Two new JISC podcasts on the subject of Web 2.0 were released recently.

The first is ‘What is Web 2.0 and how is it impacting on education?‘ It lasts about ten minutes, and acts as a briefing on some of the implications of Web 2.0 for educational institutions. You can download it and play it on your PC or an MP3 player. The official blurb says:

“Students are increasingly becoming familiar with using social networking and other interactive web services such as Facebook, MySpace, Flickr and YouTube. This phenomenon has important implications for educational institutions as students increasingly expect such services – or at least aspects of such services – to be mirrored in the delivery of courses.

In this podcast, JISC’s Lawrie Phipps and Dave White from the University of Oxford speak about the impact such technologies – commonly gathered under the umbrella term ‘Web 2.0′ – are having on education and research and how institutions can harness them meaningfully and effectively in support of their students. “

The second is ‘TechWatch’s Gaynor Backhouse talks about Web 2.0‘. “The JISC-funded TechWatch service recently published a major – and hugely popular – report on Web 2.0 and its implications for education and research. In this Podcast Philip Pothen speaks to TechWatch’s director Gaynor Backhouse about the work of the service and why the report has been so successful.” (I haven’t listened to that one).

See the RSC Wales Del.icio.us account Web 2.0 section for these and others.

Both days’ events were held at the Esis Conference Centre in Nantgarw, Cardiff.

Mon 2 July – RSC Wales Moodle Moot

This event (the first ‘physical’ Moodle Moot in Wales) began with a keynote presentation by Martin Dougiamas, the lead developer of Moodle. I was manning the stall so didn’t get to see it, but since many people had travelled large distances to hear him speak (over a live link from Australia) it was obviously a powerful attraction.

I then acted as chair for various sessions. My first was for Matthew Chilcott (Institute of Digital Learning, University of Wales, Newport) who gave an interesting talk entitled ‘Beyond the web portal: Moodle hosted open access and the Equality & Diversity Toolkit etraining packages’. I was particularly interested in the section on ’serious games’ and their use in education, since it is an area I was investigating before I joined RSC Wales, with regards to using games to teach information literacy. Matt showed examples of material from the toolkit, and there was discussion of how it might be used and the most appropriate formats for dissemination.

The next session I chaired (after lunch) was Caroline Rhys’ workshop, ‘Moodle on a memory stick’. During the session Caroline (from the Welsh College Of Horticulture) showed how to install a working version on Moodle onto a memory stick. She recommends Moodle version 1.6.1 (Moodlin.exe), and a 1-2 Gb memory stick for the best results. Once installed and configured, it can then be copied easily to other memory sticks in a finished state.

Following that was a workshop with James Ballard (University of London Computer Centre), ‘Open Learning with Moodle: utilising free learning tools’. There were live demonstrations of the tools that had been incorporated into his Moodle, and many were colourful and animated interactivities for learners that really changed the Moodle appearance.

It was fun chairing the three sessions, dealing with inevitable problems such as lack of ‘real’ chairs, or slow network speeds, or keeping to time. Everyone at the event was good-natured, which made it a pleasure.

The final session of the day was the second keynote speech, again over a live link, and was Alistair McNaught of TechDis, who spoke about ‘Maximising Moodle – Making your learning platform as inclusive as possible’. During the session there were group discussions which illustrated how different technologies benefit some users, but disadvantage others. There is no perfect solution or easy answer, but if you offer a range of options then your services will be more accessible.

Tue 3 July – Wales the E-Learning Country, Dysg E-Learning Conference

This event began with an introduction by Mike Hopkins, Head of Learning & Network Development Division, DECWL; and was followed by Sal Cooke, Head of TechDis, who made many thought-provoking points, and showed a video (which proved popular) of how to fold a t-shirt in two seconds. It seemed to a be a subject of importance to the delegates, who demanded to see the viedo of how it was done!

I then went to a workshop on ‘Moodle, Wikis and Blogs’, with Robin Trangmar (Coleg Llandrillo Cymru) and Edwyn Williams (Dysg). It was a bilingual session (including the Moodle course and handouts) which was good, and made an excellent introduction to Web 2.0 for people who had not investigated the concepts and tools much yet. The session was a practical hands-on after the initial presentation on blogging and Moodle – in the hands-on section delegates got to create their own blog, edit a wiki, and try out other tools. Robin made the excellent point a number of times, that e-learning providers should be sharing experience and material wherever possible, not trying to protect resources from prying eyes.

After lunch I went to a session on podcasting run by a colleague from RSC Wales, Hannah Dovey. Hannah is a whizz with all sorts of technologies and their applications to education, and in this session she discussed how to podcast, and where podcasting was relevant and useful in teaching and learning. Hannah had the help of another RSC Wales colleague, Esther Barett, who did an impressive impersonation of an aggregator.

Following that I went to Esther’s session, on ‘Supporting e-learning in the ACL sector’. Esther gave some background on RSC Wales, and how e-learning is supported in other sectors and in ACL in England, and how she has approached the role in Wales so far. A brief discussion led to some useful contacts being made, and we learnt about Esther’s ability to judge sticks.

The final session of the day was Ray Fleming (Education Marketing Manager, Microsoft UK), who showed a slick video of possible future relationships between education and technology, and the questions that will arise. Vista caused him only a few problems during the presentation, which was a surprise; and Ray managed to ignore the person sat near the front with an Apple laptop.

Overall the sessions on both days were interesting and thought-provoking, and I have come away with a lot of new ideas. I recommend going next year!

I should say that I enjoyed staying at the hotel for the conference – I made use of the swimming pool, sauna, steam room and jacuzzi (and bar in the evening) a number of times, so after the event I had been intellectually stimulated, but also felt very relaxed and healthy!

I travelled back to Aberystwyth with a Coleg Ceredigion A-level lecturer, Alun Griffiths, and we had a good discussion about technologies in education. I spent time talking about social bookmarking, but we also discussed Moodle and podcasting, and student participation in learning.