We are at online Educa Berlin 08. It is my first time in this event. I have always heard wonders about it, and now I can see why. This is huge, hence impressive. But what I am enjoying the most is indeed all the fun and informal activities I have been able to take part in. And that was also the most popular arguments amongst experienced fellow researchers and practitioners who advised me about this conference – the networking opportunities. you are SO right. This is brilliant! 😉
And it started right after the moment I set foot in the intercontinental hotel yesterday evening. I met the ‘suspicions ones: Among them the Ponty dream (Graham Attwell and Dirk Stieglitz), Josie Fraser, George Robertx, Joe Rosa, Steven Warburton, Marga Perez, Dave white…and the lsit goes on. It’s great to touch base with these guys once in a while.
To my greastest surprise, a couple of days I heard Buthaina wisher …well twitter …she was coming to Online Educa. One more reason to keep me happy. A really amazing opportunity to meet my fellow webhead from Kuwait. The moment we met, we couldn’t stop talking about the webheads and the passion that keep us connected: the world of education, where the learner and learning are the most important variables. Buthaina really fitted well with the rest of teh JISC team (as any webhead would!) and off we went to the European Edublogger meet-up. Again a lot of fun and great conversations until late in the evening. More people joined in, and once again we welcomed that to broaden our networks.
Today was the official starting of the conference. we had the plenary sessions which counted with the presence of Mike Wesch. I really liked his talk as always and there were some ideas that I hope attendants will take with them. Among others, I would just like to stress some of the key points Wesch valued in his presentation:

Teaching hasn’t changed, but learning surely has – and this is just a simple sentence, but with such a deep meaning. is’t it true. We have changed the way we do things, basically because the society we leave in so requires. however, we keep insisting and teaching people the same way. Something has to give. we need to change attitude. We need to help moving to a 21st century culture, and above all we need to adopt a new approach. Changes only happen if we act.

Learning is not about acquiring information: it’s about sharing it, it’s about co-constructing it; it’s about critically analyzing it. And once again I couldn’t agree more. What is given doesn’t have half the value of what we create ourselves, because in it there is also something of us – the effort we put in it. And that is the added value of learning – to give information a personal touch.

Wesch mentioned many other important aspects, however I haven’t had a chance to capture them all, and hope there’s a videocast out there soon to be released. Nevertheless, I want to leave you with his last remark – a questions which he says to be the answer too:
‘How can we create students that can create meaningful connections’. To that thought I can add that to inspire others to lead us we have to try it ourselves too. So to create students who can create meaningful connections we need first as educators and mentors to re-create ourselves in the connected world and become connected people ourselves. The value of the participatory media is the fact it enables tangible participation in a virtual, yet really real and valuable world, where the interactions and relationships we establish is the true value of technology.

And on that note, I finish this post as it’s time to go and connect to another fellow webhead, Heike Philps, who I have been connecting online for a long time. Today we become f2f buddies as well. As Buthaina is here too, this is also a webhead party. 🙂

Dear All,
We are in Berlin and preparing to go live in less then an hour.
For those who want to join us either face to face or online, here are some deatails.

Graham Attwell is broadcasting today (4Dec) a 40 minute show at 11:00 CET (check your local time here http://tinyurl.com/66amtz ) live from Online Educa Berlin. The show will feature a mix of interviews with speakers and live debates on emerging issues from the conference. The programme is streamed live and can be listened to in any MP3 application (link here http://tinyurl.com/6df6ar ). A chat room will also be available here http://tinyurl.com/sounds08 (no password required – just add your name, and hit log in, leaving th epassword field blank).
The show will also be subsequently available as a podcast (download will be available at www.pontydysgu.org ).
If you happen to be in Berlin, you can join the show live at the ICWE booth at stand B 54.
The shows are sponsored by the JISC Users and Innovation programme Emerge project.

To find out about all the Emerge activities at Online Educa go to http://tinyurl.com/5m9zf2

It’s been a really interesting opportunity, and we will be blogging more about it later.

Above all, it’s been a great networking opportunity! And like Mike Wesch said this morning: in the question ‘how can we create students that can create meaningful connections?’  is the answer. So, the way I see it, we, as educators, need to make those connections ourselves to be able to deeply understand what it takes and then be able to mentor others. And that’s exactly what we are doing here! 😉

Interesting survey by the UK Chartered Management Institute and reported in the Guardian newspaper.

“The institute interviewed 1,000 managers aged 35 and under, working in industry, commerce, local government and the police. Their most common complaint was that older bosses regarded the internet as “a massive timewaster”. Half said their organisations did not take up web-based technology until it was tried and tested, and 16% described their employers as “dinosaurs”. The survey found most young managers wanted to use the internet for research, professional development and other aspects of getting the job done. But employers treated it with suspicion. The survey found 65% of organisations monitored usage, rising to 86% in local government and 88% in the police. This led 65% of employers to block access to “inappropriate” sites, rising to 89% in local government and 90% in the utilities. Eighteen per cent of employers limited internet access to certain times of day, rising to 38% in the insurance industry.”

Some two years ago we published the results of a project looking at e-Learning in Small and Medium Enterprises in Europe. We undertook 105 case studies in six different countries. We found few instances of formal e-learning (or formal learning of any kind). However we found extensive use of the internet for informal learning. Older workers were more likely to use ICT for learning than younger staff. This, we concluded, was due to two reasons: older workers were more likely to have unlimited access to the internet becuase of their seniority. And older workers were more likely to have autonomy to use the results of their learning in the workplace.

The Chartered Mangement Instutute survey shows that businesses have still not progressed in their understanding of learning, less still in thinking about innovation. Informal learning is potentially the most powerful driver of innovation. But this requires both access to learning opportunties and work organisations which allow autonomy to utilise learning. Most businesses still don’t get it.

NB Sadly I cannot find an online copy of the Chartered Mangement Institute Survey. Probably costs lots of money. But you can download the book we produced – Searching, Lurking and the Zone of Proximal Development – E-Learning in Small and Medium Enterprises in Europe – for free.

Not sure whether I agree with Andy about what is creativity. But the ‘video in the video’ is stunning and I love how such a short video can be so effective in getting across the message. Wish they had posted a reference frame, though.

No, not the power of learning. Power relations and learning.

I worry sometimes that those evangelists (said in a nice way, I am one myself) of a new way of learning, ignore the power relationships in society. Education itself, will not change the world. Power remains unevenly distributed.  More problematically, it is not in the interests of those who run a our society to allow us all to learn for ouselves, unfettered by control – be it control to access ot learning or control of what we learn. Contrast these statments:

“Over the last ten years, this model has been seen in many quarters to be obsolete. We have seen the emergence of a new model, where education is practiced in the community as a whole, by individuals studying personal curricula at their own pace, guided and assisted by community facilitators, online instructors and experts around the world.

Though today we stand at the cusp of this new vision, the future will see institutions and traditional forms of education receding gradually, reluctantly, to a tide of self-directing and self-motivated learners. This will be the last generation in which education is the practice of authority, and the first where it becomes, as has always been intended by educators, an act of liberty.” – Stephen Downes

I wish I was as optimtistic as Stephen. But read this from George Roberts’ newly launched work blog: “Irving Wladawsky-Berger, (read his blog) President Emeritus of the IBM Technology Academy and visiting/adjunct professor at MIT and Imperial College, argues, for a mixed mode of social control in which participatory governance models and hierarchical governance models share the challenge of institutional survival in a social darwinian market environment where, “… you make mistakes you die”.

Capitalism is adapting to new economic relaities of Open Source and global markets. Learning is powerful and education forms part of the ideological state apparatus. Power will not be ceded because we have a better idea of organising universal access ot education. Educational technolgits must understand these realisties and better still join those fighting for economic, social and politcial chnage.

Next week Graham, Dirk and Cristina are heading off to the Online-Educa Berlin conference. We will be working with the good folks from Emerge to organise a series of fringe events. And you are invited. Almost all our events are free, whether or not you are registerd as a delegate. You can get full details on the Wales Wide Web blog.

And if you cannot make it to Berlin tune in to our Sounds of the Bazaar radio shows, LIVE from Berlin on Thursday and Friday. The blog post gives details about how to access the programme. You can also join our Facebook Group or follow us on Twitter for up to the moment announcements and fun.

its that time of year again. And next week me, Dirk and Crsitina will be heading off to the InterContinental hotel in Berlin for three days of fun.

And, as you would expect we are organising our own programme around the conference. We are working with Josie, Steve, George, Paul and Joe from Emerge to put together a some unconferencing enents and demos of Emerge projects. Here are some of the events (I will post the times for the project demos as soon as I get confirmation).

Wednesday 3 December – 2030 CET Edubloggers meetup – Ambassador lounge bar  Sorat Hotel Ambassador Berlin, Bayreuther Straße 42 · D-10787 Berlin (Five minutes walk from InterContinental)

Thursday 4 December – 11.00 CET – Sounds of the Bazaar LIVE from the conference.  ICWE stand B54.

If you cannot make it to the conference listen to the programme live – go to http://tinyurl.com/6df6ar in your web browser. The programme will open in your MP3 player of choice.

Thursday 4 December – 19.30 CET – Microblogging debate, Marlene Bar, Intercontinental Hotel

Friday 5 December – 11.00 CET – Sounds of the Bazaar LIVE from the conference.  ICWE stand B54.

Friday 5 December – 13.00 CET – Special Interest Group Lunch on microblogging (SIG lunches), Bellevue Room, InterContinental Hotel

Further Special Interest Group Lunches to be announced.

With the exception of the Special Interest Group lunches all these events are free and open to anyone regardless of whether you have registered at the conference. If you are in Berlin just drop in and find us. Between events you will have a good chance of finding one of us on the Jisc Stand.

To keep in touch with what we are doing follow Graham Attwell, Josie Fraser and Cristina Costa on Twitter. Or join our Sounds of the Baazaar Facebook group.

Its been a bit of an event week. Cetis and Emerge held conferences. MirandaNet and the Amplified people held events. I took part in them all to a greater or lesser extent. Online.

Emerge was by invitation. But I turned up at the rest by following urls on shout outs on twitter. Twitter is becoming a professional and social calender.

So far so good. But opportunities for participation and interaction varied greatly. This is partly due to the technologies. From one extreme to the other – Emerge used the Elluminate platform which allows a high degree of particaption whilst MirandaNet had a hand held vdeo camera linked to u-stream. Cetis had no video feed but the event was intensively covered in Twitter and live blogged as well. The Amplified people ambitiously tried to provide four different video streams. With both the MirandaNet and the Amplified event the audio quality was poor. These things happen and I am sure the technology will get better. My only observation would be that whilst people invest a lot of energy into video feeds they seem to ignore the need for high quality micrrophones. Indeed, a preamp to pick up the audio directly would seem a worthwhile investment if people really want to get their event out on the net.

But it is the event organisation or pedagogy which concerns me more. Organising a Blended Event is like organising a belended learningc ourse. You cannot just replace the nromal face to face elements of the course with the smae pedagogci approache son the ineterent. It requires thought and design. And if you really want such a blended prohgramme – rather then just pushing out a video feed of the face to face event – then the design of the event will have to be changed. For Emerge, it was diifcult to see what added value there was for the Face to Face participants. For MirandaNet and Amplified the opportunities for active partication by on-line participants was limited. In some ways the Cetis people who did not stream their conference may have got more interaction through the use of Live Blogging and Twitter than those who did provide a video stream.

We do not really seem to know how to do these things at the moment.

If I get a little time to think about this, I am going to try to start writing some guidelines on how to organise Blended Eevents. But better still, has anyone out there got any ideas?

I am going to be coming back to the subject of innovation in next few days. I have much to say (well that’s not a change) and think the subject is going to become fairly central to the next wave of development of Technology Enhanced Learning. Anyway, returning to a more colloquial use of the word, here are a couple of innovations from today.

The first is technical. Elluminate has brought out a new edition of their conferencing programme with suppport for up to six simultaneous video streams. And they have done it well. Whilst the default is to coarse grey scales to account for slower computers it can be changed to fine colour as in the pciture above. And you can select which stream you wish to see largest. The refresh rate is pretty high wuit little pixalisation. It certainly adds a new dimension to online meetings. Indded, today we had no problems with the video streaming although as usual the audio provided a few hiccups.

And teh second innovation you ask. Well it is certainly not techncial. Cristina has launched a Facebook group for our LIVE Sounds of the Bazaar broadcasts from Online Educa Berlin next Thursday and Friday. Oh – had I forgotten to tell you? Yes, we will broadcasting live from the conference at 11.00 CET on Thursday and Friday. Please join us face to face at live at the ICWE stand B54 near the front of the Intercontinental hotel. Or if you cannot make it to Berlin then listen in at http://radio.jiscemerge.org.uk/Emerge.m3u . You can also join Cristina in the chat room – details soon. And please join the Facebook group.

I will post tomorrow on more of the unconferencing fun we will be getting up to in Berlin.

In this multitasking twitter and hash tags and live blogging world we live in I was following the Jisc CETIS conference on Technology for Learning, Teaching and the Instiution yeserday (as aside not Andy Powell provides wonderful live blogging from the conference circuit).

There was a keynote speech by Professor Andrew Feenberg. His conclusion appeared to be that we needed new metaphor for education – to move away form the model of a factory to the idea of city. Now I see the appeal in terms of modernism. And that is interesting since the connectivism strand of think appears to go far closer to post modernism in its approach. The city, I suppose, could be said to be multi cultural and socially enriching in terms of interaction. I still remain unconvinced but anything which moves education beyond the present factory modals has to be a good thing.

And then my eye fell upon an article by Mike Baker in the Guardian newpaper extolling the virtues of US universities, where his daughter had recently studied, as opposed to the practice of universities in the UK. Mike Baker points to the greater flexibility of US universities in terms saying “the libraries were open 24 hours a day, seven days a week…. my daughter’s fellow students could pack in extra credits if they wished to get through their degree more quickly or, if they needed a part-time job, they could take fewer credits and stretch out their studies. Equally, they could stay on for an extra summer semester if they wished. ….Many of her fellow American undergraduates arrived at the university from community college, transferring in their course credits……Our universities also seem reluctant to change admissions.”

All good points I suppose. But is this not really just ramping up the Taylorist education factory production system to make it more effcient and flexible to churn out yet more students. I am at one with Andrew Feenberg in wanting to examine the purpose and worth of our university system. It is the enterprise approach to teaching and learning which has done so much harm to attempts to develop new pedagogic approaches to the use of technology for learning. More enterprising enterprises is not going to help.