I had the pleasure of waking up to find out this blog has been nominated for #ukedchat 's top 100 blogs.Bit surprised but very pleased that someone out there likes something I've said at some point in time - thanks :-)If my blog finishes bottom of that list, I really don't care! The nomination in itself feels very rewarding.Firstly I would like to thank..... (What, it's not an oscar?).Head over and see who else has been nominated and leave your vote before it closes on the 9th April. I've got my eye on a few blogs there:I like some of the work by blog.yorksj.ac.uk/moodle by @YSJTEL (or as I know that blog, @PhilVincent).Obviously dontwasteyourtime.co.uk by @hopkinsdavid is one of my faves and has to be in there for a high nomination;As well as the unbelievably popular @stevewheeler / @timbuckteeth's - steve-wheeler.blogspot.co.uk. I know Steve get's a ridiculous number of views to his blog, but I suspect we all blog about slightly different things. We're all HE Edtech I guess, but many of the other blogs on the list vary, including school/college focussed blogs.Steve posts some really good overview posts on a range of topics such as pedagogy; David has a popular series on the role of the learning technologist (which I've chipped in with) as well as mobile learning topics such as eBooks (not strictly mobile I know) and QR Codes. Phil's often discusses organisational issues related to edtech, and well, mine probably does a bit of all those, with some openness stuff thrown in for good measure.There are loads of blogs that I'm surprised are not in there - I started to list my favourites but there was too many, and I was scared in case I left any out :-)Vote Vote Vote!!!Peter@Reedyreedles$nbsp;The Reed Diaries by Peter Reed is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License

Gender equality is more than a goal in itself. It is a precondition for meeting the challenge of reducing poverty, promoting sustainable development and building good governance. - Kofi AnnanThere is a principle behind and beyond the words of Kofi Annan: that effort towards eliminating any form of inequality must start and work in tandem with effort to overcome gender inequality.We live in interesting times and there never was a time needier of united humanity than today. I was much moved by Emma Watson’s United Nations speech on gender equality.She made me think again about this fundamental and hugely important humanitarian principle - "the belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities". Emma approached this principle from the standpoint of feminism: "the theory of the political, economic and social equality of the sexes . . .  it is not the word (feminism) that is important, it's the idea and the ambition behind it."Inequality is any difference that may lead to disadvantage, however slight, experienced by an individual or group of people. In many instances, the complete elimination of inequality is not possible, through factors that are simply beyond human control. Complete elimination of inequality is often a fictional, utopian state. However, the word inequality used here refers to the practical circumstances where inequality can be diminished or eliminated by human thought and action. There are two general types of inequality, one occurring when individuals or groups in the same or similar circumstances are treated differently and the other occurring when individuals or groups in different circumstances are treated the same way. Either of these inequalities results in a disadvantaged position for an individual or group.Many barriers will be met in any attempt to achieve equality, to whatever aspect of humanity that equality applies. A lot can be controlled by human thought and action. However, for most people, there are many barriers that are extremely difficult to moderate or remove. Prejudice is one such a barrier.Prejudice is a preconceived notion that is often the root cause of discrimination, committed either deliberately or unconsciously, in ways that can result in inequality. This happens specially when exercised by and within social groups. Such destructive partiality exists in individuals and is fostered in social groups throughout the world. It can exist in seemingly subtle ways that are nevertheless still expressions of prejudice or partiality. Gender partiality leads to gender inequality.  Emma Watson mentioned in her UN speech that gender inequality is a matter for men too. I post links here to two videos as examples of one aspect of gender partiality in relation to violence. They show recent social experiments on how bias can influence the actions of individuals among groups in certain situations.video 1 - Bryant Park,  New Yorkvideo 2 - Fitzroy Square, London Unmistakably, preconceived opinion about gender difference is a factor in how both men and women react differently according to the situations shown in the videos. They depict a measure of benevolent sexism that exists within societies everywhere. That aspect is among the many thousand manifestations of gender inequality that occur in societies throughout the world. The horrific statistics presented by Plan International USA for the International Day of the Girl, 11 October 2014, puts into perspective the magnitude of inequality experienced by girls and women worldwide as a result of gender prejudice.Over a period of half a century, affirmative actions taken to redress the recognised effects of gender prejudice in society have yielded limited success. Often, affirmative action made matters worse and tended to polarise opinion rather than consolidate desired principles. Emma Watson has told us "it is time that we all perceive gender on a spectrum instead of two sets of opposing ideals".The HeForShe movement is one that permits men and women to unite unashamedly and work towards the elimination of gender inequality. Please take this opportunity to visit the HeForShe site and register your support for this honourable cause.HeForShe is a solidarity campaign founded by UN Women for gender equality.#BAD2014 #Inequality #BlogAction #HeForShe 

Technically, beacons are devices that transmit signals that enable other devices like smartphones(can recognize the signals) to determine their relative proximity. The smartphones run apps that deliver content(trigger an action such as opening a website, playing a video or sound and more) to the users based on that proximity. Beacons go by various names including... Read More ›

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New Zealand Green Party Member of Parliament, Steffan Browning, has recently caused a stir by supporting a petition appealing to the World Health Organisation to use homeopathy in the treatment of the deadly disease ebola. Browning later posted his support to Facebook. The petition was launched by the controversial Australian homeopath, Fran Sheffield, on the change.org site.New Zealand Green Party co-leader Russell Norman said that the action of his colleague in signing the petition was "unwise". Browning’s support for the use of homeopathy to treat ebola was dismissed as "barking mad" by New Zealand’s Prime Minister, John Key.Homeopathy is a well-respected system of alternative medicine that has enjoyed a long history. It dates back to before 1796, the year when the principles of homeopathy were laid down by Samuel Hahnemann. There are many prominent people around today who have used homeopathic medicine for various ailments and found it to be effective.In the practice of homeopathy, "remedies are prepared by repeatedly diluting a chosen substance in alcohol or distilled water . . .   . . . dilution usually continues well past the point where no molecules of the original substance remain" - Wikipedia. This means that if pure water is used as the dilutant, the final liquid is actually purer than tap water. I find it hard to believe that anyone could have suggested using this method to prepare a remedy for any human ailment other than thirst. Sheffield claims that homeopathy is effective in curing a range of diseases including viral, bacterial and protozoan infections and that "appropriate homeopathic medicine is likely to be just as effective against the ebola virus", an opinion shared by other homeopathic practitioners. In 1988 there was an attempt to provide some explanation of how homeopathy might work. The findings of Jacque Benveniste and the work of others in the field suggested that water seems to have a ‘memory’ for minute amounts of substances that it comes into contact with. The suggestion was that this ‘memory’ possessed by water may offer some explanation of how homeopathic preparations could have a biological effect. The existence of this special property of water, suggested by Benveniste, has never been proved unequivocally despite scientifically rigorous work done to achieve this by teams of scientists in the Horizon studies. I believe that it is significant that these studies were fiercely rejected by the community of homeopaths. How much does the power of belief play in the apparent successes and subsequent support that homeopathy has garnered over the centuries? How much does the weight of authority play in how this belief persists? The professional body of homeopaths seems to support the action of Fran Sheffield and condones the distribution of a petition (that also solicits donation of money by way of sponsorship) through a posting on the Internet. Why else would such a petition remain online? Apparently it has gathered over 5000 signatures and counting. Thank goodness scientists are condemning this type of action as irresponsible.By the way, I use a PC to publish my posts. I might just as well claim that if I connect the mouse, keyboard and screen to the box that the PC was first packed in and then connect it all to the Internet, it works fine and saves power.

This is a presentation for xAPI design cohort #3 project from team AcrossX on xAPI bootcamp, at Washington DC. (more about xAPI bootcamp) Project outline: Implementing xAPI in several educational technologies and creating learning design/story narratives for analytics development : Flipped learning platform - 1Know IRS and assessment eBook readers Google Apps for Education Mobile... Read More ›

Recycle image - CC BY Kevin DooleyI'm sure it's the case in most universities, but there are so many variations of research methods modules knocking about, it's so obvious that we should try to do something about it. Sure there will be some niche areas that need dedicated focus, but generally there are lots of common aspects that could be shared.As such, we've set up a small(ish) working group in the Faculty to look at developing a level 7 (m-level) online research methods 'module', with the intention of developing a number of core, common units. Of course given the scientific nature of a lot of subjects, quantitative research will be a strong focus, but it's still important we don't lose track of the qualitative. The myriad research methods modules can then reuse the content we create.We've had a couple of brief meetings already, and from the range of existing practice, have identified an additional module entitled 'Professional & Employability Skills'. Our next step is to identify what common content might be included in these modules so as to be most effective in catering for the needs of the six schools in our Faculty.Being in the open, I'm hoping to share as much of this work as possible, as well as reusing whatever we can, wherever we can. For example, @dkernohan pointed me towards a few resources following my tweet-request-for-help a couple of weeks ago which are certainly of interest:University of Leicester #UKOER Course PackUniversity of Surrey Learning Skills resourcesSo... Is this a common issue across your experience? Have you done anything about it? And can you share any good content that might be included in these modules?Peter@ReedyreedlesThe Reed Diaries by Peter Reed is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License

Science is often difficult to understand because it requires thinking. If a person is not a thinker he or she won't understand a lot of what they read in Science. This misunderstanding is often interpreted by the non-thinking reader as confusion in what Science is trying to put across.It then becomes a cycle that feeds itself and the reader begins to feel that Science is rubbish and contradicts itself. The reader then forms the belief that people just look around for the scientific facts that back up their position and in part, the reader is right. That's because some of the people who do this are non-thinkers. So the answer is: "read, digest (that means think) repeat. No one learns everything on the first pass." - Dr. K

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Screenshot of the Blckboard test server at the University of Liverpool[Reposted from the ELESIG Blog]As some people will already know, the University of Liverpool is investigating the introduction of a baseline for Blackboard modules - essentially, a series of minimum standards that should appear in every module. Much of this is driven from the Liverpool Guild of Students 'Making the Most of IT' campaign, as well as the Faculty Staff and Student Surveys we conducted between August-November 2013.Well, thankfully, colleagues in Computing Services have been working to see if  they could possibly automate certain pieces of content. Much of what students are asking for already exists in TULIP where our Module Specs live (module leader name/contact; assessment requirements; etc), so CSD have managed to extract that information and dynamically present it into a new 'Module Overview' page in Blackboard Modules (via a custom made building block). Automated content will be presented in the following order: Module Title & Module CodeModule Co-ordinator (name and email address)AimsLearning OutcomesSyllabusTeaching & Learning StrategyAssessment requirementsContact hoursDisclaimerIt's still early days as yet, but the following video (2 minutes) demonstrates how the building block looks. I should give a shout out to colleagues at Newcastle who have certainly been open to sharing their work with Blackboard!Peter@Reedyreedles$nbsp;The Reed Diaries by Peter Reed is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License

The US Federal Government, through FDA, has just recently approved the manufacture and use of Palcohol following the false start over its approval last year. Palcohol is sometimes referred to as 'powdered alcohol' which is a misnomer since Palcohol is not powdered alcohol at all. It is a substance created and manufactured by Mark Phillips, an Arizona businessman. In its rawest form, a preparation like Palcohol consist of pure alcohol held in a matrix of cyclodextrin, an edible white powder, like starch and that is soluble in water. Cyclodextrin, if eaten, is non-toxic, is not sweet, is not digested and is a contribution to dietary fibre. Raw Palcohol looks like icing sugar.Palcohol has yet to reach the market place in a commercial form, but several states in the US are already preparing to the ban the sale of this substance if they haven’t done so already. There’s been a recent revival of activity on the Internet about this now not-so-new consumable, most of which is wrong and has been spread around through ignorance. I applaud Phil Mason's (Thunderf00t's) initiative in swiftly identifying invalid data circulated via the Internet last year. Here’s just some of the myths associated with Palcohol:It can be used to spike drinks.While this might be true, it would be very difficult to spike a drink successfully using Palcohol. First, the substance has to be stirred for at least a minute for the powder to disperse. Then there is the matter of the volume of powder required to spike the drink effectively - Palcohol contains only about 10% by volume of alcohol. To have the equivalent effect of a single shot of vodka would require almost half a cupful of the powder - not something easy to conceal, never mind dissolve in a standard drink.Snorting Palcohol gets you drunk superfast.This myth is hilariously funny for it would mean snorting about half a cupful of Palcohol to get the same effect as drinking one shot of vodka. What is funnier is that even one snort of the powder would cause the consumer unbearable discomfort and pain.Palcohol is easier to conceal than liquid alcohol.Pure alcohol forms only 10% of the volume of the Palcohol that holds it. A far easier and more discrete way to conceal alcohol would be to hide the liquid in a suitable container - a practice that has been used for centuries. Palcohol is just too bulky for any useful amount of it to be carried discretely.Alcohol is heavier than Palcohol so airlines could save millions on fuel costs by providing Palcohol instead of traditional alcoholic drinks. Similar savings can be obtained through lower shipping costs for resorts that rely on imported alcohol.This is almost as funny as the idea that snorting Palcohol is a quick way to get drunk. Palcohol contains about 50% alcohol by weight, so clearly it would be far cheaper to transport liquid alcohol than the twice as heavy equivalent amount of Palcohol.Palcohol presents a higher risk than alcohol on its own.Palcohol certainly does not present any risk to the consumer greater than that already presented by liquid alcohol. In many ways the risks are lessened due to the form that the alcohol is in when received initially by the consumer. An example of this is Palcohol’s inability to flow like liquid alcohol, so it presents a lesser fire risk. However, there is one risk that Palcohol now has the potential to present due to the recent publicity of it as a possible banned substance. It is well known that if any substance is banned, consumption of it inevitably increases. When it's eventually released to the market, I predict that the sale of Palcohol will skyrocket initially due to this publicity and level off to an extent that we may never hear much of its existence again.

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CC BY: Scaffold photo by IcegemI've been working in HE for a good 10 years now, and for a large part of that I've wondered about the structures in place to scaffold and develop Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) - who does what, where and how. I guess to a large degree, this post links in with discussions around 'what is a learning technologist'.When I think about the 'structures', I think about a number of things:Who is leading TEL at a strategic level? Is this central in the University and/or within Faculties? Are they experienced in this (still relatively young) area? How might this impact on uptake?What shape do learning technologists take e.g. 'developer', 'administrative', and/or 'academic' angles, and what department do they sit in? Again, are they in a central team and/or based in Faculty?In my experience I've worked in a number of teams - I've been based in a central team (as part of a library service) as well as a broader department for learning technologies. I've also been (and am) employed by and within a faculty. Is it better to based within a library service, an IT department, or a centre for learning and teaching? I don't know! Who calls the shots? I've seen librarians, subject-based academics, and those in CETLs.I think there are tensions and challenges with all these scenarios. Whilst part of a central team it's often hard to break barriers to actually get embedded in schools/departments. Many academics/departments don't engage with central services a great deal (for a number of reasons I suspect). Although, when employed directly within a Faculty, it can still be tough. The flip side is that central teams generally know all about software/systems; when they're being updated; common problems, etc. This often doesn't trickle through quite as well when based in Faculty. Whilst this often doesn't matter if we hold an academic role, it's still nice to know!Here at Liverpool, there is a small central team of learning technologists (x4) in our eLearning Unit - part of the Centre for Lifelong Learning. The Faculty of Health & Life Sciences have invested in this area though. We have me and my equivalents - Lecturers in Learning Technology. We have one in each of our 6 schools, with my role working across each. This is supported by a TEL Support Team (x8). The view is that we work on high level, strategical issues which are supported by the TEL ST. This setup is a lot more than what many HEIs have, but at the same time, some Medical Schools have all of this just to themselves!What about the role - academic or non-academic? I think it depends on the individual actually. I certainly love teaching so have enjoyed the academic roles I've had, and it does give me the ability to talk about how I actually use tools/technologies in my teaching, rather than just how people 'could' use them. And it is useful if you want to engage in research as you have your own students! However, there's nothing to suggest non-academic learning technologists don't do an effective job, because they certainly do! I think the expectation level is different though.So with all of this, I'm sure it barely covers the range of setups that actually exist across the sector. But what is the most effective way to support and develop TEL? What strategies are best employed to develop things? If we were to start a new University and were looking at how we scaffold TEL, where do we start? Obviously there has to be strong leadership and structures to implement and support, but there are just so many options!Answers on a postcard...Peter@Reedyreedles$nbsp;The Reed Diaries by Peter Reed is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License

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I see my role as a quite unique - I'm based within Faculty (within the Institute for Learning & Teaching), but have equivalents in each of the schools within the Faculty (we have schools of Medicine, Life Sciences, Health Sciences, Dentistry, Vet Sciences and Psychology).Given the position of my colleagues, it's not particularly common that I work on the ground with academic staff in these schools because that's what they're there to do! Whilst I do play a role in our range of CPD offerings, one of my difficult tasks is getting to grips with what's actually going on across the different schools and open up the silos. My job is to know! As such, I conducted a pretty wide audit since I started (and have blogged some of it) but things constantly evolve. So now I'm getting to grips with what's happening currently with e-Assessment, with a view of looking strategically how we can advance this going forwards. Of course there are lots of traditional (and potentially outdated) views, like only setting exams (because any other type of coursework enables learners to cheat, buy essays, etc). Those type of views exist in every HEI I've worked in (unfortunately) but thankfully it's not a majority view, and I'm really pleased that there's so much good stuff happening. For example:In Life Sciences all first year students have a license for a McGraw Hill text book which is integrated within Blackboard, and the package we have includes a whole suite of e-Assessments (quizzes) which are used quite effectively. One colleague, Susanne Voelkel, is responsible for some great work on two-stage testing (combining the formative with the summative) which has sprouted across a few modules now. I'd recommend you have a flick through her article in Research in Learning Technology. There is also a little bit of online submission, marking and feedback going on.In Medicine things have probably been a bit behind the times, but my equivalent Paul Duvall is certainly doing something about that! It looks like the good practice from the McGraw Hill work in Life Sciences will roll over to Medicine, as well as a new implementation of PebblePad for ePortfolios. Special Study Modules (SSMs) have also started using Turnitin and Grademark, including using the super-helpful rubrics features.In Health Sciences there is a much stronger focus on online submission and feedback using Turnitin and Grademark. In Semester 1 this year, 13 modules have gone through the processes successfully, with another 11 this semester. The feedback seems to be consistent with earlier experiences I've had, but some of the Grademark features really are improving, especially the iPad app. I just hope the perennial server problems they seem to have get sorted, because I think this is one area we really should move forward with. I know Psychology have also been piloting this and Vet Sciences started on using Apps to assess skills. Of course we have the increasingly popular LiftUpp app in Dentistry which all other Dentist schools in the UK have signed up to (as well as some Medical Schools I believe).Of course there are some useful resources out there for those looking to engage in e-Assessment more, for example JISC's 'Effective Assessment in the Digital Age' or the 'e-Assessment Toolkit' from the e-Assessment Association.So, there you have it. Any comments on either the work that's going on, or my role in all of this? You know what to do...Peter@ReedyreedlesThe Reed Diaries by Peter Reed is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License

Simple online school is an India-based non-governmental organization and a good online educational project. The NGO recently started using the e-learning platform Eliademy so as to spread knowledge in schools, institutions, organizations and among individuals. It aims for the holistic growth … Continue reading →

Creative commons licensed (BY-NC-SA) flickr photo by University of Denver When I was researching the use of Twitter with my students at MMU, I acknowledged the blurring of boundaries between what is classed as formal learning and informal learning (settings, technologies, etc). Me arl' mucker @hallymk1 has long discussed the need to balance the two - typically we see the formal, or Institutionally-provided technologies such as the VLE, against the more open technologies such as Twitter and Facebook that sit outside of the institution's control.Furthermore, there is an imbalance in the view of this range of technologies, because academics tend to view the formal and informal technologies separately, whereas learners view eLearning from a more holistic perspective, so it's not a) separate, or b) special (Roblyer et al, 2010; Hall, 2009).This holistic view was evident in my own study when a high percentage of students were active on Facebook, and they all had used Facebook to discuss University work. Now that's not supposed to fuel a debate over whether we should be in Facebook or to question whether the VLE is Dead (again), but just to acknowledge that learners will engage in different ways.For me this all raises a number of questions:What happens when these worlds collide and how do learners traverse these spaces? How can we facilitate informal opportunities?How do academic staff digital literacies inhibit the development of student digital literacies?When we start to integrate such informal opportunities into our curriculum, does that inherently make them formal? How are Universities approaching learner generated personal learning environments (now there's a term we haven't heard for a while)?I don't have the answers here, so if you do (or even if you have an opinion), I'd love to hear it in the comments!For those interested, my study on Twitter was published in Research in Learning Technology last year. This, and a couple of other recommended references are below.Reed, P (2013) 'Hashtags and retweets: using Twitter to aid Community, Communication and Casual (informal) learning', Research In Learning Technology, Vol. 21. Available online at http://www.researchinlearningtechnology.net/index.php/rlt/article/view/19692Hall, R. (2009) ‘Towards a fusion of formal and informal learning environments: the impact of the read/write web’, Learning, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 29-40 Junco, R., Heiberger, G. & Loken, E. (2011) ‘The effect of Twitter on college student engagement and grades’, Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, vol. 27, no. 2, pp. 119-132. Roblyer, M. D., et al., (2010) ‘Findings on Facebook in higher education: a comparison of college faculty and student uses and perceptions of social networking sites.’ The Internet and Higher Education, vol. 13, no 3, pp. 134-140. Available at: http://linkinghub.elsevier. com/retrieve/pii/S1096751610000278Peter@ReedyreedlesThe Reed Diaries by Peter Reed is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License

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