Its that most wonderful time of the year in the education business.. . Black History Month.  I love the history of my people and how we have helped to mold and change the landscape of this great country.  I, however, dislike being black during Black History Month in my school building. There are 84 certified/licensed […]

Was taking measurements in my room and couldn’t help snapping this pic. Imagine what we could do with a screen that large… This is my preferred location for a "campfire space," for now.

Kudos to the eLearning Guild for last week's exceptional inaugural mobile learning conference in San Diego. Having been actively following mobile learning developments during the past 6 years or so (and wondering what it would take to tip this obvious,...

It’s conference time, and in the next few months I’m going to be popping up in several venues around the UK and online. The first of these happened on Friday, where I delivered my first keynote address and workshop of the year. Truro College were holding a Technology in Learning conference as part of their staff development programme and invited me down to talk to staff and to show them some of the tools I use. I don’t need to be asked twice to go back home, and the idea of presenting at my old college’s rival institution sort of appealed to my naughty side. My keynote, called ‘The Tech Commandments’ looked at some of the things I’ve noticed over my years in technology enhanced learning, and combined this with some of the issues staff face when embedding technology in the classroom. The overall message I wanted to give teaching staff was that they mustn’t feel pressured to have intimate knowledge of every tool and gadget and then take on too much. That they should, initially, stick to what they feel comfortable with, then use it when it enhances the subject and not because they feel obliged, or even pressured to shoe horn something into a lesson. That, despite this, they shouldn’t be afraid to try something new every now and again. And that if it goes wrong…which it will at some point…well the world keeps on turning and nobody has died. The ‘Quick Wins’ workshop I followed this up with looked at a range of free web tools that I use, I like, and I want others to know about. All are free, all have enhanced my *sessions, and Kahoot and Padlet went down really well (see below). Take a look below. Next month I’m delivering a workshop at the annual RaPAL conference in Birmingham that’ll look at patient stories, then in June I’m doing an online presentation about my experience of the FutureLesrn MOOC I finished last month, then it’s the annual JISC TurboTELapalooza in Bristol. I’ll be doing a couple of slots there, but can’t remember what I’ve agreed to do them about. There’ll be more about them here as they happen. *maybe not the PechaKucha…

I’m the Technology Liaison in my school building.  I was asked to take on this teacher leadership position near the end of the school year last year by my principal. At the time, I thought, this would be cool, it will look good on my resume and I can apply all this stuff I’ve been […]

My new classroom was emptied today (more pics in the set linked above). Floors will be cleaned and waxed. We’ll have to be careful working / painting in the room afterwards but it’s nice to have the floor preparation complete. All on the first official day of summer recess. #offtoagreatstart

For years, educational institutions have bought in various voting systems. You know the ones I mean: they come packed in suitcases with dated-looking voting pads and dongles that require blutooth connectivity and software licences that cost 100 quid a pop. They can take ages to set up (from the quiz author’s perspective) and then take ages to set up (as far as setting up the voting pads, dongles and batteries). They often don’t work, usually because the teacher who wanted to use it had not been given any training in the software required to author their quiz, so the questions didn’t display the right answers, or too many right answers, or no answers at all. And more often than not (in my experience), the dongle doesn’t work or has gone missing or only 5 of the voting pads do work. And as the institution can often only afford one set of voting pads and 2 software licences, only 3 teachers can actually use it BUT they have to book the hardware out 4 months in advance.If that all sounds rather negative, I apologize. But in my defence, I went to a TurningPoint demo once, and the guy showcasing his own company’s system had to abandon the demo after question 3 because the pads failed. So I am not particularly trusting of the effectiveness of these bulky and pricey systems. And that’s why Kahoot is brilliant.  Kahoot is a web based quiz / survey / voting system and its first plus point is that students provide their own voting pads via their smartphone, tablet, laptop or any web enabled device. Students open their device’s browser, go to Kahoot.it and are given a PIN number generated specifically for the quiz they are taking part in. They type in the PIN, and are then invited to type in their name or a nickname. Having done this, they are connected to the quiz, and as soon as the required number if players have logged in, the author of the quiz or survey can start.  It may be easier to bullet point my excitement from hereon in: After signing up to a free account, users navigate a very simple interface to set up their survey or quiz. So it’s ‘I only discovered the Internet 6 months ago and I can use it’ easy. Yes - a free account. This costs nothing! Video-based questions add a great visual dimension, and YouTube films can be embedded as simply as copying and pasting their URL to the question’s set-up screen. Points can be allocated for correct answers. I used this feature at a staff development day a few weeks ago and asked participants to break into teams for an after lunch, Kahoot-based ‘pub quiz’. Each team appointed a captain who used their mobile device as the team’s voting pad and gave themselves a pub quiz team name. Good to see people still use ‘Norfolk and Clue’ as a team name, though my favourite will always be: ‘Let’s have a big hand for Jeremy Beadle’… Responses can be downloaded to an Excel spreadsheet. Great for looking for patterns of answers and then gauging whether a question / quiz is too easy or difficult. After discovering it by chance, I introduced Kahoot at the end of last year to a group of PGCE students. One of these students used it in his ‘beginning research’ session a few weeks ago as an icebreaker (and a sneaky way of introducing qualitative research). I went to the session to provide technical support (there were bandwidth concerns regarding 60+ students using the same broadband connection at the same time), but - and here’s a first - nothing went wrong. Better than that, when the quiz was over the audience let out an audible groan of dissapointment. Better THAN THAT - as I walked out of the lecture theatre, I overheard several incredibly positive comments. That’s why I decided to run with it at the staff development day. That and the fact that I didn’t want to lug 3 suitcases of voting pads down to the town centre. But also, because I wanted the school to see what a cool tool it was and consider using it in their own teaching. And that they have! I asked one lecturer who went on to use Kahoot with a group of his students if he’d be prepared to send me his students’ responses. He did, and here’s a selection of what they said about using Kahoot for a study day revision quiz: "Kahoot really helped at the end of the session. It was a really good recap/ revision tool. As there was so much information to remember from the sessions it was good to have a fun reminder at the end rather then just leaving for the day and fogetting half the information it had learnt. I found it a good way to test what I had learnt and the subjects I might need to do some futher reading on to improve my understanding." "It was a nice way to end the day and showed us what we remembered from the previous days. And showed what we need to research more into." Here’s my favourite, because it links directly to something I believe in completely: that we learn better if we’re enjoying ourselves: "Yes because it was fun. Fun things are hard to forget!" Before I sign off, one other thing.  Kahoot is simple, bright, colourful and - yes, I’ll say it - the design is clearly aimed at children and young adults.  This often puts teachers and lecturers in the further and higher education sectors off, as they think that using anything like this with adults could be seen as patronising.  So let me finish up with this one thought: I do not recall signing  agreement as soon as I hit 18 that declared that I was going to forgo anything colourful, bold or simple in favour of turgidity, monochrome and complication.  I do not feel patronised when I watch ‘Scooby Doo’ or ‘Doctor Who’.  I enjoy, among other things, ‘alphabetti spaghetti’ and ‘Freddo Frog’ chocolate bars.  I think that I should be allowed to have fun and be childlike even at my advanced age.  And I think that just about everyone else feels like that too.

Do you have a training or information need that could benefit from a social media strategy? Understanding the universe of options can help you match your need to the best approach. So here are descriptions of ten applications representing different social media technologies that promote learning. Many of these tools and services are free or have a free trial period, which can encourage experimentation. Each tool fulfills at least one of these criteria: encourages collaboration; enables user-generated content or input; provides a way to share; and facilitates informal or formal learning. Be sure to do additional research and comparison with similar products prior to making a selection as this is just a small sampling. (Listing is alphabetical.) Audacity Category: Podcasts Although podcasts are a one-way form of communication, they enable the creation of user-generated content. Podcasts are fairly easy for anyone to make and with the free downloadable software, Audacity, it becomes an inexpensive option. Podcasts are a great medium for distributing an organization’s content and expertise because they can be played on hand held devices and computers. Users can record and edit audio with Audacity and it runs on most operating systems, including Mac OS X and Windows. Key features include recording through a microphone or mixer, digitizing recordings from tapes, audio editing, importing and exporting audio files, effects and quality adjustments. For details on how to create a podcast, see How to Create Your Own Podcast on About.com. Dimdim Category: Interactive Webinars and Live Presentations The forward thinking folks at Dimdim created an application that is completely in the cloud. Think of it. Users do not have to download or install software to participate in a presentation or webinar. This flexibility and ease of use could encourage impromptu learning events and meetings that can be set up in a moments notice, increasing the informal learning opportunities within and outside an organization. Users can share voice and video, display online PowerPoint presentations, documents, share their screen and show web pages, making annotations along the way. The collaborative feature lets participants get in the act with capabilities for marking up documents as well using as a shared, multipage whiteboard. Dimdim has an open source version so developers can integrate it with other software. For example, there is a Moodle module for starting a Dimdim session directly from within Moodle. It  also integrates with a few open source eLearning tools. There are several pricing models for using Dimdim, including a free plan with full functionality for smaller groups. Edublogs Campus Category: Blogs Blogging to teach others is common in the public domain, but not so within an organization. Edublogs Campus is hoping to change that. This software provides a way to centralize and manage blogs within an institution by hosting them all on one domain. Although Edublogs seems focused on academia, its also ideal for other types of organizations due to its centralized control, privacy options, security features, custom branding and support. In terms of promoting learning, employees could use blogs to write first-hand accounts of case studies, lessons learned, project debriefings, travel tips and cultural customs. Internal experts could blog about their areas of proficiency. Blogging could help an organization’s knowledge quotient explode and is definitely something worth exploring. Elgg Category: Social Networking Platform Elgg is a social networking engine and publishing platform for running your own social networking site on a public or private server. It’s a free and open source application with templates and plugins for enhancements. Elgg is an aggregate of many social media technologies in one platform. Users can create and join groups, connect with friends, display a profile, blog and microblog (similar to Twitter). In terms of content, people can add pages, upload presentations, documents and multimedia files as well as tag the pages. This makes Elgg an ideal platform for learning and collaboration. For example, a large organization with geographically dispersed offices can use Elgg on an internal server to introduce employees to each other and to share internal knowledge across offices; employees can use Elgg to create online study groups; and nonprofit organizations can build communities of common interest where members learn from each other. Google Collaboration Tools Category: Collaborative Resources It would be difficult to create a ten-list without mentioning some of Google’s continually evolving Google Collaboration Tools for Education and Business. Google has created a compelling infrastructure for a variety of collaboration tools. Some of the tools relevant to collaborative learning include: Google Docs (word processing, spreadsheets, forms and presentations); Google Sites (team website creation); Google Video (add comments, tags and ratings); Google Conversations (for integrating discussions) and Google Wave (combines email, Instant Messaging, Wikis and photo sharing), which has limited availability at the time of this writing. The key advantage to Google Apps is that all the software runs in a web browser, so that users with permission can view and edit the documents. The collaborative environment this creates encourages people to share knowledge and learn from each other, to engage in peer review and to generate content in a collective manner. MindMeister Category: Mind Maps One way to learn and solve problems more effectively is by visualizing information. MindMeister provides a browser-based service for creating mind maps through an intuitive interface. These diagrams can be used during brainstorming sessions, as a way to explain concepts, for information organization and for creative problem solving. Mindmeister’s mind maps can be used in a collaborative environment, as well as saved and shared. When two or more users collaborate on the same map in real-time, all changes are replicated in a color-coded format so everyone can see updates instantaneously. Mindmeister comes with several pricing plans, from the basic free plan to a premium plan with enhanced security. TalkShoe Category: Talk Shows Think of TalkShoe as a way to have your own radio talk show. This is a free web-based service in which anyone can create, join or listen to live interactive presentations, discussions and conversations. Talk shows can be recorded, making them available as podcasts later. Talk show hosts control the process and participants can just listen or join in by talking or via text-chat. For informal and impromptu learning, you can browse through their list of current and scheduled shows. To create your own workplace learning, you can schedule events on TalkShoe and then publicize them. Would you like a colleague to teach a course with interactive comments from a broader community? Would your organization benefit from a question and answer session with an expert, an interview with an author or a panel discussion using expertise outside of your organization? Then a live talk show may be for you. Hosts have control, but should be prepared to manage participants, who can join from anywhere on the Internet. VoiceThread Category: Multimedia Presentations VoiceThread is a tool for having discussions around media, such as a presentation, video or image. Participants watch or listen and then comment by telephone, web cam, microphone, text or by uploading a file. Users can then delete and re-record a comment, as needed. A small photo or drawing of the participant is then displayed around the media. To listen to comments, click the photos or the Play button. Although this approach to discussion does not facilitate real-time conversations, it does promote collaboration and threaded discussion. For example, someone could propose an idea or a pilot presentation and solicit feedback from colleagues. Or a staff member could create a starter learning event that gets enhanced by the knowledge distributed around the organization, added as comments. VoiceThread features include control over which comments are shown, embedding the conversation to any web page, drawing on the presentation while creating a comment, ability to create groups, privacy options and support for most accessibility standards. VoiceThread has a professional version for businesses that provides features for secure sharing and management of threads for staff and clients. Wikispaces Category: Wikis A Wiki is software for creating and editing interlinked web pages. Wikispaces is one of the more popular wiki applications, with its reputation for ease of use and varied pricing models, from free to Private Label. Wikis promote collaborative learning and information sharing because anyone with rights can add content to the system. Imagine software experts adding their top tips to an organization’s Wiki after a new software roll out or asking experienced project managers to write up a "lessons learned" page at the end of each project. Wikispaces features a WYSIWIG editor, widgets for enhancements to other services, ability to upload multimedia content, discussions, RSS and email notifications, revision tracking and security options. If you’re looking for a completely free and open source Wiki for a large installation, check out MediaWiki, which is the downloadable software that supports Wikipedia. And if you’re willing to do some comparison shopping, see the amazing WikiMatrix to compare a long list of Wikis. Yammer Category: Microblogging Who would have thought that 140 characters of text could be so powerful? Yet microblogging has become a revolutionary way of streamlining communication. Twitter, the most well-known microblogging platform, is highly public—an issue for many organizations. Yammer is a compelling solution to this problem, as it provides a secure enterprise microblogging platform. It’s a simple means for social sharing within an organization and can become a surprisingly virile form of messaging, collaborating and discussing. At its most superficial level, Yammer can keep other employees abreast of the projects on which their colleagues are working. As participation grows and employees post their profiles with job titles, expertise and background, Yammer can develop into a social network with potential. This could transform an organization of isolated employees into a rich network of approachable contacts. As discussions grow to include questions, content links and information dissemination, content can be searched and serve as an organization’s knowledge base. Yammer seems to be a simple way to engage and to open communication across an organization. Related Articles: Social Media And Learning Using Wikis For Learning Using Podcasts For Learning Post from: The eLearning Coach10 Social Media Tools For Learning Share this on LinkedinTweet This!Email this to a friend?Share this on FacebookShare this on del.icio.usStumble upon something good? Share it on StumbleUponAdd this to 100 bookmarks

Bare with me, I have time to think and its going better than expected. I’m so blessed to be living in a time and space in this great country of ours where I can have a discussion with people who think with their brains and not simply regurgitate the noise of other, less worthy souls. […]

This is the first in a series of posts looking at a range of new and emerging web tools that can be used to enhance learning. I plan to break these into categories, and I am going to begin with something ubiquitous in education, training and business: presentation tools. (Hang on in there folks - these are pretty good.) Before I start, I would like to point out that much needs to be done to rescue the reputation of one much maligned piece of presentation software: PowerPoint. Sadly, this stalwart of the boardroom and lecture theatre has been abused for decades by people producing thousands of those Death by PowerPoint presentations: 2375 slides, 25 bullet points per slide (font at size 10 to fit it all in), few or no images or, worse, migraine-inducing technicolor animations. This is a shame, as it isn’t the software that is at fault.  It’s the users who have little time, and no idea how to design engaging content. People use PowerPoint the same way they use their microwave: there are a hundred ways of cooking with it, but they only know how to use it to heat up beans. One other thing: this is by no means an exhaustive list. I do not want to overload or bore you, so I am only looking at three tools that meet the following criteria: They are new (or newish) They are free (though sometimes only to a point, as they usually offer paid-for add ons or subscriptions at a cost) They all have an interesting Unique Selling Point (USP) There are dozens of similar tools out there and many of them have been around for a while. As I said, presenting them all would be an overwhelming task for me to check out and you to plough through, so enough digression and down to business. Here’s a look at the first tool: Tool #1: emaze Like many others before it, this web based tool allows users to edit and view presentations online and on any internet-enabled device, and saves presentations in the cloud. Its unique selling point is that users are able to use pre-rendered templates to produce 3 dimensional presentations that can include audio and video as well as the usual text and images. The templates are very well designed and their animated pathways are pre-installed, so none of that tricky plot-your-own-animation issue that can put beginners off similar products such as Prezi (or induce the motion sickness in the audience). In fact, emaze appears to be a lot easier to master than Prezi (which I always felt demanded a reasonably high level of technical ability to begin with). Set up a free account and users can also view and use presentations saved to the cloud by others. Here’s one I made using one of emaze’s templates in about 30 minutes: http://app.emaze.com/474827/surrealism#slidenum=1 Tool#2: StoryDesk Okay. I’ll be honest here. StoryDesk (SD) has been designed as a sales presentation tool so educators and trainers may not be aware of its existence or feel inclined to use it. However, a bit of lateral thinking can do wonders. Bypass the business-speak bingo of the site’s introductory blurb and there’s a great tool here. BUT…there’s also a double edged sword regarding SD’s unique selling point: because of the interactive nature of completed presentations, these are shared synchronously over the audience’s tablets. So audience members can interact with the presentation, watch videos and access related documents, but they have to use a tablet to do this. And not everybody owns a tablet.  Oh - and it’s not just viewing that has to be done via tablet: authoring is done the same way, so if you don’t own a tablet you can’t use StoryDesk. That paragraph has probably put you off using SD, which is ironic considering its focus. If you have a tablet, check out the presentation I made in about an hour using most of the slide templates provided. Also, notice the way presentations are non-linear. For anyone over 40, think ‘Crossroads’ or ‘Acorn Antiques’ closing credits… Here’s what a finished presentation looks like: Tool#3: PowToon More web-based presentation creation and sharing and blurb that pulls no punches; PowToon wants to ‘address all the frustrations that people have with Power Point and Keynote and add animation and killer design.’ The great thing about this site is that users with no technical or design skills are able to create engaging, animated presentations that have a really professional ‘look and feel’. As the aforementioned blurb goes on to say, using PowToon can even ‘help effect the way people communicate in a profound way (because while) a picture speaks a thousand words, an animation conveys an idea.’ All very Utopian……but there are a few drawbacks. Once published, presentations can be uploaded to YouTube and shared and embedded from there, they can’t be designed on a tablet as Flash player is a mandatory requirement. A free account only allows for presentations of up to 5 minutes in length, but an educator’s account at $1 a month allows for up to 15 (and gives the user a greater range of themes, background tracks and animations). I’m going to use this to make quick animated demos rather than presentations per se. Here’s my first attempt: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6i6hEttVDU&list=UUgcILUD9sbyGxgfyolRRgwA Enough already! I hear you shout. And that’s fine by me. I have a glass of wine and series 4 of ‘The Thick of it’ to watch. Tune in next time for part 2: online resources what you can make…online.

Dropped a dozen of Dunkin’s finest on our amazing custodial crew this morning to say thanks for doing such an awesome job clearing out my new space yesterday. It was literally the first room in the entire school to be made ready for cleaning & waxing. These guys rock! On deck today: finishing yesterday’s leftover tasks (starting with the floorplan) and a meeting with Barb Shenkus, 4th grade teacher extraordinaire, to talk about our overall implementation plans & EiE integration points. So how’s this all going to WORK, exactly? That’s the question Barb & I will be pondering. Once the floorplan is in a shareable state, the project plan will become my primary focus.

From Chevin… As you know, I am working on my masters in Educational Technology.  As part of my cohort’s Capstone requirement, we have to contribute to the education community in a way that uses technology.  I’ve offered my blog space to anyone interested in doing a tech review or sharing any topic they’d like. My […]

Karl Kapp, professor, author and speaker, understands the value of games and simulations in learning. In this two-part interview, Karl covers everything from video games to virtual 3D worlds, their cognitive advantages and future trends in online learning. Coach: How did you become an evangelist for learning through games, simulations and gadgets? Karl: Well, I’m not sure I am an evangelist, I don’t think of myself that way. But, in terms of my interest in games, gadgets and simulations, it really started by observing my two sons. I can "blame" them for this whole thing. Whenever we would get a new video game in our house, it would always result in neighborhood kids congregating in our basement investing hours and hours of time trying to reach, and ultimately defeat, the final level. Collaboration, shared vision, working together to achieve a common goal, fun, excitement, and high levels of energy were inevitable when a new video game arrived. And, I have to admit, I enjoy playing video games as well but at first, I didn’t see the potential for learning. Ironically, about the same time my kids really started to get into video games, many of my clients and fellow faculty members kept complaining about boring e-learning, irrelevant training programs, archaic teaching styles and the increasing pressure to engage learners who grew up with technology and seemed to have little patience for long lectures with little learner interactivity. About this time, one night I found myself watching some televised poker tournament and I noticed 21-year-olds playing against 55-year-olds—the grand masters of poker—and winning. I wondered, "How can that be?" Why are these young guys…kids really…winning? Then the announcer, as if reading my mind, provided the answer. "One of the reasons relatively unknown poker players can defeat 30 year poker veterans is because of online poker." The announcer continued and said that online poker allows a gambler to play as many as eight hands at once against unseen but real opponents. The experience of playing so many hands over and over again while receiving almost instant feedback on good or bad bluffs allows 21-year-olds to gain as much experience in two years as someone who has been playing poker all his life. At that point, it hit me. If we could leverage the positive aspects of video games—the instant feedback, the constant interaction, the willingness to practice something until it is right, combined with a little bit fun, then we could have an awesome educational platform for all types of learning and education. Almost immediately after that insight, I began to research and write Gadgets, Games and Gizmos for Learning, launched a class called learning in 3D in our graduate program and started to investigate how games and simulations can be powerful tools for learning. Coach: In terms of online learning, what are the cognitive advantages of learning through games rather than through presentation-style instruction? Karl: First, it is important to realize that games are not a "one-size-fits-all" solution. We do that too much in training and education, a new technology or technique comes along and we apply it to everything as a great panacea. It doesn’t work that way. For certain types of subjects and contexts games and simulations make sense and absolutely should be used. For some, admittedly small, portion of learning, lectures can be effective. Cognitive advantages include: repetition—games are played over and over again for a higher score, to beat a colleague or to reach the next level. We know that distributed practice (or spaced rehearsal) is an effective learning technique and a well designed games naturally embody that concept. Another advantage is problem-solving. You can’t get to level two in a game if you can’t problem solve. Immediate feedback is another advantage. Games provide immediate feedback unlike a test or a quiz which requires time for an instructor to grade and return. Engagement or flow works in video games and simulations and is another advantage. If the learner is absorbed in the learning, he or she will loose track of time and only focus on the game. Another advantage is motivation. Games and simulations tend to motivate learners more than text on a PowerPoint slide. Perhaps one of the most powerful cognitive elements is transferability. In a well designed simulation, the learner is put into a realistic situation and he or she must act as they would in the actual situation. This makes the learning highly transferable as opposed to learning about something in the environment of a classroom which is not the typical environment in which the learner needs to apply the learning. So, ironically, an electronic simulation can be more realistic than a lecture because of the visual cues of simulations. They provide a context for the learning that can be highly realistic for knowledge transfer. Coach: What technologies and gadgets could eLearning designers be making better use of right now? Karl: Well, one area that is near and dear to me right now is the use of 3D virtual immersive environments. Probably because Tony O’Driscoll and I just finished a book on that topic, called Learning in 3D. The book grew out of my frustration with how learning and educational professionals were using 3D worlds. My first experience in a 3D world was horrific. It was foreign language instruction.  After I was invited to the class,  my avatar walked into a room that looked like a classroom, sat in a seat facing forward, and the virtual instructor showed a virtual slide show as he had us repeat the phrases in the language. I couldn’t believe it. Here was an awesome virtual environment in which he could have had me order from a restaurant in the language or buy a bus ticket or ask someone for directions on a street corner. Instead I was sitting in a virtual classroom. Such a waste. As learning professionals, we need to leverage 3D virtual immersive environments for real, contextual-based learning. These virtual environments are great learning tools but are not being used properly.Thankfully, there are now wonderful case studies and examples of truly immersive learning in these environments. Again, they aren’t appropriate for every type of learning but they fill a gap that classroom and even page-turning e-learning doesn’t fill. Books by Karl Kapp: Gadgets, Games and Gizmos for Learning:Tools and Techniques for Transferring Know-How from Boomers to Gamers Learning in 3D: Adding a New Dimension to Enterprise Learning and Collaboration Know someone who’d like this article? Share with the social buttons below. Post from: The eLearning CoachGames And Simulations Share this on LinkedinTweet This!Email this to a friend?Share this on FacebookShare this on del.icio.usStumble upon something good? Share it on StumbleUponAdd this to 100 bookmarks

Several people have asked about obtaining copies of the slide deck I referenced during the mLearnCon MOSH Pit debate on Flash vs. HTML5 earlier this month. As noted in my June 24th blogpost, I was fortunate that my friends from...

It first happened by accident a couple of years ago. It was late summer and me and my partner went on a driving holiday to Scandinavia for 2 weeks. I took my mobile phone and iPad because I can’t be away from them. But because we were camping for a large proportion of our time away, there was no WiFi, and I hadn’t bothered to buy a bundle of data for my BlackBerry. As a result, other than the few nights we planned to stay in hotels, my phone was used solely as a camera and my tablet as an eBook reader. We had been camping in the middle of nowhere for five nights before driving to Stockholm and checking into a hotel. I immediately unpacked my tablet and mobile, dug out their chargers, plugged them in and hooked my iPad up to the hotel’s WiFi network. It’s what I always do. I still had my coat on. What happened next surprised me - as almost a week’s worth of emails, Facebook updates and Tweets starting pinging and peeping and parping at me I realised that I was back in my digital bubble. And I felt really disappointed. Like my holiday was over and I had been jettisoned back to reality before I was ready. I found myself disconnecting from the same WiFi network a few seconds later and just like that-I was on holiday again. My shoulders sort of ‘un-tensed’ (and I remember that actually happening) and for the rest of the holiday, my phone was used solely as a camera and my tablet as an eBook reader. Last year we went camping again (in West Wales) and I made a conscious effort to untether myself from technology again. It could have been more tempting to use my phone, as there was a signal and no extra data costs as I was still in the UK. But it really wasn’t too difficult. Indeed, it felt like a relief to just unplug and relax. Like being on holiday when you were a kid. In a couple of days we are going on holiday again, and again we are going to Pembrokeshire. This year I am going to leave the tablet at home and take a couple of books with me. I’m going to leave my phone behind as well. I am even toying with the idea of taking a sketchbook and seeing what rubbish scribbles I can make. Naturally, I assumed that what I have been doing was something revolutionary, but this is called a ‘Digital Detox’, and it’s been an official ‘thing’ for a while now. There are weekends and retreats popping up everywhere offering device-free yoga, meditation, art and hiking and articles such as this one from The Telegraph urging us to have regular, gadget-free evenings or weekends. It’s even in the Oxford Dictionary: Digital Detox: A period of time during which a person refrains from using electronic devices such as smartphones or computers, regarded as an opportunity to reduce stress or focus on social interaction in the physical world. But the term ‘Digital Detox’ seems to me a little harsh, as it suggests that technology is poisonous. And yes, I guess too much of anything can be toxic (celery?), but it still seems a bit negative. I’d rather this was a ‘Technology Untethering’. Something that doesn’t imply going cold turkey and having withdrawal symptoms of Nick Cottonesque proportions, but letting go, relaxing those shoulders and allowing oneself to be unreachable.

So, my school has this program "Natural Helpers", where juniors and seniors go on retreats and discover how amazing they are and how they are change agents.  Good stuff. At the end of the day Thursday, the Natural Helpers were in the cafeteria  preparing for their retreat when one of them, a former student, Kaitlin, […]

I am proud to announce that Techsmith’s Camtasia Studio is the official screen capture / flipped lesson recording environment for the NCS K4STEMLAB! Version 8, announced in June 2012, has many new features and all the production capabilities we could ever need. This includes importing from external devices/recordings, content animation, and support for interactive elements (quizzes & more!) Techsmith is providing me (not NCS) a free personal copy of Camtasia Studio 8 because I am a Google Certified Teacher. I’m happy to recognize them as a partner on the NCS K4 STEMLAB project!

For-profit education companies running virtual / distributed / adult serving colleges and universities have come under increasing fire. The most recent volley of criticism was made last week in a 17-page report from Senator Tom Harkin, the Iowa Democrat who...

Does anyone else get the same feeling of unease as me when developing something new? Based on a recent request I had from an academic colleague to build an online resource that encouraged self-directed learning and elements of self-differentiation, I have developed a new framework for online learning, but it’s so basic and obvious that somewhere along the line, somebody else MUST have developed it before me. So back to that feeling I mentioned at the top of this post. Like I’m a fraud. Like I’m trying to claim ‘dibs’ on something that has been around for ages. I’m also uneasy, because if this framework IS already in existence, then I’m plagiarising by proxy. The framework I’m talking about is something I’m calling The Ripple Effect. To visualise it, think of main themes or concepts as stones that are thrown into a body of water. Concentric rings (or ripples) will emanate from this ‘stone’, with each successive ripple covering the main concept in greater depth. Information students are required to know sits in the rings closest to the stone, and outer rings contain information at a higher levels and greater depth.  Students are required to look at the content in the 2 or 3 ripples closest to the ‘stone’ as a mandatory part of their course of study, while access to all other rings is optional. Students can work through as many or few of these rings as they want, and completion of the resource is self-determined once a student feels that they know enough or are starting to move outside of their comfort zone. The first resource developed with this framework examined the subject of injury aetiology, with five common causes of injury: surfaces, climate, footwear, protection and equipment introduced as the initial ‘stones’ from which ripples would emanate. The software used to develop the resource was Adobe Captivate, supplementary films were taken from YouTube and embedded activities were developed using the free-to-use Internet-based application Padlet (formerly Wallwisher). On a whim I submitted an abstract introducing the Ripple Effect to the panel in charge of INTED2015 (the International Technology, Education and Development Conference). I submitted the abstract for three reasons: I have never spoken at an international conference; my appraisal for this year states that I should try to present at one national and one international conference…and I have never been to Madrid, the location for this year’s conference. I was very surprised when my abstract was accepted. I was even more surprised when, after writing the brief paper to attach to my abstract (I hadn’t bothered writing a full paper in advance - I was sure I wouldn’t be accepted to present at the conference) and then making it available on the internet, a number of Twitter and Facebook posts mentioned the Ripple Effect as being an interesting and useful framework for online learning. All of this is very complimentary and heartening, of course…but I still have that uneasy ‘itch’ in my brain telling me that something this simple and this obvious MUST have been around for donkey’s years… …and here’s a copy of the paper if you’d like to read more.

First, imagine … these giant green chalkboards … GONE: Then, imagine the walls - painted with this stuff: Whoa… They even make IdeaPaint in CLEAR: Imagine, indeed!

If you are intrigued by the future of learning design, you won’t want to miss the second half of this interview with Karl Kapp. In case you missed the first half, see Games and Simulations. Coach: What types of challenges do newer technologies, such as mobile and podcast, present to the instructional designer? Karl: The biggest problem is that in the learning field we sometimes get seduced by the technology and forget the underlying learning need and, even more importantly, the underlying business need. Organizations invest in learning initiatives because they have a business need; sell more product, keep employees safe to reduce liability, increase market share. Learning initiatives are not altruistic for companies. So, first and foremost, we need to focus on how technology will address a business need and avoid the "cool" or "wow" factor that often overwhelms the use of educational technology. Having said that, another challenge confronting instructional designers is to "think outside the classroom" paradigm. Too often we take something like a podcast and present it as an hour long lecture. Wrong format. Instead, we need to think more like a radio talk show. They engage listeners through dialogue with guests, short segments and narrowly defined topics. All great techniques to use for educational podcasts. Another example is National Public Radio (NPR). They use authentic sounds to put the listener in the location of the interview, stories to provide the context of the segment and then insightful questions. Those are all great techniques we can use in podcasts to engage our learners. Designers need to get their heads out of the design books and into other media to see how its done outside the field. Mobile learning, for example, doesn’t mean taking an entire course and shrinking it to fit on the limited screen size of a smart phone. Instead it means learning dictionaries where information can easily be looked up and retrieved. It means mini-games that reinforce learning. It means audio-based instruction that someone calls and receives from an automated menu system. It does not mean "shrunken slides." Instructional designers need to run, not walk, away from classroom-thinking and get to the point of providing short, quick business focused learning points that are easily accessible when and where our learners need them. This means leveraging new technologies to deliver non-traditional instruction. Coach: In general, how do you compare the effect and impact of informal learning in the workplace versus formal, structured eLearning? Karl: A recent (2008) ASTD/Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp) study revealed that more than 70 percent of the knowledge that employees acquire comes from informal learning experiences but that 78% of the companies allocate less than 10% of their budget for informal learning. So by shear volume, informal learning is the most powerful tool for learning in organizations. And, it turns out, the most under utilized. By ignoring the impact of informal learning, companies do not have a consistent learning message or consistent methodologies. Instead they have a hodgepodge of informal learning initiatives that no one is monitoring. The impact of informal learning is huge. We, as learning professionals, need to embrace informal learning and work to own it. We need to create guidelines to help target informal learning, we need to create environments in which informal learning can occur (both virtually and face-to-face) and we need to encourage experts within our organizations to actively engage in sharing knowledge. Additionally, we need to educate executives on the value of informal technologies to aid in learning, innovation and organizational collaboration. Coach: How do you think social media and newer technologies will converge in the learning space in the next 5-10 years? Karl: Well, as the futurist William Gibson has been quoted as saying "the future is already here, it is just not evenly distributed." An interesting convergence I see is the use of virtual immersive environments as the central hub for learning, collaboration and innovation within an organization. I have seen and taught with a tool called ProtoSphere that has a 3D virtual environment interface but also includes blogs and wikis, an interface with MS SharePoint, the ability to locate experts within an organization, application sharing and the ability to launch e-learning courses. It is not a huge leap to think the next natural step would be to tie it to mobile devices. Some form of the convergence of all these technologies in one tool will be the future environment in which knowledge workers will interact. Knowledge workers will log into a 3D virtual office space with easy access to other systems and other workers. This will be great for rapid prototyping, the visualization of data and collaboration across great geographical distances. While being more engaging and productive than our current 2D paradigms. Alternatively, the product Google Wave is impressive. The ability to create threaded discussions, new "waves" and interject into emails and seamlessly set up web pages is truly impressive. However, the one thing that is missing, in my opinion, is the 3D element. So I look to the convergence of social media, 3D worlds and business applications to be the future of learning. Coach: As a professor, how are Instructional Design and Technology curriculums adapting to the changing technologies? Karl: We have switched to colored chalk…just kidding. We are adapting in a number of ways. First the basic underlying concepts of instructional strategies and techniques do not change. So we stress the importance of understanding how to apply instructional strategies to different types of content. Second, we use the tools. Students create blogs, contribute to wikis, record podcasts and participate in 3D virtual environments. It is important for instructional design students to use the tools that are being introduced into academic and corporate settings. There is no substitute for hands on experience using the technologies. That is the best way to learn about the strengths and weaknesses of different technologies for different instructional needs. Third, we discuss alternatives to the classroom paradigm of instructional design. We talk about distributed practice techniques, we discuss using documentary techniques for video-based learning, techniques from the radio for podcasts, we teach how to leverage the strengths of the new media for learning but also caution against the seduction of the technology. Finally, we listen to what our students are telling us. They are leveraging social media technologies Facebook, Twitter, ect., in ways that we can’t imagine because they are immersed in it. When they have good ideas about leveraging these technologies for learning, we listen and encourage them to share with the faculty and each other. We create a learning community where students, alumni and faculty can all help each other stay connected and up-to-date on the latest in the field. Thanks, Karl! How do you think people will be learning in the future? Comment below. Related Article: Games and Simulations Post from: The eLearning CoachThe Future Of Learning Design Share this on LinkedinTweet This!Email this to a friend?Share this on FacebookShare this on del.icio.usStumble upon something good? Share it on StumbleUponAdd this to 100 bookmarks

I’ve reached the fork in the road. Now what?   I read a very well thought out blog post today by @mrocallaghan_edu today about the moral purpose of schools.  He talked about the Golden Circle and the WHY of schools.  It got me thinking about the WHY of my teaching career.     What do I […]

You may remember that my June 28th post reported on some of the fire and brimstone being directed against the education industry sector in the business of running colleges and universities. Generally speaking, these institutions are aimed at adult students,...

Well, our first week of work on the K4STEMLAB was very productive. The space has been cleared, we’ve completed a matrix of the EiE units we are interested in by grade level, I have a rough project plan (task list) fleshed out, and yesterday, I finished the first draft of the floorplan. We’ve gotten preliminary approval to remove the chalkboards and we are looking into IdeaPaint for at least some of the wall surfaces. We also plan to lower the SMART Board to a better height for our elementary students, who range in size (based on my rough calculations) from 30″ to 60″. Stretch goals this coming week: Finalize the project plan / work breakdown structure Begin intentful conversations with our learning space designer Begin identifying requirements for our Learning Management System (LMS) Begin prototyping & create proof-of-concept Camtasia-powered "Computer Lab" lesson screencasts I normally would be travelling this week to attend the ISTE Conference, happening right now in beautiful San Diego, California. As luck (and finances) would have it, ISTE wasn’t an option for me this year.  Hello, silver lining! Have a great weekend everyone! -kj-