You know how it is, you listen and read to some "stuff" (and seriously great stuff that is worth listening to and reading). It sets all sorts of triggers in your head about how you work, what you do, and more importantly what you can do to in response. You get a great title for a blog post, then you see from your network that someone else has pretty much written what you had been thinking, but far more eloquently than you. At this point, dear reader, you really can just read this post The False Binary of LMS vs Open from D’Arcy Norman. However, as the roots of this post were really seeded by listening to Audrey Watter’s recent Beyond the LMS presentation at the University of Newcastle, and as I’m still thinking about her ALT-C keynote and the importance of non North American narratives, I’m going to continue with my tuppence worth. "Blackboard sucks" - that’s the consensus right? But as Audrey pointed out, even the new LMS/VLE kids on the block are selling their products by saying things like "it’s like just like Blackboard, except it’s blue like Facebook". They are all about management, administration and not about the learner. They are built on a very traditional model of education. They are walled gardens. If you haven’t listened to Audrey’s presentation, you must. As I was doing just that on Friday, a number of things were swirling through my head. At this point I probably should mention that here at GCU Blackboard is our VLE and for quite a while I have been mulling about writing a post titled "why I quite like Blackboard". Had it taken less than a year for me to be indoctrinated by the evil dictatorship that is Blackboard and by default all other VLEs? Am now I a willing conspirator in maintaining their status quo? Shouldn’t I be leading the insurgency or at least doing more to fight for open? At the sametime, scarily I was thinking terribly un-pc thoughts about benign dictators holding things together, and wondering if I could write a witty, yet well informed post comparing educational technology to the current situation in the Middle East or closer to home the Scottish independence referendum. I quickly realised that I probably couldn’t. This morning via my networks came across D’Arcy’s post. And as I said, he had kind of written my post. Like D’Arcy, I work with and support the need for the boring, but oh so important administrative functions that our iteration of Blackboard support and that are needed for teaching and learning just now. If we got rid of Bb, I think it is fair to say there would be a fair amount of chaos for our students and staff alike. I have been in several meetings over the last year where a new shiny (and sometimes not so shiny) thing has been talked about with almost awe and wonder. This despite the fact that it just duplicates what are already doing within Bb but without the crucial integration "thangs" that automagically assign modules to students and staff. In these cases I have very much been advocating sticking to the ‘devil we know", and trying to have a more holistic conversation about learning, where and how it (could) takes place in our context. I don’t want us to just move to something else that does the same thing only with a slightly nicer interface - if we are going to jump I want that jump to matter. Too often our some of my colleagues really have no idea about what our students and staff are actually doing in terms of collaboration, networking. Because they don’t see it everyday, they think it doesn’t take place. Bb is one of our most stable systems too which again often goes unnoticed and unreported or there is an assumption that no-one uses it. We are encouraging and seeing more sophisticated use of learning technology across our institution, we are committed to blended learning not only in the sense of blending f2f and online teaching, but also in terms of blending the systems we use. We can (and do) blend third party systems with Bb. Increased use of specs like LTI is opening up new possibilities. Bb themselves are going through some big changes and have been very supportive in listening and reacting to our need. Oh yes, I hear you sigh, that’s because they want to continue to get your business. Which of course is true, but from what I can gather that hasn’t always been the case. Of course, changing culture is the key to making any technology have an impact in education (or anywhere else), and Audrey did highlight that in her talk. Much as I would love to experiment with more open, connected, student owned technologies such as the example she gave of the "domain of their own" the University of Maryland Washington, the culture in my institution isn’t quite ready for that yet. But it is a great example and one I will be sharing with colleagues and looking to see if we could do anything similar. I am seeing an increasing positive trend in terms of portfolio development which encourages and facilitates networking and open sharing by students. Networks are also crucial for staff to share ideas, narratives, experiences, and often for me a sanity check. Realistically I don’t have enough influence in my institution to make sweeping changes, but I hope that I can bring ideas back from my network which can help move forward, or at least open up some different debates around our thinking and development of learning and teaching. I need to hear people like Audrey to make me reflect on my practice and share ideas with my internal nework. So, although in one sense I may be living within a dictatorship, I do believe it is a changing one, one that is trying to catch up with evolving expectations. I may not be leading an insurgency but I hope that I am able to influence changes from within so that we have a truly flexible infrastructure and support mechanisms to allow the space and security for some radical thinking and changes to take place. Tagged: #blendedlearning

On Wednesday this week I had a fantastic day in London with the successful Jisc Student Summer of Innovation projects. Building on from last years project, I think this is one of the best things Jisc has ever/is doing. It truly is putting students at the heart of the student experience. If you aren’t familiar with the programme you can find out more here. Basically students pitch their ideas for improving the student experience online, then via a process of voting and review a number of projects are selected to receive funding to develop their ideas along with mentoring and advice during the process. I managed to spend a day in August with the projects as they refined their original ideas, and this week it was inspiring to see just have far they have all developed in such a short time. What fascinates me too are the clear themes and issues that the students themselves are identifying as areas that need new student facing services.  Feedback, study support, mentoring support both in terms of students at uni/college and those about to start all featured last year as well as this.  Hearing statements from students during their pitches stating "there is no culture of feedback in HE’ is a wake up for all of us. I don’t think there is a Uni in the country just now that doesn’t have some kind of assessment and feedback project/guidelines/support, but clearly some students aren’t seeing the impact of those yet.  Data was a big thing with the projects too - analytics, dashboards formed a large part of the pitches from a number of the projects.  This may be partly due to smart thinking from the project teams.  Data  and analtyics is not only an area that Jisc  is very keen to develop new services in, but it is also a reflection of the "data is the new oil" mentality in software development more generally. There are still huge assumptions that data from every service will actually be useful and that people (staff and students alike) will have time and capability to act on it in meaningful ways. Alan Greenberg, former Education Executive at Apple also gave talk on "education technologies, insights and contexts".  His insights into the business side of developing technology for the education sector was I’m sure invaluable to the projects.  I have to say, parts of it made me slightly uneasy as it did seem to be leading to a very content centric, and reductionist data driven view of education.  I know ultimately Jisc does want to develop some of these projects as market ready services, which is great. But imho, the strength of this whole programme is the experience that it is giving the students. Not all the ideas will be able to become services, or be successful.  Not all the project teams have time to fully commit to them as they are still studying. However the impact of the experience they are part of will stay with them, and having this safe space to experiment is really, really important. I’m sure it will stay with them for the rest of their lives and impact on whatever they do next.  Below is a my sketch note of Alan’s talk (note to self, don’t leave home without ipad or coloured pens again!) And finally, something I was going to write about last week but didn’t. Following David Kernohan’s "you’ll never hear surf music again" talk at ALT-C and the general "twitter isn’t what it used to be we need to move somewhere else" debate, in an attempt to keep up with the #edtechhipsters, I’ve been looking at Known, a new social publishing platform. Last week I wasn’t quite sure how I would actually use it and how/where it fitted into my existing online spaces. However last night after voting in the Scottish referendum, I want to share something more than a tweet or Facebook status update on how I was feeling. I remembered  Known and I’m now seeing it as a counterpoint to this blog, which will remain very much work related and focused.     Tagged: #studentideas

I spent the early part of this week in Milton Keynes with the OER Research Hub team as part of the second phase of the project evaluation. When I worked with the team last year one of the things that intrigued me about the project was the fact that they were planning to apply and adapt an agile programming  approach to the project. As I pointed out then, I felt there could be challenges with this as typically the outputs from research projects aren’t as concrete as most software development products, but I could see the attraction of this approach. Bringing researchers who form part of a globally distributed team together for set periods to focus on certain aspects of research project does make sense. As does having some kind of structure, particularly for focusing "group minds" on potential outputs (products), adaptation of peer programming could be useful for peer review etc. However implementing "proper" agile programming methodology to research is problematic. But if we stick with the programming analogy and stop thinking in terms of products, and start thinking of research as a service (akin to software as a service) then maybe there is more milage. A key part of SaS approaches are APIs, allowing hooks into all sorts of sites/ services so that they can in effect talk to each other. The key thing therefore is for the researcher to think of themselves more as the interface between their work, the data, the findings, the "what actually happened in the classroom" bits and focus on ways to allow as wide a range of stakeholders to easily "hook" into them so they can use the outputs meaningfully in their own context. In many ways this is actually the basis of effective digital scholarship in any discipline and of course what many researchers already do. A year on, and after experiencing one of the early project sprints how has it worked out? Well everyone knew that the project wouldn’t be following a strict agile methodology, however key aspects, such as the research sprints have proved to be very effective. Particularly in focusing the team on outputs. The sprints have allowed the overall project management to be more agile and flexible. They have brought focus and helped the team as a whole stay on track but also refocus activity in light of the challenges (staff changes, delays to getting surveys started etc) that any research project has to deal with. As this is very much a global research project, the team have spent large chunks of time on research visits, going to conferences etc so when they are "back at the ranch" it has been crucial that they have a mechanism not only to report back and update their own activities but also to ensure that everyone is on track in terms of the project as a whole. The sprints themselves haven’t been easy, and have required a lot of planning and management. The researchers themselves admit to often feeling resentment at having to take a week out of "doing work" to participate in sprints. However, there is now an acknowledgement that they have been central to ensure that the project as a whole stays on track and that deliverables are delivered. I was struck this week by how naturally the team talked about the focus of their next sprint and how comfortable and perhaps more importantly confident they were about what was achievable. It’s not been easy but I think the development, and the sustaining of the research sprint approach over the project lifespan has paid dividends. Returning to the wider API issue, last year I wrote I wonder if the research as API analogy could help focus development of sharing research outputs and developing really effective interactions with research data and findings? Again, one year can I answer my own question? Well, I think I can. From discussions with the team it is clear that human relationships have been key in developing both the planned and unexpected collaborations that the project has been undertaking. At the outset of the project a number of key communities/agencies were identified as potential collaborations. Some to these collaborators had a clear idea of the research they needed, others not so much. In every case as the research team have indeed been acting as "hooks" into the project and overall data collection strategy. These human relationships have been crucial in focusing data collection and forging very positive and trusted relationships between the Hub and its collaborators. Having these strong relationships is vital for any future research and indeed, a number of the collaborations have extended their own research focus and are looking to work with the individual team members on new projects. As findings are coming through, the Hub are helping to stimulate more research into the impact of OER and support an emerging research community. One of the initial premises for the project was the lack of high quality research into the impact of OER, they are not only filling that gap, but now also working with the community to extend the research. Their current Open Research course is another example of the project providing more hooks into their research, tools and data for the wider community. The project is now entering a new phase, where it is in many ways transitioning from a focus on collecting the data, to now sharing the data and their findings. They are now actually becoming a research hub, as opposed to being a project talking about how they are going to be a hub. In this phase the open API analogy (imho) can only get stronger. If it doesn’t then everyone loses, not just the project, but the wider open education community. The project does have some compelling evidence of the impact of using OER on both educators and learners (data spoiler alert: some of the differences between these groups may surprise you), potential viable business models for OER, and some of the challenges, particularly around encouraging people to create and share back their own OERs. For me this is particularly exciting as the project has some "proper" evidence , as opposed to anecdotes, showing the cultural impact OER is having on educational practice. In terms of data, the OER Impact Map, is key hook into the visualizing and exploring the data the project has been collecting and curating. Another phase of development is about to get under way to provide even more ways to explore the data. The team are also now planning the how/where/when of releasing their data set. The team are the human face of the data, and their explanations of the data will be key to the overall success of the project over the coming months. More thoughts to come from me on the project as a whole, my role and agile evaluation in my next post. Tagged: #oerrhub, #openeducation, oer

Dull but worthy . . . (image: http://pixabay.com/en/notes-office-pages-papers-print-150587/) I’ve already posted some reflections on the agile approach that the OER Research Hub has been developing. In this post I’m going to try and share some of my reflections on my role as an evaluation consultant to to project and the agile or flexible approach we have developed to my input and (open) outputs. Evaluation should be a key part of any research project, built in from the start and not something that is just left until the end of a project. However,sometimes it can slip off "the list". As well as evaluating actually research outputs, it is also important to evaluate the processes that a project has used. In the case of the OER Research Hub, evaluation has been build in from the start, and their own, open, evaluation framework details their evaluation approach along with a pretty comprehensive overview of project evaluation. Having this framework has made my role as an evaluator much easier. I had a very clear starting point with specific questions developed by the team which were driven by the overarching aims and objectives of the project. The framework guided me in my exploration of the project and focused my discussions with the team. However, the framework is just that, a framework. It doesn’t "do" the evaluation. One of the things I have really enjoyed about my role with the project has been the flexibility, agility and open-ness of the team in terms of my input and in turn outputs. Last year I worked with the project as they approached the end of their first year of funding. At that stage the project was still in the early days of its collaboration developments and data collection and so my main focus a review of the work so far, and to work with the team in terms of dissemination planning for the remainder of the project. I was also actively encouraged (in fact it was in my contract) produce blog posts as outputs. This is, I think still fairly unusual for evaluation activity, but it fits well both for research project about OER and open education, and my own open practice. Other outputs from me included what I called my "brain dump" of my initial reactions and thoughts on the project outputs so far, some SWOT analyses, and a "dull but worthy" summary report. These were shared only with the team. Even in open research not everything can or in many cases should be open, particularly if, as last year, the evaluation is focusing more on the mechanics of the project rather than the outputs themselves. I am a firm believer in making things open, but that what "stuff" you decide to make open is useful. Some of my outputs were only of use to the team at that particular time. However, the sharing the overall approach in a open way via this post is probably a more appropriate, open and (hopefully) useful resource for others. This year my role has evolved again to more of what I would call a more of a critical friend. The project funders, the Hewlett Foundation are conducting their own evaluation of the project, so I have been working with the team in reviewing their outputs in relation to the focus of that evaluation. As with last year there has been some flexibility in terms of my input and outputs, but again blog posts have been part of the contract. This year I have spent most of my time meeting and talking with the team. I have seen my role more about encouraging reflection and talking through the teams next steps in relation to their data, findings, dissemination and sustainability. It’s the latter where I think the real challenges lie. I don’t want to steal the thunder from the project, but they have got some pretty good evidence on the impact of OER (emerging findings are already being shared via their infographics page and blog posts). Their OER impact map is already providing an innovative and meaningful way to search and explore their data. But what next? How will the work and findings be built on both in the OU and the wider (open) education community? Will this project provide a secure foundation for an emerging research community? These questions are key not only for the project, but also for their funders. The Hewlett Foundation have spent a lot (over $100 million) on OER over the past decade, so what is next for them? In terms of mainstreaming OER has the battle really been won? Martin and I have slightly different opinions on this. The project research is showing some really strong evidence in a number of areas in terms of winning/impact. But we are still only scratching at the surface and most of the research is pretty much North American focussed. Some of the models and evidence, particularly around text books, doesn’t have as much relevance in other parts of the world. More global research is clearly needed and is very positive to see the collaborations the project has developed with organisations such as ROER4D. Building a new research community and discipline take time. However having a research element built into projects could provide additional stimulus, security and as well as short and long term sustainability. Is the future of the OER Research Hub as a set of static tools and guidance, or something more organic that provides a focus not only in supporting to grow a research community, but also in aggregating up evidence and sharing wider trends back to the community? In parallel with the continuum of reuse of OER highlighted, surely there needs to be a continuum of research. Again I will be producing another "dull but worthy" report along side my blog posts, but if you want to join a wider conversation about open reflection and evaluation have a look at the current Open Researcher Course. There is a week of activities dedicated to the area, including a couple of good overview videos from Leigh Anne Perryman who also wrote the OER Research Hub Evaluation framework. Tagged: #oerrhub

Image: https://www.flickr.com/photos/fontplaydotcom/504443770/ What are the distinguishing characteristics of a Learning Technologist, those qualities that serve to identify them and differentiate them from other roles? This question is at the heart of a chapter I’m writing with David Walker (@drdjwalker) for a new #edtechbook edited by David Hopkins (@hopkinsdavid) - and we want your input! As the role of Learning Technologist has develop and evolved across the further and higher education sectors, many early career Learning Technologist are now in senior positions, spread across a variety of departmental locations and increasingly have responsibility for developing and actioning learning and teaching strategies and frameworks. For the chapter we plan to draw on our own career experiences to examine the case for the distinctiveness of the role but also to highlight natural synergies with others working across institutions and cases where worlds sometimes collide. What we really want however is to frame the discussion with contributions from the community, so via the medium of blogs, Twitter or performance dance we’d love your thoughts on the following questions: Q: What makes a Learning Technologist and how does the role differ from those working in IT Support, the Library or Careers? Our thoughts: Although many LTs have come from an IT support role, they now need to have a far more holistic and pedagogically grounded view of the use of technology for learning and teaching. Learning Technologists tend to work in a more staff facing role, so the relationship with students and the curriculum is subtly (or maybe not so subtly) different to other colleagues such as IT support staff/ librarians/ learning advisors/career advisors. Q: What are the distinguishing characteristics of a Learning Technologist? Our thoughts: David and I have had quite long ranging discussions about this. We think that central to the role of the Learning Technologist is the relationship they (we) have with the curriculum and curriculum/learning design. In our own experiences we have seen a shift away from the showing people what buttons to press to a far richer dialogue around effective use of technologies that best suit overall pedagogical objectives and disciplinary practices. So a Learning Technologist is always thinking about the processes related to effective learning and teaching. The relationship learning technologists have to curriculum design and design principles is something we both feel strongly about. Q: Is there something fundamental that distinguishes Learning Technologists from educational developers? Do we still need both roles? Our thoughts: If a fundamental part of the role of a Learning Technologist is their knowledge of educational design practice then should we be evolving into educational developers, or is this still a distinct discipline? Indeed as new job titles such as Learning Technology Advisors, Learning Architects etc emerge does anyone really know? As more "senior" Learning Technologists take up more senior positions within larger departments/directorates (that often include librarians, educational developers and Learning Technologists working side-by-side) and are responsible for developing and actioning learning and teaching strategies/frameworks and increasing the quantity and quality  research does it really matter? Are we just grappling with the same issues but with a bit of TEL goodness thrown into the mix? Is TEL research mature enough to be seen as distinct from traditional educational development research, and should it continue to be so? Or as our digital and physical learning environments continue to evolve, are we now seeing the need for new a hub/space with people that work there providing effective bridges between traditional spaces such as disciplines, educational development, developing digital literacies, the curriculum, research, staff and students? A key milestone in the professionalisation of the role of the Learning Technologist, and acknowledgement of the roles increasing significance in pedagogical design processes, became apparent with the launch of the Higher Education Academy’s revised UK Professional Standards Framework in 2011. The updated framework - a set of professional standards for the HE sector to facilitate benchmarking and align professional development provision - emphasised the need to afford greater recognition to the role of emerging technologies, and importantly, the need to extend opportunities to undertake teaching qualifications to all staff working in HE with teaching responsibilities. The wider recognition of those who provide significant input to the process of supporting teaching and learning ensures that individuals, such as Learning Technologists, are able to access and engage with relevant development opportunities - such as Postgraduate Certificates in Higher Education. By acknowledging the wider array of stakeholders who contribute to the educational environment and student experience, the revised framework offered the potential for institutions to align the professional values and practices of those actively engaged in teaching and learning. For Learning Technologists the revised framework provided a basis against which to evidence their professionalism (for career progression, reward or other forms of recognition) and a mechanism to guide their ongoing personal and professional development. Which leads to our final question or perhaps answer . . . has the role of the learning technologist evolved into that of the digital pedagogue? We’d love to get some community input, so if you have any answers/thoughts about these questions and our answers please share them in the comments section, or via twitter using the #EdTechBook hashtag and we’ll try and incorporate as many of them as possible into our chapter. Tagged: #edtechbook

During her ALT-C keynote this year, Catherine Cronin quoted Michael Apple , reminding us that "education is inherently an ethical and political act".  Both Catherine and her fellow keynote Audrey Watters gave a rallying call for us all to create our own narratives and provide an alternative to the emerging and dominant (neoliberal) narratives around education.  Yesterday at the OEPS forum, Martin Weller also brought up the need to create new narratives, particularly in relation to open education, in his "Battle for Open" keynote. I’ve written before about my concerns about who can afford to be open, and again it was in the context of the OEPS project. I don’t want to revisit that, however I think there is a danger that the lasting narrative of this project could be subsumed into the larger narrative of the OU. This worries me.  Not because I think that the OU shouldn’t have its own narrative around open education. It has, and continues to do excellent work around opening up access to education and resources. It’s more a niggling fear that a project which states: "The Opening Educational Practices in Scotland project facilitates best practice in Scottish open education. We aim to enhance Scotland’s reputation and capacity for developing publicly available and licenced online materials, supported by high quality pedagogy and learning technology." doesn’t really seem to be able to articulate (yet) how this Scottish narrative is going to be created, shared and be distinct from the wider OU story. I think an opportunity was missed yesterday to have more a more constructive dialogue with people working in Scotland and to start joining up a few dots about what is/has happening and how the project could play a really effective role in supporting practice. I do feel for the project team as they are really caught in the middle of a Political ( and I think this is a case of a capital P) decision to give a substantial amount of funding to the OU, and not to other Scottish institutions or indeed to the grass roots movement of Open Scotland who have worked in a largely unfunded capacity to raise the profile of open education in Scotland. I know it is still early days for the project, but I think that there are a number of things that they could do to mitigate some of the uncertainty, and to an extent unease, that I (and I suspect some others) have about the project. And surprise, surprise, open is the key. The project has an opportunity to really push the boundaries in terms of open governance.  A number of institutions are on the project steering group. So, why not have names of the members and perhaps a short statement on their particular interests in open education and their hopes for the project/ways they think they will be involved?  Let’s see steering group minutes on the website too. The project is also reporting to Universities Scotland, let’s have any updates share on the website too.  Why not take a leaf out of the OER Research Hub and have an open project evaluation framework on the website?  Again I’m sure the project are working on their evaluation criteria, but there is an opportunity to involve the wider community in this part of the project too. In terms of sustainability and sustaining change in practice having commonly agreed and shared evaluation criteria is really important. They could be the bedrock for the many narratives that the project could support. And just because it’s been running round in my head  - here’s that song. Tagged: #oeps, #oepsforum14

This week I marked my first year here at GCU. I can’t believe how quickly the past year has gone, and as I completed my annual review I’m quite pleased with what I have been able to do in the last 12 months, but also frustrated that I haven’t done more. Still Rome wasn’t built in a day . . .  Highlights have been GCU Games On and the work I’ve been doing with Evelyn McElhinney on online residency. Earlier this week I signed up for a free 14 day trial of ThinkUp an analytics service that  "gives you daily insights about you and your friends that you can’t find anywhere else."   I found out that I had been tweeting longer that the hashtag has been in existence and that I have sent 25,799 (and counting) tweets. That’s 4 days 11 hours 29 minutes of my life. One day I will actually do some work :-) In the meantime, the notice board in my office is filling up with coloured bits of paper. My office notice board David Walker and I have been delighted with all the feedback here on the blog, via twitter and email that last week’s "what is it about learning technologists?" post has generated. There’s still time to have your say before we start writing the chapter so please keep the comments coming. Tagged: #edtechbook

I’v had one of those weeks where I feel I haven’t been looking at twitter, reading blog posts interacting with my online networks very much this week. F2F communication and getting "stuff" done has taken over this week. However the serendipitous joy of twitter still held true for me when top of my stream yesterday afternoon was a link from Gardner Campbell New blog post: Teachers, Leaders http://t.co/k9E4P89OYd #ccourses — Gardner Campbell (@GardnerCampbell) October 23, 2014 to this marvelous post A human OER. It really resonated with how I feel about openness, sharing practice and some of the thorny issues of being connected including something I do worry about - open cliques. You know the places where all the ed-tech hipsters hang out, which despite being open are actually quite scary for some of us to join. I really recommend reading the article, but here are a couple of key quotes for me: I want to be part of the larger whole, not just the subset. . . "We talk about tolerance, equality, and goodwill, power dynamics exist in the shadow of groups perhaps too often. These get played out covertly, unspoken and our options when we do not like it are limited. Stay and comply or leave. Sometimes it is possible to shape the conversation, yet in order to do this one needs to meet the majority where it is and speak ‘their’ language before being heard. The type of interaction remains unchanged as the players change. I see people arrange themselves in tribes of like minded people and travel together. Humans do this physically as well as virtually. We choose our clubs. This sorting process, by definition, includes some people and excludes others. I have been very lucky so far in my online interactions, I have a fantastically supportive, tolerant, funny, intelligent network. I have only received 2 abusive tweets. Yet I am aware of the horrific abuse many women face when they speak out on social networks. I do feel that leaving networks just gives more power to the trolls but I totally understand why some people do. There is a backlash about twitter not being like it used to be. It has evolved, and yes the adverts and changing views of my stream are annoying, but I still get value from it. I think it still offers a way of communicating and sharing that I would sadly miss if it wasn’t there. I haven’t found anything that replaces it - and I have tried. I try to be nice to people online and offline, I’ve never been ashamed of being nice. Martin Weller has blogged about Nice as an energy - again worth a read. Martin points out that angry is easy, being nice actually takes more effort. Ultimately I think is worth it - particularly if you want to get things done or actually get peoples long-term support, trust and understanding. And isn’t that at the core of any kind of educational practice? Also when you are nice, if you are ever angry people tend to listen. You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry - luckily most of the time I’m not. Though apparently according to those who know me well I am quite stubborn . . . but I am a Taurean . . . (image: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:PSM_V32_D530_The_golden_horns_of_taurus.jpg) Tagged: #digitalliteracy, #openeducation

Inspired by the work of Fiona Harvey and her iPad coffee club we are launching our own blended learning coffee club here at GCU today.  We’re going to make this a monthly-ish informal meeting where we can share practice and have a bit of a chat over a coffee about what colleagues are/aren’t/would like to do in relation to blended learning. We’re also bribing thanking colleagues for taking time to come along by buying them a cup of coffee.     Today we’re going to start the ball rolling so to speak by sharing our experiences of our open event GCU Games On which ran in parallel with the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games this summer. To support this initiative we’ve set up a team blog and  an open (well open but you have to register to access) site using Coursesites where we’re building a collection of case studies and other bits and pieces related to what we are doing. Now before you shout/rant/roll your eyes at me for not just doing all of this in wordpress there are a couple of reasons for using Coursesites. Firstly, Blackboard is our VLE so this is a good place to encourage our staff to play without interfering with any of their live modules. Secondly, we want to encourage more open-ness here so we have to lead by example. Our primary interest is in our staff and students and we want to encourage them to make the best use of the tech we have. By taking this approach we can have an open sandpit area that is familiar to our staff,  and hopefully encourage them to think more about open educational practice. We can also share what we’re doing with others too - so feel free to have a look around.  We’re also going to be experimenting with badges and we’ll be illustrating different ways earn and create badges. The badging workflow in Bb works pretty well so we are going to use it and again hopefully allow our colleagues to see the potential of badges in their context. This isn’t groundbreaking stuff, or anything particularly original but I’m hoping that it will evolve in a supportive and open community.  

This week I’ve been doing lots of writing as part of my application for HEA fellowship. I’m doing this via the portfolio route of GCUs AcceleRATE CPD programme. Over the past 6 years, I’ve become increasingly reliant of my blog as my professional memory.  In many ways it is my portfolio and one my main contributions to open practice. As I develop my case studies for my HEA application, it has proved to be an invaluable reference point,  as well as reminding myself that I actually do know a wee bit about a lot of stuff. Martin Weller wrote a nice post this week on the benefits of an open by default approach. One of the comments highlighted another benefit of being open - that it’s easier to find your own stuff. I have certainly found that this week. In fact, that’s one of the main reasons I keep blogging. I also spotted that there has been an update to the Open Education Handbook from the Linked Up project  - lovely example of open practice creating a resource on open education. It was also great to see this article on the OU’s policy on the ethical use of student data for learning analytics.  I know Sharon Slade has been working on this for a number of years now. The policy and the FAQ (both available on the OU website) are really useful - not just for students but for anyone who is thinking about or implementing learning analytics. Hopefully it will be available via CC soon too. Another win for open-ness. @sheilmcn @mikehamlyn @timeshighered It is now openly available on our site - we’re just checking the CC issue — Sharon Slade (@SharonSlade) November 6, 2014 Tagged: #learninganalytics, #openeducation

This week I’ve attended in person, and remotely, the 19th SEDA conference: Opportunities and challenges for academic development in a post-digital age. It’s the first time I’ve been at a SEDA conference and although I knew a number of the delegates, it’s always refreshing to be interact with other (related) communities. Keith Smyth, and Bill Johnson and myself ran a session called "Visioning the Digital University - from institutional strategy to academic practice". The session was based around the work we have been doing in exploring what a digital university actually is and the work Keith and colleagues did for the Napier University’s digital futures project. During the session there were many questions in the room and on twitter about the use of "digital". Do we need to use the word? Aren’t we all post digital now? Digital, that’s soo 2010 . . . We don’t have an answer to the question ‘what is a digital university", rather we have developed a set of prompts and themes to enable conversations around what it might mean to take place. We hoped, and have seen, that these prompts force people to have meaningful, and contextual conversations about actual and future practice and developments. Our first blog post introducing our thoughts was titled ‘a conversation around what it means to be a digital university‘. Enabling meaningful discussion has always been at the forefront of our thinking. But why the emphasis on digital, and why do we persist with this? Well, because "digital" is a very powerful word. From the BBC to IBM to the UK and Scottish Governments, digital content and digital solutions are everywhere. They are the future - despite being very similar to pre digital solutions and content! In education, Jisc are now providing "digital solutions for UK education and research", have programmes of work around the "digital student", the "digital institution". Digital is firmly on the agenda for the foreseeable future. Digital is also key part of most emerging strategies for universities. What it actually means is still open for debate. That’s where providing a tool like our matrix can actually start to unpack some of the more fundamental issues around what it means to be a university in the 21st century. You can get the ear of a PVC using the word "digital". You can roll your eyes all you like, but that is really important in terms of the future of educational development. Digital is also a really useful way to engage with our colleagues both academic and in support services who perhaps don’t engage at the same level as SEDA delegates with digital and post digital discourse. The Digital Futures work at Napier exemplified this. So let’s reclaim "the digital", and use it to help all of us move forward our educational development and educational technology agendas. image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/fbz/187634854/ {{cc-by-2.0}} Tagged: #sedaconf, #sedapostdigital

So TheWordPress.com stats helper monkeys helpfully prepared a 2014 annual report for this (and I presume every other wordpress) blog. Here's an excerpt: A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 7,300 times in 2014. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 6 trips to carry that many people. I don’t get a huge volume of traffic on my blog but it is a key part of my professional practice and is in many ways my professional memory and portfolio. Thanks to everyone who has dropped by and a special thanks to those of you who have left comments - that engagement with my peers is much more important to me than the numbers. Click here to see the complete report.

I’ve managed to share 364 pictures this year on the phot a day site blipfoto. The day I missed was the first day of the ALT-C conference - so blaming work and possibly chatting too late at the bar for that one. My pictures range from the almost quite good to deadly dull, but I really like the routine of taking a picture to share everyday. It makes me think in a different way, to look at and out for things that are visually interesting. Some days it is hard to find something to take a picture of. Those are the days I revert to my safety shots (usually flowers I have somewhere at home) or a shadow on the wall. Other days it’s easier - but conversely hard to choose just one picture. Anyway, I think I’ll keep going for a third year and would encourage anyone to give it a go. You can see my blips here. This is one of my better blips - Christmas Day at Port Charlotte on Islay. Happy New Year. I wonder what pictures 2015 will bring? Tagged: blipfoto

So once again #byod4l has provided me with an opportunity to do something new. Last night, along with Sam Illingworth and Mike Nicholson I facilitated the day 2 tweet chat on communication. As ever the chat was fast, furious and good natured, and a wide range of approaches to communication both for learning and teaching and in more general terms was discussed. Our mobile devices give us access to instant communication however there was a note of caution coming through about being "always on" and the temptation to reply instantly. Sometimes it is good to take a pause before sending that tweet, email, text. It might actually be better to pick up the phone and speak to someone too. Finding the "right balance" is always tricky. I know that I have started to slowly move away from certain communication channels at certain times. For example twitter is something that is really work related for me so I try and stay away from it at weekends, evenings and holidays. At these times I tend now to communicate online via photographs using instagram and blipfoto which I sometimes share to twitter and Facebook. I’m finding that after a period of sharing everything, everywhere I’m becoming far more discerning about where, when and how I share things. I think my online presence is becoming much more compartmentalised. #BYOD4L is challenging my own Facebook use. I try to keep it work free, but it is being used to communicate with the facilitators group. So although I am really enjoying being part of the BYOD4L team,  FB isn’t my favourite communication channel to keep in touch. I feel a bit guilty if I’m looking at Facebook at work and if I’m looking at it at home seeing the BYOD4L notifications reminds me of work. I’m probably in a bit of communication rut, I use the spaces I’m comfortable in and that are useful to me, but maybe I need to challenge myself more. Can I cope with yet another one? I did experiment with Medium last year but it doesn’t seem to be working for me yet . . . Or maybe I just need to work more on my f2f communication skills. Anyway lots to think about, and I particularly liked Julie Gillin’s approach to email. Q6 Well, if I think an email I’ve received seems a bit terse I try singing it. It doesn’t seem too bad then #byod4lchat — Julie Gillin (@juliegillin) January 13, 2015 Looking forward to today’s topic of curation. Tagged: byod4l

Stuff, stuff, everywhere stuff - where to save/share? Do you ever feel like that? Judging from the #byod4l tweet chat last night and the discussions during our drop in session yesterday I think most people working in education and with technology feel a bit overwhelmed at times, with the amount of "good stuff" out there. We all have ways of curating and are often driven by that "just in case it might be useful" urge. I said a couple of times yesterday that I am "a bit rubbish at curation". Despite many attempts with just about every curation service I seem to lack an inner librarian that is need to keep on top of the amount of "stuff" I curate. I think my most consistent technique (and it is a bit haphazard) is favouriting tweets. Because I (and twitter) archive my tweets I am fairly confident I can find things again (tho after a couple of weeks if I haven’t referred to something I probably won’t again).  I do a semi regular blog post ‘what Sheila’s seen this week" which originally was kind of an attempt to curate interesting things I had spied that week. It kind of does and doesn’t work.  So my stuff and stuff I find from others tends to be very loosely curated all over the web in twitter, instagram, flicker, and a number or other places that I have forgotten about. One of the tools/services that was discussed quite a bit last night was Evernote. I don’t really think of Evernote as a curation tool, to me it’s a writing tool,  but of course it is. I love Evernote.  It was pivotal in making my iPad a useful device for work (that an a wee keyboard for typing when I was traveling a lot more than I do now).  I have the iPad, iPhone and desktop versions and every now and again I log into the web version.The fact that it syncs across many devices is  invaluable.  I always have my notes with me. It’s sync’d with my calendar so if I’m at a meeting it automagically saves the note with the date and meeting details (very handy).  There is a whole host of functionality that I don’t really make use of like tagging (again that missing inner librarian), clipping, adding photos etc. There are also a host of iftt (if this then that) recipes that can really help turn your evernote into a powerful curation tool. I tend to use it as my notebook so it is very much a personal tool for me but you can easily share notes with others. They have recently introduced a chat function which I’m sure would be really handy for collaborative writing.  I tend to use google docs for collaborative writing.  For example I draft all my blog posts in evernote then copy them into my blog. Having suffered that horrible feeling of spending hours writing a blog post then inadvertently losing the post as it hadn’t saved or I closed a tab by mistake, I like having a backup. I also like the UI which I think makes a difference when you are writing. But it is really the multiple platform aspect of it that I find most useful. My Evernote In our drop in session we all spent quite a bit of time talking about some list services including wunderlist and List.ly - both are pretty useful for curation and can be shared too. Again worth having a look. Playlists are of course very popular now and I came across this blog post yesterday (using my fail-safe twitter favourite curation technique it has been easy to find) about extending the notion of having learning playlists instead of "learning programmes". An interesting idea and could work in some contexts really well, but there sometimes, like an album learning needs to happen in a set order. Anyway onto day 4 now - can’t believe the week in nearly at at end and the next "C" which is collaboration. Tagged: byod4l

Q1 In your understanding what does ‘collaborating’ entail, how is it different from ‘co-operate’ or ‘co-create’? #BYOD4Lchat — BYOD4L (@BYOD4L) January 15, 2015 This was the question that started last nights #byod4l tweet chat.  Pretty tricky isn’t it?  As with every night this week there was flurry of responses to this and the rest of the questions during the hour. You can catch up on all the discussion via the collated storify.  For me collaboration is usually about working with people to create something tangible or for some common goal, I also think: A1 also when you collaborate you generally like the people you are collaborating with - cooperate=tolerance ? #BYOD4Lchat — Sheila MacNeill (@sheilmcn) January 15, 2015 There was a general consensus last night about common goals and collaboration being different from cooperation. However, as with all the "C’s" highlighted this week there is a level of interdependence and we had quite a few other "C’s" appearing such as commitment and confusion.  The tweet chat and the discussion in our drop in session highlighted around collaboration also highlighted the difference in attitudes and understanding of collaboration and how to foster it between us professional educators and students attitudes to group work and collaboration. We have so many tools that can help us create collaborative activities. Lots of staff here use group wikis for example. However as the discussions in our drop in session highlighted,  students really don’t like collaborative/group activities. It doesn’t matter what technology you use, there is a cultural issue about group work.  Of course I’m not saying our students aren’t capable of working collaboratively and in groups - of course they are and do. However it is hardly surprising that there are moans and groans as throughout their pre- university experiences a typical undergraduate (between 18-26) has probably had very little experience of group working/collaborating in an educational (and assessed) situation.  Most of their assessment has/is been based on individual efforts and recognition. Making the leap from co-operation because you have to do something with others to collaboration where everyone is committed to a common goal is quite a leap. Even for us "grown ups" there are lots of instances in all our professional lives where we really don’t go beyond co-operation (often grudging cooperation at that) to meaningful collaboration. Technology can help, but successful collaboration is fundamentally down the willingness of humans to interact with each other to create something. And creating is the topic for the final day of #byod4l - and this is a lovely creation of some of the collaboration happening this week. Another beautiful NodeXL SNA Map and Report on #BYOD4L and #BYOD4Lchat created by @marc_smith pic.twitter.com/6MHhGOaKKq — Sue Beckingham (@suebecks) January 15, 2015

On Friday we took a slightly different take on the creating theme of the day and in our lunchtime session we had a look at google cardboard. There was a bit of creating involved in building the headset! We actually have quite a bit of activity here in GCU within virtual worlds, notably in our School of Health and Life Science.  Google cardboard isn’t quite a virtual world but at £12 the headset is a pretty affordable way to get a look at some more immersive apps.  We even managed to get it working with an iPhone. We were quite excited by the potential for students to build some apps for use with it.  Personally I felt a bit sick after about 20 seconds on a virtual roller coaster,  so still not convinced some of this VR stuff is really for me. Over the week we had some really good discussions with the staff who were able to join us in our daily drop in sessions.  In terms of creating padlet and twitter did seem to come top of the list both in terms of actual and potential use.  Padlet is such a useful and simple tool to use. The fact that you don’t need to register for an account, it can be embedded into many other places (including our VLE) is very attractive.  The daily tweet chats were a really great way for people to "get" twitter and see how a #hashtag can work and engage a lot of activity and sharing of practice.  We had a few more twitter converts by Friday with some really good ideas for using twitter in their learning activities. In terms of timing it wasn’t the best week for us, as there were exams on and so a lot of staff were marking, and that really limited any student participation. We’re also preparing for the start of our ELIR this week (Enhancement Led Institutional Review) so a lot of our staff were involved in preparation work last week. However, we were pleased that some staff were able to take the time and come and talk with us.   Hopefully a few of them will apply for some badges too. Based on the experience I think we definitely be involved again. Thanks to Sue and Chrissi and all the team for creating, supporting and extending a really vibrant community and useful week of activities.

  The vast majority of my writing takes place here.  I’m not very good at formal academic publishing or book writing but I have co-authored with David Walker a chapter for the upcoming Really Useful #EdTechBook. #edtechbook, as it’s know in the twitter-sphere, is the brainchild of David Hopkins. David has not only persuaded a great line up of authors to contribute to the book,  but has also edited and is, as you read this, self publishing the book ready for launch on 28th January. If you can’t wait for the printed version, an CC licenced PDF version is available now. One of the reasons I agreed to be involved in the project was the opportunity to co-author. I’ve known David for a while but we haven’t really done anything collaboratively so this was a really good opportunity to do something together.  Our brief was to write something not too academic, but something that as the title of the book alludes to was "useful".  As well as keeping everyone on track David has also published interviews with all the authors. Our interview is available here. I really enjoyed writing our chapter with David. It was good to be able to share our views on "stuff" to reflect on our experiences and careers to dates,  and to expand our thoughts about the development of learning technologists and their relationship with and to more traditional educational development/developers. It’s also good to have someone to keep you motivated and to meet deadlines. David also came up with the title of the chapter "Learning Technologist as Digital Pedagogue", which I think was a stroke of brilliance and bound to provoke discussion by itself. Our chapter really began with a series of questions we kept coming back to. We both wanted to get some evidence/validation of our views so we decided that we would write a blog post to see if we could get some initial feedback from our network. Our post "Is there something about a learning technologist?" got a great reaction. It was the highest viewed post of last year. More importantly it got 23 comments and a number of responses on twitter too.  In turn, we were able to use many of these responses in the chapter itself.  People were so generous with their time and insightful feedback. That in itself gave us even more motivation to write the chapter and also a sense that there was an appetite for our discussion.  Some of the early reviews have also mentioned our chapter which again has been great to see. "As an Academic Developer in Higher Education, the book made me reflect on our professional relationship with Learning Technologists. Sue Beckingham in her chapter talks about the hybrid or blended professional for example, a mix between Learning Technologists and Academic Developer and the need to work together. David Walker and Sheila MacNeill take it one step further and raise an  important question about the future of Learning Technologists: "Is there something fundamental that distinguishes Learning Technologists from educational developers? Do we still need both roles?"  This question, I feel, could form the basis for further collaborative exploration between Learning Technologists, Academic Developers and the wider academic community.",  Chrissi Nerantzi, Principal Lecturer in Academic CPD, Manchester Metropolitan University.  More information about the book is available here.

I’ve spent a bit of time this morning looking at the newly published institutional exemplars from the Jisc Digital Student programme which is investigating "students expectations of the digital environment".  Based on findings from a study commissioned in 2013, the programme has run a number of consultation events ( I’m really glad that GCU were able to host one of them last year ) and has identified a number of key challenges: Prepare and support students to study successfully with digital technologies Deliver a relevant digital curriculum Ensure an inclusive student experience, using technology to overcome disadvantage Provide a robust, flexible digital environment Develop coherent policies for ‘Bring Your Own’ Engage students in dialogue about their digital experience and empower them to make changes Take a strategic, whole-institution approach to the digital student experience The exemplars now provide tangible examples of how institutions are tackling these challenges. They are very short but give a good overview of a range of approaches being taken across the sector. The programme had an initial focus on HE but is now extending its work into FE. I am sure there is huge potential for sharing of experiences across the sectors.  Here at GCU we have a particular interest ensuring that our articulating students from FE have as smooth a transition (both in terms of the physical and digital environment) as possible into HE. You can see more about our approach in our College Connect strategy. I sometimes think it is bizarre that we need to have programmes, sectoral themes, projects specifically aimed at "student engagement". Surely engaging students is what education (at any level/sector)  is fundamentally about. However as we all know, those pesky students can get in the way of our neatly planned programmes, modules, exams.  Reading this gently powerful fairy tale from Graeme Arnott earlier this week also reinforced to me that in our fight against the "education is broken" meme, we can’t blame everything on evil technology companies - our own stereotypes and attitudes are just as dangerous.  I think that ensure we listen and act on what our students want from their digital environment can help us avoid more digital blocks of wood aimlessly wandering around our educational forests.

Bi-centenary Tricolour, 1989, Ian Hamilton Finlay with Gary Hinks. I’m conscious that so far in 2015 my semi-regular weekly round ups of Where Sheila’s been or what Sheila’s seen haven’t quite made it to 2015.  This is due to a number of things including #byod4l and other work "stuff" which I have been the focus of any blogging I’ve been doing. I’ve been at GCU for about 15 months now. So no longer a newbie, toddling around more confidently now and waiting for the terrible 2’s to strike.  I know more people, I’m getting involved in more things (e.g our annual Programme Leaders event -see the sketch note here - earlier this week), have seen a cycle of the academic year.  In many ways I feel that I am embedded in the institution.  Embedded is quite a loaded term and nowadays is most commonly associated with journalist in war and conflict situations, not with universities.  However I have just finished reading Martin Weller’s The Battle for Open, and so military analogies have been on my mind bit. Whilst Martin states the case for the battle of open very eloquently and persuasively in the book, I have still have some concerns about the battle analogy. That said,  I have been swayed a bit by the general argument running through the book.  Open is a "thing", it is accepted in education from open access publishing to OERs, there is more and more evidence of it’s impact both for individuals and institutions, there can be economic as well as altruistic benefits.  It’s the next bit of the open journey, after the battle that I’m thinking about. The war after the battle if you like, and who will "win" that, and what is my own role in that next stage? Like many others I identify myself as an open educational practitioner. I share as much and as often as I can.  I have gained so much from being open, the altruistic aspect of open-ness has had a real impact on my career. I don’t think I would have the job I have if I hadn’t adopted open practices. I certainly wouldn’t have been considered as one of the keynote speakers for OER15 if I hadn’t.  That said, I acknowledge that I have had the luxury of time to develop my open practice - others have/do not. So in my current role, and the bigger war for open-ness what should I do now? Open-ness is becoming more accepted here at GCU, we have OER guidelines developed by our Library which should very soon be actual policy. I am aware of open education being talked about more by many members of staff, including some of our senior management. I’d like to think I’ve had some small part to play in that. But if I’m embedded there must be a  tension that I just report/work from "behind the front line"? Shouldn’t I be part of  an insurgency and fighting the good fight, exploding open-ness all over the place?  In reality, like most open practitioners,  I think I’m probably doing a bit of both. We all have to work within our own contexts and structures to actually bring about change - particularly mainstream change. I don’t want to have to think about fighting battles all the time. I just want to help improve the learning and teaching experience for our students and staff. I would love to be able just to change a few words in this article on 5 Reasons Your Company Should Open Source More Code to 5 Reasons Your University Should Be More Open , pass it up the chain and voila suddenly job done. But as we all know it’s not that simple. Mainstreaming anything takes time, it can be dull and frustrating. That can lead a lot of warriors going off to fight other more exciting battles. Will open-ness, in all its flavours, ultimately just be for some and not all? Just some of the thoughts that  will be taking up a lot more of my time as I prepare for OER15.

The theme of the OER15 conference is Mainstreaming Open Education ". . .  the aim being to explore approaches that are moving OER (& OEP) into the mainstream, and also barriers that need to be addressed for that to happen."  http://blog.edtechie.net/oer15/oer15-is-go/ As part of my keynote I want to explore and share my experiences with mainstreaming open education and OERs.  I think part of the reason I "got the gig" was down to a couple of posts where I questioned some of the assumptions about open and actual (mainstream) practice. Whilst I love the simplicity of the slogan "the opposite of open is broken" in reality it is a bit more complicated than that. We are still a way away from an open by default approach in my institution and I suspect many others. There is a cost to open, and many of us don’t have access to external or internal funds to kickstart and maintain open approaches. So, this post is an attempt to do a bit of crowdsourcing and feedback before the conference on OER and open educational practice in mainstream education. Here at GCU we have OER guidelines (which hopefully will be actual policy one day soon), that’s still not that common so can I count that as mainstream? In terms of practice it’s difficult to measure what impact they are having.  Guidelines alone does not a mainstream culture of OER creating and sharing make.  Sharing, even within our walled gardens is still not on the radar of many of my colleagues. Personally they are really useful for me and my team as we have somewhere to point people to in terms of creating and releasing OERs.  So maybe just having that simple workflow is actually a mainstream practice- or at least the beginnings of one. The guidelines have been driven by Marion Kelt in our library so are very much a bottom up approach, which in many instances is how policy should develop.  I have a noticed a change in the past year in that I hear "openness" and OERs being talked about much more regularly now by staff at all levels. In my own practice, I do self-identify as being an open practitioner.  I try and share as much as I can, mainly via this blog and also now via our team blog. Wherever possible I take try to take an open approach. To take Martin Weller’s guerrilla research analogy , I quite often take a guerrilla approach to educational development. I use as many open (and often just open as in free) resources, software, platforms as I can.  I encourage my colleagues to do the same - sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t. GCU Games On,  The open event we ran last year was only possible due to the fact we could engage with and use a number of open resources.  This case study I wrote for the OEPS project explains our approach in more detail. I’m not sure if that approach is mainstreaming or more like pic’n’mixing. But in the mainstream you have to be very pragmatic and work with what you’ve got, not wait for what you’d like to work with. Doing a little openly is better than doing nothing openly, right? So, how/do you you do it?  Do you have examples of mainstream and by that I mean I mean regular, everyday, use and/or creation of OERs by the majority of teaching staff in your institution? How do you get and maintain the "open habit"?  If you could share anything in the comments I’d be really grateful and I will include them in my talk at the conference. Tagged: #OER15 #OER #openeducation, mainstream

This is just a quick follow up from my post looking for some feedback for my #oer15 keynote. Firstly, a huge thank you to everyone who commented, tweeted and retweeted a link to the post. My stats as wordpress keeps telling me "are booming". I’ve been sent a number of links to examples of mainstreaming OER which I’ve collated in storify. I’ll be looking at these in more detail over the coming weeks. The post generated a record number of comments for me so in the order that they commented, a huge thank you to: Alan Levine, Pat Lockley, Charles Knight, Dave Cormier, Tony Hirst, France Bell, Chriss Nerantzi, Simon Thomson, Melissa Highton and late entry Rob Farrow. A special thanks to Pat who has really engaged with all the comments, and I think just beat Dave in the number of comments posted. A wealth of ideas and viewpoints have come through, far too many for me to do justice to in one post. So, to give a snap shot I thought I do the old word cloud trick. The comments have drifted from the "how" of mainstreaming more to the "how" and back again. So on the one hand we have strong advocacy for clarity and rigour around licences and content, and on the other a desire (need) to experiment and extend practice more. Whilst Simon showed examples of replacing the R(source) in OER, Melissa argued that we need to extend the rigour of OER practice and OEP just muddies that, as it’s all a bit woolly and half baked (the things Dave Cormier and I really like). Tony made a great point about needing to consider ourselves as OERs. In many ways people are the greatest OER asset that any institution has. Lots, and lots to cogitate. I urge you to read the discussions and keep contributing. Tagged: #OER15 #OER #openeducation

I’m still processing all the comments that were left on my blog about mainstreaming OER and Open Education last week. I’ve done a quick summary and as a quick visual overview a wordle of the comments.   However I thought I would try and do something a bit more sophisticated and perhaps more enlightening.  I’m a bit fan of the visualizations Tony Hirst does using gephi, and have played a bit with it, usually with the help of my former Cetis colleague, David Sherlock. Anyway, I was all set for an afternoon of visualisation delights at the weekend, but gephi didn’t want to play. I’ve since found out it is probably a java/mac issue . . . However in my search for an alternative I came across Textexture, which will "visualise any text as a network" (using gephi).  Below is a screen shot of the network for the blog comments (the embed code doesn’t work for me in wordpress), but if click on the picture you’ll be taken to the interactive network. I’m not sure how much more this tells me, other than confirming the interconnectedness of ideas.  But, it is a pretty simple service to use and we all love a network diagram. Tagged: #OER15 #OER #openeducation

It’s open education week and there is a lot happening this week.  I’m looking forward to my first visit to Brighton later today,  to give a talk as part of the University of Sussex TEL seminar series.  I’ll be mainly talking about our open event GCU Games On, but also more generally about my experiences with open education. Of course there are lots of other events this week- almost too many!  A couple of webinars from ALT have caught my attention. On Tuesday there is a preview of the  #oer15 conference, and Thursday a session around supporting and developing open online courses. More information on both is available from the ALT website.   On Friday here at GCU our monthly coffee club meeting will be discussing openness here at GCU, and we’re very pleased that Marion Kelt from our library is going to lead the discussions by giving an overview of how our OER guidelines have been developed. This week also sees Jisc’s #digifest, which I’ll be following via twitter. I’m sure there will be a lot of great ideas and practice being shared.  Later in the week there’s #lak15, which again I’ll be following via twitter.  I’m pleased to see that this year there is a pre-conference hackathon. I’ve enjoyed the LAK conferences I’ve attended in the past, but did feel that there was room for a more hands on/playful aspect to the conference along side the academic paper side of it. In between times this week there’s a full week of activities here at Blended Learning Towers, including more work on our placement trial using the myknowledgemap placement progess system, myprogess  and more online course development workshops. Hoping that there is even more open sharing than normal this week - let’s all try to do one open thing this week.