Building and Connecting Emerge Jim Hensman – Coventry University George Roberts – Oxford Brookes University Next Generation Technologies in Practice Conference – March 2009

Outline for Today Describe work of the Connection Benefits Realisation Project Carry out a set of activities to help draw out potential connections and future possibilities for Emerge projects

Connection Benefits Realisation Project Motivating Question: How can Emerge projects and their members link together to sustain the work they have been doing and maintain the Emerge Community? Based on Planet (Pattern Language Network for Web 2.0 Learning) Project Methodology –Planet aims to elicit and represent Web 2.0 practice so it can be linked together and shared by a community of learning practitioners –Connection aims to represent the practice of Emerge so it can be linked together and shared by Emerge and wider learning communities Uses Planet as an exemplar to try out how these links could be implemented in practice

Grouping Projects Create keyword tags for projects Use a simple ontology Map the projects and analyse clusters

Creating a Simple Ontology

Emerge Project Themes

Selected Emerge Themes -1

Selected Emerge Themes - 2

Activity 1 – Linking and Extending Solutions Repositories: Streamline, PERSoNA, UKAN- SKILLS Audio/Podcasting/Multimedia: ASEL, MACFoB, Sounds Good Virtual Worlds (Games): ARGOSI, OpenHabitat, M3, MOOSE, PREVIEW Semantic Web: AWESOME, Gold Dust, HeLMET, (CIP) Social Networks: APT STAIRS, AWESOME, (CIP), eTutor, (Flourish), HeLMET, M3, Planet, Reflect 2.0, PERSoNA, SkillClouds

Institutional Innovation Project Themes

Merged Emerge and Institutional Innovation Project Themes

Activity 2 – Addressing Key Problems Providing collaborative learning opportunities and building learning communities against a background of reduced opportunity Embedding technologies in institutional practice (Providing feedback, Mobile technologies, Low Carbon, Other)

Linking Project Systems Investigation of linking Planet/Connection to other systems –Project Information databases: PIMs, Simal, PROD etc. –Visualisation and mapping: VUE, Touchgraph, Freemind –Other: Cloudworks (OU), myExperiment, Compendium LD, Google Web Services etc. Methodology –Create API/Web Service interface –Look at composite models (e.g.,E-framework Service Usage Models) Applicable to other projects implementing services –E.g., CIP, eTutor, Gold Dust, HeLMET, SkillClouds, ticTOCs –Possibly to many others as information resource etc.

The Future Emerge as a facilitator of connections and Community of Communities –Connection will continue help to Emerge projects Challenge – engaging with wider communities – e.g., NESTA Connect

Thank You! project/