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.