Wednesday, August 14, 2013

#altc2013: Building New Cultures of Learning



Every year  I meet lots of people having either that ICT eureka moment or being stuck with some challenge that other folks in a different education sector figured out a while ago.

The ALT Conference is a great opportunity to both have your own eureka moment and to solve that technological hang up that is stopping your learners and your institution making progress.  In this most exciting of all learning frontiers.

The 20th annual conference of the Association for Learning Technology
will be held at the East Midlands Conference Centre, University of
Nottingham from 10-12 September 2013. This year the conference
features keynotes from Stephen Downes, Wendy Hall and Rachel Wenstone,
as well as special events to mark the 20th anniversary.

Late registration will be open until approximately two weeks before
the conference so book now to avoid disappointment! If you are an ALT
member you are entitled to a 20% discount on all conference fees.
Register via http://goo.gl/6SK67

Thursday, August 01, 2013

Open Badges Scotland and SCOOB Group #openbadges

Really just using a range of vehicles including my own blog to promote membership of the Scottish Open Badges Group.

See communication below from Grainne Hamilton JISC Regional Support Centre Scotland

Over recent months there has been increasing interest in the digital, standards-based, open accreditation framework called Open Badges http://openbadges.org/. The Open Badges Infrastructure, which is being developed by Mozilla and shaped by an international community of people interested in accreditation, can be used to issue, display and earn digital representations of awards. A number of high profile organisations, educational institutions and communities such as NASA, Microsoft, De Paul University and the City of Chicago are already using Open Badges to reward and recognise hard and soft skills, achievements, attributes, contributions and so on.

In Scotland, interest has been growing in the opportunities afforded by Open Badges to augment traditional accreditation routes. A recent Jisc RSC Scotland event, the Open Badges Design Day, provided an opportunity for people to work with the Mozilla Badges and Skills Lead to consider the framework and possible badge-based pathways to learning. At this event, there was consensus that it would be useful to bring together interested parties to identify areas where Open Badges could add value to education in Scotland and to co-develop such badges.

The Jisc RSC Scotland has, therefore, convened the Scottish Open Badges (SCOOB) Group, which has met once and agreed that members will perform an overview and mapping function of Open Badges developments in Scotland, set up a number of sub-groups to jointly take forward specific areas of Open Badges work (to be agreed) and consider and develop badge pathways. The group hopes that through the input of representatives from a variety of educational institutions and agencies in Scotland, we will be able to consider synergies between different stages on a learner's formal and informal learning journey and contribute to the development of a badge eco-system within Scotland.

We want to ensure a broad representation on the SCOOB Group and sub-groups and would like to hear from anyone in Scottish education interested in joining them.

To note interest in becoming a member or if you would like more information about the kinds of areas the sub-groups might cover, please email openbadges@rsc-scotland.ac.uk. Please include a list of any particular areas of interest you have regarding Open Badges.

Sunday, June 23, 2013

Mozilla Badges #InAfS



Badger , Badger but watch out for any snake-oil


To make my new year's prediction come true - I've been doing a bit of work in the background to get Mozilla Badge Making and Earning  an established part of the Scottish learning firmament.

Think about a different way of credentialing you or your learners skills . A way that is on-line, in the cloud  and portable. You can add a badge to your online identity or resume when you want to, no more hunts in cupboards and attics for paper certificates and you can decide what , when and where you want to share your badges.

The infrastructure can make public,  the learning outcomes you achieved , the awarding agency, the assessors, even the work that was produced for the assessment can be digitally linked to the badge.

Add to this some quite well built out systems in areas like web-design and coding for the web and Mozilla Badges offer a real opportunity to change the way we think about the recognition of achievement.

The system also offers,  the opportunity to bread-crumb learning outcomes towards national qualifications and a mechanism for providing recognition for chunks of learning smaller than would normally be recognised either by formal qualifications or by national credit frameworks like the SCQF ( normally learning of less that 10 hours is not recognised) .The system could allow centres to quickly build customised awards where they want these .

Ideal too for primary and secondary schools and other groups that may want a flexible recognition of achievement system.

Have a look at how the  JISC RSC Scotland have built badges that provide steps towards a range of national recognition and recognition too through professional standardsThe Jisc RSC Scotland are making extensive use of the Mozilla Open Badge Infrastructure (OBI), which enables an open, standards-based way to issue digital recognition and accreditation. 

In areas like web-design centres should be using the well developed on-line resources and badges and offering accreditation of prior learning for relevant badges towards larger national awards.

Mozilla Badges  will become in time the natural adjunct to any e-portfolio .

The Scottish Qualifications Authority is exploring how open badges can be built into the national qualifications system. We are hosting an event next Tuesday in Glasgow to see what else we can do to support and promote the flexibility for centres and learners that Mozilla Badges offer.

#OpenScotland #OER



On the 27th of June a group of decision makers from across Scottish Education will gather in Edinburgh for "Open Scotland".  

Open Scotland is a one day summit facilitated by Jisc CETIS in collaboration with SQA, Jisc RSC Scotland and the ALT Scotland SIG. 
The event will provide an opportunity for key stakeholders to critically reflect on the national and global impact and opportunities of open education, provide a forum to identify shared strategic interests and work towards a more integrated Scottish approach to openness in education.
A smarter Scotland is critical to delivering the Government's Purpose of achieving sustainable economic growth. By making Scotland smarter, we will lay the foundations for the future wellbeing and achievement of our children and young people, increase skill levels across the population and better channel the outputs of our universities and colleges into sustainable wealth creation, especially participation, productivity and economic growth.”

How can Scotland leverage the power of “open” to develop the nation’s unique education offering? Can openness promote strategic advantage while at the same time supporting social inclusion, inter-institutional collaboration and sharing, and create new opportunities for the next generation of teachers and learners? 

The Scottish Government’s ‘Scotland’s Digital Future’ strategy, published in 2011, sets out the steps that are required to ensure Scotland is well placed to take full advantage of all the economic, social and environmental opportunities offered by the digital age.  However, whilst the Scottish Government has been active in advocating the adoption of open data policies and licences it has yet to articulate policies for open education and open educational resources. 

 In March 2013, the Scottish Funding Council published a ‘Further and Higher Education ICT Strategy’ that builds on the Scottish further and higher education sectors’ culture of collaboration and the range of national shared services that are already in place, many of which are supported by Jisc, JANET UK and others.  

What kinds of open policies and practices can we develop and share across all sectors of Scottish education to help implement these strategies and move them forward?

Scotland has a proud and distinctive tradition of education, which is recognised internationally.  The Curriculum for Excellence is transforming schools to better equip our children for the challenges of the 21st century.  With our colleges and universities experiencing major changes in terms of structure, funding and access, Scotland’s colleges are opening up their educational content to the world through the new Re:Source OER repository.  
The University of Edinburgh have pioneered the delivery of MOOCs in Scotland, recently attracting over 300,000 students to six online courses, and Napier University is embracing open practice through their open 3E Framework for teaching with technology, which has been adopted by over 20 institutions globally.  The Jisc RSC Scotland are making extensive use of the Mozilla Open Badge Infrastructure (OBI), which enables an open, standards-based way to issue digital recognition and accreditation. The Scottish Qualifications Authority is exploring how open badges can be built into the national qualifications system and the ICT Excellence Group, which is overseeing the re-development of the Scottish schools' intranet GLOW, are also investigating their potential use

Elsewhere, the HEFCE funded UKOER Programme has been instrumental in stimulating the release of open educational resources and embedding open practice in English HE institutions.  SURFNet in the Netherlands recently published their second ‘Trends Report on OER’, and a group of Nordic countries have launched the Nordic Alliance for OER. The UNESCO 2012 Paris Declaration called on governments to openly license publicly funded educational materials, and later that year the European Union issued a public consultation on “Opening up Education – a proposal for a European initiative” in advance of a new EU Initiative on "Opening up Education" expected to launch in mid-2013. Underpinning many of these developments is an increased acceptance and adoption of Creative Commons licences.

We are experiencing a period of unprecedented flux in all sectors of teaching and learning.  For better or for worse, the advent of MOOCs has opened a public debate on the future direction of post-school education, though the balance of commercial opportunities and threats from the increased marketisation and commodification of education is  still unclear.

Open Scotland is a one day summit facilitated by Jisc CETIS in collaboration with SQA,  Jisc RSC Scotland and the ALT Scotland SIG.  The event will provide an opportunity for key stakeholders to critically reflect on the national and global impact and opportunities of open education, provide a forum to identify shared strategic interests and work towards a more integrated Scottish approach to openness in education.

“UNESCO believes that universal access to high quality education is key to the building of peace, sustainable social and economic development, and intercultural dialogue. Open Educational Resources (OER) provide a strategic opportunity to improve the quality of education as well as facilitate policy dialogue, knowledge sharing and capacity building.”

I hope the gathering  will decide that we must have some simple policy drivers in Scotland to encourage individual and institutional open sharing , re-purposing and re-use of learning materials . The right decisions here will lay the foundations for lifelong learning in Scotland for generations to come.

Ultimately I think this will take some firm leadership and some political decision making.
 It has taken some mandating in other countries to make open and shared the norm.

I am very grateful to my colleagues at CETIS and the membership of the Association for Learning Technology for making this gathering possible 

Six Months of Programming and MooC'ing around



In between real work I've been doing less blogging over last six months some of the time I have been doing a wee bit to support a range of initiatives in computer programming and coding domains. I also spent some time - usually in the wee small hours having a shot at some massive open on-line courses. I feed these experiences back into the day job as Head of New Ventures.

In programming space there are so many local , UK , global  offers in this space it can be quite hard to keep track on all of them.  They are all focused on learner and teacher engagement and around skill building.  Some are established global initiatives and some have more specific UK drivers - many are in response to the hiatus in England around GCSE  ICT/Computing space in the curriculum while  some others  focus more broadly on computational thinking for learners of any age.

Since Christmas SQA  have given bits of support to

One Day Digital 
Coder Dojo
Space Apps Challenge
Kodu Cup
Apps for Good

A bit of support might be as simple as using our networks to raise awareness of a specific initiative . In case anyone else is reading this and assuming SQA event sponsorship.

It would be useful if someone tried to capture all of these initiatives open to Scottish teachers and learners in one place. Perhaps a mission for either Computing at School or Comped.net or for somewhere in GLOW

I also had a go at three MOOCs and dropped out of all of them . I enjoyed the Mozilla Mooc best of all . I like re-mixing content but doing it in wee small hours was taking a toll on me - liked the Mona-Lisa Shining mix was how I was starting to feel after all the late nights - the shining bit rather than Mone Lisa-ish bit

I had a go at using Mozilla Popcorn to remix things - my feeble effort is here

But I was blown away this week by this creation from the Edinburgh University Digital Creations MOOC
#ECMooc






Thursday, May 16, 2013

#Teachtheweb Homework

Thanks to a template for introductions I remixed this in about an hour with some of my
own bits and bobs . I could not work out out to end session - so there is a lot of white noise at the end of this . But overall what an easy tool to use -

I think anyone could have a lot of fun with these tools  https://popcorn.webmaker.org/



Tuesday, May 07, 2013

#teachtheweb RSA Animate - The Power of Networks

I am having a shot at the Mozilla #Teachtheweb massive open on-line course. A large part of this is simply about learning through networks . A colleague from Canada reminded me about this excellent video from the Royal Academy of Arts in London . It makes a great intellectual argument around why teachers need personal learning networks - in fact folks in every occupation need this kind of globally connected network


Wednesday, February 20, 2013

#OER13 Open Access Explained!

The video below begins to explain open access in academic research but #OER is also about open access to learning and teaching materials.

I have been championing the sharing of learning materials since I came into the teaching profession. Here are some thoughts from a year ago.

I am delighted this year to be on the organising committee of #OER13.

 If you want to find out what you need to do to engage with #OER as an individual , as a teacher , as a learner or as an institution or public body based in UK or internationally then #oer13 is the place to be.

The keynotes are here http://www.ucel.ac.uk/oer13/keynotes.html .
The programme is here http://www.medev.ac.uk/oer13/prog/

I hope I can tempt more teachers, lecturers and policy makers in Scotland to engage in this global debate.
Look forward to seeing you in Nottingham 


Sunday, February 17, 2013

Glen Coe and a Week's Leave

P2130075 by joecar80
P2130075, a photo by joecar80 on Flickr.

Can't really believe all the things we packed in to the February Mid-Term, just as well I am getting back to work tomorrow.

Here is Glen Coe on Wednesday evening just as road was about to close and we snuck through on our way back to Glasgow.

Hard to believe we had just enjoyed three dry and mild days walking on Skye

Monday, February 04, 2013

#Bett13 The Excel London Docklands 2013


A week's worth of meetings crammed into three days in and around BETT13.  I liked the new venue for its space and for all the other presentations that were able to run simultaneously.
 Well done orgnanisers  for building an excellent programme around the exhibition area and reaching out to the right folks to populate the programme. I joined the Education Leaders Strand , The Workbased Learning Strand and the Higher Education Strand for different sessions and managed a couple of keynotes in the main learning arena. In past years I felt  guilty about buying tickets and not being able due to meetings to get to all the sessions I had booked.

The meeting rooms were also really useful I was able to grab a welcome cup of tea and a natter with colleagues from Mirandanet who were running an excellent programme . The British Computer Society and others had also booked some of the meeting rooms which meant we could do business on site. I was able to catch up with Adobe , Microsoft , Google , Oracle and many others and headed north with lots of ideas and business.

The bits I was not sure about were really down to me . I opted to stay over in Greenwich as the hotels were a bit cheaper than those around the Excel. This meant I was constantly worried that I would miss the last light rail train across the Thames. I think next time I will go for something on the north bank. It also took me some time to get my bearings to confidently navigate the light rail. The night of Bett Awards the line I needed was closed and I ended up stomping along under the tracks looking for a taxi.
I missed too my familiar bolt holes around Olympia where I can take folks for meetings without paying conference venue prices for coffee or lunch. I need to improve my east end knowledge.

It was really quite eye opening to spend time in this bit of London. It did really feel like a boom town rather than a city in a country climbing out or the worst recession since the 1930's . There seemed to be new developments going up all over the place. I am sure it will have made a very good impression on all of the international visitors to the event.

I looked really hard but I don't think there was anything startling new at this year's Bett - the event misses the ministerial input that Bett's of old used to have. But I think this is just a reflection of ICT feeling less of a priority for the current Westminster government. It is now about schools and learning institutions negotiating their own way through all of the offerings from the vendors. There were lots of 'new' systems that were really virtual learning environments with some elements of social software added. I think every third stand mentioned the word app somewhere. So not as much on policy or technology front as in previous years.

I think we still have an opportunity to present a much more joined up picture of all the good things that go on in Scottish Education at this event. It would be great if Education Scotland , SQA and Skills Development Scotland looked at having a stand at a future event. There are still too many speeches and sales pitches based on false claims of a UK Education system .. which are really only trying to sell bits of the English system to international customers and often bits that we do much better  in Scotland.




 


#applesummit London

Apple Education Leaders Summit

Apple Education Leaders Summit

I am really privileged to get to these gatherings . We are all learners in this space and in think the price of a pass is sharing what I learn

  1. iPads are lovely . I have one . Everyone at this event got one when they arrived for the day , loaded too with all kinds of wonderful educational apps.  It is a whole world made by apple from iPhone to iPad and presented by Appletv enabled monitors. 

     If you don't know the ESSA academy story you should have a look out for it , it is an inspirational story of how a school moved to an Internet enabled device for every learner and radically changed their performance and the ethos of the school. But equally you should have a look at the Islay High School story or lots of other places where learners now have access to devices and learning and delivery are changing.

     It was good to see Scotland's mobile pilots and the work of Cedars School featured in presentations. I've seen lots of inspirational things as ever . I'll add a wee list of apps that I have seen in action at the end of this post when I get some more time. The thing that struck me most is still with me at the end of the day 500+ educators were handed an ipad this morning fully internet enabled but there has been really very little collaborative learning or sharing around event . Well done apple for great event . Next time give everyone who attends a challenge or a question and get them all to have made a blog post or some other contribution to learning by the end of the day . Use of these tools has to be active not a passive consuming experience.
  2. Apple Education Leaders Summit London is there a hashtag for this event or is this unstructured learning ?
  3. Apple Leaders Summit ipad study from Hull Uni on Scottish schools ipad pilot gets plug  http://www2.hull.ac.uk/ifl/ipadresearchinschools.aspx uk/ifl/ipadresearchinschools.aspx
  4. #applesummit Interesting that every session has repeated content ... Apple TV + explain everything + Dropbox + Nearpod + iMovie Hmm.
  5. And to the apps and software used with apple devices - Drop Box to share things in cloud , Nearpod to share things between devices and onto data projector in classroom , Annotate.neu to give capture and record oral feedback on assessments , Explain Everything , Evernote and some other solutions used as eportfolios and more
    Apple launches too new Educational publications platform BBC News - Apple launches e-textbook tools with new iBooks bbc.in/xnziOg ; showcased new education bookstore books from usual suspects

Saturday, January 19, 2013

E-Assessment Question , #InsideLearning and #GlowRoadshow

For learners,  and I am one, learning is a lifelong continuum . I still think though that those who deliver learning and the accreditation of learning still live in silos,  worse some of them have stopped learning.

At the E-Assessment Question, an excellent event in Leeds,  I presented to an audience where there was a confident inevitability that most things one way or another will be assessed on-line in the near future. In work based learning this will happen in next 3 years,  in College space I predict this will happen in the next five years in schools space mmm ? If it does not happen and it is not driven by schools then it will be driven by forces outside of the school system and directly to learners. You can see the big commercial interests circling.

Universities need to wake up too. They are still too inflexible. It is neither the most intelligent nor the strongest that survive but those most adaptable to change . Directors of Jessops , Blockbuster and HMV did not adapt.

In Scotland we are really lucky that we are able to push at all the boundaries associated with changing current modes of assessment. The drive in England back to paper and pencil and exam based assessment is as much to do with a false belief in some golden era of academic standards as it is to do with trying to discourage sharp practices from commercially driven awarding bodies along with a complete lack of trust in schools and school teachers. It really is a dreadful situation and I feel for many of those trying to innovate in this environment. I fear too that many of those who have been innovating in this space will simply give up trying to operate in the fragmented English schools system.

When I use that "assessed" word I mean the means of gathering evidence and the means to gain accreditation will be on-line and not that everything will be assessed by on-line multiple choice questions.  Which is common misconception about e-assessment.

But we have much to do too in Scotland - some of the comments from the panel at Inside Learning were just depressing . It would be awful to believe that schools start preparing learners for external examinations from 1st year of secondary school . It is awful too that some folks with experience of the system can't , don't or won't see that what is chosen to be assessed is often simply a reflection of what they choose to make important.  I think too conversations about what is important is still too top down. I hope my children get asked what they want to learn today - to pinch an old advertising slogan. I know the assessment and accreditation system can cope with this and I am sure that schools and teachers can too. To the student teachers who were along on the night one of the best things you can do for your professional development is to become a marker or assessor for SQA,  having an understanding of the system will help you change it.
And sign up for a relevant massive open on-line course to see how things are changing.

I am writing this on a Saturday morning where 120 teachers from around Glasgow and the surrounding areas have turned up to take part in a Glow Road Show  in their own time . I know they are really up for change and I hope they know that they really can change things.

There are big opportunities to change thinking in the assessment space and there are huge affordances that technology will bring to learners and this means different ways of assessing and accrediting folk at a national level. I am really hopeful that this is going to start happening with the new awards at National 4 .

I hope folks in school sector learn about how things are delivered , assessed and accredited in the College and work based sectors it will give them more confidence to change things

I am massively optimistic for learners and learning . Change,  it is a coming .





Monday, December 31, 2012

New Year Reflections and Predictions

thanks to  littleperson1832 for image

Last year's predictions were among others that  that "flipped classroom" would become the bullshit bingo word of the year Well I think it came to pass .

I heard it used by number of  touring educational gurus , senior educational managers and academics usually from the lectern or from the stage during  keynotes where no effort was really made to engage the audience. It would be good to get  a greater sense of a flipped classroom at some of the big keynote events like BETT in England or SLF in Scotland. There is still too an attitude that change and innovation comes from above and not from within organisations. Gurus should be setting audiences challenges not coming along with their own stock answers ..I think this was apparent this year in the political domain too across the UK but enough said on that.

It was the year too of the tablet - and they are marvellous and miraculous devices for consuming things . I think they are still challenged when it comes to creating and producing things.

So what to look forward too

1. I think Mozilla Badges and the impact of smaller chunks of assessment. particularly in the computing and coding areas will really support both staff development and learners. It works well in areas like webdesign as the infrastructure is there to support learners.  Have a look at the Mozilla Webmaker tools and badges

We are well positioned to support these in schools , colleges and work-based learning. Our policy in terms of accreditation of prior learning is well developed. I am hoping this helps speed up the adoption of initiatives like this across Scottish education and beyond.  I look forward to pushing this on with Sunny Lee and Doug Belshaw  (Check out Doug's badges on his blog)

2. Is a MOOC a Massive Open On-line Course or a Massively Optimistic Over-Hyped Course ? - Time will tell.   I believe that where the providers of MOOCS make their content open rather use  these as marketing windows or discounted ways to gain accreditation then they will become game changers - as folks will use the content in other useful ways. If the content was open then learners could really see what was involved in a particular course before signing up to it . School teachers could use chunks of learning for their own development and  use these with their students. School students could engage with open material directly. In many workplaces they will  become part of continuous professional development.

I like the optimism and the sense of discovery that surround these programmes.

It is easy to forget that learning is all about a sense of optimism and discovery - it is what spurs learning on.

It also needs to be valued and nurtured - whether it is  happening in a nursery class or with adult and community learners. However humble the learning - the sense of discovery is magical.

3. Open Content is the way ahead . It has been great to share the journey of JORUM over the last 10 years ( If it's inception is taken as the early discussions at the JISC Joint Committee for the Information Environment ) We have a real opportunity to push this on in Scotland through Scotland's Colleges Resource and I hope through the future iteration of GLOW. Ubiquitous and available learning is an important part of the Scottish learning tradition and we need to embrace OER. 

But we do need more policy drivers in this space and I hope through working with the Association for Learning Technology in Scotland we can get these. It would be great if this was the year that the Scottish Government , The Scottish Funding Council and all the educational agencies in Scotland , including my own  could make a commitment to Open Educational Resources. This would support College Regionalisation  break down the local authority silos in schools and almost above all encourage Higher Education to stop pontificating on what happens in schools ,  colleges and work-based learning and encourage them to contribute by sharing  more learning materials.

4. Will Higher Education in Scotland start working with rest of the education system ?  I have high hopes that this might be the year. We've done the right thing in giving HE some more resource over last few years and they occupy a position envied by many in rest of UK . If they opened up a bit more Universities could really support learning across Scotland and beyond. I think a special mention to Edinburgh University for leading charge on joining Coursera but these on-line courses don't come with open educational resources.

Hope that is enough food for thought and may you have a happy and prosperous 2013 when it arrives.



Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Gun Law - Better to Shoot with Words


I don't often use my blog to tell stories. I hope one day my gun mad six year old son reads this. 
At the moment he is with the Arizona gun lobby who wish to arm teachers discretely and at a discount so they can fight back when their schools are attacked.
Ideally, he would like the six year olds to have guns too.

In around 1990 I spent my first holiday in Washington DC.  I had a great trip but while I was there two 14 year old boys shot each other in a school changing room. It was all over the local media but such a frequent occurrence it was not picked up by the national media. It was a school in a poor predominantly black area where gun crime and gang fighting was endemic, apparently. The media focus was on the school janitors and their lax use of the school metal detectors which had allowed the two boys to bring hand guns into the school. The school district and the janitors looked like they were going to be sued for negligence.

All this was very alien to me. .and I'd been teaching for five years in Glasgow.

It happened that evening I was meeting some distant relatives who were the offspring of my grandfather's wee sister who moved over to the states from Ibrox at the end of WW1. They were a really nice, socially aware, academic couple, proud of their Scottish heritage, who had done well and were running impressive chunks of the Smithsonian. In lots of ways they seemed the same as me, further on in their careers but battling away in that middling educational way to make the world a better place.

Half way through a highly enjoyable meal I asked why no-one in the media had really queried why it was illegal but easy for fourteen year olds to access firearms.

Politely, the gulf in our two cultures suddenly opened up.

Guns were important for protection. I came from a more peaceful part of the world and did not appreciate this. I struggled when I was told that they had a lot of guns and the  licences for them. Indeed, as we sat in the smart diner on the Potomac I was told that they had a piece in her pocket book to deter muggers and at home in a posh suburb of Washington they had among their arsenal an assault rifle which was needed, as it could shoot through the engine block of a truck. The assault rifle was protection against domestic ram raiding which had recently reached epidemic proportions.

The conversation moved on. 
As I moved unarmed back to my digs in Georgetown along the streets that seemed a bit meaner I thought these really nice folk were under siege . The ready availability of guns which they prized as a symbol of their freedom did not seem to give them or their children the liberty they sought.

I hope following this weekend's events it gets harder to access firearms in the USA and no more six year olds need to die.

Monday, December 03, 2012

Inventing the Future of Learning


Sit down and take time to look at this if you are a parent , teacher , policy maker or have an interest in Education - this maps out the short term future of learning very well and the immediate challenges that the system faces. Video comes from http://www.tel.ac.uk/ project site


Friday, November 16, 2012

ALT-Scotland SIG Update for ALT Newsletter



I think more folks who are interested in Educational Technology in Scotland should become members of the Association for Learning Technology - with thanks to Linda Creanor who composed recent newsletter below

Here is what we are  up to at the moment ...

The ALT-Scotland SIG was officially launched at ALT-C in September 2012 where there was a good attendance and much enthusiasm at the inaugural meeting.  ALT-Scotland is a national SIG for practitioners and researchers in learning technology who are based in Scotland and it provides a forum to –
·         further the aims of ALT in Scotland
·         promote the technology agenda in all sectors of Scottish education
·         encourage sharing of expertise, resources and best practice in learning technology within the context of Scottish education
·         influence relevant policy and strategy
·         develop constructive relationships with related organisations and committees
The original ALT-Scotland group had been established in 2009 to support ALT institutional representatives and Scotland-based committee members, however at a meeting on the 14th June 2012, it was agreed that we should seek to formalise the group by proposing it as a national SIG. This would allow the group to expand its membership to ALT members throughout Scotland and become a more inclusive and influential forum with greater potential to influence the strategic direction of learning technology in Scottish education.  The SIG application was approved by the Membership Services Committee in early September 2012.
The first meeting of the ALT-Scotland steering committee took place at GCU on the 11th October and we agreed a series of actions to move things forward.  As well as a JISC mail list for members, we will host a face-to- face meeting in June each year to which we will invite representatives of the Scottish Funding Council, Scottish Qualifications Authority and key Scottish Government contacts to discuss priority issues for learning technology.  In addition, we intend to present occasional webinars for members over the year and are already contacting potential speakers.
We will also gather information on OER use and strategy across the Scottish education sectors and submit a short report to the Scottish Government to inform policy and practice. Through this, we hope to encourage a Scottish response to the UNESCO OER declaration published earlier this year.
If you are a Scottish-based ALT Individual,  Associate or Organisational member and would like to get involved, you can join the ALT-Scotland JISC mail list by following the link on the ALT-Scotland SIG web page at http://www.alt.ac.uk/node/625.   To find out more or to make suggestions on areas of interest we might address, please contact any of the SIG officers listed below.

Prof Linda Creanor, GCU, l.creanor@gcu.ac.uk (Co-Chair)
Joe Wilson, SQA,  Joe.Wilson@sqa.org.uk (Co-Chair)
Celeste McLaughlin, JISC RSC Scotland, celeste.mclaughlin@rsc-scotland.ac.uk
Lorna Campbell, JISC CETIS, Strathclyde University, lorna.m.campbell@icloud.com
Dr Lesley Diack, Robert Gordon University, h.l.diack@rgu.ac.uk
Martin Hawksey, JISC CETIS, Strathclyde University, m.hawksey@gmail.com

Monday, November 05, 2012

#ETNA Scottish JISC Regional Support Centre ICT Training Needs Analysis Survey 2012

In 2001 I worked to create the first ever Training Needs Analysis for the Scottish Further Education Sector - we used this to drive up skills across the sector.
 
The survey now happens about every  three years and tracks the ability of teachers , admin support ,  learner support staff and senior managers to use technology effectively in the delivery of services - it is worth a look - it shows you skills that are expected from all levels of staff in the FE sector when it comes to using ICT to deliver their services including those needed by senior managers for strategic planning.

I think it is a great model both for measuring progress,  devising training to fill the skills gaps and just raising general awareness of the ICT skillset that staff need at all levels in education.
www.rsc-scotland.ac.uk/etna