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.  

People Shouldn't Learn To Code

A debate has come about recently, spawned firstly from a tweet by the major of New York City, Mike Bloomberg, and then a response by a guy called Jeff Atwood. The original tweet is below:

Great, the guy wants to learn code, lets leave it at that. But Jeff Atwood thinks not. Jeff is a bit of a superstar in the coding community, and on his blog he posted a piece called Please Don't Learn to Code.

His points seem to mainly revolve around his dislike for inexperienced programmers being employed and messing it up for the rest of them.

• It assumes that adding naive, novice, not-even-sure-they-like-this-whole-programming-thing coders to the workforce is a net positive for the world. I guess that's true if you consider that one bad programmer can easily create two new jobs a year. And for that matter, most people who already call themselves programmers can't even code, so please pardon my skepticism of the sentiment that "everyone can learn to code".

• It implies that there's a thin, easily permeable membrane between learning to program and getting paid to program professionally. Just look at these new programmers who got offered jobs at an average salary of $79k/year after attending a mere two and a half month bootcamp! Maybe you too can teach yourself Perl in 24 hours! While I love that programming is an egalitarian field where degrees and certifications are irrelevant in the face of experience, you still gotta put in your ten thousand hours like the rest of us.

True, its not good to dilute the skill level of a workforce by flooding the sector with unqualified workers, but that might be more a problem with employers not hiring the right staff. Or if it is about there being too many under-qualified coders, surely that will mean there will be an increase in perfectly good coders who will no doubt float to the top.  Jeff seems to be inferring that if more people learn to code casually, everyone will want to be a professional coder.

Some people in the comments of this article can see his point and attributes this to the Dunning-Kruger effect, whereby incompetent people have a tendency to overestimate the level of their skill, and fail to realise where they fall short. This could well be true, but I digress.

What Jeff only touches on however, is the move to push programming into the forefront of education, and making it as an important as Maths, English and Science, something that Papert would advocate. Jeff says this wrong, as well as 'learning to code for the sake of learning how to code'.

As the writer of this post points out, learning to code is does not mean seeking to become a professional programmer, but is about gaining a better understanding of the technology that we use, and by gaining a whole host of transferrable skills that are applicable to thinking and solving all sorts of problems and as a way of approaching learning itself.

So, while I highly doubt Mike Bloomberg is really ever going to learn how to code, the question is should he? Yes, I think he should. I think many of us could do with understanding more of the basics of what makes the things we hold in our hands, the displays we read off every day, work (and also not work).

esmoove puts it well:

Learning new skills opens up new perceptual avenues and cognitive spaces. I'm learning to sew right now, not because the world needs another tailor but because I want to be able to recognize quality in clothing and create pieces that I can't find. Novice coders feel the same way about their digital goods and should be encouraged to continue. Learn to program.

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"

Knowledge Is Like A Room Full Of People

This excerpt from Papert's Mindstorms really stood out to me as a good analogy of my studies, but also of the role teachers have the process of learning any new skill or field, and the importance of learning how to learn.

"Getting to know a domain of knowledge is much like coming into a new community of people. Sometimes one is initially overwhelmed by a bewildering array of undifferentiated faces. Only gradually do the individuals begin to stand out. On other occasions one is fortunate in quickly getting to know a person or two with whom an important relationship can develop. Such good luck may come from an intuitive sense for picking out the "interesting" people, or it may come from having good introductions.
Similarly, when one enters a new domain of knowledge, one initially encounters a crowd of new ideas. Good learners are able to pick out those who are powerful and congenial. Others who are less skillful need help from teachers and friends. But we must not forget that while good teachers play the role of mutual friends who can provide good introductions, the actual job of getting to know an idea or a person cannot be done by a third party. Everyone must acquire skill at getting to know and a personal style for doing it."

Nobody Can't Teach Nobody Nothing

It has been contended quite properly that one person does not teach another. A teacher can do little other than set the conditions for allowing others to learn. The consequence of this observation attests to the functioning of a teacher as a manipulator of the learning environment. When a person shows a change in behaviour, learning is inferred to have occurred.

-Professor Kolstoe, 1975 

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"Just as babies learned to take their mothers milk long before anyone wrote a guide to motherhood, so children were learning to work things out for themselves long before anyone thought of setting up a school"

- John Abbott 

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?

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.

Open Source Learning

I have always had an interested in the Open Source movement, including things like Creative Commons and the public domain. In my opinion, knowledge and culture should be free and accessible to everyone. It is very damaging to restrict these fundamental elements of our society from people - it is the dissemination of culture and knowledge through the ages which makes us the people we are today.

So this video below (been watching a lot today) is interesting as it talks about an Open Source Learning initiative. In it, Richard Baraniuk talks through Connexions, an online, open source education system which is written collaboratively; edited, mixed and built upon by many people. It could be described as a wikipedia for teaching, but controlled more vigorously by trusted and knowledgeable vetters. Below is a pretty diagram of the system from their site.

The idea is to collaboratively combine knowledge from a huge range of subject areas and provide a modular teaching environment. Making it modular makes it easier for information to be added and updated.

Baraniuk describes it like "Allowing books in the library to talk to each other."

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

Dirt-cheap tablet

Following on from the OLPC, the indian government has released a subsidised $35 tablet to distribute around their schools. Subsidised maybe, but not by much - $60 is its retail price, amazingly cheap for any touch screen tablet. Android OS, resistive 7" screen, Wifi, GPRS modem, 256GB ram, 2GB internal storage (expandable). Pretty good!

India is already a well known source of cheap app development, imagine what it will be like in 10-15 years time with kids growing up with this technology.

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"Learning should not only take us somewhere, it should allow us later to go further"

- Bruner, 1977:17

'Learning' Doesn't Necessarily Mean 'Teaching'...

Or not 'teaching' how you might perceive it.
Below is a short but interesting video that sums up part of what I'm talking about on this blog, and what I'm trying to achieve with my studies. It's where learning doesn't focus on being taught, but on creating things and achieving goals - the teaching is a biproduct.


Mike Masnick - Innovations in Education from SAY Media on Vimeo.

Its from an article on Techdirt that, while focusing on the use of Information Technology, also touches on how education can be fun, more productive and more effective. It also talks about how so much focus is given to class sizes, and how it's supposed to effect the amount of attention given by the teacher to each student. But when students are more immersed in the activities and given the opportunities to share knowledge and to help teach their peers, this becomes far less of a problem.

Now, while some of the article focuses on bringing Information Technology into classrooms (and it would, being part sponsored by Intel), I have to make it clear that I dont entirely agree with it. While my research is about 'teaching technology', I dont think pixilating everything from the paper to the pencil sharpener makes for better learning, necessarily.
I think I can speak for everyone (certainly my Mum) when I say that technology can often get in the way. When you plug in a printer and it doesn't work, or when files are lost, or the system freezes...etc. Granted its getting easier and errors occur less with every upgrade, but we are still a long way from a mouse and keyboard being more reliable as pen and paper. And even then, sometimes reality is a far better tool than a touch screen.

The success relies in getting a balance, and not (as Intel would like you to believe) about everything being automatically better if it runs on Bits and Bytes.

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Talking about the relationship Design-Based Learning gives students to information:

"This is essentially a dialogue between ideas and world, between theory and its application, a concept and its realisation, tools and goals." - 'Designing Learning Through Learning to Design' (2006), Mishra, Punya; Girod, Mark.