Poetry in blogs

There's a lot of poetry in Warwick Blogs. I will refrain from making aesthetic judgements on a literary form that I know little about. So here's a poem by Pablo Neruda, assuming that his work is the kind of thing that slightly romantic motorcyle travellers should recite. It is followed by details of the css code and how to use it.

.poetry {margin-left:100px; margin-right:50px; font-family:verdana}

The effect of this is to indent the poem text 100px from the left of the blog entry, 50px from the right, and with the font verdana. You can adjust these as required, or leave out elements of the style such as the font. I have written a previous entry on doing this in Warwick Blogs for other effects such as highlighting. A good place to find out about css and other style attributes is the W3Schools css documentation and tutorials.

To apply this style to the poem text, the whole block of text needs to be wrapped in a "div" element with the class "poetry". In the blogbuilder entry editor, this looks as follows:

<div class="poetry">
Leaning into the afternoon, I cast my saddened nets,
towards your oceanic eyes.
…more lines of poetry
</div>

Warning!: make sure that you don't forget the closing </div> tag, otherwise your whole blog will end up looking rather odd.

Robert O'Toole : 20 Jul 2006 06:06 |  Tags: Blogging CSS |  Comments (5) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

The problem of transferable learning technology development – some guiding rules

There is an approach to the development of software known as 'agile' development. Based upon years of painful experience, it priveliges the frequent delivery of quality new features, with constant review and improvement (where strictly necessary), over the master–plans and monoliths that are forever looming up on distant horizons. It is a sensible approach that should perhaps be applied to domains beyond IT. Another of its principles is that rather than trying to satisfy a large number of poorly engaged and un–committed users, it is better to work closely with a small number of closely involved and enthusiastic individuals. This again is a sensible option. Developments thrive on quality feedback, direct from the field, delivered first hand and with the necessary degree of detail.

There is, however, a potential trap in this approach. What if those committed enthusiasts turn out to be mere eccentrics? What if they are unrepresentative of the majority? Perhaps the majority over time will follow their lead? In which case they stop being eccentrics and start becoming early–adopters. Or alternatively, other people may never adopt the new development. In some cases, the correct course of action is to simply seek other enthusiasts, other more promising directions. When one is adding new features/possibilities to an already existing service/pattern–of–behaviours, such change of track is acceptable occasionally. But there is a cost in terms of waisted opportunity, resource, and in people's tolerance of the process. Choosing enthusiasts well is therefore important. When one is initiating entirely new services/patterns–of–behaviours, the problem of who to trust is even more critical. For example, Warwick Blogs was built upon the asumption that a relatively small number of people had a representative and reasonable view claiming that many other people would adopt it once it became available. The innovation seems right to these people. Added to that is some justified belief that it will also transfer beyond that minority, and that this transferability will justify the effort undertaken to get the new service to the point at which a wider range of people can become enthusiasts engaged directly in the development process.

Are then such assumptions of transferability safe? Perhaps sometimes. In some cases the target user population is distributed amongst a very simple ecology – that is to say, there are few differing niches, and similarly few adaptive responses to those niches. Everyone behaves in the same way. Everyone wants the same things. I suggest that the ecology of learning, teaching and research at Warwick is not such a simple ecology. There are in fact multivarious niches, each with a range of overlapping adaptive responses. People here are varied and unique. In fact, as I have argued elsewhere, higher education in Britain is full of such variation. Diversity is encouraged. The result being the demise of the monolithic VLE and the rise of the individually selected mesh of diverse features. Ask a Warwick lecturer in English to describe their ideal learning technology environment and the answer will be different to that of an Oxford lecturer in English, and no doubt different to another Warwick lecturer in English.

The practical result of such diversity is that when given a limited resource and the need to engage and satisfy a large number of people, choosing what services/patterns–of–bahaviour to focus upon is difficult. How is transferability achieved? How do we judge whether we are satisfying an isolated niche or feeding the whole ecology? Difficult, but perhaps there are some guiding rules.

Rule 1

If a smaller number of unrelated users from quite different niches all respond positively to a proposal, or better still come up with the same proposal themselves, then this most likely points to some aspect of the proposal that is transferable across the niches, that has utility and attraction in every case.

This is always more indicative of transferability than when a larger number of users from the same niche back a proposal.

Rule 2

If you want adoption of the proposal to spread more widely than these few diverse people, then a second rule is necessary.

It is quite possible, in an ecology like Warwick, for people to occupy similar or tightly–knit niches, but in significantly different ways. Take two lecturers in philosophy, look at how they prepare lectures, and it's likely that you will see some dramatic differences. Therefore the second rule is: identify the current behaviour of each of the interested users to see just how the proposal fits in, consider how common this is to other people in their vicinity, and ask whether that will make a difference to its adoption within their niche. Just how typical is the relevant behaviour of philosophy Lecturer A in comparison to other philosophy lecturers? Looking at this from another perspective: is there anything that blocks other philosophy lecturers from adopting the proposal that has been adopted by Lecturer A?

Rule 3

In some cases, rule 2 would seem to indicate that transferability is unlikely. Philosophy Lecturer A cannot transfer their new found technique to people in their immediate vicinity. It may however still be worthwhile to other people. In such cases we should seek or create lines of transferability that link up isolated people in separate localities, perhaps with other things in common. For example, the PhD student ePortfolios brings together individuals with isolated needs from many locations.

I am certain that there are other useful guidelines. Feedback would be most welcome.

_

1. services are always coupled with behaviour patterns, never think of them simply as assemblages of features, as those features are only meaningful when used.

Robert O'Toole : 19 Jul 2006 23:12 |  Tags: Agile Development E-Learning Warwick University |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Do digital natives have differently wired brains?

Writing about web page /johndale/entry/digital_natives/

Writing about an entry you don't have permission to view

What is the relationship between interior design and learning technology?

At the moment there are two big concerns that are occupying my thinking. The most pressing of these is the need to reorganize our large three–story four bedroom house so that the generously portioned spaces within it start to support the kinds of activities and lifestyle that we want. My biggest demand of a home is that it be a place in which I can write. It must contain a writing studio, with all of the elements that make up such a place. Not being an [entirely] selfish person, I also want it to accomodate the extremely adventurous spirit of a one year old baby (one day he will climb Everest), and an overworked KS1 co–ordinating teacher/wife. The second of my big concerns is the question: how do we make a digitally native university? – and the implied question: what does it mean to be digitally native? There is a genuine and interesting connection between these problems.

The interior design problem forces me to reflect on how I get things done. What is my learning/doing/creating/writing style? I do certainly lean towards the connector end of the academic connector/dissector continuum. My process is as follows:

1. Rambling, mooching, bimbling and fiddling;
2. With occasional frenetic and concentrated bursts of activity, gluing things back together and boiling them down.

If you were to watch me work, you would see much more of the type 1 behaviours. You would also be surprised by the amount of space that it takes up. My ideal writing environment contains lots of different materials (books, papers, photos, artworks, maps, etc), all open and spread out for long periods of time. I'm not an indexer. I don't have a system. I'm a haptic/tactile kind of thinker. I make a big mess of fragments, each of which may have post–it notes or scraps of paper attached. Plus there are cups of coffee and items of food. However it certainly isn't total chaos. I always have a mental map of what has been discovered and laid out. And I don't want that map to be disturbed, because it is the thinking process. My thinking process is what cognitive scientist Andy Clark calls extended cognition

And furthermore, this is never a stationary process. I wander around. I sit in odd positions. I look out of the window. I walk in the garden and beyond. Until suddenly a tipping–point is reached and I sit down and write. And after that? More wanderings, with occasional trips back to the computer to edit the text with some correction or new insight.

That then describes how I work. It is, I believe, how many other people work, both now and in the past. Although few people have taken this art to the extremes of Francis Bacon's studio. There is, however, gathering support for the notion that 'young people today' are cognitively different, that they think in a different way. Marc Prensky has invented a pair of terms that encapsulate this difference: digital natives and digital immigrants. The proposition is this: people who grow up in an environment built from online and digital technologies have thought patterns that are significantly different to the previous generation. It is claimed that they are less concentrated, that they multitask most of the time, that they process a wider range of sources, that they tag (categorise with keywords) or discard more readily. There is then a claimed generational difference, one that must be at least challenged by my interior design requirement, for I have realised that there is actually little difference between the so-called digital native approach and my old-fashioned paper-centric approach. There is definitely a difference, but first we should dispel the conjecture that there is a fundamental cognitive difference. Andy Clark has demonstrated that there are many such forms of 'extended cognitive apparatus' some of which work in this way and which have done so for many years. Digital online technologies are just the latest addition. There is no revolution in the structure of our brains.

There is, however, still an obvious difference. The apparatus of extended cognition have been extended significantly. The physical/haptic space merges into a digital space of unlimited depth. The question of whether this new digital space can ever overtake the non–digital is significant in itself. I would argue that software still cannot replace my writing studio. Except in one very significant way. Few people will ever visit my physical space, but tools like Warwick Blogs allow it to be extended into a potentially huge social network, with much greater possibility for collaboration in the thinking process. I argue then that this is the real aspect that marks out the digital native: a greater ability to collaborate and to manage collaboration using digital and online technologies.

: 18 Jul 2006 12:23 |  Tags: Culture E-Learning Education Tech Warwick University |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Research Notes: A desert delirial materialism in Seven Pillars of Wisdom

Follow-up to Research Notes: Spinoza and desert asceticism, Kant and the urban sublime from Transversality - Robert O'Toole

Into the sources of my energy of will I dared not probe. The conception of antithetical mind and matter, which was basic in the Arab self-surrender, helped me not at all. I achieved surrender (so far as I did achieve it) by the very opposite road, through my notion that mental and physical were inseparably one: that our bodies, the universe, our thoughts and tactilities were conceived in and of the molecular sludge of matter, the universal element through which form drifted as clots and patterns of varying density. It seemed to me unthinkable that assemblages of atoms should cogitate except in atomic terms. My perverse sense of values constrained me to assume that abstract and concrete, as badges, did not denote oppositions more serious than Liberal and Conservative. The practice of our revolt fortified the nihilist attitude in me. During it, we often saw men push themselves or be driven to a cruel extreme of endurance: yet never was there an intimation of physical break. Collapse rose always from a moral weakness eating into the body, which of itself, without traitors from within, had no power over the will. While we rode we were disbodied, unconscious of flesh or feeling: and when at an interval this excitement faded and we did see our bodies, it was with some hostility, with a contemptuous sense that they reached their highest purpose, not as vehicles of the spirit, but when, dissolved, their elements served to manure a field. p.468

: 10 Jul 2006 07:02 |  Tags: Delirial Materialism Glory Lawrence Of Arabia Philosophy Research Shame Transversality |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

The ideal inbox

Writing about web page /chrismay/entry/bow_down_before/

Writing about an entry you don't have permission to view

If it were completely empty, it would look like a fake. I should add that the emails that I have just deleted were where necessary responded to. And furthermore, I do get some very interesting emails from some very interesting people. However, I am making an effort to encourage people to use appropriate channels of communication, such as this blog (when responding to specific ideas), the E-learning at Warwick forum or other forums, telephone, and better still, personal contact (see me in Raffles, University House cafe, Xanana's etc).

Another part of the solution is to have a convenient but capable tool for recording the information contained in the emails that get deleted. For this I use the MindMananager concept mapping tool.

: 07 Jul 2006 14:38 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Who wags the long tail of diversified supply and demand?

The long tail model claims that the following three modifications to capitalism have occured as a result of new technology:

1. Democratize the tools of production – cheap and easy tools for creating products;
2. Cutting the cost of consumption – make distribution cheaper;
3. Connect supply and demand – the availibilty of mechanisms that connect consumers and producers amongst the complex and diverse marketplace.

The first two effects are quite obviously happening, leading to the so called 'long tail' on supply–demand curve, in which niche producers proliferate. However, the nature of the third point is contentious. A naive view would claim that these mechanisms are emergent from some increasingly self–organised and democratic network effect. I disagree. My account argues that in fact the long tail is simply the product of corporate capitalism becoming more sophisticated in dealing with massively increased and rapid demand, thus avoiding stagnation of products and consumer desire. I argue as follows:

1. The number of individual consumers has increased massively. There are simply more people with more money able to buy more units.
2. Each individual has more time in which to purchase products. Indeed the line between the activity of shopping (until recently considered to be a form of work occupied by the housewife) and leisure has dissolved, with a continuum between shopping for necessity and shopping for fun.
3. Demand has therefore increased, but not necessarily in favour of niche producers against big brands. Rather, for most people, the big brands have just got bigger, alongside more peripheral spaces for niche products.
4. And furthermore, the majority of people balance a set of big brands, against a set of niche products. The big brands are usually the products that must be bought quickly with as little hassle as possible, but with the ensuing degree of lock–in. The niche products are less essential, and hence can be treated with more consideration, greater risk but less lock–in.
5. The corporations behind the big brands are entirely supportive of this second parallel set of markets. The availability of a diversity of peripheral products helps corporations in identifying and developing new desires and new products, without the cost and risk of full scale core product [re]development. The corporations know that they can use scale and association with celebrity to engender their products with a degree of recognitional legitimacy and trustworthiness, giving a competitive edge over niche producers amongst a shifting and fragmented population for whom simplicity and consistency are rare and valued. In fact it may be that as the tail extends, consumers increasingly struggle to navigate a complex market place, and are driven again back to simple brands and recognisable labels, albeit ones that constantly mutate around their core identity. The trick that big corporations must master is this: allow consumers enough slack to explore new niche markets, but prime them with values, symbols and identities that allow the consumers to act as a bridge through which the new territories can be colonised if required.

Robert O'Toole : 07 Jul 2006 01:27 |  Tags: Long Tail Networks |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Blogs in Learning Research Symposium – agenda first draft

A more final, but still draft agenda can be seen in the e-learning web site.

Feedback?

If you are already an invited participant, then please feel free to comment on whether this fits your interests, and if there is anything missing.

If you want to come to all or part of the session, then please contact me, we might have some spaces left.

Robert O'Toole : 04 Jul 2006 16:35 |  Tags: Blog Research Blogging E-Learning Warwick University |  Comments (3) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

The power of Warwick Blogs 2

Writing about Google results from Blogbuilder news

He was, I immediately understood, a researcher from a television production company. They are in the early stages of developing a documentary about birdsong. It seems that they are interested in questions concerning the role of birdsong in art and music. The very interesting David Rothenberg provides the starting point, but the researchers are discovering many connections, including Paul Klee's twittering machine, Deleuze and Guattari's Of The Refrain, Olivier Messiaen, and of course that magnificent song cycle Aerial by Kate Bush.

So, TV researcher, what then is your method? Try these Google searches and instantly see the power of Warwick Blogs:

• Birdsong philosophy
• Birdsong Klee
• Birdsong Deleuze
• Birdsong Kate Bush

The interview was fascinating. He asked about birdsong and philosophy. I talked about Of The Refrain and the role of sound, rhythm and birdsong in D&G's philosophy. He asked the big question: do birds sometimes sing just for pleasure (yes was my answer, but justified by an argument concerning the limits of biological functionalism and the drivers behind evolution). I talked about nocturnal birdsong as a penetrating a–visual deterritorialized refrain, and how the refrain works as a minimal and portable germ of territory carried across night and day (and how that idea drives Aerial).

All of these ideas I have developed in my blog. Some of these ideas may soon in some small way help to shape a television documentary that promises to be fascinating. All because I use Warwick Blogs.

: 04 Jul 2006 06:53 |  Tags: Birdsong BlogBuilder Blogging Kate Bush Refrain |  Comments (2) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Thematic Navigation and Contextual Navigation

Firstly, some definitions:

Of course such convoluted routes are usually circumvented through the use of bookmarks. The user jumps right into the required context, or at least one close enough to it so as to save time. In such cases other tricks are required to speed up the communication of context. In the Sitebuilder web content management system, each sub site (department, research project, sometimes course and sometimes even individual modules) have their own visual design (within the boundaries allowed by Sitebuilder). This design provides instant visual contextualisation. Warwick Blogs, however, is much more flat in terms of context. Each individual blog has its selected design (sometimes customised) and title. All entries are presented in that context. Even pages that represent entries with a single tag vary little in contextualisation. So for example, my Philosophy Research page looks just like my Baby Lawrence O-Toole page.

Thematic navigation may therefore connect content across contexts. This has obvious advantages, in that related content is automatically aggregated together. But more interestingly for learning and teaching, it encourages the end user to view related content from different contexts, and consider the differences between those contexts explicitly. So for example, a topic may appear in the module of a lecturer in Continental Philosophy, and in a module by a lecturer in Analytic Philosophy.

An obvious question to raise at this point is this: surely this could be achieved by the student doing a free–text search of all of the pages (or even the whole web)? Yes, but, if each of the lecturers were to consciously assign themes to their pages from a pre–figured set of themes (possibly even a taxonomical model), and the student were provided with that model as a guide to understanding the course, then they are given clearly specified and consistent concepts for understanding a diverse set of content or activities. This happens to be an important and widely respected pedagogical method. Curricula are in fact often designed as a combination of contextual navigation (modules, lectures, seminars, assessments) and thematics that run across those contexts (skills, concepts, competencies, objectives, values etc). Almost all of the modules that I am asked to look at work in this way. A diverse series of activities is undertaken, which have their own developmental logic. But alongside that diversity, a core set of concepts (often skills) are supposed to be the objective focus of development. However, frequently the problem is that the students and lecturers do not understand the themes, or lose sight of them in the diversity.

Robert O'Toole : 30 Jun 2006 13:49 |  Tags: Contextual Navigation E-Learning Networks Thematic Navigation Warwick University Web Design |  Comments (2) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Web publishing channels of communication

Follow-up to How to write a communications strategy from Transversality - Robert O'Toole

My table maps each of the following channels/technologies:

Static web site (Sitebuilder)

• Department
• Module
• ePortfolio

Blog, web log, online journal (Warwick Blogs)

• Individual
• Team

Discussion forum (Warwick Forums)

• Public
• University wide
• Restricted group

Interview or recording

• Podcast (MP3 recorder, Sitebuilder)
• Online video (Video camera, Sitebuilder)

Against these parameters:

• Owners (in order) – in each case what type of person[s] has ownership of the channel? For example, an individual blog is owned by a single person;
• Broad or narrow cast?– is content aimed at an unspecified wide audience (broadcast) or a known/delimited audience (narrowcast);
• Audiences – who is it typically used for;
• Update pattern – summative or accumulative? Accumulative channels add new content to old (blog), rather than replacing it.
• Visual design – how does the look get determined? How much control do the owners have?

You can download the file from the E-learning at Warwick web site Please feel free to redistribute it as needed.

Robert O'Toole : 30 Jun 2006 11:01 |  Tags: Communications E-Learning ITS Warwick University |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Four case studies in copyright and intellectual property rights

Follow-up to More about how you can use copyrighted material for free in criticism or review from Transversality - Robert O'Toole

Case Study 1

During her summer vacation, a lecturer in aesthetics visits the Fundacio Miró in Barcelona. It is a very relaxed gallery, with no major security presence and none of the ugly signs that pollute the nearby MNAC gallery with warning of criminal charges to be levied at anyone who breaks the rules. On seeing one of the paintings, the lecturer realises that it could form the basis of a lecture. She quickly takes a photograph of the painting. No one seems to mind. Later she finds an internet cafe, and logs into her module web pages on Sitebuilder at Warwick. She uploads the photo of the artwork, and adds it to the resources page for the lecture in which she plans to discuss the artwork. The page has its security permissions set so that only Warwick staff and students can access it. The image will only be used in teaching of the module.

Has she done anything wrong? If so, what do you think she should have done?

Case Study 2

A research student attends a lecture on cognitive science by a visiting lecturer from Edinburgh. Many of the colleagues in the student's research network are unable to attend, for either timetable reasons, or because they are at other universities. It all seems very exciting, a new theory about how intelligence is founded upon its extension into materials and tools in the world beyond the brain. The visiting speaker is particularly excited about some new examples that he has discovered that will answer the many existing criticisms of such a theory. He explains that he will very soon be publishing a book that details these ideas in full. He expects this to be the most important book in its field ever to be published. However, despite his excitement, he feels the need to try out some of the ideas with a small number of other researchers. He therefore elaborates upon these new discoveries in his lecture. The research student finds that these ideas fit very well with his own work. He also knows that his colleagues at Warwick and beyond will find new impetus to their research from these new ideas. It offers a chance to really bring together all of these people. After the lecture he quickly finds a computer and writes a blog entry to explain everything that he has learnt. His friends all across the world are able to read about these great new ideas right away.

What will the effects of his actions be? Would you do anything differently?

Case Study 3

A lecturer is an active member of a discussion forum hosted in the Warwick Forums system. The forum is open to all members of the university. It is a very popular forum, with people from across Engineering and the Warwick Manufacturing Group participating. Such a diverse collaboration of knowledge and skills often leads to new perspectives on old problems. One particular problem seems to be quite intractable, so the lecturer posts a long description of it on the forum. She already has some possible solutions, but just needs a little input from elsewhere. The tactic works, an MSc student offers an unusual insight that inspires a solution from the lecturer. A journal paper follows, along with, a year later, an unusual email from the exams secretary. The student has been accused of plagiarising from the journal article. The plagiarism seems to be quite clever, but the ideas are the same and a few sentences are shared. When the lecturer looks at the student's essay, it appears that some of it has been copied from the forums discussion.

What factors should be considered in resolving this? What could have been done differently?

Case Study 4

A researcher regularly writes short articles and publishes them on her blog using Warwick Blogs. The articles usually attempt to make some connection between her work on the history of the Middle East and current events in the news. The blog becomes a popular read for many specialists in the area. After some time, the lecturer is contacted by a friend who asks how she managed to get her work published on the web site of a slightly extreme Islamic student's organisation in France. She is baffled. On looking at the url, she finds a blog like web site, mostly in Arabic, with one of her articles sitting in the middle of the page, surrounded on all sides by arabic, of which she can decipher nothing. The article is about the Arab Revolt of 1916, and the coordinated attacks on trains that were an essential part of it. She is a little concerned, as she has absolutely no idea what kind of context her work is being presented in. It is attributed to her, with a url link to her blog, but it seems to be a very different article when presented out of its original context.

How do you think this happened? Do you think it is likely? Has anything illegal been done? How would you respond?

Has anyone got any other opinions on these cases?

Robert O'Toole : 20 Jun 2006 15:44 |  Tags: Copyright E-Learning Warwick University |  Comments (2) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

More about how you can use copyrighted material for free in criticism or review

Follow-up to Neat tricks for dealing with copyright? from Transversality - Robert O'Toole

Note: I am not a lawyer. You should not regard this article as providing perfect and sufficient advice.

Permitted use for criticism and review

British copyright legislation includes some significant protection of what could be conceived as "free speech". The use of copyrighted material for criticism and review is an essential component of this.

Clearly the legislation is vital in such an extreme case. But it is also intended as a general support to activities of criticism and review. It supports all such open debate, and is thus essential in supporting the very essence of arts education and research.

Limitations on fair dealing for criticism and review

We can therefore safely reproduce copyrighted materials if such an act is essential to criticism and review. There are, however, restrictions. The first of these is stated clearly by Raymond A Wall in his very useful book Copyright Made Easier:

Copying or quoting a sufficient extent or significance to render consultation of the original unnecessary or less necessary would be unlikely to be judged 'fair' in court. Wall 2000, p177

There are two aspects to this limitation. The most easily understood of these is the limitation on the quantity of material copied. Most people are familiar with the idea that they cannot copy an entire book, play, movie, song or other such production. There are commonly accepted definitions of this regarding the quantity that can be copied from a book. However, this is in fact much less important than the second aspect. It isn't the quantity that really matters, it is the significance of the copied excerpt.

Note that "significance" is entirely a matter of judgement, until the damage has been done. Any use of copyrighted material in criticism or review may be challenged by the copyright holders in court. There is therefore always a risk in using this defence.

Protecting the moral rights of the author

Whenever we use a copyrighted work for criticism or review, we are still compelled to protect the 'moral rights' of the author. For example:

Any reproduction must be accompanied by sufficient acknowledgement. Wall 2000, p177

We must also ensure that we do not distort or misrepresent the author or their works. This limitation is quite significant. Authors can argue that the presentation of an edited or extracted part of their work presents it wrongly. Artists frequently use this moral right to object to their work being presented on screen. Again this is a matter of judgement. Our best defence is to seek advice from the author as to what is acceptable, and to explain in the criticism or review that the presentation of the artwork in the reproduced sample is only a partial representation of it.

Robert O'Toole : 16 Jun 2006 11:57 |  Tags: Copyright E-Learning Warwick University |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Baby Report: Four amazing things

He's got rhythm

For a few months Lawrence has been able to hit a drum with a beater, shake a tamborine in time, and in the last month clap his hands. This morning I saw him reach into his toy box, and tap the various bars of a xylophone. This wasn't accidental, and he obviously got great joy from hitting the different notes. After a minute, I took the xylophone out of its packet and set it down in front of him with it's beater. He played it for several minutes.

Setting a challenge

Lawrence cannot yet crawl. He seems to be putting all of his effort into learning to walk. This is not at all surprising as at nursery he is surrounded all day by children who can walk. We can even see him watching and copying the feet of walkers. Sadly, when he does need to crawl, all that he can do is twist and lurch forwards in an uncoordinated manner. However, he does try. And even more surprising, is the way in which he seems to set himself targets in order to make the effort more focussed. This morning I watched as he repeatedly threw small blocks away, in some cases just far enough to stretch to, in others far enough to require a small shuffle, and occassionally, so far that he needed to make a significant effort and almost crawl to fetch them. He is already setting himself challenges that are a little beyond his grasp.

Dissect and connect

Lawrence seems to have a natural ability to pull things apart. Building blocks, the limbs off cuddly toys, parts of my laptop, all have been dissected with great expertise. Fortunately he is now showing some interest in putting things back together. Recently I watched as he held two building blocks, moved them together with the connecting ends in the required orientation, twisted one around to fit the other, and pushed them together so that they locked. To encourage such a constructive attitude, we have now provided him with a set of lego, and an excelent toy from the Boots Basics range: a ball into which variously shaped blocks can be fitted, so long as each block is manipulated into the appropriately shaped hole. The foundations of mathermatics perhaps?

A powerful attractor

And finally, his favourite game: lovely ladies. I should explain, the rules are as follows:

1. sit in a crowded place, such as a cafe;
2. look around for a likely candidate, preferably a woman with long hair and a big smile;
3. fix her with a powerful and unflinching stare until she notices and looks back bemused;
4. if necessary, do a loud "excuse me" kind of cough;
5. just as she starts to look baffled at the behaviour of such an odd baby, start to smile and laugh.

The result is always the same. The technique renders the target completely helpless, and she walks over in admiration and behaves in such a way as to clearly indicate "want baby now". Amazing, and a trick that I have never been able to perform. Perhaps I should video the performance and sell it as an instructional guide to attracting women? Please note that I have so far resisted the temptation to exploit the results of Lawrence's work.

To illustrate this, I have taken a photo. For your own safety, it is taken at an oblique angle rather than looking directly into his eyes. However, if you are female and want to resist Lawrence's hypnotic stare, I suggest that you look away now:

Robert O'Toole : 12 Jun 2006 06:27 |  Tags: Baby Lawrence O-Toole |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Neat tricks for dealing with copyright?

Follow-up to E–learning Research: copyright and the principle of fair dealing in education from Transversality - Robert O'Toole

Firstly a statement: I'm not a lawyer! This may be imperfect advice, so do not rely on it, make your own judgements.

Richard started the day by stating that, although he has lots of expertise in the field of IPR and copyright, he is not a lawyer. So the person responsible for managing rights in the UK's most content dependent university is just an ordinary person on an ordinary salary. This kind of work can be done without constant recourse to expensive lawyers. As the session proceeded, Alma and Richard demonstrated how they are constantly required to give advice as to what is acceptable. It seems that they have a good body of knowledge and experience upon which to safely proceed, getting legal support where necessary.

Alma then stepped through, in an effective way, the implications of UK copyright legislation. The details of what is not permitted were clarified. This was quite familiar to me, except for the details of two 'restricted acts':

• providing means for making infringing copies;
• authorising infringement.

I asked for more detail on these, raising a familiar example:

What if a university provided a web publishing facility to all of its staff and students, and one of them used it as a means for making infringing copies?

The response was that the university should have:

1. a set of terms and conditions, agreed to by all members, that prohibit such acts;
2. mechanisms for guiding users in understanding the legality of their acts;
3. an effective complaints mechanism, and a swift "take down" policy, so that illegal content can be removed as soon as a complaint is received.

Warwick does well on points 1 and 3, which are relatively easy to do. All members must sign an agreement. We also have an effective complaints and take–down procedure (in Warwick Blogs there is a Report a Problem link, and in all systems content is easily attributable). However, the second point is much more difficult. We assume that users understand blatant copyright abuse, but it seems that they are poorly educated on the more complex issues such as breach of moral right.

Permitted acts – using copyrighted material without permission

And so we first received the bad news: copyright is both strict and pervasive. Alma softened the blow by explaining some of the 'permitted acts' that allow us to use copyrighted material without necessarily having permission. It should be noted at this stage that:

• the existence of permitted acts should not be used as an excuse to avoid having an effective copyright clearance process, as permitted acts are in fact quite rare, and always need to be thought about carefully.

As I have explained in the past, the most well known permitted act, the right to use content for private study or research, does not actually permit the use of copyrighted material in teaching or online. I'm surprised by just how often people who really should know better get this wrong.

There are some useful permitted acts. For example, we can copy an 'insubstantial' part of a copyrighted object. This is commonly taken to simply mean a specific percentage or a certain number of words. There are some accepted conventions, but unfortunately they are misleading. For example, if I were to reproduce online the most significant 400 words from a book of a thousand pages, I would be quite seriously in breach of copyright. If my act of copying damaged the commercial success of the book then things could get quite expensive for me.

A second permitted act is potentially much more useful. It may be possible to reproduce copyrighted material if that reproduction is for the purpose of criticism or review. This again is a matter of judegement. The copied material must be essential to the purpose, not incidental, although it is not necessarily the case that the review has to be about the copied material.

I want to investigate just how far this permitted use can be taken. I suspect that much of what happens in the Arts Faculty is in fact criticism and review. The key is to make sure that the content is used in this way. For example, if a lecturer uploads a copyrighted image to a web site, but immediately makes a critical assessment of that image, is that then a permitted act? Also, it must not breach the moral rights of the author. I shall investigate.

In the second half of the course, Richard explained the copyright clearance process employed by the Open University. Content creators at the OU are expected to refer all possible uses of copyrighted material to the rights management team. The OU employs full time specialists to perform this role. Obviously the OU is content dependent, but as other universities become more digitally native, they should consider if they also require such an office. As Richard explained, there role goes beyond copyright clearance, they must help content authors prioritise. They suggest identifying early on which copyrighted material is most central to the content, so that more time and money can be spent upon obtaining clearance. The clearance process itself is greatly assisted by having full time experts who understand contracts and have many contacts within the business.

Robert O'Toole : 07 Jun 2006 15:06 |  Tags: Copyright E-Learning Warwick University |  Comments (8) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

What does it mean to be digitally native?

We do a lot of work on the assumption that the wider use of ‘e-learning’ or ‘learning technology’ is necessarily a good thing. This of course needs some explication and justification. Our founding claim is that learning, teaching and research (LTR) can be significantly enhanced with the application of appropriate digital and online technologies by staff and students for whom those technologies are self-evidently obvious and natural.

LTR activities are usually collaborative. The use of technologies within such collaborative activities requires that the various partners are comfortable and capable with the tools used. Each collaborator can be skilled to a varying extent, with some super-users leading the way. But experience shows that the more widely the skills are spread, the better the uptake of the technology, and the more effective it is in enhancing the activity.

The concept of ‘digitally native’ is useful. My conjecture is that the more people who are ‘digitally native’ the more effective the technologies can be in enhancing these collaborative activities. Steve Carpenter (Sciences E-learning Advisor) introduced me to the term ‘digital native’, and its antithesis ‘digital immigrant’. The terms, it seems, were invented by Marc Prensky (CEO of Games2Train and author of Digital Game-Based Learning). You can read more in his article Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants in which he makes the more dramatic claim that there is a mismatch between digital native students and the digital immigrants who teach them. I’m not going to assess this claim. Rather, I want to give a more explicit definition of what it means to be digitally native, as a means to outline a vision of where I think the university should be in five years time.

What qualifies someone as being ‘digitally native’? A simple set of skills, employing the best available technologies. The digital native does the following:

1. produce and store quality content (text, images, audio, video, diagrams, databases etc), with consideration of its presentation online;
2. share content online, in an appropriate location and with appropriate security constraints (considering legal, moral and inter-personal issues);
3. where responsible, maintain, update and remove content;
4. structure the relations between content items;
5. classify and describe content to make it more meaningful and useful;
6. locate, assess and use shared content;
7. edit and extend, comment upon, filter, and recommend to others;
8. record and reflect upon their own work and that of others as represented by their online activities;
9. create,define and manage networks of other online people;
10. build up an electronic portfolio and profile;
11. present samples of online work;
12. reflect upon this work, in collaboration with others, so as to identify strengths, weaknesses, and actions for improvement (informally, or formally as peer review).

My assessment of the Arts Faculty at Warwick is that it is edging slowly towards being digitally native, but progress is slow, and in some areas non-existent. This pace is surprising, considering the technologies and services that are available. We have a reliable and increasingly extensive web architecture (Sitebuilder, Forums, Blogs), which is well supported and increasingly ubiquitous. There are also many isolated examples of successful technology enhancement of learning, teaching and research. But these remain isolated. Prensky would argue that the big blocker to a digitally native university is that the majority of the people who do the teaching and set examples to be followed are in fact digital immigrants.

Robert O'Toole : 07 Jun 2006 12:29 |  Tags: E-Learning Key Entry Warwick University |  Comments (7) |  Close comments |  Report a problem