SLOODLE blogI *still* haven’t found time to watch all the videos from ALT-C, or review all the virtual world related papers that I picked out from the proceedings. Now the video and audio proceedings are available from Handheld Learning 2009, here: http://www.handheldlearning2009.com/proceedings.
I wonder if I download the proceedings to my phone and put it under my pillow if I’ll be able to absorb all the information by osmosis…
My talk earlier this week at SJSU SLIS on ‘Opening up education in games, simulations and virtual worlds’ went pretty well, with some good questions and response from the audience on campus and in Second Life. A video of the talk is being prepared by the tech support folks, but in the meantime I’ve posted my slides to SlideShare (under CC-Attribution-ShareAlike):
To summarise some of the key points:
On Friday, Paul Bacisch of Re.ViCa gave talk and led some discussion at the University of the West of Scotland, just along from my own office. One of the key aspects of his talk was consideration of the Open Learning Innovation Fund – a large HEFCE initiative to support the development of distance learning activities of UK universities. But not for all the UK – as HEFCE’s remit only covers England, Scotland (along with Ulster and perhaps also Wales) is not covered. This would seem to put Scottish universities at a significant disadvantage, however as Paul’s talk amply showed large investments of money do not always lead to success.
Indeed many of the largest and most well funded distance learning projects fail to cover their own expenses. Paul has some direct experience of this from his time at the UK eUniversity, and his presentation was on the same day that THES reported on the small returns on investment so far from the large international U21Global collaborative distance learning project.
Technology is not a differentiator, with VLEs available to all – pedagogy is more important than technology. But Paul he was particularly critical of the lack of market research involved in many of the larger projects, and highlighted a number of success stories. These tend to be home grown, organically developed, and as likely to come from the FE or commercial sectors as from a university. Basically, universities that are doing it right have got a head start and are succeeding – most universities are not.
Meanwhile world markets are not sitting ducks – Paul pointed out that distance learning offerings come from over 100 countries. As well as other British institutions, American, Canadian, and European universities, colleges and companies, recruiters have to also consider the local competition.
At the end of the meeting it was interesting to discuss with other faculty from across the university about where we might be going wrong with some of our own DL offerings. Illuminating, but nothing I can share here 
First post from this year’s Scottish Learning Festival. I made it to two talks so far – Derek Robertson’s presentation of Canvas – the OpenSim based 3D online art gallery for Scottish schools, and Ollie Bray’s more general one on game based learning. More on that later.
From the expo floor there is the usual mix of computer, smart board, educational play, books, software, etc etc vendors. What caught my eye the most was the connectED stand. For a few years now, connectED have been providing Sony PSP hardware, software and training specifically for the education sector – but it was not that that caught my attention.
They are currently working on a system called Second Sight – this is an augmented reality authoring toolkit for teachers. This was demoed on PSP, but education director Andy Goff assures me that a Nokia version is very well advanced with iPhone also in the works.
In the PSP screen you can see the AR dinosaur overlaid ontop of the camera view
connectED are apparently already working with English Heritage on using this on some EH sites, and have a number of collaborations active for rolling this out. Final product ready in about six months, but already the authoring environment seems very straightforward – allowing markers to be inserted into books, into displays or into the environment to add AR audio, video and 3D content.
After a little reflection, and reading a little more from the forums/blogs etc., I thought I’d ask what Connectivism is trying to be rather than the more obvious ‘What is Connectivism’ – but there is a reason for this, and I think it might help me get to heart of my issues with Connectivism. Apologies for any incoherent rambling below…
What I did at ALT-C 2009…
Short version: I hung around for a bit, chatted to some people, then went to the pub.
Long version – featuring open education resources, debating the value of VLEs, Michael Wesch’s keynote and more…
Despite leaving home incredibly early, I managed to miss the opening of Michael Wesch’s keynote (due to some faffing about at Machester Airport). Wesch’s talk necessarily covered many points that featured in his well known videos, but with more depth and context – and had some fun stuff, such as tracing the evolution of ‘whatever’. From discussion after and reading online comments, reception was mixed – this being (apparently) largely the same keynote he’s delivered elsewhere, and some differing reactions to the talk itself. For me the issue was principally that if you’ve seen Michael’s videos already, and if you’ve read a few articles or posts from him online, the keynote didn’t contain enough surprises. There was a lot of humour there, and enthusiastic presentation. Good but not life changing.
Content wise, Michael mentioned that his group is studying how people ‘flock’ on the internet – they’ve adopted this term in place of ‘group’ as they feel it better reflects how people may come together, travel some way together, and split off at any time. I think it does capture the very informal nature of a lot of web-based groups with loose membership that changes over time – but I don’t think it helps us think about how people may be members of multiple (possibly overlapping, possibly not) groups at any one time. Conceptually, I understand multiple group membership better than multiple flock membership – which brings to my mind images of deadly avian pile-ups. Can anyone suggest a better term? If not, lets just call them groups, and not complicate matters.
I was going to see Richard Noss’ talk on the grand challenges for technology-enhanced learning next – but decided to check in at the halls where I was staying. This turned out to be a waste of time, as check in didn’t open till 2pm… back to the conference, where I caught up with a few folks and chatted networked.
Next session I went to was ‘Technology Enhanced Feed-Forward‘ – this presented results of a study of student reactions to audio (podcast) and video feedback. Quick take home message was that in the trial *many* students disliked getting feedback via mp3, and it was identified that tutors giving feedback via podcast have to be much more careful how they give their feedback. The feedback has to be much more constructive and very supportive in tone otherwise it can be a very negative – harrowing even – experience for the students. There was also some good discussion after.
More chatting networking over lunch.
The VLE is Dead was a deliberately provocative symposium session with a range of speakers defending or attacking the use of VLEs. This was a packed out session, with Josie Taylor valiantly managing to keep control in the face of heated debate with some audience members chipping in their comments out of order (ahem). What started as a debate about institional VLEs vs Personal Learning Environments (PLEs) developed into much wider debate about the role of universities and open vs. closed models of learning. The session was recorded, and you can see the video on James Clay’s blog here – The VLE is Dead: The Movie. Worth watching the opening statements at least – some very astute and some funny metaphors and allusions thrown in for good measure.
The feeling I got from this overall, and speaking to some of the panellists later, is that students use diverse and individual ranges of technology regardless – so they already have their PLE, with the institutional VLE being but one part of that. Like many others I believe that the VLE brings benefits of providing a known and common ‘base’ for students’ online learning. One which members of staff can easily make the launch pad for a whole load of external Web 2.0 activities if they so wish – and that many faculty already do this. What didn’t make it into the debate, but is a worthy note, is how VLEs are adapting to the social web. Moodle 2.0, for example, is introducing a repositories API for interacting with the external web – where a repository can be Flickr, a blog or somesuch, not just some ‘formal’ or closed institutional repository.
There was a gap on my schedule after that – I hadn’t spotted the ‘Virtual Midwifery’ session. Instead I wandered down for coffee. Where my new laptop bag was spotted and greatly admired. Is it particularly shameless at this point to link to my wife’s Folksy store? Oh well, done it now. She sometimes takes commisions, btw.
Next up I was meaning to catch the HEA presentation – but ended up chatting networking some more instead. I was also hoping to catch up with someone at the TLRP stall, having missed Richard Noss’ invited talk earlier. But when I wandered down there was no one about. From the JISC intute stall I learned that subject specific versions of their online tutorial on evaluating web sources/resources exist. We’ve used their more generic ‘Internet Detective’ web-quest several times in induction sessions for new students before, the ICT-specific web-research tutorial might be even better.
During the final session I managed to make it to 1 1/2 sessions relating to Open Education Resources. First up, the Talis Open Education Incubator – Chris Clark outlined the program whereby Talis will be proving seed funding to a number of (mainly small) OER projects. Its a very moderate amount of funding overall, but hopefully enough to help get some good work off the ground. Then I dashed upstairs for the OER Matters session. Having missed the start, I didn’t realise till afterward that the panellists were each playing a character with a different take on OER. Opinion was divided as to whether this device helped make the views on OER clearer or whether this just made things a little confusing.
Still, as Im hoping to start publishing some of my own materials as OER soon, I took this opportunity to continue the chat about OER over dinner – sat between the OU’s Chris Pegler and Thursday keynoter Terry Anderson. When they weren’t both admiring the afore mentioned laptop bag, we did chat about OERs and some of the barriers to publishing. Chris commented that personal insecurity about the quality of notes was perhaps one of the biggest barriers to OER publication – that tutors are unwilling to publish notes before they are perfect prevents them from ever appearing. I have to agree that if I prepare materials for my own students it does not matter too much if there are mistakes – I am there with the students to discuss and work round any issues.
One solution is to publish materials within a conversational framework – knowing that the notes are not perfect but inviting comment and corrections – Tony Hirst has already provided an example of this, with his Digital Worlds game development ‘uncourse’. I’ll hopefully be able to get my finger out soon and get started on my own…
Finally, the pub with F-Alt and more chatting networking.
update: I missed at least one of the Second Life presentations. If I’ve missed any others let me know!
Currently travelling home from ALT-C – I only made it to the first day of the conference this year, so I’m missing a whole bunch of virtual world talks. Though in typical ALT-C style, a few of these are scheduled in different simultaneous parallel sessions, so I wouldn’t be able to catch *all* of them anyway…
However, the nice folks at ALT have published all the abstracts online, and many of the sessions have notes posted online via the conference ‘CrowdVine’. The complete calendar is here http://altc2009.alt.ac.uk/calendar . You need to register on the Crowdvine to post comments or discussion, but not to browse the talks or (afaik) to download any posted materials. I’m writing this on the train, but I’ll be having a look at all these sessions online later. The full set – I think – of virtual world sessions at Alt-C this year is:
Second Life Processes (3 short papers)
http://altc2009.alt.ac.uk/talks/show/6856
Visual Redesign (3 short papers)
http://altc2009.alt.ac.uk/talks/show/6840
Second Life Technologies (3 short papers)
http://altc2009.alt.ac.uk/talks/show/6855
Innovative Technology (2 Demos – 1 SL related)
http://altc2009.alt.ac.uk/talks/show/6853
Simulation Demonstrations (2 Demos)
http://altc2009.alt.ac.uk/talks/show/6821
Learning to respond: a crisis management simulation – John Carroll, David Cameron
Dream or Nightmare Metaverse Now or Web 3.D v2 in a Decade? – Ferdinand Francino
Spreading Virtuality (2 short papers)
http://altc2009.alt.ac.uk/talks/show/6848
PREVIEW Immersive Virtual Training Environment (PIVOTE): bringing standards into virtual worlds – Terry Poulton, David Burden, Sheetal Kavia, Luke Woodham
Developing an interaction model for learning in virtual worlds – Trevor Barker, Steve Bennett
That makes 1q papers plus 3 demos relating to virtual worlds (plus some posters, not covered here – but I welcome any links to poster materials!). A big change since ALT-C back in 2007 when there were two presentations on virtual worlds – from myself and David White. Some ALT-C traditions don’t change however – our presentations where on at the same time in different sessions.
In my next post I’ll try and provide a summary of what I *did* see and discuss at ALT-C while I was there…
I think there are some deep cultural differences between Britain and the US, including our attitudes to money and finance. Not an original observation, but one that has to be true. Why think this now? I’ve just been browsing the MinyanLand web site. When I first saw the name MinyanLand I wondered if it was a virtual world for Orthodox Jewish children, but apparently not.
MinyanLand is rather “a virtual community designed to teach kids and families about earning, spending, saving and giving through games and interaction that are entertaining and educational.”
One of my current interests is the area of Open Education Resources (OER). I’ve got Opening Up Education sitting on bookshelf within easy reach of my desk for when I have time spare to read it. Though of course I can also read it online, as the whole book is also available in PDF format for free from the MIT Press website.
Via Ewan McIntosh I found Seth Godin’s Textbook Rant on why he thinks the textbook industry has to die. As a fan of OER, I think he has some valid points. Indeed, one of my hopes is that I’ll find some time to produce some of my own notes online and make them available under a creative commons licence. If I find the time, that is. Doing so is not part of my job description despite Seth’s assertion that:
Professors should be spending their time devising pages or chapterettes or even entire chapters on topics that matter to them, then publishing them for free online. (it’s part of their job, remember?)
No it isn’t Seth. Unless they are being paid to do so specifically as part of some OER project – of which there are at least an increasing amount. This UK project, for example, from JISC will “make the equivalent of 5,000 undergraduate modules of existing learning resources freely available online.“
Academic textbooks are generally overpriced – something I won’t argue with. This is related, I think, to how university study is funded through very large loans in the US. Textbooks in the UK used to be significantly cheaper in the UK than in the US. Once Amazon and other online retailers arrived this discrepancy became quickly apparent – with the unfortunate effect that many textbook prices in the UK rose rather significantly so publishers could protect their US margins. (One book I have on a list of recommended texts went from £15 to £25 from one year to the next – a rise of 66%). While most textbook authors only make fairly modest amounts of money (despite Seth’s comments), I would agree with Seth that most academic publishers have been exploiting their audience and overcharging.
As to the value of a textbook, I must disagree. Not all textbooks are made equal, and perhaps marketing textbooks are just less equal than others. There are some very good (and many mediocre) computing textbooks. I have no reservations in recommending Michael Dawson’s “Beginning C++ Game Programming” to prospective and current students – even while I don’t require it as a text in any of my classes. It has a good narrative, excellent selection of content, strong examples, well thought out exercises… well I like it. And so did most of the buyers who took time to review the book on Amazon. While I don’t care too much which C++ book students have, I do feel quite strongly that students trying to learn C++ should try and get a decent C++ textbook and really use it to support their learning. There is far more to be learned that we can teach in the hours we have with students.
As for OpenGL programming, for my 3D graphics class I’m in something of a bind. There are a lot of very good books out there – but none that really work for my course, taking my students from where they start the module to where I hope they’ll be at the end. As a result, I recommend a few texts and ask students to take time to look at the various texts and choose one – in the knowledge that A is expensive and is heavy on the theory, but light on practical, B is cheaper and all practical but quite limited, C has good coverage but very limited tutorial style support, and so on. But I do think that a student that spends time using one of the books to support their own learning will benefit greatly – and I don’t have the time to write a book on the subject myself. Naturally, I also point students to a good range of free web-based resources.
Seth ends his rant with an update from the email he received:
Update: got more mail about this post than any other post ever. … and so far, more than 94% of the letters aggressively agree with me. … I also heard from a handful of people who said that I was jealous, that the union won’t permit the system to change, that textbooks are really good, that professors are underpaid, that professors are too busy or (possibly and) that I’m delusional. I’ll note that not one of these letters came from a textbook user.
Seth’s blog doesn’t carry comments, but perhaps he should read the comments he got on Digg – which includes a number of comments from textbook users:
If I ever do manage to produce my own OER course on Real Time 3D graphics, I’ll be sure to post some updates here. Sadly, it’ll be a while. Meantime, I’ll continue to point students to a range of textbooks, and recommending that they get at least one of them (or borrow it from the university library).
