altc2012, jisc

No sudden moves…

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JISC Experts Meeting, Bristol, March 2008

Four years ago, March 2008, I was at a JISC Experts Group meeting at The Watershed Media Centre in Bristol. There was a range of interesting sessions, one I remember well was a report from Bob Rotheram, National Teaching Fellow at Leeds Metropolitan University on the Sounds Good project.

This session will give members the experience of receiving audio feedback on assessed work, learn about the Sounds Good project funded under the JISC Users and Innovations Programme, and consider the potential of this approach.

This was a really interesting project that was looking at the use of audio feedback for student assessment. With the new technolgies that had become available, it was a lot easier to record feedback and importantly distribute it to the learners. Recording audio was something that happened a lot in Universities for interviews and research, but it was usually to tape (as in cassette tape, I am sure there are a few people out there reading this, thinking to themselves, what is this “tape” you are writing about, is it “sticky tape”?) The downside of recording cassette tape was that they weren’t free, and was a logistical hassle in not just recording, but also getting the tape to the learner. In the last ten years, we have seen portable audio recording move away from cassette tapes to mp3 recorders. It is very easy to make an audio recording, save as mp3 and send it by e-mail A lot of smartphones now have that capability built in, though I am sure a lot of people will use specialised mp3 audio recorder. This change in technology made the concept of providing learners with audio feedback, not just practical, but also easily achievable. Bob and the team at Leeds Metropolitan were as a result able to undertake a detailed study of the issues and implications of providing audio feedback.

I do remember been quite taken by the idea and when I was back in the office went over the idea with a few members of staff who went off and had a go themselves.

Bob published a final report in 2009. The students feedback said

Students were overwhelmingly positive about receiving audio feedback on their coursework. They frequently remarked approvingly about its personal nature and the detail provided, evidence that the lecturer had carefully considered their work. On the other hand, a small minority of students said they preferred written feedback; a few asked for both audio and written comments on their work.

The final report is well worth reading.

On Friday the 6th July, there was a Teaching and Learning conference at Plymouth University. I wasn’t there but quite a few people I follow on Twitter were.

Steve Wheeler asked the question.

Pete Yeomans responded

https://twitter.com/ethinking/status/221166441423060992

Remembering the Sounds Good project and a paper by JISC Digital Media I replied and posted the two links

That JISC Digital Media paper not only referenced the Sounds Good project, but also other similar work.

Chaing, Dr. I-Chant Andrea (2009). Which Audio Feedback is best?: Optimising audio feedback to maximise student and staff experience. Aberystwyth University

Bunyan, N, King, D & McGugan, S (2008). Does it make a difference? Replacing text with audio feedback. Practice and Evidence of Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. Vol. 3, No.2, pp. 125 – 163

Merry, S & Orsmond, P (2007) Students’ Attitudes to and Usage of Academic Feedback Provided Via Audio Files. Bioscience Education ejournal, Vol. 11.

I did then ask in the same tweet if we should…

…ignore all previous research?

What followed was a discussion on the value of that previous research. The question that was never answered, partly as I didn’t ask it, was having seen the outcomes of those audio feedback projects, were staff at Plymouth going to start using audio feedback, or were they going to do some more research on the effectiveness of audio feedback? I did feel from the responses I was getting that some people didn’t value the research and therefore were going to ignore it.

This happens all the time with regard to research in learning technologies and I am sure is pretty much the main reason change takes to long to happen and for various technologies to be adopted.

I would go further that mainstream adoption of learning technologies is rarely the result of what has been learnt through projects and research, but just “happens” slowly as teaching teams pick up technology from others who just so happen to use it, or they see others using it and decide to give it a go.

I would add that most decisions about learning technologies are probably made without any regard to the research about it, and is taken by IT directors or management teams based on what their competitors are doing or some article in a national newspaper. Okay that newspaper article may be based on a piece of research, but more likely was a PR piece from a technology company.

Think about all those technologies that are currently embedded into the institution, ignoring those that are used for administration, why were those technologies adopted and for what reason? Was the use of Powerpoint by teaching staff as a result of a range of research projects? On the contrary I would suspect very few staff have even looked at research into the use of Powerpoint, or presentation techniques, because if they had, we would never talk about “death by Powerpoint” and we would never complain about horrible slides at learning technology conferences.

So why don’t we trust what others have said and written about the use of learning technologies? Why do we think that our own institutions and learners are so different to others? Why don’t we learn from the research of others?

The end result, more often than not, is that there are no sudden moves to adopting new ways of working or embedding new technologies. Think about audio feedback, four years after the Sounds Good project, we are no closer to making use of the research, avoiding the lessons learnt from the project and wasting time and resources recreating or duplicating the work in our own pilots.

Are pilots just a way of playing with toys or are they an useful tool to support the embedding of new practices and technologies to enhance learning? If you are interested in discussing this further then I am running a symposium at ALT-C 2012 called Pilot Mentality. I have also written a previous post about running pilots.

e-book

Everything is out…

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Old Books

When I visit my local library and look for a specific book, I might be lucky and it’s on the shelf, if I am less lucky it’s not at my local library, but is available from another library. If I am unlucky then someone else has borrowed it and though I can out in a reservation, I have to wait until it is returned.

This is one of the disadvantages of having just a single copy of a printed book. Of course one of the advantages of the digital ebook is that it would be possible to make and lend it to as many people who wanted it… or so you would have thought.

My local library service, LibrariesWest have recently launched an ebook lending library. It uses Adobe Digital Editions so works fine with the Bluefire Reader app on the iPad, so no need to worry about having a proprietary ebook reader.

However I was a little taken aback when I looked at the range of books available to find that most of them were out on loan!

All out on loan

I couldn’t actually download a digital version of the book I wanted as it was on loan to somebody else. Now the reality isn’t that the digital file is on someone else’s computer and not available, no of course this is a DRM limitation placed on the library service by the publishers.

The publishers have taken the traditional business model they have used with libraries before with printed books and applied it to digital ebooks.

So if someone “borrows” an ebook, then it is not available to anyone else. This isn’t a technical restriction, it’s a business choice.

It wouldn’t surprise me if the business model only allows the books to be borrowed for a certain number of times before it “wears out”.

I am sure that LibrariesWest could spend a lot more money and have ebooks that can be borrowed by multiple users all at the same time.

What this does tell us, is that we are still at the start of the ebook lending model and at this stage publishers are trying to duplicate a traditional business model in the online world. As with a lot of other traditional business models, this will change at some point in the future.

conference, e-book

eBooks go Mobile at TurboTEL

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Sony eBook Reader

At the recent JISC RSC SW TurboTEL 2012 conference I delivered a presentation based on one I delivered at a CILIP Excecutive Briefing on e-Books.

Through the use of a number of mobile devices James will give an overview of how the FE sector is promoting their e-book collections through mobile technologies and how this can enhance the learning experience and extend the access and use of e-books.

You can hear a recording of the CILIP presentation as part of the e-Learning Stuff podcast that covers much of what I covered at the TurboTEL event, but in a lot more detail!

conference

Rates of Change

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JISC RSC SW TurboTEL 2012

At the recent JISC RSC SW TurboTEL 2012 conference I delivered a rapid speed presentation, containing 120 slides in just ten minutes…

This presentation is one that is based on various others I have done this year, and though I now know better, I did include the “historical” slides about resistance to change. I did indeed mention that though they were “made up” there was a message behind them that often teachers are resistant to change, especially changes in technology. I made the connection that we use models to show how change is effected within organisations, but in reality we need to be aware of the importance of the culture of an organisation when introducing change.

I went back to why we use technology, and how technology is often a solution to the many problems we face. I also covered how teachers need to understand the potential of technology and the contexts in which it works best. The example I used was that the traditional printed book is great for many learners, but completely inaccessible when the library is closed, hence the importance of an e-library and an ebook collection.

I wanted to show that technological change is not as rapid as we think it is, mentioning that the first mobile phone call was in 1946, the first handheld mobile phone call was in 1973, the first tablet capable of reading ebooks was demonstrated in 1971. Often it takes a long amount of time before a technology becomes widely adopted.

I also warned about listening to people and asking them what they want. Often people will want what they have already, but faster or cheaper. It takes real vision to produce new things that people didn’t even consider, but suddenly find essential. Be informed by listening to your learners, but not led by them. Most popular technologies are usually invented by a different person to the person who made them popular. Henry Ford with cars and Steve Jobs with mp3 players.

I quickly went over the new technologies that may become popular over the next five years and to watch out for.

I then reminded the audience that not everything is perfect and there are problems. There are cultural challenges, difficulties in been innovative, e-safety, costs, inclusion and connectivity.

My final thoughts were remembering that it is never about time, but priorities and that the reason we should be looking at using technology to support learning is because of the value it gives to our learners.

conference, facebook, ipad

A few of my favourite things…

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Over the last two years of owning the iPad, I have downloaded lots of different apps, some of which were free and a fair few that cost hard cash!

At the recent JISC RSC SW TurboTEL event in Taunton I delivered a ten minute presentation on my favourite iPad apps.

Here are the links to all the apps in the iTunes App Store as well as a brief description of what the app is about and why I like it. Continue reading A few of my favourite things… →

presentation

Myths of Time

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Whilst trying to do something else, I came across these slides from a presentation I delivered at the Post-16 e-Learning Practitioners Conference.

What I attempted to say in this presentation was that when practitioners say they don’t have the time to deal with learning technologies, what they are actually saying is, it’s not a priority for them at that time.

I attempted to show that we in fact use technology all the time to save time, and that using technology is one way that can save time.

I delivered this presentation back in November 2004 and here I am eight years later often explaining the same issues again and again…

Time to change.

byod

Restrictive Practices

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Two years ago I wrote a blog post about PAT Testing in relation to students bringing their own devices to college or BYOD.

…sometimes the question of PAT testing student equipment arises from someone within the organisation. It is then decided that students can only bring in their laptops if they have been properly PAT tested or they can bring their devices in, but can not plug them in or in extreme examples students will be banned from bringing in their own devices.

Rather than just believe the hype… I did some of my own research and investigations.

I have read and checked the relevant legislation and I have phoned the HSE to confirm this.

There is NO legal requirement to PAT test student equipment, a formal visual inspection is sufficient under the current legislation.

I was recently at a conference at a university somewhere in England and it took place in a completely new build. The building was less than a year old. As we were talking about bring your own devices there were two things about the building that struck me.

Firstly, in the big lecture theatres there were no power sockets for student devices. Now I am guessing this maybe because they feel that modern devices such as the iPad can last a day without charging, personally I think this was unlikely and was much more likely to be a strategic decision not to allow students to charge their devices. It may have just been a design flaw, or wasn’t even considered.

The second thing that struck me, was a power socket in one of the seminar rooms. There were very few power sockets in the rooms I went into and in this particular room the solitary power socket at the back of the room looked like this…

Despite the advice I did use it!

I did find in one room, the conference table had sockets in it, so maybe all was not lost.

The key question that arises when you are strategically thinking about BYOD is you have to consider lots of different aspects. As well as designing the curriculum and the delivery, you also need to give careful consideration to building design and internal space design too.

app of the week, ipad, iphone, podcast

Podcasts – iPad App of the Week

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Podcasts – iPad App of the Week

This is a regular feature of the blog looking at various 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.

This week’s App is Podcasts.

Podcasts app is the easiest way to discover, subscribe to, and play your favorite podcasts on your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. Explore hundreds of thousands of free audio and video podcasts from the Podcasts Catalog, and play the most popular podcasts, organized for you by topic, with the all-new Top Stations feature.

Free

One of the issues I have had with the iPad and more so with the iPhone is how awful they were when it came to managing podcasts. The only real way to make it work was to sync with iTunes and be done with it.

If I didn’t sync with iTunes and then tried to download an episode of a podcast that I was subscribed to in iTunes, but wasn’t “transferred” to the iPhone, then when I next synchronised with iTunes, I would have two “copies” of the same podcast. What made it worse was that then this would be synchonised and transferred to the iPod classic I normally use for podcasts resulting in a duplicate of the podcast feed and duplicates of the podcast episodes. That caused me problems as these duplicates would then take up disk space.

There have been separate podcast apps in the iTunes App Store, but despite my problems I have never actually downloaded them and tried them… came close, but never quite got there. This was partly as I heard about them on a podcast, like MacBreak Weekly, but couldn’t remember the name when I actually came round to downloading the app.

Apple has finally decided that the iPad and the iPhone needed a decent podcast app and have released their own. This takes podcasts out of the Music app and puts then in their own Podcasts app, as they did with movies and putting them in the Movie app.

It’s a really nice app and works really smoothly. There are also some really nice design features, which is something you kind of expect from Apple now. Like some of their apps there is also a retro design that I think works well, and appeals to people like me!

If you already subscribe to podcasts on iTunes that you transfer to the iPad or iPhone then these will be transferred automatically. Unlike the Music app, the Podcasts app will download new episodes in the background, so you can be sure that the next time you pick up your device it should have the latest episode on it. This is part of Apple’s wider strategy in doing more updates wirelessly in the background rather than through iTunes. In the future you can expect to see Apps updating in the background, as well as podcasts.

If you haven’t been using your iPad for podcasts then you will get this screen.

Continue reading Podcasts – iPad App of the Week →

google, ipad, news

…and then everything changes

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Over the last couple of months, on some of the learning technology mailing lists I belong to there has been a lot of discussion about tablets. Despite the fact that it dominates the market, considered by many to be an industry standard, popular with consumers and revolutionised the tablet market; there was a significant number of respondents on the mailing list who had decided that the iPad was not the right device for their learners and/or institution and were looking for some other tablet.

There were also others on the list who felt that the iPad was an expensive toy…

This attitude does surprise me slightly as, yes though Apple usually do charge more for their devices (and I guess this is where that attitude comes from) when it comes to the iPad they are one of the cheapest tablets on the market.

Yes, you can buy cheap Android tablets from Amazon, but in terms of comparable specifications, I have found that most Android Tablets are just as “expensive” as the iPad, if not more so… The Motorola Zoom for example was £499, though now it is only £350.

When it comes to WIndows tablets, Microsoft recently said in their Surface announcement that the price would be comparable with other Ultrabooks. Most Ultrabooks are in the £800-£1000+ price point, significantly more expensive than the iPad.

The newest iPad is £399 and you can get last year’s model for £329. Yes you will need to pay more for increased storage and more for 3G, but the same can be said for Android devices.

In terms of functionality, it is quite normal for someone to explain loudly how limited the iPad is and how much more functionality other tablet devices or Windows netbooks have.

The iPad 1 didn’t have a camera, the iPad 2’s camera is poor quality. There is no USB port on the iPad, no way to add external USB storage. The screen resolution is poor, it doesn’t play DivX natively out of the box. There is no Flash player on the iPad, nor Silverlight. The OS is locked down, you can’t install any app on the iPad, you can’t tweak the OS, it doesn’t run Office! The on screen keyboard is “unusable” and you can’t plug in a USB keyboard… etc… etc…

Then the “virtues” of other devices are added into the conversation. It has a proper keyboard, removable battery, proper USB port, good camera and it supports Flash!

The problem with these arguments is that they often fail to take into account usability and the user experience. The reason that people like the iPad is very little to do with the hardware, but how the operating system works and their own user experience. The iPad is responsive and meets users’ expectations.

A week ago my recommendation for a tablet would have to be the iPad.

A week later, well a lot can happen in a week, and it did this week. It was a week that everything changed.

What changed?

The Google Nexus 7 was announced.

Google Nexus 7

Now it will be a few weeks before someone like me can get their hands on it, but this is the first Android Tablet that I think can be a real game changer when it comes to using tablets in education.

Firstly it sounds incredible value for money, just £159 for the 8GB model, £199 for 16GB.

It looks great and hopefully with Android 4.1, Jelly Bean, this will be a mature tablet operating system that just works, and works just as well as iOS does on the iPad.

If this tablet is as well tweaked as the Google Nexus One was then this is going to be one useful tablet. The initial reviews talk of fast performance, beautiful screen. The only real failing is that 8GB is way too small! So if you are going to buy one, go for the 16GB model.

I’ll be honest I have been meaning to buy an Android tablet for a while now. Most of the really cheap ones didn’t even run the tablet only version of Android, Honeycomb, but only ran 2.2, Froyo. Those that did run Honeycomb were quite expensive and in most cases more expensive than the iPad! I really quite liked the look of the Sony Android tablet devices, but the reviews were quite scathing, saying they were sluggish and not powerful enough. They soon dropped in price too, indicating poor sales.

Things have changed recently, but I really do like the idea of the Nexus 7 and like the fact it will be running Jelly Bean the latest version of Android OS. So as they say, watch this space.

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