On Education Applications, Ipods, Iphones and Stanford.

As was widely predicted the introduction of third party  applications (via  Apple's ITunes store) has enhanced the appeal of the iPod and iPhone. No longer is the iPhone a strictly walled garden. In the same way that gadgets can be placed on the iGoogle desktops, or widgets can be placed on the Mac dashboard, applications can now be placed on both the iPod touch and iPhone.

Applications are neatly filed in the iTunes store under a range of nineteen categories.
The filing system is not that helpful but it is enhanced by the customary "New", "What's Hot" and "Staff Favourites" sections. Eager browsers may also find themselves attracted by the "Top Paid Apps" and "Top Free Apps". Reviews of the applications are provided to help in app choice but as ever  "Caveat emptor" should be the eager shoppers motto.

The list of Education Apps makes for interesting reading. At present it consists of fourteen pages, each carrying twenty one apps! Some of these are free, some are lite (demo versions with limited features) and some cost. The cheapest are 59p, the most expensive I have noticed to date are £23.99.

As I browsed through the store two Ed Apps caught my eye.

 A company called Modality Inc provide "Zollinger's Atlas of Surgical Operation, Gastrointestinal: Upper", which is described as;

"The classic guide to general surgery procedures ... now available for the iPhone and iPod touch ...... Using the intuitive iPhone interface, you can navigate through detailed images with the flick of a finger, pinch to zoom, and tap to read easy to follow instructions for each procedure" !

I am so tempted to purchase one of Modality's products just to see what it looks like.

Here is a company working to embrace the use of mobile technology in teaching and learning. "Modality, we make small screens smarter, The Titles you Trust on the Screens you Love" have a developing range of titles  for medical students and professionals. Also they seem to be preparing to release Cliffs Notes which I remember from my days of studying literature. Impressive stuff. Think how many teenagers / young people / students have ipods/ iphones. If the applications are as good as they appear to be, think of the market!

The second application that caught my eye, was a free one. I came across the 8.4MB of code that is "iStanford" an application that slipped into the store on October 4th.

The application description says;

"iStanford is Stanford University in the palm of your hand.
Search the Stanford directory, search campus map, find and bookmark courses, and get scores, schedules, and news for all Stanford varsity athletics teams. All from your Iphone or iPod touch"

It continues.......

"Coming soon
Register for classes, View your course and grade history (this and previous terms), View your University balance, past statements and transaction history, Login to view private Stanford information"

This I have downloaded, and explored and it is an impressive application. Having explored the Stanford app I searched the web and discovered the following (in no particular order)

• Stanford University IT Services sell the Apple iPhone.
• The iStanford app was produced by TerriblyCleverDesign a student owned development company at Stanford.
• This fall / Autumn in the UK Stanford University are running a taught course / module entitled iPhone Application Programming.
• All of this seems to have been made possible by the iPhone Developer University Program (USA only)
  

I was led to the iTunes App store by my new iPhone, but I'd missed the point. When I first saw the iStanford app my initial question was how many students at Stanford own an iPhone?

It was the wrong question.

The questions we need to ask are

• What applications are we building in the UK for our students?
• What applications are our students building for themselves?
• How quickly could we in the UK introduce a course like the iPhone Programming Course at Stanford?

What's to be done?

On Exams, Christopher Glamorganshire and blogging.

While reading Chris Cope's excellent "Dancing the Polka with Miss El Cajon" I have to confess that his observations about writing under exam conditions reminded me of something I have thought for a long time.

Students (and I was and am one) work all through the academic year using their desktop or laptop computers and then in examination rooms they are asked to write longhand.

Why?

During their course all submitted work has to be word processed and either printed or submitted electronically (or both), then in the exam they are asked to write longhand under extreme pressure.

Why?

During lectures those that take notes (and not many do) will write in longhand, copying down the thoughts of their lecturers; but note taking is not essay writing and to my mind provides little preparation for answering exam questions. In writing this post I am rather dependent upon my word processing skills, constantly changing the order of sentences, words and paragraphs. Word processing has changed the way that I work. The examination system used in Higher Education no longer reflects the way that we work in the real world. What are we to do?

Perhaps the time has come for word processing facilities to provided in examination rooms. Or is it time we reconsidered the role of the essay in examinations.
Either way something needs to be done.

Hidden away in the comments on Chris' blog an anonymous respondent asked about Christopher Glamorganshire which led me to this article.

It seems that an Assembly Government civil servant who lost his job for keeping a political blog has taken his case to an employment tribunal. It's likely that the case will hinge on whether or not his contract allowed for blogging.

Employers and employees will need to check their contracts and conditions of service.

Are you allowed to blog?

Clive Sinclair and the Internet.

As a child I saved for ages to buy one of Sir Clive's famous calculators. As a teenager I was the proud owner of one of Sinclair's Spectrum computers; in fact it still sits in the attic.

So I guess he had quite an impact on my life.

But did you see or hear what he had to say yesterday about the internet?

"I don't use it myself directly," he said, explaining that as an inventor he tried to avoid "mechanical and technical things around me so they don't blur the mind".

Do you suppose the internet does blur the mind; or does it open it?
I think it's opened mine, but then I didn't invent a home computer, I just use one.

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PowerPoint to YouTube

I've not used this yet but can see that it's a powerful tool.

authorSTREAM is an online sharing site that allows the free uploading of PowerPoint presentations but facilitates their sharing with friends, students, or co-workers.

It seems authorSTREAM allows registered users (and it's free) to embed presentations in blogs and networks, or share them via YouTube, which means that they become viewable almost anywhere and on nearly any platform including iPods.

YouTube rules the world in terms of video sharing, this could be another nail in the coffin of VLE's

Wow!

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On The Apprentice, Plagiarism and CVs

I am a fan of The Apprentice.
This evenings episode had my full attention, while the remaining candidates were interviewed by Sir Alan's colleagues and friends.

It was entertaining, interesting, and unsettling viewing.
Lee's interview revealed that his CV was not all it could have been; containing some fairly basic spelling errors and what were described as inaccuracies.

Consider the spelling/grammar mistakes on a CV word processed by a man who is a sales manager for the Capita Group applying for a job as Alan Sugar's apprentice.

You might think that he would have used a spell checker; the errors highlighted included tommorrows, fulfill, ambtion, and recoingsed!
Perhaps they were typos, perhaps not. Perhaps he can't spell, perhaps he's dyslexic.
He should have checked or asked a friend to check for him. Does he not have a secretary?
Scribefire (the blogging extension for Firefox) is showing me his mistakes as I write.

Why didn't he notice?
He was writing a CV, an application for a job, and it was full of errors.
I'm not certain I would have even short listed him.

What was more worrying was the fact that he had been less than honest about his educational background, claiming to have been in receipt of a college education for two years when he actually left the course after four months!

The impression the programme gave was that this was forgivable, which is unforgivable. He lied.
Would you employ him?

Industry claims that job applicants cannot spell, are barely numerate, often lacking in social skills and ill prepared for the business environment.
In The Apprentice, a highly visible, televised selection process, the selectors note that some applicants cannot spell, lack social graces and do not always tell the truth but they still select them.

Why?

Like Universities identifying plagiarists, Lee's interviewer spotted the lie.
What is the difference between plagiarism and fabricating a CV?

On Plagiarism

Here is a curiously interesting story that requires a little thought and action.

BBC education reporter Sean Couglan notes that the Higher Education Authority and JISC have established the Academy JISC Academic Integrity Service "to help promote a culture of academic integrity in UK Higher Education"

It would appear that they face a monumental task.

"A study found only 143 students caught cheating were expelled out of
9,200 cases - despite almost all universities threatening expulsion as
a sanction."

I guess that tells us that the sanction isn't working.

"despite the repeated warnings to students not to cheat by using
someone else's work, those caught are unlikely to face particularly
severe penalties.

More than 98% of students caught cheating were allowed to stay
at their university - even though some of these students had been
caught before."

Perhaps more disturbing is the observation that

"the recorded level of plagiarism among postgraduate students was so
much higher than the recorded level among undergraduate student,"

It seems that the colleges face a problem.

Plagiarism can and is being detected.

The question is what should be done with the plagiarists?

On Student Failure

Interesting article that raises many points that may be of interest to those of you working in Higher Education.

Welsh Digital Divide?

The BBC continues to work hard to integrate its mainstream media transmissions with those of us that inhabit the web. There is doubt that their researchers, producers and managers are working hard to drag us into the connected twenty first century.

This morning on the Internet Blog, Max Gadney points us at the visualisation of comments from BBC News' Have Your Say. I've not watched any of the programs, but the visualisation tool on the top right hand side of the series page is superb.

I love the way the data is presented, I love the way it's colour coded and the way it moves.
It's almost impossible to look at the graphic without clicking, exploring and digging deeper.
If I have a criticism, it's shame that the key and FAQs sometimes obscures part of the display.

Max expresses a preference for exploring the Emotions displayed by the commenters but my attention was drawn to the "Regional Display"




Can someone tell me why are their so few comments from Wales?

Could be that we in Wales are not interested in the issues presented in the program?

Does the obvious lack of comments reflect in some way the "digital divide" and reveal something about the way that the Internet is used in Wales?

Today is BBC News School Report day.

This is another example of the BBC making every effort to not only engage with it's viewers but to give "12 and 13 year olds from UK schools the chance to make their own video, audio or text based news at school and broadcast it for real"

Today "schools around the country will take part in a News Day, simultaneously creating news reports and publishing them on their school websites, to which the BBC aims to link."

A quick glance at the School Report location map shows only eight participating schools in Wales, (five of which are I believe schools where teaching is undertaken through the medium of Welsh). Not one school in Cardiff seems to be taking part!

Can someone tell me why are their so few participants from Wales?

Could be that the majority of schools in Wales are not interested in providing pupils with the opportunity to speak to a wider audience through mainstream media and the internet?

Does the obvious lack of participants reflect in some way another "digital divide" revealing something about the way that the Internet is used / taught in Wales?

How do you say Digital Divide in Welsh?

On School Councils, websites, teachers, pupils and governors.

This is a curious story.

According to Estyn it would appear that School Councils have had "little impact on the running of Welsh Secondary Schools". Is that really so much of a surprise? Despite there being an obligation (since 2005) for pupil led councils to play an active role in schools, it seems that in pupil input has been limited to "minor improvements in the arrangements for uniforms, toilet facilities and meal choices"

For some reason the Welsh Assembly Government places importance on giving pupils a stronger voice in the running of their schools.
Despite the rhetoric I'm afraid I don't understand why.

But here's a quote from the report press release that may well be of interest those of us "On the Hill".

"Less than a third of teachers have used the Welsh Assembly Government website which aims to support the development of School Councils. The forum sections of the website have not been used by teachers, governors or pupils since it was created a year ago. However, most teachers surveyed feel that the website is easy to use and find the case studies the most useful aspect. Estyn recommends that the Welsh Assembly Government makes sure that the website, and other guidance, meets the needs of school councils that are already well-established."

Digging further in to the report proper, we find that

"Teachers responsible for the school council in about half of the schools surveyed are aware of the website, but less than a third have used it."

Its difficult to decide why this might be the case.
In fact there are a whole range of questions one could ask eg.

• Is the web site no use?
• Is the available material poor?
• Do the teachers concerned not have internet access?
• Do the teacher's concerned not have the time to use the web site?
• Are the teachers concerned interested?
• Do those involved in the running of schools actually think School Councils have a purpose?
• Are there any real statistics available about the way that this web site is used?

The report also clearly states that

"No teachers, governors or pupils have used the forum on the website."

Another sentence that raises even more questions?

• Do teachers, governors and pupils actually use on line forums?
• Do they have anything to talk about?
• Is there a need for this forum?
• Are there any similar forums not being used?
• How connected are our teachers, pupils and school governors?

Finally another question, Primary Schools have School Councils, ....... any news?

On MyCBBC and Social Networking

A blog that is well worth worth reading is the BBCs Internet Blog, which has risen to the top of my must read regularly list.

The BBC works hard to provide it's users, readers, watchers, listeners, consumers of all ages and nationalities with access to a vast range of material of the highest quality.

iPlayer has transformed the way I watch television. I'm watching more, now that the unmissable is really unmissable.
Right now I'm glad that downloads aren't supported on my mac, for there are only so many hours in the day that one can access media. I know the iPlayer experience isn't perfect, sometimes it's a bit clunky but it's a new technology and can only get better.

Consider this post by Richard Deverell, in which he describes clearly the BBC's plans for MyCBBC and replies to recent press and political speculation.

Children will be assisted in the creation of "a personalised space on the CBBC web site."

How brilliant is that?
What are we in academia spending our time considering?
Finding ways of assisting our students, pupils, business partners and colleagues in the creation of useful personalised spaces.

Read on

"These pages will take the form of a child's den in which they can aggregate their favourite content from BBC sites and from approved external websites. They can choose posters, furniture and gadgets to personalise their den. Each gadget will provide a useful function: the PC stores their favourite website links; the plasma screen plays video clips; the calendar gives the dates and times of favourite shows and their own personal dates such as family and friends' birthdays.

There is also a "treasure chest" in which they can store any content they have created on the CBBC site - for example, a link to their Roar park or latest message board conversations. And Newsround feeds, based on topics such as sport or current affairs, are given an engaging wrapper using the metaphor of virtual magazines.

Children can further personalise their dens by displaying their interests and hobbies by selecting the relevant "stickers" from a pre-determined list of symbols. They can design virtual versions of themselves - avatars - with different looks and clothes. They can also choose from a range of moods each day, represented by a weather system around the avatar's head."

Compare the BBC's plans with this "angry" press report, read the observations of politicians, look at the comments at the bottom of the page; and then read the last paragraph of Deverell's post and note how he highlights the need for our young people to be educated in using the web safely. It is obvious that MyCBBC is not going to be a social networking site per se, but it has enormous potential to be the place where children will learn and acquire the new skills they will need when they join their older siblings and parents in real social networking sites.

Additionally MyCBBC might be the place for them to develop their media literacy skills which will help them to distinguish fact from fiction as they watch television, listen to the radio or read our national press.

You can read more here, here and here!

On Surprises

Now here's a surprise.

It has been widely reported that .....

"Costly literacy schemes in England have not paid off, with children's reading skills barely improved since the 1950s, an independent inquiry suggests."

I could have told you that, as could any serving primary school teacher who was teaching before and during the introduction of the National Curriculum.
It's good that in Wales, in theory things are a little different.

You can read the same story; here at it's source, from the BBC and Reuters, in the Times and the TES, at the Guardian and at the Daily Mail.

It's worth reading them all just to see how the press deals with the report.

As might be expected Government spokesmen disagree with the findings.

Problems with Facebook

Harriet Swain has a long and interesting article in today's Independent about social networking sites and their position in Higher Education.

There's very little I might want to add to the article, except to say "I told you"

This paragraph in particular caught my eye.

"Facebook owns the material on the site, including teaching notes and, potentially, research, says Lawrie Phipps, manager of the users and innovation programme at JISC. He has already advised a couple of research groups to take research notes off a site. While there are plenty of new technologies that lecturers can use in teaching, such as discussion groups, wikis, or Second Life, social networking is not one of them, he says, unless it's restricted to an institution's virtual-learning environment. "I'm on Facebook and I have a laugh with friends," he says. "But, if it comes to academic work on Facebook, it's totally inappropriate.""

Read that final sentence again,

"But, if it comes to academic work on Facebook, it's totally inappropriate."

On eMentors

Here's an interesting thing.

Oaklands College is using eMentors appointed from amongst the students to help teaching staff with "everything from laptops to interactive whiteboards.

"The scheme has helped lecturers overcome their insecurities towards information and communication technology (ICT) while empowering and engaging students."

It's a clever idea, but I would seriously want to argue that if a teacher \ lecturer can't use an interactive whiteboard they shouldn't really be using it. If an institution is using interactive whiteboards as a teaching tool, training should be provided for those that will be using them.

Remember the DFES report on the introduction of interactive whiteboards in classrooms?

Apparently the students are being trained, why not train the lecturers?

I wonder what the lecturers really think of the idea?
I wonder how much are the students paid to support their lecturers?

Sometimes I just wonder ...........

On David Cameron, Facebook and life

Earlier this week David Cameron (bless) spoke to the party faithful at Blackpool. In a well received speech he mentioned the Internet saying

"We live in an extraordinary world of change and freedom. The Internet is transforming people's lives. The website MySpace has got 130m members. If it was a country, it would be the tenth biggest country in the world. Facebook, the social networking site, 30m members.

People are using it to talk with each other and meet people. I had a look the other day. There is a network on Facebook called 'David Cameron is a hottie'. It's got 74 members. And I looked a little further and there is another network called 'Am I the only person who doesn't like David Cameron?' and it's got 379 members - I am sure there is nobody here today. But the point is a serious one."

He's so right, "the Internet is transforming people's lives" yet Cameron, his speech writers, his advisers and his party so obviously don't understand it. He describes MySpace as a website and Facebook as a social network as if they were in someway different. He has explored Facebook, or someone has shown him around, yet he made no mention finding things of interest in MySpace. Remember danah writing about American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace?

He tells us that there is a network called "David Cameron is a hottie" and another called "Am I the only person who doesn't like David Cameron?" (facebook membership required), In telling his Conference (and us) of these networks he aims to impress but fails, revealing in fact that neither he nor his advisers understand how Facebook works. The networks he describes are not networks they are groups of little importance. I find it hard to understand how belonging to a group of like minded people who think that David Cameron is a hottie might "transform my life".

Networks lie at the heart of Facebook's structure, originally based on colleges networks have expanded and are now consist of geographical regions, colleges, workplaces and High Schools. Within these networks members join groups (such as those described by Cameron) often directly related to their personal interests.

A brief glance at these groups shows that conversation here is limited. Indeed to the members it is the belonging to the group that matters. I suspect that many Facebook users place or choose groups for their profile in the same way as train spotters might sport lapel badges or a WAG might leave books scattered on a coffee table.

Observers of Mr. Cameron on the Web or at his Conference might be persuaded of his digital credentials. I am not so sure. In Prensky's terms Cameron's words tell us that he is more of a digital immigrant than a digital native.

He is of course not alone, in every workplace, every classroom, every lecture theatre, every Faculty we constantly encounter those who would have us believe that their understanding of our digitally connected world is much more advanced than our own. Their voices are often strident, loud, and convincing but we need to take care that we are not led astray. Remember the story of the Emperor's New Clothes?

There was another speech much reported at Blackpool this week, 'the quiet man spoke'. Firmly embedded in the real world, he reminded the conference that

“You cannot love your country if you do not care for its beating heart, the people who live in this country"

Whatever our personal enthusiasm for the wonders of the Internet or Web 2.0 might be, those of us who are or were teachers, need to remember that all our work must be grounded in the real world, with real students in real groups and communities.

The Return of the Burnt Pyjama Story

Following the revelations of last March, it is good to read that UCAS are rising to the challenge created by plagiarised personal statements.

Next year all university admission forms will be examined using plagiarism detection software.

According to the BBC

""The new system, Copycatch, will compare every application submitted for entry next year with thousands posted on websites and 1.5 million from previous years."

If three sentences or more - 10% of the statement - appear to have been copied, the form will be passed to Ucas staff for further scrutiny.

They might then pass the case on to the individual institutions to which a student has applied for a decision on further action."

Hopefully universities will rise to the challenge and confront those guilty of fabricating their personal statements. Schools will also have to take care in the way they offer advice, and remind their pupils of the perils of copying from the Net or any other published source. Websites offering advice on how to apply to University will also need to consider what to do with their exemplar material.

On Creationism in the Classroom.

From the Guardian blog.

"The UK government has issued new guidelines to teachers on what to teach about creationism and intelligent design in science classes.

They are pretty explicit that creationsim and ID do not belong."

And about time.

On Facebook, students and porn.

While its no big deal, I noticed something interesting on my facebook home page. I was looking at the news feed showing popular posted items in the University network.

Top of the list is a link to a popular soft porn image gallery.

What can we deduce from this I wonder?

Think of the offence such a clearly visible link could cause to some.
We all know that the Internet has some pretty murky corners; after all it reflects the real world. Some members of the network think the link worthy of posting.
But in our classrooms, our lecture theatres, and computer labs we can't allow ourselves to be party to illuminating those corners for our students.

The University PLE wouldn't carry such a link.

Should Facebook be the platform through which students will access class discussion groups? I'm not sure.

On Google Docs, Commoncraft and dotSUB

Although I do very little collaborative work I can see the value of Google Docs.
There can be no doubt that those involved in group activities would find the ability to share and work on documents on line useful.

Lecturers might want to bring Google Docs to the attention of their students, and possibly explore the application themselves to facilitate the preparation of papers for departmental, university and wider audiences.

The commoncraft team have produced an excellent video, describing clearly and simply how Google Docs works.
Watch it.

Regular readers would not be surprised to read that I would be careful about the sort of documents that I might place in Google's care. It might not be the place for highly sensitive, controversial or valuable documents. On the other hand documents placed in Google's care might be more secure than those left on lost and stolen laptops or on the hard drives of second hand computers.


As a result of reading the commoncroft blog I have been introduced to dotSUB, a Web 2.0 application that provides an easy way for videos to be translated into a wide range of languages by the use of subtitles.

Its very clever, simple to use and should be noted by those who work in bilingual and multilingual countries.

On the TUC, Academics and Facebook.

Back in August Facebook changed.

As everyone knows, in its original form Facebook was a social networking website for American students. Members were linked via networks based around universities. As it spread globally membership was restricted to those with an .edu, .ac.uk type email address. Later networks were developed for High Schools and some businesses. Late in 2006 membership was opened to anyone with an email address.

In its original form The Facebook carried an application called Courses, this brought together students following the same course and made it possible for students to identify and contact their peers (invaluable for students popular courses). Keen observers of Facebook will have noticed that this application has disappeared, has been withdrawn, is no more.

A mention of its withdrawal can be found in the Facebook blog.

"The initial version of the Courses application was created by Facebook to give you as much functionality as possible. As of today, we're turning off our version of Courses and have decided to turn this over to the developer community and let you – our users – decide which Courses application works best for you. In many ways, our developer community is the best suited to create the applications that help people connect, track, and collaborate with their teachers, professors, and classmates. Many of our developers are in school and have used some kind of collaboration software. Their experiences make them the ideal creators of useful education applications."

I'm not convinced by this argument. Really what Facebook are saying here is we've grown and changed, many members don't come from college networks, so the Course application is no longer part of our core mission.

It's somewhat ironic that as HE academics take an interest in Facebook, Facebook begins to distance itself from it's roots.

Back in August the TUC issued advice for employers and their staff.
Should we be discussing these issues with students?

Our American colleagues have much more experience of Facebook as a learning tool. These slightly dated notes from Unit Structures may be of use.
Should we be discussing these issues with academics?

On using Facebook

Now, here's a truly interesting idea.

"Create Engaging Web Applications Using Metrics and Learning on Facebook"
is a new course at Stanford where

"Students will build applications for Facebook, then gather and analyze detailed information about how Facebook users actually use them. Students will focus on using detailed numerical measurements to guide software iterations, just like developers do on thousands of existing Facebook applications."

Perhaps here we shall find a real purpose for Facebook in education. I can't find the course on the internet, but it has a group.

"Students in the class will work in groups of three, first developing an application designed to appeal to most Facebook users.

Groups will then develop a second application, more closely focused around helping students use Facebook for education, such as a way for students to share class notes with each other.

They’ll be graded based on how many Facebook users they can get actively using their applications."

It would be great if they come up with some really useful educational applications, because if we are honest not many exist ....... yet.

I'm not convinced that the students should be graded accorded to the number of application users, but perhaps there's far more to their assessment than the Venture Beat article suggests.

I'm quite interested in B J Fogg's suggestion that academic computer scientists need to consider "the nuts and bolts of creating software people want to use."

He has a point.