Friday, June 29, 2007

Social Networking - In Plain English

Lee Lefever has done it again!

Chris Jobling pointed out that this new video was available, following on from Wikis and RSS, to introduce Social Networking.

While perhaps not as good as his previous informational videos covering Web 2.0 features (you'll have to decide yourself), it certainly covers the basic concepts of what Social Networking is, in language that is easy to understand.

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The World is changing

"The U.S Department of Labour estimates that todays learner will have 10 to 14 jobs by age 38."

"According to former secretary of Education Richard Riley the top 10 jobs in 2010 didn't exist in 2004."

The world is changing, education is changing, the way we learn is changing, technology and the web is changing - where will it take us?.

This is an interesting presentation about this change, quoting facts and figures which may or may not amaze, but are certainly something to think about.

Thursday, June 28, 2007

Create content collaboratively?!

There are often occasions where a group of people will have the need to create a single document or piece of content. There are many ways this can be approached, and quite often sending a word document around by e-mail is the process used.

We have often mentioned here about how Wikis can be used effectively for this collaborative content creation process.

I've come across a blog post about someones experiences with collaborative document creation, and how using Google Documents (which is a service that operates similiarly to a Wiki) and a virtual classroom tool Elluminate enabled this process to be completed rather easily.

http://emerge.elgg.org/awesome/weblog/628.html

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Friday, June 22, 2007

Does the personalisation of learning make you unhappy?

The was originally posted on the Emerge Project site.


There is a growing trend towards personalisation – having things how and when I want them, doing things when I where I want to and interacting with others on my terms. While 60% of 16-19 year olds say that their main ambition in life is to be happy, serious emotional problems rose from 10% in 1986 to 17% in 1999 and are continuing to worsen. Economist Richard Layard argued in the 2007 Ashby Lecture that this is due to the rise in individualism and a corresponding fall in trust in others, which has occurred in the US and the UK but not in the mainland Europe. He marks this rise in individualism as starting at 1981 and terms individualism as making the most of oneself – to be as successful as possible compared to others. He argues that if this is everyone’s goal, then there is no way that our society can become happier and that successful societies are not those with the highest GDP per capita but those with the greatest happiness and the least misery. What we need, according to Layard, is ‘a more positive sum game in which we care positively about the well-being of others.’ The transcript of the lecture explains how he thinks this can be achieved.

So, what has this got to do with the personalisation of learning? Maybe nothing, as others may well tell me, but there could be if the increasing focus on the personalisation of learning is at the expense of a Layard’s more positive sum game in which we care positively about the well-being of others. As an example I think back to a recent Emerge online event, which in general I though was really useful and many people got a great deal from. However, I did notice a few issues with some of the elluminate sessions. During a number of sessions there was a lot of activity in the side chat, which many found useful but others found distracting. OK, just minimise or turn the chat off. Yet, as many people noted, the side chat for some became the main focus and the presentation the side activity. In some sessions the earlier side chat drove the discussion at the end of the presentation. This was particularly difficult when participants requested that questions earlier in the side chat be answered in the discussion at then end but insisted that as the question had been asked earlier there was no need to repeat it. This meant that either the presenter had to go back and try and find which question the participant meant or that the moderator had to intervene. Either way this held up the flow of the discussion. Fine for those for whom this fitted their personal way of learning but not for everyone else. A case of it’s fine for my way of learning, suits me and enables me to make the best of myself but doesn’t show much ‘care about the well-being of others’.

So if, as Layard argues, the best societies are not those with the highest GDP per capita (or the most JISC funded projects) but those with the greatest happiness and the least misery, how do we balance the need for empowering individuals with need for caring about the well being of others within a learning context?

Or maybe I’m just talking rubbish?

All the cakes have gone....

Today’s session was probably the most useful e-learning and cakes so far. There was a wide ranging group of people, with academic staff making up nearly half of those present. Topics discussed included, amongst others, blogs, wikis, RSS feeds, personalised learning, social networking, Second Life, LEAP and PDP, blended learning, what should go on Blackboard, what actually is e-learning and of course cakes – flapjacks, chocolate brownies and truffles containing Irish Coffee mmmm….

As summer is approaching, although it doesn’t look like it outside, the next session will be sometime in September. The date will be posted here on the blog.

How to use Powerpoint?

I'm sure every one of us has been at a presentation when all you want to do is groan at how Powerpoint has been used to create the accompanying slides.

Powerpoint is widely used by most people in society, and within education especially you'll probably come across more than your fair share of Powerpoint presentations.

When you have seen a Powerpoint presentation that is good, you know it, its not too cluttered, your not struggling to read it and keep up with the presenter, in fact you probably stopped noticing they were particularly using Powerpoint.

A colleague in the Library (Alasdair), sent around a link to an interesting and extremely apt powerpoint, entitled How NOT To Use Powerpoint.

Not only is this very funny to watch, but i'm sure you'll recognise times when some of these techniques have been used in presentations you have attended. If you do none of the things this guy does, then your Powerpoint presentation will likely be quite good.

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Thursday, June 21, 2007

E-Learning & Cakes

Fancy a coffee, some cake and a chance to find out what's going on in E-Learning here at Swansea? The next E-Learning and Cakes session will be tomorrow – Friday 22nd June at 11:00am in Room 703 on the 7th Floor of the Library building. It's not a formal meeting but a chance for anyone who is interested in using technology in learning to share what they are doing and find out what others are up to.

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Monday, June 18, 2007

Beyond the Innovators - Gregynog 2007

Last week I was at the Gregynog Colloquium 2007 held at Gregynog Hall. The week starts as a conference for librarians and then morphs into an IT conference later in the week. I was at the 'morphing' bit, being neither a librarian or a techie.

Nicola and I gave a presentation entitled 'Beyond the Innovators - Building a Community of Practice' telling the story of our experiences here at Swansea. As Nicola said, "Our model subscribes to Etienne Wenger's model of 'Cultivating communities of Practice', what i found quite ironic was that we didn't actually see the model till later on, and yet it was everything we were already doing. "

You can find our notes here and an amended version of the presentaion slides here. (The slide have been added to so that they make at least some sense without the presentation).

Saturday, June 09, 2007

RSS in plain English

RSS as Lee LeFever says is "the new fast way to read the web".

This is another instructional video clip, from the same author as Wikis in Plain English. It is a great introduction to RSS, what it is and how to use it.

You can get it on YouTube or dotSUB.

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Wikis in plain English

Over the last few days i've come across links in several places, to an instructional video called Wikis in plain English. Created by Lee Lefever of CommonCraft, the first heads up came to a couple of us through Chris Joblings, blog Fresh and Crispy.

This is a brilliant video clip, it is the best explanation of how a Wiki works that i've ever seen, and i've seen a few. Its simple, its in non-technical language, and already i can imagine many situations where this could be a useful tool.

It can be found on YouTube here.

But more interestingly it can be found on dotSUB here, where it comes with subtitles in many different languages, and you can also add subtitles in a language if you can translate.

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