Richard Millwood

I have been working part-time in the Institute for Educational Cybernetics (IEC) at the University of Bolton for the last two years, after seventeen years at Ultralab.
IEC houses three major projects:
•    the JISC Innovation Support Centre for Educational Technology & Interoperability Studies (CETIS);
•    the Inter-Disciplinary Inquiry-Based Learning project creating innovative higher degree frameworks (IDIBL);
•    the [...]

I have been reading  the report ‘On-line Innovation in Higher Education‘ submitted by Sir Ron Cooke to John Denham recently and I’m not impressed.
It seems to be but a variation on the ‘content is king’ theme and, by its own standards, seems to miss many points.
The title of this blog ‘Content is muck’ is intended [...]

I have enjoyed discussing with colleagues at Manchester University the nature of online community, which made me think about the various terms used – hence the above slide. It was also fun to explain the work done over ten years and how we came across many of the concepts we take for granted. Here [...]

Almost five years to the day that Ultraversity was validated at Anglia Ruskin University, we have received conditional approval for a new scheme based on the same philosophies of learner-centred, work-focussed, community-supported, action-inquiry and innovative assessment.
This IDIBL course framework validated at the University of Bolton is more ambitious in scope, more refined in character and [...]

 
The objective of this workshop was to begin a new kind of RSA fellowship engagement ‘RSA networks’, and to discover what they might do and how they might work.
A stimulating ‘Open technology’ format was used to generate, discuss and refine over 70 ideas from the 260 fellows and staff present.
I proposed ‘What’s wrong with university” [...]

A fascinating evening sitting in the Star Trek-like environment of Talkaoke at the RSA. Discussing the development of an online environment for the RSA Fellows. A wide-ranging discussion which homed in on the confrontation between the trust and shared intent of a closed society and the creativity and diversity of open thinking. A chance [...]

A day which thoroughly overlapped two intriguing events, but I managed to make breakfast at the RSA for Becta’s Harnessing Technology: Research Forum and then skip across the road to present at the BCS KIDMM MetaKnowledge Mash-up and then back again for the wrap-up session at the end of the day back at the RSA. [...]

This is the presentation (as a PDF) I have used to promote the innovative Ultraversity project we developed and implemented in Ultralab, Anglia Ruskin University from January 2003 – December 2006. The project’s main outcome was a degree programme which is still recruiting and has had enormous success.
I have left there now, but so much [...]

In my spare time , I am transcribing the interviews with Ultraversity graduates at the graduation ceremony in Chelmsford on November 24th 2006. Greta has done the mass of the transcribing, I am editing and very nearly finished.
It is compelling stuff:
“I just could never envisage myself here, with the degree because I always [...]