Before the Deluge

every picture doesnt tell a story... witness

I took this at the start of the poster session, an hour later we had got rid of 100 leaflets and had spoken to loads of people who were really interested (ie really interested, not "really 'interested'") in what we had done with the Executive workshop. This would have made a brilliant pre conference workshop or conference session, but there you go...

looking california/ feeling minnesota

I went to Teaching and Learning in Two New Smart Classrooms: Research Findings on the Pedagogical Implications of Space Design first off. I saw the Crit chap from Georgia Tech who inspired much of the Adsetts extension poke his head in and was just setting off to pay homage when the session started. So I missed him, in fact he may even have been a phantom.

The speakers started off by attempting to transform the room into an innovative learning space, with quite a complicated activity. About 20 Koreans were all in a group up front receiving simultaneous translation and I was about as confused as they were. Overall the session confirmed that we are doing what we need to do with our evaluation of the Adsetts extension - any news about uptake gratefully received btw, but it was however you looked it based on old pedagogy - OK the teacher isnt at the front of the room, but they were still there. Our space is, I feel, an entirely different thing.

Answering the Value Question: Does Technology Impact Student Success

CIOs concerned with perceived value of all IT services
- study to profide evidence, examining the technology for student perspective across 16 community colleges in Maryland
- it investigated student skill levels, usage patterns, preferences for technology, value for students perspective

(eek - there must be 250+ people in the session)

Answering the value question:
This study is heavily based on ECAR study, Chickering and Gamson and drilling role of LMS. There are a lot of common elements in this session to what I'm going to talk about tomorrow. I'm wondering how unusual student use/expectation surveys really are any more. The speakers are making it sound as if they are doing something really different, but I don't think it is - I need to make sure I don't do the same thing tomorrow.

They haven't started talking about the focus of the session yet, they are claiming technology does impact upon student success but the study examines whether students like the features of technology, not correlated through to success. No they haven't looked at student performance impacts, no they aren't looking a representative sample, no they haven't considered anything other than student satisfaction. All the things that I thought the session was going to be about are all the things they would like to do in the future (but no plans as yet)

the human brain

first keynote - true to educause form - was scary the world you live in isn't one you recognise stuff - this time with the emphasis on the human brain and neurology. The speaker was great, really entertaining and clearly very knowledgeable. Not something that is easily captured on a blog but if you ask me f2f I'm sure I can bore you with how to solve pain issues in the phantom limbs of amputees with a $4 mirror, what happens to your skin when you see your mother that doesn't happen when you see a chair, how we can all read the martian alphabet and why people with synesthesia make better artists and poets.

Questions welcome but answers may be...er...limited

skywriting answer

I dont do points, I will leave that to Louise. I thought it was going to be something to do with Obama, but no, it was

yep - "God loves babies". so there you go.

Academic Analytics: Using Institutional Data to Improve Student Success

This was this morning's pre-conference workshop run by John Campbell and Kim Arnold from Pursue. The session was OK in many respects but sadly the basic premise was lost in translation. They did some very impressive statistical modelling to take a whole range of data sets to look for indicators of "at risk", identifying a particular model profile that was 80% successful in prediction "risk". They then applied this model (or a customised version of this model - more on this bit later) to a course weekly, giving students an early warning indicator (traffic lights) and using these to make interventions (email, sms, f2f) pointing them to additional support.

What was good - focus on actionable data, timeliness of interventions, proved (in their context) models were reasonably predictive, focus upon large first year modules.
What was more problematic - customised model for each course (ie module) - each one took approx 16hr per week, every week, in management, analysis and publication so 3 modules would be 1 FTE! (long-winded way of saying not scalable), not sure the very complex stats necessarily identified different students from those who might be identified through a couple of indicators (may be sledge-hammer to crack a nut), traffic lights - worked for them but I though yuck! likely to be very instrumental.

Their indicators were in 3 categories "educational prepareness" (another way of saying entry qualifications), "performance" (phase test results), "effort" (amount on time logged into VLE)
I'm gonna leave the last one for you to ponder cos most of you know my take on that sort of thing...except to say that they found it was the best predictive indicator of success, so my question would be thinking what we think and knowing what we know - how can that be?

Educause simulcasts

Live Simulcasts - Those unable to attend the EDUCAUSE 2008 Annual Conference are invited to watch General, Featured, and Point/Counterpoint Sessions virtually in live simulcasts sponsored by Sonic Foundry, an EDUCAUSE Silver Partner. Watch and ask questions at the Featured and Point/Counterpoint sessions.

I am just starting to understand this other game, but here's one for you....



I was trying to write an ADC paper this afternoon, and given that I can hear the groans from here at the words "I was trying to write an ADC paper this afternoon", I was gazing out of the window of the hotel room, looking for inspiration, and saw this very complicated skywriting thing going on...












"Kin y'giss worritis yet sport?" as Rolf would say.

Competition 2!!

As promised I'm gonna "borrow" the mLearn picture competition, with a little twist (at least to start with), you can choose pictures that represent blog post labels - 1pt per label represented picture, bonus points for good/funny explanations of images chosen, 3pts for images that represent pre-used portmateaus (so far you can have twitterii, advertorial, sheducause, emerologies, digent, twitzophrenic...) Come on, you know you want to!

btw in exciting development today, prizes may not be mackerel based afterall, I've manage to find something way koala (see what I did there?)

Arrived safely...

...and thinking there might be some kind of electoral process underway here at the moment - there has been the odd passing reference to it on the news - yes, I'm loving it.

Typical travel shenanigans and the sun is shining in the sunshine state. Conference starts tomorrow with pre-conference workshops, so the blog may be pretty quiet today as I get stuck in to usual Sheffield Hallam work stuff. Though I guess it is only polite to get one of the games kicked off.

Shumanteau II (the revenge of wordjam)
Guess the meaning of the following (very easy) warm ups

twitteratii
advertorial
sheducause

3 points for the correct answer, 2 point for any funny Educause/conference/SHU-related suggested translations, 1 point for a funny non-related suggestion.

Also there is 1 point available for any newly-made Educause/conference/SHU-related portmanteau.

Please note this is a public blog - so keep them nice ;-)

Getting started

OK, well here is the customary intro post - setting off early in the morning and glad I've remembered that the clocks go back tonight!! There will, of course, be postings of what's going on, interesting discoveries, challenging new session formats and, well yes, there may also be a little smackerel of blog-game-playing.