APT: Appropriate and Practical Technologies : Weblog

APT STAIRS Project Launch

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 09:00:58 GMT

APT STAIRS Project Launch

Appropriate and Practical Technologies for Students, Teachers, Administrators and Researchers.

Guest Speakers from Google, JISC and the

Bloomsbury Colleges

Audience Participation on Google Applications*

Drinks, nibbles and network opportunities

19 June 2008

17:30

London Knowledge Lab

http://www.lkl.ac.uk/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=42&Itemid=32

Next generation web technologies and practices present exciting opportunities to enrich teachning, learning and research in higher education

The APT STAIRS Project is supporting the implementation of new collaborative technologies, with Google, to create common spaces where users with different skills can work online together.

If you would like to reserve a place please contact

Caroline Bell (Project Officer) on clbell@rvc.ac.uk

For more information please visit our website: http://www.bloomsbury.ac.uk/apt

* To participate in our Google demonstration, please bring your laptop (wireless enabled)

Date agreed for project meeting

Tue, 24 Jul 2007 11:03:27 GMT

I can confirm that we're going to be meeting on Thursday 23 August, probably from about 10.30am to 3.30pm, in the Council Room at London Zoo. We'd be delighted if as many people who are interested in joining a bid team will be able to attend.

If you are interested in attending (whether or not you came to our roundtable in Manchester) please email me at mh75@soas.ac.uk.

Current thoughts on a project shape

Thu, 12 Jul 2007 09:37:50 GMT

Our current thoughts about a project bid are based around a collection of case studies of various phases of implementation, including:

a) identification of pedagogic need
b) selection of appropriate technology
c) user training (staff and student)
d) implementation
e) evaluation

Ideally, we would like case studies investigating a wide range of examples across many disciplines, including success stories, those projects which failed for some reason, and lessons learned from past experiences.

It is hoped that this will form a related study to the current 'Pedagogic Planner' research project currently being undertaken.

The Call

Wed, 11 Jul 2007 11:47:02 GMT

There has been some debate about whether the funding call will cover technology development only, but the text below seems to suggest that practices are also important. On this basis, I think we will have a strong case if we can put together a cogent and coherant proposal.

15-month projects to develop and adapt next generation technologies and practices, and pilot them with real users, in real institutional contexts (following phase 2 of the U&I Development Model). 10 small-scale projects (maximum funding of £50,000 per project) and 10 large-scale institutional demonstrators (funding of between £150,000 and £200,000 per project).

Next generation technologies and practices
This strand will seek to make best use of emergent technologies (such as those that are now becoming synonymous with Web 2.0 and social software, for example blogs, wikis, social bookmarking and personalised environments), creating a community that is equipped to rapidly adapt and adopt in order to provide a more coherent and personalised user experience.

Here the programme will provide a more scholarly approach to these next generation practices, providing an opportunity for institutions to look at wider implementation issues around technical infrastructure, legal and accessibility issues. In addition, the programme will be looking at how these technologies can provide new opportunities to meet the increasingly diverse needs of institutions, reflecting, for example, third stream activities where projects may look at how they can use the technologies to support both local communities and wider professional contexts, exploiting alumni, where technologies may be used to maintain institutional networks, and lifelong and lifewide[NS1] learning, where the technologies may be used as tools to meet the needs of the government’s agenda to create a learning culture in society.

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[NS1]Anybody heard this term before?