Nov 19 2006
Nov 18 2006
Implementing Change in ICT and Delicious links for 2006-11-18
And can you believe that there are more that I am trying including this Fleck extension.
The other area of interest that has been happening in school and also related to Unit 4, about multiliteracies is the issue of plagiarism. At school their has been talk of how EdExcel will be using plagiarism software like ‘Turnitin’ to catch students with plagiarised project work,. This is good in one way but also misses the point related to are we teaching our students about how to research, find sources, evaluate sources and then cite them correctly? The link below leads to a free plagiarism detector – but hopefully within our school a new Moodle course is being developed that might through teacher INSET help spread better and more sensible research techniques and understanding.
Click on this link RRRCoxTearle to find my latest literature review for my Masters. A very interesting set of papers about managing change and implementing ICT development in schools..which beyond anything else has given me a focus as to why so often it is difficult to implement change especially when you are often the innovator of these ideas.
Nov 9 2006
CAA and sample assessment + Some Delicious Links…
Well this Modules Units are whizzing by with an interesting if a little obvious chat about Computer Assisted Assessment last night. The talk did discuss in detail how computers can assist both in qualitative and quantitative assessment. Here is an example of quantitative CAA assessment using Hot Potatoes that I placed within Moodle. Although no-one has ever completed this within the 5 minutes time limit including ME!
My ‘AS’ students are still bemused by the whole ‘Web 2.0’ social movement which is looked at in the above test even they are involved and have used many so called Web 2.0 tools:- Delicious, Bloglines Aggregator, MySpace, Piczo…it is almost why do you have to call it a name this is how the web is? I can see there point of view in one way, but maybe they are not quite able to step out of the picture to look at how this is affecting their lives. My experiments with using ‘Web 2.0’ tools within their course have been of limited success, probably as much to me dabbling with many different ideas as to them not understanding the principals and how this is good or bad. RSS is another of these technologies that I think will dramatically change how we can provide education and link in to ideas of ‘ubiquitous’ education e.g. education that invades into students lives through use of technologies that they use much more often than say for example their email account. Examples would obviously be their mobile phones and there MSN messenger account. Their are already services that can send out rss feeds to mobile phones as messages in the USA so its not far away…anyway I digress….here are some delicious feeds as I am back to loggin these through my delicious account…..
After the chat seminar I had my first meeting with my tutor about the direction of this Modules assignment. It would seem the idea of me focusing on particular CMC web tools that I use for communication would be an appropriate assignment and maybe not go past that very short 6000 word mark… The idea of sticking to one web-tool for communication might be a little too much for my taste – but I definitely could look at how a variety of different tools affects and fits different users. Literature …hmmm well obviously the digital native-digital immigrant articles would be part of the discussion and maybe their lack of accuracy with practical uses and students. It would also be possible to look at how using email and other CMC tools affects the relationship between me as teacher and students on GCSE courses and maybe whether this would not be possible in different situation and schools.
I am though still inclined to the use of and setting up of school email for teachers and how that has worked or not worked as the case maybe. Which would very much look into the rationales behind why a school wants to sue technologies and then how this when implemented is reacted to by teachers due to certain reasons.
Nov 4 2006
Delicious links for 2006-11-04
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E-learning Presentation and PPT slides
Well thought I’d add a little more than my normal del.icio.us automatic post above, as there is alot going on out there to interest even the likes of me. It was announced by the examinations officer in our school that plagiarism software would be used by EdExcel for coursework essays (have not checked if this is true or not) it was funny to see an article about top American universities still turning down the use of this software…running scared I suppose.
After downloading and being impressed with Firefox 2.0, mainly in the fact that it seems to be much more reliable and all those memory leak problems have seemed to disappear, it is amazing to know how much it has caught on in Germany – as usual the UK internet population seems to be lagging behind.
WEB BROWSER SHARE, BY COUNTRY -Source: Web Side Story, June 2006
| Country | Internet Explorer (all versions) |
Firefox | Other (Safari, Opera, Netscape) |
|---|---|---|---|
| U.K. | 88.78% | 8.82% | 2.40% |
| Italy | 84.76% | 12.46% | 2.78% |
| Germany | 65.04% | 26.80% | 8.16% |
As a visual person, I always like when resources related to my M.A. are published in poster or graphic format – so these posters showing the Educational Map of the Last 10 Years and a poster about Informal Learning. Will report back further on my thoughts on these and how useful they really are…at least they will be add some decoration to my walls!
Finally as I misses by First-class meeting as I was away for the weekend, I decided to read through in more detail – Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture:(warning straight to .PDF) Media Education for the 21st Century- Henry Jenkins. After our discussions about the so called new literacies, or multi-literacies I found these studies to be quite pertinent and practical. The articles very much acknowledge that the new literacies should be built on a foundation of the more traditional literacies e.g. textual literacy.
The skills are linked very much with ideas from ‘Siemens Connectivism’ and the new technologies enabling collaboration in virtual worlds and environments aligned with Web 2.0:-
- Play
- Performance
- Simulation
- Appropriation
- Multitasking
- Distributed cognition
- Collective Intelligence
- Judgment
- Transmedia Navigation
- Networking
- Negotiation
Definitely worth a read and much better than me trying to go on ans summarise what the paper is saying. It is interesting to think about the paper in terms of practicality and what is going on within the school that you teach – and so maybe scary as well to know little at the moment is happening to promote these new literacies and so will future students be even less prepared for the workplace than past generations?
Anyway, hope some things have provided food for thought,
Definitely need to start making decisions about my ‘action research’ for Unit 5251.
Oct 29 2006
Performancing, Zotero, Firefox 2.0 and Getting Back to Blogging Here…
Well I welcome myself back to this blog and beginning to post more frequently as I start to bring my ideas together for my next assignment and action research. This time I have to choose an educational initiative that I have undertaken or am undertaking and look at in terms of the current literature we are reading into on the MA Module 5251. This is mainly to do with issues of WHY are we really using ICT within School and does it actually make a difference?
On the right you can find my initial ideas into some projects of which I am favouring the School Email Setup or the ICT staff INSET that I have set into action this year and its successes, failures and consequences. More research into Moodle does not appeal, and the weblog initiatives are still in need of tweaking although responses from an Egyptian culture to weblogging with pupils has led to a lot of worry from parents.
With the school Email or INSET, the rationales can be looked at in detail as to why the school wanted it in the first place, and beyond that we can look at detail at teachers reactions to these initiatives both from a cultural point of view and an overseas teaching point of view. Anyway click on the thumbnail to access a gigantic version outlining my thoughts.
Other news includes the release of Firefox 2.0 with inbuilt spell check which is fabulous (Download it now!). The new Plug-In called ZOTERO is worth a look as it integrates fully with the browser and provides a ready to use citation tool like EndNote without the cost or the problems. I have yet to work out the export facilities, but it should lead to a much easier. The performancing plugin seems to work well too, although I still haven’t posted with it yet. Something stops me from using it…..next time maybe.
On the reading front George Siemens has another LMS review which as always bangs the nail in the coffin of any VLE. And maybe he is right. Worth downloading and having a look.The Myth of the Digital Native is a great snapshot and post, which really made me think of what is happening in my classrooms in Egypt and how the supposed Digital Natives don’t seem to be as native as they are supposed to be. In fact maybe the native is more willing to just let technologies wash over them, and not really even understand the processes behind them? Finally don’t forget to take a look at the lecture by Mr. Greenfield relating to his everyware book, which looks into ubiquitous computing in a simple and effective way.
Enough, and hopefully this blog will be much more active over the coming months. And its wonderful to realise that I have only just realised what a trackback uri is…..always more to learn.
Oct 13 2006
Delicious links for 2006-10-13
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China Unblocks Wikipedia By E&P Staff Published: October 11, 2006 10:40 AM ET NEW YORK The online interactive reference site Wikipedia announced Tuesday that the site had apparently been made accessible in China, after being blocked for just over a year b
Oct 7 2006
Delicious links for 2006-10-07
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Ergonomic concept keyboards -hmmm are they really any good?
Oct 2 2006
Interesting discussion emerging from…Virtual Society?
Interesting pieces of research have been popping up within our M.A. EDUC 5251 course including this wonderful / or maybe not YouTube video which could be seen to flounder the ideals of the rules of Woolgar. Although it must be pointed out in both a practical nature that the video is out of context and often YouTube vidoes are fake, and from Woolgars’ point of view the five rules were meant to dispel the two polar views of technology and ICT’s as either the most wonderul innovations or absolutely of no use at all in the area of education.
Does this second article from New Scientist give the same response as the video, one in which a polar view is shown against ICT’s and their effects on society? The article looks at the fact that yes more communication goes on by ourselves often as ‘tethered selves’ never away from communication whether it is the net, email, sms. myspace etc. However is the communication becoming for communications sake, and so as such the quality of thought behind our communication dissapearing? The end quotation is very interesting:-
‘Technology pundits may talk in glowing terms about new forms of social life, but the jury is out on whether virtual self-expression will translate into collective action.’
Sep 27 2006
Weblogs, Critical Studies and Cynical Thoughts…
Well I this is my second year of using weblogs within teaching and I can safely say this year is appearing to be much more successful. I am using weblogs in three ways really:-
- Information Portal – I have a weblog for Year 10 and Year 11 ICt students – www.constructict.com/studentblog . This has been a reasonable success as it becomes part of students lives to check and use the information, links and resources placed upon the blog. The students can also link up to recieve each post as an email. BUT it has been a struggle with Egyptian students to get them to use electronic resources, which I was initally surprised at. The crucial point to the site is that it must have resources and information that makes those students who use it, better able to think and succeed in the course.
- Student Work Folio – I have just set this up this year – www.constructict.com/year7. The blog is almost a kind of competition, where students from two KS3 classes one a year 7 and one a year 9 place work whether it is a podcast, file, text or graphic each week. Over the months there are pages setup for Best Student and for allowing the addition of other student work. Problems so far are time….as I only see KS3 classes for a double lesson a week. A solution is maybe to link with there other class teachers – to add work from a variety of classes that uses ICT within other subjects. It will also be interesting the parents responses as this week bloggin letters and policies will be given out.
- Student blogs to show progress – On the AS Applied ICT course, where they have to produce an eportfolio, students are asked to upload their research and plannign each week. And this will be included as a link within their eportfolio to show evidence of planning and testing. They are then linked in a blogroll of my GCSE blog. So far this year it is working much better – with students seemign to have a much better idea of using the web and its tools (they are also using del.icio.us and bloglines to less success.)
Interestingly last week I presented my first INSET in this school on the use of weblogs within schools to enhance teaching and learning. The actual INSEt which was completely practical went well, although I found it interesting and slightly bewildered the level of computing practical knowledge within the group. The initial success and interest though has not led to anybody takign up the use of blogs so far – is this due to time pressures, lack of interest or lack of facilities within an egyptian establishment? I don’t know.
Beyond the INSET, it has made me think of how difficult it will be to do research within my schools environment with such a natural resistance to ICT as a teaching tool, or with students so academically focused that anything that does not receive a grade towards their GCSE is not of interest?
Am I being cynical? I don’t know……
Sep 25 2006
The first to post a Read Review Respond…
Well finally I managed to be first to do something on my M.A. course by posting the first RRR on EDUC5251. It won’t last but at least its a good start. Not looking forward to meetings at the end of the week when I would rather be realxing over a shisha and ‘awa masbout’…but such is life.
Must now post my old assignments to the repository seeing that it was my idea and Aisha was kind enough to set it up.
Have decided to look in detail at three chapters that seem to show interesting research:-
- Allegories of Creative Destruction: Technology and Organisation in Narratives of the Economy
- Virtual Society and the Cultural Practice of Study
- Abstraction and Deconceptualisation: An Anthropological Comment
Heavy titles as you can see. In the meantime I am still looking at ideas for my Critical Study. The work on Web 2.0 and its actual ‘nitty gritty’ effects on learning could be an interesting one. Although there has been lots of research already. I have even maybe thought of looking at how the use of Web 2.0 technologies could improve distance learning maybe on the course I am working on, or with another group of students starting their first year? Will mull this over further. There is an interesting post here from Tony Karrer on the take up of Web 2.0 beyond the inital hype into actual use.
Sep 25 2006
Delicious links for 2006-09-25
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Interesting another aspect of the digtal divide???
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Fabulous stats for your digital divide research
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$100 laptops are TOO EXPENSIVE what do you think???
Sep 21 2006
Delcicious links for 2006-09-21
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More on INDIA and changing the digital divide – good for Sherif I think?
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Comprehensive lots of stats
Sep 20 2006
Back to College, EDUC 5251 and the Virtual Society?
Well to start off the term I have been reading the introduction to a book of research articles called – Virtual Society? Steven Woolgar – Five Rules of Virtuality. Interesting and shall I say very much like the ‘technocentric’ papers of Papert this has already attracted me to its strong ideas…. It must be noted that this introduction to a series of research projects was written around 2001/2002 and although as Steven says the speed of technology and its supposed impacts is exaggerated it must also be considered that 5 years is a long time in research into technology and its social effects…
Summary
Why Study – ‘Are we now beyond the hype?’ –
Steven introduces a very skeptical eye – to the whole idea of ‘epithetised phenomena’ (e-, virtual – , cyber- …) and how just because you add this to the front of a word the technology has a major and undeniable change to the activity – after a ‘utopian’ enthusiasm with early research maybe we now need to sit back and say technologies are affecting us but lets be sensible and actually see how with a sensible eye to see the reality of these changes…
Rationale / Introduction and Problems with It –
Steven returns to his opening paragraphs and analyses them in the following terms
1. ICT research often has ‘sweeping grandiloquence’ e.g. is over the top and ‘clumps’ all users together as a royal we, to which it suggests ICT will ….and so we need to ask which particular peoples and how it will effect them…
2. ICT research often looks on ‘macro’ levels rather than how they are used in everyday practice, and so he suggests they must be researched more in a bottom up way – the nitty gritty – how ICT is affecting employment, social aspects and more…
3. ICT research seems to have such confidence with 100% ‘declarations of effect’…concentrating on ‘effects, outcomes, impacts and changes’ …which needs to change and be more fluid waiting for maybe less ‘presumed’ and more surprising outcomes and effects…
The Question Mark?–
‘…statements of enthusiasm or criticism leave little room for moderate mixed situations that may be reality’, Steven suggests that if a middle line is not taken on the research which allows for the enthusiasm of ‘cyberbole’ but underlies this with a simple real look at if it works that the research becomes either useless or is not pushed forward…and so a? rather than rewriting the initial open cyberbolic paragraphs so as to imply scepticism while allowing for enthusiasm…
Organisation and problems –
Outlines problems of the fact that ‘there is barely any aspect of modern society potentially untouched by the effect of new electronic technologies’ and so research can never even try to cover all the specific questions and studies related to each issue although if research allows for it to be ‘applied to’ other issues then it will be more successful and useful. He outlines organising research by substantive /work area focus, social / political themes, typology of technology ….all are viable but Steven then goes on to outline what he perceives are better rules (see below.) He also suggests it must be acknowledged that rate of technology change can effect research especially over long periods of time. However the ‘obsolescence of technologies’ is often amongst specific ‘nerdy’ groups and ICT sales so be careful.
Five Rules of Virtuality–
- ‘…depend on social context’ – ‘a social setting separate from both domestic and economic spheres – provide a key to the successful integration of the real and the virtual’ , looks at and says that without specific local social and maybe physical contexts / environments for each person then the virtual cannot hope to work well and affect uptake * ‘..fears and risks are unevenly distributed’ – that due to different parts of the community and different personalities – old, young, rich, poor all look on technology very differently and have very different expectations often ones that express very fearful views or very accepting views..
- ‘…virtual technologies supplement rather than’ – expresses the idea that the virtual will never fully takeover but will work side by side with the actual e.g. memos, and email or that more televised football leads to more people attending football matches …’virtual social life provides a further dimension to a persons real social life, not a substation for it.’
- ‘…the more virtual the more real’ – weird one this, that actually using virtual technologies alongside actual ‘stimulates’ more real activities ……e.g. email communication actually promotes other usual forms of communication
- ‘…the more global the more local’ – ‘Globalisation is quintessentially about the death of distance’ , similar to first idea but looks at the fact that to have a global virtual identity relies on ‘local ways of managing technology’ another words people enjoy their local existing working practices and virtual identities and technology use must be based on this…
- ‘Counter Intuitive’ – The author found it incredibly interesting that almost all research went against what the researchers thought would be the outcome, even though the findings were not necessarily bad but simply different…… Phewwwww….a heavy starter to a book, so as I have just finished reading it and getting back into the swing of this academic life and study give me a few days to come up with a visualise my thoughts…
Personal Thoughts /Brainstorm –
Strengths of article/ Thoughts –
Weaknesses of article /Thoughts –
(See Post Soon for my thoughts e.g sections above)
P.S. Hmmm…just seems that immedi.at has gone the way of the fairies, which is a pity I liked the idea of RSS feeds going to Instant Messenger accounts. Will keep you posted to see if its gone for good.
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