stuff

EdTech 2010, some thoughts

7 Comments

EdTech 2010 has now finished and I have left Athlone. I opened the conference with my keynote, entitled Cultural Shifts.

The keynote looked at the importance of culture and changing culture if we are to not just embed the use of learning technologies, but create a culture that embraces new technologies and pedagogies, rather than resist them.

The feedback I got was that it went down well with the delegates at the conference and created a buzz and conversations throughout the conference.

It was my first time to EdTech and I enjoyed the conference.

I have found that attending learning technology conferences always provide something new and interesting to take away. Even if the conference is based on a different sector or in a different country, there are lessons that have been learnt that we can learn from. Despite the differences the issues and challenges we face in different countries and different sectors, what we know and what we learn is more often than not transferable and easily adapted to our own institutions and learners.

There were some really useful and interesting presentations and talks and I hope to blog about them later.

stuff

Cultural Shifts

Leave a comment

This morning I delivered my keynote at EdTech 2010.

It went down very well and I hope to have the Slideshare and video up soon. It appears to be taking a very long time for Slideshare to convert my presentation, might need to convert it myself first to PowerPoint from Keynote before uploading.

I am enjoying EdTEch 2010, lots of useful presentations and discussions. Making some useful contacts and found some great resources; such as these bricklaying videos.

stuff

Travelling

2 Comments

Today I spent most of the day travelling to Athlone in Ireland for EdTech 2010 where I am delivering the opening keynote. Travelling to a different country shows how reliant we are (well how reliant I am) on connectivity and communication.

Arriving at Dublin Airport, though my iPhone connected easily to the O2 phone network and I am on O2 in the UK, I got a nice little text message from O2 to tell me how expensive it is to use the phone and data whilst in Ireland.

At £3 per MB this is very expensive for “normal” usage of the iPhone for e-mail, web browsing and using services such as Twitter and Flickr. I did consider buying a data bundle in advanced from O2 but at £50 for 50MB I decided no way.

I also did consider buying a SIM for my unlocked Nexus One, but as I am only here for a few days I didn’t think it was worth it, and what I really wanted from a local SIM was data not calls and texts.

In the end I decided that I could live without connectivity for the time I am in Ireland. Where and when I needed to use the internet I would use WiFi.

What I did quite like in Dublin was the availability of free WiFi in cafes and restaurants. I could buy a coffee and use the WiFi, whereas in the UK it is more likely these days to find that the WiFi is a BT Openzone or other costly wireless hotspot.

app of the week

Boggle – iPhone App of the Week

Leave a comment

Boggle – iPhone App of the Week

This is a regular feature of the blog looking at the various iPhone Apps available. Some of the apps will be useful for those involved in learning technologies, others will be useful in improving the way in which you work, whilst a few will be just plain fun! Some will be free, others will cost a little and one or two will be what some will think is quite expensive. Though called iPhone App of the Week, most of these apps will also work on the iPod touch.

This week’s App is Boggle.

Test your way with words by playing the popular wordsearch game.

Until 23rd May £0.59

Boggle is a nice simple game that gives you sixteen letters, has a time limit, and you need to create as many words as possible with the rules that the letters can only be used once and must be “touching”.

The iPhone is a great little gaming device and works really well with these casual games. At 59p it’s not expensive and is certainly value for money. I think it was David Sugden who told me about it, so he’s to blame!

Research from various universities has demonstrated that if learners play word and number games this can improve their literacy and numeracy skills. As reported by The Telegraph:

Scrabble is just as good at improving mental sharpness as a Nintendo DS video games console and a copy of Dr Kawashima’s Brain Training, say researchers from the University of Rennes, Brittany.

Just on that article and research I have to admit I have always found it much easier to get 17 year olds to play games on the Nintendo DSi or the iPod touch than I have getting them to play Scrabble!

Boggle is a fun word game that fills the time waiting for the bus, the train or coffee.

alt, news

ALT Learning Technologist of the Year Award 2010

1 Comment

Last year I was honoured to win the ALT Learning Technologist of the Year Award 2009.

James Clay from Gloucestershire College was ALT Learning Technologist of the Year 2009 for his contribution to changing the College, which has become a leader and an exemplar in its use of learning technologies.

James Clay of Gloucestershire College commented, “I am honoured and privileged to win the Learning Technologist of the Year award from ALT. This award not only recognises the work I have undertaken at Gloucestershire College in enabling, embedding and promoting the use of learning technologies; it is also an award for all the staff and management at the college who use learning technologies effectively to enhance and enrich the learning experience.”

The ALT Learning Technologist of the Year Award 2010 is now open for entries with two streams.

http://www.alt.ac.uk/awards.html has links to the rubric and entry form for the 2010 ALT Learning Technologist of the Year Award, which is now open for entries.

The 2010 award will be run in two distinct streams:

  • Stream One is open to all ordinary and certified members of ALT, and to individuals and teams based in ALT member organisations anywhere;
  • Stream Two is open to individuals and teams employed in Department for Education funded learning providers in England.

The closing date for entries is 10 June 2010.

flickr

Flickr Advanced Search

1 Comment

I like Flickr, not just for a place to upload my photographs, but also as a place to find photographs. Regular readers of the blog will know that I use images often to illustrate my writing. Some of these are mine, but many are creative commons licensed images from Flickr.

It’s very easy to search for creative commons licensed images on Flickr, but getting to the advanced search is not the easiest route (or if it is I haven’t found it). So I usually add the direct URL as a bookmark or a favourite.

http://www.flickr.com/search/advanced/

Another way to search for creative commons licensed images is to use the search box on the creative commons website.

ipad, podcast

e-Learning Stuff Podcast #047: Is the netbook finished and now the iPad is the future?

2 Comments

What do you use your computer for?

Photo source.

Is the  netbook as a concept finished? Is the iPad the future? James, David and John discuss the rise and fall of the netbook and the potential of Apple’s iPad.

With James Clay, David Sugden and John Whalley.

This is the forty-seventh e-Learning Stuff Podcast, Is the netbook finished and now the iPad is the future?

Download the podcast in mp3 format: Is the netbook finished and now the iPad is the future?

Subscribe to the podcast in iTunes

Shownotes

stuff

Computeraid and elearning in Africa

Leave a comment

Post from Peter Kilcoyne
ILT Director
Worcester College of Technology

pkicoyne@wortech.ac.uk

Thanks very much to James for asking me to write a few posts about Computeraid and their support for elearning in Africa.

Computeraid (www.computeraid.com) is a great organisation that collects, refurbishes, wipes hard drives for PCs in the UK and ships them out to Schools, Hospitals, Universities and other community organisations.

Computer Aid

This picture shows a container of refurbished PCs being unpacked by one of their African partner organisations.

Over the last fe years Computeraid have been working with Universities in a number of African countries supporting them in implementing e-learning.

Online learning has great potential to open up educational opportunities to many Africans.  Compared to the UK, HE provision is much more limited and is beyond the reach of many due to the cost of fees, limited numbers of scholarships and the physical distance that many people live from Universities.

A great example of how an institution that Computeraid is working with is planning to use elearning to increase access to HE is the Zambian Open University.

ZAOU

ZAOU at present has a population of around 5000 distance students who study through an entirely paper based system. They aim though to increase that to around 50 000 students through adopting elearning. Compared to using paper based system staff and students will get great benefits in efficiencies, speed of delivery, use of communication and collaborative learning tools and e-assessment.

Computeraid are supporting this project in a number of ways. They are shipping out containers of PCs for use by staff and students.They are also supporting development of provision of small learning centres around Zambia and the development of e-learning and technical skills amongst staff at ZAOU.

An example of the innovative solutions that computeraid have developed to provide access to the Internet and ICT is this solar powered cybercafe which is built in a shipping container.

 

Computeraid have also helped ZAOUs development of elearning skills amongst its staff through funding two visits by myself to Zambia to run e-learning training sessions and a reciprocal visit from five ZAOU staff to Worcester College of Technology.

Pictures of Moodle Training  in Lusaka

Moodle training At Open University of Zambia

Moodle training at elearning conference

Moodle training at elearning conference Lusaka Zambia

Pictures of ZAOU visit to Worcester College of Technology

ZAOU and SLT meeting

ZAOU at WCT

Dust clouds permitting I’ ll flying back to Lusaka on Wednesday to do some more Moodle training with staff from ZAOU and a number of other universities.

I hope to do one or two more posts on James’s blog to let you all know how it’s going.

Finally please find out what happens to your organisations old computers and consider donating them to Computeraid.

nokia

This is the age of the train…

3 Comments

About once or twice a month I find myself on a train travelling to some far flung exotic location, like London, Leeds or Birmingham! Though more often then not it is the First Great Western train to London.

As I travel I like to try and get some work done in the time I have available. One key aspect of my job is communication and for that I need a decent internet connection. First Great Western, unlike some other train operating companies does not provide wifi on their services.  So what is one to do?

I have over the last few years used different ways of getting online on the train, all of them though have involved 3G.

Well recent tests show, as reported by the BBC that:

Mobile broadband speeds are improving but coverage is getting more patchy, suggests a survey.

The survey was…

…carried out by analysts from comparison site Broadband Genie, the annual test involved using dongles from UK mobile operators during a long train journey.

Interestingly…

T-Mobile came out top in the tests because it racked up higher speeds and proved more reliable during the tests.

So how do I use 3G on the train and with what services?

My original way of getting online was with a 3G PC Card from Vodafone, however this went once I changed jobs back in 2006.

I then had an 3G Dongle from Vodafone. This actually worked quite well, some dropped connections, but once within a 3G area, a good speed both up and down. I did notice though that more often then not, I could not get 3G speeds and the connection dropped to GPRS speeds. The main problem with the dongle is that it sticks out and on cramped trains this can be problematic.

After getting a T-Mobile contract phone (with Walk’n’Web Plus) I was able to use the phone as a tethered Bluetooth modem to connect to the internet at 3G speeds. The main disadvantage with this process was the impact that both Bluetooth and 3G had on battery life of the phone. The upside for me was a more reliable and faster connection.

Using a Nokia N95 I was able to use JoikuSpot on the Nokia, this shares the 3G connection over WiFI. This has one key advantage JoikuSpot allows more than one device to connect. A simple idea which just works. Basically it turns my Nokia N95 into a wireless hotspot, allowing me to connect multiple wireless devices to my phone’s 3G internet connection. I start JoikuSpot and once started I can then join the wireless and surf the internet. This was really useful allowing both my laptop and an iPod touch to connect to the internet using the single 3G connection. The Light version only really does internet, it doesn’t allow e-mail or https for example, whereas the Premium version does; this is the reason I upgraded to the Premium version and very pleased I am with it. The main downside is the impact it has on the battery life on the Nokia N95, down to less than four hours, often less!

I used this process for a fair amount of time, made easier when First Great Western introduced power sockets on their trains. Swapping over to the Vodafone 3G dongle if the signal failed or was weak.

I have recently tried a couple of other options, the first was not as successful as I would have hoped and that was the MiFi.

So what’s the MiFi? A battery powered 3G wireless router. Using a 3G SIM it would connect to the internet and then allow  up to five wireless clients to connect and share that 3G connection. With a four hour battery life, could be charged via USB and about the size of a credit card. Using a SIM from a Vodafone 3G USB dongle it was very simple to set up and configure and I would recommend that you use the details from Ross Barkman’s excellent website on connection settings for GPRS/3G to save having to work out where the information is on your providers’ website.

However one of the downsides for me was that though the MiFi worked a treat in stationary location (say at a conference) it was less satisfactory when travelling by train. What seemed to happen was that when the MiFi lost its 3G connection, as does happen on a train, it would switch itself off. As a result you had to check now and again and see if it needed turning back on. This also had an impact on the WiFi connection on my Mac laptop, which even when the MiFi was back on would not re-connect back to the MiFi wireless. In the end the experience was so unsatisfactory that I stopped using the MiFi on trains as a wireless router. The nice thing about the MiFi is that it will work as a USB 3G dongle, so you can use the MiFi in your event and meeting as a wireless router and revert to the dongle mode when on the train.

I have recently switched from the Nokia N95 to the Google Nexus One that runs the Android operating system. There is no JoikuSpot for the Nexus One and I am not 100% on how or even if it is possible to use it as a Bluetooth modem. One thing I have tried is PDAnet that allows me to use the Nexus One as a tethered 3G modem.

One thing I have noticed though is that though my 3G connection from Bristol to London is pretty good, travelling on the Voyager trains from Bristol to Birmingham, the signal is really poor.

I initially thought this was just down to the route, but I have heard that the main issue is the construction of the train and the metallised windows. This basically blocks the 3G signal!

I have used various methods to get online on the train and though each have their disadvantages and advantages, I think I prefer the 3G dongle, though the wifi methods are neater.

news and views on e-learning, TEL and learning stuff in general…