The JISC organised event presented an opportunity to meet colleagues from across the UK, speak with old friends and make some new ones, set against a backdrop of innovative practice around information and educational technologies.
Taking place over 2 days at the ICC in Birmingham and feeling more like a TED event than a typical conference, myself and a colleague from Falmouth University were able to attend and engage in some fantastic keynotes and workshops. By far the most valuable thing about the event was talking to colleagues and find out how other institutions approach themes like Digital Literacy, assessment and feedback and portfolios. Having said that here are the top 5 takeaways from the workshops and keynotes in order of time and day (as that's how my notes are organised) from #DigiFest14:
Info/Toolkits
Some of the workshops I attended introduced and made use of various "InfoKits" developed by JISC, which in their own words:
...contain a wealth of 'self-help' material, from simple methodologies to manage projects, risks, change and processes; to image galleries of technology-rich spaces and reflections from leaders to learners showcasing the inspiring use of technology across the sectors.In addition to materials regarding development of Digital Literacies (we had a great conversation around these in relation to student experience), the workshop on designing digital credentialing systems introduced the open badge design kit and there was some great conversation around the application of badges for articulating skills for students and recognising achievements such as peer review for researchers. There is also a wealth of information on developing e-portfolios, something that gets a great deal of mention at Falmouth.
More on open badges at the Mozilla site.
Augmented reality, the new augmented reality
.JPG)
I've overlooked developments in AR for learning and teaching, mainly because the experience of the applications like Layar and Aurasma has been fairly poor.
Well not much has changed there, holding up an iPad to a poster for 5 minutes whilst the app tries to reference the material just gives you arm/head ache and I have concerns about the actual engagement with the material that is being augmented, does it become more throwaway or less valuable. I guess it depends on the context and through discussion with colleagues, I discovered a variety of interesting use cases:
- Student feedback - Setting up a photobooth where students record their experience on video and using AR with still images from the video displayed around campus.
- Art exhibition - recording artists talking about artistic intention in their work. AR is used to link artwork to videos in a similar way that we used QR codes with intheframe.falmouth.ac.uk
- Book review - AR is used with books to link out user reviews either in text or video format.
- Drink mats - AR linking out to a maths problem/theme for that week.
There's clearly value within this field, even if the technology isn't quite there. Within Falmouth, we could look using AR to enhance staff and student experience with initiatives around students describing experience on campus during their first few weeks or using beermats to advertise web services.
Recognising and encouraging innovative communities of practice
Joss Winn's talk on the University as a Hackerspace resonated with me insomuch as I'm really interested in how community led, anti-disciplinary initiatives can enhance learning and teaching in the University. Hackerspaces and Maker labs such as Falmouth's Makernow facilitate such communities, but can they really exist and flourish in the traditional single discipline, commodity/fee driven University?
Digital Storytelling
Digital stories can be too 'noisy' with information and maybe too polished. Rough edges might make it more authentic #digifest14
— Mark (@the_markness) March 12, 2014
Thoughts evolved around telling stories through digital media tools like WeVideo that I've talked about in another post. I was intrigued by aspects of realism and authenticity in storytelling and the idea of narrating the journey to or from something and telling small stories to make big points. Stories are intuitive and convey understanding and I think we can make great use of digital stories as part of making our project work like 'VLE Assessment' more visible.The language of technology in the future
Interesting to hear about the lack of language to describe new tech: Horseless carriage, magic lantern, iron horse,Mobile phone. #digifest14
— Mark (@the_markness) March 12, 2014
He talked of a future where our digital assistants would translate and form this language for us, something that wasn't too far away from the story of the recent Spike Jones film, HER. He went on to describe 6 key drivers that would shape our technological future:
- Asymmetric population growth
- Climate Change
- Ongoing energy crisis
- Globalisation, if sustainable and ethical can be a great force of good
- Medical science revolutions: DNA decoding, stem cell research and nano medicine which may personalise medicine and increase life expectancy for those that can afford it.
- Accelerating exponential technology development, apps. Mobile payments. Didn't exist 6 years ago.
All in it was an incredibly engaging and though provoking presentation, even if it wasn't all new stuff and Dr. Who had already fixed it with his TARDIS and Douglas Adam's already gave us the Babelfish. This just summed up the festival spirit though; it was a great way to share common experience and rethink our approaches to current and future technology themes in education. Looking forward to next year