Conference
From SLN e-Learning Project
eLearning Project Conference
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Overview
9th May 2007 at Bramber House, University of Sussex
This event will be of relevance to all those involved with or interested in eLearning whether as
- teachers
- trainers
- employers
- learners
It will provide the opportunity to:
- find out about the Sussex Learning Network's eLearning Project and its relevance for you.
- explore a number of e-technologies, including demonstrations and presentations from colleagues at the Open University who are working on the prestigious OpenLearn project.
- Meet the eLearning team and network with others in Sussex and elsewhere who are involved with eLearning.
The Open University in the South East is leading the SLN's eLearning project and this conference will showcase a number of technologies and provide opportunities for hands-on experience.
There is no charge for this event which is part of the Sussex Learning Network's staff development programme. Refreshments and lunch will be provided.
Places are limited so please see our online booking form to reserve your place now. You will find the outline programme below.
More details about the conference and the booking form are available at: http://www.sussexlearningnetwork.org.uk and on our Blog and Wiki.
Programme
| 09:00 | Registration, coffee and pastries |
| 10:00 | Welcome by Jenny Lynden and Robert Catt from the eLearning Project Team |
| 10:15 | Workshop Session One Second Life and Moodle; using a multi-user virtual environment to engage learners – Jacquie Bennett, COLMCST Fellowship OpenLearn (Moodle): open source VLE - Alex Little and Elia Tomadaki OpenLearn Labspace: re-using generic modules available online - Jenny Gray Compendium - Michelle Bachler i-skills project; how open content materials work – John Woodthorpe |
| 11:15 | Coffee Review of eLearning Project Blog and Wiki Demonstrations of eLearning technologies and eLearning displays |
| 11:45 | Plenary - John Naughton, Professor of the Public Understanding of Technology at the Open University and Observer columnist |
| 12:30 | Lunch Review of eLearning Project Blog and Wiki Demonstrations of eLearning technologies and eLearning displays Tours of the Creativity Zone at Sussex University to include exploring the creative 'immersive' spaces, touch-screens, writing walls, ebeam and an example of a Compendium map. Colleagues from the Creativity Zone will be available to discuss its use as a learning space and to answer your questions. |
| 14:00 | Workshop Session Two (see morning workshops) |
| 15:00 | Tea Review of eLearning Project Blog and Wiki Demonstrations of eLearning technologies and eLearning displays |
| 15:30 | Plenary – review of the day Judith Good, Director, IDEAs lab, University of Sussex – critical listener |
| 16:00 | Day finishes |
Welcome by Robert Catt and Jenny Lynden
Together with my colleague Jenny Lynden, I’d like to welcome you to our eLearning conference. We’re joined today by other members of the eLearning Project team: Liz Thackray, Nigel Gibson and Linda Robson.
We also have the Sussex Learning Network Director Chris Baker with us together with the SLN core team: Maureen Haywood, Moira Monk, Sarah Hardman, Rebecca Duffy, Pete Rainger and Adam Stenning. I’ll return to it at the end of the day but I would, from the outset, like to thank Chris and his team for their tremendous support: their funding for the conference, their encouragement and the terrific amount of hard work they’ve put into organising this event today.
We have a number of workshop presenters who you’ll be meeting throughout the day, many of whom have travelled a considerable distance to be with us: John Woodthorpe, the OpenLearn team – Alex Little, Elia Tomadaki, Michelle Bachler and Jenny Gray – and Jacquie Bennett who will be joining us from Wales by voice and avatar.
We are also joined today by Judith Good from the University of Sussex. Judith is our keynote listener; she’ll be visiting the workshops throughout the day and giving us some view of her impressions later this afternoon. Finally, we have our keynote speaker, John Naughton. John is Professor of the Public Understanding of Technology and we are very much looking forward to his contribution today.
We want this to be a busy and useful day for you. We’ve packed a good deal into the programme; that will demand some fairly tight choreography and Jenny will talk you through arrangements in a moment.
First, though, it’s important to be clear about the purpose of the conference and, in doing that, I want to give a brief summary of the aims and work of the eLearning Project itself.
The eLearning Project
Ours is a two-year project: a partnership between the Open University and the Sussex Learning Network. We have a commitment to regional collaboration (and that’s not only collaboration within FE and HE but also amongst a wider range of organisations and groups, some of whom are represented here today) and our purpose is to provide opportunities for the development and dissemination of good practice in elearning.
We have a good deal of technical expertise within our team but also a good deal of pedagogical expertise and the focus of our interest and objectives is on opportunities for learning. And I want to emphasise that point in relation to the conference. There’s a good deal of technology around today and there should be ample opportunities for interactivity. But the conference isn’t about technology; it’s about learning. And as you engage with the technologies here today I hope that, repeatedly, you’ll ask the ‘So What?’ question. So what does this do for learners and learning? How can we use these technologies for the purposes of improvement in access to learning?
Our Objectives In broad terms our project has three objectives: - to raise awareness of accessible developments at a global level: what’s out there that might be useful for us as practitioners? Examples of that you’ll meet today are OpenLearn and Second Life. - to capture and map examples of productive regional practice in elearning. What am I doing that I could tell others about and what are others doing that I could learn from? - to encourage practitioner enquiry: perhaps through action research and case study.
It’s a paradox to say that these objectives are not ends in themselves. However, we see them more as catalysts: ways of bringing colleagues together on occasions like today, of encouraging dissemination of ideas, critical discussion and the improvement of practice.
But what is e-learning? Now, behind the objectives of our project there is a key question - What is elearning? – to which I don’t think we have an uncomplicated answer .
It’s a question which has generated a good deal of what I’d call grey literature. In my view much of that literature responds, not with a principled answer but with a catalogue of technologies. Oh elearning is online forums and messaging and moodle. And I don’t think that’s satisfactory.
Clustering around this question is a set of related questions to do with values in education, ideology and online identity. This is a question which gives rise to some interesting tensions. And, in referring to tensions I don’t mean to be either negative or pejorative. Rather, these are dynamic tensions which, as a team, we find it worthwhile to engage and which, we find, can encourage some creative thinking and productive approaches.
I hope, today, we can have some conversations around this question. Indeed we might even have some conversations as to whether or not it’s a useful question anyway.
This is a comfortable conference centre which should provide some comfortable space for conversations. Perhaps we can use some of those comfortable spaces to ask what are sometimes uncomfortable questions about our practices and to challenge each other about our often implicit assumptions and beliefs around learning technologies.
In that respect I’m looking forward to John Naughton’s talk later this morning. And my guess is that John will question some of our common sense assumptions.
Blog and Wiki This is the kind of question which you’ll find us exploring in our blog and wiki. You can look at these today and we’d encourage you to comment on the conference and workshops directly. We’ve only a limited supply of laptops here today so sometimes you might need to use old technology and record your impressions on paper. But, after the conference, we’d certainly encourage a continuing conversation and a continuing collaboration with you online.
Conference Expectations So, what should you as delegates get from today’s conference? And what, as presenters and organisers, do we want from the conference?
I’m confident that this is a forum for mutual interests.
We want to join you in exploring learning technologies which might relate to practice.
We want to join you in meeting others and establishing productive and collaborative ventures.
We want to find out more about your practice and look for opportunities for engagement with your work.
We’re looking, too, for descriptive material for our map. And opportunities for case study and practitioner enquiry.
And, of course, we also want you to enjoy yourselves. And there should be plenty of opportunities for that today.
Workshop details
Second Life and Moodle; using a multi-user virtual environment to engage learners – Jacquie Bennett, COLMCST Fellowship
This session will be presented virtually from Cetlment Island, within Second Life (www.secondlife.com). Second Life is a MUVE (Multi-user Virtual Environment) with over 3 million subscribers where users interact,communicate, move and even work and play using an 'avatar' which they can customise. This session will show users around Cetlment Island which has been built as a teaching and learning space, demonstrate some of the teaching and learning tools being built on the island and explain how they are being used. There will hopefully be an opportunity for participants to create an avatar and join the virtual session during the conference breaks.
OU i-Skills project - helping students survive online - John Woodthorpe
Open University students are now required to access a range of online resources and to use a computer for some parts of their studies. When the need to work electronically was limited to a few courses, the skills necessary for this were taught as part of the courses. However this approach is not feasible now that all students need a similar set of skills. This session will describe one way the OU is working to develop and support the necessary ICT and information skills in students who would otherwise struggle to acquire them. The simultaneous introduction of Moodle as part of the OU's new Virtual Learning Environment provides further challenges and opportunities, both in the content and the delivery methods used, and these will be discussed.
OpenLearn (Moodle): open source VLE - Alex Little and Elia Tomadaki
The aim of this session is to introduce the OpenLearn project and the LabSpace environment (content and tools). By the end of the session you should be able to identify what OpenLearn is and what resources are available to practitioners and learners.
We will show how the users can connect to each other and form communities of practice according to their common learning interests via the instant messaging tool MSG and the videoconferencing system FlashMeeting.
OpenLearn Labspace: re-using generic modules available online - Jenny Gray
This session will introduce LabSpace as an experimental zone where practitioners and self-motivated learners can download open content resources introduced in the OpenLearn website. Here we will look at why and how content can be remixed in XML format or using the Moodle platform.
Compendium - Michelle Bachler
Compendium is a software tool for organising thoughts, representing and visualising a network of information. You can connect icons linked to ideas, concepts, arguments, websites and documents. During this workshop, we will discuss how Compendium can be used in the LabSpace for creating and sharing maps. We will explore some mapping techniques such as: concept mapping, mind mapping, argument mapping and web mapping.
Feedback
Let us know what the conference meant to you, what you took away and what you left behind. Visit the feedback pages and/or comment on the blog.
