Event overview - Online learning: Developing trends

This lunchtime seminar, presented by Myles Runham, Head of Online at the BBC Academy, demonstrated how and why the BBC utilises social media in its delivery of online education and learning content, in addition to the benefits of doing so.

Some key points I took away from the seminar are as follows.

We continue to be preoccupied with learning taking place in a certain time and place.
Citing Clay Shirky's assertion that "institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution", Myles drew attention to education providers' continued delivery of linear courses and 'traditional' learning experiences, such as lectures.

There are other approaches we might employ whilst maintaining our offering as relevant and useful.
People now learn through a variety of different means, including social media and video platforms such as YouTube. It's possible to scaffold learning within these platforms using exactly the same content, people, and approaches as a more traditional approach, but it still isn't accepted as a viable or valid. Social media tools set new expectations for learners, being user-focused, relevant, discoverable, reusable, searchable, social, timely, and most of all: simple. This is why people use them.

Sean MacEntee, via Flickr under Creative Commons Licence.

Web learning tools aren't special.
Myles used the annual C4LPT survey of learning tools to demonstrate that the top ten are just normal tools for productivity. They're non-specialist, i.e. not necessarily built with education in mind, they put user needs first, and can be used in a whole range of different ways.

Digital experiences are a complement to traditional learning methods.
People become anxious when it's suggested that digital activities might replace the course-based experience. They likely won't, but should instead be incorporated into the curriculum to add value and supplement existing practices. Social learning experiences are exceptionally powerful in the real world, so why not also engage in them online with a vast array of learners and experts?

Education providers must play a part in validating content delivered through digital channels.
One criticism of informal online learning is that knowledge can be unverified; it lacks a theoretical or a research-led underpinning. Universities can ensure that quality standards are maintained by being involved in this process: designing, developing, and curating media content that is both relevant and reliable within the context of academic study.

Links:
Myles Runham Twitter
BBC Academy
C4LPT Top 100 Tools for Learning 2013

The Social Scholar is a series of seminars which focus on the use of social media in education. Events are hosted by the School of Advanced Study and are free and open to all. More information about forthcoming seminars can be found in the events calendar.

Originally posted on the LSHTM e-Learning blog. Reproduced by the author, Jo Stroud.

Spoofs, fakes and phishing.

Keeping safe online.
Tips on spotting spoofs, fakes and phishing.

You may just want to jump to the tips below, but it’s perhaps worth while knowing some of the background history to this.

Email is perhaps the most ubiquitous method of electronic communication. However, it is for many of us a recent innovation. We were not taught about it at school and subsequently our digital literacy skills, how to be safe online and some of the other finer intricacies are all by and large self taught. The internet is a bit like Apple’s iOS for the iPhone or iPad, there are a lot of hidden features not mentioned in the manual that we are left to discover by ourselves. However, we need to have at least some basic skills and knowledge about being safe online and and thieves have been taking advantage of anybody with a lack of knowledge for a long while, and they are getting sneakier!

Most of us are probably aware now of phishing attempts for financial information. That is emails purporting to be from a financial institution attempting to get your log in details and access to whatever finances you have there. However, nowadays it’s not just financial information they want, personal details (eg for ID fraud), your computer (to silently become part of a mega cluster of computers for sending spam, carrying out denial of service attacks, etc) and also the Ransom attacks (a program locks all your files so you can’t access them, until you pay a ransom to unlock and even then they might not after payment. I’m sure that list is not exclusive.

As ways to gain access to this information or our machines I’ve been increasingly made aware of other emails that try to take advantage of basic human nature and our need to respond to a crisis. I have had emails in the past about:

Notice to Appear / Court orders 

(Figure 1): Requesting that I turn up to a specific court on a specific date and time for my case to be heard. Details contained the attached file. A ZIP file which contained an .exe file.

Eviction notices 

(Figure 2). Advising about to be evicted. Details of the court order attached. A ZIP file which contained an .exe file.

Friends funerals 

(Figure 3): Advising me of a death (typically no specific name) and funeral service at such and such place and time. Link attached takes you to a website not at all related. I did not follow these links (and if I am suspicious I do not) so I cannot tell you if the link was to a malicious file or request for information. 

Email inbox near to capacity 

(Figure 4): Advisory notice about my email inbox being nearly full and to contact the admin via the provided link to sort this out. 

Email account to be shut down 

Advisory notice about my email account to be shut down and to contact the admin via the provided link to sort this out.

Figure 1: Spoof Notice to Appear/Court Order

Figure 2: Spoof eviction notice

Figure 3: Spoof funeral notice

Figure 4: Spoof inbox nearly full notice.

The TIPS

> Have basic computer security. 

Make sure you have both a firewall and virus protection on computers you use. - but these only go so far in protecting you and your machine. 

> Be wary of attached files. 

Typically these are ZIP files as you can easily hide all sort of things in a zipped file, eg a malicious program (.exe = executable file). You can view the contents of ZIP files before actually unzipping them. If the file that is zipped is NOT a document (e.g. .pdf, .doc, .docx, etc) or file type you recognise as safe (ie will not install. Then avoid!! 

> Be wary of any Links/URLs. 

It is very easy to write down a URL, but have the actual link pointing somewhere else. Sometimes these actually point to a similar looking URL. For example does this link http://www.ioe.ac.uk actually point to where it says it will take you?

In most web browsers and email clients, it is possible to view actual URL before clicking on it. E.g hovering over the link with your mouse without actually clicking will show either in the task bar of the browser window or in a pop up window the actual URL. 

In Outlook Web Access (OWA), you have to right click the link and then select properties. BUT CAUTION: In Outlook Web Access, the URL that the link wants to take you to is obscured by a redirect URL created by Outlook so you cannot tell whether the URL you are being taken to is legitimate or not. The only way you will find out is if you actually follow the link and look at the URL in the address bar of your browser. This might be too late. Some websites have malicious code which is automatically downloaded when you visit them.

> Look at the sender

Be aware that it is possible to make it look like an email has come from somebody but in reality come from someone else. I have had emails that I have supposedly sent myself!
Is the sender’s domain name (that bit after the ‘@’ sign) related to the company the email is supposed to come from? If the email is that official, the domain of the sender should match the domain of the company. E.g. in Figure 4 why should somebody from “duvalschools.org” be advising you of a problem relating to your IOE Account? Or in Figure 3 why is somebody from dukesofficesupply.com sending a funeral notice on behalf of Eubank Funeral Home?

> Look at content, the body of the email

Is the email asking for information? Or does it want to provide more information with an attachment or link to another site? If it is any of these, then there’s a better chance of the email being malicious.

How specific is the information? Are you mentioned by name in the email or could the email be applied to anybody?

About the author:

Kit Logan is a Learning Technology Fellow with the Learning Technology Unit at the Institute of Education and is based at the London Knowledge Lab.

Digital Literacy for Teaching, Learning & Research Event

Digital Literacy for Teaching, Learning & Research
Wednesday 19 February 2014, 2 – 4.30pm
Institute of Education 

(Open to the BLE Colleges – Birkbeck, IOE, LSHTM, RVC, SOAS, and invitees)

Please book here

Currently, much is being discussed, researched and written about "Digital Literacies" in the University sector. But what does Digital Literacy mean and what effect does the acquisition of these skills have on teaching and research – from the point of view staff and students alike? What is the state of play within the Bloomsbury Colleges regarding this topic, in consideration of the wide range of disciplines and the variety of institutional support services involved? This event, organised for Bloomsbury, seeks to address these questions and more.

Purpose of the event:
To highlight the benefits of supporting digital literacy by presenting examples of best practice.

Aims of this event: 
-to understand the importance of digital literacy
-to consider how best to support staff and students engage with and improve their digital literacy

Intended audience: 
Library/Learning Technology/Learning Support/Academic Support staff; academics; anyone else with an interest in Digital Literacy skills.
Delegates are invite to bring along their own devices (tablets, smartphones, etc).

Booking:
The event is free, but booking is required. Please book here

Location:
IOE; Clarke Hall, Level 3, 20 Bedford Way, London WC1H 0AL, - http://www.ioe.ac.uk/sitehelp/1072.html

Agenda:
1400 Welcome: What is Digital Literacy, why is it important, why do we need to talk about it? (Sarah Sherman, BLE & Kate Squire, RVC)
1415 Digital Literacies as a Postgraduate Attribute (Lesley Gourlay & Nazlin Bhimani, IOE)
1435 Group Activity: Setting the scene in Bloomsbury
1450 Examples of the benefits of supporting digital literacy:

1. Literacies for Open Practice (Leo Havemann, Birkbeck)
2. Digital Literacy for Employability (Emma Woods & Federica Oradini, University of Westminster)
3. @VetQs: an inter-professional veterinary Twitter forum for teaching, revision and lifelong peer communications (Tom Witte & Martin Whiting, RVC)

1550 Group Discussion: How do we achieve better levels of digital literacy in our institutions?
1620 Next steps (Sarah Sherman, BLE)
1630 Close

 If you have any questions please contact Brigitta Goedhuys (BLE Officer) - ble@bloomsbury.ac.uk