seeK: the first three weeks

As you may know, we launched an all new version of our student intranet last week. At the same time, we also unveiled a brand new student area called c_live. The launch went as smoothly as could be expected, there were some small issues (broken links etc) but no major problems in application logic.

There is a lot to be said for how to best manage a transition between systems, our school of thought is to flip the switch and see how it all works out, trusting in our robust design. This, to a large degree was the correct decision as few students struggled with the new system although there was much discussion on the system in our forums.

When we did 'flick the switch', it was with a sense of personal trepidation as included in the upgrade was a web application called seeK. seeK is a twitter/facebook style status sharing application designed to provide students with the social networking & collaborating functionality they crave whilst ensuring it takes place in a secure and managed environment. I was nervous, as it can easily been seen as a chat application with no benefit to teaching and learning.

This is a similar argument that was levelled at the internet when it was first offered as a resource, however it is my thinking that unsupervised or unmanaged any resource can be a distraction (doodling in a text book is a good example).

So what happened?

From uploading the application to the live server, it took under a minute for the first seeK status to be posted, that in itself is a record. The thing is seeK isn't on the main page of seeNet, it's a completely different section called c_Live, which means:

• The students recognised a new version of seeNet
• Realised there was a new section called c_live and clicked the link
• The Student was presented with a range of new applications they hadn't seen before 
• Posted a status update

All within a minute and with no guidance from us.

Say what you want about the term digital natives, the students took to the concept of seeK like ducks to water.

So all went well?

When I first unveiled the system to the team for testing, we messed around and posted silly status updates, if we did that, I wouldn't expect anything less from our students. Students will test the boundaries of the system they are given and boy howdy did they do exactly that. The one that stands out from the rest was a student  using an harmless css injection attack to change the background image of c_live to a picture of himself!

The Scunthorpe issue

To protect our students from inappropriate status updates I've created a simple regex function that parses the status checks for certain words. My opinion is that swear filters are an exercise in futility, in that it a machine cannot detect (at the time of writing) the intent of the sentence. That means that the system can only check for a range of string values and execute the correct response based on the validation of the string. We can easily create a sentence that will pass through the swear filter, but can still be offensive. Better yet we can legitimately use swear words in a sentence e.g. Literary students can discuss the character of Phillip the Bastard from Shakespeare's King John. The system won't know of the play, let alone the character, all it will see is a word that is in the list of banned words and block the update.

It begs the question, if users can circumvent the system and the system itself can block legitimate discussion is there any point to a profanity filter?

Leaving the censorship debate aside, seeK has given us unparalleled access to the learner voice and their opinion of the changes on seeNet. I think that seeK gives us access to a previously unheard majority within the College as not everyone uses the Forums or emails us with feedback.  In fact I've spent the last week modifying seeNet based on the feedback received via seek including swapping the two column layout for a three columns and making it fixed width. Alongside feedback, I've set up a default MyseeNet account that is auto associated with all student feeds, it allows us to ask questions, give answers and in some cases help students find lost memory sticks!

The bottom line is that we need to find new ways to communicate with students, whatever your thoughts are on e-learning, web 2.0, digital natives etc. Social networks and the internet aren't going to disappear just because some in education are afraid of change, students are expecting their learning experience to match their social one.

Students want it, if we're not listening to our learners we're not being good educators.

At the time of writing 793 seek profiles have been created,  3048 status updates have been posted and 1085 friends have been added since the launch of seeNet 2.0 on the 25/11/2009.

c_live

I've reached a milestone, apart from some CSS layout bugs c_live is 99% done.This has been a big project of mine and although I've mentioned it here and there I haven't really done a full blog post about it. I should probably start at the beginning, for the last year or so the Interactive Learning Strategies Team have been thinking about our long awaited upgrade to our bespoke learning platform, seeNet.

A lot has changed within education since seeNet's inception in 1999, google was a relative unknown, there was no such thing as mobile internet and Apple's ipod was just a twinkle in Steve Job's eye.

The main problem of current VLE's is they have, for lack of a better word baggage.

When e-learning was first being thought of, it was such a radical concept that people talked and championed and enthused and discussed and presented..... you catch my drift. This continual fervent chatter created the impression that e-learning was something in a box that you could just unleash and suddenly everything would just work. It didn't and for a range of reasons that are probably best left to another blog post. The failure of e-learning create a deep suspicion of technology within the education sector, right at the time students started to expect it.

I finished my diploma at South East Essex College just before seeNet was switched on, so I was part of the last generation to go through a course without online ILP's,Wikis, Courseplans, online collaboration even the internet was restricted. Compare that to now, you can access anything, anywhere, you can check your bank accounts whilst grabbing a cup of coffee from Starbucks.

Let's look at our typical student (for now, lets assume there is such a concept as a typical student), they are comfortable with technology, they can happily surf the internet, chat with friends, share content, shop, use mobile phones etc. So we can comfortably say they know how most things work in an internet browser on a superficial level. Yet most in education are still stuck in the late nineties, especially our learning platforms, this got me thinking. If I was a student now, what would I expect when I logged on? Now I should preface this by saying I'm not talking about "College of the future" that wouldn't even require the student to log on.

And so c_live was born.

I looked back to my college and university experiences to see what technologies and services would have made my life easier.

seeLinks:

The one thing that always annoyed me is that you're doing some research on campus and you find something really useful on the internet, so you do the sensible thing and bookmark it. Except that when you go home, you've forgotten the address and you can't get at the bookmark as its stored on your user profile on the network. We're almost through the first decade of the new millennium and our student has two options, trudge back up to campus, log on and email it to your home account or have the foresight to jot it down in a notebook?

We shouldn't be making our students life harder, so to led a helping hand I created seeLinks, its a xml based web app that allows students to store useful links within the browser, all you need to do to access them is log into the vle, this can be at home, work, or even at starbucks.

seeFeeds:

Information overload, TMI  are just a two terms demonstrating the problems of living in the information age. We get content fired at us from every angle and sometimes it makes it difficult to sort the wheat from the chaff. seeFeeds is a simple to use RSS feed aggregator, RSS feeds can help, instead of looking for the information, you can get your favourite websites to send information to you. This means that the information that will populate your c_live experience is tailored to you.

seeNotes:

You remember I mentioned scribbling down the url when talking about seeLinks? This takes the same concepts and applies it to a notepad, got a deadline? note it down here. What about a study meeting with students from your class? Instead of jotting it down in margin of your book, you can write it here and you can be sure that it won't be misplaced.

Seek:

Seek is probably the biggest change in what we're offering students. There's been a lot of talk this past year of how online collaboration tools can help students. Twitter has been cited as an example of how we can quickly update and share information with friends and colleagues alike. Currently education has no such tool to offer, however giving students unfettered access to a micro blogging site is full of pitfalls and makes it hard to manage students use of it. So I took the quick microblogging features of sites like digg and twitter and developed an application that would enable students to interact with each other and share information whilst being in a secure and manageable space.

Blogs:

Blogs have been a big buzz word in education for a long time now, but they've always been an external application that students have to log into. I've given students the ability to create blogs and share them with the rest of the student body (subject to our approval) with one click. If students elect to share their the blog with other students, it's published to a live feed that is available direct on c_live.

Look and feel:

c_live doesn't look like your typical learning space, or any other learning software for that matter. That's because instead of creating the application logic and interface myself, I posted on our student forums that I was looking for students to help shape the way c_live looked. A games development student offered to design the interface for c_live, I accepted and the design that he came up with was completely left field but epitomised the ethos of c_live completely:

Simple, effective and like nothing in education today.

Crunch Time

Apologies for the lack of updates but we're in the final weeks of development of seeNet 2.0.

Hopefully it will all be launched at the end of the week and we can back to normal!

Nook

The battle is on in the land of the ebook readers (ebooks are digital versions of paper books), Amazon released the Kindle and now American publisher Barnes & Noble has unveiled the Nook.

One thing you couldn't say about the Kindle is that it pushed boundaries, it read ebooks and that's all. Not so with the Nook.

First of all it runs Android, Googles' mobile operating system, Okay so that may not set your world on firew. This is understandable but think of it this way an ebook reader (or a book for that matter) has one function - to display books. The Nook can do this, surf the web and has the ability to extend its functionality via its support Android Apps Store. I don't know about you, but I struggle to justify a £156 device that just does one thing (no matter how good it is), the Nook may offer the extra functionality that will make me pull the trigger on ebook readers....

The ICT Bill of Rights

I've been thinking, well scratch that the team has been working flat out on the finishing touches to c_space, our staff and student vle/intranet.

If you're a regular reader of this blog you'll know I've been working on a section (once known as seeSpace), called c_live which is a brand new concept for the College. c_live is a new area on our vle that is the first step in changing how our students view what a vle really is and gives educators an idea of what can be created in browser.

For those who don't follow this blog (shame on you!), c_live gives all students persistent, pervasive access to a range of tools and services they have not had available to them before.

For too long the answer to many of educations problems has been to grab a box off the shelf and make it fit the need, this is not only a self defeating exercise but it also makes it harder for the learner to use. I say this as that more often than not the user will have to click through to find the system, log on and only then get to do what they aimed to do in the first place!

So what should we be doing?

Make the system easier to use and ensure that its provides the information that students want.

Simple eh?

To this end, when our new VLE seeNet launches the VLE will be broken into four main areas:

myInformation:

• The current week view of their scheme of work
• A weekly view of their tutorial
• Upcoming assessments reminders
• Up to date attendance data
• Timetables
• Email with 25 gigabytes of storage
• Most recently set targets in their ILPs

Learning Resources:

• Online databases of curriculum resources
• Library catalogue and resources
• Key skills and functional skills materials
• Study skills, literacy and numeracy resources
• Interactive learning resources
• The Learning Resources Pool, which currently contains over 3000 staff authored curriculum resources

Student Information:

• Student policies and procedures
• Equality and diversity resources
• Health and safety information
• JobShop vacancies

C_space:

• Online forums, (in which last year students and staff posted over 25000 messages in 1023 topics in 24 forums)
• Student Blogs, that can be shared with all student and staff with a click of a button.
• A student noticeboard that allows students to inform students and staff of events
• A feature to allow Student Council members to publish their own content that is shown direct to all students via c_live
• seeLinks - a pervasive bookmark creator that will enable students to bookmark key websites and have them available where ever they are
• seeK - a tool modeled on Twitter which will allow students to share updates regarding their work and collaborate both with staff and students
• seeNotes - an in browser notepad providing students with a personal space for them to post notes, reminders or even a shopping list to seeSpace
• An RSS feed aggregator allowing students access to the latest news and information
• Weather updates! (one of the largest requests from students)

All that from just a browser, available inside and outside of College.

So how does the ICT Bill of rights come into it? (Apart from being a rather catchy title...)

VLE's have in one form or another been around since the early nineties and yet they're still finding their feet, I suppose, you could say that they're running to stay still. I feel that this is in part to do with how they came to be and the damaged that caused, the hyperbole created inflated user expectations and the resultant dismay has had lasting repercussions.

And the fact that application and service development within education was in its nascent form.

It's not been possible with the available technology to give students what they need.

The ideas have been there, blogs, wiki's, collaboration, sharing, giving students the ability to talk back; but the technology has always been the millstone dragging the system down.

Until now...

With c_space we can guarantee the following:

• Students can know what is happening with their College life at any time, day or night
• That every student will be able to have a blog, just by opening the browser
• That students can have bookmarks, and take them with them
• That students can share links with their friends and peers
• That Teachers can share important documents without having to use email
• That students can get to the information and resources quickly and easily
• That students can access all of this via a single sign on process

It sounds simple, but think about it, this isn't miriad of different applications, this is one system.

And this is just the beginning.

Vive La Revolution!

Doctor in the House

Whilst at ota09, one of the sessions I joined was hosted by the NHS and discussed how they wanted developers to create web apps/widgets that use NHS data. Examples that were thrown around included suggest a medication, in conjunction with a major pharmacy or store, so far so good.

But following on from my discussions yesterday of how to make a VLE more relevant to Students, could we reposition the VLE as not just a learning tool but one to help in general?

We've already started with the creation of seeSpace onto our VLE, which gives Students access to Forums, personal blogs, Notepads, Twitter Style communications tools that give Students the ability to comment and a whole lot more.

But lets take it a step further, what if we could enhance our VLE by creating an application/service that could help Students find answers to questions they'd rather not ask someone face to face?

It may be slightly pie in the sky at the moment but if we could create an application such as that, it would really change how we view VLEs.

I'm hoping to meet with the session leaders in the next month to discuss what we can do, my first, my first idea is a postcode search based 'Find my GP/NHS Clinic'.

Exciting times.

Don't believe the hype?

So many questions and so few answers....

How indispensable is the VLE? Or more the point, how can we make VLE the defacto tool for education? Do we really need to, will it happen organically or will another platform march in and change the game? Are we reinventing the wheel once again?

What's the solution?

In all honsety there is not a silver bullet that will make a VLE essential for everyone as by its very name it's a learning tool and we all learn differently. Which leads me to 'Personalisation', this is the latest buzz word in education and I'm a big fan.

I should say I'm a fan of the concept and not the name, in that as it is a current ICT buzz word, it will be forever be perceived as another in a long line of fads within education and thus enthused, rubbished and abandoned in fairly short order.

But if we ignore the hype surrounding personalisation and look at what it wants to achieve:

• Moulding the tool or the environment around the user,
• Making the users experience unique
• Giving users the ability to share and comment

We can see that it is something to get excited about

Catch 22 then? we can't get excited about something, without damaging it? (Perhaps an e-learning observer effect?

Well, not quite what we can do is work damn hard to ensure that we under promise and over deliver. Whilst observing current trends, but at the same time not being restricted by them.

Over the Air

I went along to Over The Air on Friday at Imperial College London. For those unfamiliar, OTA is an on going mobile development conference/hackathon that invites all developers regardless of platform to come together to discuss the state of the mobile platform.

It was also my first ever mobile development conference and it was certainly a relaxed one. For example for the keynote addresses instead of chairs we sat on multi coloured bean bags!

Combined with the free coffee, it made for a very pleasant experience!

The keynote speakers were:

• Rick Fant, head of Internet Discovery at Vodaphone,
• Caroline Lewko, mobile entrepreneur
• And someone from the BBC, whose name escapes me at the moment.

The main theme running through the keynotes was how we as developers should be creating platform independant applications called widgets. Widgets are typically written in Javascript, although you can utilise most languages, the benefit is that with one code set you can run your app/widget on multiple devices, increasing your userbase exponentially.

Aside from widgets, App stores, Monetising your product, Cloud computing and a large debate on Platform independence vs native code.

A natty OTA bingo card was also created:

There were a range of different sessions throughout the day, one of the more interesting ones was led by Henny Swan from Opera on the accessibility features of the upcoming HTML 5 and how we as developers can better code our web/mobile applications to support users with an impairment.

The final session I was able to attend (although I had to leave mid way to catch the tube), was run by the NHS and featured discussion on their API and getting access to their data. I mentioned to the session leaders that the College would be interested in creating web apps to support our students.

More than one way to joint a chicken

The BBC visited the College yesterday to look at the increased enrolment in education and how we're using award winning technology to really enhance the Student experience:

The BBC were particularly impressed with our innovative Kitchen Recording System developed in conjunction with Impact that creates video resources to aid Catering Students. Ron Wyatt-Goodwin (the chef featured in the video), Head of Commercial Catering & Operations Division said that the new system helped Students who are reluctant to ask the lecturer to repeat parts of lesson, allowing them to work through the technique at their own pace.

The other major benefit Ron identified for the system is that the resources produced are videos, meaning that they can be replayed and reused as many times as the Student or Lecturer needs, ensuring that learners get more out of a session and Lecturers can spend more time supporting Students in class.

Ron also said that giving the Students the option of watching and reviewing videos before, during and after a session gives them the ability to visualise and practice techniques, leading to a demonstrable increase in first time pass rates.

It also saves quite a lot of chickens.

Leading from the front

Most VLE's aren't what you'd call aesthetically pleasing, I suppose the best way to describe them would be.... functional.

I believe that this is mostly due to the way that the VLE has developed, incrementally and with a great focus on keeping it the same. I feel that a lot of VLE developers stick the mantra that 'Big change causes big problems', in that making radical shifts in design or functionality can alienate users and make the transition period hellish, forever tarnishing the reputation product.

And whilst that is true, we must remember that the first bite is with the eye or to modify an another cliché, all users judge a book by its cover, Students are even more design focussed than ever before.

So how do we respond as developers? With Varying shades of grey.

If the aim of ICT is to engage the user, why is it that most educational software looks so bad?

Of course the function of the software is paramount but we also need to realise that our user has changed and that their expectations of what software should look like have radically altered.

I'm not advocating BOLD FLASHING COLOUR SETS THAT MAKE YOUR EYES BLEED, instead we should focus clean looking, intelligently designed layouts that enhance the content.

Are we missing a trick by designing the way VLE's look?

Who are we developing for? Students

Who develop the VLE? Staff

Who provides feedback? Staff

Seeing a pattern here? If VLE's are for students why are staff designing them? I'm not talking about a simple student consultation process, I think we should get students designing the look of our intranet.

Where else but in education can you have access to hundreds of developers, graphic artists and designers chomping at the bit for industry experience?

Students get a VLE that looks good, the designers get experience and accreditation and we as developers can ensure that we have the best VLE possible as it led not just by students ideas but by their actual hard work.

Now this isn't just a flowery idea, I'm actually putting this into practice. A games development student has come forward wanting to work on our new version of seeNet and so he is going to design the look and feel for seeSpace.

That's how we at South East Essex College aren't just talking about changing ICT, we're pioneering the use of student led design over large scale projects.

VLE's for Students, By Students.

Guest blog

I'm posting this on behalf of Chris Woodford one of our library advisors:

These days in this part of the world people are increasingly used to information technology in one form or another, whichever generation they belong to. Computers are used almost everywhere, not least in the College. However, while members of staff might be comfortable with their use, the same might not be said of our students – and there will even be times when we ourselves are tripped up by bad software design.

The College Library uses OCLC’s OLIB to support our catalogue, and up until recently the Library catalogue’s front-end for customers, OLIB Webview, was set up to search for items in a different way to the staff front-end. From our side, it was possible to bring back different results owing to the set defaults on Webview. When a customer attempted a search by keyword, the search options were set to ‘Exact phrase’ and ‘All exact or similar words’. These defaults made sure that only minimal results were returned and worked against the point of a keyword search…

It was always possible to change those settings for each search – taking the ticks out of the boxes each time – but this change would have to be made each and every time someone wanted to search. This might not be such a problem the first time, but having to repeat the procedure every time challenges people’s memory and works against the intuitive meaning of a keyword search – especially as the staff front-end had no such settings by default.

The problem came to our attention when a student had been assisted by a member of staff at a counter, and was asked to repeat a search on their own to see for themselves how useful the results were. Fortunately we have an Information Services team who are able to tweak our catalogue settings, and a quick e-mail to them had the default settings changed to ‘Any word of similar word’, returning the keyword search to a more useful tool. One result was replaced by a lot more!

One thing we can learn from this is that small changes can have big results – in this case making the useless useful. Part of designing front-ends – whether web-sites or software – is making sure they work for the users rather then against them, and if it is in our power to help make our services as intuitive as we can, we should. Another thing is that non-specialist staff (my own job being Library Advisor) have a role to play in helping to keep our own systems working as our own customers would wish.

Now we're cooking with gas....

Excuse the pun, I'm in a good mood.

Our kitchen recording system has received special recognition from Creston (the maker of the touch panels used to interact with the system)

"The judges felt that Impact’s work on the South East Essex College was an example of a highly innovative solution in an education environment. Students at the Student Skills Kitchen and professional Ora Kitchen are able to access practical lessons on cookery and hospitality techniques, thanks to an advanced recording system controlled by a Crestron system.

Julian Phillips said: ‘We constantly aim to provide innovative solutions for our customers. In Higher Education, we are helping universities to deliver new methods of teaching and learning by using a range of interactive technologies that offer more flexibility to the students."

Impact have also featured the system on their website.

Following the culinary theme I've been working with Head of Hospitality Ron Wyatt-Goodwin to develop a series of videos demonstrating techniques.

In the above clip from Ron's technique series he demonstrates how to prepare a Chicken for saute.

Research Projects

One of our students recently made a suggestion for our online services.

They suggested that we advertise information about current research projects on the student intranet pages. This would encourage participation of other students, and provide a great way of sharing ideas and good practice amongst the students themselves.

It sounds like a great idea to us, and its likely we'll be implementing it soon.

Simple is best!

We’ve been using Microsoft SharePoint for some time now, largely for creating e-Portfolios for our HE students. The SharePoint system is quick, fairly intuitive and allows you to customise content and add web parts as required.

After a recent discussion with one of our Business tutors another application for the SharePoint Blog template suddenly sprung to mind.

The tutor wanted a way to capture his students’ ideas on a particular topic, display them anonymously in real time on a screen in front of the group and then be able to comment on each as a way to stimulate debate and discussion with the class as a whole. The inspiration for this had sprung from a session the tutor had attending at the University of Essex iLab, a costly, high tech, purpose built environment for electronically facilitating creative thinking and problem solving online.

How would we create this in the class room using nothing more than the student PCs, the tutor’s laptop and a large LCD screen? Easy, we set up a blog in SharePoint!

The tutor connected his laptop to the LCD screen and accessed the blog I had created for him through SharePoint. He posted his first topic to the blog and then asked his group, sitting in front of their PCs to access the same page. The group was then encouraged to post their responses/comments to the topic the tutor had posted. All comments were set to be anonymous so that no one felt anxious that their response might be ‘wrong’ or their ideas judged unfairly. The tutor could then refresh the screen at the front of the class as the ideas ‘rained’ in and comment on them.

Essentially, we had created a simple way to electronically capture the students’ thought showering process.

Indeed, the tutor had found that by using traditional question and answer techniques it would generally be the same students answering his questions while other less vocal students or those of a shyer disposition rarely participated. Using the blog as a way to anonymously capture the students’ ideas gave the whole group the confidence to express themselves without the fear of speaking in front of the whole group or feeling the anxiety of saying the ‘right’ thing.

Simple…but effective and at a fraction of the cost of the iLab!

Jisc Legal

Craig Willcocks, our College Network Manager took part in a case study conducted by Jisc Legal

South East Essex College, like any FE College, they want to ensure that policies and procedures are in line with current legislation, yet fair and encouraging to staff and students who increasingly rely on internet access both on and off site to facilitate flexible teaching, learning and assessment.

Photosynth

Tom pointed me in the direction of this fascinating web application from Microsoft Live Labs today.

Its a silverlight application called Photosynth, and allows you to stitch together loads of photos of an object or location to create a near-3D view. Actually, it doesn't just 'allow you' - it does the whole thing for you. All you have to do is upload your photos in no particular order, and it generates the finished product for you. The end result is explorable, multi-view experience not dissimilar from Google's StreetView.

Its got scope to be refined a great deal more, but the visual results are already quite stunning.

Currently a whopping 20gb of space is being offered for you to store all your 'synths'.

This technology could easily be applied as a resource for learners, (especially distance learners) who would like to see, from home, the place they are going to visit before they set off. Missed a field trip? Relevant buildings, locations and objects could be captured in amazing digital detail and revisited at anytime, from anywhere.

Writing in a Digital world

In the world of today is still important to write?

When I say write I mean the actual process of drawing the typography that represents our language on paper, not the ability to construct meaningful sentences.

Heresy I know but hear me out, how often do you actually write these days? My sum total of writing is in this order:

• Shopping lists,
• Random development notes scribbled in a notebook,
• Birthday Cards

And that's about it; the rest I do on a computer and print out or email: Letters, forms etc. All are word processed and printed out, I rarely actually write anything of length using a pen.

Perhaps I have a skewed perspective as I'm Dyslexic which means my writing is pretty scrappy if I don't really concentrate on it; this means that If I can, I type.

I doubted that I was alone in my abandonment of the written word, so I tweeted:

Is handwriting important in a digital world?3:35 PM May 7th from web SeecTom

and got the following response:

Lizthebiz@SeecTom I hope not... my handwriting is positively dire but I can type 63 words per minute!

@Lizthebiz Do you type because handwriting was poor or did your handwriting suffer as a result of you typing?

Lizthebiz@SeecTom Chicken or egg... I've never been any good at writing but learned to type at 14yrs old. Now I avoid writing so I don't practice it

So there were people out there with a similar outlook to writing, in fact you could argue that the concept of the written word is actually holding us back. Just because I can't spell a word or fail to use the correct grammar does not mean that my sentence has any less importance. Once written a word cannot be changed, which is a lovely dramatic statement but hardly helpful to someone with a learning difficulty.

What I mean by this is that why should we engage with a medium that more often than not makes it harder to communicate by not offering tools to support and aid the user?

I remember writing essays on paper during school before computers were wide spread and I've lost count of the number of times I had to start it again because of making too many mistakes (thus making the content harder to read) .

Word processing makes it easier for both the writer and the reader, the written word is just a barrier that only hinders and is just as much a tool of separation as when it was the tool of the religious and intelligentsia.

A word processor aids formatting, spelling & grammar, ensures that the writer is able to make adjustments and corrections without having to start again.

It is the single most important e-learning tool of our time.

In writing this article I made over 27 spelling and probably quite a few grammatical errors.

Do it Yourself! (But Do it Well…)

Everyday new products are released, both commercially and in the form of shareware, that promise to simplify modern life. They promise to save us time, to remember things for us, to organize things for us, to correct things for us and leave us more time for leisure activities.

There are many ‘out of the box’ or ‘off the shelf’ products that meet a number of our general needs here as a business such as finance systems, but in terms of customization, it often requires that our business staff have to train and redevelop their procedures to tie in with the software provided. And when our needs as a business, or the rules dictated to us by external authorities, change it more often than not means working around and against the software system until the situation eventually becomes untenable and an entirely new product is sought.
Then of course, retraining and fine tuning our business procedures begins all over again. Because of the cost of such systems, and the dependence on them, this cycle has largely been accepted as just ‘the way it is’.

But when it comes down to personalized teaching and learning – we cannot expect our learners, or our teachers, to reshape themselves to fit the mould, especially when their needs change so frequently.


The education sector is saturated with products that claim to be the ultimate solution for enabling teaching and learning. Some providers are so eager not to exclude anyone from their target market that they include just about every feature imaginable. Although this means it is likely to tick nearly every box on the ‘Can it do…?’ check list, the end result is often that the software system is usable only by people who have undertaken significant training, and who have enough IT literacy to fill in the inevitable gaps that this training glosses over.

Support and updates often don’t continue much beyond the point of sale and people’s needs change. How well can a commercial company really understand your teaching and learning needs? And how long for?

Here at SEEC a great deal of the online systems that we use are developed and built in-house by our own development teams. Many of the staff in these teams previously worked elsewhere in the college and brought with them valuable experience in supporting teaching and learning, and insight from the end-users point of view.

What better way to personalize their learning experience, than to have in place in-house development teams to constantly monitor their requirements for resources, support and enabling technologies? Keeping abreast of the constant flood of new and emerging technologies and programming techniques is time consuming and, at times, can be overwhelming. But the benefit is that we get to pick and choose exactly what fits our teachers’ and learners’ needs. By coding software ourselves, we have the luxury of employing only the techniques and practices that enhance their experience. Incompatibility is rarely a problem, since all our code can be customized and updated at short notice, without needing to wait for tardy, bulky, and sometimes costly, product updates. The technology neither paves the way, nor drags behind, but instead evolves alongside its users.

The Chairman of the Board

Lights, camera, action…cut!

In an attempt to promote the use of the interactive whiteboards we decided to film a training session with 2 members of staff, both keen to incorporate the resources available into their ESOL sessions. We could use the video for further training and as a resource for staff to access when required…easy…NOT!

Things got off to a bad start almost immediately after firing up the projector and PC. To my horror the dreading red x was clearly visible over the Promethean software icon in the system tray…a sign that something is wrong!

I played it cool of course, pretending I had deliberately sabotaged the equipment so that I could demonstrate to my two eager trainees how to troubleshoot if problems should arise! After 5 minutes of desperately tugging on leads and searching for software drivers I had no choice but to shout “Cut!” to my camera man.

It turns out the whiteboard had been unplugged at the socket…it’s always the simplest of things but nevertheless the two tutors had learnt their first lesson, if there’s a problem stay calm and check the obvious first. Just because the technology is more complex it doesn’t mean the problem is too!

Thankfully the remainder of the session went smoothly but on playback of our first feature length film it became apparent that the session was too rambling and disjointed to act as a training video.

Take 2

Our second attempt at filming would be conducted without trainees, just me, my whiteboard and my trusty Promethean pen!

We decided to film very short segments focusing on easily digestible chunks and things were going very well until we decided to check some of the footage after about an hour and a half of filming.

Unfortunately we had positioned the camera directly underneath the projector and the inbuilt microphone had done a fantastic job of recording the incessant dirge of the fan, largely obliterating the dulcet tones of my voice and rendering the whole batch of vignettes utterly useless!

Take 3

Lessons learnt, for our third attempt at filming we placed the camera well away from the projector and set about re-shooting. Filled with confidence after our ‘practice’ sessions we ploughed through the basics of using the board capturing another hours worth of tips, tricks and techniques with aplomb. Tired and a little dry throated after our marathon filming session my cameraman and I returned to our desks to start the video editing process using Windows Movie Maker. On firing up the film we watched in anticipation of our first training clip only to discover that the camera had been set at an angle and it looked like I was standing in a cabin on the Titanic just before it took its final lunge into the North Atlantic!

• So, what have we learnt from our dismal attempts at filming?
  Technology can let us down but generally the problem is a simple one and is easily solved.


• Alas, human error is often at fault when technology doesn’t work as expected but it’s the technology that can get the blame.


• Practice makes perfect, if things don’t work out the first time don’t give up, try and try again!

We are currently planning our next filming session…watch this space for an update!

Hearing Voices

Empowerment, it is the sole function of technology.

To do more with less, to reach out in new ways, to make life that little bit easier, but most of all technology allows us to communicate information and ideas astonishingly quickly.

If something big happens in somewhere in the world, it will be global news in a matter of minutes, news flashes will hit websites and tv channels, forums and social networking sites will burst forth with discussion, linking to new information the second it becomes available.

So technology helps us communicate, but its that manner of communication that has started to change teaching.

For a long time education has been stuck in the traditional 20th century style of teaching, teachers at the front of the class informing and instructing, students listening but not engaging and responding. However with the advent of forums, social media websites and telecommunications; Students are now used to commenting on a range of issues that concern them, whenever they like.

Students were speaking but we as educators weren't listening

If we aren't listening to our students, how can we ever hope to satisfy their needs?

Thus the concept of the learner voice was born and combined with ICT we're giving students the tools to comment on everything we do. Through the use of surveys, forums and student controlled content management systems we are giving students the power to talk back and be heard.

A good example of this happened on our forums a couple of months back.

Since its inception the College has had a no hats policy for a variety of reasons, students have always had issue with this but have been unable to force any change.

Timeline of change:

And then on the 08 Dec 2008 at 09:38 a student posted the following in our Student Council Forum:

"why are we not allowed to wear hats in college? I can understand not wearing huge stupid hats, but it is really cold, and wearing a hat keeps you warm. When you get told to take it off, you just end up getting really cold ears!"

Students soon started posting messages agreeing and asking for a petition to be formed, within the thread Students started asking who to meet with to discuss the issue further. Staff members soon responded to the student debate, informing them of the issues (security) why hats were not allowed.

Students then debated how a hat would stop people from commiting crime within the College:

"To be honest, If a student or 'intruder' really does want to do anything bad in college they will enter without a hat. Then, before they do what ever they do (without wanting anyone to know who it is) they will put their hat on.

Therefor the chances of them being told to remove their hat is very unlikely and if a tutor is there to tell them to remove the hat surely they will be caught doing what ever it is they are doing.

Once they have done what ever it is they are doing they will surely flee then later remove their hat.

Thus rendering the whole no hats concept pointless unless college searches our bags for hats before we enter..."

The thread on the forums had now exceeded 140 posts and over 2500 views, the students were starting to get noticed. As a result of the student discussion the College created a online survey to find out their views on the current hat policy, what they would change and why.

Selection of questions & responses from the Survey:

"Do you think changes should be made to the current policy?"

75% of students said yes

"Do you feel that people should be able to wear any type of hat?"

Yes 48%
No 52%

"Do you feel that if the “no hats” policy were removed, it would give the wrong message about acceptable behaviour to students and staff?"

Yes 26%
No 74%

It was clear that Students wanted change but they understood that not all hats were appropriate and that they did not see an issue with presentation or security.

In April 2009 the Student Council posted the following in the hat thread:

"Change to the Student Code of Conduct

Following recent consultation with students and staff concerning the wearing of hats, it has been decided to amend the Student Code of Conduct as follows:

Point 9 under the Behaviour heading will be removed and replaced with:

• Hoods must not be worn in College at any time
• Caps or hats of any type must not be worn in an examination
• Students must remove hats or any other head covering whilst talking to a member of staff or in class if asked to do so by the member of staff
• Students must not wear hats or any other head covering whilst they are wearing a uniform or protective clothing required for their course
• Students must remove hats or any other head covering whilst working in certain environments eg: engineering workshops or laboratories
• Hats and any other head covering must be removed whilst photographs for College ID cards are being taken.

The only exceptions to the above are those who wear hats or head covering for religious or medical reasons with permission."

The Student Body had spoken with one voice and through their use of the forums facilitated a large scale change in College Policy.

Without the Forums to serve a melting pot for the debate and the Students enagement of it as a discussion platform, it is unlikely that any of the above would have occoured.

Perpetual motion

E-Learning for me does not just mean developing applications and websites, no it also means creating a system or dare I use that cliched word solutions to allow teachers to get more out of a session than what they put in.

Over the last year or so I together with Impact have been developing a system that will enable our catering staff to record teaching & training sessions.

First a little information, we've got two kitchens on site Ora & Skills; Ora is a kitchen where students cook lunch and dinner for staff and members of the public, Skills is a demonstration kitchen where students learn new techniques. Each kitchen has two PTZ (pan tilt zoom) cameras, three ip56 rated televisions, a touch panel and a control lanyard each. The system is quick to boot up, easy to log in and simple to use to ensure that there is minimum disruption to any session. Once the Chef has logged on he can use the lanyard to command the entire system from anywhere in the kitchens, without having to interact with the touch panel. As soon as the videos are recorded they are transferred to our servers and (pending approval) are viewable by all staff and students. So we've created a system that records chefs, this in itself is nothing new, we've had the ability to use video cameras in class for years; where's the benefit to the learners and most of all the teachers?

Lets say we have 20 students in the kitchens watching the chef joint a chicken. The chef proceeds to joint the chicken, students watch and then try it themselves, prior to this system that's where the lesson stops. What happens if a student has a question, or wants to see it again? The chef has to grab another chicken. Not so with our new system, the chef can instantly play back the recording on any number of screens around the kitchen, enabling them to both demonstrate and instruct which better serves the students needs.

More importantly, what happens if the student has a question outside of the kitchen, or outside of College hours? In combination with our VLE our students can access all the videos from home, bookmark relevant sections and review training sessions whenever or whereever they like.

So we've seen how it can benefit students, but how can it help teachers get more out of sessions then they put in?

Over time, Teachers can record training videos of sessions & techniques to create a bank of personalised learning resources that they can access in and out of the kitchens to enhance course content and delivery. We've given them the ownership over their own content, no longer do they have to search through youtube videos from tv shows for the 10 second clip required. The chefs can simply navigate to the content they themselves have created and students can see their peers using the same techniques instead of random people from the internet, students are more likely to be engaged with content if its relevant to them and teaching staff work better with students who are engaged with the content.

By creating and using these personalised resources in class, the lecturer can literally be in two places at once, as they can be onscreen demonstrating techniques whilst being able to walk round the kitchens and supervise students replication of the demonstrated technique and support/guide students where necessary instead of just being stuck at the front of the class.

With this system staff can get more in than they get out (and its a lot faster than human cloning).

An improv demonstration of the kitchen recording system

e-maturity: the role of the learner

Yesterday I attended a Becta Ed-Maturity and Impact Workshop to discuss the merits of the e-maturity framework and the concept of ‘e-maturity’ in particular. The e-maturity framework enables Colleges to assess and improve their use of technology to support teaching and learning.

In using the framework to make judgements about the use of technology Colleges will also be able to measure their level of ‘e-maturity’. Becta are hoping that all Colleges, if they have not already done so, will be able to make progress to reach a ‘performing’ level of e-maturity, which is just short of outstanding.

During the morning session attendees flagged up their level of e-maturity across two spectrums, one for ILT maturity and the other for systems integration.

On viewing the criteria I assessed the College’s level of e-maturity and level of systems integration as outstanding.

The image below, taken by a colleague during the session, indicates where on the two spectrums attendees benchmarked the performance of their Colleges. South East Essex College's flag is yellow. The red flag indicates the national average amongst Colleges and other providers.

(Image courtesy of lizthebiz)

Pencil lines faintly visible bottom left in the ILT spectrum at the top of the image indicate additions I made to the criteria for the level of ILT maturity. Given the changes to the Common Inspection Framework announced in March this year my colleagues agreed that the use of technology to promote and encourage the Learner Voice will need to be central in every College's ILT strategy.

In sharing our experiences I described how during the past 10 years South East Essex College has made a strong commitment to using technology to support learning and business processes. I explained further that technology now lies at the heart of the functioning of the College and with respect to ILT there has been no need to speak of 'e-learning', no need to adopt ILT 'champions', no need to issue ILT 'strategies' to encourage staff and students to use intranet-bases systems and services.

A strong theme that emerged during our discussions was the role of the learner in the effective use of technology. Students now attend Colleges with a range of expectations and needs that did not exist just 5 years ago. With new and emerging technologies more and more students are expecting to use a range of technologies to underpin and support their time at College.

Our students are becoming avid uses of College based web services; as I write this there have been over 200 posts in the student forums this morning discussing a range of issues such as swine flu and what to do for their end of year prom. The Forums are not just used by students. Information Systems have this morning launched a trial of a new student email system and are using the forum as a platform to ask students to volunteer for the trial and receive student feedback on the system.

At the end of the workshop it became clear that benchmarking against a framework to measure a College's use of ILT is only part of the story. Ironically, my assessment of the college's standing with respect of ILT only highlighted the work that still needs to be done. It is now clear and will remain the case in the foreseeable future student engagement with the College's systems will be the final arbiter in any use of technology to support teaching and learning.

Students who attend South East Essex College access their course plans and schemes of work anytime, anywhere, they can search over 2 million pages on our College intranet, they can complete their ILPs online, use resources that have been deposited in our Learning Resources Pool, they can communicate with others using forums, email their tutors and they can plug their own devices into our wireless network. The final challenge though is that a College's use of technology will only be effective if it directly meets the needs and aspirations of students.

ICT Horizons on youtube

Just a quick post to announce that ICT Horizons has set up a youtube channel, our first video is Thomas Curtis demonstrating the latest addition to South East Essex College. The project is called seeVids and it enables our Chefs to record sessions and training videos for students to access whenever and where ever they want.

The Cloud and the power cut

Monday evening was eventful to say the least; there I was happily watching a movie when the lights start to flicker, ‘oh’ I thought to myself ‘a small power surge’.

The latter was true, the former distinctly not.

I’ve got an energy monitor that displays your current (badum tish) energy consumption, my normal evening power draw is circa 200-300 watts, when the surge hit it spiked to well over 1.4kw, it continued to spike in this manner for over 20 minutes. Even though all my electronic equipment is on surge protectors, I still ran to the circuit breaker to kill the power and then proceeded outside to see how it was affecting the rest of the street. The power surge eventually changed to an all out power cut and with that Honiton road was cast back to the literal dark ages. So grabbing some candles, I wondered round the house checking things out to make sure nothing was on fire, I then I smelled oh so familiar smell of burnt electrical wires and equipment. However with no power I couldn’t check to see if anything was broken, so I went to bed.

On waking the next morning I hustled downstairs and flipped the circuit breaker back on and nothing happened, no lights, nothing.

There was no power, I was cut off.

Now alongside the usual inconveniences of no kettle, hot water or being unable to cook food, I had no internet.

Big deal right? Wrong

Humans are creatures of habit as am I, before walking to work my routine is this Shower, get dressed and then Whilst making and eating breakfast (via laptop or iPod touch):

• Review twitter feeds and respond
• Read/write personal and work email s
• Check news, games and other websites
• Download podcasts & other content for the day
• View e-learning blogs for new content
• Check up on current Chess games

So by the time I walk to work I’m:

• Fully informed of current happenings in the world (useful for generating student polls),
• Have a reasonable idea of what awaits me at my desk (ensures I can hit the ground running)
• Have responded to any mission critical emails (Quality of service is important)
• Already musing about blog posts based on websites I visited that morning

In short I am a more effective employee with the internet at my disposal, I can respond to things quickly, ensuring that if something has gone wrong, by the time I arrive at work, I already know about it and can get on with sorting out.

But not on Tuesday morning (sadly I don’t have an iPhone so I had no external internet connection).

I then realised that my entire online life is based in the Cloud: Google apps, Gmail, Flkr, Twitter, Facebook etc. Nothing resides on my local machine, all the data and content is stored on some data centre and processed on a web server. My machine, be it laptop, pc or iPod only presents that data to me, nothing more. Of course I have some applications installed on my netbook but it is no where near the amount it used to be. If you think about it, you can pretty much do everything you would traditionally use a locally installed application online.

Word processing, Calendars, Spreadsheets are well served by Google apps, photo editing by Flkr, you don’t even have to have a printer in your house as you can use an online printing service that delivers direct to your door.

The only application you need to facilitate this is a web browser, nothing more.

Cloud computing is the future (although one could argue that it’s actually a return to the Mainframe and Dumb terminal relationship from the 1980’s), the device is becoming almost an irrelevance, merely a point of access that enables you to connect to your application and services held on the internet.

The cloud is the future; it’s the next logical step in the evolution of both the PC and the internet, but my experience on Tuesday morning leads me to think it can never replace traditional application access methods until internet access is universal.

The Chairman of the Board

First Impressions

Part of my role as ILT Liaison Officer at South East Essex College is to train tutors in the use of interactive whiteboards. Across our campuses in Southend and Thurrock we have over 50 boards including Promethean and Smart interactive units and training can be arranged at any time via an online booking form on seeNet (our VLE) for both groups and interested individuals.

Are ordinary whiteboards in our learning centres obsolete?

Alas, the short answer is no. Our first boards were Promethean and early versions of the software proved to be unreliable and unstable, often crashing unexpectedly and fatally without warning. Unsurprisingly, many tutors found this ‘seat of the pants’ experience unacceptable when trying to do something as simple as writing on a board in front of their class. This is a ‘bread and butter’ aspect of teaching and learning but suddenly it became a complex, nerve wracking task accomplished only by the bravest, most IT literate members of our teaching teams.

Fortunately, things have improved with progressive software updates but there can be no denying the damage that has been done. First impressions of any new technology are vital. If users can’t see the benefits of new systems immediately why should we expect them to use them at all? As innovators, pushing the use of technology, we continually skate along a thin knife edge, being first to pioneer technology and systems while continually running the risk of alienating and ‘putting off’ the very people we want to be using that technology when things don’t work as expected. Three questions spring from this which can be applied to ILT in general and not just to the use of interactive whiteboards:

1. Should we wait for ILT systems to be 100% reliable before we push for their use?
2. Can IT based systems ever be 100% reliable?
3. Is there any point in over-complicating something which is relatively simple by using state of the art technology?

Firstly, IT based systems can never be 100% reliable. If we were to wait until they were we’d never get to use them. This is why Microsoft often gets blamed for releasing ‘unfinished’ or ‘buggy’ products which they later patch with updates. It’s impossible to find all the bugs in a complex piece of software and often fixing relatively small bugs leads to the creation of new, more serious ones. We need to test and use software and systems in the real world to discover problems and issues which may not surface until they are used on mass in the environments they were created for.

The risk of alienating or ‘putting off’ users through using technology which may not be 100% reliable is a risk we have to take. If we didn’t take this risk we’d never make advancements. There’s no doubt that undoing the ‘damage’ caused by the whiteboards early unreliability and rebuilding faith in their use is one of the largest barriers I have to face in increasing their use across the College but this can be achieved.

As for over-complicating something as simple as writing on a board through the use of technology, the benefits of the interactive software are huge and tutors receiving training are amazed at the potential the software offers. Importantly, interactive boards haven’t replaced the existing dry wipe boards; they co-exist in the same room, tutors have the choice to use either depending on the needs of the session. We’re not replacing the ‘bog standard’ board but merely offering a system with huge flexibility and scope that can transform the dullest ‘bread and butter’ element of teaching and learning into something far more stimulating.

Ultimately, first impressions do matter but they can be changed.

Independent opportunities for learning?

It’s conceivable that someone may not be able to hold a laptop (even a low weight Netbook weighs in at 1kg), so how can we provide what they need in a format that they can readily use each and every day with minimal setup and weight? As we know, last week I had a cold; however via my device I could still keep up with news, technical websites, events, work emails and meeting requests, I could respond to queries and discuss upcoming projects with colleagues. In short I could perform well over 50% of my tasks as an employee of the College without actually having to be in the building, with a laptop with a install of Visual Studio I could pretty much do everything (save training) at home.

So if I can do it, would it work for learners?

I hear you scoff: “Yeah Tom you’re talking about Distance learning, welcome to the late 1990’s!” but hear me out. We have often talked about the success of distance learning, but I don’t think that it’s really gone the distance for learners.

To access course information, you always use laptop or find a full size pc on which to dial into your institution. For any learner who works in a hazardous environment or where power is not readily available must wait until the end of the working day before starting coursework, what happens if the learner has an evening job as well (all the more likely in a time of economic hardship)? When are they going to find the time? Distance learning should make things more convenient for the learner, not harder.

Inspiration as we all know is a curious beast and it can hit at the oddest of times; during a meeting, whilst working on a site, commuting to work, tending the garden (I’ve had coding epiphanies whilst baking), we’ve all been there doing some other task when bang! You’ve worked out the answer to that question, solved a bug in your code, found a better way to present your findings. The question is how can we capture this charismatic enigma that is creativity? That all too fleeting moment where you need to write down before it’s gone, your laptop is in the other room, you don’t have a pen and paper handy and the clock is ticking!

Phones for learning?

Recently I had to help my Grandfather choose a new mobile phone; his twelve year old Motorola had finally given up the ghost. Its feature set was the ability to have a phonebook and to make and receive both calls and text messages. It weighed a ton, was over 6 inches in length, had a huge keypad and best of all it came equipped with an external aerial! Compare that functionality with his new mobile: 5mp Camera, Video recording, video messaging, FM Stereo, High Speed Internet access, Email support, Mp3 ringtones etc. It’s important to note that his new phone is a relatively old design (about 1-2 years old), but shows how mobile telephones have transitioned from providing mobile telephony access to full on communications solutions.

This is where I think mobile devices can be the key in a distance learning environment, they are light, take next to no time to turn on, have low power usage , a long battery life and most of all are simple to use. WiFi/3g/Edge/ HSDPA ensure that the learner is connected 24/7 ensuring that they can access anything they need regardless of the location.

It doesn’t matter if the learner is on a building site, in bed at home, on a train to a meeting, or even doing their weekly food shop, with mobile learning we can provide a moldable learning solution that will offer a better fit to our students.

Long term illness and mobile technology

Last week I was sick, epically ill, so much so that getting out of bed was a feat comparable to climbing Everest.

So whilst stuck in bed with nothing but my mobile phone and my iPod touch I did what any web professional would, I surfed the web. I thought my first port of call would be ICTHorizons.com, as I hadn’t spent much time viewing the site from a mobile device (I realise that this is a crime but the site total time spent creating the web site was less than eleven days from first idea to the site going live, which didn’t leave much time for testing on multiple devices). On perusing the research section I noticed a duff link (horror of horrors) in the article about seeK, how it slipped by I’m not sure but that wasn’t the issue causing me to frown, no the problem was that:

I was ill
It was 9pm on a Friday night
My laptop was downstairs
It was dark and I was wearing Sunglasses.

In short I had three options, one forget about it and leave it until I was back at work (unprofessional), crawl downstairs and log into the server (in my then state, unlikely) or find someway of amending the issue with the tools available at my disposal. My mobile phone a (A Sony Eriksson W890i), is not the most advanced bit of kit in the world, granted it can surf the internet quite quickly thanks to HSDPA and has a somewhat decent web browser but that’s about it, so it would not be able to aid me in my quest, so I turned to my ipod touch. With its fully featured web browser, touch screen, WiFi connection and functionality provided by third party applications, surely I could not fail.

Initial confidence was soon shattered by the fact that I was unsure how I was going to even connect to the servers, let alone the problem of amending the aforementioned dodgy link. On my laptop I would use RDP to connect to the server and then edit the file Visual Studio, but my laptop was far, far away and all I had a was a mobile device running OSX which can’t download files or really edit text, not a good start. My only option was to bet it all that some intrepid developer has created an RDP app for the iPhone, that it would work on my iPod Touch and the demo version did not enforce ludicrous restrictions (like two minute sessions etc, or local sessions only).

It was with some trepidation that I browsed the Apple application store.

A light at the end of the tunnel?

On searching the store I found an app called RDPLite and best of all it was free! (what? in this economic downturn being miserly is in fashion!) , in a couple of seconds the application was downloading and auto installing, within moments I was entering connection information and in mere seconds I was connected to our web facing server, from my bed, via wireless technology on a mobile device, with no traditional input devices like a mouse or keyboard
And whilst I was ill in bed.

I then had one of those moments that geeks and techies get, the one where you say (or in with my sore throat squeak), “that’s so cool!” The sheer impossibility of achieving this 6 years ago (granted windows mobile probably had it back then, but using it is so infuriating that I would have thrown the PDA against the wall and gone back to sleep) is tantamount to what incredible devices mobile phones/mp3 players have turned into.

Out of the frying pan

So I had achieved step one, communication with the live servers, now what? The iPod cannot download files and it only supports one application running at a time dragging and dropping to edit would be out of the question, the application did not support multiple touch to move windows etc. So how was I going to edit that link? If I couldn’t edit the file on the iPod, it meant I had to edit the file live (yes a horrendously bad idea, but I was stuck between a rock and a hard place on this one), so how was I going to do it? What does a web teacher tell you to use to write HTML code on your first day on an entry level web developer course?

Notepad

I opened up notepad and navigated to the ICTHorizons.com directory, luckily the plucky little application had no issue opening up aspx pages and so I thumbed my way through the file (Even running RDP over WiFi it still takes some time for the window to refresh), luckily for me the broken link was right at the bottom, so it took a good minute or two to locate it. Once I’d found the link, it took about three seconds to amend it so that it pointed to the correct location and save. I checked the link to ensure it worked which it did, logged of the server and contemplated how far technology has come.

All in it took about eight minutes from finding the link to fixing it, not a great amount of time, but it did get me thinking, even in my befuddled state the possibilities of mobile devices to help those people and learners who are long term sick or are undertaking a course via Distance Learning.