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Realising Dreams, Avoiding Nightmares, Accepting Responsibilities

A Workshop Held at the ALT-C 2009 Conference

About

Brian Kelly and Martin Weller facilitated a workshop session on Realising Dreams, Avoiding Nightmares, Accepting Responsibilities at the ALT-C 2009 conference which was held on 8-10th September 2009 in Manchester. The workshop session took place from 09.00-10.20 on Wednesday 9th September in room 1.219.

Further information about this session is available on the ALT-C 2009 Crowdvine site.

In addition a WetPaint wiki and a Cloudworks page were set up to keep notes of the session.

Also note that the Twitter hashtag for this session is "#s113". Please use this tag in conjunction with the event hashtags (#altc2009) if you wish to ensure tweets related to this session can be easily found and identified.

Abstract

Background

This workshop session on "Realising Dreams, Avoiding Nightmares, Accepting Responsibilities" will be facilitated by two experienced speakers who have taken an active role in exploiting a variety of Web 2.0 services in an open and participatory way.

The session will acknowledge that the dream of the empowered, personalised learner, who is happy to use tools at his/her disposal, uses them in an ethical way and is aware of risks would seem to be achievable. This vision would be supported by an institution which can respond accordingly, addressing risks when needed, providing the flexibility needed to exploit new opportunities and ensures that new media literacy skills are provided.

The workshop will start by setting out the techno-pedagogic utopian vision of the future learner and then seek to explore the practical issues it entails.

The workshop will explore the nightmares which could be encountered if naive approaches to realising the vision are taken.

The workshop will conclude by exploring the responsibilities which need to be accepted if the shared vision is to be achieved.

Ideas to be Explored

The workshop will provide an opportunity for participants to outline obstacles and barriers which might be envisaged in deploying innovative e-learning solutions. Approaches to addressing such barriers will be explored. Possible areas to be explored include:

  • Privacy
  • Access and the Digital Divide
  • Support
  • Robustness of IT services
  • Technical issues e.g. integration, monitoring
  • Pedagogy
  • Quality control

Intended Outcomes

By the end of the workshop participants will:

  • Be aware of risks associated with innovative e-learning applications which they may have not considered.
  • Have developed a better understanding of risk and opportunity management approaches which can be used.
  • Have considered the responsibilities which the various key stakeholders will need to address.
  • Have engaged actively with other participants.
  • Provide recommendations on how this work should continue to be addressed.

Timetable

Please note that the following timetable is liable to change.

Time Content Comments
09:00-09:10 Introduction Brian Kelly and Martin Weller
[PowerPoint] - [HTML]
09:10-09:20 What are your dreams? Small group activity by participants
09:20-09:30 Setting The Context Presentation on "The Dream" - {Martin Weller}
09:30-09:50 What of the nightmares? Small group activity by participants on barriers and obstacles to the dream
09:50-10:00 Report Back Group reporters
10:00-10:10 Addressing the Barriers; Accepting Responsibilities Presentation on "The Responsibilities" - {Brian Kelly}
[PowerPoint] - [HTML]
10:10-10:20 Group discussion All

Slides

Introduction
[PowerPoint] - [HTML]
Addressing the Barriers; Accepting Responsibilities
[PowerPoint] - [HTML]

Accompanying Video

A video of Martin Weller's talk (17 mins long) is available.

 

Accompanying Resources

For a list of related resources please see the del.icio.us social bookmarking Web site using the tag 'altc-2009-113'.

Twitter Posts about the Session

The session hashtag is "#s113". This can be used in conjunction with the conference hashtag: "#altc2009".

Note that an archive of use of the #s113 tag is available on the Twapperkeeper and WTHashtag services.

 

Twitter Archive

An archive of Tweets with the "#s113" hashtag was kept on the Twapper Keeper service. A local copy (in MS Excel format) is available.