Dr Rónán O’Beirne’s Weblog

Education; Technology; Digital Transformation; Information & Knowledge Management; Librarianship; Digital Leadership

This painting “Turn In The Road” oil-on-canvas by my cousin Niall Wright was one of a number on show at his latest exhibition recently held in Dublin. Follow this link to see more.

With externally-funded projects starting to show a return and the VLE infrastructure firmly in place, we are beginning to see our own turn in the road. What lies ahead is a new landscape where the delivery of learning becomes appropriate to the learner. Key staff are working daily and meeting weekly to pull together and deliver the virtual learning environment.

One area that still needs to be addressed is staff development. We are planning a series of events over the coming months that will ensure that all staff have a excellent understanding and knowledge of the principles and practical application of e-learning.

When it comes to creating courses, tutors and lecturers can be assured that we are looking at making things easy in the new online world. We will do this by developing generic templates and tools that can be shaped and utilised on specific courses.

Also we are looking at streamlining the production of online content, giving tutors a framework within which to specify and develop, along with Central Media Services, high-quality material that engages learners.

We have also identified, and in some instances evaluated, online learning material repositories. These online repositories can be used to procure learning objects which, in turn, can be placed within courses in the VLE. Many learning objects have been tried and tested with learners therefore we can have a high degree of confidence in their quality.

So, as we make that turn in the road, we look forward to exciting times – together.

“Currently, the majority of researchers think that their institutions’ libraries are doing an effective job in providing the information they need to do their work, but it is time to consider the future roles and responsibilities of all those involved in the research cycle – researchers, research institutions and national bodies, as well as libraries – in meeting the challenges that are coming.”

This extract is taken from:
Researchers’ Use of Academic Libraries and their Services – A report commissioned by the Research Information Network and the Consortium of Research Libraries.

The report is very thorough and well written and challenges the future roles of academic libraries. If you are interested the link is here.

It is still early days for Moodle at Bradford College but the signs are that many staff have already engaged with this powerful easy-to-use course management system. We have set up two servers: the sandbox is available for all development work and in here you can play away until you feel confident with Moodling,  the production server hosts live courses and is reserved for completed work that is ready for students to enrol.

As we gather pace with Moodle developments expect to see many more posts here with hints, tips and news about this exciting learning environment.

LILAC 2008 (The Librarians Information Literacy Annual Conference) will take place at Liverpool John Moores University,  17th – 19th March 2008.

This years conference themes are as follows:

• Supporting researchers
• Diversity and social justice
• Practical approaches to information literacy
• The net generation
• Ethical information
• Staff development and Information literacy
• Marketing Information literacy

Click here for more information on LILAC 2008.

Pleased to see a piece I wrote, looking back at the last year and looking forward to next year from an FE College Library perspective, has been published in the December issue of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals journal, Update. Unfortunately it is not one of the parts of the Update journal that is made available online – but I have reproduced a snippet of it here (presuming I hold my own copyright), without the misprints!

“The key document Leitch Review of Skills – Prosperity for All in a Global Economy – World Class Skills, published December 2006, very much shaped the thinking within FE colleges for the duration of 2007 and, it is likely to do so for many years to come.

While these policy level adjustments continue the librarian operating typically at a level once or twice removed struggles with the familiar problems of resourcing and promoting the library or learning resource centre. Structural changes to the organisation may or may not be appropriate, while the need for cultural change seems always necessary. The challenges presented by rapid technological progress are having greater impacts on service delivery. Yet librarians within the sector seem capable and keen to claim new territories. For example the ownership of the virtual learning environment, a key resource within a college, seems to fit best with the library, once the IT people get bored with it! This boredom often coincides with the realisation that VLEs need to be maintained and populated with learning materials. In the hands of innovative librarians the VLE can be developed rapidly and aligned with a growing range of electronic information sources.

With Facebook, together with YouTube, attracting much attention this year, the promised lands of Second Life are, for many in FE, still a curiosity and one can only speculate how such technologies will embed. There are serious issues associated with how such social networking tools might be deployed in an educational environment. Moreover their acceptance and recognition as tools for learning seems yet to be established. Early anecdotal evidence suggests that potential opportunities offered by these technologies may be missed due to traditional concepts of what the college library or learning resource centre “should be”.

With greater emphasis on independent learning, virtual learning and the proliferation of media sources those with good information literacy skills will succeed more readily in learning. The challenge for the librarian in FE for the coming year and probably far beyond is not only to provide the resource but also to ensure that the learner has the information literacy skills to access those resources in order to learn effectively.

Thanks to those Central Media Services people I have had the pleasure to play with this easy to use, sleek, very slim black number from PocketSurfer 2.

It claims to be the fastest handheld surfing device – and it is pretty nifty, that’s because it uses Quad Band GPRS -(mobile phone technology). The qwerty keyboard does take a little time to get used to but once youve overcome this it works a treat. About 5 hours battery life if you use it always-on and about 5 days on standby.

I used it effectively to browse to our college’s Virtual Campus and to check my emails, and although one would need to be  fairly nimble-fingered to write long sections of text using this keyboard, it does do the trick.

I think this, or its successor would be a good candidate for a pilot with a group of students perhaps those in a work-based learning environment where conventional web access may be restricted. Anyone with any further ideas or if you wish to trial the PocketSurfer2,  just contact me.

I visited the Open University’s Digilab recently and was impressed by the creative use of technology to support learning. The paragraph below, from the OU website explains the concept best:

“Digilab is a showcase for tools, technologies and resources illustrating how today’s technology can nurture tomorrow’s learners. User guides explain how engaging interactive materials achieve successful learning outcomes. Exploration of Digilab will spark the creativity of the multi-disciplinary teams who develop our learning materials.”

To visit the Digilab website go here. Even better, if you are interested in visiting the venue in Milton Keynes, sometime in the new year, please get in touch with me and I will try to arrange a trip.

This latest Michael Wesch video may be a wake-up call for many. It presents a problem, a sort of mismatch or tension between established education systems and their information landscapes e.g. books/libraries and the new landscape of the digital learner. The rapid growth of and easy access to technology has wrong-footed the establishment. Watch the video here

Got this about two months ago from Central Media Services and have been using it to try to test it as a device that could be used by learners. It retails for about £170 so may be viable on some of our courses. It is well supported in software terms for example I downloaded a standard e-book reader in a couple of minutes and was using it effectively to read. The battery life is very good. The screen after some initial effort becomes easy to use although a little small. The navigation is intuitive again after some little time spent getting to grips with the newness and novelty. The sound quality is superb and the built in radio station finder is excellent.

On the downside this device relies on wireless technology to connect to the web – so if you can’t find a hot-spot then you are unable to surf.

Still worth a look – anyone else wishing to evaluate this then contact me and I’ll pass it on to you. To find out more go here

On Wednesday I visited the new campus at Queen Margaret University.
The whole site carries a real learning buzz about it. Although not 100% finished it is functioning well and the sense of learning and creativity overwhelms. I would suggest that this environment-friendly building sets new standards in the academic sector with features such as its bio-mass heating systems and its sustainable urban drainage system. The innovative LRC uses RFID technology, provides 1000 learning spaces and is open for many hours.