Living in Tech Wildnerness

[GraphDesProject]

Here’s another activity that I so wanted to do but turned out to be a bit of a disappointment. The issue with TEL – or just T – is that it presumes you can access it! I live in a rural area (not that far from London and full of affluent commuters who surely must want to use the internet for work) where the broadband speed is 1.5-3….Yes you did read that right. Sometimes it can take 40 minutes to send an email attachment. One minute videos are still not streamed after half an hour….So I go to work in a town to try out some new TEL only to find that downloads are blocked (I was unable to play ANY of the games the other week as they were blocked simply for being games). I teach HE in an FE college and the internet filter is fierce. I was also never (yet – still trying) able to sign up for Study Cloud because of broadband issues.

 

But not to be too negative because designing resources is perhaps my favourite thing! I have indeed  already made quite a few online resources using interactive PDFs and things that don’t need downloads of new software. We’ve got screen-casting software at home, so it wasn’t the end of the world that Screencast-o-matic wouldn’t download. This was really the only example given for the activity that had clear instructions and looked fun to use. We do use screen-casting with our f2f and online learners and as they are often learning how to use software this is an ideal way to teach and to jog memories. Having a screen cast tutorial to check is really useful. (To be honest, it’s my colleague, Tim Bones, not me who makes the screen-casts; I’ve only played around with it).

 

I think simplicity of use for both resource maker and end user is vital. At the start of the ocTEl several people were talking about being tech-savvy; but just because you can do one or two things doesn’t make you automatically adept at all tech items. You can cook some recipes, it doesn’t mean you can cook everything.
I couldn’t figure out CMap at all, even though I saw other people saying how great it was. I tried to see if there was a YouTube tutorial to help, but the only one I found was just a repeat of what I could see anyway. It looked very puzzling and off-putting. Also, for our learners I don’t think it would be really useful – as they are handlers of visual data we are more likely to ask them to invent (freehand) infographics, charts and diagrams to show visualisations of the data themselves. For example, every year we get them to check their understanding of semiotics by producing a large scale infographic poster. The idea of software that can be added to and shared is in principle great, but in practice all the examples I’ve seen are not doing it for me.

 

We keep talking about design thinking in education so can’t we remember with resources to keep the users in mind? Accessibility doesn’t just mean accounting for differing levels and skills of use, but also of how well the tech works in a variety of physical places. There are little pockets of tech wilderness, not just in rural India but much closer than you think….

 

Sancha (@GraphDesProject)

[Stephen Brown]

Hi Sancha, Im wondering if youve tried XMind http://www.xmind.net/? Its another concept mapping tool that can be shared and used collaboratively.  Theres a brief explanatory video on the home page. Ive used it a bit and it seems quire easy to learn.  You may still have those bandwith problems though.

Cheers Stephen

[Author]

Posts