Event Report: Thoughts from the Blackboard Teaching and Learning Conference

Image from horrigans under a CC BY-NC 2.0 license

Jo and I attended the Blackboard Teaching and Learning Conference in Antwerp last week (and got home very late thanks to a lightning strike on St Pancras that delayed the Eurostar). If you aren't familiar with it, this is Blackboard's main conference in Europe, and it’s a good chance to see what other institutions are doing, get the chance to see and hear about some of the upcoming features from Blackboards products, and it’s also an excellent chance to talk to lots of people who are actually using these systems.

I thought I'd quickly run through the main points of the conference for me:

It was a great conference. I got the chance to speak to a lot of people, and Blackboard were making a lot of time for us. I even got to speak to Ray Henderson (President of Blackboard Academic Platforms), which is something I hadn't expected (I also took the chance to tell him the best way to enjoy his bottle of Henderson's Relish that he was given a couple of years ago). They are getting a lot better at listening to us all and delivering what we need, which is great. Their hospitality is second to none as well.

Blackboard gave us a good view of the upcoming features, and some have got me rather excited (yes, I know, VLE geek). They will be delivering our missing regular expressions and answer contains later in the year, and I have to give them a big thumbs up for this because they have spoken to use several times in the last 12 months and knew how important this was for us. Most exiting though is the new social media element to Learn 9.1, called 'My Blackboard'. This looks brilliant, and I can't wait to get my hands on it next year.

The theme of many of the presentations was focused around Blackboard Mobile. We got a chance to see the new version in action, complete with online tests and augmented reality! Having been a little underwhelmed with the current version of mobile, I think this is now starting to look very interesting. Julie Usher from The University of Northampton was presenting what I thought was some brilliant use of the mobile platform and it has certainly got me thinking about what we could do.

Away from Mobile, it was nice to see Adrian Clarke and Jeff Lewis from Cardiff Metropolitan University presenting the use of high quality video in their L&T. I'm certainly biased (I used to be involved in the production of broadcast standard video as an Avid video editor) but I understand that despite the ease that we can produce video today, there are circumstances where a handheld Flip camera just is not a suitable device to work with. The work they presented clearly demonstrated this need, and showed the techniques they had to perfect their material - it was a good to see these still having a place. I was also very stuck by the entertaining and engaging way Jeff Lewis talked about what they were doing -  it reminded me of Chris Stokes here at Sheffield. It must be something about being a dental lecturer :)

Of course, the other great thing about conferences is to meet with people from other institutions, and it was great to catch up with people again, get to know some new faces and hopefully get the chance to share and develop ideas with them in the future.

So lots to think about, and lots to look forward to.

Sadly, I didn't get chance to see Antwerp - just not enough time.

Oh, one last thing - It seems I was the most active person on the Twitter back channel for the conference. I clearly talk too much ;)

Roll on next year :)

Danny

Weekly Learning Technology Digest... 9

Image from qthomasbower, under a
CC BY-SA 2.0 license

I have to say that this week seems to have shot by and I feel like I've scarcely noticed anything for inclusion in the weekly digest... but... there have been a few bits and pieces, so without any more dithering... here they come...

• First off the mark, an article from 'Edudemic' on '100 ways to use Twitter in Education by degree of difficulty' - and although Twitter's been around for a few years now, it's a nice little list of things people might like to try if they're thinking about using it in their teaching
• TED have launched a new site which allows people to find YouTube videos to use in the 'flipped classroom' (where students do the lecture bit, i.e. watch a video or something along those line outside the classroom, and do active group work / problem solving / project work in the classroom).   As this article from Mashable says, they're not creating courses, but they're helping you create what act as video worksheets - and that's an interesting concept.  The site itself is called 'TED Ed' and for more info - this is a good video introduction to it all:

• Another issue which seems to have been bubbling quite ferociously this last week is that of the prices charged by publishers for academic journals.  The Guardian reported on the fact that 'Harvard University says it can't afford journal publishers' prices' and since it's an Ivy League university at the centre of this one, you can bet that it's an issue which is being felt strongly throughout the sector.  One to keep a very close eye on, especially linked to opening up research data and open publishing too.
• Talking of costs, this infographic from LeanForward caught my eye - it's a comparison they've done of the cost of producing one hour of instructor-led training vs one hour of online training.  Now, I know this is referring to training materials and some of the assumptions which underpin the data aren't necessarily the ones which would apply in a higher education context, but the time taken to produce e-learning materials and the cost is far far higher than I think most people would realise!
• I saw edshelf mentioned in another article from Edudemic this past week and I really liked the idea of bringing together apps which could be used for educational purposes and rating them on several criteria such as pedagogic value, the learning curve and student engagement - users of the site can rate the apps too, so theoretically it should be grounded in 'real' opinion which will be of value to educators.  A nice simple way of discovering new things to try in your teaching.
• Finally, Google Drive launched and though there was the inevitable comparison with other services such as Microsoft's SkyDrive, Dropbox, Box etc, it's yet another confirmation that cloud storage has moved out of the realms of the techie and into the mainstream (despite some concerns about privacy issues).  It's not entirely obvious how the Google Drive you install on your computer will work if you have more than one Google account (personal and institutional Google Apps accounts for example), but no doubt that will become clear in the next few weeks!

It seems that this past week has mainly been about tech - from storage to use of Twitter and YouTube in education - with a small detour through academic publishing and the cost of producing e-learning.  Who knows what's headed our way next week?!

Sarah

The legacy of the ZX Spectrum

Image from Quagmires's Photos, under a CC
Attribution-No Derivative Works license

This week saw the 30th anniversary of the release of the ZX Spectrum. This made me realise that I’ve lived virtually all my life with a computer in the house - my dad bought one when I was a small child, and so I don’t remember a time without one. Obviously, though, they were very different to today - kids today don’t know they’re born having computers that don’t take fifteen minutes to load a programme (and that’s only if the horror of the “R: Tape loading error” message doesn’t turn up), and are spoilt with their screen resolutions beyond 256x192, and colour palette beyond 15 shades...

It's been amazing in my lifetime to see computers evolve, from the rubber-keyed wonder of the Spectrum, to the shiny laptop I'm typing this on.

So, in a blatant and shameless way to shoehorn writing about retrocomputers into the L&T blog, here’s five things about the early days of home computing that still resonate today.

Price

Computing was always a pricy business, but the ZX Spectrum brought that down to an affordable level. It was still a major purchase, however. On launch, a 48K Spectrum cost £175 in 1982, which translates in today's money to about £528. Don't forget on top of this the country was in the midst of a bitter recession, and households didn't necessarily have the best spending power at the time - it shows how exciting the prospect of home computing seemed that so many people would part with hard cash in difficult times.

In comparison, a BBC Model B for home purchase was £335 in 1981 - a staggering £1132 in today's money*. If today's computers ever seem pricy, have a thought for what those early adopters were getting for their cash...


*Inflation workings out done using this site, if anyone's wondering...


Gadgets

Gadget-freakery among computer users is not a recent thing, with the Spectrum having a range of add-on hardware available. Some were useful - joystick interfaces, microdrives and even a LAN interface - but others were a bit more frivolous, such as SpecDrum drum machine and, perhaps most bizarrely, the Currah Speech Unit, a speech synthesis machine that basically turned your humble spectrum into the world's most rubbish-sounding robot. For reasons I still, 30 years later, cannot fathom my dad bought one of these, and my enduring memory of it is the speech-filled RPG-style game it came with, the most memorable line of dialogue being "The aardvark licks at you and misses".



Piracy

During the 80s, home taping was busy destroying music, and of course programmes on cassette tape were just as simple to copy, leading to major problems for the games companies. I remember my household being guilty of this, and having a C90 stuffed with games from some friend or another, although finding the gap between the games to actually load them was an absolute nightmare...

Inventive methods were needed to counter this, and the hugely popular Jet Set Willy was one of the first computer programmes to use anti-piracy methods, packaged with a complicated colour code chart that had to be inputted before the game would start. As colour photocopying was beyond the capabilities of mere mortals, it made an effective anti-piracy method, but, reflecting the lax attitudes to piracy at the time, high street magazine Your Computer actually published a method of circumventing the colour code.

Game-based learning

Game-based learning is something being talked about increasingly these days, but the early days of home computing was already there. While the Spectrum was the king of the home market, however, Acorn's BBC Micro was the machine found most widely in British schools, created as part of the BBC's Computer Literacy Project.

Adventure games such as Granny's Garden tricked children into learning by play, not only teaching them problem-solving using logic puzzles, but computer literacy skills too as they did so. In America, The Oregon Trail was incredibly popular, on a range of machines including the Apple II. It was a game that also added a history lesson into the mix, and perhaps remains to this day the only computer game where in which you can die of cholera.

Programming

At a time now when the Observer newspaper is campaigning for coding skills to be taught in schools, lessons could be learnt from the 80s, when developing the skills to create your own games was as exciting to many as playing them yourself. Computing magazines came with type-in games and programming tips, and anyone with the skills could produce a game good enough to release. It led to a cottage industry of gaming, with an anarchic streak and distinctly British sense of humour, stuffed with Monty Python and Hitch-hiker's Guide references.

Eccentric geniuses sprung up, perhaps typified by Matthew Smith, author of the game Manic Miner, and later the aforementioned Jet Set Willy. At the tender age of 16, and in just six weeks, he wrote a truly groundbreaking programme (flicker-free graphics! Constant background music!), and even became a minor celebrity (at least in computing circles) to boot.



So that early home computing explosion had far-reaching legacies that we still feel today, and some of the same issues are still with us. But most of all they represent a charming time when computers were new, and exciting, and not just taken for granted. The simple pleasures of making a miner successfully leap over a poisonous bush, or getting one over on the terrifying witch in Granny's Garden, fired the imaginations of children, and inspired young people to create their own programmes themselves, fuelling the computer revolution that has led to where we are now.


Pete

Online Conferences - Give them a go!

Logo used with kind permission of FTS2012.

Earlier on in this month I signed up and attended Follow the Sun 2012 - an online conference billed as “a global e-learning festival”. Despite being a learning technologist I had not attended any conferences other than the traditional face-to-face type - and thought it was about time I gave them a go.

Follow the Sun 2012 seemed a truly international conference - not only because the delegates were located worldwide but because it was hosted globally too in Australia, UK and the USA.. This revealed one of the most appealing aspects of an online conference: effective use of time.

Making the most of the conference
Time: The conference had a wide range of areas, topics and presenters - but it was easy to choose sessions which sparked interest, without having to commit to attending a full day - which is often the case with face-to-face attendance. This also enabled juggling of a heavy workload with conference attendance.

Networking: This is often a prime reason for conference attendance - but in the past decade collaboration tools over the internet such as e-mail, Facebook, Blackboard Collaborate, LinkedIn and Google+ have opened up additional ways to network. Taking part in a conference is still a relevant place for this, and it was certainly possible to do this.

Ease of use
Most online conferences will use a suite of tools in order create a conference community. They will generally involve screencasting presentations and audio or text chat. Follow the Sun used Blackboard’s Collaborate suite.

Even if you’ve never used these tools before they have a small learning curve - and any good conference will provide you with lots of help, and guidance. All you need is an internet connection and a computer! If you computer has a webcam and microphone you could join in using audio and video should you wish.

Differences
Depending on what your motivations for conference attendance are there are a couple of downsides - you don’t get a nice trip out of the office or a visit to a nice sunny location!

The online world is creeping into offline conferences - think about the last one you attended - did they have a twitter feed for sharing ideas?

Give it a go!
I certainly found my first experience of an online conference to be beneficial as attendance at an ‘offline’ conference - in terms of interesting debates, variety of topics covered and ability to share ideas and network.

Next time an online conference comes to your attention don’t be afraid - give it a go!

James Little.

Turnitin - Managing false positives

For this post I thought I would share with you some information about managing false positive Originality Report results in Turnitin.

What’s a false positive then?

A false positive arises when a student has accidentally submitted the same piece of work into Turnitin twice. The reasons for this are usually:

• The student has submitted the work firstly to the wrong Turnitin assignment and then has to upload it again to the correct assignment

• *The student submitted a draft instead of their final piece and therefore has to contact the instructor to have it deleted so that they can resubmit the correct work. 

*This one depends on whether the instructor has allowed submissions up to the due date, or that first submission is final.

  

In both instances the resulting Originality Report score for that student’s piece of work will probably be 100%. The Originality Report also provides the source of the identical match and this can show the instructor that a false positive has occurred.

 

Interrogation of the Originality Report is very important in working out when a false positive has occurred. It is entirely possible that there is more than one match in the report, or that work has in fact been copied wholesale from another source. If there is more than one match and it therefore appears the piece of work isn't a false positive, then the filter or exclusion tools in the Originality Report are useful in pinpointing matching sources... but that’s for another post.

As I mentioned earlier instructors do have the facility to delete submissions. This facility is useful if the student needs to resubmit urgently, perhaps due to an impending due date. However deleting the paper from here does not delete it from the Paper Repository and a false positive will still be shown. The process for getting any  duplicate paper removed from the Paper Repository requires contacting me as Turnitin administrator for the University of Sheffield: j.goldingay@sheffield.ac.uk

In the email to me I will need two pieces of information:

1) The course title: (e.g MLTxxx)

2.) The paper ID: 

The paper ID can be found in the assignment inbox.

Once I have received this information I can request deletion from the Turnitin Paper Repository and the false positive match will be gone from the Originality Report.

There's plenty more stuff to come on Turnitin and its functionality so stay tuned!

James

Top 10 Tips: Getting Started with Google+

Google+ is a funny thing.  Just the other day, Google were saying that the service had over 170 million users with 100 million of those active in the previous month.  And yet, if you've thought you'd have a go yourself, it can feel eerily quiet.  Well, I've had that experience too and at first found it extremely off-putting.  Add into the mix a confusion between my personal Google account and the university Google Apps account I've got, well... let's just say it took me a while to get my head around it!

However, because I think that as learning technologists it's our job to see the potential in things and to explore them fairly and fully - I persisted.  And I have to say that I'm glad I have.  So, I thought it would be helpful for me to share Ten Top Tips for using Google+ which have helped me to find a role for it in the portfolio of online tools I currently work with.

1.  Sharing curated content

Link shared with comment on Google+

One of the advantages (or disadvantages, depending on your perspective) of Google+ is that you can't auto-publish content to it.  This means that rather than feeling spammed you know that every item involved someone thinking about the way it was shared - and that's a good thing.  Because there's theoretically no limit to the number of characters (although I believe it's around 100,000) people can use to comment on a link, it means that you can get the context of whatever's been shared and it can help open up items for further discussion and sharing.  Overall, it boosts the quality of what's there and means that dipping into Google+ is more likely to pull up something useful.

2.  Sharing with a very specific audience

Photos of our new offices, shared only with the team

While it's easy to send out an email to multiple recipients, it's very easy to share with specific groups in Google+.  You just create a circle with those people in it, and then whenever you want to share something with them, you chose that circle as the audience.  It means it goes only to them and for things like shared images / video, you don't open them up to the world or weigh down someone's inbox.  For example, when I took some photos of our new offices, I knew only my team would be interested - so I uploaded the photos, shared it with my 'Learning Technologies Team' circle.  And that was that!  If you're still not sure, then the post I wrote a week or so ago on 'Google+ Circles in Plain English' might be helpful!

3.  Carrying out asynchronous interviews online

Interview via Google+ with David Read, April 2012

There are lots of ways of interviewing someone.  In person.  On the phone.  Via Skype.  Via email.  But what about Google+ too?  I've recently done an interview with David Read - one of our teachers from the English Language Teaching Centre at the university - on his experience of being at the Google Teachers Academy UK.  And since he was away from the university and I was working from home, but neither of us around at the same time, that left us with my emailing a list of questions to him.  Or... using Google+.  So, I posted a message on Google+ with just David as the audience (you can share with individuals as well as with circles / making things public)... and away we went.  Easy.  Like chat but asynchronous.  If you find that you want to chat 'face-to-face', then just start a hangout from the post... and it's a single click away.

Starting a hangout from the original interview post

If you were wanting pairs of students to work together, then getting them to use Google+ is an easy way of having them chat to one another - and keep their work private too.

4.  Setting up a Google+ page for an interest group

The Learning Technologies at the University of
Sheffield Google+ page, April 2012

Whether this is for a class project or for a team - setting up a Google+ page is like creating yourself a mini web presence in just a couple of clicks.  You can have Hangouts with 9 other people, you can share links and ideas, photos, videos - but unlike an ordinary web space, you get the ability to control what content goes to which audience with the use of circles.  You can have multiple people manage the page too, so as with our own Learning Technologies at the University of Sheffield Google+ page which we've recently set up, it's not only proving to be a great way to have additional places for people to chat about learning technologies - but having multiple managers means the responsibility for looking after the page doesn't fall entirely on one person's shoulders.

5.  Sharing content... and seeing where it went

Ripples for a public share on Google+

Ever wondered what happened to something you shared with others?  On Google+ if you share something and it gets re-shared by someone else - that's what's called a 'Ripple'.

Well, those ripples can go pretty far and wide - and it's fascinating to see how something went viral.  And even for things that got shared with only a few people, it's still great to see where things went.

6.  Creating a form in Google docs... then sharing it with a Google+ circle

Sharing a form with a Google+ circle from within Google docs

The integration of Google+ with other Google services is one of its strengths and if you've created a form in Google docs recently, you may have noticed a little Google+ share button at the top when you've been editing.  It not only means that you have another way to share / promote things like surveys, but that you can quite finely control the audience by using circles to control who it goes to.  For example, a staff survey going only to particular members of a team or a sign up sheet going to certain students.

7.  Taming the information flow

Drag the slider to allow more or less content from a particular circle
to appear in your Google+ stream

One of the problems with social media - Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr etc is that sometimes it can feel like the information flow is less of a flow and more of a torrent.  Well, not only is the curation on Google+ one built-in way of controlling that flow, but once you've sorted out your circles, you can then adjust how much content from people in that circle appears in your stream.  From everything to nothing.  That really helps to put some of the control back in your hands.

8.  Sharing connections with others

Sharing a circle with other people

Why would you want to do this?  Well, if you want to recommend other people to follow, then sharing your carefully curated circles (and that's the trick - make sure you think about how you're grouping people) can really help people make connections and find relevant and interesting people.  If you've got a circle for your team, group or class - then sharing it with a colleague is just a click away.  If you're setting up groups for an activity, create them as circles, then share the circles.  Simple!

9.  Real-time collaboration using hangouts

Creating a hangout based on a shared item in your Google+ stream

Hangouts are fantastic for collaborating.  Where 'hanging out' is the very Google+ specific hanging out.  So far I've used them to remotely participate in a meeting and to collaboratively author a document with a colleague (Google docs is well integrated into Hangouts).  The possibilities for small group work are vast and whether you want to create hangouts on the fly or off the back of particular discussion topics / at prearranged times, the fact that they're so well built into Google+ makes them very straightforward to use.

10.  Using unique hash-tags to aggregate content and discover related items

Searching for the #cicsltt hashtag on Google+

I'm a big fan of hash-tags for tagging and aggregating content - whether that's on Twitter or on services such as Diigo or Delicious, tagging is a powerful thing.  And on Google+ it's fantastic for tracking your content, not least because when someone re-shares something you've created (and tagged), they can't edit that content and the tag travels with it - which again, means that you can find what's happening to your resources.  You do that by searching for the hash-tagged items - and then save those searches for future reference.  If you're working on a project and want to bring together items from multiple sources, getting people to use a unique hash-tag is the way to go.  We use the hash-tag #cicsltt (CiCS Learning Technologies Team) for our Google+ posts - but I also tag things with #elearning or #edtech in case other people are searching for those terms - it means our content is more likely to be discovered.

So, there you go.  Ten ways of using Google+ in education.  How are you using it?  Have you got to grips with it yet?

Sarah

Developing Online Training Sessions via Collaborate

Getting logged in to a Blackboard
Collaborate session

Collaborate ~ Interactive ~ Inclusive

Here in the Learning Technologies Team at the university, we are currently piloting the use of Blackboard Collaborate for some of our staff development training courses in the basics of using MOLE 2 (our new VLE).

A little background:  Collaborate is a collaborative tool which allows you to run virtual classroom / training sessions, online seminars with guest speakers (webinars) or conduct interviews or tutorials with staff/students.

Collaborate was recently acquired by Blackboard and is an infusion of the previous leaders in the field:  Wimba and Elluminate.

So, as far as training is concerned, here at The University of Sheffield, we have been running staff training on how to use MOLE 2 (our new VLE) over the last 12 months.  We are now looking at providing some of that training online via Collaborate.

We have taken the session 'A Basic Introduction to MOLE 2' and have attempted to develop this as a viable, useful online session.

The session is instructor-led (via voice) and utilizes slides (as in PowerPoint), a whiteboard area, as well as allowing the instructor to show his/her own desktop, and set polling questions to check on comprehension during the session.  Attendees are encouraged to ask questions via the chat tool, and the whole session can be recorded.

Converting a f2f course to an online synchronous session:

As far as converting an existing face-to-face session into an online session goes, this wasn't particularly difficult for this particular course, as the blend of slide shows and application/desktop sharing made it quite easy to convert.  Certain aspects were initially removed - such as the hands-on activity section (used in the f2f session):  it was determined that the session should be smooth and easy to follow, and that, as users were being introduced to a new system (the VLE), it would suffice to simply 'show and tell', and then check understanding with simple quizzes throughout, rather than asking staff to jump in and out of the 'virtual classroom' to attempt logging in to the VLE, etc.  I would not rule out including activities in the future, but for this particular session, it was deemed it could become too confusing for attendees new to Collaborate and its tools.

So far, we are really only in the early stages of this pilot, but it seems it could be a very useful tool - particularly for staff development training.

Benefits

Running sessions online can be beneficial for both staff attending and for departments delivering sessions:  Staff do not have to be on campus to attend sessions, as a link is sent to them inviting them to join the virtual classroom.  This can be particularly beneficial to staff working overseas, staff with tight teaching schedules, staff are unable to physically get to the university, etc.

It also means that instructors do not need to book a dedicated teaching room, therefore saving on utility costs, etc.  However, we have noted so far that it is extremely beneficial to run sessions with a 'facilitator' who can be there to help anyone struggling to access sessions, and can answer questions fired via text in the chat area, whilst the instructor can continue on with the session.

"The benefits of integrating live collaboration technology with your learning management system are significant: efficiency for instructors, superior outcomes for learners, easier to manage systems for administrators, and rapid ROI for institutions." 

Wainhouse Research have a white paper out: "Integration: The 'Behind the Scenes' Key Enabler of Blended Learning", which is available to download from Collaborate's site: Wainhouse-Whitepaper

We ran a couple of trial sessions earlier in the year, and the feedback from staff was quite encouraging:  staff particularly expressed how comfortable they felt asking questions via text (staff were not expected to use a microphone or webcam to speak), and also positively rated our use of a second instructor to facilitate the chat area.  

I can also see more possibilities of running online seminars/webinars an maybe even some 'drop-in' sessions in the future, etc.  As far as online learning and teaching goes: conducting virtual classrooms or chat sessions on a regular basis is certainly beneficial to online students in creating that feeling of 'community'.

So... as we are in the early stages, we will endeavour to keep you updated with any progress, or changes made.  

For anyone who would like to attend a session, details can be found on our MOLE 2 web pages: MOLE 2 Training

You can also visit the Staff Development page in this blog for the latest training sessions at The University of Sheffield: http://learningtechnologiesteam.blogspot.co.uk/p/staff-development.html 

Leiza

Weekly Learning Technology Digest... 8

Image by Dave Heuts, available under a
CC BY-SA 2.0 license 

Friday is Learning Technology Digest day -  and here I am again, pulling together lots of bits of learning technology-related loveliness which I've spotted from across the web this past week.  It's been a really busy week, so I've probably missed something!  If you spotted something which I should have included, do let me know in the comments below.  Otherwise... here's my version of the things that caught my eye...

• 'Battle for the Internet' - this has been an absolutely fantastic series in The Guardian.  If you've missed it - go take a look.  It covers everything from online identity and creativity to privacy and internet freedom.  If you want to know where we are with the open internet and what could be stopping us from us getting where we might be going... this is a brilliant series.  If you're interested in internet culture / history / learning technology, these are a set of articles you'll want to refer back to.
• As ever The Guardian's Higher Education Network turned up a handy learning tech-related article, 'Digital technologies and the tension between research and teaching' - it's essentially the summary of a live chat about what good teaching looks like in HE, but everything from the role of teachers to issues over contact hours and the value of teaching in a research-intensive environment is covered making this an excellent overview.
• 'Get back in the saddle' - a terrific article in the Times Higher Education from a few weeks ago but which I'd missed until now.  It talks about the importance of being allowed to fail and along the way has a huge amount to say about the learning process as well.  Success, it turns out, isn't all it's cracked up to be.
• Employability is a bit of a buzz word in Higher Education at the moment.  And an article which appeared in The Guardian said, 'Universities failing on 'employability' students say' - but one of the most interesting things that emerges from this article is that there is a gap between what universities believe they're doing and what students feel they're experiencing.  I think for employability to move from buzz word to part of meaningful conversation, we need to give some careful consideration to our understanding of what that actually means!  A good starting place is 'Pedagogy for Employability' from the Higher Education Academy and takes a far more practical approach than just hoping we can use the word and get away with it!
• I rather liked this simple '20 Reasons to switch to Google Plus' infographic.  Though it's not education-specific and you can safely ignore a few of the 'reasons', it provides an easily digestible overview of what the plus points are of this relative newcomer.  Read in tandem with 'Higher Education is missing the boat with Google+' (though to be fair, the latter article is more about Google+ as marketing tool rather than as learning environment)
• If you've ever edited photos online using Picnik (which was built in to Flickr - they've now switched to using Aviary as their photo editor), then you might have spotted that it got swallowed by Google and was set for closure on the 19th of April.  That date has now passed, so... what to do instead?  This handy article from Mashable has '7 Free Alternatives for Quick Photo Edits', so if you're wanting to edit images for educational resources but can't afford to splash out on Photoshop etc, then these are a nice place to start.

So, there you have it.  A small slice of tech.  A few current educational issues to think about.  And a little bit of employability and learning on the side.  Delicious!

Sarah

Interview with David Read about the Google Teacher Academy

David Read, teacher and technology coordinator at the English Language Teaching Centre, recently attended the Google Teacher Academy in London. We decided to interview him about his experiences attending the conference.


You've just come back from the Google Teacher Academy UK - so, my first question is about the event itself. I wondered if you could give us a little bit of background on it?

I think it started four or five years ago in the US. Google decided to bring together 50+ technology-minded primary and secondary educators for a day and a half of workshops and sharing of ideas. They have several of these events in a year in different parts of the country. In 2010 (I think!) a teacher called Tom Barrett lobbied to have a UK-based conference and so in that year the first UK one took place. This year is the second one that's taken place in the UK. 

The welcome sign for this year's Google Teacher Academy

The application is a competitive one, you need to fill out an application and then submit a one-minute video to You Tube on a subject Google specifies. Mine was on Innovation in the Classroom and you can see it here (I'm not a great video editor so it took me a long time!). I'm not quite sure how many people applied, I heard the number 600 but I'm not sure if that's accurate!

I was genuinely surprised to be chosen, firstly because I didn't think my video was that exciting - and I was blown away by some of the other entries - and secondly because in the application it states that they are looking for primary/secondary school educators rather than higher education. However, I put in the application and was selected. It turned out that I was the only person from higher education at the event, though I suspect I was the only one from HE who actually applied! 

In front of the famous logo at the Google offices in London

The participants didn't only come from the UK - about 50% did. Another 30% were from America and the rest were from a variety of other countries such as Mexico, Argentina and the Ukraine.

That's a great video - I can see why you were selected for the Google Teacher Academy! With so many ways that you're using Google Apps in your teaching already, what did you hope to gain from the event?

Well, I only use a few Google Apps extensively in the classroom, mainly Docs, Sites and Plus, but I was hoping to learn more about other apps such as Maps, Calendar and You Tube. Also, I was hoping to hear from the other participants about innovative ways they are using them in their classroom. Primary teachers especially have to be very creative to keep the attention of their students and I though t there might be some ideas I could adapt for my classes at the English Language Teaching Centre.

In session at the Google Teacher Academy (yes, it's very Mac heavy)

It must have been excellent to be around all those creative teachers - did you get what you hoped from them? What ideas will you be taking back to the classroom?

There was a whole host of great little tips and tricks for using Google Apps in the classroom: Tom Barrett did a session on using Google Maps to enable students to tell their own stories that was excellent. One aspect of Google Docs that I hadn't explored was the use of Forms and Spreadsheets for things like assigning quizzes and tests to students. Also, I had never heard of Scripts before: these are javascript programmes that can run in the background of a Google Spreadsheet to do things like automatically mark tests. A trainer called Jim Sill also opened my eyes up to using Google Calendar a lot more with both teachers and students. I'm going to start using it to organise appointment slots for student tutorials and for individual teacher training slots. 

Hangout out with Google+ Product Manager, Ronald Ho

On a more global level, a recurring theme of the conference was the idea of the 'flipped' classroom. A teacher there, James Sanders, described this best when he said that teachers should be 'curators of learning experiences rather than providers of direct instruction'. He uses tools like his class blog and You Tube to provide the traditional direct input and then his classroom is really an opportunity for students to be engaged in group and project work based on what they read/saw.

I know that this is an idea that is beginning to work its way into Higher Education and in fact I think it's even more relevant when dealing with the kind of motivated and sophisticated learners we have at the university.

I'm going to slowly integrate this idea over the next few terms to see what effect it has on the students. Some of the students at the ELTC come from quite traditional educational backgrounds, so it's something that will have to be done with sensitivity if it's going to be accepted.

It was just great being around all these teachers who are enthusiastic about the use of technology and to hear how they use it in their classrooms.

The flipped classroom is certainly a buzzword in education at the moment. Hearing first hand about people's experience of using that approach in their teaching must have been inspiring. Have you got plans for taking forward innovative practices like that and spreading them further across the university?

Definitely. Initially I need to try it out in my own classroom - I want to explore how it actually works with students before talking to other teachers about it. Then I hope I can use a variety of channels such as this blog, Uspace and also face to face sessions to let people know about it.

Yes, I think 'think big, start small' is a good way to start out with these things and we'll be more than happy to have updates on the blog too.

Thinking about channels of communication, I wondered whether your network of support has broadened as a result of attending the Google Teacher Academy, David? Is there any ongoing connection that you retain with it after the actual event? Or are people loosely forming into networks of Google educators?

Once you've finished the academy, you are then automatically registered on the Google Certified Teacher google group. This is an amazing resource of posts and questions from teachers who've attended these events, I've only had a quick look through it but it seems very active with lots of interesting discussions. And of course there's the more informal Twitter, Facebook and Google+ connections with the people I met there.

What a fantastic group of people to be able to tap into. Your on-tap source of inspiration!

I realise that this will sound very obvious, but it's thinking back to the fact that this was the Google Teacher Academy. I guess a lot of people might wonder about whether an academy which is put on by a technology company is more about the tech than the teaching? From what you're saying it sounds like you're talking about working with inspired and inspiring teachers, but I wonder what your impression was of the balance between technology and pedagogy?

No, it's a good question. I think the assumption that everyone has who's attending the Academy is that technology has a positive influence on learning so everything starts from there. But the focus is very much on technology as a tool to make learning more engaging and memorable rather than using it for its own sake. The presentation and sessions are all delivered by teachers and educators rather than tech specialists, so it's clearly focussed on how it can be used with students.


That's reassuring to hear. I suppose that the competitive selection of really great teachers to take part helps to ensure that the focus stays on the learning experience above all? It certainly sounds like you got a lot of out it!

So... one final question, if there's a great teacher at the University of Sheffield who's thinking 'this sounds like something I'd like to be involved with', would you recommend going for it and what advice would you give them so that they could make the most of the experience?

I'd certainly recommend it not only for the chance to connect with so many other teachers from around the world, but also because, well, you get to go to the Google offices in London. It's fascinating to see how they work and eat there...the food was amazing by the way!

Google-coloured muffins

The most important for actually getting there is to give yourself plenty of time to complete the application form and video. Don't skimp on either of those as I think they take them very seriously when processing the applications.

Thanks, David! We'll definitely look forward to seeing more of the outcomes of your Google experience. It sounds like a a terrific event and it's fantastic that you got one of those hard won places!


David Read interviewed by Sarah Horrigan, April 13th 2012

Event report: Using Social Media for Training, UCISA

Inside MediaCityUK
Image from Martin Hamilton,
used with permission

Yesterday, I attended the 'Social Media for Training' event from UCISA which, unsurprisingly looked at the use of social media in training!  However, attending these events is never about the obvious stuff.  It's always the little bits, the ideas that meeting and talking with other people can spark which is where the real value is.  On some level, it's good to see that what we're doing with social media at the university is not behind the curve - but I get the impression from many attendees that they feel they're trying to catch up.  However, I think we're at a stage where we're never going to 'catch up'.  There is no catching up.  There's no point where things will stop changing.  No moment to catch your breath.  There is only being flexible and responsive to ever present change.  If you can pull that trick off, then you're onto a winner.

That said, here are a few of the highlights of things that made me stop and think, tools I saw demonstrated which I liked and any other bits along the way...

Stop and think points

• Enthusiasm to attended face-to-face training events outweighs the likelihood of attendance so we need other modes of delivery to fit people's circumstances - this was a point that was made by Sue Beckingham (Sheffield Hallam University) in the opening plenary.  It is clear that the traditional boundaries of training sessions need expanding and social media can help do that
• 'Everything that needs to be said has already been said.  But since no-one was listening, everything must be said again' - Sue also used this quote from André Gide to illustrate a point she was making about the information overload people suffer from.  The point is not that people should just deal with it, simply that the volume of sharing and 'stuff' out there is such that if you missed it the first time, it'll be around again soon later.  You don't have to remain plugged in; dipping in and out of the information flow is okay.
• From the 'Legal Aspects of Social Media' session presented by Matt Stephenson (University of Salford) there was plenty of food for thought.  I hadn't realised, for example, that tagging someone on a photo on Facebook - when it wasn't actually them, you just wanted to draw the photo to their attention was illegal and constituted computer misuse.  There were also lots of things to think about in terms of defamation and libel, as well as risks to reputation etc.  It was rather daunting in many respects, but the main laws to bear in mind were summarised as copyright, privacy, data protection, defamation and libel as well as court decisions.  And though there are plenty of grey areas and a very blurry boundary between work and home life these days, knowing which areas of law to be particularly aware of was helpful (and I would suspect that most learning technologists would have a rudimentary grasp of these areas too).
• I liked the point that Joe Nicholls (Cardiff University) made in his session on 'Developing Digital Literacy through Training' that essentially people don't see the network when they first look at social media.  It's all just a big jumble of stuff.  And that's true.  And very off-putting!  You have to help people to make connections and find their own way in, but attitude is also important when it comes to being social and using social medial.  He made that point, however, that you can't train people into being social!  That's about culture and embedding - and education.  And it's the difficult stuff.

Tools and links

• Yammer - useful as a closed micro blogging (think Twitter, but behind a wall) tool
• Bottlenose - a 'smart social dashboard' - bit like HootSuite but showing visual connections - at present only by invite or if you have a Klout score of over 30
• Newspaper Clipping Generator - could be a good little tool for students to make up their own newspaper clipped stories
• 'Social Media for Trainers', by Jane Bozarth was recommended
• 'Digidol' - JISC-funded Developing Digital Literacy project at Cardiff University was mentioned. Worth bookmarking
• Dabbleboard - free online collaborative whiteboard - good for diagramming

Tweet snippets (or, the stuff I tweeted from the event but which doesn't fit anywhere else!)

• 'People don't always know how to write for social media, so they need to be introduced to it by an existing user'
• 'Knowledge workers seem to spend an inordinate amount of time doing 'productivity tasks' rather than being productive'
• 'Playing with social media is as important as finding that you can actually use it for something'
• 'Sharing tools are important - you have to make it easy for the content you create and share to escape your grasp'
• 'Filter failure' puts people off engaging in social media'
• 'Mavens connect you to other connections who will be useful to you'

So, main tools which were being discussed - Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, Google+... main approaches?  Try things.  See what works.  See what doesn't.  It doesn't seem that there's any one recipe for success.  But, perhaps the overall lesson is simply that we need to remain flexible in how we slot different tools into our practice.  Keep focused on the needs of the people / projects / places we're working in and for... and build from there.

The final thing I learned from yesterday's event?  That the very glamorous new campus for the University of Salford at MediaCityUK can remain looking glamorous even in the pouring rain!  

Sarah