Crunch 2.0

Now that reality is dawning in the world of global finance, what of the ultimate in 'Emporer's New Clothes', those companies that base their value on the promise of profit 'some day real soon'  and in the meantime do little other than shuffle electrons?  Or Web 2.0 start-ups to be more specific. Well Tim O'Reilly and Al Gore have been discussing the issue at the Web 2.0 summit in San Francisco, as reported on the BBC website. In summary? Time for folks to get serious with applications that have real value and make a needed contribution and a space for alternative revenue models to the dominant advertising approach whose returns are dropping in value with the plethora of sites available.

(Photo: James Duncan Davidson - attribution details)

Top 100 Tools for Learning 2008

Jane Hart has published her top 100 tools for learning for 2008. This is based on contributions from 223 learning professionals worldwide. Top of the list is del.icio.us, the social bookmarking tool, followed by Firefox, down one from last year.

The list is also organised by category: Web Browers, Social Bookmarking, RSS Tools etc. The top (most popular) FREE tools in 25 categories is also available.

Wiggio - Making it easy to work in groups

Wiggio is a free, online toolkit, developed by students at Cornell University to support groupwork. From the site:

Wiggio lets you use the following group tools, and it's all for free!

• Messages— send mass text messages, voice messages and emails from wiggio
• Calendar— keep a shared group calendar that will send you text message reminders before all your meetings, practices, rehearsals, games and other events
• Poll—survey your entire group and get their responses as they answer
• Folder— dump all your groups’ files into one folder and never send another attachment
• Meetings— never walk 15 minutes through the snow to get to a 10 minute meeting again… setup free conference calls and web chats on Wiggio
• Links— keep a shared favorites folder

Watch the demo on YouTube.

Using Blogs to Enhance Education

This is a nice post on using blogs in the classroom, on Openeducation.net. It is based on an article by Ruth Reynard at Campus Technology, Avoiding the 5 Most Common Mistakes in Using Blogs with Students.

What is said, in both articles, makes a lot of sense. The context has to be authentic and should be aligned with the desired learning outcomes. A blog can be very powerful when you want your students to reflect. At the same time, the blog needs to be carefully planned and managed by the instructor. The students need clear expectations and guidance, in particular if their contributions are to be assessed.

On assessment, Ruth Reynard gives a useful classification of statement types that could be used in a grading rubric:

• Reflection statements (self positioning within the course concepts);
• Commentary statements (effective use of the course content in discussion and analysis);
• New idea statements (synthesis of ideas to a higher level); and
• Application statements (direct use of the new ideas in a real life setting).

Both articles are quite clear that blogs are not always the most appropriate tool for collaboration, but provide an "individualised" space for students to reflect on topics and to find their own voice.

Having just started using blogs in my own teaching, I found that these articles have confirmed my own thoughts and support (to an extent) the approach I have been using.

Learning Innovation Network (LIN) Conference - 10 October 2008

The Learning Innovation Network (LIN) held its first annual conference in Athlone on 10 October under the theme of 'Fostering Learning – A Student Centred Experience'. The LIN project is a 3-year SIF funded collaborative project between the 13 IoTs and DIT which aims to enhance the delivery and quality of core educational activities through common infrastructures and collaborative activities.

It was great to see large numbers in attendance from the IoT, university, industry and government sectors. A wide variety of interesting student-centred initiatives were showcased in the following stands: 'Innovation in Teaching and Learning'; 'Working Within a Modular Environment'; and 'Assessment Within a Modular Environment'.

Prof. Ray Land's morning keynote investigated threshold and troublesome knowledge concepts in the context of curriculum design; Dr. Richard Thorn addressed current economic concerns with regards to workforce education and lifelong learning under the banner 'Somebody Should, We Could, We Can'; while Prof. Sarah Moore gave an inspiring and interactive closing keynote 'Fresh Approaches to Learning in Third Level Settings' discussing the complexities inherent in the expert/novice relationship and calling for a 'less is more' approach to allow for student reflection and self-analysis of their learning contexts.

Keynote podcasts and parallel session presentations will be available shortly from the LIN website.

another virtual conference!

"Learning in the Digital Age - are we prepared?" is the title of this year's JISC e-learning conference on November 4th - 7th. Delivered entirely online (but not completely in Second Life, unlike the NMC event I last posted about), the programme is almost a "who's who" of UK-based e-learning research.

Should be interesting, but like all such events, the lack of physical attendance can often make it difficult to carve out the time from a hectic diary but to get full advantage of the discussions and debates you really need to be able to do this, locking the office door and shutting off the phone whilst you're online at the sessions.

Virtual Symposium - November '08

The New Media Consortium (www.nmc.org) has announced its latest Virtual Symposium entitled "Rock the Academy: Radical Teaching, Unbounded Learning" which will be taking place in Second Life and over the web. The event runs from November 4th to 6th and details plus a registration form can be accessed here.

Broadband for Rural, Irish-speaking areas

A new high speed telecommunications network, which will result in high speed broadband services, is being brought to the Galway Gaeltacht as a result of a joint initiative undertaken by NUI Galway, HEAnet and Údarás na Gaeltachta. 

For more information visit NUI Galway's website.

Web Search Strategies in Plain English

The Common Craft people have done it again. This time we have web search strategies, again in plain English.



They have also come up with a new license agreement, which is nicely explained, in plain English, on their web site.

New spin on "Print on Demand"

Whilst printing on demand services such as lulu.com have helped many authors and academic publishers with handling small print runs of specialist publications, an entirely new twist to 'print on demand' is about to be unveiled at the University of Michigan Library. They have installed one of the first of the new generation of book printing and binding machines in which you order a book and it prints, binds and charges you for a copy. Of course it only works for out-of-copyright or copyright free materials, but think for a moment what this means. Supposing you need a copy of a literary classic to read on one of your courses or as you're about to set off on a trip, just pop down to the machine and print a copy for ten dollars and away you go!

Thanks to the Chronicle for highlighting this story.

virtual worlds - make your own

hmm. Seems everyone is in to virtual worlds these days. Not only am I having some fun beta testing metaplace and have long wandered through Second Life, but now Lively (by Google) seems to really be taking off with its simple web-based interface. Pop into the Google Room or create and share other spaces and let your animated avatar start chatting. My own little venue is here:

chrome - slightly tarnished by licence debacle

Google's new chrome browser has been the subject of the geek-chat this week. At first glimpse it looks simple and clean in design, matching the general google philosophy. It seems quick to respond, but then I wonder to what extent browsers other than IE manage that partially by looking sleeker (digital placebo effect?). Must try some speed tests with Firefox, etc.

The most embarrassing issue on the launch appears to be an over-zealous part of the licence agreement (you know the stuff that you don't read before clicking "accept"?) that gave ownership of everything you do through the browser to Google! Apart from that sudden correction, things seem to be running smoothly and it will be interesting to see how things like google docs and the new video-communications packages integrate. Meanwhile it seems that Microsoft are effectively painting themselves as the champions of freedom with the new privacy features on the latest version of IE. Hard to work out who is supposed to be the 'evil empire' these days.....