tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-187456962024-03-08T05:16:18.363+10:00Teaching, Learning, meet Technology.One project manager's journey down the curious rabbit hole of educational technology implementation.Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03541975604761521565noreply@blogger.comBlogger43125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18745696.post-45380996545932336862007-03-16T13:17:00.000+10:002007-03-16T13:25:37.920+10:00Australian Forums for true EdTech-ers<a href="http://weblog.200ok.com.au/">Ben Buchanan</a>, a former collegue and all-around webby kinda guy, emailed me the other day to ask me what I thought about the currect forums available for collaboration and learning on webby EdTech.<br /><blockquote>The underlying thought is that for general web geeks we have Web Directions South, but not an equivalent for the education sector. The available events tend to be backend- or academic-focussed, rather than frontend/user experience focussed.<br />What do you think? Do you think there's a gap in the market, or do people just have the wrong impression about existing events?</blockquote>And my response:<br /><br />Not sure if there's a gap as such. I think there are 3 main groups to consider in all this:<br />- Tech-savvy teachers: The academics/TAFE instructors/K-12 teachers who are using exsisting technology in cool ways.<br />- Ed Designers (aka Learning Designers, instructional Designers): The professional staff who's role it is to foster and direct technology use within an institution. You tend to have two types within this group; those who are passitionate about technology in education, and those who are passionate about educational practice and dabble in the tech side. This second group are generally the ones at ASCILITE etc, not AusWeb.<br />- Programmers, web developers etc who happen to be in the edu sector: These are the ones who are passionate about the technology and like to hear about what the first two groups are doing in order to get ideas for building tools that'll do just that, only better (and with drop-shadows).<br /><br />I suppose there is a 4th group of edtech administrators/managers/leaders who span across all 3 groups.<br /><br />The tech-savvy teachers are fairly well catered for with ASCILITE, EDUCASE and various local forums. Although I was in an ASCILITE session last year where someone asked the presenter 'what's a blog?', so the focus is really on educational practice, not the technology that supports it.<br /><br />The Ed Designers do tend to split along those lines I described, with the edu-focussed ones joining the tech-savvy teachers, and the edtech-focussed ones fitting better with the programmers/web developers. While there are a few local forums for this group (QUT's OLT conference fits this, as do the Bb User's conferences, although with the obvious platform focus), there does seem to be a gap here.<br /><br />I think maybe AusWeb is too broad to accommodate this group, as it encompasses corporate/administrative web as well as edtech web. Maybe an edtech stream, specifically targeting designers and developers involved in educational web technology, would be a good way to fill the gap.Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03541975604761521565noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18745696.post-1173183930232119892007-03-06T21:53:00.000+10:002007-03-06T22:25:30.246+10:00She's ba-ack...Right. So after re-reading my past posts on this blog, I realised just how much I did actually gain through the reflection and free-form writing opportunity it provided me with, so I'm taking it up again. The whole process of starting, then abandoning, and now wanting to re-start a blog has got me thinking about the whole reason why many people feel the need to express themselves, sometimes anonymously, to an unknown audience via this medium.<br /><br />There are two things that are driving my return to this activity:<br />- I enjoy writing very much, and reflective writing even more. I have kept a journal on and off in the past, but I want the community aspect of blogging. I still regularly read the posts of others and have benefited from the occasional insight. i want to give back to that community.<br />- I want to keep a record of this time in my professional life. I find that as much as I enjoy or am inspired by events as they happen, reflecting on them after the fact often gives me as much if not more pleasure than the original experience did (case in point, <a href="http://home.iprimus.com.au/kclarkson/india/">The India Diaries</a>). I want to be able to look back on this manic time in my career 10 years from now and learn even more from it in hindsight than I am able to now, while I'm in the thick of it all. <br /><br />So, what the hell have I been up to? In true LJ style, here's my 4 months highlight and not-so-highlights:<br />+ Have settled into the swing of things at QUT. Very different culture from Bond, which I expected, but also very different from Griffith, which surprised me more.<br />+ I'm happy to be working with GM again, and I like that I am more comfortable disagreeing with him now than I was when we worked together in the past. I've learned a great deal from him in the past, but I'm finding that I'm learning more from challenging and therefore understanding his approach to things than I did from just benefiting from his advice.<br />- Like any large institution, QUT has complicated internal politics. I need to acknowledge them, provide the best example I can to those around me, but never lose sight of the fact that my ultimate responsibility is to the teaching staff of the university and the students they teach, not to the person in the office next door.<br />+/- I've now taken on the project management of the largest project I've ever led, let alone been involved in. To put it in perspective, we are replacing an existing, heavily utilised LMS with a new one, and tranferring over 3000 unit and related teaching sites to it, many with extremely customised interfaces and system-dependant designs. And we're doing it in the space of 18 months all up. I'll let you know in a few more months whether I strive and grow under the pressure, or crumble. I'm aiming for the former.<br />-- The Brisbane Council desperately needs more buses. After having too many buses arrive late, then sail past full to the brim, I'm finally giving in and driving to Kelvin Grove now, at least until the latest order of buses is completed.<br />++ I have a fantastic project team, with some of the most talented programmers and learning designers you could ever wish for, and they seem to think I'm a bit of okay too.<br />+ I'm able to help a great former colleague out of a tough spot and onto my project team, and add some well-needed skills to the mix in the process.<br /><br />That's enough for now. There will be more to come I can promise. I'm aiming for a post a week to get me back into this exercise.<br /><br />And thank you Peta, for inspiring me to start this up again with the best system outage message ever on the <a href="http://bulibrary.blogspot.com/2007/03/library-system-scheduled-maintenance.html">Bond Library's L Files</a>. Glad to see the great spirit down there is still going strong.Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03541975604761521565noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18745696.post-1164183728592871532006-11-22T18:21:00.000+10:002006-11-22T18:22:08.603+10:00On change and practical visionAfter over a month of madness, I feel I can now come up for air, breathe, and reflect a little on what's been happening. First things first. I'm in the middle of my third week in my new role at QUT. Making the decision to leave Bond after only a year was difficult, but I'm now even more confidant that it was the right one. I really do feel that I had taken my work at Bond as far as I wanted to take it, and I had achieve in a year far more than I expected to have achieved (and far far more than anyone at Bond expected me to achieve. I'm happy to have laid some good foundations for others to build on.<br /><br />Being at QUT has put me back in a position where I'm really working as part of a management team towards a shared vision. I really am loving the energy the environment is producing. I'm loving working with link-minded and passionate people who know exactly where my ideas are coming from because they've come from there too. Having a shared vision means that we're all working in the same direction from the same blueprint. It's wonderful.<br /><br />On the walk home today (yes, my commute now includes a significant portion of walking!) I began to think about driving a vision and the pitfalls around the formation and communication of a vision. I'm a terribly pragmatic person and a very strong believer in what I'm calling 'practical vision'. There is a place for those people who blue sky think and come up with the ideas that amaze and inspire us but that we know will never actually be realised. There is also a great need for those people with practical vision, who are able to develop and effectively communicate a direction which is achievable and which services a need better than anything else.<br /><br />The worst, however, is those who attempt to be be both types of people in one. These are the people who's vision is full of blue sky but who persist in putting it into practice regardless of it's impracticality. What results is something that services a need that doesn't exist and which hinders putting real innovation into practice.<br /><br />I hope to further grow my abilities as a practical visionary. I have some great examples to follow in some of the people I'm now working with.Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03541975604761521565noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18745696.post-1160525860775999432006-10-11T10:08:00.000+10:002006-10-11T10:17:40.796+10:00Cory Doctorow on why content isn't kingI've read <a href="http://www.boingboing.net">Boing Boing</a> for yonks and quite like how <a href="http://www.craphound.com/">Cory Doctorow</a> can sometimes cut right to the centre of an issue and phrase it in a way that really sticks in my brain. He's done it again in this <a href="http://www.boingboing.net/2006/10/10/disney_exec_piracy_i.html">Boing Boing post</a> quoting a Disney executive's view on piracy as "a business model to be competed with". The exec also describes Disney's strategy as "being primarily about content because it drives everything else..."<br /><br />I really like Cory's response to this statement:<br /><blockquote>Content isn't king. If I sent you to a desert island and gave you the choice of taking your friends or your movies, you'd choose your friends -- if you chose the movies, we'd call you a sociopath. Conversation is king. Content is just something to talk about.</blockquote>Now think of that in an educational context... Woah.Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03541975604761521565noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18745696.post-1160462761399117322006-10-10T16:19:00.000+10:002006-10-10T16:46:01.423+10:00Sometimes change management goes too wellI've been meaning to post this for a while now, but things have been getting in the way of my rambling. Here goes.<br /><br />While I was at Griffith, I was around to experience the Great Blackboard Crash of 2003. This was a result of, among other things, change management working too well. In conjunction with a major upgrade, we promoted the system. We encouraged academics to use it with regular demonstrations of the beauty and wonder that was Blackboad v6. We told them to use it and use it they did, and the students accessed in numbers never anticipated. They brought the system to a complete standstill for the better part of week one of semester and it was still limping for a few more weeks.<br /><br />Fast forward to 2006 and the full launch of Blackboard at Bond. Day one of semester I was in my office at 7am preparing for the onslaught. I asked my staff to be in early too. This would be our "all hands on deck" week and we were ready. I checked the live usage statistics and watched the numbers climb. Alright, here we go.<br /><br />By 10am, I was asking my staff how things were going. I was walking through the library and the labs to see lots of monitors showing Blackboard subject sites. I was talking to helpdesk and library staff to find out how they were going. I was talking to faculty support staff to see how they were going.<br /><br />By noon, I was starting to doubt the live usage stats. I checked with my sys admin. Yes, they were correct. I hesitated to leave my office to get lunch, thinking the support calls would flood in at any minute.<br /><br />By 3pm, I was feeling a little neglected. A few calls and questions, sure, but where were the cries for help? The screams of anguish needing a diplomatic hand to quiet them? They were using it, oh they were using it. The system was getting a hammering but without breaking a sweat, and we weren't hearing about any problems.<br /><br />This continued for the rest of the week, and by Friday when I congratulated my staff for a job well done, I couldn't help but feel that the whole week had been a little anti-climactic. The last months had been spent communicating, training, seminar-ing, newsletter-ing, meeting-ing, emailing, more communicating and more training. I guess it had all worked too well. The staff and students didn't need us anymore. They had become... proficient.Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03541975604761521565noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18745696.post-1159162948224605762006-09-25T15:41:00.000+10:002006-10-10T16:18:37.740+10:00Presenting... iLearn-BlogsAt long last, <a href="http://ilearn-blogs.bond.edu.au">iLearn-Blogs</a> is up and running. One very keen academic will be using it to host student blogs for assessment in two subjects this semester.<br /><br />Due to it being week 3 and the service only just being made operational, the integration for this semester will be minimal. This means that:<br /><br />* Users will create their own accounts<br />* Users will create their own blogs<br />* Comments will be moderated by default, and restricted to registered users<br />* Users must have a bond staff or student email address to register<br /><br />Many, many technical issues with getting this service set up have meant that it will only be available in a limited way to a limited number of students. I just don't want to go ahead with the full pilot I had planned. So I'm disappointed, but at least we've got a service. And the students are using it. And its an open source application.Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03541975604761521565noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18745696.post-1157583433507220602006-09-07T08:48:00.000+10:002006-09-07T08:57:13.520+10:00Blackboard Impressions via Impressions ScholarcastMichael Rees, one of the academics involved in the May semester pilot of Blackboard here at Bond, has begun a series of posts on his experiences with and initial impressions of Blackboard. A long-time ed-tech user, Michael made the switch from using Sharepoint as an LMS to Blackboard this semester. Most of his observations ring true with me, the good and the bad. Reading his first two installments made me think how frequently I've heard similar observations from academic staff I've worked with over the past 5 years. His <a href="http://blog.mrees.biz/myblog/?p=88">first summary post</a> describes his experience as an overall positive one, despite a number of niggling frustrations.<br /><br />His second post reflects on <a href="http://blog.mrees.biz/myblog/?p=94">Blackboard's user interface</a>, which, while it's simplicity and ease of navigation was a strength 4 years ago, is now showing its age quite dramatically when compared alongside modern web-applications.<br /><br />I'm looking forward to reading more on Michael's thoughts on his first run-in with Blackboard.Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03541975604761521565noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18745696.post-1157425964416926302006-09-05T13:07:00.000+10:002006-09-05T13:12:44.426+10:00Blog humour on a blogBeing up to my eyeballs in basics-level staff development lately has somewhat squashed the analytical, creative, and witty thinking required to come up with a good blog post. I'll be back in usual form soon, but in the meantime, here's a comic from <a href="http://www.wondermark.com/index.html">Wondermark</a> about being analytical, creative, and witty in a blog. Enjoy.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.wondermark.com/comics/226.gif"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px;" src="http://www.wondermark.com/comics/226.gif" border="0" alt="" /></a>Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03541975604761521565noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18745696.post-1156378633238676962006-08-24T10:07:00.000+10:002006-08-24T10:17:43.233+10:00Clients furious, but shareholders must be thrilledBlackboard has announced a 32 percent jump in second-quarter revenue over last year, pulling in a whopping USD 13.6 million. A <a href="http://washingtontimes.com/business/20060814-100821-5993r.htm">Washington Times article</a> makes no mention of the patent or legal action against Desire2Learn that has clients up in arms and legal council Matthew Small doing damage control on a teleconference with Australian clients <span style="font-style:italic;">from a maternity ward while his wife is in labour</span>. The article does describe why many institutions will stick with Bb, despite the company's corporate ethics.<br /><br /><blockquote>"As long as the industry trends continue, there will be more use of online learning on campus," she said. "So long as that is true, the switching costs are high enough for the universities ... they'd rather just stick with their current vendor."</blockquote><br /><br />Having nearly completed a uni-wide Blackboard roll-out, I understand now more than ever the effort involved in fostering adoption of a platform so embedded into teaching and learning activities. Switching is hard. Not so much from a technical perspective but from an organisational change perspective. That said, I'll be interested to see if this figure changes over the coming year:<br /><br /><blockquote>During the second quarter, Blackboard had a software-license renewal rate of more than 90 percent.</blockquote>Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03541975604761521565noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18745696.post-1156225549893941382006-08-22T15:42:00.000+10:002006-08-22T15:45:49.906+10:00Netvibes is my new homepageWritten in AJAX, Netvibes appears to be a contender for the mythical title of Uber-Portal (one portal to rule them all). From www.netvibes.com:<br /><br /><blockquote>Netvibes.com is a custom made web 2.0 home page solution<br /><br />This service is free and gives the user the ability :<br /><br /> * to create a personalized page with the content they like.<br /> * to put together data feeds and services from web 2.0 with a very simple interface<br /> * to access your page anytime and from any computer .<br /><br />It is also possible to :<br /><br /> * browse, modify, and import your RSS feeds with our integrated RSS/ATOM feedreader. You can easily import an OPML file as well.<br /> * to import, download and listen podcasts without any additional software<br /> * to check your mail on one or many gmail account, to stick webnotes, weather and many more to come !</blockquote>Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03541975604761521565noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18745696.post-1156116430775846352006-08-21T09:26:00.000+10:002006-08-21T09:27:10.776+10:00Link to PLC eLearning 2.0 blogI had included a link to the PLC blog in the title of my previous post, but it looks like some aggregators might not be picking it up. Here it is in text: <a href="http://plcmclearning.blogspot.com/">http://plcmclearning.blogspot.com/</a> (Thanks Michael for pointing this out!)Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03541975604761521565noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18745696.post-1155624184141221572006-08-15T16:28:00.000+10:002006-08-21T09:26:26.736+10:00Leave it to librarians to make embracing web 2.0 this cool<a href="http://nlrp.blogspot.com/">Lynette</a>, my former colleague and self-titled "new" librarian, pointed me at this project which is being run by the Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County in the US. The project seems to have been inspired by <a href="http://www.43things.com">43 Things</a> takes staff on a 9 week guided tour of web 2.0 in the context of learning 2.0.<br /><br />I really like how they've sent realistic tasks, or "23 Things", that introduce some of the core applications that underpin web 2.0 (eg. blogs, RSS, aggregation) but then go beyond to look at image sharing (<a href="http://www.flickr.com/">Flickr</a>), collaborative cataloging (<a href="http://www.librarything.com/">LibraryThing</a>) and of course media hosting (<a href="http://youtube.com">YouTube</a>). Nice bite-size bits and with prize draws for staff who complete all 23 Things. Kind of like a web 2.0 scavenger hunt.<br /><br />I always love it when someone manages to cut through the mystery of learning and to enable learning through experimentation. Librarians in particular seem to produce some great examples of this.Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03541975604761521565noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18745696.post-1155020050259036062006-08-08T16:49:00.000+10:002006-08-08T16:54:10.270+10:00The Chronicle: Blackboard Sues Rival Provider of Course-Management Software, Alleging Patent InfringementI missed this excellent article from The Chronicle posted on Aug 2nd. It covers views and reactions from a few different fronts including Blackboard, Desire2Learn and clients. A few telling snippets:<br /><br /><blockquote>"This is not a patent that covers all of e-learning," Mr. Small (Matthew Small, senior vice president and general counsel for Blackboard) said. "It doesn't cover all course-management systems."</blockquote><br /><br />He then goes on to say:<br /><br /><blockquote>many e-learning companies could operate without infringing on the patent, though he declined to provide any examples. However, he also said that had Blackboard not merged with WebCT, then WebCT would have been infringing the patent.</blockquote>Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03541975604761521565noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18745696.post-1155009531191791602006-08-08T13:28:00.000+10:002006-08-08T13:58:51.246+10:00Black web? How about Black-borg?Michael Rees has <a href="http://blog.mrees.biz/myblog/?p=74">pointed out</a> "Blackweb" as a new name for Blackboard that has been suggested in light of their <a href="http://teachingmeettechnology.blogspot.com/2006/08/what-lousy-birthday-present-blackboard.html">over-the-top legal activities</a>. A trekkie-minded colleague has suggested "Black-borg", which I think is my favorite so far.<br /><br />Silliness aside, I've cooled down a bit, had a few days to absorb the media and commentary and have boiled it all down to three things that really have me fuming over this situation.<br /><br />1) I've worked with Blackboard at client universities for almost 5 years now. I've seen the product go through numerous upgrades, experienced the challenge of overcoming academic and student perceptions after a massive product failure, and more recently gained an insight into the corporate culture of Blackboard as a company. I'm used to being known as "the Blackboard person" while in differing roles (although I do try to correct this view). There has been discussion about how this move by Blackboard will impact on how academics perceive Blackboard as a product. I love the challenge of opening academics' eyes to the possibilities and opportunities educational technology can provide them. It's what I'm passionate about and what gets me up in the morning. It can also be tough. By behaving in a manner which I think is in opposition to many academics' educational ideals, I believe Blackboard has just made my job a whole lot harder.<br /><br />2) I really don't like the way Blackboard has handled this in terms of communication. I generally receive an official email every 2 weeks or so from Blackboard, advising of everything from conferences to new appointments in my region. The only official communication I've seen from Blackboard regarding the patent and resulting legal action is an email from Michael Chasen, CEO which was sent to a single US usergroup and then forwarded to a global community listserv. This is not how you go about keeping your clients in the loop. Part of the email reads:<br /><blockquote>We hope that you will come to see that our patent and law suit are not a dramatic change for the industry, but a fair course for us to protect our investments in our technology and your investment in Blackboard. Our aim is to build an organization that will endure and be there to support you as your needs evolve.<br /></blockquote><br /><br />3) Which leads me to the third thing that really gets me about all this. I have no problem with patents on technology. I have no problem with capitalising on innovation. Everyone needs to make money somehow and Blackboard has already managed to make an awful lot of money in support of something great. I do have a problem when capitalist activity such as this stumbles a little too far into the sacred three of Education, Health Care, and Religion. I realise that education is already far more of a commodity than it has been in the past, especially in Australia, but there need to be limits on how far this trend can go.Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03541975604761521565noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18745696.post-1154587694954963112006-08-03T16:30:00.000+10:002006-08-03T16:48:14.966+10:00Chuffed: Even without electricity, eLearning comes goodIt's exam week here at Bond, and to my surprise and delight, a number of the academics using Blackboard for the first time this semester have chosen to run some portion of their final exam (as well as other pieces of assessment) online using Blackboard. They didn't get hung up on the reasons not to use online assessment, they just dove right in and tried it out. They were willing to experiment. Fantastic.<br /><br />The lecturer of one of the largest classes run by the university is one of these willing academics so of course, the practical component of his student's final exam was conducted online through Blackboard. The exam was to be run in an envigilated environment within a computer lab at 10am this morning. Great.<br /><br />Today, one of the reasons not to use online assessment showed itself in a big way. We had a major power outage this morning. The whole campus as well as the whole suburb was out for about 2 hrs. Back-up power kept the server room running, but not the lab computer or the lights for that matter, so no exam. The willing academic took it all in stride and rescheduled the exam for later this afternoon. Wonderful.<br /><br />Then another reason not to use online assessment appeared. Some residual problems from the power outage this morning cause Blackboard to go down, as well as a few other services, and it went down in a fairly major way. We had power, we had computers, but we didn't have Blackboard. Nuts.<br /><br />We got it back up fairly quickly and the students had an extra half hour to sit in the lab and study before finally being able to complete their exam. The willing academic? He'll do it all again next semester. Fantastic.Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03541975604761521565noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18745696.post-1154483819806815852006-08-02T11:40:00.000+10:002006-08-02T11:56:59.840+10:00What a lousy birthday present: Blackboard patents the LMSIt's my birthday today and it's nothing but bad news. The US Patent office, in their infinite wisdom, has <a href="http://www.blackboard.com/company/press/release.aspx?id=887622">granted Blackboard a patent</a> on pretty much all things related to online course delivery. Ick. Ick, ick, ick. The abstract of their patent (full details available from the US Patent office website) describes their patent of:<br /><blockquote>A system and methods for implementing education online by providing institutions with the means for allowing the creation of courses to be taken by students online, the courses including assignments, announcements, course materials, chat and whiteboard facilities, and the like, all of which are available to the students over a network such as the Internet.</blockquote><br />This is like patenting a lecture hall as an environment that facilitates learning. What are you trying to do, Blackboard? Seriously.<br /><br />Will the open source community, which is becoming more and more viable, be able to continue to grow with Blackboard standing by with a patent to wave at them? Forgive my rant but this has be quite upset. More thoughts on this once I've cooled down.Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03541975604761521565noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18745696.post-1153877835023534072006-07-26T10:04:00.000+10:002006-07-26T11:37:15.080+10:00No more printing of learning content?As much as I support and champion electronic delivery of learning content, I know that the majority of lengthier material is printed and read offline, where it can be annotated, highlighted, and tossed in a backpack to be read on the bus. While I spend most of my working day and a good chunk of my evenings consuming materials from a screen, I wouldn't consider starting a novel or even a lengthy article by curling up with my laptop.<br /><br />I've been keeping an eye out for technologies that could make reading large quantities of digital material less eye-aching and have been watching the development of <a href="http://products.sel.sony.com/pa/prs/index.html?sssdmh=dm11.88771&hqs=explore">Sony's electronic paper-based reader</a> for some time and it looks set to finally be available for purchase. The Reader is a paperback sized tablet device with uses technology called E Ink for its black and white display, rather than the LCD screens of laptops and PDAs.<br /><br /><blockquote>Instead of rows of glowing cells, E Ink® microcapsules actually appear as either black or white depending on a positive or negative charge determined by the content. The result is a reading experience that's similar to paper - high contrast, high resolution, viewable in direct sunlight and at a nearly 180-degree angle, and requiring no power to maintain the image.</blockquote><br /><br />While the design of the casing leaves room for improvement, the technology is so wonderfully simple and effective, I can't help but think about how tools like the Reader could change the way text-based learning content is consumed, and for that matter, the way academics libraries provide resources. No word on retail pricing yet, but with a September release in the US advertised, I will definitely keep watching this one. Just think of the trees that could be saved.Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03541975604761521565noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18745696.post-1152056494588813742006-07-05T09:31:00.000+10:002006-07-05T09:41:34.616+10:00On blogging and student engagementKonrad Glogowski posted today on his experiences in establishing a "community of grade eight student bloggers". He writes with excitement and enthusiasm about how his students went from being solitary writers, to leveraging off the knowledge of their peers to deepen and broaden their own understanding. He writes:<br /><br /><blockquote>I noticed that Student A, writing about genocide in Darfur, started following and linking to the work of Student B who was investigating current human rights abuses. Student A did not learn anything new about genocide from Student B, but she did learn a lot about efforts (or lack thereof) to stop hatred, violence, and discrimination. Entries about human rights abuses taking place all over the world (including the so-called developed nations) were helpful in expanding her understanding of why violence erupts, of why we are not effective at stopping it. Both continued to pursue their own topics but relied on each other to gain a better understanding of human nature, of discrimination, of official responses to these issues.</blockquote><br /><a href="http://www.teachandlearn.ca/blog/2006/06/29/progressive-discourse/"><br />Read the full post here.</a><br /><br />There's been a bit of blog madness happening around the place here, most of it creative and innovative, some of it being driven from a new(ish) buzzy technology. I'll be converting a spare server into a 'miscellaneous web applications' server this month to allow us to organic experimentation with in-house hosted open source tools such as Wordpress. Must write up guidelines for use too, although the last thing I want to do is squash enthusiasm with policy.Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03541975604761521565noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18745696.post-1150772492924312282006-06-20T12:53:00.000+10:002006-06-20T13:01:32.936+10:00On being an administrator and being academically-mindedI used to think that the academic life wasn't for me. I used to think that hiding away in an office, reading, "researching" (whatever that meant to me), and writing would be so limiting. I wanted to be out doing stuff. Managing projects, developing policy, promoting innovation, managing people(!), and generally rationalising and putting into practice all those crazy ideas academics came up with.<br /><br />I've changed my thinking a little since taking on this new role at Bond. While I still want to be on the "doing" side of the fence, I would very much like to pursue a bit of academic-style "thinking" more than I'm currently able to do. The thought of hiding away for a few weeks or months to fully develop an original and innovative idea, and then bring it out into the world to actually try it out really appeals to me. To those people who know me well, I know this will come as a shock, but I want to be able to shut out the operational and strategic world I work in and have the opportunity to really think things through.<br /><br />I wonder if there's a place in higher education for administrators with academic tendencies, or are we too rare a breed to be catered for?Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03541975604761521565noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18745696.post-1150693831272899992006-06-19T14:52:00.000+10:002006-06-19T15:10:31.286+10:00Where things are atWow. A whole month between posts. Must not do that again. So it's Week 6 of the May semester, with 30 some odd academic staff running strong with Blackboard.<br /><br />I had a great meeting last week with one of the academics who had been a touch resistant and unsure at the start of semester. She had asked my advice on how to encourage her students to engage with the discussion board in preparation for their week 8 tutorial, which will be replaced by postings on a discussion board. I worked with her to refine and communicate to her students her expectations of them in terms of post number, length etc. I wanted to stress to her the importance of giving them a framework to work within and to clearly define the outcomes she wanted them to achieve. Will report back in a couple weeks on how it went.<br /><br />Speaking of frameworks and clearly defined outcomes, I'll be facilitated a planning morning next week to start to develop these things in relation to my division, Teaching & Learning Services. I've been struggling with the post-project direction of the unit and want to start to map out the services we will be providing to the university and the initiatives we will be responsible for. Not an easy task in Bond's decentralised environment.<br /><br />There are also happenings afoot in relation to developing a university-wide ICT strategy that will form the framework for communication, governance, funding, learning spaces, service delivery, training and development etc. Oh, and guess who has been asked to be a member of the 5-person working party to develop the strategic framework? Yup. That'd be me. I've thrilled to have the opportunity to contribute to such a critical and defining piece of work, but wow. It's a big task.<br /><br />I'm also involved in two initiatives related to academic staff development. One is to improve basic and general information literacy and ICT skills, which the other is focusing on teaching skills with the view to build towards to a grad cert in higher education or similar.<br /><br />To round it all out, I'm now gearing up for the second phase of the Blackboard implementation, which involves the full roll-out for use by all subjects. The will involve another level of integration with source data systems as well as a massive staff development effort.<br /><br />I'm describing all this so I can look back and remember just how varied my role here has been. While the variation keeps things interested, it can be a bit of a stretch to switch between modes. I think my brain is developing flexibility in muscles it never knew it had.Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03541975604761521565noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18745696.post-1148022187657945682006-05-19T17:02:00.000+10:002006-05-19T17:03:07.666+10:00SurvivedWell, that's the first week over and done. It's been fun. I still feel a bit like a proud parent, except that I've been chasing around after one very active toddler for a week, getting up very early, and dealing with a few teething problems along the way. In short, I'm feeling a bit worn out.<br /><br />In statistical terms, the system had an average of 471 logins per day this week. Not bad considering that only just over 1000 students and about 35 teaching staff are using it this semester. And 20,800 hits per day isn't bad either.<br /><br />In real terms, the staff are embracing the technology (for the most part). The students and finding their way around and appreciating the new environment (for the most part). The support and helpdesk staff are able to assist staff and students who are having problems (for the most part). I reviewed the original PID and communication and training plans this afternoon, and I was very proud to think that what seemed like a mammoth amount of very complicated work has actually been achieved, and achieved to a considerable standard of quality. Period.<br /><br />Next week, I plan to write a refelctive 'lesson's learned' post, but for now I'm going home for a celebratory dinner with friends, and to relax over the weekend.Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03541975604761521565noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18745696.post-1147908554940337552006-05-18T09:22:00.000+10:002006-05-18T09:30:13.493+10:00"It's getting noisy"Great post by Konrad Glogowski over on the <a href="http://www.teachandlearn.ca/blog/2006/04/24/getting-noisy/">Blog of Proximal Development</a>.<br /><br /><blockquote>Whenever I 'enter' our online community and start clicking my way through all the entries, I feel like I am in a very noisy place. It's like being in a tiny cafe where, around each tiny table, there are conversations that you overhear as you order your latte and check your pockets for change. It feels like a train station, or a concert hall before the lights go down, or your favourite coffee place, or, well, a classroom before the teacher walks in and all the voices stop. Except, when I 'walk in,' the voices don't stop. The din continues and the constant hum means that I'm doing something right because they're talking, they're writing.</blockquote><br /><br />I like his comparisons between online, aka non-traditional, learning environments and other more traditional, non-traditional learning environments of cafes, train stations, jazz clubs. This supports the reality that learning happens everywhere, not just in classrooms.Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03541975604761521565noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18745696.post-1147417129399426122006-05-12T16:32:00.000+10:002006-05-12T16:58:49.446+10:00Out into the world... and off to a slow but steady startOur new-born Blackboard server, at the end of it's second full day of work.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3368/475/1600/usage.gif"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3368/475/320/usage.gif" border="0" alt="" /></a>Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03541975604761521565noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18745696.post-1147258382461455382006-05-10T20:37:00.000+10:002006-05-10T20:53:02.473+10:00Out into the world...Bond's new LMS aka <a href="http://www.bond.edu.au/ilearn/">iLearn@Bond</a> is now available to students. Yikes. We enabled the student accounts this afternoon and I've logged in this evening just to reasure myself the system is still there, and still happy. Only 29 subjects will be using it this pilot semester, but the grunt work of managing the system imprementation and data integration is done at this point.<br /><br />I feel... proud. I've been poking my head in on academic's subject sites to see how they are progressing, and while they are all basic in terms of instructional design, I can actually see the personalities of the staff reflected in ther sites. I quite like that the property lawyer has chosen pink bubbles for his navigation menu. There are announcements welcoming students to the sites and explaining that they are the lucky few to be pioneering a new learning tool at Bond. These make me smile.<br /><br />The energy and enthusiasm of the academics has really surprised and refreshed me. They are so very keen to do... something. Anything. As are the students. The IT HelpDesk forwarded me an email from a student asking why he couldn't login to "the iLearn", as he could access all other university systems with his new account. This was at 2pm this afternoon, 3 hours before we enabled student accounts, and no communications had yet gone out to students. I don't know how he even found the login page as it's not linked to from anywhere on the main site.<br /><br />I've invited everyone who has been involved in the project so far to a launch drinks tomorrow afternoon and I really am looking forward to it. I'm feeding off the enthusiam and passion of the staff and students at this place. It really is energising.Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03541975604761521565noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18745696.post-1146795953544666232006-05-05T12:18:00.000+10:002006-05-05T12:25:53.556+10:00More on leadership stylesI'm going to go off on another tangent about <a href="http://fernygirl.blogspot.com/2005/05/some-thoughts-on-leadership.html">leadership styles</a> again. The leaders and managers I've worked with who I most respected and was inspired by, were the ones I was and still am a little intimidated by. The ones I always take a minute to think through questions and ideas before speaking. The ones I most want to impress.<br /><br />I know I'm a fairly approachable manager. I've always tried to be. While my thoughts and ideas are generally respected, I get the feeling that people aren't intimidated by me or aren't willing to approach me with requests for advice or ideas in the same way I have been towards some of the people who's leadership I most value.<br /><br />Is my own approachability, something I've always prided myself one, a detriment to my progress into more senior leadership roles? Do you have to be a little bit scary to be a good leader?Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03541975604761521565noreply@blogger.com0