell's leadership have continually provided valuable in-depth commentary and advice on a host of e-learning issues and debates. On Twitter he is @grahamattwell.

My vote for best Resource Sharing blog must go to David Hopkins, whose blog Don't Waste Your Time, has been a constant source of interest, and has me returning time and again. On Twitter he is @hopkinsdavid.

For best individual tweeter, I turn to Alec Couros, whom I have probably RT'd more than anyone else this year. His Tweets are often entertaining, always informative. On Twitter, Alec is @courosa.

For the Lifetime Achievement award, I want to nominate Josie Fraser, who over the years, through her blogposts, twittering and other social media channels, has inspired, challenged and encouraged us all. She is a true innovator, and has in my opinion, over the past few years made a significant contribution to learning technology. For anyone of the few left who are not following her, she is @josiefraser on Twitter.

That's me done. Who are you nominating this year?

Edubloggers 2009

It's that time of the year and the Edublogger Awards are upon us again. Josie Fraser has done a remarkable job over the past few years organising this event. She deserves all of our thanks for the impact and reach it has had over the last few years in encouraging a veritable phalanx of creative and energetic posts on every educational topic imaginable.

I felt very honoured last year to be nominated in two categories - best individual blog and most influential blog post (neither of which I stood a cat's chance in Hell of winning of course...)

This year's awards are being organised by another old friend of mine, Carol Daunt, and feature some new categories, including most influential series of Tweets around a discussion. Voting is open to all and the full list of categories is:

Best individual blog
Best individual tweeter
Best group blog
Best new blog
Best class blog
Best student blog
Best resource sharing blog
Most influential blog post
Most influential tweet / series of tweets / tweet based discussion
Best teacher blog
Best librarian / library blog
Best educational tech support blog
Best elearning / corporate education blog
Best educational use of audio
Best educational use of video / visual
Best educational wiki
Best educational use of a social networking service
Best educational use of a virtual world
Lifetime achievement

To nominate in any or all categories, simply post on your blog stating who, and linking to both their blog and to the Edublogger Awards site. My nominations will be in my next post, but I already have a fair idea who I would like to see win the Lifetime Achievement award this year. ;-)

The 5th Plymouth e-Learning Conference

The 5th Plymouth e-Learning Conference (8-9 April, 2010) will examine the theme of e-learning in a time of change, and will challenge notions of traditional boundaries, learning spaces and roles. We will focus on new practices, new technologies, new environments and new learning. There will be primary, secondary and tertiary education threads. We invite papers on the digital divide, e-learning methods and case studies, mobile and pervasive technologies, digital games, multi-user virtual environments, informal learning, new classroom technologies (PDAs interactive whiteboards, etc), personal learning environments, visual media (videoconference, digital photography), e-portfolios and social software (wikis, blogs, podcasting, etc). The event will once again be held in the spectacular Roland Levinsky Building, on the University of Plymouth main campus.

At the 2009 event over 200 delegates from 17 countries participated over the two days, which saw 2 keynotes, and more than 80 demonstrations, papers, and workshops. Our keynote speakers for the 2010 event are Josie Fraser and Donald Clark.

Josie Fraser is well known in the field of social media and learning, and writes regularly about her research on her blog SocialTech. Josie spreads her time and energy across a wide variety of social media/networking spaces, where she can be found experimenting with all manner of emerging technologies. At the ALT-C 2008 Conference, she received the prestigious Learning Technologist of the Year award and continues to be at the forefront of learning technology development. At this year’s conference Josie will talk about how social media can be used to liberate learners and how we might attain learning without limits in a truly anytime, anyplace context.

Donald Clark was CEO and one of the original founders of Epic Group plc, which established itself as the leading company in the UK e-learning market, floated on the Stock Market in 1996 and sold in 2005. Describing himself as 'free from the tyranny of employment', he is now a board member of Ufi (LearnDirect), LINE Communications, Caspian Learning, Brighton Festival, and a school governor. He has produced over 40 papers, dozens of book reviews and many articles on e-learning. Donald has also won many awards for the design and implementation of e-learning, notably the 'Outstanding Achievement in e-learning Award'. He is a regular speaker at national and international conferences and has won Best Speaker awards at several conferences. Donald is also a regular (and controversial) blogger on e-learning!

On behalf of the local organising committee, I invite you to join us in April 2010 for what promises to be another excellent, enjoyable and thought provoking event.

.. And now a word from our sponsors

It's bitterly cold here in Berlin, but the snow has gone from the ground and the skies here today are a clear pale blue. I'm sat in the Marlene Bar of the Hotel Intercontinental just before the start of day one of the Online Educa Berlin conference. After wading my way through a couple of dozen German policemen, I made my way into the main reception of the conference...

The first thing you notice about Educa, is that it is shamelessly commercial. Most of the space of this huge event is taken up with exhibition and vendor stands, more than 120, and everyone, it seems is trying to flog you something. I have just opened my delegate pack and out popped no fewer than 19 flyers and brochures from sponsors, around an inch thick. They are discarded on the side without me reading any of them - oh woe to the rain forests! Oh, and this wireless link is brought to you courtesy of Adobe....

Last night I spent a very enjoyable hour or so with some of the more notorious Edubloggers including Josie Fraser, David White, Dirk Steiglitz, Graham Attwell and George Roberts. We chewed the fat over the future (or not) of VLEs, residents and visitors, social software and German caberet. Yep, we aren't completely boring.

I will report back on some of the sessions here today and tomorrow as they take place and try to bring you some interesting images from the event. There is also at least one Twemes site hosting images, tweets and blog postings for the event. For now, I'm off to try and avoid the vendor stands and find the sessions.

Resident evil?

Well good grief. There is plenty follow up to the digital immigrants and natives debate. Where? I hear you ask... Well, James Clay over at e-Learning Stuff has just posted up a commentary entitled 'Are you a resident or a visitor?' which addresses the debate from another perspective (read it and you will know). He includes some really useful links to other recent postings by Josie Fraser, Andy Powell, David White and others (you know ... the usual suspects) on the topic of natives and immigrants.

I must admit, this alternative distinction 'visitor' and 'resident' offers a view of behaviour in that 'other place'. I suspect though, that the 'residents' and 'visitors' tag may have been transmitted directly from the Second Life realm, and at present, my SL avatar Loudli Singh still refuses to dance....

Bazaar sounds again

Noises off... and now it's live. Just in case you forgot, Emerging Sounds of the Bazaar, recorded live during ALT-C last week, was a great event. More good news - it's now available for download on the Pontydysgu site. Hosted by Graham Attwell and Josie Fraser, and featuring interviews with Scott Wilson, George Siemens (pictured with Josie) and a host of others, the programme is fast paced, full of pithiness and humour, and features great contemporary music. There are even some poetry performances by George Roberts and me, so it has a little of everything, for everyone. Thanks to Joe, Graham, Cristina, Dirk and the rest of the Bazaar crowd for putting this together.

For me, it is simply a case of listening to it all over again, so that I can relive the very entertaining and thought provoking hour over a hundred of us spent beside the JISC stand at the conference in Leeds last week.

ALT-C 1921 Gala Dinner and Dance

Success has gone to James F. Clay's head, I am sorry to have to report. On the back of his hugely popular and now world famous Hood 2.0 workshop (well, 60.5 people attended), he has decided to throw his hat into the world of cinematography by directing his first feature film. (What next, a line in perfumery??)

The Gala Dinner and Dance for the first ever ALT-C conference, which took place at the University of Bognor Regis in 1921 has been recreated by his illustrious camera, and is shown here in glorious monochrome, complete with virtuoso piano playing by Mrs Mills. Watch out for the Learning Technologist of the Year award ceremony (won by Josie Fraser's Grandmother, the Hon. Josephine Montague-Fraser, DBE), the disgrunted Vulcan diner, the chocolate postal order for 12 shillings and 6 pence ha'penny, and of course, the cold coffee... Oh, and by the way, the picture above is of a formation ball-handling team known as the 'Slam-Dunk Virgins', who won team prize for best research paper at ALT-C 1921.



That's it. I've had enough. I'm going to sleep this off now....

Sessions, slams and serious fun

It's been an interesting and varied day here at ALT-C Day two, at the University of Leeds. A somewhat controversial keynote, and several morning papers and workshops kept us all busy. The Digital Divide web slam event was engaging, fun and jam packed full of ideas about how we are all using technologies to either bridge the digital divides (yes there are several) or to perpetuate them. Several slams were performed, including one by myself, James Clay and Joss Winn (collectively known as the Slam Virgins - don't ask). We actually received the most votes from those present, surprisingly, so we were the winners on the day. The video of our slam 'It's not for Girls!' can be viewed here on Youtube. (Picture by Helen Keegan).

I later spoke at a F-ALT fringe meeting in the middle of the dining room at 3pm, on the subject of Edupunk. There was fertile and passioned debate about whether edupunk exists or is just a fad, and whether the name actually does the concept justice. Thanks to all those who took part - it was another enjoyable and captivating session. (Picture here)

The cream on the cake, literally, was our evening ALT-C Gala Dinner, which was held this year in the executive rooms of Headingly Cricket ground - the home of Yorkshire County Cricket Club and the scene of many fascinating Test matches between England and the tourists. The turf was being dug up as we arrived, which was a disappointment, as I wanted to see the ground in it's full glory. Never mind. It was still pretty spectaculr, as was the food, brought to us by two local catering colleges.

Highlight of the night was watching Josie Fraser receive the prestigious award of Learning Technologist of the Year, and a substantial cash prize, presented by in-coming ALT president Steve Draper (London School of Economics). A splendid time was had by all. Look out tomorrow... last day, here we come.

Looking forward.... to ALT-C

So many things to look forward to next week at ALT-C 2008 at the University of Leeds, although I don't relish the long drive up from Plymouth. The conference promises to be the best yet, if the pre-mailed abstracts and research proceedings books are anything to go by. I'm looking forward to the workshops in particular, including the sessions on Web 2.0 - 'It's a Web 2.0 world out there' (James Clay) and 'Learning about the Digital Divide' (Frances Bell, Helen Keegan, Josie Fraser et al). From such presentations come a host of new ideas, and better still, an energising to go off and try out some new things you hadn't considered before.

There are already success stories before ALT-C has started. Take a look at the Crowdvine site the ALT team set up and you will see that there are already over 340 members (well over half of the 600 plus delegates who are booked into the event). I have already made contact with a number of people I am intending to meet, including one of the keynote speakers, Itiel Dror (Southampton University) and Mark van Harmelen (ALT Director of Operations).

Then of course, there is the Fringe ALT-C event - or F-ALT, as it is being called. There are a limited edition F-ALT badges designed by Josie Fraser that are being given away to the first 50 people who sign up to the F-ALT Wetpaint wiki site. When I looked just now there were already 36 people registered, so be quick if you want a badge! Yes, there is plenty to look forward to....

Slamming about again

At ALT-C 2008 next week there will be several workshops, but one of those I will not miss is the one entitled 'Learning about the Digital Divide', run by Frances Bell, Josie Fraser, Helen Keegan (remember them doing the illustrious Web 2.0 slam at ALT-C Nottingham last year?) joined this year by Cristina Costa (the pocket dynamo of Web 2.0) and Frank Theissen. Out of last year's workshop came a number of interesting artefacts including the cult website Hood 2.0 - which incidently has a workshop in its own right this year! Last year was not only great fun, but also innovative and challenging. I chaired the session, and it was one of the most enjoyable workshops I have every presided over.

This year they have gone one step further and have created a Digital Divide wiki using Wetpaint in which they are inviting everyone and anyone to submit a 'Digital Divide' slam. I have sent one in already - it's a poem entitled 'Hooked' - about the digital divide between immigrants and natives. Check out the site and contribute if you have something you want to get off your chest.... oh, and see you there, I hope.

Meme: Passion Quilt

Right. It's an interesting challenge and looks a little like a chain letter, but here goes. Mike Hasley, of TechWarrior Blog, has laid down a challenge for me and 4 others to add to a collection of photos that represent our passion in teaching/learning. I have to tag it 'Meme: Passion Quilt' and post it on a blog, Flickr, FaceBook or some other social networking tool with a brief commentary of why it is a passion for me. I suppose it's quite appropriate for me to be taking part in something with the tag of 'passion' on Good Friday of all days.

So, above is my picture taken from a tour of South African township schools in 2004. I came out of the school and was instantly surrounded by dozens of school kids, all eager to talk to me. They were such great kids, full of energy and all desperate to learn something new. I showed them my digital camera and took some shots of them. They were probably still talking about it for weeks afterwards. The title of my photo is: 'A Passion to Show'.

Now I have to tag five other friends to see if the meme spreads... Helen Keegan, James Clay, Graham Attwell, Josie Fraser, and Andy Pullman.

Magnificent seven?

It was good to read the Josie Fraser interview today featured on the blog Information World Review. With the strapline "Information professionals guiding you to the best bits of the blogosphere", it's one not to miss for all those who want to know the latest on the practice and art of blogging. Josie is well known for her work in learning technology, and has also run the influential EduBlog Awards for the last three years. It's an annual bash that celebrates best blogs, most influential blog posting, coolest educational wiki, etc, you get the drift....

Best of all, I have been mentioned in dispatches..... Josie lists my blog as one of her top seven favourites, and I find myself in the elevated company of Graham Attwell, Helen Keegan, Steven Warburton, Scott Wilson, Frances Bell and Brian Kelly. Wow - are we the magnificent seven already? If so, I'll be the one who gets shot dead whilst being distracted by a small and demanding child.

Seriously, I'm deeply honoured to be included in such distinguished company. Keep up the good work Josie, and when this year's Edublog Awards come around, I hope there's a new category for the blog containing the most dots ...............

Wham, Slam, thank you m'ams

I thought Josie Fraser, Helen Keegan and Frances Bell caught the mood of the ALT-C conference today with their excellent workshop this morning entitled: 'Web 2.0 Slam'. In it they worked through a number of salient issues about the use of social networking technologies, including privacy, identity, communication and copyright. (That's me pictured with Helen doing a Web 2.0 Slam on social tagging using bits of crumpled up paper ... yes it really was that mad). The audience was encouraged to participate, and each small group was asked to create a 90 second 'slam', about some aspect of Web 2.0.

The wiki resulting from this session can be found here on Helen's blog. Thanks for an excellent, well worked and thought ptovoking session ladies!