A few months ago, on the BBC’s Springwatch programme, I watched an interview with a scientist. This was not a professional scientist, but an amateur with acute powers of observation who had acted on her instinct over several decades. This person has been recording the precise date of the annual spring bud-burst on one individual oak tree near her home for more than 40 years. This very simple but reliable set of observations is now helping scientists to test hypotheses about how climate change is affecting trees, and by extension all wildlife.

Trees act as useful indicators of environmental change, since their developmental responses like bud-burst are closely linked to climatic conditions. However, the value of this research goes deeper than this, since trees are also often key species in food webs. Sessile oak, for example, is thought to host some hundreds of species of insect. The herbivorous insects, such as aphids, are especially important as they act as a food source for birds. The timing of insect egg hatching with respect to bud-burst is thought to be crucial, and part of the debate around the impact of climate change on this ecosystem has centred on the possible differential effect on bud-burst in plants and egg hatch in insect herbivores.  In other words, earlier bud-burst in the spring could mean that the aphids hatch too late to feed on the tender young leaves, and the young birds may also miss out on a crucial food source.

Detailed information to test ideas like this doesn’t always emerge quickly from laboratory experiments, or from field studies. This is one reason why the Open University and the BBC have set up a database called iSpot (http://ispot.org.uk/), to which naturalists can add their observations. Over time, this will become a huge dataset which will help scientists to answer all kinds of questions. In order to add your observations, you don’t need any specialised knowledge, simply an ability to make careful observations, and to add a digital photo if are able to take one. There are specialists ‘on hand’ to check your observations, and if you are unsure what you have seen, they may be able to identify species. The service is open to all, and anyone can download the data and use it for their own purposes, from university level research down to a school project. The service is a real boon to adult educators, and community groups interested in conservation.

Individual observations may not tell us very much, but added together they can paint a powerful picture. There are many experienced and knowledgeable naturalists in all of our cities, towns and villages, who are constantly monitoring plants and animals. Quite a number work for, or are friends of, our botanic gardens. Pooling our collective wisdom about the flora and fauna which abound in our gardens and countryside will help us to develop a deeper understanding of the changing patterns of wildlife in Wales. In the long term, that will make us all wiser, and help us to conserve biodiversity for future generations.

I wrote earlier this week about the RaceOnline Manifesto for a Networked Nation , and at the end of that posting I mentioned the consultation on Digital Inclusion which was recently launched by the Welsh Assembly Government. These documents have different purposes and tenors, but they address the same theme.

 As the title indicates, the consultation document ‘Delivering Digital Inclusion: a Strategic Framework for Wales’ supplies a Welsh context, and provides strategic leadership. It does not, however, link to any funding opportunities. This is an important (but fully understandable) limitation, especially in the light of the recent disappointing news on the rescoping of the Digital Participation Programme.

 This aside, there is much to like about this document. For me a key element is the thoughtful strategic approach to stakeholder engagement. Crucially, the strategy incorporates are recognition of existing activity. No initiative starts from scratch. The document recognises this by the inclusion of a round-up of many of the best and most positive current and recent developments in this area. However, the authors also recognise that it is a tall order to make this kind of review comprehensive, and accordingly a mechanism is provided for other stakeholders to identify themselves as part of the consultation. Hence, organisations and groups which are not mentioned in the document can outline their work, and indicate how this aligns with the strategy. This is a very refreshing approach, which promises to bring the full range of stakeholders ‘on board’.

 A second key aspect which I find very helpful is the discussion of the barriers which must be overcome, in order for the strategy to succeed, The list is comprehensive, and includes  socio-economic, motivational, and technical constraints, which should allow for the full range of barriers  to be understood and addressed in a concerted manner.  In my view, this approach helps to raise the document above the level of a ‘call to arms’, and turns it into a useful working guide to the actions which will be needed in order to realise the vision.

 This initiative provides hope for genuine widened access in Wales. I hope that many individuals, groups and organisations will choose to take part in the consultation.

The RaceOnline 2012 Manifesto for a Networked Nation was launched yesterday. “This manifesto is a rallying cry for us all to create a truly networked nation” declares the document at the outset. It aims at a very wide target audience, and as a result, blends an outline of the evidence for investing in this area, with a ‘call to arms’ and an action plan involving a network of local champions drawn, presumably, from the voluntary sector. The manifesto will serve as a useful reference point for many, but I also worry that this breadth of purpose may undermine some of its very worthy intent.

The data provided varies between the statistically robust and the downright speculative, and none of it is referenced in any meaningful way. I assume that much of it comes from the PriceWaterhouse Coopers report of 2009 referred to here, but not referenced in full.  The manifesto fails to recognise uncertainties in the evidence. For example, the case for the positive impact of the Internet on children’s education is assumed here, whereas there is also some surprising evidence that the reverse may be true.

There are times when the manifesto seems too concerned with getting the reader on its side, and fails to probe the complexities of the issues. We really need to know more about the many and complex reasons why are so many people are offline. The manifesto discusses  costs and motivation, but it fails to mention ‘notspots’, or the issue of connecting people who have no landline connection (and there are plenty of those).  Will the action plan exclude them? Not necessarily, one hopes, but the methods by which they will connect, and the hardware they use, will be much different, and the network of local champions which the report envisions will have to take account of this.

The manifesto repeatedly refers to “a networked nation”, without mentioning the four countries which comprise the UK. This is not a trivial issue, since mechanisms for funding and regulation vary across the four countries, and there are significant cultural differences (e.g. language) which could have a bearing here. Crucially, these funding differences have led to the creation of the UKOnline Centres in England, but not elsewhere.  However, the manifesto does not consider whether or not the actions which it recommends need to be different in the Celtic nations, where there are no UKOnline Centres.

Given the very broad target audience, I would also have liked to see more attention paid to the needs of disabled people in the way the document is presented. There are a disconcerting number of different fonts on display here, in least three different colours. The dark pink was hard to see, and the pale pink was completely illegible to my (only slightly impaired) vision. This is at odds with the stated aim to “ensure that products and services are usable and accessible for older and disabled people”.

Overall, I suspect that this manifesto will receive only a muted round of applause in some quarters. However, it does point the way to some vitally important work which needs to be done. To do this, we need to gain a much more complete understanding of the nature of the barriers which we are up against, as well as to rally people to the cause.

Those of us in Wales also have another way to participate in this agenda. This is the Welsh Assembly Government’s consultation paper: “Delivering Digital Inclusion:  a Strategic Framework for Wales”. You have until September 9^th to respond to this very important call.

Over the years, I have listened to the old dialogue about the interplay between technology and teaching practice many times. As I understand it, it runs something like this. Someone says: “Technology changes practice, because it forces people to rethink their whole approach”. Then someone else says: “Ah, but technology is just a set of tools to support practice; a really good teacher can work with a some bluetak and a flipchart”.  And so on. This one can go on for a long time, if you have some determined people arguing on both sides. Occasionally, you can hear people arguing both sides at once.

Quite a nice way to avoid discussions like this going around in circles is to role-play. Not necessarily literally, but at least to try out a different perspective on the problem, by thinking yourself into a different role.  At yesterday’s ‘Learning in a Digital Wales’ conference, Dougald Hine essentially invited an audience of teachers  to think like journalists for 45 minutes, and the effect was highly refreshing.

Once you try this, you may find this is not such a great leap of imagination. Journalists and teachers both learn new things, and then tell others about them. The best people in both professions also allow the learner/reader/listener/ viewer to see how they are thinking about a specific problem. This requires skill, confidence, and ability to think on one’s feet. There is a combination of solid preparation and ‘flying by the seat of one’s pants’ in both professions.

Then along comes technology. Dougald was able to show us stark examples of how technology has impacted on journalism.  For example, he described scenarios where demonstrators have died in unclear and controversial circumstances, possibly at the hands of the police. How do we know what happened? Eyewitness reports can be confused. How do we judge the assumptions which reporters are making? Above all, how can we get accuracy? The concept of the ‘citizen journalist’ is perhaps  one way forward. Mobile phones are potentially the perfect tool, offering instant recording and rapid dissemination. Broadly speaking, anyone can record, or write, and anyone can publish. This changes things entirely, ideally in a way which can empower people.  The ramifications are immense.

Likewise, in education, technology can also spread the power around more equally. It can give learners a stronger voice by enabling them to write their own stuff, make their own images, and construct their own learning in a host of new ways.

But this potentially utopian vision also has a dark side. In education, as in journalism, new technologies have the potential to break open traditional business models in a way which newspapers, broadcaster, and universities find deeply threatening. This, in my view, is where the parallels become really powerful. If content is king, is user-generated content the heir apparent? In the world of the read-write web, how do we know whose output to trust? Do we make our own judgements? If not, who has the authority to do this on our behalf? Moreover, how do newspapers, or for that matter universities, remain economically viable in an era when people have access to so much free digital material? Do they, perhaps, give content away, and then sell added-value services? We can’t be sure what will happen next, but profound change to educational organisations seems inevitable. Dougald’s innovative work with School of Everything  shows one possible way ahead. Others are emerging all the time.

There are clearly many more questions than answers, and I would not attempt to address them here. However, I do plan to watch our journalistic colleagues closely to see how they adjust to the changes ahead, and how they exploit the new opportunities.  I may just learn something.

The Open University’s annual conference on teaching and learning which took place earlier this week was a fascinating experiment . For the first time, the whole conference was online. Hence for me, it was the first time I had attended the event, and I am guessing that this may have been true for many others. It was a bold move, especially as there were many channels for interaction available to the participants. On the plus side, it could well have opened up channels for more people to engage. Alternatively, would it lead to confusion , or perhaps diffusion of the discussion?

 My personal impressions are very much on the positive side. The input from the main speakers was expertly presented, despite some running changes to the programme, and this stimulated some lively discussion, which I am suspecting will have engaged an audience new to this event. Discussion was synchronous (in the Elluminate chat window), as well as in Cloudworks, and Twitter (#ouconf10).

 So what was the discussion about? I blogged last year about OpenLearn and other open content initiatives. It turns out this aspect of the OU’s work just goes on getting bigger. These is more material available on line, and a smarter interface now. If you teach adults in the community, I strongly recommend that you take a look at this – the resources here are highly engaging, and you don’t need to be studying at university level in order to get a lot out of them. 

 Open Educational Resources  have not taken off quite as rapidly as some people predicted a couple of years ago. In my view, really great content is never enough and  ultimately the learning resides in the conversation. This won’t be news to anyone who has studied the debate on teaching, learning and elearning over the last several news. But it does raise certain other questions. Will the conversation follow in due course, once people have got used to these modes of operating? Should the conversation be local, in small groups of friends? Should it be linked to accreditation? Does it matter which software is used? These are all questions which await answers, and they may be some time coming. It’s important to keep asking them, though…

 Meanwhile, this conference offered some good pointers to the future. One of these is ‘Cloudworks’. This is a really important web service developed at the OU, and which aims to enable people who work in HE and FE  to find, share and discuss learning and teaching ideas. This could be an important bridge across the persistent divide between formal systems (e.g. Moodle), and highly informal systems such as Facebook and Twitter. The means of doing this will include ensuring a low barrier to entry for new contributions. This may well be a key step towards getting more discussion flowing. More power to its elbow!

 You can view and listen to the content of the conference at links from this page:

http://cloudworks.ac.uk/cloud/view/2994

I have just enjoyed a really interesting day at the mobile technologies event in Bolton, organised by CETIS. It was a really helpful mix of some fun demos of kit, case studies of practical examples of use of mobile technologies in education, and wider ranging discussions of some of the issues which arose. While not everyone likes the term ‘mobile learning’, there was a tacit assumption that we referred primarily to smartphones, ebook readers and iPads, and that the context was formal education (mostly HE).

There was widespread agreement that the idea of ‘digital natives’ is discredited, and that this has implications for the way projects are implemented. It cannot be assumed, for example, that you can give students hardware of this kind and expect them automatically to be able to use it to anything approaching its full potential. In fact, the same applies with staff. This could also imply that adults learning in the community do not need to feel left out – they are just as likely to be able to pick up the skills needed for this as the youngsters are.

The question of ownership of hardware cropped up a number of times. An obvious way to control costs was to expect students to provide their own hardware, but there will be plenty of circumstances where they don’t have the kit, or are reluctant to use it in an educational context. There is a strong current of opinion which holds that institutions should focus on services and withdraw from the provision of kit, but on the other hand it was appreciated how student motivation can be enhanced by some shiny new kit.

Ownership of networks was mentioned, but not discussed in depth. Many of the participants of the workshop were connecting to third party networks, and I suspect that a growing number of students are also doing this. This will also enable them to bypass institutional security and filtering, for good or ill.  A related set of questions is associated with the issue of digital identity. Some participants were routinely using multiple identities, but others were not. It is not all clear to what extent people prefer to segregate the personal from the professional, and of course the same diversity of attitudes may be found amongst students. I have heard plenty of people say that they prefer to keep their Facebook account for their personal lives.

But it is perhaps too easy to get embroiled in the various barriers, and to lose sight of the opportunities. One of my interests at the moment is the world of location based technologies, including geotagging, mapping, and augmented reality. It means that people can develop orientation skills, and that others can track their progress on a map, either in real time or later. It also provides scope for learners to draw down information from the Internet at the time and place they need it, even potentially at remote field locations. It also allows them to upload data, e.g. observations made in the field as a personal record of their learning. This could be particularly useful in field expeditions, such as the Duke of Edinburgh Award. And the wider implications for shared construction of knowledge on a huge scale are mind-boggling. The BBC and the Open University are already pointing towards the possibility of massive databases of life on the planet, with the i-Spot project, which maps the progress of seasonal change on the animal and plant life in the UK. In the long term, this could open up whole new lines of research into, for example, climate change.

There are huge numbers of possibilities, as well as issues to grapple with. I will be picking up on some of these in future blogs. Meanwhile, you can check all the tweets here.

RSC Wales plans to offer a series guest blogs over the coming months. First up is Clare Southard from NIACE Dysgu Cymru, an organisation which “undertakes a wide range of work to promote more, different and better adult learning” in Wales.

Paul has very kindly invited me to make a contribution to this week’s blog – another first for me in a heady month of ‘firsts’.  It all started when I was chosen as the very unlikely lead for NIACE Dysgu Cymru on ‘Digital Day’ as part of Adult Learners’ Week 2010.  I do a tidy PowerPoint, would be lost without Tesco online and can even link spreadsheets – but that’s about where it ends for me.  Like lots of other people I suspect, I never had any IT training at school and I’ve just picked up what I need as I’ve gone along by trial and error.  Things like Twitter and even Facebook were quite alien to me, and nerve-wracking too, and how do people find the time???

But Adult Learners’ Week is all about learning something new, giving it a go and celebrating learning.  How could we try and encourage nervous people like me to get online?  We thought inviting someone to blast out 140 characters of what they’ve just done might be a fun way of doing that.  I had a go and it was almost worryingly easy and the slightly heady feeling that something you wrote was ‘out there’…..next the ‘Tweet Sheet’ was born.  We sent it out to all our Partners and held our breath.

Thanks to Paul’s awesome knowledge of all things ‘Tweet’ we collected all the #ALW10 tweets with some interesting results.  Overall there were 238 #ALW10 tweets, generated by 35 users (although some users – thanks especially to Esther – were the conduit for others to participate and send out a tweet).  Most of our tweets came from providers flagging up information about upcoming events, some about pertinent news articles during the week and, most excitingly, some from learners tweeting what they’d just done.  We even had 6 in Welsh.  Our biggest hurdle was that many of our partners really struggle with internal firewalls and are unable to access Twitter.  Some providers overcame this by using laptops ‘outside’ of the system or partners or personal equipment.  Mobile phones were also a really helpful way of getting tweets ‘on the hoof’. 

Perhaps for me one of the most exciting elements of the experiment for me is the buzz that tweeting created, some of my colleagues have really enjoyed taking part and will definitely continue throughout the year, I’ve now found some more people to follow, so have some other people, and the connectivity between partners involved in learning across Wales has just increased a little.  The more confident tutors, administrators, partners, teaching assistants, guidance workers etc get with new technologies like this the more likely that some of that will rub off onto the learners and we’ll increase their chance of getting digitally engaged too.  So it’s a small start but hopefully a positive one.  (Although one lesson to learn – our English colleagues used #ALW and ended up with a deluge of Andrew Lloyd Webber tweets!)

So a couple of months ago I did my first tweet, then I managed to do several tweetpics, learnt how to shorten my url and even enabled my phone to tweet too, now my first blog posting……what’s next Paul?

Are you are Silver Surfer? I must confess to being one myself. While some members of my family think that I don’t really need encouragement to spend more time online, I do recommend a host of activities going on all over Wales, and elsewhere, on Silver Surfers’ Day (May 21^st), aimed at encouraging those of us of a ‘certain age’ to engage with the benefits of life online.

 The first port of call for information on this is  www.silversurfersday.net where you will find information on more than 1,500 events UK-wide. There is also a nice Google maps mash-up showing where the events are happening.

 Silver Surfers’ Day is a good example of collaboration between a whole host of agencies and providers, as well as Digital Unite and Ofcom, who are responsible for coordination and funding. In my last posting, I mentioned NIACE Dysgu Cymru and Coleg Harlech WEA, who are collaborating to help people to upload pictures. Communities 2.0 are also involved in Silver Surfers’ Day: two beneficiaries of their classes will be interviewed on a special ‘Silver Surfers’ Day’ edition of the Roy Noble Show, which goes out on BBC Radio Wales between 2pm-4pm on May 21^st. Finally, please follow developments on Twitter, Facebook etc, tagged as #ALW10 (for Adult Learners in Wales) & #SSD2010 (Silver Surfers UK).

Adult Learners’ Week is an annual festival of learning. It is an opportunity to celebrate the achievements of learners and adult educators, and to inspire new learners to take up opportunities. All the information on events is gathered at http://www.yourfuturechoiceaction.org.uk/

As well as giving the learning providers an opportunity to showcase some of the work they do, the week also provides a great opportunity for learners to get involved, and try out some of their skills. This year, these activities will make increasing use of social networking opportunities.

NIACE Dysgu Cymru (NDC) has set up a photo competition  with prizes of a professional photo course, digital camera, or cash. This will be opening on 14th May and run until end September.  For those participants who don’t want to enter a competition but would like to upload their first ever photo to an online gallery, NIACE DC has been working with Coleg Harlech WEA and with the RSC Wales team to offer an opportunity to use GaleriCymru to display work. 

NDC is also encouraging participants to send a tweet about the events they’ve been involved with, and they have produced a bilingual ‘TweetSheet which explains just how to do this (click here to download the PDF).   Tweets for the event will be searchable under the tag #ALW10. (Searching for a hashtag is also one of the best ways of finding people who are tweeting about stuff which interests you). Alternatively, participants who don’t wish to set up a Twitter account can email their feedback to alw10@niacedc.org.uk.

The RSC team is really looking forward to seeing  how participants explore these opportunities, and what impact it has on their engagement with learning.

Last year I wrote several postings about the issues relating to digital inclusion and exclusion, and the likely impact of the Carter report (‘Digital Britain’). There are currently 12.5 million people who don’t actively use the internet (i.e. at least every three months). Research also shows us that 11 million non-users of the Internet fall within two overlapping groups, namely people from socio-economic group C2DE, and people aged over 55. It is clearly an urgent priority to address the uneveness of access to the Internet, and adult educators and third sector providers are well placed to do this.

Funding relating to this agenda is now becoming available, under the auspices of Ofcom and Digital Participation Consortium. To add the greatest value and to achieve maximum impact, the Consortium will focus on trying to address the unmet needs of the two broad groups cited above. This will, by extension, help other stakeholders reach their own target groups. Via the Digital Participation Fund, up to £12 m will be available over a period of three years (2010-2013).

More information, with the application form, may be found at http://www.digitalparticipation.com/about/how-we-work/applications

Please note that the deadline for the first round of applications is June 1^st 2010. Other rounds will follow. As always, more advice on this funding opportunity is available from support@rsc-wales.ac.uk