I’m actually quite a supporter of iTunes U, even though people don’t like that you have to enter it via the iTunes client. iTunes client is free and the resources are downloadable. I watched a fantastic series on Justice, by Michael Sandel through iTunes U. Even though the client is proprietary, it is worth mentioning that the videos or podcasts have open standards, so you don’t even need the client once its downloaded, certainly not necessary to have an iPod or iPhone, as some mistakenly think.

I also worked on one of the Phase 2 OER projects, which had a ‘discoverabiliy’ focus. We recognised that most people want to search through google, so hit the SEO Ninjas sites to raise its Google profile. The problem with this is that unless the resources start to take a life of their own and people independently tweet on etc. then the SEO magic starts to lost some of its capability. Fine, say, if you work in a ‘marketplace’ where constant SEO marketing will maintain your page 1 discoverability, but OERs do not have a ‘hype’ cycle to them in most cases. By this I mean the short termism of ‘retweet’, ‘reblog’, ‘backlink’ that gives such good SEO results to start with (and best in conjunction with other possibly offline marketing campaigns) does not apply to OER in that the availability of the resource needs to be constantly high, regardless whether anyone has ‘backlinked’ to it this week.

And that’s why I perhaps have a soft spot for iTunes U as an OER repository. Its available, most people use it for their media management, its free for those who don’t, EVERYONE has heard of it, and the search will not degrade resources based on this weeks popularity. And as previously said it uses open standards and the content is downloadable, therefore transferrable into areas of little bandwidth via HDDs etc. My feeling is that TOTALLY ONLINE content, like Coursera or EdX, is great for the software developers and those in the centre keeping track of the stats, but not so for the areas of lesser bandwidth, arguably those who need the OER the most.
octel

Just responding to a forum post on the #ocTEL website and though I would write this down as a blog.

Sugata Mitra presents of a Self Organising Learning Environment at ALT-C in 2009. There is also a critique of this available at http://donaldclarkplanb.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/sugata-mitra-slum-chic-7-reasons-for.html

I wonder how well these ideas ‘scale’ or ‘transfer’ too. For example i have read critiques of Montessori practice that point right back to her (ad-hominem) as the success factor. I wonder how much this can be said of Mitra’s methodology, (or homeschool for that matter)…

I guess what I am coming to is that I believe it is the ‘personality’ of the tutor as much as anything that motivates learning. Learners will adapt to their tutor's style if s/he has passion for the subject.

 I think this is problematic from a tech perspective as the ‘techs’ are trying to create ‘replicable’ or ‘transferrable’ pedagogic situations but they will work one year and then fail mysteriously the next, and then work again.

The ‘learning’ part of ‘learning technology’ means that suddenly all the rules of ‘technological development’ (eg. replicability, consistency) do not apply any more. 

This is a headache in one sense, but when we start to fit the technology around the tutor (ad hominem) as well as the learning context or educational content, we can stop worrying about trying to embed technology in the same way and concentrate on personalised technology choices that empower people to teach and learn

It certainly broadens the task of an LT, but I think that with the diverse array of technology choices, the conversations we have with tutors can be more along the lines of ‘what do you feel comfortable with trying’ and less the exasperated ‘but don’t you see that if you use lecture capture, VLE, [take your pick] it will be better for everyone’.

Its like taking the constructivism that eLearning bods cherish, and actually applying it to our own practice – ie taking our tutors one step at a time into their ‘zones of proximal development’ rather than forcing new technology paint-by-numbers style on peoples working practices.

My take is that reality is less clear cut than this. Most innovation happens in the no man's land or 'the rub' in between pedagogy and technology, and who is to say what is the 'driving' force, when both conditions are necessary? When you are considering the adoption of a new tool, it can be useful to run it past your existing pedagogical practices, but that is no guarantee that your learner's experience will improve as a result. It may get worse as you get used to the new tool. The risk here is that you are perfecting the 'mechanical horse', rather than rethinking the learning process.

The question goes further back than this. Are my current teaching practices appropriate? Who do they serve? I think the problem is that online technology and traditional teaching are not always comfortable bedfellows. The technology wants to disrupt everything in its purest form, and the traditional teacher wants to domestic-ise it. For example, many teachers ask me how best to use the VLE, but behind this question is 'how best can I use the VLE in support of my lectures?', so it gets used as a resource repository, a self-testing centre, and sometimes an FAQ. 

9 times out of 10, teachers are not looking for this answer: 

they are looking for this:

So the internet-as-p2p-communication tool gets used an a autonomous 'hole in the wall' portal for fact checking.

This is because most teachers will compartmentalise their 'VLE stuff' away from their 'lecturing stuff' so hobble its potential from the start by not integrating the VLE activities with their classwork. For the student to take the VLE work seriously, there must not be a break in between classwork and VLE mediated homework. (You're surfing the same wave, right, albeit with different feeling 'sections' and 'bowls')

Getting back to the main question (Is there a technological tool out there that will enhance what I do?), the argument could now be framed:

What can (careful use of) this technology bring to my students? which puts the technology back in the driving seat, at least rhetorically (and perhaps thats where this question belongs full stop).

I think the recent rapid emergence of new technologies such as podcasting or mobile real time communication really makes us rethink this chicken and egg question. Sometimes technology will afford something you haven't already thought of, or suddenly make possible a new way of communicating (such as using public channels on lecture captures for peer support and resource sharing) which can enhance practice in unexpected ways. Similarly poor use of a tool (such as not moderating forums or over use of MCQs) will inhibit the learning even if the theory is right.

It is certainly easier to evaluate each new technology on the basis of how it affects our current practice. We need to first question if our current practice is acceptable, or if it hobbles the potential of the technology. e-Learning takes us back to the primary question, not to be used as a gloss for existing practice.

Perhaps it ends up like most domestic car sharing arrangements: both parties get a chance to drive sometimes, but always with the 'support' of the other half (shouting out instructions and directions, sometimes down the phone at someone else)      :-)

(and isn't it all really about getting there, safely, without the kids falling out or being sick?)