I delivered a new training event for the first time on Wednesday. I called it Web2.0Learning - Using Web 2.0 tools for teaching and learning . The aim is to teach educators about the principles of Web 2.0 and get them using some tools. The idea is sound and I had bits of content that I was going to use. However, it has been a challenge creating it from scratch. A much larger challenge than I anticipated.
It was ok sorting out what I wanted to say about Web 2.0 and education and VLE and all that interesting stuff. But when it comes to a hands-on session involving Web 2.0 tools, the practicalities and logistics bring their own challenges. Firstly, you have to decide which tools you want to showcase. This is hard. I had a day or actually 5:30 of teaching time. So it's a question of what do you leave out and why is one tool better than another. I had a principle of only showing one instance of any particular type of tool but it's difficult to be sure you are showing the right one. I don't profess to be familiar with everything (it's impossible) but if you are going to do something of this nature you have a duty to be up to date and clear why you are showing one thing over the other. I'll need to upskill in this area as I probably made a couple of wrong choices. Overall, I'm happy with what I put together but there was a lot of learning having delivered it.
For the delivery, I was in an unfamiliar ICT setting and largely, things went smoothly. However, when you are working with a variety of different tools with different requirements you are likely to come up against some problems if you in an educational setting with all their blockage and rights issues. The learning here was to check thoroughly beforehand what they have and what you need. I thought I'd done this but had assumed some basics (like audio) which I shouldn't have. In a session like this, when the technology fails you are stuffed. Luckily, if it failed for one tools it was ok for others. Also, there's always a couple of machine which don't work properly - it's the law!
For those that are interested, here are my session titles:
What is Web 2.0?/How does this fit?
Ning
Imagination Cubed
Delicious
Bubbl.us
Aggregation
CreateDebate
Finding Web 2.0 tools for education
Blogging
Voicethread
Twitter
Prezi
Googledocs
If anyone wants to know which sessions went well and which didn't go so well and for what reason then make a comment and I'll let you know (I don't want to do a massively long post here).
What's important is that I did a surveymonkey at the end where I gathered views on their attraction to the types of tools on offer. The more I do of this the better so that I can get a feel for what educators want and are interested in.
Mapping Web 2.0 tools onto Higher Education
I wanted to post something that got back to the purpose of this blog - my learning experience. So I thought I'd reflect on what happened last week and how my thinking moved on. Here at the Institute of Education (an HE college in the UK) academic individuals are more inclined to seek my help than previously. Mostly this is to do with increasing financial pressures which mean that distance learning is a logical way to tap into overseas and long distance markets. I think this is true of HE everywhere. So what I need to do is make sure that what I say to them is at the right level and steer them in the right direction with the result being good quality use of learning technologies. If we end up offering something substandard then it's better not to do anything at all.
Broadly, I want to give educators the understand of the pedagogical values behind any particular tool and the skills to use it. My first thoughts were to present to colleagues my vision of Web 2.0 and hope they could interpret this and map onto their own learning design. I created a voicethread on the subject and a prezi which give some examples of tools that fits within these categories and could be of use within education. I thought that this could be my opening move which gives the big picture from which I could then focus on different areas.
However, in presenting this to be few people, it became clear that I needed to simplify things. I need to speak the language of an HE academic trying to grapple with learning technologies. To do this, I need to stop focusing so much on Web 2.0 and its ethos and get straight to the tools themselves, mapping their use onto the practical consideration of a typical educator in my context. To this end, I created this prezi. Essentially, my previous concept maps were too big with too much information so I've simplified this. Also, people no longer have to understand Web 2.0 and its ethos at the same time as seeing a number of tool names to which they are unfamiliar. Instead, they just see the tools and which activity of their learning design it fits in with. So now there is only one layer of newness instead of two. The next step will be to create a voicethread to get some audio onto this and to start showing people the tools.
You will notice from the prezi that each category includes the relevant blackboard tools. What I'm not doing is getting educators to shun our VLE. However, if there's an outside tool that does a job that the VLE doesn't, or does it much better - we should be tapping into that. I'm not sure that this a majority viewpoint but it's certainly mine.
Broadly, I want to give educators the understand of the pedagogical values behind any particular tool and the skills to use it. My first thoughts were to present to colleagues my vision of Web 2.0 and hope they could interpret this and map onto their own learning design. I created a voicethread on the subject and a prezi which give some examples of tools that fits within these categories and could be of use within education. I thought that this could be my opening move which gives the big picture from which I could then focus on different areas.
However, in presenting this to be few people, it became clear that I needed to simplify things. I need to speak the language of an HE academic trying to grapple with learning technologies. To do this, I need to stop focusing so much on Web 2.0 and its ethos and get straight to the tools themselves, mapping their use onto the practical consideration of a typical educator in my context. To this end, I created this prezi. Essentially, my previous concept maps were too big with too much information so I've simplified this. Also, people no longer have to understand Web 2.0 and its ethos at the same time as seeing a number of tool names to which they are unfamiliar. Instead, they just see the tools and which activity of their learning design it fits in with. So now there is only one layer of newness instead of two. The next step will be to create a voicethread to get some audio onto this and to start showing people the tools.
You will notice from the prezi that each category includes the relevant blackboard tools. What I'm not doing is getting educators to shun our VLE. However, if there's an outside tool that does a job that the VLE doesn't, or does it much better - we should be tapping into that. I'm not sure that this a majority viewpoint but it's certainly mine.
Value Learning Design not E-learning Design
Originally published in the Educational Technology & Change Journal.
I've been reflecting over the last few days on common questions I get asked as I go about my job as a Learning Technologist. Questions like "I don't have time to think about this" or "why should I use this?" come up a lot. It's clear to me now that a key skill in my role is to be able to respond to these questions effectively, in such a way as to cause the questioners to rethink their position and begin in open up to a new viewpoint. I can tell you now that this isn't easy. Here are some pointers:
- In my education context, the worst thing you can do is throw blame around. Talk about "what we need to do" rather than "it's terrible that we don't do."
- Another important point is don't just talk about the technology. There are many reasons for this. Firstly, in education in 2010 understanding of learning technology is low, so talking about technologies they don't have any experience of and don't know anything about is confusing and off-putting. Also, you want to be talking about processes and value they understand and can relate to. Further, it should always be about how the technologies fit into the bigger picture and it you just bang on about the ICT it's feel alien to their world.
- I also like to stress the the possible incorporating of learning technologies is an element of the learning design process. So, as an organisation, the key is to value learning design; to value giving time and space to reflect and think about how you teach. The potential use of learning technologies is part of this process in the sense that they exist as tools in the toolbox from which you pick and choose. I spoke about the tools in the toolbox metaphor a few days ago. Valuing learning design is key and it comes from the educators themselves and the management of organisations. So the subtle difference here is that you are NOT pushing e-learning because it ticks a box that needs to be ticked, but you ARE promoting good teaching and learning by engendering a culture of giving time and space to reflect on learning design.
- Yes, there is learning to be done. But I think a good quality educator should be prepared to continually learn and adapt. Learning and adapting is an important part of living.
- The change isn't so drastic. Learning online isn't different to learning offline. Learning is the same as it's been forever. Learning strategies may change as we have more options (more tools) but the end result is the same thing you have always been asked to deliver. All you need to do is understand how to work the new tools and, more importantly, understand the values behind each one.
I've been reflecting over the last few days on common questions I get asked as I go about my job as a Learning Technologist. Questions like "I don't have time to think about this" or "why should I use this?" come up a lot. It's clear to me now that a key skill in my role is to be able to respond to these questions effectively, in such a way as to cause the questioners to rethink their position and begin in open up to a new viewpoint. I can tell you now that this isn't easy. Here are some pointers:
- In my education context, the worst thing you can do is throw blame around. Talk about "what we need to do" rather than "it's terrible that we don't do."
- Another important point is don't just talk about the technology. There are many reasons for this. Firstly, in education in 2010 understanding of learning technology is low, so talking about technologies they don't have any experience of and don't know anything about is confusing and off-putting. Also, you want to be talking about processes and value they understand and can relate to. Further, it should always be about how the technologies fit into the bigger picture and it you just bang on about the ICT it's feel alien to their world.
- I also like to stress the the possible incorporating of learning technologies is an element of the learning design process. So, as an organisation, the key is to value learning design; to value giving time and space to reflect and think about how you teach. The potential use of learning technologies is part of this process in the sense that they exist as tools in the toolbox from which you pick and choose. I spoke about the tools in the toolbox metaphor a few days ago. Valuing learning design is key and it comes from the educators themselves and the management of organisations. So the subtle difference here is that you are NOT pushing e-learning because it ticks a box that needs to be ticked, but you ARE promoting good teaching and learning by engendering a culture of giving time and space to reflect on learning design.
- Yes, there is learning to be done. But I think a good quality educator should be prepared to continually learn and adapt. Learning and adapting is an important part of living.
- The change isn't so drastic. Learning online isn't different to learning offline. Learning is the same as it's been forever. Learning strategies may change as we have more options (more tools) but the end result is the same thing you have always been asked to deliver. All you need to do is understand how to work the new tools and, more importantly, understand the values behind each one.
Web 2.0/Social Media overview
I've created a presentation which gives an overview of Web 2.0/Social Media and framed within the structure I introduced in the post Structuring Web 2.0. I haven't been creating presentations in this way for long so my technique needs a bit of work.
Anyway, I thought I'd share it here:
Anyway, I thought I'd share it here:
Tools in the toolbox
Tools in the toolbox is a phrase I use a lot when I talk about learning technologies. The basic message I want to get across is that there's no imperative to use these new tools but you should at least know about them. I've been mulling over whether I can stretch this metaphor.
If you have a toolbox (which I don't really) I would guess that you would want to know how all the tools work. For any DIY job you don't necessarily need to use all the tools but you can make an informed decision about which tool to use if you know how they all work or at least what they are and what they do. As time goes by new tools come out and you have to adapt because that's how life works. Often new tools perform the same functions as the old tools so they act as alternatives. So learning about new tools is a fact of life. For education the toolbox is the toolbox for learnign design and the tools are the ways the educator can deliver the learning.
I will probably soften this slightly if ever I voice this metaphor so that it's less threatening but I think the bulk of this could be a useful way of explaining where learning technologies fit into education.
If you have a toolbox (which I don't really) I would guess that you would want to know how all the tools work. For any DIY job you don't necessarily need to use all the tools but you can make an informed decision about which tool to use if you know how they all work or at least what they are and what they do. As time goes by new tools come out and you have to adapt because that's how life works. Often new tools perform the same functions as the old tools so they act as alternatives. So learning about new tools is a fact of life. For education the toolbox is the toolbox for learnign design and the tools are the ways the educator can deliver the learning.
I will probably soften this slightly if ever I voice this metaphor so that it's less threatening but I think the bulk of this could be a useful way of explaining where learning technologies fit into education.
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