Bridging our Future - Building a Bridge project - Intel #edcmooc

The picture was picked up from Microsoft web page.

Watched this weeks first video, a commercial video Bridging our Future.

• how is education being visualised here? what is being learned and taught?
• what is the nature of communication in these future worlds?
• are these utopian or a dystopian visions to you? In what way(s)?

The learning activity was totally high tech - but presented gadgets that are already available. Tablets, smartboards, 4G, 3D skanner, webconferencing, on-line Quizz, mobile with pictures and video etc. All seemed to work seemlessly... and this is where my frustration woke up.In real life nothing seems to work seemlessly...unless you buy your own equiptment and use it outside the work organization and its infra and firewall.

And also the bridge example reminded of my sons Montessori playschool years, practical projects that puzzle the mind. I quess you could build a low tech bridge and test its strenghts with some other building materials like straws or twiggs?

The assignment was teacher lead, but he could quickly react to what the pupils where working at. A nice thing was the possibility to bring in an expert from real life via videoconferencing .. an opportunity which teachers seldom use presently.Our teachers are also just beginning to start using something like Socrative response system to engage f2f lecture audiences.

In Helsinki University we have some projects in this area.. In the Faculty of Medicine a tablet loaded with coursebooks was to give each new students....and the faculty is learning now what else could be done with them? Students have been interviewed about the experience, but couldn't find anything in english, sory folks.

And in a Learning Lab - a team with professor Kirsti Lonka have built a new  fysical innovative learning space and talks about changing our social and knowledge practises. She also believes that the children today in Finland have advanteges to learn since they are more skillfull in languages esp in english, they have better social skills than the previous generations and they are not afraid to pick up and adopt new technology. You can listen to her speaking in an interview in this YouTube video.

Probably it will not go as Intell anticipates, that the school provides everyone one set of gadgets but more in the line of bring your own equiptment (mobile and tablets) with you and the software is somewhere in the cloud where everyone connects to. Personal learning enviroments? PLE ?

The video falls in between utopia and dystopia. In many ways I feel some literary speaking hands on engagement also out of school is important for the brain to develop. But yes, many of these gadgets are already available .. but not used in schools ... yet.

Microsoft: Innovative Schools World Tour
Metsokankaan school belongs to the International Partners in Learning Network.

E-learning and Digital Cultures -MOOC Edinburg University

Ensimmäinen viikko MOOC opiskelua takana ja olen aika vaikuttunut. Kurssin aluksi katsoin 5:n opettajan tiimin esittelyvideon. Kurssilla on pohdittu verkko-opetuksen kehitystä ja taustaa Utopian ja Dystopian käsitteiden kautta. Eli jos toisessa ääripäässä ovat teknologia "uskoiset" ja toisessa ääripäässä kauhuskenariot opetuksen laadun romahtamisesta, niin mihin käsityksiin nämä pohjaavat (teknologinen determinismi).

Luettavana oli 3 erilaista verkkotekstiä aiheesta viimeisen 10 vuoden ajalta. Lisäksi on katsottu 4 lyhytvideota/piirrosanimaatiota a n. 6 min, joissa on-line opetuksen murrosta on kuvattu esim. opiskelijan näkökulmasta ja analysoitu näitä em. utopia- dystopia akselin kautta.

 Kurssilaiset twiittaavat #edcmooc hastagilla ja halukkaat ovat perustaneet oppimispäiväkirja blogin, jotka on kaikki linkitetty tähän sivuun: http://edcmooc.education.ed.ac.uk/wp/ . Systeemi on rakennettu siten, että ilmoitin blogini rss feedin kurssille (lomake) ja kun lisään blogitekstin otsikkoriviin tuon kurssin hastagin, niin se kirjoitus julkaistuu automaattisesti tuolla blogilistassa.
 
 Lisäksi on perustettu lukemattomia FB ryhmiä ja osallistujat ovat alkaneet järjestämään paikkakuntakohtaisia tapaamisia MeetUps-sovelluksen kautta. Sovelluksessa näkee ketkä kaikki ovat Coursera kursseilla juuri nyt vaikkapa Helsingistä ja rekisteröityneet MeetUps sovellukseen. Tämän viikon päättää opettajien järjestämä Google Hangout- sessio alkuillasta. 

Olenko oppinut mitään? Kyllä omasta mielestäni :)

Technological determination for good and for worse #edcmooc

Technological determinism is a reductionist theory that presumes that a society's technology drives the development of its social structure and cultural values. So as I understood it the dilemma is between Utopist scenario where all good comes from new and improved technology as opposed to a Dystopia scenario stating that it is technology itself that drives us towards disaster. It is also argued how well are we in control of technology or is it out of hands? And finally does technology mold society or vise versa.

These are important questions in technology mediated learning where something as fundamental as a cognitive learning process is put on-line.

As a background learnig I glanced through the article: Going Distance with Online Education(2006) provided as a learning resource. For the article the writers had analyzed about 230 articles of on-line education and distant education and summed them up around three themes. The themes where democratization of learning, liberal education and instructional quality. As a whole the article was interesting reading. These ideals are widely accepted in Finland where we have a network of Open University faculties in every University we have. But now when the economy is bad there are attacks towards these ideals from many sides. Should the courses cost more, should you restrict access if participant doesn't perform and take exams, should teaching  and teachers be replaced with on-line materials and  peer support to save money etc. So the article and findings are still relevant today.

The week ended in a google hangout, my first experience of such. The live video discussion was enhanced with a twitter feed and recorded.

Someone already published a TAGSexplorer visualization of our discussion. Interesting graphics where actuvity was scored and mapped.

Amoung hundreds of links provided in the feed I picked up this one:
Focus! Mindful's interview with Daniel Goleman, bestselling author of Emotional Intelligence, on his new book, Focus, and how we can restore our attention and enjoy life and learn more.
Watch the video

Twitter:
#edcmooc Never thought the Hangout would be so interesting. I hope we can create also great ones for following weeks!
— Ana Yara (@AYtranslator) November 8, 2013

Greetings from Finland ! #edcmooc

Helsinki City Old Harbour and Market Square

 I am working at the University of Helsinki and more precisely at the Open University as an e-learning specialist. We reach out 16 000 students and offer university courses practicly for free. If you pass a course you get credits, but you can not get a degree.

On-line courses are offered in most subjects and we use basicly Moodle and Adobe Connect to deliver them. Over 200 courses are run each semester.  Courses have typicly 30 up to 150 participants.


In addition a totally open lecture series Studia Generalia was broadcasted live form the University and you could watch it either from the TV or internet. The theme for this Autumn was Climate change.


Looking forward for the EDCMOOC experience - connecting people !

More information susanna.pitkanen@helsinki.fi

@SusaPitk - Twitter
#edcmooc

Helsinki Webcam

E-learning and Digital Cultures - EDCMOOC

A new 8 weeks studysession in an on-line course is starting. A new experience in participating in a MOOC developed by the University of Edinburg. This blog will be linked into the course blog list.

I will try to participate and also reflect on the experience.

First week will close with a Google Hangout