Fortnightly Mailing

Event in London on 20/2/2008 to showcase R&D in the UK about learning mediated by technology

ALT, for which I work part time, supports a the Lab Group, a collaboration between labs which do R&D in learning mediated by technology. We are organising the 2008 Lab Group Open Day, sponsored by JISC, at Oracle's City of London offices, between 10.45 and 15.30 on Wednesday 20 February. Around a dozen labs will be presenting:

• The Centre for Applied Research in Educational Technologies (CARET) – Cambridge University
• Inspire – Anglia Ruskin University
• Institute for Educational Cybernetics – Bolton University
• Institute of Educational Technology – Open University
• Institute for Learning and Research Technology (ILRT) – Bristol University
• Futurelab – Bristol
• Institute for Social and Technical Research (formerly Chimera) – Essex University
• Learning Science Research Institute (LSRI) – Nottingham University
• Learning Societies Lab – Southampton University
• Learning Technology Research Institute (LTRI) – London Metropolitan University
• London Knowledge Lab – Birkbeck and the Institute of Education
• The Serious Games Institute (SGI) – Coventry University
• SmartLab – University of East London

The closing date for bookings is Monday 11 February 2008. (There is no charge for attendance.) Further information and booking form. Full programme for the day [140 kB PDF]. Descriptive flyer for the day [100 kB PDF].

Jakob Nielsen: "User skills improving, but only slightly"

Nielsen's  Alertbox for 4 February 2008 repeats, with evidence and examples, previous claims about what sorts of problems trip users up on an unfamiliar web site.

"Users now do basic operations with confidence and perform with skill on sites they use often. But when users try new sites, well-known usability problems still cause failures."

Definitely the kind of thing to read if you want to critique an existing web site, or if you are involved in procuring a new one. Nielsen also provides insights into how users use search, which Nielsen characterises as "Google Gullibility". He concludes:

"When it comes to search, users face three problems:

• Inability to retarget queries to a different search strategy
• Inability to understand the search results and properly evaluate each destination site's likely usefulness
  
• Inability to sort through the search engine results page's polluted mass of poor results, whether from blogs or from heavily SEO-optimized sites that are insufficiently specific to really address the user's problem
  

Given these difficulties, many users are at the search engine's mercy and mainly click the top links — a behavior we might call Google Gullibility. Sadly, while these top links are often not what they really need, users don't know how to do better.

I use "Google" in labeling the behavior only because it's the search engine used by the vast majority of our test users. People using other search engines have the same problems. Still, it's vital to reestablish competition in the search engine field: it would be a tragedy for democracy to let 3 guys at one company determine what billions of people read, learn, and ultimately think."

Henry Siegman writes about Gaza’s future in the London Review of Books

Henry Siegman is the director of the US/Middle East Project, served as a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations from 1994 to 2006, ans was head of the American Jewish Congress from 1978 to 1994. I do not know how long the whole of Siegman's scathing and depressing attack on current US and Israeli policy in relation to the siege of Gaza in the 7/2/2008 London Review of Books will be visible to non-subscribers, but I hope LRB will include it amongst the articles that it does not password protect. Here is the start:

"The breaching of the barrier between Gaza and Egypt by Gaza’s imprisoned population dramatised two fundamental realities about which Israeli and US policymakers have been in complete denial. First, that sooner or later Gazans would seek to break out of their open-air jail. That they have done so should be applauded not condemned. It would have been a sad comment on the human spirit had Gaza’s citizens surrendered to their fate.

Israel’s claim that the strangulation of Gaza was intended to provoke its population into overthrowing Hamas is absurd – and offensive. It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that the draconian restrictions imposed by Israel on Gaza’s civilian residents redirected against their Israeli tormentors what anger existed among them towards Hamas for its ideological rigidity and its refusal to halt rocket assaults on Israel. As recent opinion polls have found, the suffering caused by the Gaza closures produced greater solidarity not greater divisiveness. It even moved Mahmoud Abbas and Salam Fayyad to public displays of anger (however disingenuous) against Ehud Olmert’s government.

Olmert’s statement, made shortly before the breakout, that Gaza’s residents could not expect to lead normal lives while missiles from Gaza were hitting Israel would have been perfectly reasonable if Gazan residents had indeed been allowed to live ‘normal’ lives before the most recent tightening of the noose and if it were the case that Gaza’s civilian residents had any control at all over the firing of the missiles.

As Olmert knows, neither is the case. The siege of Gaza was imposed by Israel because Israel’s government and the US administration intended to undo the results of Hamas’s victory in the elections of 2006. Initially, they thought they could achieve this by arming Fatah’s security forces and encouraging them to promote anarchy in Gaza in a way that would discredit Hamas. When Hamas ousted Fatah security forces, Israel blockaded Gaza in the hope that its population would overthrow Hamas. The Qassam rockets were the consequence, not the cause of these misguided Israeli and US manoeuvres."

Continue reading Siegman's article.

Links for Jan 2008 talk at NIACE e-learning conference and June 2008 talk at OU Associate Lecturer conference

Updated 8 June 2008

Below is an eclectic set of links that I included in the talks I gave at the 31/1/2008 NIACE "E-Learning: the future of learning" conference, and the 7/6/2008 Open University Associate Lecturer Staff Development Conference.

1. Computers in schools are like zebra mussels – a fascinating talk by Professor Yong Zhao, Director of the Centre for Teaching and Technology and US-China Centre for Research on Educational Excellence at Michigan State, which argues that computers are triggering the survival instincts of teachers http://fm.schmoller.net/2006/12/computers_in_sc.html

2. Students today – short video about “young people” and their technology habits http://fm.schmoller.net/2008/01/mark-weschs-vie.html

3. Dr Itiel Dror’s informative, evidence-based handouts summarising a cognitive psychologists views about learning http://fm.schmoller.net/2007/03/useful_terse_ar.html

4. John Seeley Brown’s "Minds on Fire - Open Education, the Long Tail, and Learning 2.0" http://www.johnseelybrown.com/mindsonfire.pdf

5. OECD data on all things digital http://www.oecd.org/document/60/0,3343,en_2649_33703_39574076_1_1_1_1,00.html

6. Puncturing the hype about MySpace. Interesting article about actual user behaviours by Professor Mike Thelwall http://fm.schmoller.net/2007/10/large-scale-ana.html

7. BBC piece about User Generated gaming http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/click_online/4997036.stm

8. The software sorted society. Project by Professor Steve Graham http://www.dur.ac.uk/geography/research/researchprojects/?mode=project&id=73

9. New wave computing – informative articles from the Economist http://fm.schmoller.net/2007/01/new_wave_comput.html

10. Educause 7 things you should know about series (quick, no-jargon overviews of emerging technologies and related practices that have demonstrated or may demonstrate positive learning impacts) http://www.educause.edu/7ThingsYouShouldKnowAboutSeries/7495

11. Frank Coffield’s “Running ever faster down the wrong road” which charts public policy on the learning and skills sector over the last 10 or so years http://www.ioe.ac.uk/schools/leid/lss/FCInauguralLectureDec06.doc

12. Amazon link to "The user illusion, cutting consciousness down to size" by Tor Nørretranders http://www.amazon.co.uk/User-Illusion-Cutting-Consciousness-Penguin/dp/0140230122

13. Donald Clark piece about e-learning and hand-held gaming devices http://donaldclarkplanb.blogspot.com/2008/01/nintendo-ds-shows-educators-future.html

14. 3 blogs that are worth subscribing to (amongst many…..)

• Stephen Downes - http://www.downes.ca/news/OLDaily.htm
• Clive on Learning - http://clive-shepherd.blogspot.com/
• dana boyd - http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/

15. The ALT Newsletter http://newsletter.alt.ac.uk/

16. Baboon metaphysics – the evolution of the social mind http://fm.schmoller.net/2008/01/baboon-metaphys.html

17. Terrific keynotes from the 2007 ALT Conference by Peter Norvig and by Dylan Wiliam in several different formats including text transcript and MP3 http://www.alt.ac.uk/altc2007/

18. ccSearch – a means of searching for materials that are available under a Creative Commons license http://search.creativecommons.org/

19. 30/1/2008 piece in the Financial Times by "The big switch" Nicholas Carr about the coming era of "utility computing"

Nintendo DS shows educators the future - useful piece by Donald Clark

Donald Clark's Consumer e-learning goes global is worth reading in full. Excerpt:

"Over Christmas something quite extraordinary happened. E-learning became a global consumer phenomenon. Nintendo has been THE global success in games this year with learning product. So how did Nintendo do what educators have been trying for eons to achieve (unsuccessfully)? Simple, they went back to some basic principles in the psychology of learning around motivation, goals and spaced practice. They realised that one-on-one content, that becomes addictive for the learner, played a little but often, is the way ahead in learning. In designing a game that appeals to all ages they’ve literally created a massive consumer-led e-learning market."

The wisdom of crowds a.k.a. Distributed Problem Solving Networks - open forum in Oxford on 31/1/2008

There will be an open forum on the performance of Distributed Problem Solving Networks organised the Oxford Internet Institute on 31/1/2008 between 16.30 and 18.00 at the Said Business School.

"The forum is motivated by the growing 'buzz' in the business press about exploiting 'the wisdom of crowds' and related forms of Distributed Problem Solving. At the same time executives in the public and private sectors are beginning to seriously consider the future potential of these developments: the forum is designed to inform the debate about the potentialities and limitations of these new organizational forms."   

Confirmed speakers include:   

• Professor Scott Page (University of Michigan)   
• Professor Karim Lakhani (Harvard Business School)   
• John Wilbanks (Science Commons)   
• Professor Paul David (OII) (Chair)   

To book a place email your name and affiliation, if any, to:  events@oii.ox.ac.uk.

Wikipatterns - a credible set of "dos" and "donts" for wikis

Thanks to Geoff Stead for pointing to Wikipatterns, a site sponsored by Atlassian, the company behind the "enterprise" wiki Confluence.

Wikipatterns:

"is a toolbox of patterns & anti-patterns, and a guide to the stages of wiki adoption. It's also a wiki, which means you can help build the information based on your experiences."

The 70+ patterns  and anti-patterns have  credible feel, and are divided between "People" and "Adoption". An interesting example of an Adoption anti-pattern is Training, which starts:

"Spending time and resources on producing training materials for an unresponsive prospective user community will actually impeded the adoption and long-term success of your knowledge base."

Whitepapers on web accessibility and on using "Web 2.0" from Futurate

The Sheffield web development company Futurate has published a couple of worthwhile Whitepapers:

• Web accessibility for web managers pt 1 [273 kB PDF], which is part one of a two part document outlining some of the key facts related to web accessibility;
• Five tips to help you stay focused on your customers in the ‘Web 2.0’ age [240 kB PDF], about the steps to take during website planning to ensure that the use ‘Web 2.0’ type technologies, is "balanced against the need to stay customer focused".

Futurate has also started a blog, and more posts like Is poor usability Google's achilles heal? will begin to get it more readers, even if the answer to that particular question is probably "no, not exactly".

The University of Google

There has been plenty of coverage stemming from Tara Brabazon's "The University of Google", and Brabazon's recent inaugural lecture at Brighton University, where she is Professor of Media. Here is a selection:

• White bread for young minds, says professor - The Times, 14 January 2008;
• Reference books: give me Wikipedia - The Times, 16 January 2008;
• Lecturer bans students from using Google and Wikipedia - Brighton (?) Argus;
• Plagiarism - blame academia, not students - Donald Clark 19 January 2008.

Brabazon seems to be being lumped in with Andrew "cult of the amateur"  Keen as a "snobby traditionalist". I'm not so sure. Though I found her book a bit of a curate's egg, there is nothing wrong with her underlying argument that as the world's information becomes available

i) through the single entry-point of web-search, and

ii) decreasingly pre-filtered by experts

people, including students, need different and better ways of judging the quality and relevance of what they find.

I liked the extensive use of footnotes to sources, the book's generally sharp attitude to top-down managerialism in Higher Education, and its concrete and credible examples of assignments designed to develop students' information literacy. And Brabazon is clear about the power and value of, for example, Google Scholar, and Google Book Search.

But I did have reservations. The carefully crafted chapter-titles (e.g. "Digital Eloi and analogue Morlocks") began to niggle, and the book could have been 40% shorter. Though I imagine that Brabazon is an inspirational and committed teacher who makes a big and beneficial difference to her students (it is interesting to read the student comment on the Brighton Argus article above), she seems almost to need to show us how much her students think of her, even if this happens, in passing, whilst discussing, justifiably, real exchanges between her and her students. (I do not share her apparent stance that teachers have to be central to learning.) Brabazon is completely silent on the work of people like Lawrence Lessig and David Weinberger, and she steers clear of any significant discussion of "Open Source and  Open Content", with Wikipedia warranting only a couple of pages.  [I do not know when the copy for the book was finalised, but if this was after early 2007, then I think Wikia's efforts to involve users in improving the quality of search results (see also SearchWikia), should have got a mention.]

Finally, Brabazon's argument hinged in part on the incorrect premise that Google's page rank system (see also this 1998 paper by Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page [124 kB PDF]) takes account of how many actual hits the page being ranked gets, rather than how many inward links it has, and from where  (note also the swerve in the final couple of sentences to sound-bite from inaccurate premise):

"Google ranks their (sic) search results via the popularity and number of links and hits to that site. For example, when 'Tara Brabazon' is entered into Google, the number one returned search is my Home Page, the site developed (by me) to promote my career. The links with less hits, but perhaps more critical information, are far lower on the  ranking. My personal web page has so many hits because a link is presented to it at the bottom of each email I send from my work computer. Not surprisingly, hundreds of curious undergraduates with a bouncy index finger click to their teacher's profile....... Ponder the more serious consequences when students click onto highly ideological sites that are assessed by popularity, not qualitative importance or significance...... The assumption of Google is that popularity of sites is validation of quality. Google is the internet equivalent of reality television: derivative, fast, and shallow."

As soon as I find that kind of error in a book, especially early on, I begin to lose confidence in the whole thing, worrying that there are others lurking there, which I do not have the domain knowledge to spot.

[With minor edits, 22/1/2008]

Informal adult learning - Government consultation

Today the (English) Department for Innovation, Universities, and Skills has launched consultation Informal Adult Learning - Shaping the Way Ahead. Here is a link to the full consultation document [1700 kB PDF]. The tone of the consultation document, which has a strong focus on the role of technology in supporting informal learning, also seems to signal a policy-shift, back to the more inclusive and less wholly employment-focused approach of the 1997 Labour Government under the then Secretary of State David Blunkett (does anyone remember the 1998 Green Paper The Learning Age: a renaissance for a new Britain? [100 kB PDF]):

"The mass movement described in this paper has come about through the independent actions of millions of people - and few, if any, of them would even recognise that they are part of such a movement. They are all following a common human impulse to satisfy their curiosity and thirst for knowledge. What implications does this have for the type of public policy we should be developing for informal adult learning for the period 2009 - 2020? Does the laissez-faire nature of these recent developments mean Government should leave well alone? Or, as we believe, does Government have a key role in helping to maximise and sustain the benefits of the arrangements as they are working today? The launch of this consultation marks the start of a wide-ranging debate that will lead to a policy paper later this year on informal adult learning for the 21st century. The consultation needs to provide the information and evidence that will help develop a sound strategic vision that can support and inform the public, private, voluntary and self-directed learning sectors."