Tag Archives: keynote

Data issues – Weeknote #48 – 31st January 2020

Paddngton Station in London

Monday I was off to London once more. On Tuesday I am presenting a keynote at an Inside Government event. The event takes place in the City of London, which can be challenging to get to for a 9:30am start, so I went up on Monday to stay overnight. I popped into our London office for a quick meeting before heading off to my hotel. I was intending to walk from the office to the hotel, but it was pouring with rain so I caught the tube.

Tuesday was the Inside Government event and my presentation was called Education 4.0 – Key Trends in the Current Digital Landscape

My presentation covered stuff I have talked about before.

  • Reflecting on what we understand by Education 4.0 and the potential impact on universities?
  • Discussing how universities should harness the power of their data and use analytics to tackle some of the big strategic challenges within the organisation
  • Asking the key questions: How will teaching be transformed? What does personalised adaptive learning look like? Could we re-imagine assessment? How do we build an intelligent campus?
  • Designing a strategy that will enable organisations to start laying the foundations for the future that is Education 4.0

Compared to other Inside Government events I have attended, I thought attendance was quite low. However I got some positive feedback and some interesting questions.

I think we are also starting to see more resistance and wariness of the use of data and analytics for learning and teaching. The ethical and secure use of data is critical, but even so, there are still concerns that need to be addressed, and might never be addressed.

The BBC reported on a recent fine imposed on UEA for a data breach.

University students whose personal details were emailed to hundreds of their classmates have been paid more than £140,000 in compensation.

A spreadsheet containing student health problems, bereavements and personal issues was sent to 298 people at the University of East Anglia in June 2017.

Insurers have since paid out £142,512 to affected students from UEA, which said it had reviewed data practices.

Talking to colleagues, there use to be rectification notices for these kinds of breaches, now we are seeing the ICO making decisions like this one.

These kinds of news stories demonstrate challenges with data and the use of data by universities and colleges, as well as possible data literacy issues amongst staff.

Central Hall, Westminster, London

Thursday I was back to London for a meeting with the Department for Education. Jisc meets regularly with our funders across the United Kingdom.

The Parsnip in Weston-super-Mare

Friday I didn’t have far to travel, as I went to Weston College, for a Microsoft Teams event. This event, part of a roadshow run by Microsoft demonstrated some of the key functions of the tool and how some academics were using it. I did feel that I had heard many of these conversations before, with other tools such as Virtual Campus, Moodle, Slack, even the Twitter. I think what was missing is the strategic approach to the embedding use of these tools across the whole of the organisation. How do you get everyone to use the tools you provide effectively.

My top tweet this week was this one.

e-Learning Stuff – Top Ten Blog Posts of 2012

A somewhat quieter year this year with just over 100 blog posts posted to the blog.

As I did in 2011, 2010 and 2009 here are the top ten blog posts according to views for this year. Interestingly, the VLE is Dead – The Movie blog post which was number one last year and number two for the previous years, does not appear in the top ten , it was the 15th most viewed post.

10. Keynote – iPad App of the Week

The tenth most viewed post was my in-depth review of the Keynote app for the iPad. I wrote this review more for myself, to get a my head around what the app was capable of. Whilst writing the blog post, I was very impressed with the functionality and capability of the app, it was a lot more powerful and flexible than my first impressions of it.

Keynote opening screen

9. ebrary – iPad App of the Week

I spent some time trying out the various mobile ways of accessing our college’s ebook collection which is on the ebrary platform. This was a review of the iPad app, I was both impressed and disappointed. It was much better than using the web browser on the iPad, but was less impressed with the complex authentication process which involved a Facebook connection and a Adobe Digital Edtions ID. Very complicated and as a result less than useful for learners. Though it has to be said once the book was downloaded it did work much better than accessing it through the browser. The only real issue is you have to remember to return the books before they expire!

8. MindGenius – iPad App of the Week

MindGenius is not the best mind mapping app for the iPad, that has to go to iThoughtsHD however if you have MindGenius for the desktop then this app is an ideal companion for starting mind maps on the iPad and finishing them off on the computer.

 7. iBooks Author

In January of 2012, Apple had one of their presentations in which they announced iBooks 2, iBooks Author and an iTunes U app that built on the iTunes U service in iTunes. At the time I wrote three blog posts about those three announcements. All three of those blog posts are in the top ten, the one on iBooks Author was the seventh most popular blog post in 2012. It looked at the new app. I’ve certainly not given it the time I thought I would, maybe I will in 2013.

6. A few of my favourite things…

Over the last few 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 a JISC RSC SW TurboTEL event in Taunton I delivered a ten minute presentation on my favourite iPad apps. The sixth most popular blog post of 2012 embedded a copy of that presentation and I also provided a comment on each of the apps.

5. 100 ways to use a VLE – #89 Embedding a Comic Strip

The fifth most popular post this year was from my ongoing series of ways in which to use a VLE. This particular posting was about embedding a comic strip into the VLE using free online services such as Strip Creator and Toonlet. It is quite a lengthy post and goes into some detail about the tools you can use and how comics can be used within the VLE. The series itself is quite popular and I am glad to see one of my favourite in the series and one of the more in-depth pieces has made it into the top ten. It was number eight last year and tyhis year was even more popular.

 4. I love you, but you’re boring

This blog post was the first in a series of blog posts looking at Moodle and how the default behaviour of the standard system results in problems for learners and staff.

 3. “Reinventing” Textbooks, I don’t think so!

In January of 2012, Apple had one of their presentations in which they announced iBooks 2, iBooks Author and an iTunes U app that built on the iTunes U service in iTunes. There was a lot of commentary on iBooks and how it would reinvent the textbook. Looking back I think I was right to be a little sceptical on this one. Maybe in a few years time, we will see e-textbooks that change the way in which learners use textbooks.

2. Thinking about iTunes U

The blog post on iTunes U, which followed posts on iBooks 2 and iBooks Author, is the second most viewed blog post this year. I discussed the merits and challenges that using iTunes U would bring to an institution. Back then I wrote, 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. I still stand by that, I like the concept and execution of iTunes U, but in the diverse device ecosystem most colleges and universities find themselves in, iTunes U wouldn’t be a solution, it would create more challenges than problems it would solve.

1. Every Presentation Ever

Back in January I posted a humourour video about making presentations, this was the most popular blog post of mine in 2012.

It reminds us of all the mistakes we can make when making presentations.

So that was the top ten posts of 2012, which of my posts was your favourite, or made you think differently?

 

A few of my favourite things…

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…

Rates of Change

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?

Where’s your presentation?

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.