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Archive for January, 2010

Is this … the Worst iPhone App Ever?

Monday, January 25th, 2010

The above is a video of the Balloons iphone app. I have had to put a video up because I cannot show it to you as it will not work on my ipod touch. Why do I ask, though, whether this is the worst iPhone app ever?

This app runs only on the iphone, not only that but it runs just on the iphone with the latest software update. It does not run on older iphones without the update and it does not run on the ipod touch (even if it does have the latest update). Needless to say, it does not run on any other OS such as Android or Windows Mobile. So much for interoperability, then! 

In a way, this app is elitist, only people prepared to spend money on the top of the range kit will have a chance to play with it. The fun, the experience and the educational potential of this app will be lost to the majority of people, who do not have access to such top of the range kit.

At this point, I shall reveal that my tongue is quite firmly in my cheek as I write this post. The app is really great; it is innovative, imaginative, fun and has great educational potential, if you have an iphone capable of running it, then I’d suggest getting it.

To me, though, this app illustrates where interoperability breaks down and that’s my point in this article. Interoperability will only work as far as common standards are in place. Yet, to differentiate their product from others, manufacturers are likely to add extras which make their product more ‘desireable’ in the marketplace. programmers and marketers are then likely to ‘exploit’ these desireable extras in order to sell the product and then it’s ‘goodbye interoperability’.

Do not get me wrong, I am not saying that interoperability is a bad thing, actually I think it is a good thing but the level of commonality and interoperability must be so high as to make additional extras either unnecessary or appear extravagant.

Oh, if you want to install the balloons app, you can find the home page here.

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6 Ways to Ask (and answer) Questions Using ICT

Monday, January 18th, 2010

4281493528 88a0857201 m 6 Ways to Ask (and answer) Questions Using ICT
Image by dougwoods via Flickr

Asking questions is fundamental to the way in which many of us learn and yet how many of us use ICT to enable learners to ask questions? We seem to prefer the ‘put your hand up’ routine which, as you will have read in a previous post, I regard as being soo last century.

So rather than having students put up their hand to ask a question, I present 6 ways of using ICT to ask questions;

  1. A Discussion Forum – set up a discussion forum for your class, subject, topic, SoW or whatever and allow your learners to add comments or create their own thread. An advantage here is that you can answer a question in whatever detail is required and the learner can read your response whenever they need to. They can reread or ask supplementary questions as well. It also has the advantage that you might find that another learner answers the question before you do.
  2. Allow Blog Comments – set up a blog to go with your session and allow learners to comment upon it. The comments need not of course be restricted to questions, they could also be evidence of their findings or learning.
  3. Use Twitter – Twitter has the advantage in that it can be used in real time as well as be stored. Use your Twitter nickname or set up a hashtag for the session and have the learners tweet any questions to you.
  4. Use Wallwisher – set up a question wall on wallwisher.com and allow the learners to post their questions there. Wallwisher has the advantage in that users can post pictures or video as well as plain text, which could be useful if you need to illustrate an answer.
  5. Email – Ah yes, the good old and much maligned email. You can allow learners to post you an email ( use a work email if you are uneasy about students having your personal email) to send questions to you. An advantage here is that your response can be sent to just the person asking the question (avoids any embarrassment or stigma) or to the group if necessary.
  6. SMS or Txt messaging – A simple, basic and effective method (most of the time) but it does rely upon the learner having your phone number.

So there you go, 6 simple ways of using technology to ask and answer questions. Remember 21st century learning doesn’t just happen in class so we need to be flexible in the ways we allow pupils to raise questions.

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BETT2010 where were the little things?

Monday, January 18th, 2010

4280748951 f0850e13d7 m BETT2010 where were the little things?
Image by dougwoods via Flickr

Like many other people I have been reflecting upon BETT2010. Like many others I have commented that I feel this year’s show, although bigger than ever, seemed to lack much in the way of innovation. What I did like about this year’s BETT though was the involvement of practitioners, especially through the TeachMeet takeovers, which saw educationalists take over a company’s stand (with their consent) for about 15 mins and give a presentation on how they used ICT in their work, and also the evening events such as TEDxOrenda and TeachMeetBETT. Sadly I was unable to get to these evening events (I was due to attend the TEDx event but had troubles booking into my hotel and found myself delayed while booking into another hotel), nevertheless, I was able to follow these events via twitter.

Much credit must be given to people such as @tombarrett and @digitalmaverick for organising these events. I really hope they become an annual occurrence at future BETT exhibitions.

Although there was not much in the way of innovation on display at BETT, the event was still very much dominated by the Big Things. I noticed interactive wall displays that did not require a projector, 3D displays, and 3D projectors, a graffitti wall and lots of big video equipment. Most of the Big Players were also evident again this year; RM, Microsoft, Becta, Espresso, Adobe etc.. Which all gives the impression that big things are most important.

What seemed to be lacking though was much support for small or handheld devices. It does seem that the concept of handheld learning has still not been fully appreciated within the world of educational ICT, at least as far as the vendors and exhibitors at BETT are concerned. This was a disappointment as it suggests not only that the handheld learning world has even more to do before it becomes recognised but also that educational ICT is still dominated by massive infrastructure approaches to ICT. I’d hope that future years might see some change in this.

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New Ways to Learn

Tuesday, January 5th, 2010

I discovered a great blog post at http://theelearningcoach.com/elearning2-0/10-ways-to-learn-in-2010/ which lists 10 new ways to learn. It includes the old one about using visual search engines; these have been around for a while and I womnder whether 2010 will be the year the visual search engine goes mainstream?

It also includes learning from wordclouds, these I thought were ‘old hat’ by now but I guess some people may not yet have come across them. Wordle for me is almost a waste of time, just because a term appears a lot in an article does not make it significant and, for me, a word cloud or tag cloud that is not hyperlinked is not very worthwhile.

Asking Questions, which is the third new way listed in the post, is hardly a new way at all. Asking questions is possibly the oldest method of learning known to man, so it is surprising that websites devoted to allowing people to ask questions have not become more popular. Then again maybe it is the silly answers that you often receive on such sites which has led to their demise.

Thinking visually and using mindmaps is again not new. What does appear to be new, however, is the ability to collaborate and share mindmaps online. This could become a great new tool for collaborative learning; it just remains to be seen whether people take to this approach. I have long been a user of mindmaps, myself, and I feel that such maps are personal; it is notr always easy for another person to interpret one person’s map, so I’m not yet sure whether collaborative maps would be of great use.

Hanging out with professors and watch documentaries are again hardly new ideas but the web is making these a lot easier than in the past.

It is very pleasing to see the growing popularity of TED talks and videos and this blog post lists a few others of a similar nature.

Using Twitter is well worth while in my experience so I wholeheartedly endorse this method of learning.

There are twoi more worthwhile tips for learning in 2010 which are mentioned in the blog post. I recommend that you pop over and have a fiull read of the post for yourself.

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Putting Your Hand Up is So Last Century (or how to ask questions) – learning transformation pt3

Tuesday, January 5th, 2010

3978081022 61d61a537d m Putting Your Hand Up is So Last Century (or how to ask questions) learning transformation pt3

Having a pupil raise their hand is sooo last century.

What does it mean to have a pupil raise their hand in a lesson?

  • It could mean that the teacher has asked a question and the pupil knows and wants to give the answer (ooh, I know, sir, ask me sir, me, sir, me…),
  • it could mean that the pupil has a problem or difficulty and needs to ask a question or clarify something they do not understand or did not hear,
  • or it could mean that a pupil needs to leave the room!

In the first two instances, it means that the lesson will have to be halted for a short while. In the first instance, the teacher does not necessarily need to know who does know the answer but who does not know. In the second instance, the teacher has to try to judge whether the pupil’s question will hold back progress of the lesson for the other pupils and whether time spent answering the question would be meaningful or trivial. If the second instance is not handled, then there is the possibility that the pupil may miss out on learning. That may also be the case in the third instance but if the pupil really does need to leave the room then it would probably be best to let them rather than cause an embarrassing incident!

The problem with the above scenario is that it assumes that learning is taking place in a traditional setting. That is to say, in a school room being led by a teacher or lecturer. I’m writing this, however, near the start of the 21st Century and we cannot assume either now or in the future that learning will continue to take place in such a setting. Learning does not take just take place in a school; it takes place at home, while in hospital, when travelling, when excluded, at friends house, and even when you have left the formal education system.

Settings and scenarios may have changed and the learning may occur in different times and places. Learners, however, may still need to ask questions, they may still need to seek clarification and they may still need to leave a room. How can this be done if they cannot raise their hand as they would have done in a traditional setting?

It is clear that educators need to have new ways in which learners can ask questions, seek clarification or pause their learning.

Email or Txt

One method of a learning asking a question might be to txt or email the question to the teacher. I have seen this used but not all teachers are comfortable with pupils having their personal mobile number or personal email address. Similarly, learners might not be keen on a teacher knowing their personal mobile number.

Online Discussion Boards or Forum

Another way might be for the teacher to set up an online discussion board with an area for each subject or topic area; learners could then use this to submit questions or requests for clarification. An advantage here is that it need not be just the teacher who can reply but other learners can also contribute their replies to a learner’s post.

Instant  Messaging

Yet another way might be to employ some form of messaging service, such as Twitter, for the learner to post questions. In some instances, this would allow not only the teacher but also teachers and learners from the same or other institutions providing an answer.

None of the above solutions are particularly ground-breaking, they can all be implemented very simply and require no technological innovation. Each of them, or all of them, could, for example be incorporated into a VLE (Virtual Learning Environment) or Learning Platform.

What, though, if the learner needs to pause their learning; not just to pop to the loo but maybe for more serious reasons such as a stay in hospital or time away from the school or the country? Can technology be used to help them pause their learning and then pick up again upon their return? I feel the answer is ‘yes’. If the subject or topic area is adequately supported with document resources, video and audio resources, presentations and creative tasks which can be delivered electronically, then a learner can pause their learning and re-engage at a later time.

Teachers are well used to producing resources to support learning in a classroom and for homework. The only change that needs to happen here is in the nature of the resources (electronic rather than physical) and the way in which they are delivered to the learner.

Any questions? If so don’t raise your hand; email me, tweet me or leave a comment below.

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Knowledge, Learning and Information – Learning Transformation pt2

Tuesday, January 5th, 2010

336823369 b9f6586422 m Knowledge, Learning and Information Learning Transformation pt2
Image by everdaniel via Flickr

I want to start this post with a question;

‘What is learning?’

A definition of learning that was put forward in 1985 is that learning is ‘the process of acquiring knowledge’ (1)

So if learning is acquiring knowledge, what is knowledge?

I would offer to you the following definition that knowledge is information that has been acquired, retained or memorised and which can be demonstrated upon request or in response to a question or as needed.

So knowledge is retained information and learning is the process of acquiring that knowledge. It would seem that many decades our education system has been based upon this approach.  For most of that time, the means of acquiring knowledge and the sources of information have been few and limited. By which, I mean that the sources have primarily been parents, teachers, books, friends and some television and radio programmes.

One problem which I am sure many of us will identify with, is that some, perhaps much, of the information we retained as learning from our own time at school, has turned out to be useless or redundant. For example, I know that the capital city of Paraguay is Asuncion yet I have never needed to know or use this piece of information, it might be useful in a pub quiz but that question has yet to pop up. I also learned how to perform monetary calculations in pounds, shillings and pence (£sd), a financial system which became obsolete in the 1970s.

So, traditionally, the sources of information had been limited and we often learned unnecessary knowledge.

Taking the first point first, we have to ask ourselves whether the sources of information are still as limited as they have been in the past. I think the answer is an unequivocal ‘no’; not only do we still have teachers and parents but we also have more television and radio programmes. The internet has opened up a wide range of information sources and made access to them more readily available. Not only that but, believe it or not, we also have many more books. Even without the internet, ICT through computers and software, has opened upon a wide range of new information sources and learning opportunities.

So, with all these new and wide ranging sources of information and new opportunities for learning, can we expect the traditional approach to cope adequately? I think again the answer is an unequivocal no.

Taking the second point made earlier; that we often learned unnecessary knowledge. We need to ask whether this is still a possibility and a problem.  I think the answer is that it is still a problem, in fact I would suggest that it may even be more of a problem. I say it is more of a problem because today’s learner has more sources of information and therefore more opportunities to learn unnecessary things possibly to the detriment of important items. I would go further and say that today’s learner needs to be able to distinguish what information needs to be retained (learned), what information needs to be obtained, used, then discarded and what information needs to be rejected, ignored or possibly avoided.

I don’t think that anyone would disagree that it is the responsibility of learning professionals to enable learners to learn and to identify or use appropriate information. I don’t think many people would argue that our traditional approaches to learning and teaching, that were evident last century, would do this. We can only conclude, therefore, that our approaches to learning need to change from what we used in the past.

(1) Buchanan, D and Huczynski, A (1985) Organizational Behaviour, Prentice Hall

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School Design and Pupil Performance

Monday, January 4th, 2010

495090038 c6f407024d m School Design and Pupil Performance

A recent survey has shown that teachers believe that the design of a school has an effect upon pupil performance. This is possibly a timely reminder for those architects, designers and consultants involved in BSF.

One criticism I have had about BSF designs is that it is bringing ‘open plan’ schools back. This is despite the evidence and experience we have gained from the 60s and 70s which indicate that open plan schools have a detrimental effect upon pupil performance.

One major criticism in the report was that teachers were unable to control the temperature in a classroom. I’m sure all of us as teachers have experienced this and seen the effect it has upon our performance as well as the performance of pupils.

9 out of 10 teachers said that classroom lay-out was the most important aspect of school design. The key point here is that they have classrooms rather than teaching ‘bays’ or part of a much larger room accommodating other groups at the same time. These classrooms need to be versatile and of such a size that staff can move furniture around easily to create variable workspaces; this must be the key message to BSF designers.

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