May 12th, 2008 by Jorge Goncalves
Scriblink - Your Online Whiteboard. ‘Scriblink is a free digital whiteboard that users can share online in real-time. Sorta like pen and paper, minus the dead trees, plastic, and the inconvenience of being at the same place at the same time.
We are all about collaboration. Whether you’re here for pure artistic enjoyment or more practical matters such as layout planning, concept diagramming, or tutoring a friend in math, Scriblink brings you the power of free hand expression with anyone, at anytime, anywhere in the world.
On the homepage you’ll be immediately directed to a Scriblink board, which is free and requires no registration. The board allows you to invite up to five people at a time to join you, either through email or directly by copying and pasting the URL.’
Scriblink: The Official Blog
May 5th, 2008 by Jorge Goncalves
The Learning Content Development System (LCDS) is a tool that enables you to create high quality, interactive, online courses. Virtually anyone can publish e-learning courses by completing the easy-to-use LCDS forms that seamlessly generate highly customized content, interactivities, quizzes, games, and assessments—as well as Silverlight-based animations, demos, and other multimedia.
Note that a free registration is needed to download the LCDS.
April 11th, 2008 by Jorge Goncalves
Online Colleges, part of the huge College Scholarships, Colleges, and Online Degrees portal, main goal is helping students to choose suitable online colleges, degrees and courses.
The all site is designed like a notebook page making use of a user-friendly right navigational toolbar where we can find several links to other site’s pages.
My main purpose visiting this site was to check the Undergraduate and Graduate Online Degrees section. Here we can find a very detailed directory of institutions offering accredited online degrees and courses complemented by a Quick Degree Finder search engine. We can search choosing several options: degree level, category and subject. The results link to pages located on external sites. The same happens when you try to obtain more information using the directory links. For each institution a brief description is presented but when we click the links we go to external pages, most of them located at elearners.com, where we have to submit a form to obtain more information about the online course we have chosen. I didn’t like this. I would prefer a direct link to the institution instead of going to another site to fill a form.
Nevertheless, I recommend this site for those who are starting to look for an online degree. The many choices presented in almost every field of knowledge are a strong point in favor of Online Colleges. For beginners, I also recommend the reading of the Ten Rules for Choosing Online Colleges and Universities and the 10 Tips for College-Bound Students.
February 15th, 2008 by Jorge Goncalves
ePortfolio and Digital Identity Conference, Montreal, 5-7 May 2008. The 2nd Pan-American and Francophone ePortfolio conference is being organised by EIfEL in partnership with the Centre for the Study of Learning and Performance (CSLP) at Concordia University, the Centre de Recherche en Informatique de Montréal (CRIM) and HR-XML. It will take place at Concordia University on 5-7 May 2008. This year’s special focus will be on ePortfolio and digital identity extending the concept of the ePortfolio and exploring the link between the records and services that contribute to the emergence of a digital identity.
Keynote speakers confirmed to date include Stephen Downes of the National Research Council, Canada, Helen Barrett, International ePortfolio Consultant, Fulup Ar Foll, Sun Microsystems and Serge Ravet, EIfEL.
Tracks will be run in French and English. Presenters and authors are invited to submit an abstract (500 to 750 words) of their contributions by 21st February 2008 on the following themes:
1. Lifelong learning and employability
2. Building systems of recognition and accreditation with ePortfolios
3. Exploiting the full potential of digital identity
4. ePortfolio architectures and advanced technologies
5. Designing ePortfolio strategies within regions and sectors
6. Managing knowledge with ePortfolios
Proposals for presentations and workshops are welcomed. Papers will also be published on the conference website.
February 15th, 2008 by Jorge Goncalves
ICT Results: Attention please! Next-generation e-learning is here. ‘Take an e-learning platform, mix in a large dose of social networking, sprinkle liberally with intelligent software agents to stimulate users and, according to a team of European researchers, you have a recipe to keep students’ attention even during the most testing training courses.
Recent trials of two new software platforms based on this new approach show substantial promise in overcoming one of the biggest problems that has dogged e-learning: how to keep students motivated and attentive. The platforms, developed in the AtGentive project, are designed to aid students in the classroom and to help them continue learning and collaborating long after classroom sessions have ended.
“The first generation of e-learning platforms focused on replicating online the classroom model of teaching, but this approach has not been all that successful,” explains Thierry Nabeth, the coordinator of AtGentive at INSEAD’s Centre for Advanced Learning Technologies in France. “The biggest problem is that students often lack motivation both inside and outside of the classroom, and fail to dedicate their attention to the learning programme.”
In an effort to overcome that problem, the AtGentive researchers incorporated artificial agents and social networking into their approach toward e-learning, employing, in the case of one of the platforms, similar techniques to those that have made websites, such as Facebook, so popular as a means of staying in touch with friends, relatives and colleagues.’
AtGentive: Attentive Agents for Collaborative Learners. ‘ The objective of the AtGentive project is to investigate the use of artificial agents for supporting the management of the attention of young or adult learners in the context of individual and collaborative learning environments.
Practically, this project consists in the design of artificial agents that are able to coach the learners in reaching higher level of performance in managing their attention in the learning process. These agents, which appear as embedded characters, are able to profile the state of the attention of the learners (short or long term) by observing their actions, to assess, to analyse and to reason on these states of attention, and to provide some proactive coaching (assessment, guidance, stimulation, etc.).’
ICT Results. ‘ICT Results is an editorial service created for the European Commission to showcase EU-funded ICT research and activities.’
January 22nd, 2008 by Jorge Goncalves
Focus On Education Foundation present Innovation 2008: The Real and The Ideal, April 14th and 15th in Breckenridge, Colorado.
This conference brings together world-class scholars and educators along with business and governmental leaders to formulate a vision for the future of education and the role of technology in that future. Previous attempts to integrate technology into education have met with difficulties because solutions have not taken into account the total social system around teaching and learning. With that in mind, this conference will look at what’s next not just in technology, but also in the social, cultural, and pedagogical dimensions of education to shape a realistic appraisal of the present and a forecast for the future.
List of Speakers
January 21st, 2008 by Jorge Goncalves
Unlocking the promise of open educational resources: The Cape Town Open Education Declaration. ‘The Cape Town Open Education Declaration arises from a small but lively meeting convened in Cape Town in September 2007. The aim of this meeting was to accelerate efforts to promote open resources, technology and teaching practices in education.
Convened by the Open Society Institute and the Shuttleworth Foundation, the meeting gathered participants with many points of view from many nations. This group discussed ways to broaden and deepen their open education efforts by working together.
The first concrete outcome of this meeting is the Cape Town Open Education Declaration. It is at once a statement of principle, a statement of strategy and a statement of commitment. It meant to spark dialogue, to inspire action and to help the open education movement grow.’
The Declarion (excerpt): We are on the cusp of a global revolution in teaching and learning. Educators worldwide are developing a vast pool of educational resources on the Internet, open and free for all to use. These educators are creating a world where each and every person on earth can access and contribute to the sum of all human knowledge. They are also planting the seeds of a new pedagogy where educators and learners create, shape and evolve knowledge together, deepening their skills and understanding as they go. [continue reading]
Related: Stephen Downes Criticizing the Cape Town Declaration
You can sign the Declaration here
January 20th, 2008 by Jorge Goncalves
Big Think. ‘bigthink.com is a new and growing website, currently in its private beta version, with a simple mission:
This is a digital age, one in which a wealth of accessible information empowers you, the citizen-consumer. But where is the information coming from? How accurate and unprocessed is it, really? Ask yourself this: how empowered do you feel debating a television screen or a newspaper?
Big Think’s task is to move the discussion away from talking heads and talking points, and give it back to you. That is Big Think’s mission. In practice, this means that information is truly interactive. When you log onto the site, you can access hundreds of hours of direct, unfiltered interviews with today’s leading thinkers, movers and shakers. You can search them by question or by topic, and, best of all, respond in kind. Upload a video in which you take on Senator Ted Kennedy’s views on immigration; post a slideshow of your trip to China that supports David Dollar’s assertion that pollution in China is a major threat; or answer with plain old fashioned text. You can respond to the interviewee, respond to a responder or heck, throw your own question or idea into the ring.’
January 17th, 2008 by Jorge Goncalves
The Open Research and Open Knowledge Society (ORS Acronym) is a Non Governmental Organization (NGO) based on Athens Greece and is operating all over the world. It is not depending on any government, political party, political or religious organization or entities representing financial interests.
Given the significance of the knowledge society as a new context of our era, four significant objectives formulate the justification of the Open Research and Open Knowledge Society:
- The need to provide a sustainable worldwide knowledge society vision based on collaboration, knowledge and learning for all and especially for people in need.
- The need to investigate the “soft” and “hard” aspects of the knowledge society, with the aim of providing organizational and cultural frameworks as well as infrastructures enabled by the evolution of information technologies.
- The need to anchor government policies in scientific evidence concerning the characteristics of the emerging knowledge intensive economy and social environment.
- The need to investigate the key priorities of the knowledge society in terms of critical aspects of human life (e.g. health, education, culture, science, business etc).
January 17th, 2008 by Jorge Goncalves
Multiply. ‘Multiply gives you an easy way to share all kinds of digital media, including photos, blogs, videos, music and more, all in one convenient place: your own personal web site. With Multiply, you can share and discuss your stuff with everyone in your “social network,” and also be alerted whenever they have something new.’
January 16th, 2008 by Jorge Goncalves
Knowing Knowledge Wiki. From the Preface: Why does so much of our society look as it did in the past? Our schools, our government, our religious organizations, our media—while more complex, have maintained their general structure and shape. Classroom structure today, with the exception of a computer or an LCD projector, looks remarkably unchanged—teacher at the front, students in rows. Our business processes are still built on theories and viewpoints that existed over a century ago (with periodic amendments from thinkers like Drucker2). In essence, we have transferred (not transformed) our physical identity to online spaces and structures.
This book seeks to tackle knowledge—not to provide a definition—but to provide a way of seeing trends developing in the world today. Due to the changed context and characteristics of knowledge, traditional definitions are no longer adequate. Language produces different meaning for different people. The meaning generated by a single definition is not sufficiently reflective of knowledge as a whole.’
Related Links: Knowing Knowledge site and blog (links to book reviews).
January 7th, 2008 by Jorge Goncalves
Wikia Search Alpha Launched. ‘Wikia is working to develop and popularize a freely licensed (open source) search engine.
Wikia’s search engine concept is that of trusted user feedback from a community of users acting together in an open, transparent, public way. Of course, before we start, we have no user feedback data. So the results are pretty bad. But we expect them to improve rapidly in coming weeks, so please bookmark the site and return often.
Right now, the most important thing you can do is help with the “mini articles” that appear at the top of popular search terms.’
