Twitter Revisited

June 15, 2009 at 3:44 pm (1st Year Experience, 2nd Year Experience, Flexible Delivery, Student Support, learning)
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I’m having real trouble with Twitter of late. The stream of student consciousness that I am party to 24 hours a day, 7 days a week has revealed a world of stress, confusion and unrest. To be fair, it isn’t all negative but one tends to tune into ‘what’s wrong’ especially where it is relevant to your teaching practice or the course you are part of. Familiarity also breeds contempt and though this may be overly strong, it isn’t far from the truth.

Twitter has exposed holes in our course, that would not have been noticed by us before. Many of the tweets are ’spur of the moment’, ‘knee-jerk reactions from tired minds, I am sure. However, it is becoming increasingly difficult to decide which to act on and which to leave, in the hope they are transient concerns. I find myself constantly struggling whether to take the “ignorance is bliss” option and pretend that I had never opened Pandora’s Box, unfortunately it is not that easy.

Alternatively, I could face the issue more positively and use Twitter as a feedback mechanism. I know have information that could lead to enhancing the programme or improving communications between staff and learner. The ease in which we can know point students in a particular direction (to professional practitioners or hyperlinks for example) has proven to be invaluable.  I now feel closer to my learners and more readily able to enagage in a more honest dialogue after the tweets have flown about. Sometimes the tweeting verges on becoming a tutorial, where snippets of guidance can be afforded 24/7. I’m sure that a few of the students actually prefer this type of support.

A great deal of  the messages are frivalous and irreleavant to the programme and sifting through these streams can be both time consuming and tedious. I tend now to only read direct messages, @ replies and whatever is on my screen at the time (without having to scroll down).  This method seems to work and has cut out a great deal of the open tweets that are wild and trivial.

All said and done…. the jury is still out….

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RoME – The Rise of the Mobile in Education

March 14, 2009 at 5:14 pm (Flexible Delivery, learning)
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I have just returned from a rare event in the world of educational technology; Apple have finally stuck their head above the parapet in the UK and co-hosted an event with Handheld Learning with the title The Rise of Mobility in Education.  It didn’t didn’t take me long to discover the mnemonic RoME in the title, which seemed a highly appropriate hash tag to use on Twitter, as I intended to tweet throughout the event. Scheduled for two hours and situated in Apple’s Executive Briefing Center in the heart of London I was fully aware of the rarity of such an event as Apple have been very quiet about the educational uses of their mobile devices. The iPod range being the most popular mobile device in history. Of course my interest was more vested than simply my usual passion for all things Apple, I have an iPod Touch pilot scheme running currently and this was a rare opportunity to be in the company of experts.

I just prayed that the event wasn’t going to be another product pitch or technical dissemination on why the iPod is the only gadget for education. I wanted to hear about pedagogy, learners and those who facilitate that learning, in fact, as I walked along Regent Street prior to the seminar I became resolute that if the event was pitched at the sales/technical level then I would ask determined questions about the latter. I had done a little preparation by familiarizing myself with the chapter on mobile and wireless learning (pg180-190) in Rethinking Pedagogy for a Digital Age (Beetham, Sharpe et al, 2007). I created another mnemonic to summarize and aid me in remembering the basic characteristics of ubiquitous, mobile, learning technologies. It was;

Situated

Informal

Mobile

Personalized

Learning

Experience

Simple and effective.

As it turned out, I had no need for this invasive tactic as the lecture was purely embedded in educational paradigm.  Our speaker, Gordon Shukwit (Worldwide Director of I.T & Learning, Apple) introduced himself and was quickly off the mark. An explanation of how pedagogy, content and technology can overlap following the  TPACK model (see Figure 1) ensued. This model clearly shows how the three primary constituents of knowledge can form a complex interplay, creating hybrid knowledge where they intersect.

TPACK Model

Fig.1 TPACK Model

“Considering P and C together we get Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK), Shulman’s idea of knowledge of pedagogy that is applicable to the teaching of specific content. Similarly, considering T and C taken together, we get Technological Content Knowledge (TCK), the knowledge of the relationship between technology and content. At the intersection of T and P, is Technological Pedagogical Knowledge (TPK), which emphasizes the existence, components and capabilities of various technologies as they are used in the settings of teaching and learning.

Finally, at the intersection of all three elements is Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK). True technology integration is understanding and negotiating the relationships between these three components of knowledge. A teacher capable of negotiating these relationships represents a form of expertise different from, and greater than, the knowledge of a disciplinary expert (say a mathematician or a historian), a technology expert (a computer scientist) and a pedagogical expert (an experienced educator). Effective technology integration for pedagogy around specific subject matter requires developing sensitivity to the dynamic, [transactional] relationship between all three components.” (Mishra & Koehler, 2006)

I had not come across this framework before and, for the first time, I recognised a model which I could adopt for the m-SM project and possibly a whole lot more besides. It was one of those moments in which you can feel a ’shift’ happen in your logic, perhaps this was that ‘defining moment’ I had been looking for? The framework itself is still at the early stage of development but has made it beyond theory into praxis, with several case studies available. The most informative of which being Brigham Young University’s Instructional Technology for ElEd and ECE course. On the course website can be found links to a number of trainee teacher’s reflections in which they have evidenced the use of the TPACK framework in their practice. The blogs can be found here.

Shukwit continued onto how students are required to be ‘librarians’ and understand classification systems in order to access content, drawing comparisons with folder structures and libraries. He asked the question, “How do students know when to delete a folder or portion of content?” and how multiple views of content can be ambiguous, demanding a need for content creators/organisors to be clear and succinct.

The next model presented was entitled the Technology Adoption Life Cycle and was based around Rubens’ SAMR model of ICT integration. The model is a progressive four tiered adoption scheme which begins with Substitution, followed respectively by Augmentation, Modification and finalizing in Redefinition. See Figure 2;

SAMR Model (Rubens, 2006)

SAMR Model (Rubens, 2006)

A explanatory podcast with audio by Ruben can be found here.

It is strange to think back to a time when using a spellchecker was considered cheating by a great number of institutions. These attitudes are to be expected and are often necessary for the innovators to control their innovations, they serve to open the idea to a greater degree of open scrutiny, challenge assumptions and eventually mold it into a more streamlined concept. This concept  can then become embedded in society.

“When Technology fails (it’s learners) it’s Technology itself that gets the blame, never the content or pedagogy.” (Shukwit, 2009)

The Digital Learning Environment (DLE) has been driven by an ‘us’ or shared ideology and three basic types of technology have been the vehicles for this i.e. tethered, portable and mobile. It would be timely to give definitions to these innovations:

Tethered: wired technologies such as desktop pc’s.

Portable: can be wired on wireless such as laptops and tablet pc’s.

Mobile: wireless and can ‘fit into your pocket’ such as mobile phones, PDAs and mp3 players.

Tethered and portable technologies are predominantly shared user content and collaborative devices where the emphasis is on networking. Mobile however carries it’s own unique learning qualities, where the emphasis is on ‘me’ and singling out students as individual learners with their own requirements and needs. Hence the emergence of Individual Learning Plans (ILP) in which the student takes control of their own learning e.g. downloading content ‘as and when’ they require it to be used ‘as and when’ they please. Teachers can now identify a learners specific requirements and ‘push’ content to that learners device, or the learner can ‘pull’ content from content rich servers.

Apple’s iPhone Enterprise Programme allows content to be delivered and received in this way. It bypasses the now standard iTunes (us) model and utilizes a fundamentally different and ‘me’ centered approach, where learners target or are targeted by educators for content pertinent to their specific learning needs.

The remainder of the seminar was presented around the iPhone Enterprise Programme and all of it’s merits, I have to admit that the proceedings became overly technical and resembled the instructions on the back of a MicroSoft product package (sorry Apple!) and I switched off. I did however manage to ask a couple of questions to which the answer’s were wholly unsatisfactory I felt. I asked whether or not ActiveSync was a robust system to which  ‘no comment’ was pretty much the reply, Shukwit was either unable to comment on another companies product or unwilling to. I had assumed that since Apple were engaged with this particular Microsoft product they would be wholly endorsing it as ’secure’, in this sense, I was suprised at the reply. The reason I required confirmation was not a sleight on MicroSoft, but more to assure my own institution (who are extremely reluctant to install AciveSync due to ‘horror’ stories they had heard) that ‘even Apple’ considered it safe enough to use. Now I am left with the feeling that it is either not secure or Apple simply couldn’t or wouldn’t confirm this for whatever reasons. Several other attendee’s tried to push the question farther nut where met with the same dance.

The other concern I raised was the lack of a quality camera and video capture on the iPhone/Touch making it less suitable for educational purposes than other similar mobile devices. The reply was similar to my previous attempt, I was requested to add it to the feedback sheet we were all given because “we like to listen”. On that note I left the seminar bursting with inspiration, by the time I had reached Regent Street the inspiration had dissolved into frustration. In that short journey in the lift I remembered what I faced back at RSAMD. ActiveSync was the key to unlocking a great resource in both educational and productivity terms, these rumors of it being vulnerable were stemming a potential groundswell of technological enhancement. Paranoia was the real enemy here, as well as an ignorance of how technology, content and pedagogy can be a trinity to be reckoned with.

Mishra, P., & Koehler, M. J. (2006). Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge: A new framework for teacher knowledge. Teachers College Record. 108(6), 1017-1054.

Ruben R. Puentedura. Transformation, Technology, and Education. (2006)

Shukwit, G. ( March 12th , 2009). in proceedings of the The Rise of the Mobile in Education seminar, London, UK.

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Micro Teaching Assignment – Links

March 7, 2009 at 12:09 pm (Flexible Delivery, PG-Cert, assessment, learning)
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The following are links to other pages in my WordPress account that specifically deal with the Micro Teaching Assignment in chronological order:

The Brief

Initial Concepts

Blocking Concept

Podcasting

Contexts

Simplify

Mentoring

Dry Run

The Lecture

Gathering Reflections

Evaluation

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Stage Management ICT

February 13, 2009 at 10:05 am (2nd Year Experience, Flexible Delivery, learning)
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This morning I had my first attempt at an ICT Class, specifically for Stage Managers. To be honest, I wasn’t happy with it and it is definitely and area that requires further development. I was guilty of under-planning, assuming that I could engage my class simply with the technology itself. I underestimated how difficult it was to engage the Facebook generation with specific online activities using Web 2.0. Give them a fast internet connection and they instantly take ownership of their own browsing and do not completely focus on the task at hand. However, a balance was reached as the class progressed, the time that we lost with ‘distractions’ such as Twitter and Facebook was regained almost instantly with the expertise and speed the class brought to completing the tasks I set out.

Noticing Twitter windows hidden behind behind the ‘task’ windows (which became active when I returned to my own workstation) a realisation hit me, I had openly encouraged the use of these technologies in the past and had reflected about their use in classroom environments, now I was actually engaging in my reflections. Up until that point in the morning I had been ‘instructing’ and that left a bad taste in my mouth. I swiftly changed my tact and was thankful that I hadn’t commented on these ‘distractions’ yet. I started to encourage the students to openly Twitter about the class, which they had already been doing (I discovered later when viewing the tweet streams). Personally, the whole dynamic of the class changed for me, I didn’t mention it as I wanted to see where this openness would take us.

We had started working with Google Docs, for a long time I had been aware of it’s potential for Stage Management. One of my personal goals was to explore eDocumentation and how to distribute and share paperwork electronically. Google had supplied a fantastic tool for this purpose. We set up accounts and began to work on several files I had uploaded. After a brief discussion on the benefits for Stage Managers, it was clear that the students found it useful but only if everyone used it. Collaborations would be fruitless without participants. It was a brief introduction, but a useful one, awareness had been established but further self determined orientation and development was the next stage.

We moved onto to exploring the possibilities behind Scribd, an online publishing web facility that allowed participants to upload files for viewing and scrutiny. I had used this in the past for the purposes of research and wanted the students to glimpse it’s potential. Again, we set up accounts and began to explore the basic premise behind this powerful yet simple tool. I had uploaded our Deputy Stage Managers Handbook and, as with Google Docs earlier, we all linked our accounts in order to share resources. This Web 2.0 tool was more suited to learning and research than to Stage Management, but I wanted this morning to be for both learning and professional practice.

After a short break, we stepped into the world of Wiki. Using PAPERCLIP (Stephen Macluskie’s innovative site for technical theater collaborative solutions) we added our very own m-SM project and began to explore Wiki script. Covering the basic’s; uploading photo’s, hyperlinking and page layouts we build a page for the project. This should now give us a base to expand the m-SM project. Through our explorations we also discovered how to link directly to the iTunes applications store, opening iTunes on the host machine in the process. Creating Wiki’s in PAPERCLIP will become an assessable part of their learning in the near future. This tool will eventually replace the old ‘box file’ system which is traditionally used to archive production paperwork. Another example of RSAMD Stage Management attempt to modernise an industry that still uses archaic paper-based systems, which are less efficient and unsustainable.

The next tool we looked at was Diigo, a social bookmarking site. This is an excellent resource in which web pages can be centrally bookmarked, portions of text highlighted, commented on and finally shared. Highlights and comments are saved with the bookmark, drawing the attention of fellow collaborators to the relevant sections. In turn, comments can be returned and collaborations are built. All of this can be done ‘live’ while surfing, using a series of browser plug-ins, meaning that you only have to return to your profile to review your bookmarks at the end of a browsing session. Another important research tool.

We finished the session with 15 minutes on Moodle and the students filled in a couple of Critical Incident online reports that I had set up earlier. For those who finished (or had already completed the task prior to coming to the class) they were given time to ‘play’ online with any of the tools we had used today.

The general consensus was that, as an introduction to these facilities, the class was useful. Some were more engaged than others and each student had different opinions on the resources we had covered. Each student showed a level of individual expertise and I felt the issue of engagement drifted from student to student as they crossed into thier own comfort zones. This, of course was to be expected. We all agreed that a regular series of SM ICT classes should be in place throughout the course, allowing orientation to take place. I also want to stage similair classes were skills sharing through peer learning can take place i.e. a student with particular interest and expertise using a specific e-Tool or software solution can lead a session with their peers. This would open up a host of learning opportunities, as yet untried, within Stage Management.

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Twitter

February 12, 2009 at 9:58 pm (1st Year Experience, 2nd Year Experience, Flexible Delivery, Uncategorized)
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At first, I was a doubter.

I just couldn’t see the benefits of Twitter, in fact quite the opposite was true, on a number of occasions I publicly berated it.

So what is it?

Twitter is a free  micro-blogging service, allowing you to  communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?

I see it as a step up from SMS text and not quite blogging, a fast and easy way to communicate and network. It’s also incredibly addictive, a recent tweet I received only the other day described it as “the digital equivalent of popping bubble wrap” which is fairly accurate.

It wasn’t until much later, while listening to a podcast of Clay Shirky, he described Twitter as being a ’stream of consciousness’ in which you can filter and tap into at any time. This sparked my curiosity and persuaded me to at least install the free software then and there, on the bus, via my iPhone. And… I still didn’t ‘get it’.

After a couple of months of persevering (on and off, more off than on) I was ready to cast Twitter into digital oblivion. It wasn’t until I attended the Handheld Learning 08 conference that I discovered an underground digital world in which tweets were being swapped and shared discretely. Comments from parts of the conference that I couldn’t attend kept me informed of happenings, general theories and feelings riddled the airwaves. I had entered this particular ’stream of consciousness’ and it wasn’t long before the small band of renegades grew to become a larger network. At the same time, my own tweets were being followed by several members of staff and students 500 miles north of my location in Glasgow. It was also a great way to gauge the ‘mood’ in the room, like passing notes under the table at school, commenting on your teachers poor choice of clothing… This time opinions on the speakers content and idea’s were being discussed, both positively and critically. The hash tag prefix (a way of labeling and grouping tweets to be filtered at a later date)  #hhl08 was used and the tweet streams would be made available on the website later. This was a great way to gauge audience reactions and allow speakers to judge what worked and what didn’t. Could a lecturer use this feature to poll the learning experience of their learners? I honestly can’t see why not. This form of discrete evaluation would allow those shy or ‘not wanting to look stupid’ attitudes to disperse. Even though it’s not an anonymous method, there is something to be said for not having to speak out loud for the less confident learners.

At scheduled breaks in the conference I met up with a few of the, until then,  faceless tweeters. The power of this relatively new medium began to sink in. In the hotel after the conference I began to reflect on how to harness the potential of Twitter within educational  institutions, particularly my own. It seemed to come into it’s own when used as on a mobile platform. It was certainly ubiquitous (the buzz word at the conference) and had a certain amount of kudos with the likes of Stephen Fry an active user.

Shortly after I returned from the conference I made another stride deeper into the Twitterverse, I secured money to implement my m-SM (mobile Stage Management) pilot scheme. We now had 5 iPod Touch devices within the department, a perfect platform to begin using Twitter. Twitterific (an iPod application) was free and one of the first downloads on the scheme. At first the tweets were fairly banal and of a social nature but that was to be expected during this orientation period. The students were getting used to the devices at this stage. There also wasn’t an immediate uptake as neither myself nor my students really knew whether or not Twitter would be of any great use to us.

In a fairly radical move, earlier on this year I decided to experiment with Twitter on a larger scale. This time it was with the 1st Year Production students as part of their Stage Management brief. They were asked to set up both WordPress and Twitter accounts. I wanted to experiment with Twitter as a note-taking tool to help feed their reflective practice. I then asked them to RSS their tweets to a column in  their blogs, at a glance they could ‘collect’ their thoughts and idea’s in a micro format and use them to enhance their reflections. For an entire week they Twittered and blogged accordingly and the results went far beyond my expectations. With the exception of about 10% of the cohort, everybody used both mediums to communicate, network and reflect.

With the Twitter streams busier than ever, the 2nd Year SMs rejoined the party. With Twitter it does seem to be the rule that ‘the more the merrier’. I now notice distinct bucks and trends in the student experience from the constant stream of tweets emanating from the student network. They are open and honest about their evaluation of classes and learning sessions. The analysis can’t be that deep with a 140 character limit, but does it need to be?

I am still following all of the delegates I met in the Twtterverse at HHL07 and have built up a network of educationalists and learning technologists, most are on Twitter to collaborate and share. From these collaborations I have gleened many idea’s and useful links, the most significant of which being a tweet from Louise Drumm (Learning Technologist at Napier University) who has asked to use portions of my bog and some of my tweets as examples. I am also meeting Kath Trinder (Learning Technologist at Glasgow Caledonian University) for coffee next week to tap her for idea’s. Neither of which I have ever met in person, only through Twitter. It’s also a great networking tool!

Clay Shirky’s book ‘Here Come’s Everybody’ outlines some of the more serious usages of Twitter. An example he gives is of political activists in Egypt, where having a Twitter account has made the difference between imprisoned ativists being tortured on not. Quite simply, if a lot of people know that you are held captive in jail, then the chance of any human right violation against you is greatly reduced. All it takes is one tweet and the world knows of your plight and if you have sympathetic followers on Twitter then you have a great chance of escaping torture. Corrupt governments can’t shut down a free democratic online system when they aren’t directly hosting it.

In summary (140 characters) Twitter is:

A tool that has great educational potential, promotes networking and communication. Offers simple evaluation in the classroom and it’s cool.

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Simulated Environments

February 5, 2009 at 11:16 pm (2nd Year Experience, Flexible Delivery, learning)
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This morning we tackled blocking the first play. It was called “A Growing Problem” and had a cast of two. Vicky and Kieron had chosen it out of several 10 minute plays I had found and had gotten permission to work with. I felt it was important for the students to have a say in every part of this process, including choosing the script. It is unlikely that they will get to do so in the profession, so i felt it important that they felt this ‘Micro-production’ was their own. As a result of this move, I could do little pre-planning for my part in the process i.e. that of Director. I found this blind approach, exhilarating. Having to draw on my experiences as a DSM in rehearsals, and the observations I had made of Directors, made the process thoroughly engaging for me. I had to force myself back into ‘teaching mode’ regularly in order to observe the students work and comment accordingly.

Kieron and Vicky also had to step out of their perceived comfort zones and perform in the play. I had chosen 10 minute scripts as I found using extracts of larger pieces wholly unsatisfying as they gave no sense of completion. Of course, an entire play would be out of the question due to obvious time constraints.

The outcome of both performances was astonishing, Kieron had all but memorised the entire script and Vicky threw herself into the role wholeheartedly. I moved them around the set and gave them direction, while the real focus of the session (Emma and Anne – the DSMs) were busy notating the moves as blocking beside me. This simulation of a rehearsal allowed me to control the pace and in turn, the learning of the team. As the morning progressed, I layered detail onto the students remit.

In the afternoon, we swapped performers and Anne and Emma took on the roles of the characters in their own chosen script ‘Traces of Memories’ with Kieron and Vicky being DSMs. Again, the enthusiasm for performing was evident and the two girls took their roles seriously. There is always a danger of these kind of simulations turning farcical and the whole activity collapsing into hilarity. These situations are difficult to refocus and the learning can be lost, regardless of the perceived fun. I am glad to report that this was not the case and we progressed through the afternoon in a steady fashion.

We had scheduled for the 2nd Year production electricians to attend a run of both plays, at which they took notes for lighting and sound purposes. We then sat down to a meeting with them to discuss sound and lighting provision. I had wanted to include these students all along as it was a great opportunity for both, rekindling collaborations between the disciplines and allowing the PLX students a free reign at designing. There are few opportunities for this type of collaborative learning outside the highly pressurised production process. The students appeared to thrive in this assessment free learning environment.

The classes were supplemented with a handbook I had written for the student DSM, detailing all we had covered in the class (and much more). I had also produced two animations which the students could use to practice their blocking notation, I plan to make a series of animated scenarios which can be downloaded as podcasts. It is hoped the students will download them directly onto their iPod Touch devices that they received last November, allowing them to practice ubiquitously.

With the blocking done, rehearsal notes and call sheets completed, we shall move forward on the production time line, our next learning simulation being tomorrow where we shall deal with cues and advanced paperwork.

I am thoroughly satisfied with this session, considering what it evloved from five years ago and feel that it requires only a few minor alterations in the future.

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The Position Statement

January 9, 2009 at 9:14 pm (PG-Cert, learning)
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Alice

“if you don’t care where you’re going, it doesn’t make a difference which path you take.” Lewis Carrol, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865)

Positioning myself as a learner and lecturer has been much more difficult that I ever imagined. I have a real feeling of being lost in a sea of reflections. Ironically, I have returned to my reflective practice to seek out answers.

Where have I been?

I guess Alice may have had a better idea of which path to take if she had known where she was in the first place. I sympathise fully with her plight. I am journeying through a difficult cross-over period, leaving behind a jungle of uncertain practice where summative statements ruled over their formative cousins, tutorials were tired and laborious affairs and continual assessment ruled the roost. All of these processes were draining the learners and the facilitators of their learning, not to mention the scant resources at our disposal. Twenty four months ago seemed like a medieval era in RSAMD. If you asked me the difference between formative and summative I would have stared blankly back and answered, “Whats that got to do with Stage Management? I’m too busy getting this show on.”, or something similar.

So, where am I now?

In the rabbit hole, wondering whether or not to drink from the small bottle? I think I have passed that stage now, embracing the new and willing myself forward. I had begun implementing idea’s on learning and teaching that I had derived from bit’s and pieces of information that last years PG-Cert students were studying. It all seemed to either confirm my existing practice or offered more logical approaches that simply ‘made more sense’. Thanks to Phil Race and his Lecturers Toolkit , Howard Gardners Multiple Intelligences (the only two educational books of any academic credulity I owned) and a host of websites I began to piece together enough evidence to support some of my early idea’s.

I also longed to find a niche for myself within the Academy, something I was good at and nobody else was doing. I knew that it would be based around technology as it has always been a passion of mine. We had dabbled with eLearning in TPA sporadically, using Moodle as a repository for course content documents but not to any great effect. Other than that, I had struggled to get staff and students using Outlook more effectively. I knew that there was educational value to blogging as I had been keeping an online journal for several months and was constantly encountering educational bloggers wherever I went on the net. There seemed to be a rich vein of learning to be tapped into, though it wasn’t until I read John Cowans’ On Becoming an Innovative University Teacher, that the true, intrinsic value began to sink in.

Mobile media has always been of interest to me, I began subscribing to iTunes University educational podcasts, downloading them overnight and transferring them to my iPod in the morning. I would sit on the bus and be bamboozled by the amount of content available and consequently the mass of idea’s they produced. It was around then that I looked down at my device and thought that it would be wonderful if every student had one of these and learned like this i.e. whenever and wherever they were. Ubiquity began to be my mantra. I set out to see if this notion was possible.

I now have five iPod Touch units and four students trialling them for me. I have attended a three day conference in London on hand held learning which provided me with contacts and direct access to others working with similar issues and challenges. I left the conference buzzing with enthusiasm as it had confirmed that this may be the future of education.

I have drawn up monthly critical incident sheets to support regular tutorials with the four second year students, they have also been encouraged to reflect on their experiences with the devices through blogs. It is still in the early stages of development, the first few months being primarily for them to familiarise themselves with the devices. Early feedback has been encouraging as has the response to the scheme by colleagues.

As a result of my pilot students reflecting online about their experiences on the mobile project, they had already begun to network together via their blogs. This network has now grown to include several third year students and a couple of first years. My aim is to link all of these blogs together using RSS feeds. The students should feel as if they are entering an online learning community rather than reflecting in isolation. The long term aim is to have graduates who have become reflective practitioners continue to blog and feedback into the process, a spiraling model of group reflection.

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Rolling…

September 23, 2008 at 9:51 pm (2nd Year Experience, Flexible Delivery, learning)
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Yesterday, in the pub, I was told by Ros, my line manager, that my cap ex proposal for 5 iPod Touch devices was sanctioned. This was a total shock as I had only requested the finances as a half hearted effort at the 11th hour. It went through and I’m good to go on my mobile learning strategy.

After a brief discussion with Fraser Ross, the IT Manager, I decided to hold shipping the units out until Fraser, Caroline Cohrane (Head of Information Services) and I had designed a workable policy around these items. The main issue is the question of ownership; current thinking* in and around the mobile learning world tends to veer towards allowing the student to keep the unit after graduation. This serves two purposes; the first being that these items are ‘personal’ and should be allowed to be. Making the iPods integral to the students life is core to effective learning. It has been proved that a personalised device such as a PDA, iPod, phone or diary results in a higher level of creative writing. This effect can be seen in the personalisation of study folders, jotters and more lately, desktops. The second compelling reason for allowing the student to keep the device is simpler, after 3 years or use the unit will be obsolete and of no use to the next cycle of cohort. Finally, after 3 years of use the device will enable the student to take it into an area of the industry that is in desperate need of modernising. So lets equip them both educationally and practically.

Other methods that have been used elsewhere of distributing devices is to lend them to the students, much like a library item. Indeed, libraries have been used to facilitate this in a number of establishments. The student signs out the device as required and it then can be maintained and content added as required. I feel that this is much too prescriptive, there is an entire web of free education all over the internet which is there to explore and investigate. The student must be allowed to wander freely amongst this knowledge and cherry pick what they need.

I hope to work closely with the students on how they explore and use the iPods. I want to set up debriefing at the end of every week, where we can discuss the devise and its apps. It should give a solid foundation on which to base the 12 month live case study. As the project progresses and evolves I will note down key area’s of development, setting goals and strategies as we go. It’s damned exciting and I cant wait to get started.

With the knowledge I gain at the Handheld Learning 08 conference, I will be in a position to start the study straight away, keeping the momentum going. My old time line of waiting 12 months before starting had the danger of becoming stale and flat, this way it wont.

Unfortunately, we wont have all the WiFi provision that we will need to be fully effective, but I feel that if the initial tests work out with what we have, then it wont be long before it expands to the area’s we most need them i.e. the venue’s and classrooms.

The most important point is that…. we are rolling….

* “Pedagogical Implications of Wireless Technologies,” workshop, Center for Educational Technology, Middlebury College, January 14, 2004

http://connect.educause.edu/Library/EDUCAUSE+Review/GoingNomadicMobileLearnin/40494

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