The HvA is also recording lectures...

And yet another article on the success of recording lectures. This is a report (in Dutch) of the findings at the Hogeschool van Amsterdam (Amsterdam Professional University). One thing that struck me is that in the fourth sentence organisational issues are classed before pedagogical issues. This for me does give the impression that the focus is changing on how recorded lectures are being regarded. They are being regarded as less of a pedagogical novelty and much more a facility which can be implemented a lot more broadly (as the TU Delft advertised lately).

Asus Mini notebook: an interesting inbetween

I am a very loyal user of a Palm TX, but it is simply to small for writing and browsing. On the other hand, lugging a notebook about is a pain (for my right shoulder mainly). So I was fascinated to see that Asus is working hard on the Eee notebook. What makes it interesting for me:
- Very portable
- Cheap
- Does the basics when I am on the move (reading and writing emails, checking feeds, writing blog, writing out matters)

Of course it is not a full blown PC. I was interested to see they are planning to drop it in the educational market. If you see what we expect our students to do, it may well be too limited (statistical analysis is one thing it will not (yet) do. On the other hand: if you see what our students want to do it is probably quite suitable: to be connected and share at all times through messenger or videocall through skype, type out basic reports, browse and watch Youtube and connect with iPod.
I think I am going to give it a try when it comes out here in The Netherlands. Many vids ar already available at Youtube. Here's one to give you an idea.

Which VLE for Utrecht?

The latest news scoop is that the advice for the next VLE at Utrecht should be appearing soon (by December). I have heard the buzz going round in The Netherlands that we are having serious problems. I am pleased to say this certainly does not concern Blackboard. We are running this on a local server and it is running extremely satisfactorily. As far as WebCT is concerned, all those interested can read the article in our university magazine.

For me this situation does raise a number of questions as to what is truly important in a tool for the support of teaching and learning. I have noticed that some are engrossed by visions of a myriad of pedagogical models and features. I would like to take a step back and concentrate on the basics: what teachers and students need is a system which is reliable and easy to use. I have heard arguments that all systems should answer to these basic requirements, but I have sadly seen many examples to the contrary. I also feel that the large majority of teaching staff are not looking for a system that will do absolutely everything, but rather a straightforward system that will let them do exactly what they want to do quickly and easily. If we are trying to look for an efficient use of ICT in higher education, this is a very basic place to start.

For now we are waiting on the advice...

Technorati test

I am just testing out the possibility of using the Technorati search service to search all blogs for a specific tag. As I want to do this regularly I have just set up an account. Click to find my Technorati Profile.

A new year running Bb 7.2

It is about time I started keeping up my blog. The new year started almost a month ago and by now work is settling down a little. Fortunately everything went well. This summer we went through an upgrade of Blackboard from 6.3 to 7.2. This went really well. The interface is really the same for the teachers and students and we only ran into one problem: The course list was not editable above the first 25 courses. Thanks to a posting on Patrick Klaassen's blog, that was soon solved. Long live the community of Blackboard admins in the Netherlands.
We are also back on track recording lectures and training students in the use of portfolio's. Life as usual...

Blackboard scholar goes for Social Networking

I just read a Blackboard release regarding Scholar: it has a number of improved features. I am slightly surprised by some of the features as it appears as if they are trying to create a social networking site, rather than a well integrated site to share bookmarks and materials. If this is the way they want to go, I feel it should be much more strongly integrated into Blackboard itself, rather than a separate service elsewhere.
You can find the information at: http://wiki.scholar.com/display/SCLR/New+Features

A dog to give you a different perspective on power

We have just bought ourselves a dog. He is from the compound, but does not seem to have suffered too many trauma's. I will not bore all of you with all the details, it seems to be a mix with a lot of Wetterhoun. The one thing that struck me, as a first time dog owner, is the extreme relationship you build up with a dog. A dog requires a strict and straight alpha male boss. In return you receive extreme trust and obedience. Although there are many parallels in human relations the extent in which this holds true surprised me. This is not something I had picked up by just reading a book, but I am picking up by first hand experience.

Slight case of Mountain Sickness

Some suffer from home sickness, but I suffer from the opposite. After a great holiday in the Pyrenees it is not always easy to return to your desk and get on with every day life. As a happy reminder this is the definite pinnacle of my hols. A scramble up the Gran Encantat, one of the two peaks which makes up Els Encantats. We didn't make it to the top as the route became rather steep and exposed without decent points to fix a rope. This is the view down between our legs looking down on the lower ridges.

Second life lunch

This is a bit late, but I have been off on holiday and rather busy starting up the new year. So, better late than never, a report on a lunch session on Second Life: What is it and how could you use it in your teaching.... It took place at Utrecht University on the 12th of July.



For me the most interesting question raised was: How can you use Second Life in your education and what are the benefits. I did not really hear a satisfactory answer. I can imagine a virtual world being useful if you wish students to learn matter in which the 3D aspect is important (design, architecture, etc) and the freedom offered to create (impossible) structures.
The social aspect could be valuable but Second Life still appears to be more suited to 1 on 1, or 1 on few meetings. Teaching a large group requires keeping the group together. A humorous anecdote was the example in which a teacher kept walking off to a different place. Students which were not actively following the session would be left standing alone while the rest moved on. Second Life still is a little cumbersome at times and it is not always easy to find your way about.
Writing this I do realise that I am (intentionally) describing the use of a virtual world in teaching rather than learning. Learning is a process which can be a lot less structured, less dictated and will often be much more individual. This is something which could be done in Second Life.
A final remark concerns the number of users in Second Life. The Linden Labs company used to boast a large number (millions) of users in Second Life. In practice the number of regular visitors is a lot less. This only appears to be a few tenthousands, so it is not always as huge a buzz as it appeared to be at first.

In search of a new colleague

My direct colleague has just received a great job offer, so we are now looking for a new colleague at short notice. You can find the job description at: http://studion.fss.uu.nl/Organisatie/vacature_ondersteuner_studion.pdf. Please note: this is in Dutch as the applicant will also be expected to speak Dutch.

Website Onderwijsdagen is now online

The website for the Onderwijsdagen is now online. The theme is the great tug of war between what is on offer and what really is demanded by teachers and students. There are great new pedagogical models out there describing whole new approaches to learning, but teachers and students are not always ready to adapt these new approaches and roles. And what is true of the beautiful vista's promised by using ict in your education? Is learning still not encouraged by a real life motivating teacher who is an inspiring subject matter expert? These are questions we want to address at this conference for ict in higher education in the Netherlands. We aim to match demand and what's on offer.

You can find the website at: http://owd2007.surf.nl/owd2007/ (only in Dutch I'm afraid).

World of Warcraft in a course

Every 8 weeks or so all the coordinators from the different departments at Utrecht University meet up and discuss the latest developments. Today we had Harald Warmelink on a visit (now just started a PhD in Delft). He was studying Multimedia before and attended a course which was taught in the massive multiplayer role playing game World of Warcraft. It was not only in WOW but also about WOW. Marinka Copier (the teacher) required the students to perform all sorts of tasks from simple to complex, from individual to group effort. The final assignment was to research an aspect of World of Warcraft. All the separate chapters have been added together to form a book, which can be found (hidden between other articles) at: http://sybil.nl/2007/content/category/4/19/27/

You can view Harald's presentation below:

Blackboard usergroup meeting: portal the Wageningen example

Last Friday I missed the Blackboard usergroup meeting on portals. One solution was specially relevant for Utrecht: the use of a Sharepoint portal linked to Blackboard for the courses. Reading Willem van Valkenburg's description of their session (in Dutch I'm afraid) I am quite impressed. It sounds well thought out: I think it would be wise to pay Wageningen university a visit.

Twente has issued its Sakai report...

It is now public: the report on the examination whether Sakai could be a viable option for the University of Twente is now public. It can be found at: http://www.utwente.nl/elo/news/cbus_english_final/

There are a number of notable outcomes which are relevant for Utrecht University (which will also have to answer the same question in the coming year.) From the technical perspective it is interesting to note that it has been designed to be integrated in a Service Oriented Architecture, though this will naturally take some effort (as all integrations will). It should support various pedagogical scenario's although I do feel it has been designed for a teacher based style of learning (as most, if not all VLEs are at present). The one issue in Twente at the moment appears to be rooted in the Functional analysis/Educational use. There are still issues regarding usability and user experience which need to be addressed.

A very damp yet enjoyable morris weekend

I have returned (and recovered) from a very fun Morris weekend organised by Fox Morris in Bretforton (of all places). It was my first visit to the Cotswolds, I must say: they are very quaint. It was quite a change to be surrounded by mixed sides almost all dancing Border morris. I have never seen so many Blacked up faces in one spot. Amongst others there were: Foxs morris, Stone the Crows, Exmoor, Pink bunnies 'from a place warmer than here'. It was a shame the weather was rather lousy but otherwise it was very enjoyable.

Here a video compilation of all the various teams in action, and a show of how to rip your pants...

Clustrmap on my blog

As a true geographer I am always intrigued where my visitors are coming from. On Arina Teemu's blog I found the Clustrmap badge, so I simply had to add this to my list of badges.... So now I hope they come from afar ;-)

Getting an other forum into Sakai

Still want to use good old phpBB? It has been ported to Java (and is now called JForum) and can be used in Sakai. It is almost strange to see an very well known interface in a completely different package. Sadly it does not support nested replies but works on a chronological ordering.

LaGuardia Portfolio

LaGuardia are now running a portfolio in another system (based around Blackboard) and were kind enough to come and present their findings at the Sakai user conference.
It was fascinating to hear about their vision on using the ePortfolio as a tool for empowerment for the students in Queens, NYC. They are from a very specific background and this is a tool to turn them into digital authors in a world dominated by white working class authors. It is very clearly a showcase portfolio including written papers and sometimes even reflections on these papers. The visual aspects are very important to give a feeling of ownership. Students are being used as ePortfolio consultants to help each other. In ePortfolio classes students are very satisfied with Critical thinking, collaborative learning, creative writing.
All in all a very inspiring session showing a very interesting application of a portfolio.

LAMS V2 and Sakai

Many interesting new options in LAMS V2, shame James Dalziel couldn't make it in person. One interesting change is the change in approach allowing for a combination of online and offline activities. Reports and materials used in offline activities can be included in the LAMS flow of activities. Export to portfolio is possible: this simply produces a zip package with html report of activities. Branching and conditionality is coming up in V2.1.
Technically: service based architecture which will allow it to work with various VLEs. Gradebook is not integrated yet, but there are looking at it. There is a new more complex option they are looking at: dragging and dropping Sakai tools in the LAMS authoring environment.
They have set up a LAMS community for sharing sequences and rate and comment on each other's sequences.

Learning styles in Sakai and the OCWtool

I just visited a rapid session covering learning styles theory, do have a look at the powerpoint, there are some slides there which argue for recording lectures. (By the way: the session was being recorded with UvA's Mediasite recording set).
Using control theory address the following demands that students have:
- Belonging
- Freedom
- Power
- Fun
Also start them off and show them around the course (interesting point for addressing some of the Camtools issues). Let students help each other.

Referred to Howard Gardner's theory: 8 intelligences.
They (Claremont College) used an authoring tool (Softchalk, not free, is cheap) to create scorm packages which were mediarich and interactive and were imported into Sakai (and could also have been imported into Bb or WebCT). They have also tried Melete.

If you wish students to be able to follow the course in their own manner, change the teacher centred design: you can at least offer a tool in which a student can track their progress and add what they have found and used in the way of course materials/tests, etc. perhaps based around the course goals...

Sadly here again bad news about the Sakai interface: it is not easy to navigate and use and non-intuitive. The basic UI is lousy! It does make me wonder what the RSmart interface looks like. Teachers claim: Bb is easiest, WebCT next and Sakai figures at bottom of popularity list...
Interestingly there was also a call for a student based rather than a teacher based VLE.