Padagogy

This is a repost of some excellent work of a friend, Allan Carrington, who is also an Apple Distinguished Scholar and has considerable experience with integrating technologies into classrooms and lecture theatres.  His work blends Bloom's taxonomy with the verbs needed to articulate the specific learning outcomes desired for a course of study, the activities you might engage in with students to support the learning outcomes, and ultimately, some of the tools available on the iPad to help support those activities.

It is a very nice piece of work and well worth discussion. Go HERE to download a copy of the current iteration of the Padagogy Wheel or HERE to read more about Allan's work if you haven't already come across his work. Enjoy.

Technology-assisted Language Learning

Technology-assisted Language Learning (TALL), Computer-assisted Language Learning (CALL) have been part of the tool set for language learning for over 50 years, with one of the very early innovations created at the University of Illinois in the form of the PLATO project in 1960.

Fast forward 50 years and The new generation of learning tools includes smart phones and tablets, and phablets (devices that are somewhere between a phone and a tablet in size), with more computing power, memory and connectivity than could be imagined even just a decade ago. Then you can add to the mix cloud computing and cloud-based applications that are all accessible through wireless and 3G and 4G networks, and the opportunities for language learning are almost endless.

However, putting the pieces together remains a non-trivial task particularly when you move from content delivery to students, to content creation and reflection by students. In some of the work undertaken with colleagues, we have combined cloud-based applications, mobile technologies and ePortfolios to create learning environments where the place of the teacher is important in order to develop and support (modelling and feedback) the learning framework and learning goals, While simultaneously providing an environment that is implicitly student centred and controlled, allowing students to present artefacts (in a coherent and creative manner) they have created to provide evidence of their development of language skills and proficiencies (in this example, English).   The figure below shows the structure of the learning environment, indicating which parts of the environment are entirely student controlled and centred, which parts are shared between students and students (and students and teachers), and which parts are teacher designed and organised.  Feedback welcomed. Please note, the graphic is released under a Creative Commons license and may be reused in not-for-profit contexts and it would be appreciated if the author (Professor David M. Kennedy) was acknowledged, should someone wish to reuse or repurpose the image. We are also looking for collaborators interested in language learning research.

Working in teams: A graduate attribute. Collaboration versus Cooperation

Collaboration or Cooperation

In research undertaken by the author in recent times it was found that the particular institution was not meeting its stated goals in terms of producing graduates who were able to work in teams and had developed the abilities and skills to collaborate effectively. This was in spite of the enormous effort by individual teachers and (what was thought to be) careful design of curricula to ensure that students (over a period of years) had many opportunities to engage in team work in a variety of subjects/courses.

How could this be? In subsequent discussions with both student focus groups and academic staff a common picture emerged. This involved:

• assigning students (either self-selected or chosen by the lecturer) into groups in order for a team to undertake a particular assignment or assessment task;
• providing templates or guides that outlined the various components required of team members to complete the team-based assignment; and
• developing assessment protocols or rubrics to assess student learning (but not necessarily individual student learning).

So what happened? It was found that the students did the sensible thing to maximise their opportunities and their time: they chose to divide and conquer. From a student's perspective, this is a very sensible strategy. Each student takes on a particular responsibility (e.g., one student does the lit review, another designs the survey, while the third writes methodology). That is: they Cooperate. The result is a team that cooperates very well with each other but the amount of Collaboration is limited to ensuring the various parts fit together in a reasonable manner for a final submission.

So what to do?  This is where technology can help innovation. At my current institution we are working on ways of using various hardware and collaborative applications, where students in teams work on documents or research projects simultaneously. One such solution to this issue and one of the better tools for this process is Google Docs. Multiple students can work on the same document simultaneously, seeing each other's contributions and editing each other's text. Therefore classroom design (if this is a face-to-face process) is a crucial part of the process, With a shared central monitor that is large enough so that all members of the team can see it and engage with the single shared document in real time an absolute necessity (and multiple stations across the room). In a fully online environment the same effect is achieved by using a cloud-based document that all students work on simultaneously. With a product like Google Docs (and there are other examples) the history of changes can be seen in the contributions by individuals in the team accessed. We are undertaking work in this area in my current institution in a number of academic disciplines. The room (one of) is shown below. Stay tuned for updates.

The Collaborative spaceThe Collaborative space

Blended learning: Where to from here?

I have been in transition of late and therefore have not been publishing my ramblings recently. However, 2013 is a new year with a new job starting in March, in Singapore. More about this later.

In thinking about ongoing developments in technologies to support learning and teaching, it is clear that there are a wealth of opportunities, platforms, applications (apps) and resources.  So much so, that deciding what to use, which platform/device and what applications becomes almost overwhelming to any teacher who is tasked with so many other responsibilities to manage, including having a life. However, I'd like to share a quote from Tony Bates: 

"Good teaching may overcome a poor choice of technology but technology will never save bad teaching"

Many of the platforms/ devices and applications now available are not panaceas for poor teaching, or saving money, but like all tools, they need to be used appropriately in order to be effective. With so many choices, here is my short list of criteria for choosing one application/ platform or device over another. The non-exhaustive list is:

• what is the specific educational need(s) the application/platform/device will help address?
• e.g., communication, content, process, practice, etc etc;
• what are the limiting/supporting factors in your institutional context (context is vital!)?
• e.g., will the infrastructure support what you intend to use (mobile bandwidth is a growing problem for many institutions);
• e.g., where will you and your students receive help from (IT Help Desk?);
• e.g., how will the application/device provide access and engagement and what training will be needed?;
• e.g., do you already have access to something similar that is currently installed (the modern LMS has a huge variety of communication options, and some ePortfolios have social networking opportunities built-in (e.g., Mahara);
• e.g., can the resource be installed onto University/student computers/tablets etc without significant costs/time?;
• how easy is the resource/application to use and how much support will be needed?
• will there be a significant change in teacher/student behaviour needed?
• what is the 'management overhead' for managing the use of the application from a variety of viewpoints, institutional, pedagogical and at the individual teacher level (e.g., are passwords necessary, or is privacy an issue?)?
• what will the impact on student and/or teacher workload be?
• is what you propose compatible with institutional policies, equipment, infrastructure, policy (IP and privacy for example) and will management support what you propose?
• and, not at least, will students be willing to engage and work in ways that make the process worth the effort?

The last is something I have found to be the easiest to solve by involving the students in the process and giving them opportunities to provide feedback and guide the process directly. The rest I leave up to the reader.

Visualising student forum discussions - a temporal web

It has been a long time between postings. However, today I would like to make people aware of the outcomes of the project we have been involved in for some time. Today the TLC has released an open source version of the Bushgrapher software that allows you to visualise conversations in a forum (e.g., a Moodle Forum).

The Bushgrapher block provides a means of visualising the interactions between student postings in a forum. The Bushgraph produced allows a teacher or researcher to visualise student interactions as a temporal web of interactions between individuals engaged in discussion on a forum. The current release version is for internal research use within an institution only and not recommended for research that needs to ensure high levels of student privacy.

More details about the software may be found HERE.

Changing Cultures, Changing Practices: Using Mobile Tools, the Cloud and ePortfolios for Authentic Assessment

This year I have been Invited to speak at EDMEDIA 2011 in Lisbon, Portugal.  Click HERE to see more details about the presentation. If you want to engage in discussion, then Twitter using the hash tag #dmkedmedia or @davidmkennedy.

Abstract: Ubiquitous computing stopped being hype and became a reality in 2010. With the convergence of small mobile devices (the iPad and iPhone in particular), integration with cloud computing, and cheap wireless and/or 3G connectivity, this convergence of technologies has finally come of age. However, the issues for higher education remain the same: design of resources for learning, the activities that drive the learning process, and assessment.

This paper will focus on research that has been undertaken in a small liberal arts university in Hong Kong where multi-language proficiency by students (English and Putonghua) is a key goal for the University. The research focuses on three components that were key to the learning design: iPhones for teaching and learning, using the ‘cloud’ for feedback and sharing (YouTube), and ePortfolios (Mahara) for assessment.

Modern ePortfolios allow students to provide evidence of a variety of learning outcomes using a wide range of media including text, audio, images and video. Multimedia provided students with the opportunity to more completely demonstrate language skills and proficiency. Student learning was monitored by examining media produced using iPhones, stored on YouTube and presented on Mahara. The learning design enabled more immediate and relevant feedback (particularly peer feedback) on critical language abilities.

However, at Lingnan University in Hong Kong, creating this convergence of pedagogy and technology proved to be a non-trivial task and involved technical issues, re-thinking curriculum design and professional development for staff and students. The presentation will use the insights gained from this research to highlight the opportunities and risks associated with what is still seen in Hong Kong (and no doubt elsewhere) as radical approaches to curriculum design.

Change in Education: Taking the Red pill

In listening to a talk recently  about motivation and change I remembered the images associated with the impact on Neo's life in the Matrix movie: he took the Red pill. Once you take the Red pill, everything will change and nothing will be the same again, and in fact, you wont be able to go back to the way things were before.

I would suggest that once you start using technology in teaching and learning, once you change, once you start doing things differently, everything changes.  To continue the metaphor, change is not to be avoided, but embraced for very good reasons. These reasons are very nicely summed up by Eric Hoffer, who said:

"In times of change, the learners inherit the Earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists"

 We are focused on preparing students for an uncertain future, and we need to move with them.

Think of some of the changes that have already occurred. MIT gave away their content, and the ROI was enhanced: the sky did not fall. The creation of Open Educational Content and Creative Commons licences that allow content to be shared, and academics still got paid: the sky still didn't fall. And, software become free and open source, and businesses flourished: the sky was still up.

Embrace change: it keeps us all young at heart.

Change and mLearning

With due respect to all psychologists who deal with the complexity of human behaviour, there is an old joke about 'How many psychologists does it take to change a light bulb?'

The answer is of course, only one, but the light bulb must WANT TO CHANGE.

In Higher Education, the staff and students also need to see the value of wanting change in order for innovations to have real impact on behaviour. With apologies to those people engaging in the daunting task of changing the culture of educators and educational administrators I believe this famous statement about the environment (Pogo, 1970 - http://www.igopogo.com/we_have_met.htm) should be resurrected in the current climate of educational reform and change. 'We have met the enemy, and he is us'.

It is only occasionally that we hear of technological issues being the major problems in the use of technology with teaching and learning. The majority of the discussion is be focused on how to change the approaches to teaching and learning of teachers to be more inline with the students they teach, often with little reference to the local context, perceptions and skills of students, and staff perceptions for any need for change. We also need to ensure that students also see the value in changing practices and become part of the process of change.

While we know that students are themselves products of their past learning experiences, it is possible to underestimate how much we need to engage them fully if they are to help drive the processes and engage with new curricula and new ways of providing evidence of learning. Until recently the literature suggested that we have these homogeneous group with high levels of IT skills that can be automatically utilised for learning. A more critical view suggests that our students, while some may be technologically competent are more likely to have diverse skills and interest. Some students may be great consumers of IT, but the majority may lack practice as producers of academic content that requires the use of technology (as in ePortfolios) to support the process and the outcomes. Student development is often just as important as staff development and should be resourced accordingly.

Some observations on the use of mobile phones for learning

I jokingly refer to my iPhone as my 'auxiliary brain'. If I didn't have it, I would have to get something like it. It is used for reminding me about important things to do, calander/ diary, providing just-in-time access to documents via Dropbox, as my presenting tool (using wireless) and communication when I am away from the office.

However, this range of use is not universal for all users. For example, how many of us use the full power of MS Word? When we need something done, we learn how to do it or ask someone. If we don't perceive we need it then we don't spend time even exploring.

In the use of educational technologies, the usability, context and purpose are key factors to adoption. For example, in my current project with iPhones, if a student doesn't perceive a suitable use for their iPhones, they generally do not bother to explore, even when we as the researchers suggest that something might be useful for improving their organisation (diary) or learning (podcasts of grammar from GrammerGirl - see http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/). Familiarity and existing ways of working are key inhibitors to changing practice and should not be underestimated in any study purportedly intent on changing learning behaviours.

An Inkling of the future of books

The book, that tried, true and often loved form of media that has been with us for such a long time may have a competitor: at least in terms of academic texts that students are expected to buy for their courses. The company Inkling has come up with a very compelling model of that allows distribution of books, supports collaborative learning between students, and addresses the vexed issue of cost.

Maybe sometime soon, we will see students going to class and actually taking their text books with them because they can annotate the text, share and discuss ideas, and the iPad books have interactive content as textbook makers start to exploit the affordances of the tool (see The Elements).

Watch this space.

Cloud Computing: An IT or Educational decision?

As many institutions move towards the adoption of cloud based computing, one sees a great deal about the need to manage various types of risk. For example, in a recent article from Educause they identified a number of institutional risks:

• 'Operational risk — service or business failures
• Financial risk — surprise support or integration costs
• Compliance risk — failure leads to liability costs and reputation damage'

 From the perspective of the individual user, staff and students they noted that for the 'User view' one needed to consider:

• 'Reliability, privacy, security — similar to operational risk
• Utility — functionality
• Simplicity — which requires interoperability'.

Now I have quoted directly from the article because it highlights what seems to be a gap in the thinking/ planning process. Educational issues seemed to be lumped under utility which is loosely considered to be issues of collaboration and communication (email to alumni for example). It is only much later in the process that educational issues start to get addressed more seriously. For example, how the various cloud services integrate with the manner in which staff and students use the various technological tools for teaching, learning and engagement. Many of the articles I have been looking at seem to take a very technological approach and while that is important, surely the ultimate users (staff and students) need to be a part of the process very early on. I would be interested in hearing from anyone that has already been down this path and is willing to share their experiences, from an educational perspective.

In closing this post, we have all seen the discussions about what is wrong with the iPad, no USB, the need to sync with another computer, and no really familiar file storage system (e.g., see HERE). However, cloud computing and iPads seem to be a near perfect match, the cloud being where all of the collaborative services are available for sharing, communication, file storage, and interaction. Now all we need are really fast wireless services freely available on campus and in the city - as we have here in Hong Kong.

ICEL 2010

ICEL 2010 is an international conference that is being held (for the first time) in Penang, Malaysia with attendees from 19 countries. What is clear is the extensive interest from developing countries in the use of mobile learning. I was very interested in the presentation by the second Key Note speaker, Laura Czerniewicz, from the Centre for Educational Technology (CET) University of Cape Town, South Africa who presented on The digital native in a new era- apartheid or democracy? Her presentation may be found HERE.


One of the things that was very interesting was the finding that the development of computer literacies is virtually the reverse of the western world: with the more impoverished students coming from mobile phones, often relatively low level technology (the so called vanilla mobile phone), to the desktop or notebook computers. The demographics and data also challenge the statements from the likes of Tapscott and Prenski, in particular. The South African data indicates that it is experience with computers rather than age per sec that is the determining factor in the concept of a digital native. She also introduced the term the 'digital elite', describing those people how have had extensive access to technology and have become very confident in the use of these technologies. There didn't seem to be a correlation with age, unlike the statements of the two authors mentioned above. 


I find that this mirrors my experiences in Hong Kong. Students from the mainland come to Hong Kong with very little experience in the use of computers, and the assumption that because of their age they should be computer experts. However, they are not, reinforcing the findings that the individuals described as 'digital natives' by Prenski are in fact extremely diverse, and in higher education we need to be cognizant of  this information and address these particular student needs.  


All in all, an interesting conference with a diversity of views from developed and developing countries. ICEL 2011 will be held in Kelowna, Canada. 

Using Mahara on the iPad and iPhone

The previous post considered what kind of device the iPad actually is. However, as a number of writers have already indicated, there are some limitations on what can be done interactively in webpages displayed on screen due to Apple's rejection of certain technologies.

With considerable thanks to the Teaching and Learning Centre (TLC) technical Officer James, we now have a working version of a patch that allows students to customise their Mahara pages to create a view on an iPhone or an iPad. If you go HERE or to the URL http://mahara.org/interaction/forum/topic.php?id=1913 you can download the code to help use Mahara with small mobile devices made by Apple. I trust it is useful.

Feedback welcomed and kudos to James on a quick and easy fix to make the devices more customisable by the learners.

iPad - first impressions

This is really a very interesting and different device to enter the educational market, not that it was designed with education in mind (of course). I have been asked on numerous occasions by people who discover I have one here in Hong Kong to describe what it is like. It is a struggle. Let me say what it isn't first. It isn't:

• a fully fledged computer;
• a fully functional notebook that you take on the road with you; 
• a low powered notebook; or
• a phone, it is too big!

The first thing one really notices is the stunning screen (think reading a book or watching a video). The second, is the ease-of-use and just how intuitive and fast the iPad is. So, if it isn't a net book, notebook or a fully fledged computer what is it? I am still considering this question myself.

 I have the simplest least costly version of the iPad. It is very user-friendly (being extremely simple to use), very easy to read online newspapers, comics and books with, surf the Internet, handles e-mail and VoIP communications such as Skype very well,  accesses Google maps, and everyone I have shown it to his captivated by what they see and touch.  The range of applications being developed for the iPad mean it is impossible for me to list them all here. I think the quality of the screen and the ease of use are likely to overcome some of the disadvantages (which don't seem to be reflected in the sales) such as the lack of a USB port or a camera. For my mobile learning project starting in September I am now wondering if the ease-of-use, larger screen, speed and low price (compared to the iPhone) make a better choice for the project: providing somebody has developed a cable that allows one to plug in a camera. Only time will tell.

mLearning, Mobility and Change: Broadening the Conversation

Abstract of KeyNote to be presented at the University of Maryland.

Friday 23 April, 2010

(Tweets will be linked to this presentation)

The year 2010 is touted to be the year mobile devices move from the fringe of student learning to the centre of a personalized learning experience. There is no escaping the evidence from numerous surveys that young people see mobile phones, in particular, as their birthright, ultimately personalisable ubiquitous parts of their lives. This view of a mobile phone as an essential personal appendage is not always a view shared by many educators, particularly when disturbed by the incessant ring of a mobile phone at an inopportune moment. Mobile devices in education are often seen as distractions, or threats to learning rather than opportunities for engagement.

In higher education what are the drivers for change? There are a number of candidates. Some educators and techno-savvy innovators see opportunities for the use of rich media (video, audio, and student-initiated content creation), utilizing the social networking and technology skills of students for collaboration and engagement, while others question the need for change: ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’. While technology moves very fast, we as educators often do not and whether we chose to accept it or not, change is upon us.

This presentation will examine pedagogy and practice of mLearning, the need to extend basic student literacies in the 21st Century, and issues of individual and institutional change in an effort to broaden the debate about how notions of mobility and mobile devices might contribute to the student learning experience and student learning outcomes.

To iPad or not to iPad: That is the question

iPad fever has reached its peak with opinions, first-impressions, hands-on reviews for the select few appearing everywhere, even making it to the front pages of national newspapers! Click HERE, and HERE and even more HERE from Engadget. The pundits are suggesting that it will revolutionize the personal computing experience and maybe, just maybe, kill off the mouse.

What does this mean for education? A large number of educators are scrambling to see if this (what looks like) persuasive, sexy and cool-looking device will really assist student learning. At least one (rich) institution has already indicated a very large commitment to developing iPad applications. And that is where the serious question resides: what affordances does the iPad offer that will make it the killer-product for education in addition to the rest? Read any number of writers on the use of technology in the classroom and they will talk about communication, student engagement (and not just with content), social networking and the like. Apple, however, talks about access to content via iTunes such as iBooks, movies, games and music. That is, consumption of content rather that creation of knowledge from the plethora of information that will now be available in a lightweight, attractive package. The latter is no where better exemplified by the comments by Rupert Murdoch, touting the iPad as the saviour of newpapers!

It is the work of app developers and maybe the next version of the iPad with camera (still and video), USB, and access to external media that may answer the questions and opportunities for education.

Visualising your language learning

This is not one of my usual foci, but it is a very powerful use of visualisation technologies which have been shown to enhance learning.

How do we get student to visualise the relationship between related terms when attempting to understand (fully) the nature of a concept. One more recent addition is the rather eye-catching VisuWords (http://www.visuwords.com/). Each colour represents a particular part of speech (nouns, verbs etc), while the arrows and their colours represent the relationships (synonym, homonyms etc).

If you roll-over the the words in circles, a small window pops up with more information. Try it and see! Besides being visually appealing, it also provides a better more engaging way to visualise the relationships that are part of the concept.

2010: The year the mWorld becomes mainstream?

I have deliberately used a provocative title based upon all of the articles that are appearing touting the rise of mobile computing in 2010, moving from the fringes of education to the center. But will it happen in higher education in the West? I am inclined to agree with Tony Bates when he suggests that the revolution will occur, but not where we might expect it to.

On a trip through Rajasthan in 2008, a relatively desolate place of sand and scrubby trees with little sign of habitation, I was constantly amazed to find a mobile presence - a connection to a mobile network on my mobile phone. More recently, attending a UNESCO event in Paris (Dec. 2009) I was intrigued and very engaged when the presenter talked about the impact that a project funded by Nokia was making on the lives of farmers in developing countries. Can you think of a more contrasting image to that above? Farming practices that have remained unchanged for hundreds of years, supplemented by real-time instant updates via a mobile phone to market prices for produce in the city.

In developing countries, where a small fraction of the population has access to a traditional library, the mobile phone provides a link to the internet for a much larger proportion of the population. The concept of learning via mobile phones is compelling, because that is the medium of communication and collaboration, providing access to the wider world, to markets, improving the fundamental aspects of peoples lives. In one sense, in developed countries we are too rich - we have so many other avenues by which we can access information, and so many alternative means available to us for collaboration.

Arguments for appropriate pedagogy when considering the use of technology in teaching and learning occasionally miss the point - pedagogy does not exist in a vacuum, anywhere. The local context, perceived educational needs and motivation, and the educational intent and knowledge of learning design of the teachers who design and develop learning activities are also key drivers that impact on the adoption of any technology - most especially mLearning. Having said that, it is clear that there is an unstoppable change occurring, with small mobile computing devices (netbooks, laptops and mobile phones in particular), outselling desktops. Mobile phones now have features that just a few years ago required a desktop with an ethernet connection. There seems to be an opportunity or two here to engage students with the technology they always carry and is always on.

Google wave

I like a number of others have been provided with a Google wave account. I have been looking at it for about two months now, and more than any other application in my experience, I am asking the question, does this have a place in education? If so, what is its place?

After I set up the account, I invited a number of people I know who are not afraid to try something new and guess what happened, after the initial flurry of exchanges, the communication channel died and for the past four weeks it has been entirely dormant. I have read one account of a professor that used Google wave as a means of communication between classes on different sides of the Atlantic, but that could have just as easily been accomplished using other, more well established and understood, mediums of communication. So to the occasional viewers of this blog, or visitors, do you have any examples to share? How was it evaluated? Would you use Google Wave again?

Voting with their virtual feet!

Here is evidence of an unanticipated outcome for teaching, learning, the impact of technology and the increase in the offerings of the open-content and courseware in last week's Chronicle of Higher Education. Not withstanding the claimed importance and engagement (by some) of face-2-face classes and the potential for direct engagement, students are voting with their virtual feet to get their education from online courses being published by the likes of MIT or Harvard or the University of New South Wales (some quite popular courses). See HERE or http://chronicle.com/article/Students-Find-Free-Online/48776/?sid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en

This recent story begs several questions, not the least of which is: "What happens when your line manager/ Departmental Head finds out (from the ubiquitous teaching and learning evaluations that every student in universities and colleges completes at the end of every course) that the students in your class prefer an online presentation from you?" What does this mean for staff evaluations of teaching? How is likely to impact on tenure and promotion? What does this mean for student enrollments, university reputation, and esteem to which a department is held?

Good teaching is not really a secret. Good teaching includes such things as profound knowledge of the subject domain, being focused on key concepts and ideas rather than just covering the content domain, being pro-active in addressing student learning problems and responding quickly through a variety of channels, having high expectations of students, employing teaching and learning strategies that are aligned with the activities, elements of assessment and intended learning outcomes, a commitment to support and encourage independent learning, and an ability to motivate and engage students, to name a few key factors. Good teaching is not necessarily easy either.

I am not for one second taking the view that teaching is more important than research output in such questions related to tenure and promotion (not in my part of the world anyway) but teaching does count for most academic staff in their performance reviews. Very poor reviews such as those articulated by the students in the Chronicle article would not sit well with senior staff concerned about the reputation of the university (at least not in my institution). Ultimately, students may initially vote with their virtual feet for a few classes or lectures, but eventually they are likely to take their custom elsewhere as well. Something for all of us involved in teaching and learning to remember.

I remember my first year undergraduate physics lecturer well - but not kindly. If I could have gone elsewhere at that time, I would have!

Comments welcome.