I was interested to read The History of the Pedometer (and the Problems with Learning Analytics) by Audrey Watters, published on 22 June 2017, in particular as this week I was putting a virtual race app to the test. The virtual race I took part in was a paid for race, for a charitable cause, and its premise is that you can run wherever and whenever you choose, tracking your progress and then adding your…
Category: Tech
Fittingly after a week at the OER17: The Politics of Open conference, I am celebrating the birthday of my own ‘domain of one’s own’. I’d like to say thank you to Jim Groom and all the folk at Reclaim Hosting for their support – you are awesome!
This week saw the publication of a new book edited by David Hopkins called Emergency Rations #EdTechRations. This is a volume of contributions from dozens of individuals across sectors and below is a short description of what the book is about: “What’s so important we can’t leave it at home?” This book is a collection of 40 world leading teachers, academics, influencers, critics and practitioners who have answered the question “have you ever walked out the…
It’s the second week of the course ‘Learn to Code for Data Analysis‘ and we have started making graphs! Alongside my course participation on FutureLearn I am posting a short summary of my experience on my blog (you can read also my post from Week 1). I found this week a lot quicker to get started, partly because I am now more familiar with the course structure but also because the Anaconda interface I am…
Contributing something #rhizo15 is part of my ongoing effort to become an open practitioner. This week’s topic, learning is a non-counting noun, made me reflect on how my own ideas of how we can count, measure or track aspects of learning developed. Unlike most people who spent a lot of time in Higher Education my experience of studying and later infrequently teaching at university didn’t involve many written exams or a set curriculum. First Fine Art…
…”With policy and commercial developments firmly focused on ‘big data’ and all that entails, I was interested to come across quite a few sessions and speakers talking about how we use data in learning, particularly formal education at ALT’s Annual Conference earlier this month. Earlier in the year, as part of ALT’s work for ETAG, the Education Technology Action Group, we had invited contributions from a range of individuals and organisations and received what I…
For the past week I have been involved in running ocTEL, the open course in Technology Enhanced Learning – version 2.0. As well as helping with running the course, I have also done my bit to participate and now that the first few days are behind me, I want to reflect on my expectations of the course as a participant/organiser hybrid… . So, first up, what am I hoping to achieve by participating? Like everyone…
Recently there has been an upsurge in articles about artificial intelligence and how, according to Google’s Ray Kurzweil at least, by 2029 machines will supersede us, become better at doing the things we do every day. The idea, as I understand it, is that machines will be able to develop their own kind of consciousness, a sense of humour – in short be able to communicate with us as a fellow human being would. On…
This is a short video about the new LEGO house (work in progress) in Billund, Denmark. Designed by the Bjarke Ingels Group, the approach to the design is part of the LEGO philosphy – “Inventing the future of play through systematic creativity” (you can read the full info here). It’s a really exciting idea. Can’t wait to see it become brick-reality.