Progression, Proficiency and the Expert

This week I was introduced to the beta version of an elearning application I thought I was familiar with and that I’d been using for the past 6 months. I’ve seen one minor upgrade in that time.

Beta is one of the stages of development in software release cycles when the application is made freely available to users, well before the general release date. This practice allows software developers to gather general feedback on design layout and functionality. It also assists with the detection and monitoring of otherwise unknown faults.

I prided myself on my competence in using the generally available interface (not the beta). I thought I was at least as capable using it as I am in using many other applications on my PC. But I felt like a newbie when I attempted to use the beta release, even when I appreciated that there were evident improvements compared to the accustomed version.

This scenario is not uncommon. I often find that my apparent expertise on a computer disappears. And it’s not failing memory either. It can happen overnight when a new application version is installed or a so-called upgrade is made.

Give and take

I concede there has to be a balance between the need for a more attractive interface to impress new users who may otherwise be put off with what may appear to be a less attractive interface, and the necessity for regular users, familiar with features and layout of an application, to be able to utilise the new environment with relative ease.

But experienced users need the knowledge of functionality and feature. Though they may not know where to find these on the latest version of an interface, they will know to look for them. I feel grateful when I have this knowledge.

When I go looking for a feature or function, the prior knowledge that such a feature or function existed in the old version spurs me on to keep looking for it. I always hope that it hasn’t been listed with other perhaps unrelated options or features to do with a different functionality.

What's given

Take the introduction of Word 2007, for instance. My expertise with a word processing application literally became virtual when I began working with Word 2007. It took me several weeks of use before I felt reasonably comfortable using the menus on the new release.

Even now, there are some functions I know must exist in that application that I can’t find – even using the help menus. How do I know they exist? From my knowledge of feature and functionality my experienced use of past Word versions has given me, of course.

What’s more, I had to find out that the Word 2007 default .docx files that could then be created on my PC were unlikely to be readable by others when I sent them as attachments. So a whole functionality, new to me and many of my colleagues, had to be sidestepped in order to achieve necessary connectivity, despite that functionality being given in the default file type.

It’s one of the vagaries of change. Despite the best intentions, things will evolve that aren’t necessarily helpful or useful.

What's taken

In future, the watchword is concept not know-how. The future expert is one who can take forward the conceptual framework of ideas, features and functionality and look for their equivalents in new circumstances.

The successful future machine, application or interface is one that can mirror these ideas, features and functionality in a way that permits them to be found intuitively by the expert.

First posted on Blogger in Middle-earth 28 Feb 2010

Elearning? Pedagogy?

Southern Georgia teaching an intermediate session to ISTE members in Second Life

Isn’t it strange that we read, hear, and see a lot about elearning, but we so rarely read, hear and see as much about eteaching?

Pedagogy?

I keep coming back to this topic. It is so vital to everything to do with teaching. The term, and all that it implies, also embraces elearning.

Elearning?

By implication, the focus is on the learner, and this is fine up to a point. But it is as if what goes on in the teaching is silently implied in the word elearning. The teacher has become the silent participant.

Well I’m going to stick my neck out here and say that there is a need for a change in emphasis so that elearning also implies an appropriate involvement by a teacher.

I’m not campaigning for teacher centred learning – not at all.

I’m agitating for pedagogy to return to its rightful place where a teacher is involved in the learning, which includes elearning.

Digital indicator

A simple examination of my blog’s statistics shows that the posts on pedagogy are considerably less popular than posts on learning. Yet they were written with the same passion, care and attention I give to posts on other topics.

My hunch is that for some reason not yet too clear to me, there is less interest in the part played by the teacher than the technology when it comes to elearning.

Interesting, isn’t it?

First posted on Blogger in Middle-earth 11 Feb 2010

Elearning in Second Life

Teleport Star at the Ivory Tower Library of Primitives

In September last year, I ventured into Second Life (SL) to explore.

My purpose was similar to that of most educators whom I have welcomed in the short time I have been a SL ISTE docent. I wanted to find out what SL could offer as an elearning environment.

I now have a clearer idea of its worth and potential.

University of West England - SL

The near-reality of much of the 3D simulation offered by SL is a valuable element – it is a key quality of this elearning platform. However, its aesthetic charm may dull even an educator’s appreciation of the true value of what SL can hold for a learner.

I enjoy the fantasy aspect which is so often present when I’m in SL. The huge variety of costume, and the opportunity available for disguise, make it splendid for roleplay. This aspect of SL has great potential to extend the imagination of the participant.

There are a number of features that identify SL's genuineness as an authentic elearning environment:

The people

Second Life is an environment that embraces people. This quality alone brings authenticity.

There is a wide range of ways of recognising the presence of people, wherever the participant happens to be in SL. Channels to engage in communication between those who are online are easy to use. They can be facilitated in many different ways and at different levels. They are certainly not limited to simple txt or voice chat.

Even body language can play its part in exchanges between people.

ISTE HQ, ISTE Island - SL

The sharing culture

There is a culture of sharing that is clearly evident among people in SL. This has possibly arisen through recognition of the need for assistance, sharing and collaborating when people first come into SL.

The cultural practice of sharing tends to be passed on. And it is accomplished at different levels, from a brief offer of situational help between two strangers at meeting, to organised sessions where experienced trainers can volunteer skills to others who are less competent.

The music

SL presents music to its participants through various pathways, either live, pre-recorded or streamed directly from international radio stations. YouTube plays its part in all this, bringing music, new and old, as well as videos on many other themes to the eyes and ears of participants who have full control over audio levels within a full range of different sound channels.





The medium

Within the first few weeks as a visitor, I was able to engage in the construction of the digital stuff that is the fabric of SL. I don’t think there is another elearning environment where participants can so freely make use of the componentry and structure that comprise the environment they are in.

Many of its cultural environments provide support for this engagement, through classes provided voluntarily by experienced exponents of the craft.

Two main techniques that contribute to this are building and scripting. They go hand in hand, employed in the construction of the simplest thing such as an item of jewellery, to the most complicated assemblage of the foundation of the environment itself.

The Particle Laboratory, Teal

For the motivated learner, there is a copious amount of well-laid-out tutorial material to be found in centres throughout the environment. Splendid examples of these are the Particle Laboratory Learning Centre and the Ivory Tower Library of Primitives, where a learner can acquire knowledge and skills on the fundamentals of building and scripting.

The Particle Laboratory, Teal

It is at centres like these that both beginner and experienced developer can visit and gather pearls of 21^st century wisdom on the construction of the digital fabric of Second Life.

First posted on Blogger in Middle-earth 5 Feb 2010

What's In A Name?

Courtesy PD Photo.org


A rose by any other name would smell as sweet – William Shakespeare

Evening Standard columnist, Frank Furedi, believes that the educational crisis facing Britain today is in part due to the way objective academic standards are being defined and asserted in the classroom.

His claim is that society seems “to have given up on adult authority and the idea that the person who knows best in the classroom is the teacher.” He believes that “education requires the conscious and regular imposition of adult authority.”

I was reminded of Furedi’s opinion when learning recently of the debate over the move by principals and teachers in some New Zealand primary schools to have pupils call them by first name. Some teachers believe that learners bond better with their teacher when they call them by their first name.

Anthropologist James Urry claims that removing the age-based hierarchy empowers children before they have the social skill to cope with it.

Canterbury College of Education associate dean, Barry Brooker, was reported as saying that using formal titles develops a demarcation between teachers and students that gives teachers the authority to do their jobs properly.

Do teachers need authority to do their jobs properly?

At The Correspondence School of New Zealand (TCS), learners always refer to teachers by first name. When I first took up a teaching post at TCS, this idea was new to me. I’d taught in different secondary schools for many years before then.

In all the schools in Scotland and In New Zealand that I taught in, students called their teachers by their surname: Mr Roberts, Mrs Gill, Miss James, etc.

When I graduated PhD, the principal of the Edinburgh High School
I was teaching in announced to the school that I was to be called
Dr Allan, from now on. I've been addressed as Dr Allan, or Sir, by students in every face-to-face school I’ve taught in since.

But I had no problem when my students called me Ken at TCS.
The policy of the school was that students always referred to teachers by first name.

Other distance education centres do the same. And you know, it seems to work. I find that learners relate to me with at least as much respect as I had earned while teaching in face-to-face schools.

Are face-to-face schools so different that students calling their teachers by first name can damage the potential for effective
student–teacher relationships? What do you think?

Resource Success? It Bears Thinking About!

How do you tell if a learning resource is successful?

You have to use it of course! Or at least, it has to be observed being used by learners who may benefit from it in some way.

But there’s more to it than that . . .

A game-based resource can be seen to be popular and for this it gets a big tick in a check-box.

But does a learning resource need to be popular to be successful?
Does the popular resource assist the learner to meet the target learning objective?

Extensive research on a whole series of resources might throw some light on these questions. But let’s just limit the discussion here to one resource.

How do you know if a learning resource is effective in helping learners reach the objective or objectives the resource was designed to meet?

This needs more than just observation.

Learner focus

Attention must be focused on what the learner has gained by using the resource. This acquisition has to be very specific if the resource is to be regarded as a useful ‘learning object’.

Oops, I’ve used that term!

I know! ’Learning Object’ is not a popular term among some educators. At least the term implies that the resource actually has an objective associated with it. Whether the resource assists learners to meet the objective is quite another matter.

In fact, some very good learning resources are often found to meet objectives that are not necessarily directly related to the objective or objectives that the learners were supposed to be reaching. That’s life! Sometimes it just happens that way.

So how do we know when a resource is meeting its objective?

It’s taken me a few hundred words to get to this nitty-gritty stage.
How do we know the resource is really achieving the learning that was intended to happen?

As obvious though the answer may seem to be, it is often something that’s completely overlooked when a resource has been planned, crafted and produced for learner use.

Follow up

One of the important stages in the development of any course module, or even one of its components, is the time consuming and difficult process of assessing its real worth. It’s one of these stages that teachers and developers would rather not get too far into, for it is both complicated and complex. And it takes a lot of time.

But it is obviously very important.It means that a series of analyses has to be performed involving the learners.

As well, it has to involve a thing called ‘learner assessment’. Oops! Another not too popular term.




That’s right! The learner has to be tested. And this is difficult, for how do we know that the assessment item designed to test learner achievement assesses effectively the objective that it’s meant to?
This brings us more or less back to where we started.

Sorry folks! It’s the dogged chicken and egg story all over again.

Before we can be sure that the assessment item is any use, first it must be tested! And of course, this always means learner involvement.

Compounding problems

We now have learner assessment as well as learning resource design to deal with. It’s a bit like the collective effect of errors, if you’re familiar with how that works.

Small errors that occur at stages of a process tend to be cumulative. They add up to one significant error in the end. Often this error can be big enough to discount the whole process.

Catch my drift?

“What does it all mean then?” you say.

Frankly, it means that teaching and learning is a difficult process to assess. The learning that could possibly take place through the planning, building and subsequent use of a learning resource by learners is actually very difficult to assess.

Can you imagine the tasks involved in checking properly a whole course made up of multiple series of resources?

Time consuming? Yes! This alone is a factor that puts teachers and developers off the whole idea of attempting that all-important final stage of checking to see if it all works.

If you think that building a successful learning resource is a quick and easy thing to do, then maybe you should think again.

Image

The web image and how it operates are often misunderstood. Hypertext Mark-up Language, more commonly known as html, was invented to process text size, shape and colour on the Web.

When it was realised that html and related codes could be used to handle images, the Internet became a viable commercial medium.

The pixel


Close examination of images, on screen or when printed, shows that they are made up of many coloured spots, dots or squares. These are called pixels. The word pixel (picture-element pix-el) can also refer to the digital information associated directly with the coloured spot, held on a computer or transferred in a download.

What can be confusing is that ‘pixel’ is also used when referring to the smallest element that displays a single spot of coloured light on a monitor or TV screen. These tiny elements are permanent parts of the screen hardware. They are not the same as the pixels in the image that effect the display.

Image file size

A popular misconception is that the dimensions of an image, as it appears on the screen, are to do with the space the image occupies in computer memory or on disk. The term ‘image size’ can also be misleading, though this term refers to the capacity of an image to occupy space in computer memory or on disk. It’s more usual to refer to it as the image ‘file size’, measured in kilobytes or megabytes.

Image dimension


The physical size of an image on the screen is another property that’s often misinterpreted or misunderstood. Images are really two dimensional things. Despite tricks of design, it’s not possible to have an image that is triangular, round or any shape other than rectangular, unless there is some distortional fault with the printer or screen.

An image has a height and a width, which make it easy to define its dimensions. These two lengths are measured in pixels, but can also be given in mm or cm. Though variation tends to be slight, the physical accuracy of image dimensions expressed in metric units varies with the equipment used to display the image.

Optimising image file size

Digital cameras can take pictures with file sizes of several megabytes. There has to be literally tens of millions of pixels in the files so that high quality pictures can be obtained. The fineness of detail that’s displayed from such images is particularly useful if they are to be printed in a large format or viewed with full screen in a picture viewer.

Images show how pixelation increases when file size is reduced

For most web purposes, however, image files of that order of size and quality are not necessary. What’s more, huge image files can occupy valuable resource space on the host site and cause unreasonably long upload or download times.

It’s often prudent to use some form of quality reduction. Adjusting the content of the image so that it gives a satisfactory display with a smaller file size is called optimisation, or optimising the image.

Most image hosting websites, including blogs and social network sites, optimise images automatically. If the images are satisfactorily optimised before uploading to the host site, it can save time, and in some instances be a cost saving too. Sue Waters’ excellent post on Uploading Photos From Digital Cameras Into Blog Posts gives great instruction on using several free packages for doing this.

Bitmapped images

The simplest way of arranging image information in a digital file is when each pixel carries its own information, as in a bitmap. This can be an inefficient way of packing image information, however, so bitmapped images tend to have larger file sizes than other image types of the same quality.

Compressed formats

JPEG, PNG or GIF type images use different systems of file compression. Pixel information that is duplicated, as can happen when the same colours are used over large areas of an image, is stored in a formula within the image file. The result is a smaller file size than that of the equivalent bitmapped file with the same image quality.


One advantage of the GIF compressed file type is that it can also include information on how separate image frames can be constructed. A special type of GIF file can display a cyclical series of frames like a looped movie – the so-called animated GIF.

Vector graphics

The introduction of vector graphic creation tools, such as Adobe Flash Writer, has brought new dimensions to image design and the way images can be displayed. Standard bitmapped images and related image types tend to break up, or pixelate, when enlarged on the screen.

What happens on display is that the information held in the image file is stretched over a larger area than was intended. The result is an image that appears to lose detail and sharpness and may look as if it is made up of chunks of colour, which is precisely how it is composed.

A vector image, on the other hand, does not lose its sharpness or detail when it is enlarged on the screen, simply because there are no pixels in its image construction. True vector images tend to be limited to line diagrams and ones with solid areas of colour, however, and cannot be created from digital camera image files.

Review of a Month of Fun

Well I didn’t get voted Blog-o-the-Month for September. But I reckon I had a good shot at it. I learnt a lot into the bargain. I found Second Life to be a lot of fun and certainly worth a second look.

The winner

The blog, e-Clippings (Learning As Art) won Blog-o-the-Month for September. I heartily congratulate Mark Oehlert on this distinction.

I have to admit that this blog was a new one on me. I didn’t know of it until Scott Merrick drew my attention to its existence in his announcement at the beginning of September. Blogger Mark Oehlert maintains a mean blog. I recommend you check it out.

The runner ups

The other nominees were The Bamboo Project, by blogger Michele Martin and Donald Clark Plan B, by Donald Clark no less. I was privileged to be nominated alongside such prestigious bloggers!

Michele Martin’s blog has been in my RSS Reader and blog roll almost since I first wrote a blog post. In May 2008, Michele not only convinced me I should get into blogging, she also furnished me with nearly all of the blogging skills I possess today. (I am indebted to you Michele.)

The posts Michele publishes on her blog make me think, and I salute her ability to solicit thought by her incisive choice of topics. If you have not already done so, I’d recommend you hop over to The Bamboo Project and check out what’s happening there.

Donald Clark, of Plan B fame is another whose blog has been in my RSS Reader and blog roll since I began blogging. I have always viewed Donald as a bit of an icon in elearning. He is an icon in elearning!

Donald’s blog provides topical conversation with a variety of topics that I so much enjoy. Whether you have a plan A or a plan B, I advise you to check out Donald Clark Plan B.

Thanks to ISTE and to Scott Merrick for the nomination and for delivering to me a new and interesting topic for posts in the month of September.

Elearner Motivation and Support

Learner motivation differs in each learner according to circumstance. Yet a common factor shared by many elearners, of all ages, is their isolation.

This year, I feel privileged to have a daughter who is studying in her first year of a BA course in Fine Art at AUT. I’m equally as fortunate to also watch her younger sister pilot her way through her first examinable year at High School.

The role of the parent

My daughters are capable learners, but I’m always aware of the roles my wife and I play in providing necessary support with their study.

As parents and supervisors, we are appreciative spectators, sounding boards, mentors, fund managers and sometimes even punch-pillows, for we love our daughters dearly.

Hannah is hostelling in Auckland; her family lives in Wellington. The presence of the Internet and reliable mobile phone reception permit a free flow of communication which we take advantage of every day. Despite the 500 kilometres between us, these digital links can close the distance, effectively at times to within a few centimetres.

Motivation and support

While adult learners often have a maturity that permits a greater focus on engagement, some can find it just as difficult to knuckle down to study as do teenagers. Elearners need support, and not only from their learning resources or their teachers.

A solo mother can find her motivation for learning academic skills dulled through the importance of her necessary child-care responsibilities.

A mother, who has a partner who may be less committed to her study, can meet similar snags to her motivation.

In much the same way as the younger learner needs support from parents or caregivers, a learner who is in a relationship needs support from his or her partner.

The eteacher may well be aware of circumstances where an elearner’s home lacks necessary study support. But what can a teacher do about such a situation so that there is benefit to the learner?

Teacher-caregiver support

Relationships between the teacher and the learner's caregiver can play an important part in assisting home support. Caregivers are not always aware of the needs of the learner. For instance, aspects such as the need for access to a computer and other study requisites may not be understood.

Communication between teacher and caregiver can often help solve learner difficulties. But sometimes it is as demanding for the teacher to engage the supervisor as it is to engage the learner.

How on earth do eteachers go about tackling this challenging task?

Connected World in Second Life

Maka, Huntress and Kallan enjoying a night out dancing

This is the last of a series of September posts summarising some of what I’ve learnt while looking around Second Life (SL).

Exploring SL from the elearning perspective, there is a range of features that facilitate communication, making it an accessible networking tool.

Here are the features I’ve found most useful during the 3 weeks I have been exploring in SL:

Local chat and voice

This feature provides synchronous text or voice communication. In local text chat, selecting the range of communication provides a means of control over the ‘loudness’ of the chat.

Normal chat can be ‘heard’ within a virtual range of 20 m from the participant’s avatar. A whisper cuts the range to 10 m, whereas a shout extends it to 100 m (SL).

Instant Message (IM)

Instant Messaging provides a direct means to communicate across SL between two avatars. This is useful if there's a need for close communication between two avatars when in company. It has global range in SL and permits avatars to chat asychronously if need be.

Avatar profile


There are often delays in chat when avatars meet for the first time. This is mainly due to the customary practice of mutual avatar profile checking during an initial conversation.

There are sections or tabs in the avatar profile where useful information can be put by the avatar’s owner.

Since most of this added content is viewable by others, it pays to give careful thought to what’s entered that is viewable by the 'public'. It can be helpful to those you meet and save a lot of misunderstanding.

Drop-box transfer between inventories


Each avatar has its own Inventory – an accumulated ordered series of virtual commodities. These can be images (Textures), text files (Notecards) and sound files (Sounds) or more particularly .wav files and other items such as scripted objects that have specific functions in SL.


A simple click-and-drag from the inventory of the giver to the drop-box of the recipient permits a copy of the item to be transferred across SL.

Media Browser


A built in browser provides ready access to the Internet direct from SL. As well, the Media Browser can be set so that the browser on the user's PC opens by default. I found this a useful function as it permitted a separate browser window to be opened on the screen giving greater flexibility of use.

Ratings in SL

On 15 September 2009, Linden Lab successfully separated the "adult content" from the general grid. This is a welcome move, for business people and educators using SL, towards a safer and pleasanter environment. It is also a good move for the reputation of Second Life.

Deeper Than Any Sea - A Second Life Adventure

Huge sponges of millennial growth and height;
And far away into the sickly light,
From many a wondrous grot and secret cell
Unnumbered and enormous polypi
Winnow with giant arms the slumbering green.

Alfred Lord Tennyson

My love of fantasy has taken me deeper into Second life (SL) than I’d imagined. The distinction between reality and fantasy becomes more diffuse with every minute I spend in these regions. Coming back to RL (real life) is a bit like walking out to a daylit street from an exciting and gripping movie. It puts a new perspective on reality.

The effect that SL has on the mind can be powerful if the imagination is energised. For a few minutes after logging off, I wonder if real life isn’t all virtual too. It makes me think again about what some people say about violent virtual games and the effect they may have on the real life behaviour of some people.

But like every other thought stimulation, SL is just another influence. Persona and personality are two entirely different things.

Real adventure

A recent sojourn into SL found me a delightful companion, Zylle (zill).

Like me, she is new to SL but she has a little more experience and that is useful to me. We share our interests and our fascination for SL in conversation, while we show each other around islands that we'd discovered in the short time since we were rezzed.

part of Kalepa

The other night we took off to the volcanic island of Kalepa, one of Zylle’s favourite spots. It is an enchanting place with lots to explore, including a sail in a gondola and a journey on a huge enchanted feather.

On our second visit to the island, she took me on the Da Vinci Gardens Indiana Jones Adventure.

Here we entered the lobby, close to the entrance to the tomb of the Pharaoh where the Sarcophagus and treasure chamber lay.

Among the rich assemblage of Egyptian statues, treasure chests and ornate accoutrements, were opportunities to actively participate in snake charming, or try a spot of belly dancing, supervised by the resident genie-of-the-lamp.

Kallan watching Zylle belly dancing

Our quest for the treasure chest was fraught with unimaginable peril.

Zylle had to teleporte me to safety from the deathly pit of cobras and avatar-eating spiders at least twice. I wasn’t at my ease in those circumstances and had to keep saying to myself, “this is SL!”



We found the treasure chest eventually, but unfortunately neither of us could lift any of the treasure it contained. Getting back out to the sunny sands of Kalepa meant retracing our steps! I was relieved to get out.

While looking around outside, we spotted Felixx, the developer of Kalepa! We identified him by his name tag as the owner of all that we had seen in Kalepa.

We approached him, and after brief introductions, he kindly showed us around. Felixx teleported us to his customer service depot where we had a chat and shared a few of our interests.

Felixx meeting Kallan and Zylle

I think he was taken with our interest in his work. He gave us the link to a recent video made in Kalepa, starring Alissa Moreno, singing and accompanying herself on piano.



I got the impression time was running short for Felixx. He had lots to get on with, yet he continued to show us around.

When Zylle explained that we’d been to Sunken Atlantis, he asked, “Did you take a ride on the sea-horses?” We hadn’t.

So off we went, teleport-fashion, to ride the sea-horses in the “slumbering green”.

Kallan and Zylle on the sea-horse chariot

Felixx took a snapshot of us as we rode into the depths, and bid us farewell. This journey was amazing, for it revealed the true beauty of Felixx’s animations.


He explained that he first got into building in SL when he'd been out of work for some months, during which time he taught himself the ropes, while building his amazing fantasy land.


He told us that, as a student, he'd studied Biochemistry. He had a PhD in Genetics. I could see where his love for detail in nature came from.

A shipwreck, a lost treasure chest and a visit from a giant octopus set the scene for much adventure.


The next evening, we were in Hawaii and met Pawn who had been newly rezzed. As dutiful avatars, we helped him with some of the basic skills in SL, and a few more tricks, not that I knew much! Swimming underwater with the dolphins was a great introduction to having fun with animation in SL.

Zylle and Pawn swimming with the dolphins

But Kalepa is obviously the place to go for ‘real’ adventure. So off we went, only to meet Felixx, once again! He so much wanted to demonstrate what he could do to entertain us and had us fascinated as he scripted the crocodiles to fight with each another.

Zylle and Kallan look on as Felixx scripts the crocodiles

Isn’t Zylle’s hair wonderful? She decided she needed a complete change after losing her hair while playing chess with Pawn earlier.

Felixx’s power with scripting allowed him to work magic with the Sarcophagus of the Pharaoh.

Kallan, Pawn and Zylle watch as Felixx scripts the Sarcophagus

Later, we decided to take up Felixx’s earlier advice to visit Mars! We’d spent too much time on the seahorses the evening before to enter the underwater spaceship that takes us to Mars from Sunken Atlantis.

It was count down . . . - 3, - 2, - 1, - 0 . . . “We have lift off!”


The journey was somewhat rocky. But with me in the controls, what would you expect? When we landed, we decided it was better that Zylle took the controls on the Mars buggy! Did you know that’s there’s water on Mars? And all sorts of fantasy plant life?


And mushrooms! Or are they Marsrooms? For Jaba the Hut?


Zylle got us safely to the observation tower, where we took a drink from the bar, relaxed a bit and enjoyed the view.


Throughout the adventure, at the back of my mind I was making mental notes on the potential Second Life had in providing a platform for elearning. Its networking potential, for me, is implicit.

In a flight of fantasy, one need not wonder if even romance is possible in Second Life.

post editor Zylle

100 Essential Web 2.0 Tools For Teachers

The ever-increasing abundance of free downloadables available for educators continues to astonish me.They are as numerous as the sites that catalogue them by the hundreds.

Recently I was made aware of yet another index – this time specifically for teachers. I must admit I was sceptical – just another list, I thought. But closer inspection got me thinking that, perhaps, this one was worth a second look.

My last GPS Website Gold Rush site for this month is Online Degree, a resource for online degree program information. It has just posted an article on 100 Essential Web 2.0 Tools For Teachers. There are goodies listed there I've never seen before.

Check them out. To name a few, I recommend taking a look at:

Befuddlr (No. 93) – adds fun to pictures by making them into puzzles – easy-to-use, it offers choices of flickr picture groups to choose from

Fleck (No. 86) – puts sticky notes and annotations onto existing web pages and permits you to share them with others

Many Eyes (No. 94) – a take on the power of human visual intelligence to find patterns – this tool has the potential to create great discussion and debate in the classroom.

As well, Online Degree presents a broad series of reviews of top rated online degree programs and offers an online degree search tool.

Could be a useful site to bookmark?


A Green Pen Society contribution

Two Golden Blogs

This month’s theme from Paul Cornies’ Green Pen Society is:

Website Gold: to recommend an enriching web site.

I deliberated long over this topic. Choosing a favourite blog site might be seen to be verging on nepotism. Selecting a series of them could suggest there is a hierarchy to the list.To risk offending any of my many blogging friends and colleagues by collating such a list would be daft and show a lack of sensitivity.

I will post only once this month about Gold Rush blog sites. I've chosen not one but two, however, both of which have the same author.

I’m a Google Blogger. Edublogs.org and Blogger.com are rival providers. Both sites I write about here are Edublogs.org sites, so my choice is not about blog provider preference.

Two gold nuggets

The Edublogger and Sue Waters Blog are two sites I recommend to anyone who is a blogger – especially to those new to blogging.

When I consider what Sue Waters offers on her sites, there is no easy way to isolate one from the other. For as much as Sue has often joked about her split personality over her commitment to her sites, they are a complementary pair, much like right and left.

The Edublogger

The Edublogger is undoubtedly a professional blog – matchless, well authored, that shares a rich cornucopia of “tips, tricks, ideas that help the educational blogging community” – yet is has a captivating appeal to the ‘occasional blogger’. Sue hosts this site as part of her work with Edublogs.org.

My special interest in elearning is often stimulated by the content in The Edublogger. There are always fresh ideas, new technology innovations appropriate to a wide range of topics on elearning, community networking and blogging.

While much of the posts are specifically aimed at bloggers who use an edublogs.org site, there abounds useful material that has universal application to blogging. Just check out this post on Top Five Mistakes made by new bloggers.

The Edublogger has a friendly quality to it. It is written in a way that makes it appealing to most age-groups, with instructive, easy-to-follow diagrams and flow-charts that are interesting and attractive without being ornate. Sue puts a lot of thought into the layout of the site, planning that she shares openly with readers, a touch that contributes hugely to The Edublogger’s engaging appeal.

Sue Waters Blog

This site is a personal blog that compliments the professionalism of The Edubogger. Though Sue’s approach has a different slant, and that’s to be expected, there is a light-hearted wink to it that is comfortable and welcoming in Sue Waters Blog.

Who but a curmudgeon would not be entertained by homespun topics like The Great USA Coca Cola and Chocolate Scandal! or share a laugh at witty blog titles like Have your Blogs.mu cake – and eat it too! Sue carries her fondness of technology throughout this site in a way that whets the appetite for more Coke and Cadbury’s milk chocolate.

What I adore most about both of Sue’s blogs are the communities attracted to them. There’s always an opportunity to meet new bloggers and commenters, and comments are never ignored nor short-changed.

So if you are looking for nuggets of gold in a blog site, just visit either of Sue’s blogs. The Edublogger and Sue Waters Blog are each a blog prospector’s dream. But then, what would you expect from a scientist?


A Green Pen Society contribution

Classifying Elearning

Ranginui Door, Te Papa Museum, Wellington

Nāu te rourou nāku te rourou he pai te iwi kātoa
With your food basket and my food basket our tribe will prosper

On his recent post, What Is One Hour Of Learning?, Manish Mohan asks the question, “What are the different levels of elearning and how do you classify them?” My reaction to this was that my answer would be far too involved for a comment, but perhaps worthy of a post.

Having been steeped in the New Zealand education system for decades, I am too familiar with the word ‘level’ being used to refer to many different aspects of teaching and learning:

• curriculum level,
• qualification level,
• year level,
• reading level, etc.

My first preference is to tie down what’s meant by the word ‘level’.

Within wide constraints, I assume that ‘level’ does not necessarily refer to primary, secondary, tertiary, commercial, training etc, with the proviso that there are parameters that can be deemed to transcend these. I take a stab at a generic elearning meaning for the word.

I might be biting more off than I can chew here. The whole idea of tying down the word ‘level’ is to moderate the chances of me doing just that.

A taxonomy

David Wiley defined a taxonomy for learning resources. He applied it to what he called the ‘learning object’, the much maligned packaged resource, spawned near the end of the 20^th century, gestated into the 21^st century and which was virtually stillborn by the end of 2003.

Attempts to revive it have been met with little success, yet its siblings survive in what are known as (digital) learning resources.

Learning resources make up a broad basket of items that include elearning resources. Some of these are tailored to deliver learning so that defined learning objectives can be achieved. They can form part or all of an elearning course.

Level of elearning

I’ve not come across a better way of classifying elearning resources than Wiley’s taxonomy. I believe that most asynchronous elearning resources, and even some that are used in synchronous environments, can be categorised according to this taxonomy.

Not only is it useful for classifying resources, it can also serve to define the hierarchical levels of elearning development required. I stick my neck out and summarise it here with appropriate simplification.

Resource types can be classified

Simple – An individual digital image such as a diagram or photograph.

Combined-closed – An intimate combination of a small number of digital resources. For example, a video with accompanying audio.

Combined-open – A large number of digital resources combined but existing as separate entities. For example, a unit of learning that combines dynamically an image and a video file together with associated text.

Presentation – Logic and structure for combining (or generating and combining) lower-level learning resources (Simple and Combined-closed types). For example, a Java applet or Flash file capable of graphically presenting a set of examples by way of demonstration.

Instructional – Logic and structure for combining or generating and combining learning resources (Simple and Combined-closed types, and Presentation). For example, it can be a combination which both instructs and provides practice for the learner.

This can include formative feedback or summative assessment. It may also incorporate a window for synchronous learning, such as a chatroom or a virtual classroom.

Elearning pathways

The elements of good instructional design are to do with the essential links between what is to be learned and how to select the most appropriate pathway for the learning to occur. The individual components of learning that together lead to the desired learning outcome have characteristics that may be used to choose a possible pathway.

In the development of a learning resource or resources to meet part or all of a learning objective, the constituents of what has to be learned must first be analysed carefully. In so doing, a pathway (or pathways) to engage the student in the learning process can become evident.

A course provides such resources as would meet one or more related learning objectives in following such a pathway.

Subject and developer

Elements such as storyboarding, with the inclusion of appropriate formative feedback and if necessary, summative assessment, all form parts of a plan for a course. The realms of teaching and learning embrace the complexity of pedagogy associated with the respective subject.

To achieve a cohesive blend of good teaching with the most appropriate technology requires subject specialist and developer to work closely together. Accomplishing this requires a thorough understanding of elearning classification, by developer and subject specialist alike.