Penny’s Discoveries @ Murdoch

Welcome!

My name is Penny Coutas and I am an EdD Candidate in the School of Education. My research involves exploring the use of ICTs for learning and teaching Languages in Western Australian government high schools. My main research website is at http://www.exploringthehyper.net, which should be up and running shortly! I’ll be posting interesting websites, tools, and resources to this blog as I come across them during my studies at Murdoch. To access the blog feed and subscribe, click here. If you wish to contact me, please do! I’d love to hear from you. Email p.coutas [at] murdoch.edu.au

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Following a Conference

Reading my public blog posts it may seem that all I do is report on conferences after the fact. I generally do take the time to sit, process, reflect, and write after these intensive events and this is the result. I am doing the same for my own research, but it is on a private “backchannel” (more on backchannels in a moment). My next blog post will be about my work in progress, but until then, here is another conference report.

I attended Educause Australasia on May 04 and 05 in Perth, my home city. Educause is a non-profit organisation “…whose mission is to advance higher education by promoting intelligent use of information technology.” And so although it was not entirely aligned with my own research interests, being very-much K-12 focused, it was still relevant because I am a higher education student engaging with information technologies in order to undertake my research and studies. In other words, I am practicing what “they” are preaching, and exploring how the theory works in practice (on a shoestring student budget).

Many of the streams of the conference were obviously aimed towards the “senior decision makers” identified on the conference website blurb. The high registration fees also made this a somewhat exclusive event, and perhaps had an impact on attendance numbers. I was lucky to receive a student registration to the conference, and this enabled me to give a poster presentation on my own work in progress and also be part of a panel presentation entitled Personal Learning Environments: What Works for Librarians, representing the library-user voice.

View the Google Docs presentation here

Our presentation was very well received. I had only met one of the other panel members in person before the conference as we had done our planning as a group over two Skype sessions. During the first session, we set up a wiki site to aid our planning, and in second a presentation using Google Docs which we edited during the Skype call. I then “prettied it up” later on, but kept the slide content the same. PowerPoint/slide presentations are a useful way to structure and plan a presentation, and helps get presenters into “presentation space”. Google Docs is a great way of managing/facilitating this “space” for a group effort, even if it does not end up being used. I edited the slides during the presentation itself based on audience responses to our question, “What do you want to know?” We then revisited those questions towards the end of our “chat”. In fact, the audience were our co-presenters throughout the panel presentation and made it both interactive and dynamic. Our presentation was more of a discussion in this way, and it is a format I would like to repeat.

The "backchannel" during our "PLE for Librarians" presentation

The image above is taken from the CoverItLive recording of the second day of the conference relayed through http://librariansinteract.info. Using CoverItLive was a new experience for me. I was vaguely familiar with the tool, having heard about it in the blogosphere, but had never used it as a participant. CoverItLive works by having streams of content from a variety of sources fed into the one place for presentation/embedment in a blog/website/wiki/etc. It is also possible to update from the CoverItLive tool itself, and respond to comments/questions from people who may be “listening in” (”viewing in?”) remotely.

CoverItLive was a convenient way to manage a filtered backchannel during the conference. Twitter * was used by many of the conference participants, and although the official #edaust09 tag helped manage the conversations (we trended under “swine flu” and above “Wolverine” at one stage!), tweets were both formal and informal, and sometimes difficult to keep up with. CoverItLive made the conversations (more) manageable for relaying conference plenaries and concurrent sessions. At times I found myself physically in one presentation but following another! That said, use of Twitter enabled a sense of community and comradeship (”I’m on my way to #edaust09″; “Looking forward to #edaust09″; etc.) and helped speed up and strengthen the formulation of new frolleagues and so the combination of the two was very effective for me.

Much has been said about the benefits and disadvantages of formal and informal backchannels during conferences, especially Twitter. It is only recently that they have become more normalised, however, and only a few years ago I would feel very much like a naughty school child “playing up” at the back of the room whilst using them. In my view, participation in a backchannel represents more on-task engagement than off, and a deeper engagement with the proceedings than would otherwise be possible: one is commenting and reflecting in situ for a particular audience. However, I also found backchannel participation during #edaust09 quite demanding and that it represented surface-level learning. I found myself relaying information rather than commenting or critiquing it, and that I had no time to write my own notes. The notes I took were intended for others, and I missed the meta-note-taking that I usually write: the notes about my notes and the jotting of ideas as they occur, sparked by something in a presentation. Many conference tweets were similar: we relayed the main points; made comments about presentation style; organised meet-ups and lunches; and threw in a few quick polls. Critical discussion of issues and themes presented in the sessions rarely occurred. That said, this was not unique to the backchannel: questions were rarely asked “in real life” either. This is where the skills of a moderator, “critical friend,” or provocateur would come in handy - someone needs to ask the hard questions either in real life or in the virtual one, or both.

It was an intensive two days for me, and a very worthwhile experience. The content may not have been new, but the process of participation and engagement certainly was.

Posted in Conferences | 1 Comment »

Software that makes you go “Wow”

I spend a lot of time checking out new software as it comes across my feeds and can pretty quickly decide if it’s something I’d find useful/not (especially in terms of classroom technologies). Sometimes new software / upgrades really makes me sit up and go “wow”. iTunes DJ is one of those, and quite unexpectedly so.

I upgraded iTunes yesterday and didn’t bother to look at what it’d done until today. iTunes DJ opened up and I thought, OK, yeh, cool, I can create playlists from my phone without having to go to my computer. I currently have AirTunes set up (it plays my iTunes through my speakers in another room wirelessly) and I’ve been using my iPhone as a remote for it for a while. But now guests can request songs and vote on the order they should be played in via their own iPhone or iPod Touch without having full passcode access.

This makes me take a step back and go, “Wow”.

I used to play music in my classroom all the time - Indonesian music, that is. And I’d always be in control of it. But it’d be great to have my students vote on the songs they’d like to hear (all in the target language, of course!). That’s awesome.

Also at parties - very cool to have your guests contribute to the playlist. Or in a restaurant? Or a pub?

Lots of possibilities. Simple feature, lots of fun.

Posted in Classroom technology | No Comments »

The importance of (good) data management

I know, I know. It’s important to be organised during any project whether it be home renovations, cooking a lamb roast, going to a concert, or conducting fieldwork for research. It will go a lot more smoothly (and be more useful) if you plan, conduct and keep it organized as you go.

I didn’t do this very well during my fieldwork. I was observing classes, interviewing and recording teachers, taking videos and photos, collecting documents, etc. etc. and then dumping this data into the “in tray” or the “to do” tray (where “tray” might also be a folder on my desktop). So now I’m having to revisit all of my data, figure out what it is (oh how I wish I had labeled all those video tapes!!), make it digital (if it’s not already), and then archive it meaningfully.

The upside of doing it all at once is that my taxonomy (folksonomy?) is relatively consistent in my archiving. The downside? There’s just so much of it to do. I fully intended to do it as I went along, but just didn’t. There was the potential to be blogging from my iPhone, but I didn’t do this very much. There was also the potential to upload fieldnotes and photos as soon as I downloaded them to my computer, but I didn’t do this very much either. This was mainly due to not having my archive set up (properly) in advance (and, indeed, the “front end” is still not set up) and being flat-out with the act of fieldwork itself. I didn’t factor in the time for data management very effectively.

And so, in revising the Action Reflection Cycle, I would highlight the importance of recording - recording the data, recording initial thoughts/reflections about those data, and labeling (tagging) as you go. I have adapted the “typical” action reflection cycle (below) to highlight this. I consider “observe” to be very important, but in my research, observation has very much been a part of the “act” stage of the cycle.

The Action Reflection Cycle (Image from CELT (2003) http://celt.ust.hk/ideas/ar/intro.htm)

My revised version of the Action Reflection Cycle. (Image adapted from CELT (2003) http://celt.ust.hk/ideas/ar/intro.htm)

In planning, acting, recording and reflecting by writing this blog post, it occurs to me that perhaps the “record” part should be added to every stage of the cycle, and not be seen as separate. The construction of an “audit trail” is oh-so-important when undertaking doctoral studies (because I’m constructing a thesis) and so shouldn’t every stage be recorded? But when do you stop? When is enough data enough?

My discovery? It pays not to be lazy. And not to procrastinate about data management. It also makes me fully appreciate the work of librarians! I am very much looking forward to my next “round” of fieldwork in which I will archive-as-I-go, and see if I can achieve digital zen.

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What is e-learning?

Is e-learning a structured learning environment, such as BlackBoard or WebCT, or is it the total sum of one’s “learning network” with all the myriad devices (and people), online and off?

This question came up on a mailing list recently (asking about university policies on e-learning that aren’t just about the university’s “formal” LMS), and occurred to me again in listening to a presentation about Apple’s iTunes U. In many ways, what iTunes U offers seems to double up on what is already possible with Lectopia/iLecture. At Murdoch, we are already able to download lecture “podcasts” and subscribe to them: It’s just that they’re accessed through the Learning Management System (LMS: at Murdoch, BlackBoard) and takes a couple of steps. iTunes U would be an alternative way of accessing the same information, which some students may prefer as they are already familiar with and use the iTunes software on a regular basis. Same outcome, different input - flexible learning, right?

On the other hand, it’s good practice to “check in” to the LMS in order to see the announcements and (gasp) perhaps even check the Discussion Board from time to time. Would accessing lecture-casts via iTunes U, although a more convenient way to access learning resources (for some), end up being less convenient because of the missed opportunities for accessing other learning resources/information? Or would it encourage lecturers/lecture-developers to include that information in the “podcast” itself? To me, it’s kind of like having a book delivered to you from the library instead of going to the shelves - by having it delivered you miss out on browsing around either side of the book to see what else is on the same/similar topic. If you can manage to get to the library, that is! Then again, iTunes U offers a search of not only the university’s content, but also other sources… a big browse of big shelves!

But it comes back to “centralising” the e-learning experience, and creating a “hub”. Should it be centralised through (as) the established LMS? Or is “e-learning” now as diverse as the tools themselves? Should a “LMS” be, in fact, akin to iGoogle whereby the user determines the information coming in (and out)? But, again, what about the missed information and missed opportunities because you do not know they exist, in order to request them?

I always like attending information sessions and learning about emerging (emerged?) technologies. Lots of food for thought.

Posted in Reflections | 1 Comment »

What makes a “Good Conference”?

Last year, during the “coursework year” of my programme, I attended a lot of conferences on ICTs and education in order to get a good understanding of current trends, research and practice whilst putting together my own research proposal. 2007 was a steep learning curve for me in terms of educational technologies, but as I was also teaching high school Indonesian part-time at the same time, I was able to experiment with some of the things I learned about with my own students. Conference attendance also gave me a good introduction to “conferences” and the “conference circuit,” at least within Australia. Generally, I wasn’t too impressed: so many conference paper presentations over-use PowerPoint, under-use narrative, and leave the audience with little to take away with them. There was a lot of talk about the potential of ICTs, but not a lot of practice.

When I heard that the joint Asia Pacific Association for Computer Assisted Language Learning (APACALL) / Pacific Association for Computer Assisted Language Learning (PacCALL) conference would be held in Indonesia, in both Jakarta and Yogyakarta, I leapt at the opportunity to attend. I’ve just arrived back, and feel refreshed and inspired from an amazing couple of weeks. Globalisation and Localisation in CALL (GLoCALL) was a “good conference” (and for me, a great one!), that lasted for four days. Being so specific to my research area, I gained a lot from it both in terms of current research and practice and in terms of presentation style and expectations. There was a big emphasis on digital storytelling throughout the conference and I discovered that digital storytelling practitioners practice what they preach! When we talk about engaging learners in the classroom, shouldn’t that transfer to engaging conference attendees? It certainly did in this case. The plenary speakers, Debra Hoven and Phil Hubbard, were also excellent presenters and their work was pas for the audience. The audience, after all, was quite a mix: a lot of expat academics (mostly teaching ESL and EFL), a number of local teachers (mainly employed by the conference co-organiser and sponsor Higher Learning); and comprised those new to CALL as well as old-hands. There were only two major disappointments for me: that none of the presentations I attended had full papers available, and that it was difficult to choose sessions without having them being broken into “streams” of practitioner/theory.

Although it was incredibly stressful battling to finish my paper and then changing my presentation at the last minute to be more hands-on (considering my audience), I discovered that yes, I am working in a field that I enjoy and one full of amazing people. GLoCALL had just the right mix of rigour and friendliness, and of support and critique. So what makes a “good conference”? “Cutting-edge” information (yet still with practical application), networking opportunities, formal-yet-informal atmosphere, high-quality presentations, and something pas for you. The problem is knowing that it will be pas before you attend. With the number of photos, blog sites, conference proceedings etc. posted to the internet after an annual conference, this is becoming easier and easier to determine. Bring on GLoCALL 2009 Chiang Mai, I say!

Read Mark Pegrum’s blog post on the Jakarta conference:
http://elanguage.edublogs.org/2008/11/09/international-connections/

See the photobook from my trip:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/8404251/Pennys-travels-in-Indonesia-2008

See my conference slides:
http://www.slideshare.net/pcoutas/an-invite-to-my-ball

Posted in Conferences | 3 Comments »

The iPhone as Method/s

Lining up for the iPhone on release day was akin to lining up for Harry Potter. There was a sense of anxiety-anticipation in the line and an awful lot of people who you’d expect to see immortalised in The Joy of Tech Comic. Myself included.

I knew that the iPhone would become an essential tool in my EdD research. I was using my (very pretty) Motorola flip phone to take photos, videos and record audio, but the iPhone would potentially allow me to upload content directly, and also download information at point of need, quickly. After following iPhone developments in the US for over a year, and having stroked and tapped around a few at PodCamp, of course I was in that line.

So a few months on, what have I discovered? First, I don’t use anywhere near my cap. I went for the $59 Optus Cap Plan because it was by far the best value. But I don’t use the 500mb of data and $350 of calls. It’s nice to know that I could and it’s nice not to fear the bill, but because most places I go have WiFi, I find that I don’t use the 3G network a great deal for data.

Second, there are amazing benefits and also surprising disadvantages. The lack of cut’n'paste and MMS messaging has been well documented and moaned about, as has the battery life. The benefits? The web browsing, intuitive nature, and all-round awesomeness have also been raved about. And I agree.

So what is it I’m actually using? What apps form my research toolkit? A team of students in ICT333 are currently working on a specialised app for me to manage ethnographic fieldwork, but at the moment I use a grab-bag of apps. I also use different ones for my different hats as a Language teacher, as a Gen Y socialiser, and as someone who gets hours of entertainment from bubble-wrap. Here are my faves for research:

Used daily:

Wordpress
This allows me to blog directly from my phone. Whether it’s notes at conferences and seminars, “to do” items, reflections while in the field, or ideas to follow up, my research blog is immediately accessible. And I can’t lose it or leave it on a train.

QuickVoice
This is the audio-recorder that I use for interviews. The iPhone’s internal microphone is adequate, but not at podcast quality. For research purposes though? Perfect. I chose this app over others because, months ago, it was the only one that allowed the audio to be downloaded to a computer, and that could be paused during recording. Considering the number of interruptions during interviews, this is important! Now there’s quite a few more on the App Store but I’ve stuck with what I know.

Maps
I haven’t used a map book since I got my iPhone. Finding my research sites is so much easier now! This also allows me to account for kilometers to claim back petrol when I’ve forgotten to reset my car’s odometer.

MyDelicious
Allows me to access and edit my delicious bookmarks.

These have potential:

DataCase and AirSharing
Backup work, documents, audio, etc. via WiFi (the iPhone becomes a storage device). Why this can’t be done via USB (as you could with older generation iPods) is beyond me.

iObserve
A data collection tool for observations. It’s unclear, though, whether you can have a text input field for extended responses - this could replace my (paper-based) Observation Schedules if it does. Then again, I find that I need to look at the keyboard on the iPhone when I type, unlike a normal keyboard or pen’n'paper. During classroom observations, it’s essential that I observe the class… not my iPhone.

Wish List:

• An app that allows me to upload data directly to my Omeka archive. This would be especially useful for photos, and cut out the step between collecting data in the field and uploading.
• A “to do” list that syncs with iCal.
• USB transfer of data - I can bake a cake in the time it takes to sync if I have a lot of interviews.

I’ll be writing about using the iPhone as Method/s as part of my methodology chapter. Maybe I should write it on my iPhone? Speak it? Photograph it? If only I could video it…

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What is your Yeah, but?

I really liked this poster by Dean Groom. My “Yeah, but…” at the moment is “Yeah, but I’m not ready for the public to see.” The main graphic for my research website isn’t ready, I haven’t finished the templates, I haven’t gone and anonymised all of the documents that should be on there, I haven’t done this, I haven’t done that.

Sir Ken Robinson says in his TED Talk Do Schools Today Kill Creativity?:

“If you’re not prepared to be wrong then you will never come up with anything original.”

My discovery of the week? I need to be prepared to be wrong. And I need to be prepared to just “have a go” and “get it out there” rather than sit on my virtual hands and wait until it is virtually perfect. Because that won’t happen and it only ends up creating my “Yeah, but.”

Posted in Reflections | 2 Comments »

eBeam: Access =/ Easy Access

I was asked to give a workshop on Interactive Whiteboards (IWBs) for the “ICT in the Classroom” unit which was held on Tuesday. Unfortunately the only room with an IWB installed was in use at the workshop time, and so I planned to use the School of Education’s eBeams (portable IWBs). My grand plan was to have 3 stations through which students would rotate:

Station 1: Set up, “break”, and fix a data projector (find out what all the buttons do!)
Station 2: Test out the features of the eBeam software (e.g. highlight tool, magnifier, notepad, etc.)
Station 3: Try out some software not necessarily designed for an IWB (but effective nonetheless)

Then draw it all together in a group.

Unfortunately, it’s never that easy. First, the workshop room is a computer lab with one tiny whiteboard up the front. That’s not going to work. All of the other rooms were booked, and so I had the brainwave of swapping the lecture and the workshop around so we’d have the big room for the workshop. Fine. That’d work.

Second. The data projectors already in the lecture/workshop rooms aren’t aimed at the whiteboard: they’re aimed at a pull-down screen. There’s no way of adjusting them so that they hit the whiteboard. So I had to borrow 3 data projectors and 2 laptops (plus my own). Fine. That’d work.

Third. The eBeam software is not installed on any of the loaner laptops, or my own machine. No problem, the software’s with the equipment. Problem? No admin access to the loaner laptops, which means no permission to install software. Cue lining up at the IT service desk to get it all installed. Not so fine, but it worked.

Fourth. The eBeams are stored in the Dean’s office. It’s hard to get access to them. But with some forward planning, it can be done.

On the actual day of the workshop? Fifth. There’s other classes in the room directly before and directly after the workshop - any setup and pack-away must be done in class time. This means a 50 minute hands-on workshop becomes more like 30-40 minutes. To help with this, I planned to show a 14min Teachers.tv clip about IWBs to give me time to set up 2 stations. Fine. That’d work.

So, did it work out? To an extent. Was it worth it? I’m not sure. It took sooooo much effort to set up and organise, and 30 minutes of hands-on activity was simply not enough. For IWBs to be effective, or simply to be used requires them not only to be accessible, but easily accessible. Tutors, students, lecturers, guest speakers, whoever, need to be able to walk in and just use it and not line up at service desks, install software, borrow projectors, arrange a time to pick up equipment, set it up, pack it away… Especially for the purposes of 50 minute workshops!

My discovery of the week: I don’t get paid enough to do this

Posted in Workshops | 1 Comment »

My Online Research Toolkit

The temptation with a blog is to write posts that other people have already blogged about. In writing about my discoveries during my time at Murdoch, it’s tempting to do a bit of retrospective and to talk about all of the things I’ve found over the past year and a half. But many others have already blogged about those, and in much more detail than I ever could. Writing about those discoveries would also make me feel as if I’m always “behind” in my blog writing, because there’s just so many things to talk about.

So instead, this post will start my “discoveries” off with a list of my top 10 tools, or my top 10 “discoveries”, in terms of my online research toolkit so far. The things I use every day. And after this, I’ll just be blogging new discoveries (well, new to me, anyway!).

Penny’s Top 10 (Online) Tools for Research

1. Zotero, free citation management software that works from your Firefox browser. I love how it’s so easy to add journal articles and books from online sources such as Amazon!
2. Delicious, a “social bookmarking” site. You can see my bookmarks at http://delicious.com/pcoutas and a video explaining it all here
3. Google Scholar, the essential literature search tool for the Naughties. In fact, I rate all of Google’s services quite highly in my toolkit, especially Google Docs
4. LiveJournal Communities, a blogging site but with a bit of a difference. This isn’t your usual “listen to me” blog site, but rather works around communities of readers and writers. There are some great communities for academics and researchers that have really kept me grounded and made me aware of overseas contexts for postgraduate studies. I also use LJ (as it’s fondly called) as my RSS reader.
5. The Piled Higher and Deeper Comic, essential for procrastination (and reducing that feeling of isolation)
6. The LibX Toolbar, lets me access Murdoch’s library right from my toolbar!
7. Email, I like to keep my private and professional email separate, but somehow they end up blurring a bit!
8. Flickr is a great photo sharing site. It’s also a good place to find photos under Creative Commons licenses that can be used in presentations (and blog posts!).
9. My research website is hosted by Dreamhost, and so forms an essential part of my toolkit. I store all of my data in an archive powered by Omeka, built by the crew behind Zotero.
10. Online (synchronous) chat tools such as Skype, SecondLife and MSN Messenger are also a part of my toolkit, but I don’t use any to the exclusion of others: it depends on who I want to talk to, if we want to use video (or avatars!), or what everyone else is using (e.g. a virtual conference). I think SecondLife has a lot of potential for academic presentations and conferences: the feeling of co-presence is far greater than just watching a streamed PowerPoint and audio presentation

I also use my iPhone extensively for research, but that’s a whole other post

Is there anything you’d recommend I check out? Leave a comment!

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