Never mind the quality mark, feel the myth

Sitting on a train on the way home, I've been reading the TES on-line where one of the headline stories is about the Noah’s Ark Zoo Farm (which somewhat coincidently is located near Bristol which is where I've been for a JISC meeting,) controversially receiving the Government-backed Council for Learning Outside the Classroom's “quality badge”, a kitemark developed last year to accredit outdoor activity centres, museums and stately homes as suitable for children's education.

Hopefully the institution's name ought to be a clue for any educators wanting to broaden the mind of their charges, but the presence of an official badge might sway the unwary into inadvertently exposing enquiring minds to religious propaganda presented as fact.

Now leaving aside problems which are presumably issues of faith, such as where did all the water come from and where did it go, or why did Noah leave all the marsupials in Australasia, the likelihood of the story having any actual, and therefore significant, educational basis can be illustrated with simple mathematics.

Ignoring what we actually know to be the highest peaks on earth (Everest, K2, etc) and instead using Mount Ararat as reference point since that's where the biblical story says the ark ended up, we're left with water covering land at an elevation above sea level of to close to 17000 feet (to be precise the elevation of said mountain is 16945 feet). Since the story says it rained for 40 days and 40 nights, that means in each twenty four hour period the water rose an average of 425 feet (17000/40), or to put it in another way, 17' 9" each and every hour all around the world for nearly 6 weeks, not just local to wherever Noah's menagerie was floating around.

That's an awful lot of water in anybody's (good?) book, and if the family who run the zoo want to believe that it really happened and put on a show about it then that's up to them, but handing out an official educational endorsement is surely not something that's going to help anybody involved in the planning of school trips now that we know there's no apparent care taken in deciding which organisations can be trusted to deliver objective supplements to the national curriculum.

Space (centre): the no-Phil Frontier

Having been asked to help coordinate a "Creative Assessment to Help Eliminate Plagiarism" workshop as part of the joint JISC/HEA e-asy Assessment day at the National Space Centre, I arrived in Leicester late last night to be told by the organisers that Professor Phil Race, the advertised keynote speaker, was ill and unable to attend, so "could I step in"?

3 beers, a glass of wine and a pizza-full of persuasion later, meant sleep was postponed while I re-purposed a collection of resources and wrote a presentation to make up a (hopefully!) coherent 2-hour session around the day's theme of "engaging with innovative ways of assessing learners to make assessment e-asy".

Fortunately, when the moment of truth arrived, adrenaline overrode the effects of having had only 3 hours worth of sleep, so my delivery was something close to normal, but after an afternoon workshop, a plenary and three hours to get home, the effects of "boldly going where no one (well me anyway) has gone before" has left me feeling very tired....

Springing in the rain

Trying to drive back up the M1 after attending a JISC Project Assembly, I'm now parked in Leicester Forest service station due to the torrential rain which the local Midlands radio describes as "unseasonal".
As today is officially three days into spring, "unseasonal" would appear to be putting it rather mildly.
Unlike the weather, which isn't mild at all.....

HE in FE Think Tank - Norwich

I was asked last month to help convene a ‘think-tank’ to seek the views of those with recognised expertise in the field of HE in FE on how best to support HE in FE practitioners in their use of technology to enhance learning, teaching and assessment as part of a collaboration between the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) and the Higher Education Academy.

It was held at City College Norwich using HE in FE Research Centre as host venue & local RSC invited some college practitioners with the aims:

1. to consider the effectiveness of resources which have been developed to support academic staff in their use of technology to enhance learning, teaching and assessment, by the two organisations (including the Academy Subject Centre Network, JISC Services and Regional Support Centres)


2. to consider how to improve access to and take up of resources,


3. to identify additional developments/support that may be required by HE in FE practitioners


4. to explore how the two organisations might collaborate further to enhance the provision of HE in FE.

11 of us, including representatives from SURF, Netskills, CETIS assembled for dinner the night before, and 18 of us met in CCN's bespoke Business Development Centre for 8 hours to present on, and debate/discuss the aims above.

The HEA will be publishing the outcomes of the day as part of their collaboration project with JISC early next month.

Bid Writing - to bid or not to bid?

Presented (& facilitated two workshops with the local HE Advisor) at a JISC RSC event in York on bid writing regarding a current JISC e-learning funding call to 20+ colleges (and two HEIs) in the Yorkshire & Humber region. Outlined my experiences as both marker & panel member, what the process is, what we (the markers) look for, how final decisions are reached etc..

JISC Annual Conference, Birmingham

More than 700 delegates (from colleges, HEIs, educational developers etc), a range of speakers, presentations, demonstrations, workshops and more than 50 stands in the exhibition hall.
Professor Sir Ron Cooke, Chair of JISC opened the conference, and Lord Puttnam of Queensgate and Angela Beesley, Chair of the Wikimedia Foundation, were the keynote speakers.
Among the subjects under discussion: the benefits of e-learning; the Google Generation report; identity management; student experiences of ICT; virtual research environments, and much more. In addition, the winner and shortlisted entries for the JISC/Times Higher 2007 Award for 'Outstanding ICT Initiative' showcased their work.
Other notable highlights of the day:
* The inaugural JISC infoNet Innovation in Records & Information Management Awards presented by Lord Puttnam
* Launch of a range of e-learning publications, including briefing papers, and case studies on the DEL regional pilots
* Launch of two new resources from JISC TechDis - an online database of accessibility information for UK publishers and guidance for librarians and learning support staff on alternative formats
* Launch of the 'Tangible Benefits of e-Learning' publication by JISC infoNet
* The 'digital library zone', an area dedicated to digital resources reflecting the changing role of the library in a modern academic environment,
* An open source demo stand supported by OSS Watch, showcasing a range of innovative open source applications
* Launch of - 'Libraries of the Future' - which attempts to initiate a debate about the future of the academic library.
* No mention of "Second Life" anywhere - has the bubble burst?
Managed to convince/cajole/bribe 10 attendees for my HE in FE "Think-tank" in Norwich on May 21st - if interested, ask me!