education – Page 3

I believe in extraordinary possibilities in ordinary people

Mike Cane tweeted: Democracy is based on the conviction that there are extraordinary possibilities in ordinary people. ~ Harry Emerson Fosdick I firmly believe in the extraordinary possibilities in ordinary people. Code4Pizza is a light-hearted meeting of minds, open to coders, designers, people with ideas and people who want to just talk to other people … Continue reading “I believe in extraordinary possibilities in ordinary people”

Mike Cane tweeted:

Democracy is based on the conviction that there are extraordinary possibilities in ordinary people.
~ Harry Emerson Fosdick

I firmly believe in the extraordinary possibilities in ordinary people.

Code4Pizza is a light-hearted meeting of minds, open to coders, designers, people with ideas and people who want to just talk to other people about the possibilities for public service value (or public good) especially in the area of open data. Our mission is to turn those possibilities into realities by creating opportunities for reflection, collaboration and innovation.

We expect our attendees to become active participants in society by contributing to the creation of goals and the evaluation of actions and work towards these goals. It is not enough to be passengers on the train of democracy – we must take our turns as conductors, engineers, navigators, and drivers.

On November 3rd, We’re having a Code4Pizza meeting and on December 4-5th we’ll be hosting a local RHoK (Random Hacks of Kindness – original site at http://rhok.org/). We will be applying our brains to the various Problem Definitions, modified only for local bias, and working to create teams who can deliver prototype solutions.

And, we hope, innovation.

IPaducation

Fraser Speirs teases us about his new iPad school project: In January, I convened a meeting to suggest ways that we could get past this problem that everyone wanted access to computers in almost all classrooms almost all the time. We talked about the iPod touch. It was cheap and small, tons of software and … Continue reading “IPaducation”

Fraser Speirs teases us about his new iPad school project:

In January, I convened a meeting to suggest ways that we could get past this problem that everyone wanted access to computers in almost all classrooms almost all the time.

We talked about the iPod touch. It was cheap and small, tons of software and we could easily give everyone a device. When it came to discussing capabilities, I constantly ran into three major problems:

1. You can’t connect a hardware keyboard (remember this was iOS 3.x days)
2. You cant connect it to a projector
3. You can’t do proper word processing

That was January 15th and the meeting broke up with general approval to move forward and see how many educational ‘bases’ we could cover with an iPod touch. We still had our computers, so we hoped that even just giving access to the web for everyone would be a big step up.

That was January 15th. On January 24th, Steve Jobs convened the world’s press in San Francisco and traduced the iPad along with iOS versions of Pages, Keynote and Numbers.

The rest isn’t quite history yet, but it felt inevitable.

For many schools, the iPad is the perfect compromise. It’s a lot cheaper than a full laptop, the batter lasts the whole day, the app environment is “safe” to a degree – . It’s a logical choice.

There are limitations: the lack of printing being something that is being addressed by Apple – but then I hardly see that as a disadvantage in a modern classroom. Another problem is the need to power the devices but, as others will attest, the battery life is phenomenal. The devices themselves have limited storage (which is not expandable) but then this is a large multiple of the space normally available to students for document storage in the education cloud and iPad is an excellent network citizen.

I know there are iPad-in-education case studies to be found around Northern Ireland and we, as a province, have always enjoyed ~~god~~ good technology in the classroom. We also have a much higher than average number of iOS developers in the province (greatly assisted by InvestNI’s support of local companies attending WWDC) so we are well placed to take advantage of the new trends in education technology.

Education and Technology

Sophia Li writes for the Chronicle of Higher Education The most popular tools cited by professors were e-textbooks and online documents, with faculty members reporting far less enthusiasm for other electronic tools. Under a quarter of faculty members surveyed use wikis or blogs in their teaching, and only 31 percent of professors surveyed considered online … Continue reading “Education and Technology”

Sophia Li writes for the Chronicle of Higher Education

The most popular tools cited by professors were e-textbooks and online documents, with faculty members reporting far less enthusiasm for other electronic tools. Under a quarter of faculty members surveyed use wikis or blogs in their teaching, and only 31 percent of professors surveyed considered online collaboration tools “essential” to today’s classroom, compared with 72 percent of over 300 IT employees surveyed.

I’m probably going to say some things to annoy some educators so please understand I’m dealing in archtypes here.

I think this evidence supports my own hypothesis that ‘older-style’ educators prefer instructive methods where ‘progressive-style’ educators use collaborative methods. From my own talking to teachers and lecturers there are several gaps to be filled before a balance can be achieved.

The Technology Gap
Most educators are simply not familiar with technology. The transition to e-textbooks is easy enough but the adoption of wikis, forums and instant messaging is going to be a whole new world to learn. Whether you’re moving from markup to emoticons – it’s all new stuff to learn.

The Education Gap
Are the types of education entirely applicable for instructive or collaborative education? There’s a difference of proportions depending on whether the lesson is skills-based or theory-based. It’s not simply that ‘progressive’ collaborative-style education is better – it’s whether the questions have been asked about what can be done, what should be done and what the results may be.

The Personality Gap
My education was very instructive. I was lucky, however, to have some exceptionally good teachers* during my time at Rathmore. All of these teachers encouraged as well as educated and supported a explorative/collaborative educational approach. We didn’t have technology in any of these classes and maybe they would have been intimidated by it, maybe not. There was only one teacher, during my secondary education, who relied entirely on instructive education and who was obviously intimidated/frustrated by students simply asking questions.

The Confidence Gap
Some educators are simply not going to be confident enough to put together a wiki or forum where the possibility of anonymity might lead students to be outspoken, or worse, overfamiliar. Some of them like the position of respect I’m sure but there is a happy medium in carving out a presence online with personal-level communication with students.

I am not qualified to say whether any particular approach is better – but it’s worth exploring what is the appropriate response to technology in the classroom.

*these teachers were:
Sister Mary-Jo, Religious Education (pre-GCSE)
Miss Lowe, Domestic Science (pre-GCSE)
Mr Neeson, English Lit/Lang (GCSE)
Mrs Hilditch, Biology GCSE
Dr Rogan, Biology A-Level
Mrs Hunt, Chemistry A-Level

Oklahoma State University and the iPad pilot

Oklahoma State University’s School of Media and Strategic Communication and Spears School of Business will provide approximately 125 students across five courses with Apple’s iPad. (Source – Macsimumnews.com) Original Press Release: OKLAHOMA STATE UNIVERSITY TO LAUNCH APPLE IPAD STUDENT PILOT INITIATIVE Written by Oklahoma State University Saturday, 19 June 2010 14:39 Oklahoma State University will … Continue reading “Oklahoma State University and the iPad pilot”

Original Press Release:

OKLAHOMA STATE UNIVERSITY TO LAUNCH APPLE IPAD STUDENT PILOT INITIATIVE
Written by Oklahoma State University
Saturday, 19 June 2010 14:39
Oklahoma State University will pilot an Apple iPad initiative during the Fall 2010 semester with select courses in the School of Media and Strategic Communications and the Spears School of Business at both the Stillwater and Tulsa campuses, announced OSU President Burns Hargis.

“This pilot initiative will provide valuable insight into the research benefits of the Apple iPad in the classroom,” said Hargis. “The iPad has had an amazing impact since it was introduced last April and we are excited to be able to put this powerful and creative tool in the hands of students and faculty and see what happens.”

Bill Handy, visiting assistant professor in the School of Media and Strategic Communications, and Tracy Suter, associate professor of marketing in the Spears School of Business, will lead the initiative. Each class will integrate the iPad differently but will focus on specific measurable outcomes.

The iPad pilot will be launched this fall with approximately 125 students in five different courses.

“This limited pilot will be focused on fields of study where we believe we can best determine the higher education value of the iPad,” said Handy. “We will evaluate the academic enhancement to the courses, how the iPad and its specific apps and web-based tools can be integrated in this capacity, and perhaps most importantly, how the integration of these mobile tools can expand the tactical abilities of students as they enter the workforce.”

The iPad and other mobile tools are already integrated into daily business use. In both schools, the iPad will be used for academic purposes and to explore innovative uses and tactical uses specific to each school’s industry needs.

“In addition to mobility, the iPad will allow us to work in real-time,” said Suter. “For example, data collection and analysis in a research context can be a multi-day to multi-week process. By using the iPad, we can replace paper-and-pencil research with the immediate process of data collection, review and summary over a Web interface.

“I certainly have ideas of how I would like to use an iPad.” Suter said. “But collectively we will discover new uses a single individual might not have conceived independently. Putting the newest technology in the hands of students allows them to stretch the limits of how it can be used.”

Cost savings for students will also be evaluated. In one case, students using the iPad in a single course will save more than $100 on a single textbook, which can be downloaded in an ePub format.

OSU is leading the way in the integration of technology in the classroom. It is already using a variety of tools such as iTunesU and YouTube, along with other collaborative tools. OSU is also exploring the development of mobile applications to integrate current publications into an online and app platform, offering expense savings and enhanced distribution.

One of the conversations had at WWDC this year talked about the will to put together a similar pilot at the University of Ulster.

What would I do if I set a curriculum for a school?

Steve Jobs on US Education system (via 37Signals) Most of the stuff they study in school is completely useless. But some incredibly valuable things you don’t learn until you’re older – yet you could learn them when you’re younger. And you start to think, What would I do if I set a curriculum for a … Continue reading “What would I do if I set a curriculum for a school?”

Steve Jobs on US Education system (via 37Signals)

Most of the stuff they study in school is completely useless. But some incredibly valuable things you don’t learn until you’re older – yet you could learn them when you’re younger. And you start to think, What would I do if I set a curriculum for a school?
God, how exciting that could be! But you can’t do it today. You’d be crazy to work in a school today. You don’t get to do what you want. You don’t get to pick your books, your curriculum. You get to teach one narrow specialization. Who would ever want to do that?

This makes me think of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland “Tech Camp” which is usually covered by AlanInBelfast but I can’t find out much info about the 2010 delivery as the PCIYouth web server seems to be down. Bing has this:

Alan himself writes:

For all its wires and wizardry, PCI’s Tech Camp forces me (and probably the other leaders too) to annually re-evaluate what it is I’d like the campers to go home having experienced, learnt and understood.
…
What if fourteen campers all ended up voxpopping, making videoing, animating, blogging and ringing out their PA systems to eliminate feedback in each of their congregations?

This brings out a sense of envy in me. PCI Tech Camp (religious connotations aside) is a model for something that could easily be replicated as an addition to school – either during the summer months or in the evenings. But is this not what the Digital Circle community already does with Refresh, XCake, Code4Pizza and even OpenCoffee and BarCamp? Is this not what the clever folk over at the Trans Urban Arts Academy manage each year?

We may not be able to easily manipulate the curriculum of the state-run school but we can certainly manage to enrich the extra-curricular. We should make all of our events not only accessible for those less physically able but also restrict our use of bars and locations which are not open to the young. Speaking with Paul McLean (@eightlab) about the educational exclusion that some young people experience – it reminds me of the exclusion we are working to resolve with LiveNet (part of Mencap) and the mentally- and physically-disabled (and therefore excluded).

What couldn’t you do armed with the right people, the right skills, the right passions?

Are you FTW! or WTF?

Last Friday I was in the University of Ulster at Coleraine as a guest lecturer for the Interactive Media Arts and Media Studies and Production undegraduate students. The full Keynote presentation is attached. (380K) The content is mostly around what Digital Circle has done, what it aims to do, the sort of activities we have … Continue reading “Are you FTW! or WTF?”

The content is mostly around what Digital Circle has done, what it aims to do, the sort of activities we have to manage and some of our aspirations but that’s not all, it’s meant as a primer to the digital content industry for people new to the industry but could equally serve to educate folk unfamiliar with the territory.

In my opinion, this was the best slide in the slidepack, directed at the students themselves.

But the slidepack also includes a lot of comments from the local industry – workers and employers – and their best advice to undergraduates who may be joining the workforce in the coming weeks. I’d encourage you to read some of them.

(For folk who don’t have access to Keynote, I include a PDF version here (270K))

ConnectED event, QUB.

I spent this morning in the company of academia, industry and government as a ConnectED event. ConnectED is a fund used to create opportunities of collaboration between the colleges and universities. The aim was to try to foster some collaboration potential between the groups. I took some notes from our table (one of 5 tables … Continue reading “ConnectED event, QUB.”

There will be a further event to help foster this but the real wins for me were to get in touch with folk in QUB in the Knowledge Transfer Centre as well as some contacts within SARC.

There was a lot of consensus that there needs to be (at least one) hub for the creative industries (including software and digital media) in the North of Ireland. This is kinda what we’re trying to do with StartVI but without the large funds that ConnectED can provide.

It was startling how little interaction there is between industry and academia in truth – even the difficulties voiced by academia in getting productive student placements within industry. We need to work on that – not necessarily to change courses but to foster understanding. It is not the role of education to prepare an individual for work in a company but rather to educate them to be able to work in any company. And there is an onus on the students to make themselves indispensable to the businesses with whom they are placed. There is significant culture clash between academia and industry – whether it’s the timing of the academic year, the pressure of deadlines or the appreciation of impact on a business that a single student can make, positive or negative.

For our part, StartVI intends to take on a lot of placement students. And if they make themselves indispensable, then they’ll get work from the startups. If not, there’s always a McJob.

Edu 2.0

Today I was lucky enough to attend the University of Ulster Computing and Mathematics Away Day – my role to represent Digital Circle and give the faculty staff an update on some of the exciting things we’re doing in mobile – starting with the iPhone initiative. One of the other talks was about Web 2.0, … Continue reading “Edu 2.0”

One of the other talks was about Web 2.0, a suitably nebulous subject which was, for this talk, defined as “The Art of Listening, Learning and Sharing” which, up front, seems to be entirely suitable for a progressive university.

The issue for universities of the future is the fact that the average 11 year old has a higher “digital literacy” than the average lecturer in a university. This obviously colours what new students will expect from a university when they attend. They will likely expect interaction from their lecturer as a “peer” in some networks and yet not desire it in others. Few students may be happy with their Lecturers being a “Facebook friend” with the expectation that the difference in the culture hierarchy will mean it affects their relationship during classes. If a lecturer follows you on Twitter, he or she may see that you’re not impressed with the latest assignment and have decided to go out to Shine instead. That’s bound to be damaging.

Donald Clark mentioned formal higher education last week during his talks at the InvestNI IP Seminars. He referenced that you can download many lectures from eminent educators on YouTube, or from iTunes U. He claimed that classical classroom teaching is a horrid way to learn and that educators should be prepared to put their teaching material online. He also suggested that those who refuse to do so are perhaps insecure about the quality of their content?

This does not mean that lecturers are redundant as according to the talk today, students believe they are paying for face to face interaction with lecturers.

What does a “digital native” expect then?

When I went to university I had pretty much zero experience of computers. Sure – I had a Spectrum 10 years earlier but that wasn’t exactly inspiring. After my second year, we were presented with UNIX-based terminals in the Open Access Centres. This began my love of networked systems. I learned what I wanted (and learned more about that than what I was being taught). We had email but never interacted with university staff except to be told off for using the systems for accessing a MUD or MUSH which were the precursors of chat rooms to a degree (and arguably a precursor of Second Life). We had an instant messenger app called “zwrite” and we could use “talk” from the command line as well. And among our little cliques, we had the best fun.

These days, the new intake into the university will consist of people who have grown up with wikipedia, with chat rooms, with email, with instant messengers. They’re used to trusting the information sources they find online, they’re extremely competent at finding sources of information and sharing that information via social bookmarking or other online tools. They expect to have access to networks like Twitter or Facebook and are immediately suspicious or resentful of regimes which restrict that access. They’ll be able to circumvent those restrictions either through hacks distributed via their social network or by just using their phones (each individually more than a hundred times more capable than the computers I first used in the Open Access Centre). They’ll expect their assessment and course materials to be available online.

What’s more interesting is what access and interaction they expect from their lecturers. They’ll expect email. But what about blogs? Twitter? Facebook? SMS? Would they give their mobile number to their lecturer?

We didn’t have these problems…

They never had this when I was growing up…

SeriousGames.ie Welcome to the DIT Experimental Gaming Group Wiki. EGG (the Experimental Gaming Group) is a cross faculty research group for digital games in the DIT. EGG has members from the School of Computing, Digital Media Centre and the Learning Technology Group. Our aim is to develop courses and research on digital games, serious games, … Continue reading “They never had this when I was growing up…”

SeriousGames.ie

Welcome to the DIT Experimental Gaming Group Wiki.

EGG (the Experimental Gaming Group) is a cross faculty research group for digital games in the DIT. EGG has members from the School of Computing, Digital Media Centre and the Learning Technology Group. Our aim is to develop courses and research on digital games, serious games, robots and toys.

I wonder if I could get an invite to visit there? (They might have a hard time getting me to leave!)

I recently watched a video podcast (via iTunes) from the Learning Games Initiative from the University of Arizona regarding culture and language acquisition through game interactivity. Imagine playing World of Warcraft or The Sims if the language and culture presented was all Turkish or Chinese. It would add context to the ‘roleplay’ situations often presented to students learning languages (as I recall from French, German and Mandarin classes). Students would also be better motivated to discover – though the game has to be enjoyable. I certainly enjoyed playing my Francais versions of Age of Empires and Call of Duty 2 I picked up in Paris one year.

Though I’d not consider my own mis-spent youth to have been particularly educational (too much Manic Miner and Saboteur), I think that games are already educational. Consider that I’d never heard of a Banyan Tree before playing games and look at the Myst games as examples of how an entire culture can be related through a hypercard stack in the form of a game (and consider how this can be tied into Location-based services turning a tourist guide into a game, a challenge and a learning aide).

I have some plans in this regard. Looking for a few good eggs.

Digital Hub companies growing 30x average in RoI

ENN writes: Companies located in The Digital Hub will grow at a rate 30 times greater than the national average during 2008. That’s according to the Digital Hub Enterprise Survey, which also revealed that 43 percent of Digital Hub companies have a product that is completely new to the market, while 25 percent have developed … Continue reading “Digital Hub companies growing 30x average in RoI”

ENN writes:

Companies located in The Digital Hub will grow at a rate 30 times greater than the national average during 2008. That’s according to the Digital Hub Enterprise Survey, which also revealed that 43 percent of Digital Hub companies have a product that is completely new to the market, while 25 percent have developed unique business practices, and 24 percent use a business model that is unique to their particular market. “Approximately one in six of the digital media companies currently operating in Ireland are located in The Digital Hub,” said Philip Flynn, CEO of the Digital Hub Development Agency. “So this survey not only gives us an insight into how Hub companies are getting on, it also gives key indicators about the health of Ireland’s digital media industry overall.”

While it’s possible to look at this success from an all-Ireland point of view, we have to remember that in the Black North we have our own economy and our own companies to support. We don’t (yet) have an equivalent of the Digital Hub Development Agency, though I’m presuming this is what Digital Circle is meant to grow into. The DHDA works to promote companies within the borders of Ireland and not the UK – we have our own development agency for this.

In the sense that all ‘digital hub’ companies are competing, we must be ready to compete with each other as well as with our peers in the Republic of Ireland. But friendly competition as opposed to the sort which is all too common in Northern Ireland (where a competitor tells customers that you’ve gone out of business because, you know, that’s a fair tactic).

I’d need to read a lot more about the criteria for unique business models, unique business practices and completely new products on the market[1], but it’s encouraging statistics. It goes to show that having a government agency-supported focus group for an industry is a very good way to grow the industry. Having a facility like The Digital Hub is a great step for companies which are pre-Bubble in their work ethic (while hopefully being post-Bubble in their business plan).

The closest we really have for this is the Northern Ireland Science Park which, to be honest, looks antediluvian compared to The Digital Hub – it has a lot of potential and just needs a little more energy and a little less process.

We’ve got more happening than just the InvestNI/Momentum events. Look at BarCamp, look at Belfast OpenCoffee Club (meeting Thursday 3rd July). Look at the as-yet-unnamed event happening in six months! Northern Ireland is buzzing.

Where we need the government to assist is in reducing the centralisation of all digital content companies in Belfast. There’s no reason for it considering the resources available in Omagh, Derry, Newry and Armagh. I’ve personal experience with some of the local colleges in these regions and they’re doing a lot more than people give credit for. They’re pushing ‘digital/technology’ education forward and this matters because in a broadband world it doesn’t matter where in the province you are from.

[1] something that is completely new to the market is not usually a good thing.

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