Disqus - Latest Comments for maximise

Re: New political party the North East Party launches its first ever manifesto

maximise — Fri, 30 Jan 2015 10:49:22 -0000

Sorry, but Mr Dawson's proposal for "free care for older people" cannot work - someone must pay for it. Yes, we need better care, more time and attention to the needs of the elderly - but it needs proper funding. Selling their homes and throwing them out of where they have lived all their lives is not the solution either. Again, sounds rather like the Labour Party - increased taxes for everyone.

Re: Newcastle Royal Grammar School headteacher criticises 'madness' of league tables

maximise — Thu, 29 Jan 2015 10:59:45 -0000

Yes, the DfE's disruption to the normal displays of the data is nothing but a shambles. Here in Gateshead some of the lower performing schools have come out near the top of the local tables and other schools who always perform well appear to be failing. The sooner Nicky Morgan understands this and allows students to take examinations when and how they choose, the better. It seems that the Conservatives are leading us all into a dictatorial system that strikes more of 1984 than of a system led by professionals.

Re: Education chiefs set to gather in Durham to debate the future of North schools

maximise — Mon, 29 Dec 2014 09:11:04 -0000

Your photo of the Secretary of State for Education is several months out of date! Nicky Morgan is more interesting!

Re: The Bible Paradox | Big Think TV | Big Think

maximise — Mon, 21 Oct 2013 11:34:39 -0000

Dear Matthew, I had thought that you might be wanting to enter a reasoned discussion until I read the expletive at the end. I feel that you have let your 'side' down and shown yourself to be even more arrogant than my humble self.

Re: The Bible Paradox | Big Think TV | Big Think

maximise — Mon, 21 Oct 2013 07:09:46 -0000

As a bible-believing born-again Christian who has studied the bible for more than 60 years, I am somewhat amused (and also grieved) by the comments made by atheists, agnostics and those who have a very limited understanding of the bible and even less knowledge of God their creator and sustainer, of the Lord Jesus Christ as Saviour and the Holy Spirit as inspirer and sustainer of all.

I find no contradictions in any part of the cannon of 66 the books of the bible. Concerning the Genesis 1/2 accounts for instance, they are complementary accounts of the same story. The accounts in the four gospels are completely compatible with one another, recognising that they are accounts written from different personal perspectives but all inspired by the same Holy Spirit.

The 'Old Testament' cannot be dismissed as 'old hat'. It is said that 'In the New the Old is revealed' - certainly there are literally hundreds of detailed references in the Old testament pointing to the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ as the Messiah. Throughout the millennia of its writing it is astounding that all the 40+ writers, despite in the main not knowing each other, have all written a coherent and cohesive account. This is only understood by Christians as a result of the 'God-breathed' or Holy Spirit inspired direction of the writers involved.

Unless one has experienced the miracle of conversion, of realising that one is a sinner in need of forgiveness, unless one has experienced true repentance and forgiveness, unless one has some experience of daily 'walking with God', nobody can claim to know or understand anything of the Trinitarian God of the bible. Those who have not experienced this understanding could be compared to the person born blind trying to describe a sunset.

Re: The Honor Roll: 50 Must-Read K–12 Education IT Blogs

maximise — Sun, 24 Jun 2012 10:24:06 -0000

An excellent list, but I see nothing of help concerning ePortfolios. Please have a look at the mine of information and discussion at:
http://www.efoliointheuk.bl...

Re: Prezi: Reinventing the Wheel

maximise — Mon, 28 May 2012 05:54:59 -0000

Yes, I agree that Prezzi is quite 'Whacky' but too much so for my tastes. Given that the tool has some powerful features, is it not possible that 'Prezenters' use a little more discipline in the zooms and jumps that they use? I'm all for creativity and quality but find the repeated twists and gyrations quite bewildering, even head-numbing, at times. Added to that the lack of page numbering and links to home menus etc make the re-visiting of pages almost impossible.

I fail to see what you mean by 'Prezi will impress where other presentation software falls short!' The whole point, surely, of any visual aid is not to dazzle or impress but rather to support the delivery of a message or guidance for an activity.

Again, I do not understand your statement, 'It will promote differentiation,' - Differentiation is about providing language and examples appropriate to the learner's needs and previous experiences. Perhaps you could explain?

However, I do appreciate the potential for collaboration but wonder how the mapping of the separate screens, one to the next, can be documented for the multiple users?

Having tried to get my head around Prezi on several occasions, one of the features that I could not discover is that of optional branching. Unless I have missed something I would suggest that Prezi is therefore a more linear form of presentation and takes teaching and learning backwards rather than forwards.

As is often the case, enthusiasts for a particular product claim as unique features that other applications may also have - it's just a case of taking the trouble to find out how to zoom or use multiple versions concurrently.

Although it is claimed that Prezzi can be printed to .pdf format I could not find any examples of this or how presenters can attach their own notes or thoughts when drafting the layout of their presentation - all of which I regularly do with my PowerPoints.

I will need much more convincing before I can agree with your statement, 'Not only will students and teachers be able to build their own dynamic presentations, which they can share with the Prezi community, but they will also be able to use others’ prezis as teaching and learning tools.' All of the above I can do with PowerPoint - and have been doing for the last 20+ years!

Re: http://bigthink.com/think-tank/learning-starts-at-home

maximise — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 12:31:38 -0000

to Chandra: I should point out that Ravitch was not talking about 'parents' but about whole *families*. In particular this relates to grandparents, older siblings and other relatives. For thousands of years the 'extended family system' has been a significant part of childcare and pre-school education - and still is where schools are not availlable. Perhaps more significant than the plight of parents who are low-wage earners is their choice to move away from family ties and thus disociate themselves from the benefits of an extended family. Speaking as grandparents we not only enjoy helping our grandchildren settle into an environment where early learning can take place in a friendly context, we also enjoy doing it - cost free.

Re: The ePortfolio myth

maximise — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 03:24:26 -0000

Hi, Tim,

Yes, agreed, I will search out some good examples for you, but give me a week or two to get the learners' permissions,

Ray Tolley
FEIDCT, NAACE Fellow, ACQI, MBILD
Associate of the eLearning Alliance, MCIEA
ICT Education Consultant
Maximise ICT Ltd
P: http://raytolley.efolioworl...
B: http://www.efoliointheuk.bl...
W: http://www.maximise-ict.co....
I: http://issuu.com/efoliouk/docs
S: http://www.slideshare.net/m...
T: http://twitter.com/efolio
Winner of the IMS 'Leadership Regional Award 2009'

Re: The ePortfolio myth

maximise — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 07:37:13 -0000

Ah! In my enthusiasm I forgot one other major aspect of 'Lifelong Learning':

If it is recognised that the e-Portfolio is a tool which can assist our learning experience, then in order for it to be 'lifelong' it must move with the student 5-95. from cradle to grave, or as Helen Barrett puts it, 'from sperm to worm'.

For this to happen, the e-Portfolio rather than trying to be interoperable with thousands of combinations of different VLE embedded e-Portfolios it should be free to move with the learner throughout their life. For this to happen the e-Portfolio must be capable of continuous metamorphosis, from pre-nursery through the Key Stages, on to FE/HE and on throughout one's carreer and on into the 'Leisure' of retirement.

I write more about 'transition' on my blog - use the search tool or tags list.

BW Ray T

Re: The ePortfolio myth

maximise — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 07:28:17 -0000

Hi, Sarah, You write provocatively, almost as if you believe what you are writing!

You say, 'ePortfolios have been around for a blink of an eye in educational terms and yet... suddenly... they support or even better, they 'harness' lifelong learning. How can anyone make such grandiose claims?' - As every Primary school teacher knows, collections of work, often in shoeboxes, has been the basis of teaching about and assisting reflection. As many adults do from time to time, an inspection of one's loft will reveal innumerable school-books - and reflecting on these is good for the soul for a start. Artists and designers have presented their portfolios for innumerable centuries - I know, I presented my first portfolio in 1958 and got into Uni. Helen Barrett writes well on her thinking about portfolios in education even before she discovered the e-word.

Secondly, you write, 'here we are again spouting about 'supporting lifelong learning' with a technology which is unproven and lacks the basic interoperability standards to help it move towards any kind of sustainability'. Minnesota's eFolio has been a robust system used for the last 8 years and now in the 100's of thousands of users. (1) the technology is well proven and (2) interoperability is NOT a requirement of an e-Portfolio. Here in the UK I purposely promote eFolio as 'institution free' in order to provide the portability and freedom of transition without any interoperability standards which appear to change every year!

You confuse the tool with the artefacts contained within it. Whilst an ICT teacher in schools, for instance, I worked hard on developing the use of the Doomsday disc. I was able to use and extract artefacts and archive them separately. Similarly, today, my eFolio contains some artefacts which I will also keep off-line. The e-Portfolio is not designed to be a pantechnicon of all my artefacts but rather the selection of those that I choose to represent myself at this point in time. ( I could go on and on... see my blog for more.)

@andy The e-Portfolio is not 'trying' to do anything! If some misguided tutors cannot see good educational processes that can be enhanced with an e-Portfolio then we should be sorry for them!

However, to get back to my main purpose of writing, I see four main purposes for the e-Portfolio:
1) To exhibit selected items for the purpose of reflection in order to evidence progression, and any person giving a moment to this will be well rewarded.
2) To exhibit a selected item for peer review, mentoring or feedback.
3) To work collaboratively on a topic with a selected audience prior to public release.
4) To present to a variety of audiences, even concurrently, evidences that might promote myself according to the expectations of each individual audience.

Check out my website or also:
http://issuu.com/efoliouk/docs

Re: It's your ePortfolio, now get reflecting

maximise — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 13:13:31 -0000

On 'Functionality and Appearance' it seems very strange to me that you appear to be assessing the construction of the e-Portfolio. Is there a requirement for the assessment of ICT skills? Perhaps this section should be named 'Organisation and Presentation' but then I would only expect to award 10%.

On 'Evidence' I see no reason to include the CV as part of the assessment criteria. Yes, it may be informative and therefore help the assessor to better understand the student, but this is not part of the academic process - is it?

But, more importantly, the reflective element should be more about process than 'evidence'. It is the processes of generating evidence that I would be more interested in.

For more, see my blog at: www.efoliointheuk.blogspot.com

Best Wishes,
Ray T

Re: Blogs as E-portfolios: Better for the Students, Cheaper for the .edu

maximise — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 17:00:47 -0000

Yes, Platforms are an issue. In mainstream education we have some 35 different VLEs to choose from, many with embedded e-Portfolios of some sort or other - some claiming interoperability - others not. I still see the VLE as being the main content dilevery system with the VLE 'hard-wired' to MIS and thus also to assessment tools. BTW, some of these assessment tools are very effective both for staff and also for pupils' self-evaluation.

As you may gather from some of my writings, I do not see an 'embedded' e-Portfolio as being a true e-Portfolio in that it is neither portable nor learner owned. Concerning 'platforms', therefore I come to the mantra, Let the VLE do what it does best and leave the e-Portfolio to do what it can do best.

My comment about the 'ICT test' comes from the fact that some colleges use the introduction and building of the e-Portfolio as a competency training/testing exercise rather than giving them a ready-prepared tool.

I could show you any number of pre-prepared e-Portfolios bespoke-designed by course leaders whereby to start off with I then generate as many user-accounts as required.
Here is my current demo eFolio:
http://www.raytolley1.xfoli...

And in a Secondary school that could be 250 accounts generated almost instantly for a whole year-group. Similarly, I could create a set of e-Portfolios designed for a mothers-and-babies group. Here is a demo I created last year for an 8 yr-old:
http://www.studentdemo2.tol...

or here is one for the 14-19 Diplomas:
http://www.ukclonebase14-19...

All of the above are 'starter kits' that then allow the owner to change the skins as and when they are ready.

Re: Blogs as E-portfolios: Better for the Students, Cheaper for the .edu

maximise — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 15:16:12 -0000

Hi, Kevin,

I have no problem with blogs as you might guess by mine. My argument is that the blog is only a very small part of an e-Portfolio. In a paper that I'm near to completing, I list some 25 advantages of having a properly functioning e-Portfolio, of which only two or three aspects are related to blogging.

However, I come back to one of my primary complaints that HE in particular only sees the e-portfolio as an institutional tool to serve their own purposes. In contrast my whole mission is to prove that the e-Portfolio MUST be independant of any institution if it is to be properly owned by the learner.
http://www.maximise-ict.co....

Secondly, rather than the learner having to build the e-Portfolio as some sort of ICT-skills exercise to be assessed, the e-Portfolio should be equally accessible to all from cradle to grave.
http://efoliointheuk.blogsp...

Re: Blogs as E-portfolios: Better for the Students, Cheaper for the .edu

maximise — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 09:50:25 -0000

Hi, Kevin,

What a very narrow and limited approach to e-Portfolios! The blog and all it can do (as you've rightly described) is only one small part of a properly constructed e-Portfolio.

Your second paragraph points to a link suggesting that e-Portfolio thinking is something new. I suggest that you go back to Dr Helen Barrett's initial work of over 25 years ago!

You rightly identify the weaknesses of tools such as Blackboard to do the job that is better done by an e-Portfolio. Here in the UK we have in excess of 35 VLEs all competing for a much smaller market. There is therefore a much healthier competition to resolve these issues.

Unfortunately, around the world, there are far too many bright young academics propounding similar approaches to yours but they invariably pay little attention to the other 90% of society who for one reason or another cannot or do not desire to spend the time and effort into building their own e-safe sites. It appears that you are reducing the e-Portfolio to a technical exercise for those who are primarily ICT literate.

Andy is incorrect in his claim that e-Portfolios only show the finished results. A good e-Portfolio is quite capable of showing both, and at the same time! The work of Helen Barrett has repeatedly referred to the 'Life Story' - and that is about academic processes as much as personal escapades.

And what of templates, skins, choice of fonts, avatars etc? If the e-Portfolio is supposed to be Lifelong AND lifewide it should be capable of changing templates or skins according to audience or the very mood the learner wants to communicate. What of the teenager who regularly changes the pop-group genre they follow or the football team that they support? The ability to change one's self-representation can be done in minutes, if not seconds, with a good e-Portfolio system.

An what of formative assessment? Unless I missed it you do not appear to mention the benefits of working in a closed and e-secure environment in which teachers and students can work in a trusted formative dialogue.

But, to return to your title 'Cheaper for the .edu'? I doubt it! Do you really think that all the time, effort and expertise that you invest in attempting to re-invent the wheel is really only worth $2-$3 per learner per year?

Please check out my blog at: www.efoliointheuk.blogspot.com

or get back to me at: rjt@maximise-ict.co.uk

Re: Who needs reflection?

maximise — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 10:26:24 -0000

Hi, David,

responses in reverse order:

One of the most powerful aspects, of an e-Portfolio, as you've hinted at, is that of formative assessment. WJ Popham's first rule: is that formative assessment is about influencing the delivery of teaching and resources etc and Secondly: that it is a 'mile-post' activity of supplying feedback to the learner at measured times within a project and certainly NOT at the end!

The e-Portfolio is therefore the place for both peer assessment (where appropriate) of the 'work in progress' and certainly the place for informal feedback from the tutor or supervisor of possibly selected parts of a larger work.

I'm not sure that Tweeting is the best way of reaching any profound reflections about one's own progress. Of all the examples here, I would not say that anything profound has come about?

The trouble with reflection, surely, is that one does need a starting-point and end-point that have sufficient identifiers in common that one can actually make comparisons. That does not come in a day or a week, normally.

Re: Delicious vs. diigo

maximise — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 10:53:20 -0000

Hi, Sarah,

As you may have gathered, I'm 'all things e-Portfolio'. I wonder thereofre if you have come across any advice on legal issues, e-safety etc about using web2.0 applications within an e-Portfolio?

see my question at: http://efoliointheuk.blogsp...

BW
Ray T

Re: Who needs reflection?

maximise — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 17:27:02 -0000

Hey, Alan,

Please do not blame the e-Portfolio for the failure of your students to 'do' reflection. Reflection is an art-form best taught as soon as children enter Primary school. Certainly, by the time they get to Secondary school they should not only understand 'reflection' but also begin to get a grasp of evaluation. Unfortunately, although students might learn how to evaluate in Design & Technology lessons, they are not always taught about transference of skills, ie how to apply reflection or evaluation to other areas of academia.

I'm sorry that you have apparently turned so many students off e-Portfolios. And anyway, what is this about "Employers" ? If you are only just introducing e-Portfolios - the last thing you ought to be talking about is Showcasing. How about formative assessments? How about collaboration? How about mentoring with older students or external experts? Planning, Drafting..etc etc.

Unless you have firstly persuaded your students that this is a tool to assist their learning, is owned by them and that they may give you permission to see their e-Portfolios, then I'm afraid you are only reinforcing the 'silo' mentality of so many HE institutions of the last decade.

One initial document of mine might explain my thinking: http://www.maximise-ict.co....

Please see my blog at www.efoliointheuk.blogspot.com

Re: ePortfolios are not just for Christmas... they're not even for that...

maximise — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 09:01:41 -0000

Hi, Sarah,

Leigh often has tough things to say and does not shy away from telling it as he sees it. However, from my 'pro e-Portfolio' stance I would argue that many universities have a very narrow, almost trivial, attitude to e-Portfolios as nothing more than a content delivery system, or a tool for capstone assessments, or a mandatory mini-course in ICT competencies, or a tool for short-term PDP - or any combination of two or three of the above.

The trouble is that those outside of HE (ie the 90% of the real world) see the e-Portfolio as having many more functions and highly advantageous educational benefits than those promulgated from the sacred halls of academia. The challenges of setting up 'cloud-based computing' for the average Primary school child, the less-able or the elderly appears to be ignored by those who have vested interests in research and publishing.

In reply to Nogbad, I feel that all your criticisms are based upon knowledge of simplistic and limited e-Portfolio systems. Portability is no problem if the system is hosted externally. Management of the system is completely down to the learner as owner - nothing directly to do with the institution.

Perhaps thos who criticise e-Portfolios should get out into the real world and see what IS going on in those schools and colleges that have taken the trouble to move with the times.

I could go on, but most of my thinking is clearly expressed in my e-Portfolio and blog:

P: http://www.raytolley1.xfoli...
B: http://www.efoliointheuk.bl...
W: http://www.maximise-ict.co....

Best Wishes,
Ray T