OPLS blog

I often turn to Stephen Heppell when considering next steps and looking for help in making sense of this new world we’re living in. Recently I came across this. I shan’t try and paraphrase this time, but let his own words speak to you.

“Computers are everyday tools for us all, seen or unseen, but their value in learning is as tools for creativity and learning rather than as machines to “deliver” the curriculum. These tools, in our children’s hands, are forever pushing the envelope of expertise that previous technologies excluded them from: they compose, quantise and perform music before acquiring any ability to play an instrument, they shoot, edit and stream digital video before any support from media courses, they produce architectural fly-throughs of incredible buildings without any drafting or 2D skills, they make stop frame animations with their plasticine models, they edit and finesse their poetry, they explore surfaces on their visual calculators, swap ideas with scientists on-line about volcanic activity, follow webcam images of Ospreys hatching, track weather by live satellite images, control the robots they have built and generally push rapidly at the boundaries of what might be possible, indeed what was formerly possible, at any age.

Little of this was easily achieved in the school classroom ten years ago although the many projects emanating from Ultralab over that decade offered clear enough indicators of what might be possible. The challenge here is to criterion referencing. So often the cry of the teacher “that work is better than my degree exhibition piece!” reflects a substantial step change in both the age at which a creative act can be enjoyed and the quality of the tools supporting that creativity.”

So, if you want some guidance on what we might do as educators to evaluate some of this, have a look at what he has to say here.

Amazon have just announced a major new development in the ebook market. Called Kindle, it is pretty much a complete service package - from the hand-held hardware technology to the ability to browse, download or retrieve content. View the demo video for further details.

Why should we care? Well, I can see a number of potential uses in education. As more and more content becomes fully digital - by which I mean described in XML format - students can have direct access to reading lists and text-based course materials. In addition, because of its in-built dictionary and links to wikipedia, students can investigate words and phrases of which they are unsure. From the video, bookmarking and annotation look straight forward too.

Generally, its advantages include a hosted back-up service for all your purchased content, fast wifi connectivity using mobile phone network technologies (but no additional charges other than the download fee - currently $9.99 per book), a good screen and no syncing requirements with your pc.

I won’t be buying one yet though. At US$399 a pop, it’s not cheap. Furthermore, it’s another hand-held device to lug around - and therein lies the rub. My phone is pretty much becoming the ubiquitous computing device I need. Why should I invest in another piece of chunky technology that only delivers books, doesn’t play music and video, or allow me to read my emails, etc, etc, and, worse still, ties me into one provider?

The ultimate let-down for me, though, is the fact that Kindle charges for newspaper and blog content. How retro a step is that? I think Bezos was dancing with the fairies at the bottom of his garden when he came up with that particular business model.

Nevertheless, I have always had a soft spot for Amazon, ever since living overseas in the late 90s and it being the only effective means I had to get hold of books for my students. I shall therefore watch developments with interest and not dismiss the venture too hastily.

Berkeley University, in California, have recently launched a series of recorded lectures on their own YouTube channel. You can find the current catalogue here: Berkeley University on YouTube. It clearly mirrors MIT’s Opencourseware initiative, started in 2001.

It raises the question yet again of where the real value in school- and university-based education lies: in the teacher delivering the content or the collaborative working and investigation by students around it.

Clearly, Berkeley and MIT believe it is in the latter, otherwise they wouldn’t be distributing this content for free. It is the formal accreditation and recognition that surrounds it, which they then charge (huge sums) for.

The trend towards deconstructing territories of learning (a phrase I’ve borrowed from a colleague referring to the classroom rather than a geographical region) continues and I look forward to its development.

In the meantime, have a look at this lecture on atoms and heat: