Category: Resources

Investigating Socio-Technical Experiences of Disability: Slides


Following on from my guest lecture at the Centre for Culture and Disability Studies (click for abstract) at Liverpool Hope University earlier this month, I’ve received a number of requests for my presentation slides. As a result, I’ve added them to SlideShare and made them more widely available below.  These slides are supplied with an important caveat, however. I designed the talk to balance descriptions of what worked and what didn’t work over the course of my PhD research; I also talked a great deal around the slides – that means that important content and context is missing in several areas. Nonetheless, I think the literature cited, methods overview and some of the results reported will be of interest to researchers and others in the field. If you require an alternative format, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.


Approaches to accessibility for the real world


Yesterday was the first day of the Web 4 All interdisciplinary conference on Accessibility. David Sloan presented a joint paper written by myself and Brian Kelly. Although watching from afar, resources and connections are beginning to spin out of the event – even for those of us in different time-zones. David has posted his presentation slides on Slideshare, you can view them below, or alternatively, visit David’s slideshare page and view the slides with text equivalent.


EC-TEL 2009


Book cover
Cover of 'Learning in the Synergy of Multiple Disciplines'

‘Learning in the Synergy of Multiple Disciplines’, the proceedings of the 4th European Conference on Technology Enhanced Learning are now available via Google Books (free, but with some pages omitted) and in hardcopy and PDF Chapter by Chapter with publisher Springer. The collected papers were edited by volume editors, Ulrike Cress, Vania Dimitrova and Marcus Specht. Additional reviewers include myself, Liz Brown, Stamatina Anastopolou and Zoe Hadley from the Learning Sciences Research Institute at the University of Nottingham (amongst others).

Springer describe the book as constituting the refereed proceedings of the 4th European Conference on Technology Enhanced Learning, EC-TEL 2009, held in Nice, France in September/October 2009.   The 35 revised full papers, 17 short papers, and 35 posters presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 136 paper submissions and 22 poster submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on adaptation and personalization, interoperability, semantic Web, Web 2.0., data mining and social networks, collaboration and social knowledge construction, learning communities and communities of practice, learning contexts, problem and project-based learning, inquiry, learning, learning design, motivation, engagement, learning games, and human factors and evaluation.

Written for: Researchers and professionals
Keywords:
  • augmented reality
  • collaborative learning
  • education
  • games
  • interdisciplinary science
  • learning
  • learning environments
  • museum guide
  • ontologies
  • personalized learning
  • social networks
  • virtual classroom
  • virtual learning environments

Sign Language Compendium


Caramel Whistle have just published the results of a thorough trawl of the web, seeking out the best Sign Language resources for students of BSL.  This round-up includes Mobile Signs and some of the resources and technical vocab sites I’ve listed here previously, but more importantly he introduces some great new finds.

For me, there are two clear highlights. The first is Spread the Sign, a European website that hosts a text-to-sign search.  This allows you to translate a word or phrase from a range of european spoken languages into a sign language equivalent.  You can search for a term and then view the results in BSL, or see it signed in any of 10 languages, including Swedish, Turkish, Russian, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese and Czech.  Importantly,  video is smooth and sharp.  This is a great site that rewards exploration.

The second highlight is Qia Resources for ICT.  This site offers common and specialist vocabulary on Information and Communications Technology. As with Art Signs, this is useful for anyone working in media, education, computer science or a related discipline.

See the full article here: Learning-a-Language.

BSL Video Resources Online


I’ve been taking a CACDP British Sign Language (BSL) Level 1 course this year to develop my communication skills. My final exam is in a few weeks, with a topic focused specifically on work.  Early in the course our course tutor John Smith, put the group in the way of newly developed BSL Online Learning Support resources for students studying our CACDP Level 1 course and as our vocabulary has developed, the value of such online video resources have become more and more appreciated.

The CACDP site is great for very basic vocabulary, but due to my academic background I’ve been searching for other online resources to use in tandem with the course to help revise specific vocabulary around higher education and learning sciences.  During this search I’ve discovered the excellent Art Signs.

Art Signs is a glossary site from the University of Wolverhampton featuring  hundreds of signs for the Arts categorised by discipline, alongside those relating to research, learning and teaching.  Signs are listed alphabetically and thematically. Clips are short and speedy – but this is a comprehensive database.  Everything from file types and internet terms, through methodology, to teaching and learning vocabulary is on there. Art Signs rewards careful searching and will be of great benefit to those working in Education, Research, Media, Technology and the Arts.

National Digital Inclusion Conference


select-all-keyboard-image
A 'select-all' key. A suitable metaphor for digital inclusion?

Earlier this week  (the 27th-28th of this month), the UK’s National Digital Inclusion Conference ’empowerment through technology;’ took place in Westminster, London.  Following on from their live feeds, 16 presentations including the keynote speakers are now available online. Speakers are largely governmental,  including Paul Murphy MP, Minister for Digital Inclusion, Sion Simon MP, Minister for Further Education and Lord Carter, Minister for Communications, Technology and Broadcasting, alongside representatives from the BBC, Wired and elsewhere.  I’m hoping to comb the video materials and cross reference them with AbilityNet‘s thoughts on Twitter for some steer on where to look.  I hope to post a digested read here reflecting any comment on Disability, Digital Divides and Higher Education in the next week or so.

Technology Enhanced Learning: Digital Inclusion Forum


Technology Enhanced Learning Logo
Technology Enhanced Learning

Yesterday saw the launch of the newly formed Digital Inclusion Forum set up by the Technology Enhanced Learning Programme, which is funded by the ESRC and EPSRC and directed by Richard Noss here in the UK.

In 2008 BECTA‘s Disadvantaged Learners Report observed that the lack of a single voice in UK policy championing disadvantaged learners has led to unhelpful fragmentation – particularly in addressing digital disadvantage across education.  Hopefully this Forum will help to draw together disparate resources and streams of research and practice to give more cohesion to those seeking to mitigate exclusion within technology enhanced learning.

The Digital Inclusion Forum has two key purposes:

  • To identify key inclusion-related questions and issues for research into digital inclusion issues in education
  • To discuss and evaluate the contribution that the TEL research programme can make to the digital inclusion research agenda.

According to Jane Seale, the group convener, there will be two main phases of activity:

  • The first phase (May-November 2009) will be the development of an online space for sharing digital inclusion related resources, discussing inclusion-related issues and scoping priorities for digital inclusion research. It is hoped the online space will be a platform for the collaborative writing of a web-based document that starts to draw together what the key issues are in relation to digital inclusion research.
  • The second phase (December 2009-September 2010) will involve the setting up of a commentary group who, drawing on the web-based document will co-author a TEL branded publication which offers a commentary on digital inclusion research and highlights the contributions of the TEL projects to the field.

The forum welcomes input, with invitations being issues specifically around contributions to an emergent Digital Inclusion Reference Library and posts to the new discussion forum.

To add any digital inclusion references that you think are relevant and make a significant contribution to the field visit: http://www.tlrp.org/tel/tools/digital_inclusion_references.html

To add to a conversation thread or post a response on the Discussion Forum visit: http://www.tlrp.org/tel/digital_inclusion/forum/digital-inclusion/

The forum also notably draws on blogs and other resources tagged with ‘digitalinclusion’. This marriage of expertise and materials will hopefully accrue into a valuable resource for everyone working to achieve access and equity in technology enhanced learning.