In the last 12 months there have been a few high profile debates and conference presentations on the VLE being dead, or being undead or being alive, and this will culminate in another debate on this topic in Wolverhampton on the 16th December 2009.

So what is my opinion on this debate? First we have to think about the history of the VLE. VLEs primary role in the early days was to allow a tutor to make learning materials available to learners via the internet without the tutor (or learner) having to know anything about html, dreamweaver, FTP etc. VLEs then quickly introduced other collaborative features to take them just beyond being used for file transfer, and in the early days they worked very well with some being very easy to use for tutors with low or average IT skills. What has happened in the last 10 years or so, is tutors IT skills (and confidence) have increased and learners expectations have increased, so some of the VLEs in circulation – although still easy to use, do not have the functionality that some tutors want, and the VLE rather than enabling learning is for some actually restricting learning.

If I returned to a college or university tomorrow as a lecturer, and they said ‘we don’t have a VLE to support your teaching’ then I would be quite happy supporting my learners using a combination of free web based tools, and I could probably do my job better than having a VLE imposed onto me. So does this mean that the VLE is dead, well no – I am not an average lecturer – so I could work in this way, most lecturers could not, and for them the VLE still has a place.

If I then put my strategic hat on, I have spent most of the last decade encouraging (often reluctant) people to engage in learning technology to enhance the learning experience, and the VLE has been a pivotal part of that process, so if I were to advocate that this pivotal tool of the last decade is now defunct this would send a negative message to the masses, and give them an easy get out clause to not engage in new technologies, so I don’t think that is a wise stance to take. What is more important, is to recognise that as tutors become significantly confident and skilled they may need additional tools (or freedom to use external ones) to allow them to move forwards outside of the restrictions of the VLE.

So to conclude:-

• I think that the debate on this topic is and has been a healthy one, as the worst thing that people could do is to use a tool and not question its merit.
• It doesn’t matter what personal conclusions one reaches – the VLE will still be here for years to come and it is strategically right that it is still here
• Don’t tarnish all VLEs with the same brush – some are better than others.

(Note – I have composed this entry over the last 10 days or so on my phone when I have had a few minutes spare – and notice that my sentiments are very similar to that of James Clay in his blog posting of http://elearningstuff.wordpress.com/2009/12/02/don%E2%80%99t-kill-off-the-vle/ – even though our posts were created independantly of each other – great minds obvioulsy do think alike!)

On Friday I posted an entry to my blog about the sad news that Etherpad would be no more thanks to being acquired by Google, but less than 48 hours later I am pleased to report that Google have u-turned on the decision so it looks like Etherpad will survive – http://mashable.com/2009/12/05/etherpad-user-victory/

so what has been learnt through this little incident:-

we cannot rely fully on web 2 services. in the last 2 years I have used and promoted many services (Jaiku, veotag, Gabcast etc) only for them to die or start charging. now when I use and promote free tools I try to think about how the founding company is going to make money and work out the likelihood of the tool surviving. with Etherpad I thought it was a good bet, but the way that we so very nearly lost it shows if nearly wasn’t.

however from a bigger perspective this has shown how the power of the social web can be used by the masses to challenge the big boys like Google. this should make all companies (in any area of work) take note as some may have to rethink their customer service strategies. Also this fills me with confidence that as and when other sites are acquired by Google, Yahoo or Microsoft etc. the power of the people will stop them slipping into oblivion (like Jaiku did).

anyway glad to have Etherpad back up and running.

one of the most useful of web tools in the last few months has been etherpad, but alas it’s success means that if has been acquired by google and the service will end in march 2010. this is a real shame as I used it loads. the full story can be found http://etherpad.com/ep/blog/posts/google-acquires-appjet

I (and many of the people that follow this blog) spend our working lives trying to encourage people to engage with (or better engage with) technology to support teaching and learning. Something that is common to us all, is the resistance that many have to changes and improvements in technology and in particular what a lot of people do is use a new technology to do an old job rather than realising the potential of the technology and changing our behaviour as a result. This may be frustrating for us, But i have come to accept that this is actually part of human nature for most people and this isn’t a new phenomenon. If we look back at other major technological advances we see a recurring pattern.

• When trains were first used to carry passengers even though they were capable of going faster they were limited to about 29 mph as this was the fastest that a human had ever travelled (on a horse) and they thought that humans would implode if they went faster – so early trains were effectively expensive horses.

• When cars were first invented they thought they may be dangerous so someone walked in front with a red flag thus restricting the car to walking speed

ATM Available Only During Banking Hours

Originally uploaded by wka

• When the first ATM cash machines were installed they put them inside the bank so you could only use them during bank opening hours. Although obvious now, it was a leap of faith for someone to turn the machines round to face outside the bank and be useable when the bank is closed.

And so this is where I think we are at with learning technology. There are many people who have adopted and ‘embedded’ technology which is great but of these I would say that probably 75% are just using the technology to do the same things that were possible before the technology. How do we move forward – well my standard answer is as always to invest in the work force through staff development and CPD, but it is more complicated than that in we need to consider the awarding bodies of qualifications, inspectorate influences and the ever present pressure of finances and budgets and if this is a pre-determined characteristic of human behaviour then a very difficult challenge indeed. I just hope that in the coming months and years as government (who ever is in power) tries to squeeze budgets that we don’t stagnate.

Basic controls in Audacity

Originally uploaded by Dave Foord

A technique that I am using more and more for any form of online marking or feedback, is to record an audio file using Audacity. Audacity is a free piece of software which can either be downloaded onto a computer, or can be run from a memory pen and is part of the eduapps package so easy to use from there. The output is an MP3 file, which is much smaller than using the inbulit voice recorder in Word, and Audacity if very easy to use.

So why do I do this rather than using the track changes options in Word?

1. Even though I am quite a quick typist, I can still talk a lot faster than I can type. In terms of marking work I think it takes me between 30% and 50% the time that it would take me to use typing feedback.
2. The feedback that I give is richer, both in terms of saying more (as no restrictions in space) and there is additional information (a bit like body language) to the learner, in terms of changes in my voice etc.
3. I don’t make the learners nicely presented piece of work look an awful mess, with comments and lines everywhere.
4. The learner can listen to the feedback on a computer, or on a music player – so they can for example access their feedback on the bus on the way home.
5. I can do my marking sat on the sofa or laying in bed – which is much more comfy than sitting at a desk – very important when having lots to mark.
6. A tutor will only need to learn about the location of 4 buttons within Audacity to be able to use it, so very simple for even those that are a little technologically weary.

Not all learners will like this approach, and it only really works if the person doing the marking can find somewhere quiet and alone to do this – but for me, I think that it is great.

About 5 years ago I was holding a student user forum where I provided a selection of students with a free lunch in return for information about the VLE and the way that we used it. At the time our VLE was arranged with content for week 1 at the top and week 30 at the bottom (as was and still is the norm). One of the students at this forum said that he would prefer the latest information (e.g. The most recently uploaded) to appear at the top not the bottom. This learner was outvoted by his peers (who thought this was daft) so nothing changed.

However I look back now and realise that this wasn’t as daft as it sounded in that nowadays other forms of communication such as email, facebook, twitter, blogs and news websites all show the most recent stuff at the top not the bottom so this must have evolved as a preferred way of working.

So the question is ‘why don’t VLEs offer this as standard’ I have been working recently with a couple of moodle based projects where I am doing just this, but I have to add the content then manually move it from the bottom to the top which is very slow and clunky. Why doesn’t the VLE give the learner a choice (a bit like email does) so they can have the content how they want?

Has anyone else ever had similar thought on this to me ?

What does Whole Organisation Approach to eCPD look like?

Originally uploaded by Dave Foord

Last week I was involved with the LSIS eCPD programme event in Birmingham, and one of the activities was asking the delegates about Whole Organisation Approaches, and what would it look like if they were successful in creating a whole organisation approach to eCPD.

We put the answers on post-it notes and then stuck them onto a flipchart, a photo of which I have uploaded to Flickr, and then used the ‘notes’ feature within Flickr to label the notes. (You will need to click on the image to see this effect).

As much as anything I want to show here how I have made use of simple technologies to create a learning object. I have used post-it notes, pens and a flipchart (which won’t scare any anti-technology teachers) – I have then photographed the output using a basic compact camera (again a anti-technology teacher could get a learner to do this if necessary), and finally I have uploaded it to Flickr and added the notes – which is quite easy and free to do.

The output can then embedded into a blog (like here) or a VLE area, it can start a discussion, be used for reflection etc.

Tomorrow I am off to Gloucestershire College to run training for them on plagiarism deterrence, one of my ‘pet’ topics. We will be using the excellent TurnItIn software which can be integrated into Moodle to create a very powerful tool, that doesn’t only check the submitted work for matches to the Internet, but also matches to other work submitted to other UK based institutions.

And as well as this, it has a very sophisticated online marking system, which reduces the need to download students work, then mark it, then re-upload it, which when you have lots of assignment to deal with, becomes a chore in itself.

Last week I was in Sheffield running a training session on ‘m-learning – it doesn’t have to be expensive to be good’ a session in which I look at the cheaper end of m-learning and in particular what we can do with equipment the learning may be owning and carrying – mainly the mobile phone.  Most of the audience were FE based, but there were 2 from schools in Sheffield, who were serioulsy thinking about changing their stance on mobile phones (and lifting the ban), and they were very open about the ideas that I was presenting, and realised that the benefits outweighed the problems.

I finished the training afternoon with a session on ‘m-learning – the great accessibility enabler’ looking at how mobile learning is in the main great for people with accessibility needs, and how if we look at the issues sensibly we can make a huge difference to many of our learners.

So it pleases me that today an article appears in the Telegraph about a High School in Sheffield allowing mobile phones I wonder how many others will follow and how long it will take for this to be the norm not the exception.

Mobile phone on laptop

Chocolate Muffin

Originally uploaded by vivido

I am currently working on the eCPD programme and am supporting/facilitating 11 people around the country through predominantly distance support means (phone, email, Skype, Discussion forum etc)

Using an idea borrowed from Lilian Soon of xlearn is when someone has completed a task is to send them a chocolate muffin or similar as a reward – now because these things don’t post very well, we have to do this virtually – e.g. send them a picture of a muffin. This is very easy to do nowadays, you could go and buy a really nice muffin, photograph it and then eat it, or (if like me) you treat your body like a temple (yeah right!) then there are thousands of images on Flickr (like the one that I have used here).

When using Flickr, I always do an advanced search and select to only choose ones that are released under ‘creative commons’ – this means that I can use the images within copyright law. I can then send the image to a blog (e.g. here) – and then by going into the edit mode within my blog, I can find and copy the html code that Flickr has put there and then paste this into something like a discussion thread with a VLE.

Although this may seem a lot of effort for some people, when you are supporting people (staff or learners) via online techniques, these little techniques can make a huge difference and overcome the isolating nature that you often find in this area of work.