Extreme makeover: Transforming the face of your Library Service

Here's the presentation I'm giving at the "Extreme makeover: Transforming the face of your Library Service" day in Leeds on 26th October.

QR codes, text a librarian and more...

View more presentations from Andrew Walsh.

My handout that goes along with it is below:

Handout for QR codes, text a librarian and more...

View more documents from Andrew Walsh.

Guest spot on UKOLN blog!

I was asked to do a guest spot on the UKOLN cultural heritage blog about the text a librarian service after they spotted my recent article in CILIP's Update magazine.

Duly done this weekend and straight up on their blog today!

QR codes competition

Just launched a competition for students to have a chance of winning £100 worth of vouchers if they can find and decode 7 out of 10 competition QR codes in the library - the hope being it might get some people to install a reader on their 'phones and start exploring...

Promoted it via twitter (@hudlib); facebook (library page); the Huddersfield Student newspaper (short article); posters; and flyers. In a couple of weeks time I'll put it on the student portal and maybe send out a mass email to students as a 2nd wave of promotion.

HHL09 last gasp!

HHL09 last gasp!

Y-factor presentation: the winners of this years Y factor competition
(innovation in their learning) for 6-16 year olds celebrating their
success by presenting to the main conference. Normanby primary school
showed how they use PDAs & other tech - full of humour, really good
presentation. Lots of videos they made in school. Got notes / slides
in wrong order but coped well with it!

Research strand again - round table format, so got to choose who to
listen to. Couldn't make notes as there were only one or 2 at a table!
Say talks on a visual voting system; the OU mobile library stuff; and
a central repository for mobile learning projects. When I edit the
blog I'll put details in..

Last keynote - the legendary Ray Kurzweil via video link. The
acceleration of technology in the 21st Century: the impact on
education and society. Exponential growth in computing power, we can't
picture this - tend to think linear not exponential. This is why we
struggle to picture the future.
Involved in reading machines for the blind since early 70s. First was
like a big copier. Now got it integrated into mobile including
translation & more.. Predicted hardware would be available in 2008 so
started developing software in 2002! Adding object recognition as
well...
Important for us: need to plan for what is possible at end of a
project as things can change dramatically in a few years.
Showed graph of beginning of life on Earth to invention of PC. Claims
to show move towards singularity- we use complexity of life or
complexity of tech to move to the next level of complexity and
paradigm shift. Says these progressions are fairly smooth and always
have been.
Predicting $1000 for human level computing power by 2020. Just need
the software to take advantage of it. Says we have lots of specific
apps to do intelligent tasks, but nothing for the full thing. Reverse
engineering the human brain is giving us ideas & helping us model more
& more of the brain.
Says by 2029 we'll have systems integrated with our brain to expand
our mental health.

Fascinating talk, nothing new to me, but great to hear from the horses
mouth...

BTW- didn't win anything in the prize draw that followed...

HHL09 research strand continued..

HHL09 research strand continued..

George Saltsman from the middle of nowhere on the US )250 miles from
next big metroploitan area!). IPhone has allowed them to experiment as
it's the first with a decent browser - so focussed on iPhones
initially. Can find practically anything on their mobile apps - sounds
completely integrated into college life. Also sounds very easy for
lecturers to share materials / calendars / etc. - wonder if that means
they've got decent buy in from staff? Have done research into what
impact mobile learning has had at their college.
First study - all first year students in a class given iPhones / iPod
touches. Had 92% of students in the class with them, so some degree of
backing off by lecturers. People much preferred using iPhone. People
didn't always take iPod touch with them, but did iPhone. Split about 2
to 1 iPhone to iPod touch.
Staff beleives program was a success (but so would I if I got an
iPhone out of it!). Real success - but important finding is that to be
successful it needs to be ad ubiquitous as possible. so iPhone worked
ad it's their own phone. IPod touch isn't as students don't bother
carrying them around, so miss out on mobile, always on learning.
Doesn't have much proof it has improved learning - just perceptions.

Jane Lunsford - OU. Wanted to know if students wanted to use mobile
devices. Dis some action research with groups across 9 subject areas.
Used for students who miss tutorials and feedback in various ways.
Used range of elearnungcstuff from mp3 to testing. Materials were
additional to course, it was completely optional whether students used
them - also covered elsewhere. Students seemed to like them from the
selected feedback shown in the talk.

Also they've tried a testing pilot with 450 students who volunteered
by text message. 20 messages, reminders of deadlines & resources, also
making best use of stuff. Students seem to like reminders - made them
feel like they hadn't been forgotten about. Prefer to email as they
noticed them! Lots of general elearning stuff OU does followed...
Like to see the final paper for info on text message pilot.

HHL 3rd day- first bit of Research strand

HHL 3rd day- Research strand part 1.

John Traxler- Will student devices deliver innovation, inclusion &; transformation?
Reviewers welcomed the fact his paper has introduced sociology back
into the papers. Papers will be published spring 2010 - this one
should be worth looking at.
Problems with dishing out devices; including scaling up- no or limited
sustainability. Country is awash with mobile devices. They change the
nature of learning (& society) - not just an easy fix. They allow us
to sustain community & shift ownership of learning from teachers to
community of learners.
In literature people discuss the blurring of the physical & real
worlds. Mobile tech is like wrist watches- glance, woken into real
world. Completely unlike fixed computers. Blurring of work & private
days as well.
Mobile tech is also changing our idea of identity. They are becoming
part of us.

Haven't really addressed the issue in education that people can be
physical present but virtually elsewhere.

Hard for institution when there is no convergence in mobile tech -
such as PCs. End up with animals running the zoo of using learners own
devices. Real problems with us managing this.

Robin Deegan. Issues & challenges in usabilty of mobile apps. Survey
for his PhD. Lots of definition at the start - should probably expect
this from a research student!
Survey : 202 students from range of countries. 65% use their device
for <5 mins per interaction. Not a lot of detail, ran really quickly
over few results he showed us. Full paper might be interesting for
full stats from survey.

Nicola Beddall-Hill mobile devices as boundary objects on field trips.
Mobile devices seen as fantastic for geography type field trips - but
very little research to prove it. Interested in how mobile tech
changes social interaction in learning on field trips. Using Actor
Network Theory in her research. Boundary objects are shared ideas or
concepts that are shared - used this to explore ideas. Interesting,
lots of people flipping between gps devices & paper, but not sure if
this paper would be worth reading for me, how tranferable is gps / gis
on field trips to other environments & kit?

Luciane Brown, Using mobile learning to teach learning. Focussed on
14-15 year olds & mobile phones. Look at Attewell 2005 for something
on mobiles supporting different learning styles.
She used smartphones that she provided for one class. Didn't use their
own phones. Could only use phones with teacher present. Looking at
groups that need help with reading. Control group did similar tasks
to mobile group but in class & with pencil & paper. Mobile group could
listen to vocabulary words (over phone), practice stuff using7
webpages & do exercises on phone. Not much difference in improvement
between groups. Not surprising- this is in no way mobile learning when
you have to sit on one place to do it. Study sounds a complete waste
of time in point if view. Sounds like she struggled to get permission
to do anything with the students... Has recommendations, but these are
useless without a mobile component of this research on supposed mobile
learning.

HHL 2nd day, 2nd half

Last few talks on day 2:

Phyllis H. Hillwig - mobile learning in K12 US education. Talked about
digital natives from the start, for me that = #fAil. Opportunity #1 -
How? Teachers moving from facilitator to connector.

What are students doing on their 'phones - her study. They'd like
to ... Missed al of this as she flicked straight passed it. Hmm.
Barely mentioned anything about handheld learning.

Felt that about lots of the speakers - lots of focus on primary $
secondary education, very little outside that. Very little re-usable
info on Handheld learning. Some talks have been fantastic. Lots have
been nice, but nothing I can take away. A few have been irrelevant
both to me & surely most of the audience?

This talk has completely lost me as these notes may make clear! Bloody
digital immigrants vs natives again! Doesn't seem to know why mobile
phone usage / mobiles are behind Europe. Even I know it's because of
the way telecoms companies gave charged in the US - only just stopped
charging to receive text messagess why doesn't she know it if she
works in the area? Now trying to encourage us to go to USA as their
conferences lack our knowledge & experience.

Linda someone - another company person. She says she is starting a
reading revolution. Slagging off lots of iPhone games. Developers not
thinking enough of design of these things. Distracting visuals &
sounds are not good. Really doesn't like iPhone because of lack of
flash - will develop for android when it supports flash.

Naomi Norman - talked about Nintendo ds lite game they've done for the
army to improve numeracy. Sounds really good - inspired repeated
effort, opportunistic learning, less stigma than print workbooks, ds
fired in pockets, were easy & familiar to use, was affordable! Allowed
more context than previous teaching.
Also showed another ds tool they've done in vehicle maintenance. Used
for refresher training & immediate info - tutorials & games.

Tony Vincent - last speaker of the day. Getting students engaged is my
mission. Boredom is the enemy of learning. Favourite handheld tool at
moment is iPhone / iPod touch. Talking about creating comics,
animations & podcasts. Examples: comic touch; (just mentioned
copyright! Good man!); strip designer; Ali's jigsaw puzzle; flipbook;
voice memos; posterous (email it & it automatically creates a blog
post with the audio embedded). Really nice talk with illustrations of
what he uses as a teacher.