March 03, 2008
SociaLearn Bootstrap Event - Institutional Developers' Barcamp/Unconference
One of the projects I've got myself involved in here as a way of trying to avoid doing any 'real' work (?!;-) is SociaLearn (aka social:learn et al.!), an open platform for supporting formal and informal learning. If you follow Martin Weller's blog, you may already have seen mention of it in this post - The Social:Learn Project - which includes the following overview:
Sarah expressed some possible doubt about the project in a post entitled: "Web 2.0 may come to OU before 22nd Century" Shocker!, commenting: "The words sound right, but the fear of actually relinquishing control of absolutely everything connected with learning delivery and all the multitude of 'problems' dreamed up by those vetting it along the way... well... here's hoping that it's not just words and a nice idea."
Well, how does this sound for starters?
Work on the API has already begun - an external development team are scoping it out at the moment over in the US - and the design theme for the site we're gonna get someone else to build around those APIs are already being put together by an external design agency...
...but we all know that's not enough, right? Platforms and APIs only gain traction when people start to play with them, developers as well as users, which is why I'm floating this post...
So - we're looking to see if there are any tinkerers or developers out there who are working for educational institutions (formal or otherwise) or training organisations (public, private or voluntary sector) who'd like to meet up for pizza and and pint in a Barcamp/unconference like setting, and share a story or two about the itches that are bugging you in plugging institutional services together, and the third party systems you'd love to pull into your organisation, whether it's the VLE, your dreams of a PLE, the LMS or the WTF...
Code and wireless will be on tap if you feel the need for a quick hack or tinker, but what we really want to know is what are the components you could use tomorrow in an educational setting. (If you can build them on the day, even better... ;-)
If your institution was Facebook or Google, Twitter or MySpace, Microsoft or Yahoo (or are they the same thing yet?!;-) what APIs would you be publishing, and what would your platform look like?
The event will only happen if there's enough interest, so if you are interested, please mail me - a.j.hirst@open.ac.uk - and maybe even sign up on http://www.doodle.ch/zye37iw7haz7aa5k with the dates that are good for you in the second half of March or throughout April (weekends are a possibility too...). We could maybe even try to hook something around the Eduserv Symposium, JISC Conference, or OR08, if that'd be more convenient?
Whilst being run as a skunkworks,and unmanaged as such (insofar as it can be!) this project has some quite serious backing - to the extent that if there's enough interest in North America, we might be able to work a camp day out there too, time allowing. If you're interested, then mail me, and show us when you're free (as above) - here: http://www.doodle.ch/tsay3nysytniukbq
That said, I wonder whether there's space in the NMC Spring Symposium for a "tell us what you need and show us what you've got" session? Maybe we could have a camp here over the Symposium dates and hook up?
Interested? Then please get in touch... with me, or Martin.... or Grainne.... Tag is socialearn (one L) for now (#socialearn on twitter); use it and we should find it...
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Posted by ajh59 at March 3, 2008 10:31 AMI've been thinking about how the unit I work for justifies what we do. I've come up with a set of pairs of justifications.
"How will this help my partners do their jobs better"
"How will this help me do my job better"
"I can help you now"
"I'm waiting so I can finish another job as soon as possible - then I can help you"
"I'm busy now"
"I'm waiting so I can finish another job as soon as possible - then I can help you"
"I tested this and know it works"
"Use this it should work"
"Tell me what is valuable for you"
"I'm the expert who know what's best for you"
"Next time I'll do it better"
"Next time I'll do it the same"
"We can deliver a simple system in a month"
"We can deliver a complete system in a year"
"We built the system so it could be modified"
"We built the system so it could be efficient"
"I know what you need because I asked you"
"I assumed that you needed this"
"We provide valuable features"
"We provide many features"
I think we should be using the first justification in each pair but our behaviour suggests the second justification.
Unfortunately, I think that SocialLearn, as proposed, still has too many 'second justifications'.
Pete
Posted by: Pete Mitton at March 3, 2008 01:28 PMTony, so I've got this clear, are you proposing a technical event, or are you asking for pedagogical input at your unconference?
Pete - I think that's a bit unfair - s:l is trying very much to hit those 1st targets. In the 'i know because I've asked you', that is partly what Tony is suggesting here. But having said that, there is also a danger of death by stakeholder analysis. Actually a lot of good tools are used in completely different ways from those anticipated by the developers. So another 1st sentence might be 'I'll adapt what we develop quickly depending on feedback' (compared with 'I'll carry out a full evaluation in a year's time'). So we are taking some best guesses at this stuff, combined with getting fedback from people (hence we're blogging about it), and then aiming to be flexible enough to adapt.
Martin