Analyzing MB School

Introduction

Having watched the case study it is clear that this was quite a complex case study before trying to address the group work question I created a spray diagram to try and highlight the main points.

The Organisational Context of Margaret Beaufort School
Margaret Beaufort School was a school that was being led by a very loose leadership that lacked direction and appeared not to be moving forward. It was failing students because it never had a suitable means of measuring the success or improvement of its students. Consequently a bad Ofsted report acted as a trigger point for improvement.

An External Factor
A significant factor in this case is the requirement to meet standards set down by Ofsted this combined with much better reports from other schools in the consortium led MB to realise they would be better off joining the consortium after all. It is questionable whether a better Ofsted report would have meant that MB would have remained antonymous, however as the case study unfolds the benefits of joining the consortium become more and more apparent.  

An Internal Factor
A number of internal factors that impact include the loose leadership and poor direction provided by the leadership team. It was also more apparent later on during the change of leadership that a number of staff were both set in their ways and opposed to any form of change. These staff may well have been a significant factor in the schools failings.  

Conclusion
Removing those resistant to change and bringing in a stronger more collaborative leadership team meant that new systems could be put in place. This combined with shared leadership and a renewed sense of ownership has given a clear direction for the school to move in which was seriously lacking. Although the school claimed to want to maintain the Ethos and  Sense of Community at MB they were doing so at the expense of academic achievement. 

First Look at MB School

An interesting mix of problems identified when viewing the course video for the first time I thought it would be interesting to capture the contents in a more visual way.Using Diigo to identify the main quotes from the transcript makes for a quick an efficient way of extracting some details.

First Look at The MB Scenario

A few important quotes.

• the previous Head had a very loose leadership style and it got to the stage where the school was no longer moving forward
• I guess deep down we want to be liked don’t we, you know, it’s a human need.
• And I suppose in a way it’s almost like having tuning dials. And you know there are some days where you have to perhaps have a bit more of an affiliative approach. Then on other days where democracy goes out the window and so on.
• To be an effective, a highly effective leader you’ve got to have systems and structures in place. And to be able to challenge standards, to look at data, to appreciate what it means.
• After the assault on data Mike, Charlotte and senior Federation staff began evaluating the quality of teaching across the school using strict Ofsted criteria.To some the ethos of the school was increasingly under threat.
• In the end the observations were generally positive. Although they uncovered a particular weakness across the school.Staff and pupils aspirations were generally too low.
• But despite the pressures staff are beginning to appreciate the sharper focus.
• Once you work in a school people and children get under your skin. And you have this sort of emotional attachment that you wouldn’t have from a distance.
• We were worried that the emphasis on testing would mean that children would become demoralised. That there wouldn’t be the progression we see now because children just wouldn’t find English as exciting and interesting as they had in the past. I haven’t found that that’s the case.
• The only difference has been that the way that we collect data has to be the same amongst the three schools.
• We’re losing sight of the child that doesn’t do very well at school. We’ve seriously gone back full circle. People don’t really care any more and I don’t think that’s just in our middle school, upper school structure.
• A central factor in Mike’s success has been leadership support and resources from the Federation.
• I don’t think we should be ashamed of the fact that some of the modelling of practice has been on the good practice at other schools.
• As soon as Margaret Beaufort joined the Federation the access to all those support networks was triggered.
• The key challenge is to keep the momentum going.
• You name it, we’ve changed it. And as a consequence, yeah, it’s a bit of a painful process.
• Short term pain for long term gain.
• Mr Lavelle is adamant you have to practice the SATS to do well in them. He is adamant the school needs to do well which is what Ofsted and the government want us to do.
• I and a number of other members of member of staff don’t think that that is so important as the rounded human being growing up. And I just don’t accept that that really is a good all round education. And many children suffer enormously for feeling inadequate, not having any self-esteem or confidence. Because they’re not the level they should be.
• Well it’s about growing up, being part of the community. That’s actually what education and life is all about.
• Mike Lavelle:Distributed leadership is absolutely fundamental. I mean, for example I can’t create the illusion that I’m in two or three schools at the same time.
• In the 18 months since Mike and his management team took over at Margaret Beaufort two thirds of the teaching staff have moved on.
• Fran Vellacott:There is no debate or good wholesome discussion about issues. There’s no discussion. It just happens
• But Mike believes there are opportunities for staff to participate. But only once they fully understand and buy into the management strategy of the schools.

Well I am all set for E856

Unable to make the first online tutorial but thanks to another a recorded elluminate session I was able to get the general idea of the course. One week into the course and as usual the national forum has already become to busy with far too many postings. It tends to set the fear of panic as some students seem way ahead already, I can't believe they are reading all this or they must have far too much time on their hands.

E856 Journal Of Learning Many of the links referred to below are restricted for my own use but nevertheless this should give an idea of how I am organised and setup for online study.

I am finally all organised and have read session 1 and given some thought to my Journal my Symbaloo page is set up I have decided to use an Online Google Document as my Journal to store key points from learning which combined with my Diigo references and blog Postings should form my journal of learning . The forum message feeds have been added to my Google Reader feed and this will make searching and staying informed a lot easier without having to find my way through all the forum messages. Piecing all this together is my MAODE ePortfolio which has grown to be invaluable over the past few years.

I have also added a few additional Google Docs to be used in preparation for the TMAs

TMA01,

TMA02
TMA03

And the Project notes
Guidance Sheet
Project Ideas

Well that's me organised, what ever you are studying this year, Good Luck.

Societal Culture

Activity 2.4

Think of one aspect of your national societal culture and one aspect of your local or community culture. Make notes on the values, rituals, artefacts and symbols that sustain each of them. What behaviours do they appear to support?
My first thoughts on this, it made more sense to splash my ideas on a diagram rather than try and write too much on this. The interesting thing here is I have gone off at a tangent. I may have to revisit this once the activity kicks off, forgive the pun.

Exploring Societal Culture

Onwards and upwards.

H800 draws to a close EMA has been submitted and its time to reflect on what has been a fast and furious course. There was an awful lot of reading and trying to fit it all into a busy life / work schedule has been difficult. I am note sure how well I have managed to cover all the detail in the EMA and part 4 for me became a hard slog but its done and should meet the minimum requirements.

There was certainly a lot of evidence I could use for the  Part A thanks to the superb collaboration within the conference this year. It has been fun sharing ideas with a group of students that have been prepared to share ideas and experiences so freely so a big thanks here. We wrap up with a pyjama party on Google + tuesday night (hopefully I can make this).

I now have a new friend, a reader that has just arrived through the post for my next course. E856 Educational Leadership, this looks a dry course compared to H800 and some of my previous courses but I am looking forward to the course. Interesting how the TMAs all involve group activity in the conference which is one difficulty some of my students have on T215 it certainly might help me get a student perspective. I think I deserve a rest couple of days off before I start getting stuck into the material. But being a technology savvy learner I have just converted the reader and the course material into 'Mobibook' so I can read it on my Blackberry, not as good as an IPad I know. One problem I have had with H800 is getting through the reading and I think having the material on my phone will give me a chance to study in the small gaps during the day. Whereas some of my colleagues choose to have a smoke break or even a game of cards I should be able to top up my reading.

H800 Conference Activity

A busy year on H800 is coming to an end as we all sit typing up our End of Module Assessments (EMA) I thought I would take some data posted by  fellow student, Shaw (2011) and represent it graphically. It becomes clear to see how well this tutor group has engaged. Although as pointed out in the conference from week 12 onward personal blogs were also used it does give a good representation of the activity.

Thanks to all this activity there is plenty of evidence to call on for our justifications and arguments, so a big thankyou from me goes out to the rest of the group, all the best for your EMA.

Shaw,P. (2011) H800 Tutor Group Forum, EMA Tutor Group Forum, Just sharing something, 13 September 2011, 17:43.

Why 'Jing' is so useful?

Here I am fighting my way through an EMA and up pops an email, one of my students is struggling to compress his report to the size required by the OU eTMA system. I know the problem he needs to compress his pictures. But I am working on my assignment and want to get on with it.

• Do I ring him and try to explain over the phone?
• Do I try and pop it in an email?
• No I am going to 'Jing' him. (Stop laughing)

What surely if time is tight I hear you say, its going to take longer to create a video to explain how to do it. Well this is where you are wrong, within 5 minutes the email returned contains a link to the following online video, which quickly explains how to overcome his problem.
Whats more this may help me on my assignment so time well spent I think.

Steve's PLE

Finally got a chance to spend some time on my PLE, really helps to focus where my online time goes and of course at some point their is some time to relax.

Woolgar's Five Themes

Having read Woolgar’s five themes I can identify with two of the five themes that I feel most strongly reflect the way in which I perceive the effects that technology is making currently in a context known to me.

Student geographical location

Theme 4: The more virtual the more real
Following along the theme used of face to face tutorials it is my experience that offering online tutorials as an alternative to face to face tutorials has not lead to increase in attendance. I find this surprising considering the area covered by my group this year attendance at F2F was more supported that a recent online tutorial. What was even more interesting was the fact that only one of the attendees had not previously attended a traditional f2f tutorial earlier in the course.

Given the opportunity I wrongly thought I would be giving an opportunity for students further afield to take part. Perhaps there are other barriers that I did not perceive.

Theme 3: Virtual technologies supplement rather than substitute for real activities

Following on the theme of the paperless office, I am surprised at how much I have printed this year and yet at work I am trying to reduce the amount of printing. A case of ‘do as I say’ not ‘as I do’. Despite Diigo and delicious coming to my aid there is often a need to sit away from the PC and study. I have tried hard this year to reduce printed material and have even contemplated the purchase of an iPad.

Tags on my Blog

Therefore Diigo certainly supplements the storage of reading material but when it comes to preparing for an assignment I prefer to throw all the material on the floor and start selecting important readings that help before highlighting sections and perhaps identifying quotes. It is only then that I will refer to the electronic media which includes Google Reader and Diigo. Tagging certainly helps but I wish I had given more thought to this as the my studies have progressed why for example is H808 more dominant than H800 because now I avoid using the course as a tag and tend to be more selective.

I guess I am not quite all electronic yet, but not sure really why this is.  

Woolgar, S. (ed.) (2002) Virtual Society? Technology, Cyberbole, Reality, Oxford, Oxford University Press.

Give us a job, teachers redundant as a result of Web 2.0

I don't think so having just read Read Haythornthwaite (2008), yes the role is certainly changing but are practitioners surplus to requirements? Who will ensure that the learners are making sense of what they read or indeed are they sourcing the right material. A quick wander around Wikipedia is evidence enough of inaccurate and irrelevant material being used in education.

As practitioners we are responsible as leaders to help guide our learners through their education this now involves a changing role or should I say additional roles. We need to manage information and collaboration as Haythornthwaite puts it, transformations are occurring in who learns from whom, and where we learn and engage with others. Or is learning just about 'Google' and an ability to type a question into a search engine, surely students need a 'Guide on the side'.

So as a practitioner my job is safe as long as I move with the times, I can't see many dinosaurs lasting much longer if the technology is not utilized within the learning environment, not that I have a say but I am sure our future learners will have a big say.

Haythornthwaite[Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)]  (2008), ‘Ubiquitous Transformations’: Proceedings of the Networked Learning Conference, Halkidiki, 2008.

Computer assisted goes too far. Taxman in the sky.

Learning with the assistance of a computer is all well and good, examples being in language and medicine.


In general, the use of computers in education through CAL has been sporadic a great deal of effort was expended with little general impact. Many of those academics that took part in that earlier crusade are now cynical about the effectiveness of computers in teaching. (Warwick University)


However I stumbled on an article that just seems to take it too far. The Computer Assisted Mass Appraisal project uses satellite imagery to determine if properties have been improved, and if they are being taxed correctly. (Guampdn.com)


Whatever next?


Quick references sorry no time for Harvard tonight.
http://www.guampdn.com/article/20110727/NEWS01/107270329
http://www.warwick.ac.uk/ETS/Publications/Guides/cal.htm

My Learning Experience - not quite a 'Circle of Trust'.

The following diagram is my 'Circle of Learning' based on a normal study session on H800. It represents a number of key activities and links to a range of technologies that assist in the learning. I refer to it as a circle of learning because the loop is iterative and should lead me through the activities whilst collaborating and reflecting. Occasionally I may get stuck in a particular area for the whole session or even skip collaboration for example to  move on but at the moment this is a fair reflection on how my learning progresses.

My 'Circle of Learning'

However in reality there is a controllable mass in the way called disturbance which helps to give a much fuller representation of the true experience. From the following representation it is clear that this large mass has to be controlled in order to focus on the learning. However many tools link the two areas together making it more difficult to stay focused on the learning. As I write this I can remember reading an article on a blog which will have popped up in my Google Reader. A quick distraction here but I quickly found it, Foster (2011) offers some timely advice on how to avoid some of the many distractions. Of course as I open Google Reader to find the article I am confronted with an array of disturbance, news, conference postings, articles of interest all fail to distract me on this occasion though.

A more realistic 'Circle of Learning' with disturbance

Foster, D. (2011) 'How to minimize the impact of 5 common distractions', blog entry posted 22 July 2011. Available from http://gigaom.com/collaboration/how-to-minimize-the-impact-of-5-common-distractions/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+webworkerdaily+%28GigaOM%3A+Collaboration%29 (Accessed 23 July 2011)

W23 Activity 3: Thinking about your own learning

From: my favorites – delicious – Diigo whats next?

I just want to share one experience that probably covers a number of the main points for this activity, my journey through the bookmarking adventure. Once upon a time I used to find a website of use and add it to my favourites. Then my favourites become to big and unmanageable and many favorites had disappeared delivering nothing but the 404 error. Another point that was overlooked was the reason for saving the favourite in the first place. The advent of faster connectivity reduced the need for fast links to websites as a quick google search would usually bring up the page anyway. But my learning was no longer just about websites I needed links to online documents and journals and I needed to find them fast.

Along came delicious now I could save my favourites, make them available from anywhere and more importantly now Tag them giving some relevance and an additional feature of being able to search based on the Tag. Great this was much better.

Delicious looked like it was going bust, panic set in but was unfounded as along ‘Diigo’ and even more features, now I can highlight parts of the page and add notes to the page as well. I can even share within a social network and view other contributors notes and highlights. 

So what is my point. The aim is to store useful information and be able to get to it quickly. All three of the above examples can provide this but as learners start to use the tools and share ideas it becomes more apparent how the tool can be improved upon and  this has been the case with my journey. As it has proceeded each step has brought greater benefit and more reason for using the tool. Thankfully the migration from favourites to delicious to diigo has been straight forward and worth completing, I wonder what is next?

Activity 3d -The Future of Technology - Part 2

OK I said I would be back, I thought I would look at this from a business perspective rather than educational it all helps to give a bigger picture.

Accenture Technology Vision 2011 - The Technology Waves That Are Reshaping the Business Landscape.

The Accenture Technology Vision takes stock of the evolving trends in IT and how Accenture thinks they will impact business and society as a whole.The Vision helps Accenture and their clients understand the opportunities—and challenges—that lie ahead.

The Accenture Technology Vision 2011,research team developed some 400 hypotheses based on input from scientists, architects and engineers—from inside and outside of Accenture. Fifty of these were ultimately found to be defensible, and were consolidated into eight trends:

• Data takes its rightful place as a platform.
• Analytics is driving a discontinuous evolution from business intelligence.
• Cloud computing will create more value higher up the stack.
• Architecture will shift from server-centric to service-centric.
• IT security will respond rapidly, progressively—and in proportion.
• Data privacy will adopt a risk-based approach.
• Social platforms will emerge as a new source of business intelligence.
• User experience is what matters.

Its an interesting read but I have included a link to the executive summary for speed if you want to read the full report then this link will take you there.

The Links
Summary
http://www.accenture.com/SiteCollectionDocuments/PDF/Tech_Vision_11_2_page.pdf
Full Report
http://www.accenture.com/SiteCollectionDocuments/PDF/TechVision2011_Report_v6_1901.pdf

Activity 3d -The Future of Technology

Choose an alternative paper, one that talks about the future of technologies or sets out directives on strategy and policy with respect to technology.

Well I have to say I am a bit tired at the moment and thought I would rebel here a little I found a piece of future technology that I thought I would share with you before I search for something more serious I am sure Janet will forgive me.



I will be back to finish this off with a paper of relevance soon honest....

PLE where am I going

Well I know where I am going, 'to the cloud', and with the seal of approval from the OU I know I have made the right decision. Yes I will populate the college Moodle system but wherever possible I will be linking out to resources that are available elsewhere. My motivation is one of reliability as I don't think the college knows what it is doing with the VLE which by the way is now an Enhanced LE for some reason.Only this week I have seen a branding imposed on all my pages I have lost 20% of the page to a Banner fine on the home page but every page? The banner also wraps on larger pages so the fancy pointless log appears again on the right hand side cut in half. This is ridiculous and forums are no longer working so I can't even voice my feelings any more. So do I care.

In contrast the OU would have discussed these changes and offered an opportunity to share ideas and offer alternatives, I live in hope. 
My teaching material will be moved to my own platform and linked back in so I guess I am all for PLEs and free use of web 2.0 applications. Most learners that take the time to experince them realise their use very quickly but the barriers to the applications presented by the college muffle their enthusiasm.

My reaction is simple, 'How long are you going to be in the confides of the college and its restrictions'?

I know for assessment I will have to move it inside the wire but teaching resources need to be where they are accessible. I also refuse to accept that some of the tools I use should not be shared with learners who despite what some colleagues think are actually quite hungry for them.

In years to come I am sure I will be glad that I made this decision especially when the colleg realises they have to open up the route to the internet in a less restrictive way.

Exploring PLEs

Having started to develop my personal learning environment in powerpoint it suddenly dawned on me, it was in front of me any way. My iGoogle page has already been setup to reflect my learning environment.
A quick snapshot using Jing and published up to picaso and I am away. Click on the picture for a closer look.


That saved a bit of time. It was at this point  I decided to return to Symbaloo and explore further and I have to say well worth a rethink. The trouble I have with iGoogle is it is not always easy to find the link I want wheras the pictures on Symbaloo means its quicker to spot. Here's a page that took 5 mins to setup, anyone who has access to the web wilist teaching will find this a very useful tool, the only slightly negative point many of the links are american based but they can be edited and deleted or even swapped.

Great tool take a look.

Web 2.0 technologies- If only the experience was as good at work as it at the OU.

Web 2.0 technologies have had a significant impact on me personally since I have been working in education. The most obvious example is the use of the OU Systems and all that studying and teaching with the OU encompasses. Boggs, Wikis, Virtual Classrooms and VLEs are now second nature. The introduction of Moodle VLE in my day job has been embraced by me but not by the students or many other teachers, I am afraid, a classic case of putting the technology in place and then providing little training to support its development.

A catalogue of errors have followed due to the lack of communications and sudden changes to the system being imposed. How for instance can all forums be deactivated overnight and the site administrator fail to work out how to switch on the facility to subscribe to a forum, beats me. Only this week the colour scheme has suddenly been changed and a fancy banner added to the top of each page that occupies 15% of every page that a student meets, why oh why is the branding more important than the learning.

Sadly such negative steps have a huge effect on the adoption of the technology by teaching staff, in contrast the OU have a forum to discuss changes and enable users to voice their opinion before embarking  on any changes which by then will be well researched and thought out.
Back to work and I see rarely more than half a dozen people logged on to the VLE at any one time. This is driven I am sure by some of the factors that Conole (2009) identifies, including lack of time, a focus on research and concerns over the role of the teacher diminishing. Faster cheaper better I hear, mmm I wonder in what order.

I would like to report that despite this, there are plenty of academic staff who are experimenting with new technologies and trying out innovative approaches in their teaching, well they are few and far between. I put this down mainly to the barriers that are in the way, slow internet connections, restricted access and a complete ban on the use of keysticks. This on a day that I have been informed that Jing is not allowed on the network. Jing by the way enables short bite size screen videos with voice over that would improve the learning experience, I despair.

Still the wheels keep turning, the learners keep learning and the frustrations keep coming, but I haven't given up yet.

Activity 4 I am not so sure about this.

Bringing mobile phones into the classroom, now why would I do that?
It is difficult enough getting my students to pay attention as it is, if I make the mobile part of the learning just what do I expect to happen.

I shared my concerns with a small group of 19-20 year old male students to try to see if they were on board with my ideas. I posed questions like, if your phone was allowed on the desk during lessons what would you do with it? Do you know what a web 2.0 app is? Would you make notes on you phone? What would be the most useful app you would use?

My findings told me quite clearly that these students are not ready for this yet.

Here is a taste of some of my findings. The most used tool would be facebook not twitter none of the group actually used twitter and when I explained it they said "well we can do that on facebook", good point I suppose. Notes? we can just write it on the precis in front of us why would I want notes on my phone, less room for photos. Only one student gave a glimmer of hope, when he said "I could google something if I needed more detail" but then he ruined it by saying "I might be able to find an awkward question for you to answer" , give me strength. As for web 2.0 not a clue, they just use the phone to quote one student.

21stcenturyfluency.com

This left me in no doubt that if I introduced a activity that utilised a mobile phone it would be nothing more than a distraction at the moment. They are just not ready for posting live questions or blogging their ideas for a project. It also identified another problem not all students had a smartphone one hated technology and only used his phone to make calls and avoids using a computer as much as he can. Surprisingly in this small group (12) he was the most attentive and asked the most questions, he was in tune with the lesson material, I know for a fact that some student where there in presence only and no doubt were thinking how can I get a message on facebook without the old guy down the front seeing them.

Little do they know about the power of the phone in their pocket and the apps they are missing out on, but for now I am happy to keep it that way, especially with this current trend of students.  

Mobile learning is crying out for Nanotechnology

Having read Pettit and Kukulska-Hulme (2011) and gained an incite into the use of mobile technology in learning, when I relate this to my own use of a mobile device I can see clear correlation. It is safe to say that social websites have added enrichment to my experience; twitter, blogs and more recently Diigo have been experimented with and their uses can be explored. However there is one issue that I keep coming back to which is a barrier to my full adoption, ‘The screen size’, any prolonged use is difficult and the experience is nowhere near as good as a laptop.

Fellow students offer positive comments about the iPad and yes it looks very useful but is this a portable device in the same way as a smart phone. To be truly portable surely it needs to tuck away into a pocket or small bag. My blackberry is perhaps not as good as as iPhone displaywise but it offers a proper keyboard and the latest blackberry has both a touchscreen and larger screen so the future looks better on this front.

So where does Nanotechnology come in

Today's scientists and engineers are finding a wide variety of ways to deliberately make materials at the nanoscale to take advantage of their enhanced properties such as higher strength, lighter weight, increased control of light spectrum, and greater chemical reactivity than their larger-scale counterparts.(nano.gov 2011)

In 2000 nanotechnology enhance products started appearing in the marketplace which included improved displays for televisions, mobile  phones, and digital cameras. It also provided for golf balls that fly straighter and scratch resistant coatings to name just a few. 


Many more current enhancements still in design or concept stages of manufacture include extend-able and flexible screens and keyboards. Notice in this short clip how the screen size can be changed, now when this is possible all I will need is a better keyboard, but with the development of flexible keyboards this too will be a concern that will disappear.

And taking this  a stage further a concept phone using Nano technology. A phone that changes shape.

Nano.gov (2011) What is nanotechnology’ [online] http://www.nano.gov/nanotech-101/what/definition (accessed 18 June 2011).

Pettit, J. and Kukulska-Hulme, A. (2011) ‘Mobile 2.0: crossing the border into formal learning?’ in Lee, M.J.W. and McLoughlin, C. (eds) Web 2.0-based E-learning: Applying Social Informatics for Tertiary Teaching, Hershey, PA, IGI Global; also available online at http://www.igi-global.com.libezproxy.open.ac.uk/ gateway/ contentowned/ chapter.aspx?titleid=45023&accesstype=infosci (accessed 12 April 2011).

Pros and Cons of a Blackberry

To address the question of how I use a mobile device I thought I would reflect on a typical day and the benefits I receive having a Blackberry in my pocket.

As a fan of Google applications it goes without saying how many apps link seamlessly to my phone. Google mail, reader and calendar are the main tools. All conferences that I subscribe to as both a Learner and Tutor post messages to my phone. This is an easy method of both tracking and reading messages without going oinline. I could link into the conferences from my phone but rarely do.

At work I syncronise my calendar and teaching appointments to Google Calendar and my phone automatically. Appointment's added on the phone also sync to my online calendar.

All sites and RSS feeds that link to my reader are available I usually catch up on this activity whilst having a tea or coffee break.

Personal emails also pop up in a different mailbox on my phone ans of course SMS mainly from the family.
I have loged into Moodle to read course notes but prefer to do this at my PC but it is useful when on public transport. This is one area that I think an Ipad would excel. I download and read some course readings in PDF format but again screen size is a problem here.

Capturing ideas in note form or a quick voice message helps to prevent loosing ideas. Capturing photos is also seamless a few clicks and any photo can be available online through Picasso. Blogging is possible but again the keyboard size is a problem its ok for short messages but anything with detail is not worth the effort.

Pros
You are more accessible (also a con depends how you look at it)
Ability to keep track of conference activity
Emails activity is efficient I rarely check mail at a pc.
You can capture thought as and when.

Cons
Moodle conferences are slow and cumbersome to deal with.
It can be difficult to ignore activity and switch off, relaxing with the phone vibrating nearby  can be a nuisance.
It helps to contribute to information overload but it just needs will power and managing.
You are more accessible
Screen at times is too small

Conclusion 
I think it is safe to say that my main use of a mobile is for the email and conference activity as both a learner and tutor. This is a considerable saving on time makes me more accessible and much more efficient when it comes to both activities.

Why does my head hurt so much? It wasn’t like this when I was at Uni.

Reading Hara (1999) and Noble (1988).

Do you think these issues are representative of the broader picture of technology adoption in universities?

What issues would you personally identify as problems associated with the use of digital and networked technologies in education (either in your practice or more generally)?

A Students Perspective

'I need more individual help', it is much easier for the tutor to explain this to me than it is for me to sit and study and gain my own understanding. Why? Because I have a busy life I have 100s of facebook friends to gossip with and many other distractions that are much more interesting than learning. So you sit with me tell me what I need to know to pass the exam. In fact do I need an exam, can’t I just copy and paste something of the internet after all, it holds all the answers doesn’t it? It’s alright for you when you were a student you never had all this technology to deal with. Buy the way it is fine for me to use the technology but on my terms, don't force me to try and interact online and produce collaborative work it's too time consuming I'll do it down the students bar and hand it in on a scrap of paper.

I am paying for this course so tell me what I need to know, and if I choose to use facebook and twitter during the lesson, and turn up late or give the odd lesson a miss; put up with it.

A practitioners perspective

By creating all this innovative learning and presenting it in a format for web based access will I be making myself surplice to requirements. All this technology is for ever changing having designed discrete web pages before Web 2.0 apps I now have to move to a new platform. My delicious account although safe now, looked like it was going to crash and burn and I have learnt how to use Jing, Picasso, Google Docs, Diigo the list is endless. All this technology, my head hurts talk about information overload. If that’s not enough my students email me 24hrs a day and expect an immediate reply and ask to many questions because they email as their first port of call. Why won’t they use the conference?

The technology doesn’t always work anyone who has tried to do an Elluminate online tutorial will know how stressful this can be. Because I study distance education I am biased and probably too much so if I was honest (Hara 1999). I feel sorry for the laggards that lag behind because students expectations are that they will use technology and develop shared documents online and converse in a facebook group with the rest of the class and tweet each other during lessons and… and …. the list goes on.

Oh dear I just want to teach my subject, why won’t the students listen to me, why are they always on their phones, why do they not get involved in the discussions oh why does my head hurt so much? It wasn’t like this when I was at Uni.

Hara, N. and Kling, R. (1999) ‘Students’ frustrations with a web-based distance education course’ [online], First Monday, vol.4, no.12, http://firstmonday.org/ htbin/ cgiwrap/ bin/ ojs/ index.php/ fm/ article/ view/ 710/ 620 (last accessed 10 February 2011).

Noble, D.F. (1998) ‘Digial dipoloma mills: the automation of higher education’ [online], First Monday, vol.3, no.1,http://firstmonday.org/ htbin/ cgiwrap/ bin/ ojs/ index.php/ fm/ article/ view/ 569/ 490 (last accessed 10 February 2011).