One of my fellow DS106 ers Ben Rimes, has set up a fantastic blog called poetry for people and I am totally hooked.

It aims to be a daily poetry-writing prompt and every day an image is posted to inspire your words. I have submitted some images and am going to write at least one poem a day. When you load an image you are asked to select which poetry form should accompany it.

Here is one I added

Its a lovely way to share and write whether you are new to writing poetry or (like me) – very out of practice. I have discovered some poetry forms I didn’t know and have been inspired to try them out. I have always been very shy of putting poetry online so it is a real challenge for me but it is liberating and nice when someone gives it a thumbs up too.

As Ben says:

The project is dedicated to providing poets of all ages with a place to practice their craft, and give them a big audience. In addition to meeting several Common Core Teaching standards, this project hopes to serve as a model for effective and responsible online sharing, learning, and collaboration within a K-16 educational setting.

Go on – have a play – be creative this April

Despite being told by paypal that my case is closed 4 days before the deadline and being unable to upload any more documents, I received two more emails today asking me to upload documents to support my case. These were in response to an email I forwarded from the Dumfries and Galloway police expressing their concerns that their report was regarded as insufficient evidence. It was a standard response that disregarded both my email to them and the fact that the case has already been closed.

DON’T MAKE ME ANGRY!!!!

Celaneo the amazon

This was my email response to paypal…

Dear Brett

Thank you for the two emails I received today inviting me to upload documents to support my case.

Indeed I would appreciate more time to do this but unfortunately I have already been given the outcome of the case – which has been dropped due to my inability to provide the relevant documentation!

There are several ironies here and if I were not so upset at losing £907.50 I may even find it amusing that paypal is unable to join up their records sufficiently to provide the most basic of customer support.

Despite originally being given until the 20th February to provide more documentation, you will find if you check the records, that I have received emails on the 16th February telling me that my case has been closed because the documents provided by the Dumfries and Galloway police department are not sufficient.

That means that I am actually not able to upload documents as you describe in this standard email (of which I have at least twenty copies). Even if I could upload any files I am, in reality, unable to obtain any further documentation because my police department are not going to provide any further reports, as indicated in the forwarded email from said police department which expresses their concerns, bafflement and yet again offers to talk with you. The police department have offered you a report, full contact details and even a personal email saying they would be happy to talk to you.

By now I am used to all of the information, queries and plea’s for help, clarification and assurance in my emails being ignored. This just serves to continue to add to my case which I will be taking further with my bank, national newspapers and also with consumer protection agencies.

I really look forward to continuing this circular discussion with you and Pamela and Alexander and Jonathan and Carl and Jeremy and Lynette and Joanne and Diane and Carolyn and Melissa and Kathy and Rehani and Genevieve ( I apologise if I missed anyone – my email folder on this case is bulging). I really have nothing better to do than keep repeating the same information endlessly.

I am also now blogging and tweeting details of this as I was asked by Pamela to tell all my friends about your services. I have received a really supportive response from a fairly well established network across the globe.

In anticipation of the next email.

Lou McGill

I am so uspet and weary today after nearly two months of doing everything I can to provide evidence to paypal about the ebay scam I described in detail in my last post. I found out today that they have dropped my claim to get back the £907.50 that I lost to an ebay scammer. This is what they said:

After careful consideration, we’re unable to decide this claim in your favour at this time.

The documentation you provided didn’t follow the guidelines. Supporting documentation must be from your local law enforcement agency and on letterhead that includes adequate contact information.

The latter refers to their request for a police report on headed paper. When I was asked to provide this I dutifully rang my police station to report the crime. The police took the details and gave me a crime reference number but when I asked for a report on leterheaded paper they informed me that they don’t provide such reports. I explained that paypal had asked for this and that it may affect my claim. They suggested I pay for a copy of the incident report under data protection, which I did.

I uploaded the document to paypal. They responded that this wasn’t the kind of report they wanted. I went back to the police and so on and so on…. so after endless emails and telephone calles and visits to the police station in the next town I still could not get a report from the police. I explained to paypal that I couldn’t get another report and they close my case.

It is really galling that the scammer gets away with stealing my money because despite all my efforts I can’t provide a report in the format paypal want. It does  appear to be a way for paypal to escape refunding my money.

Like most people I can’t afford to lose that much money. Like most people I use paypal and ebay to ensure that I get buyer protection only to discover that I actually have no protection whatsoever.

I have seen that the seller (willgardner11 aka timothy mccarthy clarke aka bastard) now has feedback on ebay that shows he has done this to others. I pointed this out to paypal who disregarded it. They say they can’t take any evidence from ebay as they are separate companies. So even though other people have had the same envelope scam they can’t consider this; even though I have an email from the seller in the ebay messaging system saying that the tracked item was not the computer they can’t consider this, even though I have sent them a photo of the item with the tracking number on it (clearly not a bloody laptop) they can’t consider this.

GRRRRRRRRRRRR – Thanks a bunch paypal – here’s adding to the mountains of bad publicity you get – you deserve it!

In one of the 16 emails they sent me in response to my messages they did ask me if I would tell all my friends about their service so here we are – this is me telling all my friends just how crap paypal is. I hope you will all SPREAD the word!

I am setting Barclays onto you now; )

It all began on a dark November evening, when out of nowhere a storm brought the town to a standstill. A bolt of lightening hit Whithorn in the middle of the night and killed 8 cows, several computers, internet hubs and phone lines. No humans were killed as far as we know…

The motherboard on my son’s computer died that night presenting significant problems for our Home education and his gaming. Since then he has made do with an old computer with no sound. I decided to treat him to a new machine for Christmas. After hours of research I chose an Alienware gaming laptop which would offer him powerful gaming experiences (these are very important to him as online gaming is a very important means of socialising for him),  and a portable computer so that as he gets older he can use it in private, as well as a machine to continue his Home education.

I found the model I wanted Alienware M17 R3 and found a listing on ebay. The seller said they had two of the laptops, was registered as a business and had good feedback. They offered a video on youtube showing all the items. In the listing the seller said that they would accept offers so I sent an email through ebay to make an offer with the promise of immediate payment- he accepted and sent me another item number and link to a buy-it-now listing for the item. I paid immediately and awaited the laptop.

In the meantime I told my son about this. This may seem odd to some people – but kids with autism generally don’t like surprises. My son doesn’t like change either so he needs to be prepared in advance. Even though he is going to get a state-of-the-art gaming machine that most 15 year olds would love – he sees it as being very different from a desktop PC so needs to prepare himself for the change. Christmas for children with autism can be a major challenge – especially if parents don’t adapt for their needs. So loads of decorations, flashing lights, chaos, presents and visitors presents a nightmare of sensory overload. Most parent of autistic children that I know have very low key christmases. Just imagine the joy that you may have experienced as a kid on Christmas morning coming down to all the presents… well for an aspie kid this can be too confusing and too overwhelming. Some parents phase present giving, some don’t wrap them…

Every year I used to say to my son – what do you want for christmas – which he just couldn’t answer. Somewhere along the line he realised that if he said a robot every year then it would take the pressure of him. One year he managed to do a small santa list at school (a hugely painful process for him – as decision making is a major challenge). We got the stuff of the list ( which cost a few pounds) and then got lots of extra bits… On christmas day he opened a couple of the unrequested presents first and then got really upset because he thought santa had got the wrong child.

It’s a delicate line but we’ve learned by now how to handle christmas. It may seem extravagant buying him such an expensive item for christmas but he never asks for anything and doesn’t get pocket money so I feel he deserves a treat.

So my son has been waiting for the new laptop. We followed the stages. Got an email saying it had been dispatched. Got an email with a Royal Mail tracking number…. We expected it to arrive early this week.

Yesterday (Monday) we recieved a recorded delivery item. Tim signed for it and I opened it – just a standard envelope – inside was a blank sheet of paper. When I checked the tracking number it matched the number for the laptop. I just felt so sick as I realised that this is a scam, and we are not going to receive the laptop. I was surprised to find the seller still on ebay so sent a message asking for clarification. This is the response I got:

Meanwhile Tim was checking Google for ebay scams… So how many sellers would send a christmas greeting by recorded delivery….

I asked for confirmation that the tracking number was not related to the actual laptop but of course he didn’t reply. (hoping for evidence). I submitted a claim to paypal for a refund. It is pending but I got an email today saying he had responded to them and they were investigating it. What I find most upsetting is the sheer cheek of him – actually responding – it seems really obvious that this is a scam but I am not convinced I will get my money back.

Part of me really still hopes I will get the laptop – but the sensible side of me knows I wont… My son has taken it quite well considering… He is concerned that I am upset. I quickly ordered another laptop for him and am hoping it comes quickly. I can’t afford it – our new downsized lifestyle was stretched already. If I don’t get the money back then we will be very short. But a computer is vital to my son’s daily life.

But it feels odd moaning about this when we are lucky enough to be able to afford it in the first place. We have a home and we’ll be having nice food over the holiday. We have some new computer games and will be playing together alot over the next two weeks. I will update on progress of the claim and if not resolved I will name and shame the b****rd (not that they care) – … Of course kneecapping is always another option; ) How very unseasonal of me to even think such a thing…

This video was made as an alternative to powerpoint slides to support a conversation between myself and Frances Bell at the JISC Innovating e-Learning Conference. We held a session in Elluminate on Friday 18th November and had a great conversation with the audience.

I have made a text version of the audio 0 available as a word documentand a pdf document with links to background information.

The video is informed by my work over a period of 20 years in the past as an IT trainer, Librarian supporting information literacies of distance learning students at the University of Leicester, a Learning Technologist on the DIDET project at the University of Strathclyde, and as an e-Learning consultant working on JISC funded projects such as Learning Literacies for a Digital Age LLiDA, UKOER Synthesis and Evaluation, Transforming Curriculum Delivery Through Technology, Institutional Approaches to Curriculum Design, and the new programme Developing Digital Literacies.

It also talks about my experience on the amazing DS106 course which is quite simply 4life. I hope it explains why and I hope it makes you think of joining in. The video contains work made during ds106 by me and my family and the ds106 community. I love the way the ds106 homepage came right in the middle and stands as the graphic for the video. Not intentional…

Whilst listening to the change11 mooc broadcast on dltv today I was also making some art dammit for ds106. I was listening to Stephen Downes talking about the fact that when conversations happen between people who are ‘well’  connected -others are left out. I thought it was very interesting that Stephen seemed to feel disconnected from the academic world where publication and a research profile are critical to getting employed and also from the world where one might have a casual conversation with Bill Gates.

This seemed strange coming from Stephen who has a very powerful and well recognised voice in a field which relies on social networks and which is fairly saturated with interesting voices.

I think there are many people who have been working in the field of ed tech and specifically focussing on learning and teaching resources who rarely have the chance to join some of the interesting conversations, or who are rarely heard. I do think the change11 mooc offers some of us a voice we have not had before so let’s get talking…

In honour of the unheard I made some photos – using the same technique as before (I know I really should move on) which show the nearly seen… By combining several photos with no person, horse, bird and merging them with one that has – you get the following ghostly effect. I hope these are big enough to work. Will load them to the flickr account aswell to let people look up close if they want to.

walking by the sea

horses in the forest

seagull

Yesterday during Allison Littlejohn’s talk for change11, I mentioned something I have been thinking about as a result of conversations with Allison about collective learning, openness and literacy. I’d like to outline the thinking behind my question in this blogpost.

Background

Allison talks in her learning ecosystems post about the relationship between OERs,  literacies and collective learning. We have worked together for a few years in both fields and it has been interesting bringing that together and thinking about the links between open knowledge and open practice around the use of this knowledge.

In thinking about which literacies we need to be open in both learning and teaching there are some fairly obvious ones that are simply literacies we need to learn effectively in a digital age – the usual stuff made up of information, digital and academic literacies.

There are literacies – adopted by both teachers and learners – which relate to learning in an open context. In an ‘open knowledge’ environment teachers have to change the ways they interface with knowledge. We have observed a shift in the practices of teachers when making learning resources open – changes in relation to  provenance, accessibility, copyright and pedagogy.

Teachers are developing new literacies to utilise OERs within their own teaching practice. Learners may extend their literacies beyond conventional research and information practices to include open resources – not just finding them but using them effectively in their learning. However, we could question if learners need new literacies to use them if OERs are simply accessible learning resources. Are new practices actually emerging?

Through our research in evaluating the JISC/HE Academy UKOER programme we have highlighted a need for cross disciplinary approaches to and multi-disciplinary partnerships for institutional and community approaches to OER  release and use. This is one of the most significant challenges for teachers as it necessitates a change  in culture and practice. Teachers have to implement adventurous and innovative approaches which take them out of their ‘comfort zones’, into new subject domains and into learning new and (sometimes different) languages.

These literacies around open knowledge resources are very relevant to  collective learning. Openness is an important aspect of ensuring that collective knowledge is shared, built up and contributes to collective learning. Collective learning often has to cross subject boundaries and requires us to interweave knowledge from these different domains. We don’t often do this in an educational context due to traditional institutional organisation of faculty and courses, which can remove authenticity from the student experience and result in graduates who are not industry ready.

Literacies to particpate in collective learning

These ideas around literacies are related to the relationship between the individual and the collective. If I am contributing to collective knowledge and supporting collective learning there is likely to be an imperative for doing so. It depends on the context: as an individual I have a strong imperative to contribute to the collective knowledge around autism and around home learning. As an individual I have already benefited from existing collective knowledge and by contributing back I hope I may benefit others. My driver is not recognition as an individual – it is altruistic. I may contribute knowledge in an anonymous way if I contribute to a forum under a pseudonym.

In the academic world, as in other professional domains, recognition is extremely important. Careers are often built on recognition. If an academic contributes to some collective activity they want their name on it. Not only that they want their name in a prominent place. There are many people who work collectively on things and barely get recognised for it. They may be happy that by contributing to the wider collective knowledge they are making a difference at a broad level. They may not be driven by their own individual advancement. By working on a wiki to collate team knowledge an individual could have their contribution recognised only by the wiki administrator. As time goes by their contribution is still there but may never be recognised.

This is the point I made yesterday. One of the literacies that I need as a contributor to the collective is to understand how to balance the needs of me as an individual with the needs of the broader collective. Sometimes my contribution may be subsumed into the collective and that may be OK. At other times my contribution may need to be recognised. Here are a few examples:

• in a collaborative learning activity which is assessed you need to make sure your contribution is properly recognised by the person assessing your work
• in a competitive work environment you may need to have your contribution recognised to obtain a bonus, or have it included in a professional review mechanism
• in the competitive academic world you need your work to be recognised to be seen as an expert in your field and generate respect and future work

There is a difference between a contribution being ‘subsumed’ into the collective knowledge and in an individual’s voice being lost in the collective.  It can be challenging to have your voice heard when the collective may contain very strong and articulate characters, when it may contain people who claim your work as their own, or when you represent an organisation. As an individual a person may not even be recognised as being part of the collective – they could be disempowered by socioeconomic status, disability, gender or age – and be rendered invisible. My point is that we need literacies to recognise our place/role in the collective, balance the advantages and disadvantages of being visible and interact with collective knowledge in a way that benefits both the individual and the collective.

On the other hand – if egos didn’t get in the way maybe it would sometimes be less challenging to contribute to collective learning…

From OERs to Open Practice

In a recent post about my OER work I talk about a move from focussing on open educational resources to open practice. This situates OERs within open practice – as one aspect of  it. So for me OERs are resources used to support learning in either a formal or informal setting, could be developed or used by groups in institutions or other communities or individuals, or could actually be generated as part of learning activities. They need to be accessible in a range of ways – pedagocially, technically in terms of formats, usable/adaptable through appropriate licences depending on the contexts of people using them. In terms of granularity OERs cover the whole range – from individual assets to whole modules or courses. Often they are released with broader intentions – such as fostering Communities of Practice.

By Open practices I mean a broad range of practices which have an ‘open’ philosophy, intention or approach. Within a learning and teaching context this includes open learning as a separate activity/practice (of learners)  to the provision of teaching or formal education which we could describe as open Educational practice (of teachers). Open practices can include both informal and formal learning and teaching and can take place at individual (learner or teacher) or social (group, collective, institutional) contexts. Formal open practice is situated in the wider educational context and is influenced by the cultures and traditional practices of institutions in different educational sectors. Informal and formal open practice takes place within wider societal contexts which are evolving rapidly. Open practices take place in, and are enabled by, a highly connected socially networked environment.

MOOCs (massive open online courses) offer an opportunity for us to challenge our learning and teaching practice, to try out new approaches, encourage and facilitate the inclusion of student generated content, peer review and feedback and generally transform the learning experience. They might take us outside out comfort zones as learners or teachers and encourage transformation in practice. My favourite 4life MOOC is DS106.  I am also attending the Change, education and technology mooc  and this week I am supporting my colleague Allison Littlejohn as she leads the collective learning week. We recorded some interviews about collective learning and explored some of the aspects relating to open educational resources (OERs) and literacies.

From Open Practice to Open Literacies

For me the notion of open practices leads inevitably to the notion of open literacies. I have been involved in and written about digital literacies and adding another term to the literacies mix is not done lightly, but I think it is important to consider digital literacies in terms of open practice.  Allison talks this week about Collective Learning. For those who haven’t read the papers and discussions so far it may be helpful to include this definition:

“The idea is that people learn while sourcing, connecting and making sense of knowledge fragments within the large pool of collective knowledge (Siemens, 2005), ‘Collective learning’ is the term used to describe learning processes that make use of this collective knowledge. A unique aspect of collective learning is it generates a new paradigm for learning in which the individual and ‘the many’ are indivisible, in the same way as an individual user of a social network is inseparable from the set of connections that comprises the network itself.”

We have been thinking about the literacies people need for collective learning.  Allison describes knowledge resources as the ‘lifeblood of social and collective learning’ and this is where we can see OERs fitting into the picture. Open educational practices link strongly to collective learning – in order to participate in an open way we need to understand the implications of this to both contribute to collective knowledge and learn from it. We need to understand and manage our ditigal identities and be able to tell our digital stories. We need to weave our stories with those of others and often work in an open collaborative way. Sometimes we need to lose our individual sense of self within the collective. We need to be able to distinguish when to be open and when not to be. Some work or employment related contexts make it impossible to be open and we have to manage this fairly delicate balance.

Allison has written a post about this explaining our thoughts on connections between oers and literacies with collective learning and and we hope to provide opportunities to discuss this with change11 mooc participants. My personal feeling about this is that if I have literacies to effectively engage in collective learning then I have the power and knowledge to make my own and other’s lives better. I thought it might be good to offer a powerful and personal example.

intricate connections

From Collective Knowledge to Collective Action

As a parent of a child with a diagnosis of autism I could sit back and let the professionals tell me what they want me to hear – after all they are the ‘experts’. Instead I have become part of an incredible network – driven by a desperate (and I don’t use that word lightly) need (our binding force) to understand my son and to fight for his rights to have his needs met. This network is made up of people like myself, with similar driving forces. From the most basic desire to share and just learn that you are not alone to getting urgent information when you need it – the network delivers. We can access research through academic papers and interperate it for each other (despite the closed access publishing mechanisms) and have access to the same information as the professionals.

But one of the most amazing aspects of this incredible social network is that we know as a collective what those ‘experts’ don’t know. We pool our collective experience and create a new understanding. As a group we can question their knowledge. A good example is the issue of empathy. It has long been stated by the experts that autistic people lack empathy (indeed it has been utilised as part of diagnostic criteria) – but those of us that live this have known for ages that some autistic people are hugely empathic and that their problems stem from being overwhelmed by this. There is a big difference in having no empathy and being overwhelmed by it to the point of being unable to articulate or act on it. See these websites for excellent example of collective knowledge in action Autism and Empathy – dispelling myths and breaking stereotypes and Simon Baren Cohen – autism and empathy.  There is now growing recognition by the ‘experts’ that many people on the spectrum expereince too much overwhelming empathy.

It is then a small step from sharing and creating knowledge to taking collective action – utilising the open space to collect information and people, to protest and to lobby and to be heard. Another brilliant example of this is the uk home learning network which recently came together despite being a highly diverse set of people to fight against ill thought out legislation. See the post Having a voice for more information.

I have been watching the change11 mooc, but so far not had much opportunity to engage. This week I will be supporting Professor Allison Littlejohn with her week on Collective Learning.

Allison will be sharing a range of supporting documents and information and we will have a live session at 5pm GMT on Tuesday 4th.

In the spirit of ds106 and my newly acquired audio skills we decided to record a conversation on skype and are sharing it through soundcloud.

I hope it offers a taster of what we hope to discuss the week. I’m also hoping we might have a ds106 radioshow discussion some time too with the help of David Kernohan – the voice of the apocalypse…

collective learning by loumcgill

A few more alternative movie histories…