Brains working towards machine consciousness

Collaboration and Communication

I am involved in a number of European projects (MUVEnation, Mobi-blog, Life Long Learning 3D), a JISC project (MeAggregator^TM) and an Eduserv project (This Is Me) in which collaboration and communication at many levels is a key element.

I engage with JISC colleagues through meetings and workshops, as well as being a member of the Emerge community. Increasing amount of communication with JISC people occurs through Twitter, whilst communication on European projects is primarily through email and tele-conferences.

Dissemination

I have presented conference papers on my Facebook vs Blackboard study and my proposals for a caring agent based learning assistant. I have participated as a panellist in a JISC Emerge workshop about eLearning systems and about Digital Identity both in person and using online tools such as Elluminate.

I maintain this site, and also blog at RedGloo and on our OdinLab forum in order to keep people up to date. In addition I provide cross over links between systems where possible, so that my Twitter comments are available on this site and on Facebook.

Feedback from others

I am always happy to receive feedback from others and use it to inform my practice. I am always keen to read feedback forms from modules where I have been involved in teaching, and try to elicit constructive criticism from students using this medium. I used to be an active participant in the Staff Student Liaison Committee where I communicated student requirements to staff, and relayed feedback to interested parties.

Focus groups, Interviews and Surveys

I have run focus groups for the RedGloo project, interviews with students and staff relating to their requirements for eLearning systems in the Facebook vs Blackboard study and run online surveys to elicit user opinions.

Team working

I am always evaluating software to help us communicate better as a team. We make use of Google groups, and Google docs, as well as our RedGloo site and Skype for semi-synchronous communication. I have set up test sites for a number of other technologies for evaluation purposes within the team, including Huddle and using Groove. It is fair to say that communication is not one of the teams strong points, comprising as it does a group of people who probably would not be offended to be described as 'geeks', however I strive to improve communication so that we have a clear record of decisions which have been made and areas which are up for discussion.