conference, jiscel10

Not quite free

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Last week I attended two conferences, both in London and both “free”. Great conferences and certainly useful and interesting to attend. I got a lot out of them and will be bringing what I gained back into my work. However they weren’t exactly free, they had costs, costs that in these economic times may not always be possible to secure funding for those costs.

In order to attend the conferences I needed to travel to London, which if you want attend the start of the conference is often not cheap. Though I can travel to London and back off peak for about £55, to travel at peak times can cost £168! In addition there are tube costs and coffee to buy. And if you are going to buy a coffee, you will probably want to buy a cake too.

The other cost is travel time, about three hours each way for me, so I am spending a good part of the day (and evening) travelling. Yes it is possible to do some kind of work on the train, but generally it is not the ideal environment. Now these were just one day events, imagine the additional costs in terms of time and money if this was a four day conference.

So when you look at the £50 cost for the JISC Innovating e-Learning 2010 Online Conference you can see that this is not just good value, but is much cheaper than many “free” conferences. This makes it much easier to justify to your institution.

There are advantages to attending the conference, but reduced travel and accommodation costs, no travel time and no need to leave the office, is a key advantage.

Of course the real value of the online conference is the programme, one that will inspire and challenge you. It has variety and interest.

So if it is proving difficult to attend all the conferences you want to, one you shouldn’t miss is the JISC Innovating e-Learning 2010 Online Conference.

Find out more.

altc2010

Podcast lectures “better” than real lectures

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In recent weeks I have written about lectures following Donald Clark’s keynote on the end of the lecture at ALT-C 2010.

As well as reflecting on Donald’s keynote I also posted the video Dave White’s invited talk where he talks about eventedness.

However if the results of a slightly unconvincing study are to be believed then giving students a recording of the lecture would be better for the learners than them attending live!

The New Scientist reports on the study that was undertaken at State University of New York in Fredonia.

New psychological research suggests that university students who download a podcast lecture achieve substantially higher exam results than those who attend the lecture in person.

Why do I say unconvincing?

To find out how much students really can learn from podcast lectures alone – mimicking a missed class – McKinney’s team presented 64 students with a single lecture on visual perception, from an introductory psychology course.

This is a very small sample set and only covers one subject.

Now before we completely dismiss this study, there was also a recent article of interest in The Telegraph about Flip-thinking.

The article implies that education hasn’t changed much over the last hundred years…

Since it’s 2010, many of these students will see smartboards instead of chalkboards and they’ll turn in their assignments online rather than on paper. But the rhythm of their actual days will be much the same as when their parents and grandparents sat in those same uncomfortable seats back in the 20th century.

During class time, the teacher will stand at the front of the room and hold forth on the day’s topic. Then, as the period ends, he or she will give students a clutch of work to do at home. Lectures in the day, homework at night. It was ever thus and ever shall be.

However the article then goes onto describe the work of Karl Fisch

…instead of lecturing about polynomials and exponents during class time – and then giving his young charges 30 problems to work on at home – Fisch has flipped the sequence. He’s recorded his lectures on video and uploaded them to YouTube for his 28 students to watch at home. Then, in class, he works with students as they solve problems and experiment with the concepts.

Now though that article talks about flipping publishing and movies, there is a connection between the two articles on the students watching and listening to stuff and then using lesson time to ask questions, undertake exercises and do more practical things.

I don’t know about you, but there is a kind of logic there, isn’t there?

Some I know will say that learners won’t be motivated to watch or listen to the videos and podcasts. But are they going to be any more motivated to undertake questions and assessments for which they may not understand the underpinning theory.

Also it is a lot more difficult to get someone else to do your “homework” if the “homework” is done in college rather than outside.

You could also use additional materials and resources to extend the topic for those learners that need it.

The more I think about this, the more I think it has potential.

What do you think?

app of the week

Dragon Search – iPhone App of the Week

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Dragon Search – iPhone App of the Week

Dragon Search is the Fast, Accurate and Smart way to search online content on your iPhone using your voice.

Simply speak your search queries and get simultaneous results from a variety of top websites and content sources including:

  • Google or Yahoo! depending on your default settings
  • YouTube
  • Twitter Search
  • iTunes
  • Wikipedia

The innovative Dragon Search Carousel allows you to quickly access results from multiple sources, and is a one-stop shop for all of your search needs, even when your hands are busy.

Dragon Search currently supports U.K. English, U.S. English and German. French, Italian and Spanish support will be added later this year.

This week’s App is Dragon Search

Free

I have written before about Dragon Dictation an App that allows you to dictate and have your speech converted into text.

This search app is from the same stable and at a simple level allows you to speak your search terms and search multiple sites with a single term.

As well as searching Google…

…it also searches Wikipedia…

…and YouTube.

I’ve had this App for a while now, but it has only been recently made available in the UK iTunes Store. The version I was using only (really) responded to US English, this recently released version now supports UK English, so I no longer need to use a “fake” American accent!

Where I think this app is useful is if you don’t need to know how to spell something, but do want to search for it.

The downside of this app is that it is an app. On my Google Nexus One has speech search built into the operating system and available from the front page.

Get Dragon Search in the iTunes Store.

fote10

Where’s your presentation?

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I still yet to upload my presentation from FOTE10 to the web.

Why?

Well at 250Mb it’s a tiny bit large for the average user.

It’s also in Keynote format, so not very accessible for anyone other than a Mac user.

Then again I think what’s the point?

Anyone at FOTE10 will know (and the photo above testifies) that my presentation had very few words in it, it was a presentation of images and video. There were more words on the final slide with my contact details than there was in the rest of the entire presentation.

If I uploaded the presentation, without the context and without the “speech” itself then it would be like a nice screensaver.

I do see the value in online presentations, but do feel that a presentation designed for the web is a different animal to one that is used in person.

I have recorded my presentation (as an mp3) and will release that, but that probably stands on it’s own feet better than the slides would on their own.

So you will be able to hear what I say, not necessarily see the slides. I know at some point ULCC will release a video of me presenting, then you can see me, hear me and watch my slides. Though without the Twitter backchannel…

Then again even that is possible nowdays…

So why do we attend events then?

Well…

Eventedness, but I leave that to a certain Mr White to explain.

altc2010, fote10

Back to the Future

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I really enjoyed ALT-C, it’s a great conference, so much to hear and learn. However it has one “flaw” and it’s not really a flaw, more a design feature.

ALT-C is in September and the submission process occurs nine months earlier. So the content of the conference is mainly about work undertaken in the one or two years before that! As a result the majority of the presentations and papers at ALT-C is on work and activity that is eighteen months old! However this is not a problem, this is an academic conference and the point of the conference is to look back, learn from the past and build for the future. However this is not a conference to go to if you are interested in what the future will bring… in other words the stuff you would hear about at ALT-C 2012 or 2013. Many learning technology conferences I attend have a similar model, MoLeNET this week for example was about MoLeNET projects that were designed in November 2009, this was before the iPad and the iPhone 4G were even announced.

So what of the future?

It is true many of these conferences do have sessions on the future, but today in London I am presenting at FOTE10. The Future of Technology in Education 2010 Conference is about the future. Though one person did think it was more the “here and now” conference. Cycnicism aside, ULCC says…

…the FOTE conference is back for 2010 and, as with previous events, is dedicated to showcasing the hottest technology related trends and challenges impacting the academic sector over the next 1-3 years.

This is why this conference is different. This is now about where we have been, or even where we are, this is about where we are going.

It is very TED like in format and structure and I think the conference benefits from that. Short intense presentations (and a few panel sessions) to get people thinking. Even though many may think the lecture is dead, in this case I see FOTE having a term I will steal from Dave White, eventedness. In other words the event is not just about the presentation, it is also about the community that attends and engages with the conference.

There will be (I am assuming) quite a lively back-channel and the coffee breaks are a hub of conversation and discussion.

Many of the key players, personalities (and even celebrities) from the world of learning technologies in the UK will be there.

It is all these features that make this conference such an exciting event. The free tickets this year “sold out” as fast as the previous two.

Of course there is one question.

Who decides whom should present and on what subjects?

That is a question that I can’t answer, but obviously it can’t be easy. There are many new technologies, themes and trends. How would you choose what should be at the conference?

Fote 09 AudienceI was humbled last year to talk at FOTE09, I talked about the future of learning. I was even more humbled when I was asked to come back and talk at FOTE10. My presentation this year is entitled, “The iPad is the future of reading”. I have already written a couple of blog articles on the FOTE blog, one on how books are wonderful things and how the Kindle is a wonderful thing, but despite this, the iPad is still the future of reading.

stuff

Is this the end or just the beginning?

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Camera Roll-26Today was the third MoLeNET conference, a celebration of mobile learning and the MoLeNET programme.

There were a few presentations, but lots of demonstrations, discussions and workshops.

I was quite reserved this year and let others do a lot of work.

There were lots of lessons from the conference that I and others could take home and use with our institutions. The key here was that even someone like me, who is well versed in the potential of mobile learning, can learn something from a mobile learning conference.

I hope to over the next couple of weeks bring some of the highlights and thoughts from the conference. There are some really interesting thoughts and lessons about cultural change, sustainability, technical issues as well as people and training and development.

With the changes in funding recently it is looking like that we will not see anymore MoLeNET funding for projects. This doesn’t mean that this needs to be the end of MoLeNET as a community.

It’s obvious from the work of MoLeNET projects that mobile learning is here and is here to stay. Learners are using mobile devices for learning and institutions need to be ensuring that they have the infrastructure to support this.

Camera Roll-24Where MoLeNET comes into this, is by providing a community of expertise, knowledge and guidance. As I said above, we can learn from each other and there is always something new to learn.

Today should not be the end of MoLeNET, merely the beginning…

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