Today the fellow-bloggers on Pontydysgu site can congratulate Graham Attwell on his birthday. I hope there is no home-made rule that would prevent us from celebrating this day via his own website. Cheers, Graham!
Years and more …
Today the fellow-bloggers on Pontydysgu site can congratulate Graham Attwell on his birthday. I hope there is no home-made rule that would prevent us from celebrating this day via his own website. Cheers, Graham!
Years and more …
Graham Attwell, Pontydysgu, UK from Web2LLP on Vimeo.
There is growing interest in how to use social media in European research and development projects. The Web2LLP project aims to improve web strategies and maximise the social media presence of lifelong learning projects. Their web site explains theyBritain provide “personalised support and training (a week-long face-to-face course and free webinars), and shares best-practices and resources.”
One of those resources is a video gallery including interviews with project managers who have used social media in European Commision sponsored Lifelong Learning Programme projects.
And when Maria Perifanou asked me for an interview how could I refuse. I talked to Maria about how we used social media in the G8WAY project. The G8WAY project was based on the idea that the growing availability of web 2.0 allows for bridging the present gap between the structures developed to support students in mastering today’s educational transition and their formulation in an institutional perspective through learner centered and connective approaches, with a chance to more effectively manage educational transition. “G8WAY developed web 2.0 enhanced learning environments, to enable learners to reflect and develop their creativity potentials and transitional skills in the light of their own and others’ learning experience, made visible through a variety of media sets and PLE tools, each of them designed to meet the requirements of transition envisaged, and all of which are mapped into one single pedagogy framework.”
Yesterday, together with my colleague Jenny Hughes, I made a presentation to participants in the Critical Literacies course being run by Rita Kop and Stephen Downes as part of their ongoing research project on Personal Learning Environments.
The course blog says: “Technology has brought changes to the way people learn and some “critical literacies” are becoming increasingly important. This course is about these critical literacies. Critical, as the course is not just about finding out how to use the latest technologies for learning, but to look critically at the Web and its underlying structures. Literacies, as it is more about capabilities to be developed than about the acquisition of a set of skills. It is all about learning what is needed to develop confidence and competence, and to feel capable of negotiating an ever changing information and media landscape.”
Our presentation was on pragmatics. Pragmatics, we said is a sub field of linguistics which studies the ways in which context contributes to meaning.
Today we have made a short version of the presentation as a slidecast. In the presentation we explore different ideas about context in education. In the final part of the presentation we look at Personal Learning Environments and how they relate to issues of meaning and context.
The introductory and end music is from an album called Earth by zero-project. it can be downloaded from the excellent Jamendo web site.
Through the Mature project I have been invited to submit a proposal for a lecture or workshop for the JTEL Summer School to be held in Ohrid in June. The JTEL summer schools, the publicity claims, usually attract about 80 researchers, providing an exciting forum for cross-disciplinary dialogue, fostering new research collaborations and partnerships, and an opportunity for the next generation of TEL researchers to gain insight from leading experts in the field.
The summer school is being organised by the Stellar network and proposals were asked to explain how they contribute to the network’s three Grand Challenges:
So here’s my proposal. I enjoyed writing it and if anyone else is interested in us running such a workshop juts get in touch.
Short description
The workshop will focus on the use of internet radio in education.
1) An exploration of the use of media (and particularly internet radio and television) for learning and shared knowledge developmentThis will include looking at issues such as:
a) The appropriation of media
b) The change from passive media to interactive Web 2.0 supported media and the changing distinctions between broadcaster/program planner and listener/consumer.
c) How media such as radio can support the development of online communities
d) The use of media to bridge contexts and provide spaces for exploration and shared meaning making.
2) A practical hands on session on how to plan develop and broadcast live internet media. This will include storyboarding, interviewing, finding Creative Commons licensed music, making jingles, mixing and post processing, directing and producing and using the technology for live broadcasts.
3) The third session is planned to take place in a lunchtime or evening session. This will be a live 45 minute to one hour broadcast “Sounds of the Bazaar – Live from Ohrid”. It is hoped to involve all summer school participants in the broadcast. The broadcast will be publicised in advance through iTunes, Facebook, Twitter and other social software platforms. It is also intended to use the boradcast to link to other researchers in TEL from around the world not able to be at the summer school. The programme will be recorded and made available through the Summer School web site, the Mature project web site, the Pontydysgu web site and through iTunes.
Contribution to the Grand Challenges agenda
The workshop is primarily designed to contribute to the Grand Challenge of Contextualising virtual learning environments and instrumentalising learning contexts.
Live internet radio provides both a shared context and space for learning, with universal reach outside of institutional or national boundaries, whilst at the same time allowing individual to collectively contribute to the development of shared artefacts, which in themselves can become part of the repertoire of a community of practice. Radio also offers a means of actively engaging learners in a community and through appropriation of what was a push (or broadcast) media, through merging with Web 2.0 tools and standards allows community participation and self expression.