We are discussing Kindles, e-Books, iPads, iBooks Author and all manner of stuff related to digital books.
With James Clay, Lilian Soon, David Sugden and Ron Mitchell.
This is the 83rd e-Learning Stuff Podcast, Read This!
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Working together in groups is a key part of most organisations, it makes sense from an educational perspective that learners work together on group assignments in preparation for when they will work in teams in the workplace.
The process of working together on a collaborative assignment brings a lot of challenges, one of which is where should learners collaborate when working on a document. There are various public tools such as Google Docs and public wikis that can be used. Most VLEs have a wiki built in to their functionality.
Regardless of which tools is used, the VLE can be the staging post that will allow the learners to jump into their collaborative document. Learners may choose to use the built in wiki, however as a group they may choose to use a tool such as Google Docs or a public wiki such as PBwiki.
Wikis allow multiple learners to work on a single document, you can break the document down into pages with links between the different pages.
Wikis allow learners to work on the document when and where they want to, at a time and place to suit their circumstances.
Wikis can often be edited and worked on using mobile devices, enabling easier access and collaboration when required.
Wikis are often more accessible than working together on a word processed document and will work with screen readers and other assistive technologies.
Unlike simple word processed documents, wikis also enable learners to embed rich media into them. Short video clips can be embedded, as can audio and images. You may also be able to embed other content into them, such as RSS feeds, slides from a service such as SlideShare, pages from other services.
Wikis can contain links, internally and externally to sources and other relevant content.
One nice feature of collaborative tools is the history that is recorded, it outlines not only the changes to the document, but who did what when. This feature can make it much easier to assess the final outcome. Of course when using the wiki within the VLE the assessor will have access to that history, when using other collaborative tools, access may needed to be given to assessor.
At the end of the day, wikis are a powerful tool that allow learners to collaborate together to complete a joint outcome. Whether they use the wiki on the VLE, one that offers familiarity within the interface, or merely use the VLE as a jump off point using an external tool, they provide many learning possibilities and opportunities of working together.
So there I was walking down one of the corridors in the college when I noticed that there was a QR Code on the noticeboard.
It linked to a survey by students on bands and music, they were using surveymonkey that works well on a mobile device. The questionnaire was a simple one so could be easily completed on your mobile device.
I think the only thing I would have changed may have been adding some idea of what the QR Code was about. Also I would have been adding a short URL to the QR Code for those that did not have a QR Code reader.
Interesting to see learners using QR Codes on their own accord.
ebrary – iPad App of the Week
Update: The app has now been discontinued.
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 ebrary.
Researchers now have an optimized way to experience authoritative content – both online and offline – from multiple sources including e-books that their institutions acquire from leading publishers and materials uploaded and integrated by librarians.
Free
I have a bit of a passion for e-books. It’s not about replacing paper books, much more a way to provider greater access to books at a time and place to suit the learner.
The e-Books for FE from JISC Collections enables FE Colleges to start with e-Books through the ebrary platform.If you can it makes sense to provide authenticated external access, either through Federated Access or Athens.
One of the disadvantages of the ebrary platform was it was browser based, though that meant you could easily access the collection through a PC or a Mac, it did mean that it was either not possible or challenging to read them on a mobile device.
Recently ebrary have added a download feature to the collection, this means you can download either 40 pages as an unprotected PDF or the whole book for a 14 day loan using Adobe Digital Editions. This means you could transfer it to some e-book readers such as the Sony Reader.
ebrary have just released an iPad and iPhone App. What surprised me was how much better the app was for reading books than the browser based platform on the iPad.
Disappointingly the only way I could get the app to work was to link my account on ebrary that I use with Federated Access with my Facebook account and then link the App with my Facebook account. There didn’t appear to be a way of logging into the App using Federated Access (and I also believe it isn’t possible with Athens either). I guess there is a technical reason for this, but this could cause problems if your institution blocks Facebook for staff or learners (or both).
The app doesn’t “hold” the authentication for very long either, so as a result you do need to re-authenticate on a regular basis. So it’s not like you can authenticate at home and then use it in college, you would need to authenticate across the college network. Though if staff or learners have a 3G iPad then they could just use 3G to authenticate and then go back to wifi to access the book!
In my own college that wouldn’t be an issue, learners would have access to Facebook over the student wireless network and though we do block Facebook to staff, staff who have an “academic need” to use Facebook can get the block lifted. Using Facebook to access ebrary would be a legitimate “academic need”.
Once authenticated you can search and browse for books as you can on the browser platform.
The books download page by page which on a slow connection can be frustratingly slow. It makes much more sense to download the books, but to do that you need an Adobe ID for the Adobe Digital Editions. This is in addition to the other IDs. I can imagine that this could be complicated for learners in having to combine various IDs to use the app. Also if they have been using Ebrary purely through IP authentication on campus they may not even know they need an ID to access the books.
The books are quite large too, the ones I looked at were in the 70-100MB range which on a slow broadband connection will take a while to download. Once downloaded though, moving between chapters, or flicking between pages the experience is so much faster and better than trying to read the books “live” having to download each page. Also it doesn’t require you to re-authenticate so making it much easier to read books on the move. However once you have downloaded a book and it expires you don’t seem to be able to download it again!
I am looking into this limitation. You can return a book early, so I am guessing that is one limited solution. I have managed to re-download an expired book, but I suspect that there may be a watiing time before you can “borrow” it again. The ebrary help does cover some of this, but as the ebrary platform can be used for a variety of books and collections, the help isn’t always specific to the e-Books for FE or the iOS App.
You can copy and paste text from the e-books and what I do like (as it does in the browser) is it adds the appropriate reference to the pasted text. This makes it much easier for learners to understand and recognise the importance of referencing the text they cut and paste.
I will admit that the ebrary app is not perfect, but it does work and it does allow you to access the ebrary collection from your iOS device, there is an app for the iPhone as well as the iPad.
If you are subscribed to the ebrary collection, have a Facebook account and have an iPad, then get this app.
Get the ebrary app in the iTunes App Store. Update: The app has now been discontinued.
Slides from my recent keynote at the Teacher Training and Technologies Conference 2012.
Cloud computing, mobile, tablets, 4G, internet TVs, social learning, learning analytics, game based learning, augmented reality and e-books are all being used now or are just on the horizon. Change is all around us and the modern teacher needs to be adaptable and innovative. The rate of technological change appears to be getting faster. Can our existing cultures allows us to take advantage of the potential of emerging technologies? Or do we need to change the way we change?
So far I am finding the new venue for Learning without Frontiers both innovating and frustrating.
I really do like the inflated domes, they look great and a clever way of using space without needing to walk lots of different rooms. Nice and futuristic.
The theatre is okay, apart that there are too many chairs, so it makes it difficult to get a seat even though there are lots of spare chairs, as the delegates are sitting on the ends, and it isn’t easy to move pass them to the empty chairs. As a result a lot of people are standing up! Having said that even at the back, I can see the speaker and if they are using them, their slides on the three big screens. No live Twitter stream though?
The biggest frustration for me though is that downstairs from the conference is the Learning Technologies exhibition and as it is not closed off, the noise from the crowds downstairs is making it hard to hear the speakers. In the background there is this crowd noise that as the day progresses is only getting louder!
Of course the venue is only part of the deal and the content of the conference is what counts.
Two and half a years ago at ALT-C 2009 we had an excellent debate on the role of the VLE in further and higher education.
The video of that debate is still very popular.
Today at LWF 12 there is another debate entitled the VLE is Dead, though I am not taking part I suspect we may re-hash the same arguments that we discussed back in 2009.
The thing is, since that time, there have been lots of discussions about the VLE and its role in formal education, however rather than been dismissed and forgotten, the use of the VLE as a tool to enhance and enrich learning has increased.
My view is we need to discuss less about how to kill the VLE, but work with practitioners and staff to use it more effectively.
Teachers use the VLE badly, as they do with most technologies, in the main as they don’t know how to use it effectively enable students to learn. Staff development is important to get teachers to get the most out of tools like the VLE, but also give them a better understanding how people learn.
VLE is Dead is today at 1.15 in Salon Foucault at LWF 12.
Further reading
Over the next two days I am attending the Learning without Frontiers conference and festival at Olympia in London. I always enjoy, get inspired and made to think when I attend the conference and I have similar expectations this time.
There are a range of speakers, workshops and events which cover the whole spectrum of education: primary, secondary, further and higher education.
There is a full and varied programme and I am speaking as part of a panel session at 5pm, How can mobile technologies and the mobile industry support education?
Which mobile technologies are making the most impact in education?
What are the current trends in mobile learning and what is on the horizon?
What services can mobile operators bring to education
Wednesday January 25, 2012 5:00pm – 5:45pm @ GSMA Experience Dome (ED4)
As is usual, there are many different speakers from a variety of backgrounds, all with stuff to say, sometimes inspiring, sometimes controversial and sometimes just plain wrong.
I am also expecting to meet old friends, meet new ones and find out what others in my field have been up to.
So if you’re going come and say hello.
Thursday in New York, Apple gave a presentation which announced three new products and services for education, iBooks 2, iBooks Author and an iTunes U app. I’ve already written about iBooks 2 and iBooks Author, so what about iTunes U.
Before today, iTunes U was in the main a marketing tool for universities and colleges. It was a way of showing prospective students great content and give them an idea of what they may expect to experience if they went to that institution. There were some institutions which used iTunes U as a delivery mechanism for their learners, it was even possible to “close” or “lock” down iTunes U so that only authorised users could access the content.
The key though was that iTunes U was a content delivery system and was not about interactive content, communication or collaboration. It also wasn’t a total content delivery system, as iTunes U was in the main focused on delivering audio and video content (and in some cases PDFs).
Most of the main UK Universities and Colleges were not using iTunes U to deliver all their content to their learners and certainly though there was some excellent content, it was just one delivery mechanism for learners. I would hazard a guess that in most institutions, once the learners are there, most of the content would be provided through the institutional virtual learning environment, a tool such as Blackboard or Moodle. These tools do allow for communication and collaboration and interaction. What was always lacking, until very recently, were usable and decent mobile access to the institutional virtual learning environment. Both Blackboard and Moodle now have either a mobile app, or a mobile optimised stylesheet, however these really don’t “work” as well as they could, as both products were designed to work in a standard web browser on a computer.
Apple have “upgraded” iTunes U to allow much more diverse content to be delivered to learners through iTunes and a new iTunes U app for the iPad. With iBooks 2, interactive textbooks can be “purchased” alongside the planned delivery of video and audio. iBooks Author allows teachers and lecturers to create their own “books” that either can be given or sold to learners (through the iBookstore). This means that much more varied content can be delivered through iTunes U.
What Apple have done with iTunes U for the iPad is design an app for the delivery of curriculum from a mobile perspective. The learner will be “given” a complete course that they can then use on their iPad complete with textbooks, video, audio and other content.
What iTunes U lacks is the social interaction, communication and collaboration tools that an institutional virtual learning environment can provide. Learners would probably say, “so what” as we interact and communicate using Facebook and Twitter. So though iTunes U fails from a two way student engagement perspective, there are other ways in which learners will talk, discuss and communicate, whether that includes the practitioner, that remains to be seen.
Will iTunes U replace Blackboard or Moodle? A lot depends on what we as consumers do. It’s true that iTunes has had a huge effect on the music industry and digital downloads. So there is a precedent for Apple changing an industry, the same can be said about the iPod or the iPhone. However we also need to consider Ping and iWeb, not everything Apple does has that golden touch.
Of course you can’t just use iTunes U, firstly your institution needs to apply to be on iTunes U and that isn’t a simple process, and it isn’t something an individual does, you will need to get management in your organisation on board. However I suspect this will be easier once more institutions get enrolled and you could argue about it from a competitive perspective.
Though a lot of stuff on iTunes U can be viewed on a computer, to take advantage of the real potential of the new iTunes U, the learner is going to need an iPad. You can’t read the new textbooks or books created with iBooks Author on a Mac or a PC, only on an iPad. So if you do put content on iTunes U for use with the iTunes U app then you will need to be sure that either a) all your learners have an iPad, or b) you provide the content in a different format. The latter will be challenging as the export functionality in iBooks Author leaves a lot be desired, the alternatives to the iBook format are PDF and text which don’t utilise the use of media or interactivity.
If every learner in your institution has an iPad, then iTunes U is a great way of delivering content to your learners, if every learner doesn’t… well I wouldn’t bother with iTunes U.
Get iTunes U in the iTunes App Store.