Dubai photos

I think I figured out what the posting problem was.. my laptop was set to UK time so I think the time difference confused it. Anyway, here are some more photos from our Dubai stay.

Here are various shots of the water taxis (abras). We took these across Dubai Creek (a very big creek!) from Bur Dubai to the Gold Souk. It was great fun - just 1Dh each way (about 15p UK). We also visited the spice market and had lunch in an excellent cafe, followed by mint tea and dates.

Our hotel was excellent - the Arabian Courtyard Hotel, opposite the Dubai Museum. We liked being in the old city rather than a beach resort and enjoyed ourselves just wandering round the streets. I had to buy an umbrella to shelter from the sun!

Unfortunately, Niru's work commitments and evening meetings meant that we were not able to meet up. Maybe she'll visit Scotland some time?

Hi from Dubai!

It's HOT here. No, correct that, VERY HOT here! About 40 degrees, but a fairly dry heat. We met up with Andy Daou (that's me and him in the photo) yesterday evening and are seeing Niru Bhati this evening, then continuing our journey to Australia tomorrow. It's so nice to be meeting USQ friends for real after all this time.

I'll be posting some more Dubai photos soon....

Simpsonize Me!

What a great programme! Here's Gus and me.

http://www.simpsonizeme.com

Completed Master of Flexible Learning

I made it! Finished the final course, FET8660, in June and set to graduate from USQ next month. The whole programme of study has been a great experience and I have learned so much about online learning, educational technology and emerging environments in learning. The whole subject is fascinating because it's changing so much and as teachers we need to keep up with our students and their expectations.

I intend to continue contributing to knowledgeGarden and plan to use my knowledge and experience with our own students at Napier. We've already had great success introducing wikis to group work for BA Accounting Year 3 students.

Fitness Centre

Well, I've joined the fitness centre at work! This is a first for me. Hope it doesn't turn out like this though:

RSS Feeds

Have been trying to create an RSS feed to our Branch website, http://ataxia-east-scotland.org.uk. Back to the drawing board I think?

Using a Wiki for Raising Awareness of Ataxia

So far, we are the only Branch of Ataxia UK that has its own website: http://www.ataxia-east-scotland.org.uk.

A simple alternative for other Branches and Support Groups might be to have a wiki instead. They are simple to use and edit and you can post photos, news, events, fund raising ideas etc. I've set up a practice wiki at http://ataxiabranch.pbwiki.com so that Branches can try it out for themselves and have asked Tina to email everyone. I'd be very interested to get feedback from you all.

Hopefully, we'll be able to raise awareness of Ataxia still further!

FET 8660 - The final course

Semester 1, 2007, sees the final course in my Masters programme at USQ. FET 8660 is Masters Project 1 and I have until June to complete it. Seems no time at all since I started on this learning journey; it's been a great experience!

Still working out the project title and arranging a supervisor (hoping to get Dr Peter Evans - fingers crossed!) but planning to investigate the creation of a repository of learning objects for my main subject areas: financial accounting / financial reporting. This will provide (I hope) an internal collaborative environment suitable for sharing with colleagues, to enrich teaching and learning and to promote online and blended learning at Napier. There's already a UK wide project, Jorum, and hopefully we will eventually generate some materials of sufficient quality for sharing with other further and higher education institutions.

We're all set for the graduation in September in Toowoomba and planning a big trip round that date. Main flights from the UK are already booked! Hoping to meet up with many fellow students who have become friends over the programme.

Solution to 'Small Font' problem

After weeks of struggling with the tiny font in KG - and the even tinier font in the edit box - it suddenly came to me (in the middle of the night) - open KG in Opera and change the zoom to 120% or 150%. It works like a dream! WHY didn't I think of this before? It's great for webct too, where the fixed size font has been annoying me for my 2 years with USQ!

I am working my way through all the WebCT postings and the wonderful KG wiki pages that you have all created, so if I haven't got to you yet it's coming very soon, I promise!

Penny

Catching up

I've a lot of catching up to do on FET8611: first had problems with eyesight after straining them on the long drive to and from Yorkshire the other weekend. No long term damage done, fortunately, but have to use drops for a few weeks and avoid using the computer as much as possible. Then I've been covering for a colleague who's off sick, just when I thought the teaching load was easing off a bit. Finally another colleague has broken his leg badly so we're all helping out with his classes and marking.

Soooo - WebCT and knowledgeGarden have been sadly neglected. Major catch up planned over the Christmas vacation!

Thoughts on Assessment

Had a text chat with Birgit this evening on Messenger (early morning for her) and we kicked around a few ideas for facilitated pages. I thought of starting by inviting people to report on their own experiences of assessment (on the receiving end), then thinking about which might be appropriate for the new learning environments. Also, what new techniques might be needed. The great thing is, everyone has been on the receiving end of assessment - good and bad experiences. It's possible that the new learning environments may produce 'good' and 'bad' forms of assessment too?

We will probably set up a joint page or two as well.

Started reading a bit of the course notes today. There's certainly a lot to read!

Assessment in Emerging Educational Environments

I checked through the wiki titles and no one has investigated this before (surprisingly) so have started to set the page up. Will need to give the content headings a bit of thought though - am not sure how best to structure it. Maybe taking each type of learning environment in turn - or perhaps turning it around and thinking about which types of assessment are / aren't suitable or appropriate any more? Hmmm - will think about this.

Also, maybe I should have called it 'Assessment in Emerging Learning Environments'? No problem, that can be changed.

Starting FET 8611 Emerging Environments for Learning

Semester 3 has already started, and there are already many introductory postings from fellow students in webct. It's nice to see some familar names too, including Birgit & Perdita (the 3 of us changed our course enrolments to stay with the same tutor, Peter Evans). One of the first tasks for the course is to become familar with the knowledgeGarden environment - not a problem for the three of us as we used it last semester - but we musn't become complacent either. I've updated my user page and now need to think about pages I could facilitate - have a few ideas but need to check through the wiki titles to make sure I am not 'reinventing the wheel'. Also need to print off the course readings and make a start on them. Andy has already contributed a discussion thread so some serious catch up is needed!

I'm really looking forward to this course and so pleased to be working in a constructive, supportive and friendly environment. I can't imagine any face to face course being as rewarding as the online community we have helped to create.

This blog will take a more serious turn than previously - I'll still post the occasional photo, but these musings will hopefully provide a basis for composing the end of course hand in (assignment 1). However, we're off on a 2 night walking holiday next Friday so might have some nice photos of the English countryside to post here later on.

PS Saw Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah band in concert in Edinburgh last Monday, with Adrian Edmonson and Phil Jupitus - they were EXCELLENT! Very funny and good music too.

Finished FET5622

The course (FET 5622 Creating Interactive Multimedia) was challenging but very enjoyable, particularly with the support of Birgit, Perdita, Peter (our tutor) and the other students in webct and knowledgeGarden. I finally submitted the third and last assignment for the course yesterday and am looking forward to the end of semester conference next week. Learning to use Fireworks and Flash was an uphill struggle and I still have a lot to learn, especially Actionscript, but plan to use Flash more in the future and have an excellent book, SAMS Flash 8 in 24 hours by Phillip Kerman: http://www.phillipkerman.com/books/

Now, it's on to the next course, FET8611. Only one more to go after that (Masters Project 1) and still on track to graduate in September 2007.

Playing WAV files in Firefox and Opera??

I have been struggling all day with the coding for this and still cannot get it to work. It works a dream in Internet Explorer, but in Firefox it asks for a Quicktime plug in - then when you've downloaded the plug in, it STILL asks for it!

I just want a simple, visible controller to play an embedded WAV file in any browser.

Any suggestions?

Dr Curt Bonk

We have been fortunate this week to have three presentations from Curt Bonk http://php.indiana.edu/~cjbonk/, on 1. Podcasts, Wikis & Blogs: E-Learning (it's not in Kansas anymore - it's in Edinburgh), 2. OOOPs - Open Courseware and 3. Blended Learning. The start of our autumn semester is looming and there's lots to do, but you only get occasional chances to hear inspirational speakers, so let's not waste them!

My latest course (module) at USQ is going well, I'm taking Multimedia with Dr Peter Evans and having a lot of fun with the course Wiki, knowledgeGarden. Trouble is, am spending way too much time in the knowledgeGarden virtual world and not enough time buckling down to reading journal articles and learning to use Fireworks, DreamWeaver and Flash! Must work harder! Great support from fellow course members though, and getting closer to that graduation date next September......

Stephen Downes: Keynote on Skypecast

I've just participated this morning in the Skypecast of Stephen's keynote address to a conference in South Africa. This was (he thinks) the first ever keynote delivered in this way. There was a combination of a live audience, people listening in from all over the world on Skypecast and texting on Skype chat. It was very exciting to take part. The topic was: 'Learning Objects' what are they good for? and Stephen discussed many ideas on education, learning, technologies and where we may all be going in the future. He'll be creating a podcast of the address and posting it on his website.

Links: Stephen Downes' Website http://www.downes.ca/
Skypecasts: http://www.skype.com/help/guides/skypecasts.html

Starting FET 5622 - Multimedia

On the homeward stretch now with this being the 6th course towards my Masters in Flexible Learning. We are using the knowledgeGarden learning environment http://knowledgegarden.usq.edu.au which is quite a challenge.

Looking forward to learning much more about website design over the next few months....

FET 8603 - getting there!

This course has been an uphill struggle, but I have one more assignment to go and can then move on. There has been hardly any interaction in the discussions, mainly down to a lack of structure in both the threads and the course material itself. It has been a very useful lesson in how NOT to run an online learning course. Week 14 already and still less than 300 discussion postings from 30 students. Other courses have been in the thousands by now. So... am using email to interact with a few friends (thanks Rena and Barbara!) and plodding on, researching the topic independently. Such a shame, because assessment is a really important subject in teaching, and more guidance (well, any guidance!) would have been nice.

Hoping to feel less 'out on a limb' next time, in FET5622 (multimedia). It's not easy studying on the web in the UK on your own when all the other students are spread worldwide. At least I've got helpful colleagues to offer support and advice (thanks Heather and Alun!).

Enough moans - summer is coming and the garden is looking lovely (photo taken in April, the roses are coming out now). Heatwave here in Scotland - it was 25 degrees C yesterday! Positively tropical!

Starting FET 8603

Have just finished FET 8610 and have reached the half way point in my Masters at USQ. The time has gone really quickly!

Now starting course no. 5, FET 8603: Assessment - Principles and Practices. I'm looking forward to studying different approaches to online assessment and applying the theories to my work at Napier University.