User generated content

We had some quite heated debates at the Concede Project meeting yesterday on the nature and direction of user generated content (UGC). When we met in Erlangen, Germany for our last project meeting in May this year, we came up with a definition of UGC: User generated content is "content created and shared freely by students and/or teachers that has not been formally peer reviewed". We think this definition works, and it appeared recently for example, in my keynote slides for the Budapest EDEN Research Workshop. The debate centred not upon what UGC actually is, but rather upon what happens to it once it is being used (or re-used) by others. For example, does UGC lose its informal nature when components of it are incorporated into say, a peer reviewed journal article, or an assessed essay at a university? My view is no, it doesn't. The wiki page, or blog content, or whatever the UGC format is, remains informal in nature, regardless how elements of it are being used or repurposed. But here lies an interesting point that we made at the project meeting - one of the aims of Concede is to enhance the quality of UGC so that it can be incorporated into higher education provision. It could be argued than that any UGC that has been incorporated into a formalised, peer reviewed piece of work (e.g. as a citation) is an indicator of high quality.

Further, we discussed the idea that although UGC is not formally peer reviewed, it is constantly being informally peer reviewed. Blogs like this one for example, are open for comments from all, novice, enthusiast and expert, to provide feedback, suggestions, even refutations, via the comments box under each post. This is of course, one of the most instant forms of peer review available. We had a very interesting time yesterday, locked into our room on the 11th floor of the Technical University of Budapest's tallest building. I will be writing an interim evaluation report on Concede in the next month or so, as we are nearly midpoint in the project. I will share some of it here on this blog later...


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

Open for use?

Open for use?

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Above are my slides for today's keynote at the EDEN Research Workshop here in Budapest. I'm talking about open educational resources and open scholarship (a form of open educational practice), as well as the power of social media to give every learner a voice. I want to challenge some of the deep seated ideas such as pay wall publishing and closed knowledge systems that are so redolent of the Ivory Tower reputation academia has nurtured over the past few centuries. Nuff said.

Open for use? by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

It's not really learning anymore

The final keynote of this morning's first plenary session at the EDEN Research Workshop in Budapest featured the Open University's Grainne Conole, who in her own inimitable style, crammed so much content into just 30 minutes of fast paced presentation, I found it difficult to take down any meaninful notes. It wasn't her fault though - it was rather a distinct lack of wifi connectivity and technology failure on my part that made me resort for the first time in ages to taking notes with - shock horror - a pen and paper! Well, at least I discovered that I can still write with a pen, albeit a lot slower than I remember doing when I was an undergrad. It's like riding a bike, apparently you never forget - but you do slow down with age. I still wish I could have typed down the notes though - it would probably have done Grainne a little more justice for a great speech. But, here goes:

Grainne talked about educational policy in relation to research, teacher practices and learner responses, and this triumvirate of outcomes can reveal a whole host of influences, including a clash of local culture versus global hegemony. Here she listed a host of learning theories, and linked them to existing pedagogies before weaving them into recent high profile e-learning projects. She cited the abject failure of Google Wave, and suggested that it was the shortfall between how the software could be used (its potential affordances) and the actual perception of its usefulness by users that did for it.

One statement Grainne made will stand out, and should be repeated to all undergraduate students. Acquiring knowledge and recalling it, she said, is no longer adequate - it's not really learning anymore. Anyone can copy and paste from Wikipedia and construct an essay (and I daresay pay for pre-written essays on just about any subject under the sun if they wish to get into wholesale plagiarism). Teachers, she argued, are not fully exploring the full potential and power of learning technologies in the classroom, or indeed outside of it. They perceive a lack of time, lack of skills and few rewards as the key barriers to adoption of new technology for learning. She recommended that we all need to choose between two models: the belief based (implicit) model and the design based (explicit) model.

It's not really learning any more by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Branching out

Gilly Salmon opened the EDEN Research Workshop in Budapest this morning with a keynote entitled 'The tree of Learning: Nurturing the Growth. In it she used her now very well known drawing of a tree with its branches bathed in 'Techno-shine', representative of her argument that all education, whatever it's hue, is now dependent upon and influenced by technology of some kind or another. I guess this is true for the Western industrialised nations of the world, but in Africa and parts of Asia, the shine has a little farther to go to reach their branches. But I digress slightly. Gilly traced the history of education from it's roots to it's new shoots - and in doing so reminded us all that although we have a rich history of pedagogy, some of the branches are falling away, and others are growing in surprising directions. Her metaphor extended to the evolutionary theory of Darwin, and a prediction that some of the unfit practices would not survive. But how to nurture the new growth necessary to keep education healthy? 'The longer you have been in education' she argued, 'the more difficult it will be to shift resources and energy into new ways of teaching and learning.'

There's nothing special about web based learning (and in particular distance and open learning) she argued. They're normal now and anyone who is in education, she said, must use technology. This of course opens up an entire area for discussion - what of the digital divides we still see in society? What about those who cannot or will not engage with new technology in education - will they simply fall away like dead branches on Gilly's proverbial tree of learning? Or will they need to be cut away? Her parting shot was interesting: Quoting John Richardson she pointed out that when it comes to the future, there are 3 types of people: there are those who let it happen, those who make it happen, and those who wonder what happened. I guess regardless of what happens though, the tree will continue to grow - it just depends on how fast, in what direction, and how much fertiliser is required.


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Communities, spaces and pedagogies for the digital age

Communities, spaces and pedagogies for the digital age

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I enjoyed a very interesting and stimulating day at Colchester Institute yesterday, where I gave two workshops for staff entitled: Communities, spaces and pedagogies for the digital age. Above is the slide set I used during the presentations. In both workshops we enjoyed some lively discussion, and hopefully, many were left thinking deeply about how they currently 'do education', and what the possible transformations might be. I have said this before, but I re-emphasised it yesterday, that it is not the technology that inspires or even transforms education - it is the teacher. Let me explain - using a chisel or a paintbrush is not in itself inspirational or transformational. It is the skilled hands of the sculptor or the painter that changes a lump of stone or a bare wall into the work of art. Computers, social media, any web tools we get our hands on, can only be used in this way if the practitioner has a creative vision.

We discussed whether all students have access to the tools. They don't. But the institution does, and it depends on institutional policies whether these opportunities are rolled out fully to all learners. We talked about time and resource constraints - and clearly all schools and colleges are labouring under the cuts, but it has always been thus. We explored the notion of changing pedagogies - now here is an area that is particularly contentious. Do we need to change our teaching approaches to meet the needs of learners in the digital age? Well, I believe we do, but I'm not taking everyone with me on this, and nor do I expect to. All I can do is give examples from my own professional practice (both as a teacher and as a learner) and show people that I can make a success of it. If I can, then maybe they can too. My Personal Learning Network (PLN) on Twitter is growing daily, as I connect with more and more people who have something valuable and interesting to say. It is this kind of dynamic, open networking that is transforming my own practice. Not the tools - the people who are behind them. Thank you to all the staff and particularly Jane Davis, for organising such a great event and for being perfect hosts for me yesterday. Now the @timbuckteeth roadshow rolls onward, tomorrow to Budapest, Hungary from where I will report on the EDEN Research workshop on Open Educational Resources.

Communities, spaces and pedagogies for the digital age by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

I store my knowledge with my friends

I'm at Colchester Institute on Friday to present a workshop entitled: Communities, Spaces and Pedagogies for the Digital Age. It's for a Learning and Teaching development day the Institute is holding where they will explore the theme of Transformational Learning and Teaching. I have spoken several times on transformation learning, and a few years ago actually brought out a book about the transformational power of ICT in education. It's not an easy subject to tackle, particularly in conservative organisations such as schools and colleges, where change of any kind is looked on either with horror (I don't like change) or a jaundiced eye - (yeah right, as if that's going to make any difference...)

During my workshop, which I'm running twice, I'm going to explore how Web 2.0 tools and new approaches to creating learning space might transform the learning experience of students. I'm going to draw on all I have learnt from my recent overseas trips to challenge the audience to think differently, and in so doing, explore what might be possible in both physical and virtual spaces. The notion of community too, will come under scrutiny - what is it that learning in a social world can offer, and how can we foster communities of practice and interest with our students, not only within groups but across entire continents? I'm going to touch on a number of theories, not least Social Constructivism, but also Connectivism, a theory for the digital age.

I have an excellent quote from Karen Stephenson on Connectivist theory: She says: "Since we cannot experience everything, other people’s experiences, and hence other people, become the surrogate for knowledge". In practice, if you put a number of people in the same room and set them a task, they will all apply their own individual knowledge and experience, and in so doing, the sum of the collective effort will be greater than that which each individual could bring to bear on the task - it's known as distributed cognition - that is, no-one can know everything.

Distributed cognition is a multiplier - as some of the exercises I will facilitate will demonstrate. Stephenson goes on to say: ‘I store my knowledge in my friends’ is an axiom for collecting knowledge through collecting people. Wow - this is just the kind of stuff I do within my own community of practice and it's the social web that helps me to achieve this kind of learning. Notably, on Twitter or other social networking services, we all now have the capability to build up and maintain our own personal learning networks (PLNs) which we can draw upon like a water well, when we need it, with specific questions, whilst at the same time, sharing our own ideas, knowledge and expertise, and in so doing, enriching the distributed knowledge of the entire community.

Applying all of this in practice in authentic learning and teaching situations is the real trick.

Image source

I store my knowledge with my friends by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Don't miss the train!

I'm just about to hop on a train and make my way up to Milton Keynes for the first time, where tomorrow I'm an external examiner for one of the Open University's PhD candidates. Before the train arrives, there's just enough time to write a brief review of an extraordinary book that has landed on my desk this week. It's another one of those overprices IGI Global books I'm afraid, but ignoring the cost for a minute, I want to concentrate on the contents.

The book, edited by Mark Lee and Catherine McLoughlin, both of whom I respect immensely, contains some timely and in many cases, leading edge research on the use of Web 2.0 tools in tertiary education. The book is simply and concisely entitled: Web 2.0-Based e-Learning and is aimed at those working in further and higher education. At almost 500 pages, it's a weighty tome, but the 21 chapters it contains (one of which is one of my own) blend together succinctly to provide the reader with a stimulating sequence of accounts, case studies and research reports from across the globe.

Understanding Web 2.0 and its implications for e-Learning by veteran researcher Tony Bates for example, proposes new design models for education and training to better prepare workers in a knowledge based economy. Tracing a history of educational technology from multi-media, through virtual worlds and digital games through to mobile learning and open content, Tony draws out well established learning theories and melds them together with emergent ideas to provide a well argued treatise on how e-learning in all its various forms is evolving.

Another stand out chapter for me, is written by a team from Estonia, and is entitled: Considering students' perspectives on Personal and Distributed Learning Environments in course design. The chapter traces how students represent the structure of their personal learning environments, and their distributed potential. They conclude that any valid course design should enhance social networking, advance self-direction, enable community and group formation, allow for a variety of assessment methods, and support social filtering and mashing up of feeds. The personal learning agenda is well and truly affirmed in this chapter.

One more chapter worthy of mention is phophetically entitled: When the future finally arrives: Web 2.0 becomes Web 3.0. Written by Matt Crosslin, the chapter caught my eye not only because of it's speculative nature (the jury is still out over what Web 3.0 will look like) but also the narrative style it is written in. Crosslin entertainingly paints a picture of what learning might look like 10 years in the future, where students have access to holographic, 3-D full gesture controlled applications, enabling them to learn in a time and location independent manner, collaboratively and flexibly.

I could go on, but my train is pulling into the station, and I really think I ought to get on. More later, when I have had more time to read the book.

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Don't miss the train! by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.