Nice quote - Lisa Alther

Found here: "I happen to feel that the degree of a person's intelligence is directly reflected by the number of conflicting attitudes she can bring to bear on the same topic." Lisa Alther, American, 1944 -

Jenny Moon on "Lecture Journals"

A good thought from Jenny Moon in her book Learning Journals (Kogan Page, 1999), it reflects a thought I had also had as a result of observing some teaching here at the Uni:

"The lecture journal is a general method of journal use that can cut across all disciplines in formal education and can be used alone or as a component of a journal. One of the problems with the traditional lecture method is that in its usual form it may not provide the time during which learners can think about its content and relate that to previous learning or experience. Students also require time to take notes that further cut down the opportunity for deep learning. It is probably fair to say that most students collect the notes from the day's classes and file them away for later reference.

A lecture journal, however, in which they reflect on the content of a lecture, provides the opportunity to deepen and thereby to improve the quality of learning. There can be variations on the theme. Students might, for example, be asked to formulate a series of questions that arise from the content of the lecture or to record a conversation with another about the lecture." (p. 51 in the 2002 reprint)

• We need to give students more time to digest and analyse what they are being told in the lecture.
• We need to bring considered criticality and reflection into the classroom.
• We need to allow students to ask questions and debate the issues when they have the chance, when they are all together in the room with the tutor as moderator. It's hopelessly naive to think that most students will go away and meditate for a couple of hours on the notes they hurriedly make in class.

I'm all for extended annotation of lecture handouts - use them as a tool for learning.
What about giving students questions to consider in advance of the lecture?
What about "homework" - tasks to do after the lecture has finished? I might use question spaces or other tasks on WebCT to encourage engagement.

The usefulness of PebblePad

Little to say on this topic at this stage.

I am very impressed with PebblePad as a piece of software. It presents a flexible, polished and inviting interface to the user, and produces high quality outputs which are easily shared with peers, tutors or the general public.

It is though a limited piece of software, especially where learning is concerned. I would not see PebblePad as a good tool for the primary engagement with learning - Campus ("WebCT") would be better. PebblePad comes into its own IMO as a secondary tool, for reflection on learning and collation of reflective resources and records of achievement etc.

I would be interested in being part of a course which used PebblePad extensively for sharing webfolios as living documents of learning.

As far as I am aware, PebblePad is currently very little-used across the University in learning contexts; its main use seems to be as a tool for documenting personal development and creating CVs.

Sharing records of learning through PebblePad webfolios

"post a comment on the benefits of sharing assets and providing students with the ability to create their own webfolios"

I think the potential benefits of a webfolio in supporting learning would be highly dependent on the nature and content of the module or course.

For a tutor to share assets, and to encourage students to create and share their own assets, could create an environment where active involvement in learning occurs e.g. through students responding in short pieces of writing to elements of the course content. It would perhaps also add an interesting element of development and synchronicity, as students can see the development of the tutor's materials and there might be a sense of the process of collective, two-way learning, as opposed to students assimilating a static body of knowledge.

However there would have to be an expectation that students' created assets were a reflection of their learning, rather than just comments on things they have read. I.e. the assets should show a constructed response, combining reflection on course content with prior background knowledge and understanding.

For students, creating a webfolio as the course progresses can be a positive developmental process which encourages creative responses to learning, a sense of closer involvement with the course content and greater confidence in using online learning tools and simply writing.

The user-friendliness of PebblePad

(Originally written Monday 27th November. Copied over from PebblePad.)

I think PebblePad is not as friendly as it should be.

Although it benefits from an attractive user interface, there are perhaps too many options for types of asset, which can be off-putting for new users - the user is asked to make too many decisions by default. For more advanced users, further options could be made available if required.

I suppose, in defence of the programmers, they have offered through PebblePad a good range of asset options which they wanted to make available to all users.

Another feature which bugged me was the step-by-step process of creating an asset. I would rather have been asked to start writing straight away, as with Blogger, and then come back and added other data such as date and reflection afterwards if I wanted to.

Again, in defence of the PebblePad designers, the step-by-step process encourages users to add more to their assets than they would have naturally done, I suspect.

Beta Blogging

A few notes about getting started:

I've started this blog as part of the e-moderating course at the University of Gloucestershire. The blog will be where I record my experiences using a variety of e-learning tools, and I hope it will also be a place where I continue to post learning- and teaching-related material and thoughts after this course has finished.

I am very keen on the use of new technologies to support and enhance learning at all levels.

I had no problems getting started with this blog. I have had an account with blogger.com since 2001, the only difference today was that I decided to create a new account rather than add a blog to my existing one, and was then signed in to the Blogger Beta system which is very slightly different to what I was used to. The "Compose" function is very slow though; I find it faster to compose in Notepad and then paste in my text.

I am a fan of wikis as well, but have some doubts about the range of their usefulness in educational contexts. Maybe I am just not imaginative enough? I think there is a narrow and specific range of tasks for which wikis could be really useful, as already evidenced by the use of Writeboard in this course. Collaborative projects should nowadays use wikis almost by default - it's a "no-brainer" in terms of functionality compared to group e-mails etc.

More later...