Day 1 of the Educause conf – so what was so great about Abe Lincoln then?

Wow, this event is massive – there are seven thousand people here with another one thousand missing the opportunity of coming as it was full a few weeks ago. 

We began with a man who introduced a woman who introduced another man- who introduced the first speaker, Doris Kearns Goodwin – a Pulitzer prize winning author and historian who worked with Johnson in the Whitehouse, and is an authority on Abe Lincoln. Her talk was on Abe and his leadership style and how we as IS leaders can learn from that. At any time now, I think I could be in any one of around 20 different locations – there are lots of things I wish I could go to but there’s only one of me – regardless of appearances!

   

Anway, back to Abe.  He was a chap that had to educate himself, his Mother died when he was fairly young and his chief ambition was to leave the world a better place for his having been a part of it (good ambition!).  For him it wasn’t about the power but about overcoming and motivating himself in the face of comprehensive adversity.  He was often unpopular but didn’t have many long term enemies that he didn’t eventually win over. He liked gossip and was willing to have enemies around his table if they could do their job.  He wasn’t afraid of being surrounded by people who thought that they were better than him and disliked him. She gave illustrations of the following lessons from Lincoln’s leadership style:

1 Listen to different peoples opinion and encourage debate – but realise when to make a decision and avoid paralysis by analysis

2 Learn on the job and be ready to admin your mistakes

3 Share credit for success – you can do anything if you don’t care who gets the credit.

4 Be willing to take the blame for subordinates

5 Understand the weaknesses of others and work around them

6 Control your emotions and write letters that you may never send.  If you do, make sure you follow up with positive action. 

7 Always stick to your fundamental values and goals – its the long term not the short term

8 Know how to relax and shake off anxieties – have a great sense of humour

9 Get out into the field often.

She ended with his death and reconciliation with his wife – very moving and inspirational talk.  I have learned and will act. 

Next, Thomas Reeves, Professor of Instructional Technology, University of  Georgia

I have to get the slides from this one as there are great references. Some studies show that students are possibly more miserable than they were ever before. Today for example, most students know somebody who has cheated – much more so than fifty years ago. Technology is not sufficient as a change agent on its own. US national study of student engagement shows some interesting results. Faculty have fairly low demands on students but the study finds that less than half approach that requirement. So what kind of academic challenges are we giving our students? If it hasn’t been assessed then it hasn’t been learned – Bernard et al 2004 and others indicate that the use of technology alone does not enhance learning in any way – so we need to change he pedagogical interaction and focus on assessing the complete range of assessment outcomes. We can use some of this stuff at Newport and possibly even get involved with some research.

Next up, I attended Joanna Robinson on the pedagogy of participation.  She is a research assistant at British Columbia’s masers in digital media programme – and the conjunction of physical and virtual learning spaces.  Unfortunately, it was mostly about her and her programme and not much about pedagogy per se, though there were some interesting examples around what you should do if students turn up naked or shooting you in second life… 

Lunch …

okay – it took me 2 hours to get through the exhibition area – this thing is MASSIVE. – and there is no way I got to nearly all the stands.  Still, at least I don’t have to think about Liz’ Christmas present any more (she’ll just love this light-up pen, lol) …

Next up – Jennifer Stringer on setting up small group learning spaces – based on a med School experience. Some great work but with very local nuances me thinks.  Having worked for many years within a med school, I kow what a challenge it must have been to get “mature” clinicians to change their ways and adopt new methods.  They had sixty thousand slides scanned and choose some cool furniture – but just like us, they are finding that powered desks mean that you have to really reduce the flexibility.

Before the next talk, I had an opportunity to wonder around a little.  It is screamingly hilarious to see everyone gravitating to the powerpoints or electric outlets that exist in various locations and dark crevices within this vast centre.  Its gettin late and everyone’s batteries are getting drained, lol. As the lady next to me this morning commented, “there’s a lot of geeks in one building”. Oh yea.

Well, next up is Bas Cordewener looking at whether social software in the HE arena is an accident or the start of something big.  Lets hope I’ve chosen well – the last 2 weren’t that earth shattering …

Hey, take a peek at all the geeks gravitating to the powerpoints and see 3 macs in a ros! – that’s Chris S in the foreground …

 

Well, this started with an example of somebody using a wikki – or did I miss something? Then SURFgroups as a means of providing research blogs and forums as a means of allowing people to work together more effectively. Well, still not heard anything radical – I see where we are going now… Not where I had thought it might from the outline. Now the Educause Connect site – a show of hands indicates that not that many have joined in…

I wonder if we (HE) need to recognise that other people do some things so much better than we do and that we should use those.  However, and this is what they should be talking about – what happens when this use becomes a corporate dependency?  Do we rely on facebook – I don’t thnk so – but we can’t create anything near as good – and even if we did, nobody would use it because we have asked them to!  Maybe this is why MS are so interested in FB because it has its base and if you can then turn it into something that is backed up with a sla for institutions then maybe we’re getting somwhere – but the balance has to be fine so as not to loose the very thing that gives it value – the people …

We’re still talking in the room about terminology and taxonomy ugh. There will be a question and answer session but I wont ask – not because I’m scared but because it is completely ergonomically impossible for me to get a look in – literally – to the person with the mike …

Anyway, next bit is about the horizon report – how many people know about it? Nobody – well, lets move on  then.  Am I sounding grumpy?

The thing is, I know that it is hard to bring people along who are so so far away from what we are capable of today – but this room is not full of those – or it shouldn’t be anyway, should it?  We’re just looking at another basic example of a wikki! Hold on, its sounding a little more intersting – its a tool for bringing new tech in HE ideas together and voting on the – I’ll check it out – hz08 is apparently the key tag to use on del.icio.us etc

The (un)rest of Tuesday … or Super Tuesday !

[NB This blog post has NOTHING TO DO WITH THE US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 2008!] 

Sorry, folks, 2 posts in one day!  The visit to the oober library was not all that happened on Tuesday …

The (un)rest of Tuesday

As I write, I’m sitting alone (except for my Macbook), eating a stunning bowl of chicken and pasta at a table in a restaurant adjacent to my hotel and listening to Elvis on the radio. He is singing “When will you be mine” (if that’s the title) and just out the window is the car wash that he brought his pink Cadillac to every day when he was here in the early sixties making a film about the world fair I think.  This was one of the many facts that came out of the wild man who captained the amphibious vehicle I travelled on today – “Ride the Ducks”  As somebody who is feeling the lack of company while being surrounded by hundreds of people, I was wonderfully surprised to suddenly be part of an experience that was one to remember for many many years to come – and one that I would recommend to anyone visiting Seattle above all else that I’ve so far discovered (with the possibility of REI – see below).

A wonderfully entertaining trip through the streets of Seattle then around lake Union and back again – with an amusing commentary and lots of interesting facts along the way.

For example, Seattle is not only a city of bridges – but one of outdoor art. Do you know that every new corporate building has to contribute one per-cent of the building cost to outside art?  What a fantastic idea – and it really shows in downtown Seattle.

 

As well as seeing the “house” from Sleepless in Seattle (I don’t remember a house in the film – but then it’s a chic-flick so I may have allowed my mind to wonder), we also saw loads of house boats and floating homes (the latter don’t have motors or steering gear).  It’s true and it’s completely amazing that people pay 3 million dollars for a good floating house on the lake. I had no idea – and one large one even has the ability to be driven around – I just don’t get it.

Well, I did the shops in a big way today – walking for nearly 7 hours in total. But I couldn’t find a native American doll for Gwenny or anything for Martha.  Aaron is just too easy to buy for though and I could have spent a fair whack. I even eventually found Eddie Bauer – oh why did they leave the UK.  But it was unsurprisingly full of winter stock and, as a man who carries a fair bit of personal insulation around with him; I didn’t find anything of interest. I generally hate shopping with a perfect hatred but Liz made me promise that I’d look for some stuff for my (apparently) ailing wardrobe. Amusingly, I gave her a call while in EB and she was on the web looking at the shop stock, directing me to items for consideration!

Then I thought I’d take a stroll up to a shop called REI that that dear lady on the plane had told me about. It’s an outdoor gear type place – kind of like Blacks – but on steroids!  It’s massive and fully equipped with so much great gear.  I found the shopper within me and I excelled!  If you are ever in Seattle, you should do the Ducks and then do REI.

ITS THE BEST SHOOP EVER – PERIOD!

The shop opens till 9pm and it was dark by the time I headed out down John St for Dexter Av where my rather uninspiring hotel room is located.  WHAT IS WRONG WITH JOHN STREET?

On the map, it looks like any other road – which I expected to bring me down the hill, back towards downtown and my hotel area.  Not so.  The street suddenly stopped at a car park – that happed to be at the top of a building! Okay, so we have a chap with a white stick and too many bags from REI standing in a completely dark car park in a foreign city thinking “oh”.

Needless to say, this is not the first sight-related situation I’ve found myself in on this trip – but its parr for the course and no blog would be long enough to mention them all – only the near death ones, lol! Have to say though, Seattle is not that good for VIPs (visually impaired people).  For example, some of the “cross now” lights are white and some green – just like the lights next to them that tell the cars to go. In general though, cars are very considerate and one can usually follow somebody else.

(Sidebar: I just recognised Brian Adams, Summer of 69 playing on the radio within the first 2 notes – how sad is that?)

Anyway, back to the car park … I found some stairs that went down and down, darker and darker – you get the picture… but they stopped at a locked door.  Long story short, I went back up the road a little, then across, then down the next one and am eating with all my body parts intact and a darn fine new pair of boots!

All in all, TOP DAY.  Good fun, good exercise, good food.

Well, they’re closing up now and I feel like an extra from Cheers sitting here. More (hopefully work related) waffle to follow tomorrow.

The oober library (Seattle Public Library) – RFID meeting

After popping to the Washington State Convention Centre to register early for tomorrow’s Educause conference, I went to a pre-planned meeting at the Seattle Public Library.

 

(note the glass cleaning truck that seems to live there!) 

It’s definitely an oober library! Today’s meeting was with Jackie Zajanc.  On the way, I popped into Seattle’s’ Finest Coffee to get whatever the guy recommended – which happened to be a large Maple White Mocha with an extra shot, whipped cream and sprinkles.  You can safely assume that I was UP THERE by the time I arrived at the library.  I arrived with my coffee cup (there are hardly any bins in Seattle) but was not alone as everybody in the library seemed to be carrying one… (a coffee cup, not a bin!)

Anyway, the large security guard (seated a long way from the exit) called my host who came within a minute.  This person was instantly engaging, with a sparkling sense of humour and witty rapport that frankly made my caffeine induced zeal appear somewhat introverted in comparison!  She typified the fresh, helpful and engaging nature of the whole building and I instantly felt at home.

Straight into the RFID then – I wanted to know the bad points and the things to avoid if/when we go down the RFID route within our new City Centre Campus at the mighty University of Wales Newport.

We began at one of the entrances – there are several and none of them have desks nearby them, which represents the first problem.  No physical barriers means that when the buzzer sounds, people can still just walk through – and in fact, when I was there on Sunday, somebody did (no – it wasn’t me!)  They feel that they do not lose any more stock than they did before RFID but they don’t really know. Anecdotally, some of their branch libraries actually turn the exit gates off because (I assume) it avoids having to not do something (or rely on the volunteers) when the buzzer sounds.

My utopian vision of RFID was a system that would allow a simple scan of the entire building to indicate what stock was mis-shelved and/or what was missing.  Not so – well, not automatically with their system any rate.  It would be possible to go along each stack manually scanning with a handheld device using their system, but they haven’t tried doing this yet. What’s more, their barrier sensors don’t pick up the detail of any tags that go through – only whether it has been deactivated or not – shame as they instantly know what had gone out this way.

They have an issues / returns desk but it is fairly small as 90 per-cent of their users self issue.  This works pretty well – bearing in mind that the system is now some 4 years old at least and we won’t be going live until 2010 – giving us about 7 years extra technology to do the things I want it to!

Since going live, a standard has emerged for the tags – and they are slowly moving across to the new standard.  They are also moving across to copper tags instead of aluminium (why do people in the US drop a vowel on that word?). The alu ones apparently aren’t too robust – yet to see about the copper.  Interestingly, one user (a member of staff) borrowed a paperback and, finding that it smelled musty, did her normal trick of putting it in the microwave – you can guess the rest!

At the start, it was hard to get people to use the self issue – and interestingly, the staff demanded that the barcode be retained! This was because it made it easier to look up a book when re-issuing over the phone.

The staff have also found other problems – namely, that users are making more of the reserve function and being able to monitor it over the web, now demand their books to be trolleyed and ready for pick up in a much shorter time than was the case before RFID etc – gobbling up much of the freed up staff time from self-issue.

We then went to look at the returns sorting function.  Now this is a piece of work!  It used to sort onto trolleys but that didn’t work too well so they recently replaced the trolleys with purpose designed bins – where do they get all the money? CyMAL take note   The drop bins automatically sort via the conveyor belt and RFID into appropriate bins for trollying and shelving by hand.

I overcame my British reticence (not) to talk to several people – staff and students – within the library.  They were from all walks of life, culture and society – using the library as simply a place to be and/or drink coffee/chat – or else, to use its resources, even if this extended only to sitting with a laptop and ripping CDs

It’s easy to see why people fall in love with this place – I did in a very short period of time – which is very much unlike me. Maybe it was the coffee, but I don’t think so.