Videoblog 4 – IT Services update

Mark and Abdul have been working together to complete the system for staff to apply for old tablet computers. We are hoping to unleash this and be ready to accept applications next week – I’ll let you know where to go to get the screen that Abdul is showing in the video – he has made it nice and easy.

In the video Abdul takes you for a quick tour of the web page he wrote for you to apply for an old tablet and Mark Explains some of the adminstrative functions that lie behind the system – managing the application process and the logistics.

Videoblog 3 – IT services Update

We are fitting in some time to work on our email system upgrade – simulating on virtual servers a change from exchange 2003 to exchange 2007. We are also hoping to find time to experiment with an evaluation of Sharepoint.

Mark and Abdul talk about the progress on a system for offering some of our old laptops to staff. Mark has been working on the technical preparation of the laptops and Abdul has been working on the web application form for staff to apply for an old laptop.

Jim talks about his work on configuring a wireless system to allow guest/student laptop access to the Internet.

 

Videoblog 2 – IT news upgrade (I mean update)

The process to re-engineer and upgrade our network to allow access to more resources and to allow guest devices on to the Internet has begun  - the video introduces the two network engineers working with me on this project.

Most of the work will be simulated and built off-site so that installation and changeover disruption is kept to a minimum (estimated to be half a day during the Easter break period). Hopefully after Easter we will be able to offer you access to second life and Internet video conferencing among other resources.

Video Blog 1

I’ve been thinking about what could be described as defensive organisations – about how the risk of failure becomes paramount  and how management systems develop to focus on the past to justify the present – we risk tripping over the obstacle ahead while we are looking behind.

I’ve also been thinking about the importance of living outside your comfort zone in order to develop and how so many people and organisations spend effort to avoid moving outside their comfort zone.

So to “kill two birds with one stone” I’ve decided to risk failure and move out of my comfort zone to see what happens with a video blog – video/audio work is something I’m not comfortable with at all but the only way to improve is to have a go – so here goes – it could be fun.

This is the first video to outline what I’m planning to work on in the week ahead – please feel free to leave your comments

 

Education: PIE and MASH-Beyond Space and Time

Consumerisation and personalisation are the underlying trends in recent education thinking, technology developments and our culture generally.

This blog attempts to combine recent educational proposals with recent IT developments, describe some of the challenges and make some suggestions for meeting these challenges.  

Recent educational papers  promote ACTIVE LEARNING through consumerisation and personalisation. They promote demand led learning, competitive learning markets, learner accounts, greater learner choice and soft skills such as research, problem solving, collaboration, communication and information management. We will also be expected to deliver learning across boundaries – in the workplace, in other institutions and at home.  The educational papers suggest the mindset required.

Recent IT developments promote ACTIVE IT through consumerisation and personalisation developments in mobile technology and use (smartphones, UMPCs, WADs, mobile broadband) and through continued development in the capabilities of on-line social networking and Web 2 applications and spaces. The IT developments suggest the tools required.

My opinion is that developing NET technologies such as PIE (Personal Information Environments) and MASH (the ability to combine different information sources) will provide some of the tools to operate and learn beyond the traditional boundaries of Space (locations) and Time and allow us to deliver the Active and Personalised learning the educational papers promote. The crucial thing is that these tools are useless without the mindset to operate them and that the tools and mindset have to apply to institutions and not just to learners.

The Challenge

Recent educational thinking promotes active learning and soft skills such as research, problem solving, collaboration, communication and information management yet our systems (exams, quality, IT and buildings) offer an environment developed from 20^th century learning approaches and don’t offer a natural environment to develop active learning.

Everyday life will be increasingly mediated by the net (information, leisure, work, learning, shopping, socialising, etc) and being “on net” is increasingly vital. This will be the context in which we will be expected to operate in the near future. We should expect to see more people seeking web access and carrying around Web Access Devices (smartphones, UMPC, laptops etc). We should expect to see more people using personal web spaces – interacting through social networks, using web 2 applications or using customised Personal Information Environments (PIE) created by MASHING applications, feeds and links.

In education there is a tension and a challenge. Young people, teachers and institutions are operating at different speeds within different contexts – young people (major educational consumers) are relatively comfortable with “NET LIFE”. Teachers have some experience of “NET LIFE” but generally don’t have the time or support to explore and develop it and its use in education. Institutions change even slower – they have few incentives to engage in the risk that change brings – to do so risks upsetting hard worked quality development.  Thus we have a problem – educational thinking, technology, culture and our students are all moving on at a faster pace yet how are institutions expected to deliver in the real world the reforms described in educational papers.

The challenge is to be able to provide active learning opportunities in increasingly flexible ways – for learner “consumers” to access learning where, when and how they wish. Rammel (2006) for example illustrates one aspect of our challenge –  “The development of Specialised Diplomas as a modular qualification with young people taking different modules or qualifications in different institutions will present challenges.”

Suggestions for meeting the challenge

1. Re-engineer our networks

With more people (staff and students) using personal web access devices and personal information spaces we need to build our networks to allow these to operate in our institutions.

1a Re-engineer our networks provide our bandwidth to guest devices to access the net.

I’m already seeing many iPhones for example on our system. The objective is to provide a secure internal /institutional network but with some form of guest access to the Internet. One solution on wireless is to guest SSID’s to which guest devices associate and then tunnel them out onto the Internet through web access filters without “touching” our secure networks. Ultimately however the spread of wireless WAN (3G, Wimax) will reduce the need to accommodate guest devices on our own networks.

1b Re-engineer to increase bandwidth and reliability especially for our Internet connections.

Network and Internet access is everything and Internet connectivity will increasingly be seen as the priority. This means that our networks will busier and that we should be increasing bandwidth and reliability to accommodate. Increasingly the “ network is the computer”  and investments in our networks should be prioritised.

2 Re-engineer our Systems

With more people (staff and students) using personal web access devices and personal information spaces and access needed from staff and students in workplaces and other institutions we need to build our systems to allow Internet access and to provide data interfaces for users. We should plan to make it possible for a learner to use their own personal information environment (PIE) to access our systems.

2a Re-engineer systems for Internet access as a priority.

All relevant learning systems should be designed and built Internet first.

2b Re-engineer systems to provide Internet data feeds and interfaces.

All data should have web access and we need to think about interfaces for users and enabling RSS.

3 Re-engineer our physical environment

Recent educational thinking promotes development active learning and soft skills such as research, problem solving, collaboration, communication and information management. The traditional classroom is not a natural environment for this type of activity – we need to develop new learning spaces that are more natural to active styles of learning.

We need to create and support experimental learning spaces in which to develop new teaching ideas. One key ingredient is that learners can change the environment to accommodate new learning – groups work / project work / net access. The other key ingredient is that there is adequate support on hand – technical and educational.

4 Re-engineer our curriculum

Current curricula remind me of trying to fit round pegs (learners) into square holes (colleges) and the problems this causes when increasingly we want round pegs. Current curricula and operation are derived from the 20^th century industrial age – they have fixed time and space slots (lessons) – they have industrial style advantages in terms of quality control and management but present real problems for the active, flexible learning educational reforms being promoted. Curricula change is probably going to be the most difficult problem.  How can we manage and deliver a curriculum where the resources, time and space for various activities change from week to week and where students might pick and choose what to learn.

Re-engineer curricula to be modular

This seems to be necessary to be flexible. For example it would be advantageous to be able to study business modules along with science and arts for example.

Re-engineer more of the curricula to be on-line

This seems to be necessary to be flexible. Timetable clashes might prevent certain combinations but if studied on-line then the restrictions of space and time disappear – we can study wherever and whenever we want and how much or how little we want.

Re-engineer ourselves

Leitch (2006) views the natural resource of the 21^st to be our people and that education is key to developing this resource. Institutions are made of people and ultimately none of the education reforms can happen unless our people (teachers, support, admin, managers and executives) engage with the new paradigm – we need to develop both the mindset and the tools. The mindset is Active, Flexible, Collaborative and Experimental. The tools are those of the NET, including web 2 and social networking.  We need to begin using and experimenting with RSS, Tags, blogs, and groups  for example to enable us to work across traditional boundaries and the boundaries of space and time.

I Never make Predictions and Never Will: IT predictions For 2008

My IT Crystal Ball is showing me all things Mobile and all things Web – has it got tunnel vision or is this really the future it is showing me?

I’m expecting to see a swing during the year towards user oriented personal computing.

Expect to see lots of very small and friendly devices with on-line web capability and touch screens.  In particular I am expecting the rise of access away from the traditional computer (desktop and laptops) to WADs and smartphones.

Expect to see a rise in the development of the personal web through social networks, web 2 and personal information environments such as iGoogle.

WADs (Web Access Devices)

The thinner your WAD the better.

Easter looks like being a key period in 2008 with Menlow and large Solid State Discs becoming available (see hardware section below).

Expect to see increasingly slim, light units with good battery life, net access and touch screens. These devices may have local software but access to the web is where they will excel and cutting down the costs of local software will keep the WAD cost down. The browser will be the main feature – the operating system while important will become less significant. In this respect the Asus Eee from 2007 set the scene for WADs to come in 2008.

 Apple are expected to announce a wafer thin Macbook in the January 15 Macworld for example – like the Iphone and many other Apple products this is likely to generate a lot of interest and could set the scene for the year.

We may see more of the

Mobile Internet

Iphone users comment that they prefer to access the web from their Iphones rather than their computers – it’s more convenient and faster (certainly by the time you start up a computer and get on-line) and will be even better with faster mobile internet speeds.

Expect to see a lot more people using their phones to access information – this is personal computing the way it should be.

Below are some anticipated hardware and software developments that have caught my attention.

Hardware

45nm chip manufacturing and competition

We are currently at 65nm sizes – in 2008  Intel and IBM will bring forth some great products from powerful, multi-core server CPU’s to very small, low power highly integrated (system on chip) parts.

Large Flash memories and Solid State Drives

 I remember paying more than £1Mb a few years back – will 2008 be the year when we get to £1Gb?

Fuelled by consumer products (cameras, audio, phones etc) the Production of memory and Solid state drives is set to increase in 2008 with Toshiba among others are due to release 128Gb SSDs around March.  Solid state drives are smaller, faster and consume less power than electro-mechanical traditional drives – meaning smaller, faster and longer lasting digital devices.

Menlow

 Around April 2008 Intel is due to release the 45nm Silverthorne CPU and Menlow UMPC  architecture – Menlow is planned to consume half the power of current UMPC designs and just 25% of the older Celeron M architecture.

Touch and gesture

2007 was the year when Interface innovation outshone basic technology power – the Apple iPhone and Nintendo Wii are both less powerful than their competitors but stole the show.  There is now talk about how the success of the mouse has hindered interface development – it seems just possible that the Wii and iPhone could herald a revolution in interface design.  Touch interfaces seem likely to take off soon but gesture (like voice control) are likely to take a longer – I’m looking forward to the day when I can show my computer (running Vista) the finger and it understand what I mean.

Microsoft have been demonstrating their Surface for most of 2007 and due to actually release something in 2008 – most likely in the touch sensitive table format. However, Apple have worked at the personal end – the touch technology in the iPhone is probably the best loved feature of the iPhone and due to revolutionise interfaces. Like much of what Apple does the rest of the industry will follow- both Toshiba and Dell have both announce touch sensitive tablet for example.

Software

I can’t really think of anything interesting to say about traditional software – we are expecting Windows 2008 server and SQL server 2008 this year – I’m just hoping that Microsoft can get Vista fixed.  The importance of the operating system seems to be fading – this is perhaps why Vista is not being adopted as fast as previous new operating systems (remember the fanfare for windows 95). Expect to see more non Microsoft operating systems being used.  Most Virtualisation suppliers have new products due for 2008 and the competition is hot – Virtualisation looks set to be huge for both servers and personal devices in 2008.

All the action seems to be on-line and on the Web – it’s here where development and “distribution” are faster. “The network is the Computer”. There will be battles of the giants, frantic acquisition activity and exciting unexpected development away from mainstream attention. This could be the year when Google’s infinite expansion succumbs to the real world and the rot sets in – it happens to them all.

Web Browser

The action on the web means that the software on your device will become less important – as long as it has a good browser. However, pervasive net access is not yet a reality so to address this issu Google (Gears ), Adobe ( Air ) and Microsoft (Silverlight) have developed systems for on-line/off-line application . Expect to see a lot more WADs “Web Access Devices” – small cheap units like the Asus Eee.

The Iphone Safari browser now sets the standard for mobile web access – a full and proper AJAX browser that the user can zoom in and out of instead of a special mobile version needing web side work to detect and deliver. Like WAP, special mobile browsers just won’t get developer attention.

Social Networking

Social networking reached something of critical mass in 2007 – suddenly we found figures like 80% of teenagers and 40% of adults use it. With such momentum behind it Social networking development will be big news in 2008 but with nearly everyone already using social networks I think the big stories will be about application development and interfaces – in a saturated market this will determine who steals who’s users, where the newbies go.

Web 2

Like social networking Web 2 applications reached critical mass in 2007 but the application potential of Web 2 has only just begun. The news value of web 2 developments and how we use them won’t get the attention of social networking but the impact will be more fundamental.  Expect a lot more use of collaborative-shared-web applications and development of web applications for just about anything you can think of and haven’t thought of yet.

Location based services

Location and geographic applications really took off in 2007. In the same way that few people seem to go to a printed encyclopaedia (I can’t spell it anymore) most people look up location data on Google Maps or Microsoft Live search. On-line location demonstrates MASH extremely well and shows how much more you can do on-line  – for example you could bring up the map of your area, search for restaurants,  compare menus and prices, get contact information, see if they are free, book a table and directions from where you are. With London hosting the next Olympics the market for location based services is set to go critical in London over the next few years again fuelling the development of mobile internet access.

Web 2 x Social networking and the PIE (Personal Information Environment)

More wish fulfilment than crystal ball gazing is that there will at some point be a good combination of social networking and Web 2. Currently web 2 sites like Zoho or Google don’t have the well developed communities of myspace or facebook . Currently social network sites don’t have the well developed applications of web 2 sites. Whoever can solve the puzzle and put the two parts together will have the whole market to expand into. It’s impossible to predict who will achieve this – for the big established players I’m thinking that there will have to be a merger or acquisition but Google might have a solution with Opensocial. We might however see a solution from anyone.

Developments like opensocial point to another solution – the Personal Information Environment (PIE) where the user can MASH together their own “portal” – a site the user builds to interact with the Internet – a place where the user pulls in the various social networks, applications and data feeds. We have seen signs of this in 2007 with the applications that allow Facebook users to interact with various systems and with sites like Pageflakes and iGoogle that allow users to create and customise a “home” page with RSS feeds and links.

My opinion is that the PIE offers the most interesting possibilities by providing a superset to Web 1, web 2 and social networking this could change the nature of the web as we know it -everyone will have their own interface and suppliers will focus on content and interfaces to it rather than presentation.

Web 3 (Semantics and AI)

AI and expert systems used to be a discrete subject for development but it has been “folded” into the mainstream and for over 10 years we have seen the piecemeal introduction of AI into software products (features that automatically tune operating systems and “help” the users of applications). As the amount of information available grows tools which get better content results and make better data connections will become more popular –  tools like Hakia, Powerset and  wikipedia-like efforts like Twine and Freebase may rise to challenge Google in the same way Google rose to challenge and overtake the established players like Yahoo and some years ago.