The Wales-Wide Web

The UK telecommunication regulatory body, Ofcom, have just published their annual report.

It is a substantial body of work and I have to admit I haven't read it myself - relying rather on press and radio reports.

There seems to be much of interest in the report. For the first time women webusers have taken the lead in key age groups. At the same time an army of silver surfers has emerged and the over 65s are spending more hours online than any other age group, according to the Guardian.

Predicably young peopel are psending more time on line, with growing use of social networking istes. thsi time spent appears to be at teh expense of watching television.

Much of the BBC radio coverage was taken to the emergence of older people at heavier internet users than youth. Commentators speculated that this was due to the rise of internet commerce and to women using the web for social networking.

However, the preponderance of older users bares out the survey we carried out of the use of ICT for learning in Small and Medium Enterprises. We found older workers far more likely to use the web for learning than younger employees (albeit for informal learning rather than pursuing formal e-Learning courses). We speculated at the time this might be due to wider web access for more senior employees.

However, we felt, although could not proof, that older workers felt more at home using the internet for informal learning. Tomorrow I will have a look at the Ofcom report to see if it has anything to say about learning. But it remains my feeling that educational technologists have over-focused on developing learning applications and content for younger students and have failed to see the potential for extending and supporting lifelong learning and continuing professional development through the internet.

The term social networking also covers a multitude of activities. the radio reports tended to assume social networking as a leisure time activity - a replacement or chatting on the phone. Women do more of this than men, the reasoning went. I am unsure of this is true. But I would certainly suggest that much of the so called social networking is actually the use of social software for informal learning.

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.

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.

Multimedia software is not particularly difficult to use. It is quite rewarding in that there is an air of mystique - you really know how to mix sound or to edit video. In truth it is no harder than using Microsoft word (although perhaps that is not a recommendation).

What is difficult is the workflow. even using Apple software (designed with a services layer for interoperability between different applications) workflows are clunky, each project seems to be different and require advance thought with alternative ways of doing things. the result if that even simple projects become extremely time consuming.

Why is this? Large file sizes don't help. Sharing files can be difficult - they often will not fit on a memory stick. More than that no one seems to have thought out what the software might be used for in the real work. Instead it is designed to a technical specification - for ideal type uses by specialists - not by educationalists, teachers or researchers as one part of a busy workload.

Technorati Tags: multimedia, technology

Media Arts Education:

From Daniela's blog:

"I am thinking, reading and writing about the misconceptions of intelligence and creativity taken for granted in education and research. There is a paper in progress on such issues in the context of media arts education scenarios. The split of academic and scientific skills on the one side and artistic abilities on the other side which hampers non-hierarchical interdisciplinary education processes can be seen as a sort of applied academic illusion."

I think this is very important. Gardener's work on multiple intelligences (see infed for excellent summary) has been used to perpetuate the split Daniela talks of (I am not sure whether he intended such a split - anyone have any views on this). We have to see learning as a process which involves all of our 'intelligences' - not separately but as a holistic process.

Technorati Tags: e-learning, medialiteracy

elearnspace: Requiring Online Learning:

I track George Sieman's elearnspace blog and usually agree with George. But this time I think he gets it wrong. I completely agree when he says our schools are outdated and we are not teaching tech skills kids need today.

But learners are getting those skills - they are teaching themselves. They are learning informally. The big problem is that schools are becoming irrelevant to for learners.

Its change or die, I fear. I used to talk about a coming paradigm shift. I now am increasingly fearful for the future of the public education systems. Or am I just being paranoid?

Anyway this is what George says:

"Our learners don't have the skills they need to learn today. We've taught learners how to learn in a classroom, how to memorize, how to take true/false, mutliple choice test, etc. Essentially, we've given our learners the skills they need to navigate our education system today. But things are changing, and unfortunately, it appears that our educational institutions are slow in responding (Dave Warlick has recently done some good thinking on this subject with his notion of "flat classrooms"). Our students are graduating with skills that would have served them well 20 years ago. Today, a learner needs a skill set that reflects the environment in which they will be working."

Technorati Tags: education and training research, pedagogy, young people

I am getting more and more excited by the potential of multi media through the web.

Dave Tosh introduced me to Dave Cormier who has set up the Webcast Academy - I love the pedagogy behind this.

"The goals of the Webcast Academy include

• increasing the number of people who are capable of producing live, interactive webcasts
• applying the open source community approach to skill development
• creating a place that formally recognizes proficiency, excellence, and innovation in these new media skills."

And Dave showed me the WebheadsinAction site - this is indeed cool stuff.

"Webheads is a world-wide, cross-cultural, and vibrant online-community of educators with an open enrollment for anyone who wants to join. Webheads in Action was created in 1997-8 by Vance Stevens, in Abu Dhabi, Maggi Doty in Germany, and Michael Coghlan, in Australia, for ESL learners and facilitators as a student-teacher community. It has expanded to encompass a myriad of educators involved in e-learning in TESOL EVOnline (Electronic Village) and other language or cultural-based curricula. Webheads meet online regularly to explore the latest synchronous and non-synchronous communications technologies, including video and voice, to adapt and demonstrate new innovative ideas for e- learning and classroom curriculum. These educators also display a deep warmth and dedication to helping others. They are evolutionary and enterprising scholars who are harmonious and know how to have a lot of fun."

Technorati Tags: communities of practice, edublogs, Open content, Open source, podcasts

Guardian Unlimited Technology | Technology | Aleks Krotoski: Gamesblog:

This one has been hanging around in my editor for a couple of weeks . Very nice short article in the Guardian which suggests that computer games should be included in the school curriculum. I posed this around the office and met with a horrified response. But if we teach literary criticism and increasingly media criticism why ignore games which have become part of mainstream culture for young people.

"Only independent critical consumption of other games divines the underlying message of a game from the social context in which it is played. Unfortunately, given the rampant misunderstanding of the content of computer games, it may be some time before games criticism is included in the school curriculum."

Technorati Tags: puppy

BBC NEWS | Technology | US youths use internet to create:

In most of my presentations on Open Source, I have been focusing on changes in the way young people learn. Young people are learning, I have said through trying things out, through making, doing, creating. Now there is an american survey out which backs up my views. makes interesting reading. My big conclusion is that we still need to change our idea of what is content. Content is not something we give to them or do to them, but content is something they make.

"A large swathe of young Americans use the web to create and share content as well as use other people's content for their own creations, says a report.

The Pew American and Internet Life Project research suggested that 12 to 17-year-olds look to web tools to share what they think and do online.

It also said they were much more likely than adults to read and have a weblog.

The report found that those who did have blogs were far more likely to remix and share music and images.

A third said they shared their own work - artwork, photos, stories, or video - with others online. Girls were more likely to do so than boys - 38% compared with 29%.

These teens would say that the companies should think of their relationship with teens as one where they are in a conversational partnership, rather than in a strict producer-consumer, arms-length relationship.

Interestingly, the teenagers who blogged (52%) were more likely to care about copyright issues than those who did not blog.

"These teens were born into a digital world where expect to be able to create, consume, remix, and share material with each other and lots of strangers," Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet and American Life Project, told the BBC News website."

Technorati Tags: education and training research, Open content, pedagogy

Daniela says: "Graham saw your note on games and gender gap.

No, it is not the computers, it is the content on them, e.g. of the games which splits the users, most girls simply miss the narrative in shooter games. It is the stories which have been developed with girls and by girls as designers. (Such studies look at the use of applications developped by others, not so much on the ideas of kids as designers.)"

Technorati Tags: e-learning

EducationGuardian.co.uk

Interesting little nugget from the Education Guardian. Seems like we get a report every day on whether computers are a good or bad thing for kids. Either way they are a reality. Not sure what I think about this one. I am not sure you can blame computers per se for boys playing games and the widening gender gap. Are they saying boys play games more now because of computers?

I would have also liked some analysis based on class. Sadly there is no link to the full report.

"Computers are widening the gender gap in schools, as boys spend their spare time playing games while girls use them for homework, new government research has found.

The report, carried out for the Department for Education and Skills by academics at Leeds and Sheffield universities calls on schools to try to "redirect" boys' use of computers towards school work.

It found that pupils who used computers for their school work scored higher grades in their GCSEs and national tests than those without access to computers at home.

But children - mainly boys - who regularly played computer games achieved significantly lower grades.

The research comes as the latest GCSE figures showed boys are still lagging behind girls in many key subjects.

The academics, working with BMRB market researchers, said their findings reinforced the view that computers are "boys' toys".

"Girls were more likely than boys to use home computers for school work, reflecting their more conscientious attitude to study rather than a preference for ICT," they said.

"This pattern has implications for the gender gap, given that high leisure use was a negative factor for progress."

Technorati Tags: e-learning

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.

The first post is from Jurgen Werner who says: "It seems to me, as if there was no direct translation of the term. fairly obvious that it is more than literacy. So I would say it is the (web) user's capacity to evaluate information available on the internet (he finds on the internet) and to generate relevant knowledge from this information. In romantic terms it is the skill which enables the user to distinguish right from wrong, or important from rubbish.

My suggestion for translation into German is 'Netzkompetenz'".

Thanks Werner.

Second post is from Daniela Reimann. She says: "There is no such term 'Digitalkenntnisse', neither is there "Digital-Bildung'. (It would indicate that the education and the skills would be somehow "digital", but it is the characterictic of the medium which is digital. The term of the mid 90s in German would be 'Computeranwenderkenntnisse' ('computer applying skills or computer literacy) or what we called 'Medienkompetenz in der Informationsgesellschaft' in our previous BLK-model project ArtDeCom. The latter means a simple familarity with a machine that computes (see our paper 'Gaining Computational Literacy by Creating Hybrid Aesthetic Learning Spaces' - in: Proceedings of the International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies (IEEE ICALT) Athen, 2003.)

I use the term '(asthetisch-informatische) Medienbildung' (media education, media literacy) which implies the issue of shaping as well as an understanding of the algorithmic machine and informatic models, rather than the German term of 'Medienkompetenz' which is stressed in the discussion without clear definition. ('Competence' in German fits with the UK term of skills rather than with 'competence'). The term of 'Medienkompetenz' stems originally from media pedagogy (of the 70s focoussing on film/cinema and Tele as well as other mass media."

Interesting indeed. Until we get this reply / comment button working please feel free to email me on attwell@uni-bremen.de and I will make sure your views published here.