Disqus - Latest Comments for John Connell

Re: Top Ten Reasons Why the Kindle Won’t Be an iPod for Books

John Connell — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 10:21:03 -0000

I suspect you're right about the Kindle, specifically, but you are almost certainly wrong about a killer e-book reader that is surely just around the corner. It will be open, non-proprietary, easy to use, easy to carry, and cheap (ok, maybe the last will take time).

Most of your reasons simply don't stack up, I'm afraid. For instance (#4 & #5) - I would love to be able to carry hundreds of books with me on holiday, when I'm working, whenever, wherever. Why? Because I rarely read a book from cover to cover (I read few novels and lots of non-fiction) and I like to dip into my books (I have thousands of the things at home) for ideas, for reference, to support my own thinking etc.

Most of the remainder of your reasons are equally uninspiring, I'm afraid.

Re: Glow, SETT, TeachMeet06

John Connell — Sat, 23 Sep 2006 14:21:09 -0000

Robert,

I am, as they say, biased, but I think some of your points deserve at least a mild riposte from someone who has probably been closer to SSDN/Glow than anyone over the past few years. This is in no way intended as criticism - we are all absolutely entitled to our opinions, but I hope you will understand my urge to put my own perspective on your views above.

I also appreciate your note of optimism and your self-evident enthusiasm for the overall notion of Glow - it is interesting and gratifying for me to see that, whatever individual concerns people might have about aspects of the programme, there is an obvious groundswell of commitment to its aims for our schools over the next few years.

In no particular order:

...there are actually lots of new faces involved in Glow, but there are also, of course, lots of Masterclassers too - Scotland just isn't that big a country, and Scottish education is an even smaller country (village?). When we need a big group of people willing to take the lead in ICT in education, it often falls to the same people to push themselves forward. When you look around, you do see many of the same faces, but look closer and you will start to see the new faces too.

...Glow is definitely not vapourware, although it is still at an interim stage of development - but we will see the rest of the integrated package arrive in very short order indeed, between now and April/May next year. For an undertaking on this scale that is actually pretty good going - remember, no one else anywhere is trying to do what we are doing, putting all these apps and services onto the Web in a single package. To date we have the core portal, and we already saw the early versions of the integration of the video/audio conferencing, virtual whiteboard, application sharing and SMS at one of the demos on the LTS stand on Thursday. There is still quite a bit of work to do even on this last set of tools alone, but we're confident enough to have shown them to the wider public last week

...the 'launch' at this year's SETT was always going to be the start of the process of raising awareness of the project amongst the wider teaching audience, not the introduction of the whole package as such - I helped draw up the plans for the process over a year ago and I can vouch for that. I've known since I started managing the project that the hardest part to get right is communication, especially when the audience is so big and so diverse.

...and however useful we all think wikis and blogs might be, when it comes to complex project management (and, believe me, Glow is a big, complex project involving a frightening number of workstreams and issues with a huge range of stakeholders) we simply cannot do without detailed and lengthy face to face contact much of the time, especially with the local authorities. You're right, though, to expect much greater use of the Web 2.0 technologies and this will happen over the next few months, as both Ewan and Mova have said.

Anyway, hope you don't mind me giving my tuppence-worth here.

I like the blog!! Like you, I host my own Wordpress blog, so it's good to come across a colleague that I might be able to bounce the odd issue or problem off on occasions.

Cheers,

John

Re: The Glow Mugs Glow!

John Connell — Sat, 23 Sep 2006 14:26:13 -0000

And I don't even have a mug! I want one now!

Re: Glow, SETT, TeachMeet06

John Connell — Sun, 24 Sep 2006 04:29:13 -0000

Robert - I'm forced to admit that I'm someone who actually saw Uriah Heep live back in the 70s!! But then I guess you're talking about another Uriah Heep? :-)

I've always tried to be as open and as honest as I can be in the context of a big commercial procurement such as SSDN, so I have no problem whatsoever with any and all perceptions from the chalkface being communicated to me and to my colleagues on the Glow team in LTS. I will make a point of sharing your specific points with them so that they can think through the implications.

The feeling of impatience is one I can understand, but I guess it's more important to get it right even if it takes a little longer to get there.

Thanks for the offer of the mug!

Re: Google Analytics

John Connell — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 06:30:15 -0000

Me too, Robert, if you have any to spare?

Cheers,

John

Re: Glow mentor meeting

John Connell — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 13:57:48 -0000

Sounds like it was a good meeting, Robert. Some interesting points raised that i'm happy to try to answer (with the exception in this comment of Ewan's question - that deserves a more thoughtful, and thought through, answer).

The phasing of the technical development for Glow means that, yes, the VLE will be the last component integrated into the whole package - it's in the nature of this particular beast that the VLE has to work alongside the collaborative tools, so the integration of all of the collaborative tools has to be completed first. However, the current timescales mean that the integration of most of the collaborative tools should be completed by around Jan/Feb next year, and the work on integrating the VLE will start at that point. However, the VLE itself is already under development, and Jim Buchan already runs a steering group including people from all over the country whose task it is to oversee that particular development.

In terms of the training, the decision was taken that the training for the collaborative environment would be best done in an eclectic group including people from various authorities - hence the 2 days at Stirling. But it was felt that the training on the VLE would be best done in the mentor's own authority -so the plan is to run the two days at Stirling, followed later by a day and a half (or so) on the VLE with each group of mentors in their own authority. The timing of the VLE training will be for each group of mentors to agree with the Glow team who will be leading the training.

Cheers, John

ps thanks for the gmail invite!

Re: Glow mentor meeting

John Connell — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 14:14:58 -0000

Ewan's question, of course, is the challenge we all have to meet over the next couple of years. I believe that the particular package of tools and applications being offered within Glow will be intrinsically useful to teachers, but, of course, that is no guarantee that they will use them.

The big difference, as far as I am concerned, is the fact that they will no longer be a collection of disparate and disconnected applications, most of them client-based, each with its own set of standards, its own interface etc. Instead, they will all be browser-based, they will all have a similar look and feel to them, they will all be fully integrated, and - crucially - that same set of integrated tools and applications will be available to every teacher and every pupil in the land.

To use Skype you have to know others who use Skype; to use Marratech, you have to know others who use Marratech; to use a particular chat client....etc etc.....

With Glow, the fact that all these tools are available to everyone in the country, and the fact that they will be tied tightly together by means of the national authentication system and user directory will mean that contact with any other individual, or for that matter any other group that you wish to define or that has already been set up by someone else, will be a simple matter.

But that still leaves a big job for us all to do, and I think a large chuck of that job will fall on the shoulders of the mentors - showing teachers just how easy it is to use, just how easy it is to make contact with anyone else on the system, and just how easy it will be for them to begin to set up groups of their own devising to collaborate with. And Alan Yeoman's point about the nature of the training here is critical - it will not be about the nuts and bolts, but about what value Glow will be to the teaching and learning in our schools, and how it can be used to enhance the educational process!

I have a basic trust in the quality of the mentors that are coming forward that we will have a really productive and invaluable cadre of educators to push the benefits of Glow from Day 1 - and it won't simply be about content (or 'stuff'), the key value will be in that combination of collaborative environment and the authentication system.

And when we add in what the social networking tools can do for learning (whether inside Glow eventually or not), well.......

Re: Glow mentor meeting

John Connell — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 10:17:57 -0000

I've had a particular take on this vexed issue of content .v. collaboration for a long time (although, of course, they aren't actually in opposition to each other). When we were talking to anyone who would listen to us during 2002 - 2004 about what this SSDN thing might look like, teachers (as opposed to ex-teachers like me) always pinpointed 'stuff' as being at the top of their wish list. I always tried to explain how important the whole area of collaboration would prove to be in time, but few really bought it as the main reason for 'doing an SSDN' at the time.

I guess, for many teachers, to be fair, it was a question of 'we don't know what we don't know' - sounds a bit Donald Rumsfeld-ish!! - in other words, teachers like to have lots of resources to play with and they saw SSDN/Glow as a means to get their hands on lots of new resources. So resources were seen as the main raison d'etre for Glow.

So - rather than try to persuade otherwise (and, of course, content IS important in any case) we have been working on the assumption that, in order to achieve a quick win with teachers when Glow goes live, it will have to make available a reasonable tranche of content (stuff!) from Day 1. Only gradually, perhaps, will we be able to persuade teachers that, hey, there's something in here that is just as important - and maybe more important - than stuff, namely all the collaborative tools that will allow you to bring your pupils together with others from across Scotland or across the world.

In the meantime, of course, the social networking tools have appeared over the horizon. I believe that, over the next year, we should be able to use blogs, wikis, etc to persuade more and more teachers that collaboration is the central attribute of Glow and of the Web 2.0 tools themselves (it's just obvious with the latter!), so that by the time Glow goes live, more of our teachers will be willing to look beyond 'stuff' as the main success factor for the national system.

Re: Glow mentor meeting

John Connell — Mon, 02 Oct 2006 07:50:22 -0000

Hamish/Robert,

Sorry I missed this until Hamish emailed me. The answer is a simple one: that it will be up to anyone who is already currently running any kind of local or national forum to decide if and when they might wish to move their forum onto Glow. If, as Robert notes, you do not feel that Glow gives you the same or better functionality than your current set-up, then there will be no problem with your forum continuing to co-exist separately.

However, Glow will give you, apart from the interest-group functionality, access to all the collaborative tools to use as well for your forum members. So, as well as threaded discussions, shared areas or whatever else you might enjoy within Sputnik, your members will also be able to communicate via the desktop video/audio conferencing tools, virtual whiteboard, application sharing, chat rooms, mailing lists, and so on.

Get back to me if you need any other info.

Cheers,

John

Re: Glow mentor meeting

John Connell — Fri, 06 Oct 2006 14:16:06 -0000

I think the best exemplars around Glow, Hilery, will come from you and your Glow mentor colleagues around the country. It is the mentors who will be getting their hands on the full Glow package first, and my guess is that some of the best initial practice might come out of real teachers using the real thing with real students. That, I guess, was why, if you remember, our first attempt to come up with scenarios/exemplars was less than successful.

Just finished re-reading Paulo Freire's 'Pedagogy of Freedom', by the way.......

Re: Ho ho ho

John Connell — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 04:15:31 -0000

Bah....humbug! Or has someone used that phrase before? ;-)

I'm only annoyed because my daughter has decreed (!) that we can't put our tree up until she is there to direct operations, and she won't be home until the Friday before Christmas - so the three days before Christmas it looks like for us!

Re: Pete and Viv’s Fun Page

John Connell — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 16:02:51 -0000

Superb! Pointless, but superb! Cheers, Robert.

Re: How do you see Glow?

John Connell — Tue, 05 Dec 2006 09:06:58 -0000

Guess which I'd choose, Robert :-)

The spirited interchange on my own blog today between Euan Semple, Ewan McIntosh and myself sets out some of the ground that will underpin the 'good' metaphor above. I agree with you on the connections we need to establish between Glow, RSS and all the other functionality we will be either building into the environment or getting to work in tandem with Glow.

Re: Is robert.jones.name worth $12 a year?

John Connell — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 08:57:58 -0000

And the good thing, Robert, is that, if the .name tld does not work out, I can blame you for costing me £12 a year :-)

I've taken john.connell.name

Re: More Microsoft FUD.. sigh!

John Connell — Fri, 08 May 2009 14:40:35 -0000

Good post, Robert - FUD is what it is all about. I hope no one out there chooses to take it too seriously.

Re: The world is going mad... again!

John Connell — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 15:31:31 -0000

It would be interesting to ask those who took this decision, Sarah, whether their 'place of learning' will do anything to help shake off the negative connotations of that word we should no longer use! Have they changed the name but done nothing to make school (damn!) a place of joy and delight? If so, what's the point?

Re: The Human ‘Education’ Network

John Connell — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 06:02:36 -0000

Jeff - this is an excellent post, and I am only sorry that I have not come across your blog before now. Although I actually work for Cisco (Iam an education strategist working in the Emerging Markets, covering Latin America, Africa, Middle East, Eastern Europe and Russia), it is not the reference to the company that impressed me, but the concise outline of the notion of the web as the learning platform. I speak at many events across the world, and I meet any key education people through my job with Cisco, and these are notions that I come back to again and again in my conversations.

The questions you ask and the issues you raise are precisely the ones that I pull into those conversations in many parts of the world - and they are issues and questions being raised more and more by thoughtful educators. Thank you, and more power to your elbow!

[The Human Network videos are nice, aren't they?]

Re: Overcoming shyness

John Connell — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 15:07:46 -0000

Janet,

I have taken the liberty of commenting on this brave post on my own blog. Hope you don't mind.

John

John Connells last blog post..Paying Homage to Diffidence

Re: Things I’ve been reading online recently

John Connell — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 13:06:47 -0000

Interesting list, Doug.

On George Siemens' point around pedagogy .v. context, my question would be, how do we separate the two? Is our choice of pedagogy in any particular situation not determined to a large extent by context, or at least our interpretation, as teachers, of the context in which the teaching and learning happen?

On the other hand, maybe it depends on our definition of context. I'll have to think about that one :-)

By the way, as someone who was thinking of starting to list delicious links, maybe once or twice a week, I'm not sure I understand your issues re your RSS reader. I use Netvibes and can't really say that such link-lists give me a problem.