Learning Innovation, Embracing Technology

It’s a busy week this week, though in the main because I am getting asked to do lots of things.

Today I was giving a keynote (and running an exhibition stand) at the joint Becta and LSIS Conference on Learning Innovation, Embracing Technology. My presentation was on mobile learning, though (as you might guess) I covered a fair bit more than just “what is mobile learning”.

I was on just before lunch, prior to my bit we had had LSIS and Becta give their views on embracing technology and a workshop.

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Alas (or luckily) I only had ten minutes to do my presentation and using the digital clock on my iPhone I did keep to time.

I would loved to have more time and engaged the conference delegates in conversation and discussion. Well to be honest I did over lunch, where for an hour I chatted and engaged with the delegates on my stand.

As well as showing off a lot of mobile kit (from my bag of crap) I also had bundles of LSN publications about MoLeNET which were taken in their droves.

Went very well, so much so, I never got a chance to eat my lunch!

After lunch I went to Becky Barrington’s workshop on tools that she uses with her staff. Though I know practitioners love to create content, and the tools Becky showed demonstrate how much easier that it is to now, I do question the sustainability of a that model across the FE sector. How can we share all that wonderful content that is being created in various colleges across the country? How can we ensure that the shared content is being utilised effectively and for the benefit of learnings.

We can’t be the only institution who once more will create a series of slides or quizzes on customer service?

I enjoyed Stuart Edwards’ presentation and nice use of this video to prove how social media is having a huge impact on the way we communicate. Glad I didn’t show my video in my presentation as we used the same audio track!

Overall it was a very interesting conference.

2 thoughts on “Learning Innovation, Embracing Technology”

  1. Thanks for sharing such a prompt write-up James – your input at the conference today was fab, as always.

    Just in case readers are interested, link to the youtube vid that Stuart Edwards showed is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVXKI506w-E

    We’ll also be popping more resources on the Becta collaboration site (FE and Skills section) over the coming days: http://collaboration.becta.org.uk

    Hoping you’ll let us share your presentation there too James!

  2. Hi James,

    That’s a great point regarding content creation vs sharing. It’s received wisdom these days that intellectual property should be guarded at all costs and that this is mutually exclusive with letting others use it without paying, whether in cash or in kind. This problem is much stronger in HE where competition is greater.

    Yet this view ignores, for example, that some teachers are much better at content creation than delivery or vice versa. It also suggests that a teacher’s capacity to create value begins and ends with the content, when the really vital factor is the delivery of that content.

    All over the country people are reinventing the wheel again and again because they can’t find or can’t access great content they could reuse.

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