Randy Metcalfe from OSS Watch gave an overview of Open Source Software using the recent decision by the Open University to chose Moodle as its VLE platform. The aim of OSS Watch is to help institutions think through the implications of becoming involved with OSS.

The OU VLE procurement process included the evaluation of a wide range of OSS and proprietary platforms leading to the choice of Moodle which stood head and shoulders above any other of the products looked at. The implications of this are that the OU will spend £4 million to develop core Moodle components (in addition to money earmarked for internal development – OU skinning, training, support, roll-out, etc.) in effect committing to support the Moodle project in the writing of software that is copyrighted with the permissions to use, pass on, and alter the source code that tends to follow open standards.

The OU aren’t alone, OSS Watch studies show that in the UK in 2003 Moodle had virtually no take-up. However, study in March 2006, showed that 56% of FE colleges are using Moodle!

So how should a procurement process run?

Clearly, rather than ad hoc choices being made a process that uses evidence based decision making is required and there are two steps to this.

Firstly, a needs analysis of institutional and users requirements.

Secondly, an evaluation of the different software options (Developed from Randy’s talk):
- focus on technical and end-user requirements – can it do what you want it to?
- explore the development of the user communities – is there a high level of engagement by both the enterprise adopters and developers communities that are willing to share their expertise and knowledge for free
- consider the Business Readiness Rating (BRR) of the software – is the open source software you are considering mature enough to adopt with confidence

Once the information is gathered, the merits of the different software options can be judged against the needs analysis undertaken to identify the best solution for needs – a rationale informed choice!

Randy left us with some key facts about OSS in UK educational institutions:
- open source is more than just a copyright licensing paradigm, but never less than that
- universities and colleges across the UK use OSS regularly
- institutional engagement with OSS means more than just using it

With Professor Richard Winter at Ultralab today discussing the implications of his work on patchwork texts (Guardian article) and how it is interpreted by the Ultraversity project.

Some key lessons for me:

The notion of reflection is better viewed as a reflexive paradigm. That is the ability to look at ones own practice analytically and identify the peculiarities and key ideas that it embodies. Crucially, the next step is to share this with others in a way that is accessible to an audience. This last step is crucial in that it greatly enhances the individual’s understanding of what they have found through having the discipline of having to communicate with others.

The patchwork process should be a liberating and enlightening way to help learners imagine how they might develop their practice.

A patchwork checklist (developed by Gill, Gina, Lesley, Ian):
- is the work professionally enlightening for the writer
- artistically satisfying for the reader
- satisfying the requirements for the academic examiner

A retrospective commentary should identify the learing journey and the position arrived at identifying what is and, perhaps more importantly, what is not understood. Arriving at this position too early risks closing down and narrowing the inquiry when the ‘best’ outcome might be the identification of the next set of questions. There is a danger in trying to impose a cohesive commentary throughout the patchwork with conclusions and fixed positions where none exists!

Lecturers arrive with values and beliefs and this will tend to corrupt innovative ideas and ‘normalise’ back to the established position.

Yesterday evening I drove 30 miles to an IKEA outlet near Nottingham. One of the things I bought there was a selection of plastic containers (Tupperware style), very useful and at £4 for the lot very good value I thought.

As with many low technology goods these days it was made in the Peoples Republic of China:
- good for them, it makes them richer
- good for me, I have some useful things at a cheap price
- hard luck planet!

The oil was transported to China, Chinese manufacturers made the plastic (likely not to the highest environmental standards), the goods were transported to the UK, then my local IKEA. I drove 60 miles round trip to pick them up at such a bargain price I could happily throw a few of them away after a picnic – oh dear me.

Oh, and the toaster in the background cost 12 quid and has had a similar life cycle….

A nice little feature about Ultraversity written by Stephen Hoare of the Guardian . This short quote sums it up well “This month the first cohort of 150 students will graduate with a BA (Hons)” congratulations and thanks to all who have helped make this possible.

Many people wouldn’t have a clue where the city of Leicester is nor what it has to offer being a smallish city in the Midlands of the country of England. Reasonably enough the ‘city fathers’ commissioned an advertising agency to come up with a marketing/advertising strategy to promote Leicester and encourage economic growth.

The montage above is of 6 placards that can be viewed from platform 1 at Leicester’s main train station – there are 6 more that can be viewed from platform 3 on the opposite side.

The point I want to make is that this has to be the most self-depreciating and apologetic set of slogans that a city ever tried to promote itself with. Shoot the advertising executives executives!

Surprisingly local
Surprisingly ambitious city
Surprisingly entertaining
Surprisingly good for business
Surprisingly down-to-earth
Surprisingly vibrant

Many people wouldn’t have a clue where the city of Leicester is nor what it has to offer being a smallish city in the Midlands of the country of England. Reasonably enough the ‘city fathers’ commissioned an advertising agency to come up with a marketing/advertising strategy to promote Leicester and encourage economic growth.

The montage above is of 6 placards that can be viewed from platform 1 at Leicester’s main train station – there are 6 more that can be viewed from platform 3 on the opposite side.

The point I want to make is that this has to be the most self-depreciating and apologetic set of slogans that a city ever tried to promote itself with. Shoot the advertising executives executives!

Surprisingly local
Surprisingly ambitious city
Surprisingly entertaining
Surprisingly good for business
Surprisingly down-to-earth
Surprisingly vibrant

Hosted by cetis in Manchester.

These are personal impressions and I apologise in advance if I have misinterpreted or failed to credit anyone’s pet idea or hate!

Thoughts for would-be teachers in this online learning environment!

1. Pedagogically, it is important to understand that teacher intervention is not the tool itself, but what flows through the tool!

2. Understand and reach out to your learners, inhabit the world in which they live – blogs, MySpaces, iChat, Skype, etc.

3. Value who your learners are now so that they believe you want them to ‘grow’ in the future.

4. Be the person you want your pupils to be – model desired behaviour (Stephen Downes).

5. Development of technologies such as foaf to include resources and activity descriptions could utilises PLE as a ‘lightweight’ approach to the flawed learning design approach.

Thoughts for would-be experts in PLE!:^)

1. A general agreement that a PLE isn’t a ‘thing’, that is not a piece of software but a philosophical starting point that has gained some recent currency because of the rapid changes in technology and society at the early part of the 21st century. This is not without difficulties though, as through the act of discussing PLE we were drawn into the reification of the concept as an object:^)

2. Huge tension between the institutional ownership of learning (broad definition) and the individual’s ownership of their learning. This includes artefacts produced, data surrounding student choices, student participation in learning activities and platforms, etc. For Universities, this data is potentially a valuable commodity in terms of their quality assurance processes, compliance, and potentially for predictive purposes. However, why not make this data more widely available so that the learner might use it to make informed choices and others to plan better.

3. The dividing line between a PLE and an e-portfolio was thought to be very blurred. Discussion around repository for an individuals work centred around the old chestnut of faith in the power of common standards making interoperability and thereby transfer of content between institutions and other providers of e-portfolio a reality – pie in the sky optimism in my opinion. A second position expressed was keep the provision of such services out of the hands of Universities, schools, etc as they are institutionally incapable of understanding the implications for individuals and of taking decisions that support the development of PLE – my opinion.

4. Significant debate around where PLE relate to formal and non-formal learning. There is a risk that the formal learning will hijack PLE for their agenda of delivery, compliance, assessment, etc.

5. Stephen Downes inspired the diagram below of the kind that my old boss Stephen Heppell was very good at constructing and explaining when trying to get across to people significant or paradigm shifts. None of the ideas are new, but it is one approach to summing up the rationale behind PLE – please add any thoughts.

6. Stephen D identified four ‘tests’ of a PLE system encompassed by the overarching idea that I have paraphrased as – personal empowerment and capacity: the ability to be successful! I have remembered and interpreted them as does a PLE promote:
I. autonomy of the learner – the ability to make informed learning choices
II. diversity in acknowledging different forms of skills and knowledge and learning environments
III. openness – symmetry of power relationship and the use of tools
IV. connectedness – interaction between individuals and groups

7. PLE will necessarily evolve first outside of institutions and then perhaps between institutions.

8. Don’t start with the institutions – the issues become very complex and a PLE initiative/project will quickly drown.

9. A PLE is the tool used to organise oneself on the web and the management of identity is the key issue. Plugins to standard browsers should readily handle this – the browser announces your chosen ‘persona’ and then manages the ‘harvesting’ (pulling back and display in a standard way.), re-mixing, and ‘planting’ of data using RSS technology.

10. In its simplest, and perhaps most realistic form, it is simply a tool that manages links, API, single sign on, RSS Relationship between the online learning environment and real world.

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These were my thoughts on the reasons why we need PLE submitted for consideration before the PLE meeting Download file
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Any UV researchers particularly those working in schools and who want help with resources should head over to this website ttrb offered by the TDA, funded by Microsoft. The online e-librarian is a free service, use it!

This resource came from Marilyn Leask Head of Effective Practice and Research and Dissemination of the TDA in a day long conference at Anglia Ruskin University Chelmsford.

Marilyn started by pointing out that the rate of required adoption for teachers is increasing rapidly. She cited the TVEI initiative in the late 80′sthe first example of the government bypassing the ‘system’.

The big challenge however, is what evidence is there to base changes in practice – a key concern is that changes are based on evidence not anecdote!

The role of teacher as researcher is at the heart of Marilyn’s belief about a key element of teaching but how do they access knowledge that is available, but not being forced to use only established publishers who often see no profit in much valuable research.

Marilyn made the case for a systematic review of the huge body of research evidence out there by the practitioners and researchers working collaboratively to work on projects that are well grounded and substantial. Small scale research does not provide the evidence required on its own, but if co-ordinated and combined with rigorous methodology it can contribute significantly to the knowledge base.

She then ran off a list of other professions who already have large only databases of research to support her argument for an educational database and made the argument for such a resource for education.

Another bit of fun, this time from From Cluster Maps. “See at a glance where your site’s visitors are located: instantaneously, even when the numbers are enormous! Visitors don’t need to click on anything: just viewing your page is sufficient.”

I am not sure if this will work fully just embedded in a blog post, I might need to hack my Index page, but we woill see! Thanks to that erstwhile blogger, Nick Billowes of CORE Education for this one:^)

Playing with the integration of NetNewsWire and MarsEdit (found at the same site) which allows the grabbing of content via RSS feeds, working on them in an editor, and then the re-posing to a Blog – a key attributes of a personal learning environment. If it works, this is neat tool I will be using in the future….

Important news below:^)

Rooney & Gerrard back in training: “Wayne Rooney and Steven Gerrard take part in England training at their Baden-Baden headquarters.”

(Via BBC News.)