Archive for the ‘education’ Category
Testing, testing, testing - what is more important the test or the content?
Thursday, September 3rd, 2009
I’ve have just finished reading a book at the British Cycling team and their meteoric rise over the past 10 years. As a keen cyclist the book provides a number of insights into how the team operated. There is one section in particular that raised a number of questions.
Sir Chris Hoy started to compete in an event called the Keirin several years ago when the Kilo event was removed from the Olympics. For those of you who have caught a bit of track cycling on the TV it’s the one where they all ride behind a motorbike at increasingly high speeds. The cycling aficionados amongst you will know that Keirin originates from Japan and is remains hugely popular. Kieran riders earn vast sums and enjoy celebrity status due to the massive amounts that are bet on the outcome of races. Increasingly overseas riders saw the money on offer and wanted to compete in Japan, to date without a great deal of success. Before any overseas rider can compete in a Japanese event they have to undertake a rigorous 2 week training camp, where one of the tasks involves taking a bike to pieces without dropping a tool and re-assembling it in a set order.
At the end of the 2 week course there is a test. Pass the test and you can ride in events, fail and you can’t. Simple.
It was the test aspect of the course that interested me the most. One of the cyclists commented on the monotony of the course and the sheer basic nature of the course content…but…he remained ‘switched on’ at all times as if you didn’t pass the test you couldn’t ride. The rider attended all of the sessions, took everything on board, put up with the monotony to ensure that he was ready for the test. He took the test, passed and rode in events.
Reading this particular chapter really made me think of all the courses where the qualification is vital to future success and progress but the learning experience is often disappointing for those involved. I’ve spoken to my friends who have attended courses that have not been challenging and focused purely on getting the badge. I’ve also got my own experience to share. Over 5 years ago I took my PRINCE 2 exams; the first 2 days pretty much consisted of highlighting pages from the course book. I was somewhat disillusioned by this and in the revision periods at the end of the day I actually tried to gain a deeper understanding of what the course was about. It was only at the first multiple choice exam that I realised what I was being prepared for. Each of the sections I had highlighted had been linked to potential answers in the multiple choice exam. Once this was passed the whole teaching style changed as we approached an open book written exam. I’d not thought about this course until after I’d finished reading the Keirin chapter and it all came back to me!
Accessibility in e-learning design - time for some standards?
Wednesday, August 12th, 2009
I might be missing something here but after spending the last 15 years working in e-learning and new media it is still far more common to have a conversation about accessibility when talking to a client about a website than a piece of e-learning. Website design has made great strides in supporting usbaility standards, although it still has work to do. With all the different platforms, browsers and technologies it is difficult to achieve complete standards compliance but it does appear to be a common theme in the web design areas. Within e-learning its just doesn’t seem to have the same importance at the moment.
We have worked with e-learning teams where we have created levels of content to provide as much access as possible. NCSL is a fine example of an organisation that has a really clear set of guidelines for developers that includes their position on accesible content. These guidelines help everyone involved are opened up for developers to suggest improvements and also to challenge.
I’m sure that accesibility is a consideration for lots of learning providers, developers and trainers but it doesn’t seem to have the same weight within e-learning. A simple google search saw these results for the term accesiibility e-learning (7,280,000 results) website accessibility (64,500,000) - quite a difference. There are clearly a number of practitioners and researchers carrying out a great deal of work in this area and my google search is hardly a thorough piece of research but I did find the numbers interesting. I’ve got lots of friends and colleagues in the industry who are looking at accessibility but does the industry really discuss what’s needed?
Has the time come for the e-learning industry to look a set of standards relating to accessibility for e-learning design could help? A set of design standards and good practice might also bring some balance to the tender process where so much of the evaluation process is based on price. I know that lots of e-learning practitioners are carrying out great work in this area but isn’t time we all come together?
Thoughts?
During my web searches I found several interesting links and articles:
http://www.skillsforaccess.org.uk/
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/elearningpedagogy.aspx
top 10 website resources
Wednesday, July 1st, 2009
Following on from our top 10 e-learning resources here is our top 10 website resources. These are the sites that we find useful and we use them most days. Everyone in the office has a favourite site and they all feature in the list. Today I’ve been on the Edge website and found out that the sequel to wii sports is the fastest selling game in Japan and Futurelab have more free resources that you can download….and FWA have uploaded their site of the day.
Enjoy!
This website has a design focus but is packed full of free resources and tutorials. This is a great place if you are looking for ideas and inspiration. The free resources that have been submitted cover a wide range of uses from Wordpress themes to Icon sets.
The images are not free, but the prices are low and the image quality is good. A vast range of images, icons, videos and stock assets that come in useful.
TED comes up on a number of our lists but we keep on finding it useful! A great website to view some inspirational thinkers and to get inspired. Our favourites is still the Jonny Lee remote control.
A whole host of videos for a range of subjects. Our current favourite is the Royal Navy using computer games during submarine training courses.
You’ll need an iphone or an ipod touch but if you are ever on the move and need to find something out there will be an app for it. We’ve downloaded GPS devices, flight trackers, games, training apps, News feeds and something that turns the iphone into a torch.
The home of Edge magazine, if you want to find out something about the videogame industry this website has all the news alongside some great articles.
Innovation in Education
Offering a host of whitepapers, articles, links and a lot more. Futurelab also have a range of printed support materials including posters. We’ve just got hold of the their game based learning poster
Harvard Business Working Knowledge
Subscribe to the email for details of the latest papers or download the podcast to listen to interviews. Covers a wide range of business topics and all in manageable chunks.
Ok, we are a little biased with this one! We are able to get some great speakers to come along to our events, some of who you might never have heard of but they all provide us with great resources from their presentations.
The favourite website awards. Every day they upload a new website for you to look at. Not strictly anything to take away or download but this site will provide you with a whole host of ideas if you are stuck on your next design project.
e-learning top tools for 2009
Monday, June 29th, 2009
I thought that I would share with you my top ten tools for 2009. These are the tools that I find really useful, I might not use them every day but they really help out week by week! I’ve linked out to all the websites so you can go and find out more about them for yourself.
A great piece of software for rapidly developing virtual environments, simulations and game based learning. Our games designers are building learning objects in days!
You’ll need an iphone but this software lets you update your account when on the move as well as getting your own twitter feed. Get the Pro version to update multiple accounts.
We’ve been using Basecamp since it first came out and we still love it! Great for using with clients and it keeps things nice and easy.
Open Source - used by many, lots of commercial support if you need it and a great user community.
Time tracking software, links with Basecamp and it has an iphone app. Easy to use and brilliant for time management on projects.
Can be used for a range of uses including blogs and websites. There is a wide range of plugins available to support your development work. It is also very easy to set up!
A wide range of videos for download from the BBC on a range of subjects and topics.
Online meetings and much more. Very useful for working with clients, showing work and minimising travel. NCSL have made great use of web-ex over the past year.
A great web app where you can generate world clouds from the text that you provide. Paste in text, rss url or del.ico.us username.
A whole host of brilliant lectures on a range of subjects, well supported by an iphone app. There are some inspirational lectures available for you to view.
Award Winning ICT Evangelist comes to Game Based Learning Event on 13th May 2009
Wednesday, April 8th, 2009
Real Projects are delighted to announce that Russell Prue is going to be the keynote speaker for Game Based Learning Event on May13th.
Russell Prue said “I am delighted to have been asked to come and support the Real Projects Games Based Learning event on 13th May. There has never been a better time to take a closer look at this kind of technology and with plenty of evidence and case studies that confirm the learning benefits of games based learning this has to be at the top of your agenda. I will be showing a new concept in PE and Dance Exercise education with a Virtual PE Teacher system, pulling a “Bollywood” or “Salsa” instructor out of thin-air is something that technology can do in the C21st. There are plenty of competitive dancing competitions that really get you moving and with the ability for over 30 users to compete simultaneously on wireless dance mats this is a winner. More information from www.virtualpeteacher.co.uk
I am also planning to demonstrate the Kinaesthetic Interactive Teaching System (KIT), a 30 multi- users playstation style gaming system that develops cognitive and higher level thinking skills through the use of competitive game play. The camel race is my favourite and I am sure that you will get a chance to experience this amazing gaming system. More information from http://www.kinesthetic.co.uk I am also including a “how to use a Nintendo Wii Fit” to improve your concentration skills guide – this event simply cannot be missed.”
Russell Prue is an Award Winning ICT Evangelist and has presented to HM The Queen, members of the Royal Family, Heads of State and Ministers from the UK. He is well reported and enjoys a high profile as the best known ICT Evangelist in the UK. There is time in Russell’s session for some hands-on experience of these new uses of technologies and colleagues are urged to engage, dance, and explore. More information from www.andertontiger.com.
The Games Based Learning event is invitation only. For more information about the event please call Real Projects on 01603 762772
games based learning
Monday, March 23rd, 2009
May 13th 2009 - Norwich
We are going to be holding the next e-learning forum event on Games Based Learning. After posting on the blog about our PSP trials and other games based development we decided it would be a good idea to make it the next topic for the e-learning forum.
The response to the event has been really positive, we are planning to have a number of speakers over a few hours making it a little longer than normall events. We’ll have a games area where people will be able to try all types of consoles and devices. We have some speakers in mind but are interested in talking to anyone who might have something interesting to talk about during the event.
The event will be free and we will be hoping to see some new faces amongst the regular people who attend. I’ve been talking to lots of businesses and educators about games based learning and the possibilities. Last week the Games Based Learning conference (Tom Watson Speech) took place and futurelab have announced the are running a research project on games and learning. As some readers might know we have a link with the NUCA Computer Games Degree and it is interesting to see how games design, learning and learning technologies are becoming ever closer.
Last week I saw a superb session by Russell Prue on how games are being used in the Classroom. You can take a look at some of the resources http://www.andertontiger.com/norfolk/