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Co-ordinating Content

Page history last edited by olliebray@... 12 years, 5 months ago

This page has been locked and the contents passed to the Scottish Government for analysis. Thank you for all your contributions.

 

Robert Sim raised the point in discussion on the Glow - Future tools page about content. To save this being lost in the tools discussion, I've created a page for it here - over to you!

 

1. Partner or use existing platforms to create a national learning content repository for schools - there are already some useful UK models out there http://www.jorum.ac.uk/ .  To be a place where schools and relevant agencies can share things that can't be self hosted which is open as far as possible .

Position something that allows Scottish Education to be part of the global Open Educational Resource movement.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Comments (17)

Stuart Lennie said

at 5:56 pm on Sep 12, 2011

Is the BBC Jam stuff still dead in the water? There was some great interactive content there.

Theo Kuechel said

at 12:12 pm on Sep 13, 2011

Now there's a hornet's nest. Think it was pulled in 2007 with the proviso "Some content relating to indigenous language learning for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will be used to support existing BBC services and some relating to special educational needs might be rescued" - did you ever see it promoted in Scotland? 4/5 years later I suppose content and technology has moved on; plenty OER, Video and new tech such as HTML5, apps, mobile to build interactive and engaging learning on.

Robert Sim said

at 3:48 pm on Sep 13, 2011

Thanks for this, Andrew! I have at least one memorial to me now! Seriously, I am grateful for this being elevated to a separate topic and interesting to see the comments already here. My point was just that I feel that Glow/its successor(s) would have better uptake if there was a well-maintained resource centre of course/lesson materials and ideas contained within it. We need to be able to go in and find resources catalogued. The Cookbooks provide a super model and I very much appreciate the meticulous work that has gone into their production. I recognise the issues with copyright etc but feel that if the Goverment, Education Scotland and the LAs put their collective mind to it there could be an exciting way forward in this area. Maybe the Cookbooks and the NAR could be linked in some way?

Charlie Love said

at 12:53 pm on Sep 14, 2011

With CompEdNet (http://www.compednet.com) I've found that content drives usage of the system. Users are pulled in by content and then enter the discussion as a result. Quality content is vital. We need teachers to share their resources but we also need to kick off the process with quality content to get them started.

And an achievements system which rewards users (teachers and learners) for sharing would provide recognition of sharing - we can incentivise sharing, making it meaningful and fun too!

JohnM said

at 4:40 pm on Sep 18, 2011

I agree with Robert and Charlie that it is content that will drive the system regardless of the software platform used. Most of the complaints I have heard from teachers is "Why use GlowLearn, there is nothing there!". There is quality content out there in the LTS National Qualifications repository. OK not in a format that easily translates into a VLE but with minimal effort it can be transformed into LMS or SCORM content packs that can be used in a VLE (It's just a cut and paste job with a suitable XML editor like eXe or Xerte). While lecturing at an FE College recently, I took the LTS materials and did just that with an Int2/Higher course. Now it didn't have the bells and whistles ie Flash animations, etc but it was a quick way of populating a whole course with content. A way of kick starting the content as Charlie so rightly states. This content is familiar to teachers and will still be relevant even with the new CfE framework and qualifications and can be improved with time to include the bells and whistles.
I offered this whole course to the NQ team in Glow in May this year so they could put it on the National part of GlowLearn, I have yet to hear a reply!!!
A National GlowLearn (Moodle??) could easily be populated with these resources for schools to download and use in locally hosted?? moodles. The Open University already allow downloads of courses from their LearningSpace site.

Kate Farrell said

at 10:34 pm on Oct 8, 2011

In terms of content there might be some quality commercial content (such as the science videos in Glow), but I think if a mechanism is provided to teachers where they can easily share and tag their resources then teachers will develop and share their resources for others to use.
It would be good to have a way to feedback, similar to Youtube I suppose - being able to like or dislike a resource, add a comment, rate it, report it, add it to a list, favourite it, follow the user, see their other content. Then if I find someone whose worksheet/lesson plan/video/podcast/picture/quiz etc that I like, I can go and browse the rest of their resources and get emails whenever they update something new.
Groups of teachers could then work together to provide a complete set of resources for teaching a subject, particularly newer courses or ones with smaller numbers of teachers such as Advanced Highers.
There is so little point in us all sitting in our classrooms in isolation all working away on creating a quiz or task on exactly the same topic when we could be collaborating!! We have so little development time that rather than having 100 rushed worksheets on a topic we could have a couple of fantastic polished activities.
Adobe have a lovely online collaboration tool - acrobat.com. It used to be called Buzzword. I have found it so good for working on a resource with other teachers online - it uses colour-coding to make it very clear who has commented or edited the document.
There's no need to pay thousands on commercial content. Give us quality collaboration and sharing tools and we'll make our own content!

Richard Nealsson said

at 11:26 pm on Oct 8, 2011

Excellent post, Kate. I would suggest that the quality collaboration and sharing tools are already there and would again point to the Physics community for a model of how these are being used. There are multiple channels and repositories (e.g. http://sptr.net, which has 400 registered users, over 50% of the physics teachers in Scotland) in use to bring together resources developed by the community, whether this be documents or video. Examples on YouTube include http://www.youtube.com/user/mrmurrayphysics and http://www.youtube.com/user/glesgaphysics. Much of this content is accessible through the national glow group, shared through open source tools like dropbox (all out of hours, Professor McCormac).

What needs to be recognised is that we don't need a central control mechanism to be developed for this, we need a culture that supports it.

Con Morris said

at 5:23 pm on Oct 10, 2011

Hi Richard. Spot on about the culture of sharing. Also would like to see us using tools which have some likelihood of longevity and access to my data in other formats. I am worried that a plethora of tools / sharing mechanisms will be great for creativity but will be hard for a teacher/ learner to bring together. Some sort of RSS / deck might do the trick

Joe Wilson said

at 2:27 pm on Oct 10, 2011

Added something to be shot down - really as there were no bulllets added to date on coordinating content

Neil Winton said

at 2:50 pm on Oct 10, 2011

Can I suggest that NAR (http://www.sqa.org.uk/sqa/44868.html) may be the perfect vehicle for co-ordinating content. It already has the ability to search for materials (when the search is working), and teachers can upload created content for sharing and/or improving.

That said, NAR is primarily about Assessment... maybe we need NLR - A National Learning Resource to compliment NAR.

Patrick Kirk said

at 4:16 pm on Oct 10, 2011

Hi, extending NAR to include teaching & learning resources was part of our submission. I see providing a consistent interface to related resources as vital if we are to reduce technology barriers to use

Ian Birrell said

at 3:38 pm on Oct 10, 2011

Could be perfect for some but others, such as ourselves, can't gain access for love nor money!

Gerry Dougan said

at 3:45 pm on Oct 10, 2011

Whilst having nationally developed repositories such as Jorum and the NAR are useful services, for colleges as well as schools, it is likely that useful content will remain distributed over a number of platforms and locations. The integration of meta search technology into learning environments may provide a partial solution to offer identification of content without the need to be aware of content location or to access multiple systems.

Con Morris said

at 5:15 pm on Oct 10, 2011

I would like to see a default for educators / learners sharing to an open repository for materials (which was also easy to use to develop lessons). A NAR-type platform sounds ideal!

Joe Wilson said

at 5:43 pm on Oct 10, 2011

Well said Con and totally agree !

JimWard said

at 5:47 pm on Oct 10, 2011

I have to admit I represent a content provider, in Britannica, however all content is vital to Glow's future. Whether paid, free or created within the community, it is the 'draw' that brings people in, encourages them to participate and keeps them engaged. At the moment, the impression is that the cupboard is bare - as teachers haven't found exactly what they are seeking. There needs to be lesson plans, CfE materials, validated content from a variety of sources and an ability to use this copyright free in the classroom and beyond.

Theo Kuechel said

at 7:10 pm on Oct 10, 2011

I would agree completely with Richard that the key factor in the use of content for learning is to develop a Culture of Content Use and Sharing. This means seeing content not as individual resources, portals or websites but as a digital ecosystem with different actors. Innovative services in digital content e.g Google Earth, Flickr, YouTube, HistoryPin, Picnic have APIs that alllows their content to be connect with other content by users, (educators /learners).

Unfortunately a great deal of content deemed as ’educational’ are locked away, hidden in silos where the creators or owners specify how it should be used in an educational context. To be of real value to learners content from different sources should be able to interact and add extra value to other content, as it is used by educators and learners. As Jim Ward says it needs to be free of copyright restrictions to allow it to be shared across the Internet.

It goes against the very nature of the Internet for content not to be distributed and open on the Internet. Scotland may not “own’ all the content, but it can be leading light and a key hub of a world wide digital ecosystem. There is no reason why it should not be a world leader in this field.

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