Research Essentials

After finishing my PhD I joined the OU as a member of staff. This was a more complicated process than I anticipated, so I’m going to briefly describe the most problematic side here in the hope that others can have a smoother transition. When you join as a member of staff at the OU, a [...]

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Inspired by Martin Weller’s video interview with his future self, I decided to attempt the same. Less intellectual content, but nicer hair “>

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Really useful presentation by Jonathan Drori at ALT-C about how to add impact to a pilot project. Questions to ask about your project include: Why is this project different from all other projects? Will more people learn better? Will this save money? Will teachers and/or students be happier? Can this be done better without technology? [...]

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When Cory Doctorow talked at the Open University today, the audience in the room was supplemented by a more widespread group who were watching the live webcast. Throughout his talk, the extended audience was discussing, reacting to, reporting and referencing what was said. By the end of the session, Cory was responding to a question [...]

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The annual bidding for funding workshops organised by the Research School have been suspended for 2008 whilst they restructure them. It’s good that they’re acting on feedback, but a bit disappointing that there are no bidding workshops. Fortunately IET came up with a brilliant alternative; they set up a short seminar at which Robin Mason [...]

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www.adrianoldknow.org.uk Highlights some interesting collaborations between different school departments, for example sports and maths (throwing a ball to examine trajectory, videooing it, using video analysis). Curriculum enhancement because taking suff from the PE lesson into the maths lesson. In DT they were building launchers, perfecting how to calibrate the angle etc. Teachers and kids really [...]

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First session – Dovi Brouker of Fourier Systems talking about three projects they’ve done using the Nova5000 in Israel which have an emphasis on science and math.   My first impression is that the Nova5000 is a neat looking little object. About the size of a small laptop, but brightly coloured so presumably successful at [...]

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I’ve sat listening to Mark van t’hooft’s presentation for the 20 minutes. During the entire time I’ve been trying to get  access to this blog in order to blog my reflections. Unfortunately the wifi must be being so heavily used that I’ve only just got online. Still, Bob Harrison is just about to stand up [...]

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Jocelyn Wishart now sets up for her presentation. Hey, she’s going to present from her mobile device. Already quite impressive. C’s (seize) the moment; engaging with the theory and pedagogy of M-learning. Already more engaging. She’s going to throw up a list of words to get us to look at which words have been used [...]

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This was originally supposed to be presented by Rose Luckin, who can’t be here. Kevin starts by showing us the $100 laptop. He challenges us to open it Looking forward to playing with that during the break. He also shows us a list of LKL projects. The one that caught my eye was this one: [...]

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