Over the last week I have constructed 2 Bristol online Surveys (BOS), begun to organise 4 focus groups and attempted to arrange visits to other institutions to see mobile learning in action.
The BOS’s have come along nicely. The first one has already been launched and is aimed at our Distance Learners; it is important to ensure that we survey a good sample of our students. When I carried out the face-to-face student surveys I was based at one of the three LRC sites, on-campus, hence the respondents (generally) fell under the traditional undergraduate category. The aim of the first BOS is to get a balanced view across all our student groups. Considering students who study at a distance tend to be more assured with technology as they study electronically, and therefore may find mobile learning more beneficial than most.
The second BOS will be linked to via the LIS webpages and will be open to all our student groups. It is currently under review but I hope to have it launched next week (fingers crossed)!!
The focus groups are slowly but surely coming together. I have contacted some of the students that showed an interest at the face-to-face interview stage of the project with a view to holding four focus groups: 1 at each LRC site and 1 for the trainee Information and Library Management students. It will be interesting to hear the views of the professionals of the future with regards to the changes and advancements in the field.
I will be going to visit West Cheshire College next week to see the logistical side of mobile learning – the loaning of hardware etc. – the support needed for students in a mobile learning culture, and the production of mobile content. In March I will also be travelling down to London to go to London School of Economics and Political Science to have a chat with the Learning Technology Librarian there about mobile learning.
Unfortunately I have not come across many other institutions that support mobile learning. I am awaiting contact from a couple of other people but I must admit the outlook is pretty bleak. It seems that we are all talking about it but there isn’t much ‘doing’ taking place which is a real shame!
On a more positive note, it looks like there is a possibility of us obtaining some mobile devices to trial in a learning and teaching context…so watch this space!!
Thursday, 19 February 2009
Thursday, 12 February 2009
Twitter Revisited
I have decided to follow up my short blog entry about Twitter from a couple of weeks ago with some insights into the ways in which I have used it as there has been an ever-growing interest in Twitter over the last 2 weeks, with many friends and colleagues flummoxed by it!
Firstly I would advise not to make judgements before you have fully immersed yourself in the world of Twitter, you won’t see the benefits unless you (a) are following enough interesting people and (b) taking note of ‘interesting’ being the operative word in point a.! In English – no one wants to follow people who only Tweet about what they are having for lunch or what they are watching on TV – the most useful people to follow (in my opinion!) are the ones that provide lots of links and insights into happenings in their given subject area. Over the last two weeks I have really started to see the benefits of using Twitter in a work-related context. The ability to ‘follow’ librarians from all over the globe, picking up snippets from different schemes, initiatives and projects and links to blogs, articles, videos and sites that you wouldn’t necessary be subjected to in your normal day-to-day working environment is a brilliant way to gather information. It allows you to quickly scan, assimilate and either save or forget, utilising Delicious or Bloglines to manage the useful information with minimal effort.
Another useful tool that I have recently been made aware of thanks to Joeyanne Libraryanne is ‘Just Tweet It,’ a directory of Twitterers, organised alphabetically in order of designation (e.g. Architecture, Education, Librarians) enabling you to quickly find people to follow who are interested in the same subject area as yourself. It takes a couple of minutes to register yourself into the correct category and brilliant if you want to share your Tweets and knowledge with other people in the same role as yourself.
Twitter is a brilliant example of communication and collaboration, and provokes interesting discussions about how it can be used in education. I recently had a meeting with the Digital Media Co-ordinator from West Cheshire College, Sean Herbert who told me a brilliant story about a guy named Mike Wesch, a Professor of cultural anthropology from Kansas State University who is studying the impacts of new media. He utilized Twitter in his teaching and learning by asking his students to produce a timeline of the history of the world which was compressed into a five minute video then synchronized with the Twitter stream.
Firstly I would advise not to make judgements before you have fully immersed yourself in the world of Twitter, you won’t see the benefits unless you (a) are following enough interesting people and (b) taking note of ‘interesting’ being the operative word in point a.! In English – no one wants to follow people who only Tweet about what they are having for lunch or what they are watching on TV – the most useful people to follow (in my opinion!) are the ones that provide lots of links and insights into happenings in their given subject area. Over the last two weeks I have really started to see the benefits of using Twitter in a work-related context. The ability to ‘follow’ librarians from all over the globe, picking up snippets from different schemes, initiatives and projects and links to blogs, articles, videos and sites that you wouldn’t necessary be subjected to in your normal day-to-day working environment is a brilliant way to gather information. It allows you to quickly scan, assimilate and either save or forget, utilising Delicious or Bloglines to manage the useful information with minimal effort.
Another useful tool that I have recently been made aware of thanks to Joeyanne Libraryanne is ‘Just Tweet It,’ a directory of Twitterers, organised alphabetically in order of designation (e.g. Architecture, Education, Librarians) enabling you to quickly find people to follow who are interested in the same subject area as yourself. It takes a couple of minutes to register yourself into the correct category and brilliant if you want to share your Tweets and knowledge with other people in the same role as yourself.
Twitter is a brilliant example of communication and collaboration, and provokes interesting discussions about how it can be used in education. I recently had a meeting with the Digital Media Co-ordinator from West Cheshire College, Sean Herbert who told me a brilliant story about a guy named Mike Wesch, a Professor of cultural anthropology from Kansas State University who is studying the impacts of new media. He utilized Twitter in his teaching and learning by asking his students to produce a timeline of the history of the world which was compressed into a five minute video then synchronized with the Twitter stream.
Monday, 9 February 2009
The Homeward Bound
Last week the project steering group met to discuss the best way to use the remaining three months of the project. As I have previously blogged, I have already consumed a large amount of literature focussing on mobile learning. I have performed primary research that has concluded the types of mobile devices our students are using and the ways in which they are using them. I have spoken to technology enthusiasts within LJMU who already utilise technology in their teaching and learning and I have been in contact with other institutions to gauge their uptake of mobile learning. It was therefore decided that the remaining research time and effort should be channelled in a slightly different way.
I will now be approaching the research from a different tact looking at the strategic ways in which we can encourage our academics to embrace a mobile learning culture within the university and to exploit the possibilities this would involve in their teaching and learning. I hope to liaise with both the LDU and the academics in order to glean the information I will need in order to make informed recommendations at the end of the project.
I will also look to conduct focus groups with our students to ascertain the ways in which they feel they study and learn best, how they currently make use of technology in their academic study and how they hope this use will develop in the future.
I then anticipate targeting students that are typically ‘distance’ students, coming ‘on campus’ perhaps only once a week or less via online questionnaires. From this I hope to gauge opinion about learning and technology from our students who would perhaps benefit from a mobile learning culture more than most.
I am also in the process of trying to organise visits to approximately 5 other institutions (ideally 2 HE, 2 FE and 1 school) in order to compare and contrast the ways in which mobile learning has been adopted, again informing the recommendations made in the final project report.
I will now be approaching the research from a different tact looking at the strategic ways in which we can encourage our academics to embrace a mobile learning culture within the university and to exploit the possibilities this would involve in their teaching and learning. I hope to liaise with both the LDU and the academics in order to glean the information I will need in order to make informed recommendations at the end of the project.
I will also look to conduct focus groups with our students to ascertain the ways in which they feel they study and learn best, how they currently make use of technology in their academic study and how they hope this use will develop in the future.
I then anticipate targeting students that are typically ‘distance’ students, coming ‘on campus’ perhaps only once a week or less via online questionnaires. From this I hope to gauge opinion about learning and technology from our students who would perhaps benefit from a mobile learning culture more than most.
I am also in the process of trying to organise visits to approximately 5 other institutions (ideally 2 HE, 2 FE and 1 school) in order to compare and contrast the ways in which mobile learning has been adopted, again informing the recommendations made in the final project report.
Tuesday, 3 February 2009
Half Way There
Well the project is officially half way to completion, with 3 months hard research under my belt I am surrounded and educated by a plethora of information on mobile learning, from journal articles to blogs, reports to newspaper special supplements.
I am now frantically searching for other institutions that support their students in a mobile learning context in order to make informed recommendations towards the steps LJMU should take in order to foster an effective and successful mobile learning culture amongst our staff and students. I've posted to LIS-LINK which unfortunately did not return many leads and I have been in contact with a number of librarians, both here in England and in America, in order to gain insights into how their library service supports mobile learning. In an ideal world I would have more leads to follow up however as is the case with mobile learning a lot of people preach but (apart from small scale departmental pilots) there isn't much practising taking place!!
I have booked my place for LILAC this year which has a key theme of 'emerging technologies' so hopefully I might be able to network and find some HEIs that are already pushing out information and learning materials to their students in a more mobile format than is done traditionally. If not I still think that I will be able to gather some very useful opinions and ideas from other librarians and I know that there is a parallel session about using mobile phones for information skills sessions so I will definitely be able to get some good information that I can feed into the report.
We (the project team) submitted out journal article to ALT-J in the nick of time and it is now under peer-review so fingers crossed that we get some good feedback on that. It worked out quite well really as it also served as a bit of an interim report for the project and made me realise where the focus of my remaining research needs to be.
The M-Libraries conference has also accepted our paper so Will Reid will be going over to Canada to officially present the project findings in a public forum in June. We'll also have to provide a written summary which will contribute to the M-Libraries Conference book.
In the short-term I have a meeting with a Digital Media Co-ordinator from a FEI tomorrow and me and Will will be doing a CPD session for the students of the postgraduate Information and Library Management students here at LJMU on Thursday.
I am now frantically searching for other institutions that support their students in a mobile learning context in order to make informed recommendations towards the steps LJMU should take in order to foster an effective and successful mobile learning culture amongst our staff and students. I've posted to LIS-LINK which unfortunately did not return many leads and I have been in contact with a number of librarians, both here in England and in America, in order to gain insights into how their library service supports mobile learning. In an ideal world I would have more leads to follow up however as is the case with mobile learning a lot of people preach but (apart from small scale departmental pilots) there isn't much practising taking place!!
I have booked my place for LILAC this year which has a key theme of 'emerging technologies' so hopefully I might be able to network and find some HEIs that are already pushing out information and learning materials to their students in a more mobile format than is done traditionally. If not I still think that I will be able to gather some very useful opinions and ideas from other librarians and I know that there is a parallel session about using mobile phones for information skills sessions so I will definitely be able to get some good information that I can feed into the report.
We (the project team) submitted out journal article to ALT-J in the nick of time and it is now under peer-review so fingers crossed that we get some good feedback on that. It worked out quite well really as it also served as a bit of an interim report for the project and made me realise where the focus of my remaining research needs to be.
The M-Libraries conference has also accepted our paper so Will Reid will be going over to Canada to officially present the project findings in a public forum in June. We'll also have to provide a written summary which will contribute to the M-Libraries Conference book.
In the short-term I have a meeting with a Digital Media Co-ordinator from a FEI tomorrow and me and Will will be doing a CPD session for the students of the postgraduate Information and Library Management students here at LJMU on Thursday.
Tuesday, 27 January 2009
Having just read a very interesting blog about the wonders of Twitter by Joeyanne Libraryanne I have finally been swayed into setting up an account.
It's handy as it enables full exploitation of mobile blogging too - so I can now start to practice what I preach!!
Joeyanne Libraryanne also demonstrates some innovative ways in which libraries can use Twitter, and if you've got time, check out this wiki entry, aptly titled 'Twittering Libraries' by Lindy Brown which delves even deeper into Libraries and the Twitter phenomenon.
So if you want to follow the project in a 'micro-blogging' fashion you can now do so by signing up to Twitter...and following me on my journey over the remaining 3 months of the project!
It's handy as it enables full exploitation of mobile blogging too - so I can now start to practice what I preach!!
Joeyanne Libraryanne also demonstrates some innovative ways in which libraries can use Twitter, and if you've got time, check out this wiki entry, aptly titled 'Twittering Libraries' by Lindy Brown which delves even deeper into Libraries and the Twitter phenomenon.
So if you want to follow the project in a 'micro-blogging' fashion you can now do so by signing up to Twitter...and following me on my journey over the remaining 3 months of the project!
Tuesday, 20 January 2009
Learning 2.0 @ LJMU
Over the past two weeks the Learning Development Unit (LDU) at LJMU have teamed up with LIS to host 2 face-to-face sessions, to be followed by 8 weeks of online sessions, providing a Web 2.0 training programme for all LIS staff.
Last week we explored the murky depths of the ‘e-portfolio.’ Students use this tool (hosted within Blackboard) to help support their Personal Development Planning (PDP) and Graduate Skills. We are using it to document our thoughts, feelings, achievements, experiences and successes over the 10 week training period, providing evidence of our understanding of Web 2.0 technologies, reflecting on the ways which we can use them to support students and integrate them into our working lives.
The set-up ran smoothly with Alex Spiers (from the LDU) directing us step-by-step through the process (and not allowing anyone to get left behind and lost in the woods…!!). We were shown how to import content, including pictures and also how to modify pages to suit our needs. We were shown how to share our portfolios and had fun looking at everyone’s ‘about me’ section – some brilliant photos I must say!!
This week we have unearthed the delights of Blackboard’s Discussion Board Tool and an IM Messaging service called Pronto. Bethan Hughes (LDU) gave us a succinct and informative overview of how both applications work and discussed the possibilities of such tools for use in an academic setting.
Firstly we played around with the Discussion Boards – posting questions, replying to threads, taking part in a group discussion…the functionality is very straightforward to the point it is ‘clunky’ and a bit ‘clumsy.’ It seems that everything has to be done in such a step-by-step manner that it inadvertently becomes unusable as a result of this…another thing that I felt was lacking was a lack of a ‘notification’ option so that you could be notified when someone else had posted on a topic/discussion of interest.
Then we moved on to Pronto. Pronto was, like the E-Portfolio, easy to set up and having extensive(!) IM experience, I personally found it really good fun. Didn’t feel like learning at all…!! Pronto is better in an academic setting compared to that of a generic IM tool as it enables ‘groups’ to be formed via its integration with Blackboard. In other words, as a student registered for Module A, by signing up to Pronto you would be put into contact with all the other students registered for Module A. From a lecturer perspective it allows east management of their numerous student/module/tutor etc groups.
The face-to-face sessions have been really good, not only in the sense of learning something new, but also in meeting people from other sites and from different job levels and collaborating with them to enjoy the experience together.
I’m excited to see what the online sessions will bring and am looking forward to exploring Web 2.0 technologies in a more formal manner, reflecting on the processes undertaken, rather than ‘playing around’ with Web 2.0 in an ad hoc way and not really thinking about the experience.
And a big thank you to Alex, Bethan, Leo, Will and Stephe…
Last week we explored the murky depths of the ‘e-portfolio.’ Students use this tool (hosted within Blackboard) to help support their Personal Development Planning (PDP) and Graduate Skills. We are using it to document our thoughts, feelings, achievements, experiences and successes over the 10 week training period, providing evidence of our understanding of Web 2.0 technologies, reflecting on the ways which we can use them to support students and integrate them into our working lives.
The set-up ran smoothly with Alex Spiers (from the LDU) directing us step-by-step through the process (and not allowing anyone to get left behind and lost in the woods…!!). We were shown how to import content, including pictures and also how to modify pages to suit our needs. We were shown how to share our portfolios and had fun looking at everyone’s ‘about me’ section – some brilliant photos I must say!!
This week we have unearthed the delights of Blackboard’s Discussion Board Tool and an IM Messaging service called Pronto. Bethan Hughes (LDU) gave us a succinct and informative overview of how both applications work and discussed the possibilities of such tools for use in an academic setting.
Firstly we played around with the Discussion Boards – posting questions, replying to threads, taking part in a group discussion…the functionality is very straightforward to the point it is ‘clunky’ and a bit ‘clumsy.’ It seems that everything has to be done in such a step-by-step manner that it inadvertently becomes unusable as a result of this…another thing that I felt was lacking was a lack of a ‘notification’ option so that you could be notified when someone else had posted on a topic/discussion of interest.
Then we moved on to Pronto. Pronto was, like the E-Portfolio, easy to set up and having extensive(!) IM experience, I personally found it really good fun. Didn’t feel like learning at all…!! Pronto is better in an academic setting compared to that of a generic IM tool as it enables ‘groups’ to be formed via its integration with Blackboard. In other words, as a student registered for Module A, by signing up to Pronto you would be put into contact with all the other students registered for Module A. From a lecturer perspective it allows east management of their numerous student/module/tutor etc groups.
The face-to-face sessions have been really good, not only in the sense of learning something new, but also in meeting people from other sites and from different job levels and collaborating with them to enjoy the experience together.
I’m excited to see what the online sessions will bring and am looking forward to exploring Web 2.0 technologies in a more formal manner, reflecting on the processes undertaken, rather than ‘playing around’ with Web 2.0 in an ad hoc way and not really thinking about the experience.
And a big thank you to Alex, Bethan, Leo, Will and Stephe…
Thursday, 15 January 2009
E-Learning Forum (LJMU January 12th, 2009)
The day kicked off with brief presentations from me, Will Reid and Leo Appleton. Firstly me and Will gave a brief overview of the mobile learning project before Will and Leo revealed the new training programme that began this week for all LIS staff – Learning2.0 @ LJMU.
The first full E-Learning presentation was from Phil Denton from the Faculty of Science demonstrating the WoWIE (World of Work Internet Explorer) project. Phil gave an enthusiastic presentation about how communication between SSOs, Tutors and students is facilitated contributing to students’ successful acquisition of WoW skills during their time studying at LJMU.
The second presentation was delivered by Katie Barnes from the Faculty of Health (with a bit of technical help from Jim Turner!). Katie gave a very energetic and animated presentation about her use of Wimba Classroom with students both on campus and at a distance. She explored the pros and cons of a ‘virtual classroom’ using video examples to illustrate her points. Through her time using Wimba Classroom, Katie has found that delivery, access and revision have all prevailed enabling her students to study in the best way that suits their needs. However, be forewarned, as Katie admits herself – “it is not for the faint hearted…!!”
Next, David Sorfa from the Faculty of Media, Arts and Social Science, gave a presentation about his experiences of the online marking tool Turnitin GradeMark. David showed us how the software works and how it can be personalised, for example David likes to use the word ‘clumsy’ which he could then store, with a definition, to be used as and when he needed. The main advantage for students being that they no longer need to battle to be able to read their tutor’s handwriting!! But also, printing problems are overcome, tutors can add comments to student assignments at the click of a button and the students can keep all their work, marked and annotated in their e-portfolio. David spoke eloquently about Turnitin GradeMark and I felt he really ‘sold’ the idea, one point that was highlighted though was the danger of only making comments relating to things that the students have done wrong, grammatical errors etc. and not giving praise when they have expressed something well. Electronic submission on the students’ behalf fits in with the ever-growing emphasis on technology-enhanced learning and for students that are not based near to the campus centres will be a godsend!
Alasdair Gordon-Finlayson from the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Psychology presented next demonstrating Wimba Pronto – a Blackboard based chat environment – similar to MSN but with the ability to manage student/module groups through its integration with Blackboard. It creates an online community, especially important for distance students and can be used both formally and informally. With a bit of help from Bethan Hughes, Alasdair gave an engaging ‘live’ example of how Wimba Pronto works and revealed some of the pitfalls (forgetting to change your status to ‘appear offline’ and getting half a dozen students messaging you on a Saturday night…!). Wimba Pronto seems like a good tool for creating online communities in a university setting, putting students into contact with other students on their course and breaking down barriers. The main problem I see is encouraging students, especially those that live on-campus to embrace this chat tool, rather than just using MSN or another similar program…
The afternoon was rounded off by Alice Bird from the LDU showing a glimpse of the next developments for Blackboard…Blackboard NG. The main benefit appearing to be the ‘opening up’ of Blackboard allowing tutors and lecturers to create mash-ups of external sites that are of help to their student groups. Another interesting prospect is that of Blackboard Sync – the ability to sync Blackboard with applications such as Facebook enabling us to speak to the students in their language. Excitingly for the mobile learning project is the potential of a mobile platform – something that several students that participated in the face-to-face surveys before Christmas enquired about.
The E-Learning Forum provided a great opportunity for different departments and faculties to share their experiences with e-learning and technology-enhanced learning and really helped in giving me an overview of some of the innovative practices currently operating within LJMU.
The first full E-Learning presentation was from Phil Denton from the Faculty of Science demonstrating the WoWIE (World of Work Internet Explorer) project. Phil gave an enthusiastic presentation about how communication between SSOs, Tutors and students is facilitated contributing to students’ successful acquisition of WoW skills during their time studying at LJMU.
The second presentation was delivered by Katie Barnes from the Faculty of Health (with a bit of technical help from Jim Turner!). Katie gave a very energetic and animated presentation about her use of Wimba Classroom with students both on campus and at a distance. She explored the pros and cons of a ‘virtual classroom’ using video examples to illustrate her points. Through her time using Wimba Classroom, Katie has found that delivery, access and revision have all prevailed enabling her students to study in the best way that suits their needs. However, be forewarned, as Katie admits herself – “it is not for the faint hearted…!!”
Next, David Sorfa from the Faculty of Media, Arts and Social Science, gave a presentation about his experiences of the online marking tool Turnitin GradeMark. David showed us how the software works and how it can be personalised, for example David likes to use the word ‘clumsy’ which he could then store, with a definition, to be used as and when he needed. The main advantage for students being that they no longer need to battle to be able to read their tutor’s handwriting!! But also, printing problems are overcome, tutors can add comments to student assignments at the click of a button and the students can keep all their work, marked and annotated in their e-portfolio. David spoke eloquently about Turnitin GradeMark and I felt he really ‘sold’ the idea, one point that was highlighted though was the danger of only making comments relating to things that the students have done wrong, grammatical errors etc. and not giving praise when they have expressed something well. Electronic submission on the students’ behalf fits in with the ever-growing emphasis on technology-enhanced learning and for students that are not based near to the campus centres will be a godsend!
Alasdair Gordon-Finlayson from the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Psychology presented next demonstrating Wimba Pronto – a Blackboard based chat environment – similar to MSN but with the ability to manage student/module groups through its integration with Blackboard. It creates an online community, especially important for distance students and can be used both formally and informally. With a bit of help from Bethan Hughes, Alasdair gave an engaging ‘live’ example of how Wimba Pronto works and revealed some of the pitfalls (forgetting to change your status to ‘appear offline’ and getting half a dozen students messaging you on a Saturday night…!). Wimba Pronto seems like a good tool for creating online communities in a university setting, putting students into contact with other students on their course and breaking down barriers. The main problem I see is encouraging students, especially those that live on-campus to embrace this chat tool, rather than just using MSN or another similar program…
The afternoon was rounded off by Alice Bird from the LDU showing a glimpse of the next developments for Blackboard…Blackboard NG. The main benefit appearing to be the ‘opening up’ of Blackboard allowing tutors and lecturers to create mash-ups of external sites that are of help to their student groups. Another interesting prospect is that of Blackboard Sync – the ability to sync Blackboard with applications such as Facebook enabling us to speak to the students in their language. Excitingly for the mobile learning project is the potential of a mobile platform – something that several students that participated in the face-to-face surveys before Christmas enquired about.
The E-Learning Forum provided a great opportunity for different departments and faculties to share their experiences with e-learning and technology-enhanced learning and really helped in giving me an overview of some of the innovative practices currently operating within LJMU.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
