Smart Devices for Learning #3: using smartphones, tablets and apps to enhance learning

Image source: Andrew Middleton

Yesterday I was in Manchester for the MELSIG event - the third in a series focusing on smart devices for learning. (The previous two were held at the University of Huddersfield and Sheffield Hallam University).

The day started well sharing the scenic train journey across the Pennines with Anne Nortcliffe and coffee on arrival at Manchester Met University in the Business School with David Eddy. It was good to meet up with old friends and meet connections I have made over Twitter for the first time face to face. 

The programme for the day was jam packed and promised opportunities to learn and share good practice using a whole range of apps all accessible from our smart devices. Given the vast range of tools there are available it was good to hear about specific examples and how they had been put to good use both in a personal context and for learning and teaching.

Chrissi Nerantzi and myself also shared the highlights of our recent open course 'Bring Your Own Device for Learning'. It was great to be able to draw in comments from some of our co-facilitators Alex Spiers, Chris Rowell Neil Withnell and Andrew Middleton as well Anne Nortcliffe who was a participant of the course. The opportunity to communicate in new social spaces previously not used in an educational context and having the opportunity to learn with new people across different institutions was valued.

Where ideas grow #BYOD4L from Sue Beckingham and Chrissi Nerantzi


Key take aways

I need to go away and explore the iPad app Penultimate and Evernote! There is also scope to make use of augmented reality and whilst I am still mulling over possibilities for use, this is something I need to look into.

During the final session which was a series of 5 minute 'thunderstorm' presentations, Terry McAndrew reminded us of the importance of thinking about accessibility when introducing technology and to inlcude this apsect in project write ups. Terry is Academic Lead (HEA) for Educational Learning Technologies and a JISC Techdis Advisor.

When carrying out projects using technology follow this advice from @terrymc to make sure acessible #melsigmmu pic.twitter.com/7uVpHKe3MO
— Sue Beckingham (@suebecks) April 14, 2014

But this is just a mere few and as I go back through my notes and tweets I will be reminded of more. Clearly I was not alone! Twitter was on fire and so many delegates went away with numerous ideas. Terry made his own summary using Padlet.

My 1st time at #melsigmmu what an absolute feast of ideas & inspiration! Thx for organising this event @andrewmid & @chrissinerantzi
— David Eddy (@sonofedd) April 14, 2014

@digisim Did you know that #melsigmmu was Trending Topic for 35 minutes? → http://t.co/mwhFe2SCP5 @suebecks #trndnl
— Trendinalia UK (@trendinaliaGB) April 15, 2014

Links

• http://byod4learning.wordpress.com/
• http://melsig.shu.ac.uk/
• http://www.jisctechdis.ac.uk/
• http://evernote.com/penultimate/
• http://www.aurasma.com/

Embedding Digital Skills into Education – Increasing Employability and Lifetime Prospects from Sue Beckingham



In February I was an invited speaker at the Inside Government Forum Digital Inclusion 2014: Ensuring the Delivery of ‘Digital by Default’ #IGinclusion14. My talk focused on the importance of digital skills within the curriculum and the support Sheffield Hallam University provides. 

We want our students to: 

1. develop confident face to face and online communication skills
2. work collaboratively both synchronously and asynchronously
3. develop a professional online presence
4. use digital tools responsible and effectively

Key to this is providing regular and scaffolded opportunities for students to develop their digital skills and confidence to use these in a professional context to both support their learning experience and also to prepare them for graduate work. 

A journalist from UKAuthority present at the event has wrote an article about my presentation which is available on their website. The article is titled:

 Wired-up Sheffield Hallam students become wired-up jobseekers

Links

• presentation: http://www.slideshare.net/suebeckingham/embedding-digital-skills-into-education-increasing-employability-and-lifetime-prospects

• shuspace social media guides: http://go.shu.ac.uk/socialmedia

• shuTech blog: https://blogs.shu.ac.uk/shutech/
  
• SHU Careers and Employability Centre: www.shu.ac.uk/employability

Committee of University Chairs (CUC) Spring Plenary 2014 #CUCTech

The CUC

The Committee of University Chairs (CUC) represents Chairs of UK University Governing Bodies and develops and promotes governance standards for higher education in the UK.

It provides an opportunity for Chairs of Governing Bodies to share advice, experience and expertise on all matters concerning university governance.


Spring 2014 Plenary

For the first time the Spring Plenary event at which CUC members gather, was live-streamed and included a Twitter Wall. Comments and questions to the panel were invited by both member delegates and the audience watching the livestream via Twitter using #CUCTech. 

Members were given the opportunity to consider the impact of technology on their institutions and their own governing bodies. 

To stimulate this debate Professor Steve Wheeler (@timbuckteeth)was invited to address CUC. on 'What technology means to students'. As expected Steve provided an engaging and stimulating presentation which included a number of video clips where his students expressed exactly how they were using technology. Examples included using Twitter, blogs, Evernote and mind-mapping tools. 


The Back Channel

Both attendees in the room and virtual contributed questions. It seemed clear that this was just the beginning of a conversation around the value of technology in learning and teaching and that the Committee of University Chairs would be continuing the conversation. The key message Steve put across was the importance of including the students in this conversation.

Twitter bringing together governing bodies and students #CUCTech http://t.co/kKx4caVmiI
— Alastair (@alastairmosborn) April 11, 2014

You can follow Steve Wheeler on Twitter as @timbuckteeth. His presentations can be found at http://www.slideshare.net/timbuckteeth

The Future of Education April MiniCon

On Sunday 6 April I gave an online presentation for the half day MiniCon, one of two events leading up to RSCON5. The official online conference, RSCON5, takes place July 11-13th, 2014 and will feature 60+presentations, 2 plenaries, 10 keynotes, student presenters, a tech/app/lesson smackdown, and the EdInspire Awards Ceremony. Make a note of the date!


April MiniCon

This event featured Keynote, Steven W. Anderson @Web20Classroom, eight international speakers from six different countries, an exciting technology smackdown and sharing of tools for learning. The event was hosted by the lovely Shelly Terrell @ShellTerrell. Thanks Shelly for making us feel so welcome!

The conference was held online using the Blackboard Collaborate webinar platform. People worldwide attended this online event for free from anywhere with Internet access, including their mobile devices. Participants were able to use the chat facility to leave comments/ask questions. The event was also recorded so there is still time to watch it!  

Alongside the webinar the Twitter back channel was lively via #RSCON5. 

To say it was a 'minicon' the event was far from mini and jam packed with useful tips. It was a tremendous opportunity to learn from other educators and share ideas. Steven a reknowned speaker worldwide in the education field and beyond, spoke about how technology is at the finger tips of our children and used for both entertainment and learning. Talking about introducing technology into teaching and learning Steven said "using technology takes guts". As educators, learning about how we can enhance learning and teaching is now possible by building our own personal learning networks. By connecting to other educators across the globe we can share and develop ideas together. 

The Inspire Speakers who followed gave rich examples of just how this can be done. You can find details of all their talks below and listen to the recorded webinar. I would also recommend you follow these Educators on Twitter.  

My Presentation

My presentation highlighted the importance of a professional online presence, what this might look like, and how to achieve it.  

Why you need a professional online presence and how to do it #RSCON5 from Sue Beckingham

April MiniCon Inspire Presentations

André J. Spang, Germany, @Tastenspieler
Title: Be a Maker not a taker!
Description: "For children and adolescents digital media and the internet don't mean technology, but natural environment and culture." - For a 21st century learner, it is important to create and share content and connect, collaborate and learn from and together with others - sharing is caring!

Sue Beckingham, UK, @SueBecks
Title: Why you need a professional online presence and how to do it!
Description: This presentation will highlight the importance of a professional online presence, what this might look like, and how to achieve it.

Eva Buyuksimkesyan, Turkey, @Evab2001
Title: Flip Quiz
Description: In this short presentation, I'll introduce FlipQuiz (www.flipquizme.com) and explain how I use in the class and tell how my students react.

Sylvia Guinan, Greece, @ESLBrain
Title: Brainfriendly ways to help students memorise language creatively
Description: Memorising language chunks creatively helps students to develop fluency whilst improving critical thinking skills. The ideas are short, practical, and based on experience, research, educational psychology , technology and best practice. and experimentation. Inspired by literature, poetry, arts, mnenmonics, mindmapping, visual thinking, and multi-sensory associations.

Matthew Miller, Egypt, @matthewm1970
Title: Playing to RAMP up learning
Description: What would our classrooms be like if
* students picked their own projects?
* students graded themselves?
* thinking about their own learning was exciting to students?
* class was so interesting students voluntarily showed up early and stayed late?
Want to find out? Join me to look at my class!

Paige Hale, US
Title: Working together: Apps and tools for collaboratively building students' writing skills
Description: This session will explore online apps and tools for building students' writing skills. It will focus on tools that allow students to work collaboratively and encourage networking and social interaction. Tools covered during the presentation will include Google Apps, blogging programs, and social media formats including Edmodo and others.

Valerie Burton, US, @MsBisOnline
Title: Publish your ePortfolio using Weebly
Description: This session highlights Weebly.com. Weebly allows you to create a class website, ePortfolio, publish announcements, tips and reminders for parents and students. Share your work and the work of your students by highlighting classwork, community service activities, awards and recognitions.

Jackie Gerstein, US, @JackieGerstein
Title: STEAM and Maker Education: Inclusive, Engaging, Self-Differentiating
Description: A brief overview of the characteristics of a STEAM-driven Maker Education will be presented:
• Maker education lends itself to 100% engagement by 100% participants almost 100% of the time.
• Age levels and gender are blurred; does not affect participation, engagement, and interest.
• Maker education has roots and traditions in progressive and experiential education.
• Maker education is self-differentiating.
• Maker education reinforces and teaches resilience

Malu Sciamarelli, Brazil, @malusciamarelli
Title: Creative Writing can be taught!
Description: Is it true that writing is the most difficult skill for L2 learners? In this presentation, we will see the factors to consider when teaching writing, build on what the best practices should be based on teachers themselves and their experiences, and use some activities to develop students’ creative writing.

Other links

Websites: http://www.futureofeducation.com/page/rscon-2014

Twitter: https://twitter.com/RSCON5

Visit The Future of Education


Featured Presentation

I was thrilled to find that the day after my talk had been selected as a featured presentation on Slideshare.

'Why you need a professional online presence and how to do it #RSCON5' by @suebecks is featured on our homepage. http://t.co/REOr3NLwPE
— SlideShare Today (@SlideShareToday) April 7, 2014

Date for your diary

Remember the official 3 day FREE online conference, RSCON5, will take place July 11-13th, 2014.

To find our more visit the conference website. 

JISC

JISC is the UK's expert on digital technologies for education and research.

Jisc Advance provides impartial advice, guidance and resources to enable effective and innovative use of technologies for the UK education sector through its network of advisory services and regional support centres. Support, advice and resources are built around five core themes – organisational efficiency, enhancing learning and teaching, external engagement, sustainability and research. Business and Community Engagement forms a part of the core offering under external engagement.

For more detailed information about what’s available from Jisc Advance take a look at some of the service websites:

• Jisc Digital Media: http://bit.ly/jdm-bce
• Jisc infoNet: http://www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk/bce
• Jisc Legal: http://bit.ly/jisc-legal-bce
• JiscMail: This service supports knowledge sharing through the tools and services it offers.
• Jisc Netskills: http://www.netskills.ac.uk
• Jisc RSCs: There are 13 regional support centres which you can access via the Jisc website.
• Jisc TechDis: http://bit.ly/jisc-techdis-bce

Our Magical Open Box to Enhance Individuals' Learning Ecologies

Two months ago Chrissi Nerantzi and myself received an email from Professor Norman Jackson to ask if we could be persuaded to write up our course design and experience of running BYOD for Learning to go into an ebook Lifewide Learning and Education in Universities and Colleges. It will probable come as no surprise that we responded immediately to say we would love to. 

Chrissi and I used social media tools to plan, write and review the chapter. The key tools used were Skype/Google Hangouts for discussion, Twitter DMs for updates/Q&As, and Google Drive for writing. This enabled us to work both synchronously and asynchronously. 

It was an incredibly useful learning experience and one through which I personally got so much from.

Our chapter is titled BYOD4L - Our Magical Open Box to Enhance Individuals' Learning Ecologies



References

Nerantzi, C. and Beckingham, S. (2014) BYOD4L - Our Magical Open Box to Enhance Individuals' Learning Ecologies, in: Jackson, N. and Willis, J. (eds) Lifewide Learning and Education in Universities and Colleges E-book.


Lifewide Education : http://www.learninglives.co.uk/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/lifewider and https://twitter.com/lifewider1

Openness In Education: An Online Open Course

Image source

Last week I participated both as a Facilitator and Learner in a new short open course. I'm really grateful to Chrissi Nerantzi for offering this opportunity to join her team. The team included: Chrissi Nerantzi, Paul Booth, Peter Reed, Alex Spears, Carol Yeager, Anne Hole, Simon Thomson, Lenandlar Singh, Neil Currie, Helen Webster and Betty Hurley-Dasgupta.

The five-day course ran from 10-14th March and was led by the North-West OER Network and Chrissi Nerantzi from the Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching at Manchester Metropolitan University, to celebrate Open Education Week 2014. The course used Open Educational Resources by reusing the Openness in Education course developed by Dr. David Wiley at P2PU. The course uses some of the content and the course outline, combined with other resources, social media and a team of academics who volunteered to help facilitate the course across the week. All resources are given a Creative Commons Licence so that anything can be shared and re-used. A Facebook group, Google community and Twitter all formed useful spaces to share. Individuals also blogged and shared their posts via these forum. 

During the week there was a webinar, Google hangouts and three Tweet Chats. I led a Tweet Chat with Peter Reed on Thursday evening on Open Practices. The hashtag used was #nwOERchat. 

Have you been following #OpenEducationWk events hosted by @nwOER? #nwOERchat starts in half an hour. http://t.co/YMD3OaPBcG
— Open Education Week (@openeducationwk) March 13, 2014

The hour flew by and was an engaging discussion prompted by the following questions:

• Q1 Have you ever taken an open online course (before this one)? What was your experience like?
• Q2 How important is the orientation period and what aspects did you value most?
• Q3 How would you redesign open online courses, if you could?
• Q4 How might open learning impact on teaching? Or how can they evolve to impact teaching more?
• Q5 What barriers prevent sharing and how can we make our teaching more open?

The transcript of tweets was storified by Peter and can be found here. Despite having facilitated a number of Tweet Chats now, there still comes a sense of doubt. Did we ask the right questions? Did we manage to ensure that participants were made to feel welcome and included in the conversations? I am always conscious that newcomers to this new communication forum can feel lost initially. It was good to receive Chrissi's affirmation that all had gone ok!

BIG thank you to our fab facilitators @suebecks & @reedyreedles & all for participating in our #nwoerchat
— Chrissi Nerantzi (@chrissinerantzi) March 13, 2014

NWOER is a HEA funded project to help develop, support, share and build a community around Open Education Resources in the North-West of England. I have no doubts that this work will continue and grow!

Open Education Week

Open Education Week is a global, community event that seeks to raise awareness of the benefits of Open Educational Resources and open educational practices. 

Educators from all over the world have been hosting open courses, webinars, Google hangouts, Twitter chats and sharing blog posts of numerous open resources and case studies of use. Via Twitter you can see the many links via the hashtag #OpenEducationWk.

JORUM

JORUM is a place where you will find free open educational resources produced by the UK Further and Higher Education community. It is a Jisc funded Service in development in UK Further and Higher Education, to collect and share Open Educational Resources (OER), allowing their reuse and repurposing. This free online repository service forms a key part of the Jisc Information Environment, and is part of the wider landscape of repositories being developed institutionally, locally, regionally or across subject areas. JORUM can also be found on Facebook and Twitter

Educators may upload educational resources to the site. To date I have made a small contribution of two lectures:

• Tips on Developing a Professional LinkedIn Profile
• 24 tips on getting started with Twitter

The Power of OER

Professor David Wiley shares his thoughts on open educational resources. Key messages are the value of Creative Commons licences to allow:

• Reuse: Use in a wide range of ways
• Revise: Adapt, modify, and improve
• Remix: Combine two or more
• Redistribute: Share with others 

The Power of Open Educational Resources from David Wiley

Why Open Education Matters

From a personal perspective it has allowed me as an Educator the opportunity to learn so much from others through the sharing of their practice. Open courses and social media have provided forums to discuss, debate and share new ideas. It has opened an entirely new ethos for open social learning. 

Throughout Open Education Week numerous resources have been shared. I was interested to pick up contributions from the US. The U.S. Department of Education held a contest to create videos on “Why Open Education Matters". Below are the winning entries. 

Within a statement made by the White House on Expanding Opportunity through Open Educational Resources there is a clear steer on how universities can be involved.

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) are exploring an effort to inspire and empower university students through multidisciplinary OER focused on one of the USAID Grand Challenges, such as securing clean water, saving lives at birth, or improving green agriculture. This effort promises to be a stepping stone towards leveraging OER to help solve other grand challenges such as the NAE Grand Challenges in Engineering or Grand Challenges in Global Health.

The opportunities for collaborations to solve international and local issues are endless. 

The Creative Commons Education Programme

As Educators, by giving our own work a Creative Commons licence, we are paving the way to creating a rich library of open educational resources that others can put to good use. It has to be the way forward. The Creative Commons education page states the following:

With the internet, universal access to education is possible, but its potential is hindered by increasingly restrictive copyright laws and incompatible technologies. The Education program at Creative Commons works to minimize these barriers, supporting the CC mission through consulting, education, and outreach on using the right technologies and licenses to maximize the benefits of open educational resources (OER) and the return on investment in publicly funded education and research programs. Our work cuts across all levels of education (K-12 to postsecondary) and sectors of industry (nonprofit to corporate).

Other resources

http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/oer

http://oerresearchhub.org/

http://www.oercommons.org/

http://www.open.ac.uk/about/open-educational-resources/

http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/ukoer3.aspx

OER Repositories World Map

Guidelines for OERs in Higher Education (UNESCO)