Just sharing an experience.

I was fortunate enough to be teaching at Surrey University on Saturday and I feel the need to share my experience, why you ask because I saw innovation in action and it worked, not the case at my workplace where every barrier possible is popped in the way.

I arrived at 10:00 for a two hour lecture/tutorial walked in to the lecture room armed with memory stick and prayed. I needn't have worried. I touched a touch panel picked the tools I needed, down came a projector screen, on came the projector, up purred the PC and we were in business. I logged on with the username and password that had been emailed to me, got a friendly welcome; it even knew my name and I was in business. I requested internet access and it was there and low and behold when I popped in my memory stick with a presentation and some notes on 'it worked'. I was in heaven I had arrived early because you just don't know what to expect but thanks Surrey I was impressed.

Back to work on Monday, I'll leave my keystick at home forget about using any video or web 2.0 apps as for Google apps, you're having a laugh. Such is life.

Innovator Interview

Innovation where I work ? Come on there all a bunch of 'Laggards', a bit harsh I know and not strictly true. One of the major problems is allowing the technology in. I managed to interview a colleague who has provided elearning to help address the requirement to update / teach basic mathematics skills to our students.

Like Mark I have enjoyed this although it hammers home the reality that we are behind the curve somewhat, because on reflection I am not sure that an elearning package is particularly innovative these days. Given the circumstances though and the focus on reducing marking time and enabling the brighter students to progress quickly I saw it as innovative. I would much sooner be talking to a colleague that has brought web 2.0 apps into the learning environment though.

Affordance, 'What way does the technology affect our behaviour when we use it'.

Emails:

I think that the use of emails has changed the way we communicate, most emails are short and straight to the point and quite often full of spelling mistakes and errors in our grammar. However it is seen as a fast and efficient way to communicate and it is more acceptable to see the odd error in an email than it would for instance in a formal letter.

So has this changed our behaviour? Yes, many people used to only writing formally have a problem with emails and get hung up over the language, not to dissimilar from the approach first made to 'text speak' with a mobile phone.

I believe this is because as you use the technology we change our attitude, yes we  could spell check and waste more time, but it is meant to be a quick communication with a colleague that also has the odd typo in his emails.

As for text speak once you have used a mobile phone to send text messages you will very quickly realise why text speak has appeared. What is concerning though is when you see exam scripts containing essays and they are full of text speak.

Blogs

I have been a blogger for years but its only during my H808 and H807 studies that I have really realised its use, I thought it was a lot of fuss about nothing, not anymore though.

As for shaping our behaviour twenty years ago if I suggested you published a diary and allow everyone to read it and make comments about your thoughts, I would have been considered mad. However today its common practice, its an acceptable way of finding out information. If someone is prepared to share their thoughts and opinions with you, then 'thank you very much'. I may find it useful, I may not, but I certainly appreciate it being shared. As more people use Blogs it becomes a wider practice and the benefits are realised.

What affect has this had on our behaviour. We are more likely to share information, we feel we should give as well as take information, a community spirit develops and we form worldwide groups sharing a common interest.

Just a few thoughts I hope I am on the right track here.

TMA01 at Final draft

How an earth do you fit 2000 words into 800 a challenge and I am not sure I will ever be happy with this so time to call it a day. A quick proof read and its off to the eTMA system; happy to say goodbye to this one. I have been working on and off on this for a few weeks.

To my fellow H807ers a big thank you lots of good contributions both in the conference and on the various blogs. I found it difficult to narrow this assignment down but obviously no more on this until after the cut off date.

Next step - start writing questions for an innovator, now where can I find one of these?

I need more hours

There are just not enough hours in the day. H807 is both interesting and challenging I am working with a diverse range of students from all walks in life with plenty on offer. Trying to balance my work life with my study life and my OU tutor life is getting to me this week.

I am thankfully on top of TMA 01 which is a huge weight almost off but I look at my reminder email telling me there are 26 TMAs to mark is depressing me. I want to ignore them and enjoy the studying at the moment but I guess I am going to have to hide away with a few bottles of wine and my laptop over the weekend.
A slight success this week has been the use of web 2 apps to come to a decision on the location of my next tutorial.
Students rightly didn't want to travel to Canterbury, to cut a long story short:
I created an online poll asked all students to complete it and surprisingly 21/26 did, a good start.
Opted for Guildford so change has been made.
To help with this I created a Google map and popped all students postcodes on it this helped to identify the centre of population and I have also used the map to sort out groups for group work later this month. Just in case they want to meet in a pub for some good old fashioned studying.
Good old Google.