Derek's Blog

Encouraged by the responses I've been receiving from my last post, I've decided to share another of the diagrams that I've been working on in recent months. This one is rather more complicated in a sense, but is an attempt to summarise the range of issues that need to be taken into account when an institution/school is thinking about choosing an OLE. I've called the diagram the OLE Matrix Diagram (downloadable here as a PDF) and have written up some notes to try and help make the information on it accessible. Again, any feedback and suggestions would be appreciated.

Posted by Derek Wenmoth at 10:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Over the past few months I have been working on a project for the NZ Ministry of Education looking at creating a set of guidelines for schools that are making decisions about the choosing a Learning Management System.

This is not a straightforward task, and we're not the only ones who are working on coming up with a set of guidelines. BECTA, in the UK, recently released a set of guidelines they have developed for schools titled Requirements for Learning Platforms, which contains a set of recommendations as to what schools should be taking into account.

The problem is that, with an ever increasing array of products being developed in this space, it is not simply a case of simply providing a feature comparison chart, and leaving the consumer to decide which will give htem the biggest (and most appropriate?) "bang" for their buck.

The problem is more fundamental than that, and involves the convergence of two key influences. One is the changing nature of pedagocial practice - stemming from the way we regard knowledge and how we plan to "share" it. Many of the traditional LMS systems were designed to support (and reinforce) an essentially "transmissive" approach to knowledge sharing - focusing on enabling teachers/lecturers to upload course notes and students to download and read them, thus "learning". It could be argued that this basic design concept remains paramount in most of what is being developed, even today.

The other key influence is the development of standards and specifications that allow the user (learner) a far greater degree of independence in creating and maintaining their own "learning space". This can be seen in the emergence of so much "social software" on the web, in the use of RSS feeds between and among sites, and the increasing level of personalisation and customisation that many sites allow.

Following the influence of Scott Wilson from CETIS, I have been working on a model of the Future OLE (online learning environment) that illustrates this approach in the New Zealand context - as a means of engaging with principals and teachers about the thinking and understandings that will inform what these future learning environments may look like. To that end I've drafted a diagram and some thoughts in a paper titled A Learner Centred OLE which can be downloaded here. Any feedback and thoughts are welcomed.

Posted by Derek Wenmoth at 11:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (15)

Here are a couple of cool pieces of software that I have been introduced to in the past couple of days:

Nvu is a complete Web Authoring System for Linux Desktop users as well as Microsoft Windows and Macintosh users to rival programs like FrontPage and Dreamweaver. I've had a play with it, even opened up some of my existing HTML pages created with Dreamweaver which I was then able to edit. Nvu 1.0 is now available to download and use for free.

WetPaint is an easy to use piece of Wiki software that is free to download and install on your own server. I found this really useful backgrounder about it written by Robin Good .

Posted by Derek Wenmoth at 5:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I came across this interesting piece of social software last night while reading through a backlog of RSS feeds on NetNewswire.

Called Simuliciou.us , the site author describes it as:

... a mashup of del.icio.us and easyutil.com. It's an experiment on my part to see whether I can quickly find relevant web sites based on people's tags/bookmarks on del.icio.us, using the engine from easyutil.com. It answers the question "people who tagged this site also tagged what other sites". I am using it mostly to find blogs that are similar to the ones I read, and to find new popular web sites that are in my area.

Although the interface leaves a lot to be desired at this stage, the functionality appears to be robust - I spent a while searching links to various sites that I visit frequently. I even tried the Mozilla/Firefiox bookmarklet created by Sjan Evardsson and now have it installed in my bookmark bar for ease of use.

Posted by Derek Wenmoth at 7:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Idesign is an interesting website that provides a well constructed overview of "design thinking". The approach introduces 7 ways of design thinking, and covers everything from the underpinning theories, to practical teaching tools and techniques, to forms of assessment.

Most of the information on this website was originally developed during the Design Based Education K-12 Program at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, PA, USA. Initiated in 1989 by Dr. Burnette, the program began with a university course, Design With Kids, that placed design students in classrooms to help teachers conduct design projects related to their teaching goals.

Posted by Derek Wenmoth at 9:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I've just started on the TUANZ tour which will weave its way through the country over the next five weeks, stopping at 12 locations. Keynote speaker in the mornings is Adrian Bruce from Australia who has a wealth of experience and good ideas from the classroom on how to integrate ICTs ino teaching and learning programmes.
I'm doing the afternoon slot, which culminates in a group discussion and sharing of ideas and identification of issues that are being recorded and linked with discussion forums in the Centre4 environment. The hope is that teachers who have attended the TUANZ events will take time to visit this environment and contribute further to the discussions that are initiated at the various venues.
Will be interesting to see how it develops...

Posted by Derek Wenmoth at 11:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I've just read an interesting paper titled "Knowledge Maps: ICTs in Education"(PDF file) from the Information for Development (InfoDev) Programme of the World Bank. The paper is subtitled "What do we know about the effective uses of information and communication technologies in education in developing countries?", and although the focus is on the use of ICTs in developing countries, there is a lot we can learn from the summary of key points in relation to how we are going here in New Zealand.

The report is referred to as a ??Knowledge Map?? of what is known (and what isn??t) about ICT use in education. It shows that important gaps remain in the current knowledge base, and that there appears to be a dearth of useful resources attempting to translate what is known to work (and not work) in this field for policymakers and donor staff working on education issues in developing countries. Many of the points identified do, in my view however, provide some reassurance for the approaches that are being taken within the NZ ICTPD schools cluster programme, for instance:

1. On-going teacher training and support is critical to the successful utilization of ICTs in education
2. Positive impact more likely when linked to pedagogy
3. There is often a mismatch between methods used to measure effects and type of learning promoted
4. Communities of practice can be important tools to support teacher professional development
5. ICTs can promote learner autonomy
6. Teacher professional development is a process, not an event
7. Introducing technology alone will not change the teaching and learning process
8. ICTs seen as tools to help teachers create more 'learner-centric' learning environments
9. Preparing teachers to benefit from ICT use is about more than just technical skills
10. How teachers use ICTs is dependent on their general teaching styles

A couple of points made were of interest for other reasons:

1. ICT use in schools in the United States is not great, and
2. In OECD countries, the use of ICTs to promote 'computer literacy' is seen as less important than in using ICTs as teaching and learning tools

The second point is interesting in view of the fact that there appears to be an increasing interest being shown in some areas of the NZ context on promoting computer literacy - again.

Overall a most useful read - some good data to mull over and use as a starting point for discussions in our own context.

Posted by Derek Wenmoth at 6:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Here's a great 15-minute educational video introducing information literacy to young people titled E-Literate developed as part of the UCLA Initiative for 21st Century Literacies.

I found it great to watch, with engaging use of graphics and images to convey the many ideas and understandings that underpin the notion of information literacy in the digital world. I particularly liked the way the video tackles a lot of the assumptions and "hype" that exists about these issues, and provides a really good platform for further discussion and investigation. I can see this being used by teachers, librarians, community leaders and parents to introduce 21st century literacies to young people.

Posted by Derek Wenmoth at 9:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)