by Derek Morrison, 8 May 2009
Two recent items at the RCUK site that the ‘e’ oriented may find interesting are:
New centres to transform the way we live in Digital Britain and RCUK publishes report on open access study.
Open opportunities, open threats?
April 30th, 2009
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by Derek Morrison, 30 April 2009
N.B. The following online essay represents the personal views of the author and should not be construed as necessarily representative of any other individual or organisation.
I would prefer to think that technological developments and experience would have, by this time, made the debate about what Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) is most appropriate for use in HE in 2009 an expensive irrelevancy. Nevertheless, I am always intrigued to hear perfectly rational and detailed explanations of how, after an impressively rigorous research and commissioning activity, brand X was introduced into institution A. The next day I can be listening to equally rational and detailed explanations of why brand Y was introduced into institution B.
I’ve also posited in much earlier Auricle articles that if, at one stroke, some mythical bolt of lightning was to destroy all VLEs (as we currently know them) that there are now sufficient alternative options for use by academics and students that a process of disseminated self-repair would rapidly occur. Note, however, I emphasise academics and students. Such disseminated systems would, however, be unlikely to align with the expectations of adminstrators who are likely to be more comfortable with the concept of a VLE as a Learning Management System (LMS) that is itself but one facet of a centralised integrated information management system. As a minimum the existence of such LMS’ help convey a reassuring message of a significant online presence, if not actual online activity or some tangible evidence of enhanced learning and teaching.
The Periodic Table of Videos
April 25th, 2009
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by Derek Morrison, 25 April 2009
In November 2008 I posted a three part series with the theme On the video – a reflection on YouTube and friends in which I mentioned the University of Nottingham’s Periodic Table of Videos. While I was attempting to catch up on my backlog of podcasts one of which was an edition of the BBC’s Material World (28 August 2008) I came across an item relating to Nottingham’s YouTube presence. About 15 minutes 10 seconds into the programme there is an interesting piece on the creation of the Nottingham video archive featuring Martyn Poliakoff, CBE, who is a research professor at the University of Nottingham and a pioneer in the field of green chemistry. If only my chemistry teachers had been like this 🙂
As an aside, it is gratifying to see that the BBC keeps a long term and publicly available archive of many programmes with “educational” value. These escape the seven day “listen again/view again” cull that is the norm. If we could only get them to increase the number of programmes that are supported by transcripts that would also be great. The US NPR programme On the Media has shown how it should be done for years.
Social networking as a killer app … not?
April 15th, 2009
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by Derek Morrison, 15 April 2009
In the UK press this week we find Facebook fans do worse in exams (Sunday Times, 12 April 2009) which employs journalistic devices like “researchers have discovered… ” to establish credibility and “findings will confirm the worse fears …” to engage the attention of the anxious parent. Nevertheless, I thought it would be worth tracking back to the research cited and the overview does make for an interesting read albeit, as we would expect, it is rather more circumspect in its conclusions than the press article.
Total personalisation = total surveillance?
March 27th, 2009
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by Derek Morrison, 27 March 2009
Seth Finkelstein’s column in the Guardian always makes for an interesting read. Yesterday’s print version was titled Google’s would-be watchdogs are distracted by its chew-toys but in the online version the same article was called Google’s surveillance is taking us further down the road to hell (Guardian, 26 March 2009). Whatever it is called it’s certainly one for my techno-dysfunctions category of postings. Here’s a flavour of the concerns he expresses but do read the full article and follow the links he provides.
In the same way that “total personalisation is total surveillance“, complete knowledge of one’s interests entails complete monitoring of one’s actions … No matter how benign the original intent, large collections of personal data, especially combined with the economic pressures of a deep recession or a government interest in data-mining for security purposes, are fraught with the potential for evil.
Food for thought as we embrace the personalisation agenda in learning.
Audio: for the discerning learner
March 12th, 2009
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by Derek Morrison, 12 March 2009.
I’m a big fan of speech radio so my attention was attracted to the short article Knowledge via radio: Learn in waves (Times Online, 8 March 2009). Later in the week I listened to a really interesting programme in the BBC Radio 4 Analysis series called Clever.com (BBC Radio 4, 12 March 2009) about how despite (or because of) the overwhelming surfeit of information we now have access to that we are all dumbing down and becoming information grazers. Notice the all, not just the so called digital natives. So download the podcast of this programme it should be required listening for those working in Higher Education; it will, at the least, make an excellent focus for discussion. It’s also great to see that BBC radio is starting to offer transcripts of such programmes as this brings them into line with some other broadcasters like the NPR On the Media programme.
Whatever side of the fence you are on for this particular programme I completely agree the assertion in the Sunday Times piece that “They still do proper education on the radio: learning for the sake of it”. We will stretch it a bit and include podcasts in that assertion as well.
Project Canvas
March 7th, 2009
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by Derek Morrison, 7 March 2009
The BBC’s iPlayer is undoubtedly successful but yet the service constrains its users to viewing its streamed or downloaded material on a computer. Not for much longer apparently. Over on the BBC Trust site we find an account of Project Canvas which in essence seems to be broadband connection + set-top box + television, i.e. internet TV. This is not just a BBC only enterprise, ITV and BT are involved. What about the other digital broacasters and ISPs?
Interesting though the Canvas concept may be, frequent Auricle readers will be aware of my ongoing concern that digital services can reduce previous freedoms as well as provide new opportunities.
P.S. Geeks, with tolerant partners, 🙂 may also be interested in an alternative to Project Canvas available today.
Authentic Voices Authentic Resources
February 26th, 2009
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by Derek Morrison, 26 Feburary 2009 – N.B. published also in the Higher Education Academy Gwella, Pathfinder and Enhancement Academy blogs
Although I don’t post much material related directly to my work with the UK Higher Education Academy where I think it might be of more general interest, as with this post, I’ll create a duplicate copy here.
Part of the ethos established by the Academy’s Benchmarking and Pathfinder Programme team at the early stages of that initiative was that participants in the programme should also be considered important potential contributors to the programme in the phases which followed. Why?
Flexible working, flexible learning?
February 13th, 2009
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by Derek Morrison, 13 February 2009
There was an interesting set of articles on flexible working in The Independent’s SustainIT section (10 February 2009). Ok, this Independent pull-out was in association with BT so we have to be alert to implicit product placement but, nevertheless, there was some interesting stuff that I think could be applied equally to the world of flexible learning. Having previously worked in a few organisations earlier lives one of whom’s idea of valuing flexible working was to take remote staff’s pictures off the headquarter’s wall because they weren’t “in the office every day”, or others who so easily fell into the habit of “managing and communicating by email”, even when offices or desks were within sight of each other, suggests that what’s far more important for successful flexible working (and learning) than any technology is an outcomes-oriented mindset and ethos of the organisation going down this road. Strongly hierarchical organisations oriented to high control who embark on this road can so easily end up just using technology to depersonalise interaction and reduce flexibility rather than increase it.
