A couple of interesting things to ponder:

comScore have reported that more than 14 million U.K. Internet users have visited a blog in August (Web Link) 2008 and that 27 million people watched more than 3 billion videos online in the UK in June 2008, (Web Link). YouTube accounts for approximately half of these figures which also includes the likes of the BBC. I think this is very interesting – we could be seeing a shift here in terms of viewing habits.

And another interesting one: 6.5 million Americans watched mobile Video in August 2008, (Web Link).

Anyway I’ll start my comeback by talking about the presentation I was involved in with Myles Dyer and Joanne Teague which was made at the 3rd International Blended Learning conference, (Sally Graham also helped out but was unable to attend in person). ‘Developing Student Identity, Values and Employability Skills Through the Use of Video Logs’ focused on the development of ones’ ‘self’ through the act of vlogging (video logging). The talk looks at how through creating and publishing video blogs on a regular basis can lead to the development of skills attractive to the employer such as presentation skills, confidence (in terms of receiving and giving critics, defending opinion, issuing challenges ) and team working through the creation of collaborative videos.

We take things further however – the overlying argument of the talk is as to how through the ongoing development of the aforementioned skills together with the creativity conferred and autonomy conferred through the act of vlogging, can lead to further development of the students identity in terms of their value and belief systems and how this translates into creating learning communities.

The presentation went down very well and generated discussion which carried on outside the talk. The full presentation is presented below which includes the question and answer session.

PART 1: VLOGGING AS THE PUREST FORM OF CREATIVITY
Why I started vlogging; vlogging as the purest form of creativity; improving presentation skills and identity – using the process for self exploration. Particular aspects: emphasis the use of the comments facility to enable discussion and exchange views; how over a two year period vlogging has helped to developed confidence and presentation skills (examples are provided); how the act of vlogging enables you to view yourself in a 3rd person perspective and to reflect and evaluate on how well you presented.

PART 2: BRIDGING THE GAP BETWEEN STUDENTS AND TUTORS – PLUS Q & A SESSION
Bridging the gap between students and tutors – how vlogging provides a forum in which both tutor and students can discuss ideas as opposed to the traditional lecture; academic autonomy, developing ownership and driving your own education ; team working and collaboration – bringing our own ideas and providing solutions by coming together, not as students or teachers but as one educational entity and value systems — knowing who you are.

Audience questions include: Can a viewer develop key skills through simply watching the vlogs? Vlogging enables viewers to leave comments — how important is this? (answer: it closes the gap between tutors and student, giving people, particularly the less confident, as sense of equality and freedom to pose questions in a less formal context), Are there things that the vlogger learns through this process of interacting with the wider world that makes them a better student? (answer: yes in terms of being open minded to the ideas of others and being able to dialogue with them such that you critically evaluate their arguments and take on board their views).

PART 3: THE FINAL PART OF THE Q AND A SESSION
The final part of the q and a session which looked at: Have you had many negative experiences with vlogging and how do you cope with it? (answer – many negative experiences in terms of negative and unconstructive comments. But this has led to being a better person in terms of comments which are negative but contain constructive arguments which are in turn evaluated and taken into consideration with comments left by others. If there is a trend you evolve as a person to deal with it. If we were to use this within a formal education context, where vlogging was required rather than self-directed, would this have a positive result or would it sterilize the process? (answer not really as vlogging allows the student to bring their own interpretations of the topic into the process. So it’s more then learning facts but being able to put forth your own point of view. Other questions include: Vlogging enables you to develop in terms of being able to express yourself clearly. Has this translate into other areas of your study?

AND THE SESSION CONTINUED (THROUGH BLOGGING)
Interestingly, and probably typical of today’s e-learning conferences, one member of the audience, Dr Richard Hall, (De Montfort), immediately blogged his reaction, via the LRC, in a post titled ‘The most inspiring conference presentation I have ever seen’, (Web Link). This led to an online discussion between himself and Myles with other delegates chipping as well including Julie Hughes (University of Wolverhampton), who stated ‘This was the highlight of the conference for me and it made me really excited about the possibilities for other students’. Richard’s post accurately summarised the essence of vlogging particularly in terms of reaching out and forming communities – it’s not about my education but our education: “…Myles is opening up spaces for people [him] to becomes themselves [himself] and relate to others and take meaningful action. This is powerful stuff, beyond the banalities of “me and my learning environment”, towards a progressive, hopeful pedagogy,..”. And in terms of the future a rallying cry towards a time in which students are empowered to develop their own passions for the subject “Myles’ talk reinforced to me the powerful impact of Web 2.0, or the read/write web, on learner agency in educational environments that are at once connected and networked and informal and formal. Grasping these affordances is a crucial part of education as a democratic, political project, and in empowering our students’ through facilitating their development of personal literacies.”

MINI DOCUMENTARY : THE BLENDED LEARNING CONFERENCE 2008
To take things further Myles was also encouraged to produce a vlog about the whole event. This produced in the form of a min documentary which included highlights of his presentation, after talk reflection and extracts from interviews with Richard Hall and Norm Vaughan (Calgary University). He also used his online journal to record his reflections (Web Link).

Richard and Myles look at the use of Web 2.0 tools in education: elaborating on what web 2.0 tools are, what can be achieved with them in terms of connecting with others and the limiting factors to their inclusion within teaching. For example the idea of student rather than staff driven vlogging activity in which the students connect with others exchanging world views and then reflecting and taking that reflection back into the curriculum.

While Norm and Myles considered the notion of how the rise of online communities has led to the on the fly develop of social tools whose iterative development is responsive and consequence of the communities needs.

FEEDBACK FROM THE VLOGGING COMMUNITY
The above video also appears on YouTube and has at the time of this blog been viewed 4400 times and received 120 comments from readers (including 4 video responses). Some of the video responses have been left by other students and it’s interesting to hear what they have to say (here for example).

Regarding the comments: a great many were supportive and congratulatory in tone while some led to discussions. There were of course a few challenges which was great as they provided the opportunity to elaborate on things which were not apparent in the video. In all this exactly showcases the strength of the medium in that it allows further and continual re evaluation of the topic on a non hierarchical level allowing everyone to form their own versions.

For instance:

“I know I wish I’d discovered this thing earlier in my life. It can be a great way to move forward in so many areas of life.”
“I’m still yet to post my first vlog, but I’m building confidence by watching yours and others that have succeeded here on YouTube. Thank you.”

“I was 13, studying Evangeline (Longfellow) and the great thing was the teacher had us make books. Draw pictures, write our take of the poem, and I’ve not forgotten the overall story of how the British removed the French Acadians from Nova Scotia to Louisiana. Youtube is now the “binding” of the images and discussion which will help students learn. Better than text books, cram, then exam by choosing 1 of 4 answers. “

“I’m a homeschooling mom of two girls, ages 16 & 11. I truly think that what you are doing is incredible. I am seriously considering making Vlogging part of our curriculum & that is in large part thanks to you.”

“It’s interesting that society’s obsessed with the dichotomy of “online” and “offline”. I see it like an extension on community, like, we don’t bother to distinguish between “school community” and “work community”, which also truly exist in their own worlds. But we also freely accept they are part of the “real world”.” Which is really interesting since I think that where blogging and vlogging fail when implemented as educational activities is that the tutor fails to recognise that the whole thing is about community and exchange of ideas. In other words its all about conversation and as such they should recognise that the conversation can and should happen online (via blogging) and offline as well. And the curriculum and class room design needs to reflect this.

“Coincidentally, one of my daughter’s teachers only last week suggested that she vlogs to improve her communication skills. In a few years, vlogging will become expected of prospective students as part if their extra curricular activities.”

And finally this: “Is herts uni any good? I’m living only a few miles from it, should have gone to the open day really. Dam thats a bad-xxxx sllideshow. Just over a grand is pritty good for all that!”. Clearly some marketing potential here.

In all a great and fun endeavour – we are now off course looking for further challenges…

NOTE: SLIDES FROM THE PRESENTATION CAN BE FOUND HERE

However, aside from the detailed satellite images, one of the great things about Google Earth is that anyone can add content in terms of photos, textual information, web links etc. and associate that content with specific areas of interest. Essentially you can create your own ‘layer’ of content which is then superimposed on the satellite imagery. This layer can be private to yourself (and others who have access to the account, say for instance your students) or you can make the layer available everyone. The latter is quite common as you can find a great many subject themed layers out there to view. So this is already being used by schools for history projects which I have talked about in an earlier blog (here).

Anyway because Google owns YouTube (www.youtube.com) they’ve been looking at getting the 2 products to ‘speak’ to each other. In other words getting the videos already loaded on YouTube to display within Google Earth at particular points.

Well they’ve now sorted it out. YouTube allows you to geotag a video when you upload it. Basically you enter the longitude and latitude of where the video was created. This is not as onerous as it sounds because Google includes another product, Google Maps, to help you pin point the exact coordinates by clicking your mouse on a map.

At the same time Google Earth periodically updates itself to include new aerial imagery and other data, now including geotagged YouTube content.

Last year I uploaded to YouTube a short video made by School of Education staff on their experience in using blogs to create learning communities. I used Google Maps to add longitude and latitude coordinates which placed the video exactly at the De Havilland campus. Google Earth has since updated itself and lo and behold the YouTube video can be a seen as a clickable icon at De Havilland.

This means that anyone who uses Google Earth to check out the University of Hertfordshire will see any YouTube videos associated with it. I can see this happening more and more in the future since Google Earth is able to provide the reader with a spatial sense of a particular area – so it’s a great tool for checking out an area with regards to living, working there etc.

So let’s have brief tour of the UH in Google Earth:

So here’s the College Lane campus. Note the detail. You can clearly see the Learning Resources Centre towards the right. See the camera icons? This is one of the great things about the new internet – anyone can add anything. Google Earth lets you attach the photos (or any image) to specific points. In this case someone has been kind enough to upload a photo taken at the front of the LRC.

Pretty good photo eh?

There is a downside. Google Earth only periodically updates the satellite imagery so as you can see the De Havilland Campus has not been build yet! But this has not stopped people from adding photos of the campus as it is now and of course there’s my YouTube video.

Clicking on the YouTube icon open ups the YouTube for you to play.

Incidentally there is another YouTube video associated with eh College Lane site (made by one of the student candidates for a recent election).

So we have a very powerful integration of technologies, Google Earth and YouTube, using content created by a wide community of people (wide because they only have a very loose connection with each other – in this case the university and Hatfield). It’ll be worth watching over time to see how the area develops.

And there are obvious positive implications for educational uses. For example geotagging video and images such that they are associated with specific points on the map as an aid to field trips / school visits. You could add all kinds of historical notes, photos, links and tag them to specific areas of interest, mapping out routes etc. However the real gain is that students will be able to use these tools to develop their own projects and share them with the outside world.

Any comments and ideas and suggestions for use would be welcome.

View official Site UC Berkeley Site on YouTube

However Professor Alexandra Juhasz of Pitzer College is using YouTube to teach a course entitled ‘Learning from YouTube’. Essentially it is about YouTube and as to how it may or may not support learning and teaching.

The idea is to engage a group of students around the culture of YouTube at the same time requiring them to use YouTube as one of the primary mechanisms for communication.

All classroom activity is uploaded to YouTube and the students are required to publish their own videos on a regular basis. From a conversation between Juhasz and Carvin: ““The class’s structure imitates that of YouTube, modeling its strengths and weaknesses,” she told me earlier this week. “It is an inflexible structure that nevertheless supports a high degree of user creativity. There are time limits and ever conventionalizing norms shaping video production as well as severe character limits on word usage. The vernacular of the site does not encourage complex written thought. It is a relatively democratic space with easy access for anyone who owns or has access to the technology. The range of materials on the site is growing but may not provide all we need to understand the very site itself.””

It’s not perfect especially in the quality of student created videos. But it is still early days and the comments attached to the videos are very interesting with both pro and negative views – some well argued and others less.

Check out the video below in which Juhasz introduces the course and the reasons behind it. They intend to look at the nature of community, information exchange, dialogue, copyright etc. all as constrained by YouTube. Worth keeping an eye on in case it develops into something more.

The first is a very brief article on youTube which mentions the possible learning teaching benefits.

A Teacher’s Tour of YouTube
By Chris O’Neal

“One critical issue to keep in mind when sharing and discussing these videos with your students is media literacy, including general Internet reliability. Are the videos truly what they say they are? Might some of these clips violate copyright? What constitutes “good” video?

My main concern in using any of these video sharing sites is that what makes it so powerful is also what makes it a tricky tool to use with ease. There are great discussions and commentary on many of the video clips, but those discussions are, for the most part, completely unfiltered and only mildly moderated. However, using and showing YouTube clips, then having your own classroom discussion about the clips, is an incredibly robust classroom tool. Working with students to create and upload their own videos is an even more powerful application. “

Full article

TeacherTube
By Chris O’Neal

The second article announces the launch of TeacherTube. This is basically a riff on YouTube which allows educators (mainly US school sector) to upload videos. Same basic functionality as YouTube in that videos can be embedded, commented on, tagged and shared. Only launched ion Marsh, but already popular. It will be interesting to see how it progresses.

I’ve found a few interesting examples ranging from 3D simulations, practical workshops through to straight forward to talking to the camera.

Obviously there’s more in the site itself (TeacherTube). Click on the ‘Top Rated’ heading to list the most popular videos.

Dr. Altman: Building a Laser Show Part 1

Literature Circles (straightforward talking to the camera)

Human Heart and Blood Flood

Full Article

TeacherTube

EDIT: I accidentally played all 3 videos at once. Apart from a surreal experience I couldn’t help wonder if this could be extended to education? For example a staff member talking to the screen and thus making eye contact as they narrate the contents of a second (or third!) video.

Highly interesting post of the possibility of social networks and knowledge sharing/choice/generation in the response to the need to the individual may or should lead universities to adopt likewise approaches towards education. It’s good read so please forgive the amount of quotes!

On the current context of social network and knowledge sourcing and generation: “My own book, Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide, describes a world where every story, image, sound, brand, and relationship plays itself out across the widest possible array of media platforms, and where the flow of media content is shaped as much by decisions made in teenagers’ bedrooms as it is by decisions made in corporate boardrooms.”

Interesting observation – temporary social networks: “They are able to do so because of the ways that new media platforms support the emergence of temporary social networks that exist only as long as they are needed to face specific challenges or respond to the immediate needs of their members.”

And on adhocracies (pools of experts with no rigid defined structure) in the university environment: “Now try to imagine what would happen if academic departments operated more like YouTube or Wikipedia, allowing for the rapid deployment of scattered expertise and the dynamic reconfiguration of fields. Let’s call this new form of academic unit a “YouNiversity.”"

And on the future: “To educate such students, we don’t so much need a faculty as we need an intellectual network. The program has a large pool of loosely affiliated faculty members who participate in an ad hoc manner depending on the needs and interests of individual students: Sometimes they may contribute nothing to the program for several years and then get drawn into a research or thesis project that requires their particular expertise. Our students’ thesis advisers come not only from other universities around the world but also from industry; they include Bollywood choreographers, game designers, soap-opera writers, and journalists. We encourage our students to network broadly and draw on the best thinking about their topic, wherever they can find it.”

On new forms of rapid and timely publication as opposed to relatively slower per reviewed process: “Academic programs are only starting to explore how they might deploy these new media platforms — blogs and podcasts especially — to expand the visibility of their research and scholarship. Consider, for example, the case of Flow, an online journal edited at the University of Texas at Austin. Flow brings together leading media scholars from around the world to write short, accessible, and timely responses to contemporary media developments: In contrast with the increasingly sluggish timetable of academic publishing, which makes any meaningful response to the changing media environment almost impossible, a new issue of Flow appears every two weeks.”

And finally on the part blogs can play: “Blogs represent a powerful tool for engaging in these larger public conversations. At my university, we noticed that a growing number of students were developing blogs focused on their thesis research. Many of them were making valuable professional contacts; some had developed real visibility while working on their master’s degrees; and a few received high-level job offers based on the professional connections they made on their blogs. Blogging has also deepened their research, providing feedback on their arguments, connecting them to previously unknown authorities, and pushing them forward in ways that no thesis committee could match. Now all of our research teams are blogging not only about their own work but also about key developments in their fields. We have redesigned the program’s home page, allowing feeds from these blogs to regularly update our content and capture more of the continuing conversations in and around our program. We have also started offering regular podcasts of our departmental colloquia and are experimenting with various forms of remote access to our conferences and other events.”

Full article

Web 2.0 not so user-generated after all?
By Reuters

Sobering and brief article on web 2.0 in terms of users viewing and adding their own content. 3 of the main web 2.0 sites are considered:

youTube: “A tiny 0.16 per cent of visits to Google’s top video-sharing site, YouTube, involve users seeking to upload video for others to watch, according to a study of online surfing data by Bill Tancer, an analyst with web audience measurement company Hitwise.”

Flickr: “Similarly, only two-tenths of one per cent of visits to Flickr, a popular photo-editing site owned by Yahoo!, are to upload new photos, the Hitwise study found.”

So as the report says the vast majority of internet suers can be likened to couch potatoes. People who like to watch rather than create. That said collaboratively created content sites such as wikipedia are prooving to be a different story.

Wikipedia: “Wikipedia, the anyone-can-edit online encyclopedia, is the one exception cited in the Hitwise study: 4.6 per cent of all visits to Wikipedia pages are to edit entries on the site.”

Which is very good. The report goes on to say that despite the above are still showing huge gains in internet traffic: “Visits by web users to the category of participatory web 2.0 sites account for 12 per cent of US web activity, up from only two per cent two years ago, the study showed.”

And: “Web 2.0 photo-sharing sites now account for 56 per cent of visits to all online photo sites. Of that, Photobucket alone accounts for 41 per cent of the traffic, Hitwise data shows.”"

This is backed by recent stats released by comScore, particularly regarding social networking and blog sites.

Social Networking and Major Consumer Sites See Marked Traffic Increases During the Month of March

comScore have released the latest stats growth for Feb/March. Social networking sites are showing huge gains.

“Several social networking sites showed notable gains in March, including Tagged.com, which became the UK’s biggest gainer with a 226-percent increase to more than 3 million visitors. In addition, Facebook.com grew 38 percent to 2.7 million visitors, and Six Apart sites grew 30 percent to 3.5 million visitors. Bebo.com grew 9 percent to 7.8 million visitors, and is the only one of these sites to be represented in the top 20 list.” Wikipedia by the way grew by 6% receiving 11.9 million UK unique visitors, (probably bad news for teachers who dont want their students to use the site).

More stats here

God introduction to web 2.0 or I should say e-learning 2.0 technology. The main focus is on using weblogs, video blogs (youTube) and image annotation (flickr).

A great introduction.

“The “new” web is already having an impact in class, as teachers start exploring the potential of blogs, media-sharing services, and other social software, which, although not designed specifically for e-learning, can be used to empower students and create exciting new learning opportunities. These same tools allow teachers to share and discuss innovations more easily and, in turn, spread good practice.”

This is a fantastic illustration of how to use Flickr in terms of image annotation. I’ve quoted it in full since it make good reading as a whole.

“Flickr (flickr.com), a web service that has already had various mentions in this journal, makes it very easy to publish and share images, with many possible uses – from being a place where students can publish and discuss digital photography to a way for students to find images relevant to a particular subject for use in their coursework.

It also has a lesser-known feature that has many potential uses for teaching and learning: the ability to add annotations to an image. Once an image has been published on Flickr, users can draw hotspots on the image and then attach a note to those hotspots. Then, whenever a user moves their cursor over any of the hotspots, the annotations appear.

Beth Harris, director of distance learning at the Fashion Institute of Technology, State University of New York, has used Flickr to enable her students to annotate and discuss a series of paintings as part of an online art history course.

“The problem when you teach online is that you can’t, for example, point to a part of a painting in the way you would in a face-to-face classroom,” she says. “So it occurred to me that I could use Flickr’s annotation function to have students engage more directly with the work of art itself.”"

So I’ve given this a go myself and annotated an image of myself and Paul Hudson meeting in Second Life. The image was uploaded to flickr late last year. I added the annotations to today. Click on the image* and (move your mouse cursor over the characters in the image. *you’ll be taken straight to Flickr.

This is a great feature for projects and field work. Imagine students talking photos with their mobile phone cameras and uploading them to flickr. They can then add further information through using the annotation feature. A further aspect is of course you can embed your images stored on Flickr into your blog (which is what I’ve done above, but note the annotations are not carried across).

So on to video blogging (via youTube).

From the article “…students were asked to research and produce a three-minute video blog entry on a new media technology of their choice – anything from the fashionable social networking website MySpace to MP3 players like the iPod.

“This meant they would not only be researching new media but also using it and, hopefully, get a better grasp of what it is and how it works,” says Fraser.”

“…each finished production was uploaded and published on the video-sharing website YouTube where it can be viewed and commented on by the wider YouTube community. Students were then required to re-publish their YouTube-hosted video on their own Blogger-based class weblog, a process that involves cutting and pasting a snippet of code from one service to the other.” And there are plenty of examples of this in this blog – most of the embedded videos are added in this manner.

2007 Horizon Report EDUCAUSE, The New Media Consortium (NMC)

Technologies to watch include:

User-Created Content
“Small tools and easy access have opened the doors for almost anyone to become an author, a creator, or a filmmaker.” This includes the likes of wikis (Wikipedia) and distributed video (youTube).
Social Networking
”Social networking may represent a key way to increase student access to and participation in course activities”. For example blogs and blogs which are linked to form a community of people interested in the same sort of ‘stuff’.
Mobile Phones
“From applications for personal safety, to scheduling, to GIS, photos, and video, the capabilities of mobile phones are increasing rapidly, and the time is approaching when these little devices will be as much a part of education as a bookbag.”
Virtual Worlds
“…present the chance to collaborate, explore, role-play, and experience other situations in a safe but compelling way”. For instance Second Life.
The New Scholarship and Emerging Forms of Publication
“New tools and new ways to create, critique, and publish are influencing new and old scholars alike”.
Massively Multiplayer Educational Gaming
“In the coming years, open-source gaming engines will lower the barrier to entry for developers, and we are likely to see educational titles along with commercial ones”.

The report covers each of these in more detail.

View Report