23/07/2008 by nicola.

I’ve been following a series of great posts on Tom Haskin’s blog including stress-induced breakdowns, if stressors could speak, putting learners in danger , immersed in consensual torment , circumstantial or chronic anxiety etc I like his ideas of pro and anti-learning ecologies in the workplace.

I was working with one of my colleagues at Surrey in Health and Social Care today, looking at some redesign of modules for the next semester and we were reviewing experiences of the students over the past year. Often the students that sign up and pay for the modules are mature students, maybe never been to university or completed ‘formal’ education for maybe 20+ years, often not used a computer at all before. So they have a lot to absorb all at once, not just the technology and being in the campus environment, but heightened concerns about how they might be seen to others - then after just a few days, they will go into ‘practice’ settings which will often be a hospice or similar health and social care setting.

So potential for stress increases further at this point too with emotions already potentially running higher than normal - and trying to adjust to a new study routine when they may have family at home to manage or other issues to sort. Sounds like possible alarm bells ringing already.

Not surprisingly in this situation, some students have shown signs of extreme stress and as a result of this particular colleague caring enough to try and help, she also changed her own routine, tried strategies for helping the student but if it didn’t appear to be helping, this resulted in higher level of stress for her too - so no one wins ?

Coincidentally yesterday I was at a breakfast session exploring the dark side of personality at work. Andy McBurnie explained about a number of personality tests then went on to explain the Hogan Development Survey which was developed by a couple of psychology professors in the US. It assesses these eleven tendencies that can cause people under stress to develop ‘derailing’ behavourial tendencies which under less stress, would not be an issue. For whatever reason e.g. change of routine, new ‘things’, increased workload etc can ‘trigger’ these derailing behaviour patterns. With people that care enough to help, it may be that even though the behaviour has been ‘triggered’, the person can still quickly return back to a more healthy behavioural ‘place’ where they feel more comfortable and able to cope.

Where Tom mentions about the ecology and environment, the design plays such an important part - for a long part of our conversation today, we were thinking about the design by looking at the emotional journeys that new learners and the tutors might follow over the sessions and thinking about potential trigger points, e.g. if you are a learner in the setting described above, just simply logging into remote email, using the web for the first time, - looking at windows popping up, getting random error messages - might be enough to ‘tip’ someone over the edge and any healthy excitement about starting the course could very quickly get replaced with something more ‘volatile’.

I love the idea of a healthy learning environment, especially for our learners who are themselves learning about working as healthcare professionals and the importance of having people care - in the design, delivery and then hopefully as a result of those, the community learning alongside them.

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20/06/2008 by nicola.

Two situations have happened in the past couple of years where over enthusiasm has resulted in recklessly agreeing to do things which later leave me feeling embarassed and frustrated.
1. Last year - started having early discussions with a person about designing a website for a charity - via a social network, not through the UN online volunteering which is my usual ‘channel’. It all sounded ok at first, was approaching fairly cautiously but at some point I seemed to think it was ok. Hadn’t reached a point where actually agreed to start anything. Just one thing, can’t remember exactly what it was now, but it rang a faint alarm bell, so I decided to google the person and found some references to this particular person on some scam sites.
2. Yesterday met with 2 very nice people who are doing some research into collaboration / collaborative tools and we did have a really great chat. However later found out when got home that the company that they are doing the work for, a large company have previously had a commercial operation which involved staging events - legitimately - but during those events, the nature of those businesses / commercial activity being carried out is something that I personally don’t approve of - at all.

Would like to think that have enough on and offline life experience to stop making bad judgements, but apparently not.

Has 1) made me want to stop volunteering online ? NO WAY. Could 1) ever occur again ? hope not.
What about 2) ?

We have been doing some very experimental stuff with second life at work and one of the students has been researching ethics in second life. We have been discussing how easy it would be have discussions / do stuff with no-one being able to really trace back what was either discussed or done. I am definitely one of the web / online collaboration fans and actively promote this but the reality is that more online collaboration can make it easier for people with crappy motives to carry out their crappy ideas.

I decided to delete my twitter account last night - I will miss the interaction with a mostly amazing bunch of people but there are also a whole bunch of people in my network that I have got no clue about and the idea that even one of them could do something awful makes me feel sick. I don’t know whether I would restart with twitter or not. At one point last night, I was questioning my entire ‘web / online’ use and networks I am in - whether to stay in them or not, whether to shut down the website, this blog etc

I don’t think that would be a sensible approach. There is no doubt that widening access to information and people is of greater benefit - providing networks where people can find, talk, share with others is a great thing and there is the bad side, but hopefully sharing these kinds of things online can lessen the impact of bad stuff being carried out too.

Had a nice ending to this day at least - doing some web2 stuff at work and just asked around our regular VLE user mailing list (we don’t have a formal learning technologies network group ‘online’ formally yet at Surrey, but on its way) if anyone using blogs for either personal or in their teaching / learning and have been flooded with enthusiastic emails from people who have thought about, really want to find out more or have made a start - this was totally unexpected and very cool

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16/06/2008 by nicola.

Learning Circuits Big Q for June is Second Life Training?

This video shows an example of problem based learning in Second Life. For more details of the PREVIEW project, there is a blog available which has more videos, screenshots etc. Professor Maggi Savin-Baden at Coventry University is directing the project.

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16/05/2008 by nicola.

Probably worth reiterating that the views on this post and elsewhere on this site are entirely my own (’cept any unintentional plagiarism) and do not reflect those of my employer. Have also spent limited time putting this post together.

Background - have been following some of the Blackboard commercial practices - from the sidelines over the last year - mostly via Stephen Downes OL Daily.Was asked if wanted to attend Manchester Blackboard conference this week, due to having joined a uni which has a VLE from a company that was acquired by Blackboard, was thought that it would be educational event for me re finding out other unis practices with these etc. I did and it was useful. See also Niall Sclater’s post about this conference.

Still wrestling with concept of Blackboard operating as a commercial entity in the public sector. When asked by BB employees about reaction to the keynotes - attempted to explain this (albeit these were 1-2 min conversations en route to sessions). Response to this was generally along lines of corporate sector operating differently in terms of level of compliance and regulation. In some senses can’t believe that am recommending more regulation but I think its essential.

Why? Blackboard are in a unique position in education. They are operating in over 70 countries and ‘large’ (?) amounts of institutions using them at HE or FE. They were presenting research at the conference (useful research actually, due to being in this highly unique position) having spent time talking to governments and international education bodies. So, it would appear that they can obtain new businesses in new countries because they have a model from a variety of places which can be adopted and especially where countries have an entangled education system, this is very attractive.

Don’t have a problem with the model in principle. Information on their website indicates that they are healthily financially with increased revenue. Are corporate entities in education a bad thing - not necessarily but should have enhanced, independent scrutiny.
If a public sector institution is investing in a corporate solution there are a number of stakeholders who are affected financially - government public spending and linked to this, the tax paying public; students as fee payers etc

Blackboard’s vision on their website is

“Our role is to improve the educational experience with Internet-enabled technology that connects students, faculty, researchers and the community in a growing network of education environments dedicated to better communication, commerce, collaboration and content.

Blackboard’s large and diverse community of practice supports, enhances and extends our offerings every day, all over the world. The Internet offers great potential for education and the educational experience. While our role as the platform is important, communities of practice make the best solutions. The value of the network is connectedness. Each Blackboard client makes every other Blackboard client’s solution more valuable as a result of that connection.”

So to the black hole:

I think they are underselling their influence as a ‘platform’ provider in an institution. A VLE is a strategic technology partner which can directly impact on student achievement and satisfaction. Blackboard are not a blackboard - there was not a huge learning curve for either staff or students to pick up a piece of chalk and scrawl across or read a blackboard and a range of financial and technical backgrounds will not affect learning in the same way.

One might argue that companies such as Microsoft who are also a major corporation in education have similar influence ? i.e. recent cases in Europe regarding anti-competitive, antitrust practices. I disagree that Microsoft have the same direct impact - i.e. as a member of staff or student it is now possible to incorporate technologies into your learning without using a Microsoft product. I would also suggest that direct competition in terms of VLE provision is smaller (at the moment).

I believe that there is a certain amount of ‘chaos’ in education which is why scrutiny / technology governance is fragmented, inconsistent so who becomes accountable ? Does a technology contract and SLA cover this ? I don’t think it goes far enough. To outline further:

When an institution selects a VLE, eLearning / learning technology / Information technology teams spend a large amount of time on training and support (e.g. I’m delivering a day’s training today) and adoption of the VLE may spread across the institution. Staff are roughly in 3 categories

• those with technology proficiency and enthusiasm/interest in new technologies
• those who feel that technology has a role to play but they might have less technology proficiency and experience themselves so approach with extreme caution
• those who have no interest and/or do not see a value of using technology in learning

Students also use a VLE with mixed levels of technology experience/proficiency, devices and usability, accessibility issues too.

Some common themes - some of this from spending time talking to colleagues in other institutions at the conference (some of this is similar to corporate use of LMSs too)

• A large amount of time devoted to preparing, delivering training, technical, learning & teaching support and consultancy with staff
• Staff time involved in designing and monitoring courses on VLE even when training and support available
• Staff trying learning ‘experiments’ with VLE with mixed reactions from students and other colleagues, mixed levels of access and use
• Even when examples of good practices shared, common frustrations also prevalent - could be design, system downtime or other issues
• Use of VLE to complete assessments - highly complex in terms of issues to be discussed, evaluated, especially for summative assessment
• Wider use of other technologies - blogs, wikis, podcasts but often used in conjunction with a VLE
• A view (don’t know how widely held) that HE is not responsible for students technology proficiency, this should have been addressed before entering HE

So who is held responsible for managing these issues and if students don’t achieve what they hoped and/or levels of student satisfaction with use of technology. Staff and students. A platform provider ? Not really. Are VLE’s evil ? Not really. What about other quality assurance bodies ?

This situation in education is unprecedented, dealing with accountability is not.If a business has issues in terms of operation which are affecting its success, accountability can be scrutinised, suggestions made, reported and monitored. When businesses get into trouble, soulsearching - looking at the heart of the issues - rather than glib, general reporting will hopefully result in common sense discussions and actions to improve the situation. Which I guess is why there are four very successful multinational corporations providing these professional services.

Can education scrutinise and report on the actual impact of VLE use - difficult to find evidence of this at the moment - who, how and in what countries ? In the UK there are bodies such as QAA responsible for ‘enforcing’ quality assurance in higher education. For example the Code of Practice - no use of technologies categories - looked at the programme design document and did not find any specific references. There is evidence of international discussion e.g. the recent OECD forumsAlso the report where themes of governance, regulation, impact of technology on performance etc

Looked at four big audit companies websites for further information - there is some about technology governance and public sector governance, but needs further digging to get education specific stuff. There is a recent report from PricewaterhouseCoopers, which is about bigger issues than this, however I think there are parallels in terms of how business and education can work together be regulated in order to achieve successful, public-private partner relationships.

This may seem over the top but as everyone that cares, knows, we don’t have time and money to waste in education, it is too important, too special for individuals and the future workforce in every single nation.

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29/04/2008 by nicola.

Anol Bhattacharya who writes the brilliant SoulSoup blog has shared a link to this Social Networking Wars video

On a related note, am unplugged at home from this Friday for at least a month (or so) going to rediscover the offline world - so have a fantastic month (or so) !

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19/04/2008 by nicola.

This is great news that Andy has started a blog, I’ve been following many great comments and posts he has made on Internet Time Ning community; and been able to apply some of it in my own practices.

3 reasons to read his blog if you haven’t already discovered it:

a) Keeping it real - he does !
b) He gives you advance warning so you can choose whether to read on or not
c) Pigeons give it a nice London feel

On a separate and vaguely related note, I don’t have many blogs listed on the so-called blog roll, but I read tons of them via some pagecasts I have set up on Pageflakes (general, mobile, 3D) and about another 10 learning & business pages also on PageFlakes. I am currently using an internal 1&1 template which does not allow me to add or amend widgets or amend anything on the sidebar of my blog so there are only a few on there. If I ever get round to setting up my own blog from scratch, will change then.

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10/04/2008 by nicola.

Incredible podcast and photos (you feel like you are standing a few metres away, how great it would be there to see that view in person !) from the Baraza blog hearing about the issues caused by the decline in tourism in the area.

More podcasts

I’m saving up for a trip now !

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04/04/2008 by nicola.

I was extremely lucky today to attend a superb course on presenting research at conferences led by Dr Margaret Collins

Also just by chance of them being there - I began to realise that to explain virtual worlds, you needed to explain avatars - and these were on my desk:

Do you remember when you were a child - you used to play with figures - maybe dolls or action figures - Barbie, Ken, it could have been plasticine - and then you maybe took the play aspect further - creating scenarios - it could be police, fire, hospital - role playing different scenarios
. If like me, you did stuff like this - you used to get them to talk to each other - role playing conversations and probably learning experiences too.

Well - forget the technology - for this it doesn’t matter - an avatar in a virtual world is a little ‘figure’ that you manipulate in a very similar way to you did as a child, it doesn’t matter that you are an adult and using a keyboard instead of picking up the figure and moving it around. This doesn’t mean you have to do what you did as a child, but the experience in a virtual world allows you and your avatar to explore - to demonstrate - to ask questions from others and communicate.

Photos taken very quickly with phone and thanks to Margaret for permission to use her training ‘materials’ :-)))

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03/04/2008 by nicola.

LCBQ April: What would you like to do better as a learning professional?
Right now in my current role which I’ve been in since January:

1) Develop better relationships with internal ‘clientele’ so that it feels more like we are shared partners with common goals
2) Celebrate (& sell) wins and achievements amongst the wider internal community
3) Say No - not more, just better

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29/03/2008 by nicola.

We tell stories Digital writing with a difference from Penguin books and Six to Start.

First week was 21 steps using Google Maps - fun way of tracing 21 steps and also gives a great sense that you may not get from images and text in a paper book.
next up was Slice - using blogs and twitter, by following both the girl and her parents separately on twitter, you get an interesting sense of how they all felt.

Remaining week’s classics to be adapted are Fairy Tales, Thérèse Raquin, Hard Times, 1001 Nights.

If that isn’t enough, you have the chance to win 25 metres of Penguin books

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