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.  

The importance of doing stuff by yourself

In school, at work, in our social lives; we are constantly being encouraged to mingle and interact with other people. Even the learning methods that I read about and write about on here are focused on collaboration and team work. But its important not to forget about the importance on spending time with yourself, having time to think and reflect and work thing out by yourself.

In this TED Talk, Susan Cain makes the case for the introvert, and shows how important it is to encourage both the outgoing and the self-contained amongst us.

Presentation

I did a presentation today outlining my PhD. With the power of technology, I have embedded it below for you to look at, but I doubt it will make much sense because most of it was read off a script.

The presentation was nothing serious, but was to give me some feedback on my progress and my presentation skills.

Anyway, I've put it here so the effort doesn't just get lost in the depths of my hard drive never to be seen again.

PhD outline presentation 071211