Pecha Kucha presentations are 6-minutes 40-seconds.  The speaker must use 20 slides that auto-advance every 20-seconds & you are not allowed to run-over! Strictly speaking each slide should only contain an image. The format was developed in Tokyo (hence the Japanese name) by two foreign architects: Mark Dytham and Astrid Klein. Pecha-Kucha roughly translates to chit-chat.

It’s a great format as it really makes you focus on what you need to say and keeps it short for the audience . It has been used to effectively at the LSE for students’ seminar presentations on a Geography course, with positive feedback from staff and students.

Pecha Kucha at ALT-C 2011

This year the traditional poster exhibition has been replaced by ePosters with accompanying short presentations spread over 6 sessions.  The presenters will be delivering Pecha Kucha style, but with different timings: a maximum of 9 slides for 45-seconds each & without the image-only restriction.  I’m really looking forward to these sessions and will be attending at least 3  (as I’m chairing them!).

How do you pronounce Pecha Kucha?

I’m not usually pedantic but as an ex-Tokyoite English teacher I have a duty to answer!  There are two basic options: traditional japanese (ie the correct way) or incorrectly (with limitless variations it seems).

1. In Japanese it is pronounced pe-cha-ku-cha (ie as written) with equal stress on each of the 4 syllables
2. The most common mis-pronunciations are pe-chak-cha or pe-chach-ka usually with emphasis on second syllable.

How many ways can you pronounce Pecha Kucha?

I’ve only tried it once, it’s hard.  This is a recording of my live PK on Cloudworks in 2009.

Full details: Less is more

It’s just under two weeks until ALT-C 2011, the 18th international conference of the Association for Learning Technology (ALT). I’m on the conference committee as one of the “Web Participation Co-ordinators” (WPCs!) and our role is to help ALT make best use of the internet for both delegates and non-delegates.

• altc2011 WPCs: @jamesclay @julietteculver @thomcochrane @mattlingard ably marshalled by @sebschmoller

Participating online at #altc2011

Firstly some stuff that is new for 2011:

• ALT Live Beta – fellow WPC @jamesclay and my LSE colleague Darren Moon will be broadcasting live from the conference exhibition space everyday. As the name implies this is experimental.  James & Darren will be interviewing speakers and delegates throughout the day.  James has likened it to Glastonbury Backstage
• e-Posters - we have replaced the traditional conference posters, relocating them from the Exhibition space to the internet.  In addition, poster contributors will be giving short, Pecha Kucha style presentations, on their posters in 6 scheduled sessions.
• Streaming Keynotes & Invited Speakers via Adobe Connect – this is a new tool rather than a new feature.  Adobe Connect is replacing Elluminate as the tool of choice.  The live sessions will be open to all offering non delegates access to live audio & video of the main conference presentations.
• Slideshow – In the main lecture theatre as delegates enter & depart we will be showing a Twitterfountain.  It’s a combination of a photo slideshow and tweets.  The photos are fed from Flickr, Picasa, TwitPic, mobypic & yFrog.  So please upload your photos with the altc2011 tag.  Example TwitterFountain using altc2011 Twitter + altc2010 slideshow.
• Conference Feeds – in addition to last year’s feed of blog feeds, this year there will be a feed of bookmark feeds and a feed of everything out there tagged altc2011: blog posts, flickr photos, diigo bookmarks, Slideshares etc etc etc.  The feeds (not much in them yet) are available on the conference website.They are created using Google Bundles.

More of the same (stuff from last year):

• Conference website – again the main website for the conference is the ALT-C 2011 Crowdvine site, a social network pulling together all the online aspects of the conference, including the full programme & discussions. The website is public although participation is restricted to delegates.
• Twitter & Facebook – both will undoubtedly be busy via the Twitter hashtag #altc2011 & the Facebook page.
• Recordings of Keynotes & Invited Speakers – these will be available on the ALT Youtube channel soon after the conference.
• Voting for Best Poster – viewing and voting for the best poster will be done via the conference site and open to all.

I think that’s your lot.  Hope to see you in Leeds!

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/neilt/1450421/

There have been lots of detailed reviews already, for example, the Huffington Post’s Google+ Review Roundup so I’ll keep this short.

The cornerstone of G+ is Circles.  Circles allow you to put your network friends into groups.  You can then send updates to specific Circles or filter your reading by just viewing updates from a particular circle. I love the idea of Circles and while they are more easily understandable & usable than twitter lists (which only work as a reading filter, not in reverse) I do find the interface a little confusing.  G+ Circles get a B-.

When I first looked a Google plus with CLT colleagues a couple of weeks ago we got very excited by Hangouts.  A hangout is a video web conference for up to 10 people and it is excellent.  The audio/video quality is great and the video switches between speakers very quickly. G+ Hangouts get an A-.

I don’t do much photo sharing so I didn’t intentionally try out the Instant Upload.  However I took a photo at our away day two weeks ago and later discovered that Google+ had kindly put it online for me.  I was not amused.  I guess I must have missed some small print somewhere but the default setting needs to be off not on. G+ Instant Upload gets a D from me because of this.

It’s early days and predictions are dangerous but there is definite potential.  It’s certainly not Google Wave!  It’ll be interesting to see whether it attracts & retains users once it goes beyond the current “field trial”.  For now I’ll be staying on Twitter until I need a web conference.

Want to know more?

• Read Google Plus: Is This the Social Tool Schools Have Been Waiting For?
• Watch the official Interactive Tour
• Email me for an Invite to the real thing

After reading The research lab in your pocket: apps and the academy in this week’s THE I thought I’d highlight the 5 tools I make most use of, which includes two from the article.  My recommendations are focused on tools for everyone’s everyday working rather than as “essential academic tools”.

All of these tools have free versions.  Some also have paid for upgrades offering more features or removing usage limits.

1) Remember the Milk

http://www.rememberthemilk.com/

A to do list.  It has many features, including shared lists but I use it quite simply.  I don’t set deadlines, I just use the 3 levels of priority and I use the Notes feature a lot to add information to tasks.  For example I regularly paste emails into Notes. My working day always starts with RTM.  I use both the website and the (Android) app.  You can also update your list via email, Twitter, your browser and probably in many other ways.  See Services. Some aspects, including the Apps require a Pro account (US$25 pa).

2) Dropbox

https://www.dropbox.com/
“Your files, anywhere” is how Dropbox describes itself.  Dropbox replaces your need for USB memory sticks.  It allows you to access your files from any computer by storing them online while giving you access via the Folders on your computer.  There are Apps and access via their website too. It’s great for sharing files with others, as you can invite people to specific folders making it ideal for collaboration.

3) Delicious

http://delicious.com
A replacement for Internet Favourites / Bookmarks.  A place to store links to your favourite websites proving easy access to them from any computer and making them available to anyone. I like the simplicity of Delicious and have found myself returning to it after experimenting with a more fully featured social bookmarking service: Diigo. Delicious provides feeds which enables you to display your links elsewhere e.g. your website or Moodle.

4) Evernote

http://evernote.com/
Replaces scraps of paper as a central place to make & keep notes.  It can also capture much more – including audio, links to websites, files & emails. You can organise you notes in notebooks and share them with others.  There are lots of ways to access it – desktop, web, Apps and some nice integrations, e.g. with Outlook.  I use this one on-and-off,  mainly for making notes in meeting, at events or on the tube. The premium version (US$45 pa) increases storage, allows collaborative editing and more file types.

5) Doodle

http://www.doodle.com/
Replaces headaches and roughly a thousand emails when trying to schedule meetings, particularly with those outside of your workplace. A must-use for fixing a date for your next meeting.  No account required, simply choose possible dates/times, email the participants who tick boxes in a simple form. It comes with other calendar integrations but I’ve never tried them.

At the LSE Teaching Day I contributed to a presentation Use of mobile devices in the classroom for student participation & feedback (PDF of slides) given by staff and students from the Media & Communications department & the LSE Careers Service.

Students Komal Parikh  & Ev Boyle explained how they had enhanced a class student debate on media imperialism using PollEverywhere (See audience voting tools review).  The students had used 15 questions to gauge interest, check understanding & elicit questions. Judith Baines, an LSE Careers Advisor, had used the same tool to collect feedback from multiple groups.

• Further presentations from the 2011 Teaching day.

I’m not physically at the UK Moodle conference this year.  There’s no live streaming (although the sessions are all being recorded), so I’ve been keeping an eye on the #mootuk11 Twitter stream to see what I can glean.

How well does Twitter capture a lecture?

I thought it might be interesting to write up the keynote based on my Twitter viewing.  It’s difficult to say how well this works; perhaps someone who was there will comment below.  I feel that I probably have a good idea of the broad topic but lack detail and the nuances of Gráinne’s thoughts.  Also, it’s not always clear when tweeters are giving their own view or reporting the speaker’s view.  I have lots of links because sharing links is a popular use of Twitter at live events.

Background

I know Gráinne, we’ve met a couple of times and I follow her blog and we’re friends on Twitter.  I mention this because it means I come to her keynote with a certain understanding of her work and the things she is interested in.  I know about her Cloudworks project and I gave an Introduction to Cloudworks (6-mins, includes audio) talk once.

The keynote

The keynote started at 10:15 ish, I don’t know what the title was.

• Update (20/4): Slides for New pedagogies for social and participatory media

The first reference I picked was to Mike Wesch’s The Machine is Us/ing Us YouTube video. (Not sure if it was shown).

Students are digitally immersed (reference to JISC’s work in this area). Digital literacy is very important,learning needs rethinking in the digital age.

Content is king. Free online content from OU (e.g. iTunesU) is attracting students to take courses at OU.

Blended learning is the future.  There is a place for both informal learning communities (e.g. networks on Twitter) and for formal course and structures. We are all learners & teachers.  People can learn through the act of creating content.  New technologies & tools link to social constructive learning pedagogy. We co-evolve with technologies but new technologies are not being exploited well in organisations.

Open educational resources (OERs) are not being used yet. There are loads of good ones but we continue to develop our own. Barriers include lack of time (to find good quality resources), skills required & tension between teaching and research. (I took this to mean research has to take priority for most academics leaving less time for teaching and related tasks such as finding appropriate OERs). A bit about repositories.

Use of social media by academics (for research)  is increasing. The cloudworks project was explained. Twitter didn’t reciprocate so check my Introduction to Cloudworks

Q&A

I’m not sure what exactly what was asked but Twitter tells me I was name checked and I correctly guessed that this was in relation to my 2009 Is Twitter killing blogging? poll.  More about this in my ALT-C 2009 conference report: Blog Off

Links

The following URLs & comments passed thru’ my Twitter stream:

• http://www.cloudworks.ac.uk
• http://travelinedman.blogspot.com/Curtis Bonk is superb on the open web, supporting what this session is discussing.
• http://dspace.ndlr.ie A good OER repository
• http://www.flickr.com/creativecommons ’millions’ of creative commons photos
• http://www.ispot.org.uk/

Senate House photo from @nrparmar

My conference highlight, offering us (HE) real food for thought, were the contributions from school students. I came across this quote ahead of the conference while preparing for my own session on blogging:

I love our blog, it’s so fun to go on. I learn lots of new things in our blog. I especially liked working with the other P5 class from Tannochside Primary on the rainforest. It’s awesome, I hope I get to come on tomorrow.

Chloe F, Year 5, Chapelside Primary School

Many of the sessions at pelc11 were great but the Student Voice Technology Showcase organised by Dan Roberts was my standout session. In all of the examples the students are active learners, creating and being creative.

Computer Game Developers

Jamie, Mark & Humphrey from Saltash Community School spoke about the the game they are developing for the Xbox. It’s for local primary school students to explore and learn about Saltash before they arrive. The game will be open source allowing others to reproduce it for their own schools.

Primary Bloggers

The Year 6 bloggers from Heathfield School had sent a pre-recorded video explaining what they had been doing. Some of the students joined us via Skype and their personal favourite tools were Coveritlive, Voicethreads & YouTube. They have been engaging with people around the world.

TV Producers

The kids from Broadclyst Primary School wowed us with their TV Studio project.  You really had to be there to appreciate the talent, enthusiasm and confidence of these kids. They have researched, storyboarded, scripted, filmed and starred in their TV shows.

Social Networkers

Beth, Emma, Megan & Ellie from talked about the school’s private social network St james Voice which uses Elgg, while at Lampton School the students have been using Facebook & Twitter for sharing ideas and group discussions.  They saw it as being vital for participating from home (particularly on ‘snow days’). Lampton students had also been involved in designing their own classrooms.

I gave two presentations at Plymouth:

Writing for the Web

Considering I was up against the sexier web 2.0, Xbox, mobile web, @chickensaltash, @jamesclay @markpower I was delighted to get 15 people.  Writing for the Web, as I said in my short talk, isn’t rocket science; it’s mainly commonsense. My key Writing for the Web tips

Creating Blogs & Websites for Education

9:30 the morning-after-the-conference-dinner is not the slot you hope for. Many thanks to Roberto, Simon & Yasir for joining me!

If you interested in blogging please visit my new LSE Blogging Support & Help blog & sign up for updates (feed or email).

Web users are happy clicking if they are confident they are following a scent to their goal.

It’s a long time since I came across the 3-click rule but it reared its head the other day. The 3-click ‘rule’ is based on the ‘fact’ that web users don’t like to click and if they can’t find want they want  in 3-clicks they give up and try another website.

The evidence doesn’t back this up.  Research shows the opposite.  Users don’t stop clicking after 3-clicks; when Testing the Three-Click Rule researchers found that:

there wasn’t any more likelihood of a user quitting after three clicks than after 12 clicks… in our study, users often kept going, some as many as 25 clicks…

In the usability testing there was no correlation between number of clicks and successful task completion; no differences in the click numbers for successful tasks versus unsuccessful tasks; and no correlation between number of clicks and user satisfaction.

So if the number of clicks doesn’t matter, what does?

Information scent

Web usability experts have found that confidence in the next step and not having to think are more important than the number of clicks.  Ginny Redish writes that the smoothness of the path is key. Users will willingly and perhaps unconsciously keep clicking if they are confident of the information scent and believe they are still on a pathway to their goal.

When presented with a list of options users will choose the option that gives them the clearest indication (or strongest scent) that it will step them closer to the information they require

From Information scent: helping people find the content they want

The case for designing websites around a scent of information comes from Jared Spool and is itself based on information foraging theory by Peter Pirolli.

Steve Krug, in Don’t make me think! argues that people looking for information will continue clicking as long as it is painless and they don’t need to think.  Users get frustrated by having to stop and think where to click next, rather than the number of clicks.

Improving your scent

• Make links explicit, descriptive and unambiguous; use short words, use phrases, avoid jargon and blah blah blah
• Match your link text to the resulting page title, so that users know they are still on the scent
• Provide more context on pathway pages; add sub-links or short phrases that make the scent of the main link stronger
• Keep the pathway (pages) free of other text – users won’t really read other stuff until they reach the information that answers their question
• Put the most important links high on the page; people will “satisfice” and choose the first plausible option

Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/danburgess/147816141/

My summary below, see Improving professional communication – starting multi-author blogs for the full argument.

Firstly they suggest that single-author academic blogs will have little impact because the work of an individual is  specialised and will not attract wide readership or broaden the audience.  They also suggest that academics lack the time to post regularly and that many don’t have the expertise to blog well (technical & web writing).

Their case for multi-author blogs is based primarily on two factors that will widen readership; multi-author blogs can be:

1. Themed – they can cross silos,  rather than being tied to a specialisation, a specific academic or even department.
2. Updated regularly

They make two other points in their case, but I’d argue that both are making the case for blogs generally, rather than for multi-author ones specifically.  Blogs can:

1. Capture & make available output that is often lost (e.g. speaking at an event) or hidden from public view (e.g. journal articles)
2. React to current developments; unlike more traditional publication / communication channels which tend to by slow and therefore backward looking

Beyond Impact
It must be stressed that the project’s argument is about ‘impact’.  The case for individual academic blogging is still strong I think:

• greater engagement with your subject area / academic community
• an aid to reflection
• building personal reputation
• a single location for recording and sharing your work

See Martin Weller‘s blog for much more on academic blogging:

• Is blogging a good use of time?
• Encouraging educators to blog
• Some more reasons to blog

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/maryatuab/315505813/

Earlier today I was at AGCAS Social Media, London presenting ‘Digital Footprints @ LSE: Supporting students to use social media’ with my partner-in-crime LSE Careers Adviser Judith Baines. We were talking about the sessions we run for students, in particular a termly lunchtime seminar and more recently a Linkedin webinar.

There was a very interesting discussion about digital identities and the emerging “social netiquette”:

• Is it OK to ignore connection requests
• If someone recommends you on Linkedin do you need to reciprocate
• Do you become ‘friends’ with your students
• and so on…

• Presentation bookmarks: http://www.diigo.com/list/mattlingard/asml