Sunday, August 21, 2005
Postcodes , the 'me me more ' generation and the Internet.
A recent article from the BBC speculates that house buyers are starting to use the Internet to research possible purchase locations via sites on the Internet in ways that will inevitably lead to much more homogenous communities insulated from any demographic or social group considered unsatisfactory. The irony that the internet with it's potential to unite the world and this type of self serving, self validating behaviour cannot be more dramatic. To highlight this I suggest you take a quick look at inveneo and the work they are undertaking in Uganda.The original BBC video here.
Zotob, viruses, organised crime, extortion and $6 a million loss in car production
It seems that the nature of the threats we face from the Internet is changing and hacking has become the tool of malicious forces worldwide.Chris Horley recently interviewed by the ABC Australia speculated that the motivation of hackers is becoming far more malicious than in the past.Organised crime has picked up on the potential of spyware and viruses to extort money from online businesses.For more information see the ABC
Saturday, August 06, 2005
McWireless and social justice comes to a McDonald's near you
Image courtesy of Nicolatain
If you think about it, this is amazing. A burger chain has the ability to influence the future of a whole generation. But it might require a bit of philanthropy on their part.Flexible learning often requires access to computers and the internet, things that some students find beyond their reach. McDonalds new wifi hotspots established at many stores across the country provide half the solution. McDonalds believes they will allow customers to check emails surf the web or download video but there are also bigger burgers to fry. I challenge McDonalds to provide laptops to disadvantaged students so they can complete their studies over a dish from the deli choices menu, low fat, social justice, and, great marketing! Yes that's right McDonalds could become the missing link in providing better access for voacational education students. Now that would make a difference!McWireless
Saturday, July 30, 2005
Teens prefer instant messaging
from Reuters (via Yahoo News):
A recent survey has shown that teens though 90 percent use email( an extroardinary statistic for educators in itself )they prefer instant messaging. Similarly nine out of ten use the Internet and many use instant messaging to send music or images.
For more information see yahoo
A recent survey has shown that teens though 90 percent use email( an extroardinary statistic for educators in itself )they prefer instant messaging. Similarly nine out of ten use the Internet and many use instant messaging to send music or images.
For more information see yahoo
Redtacton: Broadband using human skin!
Redtacton a technology recently developed by NTT in Japan has the potential to ubiquitise computing in everyday life. The human body will become the conduit for this. Simply by touching stepping or moving machinery can be started or stopped. Embedded medical devices can be controlled. The applications are enormous, medical security and data transfer are just the start. Conferencing can be enabled without the use of wiring, and walls and desks and doorknobs can be conduits for data transfer. In education the applications are endless from lesson outlines to administrative forms data could be transfered quickly and easily without pedagogical intervention. If you hadn't thought it was time to reinvent yourself if you are a teacher perhaps you should have a rethink!! For more information have a look at Redtacton To be involved in their trials Contact Redtacton
Tuesday, June 14, 2005
A TV on your wrist
If you are a student of open university content does this mean you you will now be able to access your course content from the watch on your wrist? The wearable TV wristwatch promises just that.
It mighty be a bit chunky to fit under the cuff of your best shirt but so was my 70's ultra cool diving watch. For more information go to smarthome and check it out.
It mighty be a bit chunky to fit under the cuff of your best shirt but so was my 70's ultra cool diving watch. For more information go to smarthome and check it out.
PC's and E-learning
Often the criticism that is levelled at E-learning in the vocational education sector is that students will not have access to PC's in the home. Considering that a 300mz PC worth about $200 dollars is actually quite an adequate machine to access the internet this criticism is becoming less and less relevant in the new world order. Much more to the point is the way that the function of the PC in the home is being transformed. Not only are many people myself amongst them turning off free to air television and seeking out a better experience on the Internet manufacturers are also remodelling the PC to be physically a more central part of the home entertainment experience. The media centre PC 
is a perfect example of this. For the price of a top range consumer PC several years ago One and Co produced has a powerful and attractive entertainment centre that can display high definition television and Internet content similtaneously.
is a perfect example of this. For the price of a top range consumer PC several years ago One and Co produced has a powerful and attractive entertainment centre that can display high definition television and Internet content similtaneously.
Tuesday, May 24, 2005
Why pursue online learning?
Why pursue online learning?
If you do a search of Google with the terms online learning and the environment you will find like I did that there are many entries concerning the online learning environment rather than the effect that online learning can have on the environment. That's odd isn't it? If you you like me see that one of the main benefits of adopting an fully or partially online learning program is the positive effect it can have for the environment. No more forcing reluctant trade students to observe 8 am starting times merely to suit the capacity restraints of a system restricted by the number of practical rooms available or the budget available for student places. There is no doubt in my mind that the current model of is deeply rooted in an industrial model of production and that is why it is fundamentally unsustainable. We no longer live in an industrial world. For a start it is simply not an inefficient use of human resources. Why make a young cookery apprentice who usually finishes work around 11 pm and probably gets to sleep around 12:30 am get up at six so they can be present for class though sleep deprived at a college at anything up to 100kms away. Tell me how it is good for them or for the productivity of the enterprise and I will listen but honestly I will be reluctant to be convinced. You are going to have to explain to me, clearly, how it is good for morale, or profitabilty or accident rates for that matter? This is even more relevant in the baking trades, many of these guys are almost completely nocturnal though this is changing, oddly enough thanks to a concentration of ownership of shops in the chains. Recently we have heard how Australian Industry and it's awards and enterprise agreements need to be need to be restructured in order to address the threat from Chinese manufacturing. I would have thought as a starting point,for it is surely not this simple, that we need to work smarter and not simply cheaper. There can be no Australian who sees lower wages as a personal solution for the dilemna of securing the Australian dream of home ownership in an age of record property prices while maintaining some sort of quality of life.So what about trade training? Has it always been this way? What are we worried about when we consider change? Originally an apprentice was taught from the master in the workplace and off the job training was not considered necessary at all. I remember Alexis Chauvin a cookery teacher (with the most marvellous skills) at East Sydney TAFE college recounting how as an apprentice he was made to sleep on the benches of the kitchen and when they rendered they the cooking fat to make soap you could not sleep at all because of the stench. Surely no sane person expects apprentices to endure that today? It was concern about ensuring the uniformity of training that created the present off the job training system across a range of countries.Attendance at training colleges was seen as the best way of ensuring this occurred. Up until now this was probably true, but we now face the prospect of equally effective, cheaper, more environmentaly friendly methods of doing the same thing being widely available. Not only being available but supported by fundamental changes in, entertainment preferences communication methodologies and just plain simple exposure to new technologies our students are currently experiencing. Sure we need to ensure we don't throw the baby out with the bathwater and remove the the face to face transferance of skills that has always occured in practical classrooms, but for a lot of the other stuff there might be a much better way.
In terms of the environment here are some of the ways online learning might help to ensure a sustainable future:
Cars- less of them on the road at a given time. To test this think of the volume of traffic generated around school starting and finishing times. Though less visible the same thing is happening with vocational training.
Roads as above
Carparks as above
Generating more outcomes from the same physical capacity, therefore less infrastructure cost, less maintenance, greater throughput from the same number of classrooms etc etc etc.
Higher student satisfaction therefore lower staff stress and greater staff satisfaction.
Greater emphasis on staff expertise rather than simple presentation of information leading to higher levels of satisfaction and more rewarding job roles.
If you do a search of Google with the terms online learning and the environment you will find like I did that there are many entries concerning the online learning environment rather than the effect that online learning can have on the environment. That's odd isn't it? If you you like me see that one of the main benefits of adopting an fully or partially online learning program is the positive effect it can have for the environment. No more forcing reluctant trade students to observe 8 am starting times merely to suit the capacity restraints of a system restricted by the number of practical rooms available or the budget available for student places. There is no doubt in my mind that the current model of is deeply rooted in an industrial model of production and that is why it is fundamentally unsustainable. We no longer live in an industrial world. For a start it is simply not an inefficient use of human resources. Why make a young cookery apprentice who usually finishes work around 11 pm and probably gets to sleep around 12:30 am get up at six so they can be present for class though sleep deprived at a college at anything up to 100kms away. Tell me how it is good for them or for the productivity of the enterprise and I will listen but honestly I will be reluctant to be convinced. You are going to have to explain to me, clearly, how it is good for morale, or profitabilty or accident rates for that matter? This is even more relevant in the baking trades, many of these guys are almost completely nocturnal though this is changing, oddly enough thanks to a concentration of ownership of shops in the chains. Recently we have heard how Australian Industry and it's awards and enterprise agreements need to be need to be restructured in order to address the threat from Chinese manufacturing. I would have thought as a starting point,for it is surely not this simple, that we need to work smarter and not simply cheaper. There can be no Australian who sees lower wages as a personal solution for the dilemna of securing the Australian dream of home ownership in an age of record property prices while maintaining some sort of quality of life.So what about trade training? Has it always been this way? What are we worried about when we consider change? Originally an apprentice was taught from the master in the workplace and off the job training was not considered necessary at all. I remember Alexis Chauvin a cookery teacher (with the most marvellous skills) at East Sydney TAFE college recounting how as an apprentice he was made to sleep on the benches of the kitchen and when they rendered they the cooking fat to make soap you could not sleep at all because of the stench. Surely no sane person expects apprentices to endure that today? It was concern about ensuring the uniformity of training that created the present off the job training system across a range of countries.Attendance at training colleges was seen as the best way of ensuring this occurred. Up until now this was probably true, but we now face the prospect of equally effective, cheaper, more environmentaly friendly methods of doing the same thing being widely available. Not only being available but supported by fundamental changes in, entertainment preferences communication methodologies and just plain simple exposure to new technologies our students are currently experiencing. Sure we need to ensure we don't throw the baby out with the bathwater and remove the the face to face transferance of skills that has always occured in practical classrooms, but for a lot of the other stuff there might be a much better way.
In terms of the environment here are some of the ways online learning might help to ensure a sustainable future:
Cars- less of them on the road at a given time. To test this think of the volume of traffic generated around school starting and finishing times. Though less visible the same thing is happening with vocational training.
Roads as above
Carparks as above
Generating more outcomes from the same physical capacity, therefore less infrastructure cost, less maintenance, greater throughput from the same number of classrooms etc etc etc.
Higher student satisfaction therefore lower staff stress and greater staff satisfaction.
Greater emphasis on staff expertise rather than simple presentation of information leading to higher levels of satisfaction and more rewarding job roles.
Wednesday, May 18, 2005
News of the death of the Learning Management System might be a little premature.
OK there are many free services on the net that can replicate the functions of an LMS but do any of them provide a coherent base from which to deliver your online courseware across the entire enterprise? If you answer yes then go right ahead but I think, for many of us, life is a little more complicated. For me personally I love the collection of tools that I have cobbled together that allow me to do things with online courses that were not dreamed of a few years ago,and most of which are free or open source. But that does not mean that they represent a solution for the entire organisation or for your students.
I personally think that some people don't believe that learning should be managed at all and from that ideological base evangelise the merits of this or that small application that allows you to replicate some of the functions of the LMS without installing anything. If you follow that line of thinking then KEWL the marvellous open source project from South Africa doesn't make the cut. To me that is utter nonsense. Have a look sometime if you haven't already, at the type of courses they offer from that server and tell me why this project does not have intrinsic value. You simply cannot do it.
There is also the larger picture to consider. This is something I have been thinking about a bit lately. Many commentators and lots of supporters of online learning are glowing in the praise of blogs as a new means of democratising the dissemination of information and challenging the old order of centralised publishing control. All this is true and I think it is great. But, so far as I can see much less has been said about the the way these new applications centralise the means of publishing and it's format. Think of the quirky often tragic layouts of the early personal websites and you will see what I am getting at. With the new blogging technology these are far less likely to occur.
Much more fundamental is the issue of the ownership of the technology. Instead of personal websites we now are looking at sites or blogs situated on a small number blog servers which usually operate from a commercial imperative. It's a little bit like the death of the corner store replaced by the servo or the supermarket. Everything changes but we need to think about the consequences of those changes. Concentration of ownership is just as dangerous if it is the content of the information that is at stake as it is for the means of it's dispersal. So before you evangelise the use of blogs in education or whatever other widget you have dug up think about the consequences of it's implemention. You might be thinking educational usefulness it's developer might be thinking of dominating a market.
I personally think that some people don't believe that learning should be managed at all and from that ideological base evangelise the merits of this or that small application that allows you to replicate some of the functions of the LMS without installing anything. If you follow that line of thinking then KEWL the marvellous open source project from South Africa doesn't make the cut. To me that is utter nonsense. Have a look sometime if you haven't already, at the type of courses they offer from that server and tell me why this project does not have intrinsic value. You simply cannot do it.
There is also the larger picture to consider. This is something I have been thinking about a bit lately. Many commentators and lots of supporters of online learning are glowing in the praise of blogs as a new means of democratising the dissemination of information and challenging the old order of centralised publishing control. All this is true and I think it is great. But, so far as I can see much less has been said about the the way these new applications centralise the means of publishing and it's format. Think of the quirky often tragic layouts of the early personal websites and you will see what I am getting at. With the new blogging technology these are far less likely to occur.
Much more fundamental is the issue of the ownership of the technology. Instead of personal websites we now are looking at sites or blogs situated on a small number blog servers which usually operate from a commercial imperative. It's a little bit like the death of the corner store replaced by the servo or the supermarket. Everything changes but we need to think about the consequences of those changes. Concentration of ownership is just as dangerous if it is the content of the information that is at stake as it is for the means of it's dispersal. So before you evangelise the use of blogs in education or whatever other widget you have dug up think about the consequences of it's implemention. You might be thinking educational usefulness it's developer might be thinking of dominating a market.
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