mlearn 2010 day 1 morning

In Valetta, capital of Malta for mLearn 2010 this week.  Arrived yesterday to a wet and windy Malta. however, over the course of the afternoon, managed to walk around most of the sights in Valetta ( a UNESCO world heritage site).  The walls, several metres thick and at least 10 metres high are an impressive sight. Staying at the cheap Hotel British (room the size of my wardrobe at home) but the Grand Harbour views from the window are stunning – rated 10 plus and definitely better than the ones from the window of the hotel where the conference is being held! 

Conference begins with usual welcome from the conference committee and two keynote sessions. First up ‘conversations en route to learning’ from Prof. Agnes Kuklska Hulme from the Open University (UK). She overviewed forms of communications before, now and into the future. Humans have a innate preference for face to face conversations, so how can technology assist the process? Social networking assists somewhat and increase in ubiquitious computing furthers enhances the process. Examples in teaching include use of Twitter with trainee teachers and students using MXit mobile chat to assist peer interaction. Work by Pask 1976, Sharples 2003 and Laurillard 2002, 2007; provide a start in learning more about the role of conversations in learning. Work still needs to continue as conversations are now many layered, multilogues straddle multiple media, speech acts become artifact; more conversations with self (eg. this blog :); any questions answered etc. Some interesting initiative now emerging exampled by donate your SMS text to research; research data from conversation with self (mobile app mappiness mood monitor); digital jewellery as conversational prop; innovative ways of starting conversations; Perhaps, mobile communication is opening the door for a wider range of communications beyond just text to take place.

Second keynote from Andy Goff, from ConnectED (distributors of Playstation games) on augmented reality in learning. Began by setting the context of education and engagement and the status of augmented reality. Engagement not only with the students but also with teachers and with students using educational content. AR is when real life is enhanced by real time interactive digital media. Showed examples of AR on PSP games, android OS phone. Types of AR include mashup with GPS, accelerometer and compass, marker based tracking using camera reading a marker or markerless tracking.

Basically camera in phone or PSP reads a coded piece of paper and a 3D image comes up onto the screen eg. Shows up organs of body when you hold up a marker superimposed on to the person holding up the marker, or triggers a video to run.  Plus games exampled by eyepet (updated AR tamagochi), second sight – Romeo and Juliet pilot, safety for vocational education in Scandinavia, English heritage (Wroxeter Roman City) etc.and a workplace example with scaffold safety on-job training session. Various projects underway include links to text books, 'questing', accessibility (sign language and other langues) etc. Moving away from PSP, AR needs to move into other mobile devices and include capabilities for image tracking, face tracking, connect with interactive whiteboards, 'lustucru' app on iphone, citroen and BMW, olympus camera, alstom adverts; interactive book which triggers 3D images which you can interact with (move, tilt).

IADIS CELDA 2010 day 3

Sessions run until 1.30pm today to allow European conference attendees the chance to get home in time for work tomorrow. The morning begins with 4 presentations on the theme of technology, learning and expertise. Attendance is sparse after last night's wine tasting and dinner so the few of us present are doing our best ot support the presenters.

First up ‘future teachers’ reflections on teaching technology: what did they learn from service-learning? From Junko Yamamoto (Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania). Discusses the concept of using ‘community service’ to assist full-time students learning how to become teachers to make use of the skills learnt during the course (i.e. link theory to practice). In this case, to use the learning skills acquired on ‘technology and teaching’. Full-time students were first year students, most of whom have had no teaching experience.

Second up, Andreas Christ, Markus Feisst and presented by Razia Sultana (University of Applied Science Offenburgh) on ‘collaborative language learning as a device independent application'. Use of a multimedia flashcard system (language learning game - LLG) to help students learn a variety of languages. Flash cards are created dynamically and exchanged anonymously between users. Flash cards can be displayed using mobile phones with the software configured to allow the game to run on a variety of mobile phone operating systems. Purpose of LLG is to support learning of new language by increasing interactivity, active learning, confidentially, short time, available at any time and easy to use. Future plans to improve interactivity and also built interfaces for iphone and android OS.

Then Margot McNeill, Maree Gosper and John Hedberg (Macquarie University) on ‘aligning technologies and curriculum: A snapshot of academic practice'. A survey undertaken to find out how much academics were applying 'constructive alignment' (Biggs & Tang, 2007) and whether assessments were constructed at appropriate levels of learning required (as per revised Bloom's taxonomy (Anderson et al., 2001). Findings indicate academics want students to attain 'higher order' outcomes/ capacities but their design of activities and assessments do not align with acadmic's initial direction. Propose need for more intensive professional development to be carried out to support academics to align theory to practice, support staff to utilise technology more effectively and development of diagnostic tool to assist staff to work out whether alignment is occuring.

Lastly – proposing a framework for blended and flexible course design from Timos Almpanis (presenting), Susan Patrick, Ruth Mclellan, Christina Dinsmore, Andrea Faustino and Whysnianti Basuki (Southampton Solent University). Propose a framework for designing blended and or flexible courses based on literature review to asssit with defining the terminology of blended and flexible learning.

After morning tea, concurrent sessions running. Beginning with 'Ementoring in vocational teacher education' by David Lord (University of Huddersfield) and Nele Coninx (Fontys University of Applied Science). Described three projects to e-mentor / e-coach  and support vocational teachers to develop 'technology skills'. Results from these projects and current project also presented. Projects include “Motivate” (Masters level opportunities and technological innovation in vocational teacher education) from Finland, Greece, Holland, Hungary, Portugal and the UK - peer mentoring set up on Moodle platform;  “ASSOCiate Online” (Achieving Subject Specialist Online Communities) initiative, involving the development and operation of an on-line learning resource and network of teachers in the UK - use 'find a buddy or find a professional buddy' as objectives; and "Synchronous coaching" in the Netherlands using a WIME (Whisper In My Ear) device - adapted from sports coaching - to provide just-in-time coaching when required. Findings from these three projects used to help improve the current IMPLEMENT project (IMProving Lifelong learning through E-MENToring).

Then Dirk Iftenthaler and Tobias Schmidt (University of Mannheim) on ' assessing the effectiveness of prompts for self-regulated learning'. Reports on quantitative project to support students' reflective processes using prompts. Findings indicate that supportive information is an important aid for developing cognitive structures.

The need ofr full-featured web-based formative assessmetns in a medical problem based learning curriculum: students' adn lecturers' and theorys' view by Stefan Minder, Felix Schmitz adn Sissel Gunttormsen Schar from University of Bern. Change of traditional formative assessments (student self-quizzes) to a more interactive and provide students with information to allow them to make decisions about adjusting their own learning patterns. Current system does not meet with tutor or student needs. Feedback / findings reveal need for formative feedback to not only provide aspects of learning progress but also be interesting, motivating, captivating and inspiring!

Next up 'an analysis of answer selection patterns from multiple choice items' by Jay Powell (Better Schooling Systems, Pittsburgh), James Berbauer (Robert Morris University) and Vishnuteerth Agnihotri (Test Deveopment Educational Initiatives, Bangalore). Quantative study of how students answer multiple choice items with findings used to improve student learning and teaching practices. An interesting presentation (similar to findings by Nuttall on how students approach assessments). Content knowledge not as important as the acquistion of skills related to working things out.

Last presentation from Nguyen Thinh Le and Niels Pinkwart (Clausthal University of Technology, Germany) on 'analysis of learning curves for weighted constraint-based tutoring systems (ITS)'. Another quantative study based on statistical analysis, to try to understand learning curves as applied to pre-post test comparisons in order to find out effectiveness of a tutoring system.

In all, a good conference which provided the opportunity to connect with a wide variety of research in the cognition area with a focus on technology use.  Interesting range of papers with researchers from a wide range of disciplines and countries. A good way for me to become more familiar with quantitative approaches to educational research and to collect a range of pertinent literature. Also good to range of 'technology' focused papers which have a 'deeper' focus on the pedagogy and theories which underpin practice, decisions made to implement, improve or modify and future planning. Will need to follow up on a few of the presentations and collate some of the pertinent papers to relevant CED staff when I get back to work.

IADIS CELDA 2010 day 2

Day dawns cloudy and cool with intermittent rain. A full day today with various concurrent sessions followed by presentation of Romanian / Timisoaro history, city tour and conference dinner in the evening. Will help me readjust to the change in time zones as it has been a struggle staying up beyond 8pm. Sorted out wifi access this morning, so all go with blogging as each session runs.


First up this morning, Ioana Ghergulescu and Cristina Hava Muntean (National College of Ireland) present their work on assessing motivation in game based e-learning. Began with an overview of motivation theories (good overview in paper) and explained process undertaken to assess students’ motivation to learn through elearning.

First from Catherine Schifter, Diane Jass Ketelhut and Brian Nelson (Temple University, Philadelphia), on presence, Piaget’s stages of development and middle school children in an immersive virtual game environment. An overview on ‘presence’ Goffman’s social psychology theories and Gibson’s perception learning theory – sense of participation and involvement, being in the environment or perceptual illusion of non-mediation. Wanted to find out if ‘presence’ also in younger children as previous work mostly with adolescent and adults. Used Piaget’s developmental stages as a guide including children moving to ‘formal operational’ stage by age of 11. Small sample found some differences between grade 6 and 7 students in how they engaged with a game with grade 7 students more prepared to interact with the problem solving aspects of the game.
 
Next Hariklia Tsalapatas (University of Thessaly), Olivier Heidmann and presented by Marina Mogli (Elementary School of Portaria, Greece) on Virtual experimentation towards the development of early environmental responsibility skills. Decribed the development and evaluation of a 'game' to help primary school children learn about concepts of sustainability. The environmental game (EnvKids) developed as a Europe wide (Greece, France, Czech Republic and Sweden) initiative. Has three focuses - my home, my town and my planet.

Last paper before morning tea on robot technology and numbers in the classroom with Gunver Majgaard, Morten Misfeldt and Jacob Nielson (from Universities in Denmark). Reported on an initial exploration project using 'cubic user-configurable building blocks' to support the learning of numbers with 6 - 10 year olds including developing understanding of place value, creating large numbers etc. Included demonstration of the cubes (Iblocks) - blocks are lined up and a 'answer' block placed at the end - which will pronounce the number set up (as Danish system of number and place values can be difficult to conceptualise and numbers complicated to pronounce).

After morning tea Ville Karavirta (Aalto University) presented on real world student selected data for education – learning graph algorithms. As with previous presentation, good example of 'making learning visible'. The software developed uses real data (such as coordinates off Google maps and Dijkstra algorithm) - sematic data - and makes the data visual and easier to understand and manipulate.  

Vegard Fleisher Orkelbog (University of Oslo) presented on situated simulation as a learning tool – experiencing Forum Iulium with the iphone (mobile augmented reality). As with two previous presentations, this presents an iphone app, developed to utilise the location function of iphones to provide visitors to an archeological / historical site, access to the background information on the specific place the visitor is currently viewing. Included methods used to assist learners / viewers with matching existing artefacts with the 3D models available in the app.

Then a presentation on the effect of prior knowledge on learners’ navigation of webpage structure with Gokhan Akcapinar and Arif Altun (Hacettepe University). Used concepts of navigation to study whether differences between students with prior knowledge navigated webpages differently. Found difference in that experienced users generally less likely to be linear and inexperienced users tended to follow structure as laid out on learning resource.


Last paper before lunch, exploiting virtual worlds for teachers’ professional development with Kallonis Pavlos and Demetrios Sampson (University of Pireaus). Interesting paper detailing professional development process for teachers. Used concept of synetics - making the strange familiar - to introduce teachers to the opportunities available in using technology to assist with students' learning. Introduced second life by having teachers compare scenarios on learning new skills either through traditional methods or in virtual worlds. Sloodle (second life integration to Moodle) used as platform.

After lunch two papers – first from Sabrina Leone, Guiliana Guazzaroni, Laura Carletti and presented by Tommaso Leo (Università Politecnica delle Marche, Ancona, Italy) on increasing the need of validation of non-formal and informal learning. The case of the community of practice of ‘webm.org’. Based on a social learning framework (e.g. Web 2.0 - user as a node in knowledge creation). So what kind of learning takes place on Web 2.0 - formal or non-formal or informal?? who gains from learning, individual competence or competences which contribute to social advance? In the EU, guidelines have been provided to 'measure' conpetences learnt through non-formal / informal routes but each EU country uses these guidelines in different ways. A webm.org (collating a range of Web 2.0 tools - google docs, wordpress, twitter, facebook, manymoon, dimdim / webed, udutu and smartphones, pdas) Cop (double link COP) for informal learning for evidence based medicine studied to find out role of informal learning. Therefore, important to evaluate how effective webm.org has been in promoting and sharing co-constructed knowledge.

Last paper of the day with Nuno Pena and Pedro Isaias (Universidade Aberta (Portuguese Open University) on the ipteaces elearning framework – analysis of success indicators and the impact of student social demographic characteristics. Introduces the use of Invovlement, preparation, transmission, exemplification, application, connection, evaluation and simulation (IPTEACES) as a instructional design framework to help facilitate elearning by reducing diversity in elearning programmes facing a non-homogenous audience (gender, educational background, previous knowledge, literacy, computer proficiency, organisational culture, values / experiences, inexperience in elearning etc.). Support before student begins (student kit) and easily accessible and prompt support (phone or email helpdesks 24/7)required to support all students embarking on elearning. Evaluation of effectiveness also presented. need to explore this one further as it contains some good links between what works and pedogogical theories.
Not presented by paper provides for interesting reading. Belkcem Mostefai, Faical Azouaou and Amar Balla from the National High School for Computer Science , Algeria, on SQAR: an annotation-based study process for the learner’s personal learning. Survey, question, annotation and review (SQAR) is used as a method to help student’s learn concepts. Of interest is the annotation system developed to annotate webpages – WebAnnot as an extension of Firefox. Students who annotated more and build up substantial ‘clouds’ of various topics tended to learn concept.

IADIS CELDA 2010 DAY 1

In Timisoara, Romania for the annual IADIS Cognition and Exploratory Learning in the Digital Age conference.Took about a day and a half to get here (with short stops at Hong Kong and Rome airports).

Did an exploratory walk in the afternoon. The old town centre of Timisoara is very picturesque with a blend of Italian, Austrian and Turkish styles in the architecture, a reflection of Romania’s rich history. Some parts of the old town remind me of post-earthquake Christchurch, with buildings sheathed in scaffolding or in various stages of decline / disrepair.  However, the Timisoarans are very friendly and I found my way around the various monuments, magnificent churches and leafy parks. 

The conference programme is varied with various keynotes and concurrent sessions and held at the Universitatea Politehnica.  Conference officially opened by the IADIS committee who organized the conference. Provided an overview of pass conferences and also summary of the current conference focus.

First session were on ‘student-centred learning / assess of exploratory learning approaches, a mixture of long and short papers. Papers on integrating digital games into the school curriculum – from Hercules Panoutsopoulous and Demetrious Sampson (University of Piraeus).Discussed the contradictory evidence of efficacy of using games to improve mathematics learning. Generally student motivation is improved but does not necessarily lead to improvement in understanding of maths context. The effect of introducing novel pedagogy may raise expectations of students to the educational outcomes from engaging in the extra effort required to learn how to use the technology in addition to learning content.


Then designing online quizzes with Maree Gosper from Centre of Learning and Teaching, Macquarie University.There is a need to use a whole curriculum approach to designing on-line quizzes, her paper provides good background on the uses of quizzes for formative feedback. Also the importance of Bigg’s constructive alignment in ensuring quizzes are integrated into the overall learning process. Plus use updated Bloom’s taxonomy (Anderson and Krathwohl, 2001) to work out when and how to use quizzes. A model useful for finding out if using curriculum alignment /cognitive practices and learner characteristics actually is effective.

YuhiYuzuchara, Yong Xu, Keiichi Kaneko from Tokyo University of Agriculture and TechnologyMasatoshi Ishikawa from Tokyo Seitoku University and HarukoKiyakoda from Tsuda College provided background on work they have been conducting on vocabulary learning with coloured-learning materials.An interesting study, improving on work established by others on using coloured letters to improve recall. In this case, learners generate their own colours leading to better association of colours with certain words to be learn as foreign vocabulary.

Mark Frydenberg and John Miko presented on using Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) as an example of authentic learning. SEO simulator in the form of a ‘contest’ used to engage students into learning the techniques (many tacit skills involved) to complete effective SOE.

During morning tea, had a look at the poster by Akiko Orita, Atsushi Yoshikawa and Takao Terano from Keio University and Tokyo Insitute of Technology on using Manga case for learning in practice:embedding awareness experience and knowledge in description. Students are provided case to study in the form of a manga comic / manga case. This is then used to raise topics for discussion etc. and leads to students forming improved concepts of topics. Of interest is the multiliteracies approach used to engage students’ interest using a form of communication they were familiar with.

All the above provide some interesting ideas, mostly not too difficult to put into practice which may enhance student learning in specific contexts.

After lunch, opening keynote from Professor Miguel Nussbaum from the Universidad Catolica de Chile via virtual conferening. He spoke about ‘looking into the future: integrating technology and pedagogy.

Bases his work on Engestrom’s activity theory to study the consequences of technology on present children’s development. Used example of the evolution of language (txt speak) as an example of how technology has changed the way in which we interact with each other. However, teachers are still using traditional methods when integrating technology into learning / teaching. Introduces the concept of ‘one mouse per child’, using minimal equipment (computer, projector, one mouse / PDA per student) to change the way in which interactions could be enhanced by technology in the classroom – participatory literacy. Basically, link each child with teachers’ computer in similar concept to classroom presenter (used at CPIT).

Lost connection part way so Mark Frydenberg presented an overview of Web 2.0 moving to Web 3.0 (the semantic web) with examples provided as freebase.com, google goggles, spottime.com, google squared labs and wolfram alpha. All these allow for ‘mashups’ and aggregation of data, often based on user preferences / location / or use patterns.


The attended session in the learning communities and web service technologies stream

Daniel Chia-en Teng (National Sun Yet Sen University), TommasoLeo (UniversitàPolitecnicadelle Marche
Ancona, Italy), Kinshuk(Athabasca University) and Nian-ShingChen (National Sun Yet Sun University) presented on using online synchronous learning.Evaluation of use of Synchronous Cyber Classroom for group of students from Italy, Canada and Taiwan working through a post-graduate programme.Evaluated model of community of inquiry (Garrison, Anderson & Archer, 2000) to study teacher, social and cognitive presence. Student (12 Phd students) feedback indicate teacher presence was perceived to be weak (could be due to cultural differences, unfamiliarity with online environment, students assumed an active role as speaker / moderator); social presence again was low (maybe due to no class work required collaboration and students did not know each other well); and cognitive presence was better (students have sufficient prior knowledge to cope and make relevant links to information presented).

Masayuki Shinohara, Hiroshi Shimeno, Shigenori Ioroi and Hiroshi Tanaka from Kanagawa Institute of Technology on a lecture system using cell phones, similar concept to clickers. In-house system constructed (open source) to allow use of cell phones to be linked to tutor computer with software to manage the answers coming in.Future developments include integration into elearning system and a review function for incorrect answers. Something to follow up on although the system will be based on the mobile web, still an expensive option in NZ :(

BahaaeldinMohamed (TU Dresden) and Thomas Koehloer on effect of using project based web 2.0 learning on students’ outcomes (nicely done presentation on prezi). Re-defines problem based learning using community based, project (start, lit review, method, research, conclusion) management (CBPM) as a model. Compared two groups, one using online CBPM and other using offline model. Explored students acceptance and attitudes.

Kathleen Houston from the University of Central Lancashire on online employability workshops. Evaluates the effectiveness of using online workshops to raise awareness in students – about to graduate – on the requirements to prepare for work, look for employment and create effective CVs.

ITF Secondary – Tertiary transitions forum

The ITF NZ Secondary to Tertiary Forum ran was on 1^st October. Unfortunately, I had already committed to presenting at the National Teaching & Learning Conference at UCOL.  However, the efficient ITF has posted the power points of various presentations and I spend the morning catching up on the various presentations, which inform work I am doing on the ‘first year apprentices’ project.

First presentation was from Jeremy Baker ITF executive director, who called for a more structured form of information to be provided to school leavers, already overwhelmed by a plethora of career options and provided with a whole host of options while still at school to try out occupations/ careers while still at school. The ITF proposes a ‘sectoral pathways’ to try to make the information on transition from school to tertiary options and eventually to work, clearer. Sectors include university and other pathways, service industries, manufacture and technology, building and construction, primary industries and social and community services.

Next up, Stuart Middleton, as per his video advocating for the establishment of ‘tertiary academies’ presents the rationale on powerpoint, for the need for a new interface to with multiple pathways which requires interaction between schools and tertiary institutions, in the form of ‘tertiary high schools’.

The Post-primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) represented by Penney Dunckley, Peter Kemp and Sarah Dalton, present secondary schools / teachers viewpoints on youth guarantees, trade academies and qualifications and the need for better strategies to help young people get the most out of their education.

The a presentation on the proposed structure for the Christchurch based ‘trades academy’ – Canterbury Tertiary College, to be a joint Linwood College and Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology (CPIT) partnership beginning 2011. A comprehensive series of slides on the consultation process and the types of certificates / programmes to be offered.

The government Career’s services/ Ruapara perspective was then offered by Susan Kosmala on ‘smart decisions, smart transitions’. There is a need to still improve on information to be provided to school leavers as over 40% of tertiary students decide to change courses or drop out due to enrolling in the wrong course! Career’s services is now offering multiple entry points to their web-based resources via various social networking sites.

All in, the above presentations represent the ‘state of play’ with regards to the various initiatives being undertaken to assist students with school to post-school options. As Stuart Middleton explained, NZ will have a growing number of 'non-traditional' students which schools and tertiary institutes will need to put effort into engaging / re-engaging.

Looking for net tabs / ipad alternatives

As a follow up from blog in August, I did a trawl through possible places to look for ipad alternatives when I am in Hong Kong or Singapore later this month.  Not sure if I will have time as I only have a day in Hong Kong but will be based in MongKok, which has several likely possibilities for tech. toys.

In Singapore for not quite 5 days with two days taken up by conference and a day at least (perhaps two) with working on the last edit of my thesis with my supervisor, Stephen. Also will have to fit in the obligatory hello to my mother-in-law and various aunties! So time will be of the essence. Good thing about Singapore is shops are open late so should be able to get at least a short hour or so at either of Sim Lim computer / mobile phone centre or at Funan IT Mall on Bridge Road.

An item reported in August reports on 9 alternatives , another with 7 and android forum turns out to be good place to find out more about the large number of Android tablets now available. I found links there to a comparison of various 'lower end' tablets and a link with release dates.


On the ipad end of the market, the Samsung Galaxy Tab seems to be leading the flock with a comparison between the ipad and the galaxy tab from pcworld,  Augen tabs do not seem to have withstood deep scrutiny and no physical sign, as yet of the Asus eee Pad or the MSI windpad and the Blackberry Playpad not as yet launched.
 
So might be a case of having a good look and to do some hands on play with various models including ones with 7" screens and resistive rather than capacitive screens. If I have time, will also do a read up on the various technical specifications, difference between VIA and rockchip processors plus have a chat with various techy types at mlearn 2010 who will have advice to offer. This will provide a better understanding of capabilities of net tabs and form the basis of next year's 'elearning' project applications.

Collaboration tools

Well, found rather a lot on collaboration tools! A very comprehensive sample from Robin Good plus some recommended ones for project management  and free web based collaboration tools.The CED team will really need to knuckle down and work out the main objective of using a collaboration tool in order to try to work out the best option available.

CPIT IT will be moving to a totally Microsoft environment next year. First adjustment will be transition from Novell’s Groupwise to Microsoft’s Outlook. Microsoft Sharepoint will be available from later in 2011. A review from the enterprise 2.0 viewpoint reveals both good and bad points depending on whether you are a user or IT adminstrator. So not sure if starting CED staff on collaboration tools will be a good move at this point in time. However, use of Sharepoint might not eventuate until well into 2012!


There has been an increase in interest in using Google Docs as a teaching / learning platform through two presentations / workshops attended recently. Firstly, the CAME project around automotive courses at Unitec and then demonstration of using Google docs by Aaron Steele with computing students’ projects at UCOL. Having a change to play with Google Docs last week with Aaron, was a good chance to try out the latest features on Google Docs.

So to begin, it might be good to start people on using google docs and just setting up one document into which we could archive various links etc. under various categories. This may still be the easiest approach as some Wiki tools can be intimidating to newcomers as per this article on the dos and don'ts of setting up collaborative sites and why people don't like using wikis.  Using Google Docs will help everyone come to grips with the possibilities of using collaborative cloud computing based platforms and building capability for more complex initiatives.

However, the extent of the various collaboration tools, does raise greater possibilities for project planning. Other options are basecamp (well-known but costs), wiggio (recommended by another team at NMIT and on trying out, seems to be user friendly and free) and dropbox (essentially a file sharing system).

National Teaching & Learning conference 2010 - day 3

Last morning of the conference, with two keynotes and a workshop (where I have a ‘round table’ session to extend on keynote presentation yesterday).


First keynote of the morning from Dr. Kirsty Weir, the research manager from Ako Aotearoa who spoke on ‘enhancing learner outcomes through evidence-based teaching’. How can research be used to build up a evidence base to improve outcomes for students. She began with current state of play in research (agenda, methods, dissemination). Challenges – researchers working in isolation leading to use of a narrow range of methods & dissemination to small / academic audiences. Need to improve quality and impact of research to educational change. At the agenda stage, need to engage practitioners, researchers and policy makers together to work on research questions which will help to drive policy. Methods can be improved by embracing diverse methods (need to match research question to method not just use method most familiar to researcher), systematically measuring (measure actual change not just perceptions) outcomes (e.g. as proposed by Sir Mason Durie on day 1) and employ inferential analyses (to judge if interventions are effective). During dissemination, need to ensure research goes to practitioners and policy makers (using most appropriate channels) by making research accessible, actively target audience (e.g. practice focused summaries for practitioners), scale up application (share key points and work at generalization to applications beyond research context). Used the Carl Weiman based improving the learning of science project as an example. Therefore research agenda needs to have collaboratively set priorities, methods include providing Ako Aoteaoroa funding to build research capability and developing improved mechanisms for dissemination (e.g. Ako Aotearoa good practice publication grants).

Important pointers in Kirsty’s direction to planning towards future projects :)

Workshop session followed with a small number of keen participants. I managed to garner feedback on the presentation I have been working on for an Adult Learning Symposium in Singapore at the end of October. The overall approach to link the metaphor of belonging, becoming and being (b3) to help students learn ‘judgment’ and importance of feedback in the process. Participants also worked on using the b3 metaphor to assist with development or evaluation and re-development of curriculum and teaching plans and staff development.

Closing keynote from Dr. Billy O’Steen from University of Canterbury, assisting as to work out ‘where to from here? Applying your conference learning journeys’. Based his presentation on having the conference participations work out what they have gained from the conference based on the 4 keynotes : Where have we come from (Tamati), where have you been during the conference / motivations (Mason), what will you take from here (Kirsty) and where to from here – the continuing journey of becoming and being a teacher (Selena). A good session to unpack the large amount of learning that takes place when one engages with conference activities. Particularly, how to apply new ideas to enhancing student engagement (can be defined from student behavior or systems institutions use to help students learn and measured by surveys like AUSSE).

Conference proceedings will be archived on Ako Aotearoa website in a couple of weeks. Conference closed with a poroporoaki. Next year’s conference (early October) will be organized by Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology (NMIT).

National Teaching & Learning Conference 2010 - day 2 afternoon

My keynote came up after lunch where I presented on 'Belonging, Becoming and Being: Learning from narratives of apprentices and trades tutors. My main objective was to provide background on concepts of vocational identity formation and to provide the metaphors of belonging, becoming and being as metaphors for forming a shared understanding for teachers to work towards processes which will enhance learning for students. 

After afternoon tea, open conference session with two streams - teaching and learning and elearning.
The teaching and learning stream had groups working on teaching large classes, motivating students, managing assessment for learning. In elearning there are groups discussing eportfolios, social networking, misuse of technology, evaluating confidence with digital literacy and how to embed literacy in elearning.

National Teaching & Learning Conference 2010, day 2 morning

Day 2 began with keynote with Tamati Waaka – Te Whare o Wanaga Awanuiarangi, an uplifting and cogent presentation to start the day off well. Tamati began with his whakapapa (his genealogy from his father and mother and the landmarks which are important waymarkers). His presentation centred around ‘learning in a Maori way’ covering Maori ontology (Maoritanga), epistemology (matuaranga) and methodology (and the role of proverbs (whakatauki) in their epistemology. Using his whakapapa, he explained the various aspects of Maori approaches to learning.


Whakatauki included:

Tu kit e marae tau ana – learn your skill in a safe environment and your will thrive

Iti te kupu nui te korero – small words have large meanings

When through various teaching methods as examples – eg. Role play to learn whakapapa, concept maps, mind maps and structured word maps to learn waiata (archaic chants).

Ako Aoteaora publication on teaching and learning for success for Maori in tertiary settings includes 5 main points.

After morning tea, a series of workshops. I chose to attend Alison Viskovic’s session on ‘how do you learn to be a tertiary teacher’. Alison was my M ed. supervisor and now associate dean of the arts faculty at Whitireia Polytechnic. She did an overview of work from her Phd and a literature review on evaluating tertiary teacher training in NZ completed for Ako Aotearoa as a precursor to the Ako Aotearoa commissioned stocktake of tertiary teachers qualifications. A workshop followed to discuss approaches to questions like – do tertiary teaching qualifications matter?; how can informal learning about teaching in teachers’ local communities of practice to be better support? How different or similar are the teaching development needs of university or polytec teachers?; if courses / qualifications matter, what should NZ provision be like? How useful to us are standards set in the UK by the Higher Ed. Academy and the Further Ed. (lifelong learning sector?

National Teaching & Learning Conference - Day 1 afternoon

Sir Mason Durie's, vice chancellor - maori & pacifica studies - Massey university, presentation Maori student success addressing determinants of sucess in order to achieve best outcomes for Maori students through positive learning enviroments. tertiary ed delivers dual benefits of personal and societal.

Began with an overview of how Maori educational transformation since 1984 starting with the emergence of the Kura Kaupapa Maori and Whare Kura (kohanga reo movement). following that educational policies which recognise Maori aspirations and knowledge increased choices for Maori. Availability of multiple tertiary education pathways also assisted as did information derived from the building of research capability. Participation rate of Maori in tertiary education now higher than average (over 20% compared to just under 15%) although higher partipation rate with female Maoris( 2/3 - 1/3), generally students are 'older'.

Determinants of success include macro (social) variables, learners, teaching institutes and teacher attributes. Post-treaty Iwi aspirations will lead to a change in present relationships between Maori and govt./others. In next 25 years, there will be a move to grow capability and to harness resources which will lead to an emphasis on education to meet future objectives. Best outcomes need to NOT only be measured in academic outcomes, other outcomes include collegial networks, personal, career and cultural. The learning environment is an important contributor to better student outcomes, should include campus experience, modes of learning, generic support and whanau (wider family) support. Suggest engagement (whakapiri), enlighten (whakamarama) and empower (whakamana) students important. engagment needs to be a two way process (bilateral). enlightenment includes cultural enrichment, healthy lifestyle, learning outcomes/intellectual insights and social cohesion. empowerments involves attainment of a qualification which has worth in society including career and leadership opportunities.

Govt. policies indicate need to target qualified students (less open entry), less opportunities for second chance learners, more blended learning, higher expectations of students and perhaps working towards more than one qualification plus a moved to student centred learning. Some movement now with collaborative programmes between tertiary institutes and Iwi.

Panel discussion on Maori ways of knowing followed chaired by Ian Rowe, operations manager from Ako Aotearoa Central Hub. Panel included Sir Mason and staff and students from UCOL. Questions arouse in response to govt. direction as detailed by Hon. Steve Joyce this morning and the recommendations proposed in Sir Mason's presentation. For instance, outcomes need to be viewed wider than just completion of qualification but encompasse other aspects of personal growth and social contribution.

National Teaching & Learning Conference 2010 - day one morning

A wonderful powhiri welcome to Ucol and the annual (4th) National Teaching & Learning Conference at UCOL in Palmerston North.  Annette Aubrey, one of the organisers opened the proceedings with usual housekeeping and plans for the other conference sessions. Official welcomes from UCOL CE Paul McElroy and UCOL council chair, Trevor Goodwin followed.

Opening address was from Hon. Steven Joyce, Minister for Tertiary Education who provided a succinct but clear overview of why the tertiary sector is important to New Zealand and how it can better contribute to the betterment of New Zealanders' lives.  He summarised the need to move away from the consumption and economy based economy growth in the past years towards the need to have productivity growth in the contributing sectors which contribute to the economy (agriculture for one, education another example). Need to provide quality education, improve performance (through measuring and setting performance targets) and obtain value for money by removing low performance entities and financial incentives to improve student performantce.

The minister is supportive of ensuring the continued development of capability in the tertiary sector (better teachers) to ensure government goals of better outcomes for all NZers can be attained.  On to the afternoon with workshop sessions, keynote by Dr.Mason Durie and panel discussion.

PIPTA and CPIT allied staff workshops

Did two presentations today. Firstly, a short presentation at Lincoln University, on “harnessing technology to enhance trades learning: mlearning, eportfolios and web 2.0” to the Primary Industry Polytechnic Tutors Association (PIPTA) as part of their annual moderation and professional development days. Most of the tutors work in the agricultural, forestry and horticultural fields. I was interested in my interactions with this group of tutors as it is a group I have had few opportunities to make contact with. Also, good to meet tutors who teach in the dairy industry as one of the groups of apprentices participating in the ‘first year apprentices’ research project are apprentices on dairy farms. An industry characterised by very long hours of work exampled by 4am starts to 6 pm finish and working for at least 8 to 10 days before a couple of days off


Second presentation followed by a workshop, similar to one I presented about a month or so ago at Weltec for tutors from Weltec, Whiterea and Open Polytechnics, sponsored by Ako Aotearoa Central Hub. The focus for today’s presentation slightly different as it is to CPIT allied staff, a varied group of people working in administrative and technical support roles. The presentation introduced concepts of Web 2.0 including the rapid movement towards mobile and cloud computing.

Of interest is the increase, when compared to feedback from presentations from just two years ago, of most people’s general knowledge in using technology in both their work and non-work lives. Social networking is now no longer a total mystery to many people and sites like Youtube, Twitter and Facebook are now mentioned so often in general media, that the average person will have at least heard of these although never actually used them.

With each of the above groups, I did a general survey of how many people actually contributed to Web 2.0 sites. There is a 100% response and this may be due to the wider use of consumer focused web 2.0 sites like trademe (buying and selling online), seek (job hunting) and services like internet banking and shopping. Not as many were familiar with ‘cloud computing’ and the move towards ubiquitous computing. However, most had heard about the ipad and net tabs may be the hardware tool which will shift the general population towards un-tethered, cloud-based access to the internet.

Off to Teaching and Learning conference tomorrow where I will present a keynote and a follow-up workshop on ‘Belonging, becoming and being: Learning from narratives of apprentices and trades tutors’. The presentation is on how to leverage off the metaphors of belonging to a workplace, becoming and being to assist tutors to enhance earning opportunities for apprentices, pre-trade students and to help new trades tutors draw on trades skills to become good teachers.

World Skills competitions, New Zealand finals 2010 held at CPIT

World skills was held at CPIT last week. Most competitions went for 3 days (across around 20 plus hours) and competitors generally worked on building some form of product.

I popped in to the CPIT Sullivan Avenue campus on Friday and Saturday to watch the activities in plumbing, bricklaying, carpentry, joinery, marine cabinetry, engineering/fitting, light fabrication and welding. Also had a quick look at competitions on the main CPIT campus including front of house, cookery and floristry. Other trades I did not have time to get to were hairdressing, autobody repair / finishing, automotive technology and electrotechnology – industrial controls and electrical installations. All in, a good opportunity to see trade apprentices at work. Winners were announced on Sunday with dinner at the CPIT training restaurant, Visions. The 'toolblacks' who will represent New Zealand at the final Worldskills competitions in London in 2011 will be announced in December. Fund raising continues to raise money for the team.

Of note was the use, by many trades, of the skill of reading plans and transposing a 2D image into a 3D product, the range of tools and skill used in many trades and the complexity of some of the tasks each apprentice had to work through. In many trades, there were more judges than competitors, so scrutiny of work-skills and craftspersonship was intense. Time was also a factor in several competitions with some competitors not quite completing their projects. Approaches taken by competitors as they engaged with tasks was also interesting to observe. Some tutors about to explain what was taking place to the audience and having some commentary for events of a similar nature is always helpful to assist understanding of the tasks by lay people.

The learning that has been undertaken for each of the apprentice competitors would have been concentrated as many had only been in the trade for around three years. Yet, in the main, most were able to produce products to journeyperson standards. Might be a possible research project here, to study the motivations of high performing apprentices, what drives them to achieve beyond just competency and why they have a drive to excel at their craft/trade.

Shifting offices and getting re-acquainted with nVivo

I shifted offices four weeks ago from a shared office with the Adult Education team to another, with the elearning team and digital librarian. The office is just off to the side of the second level of the CPIT library. So a great place to be since I can now browse the stacks whenever I need a bit of time to do some contemplation.


Other Centre for Education Development (CED) staff are just around the corner and  the main reason for the shift is to try to have all the CED staff offices in closer proximity to each other. Our manager designate from the UK, starts work at CPIT at the end of October. So it will be less daunting for him if all the CED staff are not scattered all over the campus.

I have enjoyed my first weeks (interrupted by a week away due to the earthquake) with the elearning team members. They have just about got used to seeing me in the office when they get in each morning as I am an early starter. I have now worked out all the security issues and liaised with security so that my early starts, once a week or so late finishes and study on Saturdays and on wet Sundays do not disrupt their security patterns.

It’s all also much quieter as the three others in the office beaver away at their computers and have few meetings whereas the adult ed. office was always a hive of activity with meetings and students and other visitors dropping in all the time. Therefore, I have made good progress with data analysis for the ‘first year apprentices’ project. The bulk of the data is now migrated to nVivo and various nodes (themes) have been established. Have also been able to make a start on the reports to each of the ITOs, due for end of this year. Also revised how to do ‘queries’ on nVivo, to compare demographic data and various coded text fragments. So far some patterns emerging as to ‘prior contact’ with a workplace or occupation and apprentices’ ‘stickability’. A common sense finding but well reflected in the data. While using the help feature on nVivo to work out various features of the software, came across the announcement on nVivo 9 launches October. Will need to re-evaluate nVivo9 for suitabitity for multimodal discourse analysis using video data once our version is updated.

Moving from bloglines across to Google Reader

Unfortunately, bloglines, my preferred RSS feeder, will be closing down on the 1^st of October. I had migrated my feeds across to Google Reader over year or more ago but have found the bloglines interface to be too familiar to give up. There is even a post asking blogliners to convert to Google reader! Now, I will have to get to grips with learning the ropes around Google reader. 

The ease by which one can set up RSS feeds on social networking has perhaps led to the demise to dedicated feed readers.  For instance, my main access to non-work related news is via the feeds set up on my iGoogle page with latest news from the BBC, NZ Herald, TVNZ and TV3.  Many other people set up feeds on their facebook or twitter accounts.  The NZ Herald app on the ipad has a visually attractive and easy to use interface. Even my husband, is now prepared to give up our subscription to the hardcopy newspaper. He never likes reading on screen but the ipad has partially converted him to doing some on-screen reading. Recent post on tech crunch indicates more Americans read online news than on hardcopy newspapers. Growth of multimedia consumption devices like the ipad will only increase this trend.

Google reader has put in many ways to explore my RSS feeds, so it will take me some time to explore the possibilities and to work my way around the items I will find to be useful. One item I already quite like is that Google reader shows all the feeds, not only just the ones you have not read. This is a good way to backtrack and to find out what the blogger has been discussing in the pass, providing better context for the current blog. Also, easier to access ‘older’ blogs. In bloglines, you have to move across to the main blog url in order to check back into the actual archives. In Google reader, a list of ‘older’ blogs is listed and this makes the process of rechecking recent blogs much easier. Also good for when I need to check my own blog, there is a list of all the blogs from this year and access is easier than going to through blogger!

In some ways, having eveything via Google's gmail account (igoogle, google docs, blogger, reader) makes life easier. However, still important for me to try to access and use a diverse range of tools.  Over the next couple of weeks, I will be exploring how to better use collaborative tools for the Center of Educational Development staff to share and archive 'resources' which we all constantly email to each other.  Will be interesting exercise to see what is out there and what we may select to use.  The tools will need to be easy to use as digital literacy of the CED team is mixed plus will also be something that meets the objectives of the group as many attempts at setting up collaborative 'knowledge sharing' tools come to naught when people do not use them - for all sorts of reasons.

Earthquake effects and use of technology to keep up to date with aftershocks

Finally back at work, after a week. The impacts of the Canterbury earthquake, 7.1 richter scale, early on 4/9 will still be felt many months into the future. All well, as my home on the North West of the city, is build on relatively stable and solid river gravel. The house had an almighty shake but came through without any damage. I, along with most Christchurch residents will be forever grateful for the foresight of city engineers who set up earthquake proofing legislation just after the Napier Earthquake of 1931.


CPIT, which is situated in the city, came through relatively unscathed. Just a few broken windows. Even the shelves in our library stayed up, when compared to the ones in the University of Canterbury library. The CPIT library shelves were braced top and bottom, there were books on the floor but no toppled shelves.

I got in to work early on Wednesday and experienced the 5.1 after shock just before 8 am as I just finished clearing my emails. Headed under my desk as it was a very hard shake but apart from some white stuff falling from the ceiling, everything kept together. CPIT was closed soon after and I wended my way home on my bike, taking the opportunity to have a look around the areas of the city not condoned off. Many older brick buildings have collapsed and there was rubble strewn through some streets.

Back at work on Friday, where there were a few, relatively smaller aftershocks. CPIT staff who were at work were briefed on plans for the coming week when students would return to class, including a thorough briefing on what to do in the event of a large aftershock.

The week away from work provided me with time to complete final edit of my theses (yeah). Also catch up on reading for the ‘perspectives of first year apprentices project’ and draft the report / guidelines for the ‘multimodal study of apprentice learning’ project. So all, in a good opportunity to have some ‘contemplation’ time and to catch up on things which never get done on my to do list. In particular, to review my research journals to work out anything I might have missed, forgot to do or need to still catch up on.

After the 4/9 event, we had no power for almost 8 hours. I had to resort to using our one and only transistor radio which did not have very good reception, and our neighbours’ reports, to keep up with what was happening in the city. Once the power was up, the internet and TV provided good information. There was a flurry of emails and telephone calls from overseas, concerned at the damage my relatives / friends had seen on the news. It has become a very small world indeed. An article in the local papers reports on how everyone is now a journalist as facebook, twitter and bloggers provide updated news on aftershocks, damage and other events. We have been checking the GNS Geonet site after each aftershock to guage intensity. Generally, I feel most above 4 at home but the need to be at least 4.5 to be felt at work.

Aftershocks have now decreased in intensity and frequency, so hopefully, things have settled down. The experience sure reminds you what the important things in life are, family, friends, neighbours and pets, all living, breathing, cuddly entities.

Ipad tips

As usual, the net is flooded with sites providing various ways to get the most out of your ipad. Gizmodo site floats up first on a google search. The most useful one here is to be able to take a screenshot – especially useful for maps of places you are about to visit.

Tech radar does a one up by providing 75 tips!! Many useful with iphone / ipod touch but a good review of the various shortcuts and ways to maximise use of the iphone OS. How to geek has a ‘definitive list’ with well laid out instructions and many tips not covered in the previous two sites, well worth a good look.  Also some interesting tips on ipad news daily including 12 little known features and the evolution of various technologies which culminate in the ipad.

All above useful toward how we can leverage the use of net tablets to enhance student learning at CPIT. Have just purchased the ipad camera kit and the ipad dock connector to VGA adaptor which I will test out over the next couple of days. 
 

CPIT research week - Outputs 2010

The annual CPIT research week ran this week with each school which had research capacity presenting a range of reports on various research activities the staff. Posters, produced for various conferences, were also displayed and the library featured their information retrieval / support systems supporting research activities for staff and students.


This is the third year CPIT has run the research week. In previous years, it has provided me, in my role as staff developer supporting research activities at CPIT, a good opportunity to gain an overview of the diverse research taking place. Many of research projects undertaken explore pedagogical aspects rather than pure subject focuses. In all, over 40 presentations of which about a third have a teaching/learning focus. Most schools have at least one or more project related to enhancing student learning, so lots of good work undertaken, of note are the presentations from the school of computing, all of which have a student focus.

On Tuesday, the week was launched by our new CE, Kay Giles. The School of Humanities started things off with three presentations. First up, Gerry Duignan with his work towards his Masters on ‘ cross cultural perspectives in adult education’ based interviews/ focus groups with Saudi teachers who have been doing short adult education courses at CPIT. Then Phillip McFedries presented on his proposed project, to produce a collection of stories of refugees’ experiences. The resulting collection will be disseminated via hard or soft copy which is to be decided by the students. Then I did a summary of the ‘perspectives of first year apprentices’ project, with good questions at the end.

On Wednesday, the invited guest speaker was Dr. Tim Lindley, who provided a very informative and interesting hour on the Food and Crop project on carbohydrates and how the research is now used in a fully online weight lose programme called Aspire. A good example of how research can have wide ranging applications and the ways in which fundamental research can be commercialised.

Thursday, I attended the presentations by the Schools of Computing, Broadcasting and Nursing. Unable to get to the School of Art and Design due to another meeting. School of Computing presented a four projects of relevance to my work. Rob Oliver presented work he has been doing with Dave Kennedy, using tablet computers. I have blogged previously on Dave and Daphne’s work using class presenter. Rob has now been working on a PC based variant of class presenter, ubiquitous presenter, freeware from the University of California) which needed some tweaking but now running via Firefox and used with database and programming classes. In summary, it allows students to submit answers to questions and for the whole class to see various submissions. The learning conversations which flow from the answers provide for great learning opportunities.

Then Malcolm Weick presented on how to teach classes of mixed abilities and why it is important to also support the ‘top’ students as well as the ‘struggling students’. Institutional support more prevalent for ‘struggling’ students but students who begin a course with prior knowledge and skills also at risk of not completing due to initial boredom and lack of engagement. Some good ideas Flip and I will be able to use on how to motivate more able students.
 
Chris McCartney presented 4 student ‘research projects’ where by students work with a tutor to produce a conference presentation based on student’s project work. Lastly, Armit Sarkar and Ranran (Monica) Bian did a energetic presentation on their ‘virtual vending machine’ using a unit testing framework with programming students.




Thursday evening, there was 9 presentations from the School of Nursing, which included items from the ‘social work’ team. Of note were Isabel Jamieson’s Phd project on Gen Y and what they think about nursing, Jane Maidment on ‘using craft as a vehicle for social cohesiveness’ , Chris Taua on ‘ people with intellectual disability as active participants in nursing research’ and Ada Campbell’s Diploma in Tertiary Teaching project ‘ searching for the threads of cultural safety in the Bachelor of Nursing programme’.

Chris Taua’s project is of interest as obtaining ethics for her project will be a challenge. Of note, her intention to use the approach taken by the Donald Beasley Institute which uses clear and simple language in their reports to ensure the reports are accessible to the intellectually disabled community.

On Friday, only managed to get to the afternoon sessions as I shifted offices in the morning. So attended a couple of sessions from the midwifery section and then 8 presentations from the School of Business and Recreation. In midwifery, Rae Daellenbach and Mary Kensington presented on the experiences of midwifery students of the blended learning programme now offered jointly by CPIT and Otago Polytechnic with students from all parts of the South Island.


In the school of business, presentations of relevance to me were from David Irwin on ‘exploring the roles of identity change and change agency within organisations moving towards sustainability’ - based on precepts of 'sense making'; Jo Straker on ‘meaning making: whose meaning’ (trying to define whose outdoors and which outdoors) and Adam Hollingworth and Teresa Schwellnus’ project on ‘ influence of numeracy ability on success rates in business qualifications’ using NZ numeracy progressions. as a base for diagnostic tests for students on entry to see if students who have high levels suceed better and to offer students who may struggle appropriate assistance before they start to have difficulties.

In all, a rich variety of research being produced at CPIT and it is always great to attend presentations and to shares the presenters enthusiasm and knowledge for their work.

Alternatives to Ipad

I had a chat with automotive tutor – Peter Sauer – who is interested in making use of the tablet as a resource tool in the automotive workshop. There is already a large computer screen and computer set up in the automotive workshop but the students rarely make use of it as it is parked in a corner of the workshop and using it means everyone else in the workshop is able to see what the user is looking for / at. Ipod touches may be a solution but the screens are too small. The mobility of the tablet along with the screen real estate will provide opportunities to use some very effective automotive reference resources to be accessible in the workshop. Some of the resources include 3D models of engines which can be ‘exploded’ out and the details of each engine part scrutinised.


The cost of ipads makes it expensive for apprentices to purchase. Also, we will probably need a robust tablet which will stand up to the hard surfaces in an automotive workshop. The screen will also need to withstand being continually prodded by greasy fingers! So the hunt is now on for an appropriate device which is not too expensive but robust. There are alternatives to the ipad including 7 here and 10 here plus a NZ specific report.

Android OS tablets seem to be about to take off and there is a blog with the latest news on various Android OS tablets about to be launched. We might have to source these on the internet as I can not see many of these devices making it on to the NZ market. I will need to keep an eye out for them when I am in Hong Kong and Singapore in October. I am only in each country very briefly, so will need to do some research before I go, to work out the best places to view and do some hands on try out with any that are available by October this year.

The Palmpad using Web OS might be also launched by then, although early 2011 seems to be a more likely date. I have always been a fan of the Web OS on palm devices having used 4 palm devices. So it will be interesting to see what comes about.

Windows 7 powered tablets seem to have struck a bit of a challenge, with several reviewers, including this one, providing poor reviews. So, there seems to be many about to be launched and a few already available.  The ipad will still be the standard most people will use as a reference point for other tablets.

Ipad - convenience and mlearning tool

The mobility of netbooks / ipad along with Wifi has changed the way in which my family interacts. Both my ‘kids’ (one 22 , the other 25) are currently back at home. The younger establishing herself into work after completing uni. last year & the older back home a month ago, after a 6 month break in Thailand and a couple of years working in Melbourne. He is now back at Polytechnic doing a Cert. in Fitness course. Most evenings, we are gathered around the TV, each with netbook (2 eee PCs), ipad or ipod touch (2 of them), surfing the web, playing games, reading etc. while the 6pm news does its best to bring our attention back to things happening in the big wide world. The husband now has the daily newspapers all to himself but does borrow the ipad for his bit of web surfing as well, he finds the ipod touch screen too small. So besides comments on what is happening on the news, we also share sites we are surfing, latest videos, music, compare scores on games (Scramble2), plan movies to see or walk/tramp/ski trip over the weekend. In the past, we tended to each be busy at our computers & four to five years ago, just before both of them left home, they had TVs in their rooms. We actually now interact socially much more in the evening then we used to!!


From the education focus, I have never been a great fan of teaching in computer suites. The students ‘hide’ behind their computers and group activity, peer interaction is difficult when the physical barrier of a large computer screen prevents people from seeing each other properly. Access to WIFI and encouraging students to make use of laptops/netbooks/ipads presents teachers with a much better physical environment which can be flexibly reorganised to enhance learning activities taking place in the classroom. Untethered web access leads to mobility and the opportunity for students and teachers to centre learning on the tasks at hand.

The classroom then becomes a true learning space as access to information relevant to the lesson is much more easily sourced. This information can then form the basis of learning moments for students and teachers.
Here and here are comprehensive lists of links to various ipod touch/ipad apps – many educational including a good list from Rasmussen college. Also an example of an interactive book in the digital form of a well loved NZ book - Hairy Maclary of Donaldson Diary with a video trailer.

Integrating competency standards into project work - example from engineering section CPIT

Attended a lunch time session from staff of the engineering/manufacturing section in the Trades Innovation Institute (TII) today. ATheir presentation was a subset of one presented at a the recent Adult Literacy and Numeracy Symposium 2010 held at Unitec in Auckland. John Morgan, Tony Smith, Bernie Streeter, Chris Cato, Rayn Baker and Peter Harrison presented on “Embedding Literacy, Language, & Numeracy into Project based learning” – their M-WAU project.

Basically, the delivery of the 6 months pre-trade engineering courses will be re-structured to remove the current 28 summative assessments and be replaced with completion of projects (I.E. making products).  Enbedded into the projects, will be the various performance criteria required to be completed. Numerary and literacy will also be included in situated learning activities. Assessment then involves completion of the projects which requires a complicated set of spreadsheets to track student progress and match their progress to the competency standards completed. 

Of interest is the way in which marks are allocated to projects, changing a competency based assessment into a 'norm referenced' one based on 'tolerances' achieved by students as they work through various projects.  The marks then appear on a graph which can be linked to affinities students may have to various dispositional aspects of the manufacturing trade identifies in vocational roles (toolmaker, fitter /turner, fabricator, welder etc.)

A worthwhile and well throught through project which will be interesting to follow as delivery begins next year.  As all the material related to course delivery is now available digitally, it will be a good project at some stage to see how mobile technology (ipods, ipads, phones) may be useful for students to access learning materials, revision and self track progress.

ITP Trades Forum @ Weltec

At the ITP trades forum on Friday, held at Weltec in Petone, Wellington. This is an intermittent one day forum attended by tutors and managers from trades faculties/ schools throughout NZ. The forum was opened by convenor, Ken Whittle after welcome and housekeeping messages from Alan Peck (from Weltec) who was the convener/organiser of the forum. Ken provided some background on the history of trades training which was set up just over a hundred years ago in NZ. Message is of change as various political /social changes influence the way in which trades training is delivered.


First up, Peter Mellow on '21st century learners and Web 2.0 - implications for learners' with a focus on learning environments / learning spaces and role of teachers in setting up / bringing about change within trades teaching. Peter ran an interactive session supported with multimedia clips. He began with a warm up to start and provided opportunities for participants to work together on several feedback sessions. He ran through characteristics of 21st learners, how technology now connects people (not only young people), how elearning can help students assess learning where & when they need to. Many teachers at level 1/2 (competent but still need help) with technology, need to be at level 3 - automous explorer in order to make the most use of technology for teaching/learning - perhaps teachers as educational technologist/technological educators. Good, M. (2001)- in the book Teaching and Learning online: New pedgogies for new technologies.  On the way to online pedagogy. Learning spaces involve some lateral thinking. Whiteboards on all walls (Resene sells white board paint), whiteboards on tables, lecture chairs which turn 360 degrees etc. to assist with building learning communities which can then be continued after class either physically (whole campus learning space) or virtually. 'your primary influence is the environment you create' Peter Senge. Web 3.0 - semantic web, 3D AI driven, data driven, web 4.0 all about activity, not data. gotoweb20 is a website which collects web 2.0 sites. Used blogging as an example of using web 2.0 to enhance student learning and showed Seth Godlin/Tom Peters video on blogging - and openforum event. also covered wikis, podcasting (Pt England in NZ as an example & AUT Maori language on ipod/ipod touches), eporfolio (Mahara), microblogging (Twitter - flash cards or announcement system). Ends with encouragement to give it a go :)

After morning tea, my session on 'becoming a trades tutor - crossing identity boundaries' went well and touched a cord with several tutors who are new to the ITP sector and their roles as trades tutors.

Then Lee Baglow from Unitec on 'self - exploration - a fresh look at pre-trade auto education. Programme change driven by staff dissatisfaction with the current ways things were being done. Involves a 'living curricula' which involves complex conversation, curiosity etc. creative skills. Examples provided of how programme adapted with improvement in retention, completion rates and increase in staff:student ratio. Includes the use of Web 2.0 to create eportfolios. Begins with students obtaining gmail accounts, use google docs. as repository for learning resources which students use to access resources and templates for students to work through, tutors are able to mark and feedback. Material also available via class blogger site. Students issued with Dell netbooks but all information stored on the cloud. Also 8 HD JVC video players to increase access to video material/powerpoints etc. Students are encouraged to store to maintain a learning journa/eportfolio on Blogger.com. Flexibility in delivery allows students to lead their own learning and set individual learning goals. Tutors build capability by using youtube videos to teach them how to use google docs etc.

After lunch, Julia Bruce from Wintec presented on 'principle-based teaching practice' and encouraging students to live their dreams. Developing her own teaching philosophy was a key towards becoming a better teacher and also in helping her students learn better. Her presentation provided examples of teaching resources aligned to her teaching philosophy. She started things out with a 'speed dating' activity in order to get conversation going on how to bring about change in tutor's approach to change, being change agents and working in an environment which is continually changing. Strategies to bring about authentic and collaborative learning including the use of photo shoots to collect hairdressing students' work, production of 'newspaper' by groups of students on theory aspects of the course, presentations by groups of students on other students' work, review teams to revise concepts using group work & kinesthetic resources (play dough, paint, markers etc.). Online discussion groups also used to explore case studies based around customer relationships etc. students encouraged to use journal tool on Moodle to reflect on learning. Possibilities for hairdressing beyond local opened out by using comparative tasks. Quizzes on Moodle also used for revision. Web based books turned into ebooks which are accessible on ipod touches. Julia has a Ako Aotearoa funded project to build guidelines for hairdressing tutors to engage with online learning. Work experience and polytech salon/client days assist with the attitudinal/dispositional skills. Salon teams are used so that each 'salon' has a concept of ownership and sense of purpose. Second interactive session with groups working on individual tutors' approaches/philosophies to teaching followed by groups sharing their discussion. Good sharing and discussion ensued :) opportunities for feedback on the session or for further questions offered as the presentation completed.

Then Ken Whittle from EIT on the development of new trades facilities at EIT which replace facilities that were 35 years old. Design of the facility driven by 'the curriculum' and focused on future industry needs. Curriculum based on feedback from industry / employers for greater emphasis on employability skills (communication, lit/num, info tech. time management etc.) rather than just technical skills. There is an increase in use of flexible learning materials to allow for smaller class numbers and greater access to p/t students. Therefore facilities designed to allow flexible use of space, integration of practical/theory and technician support centralised. Professional development provided to staff to adapt to teaching in new learning environment and in project based learning. Change over in curriculum along with implementation of embedded lit/num has increased both outcomes and retention.

The last session of the day was with James Cannan from MIT on 'Tertiary High School' a concept which CPIT is also going to put in place in 2011. This is for students still at high school to attend courses usually offered at tertiary institutions, so not only trades subjects but also computer studies, horticulture etc. Presentation began with a video from Dr. Stuart Middleton who blogs on edtalk. He has been championing the concept of tertiary high school but is out of NZ and unable to present f2f. He introduced the 'leaking education pipeline' in NZ including 20% of students disappearing from education by age 16, 30.000 secondary truants a day!, 4,000 excluded from school, 85% of youths who present in the youth courts are not attending school on a regular basis. All sobering stats. This 'leak' presents social issues, disengagment, youth inactivity and skills shortages. Disengagement - physical (not in school), virtual (at school but no school quals) and unintended (good intentions, right move, but little or no success post school - esp. in first year of tertiary ed.). Tertiary high school have a programme at polytech offered collaborative with secondary schools. Students identified as having potential but likely to not complete at year 10 are targeted for the programme. Mix of polytech and school qualifications offered with high credit bearing activities based on NZ curriculum. Included with be the development of work and personal skills including the development fo personal pathway plan, literacy (lit/num/digital) support and structured self-directed activities. Year 1 to inform student choice and provide discipline foundation skills. years 2 - 4 in mainstream polytechnic programmes.

Forum clossed with last thoughts / summary from Ken Whittle. An interesting day which the ITP sector needs to continue organising. There does not seem to be any other forum, apart from specific trade groups, in which trades tutors are able to meet and share ideas.  Most other ITP conferences are focused on elearning or on general teaching & learning, so a specific forum, open to all trades tutors, should be considered for the future. In particular to allow innovative tutors to share their work and for tutors to network beyond their own specialist areas and teaching institutions.

Ipad - ebooks and elit

The ipad launched in NZ last Friday. Although I have had the ipad for a couple of weeks, I have not had much time to really play with it. So far, I have been able to evaluate the ipod touch apps I want to keep and update any ipod touch apps which have ipad versions. Of note is Stanza which is my present ebook reader platform. The added capability which I love is being able to add files off my computer easily and transfer these on to the ipad. Stanza allows various ebooks I have purchased over the years which are .epub files to be read along with .pdf files. So I am now able to more easily access my rather large collection of study / research articles on the ipad. I have always been a fan of reading with a digital device and the ipad’s display really enhances the experience. As recommended on the Stanza FAQ, calibre can be used to convert various file formats into .epub or .pdf. which is user friendly and not only converts the books but also had a nifty ebook reader as well.

However, reading print books on an ipad is rather old hat although more ebooks are now sole through Amazon than hard cover books. So the next thing to work on is to evaluate the collection of elit and also here. This article features the multimodalities possible by bringing digital technologies into books. All require multimedia players and the ones which run on shockwave or flash will not run on an ipad (sigh). However, many of the examples are reminiscent of music videos, with audio of poems running with visual presentations, often with fast moving or scrolling images or using animations. Some have interactive sections or use text graphics to tell the story. Many are art forms rather than actual narratives but all tell a story of sorts. Here is an example which runs on a Mac. A guide to writing elit provides for some interesting approaches and ideas.

So it will be worthwhile looking into the future of textbooks and also children's literature which has been the natural home for interactive books for a while, exampled by one Kiwi company's approach to putting Kiwi classics on the ipad.