A tentative move towards technology enhanced Open Space Learning in the Teaching Grid

On Thursday 8th October, I led the opening session for my Multimedia Communications workshops, as part of the MA in International Design and Communication Management (Centre for Cultural Policy Studies).

This is my fifth year teaching these sessions. They have evolved significantly over that time, as I have introduced increasingly sophisticated techniques, software and hardware. Last year I based two sessions in the Teaching Grid's experimental teaching space. This year, I will do two sessions in the Teaching Grid, two sessions in the CAPITAL Centre's studio, four sessions in a traditional IT training suite, and one drop-in session in the CAPITAL Centre's media suite.

The first two sessions aim to rapidly introduce the students to:

• the "design thinking" approaches necessary for successful web design when faced with an unfamiliar and difficult-to-define target audience (iteration, empathic design, prototyping, and the 3 space approach inspiration-ideation-implementation);
• the technologies on offer that can be used to aid the design process, and to rapidly build and test the finished product.

The design task, and the context within which it is undertaken, present the students with many challenges and constraints that can only be met effectively through fast learning, innovation and experimentation, use of physical and virtual space, and team work.

The initial Teaching Grid session was designed to be both challenging and enjoyable, inspiring and ideational. I began slowly (as students found their ways to the room), with introductions and an overview of the task. Initially, we sat around a projector at one end of the room. I demonstrated the course web site and it's Virtual R&D Space. I presented some key slides with quotes and ideas from Tim Brown's Design Thinking article. These had been uploaded as images to a Sitebuilder gallery in the course's V R&D Space. Up to this point the session was largely conventional in format.

I then outlined the task that would fill the rest of the session. I wanted the each student to create a short description about themselves, and post it onto the news section of the Virtual R&D Space. I didn't specify whether this had to be done in groups or individually. Before starting the activity, I introduced a further concept, and a further task.

In his book Ten Faces of Innovation, Tom Kelley of IDEO argues that a successful design and innovation team should consist of a good blend of certain "personas" (e.g. the anthropologist, the experimenter, the cross-polinator). I had created a presentation of the ten faces, as a series of slides in a gallery in the V R&D Space. Each slide had the title of the persona along with a representational image. I presented these with a short explanation. The students were asked to reflect upon the personas during the practical activity, considering how they were working together, and to choose a persona most suited to themselves. I handed out copies of the slides representing each persona, as extra inspiration and as a focus for discussion.

I then let the loose! We had a large wi-fi enabled, user-configurable, space full of technologies: 2 iMacs (with built in cameras), 2 MacBooks, 6 Windows laptops, 2 Smart boards, numerous projectors, whiteboards, and four Sanyo Xacti HD cameras. The students gravitated towards groups. With an open layout, these tended not to be quite so rigidly maintained as is often the case with international students. The students quickly adopted various items of equipment. Two groups clustered around iMacs. Others adopted a laptop each. Several students used the cameras. One pair created an interesting photo of themselves with a whiteboard drawing in the background (a light bulb over one girl's head, and a pair of cartoon eyes-on-stalks for the other). I demonstrated how to use the Apple app PhotoBooth to take photos, modify them with special effects, and upload to a gallery in the V R&D Space. As news messages and images were posted, they appeared on the big screen at one end of the room. I was able to comment verbally on them as they appeared.

This was all met with great excitement and enthusiasm! The open space environment proved to be a great way to get lots of simultaneous experimental activity, while maintaining a cohesion in the group. I had planned for a two hour session. The students had actually been told that it would be three hours long, and didn't seem to mind carrying on.

Finally, I drew the session to a conclusion by getting the students to stand in a wide arc, with each student holding the slide representing their chosen persona. I then filmed as each student (happily) said their name and their chosen persona. The range of chosen personas became clear to everyone. I think that the process of choosing a persona, while undertaking a collaborative activity, will have got them to reflect upon the implications of their choice and how they might work within a design team.

Using a more open and mobile configuration within the Teaching Grid had a positive effect upon the session. For the next session, I will work more on separating "inspiration" and "ideation" spaces and activities.

A further discovery is that Photo Booth is a very useful application in such situations. I am now thinking about how this can be used within the Open Space Learning project. For example, we might have MacBooks on movable height adjustable laptop stands. The students can move a laptop into position, take a photo or video of an activity, review the image, and then upload it. In combination with a simple uploading tool, allowing the addition of keywords and descriptions, this could be very effective.

Robert O'Toole : 11 Oct 2009 23:02 |  Tags: Implementation Learning Spaces Lesson Observations Open Space Learning |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Virtual R&D Space in Sitebuilder inspired by Tim Brown's Design Thinking

Follow-up to Design Thinking – Tim Brown from Inspires Learning - Robert O'Toole

On Thursday I taught the first of this term's Multimedia Communications sessions for the International Design and Communications MA. For the students, the aim of the nine sessions is to create an individual e-portfolio, presenting themselves, their academic and design work to a professional audience. For me, a key aim of the sessions is to try out new techniques and technologies.

This year, I am using the approach described by Tim Brown (of IDEO) in his article Design Thinking. As I explained in a previous entry, Brown recommends thinking of "inspiration", "ideation" and "implementation" as being three distinct activities between which a design team moves (non-sequentially) as required. I am exploring how this might apply in teaching and learning, and what kinds of spaces and technologies might support each distinct type of space.

For the MA students, I have set up a "Virtual R&D Space", as a private sub-section of the area of the course web site in which they will develop their e-portfolios. The space uses several of the quite sophisticated web tools provided by our Sitebuilder web content management and publishing system. We will be able to exchange event data (on a calendar), news messages, create video and audio podcasts (it even has an online recorder), share files, share images (in a gallery), create book reviews, populate a list of links, and create glossary entries. Many of these items include the ability to comment. I might also add a discussion room if necessary. In the second session we will be concept mapping with Mindmanager. A links is provided to our site licenced download. We will be uploading the maps that are created.

Over the forthcoming MA sessions, I will be illustrating how these tools can be used within each of the three "spaces". We will use iMacs in the sessions, with students able to create and upload images, text, audio and movies live in the sessions. I will also be creating, as part of the Open Space Learning project, an Adobe AIR based uploader to make the process of getting content from the Mac to the V R&D Space quicker and simpler.

Click on the image to enlarge

I will publish more screen shots as the space gets populated with content.

Robert O'Toole : 11 Oct 2009 22:13 |  Tags: Article Bibliography Design Methods Implementation Learning Spaces |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Use of microblogging (Twitter) as a research tool

I've just read an interesting article on the use of Twitter as a tool for building narrative representations of the learner experience. It is by Elizabeth Aspden and Louise Thorpe of Sheffield Hallam University, who are researching informal study patterns (i.e. outside of schedules classroom hours) and how students choose and use different learning spaces.

An account of the method was given in a recent edition of Educause Qaurterly¹. They describe how they recruited 15 students for the study. Each student recorded an account of their use of learning space, at least 3 times a day. This was complemented with 3 longer summaries each week, and a final reflective interview.

Out of this they built a series of narratives² outlining a typical day in the life of each student. For example, in Eric's story, we learn that he frequently uses empty classrooms as quiet on-campus study space. Imagine what might happen if, through a change in policy, those classrooms were to be locked when not in use.

This method sounds promising, and I think I will try to use it in my own research. How might it develop in the future? Imagine the students using a wifi enabled multimedia microblogging system to record their events: text, photos, video of their experiences immediately posted for access by the researchers. Come on Apple, build us a iPod Touch with a camera!

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¹ Aspden, E. J. & Thorpe, L. P. "Where do you learn?": Tweeting to Inform Learning Space Development, Educause Quarterly Magazine, Volume 32, Number 1, 2009, http://www.educause.edu/EDUCAUSE+Quarterly/EDUCAUSEQuarterlyMagazineVolum/WhereDoYouLearnTweetingtoInfor/163852 [Accessed 17/08/2009]
² Informal Learning group, Sheffield Hallam University, Informal Learning: Scenarios, http://shulearningspaces.wordpress.com/informal-learning-scenarios/ [Accessed 17/08/2009]

Robert O'Toole : 17 Aug 2009 15:51 |  Tags: Inspiration Methodology |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem