Photo attribution TKCS on Flickr CC some rights reserved licence.

As an example of what I mean by mindset and informal learning in the previous post, I’m going to give a few examples in a series of articles on how people are joining up to create new and exciting practice and spaces in and outside education like never before.

Informal/ Formal Real Life and Virtual Connections

Practitioners are now connected by several informal networks that enable them to share resources at a blistering speed and to distill and innovate what they do in highly interactive ways; and the ways they are joining up these Personal Learning Networks to do all the heavy lifting in 21st Century education is quite breathtaking. The teachers, researchers and consultants involved are plumbed into a system of Web 2.0 apps often by mobile phone, laptops and handheld devices, but forget the tech, think communication and transformation.

Their mindset is exactly the same mindset of developers and business startups in the “real world” – but get this, the spaces they all inhabit are highly ad hoc, often virtual-to-real learning spaces and vice versa, and they are joining up at a faster and faster rate.

People who populate these spaces, are engaged in immersive interactive learning, whether they be in business, academia or teaching, and they seem to share much of the same vision – they speak the same language and they are doing quite amazing things. A new Digital Culture is evolving.

None of them have had any training – they simply share, use and do and then remix again and it is in a completely flat digital landscape where hierarchies get you nowhere but your individual value to the group does. Try not engaging or sharing and you’ll soon find yourself Billy no mates. The environment is collaborative – sure people lurk and suck in info without giving out but they are missing out on all the fun!

Last week I attended the Handheld Learning Conference 08 but I never went there in person. I was following the backchannel on Twitter and if you don’t know what Twitter is then read and listen to Martin Weller’s wonderful slideshare presentation. I made a few predictions back in May of last year and some of them are certainly coming true.

Attribution palk:i on Flikr CC Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported licence

Backchannels

Backchannel? Backchannels and talkback channels have been in the recording,

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A quick video to show the power of video within the Second Life Environment. I could take this one stage further and put this video in there and then record that but maybe that would be taking things too far.

This is a recording of a the video lecture cube I'm working on in SL to play Screencast content about Web 2.0 in education. A work in progress… 

Formats available: Quicktime (.mov), MPEG-4 Video (.m4v), Flash Video (.flv)

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You can see his keynote at Web 2.0 Expo in SF.

http://tinyurl.com/cogsur

The idea of Cognitive Surplus is interesting. He is the author of Here Comes Everybody (spot the Finnegans Wake reference…). You can also hear a talk of his book at the RSA site here. (File plays at the bottom of this post – Credit: RSA)

Now I saw this talk on the on the CITE JOURNAL page here.  It was in the context of Informal/ Formal learning and the use of interactive digital media.

I have added it to the Naace CP list of Digo links with notes and commentry. This is a list of interactive educational links I have been building over the years at Naace. If you are a Naace member contact me to access it.

While I agree with him in general I think the mouse analogy is pretty 20th Century too. Devices to adapt, read and interact with media will be embedded in “phones”, devices, clothes and the body before long. And they will be outside of school networks in distributed networks co-opted into institutions whereby the user responsibility will take the heavy loads through informality but be bound into the institution.

The future is interactive media in distributed networked form beyond and inside the formal school networks. What people still haven’t understood is that these forms of media are increasingly the lifeblood of pupils and an extension of their day to day activities; they can be co-opted to work for education rather than against. It’s interesting to see this kind of social commentry coming out at last. I have been observing this behaviour informally for at least 5 years now and wonder when people in the educational establishment will begin to “get it”. Well still not anyday now but it will flow over exisiting institutions within two years is my latest guess. So it’ll be adapt or die.

Sound far fetched – I doubt it.

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The reason why I am laughing at the beginning of this clip was because part of the seminar theatre collapsed just as I was about to start.

We managed to film 4 sessions of the Moodle Moot at the OU yesterday – 2 have been archived as they were captured in live stream and all of them will be available as high quality downloads.

The higher quality films will take time to put up but here is a link to one we did earlier.

We are streaming out all sessions again today from here.

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In my last interview of the summer with key individuals in the Educational Web 2.0 world I talked with the amazing Doug Belshaw.

Not only does he write an amazingly detailed practitioner blog

http://teaching.mrbelshaw.co.uk/, he is one of the leading lights behind the revolutionary NextGen Teachers Web 2.0 Ning social networking group and he also manages to do all this and cope with newly acquired fatherhood.

I have a lot of respect for his determination and vision. This country needs more teachers like Doug and they should be set up as examples of how to do it for the new generation of ultra professional teachers who are totally dedicated to their craft.

Doug Belshaw is currently a ‘Teacher of Humanities’ at Ridgewood School in Doncaster, an engineering specialist school, and very successful academically with 80% A*-C at GCSE last year. His one-year maternity-cover contract for this academic year has been extended to next and after that, he is hoping to be appointed Head of Department somewhere…

Doug has a very deep insight into how ICT, Web 2.0 and Social Networking technologies can be used in school from a practitioner perspective. If you are a teacher who has started out down this road listen to Doug speaking about his experiences here.

http://blip.tv/file/get/Learn4life-InterviewWithDougBelshaw249.mp3

In the second of 3 key interviews this summer with individuals who have a very deep insight into the new social networking technologies – I interviewed David Wilcox. He has a wonderful blog called Designing for Civil Society.

He has been looking at the same kind of groundswell of activities in various different sectors involving Web 2.0 and social networking technologies. I was particularly drawn to his blog entry E-learning, Web 2.0…and games as mud maps which, for me, had several very relevant insights into the the whole process of social media and personalisation.

David has the benefit of working in several not for profit arenas and has a much wider scope than education but as you will hear in the interview there are lots of parallels.

Listen to the podacast below.

http://blip.tv/file/get/Learn4life-InterviewWithDavidWilcox505.mp3

Last August I sat down to talk with key practitioners and thinkers on use of Web 2.0 and professional development in schools. One of the most interesting people with the greatest scope of experience and insight is Mark Berthelemy, Learning Solutions Architect, Capita Learning and Development. He had some fascinating things to say about the whole process of CPD in schools. The discussion ranged over many topics and his expertise and research in this field is second to none.

Have a listen to the podcast here or play the file at the end of the entry. http://blip.tv/file/get/Learn4life-InterviewWithMarkBerthelemy612.mp3

Links and notes in the program.

Details of Mark’s sites and blogs

Capita Learning & Development (Blended Learning team):

Wyver Solutions Ltd

Mark’s Blog – Learning Conversations

Teacher CPD

“Leading & Coordinating CPD in secondary schools”: contains the conclusions from research into effective CPD as adopted by all the government agencies involved in this area.

Learning Networks

EdTechTalk

NextGenTeachers

Flat Classroom Project

Killer apps mentioned

Google Docs

Google Reader

Theory

Etienne Wenger Communities of Practice

Gilly Salmon 5 stage model of emoderating

References to the research on cost effectiveness of cohort-based, tutor facilitated distance learning on page 1 of “Distance Learning – social software’s killer app”, Terry Anderson, Athabasca University –

http://www.unisa.edu.au/odlaaconference/PPDF2s/13%20odlaa%20-%20Anderson.pdf

Articles

ICT Coordinator’s File

Wyver Solutions

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At long last I can get the details up of my interview with Alex Savage and Joe Dale. Both are lead practitioners with the SSAT and I drove up to Euston to video interview them at the Thistle Hilton Hotel Euston in June. Joe has already archived and annotated the film at his blog.

I won't write any more but just mirror Joe's notes because they are pretty comprehensive!

There is a mp3 version of the clip generated automatically by blip.tv that you can also download it from here.

These teachers are setting the models for future learning. 

Summary

* Introductions and teaching backgrounds

* deciding to switch from teaching French to ICT because of being demotivated by having to invent imaginary scenarios and reasons for pupils to practise their language skills

* finding that ICT was more fun and something that the pupils wanted to do

* finding a real reason for communicating with native speakers from other countries

* describing the relationship between ICT and languages being a 'perfect fit'

* starting off by creating interactive exercises and PowerPoint presentations for whole class teaching which pupils found motivating across the ability range

* getting into Web 2.0 technologies and being inspired by Scottish expertise in the field

* trying to spread the word in a clear and practical way about the potential of new technologies by writing for the TES, setting up my own blog and by being a lead practitioner

* nurturing a community by readers leaving comments on the blog

* drawing from existing language fora and making new contacts

* dealing with LEA's filtering Web 2.0 services and raising awareness of the power of new technologies for learning

* promoting educational web services that can be used safely in schools

* using Flashmeeting to safely videoconference with pupils from around the world

* resisting the urge to always be looking for the next big idea and getting back to the basics of blogging

* moderating individual pupil comments on one blog instead of the 'nightmare' of having to moderate multiple comments on multiple pupil blogs

* establishing blog rules so pupils comment appropriately in a safe environment

* the importance of 'nodal' people collaborating with each other and encouraging others to come on board

* combining the power of wikis, blogs and RSS feeds to bring ideas together as 'courseware'

* recognising a rise in teacher blogs over the last twelve months and the importance of getting colleagues to share good practice with each other

* interviewing innovative practitioners via Skype or at conferences and publishing their thoughts on the web

* downloading offline versions of useful video clips at home for use in class

* taking advantage of the ease of finding authentic resources on the web for language learning

* YouTube creating country specific versions of their site

* Our top tips for killer services

* using online surveys between schools in different countries to make the analysis of data more engaging and real

* the benefits of using Flashmeeting (free and simple to use, no software needed apart from Flash and a web browser, one speakers at a time so uses less bandwidth compared to other VC service, can record and edit conversations)

* setting up a moderated departmental blog to publish your pupils' work (pictures of ...

Here is a short film showing us broadcasting out from Second Life main grid Learn 4 life island.