Tuesday 19 May 2009

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.

Monday 18 May 2009

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? 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.

Friday 15 May 2009

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!

Tuesday 12 May 2009

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.

Thursday 7 May 2009

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.

Wednesday 6 May 2009

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.