Oh Crap! Can Google see through your eyes?

Just had a thought i cant put down! Just bought a new Android mobile phone. It took hours to connect to all online services I use. The possibilities! Whipped into a lustful technical frenzy and drowning in my own saliva, I naturally  gave Google permission to know where i am at any time…I’ll know what shops are nearby, the local swimming pool…   …then it hit me.

OER vs. NOER – Why the new kid must go to the old school

Ok, please open your books at page 1. Open Educational Resources (OERs) are not the only way to find materials for teaching. Yes, its the best way , but its not the first choice, yet.

By dullhunk on Flickr

That accolade, at the moment, belongs to the status quo or NOER. Shrouded in  a grey cloud of semi-legal licencing and ask no questions, share-if-you-like NOER has usurped the old rigid print-era  structures and heralded a new age of digital sharing. But like all revolutions, the torch must one day be passed on to a more stable arrangement- and OER is the way.

It is with the spirit of passing the torch that my project to surface OERs will surface best of breed non-OERs too. No-one wants a search tool with one eye closed,  searchers need stuff and plenty of it; a few resources and a lot of evangelistic zeal isnt going to get a presentation ready for tomorrow. If the non-OER resource gets used it was because it was better but if the OER is comparable then the association of the two may lead the searcher to a better solution and the originators of both resources to create a yet better resource.

Serendipity Engine

Came over a little strangely at a meeting in London recently trying to explain how my most recent search engine project for JISC will have “not working” programmed into it. Stuff on the Internet isn’t described clearly enough and searchers don’t really know what it is they want – so let’s stop worrying about it.

It’s my first search system with a ‘philosophy’ rather than a muscular search algorithm. It’s taken me 12 years to finally accept a little rectangular search box is too thin a passageway to transfer our complex aspirations to even the most sentient super-computer search engine.

What I’m saying is Serendipity (making fortunate discoveries while looking for something unrelated) is a fruitful relationship that has always existed betwixt humans and the world

Engineering a Lo-Carbon Future: A dynamic Collection of Open Educational Resources.

I have received a letter confirming funding for the one year “Open Educational Resources for Engineering a Lo-Carbon Future” project.

This one year project will form a static and a linked dynamic collection of Open Educational Resources relating to Lo-Carbon Engineering practices. Sources will be selected by experts to ensure a  fresh, dynamic source of current and new materials as they become available.

This project will run from August 2010 for 1 year and will investigate and surface open educational resources currently in use over a range of engineering and related subjects supporting the crucial issue of sustaining a low carbon economy.

Green Gown Workshops and Awards (July 30th, 2010)

Loughborough won a nomination for saving energy in a university (sustainable lo-CO2). I attended the prize giving ceremony at the Globe Theatre as well as talks from previous institutional winners to hopefully bring best practice back to Loughborough. I was interviewd and pop up in various places on the video including the last word at the end. I look tired though – hate those early morning trains to London!

Discovering the re-use and derivative works of Open Educational Resources

Introducing “DOB codes” to help link similar or related OER works, or to see the ‘family tree’ of the resource.

© rcp:240610:a0000

It would be most useful to potential users of an Open Educational Resources (OER)  to know about any similar or related works, or to see the ‘family tree’ of the resource, just by clicking a link. Re-users or creators of derivative works would benefit themselves, new users and  ancestral authors by continuing this linkage as they evolve the material.

There are a lot of very rigorous methods for storing information about  a resource developed my technologists and librarians, but I’ve developed a simpler idea that lends itself more, I hope, to the OER ethos.

It’s there to be shot at so please go ahead.

http://icesculpture.wordpress.com/make-evolved-oer-discoverable/

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<br />
This work (<span property=”dct:title”>Using DOB Codes</span>, by <a href=”https://icesculpture.wordpress.com/make-evolved-oer-discoverable/” rel=”dct:creator”><span property=”dct:title”>Rob Pearce</span></a>), identified by <a href=”https://icesculpture.wordpress.com/about/” rel=”dct:publisher”><span property=”dct:title”>Rob Pearce</span></a>, is free of known copyright restrictions.
</p>

OER has left the building and the API powered dynamically aggregating supersearch

Just completed a very interesting project for the JISC/HEA, releasing existing teaching materials provided by academics from a consortium of Universities as Engineering Open Educational Resources (OERs). The OERs are free to re-purpose by anybody meaning the project could always potentially be a minefield, yet in went extremely well, thanks in no small part to the core project team. A few key observations below:

OER requires…those involved to take a non-traditional view of what ownership means, but teaching materials are only one part of the educating process. The extra knowledge, wisdom, insights, anecdotes and teaching skill remain with the creator.

The web…the emphasis has swung away from “how do I do it?” to “What can I do with it?” This will require that things are done properly under the gaze of an ever greater audience. The web services and sites employed in this project are proven and well established and therefore appealing to students and academics familiar with utilising the Internet as part of their learning and teaching.

IPR (Ownership, Copyright etc.)…is so often dangerously misunderstood by most people. Challenging the orthodoxy of “light-touch” must be done carefully and tactfully.

Embracing web technology…it is critical that UK higher education is ahead of the expectations of those it serves to remain viable and world-leading. The project handled these issues and delivered against these benchmarks.

Virtual Book Launch Event

I gave a talk in Second Life, along with my collegue Dr. Simon Ball, on our chapter in the recent real-life book :

Virtual Book Launch Event in progress. Copyright 2010, Linden Research, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

“Higher Education in Virtual Worlds Teaching and Learning in Second Life” ( available at Amazon )

We had little in terms of real research evidence to present in the chapter and at the session – the use of virtual worlds in education is so new. It was a good chapter and a good talk but I wanted to give more useful information, but, like everybody else, I will have to wait until the experts in the field of the mind begin their studies.

The conclusion we came to is: be aware that one persons immersive experience can be anothers stifling uncomfortable nightmare, so proceed with caution, but do it anyway!

Google becomes Goddle

When was the last time i wondered  about something without Google being involved? The answer is about 11 years ago. No longer adept with reference books, I’m a horse trader shrewdly weighing up the URL and looking for the tell-tale signs of subjective tampering and hackery amongst the staggering hugeness of encyclopedia GooGlatica.

Like TV channels, more doesn’t mean better, just better is better hidden. But amongst the noise of blogs, Twitter and paradigm shifts such as Open Educational Resources, are we in fact uncovering a new openness, a willingless to share what before was kept private? So is it more and better or will we eventually become as we were before, an mis-informed mass of easily manipulated peasants going back to waving pitchforks and dunking suspected witches in the local pond? Or, as our brains are freed from the drugery of decades spent aquiring information, as we delegate that task to the wires that criss-cross the planet, we can use this new found free time to practice Thinking Very Well?

Second Life ate my Hampster!

The Subject Centre  where I work gets some linkage from the post Engineering in Virtual Worlds, a round up of  Second Life/virtual world things:

“There have been recent reports of the failure of Second Life to live up to the hype, but the potential of virtual worlds – multi-user virtual environments (MUVEs) – is still being explored in education. It is perhaps Second Life’s potential as a First Life marketplace that has failed to live up to the hype.”

Worth a read.

Good that the hype has died down. The idea and the potential still remain long after the “Second Life Stole my Wife” copywriters have moved on.