“The real time aspect doesn’t add anything online”.

Terry Wassall — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 18:02:02 +0000

Interesting comments on not using the new technologies to reproduce on-line versions of existing teaching and learning methods and activities and that realtime on-line activities don’t add anything. My feeling is that they can and do, i.e. remote realtime application sharing, or adding an audio stream to presentations and discussions. I certainly would agree with the notion that asynchronous techniques could be developed and used to advantage much more and the rush to get into some realtime environments, for instance, Second Life, is for many an unfortunate diversion.

Clipped from www.independent.co.uk

Study better in cyberspace

Log on and you can learn in a much more flexible and collaborative way

Universities are fast becoming receptive to the new horizons and opportunities the internet offers. Of course, distance learning is an established concept, but modern online learning is a far cry from old-style correspondence courses.

“We are playing to the strengths of the technology – the real time aspect doesn’t add anything online,” says Southern. “In this format, a student can go away and do some more reading or have a harder think about the subject before coming back and rejoining the discussion.

“We’ve avoided transferring what we think as the ‘classroom on campus’ experience into the online environment, so you won’t see conventional-style lectures taking place.”

“There are pros and cons to all technologies,” he says. “To do away with traditional methods does not work – but you do have to use new techniques for what they’re good for.

The OU is taking a much higher-tech attitude with its content than many, and is using all sorts of media, like wikis, videos, audio, animations and virtual whiteboards. It also holds scheduled learning activities, when a class logs on at the same time to use video- and audio-conferencing and collaborative applications.Read more at www.independent.co.uk

Times Higher student experience poll

Terry Wassall — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 11:01:27 +0000

Looks like something like a Facebook pre-registration (even pre-application?) group is a good idea. There is a big problem with a league table of ‘most improved student experience’. In the case of Queen Mary’s success, topping the poll, this seems to be due in no small part by the refurbished student union facilities. This could well be a one-off boost as within a year or two the new facilities will be the baseline against which students (who had no experience of the pre-refurbished facilities) will register any improvement in their experience. Maintaining a high position in these sorts of tables commits Universities to a never ending and escalating treadmill of innovation, fashion following, expenditure and rising expectations. A university with great facilities may score quite low on an ‘improvement’ scale. Many Universities have already felt the frustration of getting lower scores each year on indicators in the National Student Satisfaction Survey in the face of making improvements in the past, getting a higher result initially, and continuing to maintain the facilities to the same higher standard. The diminishing returns are a result of previous successful improvements and the concomitant increase in students’ expectations.

Clipped from www.timeshighereducation.co.uk

It’s all about them

The universities that do well in Times Higher Education’s Student Experience poll put students first, but as Rebecca Attwood learns, there is more than one way to do that

Bradford is one of many universities that is harnessing the power of technology to help.

It operates an online social network where young people can begin making links with peers and sharing their hopes and fears before they even apply to the university.

The results of the poll were used to decide the 2009 Times Higher Education Award for Most Improved Student Experience, which went to Queen Mary, University of London. There, as at Bradford, building a sense of community has been a key aim.

The biggest increases were in students’ ratings for facilities and for the students’ union. This coincides with the £6 million revamp of the union building at the college’s Mile End campus in September 2008.
Read more at www.timeshighereducation.co.uk

Everyday examples of the EMH at work

Terry Wassall — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 09:35:39 +0000

Clipped from www.guardian.co.uk

No room to cook dinner or seat guests? Welcome to ‘rabbit hutch Britain’

In fresh evidence of a phenomenon that has been dubbed “rabbit hutch Britain”, the government’s design watchdog concluded that much private housing being built in Britain today may not be “fit for purpose”.

“This research brings into question the argument that the market will meet the demands of people living in private housing developments,” said Richard Simmons, chief executive of Cabe. “We need local planning authorities to ensure much higher space standards before giving developments the go-ahead.”

“Council housing is built to better standards than our private housing and that seems absurd,” said Alex Ely, an architect who wrote the mayor of London’s recently published minimum space guidelines for public housing in the capital.

The rooms in newly built private housing are so small that close to half of buyers find their kitchens are so cramped they cannot cook properly for their families, Read more at www.guardian.co.uk

The Efficient Market Hypothesis seems to have real world refutations at every glance. Here’s another. I’m not an economist (life’s too short) but an admittedly superficial examination of EMH seems to indicate a staggeringly naive notion of what ‘information’ is - its social construction, its manufacture and dissemination by powerful vested political and commercial interests - consumerism and political interests in legitimacy and control. Never mind the matter that the ‘needs’ the market supposedly meets are often needs the market (and the propaganda - sorry, public relations - industry has created. Hence the spurious apparent customer ’satisfaction’ often appealed to as evidence of the efficiency of markets.

“How corporate America creates the illusion of grassroots movement to support their interests”

Terry Wassall — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 08:45:40 +0000

Clipped from www.guardian.co.uk

Obama fights back as bid to reform US healthcare stalls

President Barack Obama has become mired in a frenzied fight over US healthcare reform as Republicans scent a devastating political victory that could hobble his presidency.

Scores of “town hall” public meetings held by Democratic politicians in recent days have been disrupted by Republican supporters or protesters linked to groups funded by the healthcare industry.

The tactics of Republicans, conservative protest groups and healthcare lobbyist-linked organisations have been decried by many commentators. Though Republican leaders and other conservatives have claimed the protests are a genuine outburst of anti-healthcare reform feeling, there have been instances of activists being caught red-handed.

One woman who protested at a public meeting held by Wisconsin congressman Steve Kagen, a Democrat, had said she was “just a mom” but turned out to be a former senior Republican party official.Read more at www.guardian.co.uk

Readers of this article in the Guardian my find the following video interesting.

Professions ‘reserved for the rich’

Terry Wassall — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 07:45:00 +0000

Clipped from news.bbc.co.uk

Professions ‘reserved for rich’

Top professions such as medicine and law are increasingly being closed off to all but the most affluent families, a report into social mobility will say.

He said the professions had a “closed shop mentality” and “have become more and not less exclusive over time”.

“They also say, rightly, that the supply of education places could be opened up to greater competition, particularly in areas of underperformance.”

Recruiting more students from a wider range of social backgrounds into university is seen as a key to social mobility.

It calls for leading universities to take into account the social background of pupils - particularly when pupils from low-achieving schools are competing against independent school pupils with a tradition of very high grades.

With a high proportion of new jobs being classified as professional or managerial, the report emphasises the importance of ensuring fair access.
Read more at news.bbc.co.uk

Some rather mixed messages from this report so I guess I’ll have to get around to reading it! On the one hand it wants pupils from schools in underprivileged areas to be able to compete with the children of educated middle-class and professional families. This will entail finding a way to find surrogate forms of some aspects of the social capital they lack. One strategy offered is to create some State provided ‘pushy parent’ equivalent. However, it’s not evident how a surrogate network of informal contacts, well placed relatives, the ability to provide resources and engage with children’s learning (i.e. ‘discussing’ assessment work) will be provided or the money for foreign visits and cultural events, let alone the mindset that says "the world is mine and I deserve it". All this is pre-university entrance. On the other hand there is an implication that HE institutions should provide the support required by less well prepared students to close any deficit gap. I suspect that many Universities would say this is not our job and admissions based purely on merit would not require this anyway. The other issue that warrants attention is that a perception that large numbers of perfectly well qualified children of middle-class and professional families are being excluded due to positive discrimination for the children of the less educated and wealthy could lead to an intensification of exclusionary tactics and a reinforcement of private education and the growth of private universities. The networks of power operate outside of the education system just as effectively as within. The proposed policy seems based on the idea that education is the key. It is important but there are many other powerful processes that determine access to the plum jobs in addition to educational achievement. A cursory inspection of history and sociology demonstrates that the powerful are past masters at preserving their advantage in the face of historical and legislative change.

The battle for social mobility

Terry Wassall — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 07:19:44 +0000

Clipped from www.guardian.co.uk

The battle for social mobility

The failure to turn around the UK’s dismal level of social mobility may haunt Labour even more than Iraq or Afghanistan

The great debates over education and social mobility are increasingly framed in military terms – and for a very good reason: our children’s lives are quite literally at stake in this battleground.

here are 80 recommendations in all. This has been a genuinely independent exercise. But it also reflects the realisation that the social mobility battle will be won or lost in the fields of education

The fear is that the current economic recession will not only limit social mobility for the most disadvantaged but anyone outside the super-elites – as education budgets, university places and job openings are rationed.Read more at www.guardian.co.uk

Interesting report that locates the solution to the lack of social mobility in the UK in the education system. The last time social mobility was at a high level in the UK was with the enormous increase in white collar and managerial work created by the expansion of the public sector and a rapidly growing corporate sector, all supported by a consensus around Keynesian economic policy. While the labour market is shrinking, as it is now, even a successful policy to increase social mobility will only rearrange the deckchairs on the Titanic of (for those that haven’t seen the film) shuffle the pack. Every move up from the bottom10% means a someone else will take the place. There will always be a bottom 10% of course.

Research finds no bias in allocation of social housing

Terry Wassall — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 06:10:03 +0000

Clipped from www.equalityhumanrights.com

Research finds no bias in allocation of social housing

Commission research finds no bias in allocation of social housing to immigrants

Embargoed until 00:01hrs on 07 July 2009

The vast majority of people who live in social housing in Britain were born in the UK according to a research study published by the Equality and Human Rights Commission today. The study found that less than two per cent of all social housing residents are people who have moved to Britain in the last five years and that nine out of ten people who live in social housing were born in the UK.

It found no evidence to support the perception that new migrants are getting priority over UK born residents. Nor was there any evidence of abuse of the system, including ‘queue jumping’ or providing false information.
Read more at www.equalityhumanrights.com

This was first reported in the Independent a week ago and I commented on it here. The BBC reported on it today Housing ‘not favouring migrants’. According to a number of observers of the media and the state of public debate on matters of importance that require political and policy interventions, the public space where specialist, research and lay forms of knowledge can contribute to an informed discourse has become trivialised and dominated by commercial interests and the populist media. The sphere of public discourse has become the information age’s equivalent of a Roman Circus with much the same sort of ideological function. Good quality and relevant information is available and can be accessed via the internet and it does feed into the ‘quality’ media and the BBC. However, it rarely sees the light of day across the popular media or gets an accessible and unbiased airing across the media as a whole and is rarely evidenced in everyday discourse or emerges in the vox pop.

The political expedience of public ignorance

Terry Wassall — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 19:48:41 +0000

Clipped from www.independent.co.uk

‘Queue jumping immigrants’ are a myth, says study

The claim that immigrants jump the queue for council houses will be exposed as a myth next week by an exhaustive national survey.

It will undermine Gordon Brown’s promise to let local authorities give “more priority” to people with local links in the allocation of empty properties. His move was widely seen yesterday as a response to the suspicion – successfully exploited in last month’s local and European elections by the British National Party – that white families were losing out to new arrivals in obtaining council or housing association homes.

The policy, echoing Mr Brown’s ill-fated “British jobs for British workers” slogan, brought warnings from the opposition and immigration groups that the Prime Minister was allowing the BNP to set the political agenda.

New arrivals in the country represented 2 per cent of the general population, but less than 3 per cent of those in social housing.Read more at www.independent.co.uk

It is all very well for politicians to decry the failings of researchers as ‘public intellectuals’ and their lack of contribution to an informed and mature discussion by the public. It is clear that a great deal of political mileage and opportunism is based on public ignorance, some of which is at worst actively cultivated by those in power or, at best, pandered to for political legitimation and advantage.

A space (Elgg) on the web that we control

Terry Wassall — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 09:24:16 +0000

A clip from an article in the Guardian I was interviewed for - over 3 years ago!. Apart from the Leeds Elgg evaluation project, now complete (LeedsBlogs ) there are comments from Ben Werdmuller and David Tosh, the creators of Elgg and Miles Berry who has used Elgg very successfully in a secondary education context.

Clipped from www.guardian.co.uk

A space on the web that we control

At Leeds University, Dr Terry Wassall is part of an informal research group that has been running a pilot of Elgg. “As well as exploring Elgg’s potential to support teaching, academic staff are interested in how the software can be used to support research and project groups, communities of interest, and individuals’ research and career development,” he says.

Elgg encourages students “to develop an online presence” and writing for and commenting on blogs “requires a style of writing that is reflective, clear and concise. It helps students to find and develop a particular type of public ‘voice’ as well as communication and presentational skills.”

“Different levels of access can be set for individual blog entries, so some posts can be fully public and others only readable by a particular group or individual, such a private post to a dissertation student or their supervisor,” says Wassall.
Read more at www.guardian.co.uk

Using Amplify

Terry Wassall — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 17:38:55 +0000

It has gradually dawned on me that Amplify is an enhanced Wordpress blog. I was thinking about it as a sort of social bookmarking system but it is clearly capable of much more. It is possible to post here without clipping a web page, as this post demonstrates. I will need to think about how this could be used by a group posting to the same clip log - Clog. Additional authors can be added to a Clog ok and commenting can be controlled. Pages and posts seem to be the same thing and perhaps some of the MUWP functionality is obsolete and should be hidden. I can see this as a good platform for a group of specialists for commenting on news stories blog posts, or perhaps for students to put together web research project outputs.