Mark Childs

Hhmm the schedule of blogging has slipped already.

Last week was still looking at what people are doing - spoke to a couple of learning technologists - lots of interesting work with a range of technologies. I’ve hit the “elearning = online learning” issue already. Uploading lecture notes to CUOnline is the least interesting thing that could be done with elearning, in fact it’s not really elearning at all, just another way to administer courses (a very productive one though). Rattling off a list of videos, videoconferencing, ipods, immersive virtual worlds, and so on does help in those circumstances, so I hope I’m making a few converts along the way. The plan is to find a few elearning “champions” (I find the term ridiculous though, always think of that 70s TV show with Sharron Macready and William Gaunt) find out what they do, and persuade a couple of other people to do it too.

I’ve also found out about SIGMA’s interactive classroom project. Lego robots. Cool or what? If I can help get that set up, and a few others to imitate it, then I’ll be happy.

Also finished off one task hanging over from the previous job - writing a report about serious games for health education. Difficult getting back into it again after about four months since I sent the first draft in, but it meant I came to it fresh I suppose. That should be the last of the Warwick projects, unless there’s a couple of meetings they need so I can help instruct the hand-over wind-up.

A bit of an up-and-down with regard to my PhD this week. Finding out on Monday that there’s a big project starting up here that’s looking at the same areas I’ve been looking at for the PhD - thanks to looking around on cuba blogs actually. I should have guessed that someone would look at the same sort of things at some point, (they are inevitably the next steps in immersive virtual world research) it just feels that my stuff doesn’t look so unique and sparkly any more. I’ve found out since that this is inevitably part of the process of doing a PhD, particularly part-time. If you;re taking five years to do something, other people will get there first. However, even if on the surface the questions may look the same, there will inevitably be differences, so the work is still a unique contribution. So that’s OK. I am relieved though that I got the basics of my research published a few months ago.

I was also worried that a large project trawling the same waters might use up all of the potential user groups that I could work with. Hopefully though a collaboration with the SGI might sort that one out for me.

Nothing specific for this week. I’ve been working on my profile for the department and staff pages - which took a lot of updating - and I’ll be working on the PhD more. I was going to work on a bid for the JISC Innovation call, but have found out that there’s already one set up to go in, and only one bid from each institution is allowed. I’m not sure of the logic of only allowing one from each institution. Surely they should be entirely on merit and the best ten (or whatever) across the country should be funded, even if that means more than one from the same institution. Still s/he who pays the piper and all that …

Also met with the architects for the new build in FEC. The buiding looks amazing and I really didn’t have any suggestions. I think my real input will be when it comes to placing the equipment in the rooms. I think getting the layout of PCs and so on will really make a difference. I also got to try out my new projection keyboard on my PDA. It worked fine, and very simply. Unfortunately with the PDA also being a phone it means I haev to leave it on, which meant that when I got a call that fleas had been discovered at home, it meant that the ringtone (the theme tune to Captain Pugwash) blared out through the meeting :$

Last week was spent talking to a few more people in FEC and CiPEL to get a better idea of what’s what, who’s who and how I fit into it all. I think I have a plan for the first year now and some clear targets, so I feel more like a have an actual job now.

Also writing last week was one of those times when a lot of different elements came together. My PhD so far has been trying to catalogue all the different factors that come into play when people are work in what are called “mediated environments” - basically any situation where there’s a technology between you and the other people in an interaction - they can be text-based, audio only, videoconferencing, immersive virtual worlds or even where you’re interacting via telerobotics. All of those different technologies have attracted different researchers, who have developed their own definitions and classification systems. I’ve been trying to merge them into one enormous whole, or hole.

What was missing was some way to bring these different factors together, then Sue M-G http://thinkingandresearching.blogspot.com/ showed me a paper that adapted Activity Theory to a specific context. After reading that, I got it, and applied it to what I’d got so far on the PhD. Amazingly the categories were very similar. I needed to split up activities from the rules that govern them - and added in division of tasks and my model matched activity theory. However, I’d got two categories left over. I figured it was about time I used the third dimension (two dimensions are so pre-digital). Adding them into the model and working out how they were connected gave me a really weird looking shape, which I then built in my back yard in SL, much to the bewilderment of one of my neighbours.

However, looking at the model in 3d enabled me to simplify it, the points could actually be made into the corners of a cube, so all that playing around and looking up different shapes on various maths sites actually paid off. Yay - score one for lack of focus.

I also managed to finish off my bit of the paper for ReLIVE08 and start on one for ALT-J - although after re-writing it I realised I was past the deadline on it.

This week I will be mainly trying to get my paper for ReLIVE finished and my paper for ALT-J restarted. I also want to try and re-work the thesis to incorporate the ideas that are coming out of incorporating Activity Theory. I’ve also got a couple of meetings with FEC on planning their new website and on planning their new building. Doing the clicks and bricks thing.

Also this week I will be showing off my new piece of kit - a projection keyboard. It projects a laser keyboard for inputting to a PDA - it’s lots faster than the tiny keyboards you get with the phone. And it’s a laser, so if I see you in a meeting apologies for the techie nerdie thing.

Last week produced some interesting points. The action research workshop went well. There were some issues raised about the ethics of action research, or rather the process required to get clearance through ethical committees to get to do action research. AR is an interesting blend of social science and natural science. Experimental but also interpretivist. Good to see it catching on.

I also got to meet two students from Said Business School who are doing some research for Linden Labs on experience of Second Life. Hopefully I sounded intelligent enough when answering their questions. It’ll be interesting to see the results of their survey.

Thursday was the RSC’s virtual worlds forum. It was an excellent event, just the right mix of planned and ad hoc. I don;t need to say anything more about it since Kevin Brace has already blogged about it at http://kev-brace.blogspot.com/2008/07/muvle.html

Also last week I finally took the time to get my head round Activity Theory. It was a lot simpler than I first thought - I’d been put off mainly by all those triangles and arrows. Thanks to my colleague Sue passing a paper my way I got it - and found that it really brings together the stuff that had previously been quite fragmented on my PhD. I’ve come up with a blend of my conceptual framework and activity theory which is on my eportfolio at http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/wie/courses/degrees/docs/who/students/edrfap/research/framework/activitytheory2/

I also learnt to build in second life in order to recreate the framework in 3D. I did OK on the building but unfortunately my geometry let me down. Bizarrely I expected all three sides of a right-angled triangle to be the same length.

Another colleague (Marina) has suggested a collaboration on a paper at just the time when I felt all fired up from watching this video http://blip.tv/file/855937 Watch this - if it scares you, you’re in the wrong profession.

Interesting sidenote though - this and the Mike Welsch videos are inspiring lectures about web 2.0. Really good lectures. They’re so good that they partially undermine the point theyre making, which is that the future is all about participation and experiential learning and all that.

Evidence that there are some really bright kids out there that our educational system is failing to reach :
http://img20.photobucket.com/albums/v60/profmadhatter/nguyen1.jpg
http://img20.photobucket.com/albums/v60/profmadhatter/nguyen2.jpg
http://img20.photobucket.com/albums/v60/profmadhatter/nguyen3.jpg
http://img20.photobucket.com/albums/v60/profmadhatter/nguyen4.jpg

I guess I’m wondering how I’d've marked these essays.

Just in case you’re not a subscriber already, I recommend Seb Schmoller’s Fortnightly Mailing list, which brings together a range of current developments in education - and mainly elearning.

I first got to know Seb when he approached me for some of my research on WOLF (Wolverhampton’s VLE, developed over 10 years ago, for which I was the pedagogical researcher) in the search for prior art relevant to Blackboard’s VLE patent. I don’t think they ever used the research, but it’s good to see that the challenge to the patent seems to be progressing
http://www.desire2learn.com/patent/ReExam/D2LComments/Comments%20in%20response%20to%20Bb%20%28PTO%29.pdf

There’s also a link to a new publication from BECTA about “next generation learners” which are the students we’ll be teaching in just a few years from now. Worth a look therefore. I’m with the people who resist the idea of next generation learners, though, where that means there are digital immigrants and digital natives - that whole Prensky thing that technology is creating different forms of learners. If you look at what things like the BECTA report reports students saying - it’s no different from what I would have needed when I was a student in the 1980s - it’s just that with technology we have a better chance of meeting those needs. Anyway - here’s the link to the report.

http://publications.becta.org.uk/display.cfm?resID=37348

Anyone who’s into education (there’s probably a few out there) need to watch this:

http://umanitoba.ca/ist/production/streaming/podcast_wesch.html

This is a keynote (lecture!) by the guy who did that video of students holding up signs in a lecture room. This really shows why we need technology to improve what we do.

Monday was spent on the second face-to-face meeting of the THEATRON project. THEATRON is building theatres in second life, for performance and english literature students. It’s being directed by King’s College London, and I’ve been recruited to manage and evaluate it. We have five subsidiary projects putting together learning and teaching sessions to test out sl as a platform and the models designed in the project specifically. The meeting was a chance for the educators to talk about their experiences and to ask questions (and make requests) of the head of the technical team. The most impressive bit was a rezz-on-demand tool. By clicking on a button on the corner of THEATRON island you can see the Globe Theatre or the Theatre of Pompey or the theatre at Epidavros appear before you. I also set up a THEATRON group in Second Life. If you want to join just go in SL and add it as a group. Membership is open.

Tuesday and Wednesday is a JISC Innovation meeting at Keele University, my study day this week is on Thursday, since on Friday I have the first in my scheduled round of meetings with people to get to grips with what it is I’m meant to be doing here.

The action research meeting didn’t happen - however this did mean I got to talk to Andy Syson and Dean in the elearning unit. There’s a lot of really interesting stuff happening - and it’s good to see that there’s a fully integrated suite of tools to meet people’s needs. I just need to get up to speed with the ones I’m not yet familiar with.

Wednesday included some interesting sessions. One of these was with HEFCE who were after feedback about their elearning strategy. Two bits that were important to those there. One was that IT departments should address the needs of academics, particularly those who are experimenting with new technologies. I hear horror stories of technologies being blocked on a whim by IT departments because they don’t think they’re needed as part of learning and teaching - (like Second Life is a game and academics shouldn’t be wasting their time playing games). Luckily that’s not an issue here, but of the universities represented at the meeting, only one other seemed to have similar support. The other feedback was that a “strategy” should be a toolkit of various implementation models, which could be applied in institutions, not just a policy statement. Apparently an early version of the strategy had “not for action” on the front page.

The other interesting session was from BCU about the concept of Woven Learning as opposed to Blended Learning. Not just another buzzword, the concept is that bringing in technology isn’t just about creating a mix of distanced and face-to-face, it’s about mixing together appropriate learning activities, some of which may be technology-based others of which won’t be. But it’s about what you can _do_ with the technology, not just bringing in tech for the sake of it.

Thursday was the teaching and learning committee. I bought a suit specially because the meeting had the word “committee” in the title. There’s a lot going on, which will give me a very good leg-up in getting started, I’m sure.

Friday was a writing day. The conference proceedings are underway now, and I’m starting to get my head round the relive08 paper. Another day or two (and a trip to CAW) should crack that one.