The Wales-Wide Web

The Observer | Sport | Rugby: 6 Nations: Wales 11 - 9 England:
In all of rugby, there is no fixture to match Wales-England in Cardiff for the depth of feeling generated from the pub to the ruck.

Away from the blog for a week and what better way to return. So sad I couldn't make it. But the joy is felt by exiles the world over.

Yo- proud to be the Wales Wide Web.

Is It Time for a Moratorium on Metadata?

Scott Leslie from Ed Tech Post points to this "great article by Dick Bulterman titled "Is it Time for a Metadata Moratorium".

Bulterman says "For nontext data - such as video, images, audio, and so on - direct mining is difficult, but exactly at the point that metadata might be useful, manual creation simply doesn't get done because creating useful metadata descriptions (the proverbial thousands of words) is not in the critical path of content creation."

Haven't read the article (it's queued for printing, but a couple of breakfast time thoughts occur. It is pretty obvious that metadata is not working. I struggle to think up apposite key words for straightforward papers - let alone multiple metadata fields reflecting the complexities of multi faceted learning materials. Furthermore I stick to my contention that most learning materials have always been and will continue to be created by teachers and trainers. They simply do not see metadata creation as a part of their everyday work.

Solutions?

• Simplify the required metadata to say the extended Dublin core. OK - but we said we needed all these fields in the first place - are we now saying they are not necessary?
• Get someone else to do the metadata thing e.g. librarians. Problem here is that to be effective metadata has to reflect the use of the materials - not just the creators intention.
• Deploy agents to fill in parts of the metadata- interesting but I still doubt that software can be that clever.
• Develop distributed metadata - reflecting the use of education materials - this is the most promising answer but still some way off being effective.

My other big worry in who is to use the metadata. Or, putting it slightly differently - who is it for. Up to now most educational metadata is for teachers - to help them find and sequence learning experiences for students. Yet - if we accept the idea that as Scott Wilson asserts - the VLE of the future will be learner oriented - then learners themselves will have a pretty big say in what learning material they access to use. My guess is that in many situations they already do - despite the attempts of many VLEs and LMS systems to 'control' learning.

This implies a completely different take on what sort of metadata might be available or useful.

England's e-university venture ended in failure, but Scotland's is going from strength to strength, says Andy Moore EducationGuardian.co.uk | E-learning | Top scholar, Tuesday October 19, 2004

Should be doing my travel claims but this is more interesting. In a pretty ordinary e-learning journalism piece on the success (blah-blah) of Scotland's e-university, Neil Johnson, a biology teacher at Robert Gordon's College in Aberdeen, described as "an advocate of the programme" says: "Scholar suits all learning styles as it enables students to learn from different materials in a self-directed way."

Nothing strange about that quote - could find it in a hundred adverts for e-learning systems and materials. But what does it mean?

Lets look at the learning styles thing first. I do not hold that different people have different set learning styles. I think we all have different learning styles for different subjects, at different times and places, for different purposes in different contexts. heck - my learning style certainly changes after a few cups of strong coffee in the morning. Or - another personal example - I need to learn something very fast about Logical Frameworks for Evaluation - I will definitely use a different learning style than if I had more time to do a considered and proper job. I would call the style I am using quick and dirty.

Riikka Rahikainen emailed me to say:

"We just finished a survey of the deployment of open source software in Finnish universities, polytechnics and schools. Here is the white paper I wrote on the issue. All comments are welcome, feel also free to distribute it if you wish.We just finished a survey of the deployment of open source software in Finnish universities, polytechnics and schools. Here is the white paper I wrote on the issue. All comments are welcome, feel also free to distribute it if you wish."

Haven't read it myself yet but will add something to this site when I do.

OSSfin-whitepaper_eng21.doc

Public Knowledge Project:

Been taking a look at thiss project from the University of British Columbia. I like the approach.

"...the Public Knowledge Project is also evaluating ways of integrating research studies with other forms of knowledge, including documents pertaining to, in the case of the social sciences, for example, practices, programs, and policies. It is also looking at ways of integrating this research with access to digital archival sources, whether consisting of documents or multimedia files. It is assessing the collaborative potential of knowledge sharing among communities of interest, in such areas as education, with an eye to reducing the theory-practice and research-policy gaps. It uses an iterative and participatory design model that will involve professionals, practitioners, researchers, policy makers, and the public in building and evaluating a series of collaborative knowledge management website prototypes."

The web site is a bit esoteric but has links to some interesting sites and a few research papers. What particularly caught my eye was a couple of Open Source products - one - Open Conference Systems - for organising conferences and the other - Open Journal Systems (OJS) - for hosting on line journals. Both these could be very useful. Moreover, they join a growing list of open source products and tools which match the real life workflow in which educationalists and researchers work - rather than trying to impose their own structures and ways of working.

More interesting replies to yesterdays post (hope they sort out the reply button soon!).

Willi Petersen says "in my opinion the meaning of 'Digital Literacy' is more or less the same like 'Basic ICT skills' or 'ICT literacy' or 'e-literacy': In addition to literacy the ability to use information and communication technology (ICT) for basic tasks in the information society or e.g. as a tool for learning proficiently.

And in german: 'digitale Kompetenz' oder 'Informationskompetenz' oder auch 'Multimediakompetenz'. In Ergänzung zur Lese- und Schreibfertigkeit die Fähigkeit, IKT-Technologien für einfache Aufgaben des Lebens in der Informationsgesellschaft oder z.B. zum Lernen erfolgreich zu nutzen und einzusetzen.

Therefore there is a difference between 'Digital Literacy' and "ICT user skills" in the context of occupation.

In our discussions we defined:

The term e-skills covers mainly three categories (*):

• ICT practitioner skills: The capabilities required for researching, developing and designing, managing, the producing, consulting, marketing and selling, the integrating, installing and administrating, the maintaining, supporting and service of ICT systems;
• ICT user skills: the capabilities required for effective application of ICT systems and devices by the individual. ICT users do apply systems as tools in support of their own work, which is, in most cases, not ICT. User skills cover the utilisation of common generic software tools and the use of specialised tools supporting business functions within industries other than the ICT industry;
• e-Business skills: the capabilities needed to exploit opportunities provided by ICT, notably the Internet, to ensure more efficient and effective performance of different types of organisations, to explore possibilities for new ways of conducting business and organisational processes, and to establish new businesses.

(*) There are certain overlaps between these categories, but each has sufficient independent core significance to justify its separate consideration. Within each of them there are a number of levels of capability. These levels are occupational skill levels required by employers and not merely levels of initial academic or vocational education or qualifications. The word “user” is sometimes mentioned in relation both to individuals and industries/organisations, and these need to be distinguished.

(cf. The European e-skills forum: E-skills for Europe: towards 2010 and beyond (synthesis report). Brussels: European Commission - Enterprise and Industry Directorate-General, 2004)

The second reply comes from Gerald Heidegger and Wiebke Petersen who say: "Usually the term means just 'Knowledge of the use of PC´s' ('PC-Kenntnisse') which includes knowledge of software which is often specified, e. g. in ads for employment. The creative use you are writing about is certainly important but is normally not referred to. Overall in Germany people do not believe so much in the creative possibilities of computers. Often it is still called 'calculator' (Rechner). 'Digital-Kenntnisse' is no German word or concept.

At yesterdays e-Compete meeting, Jolande Leinenbach asked us to add some comments on the following two questions.



What are your associations with e-learning?

How do you see the future of e-learning?

Here are a few quick ideas.

Firstly regarding what I associate with e-learning, I think there are two - radically opposed - associations. The first is the commonly held view of e-learning, dominated by the previous educational paradigms of the classroom and of open a distance learning. Technology is being used to attempt to replicate these paradigms e.g. the electronic classroom.

the second is - in my view - a richer idea of the potential and use of ICt for learning - with e-learning facilitating and building autodidactic learning, problem based learning, work based learning and non formal learning.

In this context e-learning ceases to be a 'thing' in itself - but becomes part of everyday learning and working. The term e-learning is probably unhelpful. It is all learning - whatever and whenever technologies are being used.

Earlier this year I wrote a paper for the Fifth Framework K2 conference called How can ICT support learning leading to knowledge development. The paper can be downloaded here and I will add the presentation to this blog.

In it I wrote:

The biggest and most common factor behind successful applications to support both learning and knowledge development is the presence of creative people who can drive initiatives forward. This requires a constituency or community who want fast access to ideas and knowledge and have a well-formed model of whatever they want to contribute, preferably do-able within existing technology.
The second is a model of social processes within a community of practice or learning community and an understanding of how knowledge is developed and shared within that community and how to embed that knowledge within community activities. ICT should allow individuals and communities to move in and out of and between real (face to face) activities and experiences and ICT facilitated communication and exchange. It must also allow different groups to forms and dissolve, to break away, merge and consolidate as part of the process of learning.

Barry Nyhan (Nyhan et al, 2003) states “one of the keys to promoting learning organisations is to organise work in such a way that it is promotes human development. In other words it is about building workplace environments in which people are motivated to think for themselves so that through their everyday work experiences, they develop new competences and gain new understanding and insights. Thus, people are learning from their work - they are learning as they work.”
He goes on to say: “This entails building organisations in which people have what can be termed ‘developmental work tasks’. These are challenging tasks that ‘compel’ people to stretch their potential and muster up new resources to manage demanding situations. In carrying out ‘developmental work tasks’ people are ‘developing themselves’ and are thus engaged in what can be termed ‘developmental learning'.” The challenge for developing e-learning and knowledge creation in enterprises is the integration of ICT in such a way that it supports developmental work tasks, rather than merely electronically cataloguing and regulating routine roles and tasks.

The third factor is to facilitate individuals and groups, enabling the active exchange of ideas between those people. Users of a system should be as real to each other as in a face-to-face meeting. The system must develop a sense of ‘presence’ and should help discourse and communication between people, rather than provide an extra barrier.
The fourth key factor is to encourage and facilitate the creation of content by participants within the community of practice or learning community. Our experience with open source and in particular, open source Content Management System application server frameworks suggests that the raw technology is still not easy enough to really encourage creativity and innovation. Successful applications will not only make it easy to make content but will make it easy to convey the context in which that content exists and will encourage engagement with the context of knowledge development. This also includes the recycling of ideas and knowledge to new contexts of use and application.
The last key factor I suggest is the engagement of facilitators or experts not as moderators but as active and equal participants. Systems must allow different participants to play different roles as learning and knowledge development takes place. Inflexible permissions systems tend to cast the role of the moderator in stone and prevent others from taking a lead in shaping group learning processes. The system needs to draw of the end users’ knowledge of the community of which they are part.
There is nothing in the list above which is beyond the possibilities of present technology. To make it happen requires new social relations. There is much written about the social basis of technology and, more recently, about the development of generic ‘social software’ to support social network. Much of this is pure common sense, much, I fear, is another wave of hype. A really useful – not to say critical – use of social software or networks would be to help put technical developers together with creators and innovators. Together creators, innovators and technical developers can begin to shape the applications we need for learning and knowledge development to occur.
I am relatively optimistic about the future. But, there remain substantial issues to overcome. These issues embrace both technical and social concerns:
1. Making e-learning content more engaging. The major problem with e-learning is that in general the content remains dull and unattractive. The solutions to this are at the same time technical in terms of making it easy to create engaging content and social in terms of involving teachers and trainers in producing content. To this end, the realisation that teachers and trainers are more likely to create engaging content than proprietary content producers is a key step.
2. Providing space for creativity. The challenge is to provide spaces for educationalists to experiment fluently with their own students and technologies and pedagogies in their own institutions. Experimentation and innovation remain critical for software an content development but standardised institutional policies have tended to limit the space for creativity and innovation.
3. Building on innovation. Despite many islands of innovation and creativity through projects and experiments, few of these measures fail to be sustained. Both institutions and systems need to find new ways to link with research and creative practice.

4. Bring together the Standards and Open Source developments. There are great strides being made in standards development, potentially allowing the interchange and sharing of contents. Open source software provides a means for innovation in the use of ICT for education. The development of new interoperability standards and the tools to use such standards could greatly boost innovation and sharing."

One of the pre-occupations of `European policy makers in education and training is the mobility of students - and by extension the equivalence of qualifications. Over the last year the Commission has been driving through a policy reform - variously called the Copenhagen process or the Maastricht agreement.

This sets out a series of somewhat vague tools and instruments of reform of national education and training systems and a framework for the development of equivalent qualifications for occupational training in the different European Member States. In my view it is a ill judged venture on a number of levels. Firstly, rather than focus on improving learning, the policy framework is pre-occupied with the transparency of outcomes as a tool for mobility. A second preoccupation is with formal institutional systems - rather than recognising the many different ways and contexts for gaining and practicing occupational competence. Thirdly the approach is mechanistic - and fails to take account of the richness of teh different histories and cultures of learning in the different countries.

Bit of techy fun, this. Spent much of the last day messing around recording MP3s. Its a bit of a bodge. But I have some good quality audio voice recordings. Still doesn't do what I want to though. Want to be able to record two audio tracks simultaneously - both using headphone inputs on my powerbook.I'm coming to the obvious conclusion it can't be done - at least not without buying and lugging around another bit of kit - an audio mixer. Trouble is they seem to be over specified for what I want.

Anyway why am I messing with this.

First I want to try launching an on line podcast magazine for education and training in Europe. There is great work going on at the moment and fine research but it is hard to find out about. And for many non native English speakers talking is much, much easier than writing. Want the two headphone solution for interviewing people.

Secondly, I am intrigued by the idea that a simple audio recording set up could be a great way to help teachers and trainers make compelling multi media e-learning materials.

I'm off to Karlruhe on Tuesday for a day and a half at Learntec 2005. I'm representing the Eval 3 project on the European Commission stand. Had hoped to podcast from there but still struggling with the set up. Never mind - I am not so sure about Learntec anyway. It is mainly trade exhibition - lots and lots of stands all looking much the same. Still it is the largest of such fests in Europe (or so they claim) so may be interesting to see what the market is up to.

If anyone reads this and is going to be there drop me an email and we can meet up for a beer.

First on that largest claim. There are certainly a lot of trade stands here - over 200. But visitors are pretty thin on the ground - and talking to other exhibitors - buyers are even harder to find. Most people are going around - sniffing out the competition.

So what do the products look like? Much the same is the answer - much the same as each other and much the same as last year. True there are some beautiful large display screens with all sorts of fancy interactive gadgets. But the e-learning software looks much the same as ever - endless learning management systems, quite a few CMS systems and a good lot of coms programmes.

Nothing pedagogically exciting. Not a blog application in sight. Little talk about interoperability or standards. Not a whisper on informal learning. I was talking about this in the pub last night and someone said - if they all go for informal learning how is anyone going to make any money out of it? And there is the rub. All these stands are here to attract the corporate buyers - the big companies. Germany is in recession and training is one of the first areas to suffer. Hence the lack of buyers. But if I am right in my feeling that e-learning will find its feet as an application promarily for self driven informal learning - then we are going to have to think very hard about the financial models which will underpin it.

Play My iPod. Good Dog! - OnRobo - Home and Entertainment Robot News and Reviews:
Apple’s iPod is inspiring designers around the world. The latest incarnation is Sega Toy’s mini robot pet named the “iDog.”

Sega Toys announced Wednesday that the new high-tech toy can compose, play and enjoy music along with its owner. It can even be attached to your music player. It will retail for 4197 Yen, or about $41 US.

A number of switches on the nose, head and other points of the iDog robot enable it to play music and express emotions with colorful illuminations, the Japanese toy maker said. It can also change tones by sensing the movement of the owner's hands and waggles its ears and paws in time to the music.

Or in the air might be a better headline. Am traveling for next couple of weeks - have a serious of European project meeting. I am on my way to athens right now for a meeting of the Special Interest Group on Open Source Software in Europe.

Making a couple of presentations. The first, tomorrow - is an evaluation of progress in the project. Usual problems - lots of publicity, lots of hard work, lots of ideas and commitment but problems in actually delivering in what we all promise at meetings delivered and problems in integrating some members of the project group.

The other problem or challenge - is more interesting. I have been involved in a number of projects now, where groups of partners - from different countries -are allocated to work together to produce a collective research report or paper. It never works out. No-one knows how to do this. For all the progress in ICt for communications and learning we still lack really good tools that can help us in such a basic task.

The presentation - if any one is interested is posted with this entry.

The second presentation is in the public seminar we are holding on Tuesday. I am talking about e-learning and pedagogy. In fact all I've done is rehashed the presentation I did last September on the same subject in Amsterdam at the K2 conference. Went down well enough there and have little time to write something totally new. But my ideas have moved on - explanation of the bullet points will be quite a bit different to last September. In fact what I'd really like to do is cut back the words to the bare headlines and rely more on the voice plus some pictures for the presentation. Lac good pictures at the moment - but Daniela has promised to send me some.

The second presentation is also attached to this entry.