mLearning plugin for Moodle

MLE-Moodle is a plug for Moodle to make it work on mobile phones. That is this extra open source software makes the Moodle Learning Management System into an m-Learning system. The standard release of Moodle seems reasonably compatible with smart phones. I have tried my Green Technology Strategies Course on both an Apple iPhone and a Google Android phone.

Obviously typing a 4,000 essay would be difficult on the tiny keyboards, but reading notes and entering into online discussions seems doable.

Assuming the course designer doesn't do anything silly with their content, such as put it up in the form of very large PDF documents, Moodle should work reasonably well with mobile devices. It will be interesting to see what MLE-Moodle ads to make Moodle more mobile friendly.

Has anyone tried MLE-Moodle?

Princeton University e-reader pilot

An e-reader pilot at Princeton University, using Amazon Kindle DX ebook readers, found them as readable as printed material, but a major problem was the difficulty of annotating ebooks. There is a 7 page (127 Kbytes PDF) executive summary as well as a full report available. Ironically, these reports are provided in PDF, the format the report finds the students had most difficulty annotating.

In my view a low cost netbook computer would overcome most of the limitations reported with the Kindle for educational purposes at a lower overall cost. This would have a superior keyboard, allowing notes to be taken and add-on software could be used to add notes to PDF documents. Netbooks provide a colour screen, more useful for annotations. Most students could use the netbook as their primary computer, with a low cost external screen, keyboard and mouse at home. The ebook has advantages of light weight, long battery life and daylight readable screen, but require students to have a second computer for their studies, adding cost and complexity.

In the Fall of 2009, the Office of Information Technology (OIT) at Princeton conducted a pilot program using electronic readers (e-readers) in a classroom setting. The pilot was conducted with three broad goals. One was to reduce the amount of printing and photocopying done in the three pilot courses. The second was to determine if using this technology in the classroom could equal (or better) the typical classroom experience where more traditional readings were used. The third sought to explore the strengths and weaknesses of current e-reader technology to provide suggestions for future devices.
E-reader technology offered the promise of delivering a large number of digitized documents on a lightweight device with a long battery life, and a display that mimicked the reflective qualities of actual paper. The consumer market in e-readers had already proved it was possible to read on these devices; we sought to see if they could be useful in higher education by conducting a pilot using e-readers in several courses.

Three courses were selected for the pilot, involving 3 faculty members, and 51 students. The e-reader used in the pilot was the Amazon Kindle DX.

The goal of printing less in the pilot courses was achieved: pilot participants printed just over half the amount of sheets than control groups who did not use e-readers. The classroom experience was somewhat worsened by using e-readers, as study and reference habits of a lifetime were challenged by device limitations. This pilot suggests that future e-book manufacturers may wish to pay more attention to annotation tools, pagination, content organization, and in achieving a more natural “paper-like” user experience. In summary, although most users of the Kindle DX were very pleased with their “reading” experiences with the Kindle, they felt that the “writing” tools fell short of expectations, and prevented them from doing things easily accomplished with paper. ...


The areas in which they felt the Kindle could be best improved were:

• The ability to highlight and annotate PDF files
• Improving the annotation tools
• Providing a folder structure to keep similar readings together
• Improving the highlighting function
• Improving the navigation within and between Kindle documents

Because it was difficult to take notes on the Kindle, because PDF documents could not be annotated or highlighted at all, and because it was hard to look at more than one document at once, the Kindle was occasionally a tool that was counter-productive to scholarship. ...


What features do ereaders need to be effective tools for higher education?
... One thing that emerged clearly from the surveys was that superb annotation tools are critical for the success of an e-reader used in higher education. ... There were also functional concerns, such as the ability to compare documents, or have more than one reading open at a time, and some ability to “skim” or “flip” rapidly through a reading to see highlights and notes. ...

There was a strong positive attachment to some present feature of the Kindle DX, most particularly the reflective screen, which allowed for long periods of reading, the size, the form factor, and the battery life. When told that any additional features (such as a color or LCD screen) would impact battery life, most students said they preferred to stick with grayscale and e-paper technology – with one exception: highlighting, where more contrast to the page, and a variety of possible marking styles would help create the same effectiveness as color highlighters on a black and white paper page. ...

From: The E-reader pilot at Princeton, Fall semester, 2009, Final report, (executive summary), Janet Temos, Princeton University, February 2010

Government receptive to e-learning advice?

This is to request comments on how receptive to advice the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations was for the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy and the establishment of the Australian research and education network (AREN) and AARNet3.

The Department is seeking advice on IT for education with a Applied Information and Communications Technology in Education Panel. However, the process seems overly bureaucratic, requiring applicants to fill in an 87 page form, when two pages would be sufficient. Assuming I was to correctly fill in this form and was selected for the panel, how likely is it that the department would listen to any advice given?

My concern is that if the department is unable to do something relatively simple, like streamline its tender process to take advantage of online technology, would they listen to advice on how to improve the efficiency of education across Australia using online technology?

Government ICT Education Panel

The federal Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations has issued a Request for Tender for an Applied Information and Communications Technology in Education Panel (ATM ID DEEWR RFT PRN24602 17 February 2010). There is a 126 page document avialable to prospective tenderers (1.48Mbyte MS-Word). The table of contents is 20 pages long.

Overview

Purpose of the Applied ICT in Education Panel

1. DEEWR requires a panel of experienced consultants with strong technical knowledge and a good understanding of the use of ICT in the education sector to form the Applied ICT in Education Panel (‘the Panel’). Panel Members must have detailed knowledge and a demonstrated understanding of the design and implementation of ICT infrastructure, networking and eLearning in the education sector. Members of the panel will have demonstrated capacity, expertise and experience in providing high quality technical advice and analysis services in relation to government ICT in education initiatives.

Types of Services Required

2. The panel may be used by DEEWR to support the development, implementation and evaluation of initiatives that support the use of ICT in education including the Digital Education Revolution (DER) and the Vocational Education Broadband Network (VEN).

Use of the Applied ICT in Education Panel

...

Background

9. The Australian Government has made it a national priority to create a world class education and training system for Australia. It is committed to increasing the proportion of Australians with educational qualifications and through the Council of Australian Governments, has set targets for 2020 and 2024 in order to secure Australia’s long term economic prosperity.

10. The Government is supporting the education and training sector to achieve this objective through the investment of $2.2 billion under the DER and $80 million under the VEN initiatives. Reflecting Government policies DEEWR aims to promote the effective integration of ICT in teaching and learning in Australia.

11. DEEWR has identified a need to have access to ongoing external specialist technical advice. The panel arrangements which are the subject of this tender will assist in the timely delivery of technical and specialist advice and reports to support the activities set out ...

From: Applied Information and Communications Technology in Education Panel , Request for Tender ATM ID DEEWR RFT PRN24602, Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations 17 February 2010

Demolish Lecture Theatres to make Room for Students

It is time for Australian universities to demolish their obsolete lecture theatres to make room for modern teaching and student accommodation. In 2006 I suggested we celebrate Canberra's centenary by investigating the construction of low cost, high quality, environmentally efficient modular housing. The ACT Government did not take up this idea, but the Australian National University built a student block from shipping containers, modelled on the Keetwonen project in Amsterdam (as highlighted in my proposal). Other Australian universities are following this lead, but are still short of student accommodation. What campuses do have are old large obsolete lecture theatres, which I suggest be demolished to make room for modern education and accommodation facilities.

Old large lecture theatres are no use for modern educational techniques. These spaces are now mostly empty, as few students attend traditional lectures. New, smaller, computer equipped teaching spaces are needed. There is no efficient way to convert the old lecture theatre buildings to the new use. These buildings should be demolished and replaced with new ones. As well as new smaller teaching spaces, this space can be used for more student accommodation. The distinction between accommodation and teaching building can also be lessened, with more teaching done close to the accommodation (Oxbridge style).

New building can be designed to be easily re-purposed for teaching, administration, commercial space and accommodation. These buildings can be built using environmentally efficient modular techniques and rapidly constructed.

e-Learning needs better tools

The webinar on “Trends in Personal Learning” by Stephen Downes, at Canberra Institute of Technology today was disappointing. Stephen was billed as "a reliable forecaster of trends and events in online learning", citing his "prescient" 'Future of Online Learning' and other works. But the technology for the webinar did not work properly. This made anything he said about using such technology less credible: if a guru of the technology can't get it to work, then what hope is there for the rest of us?

There were difficulties with the sound quality for the first part of the talk. I was tempted to offer to help (as I have a CIT certificate in A/V production), but the staff fixed it after about ten minutes. However, there remained intermittent problems with the audio, video and slides.

As for the content, what we got was a rambling monologue. Stephen was not able to get effective and timely feedback on the presentation due to the technical problems. This confirmed my view that such video conference presentations are of little value when used as a substitute for live presentations. Either the technical facilities have to be of a very high quality, or the system and presentation format has to be adapted to allow for the inevitable problems. The technique I have used in the past is to pre-record the presentation and only use live links for the question and answer time. This reduces the need for a reliable high speed connection (it also forces the presenter to present a well crafted, succinct presentation).

As for the content of the presentation I liked the description of the iPad as personal and portable. Stephen addressed the issue of the lack of content creation tools by arguing that later versions and similar devices will add those tools. Essentially the iPad is not important as a device, but because as a way to popularise the idea of highly portable devices for taking notes and for learning. Ironically I was using a cheap netbook with a keyboard to take my notes (which works very well for education and costs half as much as the iPad).

Stephen argued that new tools will spark creativity to create new content. Unfortunately what he was showing in reality were poor quality Powerpoint slides. This largely lowered the credibility of the argument. If these new tools are so good, then why wasn't he using them?

Stephen then discussed the value of videoconferencing. Ironically in the middle of that the image cut out. Of the video events I attend, only about one in twenty works well. The rest were as this webinar was, with much of the time taken up trying to fix problems with audio, video and slides. Even when the technology is working, what is presented much of the time are poorly prepared rambling monologues. I do not believe that this is the future of education, or of human communication in general. It is disappointing that after so many years of claims for video-conferencing the technology has advanced so little.

I had not heard of by Stephen Downes before CIT invited me to this event and I did not learn much more about him or his ideas from it.

Some suggestions for ACS in 2010

The first meeting of the Canberra Branch of the Australian Computer Society for 2010 was devoted to hearing suggestions from the members. Here are some suggestions I made:

• Make web site mobile okay: Currently the ACS home page scores less than zero out of 100 on the W3C mobileOK Checker: "This page is not mobile-friendly!". I suggest aiming for a score of 80/100 on the mobile tests for the ACS web pages. This would be a way to curb the web designers enthusiasm for putting too much stuff on the pages. It would also make the ACS look trendy, by having a web site which works on iPhones and the like. Obviously the ACS should also fix the minor accessibility problems, as indicated by an automated TAW Test. Designing web pages which work on smart phones and which meet accessibility standards, so as to comply with Australian law, is not too difficult and I teach it to the ANU students. To be fair, other IT professional bodies do not rate much better. The ACM home page scores only 1/100 on the mobile tests and only slightly better than ACS on accessibility.
  
• Social networking for professionals: The ACS is using social networking for teaching online courses. This could be extended to all members, with online forums and activities. ACS should divert a significant amount of resources to this. At the national level I suggest diverting 75% of what is currently spent on publications, meetings and marketing to online interaction. There is little point in spending effort on meetings and bits of paper which few people attend or take notice of. The ACS could use a mix of the software which it already has installed for education (Mahara ) and external sites, particularly Linkedin.
• Support for meetings: Using the online tools discussed above, I suggest we should have an online component to all meetings. When there is a branch meeting, members should be invited to discuss the topic online, before, during and after. This can also allow for more fluid and more far reaching meetings. Last year I helped Senator develop her "Public Sphere" format for events. On a smaller scale the first Bar Camp Canberra is on at ANU this Saturday. This is a sort of make it up as you go along conference, using of online resources.
• Digital CVs: ACS education is providing "e-portfolios" for students, as do some other education providers. I suggest ACS provide certified e-portfolios for members. This would be a web page about the member's qualifications and experience, testified to by ACS. This could then be used when they apply for a job or course. The ACS is already checks and records the member's credentials.

Delphi e-Academy

Inspired by walking the sacred way at Delphi, I suggest a portable green e-classroom. Idris Sulaiman asked if there are any Australian guidelines on Green Computer Labs. This got me thinking about the Green Learning Commons, back to a portable e-learning classroom I proposed previously.

Last year I visited the Delphi site in Greece. Walking up the sacred way I waited for a message out of the ether. It came in the form of a telephone call from Australia asking me about e-publishing. The caller asked of I was busy, I replied that I was walking the sacred way and Delphi. There was a long pause, as the caller worked out what I had said and what it might mean. But that was the only inspiration on that path.

The most evocative part of the site for me was about 1 km below the sacred way at the gymnasium. There is an old olive tree, stoa (covered walkways) and flat exercise area. This was where the ancient philosophers did their teaching. As I was walking towards the ANU this morning I could see the main oval under repair, alongside the covered gymnasium building and the cafe. It occurred to me that what happened here was much the same as at Delphi thousands of years ago. Even the tablet computers look much like ancient wax tablets.

Imagine propping a flat panel display up against the olive tree at Delphi, next to the teacher. Hand each student a wireless tablet computer, in place of their wax tablet. Leave everything else the same and you have the e-Academy.

Trends in Personal Learning Webinar

Canberra Institute of Technology are hosting a seminar on “Trends in Personal Learning” by Stephen Downes, 12 noon, 4 February 2010, in Room A108 on their South Side Campus, and online (RSVP: Penny Neuendorf).

Canberra Institute of Technology

The Gaggle invitation

Stephen Downes has long been a reliable forecaster of trends and events in online learning, making his mark in 1998 with the prescient 'Future of Online Learning' and in 2005 with 'e-Learning 2.0'. More recently, he authored the volume, 'The Future of Online Learning: Ten Years On'. Downes has also informed the development of online learning technologies with
papers such as 'Learning Objects', 'Resource Profiles' and
'Learning Networks and Connective Knowledge'.

Thursday 4th February 12.00pm - 1.00pm
Where - At your desk or come and join us in Room A108 for light refreshments.

Log in at: http://161.50.50.74/launcher.cgi?room=FlexEdRoom
and enter the relevant details. If you have not used Wimba before, please run the Wimba Wizard prior to the event.

• Online learning environments
• Networked learning aproaches
• Implications for the future of learning

• Are you an e-learning practitioner?
• Educational Designer? Or Developer?
• Based in the ACT and surrounding region?

Today’s presentation: “Trends in Personal Learning” by Stephen Downes

Educators have been earning experience in social networks and other Web 2.0 technologies for several years now, and as e-learning 2.0 becomes more familiar it is beginning to transform into a more robust and personalized form. Newer and more powerful collaboration tools, such as Google Wave, are appearing. Individualized applications, such as the Personal Learning Environment, are appearing. Tomorrow`s
e-learning student can look forward to having a range of powerful tools at his or her fingertips. This presentation outlines trends in the development of these tools, and
describes what an education system that uses them will look like.

RSVP: Penny Neuendorf
E penny.neuendorf(a)cit.act.edu.au T 6207 4041

Making teaching a systematic process

Michael Sankey, Director of the Learning and Teaching Support Unit at University of Southern Queensland gave a brief talk at the ANU in Canberra today on the way that USQ undertakes course development. USQ has a very systematic process for Learning and teaching design. USQ use Moodle, Mahara and other tools common to the ANU. What is different is the priorities of the two institutions, with the ANU having an emphasis on research, rather than teaching.

Michael mentioned that USQ have found audio enhanced slide shows the most popular delivery method with students, particularly overseas students with English as a second language. Formative quizzes are also popular. Some of the reading I have done suggests that while these are popular, they may not provide any better teaching than plain text. But it might still be need to to keep the students happy, or spend a lot of time convincing them it is not needed.

USQ student alumni can keep their Mahara e-portfolio online after finishing their courses.

USQ see Moodle 2 as being used for core activities and then
referring students out to external social networking/web app/web 2 sites. They also have some "Second Life" islands (which I am sceptical of the value of).

Mobile real-time e-learning tools needed

Is online real time interaction feasible on limited Internet connections, such as those on mobile devices? I was invited to try "Learn Central" with the Elluminate Live! collaboration tool. However, this requires a Java download which will take 11 minutes on my slow wireless Internet connection. Even after that I was not confident that Elluminate would have options suitable for a low speed high latency connection to my low performance Linux netbook computer. That may seem an unusual configuration of computer. But it is not that different to the smart phones many people have and could use for education, if a workable configuration could be found. As it is, it seems that every week or so someone offers me what they claim to be a revolutionary online education tool, which turns out not to run on anything other than a Microsoft Windows computer with a high speed broadband connection and a lot of very fragile add-on software. What we need are some really revolutionary tools which are not just adaptions of business video conferencing.

OLPC XO3 Educational Tablet Computer

The One Laptop Per Child Project have released some details of their planned XO-3 concept design. The educational computer due out in 2012 will be a multi-touch flexible screen tablet computer with an ARM processor. The computer is aimed to cost less than US$100 (as was the original XO-1). It may be that the product has been announced now in anticipation of interest in tablet computer generated by rumours of an Apple tablet device.

It should be noted that tablet computers have not been popular outside limited niche commercial markets, such as for medical staff. The tablet computer would have advantages for education, being able to customise the virtual keyboard four different languages and different topics in software. However, it comes at a cost, with the virtual keyboard taking up one third to one half the screen (depending on its use in landscape or portrait mode). The virtual keyboard will use much more power than a real keyboard and also cost much more.

The screen of a portable computer makes a significant part of the cost. An alternative design would have a screen taking up half the body of the computer and a rubber membrane keyboard (as used on the OLPC XO-1) on the other half of the keyboard. The rubber keyboard would cost less and also use much less power.

The XO-3 assumes the use of a flexible screen and flexible circuit board. These are relatively new technology for computer building and therefore the cost of manufacture will be initially high. An alternative design would use a conventional rigid screen and circuit board. The screen could be protected by a thick plastic sheet and a rubber ridge around the edge. The computer could be made without a conventional chassis, consisting of instead a molded rubber waterproof case (the front of which would be the keyboard) holding the components. This could use existing conventional components from netbook computers and use calculator construction techniques for a very low cost computer.

• XO 3.0 – The XO 3.0 is a totally different approach, to be available in 2012 and at a target price well below $100. It will feature a new design using a single sheet of flexible plastic and will be unbreakable and without holes in it. The XO 3.0 will leapfrog the previously announced (May 2008) XO 2.0, a two-page approach that will not be continued. The inner workings of 3.0 will come from the more modest 1.75. ...

From: ONE LAPTOP PER CHILD DRIVES BREAKTHROUGH ADVANCES IN REVOLUTIONARY XO CHILDREN’S LAPTOP, OLPC, December 22, 2009 at 3:59 pm

Android and Moodle for m-learning

The School of Industrial Management (Escuela de Organización Industrial EOI) in Madrid is issuing students with 3G Android mobile phones and using the Moodle learning management system (English translation and Spanish original). This looks a good combination. I found that my Moodle course notes for a Green ICT Course worked fine on a Google Android. This was because I made use of the Moodle "Book" module, for
the course content. This produces plain web pages, which render well on the small screen of smart phones. Of course if you used very large and complex PDF, Powerpoint, Microsoft Word or other formats, it would not look so good.

There could even be some problems with ordinary HTML (I am trying to convince one of my fellow course designers not to use very large complex tables in course notes. These tables are hard to read at the best of times, but make accessibility and mobile access very difficult.

While I didn't try it, podcasts should also work well. Obviously typing a 2,000 word essay on a smartphone would not be a good idea, but participation in forums should be feasible. Some changes to the Moodle user interface would be useful, as it does use HTML Table statements for some layout, which does not adapt well to a small screen.

I was handed the Android at Google's Sydney office, when giving a talk on my Green ICT e-learning course and only had it to try for a few minutes, so this was not an exhaustive test. Also it was running a beta version of the operating system.

Final thoughts on Our Broadband Future

Roger Clarke wrote some "Final Thoughts about the Broadband Future Event" in Sydney last week. For me the event ended on a positive note with Genevieve Bell, on e-Community. It was refreshing to hear ideas about broadband for people to use,
rather than as something done to them.

I started to suffer from conference fatigue on the last day, to the
point that in a moment of inattention I plugged the wrong power supply into my wireless modem and destroyed it.

George Bray wrote in the Link List: "I was able to participate remotely from my beachside cabin ...". In a way he got better access to the event than I did, sitting in the venue (just behind the PM, Minister and assorted dignitaries).

There were power boards and WiFi supplied for the Twiterarty in the fist and last few rows of seats. However, sitting cramped over a 10 inch netbook screen in your lap for hours is not very comfortable. Given that much of the time I was not looking at the live speaker, but instead at my netbook or at the projected image on the big screen in the auditorium, I might as well have been somewhere more comfortable.

There were some advantages being there live, such as the spectacle of Senator Lundy operate a laptop with one hand while Twittering on a smart phone with the other. The coffee and lunch breaks were very high bandwidth networking events. A node of ACS people formed in the centre of the room, grabbing anyone important who wandered past and lobbying them on assorted issues (It was useful to be able to meet the new ACS CEO and President Elect).

It was a little unsettling to wander into a conversation and find the Minister for Communications, the head of the ABC, or the PM part of the discussion.

One frustration I had was that the media were never in the media room, they were wandering around taking part in the discussions. The speakers preparation room was more open that I have seen it at commercial events, with non-speakers allowed to wander in.

Another frustration was the large number of the Link mailing list members present. As everyone else was furiously trying to plug their product or policy proposal, I tried this myself, but people kept saying: "Yes Tom, I read you posting about that on Link".

In retrospect, perhaps I would have been better off sitting in the media or speaker's room at a comfortable desk during the sessions, watching them on screen. Then I could have come out to mingle during the breaks.

The stream sessions did not work so well. The problem was that most of the time was taken up with talks by the panellists. While mostly excellent people and speakers, this was a waste of the limited time. It would have been better to provide the talks online in advance and then go straight to discussions. Also I could not get the Wiki to work at all, despite (or because of) all the user-ids and passwords I had been issued with. As a result I felt I had less ability to communicate by being in the room.

This was an excellent experiment in an Internet enhanced event (not quite as good as the Internet Global Summit).

But perhaps more of the bar camp format could be adopted. There was too much spent on glitz and stage managing. As an example we could have done without the glossy colour program (so glossy you could not scribble notes on it). A sheet of monochrome paper printed at the last minute (so it was up to date) would have done. The expensive looking neoprene
conference satchel was so large it was an encumbrance and does someone at the Department have a rubber fetish? ;-)

Perhaps what is needed is an official event with the important speeches and "fringe" events with the less formal bar camp style discussions.


ps: Technology does have its limits. After the forum I took a 370 bus to King Street to go to a performance of "Cabret" at the New Theatre. In the street I bumped into Chris
Chesher, who mentioned there is a Fibreculture event on Wednesday, about "Freedom and control in the Australian Internet".

Redesigning universities for computer assisted learning

An interesting discussion is taking place online about how to redesign university teaching spaces to accommodate computers. This includes the issue of how computers should be added to science labs, or should they be separate. Should desktop computers, or laptops be provided, or can we assume students will have their own laptops? Should these spaces look like traditional teaching spaces, like business offices or like cafes? In my view, as computer equipment becomes cheaper, smaller and more portable, this may go full circle, with computers seeming to disappear from universities and other learning institutions, as they become built into the fabric of the institution. With wireless throughout the campus, there will be less need for sockets on walls and wires. As students carry around their own wireless linked smart phones and laptops, there will be fewer desktop computers apparent. Large screens will be built into walls or concealed in ceilings, projecting onto walls.

Some of this discussion is talking place on EDUCAUSE in the Instructional Technologies Constituent Group. A readable item is "Rebooted Computer Labs Offer Savings for Campuses and Ambiance for Students" (By Ben Terris, The Chronicle of Higher Education, December 6, 2009). Some more scholarly items are listed in "Learning Spaces" (by Jeff Johnston, Vanderbilt Center for Teaching).

Wireless Our Broadband Future

Greetings from "Realising Our Broadband Future" forum in Sydney (you can participate online). Stephen Wilson, CIO, NSW Department of Education and Training, described how wireless will be provided on school grounds. There seems to be little point in the school sector building a wireless network. Instead, I have already suggested, NBN Co. provide wireless as part of their network.

Making Education Less Boring in Broadband Future

Greetings from "Realising Our Broadband Future" forum in Sydney (you can participate online). The event has broken into streams and digital education one is on the future of higher education with broadband. Speakers are Dr Evan Arthur, Group Manager, Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, Tom Cochrane, Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Technology, Information and Learning Support, Queensland University of Technology and Stephen Wilson, CIO, NSW Department of Education and Training.

Dr Evan Arthur argues that we need to work through the issues of access to digital material for education. This is a harder challenge than the last one he set.

Education in our Our Broadband Future

Greetings from "Realising Our Broadband Future" forum in Sydney (you can participate online). The afternoon stream I selected is Digital Education with Greg Moo, CIO, Department of Education and Training, Northern Territory, Craig Foster, Education Director, Microsoft Australia, Andrew Skewes, Executive Director, Bendigo Campus, LaTrobe University, David O'Hagan, CIO, The Learning Place, Education Queensland. Also like the rest of the delegates, I am coming to grips with the Wiki for the event. We have all been invited to contribute. My book of my e-learning course was launched earlier at the event.

The first d-education session was a little disappointing. The low point was a promotional video from Microsoft, with their version of the future. This video was not specific to education (and apparently was being show in one of the other streams as well). I was having difficulty getting the wifi to work, so I could use the Wiki and so went out to the conference technical support desk (The conference has excellent technical support).

At that point I decided to take a break and wandered off for a coffee at the student union. The coffee turned out to be free, as I found I had wandered into a scientific conference. This was at something called the "Eora Exchange", by lahznimmo architects. This was a dropping cyber cafe (with real coffee). There are wall botths which seat about six students, on each side of a table. One the wall at the end of each table is a large computer screen, with a VGA cable. There are five power points available on the wall for laptops and another two points on a pop-up panel in the tabletop. Also there is the UNSW wireless. I felt right at home here and was a little reluctant to go back to the fast pace of the forums. Also I felt I was learning more about d-education from observing this room than I had at the official forum.

ps: I tried to post the following comment to the wiki comments on the forum. But I was unable to enter my user id or get the anti-spam image check to work, so here is my comment. Perhaps someone who can get the wiki to work can add it:

One of the reality checks on digital education is that in many ways broadband will not change education. Many of the fundamentals will be the same. My e-learning course, which Senator Lundy launched the book for this morning at the forum is very hi-tech, but underneath is about old fashioned education. David Lindley, calls this Mentored and Collaborative Online Learning. I have coined the term e-Oxbridge education to describe this.

Education has not changed since Aristotle was teaching: the teacher gives some guidance to the student and then sends them off to explore for themselves, later the student discusses what they found with other students under the guidance of a tutor, the student then explores some more alone or in groups and produces more and more complex analyses, until the tutor and the student think they have learnt enough.

Oxford University Online Courses

Oxford University's Department for Continuing Education appears to provide the equivalent of the Cambridge University Online Courses. There are short introductory courses of 10-weeks for undergraduates, advanced diploma and postgraduate courses, as well as specalised professional development courses. An example of the undergaduate program is the one year Advanced Diploma in Data and Systems Analysis. One interesting professional development course offered is in Effective Online Tutoring (a problem with providing online edcuation is where to get trained tutors and one solution is to use the system itself to tran them).

Unlike Cambridge, Oxford provides an online demonstration of how their courses are presented. Oxford uses the same Australian developed Moodle Learning Management System, as I have used for developing courses at the Australian National University and the Australian Computer Society. They use the same structure of giving the student a summary of a topic, have them do some further reading and then report what they have found and discuss it in a forum online.

One limitation with the Oxford courses is that while the University of Oxford offers short undergraduate and postgraduate coruses, it does not offer undergraduate degrees or MBAs via distance or online learning. Perhaps this limitation will disappear over time, as the University gains experience and confidence in online education.

Cambridge University Online Courses

After suggesting to my colleagues at the Australian National University School of Computer Science (SoCS) we use an e-Oxbridge educational model, I thought I should check to see how Oxford andr Cambridge apply e-learning. A quick web search found the Cambridge University Institute of Continuing Education, which offers online courses specialising in adult and non-traditional learners. The Institute clims: "unparalleled level of online support and direction from experienced and enthusiastic tutors", whichfits with the Oxbridge model of education. However, these are short general interest and proessional devlopment courses, not full degree programs.

An example is "The global climate challenge: policy technology and the future" (COV007), an 11 week course costing £165.00 and offering 10 credits at level 4 of the Framework for higher education qualifications. The award requires participation in online discussions, a Personal Statement of Learning (e-Portfolio) and assignments. Six such courses would be required for an undergraduate "Certificate of Continuing Education" (Postgraduate courses are at FHEQ Level 7).

Propose an e-Oxbridge education

Having spent some of the week discussing the future of higher education, with Professor Paul Ramsden and my colleagues at the Australian National University (including my contribution on "Forums and Feedback for e-Learning"), I felt it was time to suggest a way forward. I have proposed an e-Oxbridge educational model for the ANU School of Computer Science (SoCS) .

SoCS has ambitious goals set for "unique", "advanced", "interdisciplinary" and "research lead" undergraduate and masters courses. To achieve this, I have proposed a computer enhanced version of the "Oxbridge" model of education. With this approach at Oxford and Cambridge Universities (where I have given the occasional seminar) students are part of a community of scholars, write and discuss material with their peers and their tutors each week. This can be adapted to the 21st century:

1. Human communication: I suggest teaching all students how to research, write and report. While most undergraduates will not go on to postgraduate research and therefore not need to write a scientific paper, they will have to write technical and business reports which require similar skills. Therefore I suggest teaching how to write and present an argument in the introduction to undergraduate and postgraduate programs. I have done some of this in Green ICT, where I get the students to research and discuss issues online and write a reports about a real problem.
2. Self motivated work: In each course I suggest setting the students a task, giving them the tools and then helping them with the work. In practice this would be done by providing learning materials in traditional written form, as well as multimedia, as used by the "Hubs and Spokes" project. This would then free up staff time to work with the students in small groups and individually. This would also force a discipline on staff, who would need to carefully design course materials in advance. Also this would allow administration to be greatly simplified, with less need for timetabling of classes and resources. This would aid social inclusion, with full and part time students could in the same class, along with domestic, international and remote e-learning students.
   
3. Interdisciplinary skills: I suggest designing SoCS programs to fit in with ANU wide programs and those of partner universities. In this way students will be able to study subjects outside Computer Science in other parts of the university.

Instead of developing whole, self contained undergraduate and
postgraduate programs which are exclusive to SoCS, I suggest SoCS have modules which can fit with other disciplines and can be used by other disciplines. A student should be able to do a standard undergraduate or postgraduate program at the ANU which incorporates SoCS education. While the SoCS programmes might have fancy names, such as Bachelor/Masters of Advanced Interdisciplinary Computing", they should underneath be made of ANU standard components. Ideally the courses should be able to be tailored by the students themselves, as is done with ANU Graduate Studies Select.

Students as Scholar not Customers

Greetings from the Australian National University in Canberra, where Professor Paul Ramsden, Chief Executive of the UK Higher Education Academy, is discussing changes to the way universities plan courses and reward teaching staff. Professor Ramsden's paper "The Future of Higher Education - Teaching and the Student Experience" is available online, along with appendices and bibliography. He will give another talk tomorrow.

Much of what Professor Ramsden discusses is applicable to Australia. Professor Ramsden commented that the Australian response to the Bradley Report was more radical than its UK equivalent. He asserted that students need to feel part of a community of scholars, rather than just customers of service delivery. He went on to show a graph from the Bradley Review which showed that Australian students were much less satisfied with what they get from education than UK students. This is worrying particularly where Australian universities are relying on international students who can choose to go to another country.

Professor Ramsden asserted that a revolution in education was needed. One area for improvement was better description of course and more relevant assessment. Traditional descriptions of degrees are of little value, as are transcripts. He propose a higher education achievement report. None of this seems new or radical to me after having to prepare a golbally accredited professional course for the ACS which is described in terms of a standard set of skills for the profession.

Professor Ramsden pointed out that for many years teaching was seen as important but little had been done about it. However, apart from saying this was worrying, he did not appear to have any solutions to propose.

Professor Ramsden described overspecialisation in curriculum as a "disease". He called for more cross disciplinary work. He also argued for an international perspective. This seems like a solved problem to me, as I have international students in my Green ICT course. Some of these students are in Australia, others online around the world.

Professor Ramsden said that UK students have the expectation unviersity will be like school, with a spoon-fed program with lots of staff contact, whereas they should expect to learn to read and research themselves. He commented that he was worried by Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA), which may reduce the scope for student input into courses.

Realising Our Broadband Future

The Australian Government is hosting "Realising Our Broadband Future" in Sydney, 10-11 December 2009. Speakers include Mike Quigley (NBN Co), Vinton Cerf (Google), Paul Twomey (Internet Corporation), Kevin Rudd, Stephen Conroy and Kate Lundy (Australian Government) and David Bartlett (Tasmanian Government). The event is free and anyone can register to attend.

The event has five streams, each with a "lead editor":

1. Smart Infrastructure: Alan Noble (Google)
2. Digital Education: Bruce Dixon (Anytime, Anywhere Learning Foundation)
3. e-Community: Genevieve Bell (Intel)
4. e-Health: Peter Fleming (National E-Health Transition Authority)
5. e-Business: Bruce McCabe (KPMG)

The Interim report of the Senate Select Committee on the National Broadband Network questions how far the NBN will extend into regional areas and if there are measures to assess the performance of the NBN . Hopefully this will be addressed at the event.

I will be attended the Digital Education stream of the event> In hope to be able to tell delegates about my Green Technology Strategies e-learning course which is now offered to postgraduates students of eight Australian universities and to launch the companion book of course notes.

Examiner's meetings for E-learning courses

My students have completed the first COMP7310 Green ICT course at ANU. Their marks have been allocated. At this point the university requires that the person running the course and a "second examiner" agree the marks. The results are then presented to an examiner's meeting where others examine the marks. This was an experience I did not look forward to. In effect now I have finished assessing the students, my peers were going to assess me and see if the course and the results were credible.

The experience turned out to be not as bad as I was expecting. There were about six people present for the School of Computer Science (SOCS) masters meeting. A senior academic chaired the meeting and an assistant operated a laptop connected to a projection screen. This displayed course details stored in a bespoke system created by Bob Edwards at SOCS called "FAculty Information System" (FAIS) .

Each course was considered in turn. The results for all students were displayed on screen for a course, sorted in descending order by mark. The system displays the raw mark of each student, any scaling applied and the resulting grade. Also displayed is the average mark, standard deviation and frequency of each grade. Group members then ask to see details of particular students, usually those on the boundary between one grade and the next. The grades for all courses in Computer Science for this student can be displayed, to see if the mark for the course in question is consistent.

In the case of my own course I was worried that I had been too generous with the marks.; So I scaled them to the notional ANU average (65/100). My colleagues reassured me that it was up to me to decide if the marking reflected the correct result, not some statistical measure. The scaling was adjusted to make it less harsh. This is done by entering a PHP function into the system, at which point all of the marks are rescaled and the statistics recalculated. The group found the result acceptable and along with the second examiner, I was able to sign off on the results.

This process worked well and I have suggested that this functionality be added to the ANU's Moodle system (called "Wattle"). There may well be some Moodle add-on which already does this (some is covered in Daniel Servos' Google Summor of Code project: " Student projects/Animated grade statistics report. Also Dr. Eric McCreath has also produced a Marker program which could also be added to Moodle. In addition the system could be sued for analysis of overall student progress trends and for specific topics.

It should be noted that the information from the examiner's board is then entered into the student administration system. So some way to transfer marks from Moodle to the ANU Student Administration System would be useful. ANU uses PeopleSoft Enterprise Student Administration software, and PeopleSoft claim to be able to do some Moodle integration. Also it would be useful to be able to extract information from the PropleSoft system for the examiner's board (as Moodle will only have information on recent courses).

The administrative processes will also need to be adjusted slightly to allow for flexible learning. The current process assumes that all staff can attend a meeting in person. Where courses are designed and delivered flexibly, the staff involved my not be on the campus. The obvious solution would be a meeting by video conference with the web based marking system being able to support this well. However, a real time meeting would still be inconvenient for people is different time zones and an alternative form based approach should be feasible.

More future of higher education in the UK and Australia

Professor Paul Ramsden, Chief Executive of the UK Higher Education Academy, will discuss changes to the way universities plan courses and reward teaching staff at the Australian National University, 2.30pm, Wednesday, 2 December 2009 in Lecture Theatre 1, HW Arndt Building (RSVP: Deborah Veness). This is in addition to the previously scheduled talk, 3 December 2009.

Using the National Broadband Network for the Digital Education Revolution

Premier of Tasmania, who is also the Minister for Education and Skills, Mr David Bartlett, has invited the ICT industry to suggest how to improve education, such as with online collaboration of students across the state, interstate and overseas.

The Premier has a Bachelor of Computer Science and a Graduate Diploma of Business in Professional Management from the University of Tasmania and so is well placed to apply ICT to education.

Unfortunately the Tasmanian Government has issued the request via an advertisement in one local Hobart newspaper. So one obvious step they could take to a smarter state would be put such requests online, as most states, and the federal government, already do.

It happens I gave a presentation on how to use the NBN for Tasmanian jobs and education, a few months ago. My suggestion is to provide vocational and industry related training
online, which relates to Tasmania's industrial strengths in green
tourism, timber, maritime industries and education. Students could continue formal studies online while gaining work experience in the tourism and other industries. Tasmania could export courses online which use Tasmanian industries as case studies, thus promoting the local industry. The Tasmanian Education Department already has some experience in online distance education. The University of Tasmania has experience
in operating satellite campuses.

The Federal Government has previously generously funded education initiatives in Tasmania, such as the Australian Technical College (ATC), in Launcestion, where I gave my talk.

Unfortunately some of that investment has not been well directed. I suggest the ATC be re-purposed and combined with the adjacent UTas architecture school to work on advanced digital architecture and manufacturing to increase benefit to the local economy of products from Tasmanian forests.

The State Government is seeking input from the ICT industry on how it can make the most of the Australian Government’s National Broadband Network and the Digital Education Revolution.

Premier and Minister for Education and Skills, David Bartlett, said the initiatives presented opportunities for students, teachers, staff and the wider community.

“We want to broaden our thinking on the benefits these initiatives can create by working with the ICT industry,” Mr Bartlett said.

“The Department of Education is calling for written submissions from the Department’s current technology suppliers and the broader ICT industry on potential technologies and services that will help tap into these opportunities.

“With the implementation of the National Broadband Network there is potential to look at the way we provide education services in a different way.

“There may be new ways for students to further their studies without leaving remote areas, students may be able to participate in real-time video conferencing and collaboration with students across the state, interstate and overseas.

“It could also provide new ways of engaging with students who struggle in the current school environment.

“The National Secondary School Computer Fund for grades 9-12 has already started. The program aims to give every student access to a personal computer at school by December 2011.

“It will provide more students with access to a computer that will be internet ready and capable of taking advantage of the new broadband network.

“The Digital Education Revolution and the National Broadband Network will provide enormous benefits for our education community and I hope that we can work with the ICT industry to seize the opportunities available,” Mr Bartlett said.

Expressions of interest are advertised in The Mercury today and close at 2pm on Friday December 4. ...

From: Input sought from ICT industry, David Bartlett, MP, Premier , Tasmania, 14 November 2009

Future of higher education in the UK and Australia

Professor Paul Ramsden, Chief Executive of the UK Higher Education Academy, will discuss changes to the way universities plan courses and reward teaching staff at the Australian National University, 3 December 2009.

Professor Ramsden's paper "The Future of Higher Education - Teaching and the Student Experience" is available online, along with appendices and bibliography.

Much of what Professor Ramsden discusses is applicable to Australia. He advocates reforming curriculum and assessment with new models of curriculum, interdisciplinary study, flexible transfer between part-time and full-time modes, and global perspectives. I have been doing some of this in the Green ICT course run for ACS and ANU. This is available for ICT and other professionals, with full and part time students from around the world in the same class.

ANU Teaching Forum

Seminar

The Future of Higher Education - Teaching and the Student Experience

Professor Paul Ramsden
Chief Executive, The Higher Education Academy, UK

Thursday 3 December, 1-2pm
The Tank, Haydon Allen Lecture Theatre, Building 23, ANU, Canberra

A light lunch will be served preceding the lecture from 12pm, Seminar from 1pm.

Please email RSVP to: andrea.benson@anu.edu.au by Friday 27 November and include any dietary requirements for lunch

To be introduced by Professor Lawrence Cram, Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Vice-President of The Australian National University

This talk is based on Professor Paul Ramsden's contribution to the forthcoming framework for higher education in England. It will examine the quality of teaching and learning in UK higher education in the light of recent critical comment in the media and parliament, and consider the kinds of experiences that will enable graduates in the UK and Australia to contribute to the world of the future. He will identify some key drivers in the process, including recognition of teaching, curriculum change, and the need for a different relationship between students and universities.

Listening to Students’ and Educators’ Voices: Research Findings

Listening to Students’ and Educators’ Voices: Research Findings, provides a useful, timely credible information about Australian student and staff access, use and views on information technology for education. The research is from 2008 an covers primary and secondary schools, vocational education (TAFE), universities. Communication and group work activities was one commonly valued use for email and discussion lists. Online games, social networking and media sites were of interest.

There was an interesting split with most of primary students indicating social networking sites are for fun, not learning and should not be accessed at school. In contrast adult students believe social networking can be used for education. But all levels expect to have access to computers and the Internet at educational institutions and home. They also expect the teachers to be be able to use the technology to communicate with them.

Unfortunately the report is difficult to read, being a large PDF document. Here is the Executive summary as text:

This report outlines findings collected from listening to and analysing the views and expectations of students within Australian education and training institutions about learning with technologies. The overarching question for this research was: ‘what are the views of students and early career educators, about learning with technologies in Australian education and training?’ In 2008, students in primary and secondary schools, vocational education and training (VET) institutions, international students studying education in universities and pre-service teacher education students contributed to the research based upon their current experiences and views. Early career teachers were asked to reflect on their experiences as pre-service teachers. Data was collected through online surveys and focus groups. The research design was informed by a literature review, which is available at: http://www.aictec.edu.au/aictec/go/home/priorities/pid/233.

The purposes of this research were:
(a) To gain an improved and contemporary understanding of the expectations and experiences of learners and early career educators, of how information and
communication technologies (ICT) may be utilized to improve learning outcomes; and
(b) To develop a better understanding of students’ and educators’ requirements regarding ICT in education and training.

The data collected shows that within their educational institutions and at home, students and early career educators have access to and use a range of technologies for teaching and learning purposes, but in particular, use computers and the Internet. Access and convenience to computers and the Internet within education and training institutions varied for the different respondent groups, according to specific locations, including within their education and training institutions. In general, more use of the computer and Internet for educational purposes is made by students as they progress through the respective levels of education. Participants indicated they use technologies to research information; for communication and group work activities with other students and educators; for solving problems; presenting assignments; and for reflection, planning and for creative purposes.

All cohorts indicated the importance of high quality teachers who form positive
relationships and can construct relevant and engaging learning contexts, with and without technologies. Survey and focus group responses identified the following benefits of including technologies in education and training:

• Access to detailed and easy-to-access information;
• Skill building through problem-solving;
• Development of maths and other literacies;
• Opportunities to practice tasks;
• Increased motivation to learn through self-directed and interest-focused work;
• Improved presentation of work including the use of office productivity and multimedia software applications;
• Personalized learning that supports different learning styles and levels; and
• Increased control of their own learning.

The value of technologies for communication and group work activities was recognised by all cohorts. Tertiary students in particular, indicated they value communication with their lecturers through using technologies such as email and discussion lists. Despite students’ preferences for varying approaches to learning however, many students reported their classroom activities often involve considerable teacher/lecturer information-giving.

Online games and social networking and media sites were reported to be of interest and used frequently by many respondent groups, particularly outside of educational institutions.

Despite some concerns about possible distractions, over half of the respondents from most groups indicated that educational games should be more widely used because of their motivational and educational benefits.

The value of social networking sites for learning received variable responses. MSN was commonly identified as ‘often’ or ‘sometimes’ being used across all groups. Unique to secondary students however, was the extent of their involvement in chatting online with other students in regard to their studies, with over 70% of online survey respondents indicating they did so.

There were mixed responses about the value of Myspace, Instant Messaging, Facebook, Although 50% of primary students reported using MSN for learning, around 70% of primary students indicated they believe sites such as MySpace, Facebook and YouTube are more for fun than for learning, and should be accessed from home rather for from schools.

On the other hand, about half of the post-school, adult respondents disagreed with the younger students. The adult students instead indicated they believe social networking and media sites such as YouTube and Flickr can be used for educational purposes.

All respondents indicated they have high expectations about access to and use of computers and the Internet at various education and training locations and want intranet access from home. Respondents also indicated they expect teachers and lecturers to have confidence in using technologies and to use email to communicate with them.

Across all cohorts concerns were raised about issues related to teaching and learning with technologies. These concerns included insufficient time, lack of access to and use of the Internet, concerns about the speed of the Internet, and concerns about the level of teacher/lecturer skills. These concerns were raised by about half of respondents in most groups, although some issues were identified as being of greater concern for some respondent categories than others.

About a third of adult participants indicated they believe that improving lecturers’ knowledge of online games would improve students’ learning. Over 40% of primary students and 60% of secondary students raised concerns about online sites being blocked at their educational institutions and the impact of this filtering on their studies. Issues such as plagiarizing, distractions in lessons caused by playing games, online bullying, and viruses were raised by some in focus groups. In the surveys, these issues were not seen as a concern by around half of respondents in all groups.

All cohorts emphasized the importance of good relationships and communication between students and educators, and indicated they would like to receive more formative feedback from their teachers and/or lecturers.

Participants also indicated they would like greater variety and more interesting learning approaches, more personalized learning that caters for their individual requirements, and the opportunity for individual help. Importantly however, focus group respondents highlighted the importance of face-to-face teaching aided by technologies, rather than advocating only face-to-face or only online learning. Furthermore, while more up-to-date technology, faster Internet speed, more accessible computers such as laptops, and less blocked Internet sites were suggested by respondents, the quality of the teachers and lecturers was reiterated across all cohorts. The challenges then are before us. ...

From: Listening to Students’ and Educators’ Voices: Research Findings, Associate Professor Kathryn Moyle PhD, University of Canberra and Dr Susanne Owen, Executive Director, Owen Educational Consultancy, for the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, 2009.

Digital Education Revolution Resources

The Australian Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR) has a useful list of Digital Education Revolution Resources. Unfortunately these are on a very poorly designed web page. It is a shame that this excellent work, which is costing Australian tax payers many hundreds of millions of dollars is so poorly presented. A few hours work would make the material far more accessible. The page is headed "Experience the Digital Education Revolution www.digitaleducationrevolution.gov.au". The web address is not linked to a web page and entering that web address manually ends up back on the same page on the DEEWR web site. The list of links to resources on the page do not seem to work. These are supposed to link to further down on the same page, but actually go nowhere. This is unfortunate as the education resources listed are excellent, if you can find them. Many of the materials are in the form of hard to get, hard to read, poorly formatted, large PDF files.An example of this is "Listening to Students’ and Educators’ Voices: Research Findings" which is so poorly formatted that DEEWR offer to mail a printed copy.

• Listening to Students’ and Educators’ Voices: Research Findings
• Digital Education Revolution Fact Sheet – March 2009
• Review of Legitimate and Additional Financial Implications of the National Secondary School Computer Fund
• Better Practice Guide - ICT in Schools
• Cyber-safety in schools
• Exemplar Schools: Using Innovative Learning Technologies Report and Digistories
• Partnerships in Information Communication Technology Learning (PICTL) Report and Case Studies
• Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER)
• Australian Information and Communications Technology in Education Committee (AICTEC)
• Council of Australian Governments (COAG)
• Curriculum Corporation
• Education.au
• MCEETYA ICT in Schools Taskforce (ICTST)
• Me.edu.au – through Teacher PD/PD forum
• the Le@rning Federation

APEC Symposium on Climate Change in Canberra

Greetings from the working group of the APEC Symposium on Climate Change at the ANU Canberra. About 20 delegates from around the Asia pacific are discussing issues in the lead up to the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen December (UNFCCC CoP 15). I gave the symposium a presentation on "Technology transfer by collaborative online education for climate change mitigation" with the message that online collaboration and mentoring could be used to accelerate the distribution of knowledge of how to deal with climate change. I used the example of the postgraduate green technology course I run for the Australian Computer Society and the Australian National University. The deligates were particularly interested in the fact that the notes were available freely as web pages, as well as a paperback book and down-loadable e-book.

Also they asked about the role of mobile phones and traditional face-to-face teaching, so I was able to explain the course material was prepared in a format which could display on a smart phone and be printed. I was asked if this form of education could be expanded to a wider audience, not just postgraduate students. This would be feasible, but take much more work in preparing introductory material, and using multimedia. ANU is installing equipment and software for more easily developing multimedia and I am trialing this

The afternoon session started with a video linkup with the Asia-Pacific Network for Global Change Research in Japan. The technology worked for the connection, but there was confusion as to from which end of the link the slides would be displayed, which took some time to sort out. The event continues tomorrow with small groups preparing proposed initiatives.

Here is the program so far:

APEC Symposium on Climate Change

28th - 30th October 2009

Background

In the lead up to the Australia-Korea Leadership Forum in November and the UNFCCC CoP 15 in Copenhagen in December, the CCI, through AusAID sponsorship, is hosting a closed workshop consisting of APEC member economies....

Workshop Objectives

• Identify opportunities to promote collaboration between business, government and educational and
  research institutions in the Asia-Pacific region on climate change issues, including:
  • Identify mechanisms for technology development and transfer to support action on climate change
    mitigation and adaptation;
  • Technology underpinning knowledge creation and transfer; and
  • Turning research into outcomes.
• Identify impediments and solutions to effective collaboration around key issues, including:
  • IP challenges;
  • Knowledge gaps;
  • Capacity building; and
  • Governance.
• Where to from now?
• Identify achievable outcomes and timeframes; and
• Road map ahead. ...

Workshop Outcomes

Workshop outcomes will include:

• A road map for APEC economies to progress the challenges of knowledge transfer;
• High level plan to turn research into outcomes;
• Identification and potential solutions to impediments to effective collaboration;
• Opportunities for AusAID to provide continued support in the Asia-Pacific region;
• Road map ahead for follow up workshops / conferences; and
• Report of proceedings.

SESSION 1

9:00 – 10:45 CHAIR – Ms Octavia Borthwick
Assistant Director General, Asia Regional Branch, AusAID
Timing Speakers
08:45 - 09:00 Arrival and registration
09:00 - 9:05 Welcome and Introduction (Prof
Will Steffen) Executive Director, ANU Climate Change Institute
09:05 – 09:15 Ms Octavia Borthwick (Australia) ADG, Asia Regional Branch, AusAID
09:15 - 09:40 Dr Heesu Park (R Korea) Policy Advisor, Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA)
09:40 – 10:05 Prof Haibin Zhang (PR China) Director, Centre for International Organisation Studies, Peking University
10:05 - 10:30 Dr Nguyen Dai Khanh (Viet Nam) Director, Technology and International Cooperation, National Hydro-Meteorological Service, Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment
10:30 – 10:45 Questions & discussion
10:45-11:00 MORNING COFFEE & TEA

SESSION 2

11:00 – 12:30
CHAIR – Prof Will Steffen ANU Climate Change Institute
Timing Speakers
11:00–11:25 Dr Carmel Gacho (Philippines) Senior Science Research Specialist, Industrial Technology Development Institute, Department of Science and Technology, Philippines
11:25–11:45 Mr Tom Worthington, Green ICT e-learning Designer, ANU College of Engineering and Computer Science and the Australian Computer Society
11:45–12:00 Questions & discussion
12:30-13:45 LUNCH

SESSION 3

14:00 – 14:50 VIDEO CONFERENCE
CHAIR - Prof James Fox, Frank Fenner Building, ANU Medical School Director, ANU Korea Institute
Timing Speaker(s)
14:00 – 14:30 Mr Tetsuro Fujitsuka (Japan) Asia-Pacific Network for Global Change Research (APN), Japan
14:30 – 14:50 Questions and discussion ...

Indian university to deliver via 3G to millions of students

Indira Gandhi Open University (IGNOU) have announced an MoU with Ericson 3G mobile education delivery. Students of IGNOU will get 3G Mobile access for about Rs 25 (52 US Cents) more than a normal course cost. SMS is already used for course management. 3G will provide web pages, assignments and video clips. This will also be used for students with hearing and speech impairments.

The ECAR Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology, 2009 identified cost as a factor holding back the use of 3G Internet applciaitons for education. But it is not clear if the low charge menitoned by IGNOU covers all the communication costs.

The students will most likely use a laptop (or netbook) with a 3G modem in it, rather than a smart phone for education. This might be used with devices simialr to the Lanyu LY-EB01 $US98 netbook.

I met Professor Uma Kanjilal, Director of the School of Social Sciences, Indira Gandhi Open University (IGNOU) when she visited ANU earlier in the year. What was impressive was the scale of IGNOU's operations.

E-learning courses save no teacher time

My students have just about completed the first COMP7310 Green ICT course at ANU. In terms of education it appears to have been successful, but was it cost effective to use e-learning? My conclusion is that the staff cost for this form of Mentored and Collaborative e-Learning for Postgraduate Professional Education is about the same as for conventional lectures and face to face tutorials. The time saved in not giving lectures and tutorials is taken up in feedback to students on the e-learning course. The time and cost for assessment is about the same as both use conventional manually marked assessment (and about the same proportion of the overall cost of the course).

Obviously there will be savings in not having to provide lecture theatres and tutorial rooms and extra costs in providing an e-learning system (the e-learning system is likely to be much cheaper than building costs). In addition there is the cost of the course materials used for conventional and e-learning courses (with e-learning material costing considerably more). Also there will be differences in the quality of the experience: students in a lecture rarely, if ever, get individual attention from a lecturer and get only a few minutes individual attention from a tutor per semester. But with an e-learning course each student gets hours of individual attention.

Calculating course cost

A typical ANU postgraduate course, such as "COMP6341 IT in e-Commerce" has three hours of lectures per week for ten weeks and seven two hour labs.

ANU Casual Sessional Rates range per hour from $95.44 to $238.61, depending on the amount of preparation required. Tutoring ranges from $69.15 to $122.95 per hour. The bottom end of the scale assume that the teacher has to spend an hour preparing for a one hour lecture or tutorial, thus taking two ours for one hour of student time.

Assuming that a lecture contains 100 students and tutorials have 24 students in each, there will be 4 tutorial groups. So there will be:

• 3 lectures x 2 hours x 10 weeks = 60 hours, plus
• 4 lab groups x 4 hours x 7 labs = 112 hours
• Total = 172 hours teacher time

The course also has two assignments and a three hour examination (the ANU complex marking rate is $40.98 an hour). Assume it takes one hour for each assessment item: 3 assessments x 100 students = 300 hours.

The course also has to be administered, so let us add one our per week, for 12 weeks: 12 hours. At the ANU "Other required academic activity category this is" $40.98 per hour.

Assuming that a flexible course, such as COMP7310 requires 15 minutes of time per student per week for 12 weeks, plus 1 hour for each of two assignments and the same 1 hour a week of administration, the total hours and cost come out to be very similar:

	Conventional	E-learning	Difference
Total Cost	$31,983.96	$29,770.80	-7%
Total Hours	484	512	5%
Per student $	$319.84	$297.71
Per student H	4.84	5.12

Some of the interesting things about this are that 38% of the cost of the conventional course is from the assessment, which is about the same as the e-learning course.