Assignment Feedback

Having just received my final TMA03 assignment result today I find myself reflecting on this work. I am very pleased with my grade since it surpasses my other two grades in H807 but I feel a little empty with the amount of feedback. Of course I should be happy just to pass the assignment but I guess at post graduate level study you become more critical about the work you present and probably seek more quality feedback. Am I alone here? Or should I just be content that I’ve ticked that box and should concentrate my efforts on the next task, the dreaded ECA?

For those interested in calculating your overall continuous assessment score (OCAS) I have produced a simple spreadsheet in Google documents please feel free to use and enter your own results. http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AqBz_GD5TFQodGI3Y2E0SGVBRngtdk9LRE5tWC00Ync&hl=en_GB

Discover the Benefits of Diigo

Although I have only had a quick look round the capabilities of this online tool it initially looks to have far more functionality than delicious. Setting up an account was quick especially if you already have a google, facebook or twitter account. Although I am yet to add any useful links please feel free to explore my Diigo account at http://www.diigo.com/profile/Markcollins305

Diigo appears to be social bookmarking but on new level. Features include bookmarking favourite sites that can be shared with others via groups or networks. The additions over delicious include a blog feature with personal profile so others can read about your interest – for me this helps to get an idea of the persons background and motivation to collaborate online, I guess what I am saying is it helps to judge the professionalism of the which adds weight behind any suggested or recommended sites.

The highlighting and sticky notes feature urges me to move away from my preferred method of printing online text to read and make notes all over; I’m a creature of habit so it might take a little more convincing before I ditch the hardcopy preference. Organising your items by tags or lists helps to gain ready access to archived pages which can be accessed from anywhere. The forth coming iPhone app promising to be extremely useful offering to download files for offline browsing – this feature would help users to save money of 3G network charges especially if a user downloads files using WiFi hotspots. To learn more about the features please view the video http://www.diigo.com/learn_more.

What does Flickr offer?

Users can create accounts and upload photographs (and video) into their own photostream’. Public photographs can be seen by anyone with internet access. Private photographs can be shared with other registered Flickr users. Once loaded on to Flickr the owner and any other registered users can add comments about a picture. They can mark a picture with tags, which can then be used to search the public photographs on Flickr. Users can create groups where they and other users can place photographs, which they want to share for any purpose. Groups can be public or private with membership either open to any registered user or by invitation only.

So why use Flickr? A colleague suggests that Flickr gives him the flexibility to take photos and video clips on his phone and upload them to site to shared with friends and family. Well this feature is also available on Facebook and Twitter so why use flickr? Well I guess the advantage here is that many photos are placed in the public domain so others can view and make use. The benefits of Flickr are very apparent for students studying digital media courses as identified by in Stockport College case study: Using Flickr is very popular with the students, both as a personal tool and for their course. One student said: ‘As far as I’m concerned the more people that [see my work] the better’. Flickr gives students a way of exposing their work both to people within the college and to the world. It can provide a showcase for them to promote themselves and their work. Minocha (2009, p.75).

Outside of this topic area I struggle to see the educational or learning opportunities for this service but I am receptive to suggestions. Perhaps Flickr could be used by a distributed community of chefs learning to improve their dish presentation skills. Each group member could upload how they would present a set menu option with a view to receive feedback from others to help grow their ability to make a better impression.

Minocha, Shailey (2009). A study of the effective use of social software to support student learning and engagement.JISC, University of Bristol. Available online http://oro.open.ac.uk/16141/3/Effective-use-of-Social-Software-in-Education-CaseStudies.pdf (Accessed 28 May 10)

Week 12 – Usability

For this activity I choose to investigate the usability of the BBC bite size website as my daughter is using it to revise for her immanent GCSE Maths exam. The World Usability Website simply describes usability as something that makes life easier and more user friendly; ‘technology today is too hard to use. A cell phone should be as easy to access as a doorknob’ (World Usability Website, 2010). I am not sure I agree that any technology should be as easy as using a door knob but get the meaning that you should not have to read a manufacturers manual to operate it!

On the surface the Bitesize website looks very well laid out through adult eyes; nice choice of colours, simple layout design, not too fussy, easy to navigate between topics and move into other subject areas. My 14 year old saw it from a different angle. Whilst the idea of having a chat facility on the site to discuss questions and issues could be a great addition she does not know anyone who would use it. In fact at the time of viewing less that 10 people have contributed to it in the last week. She would rather use facebook to discuss revision questions within her own social network of friends. Now where does this fit within the Pyramid of Usability? I initially thought ‘context-specific’ might be the best fit but then again the ‘general’ level covers the accessibilities and more specifically the user’s comfort to using a certain channel to communicate with others. Perhaps the model does not cater for personal preferences?

Jakob Nielsen (2010) makes a very interesting statement that ‘web users spend 80% of their time looking at information above the page fold. Although users do scroll, they allocate only 20% of their attention below the fold’. Below the fold means the web content that you need to scroll down to view. This agrees with my own experience and I also observed my daughter only giving a cursory glance at the content on the bottom of the screen. To be fair the Bitesize site hosts the majority of useful and relevant subject matter at the top of the web pages. This fits well within the ‘general’ level of the pyramid of usability as the structure is clear to use and easy to navigate around.

The mobile version of the website is a different matter and very much depends on the device and viewing setting. For example I used a PDA to access the same content and images are removed so you have a different look and feel at the expense of efficiency of navigation. The PDA view setting enable better usability by arranging the content into a single column so you only have to scroll down and not across as well. I think the BBC do a great job catering for mobile users which is more than I say about some providers of learning materials.

World Usability Day (2010) World Usablity Day – Making Life Easer, http://www.worldusabilityday.org/ (Accessed 26 Apr 2010)

Jakob Nielsen (2010) Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox – Scrolling and Attention, http://www.useit.com/alertbox/scrolling-attention.html (Accessed 27 Apr 2010)

TMA 01 Feedback and Reflection

On the surface TMA01 initially appeared to be a simple 800 word report on JISC case studies followed by a 500 word reflection. Although I am very pleased with the 70% grade the reality of the task was much larger than initially thought. This was made much more difficult be the volume of information required to be covered whilst remaining within the academic word limits.

On the whole I am pleased with this first assignment but as my primary school teacher used to bark at me ‘you can do better Collins!’. So what should I watch out for next time?

• Ensuring I get the context right when quoting from someone’s blog entry.
• Not use Italics to when directly quoting from written text. (Not sure about this one as I have written several masters papers with the Portsmouth University and through H800 last year doing exactly that!)
• Ensure I realise and meet the self stated aims of the assignment.
• Leave enough time to ask a work colleague or family member to proof read before submitting the assignment.

Unfortunately due to going on holiday for two weeks I had already submitted TMA02 before I received the feedback from TMA01. Let’s hope the tutor shows some mercy when marking my next assignments with probably some of the same mistakes!

Wk11 - Social Bookmarking

Social bookmarking can be used in an educational context for online and distance learners who are working on a shared project. A social bookmarking site such as del.ici.ous can host URL references for the whole group to use and be accessed from their distributed locations.

I can see universities using social bookmarking as a means to conduct learning activities on how to research and reference materials for their student’s studies. For example a cohort of freshmen learners could be tasked to research a topic to find various useful references that could be used to support the academic grounding required for a shared project. Learners could be guided to rate the value and relevance of the links they find which can be reviewed by others to confirm findings. This could be a useful exercise to get students into the habit of recording and documenting useful research journals or academic papers for their studies.

From my limited experience of using del.ici.ous one of the greatest advantages of using social bookmarking is the web based login, it has enabled me to sign into my account on any computer. This is especially useful for me as studying has to fit around my busy life style on the road; at different times of the day I might access my links from my home PC, work PC or laptop and very occasionally from a shared computer terminal in other training establishments that I visit. Having my bookmarks available where ever I go is great as I am able to fit my studying in as and when I can.



The freedom to use a folksomony meta tagging system without having to stick to some metadata taxonomy means users can label tags that are relevant to themselves. As seen in my screenshot above I have used this to label some links with tags such as H807 ECA. Other students studying this course are able to search the meta tags using same data to find what some else has identified as a useful link for this course.

Wk11 - RSS Feeds

RSS feeds are an absolute blessing; I am totally sold on their ability to display all the details I wish to follow in one place. I started using Google Reader last year to help follow a few interesting sites to help grow my knowledge of information from various sources on professional websites and blogs in elearning. The convenience factor has grown this year when I realised that I could also host RSS feeds from other student’s blogs including those using OU blogs. Before this discovery I was spending much time individually visiting other people’s blogs and felt disappointed when I got here that nothing had changed since my last visit or I had missed sometimes a few days previous. As can be seen from the screen capture below Google Reader display all my feeds in one place.



Having visited a number of other blogs at the beginning of this course I saw how powerful RSS feeds could be to help keep track of other people’s blog comments in our tutor group by hosting RSS news feeds from other blogs. The snippet of information held in the news feed lets the viewer/visitor know when the writer makes a new post and offer a title or headline. The idea being if the snippet hooks your interest you are able to quickly visit the site to see to full blog post by selecting the hyperlink. The best bit for me is that the new feed display the blog posts in the order they were last posted making it even easier to view and follow others contributions.



So what are the negatives?
This is difficult to express with all the advantages given already but I guess the reverse of containing all your information in place means you might be narrowing you search for new material. The main disadvantage for me is that most MOD IT systems do not support the use of RSS feeds due to security restriction especially across limited networks.

If you are not using Google Reader I would fully recommend its use for studying with the OU.

Wk 11 – Mashups

Mashups are simply a mixture of several media sources used to provide a single integrated output. They can be used to reinforce a visual concept and be easily created by students with basic web based tools.

I found one example which uses google maps to overlay marker that indicate certain geographical significance. In this example it displays where your country lies in the ‘Quality of Living Survey’ so viewers can quickly picture or interpret the survey results. http://www.findmapping.com/bestcities/qualityliving.php

Mashups can use a variety of digital media sources such as video clips overlayed with sound tracks. This next example brings home a simple yet effective message which might appeal to a younger generation that might have actually created themselves. This example shows a strong message about AIDS. http://www.videomashups.ca/mashups/mu_video.php?Reggae AIDS Mashup

Where can it be used?
Well actually Steve in our tutor group shows us an excellent example of how he used it in his blog http://theguyot.blogspot.com/2010/03/i-need-more-hours.html. For those who have not seen it yet he polled his tutor group to see where they were based in order to decide the best location to meet for a tutorial. Hats off to you Steve I was well impressed with how this displayed the results of you poll and I guess supported your decision?

Wk10 - Self Disclosure

The Weisband and Kiesler research paper on ‘Self Disclosure on Computer Forms’ had a purpose to identify the meta-analysis of data and highlight the implications found. The main hypothesis was based on responses to completing computer forms would show people to be more disclosing than compared with interviews or written forms. The main arguments being ‘(1) that computer interfaces lack social context cues, which in turn causes reduced evaluation anxiety, feelings of safety or invulnerability, and less concern with looking good, and (2) that people lack experience with computers and therefore are not aware of the risks of self-disclosure of personal information to a computer’ (Weisband and Kiesler, 1996, p.4). The paper was dated in April 1996 and reported on statistical analysis literature from 1969 to 1994. Although the research confirms this claim I could not help considering how more recent research might generate different findings.

I was drawn to this paper as the abstract question suggests that people disclose more on a computer form than they do in an interview or paper form and I was unsure this agreed with my own experience. The research is somewhat dated and I wonder how much of the research would stand today where the general users of computers are more techno-savvy. I would like to think that most people in 2010 are more aware of the implication that data protection, free of information and request for information have on disclosing personal and sensitive information electronically. Perhaps in the last decade we have been exposed to more criminal activity online which acts as a deterrent to disclosing too much data unless we have an element of control. The recent scares in the tabloids about giving away too much personal information on social networking sites has lead to people being more conscious about exposing personal data by taking control of their own security settings and limiting the flow of information to family and friends.

Does how little we disclose via computers adversely effect our online identity?

Weisband, S. and Kiesler, S. (1996) 'Self-disclosure on computer forms: meta-analysis and implications', Proceedings of CHI '96 [online] http://portal.acm.org.libezproxy.open.ac.uk/citation.cfm?doid=238386.238387 (Accessed February 2008).

Wk 10 - Social Cue Replacements

The lack of non-verbal cues in computer-mediated communications has been widely researched and the H807 guided reading on social cues identified some very interesting points which I have not previously considered.

In the adaptation theories under social identification model of deindividualised effects (SIDE) Walther (2006, p.4) identifies that ‘SIDE theorists argue that the process of CMC interaction often facilitates group identification’. Operating online under visual anonymity allow the group members to not see that they differ from one another idiosyncratically. This could be seen as an advantage if all you wish to achieve is a task focussed output. Walther goes on to mention that ‘without visual information users do not identify with one another as individuals’. So is that why we display thumb nails of ourselves in blogs and forum posts so others see our individuality. The Walther (2006, p.5) hyperpersonal CMC research suggests that ‘among strangers, a photo enhanced affection and social interaction relative to no photo’. Does this connection help us to form quicker bonds online to work as distributed team?

Although I am not in the habit of using the ‘cue surrogates’ of emoticons in email or forum posts I can identify with the advantages. Rezabek and Cocenour (cited in Walther, 2006, p.9) comment on the lack of visual cues in email such as ‘nodding, facial expression, posture, and eye contact found in FtF communications, CMC users often incorporate emoticons as visual cues to augment the meaning of textual electronic messages’. What surprised me with this research is that females use them more frequently than males do. I ask myself the question why that is. Are men less concerned or bothered about conveying the right textual message? I have no answers but would be interesting to see what other think about using emoticons.

The use of avatars in online social gaming has become hugely popular but the use of the less manipulable form of avatars known as anthropomorphic icons identifies interesting gender relationships. Research conducted by Isotalus (2003, cited in Walther, 2006, p.11) identified that engagement with news stories was dependant on the apparent gender of the icon. ‘Participants paid more attention when the icon appeared to be female. Further males found the news more credible when accompanied by a male icon, where as females’ credibility assessments were higher for female icons’. Does gender actually make a difference in levels of engagement in the way we study with the OU?

Walther, J.B. (2006) ‘Nonverbal dynamics in computer-mediated communication, or :( and the net :( ’s with you, :) and you :) alone’ in Manusov, V. and Patterson, M.L. (eds) Handbook of Nonverbal Communication, Thousand Oaks, CA, Sage.

Week 10 Activity 4 - Podcast Creation

This activity has taken alot longer than the 2-3 hours that were suggested from course materials. The ‘understanding podcasting’ guidance appeared to be dated as a consequence I was unable to upload my first podcast to the Rostra site. Initially I thought this was a bit frustrating but actually I am glad because it has made me independently research how to create and broadcast a podcast using PodBean a free professional looking podcast hosting service.

Decisions, decisions, so what should you choose to talk about in your first podcast? I had considered a number of topics but finally decided to talk a little about the week 10 activity 3 task on SWOT analysis covered in my last blog post. OK, i admit the recording might not be that inspirational but please forgive as this is my first steps into using this new technology.

Taking the purest view on podcasting you can subscribe to the RSS feed on my podcast by cutting and pasting the following link into your syndication reader (goggle reader for me). All going well this enables Google reader to display the latest podcast as and when I upload it to the PodBean site.
http://markcollins305.podbean.com/feed/

PodBean also enables you to embed html code into your own website or blog page (also facebook and myspace but I have not tried these yet) so that you can enable users to access the podcast without using a syndication service. Hopefuly if it all works well you be able to play my 5 minute podcast by selecting the play button below.


Powered by Podbean.com

I have thoroughly enjoyed conducting this activity it has diffinitly been rewarding all I need to do now is figure out how I can introduce this technology into my own work environment. Perhaps I might use this as an activity in the ECA work due in a few months time?

The final step left to explore is how do I download the podcast from iTunes onto an iPod to complete the whole process. Sadly I have not invested in an iPod just yet but I must be due to treat myself soon!!

Week 10 Activity 3 – SWOT analysis of podcasting

In this weeks continued activities I attempt to identify a SWOT analysis on podcasting. Although my experience at present is fairly limited on the subject of podcasting, from my initial online research I have formed the following observations:

Strengths
• Empowers users to create and publish audio content directly and seamlessly to the web.
• Students are familiar with technology and already engage well with the mobile devices that play podcasts ie iPods and MP3 player.
• Allows education to be more portable then before.
• Good for specific language training especially for hearing and rehearsing the pronunciation of words.
• Learners choose where and when they wish to listen to content.
• Similar concept to radio broadcasting but delivered via internet syndication and can be listened to on mobile devices.
• Socially acceptable for learner to study without the stigma being attached to studying around others that may not wish to engage with their studies.
• Great for recording interviews with professionals and playing back to large and distributed audiences.
• Delivery via RSS feeds means user can subscribe to podcast channels and receive updates to their syndication reader as they are uploaded.

Weaknesses
• Podcasts are not designed for two way conversation or interaction.
• Users must have sufficient bandwidth to download podcasts.
• Limited usefulness for people with hearing impairments.
• Quality of the speakers voice needs to be engaging with variety of intonations.
• Quality of recording equipment must produce audio content with minimal interferences or distractions ie feedback buzzing or background noises.

Opportunities
• Flexible learning - Enables students to catch up on lectures that they may have missed.
• Learner can choose how many times they wish to engage with the audio learning content making it good for consolidation purposes.
• Audience could participate in walk through actions similar to the audio self guides used in museums or places of special interest.
• Combining podcasting tracks with either pictures or videoing facilities.

Threats
• Access in the work place for me this is difficult working on MOD IT systems which have restricted use of web2.0 tools.
• Lack of attention in the lecture hall, some students may opt to listen to podcasts of other lessons in the lecture theatre.
• If recording group sessions, do we need to obtain everyone’s consent to publish audio content in the public domain?
• Delivery via RSS feeds only may limit the audience on IT infrastructures that do not support syndication due to security restrictions. This is a very important limitation within my own area of work.

This list should not be viewed as exhaustive as new ways to benefit from these technologies are every present so new barriers emerge. Please feel free to comment on my thoughts so far?

Week10 Activity 2 – Share experiences of mobile devices

I have not yet used my MP3 player for downloading podcasts althrough I do have a few audio recordings of TV comedy shows such as The Good Life and Al Murray Pub Landlord. That said I have subscribed to the JISC podcast service for the last year and access it through my RSS Google Reader feed. This enables me to listen to latest interviews on good practice in elearning. Although I do not currently use a mobile device for podcasts I can see how others would benefit from having access to mobile learning content whilst on the move. For example if I commuted on a train for an hour everyday I might be tempted to use this dead time for learning.

A few years ago I recorded some important revision notes on dictophone to help my wife prepare for her final university exams in nursing. As she suffers from dyslexia and finds it difficult to remember things from just reading the text in books or on screen. The audio reference material helped to reinforce her memory, this method of learning must have been beneficial for her as she passed the examination with flying colours.

I am very interested in hearing other successfully instances of using audio recording.

Week 10 Activity 1 - Listen to a Podcast

Using the The Education Podcast Network, the home page suggests that its audience are educators or people who have an interest in sharing their knowledge, insight and passion for teaching and learning. I guess this could appeal to a much larger community with people who share a general interest in this field. I don’t think you have to be an educator just to benefit from playing the podcasts.

Could I imagine using the podcasts in for teaching or learning? Yes, I could see how learner could benefit from being able to download podcasts and play them on mobile devices. My first use could be to host consolidation training for procedural voice sequences such as commands to control ship conning manoeuvres. I think young trainees might be interested in listening to interviews with experienced sailors who have served many years at sea. Also for our training manager specialisation I believe interviews with professional people on the subjects of new educational and training innovations could be hugely beneficial. Finally, perhaps a podcast that guides a new joiner around an unfamiliar ship layout; describing and explaining various points of interest on route similar to the audio devices that museum uses as a self guide around artefacts.

My initial list of potential barriers for engagement with podcasts is:
a. Ability to listen -The immediately obvious barrier for pod casting would be the problem that the people hearing impairment might be disadvantaged dependant on the level of their disability.
b. Access in the work place - My concerns would be specific to the Defence IT environment where security limitations forbid USB access devices from connecting to MOD computer systems. The podcasts would need to be downloaded on learners own IT at home; some might not wish to do this or immediately have the ability to do this when a new podacst is available. Perhaps a specific standalone computer could be been approved for the single purpose of downloading podcasts but this limits where trainees can access the content.

Why Wiki?

A wikis is a collection of web pages which can be shared and edited by multiple viewers. Its main purpose is to act as an easily accessible medium to enable the sharing of ideas and comments whilst engaging collective collaborative and wide participation. Ward Cunningham, the developer of the first wiki software, WikiWikiWeb, originally described it as ‘the simplest online database that could possibly work’ (Ward, 2002, cited in Wikipedia, 2010a). A good starting point for understanding what a wiki offers can be found the Educause report which identifies seven things you should know about wikis available http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7004.pdf

Users are able to edit any page and can create new pages within a wiki web site using simple web based authorising tools which do not require any client side downloads. The development of wiki pages help to promote useful subject associations between other wiki pages using simple hyperlink. Wikis seek to involve the viewer with ongoing process of creation and collaboration that constantly changes the Web site landscape; this dynamic environment aims to be refreshed by user generated content.

Wikis are often used by academic establishments as part of a blended e-learning solution to promote collaborative work between a specific cohort of learners to produce a joint piece of evidence. Online distance learners can use wikis as means to connect with other group members to develop a project. This web based asynchronous tool fits well with all the advantages identified in e-learning where learners can make contributions at their own pace but be able to instantly display others the details they wish to share.

The must famous wiki of all is Wikipedia accessed at www.wikipedia.org. This online research tool is much more than just an online encyclopaedia. ‘Since its creation in 2001, Wikipedia has grown rapidly into one of the largest reference web sites, attracting nearly 68 million visitors monthly as of January 2010. There are more than 91,000 active contributors working on more than 15,000,000 articles in more than 270 languages’ (Wikipedia, 2010b). The main advantage over a paper based encyclopaedia is the search function; from this you are able to have a powerful and comprehensive database of information at your finger tips.

Although the history facility enables users to track changes and contributions the main problem with Wikipedia is the validity of the content. That said, user added content is moderated and edited by many other people who share an interest in a specific topic. The speed at which a contribution is edited and corrected by a large body of volunteers is very impressive. Unlike paper reference materials, Wikipedia is continually updated, with the creation or updating of articles on historic events within hours, minutes, or even seconds, rather than months or years for printed encyclopaedias.

From my own experience some academic establishments question the validity of the content taken from online wiki resources unless the details are backed up peer review papers or journals. This puts pressure on the user community to consider value added content and relies on the social values expressed by a ‘community of practice’ (Wenger 1996). Weller continues this thought and adds that ‘individuals learn by participating in a real-context community’ (Weller, 2006, p.12). The values required are that of trust in others, support gained from peer group learning, the sharing of ideas, identity in community spirit and the building of shared ownership.

For a simple illustration on how users can benefit from using a wiki please view the youtube clip that explains wikis in plain English at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dnL00TdmLY.

References

Weller (2006) Weller, M.J. (2006) ‘The distance from isolation: why communities are the logical conclusion in e-learning’ in Dias de Figueiredo, A. and Afonso, A. (eds) Managing Learning in Virtual Settings: The Role of Context, Hershey, PA, Information Science Publishing.

Wenger, E. (1996) Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning and Identity, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

Wikipedia (2010a) ‘Wikipedia definition for Wiki’ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki#cite_note-3 (Accessed 30 Mar 10)

Wikipedia (2010b) ‘Wikipedia, Help:About’, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:About (Accessed 30 Mar 10)