sue watling – Page 26 – digital soapbox

Poor access, no access

Sue Watling / October 16, 2012October 16, 2012 / digital divide, digital exclusion, Uncategorized

Being poorly connected to the internet is so frustrating. I have my usual collection of mobile technologies in a place with no wifi and a weak phone signal. A dongle and a wifi hub are offering intermittent connections but the laptop doesn’t like the wifi and the dongle offers one bar out of a potential five. The mouseover message informs me connection is poor. As if I need reminding. Sitting in the furthest corner of the smallest bedroom, next to the window, I can access email. If I’m patient I can get onto the university blogs. That should say very patient. Downloading sites reminds me of the days when you could click a document link, make a cup of tea, and it would still only be two thirds of the way through. Images reveal at the rate of one pixel line at a time. But I’m lucky. These frustrations are temporary; inconvenient but not permanent. To be honest, this needs to be a compulsory staff development activity for everyone who works with educational technology and takes fast connections for granted. One a year for at least a week they should be forced into digital wastelands and made to try and do their work in places like these. The more we become dependent on reliable internet access, the risk of exclusion being invisible increases. Ultimately the only way to remind ourselves of the tragedy of digital exclusion is to experience it.

On abandoning Twitter…

Sue Watling / October 15, 2012 / social media

In this weekend’s Independent on Sunday, Dom Jolly says he’s giving up Twitter, His reasons include Twitter is full of twats wasting their 140 characters on smug dullness, ‘Celebrity Twitter’ is the place for dull egos and the PM joining the Tweetfest confirms it is no longer the place to be. These are not Twitter tracks I follow. For me the joy of Twitter is tweet control. I think Jolly’s use of #betterthingstodo in relation to Twitter could be a little misleading.

On the subject of trolling Jolly does give good advice namely Do Not Feed – and there’s no doubt the current fad for Trolling is despicable but to cite ‘revolting/antisocial/shocking’ comments as a reason for abandoning the challenge of 140 characters or less is to miss out on its potential. Like all digital tools, it’s not what they are but the ways in which they’re used which increases their value.

I’m not a prolific Tweeter but when I check it’s rare not to pick up at least one link which is useful. Emails notifications saying someone is following me are checked out. It takes a couple of seconds. Anyone sounding commercial or just downright dodgy is blocked. I don’t know if that keeps the nuisance tweets down but there’s nothing worse that people boasting x thousand followers and at least of half of them being on the a commercial or enterprise bandwagon. The people I follow are those who might be genuinely useful in an educational capacity and who use Twitter professionally. Sometimes Twitter is an email substitute. There are two advantages. I know the tweet will get read and the space limit makes for concise communication. It sounds a bit like Jolly has let Twitter take control. Rather than castigate its dark side, it would be better to focus on the benefits to be had.

OpenDyslexic; open design for open access?

Sue Watling / October 8, 2012 / digital inclusion, digital literacies, inclusive design

Openness has become part of the language of higher education. Open academic practice includes open educational resources, open source and open course ware; all examples of the affordances of the internet for supporting equality of access. One of the most recent additions to open opportunities for participation is OpenDyslexic. Developed by Abelardo Gonzalez, this is a free font designed to improve reading content online.

Digital data’s inherent flexibility to support a diverse range of access requirements has long been promoted. TechDis and Dyslexia Friendly Text from the British Dyslexia Association have offered a range of alternatives but there has been no one size fits all solution. OpenDyslexic attempts to overcome this. It reflects how ebook readers are making digital the choice of text for many users while also supporting the philosophy and practice of openness. The font has bottom-weighted characters, designed to reduce letter-swapping and increase the differentiation between similar-looking letters. this may improve readability not just for people with dyslexia but those with low vision might also find this font useful with large chunks of text.

OpenDyslexic can be downloaded here http://dyslexicfonts.com/downloads.php Adding the font to Chrome is one of the options (if you use Chrome) but you need to know about extensions to remove it. Only some environments allow the font change and where the default font size is 10 or under the text has a tendency to blur. There is always a technology gap between the theory and the reality and all to often those who would most benefit from the additional support are those who fall down it. OpenDyslexic is an example of a potential bridge but I think there’s still much to do with user testing and participation.

Join a conversation about ‘digital literacies.’ What do they mean to you?

Sue Watling / October 1, 2012October 1, 2012 / CERD, digital literacies

Join the digital literacies conversation here http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/digitalliteracies

Background: digital literacies are difficult to define. They describe many different things and this flexibility can be a strength or a weakness. The strength is the opportunity for drawing attention to key issues around digital ways of working. The weakness is the potential for misinterpretation; digital literacies can be different things to different people. When it comes to describing them where is the best place to begin? JISC says they define those capabilities which fit an individual for living, learning and working in a digital society. If you’re looking for a pragmatic approach this isn’t very helpful but it does offer the scope for a broad view and with something as fundamental as communication that wider analysis is crucial.

The shift to digital practices has happened very quickly and the associated confidence and competencies have become complex. Digital literacies are much more than the ability to word process an assignment or access email. These are important graduate attributes but the management of digital lives and the presentation of our selves online are important too. If we’re to provide appropriate support and resources, we need to know where best to target them.

You are invited to use the comment box below this post to say what digital literacies mean to you or if you prefer a less public option, click this link http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/digitalliteracies I look forward to hearing from you.

Embedding OER Practice at the HEA Conference 2012

Sue Watling / July 5, 2012 / conference, Embedding OER Practice, OER

Digital ways of working are changing the way we communicate and manage information. The implications for higher education include more virtual management of teaching, learning and research, greater online collaboration and more steps towards openness. The open education movement with its emphasis on using, reusing and repurposing is an inevitable consequence of the internet and one we have to accept. As VC of the OU Martin Bean said in his excellent opening keynote, the internet is here to stay, students have increasing expectations of openness and sharing, and OER is an ustoppable force.

At Lincoln we are embedding OER practice and investigating the use of OER to support generic aspects of the student experience; transition, reflection, graduate attributes and eportfolios. We are developing a postgraduate online course called Teaching and Learning in a Digital Age which will be offered as part of the university’s Teacher Education Programme. This will be based on content released as OER, include activities which encourage staff to search for OER in their own discipline and consider releasing some of their own content as OER. All this within the context of the shift from classrooms to virtual environments.

The Creative Commons website http://creativecommons.org has information about the six different OER/Creative Commons licences and a tool for deciding which to choose. OER don’t have to be all singing all dancing multimedia. They are about learning experiences. One single learning activity, designed as a package with alternative formats and information about the level it is designed for and how it has been used, can be more powerful than any amount of expensively produced high end content.

The Embedding OER Practice blog is at http://OER.lincoln.ac.uk and our Twitter hashtag is #openlincoln. On 21st June we held a conference called Sharing Practice: Open Approaches to Teaching and Learning This is the language we are using to take the project forward. OER don’t exist in isolation. They are part of the bigger picture which is about sharing practice and about open approaches to the way in which we manage pedagogy in a digital age.

Sharing Practice; Open Approaches to Teaching and Learning

Sue Watling / June 20, 2012June 20, 2012 / conference, Embedding OER Practice

Sharing Practice; Open Approaches to Teaching and Learning is a one day event, taking place in the Main Admin Building, Brayford, on 21st June, 9.30-4.00. The event will be showcasing the best practice in open education and open educational resources (OER) at Lincoln, including sharing outputs from the HEA/JISC funded project Embedding OER Practice which is currently ongoing. For more details about the project and to book a place on the Sharing Practice event please go to http://oer.lincoln.ac.uk/2012/05/22/sharing-practice-event-booking-form

Keynote speakers are Steve Stapleton, Open Learning Support Officer, University of Nottingham, talking on Integrating open throughout the University, the Open Nottingham story, and Paul Andrews Head of the Centre for Digitally Enhanced Learning (CDEL), Newport University, Wales, talking on OER Signposts: Tools and Techniques for getting started. There will also be presentation from Pam Locker Principle Teaching Fellow from the School of Architecture who is the creative force behind the Pencils and Pixels resource if you ever wanted to draw but felt you didnt know where to begin then these instructional videos are for you. After Pam, Jose Gonzales Rodriguez, Reader from School of Life Sciences, will be demonstrating Chemistry FM, a full first year module which has been licensed as an OER is you ever thought chemistry was not for you then this is guaranteed to change your mind. The event will close with a Question and Answer Plenary with Steve Stapleton, Paul Andrews and other presenters.

Embedding OER Practice is running in parallel with an HE Change Academy strand. On the one hand we’re looking at promoting the philosophy and practice of OER while on the other we are looking at ensuring the sustainability of project outcomes. When the project comes to an end the practice of sharing open educational practice continues. The aim the day is to provide time and space to begin wider discussions around open education and the use of open educational resources.

inaccessible internet not getting the attention it deserves…

Sue Watling / June 1, 2012June 1, 2012 / digital divide, digital inclusion, equality and diversity, inclusive design

Digital Exclusion, a research report by the Low Incomes Tax Reform Group, tells us digital strategy across government continues to prioritise online channels creating a digital divide and ‘…urge the government to ensure that no one is left behind.’ It sounds promising, except this was published in April 2012, and is nothing new. Some of us have been raising awareness of digital exclusion for some time. Until the right people say the rights things in the right places, nothing will change, and while this report is a step forward, it is flawed by confusion.

The report recognises digital exclusion is about far more than access (i.e. provision of cheap-off-the shelf laptops), the quality of access is critical in particular where exclusion is compounded by inaccessible design and delivery of online content. This is good. But then we get reference to Offcom’s Stakeholders eighth annual Communications Market Report which concludes digital exclusion is caused by resistance, finance and geography and fails to name and shame the inaccessibility of the internet. Also quoted is the Communities and Neighbourhood’s Understanding Digital Exclusion report which links digital exclusion with social disadvantage. Here is a key issue with huge implications for the government’s digital by default policies, but is followed by the broad misconception ‘It is widely recognised ….those with disabilities are digitally excluded because technology is not developed with their needs in mind.’ ( p17) This is ‘wide recognition’ is simply not true. Assistive technology (AT) for computers exists – barriers are the high costs, lack of learning support and the inaccessible design and delivery of online content. Where such barriers are later mentioned, it is easy to suspect the text has been pasted from a report on independent living as there is no specific reference to enabling internet access. The confusion continues.

Awareness of impairment preventing the use of public terminals fails to say why (i.e. they cater for mainstream not diversity) and the promising reference to inaccessible websites is diluted by the statement ‘standard web accessibility guidelines focus on visual impairments and are less useful at addressing the needs of users with cognitive or motor-control impairments.’ (p19) This sounds as if those with sight loss have access – when they don’t. Issues of digital exclusion affect all users of AT which are designed to enable access but are defeated by inaccessible design – regardless of the impairment.

There is more; inaccessible PDF formats and inappropriate selling practices of AT providers are both familiar issues but while these well known problems are being made public, where are the solutions? Not in this report. It only offers questions and issues requiring further exploration. The same questions and issues already raised by the previous government’s Digital Britain reports, now digitally archived and only a broken link away from oblivion.

We have to hope that someone someday will care enough to start to make a difference. Until then, all we can do is to carry on chip, chip, chipping away…

Digital literacies; their personal, professional and public dimensions

Sue Watling / May 25, 2012 / digital literacies, social impact of the Internet

Perceptions are shifting with regard to digital literacies. The phrase is now taking on much broader professional and public dimensions as well as personal ones.

Recently the Guardian Higher Education Network published twenty ways of thinking about digital literacy. Helen Beetham calls for ethical responsibilities in environments where public and private are blurred. This is the professional aspect of digital literacies; recognising the need for multiple identities and knowing where to draw the lines between them. Presentation of self online to family and friends is different to the presentation of self in work environments. Digital interaction with clients, customers and service users differs from interaction with students, colleagues and management. Understanding the permanence of digital footprints and the speed at which digital content can be taken out of context and spread across world wide networks is too easy to underestimate, as is the unpredictable behaviour of strangers online. We don’t know what other people will do with our content making it critical to think before uploading and bear in mind the limitless breadth and depth of digital landscapes.

Sue Thomas says nothing exists in isolation. We need to consider a range of information and communication media and adopt holistic and inclusive approaches to transliteracies. However, inclusion means more convergence across than multiple forms of expression. Inclusion is the public aspect of digital literacies. It refers to the dichotomy of digital practices where the technology which enables access can also deny it unless steps are taken to ensure barrier free ways of working. The university of the future needs to be many things and one of these is the producer of students who are aware of the parameters of digital divides and know how to recognise and challenge instances of digital exclusion.

The triad of the public, the professional and the personal lies at the core of higher education with its focus on critical reflective practice and social responsibility. If the relevant and appropriate digital literacies for a digital age are to be embedded as whole institution strategies then their public, professional and personal dimensions must be recognised and supported too.

Blackboard meets open education?

Sue Watling / May 3, 2012May 3, 2012 / Blackboard, Embedding OER Practice

Blackboard is now marketing itself as a multiple learning platform, one which supports both commercial software and open source content. Blackboard CourseSites, launched in 2011, is a free, cloud-based opportunity for releasing teaching and learning courses as OER. Register for free at https://www.coursesites.com/webapps/Bb-sites-course-creation-BBLEARN/pages/index.html and start building your course. Alternatively try a free course. Blackboard is promoting CourseSites with Instructional Ideas and Technology Tools for Online Success led by Dr. Curtis Bonk http://travelinedman.blogspot.co.uk/ which focuses on successful strategies and approaches to online learning, course design and facilitation.

Making education ‘open’ is a current trend and the release of OER under a Creative Commons licence takes full advantage of the affordances of the Internet to offer any-time any-place access to information and knowledge. Blackboard is a corporate giant in the world of commercial education and its not immediately clear if this move into the ‘free’ world is an example of genuine altruism or if there is a hidden agenda. On the surface it looks good. Instructors can post course materials, communicate with students and manage grades, but what are the disadvantages?

You are restricted to five ‘live’ courses although if you need more, then old ones can be hidden creating space for additional new ones. CourseSites cannot be integrated with existing systems and it isn’t clear how you would package up your course and export it somewhere else. Looking at the available literature online it seems the best way to find out the pros and cons is to use CourseSites to create a course so I’m experimenting with making some of the Getting Started transition materials available as OER in this way.

There is mention of a planned Blackboard Building Block to enable institutions to showcase courses that are open for learning. Instructors will apparently be able to share OER courses via Facebook and Twitter, but whether or not this Building Block has been released is unclear. For now you can use the Publish Open Resource link in Packages and Utilities which offers space for keywords and gives you the course URL with a BY Creative Commons licence attached.

‘Attribution CC BY: this license lets others distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation. This is the most accommodating of licenses offered. Recommended for maximum dissemination and use of licensed materials.

Blackboard meets open education – this could be an interesting space to watch…