Academy-QTS ruling is not the end of teaching....

Classroom image | CC-BY | Flickr User Marlith

The recent government decision to allow academies to employ teachers without QTS status has caused quite a stir across the sector. Pretty much all of my Twitter stream is against this decision, and on the whole, so am I. Doug Belshaw's post (Is Michael Gove systematically dismantling English state education) pretty much sums up the view of the majority I think. However, I just want to provide an alternative view on this...

This excerpt is my comment on Doug's post...

My brother (BA & MA in History & American Studies) has worked as a TA for the last 5+ years (earning £12k ish) - passionate about teaching and helping kids. He works in a particularly challenging school in Liverpool (it might be an academy, but not 100% sure). Let's just say, it's not great. He's been hit by a flying chair recently when trying to stop a kid attacking a teacher. And yet he's still passionate about teaching when many of his QTS colleagues are not (which often gets him down). He has received a lot of great feedback about sessions he has run (and for some time was seconded to manage the behavioural unit).
For the last 3 years, he has been unsuccessful in applying to study a PGCE at various HEIs in the north west.
If this recent decision regarding QTS gives him the chance to step up (and get paid an average salary) then I'm all for it.

For those that haven't read Doug's post and all the comments, I go on to suggest that although the decision to employ non-QTS teachers has been made, it doesn't mean that a) they will, or b) standards of teaching will now suffer drastically as a result.

There is no threat here to the good teachers; the teachers who actually care. (On my cynical side), we all know of teachers who are in it for the pension - a job for life, and I'm pretty sure they have PGCEs. We need to be careful of thinking those with PGCEs are good teachers, and those that haven't couldn't possibly be (not that anybody has said otherwise).

So on the contrary, if it gives more people like my brother a chance to progress in a career he is passionate about, standards might actually improve. One thing I would hope though, is that Head Teachers are suddenly not going to settle for mediocrity in return for saving a few £££. I would actually suspect Heads will share the feelings of Doug and many others. After all, anybody who has chosen a career in Education (and even those who haven't) should be concerned about our education system.

I completely agree with Doug's response to my comment, in that there is a need for a solid understanding of pedagogy; An understanding of how children learn. @PaulHollins questions the degree of focus upon Pedagogy in many PGCEs - so I wonder if perhaps Gove's decision is in response to this? Does the PGCE currently support the development of new teachers to sufficiently provide the 'future of education', whatever that might be?

There's certainly enough talk about the future of education, so what is needed to achieve it?

Moving along, perhaps there is a compromise. Similar to many HEIs, maybe these academies could introduce probation requirements, for example, the completion of a PGCE (and the sponsorship to put new teachers through it). New teachers could also be coupled with a more experienced mentor, or supported through Peer Review? Learn lessons from what works and what doesn't in support of NQTs, and progress on from here?

Anyway, these are just some of my thoughts on the topic. I don't agree with Gove, and am certainly not trying to understand him, but just providing an alternative view. I'd like to see if others can see any potential positives from this change, or is it all bad?

@reedyreedles



This work by Peter Reed is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.

Open Educational Practices and the Future of Open Learning

If you're one of the few regular readers of my blog, you will likely know I'm a big fan of all things Open, however I'm also a bit sceptical about Open Education being/becoming mainstream (which in my view, leads to problems around sustainability). Actually, I wrote a post a few months back questioning if the Open Content Movement is indeed Mainstreamed and Sustainable.

Now, I've been thinking about blogging on how I see the future of learning for some time, but I was prompted again this morning when reading a Grainne Conole chapter about Open Educational Practices (OEP), in Open Educational Resources and Change in Higher Education. For the record, OEPs are practices that support production, use and reuse of OERs (from policy to on-the-ground activities).

When I sit back and ponder what the world might be like in 15 years, with a gang of Mini-Me's running around (you might want to be careful if/when that happens by the way), I think about how their education might be different to mine, and what practices and skills (or Capacities as Doug Belshaw might suggest) they will need to do their homework (their learning/digital literacy toolkit, perhaps).

Now I'm not going out on a limb here and suggest robots and all that jazz, but over the years we have seen massive developments in Human Computer Interaction (HCI), moving from the Command Line Interface to Xerox, Apple Lisa, and the birth and development of the mouse to control a graphical user interface. Metaphors such as the desktop, folders and the recycle bin were revolutionary. Later, Apple changed the game again by really conquering touch interaction. 

In recent times, we've seen new interactions with things like the Nintendo Wii, XBox Kinect, and  Apple's personal assistant, Siri. The latest breakthrough is the Leap 3D Gesture Device, allowing users to interact with the computer through gestures.  I really think these developments will once again revolutionise the way we interact with computers on a mass scale, so much so, that people will no longer immerse themselves into computers; I think the ubiquity and control of computers will become immersed into our environment. I think we'll move to something that closer resembles Minority Report (If you haven't seen Minority Report, check out this clip to see what I'm on about).

So not wanting to deviate too much from the title of this post, I'll move on to relate this to openness.

So when my kids are doing homework, they will have access to search for anything and everything. And I don't just mean the stuff we can search for now - not just a wikipedia article, a YouTube video or some random site. I mean a voice command that returns an instant seamless stream of content that they can quicky engage with or disregard with a swipe of the hand. Not a google results page that they have to work through methodically to filter out what's good or not, or have to try and move past the sponsored results. Instead, it will know what they want. It will know them!

Now Google have already started to build on the semantic web with their Knowledge Graph, which they claim is building a massive graph of real-world things and their connections, to bring more meaningful results. So combined with the developments above, I suppose I'm hardly predicting anything new. However, we can't take this future as a given. It's not just going to miraculously appear because Google have put their weight behind it. OERs and Open Data will be a key (and critical) factor in this. As things stand, it will rely on the Open Educational Practices that Conole discusses (2012) (which is a bit of a problem because they are currently not embedded as standard practice, nor for that matter, is engagement with OER [from a creation and reuse perspective])

Conole suggests there is a resistance to the adoption of open practices, which I fear will relegate OER to an abstract concept. So what's needed to ensure they don't? 

Whilst the structure and models Conole discusses are very valid, I have a bigger problem with it all. Similar to how I believe computers will be immersed into our environment, so to must this set of practices which are currently abject and separate. I think we need to move away from the mindset that open educational practices are something different, and to do this, we need move away from the very practice that open education itself is something different. That is, the process of (re)developing, licensing, sharing and curating. Currently the difficulty in creating a reusable learning object is too much for the majority - there is no single and/or easy way to go about this - academic staff have to learn about the various methods (whether that's looking at Exe, Xerte, Glomaker, etc), learn how to use them, perhaps develop their graphical design skills so they look engaging. Concomitantly, they must license them appropriately, and upload it to whichever repository they like (Jorum, Merlot, etc). Ensuring every academic has these skills is without doubt a tall order. 

Instead, these processes need streamlining. Sometimes, choice can be a bad thing. I'd like to see a mechanism that brings all of the separate elements of OER together in a standardised way, so even the academics with few IT/digital literacies can participate without having to learn lots of new stuff (actual skills, understanding licenses, and generally being aware of repositories, etc).

Until it's easier for the masses to engage, I'm unsure if OER will ever be fully embedded as a core practice, and ultimately the future I envision will remain a deluded thought. To prove it's possible, I leave you John Underkoffler's TED video on the developments of UI....






This work by Peter Reed is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.

Hashtags & Retweets: Using Twitter to aid Communication, Community, and Casual (informal) Learning

Today I presented some early research from using Twitter with students over the past year, at the Solstice eLearning conference at Edge Hill University, Ormskirk.

You can view the slides below, or view them on Slideshare to see the annotations for each slide.

Would love to hear from others using Twitter or other SoMe tools in teaching and learning.

Hashtags & Retweets: Using Twitter to aid Community, Communication and Casual (informal) Learning

View more PowerPoint from Peter Reed

This work by Peter Reed is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.

Who controls the 'blend' in Blended Learning?

CC-BY Flickr User WGreller

There are many definitions of Blended Learning on the web. For the sake of this post, we can go with a working definition of; 'a cooperative alignment of face-to-face and online learning and teaching activities'. So, this seems to be used interchangeably with terms such as 'eLearning' and 'Technology Enhanced Learning'.

So, who controls which parts of a course of study are to be engaged with in the classroom, and which parts are engaged with online? That's rhetorical, because typically, it's the tutor, and more typically, almost all of the teaching activities take place in the class, with some additional activities to be conducted as 'independent' or 'self-managed' learning.

This post argues these ways need to be rethought. Well actually, I (and other colleagues) have been arguing this point for a number of years. In 2009, I worked with a colleague in a curriculum development activity to design a completely online Perioperative Care module. During the process, we questioned how we could benefit the holistic learning and teaching experience by bringing together the face-to-face class with the online class, and offer much more freedom for learners to control their own 'blend' in the learning experience.

Essentially, we encouraged learners to decide which parts of the module they wanted to study online, and which parts they wanted to come to class for. With increasing financial demands on Faculty, these modules could be marketed as completely online modules, completely face-to-face modules, or a mix of both. Learners arrive at University with expectations related to the use of technology in learning and teaching, and have increasing demands on their time, whether it be through work or personal commitments. As they begin to pay more for their Higher Education, they will come to demand more for their investment (or debt, as it will be for many) - here, more could mean 'more choice', 'more flexibility' or just 'more'. We felt (and feel) that our approach could cater to these demands, and was termed 'Mode Neutral' during an Institutional Validation Event. The name kind of stuck (whether we like it or not). In earlier published work, we defined it as;

"A method that allows students to progress across modes of delivery (face-to-face, online and blended) at any point throughout their study based on their preferences, requirements, personal and professional commitments without compromising their learning"

We debated the key factors that would facilitate such a flexible and fluid learning arrangement, and identified three Dimensions; The Role of the Tutor, Curriculum Design, and Communication for Learning, and each are required to maximise the student experience.

As our thinking evolved, we realised that these dimensions are not simply 'present' or 'not present', but instead are present in various degrees - almost three dimensional. The degree to which the dimensions are present rely on the implementation of certain 'conditions', and therefore could be visualised;

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To summarise, our attempts challenge(d) the long standing approaches of tutor-controlled blended learning. Of course, there are significant workload implications in introducing such flexibility, but if this positively impacts upon the student experience, it's worth it.

Where do you stand on the term 'Blended Learning', and who should control this blend?

You can read about our more substantial thoughts, including details of conditions within each dimension, through;

Reed. P, Smith. B, Sherratt. C (2008) eLearning and Digital Media. Vol 5; No 3.

As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts....


This work by Peter Reed is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.

Perhaps Education isn't that broken....

There are a number of debates circulating around education, many of which focus on what's wrong with the current system; some suggest alternatives. Quite a few of these have got me thinking, so this post is yet another (somewhat garbled and at times contradictory) attempt at thinking aloud.

I must admit, I haven't been involved/engaged with the debate (or is it a movement) on the Purpose of Education as much as I would have liked. Having said that, I think there's a mutually exclusive relationship between being involved in teaching and educational technology, and the debate on the 'Purpose of Education'. I think to this end we consider, research and reflect upon many intertwined concepts on a daily basis;

• what we are trying to achieve
• what we want our students to achieve
• methods for how these should be achieved
• how we get, and become better at getting, students from A to B (if indeed that is the purpose of education)
• how we assess and credit these achievements
• and how in doing so, we help others (students, teachers, etc) do the same. 

I won't go into each of these here, but two fairly recent blog posts have got me thinking (both of which I believe are almost sub-debates of the wider question of 'purpose').

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The purpose and future of the text book has been murmuring for a while. Audrey Watters post picks up on a few interesting things, but is generally critical of the fundamental concept of the text book. Whilst I don't see a problem with an entity that brings together information to support discussion and learning around a particular topic, I agree with Audrey in that;

'Somewhere along the way, "textbook" became "curriculum" -- and under today's testing regime, that all became wrapped up in "assessment."'

I suppose it's a subjective point as to whether a course of study should be centered around a single source such as a textbook, but that would surely depend upon specific learning outcomes. If a book is sufficiently aligned, (and of course of sufficient rigour) then is there a problem, and more to the point, any different than having multiple current sources from the web? Although I am in favour of encouraging students to search, find, review and share relevant content, I equally think providing a foundation layer to that higher level of working is no bad thing.

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Audrey obviously hints, as do others, at the problems related to assessment and the methods of accreditation i.e. how do we recognise and reward learning? Much criticism has been thrown at the current model of accreditation, with the concept of Badges as a potential solution - something I'm not too keen on for formal education. Again I'm by no means an expert on this discussion, so read up for yourself, but I can't see how this less formal approach can replace existing models effectively. The Mozilla blog suggests;

"Open Badges will let you gather badges from any site on the internet, combining them into a story about what you know and what you’ve achieved. There is a real chance to create learning that works more like the web."

Whilst this sounds exciting, I think we still need the academic rigour and formal accreditation in our education system, which is measurable and somewhat tangible for employers.  I stumbled across a post recently by Ted Curran questioning badges;

“How can an employer believe that you’ve mastered content if there’s no accredited institution willing to put their reputation on the line to say that you did”?

I don't disagree, but delving into OpenBadges.org site further, it's more apparent that this might be an option for lifelong learning (CPD) out-with the degree classifications of HE. I have long thought the range of CPD courses on offer need to be benchmarked, so perhaps badges could be a way of doing so? Certainly, I don't believe anybody and everybody could offer up badges with no benchmarking or comparisons to ensure what Provider A offers is of an equal rigour to that of Provider B, otherwise the badges will quickly become meaningless. Furthermore, (and playing Devil's Advocate a little) do we really need to bloat our CV with dozens of badges?

On a side note: I really don't like the metaphor  - badges have wormed their way into a particular genre of fashion, and I don't like it. They are also something generally worn by children (and I picture them worn by Mods & Rockers as well - but that's before my time). Needless to say, I am neither! A certificate will do me fine, thank you. Herein lies a separate problem - metaphors have to be relevant and not patronising to be accepted! Where do Badges come in relation to this?

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So where do these ramblings lead to?

The purpose of education; is it really to teach children who the Kings and Queens of the United Kingdom were and in what order? Or is it to develop skills to enable responsive, adaptability and reflective practice, and to better understand the world in which we live? Or is it a bit of both? I won't pretend I know the answers here, as there are far greater minds grappling with these problems and still yet to find the solutions.

Doug Belshaw interviewed David Preston recently, who suggests the purpose is about 'leading people to a deeper understanding of themselves and the world around them, through inspiring them to learn', and touches on how education currently focuses on economies of scale, measurable assessment, and efficiency.

Whilst this all this is very inspirational, how do we shape things on the ground?

(I think) I think that learning 'facts and figures' (and the definitive) are important, but the approaches we employ to support pupils/students needs to be more holistic and diverse. The textbook can still be part of the future of education (in paper or digital versions), as we need to teach students the definitive things (I think) - however we should do so whilst developing the problem solving and adaptability skills we eulogise. Nevertheless, with the focus of coursework/exams assessing specific things (skills, knowledge, understanding, etc);

• Is there always a temptation to just give learners the information (in any format), rather than building a pathway for students to find that information themselves? 
• Which is more efficient (in terms of ease of teaching and/or effective learning)
• And how many teaching staff actually value the latter over the former?

One thing I do believe, is that packing students together into massive classes, and getting them sitting in a massive lecture theatre, is not the way we should go. This is strategic decision to be made by Faculty, and a difficult one where efficiency savings are at the heart of daily business.

Perhaps initiatives such as the Flipped Classroom (something I've already blogged about) attempts to combine the 'information giving' with the 'problem solving'? Could initiatives like this be the future?

To conclude....

Many say this is broken, but is it? Perhaps our Education system isn't broken at all, but rather the tools and techniques used (and importantly, those in control of those) are the real flaws in the system? With this in mind, I think about those students that have genuinely had an amazing experience in education - it wasn't broken for them. And I think about initiatives here at MMU and the annual teaching awards (were students recognise the good work being carried out not only by individual lecturers and supervisors, but by whole programmes). The teachers/lecturers have employed approaches that stretch and challenge. Corollary, the bad experiences we often hear about centre around limited support, didactic and inflexible teaching.

So just to throw the thought out there; rather than complain about the 'system', perhaps we should better prepare those responsible for supporting the development of learners in order to make education more personalised, enjoyable and meaningful for everyone.

Over to you...

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Book image via Microsoft Clip Art
Badges image via Mozilla


This work by Peter Reed is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.

Introduction to the Open Content Movement

Whilst many people may not actually be aware of the 'Open Content Movement', I am sure you will be familiar with its practice, and some of the leading players.

“Open Educational Resources are digitised materials offered freely and openly for educators, students and self-learners to use and re-use for teaching, learning and research” (Hylén, 2006)

Some of the key players in this movement include MIT with their OpenCourseWare site, or more closer to home, the Open University OpenLearn site. This has been supported by the free Creative Commons licenses, which are critical to the movement - I have blogged an intro the CC licenses here.

Arguably spurred by this, others are getting involved - the movement is supported by Institution's own open content repositories such as OpenLearn (above), Nottingham's U-Now site, and Oxford's OpenSpires Podcasts (amongst others). Jorum is also a significant resource - a central national repository for learning objects, where all funded outputs related to JISC funding should be stored. Then there is the likes of iTunesU, which contains a ton of materials available for learners to study independently, and for teachers to reuse.

But the sharing of educational resources is not a new phenomenon - teaching staff have been sharing PowerPoint presentations and OHPs for many years. Such materials are now considered OpenCourseWare (OCW), Open Content, Open Educational Resources (OER), or even Reusable Learning Objects (RLO).

These historical habits of sharing teaching resources are still present today - such 'informal' sharing has been identified in relation to digital materials, where teaching staff are happy to share locally, on a small scale (see Rolfe, 2012 in Research in Learning Technology). Scaling this is a major threat to the sustainability of the Open Content Movement - for as much funding that has, and will be pumped in to support and develop engagement with Open Content, embedding this as standard practice is vital otherwise participation on large scales will likely fall away when funding activity eventually ceases.

Want to see/learn more?

A key area to learn more about OER would be the OER infokit, and below is a short video to demonstrate how you can search Google for open content.



What's happening locally?

Well, Dawn Nicholson has recently been successful in a bid to run a two year HEA-funded project aimed at creating, evaluating and disseminating Open Educational Resource aimed at Level 5 and 6 learning in Applied Geomorphology. Topics will be finalised early in the Project but are likely to include applications of mass movement and weathering, fluvial systems and hydrology, applied geomorphology in cold environments, soil erosion and arid zone geomorphology, geomorphology in resource management, engineering applications of geomorphology, and risk analysis and hazard assessment.

If you are interested in engaging with the Movement, why not give me (or Dawn) a shout to learn more.



This work by Peter Reed is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.

Technology Enhanced Learning Workshops

To date, most of the training sessions have been focussed around the technical aspects of how to do certain things in Moodle. Whilst there is an ongoing requirement for such training, many staff are ready to move beyond the basics and consider specific pedagogical approaches. For example, my recent blog post on 'The Flipped Classroom' (link) discusses an interesting approach to delivering the 'chalk and talk' elements online, freeing up time for more collaborative work in class.

To this end then, whilst some sessions will retain their 'procedural' elements, some will also be more thought provoking and attempt to apply theory and research to practice.
You can book your place on any of the sessions using the Eventbrite booking system below. If the dates are not convenient please let me know the sessions you would be interested in attending, and I would be happy to run them again. Also, if course teams are interesting in specific topics, I would love to help!

The next block of sessions include;

Basic Moodle Training - ideal for new staff or for those that just want to recap on the basic workings of Moodle. This session will reinforce some of the good practice elements we have looked at in other sessions.
When: 15th February, 12-1pm

Online Submission and Marking using Turnitin - many staff are keen to use Turnitin to create 'originality reports' for student assignments, but did you know you can use the Grademark features to actually leave feedback and grades online? This session will cover all of these aspects and will be of interest to any staff looking to implement online submission in their units.
When: 16th February, 12-1pm

Using Multimedia Resources in Teaching and Learning - Introducing multimedia resources can serve a number of objectives. Not only can it more suitably cater to different learning styles in the VARK spectrum, it can be used strategically to deliver instructive materials online, freeing up time in class (as discussed in the post about the Flipped Classroom). Furthermore, the use of video clips, screencasts and podcasts can provide a much-needed source for students to revisit in order to refresh and clarify understanding.
This session will discuss the various options available, including the services available openly on the web as well as those 'in-house', and provide the basis for specific one-to-one support to develop multimedia materials.
When: 21st February, 1-2pm

Introducing Online Social Constructivism using Discussion Forums -  the general accepted model of learning in contemporary education is based on social theories (Vygotsky), whereby the development of knowledge and understanding is most effective by reflecting on course content and personal experiences, and by sharing this and reflecting on the experience and understanding of others.
This session will consider how we can utilise discussion forums in Moodle to encourage student collaboration and cooperation in the online space.
When: 22nd February, 12-1pm


Using Quizzes for Formative and Summative Assessment - For some time, staff have been implementing online quizzes as both formative and summative assessment. This session is of interest to anybody looking to introduce these quizzes in their units, and will cover the basics of building a database of questions and randomly adding a number of questions to a quiz. We will also cover pre-requisites for setting up summative online quizzes.
When: 1st March, 12-1pm

Encouraging Reflection through the use of Blogs - reflecting upon topics is a great way for learners to personalise and 'internalise' concepts. Dedicated reflective activities using blogs can be a great development opportunity for learners and can even provide the basis for an ePortfolio.
This session will introduce models for reflective practice and introduce the technical aspects of creating a blog.
When: 7th March, 12-1pm

Introducing the concept of Open Education Resources - In recent years the HEA and JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee) have funded a number of projects to stimulate participation in the Open Education 'movement'. Academic staff often share resources informally amongst colleagues, whether that be full powerpoint slides or a video of a procedure. The OER movement encourages staff to make these resources available openly for academics and learners across the world through specific repositories.
This session will introduce the concept of OER, and identify some of the leaders in the movement, such as the Open University and MIT, as well as websites/repositories for staff to find reusable content in their teaching.
When: 13th March, 1-2pm


Please note: all sessions will be held in room C1:01.

Event Registration Online for Technology Enhanced Learning Workshops powered by Eventbrite

This work by Peter Reed is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.

How can we use Moodle to allow Students to Sign-up to 'things'?

A while back I was asked by a lecturer if Moodle could be used to somehow allow students to sign up to specific tutorial time slots. To be honest, I had to go away, have a play about and ask other colleagues, as Moodle doesn't have a straight-forward 'sign up sheet' tool.

However, having discussed this with a few colleagues, we quickly realised that the Moodle 'Choice Activity' is the perfect solution. The tool simply enables you to create a number of 'choices', and allows you to restrict the number of responses to say, one.

Sounds interesting right?
Catherine Wasiuk, the eLearning Support Officer at Hollings has created a short (5 min) video on setting up a tutorial booking system using the Choice activity, however this tool could easily be used for many other purposes. One that springs to mind would be the management of student projects. The various options could be listed and students could simply sign up to the project they are interested in. As it can be locked down to just one response, it's a first-come first-served basis...

Have a look at the video below and use the comments to leave any other suggestions for how the Choice activity might be used. As always, if you want to discuss the use of any technology in your teaching (not just Moodle), feel free to give me a shout...



This work by Peter Reed is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.

60-Minute Makeovers

With the new term here many staff are keen to dust off their Moodle areas, tidy things up, and crack on with teaching. With this in mind, I have arranged a couple of sessions this month, entitled '60-Minute Makeovers' (admittedly I didn't come up with the title).

The sessions will encourage:

• Good practice in Moodle
• Help staff make their Moodle areas more visually appealing
• Enhance accessibility in unit areas.

Some of the tips and suggestions around good practice might be of particular interest, given the student feedback and NSS.

Please use the Eventbrite booking form below to reserve your place, however for those unable to make the sessions, you could take a peek at the following guides:

Using the MMU Moodle Template Effectively
Moodle Course Area Checklist

Event Registration Online for 60 Minute Makeover powered by Eventbrite

This work by Peter Reed is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.

My Top 11 L&T Tools from 2011

Quite a few people on the ed-tech scene share their views on the top tools for the year - Jane Hart being one of the more popular. I thought I'd follow suit with a post of my top 11 free tools.
I use each of these tools on a daily basis, and think they are great for students, researchers and lecturers.
See what you think....

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 1. Twitter

As some readers will already know, I have encouraged my students to use Twitter this term. My motivation has been threefoldfold: help build a sense of community; share useful information and links; and to generally improve communication between learners and teaching staff. To aid this, I have introduced a hashtag for my unit (#MM5362) and used the Twitter APIs to easily embed a search widget in my Moodle unit.
On the whole, I think this has been a massive success - of course not all of my students had used it before but I have received overwhelmingly positive feedback from students. Ian Kay (Healthcare Science) and I are looking to do a small research project on using Twitter in L&T, so watch this space.

I also use Twitter to keep up-to-speed with emerging technologies and participate in ed-tech discussions. If you're interested in seeing what Twitter is all about, why not make @reedyreedles the first person you follow, and even download a desktop or mobile app?

Some other sites focus on the potential uses of Twitter in the classroom.

2. YouTube

I have used YouTube for various reasons over the years: I have video blogged experiences of being an Everton football fan with some commentary and discussions on our plight - I was amazed that people were watching my videos in the hundreds. Thousands. So to this end, YouTube is an amazing platform to self publish video content like this.
Due to the resilience and robustness of the service (thanks to Google), YouTube is a reliable source for video storage and delivery. Lecturers can record short videos to discuss concepts or demonstrate practical skills, and students can create video presentations or group demonstrations.
Not only can these videos be discussed amongst the class, they are open for discussion and peer review for anyone who's interested. Anywhere. Anytime.

3. Blogger

As you can see from this blog, I really like Google's Blogger platform. Having said that, I think WordPress is equally as effective for blogging purposes, and Posterous Spaces provides an interesting twist to the basic blog.
I use blogger personally as a communication channel for issues pertinent to eLearning, but that's not the only purpose of a blog; Blogs can provide the means for structured reflection for learners, or even provide a platform for an ePortfolio.

Blogger also has some really nice analytics tools, so I can quickly see how many view each post has had, as well as some information on who is viewing my blog and from where.

This presentation discusses 11 Benefits of using blogs for teaching.

4. Google 

This is a biggie, because is comprises of so much. Many HEIs actually subscribe to Google Apps for Education, to provide these resources in a more formal setting.

As I like to follow a range of blogs, I find Google Reader essential for collating the myriad of posts each day. Through the power of RSS, whenever a new post has been added to one of the blogs I have subscribed to, Google automatically keeps track for me. I've even got a little add-on for my browsers to tell me how many unread posts I have.
If you don't do this already, why not set it up and make this blog your first feed?

Google Scholar and Google Books are the easiest method of searching for journal articles and books that I have come across. Of course, what we have access to on campus (due to what the University subscrines to, and restricted by IP address) may be different to what we can access when at home. Nevertheless, the easiest method of finding literature.

This also leads on naturally to Google Search, which many people think is the gateway to the World Wide Web itself. Although other search engines (Bing) or 'Computational Knowledge Engines' (WolframAlpha) exist, Google still dominates the search arena, especially with users with less Internet experience.

It would also be amiss to not mention Google Docs - free web-based alternatives to Microsoft Office that encourages sharing and collaboration. As it's cloud-based you have access to all of your files from any Internet enabled computer.

5. Dropbox

I literally couldn't live without Dropbox - I can save a file into a folder, and have it almost immediately available on my iPhone, iPad or other computer. I can even log in online to access all my files.

Users are given a basic 2Gb of storage space, but there are a few things you can do to gain more space.

MMU staff and students may be aware of SkyDrive, a similar project from Microsoft. Feel free to contact me if you need more information about this.

6. Wikipedia & Wikis

Many academic staff groan at the thought of students using Wikipedia, but this view is becoming increasingly outdated. Wikipedia hosts millions of articles in dozens of languages, many of which are populated by experts in their respective fields. I agree that Wikipedia should not be student's only source of research and data collection, however as a starting point for research into a topic, there are few better alternatives.

Wikis in general, have also gained increasing attention as they provide a user-friendly environment to encourage collaboration amongst students. If you are looking for a suitable platform your group collaboration in your units, why not look at MediaWiki (which powers Wikipedia) or PBWorks.

7. Evernote

I have been using Evernote for a few years now, and have apps installed on my Laptop, iPhone and iPad. I can take notes in meetings or classes, and they are synced to my other devices automatically. I can easily search the tags I have applied to various notes and can even take photographs on my phone and quickly add them to specific notes.

If you need a note taking application, you're sure to love Evernote. The promotional material also highlights the ability to understand text from within photographs, but this is something I haven't tested.

Evernote have recently acquired Skitch, which is a fantastic tool for taking and annotating screen grabs. Skitch has also announced an iPad app.

8. Instapaper

I find Instapaper a critical tool in my daily worklflow. Basically, whenever I come across a site or article that I want to read, but don't have time, I click the little 'send to Instapaper' button, which saves all my pages for reading later. Again, there are apps for my iPad and iPhone.

9. Flickr

Flickr is the YouTube of photographs! Users can easily upload the photographs they take and share on the web. Most smartphones have a dedicated app, and the iPhone is the most popular camera used for the millions of photographs available on Flickr.

It's ease of use makes Flickr an obvious choice when asking students to take photographs from field work, and upload and share.

Users can attach creative commons licenses to make photos freely available for others to reuse (as long as they attribute the owner).

10. Screenr

Again, regular viewers of this blog will have noticed I like to record short screencasts to demonstrate certain 'how-to' tasks around Moodle, but many staff do similar recordings to demonstrate particular things in programming and web development. In fact, a screencast is an excellent means to demonstrate anything that goes on on a computer.

Screenr is free and has built in Twitter functionality, but it only allows you to record 5 minute screencasts. Other free tools exist such as Jing and CamStudio, but I just prefer the ease of Screenr.

Colleagues may also be aware of BB Flashback, which is installed on all MMU machines.

11. Mendeley

I have only just discovered Mendeley, a free reference manager, hence it's low position on my top 11 tools list, however I can see how it can be an important tool for any learner and researcher.

You can drag and drop a bunch of pdf files and it will automatically pull out the reference materials (author, date, title, etc, etc). You can then install the plugin for your word processor of choice, so that you can easily insert citations and a bibliography.

The online site also has some social networking features, so you can discuss articles with peers and even invite groups of students to discuss articles, etc.


One to Watch

Mobile

There has been, and still is so much hype about using mobile devices across the sector, with most students having access to some type of smartphone (iPhone/Blackberry/Android). Increasing attention is also being paid to tablet devices such as the iPad.

Whilst there are some local initiatives (in HLSS and MMUBS) for using such devices, we need to ensure that we have a clear vision for how these will be embedded within teaching and learning activities, opposed to simply buying students a device in hope of raising NSS scores.

Nevertheless, there are some innovative uses of these devices, such as Geo Caching and the delivery of audio and video materials, and not to forget the gizillion apps available from Apple's App Store. The JISC 'Innovative Practice in eLearning' Guide discusses some interesting uses. 

As these devices (and the innovative ways we make use of them) increase and become even more pervasive, I'm sure we will start to think of them as essential to our learning and teaching.

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Over to you

So that's my top tools. If you are attached to any particular tools why not use the comments to share. Or if you have any feelings about the tools I have mentioned here, why not share that too.



This work by Peter Reed is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.