And so .... the end is near.....

I have finished teaching for the year and am now on the home stretch as far as marking is concerned.

The reflective assignments from the 3rd year social work students were a revelation. I will definitely re-run this group project next year.

Despite some gripes about the project not being assessed (I am reconsidering this) the level of engagement with the project and with the reflection was tremendous.

Some students clearly started out on this project and on the formation of their groups with the view that the whole process was "fake" and that putting together an online presentation over 9 weeks or so was going to give them very little insight into how groups work "in the wild". Their reflections tell a different story and the sophistication with which some of them have applied theories of group dynamics, team roles and motivation theory has been quite inspiring.

What is more, the projects themselves have provided a legacy - a set of resources about the art and craft of leadership which are going to be invaluable not just for future students, but for me too!

I also feel really inspired by the students' ingenuity - the range of TV programmes and films studied (from Toy Story 3 to Hell's Kitchen) as well as the platforms used (Facebook, Wordpress, Powerpoint) has been enriching and the freedom to be creative is something most embraced eagerly in the midst of a heavy final year.

Some have been troubled by the need to wrangle the technology but the exercise also produced some real "stars" in terms of getting to grips with the on-line platforms.

So what will I do differently next time?

Probably introduce some form of credit for the work actually produced and reduce the amount of reflection to be done alongside the presentation.

Instead, reflection on the group process could be an option for their exam (I HAVE to give them an exam, apparently).

Give them a free choice of platform, film, and even topic (leadership, motivation, group process, team types, organisational culture etc.....)

What I won't do - but would love to - is give them one another's reflections to digest.

The variety of perspectives was dizzying at times and that would be the real way to learn about teams.... however they would (I would!) write very differently if their work was going to be reviewed by peers. But maybe there should be some part of the process where they ARE encouraged to do a group reflection?

Maybe actually all teams should do this from time to time....?

So if you'd like to see the student's work,(with their consent) here are a couple of Facebook Pages (The Beach) (Hell's Kitchen) and a Wordpress site. I'll be adding the Powerpoint presos to Slideshare shortly....

About those podcasts.....

I have had a horrid cold this last week and so, confined to my sofa with lemsip and laptop, I have been catching up on some reading (well, browsing Twitter).

An article about the growing interest in podcasting in HE took me to a video presentation from Gilly Salmon on the subject, and eventually to ipadio.

Gilly's talk about pedagogical podcasting ended by convincing me of two things: 1)that "podcast" does not have to mean lecture capture and 2) that there is value in the human voice supplementing written or visual material to encourage and support even on-campus students.

I have long been averse to podcasting precisely because I didn't want to offer recordings of lectures. I don't really DO lectures, so maybe that's why. I HAVE however used audio instructions to supplement written ones for students - on preparing assignments, for example - and I have had positive feedback from students about how they do indeed value that "human touch".

I am a big fan of screencapture and I still intend to do more of this - particularly in giving students feedback on assignments. There are times when the audio and the visual need to come together - to (literally) illustrate a key point, perhaps - but Gilly had evidence to show that pedagogical audio podcasting also has a place.

Where audio wins out over screencapture/video is in file size, downloadability, speed and simplicity. The almost universal provision of voicerecorders and mp3 players in mobile phones makes audio podcasting a very efficient way of getting information to students on the move.

So now we come to ipadio (rhyming with i-radio). This is a website hosting "phlogs" - voice based blogs that you phone in. It is also an iphone (and android) app that allows you to record high quality audio using "voice memo" and upload it to your phlog. You can also download the phlog post for editing or upload an mp3 file you have already created. There are one-click links to Facebook, Twitter, and many other blogging sites, codes to allow you to embed the phlog on your own website, upload it to iTunes or provide an RSS feed. One absolutely astounding feature is the incorporation of Spinvox speech to text software which provides a transcript of the phlog. This really adds to the application's accessibility. And you can add images and location data if needed. In fact there is so much going on here that the possibilities are endless.

My own modest ambition is to embed a regular phlog within the VLE Learning Room (I have already successfully done this in a test) as a means of supplementing the module I am teaching. As I have already abandoned the lecture format, my aim is to give the students online and printable material together with audio podcasts which direct them in key activities such as discussion board topics and further self-organised study. Our face to face time can then be used for more in depth discussion of the material and work on group projects.

I have embedded a phlog below, with a photo for illustrative purposes. Enjoy!

How I got that Prezi .....

I promised @nlafferty that I would blog a little about the Prezi process and share some tips for speeding it up a little: I spent MUCH longer creating the prezi than a powerpoint, but mainly because I had to go through a big learning curve too.

Tip #1: create a story board too and rough out a design: I actually decided on the circular frames and created something on paper which allowed me to decide where I wanted to group certain ideas first.

Tip #2: think visuals first. I think Prezi is so preeminently a visual thing, the last thing you want or need is a lot of words or God forbid! bullet points... Also there is no "layering" or "ordering" on Prezi, so what goes down first is on the bottom. Put in visuals then add text on top.

Tip #3: I actually created visuals on Powerpoint first - eg found Flickr images or Clipart photos with lots of white space around them; saved the slides as separate JPEGs then uploaded to Prezi, so the image appears to emerge from the white background with no frame. Where the image was on a background, I used Powerpoint formatting to put it in a frame, added a shadow or reflection and then cropped it tightly so that it would appear to be a photo pinned to the Prezi canvas.

Note: the visuals - sourcing, converting, formatting and editing - was the most labour intensive part of the exercise. I have kept a folder of all the images used so I can re-cycle when necessary!

Tip #4 I tried to avoid motion sickness (!!) by not having too many extreme zooms, changes of direction or big panning effects. Grouping things fairly close together and making gentle moves at slight angles for the most part, big effects once in a while to jazz things up or change topic.

Tip#5 Learn from others: look at the show-cased prezis and work out how they did them; watch some of the tutorial videos. I was inspired by @adamread 's lovely prezi on designing posters.

Tip #6 Take your time! I found myself stealing an hour here and there, whilst watching TV or sitting in a hotel room during a few days working in Scotland recently, to actually work on the Prezi. It became frankly a bit addictive. I also found it a very rewarding and creative experience - I absolutely loved working with the visuals and finessing the layout.

Tip #7 STOP when it' s done: This is not a good medium for anyone of a slightly Obssessive Compulsive tendency (like me) - a point comes where you have to say, hey this is good enough!

If any one would has their own favourite tips to share, please add them in the comments below.

Top Ten tools

for (on line) learning:


http://www.c4lpt.co.uk/recommended/janechallinor.html




itunes - educational podcasts: I found a series of Spanish podcasts that have transformed my learning of the language, convincing me there has to be more value in this medium than I currently exploit more with my own students

Twitter - the place for links, updates, chat, sharing, collecting opinions, professional and social networking

Ning - I have been part of two really valuable Ning communities for learning this year: I really like its flexibility, the attractive designs available. I intend to use it with my own students in the coming year.

Skype - invaluable for tutorials with my students and yet again for my own Spanish language studies: I meet with a teacher on line every fortnight to practice conversation

elluminate Vroom - free on line classroom (for up to three people)

Wimba create - bit of a fan currently - using to develop on line learning materials for Blackboard-hosted courses.

Camstudio - screencapture software (free download) which can be edited in movie maker with separate audio if needed.

Slideshare - upload powerpoint presentations and documents to share easily with others. Source of great learning resources too

Googledocs - brilliant tool for collaboration and sharing

Blogger - still there as my blog tool of choice


and number 11 would be diigo.com - social bookmarking site: save web links, network, create discussion groups, annotate pages and store notes.

keep it simple, stooopid

I enjoyed this post - which is a quote from another blog..... just passing on goodies here, really.

The point is one I take to heart - we cannot wait around for the technology or the firewalls to catch up with our need to connect: we have to use available technology, make the links that we can and get cracking!

I am planning to set up a Grou.ps site for my team which spans a number of faculties, so we can share our professional profiles, register our interests, share documents, chat about common interests, work on projects together and find out who is available for delivering new programmes to coporate clients. Sharing links to some key websites would also be a great idea.

I am a big fan of Grou.ps : it actually does provide the simple, single site that Scott Leslie fears we may not be able to lay our hands on yet, and one or two of you have already started to discover how handy it can be for your own group communication needs - for those who haven't yet, explore!!

Free stuff......

I recently came across this interesting site where you can easily publish, edit and maintain your own website for free. For anyone wanting to be creative: Weebly

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If you are looking for Office compatible software - for free - try: Open Office

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Or genuine MS Office 2007 very cheap Software4students

(It's all legal too!)