Archive for February, 2007
February 16th, 2007 by Jorge Goncalves
OER Commons: Open Educational Resources. ‘OER Commons is the first comprehensive open learning network where teachers and professors (from pre-K to graduate school) can access their colleagues’ course materials, share their own, and collaborate on affecting today’s classrooms. It uses Web 2.0 features (tags, ratings, comments, reviews, and social networking) to create an online experience that engages educators in sharing their best teaching and learning practices.
Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching and learning materials that are freely available online for everyone to use, whether you are an instructor, student, or self-learner.
OER may be either Course-Related Materials or Libraries and Collections items. Course-Related Materials include both Full Courses and Learning Modules. Components include syllabi, lectures, lesson plans, homework assignments, quizzes, lab activities, pedagogical materials, games, and simulations. Libraries and Collections items are resources from digital media collections or libraries of digitized primary sources.’
Teaching and Learning Materials
Tags: OER Commons, OER, Open Educational Resources
February 15th, 2007 by Jorge Goncalves
Learning Impact 2007 is IMS Global Learning Consortium’s annual conference that brings together the world’s leading creators, vendors, users, and buyers of learning technology to participate in program tracks focused on the latest innovations in learning systems, digital learning content, the learning enterprise, and open technologies. Presenters answer a key challenge question designed to inform the attendees on the state of innovation and best practices.
The Summit on Global Learning Industry Challenges is a gathering of industry leaders to introduce and debate ideas on issues impacting the growth of learning worldwide. This is a unique and highly direct conversation for the purpose of illuminating the key business challenges facing the learning industry. The Summit is facilitated by a focused set of highly interactive panel sessions with audience participation.
The Learning Impact Awards are designed to recognize the most impactful use of technology worldwide in support of learning.
Learning Impact 2007 and the Summit on Global Learning Industry Challenges will be held in Vancouver, British Columbia, 16th - 19th April 2007.
February 15th, 2007 by Jorge Goncalves
IMS Global Learning Consortium Releases February 2007 Learning Technology Trends Report and LearnSat Ratings. ‘The IMS Global Learning Consortium today released the latest version of its Learning Technology Satisfaction and Trends Report for February 2007. Based on responses from about 200 qualified leaders of Internet-supported learning initiatives in the North American Higher Education segment over the last 12 months, the report details satisfaction and trends with a wide range of technologies used to support education. The product and service categories covered in the report include course management, content management, assessment, search, content authoring, web authoring, mobile devices, classroom capture, screen capture, services, live presentation, plagiarism, portals, and student information systems.
The top ten rated products in order were ANGEL Content Management, eCollege CMS, ANGEL CMS, Respondus, Google Search, Apple iPod, Flash, Dreamweaver, Wikipedia, and Tegrity. The other products that achieved best in category satisfaction ratings were Camtasia, eCollege Services, Microsoft Powerpoint, Elluminate, Turnitin, uPortal, and Campus Management.’
Summary Rankings
February 9th, 2007 by Jorge Goncalves
ELearning! Magazine Readers Select the Best of Elearning. ‘In its 2nd year, the Best of Elearning! Awards received hundreds of product and company nominations from e-learning professionals and executives worldwide. Because 49% of users rely on advice from peers when sourcing e-learning solutions and services, Elearning! Magazine is committed to sharing these results annually. Which vendors are best in class for 2006? What do buyers really think? Which best solve the users’ key business problems? This is what they told us.’
Winners include: GeoLearning GeoMaestro, NIIT (element K) IT Skills Library, Ken Blanchard Situational Leadership Series, SkillSoft Business Skills Library, WebEx Training Center and WebEx Meeting Center, Adobe Connect and Adobe Captivate, Articulate Presenter Pro and Trivantis Lectora
February 9th, 2007 by Jorge Goncalves
The eLearning Guild Announces Immersive Learning Simulations (ILS) Member’s Choice Awards.’The eLearning Guild announced today (February 6) the winners of the new eLearning Guild Members Choice Awards for Immersive Learning Simulations (ILS). The awards are announced in conjunction with the publication of the Guild’s premier Guild Research 360o Report on Immersive Learning Simulations (ILS) which focuses on the demand for, and demands of, simulations, scenarios, and serious games for learning.
“We wanted these awards to have a lot of credibility, and not just represent the opinions of a handful of people,†said Steve Wexler, the Guild’s director of research and emerging technologies. “More than 4,600 eLearning Guild members have told us which tools they use and have told us what they think of these tools and the awards were based on the opinions of these e-Learning professionals – professionals that are passionate about e-Learning.â€
There are two types of awards; the Platinum Award goes to the top performer in each category, while the Gold Award goes to the next four top performers in each category. The data upon which these awards are based is “live and always up-to-date†– which means that as Guild members are creating or updating their member profiles, the quantity and nature of data are actively changing. For these awards, a “snap-shot†of the data was taken on January 21, 2007.’
Platinum Award Winners:
- Simulation Tools - Market Share: Adobe Captivate - Adobe Systems, Inc.
- Simulation Tools - Satisfaction: Raptivity – Harbinger Knowledge Products Pvt. Ltd.
- Games Tools – Market Share: Macromedia Flash Professional from Adobe – Adobe Systems, Inc.
- Games Tools – Satisfaction: Articulate Rapid e-Learning Studio Professional – Articulate
More information about 360o Report
February 7th, 2007 by Jorge Goncalves
Curriki - The Global Education & Learning Community. ‘Curriki is a community of educators, learners and committed education experts who are working together to create quality materials that will benefit teachers and students around the world.
Curriki is an online environment created to support the development and free distribution of world-class educational materials to anyone who needs them. Our name is a play on the combination of ‘curriculum’ and ‘wiki’ which is the technology we’re using to make education universally accessible.
Curriki is the result of work done for GELC - the Global Education and Learning Community - an online project started by Sun Microsystems to develop works for education in a collaborative effort. The leadership team consists of people with a long-time commitment to exploring the use of technology to improve education.’
Global Education and Learning Community (GELC). ‘Sun Microsystems, building on the effort of many others, launched the Global Education and Learning Community on June 1, 2004, in order to accelerate efforts to provide affordable lifelong learning for all students, no matter where they are.
With the creation of the GELC, Sun Microsystems is calling for Ministries of Education, K-12 and Higher Education institutions, and others responsible for defining national and regional education strategies, to come together as a global education and learning community to promote an open infrastructure based on a common set of open standards.’
February 7th, 2007 by Jorge Goncalves
The Academic Blog Portal. ‘Brad DeLong has described the academic blogosphere as a kind of Invisible College - this site is supposed to help make the College a little more visible to itself and its readers. It is a work in progress and will remain that way. It draws on updated information from (a) the Crooked Timber academic blogroll, (b) Cliopatria’s list of history weblogs and (c) Daniel Solove’s Law Professor Blogger Census. With the exception of a few pages (including this one), it is freely modifiable, so that users can themselves add blogs and other forms of content that may be useful to academic bloggers and academics academics more generally.’
Blogs in Education
Chronicle of Higher Education Articles on Academic Blogs
February 2nd, 2007 by Jorge Goncalves
Handheld Learning promotes the use of mobile technologies and mobility to enable transformational improvements in teaching and learning through conferences, online knowledge sharing, consulting, teacher training and the provision of innovative software.
Handheld Learning was formed in 2004 by Graham Brown-Martin who had envisaged the use of mobile computing devices for learning by children since the mid-1980’s when one of his companies was awarded a grant to develop one. The active shareholders include the former Chairman of Sony Europe and President of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, Chris Deering, Sega Europe’s former Chairman and deputy Managing Director, Frank Herman and Virgin Interactive Entertainments former President, Tim Chaney.
“Our vision is simple: Within the next 5 years every learner will have access to a mobile digital companion that may be used as a powerful learning tool.”
Handheld Learning Forum
Tags: Handheld Learning, Mobile Learning
