All 13 entries tagged E-Learning

Warwick better than Oxford?

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

OK, some of my friends work at Oxford University Computing Services. But when I heard they are starting a blogging project, I jokingly said that 'we got there first'. To which one of them replied 'it's not a competition'.

We have a lot in common with them. Warwick and Oxford generally use an approach called 'research based teaching' which is very different and much more advanced than most other UK universities. It also expects more from the students. Blogging, we think, could be an essential element in that. And lots of others around the world are starting to agree. So despite the fact that we should work with them, it's still nice to be able to say that we're surpassing them.

A friendly rivalry!

But of course it all depends on the quality of the entries. So maybe the Warwick Bloggers can help to make us the best in Britain.

spanish america

Robert O'Toole : 19 Oct 2004 08:25 |  Tags: E-Learning Warwick University |  Comments (4) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

The future of creativity software

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

Steve Rumsby's entry about note-taking tools that can supplement and extend blogs, along with the ensuing discussion, has made me realise just how close we are to seeing the emergence of software that supports creativity in a way that will revolutionise how we work. I think there are three key aspects to this that are being actualised in separate systems, but which at some point soon will converge.

1. Sophisticated systems for organising ideas and notes into a variety of useful rhizomatic structures. Microsoft OneNote provides a platform for recording large numbers of connected-up notes. Concept and mind mapping tools offer new ways of forming links. And the 'write follow-up' functionality in Warwick Blogs offers limited concept mapping that I hope to see become more sophisticated;
2. The software is becoming increasingly outward-resource focussed. Sampling and commenting on external resources is essential. OneNote allows the user to take screen-clippings and include them in their notes. Warwick Blogs has reviews, 'blog-this' trackbacks etc.
3. We are finding ways to extend the 'track-back- principle to other resources, and possibly all resources. For example, some of our new learning objects can be recorded in the users blog, giving the individual a record of what they have done. But we would also like there to be a link from the learning object to view all of the available blog recordings of it in the system. Students could then compare results. Maybe they could even see a graph of all results. This principle could easily be extended so that it is possible to see all of the blog entries about a web page, or even about a paragraph in a page. You could see all of the responses to something in one place. So a lecturer could ask all of their students to blog a critical response to a text or even an image. Essentially this is a way of achieving shared-notetaking. Track-back is powerful, and their are many ways in which it could be used.

Taken together, these three developments will see a new way for individuals to develop their own creativity in their own controlled space (one of the core principles of higher education). But at the same time it will be externally focussed and connected up with other learners and researchers.

Robert O'Toole : 17 Oct 2004 10:00 |  Tags: E-Learning Warwick University |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Blogs as writing and research tools in the academic process

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

This is a response to Steve Rumsby's really interesting entry on blogs, wikis and note taking. Read his entry, it's really interesting.

Hi Steve. I'm currently experimenting with developing academic work in my blog. This is so that we can identify the next stages of the development of our e-learning architecture. That is to say, an e-learning architecture that is appropriate to Warwick's 'research-based teaching and learning'. You might have seen entries appearing by me that are essentially loosely connected sets of notes on the reading that I am doing (in preparation for a PhD on the nature of creativity). In some cases these are well worked out critical asessments, and in other cases they are just assemblages of quotes (must get one of those scanner-pens). But as you say, our blogging system doesn't quite offer the meta-tools to bring this note-taking process together. The 'write follow-up' function is good, but is missing two key things:

1) the ability to write an entry that is a follow up of more than one entry – the essential summarisation function;
2) a means for viewing a model of the linked entries.

We may also need to consider more detailed categorisation.

So we are just starting to think about this, and have in principle accepted that in the medium to long term we may do some development on it. I'm hoping at some point (when I can actually have time to do some dev work) to create a Flash diagramming tool that will present a model of the relationships between entries. We already have the xml feed that this will be based upon. However, now that you've brought OneNote to our attention, i'll have a look at that and see what else we can do.

The link to WiKi's is also something we are exploring, and we are piloting a use of SiteBuilder in which PhD students will get to develop and ePortfolio, and importantly, blog about the process of developing the ePortfolio.

At the weekend i'm doing some blog induction sessions that will intro grad students to the system, so i'll report back on my findings.

Robert O'Toole : 15 Oct 2004 10:00 |  Tags: E-Learning Warwick University |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Guerrilla PDP

No explanation, I'm just using this entry to establish that I'm the first person anywhere to use this phrase. One day it will be the title of a conference paper, and then perhaps a book. Although I suspect that the highly acclaimed IT training company Developmentor have somehow patented this kind of title (they do Guerrilla Java, Guerrilla SQL etc).

Updated 18/10/04

OK, an explanation then. PDP means personal development process. It refers to an organised and clearly identified process of personal development that students are expected to follow during their courses. Having some kind of formal approach to PDP is now a requirement for UK universities set by the QAA. PDP involves recording and reflecting on progress, choices etc. That's why blogs are useful for it. Here's an article that explains it.

The guerrilla part of the phrase refers to the fact that, in a university that is as subject and department focussed as Warwick, we have to sneak in components of PDP sureptitiously.

Robert O'Toole : 12 Oct 2004 08:43 |  Tags: E-Learning Warwick University |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

What are blogs for? Much more than ranting.

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

The response to Warwick Blogs from people who have already been blogging for a while (using other systems) highlights the fact that we are seeing a major evolution in the purpose and scope of blogging. As a response to a debate concerning this, I wrote that…

We are also seeing people using blogs in quite a different way to the traditional 'peronal soapbox' blogging. We are actively encouraging this evolution. In many cases, these new kinds of blogs don't really need comments, although they may still welcome comments. For example, I might use my blog to record a meeting in a group project. This is useful in many ways, for the group itself, and to let a wider range of people know what is going on.

Expecting every entry to demand a response or an argument is a mistake. That must be a bit of a surprise to people who have been blogging for a while. Some of the responses to Warwick Blogs that we've seen from traditional bloggers have reflected that surprise. We are, however, keen to get this message across, as the traditional approach to blogging may discourage many people from using what is essentially a general-purpose writing tool for which they need to find their own uses.

The extensive marketing campaign that we have used for the Warwick Blogs system has been motivated by the need to engage a much wider range of people in using blogs. It has focussed upon the many different ways in which the system can be used, for personal, private, social and academic purposes. From the start we recognised that there is a difficult balance to strike between building a blogging community, and getting the individuals in that community to use the software for a diverse range of purposes, 'soap-boxing' (or ranting as some people call it) being perhaps the least important of those purposes. From the evidence that we've seen so far, I think we are being successful in achieving this aim.

Robert O'Toole : 10 Oct 2004 08:06 |  Tags: E-Learning Warwick University |  Comments (6) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Presentation to Learning Grid Advisors

What a great team!

Robert O'Toole : 24 Sep 2004 09:45 |  Tags: E-Learning Warwick University |  Comments (3) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

No such thing as a free lunch

This was my task. In one hour introduce a group of new(ish) lecturers to:

• the e-learning advisor team;
• IT provisions and support that they should expect for staff and students;
• the key e-learning and web architecture tools;
• plagiarism prevention and detection tools;
• the 20+ other things that we are promoting, developing, or just starting to get interested in;
• respond to issues raised during all of the sessions of the WTC's first day;
• respond to a case study covering plagiarism, group work, admin overload, cultural issues, disability issues, ethical issues, time-keeping and study skills and more.

And so I tried to put together a presentation to do all of this. Having had to deal with too many emails, phone calls and other contacts and issues during the day, I was left to work on this until 10pm last night.

I attended the first day of the WTC's induction course, and found it to be fascinating and useful. I had many opportunities to gather requirements and pick up ideas. I talked to real live lecturers with real requirements. I even met the new philosophy lecturer, who is very interesting and has done some interesting things with IT in the past. Lots of the issues raised were answered with techniques that we are investigating and promoting.

Unfortunately, the whole thing ran behind schedule. Kay (Skills and PDP) and Rachel (Learning Grid) had 10 minute slots to explain their work. Only 30 minutes remained into which I could compress all that I had planned. And to make matters worse I had a small technical problem with SiteBuilder, compounded by my inability to type in the dark due to my eye problem (the screen was too faint to use with the lights on). So it ended up too rushed and muddled.

Anyhow, the lecturers seemed to be interested, and asked some good questions about blogs. I left with a good set of 'registration of interest' forms on which individuals expressed interest in getting more support for specific tools and projects. And I did get lunch at Scarman House as part of the deal.

Robert O'Toole : 22 Sep 2004 20:41 |  Tags: E-Learning Warwick University |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Decelerated Learning and technology

Follow-up to The Decelerated Learning movement from Transversality - Robert O'Toole

'E-learning' technologies have always been caught up in this debate. For many people, technology and acceleration are intimately related. Perhaps this partly explains the distaste that many in academia have for e-learning? For many institutions, the justification for the expense of e-learning is to reach a bigger market with the same amount of content more quickly. Increase turnover, improve profit margins.

But here at Warwick we like to take our time, do things properly. Am I sounding like a Grolsch advert again? Rather than accelerate content transmission, technology can be used to give people time to reflect, review and create. In this way learning becomes less like comsumption, it becomes activated and creative. This is why we are more interested in technologies such as Forums, BlogBuilder (Warwick Blogs), SiteBuilder (used in a dynamic and creative way), and mind/concept mapping. These asynchronous technologies all have the capability to provide time and space to the student and the academic.

For example, consider the possibilities of these technologies in enhancing seminars, for avoiding the dreaded 'seminar silence' that is far too common. In many seminars the student turns up having read the paper under discussion at the last possible moment. They are expected to formulate and express a response right away. Technology can be used to aleviate this. The student could, instead, slowly develop a response to the paper in their blog. The seminar then becomes more like a work-in-progress report.

I'm not saying that this is the best practice possible. There are many other things that can be done with these technologies, many other ways in which we can do less better. We just need to abandon our preconceptions about technology, and then experiment a little.

Robert O'Toole : 20 Sep 2004 07:59 |  Tags: E-Learning Warwick University |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

The Decelerated Learning movement

"Stop! This student is not ready yet." If Grolsch were in charge at the Department for Education, things would be rather different, but definitely better.

Is there such a thing as the Decelerated Learning Movement? If not, why not? The term was coined, I believe by a British educationalist (I'm trying to identify who), in reaction to the appaling and ill-considered drive towards force-feeding huge quantities of low quality content into curricula at all levels. The slogan of the movement is, as my wife (Head of KS1 at a primary school) always says: "do less better". Yes, quality matters, not quantity. In this sense there is a shared agenda with the Slow Food Movement, off which I am also a supporter.

I heard on Radio 4 today about an American politician who holds the record for the fastest completion of their degree. I think he may have missed the point somehow. We must act now to stop this lunacy before it is too late. Sit down, open up a copy of The Logic of Sense, and slowly, very slowly, do little but contemplate the implications.

Now I have a genuine excuse for taking 11 years to even get to the point of actually starting a PhD.

As for all of the new students starting their courses over the next few weeks, I have this to say: you really do have plenty of time, so enjoy it.

Robert O'Toole : 19 Sep 2004 20:15 |  Tags: E-Learning Warwick University |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Semantic querying and the future of search engines

Follow-up to Emergent semantics (from Deleuze) and the semantic web from Transversality - Robert O'Toole

Prof. Wendy Hall of Southampton made this important distinction between two types of web query:

• A query that simply aims to provide a specific piece of information, an answer to a closed question. She calls this an 'uh…uh' query.
• A query that aims to go from a semantic map of a document to other documents with a similar map, the aim being that the second document will expand and illuminate the first. This she calls an "er…er" query.

People typically do the second more open type of query by identifying a set of keywords from the first document, and typing them all into a plain google search. In creating their own keywords list they are creating a semantic map of the document, a map that makes sense to them. Perhaps a useful development in browser and search engine design would be to add functionality that makes this easier. A user could select words and phrases from the source document to create the map, and then do a search for related maps. Perhaps these maps could be represented diagramatically?

As you can see, i'm just starting to get the relationship between Deleuze's work on semantics and creativity, the work in AI that I did at Sussex, current work on the semantic web, and e-learning.

Robert O'Toole : 16 Sep 2004 07:44 |  Tags: E-Learning Warwick University |  Comments (2) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Plagiarism prevention, research based teaching, reading lists and Oxford

Follow-up to The positive reason to care about plagiarism (and why Warwick is great) from Transversality - Robert O'Toole

And we are, of course, not the only institution that cares about this. Yesterday I went to Oxford for a one day conference on reading lists. The division between institutions with a transmissive/instructional approach and those, like Warwick, with a research based approach, was stark. The transmissive/instructional approach sees reading lists as the sole property of the academic and the library. At the start of a course they transmit a list of readings to the students, who consume each book in turn. Within research-based teaching, the reading list is seen as a set of suggestions that must be analysed, extended, critiqued and synthesised by the student. The aim is for them to develop their own reading list, their own bibliography, in the same way as any academic would.

Howard Noble, of the Oxford University Learning Technology Group did a presentation of a project that he is working on to create a generic resource list building tool, to be used by both staff and students. The rationale behind this seems to research based teaching. Interestingly, the LTG have also taken an interest in plagiarism . I have realised that we have much more in common with them, and much less in common with the majority of the UK HE community. I shall develop these links (I have several contacts in the group already).

Also, more on Howard's project when i can find the url!

Robert O'Toole : 10 Sep 2004 08:29 |  Tags: E-Learning Warwick University |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

The positive reason to care about plagiarism (and why Warwick is great)

Follow-up to Plagiarism, and i'm suddenly worried about my chaotic study skills from Transversality - Robert O'Toole

Have a look at the learning object. It makes it clear that it is OK to quote and rephrase the words and thoughts of others, so long as there is some "added spice" – a critical or analytical addition by the student, just something that they can contribute beyond the original. After all, without that process of addition, critique, analysis, synthesis, and summarization academic work is pointless and goes nowhere.

I suppose the anti-plagiarism movement is driven by the need to ensure that the academic process is worthwhile and does move onwards. What would we prefer, lectures that are simply repetitions, or lectures that are exciting and move things onwards somehow? The movement is particularly strong at Warwick because we value the academic process highly. And this is a key point. We value it more highly than many other institutions.

In trying to define what Warwick is about, we usually focus on something called 'research based teaching'. We oppose this to the approach taken in other institutions that is essentially a 'transmissive/instructional' approach in which students are seen as mere consumers of content. Research based teaching is, roughly, the idea that the academic process of being an undergraduate, a postgraduate and an academic is the same. They all follow the same research process, and as such are expected to analyse, critique, synthesise and extend current knowledge in some way. For everyone, whatever level, to adopt this research process, they must also embrace an anti-plagiarist stance.

Anti-plagiarism is, as such, not a reactionary right wing policy. It an ethic at the heart of a progressive stance.

Returning to our problem, and why we see it as important that we address it, we are starting to recognise that our academic process is not universally understood. We cannot expect students to arrive at Warwick fresh from A-levels or from all points of the globe, with an understanding and acceptance of anti-plagiarism, and the subtle skills that are required for it. So we consider it to be a key skill that we might need to teach and reinforce in a positive way.

Robert O'Toole : 10 Sep 2004 08:12 |  Tags: E-Learning Warwick University |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Is BlogBuilder far off from being an academic writing tool?

Here's an example of the academic writing process that i'm developing using my blog. I'm doing this for real, so real requirements for how it can be used to support academic writing are emerging…

I've just created two entries, one called Bacon's malerisch, Van Gogh's diagram, and the baroque fold the other called The artistic diagram and its relation to the statistical diagram. They are follow-ups from another entry on Van Gogh's relation to Bacon (via Deleuze), which itself is a follow-up to some entries stretching back to an entry on Miro (quickly written whilst at the Miro Foundation). Those earlier entries were quite limited and not intended to be developed into anything in themselves.

These two latest entries, however, are intended to develop into chapters of a thesis. At the moment they are just notes, sketches of arguments, incomplete and relatively unlimited. They will be developed. Privacy is set to 'just me', but that will change as they develop.

There are some aspects of these entries that present different requirements for how they are treated and represented. Being both work in progress and more significant than standard entries, I would like them to be represented somewhere in a permanent list, so that I can easily keep working on them and keep writing new entries reflecting on them. At the moment there is a fairly straightforward relationship between these two entries. This may develop into one entry being the natural precursor of the other. There may also be more similar such significant entries. These could have more complex and changing relations, perhaps better represented in a mind-map style diagram which can aid the development of the overall thesis.

So why develop them in my blog? Because they have emerged as follow-ups to more blog like blog entries, and that's how philosophical writing happens, as a synthesis of smaller notes and ideas. Note that this implies that we should allow an entry to be a follow-up of more than one other entry, perhaps as a kind of summary entry. Also because Warwick Blogs is just so damn good, especially with its privacy control, editing facilities, commenting, track-backs and follow-ups, and its galleries. It just seems such a good place to do this.

So to conclude, I can see that with just a few small tweaks Warwick Blogs can become a superb tool for academic writing.

Robert O'Toole : 29 Aug 2004 08:31 |  Tags: E-Learning Warwick University |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem