Project coming up

Started to work on my project, its about creating a limited digital canon of source materials in Swedish political history, designed to make it easier for students to write term papers concerning the subject area. Lots of problems with the idea and also possibilities. Will try to explore those in my project report.

Video presentation

Well, in the end i skipped prezi, instead I was inspired to kick off my presentation with a short video, an animation illustrating how news traveled in order to reach Northern Scandinavia at the beginning of the Crimean war (1854-1856) when it was transported though ships and land transports. It was fairly easy to do in GE and I captured the video with Fraps. At the conference it made my presentation stand out against the competition of many traditional PP presentations.

See the video at Youtube:

Fear of failure

At the end of next week i am going to a conference. My idea was to use Prezi for the presentation instead of MS PP. Am a bit afraid though, that it will be a negative experience.
1. Technical problems, computer hangs or something, since everything is set up for pp
2. People getting annoyed with all the zooming and panning, me coming across as a show-off
3. Overall giving the impression that it is all too flashy, PP is boring, but by using it, the tool itself becomes invisible since it is the norm.

Will still make a shot though, but takes some energy thinking about backup solutions. I always bring plastic slides to important presentations in case the projector starts burning or something. Maybe this time I will bring the Prezintation, plastic slides AND a few PP-slides on a stick as well. Just in case.

Maybe I should have my key points printed on a t-shirt too, if everything goes havoc, I'll just start unbuttoning my shirt...

Tools for teaching

The department is launching new online courses, and therefore a day of learning is required for all teachers unfamiliar with Camtasia and Marratech. We'll see how it goes.

Computers versus teachers?

In Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter Malin Siwe has commented on the idea that shools should have a minimum ratio of computers-pupils. Although her rhetoric is kind of coarse, I most heartily agree with the idea that the ability to analyse meaning is more important than knowing how to cut and paste in MS word. Tools are tools, be they computers or pens and books. Its a tricky question though, knowing ones' way round computers is also a social skill these days, and forming students into able citizens also means enabling them to live with success in the technology-immersed society that is ours.

http://www.dn.se/opinion/signerat/skolan-behover-inte-it-plan-1.935098

Twitter: 40%Pointless babble, Documented

An American company has analysed the content of twitter messages and found that 40% is "pointless babble" of the type "I am eating a sandwich". Is that "research" by any norm? I wonder what the rate of babble would be for the sms-messages sent by those with a flat-rate fee-structure.


http://mashable.com/2009/08/12/twitter-analysis/

Learning platforms: 3, Ping Pong

No picture of this one, since it is the one we're using on the course. To me, this one seems the most intuitive, it's easy to add elements and administer results. I am not sure, but I think there is a decent statistics module, making the mechanics of being a course administrator easier. It seems most geared to web 2.0, with the integration of blogging and other fancy stuff. If I had to choose I think I would pick Ping Pong. On the other hand it is a bit unfair since this course is done by people specializing in these kinds of things. Maybe the impression would be different if the example course was a strict course in physics done by someone uninterested in social media.

One aspect I have still to come to terms with, is the role of TEXT within these platforms. The concept promotes a click-approach to learning, which is good because it stimulates interest. A reading-approach, if we may call it that, on the other hand, means you have to accept a linear structure imposed by textual course material. Depending on the learning objective this could be a good or a bad thing. As a historian, you are supposed to be good at digesting large amounts of text. I am not sure if this could be learned efficiently through a platform structure, which promotes accessing and reflecting on chunks of texts, but not longer coherent narratives.

Learning platforms: 2, WebCT

The second platform I have worked with is WebCT, which is the tool of choice for Mid Sweden University. Here I was on the other side of the process, acting as a teacher. At first I was amazed by how easy it was to create a course. Everything just fell into place, pick modules, set dates and add to the course. The course I was working with actually had a ready-made material residing on an external site, so, all we did was package the student experience with reflective questions and assignments. Come to think of it, no group activities were included, which was a shame. The effort put into the course estetically was not so great. I think design really matters, and I am not sure how to customize looks and to what extent it is possible to create a visually appealing impression in WebCt. In retrospect, I would have liked to include more audiovisual material, to engage the students emotionally. Whereas Moodle is opensource, WebCT is not, which is of no actual importance for the single user as long as someone else pays. On a larger scale, however, the cost aspect makes moodle a better alternative.

Learning platforms: 1 Moodle

So, have been swamped the last few weeks, will now try to get back on track with the course. Today: Learning platforms. I've tried three and will try to make a short comparsion. First out: Moodle.

Encountered Moodle as I took a course in English writing at Kalmar university college. Was actually a bit disappointed with the whole set-up, at least technologically speaking. Basically the usage of moodle was limited to displaying a number of pages with text. Some with example material, others with questions and assignments. In part the lack of functionality was related to the teacher beeing uneasy with the platform concept, so we delivered all assignments via regular e-mail. The dates set in the platform thus were more or less arbitrary since no upload slots were closed or anything like that.

What was really good about the course, was the group conferences in Skype. The class was divided in groups of four and we were required to hold skype seminars once in a while, discuss topics and present a joint document in Word. Actually this worked excellent, created a group atmosphere conducive to learning. Two times during the term the teacher scheduled skype meetings to see how the groups were doing. I participated in one from the train, but that worked so-so.

To sum up: 1. the usability of a platform is dependent on the teacher to a large extent. 2. Conferences where you hear each others voices add to the feeling of beeing present together.

Fire theme

Since I changed my theme on the blog to a darker one this picture could fit, it is our stove in the kitchen. Actually made a fire the other day, just to make it drier, with all the rain the air was so humid.

Running update

Promised to post results from my learning-running-technique-from-the-web experiment. It worked so-so. The first three kilometres i managed to keep it up with upright body posture and lifting heels, but then i got tired and finished the last three just jogging. Felt a lot bumpier, which I suppose shows that the POSE method has got some value. At least it makes you realise that you can run in many different ways. Conclusion: practice puts theory to the test!

A little prezi tip and a Prince album

Took me a while to discover how to add invisible zoom areas. Just add frames where you want to zoom in, and then select your object and select "up" in place. Then the frames get hidden behind your picture. Or you could upload a picture with the same colour as your background and hide your frames.

Another tip: sometimes if pictures are not formatted to 72 dpi prezi simply will not upload them.

Just found Prince, Around the World in a Day on spotify. Imagine it was from 1985!

Spinning round the prezi

Hey, Prezi is really nice! Have been working on a presentation just to try it out, you can go on forever playing with options. Its really fun, but i suppose one would have to tone it down for a proper presentation. http://prezi.com/138514/view

Pose running

This is what it is supposed to look like

Learning communities

Realised, yet again, how often I use instructional pages on the net as a learning rescource. This time I had competed in a small triathlon and realized I am a lousy runner. Now, a few seaches later, I discovered the Pose method. Less knee injuries, faster and smoother. There is a great free video at http://www.posetech.com/pose_method/pose-method-of-running-technique.html
So now I'm out to try it. Simple pedagogical experiment: Question, how to run better, found a solution - the pose method, and then try it out. Learning in a nutshell. Will be back with a short report!

Youtube film

Have been thinking for a long time about getting started publishing films on youtube, this was as good a reason as any. So here it is: a rainy day in Östersund, filmed with my cellphone. The title is Red man walking and it contains a real cliffhanger!

Updated

Just so you know, just updated my twitter page, check it out: http://twitter.com/track_1999

Twitter - uh?

So, also on twitter. It is really...short. To me, like a short cell-phone-text, that the world can read. Ah, now I know, when you´re travelling, you can update your whereabouts. I,ll try that. So now I will be posting where I am. On my twitter page. Just you wait. http://twitter.com/track_1999

Google docs - nice idea, messy footnotes

OK, so tried out Google docs. It's a great idea, of course, like many of the free things google offers. Although I would really resent having my important files reside on a commercial server in the US, I decided to see if it could be integrated into everyday life. So far, two problems:

• The software freezes my computer for five minutes now and then. Do not have the energy to work around that.
• Most importantly, footnotes cannot be exported properly. To me, as an academic, if the footnotes do not work, I might as well use notepad. If you export a google doc with footnotes, word interprets them as html links. If you then try to insert a new note in word, it does not see the google doc notes as proper notes and starts out at number one. There is no fix and in the google help centre I found this unanswered cry for help, dating from May:

"I created a word document and added text and footnotes. I then uploaded the word document to google docs. When I downloaded the document back to word, the footnotes had been converted to html files. Word does not recognize the footnotes. I go to insert a footnote and its starts on 1 - even though there are over 100 footnotes in the document. Help! How do I fix this without having to manually re-enter all my footnotes?"

In sum, I would not consider using GD, nor encourage my students to do so, since I would go nuts with all the technical issues. Emailing proper documents back and forth is still a preferred solution. However for simple collaborations, say a 1 page essay without notes, it still might be a good idea. Also the concept of a joint document is appealing.

The short inside story

The Swedish presidency of the EU is really making an effort to communicate. Five chosen representatives twitter about what's going on. On "The inside story in 140 characters. Voices from the Swedish Presidency on Twitter." We get to read, among other things the following:

18/07 09:23 Mårten Wierup: the presence of the Swedish development dinner Gunilla Carlsson on yesterdays dinner was much apreciated.

Learn to Twitter - only 17 millions

The impression that (especially regional) public entities propagate just about any sales-pitch for "new" technology that passes under their nose got further reinforced the last week when a project in Karlshamn designed to increase interaction between local citizens and public officials using twitter and facebook got funded with 17 million SEK. I agree that integrating the actual behaviour of the people into the way that public administration works is a good thing. But still, what Malin Siwe suggested in Dagens Nyheter on July 12, that first telephone hours need to be decent, sems higher on the priority list. Read more about the project here and a comment here. The project plan is available here. The title of the project is X-ovation förstudie Medborgarservice 2.0 and described in this way by Sydöstran:

"Projektet X-ovation får en budget på 17 miljoner kronor under tre år för att utveckla dialogen mellan Karlshamnsborna och kommunen och andra offentliga instanser med hjälp av sociala medier på internet, som facebook, bloggar, chattar, twitter och andra nya och kommande innovationer som bygger på kommunikation mellan människor."

Gendered summer

Regarding the gender differences in internet behaviour, actually some friends of ours have twins, one boy and one girl. Their behaviour fits perfectly with the above mentioned study. As summer broke, the boy (16 yrs) dragged a CAT cable over to the small cabin next to teir house, basically locked the door, and began spending his summer holiday online, playing computergames. His sister on the other hand, is an avid updater on facebook and as opposed to her isolated brother overall spends more time with friends, both on and off line.

Pass the word, please!

By the way, I've had som problems with my password, but finally found a computer where the login-information was saved...bless

Social media - it's a girl thing

A friend just alerted med to this soon-to-be-classic study on the internet habits of boys versus girls. Turns out that boys are more action oriented, whereas girls interact more. Or in other words, boys search for information and play games, whereas girls hang out on communities like facebook. Kompletely killed my enthusiastic argument about how the social media functions as a leveller between the sexes, enabling a more casual interaction. Interaction between girls that is. Still, the way the researchers interpreted the results was a bit simplistic. 523 youngsters participated in the study.

Global sorrow

I recentlly met a nice couple from Cornwall. We came to discuss the death of the King of Pop, Michael Jackson. It turned out that the man had been at the music festival in Glastonbury as the news broke. He recounted how he was watching a veritable blast, where waves of people in the crowd got to hear about the tragic event. He said it was astonishing to see in actual life how news travelled through a crowd like that, with facial expressions and bodily movements indicating that the news had sunk in. He commented that although the online manifestations after the death of the singer had been astonishing, the sense of sharing an important experience such as that on the festival was something completely different. The net thus creates communities of different scales, which complement each other, but are not interchangeable. The global scale eruptions of emotion after the singers death had their counterparts in spontaneous and local flower arrangements and memorial shrines. In that way the net links the local with the global.

Public grief

An interesting phenomenon in terms of online social media is mourning. Around a tragic event, people come together and manifest their mutual sorrow. In Sweden, some time back, we had the case of Ricardo, a young man who was killed in the streets of Stockholm. The violence was perceived as meaningless and a facebook group gathered thousands of followers. This could have been a pure online phenomenon, but as it turned out, the founder of the group was really an entrepreneur, and he soon organised a public manifestation in central Stockholm. The event drew thousands of visitors, many of whom probably were members of the online group. This example show how few things are just online. Were the connections tap into a real need or real emotions, the virtual community also finds a counterpart IRL.

Selling out technology?

Well well, just finished the first three forum-assignments, lots of interesting stuff, and it makes you think, net cultures, digital competence, media literacy, those kinds of things. Still, I'm always bothered by the startup-fluff that makes its way into pedagogy discussions. Someone invents a new tool and all of the sudden the world of teaching is supposed to change. I wonder how aware people are that they are buying into a frame of thought that is actually a lot like sales-talk for new technologies.

My course blog

Hello! This is a blog about digital competence and pedagogy. My name is Jonas and I will post reflections related to the course assignments in http://www.kth.se/rcn/utbildning/pedagogik Hope to see you around!