Digital Adventures in Milton Keynes

Tuesday saw me off, with colleagues from across the University, on a road trip to that most mystical and romantic of destinations: Milton Keynes.

We were there to visit the Digilab of the Open University. It is a 'showcase for tools, technologies and resources illustrating how today's technology can nurture tomorrow's learners' - as their website says. It is mainly a resource for the OU staff who design course materials.

They had an impressive array of games consoles (wii fit boards, 360s, PS3s, PSPs, DS Lites - etc), Mobile phones, PDAs, Macs to access Second Life on (with OU avatars to show visitors the educational islands), and much more. While we were there, some staff were working with the real-time, interactive education tool Elluminate, which looked very interesting.

I hope we can get more of this technology into our teaching - I just need to read a book I saw there called Gadgets, Games and Gizmos for Learning Professionals....

Carnegie Mellon University Open Learning Initiative

Readers of this blog may be interested in the FREE online, e-learning courses at http://www.cmu.edu/oli/. The blurb there says, about the Open Learning Initiative

Through the OLI project, Carnegie Mellon is working to help the World Wide Web make good on its promise of widely accessible and effective online education. OLI grew out of collaboration among cognitive scientists, experts in human computer interaction and seasoned faculty who have both a deep expertise in their respective fields and a strong commitment to excellence in higher education. The project adds to online education the crucial elements of instructional design grounded in cognitive theory, formative evaluation for students and faculty, and iterative course improvement based on empirical evidence.

I had a go at Chapter 1, Part 1, of the Logic Unit - good stuff: don't let the diagram at the start of the intro movie to scare you off! As they say: Il y a un chat dans la théière.
Dave

Greetings from Beijing

Hi.

Apologies for the lack of updates, but I have discovered that blogspot.com addresses seem to be unavailable in China (but I am able to post to it). Having talked about the RPE blog this morning, I am looking forward to getting back to the University and to teaching.

I think the thing about the RPE blog that has interested people here is the manner in which Humanities students (thought of as bookish and un-technical) have grasped the opportunity to use a discursive on-line forum. I explained that RPE students never turn down a chance to argue: be it with each other, the staff - or anyone else for that matter...

Well - see you all back in the UK - RPE301, Love Sex and Death on monday!

Dave

A Year in the Blogosphere...

Hi - this is a quick post to say: how has this year been for students and other readers of this blog: In what ways has it been of useful / interesting / annoying - -etc...

I am also posting this to invite comments from those attending my E-Learn paper (in case you're too shy to speak in the session).

I am about to go and do my presentation - so hope this post will gather some comments over the next few days...

Dave

E-Learn 07 part2, Quebec City

Ok – as the days pass here in Quebec City, I get nearer to my paper (Thursday) on a year of the RPE course blog, I have been astounded by the work being done in many institutions.

Once back, I hope we can use a wiki-based e-glossary for the RPE208 Indian Religions module – and in ethics, well: we think about examples a lot. We ask you think of scenarios. It was that I mind that I listened intently to a paper by Jennifer Jenson from York University, Canada on, of all things, Lego.

Now, some readers will be aware of the craze for on-line Lego based animation (or maybe the Lego Star Wars video games) – and you may have come across the Biblical re-enactments created using the little Danish blocks of plastic (and their virtual form). The package we were shown yesterday allowed users to drop in a backdrop, create unique Lego figures and speech-bubbles – and animate them using the virtual equivalent of stop animation. This may not sound immediately applicable to RPE – but think of spending an hour making a short Lego-animation that demonstrates an example of an ethical dilemma (with no actors, or awkward ethical restraints). Maybe I’ll have to do one to demonstrate that it really does work: I’ll link to some examples when I get the address…

Beyond that, there is a lot of good practice here in relation to all kinds of e-learning – including blogs: I’ll let you know what people think of this one…

Some pictures here too, to give a flavour of the event – and to show that I did find the local Buddhist Meditation centre (but it was closed)…

Cheers,
Dave

E-Learn 2007

Well, greetings from far away. I write from E-Learn 2007, in Quebec Canada: where I am talking about this blog. As some if you will recall it began following my visit to E-Learn 2006 (see http://r-p-e.blogspot.com/2006_10_01_archive.html and scroll to the bottom!)

It seems good to be back here to report on a year of using this blog – and using podcasts and the like. I hope we shall find ways on encouraging more of our students to be involved over the next year (so far, we have a group of very keen students who argue [about anything] , a large number of ‘lurkers’ (students who read the blog but do not join in) – and a few who do not read it all…

Anyway – as I find more technology and ideas here at the conference, I will post on the blog….
Cheers,
Dave

[BTW: it is freezing here!]