BBC News reports on how in the future you could control devices by touching your skin.
Tapping your forearm or hand with a finger could soon be the way you interact with gadgets.
US researchers have found a way to work out where the tap touches and use that to control phones and music players.
Coupled with a tiny projector the system can use the skin as a surface on which to display menu choices, a number pad or a screen.
The BBC News reports on research which states
University students have average attention spans of just 10 minutes
Really?
They will only pay attention to something for just ten minutes?
Really?
Sorry, what a load of cobblers.
The average length of time a student could concentrate for in lectures was 10 minutes, according to the survey carried last month. And a third blamed lack of sleep and being overworked for this.
No students don’t have ten minute attention spans, it’s just that lectures only hold their attention for ten minutes. That is a very different thing.
If students can spend four hours playing World of Warcraft, what does that say about attention spans?
If students can watch an entire episode of Heroes or sit through the 162 minutes of Avatar, what does that say about attention spans?
Yes there are bound to be students out there that only have ten minute attention spans, however the problem that the research has identified is that the traditional university lecture can only hold the attention span of students for just ten minutes.
The problem with this research and the “findings” is that rather than face the actual problem of boring or unengaging lectures, we try and solve the problem of inattentive students or just start doing ten minute lectures and complain about “dumbing down”.
To be honest I don’t think this is anything new and not exclusive to university students.
At the recent Handheld Learning Conference last year in October I remember Tweeting how with one of the keynote speakers I had stopped listening within ten minutes. Now I think I do have quite a long attention span, but in this instance I didn’t. It’s more often not the person who has the short attention span, but how the content grabs the attention of the person listening. With other keynotes at the conference I was there listening all the way through.
Maybe universities need to stop thinking about student attention spans and start thinking about how they can engage their students to ensure that they engage with the lecture or sessions for how long it takes. Making it engaging (though this doesn’t always mean interactive) and interesting so that it holds the attention of learners for more than ten minutes.
Still with me… or did I lose your attention!
From BBC News
The coldest snap for 20 years shows no sign of letting up, with the freezing weather expected to last all weekend and into next week.
Then we read this
Thousands of children are affected by school closures in England, Wales and Scotland after more heavy snowfalls.
Oh these stories are not from last week, but from last February!
Last February we had some of the worst winter weather for twenty years, unprecedented and somewhat unexpected. As a result many schools, colleges and universities closed their doors to learners and students and staff got a “free” holiday.
Sound familiar, well last week we had even worse weather, something not seen since 1963 in some places. Lots of snow, freezing temperatures and once more many more schools, colleges and universities closing due to the snow.
John Popham in his blog does ask the question
Why, in 2010, we are not making more use of the Internet to cope with these conditions. As in many areas of British life, you will probably tell me that the UK has such extreme weather conditions so infrequently that it is not worth the cost of preparing for them, but, as this is now the second consecutive winter where we have had significant snow fall, and it appears likely that climate change may well make this a regular event, surely we should seriously think about how we prepare for such occasions. And, in this context, as we are supposed to be moving increasingly towards both delivering more education online, and adopting more flexible working practices, surely these should come into their own at these times, shouldn’t they?
I agree with him.
Part of the issue in my view is the culture of snow closures.
Look at this tweet from the University of Bath.
Part of a co-ordnated effort as described on Brian Kelly’s blog how the University of Bath used a range of communication channels and technologies to inform their staff and students that they were closed.
Just to note it’s interesting to see that the University is closed, isn’t it just that the physical site is closed? Can’t at least some of the University continue virtually? However by using the language “closed” it implies that no activity will take place, well no formal activity will take place.
Culturally is it because those not involved online can’t see that closing a physical location need not have a significant impact on the business of the University, if that business can be carried out at home or online?
Using the word “closed” also sends the message to staff that the University is closed and that they do not need to go to work, or even do any work – even if they could.
The University of Bath is not alone, many other educational institutions followed a similar line and message to their learners and staff.
The statement from my college initially to all staff was that the college was closed. Obviously the site was closed, but the VLE was still operational. It wasn’t until a few days later that a message about the VLE was put on the website. However I wonder how many staff are “using” the VLE and how many are taking advantage of the closure to have a bit of a break from work.
David Sugden also brings in another institution in his blog post on the snow, he wrote
With no contingency in place, my wife sent texts to her learners and told them that ideas for work would be posted on the Moodle and that she would be there – on chat – during the class time. But no one came. There is no culture amongst the learners (in Sharon’s case full time nursery workers/managers who were probably too busy with extra children anyway) to visit online learning activities at times like these.
He also asks the question
So, how do we change that culture? How do we prepare our colleagues AND our learners for ‘snow time’?
A good question. At the moment staff and learners see snow as an excuse for a break and won’t even think about let alone consider the possibilities that technology allows them to continue despite the snow and site closures.
David also says
I believe that we have to get them all thinking about the use of audio and video for instruction and assessment as a matter of course and to use online collaboration tools as part of their day-to-day college, school (whatever) life.
Last February we recorded a podcast on this topic and it is still relevant this winter.
David continues
We need to wear the technologies and associated techniques like comfortable coats!
This view is also echoed in an Audioboo by Graham Attwell who brings in David White’s excellent Digital Residents and Digital Visitors model. Those of us who are digital residents didn’t see the snow as an issue, those of us who are digital visitors probably didn’t even think about the possibility!
If all staff and learners were familiar with the technologies then snow closures wouldn’t be such an issue. However if the snow in February 2009 and again in January 2010 has shown anything, it has shown that there is there still a long way to go before educational institutions really are making best use of the internet and digital technologies to enhance and enrich learning.
What about those staff who did work from home? Will they get any benefit or overtime for the day that they worked, but others made snowmen and went sledging? Why should I work from home (because I know how and can) when everyone else is not?
Yes snow makes it dangerous to travel, but with the internet and mobile technologies, does it mean that learners need to stop learning just because the decision is taken to close the physical location?
So what if this snow is unprecedented? What if we are now not going to have bad snow for another twenty years? Well even if you ignore the possible impact that climate change can have on our winters, making them colder and with more snow, institutions can still close for other reasons. My own college was closed in 2007 because of the floods in Gloucestershire. Schools in 2009 were closed because of swine flu. Closures happen a lot, time to start thinking about how an educational institution can make best use of the fantastic tools that are available to it for learning. Though the first thing to do will be to change the culture. It’s not just about contingency planning, it’s about changing the way people work when there isn’t snow and changing the way people think when there is.
Last year we had the “worst snow” for twenty years, here we are less than twelve months later and the snow is not only back it’s even worse! Culturally we have some way to go I think before snow only closes the physical location and doesn’t close the institution.
Doing the rounds on Twitter today has been quite a few people talking about the Next Generation Learning video from Becta.
Some people have posted the video to their blogs, Steve Wheeler for example, Andy Oliver is another.
So am I going to post the video?
Well…
I already have!
Nearly a month ago, on the 12th May!
So if you want to keep ahead of the game and find out what is happening check back more often.
Twitter was on the BBC Breakfast News this morning, Mr Stephen Fry aside it wasn’t (in my opinion) a very good item. See for yourself.
500!
Well this is my five hundredth post on this blog. Since June 2007 when I restarted my educational blogging I have made five hundred blogs covering a range of e-learning subjects from Facebook to YouTube. I have covered MoLeNET and JISC.
There have been 51,782 views of the blog (at the time of writing) and the busiest day was Friday, March 7, 2008 when the BBC linked to my blog post on the launch of the BBC iPlayer for the iPod touch and iPhone. The most popular post was on the Sidekick Slide.
Since the blog was started I have added video and now a regular podcast.
Here’s to the next 500 posts.
Photo source.
BBC reports on the fast growth of mobile internet usage.
Mobile internet use is growing while the number of people going online via a PC is slowing, analyst firm Nielsen Online has found.
Some 7.3m people accessed the net via their mobile phones, during the second and third quarters of 2008.
This is an increase of 25% compared to a growth of just 3% for the PC-based net audience – now more than 35m.
One thing which the survey also found was:
It also found that the mobile net audience was younger and searched for different things.
What this demonstrates is that our learners will be (or already are) using mobile devices to search for things on the internet.
Our learners will also as a result be more likely to utilise their mobile devices to access college web services, so we should ensure that ours are accessible from a mobile device.
So what excuses do your learners come up with for not handing in their assignments or homework.
The Register reports on a survey of a thousand teachers
‘My dog ate it’, ‘I left it on the bus’, and ‘someone stole it’ – they were the classic excuses in our day for not handing in homework. But modern youth are increasingly blaming absent homework on technology, a survey’s revealed.
‘I lost my laptop’ and ‘I finished my homework, but then deleted it by accident’ were also used by kids. Printer problems is another justification.
So what modern technology excuses are your learners using?
Photo source.
BBC report on teenager internet usage.
Surfing the internet, playing games and hanging out on social networks are important for teen development, a large study of online use has revealed.
The article is not just about social networking, it also looks at learning.
The MacArthur Foundation’s education director, Connie Yowell, concluded that the work creates a new way to look at how young people are being taught.
“Learning today is becoming increasingly peer-based and networked, and this is important to consider as we begin to re-imagine education in the 21st century,” she said.
Some of us already know this, but it is nice to have such a report to back up our experiences.
Well the number of visits to the blog has gone past 50,000.
Yay!
I have to admit I was expecting to pass the 50,000 mark back in September, but after a quiet summer the number of visits dropped off quite fast and it’s only now that I am getting the traffic levels back up.
Since the blog started (again, well I did have a WCC blog) I have started to add a lot more video and audio.
Over the next few months, the podcasting should become a regular feature and after my experiences doing the JISC e-Learning Online Conference I hope to do a lot more video.
So that’s 50,000 visits, here’s to the next 50,0000.