Mahara ePortfolio

This year's GDLM 1st years are having to do a combined eLearning and Dimensions of Learning course, part of which is setting up an ePortfolio. I've offered to help tutor for the subject since I really liked the eLearning component last year and it's been pretty fun so far (albeit a bit lacking in time due to work commitments and my own assignments). I'd fiddled with a couple of the ePortfolio systems before, including the Mahara demo, and lamented about the lack of attribution that is currently on offer.

I finally bit the bullet over the weekend and set up my own ePortfolio over at Netspot (CQU shadow system). After using the system for a while it seems a little easier to get around the interface, but the integration to Moodle is the closest thing to attribution I can see. Going to have to dig into how they are doing it to see if there's any fundamental point of validation that can be translated to other web groups/organisations.

Accelerating to 100

I made a guesstimate in the post about slow drivers regarding the time it takes to accelerate back up to 100 from a stop to join back in the traffic. The guesstimate of 10 seconds was based off my own evaluation of how far away a car would be before I'd decide to pull out from a standing start, and then relating that distance to the time based method used for shadowing cars. I'd guessed that about 6 seconds would be the limit for me, so about 10 seconds would be comfortable for most people.

10 seconds sounds a short amount though. Most cars wouldn't accelerate to 100 in 10 seconds comfortably, but while you're accelerating away you are also putting distance between you and the car behind. So how much time is gained by the increase in speed? Some quick math:

100km/h = 27.2m/s (since we're going to be working in seconds)
Assuming constant acceleration to reach 100km/h in 10 seconds, you'd get a graph like this:


The actual distance travelled is the area under the graph, which, as it's a right triangle is simply length*breadth/2.
= 27.7m/s*10s/2
= 138.8m

The approaching car has another 138 metres to cover, which it can do in distance/speed.
= 138.8m / 27.7m/s
= 5s

5 seconds, or exactly half the time. That's what I thought immediately, but a couple of math dead-ends while watching the footy had me looking up all sorts of parabolic complexities.

So with 1/2 the time given back to the merging driver, that would mean my guess of a 6 second gap for merging would mean going from 0-100 in 12 seconds. That's achievable even in my corolla, but doubling the 10 second gap to 20 seconds for 0-100 certainly sounds achievable by the majority of the population. Can't seem to find any average acceleration for general driving conditions tho :/

So that's for merging, the same goes for rejoining from pulling over. The time lost compared to continuing on at the driver's original speed is the time taken to get to the original speed minus the time it would have taken to cover the distance used to get to that speed. So, the same result. 1/2 the time. 20 seconds to get back up to speed means you have only lost 10 seconds. This also goes for decelerating, so the figures of 10 seconds for deceleration, 10 seconds for letting them pass, and 10 seconds to rejoin would seem highly achievable.

Let them Pass

Mum & Dad came down last night for the Maundy Thursday service and mentioned the huge amount of traffic on the road over breakfast. Why is it that when there's lots of people on the road you always seem to get stuck in a massive lineup behind someone doing 80 on the highway? I lamented too that it's actually inconsiderate of the slow drivers to not pull over and let them pass. This builds on the 2nd of 2 driving principles: Be aware, Be Courteous.

It suddenly struck me that you should be able to calculate WHEN you should pull over depending on the speed and number of people following. If you are trying to maximize the trip for everyone, then it's simply when the cost of pulling over is less than the loss of time by everyone behind.

First, the cost of pulling over. I'd guess that 30 seconds would be a reasonable figure. That gives 10 seconds lost while braking, 10 seconds to let the traffic past, and 10 seconds to get back up to speed. I reckon I could get under way and get up to speed with a car 6 seconds away, so 10 should be comfortable.

Second, the cost of the people behind. If the person in front was doing 90km/h and the people behind were travelling at 100km/h, the difference is 10km/h of lost 'time'. The ratio of current speed to desired speed difference is therefore 90km/h : 10km/h , or 9:1. So a 30 second loss in 'time' through difference in speeds therefore translates to 4 & 1/2 minutes of driving time by the lead driver. At 90km/h that would translate to almost 7kms of road.

That seems reasonable. ~5minutes following someone over 7kms would have at least a couple of opportunities to pass. If someone was stuck behind me for that long I'd consider looking for ways to let them pass.

Now lets look at someone doing 80km/h with 4 cars behind them wanting to go 100km/h.

80km/h : 20km/h * 5
8 : 10
24secs : 30secs

~20 seconds before you are inconveniencing the people behind you more than the 30 second effort to get off the road. In other words, you're an inconsiderate driver if you don't pull over at the next opportunity.

Keep in mind this has nothing to do with the amount of passing lanes, the amount of pull-in spots, whether you're going 80 and the guy behind only wants to do 90, it's purely about maximizing the journey of all participants. It's about being considerate of all travellers, not just yourself.

Sorrow and Love flow mingled down

Good Friday, 2009.
Heading to church I was humming the tune to 'When I survey the wondrous cross'. Maybe we sung it last night? I was pleasantly surprised that it was one of the first hymns off the blocks and sung it with gusto. Not sure why, but a line really struck me from the 3rd verse:

Sorrow and love flow mingled down

I began to think how well it was constructed. The vision set up like blood gushing from a crushed Jesus, but it's not blood, it's sorrow. Sorrow for the people around him, sorrow for the disciples who have fled. And mixed with anger? No, Love. How could you still love when you're hung up to die? When the weight of the world's sin is piling up on your shoulders?

I didn't get to sing the rest of the verse. I couldn't.

When the slide changed to the final verse, I read ahead and found my voice. I needed to sing, to state the response that flooded me.

Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.

EDIT: Found a Good Friday sermon based off the verse.

BzBzBzBzBzBzBzBz HDD

Another wired error with 2 student machines. They kept failing to load with either a black screen, a windows system error, Blue screen, or getting into windows after a very long time. Reghosting the machines seemed to work once or twice, but they'd invariably start their old trick again. Popped into the BIOS on one of them and noticed the 80Gb HDD being picked up as a 571Gb HDD called "BzBzBzBzBzBzBzBz".

It looked an easy sequence to google up, but there weren't any real answers apart from it's stuffed. (Even happening on an XBox, so there goes my theory of a virus).

Since it seemed to work sometimes I knew it wasn't totally fried, but it did indicate that it might be a physical issue. I opened up the case and saw that the SATA cable was jammed a bit into the slimline case. Replugging it into a more open SATA port on the mobo had it immediately detect and boot fine. Couple more tests to make sure it's not another red herring ...

Toshiba A10 BSOD on standby mode

Been tracking a particularly weird problem with the new A10's here at St Luke's: All seem to crash upon entering standby mode. An easy workaround was to turn off standby mode, except you can't do it as a normal user, so they all now have admin rights. Since it was also repeatable directly off Toshiba's XP downgrade disk, I poked around for a couple of weeks testing different combinations.

Finally found a solution that's repeatable: Disable all network cards in management console, then reboot, then re-enable them again. No idea why that would fix it. I was on my way to enabling them one at a time to see if it was a specific card, but once all of them were enabled and the problem was still gone, I tested it again on the SOE image and it definitely works.

Web 2.0 and Your Own Learning and Development

I've been circling around Stephen Downes' work over the past 2 years while digging into eLearning concepts for my GDLT course. I'm sure I've seen his name on a number of articles and comments, but never really felt the urge to chase them up. Today (gesh, yesterday now, sun's rising) I had a talk to Scot about ePortfolios which lead to my lament about their current state. During my conversation Stephen's name came up again as an example of authority via attribution. Now, during a browse of David Jones' site and following a related link to a connectivism course assignment, Stephen pops up as the course coordinator! Too many coincidences to not follow up, so I checked out his website and stumbled on the very thing I've been trying to get my head around during this past year: PLEs are not just for my future students, they are for me too...



This is awesome! Exactly what I'd been thinking crystallized into a neat package. I'm excited!

Inspired to comment more and link more, here's a rundown of my thoughts on the topics presented in the video:

Not online courses of formal development, but rather how to use the new tools (Web2.0) to enhance your own learning

I've been a little disappointed with the blackboard software used for the GDLT. It offers most of the things that I think I want (linkable content, discussion, grading, peer review), but somehow it does't deliver them in an efficient manner. On the flipside I've found that through more targeted use of RSS, Delicious, blogs and blog comments, I have grown my own network to research this eLearning phenomenon. Bring it on, focus on me!

3 Principles: Interaction, Usability, Relevance

Interaction: For me I'm finding out that I'm more and more a social learner. I want to talk to people and I want to listen to their ideas. One of the courses this year had a tutorial session for on-campus students. The video of this session was far more approachable than the 3 weeks of reading about and around the subject matter, and made a lot of things fall into place. I felt jealous that I couldn't participate fully in a face-to-face session.
Usability: I agree in general about things being useful if they are simple to use and reliable, but not really grabbing me yet.
Relevance: This reminded me of a brief conversation with Ron on the way home from Shed Men tonight regarding how to do effective Google searches. Once you have built up a skill of effective googling (so that you almost always get the exact thing you were looking for as the top link on your search), it changes the way you treat knowledge into facts (retrievable) and application (mashup, analyse/reject alternatives, apply).

Interaction: Human contact, Human content

Exactly! I want to learn, I crave learning. Face to face contact is the best method of getting someone's ideas and perspective from their mind to mine. When we communicate we are always on the lookout for feedback as to whether the receiver is understanding it, or whether you need to explain it from a different angle, or whether you can skip ahead to the next section. Greater interaction breeds faster communication.

Place yourself, not the content at the centre

Lectures relying on a broadcast model is so true. It cuts down on the interaction, but I believe it elevates the human content. It allows the presentation of an idea in a prepared manner, rather than in a fluent conversation. You would hope that the preparation of the content makes it easier to transmit the original concept. I do see exactly what Stephen's talking about though; instead of relying on the content delivery from an educational institution, put in the effort to organize it around you.

I've been feeling recently that my attitude to the GDLT course has gone through just this process. My notion of an academic institution used to be one of an authority without question. They are there to educate; You do the things they tell you to get the piece of paper. That was different to chasing up on my hobbies and interests, even if my hobby was closely aligned to the content at in the course. Placing yourself at the centre rather than the content means that YOU take charge of the direction of learning in the area of interest rather than the direction of the coursework. This difference becomes evident once the coursework is completed. If the content is at the centre of your learning environment then when you replace the content (to do another course) the rest of your learning network goes out the window with it. If you are at the centre of learning the topic, that network can remain even though the coursework is long gone. Life long learning here we come!

Interaction: Your personal network

Lots of tools to use for setting up your personal network. Most of them I use already to a greater or lesser extent. I think the key here is the purposeful use of the tools to create a learning environment rather than just a social medium.

An example is RSS. I have used RSS in some form since it's inception, but mainly from backend processing. I knew of RSS readers and their capabilities, but never really found them to be all that useful because not every page supported RSS. This undermined the intention of a reader to be the main point of contact with the net. During last year I set up Google Reader to start aggregating websites I found interesting for the GDLT course. It took about 6 months before I noticed a change in my perception of Google Reader. Instead of being a tool to track websites for the course (since I was no longer doing that subject), it became a tool for tracking my areas of interest. The trick is to follow smart people that challenge you to think. This purposeful use of the technology transformed it from a tool for delivering content to you, to a place where I'm challenged to learn every day.

Interaction: Pull is better than Push

To me this is the key to engagement learning. If you can convince someone that they need to seek out the answer, they are much more receptive when the answer is provided. Pull means they have a need for the information, whereas push may or may not hit the mark of what they were expecting to learn.

Interaction: Speak in your own voice

I've certainly known for a long time that I can communicate more effectively face to face, or failing that, a phonecall. I've tried doing podcasts etc, but Stephen gives me more conviction that I should be trying harder to communicate via voice, especially recording voice instead of just sitting here typing it down.

After Showing Sandy the first part of this article and illustrating how she could use web2.0 to construct a PLE around Digiscrapping, I also indicated that she could be recording her own thoughts about how she made each piece to potentially help others. In reply to the answer "That'd be too long!", I thought that voice recording would be an alternative with a paragraph or 2 as a summary for the blog. Reflective learning and all that.

Interaction: Share your Knowledge

I like the sentiment, but I think that a lot of people (like Sandy) feel that there's no point in sharing because nobody with find value in what they have to say. I know that when I started this blog there was no real desire to be famous or to publish, but just to get my thoughts down somewhere searchable (and to practice typing). It reminds of a quote I heard at the start of one of the subjects this year that "any data is useful if it can be managed" (searchable, taggable, mashable).

Interaction: Make it a priority / habit

Yes, something I need to do better. I'm just starting out in validating the process in my own mind, but the procrastinator in me is going to be a lifelong enemy...

Interaction: Guerilla Tactics

Yeah baby! This is really the clincher for me. Why bother whinging about the lack of interaction on Blackboard when you could easily set up a wetpaint / wikispaces / ning group and launch off again. I think it's still a hangover from sitting back and expecting the Uni to take the lead.

This year I went to the Reso college with a direct need to set up partnerships with other students or a Bundy study group. 2 months later I still haven't talked to anyone apart from the Blackboard forums, so I'd say that I'm failing at guerilla warfare so far. Maybe I need more conviction to take the lead in setting up my own support group, or maybe others either don't have the knowhow to take the initiative, or maybe they don't care? I doubt any of the first year's would have had the same determination as I did at the start of the year (not knowing what's on offer), or have the technical knowhow that I do on all the Web2.0 technologies, or have the interest to search out things like this video, so maybe Guerilla warfare is a LOT harder than it sounds...

Usability: Consistency, Simplicity

As a contract programmer there are some basic interface tenets behind these 2 elements. A good user interface shares a lot of the properties of communication tools because they are trying to achieve the same thing: to let the information flow. You should be able to intuitively do what you want, when you want. A good usable tool facilitates this, rather than getting in the way.

Usability: Summarize, summarize, summarize

Back to that quote again. All data is valuable once it is in a manageable form. Summarizing makes the data more valuable by providing even more context for searchability & mashability. Delicious does this with aplomb as it is trivial to tag multiple relevances according to what others have already tagged it, or your own personal take, or your own comments. It all depends on exactly what you want to remember it by / communicate it by and your care factor. If you don't care that much about tagging it's still dead simple to +d, click, click, click and you're done. All the effort of adding value is taken away so that it increases the perception of worth once you start relying on the data down the track.

Usability: Guerilla Tactics - Your institutional CMS is almost certainly dysfunctional

Ahahahahaha! My thoughts exactly. All the bits, but somehow it just doesn't work. Definitely a usability issue.

Blogging: The people who talk about blogs as publishing, they're the ones getting it wrong

Well, I certainly agree with the sentiment that a blog is simply a place for notes, but I think organized blogging also has its place. They've hijacked the medium and made it something different, but I don't think they are wrong in doing that.

Flickr: They have creative commons licensing

Never really used Flickr because the pictures I wanted to share are easier / more contextual inside a blog post. Didn't know that you can tag a photo specifically for CC use though, that might sway me right there.

GMail: Create a gmail account and forward important mails to it

I'm finding that it's even more useful to have multiple gmail accounts for backing up different mail addresses, then filtering them through to one account for display / regular mail use. Best thing about gmail is the spam filtering and the archiving. Hotmail recently released pop3 support so that will be one of the last emails to be integrated into the system. The one remaining is my university account that only seems to have IMAP support. Need to look for an IMAP to pop pipe...

Google Desktop

Tried using it when it came out, but it still impacts too much processing time compared to the once-a-month search I needed it for. With more and more things going to the web I see this is less and less as a needed tool. Seemed like a good idea though...

Relevance: Getting what you want - RSS

Agree now, but there are still webpages that don't have RSS. I'm still looking for an RSS subscription for Stephen's daily newletter. It might be there, but it's not obvious yet. (and no, I don't want to subscribe by mail if I can help it, it's part of my primary learning environment, but my chore basket for work)

Edit: I take all that back, not only did I find Stephen's feed sitting on the main page, but subscribing wasn't working because it was already in my list kinda feel really foolish now.

Google reader definitely comes into its own once you have more than around 50 feeds, but my unread postcount will forever stay at (1000+). I've even had to make a "_critical" tag for feeds that I absolutely must check each time I'm logging on, regardless of the different fields of interest that I have.

Relevance: shun formal classes

I've had this urge to do almost exactly that. A couple of the comments and thoughtful discussions I've had have been in Blackboard forums. If I want to link to these now or refer to them 5 years later I can't because that information is locked up in a closed system. I'm in the process of putting together an ePortfolio and am keen on using it to replicate assignments / poignant discussions for future relevance. That or plonk it on here, which was my first thought before getting fired up on ePortfolios.

Relevance: Demand access

I really don't like demanding, why not request it? Where'd common courtesy go? I'm a systems admin and if someone presented a valid arguement why they feel they need a certain technology then I'd most likely agree unless there are factors that they have not considered. Shadow systems and backchannels are all well and good, but demanding you purposely subvert the system is a little much.

You are at the centre of your own Personal Learning Network

Check.

To gain from self-directed learning you must be self-directed

I'm dawning on the idea that the purposeful construction of your own network to follow challenging ideas is the key to self-directed learning. I know I'm self-directed in my own social network and I'm involved in formal learning, but this makes the link between the two for me.

These principles should guide how we teach

It's a little scary thinking that, as a prospective teacher, kids will demand what whey want to learn next. Does every child have the discipline to know what they want? To do the English studies instead of the ball sports? In my vision of a virtual learning environment, each student will have a learning manager assigned to them (guidance officer?) that helps them build a learning plan through the units available with the knowledge of parental desires, societal desires, societal needs and the kid's personal preferences. Not exactly self-directed, but as much self-direction as possible.

Hopefully the upshot is increased engagement. If the student feels in control of their learning network, they are the ones looking for answers and ready to be lifted to the next level.

e.Portfolio Attribution

We're now looking into e.Portfolios for the GDLT course as a way of documenting our learning journey and a step toward an ICT Pedagogical License. Scot has recommended Mahara, an ePortfolio system coming out of the New Zealand higher education system, or possibly WetPaint in a roundabout way.

The problem I see with both of these systems (and also the Moodle and Sakai implementations) is that they are light on the attribution from others. It's all well and good to just write up a resume' about all the wonderful things you did, but with an ePortfolio you have the ability to interact with the institutions and organizations providing accreditation in a direct sense. Here's a vision of what I'd like to see in an ePortfolio:

The Vision
I want to be able to write a document about a certain topic and link it to my ePortfolio (either by directly hosting it in the ePortfolio system or linking to its original point on the net). I then want to make this artifact available for others in a group, or individually, or publically. Then I want others to be able to comment on the document, respond to the document with a document of their own, or rate the document (like a kudos in Slashdot). Rating relies on the authority granted to the person doing the rating. Anyone can rate anything, but the more influential the voter the higher its significance. If the document is for contribution to a group, the group moderator (or a consensus of the group) can give a group rating instead of an individual rating. This means that the group itself has attributed this article worth rather than an individual voice. This can be extrapolated to more and more official 'groups', such as submitting a document as an assignment for a University course with the course moderator (eg: lecturer / marker) attributing a rating on behalf of the course itself, or combining multiple grades from different courses to give a certificate by the University.

Ownership of Attribution
As with kudos or comments, the ownership of the attribution stays with the originator. So if someone makes a comment on your document they still retain ownership of those comments, but grant the recipient the right to display that comment alongside the article as an attached artifact. Even giving a rating is still attribution and retains the ownership to the rating giver, but transfers the right to display the attribution alongside the document.

Validating Attribution
Collected ratings could also be used to develop another view demonstrating achievement in a certain discipline. Instead of writing up a Curriculum Vitae as a static web page or a collection of personally typed text, each achievement is automatically able to be validated by following the attribution back to the giver. Even if the attribution is a summary of multiple achievements, it should be possible to provide a view to those achievements built by the summary maker, giving a chain extending right back to the material that demonstrates each facet of the overall achievement.

A Framework of Achievement
With an expedient method of attribution and an easy method to validate the attribution givers, you could construct a framework of course units where each unit requires a set of demonstrated skills for acceptance, and provides a set of demonstrated skills once completed through attribution. Once an established framework of units are tied simply to the existence of demonstrated skills, it allows multiple units to operate in parallel to deliver those skills, but potentially change the method of delivery.

Imagine a unit for trigonometry where it is designed with graphs and diagrams aimed at visual learners running alongside another unit with a more verbal, story centred approach. Both could deliver the same demonstrated skills (achievement in trigonometry) but give the learner the flexibility of choosing their preferred path of learning. If, through the course of one unit the student is creating artifacts that demonstrate another discipline, those artifacts can be presented through another view as prior learning evidence once they take on the new discipline.

Breaking down the Barriers of Authority
Although it may seem that the authority required for official attribution would be prohibitive, the ability for anyone to grant attribution means that more can be done with peer relationships and semi-authorative sources. Peers in the same unit would be encouraged to comment and rate other people's documents as part of a reflective process. These peer ratings can help guide an authorative source, or even provide enough weight on their own for unit completion. People who have already completed the unit confer more credibility with their rating, which gives rise to a mentor / tutor position of attribution. This not only helps the pupil, but may establish an easy channel for people to become authorative sources in their own right. Through correct ratings and comments, a mentor can demonstrate a higher level of critical thinking that can in turn gain attribution of excellence in the subject.

Attribution by anyone also opens up the possibility of groups with no known authority developing their own layers of authority through meritocracy. An example of this would be Flickr where, through attribution, people's photos are ranked in many different ways. If someone gains a following through good photos, they can carry more authority when attributing a positive comment on another's photo as many more people will also then look at that photo. At a layer up, groups have spontaneously formed where their authority is purely on the strength of the service they provide to their members in finding pictures that fit the group's criteria.

Back to Reality
Somehow this ePortfolio system mashed its way into my vision of virtual reality. I guess that's a good thing as I've been wondering what the first steps could be to implement such a system. As a starting point though, I feel it's definitely worth the time collating all the documents, blog posts, web sites & videos that I have been given official attribution for already (read: Uni assignments). I doubt I'll be able to get the original attributers to give a digital attribution, but I could make placeholder artifacts until that day arrives.

Slashdot not so April fooled

Slashdot released MMO like achievements for their April fools joke, but even Taco may have indicated it's here to stay in some form:

Truthfully, achievements can serve a nice function to the site: we actually intend to use a few of them for legitimate purposes, starting with tutorial type functions: all major parts of Slashdot have an corresponding achievement, so getting them all requires you to explore much of the site's functionality

gBall

The latest April joke from Google:
gBall

Nice that it's an Aussie touch. I particularly like the look on the guy's face in the testimonials: "Bloody brilliant. I was out during lunch, kicking with my mates and I let a couple rip from 60 metres out. The gBall vibrated and I've now got an agent."