That CESI Feeling
Last weekend I attended briefly at #CESI12 - the Computer Education Society of Ireland Annual Conference and the curtain-raiser teachmeet event, #CESIMeet.  The teachmeet involved educators taking the floor for very short, focussed presentations to share their direct experience with some aspect of technology and learning.  Running alongside that was a raffle, much merriment and a general air of camaraderie - lead by an amiable and very able Bean an Tí, Mags Amond.  That sense of fun is the immediate impression you get of CESI.  Another striking note is that CESI has been going for many, many years.  A quick look at the about page tells you that CESI was initially constituted in 1973.  So, teachers have been gathering like this for decades, in their own time, to share, show and encourage each other and you can feel that depth of commitment and connection throughout the event.  

Photo montage by Mags Amond - 

What brought me to CESI

For me, the initial novelty of the event was putting faces to the many Irish educational Twitterati who were in attendance.  As a part-time educator on fully online and blended programmes, one of the things I miss out on is meeting colleagues regularly face-to-face.  So, Twitter plays that role really well for me.  I get to share interesting links, ideas and opinions on education with some wonderful teachers and learners.  Twitter also helps me as a parent of three primary school children who has recently become involved in our local Board of Management and a fledgling Parents' Council. I get insights into education policy in Ireland, access to an invaluable community of practice and connections that would never be open to me otherwise.  In other words, this technology is opening up new worlds of learning for me.

Putting faces to Twitter names

So, it was great fun to finally meet the likes of @Pamelaaobrien, @Gravesle the aforementioned @MagsAmond, the inimatable @Saorog, @JohnMayo, @lismiss, @donenda, @sccenglish, 7mjb, @anseoamuinteoir, @seomraranga, @simonmlewis, @annemmcm, @NL_84 _ConorGalvin and many others - including friend and mentor, @CatherineCronin who encouraged me to come along in the first place.   

Click to view an interactive visualisation of CESI12 tweets

The mix of Educators
These educators represent every stream of our educational system and they are enabling young people right across the country to leverage the opportunities presented by new ways of learning with technology.  That esoteric mix of educators - from those working with Junior Infants right up to those advising PHd candidates makes CESI a unique experience.

Making real-world connections

I was particularly pleased to meet Damien Quinn aka @seomraranga - firstly because his school is relatively close to ours and he shares some wonderful insights in his blog. But last year he did something which really grabbed my attention: he brought some of his young primary school pupils to #CESI11 (I tuned in on Twitter last year).  Damien also uses the blog and Twitter to give his young charges direct and safe exposure to the wider online world.  He makes the space for them to participate and to learn in new ways.  To me that's very powerful.  

Our education systems cannot ignore the opportunities afforded by new media and they have a duty to guide our young people as they develop their formative digital identity.  At CESI, Damien kindly extended an invitation to our school to visit his and to share knowledge and ideas.  So, I'm really excited about how that might influence our school's use of technology in the future. 

A flavour of CESI contributions

To get a flavour of #CESI presenations - here's a list of blog reviews compiled by Damien Quinn:

• CESI 2012 – What an Amazing 24 Hours (Pam O’ Brien)
• Journalist in a Blog Review
• Review by Anseo.net
• CESI Meet Review (Anseo A Mhúinteoir)One
• Rewind and Remind Review (by Mags Amond)
• CESI Conference (Anseo A Mhúinteoir)
• CESI 12 Resources (Anseo A Mhúinteoir)
• Resources for Exploring Digital Identity, Privacy and Authenticity (Catherine Cronin)
• CESI Meet Podcast (Anseo)
• Kidblog Class Blogging Platform (The Inside Lane)
• Steve Wheeler at CESI 2012 and Education Websites (Podcast by Inside Education)
• Sabine’s Snapshots from CESI 2012 (Sabine Mc Kenna)
• Education Hack Day Ireland (More Stress Less Success)
• ShowMe for CESI (SCC English) 

From the many CESI presentations, there was an emphasis not just on technology per se - but on helping young students to find their element and spark their imaginations.  There was also a recognition that technology is playing an ever-increasing role in helping young people form and shape their identity and teachers are not shying away from supporting and guiding them through that.

Talking Women in Tech

Before CESI kicked off, I also had the opportunity to meet some tech women to talk about how we can help make the tech sector a more welcoming place for young women - and indeed how we can encourage more women to stay in technical careers.  Research shows [PDF] a poor participation rate for women and a tendency for those who do start in tech to bail out mid-career.  

In the following days, this discussion also prompted me to look at how technology is enabling women in my day job. There was a definite shifting in my perspective and I hope to examine this in more detail.  The cross-fertilisation of ideas and perspectives at CESI seems to prompt this kind of shift.  I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes!

Talking Women in Tech with Pamela O'Brien, Catherine Cronin, Stephen Howell & Leigh Graves Wolf - Photo by Scott Wolf

Opensource Heroes

One more surprise from the Friday night CESI Meet was the presentation by James Crook, a member of the programming team behind the hugely successful Audacity audio editing program.  An audible gasp went around the room after the unassuming Crook asked if anyone had heard of Audacity.  He went on to invite a crowdsourced Irish translation of the application before receiving a huge round of applause by the awed attendees.  Another bit of CESI magic.

A feeling that real change starts here

The most potent reason for anyone to consider attending CESI next year, is the feeling that this sort of grassroots event is where real change and growth emerges.  If you get the chance, come along next year!  Catherine Cronin put it like this:

My daughter has been reading Michael Murpurgo books for the past year and bit - ever since her wonderful teacher read 'Shadow' for the class. When I ask her what the latest one is like, she generally tells me.... 'it's sad'. She really feels these books. Sometimes after reading one, she'll come looking for a hug and some comfort and when I ask about the story - it comes tumbling out in a torrent. Reading, film, music and art allow us to experience strong emotions in a safe way, to practice for harder times. I like that idea... which I first heard expressed by musician Susan McKeown.

Before Christmas, she was talking about the books with her Grandaunt. So, she got some more background on the author - a former Childrens' Laureate (we should have one of those! EDIT - 'turns out we do have a Childrens' Laureate in Ireland!). She also learned that another of Murpurgo's books, Warhorse, had been made into a stage show. The 80+ year old woman filled the head of the 9 year old girl full of the magic of the National Theatre's production in London, where they had created fabulously realistic puppets to play the horses. When she learned that Steven Spielberg had seen that show and was making the movie, she started a watching brief on the release date. The day after the film arrived locally, we were there - with her sister and her Grandaunt.

'Warhorse' opens with stunningly beautiful views of rolling Devon countryside - not unlike the landscape we live in here in the west of Ireland: mountains, lakes, bog and heather. This landscape is one of the uncredited actors of this film and the director manages to light it in an unusual, high-key sort of way. Only Spielberg could get away with trying to 'light' this beautiful place. In its first scene, it frames the birth of a beautiful colt foal, witnessed by the surreptitiously watching, and equally beautiful young neighbour, Albert. The bond these two forge and the madness of the war that sweeps them up is the focus of the story that unfolds.

Albert's father was a hero of the Boer War - but he has come back damaged in body and in soul and now he finds courage in his hip flask. He buys the young horse - against all advice - and as he leads the animal back to the farm he is greeted by his incredulous, long-suffering wife. She was expecting him to come back with a work horse, not a sleek and overpriced thoroughbred. Albert of course, is overjoyed and immediately vows that he will break the young horse to the plough - so that the family can seed their roughest ground and earn enough to pay their outstanding rent. His mother concedes, telling her husband 'I might hate you more, but I won't love you any less.'

With the whole village looking on, Albert and the newly christened Joey, fail miserably in their first attempts to plough. But neither give in and through pure stubborness and love for each other, they finally find the secret groove in the earth. The land yields and allows them to plough. For the young man and the young horse this is the beginning of a powerful and enduring friendship.

However, the new allies do not get to bask in their element for long - World War I is announced by megaphone on a motorcycle. Immediately, and without a word to his son, the patriotic father takes the horse to the village and sells him to the army. A young captain reassures Albert that the horse will be his personal mount and vows that he will return Joey as soon as the war is over. The father and son take only their difficult relationship back to the farm.

I won't give away any more of the story - but we meet many great characters - each trying to keep family, body and soul together in the madness that is war. The Devon landscape stars again in the final scenes. It looks like a rich, textured painting and it is truly a stand-alone work of art. If you are a 9 year old - or can impersonate one for 147 minutes, this movie has everything. If you are 80+ and grew up with stories of an uncle who was killed in France - you will shed a tear. If you are somewhere in between, and can suspend your disbelief when the story borrows plot devices that are a little too familiar, then you will be more than entertained. It's a beautiful story, painted magically onto the celluloid canvas. We loved it.

And for my daughter, this adventure through literature, theatre and film all started with a teacher reading a book to her class...

Today, we celebrate my Aunt-in-law's 81st birthday.  She's an inspirational woman.  Born on the last day of 1930, she earned a scholarship to go to boarding school in Kiltimagh, Co. Mayo - without which, she would not have gone beyond primary level education.  

There she met a maths mentor in one of the 'Louis Nuns' who saw her potential.  She earned a  Maths degree at NUI Galway in 1952 (need to verify this date) - one of the first women to do so.  Her vocation is teaching and she shared her gift for maths with young people in London, Pakistan, Sligo and then spent 35 years teaching higher level maths in Foxford, Co. Mayo.   

At 81, she is still teaching maths.  Local students pay their stipend in confectionery and in return they get a lifetime's worth of insight and practice of Leaving Cert maths.  Some of them go on to third level and when they encounter more tricky numbers, they come back to her again for a bit of perspective.  

Her principles - though humility would prevent her ever prescribing these to anyone - seem to include discipline, hard work, respect, 'using the brain that God gave you', seeing the magic of potential in young minds and giving her warm presence generously to *everyone* who needs it.   

She gives young women no particular pass - and has the same expectations of them as she has of her young male students.  With this parity of expectation, she levels the playing field and creates an authentic form of equality that takes nothing away from either gender and only adds to both.     I don't think it would ever occur to my daughters that they have any less innate facility for maths.  If anything, they see their gender as an ally in their maths quest - thanks to their honorary 'Granny' Peggy.  Now, that's power.

Last month, Marion Chapsal (@MarionChapsal on Twitter) posted some images of the beauty of her surroundings in Beaujolais, France.  

This was prompted by a strange but wonderful exchange of images of a country path that we seem to share.  She posted a picture of her path in France, and at first glance, I thought it was mine!  So then I shared an image of the path outside my house in Sligo; she did the same double-take - and called it Twitter Synchronicity. 

(download)

Click here to download:

snapshots-from-sligo-a-response-to-beauty-in-beaujolais-bqfkblArIsrBjHwAxJxi.zip (898 KB)

So, here's my latest contribution to our 'path of images'.  I haven't had any time for fresh photography lately - so this is a montage of my favourite Flickr images showing some of the faces of 'my place'. 

 
Disclosure: I should point out I did not make the strawberry jelly rabbit pictured above. 
I did, however, make the kids :)

Marion, you weave a web of presence around your Twitter friends that is inspiring and comforting.  Thank you for sharing your images, your pain and your vulnerability during this summer of upheaval. 

At the same time, you challenge us to be bold, to live our lives with courage and integrity, to speak our truth. It's a heady mix.  All of us who read your posts are made stronger and bolder as a result. #grateful

DELIGHT becomes pictorial 
When viewed through pain,— 
More fair, because impossible 
That any gain. 
  
The mountain at a given distance       
In amber lies; 
Approached, the amber flits a little,— 
And that’s the skies! 

E Dickinson

My Twitter involvement dates back to November 2008.  I signed up, had a look around but didn't really 'get it'.  Up to that point my experience of online interaction was either private or public.  Private spaces included email, classroom discussions, Facebook; these were places where I participated actively. Public spaces were also a part of my online experience e.g. discussion groups, listservs - here I mostly lurked, but still learned lots.  Two years previously, I had completed the online MSc with NUI Galway (the then Masters in Software & Information Systems) and I was absolutely blown away by the possibilities and potential of online spaces. 

Twitter seemed different: it was a public space, yet the interactions felt more like what I had experienced in private spaces.  The connections and conversations were spontaneous and fleeting.  There were very few preliminaries or social niceties. Participants just posted links to what interested them, retweeted whatever caught their eye and replied to tweets to clarify, question, agree or just amplify. There was a very low barrier to entry and yet I didn't really enter.  I did what I had done previously in public spaces - I lurked.

	NancyWhite  Nancy White | Seattle
	topgold  Bernie Goldbach | Ireland
	TomRaftery  Tom Raftery | Sevilla, Spain
	bdieu  Barbara Dieu | Brazil

Susan McKeown talks about 'Singing in the Dark'

I’m developing some materials to support student elearning activities and I'm using Articulate.  For the uninitiated, the basic layout is the same as Powerpoint – a slide, a notes section and the ability to easily add audio narration.  As a learner, I really appreciate the benefits of audio.  It brings a human quality to written materials and I can listen in the car or at other opportune times.  But how does audio cooperate – or compete – with visuals?

Multiple Representation Principle

I asked the nice people on Twitter for their opinions and Jane Bozarth (@janebozarth) replied with a great research based article on how narrating slide content has been shown to ‘hurt the learning’.  From Mayer’s (2007) research, if you present audio and text on screen simultaneously, you overload the visual processing centres in the brain and reduce the learning effectiveness.  He calls it the ‘multiple representation principle’.

Now this didn’t settle the notes question – but it got me looking in some interesting places.  

Role of notes with audio

Ruth Clark (2002) reiterated the ‘multiple representation principle’ before specifically addressing the issue of supplementary notes. Clark says that the notes section should be an alternative to the audio.  I agree – notes should provide essentially the same content for learners who:

- do not like audio or prefer to read
- cannot use audio due to environmental limitations e.g. a loud work environment

Still, the original question remained: should the audio and the alternative notes section match verbatim.  Jeanette Brooks (@jeanettebrooks) invited me to pose the question in the Articulate community forums - so I did and a lively discussion took place there.  I have heard about the Articulate community before and now I know why.  Lots of great developers hang out there offering advice and the benefit of their experience. 

The answer: most seem to choose verbatim

The majority of replies here seem to favour the use of verbatim notes – sometimes because of compliance issues or where multiple languages need to be supported.  It also makes searching for content easier. 

But not all

However, some Articulate developers also talked about less prescriptive approaches. One in particular struck a chord with me – Bruce (aka BrucUK) talks about how he views the relationship between slides, notes and audio here:

 If there's a need for translating Notes and audio, then verbatim is a good option.

My personal preference is to have Comments on the slides, Notes that flesh out the comments, and audio that explains and adds depth to the Notes.
As said above however, I suspect that there's no "best" way.
Bruce

http://www.articulate.com/forums/83927-post3.html

From a developer point of view, I like this approach because it allows a developer to work at a high level initially where they can concentrate more on overall course structure and objectives.  Then they can fill that out by writing the notes and by the time they're ready to record the audio they will have an easy familiarity with the material.  That should help the audio should flow more naturally.  It can follow the notes closely without the stiffness of reading verbatim.     

Thank you

Thank you to everyone who helped to contribute to this answer, particularly @JaneBozarth @JeanetteBrooks @gallagher_msean @elearning @articulate

Bozarth Jane. (2010). Nuts and Bolts: Principles of Multimedia Learning. Learning Solutions Magazine. Retrieved 23 July 2010 from http://www.learningsolutionsmag.com/articles/453/nuts-and-bolts-principles-of-multimedia-learning

Colvin Clark, Ruth. (2008). "Chapter 9 - e-Learning Design". Developing Technical Training: A Structured Approach for Developing Classroom and Computer-Based Instructional Materials, Third Edition. Pfeiffer.

Mayer, R.E. (Ed.). (2007). The Cambridge handbook of multimedia learning. New York: Cambridge University Press.

I'm trying to get to grips with some new elearning development techniques at the moment - one of which is the narration of learning materials.  It's been a long time since I've grappled with mics and audio levels - so I tweeted @topgold to see if he could offer any recommendations on microphones.  He was one of the first tweeters I followed - and ever since he has regularly offered nuggets of wisdom on podcasting, creative use of social media and innovation in education.  

@topgold Bernie, do you have any recommendations for a microphone? I'm narrating some learning materials and need good quality sound.

His response to my inquiry was not what I expected!  Fortunately for me, it seems I asked the question at the right time.  Bernie is currently preparing for @dotconf in Dublin next week - where he will be answering similar questions.  First, he replied via Twitter with a video showing three different mic setups: 

@marloft I'm recommending mics like these during @dotconf next week. http://tiny12.tv/PAD3Q

This gave me some models to Google but it was pretty short and you had to be quick to catch the information (hey, it was Monday morning...).  However, it didn't end there.  This Audioboo arrived a few minutes later which used a simple image and some insightful audio to describe various levels of mic equipment - everything from clever use of an iPhone to broadcast quality, foot-long, recording 'sticks'. 

So, I got an answer to my simple question, but much more than that I got:

a) a real *demonstration* of deep knowledge and applied technique.  The medium truly was the message.

b) a sample of audio which I could compare to my own efforts.  Here's the clever bit: this was acknowledged as not 'broadcast quality' - but it was compelling.  Mine didn't sound so bad after that! :-)  Interestingly, I'm finding that I'm not so hung up now on getting broadcast quality.  But I am more conscious of the need for good, value-added content when adding audio to learning materials.

c) a demo of a new technology (Audioboo) and how it could be employed in an educational context - which I have now tried out.

Twitter - it's a great place to learn stuff - and that @topgold - he's an educator! :-)  Thx Bernie!

Oh, look.... he's just inspired me to blog for the first time too...