TEL Blog - Technology Enhanced Learning

John Cook has been invited to give a talk at a node of the ESRC funded National Centre for Research Methods (see below). The title of the talk is:

“E-Learning in its Element: Building Informal Learning and Research Capacity in Large Communities”

Date: Tuesday 10th Nov at the Work-Based Learning for Education centre, IoE.

ESRC funded National Centre for Research Methods. Its remit is to promote a “step change” in the use of innovative cutting edge research methods in the social sciences. It is funded on a Hub and Node model, with the Hub co-ordinating the activities of the Nodes. The Nodes are not working with university students, their constituency are social science researchers who tend to attend a short workshop, seminar or conference to learn about a particular new method, see below http://www.ncrm.ac.uk/about/organisation/Nodes/)

Report on teens and cell phone ownership in the US http://tinyurl.com/lufd5v

“Virtual worlds are about to plunge into a “trough of disillusionment”, lecture podcasts are fast becoming obsolete, but cloud computing will soon be on the “slope of enlightenment”. These are the findings of an analysis of the “hype cycle” of technology in education, published by Gartner, an IT advisory firm.”

…

“Cloud email for higher education - free email services offered to institutions by the likes of Google, Microsoft and Yahoo - is also firmly ensconced in the sector. In 2008, the technology was heading towards the peak of inflated expectations, but this year passed through the trough of disillusionment and is now on the slope of enlightenment. Dr Lowendahl said the technology had seen a “tremendous uptake, especially in higher education”. Although cloud email for the sector was launched only in October 2005, the report, published last week, estimates it has a penetration rate of up to 20 per cent. I think it is the quickest uptake I have seen of outsourcing in higher education,” Dr Lowendahl said.”

From Report in Times Higher Education: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=407839&c=1

Press releases etc:

Gartner’s 2009 Hype Cycle of Emerging Technologies http://bit.ly/ooVxT : potentially transformational technologies http://ff.im/6Tgjt

online ed continues to grow faster than brick-&-mortar, 2009’s economic woes accelerate the pattern http://bit.ly/9CYnO

“In its annual report on the state of online education, the Sloan Consortium reported in 2008 that online education continues to grow at a much faster rate than its brick-and-mortar competitors. Anecdotal evidence suggests that 2009’s economic woes will only accelerate the pattern”

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/07/31/CMLM18L4MG.DTL#ixzz0N98M8aPk

Seb Schmoller reports on Hal Abelson on Google’s “App Inventor for Android” http://tinyurl.com/ks4djy

“Mobile applications are triggering a fundamental shift in the way people experience computing and use mobile phones. Ten years ago, people “went to the computer” to perform tasks and access the Internet, and they used a cell phone only to make calls. Today, smartphones let us carry computing with us, have become central to servicing our communication and information needs, and have made the web part of all that we do. Ten years ago, people’s use of computing was largely dissociated from real life. With the ubiquity of social networking, online and offline life are becoming fused.”

Pew Report on Wireless Internet Use: http://tinyurl.com/ndorge

The report summary highlights the following:

• 56% of all Americans have accessed the internet by wireless means.
• Use of the internet on mobile devices has grown sharply from the end of 2007 to the beginning of 2009.
• African Americans are the most active users of the mobile internet – and their use of it is also growing the fastest. This means the digital divide between African Americans and white Americans diminishes when mobile use is taken into account.
• Broader measures of use of mobile digital resources also show fast growth from the end of 2007 to the beginning of 2009.
• Other access devices – iPods, game consoles, or e-books – for now play a small role in people’s wireless online habits.
• When mobile users are away from home or the office, they like mobile access to stay in touch with others, but also to access information on the go.

John Cook is part of the London Mobile Learning Group (LMLG) accepted workshop at the Alpine Rendez-Vous, within the framework of the STELLAR Network of Excellence and organised by the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich. The workshop is entitled Technology-enhanced learning in the context of technological, societal and cultural transformations. The LMLG workshop will take place from November 30 to December 1 in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Bavaria. There has
been a tough competition for places, during which the Reviewer Board had to reject 50% of the proposals. In addition to helping organise the workshop, John has a position paper to present: Individualized participation in public forms of communication and learning: reshaping contexts in a changing world of cultural products, by John Cook (LTRI) and Elisabetta Adami (University of Verona, Italy).

Links:
LMLG workshop description: http://www.londonmobilelearning.net/?page=Alpine-rendez-vous
Alpine Rendez-Vous: http://www.stellarnet.eu/programme/wp3/rendez-vous/
LMLG: http://www.londonmobilelearning.net/
STELLAR Network of Excellence: www.stellarnet.eu

On July 2, 2009 LTRI (London Metropolitan University) hosted the successful MATURE Workshop on User Centred Requirements Processes for E-Learning and Knowledge Management – A European-Wide Perspective.  John Cook has provided a summary of  the day:
http://mature-ip.eu/en/node/315

The slides from the day can be found by follwing the link at the bottom of the page: “Slides are available under http://mature-ip.eu/en/event/user-centered-requirements-engineering“
All participants seemed to agree that this had been a highly productive day and the organisers (John Cook and Andreas Schmidt) are planning to hold follow up activities in order to keep the momentum and intellectual clarity generated on the day going.

Funded by the JISC Learning and Teaching Committee through the Innovation group’s e-Learning Programme, JISC infoNet, the Association for Learning Technology (ALT) and the Higher Education Academy were presented with the challenge of trying to make some kind of sense of the diversity of current e-learning practice across the HE sector and to seek out evidence that technology-enhanced learning is delivering tangible benefits for learners, teachers and institutions.

The result is, we believe, a celebration of the diversity in the sector and shows the effectiveness of a range of approaches. Most importantly it shows that it is possible to address the thorny question of defining tangible benefits. The set of 37 detailed online case studies available here are supported by an accompanying publication and a briefing paper. We hope these will serve to inform, to inspire, to stimulate debate and to encourage others to participate in this form of knowledge exchange.

Taken from http://www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk/case-studies/tangible, see this page for more & reports

The edgeless university? JISC report on the need for HE to use Web 2.0 in teaching ;for a blog about this http://bit.ly/4xBZuf

www.jisc.ac.uk/edge09 for the report:

“British Universities have world-class reputations and they are vital to our social and economic future. But they are in a tight spot. The huge public investment that sustained much of the sector is in jeopardy and the current way of working is not sustainable. Some are predicting the end of the university as we have known it. The Edgeless University argues that this can be a moment of rebirth for universities. Technology is changing universities as they become just one source among many for ideas, knowledge and innovation. But online tools and open access also offer the means for their survival. Their expertise and value is needed more than ever to validate and support learning and research. Through their institutional capital, universities can use technology to offer more flexible provision and open more equal routes to higher education and learning. We need the learning and research that higher education provides. But this will take strategic leadership from within, new connections with a growing world of informal learning and a commitment to openness and collaboration. By exploiting this role, universities can harness technology as a solution and an indispensable tool for shaping their vital role in the future.”

via RT @timbuckteeth