Smart learning

I spend most of my time in the future, but I do go home at weekends. At least, that is my explanation about why I am so fascinated with the future. I always have been, ever since I was a little boy and started reading science fiction novels. From Asimov to Heinlein, and Clark to Wells, I hungrily devoured them all and fed my mind on what was to come.

I'm in a dream job now, talking about technology and learning, and how we can optimise one from the other. Inevitably, people invite me to speak at events and ask me to give my ideas about what is just around the corner.

My recent involvement with the New Media Consortium Horizon Report committee was another outlet for thinking about the future. That came up in today's keynote at the 15th International Conference on Interactive and Collaborative Learning (#ICL2012), here deep in the Austrian Alps, in a little town called Villach. I spoke of Learning 3.0, and speculated on what learning might look like in a few years. I proposed that a great deal of learning will take place in the future through the use of mobile tools, and that tablets, phones and other handheld devices would be just the start of our new technology enhanced learning journey.

Learning 3.0 and the Smart eXtended Web from Steve Wheeler

Augmented reality, intelligent filtering, 3D spatial interaction, enhanced vision and other seemingly exotic or out of reach technologies will one day merge to become our new reality. The technology is already there, but as William Gibson once said 'the future is not widely distributed'. Eventually, all widely adopted technologies tend to fade into the background and become mundane, as learning breaks through to take centre stage. When will this happen? We can't say for sure, because other random factors continually intervene. Pictures and quotes from the past, shown in the slide set above, demonstrate that we are not always very good at predicting accurately what our future will hold, but with current trends, we can see farther than we have ever been able to see before down the corridor of time. And we can see that technology is not slowing down, and neither is our thirst for small gadgets, smart objects and embedded technologies. Learning 3.0 will be the nexus, the meeting point of all these smart tools, where people will connect seamlessly with other people, objects and information and learn when they need to, what they need to, where they need to. We will then be tapping into the combined intelligence of the entire globe, and that will be powerful beyond measure. At least, that is my vision for the future.

I hope you enjoy looking at the slides. I certainly enjoyed presenting them today, and discussing my ideas with delegates at ICL2012 in Villach, Austria.

Photo by Joaquim F. Silva


Smart learning by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at steve-wheeler.blogspot.com.

Damascus Road

Researching Social Media in Education: What can we learn?

View more PowerPoint from Steve Wheeler

My keynote presentation yesterday to the Cyprus International Conference on Educational Research had a mixed reception. Some delegates agreed with the points I made, others were more sceptical. It's interesting when you present what are considered radical ideas to a rather conservative audience and see the reactions around the room. It's like watching the surf hitting the rocks outside the window of my beach hotel room. An unstoppable force against an immovable object, and all that.

The majority of the delegates present were from from Asia, the Middle East and North Africa. When asked, around 75% admitted that they had no involvement whatsoever with any of the social media or networking tools I was talking about. I had to pause at this point to rub my eyes. How can you expect to understand what your students are doing if you don't yourself engage with these tools? was my challenge. I think some were quite appalled when I suggested that even if they ban mobile devices and social networks in their classrooms (which many are doing), the students will still continue to use them, probably under the tables. There were some worried glances when I suggested that the reason students are using mobile devices and social media in the classroom might be to check out how accurate and truthful the lecturer's statements are. This kind of challenge to authority may not be palatable for many conservative academics, but its a plain fact - it happens all the time, and it will grow in its intensity and reach. My message was - get over it - it isn't going away.

I also caused a few ripples on the normally placid pond of academic publishing by showing some recent figures on how successfully the major publishers are exploiting our good will in offering our work to them for free. I called for an end to the enormous profiteering that is currently perpetrated by some publishers, and pointed out that often, public money has funded the research that ends up behind a paywall. That was the main reason, I declared, that I resigned from my job as Co-editor of a major Taylor and Francis journal late last year. I could not, in good conscience, continue to help the publishers to line their pockets off the back of free labour, and publicly funded research that ended up behind a pay wall, read by very few people who had the means to pay for it.

I cited figures from two of my own papers, both published around the same time (in the slideset above) which showed the unacceptable editorial/review lead in times for many closed journals in comparison to open online journals. Paper based journals suffer from editorial back logs and there is little they can do to alleviate this problem. Some have established online 'early' publishing systems that host accepted papers prior to full publication, but they remain behind the paywalls. The most stunning comparison I offered was between the citations metrics of my two papers. The closed journal paper had received 19 citations against 511 for the open journal publication in the same time period. This alone, I argued, shows that open journals have the edge over closed journals, with many, many more people reading the free to view articles. If we want widespread dissemination of our findings, we need to look to the open journals, with their vast readerships.

During the question time, objections were voiced. I expected it. One delegate claimed that the review processes for open journals were not as rigorous. Well, that's just your perception, I countered, and it's a very challengable statement. I pointed out that in some open journals, review processes are even more rigorous - my open access journal article for example, was reviewed by three separate reviewers. The fact that they were unblinded (they knew our author names and we knew their names) and that the reviews and our responses were posted up online alongside the paper openly, created a higher quality, and more transparent review than the traditional closed, double blinded reviews could ever hope to achieve. Well, I did my best, and hopefully, some delegates will have a Damascus Road experience before they submit their next journal article. Perhaps some will think twice about banning mobile devices and social media in their classrooms in the future - and hope against hopes - some may even take the plunge and subscribe to a social network or two. We live in hope.


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

Down under

I'm in Australia this week to give the opening keynote for the Inaugural Technology for Learning and Teaching Forum, which will be held over two days at the Rendezvous Hotel in Melbourne, just across from Flinders Street Railway Station (pictured). Melbourne, this part anyway, is quite Bohemian, bustling, vibrant and very colourful. You can stand on a street corner and watch the whole of humanity pass by in about ten minutes. The other invited keynote at the event will be Tom Cochrane (Auckland University of Technology, NZ) who will address the topic: Transforming pedagogy with Mobile Web 2.0. Here are Tom's key points:

·         This session will reflect on the impact of over 30 mlearning projects between 2006 and 2011 illustrating how mlearning can be used as a catalyst to transform pedagogy from instructivist teacher-directed pedagogy to social constructivist pedagogy that bridges pedagogically designed learning contexts, facilitates learner generated contexts, and content (both personal and collaborative), while providing personalisation and ubiquitous social connectedness.

·         The session will outline an mlearning implementation strategy, and illustrative case studies. Links to supporting material can be found at http://web.me.com/thom_cochrane/MobileWeb2/, and http://thomcochrane.wikispaces.com/.

My own keynote speech is entitled: Learning Generations: Looking forward, looking back. I'm also going to be addressing how we might transform the learning experience, and will be interested to see what common areas Tom and I will touch on. Here are my topic headings:

·         A history of learning technology, change management and the adoption of new and emerging technologies in education.

·         Possible tensions between teacher and learner needs and expectations

·         Personal learning environments and student owned devices and their role within institutional contexts

·         The evolution of the web and what new roles teachers will need to adopt to harness the power of new and emerging technologies

·       I will argue that teachers and learners need new pedagogies and literacies if teaching and learning is to be optimised in the digital age. 

The rest of my Down Under lecture tour can be found here on this site.

Image by Hradcanska



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

Learning without Limits

We are gearing up to host the 4th Plymouth e-Learning Conference in a few weeks time, and with over 200 delegates already registered, and more than 80 presentations, workshops and demonstrations on offer, it promises to be a memorable event. But even before this event is put to bed, we already have the theme and title for PELC 2010. And yes, the eagle-eyed will note that I have borrowed a little from one of my heroes, Sir Arthur C. Clarke. The first call for papers for PELC 2010 will be out soon with the eye catching space motif. The full title for the 5th Conference which will be held in Plymouth on 8-9 April 2010, is 'Learning without Limits: Facing the Challenges', and here's your first sight of the conference theme:

The theme for the 5th Plymouth e-Learning Conference – Learning without Limits - will address the notion of anytime, anyplace learning. It will highlight the growing number of contexts in which learning can take place. 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.

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

So, if you are not able to make this year's event, we hope to see you in Plymouth for 2010. Start writing your proposal now, and .... book early!

Image Source

danah et mobile

I have just been into the National Express office and booked my coach travel to London for Handheld Learning next week. The bus is still cheaper than rail travel, although not as exciting. I'm following the tweets from MLearn 2008 which is on as I write and I'm a little bemused. Not a lot of new things seem to be coming out and those twittering seem to be less than enamoured by the proceedings. Maybe it's just my reading too much between the lines, or perhaps we are all becoming a little too cynical?

No matter, next week I'm attending Handheld Learning 2008 at the Brewery in London, and for once in my life, I am not presenting a paper, chairing, organising, demonstrating, exhibiting or otherwise making a nuisance of myself. I'm simply there as a punter (.....*and relax*). I am really looking forward to hearing how people are using mobile and handheld technologies in teaching and learning, and hope to make some new contacts while I'm there. Their organisation looks excellent, and they have already set up an online discussion forum and several services including Twitter and Twemes streams (just as we would expect them to!).

There are several noteworthy speakers I will be making an effort to go and hear, including Stephen Heppell, danah boyd (why is it she has her name in lower case, and what dreadful revenge does she mete out on those who fail to comply?) and Keri Facer. Marc Prensky, who is speaking at both events, will no doubt cause some consternation and controversy as usual. All have contributed significantly to our understanding of digital learning technologies, and all will no doubt have some interesting things to say. And of course, old friends such as Mike Sharples, Kath Trinder, James Clay, Mark Kramer and John Traxler should all be on good form. If you see me, say hello. I haven't bitten anyone in years....

A JISCy Business

There are a number of conferences I plan to attend this year, so I can find out what the latest is on e-learning and how it is being embedded in education. If you bump into me, do say hello ..... I haven't bitten anyone in over a year now. I have also been invited to speak at several conferences, and will do my best to report back from as many events as I can over the year, right here in this blog.

One particularly interesting fast approaching event is hosted by the JISC South West Regional Support Centre in Bristol, on April 8th, four days after the Plymouth e-Learning Conference. Entitled Innovation through partnership, the one day event will showcase several recently funded projects. Mobile learning will feature, as will videoconferencing. Shibboleth will rear it's head, and digital repositories will put in an appearance. My two (yes two) papers will feature our CETT funded projects on blogging for mentors and wikis for delivery of the minimum core delivery. You'll be hearing so much about these two studies from this blog over the year that you will probably sell up house and move somewhere where the internet isn't... Mars is a possible option.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to attending, and hearing some interesting, kind of JISCy stuff. See you there maybe...?

Mast hysteria?

Two interesting articles about wireless technologies grabbed my attention this week. The first warns about the dangers of children using wi-fi laptops. Professor Lawrie Challis (University of Nottingham) suggests that teachers should discourage children from sitting with wireless laptops on their laps in much the same way that they should be discouraged from holding mobile phones to their heads for prolonged periods.

Sounds like common sense to me, but what he doesn't say (at least in the BBC news report) is that non-ionising radiation from mobile phones and wi-fi laptops target two of the most sensitive, high fluid content organs in the body - the brain and the gonads. How serious is that, and what will be the long term effects? Well, not many people have paid serious attention to the issue, mainly because the mobile phone companies have a vested interest in making sure it is not an issue (But check out George Carlo's research, for an alternative perspective).

The second item of news, found in the Guardian Online, argues that mobile phone masts have been responsible for the disappearance (read 'deaths') of Britain's sparrow population. Got me thinking... what other things are fast disappearing as a result of more than 35,000 mobile phone masts in our society? How about a top 5?

• Accurate spelling for those under 25


• Unspoilt British countryside


• Local Government integrity (hmmm....)


• Peaceful rides on public transport


• Uninterrupted meetings, cinema shows, concerts, theatre .....

Want to add some more?