Fundraising for the Colossus at Bletchley Park 

Posted by Frank Steiner on 30/03/2012 1 comment

We here at the University of London Computer Centre (ULCC), organisers of the annual FOTE conference and one of the leading IT service providers to the UK education sector, understand the importance the Colossus, the world’s first electronic, programmable computer.

Its main duty was to crack the German High Command code during World War 2.  It carried out complex statistical analysis on messages at a rate of 5,000 characters per second. The National Museum of Computing (TNMOC) is fundraising to rebuild the Colossus at Bletchley Park, which was the first place to use the code breaking machine in 1943. TNMOC are asking individuals and companies to donate through their JustGiving page or by buying pixels on a picture of a war time code breaking machine on Colossusonline.org.

Google produced the short video below to celebrate Colossus and those who built it, in particular Tommy Flowers.

“History teaches everything including the future.” – Alphonse de Lamartine

We are keen to raise awareness for the Colossus project and Bletchley Park and support a good cause and ULCC will donate £1 (up to a maximum of £500) for each time this post is shared on social networks. Making a donation is easy, all you have to do is share this post by using the social sharing options below.

To help spread the word about the Colossus fundraising initiative and Bletchley Park why not use one of the examples below or feel free to make up your own, just make sure you use the #colossus and #bletchleypark hashtag when you share the post for it to be counted.

“This tweet raised £1 for the #colossus project at #bletchleypark. Help raise more at: http://bit.ly/Hr5nOU”

“I’ve just supported the #colossus initiative at #bletchleypark. You can too, it’s simplez: http://bit.ly/Hr5nOU”

So get tweeting and sharing, the more you do the more money we will donate. We are planning to run the fundraising campaign until the 30th of April 31st May (we’ve extended it) or until we reach 500 shares, whichever comes first.

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Privacy Policy 

Posted by Nuwa on 17/05/2012 No comments

From May 26th 2012 EU law requires websites to ask for permission before setting nearly all cookies and equivalent technologies. The list below is of the cookies we use on this site and why.

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FOTE12 – save the date! 

Posted by Frank Steiner on 14/03/2012 2 comments

We are happy to announce the date for the 5th annual Future of Technology in Education conference. FOTE12 will take place on Friday 5th October in Senate House.

We are working hard to put together another great event to showcase trends and technologies that will impact teaching and learning, including Big Data and Bring Your Own Device. If you would like to share any of your expertise at this year’s event, please email us at marketing@ulcc.ac.uk.

We are also trying out a few different social platforms to further extend the reach of the FOTE conference this year. To make sure you stay up to date with all things FOTE, Follow us on Twitter, Like us on Facebook, Join us on LinkedIn and/or +1 us on Google+.

We will be in touch shortly with further news about this year’s conference.

FOTE11 – It’s a wrap 

Posted by Frank Steiner on 12/10/2011 No comments

Last Friday we held the 4th annual Future of Technology in Education conference, trying to shine a light on student expectations and the role technology plays in meeting them.

I’m just catching up with the Twitter back-channel and really like Martin Hawskey’s (@mhawskey) Infographic using #fote11 conversations coded with sentiment data from ViralHeat [NodeXL]; a great way to visualise data.

All videos and slides of the keynotes, 140Challenge and Bring Your Own Device panel are now available online and we also uploaded close to 500 pictures to Flickr. As always you can share and reuse all of those in your own blogs and website as long as you attribute.

Trying to write a summary of a conference one organised and hosted, feels somewhat odd, even self-congratulatory, but I’ll try to be as impartial as possible.

With the theme being on student satisfaction I was pleased that both Emily-Ann Nash (delivering a keynote) and Nizam Uddin (being on the BYOD panel) played an active role at this year’s conference.

#fote11 could Emily-Ann Nash’s student expectations point of view be the most relevant .. follows on from @jamesclay

by @timekord, Fri Oct 07 13:50

The 140Challenge seemed to work very well and we are fairly certain it will be back next year. A few people remarked they’d like to get up on stage but were a tad nervous. Maybe we should give out wine beforehand next year to help with the nerves?

If I had to name one key point to take away from this year’s conference it would be – Engage With Your Students/Colleagues.

I really enjoyed Andrew Bollington’s talk and his suggestion to look at things with different lenses. All too often we get engrossed in our own little world of Marketing/IT/Learning Technology/add your own profession and either forget the bigger picture or the people we are working with and for.

A point also well made by James Clay in his ‘The student as the agent of change’ presentation and something that seemed to come up during the BYOD panel and Emily-Ann’s keynote.

@amber_miro Get your jeans on and buy some coffees – face to face interaction is the best! Use the JCR and talk to them! #fote11

by @amannall, Fri Oct 07 14:05

So could the Future of Technology in Education really be less about technology on more about the face-2-face interactions with students? What do you think?

True, we must take care not to overdo it! @mjryan42: @tim_neumann many students like f2f and [do not want just] more e stuff! #fote11

by @tim_neumann, Fri Oct 07 09:31

FOTE11: Slides & Videos 

Posted by NMckoy on 11/10/2011 5 comments
Time Presentation Slides Video
10.10 The CIO and finding the future (eco-system) of education
Jan-Martin Lowendahl, Gartner		 Not available Watch the video here
10.30 Pervasive Media in Education
Nick Skelton, University of Bristol		 View the slides here Watch the video here
10.50 Student Analytics for Success
Cailean Hargrave, IBM		 View the slides here Watch the video here
12.00 140Challenge View the slides here Watch the video here
12.15 Panel Discussion – Bring your own Device  Not available Watch the video here
14.00 The student as the agent of change
James Clay, Gloucestershire College		 View the slides here Watch the video here
14.20 Microsoft Kinect
Lee Stott, Microsoft		 View the slides here Watch the video here
14.40 Student Expectations
Emily-Ann Nash, NUS Higher Education Committee		 View the slides here Watch the video here
15.45 Making it rich and personal:
The personal path to institutional learning environments
Dr Su White, University of Southampton		 View the slides here Watch the video here
16.05 The Student is Broke!
Andrew Bollington, University of London International Programmes		 View the slides here Watch the video here
16.25 Social media and Employability: The age of sharing and ‘publicness’
Sue Beckingham, Sheffield Hallam University		 View the slides here Watch the video here

Social media and Employability: The age of sharing and ‘publicness’ 

Posted by NMckoy on 11/10/2011 1 comment

Sue Beckingham of Sheffield Hallam University discusses how our graduates of tomorrow face an increasingly competitive job market. Competing for jobs will no longer be confined to the communication channels we have traditionally used for decades and there is a growing shift to digital alternatives. What is clear therefore is that there is a vital need to ensure that our students have the opportunity to develop the necessary digital skills they will need to prepare them for their future. The notion of the digital native /digital immigrant must be challenged as whilst many are visitors to online forums, this does not necessarily indicate that they have given consideration to the development of their own professional online presence or indeed have the skills to do this most effectively.

This presentation explores some of the innovative ways students are already using social media and technology to give them the edge and the changing approach to the way employers are recruiting.

The Student is Broke! 

Posted by NMckoy on 11/10/2011 No comments

Andrew Bollington, Chief Operating Officer for the University of London International Programmes looks at the changes in higher education funding that have re-written the rule book , with the full consequences yet to be understood. From next year, as fees of £9,000 become the norm (at least for now), it is the student who will be paying for their higher education, not the government. One thing is for certain – information technology needs to be very closely aligned with the market positioning and financial reality of each and every higher education institution – otherwise IT will be part of the problem for a new generation of “broke students”. If that’s the harsh reality, what is the Future of Technology in Education?

Making it rich and personal: The personal path to institutional learning environments 

Posted by NMckoy on 11/10/2011 No comments

At FOTE11 Dr Su White, University of Southampton looks at how the world is changing and universities must respond to students’ needs and expectations in agile and effective ways. Learners enter university with an inevitable diversity of technological familiarity and a mix of naïve and sophisticated approaches to using technology as a part of their learning.

The University of Southampton has designed and is implementing a holistic learning environment radically different from the VLEs which have gained widespread use since the late 1990s. Starting from the concept of rich learning environment it became “more than a system, it’s a mindset”. Social software, open data, co-creation and co-evolution are some of its hallmarks. Dr Su White proposes a framework for a digital cognitive apprenticeship to meet the combined challenges of ‘living and learning in a digital age’.

This presentation examines the roots of personal learning environments and considers the interplay of organisational ambitions and requirements needed to support personal learning in a university context.

Student Expectations 

Posted by NMckoy on 11/10/2011 1 comment

At FOTE11 Emily-Ann Nash of the NUS Higher Education Committee explored how students have differing expectations and motivations of higher education and how they may change in light of an increase in fees. She then explores how using technology effectively and purposely can enhance the student experience and encourage a positive effect on each students experience through their journey through higher education. Concluding with the NUS technology charter which students and their respective student unions will be pushing to make sure the technology agenda is high on the agenda and will hopefully ensure institutions do deliver, so that experiences of students from starting in their first year to entering into employment as graduates are equipped and ready for the 21st century environment.

Microsoft Kinect 

Posted by NMckoy on 11/10/2011 No comments

Lee Scott, an Academic Evangelist within the Developer and Platform Evangelism ‘DPE’ Group at Microsoft UK discussed the Microsoft Kinect within teaching, learning and research at FOTE11.

Since its release of Kinect, there has been tremendous enthusiasm and fascination. Kinect is not only a tool to help navigation and interaction, but a tool to help students to get even more engaged in learning. Kinect is already making a difference in getting students more excited about their learning environment, and helping students to get engaged…and actually get more excited about studying.

We are at an exciting time with the availability of the Kinect for Windows Software Development Kit (SDK). Kinect and NUI will bring more interactive classroom environments, the development of new learning styles that will help students with and without disabilities to get more engaged with learning, as well as the potential for much more interactive navigation tools, helping to get students involved in the teaching, learning and research.

The power of Kinect is here it’s now your turn for ideas and exploration.