Leveraging Web 2.0 within a University Setting

1. Leveraging Web 2.0 within a University Setting Contact : Michael.Begg@ed.ac.uk Michael BeggLearning Technology SectionCollege of Medicine and Veterinary MedicineUniversity of Edinburgh

2. Leveraging Web 2.0 within a University Setting Scene Setting with mixed metaphors Jumping through round holes with square pegs MedBiquitous 2007 :: Baltimore

3. Leveraging Web 2.0 within a University Setting Is this happening? Local Evidence • Teachers negotiating contracts with mobile device vendors to avoid having to deal with institutional systems • Teachers regularly pointing students to external resources of their own making; sites, repositories, blogs… • Students now able to aggregate learning environments of their own • Developers using development and staging servers to host collaborative environments not supported by centralised resources • Institutions remain keener to submerge costs into management process than either teaching or learning The suggestion being… • There is rich activity, there is innovation, there is excitement • Ungoverned by central process • Our CoPs are becoming increasingly partisan in nature MedBiquitous 2007 :: Baltimore

4. Leveraging Web 2.0 within a University Setting Under the skin Getting under the skin… Let us consider the issues within the environmental frameworks of political alignment and personal construction… MedBiquitous 2007 :: Baltimore

5. Leveraging Web 2.0 within a University Setting Positions Institutions… • eLearning increasingly embedded, but open to individual interpretation • Institutions now reliant upon technocracy for increased activity, increased numbers, increased distances • Growth of “managerialist” “top down” “centralist” processes • Often overbearing - and largely unsubstantiated - caution over committed implementation of user-centred technologies MedBiquitous 2007 :: Baltimore

6. Leveraging Web 2.0 within a University Setting Positions Web 2.0 • Definition open to interpretation, few standards • Powerful corporations steer the democratisation of content • Implementation “hype-cycle”… but a lot of good work out there! MedBiquitous 2007 :: Baltimore

7. Leveraging Web 2.0 within a University Setting Alignment and Orientation - personal and political Personal Constructs MedBiquitous 2007 :: Baltimore

8. Leveraging Web 2.0 within a University Setting Alignment and Orientation - personal and political Political alignment : VLE (www.politicalcompass.org) MedBiquitous 2007 :: Baltimore

9. Leveraging Web 2.0 within a University Setting Alignment and Orientation - personal and political Political alignment : VLE & Institution MedBiquitous 2007 :: Baltimore

10. Leveraging Web 2.0 within a University Setting Alignment and Orientation - personal and political Political alignment : Institution & Blog MedBiquitous 2007 :: Baltimore

11. Leveraging Web 2.0 within a University Setting Alignment and Orientation - personal and political Political alignment : Institution & Wiki MedBiquitous 2007 :: Baltimore

12. Leveraging Web 2.0 within a University Setting Alignment and Orientation - personal and political Political alignment : Students and Facebook MedBiquitous 2007 :: Baltimore

13. Leveraging Web 2.0 within a University Setting Alignment and Orientation - personal and political Political alignment : eLearning MedBiquitous 2007 :: Baltimore

14. Leveraging Web 2.0 within a University Setting Local Leverage Leveraging within CMVM Edinburgh • The quiet dissolving of the VLE • Its actually becoming a VLE! • Wikis formally assessed in teaching, offered as personal and collaborative repositories for students, deployed as research sandpits • Blogs for every user • Wiki / Labyrinth as dynamic knowledgebase with context enforcement • Flexible Vocabularies MedBiquitous 2007 :: Baltimore

15. Leveraging Web 2.0 within a University Setting Leverage Process and flexibility • Web 2.0 has brought a lot of people together - some of us are here! • Few standards - but relative simplicity • The joined up thinking can be retrospective • The speed of building (the ease of “editorial inheritance”) • Service Layers • The absorption of “e” into teaching, learning and research • Business models emerging in distance learning • Political incompatibilities - once exposed - offer a framework for • Compromise? Reconciliation? Reflection and improvement? • Educational Informatics • Professional, informed, pedagogically grounded • Creative Commons MedBiquitous 2007 :: Baltimore

16. Leveraging Web 2.0 within a University Setting Possible Worlds A common April • New democratic tools being offered by multinational corporations • To institutions who love the idea but cannot get under the skin • While partisans work beneath the radar to provide “good stuff” • To a user-base more interested in getting their certificate of attendance than learning anything • And a teacher base unprepared to engage with students within the students own adopted learning envronments MedBiquitous 2007 :: Baltimore

17. Leveraging Web 2.0 within a University Setting Possible Worlds An uncommon April • Federated systems, negotiated, licensed, mapped, proximal • New relationships between local and institutional level provision • A negotiated environment for mutual feedback and evaluation in learning environments • An environment of process, as well as content MedBiquitous 2007 :: Baltimore

18. Thank You! Contact : Michael.Begg@ed.ac.uk

19. Leveraging Web 2.0 within a University Setting xxx xxx • xxx MedBiquitous 2007 :: Baltimore