Final day in Austin today - last evening I had a chance to go out with Joel Greenberg, Director of Strategic Development at The Open University to listen to some music and chat about developments in the eLearning space at the Open University. A key interest of Joel's is how we can harness the opportunities afforded through the whole social networking paradigm for the sake of education. At the OU they are actively working on creating online educational environments that resemble things like facebook, myspace and bebo etc.

It was with interest then that I read this morning on Jane's blog about SuperCool School, a Facebook app that makes online learning social by democratizing the learning process and empowering everyone to demand, create and participate in live and interactive online classes. I haven't had a good chance to look around it yet, so can't really comment on what it is like - however, what appeals to me is that this is indeed evidence of what I think we'll begin to see more of as people look to de-construct our current paradigm of classroom-based education and look for ways of democratising the experience, creating opportunities for more personalised learning to occur, where learners themselves are able to take responsibility for determining their own learning goals and tragectories, and where they may also be recognised for their expertise as 'expert learners', taking a role of guiding others in their learning.

What a learning experience! Locked in a room with around 40 "geeks" talking in a language that would require considerable interpretation for most (including me), our task was to put a range of applications and processes to the test to see how well they performed in terms of meeting the Common Cartridge specifications developed by the IMS Global consortium.

The test was simple enough - to submit a content "cartridge" that had been created using each of the processes being examined to a "testing application" that analysed the code line by line and provided feedback in terms of how many errors were found. The second step then was to open the import the cartridge into an LMS system and open it to see how it operates in that environment. None of the participants had been able to do either of these things with the particular applications being used prior to the test, so it was a real test in that sense!

The outcomes were extremely positive for eXe - it came through with ZERO errors and opened without a glitch within the chosen LMS - Angel Learning.

Next was a cartridge from a US Publishing House, which returned about a dozen errors, most fairly minor and fixable.

Third was a cartridge from a large distance education university - which came back with a large number of errors, some more serious.

Finally was a cartridge from another commercial vendor - which had more errors than we could count and completely failed the test in every respect.

So - another feather in the cap for eXe, with many of those present taking a copy away with them to look at using in the context of what they are doing in the content development for eLearning space.

With that behind me I'm now looking forward to returning back to NZ and getting back to an environment I feel more at ease in :-)

The IMS GLobal Learning Impact Award winners were announced this afternoon - and eXe earned a Learning Impact Leadership award, judged Best Content Authoring Tool!. Even more significantly (to me anyway), eXe received the "People's Choice" award from the vote of all the conference delegates. The picture above shows eXe developer Remo holding the award, together with myself and Sandy who was the project manager for eXe during a significant part of its development under the eCDF funding in New Zealand.

Tomorrow will be a day spent in a technical "test-fest" where many of the product developers will have an opportunity to demonstrate the interoperability features of their product - and eXe will be among those being shown off. So... off to my room to prepare :-)

• OU Classic - the traditional print-based, correspondence courses the OU has done for many years, with all resources developed by the OU
  
• Wrap around courses - using resources from elsewhere (eg a text book) and "wrapping" it with specific instruction and guidance from the OU
  
• Empty Box courses - courses that start with a "blank slate" and develop through the discourse among students
  
• Bought-in courses - courses purchased from elsewhere
  
• Student Supplied content - courses based on content supplied by the students
  
• Web2.0 learning - courses based on the principles of social networking and student ownership/control

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• eXe is an easy to use desktop application
  
• With it you can build pedagogically sound education resources
  
• It allows you to export what you've created in standard packaging formats.

I've only occasionally been confronted by someone in the educational system who doesn't accept that we need to change what we're doing in our schools and how we're doing it. Generally, there is a high level of acceptance that the world is changing, and that our students need to be prepared for it in ways that are different to the traditional ways we've done things in our educational institutions.

The problem occurs, of course, in shifting these ideas from our head (our understanding of the situation) to our hands (actually doing something about it.) Some would argue that there is a third dimension that is often missed out - the heart, from which flows our sense of passion, driven by belief and a sense of vision. In visiting a large number of schools now around NZ (and overseas), plus the experience of my own five children as students at school and university, I can only say that there is a huge degree of variability in terms of how successful we (as a profession) are in realising and responding to change.

Thus it was with interest that I read this morning of a report just released by Education Sector, a national independent nonpartisan education think tank, titled Waiting To Be Won Over: Teachers Speak on the Profession, Unions and Reform. The report contains the findings of a survey of over 1000 teachers in the USA about their views on the teaching profession, teachers unions, and a host of reforms aimed at improving teacher quality. It examine teachers' opinions and attitudes toward teacher unions, teacher unionism, and a range of current district reforms, including those aimed specifically at improving teacher quality.

The survey itself asked specific questions about the work teachers do and about reform proposals that are currently being debated in the US. It also examines the views of new teachers and those who have been in the system for some time. And, when possible, the survey discerns trends by asking some identical questions from a 2003 national survey of K-12 public school teachers and comparing the responses.

While the context is the USA, the findings ring true for us in New Zealand as well - and are worth considering, particularly for those of us who are working in the area of challenging the existing paradigm and seeking to bring about changes at all levels from policy to practice. Some of the trends and findings that stood out for me...

• Concerns from teachers who feel 'locked in' to teaching, with no real options for doing something else if they feel they're past their prime. "Too many veteran teachers who are burned out stay because they do not want to walk away from the benefits and service time they have accrued."
  
• Well over half of the teachers surveyed (55 percent) say that in their district it is very difficult and time-consuming to remove clearly ineffective teachers who shouldn't be in the classroom
  
• A strong feeling that their experience of appraisal (teacher evaluation) was ineffective, not providing any worthwhile sort of feedback for growth or recognition of work well done, or in identifying and dealing with poor performance. Most saw this as just a formality.
  
• When responding to a question about what sort of school is best for students teachers were unanimous in talking about providing flexibility and dispensing with unnecessary rules and restrictions.
  

• making appraisals and teacher evaluations more rigorous and meaningful


• Providing financial incentives, including for teachers who work in 'tough' areas or poor performing schools
  
• De-emphasising the use of student test scores as a key measure of teacher performance and basis for financial rewards.
  
• Providing more time in the school day for teachers to carry out planning and preparation work as a way of attracting high quality people into the profession.

Yes - this report is useful as a benchmark or 'state of the play' - but for goodness sake, where is the innovative, "outside the box" thinking that will truly energise and refresh our whole approach to education - that will ensure we are educating students for their future - not our past??

In an increasingly globalised world where the ability to converse in a range of languages is becoming important, this site provides a useful resource for those wanting to learn a foreign language, but, more significantly from my point of view, it provides a useful insight into how the traditional approach to distance education may be changing - from the paradigm of teacher (expert) delivering to students (learners) to members of the community teaching and supporting each other, with the resources being developed using a collaborative wiki where all users are a part of the editing community. Certainly a long way from the days of traditional correspondence education where the resources were developed by the experts and delivered to those wanting to learn.

Thinking of the impact the iPhone may have in NZ when it is released, I was interested to read Jane's latest post regarding what is available educationally for the iPhone and iTouch at the moment. She has listed her Top Web Apps for the iPod Touch and the iPhone - which reveals a growing list of applications (including optimized sites) for the iPod Touch and the iPhone that are useful for learning, performance support or productivity purposes. There's everything here from Facebook to BBC programmes - and my favourite, an iPhone version of NetVibes - my RSS aggregator of choice.

The future's looking rosy for Mobile technologies :-) Mind you - I have to wonder when the following message was sent via a list I belong to (a serious question on an academic research list):

Can researchers point out how to stop students/pupils using hand-held devices in the classroom ? Recent THES article on texting while there's a lecturer speaking point to this being perceived as "mildly rude" - Even on a one-to-one situation nobody seems to have any problems with ring-tones, etc. Is there a pro-educator device, like the mosquito, that we can switch on to block cell phones/blackberries/iphones ?

Among the things I've seen are some tremendous examples of using the Bluescreen capability within Keynote with five year olds - all with a focus on the development of literacy skills through story telling etc. There were also some great examples of stop-motion video making, working with graphics within word processing packages, and some excellent science-based activities using small cameras with LEDs and macro capabilities.

The things that impress me most about this conference are the very things that I believe are so essential to powerful professional learning, including:

• teachers sharing ideas and experiences with other teachers
  
• plenty of opportunity for reflection and discussion
  
• lots of deliberate hands-on, direct experience
  
• examples of practical activities with direct classroom application, but linked to theory and pedagogical understandings
  
• a very welcoming and stimulating environment where teachers are valued and given recognition for the great things they are doing

I've been playing around some more with the XO computer that Jim has loaned me (having trouble getting it away from my son who likes to explore the e-Toys application!). One aspect that I'm intrigued by is the fact that it converts to an e-Book reader (see video from YouTube above in which Steve Cisler, a veteran librarian, interviews the Internet Archive's Brewster Kahle about the e-book potential of the OLPC XO laptop. What doesn't come through in the video is the quality of the screen resolution of the XO which means the e-Book content is very readable.

In thinking about the potential of e-Books I've also been looking at what is available - and the list seems to have grown considerably since I last had a look around (around the time I blogged about the Kindle). Here are just a few...

• A Australian list of free e-books, that includes some New Zealand collections
  
• Books-Online - a collection of over 32,000 completely free online books - searchable by title, author etc
  
• The Open Directory Project - with a large list of links to further e-book collections
  
• Project Gutenberg - reputedly the Internet's oldest producer of FREE electronic books (eBooks or eTexts).
  
• Great books index - An Index to Online Great Books in English Translation
  
• UK Directory of free online books

The thing that impressed me the most was how easily the XO could identify and 'map' the various wireless access points it found in any particular location in a visual 'mesh' network neighbourhood. I simply located our home wireless access point on the mesh, clicked on it and entered the password and "hey presto" - I was connected to the internet! The other thing that had me really impressed was something that isn't a part of the regular install of and XO - Jim has managed to install a copy of eXe on his XO and get it working! Now that's impressive.

Like all good things, however, this comes to an end - I've had to give it back as Jim travels back to Gisborne tomorrow.

Librarians, teachers and parents have told us how hard it is for students to understand web searching. Boolify makes it easier to for students to understand their web search by illustrating the logic of their search, and by showing them how each change to their search instantly changes their results.

It's simple, immediate and is easy and flexible to use with your class, no matter the subject matter.

Search results are presented through Google's "Safe Search STRICT" technology, so we're confident that the results your students receive are safe.

The site is well laid out, with a very easy to follow online manual provided, and a forum area that you can go in and read other people's questions and tips etc. this is much more than a simply drawing tool as it allows you to create images as bitmaps or vector images, and to create animations that can be exported as Flash files or Quicktime movies.

Lots to explore and discover with this "work in progress" - try it yourself. I must confess, I think I'd find it easier to interact with if I had a tablet to use - I'm off to find one now...

Unfortunately for NZ schools the contest is only available to schools in the US, however an email from the organisers advises me that there will be one opened up to NZ and Australia as well later in the year.

For the full press release follow the link below:

I thought about this again when I read Sue Water's latest post in which she has published the results of a Twitter poll she conducted by asking her Twitter followers to name their favourite 3 Web2.0 applications (apart from Twitter, del.icio.us and Frirefox.)

I'm very interested to note the extent to which Google applications emerged in the favourites list from her poll. I'm a big fan and user of many of these myself, but recently have become aware of of Google's reputation of being "hostile" towards users privacy.

This was brought home to me further recently a recent article in the Globe and Mail titled Patriot Act Haunts Google which highlights that the Google on-line services (Docs, Sites etc) are subject to the "USA Patriot" Act (in fact an acronym that stands for " Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001) which could make the use of the sites they consider (a) a threat to academic freedom, or (b) in breach of Canada's privacy laws - depending on what data is put there.

Certainly food for thought, I suspect we'll see more debate on this emerging in the next few months.