I have spent the last two days putting the finishing touches to tomorrows pilot internet radio programme – the Jisc eLearning Show. The programme, which is being broadcast at 1800 UK Summer Time, 1900 Central European Time, is based on a symposium on Lifelong Learning, led by Jisc earlier this spring. Part of the programme is prerecorded and I have spoken to both policy makers and to project developers about the issues. The interviews were very interesting – indeed my major problem was choosing what not to include in the final edit for the programme.

The projects are engaging in much more than the introduction of technology and developers were keen to talk about changing pedagogic approaches and the policy implications of the work they were doing. The projects covered a wide range of applications – including the use of mobile technologies and of ePortfolios to support learners. It was encouraging to hear of the degree of engagement with learners in developing technology based projects. There was much discussion on who the ‘new learners’ were and what were their needs. The issue of change management was a recurrent theme, as was that of sustainability. Many of the projects were looking at the process of embedding developments within the every day practice of institutions. But this could raise cultural issues, especially when it came to work based learning. From a work based learning approach this was involving new partnerships with employers.

And as Tony Tool pointed out – elearning raises many issues for the funding models presently being used. Equally the development of work based learning may call into question the present policies for extending participation in higher education.

Fascinating stuff. Tomorrows programme will pick up on these issues and more with a live panel comprised of Oleg Liber from CETIS, Claire Newhouse from the Lifelong Learning Network national forum and Andrew Ravenscroft from London Metropolitan University. You can listen to the programme by going to http://radio.jiscemerge.org.uk:80/Emerge.m3u . The stream will open in your MP3 player of choice. You can take part in the chat room at http://tinyurl.com/sounds08. Just add your name and press enter – no password required. And you can leave comments and questions on the Jisc elearning blog.

We will also be making the full versions of the interviews available on the elearning blog as podcasts after the show.

Regular readers will know of our slightly irreverent, somewhat wacky fun LIVE internet radio show, The Sounds of the Bazaar. We like making Sounds and form feedback we gather our listeners enjoy it too.

But, for some time now, we have been wanting to branch out and make other types of programmes. We experimented with two documentary programmes, The Dragons Den, earlier this year.

And now Jisc has commissioned a pilot of a new programme, the e-learning show. The pilot programme will be broadcast next Thursday, 21 May at 1800 UK Summer Time, 1900 Central European Time.

The following blurb provides the rundown for the show:

“Thursday, 21 May sees the pilot programme of a new Jisc live internet radio programme, ‘the Elearning Show’. The programme which is to be broadcast at 1800 – 1855 UK summer time, is based on issues raised at the recent Jisc Lifelong Learning Symposium.

These issues include how university and college cultures need to change to support work based learning, who the new students are and what are their needs, how e-Portfolios can be used both for recording learning and for providing information, advice and guidance and the use of mobile technologies.

The programme considers both current and emergent practices in elearning and the development of policies to support such practice.

The programme will be presented by Graham Attwell and guests include Derek Longhurst from Foundation Degree Forward, Clive Church from Edexel, Lucy Stone from Leicester College, Tony Toole from the University of Glamorgan, Bob Bell, HE in FE consultant for the northern region, Sandra Winfield from Nottingham University and Rob Ward from the Centre for Recording Achievement

The programme will also feature a live panel. with the opportunity for listeners to skype or email their questions and comments and their will be a live chat room for listeners.

To listen to the programme go to http://radio.jiscemerge.org.uk:80/Emerge.m3u This will open the LIVE radio stream in your MP3 player of choice.

You can take part in the chat room at http://tinyurl.com/sounds08. Just add your name and press enter – no password required.

If you like to send us questions for the panel in advance of the programme, email Graham Attwell – graham10 [at] mac [dot] com or skype to GrahamAttwell.”

Although the programme is based on developments in the UK many of the issues to be discuassed on the programme will have relevance for listeners interested in the use of technologies for learning wherever they are.

And if you are missing the old Sounds of the Bazaar, don’t worry, we haven’t gone away. The next programme planned in that series will be broadcast live from the ProLearn european Summer School in Slovakia in the first week of June. Further details as soon as we can agree on a timeslot for the programme.

I greatly enjoyed myself at the Plymouth e-learning conference a couple of weeks ago. Firstly because it was organised by Steve Wheeler who I greatly respect. And Steve had kindly let me off the leash and said I could be as controversial as I wished. Also because I had a few new ideas to explore – in trying to talk about open education and informal learning to an audience of skilled and dedicated professionals including teachers and student teachers. The issue of institutional change is high on the agenda at the moment – not so much driven by the institutions, but more by the impact of the use of new technologies both by young people but increasingly by teachers in the class room. But all too often I am asked by frustrated teachers how they can persuade their managers to allow them more creative approaches to teaching and learning. I am not sure I have any good answers (one thing I wonder is if Web 2.0 changes the dynamic of institutional change, form a top down process to a bottom up one?). All these issues came up – not just in my talk but in the very lively discussion which follows.

I am afraid it is quite a long video (about an hour) . But if you can keep going the last 20 minutes of dicussion is probably the best part.

NB Video quality is a bit fuzzy – but the sound is not too bad.

Over the last eight months Pontydysgu (well mainly Jenny Hughes) has been working on editing a handbook for teachers on the use of social software and web 2.0 in the classroom. The handbook, produced by the European Commission Comenius programme funded Taccle project will be published in June in English, Spanish, Italian, German, Dutch and, we hope, Greek.

It will be available free for download on the internet and as a 150 page printed handbook. If you would like to pre-order copies, please fill in the order form here, telling me the number of copies you would like and the language version. The following text, taken from the draft of the preface, tells more about the purpose and content of the handbook.

“Information and Communication Technologies are being increasingly used to create richer learning environments. In all sectors of education from primary schools to adult education, in schools for pupils with special education needs and in colleges and universities, technologies are being used across the curriculum to enhance students’ experiences.

However, technology is not enough. The creation of high quality content is essential if the potential of ‘e-learning’ is to be realised in a way that stimulates and fosters Life Long Learning. It is important to train teachers how to design and develop their own content and generate learning materials that can help their own students and
can also be freely exchanged with others.

The European Commission Comenius programme funded Taccle project  aims through  training teachers to create e-learning materials and raising their awareness of e-learning in general, to help establish a culture of innovation in the schools in which they work.

This handbook has been produced by the Taccle project partners in five different European countries. It has been written by teachers for teachers and caters for those with only basic computer skills and limited technical support.

The handbook is geared to the needs of the classroom teacher but teacher trainers, ICT support staff and resource centre staff may find it useful too! It provides both practical support for
teachers who want a ‘hands on experience and also help and information for teachers who just want to find out about e-learning.

The handbook is designed to provide practical support for teachers to:

• create content for electronic learning environments in the context of an e-learning course
• identify and decide which ICT tools and content are most useful for particular purposes.
• create learning objects taking into account information design, web standards, usability criteria and reusability (text, images, animations, audio, video) and which enable active, interactive and cooperative learning processes.
• use learning environments effectively in order enhance quality and create resources to help them do so.
• share the developed content with their peers using existing repositories.

If you do not understand some of these terms do not worry. The handbook provides friendly step by step guidance about how to do it and explains the different terms along the way.

Of course it might seem a little strange and old fashioned producing a printed handbook about the use of new technologies. But, as Jenny Hughes says in her introduction to the handbook, we felt that the very teachers for whom this book is written are probably the group least likely to use or feel confident about using web-based materials. A book is comfortable and familiar and that is exactly how we would like teachers to feel about e-learning.

Technologies are changing very fast. When we originally applied for a grant from the European Commission, we anticipated the main focus of the handbook would be the use of Learning Management Systems – systems that help to organize  and administer learning programs for students and store and organize learning materials. At the time, this seemed to be the most important technology for creating and managing content. But since then , we have seen an explosion in the use of social networking applications like blogs and wikis, as part of what has been called Web 2.0. These are tools which make it very easy for people to create and publish their own content in different forms – text, pictures, audio and video.

These technologies make it easy not just for teachers, but for students to produce materials themselves and are increasingly being used in the classroom mixing traditional teaching methods with some e-learning methods in what is called Blended Learning.

Therefore, we have shifted the main focus of the handbook to provide a hands on guide to the use of such tools in the classroom.”

I am a big fan of Mr. Downes. Usually I agree with what he says. But I think Stephen has called this one wrongly. In a comment in OL Daily on my post on last weeks open seminar on Edupunk Stephen says:

“In the 1980s, punk was replaced with what became known as New Wave. New Wave was a lot like punk, except that the artists were so dirty, untrustworthy, and disreputable. It represented, to many, the co-opetion [sic] of this movement. So when I read “Martin is seeking to open up the VLE and apply the ideas of edupunk in an institutional context [and not as] as subversive or a challenge to the establishment but rather as a way of enhancing the teaching and learning environment,” I want to call it N-Ed Wave or some such thing. Talking Heads. Human League. Soft Cell. Oh gawd. Say it ain’t so.”

I am not convinced about the movement from punk to New Wave. But as I said in my original article, we need to establish edupunk as having a meaning in its own right. The music analogy is getting stretched and has limited further purchase.

But coming back to Stephen’s comments about what Martin Ebner is doing, I disagree. Edupunk is about doing it yourself, about opening up educational technology to the users. And that can take many forms of activity. In a previous Evolve seminar on Personal Learning environments. In a CETIS presentation on Personal Learning and Web 2.0, Scott Wilson acknowledged the challenges posed by Web 2.0 to institutions. They could he siad, ignore, co-opt through embracing and extending or could invert though contributing and extending. Institutions should move:

• From hosting to consultancy (HE no longer an ISP or corporate IT provider)
• From closed to open ethos: on content, systems, processes
• Adding value to the Internet, not duplicating functionality with added control mechanisms

Individuals could contribute:

• Our information – data, research, publications, content via open web APIs
• Our expertise
• Our offerings and products
• Our role as facilitators, guides, and trusted source

Martin Ebner is working within Graz University to contribute and extend the use of Web 2.0 for learning . And for me that is certainly within the Edupunk ‘tradition’. In a great post entitled ‘Learning to Love the term Edupunk‘, Frances Bell says she realises that that she has “missed a dimension that Chris Sessums captures in his response to a blog post on a previous Edupunk sessions

“Edupunk embodies this notion of educators as artists, those who intentionally trace and explore traditional boundaries and human expression. The edupunk meme signifies more than just a tart phrase pasted on the media landscape. To truly understand its meaning, you have to live it.”

That is really important, to capture the creative outlets that an edupunk approach offers to teachers and other learners.  I am prepared to live it, and am privileged to work with students in higher education who are negotiating challenging boundaries in learning, work and society.”

Jim Groom has also been posting a series of articles showing how the edupunk idea can be practised in education.

The disucssions on edupunk have the potential to evolve a new idea and vision of education and of the uses to technology for learning. That means not just talking but acting. Acting in collbaoration, acting as individual researchers and acting within institutions. As Frances Bell says: “Edupunk is only the beginning.”

A silly term, a fad, middle aged white male educational technologists at play? Edupunk has been called all of those but it won’t go away. Why is that? Because edupunk defined by Jim Groom as ” An approach to teaching and learning practices that results from a do it yourself attitude….inventive teaching and inventive learning” sums up the direction in which many of us which to see technology used in education.

This week saw the final of the spring series of open web based seminars organised jointly by the UK Jisc funded Evolve network and the German EduCamp organisation. And, appropriately enough the subject was edupunk.

There were two very different takes on the edupunk movement by the presenters. Martin Ebner from Graz Univeristy started by quoting Antonio Fumero who said “It’s not about matching traditional models with existing tools any more; it’s about developing a brand new pedagogical modal and implementing the next generation web environment upon it. He contrasted the goals of creativity, individuality and collaboration to the “closed castle of the university.”

Martin said universities need edupunks. But rather than radical preaching, Graz has adopted a practical strategy of trying to open up the university VLE and learning support systems to allow students and staff to use their own tools for creating and consuming content. Martin said the “learning environment of the future has to support the individual learning needs of the learners….has to  support the lecturers as well and …has to consider the web as [a] communication and collaboration environment.”

Steven Wheeler from Plymouth University had a more radical approach – or at least he would have if his university network hadn’t closed him out of the Elluminate platform used for the seminar. On his blog he explained what he would have said:

1. “Edupunk is a philosophy deeply rooted in the belief that educators can ‘do it themselves’, and use tools that are open, ‘free’ and non-proprietary. It’s a movement against the commoditization of learning and against corporate profiteering. It is not just about selecting open tools and technologies. It is also about the freedom to choose the methods of teaching that are open and student centred. I would even go as far as to claim that Edupunk teachers should be challenging the curricula they are required to teach, and especially the assessment methods that are imposed from on high. These are the structures that constrain education and stop learners from achieving their full potential.
2. Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) and in particular Learning Management Systems (LMSs) contribute toward restrictive practices in education and constrain both learner and teacher to operate within a model of learning that is institutionally beneficial, but does little for the learner themselves. VLEs are generally difficult to use, with far too much effort needed to be put into understanding how the system works, to the detriment of the time and effort spent actually learning.
3. An exemplification of Edupunk philosophy is the rise of the personal learning environment (PLE) in which the learner selects his/her own tools and technologies to apply in formal and informal learning. Typical PLEs will incorporate a social networking service, reflective and collaborative tools, e-mail and a mobile device. I use a mashup of wiki (shell to aggregate all tools and provide a collaborative space), blogs (reflective tool and mind amplification space) and Twitter (microblog to update and inform and also to receive ideas and contact from others with a similar interest to me). I also use my wireless laptop and iPhone as communication/end tools.
4. Edupunk is more than ‘do it yourself’. It is also a counterculture against corporate control and exploitation of learning, and brings the punk band (the teacher) closer to the audience (learner group). It is unashamedly anarchic and harks back to the concept of ‘deschooling society’ first proposed by Ivan Illich in the 1970s. Illich famously argued that we don’t need funnels (directional learning through institutional control) but webs (multi-directional, hyperlinked learning that can be tailored by the individual to her/his own needs). Rhizomatic approaches to learning fall into this kind of philosophy.”

This is interesting. Both Martin and Steve embrace the idea of edupunk. Both are supporting the introduction of Personal Learning Environments. But whilst Steve sees edupunk ” bricolage, anarchy and subversion and a challenge to the establishment” and the VLE as contributing to restrictive practices,  Martin is seeking to open up the VLE and apply the ideas of edupunk in an institutional context. He does not appear to see it as subversive or a challenge to the establishment but rather as a way of enhancing the teaching and learning environment.

Could it just be that the idea of edupunk is now becoming part of the mainstream and as it does different strategies will emerge? Is it also possible that edupunk is becoming a (valuable) concept in itself without the need to be viewed as an analogy to the punk music scene of the 1970s. I hope so.

If you want to listen to the debate the Elluminate replay of the seminar is available on line.

I am speaking at the Plymouth elearning conference on 23 and 24 April. Steve Wheeler asked me to produce a summary of my presentation for the conference publication.

This was a problem. Firstly, I am bad at writing summaries. Secondly, I never know quite what I will say until I say it. But finally I have sat down and written it. I quite like it. I think it provides a summary of the different ideas around which we are centring our work at Pontydysgu.

Social software, personal learning environment and the future of education

The presentation  will look at the impact of recent developments in social software and the possible impact on education.

The origins of the word curricula, coming from the Latin word    ‘currere’ – a running race, a course or career can be contrasted to the origins of the word learning coming from the old Gothic word ‘Gleis’, meaning to tack, to follow and to find a path, the Gothic ‘leis’ which means to know and the the old English ‘learnien’ – to get knowledge.

Our education systems and institutions have been based around the original idea of curriculum, with winners and losers, the
same starting point and same finish point for all participants and with progression being seen as
a straight line between the two. Above all our educational institutions have been developed around the idea of homogeneity.

Such an idea of homogeneity was reinforced by the first industrial revolutions which led to the expansion of a schooling system to develop the skills needed by the workforce in a production economy.

The introduction of social software allows the exploration of different  learning pathways, and learning through exploring, wandering and funding the way.  Social networking tools allow learners to make connections, to  take individual choices about the direction of their learning within personal learning networks. Learning is based on bricolage – on making creative and resourceful use of whatever materials are to hand, regardless of their original purpose.

Teachers and trainers have a new role as mentors and guides to scaffold and support learning.

In terms of the future development of educational technology we need tools to help explore pathways, develop connections and to take control of own learning. This is turn requires a greater degree of engagement between developers, educational technologists and practitioners.

Education systems need greater flexibility to provide learners with their own space, to work at their own speed and at their own level, to define their own knowledge areas and make their own connections. Institutions can take the first steps in this by unlocking their resources and opening up their VLEs, by providing more and different ways of accessing services and by focusing IT support on services rather than systems.

The emergence of the Personal Learning Environment (PLE) is an important  step in this respect. PLEs can provide tools to help learners make and sustain connections, to help learners organise, scaffold and take responsibility for their learning and to manage and handle learning content. PLEs can also provide tools for recording and representing and sharing the learning ‘bricolage’
.

The emergence of new patterns and forms of learning based on social software provide a great opportunity to extend learning opportunities and to embed learning in every day work and living. At the same time it poses a challenge to educations systems and institutions who no longer have a monopoly on knowledge development and transmission.

In this video Jisc Emerge Project co-ordinator, George Roberts, explains the ideas behind the Emerge project and discusses how to facilitate online communities of practice.

As a member of the project team I have greatly enjoyed being involved with Emerge. However,there is an English language saying: “All good things come to an end.” And sadly the JISC Emerge project has come to the end of its funding period.

In the abstract of a forthcoming publication we explain “The Emerge project aimed to support the development of a sustainable community of practice (CoP) in the area of emerging technologies for education. This comprised individuals, groups and funded projects whose focus was around the use of social tools and services for enhancing learning and teaching. The Emerge project team developed a range of existing social software tools and practices to facilitate the needs of the emerging CoP. Seven critical phases of activity were identified during the life-cycle of the Emerge project and the CoP that grew around the JISC Users and Innovation programme. Each of these phases, from initial engagement to building for sustainability, required different support mechanisms and approaches. In response, the Emerge team adopted an agile approach to community support – adapting the tools, services and activities that were offered over time to meet emerging community needs. Our conclusions suggest that it is possible to identify a range of benefits and likely outcomes to deploying social networking and social media tools to scaffold community emergence. However, the form and patterns of interaction that develop across a community over time cannot be approached prescriptively. There is a need to be sensitive to the dynamic and changing needs of the community and its’ processes and meet the changing demands for meaningful social and collaborative spaces. This impacts on the type and form of the tools and services that need to be made available to the community. Deploying an iterative and agile model to scaffold the community is a key factor to active participation by its membership and the successful development of community identities. In this way it is possible to define and support a community centre which anchors distributed practice in a manageable and accessible way.”

For now, the Emerge project web site has been suspended, although public posts may still be searched and accessed. A new Emerge Reports site also provides access to the products of the project. As George Roberts says in an email to Emerge site members “One key message from our analysis is that a community has many modes of participation. It would be a mistake to assume that the presence of a website indicates either the presence or absence of a community. There is a network of people who have been very active in creating the Users and Innovation Programme and the Emerge community. This network of people persists. Discussions are ongoing concerning how this network might make its presence visible on the Internet or if a site similar to this one might be required.”

My personal view is that there is a space for such a network or community presence, based on the exchange of practice in Technology Enhanced Learning. How such a presence can be facilitated, governed and resourced is another issue.

In the meantime, my thanks to George and all the other members of the team what have made working on the Emerge project so interesting and enjoyable.

Also many thanks to Dirk for a magic editing job on this video.

Every day now, I get invitations to participate in online seminars, courses and events. For free. And if I took up every invitation from my Twitter feed, I could spend all day participating in online learning events. Whilst somewhat overwhelming, it is a very big step forward. One of my complaints about Technology Enhanced Learning has been that it has provided more opportunities for those who already have opportunities, whilst ignoring those not enrolled on a formal course or programme at an institution. Now everyone can take part, provided they have access to a computer and bandwidth.

However, I still have issues with the design and pedagogic approach of the applications being used to provide such online learning. We still seem overly hung up with the metaphor of the classroom. True, whenever developing innovation we tend to fall back on the previous paradigm, in this case of the classroom and then try to express that paradigm through new technologies. For me one of the big issues is control. whilst I have mainly used Elluminate for online seminars and have somehow grown quite fond of the programme, it has its irritations. Hand raising if you wish to speak seems so elearning 1.0.

But you can get round these restriction in Elluminate through the settings. the whiteboard can be transformed into a collective area for sharing pictures and text. The microphone can be opened to allow four simultaneous speakers, thus, at least in smaller groups, alleviating the need for handraising.

Last week I had a look at WizIQ. It would be interesting, I thought, to try another system. And WizIQ runs in a browser, thus overcoming potential firewall restriction on installing the Elluminate Java client. I have to say I was disappointed in how far they had gone in replicating both a classroom and teacher control. No one can speak without permission. The moderator is called a teacher (that put me off straight away). The aim seems to be to preserve teacher control. Surely this is at odds with the changes which Web2.0 and elearning 2.o is bringing, focusing on more participant led learning, with the role of a teacher becoming that of facilitating, scaffolding and supporting learning.

Educational technology is not pedagogically neutral. All technology makes pedagogic assumptions, whether these aare epxlicit opr implicit. And the message from WizIQ seems to be to sit down, be quiet and listen tot he teacher.

Before Christmas I did an interview over Skype with Janine Schmidt, Dennis Brüntje, Franz Büchl, Oliver Härtel from the University of Ilmenau in Germany. the title of the interview was ‘Identität 2.0 durch E-Portfolios’ – Indentity 2.0 through e-Portfolios. They have very kindly sent be a transcriot of the interview. A slighly edited versiona appears below. You can also see n more of teh project work on the students’ web site.

JS: Okay. What was the most impressive and effective usage of an ePortfolio you came across so far? Could you please specify your experience?

GA: It’s a hard question. Most impressive and effective use of an ePortfolio. (…) I’ve seen many different people using ePortfolios in many different ways. But of course, it really depends on how you defining ePortfolios in those terms. I think probably the most impressive I’ve seen in formal education was a vocational college in northwest of England where they were using ePortfolios on an auto-mechanics course. And one module on this course they were making a custom car, and they were getting kids who probably haven’t got lots of qualifications really recording their experiences as they went of the work they were doing and reflecting on the work they were doing, so that greatly impressed me.

JS: Okay. So ehm. The second question will be like focal topic for definition and classification of ePortfolios: How do you define ePortfolios and which significant characteristics do ePortfolios have compared to conventional portfolios?

GA: Well firstly and obviously what distinguishes an ePortfolio from an ordinary portfolio is the use of some kind of electronic interfaces, some kind of electronic media. I’d have to say as well I’d say that ePortfolio can be very much mixed, but pretty obviously the use of electronic media gives us a whole new series of capabilities. But after that the definition starts to break down a bit: and I think you can see vaguely three or four different ways in which ePortfolios had been developed and been used. Unfortunately, the predominant thing comes from they’re using higher education and especially from the USA, where they’d been very much used as an assessment vehicle allowing students to record a progress towards preset learning outcomes. Now I don’t think that’s helpful because the students are tended to see them as a part of an assessment regime and in many cases higher education students are already over assessed. And it’s very much limited, the potential of what is seen as legitimate learning. You’ve had another tendency in the UK to see them as a vehicle for planning learning, PDP-processes, which is another way to look at them. Or you’ve got another tendency, which is more of what I favour, which is to see ePortfolios as a way of recording all your learning including informal learning. And of course there is a strand in the literature certainly in the research of ePortfolios which sees ePortfolios as a powerful vehicle or potentially powerful vehicle for reflection on learning. Though I have to say that how that process of reflection is scaffolded and undertaken is less well researched or less well understood and perhaps just a matter of recording, so you got a powerful point about recording learning, assessing learning, reflecting on learning, etcetera, etcetera many different processes and how ePortfolios been used and what they’d been used for, different processes had been emphasized by different people. And to some extend, and this is quite important, some of those processes had been hard coded in ePortfolio-software and series of assumptions made and those assumptions aren’t always made transparent by the people who have developed the ePortfolio applications.

JS: Okay. So the next question would be: Would you rather consider ePortfolios as a loosely composed tool construct or as a specific method used in educational context? Or do you even have a complete different point of view?
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