MLE to PLE – A Framework For Considering Systems

The blog offers an outline of the main approaches to provision systems and offers some categories to help you when considering and selecting systems.

Systems approaches

It is possible to build much of a PLE with any of the systems approaches below but bear in mind that real world systems will be a combination of some or even all of them.

Product – on-site

Using a supplier’s product and installing, developing and maintaining it on-site.

Examples of this approach are Moodle and Sharepoint

Product – hosted

Using a supplier’s product but having a 3^rd party host the system for you – you manage and access it across the net.

Examples of this approach are using  Serverlogic  and Coweb  to host Sharepoint.

Service – “cloud”

Using a suppliers service – you are not aware of the underlying technology or system but the service you get e.g. access to email, blogs and  shared workspaces.

Examples of this approach are Google sites and Microsoft Live@edu

Organisational DIY

Using your own specialists to program and design your own system.

This could be on-site, hosted or in the cloud.

An example of this approach is Centime which is originated at EHWLC and is developed in partnership with a small number of other educational organisations.

Personal DIY

Using and integrating whatever the users (learners and staff etc) choose to use. 

Examples are the use of people’s own on-line identity (e.g. openId), email, blogs and social networks integrated with organisational data.

Evaluation Criteria – Outline

The headings below can be used as an outline for more detailed work when it comes to considering what system is right for you.

Ownership

What ownership options does the system offer regarding the use and fate of material in held in the system and do they meet your requirements for ownership.

- What happens when the author leaves the organisation.

- Who can say how the resource is published (private to organisation, public to specific users or fully public)

- “Copyright” – who decides if it can be copied and by whom 

- What happens when there is a disagreement about a resource – liability, conflict resolution etc

These questions can be considered for both staff and learner authored resources.

Service levels

 What service levels does the system offer for availability, security and performance and how do they meet your requirements for service.

Management

What management options does the system offer and do they meet your requirements for management.

For example in provisioning and controlling user access and resources how easy is it to create accounts; change accounts; change access to resources; remove accounts and provision group resources, spaces and permissions.

Data integration

What data integration options does the system offer and how do they meet your requirements for data.

For example – how easy is it use the system in combination with data systems used by the organisation.

Flexibility/”Agility”

How does the system meet your requirements to adapt and change – does the system allow you to deliver what you want and how easy is it for the system to develop what you want.

Teaching and Learning

What teaching and learning options does the system offer and how does the system meet your requirements for teaching and learning.

User experience

What user experiences does the system offer and how does the system meet your requirements for teaching and learning. How easy is the system to use – is it suitable for your users.

Organisational culture

How good a fit is the system with your organisational culture.

For example -do your people like a clearly defined framework to work within, are they comfortable with experimentation and change.

Future potential and issues

What future potential does the system offer and does this meet your requirements for future developments.

Skillsets

What skillsets does the system require and do you have these or are you able to develop them, buy them in or contract them out.

Costs

What are the costs and the cost types (e.g. capital vs operational) of the system and can you afford them. Consider all the associated costs – cost of equipment installation, maintenance and operation; software licences, staffing costs (training, development etc) and costs to meet the criteria above  e.g in supplying the skillsets, data integration, service level etc.

Is the Education System Damaging Education

Like many organisations and systems the education system is constrained by systems of measurement.

To examine a subject we need content, a syllabus and meaningful measures of performance. A major argument is that education has become about passing tests rather than learning and that the tests define education by limiting that which can be taught.

The recent comment from Professor Lachlan MacKinnon about the content of ICT taught in schools is bound to raise a debate.  

 

The education system has a problem – on the one hand it is being asked to be more flexible, to change and innovate yet on the other hand the measures it has to satisfy have to be static and stable to be meaningful.

 

 Education should be more about learning rather than teaching – developing self study, research, collaboration, presentation – ACTIVE LEARNING.  The future of learning will probably have less and less to do with being taught.

 

By focusing more on the process of learning rather than teaching we may have a chance to introduce the flexibility we are being asked for. Learning skills can then still be applied to specific tasks in order to measure outcomes (exams/tests).

 

The typical school ICT syllabus is most likely to cover old fashioned client-server or if lucky web 1 systems but is unlikely to include anything on “cloud computing” – indeed many web 2 and cloud systems would be banned.  If we were to focus more on achieving particular tasks rather than teaching particular systems we would have opportunities to make ICT education more relevant

Video confession 18 – Joanne’s first lesson with the Asus Eee

Bringing IT to the lesson

We carried the “IT suite” of 20 Asus Eee’s to the lesson in two cardboard boxes – this alone seemed quite remarkable.

The class was BTEC Introductory Diploma IT At Work and the lesson was in a series about financial management. The students were organised into groups of 3 or 4 around clustered tables and each student was given an Asus Eee to use. Joanne introduced the topic on bank accounts then asked the students to use their computers to access the Internet to find out what forms of identification were needed to open a bank account. The students were then asked to work in their groups to evaluate the Asus Eee from their experience in using it to research the lesson question.

For this first experimental lesson there was plenty of technical support but I was amazed at how easy the students took to the small computers and unfamiliar software environment – given how familiar most students are with mobile phones, games consoles and other gadgets I shouldn’t have been surprised. Students are of course the “digital natives” and they seem to find this easier than staff – we really ought to involve students more when considering educational technology and planning.

The traditional way to deliver a lesson like this with a section requiring about 20 minutes of internet research is to book the lesson into a dedicated IT suite, however, standard IT suites aren’t conducive to group and collaborative activities. Another traditional approach is to set the research as homework/LRC work and have the feedback take place in the next lesson – with the disadvantage of splitting the lesson up. This lesson showed that it is feasible to use these small computers to bring IT to a lesson rather than bring the lesson to IT. This is going to be increasingly relevant in lessons as the Internet is a vital research tool let alone the other features it provides.

Standard IT access models involve traditional desktop IT suites; laptop classrooms or the use of LRC’s with open access IT. The cheap Umpc introduces two new possibilities – The Ultra Mobile IT Suite (bringing the IT suite to wherever the class is) OR the Personalised IT Suite (allocating these units to the students to bring to class with them). I talked about this with the students – how in the near future students could conceivably use their own equipment in classes for research and they understood this.

Technically the equipment was set up to explore the more extreme and “purer” form – the computers were running the pre-installed Linux and open source applications and operated on our guest wireless network – the computers could easily have been the students own.

The students showed great interest in the web cams built into the Asus screen although when it came to actually making a video most of the class became suddenly very shy but agreed that video would be a useful method to use and practice in classes. I’m looking forward to exploring new communications methods with classes – the use of collaborative documents, blogs, wikis, audio and video. I’m also looking forward to seeing what happens if we allocate Umpcs to students for a period of time – the full personalisation of IT.

However, using these computers throughout the college will require some significant adjustments. We will need to think about how we provide power in classrooms and we will need to consider accessibility and equality issues – availability of larger screens, keyboards and perhaps mice for some.

I found this experiment extremely revealing – the IT was non intrusive, seemed natural and supported the lesson – compare this with a lesson in a traditional desktop IT suite where the lesson adapts to the presentation of the IT.

Bringing IT to the lesson rather than bringing the lesson to IT

In the video’s  - see Joanne just before the lesson outline what the lesson is about and see two students at the end of the lesson give their opinions about the Asus Eee

Video confession 17 – Joanne considers the Asus Eee for Teaching

We are looking again at the use of cheap and small mobile computers – UMPcs and in particular the Asus Eee PC.  In the video I describe some of the history of mobile computing at the college, the current position and the paradigm being explored with the Asus Eee. Joanne gives her assessment of the Asus Eee and her ideas on how it could be used in teaching within her area.

Over the last 6 years the college has invested, developed and supported mobile IT for academic staff for resource preparation, presentation and MIS access such as e-registration in the classroom. We have built out a wireless network to cover most areas of the college and provided staff on 0.5 contracts and above with their own tablet computer linked into the staff IT systems and college resources.

There has been much discussion recently about new educational methods and we have been experimenting with the ways in which new technologies such as web 2 and mobile computers can be applied in education.

We provided the Foundation team at Hammersmith with three Asus Eee PCs for evaluation and ideas about how they could be applied in teaching in the foundation area. Joanne came back with a very positive response to the Asus Eee and talks in the video about using the Asus in lessons for information research in a more flexible way than possible in a traditional IT suite with rows of desktop computers.

We are experimenting with a new student IT paradigm here – the student computers are not running any Microsoft software and are not linked to the college student domain (or printers for that matter) – they are pure web access devices ideal for use with independent Internet cloud computing applications.

Experiments with these computers will provide some information on what future student IT use in the college may be like and I’m looking forward to seeing them used with students – watch this space.

Video confession 16 – We look at the Asus Eee PC

 

The price and size of computing has been getting progressively smaller year by year but suddenly there has been a major change. Among the reasons for this are the scale of the market; the reduction in component costs; the use of free software such as Linux,  the effects of the OLPC project on manufacturers and the developed world and the developing web 2 culture. All the factors have come together to create the conditions for a new type of computer to be successful – the low cost Ultra Mobile Personal Computer (Umpc).

There have been Umpcs before but they have often used miniaturisation to justify high prices or have not been particularly practical. However, Asus have created a huge impact with their Eee PC – a significant departure from standard laptop offerings – A £200 price point, all solid state (no spinning hard disk to slow things down and drain batteries), just enough local memory to get by on and the use of Open Source Software (although Asus now sell a version of the Eee PC running Microsoft software.

I find the Asus Eee PC to be very impressive

- A £200 price point means we can purchase in large numbers and achieve new effects by scale

- A £200 price point means that more users can purchase their own – helping with social inclusion  and achieve new effects through personal computing.

- Small but useable- this size of computer is easy to carry around and is genuinely mobile

- Quick to start up – information and communication are far more pleasant without having to wait 2 or 3 minutes for the computer to let you get started

 - Very easy to use – Everything you need for most tasks is already installed and is easy to use

-  Fits well with the developing model of cloud computing  where we use the net for applications and storage. The Eee PC is quick and easy to get on line and comes with icons to connect you to Google Docs for example.

- Can accommodate standard local computing -  it comes pre-installed with Open Office for standard “Office” applications which are easy to use and compatible with Microsoft Office too.

Like all successful products it is in the right place at the right time – it is a perfect consumer computer for the masses. It feels less like a computer and more like a “gadget”  something useable by a wider range of people than most computers.

I will be exploring possible applications for the Eee PC in education over the year. Some of the applications I will be looking at are:

- Use on external projects like work experience, trips and community use

- Use in non IT suites as an information appliance

- Use in new models such as allocating to individual students on various courses or projects.

 In the video Richard dons a white lab coat to investigate the technical aspects of the Asus Eee and Penny talks briefly about the effect such technology can have in teaching.

Richard carries out a boot race between the Asus Eee running Xandros Linux and a standard tablet computer running Microsoft Vista. Before Richard has a chance to log in to Microsoft Vista he has used the Asus Eee to get on the Internet and Google Docs and to launch Open Office for wordprocessing. The Eee PC is about 30% cheaper than a standard laptop, 30% smaller and lighter and 30% faster to start and stop – 35 seconds after pressing the on button you can be surfing the net.

Penny from the design team talks about how the use of personal IT can change the nature of teaching and learning as information is readily accessible to students – opportunities for more research based learning are possible. Penny also talks about how more and more students have smartphones with which they can take pictures, send emails and browse the Internet.

When is a computer not a computer – It looks like we are in entering a new phase of computer diversity – it looks like 2008 may see the beginnings of some exciting new developments in education and IT.

References:

Asus Eee review

A review of recent UMPCs (12.3.08)

The new OLPC is really radical – folding book style and one side can be a screen or soft keyboard

HP HP 2133 Mini-Note PC 

Elonex  One – just £99

Dell announce a unit – due much later in the year though