KerryJ's Neotenous Tech

Lifelong learning and information literacy

KerryJ — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 23:37:31 +0000

Information literacy is a human right, according to the Australian Library and Information Association. I found this incredibly moving and inspirational fact out while researching a presentation on lifelong learning.

It is obvious to me that information literacy underpins lifelong learning — and that digital literacy skills are essential to both.

One of the learners at a session I gave yesterday asked me “Where do you find the time to learn?”

I replied what I always reply to this: Learning and professional development are not selfish acts. As a professional, you have a responsibility to your organisation and the people whom you serve (clients of Family Dispute Resolution services in this person’s case) to progress your knowledge of not only your field of study, but the environment in which you and your clients/students live and work and the technologies that are shaping our society.

I am fortunate to work for an organisation that actually makes it a KPI of my job description that I progress my learning and are happy for me to block time out each week on company time to do so.

There is an old chestnut that holds true: To any manager or business owner that asks “What if I train my staff and they leave?” the best reply is “What if your staff remain untrained and ignorant and they STAY?”

My presentation is embedded below. To view it full screen, click on the arrow facing right/play button, wait for it to load and then hover over the word ‘More’.

Leveraging technology for lifelong learning on Prezi

Prepping for a new Moodle and the Grid Format

KerryJ — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 04:52:22 +0000

The organisation I’m working for will be upgrading to Moodle 2.1 from Moodle 1.9x on Monday and part of that preparation involved an audit to identify potential problem areas.

Knowing the issues

There have been several issues that have needed resolution, including:

site documents and site resources and activities opening in new windows.
site files being shared by pages full of manual links to them
YouTube videos embedded using embed code instead of the media filter settings.
messy code resulting from content pasted in from MS Word and other sources (the Word clean in the editor does NOT clean this code)
manually formatted text (not as bad as some web sitesI’ve seen in past where 4 different fonts and 3 different styles appeared on one page)
lack of link titles for accessibility
images manually sized via attributes

All of this has resulted in me seeing angle brackets and source code in my sleep. The other result is that I utterly HATE the code view of the Moodle text editor. It is so bloody messy and snaps everything together instead of allow you to set nice, clean, lines of code that are easy to see.

Fortunately, we have NOT hacked into core Moodle nor have we got any non-standards compliant plug-ins to muck about with. For that I am insanely grateful.

Dismantling manual links

In the current Moodle site, there is one course in particular that’s taken a lot of work because we’re not only prepping it for the move to Moodle 2 but we’re also moving away from a manually linked menu structure that has multiple layers to making it compatible with Moodle course formats that are easily applied and CSS-based.

The course in question is a large course with three main modules of study. The first is 10 weeks long, the second 5 and the third 7 weeks long. To make navigation easy, the original course creator went with manually linked HTML pages and hiding the topic blocks. Navigation goes like this:

On the main course outline and you see four big buttons – one for each module and then the course resources. All very tidy.
You then click a Module and see the buttons that lead you to each week.
You then click on a week and see the resources and tasks for that week.

Four clicks in to get to content. I inherited it and am doing a happy dance that I’m giving it the boot.

Unfortunately all the links on the resource pages created within this structure are fixed as well. So at the start of any given week there is a web page resource loaded with hard-coded links off to other Moodle resources and activities as well as Moodle files. This poses several problems.

1) Course duplication for iterations of the course. If you wish to create iterations of a course and keep the original version intact, when you do a restore you have a helluva lot of links to re-do.
2) Course duplication to copy structure/common descriptions, etc. If you wish to use a course as a template, you have the same problem as above. A helluva lot of links to fiddle around with.
3) Style changes. Should your site theme change drastically – you have to replace all the buttons and icons.
4) Moodle 2 handles files quite differently than Moodle 1.9x – files don’t get a fixed URL. All of those very tidy little links are going to break.

Hooking up to the Grid

Re-working the content of this course has become a bigger than Ben Hur job – especially since I want to use the new Grid course format. This format auto-magically creates a grid of blank image buttons (you replace with your own files), one for each topic. Click on a button and the related topic block appears over the top. Click to get to content. Two clicks replacing 4 clicks.

While I still see issues in the Grid Format in terms of navigation and having to train the uninitiated to use Moodle bread crumbs, that was an issue with the manually linked one as well. I think there is a real need for a course-only navigation block (the navigation blocks out there that display all courses are a bit much IMHO) within Moodle to make this easy for web n00bs, but for now we’ll have to solve this problem with education.

Display directory/folder for individual files to save space

Perhaps the stickiest wicket I’ve come up against is that of being able to describe files in a bit of detail before asking learners to click on them without overloading the topic areas. Sure, I could do this in a label in the topic area and then add a file resource – but that can contribute to major cognitive overload and scrolling, even when viewing a topic on its own. I found an unlikely ally in the Display Directory/Folder resource. If I put a single file in its own folder and then create a Display Directory/Folder resource – I can describe the file all I like on its own page and the link is right there.

Watch this space

We did a test upgrade already and are feeling fairly confident that all will go reasonably smoothly when we do our upgrade on the 16th (eek, two days away!). We’ve chosen a quiet period to do this and have advised learners and facilitators the site might be offline for the week while we test, tweak and review. I’ll write a post once we’re on the other side of the upgrade.

For now, I’m back to breaking resource links out of manually linked pages…

Your Brain At Work

KerryJ — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 12:56:06 +0000

Your Brain At Work

I’m currently listening to David Rock’s ‘Your Brain at Work’ in which he uses the metaphor of a stage and actors against a narrative of a typical day in the lives of two protagonists to explain neuroscience and how our brains function.

In doing so, Rock explores what we can do to maximise our finite energy and be more mindful of how we are using our brains.

This is a compelling book that has already spawned several AHA moments for me – and the two characters are still only half way through their work days!

So far, the biggest take-aways for me include:

our mental ‘stage’ only has room for a few actors at a time
there are times of day that are better for complex tasks than others
by paying attention to your mental processes, you can control the factors that impact the way your brain functions
being ‘mindful’ and paying attention to your physical surrounds can give you a much-needed break from the narrative processes that would have you dwell on planning and scenarios.

Am enjoying this journey immensely and will be sad when it’s over. Am looking forward to learning more about how to get the most out of my 1.3 kilos or so of grey matter at my disposal.

tags: brain neuroscience thought thinking

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

HTML5 is a game changer: tech investor and Tedx Santa Cruz speaker

KerryJ — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 09:00:53 +0000

Roger McNamee starts his video off asking “What if you knew major new technology cycle was beginning in the next couple of years?”

A tech investor, he then poses six hypotheses with which he’s been working for the past 10 months:

Windows is dying – their market share is plummeting. Smart phones have taken Windows from 96% of internet connected devices to under 50%. He reckons they’ll be under 30% in 18 months.
Index search – which accounted for 90% of all search volume - peaked 4 years ago. Index – and the web – has become full of garbage. We’re all looking for other ways for what we want to find – Facebook, Twitter, Trip Advisor, Apps . Like MS, Google can respond in plenty of ways – but it cannot take back its dominant position in index search on the internet. Google commoditised search results – they are the only branding on your search results page. Indexed search isn’t going away – but its going to become just another tool instead of the dominant. Especially on smart phones. Google’s recovery will be in something than search.
Apps beat the wide open web. Apple provides info that is branded, specific and copyright protected v. the wild open web.
HTML 5 changes it all. The new battle will be between the App store and highly differentiated content. HTML 5 is, he feels, is a profound change. It provides embedded interactivity and opens up a new canvas. Suddenly, a differentiated, compelling, monetisable product is available to all – and the commoditisers like Google are going to have to find new business models.
Tablets win big. If you don’t own an iPad, you can’t understand the most important things going on right now. Feels other players not making the same impact. Apple’s gross margins exceed the retail price of every Android phone.
Social is a side show. Facebook is the new Windows. Twitter, Yelp, Skype, Linked In are building successful platforms but are going to be much smaller. The rest are going to have to follow the Zynga model and be subordinate to Facebook. Going to do a social start up? Build it on Facebook. But social is a feature, not a main focus.

The future will be different.

McNamee’s rock band did live casts via Twitter, did live casting over YouTube, then broadcast via his own satellite network using HTML 5. His band web site is being upgraded to HTML 5 and that means you can view all their videos. He says it costs practically nothing to do this.

Every Tweet is an app. Every advertisement is a store – create demand and satisfy it in the same place. Saves time, increases engagement. Going from a web of elevators to a control panel model. WOW.

India bridging the digital divide

KerryJ — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 09:00:48 +0000

: Random shops street in Rajasthan, India by Rachel Dale CC by sa

In a world where the gap between the haves and have nots is ever-widening, the issue of the digital divide looms large.

People who live in areas where learning resources, quality teachers and support groups are in short supply are severely at a disadvantage.

In India , where 75% of the population live on less than $2 per day, owning an iPad or even a reasonably powered Android tablet would be out of the realm of possibility.

However, a team at the Indian Institute of Technology took up a challenge from the Human Resources Ministry to develop an Internet-enabled, wireless tablet that a poor family could actually afford. And last month – it happened.

The Indian government sees being connected to the internet and having access to technology as a vital strategy in helping people overcome poverty and transform their lives.

So let’s stop having discussions around IF e-learning and tech are useful in Australia, let’s stop complaining about the cost of future-proofing our network (vs. trying to build a short term solution on old copper technology that will be obsolete again shortly) — and let’s take a page out of India’s play book and close the digital divide for our citizens by putting their needs first and getting affordable technology into the hands of more of our learners.

Read the full story here: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/13/opinion/sunday/friedman-the-last-person.html

FRSA 2011 conference day two

KerryJ — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 07:16:17 +0000

The Family Relationships Services Australia Conference was my first in this sector. As an educator, I found it a valuable opportunity to learn more about the courses I’m supporting our trainers and practitioners to develop.

Keynote

Day two of the conference started off with Dr. Fiona Arney of the Menzies School of Health Research discussing Innovation and Planful Implementation of programs to combat Child Abuse and Neglect.

The question to answer is: Why is it that programs that prove successful in trials don’t seem to work or make it into practice?

Now obviously there are a lot of answers to that. But as in the education sector – see my blog post “Why is the VET sector disillusioned with e-learning” from April this year -implementation has a lot to do with it.

Some organisations attempt to adapt a program without careful thought around what the key ingredients are that make it successful. Others try to skip stages of implementation to save time or money, neglect to get buy-in from key influencers in the organisation, and others still don’t have a clear picture of what the program is specifically all about and why they are implementing it in the first place.

When it comes to training, I was unsurprised to learn that a coaching approach that gets people hands on applying the knowledge, skills and attitudes that underpin the program is the most successful. Constructive vs. Instructive learning activities yielded a success rate ratio of 95% to 5%. In fact when it comes to behaviour (read practice change) , the researchers Dr. Arney was quoting – Joyce & Showers – are quoted as saying they felt training and coaching to be “one continuous set of operations designed to produce actual changes in the classroom behavior (sic).” Newly learned behaviors take practice – in a learning setting and on the job – and coaching is vital to the process of new practitioners embedding these behaviours.

Second keynote

The next speaker was Jonathon Nichols, the CEO of Inspire Foundation. He started off with a few minutes of one of the videos from the powerful Shift Happens video project series – which is always an eye-opener and shakes the cobwebs out for a new audience. Especially one where some had a late night at the conference dinner and dance. Here is a link to the most recent one - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZjRJeWfVtY Inspire works a lot with youth suicide prevention and the statistics on youth suicide shocked me.

As Fiona McDonald of Relationships Australia WA remarked in a conversation we had later that day, for a lucky country with all of the abundance we have, we also have an amazing amount of unhappy people.

: Jonathon Nichols from Inspire presents Youth Suicide statistics

That 70% of people who need help don’t seek it is equally shocking. Reaching these kids is vital. Because they are avid and ind-depth users of technology, their norms in terms of communication are very different from ours. They use a combination of texting, phone calls, IMs, Facebook postings and other tools depending on context. So using technology to reach them makes sense.

Of course, face to face is the ideal – but as Clayton Christensen et. al write in the book “Disrupting Class” – disruptive innovations start out as not fully evolved, bug-free alternatives – but they start off as being useful and better than nothing.

Nichols’ presentation was interrupted with a live cross to Prime Minister Gillard’s announcement about the pay equity decision for social and community workers. It’s not going to happen overnight – this pay rise will be phased in over 6 years, starting December 2012 and the Government is promising to increase funding to current Commonwealth-funded programs.

Panel on Workforce Development

After a break, I chose the Workforce & Quality Changes for FSP (Family Services Programs) panel to get insights into the issues in terms of training that the sector is facing.

Jenni Hannan, GM of Services for Anglicare, Western Australia did a great job in presenting the sort of complex scenarios people in the sector are likely to face and highlighting the range of skills – from working with children, to financial counselling to working with Culturally and Linguistically Diverse people – that those working with families are likely to require.

The first panellist to present was Professor Bill Martin of the University of Queensland. He shared statistics about the Family Relationship Services sector as a small niche in the Family Support sector. Compared to Aged care with an estimated workforce of some 207,000 direct care workers, Martin estimated that the number of Family Relationship Service Practitioners is likely around 7,000.

Martin says that his research shows that the sector as a whole is an ageing one and cited statistics that would suggest at least a third of the workforce in FRSP is over the age of 50. As recruitment is largely from outside the sector with the result that 42% of FRSPs have less than 5 years experience in ANY Community-Services related field, it seems self-evident that, as Martin claims, half of the people in this sector feel they should have additional skills.

Retention strategies, Martin feels, should tap into the altruism that attracts people to the field in the first place. It is instrinsic motivators, combined with a supportive, nurturing culture that will help organisations hang onto their staff.

Next up was Penny Crofts, from the Family Action Centre of the University of Newcastle. Having taken part in a Glabal Consortium for Education in Family Studies, Penny offered up the question of whether or not Family Studies should be an academic discipline – and, in so doing, allow for interdisciplinary linkages across health, education and other sectors yet remain conceptually unique. (she quoted Hollinger, 2002 for this last but I am unable to provide a link to the research as there are several Hollingers out there).

Crofts feels there is quite a lot of difference that a discipline would make. Amongst them are:

Elevate status of family scholarship and practice
Match national research and policy focus with education
Foster a community of scholars to enhance teaching and research
Foster partnerships across policy, practice and research
Contribute to development of public policy

For the full list, I’d suggest you seek out her presentation and research.

Professor Morag McArthur of Australian Catholic University was up next to discuss issues around working with children. She discussed a “New Sociology of Childhood” where it is acknowledged that children experience the world differently from adults and have the ability to shape their own childhoods and should have the right to have a voice and be engaged in the processes that affect their lives.

She then shared a picture of the complexity and depth of issues around families and children. One aspect of dealing with families that is incredibly complicated IMHO is that 1) while Emotional harm is now the most common form of reported harm to children in Australia – and 2) is increasingly recognised as occurring in the context of family violence and high conflict – 3) the large majority of it does not meet the threshold for state intervention by Child Protection Services. I do not have the full bibliography of her sources for this information but the citations for the the first statement is AIHW 2009 and for the second she cited (Brown & Alexander 2007; Grimes & McIntosh 2004; McIntosh 2002, 2005). The third had no citation.

McArthur went on to reinforce the points made by Jenni Hannan – that there are a huge range of skills and nuances of skills necessary to dealing with children. Organisations must determine basline skills necessary, provide ongoing professional development and mentoring and collaborate & communicate effectively across sectors.

The need for a shared language across sectors is one I’ve heard from professionals recorded as part of the AVERT Family Violence Induction training videos produced by Relationships Australia SA and from other speakers throughout this conference. I would also suggest they develop a taxonomy of key terms so that research and knowledge sharing could be better facilitated.

Dr. Jonathan Touissant, the Director of Innovation and Business Development at Interrelate Family Centres was the final panellist to present. He introduced himself as the only non-academic on the panel and after quoting Lady Gaga on the power of being different, gave a presentation on tapping into intrinsic motivators in order to build worker satisfaction.

I enjoyed what he shared about the SCARF model of what taps into intrinsic motivators. SCARF -: a brain-based model for collaborating with and influencing others was created by David Rock (Your Brain at Work). Download a PDF overview (95.4 KB). Rooted in social neuroscience, SCARF explores 5 domains of human social experience:

Status – relative importance to others
Certainty – ability to predict future
Autonomy – sense of control
Relatedness – sense of safety with others
Fairness – fair exchanges with others

I found this model very similar to John Keller’s ARCS model of adult learner motivation, where ARCS stands for:

Attention
Relevance
Confidence
Satisfaction

Building Capacity – Standards stream

After a break for lunch, my two colleagues and I headed into the afternoon stream of which we were a part.

Competency standards

: CSHISC Competency Matrix buttons

The first speaker in the Building Capacity – Standards stream was with Rebecca Tidey of the Community Services & Health Industry Skills council. She discussed what I thought were innovative ways of using competency standards.

She discussed how by using the Common Units tool on the CSHISC web site, you could look at units of competency common to both the CHC08 Community Services and HLT07 Health Training Packages and use these units of competency to inform any Training Needs Analysis you’re doing in-house.

The Common Unit tool on the site groups units of competency by Competency Groups, which made browsing a snap. I’m going to be working with our online facilitators to improve their skills in using Moodle and online tools, so I was delighted to find that under the Training competency of group there is a formal unit of competency dealing with proficiency in the use of electronic materials. I’ll be reviewing my training plans for our trainers and consulting with the manager of the RTO to find out what I could do to map my plans to this unit of competency and provide some benefit to others in the organisation.

The units of competency are also browsable to Functional Groups (occupationally similar), Skill Sets and Job Roles. You must be logged into the CSHISC web site to use the tools available, but registration is free and instant. You’ll find it at: https://www.cshisc.com.au

Working with diverse groups in relationship education

The second speaker was Fiona McDonald from Relationships Australia WA and she was WONDERFUL. Pardon the blurriness of the shot – I didn’t want to show faces so turned off the flash on my phone.

: Working with diverse cultures can be a dance

Her session on Building capacity in diverse communities through Cert IV in Relationship Education got us up and moving as she handed out roles for us to react within and led us out into the hallway.

She then read out common descriptions of service provision – after hours, central location v. suburban or rual, various permutations of requirements for communications between genders, attitudes of the presenter to equality, English only, etc – and asked people to step forward or backward depending on whether the description included or excluded them.

She very quickly made the p0int that what might seem standard sort of procedure for some ends up excluding quite a lot of others.

She then shared the story of a learner who grew up in a country with a lack of educators, so his experience of classroom learning consisted of an instructor delivering information to some 100 students at a time. As a result, his instructivist approach was challenged and needed to be overcome.

She starts her facilitators with a 5 minute session – which he was able to easily do – then has them lead a 30 minute session and videotapes them. The learner in question saw his approach in action and realised he needed to create more opportunities for interaction and participation from his clients.

E-learning

Relationships Australia SA were the final presenters in this stream and we presented on e-learning. Iain Henderson, the manager of the Australian Institute of Social Relations was keen for us to share our journey thus far and emphasize that we support our training practice by working closely with practitioners, supported by solid research and learning theory/pedagogy/andragogy and that we favour a blended learning approach.

Naomi Ebert-Smith, our video guress extraordinaire, presented on the use of video to create realistic and impactful scenarios – and how to achieve professional results. I presented on the research underpinning e-learning.

I used Prezi for the first time and have to say I was pretty impressed with it as a way of showing the relationships between sections of a presentation. Here is the end result:

FRSA Presentation on Prezi

Conference close

The day finished with the Honourable Diana Bryant – Chief Justice of the Family Court of Australia and I have to say as a veteran of a few dozen conferences that I have NEVER seen so many people stick around for the final address.

She encouraged the sector to use the challenges ahead in terms of funding as opportunities to explore innovation and new ways of working.

She also stressed the need for cooperation and collaboration across the sectors – especially in tight budget times.

Her Honour finished by saying that in tough times remember there was always black humour, dark chocolate and red wine to lift our spirits.

My take-aways

I came away from the conference amazed at the paralells between the two sectors I work across – education and community services. I feel an urgent need to learn all that I can to improve online educational experiences in the sector as well as to provide opportunities for the ongoing coaching and mentoring that result in embedding innovative practice.

E-learning shouldn’t only bring face to face learning online -but should also harness the affordances of technology to offer new – and sometimes better – learning experiences than in face to face.

E-learning is NOT a poor cousin of face to face learning – it is a valuable new environment we MUST explore to reach out to groups that increasingly use technology for so much of their communication and social interactions.

My questions to ponder

How can I beter address the needs of people who need to be able to put complex psychological and legal concepts into practice? And how can I infuse online learning with the warmth and SCARF this altruistic, feelingful yet professional group of people need to feel supported?

FRSA2011 – Family Relationships Services conference day 1

KerryJ — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 21:29:25 +0000

Yesterday was the first day of conference sessions for me in this new sector of family relationship services.

It seems to my novice eyes that this sector faces a lot of the challenges that the education sector does – an ageing workforce, increased demand yet declining interest from younger people due to low wages and high stress.

As well, this sector as well as the education sector are at the mercy of policy makers that don’t always understand or appreciate what is happening on the ground. Budgets are low yet the potential impact on individuals and in turn, society, is incredibly high.

Edward de Bono was wrong in his keynote in saying little thinking is done around how people think. I’ve read some really great research and had the privilege of talking with people like Martin Westwell to learn how people think and learn. But Mr. de Bono WAS right in saying the number one problem in the world is wrong thinking. I can’t remember who said “The problems of the world cannot be solved by those who created them” – but it applies to so many of our complex situations.

Mary Graham – the first speaker and one I wished had talked for longer – answered the question of wrong thinking/right thinking for me.

She talked of Aboriginal people’s connection to and attitudes toward the land and drew a paralell between how people treat the land and their overall ethics and treatment of people. The ethos of custodianship, said Mary, is not compatible with hierarchy.

It makes sense – if we as a society saw it as EVERYONE’S business to look after the earth, each other and ourselves – we wouldn’t need 90% of the laws we have and the economic, environmental and crises of spirit and conflict we have now wouldn’t exist. And neither would wrong thinking.

Looking forward to day two.

On top of one of Jokaydia’s minecraft worlds

KerryJ — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 11:51:08 +0000

Had an amazing tour of Jo Kay’s latest build and chatted with her and Dean Groom about what they’re doing with Minecraft, kids and learning. While I haven’t been grabbed by the Minecraft bug (I like my virtual worlds prettier and more realistic), I am in awe of what the kids are doing and what Jo has built and what Dean is building around it in terms of pedagogy. The kids are learning planning, building, creativity, citizenship, ethics, communication, cooperation and scripting — it’s pretty impressive.

Moodle 1.9x and the YouTube multimedia filter

KerryJ — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 01:07:23 +0000

A quick brain dump post. If you have the YouTube multimedia filter enabled at the site administration level of a Moodle 1.9x site, you can auto-embed YouTube videos in posts. But – what if you just want to link to a video? Here is the long and short of it: YouTube offers up two types of links – a ‘long’ link (which is the URL to the video player page) and a short link. The short link, displayed when you click Share, is meant to make it easy to save the URL with typing-challenged friends or via services like Twitter that limit the number of characters per post. The short link re-directs to the full URL.

The long link is the URL, you see the short link when you click on Share under the video

If you want to embed video, link some text and use the full URL. If you want to display linked text, use the short URL. Something about the re-direct obviously stops the auto-embedding.

Text linked with short/redirect link stays linked - text linked with direct URL/long embeds

Steve Jobs on life and death and dreaming

KerryJ — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 02:47:16 +0000

Sure, I know that lots of people will be sharing this video. But this blog is about me too and I want this closer to me than a diigo link. Love Apple or not, I can mourn the passing of someone who changed the world and seemed to hang on to his humanity. A lot of inspiration to be had from this video – but it’s best watched at home and in the close proximity of a box of tissues and a cuppa.