Marianne Georgsen: whereabouts

Organisational change and sustainable networked learning: Design...

Wed, 16 May 2012 16:33:00 +0200

Organisational change and sustainable networked learning: Design is not enough.

Seminar with John Hannon, visting scholar in eLearning Lab this spring. This was a very stimulating lunch session - John talked about his work at La Trobe University in Melbourne, where he and colleagues work with finding sustainable ways to change educational practices.

John Hannon talked about a change from thinking about design towards thinking about assembly - connecting policy and practice is a fast way of expressing it. Rather than making grand schemes and plans, focusing on how to enact what you want to happen here and now seems to be a way of doing bottom up-changes.

Read more about John’s work here: http://www.ell.aau.dk/2012/05/03/dr-john-hannon/

Find more info about the seminar here, and find slides from John Hannon’s talk here.

Taking a break - enjoying the west coast just south of Blokhus

Fri, 11 May 2012 00:00:00 +0200

Taking a break - enjoying the west coast just south of Blokhus

The Theory and Practice of Design for Learning - Workshop held...

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 00:00:00 +0200

The Theory and Practice of Design for Learning - Workshop held in eLearning Lab on April 24th 2012

An interesting day spent with great people from the field of Learning Design, Grainne Conole from Leicester University, UK; Yishay Mor, Open University, UK; and Thomas Ryberg from eLearning Lab, Aalborg University.

Talks, hands on, workshop, design activities - all about learning design, tools to support it, ways of facilitating it, etc. Together with colleagues PO Zander and Md. Saifuddin Khalid, we managed to do a little work on our ePolicyInPractice case :-)

Links to Grainne’s talk “The 7 C’s of Learning Design” can be found here: http://e4innovation.com/?p=576

and description and resources from the workshop can be found here (Cloudworks - check it out): http://cloudworks.ac.uk/cloudscape/view/2402

Photo

Sat, 14 Apr 2012 16:00:00 +0200

Research group on ICT for Development - Call for papers out...

Sat, 14 Apr 2012 15:41:00 +0200

Research group on ICT for Development - Call for papers out now

To serve as a forum for our ongoing research on the topic, we have formed a research group on ICT for Development. Formally, the group is a subgroup within eLearning Lab; however, we also have a number of ‘alumni members’, namely former colleagues in eLL whom we still collaborate with. We have a presentation website here.

Currently, our main activity in the group is writing a book on the topic of ICT for Development within education and learning. A call for chapters has been put together, as we would like to invite others to contribute - please get in touch, if you have relevant research to present.

Exploring the Theory, Pedagogy and Practice of Networked...

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 16:56:00 +0200

Exploring the Theory, Pedagogy and Practice of Networked Learning - the book is finally out and can be seen, bought, borrowed and stolen by anyone interested. Authors have been given permission to make digital versions of their own chapters available, so do contact us if you are interested in the contents but cannot get your hands on the book itself.

Snapshots from Bangladesh trip, March 2012 Shipbreaking is a big...

Thu, 15 Mar 2012 00:00:00 +0100

Snapshots from Bangladesh trip, March 2012

Shipbreaking is a big industry in Bangladesh. This was my first chance to visit one of the many socalled shipbreaking yards in the Chittagong area and see for myself how the work is done. Like many other industries in Bangladesh, this work is heavily dependent on the hard labour of people.

Lower picture is from the Gulshan area in Dhaka, where we went to visit an IT company owned by two Danes. Taking a short walk in the local neighbourhood, the contrasts of Bangladesh become apparent once again.

Photo

Thu, 15 Mar 2012 00:00:00 +0100

Study trip to Bangladesh with students from Human Centered...

Thu, 15 Mar 2012 00:00:00 +0100

Study trip to Bangladesh with students from Human Centered Informatics

Went to Bangladesh with 13 students from 6th Semester, Human Centered Informatics. The topic of the trip was ICT for Development, and the students were busy visiting IT-companies; telecentres; traning facilities for learning ICT-use; Dhaka University; Asian University for Women, etc.

Also meeting with people in Bangladesh was a very important part of the trip, and thanks to our good friends at Dhaka University, there was quite a lot of interaction between Danish and Bangladeshi students.

During a trip to YPSA (Young People in Social Action), Pär-Ola and myself were interviewed for the local community radio, and the students sang our national anthemn and gave an interview as well. Great fun, and brilliant work by our friend, Vashkar, who despite his visual handicap (he is totally blind) makes some very impressive in YPSA.

Also, see Pär-Ola’s post on the eLL website about the trip here…

Harmattan School 2012 I am in Ghana, participating in the 2012...

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 23:25:00 +0100

Harmattan School 2012 I am in Ghana, participating in the 2012 Harmattan School which is jointly organised by University of Development Studies and GILLBT, both placed in Tamale in the north of Ghana. The theme of the conference is Literacy, Education and Development (see the call for papers here). I have been invited to give a speech on e-literacy, which will take place tomorrow. I will mainly focus on ways of working with e-literacy in teaching and learning, or - in other words - what is it and how can you learn it?

And today I also learned the literal meaning of the word Harmattan, which is the Northeast trade wind which comes in the dry season. And in these parts, dry means dust…!

Photo

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 00:00:00 +0100

New report on ICT in British schools out now A recent report...

Sun, 15 Jan 2012 14:46:18 +0100

New report on ICT in British schools out now

A recent report from Key points of the report include:

The current delivery of computing education in many UK schools is highly unsatisfactory
Many pupils gain nothing beyond basic digital literacy skills such as word-processing or using a database

Not unlike the Dansih EVA-report from 2009, a lack of qualifications in the teaching staff is part of the problem. In Denmark, the current discussion on this issues often addresses the need for more contextualised development of teachers’ competencies.

Read the full Britisk report from the Royal Society here

New interesting journal has first issue out now: multimodal...

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 14:24:00 +0100

New interesting journal has first issue out now:

multimodal communication, published by Multimodal Research Center at Auckland University of Technology. The people behind are Sigrid Norris and colleagues - will definately be checking it out in the near future.

The journal is published on line, and full papers are available from the website (follow link above).

Last chance! Extended deadline for submissions to Designs For Learning 2012

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 14:17:00 +0100

Last chance! Extended deadline for submissions to Designs For Learning 2012

In Copenhagen, participating in the conference “The Future...

Thu, 24 Nov 2011 17:04:00 +0100

In Copenhagen, participating in the conference “The Future of Development Research: The Nordic Perspective(s)”. Tom Nyvang, PO Zander and I have prepared a joint paper with the title Scandinavian Participatory Design - Beyond Design, Beyond Scandinavia where we discuss participatory approaches in development the case in the paper is our collaboration with Dhaka University, ePolicyInPractice.

Paper presentations take place in small workshops where the interaction and discussion following presentations is very lively and interesting.

As this is a conference on development research, we feared to be sticking out, but fortunately people seem to find our approach and work interesting – using terms like ‘refreshing’ and ‘very different’ in the nicest possible way J

Move, people, move….! The picture above shows the dustbin...

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 17:56:00 +0100

Move, people, move….!

The picture above shows the dustbin in the shared kitchen/lunch room in our new building at the ‘city campus’. Staff moved into the building on August 1st this year, and app. 600 students joined us on Sept. 1st. Lots of details were not sorted by the time we moved in, and even by the time the students arrived. Network connections were not good, furniture was not in its right place, boxes were still to be unpacked, the coffee machine to be plugged in, etc. Many of us worked out of boxes for weeks and weeks, because the handy men were too busy to fix bookshelves in our offices for a long long time, etc. The fact that after 2,5 months in the building we still had no in the building seems very hard to understand - and even harder for anyone to explain. We have given up trying to understand how and where this went wrong, and why it was so hard to cmmunicate this very basic need to the right people at the right time. Instead we are just very pleased that the bins are finally here. Just make simple things really complicated, and you will get really happy employees when things miraculously ’solve themselves’. On a more serious note, the late arrival of the long needed bins also shows us that moving organisations or parts of them, from packing up the boxes in position A to unpacking them, settling in, and taking up work again in position B is a slow proces with lots and lots of small steps along the way…

ScandLE seminar i Gotheburg, Sweden On Nov. 10th and 11th, the...

Fri, 11 Nov 2011 00:00:00 +0100

Venue: Pedagogen, Göteborgs Universitet

Roger Säljö speaking

ScandLE seminar i Gotheburg, Sweden

On Nov. 10th and 11th, the third ScandLE-seminar was held at Göteborg’s Universitet in Sweden. The theme of the seminar was Teaching Problem-Based Learning in Virtual Learning Environments: Design and Analysis. Interesting talks by Roger Säljö, Jan Ljungberg and Russell Francis.

A central part of the seminar was dedicated to group work around book chapters in progress by members of the ScandLE network. Three good group session with stimulating discussions of people’s work and good feedback on paper ideas and drafts.

Locally produced laptops a vehicle for change in Bangladesh? The...

Thu, 13 Oct 2011 09:35:55 +0200

Locally produced laptops a vehicle for change in Bangladesh?

The Daily Star newspaper of Bangladesh has published the news that a low cost laptop is now being assembled in Bangladesh, thus paving the road for boosting the Digital Bangladesh 2021 strategy. The IB Times article below mentions that laptops will be distributed to administrative workers first, which could also cause interesting developments, cf our current project at Dhaka University, ePolicyInPractice

http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=206111

http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/229737/20111012/bangladesh-laptop-computer-doel-130.htm

Students working, chatting, facebooking, etc., in the free...

Sun, 09 Oct 2011 21:54:00 +0200

Students working, chatting, facebooking, etc., in the free wireless area at the Dhaka University campus. Pär-Ola and I joined them in the afternoons since there was no internet in our residence. Very interesting that even though the surroundings are rather different, the activities and interests of students are not very different, be they in Dhaka or in Aalborg.

The ePolicy in Practice project has been conducting workshops...

Sun, 09 Oct 2011 21:18:00 +0200

Groupwork at workshops, Dhaka University

Groupwork, Dhaka University

The ePolicy in Practice project has been conducting workshops and fieldstudies at Dhaka University, Bangladesh. Two workshops were carried out with both teachers from various departments, and with admin staff from various offices around the university. Of particular interest to us was to see how participatory methods would work in these settings. We had three very good days, and found that the participants in all workshops came up with very good ideas for further development of their workpractices. We have brought back a lot of data (field notes, photos, products from the workshops, interviews), and I am looking forward to analysing it together with my colleague, Pär-Ola Zander.