As I'm currently working on developing some online modules, I thought I'd put this post out, which is actually something I wrote about 3 or 4 years ago introducing and critiquing some multimedia learning theory.'Instructional development is too often based on what computers can do rather than on a research-based theory of how students learn with technology’The quote above comes from Richard Mayer discussing Multimedia Learning: someone widely cited in eLearning publications, and whose work I have wanted to read in more depth for a long time. Having done so in recent weeks, I have had various thoughts about his Multimedia Learning and Generative Theory....Some background infoMayer advocates cognitive approaches to learning, and identifies Dual Channels for information processing in humans - a visual channel (to process images, animations, etc) and a verbal channel (to process written and spoken words, etc). The cognitive phases Select information for processing by the dual channels; Organise verbal and visual representations; and finally Integrates, or builds connections between verbal and pictorial models with prior knowledge.His research supports this notion, suggesting targeting both channels can increase learning (defined as applying creative solutions to problem solving) by 50%. In developing multimedia resources for learners, Mayer suggests three critical principles for reducing cognitive load, assisting human's limited capacity for information processing, and to encourage effective learning and knowledge construction:Spatial contiguity: learning is more effective when words and images are presented closer together (a bit Gestalt-ey);Temporal contiguity: learning is more effective when words and pictures are presented simultaneously;Modality contiguity: learning is more effective when verbal information is presented auditory with pictures, over text with pictures. However, if there are no images/animations, text with audio narration can still target the dual channels.This is certainly interesting for anyone developing online/multimedia learning materials, and something I will personally consider more thoughtfully. However.....Concern 1: Classroom teaching In 'The Promise of Multimedia Learning', Mayer alludes that multimedia learning is more effective than learning within a classroom, suggesting it is a 'single-medium' presentation; that is, relying solely on words - the verbal channel.However, I can't help but feel this is a misguided representation on classroom learning - it doesn't account for the variety of innovative approaches that can be utilised within the classroom. Social, experiential, problem based, and technology-enhanced approaches can all make for effective learning experiences within the classroom. For example, in learning the workings of a bicycle pump, Mayer suggests descriptive images/animations supported with audio is most effective, but doesn't consider the potential learning experiences if students could actually use the pump in real life, and dismantle it to see the inner workings.Whilst I advocate the multimedia approaches, I think it is important educators don't get carried away with suggestions like this, and do actually challenge pre-existing presumptions of student learning. For as great as it is, multimedia (and eLearning in general) is not a panacea or answer to solve every learner's (and learning) problem!Concern 2: Learning in isolationSuch Multimedia 'packages' suggest we learn in isolation i.e alone. Does Mayer recognise the importance and potential of social learning? Or does he refute it? Embedding such content within a VLE can offer a range of social possibilities through the use of discussion forums, chat and web conferencing; to share experience and help construct knowledge and meaning.Concern 3: Subject matterMayer suggests;‘Contiguous presentation of visual and verbal material may be most important when the material is a cause-and-effect explanation of a simple system, when the learners are inexperienced, and when the goal is meaningful learning’ So this therefore raises questions of transferability. Will following his principles for other situations, such as learning about 19th century literature, produce the same outputs? What if there are no cause-and-effect explanations to draw upon?Concern 4: FreedomIn Clarke and Mayer (2011), the authors suggest;"Because the metaphor of the Internet is high learner control, allowing learners to search, locate, and peruse thousands of Internet sites, a tempting pitfall is to create highly exploratory learning environments that give learners an unrestricted license to navigate and piece together their own unique learning experiences. One lesson we have learned from over fifty years of research on discovery learning is that it rarely works."But this flies in the face of much of the current thinking around encouraging learners to search, find, review and select appropriate information. Michael Wesch is a popular figure advocating such skills, and a diverse bank of research into tools such as Second Life and digital literacies would equally encourage such discovery approaches.Should we spoon-feed our students or provide a structure to enable them to solve problems and find certain things out for themselves? They won't be spoon fed in the world of work, so failing to prepare them here, is preparing them to fail in the real world!ConclusionsI think the essence of Mayer's work stands true, and does have a place in education today. For example, I see the development of OERs as a clear area that could benefit from insight into Mayer's research, taking note of contiguity effects to reduce cognitive load. However ultimately, these objects might be repurposed and placed alongside other materials and activities to encourage a more holistic learning experience.In relation to OERs (and that will take it's own post completely at some point), Windle et. al (2011) suggests learners value self-assessment; self paced learning; and use for revision of 'difficult' areas - together then, we can obtain a clear picture or framework for developing reusable content.I'd love to hear your thoughts on the above, so please get in touch either in the comments, by email or on twitter.Peter@ReedyreedlesReferencesMayer, R. E., & Gallini, J. K. (1990) When is an illustration worth ten thousand words? Journal of Educational Psychology, 82(4), 715-726. doi:10.1037//0022-0663.82.4.715Mayer, R. E. (1997) Multimedia Learning : Are We Asking the Right Questions ? Educational Psychology, 32(1), 1-19.Mayer, R. E. (2003) The promise of multimedia learning: using the same instructional design methods across different media. Learning and Instruction, 13(2), 125-139. doi:10.1016/S0959-4752(02)00016-6 Mayer, R. E., & Moreno, R. (2003) Nine Ways to Reduce Cognitive Load in Multimedia Learning. Psychology, 38(1), 43-52.Windle, R. J., McCormick, D., Dandrea, J., & Wharrad, H. (2011). The characteristics of reusable learning objects that enhance learning: A case-study in health-science education. British Journal of Educational Technology, 42(5), 811-823. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8535.2010.01108.x The Reed Diaries by Peter Reed is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License

The strategies we use to teach math are coming under a lot of consideration these days. I do believe that curriculum frameworks are changing for the better within a changing society. We are moving from a purely behaviouralistic view of curriculum as drill, repetition, basic skills instruction and review. Curriculum under this view is highly […]

iPad image CC BY Flickr user Official GDCI've been thinking about the difficulties in developing online learning for a while, and a few months back questioned what innovation in online learning actually looked like. Well good old David Hopkins has stirred those thoughts at a very timely point for me. Although he discusses learner engagement in MOOCs,  I'm trying to transfer good practice to a number of completely online, credit bearing modules at Liverpool. And if MOOCs aren't the innovative solution to online learning we thought they were, what is the answer and how do we apply that to our formal taught modules?Many of the modules/programmes I'm currently looking at are aimed at full time employees in various healthcare settings. For example we have an Acute Oncology module which attracts Clinical Nurse Specialists (CNS), Registrars, etc; and we also have a Transplant Science module, which has recruited transplant surgeons and nephrologists from all over the world.But as someone who is involved in so many different discussions about innovation in learning and teaching, I'm stuck when I think about how these modules would be truly classed as innovative (with existing resources of course). The theoretical models are all too familiar e.g. Laurillard and Salmon, but in practice this translates to a combination of: some form of delivering content (recorded lecture of some kind); further reading; a quiz; and a discussion forum.That's not really 'all that', is it? I'm toying with integrating more visuals and interactive scenarios, etc to really factor in some of the multimedia learning theory (I've covered Mayer's work earlier), but I'd love to know what other people think about this, and even what they do when building online courses, MOOCS, etc. There are innovative solutions to open, online CPD (through experimenting with pedagogies and technologies), but I often find that University QA processes aren't too forgiving when it comes to things like that. They tend to like things that can be accountable - they like solid learning outcomes, definitive schedules and predetermined assessment strategies.So how can we innovate? Or do these traditional Institutional process hamper our ability to do so?Peter@ReedyreedlesThe Reed Diaries by Peter Reed is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License

Curriculum is complex. It is much much more than what is written in a curriculum document, and I appreciate the holistic approaches we are taking at this day in age. I wanted to capture some of this complexity by integrating key questions into a matrix. The main questions were obtained from the following journal article: […]

Advertisement for Great Expectations in All the Year Round.It's been a while since I blogged about the work we've done around student expectations of technology and VLE minimum standards/baselines.To summarise, I conducted a staff and student survey to gauge opinions and experiences around a range of areas related to technology in learning and teaching, and in particular the introduction of a baseline for the VLE. I canvassed the community to see what others were doing in this area (something which @philvincent has recently picked up);  compared staff and student responses to my questionnaire; and shared how we are automating some of our baseline content. The ELESIG Small Grant Scheme also helped me along the way.Looking at the data brought back some earlier discussions with Mark Stubbs and Neil Ringan from my time at MMU, and I began to apply Herzberg's notion of Hygiene Factors to minimum standards - some of the more basic 'things' can prevent dissatisfaction, but won't necessarily cause satisfaction.Well having presented about this a couple of times, I've had an article published with a colleague Simon Watmough in eLearning and Digital Media. It's available through their OnlineFirst page, where they make articles available immediately ahead of print. Simon has done lots of work analysing our NSS results so we've managed to integrate some of this into the article.I've been planning on running some focus groups with students to really pick the bones of this a bit more - what do students want; why; how do they access it and where from? Hopefully we'll get these going properly soon and have much more to write about. For now though, here's the abstract to the paper and feel free to go access the full text version...AbstractInconsistency in the use of Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) has led to dissatisfaction amongst students and is an issue across the Higher Education sector. This paper outlines research undertaken in one faculty within one university to ascertain staff and student views on minimum standards within the VLE; how the VLE could reduce student dissatisfaction; and to propose a conceptual framework surrounding student satisfaction with the VLE.A questionnaire was sent to staff and students asking if they agreed with the need to introduce minimum standards in the VLE and what criteria they wanted. The National Student Survey (NSS) results were analysed for six schools within the faculty over a 4-year period. Many of the NSS results were relevant to developing minimum standards with the VLE.The questionnaire results showed the vast majority of staff and students favour the introduction of minimum standards and identified specific items that should be included, for example handbooks, contact information for staff, access to previous modules, assessment information, further reading, etc. The NSS data showed that students wanted lectures available in the VLE, improved feedback, more computers for students and information about cancelled sessions/timetable changes in the VLE.The results suggest the presence of many minimum standards may reduce student dissatisfaction with the VLE. However, a distinction is made between those pre-potent factors that cause dissatisfaction and those that lead to satisfaction, using Herzberg’s Two-Factor Theory as a theoretical basis.When considering minimum standards as ‘hygiene factors’, their presence can prevent student dissatisfaction and provide the foundations for innovation in technology-enhanced learning.Peter@ReedyreedlesThe Reed Diaries by Peter Reed is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License

Originally posted on Mrs. McCallum's Grade 4's:Check out our Minecraft Floor Plans here: Minecraft Floor Plans

For quite some time I've been interested in running the 10 Days of Twitter course at Liverpool, and I've finally got off my backside to organise it. We'll be starting #LivUni10DoT on Monday 16th March and using a dedicated wordpress site - livuni10dot.wordpress.com.#10DoT was the brainchild of Helen Webster (@scholastic_rat) and as she demonstrates on her site, has had various iterations run at institutions all over the place. In particular, I've been impressed with the latest iteration and updates run at York St. John University - #YSJ10DoT.As Helen licensed the course using Creative Commons, she's more than happy for people to run it themselves. If you want to follow along with us at Liverpool, feel free to get involved. Follow us at the wordpress site and on Twitter.In getting this together, two key things have come to mind:1) Repurposing an open course like #10DoT isn't that easy - it's taken quite a lot of time to set up, format, include new images, etc, etc.2) I think initiatives like this course are a great way to start conversations around using social media. I've been asked to chair a working group to review our SoMe policies and guidance which will inevitably open up a range of further discussions. How do we educate students around developing digital, professional identities? How do we inform them about safeguarding? How do we encourage academics and students to converse on these types of platforms?Lots to get to grips with, but in the meantime have a look at our #LivUni10DoT course.Site - LivUni10DoT.wordpress.comTwitter - @LivUni10DoTPeter@ReedyreedlesThe Reed Diaries by Peter Reed is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License

So earlier in the week, Apple announced the pricing for their new watches, ranging from a few hundred pound up to a ridiculous £8000 for the gold model. I was thinking about how Apple have been so influential in the tech industry, particularly over the past 5-10 years - is the watch going to be another example? Personally I don't foresee buying one - I wear a pretty nice Breitling so what's the point? People who like watches like watches, right? So unless ApplePay really kicks off over in the UK, why buy one? A glorified heart rate monitor?We'll see.Take the iPad as another example though. The market for such a product wasn't even there until they created one. It was unbelievable, and I was one of those many people who run about like a lunatic to get one. [I drove to Leeds (from Liverpool) to get mine that weekend - probably the last one in the country!].But now I'm thinking about how I use technology in my own workflows and wondering, beyond the hype of the products, 'what do I actually need and use'?My use of my work-bought iPad is definitely in decline. I only tend to use it when I go to meetings to make notes, etc, but it actually isn't the easiest for multitasking. In meetings I'll often switch from Evernote to a word doc stored in Dropbox, and then search for an email to find something, and then maybe over to Safari to look something up. Of course this is all possible using the iPad, but it's still a bit cumbersome.I think the developments in laptop computing, most notably the portability, might really impact on iPad usage. I've just got a new Macbook Air which I love, and as I'm a Mac user anyway (in the office and at home) I can do the multitasking things much quicker and easier. I actually find the full Mail app easier and better than the iPad version anyway, and I can type and multitask much quicker on the MBA keyboard than the iPad. And to be honest, it's not that much bigger or heavier anyway.I don't know, perhaps I'm being unfair in comparing a £1000+ product with a £300+ product, but I'm beginning to struggle to see why I would be reliant upon a tablet.Is the iPad becoming a glorified eReader or GameBoy?Am I the only one thinking these things?Of course specific implementations within education are a different kettle of fish, and apps and interactive eBooks can have a huge impact on learning, teaching and assessment. Still, there are many initiatives focussing on buying laptops instead of tablets. So perhaps I'm not the only one after all...[edit]Finally, I think these reflections align with Haythornthwaite's (2006) discussion on technological development. "Similar technologies can take dissimilar forms ....depending on the contexts in which they are implemented" (p3).To what extent does technology determine our behaviour or does our behaviour determine the technology?Peter@ReedyreedlesThe Reed Diaries by Peter Reed is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License

View image | gettyimages.com Our personal schemas about math greatly impacts how we feel about math and ultimately how we will perform in math. From the time we are born, we are impacted by the attitudes and beliefs of those around us. The effects of nurture that shape our schemas of how the world works, […]

Last night's #LTHEChat on Pedagogical Research (PedR) was as lively as ever, and expertly facilitated by guest Anna Wood (and not so expertly by myself, being distracted with talk of biscuits!).The questions guiding the discussion were as follows:What do you think PedR is? What isn’t PedR? #LTHEchatHas pedagogic research influenced your teaching practice? Directly/Indirectly?  #LTHEchatWhat do you think PedR can tell us? #LTHEchatWho should do PedR - subject specialists or education faculty? Have you considered doing PedR yourself? - e.g. Action Research #LTHEchatWhat benefits might there be to doing PedR for you/your colleagues/your students? #LTHEchatWhat barriers exist for teachers to getting involved in PedR? #LTHEchat  What support could be offered to overcome these barriers?As you might expect there were lots of interesting discussions coming out of these questions. I picked up on a few points such as:Do those from different backgrounds think about PedR differently? In my experience Medics and scientists struggle to think about PedR (or educational research) in comparison with their familiar very scientific approaches to research. Is PedR a bit fluffy?How is the importance placed on PedR impacted by the emphasis on the REF?And somewhat related, where is the time and (financial?) support to engage in PedR?VisualsAs the visuals demonstrate, @annkwood was a key figure in the chat, but we can also see a lot of direction towards a few other 'regulars'. It was also interesting to see 'experts' in this area engaging, such as @RossKGalloway.  Peter@ReedyreedlesThe Reed Diaries by Peter Reed is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License

View image | gettyimages.com John Dewey by Deborah McCallum   Deborah McCallum Copyright, 2015

So as people who read my blog will know, at Liverpool we've spent some time looking to implement a VLE baseline, and I've personally done some work to find out what our students want to be included in said baseline.I know this is an area of interest across the sector and I've had conversations about my work with quite a few people over the past year or so. The guys over at the TEL team at York St. John, spearheaded by that +Philip Vincent of course, are building on some of my work and have recently posted another great post considering what their students want. Interestingly they've built on my main survey question, which offered students a list of 'criteria' and asked them to select those that they think should be included.Of course the difficulty in interpreting questions like this is that some students will automatically just select everything, but thankfully my data (and I think that of YSJ) shows this isn't the case for everyone.Anyway, the point of this post is to draw attention to the great work over at YSJ, but also to show a little comparison between survey responses. Sample sizes differ a little (UoL n=840: YSJ n=100) but the data is still very valid!  The YSJ question offers some additional options and have worded a couple slightly different to mine, but I've done my best to align what I could. I'd still recommend you head over and see the full post from YSJ though.It looks like my UoL students are a bit more demanding than the YSJ respondents. Could this be based on expectations of a Russell Group perhaps? Could it be a discipline difference, as my respondents all came from my Faculty, which includes Dentistry, Medicine, Vet Science, Life Science, Health Sciences and Psychology? Beyond all that, it just can be difficult comparing across two very different institutions. As I've postulated elsewhere, I wonder if most of these criteria are more related to preventing dissatisfaction rather than actually leading to satisfaction - yes, they're different!It would be really great if other institutions could form similar research and build on the basics of my options. That way we could get some broad data to get a better picture of what our students are really asking for!Enough for now - I'm on leave! Go read that YSJ piece!Peter@ReedyreedlesThe Reed Diaries by Peter Reed is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License

Patterning and Algebra.

Flickr Photo CC BY by DaveFayramI've blogged a few times recently about the focus of my PhD - social networking in UG Medical Education.Many philosophers have considered actions a result of society. Durkheim's classical work suggests suicide is a social, rather than personal, 'phenomenon'. Further when we think of things like the Toxteth Riots here in Liverpool, the Occupy movement or indeed the London Riots a few years back, they are certainly social movements (with reports that social networking sites were used to coordinate elements of the latter).If so much of the world, including a seemingly personal action such as suicide, is actually a result of society, to what extent is education and 'achievement' (without wanting to philosophise over what achievement actually is or should be)? We see a lot of espoused theories in education towards social constructivist pedagogy, and plenty of mentions of Communities of Practice, but do we really think about how social relationships affect learning?It's early stages in my PhD but I've come across a couple of really interesting articles that I wanted to put some words against.The concept of homophily refers to the 'tendency of individuals to associate and bond with similar others', and research into how students (in these cases UG Med students) form social networks (outwith the technology) demonstrates some interesting and significant patterns. Homophily impacts academic achievement - we're more likely to behave, and perform, similar to those people we are close with. Studies of social networking generally find clustering by race and ethnicity (and I presume religious groups too). This is homophily in action:"A student may use ethnicity as a surrogate for beliefs and attitudes, presuming - possibly erroneously - that because someone is a member of their own ethnic group, they hold similar values to themselves, and also presuming that people from a different ethnic group hold different values. (Woolf, et al; 2012, p584)."When medical students include certain types of people in the personal learning networks, they perform better in summative assessments e.g. academic staff; students from subsequent years of study; or those professionals who they might meet whilst on placement (junior doctors, consultants, etc).You would automatically think forming tight knit groups are a good thing for undergraduate students, but in the learning context, the information an individual node might come across is limited by the nodes they connect with, and with the concept of homophily, they may already have access to that information anyway. It is those people that 'bridge' these tight networks that perform better. This is Granovetter's concept of 'strength of weak ties', as these nodes can help information flow between networks. Ultimately they have access to a broader range of information to learn from and apply - without them there wouldn't be a complete network as the tight groups would be limited to themselves. Social Capital is similar here - the more people that connect with me, is related to the amount of information I am open to.So considering that, I've got a few questions:If there are such definite links between engaging in social networks and better performance, shouldn't we be encouraging 'social' a bit more? Shouldn't we encourage the breaking down of tight knit networks in favour of being a bit more open? This might even help issues of racism by encouraging integration in academic life (although I have no data to hand which suggests racism is active or otherwise in university life).We know the potential of technology to support social networking, so why aren't we doing more to encourage students to take advantage of it? Least of all, how can there possibly by antipathy towards the use of social networks?Of course with encouraging the use of social networking sites, we must also educate students as to how to conduct themselves appropriately; how to safeguard; and how to develop a lasting professional identity. This happens in pockets across the sector. We need to do more.There's lots more with this came from...Peter@ReedyreedlesReferencesGranovetter, M. (1973). The Strength of Weak Ties. American Journal of Sociology, 78(6), 1360-1380.Woolf, K., Potts, H. W. W., Patel, S., & McManus, I. C. (2012). The hidden medical school: a longitudinal study of how social networks form, and how they relate to academic performance. Medical Teacher, 34(7), 577-86. http://doi.org/10.3109/0142159X.2012.669082Vaughan, S., Sanders, T., Crossley, N., O’Neill, P., & Wass, V. (2015). Bridging the gap: the roles of social capital and ethnicity in medical student achievement. Medical Education, 49(1), 114-23. http://doi.org/10.1111/medu.12597The Reed Diaries by Peter Reed is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License

https://www.smore.com/mf60t-growth-mindsets-and-math?embed=1

As I've blogged a few times recently, I'm looking into how students form social networks, the roles they adopt, and how these impact achievement in medical school. But this is only the first step in the research. I also want to gain some understanding of how technology is used to support and mediate these relations in an ethnographic approach.Wikipedia suggests ethnography is the systematic study of people and their experiences, from the subject's perspective. Silverman (2013) makes an important point about the methodological issues , suggesting interview responses only provide a narrative of experience opposed to direct access to that experience. He reinforces the anthropological perspective that to 'understand a group of people, one must engage in an extended period of observation' (p49).However there is an obvious problem with many of the text books on research methods - the changing face of ethnography to reflect the increasing pervasiveness of digital technologies. Where traditionally ethnographers work in the 'field', be it in the physical boundaries of the university library, the cafeteria or even the local park; researchers are becoming (have become?) interested in how and where and why people use and engage with technologies. Since the 'field' is difficult to quantify in the digital sense, I'm wondering about how ethnography might work. Some of Michael Wesch's Digital Cultures work springs to mind.Flickr photo by Banalities: Creative CC BY licenseOne of the things I've recently been thinking about is to track Internet access amongst students. When students (or staff for that matter) connect to the University wifi (eduroam at Liverpool), they do so through a connection to a data access point - a bit like your router at home. Similar to your router at home, you have to be within proximity for the signal to carry, and the further away you are from the router, the weaker the signal. So in large organisations such as Universities, there are many of these data access points, and as we move about campus we are seamlessly passed from one access point to another.I think it would be interesting to map these data access points against an actual map of the campus, then visualise the locations students (or staff) are accessing wifi. A further stage to this could be to identify the websites by IP address.Another idea that came out of a meeting with Chris Jones and Helen O'Sullivan (my PhD supervisors) was to look at directly tracking what (volunteer) students were doing on their computers. Rescue Time is interesting. Once installed, it tracks/monitors the websites and applications you are using, produces reports, and includes goals, etc. This is probably not so tightly related to my aims for the research, but it's another example of how researchers can engage in ethnographic practices where the field is digital.So these are some of my early thoughts about digital ethnography without really engaging in much literature, so if there are any particularly good references you can point me towards, I'd love to see them in the comments!Peter@ReedyreedlesThe Reed Diaries by Peter Reed is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License

There are a lot of myths surrounding the type of pedagogy and instructional strategies that promote knowledge building and higher order thinking in the classroom. In an engaging classroom, learning is messy. Students are engaged in inquiry processes that are meaningful to them, and socially constructing new knowledge bases that are also culturally relevant. This […]

I watched Cable Green's #OER15 keynote with great interest last week, and it brought me back to what I've been thinking about open textbooks for a few years now.When I've spoken with (or read) American educators, I've always got the feeling that 'open' and 'OER' relate more to textbooks than other resources, whereas over here in the UK the balance is more heavily distributed towards content and activities. That may not be the intention, or this may not even be 100% accurate, it's just the feeling I've got from being somewhat engaged (or on the fringes) in 'the open movement'.Opensourceway | CC BY:SAI read Martin Weller's post this morning which relates back to another of Cable Green's recent presentations where he tells a similar story to that at #OER15. The basic premise is that Washington State have been spending a ridiculous amount of money in buying textbooks, and because of the cost, they can only afford to buy a couple each year. Furthermore the students (K12 I think) don't own the books as they have to be passed on to the next intake. [Yeah crazy isn't it?]. So instead the idea is that rather than paying for those textbooks, the money can be used to fund the writing of new, current and open text books. These can be easily updated, and suspect they can be printed reasonably cheaply [that ebook master @hopkinsdavid used CreateSpace for the #edtechBook I contributed to]. This means all students can have their own copy, and the impact of this can spread beyond the Washington State area. Public funds = open textbooks = huge potential impact. Easy right?So why haven't we done this in the UK?I'm warmed that Liverpool have started to investigate producing ebooks as a result of some Jisc funding (@andcarebarker knows more about this). Surely this has to be the way forward. In a research-intensive university like Liverpool, we certainly have the expertise in a range of subjects - we just need to overcome the challenges, mainly financial I presume, in achieving this. Hopefully this project can help pave the way, but from my perspective we shouldn't be requiring students to purchase expensive books (sometimes into the hundreds of pounds), especially in a time when departments are increasingly buying into expensive deals with the likes of McGraw Hill and Pearson (who are trying desperately to provide added value through online platforms and quiz banks, etc). Add into the mix the £9k fees and surely there is a case - redirect funding so we can produce relevant and up-to-date textbooks!Peter@ReedyreedlesThe Reed Diaries by Peter Reed is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License

Math Resources

I was surprised to be asked last week to contribute to an interview with ACI about this blog (and the actor of blogging). They're a 'leading aggregator of editorially selected and curated social media publications', and well, it was just nice to see others paying tribute to the scholarship of blogging!!!I was impressed with the questions they asked - they really showed that they had actually read my posts :-) The questions they asked were as follows:You're a PhD candidate at the University of Liverpool. Can you tell us what discipline(s) your PhD studies are in? What interests made you decide on that area for your doctoral studies?You're also a Lecturer in Learning Technology there. Do the classes you teach allow you to focus or touch upon any of your primary research interests?Your posts have touched upon some really fascinating topics, like digital research, digital ethnography, interpreting the language of feedback, and even what students want to experience more of in the classroom (your VLE baseline work). How did your interest in these areas come about? One recent post mentions your interest in how social media activity might impact med students' achievement in medical school. Can you tell us a little more about that?In your post entitled "Leveraging Value from (Social) Networks and Communities", you bring up a number of topics that would interest scholars from a wide range of fields - educators (in any discipline), those whose research revolves around education as a field, sociologists studying patterns and correlations in social media use, academic UX engineers trying to find out what causes students to engage in various pedagogical technologies. Have you found that your blogging and social media activities allow you to take better advantage of the multi-disciplinary interests coming from those in fields other than your own? It also seems that would open up to more collaboration possibilities as well, whether with scholars in other disciplines or scholars in the same disciplines but in other institutions or environments. Even in the absence of collaboration in actual research, it seems those insights collectively might be fodder for further study or expanding your own interests. Have you found this to be true?As a PhD candidate who's also actively lecturing and active in social media and networking, how do you find the time to blog about your research and academic notes of interest? Any advice for others in academia who want to blog more about their topics but find the time-balance factor a little overwhelming?You can head over and read my answers to the interview here!Peter@ReedyreedlesThe Reed Diaries by Peter Reed is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License

What is the Purpose of Education? We all have our own beliefs about what education is for ultimately. However, I want to you take a moment and consider the extent to which you believe that the following are myths, or realities in education: The following are myths about education according to Ornstein & Hunkins (2013). […]

I've been thinking about the kinds of tools and technologies students want and need, and I came across a site from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, called Teachers Know Best (via this article at Daily Genius).There are some interesting tidbits on there, but I wanted to pick up on this Top 10 Product Preferences list, where there are some interesting differences....To me this looks reasonably obvious - Teachers are looking to the different sites to create exciting new content and challenges, whilst students are, on the whole, much more practical in their preferences. No surprise that Google Search is at the top! Most of the tools there are about Productivity - about getting their work done. The only one that surprises me there is Edmodo, but I'm guessing this is US based where it might be bigger than over here. Also surprised by the lack of any social media tools (other than YouTube).Of course, I've done some work at Liverpool over the past couple of years looking at staff and student attitudes towards TEL, and I've harped on lots about Minimum Standards. But it's relevant here I think. I gave students a list of things that they might want in every VLE area, and the suggestions where all very practical, and geared around getting the job done e.g. assessment strategies, contact details for tutors, etc. Even when I asked about innovation and mobile use, the data didn't tell us anything revolutionary, with emphasis placed on lecture capture (well, audio sync'd slides).. So for me, this list from B&MGF does more than just tell us what tools students are using. I think it helps tell us that students don't actually really know the benefits of educational technology and what's good for them. They're about getting the job done rather than looking at innovation. So whilst one of our biggest challenges is convincing academic staff about TEL, perhaps we also need to think about convincing students...Peter@ReedyreedlesThe Reed Diaries by Peter Reed is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License

How to Use Google Forms Resources: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xqSZdyGCPfZgJH6O-lfZxQOakEzTI9qSQ7DE0r4m6tE/edit?usp=sharing Google in Education: Flipboard Magazine View my Flipboard Magazine for Google in Education Sample Forms for Assessment and Learning: Virtual Book Club Sign Up Book Selection Criteria Evidence of Learning with Edtech eLearning Questionnaire Retell, Relate, Reflect Reading Response Questionnaire SAMR: Tech Integration in the Classroom Digital Citizenship: School […]

So this week I spent two days in Birmingham with some fine folk, such as +Sheila MacNeill , +Simon Thomson (Digisim) , +Dave White and +Eric Stoller . We were tasked by +Lawrie Phipps with being creative and innovative. Now there are two types of innovation - there's progressive innovation (where we take an idea/process/product/etc and make it better), and there's radical innovation (where we create something completely new, dynamic and transformative). Our task was to be radically innovative - we could let go of the everyday struggles that we have in institutions up and down the country, and try to really reimagine what things *could* be like.But that's not so easy...It's incredibly difficult to be 'radically innovative' - partly because we're so close to the systems we work with, so many of the conversations we were having on our tables centred on improving certain systems/processes. But that's incremental. Progressive. Not radical. There's the famous Einstein (?) quote about not being able to solve tomorrow's problems with today's thinking (or something like that), and I think on the whole, that's what we were up against.As we approached lunchtime on Day 1, I couldn't help but think that in order to really get to grips with being radically innovative, we had to strip away the constructs and confines of the University. We had to reimagine what the University could be like, and one of the guys on our table drew the 'creativity continuum' - you have 'certainty' on the Y axis (decreasing, I think) and 'Agreement' on the X. In that top right corner you have 'Chaos'.Now this probably isn't true, but stick with me.... I get the feeling that as formal teaching became popular, institutions created all kinds of supporting services such as admin teams, quality assurance procedures and marketing teams. But somewhere along the line, these supporting and enabling services have somehow become restrictive to teaching. The tables have turned. We can't do X because of Y. I'm sure everyone has these stories in their institutions, so we need to start to rethink how these services can return to being supportive again.I began to think about the typical degree programme, and those increasingly common analogies of the factory model of education. I'm not sure I buy into all of these suggestions completely, but something I do buy into is the obvious problem in that we continue to group people by age throughout education. Even in HE, we have distinct years of study and treat people pretty similarly.But what if HE was more flexible? What if students could come to University and had a flexible programme ahead of them. Yes they might still need to obtain a certain amount of credits, but the portfolio of modules could be open. 1st years might study the same module as some 2nd and 3rd years. They could return to what might have been, the first module, and study that in year 2. Hell, maybe we don't even have 'years'. They could join a module where they already know much of the content, and can literally join for a couple of weeks and do the assessment (which could also be re-thought. There was some good talk about new project based semesters). Perhaps they could do as few, or as many, modules as they wanted at any one time. Maybe they could do a degree over 18 months, or 5 years. This would be much more personal and individual.One of the other conversations we had was titled 'The Real University'. The University home page could feature harvested social media content from different services - Twitter, Instagram, etc, to really show what students were saying. We might geo-fence the tweets, or perhaps introduce hashtags, etc. This discussion moved on to 'handing the keys over' to students, enabling them to take control of key institutional accounts. I think this is a great idea, and have already run the idea by @libraryemma and @andcarebarker. We already manage a really great Twitter account - @LivUniLibrary, and I'm hoping we can hand over the library twitter account and have A Day in the Life of....How much more authentic would this voice be? And it could set the tone for other such opportunities across the University.Anyway, I'm sure Lawrie be reflecting on his own blog so it will be nice to see what he wanted (and got) from the day. In the meantime, think about (and maybe comment) on how radical we could be. Maybe introduce the hashtag #RadicalHE...Peter@ReedyreedlesThe Reed Diaries by Peter Reed is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License