alt, blog, octel, twitter

Experimentation and Exploration – ocTEL

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Google+

Activity 0.3 of the ocTEL MOOC asks

Experiment with and/or reflect on different ways of communicating with fellow ocTEL participants.

I have been using most (if not all) the different ways to communicate and chat with fellow ocTEL participants. I have posted and responded using the ocTEL JISCMail e-mail mailing list. I have posted to the Twitter and replied to other participants. Similarly I have done the same with the ocTEL forums. I have posted links and discussed using Google+. Finally I have posted blog posts to my blog (this one) and responded to blog postings from other participants.

What forms of reflection, challenge and learning do each of these do best?

How do they support relationship forming and community building? Is that important for learning?

Which do you prefer and why?

Each form of communication for me meets different needs.

For me the blog is an ideal place for reflection, well more posting my reflective thoughts. I actually do most of my writing in a word processor (Pages) on my Mac and then copy and paste into the blog. I have also made an effort to add an image to my blog posts. Partly so they stand out when linked to from in Google+ (and Facebook) but also so they add a visual identifier to those reading the blog posts and then trying to find it again.

I wonder if the ocTEL course reader would pick up the images in a similar manner to Google+ and Facebook.

Though people can post comments to the blog, one of the reasons I have posted the links to Google+ is that I find the discussion on Google+ is much more of a level playing field. My blog is mine and as a result I see it as a one to many form of communication. It’s not a place for community discussions, its a place for me to share my thoughts with others. What Google+ allows is a many to many communication. The Google+ community that was formed (sorry not sure who did that) makes it much easier to manage.

I have never felt Twitter is an ideal tool for conversations, it’s so much more of a broadcast medium. However it has worked for me as a discover tool using the #ocTEL hashtag. It is possible to have a chat with Twitter, but the 140 character limit makes more meaningful conversations much more of a challenge. This is where Google+ comes in, as there is no character limit.

As an active member of the ILT Champions mailing list and ALT-Member list, I would have anticipated that the ocTEL JISCMail e-mail mailing list would have been an ideal mechanism, and it would feed direct into my e-mail client. However the huge influx of e-mail to the list resulted in lots of people complaining and asking to be removed from the mailing list. The fact they were adding to the problem was completely missed by them! I found so many of the postings were “complaints” that in the end I stopped reading the mailing list. I am hoping that after the dust has settled that it becomes more useful.

I think one of the real challenges is using any form of communication tool to build a community. Very often the 1% rule comes into play. I am seeing similar engagement on this MOOC.

From my initial observation the rule does seem to be applying on the ocTEL course. The tools are been used, but not by most of the course participants. Will that impact on their learning? Well they will certainly lose a lot of the value that the interaction and engagement that these tools bring to learning, which will be a pity.

I am disappointed that we’re not making more use of video and audio, we’re not seeing participants creating short videos or podcasts.

Of all of the tools I use, I much prefer using the blog for posting and sharing information, however for conversations the winner for me is Google+, it works and is much more useful and flexible than the Twitter.

alt, octel

Characterisation – ocTEL

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Characters at the ALT Conference 2009

Having already decided on my big question one of the other things that the ocTEL course is asking:

What characteristics do you think the participants in this course have in common?

I have partly answered this already in my post about handling e-mail.

What was interesting was how few people who responded to my post has actually read it.

The first part of the post talked about how to deal with an influx of e-mail from a mailing list. The last paragraph though was the important one.

One lesson that people should take from ocTEL is that never assume that people, even technically literate people, will be able to do stuff that you take for granted. This applies equally to practitioners and importantly learners.

My point really was not about handling e-mail, but about making assumptions that people will have the necessary skills and knowledge to deal with the technology of a MOOC such as this one. We can make similar assumptions about learners who use technology all the time, and assume they will be able to use the VLE, social media and mobile devices to support their learning.

To answer the queston about the common characteristics of people doing the ocTEL. From what I can see is that there is a proportion of people who are familiar with the technologies they are engaging with, can manage the processes and are now focusing on the learning. There is another group who have signed up, but are unfamiliar with the outputs that happen as a result of signing up to a MOOC and a (highly active) mailing list, as a result the technology is having a negative impact on their learning.

So is there a common characteristic across the whole of the group? Well there is, an interest in TEL. However there is a whole spectrum of interest and alongside that a whole spectrum of skills, knowledge and experience.

The challenge for this MOOC will be is how to engage those at either end without disengaging those at the other end.

The second question asked is:

In what ways might they be different or atypical of other groups of learners that might be important or relevant to you?

I would say that this group of learners is different to groups of learners in that in formal education we use initial advice and guidance, as well as prior learning and achievement, to ensure they get on the right course.

Here on ocTEL we have a range of levels, commitment and experience. I am not sure if the course can engage those practitioners who would directly benefit whilst simultaneously engaging those more advanced and experienced practitioners who could provide support and guidance to the less experienced practitioners.

It will be interesting to see what happens.

alt, octel

Playing by the rules – ocTEL

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Groups

One comment I read in the influx of e-mail for this ocTEL course said in terms of organising participants into groups:

I think we need to divide ourselves into subgroups for conversations to keep things manageable.  The question is, how to organise the subgroups? By type of job? By type of interest in this course? By level of experience with TEL? Randomly, by starting a new group when the last one gets to some number?

I think one of the real challenges in organising anything with lots of people is an assumption that people will play by the “rules” and will stick to the groups assigned, or even plan themselves into groups.

I think at this stage, though planning groups would appear to be a good idea, the problem will arise if you are in a group from which then everyone drops out from the MOOC; you will be left on your own.

I would expect after a week or two of frenetic and frantic activity that the dust will settle and groups will form organically and by themselves.

We shall have to wait and see.

alt, octel

“I can’t handle the amount of e-mail…”

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Envelopes

Actually I can, but there are a fair few people who are participating in ocTEL who don’t seem to be able to handle the quantity of e-mail flooding into their inboxes having signed up to the MOOC.

I will say I wasn’t expecting to get any e-mail, let alone the volumes that are coming through, as I didn’t (at first) realised I had been added to a JISCMail mailing list.

Of course once it was coming in, for me it was a simple matter of creating a rule in Outlook to move all e-mails sent to OCTEL-PUBLIC@JISCMAIL.AC.UK to a folder. I may even set up a secondary rule that automatically deletes the messages if I haven’t read them within a few days or a week.

Deleting them from my Outlook, doesn’t remove access to them, as there will be an archive on the JISCMail website. There are also various JISCMail commands I could use to receive NOEMAIL, a DIGEST or similar.

Of course there is no need to even subscribe to the mailing list and no need to read or engage or interact with the e-mail. I intend to get an idea of what other people are thinking.

Stephen Downes in an open letter makes some valid points that with a MOOC you should really avoid mailing lists or even discussion forums.

In all the MOOCs I’ve done I’ve never had an open one-to-many channel, precisely because if you have 1000 people using it, it becomes unmanageable.

You’ll find that web forums become unmanageable as well if used by 1000 people.

I have also discouraged the ubiquitous ‘introduction’ posts, for the same reason. A dozen introductions make sense. 1000 do not.

I do think these are really good points and if you are thinking about organising or planning a MOOC to take into consideration.

What didn’t surprise me though was the number of people who are apparently immersed into TEL and learning technologies who appear to not know how to organise their e-mail or mailing lists. You would think I would be, but I too often I have seen people who know a lot about learning technologies, fail to understand and use effectively the very technologies they talk about.

It’s not just simple things like e-mail, blogging, webinars, the Twitter, even Powerpoint!

One lesson that people should take from ocTEL is that never assume that people, even technically literate people, will be able to do stuff that you take for granted. This applies equally to practitioners and importantly learners.

Image source.

alt, octel

What is the most important question about TEL for you?

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Library Seats

Having avoided taking part in a MOOC since they became the latest fad, I have now taken the plunge and enrolled on the ALT ocTEL MOOC.

It only started yesterday, so it is way too early to tell if I will complete the course. One of my reasons for undertaking the ocTEL is to see if this is a format that could be used for staff development in my own college.

One of the first questions that we need to look at on the oCTEL is:

What is the most important question about TEL for you?

Having been involved in TEL (and all the previous variations for a while now) the most important question I seem to have asked throughout that time and continue to ask is:

How do we create a culture in which TEL can be effectively used by all staff and learners to improve learning?

From my perspective and experience, TEL encomapasses both technology and learning, however the real deciding factor in using TEL to enhance and enrich learning is through cultural change.

Culture change is possible, but not necessarily straightforward or easy.

What I want to know and learn from others on the ocTEL is how do we influence and achieve cultural change?

alt, gloucestershire college, octel, vle

Who are you? What do you want? – ocTEL

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Having avoided taking part in a MOOC since they became the latest fad, I have now taken the plunge and enrolled on the ALT ocTEL MOOC.

So who am I?

What do I want?

I have been working with using technology in learning since the early 1990s.

Prior to that I used technology as a learner. I remember sending e-mail in 1987 at the University of York and getting “flamed” by a technical administrator at Brunel University for sending the “wrong” kind of e-mail.

York

I also recall a friend of mine at University creating (what today we would call) a social network on the VAX system, it was very similar to Facebook! That VAX system was also my first introduction to WordPerfect.

After a few different things I settled down as a Business Studies and Economics teacher at colleges in the South West. It was in this role that I started to make use of various technologies to enhance my learners experiences. This started with using DTP programmes such as PagePlus to create engaging handouts, Freelance Graphics (and an early version of Powerpoint) to print off acetates for use with an OHP (no projectors back then). I made my own VLE (okay a website) back in 1998 to enable my learners to access links and resources and have discussions. Due to the sort of things I was doing I started doing a lot of staff development, helping staff at City of Bristol College where I was working to gain new skills in using technology to enhance learning.

City of Bristol College

From there, apart from working in a museum for a while, I worked for a consortium of FE Colleges all using a common VLE, TekniCAL’s Virtual Campus. Following five years there I got a job at Gloucestershire College as ILT & Learning Resources Manager.

Gloucester Campus of Gloucestershire College

In this role I am responsible for the strategic direction in the use of technology to support learning, the VLE, mobile learning, libraries, use of ebooks, digital and online resources and a fair few other things too.

Over the last few years I have been researching and looking at the use of ebooks and also mobile learning.

Have always had an holistic approach to embedding the use of technology, lets get everyone moving forward and where possible try and avoid shiny things unless they help and support learning. Okay yes I do have an iPad.

mobile

Forty years later…

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Mobile Phone

The first handheld mobile phone call was made forty years ago, on the 3rd of April 1973. There had been mobile phone before, in cars and lorries, but forty years ago saw the first phone call from a handheld cellular mobile phone. Well you also needed to carry a bag too (for the battery).

I suspect most (it not all) the people reading this blog post have a mobile phone, or if they don’t they did at one time.

It’s interesting that a technology, which has reached such a milestone, is still seen by many teachers and practitioners as disruptive and should be banned in classrooms.

The reality is that learners don’t use mobile phones in classrooms in the way they were envisaged, for making phone calls! The problem many practitioners have with mobile phones is not with the phones themselves, neither with learners making phone calls in lessons, the problem is a very different issue.

The mobile phone today is a very different device and in many ways a different concept to the one we saw back in 1973. The mobile phone today is much more than just a voice communication device, it can do so much more. I have done this exercise at many mobile learning workshops, I ask the participants to list all the different things they do on their phones. Interestingly, making phone calls is either not mentioned or very low on the list. The sorts of things that people today do on their phone includes (and is certainly not limited to) texting, social networking, photography, film making, audio recording, playing games, reading books, looking at magazines, listening to music and other recordings, watching video, streaming video, doing quizzes, creating content, and so much more…

It is this functionality that makes the mobile phone so much more than what was first seen back in 1973, and it is this functionality that teachers see as disruptive and challenging to manage.

Banning mobile phones or asking students to turn them off, is not a real solution, at most conferences and events when delegates are asked to turn off their phones, most will turn them to silent mode. So much so that conference organisers seem to ask people now to turn them to silent mode rather than turn them off. I am sure many learners in a classroom situation will do something similar.

The question you have to ask is why are learners switching off in lessons and using their mobile phones? Yes there will be the odd learner who is addicted to their phones and can’t help themselves using it. However these learners are in a very small minority. Think about if this was the case for all learners, then in all lessons, all learners would be disengaged and using their mobile phones; now that doesn’t happen.

Rather than blame the learners, the key is to think about why they are disengaging in your lessons. Why are they switching off from learning and switching on their phones?

Another possible solution is to embrace the use of the mobile phone and make it part of the learning process, as well as making the learning engaging and interesting. The very functionality that can be so disruptive or attractive to learners, can also be effective in supporting learning and assessment.

Engaging doesn’t always mean interactive and doesn’t mean that it can’t be hard or difficult. Thinking about challenging problems is an effective learning process.

The mobile phone is forty years old, in many ways the disruptive nature of mobile phones is new, but only because the mobile phone has evolved into something very different from a device used to make mobile phone calls.

100 ways, vle

100 ways to use a VLE – #76 Learner feedback

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Desks

So how was it for you?

These days if you go to any kind of coffee shop or restaurant, or buy something from a retailer on the high street, get an MOT or your tyres done, the waiter, retailer assistant or mechanic hands you a little card. The card usually offers you the chance to win an iPad, a £100 or something similar, with a web link (sometimes an QR Code) and asks you for feedback on what you’ve just done.

Now it is generally accepted that we should be asking our learners how the lesson they are in went. Asking questions such as “what went well?” and “even better if?” allow practitioners to evaluate the effectiveness of what the learners learnt, and how they learnt it.

There are many ways to do this, post it notes are an obvious one, that can then be stuck next to the door on the way out. We have practitioners using tools such as Wallwisher (now known as Padlet) for a similar virtual type activity.

As you really need to be asking for feedback at each lesson, it makes sense to have a variety of ways to collect and collate feedback. The VLE has a number of tools that can be used to collect this learner feedback.

As might be expected a tool like the Feedback block in module is designed to do just that collect and collate feedback. You can create a series of questions, or even a single question. The key is getting the learners to add their feedback and importantly for the practitioner to reflect on the feedback and ensure it feeds into their future planning.

If there is a quiz tool on the VLE then using an open-ended format quiz will work in a similar manner to the concept of a feedback module. Just make sure that it doesn’t mark the quiz and give the students a score!

Usually the data from quizzes and feedback style modules can be exported as a spreadsheet file for further analysis.

You could use a discussion forum, where this works well is if you want group feedback and for the learners to reflect and discuss their feedback, collaborating together to provide that feedback to the practitioner.

One advantage of the VLE for gathering feedback is that it is recorded and is also accessible in the future. Perfect for analysis feedback over a period of time.

I wouldn’t use the VLE every lesson for feedback, there are many ways of gathering learner feedback, however it is one tool that you can and should use.

mooc

What are MOOCs?

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This Prezi, What are MOOCs? History, pedgagoy, myths and media, explores where we’ve come from, where we are and where we’re going with the MOOC phenomena.

If you are still confused over what a MOOC actually is and what it could be, then this presentation is well worth a look. I also found the video from Dave Cormier useful that explains the original concept of the MOOC.

I have no strong opinions on the MOOC as a concept, I do think there is the possibility they are a bit of a fad, and in a few years we might have moved onto something else to talk about at edtech conferences on the Twitter. Think about how no one these days talks about the PLE in the same way they did back in 2009. I think we should also be critiquing the model of MOOCs where the focus is on content and not learning. Retention figures of 4% and 90% male dominated does indicate that this model still has someway to go.

However I also can see how they may change societal perceptions of what universities and colleges offer prospective learners, and allow a back door for publishers and private educational institutions to start offering, what they would call MOOCs, but in reality would be the privatisation of higher and further education.

I am hoping that the end result is not closed private universities, but that the open aspect becomes dominant and makes it much easier to share and reuse concepts, materials, structures and resources in ways that we have not done before. If we can create a culture of openness and sharing.

MOOCs could offer (for FE) an opportunity for FE Colleges to collaborate on building courses, however my experiences of doing that model back in 2000s with the WCC was that people like the concept, but either aren’t willing to share or more importantly have very little original content to share.

I don’t see MOOCs as particularly revolutionary or transformative, in many ways the concept has been around for a while, the key difference is the connected, participatory and collaborative opportunities that MOOCs offer. Maybe that is the revolutionary aspect.

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