Conference Abstract

Everything seems to have gone quiet the last couple of weeks. That's because we are all into the next TMA (tutor marked assignment) at the moment. It's in 2 parts: 

1. Short conference abstract
2. Extended abstract - goes into more detail about the project, sources that will be drawn on, and how networking has contributed to the project's development.

This is my 2nd draft of the short abstract. The aim is to give enough information about the presentation to advertise it and get people to come and listen. I'm not really happy with it at the moment because I would like to turn it round and have information about the conference at the beginning and the rest following after. Try as I might, I haven't managed to do that and for it to still make any sense.

If you would like to comment with some constructive feedback, I'd be very grateful. Comments are moderated, just to eliminate spam but as long as any criticism is worded constructively and doesn't contain any swearing, I'll publish it.

Individual Learning Plans: from paper to online

How many things can you think of, that were once only available in paper form but are now online? Every day, we undertake a variety of tasks using the Internet, which only a decade ago were predominantly paper-based: banking, job applications, travel timetables, sharing photos, to name but a few. There is now a public expectation of being able to input and access key information online.

In education, the primary and secondary sectors have largely kept pace with innovative technologies and online provision, using it to improve the quality of teaching, learning and assessment. As well as many proprietary software products being marketed, there has also been a surge of open source material, which has enabled schools to adopt and adapt products for their own needs, without a large financial outlay. Further education may, however, have been left behind in this respect, so that what is now the norm for schools could still be considered an innovation within the field of adult education.

In further education, tutors encourage their learners to set personal goals and short-term targets to direct and focus their learning. It is important to recognise and record progress and achievement, and on government funded courses, this is done through the use of Individual Learning Plans (ILPs). Many providers are still using paper forms for this, which tutors and learners tend to regard as tedious and bureaucratic. Could an online interactive eILP be more relevant and engaging for 21^st century learners?

This multimedia presentation offers H818 conference delegates the opportunity to decide for themselves the extent to which an eILP gives learners an innovative and engaging alternative to current paper documents. It will begin by examining some of the shortfalls of the existing paper ILP, and the learner and tutor feedback that led to the desire to create an eILP. I will then demonstrate the process of creating such an eILP within the open source Moodle virtual learning environment (VLE). I will show how activities within Moodle, such as the database activity, can be used to create an eILP. Reflections of the lessons learnt along the way will be shared, including learner and tutor feedback through recorded interviews.

Other further education providers have participated in related projects but many of these have focussed more on the e-portfolio than an eILP. Gloucestershire Council began to capture evidence of learner progress in the form of video and audio portfolios but stopped short of developing the ILP itself. Similarly, the National Star College has adopted the use of e-portfolios with pictures, podcasts and video to record the achievements of learners with learning difficulties. My project adds to and extends the work of these by attempting to revitalise and modernise the underpinning paperwork - specifically the ILP.

Conference Poster

One of the main outcomes of this H818 module, is an online conference, hosted in Cloudworks. As part of the preparation for this, we have all been making multimedia posters. We could choose which tools to use for this and have been helping each other out with feedback. Mine is now almost to the point of being ready. I've been sharing it in Open Studio (only other students can view and comment there) but now I'm sharing it with a wider audience. Please feel free to comment and suggest improvements, but all comments are moderated.

Individual Learning Plans: from paper to online (public version)—Nicki BerryDocs.com

Activity 5.2 - Identifying sources

Here's the task:

1. Identify between five and eight sources or resources that you feel will provide a more in-depth understanding of what is significant about your topic. These may include ones identified in the H818 Media format forum. Draw on your notes from Section 4.2 as a starting point.
2. Make notes on each one, recording useful examples, quotations, data and infographics that you may wish to cite or build upon during the productive phase in Units 7 and 8. 
   Your notes should make clear why each source or resource may be helpful to the topic you have chosen and not simply describe its content.

I started out looking through the sources that I have already accumulated and picked out some that were worth a re-read. Here's my final list:

1. Teaching Learning and Assessment for Adults by OECD
   On P. 14, there is a list of five steps which make up a learner journey. I think these steps will be useful to compare with the five stages of RARPA (Recognising and recording progress and achievement). There is definitely some overlap, even though this article doesn't directly refer to the RARPA process. As this article is written by an organisation which is associated with finding best practice in education, if their recommendations align nicely with what we are trying to achieve through RARPA and the ILP, this will be a useful text to draw on for justification.


2. Recommending learning activities as a strategy for self-regulated learning
   I'm less certain about whether I will use this one. I think I like the idea of a 'learning activity recommender'. This might tie into an eILP in some way. I may scrap the idea but for now, I'm keeping it.


3. It's all about the learners
   This is one of three articles from an online journal called 'Adults Learning'. Since it is a UK-based journal and focusses on adult education, which is very much my field, it is completely relevant. I like this article because Gloucestershire Council were in the same situation as us - needing to improve their implementation of the RARPA process. Actually, I imagine there are/were many providers who need to do this. It's just that some have taken on the challenge better than others. I'd like to hope we're one of those.


4. If it ain't broke...
   This article argues in favour of keeping RARPA as a way of giving 'a true sense of self worth and ownership of learning to the learner'. In making our ILPs more interactive, this is what I hope to achieve. Rather than ILPs being seen as an irritating piece of paperwork, I want them to be useful for learners in managing and engaging with their own learning.


5. Goal setting behaviour in massive open online courses
   I was doubtful as to whether to keep this on my list, as it is really about MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) and my project isn't about MOOCs. However it does talk about goal setting behaviour, which is relevant, so for now it stays.


6. Digital learning, digital scholarship and design thinking
   This must be an extract from a larger work because in the introduction, which is on P. 547, it talks about 'a sense of urgency' in using 'new media' to make learning resources more relevant to today's learners... and that is really what this project is all about. Yes, I want to add in new features that can't be there with a paper document but more than anything, I want the ILP to engage learners, rather than putting them off and I think in today's multimedia society, something that is online is more likely to do that.


7. A measure of success
   I like this article because it talks about the learning process being 'co-managed both tutor and learner', which is just what we are aiming to achieve. At the moment, even where learners are filling in their own ILP, I feel like it is still very much a tutor-led activity. I don't see much evidence of learners linking their learning outside the classroom to their targets and being keen to record this. The situation I would love to see might look like this... 
   
   An ESOL learner has a target of listening to his/her child read and using that to learn the meaning of one new word per day. As they listen to their child read, they ask what a word means. The child translates it into their mother tongue and then they play about with using the word in sentences. Together, they go online and do mummy/daddy's homework. They record the word, it's meaning and an example of its use in a glossary and then link to it from the evidence section of their target. At the end of the week, they review all the words and then mark the target as achieved.

Activity 5.1 - Trying out multimedia tools

Unit 5 begins the process of producing a multimedia poster about our conference presentation. It asks us to try out three new tools from this list:

Alternatively, we can use other tools if they meet the criteria.

I have already used several of these tools before, with varying degrees of success. I've used SlideShare, YouTube and Popplet fairly recently and Prezi and various video editing tools less recently. I wanted to learn something completely new so I looked at the 50 ways to tell a story and then followed a chain of links and ended up with:

• Microsoft Sway
• PowToon
• Padlet

I'm currently playing with Microsoft Sway. It's like PowerPoint but much better and entirely online. It brings together all kinds of multimedia and you can create a presentation that takes the audience through a series of thoughts. There are lots of different layouts and themes. The only thing I don't like about it is that you can't export it or save it offline. I had a look at their online forum and it seems that I'm not alone in wishing they had thought about that. 

Anyway, when I've finished playing with it, I'll post something to show how it works.

Activity 4.4 - The Art of Asking

This task starts with a TED talk. TED talks are a great way of listening to speakers on a whole range of subjects. Some are really gripping, others less so. If you have 13 minutes to spare, this one is worth a listen, though I'm not entirely sure what I think about it.




The task asks for a short, informal review on either her TED talk or her blog but her blog is peppered with the F-word and I only got halfway through before getting a bit irritated by it and I stopped reading.

It's all about asking for money to fund your work but then your work itself being available for free. In some ways, we accept this all the time, all around us. When buskers play well, I'm more than happy to stand and listen and chuck 'em some cash. The trouble is, a lot are not that great and rather than it being a conscious work-choice, they busk because they can't get anything else.

In relating her message to online work, I think there is a definite place for it. There are some amazing resources out there, openly available and free to use, adapt and enjoy. If people are using their skills to provide this for free, I have no objection to them asking for money. Personally, it wouldn't work for me at the moment. I haven't got the time to create at that level alongside work and I am not in a position to give up a secure income for one that is unpredictable and doesn't have benefits attached to it. Anything I make available online is totally free, with no expectation of being asked for money. That's not to say I won't change my mind in the future but this is now.

Activity 4.3 - Backchannels

My thoughts on BETT

This activity introduces the concept of backchannels for conferences. It’s one of those things that I know about, have participated in and followed to various degrees, but never knew its proper name. In the activity, we were asked to research various aspects of 4 conferences. I was delighted to see that the 4^th one was BETT.

BETT is the highlight of my educational year! I started attending in 2005 and went every year, even after we moved to Finland, until 2011. My final visit there was special for several reasons. Firstly, I took my eldest son, Josh, with me. He was 15 and in his final year of Finnish basic education. It was a big treat for him, not only to go there but to be allowed time out of school to attend with me. The reason was that his final IB project was to build from scratch a VLE. He clearly had aspirations in programming and BETT was a fantastic place to inspire that.

#Bett2011 was also special because Josh entered the Promethean competition and won me a set of 32 ActivExpressions (interactive voting system), which indirectly led to me persuading my principal to buy several ActivBoards for the school.

I would have loved to attend BETT in 2012 but by January of that year, I was having some health issues and they had changed the venue from Olympia to Excel, which meant that staying with my friend in Wimbledon was out of the question. By 2013/14/15, I was adjusting to life with a disability and the prospect of a trip to London, alone, as a wheelchair user was frankly terrifying!

#Bett2016 is going to be a very exciting one for me. I’ve booked a week off work and an adapted room in a hotel near the venue. I’m going to attend for the full four days by myself, not for work (though it will obviously have an impact) but for myself… for my own professional development and inspiration. I’m going to attend a number of seminars, participating through the Twitter backchannel, as well as visiting as many stands as possible. My absolute dream is to hear Professor Sugata Mitra, one of the keynote speakers, presenting live. It was once possible to pay to book tickets but now it’s first come, first served, so I need to be there early and get my place. I’m hoping that bringing my own chair will help! ;)

Snipped from bettshow.com

I haven’t answered the question about whether the online resources give a feel for what the conference is like, whether there is controversy or debate in the backchannels, or whether the extra information would be useful to attendees. My own experience of BETT is that being there can’t be replaced with any amount of online interaction. The backchannel, though, will be invaluable in following themes, networking, creating social opportunities, etc. If I remember, I’ll post again during or after the event.

Social factors affecting innovation

In researching the S of PEST - social factors - I noticed a shift in thinking. Whereas political and economic factors largely affected what drives innovation, social factors seem to be more about adoption of innovation. This makes social factors quite interesting to me because I want to know how to ensure maximum adoption of my 'innovation' or project, when it is ready for use.

There are plenty of resources out there, which go into detail about this. I have looked at three:

Innovation Excellence

This article cites the work of Professor Robert Cialdini, who talks about human behaviour in terms of

• reciprocity - this is basically the 'you scratch my back; I'll scratch yours' theory. People are more likely to do something for you if you've done something for them.
• consistency - once we make a choice, we feel pressure to be consistent and to commit to that choice.
• social proof - the believe that the more people agree with something, the more likely it is to be right or have value.
• liking - we prefer to say yes to people that we like.
• authority - people have a deep need to obey authority.
• scarcity - if something is rare, it is more valuable.

Once I have got an eILP up and running, I want my tutors to adopt and use it. So what can I be doing to enable this? Some of the things, I hope I already do, like doing favours for them, being the kind of line manager that they want to say yes to, and being an authority that they want to obey. These last two could run contrary to each other but I have always tried to get a balance between being 'the boss' and therefore having some clout when it comes to giving out things that need doing, and being reasonable, helpful and kind so that tutors buy-in to what I want them to do.

Social proof could be a big factor in adopting my eILP but I can start now getting the early adopters to connect with the concept and then they will help me sell it to the others. Also, the fact that we will be doing something that seems to be quite rare, might help too.

Instructional Technology Research Online

I won't go into this one in detail, but it is well worth a read. I like this diagram...

Managing Innovation Adoption

I haven't read this yet but a quick glance through got my interest and I've bookmarked it for later.

Innovation and Economics

I have to begin by saying that whilst innovation is very much 'my thing', economics really isn't. However, the E of this PEST activity has had me looking at how innovation is linked to economic factors and obviously it absolutely is! After all my searching through websites and reading articles, the conclusion I came to is that innovation and the economy are intrinsically linked.

Much of my reading centred around research councils and how innovation is funded. Innovate UK popped up again, as a key source of funding. Of course this is a .gov.uk so there is serious overlap with politics too.

The universities also featured heavily, especially the Russell group ones, which are into research in a big way. Manchester University, on their website, rightly stated that "long term growth comes from investment in innovation."

So I don't need much convincing that innovation and economic factors are connected... but then I tried to think about where that fits with my project. I'm certainly not going to get any funding for it and I doubt that it will directly bring in any funding. Having said that, there is a longer term economic goal. Our learners are just regular members of the public - people who live around the county. Some get their courses fully funded but many pay for their courses. Long term, people are more likely to continue paying to learn with us, if we have a reputation for being relevant and up-to-date. If we are still using old systems in 5 or 10 years time, it's entirely possible that we will fade out.

Activity 4.1 - Innovation and Politics

Here begins a series of four blog entries based on the PEST framework (no, I'd never heard of that before either). PEST stands for: Political, Economic, Social, Technical. It's a way of looking at the bigger picture.

 The theme I have chosen for my H818 project, is innovation. Google defines innovation as: "The act of making changes in something established, especially by introducing new methods, ideas or products." I think of everything in educational terms, so I think about innovations in the field of education - interactive whiteboards, voting systems, virtual learning environments, etc. Today though, I'm going to attempt to think politics.

I didn't know where to start but Google is always there to help. I learned a lot, though as always, it was difficult to work out what the most relevant search results are. Here are my top three:

1. Innovate UK - the UK's innovation agency; an executive non-departmental public body. From their site, I was able to search policy documents on a whole range of industries (including education) and find links to other organisations that might be relevant.

2. British Innovation is Not Dead - a Guardian article from 2012. I liked one particular part of this, which probably will be raised when I look at social factors.

What I liked about this quote is not that one innovative idea is necessarily better than another, but that innovation is not new. I think we can be sucked into thinking that innovation is all about technology but that's only this generation. Most of the things we take for granted were once innovative inventions.

3. Nesta - "an innovation charity with a mission to help people and organisations bring great ideas to life" (Nesta website). I can already hear you asking how that fits with politics but it was a fun quiz they offer about innovation policy. I love online quizzes so I gave it a go. I didn't expect to do very well but the last hour or so of research helped me immensely. Give it a go. Here's my result:

Activity 3.2

Section 3.2 of the module materials have been about exploring the different formats for the conference presentation in February. There are three options:

• written paper/case study
• presentation/demonstration
• activity/workshop

In this activity, we were asked to find examples of each and comment on why we found them interesting. The problem is, I find lots of things interesting and some of those things bear little/no relevance to the course. Narrowing it down to find something that is relevant to my project plan, yielded few results. It's as though no-one else has ever looked at electronic ILPs (individual learning plans) before, which I'm sure is not true.

In terms of deciding on a format for my project, I'm currently torn between a presentation/demonstration and a workshop but I'm leaning more towards the former. In fact, before learners even embark on their eILP, something we need to address is explaining the relevance of an ILP to their learning. Talking to learners, they often see it as an unnecessary and burdensome piece of paperwork. So maybe a video to explain the value of it would be good. This could then be embedded in the final online area.

Yes, writing this is swaying me even more to a multimedia presentation to demonstrate my ideas.

Initial Project Plans

This week has felt a little chaotic! I've had a very busy week at work and not much time to engage with my studies. The tutor group forum is really active, which is good but if you don't look at it every day, it's easy for new posts to mount up and then it becomes a major catch-up exercise. Anyway, I've now got a day's leave and before I head off to see my youngest son (newly at uni) I'm catching up with my studies.

Several of my colleagues have started posting initial plans for their projects. It's been fascinating to read their various plans and ideas and think about how it all links to the final conference in February. It's also been interesting to see what online tools and networking sites the others use. I've been introduced to Diigo and set up an account there. I already had a SlideShare account but I've never used it. So this morning, I've created a presentation of my initial plans, uploaded it to SlideShare and here it is.

Project plan from Nicki Berry

What I would really like, is some feedback about how widely used RARPA is. It was new to me when I started working in Further Education last December and I'm interested to know which sectors use it. I would also like to know how understandable my plans are to non-specialists. Please leave comments (they'll be moderated to filter out any spam so they may not appear instantly).

Activity 3.1 - Selecting a topic and title

1. Read the Initial conference call  for the H818 conference.
2. Decide on a topic that will form the focus for your H818 activity.
   Remember that this should be a topic which is of interest to an audience at the conference and relates to one of the three themes. It should also hold your interest across several weeks of activity.
   Your selection could be informed by your current work or research interests, or it could be something that you have previously worked on, e.g. as a past assignment which you now wish to spend time developing further or updating.
3. Choose a provisional title that makes clear what the topic and the theme are. This will help you to direct your search and craft the title of your final presentation.
4. Spend up to four hours conducting an online literature search. Include the OU Library and the Ready to Research websites mentioned above.
   Note the sources of information that you can draw on for your topic and recent relevant work that you need to read. You could use the Library Information Literacy (LIL) site which supports learning about activities such as using an Open Access Repository, or finding information on the ‘invisible’ or ‘deep’ web.
   You may find it useful to set up a systematic way of doing this, e.g. using a bibliographic management system.
5. Use your tutor forum, or any other professional networks, to help identify what information people may already know, or assume, about your topic. What might they expect from a presentation with your chosen title?

2. Topic Idea

After some discussion in the tutor group forum, where we discussed the extent to which the project has to be truly 'open', I think I'm going to go with the development of an eILP (electronic Individual Learning Plan) on our Virtual Learning Environment. This is something that I will be doing at work anyway, and it should fit the time frame of H818 quite nicely. We already use ILPs but they are currently paper-based. What I want is something interactive, that links targets to the calendar and where evidence of progress can be uploaded.

3. Provisional Title

Recognising And Recording Progress and Achievement: the development of an electronic Interactive Learning Plan (eILP).

4. Literature Search

I haven't finished this yet but I have made a start. The only problem is, I have given some of them author file names and others title file names. I definitely need to organise them better.

Activity 2.5 - Visualisation

The task gave us a choice of visualisation tools to try out. The aim was to produce visuals of our Twitter (or other online) activity and then ask the following questions:

• Did the visualisation reveal anything surprising?
• Could you think of ways you might use a visualisation like this in your presentation?
• What else would it need to do to add benefit?
• Did you have any concerns about what could be found about the networks of others using these tools?

The tool I chose is called Twitonomy. Go on, try it out - it's really quite interesting!

Here are a few of the visuals I produced, with my thoughts on them.

Interesting User Information

This is the one I found most interesting because it shows who I've engaged with the most. Thankfully, DatBrit7 is one of my sons and he comes out as my top priority. My other son isn't as active on Twitter. Then there's a whole bunch of professional contacts, some of whom go back quite a long way. There's Dughall, who I worked with many years ago when VLEs first came out and we were trying to get one embedded across all the primary schools in the local authority. Then there are the MinecraftEdu people and educators who are connected with that. Some of the people in the list, I've never really met but they are contacts from the BETT show. It will be interesting to see how these change over the next 6 months as I focus more on professional networks.

Slightly Embarrassing Hashtags Information

Okay, I admit it - having Eurovision as my top hashtag is just embarrassing. I can't help it and there's no excuse. It's a family tradition and we thought it would fade out when Terry Wogan retired but Graham Norton is just as sarcastic and we're addicted. I'm over the moon though, that MinecraftEdu is a close second!

Pretty graphs showing when I'm on Twitter

I can't see any earthly use for this but it is still kind of interesting. I have no recollection of ever being up at 4am, so I can only assume it doesn't self-adjust for different time zones. Clearly Saturday evenings got a boost because of Eurovision, which leads me to my overall conclusion. For small-scale users, statistics like these can easily be skewed by a one-off event that attracts a high number of tweets, especially if they are hashtagged.

Activity 2.4 - Privacy Invasion

Think of two or three scenarios that you would consider acts of privacy invasion or risks of this occurring (focus on personal information). These may be examples from personal experience, friends or ones which you have heard about in the news. Choose one of these to develop through discussion with others in H818.

We're going to be discussing this in our tutor group forum but if any of my Facebook friends or Twitter followers feels like commenting, I'd be grateful for the opportunity to discuss, reflect and generally chew over some of these issues.

My biggest concern over online privacy actually starts with situations that aren't a problem. I'll throw out a couple of examples in a minute. The problem is that there are so many fears - real and imaginary - about privacy invasion that it becomes difficult to know what to take seriously and what to ignore. Lack of accurate information is, in my opinion, a big threat.

1. Facebook are going to steal all the rights to my photos!

I have to admit that when these messages first started, I got sucked right in but very quickly, it was flagged up that they are a series of hoax messages. There are two problems here. Firstly, some people quickly forget that it is probably a hoax and so they continue to copy/paste, spreading fear that Facebook might be interested in selling that picture of your roast dinner or video clip of your child giggling for the first time. Secondly, there is the risk that when a real issue arises, we'll all just assume it's another hoax and totally ignore it. Maybe that is the aim of all the hoaxes... or am I now being paranoid?

It's not an ideal solution but now, when I see these, I tend to copy/paste the first sentence into a search engine and it generally brings up a series of hoax alerts.

2. There are aliens in cyberspace and they're watching me!

Okay, this isn't what was really said but it was along those lines. My son and I were asked to help a friend (a generation ahead of me) with her iPad. Now neither of us are Apple experts so we asked what the problem was before deciding whether to go and help. It went roughly like this...

Friend: My iPad has been hacked.
Me: How do you know? What has happened?
F: I can't get into my emails. The password has been changed.
Me: Have you tried requesting a reset?
F: Yes but whoever it is changes it straight back again.
Me: So it's your email account that you think has been hacked, not the whole iPad?
F: No, it's everything. I think they got in through the webcam. They've done something to our phone line too... and maybe the fridge.
Me: You've got an Apple fridge?
F: No, just a normal one but it's not working properly.
Me: And who do you think has broken your fridge through your webcam?
F: (Near tears) I don't know but they could be watching us all the time. It's causing us both so much stress.

Etc...etc...etc...

I had two immediate concerns. If she genuinely believed that someone was watching them and damaging their white goods through her iPad, why didn't she turn it off?!?! Also, and this goes back to my previous example, how vulnerable will she be if she does get an account hacked? The total lack of understanding about this, is likely to mean that she'll have burnt out all her 'this looks dodgy' receptors and she'll be open to anything.

Does anyone have any thoughts to share on this theme or any similar examples to share?

Activity 2.3 - Researching Openness

This activity asks us to research two areas of openness that are less familiar to us. It referred to a Wordle, which had mainly words that I've heard of and even know something about. So, the first topic, I picked because I wasn't sure what it was. The second, I picked because I'm thinking I might link my project to this area and therefore I figured I should find out more about it.

1. Media repository

I'd never heard this phrase before but once I Googled it, I realised it was pretty obvious. It's basically an online collection of 'stuff'. It can be photos, journals, blogs... practically any kind of data that can be stored, searched, uploaded, downloaded and so on. There are some well known media repositories, such as Flickr and various online libraries. Having got that far, I came to an abrupt halt. I tried to find out who's doing research in this area but it was really difficult to find anything useful. As it's not an area I'm particularly excited about, I stopped there.

2. Innovation

Going from something quite specific, I then picked a topic that is huge! As I've been thinking about ideas for my project, I'm drawn to this as the theme. Innovation is a word that is banded around quite a lot. All teachers who want to become someone, aspire to be innovative. ICT teachers, especially, leap after the latest innovations. But what really is it?

When I was brainstorming ideas in Activity 1.5, I looked up a Google definition of innovation and it was all about new ways of doing established tasks. Again, it was difficult to find definitive information about the big names in innovation through a Google search. Maybe this is too big a topic. I mean there must be hundreds of top researchers, researching innovation!

Narrowing down slightly, I focussed on openness and innovation. I'm interested in where these two areas overlap. In doing this, I found out about the Agency for Open Culture. It's an agency that centres in on humanitarian issues and post-conflict problem solving. Their mantra is "open knowledge for open societies", which sent my thoughts back to that Veletsianos article and the first assumption about Open Scholarship.

There are several big annual conferences which bring together openness and innovation. My personal favourite is the BETT show, which I try to get to most years. Although openness at BETT is variable, there are a lot of speakers, exhibitors and visitors who are really into open education and the whole sharing of resources idea. Another one, that I hadn't heard of is LINQ, (Learning Innovations and Learning Quality). The motto for this year's conference was "The need for change in education: openness as default?"

I also looked for some academic works on this topic and found articles by:

• Norm Friesen & Judith Murray
• George Veletsianos
• Andy Lane & KJ Vandorp
• R John Robertson (JISC)

I don't think the area of innovation/openness in education is something that is particular to a specific time or place. It could be argued that it is new to this generation but I think that is a slightly arrogant view. In one way or another, educators have been coming up with new ideas and sharing them with other teachers since the beginning of time. It's just that now it's all happening online and technology is making it easier and wider-reaching.

Activity 2.2 - Openness

Consider your own stance on openness on the following statements, giving a reason for each.

1. I will only publish in open access journals.

At this stage, I'm not even thinking about having my work published in any kind of official capacity. I enjoy blogging and agree with Weller (2012) that "we are all broadcasters now." One of the great things about Web 2.0 technologies is that anybody can publish anything online, without it first having to be sent to a publisher, reviewed and critiqued and rejected many times.

Looking forward, if I did decide to try to get any of my work published in journals, it would probably be open access but it would depend on the situation.

2. I will share all learning material that I create and own openly online.

In general, yes, but I wouldn't say 'all'. I already share some things but only where I think others might find it useful. When I was teaching, a lot of my materials were made specifically for my group or class. It might have their names and/or photos in it, so it wouldn't have been appropriate to share. I know I could have adapted it and removed the confidential stuff but honestly, that would have taken too long. At that stage, I was working 60 - 70 hours a week and needed to sleep occasionally.

3. I will maintain an online social media identity as a core part of my professional identity.

If I was purely giving my own view on this, then yes, absolutely. However, the local authority that I work for has a very strict social media policy and it really limits what we are allowed to share on social media. I tend to use Facebook mainly for personal, family and friends - keeping up with my personal network, which is spread all around the world. Twitter is my professional identity, where I follow other professionals, although I'm not 100% strict about it. I do occasionally dip into a hashtag conversation, particularly when watching certain TV programmes, although that is rare.

4. I take a pragmatic approach and release some resources openly if it's not too much extra work.

Absolutely - I think this one sums up my approach!

5. I have concerns about intellectual property and releasing my content openly. 

I don't worry about others using my work. I tend to think that if God has given me a talent of any kind, then I have a responsibility to share that for the benefit of others. My only worry about releasing content openly is that you sometimes get people being overly critical (often when they have misunderstood the purpose of a resource) or random strangers starting political arguments in comments threads. For that reason, I usually set up so that I can moderate comments, where that is an option.

6. I will share all material that I create and own openly online, as soon as I create it.

No, probably not. Again, it goes back to the word 'all'. I'll share some, depending on whether it creates extra work for me and whether I think it might be useful. I don't always share 'as soon as' either, sometimes because I'm busy and sometimes because I want to test it first. The thing with learning resources is, you've got two different types of teachers who look for resources online. The first looks for a resource, then checks it through, adapts it for his/her situation and then gets a lot out of it. The second is maybe a bit lazy... or needs educating in digital citizenship. They take a resource and the first time they look at it, is when they use it with their class. Then they complain that it wasn't very good.

Summary

I'll use social media as a tool for communicating and sharing resources, split into Facebook for personal purposes and Twitter for professional. Having said that, I share this blog on both. I basically hold to the principal of sharing resources and allowing others to use and adapt them, though it's nice to be acknowledged when people use my resources.

Activity 1.5 - Brainstorming and tagging topics

Together with your tutor group, brainstorm topics that presenters might choose as the basis for submissions at a conference where ‘inclusion’, ‘innovation’ and ‘implementation’ are offered within a theme of ‘Openness in education’.

I started off okay. Inclusion is a word I am well familiar with. Innovation also filled my mind with ideas. But implementation? I suddenly realised it would be a good idea to define these words, especially as I've had a sneaky peak at the first TMA and I'm going to be writing 1000 words about one of them. So I've started with a definition (stolen from Google, using the technique one of my sons showed me of typing define: inclusion, etc. into a Google search).

Inclusion: 

Definition: The act of being included within a group or structure.

• The use of a VLE to tackle rural isolation
• Blended learning for ESOL learners
• MOOC to provide ESOL for Syrian refugees
• Can interactive whiteboards motivate travellers enough to improve achievement?
• A video to raise awareness/funds for Worklink
• How could technology improve teaching, learning and assessment in BSL sessions?

Innovation: 

Definition: The act of making changes in something established, especially by introducing new methods, ideas or products.

• How could technology improve teaching, learning and assessment in BSL sessions?
• Introducing apps to enable learner voice
• Producing photobooks as RARPA evidence
• Use of QR codes in promoting courses
• An interactive ILP on the VLE
• The case for **** going mobile

Implementation: 

Definition: The process of putting a decision or plan into effect.

• Dragging **** into the 21st century
• MOOC for early reading – synthetic phonics
• Could **** save money by going Open Source?
• The use of mobile devices in improving Functional Skills achievements
• Embedding interactivity into teaching, learning and assessment
• Implementing Fundamental British Values through the VLE
• Online safety – implementing a cross-organisational community

Activity 1.4 - Open Architectural Studio

The task was to watch a video by John Seely Brown, in which he talked about the concept of an architectural studio and then how technology can be use to create an open studio as a place to create pieces of work. Here are some of the main points I took from his talk.

The best way to learn something is to teach it. (I like this!)

Tinkering - you build something and then ask questions about it. Does it work? Does it do what I was expecting it to do? Could it work better?

We are entering a different world now, in terms of learning. Criticism is central to learning. We must learn to accept and embrace critiques from our peers, teachers, the master.

Witnessing the struggle - in an open studio, all works in progress are made public. Rather than working shoulder-to-shoulder, like in a physical studio, with other students, we work avatar-to-avatar.

The tools of technology are powerful for building, sharing, tinkering, receiving and giving criticism.

Identity is now based on what I have created and what others have built on it. It's more about networking.

Personal experience of learning through witnessing the struggle of others

Clearing the plot of trees. Temp = -20C

From 2010 to 2012, we built our own house in Oulu, Finland. It was never intended that we should actually build. We couldn't even assemble Ikea furniture without cutting ourselves and fighting with both the item and each other. However, for various reasons, we ended up having to do it ourselves. Actually though, we weren't doing it alone because it was a new estate. Everybody was building their house. It was like a giant architectural studio!

Some of our neighbours were experts at this. A lot of professional builders were building. Some, like us, were complete beginners. Two other families, with whom we were close friends, came into this category. We were largely working side-by-side on our own houses, but within shouting distance. Every so often, we had to drop everything to comfort and encourage whoever was despairing that they could possibly continue. We would share suggestions, demonstrate techniques we had recently learnt and decide what to take back to 'the master'. The master was our independent inspector, Juha. Without his help and guidance, we would certainly not have succeeded. He is in the pictures above, giving Neil tips on how to build a brick wall. 

Thinking about critique, we did this as well. Sometimes it had to be very soft and gentle. Stress levels were such that heavy criticism could have led to abandonment of the project. It became a kind of art form and it worked. Look what we built!!!

Finished house

Activity 1.3

Activity 1.3 - The Assumptions and Challenges of Open Scholarship

Task:  Read the George Veletsianos and Royce Kimmons paper  Assumptions and Challenges of Open Scholarship. In the article the authors set out a number of common assumptions and challenges (see their Table 1).

1. Examine their assumptions and your own, and state the extent to which you agree with the four statements of assumptions.
2. Identify examples from your personal experience that relates to any of these.
3. Post a message to your tutor group forum stating your level of agreement with each statement and sharing experience of these. If you have a blog, or other online space, you could post into this and provide a link in the forum.

I have to confess that I hadn't given a lot of thought to the concept of Open Scholarship until I read this article. I have, on many occasions, sung the praises of Open Source software but mainly because I'm a stingy Yorkshire lass and I don't like paying for anything that can be acquired for free. So first of all, I wanted to be sure what Open Scholarship actually is, and Veletsianos and Kimmons (2012) helpfully spell it out as being about a "collection of emerging practices that espouse openness and sharing," including:

1. Open access and open publishing;
2. Open education, including educational resources and teaching,
3. Networked participation.

So, onto those assumptions... 

1. Open scholarship has a strong ideological basis rooted in an ethical pursuit for democratisation, fundamental human rights, equality and justice.

I partially agree with this but I think in reality, there is a spectrum. At one end open scholarship is motivated by ethical pursuits but at the opposite extreme are those that use technology for business and financial gain. Maybe more people lie at the former end of this spectrum but I think many more are somewhere in the middle. They might have the strong ideology of equality for all and want to enable equal access to resources but the realities of life mean that something needs to generate an income. I think I'm one of those.

I have considered developing (M)OOCs - massive open online courses (but probably not that massive) - for teaching children to read and write using synthetic phonics. The ideological part of me wants all children to have access to high quality resources and teaching, such that literacy is achievable for all, regardless of social, racial or other identity. On the other hand, I need an income. For me to put in the time and effort that is needed, I would have to make this my main work. Thus, it would have to generate a living wage. Does the need for an income take away from my ethical desire for all children to have access to online literacy teaching? I don't think so but I would add this to the challenges raised in the article.

2. Open scholarship emphasises the importance of digital participation for enhanced scholarly outcomes.

I strongly agree. Digital participation, if practised by digitally literate scholars, leads to enhanced outcomes. I would, however, temper this by clarifying that much more needs to be done at all levels of education to improve digital literacy.

In two contrasting contexts, I have witnessed enhanced learning outcomes of young children who have been engaged in a deliberate programme of digital literacy education. In the same way as academic literacy continues to be developed through all levels of the education system, digital literacy and online participation must be.

3. Open scholarship is treated as an emergent scholarly phenomenon that is co-evolutionary with technological advancements in the larger culture.

I mostly agree with the article on this, though since this article was written in 2012, some SNSs (Social Networking Sites) now facilitate hierarchical structures of 'friends'. Maybe this still needs to be developed further. What certainly is true, is that Google and other 'targeted ad' users shape what online users see and are exposed to. SNSs quickly work out whose comments we 'like' or respond to most frequently and then show us more similar content. Maybe this is part of learning the literacy of digital/open scholarship. We must actively seek out opposing theories and engage in discussion, bearing balance in mind.

4. Open scholarship is seen as a practical and effective means for achieving scholarly aims that are socially valuable.

I think one of the biggest issues that stands against practicality and efficiency is the potential for misinformation and/or deliberate deception. Of course, this is nothing new. Charles Darwin, as a young boy, learned how to use his scientific knowledge to deceive his peers.

Again, this takes us back to the need for a structured system of learning about how to assess the validity of online information because what is new, is the use of social media and the web for valid academic scholarship, as opposed to mere general interest.

These were my initial thoughts, having read the article. I haven't even thought about question 3 because none of the tutor group forums opens for another couple of weeks. I'll post links to this when they do. This is probably as far as I can get now until the module officially starts. The rest of this unit starts work on something called Open Studio but that isn't open yet. Hopefully though, I've bought myself a week off for Ofsted. In our management meeting today, it was confirmed that we are expecting them imminently! 

Activities 1.1 & 1.2

Activity 1.1

Somewhat predictably, the first activity is about getting to know what's happening, where, when and who and checking that I've got everything ready to get started. There was a nice video to watch by Chris Pegler, the 'production chair' of the module. She talked about what the course is all about and a bit about the project. I really enjoyed the E854 project, so I'm hopeful that I've chosen a module that will be useful and interesting.

The second part of the activity was to set up my OU profile. I had sort of already done this last year but I hadn't written much. This got me thinking about how much I want people to actually know about me. There are some things that it's pretty much expected that you share online, like the family set-up and what I do for work. Then there's the stuff that could understandably be kept private. I'm sure the theme of privacy will pop up at some point in the course but for now, I've decided it makes sense to share a bit about my health and lifestyle, since it plays a huge part in who I am and how I work. I also changed my profile pic to my current favourite - the one of me in my chair at York Races, earlier this summer.

Activity 1.2

Actually this isn't the activity but there was quite an interesting bit of reading about what it means to engage in reflective writing. I'm generally quite a reflective person but I tend to keep my reflections very private. It's usually when I'm driving around on my own that I reflect on a whole variety of things - work, study, life, the universe... everything. So again, it got me thinking about how much reflection I'm prepared to go public with. I haven't come to any conclusions yet but I condensed the text into a little graphic which I printed out and stuck on the wall in front of where I study.

The actual activity was an online questionnaire about study preferences. There was just under 50 questions, most of which I can't remember. I might have another look at the questions but the way I answer these quizzes tends to vary according to what day it is, what mood I'm in and a whole host of other variables.

Module website open

Yesterday the H818 module website opened. Unfortunately, I was really unwell though and not able to do very much. I had a brief look at it between Lemsips and sleeps and managed to send the Kindle files to both my Paperwhite and my Fire. This meant that I could lie in bed reading it, which promptly sent me back to sleep.

This is one of the reasons I got ahead last module, at the beginning. My disability means that a couple of days with a virus (I think that's what they call unknown bugs) can easily wipe out a week's study. I also know that Ofsted are coming very soon and that will steal another week. I've learned to manage my new life by taking advantage of the good days to bank respite time for the bad ones. For E854, it worked. I wasn't working much in September and October, so I got myself five weeks ahead. I was glad of those when I had a week or two in too much pain to study and a couple of weekends to be with my boys around their exam times.

This time round, I'm working but I know that if I don't get a head start, at some point I'll fall behind. That seems to be acceptable for disabled students but I don't want to start doing that. I see it as my responsibility to manage time, work and study sensibly and save for the future. So I'll be making a start as soon as I can.

Meanwhile, on Facebook, everyone's been posting deskies - like selfies but of your workspace instead of yourself. So here's mine...

EMA Submitted

How do you know when to stop work on a project report? One of the downsides of the OU Masters marking/grading system is that they want to work with letters and descriptors:

A = Excellent

B = Good

C = Clear Pass

D = Bare Pass

E - G = (varying degrees of) Fail

...but Moodle need numbers, so they have given each grade a percentage. The trouble is, you can't get an in-between percentage. You can get 63% or 78% or 93%. So what happens if you think you've done enough to get 63% and you know you could spend a few more hours eking out a few more percent but you doubt that all the work in the world would get you to 78%? Do you keep going, stressing out to get it to be as good as possible, even though the chances of getting to the next grade boundary is less than 7% (bad fail!)? 

E854 was always going to be my most challenging module. That's why I did that first. Am I happy with my progress and learning? Most definitely. Have I been happy with my grades? Mostly. Could I have done better? Maybe, but not a whole grade better. Hence, I've decided to stop and submit. I hope I've done enough to pass. 

So I have 4 days until the H818 module website opens. Is it a bit sad, at my age, to be counting down the days/sleeps? 

Learning History

I'm about to embark on my second OU module of a Masters in Online and Distance Education. I started studying almost exactly a year ago, with a module in Applied Linguistics - E854 Investigating Language in Action. I have to say that although this course has been extremely challenging, I have really enjoyed it and have learnt such a lot through it. You may be wondering how an Applied Linguistic module fits with Online and Distance Education. Well, the honest answer is, it doesn't... except that I have a strong interest in English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) and may, at some point in the future, provide online courses in this. Also, I have several science and computer-based qualifications but nothing language-related except a TESOL diploma. I scraped a grade C in my English O-level and wanted something that reflected my current abilities in English.

The last year has largely centred around this book. The next module, as far as I understand it, is book-free. Not sure how I feel about that! The module website opens on 8th September, so my aim is to finish and submit my End of Module Assignment (EMA) for E854 sometime this week and then start work on the new one next week.