Around the globe again

Yesterday I began my review of a busy year by featuring the top ten cities I visited around the globe in 2010. The countdown continues from 5 to 1:

5) Serekunda, Gambia. Going to the Gambia in February was a profound learning experience for me. Serekunda is the largest city in one of the smallest and poorest African nations and it has to be one of my most inspirational experiences, ever. I was in Gambia looking after some of our education students, and we were on a week long comparative study tour. The students learnt a lot, but then so did I. The noisy bustle of the crowds, the colourful sights, the opressive heat and the huge variety of odours that assail your senses leaves you captivated, bewildered and excited all at once. We visited some of the schools and saw how teachers were coping with no money, few resources and the constant threat from sicknesses such as malaria. They are truly heroic. The pace of life in this tiny west african country is generally slow, but the people's minds are quick, and I had several opportunities to just sit down and talk to local people about life in the Gambia. People in the streets just approach you and want to talk. I learnt a lot about education, society and politics from these folks, and it was a rewarding but also at times a disturbing experience. To say my time in the Gambia changed my perspective on life does not do any justice to what I learnt there. Related blogpost.

4) Napier, New Zealand. During my Antipodean lecture tour in September and October, I arrived in Auckland airport direct from Brisbane and immediately boarded another, smaller turboprop flight which took me directly down to Hawke's Bay and the lovely town of Napier. Napier was the victim of a massive earthquake in 1931 which virtually destroyed it and killed 161 of its inhabitants. The centre and seafront of Napier was rebuilt shortly afterwards and many of the buildings retain their colourful Art Deco designs. It's one of the best preserved examples of this architectual period in existence, and wandering around the town is absolutely wonderful, even if you are an art philistine. I was collected from the airport and taken to my hotel by my good friend Joyce Seitzinger, who works at the Eastern Institute of Technology, who were also hosting the national New Zealand Applied Business Education conference. I had been invited to keynote the event and was accomodated in the best hotel in town, overlooking the seafront and the conference venue. I took a photo of the rising sun from my hotel room window the following morning and incorporated it into the title slide of my presentation, much to the delight of my audience. Related blogpost.

3) Nuremburg, Germany. It's the place you read about in all the Second World War history books. Nuremburg is famous for being the site of the Nazi war crime trials. But if the city was remembered just for that episode, it would be doing the city an injustice. Nuremburg is deep in the German region of Bavaria, and is such a charming place with its medieval castles and architecture that largley survived the allied bombing. I spent a pleasant afternoon in the warm May sunshine wandering around just sampling the atmosphere and enjoying a meal of bratwurst and potato salad, accompanied by a fine draft of the local brew. Speaking of beer - the famous Bergkirchweih beer festival in nearby Erlangen was quite a spectacle. With 11,000 seats, it is the largest beer festival in Europe. I was in Erlangen to meet with colleagues on the Concede project, and during our evening out at the beer festival I amused myself observing the antics of a local cast of thousands as they consumed large quantities of the falling down water and their collective bodily co-ordination gradually deteriorated. I stuck to drinking Radlers - the German eqivalent of shandy (beer and lemonade) just to be on the safe side. Related blogpost.

2) Auckland, New Zealand. I set foot in New Zealand in October, in the Southern Hemisphere springtime. It's just about as far away from the UK as you can get, but as I had already spent a week in Australia, I was just about acclimatised to springtime in Autumn and being 12 time zones away from my own. Auckland is the first city of New Zealand, but it's not the capital. It just behaves as if it is, sprawling for many miles across the northern tip of the North Island. I was well looked after by both my hosts (I was there to keynote the Auckland University of Technology conference) and also by my own family who live in Mount Wellington, an Auckland suburb. Highlights of my stay in Auckland were a trip to Devonport on the ferry, and the view from Mount Eden over the city. I also spent a lot of time with my cousins, second cousins, and their delightful children, who took a real shine to me. I was sorry to leave this wonderful place with its friendly people, but I will be back there again in December 2011. Related blogpost.

1) Valencia, Spain. This was my first visit to the beautiful Spanish city of Valencia, but I hope it will not be my last. I was in Valencia in June to speak at the EDEN Conference, and I was very impressed with the city. I stayed in a hotel just across the road from the stunning City of Arts and Sciences (Ciudad de las Artes y de las Ciencias) and made three visits during the few days I was there, because I needed time to take it all in. To say it is visually stunning is an understatement. I have already blogged about it here, so I will leave you to appreciate the picture on the left which I hope captures just a little of the futuristic grandeur of the place. I met up with several people at the conference who I had always wanted to speak to, including George Siemens, Alex Pickett and Sebastien Fiedler, whom I spent some time with. The EDEN conference was as usual, a mix of new and old, challenging and mundane, and you took your chances, but the networking opportunities were excellent, and time 'off the pitch' was time well spent.

Around the globe again by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Around the globe

2010 has been another busy year for me, with a lot of travel and I estimate that I have more than 54,000 air miles to my name - more than twice around the globe. When I add all my hours travelling in trains and buses on top, and all the hours spent waiting in airport lounges, it makes me feel exhausted just thinking about it. But the travel is part of my job, and on reflection, it has all been worth it. I have met some extraordinary people, learnt some valuable lessons and have visited some incredibly beautiful and captivating places. Here are the first 5 of my top ten interesting cities of 2010 (I will post my top 5 tomorrow):

10 =) Budapest, Hungary. Budapest is always beautiful, no matter what time of year you visit. On my previous 2 visits, the city was basking in the sunshine of midsummer. This time we were shivering in close to zero temperatures of early winter. I was in Budapest to keynote the EDEN Research Workshop, and also to meet with colleagues on the Concede (user generated content) project. This time I stayed on the Pest side of the river for the first time, and spent some time in the freezing air wandering around some of the winding backstreets of the city. I came across several Bohemian cafes where student life had a high profile. This is a picture I took looking across from the Pest to the Buda side of the Danube, with the Firsherman's Bastion (Varhegy) in the distance and two of the popular river launches in foreground. There are several universities clustered along the banks of the Danube, and the nightlife is vibrant as a result. I noticed that just as I had seen during my summer visits to Budapest, people still sit outside to eat and drink in the cafes and bars here. They just wrap up warm and sit huddled together underneath the heaters. Related blog post.

10 =) Helsinki, Finland. Yes, I know I said this would be my top ten, but this is my way of squeezing eleven favourite cities into a top ten blog post. This was also my third visit to the capital of Finland, and again as in previous years, I was priviledged to be there just after the midsummer solstice when the sun in the Northern hemisphere is at it's highest. You need to personally experience the white nights of Scandinavia to properly appreciate how amazing they are. It's difficult to sleep at night unless you have some heavy curtains, because there is no night - only twilight for a few hours. I was invited to Helsinki to serve on a two day panel of experts as we assessed over 4 dozen applications for educational research grants provided by the Academy of Finland. It was hard work but a lot of fun and very fulfilling, as we selected several worthy research projects and signed off several million Euros of research funding for education that day. I took a walk along the southern quayside during my last day in the city, and saw some wonderful views, including this old trawler vessel, now converted into a fun riverside restaurant and bar. Related blog post.

9) Leeds, England. Compared to the other locations in my top ten, Leeds may not appear to be particularly silubrious. But you really need to explore the city to discover that it has a lot to offer everyone, whatever your entertainment, cultural or gastronomic tastes. The area I stayed in, around the canal area, is stunning, with extravagant outdoor lighting and some stunning architecture too. I was in Leeds last year to Keynote a Higher Education Academy conference at Leeds Metropolitan University. I enjoyed my visit then, and I enjoyed it just as much this time, where I was keynote speaker for the Txttools Let's talk about TXT event, on the University of Leeds Bodington campus (home of the Bodingtons VLE team). The ALT-C conference will also be held in this fine city in September, on the main University of Leeds city campus. It promises to be another great gathering of the learning technology community.

8) Berlin, Germany. It's the gathering point for the e-learning glitterati at the end of November/beginning of December every year. Online Educa Berlin regularly attracts over 2000 delegates, and in winter the city of Berlin always shimmers in the crisp, snowy atmoshere of Germany's first city. The conference is traditionally held in one of Germany's largest hotels, the Hotel Intercontinental, which is situated centrally in Budapesterstrasse, right next to the city Zoo. I met too many old friends to mention in a single blog post, but also some new friends too. And I was also honoured to be invited to speak at three separate sessions during the conference, with subject as diverse as Web 3.0, digital research ethics and Open Educational Resources. During the event, it snowed heavily, providing a magical backdrop for many meetings and much fun. All too quickly the conference was over and we were wending our ways homeward. Related blog post.

7) Christchurch, New Zealand. I was in Christchurch for my biggest gig of the year, and possibly my largest speaking engagement so far. I was one of 4 keynote speakers at the Ulearn conference, New Zealand's (and probably the Southern Hemisphere's) premier education conference, and my audience on Day 2 of the event was almost 1800 teachers. I also hosted 2 workshops during Day 3, on Teaching with Twitter, and Learning in a Web 2.0 World. My slideshow for my Twitter workshop is available for free download here. I also recorded an Edtalk on OER for the Core Ed people who were running the conference. Wandering around the city of Christchurch was an experience, not least because it was still recovering from the September quake that had damaged it so severely. Christchurch itself reminded me so very much of middle England, with quaint old buildings, punting on the River Avon amid the weeping willows, old college style architecture, and a genuine old English ambience. Prior to the conference, we were rocked by a 5.0 magnitude earthquake - and that was decidedly very un-English. Related blog post.

6) Brisbane, Australia. The Gold Coast. Brisvegas. Brizzie. It's just a great place to be. Although I was very jet-lagged, and had been travelling for over 30 hours, it was great to finally arrive in Brisbane. Even though it rained incessantly for the first 3 days I was in the city, it was still very warm, and as my mental fog began to clear, I managed to get out and about and see some of the incredible sights of this glistening city. The South bank cultural area in which I was staying, with its fascinating museums and urbane art galleries was one of the highlights. Enjoying an evening meal on the South bank with Alan Levine and Larry Johnson was another - we all just happened to be staying in the same hotel at the same time - how cool is that? While I was in Australia I also gave a keynote speech to Kaplan University online, and presented two papers at the World Computer Congress, held in the capacious Brisbane Conference and Congress Centre. Perhaps the best highlight of my visit to Brisbane though, had to be the two days I spent with Philip Long's Learning Technology team on the beautiful sub tropical campus of the University of Queensland. My grateful thanks to all of them for welcoming me and looking after me so well with their true Aussie hospitality. Related blogpost.

Tomorrow: My top 5 cities of 2010.

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

Bridging the divide

The United Kingdom is one of the richest countries in the world, and yet, in the second decade of the 21st Century, it still has one million children without access to computers and 2 million with no access to the Internet. The digital divide is real. A Guardian article today reads:

"More than one million children in Britain live in homes without computers and a further two million have no internet connection at home, a charity said yesterday). The e-Learning Foundation said it feared the gap between rich and poor pupils' performance at school would widen unless more was done to ensure that every child can use a computer at home".

This has always been one of the most trenchant problems with technology. The divide between the 'haves' and the 'have nots' may be economic, but it has far reaching social, cultural and political consequences. Relatively, the UK is better off than most other countries in the world, but as the BBC News website reports, there are still a million children who are being left behind. As affluent as it is, the UK still cannot claim to have provided universal access to one of the most basic educational resources. The connection has already been made between access to home computers and learning excellence. It is patently clear that children who do not have home computer/internet access are at a disadvantage when it comes to completing homework, researching assignments and sustaining informal learning. In the last two decades there have been many initiatives in the UK and elsewhere to establish ubiquitous access to the web. It's an essential tool for learning. It seems these initiatives have only been partially successful, and we are still failing many of our children through lack of vision. What should be done next to bridge the digital divide?

Image source


Bridging the digital divide by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

The Christmas we get, we deserve

It's Christmas Eve, and almost midnight, so I'd better make this quick. I just want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas, and while I'm at it - how about a Happy and successful New Year too. This year, we have a white Christmas, the first time for many many years, and it's not all it's cracked up to be, I can tell you. When Bob Geldof wrote 'It's Christmas time and there's no need to be afraid', he obviously hadn't ventured out into our street. The snow that looked to lovely as it fell last week has now outstayed its welcome. It has turned to sheet ice, and we now have a skating rink outside, which is conducive to neither vertical posture nor dignity. I know this from personal experience, because I came a cropper yesterday and will have the bruises to prove it long into 2011. It's strange, but when you fall over, it doesn't matter how badly you have injured yourself - it's more important to look around and check that no-one has actually seen you fall over. But it's not all bad news.

We are having pork this year for Crimbo. Pork. See, last year's Christmas dinner was a disaster. The turkey was too big to fit in our small oven. I suggested we stuff the turkey with the oven and cook it from the inside out, but my wife was having none of it. She was worried it might invalidate the warranty. I said I didn't know that turkeys had warranties. The look I got was frostier than Christmas. Good job KFC was still open. This year we will also avoid the brussel sprouts too. Little green morons. I can't stand them. There were none left in Tesco yesterday when we did our final, last minute shopping, and my wife was distraught. I pretended to be unhappy too, and tried to look sympathetic but it's hard to, when inside you're grinning and yelling 'RESULT!' Brussle sprouts? The Belgians can keep them.

I'm a little uneasy tonight though, between you and me. I know it's a simple spelling mistake, but I don't really think it's a good idea for my kids to invite Satan to come down our chimney. Along with the glass of brandy and the carrot, I'll be laying out some garlic cloves tonight, just in case. So tomorrow it will be wrapping and tinsel all over the carpet as the kids rip open their presents, and then later, once the detritus of lunch has been dealt with, we will all gather around the box to watch some tired, mumbling old woman pontificate on the meaning of life.

Then after watching Oprah, we will watch the Queen's Christmas message too. And the reruns of old feature films. Once again we will miss the real meaning of Christmas, the reason for the season. Then next week we'll all be in town for the sales, and low and behold, in the shops they'll be removing all the Christmas trappings and trying to flog us Easter eggs and chocolate bunnies. In the midst of all the commercialism and hype, I guess no-one ever makes the link between the baby in the manger and the bloke on the cross...? Oh boy. As Greg Lake once declared, the Christmas we get we deserve.

Merry Christmas everyone!

And, I can only hope, a relatively peaceful New Year.

Image source

Weird recursion

Brian Kelly has posted a fascinating analysis of the success of my slideshow 'Web 3.0 - the way forward?'. In What's the value of using Slideshare? he addresses several pertinent issues, and I highly recommend it as a thought provoking read. The story so far: You may recall if you have read previous posts on this blog that in July this year I presented a talk for an audience of 15 teachers. My 'audience' rapidly increased 1000 per cent when I posted my slides on Slideshare. In his post Brian asks several pertinent questions related to the potential amplification affordance of services such as Slideshare. But that's not the end of the story....

Brian used the hit count statistics of my slideshow as an example of event amplification in a keynote presentation he gave in Girona, Spain, just one week later. Because I featured in his presentation, I thought I had better watch the video recording of his presentation. In doing so, I opened up another set of questions, totally unrelated to the amplification issue. What happened was that while Brian was setting up his slideshow and preparing for his keynote, the microphone and video camera were live for about 60 seconds before he started. Although this is not a long time, it's long enough and it made me think. For me, this opened up questions about whether the amplification of events through live streaming was ethical, if either a) speakers were unaware they were being streamed (I'm sure Brian had already consented and was fully aware) or b) speakers were unaware that the pictures and sounds were live when they were not expecting them to be.

Recall earlier this year how the UK's former Prime Minister Gordon Brown was caught off camera but with his TV lapel microphone still live, making disparaging comments about a member of the public he had just met. Although arguably, this incident alone may not have lost him the general election, it severely damaged his reputation and standing amongst the electorate. The microphone gaffe - as its now known, even has its own Wikipedia page.

I'm not sure Brian knew the microphone and camera were live, and he certainly didn't make any gaffes or 'off the record' remarks which might have damaged his excellent reputation. But other speakers might not be so measured, and if 'off the cuff' remarks are made during open but unnoticed live streaming, what are the ethical implications? I have subsequently used image captures of Brian's keynote to illustrate this point at conferences in Nottingham and Berlin. To the observer these references within references must seem like some weird kind of recursive sequence, but I assure you, we didn't plan it.

Image source

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

Web 3.0 and onwards

Web 3.0: The way forward?

View more presentations from Steve Wheeler.

Continuing my retrospective of the year, one of the surprising highlights for me was the aftermath of a presentation I gave at a school in Exeter, South West England, in July. I was invited by Vitalmeet to present my latest views on the future of the web in education, so I chose to talk about 'Web 3.0 - the way forward?' When I arrived, the room wasn't that ideal, and the projector was on its last legs. Only 15 people turned up, and that included the organisers. Not particularly auspicous. I gave my presentation, and no-one wished to asked any questions afterwards. I made for the door... then someone asked me if they could have my slides. I promised I would post them up on my Slideshare site so they could gain access.

To say I was amazed at the response is an understatement. My Web 3.0 slideshow received 8,000 views during its first week. Within the month, the count had risen to over 15,000 views - my original audience had multiplied a thousand times. Even more valuable for me, many people commented and shared their ideas to me, which led to to write further blog posts, and publish a second, related post entitled Web x.0 and beyond. It seemed that these ideas had resonated in the blogosphere. Tracking back I could see that many people had discovered the presentation and had deemed it worthy enough to embed within their own websites and blogs, and that many more had commented on Twitter and elsewhere. It had gone viral. This for me was just more proof that the social web is extremely powerful and tools such as Twitter, blogs and resource sharing sites are very effective event amplification tools. Here it is above, one more time, for anyone who missed it.

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

Living in our global village

When I reflect on my visit earlier this year to the Gambia, and my trips to other poor countries, I tend to gain some real perspective on my life. I'm left asking what will the future hold for the Gambian children in this picture? I spent some time with them all, and they are certainly as bright and enthusiastic as any kids I have met in my own country. How many of these children will survive to adulthood, how many will enjoy happy lives and achieve their dreams? None for sure will have any of the opportunities I had when I was their age. You see, in the Gambia children are forced to leave school when they reach 11, unless their parents can pay for their secondary education. Most cannot.

I can't help but feel extremely privileged to come from a part of the world where electricity, water and gas are all piped to my home, and where education is free for all children up to the age of 18. Even healthcare is free at the point of delivery to all British citizens (and of course to anyone else who is visiting the UK and gets taken ill) courtesy of the National Health Service. Hell, I even have broadband wifi in my house, and enough to feed and clothe my entire family. If I want fresh, clean water, I have simply to walk a few metres to my kitchen sink. The children in the picture have to walk several kilometres every day to fetch their water from a well in a bucket. Yes, I'm very, very fortunate indeed. I have always been affected by the following scenario, ever since I first heard it several years ago. If you want some perspective on your life, read on....

If we could reduce the world’s population to a village of precisely 100 people, with all existing human ratios remaining the same, the demographics would look something like this:

Our village would be populated by 60 Asians, 14 Africans, 12 Europeans,
8 Latin Americans, 5 from the USA and Canada, and 1 from the South Pacific....

51 would be male,
49 would be female.
82 would be non-white;
18 would be white.
67 would be non-Christian;
33 would be Christian.
80 would live in substandard housing;
67 would be unable to read.
50 would be malnourished and 1 dying of starvation;
33 would be without access to a safe water supply;
39 would lack access to improved sanitation;
24 would not have any electricity (and of the 76 that do have electricity, most would only use it for light at night).
7 people would have access to the Internet;
1 would have a college education;
1 would have HIV.
2 would be near birth; 1 near death
5 would control 32% of the entire world’s wealth; all 5 would be US citizens
33 would be receiving (and trying to live on) only 3% of the income of “the village”

Information source

This post is a revised version of Our global village, first published on this blog on February 27, 2010.

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