The Wales-Wide Web

Too busy to blog. Sad isn't it. I have been on the road for almost all of the last three weeks. And we are also going through a busy time producing things. New software, videos, papers and all the rest. I'll be rolling out the different products over the next two weeks. And you will hear about them first on this blog.

So here is the first. It is a book on e-learning in Small and Medium Enterprises. Regular readers of this blog may remember I worked on a European Research project called ICT and SMEs. We undertook 105 case studies in seven different European countries. And we made four four thematic studies. The project ended in 2005. But I thought th results were to good not to publish. It has taken ages. But the book is now out.

You can buy the book from Amazon. But  here is a special offer to Wales Wide Web readers. I have 50 copies to give away for free. If you would like a copy just email me at grahamattwell@gmail.com and I will send you one out.

I was in Swindon a couple of weeks ago visiting my elderly parents. They took me off for a meal with one of their equally aged friends.

I went through the usual difficulties of trying to explain to her what I actually do for a living (not sure myself really).

And then she presented me with a fridge magnet (yes, that is not a type).

The fridge magnet is entitled 'Why Study?'

And the text runs:

'The more I study
The more I know

The more I know
The more I forget

The more I forget
The less I know

So why study?

Sums up how I feel about formal learning sometimes.

I got offered a job blogging a few weeks ago.

It was a good offer - to contribute some 10-15 items a week to a blog about Open Educational resources. The items did not have to be long. And the pat was quite reasonable.

I thought long and hard - and finally rather reluctantly turned it down. Reluctant - because it seems a bit of a dream to be paid for doing something I enjoy writing about something which interests me.

But there seem two drawbacks. The first is that I find blogging on the road to be difficult. When I am involved in a run of intensive meetings and workshops I don't always have the headspace for blogging. And the second is that I am afraid it would destroy the fun of blogging. Along with others, I have always wondered how Stephen Downes keeps writing OL Daily, day in, day out. Sometimes I just don't want to blog - I don't feel I have anything to say. And at other times I have a lot to say. For me my blog is part of my everyday work and everyday life - and the blog has to fit in - not the other way round of me having to write the blog.

I am interested in these issues because of an emerging discourse in the Emerge community about the possibility of a project on using Web 2.0 and social software for supporting academic writing.

It is an interesting idea and an important one. Often, if I am working on an academic paper or a contribution to a book, I do not blog. The style of expression is just too different to quickly switch formats.

So, I suspect we may have to reconsider just what is academic writing. I have been involved in a number of projects trying to use Wikis for co-development and collective writing of research papers and training materials. It is not easy and requires a great deal of planning. I suspect this will be the way we work in the future - especially in the context of European projects involving collaboration between researchers in different countries. But we have a lot to learn about how to do it.

I'd be interested in anyone else's thoughts (and experiences) on this subject.

Tuesday (10 July 2007) I was a co-faciliator of an ‘unconference’ session at a JISC Emerge meeting which aimed at helping to consolidate the Emerge community of practice.

Wikipedia  provides a definition of an unconference: “An unconference is a conference where the content of the sessions is driven and created by the participants, generally day-by-day during the course of the event, rather than by a single organizer, or small group of organizers, in advance.“

So my co-facilitator, Brian Kelly (I have 'borrowed some of his report for this blog entry) and I had to prepare for an event driven by the participants and not by ourselves. The approach we took was to prepare for a number of ways of stimulating discussion, if this was needed. However on the day it turned out that this was not needed as two interesting discussions took place in our two sessions: one on transliteracy and one on the ethical aspects of use of social networks.

Professor Sue Thomas of De Montford University introduced the ‘transliteracy’ topic. Again looking at Wikipedia I find the definition of Transliteracy given as “The ability to read, write and interact across a range of platforms, tools and media from signing and orality through handwriting, print, TV, radio and film, to digital social networks.“. (This has been taken from the PART (Production and Research in Transliteracy) Group Web site).

Whilst we were downstairs having an ongoing and evolving discussion around these issues, upstairs  a series of round table discussions (once more participant driven) were being held. Participants in the JISC Emerge community are preparing a series of bids for project under the JISCX Users and Innovation programme.  Most of these nascent projects focus on the use of Web 2.0 technologies for learning - including simulations, games and tagging.

But it seemed to me that many of the issues we were discussing - social practices in the use of technologies, skills and competencies required by users - both learners and teachers, ethical issues and  issues of ownership and control - are the real issues which  underpin the use of Web 2.0 and social  software.

Here is a list of key words I jotted down during the discussion:

• Ethics
• privacy
• permissions
• acceptable use
• accessibility
• socialbility
• usability

Cool apps are great - but it is the social environment and practices which will define their use and their usefulness in practice. So it may be that if we want to start developing some great (social) learning applications we need to think through all these issues at the same time.

I've been enjoying the  the IWMW 2007 Innovation Competition, run by the ever tireless Brian Kelly (I'll post my entry tomorrow!). And I've been watching the Facebook phenomenon with some interest.

Given how I keep banging on about breaking out of institutional walled gardens and using social software for learning there is much to be welcomed in “MyNewport - MyLearning Essentials for Facebook” - Michael Webb’s submission to the competition

Brian Kelly says "MyNewport is the VLE/portal used by staff and students at Newport College, which includes access to course material, news, blogs, forums, library access etc. MyNewport is a Facebook application that allows students to access to MyLearning Essentials resources from Facebook. In effect this allows students to start creating their own personal learning environment in a platform other than the one provided by the University. Newport College have targeted Facebook at the moment as it’s the fastest growing community, but if the users like the idea but want to work in another environment then that is fine - as applications can be created applications for them as well."

Apparently it took about a day and half from conception of the idea and joining the Facebook developer community on 10^th July to launching it as a viable application for our students to use (or comment on) on the 11^th July. It was straight forward as the college’s VLE is built from components that can easily be repurposed and uses open standards such as RSS to allow information to be passed to the Facebook application.

And this is where I start worrying. Yes the college VLE uses open standards. But Facebook does not. It is one thing providing access ot a developers kit to write applications to get data in to Facebook. But what about the other way round. How can learners get their data from Facebook into their Portfolio. As far as I can see they can't. And that is what distinguishes social software applications like Facebook, privately owned with closed standards, from applications like Elgg - with open standards and the functionality and support for moving data both in and out of Elgg and to using whatever tools the users choose for their interface.

Or am I wrong - if so please write and tell me because I think this is a critical debate.

Students' trial by Facebook | Media | MediaGuardian.co.uk:

I haven't much time for rowdy, middle class, over-proveledged Oxford students. But I have even less time for the University internal police, archaically called proctors.

And now it looks as if the proctors are hacking Facebook to cause a bit of grief for the students.

But it is going to take some time before we sort out what can and should be shared through social networking sites and what rights of privacy - if any - we should be entitled too. And - I'm not paranoid, honestly - but if a few dozy Oxford proctors can hack their way through Facebook access controls, I sort of think that security services are not going to find it tricky. Are we all monitoring ourselves these days?

"Oxford University staff are logging on to Facebook and using evidence they find on student profiles to discipline students.

Photos on the social networking website of undergraduates celebrating the end of their exams have been emailed to students by the proctors, Oxford's disciplinary body, as evidence of breaches of the University's code of conduct.

Students now face fines of up to £100 after proctors collected evidence of students celebrating the end of exams by "trashing" their friends, covering them with champagne, confetti, flour, and even foodstuffs including raw meat and octopus."

Students may be unable to graduate until the disciplinary hearings are resolved.

Here we go with another release from the Pontydysgu studios.

This one is a bit of an oddity its a mash up - based on an idea by Brian Kelly. Brian has invited participants in the Institutional Web Management Workshop 2007 to submit lightweight examples of innovative uses of Web technologies which may be of interest to IWMW 2007 participants.

This could include, the Innovation Competition web site says:

• 'Mashups' which integrate content from multiple sources
• Informative, educational or entertaining use of multimedia (e.g. podcasts, YouTube videos, etc.)
• Informative, educational or entertaining use of 3-D virtual environments such as Second Life.
• Seamless access to content using technologies such as OpenID.

We went for the video mash up and my colleague Einion Dafydd mashed together my speech on PLEs at AltC last year together with the Jisc video on services oriented architecture.

I'm not quite sure what we have achieved - or even what we hoped to achieve. But it was a lot of fun. Anyway here are the reviews (all two of them!).

Brian Kelly says: "Not all of the entries to the IWMW 2007 Innovation Competition consist of mashups of text and images from various sources. Graham Attwell, a member of the JISC Emerge project team, has created a mashup of two video clips (the JISC cartoon about the E-Framework and a talk given by Graham at the ALT-C 2006 conference) which allows users to see the argument for approaches to development of e-learning services from two different viewpoints - that of institutional management as epitomized by JISC and the learners viewpoint as explained by Graham Attwell. This, I feel, provides an interesting example of scholarly debate which makes use of YouTube."

And Steven Downes comments "Nice video contraposing an official-sounding description of the e-Framework, a set of protocols intended to standardize educational web services, and commentary from a talk by Graham Attwell. I especially like the way he was able to dig up the subtext from what would otherwise seem to be an innocuous technical video."

You've read the reviews - now enjoy the video.

Much of our work this summer has been with multi media. We still have something of a backlog of projects to finish but we are beginning to see some light in the tunnel. I have to say it has been a steep learning curve (Final Cut pro is not a simple programme!)- and must pay credit to my colleagues Einion and Dirk who have done most of the slog work.

Anyway we are proud to announce the Pontydysgu video channel. The channel is hosted through the excellent blip.tv service.

But the best way to watch it is on the brilliant new Miro Open Source video viewer. Download it and subscribe.

Our first production is a half hour video - e-Portfolio Development and Implementation - commissioned by the European funded MOSEP project. The video looks at the different understandings of the purpose of an e-Portfolio and goes on to examine a number of issues in e-Portfolio development and implementation -= including:

• ownership
• providers
• assessment
• reflection.

This version is in the English language but we expect to release a German version next week, with Polish and French to follow.

We have also had requests for shorter clips and will aim to produce these in August. And we plan a high quality multilingual DV release for teacher training events etc (email me if you would like a copy).

The video is geared mainly at researchers and practitioners - teachers and trainers - working with e-Portfolios or planning to introduce e-Portfolios. It may be viewed as a stand alone resource but we are also planning to introduce an on line (or blended) professional development programme on e-Portfolios.

If you are interested in this programme please email me at grahamattwell@googlemail.com.

I am increasingly interested in issues of quality in teaching and learning. So this announcement of the scrapping of public sector targets reported in the Guardian has to be welcomed. It is very clear that targets do not work as a measure of quality.......has the UK government finally realised it?

Mr Burnham said: "We will avoid wherever possible the more crude approach of setting a one-size-fits-all target that is dropped down from on high ... The direction of travel is for public services to look and feel differently in different parts of the country. We want them to face downwards and outwards, having a dialogue with their local communities rather than with the centre."

Thats fine but I'm not in the least but sure what looking downwards and outwards mean. Does this mean being imposed top-down? And what form does such a dialogue mean. I fear this may be just more focus groups. And that equally does not guarantee quality

Technorati Tags: quality

One of my long term aims with Sounds of the Bazaar is to develop a community around educational podcasting. To that extent, we have encouraged guest participants in the production of Sounds - not only as interviewees but as presneters and technicians.

In April I was in Salzburg at the 3ed EduMedia Conference forganised by Salzburg Research. This year the conference focused on "Open Educational Practices and Resources for Lifelong Learning". How does self-directed, lifelong learning benefits from open training materials of the Internet, of open source based learn- and knowledge software and of common good licences?

And it was there that I met up with Andreas Auwarter. Andeas gained by attention right away, wandering around the conference with his recorder and microphone wearing a teeshirt emblazoned with 'Podcast Crew'. We quickly got talking and decided we would share whatever interviews we undertook. In the eveing we retreated to the bar and got to talk. Andreas studies and teaches at the University of Koblenz-Landau in southern Germany. He is undertaking a dissertation on podcasting, whilst teaching the same subject at the university.

And when I explained the idea of Sound of the Bazaar he was quick to volunteer his services as a guest producer. So here it is.

The first interview in this edition is with Bernie Dodge from San Diego in the USA. Bernie has developed the popular WebQuest aapproach to web based learning?

A WebQuest is an inquiry-oriented lesson format in which most or all the information that learners work with comes from the web. The model was developed by Bernie with early input from SDSU/Pacific Bell Fellow Tom March, the Educational Technology staff at San Diego Unified School District, and waves of participants each summer at the Teach the Teachers Consortium.

"Since those beginning days", Bernie says, "tens of thousands of teachers have embraced WebQuests as a way to make good use of the internet while engaging their students in the kinds of thinking that the 21st century requires. The model has spread around the world, with special enthusiasm in Brazil, Spain, China, Australia and Holland."

The second interview is with Tim Hall, director of the EMRC, University of Limerick.

Tim is a co-founder of the Educational Media Research Centre in Limerick, having working in the University of Limerick for the past 25 years. He has a large amount of research experience in eLearning. In the interview Tim talks about Open Source Software, social software and Open Educational Resources.

But you can't keep me out of Sounds of the Bazaar. In my monthly feature spot, I talk about the failing 'industrial model' of schooling and the growing challenges to that model. I suggest we can not reform the schooling model but instead need to develop new paradigms and approaches to learning.

 Listen to the full edition [36:23m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
 Introduction and interview with Bernie Dodge [9:56m]: | Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
 Interview with Tim Hall [8:16m]: | Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
 Blog of the month [2:08m]: | Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
 Graham Attwell on new models of schooling [11:05m]: | Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
 Extro [0:39m]: | Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

In my writing I am increasingly finding myself referring to on-line sources - and more lately to multimedia sources. This afternoon I had an email form a colleague who is laboriously sub-edicting a book on e-Portfolios. "Hey Graham", Martin asks, "again I need a reference. You wrote in the docs.google document, about Jenny Hughes and Graham Attwell (2006) but it isnt listed in the references. Now I found the copied text in a study I have to have look through until today evening.

So can you send me the complete reference, please. Or is the text "Pedagogical Process" alredy published? If yes, where? Hope for your help."

Hm, I thought, and had to search in the draft for the reference. There it was - it was a video on Teacher Styles.

But then the problem - how to reference videos. I did a quick Google search and came up with the excellent Columbia Guide to Online Style.

The guide provides a comprehensive list of different on-line sources and the way to reference them. Well worth a look.