Two Schome-related podcasts were recorded in June and September about the work of the Schome space experiment team.  The podcasts were recorded as part of the OU Blast “takeaway science” series hosted by the OU/BBC Rough Science presenter Mike Bullivant.  The first is an interview with Gaea SParker [Becca Wilson] regarding background information about the Schome Park Programme and the space experiment team.  The second was a snippet from an interview with the space experiment team on their first meeting with each other in real life during a visit to Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd back in June.

If any SParker /Schomer wants a copy of the original unedited podcast recording for research purposes or otherwise….send me a PM and I shall sort something out.

Roo Reynolds, portfolio executive for Social Media  at the BBC, presented a most thoughtful and insightful closing keynote to ReLIVE08. In it, he quoted Kieron and Peter, and I did a fantastic job of  communicating the essence of Schome to a great many people (watch the webcast).

More details are available on the Schome Park Bliki, thanks to Rebecca.

Roo’s ideas and insights will be extremely valuable as we develop our plans for future Phases of the Schome Park Programme and wider Schome research.

Schome Staff enjoyed a rare opportunity to meet and present some of their work together at the ReLIVE08 conference at the Open University, Milton Keynes on the 20th November 2008.

Our symposium session included the following presentations:

1. Paper: The Schome Park Programme – Exploring Educational Alternatives.
   Peter Twining and Shri Footring
2. Presentation: The Schome Park Programme – The Space Satellite Competition
   Becca Wilson
3. Presentation: Learning and research in the Schome Park Programme: A range of adult perspectives
   Kieron Sheehy, Rebecca Ferguson, Britta Pollmuller, Julia Gillen, Anna Peachy, Chris Pim, Shri Footring.

We missed everyone who couldn’t be there in person, particularly PeterT, but here is a picture of those who made it on the day.

There is a tendency to distinguish between virtual worlds and the real world, which I’m struggling with.

• Is there such a thing as ‘reality’ (even in the real world)?  (I’d suggest that there are multiple realities)

• Are people’s experiences in virtual worlds ‘not real’? (I’d suggest that for some people they are very real – if you need persuading then check out Meadows (2008) and Castronova (2007).

Perhaps we should stop referring to ‘real world’  (and ‘virtual world’) and refer to ‘physical world’ (and ‘virtual world’) instead?

References

Castronova, E. (2007) Exodus to the Virutal World: how online fun is changing reality. New York: Palgrave MacMillan.

Meadows, M.S. (2008) I, Avatar: the culture and consequences of having a Second Life. Berkeley (CA): New Riders.

The Time Explorers, who recently entered the Learner’s Y Factor competition, were chosen as 1 of 5 entries to visit London. The group met at the Handheld Learning conference, where they presented to over 120 people, a panel of 3 judges and Johnny Ball.

The group did extremely well and came second in the national finals, coming home with some nice prizes and, in Topper’s case, bags full of free pen holders! Everybody had a great day, and Topper, Baso, Kit and Mars were able to finally meet Fox, Amba and Euphloozie in real life. Well done everybody!

We’ve been playing around with the notion of developing a course (about using web 2.0 technologies to enhance learning) …

Based on previous experience of developing courses at the Open University we know that the people who learn the most are the people who design and develop the course (rather than the people who subsequently study it). So we wanted to involve the course participants in developing the course itself.

Given the focus on web 2.0 then the obvious way forward is to use web 2.0  technologies to develop/transact the course – then participants will be using web 2.0 technologies to support their own learning, whilst learning how to use web 2.0 technologies to support learning. Good reflexive design.

But how far do you go with this – for example, do you put the whole course in a wiki so that anyone can edit any part of the course or do you provide the backbone of the course in a non-editable form so that you retain control of it?

Should ’students’ be able to change the assessment tasks?(or marking criteria)

Can such a course be accredited by a university? (and if it’s not being accredited will people study it – I mean study it rather than just skim through it).

What is the funding model – particularly if you want to have the course accredited – or provide feedback on assignments? (Will students mark each other’s work – and will they consider that this is adequate?)

Early days – but if you are interested then why not get involved – and if you know of other similar efforts then do let us know about them.

The space experiment team submitted their final s.c.h.o.m.e. (spectroscopy, climate and habitability from orbital measurement of earthshine) instrument proposal to SSTL on Monday.  A pdf of the final document is available on the OU Knowledge Network http://kn.open.ac.uk/public/document.cfm?docid=11629

Well done to everyone involved, it has taken a lot of planning and hard work to put this all together! Now it is fingers crossed until the competition winners are announced on the 3rd October….

We regularly hear teachers being criticized for ‘teaching to the test’ (eg Garner 2008; Jozefkowicz 2006; Telegraph 2008). Indeed some claim that this “is an unethical practice” (Deubel 2008 paragraph 2 of section on Accountability). This seems to be to be an illogical position to adopt. Tests are the measure of success in the education system – and it is totally appropriate that teachers should want their students to succeed.
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The Schome team entering the Handheld Learning Conference ‘Learners Y Factor’ competition have been invited to make a presentation of their work and learning experiences in London at the Handheld Learning Festival on Monday 13th October.

A group of students started work on their entry back at the beginning of May. They created a page on the wiki where they all added information and then these paragraphs were pieced together and then the entry was submitted.

Well done all involved!

There is an article on the CEPSAR news feed regarding the Schome space experiment team poster at Farnborough Airshow.  The CEPSAR newsfeed is archived monthly by the British Library.

It is second from the top on this page here 

(Note Olly is in the story at the top of the page too!)