Don McMillan has released an updated version of his Life after Death by Powerpoint sketch which was originally an internet hit back a few years back.
If you haven’t seen it before, he does make some useful observations on how people use Powerpoint for presentations, oh and it’s quite funny too.
One of the issues with embedding technology into teaching and learning is the resistance to the embedding by practitioners.
Many factors are discussed for the reasons, from fear of technology, to a lack of time. These discussions fail to recognise that there are many practitioners for whom embedding technology is something they can do in the same time as everyone else. Can time really be the issue, isn’t it much more about priorities than a lack of time?
As for the fear, I am sure there are some real technophobes out there, those for whom technology is a really scary thing that needs to be feared (like dragons) and should never be used. These people probably don’t have a television, a microwave, nor a phone (let alone a mobile phone). These true technophobes do exist I am sure, but as a proportion of practitioners in education, they must be a very small minority, less than 1% for sure and probably a lot less.
So what of the others? Those that say they are fearful of technology?
Well I suspect that these use technology on a day to day basis and probably don’t actually consider it technology. I recall one practitioner been quite proud of the fact that she was a technophobe, however when questioned further she not only used the internet, but used IM and Skype on a regular basis to talk to her daughter in Australia! What is apparent talking to many practitioners who don’t see the need or feel they can use technology for learning, in their day to day life use technology all the time for their own needs and in their non-work life.
One issue that appears to be a barrier is that these practitioners have issues in transferring skills they have built up in their day to day life to using these skills to support teaching and importantly learning.
The same can be said with learners and a recognition that learners who use technology all the time, don’t necessarily know how to use technology to support their learning.
So how do we get teachers who use technology on a daily basis to be able to transfer their skills into the effective use of technology in the classroom?
That is a question that may take a little longer to answer.
Over the years I have gained a reputation at my college (and out and about) of talking about shiny stuff. I even called a mobile learning project Shiny as a result.
Though one thing that came out of a recent conversation with some extremely clever and bright people at a JISC symposium was the importance of dull technology. Dull as in not shiny rather than, dull as in boring.
For those of us involved in extreme e-learning or technology enhanced learning, we sometimes focus on the innovative, the exciting, the new, the shiny stuff. Well it’s where we want to be isn’t it, cutting edge and all that? We want to be using iPads, Android Tablets, the latest and best Web 2.0 tools and services. We get so excited at times that we even do projects and research on them, before writing it up, putting the stuff on a shelf and moving to the next new shiny thing.
I don’t think that there is too much wrong with that, some people do need to be at the cutting edge, they do need to be the blue skies thinkers, the people who innovate and create new ways of learning, inspired by changes in technologies and thinking.
As a result it can be very easy to forget the dull, the stuff we were using last year, two years ago or five years ago. We can even be dismissive of these dull technologies, pointing out how old they are, how useless they are “now” and that they are dead!
The main reason why dull technologies are important is that the majority of practitioners within an institution will not be at the cutting edge, will not be using all technologies innovatively. This means when planning training and staff development it is vital that dull technologies are included and allowed for. Just because we are bored with something doesn’t mean that someone else in your organisation will find it exciting and just the thing to solve the particular problem they are facing.
Photo source.
For the Purpos/ed campaign a couple of weeks back I wrote 500 words on the purpose of education, which you can read here.
The campaign continues with the 3×5 campaign.
For mine I took a photograph of mine (less worried then about rights) that I had taken at Blaise Castle in Bristol.
For the words I chose a quote from Kevin McLauglin. To be honest there were lots of quotes I could have chosen and though some were already “taken” by others, in the end I chose Kevin’s words as I liked the inevitability that learners will learn somehow, but with the right guidance that learning can grow, like a tree hence the picture, and enable the learner to survive the storms and challeneges thrown against them. They can thrive whether it be hot or cold, wet or dry.
So what is the purpose of education? Well it’s all about control and power of course.
Not what I think it is about, but then again most educators probably think like me, however…
Most educational institutions will control education within their walls (and on the internet). They will set the parameters by which learners can learn within their four walls. Often these parameters will be set by government departments. Othertimes these constraints will be set by the institutions and by academics.
Governments fund education to control the population. To ensure that they behave according to societal norms and don’t “rock the boat”. This doesn’t always work, but does formal education cause governments to change, generally no.
Businesses want education to be about preparing people to work for them without complaint regardless of pay or working conditions. Create a workforce that will do their bidding.
Retailers and marketers want education to be about conformity, so that when we venture out we conform to an accepted norm. Not question what we are shown or see.
Of course the purpose of education should be about freedom and choice. A freedom to learn in order to free oneself from the shackles of your environment. Freedom to better oneself. Freedom to learn about new things and old things. Freedom to think.
Even most academics and practitioners would argue they see education as a way of freeing oneself, however they do this by laying down mechanisms, processes and protocols that control whoever enters education. Placing restrictions on what can be learnt, how it can be learnt and focus on assessment of learning. This is not something that is particular to any sector, but can be found in all sectors.
Of course with freedom comes responsibility and if we give learners to freedom to make choices about education, will they make educated and informed choices, or will they choose what they perceive to be the easy path, or the path of least resistance.
So are learners able to make these informed choices, rational decisions?
Many learners do and many learners will use educational institutions for education, learners will also make decisions about their education to use more informal routes to education, some of these will be semi-formalised, such as Open University modules, Adult Education and short courses at FE Colleges,
Some will be routes completely outside formal educational and will take place in local or online communities. Clubs, societies, online forums and mailing lists are all ways in which learners can access an education. They will not be looking at these as a route to a qualification. We as a society will not define these informal routes as education and often will not value this learning
Some learners won’t make informed choices, so do we say they must take part in a formal education?
So despite our best intentions to ensure education is about freedom and choice, this is what I believe education is about, the reality is that education is about control and power.
Find out more about Purpos/ed.
Like most colleges we do provide access to a range of digital and online resources. There is some fantastic content out there which is either available for free or for a relatively low cost subscription.
Feedback from learners, talking to managers and practitioners, show that these resources are not as well used as they could be. There are a range of reasons given why both practitioners and learners do not use them, and in some cases do not even consider using them. These vary from the usual, not enough time, to access issues, or as often happens they didn’t know the college subscribed to them…
Didn’t they have a library induction?
Didn’t they read the e-mail?
The reality is that resources shown at induction or identified in an e-mail will be noted, but not generally remembered. Unless they are use to accessing online resources or are sign-posted to use online resources; they won’t use online resources.
This isn’t just about online resources, experience in my institutiuon and talking to others in a similar position, demonstrate that learners won’t be using books and journals in the library unless they are use to using them or sign-posted to use them.
So who sign-posts?
Well obviously the library staff (learning resources team) can do this with learners who are in the library. They can go and meet with learners in the classroom and inform them of the availability of resources. But these tactics are in many ways like inductions or e-mails, they may not be at the point of need and learners may not readily identify or link the resources to their topics or assessed work. The “clever” learners will know that they can go the library staff when they have a “need” and get signposted that way.
One thing practitioners can do is to sign-post resources to their learners during lessons, within assignments and on the VLE. If a learner wants to get the best grade possible, either in exams or assessed work, they need to use a much wider range of resources than what is made available in the classroom, the library and online resources are two prime locations for these resources. Not all learners know that and not all practitioners realise that they need to signpost to their learners about this. Some may think it so obvious that they don’t even mention it… that can be a mistake.
So how do we change things, so that learners are aware of what online resources are available or what the function of the library is?
Practitioners need to be made aware of the value of the resources available and working with the library staff enable easy access to those resources for their learners.
Some examples.
We are so lucky now to have such a huge range of online resources and content, to ignore it is missing a trick. But getting both learners and practitioners to take advantage of them, is not just down to wishful thinking, but requires communication and planning.
Hollywood believes that 3D is one way in which it can overcome piracy and get us back into the cinema. Personally I think it is a bit of a gimmick and puts pressure on film makers to focus on 3D effects rather than good film making, story and plot. I did go to the cinema to see Toy Story 3 in 3D and I didn’t think the 3D effects added anything special to the film, when we recently re-watched the film on DVD on our 2D TV, the film was still just as good and I didn’t miss the 3D whatsoever. I remember going to the cinema to see Jaws 3-D and that was a film which was made purely to use 3D as a gimmick to get people to go and watch what was a terrible film. It must have done okay in the cinema though, as they did make a Jaws 4 (though that was not in 3D).
However despite my personal objections to 3D films I was interested to read that you can already purchase the Panasonic SDT750 3D Camcorder
This has some potential for learning activities allowing learners to take images in three dimensions for reviewing later at a time and place to suit the learner, but only if that learner has access to a 3D TV. Now it has to be said that you can buy 3D TVs, but I doubt they are mainstream enough so that most learners in a cohort have access to one. Would you put a 3D TV into college? Well if you were taking a lot of 3D footage then maybe?
However I come back to the question, what is the point of 3D, what does it add to the value of the learning experience that standard 2D video footage doesn’t?
Video in itself has so much to offer learning compared to still images or diagrams. To see the video of a technique of filleting fish for example.
This is so much better than the line diagrams you use to have to use.
Now I do wonder what 3D would add to the experience? Would the experience be better? It might be, but really would it be that much better?
Now as I write this, I do wonder if I am one of those sceptics and luddites about new technologies? Is 3D just a gimmick as I think it is, or is it that I have a blinkered approach to new technologies? What pedagogical or learning problems does 3D solve?
So is 3D the next big thing? Or is it just a gimmick? Are you using 3D already?
Talking with a manager today we were discussing how we could use various technologies to capture the learner voice. In the FE sector the learner voice has become strategically important and is part of the inspection framework.
There is a great focus in the Common Inspection Framework on involving learners in developing policies, provision and activities. This builds on the learner voice concepts and involvement strategies that are common in the FE sector. Ofsted are likely to expect similar strategies across all provisions, not just colleges and LSC provision.
It’s not as though we didn’t listen to learners in the past, we certainly did, but we probably didn’t have the systems and processes to effectively capture the learner voice and importantly feedback to them.
In my own college we have a robust system for capturing the learner voice across the college, however it doesn’t capture all the feedback. Sometimes learners want to provide feedback on their own curriculum area (which they can do as part of the college wide learner voice) but may not think it important enough to talk about at a college level, but want their voice heard at a “local” level. Also though the system is robust it may not always capture everything. There is also a need from a local perspective in capturing evidence that would feed into the Self-Assessment Report (SAR) and be used to develop a plan for the following year.
So back to the conversation with the manager.
We both knew that we could tap into the existing system, but wanted to allow learners to use video and audio. We already have the technology in the classroom and the library to capture video and audio (using the iSight camera and microphone built into the iMac). Learners could also capture video and audio using their mobile phones, these media files can then be easily moved to the computers or sent direct.
The key question then was where should the learners send their media files?
Using e-mail was rejected very early on, we have limited space for our e-mail and archiving and saving attachments seemed very clunky and time consuming. That was also the reason using gmail was also rejected.
We also wanted a simple system for learners, so using a service like Blogger or WordPress went out the window.
In the end we started looking at Posterous.
Posterous originally started as a service that allowed you to use a single e-mail account to send “stuff”. Posterous would then convert the stuff into a blog with separate postings for each individual e-mail. Posterous will also automatically encode the video and audio too. But this would only work (at that time) with a single e-mail account, so not entirely suitable for the needs of the manager.
However recent updates from Posterous have created a mechanism that would work for capturing the learner voice.
You can create a Posterous blog and then “anything” sent to a specific e-mail account you choose, whateveryouwant@posterous.com. So you can give that e-mail address to your learners who can then send their video and audio files to it. They can also send text, or photographs of handwritten comments.
Once received at Posterous, the e-mail (with the stuff) is held in a moderation queue, once moderated it will be published. Now you probably don’t actually want this content in the public domain (dirty laundry and all that) another nice feature of Posterous is the ability to make the blog private.
So learners can easily create media files, using college equipment or their own devices or phones. They can e-mail these to Posterous, which will encode it for the web. The manager can get notifications via e-mail and so will know when learners have posted stuff. They can moderate the “postings” so they appear on the blog. They can then view what the learners have said. The manager can also open out the blog to other staff who have an interest.
At this level the system works quite well.
To take a stage further, the manager can add tags to postings, making it easier to see if there are pattens or collate from different groups.
The learner voice is important, using technologies such as Posterous makes it easier for learners to use different media and for some learners a different mechanism that they prefer, to enable their voice to be heard.
Last week I wrote about using the VLE more. This post is about using the Activboard more. Activboard is Promethean’s brandname for their Interactive Whiteboards.
Probably better to read this post and the VLE post in conjunction with my blog post on cheese.
Using the VLE and the Activboard is one part of a wider strategy in increasing holistically the use of ILT in our college to enhance and enrich the learning process. It isn’t nor has it been about using JUST the VLE for web based learning, or ONLY using the Activboard in the classroom, it’s about using the available technology to solve problems and improve the learning experience. We have Activboards in every teaching space, this benefits the learners by providing a computer and internet access to every teaching space. They also ensure that every teaching space has a projector, speakers and a printer.
Yes there are issues and problems with IWBs however like any learning technology there are things they do well and things they do badly. Do they reinforce a particular style of teaching, well only if you let them… Bad teaching is still bad teaching regardless of the technology available and other systems and protocols should be place to improve the quality of learning. No one is forced to use the Activboard for every session, but practitioners have the choice.
At a very simple level many practitioners will use the Activboard in the same way they would use a traditional whiteboard, by using it to take notes, write responses, or provide guidance to learners on the subject and topics in that lesson. The Activboard has many advantages over whiteboards with the main ones been: it has multiple pages; it can be prepared in advance; it can be saved.
The multiple page feature of the Activboad allows all the text and commentary from the lesson to be available throughout the lesson. With a traditional whiteboard you would rub off what had been done and start afresh. With the multiple page functionality it is possible at the end of the lesson to review every Activboard page that has been done.
The multiple page feature also means that it is possible to prepare Activboard pages in advance. Yes you can use Powerpoint or another presentation tool, but sometimes it is easier or makes more sense to use the Activboard.
The fact you can save Activboard sessions means that this takes the use of a whiteboard to a new level. Practitioners will be able to reuse sessions in different lessons (either with different groups or the following year). Sessions can be printed, they can be given to a learner or placed in a teaching file. If practitioners save, print and export their Activboard sessions, both learners and practitioners can access these sessions at a time and place to suit them. By exporting sessions as PDF, these resources can then be e-mailed or placed on the VLE for remote access.
In my mind these “basic” functions of the Activboard should be seen to be normal usage by practitioners.
So the next question is how do practitioners take their use of the Activboard to the next level?
You could use the process I outlined in my article using the VLE more. Get the practitioners from a particular curriculum area to attend a session on the different capabilities of the Activboard. This session should be not too long, a hour is certainly practical. Within the session various functions of the Activboard are demonstrated and a short explanation on a learning or administrative problem that it solves.
All the practitioners then choose at least one function that they will use with their learners on one of their courses. This could be using the Activexpression learner response systems, using audio and video within the Activboard, drag and drop, etc… There are lots of ideas on Promethean Planet.
They will then report back (say in a team meeting) on the impact and outcome of using this functionality, before choosing the next feature, and so on… They may want to involve their learners in this process too.
This is about moving the responsibility of using the Activboard to the practitioner, and their continuing personal development in the use of the Activboard to enhance and enrich the quality of the learning experience.