iPad experiment

Like the fanboy that I am, last night I queued for just over 2 hours to pick up a shiny new iPad 2, 32 GB, Wi-Fi model. I had never owned an iPad before and the feature bumps and quicker processor in the second incarnation of the device managed to persuade me to part with my cash.

So why am I putting this rather un-interesting news on a degree blog? Well, many people are calling the iPad a post-pc device, inferring that the device is like the next version of the personal computer to be used by the masses. Being an ICT teacher by trade, I obviously am wanting to get in on the action and see the devices application in the workplace / classroom. What I am proposing to do is to spend as much time on the iPad as I can and detach from my laptop. Is this possible with the current feature set and notable limitations of the device? That’s what I want to find out. Are the limitations of the device actually a new framework for using a device like this? These are all things I want to look into.

Now, I might be absolutely mad doing this now at the stage where there is only about a month to go until the work based major project is handed in, but that fits in nicely with the experiment, can I finish my work based major project on an iPad? That will be something to tell the grandkids…

The experiment has already begun, I am writing this post on the aforementioned device and I have already noticed how quickly I can type and also just how few mistakes I make on this keyboard!

So here we go, into the unknown, but the very exciting!

Looking back on alternative media

An excerpt from an alternative media assignment

Throughout my previous study, I have learnt many skills that I do not have the space here to list. One specific I want to unpack here is the concept of using alternative media to present assignments. University is all too often associated with 3,000 word essays and the like, but it really does not have to be that way.

I have made use of a variety of media to present my assignments and I am lucky that I work with a University / Faculty that embraces this medium. I have used everything from Poetry to Animation. As long as the medium accurately meets the outcomes required of the assignment, what’s the problem? I would even go to say that my faculty would prefer to see a 5 minute animation than a 1,500 essay! Some examples I have used in past study:

1. Poetry – depicting a critical incident of a trip to China with Students, learning valuable lessons of pastoral care.
2. Vlog – talking freely, prompted by notes, about an event. Feedback on this is that it promotes deeper reflection. I have to agree.
3. Animated presentations – presentations done in Apple Keynote that allow the user to interact with the presentation and advance at their own pace.
4. Emails to a hypothetical freiend – encourages persuasive techniques around an academic subject.

These are just a few examples of how I have utilised alternative media in my studies, I look forward to a time where assignment submission in these media is common place in all levels of education, because lets be real here, when do you write essays in ‘the real world’?

Related Articles

• Marketing Through Alternative Media (marketingpr.suite101.com)
• Know The Ways for Essay Help (socyberty.com)
• Up, Up, and Away: How a group of researchers is reinventing school libraries (schoollibraryjournal.com)
• SlideRocket Adds Collaboration, Analytics Features (informationweek.com)
• Keynotopia Wireframing Set: Free Wireframing Templates for Apple Keynote (smashingmagazine.com)

The four stages of learning

When we learn anything, it can be broken down into four phases. To learn or teach anyhting, it is of benefit to know when each of these four stages are reached to gauge learning:

1. Unconscious incompetence – You dont know what a car is
2. Conscious incompetence – You know what a car is, but you dont know how to drive it
3. Conscious competence – You can drive a car whilst concentrating on how to do it
4. Unconscious competence – You can drive a car without thinking about it

Can you think of any examples for anything you have learnt recently?

Development of a new skill within Moodle

How can I adapt and improve Moodle?

Previously, I had identified current strengths and weaknesses within Moodle. I will now look to develop a new skill to address a current weakness of the platform.

I had observed that the current system was being used to distribute materials and information effectively to students, but little was happening to gather these same things from the students themselves.

I am currently at the point in the academic year where coursework is being completed from both years 10 and 11. Based on experiences over the past two years, the biggest difficulty students have is ensuring that assessment criteria is met for their assignments, and therefore as a department, we developed paper checklists that students could use to tick off every objective as they completed it. The weakness with this system is that over the course of their assignments, checklists were lost entirely or became tatty in appearance and therefore difficult to read as tasks were added, removed and modified by hand.

As we now have a Moodle system in place, I will look at developing a method of checklists being completed on the Moodle platform.

Research in the official Moodle documentation did not reveal a simple way of achieving this with the standard feature-set of Moodle. I then did some broader research on the internet which lead me towards the official Moodle forums where I came across a thread where others were trying to achieve the same thing. At this stage I had gained knowledge of the extensive support network of other Moodle users from around the world. I then added to this forum post where I detailed my needs for the checklist. I was then quickly responded to by other members of the forum with suggestions that unfortunately did not quite meet my needs.

After a few hours, I then received a message from a forum member that suggested a Module for Moodle that would let me achieve my goal.

Planning and implementation

A Module is something that extends the functionality of Moodle beyond that of what it is capable of as standard. There are currently just over 600 modules for Moodle at the time of writing that extend it in a very many variety of ways. The module that I am planning to implement is simply called: ‘Checklist’

From the author’s description:

This is a Moodle plugin for Moodle 1.9 that allows a teacher to create a checklist for their students to work through. The teacher can monitor all the students’ progress, as they tick off each of the items in the list. Items can be indented and marked as optional. Students are presented with a simple chart showing how far they have progressed through the required/optional items and can add their own, private, items to the list.

From the description and screenshot of the Module this appears to fulfil my needs of a Checklist and add the functionality of the Teacher being to able monitor progress, a benefit that I had not previously considered.

The extra information provided by the author of the Module provided information on how to install the plugin into my Moodle platform. This was much simpler that I had anticipated with only three steps to the install:

Unzip the contents of file you downloaded to a temporary folder.

Upload the files to the your moodle server, placing them in the ‘moodle/mod/checklist’ folder.

Log in as administrator and click on ‘Notifications’ in the admin area to update the Moodle database, ready to use this plugin.

I performed the transfer of the Checklist files to Moodle with a free piece of Software called Cyberduck. A simple and effective FTP client I use to transfer files two and from my departments web server.

Once I had followed these steps, there was indeed a new item in my existing Moodle courses called ‘Checklist’.

Before I trialled it with students, I added a sample checklist module instance to a test course I created and created a test student account to see what the student would see and how the teacher can then control it. This proved that the module did provide the functionality I was looking for. I then added it to the coursework centric courses in Moodle and spent a starter of a lesson showing the students how to use it and ensured that I could see their progress once they had transferred their paper copies to the new system.

From this process of developing Moodle with Modules, I have learnt:

• There is a wide and supportive community of like-minded educators that have a wealth of experience with Moodle that will more than gladly lend a hand if you ask for it.
• There are many different features that can be added to Moodle through the use of Modules.
• The skill of developing Moodle with features not currently available with the addition and installation of Modules.

I feel this is a valuable skill that will be used again as I now can combine the knowledge of the various modules available with the ability of how to add them to sculpt and develop my Moodle install towards the needs of myself and my colleagues. It may also occur that there will be issues as I further develop the site, but now my knowledge of the support network provides an experience driven knowledge base for me to seek advice, assistance and recommendations.

How does it work in practice?

Since the Checklist Module has been in use with both years 10 and 11, there are a few features that I feel are missing. As this has been rolled out across two large year groups, the teachers panel gets very cluttered with all the information coming from different students. This makes it difficult for teachers to see a quick overview of how a particular class is doing.

When a checklist is viewed individually, you can see a progress bat at the top that shows the overall percentage of completion of the checklist.

I thought that it would be useful for a teacher to see this view for a class of students together. I made this suggestion to the developer of the Module to which he swiftly replied that he liked the idea and will be including it in future updates of the Module.

UPDATE: Since this post was written, the module has been updated to include the features I requested from the developer.

Replacing the existing files with the updated files of the module was all that was required to perform the update of the module. A reflection of this is that someone who runs a Moodle site must manually check periodically whether module updates are available and perform them manually. This is in contrast to other web based services such as WordPress, another technology in use on the lateforlunch.co.uk server. WordPress automatically updates itself and the installed modules plug-ins, something I feel would be a welcome addition to Moodle 2.0!

On the initial paper implementations of the checklists, the students were able to add notes to each item. This had the downside that this lead to the checklists becoming unreadable, but this was a feature that was missing entirely from the Checklist Module. This is easily fixed by allowing students to add their own individual items to the checklist. These are easily added, removed and modified leaving no mess as was occurring on the paper versions. Students can also tick these notes off as they achieve them.

So far, the use of the checklist module has not failed and myself and my colleagues continue to see a benefit of the technology and a positive impact on students ability to self manage their assignments.

What is a ‘learning organisation’?

So, this is a question I have been striving to answer for about a week now. Reading Trawling through many academic texts was just grinding my gears and was getting me nowhere. Speaking with Prof Stephen Heppell at BETT 2010, he told me that modern learners were using YouTube as their primary search engine. I took this advice today and started going through just a few of the top results for: learning organisations. This brought up this video that clarified many things for me. It is a primary source as it is uploaded by the author, so can it be referenced in academic texts? That is the real question.

lateforlunch.co.uk

A project over at lateforlunch.co.uk that I have been working on with and for my department. I wont repeat myself, check out the bio and story so far:

HERE!!!

Education is linear?

A title and image shamelessly stolen from a great thought provoking video on YouTube that really gets you thinking. It covers many points that go perhaps a bit out there in the grand scheme of things, bit the first 1:13 of the video really hits the nail in my opinion. What do you think?

Reflection in the workplace

Although not my brain child, my Academy is now rolling out a trial scheme with the view of creating reflective students. The whole idea comes from developing ‘parent tutor day’ which is where form tutors meet with individuals from the group accompanied by their parents to discuss a multitude of different things. This time around, instead of the tutors whaling on at the students about what they are good at, bad at and need to improve, students are taking the stage.

Students will present a reflective dialogue for around three minutes to their tutor and parents identifying key areas that they themselves have identified. This is developing several initiatives in the students:

• Development of reflective ability
• Presentation skills

Above is a sample of some of the things they are talking about in their dialogues, but there is a range. Some have done a SWOT analysis and others have gone with a more traditional exploration of themselves.

I can only hope that this idea is developed into an ongoing initiative as i think being a reflective learner is vital to progress. In education, students are pushed to the limit, rarley being offered structured time for personal constructive reflection, seeing what has been attained and what needs still to be done.

I hope to update soon with further developments.

‘The Purpose of Reflective Practice’

Now being used by the Universal College of Learning in New Zealand for an undergraduate course on Nursing, this is one of my assignments from the Reflection in the Work Setting module.

Thought I would share as I have not posted this here as yet.

Basic principals of my study

Here is a bit of an off-beat post to outline the components that I am so thankful for and could not imagine doing my studying / researching / learning without. First up its the underpinning element:

This is the framework on which I do 90% of my work (the other 10% is my learning journal which is a blue lined book, nothing special.) I have been involved in the IT industry for a while and without (hopefully) sounding like a bit of a bandwagon tag-along, Mac OS X has really facilitated the work I have produced so far with its simplistic file management, redundancy and time machine.

I suppose the enclosure for the previous (and all to follow) would be my fantastic laptop the MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo 15″ The best laptop I have ever had. It keeps on surprising me with most things, could not recommend a brand/model as much as this!

This little gem would have to be the secondary framework. Doing a research / distance learning degree would be rather difficult without web access and Firefox allows me to access all I need to on the web with the ability to support plugins such as Zotero.

The common room / lecture theatre / tutorial space and everything else, FirstClass is the University. It brings the Cohort together to engage in a communal learning environment and also allows students to connect with other cohorts, past and present.

Another Apple product now, still not a fan-boy, iWork 09. I have only been using it really in Semester 2, really to try it out. I have had all versions previous to 09 (through site license) but never really ran with it. 09 has really been a saviour for me, alleviating the need for buggy, slow, putrid Office:mac 2008 that I am only using for my reference page for each module as it has interoperability with Zotero, a feature iWork has yet to support.

Oh, now my favourite, Spotify is a service like iTunes that provides all music in its database (around 2-3 million) for free, streaming and instant. See my previous post to see the love!

I suppose this would be another component of the mix. Zotero is a FANTASTIC premise, but not fully developed in my opinion, head over to their website to read all about it and see how it can help you.

Oh come on, not everything is good with hiher education, this is how the descrepancies are dealt with!

What could you not do without???

BA/BSc what’s the difference?

A question i have always tried to put my finger on. Traditionally you would think that scientific subjects are BSc’s (Bachelor of Science) and everything else would be a BA (Bachelor of Arts,) but this is not the case. I have seen an array of courses ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous with BA/BSc seemingly picked at random as a classification, but i think i have now hit the nail on the head. To put it simply its BA = qualitative data and BSc = quantitate data. These are the different types of data used by the different courses, so a dissertation (3rd year project) for a BSc course would include statistics, maths and results from a study to do with numbers whereas a disertation for a BA would have conclusions based on responses and assumptions that could not be classified as 20%, 0.05, 4:1 and so on.

Have i hit the nail on the head? Anyone think different? Answers on a postcard in the comments.

p.s. couldn’t find a more appropriate picture, so there!

Models, cycles and all sorts

Looking over many a research article and journal, it is becoming clear to me that the best way that i can actually demonstrate ideas is through the use of models. Below is my depiction of how i believe artefacts play a part in the process of reflective practice. What i was also trying to demonstrate was that artefacts can be captured during or after the critical incident.

Next up is the way i have concluded an artefact would then fit within Schön’s model of reflective practice.

And lastly, my ‘brain dump’ of how i can see the Action Enquiry module panning out with my model of its place in reflective practice

.

Whether these are correct or not is another thing, but this is just me putting my own learning style into my work.

Final reflections on Level 1 – Semester 1

So I’m at the finishing line again for the second module of this course and 1/6 of the overall thing. Very pleased to have made it this far, but what have I taken away from it all?

Firstly, upon reflection I can see the value of the concept behind the ‘Original Ideas’ thinking. This is when you have a task presenting a learning outcome and deliverable. Traditional, you would set about forging together a load of text based upon reading materials to answer the question. I have been encouraged to challenge this idea and present work through video, audio, diagrams, charts, visual representations, imaginary letters and the list goes on. It’s all about the individuality of presenting an idea through whatever medium you like.

The biggest thing for me was to get the citations in order. To say something is so is not good enough and most of the time this must be backed up with material that has been published and cite the original author and the year the work was published. This was all very new to me, so it was a challenge to get into this mindset. This is one of the most pronounced points I will be working to improve next semester.

And finally, being critical. I have always been told that the whole part of doing a degree is about being critical in your thinking and analysis. This is something that I feel that I have fully identified with (I hope) and I feel that this has made me a more aware and engaged individual.

The level above

With most things, to grasp what you are trying to do, its good to look at the level above. I have come across a fantastic resource from an affiliated University of my Academy; The University of Greenwich. The pack pictured above contains three PhD thesis’ from the field of education. Its really interesting to read through these and then compare it to my work. It gives a great perspective on referencing (were talking about two per sentence) and statical analyses.

There is supposedly an open on-line respositary of these, if and when i find it, you will find the link here.