E-learning and technical tools

I have by myself been both, a student and a teacher and of course a guinea Pig for it. I am always curious and want to try new things the whole time, to develop myself and other people. I have been working with traditional pedagogic, flipped learning, blended learning, case methodic, problem based learning and holistic learning, which I also wrote my thesis on during my time at Uppsala University, were I took my degree as a high school teacher 1999. 

I tried to study/work with e-learning/distance learning already around 1992. It was amazing, when we were sitting up in the school, Centrum for flexible learning in Härnösand, Sweden and talked through video call with people at Kistamässan, Stockholm, there the school fair was situated. It was like a kind of candid camera, we had with some of the participants at the fair, who didn’t know that we had a camera there, but we also had a real meeting with people there through video conference.

In the autumn 1993, I started to study at Mid Sweden College University, which wasn’t a real university yet. From that year, the colleges in Östersund, Sundsvall and Härnösand merged into a form of network college. They also developed several forms of ADL, Advanced Distance learning, which developed both the courses/programs, students and staff. Students was able to start sit down in small villages and do some or almost everything of their task/assignments at home or other places and sit and work what time they decide to work 24/7, except for if there was some mandatory participation and reporting of information. This could be held on campus or via ADL. Different kind of LMS, started to be used as First Class, WebCT/ Blackboard, Fronter, Sahai (Cambro), Moodle, Adobe Connect (for connections). It is still developing the whole time and also about how the lectures is held and if they are streamed. They can today be seen on YouTube, Discard  etc the development on how the lectures are being held yesterday, today and tomorrow, but also how you can interact between the students and teachers this way.  Skype and Zoom are other tools who we are using frequently today. You can also use them in your phone, if you don’t need a bigger screen.

During Diotima, an EU project about European Comparative Gender and Politics became the next ADL trying and error project for me as a student during 1997/1998. It was held as a kind of joint venture between some universities/colleges in some EU countries and with the college in Lillehammer as the one in charge of the administration. Despite that Norway (Lillehammer wasn’t any member of EU). We as students, got workbooks with questions/assignments together with video cassettes, with lectures and articles to read to our home addresses. We worked as students together in groups there we compared and discussed differences in our countries. We had two seminars during the time, a start-up in Dublin during the autumn at Trinity College and another one during the spring in Torino, there we also, students and lectures held a round table conference, directly sent in Italian television. This meeting in Torino was also interpreting red Italian- English the whole time. I remembered that I was talking about how I as the student furthest from the north was a full time student at a network college at the Mid Sweden University College at that time and was thinking and talking about how Italian students could be sitting and studying in a small Alp village, and working during the day or evening with tourists and the rest of the time being connecting through a 56K modem to the University in Torino or another place.  And I had contact with students and teachers from other part of Europe and the world which I didn’t would have had if I didn’t had participated in this course.

When I started to work as a teacher at Palmcrantzskolan, Östersund in social science and history year 2000, we had a program there, which were working in projects, using laptops and they could be sitting and working at other place than in the school due to their schedule. We worked with a kind of portfolio also, there the students put in their assignments in their own files.

I resigned later on and started to work at the Military Academy in Östersund, 2002 as a teacher in Political science and human rights/international humanitarian law instead. There I developed how to let my cadets sitting in other places and fulfill their examination in political science through First Class. We were also using what we called Classroom 2000, for our lectures, were sick cadets could be sitting home and follow the lectures directly, through streaming and I could see if they had any questions and answering them directly in real time. In this classroom every working place had their own microphone and the camera in the room, zoomed the microphones and me, when speaking. We also connected the system to the other Military Academies through the video conference system and to other universities and colleges, from which we bought courses. In our work at the Military Academy, we also worked with some smart boards, which helped us with some “things” We also build up the Swedish Armed Forces ADL Unit at the Military Academy in Östersund. When the Parliament closed down the garrison in Östersund, the ADL Unit moved to the school in Halmstad instead.    

• When I worked at SWEDINT, Swedish Armed Forces International Centre, we worked a lot with exercises during our courses and especially during international exercises as Viking and when we participated in exercises as CJSE, Combined Joint Staff Exercise. We tried and used and developed different kind of technical equipments and platforms, some with better results and other with less. We had staffs/platforms in different countries and places during the Viking exercises.
• I have seen some companies vision for maybe the futures pedagogical tools for “education” , meetings etc, but also another forms of “screens” How will the pedagogic and technological equipments be developed in the future for students and teachers? I have some thoughts about it and how I think about it. How do you think about it? What do you think and which way would you take to develop it? This is also why it was amazing to listen to both #FredFishback and #Erik Simons about their developments Fred Fishback, a world famous entrepreneur, billionaire and the inventor of the floppy disc and a fan of cars . He also created the very first computerized testing system and are now working with other sophisticated “things”, which I hope we very soon will be able to try…Eric Simons a serial internet entrepreneur, for more than 14 yrs beginning his internet career by pioneering online affiliate marketing networks for the gaming industry and providing performance-based advertising solutions that are still in use today. Simons has founded multiple internet companies around the globe, establishing software development companies in Eastern Europe and the Baltic regions earning him millions of dollars.