REC:all webinar

Yesterday I watched a web seminar on REC:all - 'Building a community of practice about lecture capture in EU universities'. I had previously not heard of the initiative, but from listening to the speakers and reading more into it, it seemed very interesting.

The speakers were Yacine Abboud from the University of Lorraine, Clive Young from University Collage London, Mathy Vanbuel from KHLIM, Silvia Moes from VU University of Amsterdam and was headed by Sally Reynolds, managing director of ATiT.

REC:all is a project that seeks to develop and better integrate digital lecture capturing technologies into higher education for the purpose of off-campus learning. As well looking at lecture recording and delivery, they are interested in implementing new technologies into remote learning environments, such as study trips and excursions.

One example of this was from Silvia Moes who provided a case study where students on a trip to Rome were told to form groups, each collecting evidence from around the city and depositing it on an open source mapping software. The map could be accessed by the other students who could learn from the data collected from the group.

Particular emphasis in the webinar was put on 'Flipping', a way of providing prerecorded audio or video lectures before a timetabled session so that more time can be spent in the session for the type practical, hands-on instruction that cant be effectively communicated with just a video. Pamala Kachka from Pearson eCollage gives a nice overview of Flipping here.

Another initiative that was mentioned was transLectures, which has been running since November 2011 and whose objective is to develop solutions that translate video lectures into many languages to reach wider audiences.  

W.I.R.E.

W.I.R.E. or 'Web for Interdisciplinary Research and Enterprise' is a think tank based in Zurich that sees itself as 'a platform between science and practice'. Their research is interested in global developments which positively effect individuals, communities and industry. This includes looking into interdisciplinary methods that empower people, enhance our lives and help provide for a better future. Their site says:

W.I.R.E. sees itself as a laboratory for the development of new concepts for the creation and dissemination of knowledge. The foundations for this are to be found in the breaking down of traditional boundaries between academic disciplines, the abandonment of hierarchical concepts and the integration of content and form.

I like them.

A programming book for bed-time stories

Imagine reading lines of code to a child every night while in bed? That would certainly send them to sleep, I dont think it would teach them much about programming.

Luckily, a real book has the same goal (teaching programming, not making kids fall asleep), but with a different approach. Lauren Ipsum is a story book aimed at young kids that embeds logical programming scenarios into children's stories. The stories seem cute, and the pictures look awesome. I've just bought one.

The book uses metaphors within a fairytale story to convey concepts that would be encountered in a programming environment, and is actually written by one of Facebook's engineers responsible for maintaining the programs which runs on their servers. He wife does the illustrations.

With each copy bought, the creators will donate a copy to a library or school.

An X Prize For Education

The X Prize founder, Peter Diamandis is set to announce a prize for improving education in the US. Tall order, especially because he has no idea what challenge he is going to set. However, previous prizes have greatly influenced other industries such as public space travel and medical industries, can it have the same effect here?

In the video below (5:15 in) he talks about it being like a 'Khan Academy on steroids'.

"Add artificial intelligence, and add the ability for anyone of us to have the best teacher in the world who knows what your passionate about, what you care about, what you know and then move you on the educational path forward. Everything is personalised, customised [...] and it teaches you exactly the way you want"

Interestingly, the interviewer then asks where random discovery (constructionist, self directed learning) comes into play in all this. Peter responds:

"Its there, random discovery is now really the juice [of education], its socialisation, its experimentation, but its not sitting in [the] front of a classroom listening to one sage on the stage. Lets change that part, then take everything else you do in school and make it fun and interactive"

Gove's Plans to Make Universities Shape A-Levels

Michael Gove is calling for Universities to dictate the content of A-Levels, and to monitor them each year. I completely agree, there should be more continuity between schools, colleges and universities, just as Industry should be having more input into all three.

However, I think a balance should be met; I dont think the best course would be to hand all control to Universities. Yes, they should have a large say on what content goes into the subjects, and I believe the workload of A-Levels should be enough so that they are a pre-cursor to that of universities. That said, the structure and teaching style of universities is very different to that of schools, and the distinction between the school and university structures should be kept intact.

A-Levels should however, at least prepare students for the type of university work they will undertake.

a study suggested universities wanted A-levels to be more intellectually stretching and with less spoon-feeding from teachers

Indeed, in an ideal world this 'intellectual stretching' would have begun long before a student reaches A-Level, but it is at least a start that this kind of approach should be considered in schools.

Meeting 29/3/12

Topics covered in the meeting on Thursday:




Data thats currently being collected:

• Module specifications from Design and Technology courses from selected Universities
• Structures and covered topics from relevant subjects from Further Education curriculums 

1) A proforma needs to be created that accommodates all this data so it can be effectively compared.

2) Current mind map should be put into a document

These two deliverables completed by the 16th April and sent to Richard Bibb, along with the current aims and objectives of the research.


Lit review/End of year report:

Add a section about applied teaching techniques within Electronics and Interface design education

Sections order:

1. Cognitive/Learning Theory (General)
2. Applied Teaching Techniques
3. Subject topics/required lesson content
4. Physical Resources

Teaching:

How does teaching school pupils (<19yrs old) compare to teaching university students?

How do their Intellectual Level & Learning Style differ?

How should the approach to learning differ?

What Further Education courses are equivalent in content and skill level to Electronics and Interface design modules in BA undergraduate Design and Technology?

                  - This can be found after the module and curriculum data is put into proformas

Current Final Year Design Projects (FYDP)

What is the scope for FYDP?

Is there a limit to the functionality that students can give to their products?

Therefore, is there a limit to what we teach them to do?

ie, Resources exist that allow for quite complex systems. Do we assume that some students will want to build them therefore teach them what is required? What is the limit?

Arrange a meeting with key lectures/students/ex students to discuss this.

Meeting with Thomas Jun, LEGO mindstorms used as a teaching tool:

How do we capture a accurate picture of students, skills/knowledge/understanding of Electronics, Interface Design, Mechatronics?

Questionnaires:

Use real-life, relatable examples? - this demonstrates skills and not understanding

Use scales of ability/understanding of key skill or subject area, Plot to a graph

What questions are we asking, how are we asking them?

MIT launch a free electronics course

MIT are trialling a little thing; They are running an online version of their undergraduate analog electronics course, 6.002: Circuits and Electronics.

Its running from the 5th March (tomorrow) until June the 8th, free of charge to anyone who wants to do it.

I've signed up just so I can get a cool downloadable certificate from MIT and ya know, maybe learn something.

https://6002x.mitx.mit.edu/

Michael Gove Suggesting D&T Limits Progress

This is Michael Gove pretty broadly calling all Design and Technology purely vocational, and suggesting that it limits a students capacity to progress afterwards.

While I agree a GCSE in 'Nail Technology' is going to have limited applications when looking for jobs, broadly saying all D&T limits capacity compared to the core subjects is a huge generalisation. Completely overseeing the key skills which D&T (like Product Design and Resistant Materials) provides is frankly being blind.

Where in the core subjects do you learn the kind of contextualised problem solving that D&T provides? How about industrial processes and manufacturing techniques? All very applicable in a huge number of courses and jobs.

Along with them downgrading Engineering Diplomas, it shows that the government has a poor idea of the skills thats needed to get this country out of the state it in.

Problem Designers

Through my studies as a designer, I've been taught to solve problems using a design methodology. Now I'm being tasked to design problems to solve.

My task is to create problems that have features that guide the user (solver/learner/student) to experience certain things. Like an interface for a car radio must be designed so it is instantly intuitive, the problems within the learning resources must naturally and effortlessly guide the learner through certain actions, thought processes, discussions, dilemmas and internal dialogues inorder to teach them what is necessary to complete the task (and more).

From a PBL standpoint, the problems must aid learners to learn the subject knowledge so the information is concise and flexible so they can retrieve it when the opportunities come about.
They must stretch the learner's capabilities to solve problems and develop similar self-directed learning skills so they are applicable throughout their life.
They must induce natural collaboration inorder to find all the answers and most importantly (in my mind), they must cause the learner to be intrinsically motivated to learn - ie, when they work on the problem they are motivated by their own interestes, challenges or self satisfaction.
(Hmelo-Silver, 2004)

Due to the vast diversity in possible students, designing a problem is a huge task. Two encourage these characteristics from everyone who approaches the problems requires a lot of scaffolding that is strong yet flexible so that it can be added or removed depending on the abilities of the individual students. But ultimately, it will be up to the facilitating teacher or lecturer to decide where scaffolding is required/not required*.


*Can problems have built-in fluidity in regard to the supportive scaffolding? Can an activity itself judge the abilities of its solver and change its course to address skills that are lacking? Eg, Like a book that lets you choose the outcome based on your own choices, a problem could test a learner after a certain stage, but instead of saying "go back and learn that chapter again", it sets the next task in a way that addresses the lacking skills for a second time, but maybe from a different direction or within a different context.

Child Driven Education

The last video of the day. Another TED talk, this one by Sugata Mitra.

Mitra observed that there are many places in the world which has poor education, and no good teachers want to go to teach there. This is also key areas where there is troubled communities and problems with poverty and violence.
However, Mitra found evidence of children's own willingness to learn, by installing a few 'hole in the wall' type computers, connected to the internet in one of the slums in New Delhi. He found that with no instruction, children who had never seen a computer in their life were finding information and teaching it to themselves. He found that "children will learn to do, what they want to learn to do".

This led on to other experiments, like putting computers in classrooms with speech to text software. After a few months children who could speak English but with very strong accents soon learned how to pronounce better, even if it was more like Stephen Hawking.

Schools who were lucky enough to have computers encouraged their students to use them to complete there homework, using any tools or resources they could find. The amount the children learnt increased greatly.

In the video, Mitra talks about other tests he done, in India, Africa, Italy and the UK, with impressive results. What he has found, is that with the right resources and within the right environment, children can learn much without the aid of a teacher.

What are we teaching children for?

I've been watching videos today. This one, from Sir Ken Robinson and animated for the RSA, poses some interesting questions regarding education relating to my work -

• Unpredictable education - what are we teaching our children for? To get jobs? When? In 10 years time? In this economic climate, how do we know what to teach them for 10 years time? We as a society are moving at such an astonishing rate of development that we can't possibly know.
• Our current education system is driven by academia - maths and sciences are given first priority in education, and assumed that it is the key to getting the best jobs - if you are not an academic, there must be something wrong with you and you are destined to have a lower quality of life. This has been the case for the entier history of formal education. Now we live in a time where jobs in creativity and arts based sectors have exploded, but our education hasn't been there to support it. In other words, people are not either academic or non-academic. Their minds work in different ways, they learn in different ways, and our education system is yet to fully address this.
• Our current education system has been industrialised; much like a factory outputs products, we output taught children. We educate children in batches - by age, in separate facilities which focus on specific topics. This regimented approach to education does not reflect the myriad and diverse nature of the human mind.
• Divergent thinking is the essential capacity for creativity. It must be encouraged, it must be stimulated in all subjects.
• "Collaboration is the stuff of growth"

Watch the video and awesome animations below:

Design Based Learning, But Extended

This is about a year old, but is something I have just found.

Emily Pilloton did a TED talk in July last year called teaching design for change, where herself and her company Studio H (odd name, I know) aims to improve run down, rural communities by implementing design into education. She bases her methodology on 6 rules...

1. Design Through Action
2. Design with, not for
3. Design systems, not stuff
4. Document, share and measure
5. Start locally, Scale globally
6. Build

She talks about redesigning education; using creative tools to connect with kids and immerse them in their taught material.

A key point that struck me was when she talks about "Design as Education". Based upon Design Based Learning (DBL), but instead of making in-class papier mache volcanos, use the taught material to make projects within the community, that gives something back to the town and at the same time gives a very real-life scenario for the children to see the benefit of their work. 

More info HERE