Food analogies and the 4Ps

Just finished running another action-packed Future Teacher webinar with Ron and Alistair on designing technology-enhanced programmes. I think the food analogy was used to great effect on this theme. If someone said they wanted you to prepare meals, you would instantly ask certain questions (apart from the why!!): When, how often, for how many, buffet or sit down 3-course meal, what cuisine, how many options or choices people should have and so on.

And yet, when we are asked to create an online programme, we rarely ask all the questions we need to ask in order to create the right learning experience for the learners. That's why using frameworks and models can be so helpful as they remind you of things you maybe hadn't thought of. I came up with the 4Ps (well, 3 and Alistair added one) to help make sense of the range of advice out there:

• Philosophy - what is your learning intention or teaching philosophy? Do you want students to self-access some materials or to work collaboratively with others?
• Psychology - how are you going to motivate and engage your learners? How are you going to make it more brain-friendly?
• Process - what models (recipes and cooking methods) and development processes will help you to ensure you have the best chance of success? How will you know if x number of quizzes is too much or too little? How will you get feedback?
• Production - what tools or platforms will you use to generate the content, resources and activities?

On closing, Alistair came up with another great use of the food analogy. If cooking for friends, you might ask if anyone has any food intolerances before you decide what to cook. That's just like taking into account accessibility needs when designing our programmes. In fact, there may be so many requirements to cater for that you should plan enough 'alternatives' so everyone can have a balanced meal even if they are vegan, have nut-allergies, are gluten-intolerant and so on.

I'll be testing out the use of the food analogy together with the ABC Curriculum Design method mentioned in the webinar next week with a group of tutors. I'll update again after that.

Sadness at losing JISC TechDis

(I've had a busy 2 years as an e-learning manager but I'm looking forward to picking up the thread again. )

First off, sadness at losing JISC TechDis as a distinct service for Further and Higher Education. At the moment, JISC feels a little faceless to me, and the JISC TechDis team were a distinct team of people who were boldly making a definite positive impact on people's lives. I will miss the collective and will feel a little lost without you!

To leave the team a fond message to celebrate their 12 years of achievements, visit the blog here: Celebrating 12 years of Inclusion Technology Advice

Epic's images tip sheet

In Epic's January 2013 newsletter, I came across their tip sheet on images and their usefulness in e-learning: http://epiclearninggroup.com/uk/files/2013/01/Images_in_learning.pdf

It ties in with my previous post on Daniel Willingham's question about the usefulness of the concept of learning styles. Epic's tips include the idea that an illustration can really help to convey some information more effectively than text or audio (picture speaks a thousand words etc). There's also the fact that decorative images (those that do not help to convey the meaning) are actually a hindrance.

It's great that Epic have highlighted this: I've seen a lot of page-turning e-learning content that 'forces' layouts that require picture on the left or right, so the designer has to upload 'something'.

I might consider putting an image of key words instead of pictures when I am forced by certain tools to do this.

One thing to add though, is that even though images may be more effective at conveying some learning, you should consider learners who are visually impaired. ALT text is a simple way of ensuring that learners who are using screen readers will have a brief description of the picture read back to them. Where a picture is complex (eg an infographic), it's even more important to accompany it with text that can be read back to the learner.

This may seem time-consuming, but there's a quick and easy way to turn your image into something more useable - with something like Screenr, Camtasia or some other screen capture software. You can talk about what you're seeing on the screen and record it. Creating this video means visually impaired learners can listen to what they have to learn, and other learners may find it more meaningful too.

I personally find infographics can be too complex for me to make sense of - I 'zoom' in on one part at a time to cope. By pressing Ctrl + on the keyboard, you can zoom into a pdf or website so that when you are using screen capture software, you present a bit of information at a time.

Why not turn things on its head and ask learners to explain an infographic with Screenr?

And it's worth giving Xerte Online Toolkits (XOT) a plug at this point. This interactive e-learning content creation tool has a plethora of page templates to choose from, and is highly accessible. Find out more about XOT from the Nottingham University web site, and if you'd like a hosted account for a modest fee, contact info@learningapps.co.uk.

Evernote to support dyslexic learner

Cat Molyneaux of Guildford College supports a severely dyslexic learner on a botanical course. The learner requires audio resources and after our project launch on Nov 8, she thought about getting text converted to audio for the learner, using Dspeech, Balabolka or similar.
After further discussion, other requirements came up - the learner needed to be able to revise plant identification and to make notes when they were doing practical work. We needed a tool that was mobile-friendly and collaborative, so that the teacher could provide feedback using audio as well.
What tools do you use to record pictures and audio commentary? I can think of quite a few, but once you throw in the additional requirement of being able to edit or add to something you have created, you find yourself thinking about desktop-based solutions. We needed to stay mobile.
I've been a user of Evernote for many years now and have had limited opportunity to explore its use in a learning situation. This is one situation where Evernote really does shine through.

I showed Cat how easy it was to take a picture using Evernote (or to upload one) and to add audio to the note. You can organise the notes into notebooks so the learner can create different sets for trees or flowers. By tagging the notes with keywords, you can easily view subsets of the resources (although this won't help this particular dyslexic learner).
We were able to add multiple audio files and picture files on a note. The teacher can share a note with learners or even a notebook (a collection of  notes).
For true collaboration, you would need a premium account. I have a premium account as I use Evernote extensively and think it's worth paying for the extra upload allowance (£35 for the year). Just one person needs the premium account (the teacher for instance) - this allows you to give editing rights to the notes so learners can add their own pictures, text and audio.
We're really excited about how this could transform the learning for this particular student, but also open up a new way of working for everyone in the class.
To practice what we preach, Cat and I are also going to 'stay in touch' on the project using Evernote. You can view the notes we've made so far here:
https://www.evernote.com/pub/lilsk/guildford
Very much a work in progress but hope you can see the potential too!

Rediscovering old friends and learning some new things

I visited some of my Jisc Techdis Ambassadors project colleges last week.

I worked with Epping Forest College as their Molenet mentor and was pleased to work with Vikki Liogier (@vikkiliogier) and Katheryn Lowe again. Since we last worked together, the college has continued to make great progress on developing their staff, with 16 e-pilot projects running in the college this year. The staff submit bids to have some technology to use and then contribute their case studies to share their experience. Their YouTube channel that I set up for them all those years ago is still being added to as a result of this method of CPD. Vikki is doing a great job of keeping the momentum going and continuing to use CPD ideas that work.

I had a productive update session with Vikki where we talked about how useful the Samsung Galaxy Note might be for some tutors who still want the ability to quickly make handwritten notes. The split screen function and the handwriting recognition is great on these devices. There's a 5.3" and a 10.1" version.

We also talked about Studystacks.com for creating fun revision materials that can also be output as mobile resources. (I think @adamrsc has been promoting this)

I recommended textivate.com for a simple quick hit for interactivity that most tutors would be able to use in class without having to spend a lot of time learning.

For tutors who already make videos, I recommended that she try scenechat.com. This allows people to leave comments at any point in the video, creating a dynamic discussion list around the video resource.

Vikki is also keen to have more Textwalls for the teachers to use.

I spent the afternoon in Katheryn's class with her students, who are putting a video together to promote the College to other potential students. She's a lovely, engaging tutor who is keen to use technology with the learners and her idea for the project was to allow them to use some tool to storyboard the video before creating it. The learners took pictures and discussed these in class. They arranged the pictures in the order which they wanted for the video. At first, we thought about using screenr.com for the learners to create the script, while advancing the powerpoint slides. However, with the varied needs of the learners, it occurred to me that using Voicethread would make more sense.

Voicethread is something I haven't used for a long time, but it's as good as ever. We easily uploaded a folder of pictures of the Canteen, for instance, and could record audio comments on each picture. You can also draw on the pictures. add text comments, or use the webcam to leave a video comment. Voicethread allows you to create a group of contacts who are allowed to comment on your thread.

In today's meeting at Treloar's, I showed them Voicethread as well for creating audio and video evidence for the learners. They wanted a good multimedia tool that would allow students using sign language to participate in the same way. Voicethread certainly allows this with the video commenting tool.

The tutors are raring to go with Voicethread and I look forward to seeing them again in January when they will have some progress to report!

At Treloar's, I was shown a great voice recorder, actually shaped like a microphone! It's called Easi-speak and it comes with Audacity software already loaded on to it.

After recording your voice, you can play it back straight away as the Easi-speak includes a speaker. You can charge it up via its usb connector and also edit and transfer the mp3 recordings. The familiarity of the microphone design makes it more user-friendly than your typical voice recorder. The fact that it saves recordings as wav or mp3 and has the editing software built in gives it another advantage. Add to that a usb connection and it's the bee knees! I've ordered one! I figure it will make a great Christmas present for my 8 year old who can record herself singing and play it back straight away. (I'm thinking I might be able to get her to practice her times tables and play them back…I can hope!)



The visits have been so productive in helping to work out what might be useful to these tutors. When you see tutors working in their own environments,  you are made aware of their needs in a way that cannot be described on paper or just over a conversation. When you are situated in the teacher's classroom, ideas are triggered on what tools might help them with a particular group of learners, in a particular learning situation and so on.

It's like trying to diagnose an illness over the phone or getting some help for your website problem by going to a company helpdesk. The staff who look after these work through a checklist and give you a generic solution. Sometimes this is enough and it is just what you need. More often than not, if your situation is unique, you have to go and see someone to get the right solution for you. Working face to face can prevent a misdiagnosis of the problem and save time in providing the right ideas to try.

So it's been a very productive week already, and then I go visit Sparsholt College, but let's save that for another blog post!

Nabaztag update

Here is a video of the Nabaztag I made a while ago. Unfortunately the audio is a bit quiet as it was late at night when I filmed it. I tried to make an updated video, but the bunny's voice was on vacation (maybe they are updating the server? Who knows?)




I have an iphone app that allows me to 'control' the rabbit in a limited way: I can get it to move its ears and I can get it to speak messages that I type on my iphone. My little girl has had conversations (somewhat stilted on the bunny's part) with the rabbit this way!

Our little white rabbit is getting a new lease of life after Violet (the original company that made them) was bought by Mindscape: http://wapedia.mobi/en/Nabaztag

The new version is called Karotz and will be available to buy from Argos from 17 Dec. Will it make it in time for Santa Claus to buy you one?