About Ravensbourne
• Specialist higher-education College
• Validated by the University of Sussex and City University
• Around 1,500 students in design and communication, mainly undergraduate
• In leafy Chislehurst, Kent
learner-centred user-owned always-on mobile wireless ubiquitous community-engaged deep-learning vocational peer-supported research-informed personalised enterprising inclusive
software-as-a-service utility
What do we offer?
• Some of the money we spend on computer barns now subsidises personal technology
• Higher-end resources integrate with user-owned workflows
• Software as a service, open source alternatives, software loans
The network
• Of course the LAN has enterprise uses
• Many of our users simply want to:
• Use wireless to
• Connect to the internet
• And we block their ports
What is IT for?
• Defender of scarce resource, and arbiter of fair use?
• Magical enforcer of the VLE as destination?
• Agent of transformation?
• Service provider?
• Support for digital literacy?
So you think you want a revolution?
• New technology creates new opportunities for creative expression
• Out there, many opportunities are chilled by the “intellectual property” industry
• An industry safely ignored by learners
• As are new opportunities for creative expression
What works for us
• A coherent pedagogy that recognises:
• Learners become practitioners
• And negotiate a public identity
• Integrating extra-institutional practice into their institution-bound learning
A personal learning environment
• Learners bring a part of their environment with them
• Augment it through institutional services
• Reintegrate social software through a social stack
• Won’t work unless it’s practised by us
Education technology
• RSS, OpenID preserve the VLE panopticon
• Bounded systems give way to more open collaboration
• Think carefully about the technology
• Think critically about its uses and applications
Final thoughts
• OpenID is far from perfect
• Have you tried using it on a smartphone?
• It’s a better bet than Shibboleth
• Should we trust Google and Web 2.0?
• We should manage the risk
• And what about our staff?
CreditsThe JISC elearning capital programme
All at the OUCS
Google: North Greenwich image and map pin
Foreign Office Architects: Ravensbourne building image
“Workhouse” and “Flag” images found on the web, and used without permission
Apple: iPhone image
Headshift Ltd: Social Stack
Roger Rees and Ruth Catlow – Learning Enhancement at Ravesbourne