Five tools for global educators

Recently I have been considering the changing role of teachers who are adopting technology to extend the walls of the classroom. These are a new breed of teachers who do not necessarily accept that the classroom is contained within four walls. In effect, through the use of social media and telecommunication technologies, these teachers are becoming global educators. I consider myself a global educator and have tried to articulate my ideas on why this is a different role to traditional teaching. We are connected educators, linked in to a number of powerful global communities of practice, and we have access to resources, dialogue and audiences we would not enjoy in a traditional learning and teaching role. But what tools do we use to enable us to connect with these communities, resources, audiences around the globe? Here are my top five tools:

Webinar: There are a number of ways to teach and present live from beyond the classroom. I regularly present live (synchronous) webinars or web seminars, and other teaching sessions from my home office, or from a hotel room, and conceivably just about anywhere else there is connectivity to the internet. I have presented from Australia to the USA (strange timezone differences there) and from Europe to the USA, and even, in such events as the Reform Symposium, presented to a worldwide audience of educators. Webinar tools include Elluminate (now known as Blackboard Collaborate), WebEx and Adobe Connect all of which have similar screen topographies and perform similar functions, but all have an associated cost. All of the above tools support live audio (you should use a headset to maintain quality) and video communication (a webcam or internal camera on a laptop is needed for this), slideshow presentation tools and text communication. Webinars could also be conducted on Skype which is currently free, but quality may be more variable using this tool.

Blog: Blogging is arguably one of the most powerful tools for global education. I have already written a great deal about the power of blogging, so I won't elaborate too much here. What I will say is that by following a few simple guidelines, teachers can write and present content in accessible formats, and can incorporate images (pictures, diagrams), videos, audio and hyperlinks, all of which can help students to investigate a topic in greater detail if they wish. The comments boxes below each post support dialogue, and the tagging feature on most blogs enables easier search for content.

Twitter: This social networking tool is deceptively simple, but deeply sophisticated and versatile due to its inherent filtering facilities. It is also an excellent connecting tool - retweets are not repetition, they are amplification of content. The power of Twitter lies not only in its simplicity, but also in its accessibility. Whether used as a backchannel to amplify an event, or as a closed channel to converse between small groups, Twitter has an appeal that enables a great deal more expression that one would expect from a 140 character limit. Hyperlinks and other media links can be shared, and with the addition of a URL shortener, can also make more space for a few annotations. Used in conjunction with the other tools showcased on this page, it is indeed a very powerful tool for the global educator.

Video: Social media tools such as YouTube are maturing into sophisticated tools that enable all kinds of visual media sharing. Over 24 hours of video footage is uploaded to the YouTube servers every minute. Most of it can be disregarded, but some content found on YouTube is gold dust for teachers. It is now possible to create your own personal channel on the service, simply by clicking a few buttons. There is an editing facility available that allows teachers to select specific sequences of video and create new versions for showing to students. The comments box at the foot of each video clip enables dialogue between presenter and students. It's asynchronous, but can still be a highly effective way of sending quality content to distributed student groups.

Slideshare: If you have a Powerpoint presentation or a document and you want to share it with a wider audience, then Slideshare is probably your first port of call. Several of my recent presentations have gone viral simply because the tool is easy to access and is being used by large numbers of people every day. You can see at a glance how many views your slideshow has received, how many favourites, downloads, embeds, and most importantly, you can respond to comments to create dialogue with your remote students.

These are just a few of the vast array of tools that are currently available to the global educator, and they are my preferences. I am sure others will have different preferences or recommendations to make. Please feel free to share your expertise and ideas below in the comments box.

Image source


Five tools for global educators by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Human 2.0

Post human. Such a strange concept, and one that many people struggle to understand. At its simplest, being post-human is a state closely aligned to the cyborg, or cybernetic-organism - part human, part machine. In other words, the post-human condition emerges when humankind and technology merge to the point where they become a part of each other. We can understand cyborgs - and for many, the idea of a half-man, half-machine evokes deep seated fears about how far technology can go. Donna Haraway (2004) makes a point of singling out Rachel - a replicant character in the sci-fi movie Bladerunner - as 'the image of a cyborg culture's fear, love, and confusion.' We have seen many other popular culture examples of the cyborg, from the six-million dollar man to Robocop - and each is endowed with superhuman strength, or enhanced senses. We recognise them because they are on their own, isolated, lost in a world of otherwise normality, unnatural, freaks of non-nature.

No-one really knows exactly if or when a post-human phase emerged, it is all theory and supposition. But we can trace the history of prosthetics and reflect on the incorporation of various kinds of technology into the human body. Replacement limbs may not strictly be accepted as a merging of technology and humanity, unless they are robotic limbs. Heart pacemakers, valves and other forms of technology implant or merger might be. Computer scientist and philosopher Andy Clark, in his 2003 book Natural Born Cyborgs, argues that humankind has an innate need to interface with technology: 'What the human brain is best at is learning to be a team player in a problem-solving field populated by an incredible variety of nonbiological props, scaffoldings, instruments and resources' (p 26). Essentially, when wetware (biological entity) meets hardware, the software can be interoperable. Clark sees the merging of mind and machine to be unstoppable and inevitable. He believes it's not a matter of if, but when. Some would argue that the transient phase leading to post-humanism is the non-invasive but just as powerful welding together of human and computer, as seen in the addictive video game playing of geeks, or the smartphone ultra-dependency of our current youth generation.

So are we now on the verge of a new phase in human development? Are we at the cusp of the incorporation of technology into the human body because we have such a desire to enhance our senses, increase our physical and mental performance, or otherwise extend the capabilities of what is considered to be 'natural'? Are we about to embark on a post-human phase in human development? Some would affirm this, citing several notable 'real examples' of cyborgs in recent years. Meet Kevin Warwick, a professor at the University of Reading, probably the world's first true cyborg. Professor Warwick is interested in how technology can enhance human senses and improve performance. In the foreword to his book I Cyborg, he writes: 'Humans have limited capabilities. Humans sense the world in a restricted way, vision being the best of the senses. Humans understand the world in only 3 dimensions and communicate in a very slow, serial fashion called speech. But can this be improved on? Can we apply technology to the upgrading of humans?' In essence, Warwick is asking: Can we become Human 2.0?

In a famous experiment in 1998 Warwick had a chip transponder surgically implanted into his arm. A computer was then able to track Warwick as he moved around the university campus, and allowed him to open doors, turn on lights, and operate computers without touching them. Other phases of the experiment involved more advanced transponder implants that monitored Warwick's internal condition, such as his emotional responses, stress levels and even thoughts. The speculation was that if others also had similar transponders implanted, people might then be able to communicate their thoughts and emotions to each other via computer mediation.

More recently, Tanya Vlach made headlines with her plans for a new prosthetic eye. She has a dream to transform herself into an 'enhanced human being' after being involved in a serious car accident in which she lost her left eye. She is now planning to have an 'eye-cam' - installed inside her prosthetic eye, complete with zoom control, infra-red and ultra-violet capabilities and the facility for face recognition. The eye-cam would interface with a custom made app, housed in a standard smartphone. She is currently waiting for technology to catch up with her vision, and one day soon, hopes to be able to hard wire the eye-cam directly to the vision centre in her brain, and in so doing become a truly enhanced human being - a cyborg - a post human. Scary, fascinating, challenging stuff - the cyborg becomes the iBorg.

Computer scientist Jaron Lanier's keynote speech at Learning Technologies in London recently served to illustrate several of the dangers and caveats of the post-human condition. Jaron Lanier vehemently rejects Ray Kurzweil's vision of a future where computers can exceed the capabilities of humans. 'You have to be somebody before you can share yourself', he warns. He suggests that we already have expanded memories (search engines of the web) and remote ears and eyes (mobile phones and webcams). Lanier sees no techno-eutopia in the future, but warns instead that we are in danger of dystopia. Indeed, he advised the makers of the movie Minority Report on what might be expected from a technology dominated future in which people were manipulated like chess pieces. The data mining capabilities of the social networks alone can enslave us by owning our purchasing habits, internet search preferences and all other personal data he suggests. He sees Facebook and other social networks undermining and devaluing friendships. The technology should work for us, not us for the technology. Lanier is a contentious, thoughtful character. In just a few minutes of conversation with him in the speaker's lounge, my impression was that he opposes anything that involves a 'hive mind'. 'Why are you wearing a Creative Commons badge?' he asked me as we gazed out over West London. I explained that I believe in giving all my content away for free and that to me, that is the essence of the future of learning. 'I'm going to speak against that today', he warned. It's clear that generally, Jaron Lanier holds a somewhat more pessimistic view of our possible cyborg future.

In the final analysis though, it is mind amplification that is the ultimate goal for humankind's future enhancement. The ability to distribute knowledge beyond the confines of the human brain, and the capability to extend the mind through and across networks does not demand or require any co-joining of human and computer. We have already achieved much of this through mind tools such as social media, which according to Karen Stephenson enable us to store our knowledge with our friends. Do we really need a post-human future? iThink not. 

Top image by Elif Ayiter

References

Clark, A. (2003) Natural Born Cyborgs: Minds, Technologies and the Future of Human Intelligence. New York: Oxford University Press.

Haraway, D. J. (2004) A Manifesto for Cyborgs: Science, Technology, and Socialist Feminism in the 1980s. New York: Routledge.

Lanier, J. (2010) You are not a Gadget. London: Penguin.


Human 2.0 by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Digital learning futures

Digital Learning Futures

View more presentations from Steve Wheeler

As I write this blog post, the above slideshow has received almost 18,000 views in just 48 hours since it was posted up onto Slideshare. These slides accompanied my presentation during the Learning Technologies conference and exhibition held at London's Olympia on 25-26 January. I was pleasantly surprised by the huge turnout to hear me speak, and grateful to Don Taylor and his team for inviting me to speak at this excellent event.

During my talk, I discussed a number of possible scenarios that might result when wholesale adoption of digital technologies occurs in education and training. I touched on personal learning networks, mobile technologies, games and gamification, the use of social media in learning, the role of user generated content, the phenomenon of ubiquitous connection, and technological convergence. The latter in particular is a trend that is allowing us to use web-enabled television, dual view screens, and in the near future will enable a merging between e-mail and social media. I also discussed pedagogical issues such as deep and surface learning, creative thinking and the transformation of knowledge consumption. As a nod to the possible futures we might see, I discussed the development of semantic web technologies (Web 3.0 and Web x.0), touch screen tablets, non-touch technologies and smart objects, as well as the potential of Open Educational Resources, open learning and open scholarship to support a global democratisation of learning.

I'm immensely gratified to think that so many more people outside the auditorium at Learning Technologies are now downloading and viewing these ideas. My audience has been extended beyond the walls of the event to a global classroom through the amazing power of social media. Here's to all the possible futures of learning!


Digital learning futures by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Back to the future

I was lucky to witness firsthand some of the earliest attempts at educational computing in the UK. In 1976 we set up a project called Investigations into Teaching with Microprocessors as an Aid (ITMA). I was in the technical team that built some of the first personal computers from kit form, which we then deployed among our student teachers to explore how these new tools might possibly be used in teaching and learning. Educational computing was still very much in its infancy, and there was a lot of interest in whether they could or would actually change learning.

Later, in 1981 I changed jobs to work in a nurse training school in the National Health Service where the only computers were very large ones that were used for management and administration. They were kept behind locked doors, and only a few select individuals ever got to enter the room.

Around 1981, Acorn and the BBC joined forces to produce one of the first affordable educational computers. It was called rather obviously, the BBC Microcomputer. Various versions were released over the decade including the 'B', the 'Master' and the 'Archimedes'. Each had to be supplemented by an external 5.5 inch floppy hard drive and a metal cube screen Microvitec monitor. The entire set was cream coloured, and could be further supplemented by a plinth which housed the whole ensemble. My nursing school, with my encouragement, purchased a dozen or so, and then it was my job to deploy them in meaningful contexts to promote learning. I placed one in the corridor outside my office, and wrote a small programme which printed out on a dot matrix printer information about every single transaction that took place each day. When a student nurse accessed a programme, the printed record showed me the name of the programme, when it was activated, how long the student remained on the programme, and even what score they achieved in the tests on the software. I discovered that the programmes, simple as they were, had the effect of drawing students to engage with learning on a mostly informal basis, anytime they were passing my office on the way to the training rooms, library and coffee area. They were in effect, one of the first technology supported self-directed study methods ever used in nurse education.

I deployed a second BBC computer alongside the first, and the use increased. Very soon I procured a small room in which we positioned an entire suite of BBC computers. I began writing programmes in conjunction with the nurse tutors, and in no time at all we were selling the Computer Assisted Learning (CAL) packages to other nursing schools all across the country. The software was written in 'BBC Basic' (Beginners All purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) and were indeed basic, mainly consisting of text, questions and tests, and remedial loops with a score presented at the end. In the mid 80s, this was fairly leading edge, and seemed to align comfortably with the teaching ethos of the time, which in nurse education was essentially a behaviouristic 'drill and practice' approach. Today, the programmes would seem primitive, inappropriate and probably very very boring. In the mid 80s, they attracted students like bees to a flower garden. They queued to used the computers. One programme I wrote was a remix of the Basically Eliza programme, which mimicked a therapist by matching inputted questions with a small data base of responses. My programme had a twist. Instead of merely trying to converse with the student nurses, the programme threw insults back at them too, taking the conversation to an entirely new and hilarious level. It became the most popular programme in the suite, especially for our mental health nurses.

It was with a wonderful feeling of nostalgia that I walked into the National Museum of Computing dome at Learning without Frontiers and saw the array of BBC computers on display. They were even accompanied by the BBC Acorn User Guide with it's glossy coloured cover and spiral binder. The sight took me back over three decades to the time I wrestled with how to deploy new and untried technology in authentic learning contexts. I remember the excitement I experienced when I unpacked the BBCs for the first time, and connected and switched them on, to see what they were capable of. We have come a long way since those early pioneering days, but the same questions still remain. How can we embed new technology effectively? What can we do with this new technology that we couldn't do before? How will this new technology effect and affect pedagogy? Even then, 30 years ago, I believed fervently that computers would radically transform education and training, and I still hold that hope. Education has indeed changed, and continues to evolve as technology drives change. Radical change though, will only come when teachers everywhere see the potential and power of technology to extend, enhance and enrich learning for all.


Back to the Future by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Positive deviance and the IPD

We all know that organisations and institutions impose barriers to innovation. The larger they are, the more rules they tend to generate. This is because by nature large organisations are conservative and there is a perceived need to protect the status quo and maintain order. But this isn't always good news for creativity and innovation. James Clay once called such enforcing agencies 'Innovation Prevention Departments', and claimed that every institution has one. I think he's right. Trying to innovate in such circumstances, especially when there is an IPD saying 'that's against the rules', 'it can't be done' or 'it's too expensive' can be hard going, but innovation is never impossible. I was interviewed at the Learning Technologies conference, about my views on innovation, organisational constraints and positive deviance. The interview was actually recorded downstairs in the Learning without Frontiers dome zone, which explains the theatrical lighting. Above is the video of the interview in full (duration 90 seconds).

Interview by Martin Couzins


Positive deviance and the IPD by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Border crossings

As ever, the Learning without Frontiers conference and festival was a rallying point for those who are at the forefront of innovation in education. All sectors were represented, and with the Learning and Development professionals conference in tandem on the floor above, the joint event showed real attempts to embrace all education and training practices. A few of the invited speakers were shared across both events, giving presentations to two separate audiences in two different venues within the Olympia complex. Hosting the two major events in tandem for the first time was an experiment that was simultaneously exhilarating and frustrating. It was exhilarating because so many members of the extended UK learning community were together in one place for the first time, but frustrating because those of us who habituate both events were well and truly torn between what to attend. Both events are enjoyable and memorable, not least because of the enthusiasm, passion and openness of the people who attend.

Upstairs in the Learning Technologies event, over 500 delegates listened to presentations from the likes of Edward de Bono, Donald Clark, Joanne Jacobs, Nigel Paine, and myself as well as shared speakers Stephen Heppell, Jaron Lanier and Ray Kurzweil. Generally the same message was dominant in both events, namely that learning is undergoing a makeover, but that it needs to go more than skin deep. Indeed there were signs that things are changing, slowly but surely. I noticed a concerted effort this year for example, that 'downstairs' in the main conference exhibition area, efforts were being made to percolate some of the innovative practices talked about 'upstairs' into the free public vendor area. The LT Exchange stand hosted a number of live interviews with a variety of presenters amidst a relaxed environment, complete with a catering facility. Questions of the hour were pinned to the wall for open discussion with the presenters. This at least brought the cut and thrust of the live presentations downstairs for greater exposure and wider discussion outside the main conference. Videos of the keynotes were played out regularly to the downstairs delegates too, giving them a flavour of the proceedings in the main conference auditorium. Such features at least partially addressed the conceptual divide I wrote about in Upstairs Downstairs about last year's event.

Both events featured presentations with flare, but in my opinion it was within the Learning without Frontiers event that innovation was at its most evident. As ever, the LWF team were trying to push boundaries with a programme of quick fire main hall presentations and a fast moving programme of peripheral events. In yesterday's post I featured the iconic inflatable dome village, which was a tangible counterpoint to the more staid, traditional conference exhibition just across the landing.

The event focused on learning 'without frontiers', but conferences impose barriers by their very nature. The sentinels at the gate dividing the two exhibitions represented the organisational border point, and one passport (either conference badge would do) was scanned repeatedly as people passed from one 'country' into another. I was left wondering why the border crossing was necessary. Was it there to separate the two tribes - corporate and public sector? It created a log jam when several people wished to cross between the two exhibition zones simultaneously, and the bar-code scanners were working overtime.

For me, the border between the two events also signified a metaphorical divide between the conservative and the radical. In just a few paces, one was able to move from a traditional conference stand exhibiting corporate training packages and organisational planning tools to inflatable domes with interactive robotic displays or Lego building playzones. It reminded me of a backwards in time journey from the world of work and business to school. Significantly, good learning is required in both those spheres of activity, and the methods employs to deliver these opportunities can be vastly different. That was a part of the appeal of the marriage between the two events. The question running through my mind throughout the entire joint event though, was whether there will be a movement of business and industry learning and development towards the game based, interactive and exciting methods beginning to emerge in the compulsory education sector. And how far will public sector education be able to move in new directions without the funding available to most private sector initiatives?

We were reminded once more that the schools sector is itself far from perfect. Speakers such as Stephen 'remove your shoes' Heppell and Francis Gilbert eloquently challenged the tired old school formula with clarion calls for better learner engagement, student centred approaches and innovative technology applications in radical new learning environments. Others spoke repeatedly about the 'purpose of education', putting excitement back in to learning, and breaking the old paradigms. Ellen MacArthur inspired us all as she related her personal journey. Ray Kurzweil blinded us with computer science, whilst Michael Brooks urged us to be mavericks and to push the boundaries of possibilities to make the change. It was all heady stuff, but how much of the idealism and fervour of this event can and will be taken back and actually allowed to be embedded in everyday practice? We shall see, but I suspect that as always, it will be the lone rangers who forge ahead with their leading edge practices, and it will be a long time before most institutions change their ways. But it was another restart, a boost to our collective esteem, a charging of the batteries .... and we can all hope that it won't be long before the border crossing disappears.


Border crossings by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Welcome to the pleasure domes

The dome village created by Graham Brown-Martin and his Learning without Frontiers team - at Olympia in London this week - seems to have been a great hit for many delegates. Edgy, futuristic and a visual spectacle in all their underlit splendour, the domes hosted debates, panels, presentations, demonstrations and a chance to get hands on lego, Nintendo games, retro computers, robots and a whole host of other interesting goodies. The two salons, 'Foucault' and 'Bourdieu' (after the famous French comedy mime duo) hosted a rolling programme of presentations throughout the two days of the conference/festival, and at times seemed to be bursting at the seams. (OK, I'm joking about Foucault and Bourdieu - I know they weren't a duo). Whether the move from the East End to Olynpia is a success will be debated for some time to come, but just about everyone I spoke to agreed that the conceptualisation of the domes was inspired. For me, the National History of Computing Museum dome was a draw, with its display of working BBC B, Master and Archimedes computers, complete with their external floppy disk drives and chunky Microvitec monitors. I was struck with a sense of nostalgia (and duly took two paracetamol) because computers of their ilk were the ones I cut my programmer's teeth on all those years ago in the early 1980s. The entire space for LWF12 was utilised in a creative way, with the main auditorium hedged on three sides by the dome village.

The invited speaker line-up was stellar, including video presentations from Noam Chomsky and Sir Ken Robinson, and live presentations for the likes of Mitch Resnick, Jaron Lanier, Conrad Wolfram, Ellen McArthur, Charles Leadbeater, Keri Facer, Stephen Heppell and Ray Kurzweil. Politicians from both sides of the house (specifically Lord Jim Knight and Culture secretary Ed Vaisey) also put in an appearance on the main stage - but sadly not together. Unfortunately, the close proximity of the arena stage to the open balcony made for a lot of noise problems, as just below was one of the largest learning technology exhibitions since BETT. The constant background drone of conversations rising from below was a little distracting, as was the sharp odour emitting from the freshly painted false walls of the arena, but most people seemed to successfully tune their senses out to concentrate on the presentations.

But it was around and inside the domes that much of the conversations, connections and creativity took place. The domes were a stark contrast to the adjacent conventional exhibition and speaker spaces in the Learning Technologies and Skills Conference, which ran concurrently on both days, a couple of floors above. I will discuss the issues surrounding the juxtapositioning of two of Europe's largest learning conferences in a future post, but for now, it is worth saying that the co-presence of the two events under a single roof brought benefits and limitations in equal measure. The domes were a triumph, the LWF programme was inspirational and GBM and his team have once again has delivered a superbly crafted, memorable, and inspirational event and a clear reference point for revolutionary and disruptive learning futures.

I will write more reports on Learning without Frontiers and also Learning Technologies in future blog posts.


Welcome to the pleasure domes by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.