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12 Days. 12 Apps. 10 minutes per day. I've just signed up (again) for the 12 apps of Christmas #12appsDIT offered by the Learning, Teaching and Technology Centre at DIT, and facilitated by Frances Boylan. This was launched last year (and I blogged about it at the time ) based on a similar initiative at Regent's University London. Each morning over 12 weekdays, starting Dec 1 st 2015, a page will be released that reviews a particular mobile app and explores it in terms of how it could help students personalise their learning. Like an advent calendar, every day you open a new door and see what's behind it. This year the DIT folk are focussing on personalisation of learning, and are inviting teaching staff and students to take part. Already more than 600 people have registered. Why not sign up too ? As well as #12appsDIT, Chris Rowell of Regent's University London, has launched Christmas 2.0 #RUL12AoC. Aimed at academic and academic support staff, this open course off...

This week I am dipping into the open bite-size course BYOD4L: Bring Your Own Device for Learning . I can't promise that I'll keep up, especially since the History and Future of (Mostly) Higher Education MOOC also starts today. But since it's only over 5 days, I might just manage. The first topic is that of Connecting . There was quite a bit of connecting on the twitter chat this evening , under the hashtag #BYOD4Lchat. It was fast and furious. But, back to the task at hand. I watched both videos embedded on the Resources page and decided to reflect on the second one, from the point of view of the teacher. This is a scenario with which I am familiar, since I work in supporting teaching staff in their use of technology. A constant refrain is "I haven't got time", which, to be fair, is usually true. Academics are, increasingly, very busy with many demands on their time. To start using a new technology (device, app, system, tool) for teaching, they need to be c...

At this stage, #edcmooc is over, and I can say that I have finally completed a MOOC. Before I reflect on my own experience of being a student on #edmooc, I want to complete my musings on the resources provided. Week 4 continued the theme of Being Human, with a collection of videos, some readings on Transhumanism and some less challenging perspectives on Education. Of the four videos, the two that I connected with most are True Skin ( see it on Vimeo ) and Avatar Days ( watch on YouTube ). True Skin reminds me of some of the sci fi videos from week 1, and has a dystopian feel running through it. The idea of being able to upload your mind - memory backup - is fascinating and has clear beneficial aspects, for example, for early alzheimers sufferers. What does it mean for learning though? If you can upload a (brilliant) mind, can you download it, or part of it, multiple times to many people? Maybe we'll all become like our smartphones, downloading learning to our brains like apps. L...

I think I made a mistake in week three of #edcmooc. I was doing some travelling by train and decided to review the resources while in transit. Unfortunately, the Iarnród Éireann WiFi wouldn't let me access any of the videos, so I couldn't watch the film festival or Steve Fuller's TedX Warwick talk Defining Humanity . Instead, I jumped straight into the advanced reading: Neil Badmington's introduction on Posthumanism. I read it twice, in full, and have gone back to sections since. But, I really don't think I have the necessary background to be able to make any sense of it at all. Being Human, Humanism, Posthumanism and Transhumanism As I read Badmington's introduction, I had fleeting glimpses of meaning and at times thought I might be approaching some understanding. But eventually I gave up. Is it possible to understand what posthumanism is without understanding humanism? I don't know, but all the different arguments got my head in a spin. I was ready to give...

Interactive White Board of the future We're already in week 3 of #edcmooc, and I'm behind. I have some train travel ahead of me tomorrow, so that should give me a chance to catch up on materials. But before that, I'd better write up some thoughts from week 2. Week 2 continued on the theme of Utopias and Dystopias, this time looking to the future - of society and education. Looking at the materials, videos and readings, a lot of thoughts went through my head. I'm not really sure what this course is all about, and I don't have a lot of time to devote to it, so I find myself relating the materials to my own professional life working in academic staff development, as well as to my own experiences of education as a parent. I did watch all five videos in the film festival. Two of these ( A Day Made of Glass and Productivity Future Vision ) are video advertisements, offering a very sanitised possible near future. I say sanitised because everything, every surface, looked s...

Back in early January, I heard Jeremy Knox speak at the Durham Blackboard Users' Conference about his involvement in the Coursera MOOC, E-Learning and Digital Cultures. It sounded interesting and, despite a heavy workload, I decided to sign up. I don't know if I'll complete it, but week 1 has been interesting and I'm still there. I'll blog about the whole MOOC experience separately. For now, I just want to record my thoughts about the week one content and reflect on what I  might have learned. First of all, I am a scientist by background, namely computer science and mathematics. While I love reading and the cinema, and I know what I like and what I don't like, I'm not used to analysing and critiquing them. I don't ever use the words "utopia" or "dystopia" in everyday conversation and I'm not comfortable using them. So, this is definitely new to me. I think I have a better idea, after week 1, of their meaning. I can see, I think, h...