tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-315037772024-03-13T12:38:34.446+00:00LearnadoodledasticSteve's Learning Journal. A.K.A Adventures in the land of sync, cybercommunities and learning theory.Steve Mackenziehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13773778141513293168noreply@blogger.comBlogger87125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31503777.post-39032126867902567382016-05-04T14:22:00.000+00:002016-05-04T14:22:39.191+00:00Universal Design For Learning (UDL): Some Selected ResourcesMany Universities in the USA and other organisations have developed
good resources in relation to UDL I have posted here are a selection of resources to
acquaint you with the principles of UDL:<br />
<ol>
<li><a href="https://www.uvm.edu/%7Ecdci/universaldesign/?Page=about-udl/index.php&SM=about-udl/submenu.html" target="_blank">About Universal Design for Learning</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.uvm.edu/%7Ecdci/universaldesign/?Page=about-udl/examples.php&SM=about-udl/submenu.html" target="_blank">Examples of UDL in Practice</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.uvm.edu/%7Ecdci/universaldesign/?Page=about-udl/guidelines-principles.php&SM=about-udl/submenu.html" target="_blank">Guidelines and Principles</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.usabilityfirst.com/about-usability/accessibility/principles-of-accessible-and-universal-design/" target="_blank">Principles of Accessible and Universal Design</a></li>
<li><a href="http://accessproject.colostate.edu/udl/" target="_blank">Teaching Resources and Technical Advice</a>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://accessproject.colostate.edu/udl/documents/udl_quick_tips.pdf" target="_blank">UDL Quick Tips</a></li>
<li><a href="http://accessproject.colostate.edu/udl/documents/how_do_you_teach_checklist.pdf" target="_blank">Applying UDL Principles – A Checklist</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href="http://udlseries.udlcenter.org/" target="_blank">Universal Design for Learning VIDEO Series</a> – i) <a href="http://udlseries.udlcenter.org/presentations/learner_variability.html?plist=explore">Explore the background to UDL</a>, ii) <a href="http://udlseries.udlcenter.org/presentations/udl_implementation.html?plist=implement" target="_blank">View Implementation Examples</a> iii) <a href="http://udlseries.udlcenter.org/presentations/bach_to_gaga.html?plist=lead" target="_blank">Implementation Strategies</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.dmu.ac.uk/documents/about-dmu-documents/professional-services/academic-professional-development/conferences-and-events/addressing-the-different-needs-of-students-05-09-13/inclusivecurriculumdevelopment-resources.pdf" target="_blank">Inclusive Curriculum Development: Considering the needs of all students</a></li>
</ol>
Steve Mackenziehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13773778141513293168noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31503777.post-13928460846592438542016-05-04T14:08:00.000+00:002016-05-04T14:08:33.004+00:00Universal Design for Learning (UDL), Designing For Usability and Designing for Accessibility<h3>
</h3>
A brief post highlighting the differences between
universal design, designing for usability and designing for
accessibility. This article <a href="http://www.washington.edu/doit/what-difference-between-accessible-usable-and-universal-design" target="_blank">What is the difference between accessible, usable, and universal design?</a> sums things up succinctly. In essence these are the differences:<br />
<ul>
<li><strong>Accessible design</strong> is a design process in which the needs of people with disabilities are specifically considered. <em>Accessibility</em>
sometimes refers to the characteristic that products, services, and
facilities can be independently used by people with a variety of
disabilities.</li>
<li><strong>Universal design</strong> is a broader concept that is defined by <a href="http://www.ncsu.edu/www/ncsu/design/sod5/cud/">The Center for Universal Design</a> at North Carolina State University as “<span style="color: red;">the
design of products and environments to be usable by all people, to the
greatest extent possible, without the need for adaptation or specialized
design.</span>” In the case of information technology, products that
are universally designed are accessible to and usable by people with a
wide variety of characteristics, including different types of
disabilities. These products are often designed to eliminate or minimize
the need for assistive technologies. At the same time, they are
compatible with common assistive hardware and software devices.</li>
<li><strong>Usable design</strong>, like accessible and universal design, serves to create products that are easy and efficient to use. <em>Usability</em> has been defined by the <a href="http://www.iso.org/iso/home.htm">International Organization for Standardization</a>
as the “effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction with which a
specified set of users can achieve a specified set of tasks in a
particular environment.” Usability engineers test the ease at which
users can learn to operate a product and remember how to do so when they
return to the product at a later time.</li>
</ul>
<span style="color: red;"><strong><br /></strong></span><sup><span style="color: red;"><strong></strong></span></sup>Steve Mackenziehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13773778141513293168noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31503777.post-31934893214594360542013-04-23T09:03:00.003+00:002022-09-09T05:15:31.945+00:00Are you participating in MOOC or a Massive Online Course acting as a MOOC<b>The Background </b><br />
<br />
It started with this tweet: <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="js-tweet-text"> MOOC-the M in Massive should be viewed as an aspiration and uncontested, If not truly Open, then it is not a MOOC. </div>
</blockquote>
in conversation I quickly followed up with this tweet:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq"> If it's not truly Open, its a MOC, and further more it is making a MOCERY of MOOCS :-)</blockquote>
I have been encouraged to explain my thinking a bit further by <a href="https://twitter.com/VanessaVaile" target="_blank">Vanessa Vaile</a>, an online friend and valued member of my personal learning network, so In relation to the tweets and the blog post title here we go. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/opensourceway/6555466069/" title="Brigham Young University faculty survey seeks to advance open education through academic libraries by opensourceway, on Flickr"><img alt="Brigham Young University faculty survey seeks to advance open education through academic libraries" height="208" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7172/6555466069_3246e8b54e.jpg" width="375" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
Image Courtesy of <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/opensourceway/">opensourceway</a> under the <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en_GB">CC 2.0 SA licence</a>
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<b>Some More Background</b><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoBodyText">
To be absolutely accurate it started with me perusing the <a href="https://www.canvas.net/courses/academia-and-the-mooc" target="_blank">Academia and the Mooc</a> MOOC discussion board (Running from the online learning platform, <a href="https://www.canvas.net/courses/academia-and-the-mooc" target="_blank">Canvas</a>) and observing a discussion around "is MOOC the right name to explain what you are participating in when involved in a MOOC". At the same time i was reading the JISC CETIS document on "<a href="http://publications.cetis.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/MOOCs-and-Open-Education.pdf" target="_blank">MOOCs and Open Education: <span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Implications for </span>Higher Education</a>" (pages 4-5) which explains the origins and subsequent labelling of recent online course initiatives.</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="BodyTextfirst">
<span style="color: #444444;">"<span style="color: #134f5c;">Following on from the development of Open Education
Resources and the Open Education movement (Yuan, et al., 2008), the term
Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) was first introduced in 2008 by Dave Cormier
to describe Siemens and Downes’ “Connectivism and Connective Knowledge” course.
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span></span></span></div>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #134f5c;">This online course was initially
designed for a group of twenty-five enrolled, fee paying students to study for
credit and at the same time was opened up to registered only learners
worldwide. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As a result, over 2,300
people participated in the course without paying fees or gaining credit
(Wikipedia, 2012). </span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #134f5c;">In 2011, Sebastian Thrun and his colleagues at Stanford
opened access to the course they were teaching at the university, “Introduction
to Artificial Intelligence”, and attracted 160,000 learners in more than 190
countries (Wikipedia, 2012). <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> </span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="BodyTextfirst">
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="color: #20124d;"><span style="color: #134f5c;">Since then,</span>
</span><span style="color: red;">MOOCs have become a label for many recent online course initiatives from
institutions, individuals and commercial organisations.</span>"</span></div>
</blockquote>
In this same document (page 6) the following paragraph grabbed my intention:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #444444;">"<span style="color: #134f5c;">The original aim of MOOCs was to open up education and provide free access to university level education for as many students as possible. In contrast to traditional university online courses, MOOCs have two key features (Wikipedia, 2012):</span></span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #134f5c;">1. Open access - anyone can participate in an online course for free</span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #134f5c;">2. Scalability - courses are designed to support an indefinite number of participants</span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="color: #134f5c;">However, these features may be interpreted differently by different MOOC providers; </span><span style="color: red;">some MOOCs are massive but not open and some are open but not massive</span>."</span></blockquote>
<b>Some even More background</b><br />
<br />
Those that know me will know that I am a strong advocate of connectivist learning. I believe that participation in cMOOCs is a fantastic opportunity to not only learn but to also build and enhance a lifelong personal learning network for ongoing future connectivist learning.<br />
<br />
I think we can all agree however that is more than one way of learning. I fully appreciate the need for different learning approaches for different people, situations, and levels of development including transmission mode teaching and learning. xMOOCs are often characterized as transmission mode style of learning and there is no doubt that thousands of learners have benefited from participating in these courses just as have thousands benefitted from leraning in cMOOCs. The exercise played out on this blog post is
purely a discussion of the terminology related to MOOCs and by extension the relevance and significance in relation to "cMOOCs" and "xMOOCs".<br />
<br />
<b>The Nub of it</b><br />
<br />
The Nub of this post simply started with a deeper look at the language that describes a genuine MOOC. Looking at the The JISC CETIS paragraph citing the original aim and then especially the phrase <span style="color: #444444;"><span style="color: red;">some MOOCs are massive but not open and some are open but not massive</span>."<span style="color: black;"> I came to these conclusions.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="color: black;">Massive - It is an aspiration and therefore it can be legitimately used by anyone describing their course.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="color: black;">Open - if it's not truly Open, its a MOC and i am afraid not really a MOOC. More on 'Open' below. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="color: black;">Online - This is self evident</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="color: black;">Course - I take the 'Course' description to give participants a sense of time, to engender some urgency, to indicate some purpose. </span></span>Other suggested options mused in the canvas discussion '<a href="https://learn.canvas.net/courses/42/discussion_topics/999" target="_blank">defining and redefining MOOC</a>' include classrooms, conversations and communications. These for me do not conjure up the same sense of urgency and purpose. <br />
<br />
<b>Being Open- Conclusion</b><br />
<br />
In the JISC CETIS quote above it states that <span style="color: #444444;">Open access means <span style="color: #20124d;">"<i>anyone can participate in an online course for free</i></span>", but in the true spirit of the original MOOCs this extended explanation from Dave Cormier gives a more complete explanation of what open actually means. </span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #444444;">"<span style="color: #20124d;">Open in the sense that all of the work gets done in areas that make the work accessible for people to read and reflect and make comment on.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #20124d;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #20124d;">The course is open in the sense that you can go ahead and take the course without paying for it</span><br />
<span style="color: #20124d;">you might pay for getting credit from the institution, but you are not paying for participating in the course.</span><br />
<span style="color: #20124d;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="color: #20124d;">It's also open in the sense that the work done in the course is shared between all the people taking it. The material put together by the facilitators, the work done by the participants it's all negotiated in the open. You get to keep your work and everyone else gets to learn from it.</span>"</span></blockquote>
<span style="color: #444444;">An important element for me is keeping your
work and it's not that you are just keeping it, but the effort in
producing your own work in your own space is good for you as a learner -
A place where you can easily retrieve your learning to be referred to
and passed on easily again and again when required either directly by
yourself or randomly because your work is out there to be shared long
after the 'course' has gone.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #444444;"></span>
<span style="color: #444444;">So after mulling over the language and the terminology associated with the Term MOOC, it dawned on me that if the course is not truly open then it is not a MOOC which it could be argued that some xMOOC offerings may come into this category and in affect they are in fact just a MOC, a Massive Online Course, which chimed in nicely with </span>a blog post by<a dir="ltr" href="https://twitter.com/whitneykilgore" id="" shape="rect" style="color: #0084b4; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><s style="color: #66b5d2; text-decoration: none;">@</s><b style="color: #0084b4; font-weight: normal;">whitneykilgore</b></a><b> </b><span style="color: #444444;"><a href="http://www.whitneykilgore.com/xmooc-or-new-publishing-paradigm/" target="_blank">xMOOC or New Publishing Paradigm?</a> So </span><br />
if not a MOOC or a MOC maybe a new publishing paradigm!<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #444444;">When you look more closely at the words and the meaning and the original
aim of a MOOC you logically come to the conclusion that cMoocs by their
nature are true MOOCs.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #444444;">See More From Dave Cormier below in "What is a Mooc"</span><br />
<span style="color: #444444;"><br /></span>
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="236" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/eW3gMGqcZQc" width="420"></iframe>
<br />
<br />
See also George Siemens' interview on MOOCs and Open Education<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="236" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/-a2cEzsMEMY" width="420"></iframe>
<br />
<h1 id="watch-headline-title" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border: 0px none; color: black; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 19px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; orphans: auto; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">
</h1>
See also Welcome to the Brave New World of MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses)<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="236" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/KqQNvmQH_YM" width="420"></iframe>Steve Mackenziehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13773778141513293168noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31503777.post-74073459285953691822013-04-19T12:15:00.003+00:002014-03-01T12:07:30.220+00:00Wordpress Blog as Online CV and Personal Development Auditor<br />
Spark for this session was this blog post "is technology eating your job". <a href="http://www.michelemmartin.com/thebambooprojectblog/2013/03/clarifying-your-career-path-technology-is-eating-your-job.html">http://www.michelemmartin.com/thebambooprojectblog/2013/03/clarifying-your-career-path-technology-is-eating-your-job.html</a><br />
<br />
Made me realize in a competitive job market place how important it is to be organised and ready for to secure the (a) job that you want. This got me thinking, then got me playing and then sharing my thoughts with a small group of social media enthusiasts at the university where i work - De Montfort University.<br />
<br />
Before we start the images incorporated into this blog below can be viewed much more clearly by watching this flicker slideshow in full screen or go directly too the flickr <a href="http://www.flickr.com//photos/59552586@N05/sets/72157633281899692/show/" target="_blank">Wordpress CV</a> slideshow.<br />
<br />
<div style="align: center;">
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</div>
<br />
The image below gives you a snapshot view of the user view of the Wordpress CV blog that i envisage<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-L7zL6iDo0nw/UXES40RaSRI/AAAAAAAAALI/rkGXvVkJERY/s400/SM_Wordpress_user.jpg" height="400" width="390" /></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">WordPress CV Blog - User View</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
The following notes collate the main points that were addressed in our session.<br />
<br />
<strong>Purpose of this Session</strong><br />
<br />
1. Highlight the use of Social media (wordpress) as a medium to organise CV information and Record Personal Development information. It is a career imperative to be organised.<br />
<br />
2. Highlight how WordPress (and other blogging platforms) can be adapted and used for many purposes. <b>A Blog is a Blog is a Blog - No!</b> Blog platforms are very flexible and with creativity they can be used for many different things.<br />
<br />
<b>Setup and thinking</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
1. Use this technique with any easily created Blog from <a href="http://wordpress.com/">http://wordpress.com</a>.<br />
<br />
2. No programming skills required.<br />
<br />
3. You can make wordpress Private to you! and that was and currently is my intention, whilst i am still building this site.<br />
<br />
In any event, the intention is for it to be private, the idea is for you to organize your history, skills and assets in an easily getattable :-) format, in order to customize CV's as appropriate for the job in hand (which generally need to be completed in specific online or offline electronic application forms).<br />
<br />
In this process of CV building you can give deeper consideration to the larger projects that you have worked on in your day to day work and use categorisation and tagging to indicate what skills, experience or knowledge they show evidence of. There will also be many smaller day to day skills and many professional developmental sessions that you have attended and that you can easily record in this way.<br />
<br />
4. Once finalized the question that can more fully addressed, shall i make it public or parts of it public. Which may be an option, but was not the original intention. In our small discussion the idea was suggested that maybe the CV can be tailored in some way - this is something i will look to consider as i move on and see if there is a feasible way of doing this - I will report back.<br />
<br />
Other questions - Can a portfolio of electronic evidence be incorporated or should the portfolio be separate (can be organised using the same approach as i will outline in the following paragraphs).<br />
<br />
<b>Worpress Features, how they are used and Useful Strategies.</b><br />
<br />
1. <b>SELECT A THEME</b> that suits your need. I was looking for a very simple theme. i chose <span style="background-color: white; color: #4c4c4c; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.222222328186035px; line-height: 21.111112594604492px; text-align: right;">Theme: </span><a href="http://theme.wordpress.com/themes/ari/" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #999999; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.222222328186035px; line-height: 21.111112594604492px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: right; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" title="Learn more about this theme">Ari</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #4c4c4c; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.222222328186035px; line-height: 21.111112594604492px; text-align: right;"> by </span><a href="http://www.elmastudio.de/wordpress-themes/" rel="designer" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #999999; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.222222328186035px; line-height: 21.111112594604492px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: right; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Elmastudio</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #4c4c4c; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.222222328186035px; line-height: 21.111112594604492px; text-align: right;">. </span><br />
<br />
2. <b>CATEGORIES AND TAGGING</b> Tailor the theme so that the only widget displayed is the Category widget. You will be posting various information from your CV as a series of blog posts ORGANISED by category. Tagging can add a further element of organisation and cut across two or more categories. In my current theme I could add a tag cloud widget. I chose not to as i did not like the tag cloud widget, i prefer a list but this was not available. A list widget would probably have changed my mind. Perhaps it is simpler without it anyway (tag links are still listed at the bottom of posts)<br />
<br />
3. <b>CREATING CATEGORIES</b> In the Admin view we need to create the CV categories. This can be done at the beginning in the post categories section (you could use the category menu image below which shows my categorization as i guide) or add the categories to the posts as i did whilst i was developing my thinking on how best to order my menu.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-R2oEVw3Qv4E/UXEfWNW1WRI/AAAAAAAAALM/k_eIVcLdIjk/s1600/SM_Wordprerss_menu.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-R2oEVw3Qv4E/UXEfWNW1WRI/AAAAAAAAALM/k_eIVcLdIjk/s640/SM_Wordprerss_menu.jpg" height="640" width="254" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Menu - The ordered list of categories</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
If you look at the example menu above you will probably agree that the first four or five categories will be quite standard. From 5-12 you may want to modify these categories to suit your particular circumstance and to clarify and record your skills You may have many strings to your bow e.g. examples of decisive management, examples of fostering positive change, examples of supporting people at work.<br />
<br />
4. <b>PRACTICAL TIPS</b> for displaying and working with your CV<br />
<br />
i) Use 01, 02.. etc at the start of category titles to order in a way that suits you - easy to change using quick edit. (Facilitates the Alphabetical menu order which you can control)<br />
<br />
ii) This next two part tip, combined with the categorisation is probably the <b>MOST IMPORTANT </b>element to make this blogging tool useful for coherent organisation, both from a user view and from an admin view.<br />
<br />
<b>Part 1) Visually Number Posts at the start of the post title</b> with the category number and the order within that category that you want. e.g. 7.1, 7.2, 7,3<br />
<br />
<b>Part 2) Change the blog post date to order the posts in admin view</b> - each section has a category tag - a category (conceptually) can be assigned a month and year to order posts, posts within a category can be ordered further by the number of days in the month. So if there were two posts in our 01 Education category, I would make sure that both posts were dated March 2013 (previous month ago from the date of this post). Now for the first post i would set the date the March 30 and for the second March 29. <b>Post dates are easily changed using QUICK EDIT. </b><br />
<br />
Thus the posts in admin and user views are now both visually and practically ordered for a coherent working environment.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-FoH40iaWvFQ/UXEwVnM79iI/AAAAAAAAALc/nZgYvtcf6qA/s1600/SM_Wordpress_adminquickedit.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-FoH40iaWvFQ/UXEwVnM79iI/AAAAAAAAALc/nZgYvtcf6qA/s400/SM_Wordpress_adminquickedit.jpg" height="292" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Worpress Admin - A post in Quick edit mode with Date, category and Tags highlighted</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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5. Might have mentioned this earlier but The <b>PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT </b>element will encourage you to record examples of your everyday work that can be used as evidence to support essential and desirable requirements that you see listed in CV application documents. You can use these requirements to prepare for similar requirements in the future - eventually covering all basis.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-KV4JebKYfVc/UXEw4F-ftGI/AAAAAAAAALk/V9ZG6sb_wi0/s1600/SM_Wordpress_admin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-KV4JebKYfVc/UXEw4F-ftGI/AAAAAAAAALk/V9ZG6sb_wi0/s400/SM_Wordpress_admin.jpg" height="340" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Wordpress - Admin View</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<br />
5. <b>OTHER RELATED USES</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Can you think how this approach can be harnessed for other uses. I think there could be quite a lot of applications. Possibles:</b><br />
<br />
1. I have already mentioned - Use to build a portfolio either separately or within the CV.<br />
<br />
2. As an educational programme builder for a team ( instead of a wiki maybe)<br />
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<b>6. EXTRAS That came out of our small group discussion.</b><br />
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1. Good to give Employers the option to peruse through an online CV if they wish. A Paper based version would be overwhelming, but online CV in this manner could be more appealing and make it easier for employers to deleve further if they wanted to.<br />
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2. If made public (can be limited to a set few as well) - the comments boxes could be used for endorsements.<br />
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<b>7. FINAL THOUGHT</b><br />
<br />
These notes were orginally to support a face to face show and tell presentation. I may try and setup an Dummy Wordpress CV site for anyone interested to get a better picture of how this works.Steve Mackenziehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13773778141513293168noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31503777.post-7010821837671882982013-01-27T22:08:00.001+00:002014-03-01T12:00:54.316+00:00MOOCING on Gas: Early Thoughts on Three Concurrent Offerings<div>
<b>Brief Overview of the MOOC Scene</b></div>
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<div>
<a href="http://suifaijohnmak.wordpress.com/">John Mak</a> a long standing and leading analyst in the field of Moocs identifies five different types of Moocs in this article <a href="http://suifaijohnmak.wordpress.com/2012/04/01/change11-cck12-what-are-the-main-differences-among-those-moocs/">What are the main differences among these types of Moocs</a>. For simplicity and for relevance to this post, i shall identify what i consider to be the three main approaches which are i) primarily an instructivist learning approach ii) primarily a free form distributed approach and iii) primarily a project based approach. </div>
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Currently we have a 'perfect' storm whereby all three types are running just about concurrently, we have in order of type as described above i) E-learning and Digital Cultures (#edcmooc) ii) Educational Technology (#etmooc) and iii) Online Learning Design (#oldsmooc). I initially joined up for #etmooc but have since got involved on both of the other courses.</div>
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<b>When participating in a MOOC what are you looking for? What are you expecting?</b></div>
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For first timers especially, chances are that you are expecting a pretty structured learning path and this is what you can generally expect from xMooc courses such as those offered by Udacity or Coursera. Both these type of xMooc offerings are geared to a traditional classroom based individual study approach, allowing for the fact that coursera does promote the notions of active learning and peer assessment (see <a href="https://www.coursera.org/about/pedagogy">Coursera pedagogy</a>),i'm putting this in the instructivist camp). This on the face of it is the type of offering for the <a href="https://www.coursera.org/course/edc">E-learning and Digital Cultures</a> course. </div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-zAys1DAOUS0/UQVA06JVQvI/AAAAAAAAAJ8/HPS_rHAZDWk/s1600/edclogo.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-zAys1DAOUS0/UQVA06JVQvI/AAAAAAAAAJ8/HPS_rHAZDWk/s1600/edclogo.png" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">E-learning and Digital Cultures Course</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
However if you sign up to a pure distributed cMooc such as #etmooc things may not be so clearcut. Not withstanding some guiding information about how to work in a cMooc environment you are very much expected to build your own learning environment using social media tools such as twitter, facebook and google plus, wikispaces, diigo etc whilst learning about the subject matter (on learning and technology moocs you will possibly be bombarded with all manner of useful applications (you won't remember everything, but you will learn a lot)).</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-go0vLKtyLDM/UQWCnKCCumI/AAAAAAAAAKM/i81ePiNXufc/s1600/etmooc.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-go0vLKtyLDM/UQWCnKCCumI/AAAAAAAAAKM/i81ePiNXufc/s1600/etmooc.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Educational Technology and Media Course</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
The Online Learning Design (#oldsmooc) cMooc although encouraging the use of distributed social media tools revolves strongly around the in-house socially connective software cloudworks that for the purpose of the course acts in my opinion a bit like a VLE, but does include the ability to connect with all previous registered users ideas and interactions through the vehicle of clouds (individual idea, comments, questions, tasks etc) and cloudscapes (a collection of clouds). Because of the project based nature of the course it does have a community of practice feel to it.</div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-i0gFuPR9c4I/UQWFm4jzhXI/AAAAAAAAAKc/Qev2QCJkdoc/s1600/oldmoocs.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-i0gFuPR9c4I/UQWFm4jzhXI/AAAAAAAAAKc/Qev2QCJkdoc/s1600/oldmoocs.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Online Learning Design Course</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Looking from a student perspective all these approaches will have a certain amount of structure and you can be sure that the use of social media tools will be encouraged and has been encouraged on all the courses.<br />
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<b>Some thoughts on Moocs</b><br />
The xMoocs have a great role to play in straight forward knowledge transfer and for me the big issue to address is when they may inappropriately be used with a topic that would benefit from more connective, distributive learning type approaches. Effectively they offer a traditional self directed individual study route that may benefit additionally from a cMooc approach but it may not be necessary.<br />
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With cMoocs the big question is can you get the connectivity, the distributivity and oxycontinicity ( <a href="https://twitter.com/@angelatowndrow">@angelatowndrow</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/@trendingteacher">@trendingteacher</a> inspired language) flowing. Do the learners feel the glow of support, encouragement and eureka moments that will sustain and nourish them in the tough task of being a blogging, connective learner. <b>Are they MOOCing on Gas</b>! Why is this important you ask?<br />
<br />
It's important because cMoocs do three main things:<br />
<br />
<ol>
<li>They first and foremost are developing the lifelong learning skills that an independent self directed learner will need in their future learning.</li>
<li>They very importantly act as a catalyst to expand and develop the personal learning network and environments that are crucial if a participant is going to flourish as a connective learner.</li>
<li>It offers the opportunity for an intense period of study of a topic with built in peer support and the consequential vigour and energy that this intensity and support brings.</li>
</ol>
<div>
<b>First Thoughts on ETMooc, EDCMooc and OLDSMooc</b></div>
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<b><br /></b></div>
<div>
<b>ETMooc</b></div>
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I started off by joining ETMooc. Having previously participated in a number of cMoocs namely CCK08, PLENK10 and CritLit10, I thought I knew how this was going to work. But WHAM it seems that there was a change to what i was used to. </div>
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Previously i had known a clear weekly structure and access to initial reading and video resources to get one going with your blogging, this time there appeared to be no material to initially work with and this was a bit disorientating. I suspect this was an experiment to get more people to come to the Blackboard Collaborate live sessions where it seems most of the knowledge and information was being transmitted. Reading lists appeared to be accessible via the course social bookmarking sites diigo and delicious. I don't think I have truly recovered from this blow especially since a vibrant alternative suitor came along in the shape of EDCMooc (more about that later).<br />
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What has been a good innovation in ETMooc is giving two weeks per topic. So i think a massive thumbs up for that and a massive thumbs down for the initial lack of resources (a warning for old timers might have helped, however it is something that i will be much better prepared for in the future and has not put me off). ETMooc is still in my thoughts and is indeed the prime instigator for this post.<br />
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<b>OLDSMooc</b><br />
I initially liked the idea of a project based task and have got myself aligned to a group, but am not officially in a team mainly because i was late joining and it is hard to play catch up. I think the Cloudworks connective software has some potential but it does feel as though the mentality of the course is more inward looking because of the nature of the team tasks. Although oldsmooc is out there in all the right social spaces i don't believe connectivity wise it has really taken off because it is not a strong component of the learning design philosophy (be interested what the designers think about that), despite the best efforts of <a href="https://twitter.com/penpln">@penpln</a>. I am behind with this, but hope to hang in there and fully appreciate the cloudworks environment.<br />
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<b>EDCMooc</b><br />
Phenomenal and the course has not even started. <b>This Mooc is cooking with Gas</b>.<b> </b>Here is the funny thing, the connective cMooc mentality is massively strong on this xMOOC type course and it has nothing to do with the course leaders. So why, what are the lessons. I might be wrong but:<br />
<br />
1. Massive lead in time to prepare the social distributive structures to support this informal connective network (2-3 months before course actually started).<br />
2. Attitude of initial leading participants who fortunately had a connectivist mindset. The giving warmhearted attitude has rubbed off. (They have shined a light on the attitude and mindset required to foster cMOOC learning)<br />
3. Clever, not to difficult, not to rigid events and tasks. For example i) Twitter Chat ii) Quad Blogging iii) Draw your thoughts e.g draw a picture of what to expect in this MOOC.<br />
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Love it that an xMOOC got cMOOCed - This will obviously bode well for the xMooc which starts officially today.<br />
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<b>Final Thoughts </b><br />
I believe all cMoocs organisers can learn from the EDCMooc to make cMoocs better. Initial Instigators of EDCMooc you deserve a big hats off. I believe that EDCMooc will spawn a bank of cMOOCers that with the long lead in time can and will support other non technology MOOCs and we should try and encourage this emotional expertise that EDCMoocers, ETMoocers and OLDSMoocers have to offer.<br />
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to ETMoocers and OLDSMoocers i know that there are many of you with the same emotional expertise, i have highlighted EDCMooc because I believe that there are some very good practices (some by design, some by chance maybe) that could enhance the way Moocs are run in the future.<br />
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Ciao!<br />
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Steve Mackenziehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13773778141513293168noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31503777.post-30525784163962740112013-01-26T00:02:00.003+00:002013-01-26T00:21:05.715+00:00Wordpress LMS LearnDash - The greatest LMS in the World?<div style="text-align: justify;">
Well that is what I am betting on for the soon to be released <b><a href="http://www.learndash.com/">WordPress LMS - LearnDash</a></b>! Why would I bet on it or make a claim of such largesse when I have not even seen or used it.</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
First off we know that this LMS is built on the strongest of foundations - The brilliantly devised WordPress blogging platform. This platform is very mature with nearly 10 years of worldwide development and support. The open software architecture has been cleverly devised to allow for useful applications to be added to WordPress through the use of plugins making it very easy to extend the functionality either by installing ready made applications or by developing plugins yourself. In a nutshell we have an easy to use platform for developers, visitors and non-technical editors.</div>
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<a href="http://www.learndash.com/"><img border="0" height="104" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-FX_YRa8e9bI/UQMV5RpR66I/AAAAAAAAAJc/ZTmcNB8K4E0/s320/learndashlogo-top1.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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Secondly we have had nearly 14 years to observe the growing pains of modern day web based learning management systems. The LearnDash designers have had all this time to learn from the mistakes and design faults that these systems may have. Although the various current products on offer have varying strengths and weaknesses I cannot believe that many will be as tightly and efficiently coded as a product that is going to fit into the ultra sleek WordPress blogging platform.</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
As long ago as December 2006 I shared my dismay at mainstream LMS/VLE systems (see <a href="http://learnadoodledastic.blogspot.co.uk/2006/12/embrace-web-20-technology-or-die-thats.html">Embrace Web 2.0 technology or Die - that's an order!</a>) and advocated the use of web 2.0 technology for ease of communication and thus ease of learning. More recently I really have started to appreciate the power and beauty of WordPress and thus with the launch of a <b><a href="http://www.learndash.com/">Wordpress LMS - LearnDash</a></b> this Monday 28th Jan I do believe this could be the launch of the greatest LMS yet.</div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-347DUt-snOk/UQMZN3IfpzI/AAAAAAAAAJs/Kvkmo2mkWr8/s1600/WEB2_SAVEUS.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="144" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-347DUt-snOk/UQMZN3IfpzI/AAAAAAAAAJs/Kvkmo2mkWr8/s320/WEB2_SAVEUS.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Photo Courtesy of <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/bensheldon/">Ben Sheldon</a>
under the <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/deed.en_GB" style="text-align: center;" target="_blank">CC BY-NC-SA 2.0</a> license.</div>
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I don't profess to know the full repertoire of features and how they fully work yet but building on the core features of student management, unlimited course creation and the 'Tin Can API' (which captures activities that happen as part of learning experiences),I am particularly looking forward to the easy certificate creation when students pass tests and quizzes, the powerful report generating module and the easy integration with any other WordPress themes and plugin applications.
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<b>Tin Can API</b><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="color: #b45f06;">It lifts many of the older restrictions. Mobile learning, simulations, virtual worlds, serious games, real-world activities, experiential learning, social learning, offline learning, and collaborative learning are just some of the things that can now be recognized and communicated well with the Tin Can API.</span></i></div>
</blockquote>
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It all sounds promising, looking forward to trying it out soon and keeping my fingers crossed that it truly is going to knock spots off all competitors. If it sounds interesting to you, take a look here for more information <a href="http://www.learndash.com/"><b>WordPress LMS - LearnDash</b></a>.<br />
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Once I start working with it I'll let you know if it lives up to the Hype :-)</div>
Steve Mackenziehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13773778141513293168noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31503777.post-38557552796608768312013-01-20T21:16:00.001+00:002013-01-20T21:42:21.783+00:00ETMooc - Stevie ItalianoI am using this and my first ETMOOC posting to briefly introduce myself, but more importantly in this blog post introducing the notion of closed captions on videos (easily achieved using Camtasia) and previously i introduced a photo that was made available for use under the creative commons license.
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<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/iCsYtDH-HOw" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
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If anyone wants to discuss anything relating to these tool educational tools then please leave a comment.
Grazie :-)Steve Mackenziehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13773778141513293168noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31503777.post-14683234614466730522013-01-18T09:45:00.002+00:002013-01-26T00:18:52.121+00:00ETMooc - Moocing old styleAs a participant of the first truly massive mooc CCK08, I am looking forward to participating in an old style :-) Mooc (cMooc) as opposed to the newer brand of xMoocs.<br />
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After participating in other cMoocs such as PLENK10 and CCK11 I have maintained loose connections with a number of early Moocers but in the last year or so have adopted a more passive (lets say less active) than active approach but I have still made a few spasmodic contributions on the topics of educational technology and connectivist learning and i know that long term i have the mentality of a contributor and so my time to serve will :-) come again.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Rko7TAl31AA/UPkXfRjM_YI/AAAAAAAAAJI/BOV3zGSf01c/s1600/connectivism+abstract.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Rko7TAl31AA/UPkXfRjM_YI/AAAAAAAAAJI/BOV3zGSf01c/s320/connectivism+abstract.jpg" width="243" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="text-align: center;">Photo Courtesy of </span><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/26036894@N03/">ryan2point0</a><span style="text-align: center;"> under the </span><a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/deed.en_GB" style="text-align: center;" target="_blank">CC BY-NC-SA 2.0</a><span style="text-align: center;"> license.</span></div>
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My participation in this mooc i am hoping will re-awaken the more active connectivist in me.<br />
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Let me say that a<b> big hats off</b> to the course creators. I think the two week per topic over 12 weeks is a <b>master stroke</b> in enabling participants the opportunity to <b>keep up with the programme </b>and I think will help enormously with the problem of participants getting disheartened when they cannot keep up with the schedule.Steve Mackenziehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13773778141513293168noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31503777.post-72340431446288234242012-11-27T19:13:00.001+00:002014-03-01T12:04:14.941+00:00Beginners Guide to WordPress: Setting up a local site, Setting up a working development environment, Gaining practical skills and Developing understanding<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 6.0pt; margin-right: 6.0pt; margin-top: 0cm;">
Before we move onto the central theme
of this article, as a foundation to our knowledge I suggest you read this
article which outlines the different versions of WordPress that are available: <a href="http://lorelle.wordpress.com/2005/08/27/wordpress-versions-how-many-and-whats-the-diff/">http://lorelle.wordpress.com/2005/08/27/wordpress-versions-how-many-and-whats-the-diff/</a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 6.0pt; margin-right: 6.0pt; margin-top: 0cm;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 6.0pt; margin-right: 6.0pt; margin-top: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 6.0pt; margin-right: 6.0pt; margin-top: 3.0pt;">
As individual developers we are concerned with the
full version of WordPress. For
individual developers that are learning their trade or who need access to an
environment where they can experiment and practice without the additional
issues of acquiring web space and a web server we need a local web server
installed that will replicate the online web space where WordPress would
normally be housed. There are a couple of solutions listed below. I suggest you
try out both options i) to see what environment you like working in the most
and ii) give you the opportunity to work on a couple of WordPress sites as you
experiment in the future.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 6.0pt; margin-right: 6.0pt; margin-top: 3.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 42.0pt; margin-right: 6.0pt; margin-top: 3.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span><!--[endif]-->Have a read of section 1 for some background to
the technology<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 42.0pt; margin-right: 6.0pt; margin-top: 3.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span><!--[endif]-->Try both implementations in section 2. You may
want to go to section 3 before you start and download WordPress. Instructions
will then be given in section 2 on how to install this onto your local web server.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 42.0pt; margin-right: 6.0pt; margin-top: 3.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span><!--[endif]-->Section 4 will give tips on using Dreamweaver as
your development environment. If you do not have Dreamweaver links to other
options are provided.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 42.0pt; margin-right: 6.0pt; margin-top: 3.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span><!--[endif]-->In section 5 we get down to work by creating a WordPress
theme.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 42.0pt; margin-right: 6.0pt; margin-top: 3.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span><!--[endif]-->Section 6 Plugins, you will not really need at
this stage, but it is there for future reference<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 42.0pt; margin-right: 6.0pt; margin-top: 3.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span><!--[endif]-->Section 7 offers some thoughts on development Strategies,
Environments and Tools<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 42.0pt; margin-right: 6.0pt; margin-top: 3.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span><!--[endif]-->Section 8 offers links to websites that can help
with the development of individual LAMP technology programming skills.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 42.0pt; margin-right: 6.0pt; margin-top: 3.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span><!--[endif]-->And in section 9 some other useful resources are
listed.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">I. Background to the Technology<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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1. Understanding LAMP: <a href="http://www.serverwatch.com/tutorials/article.php/3567741/Understanding-LAMP.htm">http://www.serverwatch.com/tutorials/article.php/3567741/Understanding-LAMP.htm</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">II. Setting up the Local web server Infrastructure
(XAMPP)<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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2a. XAMPP Home <a href="http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp.html">http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp.html</a>
(This link is for an overview of product)<o:p></o:p></div>
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3a Download XAMPP (v1.8.1) <a href="http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp-windows.html">http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp-windows.html</a>
(includes Apache web server v2.4.3, PHP
programming language v5.4.7 and MySQL database v5.5.27 and phpMyAdmin 3.5.22 :
(probably best to use the installer option. Note also there is Lite version for
use on USB Sticks)<o:p></o:p></div>
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4a How to Setup a WordPress Development Environment
for Windows (XAMPP): <a href="http://wp.tutsplus.com/tutorials/how-to-setup-a-wordpress-development-environment-for-windows/">http://wp.tutsplus.com/tutorials/how-to-setup-a-wordpress-development-environment-for-windows/</a>
<o:p></o:p></div>
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OR<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">II. Setting up the Local web server Infrastructure
(WAMPSERVER)<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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2b WampServer Home <a href="http://www.wampserver.com/">http://www.wampserver.com/</a>. (This link is
for an overview of the product. The product is made by a French company, use
the ‘ENGLISH’ text link on the home page to translate the page, not the browser
translate option if prompted.)<o:p></o:p></div>
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3b DOWNLOAD WAMPSERVER 2.2E. From the Home page there
are a range of installation options depending on your computer and the specific
versions of Apache, MySql, PHP and phpMyAdmin. <o:p></o:p></div>
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If you intend transferring an existing php intensive WordPress
site into this setup it is probably best to match your existing versions. <o:p></o:p></div>
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You get the choice of 32 bit or 64bit depending on
your machine. You can find this out by looking of the properties of your
‘computer’ or ‘my computer’ icon on your desktop (right click). <o:p></o:p></div>
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When downloading you will be presented with a form to
fill in(for training) – you don’t need to fill this in, you will find a link to
download the file at the top of the page. I went for this version (64-BIT &
PHP 5.3) as it matched my machine and the PHP version matched a WordPress site
I was transferring in.<o:p></o:p></div>
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4b. Setting up a local server for WordPress
development (WAMPSERVER): <a href="http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2012/02/setting-up-a-local-server-for-wordpress-development/">http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2012/02/setting-up-a-local-server-for-wordpress-development/</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">III.
Installing WordPress<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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5. Download WordPress: <a href="http://wordpress.org/download/">http://wordpress.org/download/</a><b><o:p></o:p></b></div>
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6. Installing WordPress: <a href="http://codex.wordpress.org/Installing_WordPress">http://codex.wordpress.org/Installing_WordPress</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">IV. Working with WordPress<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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7. Setting up a PHP Development Environment: <a href="http://www.adobe.com/devnet/dreamweaver/articles/setup_php.html">http://www.adobe.com/devnet/dreamweaver/articles/setup_php.html</a>
The article gives a comprehensive overview which includes installation of XAMPP
and myPHP admin as they are critical to being able to progress when setting up
your Dreamweaver development site. Instructions included for both MAC and
windows users. If you have already
installed XAMPP you may just want to review the instructions. The Dreamweaver
action kicks in with the section “Defining a PHP site in Dreamweaver CS5” and
finalises the whole download , installation and development setup to get you
ready just to focus on the development of the WordPress website.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="http://www.wpbeginner.com/news/wordpress-themes-made-easy-with-adobe-dreamweaver-cs5/">http://www.wpbeginner.com/news/wordpress-themes-made-easy-with-adobe-dreamweaver-cs5/</a>
<o:p></o:p></div>
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8. Other Development Environment options include:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 41.95pt; margin-right: 5.95pt; margin-top: 6.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span><!--[endif]-->WordPress development with Netbeans IDE: <a href="http://www.dev4press.com/2012/tutorials/wordpress/wordpress-development-with-netbeans-ide/">http://www.dev4press.com/2012/tutorials/wordpress/wordpress-development-with-netbeans-ide/</a>
<o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span><!--[endif]-->Sublime text 2: <a href="http://www.sublimetext.com/">http://www.sublimetext.com/</a> <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 41.95pt; margin-right: 5.95pt; margin-top: 6.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span><!--[endif]-->Webmatrix: <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/web/webmatrix/">http://www.microsoft.com/web/webmatrix/</a>
<o:p></o:p></div>
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I have not used any of these but all have been
mentioned in dispatches as useful development environments.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">V. Getting to Work – Themes<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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9. Using Themes: <a href="http://codex.wordpress.org/Using_Themes">http://codex.wordpress.org/Using_Themes</a>
<o:p></o:p></div>
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10. Theme Development: <a href="http://codex.wordpress.org/Theme_Development#Template_Files_List">http://codex.wordpress.org/Theme_Development#Template_Files_List</a>
<o:p></o:p></div>
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11. Intro: How to build a WordPress theme from scratch: <a href="http://www.developerdrive.com/2011/10/how-to-build-a-wordpress-theme-from-scratch-part-one/">http://www.developerdrive.com/2011/10/how-to-build-a-wordpress-theme-from-scratch-part-one/</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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12. More in Depth: How to create a WordPress theme: <a href="http://themeshaper.com/2012/10/22/the-themeshaper-wordpress-theme-tutorial-2nd-edition/">http://themeshaper.com/2012/10/22/the-themeshaper-wordpress-theme-tutorial-2nd-edition/ </a><o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">VI Getting to Work – Plugins<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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13. Plugin Development for WordPress: <a href="http://www.developerdrive.com/2012/05/plugin-development-for-wordpress/">http://www.developerdrive.com/2012/05/plugin-development-for-wordpress/</a>
<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">VI DISCUSSION – Strategies, Environments and Tools<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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14. Professional WordPress Development
Strategies: <a href="http://wp.tutsplus.com/articles/general/professional-wordpress-development-strategies/">http://wp.tutsplus.com/articles/general/professional-wordpress-development-strategies/</a>
<o:p></o:p></div>
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15. Professional WordPress Development environments: <a href="http://wp.tutsplus.com/articles/general/professional-wordpress-development-environments/">http://wp.tutsplus.com/articles/general/professional-wordpress-development-environments/</a>
<o:p></o:p></div>
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16. Professional WordPress Development tools: <a href="http://wp.tutsplus.com/articles/general/professional-wordpress-development-tools-2/">http://wp.tutsplus.com/articles/general/professional-wordpress-development-tools-2/</a>
<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">VII Skill Development<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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17. PHP 101: PHP For the Absolute Beginner: <a href="http://devzone.zend.com/6/php-101-php-for-the-absolute-beginner/">http://devzone.zend.com/6/php-101-php-for-the-absolute-beginner/</a>
<o:p></o:p></div>
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18. CSS Tutorials: <a href="http://www.csstutorial.net/">http://www.csstutorial.net/</a> <o:p></o:p></div>
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19. JavaScript tutorials: <a href="http://www.pageresource.com/jscript/">http://www.pageresource.com/jscript/</a><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 5.95pt; margin-right: 5.95pt; margin-top: 6.0pt;">
20. jQuery Tutorials: <a href="http://docs.jquery.com/Tutorials">http://docs.jquery.com/Tutorials</a> (About jQuery: <a href="http://jquery.com/">http://jquery.com/</a>)<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">VIII Useful Other Resources<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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DEVELOPER Drive: <a href="http://www.developerdrive.com/">http://www.developerdrive.com/</a> <o:p></o:p></div>
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How jQuery Works: <a href="http://docs.jquery.com/How_jQuery_Works">http://docs.jquery.com/How_jQuery_Works</a><o:p></o:p></div>
Steve Mackenziehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13773778141513293168noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31503777.post-65773099740757847092012-05-25T13:05:00.000+00:002015-02-24T10:49:16.773+00:00Camtasia 7.0 Part 1: Key PreparationThis post is the first in a series that will shed light on my approach to developing a videocast. In particular what i would call a video 'infocast'.
This post mainly draws on my experience of developing a set of videocasts that introduce students to 'online and distance learning' (See parts <a href="http://hlsweb.dmu.ac.uk/pgcpd/ODL/DMU-ODL_Part1_PrelimInfo_(480x360)/DMU-ODL_Part1_PrelimInfo_(480x360).html" target="_blank">1</a>,<a href="http://hlsweb.dmu.ac.uk/pgcpd/ODL/DMU-ODL_Part2_myDMU_(480x360)/DMU-ODL_Part2_myDMU_(480x360).html" target="_blank">2</a>,<a href="http://hlsweb.dmu.ac.uk/pgcpd/ODL/DMU-ODL_Part3_Blackboard_(480x360)/DMU-ODL_Part3_Blackboard_(480x360).html" target="_blank">3</a>,<a href="http://hlsweb.dmu.ac.uk/pgcpd/ODL/DMU-ODL_Part4_StudentEmail_(480x360)/DMU-ODL_Part4_StudentEmail_(480x360).html" target="_blank">4</a>,<a href="http://hlsweb.dmu.ac.uk/pgcpd/ODL/DMU-ODL_Part5_DMULibrary_(480x360)/DMU-ODL_Part5_DMULibrary_(480x360).html" target="_blank">5</a>,<a href="http://hlsweb.dmu.ac.uk/pgcpd/ODL/DMU-ODL_Part6_Athens%20Access_(480x360)/DMU-ODL_Part6_Athens%20Access_(480x360).html" target="_blank">6</a>) at the University that i work <a href="http://www.dmu.ac.uk/" target="_blank">DMU</a>. <br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/coldphage/4569123300/" title="preparation by elibrody, on Flickr"><img alt="preparation" src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3211/4569123300_87a7a8d614.jpg" height="266" width="400" /></a><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
Photo Courtesy of <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/coldphage/" target="_blank">elibrody</a> under the <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/deed.en_GB" target="_blank">CC BY-NC 2.0</a> license.</div>
To ensure that you do not waste unneccesary time, there are six key things you need to do before you embark on your project. These are:<br />
<b>1. Split your project up into approx 5 minute videos.</b> There will be research around that indicates that 5 minutes is at the outer limit of time that people will set aside to concentrate on watching a videocast. In my own particular project I ended up with about 6 videos. One video did stretch to 7 minutes, but i personally think in the context of 5 other shorter videos of between 2-5 minutes, then slightly breaking the rule but keeping the breaks natural was ok to do (I say - follow guidelines but don't be afraid to break the rules).
<b>2. Store and Work on a USB Memory Stick.</b> One of the few poor things about Camtasia is that when you add Media to the project it only refers to the media using the original absolute file path and location. If you wish to move your folder somewhere else or if you want to work on your project at home and also at work you will have to re-find the media everytime you change locations before you can start working on the project.
To get around this problem you need to store all your work on a USB Memory Stick, keep a consistent folder structure and make sure that whatever machine you work on assigns the same drive letter to your USB Stick. This article explains how to <a href="http://geekswithblogs.net/WynApseTechnicalMusings/archive/2007/07/13/113922.aspx" target="_blank">Assigning a Drive letter to a USB drive</a>. For me as the work machine forced me to use a G:/ Drive, I reassigned my own drive at home to match up and ensure i could work on both machines with no problem should i have to.
<br />
<b>3. Set up a clear working folder structure</b>. There are lots of different types of files that may be used when developing a Camtasia project. In order to work in a methodical, stress free way it pays to get your working folder structure clearly organised before you start. In the Development of this series of online and distance learning videocasts my preferred working methodology was as follows:<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-fuR6cpg_lyg/T79fuQR7A2I/AAAAAAAAAHs/gkNpl3TYwYs/s1600/folderstructure_full.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-fuR6cpg_lyg/T79fuQR7A2I/AAAAAAAAAHs/gkNpl3TYwYs/s320/folderstructure_full.jpg" height="250" width="400" /></a></div>
<b>A.</b> i) Create a "<b>_Camtasia projects</b>" folder to save the project file and any iterations thereof. ii) Create a "<b>_Final outputs</b>" folder to store the many variations of output that you may experiment with during the production process e.g. 480x360px screen size versus a 320x240px. iii) Create a "<b>_Powerpoint storyboards</b>" folder to store the powerpoint file (and any iterations thereof) that i use to build and develop my ideas. iv) Create a "<b>AA Finalised projects</b>" folder to store the completed series of videos that will be ready for distribution. v) Create "<b>audio, images and video</b>" folders to store the various media that may be used and finally vi) Create a "<b>transcript</b>" folder to store your transcripts and vii) Create a "<b>caption</b>" folder to export finalise audio text captions for use with closed captioning.<br />
<b>B.</b> Plan and map out the sequence of the video using Powerpoint. This allows me to use individual slides (save as > other format - jpg files) as graphic images in the videocast and for me to use the notes section of a powerpoint slide to write and then perfect the initial audio transcript. I can print the slides (publish > create handouts in microsoft word) with the transcript for reference when delivering voiceover narration. <br />
<b>C.</b> Develop and use Other media (audio, video, graphics) as appropriate and save in clearly labelled media folders.<br />
<b>D.</b> Experiment if necessary by producing a final output to the "_Final outputs" folder. This a test folder to see various output options in action.<br />
<b>E.</b> When final output format is finalised then save in "AA Finalised projects" folder.<br />
<b>4. Use Audacity to create and Edit Audio narration files</b>. You can record audio narration files quite happily from within camtasia (saves in a .WAV format). <a href="http://audacity.sourceforge.net/" target="_blank">Audacity</a> is just very quick and easy for recording and editing short narrated files. Additionally you can output in the .MP3 format. (although you need to install an extra file - the <a href="http://manual.audacityteam.org/help/manual/man/faq_installation_and_plug_ins.html#lame" target="_blank">LAME MP3 Encoder</a>). You can get away without audacity but i consider it a tool that makes your development easier and gives you more flexibility (you can use with other applications, once you know how it works). <br />
<b>5. Settings for best quality video on youtube</b> This article explains in depth how to prepare video for youtube: <a href="http://www.squidoo.com/youtuberight" target="_blank">How to Make YouTube Videos Look Great</a>. The key thing seems to be to use the 16:9 ratio and set to dimensions that are equal to 480x360 or same aspect ratio, as youtube finalize videos at 480x360px. Especially if I need to do screen capturing I now tend to use 960x720 to keep the ratio the same (but i did not do this for these videos). Note: I am still experimenting with this and have not come to a definitive view on what the best strategy is, but at this time this is my position.<br />
<b>Late Update</b><br />
<b>6. If recording is slow Disable Display Acceleration During Capture</b>. I noticed that initially especially with PowerPoints capturing a screen recording can be very slow. by disabling the display acceleration during capture recording speeded up dramatically. Read this link on <a href="http://www.techsmith.com/tutorial-camtasia-recording-performance-prior.html" target="_blank">How to Improve Recording Performance</a> for a full explanation and other related tips.<br />
So this is an insight to one particular project that I have worked on - there are other ways of using camtasia, but hopefully this gives an initial idea of the things to think about when setting up. note: looking back I will probably review my naming conventions - the underscores and "AA" in the folder names was to keep these folders together away from the media folders, so that I could find the media folders more easily when in the middle of working.Steve Mackenziehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13773778141513293168noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31503777.post-68987781233983930212012-05-05T10:57:00.002+00:002014-03-01T12:11:14.856+00:00Making a case for creating Open Educational Resources for use in Higher EducationTo set the scene we'll start with a useful and pragmatic definition of Open Educational Resources
from Stephen Downes (although he does not support the idea of an 'official' definition)
– Read more here <a href="http://halfanhour.blogspot.co.uk/2011/07/open-educational-resources-definition.html">http://halfanhour.blogspot.co.uk/2011/07/open-educational-resources-definition.html</a><br />
<blockquote>
"Open educational resources are materials used to support
education that may be freely accessed, reused, modified and shared by
anyone."</blockquote>
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<h4>
<b>Background</b></h4>
<span style="font-weight: normal;">Inspiration for this post was attendance at the one day </span><a href="http://www.ltsn-01.ac.uk/" style="font-weight: normal;">MEDEV</a><span style="font-weight: normal;"> workshop </span><a href="http://www.learninginstitute.qmul.ac.uk/elearning/news-and-events/from-curiosity-to-confidence-sharing-what-it-takes-to-go-open-with-learning-and-teaching-resources/" style="font-weight: normal;" title="Permanent Link to From curiosity to confidence: sharing what it takes to ‘go open’ with learning and teaching resources">From
curiosity to confidence: sharing what it takes to ‘go open’ with learning and
teaching resources</a>. Keynote speaker
Kieran McGlade (Queen’s University Belfast) kicked off proceedings with an Introduction
to open educational resources (OERs) and open educational practice (OEP). Megan
Quentin-Baxter (MEDEV) and Jane Williams (University of Bristol) prompted
useful discussion not just on copyright issues in relation to OERs but also on
the very important ethical question of consent (i.e consent of lecturers,
participants and patients for the re-use and distribution of OERs).
<br />
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<br /></div>
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/opensourceway/6555466069/" title="Brigham Young University faculty survey seeks to advance open education through academic libraries by opensourceway, on Flickr"><img alt="Brigham Young University faculty survey seeks to advance open education through academic libraries" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7172/6555466069_3246e8b54e.jpg" height="208" width="375" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
Image Courtesy of <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/opensourceway/">opensourceway</a> under the <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en_GB">CC 2.0 SA licence</a>
</div>
<br /></div>
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Sangeetha Rajoo and Caesar Wek (Both, Queen Mary University
London) demonstrated the good work that they have done creating open
educational resources and outlined their approaches and the issues that they
have come across. In the final session of the morning Paul Scott (Hull York
Medical School) gave an important insight into institutional approaches to
developing OERs, emphasizing the importance of planning early from the
beginning to ensure all resources do not infringe copyright and that consent is
obtained before the creation of resources.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Suzanne Hardy (MEDEV) rounded off the session in the
afternoon with many practical tips and advice on tools to use that will aid the
development of OERs.<br />
<br />
<b>Further Reading</b><br />
<b><br /></b></div>
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With a business hat on one of the prime motives quoted to
justify the creation of OERs is that it is good marketing for the institution
and it allows the institution and/or the individual to showcase their skills
and knowledge, enhance their reputation and encourage students onto the
standard regular courses and programmes that are offered. This may be so, however
I have not been overly convinced about the cost effectiveness and
sustainability of this approach for the institution and the effectiveness of OERS
in being re-used and re-adapted for teaching and learning. <br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
To help improve my understanding and come to an effective
rationale to make the case for creating Open Educational Resources for use in
Higher Education and beyond I’ve also recently read two articles on the topic.
i) <a href="http://www.eurodl.org/?article=483">Positioning the OER Business
Model for Open Education</a> and ii) <a href="http://journals.akoaotearoa.ac.nz/index.php/JOFDL/article/viewFile/64/46">Extending
the Territory: From Open Educational Resources to Open Educational Practices</a>.
<br />
<br /></div>
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Accepting there are merits in the motivation mentioned above,
for me it is not yet clear if this alone is a strong enough basis for a Strong OER
commitment that fits into the overall strategy of a Higher Education
institution and further how it fits in with the notion of still trying to gain
competitive advantage over other Institutions who you are collaborating with in
a spirit of altruistic educational endeavour. I probably need to examine in
more detail the philosophy and ‘success’ of an institution like <a href="http://ocw.mit.edu/about/">MIT</a> with their renowned open courseware
(OCW) programme (See <a href="http://ocw.mit.edu/about/presidents-message/">MIT’s
Presidents message about OCW</a>), but attendance at the workshop combined with
the further reading has helped me to crystallize a number of reasons that will
help make the case for institutional backing for creating and developing open
educational resources for use in Higher Education.<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>The First Argument</b><br />
<br />
The first argument is that as a leading educational
institution it is in the public good to share knowledge globally for the
benefit of citizens of the world. To quote Susan Oldfield from the MIT OCW
website “<i>We do not yet know the full
potential of OCW and its ultimate impact on global education. But it is clear
to us that by thinking of knowledge as a public good for the benefit of all,
and acting on this philosophy through OpenCourseWare, we can make a difference</i>”.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/elemenous/4140200293/" title="Clustr Map for the Global Education Collaborative Community 11.28.2009 by elemenous, on Flickr"><img alt="Clustr Map for the Global Education Collaborative Community 11.28.2009" src="http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2595/4140200293_73b014647c.jpg" height="150" width="400" /></a>
Image Courtesy of <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/elemenous/">elemenous</a> under the <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en_GB">CC 2.0 SA licence</a>
</div>
<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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The early pioneers had an obvious passion for this and for
many others they may just need some encouragement by other practising
colleagues to convince them that contributing to global education is a
wonderful thing.<br />
<br /></div>
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To stiffen this mentality up it could be argued especially
in the UK that given that lecturers and the institution are funded in large
part by the public purse then lecturers are honour bound to spread their
educational resources to the wider public.</div>
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<h4>
<b>Belief in the value
of Open Educational Practice is the Key</b></h4>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Open Educational Practice when defined is often closely
intertwined with Open Educational Resources, for me it is much wider than that.
It is sharing and engaging widely and openly. It involves network learning and making
use of all the wonderful social networking tools at our disposal to engage and
connect with other people on a local, national and global basis. This video <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4LrB-jFEgM&feature=player_embedded">Community as Curriculum
and Open Learning</a> from Dave Cormier and this video <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwM4ieFOotA">Networked Student</a> from
Wendy Drexler best help to explain the concept.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/bg/543229048/" title="UNH Talk Slide17 by bgblogging, on Flickr"><img alt="UNH Talk Slide17" src="http://farm2.staticflickr.com/1082/543229048_dc3c3920cb.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a>
Image Courtesy of <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/bg/">bgblogger</a> under the <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/deed.en_GB">CC 2.0 NC licence</a>
</div>
<br /></div>
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Many individual lecturers in Higher Education especially at
this time may question the mentality of embracing an open educational ethos and
making resources that they create free, open and available for use and re-use
by both teachers and students. To persuade unconvinced staff, to me it is
essential that staff first buy into the notion of open educational practice.
Once convinced, the notion of creating open educational resources will
naturally become part of the open educational mindset. <br />
<br /></div>
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Having myself been exposed to the open educational concept
primarily through the great connectivist movement (see <a href="http://elearnspace.org/media/WhatIsConnectivism/player.html">what is
connectivism?)</a> my own sharing
behaviour has been changed as I have been convinced by the enlightened early
believers of the merits of being an
active participant in a wider national and international open learning
community. The massive educational benefits I have freely received has
encouraged me to contribute my own knowledge skills, ideas and opinions freely
and openly thus playing my part in helping others, as others have helped me. <br />
<br /></div>
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We need to emphasize that the materials are free and open in
the context of education and are for non-commercial gain with you the creator
maintaining control of all aspects of copyright including accreditation and
sharing and re-use restrictions. This is ideally done using a <a href="http://www.creativecommons.org.uk/">Creative Commons</a> license, but
part of the preparation will include ensuring all material used has no
copyright restrictions and that ethical, moral and legal consent for the
inclusion of third parties in for example video resources is obtained.</div>
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<h4>
<b>Mitigating the effort of creating OERs</b></h4>
</div>
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I question the cost effectiveness and the sustainability
because it is not monetarily cheap to produce sophisticated specific resources
or timewise cheap to adapt and prepare materials for use as an OER. However, if
you are persuaded by the need to act in the public good, the obligation to make
the most of your publicly funded time or you really can see the massive
advantages of giving and receiving open educational resources and sharing
knowledge and ideas as part of a global education community, then with some
preparation and clear intent at the outset the job of creating OERs for use in
your regular teaching and learning and then for further sharing and re-use can
be made easier in a number of ways. Consider the following:<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
1. Within most Higher Education institutions there will be
an OER Champion. It will be important to work with them and within your own
institutional guidelines and policies. There are many legal and ethical issues
to consider. Your OER Champion mindful of the circumstances at your institution
will be able to offer time saving guidance and advice and possibly a clear
checklist of things you need to do to prepare resources for open educational
use.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
2. Addressing key legal and ethical issues mentioned above
before starting development of an OER will include i) ensuring that you are the
copyright holder or that you have copyright clearance to offer certain
material within an OER ii) clearly
stating the terms upon which you as copyright holder will allow the OER to be
used, shared or re-used (a <a href="http://www.creativecommons.org.uk/">creative
commons</a> license makes this a simple process) and iii) gaining consent of
participants in OERs before creation of said OERs (and with a clear explanation
as to its purpose and use).<br />
<br /></div>
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3. With an OEP mindset you’ll be more inclined to take
advantage of OERs produced by others. Your eyes will be opened to a wealth of
material freely available. This will inspire you to understand what is possible
and encourage you to contribute yourself when the time is right.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
4. There are many free tools out there to help not only the
development of OERs but resources for your own regular teaching and learning.
Once again opening your mind to these tools will further encourage you to understand
that with good planning and preparation making resources available freely and
openly for use and re-use although requiring some effort may not be too onerous
a task.</div>
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<h4>
<b>Practical Help</b></h4>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
During the MEDEV workshop Suzanne Hardy signposted some
great tools for sourcing open educational resources during the workshop. Some useful tools highlighted are listed here.</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1;">
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/xpert/"><b>Xpert</b> -
University of <b>Nottingham</b></a> (e-learning repository and attribution
tool)</li>
<li><a href="http://www.flickr.com/search/advanced/">Flickr
Advanced Search</a> (tick the creative commons box for OERs)</li>
</ul>
</div>
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<h4>
<b>OERs in Action</b></h4>
</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2;">
Here are a couple of useful examples of OERs that i am familiar with:
<br />
<ul>
<li>QMUL: <a href="http://www.drugs.smd.qmul.ac.uk/list.html">Drug of the week</a></li>
<li>DMU <a href="http://www.sicklecellanaemia.org/">Sickle Cell Anaemia</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<h4>
<b>And Finally Dissemination</b></h4>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There will be many OER Repositories such as <a href="http://www.jorum.ac.uk/">Jorum</a> to upload your resources too, but if
you want to try and spread the word about your OERs far and wide this
<a href="http://www.sicklecellanaemia.org/OER/Resources/SCOOTER80a_SEO_Guidelines.pdf">search engine optimisation guidelines</a> article by Dr Vivien Rolfe and Dr Simon Griffin uses the DMU
<b><a href="http://www.sicklecellanaemia.org/">Sickle Cell Anaemia</a></b> project
mentioned earlier to illustrate a step by step approach to gaining maximum
exposure for your resources.</div>
PS:If you don't know where to start with connectivist teaching and learning, contact me and i'll suggest a suitable starting point.
Steve Mackenziehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13773778141513293168noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31503777.post-24923782749265749962012-01-29T09:14:00.013+00:002014-03-01T12:09:12.786+00:00Articulate Presenter: Adding Voiceover SoundIn a previous post we looked at how to include voice-over sound in PowerPoint presentations. For those that also have access to the Articulate Presenter PowerPoint Add-In there is the opportunity to add sound to an enhanced presentational format. <br />
<br />
This two part series demonstrates how add to add voiceover sound to Articulate presentations and highlights a few basic points about the files and folders that are generated. <br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Part 1: Adding Voiceover sound to Articulate Presenter - Adding Sound, Previewing and Publishing</span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="236" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/hsVAhJ0zJcs" width="420"></iframe></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Part 2: Adding Voiceover sound to Articulate Presenter - Files, Folders and External Sound</span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="236" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Oc2sc5iqXuQ" width="420"></iframe></div>
Steve Mackenziehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13773778141513293168noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31503777.post-73668985755235383862011-12-31T12:38:00.004+00:002014-03-01T12:09:43.279+00:00Adding Voiceover Sound to PowerpointI have created a 4 part series of videos demonstrating and discussing how to include voice-over sound in PowerPoint presentations. For those that are new to PowerPoint, electronic presentations or are slightly technophobic in these matters hopefully these videos will be useful to you.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Part 1: Adding Sounds</span><br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/EOP7qYiVwDI" width="420"></iframe><br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Part 2: Summary and Considerations</span><br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/3l1q4LSxsow" width="420"></iframe><br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Part 3: Audacity</span><br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/BeAkg4c223A" width="420"></iframe><br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Part 4: Adding External Sound Files and Final Summary</span><br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/LmlDAOTQxzU" width="420"></iframe><br />
<br /></div>
Steve Mackenziehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13773778141513293168noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31503777.post-15335481611779318322010-09-23T17:25:00.015+00:002014-03-01T12:11:36.675+00:00HOLD THE FRONT PAGE - PLE's need TeachersCall it a PLE if you like, to me it is <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/Downes/connectivist-learning-and-teaching">connectivist learning</a>. Other terms that i can identify with are Dave Cormier's '<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4LrB-jFEgM&feature=player_embedded">Community as Curriculum</a>' approach and Wendy Drexler's elucidation of Networked learning in the '<a href="http://www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/ajet26/drexler.html">Networked student model</a>' (<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwM4ieFOotA">video</a>) .<br />
<br />
I agree with Jenny Mackness blog post on <a href="http://jennymackness.wordpress.com/2010/09/18/plenk2010-curation-and-balance/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to #PLENK2010 Curation and Balance">Curation and Balance</a> in that it is the process that is of most interest and relevance when trying to explain to staff and students the benefits of 21st century connectivist learning. I think however the terms PLE and PLN are with us to stay and so an appreciation of the differences between the terms is useful. From the various blog posts it would seem that the consensus is that a <span style="font-weight: bold;">Personal Learning Environment</span> (PLE) is more concerned with tools and technology and that <span style="font-weight: bold;">Personal Learning Networks</span> (PLN) are more concerned with connections to people. I agree with these distinctions and I like Vahid Masrour's (<a href="http://vahidplenk2010.blogspot.com/2010/09/pln-vs-ple-i-think-i-got-it-for-me.html">PLE, i think i got it (for me, anyways)</a> concise view of their respective functions.<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><span style="font-weight: bold;">PLE</span> - <span lang="EN-US">"My PLE is where I store all my “keys” to the network. The PLE takes me to my PLN through various gates and paths." and later he says "</span><span lang="EN-US">PLE's are nice, and useful, but they're the ticket and ride, not the destination. The destination is the PLN."</span></li>
<li><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-weight: bold;">PLN</span> - </span><span lang="EN-US">"One of the key concepts for me in a PLN is that </span><span lang="EN-US"><u>learning is a social activity</u></span><span lang="EN-US">.", "</span><span lang="EN-US">The PLN is then more akin to a community, but with much looser connections, described in the literature as “weak ties”. He also states "</span><span lang="EN-US">The key aspect here are the connections, and what I can do <i>with</i> them, in the sense of doing something with them, not just benefiting <i>from</i> them."</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">PLE's and PLN's in context</span><br />
Before I move onto the main theme of this post - <span style="font-weight: bold;">The role of the teacher in a PLE</span>, I wish to just talk about the context of PLE and PLN use. I can think of three different contexts where a PLE-PLN will be in use:<br />
<ol>
<li>Unconsciously - Those who without prior knowledge of the terms PLE and PLN learn from online pursuit of their interests combined with ongoing general social interaction.</li>
<li>True self directed independent learners who have naturally seen the potential of connective technology to enhance their own learning and understanding OR initially teacher supported users who are now confident working and learning autonomously in a self directed way.</li>
<li>Teacher supported PLE's and PLN's</li>
</ol>
As educators who see the learning benefits in a PLE/PLN approach then i think we need to recognize the importance of teacher supported PLE's and PLN's and the need to educate both teachers and students in order to promote this approach to learning.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Balance</span> <span style="font-weight: bold;">and the Teacher as Curator/Facilitator</span><br />
Jenny Mackness and Wendy Drexler both highlight the issue of balance (in many respects), but notably in the issue of teacher intervention and getting the right balance between supporting and scaffolding the learner experience and letting students independently develop and grow their own PLE's and PLN's.<br />
<br />
This excellent post by Leigh Blackhall <a href="http://learnonline.wordpress.com/2007/08/25/regarding-george-siemens-curators/">Regarding George Siemens curators</a> and George's subsequent excellent response breaks down possible roles involved in networked learning that the teacher may be classified as (<span style="font-weight: bold;">Expert:</span> Someone with sustained contribution to a field, <span style="font-weight: bold;">Teacher:</span> experts with authority, <span style="font-weight: bold;">Curator:</span> play the role of interpreting, organizing, and presenting content, <span style="font-weight: bold;">Facilitator:</span> able to guide, direct, lead, and assist learners, not necessarily being a subject matter expert.<br />
<br />
I note that George in his <a href="http://www.connectivism.ca/?p=93%20Netw">Networks, Ecologies, and Curatorial Teaching</a> post likes the idea of curator to reflect the role of network administrators/organisers in a networked learning environment. Previously I have always used the term 'teacher as facilitator'. After reading George's definitions i believe curating is probably more apt. In a teacher supported PLE/PLN the teacher will probably do both roles.<br />
<br />
Further to this I see the PLE-PLN as part of a learning strategy that runs alongside a more deliberate and social and active learning approach where more contrived learning tasks and activities are instigated to improve connectedness. It's all about context i think, but I note this may go against the grain of leading connectivist thinker Stephen Downes whose views are explored in this blog post - <a href="http://learnonline.wordpress.com/2006/09/30/groups-andor-networks-the-future-of-learning-in-a-networked-world/" rel="nofollow">The groups and networks debate</a> (I shall read more on this later).<br />
<br />
I see the role of the teacher as curator/facilitator as absolutely critical to helping students to appreciate and then develop the PLE-PLN approach to learning. It seems natural to me that intervention can be gauged on a continuum whereby new PLE-PLN learners are quite heavily supported and this support gradually diminishes as the learners evolve into confident autonomous and self directed learners.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Making PLE's and PLN's work Better</span><br />
<br />
Vahid Masrour<span lang="EN-US"> finishes his blog post with these questions/observation. "<span style="font-weight: bold;">I guess my next question then becomes: why focus on PLEs? Shouldn't we be trying to figure out how to make PLN work better?</span></span>"<br />
<br />
I think he has a good point. Development of your PLE is about working with technology, refining your use of tools to give you more <span style="font-style: italic;">keys</span> or more efficient access to your network of people and resources. This process alone will enhance connectivist learning skills, but it is in addressing how to make PLN's work better that enhanced learning can occur. i.e how to improve connection making and strengthen connections.<br />
<br />
We can explore this more at another time, but the main themes worth exploring in this regard are.<br />
<ol>
<li>Learner centered pedagogic development for teachers</li>
<li>Technological and online skills and practices development for teachers</li>
<li>Technological and online skills and practices development for learners</li>
<li>More use of web conferencing for live interactive synchronous learning activities.</li>
</ol>
I'' leave you with an excellent book <span id="btAsinTitle">- <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Helping-Students-Learn-Learner-Centered-Environment/dp/1579222226">Helping Students Learn in a Learner-Centered Environment: A Guide to Facilitating Learning in Higher Education</a></span>, which will serve as a guide for face to face and online facilitating and focus thinking on how this pedagogic approach can be adapted using the online technology available.<br />
<br />
#PLENK2010Steve Mackenziehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13773778141513293168noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31503777.post-19527883163021096072010-09-17T19:35:00.011+00:002014-03-01T12:11:53.777+00:00A Deliberate and Effective PLEInitial reading that has help me to formulate my opinion on this topic is the excellent <a href="http://www.aupress.ca/books/120177/ebook/06_Veletsianos_2010-Emerging_Technologies_in_Distance_Education.pdf">Developing Personal learning networks for open and social learning</a> article by Alec Courous who explains the rationale for choosing a primary free and open learning environment and describing the course facilitation model to promote an open an social personal learning network, John Mak's <a href="http://suifaijohnmak.wordpress.com/2010/09/12/plenk2010-research-into-the-design-and-delivery-of-mooc/">Research into the Design and Delivery of MOOC</a> blog post which contains a number of prompts in relation to open and social learning compared with the more structured and traditional way of learning, Dave Cormier's <a href="http://davecormier.com/edblog/2010/09/12/5-points-about-ples-plns-for-plenk10/">5 points about PLE'S and PLN'S</a> which gives a good overview of key points on the topic and <a href="http://edtechpost.wikispaces.com/PLE+Diagrams">Scott Leslie's Mother of All PLE Diagram Compilation</a>.<br />
<br />
Thinking about my own PLE in relation to the reading led me to developing my own PLE Model. The thinking behind the model is outlined below the following diagram.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.zietraining.com/plenk2010/controlplussix-plemodel.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://www.zietraining.com/plenk2010/controlplussix-plemodel.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 457px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a><br />
Questions that crossed my mind were:<br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">1. Is your PLE Deliberate?</span> By this i mean has your PLE just grown organically by adding and experimenting with different services or have you deliberately organised and designed your PLE to suit your learning Purpose.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">2. What is the Purpose of your PLE?</span> which leads onto the question...<br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">3. What model of a PLE fits your purpose? (need to review PLE Models)</span><br />
<br />
When considering Question 2 further questions come to mind such as:<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />4. What do you do in a PLE?</span><br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />5. What is learning in a PLE?</span><br />
<br />
Once you have a better understanding of what you do in a PLE, How you learn in a PLE and what the purpose of your PLE is you can in a more informed way address the question<br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">6. What technically do i need to do to make my PLE Effective</span>?<br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">So - What about my PLE, is it Deliberate, does it have a purpose</span><br />
In asking myself is my PLE deliberate the simple answer thus far is NO. Yes i do have a collection of tools that i use to help with my learning and maintaining personal connections, but previously i have not thought through clearly what i hope to achieve with my PLE. Until now most of my learning is driven by my immediate needs, the galvanising effect of being enrolled on a formal course or involved in informal but Studious and intentional courses such as this MOOC and serendipitous casual learning.<br />
<br />
When thinking about the purpose of my PLE it strikes me that i have needs for a number of distinct learning situations, but i shall concern myself with my primary interest which is learning and education and in particular social, active and participatory learning.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Towards a Deliberate and Effective PLE</span><br />
If we start with the premise that when creating a deliberate and effective PLE you are signed up to the notion you can enhance your learning by learning in an open, social, participatory, sharing way then at the most abstract level I think of what you do in a PLE as the <span style="font-weight: bold;">3x3</span>.<br />
<blockquote>
1. Collate, filter/sort and share TOPIC/CONTENT information<br />
2. Collate, filter/sort and share PERSONAL ACTIVITY<br />
3. Collate, filter/sort and share NETWORK ACTIVITY</blockquote>
By actively contributing to these activities you will be contributing to your own and others learning. It can quite a demanding business, but being organised and deliberate will help and being kind to yourself in recognising that you may not have all the time you would like to contribute fully will help as well.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Practically - What do you do in a PLE?</span><br />
It was interesting perusing the diagrams at <a href="http://edtechpost.wikispaces.com/PLE+Diagrams">Scott Leslie's Mother of All PLE Diagram Compilation</a>, but quite overwhelming at times. Nevertheless it did help me consolidate what i believe occurs in a PLE and consequently has now given me a model to follow in constructing my own deliberate and effective PLE.<br />
<br />
To simplify and understand what you do in a PLE I have broken down the key elements to SIX key activities plus your CONTROL center of Choice. We'll call this the <span style="font-weight: bold;">CONTROL PLUS SIX</span> model. Linked into this model is the recognition that the web based tools that you use in this model will have <span style="font-weight: bold;">multiple uses</span> and can fit in any of the six activities depending on your own learning purpose. The six activities that i have identifed are 1. Data Gathering, 2. Publishing, 3. Communication, 4. Collaboration, 5. Reflection and 6. Planning.<br />
<br />
I think most activities can be bracketed under these headings. I welcome any thoughts as to whether these broad categories do indeed capture the range of activity that ensues in a PLE.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">The Control Plus Six PLE Model </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">0. The control centre:</span> Whatever you use to pull together all the collating, sorting and sharing of topic/content information, personal and network activity. May be a combination of tools, not neccessarily just one. For example a Wordpress blog, Integrated Google tools, Personal Blog with Tweetdeck and RSS Feed reader.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">1. Data Gathering </span>: (Inbound Activity) - e.g. diigo, delicious social bookmarking, google search, network tweets, network blog posts, facebook links<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">2. Publishing:</span> (Outbound Activity) - e.g. blogging, creating multimedia, presentations, articles<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">3. Communication:</span> (Inbound and Outbound Activity) - e.g. discussion forums, tweeting, email, social networking (i.e facebook), web conferencing, instant messaging<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">4. Collaboration:</span> (Inbound and Outbound Activity) - e.g. wikis, google docs, project collaborations, presentations, research, article writing<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">5. Reflection:</span> (Neutral - Home Activity) - e.g. blogs, wikis, notes (facebook, diigo)<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">6. Planning:</span> (Neutral - Home Activity) - e.g. google calendar, project management (i.e basecamp)<br />
<br />
#PLENK2010Steve Mackenziehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13773778141513293168noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31503777.post-14558186342718902052010-07-24T18:58:00.004+00:002014-03-01T12:12:17.914+00:00Digital Participation, Digital Inclusion and Social Learning<span class="summary"><b>Digital Participation - Why?</b><br /><br />Attended the '<a class="wiki_link_ext" href="http://bcudigital.eventbrite.com/?utm_source=eb_email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=event_reminder&utm_term=event_title" rel="nofollow">Measuring the Unmeasurable: Digital Participation</a>' Seminar at Birmingham University on Monday 19th July. I was unsure as to what to expect. My motivation to attend stems from my interest in informal online learning and how connectivist methods of online learning can be used to promote digital participation. Also interested in the notion of measuring participation. The purpose of the session was to provide a forum for <i><b>discussion of the meaning and measurability of digital participation</b></i></span>. Key objectives of this initiative from Birmingham City University was to:<br />
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">To start up a continuing dialogue between researchers, activists and policy-makers about issues of research and measurement.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">To identify key concerns about the meaning and value of digital participation.</span></li>
</ul>
It would seem and i agree that widespread digital participation is a desirable aim for the government of any country. Desirable if you are a government that wishes to be inclusive and not have certain sections of the nation excluded from modern communication. Indeed here in the UK the topic has attracted interest because the previous government identified a goal of increasing digital participation. The new coalition Government also shares this ambition. More information can be found here at the <a class="wiki_link_ext" href="http://raceonline2012.org/about-us" rel="nofollow">raceonline2012</a> website. The importance of digital inclusion and digital participation for the Government are emphasised by Martha Lane Fox, the governments UK Digital champion:<br />
<blockquote>
"We need to be ambitious, ‘think internet first’ when we design services, and put the needs of the hardest to reach at the heart of industry, charity and government. There is a social and moral case to make sure more people are online but there is a clear economic case too. We will all be better off when everyone is online." <b>July 2010</b></blockquote>
Throughout the seminar i kept asking myself why - Why are the Government pushing this, What is their motivation, What is their Vision. Martha Lane Fox offers this:<br />
<br />
<object height="256" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/T7ssuttsUJg&hl=en_US&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/T7ssuttsUJg&hl=en_US&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="256"></embed></object><br />
<br />
and the seminar introductory text offers this:<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">"Lord Carter presented the <a class="wiki_link_ext" href="http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http://www.culture.gov.uk/images/publications/digitalbritain-finalreport-jun09.pdf" rel="nofollow">final Digital Britain report</a> in June 2009 (. The report highlighted the need to engage a wider </span>cross section of the public in going online; identifying that such engagement would result in the <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">efficiencies and economic benefits <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">expected from living and working in the digital age. </span></span>It is quite a detailed report and i have not had a chance to read it yet. As part of the digital participation agenda the following were identified as important topics to address:<br />
<ul>
<li><span class="vevent"><span class="description"><span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">Digital Life Skills</span></span></span></li>
<li><span class="vevent"><span class="description"><span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">Digital Inclusion and</span></span></span></li>
<li><span class="vevent"><span class="description"><span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">Digital Media literacy</span></span></span></li>
</ul>
<b><br />Overview of Proceedings</b><br />
<br />
Speakers at this event included:<br />
<ul>
<li>Professor David Macguire Birmingham University, Pro-Vice Chancellor Corporate Development</li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">Paul Watson – Director, Digital Economy Hub for Inclusion through the Digital Economy</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">Catherine Bunting – Director of Research, Arts Council England</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">Alison Preston – Senior Research Associate, Ofcom</span></li>
</ul>
Proceedings were kicked of by Professor David Macguire who emphasized the point that we are now part of a knowledge sharing economy and that through the development of digital technology their has been an information revolution, but without effort to achieve digital participation throughout the country then we will perpetuate the digital divide that exists, whee currently 12.5 mullion out of the 65-70 million will not be participating.<br />
<br />
Keynote Speaker Paul Watson told us about the <a href="http://www.rcukdigitaleconomy.org.uk/impact/building-an-inclusive-digital-economy.html">Social Inclusion through the Digital Economy</a><br />
. (side) research project that looks at problems of accessibility, connection at home and in society, transport and capitalizing on the emeregence of creative industries through the eyes of technologists, sociologists, business leaders and end users to provide scalable, sustainable and economically viable solutions. This project goes much wider than just ensuring that people have access to the internet, but does encapsulate good practice in promoting a model of joined up thinking on the subject of digital participation. This short video explains the sort of thing Paul Watson and his team are researching:<br />
<br />
<object height="256" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/KZVx830mPTI&hl=en_US&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/KZVx830mPTI&hl=en_US&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="256"></embed></object><br />
<br />
Alison Pearson outlined what Ofcom who had been commissioned under the Cartrer Report (2009) to collect statistics on digital participation outlined<br />
the approach they have taken to measuring digital participation. This included measuring:<br />
<ul>
<li>Reach: Who uses the Internet, Where do they use it, How do they access it.</li>
<li>Breadth: The ranges and types of Activity</li>
<li>Depth: User contributions and Content creation.</li>
</ul>
Part of the role of Ofcom is to them measure the <b>social and economic impact</b> i.e. The extent to which participating online had improved social contact and economically whether savings had been made. Additionally Ofcom looked at the appetite for take up amongst non users and the reasons why some people do not have the internet at home.<br />
<br />
Whilst the final speaker Catherine Bunting had some worthwhile incites into using cluster analysis and segmentation research methodologies to get a firm grip on who is participating in arts based events (off line) and lessons can be learned and applied to digital measurement I was much more interested in <b>How do we get people to participate, what does participate mean or simply asking the question why should you/me participate.</b><br />
<br />
Presumably others felt similarly as the afternoon workshop by <a class="wiki_link_ext" href="http://jennifermjones.net/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Jennifer Jones</a> on Depth<br />
was by far and away the most well attended.<br />
<br />
<b>Why is participation important? - Some thoughts!</b><br />
Well too me it depends on who is answering the question, but the bottom line to me is that participating online promotes social learning and learning in all its forms is a strong foundation for progress within a society. There was a strong feeling i got from our discussions on the day that one of the strong motivations was to save the government money by moving services online - which is all fine, dandy, proper and good but whoever is driving this vision must be driving with a passionate belief that being a digital citizen allows the individual and society to develop and improve both from a social and economic point of view.<br />
<br />
If we leave the top end knowledge workers to one side, to encourage full digital citizenship there needs to be a social, life benefit to participating which will attract interest from all levels of the community. To the individual if their are benefits to be gained economically or in terms of convenience then this will indeed be one strand of the motivation. If digital participation can have a link to offline activities that foster community and social activities that would be another important and worthwhile strand. Participating online, mixing and socializing will inevitable lead to informal social learning, but there are also fantastic opportunities to support people online who are looking to learn specific skills and competencies.<br />
<br />
So underpinning effective and inclusive digital participation will be education and especially education in the new media literacies that are required to function effectively in a wide range of activities on the web. This may require a change in teaching mentality that embraces new media technology in schools. The video below will set the scene for creating digital citizens for the 21st century.<br />
<br />
<object height="256" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/tahTKdEUAPk&hl=en_US&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/tahTKdEUAPk&hl=en_US&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="256"></embed></object><br />
<br />
Alison Pearson of Ofcom talked of the importance of media literacy and on that subject here is a fantastic resource from Ruth Howard one of the participants of a recent CritLit2010 worldwide online course pondering the <a class="wiki_link_ext" href="http://www.netvibes.com/ruthhoward%23CritLit_Bloggers#CritLit_Bloggers" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">critical literacies required for the online networked learner</a>. A lot of links here to educators around the world that are discussing and debating how the web can foster social and informal learning.<br />
<br />
To wrap up i would say obviously that massive investment in kids education from 5 upwards is imperative. Reading and writing would be a good place to start (and overcome the nonsense of kids in the UK not being able to read and write effectively as they move into teenage and adult life), followed by good grounding, good experience and good discussion on how to participate in a social media driven web world. On that theme Howard RheinGold's <a class="wiki_link_ext" href="http://www.masternewmedia.org/news/2006/11/14/participatory_media_and_the_pedagogy.htm" rel="nofollow">Participatory Media And The Pedagogy Of Civic Participation presentation</a> is a comprehensive look at participatory media. For existing adults i do believe the <a class="wiki_link_ext" href="http://www.learndirect.co.uk/aboutlearndirect/centresearch/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">learndirect</a> type centers offer good potential to develop digital and community participation. Having worked in a similar drop-in style computer center for Stafford College many years ago - it was very effective in teaching the basic skills of computing and having a focal point in the community.<br />
<br />
Development of other online social enterprises such as those run by Stuart Parker at <a class="wiki_link_ext" href="http://wesharestuff.org/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">We Share Stuff</a> and<a class="wiki_link_ext" href="http://www.socialmediasurgery.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> Comunity focused Social Media Surgeries </a> whose aim it is to take make it easier to find and run social media surgeries to support community groups, local charities and local active citizens are welcome initiatives..<br />
<br />
Another useful website to help in upgrading basic computer skills is <a class="wiki_link_ext" href="http://www.onlinebasics.co.uk/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Online basics</a><br />
That's about it from me - i think you can see that my view is that an aim to improve learning for all and develop better educated citizens is the best way to approach the aim of making digital participation inclusive for all.<br />
<br />
I leave you finally with some interesting websites from outside of the UK that may help inform thinking on this subject - One from America<a class="wiki_link_ext" href="http://www.digitalinclusion.net/" rel="nofollow"> The Institute of Digital Inclusion</a> and one from Australia <a class="wiki_link_ext" href="http://www.educationau.edu.au/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">education.au</a> whose aim is to build bridges between educators and technology to help make technology accessible, easy to understand and simple to use.Steve Mackenziehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13773778141513293168noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31503777.post-54084955510269281592010-07-11T10:13:00.001+00:002010-07-11T11:05:01.328+00:00Connectivist Learning #CritLit2010 #CCK09After reading George Siemen's post on <a href="http://www.connectivism.ca/?p=53%20?">Connectivism taxonomy</a> and <a href="http://suifaijohnmak.wordpress.com/2010/07/06/mastery-learning-blooms-hypothesis-and-taxonomy-and-connectivism/">John Mak's response</a> I compared the points expressed with the critical literacy taxonomy that i had published in my last blog post and with my own views on connectivist learning. I have subsequently created a wiki page to develop a <a href="http://learnadoodledastic.wikispaces.com/Critical+Literacies+Taxonomy">Critical Literacies Taxonomy</a> and a wiki page that looks at <a href="http://learnadoodledastic.wikispaces.com/Connectivist+Taxonomy">Connectivist Taxonomy Linked to Critical Literacies</a>. I'd welcome any input to develop and discuss the issues as a group from interested colleagues.<br /><br />If we start with some feedback on George's proposed connectivist taxonomy. Firstly I agree with the suggestion from <span style="font-weight: bold;">Brad Hodge</span> that metacognition could come in as early as connection forming. Maybe at Praxis level metacognition encapsulates more thought about the network. As John Mak asserts maybe in the "chaos and fuzzy dynamic" connnectivist online environment it is difficult to "measure competency in a discreet manner" with regard to the development of a connectivist learner. I based my subsequent <a href="http://learnadoodledastic.wikispaces.com/Connectivist+Taxonomy">Connectivist Taxonomy Linked to Critical Literacies</a>, on John's further proposal that a dynamic n-dimensional (mxn) model of taxonomy may be more suitable. You'll notice from the model that one further distinction i have drawn is that the connectivist taxonomy appears to progress from individual knowledge development and then move on the network knowledge development and i thought it was important to emphasize that distinction.<br /><br />The other strong points to emerge for me were the 1) excellent point raised by <a href="http://avich.com/blog/">Avi Charkam</a> and the role of the teacher in the taxonomy of connectivist learning and 2) John Mak's highlighting of the social and emotional elements that contribute to learning e.g. emotional control, self awareness, self confidence, motivation, social skills and interpersonal skills, social elements (social awareness, ethics, intelectual property awareness etc). Perhaps a matrix model may help in this regard<br /><br />On a side, but equally relevant issue these two points struck a chord with me as my in my masters dissertation i proposed a model of distance learning termed <a href="http://learnadoodledastic.blogspot.com/2008/04/score-20.html">SCORE 2.0</a>. This model was inspired by connectivism, wherby i see not just the fantastic potential of asynchronous communication to aid informal learning, but i see the interactive synchronous classroom sessions as a fantastic medium to connect people much more strongly than asynchronous alone. I see the teacher being very important in this model of distance learning - not just in delivering, but in planning the whole learning experience. Connectivist, active and social learning runs through the heart of the model and the teachers role is to engineer and support development of a connectivist mentality. It would seem that the approach to connectivist learning is that it is strongly self directed learning. I believe that connectivist learning can be viewed along a continuum from heavily supported learning to a fully self directed learning and that the teacher has the important role if giving the appropriate support at various times along this continuum.<br /><br />The key findings of my masters disseration were that the online synchronous classroom when used in conjunction with varied learning activities can be a motivating and engaging environment in which to build a community of learners. Supporting ‘Web 2.0’ technologies play an important part in supporting the community of learners and in helping to develop learner autonomy. Vital to the successful implementation of the model is an appropriately trained and motivated teacher. For those interested here is my <a href="http://www.zietraining.com/dissertation/AAA_DissertationFINAL%20%28031008%29.pdf">dissertation</a>.Steve Mackenziehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13773778141513293168noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31503777.post-71626292836793753482010-07-04T21:04:00.006+00:002014-03-01T12:12:38.670+00:00Network Learning: A Taxonomy of Critical Literacies #CritLit 2010From the discussions and reflection so far in the CritLit 2010 course I set out to build on my earlier blog posts and develop my own understanding of critical literacies for the 21st century networked learner. Encouraged by Ruth Howard and John Mak i initially considered developing a taxonomy of literacies in the form of a visual model to capture the elements identified by the Critit2010 group. In considering what to include and how to represent it i started to reflect back on the course materials, presentations and discussions.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Foundational Critical Literacies</span><br />
<br />
Strange as it may seem i have not seen many of the presentations related to the weekly topics, but have worked from the readings and the subsequent blog postings of others. It was good then to work my way through Grainne Conole's presentation on one of the key foundational literacies (as proposed by Stephen Downes) which came in week 1 on <span style="font-weight: bold;">Cognition</span>.<br />
Simultaneously i was trying to appreciate the significance of what i would call the other key 'communicative' or 'signifying' foundational literacies of <span style="font-weight: bold;">syntactics</span>, <span style="font-weight: bold;">semantics </span>and <span style="font-weight: bold;">pragmatics</span> and wondering whether these foundational literacies can be worked into my proposed visual model. An example of what i had in mind can be seen is this <a href="http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://ccblog.typepad.com/.a/6a00e54f7a4381883301157147473b970c-320pi&imgrefurl=http://ccblog.typepad.com/weblog/2009/07/blooms-taxonomy-now-in-wheel-form-for-smoother-syllabus-rolling.html&usg=__uEa6n58NMEBj074LwDnUziT2K7g=&h=242&w=320&sz=95&hl=en&start=4&sig2=2HVrWpArEVEcqGtvPfT0ig&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=iXeMHI5NP8S14M:&tbnh=89&tbnw=118&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dblooms%2Btaxonomy%2Bwheel%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26tbs%3Disch:1&ei=IaIxTIS7DdOSjAec8fXEBQ">visual model of Bloom's Taxonomy</a>.<br />
<br />
The importance of the other key foundational literacies of 'appreciation of <span style="font-weight: bold;">context</span>' and the 'ability to recognise and adapt to <span style="font-weight: bold;">change</span>' quickly became apparent in Grainne's presentation. Grainne pointed out that the context of education is itself changing. We have an explosion of new and ever changing technologies, ubiquitous networked access (mobile and broadband) and an abundance of free online tools and applications.Additionally learners themselves are changing - they are growing up 'digital' - i.e technologically immersed, task orientated, group based and just in time mentality and comfortable with multiple representation. This context facilitates new technological approaches that move from a content driven, transmission passive recipient model of learning to a more participative, active and social way of teaching and learning. In this context the six key foundational literacies are going to be much more important for networked learning. Grainne points out that although the technological environment in the 21st century fosters a myriad of affordances (action possibilities) for a learner - the affordances for an individual will be limited to their capabilities - i.e their critical literacies.<br />
<br />
Grainne suggests that the technological affordances at all levels (written words and numbers, 1st wave technology - phone, radiot, tape,TV, 2nd wave technology of computer networks, mobiles, the internet) are <span style="font-weight: bold;">communication</span>, <span style="font-weight: bold;">connection</span>, <span style="font-weight: bold;">interactivity </span>and <span style="font-weight: bold;">representation </span>and that practices evolve depend on the <span style="font-weight: bold;">characteristics of the users</span> (e.g. preferences, interests, skills, context).<br />
<br />
We can see for networked learners in the 21st century an example of how critical literacies are important when we consider Grainne's example of using the microblogging service 'Twitter". Examples of use include posting queries, commenting, gathering opinions, sharing ideas, brainstorming, maintaining social presence. We'll just consider some of the issues of using this service that were raised and how they may relate to our foundational critical literacies. Issues identified were:<br />
<br />
i) Your 'a-ha' moment (cognition - ability to infer)<br />
ii) is it the right network (context)<br />
iii) your digital voice (syntax, semantics and pragmatics i.e how you communicate)<br />
iv) Inappropriateness (syntax, semantics, pragmatics cognition, context and maybe change)<br />
v) Personal/Private (context and maybe change)<br />
vi) Too much twittering (cognition and maybe change)<br />
vii) Use with other tools (cognition, context and maybe change) and<br />
viii) A passing fad (cognition context and maybe change).<br />
<br />
I'd be interested to hear others view on how i have tried to relate these foundational critical literacies to issues raised in twitter. At times i was not sure i could make a clear relationship. Where i feel more comfortable is in trying to align some of the practical (more tangible) literacies identified during this course and positioning these in some sort of schema, taxonomy or model that may inform the inclusion of these critical literacies as part of teaching and learning.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">A taxonomy of Critical Literacies (skills) for the networked learner</span><br />
<br />
I have so far collated the information below, i have put it into a semi visual format, but repeated in text format below. Still lots to reflect on, but maybe others would like consider if the top level categories need expanding/changing and what is missing from this taxonomy of critical literacies. Critical thinking skills are considered to be brought to bear on all the critical literacies from 4-7. Final thought as i write this - should these categories be referred to as skills so as not to be confused with our underlying foundational critical literacies.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.zietraining.com/smimages/CriticalLiteracies.gif" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://www.zietraining.com/smimages/CriticalLiteracies.gif" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 315px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 420px;" /></a><br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">1. Basic</span><br />
* i) Reading/Writing<br />
* ii) Numeracy<br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">2. Life</span><br />
* i) Management of Time, Workload and Prioritising,<br />
* II) Self-Efficacy<br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">3. Computer</span><br />
* e.g. ECDL - European Computer Driving License<br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">4. Web -</span><br />
* 1.Managing your Digital Identity - SM<br />
* 2.Recognizing Authenticity and Legitimate Authority - SM<br />
* 3.Emotional and Social Intelligence (Relationship Building and Development inc trust and respect) - JohnM<br />
* 4.Self Expression and Participation - SM<br />
* 5.Wayfinding behaviors and Strategies in Large Virtual Environments – JennyM<br />
* 6.Ask Questions - Think Critically! JohnM<br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">5. Learning</span><br />
* 1.Interpreting Visual Data RH<br />
* 2.Information management - Network Student Youtube Video<br />
* 3.Self reflection, self-directed learning (with learning agenda, experimentation & practice – JohnM<br />
* 4.Concise, reflective expression and inquiry? . – JohnM<br />
* 5.Appreciating the impact of Complexity Theory? – JennyM<br />
* 6.Literacy of Memory (Storage of data/knowledge/connections –SM<br />
* 7.Storytelling - X28<br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">6. Teaching/ Professional Development</span><br />
* to explore<br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">7. Research</span><br />
* to exploreSteve Mackenziehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13773778141513293168noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31503777.post-31598218615568521552010-06-20T22:55:00.003+00:002014-03-01T12:15:37.964+00:00Getting Anchored in My #CritLit 2010 MOOC<span style="font-weight: bold;">Consolidation</span><br />
<br />
When I started the <a href="http://ple.elg.ca/course/moodle/">Critical Literacy 2010 course</a>, I started late and was not exactly sure what the major focus of the course was. In my mind the dominant thought was that this was a course that was primarily concerned with Critical Thinking Skills. Reflecting back at the outset, the course details did outline that:<br />
<blockquote>
"Content for the course is being drawn from the presentation <a href="http://www.downes.ca/presentation/237" target="_blank">Pedagogical Foundations for Personal Learning</a> This presentation provides a frame for an understanding of the critical literacies required in a networked learning environment. Briefly, the elements are as follows: i) Syntax, ii) Semantics, iii) Pragmatics, iv) Cognition, v) Context and vi) Change."</blockquote>
During the course, discussion has emerged around the topic of critical thinking and many of the participants have gone on to suggest practical critical literacies that learners in a networked learning environment need to develop. The six week course as it suggests in the course details does also indeed follow the course themes weekly and these provide a background to the practical critical literacies which are being discussed on the course. I am much more comfortable discussing the practical critical literacies as i previously have not looked at all deeply at the underpinning elements of communication and thinking that are the bedrock of this course. I have not been able to attend the online synchronous presentations and i have not looked at the recordings (included here) yet either:<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="http://cloudworks.ac.uk/cloud/view/3951">Week 1: Gráinne Conole Cognition</a></li>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/aTgfwK"></a><a href="http://cloudworks.ac.uk/cloud/view/3951"> Week 2: </a><a href="http://bit.ly/aTgfwK">Dave Snowden</a><a href="http://bit.ly/aTgfwK"> Complexity</a></li>
<li>Week 3: Graham Attwell Pragmatics</li>
</ul>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Impetus to learn more about Philosophy and Communication</span><br />
<br />
Whilst preparing this blog post it seemed that although i believe i have something to contribute to the course that my main focus should be to ensure that i have good (better) grounding in the main underpinning topics and themes. This was a deviation from my intention which was to peruse various blogs from the CritLit 2010 course, looking for further discussion of literacies that might be deemed critical (as in imperative). Instead inspired by Ruth Howard's Blog post <a href="http://ruthhoward.edublogs.org/2010/06/14/self-as-locus-of-learningcritlit2010/">Self as a locus of Learning</a> I linked to the following article on <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/Will1945/a-national-look-at-postmodernmism-s-pros-and-cons-in-educational-leadership">the pros and cons of postmodernism</a>. Ruth was directed to this resource by the industrious, forthcoming and very interesting blog postings of John Mak. John's recent postings relating to the topic of critical litercaies include:<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="http://suifaijohnmak.wordpress.com/2009/10/17/cck09-educational-leadership/">Educational Leadership</a></li>
<li><span class="previous"> <a href="http://suifaijohnmak.wordpress.com/2010/06/11/critlit2010-reflective-thinking-a-personal-perspective-part-1/" rel="prev">#CritLit2010 Reflective Thinking – A Personal Perspective Part 1</a></span></li>
<li><span class="next"><a href="http://suifaijohnmak.wordpress.com/2010/06/12/critlit2010-reflective-thinking-a-personal-perspective-part-2/" rel="next">#CritLit2010 Reflective Thinking – A Personal Perspective Part 2</a> </span></li>
</ul>
Reading the article on <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/Will1945/a-national-look-at-postmodernmism-s-pros-and-cons-in-educational-leadership">the pros and cons of postmodernism</a>.gave me the impetus to get a brief grounding in Philosophy - A subject that i have not previously explored in any great depth. What i discovered from Wikipedia was that "<b>17th century philosophy</b> in the Western world is generally regarded as being the start of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_philosophy" title="Modern philosophy">modern philosophy</a>,", generally known as the<span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Reason" style="font-weight: bold;">Age of Reason</a>. I learnt that this era was followed in the <span style="font-weight: bold;">18th Century</span> <span style="font-weight: bold;">by the </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_enlightenment" style="font-weight: bold;">Age of Enlightenment</a><span style="font-weight: bold;">.</span> The Age of Enlightment preceded the <span style="font-weight: bold;">19th Century </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modernism" style="font-weight: bold;">Modernism</a><span style="font-weight: bold;"> philosophy</span>, before the <span style="font-weight: bold;">20th century philosophy of </span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/%20http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodernism" style="font-weight: bold;"></a><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodernism">Postmodernism</a> came to the foreground.<br />
<br />
Looking at the main themes of the course, communication is the nub of all the critical literacies being considered and therefore an appreciation of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistics">Linguistics</a>, the study of natural language is a useful attribute. Important to note that linguistics can be divided between the study of language structure (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammar" title="Grammar">grammar</a> including <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syntax">syntax</a>) and the study of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meaning_%28linguistics%29" title="Meaning (linguistics)">meaning</a> (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantics" title="Semantics">semantics</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pragmatics" title="Pragmatics">pragmatics</a>). Within the field, <i>linguist</i> is used to describe someone who either studies the field or uses linguistic methodologies to study groups of languages or particular languages. Outside the field, this term is commonly used to refer to people who speak many languages or have a great vocabulary. Wikipedia 2010.<br />
<br />
A closely related field concerned with the general study of signs and symbols both in language and outside of it is <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiotics" title="Semiotics">Semiotics</a> and whilst considering the topic of pragmatics in relation to a networked learner living in a multimedia environment it seems that communicative elements are going to be more than just the written or spoken word.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">The Critical Literacy Pyramid</span><br />
<br />
Since the last time i blogged i have perused a few more postings (not as many as i would have liked) and have been considering all the different Critical literacies that have been mooted. In trying to make some coherent sense of them i started to categorize them into top level literacies and categorized them accordingly. This needs thinking through a lot more,but in trying to catalogue them i have been considering a critical literacy pyramid model. Thus far i have captured the following mooted critical literacies and have categorized them thus:<br />
<br />
<ol>
<li>Basic Literacy - Reading and Writing</li>
<li>Life Literacies </li>
</ol>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://jennymackness.wordpress.com/2010/06/03/critical-literacies/">Management of Time, Workload and Prioritising</a> –Jenny Mackness</li>
</ul>
3. Computer Literacy (<a href="http://arenastudies.wordpress.com/2010/06/15/critlit2010-reflections-%E2%80%93-third-week/">Digital Literacy</a> - <cite class="fn"><span class="url">María Fernanda Arenas</span></cite>) – For example Completing an ECDL certificate could be evidence of this<br />
4. Web Literacy - Navigating the Web including use of social media and appreciation of cultural, ethical, social and legal issues<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="http://suifaijohnmak.wordpress.com/2010/06/04/critlit2010-critical-literacies/">Relationship Building and Development</a> – John Mak</li>
<li><a href="http://jennymackness.wordpress.com/2010/06/06/wayfinding-as-a-critical-literacy/">Wayfinding behaviors and Strategies in Large Virtual Environments</a> - Jenny Mackness</li>
<li><a href="http://suifaijohnmak.wordpress.com/2010/06/06/critlit2010-is-the-future-about-emotions/">Emotional and Social Intelligence</a> – John Mak</li>
<li><strong><span style="font-family: ";"><a href="http://suifaijohnmak.wordpress.com/2010/06/13/critlit2010-trust-respect-and-empowerment/"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Is trust and respect a Literacy by itself? I reckon it is part of the social and emotional literacy</span></a>. </span></strong>– John Mak</li>
<li><span style="font-size: 85%;"><strong><span style="font-family: ";"><a href="http://suifaijohnmak.wordpress.com/2010/06/11/critlit2010-reflective-thinking-a-personal-perspective-part-1/">Would another critical literacy be ASKING QUESTIONS?</a></span></strong><strong><span style="font-family: ";"> . </span></strong>– </span>John Mak</li>
</ul>
5. Learning Literacy – Appreciation of how to use Web 2.0 tools and technologies in combination with various learning theories and strategies<br />
<ol>
<li><a href="http://groups.diigo.com/group/critlit2010">I observe data visualisation as an emergent critical literacy</a> - Ruth Howard comment</li>
<li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwM4ieFOotA">Information management mentioned as a critical literacy</a> Network Student Youtube Video </li>
<li><a href="http://suifaijohnmak.wordpress.com/2010/06/06/critlit2010-is-the-future-about-emotions/">Self reflection, self-directed learning (with learning agenda, experimentation & practice), and relationship building</a> (same as 2) John Mak</li>
<li><a href="http://suifaijohnmak.wordpress.com/2010/06/11/critlit2010-reflective-thinking-a-personal-perspective-part-1/">Would that be the critical literacy that I also aspire to – concise, reflective expression and inquiry?</a><strong><span style="font-family: ";"> . </span></strong>– John Mak</li>
<li><a href="http://jennymackness.wordpress.com/2010/06/09/complexity-and-critical-literacies/">Is a critical literacy for networked learning to know something about Complexity Theory?</a> - Jenny Mackness</li>
<li><a href="http://nlabnetworks.typepad.com/transliteracy/2010/06/internetarchive.html">Literacy of Memory</a> –Steve Mackenzie<span style="font-size: 85%;"><strong></strong></span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: 85%;"><strong><span style="font-family: "; line-height: 115%;"><a href="http://suifaijohnmak.wordpress.com/2010/06/11/critlit2010-reflective-thinking-a-personal-perspective-part-1/">Would another critical literacy be ASKING QUESTIONS?</a></span></strong><strong><span style="font-family: "; line-height: 115%;"> . </span></strong></span><span style="font-family: "; font-size: 100%; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: 85%;">–</span> John Mak</span></li>
</ol>
6. Teaching Literacy - Appreciation of how to use Web 2.0 tools and technologies to create and foster learning activities <br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">What about Critical thinking? - see below</span><br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;"></span><br />
I intend to turn this into a diagram at some point. If you can imagine this as a pyramid with 1 at the bottom.I envisage perhaps a set of critical litercies that logically build on the preceding literacy. I apreciate that there colud be some overlapping/fuzzy areas especially maybe beween 5 and 6. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Missing from the list is critical thinking which i'd have as an external force from level 4 onwards</span>, (maybe earlier?). <span style="font-family: "; font-size: 100%;">I need to think a lot more about it. This is my first stab, i am sure there are other top level literacies and many many more sub literacies ( or maybe not - maybe the list needs to be pruned or merged already). </span><span style="font-family: "; font-size: 100%;">The main thing i wanted to do was to identify some top level literacies, so that all those literacies mentioned can much more easily be related to their purpose.<br /></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><i>María Fernanda Arenas</i> wrote a very interesting blog post <a href="http://arenastudies.wordpress.com/2010/06/15/critlit2010-reflections-%E2%80%93-third-week/">relating pragmatics to digital literacy</a></span> and along with Ruth set me off on this quest to know more about the underlying principles of communication and also increased my interest in trying to categorize critical literacies as i have never liked the term 'digital literacy' - it just conjures up images of zero's and one's to me.<span style="font-family: "; font-size: 100%;"><br /></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-size: 100%; font-weight: bold;">What about Critical thinking?Again</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "; font-size: 100%;">Note that this blog post has drawn uncritically from Wikipedia for ease of reference. I generally find Wikipedia a reliable place to get initial descriptions, definitions and overviews from which i can delve into more deeply at a later date. I have found that i have used my blogging in this course more as a storage place for useful links for latter reference. By writing a blog post though i feel as though i have engaged much more with the material in trying to weave the links into a coherent written piece and i love the easy accessibility in retrieving this information (my learning) at a later date. Blogging is great for capturing the learning?</span><cite class="fn"></cite></div>
Steve Mackenziehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13773778141513293168noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31503777.post-28948229672555905602010-06-13T11:26:00.002+00:002010-06-13T11:36:48.657+00:00Critical Literacy – The Struggle Moves to a Different Arena – My Arena #CritLit2010<p class="MsoNormal" style=""><b>A snapshot of discussion around the term ‘Critical literacies’ <u1:p></u1:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">The topic of what is actually meant by Critical Literacy has been raised in a number of places. <a href="http://twitter.com/helinur">Heli Nurmi</a> an educationalist with many years experience has some great blog posts around the topic of critical literacy in this course and asks the questions “are we going to learn anything new, will we learn about new knowledge building, new media literacies (yes, but what?) or is it only technology which develops?” Heli’s three initial blog post give plenty of food for thought:<span style="font-family:Symbol;"></span><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";font-size:36;" ></span></p> <ul><li><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";font-size:36;" ></span><a href="http://helistudies.edublogs.org/2010/06/02/cognitive-resonances-in-my-online-identity/" title="Permanent Link to Cognitive resonances in my online identity">My web identity and critical literacies</a></li><li><a href="http://helistudies.edublogs.org/2010/06/02/cognitive-resonances-in-my-online-identity/" title="Permanent Link to Cognitive resonances in my online identity">Cognitive resonances in my online identity</a><span style="font-family:Symbol;"></span><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";font-size:36;" ></span></li><li><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";font-size:36;" ></span><a href="http://helistudies.edublogs.org/2010/06/03/critical-thinking-and-levels-of-reflectivity/" title="Permanent Link to Critical thinking and levels of reflectivity">Critical thinking and levels of reflectivity</a></li></ul><br /> <u1:p></u1:p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">To guide others on the course <a href="http://twitter.com/Ulop">Ulop O’Taat</a> highlights the following text with this signposting - So<a href="http://kenkat.wordpress.com/2010/06/04/critical-literacy/"> Ken, if you and others are struggling</a> with what is meant by critical literacies in this course, re-read <a href="http://ple.elg.ca/course/moodle/">the opening moodle page.</a></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 1cm 10pt;">“<b>Critical</b>, as the course is not just about finding out how to use the latest technologies for learning, but to look critically at the Web and its underlying structures. <b>Literacies</b>, as it is more about capabilities to be developed than about the acquisition of a set of skills”. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">Ken Anderson in his post on <b><a href="http://kenkat.wordpress.com/2010/06/04/critical-literacy/" title="Permanent Link: Critical Literacy">Critical Literacy</a></b> had previously highlighted his struggle to understand what is meant by Critical Literacies in the context of this course. He identifies two themes from the course information:</p> <ul type="disc"><li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">CL: literacies critical to functioning in a PLE. This definition suggests tool familiarity</li><li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">CL: abilities related to critical thinking, reading, writing i.e. logic skills, syntax etc. as noted in the<a href="http://ple.elg.ca/course/moodle/mod/wiki/view.php?id=2&page=Critical+Literacies+Online+Course+2010+support+Wiki"> course outline</a></li></ul> <p>And makes an additional observation about the course</p> <ul type="disc"><li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">What I have really found interesting is <a href="http://ple.elg.ca/course/moodle/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=21#p49">Kop’s statement</a> that the heart of the ‘course’ is about who controls access to information. Is this what this ‘course’ is primarily concerned with? Those that control the means of distribution (of information)… Will this be a course in Marxism?</li></ul> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><b>My own sense-making of the term ‘Critical Literacies’ and my subsequent learning strategy<u1:p></u1:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">I more or less identified the same two strands as Ken, which i referred to in an earlier blog post. In trying to establish what is meant by critical literacies in the context of this course I focused on what I considered to be the two most relevant meanings of ‘critical’ that come to mind. These being:</p> <ol><li><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";font-size:36;" ></span>Critical as imperative. i.e. imperative literacies to have</li><li><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";font-size:36;" ></span>Critical as in being analysed and evaluated i.e. Literacies that analyse and evaluate</li></ol> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">Additionally mindful of the stated aims/purposes of the course I also was aware that i need to consider the following element of criticality.</p> 3.<span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";font-size:36;" ></span> Critical as in looking at (analysing and evaluating) the Web and its underlying structures: i.e. sing traditional Critical thinking skills to analyse and evaluate the web and its underlying structures.<br /><br /> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">It seems to me that there is already a well established set of generally agreed critical thinking skills – therefore in relation to point 2 above I think the question to be pursued is <b>“What technologies will best facilitate traditional critical thinking skills?”</b>. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">With regard to point 1, 'critical' as imperative seems to me to be the most important thing to focus on for the self directed learner in a networked personal learning environment and so far on this course the following critical literacies have been offered from the floor or have been found by me in text or video content that i have perused: My intention is to continue to trawl through the CritLit2010 opinions and offerings to add and then to refine the list:</p> <ol><li><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";font-size:36;" ></span><a href="http://jennymackness.wordpress.com/2010/06/03/critical-literacies/">Management of Time, Workload and Prioritising</a> –Jenny Mackness</li><li><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";font-size:36;" ></span><a href="http://suifaijohnmak.wordpress.com/2010/06/04/critlit2010-critical-literacies/">Relationship Building and Development</a> – John Mak<u1:p></u1:p></li><li><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";font-size:36;" ></span><a href="http://jennymackness.wordpress.com/2010/06/06/wayfinding-as-a-critical-literacy/">Wayfinding behaviors and Strategies in Large Virtual Environments</a> - Jenny Mackness<u1:p></u1:p></li><li><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";font-size:36;" ></span><a href="http://nlabnetworks.typepad.com/transliteracy/2010/06/internetarchive.html">Literacy of Memory</a> –Steve Mackenzie</li><li><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";font-size:36;" ></span><a href="http://groups.diigo.com/group/critlit2010">I observe data visualisation as an emergent critical literacy</a> - Ruth Howard comment</li><li><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";font-size:36;" ></span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwM4ieFOotA">Information management mentioned as a critical literacy</a> Network Student Youtube Video </li><li><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";font-size:36;" ></span><a href="http://suifaijohnmak.wordpress.com/2010/06/06/critlit2010-is-the-future-about-emotions/">Emotional and Social Intelligence</a> – John Mak </li><li><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";font-size:36;" ></span><a href="http://suifaijohnmak.wordpress.com/2010/06/06/critlit2010-is-the-future-about-emotions/">Self reflection, self-directed learning (with learning agenda, experimentation & practice), and relationship building</a> (same as 2) John Mak</li></ol><br /> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">So i plan to continue looking at themes of the week, but ultimately at the end of this course i hoped to have a clear idea of the emerging critical literacies (as in imperative) that a networked learner should develop. Maybe i should put this list in a wiki for all to add to – need to get this blog post finished and then have a rest first <span style="font-family:Wingdings;">J</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">With regard to point 3 and issues of power and control, i shall leave that until another time.</p>Steve Mackenziehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13773778141513293168noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31503777.post-70565930785938319582010-06-11T18:43:00.003+00:002010-06-11T18:48:22.368+00:00Critical Literacy Course: An Online Distribued Learning Model adhering to a pedagogy of self directed learning using a PLE–Introducing #CritLit2010<p style="font-weight: bold;" class="MsoNormal">Some Background</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I became aware of connectivist, networked models of learning whilst completing my MA in the use of interactive and collaborative technology for Adult Distance Learners in 2008. <span style=""> </span>I immediately appreciated the fantastic learning opportunities afforded by web 2.0 or social software and during this time I developed a model, of learning which I termed <a href="http://learnadoodledastic.blogspot.com/2008/04/score-20.html">SCORE 2.0</a> (Synchronous Community Orientated Reflective and Experiential). <span style=""> </span>A lot more research and development needs to be done but essentially i see this model as a combination of formal learning with the informal self directed connectivist model of learning.<span style=""> </span>I look forward to revisiting and refining the SCORE 2.0 Model to compare with the Online Distributed Model of Learning that drives this course as i am keen to work connectivist learning into formal learning situations. Additionally whilst being a learner on CCK08, the first Massive Online Open Course (MOOC) I became aware of this much larger (Massive <span style="font-family: Wingdings;"><span style="">J</span></span>), more open way of learning.</p> <p style="font-weight: bold;" class="MsoNormal">Why I enrolled</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I enrolled on the course initially to learn more about critical thinking skills. The course also gives me a focus for learning, a motivation to put the hours to read and think more deeply than if i was just perusing the web for learning opportunities.<span style=""> </span>Although the course is built around self directed learning there is a loose structure and more importantly a simultaneous group effort focused on the same themes at the same time (spread over a 6 week period).</p> <p style="font-weight: bold;" class="MsoNormal">What I found</p> <p class="MsoNormal">After reading the course details further I found that the focus of the course whilst embracing critical thinking is primarily focused on the critical literacies that are needed to work with technology in a networked personal learning environment. Perfect –<span style=""> </span>I get to:</p> <ul><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol;"><span style="">·<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Think more about Critical Thinking Skills</li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol;"><span style="">·<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Think more about Critical Literacy Skills in relation to networked PLE’s </li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol;"><span style="">·<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Practically develop my PLE and Networking skills in this MOOC environment.</li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol;"><span style="">·<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Learn about Learning</li></ul> <p style="font-weight: bold;" class="MsoNormal">First Thoughts</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Firstly I needed to get organised – Do not want to miss any possible postings in this distributed environment.<span style=""> </span>Prior to the course my own personal learning environment has revolved around using <a href="http://www.tweetdeck.com/">tweetdeck</a> to monitor twitter activity. The easy setting up of search columns makes this a great application to monitor twitter activity.<span style=""> </span>– <a href="http://twitter.com/suifaijohnmak">John Mak</a> and <a href="http://twitter.com/ConnectIrmeli">Irmerli Aro</a> and <a href="http://twitter.com/mdrechsler">Michelle Drechsler</a> have recently awoken me to the to the fantastic media rich and connectively sweet environment that is facebook.<span style=""> </span>(I have never fancied using Facebook educationally in a formal class, but adopting it for use as part of your own personal learning network is a WIN WIN WIN situation). </p> <p class="MsoNormal">So, for this course I Joined up to <a href="http://connect.downes.ca/thedaily.htm">the Daily</a> (aggregator of course news), but the best thing at the moment is using Google alerts – a quick and easy notification to my Google mail of anything related to the course using the hash tag #CritLit2010.<span style=""> </span>Started to gather all #CritLit2010 feeds in Google reader, but have reverted back to just working from the alerts in Google Mail.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Found most useful to read the Course details page on the wiki to orientate myself to what this course was all about. The Blog posts of <a href="http://jennymackness.wordpress.com/">Jenny Mackness</a>, <a href="http://suifaijohnmak.wordpress.com/">John Mak</a> and <a href="http://helistudies.edublogs.org/">Heli Nurmi </a>have initially kept me orientated. I feel; as though I am struggling to catch up, but we’ll see how we go. <span style=""> </span>Mike Bogle’s <a href="http://techticker.net/2010/06/03/warcraft-guild-for-critlit2010/">Warcraft guild for CritLit2010 Blog post</a> and his suggestion of using the gaming arena as a vehicle to facilitate learning seems good to me – I am a strong believer in synchronous online activity to strengthen bonds especially in conjunction with problem or task based learning. Unfortunately have not had time to engage much with other learners yet.</p> <p style="font-weight: bold;" class="MsoNormal">So what is Critical Literacy and what are we (me) to learn about<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The <a href="http://ple.elg.ca/course/moodle/">Course Introductory page on Moodle</a> states that:</p><p style="margin-left: 40px; font-style: italic;" class="MsoNormal">Technology has brought changes to the way people learn and some “critical literacies” are becoming increasingly important. This course is about these critical literacies.</p> <p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="text-indent: -18pt;"><span style=""> </span>In the context of this course I expect to learn more about<span style="font-family: Symbol;"><span style=""><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Critical Thinking Skills in general and<span style="font-family: Symbol;"><span style=""><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Critical Literacy Skills in relation to networked PLE’s.</p> <p style="font-weight: bold;" class="MsoNormal">Critical Thinking Skills</p> <p class="MsoNormal">John Mak posted a link to a useful <a href="http://suifaijohnmak.wordpress.com/2010/06/05/critlit2010-introduction-to-critical-thinking/">presentation on the topic of Critical Thinking</a>.<span style=""> The presentation initially asserts that </span>“<span style="font-weight: bold;">Thinking</span> is a purposeful, organised, cognitive process that we use to make sense of the world”. <br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">The presentation goes onto explain that there are two types of thinking i)<span style="font-weight: bold;">Creative Thinking</span> - left side brain activities that generate new ideas and ii) <span style="font-weight: bold;">Critical Thinking</span> – right side brain activities involving for example analysing, evaluating, reasoning. There are a couple of definitions offered revolving around the themes such ash reflecting on the meaning of statements, examining the offered evidence, forming judgments around the facts<span style=""></span> – ultimately it is about checking facts, making assumptions, drawing conclusions, challenging assertions and exploring other points of view.<span style=""> </span><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">To quote from the presentation (<a href="http://www.slideshare.net/zaid/introduction-to-critical-thinking?from=ss_embed">Module 1: Introduction to Critical Thinking, Zaid Ali Alsagoff 2007</a>)<br /></p><p style="font-style: italic;" class="MsoNormal">Critical thinking is the general term given to a wide range of cognitive and intellectual skills needed to:</p><ul><li style="font-style: italic;">Effectively identify, analyse and evaluate arguments</li><li style="font-style: italic;">Discover and overcome personal prejudices and biases.</li><li style="font-style: italic;">Formulate and present convincing reasons in support of conclusions.</li><li><span style="font-style: italic;">Make reasonable, intelligent decisions about what to believe and what to do.</span><br /></li></ul><p class="MsoNormal">Useful to consider from the presentation also these Critical thinking Standards:</p> <ul><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol;"><span style="">·<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Clarity - e.g Can you give an example to illustrate your point?<br /></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol;"><span style="">·<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Accuracy - e.g Is the information source valid and accurate?</li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol;"><span style="">·<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Precision - e.g Could you be more specific?</li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol;"><span style="">·<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Relevance - e.g How is that connected to the question?</li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol;"><span style="">·<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Depth - e.g How are complexities addressed?</li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol;"><span style="">·<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Breadth - e.g Is here another way of looking at the question?</li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol;"><span style="">·<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Logic - e.g You have two contradicting statements - How do you square that :-)<br /></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol;"><span style="">·<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Fairness - e.g open minded, impartial, free of distorting biases and pre-conceptions.<br /></li></ul> <p class="MsoNormal">Suggested Barriers to Critical Thinking Include:</p> <ul><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol;"><span style="">·<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Egocentrism</li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol;"><span style="">·<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Sociocentrism</li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol;"><span style="">·<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Unwarranted assumptions<br /></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol;"><span style="">·<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Wishful thinking</li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol;"><span style="">·<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Relativistic thinking</li></ul> <p class="MsoNormal"><b style="">Critical Literacy Skills (in relation to networked PLE’s)<o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal">To paraphrase the course designers this course is designed around the notion that to learn effectively in a PLE a certain set of skills and competencies are required. The course has in part been designed to test whether learners can in fact employ these skills to effectively self direct their <span style=""> </span>own learning in a PLE OR whether and additional pedagogy is required prior to the use of a PLE. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Note to self: </span>Need to ascertain the role of the facilitators and whether more interventions on their part constitutes an additional pedagogy or whether teacher as facilitator is part of the pedagogy it just depend to what degree they scaffold and assist learning.<span style=""> </span>The competencies identified are drawn from Stephen Downes presentation on the <a href="http://www.downes.ca/presentation/237">pedagogical foundations of learning</a>. The Critical Literacies required are deemed to be:</p> <ul><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol;"><span style=""><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span></span><i style="font-weight: bold;">Syntax</i> – the ability to recognize and use forms, grammars, patterns and other structural properties of communication. This would include information literacy and ontology of information.</li></ul><ul><li><i style="font-weight: bold;">Semantics</i> – the ability to connect communicative elements to underlying purposes, goals, objectives, theories or meaning, denotation, reference, truth and understanding. Including new ways of interpreting information and evaluating media, through aggregation and filtering for instance.</li><li><i style="font-weight: bold;">Pragmatics</i><span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span>– the capacity to use communicative elements in actions, or to take actions using communication, to express, commit, interrogate, and engage in interactions. Including being active participants in the world and on the Web versus passive consumers.</li><li><i style="font-weight: bold;">Cognition</i><span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span>– the capacity to infer, or detect faulty inferences, to use communicative elements in order to describe, argue, explain or define. Including the power of reflection, authority of knowledge, stability of knowledge, communication as conversation or as dialogue.</li><li><i style="font-weight: bold;">Context</i><span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span>– the capacity to locate a communication in a wider environment, to understand the impact of this environment on semantics and pragmatics, and to assemble and understand sets of communications as expressive of frames, world views, or deontological constructs. Including issues of power, control, and ownership; motivational and affective issues.</li><li><i>Change</i> – the capacity to reason dynamically, to detect and comprehend processes and flows, to understand the impact of progressions and differences, to reason employing dynamic events such as games and simulations.</li></ul><br /> The bullet pointed list above is an Extract from <a href="http://ple.elg.ca/course/moodle/mod/wiki/view.php?id=2&page=Course+Details">Critical Literacies Online Course Details</a> and Learners in this type of course are expected to exercise the capacities described above.<br /><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Course Modus Operandi - Learner Expectations</span><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">Four types of activity are expected in this connectivist type course:</p><ul><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Aggregation</span> (of content) e.g access Moodle for recommended readings, google alerts, RSS feeds</li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Remix </span> e.g. Keep track of what you have read, maybe via a blog, social bookmarking, post in the moodle discussion boards</li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Repurpose</span> e.g Put your own spin on the content you have aggregated, outline your own understandings</li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Feed Forward</span> e.g. Share your repurposed work with others - Blog about it tweet about your blog or interesting links, share in a social bookmarking group. </li></ul><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Other points to Consider</span><br /><br />Early discussions from course members identified the following critical literacies: <ul><li>Management of Time, Workload and Prioritising –Jenny Mackness</li><li>Relationship Building and Development – John Mak</li><li>Wayfinding behaviors and Strategies in Large Virtual Environments</li><li>Literacy of Memory – Transliteracy</li></ul>Other useful documents in relation to critical literacy competencies is Gráinne Conole's '<a href="http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue56/conole/">New Schemas for Mapping Pedagogies and Technologies</a>' document<br /><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Final Thoughts</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">This initial blog post has allowed me to establish a base anchor from which to now consider the themes of the course. I have consolidated here the main competences and working practices initially expected by the course designers and have briefly started the process of collating others view on what critical literacies are important when learning in a networked environment. I can use this blog post as a reference checklist when analysing my own level of critical literacy. I shall also have a good read of <span class="title">this web article</span> <b class="title"><a href="http://www.criticalthinking.org/articles/ct-development-a-stage-theory.cfm">Critical Thinking Development: A Stage Theory </a></b>to help me understand better the development process with regard to critical thinking. As we are well into week two - I'll need to crack on and move swiftly to consider readings and opinions of others on week 1 theme 'cognition' and wekk 2 theme 'change'.</p>Steve Mackenziehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13773778141513293168noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31503777.post-13093474466091987032010-05-06T00:08:00.010+00:002010-05-06T08:04:44.345+00:00Technology Celebration at DMU and A Triumvirate platform for success<span style="font-weight: bold;">Symposium Highlight</span><br /><br />Just returned from the typically heartening and uplifting Biennial DMU Technology Enhanced Learning Symposium. Biggest impact for me came not from any of the presenters but the attendance of the recently appointed Manager of ISAS (Information Services & Systems), Michael Robinson. It was obvious to see he had a keen and genuine interest in finding out what technology was important to staff at DMU. I had a very brief chat with Michael, but my impression is that he is not just a technical guy, but appreciates how important technology is to the culture not only of teaching and learning, but also to internal and external organisation communication. I hope my first impressions are correct because it will fit very well with all the excellent technology enhanced learning initiatives that our e-learning co-ordinator Richard Hall has driven through.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.learnex.dmu.ac.uk/?p=2007"><img src="http://www.learnex.dmu.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/TEL_vision_2010.bmp" style="margin: 0pt auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; width: 401px; height: 188px;" title="DMU TEL 2010 Conference themes" alt="DMU TEL 10 Conference themes" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">DMU TEL 2010 Conference logo/themes</span><br /></div><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />It's the Culture not the Technology</span><br /><br />A lot of what has been achieved at DMU in the field of Technology Enhanced Learning has been derived from a culture that has encouraged innovation, self expression, self development and a sense of worth in contributing to organizational aspirations.<br />The general theme of the conference centered around the importance of culture in driving the technology and not the other way around. Keynote speaker Dave White warned of the dangers of not being clear about what your values and aims are otherwise technology will drive and push you to places that maybe you do not want to go. An interesting read related to culture and the use of new social media is <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Tribes-We-Need-You-Lead/dp/1591842336">Tribes</a> by Set Godin<br /><br /><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Tribes-We-Need-You-Lead/dp/1591842336"><img src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51wz2Ep8BkL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg" style="margin: 0pt auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; width: 160px; height: 160px;" title="Tribes - Seth Godin" alt="Tribes - Seth Godin" /></a><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Keynote Speaker Dave White and the points that touched a chord</span><br /><br />Other key points Dave made where having an appreciation of the types of students (customers) that we have and how this might affect how we deal with them. Using his excellent <a href="http://tallblog.conted.ox.ac.uk/index.php/2009/10/14/visitors-residents-the-video/">Visitors and Residents</a> analogy he offered a view of how the student population will range on a continuum from those just visiting web spaces, getting information and retreating offline and those students that see being online in all manner of web spaces as part of there natural normal daily life, just like going to the park and hanging out with friends. I remember previously reading that Dave suggests that different approaches may taken in different area of life i.e. socially with friends, at work and educationally for example. Not totally sure of the implications for me in any teaching that i do, but i will give it some consideration in the future.<br /><div align="center"><br /><div class="prezi-player"><style type="text/css" media="screen">.prezi-player { width: 400px; } .prezi-player-links { text-align: center; }</style><object id="prezi_x0nxciep_mlt" name="prezi_x0nxciep_mlt" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" width="400" height="300"><param name="movie" value="http://prezi.com/bin/preziloader.swf"><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><param name="bgcolor" value="#ffffff"><param name="flashvars" value="prezi_id=x0nxciep_mlt&lock_to_path=1&color=ffffff&autoplay=no"><embed id="preziEmbed_x0nxciep_mlt" name="preziEmbed_x0nxciep_mlt" src="http://prezi.com/bin/preziloader.swf" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" bgcolor="#ffffff" flashvars="prezi_id=x0nxciep_mlt&lock_to_path=1&color=ffffff&autoplay=no" width="400" height="300"></embed></object><div class="prezi-player-links"><p><a title="http://tinyurl.com/4hxvfe for original blog post." href="http://prezi.com/x0nxciep_mlt/visitorresident/">VisitorResident</a> on <a href="http://prezi.com/">Prezi</a></p></div></div><br /></div>It kind of chimes in with another theme of Dave's which is the conflict of what a student wants and what they need. For example Students often take the strategic surface approach to learning in that they just want to learn about the things that will help them pass the assessment, whereas educationally what they might need to enhance their deep learning is group work and reflective work, which they may find an irritant, but is actually beneficial to them. Dave cited some evidence that just giving students what they want in online distance learning is not engaging enough and drop out rates are high. Dave noted that what students need is collaborative (and other deep learning) tasks to foster engagement and i wholeheartedly agree with this.<br /><br />These observations tie in nicely with a Faculty workshop on plagiarism i attended yesterday and lead me to conclude that assessment strategies may benefit from a change in approach. Much better to have a series of ongoing tasks and assessments over the course of a semester, rather than one final assignment at the end. from a plagiarism and learning perspective progress can be monitored much more effectively resulting in better support and ultimately improved learning, improved work flow management and improved understanding of good academic practice, which should help in alleviating plagiarism issues in the cut and paste society that we now live in.<br /><br />Another highlight from the conference was Dave's use of kinder eggs as prizes for his mini quizzes. It was not so much the eggs but the irreverent throwing of the eggs (very accurately) a la an America football quarterback to the winners sitting in the audience. Way to go Dave.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">More Highlights</span><br />Attended an excellent presentation by Malcolm Andrew and Anthony Eland demonstrating two tools that can be used to develop e-learning materials <a href="http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/xerte/">Xerte</a> And Adobe Captivate. Xerte is free and looks to me like a very useful 'rough and ready' ) way for lecturers to easily create interactive learning material for students.<br /><div align="center"><table><br /><tbody><tr><br /><td align="center"><br /><br /><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=31503777" uk="" xerte="" downloads="" zip=""><img src="http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/xerte/images/downloadToolkitsOFF.gif" style="margin: 0pt auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center;" title="Xerte" alt="Xerte" /><br /></a></td><br /><br /><td align="center"><a href="http://education.pugh.co.uk/index.php?nID=productDetail&manu=95&prodID=2381"><img src="http://education.pugh.co.uk/uploads/ImageRoot/images/Y6Lj8AsZ.jpg" style="margin: 0pt auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center;" title="Adobe Captivate" alt="Adobe Captivate" /></a></td><br /><br /></tr></tbody></table><br /></div><a href="http://education.pugh.co.uk/index.php?nID=productDetail&manu=95&prodID=2381">Adobe Captivate</a> looks slightly more complex for non technical lecturers to work with, but it looks very powerful to me and seems to have the upper hand on my favourite dektop screen recording software Camtasia in that there is much more opportunity to also create interactive learning material and with the added bonus that it can be integrated into Blackboard to collate grades in the gradebook center.<br /><br />Pleased with the turnout for the workshop that myself and Richard Davies ran on <a href="http://prezi.com/efzggjvf2i9t/">Extending Learning through online synchronous classrooms</a>. (embedded presentation is playing up - try link until i can sort it out)<br /><div align="center"><div class="prezi-player"><style type="text/css" media="screen">.prezi-player { width: 400px; } .prezi-player-links { text-align: center; }</style><object id="prezi_efzggjvf2i9t" name="prezi_efzggjvf2i9t" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" width="400" height="300"><param name="movie" value="http://prezi.com/bin/preziloader.swf"><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><param name="bgcolor" value="#ffffff"><param name="flashvars" value="prezi_id=efzggjvf2i9t&lock_to_path=1&color=ffffff&autoplay=no"><embed id="preziEmbed_efzggjvf2i9t" name="preziEmbed_efzggjvf2i9t" src="http://prezi.com/bin/preziloader.swf" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" bgcolor="#ffffff" flashvars="prezi_id=efzggjvf2i9t&lock_to_path=1&color=ffffff&autoplay=no" width="400" height="300"></embed></object><div class="prezi-player-links"><p><a title="Using Web Conferencing Technology to facilitate online learning in a synchronous classroom" href="http://prezi.com/efzggjvf2i9t/online-synchronous-classrooms/">Online Synchronous Classrooms</a> on <a href="http://prezi.com/">Prezi<br /></a></p></div></div><br /></div>I thought it was good getting a couple of different perspectives on how this technology can be used. Both examples related to distance learners, Richard delivering live lectures offering convenience to distance learning and a level of togetherness and connectedness that improves upon asynchronous activities and myself conducting more interactive participative classes trying to take advantage of the wide and varied learning tools available in the online synchronous classroom. Using Camtasia we managed to produce two videos that showed snippets of how we worked in this environment. There is definite interest in web conferencing technology, i hope we can build on the interest to enhance teaching and learning and professional development oportunities at DMU. One by product of presenting at this workshop was an opportunity to work more extensively with Camtasia, which I used to edit the recordings of the wimba and webex workshops that Richard and i showed as examples of our work and the decision to use prezi rather than powerpoint to present the workshop. I created a pretty basic presentation in the style of a powerpoint, but it has given me a good grounding in the basics of prezi.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">A Triumvirate platform for success</span><br />And so to a triumvirate platform for success - What do I mean by this, well Dave White pointed out during his presentation how institutionally that there will be innovators and pragmatists and that there often tensions between the two. Tensions also to be found between the IT Hardware and Software guardians and the needs of a variety groups that have cultural and work practices that lend themselves to a wide variety of preferred approaches in how technology is best deployed.<br /><br />I see Richard as the University e-learning co-ordinator having led strongly on laying the foundations for a positive and progressive culture for development here at DMU, both from a teaching and learning perspective and more widely in other areas of DMU. It seems to me that our new leader at ISAS Michael Robinson brings a positive approach in engaging with staff needs at DMU. This combined with the strong work that is done in Professional Development at DMU - Academically with Jane Clarke and her team and Generally with Vincent Cornelius and his team I believe lays a strong triumvirate platform for success in integrating technology into the DMU culture and <span style="font-weight: bold;">not the other way around</span>.<br /><br />Go DMU Go :-)Steve Mackenziehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13773778141513293168noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31503777.post-48692086378016917422010-03-30T21:33:00.003+00:002010-04-04T14:57:52.569+00:00One Year of Bikram and I am Still Standing (but is my knee locked)<span style="font-weight: bold;">The Anniversary!</span><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">I thought I would mark my one year of practice by revealing my thoughts about Bikram Yoga. This post is written with the relatively new or not yet started Bikram Yoga attendee in mind. If you have not attended a Bikram Yoga session I hope to inspire you to take the plunge and for those that have like me been practicing for a while, I hope that some of my observations touch a chord and that my observations and any associated links are beneficial. I am a mere novice, but keen and eager to learn more in relation to Bikram Yoga, Yoga, Health and Well Being so I welcome any comments, counter comments and challenges to my observations and perceptions.<span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /><br /></span><img src="http://www.zietraining.com/bikram/pics/stevebikram%20%2810%29_smallcropped.jpg" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center;" title="Steve Half Moon Pose - Backward Bend" alt="Steve Half Moon Pose - Backward Bend" /><span style="font-weight: bold;">It's So Much More than just Stretching</span><br />One year of Bikram and I am still standing, still going strong (started 26th March 2009). Like a lot of devotees i realised early that regular attendance will give a core foundation to maintaining good health and well being and this is the primary reason I consistently attend Bikram Yoga classes. From my very first class I have been consistently attending Bikram Yoga classes three times a week. You can feel this notion of well being after each and every class and it is this feeling combined with the knowledge that Bikram Yoga is a well thought out carefully planned system of self development that makes me love Bikram Yoga! Not that Bikram Yoga is easy, it is a tough 90 minute session that for me acts a catalyst to self development both physically and mentally.<br /><br />I believe that you owe it to yourself to be the best that you can be and an important part of that is physical development. This is where Bikram Yoga comes in as a core element for your own personal development. Once you commit to Bikram Yoga, you learn not only how to improve your posture, flexibility, agility, strength and balance (through the physical postures), but you take a deeper interest in other aspects of your life that may well influence your health and well being. For example drinking water regularly, re-evaluating your eating habits, the importance of sleeping, the importance of resting and the importance of nasal breathing. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Regular attendance at a Bikram Yoga class reinforces good habits that promote health and well being. It keeps you on track.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Where I Practice</span><br />I practice at <a href="http://www.bikramyogaleicester.co.uk/">Bikram Yoga Leicester</a>, UK. The teachers are fantastic. Each one delivers consistently the Bikram Yoga Program and all give good advice during the class. Bikram Yoga tends to attract clientele with a good outlook on life. The combination of great teachers, attendees of a good nature and a well thought out program of postures that the teachers and the attendees believe in creates a positive vibe during class and a lovely satisfied afterglow when the class has finished. I think a good description is that it is serious fun. There's me below checking in for a session, that's the fun bit, the serious business is about to begin (check out my serious face in later photographs). Fortunately there is fun to be had in serious hard work and the teachers whilst keeping us focused never lose the opportunity to sprinkle humour throughout the class.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.zietraining.com/bikram/pics/stevebikram_smallcropped.jpg" style="margin: 0pt auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center;" title="Steve Checking in and Looking forward to a Bikram Yoga Session" alt="Steve Checking in and Looking forward to a Bikram Yoga Session" /><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span><span style="font-weight: bold;">So How has it been for Me?</span><br />Initially I attended Bikram Yoga to improve my flexibility. It quickly became apparent that there is more to Yoga and Bikram Yoga in particular than stretching and flexibility. I have found attending Bikram Yoga classes a great stimulus to learn, it has been very educational and made me think more about many other aspects of personal development. My previous blog posts <a href="http://learnadoodledastic.blogspot.com/2009/04/bikram-yoga-and-knee.html">Bikram Yoga and the 'Locked Knee'</a> and <a href="http://learnadoodledastic.blogspot.com/2009/05/shut-your-mouth-nasal-breathing-is.html">Shut your mouth: Nasal Breathing is a snorting good choice</a> give an insight to how Bikram Yoga has made me look deeper into issues that may help my own personal development. The bottom line is that I feel good after a Bikram Yoga session, I am pleased with my progress and am confident I will keep improving on all of the postures, even the three 'impossible' postures that I will mention below.<br /><br />Firstly I think for all of us that attend Bikram Yoga classes we need to recognize that we all have different body shapes and sizes and that there will be some postures that you are more naturally suited to than others. My motto is to enjoy the postures you are good at and work as hard as you can on those postures that seem difficult. There are many postures that I have thought are near impossible (but i always believe with regular practice I'll get there, even if it takes 5 years or more - the funny thing is i do not expect miracles, but I believe in miracles through hard work and determination). There are some 'impossible' postures where i have in fact made some progress, but i still have a long way to go and generally progress has been slow. I'll expand a bit more and share my experience of my struggle with the three main 'impossible' postures:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Eagle Pose (Twist like Ropes): </span>Initially i just hugged myself<span style="font-weight: bold;">.</span> I can now clasp knuckles on the right hand under side and clasp my thumb on the left hand under side. I am trying hard to twist my legs (like ropes :-)), but i cannot get my legs anywhere near the back of my other leg. Still lots of work to do here. In the photo below fellow Bikram Yoga attendee Liza gives a great demonstration on how the legs and arms should twist like ropes in this posture. My effort i think is a true awkward pose :-).<br /><br /><img src="http://www.zietraining.com/bikram/pics/stevebikram%20%2811%29_smallcropped.jpg" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center;" title="Steve and Liza Eagle Pose" alt="Steve and Liza Eagle Pose" />What I know is that to improve on this amongst other things I need to become more flexible in the upper back and the hips and lower back. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Tip to myself is be patient.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Standing Head to Knee Pose:</span> For a long time I did not attempt to extend my leg. I can now on occasions extend my leg straight out, keeping a reasonable L shape for the legs. However keeping a straight concrete solid leg which is the essential part of the exercise is something I still have to work hard on. Also i find bending down to clasp the feet in a basket grip and keeping the standing leg straight very difficult. I wish iIhad slightly longer arms :-). Away from Bikram Yoga classes I practice this posture in the swimming pool and lying down on my back (it's a lot easier :-)).<br /><br />Liza again gives a great demonstration (photo below) on this stage of the posture. As i recall she does a great job on the next stage, actually bending the head down to touch the knee. Can you believe that, actually head touching the knee, for some of us that does sound and look impossible, but as Bikram himself says in his book <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bikrams-Beginning-Class-Bikram-Choudhury/dp/0007154992">Bikram's beginning Yoga Class</a> (Copies available at Bikram Yoga Leicester as well) <span style="font-weight: bold;">"That's what Yoga is about... Yoga makes things that seem impossible, possible. You can do magic without being a magician."</span>. Bikram also says "I know you won't believe me when I say that in a relatively short time, you will actually consider this one of the easiest poses".<br /><br /><img src="http://www.zietraining.com/bikram/pics/stevebikram%20%2816%29_small.jpg" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center;" title="Steve and Liza Standing Had to Knee pose" alt="Steve and Liza Standing Had to Knee pose" />I am pleased with my progress but I need to straighten my back more, get my leg lifted to ninety degrees (and constantly think about locking the knee) before I embark on bending towards my knee. I think the flexibility in my upper and lower back is improving, allowing me to sooner or later get a good clasped hand underneath the foot, which is another key element in this posture. A physically very tough posture, but with improvement in my general posture I can see a chink of light on this posture - it is about 2 or 3 years away though.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Toe Stand Pose:</span> I find this very difficult. I find it very difficult to open my hips to rest the leg on the center of my thigh, consequently when I bend down my leg often slips off my thigh. I pick it back up and put it on once i am down at floor level, but with my arms being slightly shorter than i would like it is very difficult to balance with a straight back and decent posture. Still working on it, but still a million miles away (my ankle and thighs are getting stronger slowly, so eventually my arms can be bypassed and they won't be an issue). No photo's of me in action on this pose - there really would not be much to see, so i have included a picture of the pose from the hotyogadoctor website where many interesting discussions seem to take place. This discussion titled <a href="http://www.hotyogadoctor.com/index.php/site/forum/viewthread/63/#640">Still can’t do toe stand after 3 years</a>, may be interesting for those like me that struggle with this pose.<br /><a href="http://www.hotyogadoctor.com/" border="0"><img src="http://www.hotyogadoctor.com/poses/Padangustasana.jpg" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; width: 222px; height: 247px;" title="Tree Stand Pose - http://www.hotyogadoctor.com" alt="Tree Stand Pose - http://www.hotyogadoctor.com" /></a>For me, I tend to notice a significant improvement in my flexibility, strength and balance around every three months. This will be on a selected few postures and these will vary every quarter. I still have to think hard about 'Locking the Knee'. It seems whilst developing a strong locked knee balance can be affected in standing poses, which leads to a slight give in the knee to stay standing (I was going to say stay in posture, but until the knee is locked the posture has not even begun :-)). I think I have improved, but it is a gradual process to get that leg like concrete and I am not there yet. In my last session I found that concentrating on locking my knees in half moon pose backward bend supported my back much better, but I felt more wobbly on my legs (if you are not a hard core knee locker yet, try this on your next session - see what you think).<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />Managing Expectations<br /></span>Fortunately I do not expect miracles and I came to Bikram Yoga with the mindset that I did not expect to see any improvement for a year (this way I would not be disappointed). Nevertheless i have made undoubted improvements over the year and I am satisfied with my progress. I know from others' experiences that some attendees have gained quick, in some cases near instantaneous results in relation to losing weight or managing pain from persistent chronic injuries, but for me having a low expectation in terms of quick results is a valuable psychological tool in ensuring that I do one of the most important things i can do for my own personal development and that is<span style="font-weight: bold;"> just to turn up at a Bikram Yoga class and practice regularly, giving the best that i can give on any given day. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Practicing with Injuries</span><br />I would not want to <span style="font-weight: bold;">NOT</span> practice Bikram Yoga for any longer than a week or so. The thought of going backwards and the hard work it takes to get back in the Bikram groove after just a week away compels me to practice regularly. I have had a few injuries over the year, including a sprained ankle, hamstring strains and lower back pain - so what to do when injuries occur. Well although i have found it annoying and frustrating i believe you still need to practice. If you stop practicing you will start to lose benefits and go backwards. You will need to take advice and best decide how to manage your own injuries, but for me I have come to the conclusion that the best thing is to turn up and do the postures that you can and modify or leave out those that aggravate the injury. Generally i have nursed my way through with reduced effort on some postures (I have found concentrating on stretching tall on half moon pose is good if your back is sore and it made me appreciate the importance of stretching tall in this posture) .Occasionally i will miss a practice or two, but i would never leave it longer than a week otherwise I'll be going backwards. Also let your instructor know as they can give advice as to ways of modifying your postures to allow for injuries.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Beyond Bikram Yoga Classes</span><br />Outside of class one of the most significant things I have been inspired to do because of my interest in Bikram Yoga is my own home yoga routine which includes some of the Bikram postures (like standing bow pose below), but also other yoga postures such as handstands and headstands. I decided early on that three Bikram classes a week was right for me, both from a logistical point of view, but also to ensure my motivation remains high and that I do not get stale. I do the 45 minute Home Yoga routines on the alternate days between Bikram classes. As I am not in a sauna environment i usually take it a bit easier, but it gives me a chance to reflect a bit more on the postures and what I am trying to achieve.<br /><br />Although I like my three day a week strategy, i am conscious that <span style="font-weight: bold;">ideally Bikram Yoga practice is a daily ritual</span> and that by taking a 30 or 100 day challenge there may well be physical, psychological and emotional gains to be made. This is something i will explore when i can logistically meet the demands of daily practice. Thinking about strategies it would also be interesting to experiment with a fortnight of double sessions (two in one day). This article '<a href="http://www.bikramyoga.com/testimonials/HerniatedDiscs.htm">herniated discs</a>' highlights how one Bikram Yoga teacher/attendee found great value in taking double sessions to overcome her injury problem (lot's of good information about Bikram Yoga as well).<br /><br /><img src="http://www.zietraining.com/bikram/pics/stevebikram%20%2817%29_small.jpg" style="margin: 0pt auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center;" title="" alt="" />The other significant thing to come out of my Bikram Yoga practice is my realisation of the importance of nasal breathing, culminating in my recent purchase of a nose breath mouthpiece from <a href="http://nosebreathe.com/">nosebreathe.com</a>. The blog <a href="http://sethigherstandards.com/2006/12/04/increase-your-endurance-and-reduce-stress-with-one-simple-technique/">Set Higher Standards</a> has a great blog post about the benefits of nasal breathing (with informative comments) about nose breathing.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Summary</span><br />Posture and nasal breathing are key elements to health and well being. Bikram Yoga's carefully thought out sequence combined with great instruction and advice from the rigorously trained Bikram Yoga teachers is a great system to improve these vital elements. Not only that, but apart from developing your musculoskeletal system, the Bikram Yoga postures also address health benefits related to the respiratory,nervous, digestive, immune and endocrine gland systems. Other forms of Yoga, practicing pilates and other conventional fitness training such as running or weightlifting have their place, but I believe Bikram Yoga should be the core anchor of any fitness, health and well being program. It is a solid foundation for personal development. For a great read on the philosophy behind the system read <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bikram-Yoga-Radiant-Personal-Fulfillment/dp/0060568089/ref=pd_sim_b_1">Bikram Yoga by Bikram Choudhury</a> founder of Bikram Yoga and for further information see the <a href="http://www.bikramyoga.com/">Bikram Yoga Website</a>.<br /><br />Special thanks to Libby, Rachel and Sharan who have been my core teachers during the year. But also to say thanks to Hannah, Harbinder, Nicky and Chris, other teachers at Leicester who have contributed to my development thus far. Thanks to Rachel again for taking the snaps of me whilst practicing at the Bikram Yoga Studio in Leicester. I look forward to what this year brings.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">And Finally</span><br />Just thought I'd mention this blog <a href="http://ilovesweat.com/wordpress/">ilovesweat</a> - the blogger combines a passion for bikram yoga, healthy living and photography. You might find it of interest as he blogs regularly on his Bikram experience. His photo's have become a bit large of late though :-).<br /><br /><br /></div>Steve Mackenziehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13773778141513293168noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31503777.post-16034850767613728122010-01-16T13:13:00.003+00:002014-03-01T12:27:54.994+00:00Videoblogging versus BloggingThis blog post gives me an initial opportunity to consider the potential of videoblogging compared with straightforward blogging. It is a short initial piece, primarily for me to focus on the video editing technology. I lay the foundations for a deeper more meaningful discussion on the learning potential of both types of blogging with a few observations about both types of blogging (not by a long chalk, full and complete), suggesting that one advantage of videoblogging could be that it is a quicker more productive method of blogging.<br />
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My initial conclusions are that for learning purposes, both types of blogging require some thinking through and some preparation and planning. For audience capturing, videoblogging may help in this regard, but both types will need high quality output, be that written text or engaging on-camera presence. I am coming around to the idea that it actually might be a good idea to mix the two approaches. Having a visual stimulus on the blog i think will spark more initial interest.<br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">Video Editing Technology</span><br />
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Although my initial interest was in using videoblogging to produce content more quickly. I actually became more interested in how to make good use of video editing technology and i have made a start here in this blog. What i can say is that Camtasia is an excellent video editing tool, allowing importing and editing of webcam video, video screencasts, camera video, audio files and image files. With creation and editing also of functions such as zoom and panning, captions, on screen text 'callouts', hyperlinking and an option to include flash based quizzes and surveys there are plenty of tools to be creative with your finalized video output. <span style="font-weight: bold;">The bottom line is that working in the camtasia editing environment is very easy even for a teacher that has no previous experience of editing video</span>.<br />
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For what you get i think camtasia is very well priced (at last time of checking £134 for educational license), however if you are looking for a free video editor then windows movie maker is also a great free bit of software, that can add a bit of variety and interest to a straightforward talking head webcam.<br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">Final Word</span>If you did not know already text based blogging is a fantastic learning tool (see my earlier blogging posts). However whatever blogging method is used, you the blogger need to find a subject worth blogging about and then invest time in using your blogging weapon of choice to engage and interest your audience in what you have to say. This may be i) Developing your writing style ii) Improving your webcam talking head delivery or iii) Understanding visual media delivery to make best use of the great video editing tools that are at your disposal. In short if you are like me you blog to learn, but also blog to offer something of value to the audience. In offering something of value to the audience it pays to improve the many communication skills at your disposal.Steve Mackenziehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13773778141513293168noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31503777.post-7958383961164570012009-09-24T21:10:00.012+00:002014-03-01T12:28:38.846+00:00The Three Dubya's - Wimba, Webex and WiZiQ<div style="text-align: justify;">
Coming towards the end of a phase of <span style="font-weight: bold;">Live Online Learning</span> learning using <a href="http://www.wimba.com/">Wimba</a> Live Classroom. Thought i'd take some time to reflect on the Wimba application and compare it with my previous experiences with <a href="http://www.webex.com/">Webex</a> (training room) and <a href="http://www.wiziq.com/">WiZiQ</a>. These are just my initial comparisons, I intend to go into much more depth on these and other applications at a later time.<br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">Good teaching, Great Passion and a Critical Eye</span><br />
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My great passion for live online learning started when i enrolled on the Synchronous Learning Expert Certificate run by <a href="http://www.insynctraining.com/">insynctraining</a>. I was taught by great teachers with a great philosophy on how learning online needs to be a participative active learning experience. This effects the way i look at the various web conferencing tools. I am looking very critically to see how best the various applications at our disposal incorporate tools to aid learning and how effective these tools are in facilitating technologically efficient, trouble and interference free learning. With each of the three tools that are the focus of this post i have been involved heavily in design, delivery and support of live online synchronous classes. For each web conferencing application at least 30 participants/students in total have partaken of at least one or more live online synchronous classes.<br />
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Example: Interaction during Live Online Webex Class</div>
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<span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_jJsqoUexCOY/Sr_oNjx2PhI/AAAAAAAAACc/ou45HsANCRk/s1600-h/webex_example1.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_jJsqoUexCOY/Sr_oNjx2PhI/AAAAAAAAACc/ou45HsANCRk/s320/webex_example1.jpg" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5386278998998662674" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 237px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 320px;" /></a></span><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span><br />
<blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Note: </span>technology should be like a good football (soccer) referee i.e you don't notice it/them</blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Context</span><br />
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I have an interest in looking at the most effective tool for teaching and learning but also the most appropriate for integration into a higher education institutional setup, where external services may not be an appropriate solution.<br />
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<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<li><span style="color: #3333ff; font-weight: bold;">Webex:</span> Agreed a year long trial with Webex at their standard business rates for just a one user licence. A personalised DMU Webex site was created with full admin facilities including the setting up of automatic email reminders and integration with Microsoft Outlook. Can be integrated to Blackboard VLE, but was not for this trial.</li>
<li><span style="color: #cc0000; font-weight: bold;">Wimba:</span> Wimba are a company that look to agree institutional wide solutions which would involve integration with Blackboard VLE. Agreed a year long trial with a personalised Wimba website. Admin facilities existed but no automatic email reminders and integration with Microsoft Outlook. The Wimba trial was a stans alone classroom outside of Blackboard.</li>
<li><span style="color: #009900; font-weight: bold;">WizIq: </span>Free service available to individual teachers. Teachers can sign up to the service and start delivering live online classes. Participant/students need also to sign up and get account before they can participate in any live online classes. For a monthly fee more services can be added.</li>
</ul>
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">Logging on to a live Online Classroom</span><br />
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<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<li><span style="color: #3333ff; font-weight: bold;">Webex</span> was by far the least problematic. An email link is created for each session and a listing is available from your main personalised webex site. Most participants could logon satisfactorily. </li>
<li><span style="color: #009900; font-weight: bold;">Wiziq</span> - unfortunately our students had major problems logging into this service. Most problems seemed to occur when clicking a class invitation link, users also often seemed to go around in circles trying to log back in after changing passwords. After a lot of irritating unnecessary time and effort (for myself and other colleagues), students eventually got sorted out and it was ok after a while. Do not know the exact nature of the problem, but something was not quite right and this experience was a big driver to look for other solutions. </li>
<li><span style="color: #cc0000;">Wimba</span> also gave our students lots of logging on problems. Although there is a setup wizard which is a good thing, If there was a problem it was not always clear how to rectify the problem. Different browsers seem to react in different ways during the setup wizard causing various problems.</li>
</ul>
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">VOIP Audio Quality</span><br />
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One of the essential features in the live online classroom is the VOIP audio quality, without good quality and reliability the whole exercise becomes pointless. I am pleased to say that all three applications provided a generally good service (although not as good as <a href="http://www.skype.com/">Skype</a>) . When i first started using <span style="color: #3333ff;">Webex</span>, we logged on using an integrated telephone landline (the quality is much better, but will cost extra), which i believe is also available in Wimba. Use of VOIP also costs extra in Webex, but not in <span style="color: #990000;">Wimba </span>or <span style="color: #009900;">Wiziq</span>. There are occasionally microphone connection issues for participants which seemed to be most problematic for webex users, but after some effort most people got sorted out ok.<br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">Whiteboard Tools</span> and <span style="font-weight: bold;">Feedback Tools</span><br />
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Another important issue is control and access to tools, especially the whiteboard tools. Using the whiteboard to gather opinions or for drawing exercises is a very useful way to promote interaction in a live online class. The <span style="color: #3333ff;">Webex</span> environment is top class in that a pointer tool associated with a participant/student is automatically available and can be used to grab screen space, thus easily identifying participant contributions. Importantly the presenter does not have to give the participant presenter rights, which would enable participants to have the potential of clicking on slides and moving the class off in an uncontrolled direction not of the presenters choosing. Also participants can individually erase their own contributions to the whiteboard.<br />
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Unfortunately in the <span style="color: #990000;">Wimba </span>environment participants if given whiteboard control both these things can occur, but i think it probably stems from different views on how these applications should work. The Webex way allows for great group interaction and collaboration, ideal for active participatory learning. I get the feeling that the wimba environment is fundamentally based on the old teacher as presenter philosophy, which is disappointing. <span style="color: #009900;"><span style="color: #330033;">I was very involved in the initial design and logging on process for the </span>Wiziq</span> sessions and for a number of reasons extensive use of the whiteboard was ruled out, so i have not worked with it as much as the other two products. It does not include the pointer tool, but the whiteboard tools works adequately and i think there is enough scope to instigate the interactive group work that i described for Webex. - (i have just taken another look - i need to revisit and check more thoroughly - it's looking good). <span style="color: #3333ff;">Webex </span>and <span style="color: #990000;">Wimba</span> both had the appropriate feedback icons the most important of which is yes/no, rasied hand and emoticon icons. <span style="color: #009900;">WizIq</span> had a raised hand only and with no yes/no icons this is a definite dissapointment in this environment, as they are vital when checking understanding of instructions as well as topic understanding.<br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">General Environmental Look and Feel </span></div>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<li><span style="color: #3333ff;">Webex </span>by far has the most appealing look and feel for participnats and is easy to work with for teachers. </li>
<li><span style="color: #990000;">Wimba</span> also scores strongly on ease of use for teachers. Probably the most easy to use for teachers - With an easy uploading and organisation of files to be used in the lesson - a presenters panel that allows easy navigation from slide to slide, easy to move students to breakout rooms and easy to setup polls.</li>
<li><span style="color: #009900;">WiziQ</span> is probably the most clunky looking and does not have the feel of an integrated classroom like the other two applications. Good for free though. Once you start paying then maybe need to compare with many of the other individual monthly web conferencing services that are out there. </li>
</ul>
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">Recordings</span><br />
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Need to review this information but my experience was as follows:</div>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<li><span style="color: #3333ff;">Webex: </span><span style="color: #330033;">Can download and edit in special editor. Can save files locally or on the webex server. local files initially captured the whole feel of the class - so interactions were an exact copy of what went on in the class. When saving on server this different method did not give exactly the same interactions i.e participant panel was not listed as normal but was accessible. need a webex player to view. Was not easy at the time to then get the recorded file into an mp4 for easy viewing outside of the player, but did manage it.</span></li>
<li><span style="color: #330033;"><span style="color: #990000;">Wimba</span>: can view directly by linking to a server and can apparently will soon be available as an mp4 file. When downloading a zip file archive of a recording it is not obvious that a media file can be played.</span></li>
<li><span style="color: #330033;"><span style="color: #009900;">WizIq:</span> access to online recordings, but expire after a month which is not that great and is an obvious inducement to sign up for the monthly fee service where recordings can be downloaded - have not tried the service.</span></li>
</ul>
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">Support</span><br />
<ul>
<li><span style="color: #3333ff; font-weight: bold;">Webex:</span> support was excellent - if need technical support live during a class got it straight away</li>
<li><span style="color: #cc0000; font-weight: bold;">Wimba:</span> Not quite as hot, seem more keen for participants to check faq's and other info before engaging directly with the participants on the phone.</li>
<li><span style="color: #009900; font-weight: bold;">WiziQ:</span> Did not really engage with anyone on the phone during our troubles logging on - may have swapped some emails, but i have no strong memory of great additional support (it has been a while now)</li>
</ul>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">A Word about Video Conferencing</span><br />
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Video conferencing i think for some in this industry may be tremendously important. I think more so if they are still in the mindset of the lecturer presenting and the students passively taking it all in. That is why the video conferencing element of these applications has no great appeal to me. Because my main focus is promoting interaction between participants i do not use it that much (i am sure there is a time and place for me to use it). To me it is an extra technological problem and due to the nature of interactive sessions there is a lot going on for the presenter, especially if dealing with technological problems of other students, grabbing a cup of tea at an appropriate break in proceedings :-) or generally feeling flustered if something is going wrong then presenting via webcam adds additional pressure to a job that already requires a high degree of concentration (very rewarding though)<br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">A Word about other Web Conferencing Applications</span><br />
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Two other applications that i have experimented with in the past but not to a great extent are <a href="http://www.elluminate.com/">Elluminate</a> and <a href="http://tryit.adobe.com/uk/connectpro/connecthed/?sdid=DZUMN">Adobe Connect Pro</a>. Both i believe are worth taking a look at and i shall review them again in the forthcoming year. Elluminate is popular in education circles. I favoured Webex over Elluminate when looking at theses products over a year ago. I prefer the Webex interface and the visual appeal of the learning environment and at the time i wanted to have as many simultaneous VOIP connections open at the same time (webex allows 7 and Elluminate 5 (at the time of testing)).<br />
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This is important to me as spontaneity of response makes for a more stimulating class, so i have always liked everyone to have immediate access to speak without passing a microphone and thus making the technology invisible. This stems from my early insynch training with everybody on the phone you could hear the hubble bubble excitement in the classroom - it was great. With VOIP bandwidth limitations and the teacher as presenter mentality i have learnt that i sometimes have to compromise and stick with systems that will only allow restricted numbers of people to use voice at the same time. Adobe Connect pro is definitely one of the slickest looking products. I discarded it a couple of years ago due to a particularly bad VOIP experience and the whiteboard control problems that i refereed to earlier. I think it is worth revisiting now, a few years down the line.<br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">Summary</span><br />
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I think the most problems i have encountered have been with initial logging on problems. This is a nuisance as students often may be afraid of technology and do not need additional hurdles put in their way. I have learnt that, although it is time i did not expect to have to allocate, that in a higher eduction setting, it is best to be very proactive in helping students get their logon problems sorted our before they come to their first online class.<br />
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All these applications have a lot to offer, but both <span style="color: #990000;">Wimba </span>and <span style="color: #009900;">WizIQ </span>have made myself and colleagues work a lot harder than we expected to ensure participant/student access. For less determined teachers and students and for time challenged teachers/students this is going to lead to major disillusionment. Both applications are worth taking a look at though. Once any initial logging on difficulties are overcome they both have their selling points and it will become a case of deciding if it suits your needs and the price is right then it might be for you.<br />
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<span style="color: #3333ff;">Webex </span>is definitely the pick of the bunch but is primarily aimed at the business market. I think they are missing a massive trick by not developing a distinct educational pricing model. For higher education we need stable, trouble free web conferencing environments and webex does fit the bill save for this lack of creative thinking with regard to educational establishments. I suggest they take a leaf out of Google's book who have just joined forces with my own university DMU to provide a student email service in a mutually beneficial arrangement.<br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">The Way Forward</span><br />
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It is only through trial (and tribulation) that we can iron out any access issues with Wimba and Wiziq. By trialling and learning we can build a clear picture of advice to our students and take advantage of the learning environments that both these applications offer. Elluminate and Adobe Connect Pro are also products that are more than worth a further look. As i have said earlier, maybe you cannot get everything that you want and compromises may have to be made. So i shall continue to explore web conferencing applications and try and establish the best balance between <span style="font-weight: bold;">functionality, technological invisibility, the needs of the institution or the individual teacher and of course the price</span>. </div>
Steve Mackenziehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13773778141513293168noreply@blogger.com0