Digital Signposts

Measuring the Educational Value of Digital Resources

Image (background) credit: Mockney Rebel   CC Licence: BY-NC-2.0

I have been thinking about the value the educational community and learners gain from using digital resources, especially those targeted for educational.  In the visualisation above, I  have extrapolated, which possible  actions or behaviours by educators might be of most benefit for learners, (and other educators). You may wish to suggest others in the comments, or even disagree with the model; I would really welcome your thoughts and feedback on this.

How one can use a resource will be determined by the terms and conditions of the resource's licence.  The example below is typical of  licensing offered by many, (educational), content providers.  

The first two conditions, attribution and non commercial use, are fair, reasonable and make sense,  because they allow modification and remixing; but the last element precludes using the resource at anything other than an individual level, or at best within an institution. Such content may still have a great deal of value for an individual, but it stops there, as it cannot make full use of the educational affordances of digital technologies. Some other resources are even more restrictive; allowing no modifications,  their terms often state they can only be printed or used offline. These will have little or no value within a digital content ecosystem.

Whilst it is understandable that some content providers may wish to protect content they have created or acquired, this should be seen against the exponential growth of openly accessible resources; Wikipedia, YouTube, Science Commons and Encyclopedia of Life are just a some of the many examples. This past year has also seen clear move towards OER, (Open Educational Resources) with many initiatives  at both individual and institutional level. 

A number of potentially significant developments are taking  place, Khan Academy is planning to crowdsource resources created by teachers around the world and invite them  to add content to its portal  and make it available through the Khan Academy’s noncommercial public domain licence.  On another front, Pearson, one of the worlds largest educational content providers will make some of its content available  through an API which will  hopefully be developed as valuable educational materials as discussed  recently by John McLear.

 

Mapping the Past, Present and Future

 

I have recently spent quite a bit of time watching, David Rumsey's inspirational keynote describing how digital technology and visualisation can aid the understanding and interpretation of historic maps; thus building new knowledge, not only of the maps, but about people, the societies they lived in and  the prevailing culture and values of the time.

Using Google Earth overlays, historic fly-throughs, 30ft globes, and virtual worlds
this 40 min video is awesome, the screen capture above offers a flavour.  Indeed it is one of the best uses of virtual worlds that I have come across in a long time. 

The Creative Commons licensed Rumsey Map Collection accessed through the Luna Browser,  is a good example of how digital technologies can refocus our interpretation of other cultural artefacts, for example, posters, photographs or moving images, in order to shed new light on our past and our present.

The idea of digitally synthesing of old and new is beginning to gain momentum, and there are projects, open to students and educators, including Hypercities which explores layers of time through city maps, or HistoryPin which crowdsources old photographs and superimposes them on Google Street View. 

Even if mapping isn't  your personal interest, digitised archives or artefacts can provide a stimulus for meaningful learning designs and contexts for all stages of learning. Applying digital tools to data we already have allows new interpretations and ways of using the data which makes this a very rich field for educators to explore using digital technologies.

And whilst at first glance, some of the artefacts and ideas from the past may seem absurd today;  in context, they reveal the hidden codes for our future, which are gaining recognition amongst an emerging cohort of paleo-futurists, digital humanists, digital anthropologists and archaeologists who participate in innovative projects and networks.  As Tom Seinfield from the Found History blog states:

"innovation in digital humanities frequently comes from the edges of the scholarly community rather than from its center—small institutions and even individual actors with few resources are able to make important innovations."

 This is highly encouraging and it is certainly an area I plan to spend a lot more time studying and working in.

Flickr & Getty - Predatory Moves or an Uneasy Alliance?

 
Image Credit: The Advocacy Project  CC Licence BY-NC-SA

I often need images to use in presentations or workshops, so one of my first ports of call is Flickr's advanced search  tool, to help find images with a suitable Creative Commons licence.  Earlier today, I was searching for images of schools and learning around the world, and found the stunning photograph which was exactly the image I was looking for. Checking the metadata I noticed the request by Getty Images to licence the image.

I had read about the Getty Images partnership with Flickr, but this is the first time I have seen it realised on a Flickr Page. What immediately concerned me was that the apparent request, from Getty was not just to licence one or two images, but to acquire the rights to the whole of the Advocacy Project photostream collection; currently standing at 8,989 images, all with a Creative Commons licences.

If the licensing, for this superb collection of high quality images, was transferred to Getty it would be a sad loss to Flickr and its community. However, it would be an even greater loss to all who share an interest in education, culture and humanitarian issues around the world.  It would deprive access to the collection and our ability to use and share the images and add to their substantial metadata and narratives. If you have not already come across these pictures, I would recommend taking some time to browse.

Subsequently, the images would no longer no longer show up on Flickr but re-appear on the Getty/Flickr [sic], page  as thumbnails c/w small watermarked preview and shopping basket. Getty's terms clearly state that owners of the image must re-licence them as All Rights Reserved.

I think it is fine that Photographers are able to submit their images to Getty for possible licensing, (although I don’t think the terms are too favourable: 20%-30% of Getty's sale price - depending on model); or Getty trying to licence images with an All Rights Reserved status. That is one thing, but to trawl Flickr in order to harvest collections that have been made accessible to the public under a CC licence, is a predatory move which should be strongly resisted. It is also worth noting that a CC licence cannot be revoked, so if you have downloaded a CC licensed image, from Flickr, that has subsequently been acquired by Getty, you are still perfectly entitled to use that image under the terms of the original licence.

I have sent a Flickrmail to the Advocacy Project outlining my concerns, and look forward to reading their thoughts. Obviously, Getty does offer payment therefore I am happy to make a contribution to the Advocacy Project fund for any images I use, (Indeed I already have done so). If we want to preserve our access to these and similar quality images then perhaps others might consider doing likewise.

The river of digital content......

 (Adapted)  Image Credit : Will Lion   CC Licence:

This recent Guardian, article takes a close look at the forthcoming National Digital Resource Bank (NDRB), one of number of initiatives such as this and this, designed to make digital resources readily accessible to teachers and students. Even better news that the NDRB resources are being made available under a Creative Commons licence. This will allow teachers and students to remix and share these assets using any of the easy to use desktop and online tools at their disposal, and it is a great leap forward. All credit to Gary Clawson, CE at the North West Learning Grid and Fiona Iglesias, NDRB's project manager for getting the project underway and hosting it on an open source content platform. This is a good vantage point from which to look at the issues related to educational digital content.

Digital resources can, and should, play a significant part in contemporary learning. In order to take full advantage of their opportunities, we need to think beyond the hole filling, swap-shop, or easy life scenarios alluded to. As Noel Jenkins, rightly suggests in the article, digital content should be used to develop critical thinking in students. This is best facilitated when students are engaged, remixing, adapting, commenting and building on the resources. 

My involvement, in recent years, with numerous projects centered around digital resources, has enabled me to come up with a list of considerations which might be helpful to anyone considering similar projects, using or managing digital content in education.

1. One Stop Shop 
2. Approved
3. Hidden away
4. Prescriptive
   
5. Value
   
6. Training
   

1. The One Stop Shop

Digital content is growing exponentially, a broad river of information fed by numerous sources, an unstoppable flow of resources from content holders. Therefore portals and content providers should not assume their content will be the definitive site, a one stop shop that meets everyone’s needs. It doesn't matter how it is promoted, the connective and networked affordances of the Internet will guarantee folk will get the resources they want from many different sources.

So the overarching question must be; why just use one source, when we can build on, and combine resources from NDRB, Flickr Commons  The Internet Archive. Casseopiea, ArtBabble to name but a few? What is becoming very clear is that digital content, and the way we are able to manage it with technology will continue to improve, in terms of quality, accessibility and usability.

2. Quality Control, and approval

 

One of the the biggest obstacles to making resources readily available is individuals or  committees trying to define 'quality assured' content, This can lead to bureaucracy and bottlenecks slowing up the release of resources. It is also possible those vetting, are not necessarily practitioners or experts in an appropriate field, or have a full understanding of the potential of a resource. It is much easier, more efficient and cost effective to moderate content using a simple alert/reporting system. This will ensure resources get out into schools, in an accessible form and let teachers and students engage with them in order to:

• rate, recommend and review
• tag
• edit and remix
• upload/share/republish

User rating seems to be as good a way as any to identify content that is useful' for others, it works well for YouTube and other community social networking sites. I do have sympathy with the need to check for copyright infringement case. However if this is done in isolation it won't help teachers or students come to grips with this essential element of digital literacy. Copyright and IP should be central to digital literacy. In order to make best use of CC licensed material, the first thing to do is learn about  the licences and use them appropriately. (See training, 6, and thumbnail credits, below). These diagnostic tools from JISC should also prove invaluable here.

3 Hidden Away

Many digital resources are freely accessible online, once downloaded they should be just as easy to find and ready to use intuitively. There is always a danger they may be hidden away, either by accident or design; in a repository, a VLE, used primarily for low level multiple choice quizzes, or just become shovelware with no guarantee they will ever be used. 

Perhaps we should be giving much more mileage to the idea of Bricolage.  Let's promote and distribute digital resources using social software tools such as Delicious. Perhaps we should be developing tools that work for content, the way Spotify does for music.

Interestingly enough, there is no mention in the Guardian article of mobile learning, or gaming although it is now becoming evident that these are the emergent technologies likely to have profound implications for learning. Smart phones, mobile projectors and augmented reality are already here, ignoring them is missing a trick. For a simple example you need look no further than this free iPhone app  featuring works from the National Gallery. Becoming familiar with QR codes and folksonomies is likely to be much more beneficial than worrying about SCORM compliancy.

4. Prescriptive

It is still common practice for most educational digital resources to be targeted to age, subjects keystages etc. Whilst this may be a perfectly logical approach for a narrow prescriptive curriculum, and can add some good illustrative material, it does not tap into the real learning potential of digital content. In the light of connected data and personalised learning it seems clearly nonsensical to tie down a resource to a very predetermined and narrow focus. We have tools and networks at our disposal to do much more with rich content than shoehorn it into outdated practices.

5. Value

Historically the business model of content providers has been to charge for exclusive access to content, either on a subscription, or a one off basis. This may have been fine before web 2.0 as  value was determined by scarcity. Times have changed, as the news industry is finding to its cost.

Whilst the stated value of the content might be, (xnumber of thousands), such figures are more likely to be a reflection of the digitisation / development / management cost, rather than the intrinsic value of the asset. A good example of this occurred a few days ago; when looking for  video on outer space and earth; I managed to located two, (both high quality production), collections of  video clips. The only difference being; one was free, whilst the other cost a three figure sum for a, (restrictive), license that prohibited remixing or online use. In the context of this post, relatively worthless.

6. Training

The article states; "teachers will barely need any training to use the new resource"  is a highly debatable point. I would agree that training is the wrong term here. It's not about a set of ICT skills, (although these are essential for working with and managing content which would be (7) if the list were continued). Primarily it is about exploring the pedagogical potential for using the content that goes beyond merely illustrating a subject. It is about developing and understanding of how objects  can be used across a wide range of disciplines and how they can help us understand diverse cultures and derive new meanings. These were some of the considerations, we addressed when developing the Newsfilm Online support materials (beta site here). My view is that teachers should be encouraged to collaboratively engage and play with content in informal and collaborative workshops. This process was very effective for the Newsfilm Online workshops we, (The  University of Hull), ran throughout the UK during 2007/08.

Thumbnail Image Credits
One Stop Shop marc e marc BY-NC-SA
Committee room Catablogger   BY-NC-SA
Squirrel ifijay  BY-NC-ND
Folders Blue Square Thing  BY-NC-SA
Artworks Husky  BY
Training Ciao_Rudd   BY-NC-SA

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.

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.

Scare tactics, or how (not) to treat your customers

image credit Sam Judson

With tactics not dissimilar to those used  by the Music Industry, it is not surprising one could get the impression that digital content providers work against the best interests of their potential customers or users. Using the medium of the BBC Education News pages this latest example could be seen as a deliberate attempt to scare schools about their use of digital images.

Whilst the 'advice' offered by Jean-Louise Green may be legally correct, she does not provide any constructive or positive suggestions as to how schools might review the way they use and access digital images; for example, there is no mention, of using  Creative Commons image search,  (currently with over 61 million images to choose from), or pointers to any of the excellent collections and other sources of digital images schools could draw upon.

Perhaps this is hardly surprising because, Jean-Louise also runs Picture Nation, an image library and brokering service, which sells images to schools at prices, that many  would consider, exorbitant, with restrictions on use and access. Is it a coincidence that this item appears at a time when schools have to seriously consider spending their elcs before the funding runs out in August?  Perhaps it is in the interests of content providers to try a create a climate of worry and uncertainty, and on the back this offer schools an easy, (and possibly expensive) option.

I believe, what could be more helpful to schools would be focussed CPD, workshops and communities of practice to help teachers and children use digital images and other digital assets legally and confidently . This is becoming an increasingly important element of digital literacy, and schools could benefit from exploring these issues in contexts that include, searching, tagging sharing and file formats, rather than a list of  rules. What they probably don't need is threats and warnings from Linda Macpherson, the lawyer quoted in the piece. Mmm... it is also interesting to note the close relationships between all the sources of input to the article.

"RIAA notice" image credit Wesley Fryer

The Past Looks to the Future

Image Credit : US Library of Congress on Flickr

As I mentioned in a Tweet yesterday, the United States Library of Congress made 3000 images from its collections available on Flickr under a No Known Copyright Restrictions proviso. Not only are the images superb technically and aesthetically, they are well annotated, adding great value  to the collection, the Flickr community, learners, and of course The Library itself. Congratulation's!

This just goes to show what is possible given a will, let's hope that some of the gatekeepers of archives and collections on this side of the pond may begin to understand the benefits of looking to the future and allow their collections to be rather more accessible than they are at the present time.

How many did you get, then?

Many of you may have come across the significant video 'Women In Art" by Philip Scott Johnson aka. eggman913. If you are anything like me, you may have tried to guess how many of the artists you could name. I managed 52 out of the 90, (generally doing much better with the 19th/20th century stuff), before having to resort to the list kindly provided by Boni. The video itself demonstrates a significant use of digital assets that might serve as a model with which to develop other creative and innovative ways of learning. Watching the video encourages one to think more deeply.  Boni's page and links to further information about the artists and the paintings add extra value.

Combined, these two resources are an excellent example of how technology enables us to develop analytical skills, draw relationships and decode a subject. Another of eggman913's work features a selection of portraits by Picasso, that capture an essence that goes far beyond the initial content.

I gather the software used was Fantamorph

Thanks to Open Culture for the link.