On Using "new technology"

He's going to say it again!

"At Plaid's conference in Aberystwyth he will insist the party embraces new technology to reach young voters."


It will be interesting to see what this sentence actually means.

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On Hi Tech Cheats.

As we slide towards the beginning of a new academic year an interesting article by Moira Sharkey, can be seen in today's Western Mail.

It reports that 1,600 students have been caught cheating at Welsh Universities over the last three years. Most were guilty of plagiarism, some guilty of cheating in exams.

According to the article, over the last three years among Welsh Universities the University of Glamorgan has disciplined the most students. A statistic rightly defended by the University as they take "cheating seriously and work hard to catch the culprits"

As is ever the case, the statistics are incomplete as Welsh Universities have different methodologies and systems for publishing annual records but they do show that Welsh Universities are engaging with and beating plagiarists.

Many students enter University unaware of how academic work is assessed in Higher Education and are often ill prepared for the vast gulf that exists between sixth form and undergraduate life.

Ben Gray (of NUS Wales) comments on this in the article

“NUS Wales recognises that there are huge differences in the way that
higher education is conducted and assessed compared with secondary
education and as such these are issues that student unions across Wales
are assisting institutions in helping students understand the system.”

While NUS Wales should be commended for assisting students understand the University way of thinking, work needs to be done to ensure that schools understand what Higher Education expects and that Universities are perhaps a little more aware of their student's shortcomings.

Many sixth formers (digital natives?) are ill prepared for the rigour of academic essay writing and the associated referencing processes, as they have passed through a school system where the cut and paste mentality of project and course work has been encouraged and endorsed by the actions of their parents, teachers and peers. This is not totally the fault of the schools or the teachers. It is a way of thinking that has been encouraged by the system. Now that course work is being downgraded schools need to do much more to prepare students for University life and Universities need to do more to integrate undergraduates in academic life.

If Higher Education is seen to be actively confronting and disciplining those guilty of cheating, not only will the numbers of those cheating be reduced but public confidence in the quality of Higher Eduction qualifications will be restored.

The figures should be published openly and shared with the current and prospective student
communities, so that it can be seen that Universities deal with cheats. It is quite strange to me that the figures have come to lightas the result of an enquiry from Chris Franks AM.

Perhaps they should be published annually by the WAG, published in University prospectuses
or on University Web sites. They should most certainly be shared with new students during Fresher's weeks.

Of course catching the cheats is one thing, deciding what to do with them is another.

A first year undergraduate caught plagiarising is quite likely to have plagiarised unwittingly or unknowingly. A third year undergraduate or a Master's degree student caught plagiarising is guilty of completely different kind of cheating.

Can you remember hearing of anyone being "sent down" ?

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On Social Networking and Plaid Cymru

I read that Dafydd Iwan folk singer and politician has been re-elected as president of Plaid Cymru.

A strange event to be worthy of comment here On the Hill except that Mr. Iwan, a clever, passionate influential Welshman has promised

"to bring the party into the 21st Century with an emphasis on making the most of social networking sites to build support".


I wonder how he proposes to do that in a country where the digital divide is still causes concern.

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On the Olympics

Why?

On Researching Drunks in Cardiff

I live in Cardiff so it's always good to see the city of my birth in the news.

I walked sober through town last Tuesday afternoon.

It strikes me that further research is urgently needed to determine how it might be made possible for pedestrians to walk the length of Queen Street without :-

• being hassled by professional charity collectors in tabards (I don't mean sellers of the Big Issue),
• being presented with leaflets about Chinese medicine and all it's benefits,
• being eyed up (and rejected) by women with clipboards undertaking market research,
• being invited into a mobile phone shop by an adolescent in a suit,
• being approached by a spiv in a suit wondering if I've had an accident worth taking to court,
• being offered the opportunity of purchasing a guide to the Hare Krishna movement, 
• being offered the opportunity to purchase one or all of a pair of designer sunglasses, a silk head scarf, my name displayed as a piece of bent wire, AA or RAC membership, a balloon on a stick, a temporary tattoo or a cuddly toy,  
• running the risk of being run over by a cyclist.

None of those things happen to drunks.

Only in Wales.

Having met this creature I can vouch for this story!

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?

Digital Divide, what Digital Divide?

When some of us are still thinking about the digital divide in all it's many forms, it is somewhat refreshing to read a story like this one.

I don't suppose Cadwgan uses the internet.

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 Watching the Internet.

Two separate and yet related stories.

Lewis Page writing in The Register observes that Sir David Pepper, Director of GCHQ has noted how difficult it is to monitor conversations on the Internet. It would appear that GCHQ's

"ability to intercept conversations and messages is seriously undermined by internet-protocol (IP) communications."

In his report to the Intelligence and Security Committee the Director reported that the Internet is not quite like the telephone network!

"The Internet uses a very different approach to communications in that, rather than having any sense of fixed lines like that, there is a big network with a number of nodes, but for any individual communicating, their communications are broken up into shorter packets. So whether you are sending an email or any other form ofInternet communication, anything you send is broken up into packets. These packets are then routed around the network and may go in any one of a number of different routes because the network is designed to be resilient…
This [represents] the biggest change in telecoms technology since the invention ofthe telephone. It is a complete revolution…"

Readers in Wales will be interested no doubt to note that the ISC is chaired by The Rt. Hon Paul Murphy, MP (Torfaen) recently appointed Secretary of State for Wales.

In a similar story Nicholas Carr points us to the Washington Post, which notes that

"U.S. intelligence officials are cautioning that popular Internet services that enable computer users to adopt cartoon-like personas in three-dimensional online spaces also are creating security vulnerabilities by opening novel ways for terrorists and criminals to move money, organize and conduct corporate espionage."

It would seem that Linden's Labs virtual world could pose a threat. While we in the UK are wondering whether Second Life could be of educational use, the CIA has moved in and

"created a few virtual islands for internal use, such as training and unclassified meetings, government officials said."

Second Life doesn't need this kind of publicity, so

"Officials from Linden Lab have initiated meetings with people in the intelligence community about virtual worlds. They try to stress that systems to monitor avatar activity and identify risky behavior are built into the technology, according to Ken Dreifach, Linden's deputy general counsel.

Dreifach said that all financial transactions are reviewed electronically, and some are reviewed by people. For investigators, there also are also plenty of trails that avatars and users leave behind.

"There are a real range and depth of electronic footprints," Dreifach said. "We don't disclose those fraud tools.""

Even Big Brother has a Second Life.

On the Coming of Christmas.

Humbug!

Web 2.0 in the local news.

Compare and contrast these two articles.

In the first the BBC reported on a survey which suggests that in the UK

"233 million hours are lost every month as a result of employees "wasting time" on social networking."

In the same article the BBC helpfully points to research undertaken at Sheffield Hallam University wondering whether social networking is changing the face of friendship. They find that

"Online social networks tend to be far larger than their real-life counterparts, but online users say they have about the same number of close friends as the real-life average person."

In the second article the BBC report that

"Three council workers have lost their jobs for spending too long on the internet auction site eBay. One was sacked and two resigned after managers at Neath Port Talbot Council found some staff were spending up to two hours a day on the website."

Against this sort of background I cannot help but wonder whether the rush to integrate social networking sites with PLEs is sensible.

On Blogging the Assembly

Yesterday I came across this post in the blog of Bethan Jenkins Assembly Member for South West Wales. While attending the first full session of the Welsh Assembly. Bethan blogged the experience.

There are all sorts of things to think of here.......
Is blogging during an Assembly session allowed?
Should it be allowed?

I can't tell when the posting was actually made, though Bethan prepared the post during the session. Her observations are made as a narrative, recording both the content of the Senedd debate and her immediate reflections.

From time to time we have thought about whether students might find it helpful to blog during lectures or seminars.

Instead of taking notes on paper, those with laptops, PDAs etc would make their notes and immediate reflections directly to a blog. Their peers who might also be live blogging, would have access to every one's notes and could leave comments. The theory behind this is simple, the practice far more complex.

Although it is said that digital natives are masters of multitasking I doubt that students in a large lecture would be able to listen, take blogged notes and comment on their peers blogs simultaneously. Having access to notes after the lecture could well be of use, even more so if the use of comments led to the sharing of extra information.

Alternatively I can see that use of something like Twitter could facilitate discussion during a lecture. The Twitter stream or flow of short observations could be easily displayed in a multimedia lecture theatre and could facilitate the sharing of knowledge.

The comments associated with Bethan's blog reflect observations that might be made by some lecturers in relation to blogging students. Some feel uncomfortable when faced students with laptops in lectures. In my limited observations of lectures very few students seem to use laptops for note taking. Encouraging live blogging of lectures or similar activities may depend upon the availability of laptops.

During practical sessions in the labs our students all have computer and Internet access, should we try live blogging of practical tutorials?

In the Senedd Bethan and her colleagues are all equipped with computers and Internet access, I wonder how connected they are one with another during debate?

Internet Inequality

Sarah Richards' report "Internet Inequality in Wales Update 2006" is now available from the Welsh Consumer Council. I mentioned it earlier in the week, but since then I've been able to read the original report. For those of us working / thinking / learning in Wales it makes for interesting reading.

• Data for March 2006 showed that 47% of Welsh homes had an Internet connection. In 1999 that figure was 10%.
• The likelihood of home connection is unsurprisingly still related to social class, 64% of ABC1s are connected 67% of C2DEs are not.
• Of particular relevance to us at Treforest is the low connection level in the Valleys, 40% as opposed to 53% in Cardiff. (I wonder how many of our students actually come from the valleys?)

The figures relating to students are curious. The report states :-

"Students are by far the most likely to personally use the Internet with 94% doing so compared to just 23% of people who are wholly retired or not working. Interestingly, only 72% of students have a home Internet connection but 94% personally use the Internet, suggesting that they use computers in locations outside the home and / or mobile technology instead of a home connection."

This raises all sorts of questions for HE planners.
(I wonder what the definition of home might be halls of residence, digs or real home address).

I suspect that these figures suggest that student Internet access is done from on campus, it would be interesting to discover just how much time students spend on line. Perhaps they are really not that connected!

This an excellent report, clearly and precisely written.

Kudos to the Welsh Consumer Council for reminding us that

"it is important to note that over half the population of Wales still do not use the Internet".

Those of us who access it daily would do well to reflect upon that.