Congratulations to the PLE_BCN team for organising a great event in Barcelona – fabulous venue, interactive sessions, interesting people (with over-large egos refreshingly absent) and lovely food.
The scene was set before the event started with a request from the organisers for us to design our own conference badges – the creative results are showcased here
Interaction was the name of the game, and Twitter the tool of choice (more than 5,000 contributions from both the audience and from #PLE_BCN followers all around the world). The Session Chairs highlighted relevant tweets sent while the presentations were taking place, and Twitterfall displayed them all to the room. @cristinacost put me on the spot in the first session by asking me to elaborate on one of my tweets – and so the first time we meet face to face she is shoving a microphone at me!
In the first Keynote, @courosa and @grahamattwell had a few technology challenges to overcome but their keynote ‘walked the talk’ on Personal Learning Environments, bringing in contributions by video and making effective use of the skrbl boards where people could raise questions and start debates relating to each of the key conference themes. These items then display in real time on the virtual white board.
In the second Keynote , @ictologist and @jordi had us moving around the room to ‘vote with our feet’ and complete the grids displayed in their slides, on issues such as whether the PLE should be located inside or outside the institution. The results may have been slightly skewed by hopeless Brits like myself misinterpreting the instructions (given in Spanish…)
A few reflections to end this post…despite all the talk of engagement and interactivity in PLEs, some presenters seemed keen to stick with the traditional delivery model, and even amongst an enthusiastic audience, not everyone wants to engage all of the time…we need some “down time” to catch up on what’s been happening in our own PLNs, or just to chat in the cafe with other delegates. And there are different types of engagement – some people go for quantity of contributions, others for quality (and a few lucky peeps even manage to do both! You know who you are…)
Finally, here is the summary of today’s PLE_BCN tweets from Archivist
Next week I’ll be in Sunny Spain at the PLE Conference (@PLE_BCN)
What is a PLE you might well ask?
Personal Learning Environments (PLEs) include the tools, communities, and services that constitute the individual educational platforms learners use to direct their own learning and pursue educational goals. It represents a shift away from the traditional model of consuming information through independent channels such as the library or textbook, and towards a more active approach where connections are made and relationships are developed both online and offline. A PLE also puts learners in charge of their own learning processes, challenging them to reflect on the tools and resources that help them to learn best.
In a refreshing contrast to many academic conferences, this event looks likely to “practice what it preaches”:
- The keynote speakers ( including @courosa and @grahamattwell) have already posted up video and slides previewing their sessions and requesting comments and questions from the delegates.
- The conference hashtag (@PLE_BCN) has been active on Twitter for many weeks.
- We have been asked to design our own ID badges, with the instruction to “be creative”
- There is an active conference social network on Crowdvine
- And a YouTube channel
Amongst all this innovation and creativity, are my boring powerpoint slides:
I will blog some feedback about the event next week 
Associate Data Analyst: Turning data into insight to inform digital decision-making
Location: Central London
Fortune Cookie is looking for…
An individual with a data analysis background, who has a keen interest in website development. You’ll be keen to develop your online knowledge of data analysis techniques. You’ll be familiar with data manipulation techniques and be able to recognise optimisation opportunities that can benefit our clients.
What’s the role?
Working with the Lead Data Analyst, you will be responsible for data creativity, analysing digital optimisation opportunities and minimising any risks to measurability. By using processes outlined by the Lead Data Analyst you will ensure that projects are delivered with the required tracking, benchmarking, analysis and optimisation to the client. You will perform data analysis audits on client websites, create meaningful performance reports, as well as gather and represent research from both quantitative and qualitative methods.
You are someone who:
- passionate about delivering measurable value to clients
- knowledgeable about what drives good website design
- has excellent Excel skills and is used to manipulating formulae, pivot tables and creating macros
- can create imaginative solutions to complex problems
- communicates results clearly, both to the team and to clients
- enjoys data manipulation to demonstrate client priorities
- comfortable in front of an audience
Boxes to tick:
- computer science or data analysis degree
- experience of coding basic HTML
- confident using pivot tables, macros and formula in Excel 2007
- good communication skills
- analytical skills – being able to determine significant compared to a seasonal trend
- knowledge of SQL and database technologies
- experience with Google Analytics
- heard of other web analytics packages such as WebTrends, RedEye, SpeedTrap and Nedstat would be a bonus
- knowledge of Content Management Systems e.g. EpiServer
What’s in it for you?
You’ll be working for a successful, award-winning digital agency in central London. You will be part of a creative, talented team and play a key role in providing online business solutions for big-name clients – public sector organisations, blue-chip corporate clients and world-famous brands.
Fortune Cookie offer a superb package, an enthusiastic family atmosphere and a personal development and training plan.
For those of you starting out in the School of Management this week, many of you newly arrived in the UK, I will be sharing with you some hints and tips to help you make the most of your learning opportunity. In preparation for this session, you might like to take a look at the following:
Igoogle
If you have a Google account (for example a gmail address) you can customise your page as I have done here, to keep up to date with topics of interest to you. You can organise under subheadings so that you group together all items relating to ‘dissertation’ or ‘Introduction to Marketing unit’ for example, and any new posts on your chosen blogs will automatically be pulled through so you can see these updates at a glance. Google Reader also serves the same purpose but presents the information in a different style.
Delicious
By scanning your igoogle pages , you may well find an article or video that you wish to keep and refer to again, in which case you can save it into Delicious and index it in a way that suits you. I would recommend that you include a few comments to remind yourself of the nature of the content and why you kept it, because once you build up a few hundred items you will forget what the earlier ones were all about J
Twitter
My main source of new material comes from Twitter. Follow people who share information that is useful to you – and be prepared to share what you find with others aswell. For Marketing students, a great place to start is Dave Chaffey’s blog post where he lists key people to follow on Twitter who are experts in various aspects of marketing.
Diigo
Diigo combines bookmarking and community building features. It allows you to highlight and add comments to web pages that you read, then save and share your findings as a slideshow. By tagging items of interest, you can connect with other users on a global basis who are commenting on the same material. Have a look at the explanatory video
Enjoy!
Thanks to the global reach of the Internet, the other day I stumbled upon this little gem courtesy of Andrew Churches of Auckland, New Zealand.
Benjamin Bloom was an educational psychologist working at the University of Chicago in the 1950s. His original taxonomy was designed to help educators to understand and structure the learning process, based on progressing students along a continuum starting from “Lower Order Thinking Skills” and moving towards “Higher Order Thinking Skills”. The underlying principle is that the higher order skills are dependent upon prior acquisition of lower order skills, which means (for example) that we cannot apply knowledge until we have understood it. The terminology used in Bloom’s Taxonomy has been revised over the years, and now looks like this:
Remembering – Understanding – Applying – Analysing – Evaluating – Creating
Bloom’s Taxonomy accounts for many of the traditional educational practices, behaviours and actions but it does not account for the new learning activities that are associated with Web 2.0 technologies. Andrew has very usefully mapped these to Bloom’s categories, which I have summarised as follows:
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Bloom’s category
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Digital applications
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Remembering
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Social networking, social bookmarking, favouriting, searching
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Understanding
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Subscribing, tweeting, tagging, commenting, annotating
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Applying
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Uploading, editing, sharing, hacking
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Analysing
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Linking, validating, mashing
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Evaluating
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Reviewing, blogging, networking, moderating
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Creating
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Programming, podcasting, vodcasting, animating, wiki-ing
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Andrew notes that “Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy isn’t about the tools or technologies rather it is about using these to facilitate learning”. Obviously certain activities will cross these boundaries – blogging, for example, is an activity which can be carried out at many different levels, and over time today’s popular tools will evolve and change. But this is a very welcome framework for educators to re-think how they deliver and assess their courses. You can read the full story and access a range of supporting resources on Andrew’s wiki
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