Monthly Archives: May 2013

ipad

It’s three years old…

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Three years ago my iPad arrived, it was (as you might have expected) a first generation model; I went with the model that came with 64GB of storage and no 3G. My thinking at the time was that I was going to use this in the main as a portable video device, so needed lots of storage.

I find it interesting how both my use of the iPad and how I view it has changed in the last three years. When I bought my iPad I considered it in the main as a device to watch videos, play casual games and browsing the web. Today I use the iPad very differently, it is a key part of my workflow at college, I use it for communication and social media, reading books and magazines. I have a third generation iPad for work and that has a camera and that added a whole new dimension in content creation. I have reviewed many of the apps available on the blog.

It’s interesting, despite all the attention given to the short life of these consumer devices and how they would need to be replaced more often than a “normal” PC, that I still have it, and I still use it on a daily basis for lots of different things.

This three year old device is still pretty powerful for doing lots of things. Yes there are apps that don’t work as it’s a first generation device, so no iMovie or iPhoto. However that isn’t really much of a problem, as for me the first generation iPad is much more of a content consumption device and I rarely use it for creating stuff.

For me it still works great for accessing e-mail, playing films and using Netflix. Where it is less useful is web browsing, well web browsing when you have more than one tab open. For some reason, memory reasons I believe, mobile Safari on the iPad can only hold a small number of pages (or very few pages) so if you work like I do with lots of tabs, when you return to a tab, after looking at other pages, Safari is “forced” to load the page again. If you are on a poor connection, eg a tethered phone or train wifi then this can be frustrating. There is (or was) a similar limitation on the iPhone.

Having said that I should note that this iPad rarely travels these days, it spends more time in the home than anywhere else. Though it does come on holiday with us, partly for in-car entertainment, “are we there yet” and for watching films in the evening.

The iPad is also used regularly by my children for playing games, and though this won’t play some of the newer graphic intensive games, it will suffice for games such as Monopoly, Battleships, Scrabble, Trival Pursuit, Cover the Orange, Angry Birds and so on…

I am still impressed with the battery life, one concern of any device that has a built-in non-removable battery is that once the battery has reached end of life, there is little you can do with the device, except spend a small fortune having the battery replaced. I would hazard a guess that replacing the battery would probably cost a lot in comparison to buying a new iPad.

So three years later, I don’t think I will retire the device, I would certainly consider selling it and I think it would sell for about £100 which would contribute to a newer model.

alt, assessment, octel, vle

Assessing Assessment – ocTEL

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This week on ocTEL we’re looking at assessment. As part of my thinking I reflected on the use of quizzes in Moodle.

Designing Moodle quizzes is much more than just been able to use the quiz tool from a technical perspective. There is a real art to crafting questions so that they not only allow the learner to test their understanding, but also require a higher level of thinking.

If we look at the following multiple choice questions, the format of which is one of many different types available on Moodle, it provides the structure and the practitioner provides the question and the answers:

Which is these is a mammal?

Shark
Dog
Spider
Crocodile

This question does not test understanding, most students would be able to guess the answer or would not find it challenging. Within Bloom’s Taxonomy this is testing knowledge only, the bottom layer of the triangle.

Bloom’s Taxonomy

In terms of feedback, you can design Moodle quizzes to provide feedback on questions. So you can explain why their answer is wrong or right and where to look for further information or support.

Onto a similar question:

What is the capital of Australia?

Sydney
Melbourne
Canberra
Melbourne

If we look at this question if you didn’t know the answer then you would need to do some research. However as with the previous question within Bloom’s Taxonomy this is testing knowledge only, the bottom layer of the triangle. It’s more challenging than the first question, but if you didn’t know it already then a quick Google search and you have the right answer.

So what about this question:

Which of these is the odd one out?

Odd One Out

The “problem” with this question is that there is no single right answer. The answer needs an explanation, and it’s the explanation that demonstrates understanding of the question, not the answer.

If we look at Bloom’s Taxonomy it is possible with this question to go all the way to the top.

However Moodle will struggle with assessing a question with no “right” answer and certainly would not be able to assess the explanation.

You could provide generic feedback on why there is no “right” answer, but that may not be useful for all learners. Feedback needs to be personalised to be really effective. Students generally don’t appreciate generic feedback.

This doesn’t mean that Moodle quizzes aren’t an useful tool for checking learning, but its limitations in assessing higher order thinking needs to be considered when designing assessment.

altc2009, facebook, vle

A Closed Group

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Discussion

Back in 2009 at ALT-C we had the VLE is Dead debate. My view back then hasn’t changed much in the last four years. To save you watching the video, the heart of my viewpoint was that the VLE was the core of a student’s online presence and that other tools and services would plug into that.

I was recently discussing with a group of Psychology students how they used and felt about the VLE. Their response was quite positive, they found the VLE useful and it helped them with their learning. What they also said was that they were pleased it was available. When I asked them about discussions and chat functionality, they were quick to respond that no they didn’t do this on the VLE, but were much more likely to use their “homemade” group on Facebook for those kinds of discussions. When I reminded them that learners had asked for Facebook to be blocked in the library, they replied that this didn’t matter as they preferred to use Facebook on their smartphones.

You get a picture of how they were using different online environments and tools to support their learning. They were making choices about which tools they preferred and those that they didn’t. The students could have created a group on our Mahara site, but they preferred to use a familiar tool such as Facebook.

The question we might want to ask is how do we “assess” these discussions or even access them? Another question might be, do we need to?

If students are using a Facebook group for discussions, should we be trying to impose restrictions on their choices and make them discuss course related stuff on the VLE rather than in a closed group on a different service? Or should we focus on the importance of discussing over the importance of the platform?

In face to face discussions, these do take place in a classroom or seminar, however the vast majority happen elsewhere, whether that be in the refectory, the coffee shop, the library, at home, in the workplace or while travelling. Can we be surprised that online discussions also take place outside the “official” discussion forums?

google

Apps and Google Drive

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Over on my Tech Stuff Blog I have written a short blog post about adding apps to Google Drive.

Adding Apps to Google Drive

I was quite impressed with how easy it was to add apps and liked the added functionality it brings to Google Docs. In the blog post I have shown a couple of useful edtech apps, mind mapping and MoveNote. Still working out what else it can do and importantly the limitations.

One of the real advantages of this, is that learners can use their computer at home, at college or work, without needing to worry about installing software, or having files they can’t work on as there isn’t the application on the hardware.

alt, octel

This Page has been Blocked – ocTEL

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Blocked

After posting my reflection on the Adventure Game I was reminded of Fantastic Contraption. This is a puzzle game that require logical thinking, but because of the design of the game there is no one answer, you can be very creative. It’s also very social as you can share your “contraptions” with others. I have seen some very innovative and interesting “contraptions” from others within the game. You can also return to your “contraptions” to improve them and make them better. This is a much better puzzle game and more engaging for me than I found with Lost in the City. I thought I should try and have a go at the puzzle game recommended on the ocTEL site. Alas the site was blocked, I was using the free public wifi at the local library. So despite wanting to try out the puzzle game recommended I couldn’t.

So how about I look at Fantastic Contraption instead? Well this is a fun engaging puzzle game. It requires logical thinking and elements of trial and error. Unlike something like Lost in the City, there isn’t a single solution you need to find, there is an infinite number of solutions to each of the puzzles. You can also go back and fine tune your solutions.

Fantastic Contraption

This is quite engaging and there is an element of satisfaction when you find a neat or clever solution. 

There are levels that can appear to be unsolvable and these initially proving challenging can after a while be somewhat demotivating. If there is a level that you can’t solve, you probably will stop playing the game. However as the “recipe” doesn’t really change much across the different levels, you can have enough of the game and when the next game comes along you will probably stop playing, I know I haven’t played for ages.

As for what can I learn from the game, well that’s a more challenging question. I am not entirely sure if there is too much I can learn from the game, there’s elements of physics and logic, but I am not sure how useful the skills learned will be in real life and how transferable they will be. When it comes to problem solving, I would have thought logical and fine tuning a solution would be useful, but I don’t see how this game would result in gaining those skills. If anything the game doesn’t “teach” those skills, and it would be difficult to learn those skills from the game. What is a more likely scenario is that this kind of game would appeal to someone who already has those skills.

I think another interesting point from all of this is the fact that I couldn’t access the puzzle game from the ocTEL webiste. Site blocking is an issue with any kind of MOOC or TEL activity when the learner has to access a third party site as part of the learning and that an “administrator” has deemed to be “unsuitable”. The key question is how easy is it to have the site unblocked. In my case probably unlikely as I am using the public wifi at the local library. What is also quite interesting, but could be worrying for learners, is the comment “The request was logged”. You could imagine a learner thinking that if they went to too many blocked sites they would lose their internet access. It’s an interesting aspect of this MOOC that I suspect hasn’t really been thought about.

Site blocking is still prevalent on public wifi, train wifi, school and college wireless too. For example CrossCountry Trains blocks YouTube and iPlayer as there is insufficient bandwidth on the train. A lot of sites are also blocked on 3G connections due to the default content control on these services. I remember a VLE I worked with in the past was blocked by Vodafone Content Control.

When designing TEL activities (and MOOCs) as mentioned in a previous blog, consideration must be given to alternatives for those occassions when sites are blocked. Also it makes sense to check out how these activities and tools work away from university and college systems, on free wifi or 3G networks.

alt, octel

Active Play – ocTEL

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Lost in the City

Have found a little time this week to look at ocTEL.

Over recent decades, game-based learning has grown as a form of TEL. It encapsulates many principles of active learning, such as engagement in an authentic context, learning by mistake-making and reflection, experiential learning, collaborative learning and learning by problem-solving. As such, it is worth considering the techniques that games use to engage learners and what can be learned from them. Four game genres with obvious learning potential are adventure games, puzzle games, role playing games and strategy games.

Playing “Lost in the City” reminded me of how much I hate these kinds of adventure games and how frustrating I find them. Now I did give it a fair go and spent over 15 minutes playing the game, of which the majority of time was spent trying to find a single small object on the screen. This was very un-engaging and very demotivating.

Personally I don’t think I could learn anything from this specific game. I also think the frustrations acted as a disincentive to learning.

This is not an “adventure” game, this is a game with puzzles that appears to be an adventure, but isn’t. These are not even “useful” puzzles as far as I am concerned, they are logic puzzles that have to be solved in a particular way or in a specific order, the “challenge” is to find that order out to solve it. The problem with this is that there is no real logic to the process and it’s much more trial and error then actual logic. Also with only one specific solution, you can’t be creative or find alternative ways of solving the problem. This does not reflect the real world.

The other aspect is that too often you spend a long time trying to find (as in the case of “Lost in the City”) that final key, that elusive number. This is not learning, unless you’re learning to be patient! It’s merely frustrating and annoying, as far as I am concerned it’s not even a game.

For me a true adventure game should allow for freedom and flexibility. Then it can be more of a learning experience.

I can see how some people may “enjoy” this kind of game, but also can see how some people think such games “could” be used to teach subjects like Health & Safety, as in spot the danger. However such games would annoy many learners for the reasons I outlined above, and therefore could be a choice, but allow other ways of learning.

vle

Is the Scroll of Death Inevitable?

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newspapers

One of the common themes that comes out when people discuss how to use Moodle, is the inevitable scroll of death.

As you start to use Moodle and create a course for the first time., you add a title, add a label describing the course and then you add a link to file, a link to the forum, some quizzes, a wiki, an assignment, then another. Before long you will have a long list of resources, the inevitable “scroll of death”.

From a learner’s perspective this is a long list of links, no context and not really an engaging and interactive learning experience. It will be more challenging to use Moodle, it won’t be intuitive. The end result will be disengaged learners and people saying that Moodle is “boring”, why can’t it be more like Facebook, Twitter or Google+?

If you are reflective and ask learners for feedback, when you next build a Moodle course, hopefully you will think about whole course design and not build merely a list of links. However years of talking to educators I have found that they rarely talk about whole course design, they are more worried about what they are going to teach tomorrow, or at best next week. They may well have a scheme of work, but that doesn’t mean that it’s useful or they stick to it.

This short-term planning often resulted in the resources been posted to Moodle without any thinking about the context or the impact this approach will have over the whole course.

Now at this point we mustn’t dismiss this approach entirely. It’s often seen as a good thing that we see learning on the VLE, however this doesn’t mean that when you find just a list of resources means that there is no learning happening. It may be happening in the classroom, in the workshop, the workplace, the resources are merely a starting point or a catalyst for learning.

An unplanned approach to curriculum design, combined with a interface flaw within Moodle, means that you are more likely to end up with the “scroll of death” than anything else. If you throw into that mix all the resources that are used over a course, there could be lots of them, probably much more so than any kind of interactive activity, then is it any wonder that when used extensively, most Moodle courses have the “scroll of death”. I know that when I was planning lessons I would have many kinds of resources to support the activities, there may anything up to ten resources for any one activity or assignment. This can quite easily lead to a “scroll of death”.

Another aspect to consider is that the VLE in most FE Colleges (and Universities) is used more often to support, enhance and enrich delivery in the classroom or the lecture theatre. It’s more rare for the VLE to be used for the delivery of learning on its own. Support often means resources, as opposed to a series of learning activities.

Having said all that there is no excuse for the “scroll of death” with a little planning, it’s quite easy to not only avoid it, but add context to any resources and activities, so making the VLE an engaging and useful experience for learners.