Deeply personal

When you're on holiday, I guess you must have come across people selling 'personalised' souvenirs. Name plates for doors, T-shirts, mugs, keyrings, even baseball caps - with every name under the sun on them (well almost - the only names I haven't seen on any personalised merchandising are 'Adolf' and 'Jezebel'. I'm not sure why...) Such merchandising is 'personalised' because one of those mugs - the one the shopkeeper hopes you're going to buy - has your name on it. But wait. It's not really personalised is it? You didn't make the mug. Someone made it for you - and then put your name on it. And then you buy it and use it. It becomes yours. But is it really that deeply personal?

I was reading Jim Campbell's article on personalisation of learning again today. I referred to it in my last post and promised I would revisit it. He explores Leadbeater's taxonomy of personalisation as it relates to public health care. Leadbeater's 5 levels of personalisation were: 1) providing more customer friendly services 2) giving people more say in how they use the services 3) giving users more say in how money is spent on the services 4) users become co-designers and co-producers of the services, and 5) self organisation of services by individuals, with support provided by professionals.

Ring any bells yet? For me this resonates clearly with the tension between the provision of Content Management Systems (what we commonly call institutional VLEs) and personal learning environments (PLEs). Campbell argues that the first 3 of Leadbeater's levels are shallow forms of personalisation, while the last two are deeper forms of personalisation. So let's apply this to personal learning environments by translating the 5 levels into an education context.

1) Providing learners with more student centred opportunities 2) giving learners more choice in what they learn, how and when and where they learn it 3) giving learners more say on how resources are used 4) learners design and produce their own content 5) learners self organise their own learning with the support of professionals.

It is clear to see that in an educational context, the same kind of personalisation of services could be applied as in public health care. Can we shift from the edubusiness making a product for the institution, and then branding it on their behalf, to the point where the learner can choose and construct the learning environment they want to use, and the personalise it for themselves? The problem is, learners are a little like patients in many ways - they are the consumers of the product, and transforming them into the co-producers of the service they will also consume requires that a) they view themselves as being capable of doing so b) the professionals who have so far provided the service actually trust them and c) there is an infrastructure in place to support the process. The third component is already in place - Web 2.0 tools are available for all learners to choose and use to support their own self organised learning. It's the first two that are the problem if we are ever to get to the point where learning becomes deeply personal for all.

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Deeply personal by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

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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Natural born cyborgs?

Coming through security at Ljubjana Airport yesterday, I had to remove my belt (no, my trousers stayed up) and my watch. On the other side of the all-seeing eye, having triggered no terrorist alerts or alarm klaxons, I retrieved my belt and wrist watch and put them on again. I grabbed my bag and laptop, and walked off.

It took me approximately 12 seconds to notice my watch was not on my wrist (I can't be certain of course, because my watch was not on my wrist). I retraced my steps and under the stern eyes of the security staff eventually found my forlorn watch - calling out to me from under the conveyor belt. This got me thinking. It doesn't take long for us to notice when something is missing - technology that we wear - that enhances our senses or extends our cognitive abilities. So are we becoming cyborgs?

Strolling across a bridge in Venice on Saturday, during our social event after ICL 2008, I encountered the fellow in the picture above. He was making a point. Posing as a cyborg, bedecked with wearable technology (but ironically, clutching a quill). Is this the future? Will we all walk around in 10 or 20 year's time interacting through technology. I can see the appeal, but I can also see the inherent dangers and hear the howls of protests from those who would rather see a future where we use technology sensibly, sparingly, appropriately. But in 10 or 20 years time, what will be the appropriate use of technology? Andy Clark, chair in logic and metaphysics at the University of Edinburgh believes we are all naturally akin to technology - 'Natural Born Cyborgs'. Is he right? And will cyborg living become more acceptable? Your views are appreciated...

Just Wiliam

Dylan Wiliam nailed it for most of us at the conference this morning. His keynote (the second at ALT-C this year) dealt with how technology will help to change the way our learners are assessed. Building his case expertly (liberally dosed with dry humour) Professor Wiliam showed how formative forms of assessment are key to the success of learning that actually 'sticks'. Teaching is complex and chaotic, he said. Your don't need to know about 'learning styles' either, he said. What you need to know about is differnt styles of teaching, which will tap into and challenge all kinds of learner styles and approaches. Technology can help us to do this he said. He said a lot of things actually, too numerous to mention in this short blog, but interestingly (as with all the Keynotes at ALT-C 2007) his talk is available on Elluminate as a video on demand. Dylan Wiliam's conclusion, convincingly argued for many of the delegates, I sensed, was that automated aggregative technologies will provide the solution where teachers need to know excatly where the group stands in terms of the knowledge and understanding they have just acquired. Straw polls taken through classroom clickers, discourse software (where student responses can be projected onto a screen for the whole group to discuss) or even simple handheld voting,will all indicate to the teacher that students need more explanation, or are ready to move on.

Well, move on we did - because many of the delegates have been talking about this keynote over lunch. The bottom line is: we need to realise it is more important to improve pedagogy than to improve subject knowledge. Wiliam believes that aggregative technologies will do this.