AUPOV Conference
AUPOV09 showcased the use of POV technology in vocational education.
What is it?'
Point-of-view or POV is simply video and audio with no hands required. We saw a small camera mounted on spectacles and a sleek pair of sunglasses, as well as a camera mounted on a safety helmet.
Briefly
There were lively talks on the uses of POV in vocational education as well as the use of mobiles in education, and a vigorous panel discussion with questions, as well as demonstration workshops dealing with using POV, mobile devices, elearning for the trades, parallel points of view and scenarios.
The main themes
Several speakers highlighted the need for POV to move from emerging technology in education to mainstream in the knowledge era. Teachers need to engage with the students and let them use POV to drive the use of this technology. This promotes collaborative learning where students learn in learning spaces rather than the old transmission model where the teacher just stands in front of the class and ‘tells’ the students. One clear point was emphasised several times: don’t worry about how ‘crappy’ it might look, just use it (their words relating to composition and design etc, not image quality). The various speakers also outlined several benefits for teaching, and in the classroom.
Demos
Simon Brown a stonemasonry teacher at SkillsTech Australia, Brisbane, showed how he used POV to take 17 sec grabs and save them to the phone and then send MMSs to websites such as Flickr, Twitter and Ning. We saw one apprentice’s work on a set of stone stairs.
Associate professor Tony Herrington of the University of Wollongong showed his student’s use of smart phones to make 2-3min videos and upload them to You Tube. Communication was online via Janison classroom management system.
Ian Squire, a Painting and Decorating teacher at Illawarra Institutes’ Wollongong TAFE used Adobe presenter to show how POV on a safety helmet could be used to demonstrate effective use of PPE, sand blasting, elevated platforms, welding, fire cleaning and checking conditions such as humidity weather etc before painting a bridge, as well as spray painting on the Sydney Harbour Bridge. He formatted the POV to play on MPEG4 and incorporated the video into Adobe Presenter.
Alexander Hayes, an EDUPOV director, demonstrated a scenario communicating with second life and POV, so that in the room we saw the second life avatars, and the person in second life saw the real people in the demonstration room, marrying virtual images with the real in a seamless dialogue, used as an educational tool.
But consider this
We were given some things to consider such as Authority to Publish waivers when videoing people. To have alternative training sessions available if students don’t want to ‘opt in’ being videod. Also, who owns the video once it has been taken? Further, where to store the video, and for how long?
More, we were made aware of the ethics and social implications of using this ‘wearable computing’. We were asked to think about how educators use it, given that video can lie, be manipulated and fabricated and passed off as real, and particularly, that it can track students (surveillance). If you want to test this, go to Google Latitude and type in a mobile phone number and watch what happens.
The Panel
Amongst other things, the panel discussion suggested that to get started find a mentor - technology mentors here we come! Just start using it and don't worry about how it looks. Get a group of teachers together to do it. POV is not as intrusive as a video camera.
What's it good for?
Useful in sports training for analysis of the training. Good for Commercial Cookery for demonstrating sauces and cooking of various products. welding, Auto, especially for under the vehicles, spray painting, sand blasting. Fire cleaning, elevated platforms. Good for demonstrating prior learning and assessment for current tasks.
So what else did I see?
Several people accessed the wireless network at the conference to log on to Twitter and go to Google Altitude. I talked to some teachers about how POV would be good for Remote Area Nursing, Health & Rec, Commercial Cookery, Auto, and Metal Fab.
How easy is it to use?
One of the speakers showed how easy it was to use the funky sunglasses POV, by switching the button on, taking a quick video of the audience, then plugging to a laptop via a USB cable (the same as cameras) and downloaded using windows camera wizard. It was that easy!
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