Musings: Podcasting 105

Even though I explained in an earlier post why I decided to go with creating my own xml file and hosting my own audio files, I wanted to share on last thought on iTunes U.

Launched in 2007 (and that is about as much info as Wikipedia has – I have an untested theory that you can measure the popularity and how well-known things are by the amount of info on wikipedia…) this is Apple’s attempt to bring some academic respectability to the concept of iPods. Even now when I suggest to students they could put their study notes on their iPods they laugh – to them iPods are a fun tool and not to be confused with learning!

Apple is cleverly trying to merge the two perspectives by providing academic institutions with a means of distributing their material in a user-friendly fashion for students – a format and site they are already familiar with.

Here is how Apple describes iTunes U:

iTunes U puts the power of the iTunes Store to work for colleges, universities, and other education organizations, so users can easily search, download, and play education content just like they do music, movies, and TV shows.

Apple shares common goals with education—to advance teaching, learning, and research through innovation, and to engage and empower students. Students, as well as instructors and staff, expect a campus environment that accommodates their digital lifestyle, adapts to their individual learning and teaching needs, and encourages collaboration and teamwork. iTunes U provides a way to meet all these expectations.

Based on the same easy-to-use technology as the iTunes Store, iTunes U features Apple simplicity and portability and is designed as a service for institutions to manage a broad range of audio, video, and PDF content, and to make it available quickly and easily to students, instructors, staff, alumni, and, optionally, the public.

With iTunes U, users can access educational content, including lectures and interviews, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Users can browse content and download it to their computers, Mac or PC, regardless of their location. They can then listen to and view that content on their computers or transfer the content to an iPod, iPhone, or Apple TV for listening or viewing on the go.

With the iTunes U easy-to-use interface and web services, instructors and staff can easily post, change, and share content on their own without impacting their IT department. Instructors can also set a page to allow students to upload their own content for review or to share with other students in the class.

http://deimos.apple.com/rsrc/doc/AppleEducation-iTunesUUsersGuide/Introduction/chapter_1_section_1.html accessed 15th October 2008

My prediction, this is eventually going to be really really big. The early adopters are already in there and exploiting the technology to the full. But it will not take long before institutions automatically have an iTunes U page just like they have a website. Apple has the advantage of already having an easy to use organised interface in place and has set up good structures for institutions – allowing them to create specific courses and to tailor their iTunes U site to the needs of their learners.

So even though it was not the right match for my purpose, iTunes U gets a big tick from me.

EMT 1 Assessment 1 Part 1 

EMT 1 Assessment 1 Part 1

word count: 795

 

 

My view on the nature of a learning community.


My view:

A learning community is a group with a shared interest who have acted upon a desire to learn more and help others learn more. They interact collaboratively through different learning activities to share information, resources and ideas around their topic in order to facilitate group and individual learning.

A true learning community is representative of unselfish, collective learning as opposed to individual, secretive learning. There is no single ‘teacher’ but instead the members contribute to the learning of the community. The knowledge is not hidden, but shared, creating a knowledge base for the community to build upon.

This supportive environment, combined with the group’s social interaction, creates a strong sense of ownership and commitment to learning in the community.

How I came to this viewpoint:

After exploring discussions and opinions of classmates, it was clear a community is a group with something (geography, interests) in common. Wikipedia explains that when the group actively interacts around their commonality, learning from each, the community becomes a learning community.

Is this sufficient to explain the nature of a learning community? I decided to explore thinking on this matter chronologically to determine how this definition in Wikipedia had been arrived at.

Some of the early definitions of a learning community focus on structure as a key element. Gabelnick et al (1990) explains that thematically structuring the curriculum creates greater coherence and increased intellectual interaction compared to individual focused learning. This is a turning point where it is determined that to create this more intellectually stimulating environment, there must be a shared space where subject matter is integrated with social interactions. This definition is broadened by Smith (1993) who points out that learning communities involve change not just in structure but in process and the way people experience the learning process.

Matthews et al (1996) starts to move more towards the idea that community is not just for facilitating academic discussion, but from a social perspective participation in a learning community helps students feel comfortable, make friends, and develop a support network.

Roth and Lee (2006) theorize that learning communities are motivated by a desire to contribute to society. This viewpoint is supported by Gannon-Leary and Fountainha (2007) who explain that resource sharing not only improves participants’ knowledge but adds to the domain’s knowledge base.

Description of the nature and focus of the selected community.

The community I have chosen is a community of PHP programmers (http://www.phpfreaks.com/) with a tagline ‘PHP Freaks, Get Addicted’. The description:  “A community designed to assist developers with PHP and MySQL related information. Includes tips, tutorials, forums, articles, code examples and manuals.” This is a group of coders who have a clear focus on learning all about PHP coding.

How I recognized this e-community as a learning community.

I first examined the group against the definition I had developed.

They have a shared interest, PHP. There is a large amount of collaborative interaction; without this action taking place, it would not be a learning community. There are shared learning activities such as support forums, member created  tutorials, posted articles, discussions on coding – in short they are passionate about their subject, eager to share their knowledge, to learn from others and to help others. This has resulted in the creation of a huge knowledge base with a variety of different ways members can interact and contribute. There is a supportive environment (including a calendar that shows all members’ birthdays!) and social interaction (a general chat area) as well as academic discussion.

I also measured my community against Brower’s (1998) guidelines. Yes my group has a strong sense of identity (they revel in their geekiness). Yes they have provided a supportive space for people to engage in transformative learning activities as well as social interactions.  Yes it is large enough to accomplish its goals but not so unwieldy that members are lost in its depths.

Why this community might be of value to my experiences in this subject.

One of the lessons I have learnt is that active participation gives much greater insights into understanding than observation. When reading about different frameworks for examining learning communities, having an actual e-learning community to analyze using this information will be invaluable. It will also be interesting to see the community from the dual perspective of learner and researcher.

My expectations as a learner/participant in the community.

My expectations are that I will develop a greater understanding of a learning community and e-learning while developing my PHP coding skills through the tutorials, articles and forums. I expect to find help as I start to code a database project and that I will be inspired by discussions with like minds. I also expect I shall become a bit of a PHP freak…….

References

19 March 2008, Online Learning Community, Wikipedia, viewed 21 March 2008, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_community

Brower, A.M. & Dettinger, K. 1998, ‘What is a learning community? Towards a comprehensive model’, About Campus, (Nov/Dec), pp. 15-21.

Gabelnick, F., MacGregor, J., Matthews, R., Smith, B.L. 1990 ‘Learning Communities: Creating Connections Among Students, Faculty, and Disciplines’, New Directions for Teaching and Learning, no. 41.

Gannon-Leary, P.M. & Fontainha, E. 26 September 2007, ‘Communities of Practice and virtual learning communities: benefits, barriers and success factors’,  ELearning Papers, viewed 24 March 2008, http://www.elearningpapers.eu/index.php?page=doc&vol=5&doc_id=10219&doclng=6

Matthews, R., Smith, Lee B. 1996, ‘Learning communities: A Structure for Educational Coherence,’ Liberal Education, vol.  82, no. 3, pp. 4-9.

Roth, W-M. &  Lee, Y-J. 2006, ‘Contradictions in theorising and implementing communities in education’, Educational Research Review, vol 1,  no. 1, pp. 27-40.

Smith, B. L. 1993, ‘Taking Structure Seriously: The Learning Community Model.’ Liberal Education, vol. 77, no. 2,  pp. 42-48.

References

You will find all references discussed in any posts here:

19 March 2008, Online Learning Community, Wikipedia, viewed 21 March 2008, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_community

Andrade, M.S. 2008, ‘Learning Communities: Examining Positive Outcomes’, , vol. 9, no. 1 pp. 1-20Brower, A.M. & Dettinger, K. 1998, ‘What is a learning community? Towards a comprehensive model’, About Campus, (Nov/Dec), pp. 15-21.

Conford I.R. 1999, ‘Social Learning’, in James Athanasou (ed.), Adult Educational Psychology, Sydney Social Press, Katoomba, pp. 73-80.

Downes, S. 2004, Learning in Communities, Australian Flexible Learning Community, viewed 21 April 2008, <http://community.flexiblelearning.net.au/GlobalPerspectives/content/article_5249.htm>.

Gabelnick, F., MacGregor, J., Matthews, R., Smith, B.L. 1990 ‘Learning Communities: Creating Connections Among Students, Faculty, and Disciplines’, New Directions for Teaching and Learning, no. 41.

Gannon-Leary, P.M. & Fontainha, E. 26 September 2007, ‘Communities of Practice and virtual learning communities: benefits, barriers and success factors’,  ELearning Papers, viewed 24 March 2008, http://www.elearningpapers.eu/index.php?page=doc&vol=5&doc_id=10219&doclng=6

Heller, R. 1998,  ‘Learning Communities: What Does the Research Show?’, AAC&U Peer Review, vol. 1, no.1, pp.11.

Kilpatrick, S., Barrett, M. & Jones, T. 2004, ‘Defining Learning Communities’, AARE Conference, ed. P. Jeffery, The Australian Educational Researcher, Melbourne, viewed 20 April 2008, <http://www.aare.edu.au/03pap/jon03441.pdf>.

Kuh, G. D. 1996, ‘Guiding Principles for Creating Seamless Learning Environments’, Journal of College Student Development, vol. 37, March/April, pp. 135-148.

Love, A. G. 1999, ‘What are learning Communities?’ In J. H. Levine, ed., Learning Communities: New Structures, New Partnerships for Learning, Columbia, South Carolina: National Center for the First-Year Experience and Students in Transition, pp. 1-8.

Matthews, R., Smith, Lee B. 1996, ‘Learning communities: A Structure for Educational Coherence,’ Liberal Education, vol.  82, no. 3, pp. 4-9.

Roth, W-M. &  Lee, Y-J. 2006, ‘Contradictions in theorising and implementing communities in education’, Educational Research Review, vol 1,  no. 1, pp. 27-40.

Saunders, S. 1999, ‘Social Psychology of Adult Learning’ in James Athanasou (ed.), Adult Educational Psychology, Sydney Social Press, Katoomba, pp. 26-71.

Seely Brown, J. & Duguid, O. 1999, Learning, Working and playing in the digital age.
Transcript from a conference on Higher Education of the American Association for Higher Education.
http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/sci_edu/seelybrown/seelybrown.html

Seely Brown, J. & Adler, Richard P. 2008, Minds on Fire: Open Education, the Long Tail, and Learning 2.0, Educause Review, January/February
http://connect.educause.edu/Library/EDUCAUSE+Review/MindsonFireOpenEducationt/45823

Smith, B. L. 1993, ‘Taking Structure Seriously: The Learning Community Model.’ Liberal Education, vol. 77, no. 2,  pp. 42-48.

Wenger, E. 1999, Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity, Cambridge University Press, USA.

haven’t worked out how to reference this properly yet:

Horizon Project Advisory Board 2008, Horizon Project, <http://horizon.nmc.org/wiki/Main_Page>

Reading

My Checklist for a good e-learning experience:

 

KNOW YOUR LEARNERS’ NEEDS

–          Find out what learners want/need to know/do

–          Empathic design, user-centered approach

–          Listen to see if what their wants/needs have been met and respond to these

–          Check constantly as to whether wants/needs have changed

–          Recognition of prior learning

 

LEARNING IS NOT ‘ONE SIZE FITS ALL’

–          Learning can occur in diverse ways

–          Different people will have different ways of learning

–          Learners will be at different levels

 

SITUATED & CONSTRUCTIVE APPROACH

–          Learners need to be engaged in authentic real world examples and problems, in contexts and situations that are relevant to the learner.

–          Case studies: apply learning to a scenario to solve the issue/problem.

–          Learners need to construct their own learning rather than be instructed.

–          Need to provide opportunities for reflection and active construction of knowledge.

–          Learners must act on the info they receive in order to create personal understanding and transform info into knowledge.

–          Context is important to ensure learner perceives learning of relevance.

 

 

COLLABORATION AND COMMUNITY

–          Collaborative opportunities should be provided.

–          Opportunity for regular interaction.

–          Learners need empathy for what they are doing and to feel like they belong, need to be involved as interested parties to feel that it is for them.

–          Write in a conversational style to help create a relaxed sense of community.

–          Learners viewed as explorers and producers of knowledge not just consumers

 

ASSESS AUTHENTICALLY

–          Assess in an authentic way: not just tests and quizzes

–          Opportunities to revise their answers/learning

–          Start with learning objectives and end with a summary of the knowledge learnt that serves as a take-away for the learner

 

RELEVANCE

–          Knowledge changes, students need to understand about about knowledge as a tool

 

 

SUPPORT

–          Support must be available (emotional/technical/cognitive)

 

 

Putting it into practice:

–          More learner time should be spent on authentic challenging tasks (the ordinary practices of a culture)

–          Students need access to domain experts who model the skills appropriate to the domain to model the skills and provide insights.

–          Students should spend time working in cooperative relationships with other students to explore perspectives and evaluate ideas

–          Emphasis on reflective thinking and productivity

 

Inert knowledge: knowledge students learned but failed to use.

 

Social context of learning:

–          Cognitive apprenticeship – reciprocal teaching with teacher modeling in an attempt to help inexperienced practicitioners acquire essential thinking skills.

–          Cooperative learning – students work together to accomplish a learning task, teachers need to first help students understand the skill then students need an opportunity to practice.

–          Scaffolding: ding some of the work for students until they develop the capacity to do it themselves. Eg: reminders, step-by-step instructions, demonstrations

 

 

 

My notes on the readings I found most relevant

 

Watson, D. (2001). Pedagogy before Technology: Re-thinking the Relationship between ICT and Teaching. Education and Information Technologies 6(4), 251-267

– Education in the past has presented things as fixed and static whereas knowledge changes. Rather than present knowledge as a tool, students need to learn about errors and revision and the nature of knowledge as a living and changing concept – one of the seven knowledge’s necessary for education for the future

 

Teo, S. and Williams, J. (2006). A Theoretical Framework for Effective Online Course

Design. MERLOT Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, 2(1): 12-21.

–          Learning will not necessarily emanate from one particular source and when it happens will occur through different means for different people.

–          Knowledge must be presented in authentic context with the settings and applications that would be of immediate relevance to the learner.

–          Learning should be acquired through opportunities for reflection and active construction of knowledge as well as by means of social interaction and collaboration.

–          Key design features should include opportunity for regular interaction – self-assessment exercises, flash animations, simulations, asynchronous discussions.

–          Design learning activities so that learner is capable of transferring knowledge through application in a real world situation: using cases, simulations, discussions, summative final projects and final examinations.

–          Model of situated learning is based upon the notion that knowledge is contextually situated and is fundamentally influenced by the activity, context and culture in which it is used. (brown et al 1989). Learners need more than abstract concepts and generic examples they need full blooded authentic activities. Situated learning allows the students to gain a better appreciation of the unstructured nature of real world problems and to learn how to go about breaking down a task into operations and then actions. At the end the learner is brought back to the key learning objectives through a closing summary which allows for reflection and reinforcement of the lessons learnt.

–          Constructivist environment: learners should not be passive receptacles of information. Meaning is not transmitted by direct instruction, rather it is constructed by the student’s learning activities: knowledge construction not knowledge reproduction. Can use lists, development of comparison tables, mind mapping. Also in case-based, problem solving approach. Discussions, returning info back to the knowledge base, learn from mistakes, compare efforts on assigns against each other and model answers – context-rich simulated scenarios and case studies. This helps ensure that acquisition of knowledge and transfer to different contexts is seamless as possible.

–          Pre-content exercises, exercises after an expository topic to practice principles, discussion topics, review topics, self-assessment at ens

 

 

Romeo, G. (2004). Teaching, learning and technology: Research, Reform, Realise the Potential. Keynote Paper presented at the ACEC 2004 Australian Conference for Computers in Education, Adelaide, Australia.

–          Children are problem solvers and it is important they have challenging problems to solve and opportunities to pose their own problems. Learning changes the physical structure of the brain – development of the brain is an active process that feeds on vital information from experience.

–          Designing for effective learning: learner centred (learners use their knowledge to construct new knowledge with recognition given to existing knowledge they bring with them, provide with opportunities for reflection and regulation, learners viewed as explorers and producers of knowledge not just consumers, knowledge centred, assessment centered (opportunity for feedback and revision, community centered (learn from one another, connect students)

 

Schuck, S. & Kearney, M. (2007 in press). Disruptive or compliant? The impact of two educational technologies on pedagogy. In Proceedings of Ed-Media 2007 World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia and Telecommunications. Norfolk, VA, USA: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education.

(digital video and interactive whiteboards)

The ability of technology to transform the pedagogy and disrupt the dominant didactic modes of teaching. Hedberg (2006) presents three categories of ICT based on Jonassen’s (1996) emphasis on cognitive tools : presentational, representational and generative tools

 

Nichani,  M. (2002).  Empathic Instructional Design. Eleaningpost. Available:http://www.elearningpost.com/articles/archives/empathic_instructional_design/ [accessed 25 July 2008]

E-Learning should not disintegrate into e-reading.

Emphatic design is about watching users in their own environment, a user-centered approach.

Must understand the needs, desires and methods of potential users.

Process is to observe users, capture the data, reflection and analyzing, brainstorming for solutions, developing prototypes.

 

Mason, R., Pegler, C. and Weller, M. (2005). A Learning Object Success Story.  Journal of Asynchronous Learning Network, Volume 9, Issue 1 – March 5005. Available: http://www.sloan-c.org/publications/jaln/v9n1/v9n1_mason.asp

Just-in-time learning is an effective approach. Attention spans are changing in response to hectic lifestyles, impact of entertainment media, overload of information. But important that knowledge is not trivialized to a ‘soundbite’.

Elements of a rich learning experience include:
– a discursive element (the key issues and follow up readings)

– an interactive element ( group or individual activity or online discussion)
– an experiential element (the activity)

– a reflective element (choice of readings and level of engagement)

 

Baskin, C. and Anderson, N. (2003). The Online Classroom: a self-actualising theme park or a trial by multimedia? Australian Educational Computing, 18(1); 11-20. Available: http://www.acce.edu.au/journal/journals/vol18_1.pdf [accessed: 25 July 2008]

Issues for teachers can be that online teaching can lead to an increase in teacher workload and a dissatisfaction with the quality of the teaching experience.

 

 

To add edublogs

 

Alexander, B (2006). Web 2.0 A new wave of innovation for teaching and learning? EDUCAUSE Review 41(2):33-44. Available: http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/erm0621.pdf [accessed: 25 July 2008]

Good overview of lots of different Web2.0 applications.

 

 

 

Hedberg, J. G. (2006). E-learning futures? Speculations for a time yet to come. Studies in Continuing Education, 28(2), pp.171-183

In many cases e-learning is little more than the provision of information.

Components of elearning interactions emphasise personal construction, the collection of artifacts representing a constructed learning state, and by comparing artifacts, how the learners thoughts were changed or modified, and even the source of the influence on those thoughts.

 

Alexander (2005)

Students value:

–          access to info: knowing you can pre-read or catch up

asking questions: asking dumb questions without embarrassment and seeing what others ask

–          benchmarking and comparing: comparing your interpretations with others

–          time and place flexibility being able to juggle when and where

 

 

Vrasidas & Glass 2005

Obstcales to integrating ICT:

–          conservative nature of schools and instructional techniques

–          teachers resistance to changing traditional teaching practices

–          lack of time for teachers to learn and integrate ICT

–          lack of technology infrastructure

–          la`ck of specific technologies that address the needs of teachers and students

–          lack of ongoing support

–          lack of release time and incentives for teacher innovators

–          incompatibility of traditional teaching and constructivist framework fostered by ICT

–          need for teachers to unlearn traditional beliefs and practices

–          need to teacher ICT use in teacher training

 

E-learning interactions emphasise:

– personal construction

– collection of artifacts representing a constructed learning state by comparing artifacts how the learners thoughts were changed opportunities for students to explore and construct knowledge (using scaffolds)

 

Aim is to move:

–          from content management systems to digital repositories

–          from learning objects with embedded content to learning activities

–          shift from information delivery to more interaction support this enabling the social construction of meaningful knowledge

–          shift in focus from assessment of the end product to assessment of the learning journey, through keeping portfolios of en route products that indicate changes in understanding and reflection.

–          Shift from focus on facts and principles to a focus on benchmarking of performance against many other examples

 

Outcomes might be to: create, evaluate, synthesise, analyse, apply, understand, recall

Interactive activities might be: diagram/map, journal, tutorial, case study, presentation, game, web quest, experiment, role playing, troubleshooting, diagnosis, composing

Support: FAQ, contextual help, links to checklists, self-checking, collaboration with others, links to further resources

Assessment: self-test, quiz, essay, report, journal, prognosis, hypothesis, classification, plan, visual representation, game, simulation, presentation.

 

Grabe, M. & Grabe, C. (2001). Conceptual models for school learning. In M. Grabe & C. Grabe (Eds). Integrating technology for meaningful learning 33rd Edtn. pp 56-76. Houghton MifflinPlace of Publication : Boston

 

Meaningful learning occurs when new experiences are related to what a learner already knows.

Assumes:

–          students already have some knowledge that is relevant

–          students willing to do the mental work to make connections – motivation is important.

 

Reception learning: ideas to be learned are presented directly to students.

Discovery learning: students must work to uncover what is to be learned.

 

Good chart with rote learning to meaningful learning on one side and reception to discovery learning on the other side with point made that all types of learning are appropriate under different circumstances.

 

Generative learning – a student selectively attends to events and generates meaning for these experiences by relating them to existing knowledge or by drawing inferences. The active learner creates a personal model or explanation to account for new experiences within the context of existing knowledge.

 

Technology seems to encourage students to write more and revise more frequently – powerful tools allow realistic opportunities with little risk.

 

Constructivism – generally argues that learners build personal understanding and this constructive process can be facilitated by appropriate learning activities and a good learning environment. What a person knows is not passively received but actively assembled by the learner. This means:

–          learners must act on the info they receive in order to create personal understanding and transform info into knowledge

–          context is important to ensure learner perceives learning of relevance

–          primary purpose of education is not acquisition of universal truths, everyone’s reality is slightly different.

 

Goal is active learners: learners that seek to build an understanding of their personal worlds that will allow them to function productively. This process requires that learners build on what they know in order to interpret and respond to new experiences.

 

Putting it into practice:

–          More learner time should be spent on authentic challenging tasks (the ordinary practices of a culture)

–          Students need access to domain experts who model the skills appropriate to the domain to model the skills and provide insights.

–          Students should spend time working in cooperative relationships with other students to explore perspectives and evaluate ideas

–          Emphasis on reflective thinking and productivity

 

Inert knowledge: knowledge students learned but failed to use.

 

Social context of learning:

–          Cognitive apprenticeship – reciprocal teaching with teacher modeling in an attempt to help inexperienced practicitioners acquire essential thinking skills.

–          Cooperative learning – students work together to accomplish a learning task, teachers need to first help students understand the skill then students need an opportunity to practice.

–          Scaffolding: ding some of the work for students until they develop the capacity to do it themselves. Eg: reminders, step-by-step instructions, demonstrations

 

 

 

Bonk, C. and Zhang, K. (2006). Introducing the R2D2 model: Online learning for diverse learners of this world. Distance Education, 27)2): 249-264.

 

 

 

Aldric, C. (2004). Clark Aldrich’s Six Criteria of Educational Simulation. Available: http://www.leaarningcircuits.org/NR/rdonlyres/567F34FA-E9C9-494F-AFAF-8DCE6199716C/4719/clark_e2.pdf [accessed: 25 July 2008]

 

 

Low, L. and O’Connell, M. (2006). Learner-Centric Design of Digital Mobile Learning, Queensland University of Technology. Paper presented at Learning on the Move, Brisbane, Australia. Available: https://olt.qut.edu.au/udf/OLT2006/gen/static/papers/Low_OLT2006_paper.pdf [accessed: 25 July 2008]

 

 

 

Additional references:

 

Barab, S., Arici, A. and Jackson, C. (2005). Eat your vegetables and do your homework: A design-based investigation of enjoyment and meaning in learning. Educational Technology 45 (1):15-21. Available: http://inkido.indiana.edu/research/onlinemanu/papers/eat%20your%20veggies23.pdf

[accessed 12 Sep 2008]

 

Barrett, H. (2004). Electronic Portfolios as Digital Stories of Deep Learning.

Available: http://electronicportfolios.com/digistory/epstory.html

[accessed: 12 Sep 2008]

 

Bennett, S., Maton, K and Kervin, L. (2008). The ‘digital natives’ debate: A critical review of the evidence. British Journal of Educational Technology, Vol. 39 Issue 5, pp 775-786.

 

Digital Storytelling website

http://electronicportfolios.com/digistory/index.html

 

D’Souza, Q. (n.d.). Web 2.0 Ideas for Educators – A guide to RSS and More, Version 2.0. Available: http://www.ext.upmc.fr/urfist/rss/100ideasWeb2educators.pdf

[accessed: 12 Sep 2008]

 

Friesen, N. 2006. e-Learning myth #1: The “Net Gen” myth. Ipseity. Weblog entry. August 14. Available: http://ipseity.blogsome.com/2006/08/14/p36/

[accessed: 12 Sep 2008]

 

Herrington, J., Reeves, T. & Oliver, R. (2006) Authentic Tasks Online: A synergy among learner, task and technology. Distance Education, 27(2): 233-247.

 

PebblePad web site

Available: http://www.pebblepad.co.uk/  [accessed: 12 Sep 2008]

 

Teaching with Games Project – Futurelab, UK http://www.futurelab.org.uk/projects/teaching_with_games/

 

Van Eck, R. (2006). Digital Game-Based Learning – It’s Not Just the Digital Natives Who Are Restless. EDUCAUSE review, 41(2):17-30.

Available: http://connect.educause.edu/Library/EDUCAUSE+Review/DigitalGameBasedLearningI/40614 [accessed: 12 Sep 2008]

 

Woo, Y., Herrington, J., Agostinho, S. and Reeves, T. (2007). Implementing Authentic Tasks in Web-Based Learning Environments. EDUCAUSE QUARTERLY, No 3, pp 36-43. Available: http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/EQM0735.pdf

[accessed: 14 Sep 2008]

 

Useful Tools

Audio

Audacity http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ Easy to use, free, audio creation/editing
Garageband http://www.apple.com/ilife/garageband/ Free on some Macs, easier to use
Brett McFall Audio http://www.brettmcfallaudio.com/txwiz2.html

Avatar

Voki http://www.voki.com/ Animated avatars
Read the words http://readthewords.com/ Can listen to text

Blogging

Edublogs http://edublogs.org/ Free, user friendly, flexible
CoverItLive http://www.coveritlive.com Live blogging
WordPress http://wordpress.com/
Feedburner http://www.feedburner.com/fb/a/home Convert blog to rss feed
Twitter http://twitter.com/ Microblogging

Chat

Meebo http://www.meebome.com/
Chatmaker http://www.chatmaker.net/
Gabbly http://gabbly.com/

Conversations

Voicethread http://voicethread.com Audio, video conversations
Seesmic http://seesmic.com/ Video conversations

Drawing

Offtype Drawing Tool http://offtype.net
Artpad http://artpad.art.com/artpad/painter/
ImagineCubed http://imagination3.com/
Scriblink http://www.scriblink.com/
Queeky http://www.queeky.com/

 Games (Creating)

Scratch http://scratch.mit.edu/
Flash Classroom http://www.flashclassroom.com/
Dragster http://www.webducate.net/dragster.php

Information Management

Delicious http://delicious.com/ Manage your bookmarks
Zotero http://www.zotero.org/ Manage resource sources

 Maps

Google maps http://maps.google.com
Google Earth http://etc.usf.edu/te_mac/movies/gearth.html How to guide

Mind Mapping

Bubbl.us http://bubbl.us/
Mindmeister http://www.mindmeister.com/
Mindomo http://www.mindomo.com

Music

Freeplay Music http://freeplaymusic.com/
Sound Transit http://soundtransit.nl/search/
Flying Hands http://www.flyinghands.com/
Royalty Free Music http://incompetech.com/m/c/royalty-free/
Live Music Archive http://www.archive.org/details/etree
Soundclick http://www.soundclick.com/default.cfm
Artist Server http://www.artistserver.com/music.cfm

 Personalised Pages (Aggregators)

Netvibes http://www.netvibes.com Love it! Lots of lists, tools – great!
Pageflakes http://www.pageflakes.com
iGoogle http://www.google.com/ig

Photos / Photo Sharing

Depicto http://www.depicto.us/index.php
Bubbleshare http://www.bubbleshare.com/ Photo albums: captions, audio, video
FlauntR http://www.flauntr.com/ Photo editing
Tabblo http://www.tabblo.com/studio Make things with your photos
Our Media http://ourmedia.org/learning-center/images/free-photo-sites
Digitales http://www.digitales.us/resources/image_sources.php
MorgueFile http://www.morguefile.com/
NEN Gallery http://gallery.nen.gov.uk/index.php
Photoshop for Video http://photoshopforvideo.com/resources/free/free.html
Pics for Learning http://www.pics4learning.com/
Openphoto http://openphoto.net/
Istock photo http://www.istockphoto.com/index.php
Flickr http://www.flickr.com/

Powerpoints

Slideshare http://www.slideshare.net/
Vischeck http://www.vischeck.com/vischeck/ Check view for colourblind people
iSpring Free http://www.softpressrelease.com/pressreleases/?id=646 Turn pp to flash movies

 Screen Capture

Sketchcast http://sketchcast.com/
Jing http://www.jingproject.com/
Camtasia http://www.techsmith.com/camtasia.asp
Snagit http://www.snagit.com/

Social Network

Ning http://www.ning.com/ Create a social network
Frappr http://www.frappr.com/ See where people are from
Facebook http://www.facebook.com/
Myspace http://www.myspace.com/
Bebo http://www.bebo.com/
LinkedIn http://www.linkedin.com/home

 Surveys

Survey Monkey http://www.surveymonkey.com
Website Toolbox http://www.websitetoolbox.com
Poll Daddy http://www.polldaddy.com/

Talk

Team Speak http://www.goteamspeak.com/?page=home
Skype http://www.skype.com/intl/en/

Video Creation

iMovie http://www.apple.com/ilife/imovie
Photostory http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/digitalphotography/photostory/default.mspx
Windows Movie Maker http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/updates/moviemaker2.mspx
Viddler http://www.viddler.com/
Animoto http://animoto.com/
Vuvox http://www.vuvox.com/
One True Media http://www.onetruemedia.com/otm_site/howitworks
Mindbites http://www.mindbites.com/

Video Hosting

Blip TV http://blip.tv/ Free video host (no private option)
Edublogs.tv http://edublogs.tv/

Virtual Worlds

Second Life http://secondlife.com/

 Web Design

Flash Gear http://www.flash-gear.com/ Adds features to your pages
TinyURL http://tinyurl.com/ Shorten urls

Wikis

Wetpaint http://www.wetpaint.com
http://wikisineducation.wetpaint.com
Wikispaces for Teachers http://www.wikispaces.com/site/for/teachers
http://educationalwikis.wikispaces.com/
pBwiki http://pbwiki.com/

 

docs.google.com

Swivel

E-learning strategies http://designing.flexiblelearning.net.au/gallery/index.htm
Links to loads of open source tools http://wadingweb2.wetpaint.com/page/web2.0+tools+list
Video emails http://www.eyejot.com/

http://www.imbee.com/)

 

www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/fun/).

Musings: Exploring screen recording options

Some years ago, in a burst of Internet marketing enthusiasm, I purchased Camtasia, a product that allows you to record your screen as you navigate through with a voiceover. But I never got around to doing anything with it.

 Sometime later and now I needed a video tour of my site. So I decided to look at the available options and work out whether Camtasia was really the best option for what I wanted to do. Lots of people had lots of suggestions. So here is what I discovered.

First I followed a few dead ends:

  • Profcast was my first lead. But Profcast is more for recording powerpoint presentations or podcasts.
  • SnagIt sounded great – but it is just for static screen captures.
  • Screencoder turned out just to be something written by some anonymous guy with lots of support complaints as far as I could see.
  • XVidcap is an open source alternative but it only works with Linux systems, no go.
  • Screenflow seemed liked an effective and cheap option but only for Macs.
  • CamStudio 2.0 is an open source alternative but it only outputs to avi and I was wary again of support issues.
  • vNc2WF was a free alternative for capturing what you are doing on the screen but you had to add the audio later which was a pain for what I was doing.
  • Windows Media Encoding has a recording feature but output is only as a WMV file.


So it came down to 3 options:

Captivate (by Adobe for around $600)
Camtasia (by TechSmith for around $300 – but I’d already bought it anyway)
Jing (also by TechSmith for free!)

<My thoughts after exploring these options are:

  • If you are looking for interactivity, quizzes, keyboard shortcuts, highlighting text, being able to print out slides, then Captivate is for you. Of course there is a trade-off for all this functionality, file sizes are big. But this is a great product if you want an interactive demo or a training experience.
  • But if you are interested in something like a product tour (which is more what I was after), Camtasia is the better option. Although it doesn’t have the same level of interactivity available (for example you can do a quiz but can’t get feedback on your results instead the answers are sent to a lms or email) there is a huge amount of functionality. You can spotlight part of the screen, have background music, zoom in, choose the output size of the screen, record audio during the screen recording or add it later, use a web cam to insert a speaker, zoom in to part of the captured screen, edit and trim video easily, and you can also have clickable flash hot spots which take you to a certain section of the video or to an external web page.
  • Another benefit of Camtasia over Captivate to my mind is that you can output to lots of different formats whereas with Captivate you can only output to swf (which you can’t upload to places like YouTube etc).
  • The other thing I like about Camtasia is that the recording is all happening in real time. If you want to have the screen still while you talk about a feature that is what happens. But Captivate works differently. It only takes screen captures as the screen changes, so it is capturing a series of screens each containing a mouse click or significant mouse movement. But adding audio is much more cumbersome. Many users have reported problems adding audio and trying to synchronise the audio recording done later with the images or taking the time-consuming path of adding audio to each slide/section. 

So my path seemed clear. I had made the right choice in Camtasia. My $300 had not been wasted after all. 

I started creating my tour. It was relatively easy to learn and after all I did not need lots of special features, this was just to be a straightforward tour. After quite a few attempts I finally got a version I was happy with. I chose a viewer/player size and uploaded it. Despite the fact that the tour was less than 5 minutes long the file size was almost 20MB. It took so long to load the video (in fact I gave up waiting a number of times). So back I went to the drawing board. I made a shorter version. But it was still a couple of minutes long (if it takes less than 60 seconds to do the tour then there is probably no need for a tour!). It was still a huge file. So then I tried reducing the size of the viewer. It still took too long to load (and was too small to see).

The problem is that there is a lot happening on the screen and constant changes. This means a much larger file size. If you are filming someone a plain background and a person who doesn’t move too much will take much less file space then one with a changing background and lots of movement as the screen has to keep changing all over rather than just making incremental changes.

My next option was to use TechSmith’s hosting service Screencast.com. But it was not cheap and you are charged on bandwidth. Well with 60 schools of 500 kids that is 30000 potential users, I could be served with a hefty bill especially as I had no idea how much use the tour would get. I didn’t want to take the risk.

It looked like it was time for Jing to step up and be counted.

Why did I have to be so thorough and explore all options? Why didn’t I just go straight to Jing? I can see why so many people recommended it.

This is what I like about Jing:

  • Jing is incredibly easy to use (the hardest part is the installation which takes awhile as you have to install Microsoft.Net as well). Click on the sun, choose your screen section and away you go.
  • Jing gives you 2MB free space on Screencast.com. So with Camtasia (made by the same people as Jing, they released Jing in 2007) you pay for the product and pay for Screencast.com. With Jing it is free and you get 2MB free space on Screencast.com. Go figure.
  • You can also save the video on your computer, on your server or send to flickr etc.
  • It is a very user-friendly piece of software it is hard to stuff it up. The creation of the product and the uploading is integrated making it a very seamless process.
  • You can send people the link where the video is or you can embed onto your web page.

So why is TechSmith giving Jing for free when it is so great? Well it is not perfect…. I guess the theory is you’ll like Jing but then say but gee I’d really like to do this this and this so the next natural progression is to purchase Camtasia.

Here are my problems with Jing:

  • You can’t resize the screen to be viewed. If you recorded it as a 400×300 picture it will be displayed as 400×300 which is a pain when you are recording full screen but do not really want to display as full screen. Videos can only be viewed in the dimensions they are recorded.
  • There are no keyboard shortcuts to start recording, pause or stop recording. So you have the mouse at one end of the screen and you are ready to finish but you have to see the mouse being dragged down the screen towards the stop button.

Some things that bother other people (but are not an issue for me):

  • Maximum length of the video is 5 minutes.
  • The video ends with the Jing logo.
  • No real editing facilities if you don’t want to do it all in one go.
  • You can’t add sound later.
  • Only output is swf.

But for my purpose, Jing was fine. My only concern is what happens if you go past the 2MB bandwidth per month limit. Does the video just stop showing? I have put a query in to tech support but no reply yet.

So my thoughts are. See how I go with the existing video in terms of bandwidth. If it is a problem, reduce the video size and track the usage. If I can get a handle on the usage then I can decide whether it is viable for me to open a paid Screencast.com account and advance to the extra functionality of Camtasia.

 

PS. One last thought. Your recording is only as good as the hardware supporting capture. I have one laptop where the fan whines and another where it loads the web pages really slowly. Not ideal for screen recording. And despite trying a number of microphones, even the expensive ones do not give perfect sound quality. Plus when you live in a small apartment where traffic noise and even the noise of the lift start to intrude on the quality of the recording you realize how a professional recording studio would make a world of difference. Plus I bet they don’t have two cats meowing and hurling themselves at the door because they are desperate to know what exciting things you are doing in there with the door shut!

Musings: Podcasting 104

An interesting experience when you create your first podcast.

I had decided I did not need a script as I felt very confident I knew what I wanted to say.

So off I went. It ended off being 7MB and lasted about 7 minutes. I discovered that even with pointers of what I wanted to say, if I wanted a tight recording, I did need a more scripted approach. I found that I was repeating myself at times and the ending was very weak.

So I wrote a script and recorded it again. This time it was about 3MB and 3 minutes (hmm, around 1MB per minute?). Despite being half the length, I still covered the same content. Just in a less waffly way!

So here are my first two attempts:

Without scripting:          With scripting:    

Musings: Podcasting 103

Once you have recorded your mp3 file for your podcast you can either:
– Put it on a site that supports an RSS feed.
or
– Put it on your own site if you have one and create an RSS file that will then allow people to subscribe.

So what is RSS? Really Simple Syndication content can be read easily by software that will collect all your downloads for you. Once you have subscribed to a feed (by entering in the feed’s link into the reader or by clicking an RSS icon) the software will check regularly for updates and download anything new. Clever heh!

Here’s the Commoncraft explanation:
.[kml_flashembed movie=”http://www.youtube.com/v/0klgLsSxGsU” width=”425″ height=”344″ wmode=”transparent” align=”center”/]

You can also see it at: http://www.commoncraft.com/rss_plain_english

The most common formats for feeds are RSS and ATOM (although I rarely saw Atom mentioned anywhere). All web feed formats are based on XML (Extensible Markup Language) which is a text-based language used to describe and distribute data. If you are familiar with HTML at all, it is not too difficult to work out what is going on in XML code.

Why did I decide to go down this path? Wouldn’t it be easier to just upload my files to a podcasting site where all this RSS stuff is done behind the scenes?

Yes it would be. But as I run a subscription based site I really wanted my audio files, like my video files, to be hosted on my site rather than an external site. I already have my own site, space is not an issue. If you didn’t already have a website I don’t think you would bother going down this path. But every month we currently have to check anything that is on an external site as we have had issues with links changing, things no longer working and so on. By creating my own RSS file I would have much greater control over my content (not that I am a control freak, ok, maybe a little bit of a control freak). I could also choose how I wanted the files set up and how I wanted them formatted.

So I worked out that I needed to create an RSS file and upload that file and my audio file to my website. Some sites save the file as .rss but the majority save the file as .xml. I decided to go with the majority.

I found that a number of sites offer a service where you type in your info and it will supposedly create the RSS file for you. Lovely! Well none of those worked perfectly (the best was probably http://www.feedforall.com/) but when I looked at the code from these I started to see a pattern. So I checked out the code on some more sites that offered podcasting and eventually worked out a basic structure. I much prefer if I know what the code is doing as it makes it much easier to then change.

 Here is my version of the code (cobbled together from multiple sources!) if you’d like to try. You would work on this file in something like notepad and save it as an .xml file.

 <?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”UTF-8″?>
<rss xmlns:itunes=”http://www.itunes.com/dtds/podcast-1.0.dtd” version=”2.0″ xmlns:atom=”http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom”>
<channel>
<atom:link href=”LINK TO YOUR XML FILE” rel=”self” type=”application/rss+xml” />

<title>YOUR PODCAST PAGE TITLE</title>
<description>DESCRIPTION OF YOUR PODCASTS!</description>
<link>YOUR WEBSITE</link>
<language>en-au</language>
<copyright>Copyright 2008</copyright>
<lastBuildDate>Wed, 23 Aug 2006 00:56:00 GMT</lastBuildDate>
<pubDate>Sat, 25 Mar 2006 11:30:00 -0500</pubDat>
<webMaster>YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS (MAY ALSO HAVE TO PUT NAME IN BRACKETS)</webMaster>

<item>
<title>FIRST PODCAST TITLE</title>
<link>LINK TO THE PODCAST PAGE</link>
<guid>LINK TO THE MEDIA FILE</guid>
<description> DESCRIPTION OF PODCAST</description>
<enclosure url=”LINK TO THE MEDIA FILE” length=”36864″ type=”audio/mpeg”/>
<category>Podcasts</category>
<pubDate>Sat, 25 Mar 2006 11:30:00 -0500</pubDate>
</item>

<item>
<title>SECOND PODCAST TITLE</title>
<link>LINK TO THE PODCAST PAGE</link>
<guid>LINK TO THE MEDIA FILE</guid>
<description> DESCRIPTION OF PODCAST</description>
<enclosure url=”LINK TO THE MEDIA FILE” length=”36864″ type=”audio/mpeg”/>
<category>Podcasts</category>
<pubDate>Sat, 25 Mar 2006 11:30:00 -0500</pubDate>
</item>

</channel>
</rss>

You would enter in all your own info in the CAPS sections. You would also need to change data like the length of the file and the date information (I have left the date info in the format you need to include it – the last bit refers to time with reference to GMT time). To add another new podcast, you’d just copy and paste the section between <item> and </item> and change the relevant info then upload the RSS file again and the new media file.

It took some time, like many many hours, to come up with the above code.

It is also a good idea to test that your code works and there are free sites that let you do this. I got some strange errors from some of these, then one that worked best for me was: FeedValidator.org at http://feedvalidator.org/

 Of course, nothing is ever simple, even though my code was supposedly valid it still wouldn’t work. Eventually I worked out it was the password protection on the site causing the issues so changed the location of my xml file and then had no problems.

 I tested the feed three ways:
1. By clicking on the RSS feed and checking it worked in Internet explorer.
2. By subscribing via my aggregator (Netvibes).
3. By selecting ‘subscribe to a podcast’ through iTunes.

Because iTunes is one of the most popular ways of managing audio files, I decided to do all I could to make my feeds iTunes friendly.

This meant adding additional code:

 Just before the each first item I added:
<itunes:author>Study Skills Handbook</itunes:author>
<itunes:subtitle>Podcasts about study skills. </itunes:subtitle>
<itunes:summary>Podcasts about study skills. These podcasts cover the skills you need to be successful at school. </itunes:summary>
<itunes:owner>
<itunes:name>Study Skills Handbook</itunes:name>
<itunes:email>info@studyskillshandbook.com.au</itunes:email>
</itunes:owner>
<itunes:explicit>No</itunes:explicit>
<itunes:image href=”http://www.studyskillshandbook.com.au/images/additionals/icon3.jpg”/>
<itunes:category text=”Education”>
<itunes:category text=”K-12″/>
</itunes:category>

and for each item, after the publish date tags but before the </item> I added:
<itunes:author>ELES Study Skills Handbook</itunes:author>
<itunes:explicit>No</itunes:explicit>
<itunes:subtitle>Study Skills </itunes:subtitle>
<itunes:summary> All about study skills.</itunes:summary>
<itunes:duration>00:24:30</itunes:duration>
<itunes:keywords>education, studyskills</itunes:keywords>

 Some more resources on this topic:
http://www.rss-info.com/
http://www.rss-specifications.com/rss-specifications.htm
http://radio.about.com/od/podcastin1/a/aa030805a_3.htm

 Now if this all seems like WAAYYY too much effort for you, the next post I will look at what I think is the best option for the non-technies among us, iTunesU.

 

So exciting!

As the Master of Education at UTS draws closer to the end I am getting excited about my study for next year.

Ok so I plan to start my PhD next year (topic still slippery but something around online learning) but the really exciting bit is that I am also doing a TAFE course – Certificate 11 in Animal Care (why is there no Cert 1, only Cert 11 and Cert 111, don’t know) through Taronga Zoo. Talk about opposite ends of the educational spectrum.

Taronga Zoo took awhile to process my application and I started getting worried, the form said that you need NSW School Certificate, perhaps with almost 5 higher degrees they had decided I was too overqualified! But I have been accepted and start next year. In addition to a fortnightly class I also do 12 practical days during the year at the zoo. I know the website says that it is not all playing with baby animals instead lots of scooping up poo, but…. I am going to get to play with baby animals!  I am sure they didn’t mean it about the poo.

Will also be interesting as some of the students I now run sessions for end up going to TAFE instead of Uni and I make the point that the skills I am teaching around study skills are relevant regardless of which direction they go. So it will be interesting to see if there are other skills they need at TAFE style courses that I do not currently address. Also interested to see where TAFE fits on the scale of spoon-feeding at school versus a more independent approach needed at uni.

Did I mention the baby animals?

Musings: Podcasting 102

I thought I’d share all the resources I found most useful when exploring podcasts:

HOW TO PODCAST TUTORIALS AND ABOUT PODCASTING:

I think these are my favourites:
http://aquaculturepda.wikispaces.com/podcast
http://www.how-to-podcast-tutorial.com/00-podcast-tutorial-four-ps.htm
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/podcast/help.htm
http://radio.about.com/od/podcastin1/a/aa030805a.htm

But these have some good stuff too:
http://ourmedia.org/node/273304
http://www.podcast411.com/page5.html
http://www.guidesandtutorials.com/podcasting-tutorial.html
http://www.macworld.com/2005/04/secrets/junecreate/index.php?pf=1
http://homepage.mac.com/ilife06/learn/learn-to-podcast.xml
http://learninginhand.com/podcasting/index.html
http://learninginhand.com/blog/2006/03/videos-about-podcasting.html
http://chatt.hdsb.ca/~magps/boylit/Podcasting%20in%20Education
http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-10163_7-6246557-1.html?tag=nl.e404
http://www.stager.org/podcasting.html
http://schoolofpodcasting.com/
http://www.jasonohler.com/storytelling/storytech.cfm#power_of_music
http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/audiovideo/sites/about/pages/recordingothers.shtml

AUDACITY RESOURCES:

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/
http://www.teachertube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=ccc0b7577fcc340bb99f
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/manual-1.2/tutorials.html
http://aquaculturepda.wikispaces.com/Podcast4
http://etc.usf.edu/te_win/movies/audacity.html
http://audacityined.wikispaces.com/
http://www.audacityteam.org/wiki/index.php?title=Audacity_Wiki_Home_Page
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/help/faq?s=install&item=lame-mp3
http://www.lifelonglearner.us/other/audacity/
http://www.guidesandtutorials.com/audacity-tutorial.html
http://www.how-to-podcast-tutorial.com/17-audacity-tutorial.htm
http://altec.colorado.edu/howto/audacity/aud_hlp01.shtml

GARAGEBAND:

http://www.apple.com/ilife/garageband/
http://www.apple.com/support/garageband/podcasts/

MUSIC

http://iodapromonet.com/login.php
http://www.freesound.org/
http://www.sounddogs.com/
http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/
http://www.shockwave-sound.com/
http://www.pbtmlive.com/
http://www.sounddogs.com/
http://www.musicbakery.com/
http://www.soundsnap.com/
http://bumpermusic.blogspot.com/
http://www.podsafeaudio.com/
http://magnatune.com/
http://www.archive.org/audio/
http://www.archive.org/details/opensource_audio
http://www.podsafeaudio.com/
http://www.cinemavolta.com/daily/index.html
http://www.pdxbands.com/podsafe/
http://ruccas.org/
http://www.resources.bravenet.com/audio_clips/
http://www.jamglue.com/
http://www.audionetworkplc.com/
http://ourmedia.org/learning-center/open
http://delicious.com/kolson29/freemusic
http://collaborationnation.wikispaces.com/Music+and+Sounds
http://freeplaymusic.com/
http://soundtransit.nl/search/
http://www.flyinghands.com/
http://www.archive.org/details/etree
http://incompetech.com/m/c/royalty-free/
http://www.soundclick.com/default.cfm
http://www.artistserver.com/music.cfm

HOSTING

http://www.odeo.com/
http://www.podomatic.comand
http://www.blip.tv/
http://www.houndbite.com/
http://www.divshare.com/
http://www.easypodcast.com/
http://www.esnips.com/
http://www.gcast.com/?nr=1&&s=90753817

PODCASTING DIRECTORIES

http://www.ipodder.org
http://www.itunes.com
http://www.podcastalley.com
http://www.podcastcentral.com
http://www.podcast.net
http://recap.ltd.uk/podcasting/index.php
http://epnweb.org/
http://www.learnoutloud.com/Podcast-Directory
http://www.podcastbunker.com/
http://teacherspodcast.org/

PODCASTING EXAMPLES

http://www.heppell.net/bva/bva3/sandaigschool.htm
http://mylcpodcasts.blogspot.com/
http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/default.aspx
http://www.englishcaster.com/idioms/
http://www.meaghersphysics.podomatic.com
http://meaghersclasses.podomatic.com/
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/podcast/
http://kinderteacher.podomatic.com/
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/edpod/
http://www.summahistorica.com/podcast-archive.htm
http://itunes.stanford.edu/
http://www.adrianbruce.com/acekids/index.htm
http://thedowns.edublogs.org/category/podcasting/
http://mrmayo.typepad.com/podcasts/
http://www.mpsomaha.org/willow/radio/index.html
http://bobsprankle.com/blog/
http://web.mac.com/michael_cowling/
http://www.radiowaves.co.uk/
http://bhwilkoff.podomatic.com/
http://podcastbangla.blogspot.com/
http://www.mpsomaha.org/willow/radio/index.html
http://web.mac.com/michael_cowling/Classy_IT/Podcast/Podcast.html

SOME TECHNICAL STUFF

http://ourmedia.org/node/273297
http://digitalmedia.oreilly.com/2006/10/26/quickstart-digital-audio-editing.html
http://www.profcast.com/public/index.php (a more professional recording tool)

LEGAL GUIDES

http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Podcasting_Legal_Guide
http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Image:Podcasting_legal_guide.png

PODCASTING READER

http://juicereceiver.sourceforge.net/

Musings: Podcasting 101

After immersing myself in podcasting sites and info for the last six weeks I have come to a number of conclusions:

– There is a huge amount of information on the web about podcasting (too much!).
– Most of the sites pretty much say the same thing although some make the information clearer than others.
– As with most things on the web, there are very fewstandards and multiple paths you can take to reach similar outcomes.
– Podcasts vary widely in quality, content and style and purpose. As one site aptly explained, you could cough into a microphone each week and upload it and call yourself a podcaster.
– There are many levels of complexity, you can choose either not to worry your pretty little head too much or you can delve deep into the complexities of codecs and compression and all sorts of audio quality issues.
– The best podcasts are those where the style is most suited to the content and the audience needs.

So here is my summary for those who don’t know much about podcasting:

A podcast can now refer to both audio and video files that are available on the web for listeners to subscribe to. If you just upload an audio mp3 file to your website for people to download then technically it is not really a podcast. The term podcast implies that it is part of a series of media that is uploaded over a period of time and that it gives the listener the ability to subscribe the subsequent podcasts so that updates are taken directly to the listener (rather than the listener having to come back all the time and check if there is anything new available).

Of course, Commoncraft gives the best explanation:

.[kml_flashembed movie=”http://www.youtube.com/v/y-MSL42NV3c” width=”425″ height=”344″ wmode=”transparent” align=”center”/]

Here’s a short version of what you will find on the web about how to podcast:

i) Plan first what you’d like to cover in your podcast.
ii) Record any audio files (most popular applications appear to be Garageband and Audacity).
iii) Edit the audio file, adding or deleting elements (but being careful of copyright).
iv) Save the audio file into mp3 format.
v) To host your podcast you can either upload your audio file to a site that supports podcasting or create an RSS file that will allow people to subscribe to your podcasts and upload the audio file and the RSS file to your own site. (Don’t know what RSS is? Don’t worry, more on this in the next post.)
vi) Decide what supporting material and evaluation/comment process you might provide.

On my next post I will be explaining my trials and tribulations of what I discovered when I chose to walk down the RSS path myself (I may need to wear a wig for awhile until all the hair I tore out in frustration has grown back….).

Musings: Struggling to keep my head above water!

Today I spent an unmentionable amount of hours trying to yet again organise the mass of links/resources/info I have collected, been referred to or recommended. I am slowly getting closer, at least my categories in delicious are starting to make more sense to me – I must have renamed, re-organised the tags a multiple of times now, but I think I am starting to get a system I can get a handle on. Unfortunately there is still a huge mass of resources I haven’t yet had time to tag.

Information navigation skills are essential for our students, but so are information management skills! There are just so many resources and great sites available to us now, I barely have time to tag and organize them all – much less actually explore them. And there are so many great resources I’d love to have a decent look at. So my new system in delicious is that tags that are sorted and I can refer to when needed are differentiated from those that I still have to spend some time exploring (the ones to be explored yet have an * at the end of the tag).

The tag bundles in delicious are great for me as I can group my tags in related bunches: http://delicious.com/pruesalter

I have also put a selection of tools on a page on this blog: https://psalter.edublogs.org/tools/
Although I haven’t explored them all in detail, at least I am getting to know what is out there. Any other suggestions or comments on existing tools on this page are gratefully received!

 

Musings: Internet use in exams???

A school in Sydney has trialed a new form of assessment task where students are able to take in laptops with Internet access, mobile phones, MP3 players for use during the exam.

Read the story here: http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2008/s2341549.htm

 The theory behind this decision was that this would allow the school to assess skills that were relevant to the modern world. Rather than just sticking to 19th century style pen and paper no-info-allowed-in-exams to test how good your memory is, this style of assessment aims to test students’ ability to find information, assess its reliability and cite it correctly.

This makes perfect sense. I remember a wonderful story about Henry Ford I once read. During the war, a Chicago newspaper published editorials calling Henry Ford (among other things) an ‘ignorant pacifist’. Ford objected and brought a suit for libel. The paper’s attorneys placed Ford on the stand to prove he was ignorant and fired off a rapid series of questions at him including things like ‘Who was Benedict Arnold?’, ‘How many soldiers did the British send over to America to put down the rebellion of 1776?’. Eventually Ford tired of this and basically replied (not exact sorry as from memory): ‘Look, if I really wanted to answer any of these foolish questions, I have a row of electric push-buttons on my desk and by pushing the right button I can summon to my aid men who can answer any question I might have. Why should I clutter up my mind with general knowledge when I have men around me who can supply any answer I need?’

And our ‘electric push buttons’ have come a long long way since Ford’s time.

Our assessment system in Australia needs a radical overhaul. Although the NSW Year 12 HSC exams do test more than just memory skills (you do have to be able to apply the information) there is still a large component of memorization necessary. So you may be a fabulous essay writer, but if you don’t have the content packed away in your head, if you haven’t memorized the dates and the quotes, then unfortunately your wonderful essay writing skills are all for naught.

The other issue teachers face is that the syllabus is packed to the rafters with content. It would be lovely to be able to go off on a tangent and explore more relevant skills but the reality is that in the senior years teachers have a duty of care to prepare students for what is essentially a set of university entrance examinations. It is a challenge to just complete the course in most subjects, much less do anything extra.

Something else that concerns me is that the university entrance mark is composed of 50% exam mark and 50% school based assessment. My understanding for this change (when I did the HSC it was 100% based on the final exam) is that it allows students who do not perform well in exams to showcase their abilities in other forms of assessment. It was also supposed to take the pressure off the one big final exam (although my observation is that all it has done is take the pressure that students used to feel at the end of Year 12 and spread it over the entire year so they are just as stressed as they were before but now it lasts all year long – but that is a topic for another day). There are guidelines in place to try and make sure that these assessments do not just become a series of additional exams – I would question how effective these guidelines really are. When we are so focused on the final exams it is difficult to make decisions (on what to teach, how to teach and how to assess) that are not influenced by the knowledge that students must sit these exams.

So hats off to PLC for being brave enough to take a risk and try something new. If the decision makers are not going to recognize the need for updating and innovation, then it is up to the grassroots to lead the way for change.

Musings: My views on learning

My current views of Learning:

 I believe that true learning stems from curiosity. We want to find out something or know more about something.  That is why children have such an open mind to learning new things – they are curious about the world! Learning does not necessarily just mean acquiring knowledge – although it does include this – learning can be a new skill, a new attitude or opinion or a deeper understanding of someone else’s outlook. To me, deep meaningful learning has occurred when you make new neural connections that allow you to do or know or think something you did not know or could not do or think before.

The factor that I think is most important is motivation – wanting to learn something is the most powerful driver of success in learning. Other factors that come into play are your own personal experiences, attitudes and ability levels. While I believe anyone can learn anything, there are limitations probably based more on belief that anything else.

 

My current views of Technology-Mediated Learning: Continue reading

I’ll Be Back!

My Dear Blog,

Please don’t feel neglected but with this semester of uni finishing and a month in Europe approaching I am afraid you will just have to wait till August and I get back in the swing of things again.

I will bring you a treat back from Germany.

Prue

So long Anne and thanks for all the fish

As this semester and this subject comes to a close, it will be interesting to see how this blog develops as I will then be totally free to find my own ‘voice’ – I am looking forward to seeing how this develops and how my interests in technology and learning develop. I remember reading in someone’s blog where they thought their blog was about ‘X’ but when they went back and had a good look at all their posts they were about ‘Y’.

 

So Anne these flowers are for you (the perils of a digital age, it is all online cards and online flowers!) as a thanks for opening my eyes to so many new and exciting learning technologies.

It has been an intense time, this subject has had a greater workload than any others I have done in this Masters but this has been compensated for by the fact that what I was learning was really relevant and useful to my life and business.

So thanks again Anne, good luck with all your endeavours, I look forward to citing many of your works and writings as I start my PhD next year and you get ever closer to the end of yours.

 

 

And ok, I may have to have a week or so break from the blog just to catch my breath again….

Reflection on ‘Building a Collaborative Workplace’

“Collaboration is a process through which people who see different aspets of a problem can constructively explore their differences and search for solutions that go beyond theoir own limited vision of what is possible.”
Building a collaborative workplace, AnecdoteCollaborativeWorkplace_v1s.pdf (541.552 Kb)
Shawn Callahan, Mark Schenk and Nancy White from the Full Circle Associates website: http://www.fullcirc.com

Callahan, Schenk and White state that ” today we all need to be collaboration superstars”.  The article discusses how a new environment for getting things done is evolving. Technology has made it easier to communicate, to share ideas and to work collaboratively without the need to occupy the same physical space and now with the pace of change we need to be link up with people with complementary skill sets to meet increasingly complex outcomes.

The article discusses that fact that collaboration skills do not tend to be taught. Having just completed a collaborative project using a wiki with my uni colleagues, I began to reflect. What collaboration skills did we use and how could we teach these?

Some of the skills that we needed were to be open and honest about our ideas and those of others in the group, to be receptive to other people’s point of views, to have the ability to take and give constructive criticism in a supportive and accepting way, to accept that it is a joint piece of work and you will not always agree with everything that is done, to not take over and to encourage others to share their ideas as well.

I have always thought that good team skills in really an extension of being a good human being and now I am starting to think collaboration is just taking good teamwork skills to the next level.

I think the big difference is that in team work often the work is parceled out and worked on individually whereas in a collaborative experience that notion of proprietary ownership is dismissed.

Perhaps it is best summed up by a statement in our group standards for our collaborative wiki project:
“Edit the entry as though it was your own, but with consideration and respect for differing viewpoints.”

 Thanks JuJu Members – it was a stimulating experience to work with you all. Truly the whole ended up being greater than a sum of the parts!

 

Summary – ‘Building a collaborative workplace’

SUMMARY NOTES of the key concepts in: ‘Building a collaborative workplace’ – Callahan, Schenk and White

New environment for innovation and getting things done:

  • no lone pursuits
  • need collaboration
  • changing skills so seek people with these skills

But:

  1. Collaboration skills don’t tend to be taught – on the job or hit and miss.
  2. Organisational culture will determine how collaboration is supported.
  3. Many companies but ‘collaboration’ software they are not using well

“Technology makes things possible; people collaborating makes it happen” Continue reading

Musings: Web2.0 includes???? (May#7)

So what prompted these musings? There is a school I work with in Sydney, St John Bosco College, that runs a wonderful day for their Year 11 students and I came across something in their booklet that make me think.

 First, I run a study skills session with the group. Then they break into smaller groups for the school’s GROW program (Glossary  Research Organised Writing) where they work on writing styles, identifying key terms, marking criteria, supporting evidence, using scaffolds for writing, and advanced research skills. It is a really impressive program and takes into account the sort of navigation literacy skills that students need.

While waiting Year 11 to arrive, I was flicking through their booklet and came across a section ‘How Web 2.0 Savvy are you’. I quickly jotted down a few points to see whether I was savvy as the Year 11 students:

  • Am I comfortable using the Internet. Yes.
  • Do I have a web page. Yes.
  • Do I read blogs. Yes.
  • Do I write a blog. Yes.
  • Do I have a Myspace etc page. No. Doh!
  • Do I use YouTube. Yes.
  • Do I use podcasts/vodcasts. Yes.
  • Do I subscribe to RSS Feeds. Yes.
  • Do I use Flickr or similar. Yes.
  • Do I read/write wikis. Yes.

So I felt pretty good about how I would compare to a web savvy student. Mind you, 6 months ago prior to this subject for uni I would have only been able to answer yes to 3 of these!

But I started thinking – what else should be on this list? What else do we expect a Web 2.0 afficiado to be comfortable with? Continue reading

Musings: Bloggings CEOS (May#6)

What prompted these musings? Hearing a discussion on ABC Radio that prompted me to visit this blog: http://blogs.sun.com/jonathan/

 

Jonathan Schwartz is chief executive officer and president of Sun Microsystems. And he keeps a blog in his role as president of Sun.

 

He writes about all sorts of topics and everyone from employees to the general public can comment on his posts. What a fantastic way for a big org to be more accessible and what a fabulous marketing opportunity.  How many companies can you go direct to the CEO? I found the comments more interesting than the posts in some ways although it was interesting that after skimming a few you start to get a feel for what this man is like. 

 

Another interesting application for blogging.

 

Musings: SuperGeek to the rescue! (May#5)

 What prompted these musings? Wondering how I was going to get the CD-ROM drive on my laptop fixed without being parted with from it for days on end, then seeing a SuperGeek van – we come to you and fix computer problems and thinking, why not?

Anyway, so the guy arrives on time (great start) and proceeds to fix not only the CD-ROM drive but lots of other fiddly things that had been bothering me but that you wouldn’t take to a repair centre to fix – I figured I had to pay for the hour, may as well use it all! Was great value for a hundred bucks.

But it was a short conversation with the guy that inspired this blog.

Me: ‘Gee, they must have to give you heaps of training to do this job cause everyone expects you to be able to fix every possible software and hardware problem.”

Him: “Nah they can’t really train you for this”.

He then proceeded to solve all my various problems, not through knowledge acquired in a series of training courses, but through jumping online, google searches, checking forums etc etc until he found a suggested solution he could try. It was quite incredible to watch. It was a perfect example of why teaching our students navigation literacy is so important. The important knowledge he possessed was knowing what to look for and how to look for it.

PS. Now after listening to ABC Radio this morning talking about how unscrupulous bloggers are paid to promote people, products and companies I just have to say I have absolutely NO alliances etc with SuperGeek other than being a satisfied customer!

Musings: You’ll never look at text the same way (May#4)

What prompted these musings? A great video provided by a classmate Debra.[kml_flashembed movie=”http://www.youtube.com/v/6gmP4nk0EOE” width=”425″ height=”350″ wmode=”transparent” align=”center”/]

We need a fundamental shift in the way we approach text. We are used to thinking of text and literacy from a one-dimensional perspective but now we need to start looking at text as a multi-dimensional tool. Until we embrace this perspective, our use of web-based technologies will go the same way as other technologies like our digital cameras, our dvd hard drives and our mobile phones – most of us know how to use the basic functions but never bother to explore the depth of functionality that is available. While it is not that big a deal if we don’t know all the functions on our digital cameras, it will be a real shame if we as educators turn our backs on the power of this developing medium of Web 2.0.

Musings: Computers putting on airs? (May#3)

 What prompted these musings? Reading a chapter about ‘affective computing’ and no, it is not about computers who are showing affectations….

Yet another new term!  Hershey (2006) defines ‘affective computing’ as computing that relates to, arises from or deliberately influences emotions – basically it is researching about emotion in computers.

One of my classmates John, will be pleased to know I have discovered in this reading even more new terms: ‘perezhivanie’.  Vygotsky (1994) found that the development of a child depends on the way the child experiences a situation in the environment, ie. how it relates emotionally to a certain event and coined this as perezhivanie.

The idea is that we know now that emotion and motivation strongly affect learning. So wouldn’t it make sense that we design the technology to react to the emotion of the students? Researchers in artificial intelligence have looked at ways to customize educational systems to the affective states of students.

For this to work, Piccard (1997) postulates that first the system has to be able to recognize the emotions of the student – are they disappointed, do they need encouragement, have they given up? Second the system must be able to express emotion and usually to make this more realistic the system is represented by a lifelike character (called animated pedagogical agents: check out  http://www.isi.edu/isd/ADE/ade-body.html) .  So where to from here? Continue reading

Musings: Technology – a cure for dementia? (May#2)

What prompted these musings? A discussion with my mother as I drove her from Newcastle to come to Sydney for the weekend for mother’s day celebrations.

I recently attended a seminar by Dr Martin Westwood, aka ‘the brain man’ who spoke about how when mice were exposed to a stimulating environment the symptoms of a neurological disorder were dramatically reduced.

My grandmother suffered from Alzheimer’s. My mother is concerned she too may one day develop symptoms (even now if she has been forgetful she will sign her emails from ‘Al’). But really, their mental lives could not be more different and much of that is due in a large part to technology.

So where do the differences lie? Continue reading

Reflection #3 on Wenger – Who’s driving?

“One can design systems of accountability and policies…..but one cannot design the practices that will emerge…One can design roles, but one cannot design identities that will be constructed through these roles. One can design visions, but one cannot design the allegiance necessary to align energy behind those visions….One can design work processes, but not work practices; one can design a curriculum but not learning.” Pp. 229, Communities of practice, Wenger, 1999.

As we begin the process of designing a learning community in our group, re-reading this passage in Wenger was initially a bit discouraging. It seems there is only so much we can do to design an effective learning community, we have to accept that the community will start to take on a life of its own and determine its own direction. On reflection, I actually found this concept empowering. What we are doing is creating a vehicle for learning, but then handing over the navigation and driving to those who started off as the passengers. It our role as designers to then be responsive and reactive to the needs of the community and to provide the necessary frameworks as needs and wants emerge.

Musings: How did you get here? (May#1)

What prompted these musings? A surprising result on the cluster map on the bottom left hand side of the page.

When I added a cluster map to the bottom of the page, I wasn’t really expecting to see any other dots apart from that of classmates in the e-learning course and maybe a few other Australians who arrived here via my study skills site.

But blow me down with a feather there are dots from countries all over the world! I’d love to know how these people ended up on my blog. What were they looking for? What did they enter into the search engine? How far down was I on the list of links? How many links did they follow to end up here? Was it useful at all?

 So if you have ended up on this page, I’d love to hear your story!

PS. The picture has absolutely nothing to do with this blog post. I just thought it was cute.

PPS. If anyone knows how to make the cluster map actually display properly let me know!

Reflection #2 on Wenger – Learning transforming identities

“…because all learning eventually gains its significance in the type of person we become.” Pp. 226, Communities of practice, Wenger, 1999.

One thing about learning is that you will never know when things you learn become useful later in life. When I was living in Singapore in the mid nineties, my employed paid a web design company (there wasn’t a lot of choice then) to design their site. It was expensive and inadequate. I bought a book ‘html for dummies’ and said I’ll make the site for $1000. And I did! And then I taught Primary school students how to code in html and they made web pages showing all the Australian lollies they were missing in Singapore with scanned images of the wrapper papers.

At the time (oh how naïve) I thought I am never going to use this skill again. In the end it has turned out to be one of the most important skills I have developed.  Wenger is right, eventually, all learning gains significance through the skills we develop and how that transforms as us a person and our ability to participate and negotiate meaning.

This unassuming skill has certainly transformed my life and my identity in many ways I did not expect 13 years ago!

SIGNPOST to Assessment 1 Part 2 (EMT1)

SIGNPOST FOR ANNE TO ASSESSMENT TASK

Main challenges with this task:

  • not getting dragged into spending hours in the community
  • trying to keep the technical details to a minimum
  • again trying to reduce what I had written to the word limit!

Although I entered this community for this assignment, it is a community that I will stay a part of as it has been pretty useful.

Reflection #1 on Wenger – Influence of perspectives

“The perspectives we bring to our endeavours are important because they shape both what we perceive and what we do.” Pp. 225, Communities of practice, Wenger, 1999.

So this means the first stage of designing an effective learning experience is to determine the perspectives from which potential learners will be approaching their learning. This is a challenging thing to do! Can we survey students? But then can we trust their disclosures? Perhaps they will be influenced by other factors and say what they think we want to hear. Perhaps they are not fully aware of their own perspectives, especially at a subconscious level.

In the learning community I examined (php coders), the community may be a diverse group of people but their perspectives that relate to php coding and online learning are all fairly similar. I would suspect most of the group is self-taught to some extent, most of the group is used to finding online support for tech issues and all of the group know the frustration of trying to resolve a programming issue. This results in a fairly cohesive community who achieve fairly specific outcomes as they are all entering the community with similar perspectives and common goals.

Wenger Reading – Where to Begin?

‘Communities of Practice’ – Wenger (1999)
This extract from the final chapters of Communities of Practice, by Etienne Wenger – provides us with a dual framework: 1) as a participant – which aspects of design to you notice are present (or not) in your community and 2) as a designer – as we prepare to move into the second part of the subject, it provides us with a framework for our own designs.
F
ocus on part 1 – your community experiences.
How does Wenger’s work inform your analysis of your community?
.

There was just soooo much in this reading (as you can see in the three summaries below in which I was actually pretty ruthless and left out heaps of stuff I would have normally included only because otherwise the summary was going to end up as long as the reading). I can see again I am going to have trouble being ‘brief’ in my response to this article.

So instead of just recording all my responses as to how Wenger’s work informs my analysis of my community, I am going to just wait a few days and see which of all the thoughts swirling around floats to the top – what really speaks most to me based not on first thoughts and reactions but instead on considered reflection.

So in the words of Arnie, ‘I’ll be back’.

UPDATE A FEW DAYS LATER

I have decided that there is so much I want to discuss in the Wenger article I am just going to post a series of blogs over a period of time to respond to the questions above.

Summary Part 3 – ‘Communities of Practice’ Wenger

SUMMARY NOTES of the key concepts in: Chapter 11, ‘Communities of Practice’ – Wenger

PART 3: ORGANIZATIONS

Communities of practice differ from institutional entities:

  • they negotiate their own enterprise
  • they arise, evolve and dissolve according to their own learning
  • they shape their own boundaries

There are two aspects to the organization – the designed organization (the institution) and the practice which gives life to the organization and is often a response to the designed organization.

A. DIMENSIONS Continue reading

Summary Part 2 – ‘Communities of Practice’ Wenger

SUMMARY NOTES of the key concepts in: Chapter 10, ‘Communities of Practice’ – Wenger

PART 2: LEARNING ARCHITECTURES

Need a skeletal architecture for learning (purpose of a conceptual architecture is to lay down the general principles of design ie state what needs to be in place)

So must recast the conceptual framework, laying out the basic questions that must be addressed and basic components that must be provided for a design of learning. Conceptual architecture can guide design by outlining:

  • i) general questions, choices and tradeoffs to address
  • ii) general shape of what needs to be achieved – basic components and facilities to provide

A. DIMENSIONS (of the ‘space’ of design for learning)

1. Participation & Reification (which are dimensions of both practice and identity)

  • both avenues for influencing the future (whether person or practice)
  • ensures some artifacts in place: tools, plans, procedures
  • makes sure right people are at the right place in the right kind of relation to make something happen
  • design cannot be a choice between these two – design for practice must be distributed between participation and reification (realization depends on how these two fit together)
  • therefore design involves decisions about how to distribute between these two: what to reify, when and with what forms of participation, who to involve and when and with respect to what forms of reification
  • this means trade-offs: rigidity vs adaptability, partiality of people vs ambiguity of artifacts etc Continue reading

Summary Part 1 – ‘Communities of Practice’ Wenger

SUMMARY NOTES of the key concepts in: Synopsis, ‘Communities of Practice’ – Wenger

PART 1: SOCIAL PERSPECTIVE

Perspectives are important because they shape what we perceive and what we do.

We often learn things without having any intention of becoming full members in any specifiable community of practice.

Some learning is best done in groups while some learning is best done by oneself.

Social Perspective on learning:

  • Learning is inherent in human nature (an ongoing and integral part of our lives)
  • Learning is first and foremost the ability to negotiate new meanings (involves our whole person)
  • Learning creates emergent structures (requires structure and continuity to accumulate experience and enough discontinuity to renegotiate meaning – constitutes elemental social learning structures)
  • Learning is fundamentally experiential and social (involves our own experience of participation and reification – is a realignment of experience and competence, whichever pulls the other)
  • Learning transforms our identities Continue reading

Musings: Videophilia (April#5)

What prompted these musings? An unfamiliar term I came across in the Australian Teacher magazine.

Having not heard of videophilia before, I did what we all do these days and googled it. On this site: http://www.videophilia.org/, I came across this definition:

videophilia: The new human tendency to focus on sedentary activities involving electronic media. Source:Pergams, O. R. W. and P. A. Zaradic. 2006. Is love of nature in the US becoming love of electronic media? 16-year downtrend in national park visits explained by watching movies, playing video games, internet use, and oil prices. Journal of Environmental Management 80:387-393.

Basically we are spending less time appreciating and experiencing nature and more time immersed in the digital world.

You might have an amazing garden in second life, but does it smell and feel like the real thing? Not yet anyway.

So take some time today to stop and smell the roses or feel the grass in your toes.

Musings: Technology is not enough…(April#4)

What prompted these musings? A link to this video from a colleague (Thanks Suzanne!) which was very thought provoking. We can spend all this time on technology and tools but unless we have the fundamentals sorted, we have to question how effective the whole experience really is.

In addition to the jokes about educators which are very amusing, the funny stories about drawing a picture of God and the perils of being Shakespeare’s English teacher, and comments on male/female differences, there were some really fascinating points made in this video about creativity and education in schools by education guru Sir Ken Robinson.

[kml_flashembed movie=”http://www.youtube.com/v/iG9CE55wbtY” width=”425″ height=”350″ wmode=”transparent” align=”center”/]

These were the main points that caught my attention from Ken’s talk: Continue reading

Musings: A wealth of knowledge at your fingertips (April#3)

What prompted these musings? Remembering what it USED to be like to arrange an overseas trip.

What I love most about the Internet is you can find out anything you could possibly ever need to know and it makes it all so easy. I remember when I first traveled overseas in 1991. You bought the lonely planet book. You read it. If you were brave you might translate a blurb into the appropriate language (using another book – not babel fish!) and you might ring overseas and try and book a room.  Now you can not only book the room online but see a 3D model to the point where you can tell what type of tea bags will be there.  And even better, you can hook up with total strangers and get travel advice on the best places to see, where to eat and what to do. 

This accessibility to information has opened so many previously closed doors. Just consider…… Continue reading

Musings: Why does a true blogger blog? (April#2)

What prompted these musings? Firstly a comment from a fellow blogger about disguising what is really an ad as a blog (http://forblogssake.edublogs.org/2008/04/05/when-is-a-blog-an-ad/) and secondly some comments from some classmates about their shyness and insecurities about publicly posting their thoughts on a blog as part of their assignments for this course.

I have a theory. I think a TRUE blogger blogs because a true blogger can’t help themselves. I am basing this theory on nothing more than my personal observations (very scientific). A month or so ago prior to starting this course I had nothing to ever do with blogs and no knowledge of blogs (other than having heard of Perez Hilton as a celebrity gossip blogger). I had no idea there were serious blogs out there or blogs that could be useful – I guess if I ever thought about them I thought they were simply the mad ravings of a tea-cosy headed geek. But the moment I set up this blog I was hooked. I am attempting to keep this blog more of an educational discourse on all things e-learning (of which blogging is certainly a feature) rather than my musings on everyday life (I am afraid if I started rambling all my thoughts about things like how people drive in Sydney, our tax system, our politicians, my new lounge room furniture etc etc I would never stop).  But I can see how it becomes an addictive process…..IF you are a certain type of person.

So what types of person blogs? Continue reading

Musings: Who owns the right to your content on Facebook? (April#1)

What prompted these musings? A recent discussion on ABC Sydney radio about the Australian swimmer whose party photos on a social networking site were suddenly brought into the spotlight by the media – highlighting the need for careful consideration of all information posted on the Net.

You probably think you own the rights to your Facebook content. Well read on, you might be surprised….

Social Networking sites are definitely here to stay. But do users really think about who might be looking at their information and what it could potentially be used for? If we want to use social networking sites in the e-learning process we need to be aware of potential issues.

  • We need to think about safety. Obviously one should never give away personal information (particularly home addresses) – students especially need to aware that the people they are interacting with may not necessarily be who they represent themselves to be.
  • We need to think about identity theft. This is a growing area of concern and too much publicly posted info makes it easier for the would be identity thieves among us. Reclaiming your identity can be a costly, time-consuming and frustrating process.
  • We need to think about the future. There have been examples in the US where candidates were not hired as interviewers have examined potential employees facebook pages and decided that their personal life did not fit in with the image the company wanted to portray. Things lurk on the net for a long long time. You think you may have deleted a file but it could easily have been held in cache by google and be around for a lot longer. The best way to think about it is never to post anything that you wouldn’t want anyone in the world to see from now until the rest of your life (and beyond!). Because those funny-at-the-time MySpace photos could come back to haunt you when you are trying for the job or career of a lifetime….

AND IF THAT WASN’T ENOUGH… THIS IS REALLY SCARY! Continue reading