I’ve been thinking today, about what makes a good conference and what makes a time waster for me. Unfortunately, I’ve come to the conclusion that it won’t always be possible to avoid the time wasters, because some conference sound “just like the thing” and then, when you’re there and suffer through it, it becomes clear that the level is absolutely wrong, the angle is pointless, the focus is wrong, and the delivery is … dire.
And that is it, it is mostly a question of level. I have reached the stage where presentations of “this is what we have done with these tools of ours and isn’t it all wonderful, and oh look, the lessons we have learned are ever so specific to us” has become the bane of my existence. What is it with Learning & Teaching/e-Learning conferences, that they seem to attract these descriptive conferences? And what is it with any organiser believing – wrongly – that the wider community can actually gain anything from XYZ’s highly specific example of what they have done?
If it is so specific that no general lessons learned and advice given – or ideas instigated – can be gained by the community, which operates in different intuitions, and with different strategies and policies, different aims and with different tools and different resources, then it is probably not worth the community’s time. Well, at least not mine.
And while I realise that this is not the tune that I should be singing, but HE and FE are not the same and it is not feasible to believe that strategies and activities in FE can be used or even have any impact or any interest for HE – and vice versa. I realise there are attempts to cater for both, but please, if we are back to specific XYZ, then this will simply not work.
I have been to brilliant conferences last year, during which I learned a lot, networked in enriching ways, and which long-lastingly influenced my work, my interests, my research, my teaching, and finally and ultimately, benefited my institution. None of them was “and then I did XYZ and then we got ABC and then found MNO.” (and incidentally, all of that was so obvious and ‘old hat’ that I could have pointed you to the expected results before you even fired up your deadly PPT with its endless words and sentences)
I am just frustrated right now. We have so much to share, so much innovation, so many thought and trials and fascinating results: let’s do it. And let’s do it at the right level and the right focus, and let’s all inspire each other to think new thoughts.
But as the disclaimer says, this is my personal opinion, only.
Very interesting blog article by Steve Warburton, who, incidentally, quotes a post on my MACS lecturer pal’s blog post about teaching in-world (in Second Life). Steve article was discussed on the SLED (Second Life Educators) list. A least which comes up with some gems, but is incredibly busy and requires constant mail-scanning/pruning.
http://warburton.typepad.com/liquidlearning/2008/01/loving-your-ava.html
Steve focuses on the development of relationships with one’s avatar, discussing multiple avatars amongst issues of care, tension and flux. I am certainly looking forward to the paper, once it is published.
(Diagram by Steve Warburton, e-learning and ICT Manager, King’s College, London. Creative Commons Licensed)
Lunchtime Seminars
- once a month on Fridays the chance for enthusiastic speakers, topics, and lively discussions, while enjoying a tasty lunchtime buffet
Feedback has been very positive and the programme of lunchtime seminars, with internal and external presenters, will continue next year. So far we have heard about how to promote student engagement, case studies of distance learning ventures and their success or failure, using the VLE to enhance language learning skills, and how to motivate students’ participation and studies by using a discussion board.
We will have future sessions on how to make feedback more efficient, enriching a VLE module with library content, case studies from the TESEP project on how courses were transformed, and about blogs and how to assess the new texts.
February’s talk is by Jim Balfour from SBE, on Light at the end of the feedback tunnel? It takes place on Friday, 1st February, in the Anderson room (Library) from 1215 – 1345 hrs.
Jim will be show the software FormFeed, which he developed, and the session promises to be interesting for everyone across the institution and from the outside, particularly in the light of timely and useful feedback having been pointed out by students as very important issues.
FormFeed (Formative Feedback) is a Freeware application that enables educators to give individualised feedback to large numbers of students for minimal effort. In addition to allowing tutors to do more with less, the use of the software encourages better alignment of educational objectives and assessment criteria.
The application is based on MS Office and is designed to be robust and simple to use . Assessment information collected in Excel is subsequently turned into student feedback reports via Word mail-merge.
This seminar will demonstrate the application and will discuss the educational aims and uses of the software.
The software can be downloaded from: http://www.sbe.hw.ac.uk/FormFeed/
Lunch is provided, and the session offers the opportunity to engage in dialogue with the presenter and with colleagues, allowing plenty of time for discussion.
The Flexible Learning @ Heriot-Watt programme is part of the EDU.
For a full list of remaining talks for this year, please visit:
http://www.hw.ac.uk/edu/flexible-learning/programme-lunchtime.html
Booking for lunchtime seminars:
http://www.hw.ac.uk/edu/flexible-learning/programme-booking-lunchtime.html
Filed under: education, research, second life, students, teaching | Tags: multimedia design, projects, virtual worlds
Just back from another interesting participant observation of a Second Life lab class. This time it was postgraduates, and some of the identity issues are fascinating. You might be asking what is Second Life lab all about? My MACS lecturer pal is using second life (and our own HWU island) for teaching programming/scripting in world, so to speak, and I observe and will run a questionnaire at the end, being interested not only in educational aspects of a more focused nature, but also very much in topics that touch the use of such an in-world experience, which does not use Second Life as a mere location for education (such as holding a lecture or tutorial in-world in a distance course) but uses the world itself to learn how to create the world.
Not deus ex machina, but terra ex terra. While terra is, of course, machina.
It reminds me somehow of the world-grasping experience of an infant, who builds his internal/cognitive world within the external/experienced world. Anyway, the aspects that I am interested in and that have been looked at by many educators, are immersion, identity, enjoyment, etc.
Watch this space, so far the undergraduate and postgraduate experience seems to be a positive one. (and apologies for the vagueness, but at this stage it’s necessary 
For my pal’s weblog, with more specifics from her side about using Second Life for these modules, go to Computers, Creativity and Learning.
Filed under: education, research | Tags: discussion-forum, distance learning, vle, wikis
This article from the peer-reviewed First Monday journal came just in time for an issue we have in one of our distance modules, where the use of the wiki in the VLE did not work as smoothly as we had hoped. In this instance, the problem was the wording of the assignment, but actually, it was something I have been thinking about and experimenting with anyway.
In the abstract the authors state that:
The purpose of this study was to improve the quality of students’ online discussion of assigned readings in an online course. To improve the focus, depth, and connectedness of online discussion, the first author designed a text–focused Wiki that simultaneously displayed the assigned reading and students’ comments side by side in adjacent columns. In the text–focused Wiki, students were able to read the assigned text in the left column and type their comments or questions in the right column adjacent to the sentence or passage that sparked their interest. In post–participation surveys, data were gathered about students’ experiences in the text–focused Wiki and prior experiences in threaded discussion forums. Students reported more focus, depth, flow, idea generation, and enjoyment in the text–focused Wiki.
It is a very interesting paper indeed, which I recommend anyone to read who is using wikis and/or discussion forums and/or blogs.
This free event is held in the Edinburgh Conference Centre, Heriot Watt University, on Wednesday 5 March 2008 – Thursday 6 March 2008,
The first day is about the Enhancement theme of the First Year Experience, and the second day is about the Enhancement Theme Research-Teaching Links. It looks like it is going to be a very interesting conference, and I have just chosen my workshops.
