Twitter Revisited

June 15, 2009 at 3:44 pm (1st Year Experience, 2nd Year Experience, Flexible Delivery, Student Support, learning)
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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….

2 Comments

RoME – The Rise of the Mobile in Education

March 14, 2009 at 5:14 pm (Flexible Delivery, learning)
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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.

6 Comments

Stage Management ICT

February 13, 2009 at 10:05 am (2nd Year Experience, Flexible Delivery, learning)
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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.

Leave a Comment

Twitter

February 12, 2009 at 9:58 pm (1st Year Experience, 2nd Year Experience, Flexible Delivery, Uncategorized)
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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.

Leave a Comment

Reflections on Reflections

February 4, 2009 at 9:32 pm (1st Year Experience, 2nd Year Experience, Flexible Delivery, learning)
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

“Life has evolved not in terms of the ways the past has an impact on the present, but in terms of the ways the past is present in the present.”

-Edwin Friedman

One of my goals was to lay the foundations of reflection within my teaching practice. I feel that I have taken the first steps towards this goal, not only by committing to my own reflections (which I felt I would have to do regardless, as I wouldn’t ask my students to engage in a process that I didn’t), but also encouraging reflection within the student cohort. Building a reflective, learning community was always going to be a slow and long process, I have tried to lead by example on this. Committing myself to blog regularly and to commenting on each student blog as they are posted has proved to be time consuming but at the same time greatly rewarding. The sense of empowerment I get when a reflection leads to positive action cannot be over emphasised. Not only do I feel a sense of progression, but is also a stimulating invigorant to do more.

Judging from some of the early reflections by the 1st Year cohort, they share my enthusiasm. If I have been guilty of anything during this inititiation process then it has been that of zealousness. I have often had to pull back and apply ‘brakes’ to my encouragement.

I have nurtured a small group of analytical thinkers from within the student cohort that seem to be natural reflectors. Everything I read and learn about reflective practice gets passed on to them as they blog. I try to make the language palatable in my comments, formatively feeding back on the reflective process itself, as well as the subject matter they are using as a foundation to their analysis. This form of gentle scaffolding seems to be having an effect as I am beginning to see traces of self  and peer evaluation in their posts.

In addition to my own encouragments, I have asked the students themselves to nurture and comment on each others posts. It is hoped that this will embed a culture of ‘linked thinking’ and true collaboration. Empowering the students to center thier learning through both self and peer reflection.

Leave a Comment

P1/2 Drama and Opera Project Brief

February 4, 2009 at 4:59 pm (1st Year Experience, Flexible Delivery, learning)
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I have cut and pasted the 1st Year Production Student Project Brief that I wrote a few weeks ago. Along with Stage Management classes and 2 other projects running along side this, the students have quite a workload. Planning hasn’t been the best and it is something that requires revisiting before next year. The outcome is the students becoming disheartened as they have been forced to compromise on each project in order to fit them all into the schedule. This is not to mention the stress involved and this is only thier 2nd term here!

The project itself addresses a few key learning issues and this year we attempted to incorporate a more blended approach. We asked the students to reveal their managemnt and organisational processes through online forum collaboration. Along with Twitter (on which they created a dedicated feed which solely represented the project) thier work became transparent, allowing the tutors a rare glimpse into the cohorts participation and engagement. It also allowed us to scaffold whenever necessary. This daily process was further enhanced by the students individual blogs, these reflections served to summarise the days progress. They hinted at possible disruptive influences and uncertaities, as well as successes and affirmations.

PP1/2 Collaborative Project

Drama and Opera

Briefing Paper

Aim

The aim of this project is to identify the differences and/or similarities between a Drama Production and that of an Opera.

Process

Using your observations made on Mother Goose and ‘5’ last term and Love for 3 Oranges this term, compare and contrast the different processes involved in staging these productions. Identify key personnel and line management systems and how each department communicated whilst onstage e.g.

  • Who was in charge during which session?
  • How did departments communicate?
  • What was the line management structure?

Also identify key sessions and how they differ between the two genre’s e.g.

  • LX Sessions
  • TSM Sessions
  • SM Sessions
  • Time i.e. scheduling
  • Management (see above)

Opera Preparation

For Opera 1 (Love for 3 Oranges) you will be required to attend a minimum of one of each of the following scheduled sessions (see Opera schedule for dates and times):

  • Rehearsal (Wednesday 14th January either am or pm) in Groves Studio.
  • LX Rig
  • Set Fit Up
  • LX Focus
  • LX Plot
  • Stage & Piano
  • Stage & Orchestra
  • Dress Rehearsal

Please inform either John Wilkie of Stephen Macluskie which sessions you plan to attend. Observation of these sessions should be discrete, please find your way to the first dress circle and watch quietly from there. A speaker system for you to hear cans communications will be available.

Presentation

Working as a group you will be required to organise your time and tasks effectively in order to collate your data and present it to a select group of gusts (who may or may not know anything about theatre). An online Moodle forum on P1/2 has been set up for you to engage in debate or share information.

Access it here: http://moodle.rsamd.ac.uk/mod/forum/view.php?id=241

The presentation can be in any format you wish and must last a minimum of 15 minutes. Each group member must be active during the course of the presentation. The following key points will be considered and go towards your final assessment:

  • Individual contributions to both the process and final presentation.
  • The overall quality of the presentation.
  • Evidence that research has been carried out effectively.
  • Contributions to Moodle online forum.
  • Team Dynamic
  • Accuracy of presented data
  • Any conclusions that have been reached

Presentation Date

Week 6 – The Athenaeum Theatre

Friday 20th February 2009

Set up Time: 09:00 to 16:00

Presentation: 16:00

16:30 to 17:00 Group Discussion

Leave a Comment

Fresh Socks

January 27, 2009 at 11:28 pm (1st Year Experience, learning)
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

You know you are going to have a good day when your sock drawer is full of new fresh socks. Today was no exception. I was looking forward to my first class with the first years this morning, I had done a couple of introduction classes with them last term, but this was their first Stage Management class.

I was in early to meet Christina, who was taking them for the first hour for score reading, a couple of 3rd years (Jane and Lesley) tagged along as they never got this provision in their first or second years. I left them in Christina’s capable hands and went along to the Chandler to set up. Halfway through tidying the venue up I stopped, set up a flip chart and left the following message on the front page…

2042075

Very low tech. It suddenly occured to me that setting up a space that was fit for purpose was what Stage Management was all about. This was my wee way of getting that point across. I left the room and had a coffee.

When I came back they had all been busy and the room was indeed more condusive to learning.

After a brief and several hand outs later we indulged in a collaborative group project. It was a bit of a classic team building ice breaker. I wanted something simple that would set the tone and pace for the day and didn’t stray to far from thier collective comfort zones. It consisted of a wilderness survival scenario in which the students had to tick thier choice of survival solution from a multiple choice selection. This was done individually at first, then, in two groups, they had to discuss and provide a single group solution to the questions. They had 30 minutes in all to come up with a single set of answeres. I facilitated whenever I could, lending myself to any discussions that started to evolve.

It was interesting to note that one group adopted a very clear voting system, going for the majority after a short discussion. The other group seemed to have much more consensus about thier decisions and where debate did crop up, they  made decisions based on discussion. Both methods were effective in thier own right.

Afterwards, an elected member of the teams came forward and presented their answers. They were also asked to identify ‘dispute’ points and how the rationale behind thier final answeres. We then discussed the relevance of this excercise and the following were a few observations I jotted down:

2042066

I then asked them to pick a ‘ticket’ out of an envelope. The ticket had the name of a prop on it, with a date (age of prop) and the name of a shop e.g.

Silver Candleabra 1880 | Regent Street Antiques

I then sent them up to the props stores to locate and sign out the prop. This gave them a chance to have a look around the stores, familiarise themselves with Sarah (Store Keeper) and her system of signing in/out props. On returning to the Chandler, they split into the same two groups as before and were given a table each, masking tape and a marker pen. The students then proceeded to set up a props table and provide a settings list for it. Afterwards they cleared the tables, swapped lists with a member of the opposite team and set up each others props table, working from anothers list. This went a little way into testing each others paperwork and how best to lay out an intuitive list, which can be followed by others easily. We then discussed the merits of keeping things simple and clear.

Hunger flew in threw an open door and persuaded us all that it was time for lunch.

After lunch we reconvened and I briefed them on the propping excercise we were about to start. Using the same tickets they had been given that morning, I then presented them with an accompanying 2nd ticket. This had an ‘attitude’, business name and ‘profession’ on it e.g.

officious | Regent Street Antiques Manager

I had set up a couple of chairs and tables with a room divider in between (see picture below) and a phone on each table. One student was to play the role of an ASM and the other was to be the recipient of the ASMs request to borrow a prop from thier business. ASM and potential lender were matched using corresponding stores on the prop and shop tickets. The ASM wasn’t told the ‘attitude’ they would encounter. A third ticket was pulled from a hat, which simply stated wether or not the ASM would be successful or not (this was only known to the potential lender.

phone-propping

I love this exercise, it works very well as it gives the students a chance to have some real fun whilst still learning. Some of the performances were hilarious. We set up a couple of microphones and recorded the scenarios with the intention of podcasting them later on. I wanted the students to leave online comments (peer assessment) on each others performance after classes and at their leisure. Unfortunately, one of the microphones failed to pick up and only the ASMs could be heard. It may still be useful, but I am struggling to find a use.

The students who weren’t involved in any one scenario, sat, observed and made notes which we used as a basis for discussion afterwards. We discussed the propping process thoroughly and the many pitfalls that they may encounter (each has to ASM a production over the next term and a half at least once).

For some unknown reason the session only lasted an hour (I had scheduled 2, based on last years cohort), so we summed up the day with another discussion and went over the homework that they had been set. The most important of which was to link to each others WordPress blog that I had asked them to set up earlier last week. They were to post a daily blog on what they had learned during that day in my classes (which finish on Friday) and reflect on thier own performance. In addition they were asked to comment on each others online journals and provide encouragement and support for thier peers.

The Brief I gave them for using Twitter and WordPress were as follows:

Twitter is a microblogging facility (similar to Facebook’s notification updates). If you have an idea, note it on Twitter and share it with your peer group. As with WordPress you will have to share your Twitter address with your peergroup in order to follow ‘tweets’ made by others. Its a bit like text messaging to a group of subscribers. Once you have set up your Twitter account, share your address with each other and get tweeting.

My address is:

http://twitter.com/johnwilkie

Another useful way to use twitter is to RSS it to your WordPress page, in which your tweets will appear in a box on your blog. This can be handy for directly accessing your ideas and incorporating them into your reflections.

You can also use it to feed directly into the industry. Keep up to date with industry practitioners around the world as they go about their day to day business. The Stage newspaper have a Tweeter in residence who updates regularly, keeping you abreast of industry news.

Its all brilliant…. : )

Using WordPress

During the Stage Management week you will be expected to keep a daily blog of your learning. I have asked for you to set up a WordPress account with this in mind. Once you have done so, it would be useful if you could find your fellow classmates blogs and link to them (RSS subscription). Please share your WordPress addresses with each other, to subscribe; click on your peers blog and scroll down until you find the RSS subscription link, there will be two, one for post subscriptions and another for comment subcriptions. The post link is the one we are after, though the comment one will be useful as well, so click on both.

You are now linked to your peers blog. Everytime a post is made, or a comment left you will be notified.

After each Stage Management session please update your blog. Reflect on what you learned during the earlier session. Try to identify what you did well and why? What did you enjoy and why? What didn’t work for you and why? How could it be improved? How could you improve? etc….

The last part of this activity is to try and encourage you to support and/or be critical of your colleagues, so please leave a comment on each of your peers blogs.

After the week you may want to continue developing your reflective practice and maintain your blogs or simply delete them… its up to you!

My blog is at….

http://johnsteachingblog.wordpress.com

Basing reflection as the keystone to my practice has taken a massive step forward today. I feel that this group could evolve their peer learning into a thriving learning community. They seem to have a supportive dynamic already in place and once the technology becomes second nature, I can see this aproach as being successful.

There are still a few students unsure of the reflective process, but I feel they can develop it individually through trial and error, with some selective scaffolding by both myself and from each other. The collaborative process of blogging enables a framework for students to develop and evolve a strong team dynamic, which is both supportive and nurturing. It’s early days yet, though the early signs are encouraging.

1 Comment

Rolling…

September 23, 2008 at 9:51 pm (2nd Year Experience, Flexible Delivery, learning)
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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

Leave a Comment