Objects of Learning

Busy busy busy

2008-04-13T23:45:00.000-07:00

It's been too long since my last post - and this one's going to be fairly short! Several projects have been in their final stages (MrCute was the biggest, which is a revised Repository system for Moodle, now released). Nice to see other people noticing when you've created something you feel is useful, so the MoodleMan blog entry (and video) on MrCute was welcome!

Spent some time in India back in January - Kerala, in the South - wonderful place and people! We avoided the tourist trap by staying on a small (but heavily populated) island in the Backwaters, called Kumbalanghi. I'm hoping to go back later in the year (probably during Monsoon!) to find out more about how elearning is being developed (rapidly, by the look of it) and to revisit the Fatima Hospital in Perrampadapu to see if there's anything I can do there in planning for potential status as a training hospital.

I'm now starting a new project to look at how to improve acceptance and embedding of elearning in education, especially (but not exclusively) at UK Further Education and Lifelong Learning levels. This will be a time-consuming job, but I really feel that the stage has come when we need to stand back and look at a number of questions honestly, including: does elearning make a difference; is it being used usefully; why is there such inconsistency; why can't we get more teachers to take online learning seriously - and many more questions besides. When I've formulated the precise terms of the work, I'll post them here.

Immersive 3d in learning

2007-12-15T23:36:00.000-08:00

I'm not yet a convert to the use of immersive technologies (notably Second Life) in learning. There are too many problems as yet - accessibility, even straightforward access to kit and internet, clunkiness, the learning curve both for teachers and learners and (certainly in UK Further Education) the availability of funding, time and enthusiasm amongst college managers.

There's also a particular problem for FE in that Second Life only allows 18 year olds or over to join (and you need tobe aware that there are "adult" places there, so it's a sensible rule) while under 18s can join Teen Grid - an embarassing name with redolence of Barbie and U.S. teen culture. So full-time FE, dealing particularly with 16-19 year olds, falls between the two.

But I'm an occasional visitor to Second Life, and I'm beginning to learn how to move around better and meet some interesting people. My initial guide has introduced me to a number of places where elearning is being extended, and she's shown me the basics. Now I have to spend more time wandering around and meeting people - because it does seem to me that chance encounters in Second Life areone of its major pluses. Where else would I have met the developers of Sloodle (a mash up of SL and the Moodle learning platform or VLE), a mathematician happy to explain the calculus in a way I could actually understand and a classful of people learning about Maslow's heirarchy of needs? If you're in SL and want to chat, my avatar name is Goodmaster Tomsen.

I've also ventured into the much less complex "3B" system - really just a new immersive way to present websites which enables people to wander around my websites - and the sites they link to - and find stuff of interest in a serendipitous way rather than by hopeful link-clicking.

But a chance discovery of a video by Karl Kapp and his learners has given me some new thinking to do. It's worth a look:

I've no doubt I'll come back to this topic in the future. Meanwhile, I think I'll just pop over to the UK Tech island....

Learning, sharing, getting better

2007-12-02T22:25:00.001-08:00

I'm an educationalist. I love thinking about how people learn - how I learn - and I love teaching. Put me in front of a class or a group and leave me to it. I once defined learning as "allowing things to change us". It's more than that, of course, but to me the basic job of the teacher is to enable learning and to encourage the wish to learn. From there everything should follow.

Other people see things differently, of course. There are enough definitions of learning (and teaching) to keep us all going for a very long time. Quite often the books and journals I read, and the web, and mailing lists, suggest things that help me develop my own skills and sometimes make me rethink my beliefs and the way I do things. I'm hoping to pass some of these random finds on. So this isn't primarily a place for my opinions but a way of passing on things I think are interesting, exciting or even just quirky.

Mind you, this is a blog, and I am reasonably keen on my own ideas, so there will be a few of those to. I'm particularly involved with elearning and the use of technology in various aspects of education (especially at Further, Higher and Lifelong stages in the UK) so there may be a preponderance of these topics.

My latest find is a series of videos by Geoff Petty - inspiring stuff on the nature of teaching. I've always liked Geoff's book on teaching ("Teaching Today") and these videos also contain an excellent introduction to constructivist thinking.