Back in January I blogged about how we'd shared images from medical texts taken from the University of Liverpool's Special Collections & Archives. Well we're back at it again to release some History of Medicine images.There are around 120 images, all under Creative Commons licensing, that relate to the history of Medicine at/in Liverpool. We've filtered many of the images down, but along with some buildings and interiors, there are also images of the wards, nurses/doctors, nursing home (which is now my office), and even some images of clinical practice. The image above is the old Dining Room in my building, which is now the main admin office for the School of Medicine.Dr Sally Sheard from Liverpool's Institute of Psychology, Health and Society will hopefully be adding further metadata to the collection to provide more in depth understanding. If you check out the earlier collection, you'll see what I mean.I'm really pleased we've managed to release such images under Creative Commons - We've got over 350 images in total now, all under CC. Much of the hard work in getting these images comes down to a colleague Paul Duvall (Lecturer in Medical Education (TEL) ). I'm just the one banging on about CC :-) But it is really nice to see and think about how these buildings were used for very different purposes.You can access the History of Medicine Album on Flickr.Peter@Reedyreedles$nbsp;The Reed Diaries by Peter Reed is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License

Originally posted on doug --- off the record:…chances are it’s a duck and spends its life running from hunters. We could extrapolate this - if your school library looks like a 19th century library and runs like a 19th century library, chances are it’s a 19th century library and is running for its life…

On Christmas morning, in many houses in the UK, excited young people opened their shiny new internet-enabled devices. By late afternoon, many social media sites, such as Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat and Pinterest, had a whole new set of users. Parents everywhere, feeling proud that they had made their children very happy with their choice of […]

In the context of using technology in the FE & Skills sector, all too often it’s when there isn’t an up to date strategy in the first place, other than in the minds of the executive and or the IT department. Many strategies were produced/written when Becta or LSIS had money to give to colleges for technology […]

  Picture: Virtual Book Clubs, Deborah McCallum The enjoyment of reading is essential to developing strong and effective readers. Educators foster a love of reading when we allow learners to read and connect with the forms and functions of literacy that are relevant to our world right now is important. As I read the article […]

Day 3 of the #BYOD4L event focussed on the theme of Curating - how people curate via mobile devices (and desktop PCs) and the applications they use.As is becoming the norm, there was a lot of buzz in the tweet chat. There was some acknowledgement (by me at least) that curating is something people don't do enough of and we needed reminding that things like reference management (e.g. Mendeley) can serve as a curating tool.The visuals from the network are below, and you can follow through to the interactive version here. Again, there was a slight decrease in the total number of tweets to around 480 (dropping from 800 for day 1 and 600 for day 2). This might just be because +Chrissi Nerantzi wasn't online last night though ;-)Although that is a joke, there could be something in the suggestion that when the more active people in the network are not present - such as Chrissi (and to a lesser degree myself), then other people can come through.... Take the following as an example.It is particularly nice to see some users clearly gaining confidence in tweet chats. See Rod Cullen for example, who played a much bigger role last night than in either of the two previous. So a big well done for him. How much of that is down to pure confidence (which I'd argue has been built up by the very facilitation of the like of Chrissi), or the absence of other active networkers? And Rod isn't alone here.Anyway, what do you see when you look at the visuals?A Storify has been created by @byod4l for the day 3 chat on curating:[View the story "Bring your own devices for learning: Curate" on Storify]Peter@Reedyreedles$nbsp;The Reed Diaries by Peter Reed is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License

After a few weeks of chasing students for missing work, internal verification meetings and forward planning, you could be forgiven for thinking, great , now relax, here comes the summer holidays. But don’t break open the suntan lotion just yet, you’ve still got one more hurdle to climb and it’s a big one. It’s staff […]

  We are living in an age of information, and the digital divide has ramifications not just for those who have money or resources, but also for those who cannot access resources. Students need to be proficient in information literacy to not just become critical consumers of information, but also to become proficient producers of […]

A VLE, or learning platform, is an online system that allows teachers and trainers to share educational materials and communicate with their learners via the web. Usually with built in tools to create engaging learning content. We all know that, but if you have one, is its use fit for purpose? There has always been a […]

This #BYOD4L week has literally flown by, with really rich discussions each evening. I'll cut to the chase with this post and get the visuals out...There were 614 Tweets last night, back up from Day 3 and similar to the numbers of Day 2. From the bigger picture, there again appears to be less reliance on the central facilitators, as more people are gaining confidence and engaging with others. Lave & Wenger might define this as progressing from Legitimate Periphery Participation through to Full Participation / Membership within the Community of Practice. We'd seen Rod's progress in yesterday's post which also resembled this.As you'll see, @SamIllingworth was the key player last night. He used #BYOD4LChat hashtag in 82 tweets last night (of course he may have tweeted and not used the hashtag as well). His significance in the network last night was actually not just related to the number of tweets, but the number of replies (29) and mentions (33). This would suggest Sam played a really key part in linking people together last night, and you can really see that by the number of incoming and outgoing edges in the diagram below.I thought it might also be nice to use Martin Hawksey's TAGs Explorer in a bit more detail this time to demonstrate the tool. So in the example video below, I've taken a couple of minutes to look into SamIllingworth's tweets last night in more depth, and replayed his personal timeline....A Storify of the Day 4 Tweetchat is available here....Peter@Reedyreedles$nbsp;The Reed Diaries by Peter Reed is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License

Originally posted on Mrs. McCallum's Education Commons:Deborah McCallum:  My ideas for taking basic reading response forms through the SAMR - from Substitution to Redefinition. Deborah McCallum Originally posted on Mrs. McCallum's Education Commons: View original Tagged: Big Ideas in Education, edtech, Reading responses, SAMR

For a while there, I believed that the FELTAG report might be just the kick up the backside so richly deserved by the management of many Learning Providers to engage in the use of current technology.  I still believe that the objective will be achieved, but I fear that it may be later than the original […]

So Day 5 of the #BYOD4L event focussed on the theme of Creating, and took a slightly different format. Chrissi & Sue flipped this tweetchat around a little and got participants thinking a bit more than in previous tweetchats, by having us asking the questions instead of them.It was interesting and there was a lot of buzz about - something quite surprising as it was the last twetchat at the end of a long week. So I think that is testament to the job they done in formulating the chat and facilitating it.There were just over 600 tweets which appears to be around the mean for the week (higher on Monday, lower on Tuesday). Sam Illingworth once again won the prize for most influential tweeter in the tweetchat. What is also very obvious to see, is that there is a lot of two-way interaction. The Betweenness Centrality issue I discussed earlier in the week appears to be less prevalent in this tweetchat - that is, the network didn't rely too heavily on just one or two people. Rather, the network acted in a more distributed, non-centralised way.I'm planning on creating an overall picture of the week, so hang fire...How are you interpreting these viusals?Peter@Reedyreedles$nbsp;The Reed Diaries by Peter Reed is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License

Incorporating edtech into our curriculum is essential, and can be integrated into the planning and assessment of our students. First, it is essential to develop an action plan. Know what it is you are going to teach, when, and how. Create your long range plan, but be flexible and allow for student needs and inquiry to […]

How would you feel if you went to… a doctors and, while waiting for your appointment, discovered that the doctor hadn’t had any Professional development 4 practitioner training since they qualified in the 70’s? Or, perhaps even worse if you went to… the dentist and had to have a filling, only to find she was […]

So the #BYOD4L event has come and gone in the blink of an eye. It's gone so fast yet at the same time has been pretty tiring. I've used Martin Hawkey's TAGS Explorer to produce Social Network Analysis visuals for each day on the #BYOD4L event this past week:Day 1 - Monday: ConnectingDay 2 - Tuesday: CommunicatingDay 3 - Wednesday: CuratingDay 4 - Thursday: CollaboratingDay 5 - Friday: CreatingAlthough I've had a few anomalies that have needed rectifying this week, the tool is actually very easy to use and provides a ton of interesting information for analysis. This post hopes to provide some analysis for the whole week's worth of tweetchats (that is, any tweet that has included the #byod4lchat hashtag).There were over 3000 tweets sent over the course of the week (that included the hashtag at any time of day, not just restricted to the live tweetchats). The tweets came from 135 unique users. Quite a few of those users only tweeted a few times, but I don't think that's necessarily a problem. If the event has engaged anybody at all and encouraged thinking and reflection about using devices and apps, then surely that's a positive. There was also some cross-fertilisation with the #edenchat hashtag (n=33).Over the course of those 3000 tweets, 242 contained a link, which suggests the tweetchats were not simply a conversation, but also included the sharing of 'knowledge', or at least branching out those discussions to wider sources and views.The bigger picture view of the network looks like one giant, close knit ball of wool. There's probably not all that much you make out from it actually...I've zoomed in a touch to try to see the connections a bit, but the sheer volume of tweets, as well as the number of recipients makes it extremely difficult to make sense of anything. From what I can gather in this image, although many of the bigger names were connecting with each other, they were also playing a key role in facilitating and networking with a lot of participants, who were not necessarily the same. This is really important, as if they were communicating with the same people, the network could easily be seen as a clique. In actual fact, and as I blogged in previous posts, this event has demonstrated Lave & Wenger's Communities of Practice quite well, including the different roles that feature.The top tweeters for the week are as follows:1. @SamIllingworth2. @BYOD4L3. +Chrissi Nerantzi4. @julieGillin5. +Sue Beckingham6. @amandaksykes7. +Andrew Middleton8. +Neil Withnell9. @jimpettiward10. +David HopkinsI was only number 11 :-(I'm sure Sam will be organising a party for tonight to celebrate his Top Tweeter Award! In terms of the number of tweets sent throughout the week, Monday was the chat with the highest number of tweets.Monday = 788Tuesday = 583Wednesday = 477Thursday = 614Friday = 607ResourcesYou can view the interactive version of the network diagram (above).You can use this searchable twitter archive (as part of the TAGS tool) to search for an individual's tweets.Peter@Reedyreedles$nbsp;The Reed Diaries by Peter Reed is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License

On Saturday, whilst shopping, I met the first checkout on an iPad. The staff scanned the barcode on items with it and then it remotely contacted the till. Essentially this freed them up to be able to walk around the shop and interact with customers. This morning walking into the office there was the ubiquitous […]

Traditional versus Digital Literacy How do you know what strategies are appropriate for teaching traditional literacy? Are the strategies different than those that promote digital literacy? We all know about learning goals and success criteria, rubrics, assessment for learning, etc., etc., But it never ceases to amaze me of deep and focused our strategies go […]

"I haven’t got time to use technology": Have you really got the time not to? For quite a few years now I’ve been enjoying the benefits of teaching and learning tools, which can be accessed via the Internet, that are free and very easy to use. I’ve been delivering staff development in the use of […]

So it's been quite a while that I've been MOOC-free, (I wonder if I should get a coin of celebration for each month?), but I've fallen off the wagon! I'm back on the MOOC trail because I liked the sounds of this course from the Open University - Talk the Talk. I was/am particularly interested in this for a number of reasons:I've had a lot of experience presenting and talking to audiences, be it from teaching students, presenting at conferences or delivering staff development sessions. And well, it would be good to be able to polish that experience a little. Everyone can get better, and I'm no exception;It's from the OU - it must be good. They're like, the rulers of online learning.The course intro suggests I'll be engaging people like Mr Bean (Martin, that is):"Talk the Talk will provide you with the language and strategies to deliver talks with a difference. It will boost your confidence and turn public speaking into a valuable experience."So my intro email popped through and I set aside some time to dip in. The first thing to disappoint me was learning that the MOOC would be so interactive:"In Week 1 you will explore some talks online and decide on a topic for your own talk. Wait, I have to do my own talk?Weeks 2 and 3 will look at the content of your talk - the introduction, middle part and the conclusion. At the end of Week 2, you will record and share your own introduction and receive feedback from your fellow learners.In Week 4 you will examine other elements of a talk - what does your body language say? Who are your audience? You will finish your talk in Week 5, and give and receive feedback after making a recording of your entire talk. You will reflect on what you’ve learnt in Week 6 and also examine how you can enhance a talk with visuals. " Now I don't know why this makes my heart sink, but it did. It might be because earlier MOOCs have somehow conditioned me that it's easy to be more passive. It might be because I already see myself as a reasonably experienced presenter and don't feel the need or want to go through a peer review process of my ability to present (in a totally non-arrogant way, that is).Perhaps this MOOC like so many others, isn't for me? Or, perhaps I can get away without engaging with the peer review aspect and get to some teaching material to help me brush up. So I clicked on... The next page - why am I here? I was prompted to reflect on what I wanted to get out of the course. The same old stuff facilitators always as at the beginning of workshops. I looked at the discussion for this page. 598 comments already. None of the first 3 pages would actually class as a discussion though. Just individuals posting a message, with only 1 response to any post (occurring on 3 occasions) with a one line comment - 'sure, I know what you mean'. Hum...On to to watching a short TED clip, encouraging me to identify good/bad aspects of the talk. It was alright. Reasonably interesting I suppose. But it didn't blow my socks off. I wonder if that was by design? I actually can see the point of this activity. Reflect on this to inform my own practice. But is it going anywhere. Well yes, but at no blistering pace...A couple of pages of nothing much, and then the good old end of week quiz. Not much content in the week at all, and no multimedia content from the OU. Hmmm.Questions 1, 2 and 3 were reasonably easy to answer without paying too much attention to the content. But it is question 4 that has prompted this post and ignited my MOOC-frenzied-fury (not too dissimilar that which sparked Beatrix Kiddo's Roaring Rampage of Revenge).Which of the following words does Bill [the presenter in the TED video earlier] use most often to begin a sentence?SoAndIWellSeriously? WTF? Does it matter? Who cares?The correct answer was 'And'. And here's the feedback..."He uses ‘and’ 18 times. Most of the times, it is used to join two related ideas together. You will learn in the next few weeks about both the importance of linking ideas together in a talk and how to link ideas effectively. Davenhall has obviously prepared and rehearsed, but he’s not reading from a script. Therefore, sometimes during his talk, his use of words like ‘and’ and ‘so’ serve no grammatical function. It is perfectly acceptable to do this in a relatively informal speech, but you need to be careful not to overuse certain words or phrases that do not carry any meaning."So again, what is the point? Tenuously linked to learning about joining ideas together?'And' and 'So' serve no grammatical function. This question serves no pedagogic function, but unfortunately for me, it is still there!So what?Ok, I don't just want this to be about me ranting. There has to be something to it. Right? I think my frustration is multi-faceted:I expected something very good from the OU. 15 minutes spent completing this first week leaves a lot to be desired. Yet more poor attempts at instigating online discussion, which, whether being down to the prompts themselves or the platform, just doesn't work.Let's say I am old and bitter in this MOOC game (which I probably am), what experience is this MOOC providing to the young and fresh, enthusiastic MOOCites? If I try to set my bias aside (if that's possible), I'm still left somewhat disappointed. The MOOC game, and the platform, haven't innovated at all. Ok, rant over. I will check back in for week two when the time comes. Right now though, I need a cuppa!Peter@ReedyreedlesThe Reed Diaries by Peter Reed is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License

The following is a brief example of a literacy center idea I designed for integrating word study with edtech, Forest of Reading and the SAMR. This is a center for the development of fluency and comprehension. Where students will learn to automatically recognize and read high frequency words. This is a design strategy to give […]

I read Martin Weller's book a while back - The Digital Scholar: How technology is transforming scholarly practice (you can access it free here). This is no book review, but I just want to pick up on a few things that this book has me thinking about.The book begins with Martin explaining to his daughter the concept of the book, that is, how technology like the Internet is changing the way people work. It seems quite obvious now that the Internet has changed how we learn and how we teach, but what about how we work? And is this digital, and often open, way of working recognised and rewarded?Well for me, yes. Anyone who has read any of my posts will know I'm very open in sharing the work I'm doing via this blog. This form of Open Scholarship has been around for quite a while, and Martin delves into Boyer's work on scholarship to focus on four components:"Discovery - This is the creation of new knowledge in a specific area or discipline. This is often taken to be synonymous with research. This is probably closest to the public conception of scholarship, as universities are often the site of significant breakthroughs. Integration - This is focused on interpretation and interdisciplinary work. It is moving away from the pure, ‘genesis’ research of discovery. Boyer states that it is ‘making connections across the disciplines, placing the specialties in larger context, illuminating data in a revealing way, often educating non-specialists’. Application - This is related to the concept of service, but Boyer makes a distinction between citizenship and scholarly types of service, and for the latter it needs to build on the scholar's area of expertise. It can be seen as engagement with the wider world outside academia, which might include public engagement activities as well as input into policy and general media discussions. This can also include the time spent peer-reviewing journal articles and grant applications and sitting on various committees. Teaching - Much of the interpretation of Boyer can be seen as an attempt to raise the profile of teaching. He argues that ‘the work of the professor becomes consequential only as it is understood by others. Yet, today, teaching is often viewed as a routine function, tacked on’."Weller, Chapter 4, pp 41-51 Social Networking and Blogging can either tick these boxes or certainly support the components, so I tend to disagree when some question whether blogging is dead. For me, you have to relate that back to the original purpose of blogging. If like me, the primary purpose of blogging relates back to Boyer's (or Martin's) points above, how can it be dead? One of my primary goals in blogging is take stock of my own thoughts - it's often like I'm thinking aloud in this online space. It is primarily for me and the way I write probably reflects that. If other people see that, can connect with it, then great. No major problems if they don't.But is there academic value in it? Again, yes. As I am employed on an academic contract, I am expected to develop an (inter)national profile, especially if I am to go for a promotion to the next pay scale. My online presence is certainly helping that - for example I've recently been invited to keynote the upcoming eAssessment Scotland Conference in September. That certainly wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for the work I've discussed here. As a scholarship activity, that will be a huge tick in the box when it comes to PDR time.Now I'm not getting carried away with this and I do recognise more formal routes of scholarship will need attending to - conferences, journal publications, etc. Why? Because the system is still the system. It takes time for these systems to change, and whilst that change is clearly happening, the transformation isn't complete. It may never be complete. But in the meantime, Digital Scholarship is valued.Digital Scholarship is real.Peter@ReedyreedlesThe Reed Diaries by Peter Reed is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License

http://voice.adobe.com/v/9v34VYNFXFM

How quickly an election comes around when most individuals and organisations are still dealing with the current policies. Suddenly along come a whole new lot of manifestos for us to choose from and this time with education and in particular apprenticeships featuring highly by all main parties. Each vehemently pledging more quantity and quality in […]