I took part in this on Friday (2nd Oct) and it was a really well attended and positive event. The themes and ideas discussed included; The facilitation of flexible pedagogy through the use of MOOCS and tablet devices. Public/private partnerships to create next gen. technologies for teaching and learning. The implications of wearable technology and education The speakers were largely enthusiastic and knowledgeable and even though some of the talks felt a little like a sales pitch there were still plenty of good ideas and insights on offer, including.
Going Google – Yousef Fouda, Chief Technology officer and Director of Rugby College and Warwickshire College Group.
Rugby College and Warwickshire College Group have started using Google for Education across their institutions and Yousef was a keen advocate for the technology, extolling the flexibility and ubiquity of Google tools as real selling points for the technology.
Some of the benefits he discussed were:
– Using Hangouts to allow staff and students to meet virtually across the distributed environment without having to travel unless necessary. This allowed the formation of more study groups and also reduced staff travel expense claims (previously 600,000 miles)
– Using Google Apps to identify how and when students were accessing assessment work and also establish equity with regards group submissions. Documents that have been worked on show a detailed history of how and by whom they have been modified. This creates an audit trail which educators are using to assist in evidencing learning outcomes and also allows them to identify when students are not engaging with work before it reaches crisis point
– Yousef pointed out that Google provide their services for free to educational institutions. The value in this being that when people go out into the real world they continue to use the technologies they became familiar with in their formative years
As the talk involved Google technologies there were inevitable discussions surrounding information security and privacy of user data. Yousef explained that the British Government Cabinet office has now switched to apps when asked if he had any security concerns. This is fine in principal but it’s doubtful that Google will implement the same security controls within HE/FE than they would at the upper echelons of government, so the comparisons might not be equivalent. It will be interesting to see how Google manages user data in HE/FE context, particularly given that it is a “free” service. According to JISC there are ongoing coversations from those using, or looking to use Google for Educate.
This was an interesting talk and Yousef was highly engaging. That said, in spite of his enthusiasm and even taking into account the obvious utility of Google products, it’s unclear how good a fit they are to current Higher Education. One to keep an eye on, I think
“Mobile and Technology Enhanced Learning: Here and How”
Jeni Evans, Account Executive, Ingram Content
Jeni discussed how their Vitalsource product was being implemented across a number of institutions. For those not familiar Vitalsource is a means by which publishers have their content connected digitally to students (usually via app or an institutions VLE)
Disseminating content in such a manner allows institutions to keep track of what students are accessing and the means by which they are doing so. Jeni had some interesting numbers come from research that they had been conducting with University of Plymouth using their product analytics tools
They claimed that only 1% of students were printing off course materials. This is an interesting top line figure, but what is not clear is what that 1% refers to – is that 1/100 of students are doing any printing at all? Or that only 1% of course materials are being printed. Either way I suppose it means that paper materials are in decline (certainly paper materials students are required to print off themselves..) and there is perhaps space for something else.
Additionally they looked at the nature of course materials being produced and noted that whilst multimedia content accounted for only 3% of all materials provided by publishers they accounted for 10% of downloads. Again this is just a headline figure and it’s unclear as to whether multimedia approaches are “selling” content or if high quality, already popular content is being earmarked for the multimedia treatment and so the over-representation is cause rather than effect.
Another number that was of interest was that students spent, on average, eighteen minutes at a time using their textbooks. Yet again this is an ambiguous figure, but it does promt some reflection and discussion within the context of a conference.
These Big Data approaches to Higher Education seem to be trend that is likely to develop further given the popularity of learning analytics and the desire institutions have to drill into what their students are doing.
“Should you get a smart watch? Optimising wearables for learning” – Professor Andy Miah
This was an interesting talk, with an emphasis at the more experimental end of things.
Andy is a keen advocate of wearable technology and his presentation discussed the ways in which wearable devices are being viewed by educators and students. He says there is a degree of anxiety with educators being reluctant to adopt something which may not have a significant life cycle (siting Google Glass as an example) but says that innovations using technologies like Augmented reality are redefining how people are using spaces and technological user interfaces. This in turn, Andy says, can have significant utility in redefining educational experiences.
He attempted to address the anxieties by citing the advantages of being an “early adopter” when it comes to technological innovations – being one of the early users who is able to shape the trajectory of how the technology is used. Wearables seem likely to have significant educational impact…though within more niche areas as opposed to being broadly revolutionary. Another one to watch (or smartwatch, as it were)
These are some of my perspectives on some aspects of a day that proved to be intersting and positive.
Phil Rothwell