trying out image links

shape of real events either end of the summer

Now that drupa is over I think there is a sort of natural break till around September while it all sinks in to the collective mind. I still think drupa is the source of communications technology, even as a demo of web video. Cross Media Live looks interesting now. I am convinced that people in the print industry will take a good look. There is no Southprint. Sometime in the autumn there will be a Futures conference at the London College of Communication. These used to be linked to Digital Print world or a similar event. Not sure how the dates will fit but there won't be much of a gap. There may also be a face-to-face version of #mtw3. Currently there is a LinkedIn group and a blog. In the next few weeks there is likeminds in Exeter, a celebration of 30 years of MAMLL in Lancaster, and a review of the MoSO model. The MoSO meeting is not closed but assumes some prior knowledge. Some of the themes from these three events will continue in September. I think of #mtw3 as there all the time in background at least. A social media phase works well for me. I am posting here as Posterous seems to have slowed down at the moment. I use that more now as I put various topics in and it gradually becomes more coherent. This is still about learn and 9 , learning through a quality model. But the LCC is in there somewhere with an application mode.

Quality, Learning, OFSTED and Fear

I was very interested in this news item Previous posts have tried to connect theory about learning and quality. There is critique of quality systems as restrictive and derived from Fordism. There can also be concern that performance targets from HR detract from continuous improvement. The situation around OFSTED might allow for discussion that related both to learning and quality. by the way http://www.simoncaulkin.com includes archive of old Observer writing ----------- This was also posted at will789gb.posterous.com but this is taking a while to appear. I am hoping to relate several issues together during today. http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2012/may/12/schools-face-talent-drain

Design Thinking , Wikipedia seeks input

Alas, "original research" is not the sort of thing the Wikipedia welcomes. If there is some on the page for "Design Thinking" then please help to add some references. I found this looking for more on "Design Science" as in the bew book by Diana Laurillard. Google blogsearch ends up here on this occasion. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_thinking By the way, getting an actual book may not be simple. The Queen is coming to Exeter this week to open the new architecture at the university. Main change of function is that there is no bookshop. So something considered on how to do teaching should be in stock somewhere. Sorry, I exaggerate a bit. Blackwells continues in a portacabin for a week or two. Then there will be some sort of assisted access to a screen for the website. And the other tech resources could be useful. I try to keep an open mind but still think a bookshop can be part of a mix.

Diana Laurillard in Singapore

This looks interesting http://ial-als.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/keynote-speaker-professor-diana_13.html There is a symposium coming up in Singapore about Adult Learning. Seems a good context for teaching as a design science. But I'm still not clear what is meant. This could be significant if applied to all forms of teaching. Trouble with reading blogs is that you often find you need to buy a book.

London College of Communications

As drupa starts up I realise there may be a good case for the change of name. Communication is what the show is about. It is still the case that London College of Printing is well known. The London School of Economics has managed to persuade people that it covers other subjects as well. So there is still some debate but the LCC name is there at the moment. I am also thinking about the Management Theory at Work conference or online phase ( search on #mtw3 ) This may include a case study such as the Open University where surveys on student opinion are fairly positive and the resources relate well to technology trends. The LCC has had substantial cuts in funding. Creative skills for new media actually need a lot of equipment but as far as I can see there is no comparison with science budgets. There appears to be some issues, as indicated by blogs. There must be some presentations available on what the LCC is doing from a management perspective. But I find the blogs and gossip more readily. Maybe this will continue in background mode.

Peter Senge is still relevant for the Management Theory at Work conference I think. There are UK academics with a critique of his views, sometimes seen as too "vague". But this talk available on YouTube is interesting. It relates to sustainability and shows how this can be seen as specific to one company or to group interests.









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The Management Theory at Work 3 conference idea is beginning to work better. John Burgoyne has material for a current talk that I think can be traced back to his keynote at the first event. I have edited two YouTube clips from recent talks to the Suffolk University Campus and the Continuing Learning Group at Lancaster.

I have also set up a new Facebook group- #mtw3 - so that Scenechat can connect there. I think eventually Scenechat will work with LinkedIn but at the moment it is mostly for music and Facebook. YouTube as a home for academic conferences is so far a minority interest.














But now Gmail shows off everything you do the days of various identities on different channels may be coming to an end.

This is a recent clip on adverts and video from Adobe








Comments invited through SceneChat. There must be a way to avoid the ads from some events. Depends on the model. The demo of an edit from an iPad is convincing though. Together with the phones announced in Barcelona with improved video cameras this means that YouTube etc can get reasonable reporting on the same day things happen.

( I am still using a Kodak Zi8 and going home to a desktop with Premiere Elements so my own news can be a few days old)

I am trying out SceneChat, a new approach to commenting in video. I think at the moment comments will go to Facebook but other sites may be added later. In Beta at the moment eventually there will be adverts linked to the discussion. Not sure if you can avoid them.

This video was found through discussion on Sustainability at the Networked Learning site











Please try adding a comment in the box or through comments on the blog post.

The Wild Show on Phonic FM has occasional space for some conversation. It is mostly a music show. Actually the music is the main point. But I can slip things in, having worked my way up from a guest on the New Exeter Radio Show, a fairly dangerous space but that is another story.

So there may be a new spot , the eleventh hour, that covers aspects of technology. Is it the eleventh hour for live radio? that sort of thing.

I missed the last couple of weeks but have sent in email etc. and met offline last Wednesday. Here is a YouTube clip based on photos and the sound from last week.



The clip explaining the eleventh hour as "the time when Exeter connects the cloud and coffee" is from me via Chris Norton iPhone to Soundcloud from Cafe 55 on Northernhay Street. Edited into a jingle by JD somewhere in Devon. Photos from Exeter cathedral yard and St Pauls both actual and in Twinity.

Universities and conferences could benefit from virtual worlds linked to actual space. It extends the access possible without reducing the value of actual face to face.  Also connections are maybe easier. In Twinity it takes maybe half an hour to walk from the CQI near Chancery Lane to the Work Foundation near Victoria. The Tent City University and Exeter Cathedral are good venues because daylight helps the camera.

The eleventh hour on the Wild Show will return to the university library. The university bookshop is under threat as of April 2012.

Thinking about Critical Management Studies as I am contributing to an online version of a revival for Management Theory at Work. This is a LinkedIn group ( search on "mtw3" ) or this blog.

The original conferences were about ten years ago. I am still interested in learning organisations, especially connected to ideas about quality. But the first conference was very influenced by critique and a lot of practitioner concerns got lost, in my opinion.

Without a doubt CMS has done well for academic publishing. Here is a graph based on Google Books.

The growth starts befor the time of the conferences and has continued strongly.

But a search of Google Trends in general shows no significant result.

This suggests that CMS has been an academic project that has no connection with a public. This might explain why conferences that ionvolve both academics and practitioners are rare. And rarer now than a while ago.

The mtw3 blog has some more stats on learning organisations and dynamic capabilities.

There is the start of an update for Management Theory at Work, two conferences from around ten years ago.

A blog has started and there is a LinkedIn group #mtw3

As memory serves the closing session for first one did not really consider the opening keynote from John Burgoyne which was partly about how technology might assist the learning organisation. As technology changes this is a good time to have another look.

By the way, there has been a gap in posts to this blog as I now mostly post to will789gb on Posterous, an effort to integrate various flows.

http://will789gb.posterous.com/

Here is one in a smaller size, might fit better

Testing out Flickr embed code,

Coming soon Learning technologies. Will there be free Adobe coffee, as at BETT?

Thinking about the Experimentality event, I will start with the Dark Side of Mode II Knowledge. This is where many people are at and by clarifying this it could be possible to move on to whether quality ideas can help with anything at all, like dissemination. A collection of papers in book form could be one product. From IPEX I am aware that short run books are possible. The binding kit is under rapid development. Not sure where it is in production, but this could be a case study. Social media etc also relevant. The official blog has some links but more could be happening.

Thinking about the Experimentality conference and what to put in my paper, I think I will go back to issues around e-learning, quality and learning organisations. I got a bit lost here around the time of the emphasis on leadership and/or critique. not sure about this but it may be possible now to get closer to something I can understand.

There is video from the recent Networked Learning conference that covers the opening session. After a couple of views it is getting easier to follow. However I am still confused about the manifesto, or the reasons to drop the manifesto, or what is proposed otherwise. There is a summary page with links to four papers and an intro but I am still working through this. I think the idea of a manifesto has been dropped. Possibly the relation to technology has been dropped. Criteria for network learning do not depend on a digital context. But I am not sure what the policy suggestion is or how it is to be disseminated.

(Not too far off topic for the Experimentality event. If there is a "Lancaster Declaration" from social activists
then there are questions about how easy it will be to understand and how widely it will be published)

I am starting with "Learning, Teaching and Assessment in Networked Learning" by Vivien Hodgson and Michael Reynolds. It starts off as if there is a connection with quality that I could follow-

Educational values which contribute to quality in learning and teaching environments are those that seek to encourage dialogue, exchange of ideas, intrinsic approaches to study and engagement. It is this that we need to support through networked e-learning.

So quality is in there somehow, but it is unclear to me what form of practice would meet the aims

In summary then we are suggesting that networked learning can be seen to be aspiring to provide a space and a place for dialogue and interaction that not only supports the co-construction of knowledge, identity and learning but also where this co-construction is exposed to critical analysis and reflection.

There is reference to previous publications

Ferreday, D., Hodgson, V.E. and Jones, C. (2006), Dialogue, language and identity: critical issues for networked management learning, Studies in Continuing Education Vol. 28 (3) 223 – 239.
Ferreday, D., Hodgson V. and Jones, C. (2006b ) Developing the Theory and Practice of Networked Management Learning, CEL working paper.

The Centre for Excellence in Leadership is now merged into the Learning and Skills Improvement Service but there are some publications still online. This may link but I cannot find ones on e-learning. There was a conference on Re-Thinking Leadership that again I found quite hard to follow. With BECTA closing it is not obvious where the energy will be for technology innovation in education. Any clues on which set of initials might do what would be welcome.

Previously some ideas about Learning Organisations were presented in ways that managers could understand. It would be interesting to revisit this and network learning. Technology and social practice make possible forms of activity that were not available ten years ago. I would like to look at the Experimentality website as an example. Links to other sites could improve the blog. So far there is not much conversation around it.

Meanwhile, it is possible there will be more about the Manifesto on the Networked Learning website. I would welcome some intro in a few thousand words.

The Experimentality project now have a poster (warning large PDF file) for the conference with an edited text that gives an idea of what the project is about.

The idea of experimentation was always at the heart of modernity’s promise of human freedom and self-determination. But, after the experience of the twentieth century, is the experiment now too complicit with power to act as a carrier of hope? Or can its progressive potential be restored through an inquiry into the different forms that it takes in science, technology, the arts and wider culture? To close the year-long Experimentality programme, participants at this international conference will debate different visions of an experimental society in which the emancipatory potential of the experiment could be renewed.

So my paper on Plan-Do-Check / Study - Act is still more or less on topic but there is not much in this text about business and organisation, There is another text with sort of tags -

science / politics / economy / publics / religion / music / art

education / design / media / advertising / technology

laboratory / simulating / making / performing / testing / trial

democracy / reflexivity / creativity / event / revolution

So economy is in there, and also education.

What I found previously is that quality is not  often considered along with learning. Perhaps quality assurance is part of modernity and education values something medieval. Not sure if that is the right word, but there must be something before modernity that was better. I will look at e-learning for examples of where quality ideas could be relevant and useful. From Cloudworks I have followed the recent Networked Learning Conference. There will be more online about the Networked Learning Manifesto. This may not be a manifesto in a future manifestation but it will outline concerns about how technology relates to education. Another Cloud links to a Review of Open Educational Practices (OPAL Project deliverable D3.1 ) which covers both strategy and quality assurance. I think the link could be stronger between the two. So far my impression is that quality assurance is seen as a control, with limited input into system review or policy.

But there may be other views at the conference.

The Networked Learning Conference seems to have worked out really well. I have followed it mostly through Cloudworks and Twitter (#nlc2010). A lot of content shows up on Slideshare so I have an idea of what is going on. The actual papers will turn up as PDF later. I got the impression that there is a lot of involvement in actual projects. Over the last ten years or so there have been some doubts about where the technology was taking education. There is still a critique but the technology is being used. There was mention of social media but the term "Networked Learning" continues. This may not be about technology though. More on this later. So far I have not found much for the session on a possible Manifesto update. This was launched as part of the e-quality project so may have had a link to quality. I never understood what this was though.

Previously I saw an Adobe Connect webinar about Social Inclusion, Web2 and Language Teaching. Also links through Cloudworks.  This was definitely about social media. By the way, so far I have not come across "Technology Enhanced Learning" at either event. Maybe a mention but not as a constant or description of what the event is about. There is a lot of buzz about social media and I take these two events to show that there is now an academic frame of reference.

Draft paper for Experimentality conference takes social media as an example of applied quality theory. Could be a loop. Continues online till July. Then could be an actual walk but more likely slides.

Plan, Do, Check _ Study, Act