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.

I first read through JISCs recent publication ‘Effective practice in a digital age’ a few weeks ago. At the time I thought that this would be something good to blog about but I couldn’t quite figure out what angle to take with my blog post … and I still haven’t, so instead here are a few of my thoughts and comments about the publication:

• ‘Effective practice in a digital age’ is a very readable publication that I have already referred back to on a number of occasions since first reading … and know I will refer to again in the future.
• The supporting videos in the Effective Practice Resource Exchange are great additional resources, especially the ‘Responding to learners’ video from the University of Edinburgh and ‘Rethinking learning resources’ from Birmingham City University.
• The ‘Choosing pathways’ table (p18-19) gives a clear overview of the case studies, from ‘simple’ to more complex in terms of the type of technologies used and includes the learning outcomes (goals) expected, the technologies used, etc. It is also a very helpful quick reference when going back to the publication to look for a particular case study or example of how a technology has been used effectively.
• The highlighted ‘Key points for effective practice’ for each case study are great for focusing you or making you think further about the specific practice (example below).

• The continuing story of effective practice (Where did we start? Where are we now? Where are we going? p50-51) demonstrates quite clearly that this is an evolving story and that as institutions, thoughts about pedagogy, technologies and learners continue to develop and change then so will how we define ‘effective practise’ with regard to technology enhance learning. The story most definitely has a long way to go (IMHO) and as the quote by Lewis Carroll (p4) points out:

The last point above should probably have been my final comment on this subject but, as the first thing that caught my eye when I initially read the publication was e-Learning = enhanced learning (page 8), I am going to end this post by saying that if anyone asks about my job title (e-Learning Advisor) in future then I am considering explaining that I am an enhanced learning advisor for RSC Wales because it sounds a lot more appealing and far more relevant than saying I am an electronic learning advisor

QCA (Qualifications and Curriculum Authority – but now QCDA) originally had high hopes  for the involvement of e-assessment in high-stakes, summative assessments like A levels. As we head towards Autumn 2009, there is little evidence of this, as highlighted in a recent Guardian article. Whilst the use of various technologies for formative assessment seems to be expanding (see RSC Wales blog of Nov, 2008), take-up of e-assessment for summative purposes in schools and colleges is mainly restricted to  certain GCSE subjects (eg. Science, AQA), and courses on basic and vocational skills (eg. GOLA).
The only technology-enabled A level examinations I’m aware of (but I’m happy to be corrected!) are run by the Welsh examination board WJEC (there have also been trials of onscreen assessment in some IB examinations (ie. International Baccalaureate). This summer, WJEC ran online examinations in 25 centres for two A level subjects – Applied Business and ICT –through the medium of Welsh as well as English ( the bilingual aspect is significant, since Welsh-language versions of questions tend to take up more space than their English counterparts, which may create issues of formatting).
There are many reasons why A levels remain largely paper-based, not least the cost of equipping institutions with the necessary technology and support. There are also good reasons why examination boards should look further at e-assessment – for example, the value of multimedia and interactivity for learners, and ease of marking for examiners. They might start with internally-assessed components (eg. course-work, science practicals, extended essays etc), and make use of technologies such as e-portfolios . This would extend the range of evidence that could be examined (eg. images, audio, blogs), and provide far more flexibility for internal and external moderation.

With the publication today of JISC’s new ‘Getting started with Second Life‘ guide and the recent blog post from my colleague Paul (The Meaning of Second Life) I felt that this was finally the time for me to hold my hand up and declare that I am one of the people who has become virtually convinced that there is a place for virtual teaching and learning in virtual 3D environments, like Second Life. I think the thing that has finally convinced me to make my declaration are the points listed below from the new ‘Getting started with Second Life’ guide, that made me chuckle, as I recognised myself when I first entered the virtual world:

… and yet despite feeling like this initially I refused to give up and after reading a range of publications and reports about teaching and learning in a virtual way and being able to have first hand experience of participating in and leading sessions in Second Life (thanks to the help and support of the University of Wales Newport’s School of Health and Social Sciences and my fellow RSC Wales team) I now wish that these tools had been around when I was both a learner and a teacher!

I could continue to share my thoughts about the potential of this tool for isolated or distance learners or for those who find it hard to engage with the ‘real’ world but flourish in this kind of virtual environment … and say this is all despite the potential barriers and issues that there undoubtedly are with an unfamiliar/relatively new tool like this … but I won’t. I will however (in the words of my colleague Paul) encourage those who haven’t tried to ‘give it a go’ and those who have but gave up (maybe because of some of the things listed above) to ‘give it another go’ … and remember that for those organisations who we support you can always call on us for some virtual help!

No, this post is not about criticising vociferously (!), but about the use of ‘Audiboo’. According to the BBC’s Rory Cellan-Jones, this is the ‘next big thing’, almost the equivalent of ‘YouTube’ (he discusses this in his ‘dot.life’ technology blog). AudiBoo involves recording & uploading (on iPhones – a similar application called PhoneBoo does the same for most other phones), and needs wifi/3G. A related application  -‘Ipadio’ – is a ” live streaming phone reporting tool” that generates ‘phlogs’ (again, available now on iPhones and being developed for any phone; a ‘record & publish’ version should be available in due course, also). The likes of Stephen Fry have been ‘booing’ (not like him to be left out!), and Boris Johnson has been ‘phlogging’ (yes, well he did go to Eton, didn’t he?!).
There could be many educational uses for these tools, eg. recording observations on fieldwork, commentaries on experiments. Rory Cellan-Jones makes reference to a specific project run by the BBC World Service called ‘Save Our Sounds’, the aim of which is to gather sounds from around the world which might otherwise be lost.

Have you used AudiBoo? How did you find it, and how useful do you think it might be in education?

A Level examinations often come in for criticism (especially each August when the results come out!), but I was particularly intrigued by a recent comment that they have now become ‘too much like sat-nav’. The comment was made by Professor Bailey, Queen Mary College London, in a report by the Reform Group, and it implies that A-Levels are getting easier in the sense that using a sat-nav is easier than reading a map, ie. that students are given too much guidance. The report went on to say that recent changes in A levels such as modularisation and the use of  ‘quiz or puzzle’-style questions favour ‘shallow’ learning and do not encourage ‘independent inquiry’.
 These comments pose several questions, not least about the merits of modularisation, but the ‘sat-nav’ reference has really got me thinking. Are the Reform Group suggesting that we shouldn’t use technology to make life easier? Is there the implication that any novel form of assessment, including onscreen assessment, lacks depth? Do they favour A Level examinations that consist only of hand-written essays?
Perhaps curriculum leaders, A Level examiners and University admissions tutors need to get together to decide what purpose A Level examinations actually serve, and what the learning and assessment outcomes of A Level courses should be. If and when they do, I hope they’ll remember that students have different learning and assessment preferences, that learning should be enjoyable whatever the level, and that learners need to know as much about educational technology as all the other technologies that are an increasingly essential part of today’s world.

Many newspapers and web-sites are using the headline above to summarise a recent announcement by Arnold Schwarzenegger, formerly the ‘Terminator’ and now Governor of California (no, not a film role – the real thing!).  Arnie believes that textbooks should be phased out in favour of online/digital materials, mainly on the basis of cost. He also thinks that textbooks are out of date, and today’s children may be more comfortable with electronic devices. He plans to start his textbook ‘termination’ this August with Maths and Science in the first instance.
Some people will think this is a brilliant idea, but at the other end of the spectrum , others will  see this as an act of violence by an unthinking cyborg!  However, in some subjects, the move might make a lot of sense. In sciences, for example, online materials could be easily updated to take account of new developments. They could also contain video and audio to show real organisms/events in real environments, and demonstrate processes that are very difficult to describe in words. Online materials might also be very useful for subjects like Maths where you only need small chunks of information at a time (I seem to recall Maths textbooks not being very readable anyway!). In all subjects, online content also gives scope for interactivity and formative assessment.

In subjects such as English literature, though, it would be useful – preferable?- to have actual books to hand, and whilst some textbooks may be cumbersome, others are easily portable and provide convenient, organised sources of information. ‘ebooks’ could be a helpful compromise, though not in terms of cost reduction. And what happens re. online resources if you haven’t got a reliable broadband connection, or no internet access at all? ‘Hasta la vista, baby’ !

As a Learning Technologist I am constantly looking for technologies that will enhance learning but that are also easy to use, engaging and free … and my latest find (thanks to Helen Davies) meets all of these criteria (IMHO).

Prezi.com is an alternative to the much used in education PowerPoint. It is web based BUT the final ‘presentation’ can be downloaded and used offline. In it’s own words, Prezi lets you ‘create zooming presentations … to talk about the big picture … and those devilish details’  and if you watch the introductory prezi about Prezi on their websites homepage you will see what I mean. For me, learning how to use it was a bit like moving from Office 2003 to 2007. I ‘got’ it but I had to think a bit before I got into the swing of using it.

Unlike a lot of ‘tools’ I look at, this is one I will definitely be coming back to again … to use as an alternative to PowerPoint when making a face to face presentation but also to use as another way of presenting information to an audience who can’t see me but who I want to interact with what I am presenting them with … like this example prezi I created to promote a forthcoming event … http://prezi.com/91941

(Hint:        and you’ll need Flash Player 9)

As always, all comments 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!

One of our partner regional support centres, RSC Scotland North & East, has been hard at work following the success of AccessApps and has now made EduApps available for anyone to access and use. But what are EduApps? They are a large collection of free, portable applications that can be used to support teaching and learning. EduApps is the collective term for three smaller collections of applications. These three collections are:

• LearnApps – free software that learners can use straightaway to support their learning
• TeachApps – includes software from LearnApps but also has free software specifically for teachers
• AccessApps -includes software from the other 2 Apps collections but also has specialist software to improve access or enable inclusion

For more information about EduApps, including a full list of the software that is available to download (and then carry with you on a portable USB stick wherever you go), visit the RSC Scotland N&E EduApps website www.eduapps.org