HEA ICS Conference 09, University of Kent at Canterbury

At the HEA ICS Conference now. Feels like I’ve spent my whole summer travel to conferences!

I like the HEA ICS Conference as it has such a friendly feel about it, loads of opportunities to network and is generally very well organised. And tonight we are going to have dinner at Leeds Castle in Kent!

The topics of this conference reflect what has been said at other conferences I attended, terms like ‘google generation’ appear in presentation titles and it was discussed whether students would like their lecturers to ‘encroach’ on their social networking space or not.

One advocate of moving away from the VLE towards Web 2.0 tools to communicate to students was Roger James, the second keynote speaker. I have videoed parts of his talk which he kindly allowed me to publish (but he would, wouldn’t he – being an advocate of Web 2.0/google/mash-ups etc..)
[I just noticed that the video and audio quality is atrocious! I’ve used a Creative Vado pocket video cam to film]

Here are my presentation slides: http://www.slideshare.net/andreagorra/presentation-andrea-gorra-hea-ics-conference-09 – I can’t believe that I’m presenting tomorrow morning at 9am (!), the morning after the conference dinner.

Several “winning concepts” (this is my terminology) were established by the first keynote speaker, Michael Koelling, amongst others:
- 1) Allow students to take control,
- 2) Connect to students' own interest,
- 3) 'Show others' [i.e. give students a space to share their work with others]

podcast access via mobile devices vs laptop/PC 'big screen' access

I am writing while I’m attending the ICEL conference. I’ve presented my research paper earlier today and have received some good questions afterwards.

The issue of rss feeds vs video streaming or rather viewing podcasts on a mobile device vs viewing the same file on a laptop/PC was of interest to several other delegates.
One person asked whether the uptake of using mobile devices to access the podcasts might have been greater if we had offered (some) audio-only podcasts. From my own experience I know that it is actually quite difficult to find the time to watch video podcasts on my iPod. (I have downloaded some good podcasts about photography – ‘the art of photography’). The only place I really watch these podcasts is in the gym! Otherwise, I do actually only stick to listening to audio podcasts, as I can do this while walking, etc.
So, perhaps .. this is a similar issue that our students face?

Had another chat about the ‘net generation’ today and there seems to be some research out there (JISC?) stating that being a ‘digital native’ depends less on one’s age but rather on other factors. Makes sense – I’m not 18 (or whatever age the ‘net generation’ is to be) and I can identify with ‘them’ (i.e. surf the internet while watching telly, which is in itself boring anyway!).

A colleague of mine has put up a reference to this article:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/035e83fe-6f18-11de-9109-00144feabdc0.html, which is about a 15 year old writing about his media usage habits. In my view, this article ‘overhypes’ all this a bit. Yes, today’s 15 year olds will be tomorrow’s consumers but that doesn’t mean that for example universities should avoid having students do some literature review because that may involve a lot of text! A literature review can be used to assess/reflect/etc on existing sources and hopefully may encourage students to not just un-critically accept anything that the web/google/a published piece of text presents them with. ..

Net generation

Yesterday, I've had a chat with three colleagues (from three different faculties) about their use of podcasting and plans for the next academic year. Inevitably we also talked about other technologies (twitter, facebook) and also had a brief chat about ‘the net generation’, i.e. “today’s students”.

I’ve had a brief look on the internet and found two blogs that were an interesting read:
- http://edtechpd.blogspot.com/2009/06/myth-of-net-gen.html (Myth of the net gen)
and
- http://www.netgenskeptic.com/ (Study Questions Millennial Motivation)

I really want to look into this, as I’m planning to continue to implement and evaluate podcasts at our business school.
I’ve just finished (:-)) entering a survey that I did with last year’s Level 2 business students who were offered some podcasts over two semesters. I should note that in the past academic year, we introduced the podcasts during the semester whenever we finished one - it would have been more beneficial to present the students with the complete lot at the start of the semester (that’s the plan for the next academic year!).

An initial analysis shows that the vast majority of students accessed the podcasts on their laptop/PC and not on the iPods. The podcasts were visually-enhanced audio podcasts. Total student population 476, survey responses 177 - so that’s quite good.

Did the students not use their iPods because
a) they didn’t have video enabled ones?
b) they didn’t know how to transfer the files?
c) they just preferred a bigger screen? (laptop vs iPod)
d) or they considered their iPod for leisure time and their PC/laptop for study?? [as some responses indicate?]

I’ll investigate this, still got another survey to enter..

learning spaces week - Web 2.0 workshop

I'm just attending a workshop on web 2.0 technologies - great opportunity to explore these technologies a bit further.
So far we've looked at uTube - embedding a video into powerpoint. I might use this for my presentation for the ICEL conference. However, I wonder whether the audience would prefer this to a slide??
(Potentially) useful link to get blog access stats http://www.statcounter.com/

some more links:

- twitter updates: http://tweetdeck.com/beta/
- Record video of onscreen action: http://www.jingproject.com/ [haven't tested this one out yet]
- CamStudio is able to record all screen and audio activity: http://camstudio.org/ [will try this one soon]
- Camtasia 30 day free trial; http://www.techsmith.com/download/default.asp