Digital Signposts

Don't worry about the commitee...

Image (remix) Credit: occ4m  CC Licence 

A recent post by Neil Winton highlights the issues of IPR (Intellectual Property Rights) in digital resources created by teachers. Neil's post also prepares the ground for a debate on the opportunities digital resources offer teaching and learning, something I will cover in more detail in the following post. Although Neil's post referred primarily to QA of resources and their suitability for inclusion in glow, the subtext and comments discussed the 'ownership'  of the resources, and the complexities around the issues of a teachers' own time and any monetary value.

Accepting the probability that such IPR clauses may be written into, (many), teacher contracts, and that legally, resources created by teachers are the property of their employer e.g. Local Authority (LA) or school,  it now seems high time that all parties get together to openly discuss the IPR/employer issues in the context of Web 2.0 and user generated content in order to arrive at a workable solution.

It is highly improbable that the likes of; Flickr, You Tube, social networks and digital publishing tools were considered, or even around, when IPR clauses were written into teacher contracts. More likely, they were drawn up around a scenario of teachers writing textbooks or publishing collections of worksheets.

Ewan notes in the comments, teacher publishing is not yet mainstream,  I suspect this will remain the case, certainly for writing books.  As Ewan suggest those teachers might consider setting up a, (self employed), business to do this, or they could be up-front and negotiate  an agreement with their employer. On the other hand Web 2.0 offers teachers, who would not normally consider writing a book, the opportunity to create and publish digital resources and indeed make themselves known and establish a presence within educational communities. Indeed many are already doing so. This point is particularly well illustrated by the excellent collaborative sideshow below, (one of many), from Tom Barrett,  which demonstrates the possibilities and opportunities for teachers to become involved and why the old terms of reference are no longer applicable.

Collaborative Google doc Presentation resource created and developed Tom Barrett, contributed to by many under a Creative commons Attribution Noncommercial Share Alike 3.0 License. If you would like to contribute to this resource, please contact Tom

This kind of resource does not need committee approval; applying a Creative Commons Non Commercial Share Alike license will prevent any employer claiming exclusive IPR; but they would be entitled to adapt, share and add their name to the credits and gain attribution. I believe this might be of greater value to them than the monetary value, if any, of the resource. Alternatively, they could choose to ban such content in schools or lessons, but that does not seem very wise, and I really cannot see many be willing to go down this route.

In conclusion I would argue teachers don't need to be too worried when creating digital resources. LAs are not really, (or if they are - should not be), in the business of acting as agents for resources, teacher developed or otherwise. Instead they should be encouraging teachers to participate in developing new resources, and realise they would benefit by association. Where LAs and official bodies might also offer support is in facilitating CPD and other initiatives that  help teachers who wish to create and share materials, work together and avoid the pitfalls of using third party copyright materials in their resources.

I think it is unlikely LAs would be willing to pursue IPR claims on teacher generated materials through the courts, (it costs a lot of money, more than they would ever make be likely to recoup selling the resources), and such a move would certainly raise eyebrows amongst council tax payers.

So hopefully there will be a move towards official support and encouragement for teachers leading the way in developing learning materials. They certainly should not have to worry about some committee or legal dept.

A Hootenanny in the Cloud

image credit: Scottish Dance Records by  bob the lomond  cc Licence

I don't really suffer from a shortage of music, (7.6 days worth if I listened to it from end to end), but I'm always up for hearing more; either online or by going to (mainly local) gigs, hoping some of the magic might rub of on to my playing. So when @iusher flagged up Spotify on Twitter a few days ago I thought I'd give it a go.

Initial impressions were good; excellent streaming, with little or no buffering and a wealth of tunes; this seemed Ideal for checking out an artists archives or to do keyword search on a genre.  Since Pandora was killed dead, here in the UK, I have been using and having some fun with blip.fm  but it's still rather insular; whilst Last.fm doesn't cut it for me.

It wasn't until @GeorgiaWonder, (who played for the Teachmeet at BETT), posted a collaborative playlist that the true value of Spotify became apparent. After some playing around, I decided to launch a themed playlist: Caledonia - which has  one simple rule; all tunes must have some connection or link with Scotland, I posted 12 songs initially and have added one or two since.  This has taken off like wildfire and the playlist now stands at over 140 and covers genres ranging including Rock, Punk Folk Strict Tempo Dance Bluegrass Comedy Poetry,  The traditional includes folk from Ewan McColl and Karine Polwart, there's's dance music from, (naturally), Jimmy Shand and from this era Phil Cunningham, great rockers such as Frankie Miller and  the late Alex Harvey line up next to the pop of Lulu and Sheena Easton; Andy Stewart and Billy Connolly supply  laughs, and Robin Williamson carries on the tradition of the Celtic bards. Perhaps one thing that would make Spotify a killer app, would be the opportunity to see who has uploaded individual tunes; (and catch the culprit responsible for adding The Bay City Rollers!!). Perhaps also a online chat or comments would complete the picture, making it do for music, what Twitter has, for our personal social and learning networks.

And great fun though it is; this is about much more than sharing tunes; the playlist reflects a shared, yet very diverse cultural identity,  I would be surprised if any of the collaborators didn't discover a few new tunes.  Woven into the  musical experience were anecdotes, banter and whisky.  So, to anyone reading this please  join in the - you don't have to be Scottish - just the music. Here's the link

Since then  I have been thinking quite deeply about how  we access/store/listen to music; is the time coming when  like a lot of our other data; a great deal of our music will live in the Cloud?.  Spotify certainly suggest this might be a possibility.  Since using it I have had little desire, to visit my library on my HD. Spotify seems much more immediate, and there's always a surprise in the  next song.  How I will listen to music in the car driving up to Teachmeet Borders later today is of course, a different story!

Seriously though, if it is now possible to have this degree of interaction, community and  collaboration for music, it can also be achieved in other areas. We can do it for  knowledge, we can do it for learning, for learning resources, and offer some real shared community learning.

Just what is it about BETT?

 

It is that time of year again when a large percentage of the educational ICT community converges on West London for the annual BETT (ed tech trade), show, one of the worlds largest. Last year nearly 29,000 attended the event. In light of the current financial stramash it will be interesting to see how this years figures compare

There have been some subtle changes taking place in recent years with some notable absences amongst the exhibitors. I believe a substantial body of visitors have developed a critical approach to ed-tech, and are less likely to be seduced by the unproven rhetoric of the gizmos and the gadgets. Many, (including myself), will be attending to network, meet up, socialise and have conversations about the application and future of educational technology. It is likely many will attend some of the fringe events including Bettr and Teachmeet, which promises to be one of the biggest yet, as word spreads.

Although Twitter was around last year, I predict it will have a much bigger impact on visitors conversations, and indirectly on the exhibitors, as tweets encourage visitors to visit, avoid or highlight some aspects of the exhibition. I suspect tweeters may well find quite a few extra, (unwanted?) followers from exhibitors who understand the power of Twitter. I logged on at  6.30 am  and BETT tweets were coming in thick and fast. What was most encouraging was the number of overseas visitors tweeting in their own languages. 

Trends? not sure, but I suspect that VLEs, aka Learning Platforms, plus some filtering, blocking and control masquerading as online safety. I may be wrong,! There are, of course, some excellent talks and the Hepple.net stand, (complete with real students), was one of last years highlights. Personally will be taking a very critical look at 'content' whatever that might be.

See you there.

Let's forget about the 21st Century

The 21st century meme has been appearing regularly throughout the edublogosphere. John Connell has posted some excellent contributions to the conversation on 21st century skills and 'literacies' here and here, whilst  Doug Belshaw has been developing  his thesis on the concepts. I highly recommend subscribing to their blogs.

The first thing that strikes me is that the 21st century is a very long time, certainly in a technological context if not an evolutionary one. If you consider the technological developments in the 20th century, never mind the 21st, It seems ridiculous to offer predictions for more than next 5-10 years.

I am convinced that our obsession with 21st century is holding back the debate on skill and literacies. It sets up an artificial construct between the traditional and the emergent. As John Connell says:

"I just don’t understand the mindset,... ...that assumes that, the moment you start to promote one idea, all other ideas are to be demoted or discarded. I see it so often today. We must be free to isolate an aspect of education so that we can discuss it in detail without everyone falling into the trap of believing we are advocating that aspect to the exclusion of all others."

It is unlikely that great innovators of the 20th century were concerned about  creating something for the "20th century" It seems more likely that  extreme dedication to work in their respective fields, is more probable.

Secondly, it may be impossible to completely disentangle the shifting elements that make up the skills and literacies we currently need, because some are cognitive and others functional. I am sure some will make a good stab at this, but I think this is probably the province of an academic paper.

As Doug suggests, we need a new term, and he's still looking. By far, the best I have come across recently , was from Prof. Sue Thomas at a  recent conference at DeMontfort University: "transliteracy" - to be literate across the literacies - this definition probably allows us a bit more breathing space in our definitions, because it allows for the multi-layered capabilities we need to develop, in order to derive real benefit from technology. 

"The ability to read, write and interact across a range of platforms, tools and media from signing and orality through handwriting, print, TV, radio and film, to digital social networks."

What is important is to distinguish cognitive from functional or practical skills, (whether those are an using interactive whiteboard or cursive handwriting).  The need and relevance of these can change quickly and dramatically.

Having said that I feel it is completely wrong to dismiss the discussion on 21st Century skills as a "fad", using that reasoning one might as well say  same about the internet. It is a fallacy  to say that nothing has changed, (even in this century), and that we can operate using the same models.  A good example is video; it is only 6 years since Becta launched the first Digital Video project for schools. It was no coincidence that this happened at the time when the kit first became practical and affordable in schools, unfortunately there was, at the time no real outlet for the work produced, and the real benefits never saw the light of day. All that has changed, the tools are low cost, easy to use and widespread. So now more than ever we need to consider the visual literacies such as the language of film, visual grammar,  etc otherwise we will have kids not grasping the potential " as Dai Barnes noted in his blog:

"They know they can upload stuff but not many of them actually do. In fact, very few of them have actually signed up for an account to subscribe to their favourites or connect to friends. The way they communicate videos with each other (have you seen this? bare funny!)"

The technologies have changed the way we operate, the way we learn, or could learn. We can learn from each other in a technologically enhanced way and  as Steve Wheeler points out

"You and I no longer need to occupy the same location to converse. We can use text, audio or video in a number of modes and through a mind dazzling range of technologies. And there is a record - an archive - of our conversation if we want one."

On a technological timescale writing, appeared quite recently, and printing with the attendant mass publishing and increased literacy, only a few moments ago. I agree with John that it is unlikely text will disappear completely, but its presentation, use and context may change significantly.

The technologies are there, the conversations are global and instantaneous, so lets use them and not worry too much about which century we are in.

 Image by Graham Wegner with this CC licence

It's not really about YouTube

Image attribution;  AlexMuse under this CC licence

The perennial debate on filtering and blocking of web sites, in education, has been lively on several fronts recently, including Twitter, ETR (Ed Tech Round -a group of teachers and others who meet online weekly), and the Naace advisory list of UK ICT education professionals, reaching over 50 posts in a few days. The idea of creating a Google Maps mashup to demonstrate blocking on a national and local level was one of the ideas proposed. Whilst I don't think a name and shame list will do much to change the situation, the data might be useful as  a broad indicator, especially if there is some creative detail, that others can add to. What is clear is the increasing degree of irritation with the status quo by a growing number of teachers, whilst advocates of blocking show little sign of changing their thinking, no matter what evidence is brought forward.

It will come as no surprise that much of the debate was centered around YouTube, so in this post I will consider some of the the wider issues relating to YouTube, though much of it could apply equally to other online services. I visited a, (primary), school a couple of weeks ago which allowed access to YouTube, parents are aware and supportive and the world has not come to an end. Quoting; Lisa Stevens, the languages teacher who speaks regularly in the UK and Europe on creative use ICT, including Web 2.0, in school:

"We make them, (children), aware rather than blocking. I use YouTube a lot in lessons. I like the fact that it not blocked and I can be spontaneous, but I always check before I show it to the kids. I think it's a great resource. There's lots of cultural information, especially  songs, I can find for Spain. If you ask my children to name the planets they will burst into a Spanish song. There are times when they will go on to YouTube and find things, then, I have to say to them could we not go ever there, now is not the time and explain to them why. I know there is TeacherTube but to be honest there isn't as much good stuff there

We made an animation about the Carnival of the Animals and shared it on you.' and they were so excited  "Miss Miss we are on YouTube,"  Look at the hits that can't just be my Mum." I say "no its not - and they are on iTunes as well".  The kudos of being in a place  place where others than their peers can see them.  And, parents like to see what their children have been doing.

Access and Control with the number of mobile devices and Internet connected laptops growing,  and students playing the bypassing filters game, it is probably only a matter of time before blocking may no longer be a realistic option. Indeed, a great deal of blocking seems to be a knee jerk reaction to behavioral issues rather than seriously concerned with pupils e-safety. YouTube itself does have a notification process, perhaps not ideal in everyone's eyes, but it is available. Probably of much greater concern might be the 'comments' left by those who use comments features to abuse others, (and their right to free speech). Teachers may find Comment Snob a very useful  addition when using YouTube with a class.

The inappropriate Content case is a Straw Man, it is unlikely anyone will disagree there is much low level rubbish, both from user generated, and professional sources, and some may say YouTube has a dark side, but that is easily counterbalanced by the growing number of good educational channels, including recently digitised treasures from the BFI.  It is the breadth and freshness of content, that generates YouTube's value for teachers, often addressing current issues such as this video analysis of a topical 'copyright' issue, (Satriani v Coldplay). In fact YouTube reflects our culture at all levels, and future social anthropologists will be far more likely to study YouTube than the professional produced, authoritative media preferred by Andrew Keen.

From the discussions it is clear, many teachers 'download' the video streams from YouTube to use in different ways and contexts. Even though everyone's doing it, (many possibly unaware), that it breaks YouTube's, (restrictive), terms and conditions. It is not my role here, or in my nature to suggest teachers stop downloading, but, is important to know, in order to make  informed decisions on using use YouTube materials. Considering the hundreds of tools available to download video, it would be naive to assume YouTube (Google) will be unaware of this, but since 2006 there seems to be no official response from YouTube, and from their point of view it may now be case of, 'let sleeping dogs lie'.

This leads naturally on to Licensing, along with many others, I maintain YouTube could do much more here, for example allowing users to add Creative Commons licences to the videos they upload, as is the case with Flickr and Blip.tv. I suspect that is because a large number of videos may have copyrighted materials embedded in them. Lawrence Lessig extrapolates on the issues, in depth, here. 

Finally the Technology. YouTube continues to improve its services, recent developments included: captions and video annotations, deep linking, wide screen format, a bigger player  and HD quality video. Add to this low cost easy to use mini video cameras, (now including HD) and visual quality is set to improve dramatically. There are a  now number of third party services allowing you to deep link  or edit  online with more likely to appear. There are also  tools that will transform the use of video in learning now emerging from the research labs.

The future
All this suggests that, (online), video including YouTube is here for the long run, and as technical standards, cost and ease of use will continue to improve there is a great untapped potential for learning. It is up to (educational) users of YouTube to make sure their voice is heard as YouTube evolves, rather than it be left to the media industry, repressive regimes or governments that should know better.

It's been, (mostly), a great week for digitisation

Screenshot from Les Kiriki - Acrobates Japonais - 1907 _ Europa Film Treasures

This has been a great week for digitisation with several new archive and collections coming on stream online. Having been involved with developing the Newsfilm Online archive for use by further and higher education within the UK, I was pleased to delighted to come across the Europa Film Treasures a archive of historical European films. The site, with its focus on research and study, contains work from a number  of Europe's most prestigious archives.  Quoting from the site "although it is probable that already 70% of the images shot during the first fifty years of cinema are definitively lost." This collection provides a glimpse of the full picture.  The quality of the streaming videos is good, even at full screen, whilst the terms, are the usual non commercial and personal study/use. Education is not specifically mentioned. Probably worth saying, there are a few clips some might see as 'risque', but these are clearly flagged.

Moving on to images, LIFE's photographic image collection is being digitised and hosted  by Google and available online. Over the next few months it is expected over 10 million images will be added, most of them never seen before.  To, (roughly,) quote Lev Manovich from the Future of Educational Technologies conference last week:  "there are possibly more pictures uploaded to Flickr than there are objects in the museums of the  world."  A remarkable observation, whilst this collection adds another ingredient into the mix. The online images themselves are good quality at around 1000 pixel size, give or take a few, terms of use not clearly stated or evident, I suspect the usual Google's image search terms apply. There is also the opportunity, to buy 'framed' prints, a good way to monetise such an archive.

Back to the EU again and this is where the 'mostly' caveat come in.  I was eagerly awaiting the 20th November,  for the official launch of the Europeana project.  Obviously, the project had  not anticipated the demand, (10,000,00 in the first hour),  Europeana now needs to re-engineer the service, which will become available again in a more robust format in mid December. If the promotional video is anything to go by, this is going to be a stupendous resource

So, on reflection, until recently, most information on the web has been textual or data based, but the (multi) media, and by association, cultural elements are becoming just as important,  due to the of  the inevitable, and unstoppable move to digitise our collective culture.

note: written on train,  any typos will be corrected after weekend

Canaletto at the SECC

I thought  I'd share part of the presentation I gave  last night during Teachmeet08  at the Scottish Learning Festival at Glasgow's SECC.

I also spent my first day day attending two fascinating sessions related to Digital Content and learning, the first was presented by SCRAN  and was well illustrated with some exceptional childrens multimedia work, the second covered the issues of Using Digital Content with Glow, Scotland's national intranet for children. Both presentations were very different with took their own slant on the use of digital content for learning. I will post a more detailed review on these when I get back from the event.

My  personal interest in digital content is researching how it can be adapted for different learning activities and contexts.  My impression  once content has been acquired, it is immediately categorised  as suitable for a specifc age or subject discipline. I am concerned that when it is labeled in this way, those whose primary interest might be in the sciences will never find the assets deemed appropriate for art or politics.

The last year has seen a huge global increase in digitisation, with more projects coming on stream such as the Europeana  or the EduTube Plus projects I am currently involved with.  The big issues are sharing accessibility to assets for learning. At moment many are restricted to institutional or national boundaries,  the reasons are, understandably, liklely to be related to IP and rights and funding and ownership, but perhaps also  how the projects view their potential audience, and who should have access. There are potential ways forward here and I have some ideas I am formulating willing to put forward. Perhaps it is time for a much wider debate on ownership of and access to digital assets in the 21st century.

What I was very encouraged to see is that the Scottish education system and specifically with its Curriculum for Excellence is really beginning to engage with the idea of using digital assets as a focus for learning, and this can only be good.

Content Part 1: Re-usability

Image credit - Leigh Blackall (Learning Networks)  CC License Flickr

Part 1 of a series of posts on 'educational' content

Whilst the Internet offers learners plenty of opportunity to take ownership of their learning, construct knowledge, and solve problems; these goals are unlikely to be achieved by simply having access to online content. I am in complete agreement with Harold Jarche when he argues that the real value in educational content lies in what users are able to do with it, in his own words it needs to be "hackable".

Creating good content on a platform that lets users (teachers & learners) add context may be the the real killer application in education. Content developers and institutions have been so concerned with protecting their content that they don’t see where the real value lies

The BBC Learning One Broadband/Clips web pages are a good example of this. The pages host a broad range of good quality video clips which unfortunately cannot be downloaded, re-purposed or even embedded in an online learning resource. This leaves us with Internet television, the clips are diminished in value because they ignore the potential for online learning. To rub salt into the wound the web site provides; (a whole page of.....  advice) on how to make a hyperlink, (to a clip), in PowerPoint.

Whilst many other content providers from offer much the same fare; I have highlighted the BBC resource because the BBC is capable of much better....... as the BBC  has regularly demonstrated through the quality of its broadcasts, and previous educational projects. One only needs to think back to the BBC Creative Archive and BBC Jam. Indeed, those responsible for the suspension and/or demise of these services should be left in no doubt they have done learning in the UK, (and elsewhere), a great disservice

Well before Web 2.0 and user generated content, came to prominence, learners provided, (albeit anecdotal), evidence, here (Burden & Kuechel, 2003, pg 31 - pdf download ), that their cognitive processes are enhanced by learning from their peers.  The sooner content providers begin to 'get it' - the better.

Next in the series: Leave it to us - Content and Curricula