At RSC Wales we use Moodle as a way to share information and resources about a wide range of topics, as well as to keep up our Moodling skills. As Autumn 2010 settles in we have given our Moodle a facelift, as you will see below and by visiting http://moodle.rsc-wales.ac.uk

Almost all of the information and resource areas are open for everyone to access. Many of them have been created by the RSC Wales team to support the teaching and learning and technical advice we give and the events we deliver and support; some of them have been donated by others … Plagiarism Awareness from Coleg Gwent, eSafety from JISC RSC East Midlands and Gwe-dditectif – Internet Detective from Coleg Merion Dwyfor.

New additions to this online resource include the Newsletters and publications area, which features our new @rscwales Twippets (highlights of the tweets we send out via @rscwales (Tweets + snippets = Twippets) that are shared with Tweeters and non-Tweeters alike in our monthly eBulletin), as well as the recent 2010 Work Based Learning e-Learning survey.

We have also taken the opportunity to provide links to all of our other online resources, like the JISC Advance newsfeeds, gathered in one place using Netvibes and our bookmarked websites on a wide range of topics using Delicious.

Over the next few months we will be adding to this online information and resources area and as always, any comments are gratefully recieved.

(If you would like this blog post as an audio file please click this link or right click the link and choose to save the mp3 file. Please note: the audio file was created quite simply by pasting the text into Balabolka (one of the tools available as part of My Study Bar/EduApps) and saving as an mp3 audio file).

Recently I’ve heard a few comments and queries about the role of social networking in education, as you would expect there are a wide range of opinions from a resounding “yes” to “no, it’s a waste of time”.

It seems to me that there is really not a lot of concrete evidence out there to say one way or another that sites like Facebook and Myspace have a place in education.  I did find some research undertaken by Christine Greenhow from the University of Minnesota which does demonstrate some benefits of social networking.

They have found that social networking fosters communication and creativity and allows students to express their opinions, emotions and thoughts.

They also found that where students may get some training in class on a subject such as video creation or creative writing if the student is interested and inspired by the subject they may go on learning in their own time. Social networks allow students to display their creations and get feedback and reviews from their peers.

Sir Ken Robinson said at a recent TED conference “Creativity is as important as literacy” and that “We are educating people out of their creative capacities”. With that in mind don’t you think Social networking is a great way to encourage creativity as well as literacy?

Blogging and communication tools can be used for reflection as well as interaction, there is evidence that these tools improve literacy and can help develop a social conscience. A lot of organisations are becoming increasingly interested in e-portfolios but there are currently many definitions of what an e-portfolio is. Some e-portfolios encourage reflection and the keeping of a diary, some allow work and evidence to be uploaded and some allow peer review.  As far as I can see the IT and social skills required for interacting with an e-portfolio are already being developed, social networking sites are working as a training ground without anyone realising it!

We do need to be careful though, I recently came across a quote which I’ll have to paraphrase as unfortunately I can’t find the original source: The best way for a social network (such as Facebook) to kill off a rival would be to say that the rival is educational.

Expecting that we can shoehorn education into students’ existing social networks is probably the wrong idea. Trying to create copies of social networks in education and expecting students to use them like Facebook may also be a mistake. Beware of trying to be too cool and creating a Creepy Treehouse*

Obviously Social networks have downsides too, most students realise that they can be a distraction from their studies, one thing that we should perhaps think about rather than banning and blocking sites is how to encourage their use as an effective study break.

The other main hazards are breaches of privacy, security and digital identity; however the online world isn’t going to go away and can be hazardous to everyone no matter what age they are or what experience they have. Learning to be safe online is an essential life skill these days, effective teaching about these dangers should form a core part of education.

Interestingly whilst I’ve been writing this article I’ve had several related tweets on Twitter pointing to some relevant articles,  I’ll leave you with some links to follow should you want to explore this subject more.

Christine Greenhow from the University of Minnesota:

http://www1.umn.edu/urelate/newsservice/Multimedia_Videos/social_network.htm

Very entertaining talk by Sir Ken Robinson on education and creativity

Schoolchildren should be encouraged to write blogs and use social networking sites like Facebook to improve literacy levels

Children who use technology are ‘better writers’

* A creepy treehouse is a place built by scheming adults to lure in kids. Kids tend to sense there’s something creepy about that treehouse and avoid it. Hence, a new definition: “Any institutionally-created, operated, or controlled environment in which participants are lured in either by mimicking pre-existing open or naturally formed environments, or by force, through a system of punishments or rewards.”

At the FOTE09 conference we heard a lot of common sense advice about our digital identities from Professor Shirley Williams from the University of Reading.  She talked about many of the ways our digital identity can represent us.

Our digital identity can work in our favour, allowing people to search for all the cool things that we’ve done such as conferences we’ve addressed, photographs we’ve taken, even allow people to find our online CV.

However a poorly managed digital identity could have repercussions for a very long time.

It seems that not everybody is worried about the kind of impression that things such as an email address can give, imagine if you were an employer receiving a job application from bob@Icantbebothered.com or pinkfluffybunnyknickers@hotmail.com, what would you think? OK so they’re made up e-mail addresses but they’re not far from real ones!

If you type your name into a search engine such as Google what do you find?  The chances are you’ll find a whole bunch of people with the same name as you, but you will almost certainly find references to yourself.  What do those references contain?  Is it all stuff that you don’t mind everybody reading?  Facebook and other social networking sites are in the news constantly for many reasons, people posting pictures of themselves doing silly things in their work uniforms, making comments about their colleagues or their boss and losing their jobs, in fact only this week a man wanted by the Authorities in the United States gave away his location on Facebook.

Sometimes you can appear “guilty” just by association, many things true or not can be gleaned from  other people’s social networking sites and by the pictures they post in their galleries.  I’m sure there are a lot of people who really wish their friends hadn’t posted pictures of the party last weekend.  Or perhaps they don’t even think of the consequences, once information is out in the cloud we call the Internet it’s more or less impossible to get rid of it.

I know the tone of this post is a bit gloomy for a Friday afternoon but it’s important that the good and bad sides of the digital world are presented fairly. I guess the conclusion to this entry is to go out into the digital world and have fun but think twice before posting anything online that could show you in a bad light now, or in the future.  Check the security of your accounts to limit the number of people who have open access to your private information and be careful who you make friends with… because in the social networking world your friends might not actually be your friends.

Over the past year there have been a series of meetings and consultations to develop a guide to aid teachers in the Lifelong learning Sector in their use of technology. The aim was to update the existing Fento ‘ILT Standards’ (2003) whilst building in more functionality and an awareness of the educational scene in Wales. LLUK (Lifelong Learning UK) led the developments which were funded by the Welsh Assembly Government, and input was obtained from several key organisations in Wales including NGfL Cymru, NIACE DC, NTfW, JISC RSC Wales, Fforwm. The Steering Group for the guide’s development also comprised representatives from all the key Post-16 sectors including FE, ACL, WBL, HE.
Following the example of the previous Fento publication, the guide was developed in three parts:
• A section for Teachers, Tutors and Trainers: this follows the format of the ‘New overarching professional standards for teachers, tutors and trainers in the lifelong sector in Wales’
• A guide for Leaders and Managers: this follows the format of the National Occupational Standards (NOS) for Management and Leadership 2008
• A series of case-studies

The first two of these sections are now available bilingually both as hard copy and online on the LLUK web-site (yng Nghymraeg, and in English). The Managers’ Guide should be of great value in highlighting the importance of educational technology at an institutional level, and outlines the responsibilities of senior staff. The Teachers’ Guide should prove really useful both for ILT Managers and Teacher-Training Co-ordinators when preparing courses/cpd, but the Guide was also designed to be of direct use to teaching staff. Each part of the guide (eg. Planning, Assessment, Specialist teaching) contains specific advice and examples that should be helpful both to beginners and those who are already well-versed in technology. The online version of the guide also provides hyperlinks to an extensive glossary as well as to key external web-sites. In due course, the case studies will give concrete examples of the uses of technology in teaching and learning that should be useful for all sectors and levels.
Any feedback about the guide is welcomed, especially with respect to ways in which it can be used in the professional development of existing and trainee teaching staff. In due course, I hope to use this blog to disseminate further ideas about the ways in which the guide could be used.

E-safety is a word that has cropped up in recent conversations I have had with various people. In fact Paul, one of our ACL Advisors, blogged recently about Staying Safe Online. Coincidentally we now also have an E-safety information and resources area in our Moodle (no need to login to look at it) courtesy of RSC East Midlands (who swapped it for our  ‘Getting to know Moodle‘ online area).

For those who ask why we need to be concerned about E-safety and being ‘safe’ online I like the simple comparison that I have heard a few times, where the Web (information highway) is compared to our road systems and consequently E-Safety to road safety, that is  … would you send your children out to find their way in the big wide world without having first taught them the basics of the green cross code … and would you consider driving on our roads without being aware of the highway code?

Any comments about the online E-safety area or suggestions for resources we could add would be gratefully received.

Web 2.0 is a term that has been around for sometime now and is one I hear being used more and more in education in particular. One of the queries I have had and have read about several times over the last few weeks has been about Web 2.0 guidelines or policies for use in a teaching and learning context.

In true RSC Wales fashion, when I was asked for some help on this I immediately turned to (a) the web and (b) my UK wide RSC colleagues. Both were very informative but also made me aware that although quite a few organisations are thinking about whether we need guidelines or policies, quite a few aren’t. Now is this because they don’t think they need them …or because they really don’t?

In many cases I think that having guidelines or policies is a good idea, with how they are written being one of the keys as to whether they are effective. I will always remember the valuable lesson I learnt when teaching … to instruct the children in what you wanted them to do, not what you didn’t want them to because you were only putting ideas into their head … so ‘please walk’, rather than ‘don’t run’ was much more effective, as was ‘remember to use start, shutdown to switch your computer off’, rather than ‘don’t just press the button to switch the computer off’.

So ‘Web 2.0 guidelines or no Web 2.0 guidelines?’ is the question I leave you with today … along with a link to the Web 2.0 technologies for learning information and resources area I have created as a result of my ponderings.

P.S. I know lots of people are now talking about Web 3.0 … but lets just stick with Web 2.0 for now, if that is OK!

There have been several recent reports linking social networking with problems in health and/or behaviour, particularly in children. Baroness Susan Greenfield, neuroscientist and head of the Royal Institution, has suggested that young people’s brains may be fundamentally altered by internet activity, giving rise to conditions such as autism and ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder). Her comments relate mainly to the lack of human interaction that is assumed to be associated with online communication, and are echoed by the psychologist Aric Sigman, writing in the Biologist. Both were given coverage in a recent BBC2 Newsnight programme.

This controversy has been added to by a recently-published book by James Harkin entitled ‘Cyburbia: The Dangerous Idea That’s Changing How We Live and Who We Are’ (Little Brown, 2009). Harkin maintains that users of social networking sites lose their sense of reality and become cogs in a purposeless virtual system . 

Should we be worried? It doesn’t sound sensible to let children  sit in front of PC screens for long periods of time, just as it’s inadvisable to let them watch TV all day. But using social networking sites doesn’t stop people from interacting in other ways. It’s also hard to separate cause and effect – an autistic child might be online for hours because the internet provides his/her only effective communication. Similarly, developing ADHD may not be the result of PC use, though it’s possible that sufferers may become dependent on interactive onscreen applications because they improve concentration. Arguments such as Harkin’s seem to focus on the negative, and don’t acknowledge the vast range of learning opportunities that the internet provides. 

What do you think? Do you have any observations of the affects of Web 2.0 on children/young people, either positive or negative? 

WISE KIDS and the Wales Internet Safety Partnership (WISP) organised a very successful conference entitled “Young People, Mobile and Internet Technologies 2008 – Maximising Opportunities, Addressing Challenges”. This was a one-day event held at on 20th October at the Richard Ley Development Centre , Swansea, and nearly 200 delegates attended representing all educational sectors. Speakers included Keith Towler (Children’s Commissioner for Wales); Sangeet Bhullar (Wisekids);  Ann Beynon (BT) ; Fiona Lennox(Ofcom ); Kieron Sheeny (OU); and there were also addresses from pupils (approx age14-16), as well as very entertaining workshops and Q&A sessions. Topics covered included internet safety, digital literacy, and ways in which social networking and online and mobile applications can invigorate teaching and learning.  All presentations and web-casts can now be viewed on the Wisekids site.

I found the pupils’ perspectives particularly interesting, and it appeared that the pupils present had not received specific training on the use of internet. A new ‘E-safety’ web-site from NGfL Cymru, with Welsh Assembly Government input (and advice on security and cybercrime from JISC Legal),  notes that internet safety is now a required element of the national curriculum in Wales for learners aged 5 to 14. Hopefully this initiative will also  equip learners with skills to help them judge whether web-sites are produced by reputable organisations and contain accurate content, and will also raise their awareness of related issues such as plagiarism.