Archive for June, 2007
June 25th, 2007 by Jorge Goncalves
Education without complication. ‘Most teachers are familiar with the concept of social networking sites, but what can online networks offer professional development?
A paper from the MirandaNet Fellowship, a diverse body of education, government and industry figures, uses the fellowship’s own e-community to examine what online learning looks like in a professional organisation.
Braided Learning: an Emerging Process Observed in E-communities of Practice, identifies what it terms “braided learning” - how people working in online communities combine to answer a question or research issue posed. Rather than a homogenised report written in official-sounding language, the resulting “braided” text comprises individual contributions reflecting each contributor’s unique perspective. No effort is made by the learners to develop the kind of overall style that formal reports or academic research documents would traditionally demand. Learning is immediate - online responses can be instant - but the knowledge can also be built up over time.’
MirandaNet Fellowship. ‘The MirandaNet Fellowship, founded in 1992, is an e-community of practice for international ICT policy makers, teachers, teacher educators, researchers and commercial developers who are passionate about digital technology in teaching and learning and about using technologies to promote cultural understanding and democratic participation. Currently there are over 850 members in 43 countries worldwide. The website, online forums, seminars, workshops and projects run by members are funded by international partner companies and government agencies. Currently projects are running with 2Simple, Fronter, Inspiration, LogicaCMG, Oracle and Steljes.’
June 25th, 2007 by Jorge Goncalves
ProProfs Flashcards. ProProfs Flashcards is a free, community-oriented service aimed at providing students and educators with ability to study, find and export flashcards by either selecting from exhaustive library covering a wide variety of subjects or by creating their own.
Part of the appeal of ProProfs Flashcards to students is the extensive collection of existing flashcards covering a variety of subjects ranging from chemistry to computer science. ProProfs Flashcards library is among the largest flashcard libraries on the web, offering over 1,000,000 (1 million) flash cards free of charge organized into over 10,000 sets. The extensive set was created by a combination of various methods ranging from user contributions (during a 5 month beta release), to flashcards created by subject matter experts and those acquired by direct purchase from other third party sources and then tagged and offered in a suitable form.
Flashcard sets can also be created and edited by users, meaning that instructors can create flashcard sets from which their students can study. Continued user submissions and updates ensure that the free ProProfs Flashcards library will continue to be accurate, up-to-date and one of the most extensive free library available.
June 25th, 2007 by Jorge Goncalves
Web 2.0 Backpack: Web Apps for Students. ‘When I was in college most of the tools in this round up didn’t exist. It was truly the dark ages of education! Well, okay, it was a just a few years ago, but just in this decade, and especially in the last few years, a handful of tools to make school life easier have appeared. What follows is the set of web tools I would put in my backpack were I headed back to school tomorrow.’
June 18th, 2007 by Jorge Goncalves
University Podcast Collection at Open Culture. Very good. [via Distance Learning]
More podcasts at Open Culture: Podcast Library
Open Culture. ‘Open Culture explores cultural and educational media (podcasts, videos, online courses, etc.) that’s freely available on the web, and that makes learning dynamic, productive, and fun.’
June 17th, 2007 by Jorge Goncalves
Classroom 2.0. Classroom 2.0, created by Steve Hargadon, is a social networking site, devoted to those interested in the practical application of computer technology (especially Web 2.0) in the classroom and in their own professional development. Especially we hope that those who feel they are “beginners” will find this a comfortable place to start being a part of the community dialog and to learn more.’
Classroom 2.0 Wiki. The Classroom 2.0 wiki is intended for teachers and educators to help each other integrate and use technology in the classroom in practical ways.
Related: School 2.0 - School 2.0 goes beyond the practical discussion of applying the read/write and collaborative Web technologies in the classroom. It is, instead, a larger discussions of how education, learning, and our physical school spaces can (or should) change because of the changing nature of our social and economic lives brought on by these technologies - and School 2.0 Wiki
June 17th, 2007 by Jorge Goncalves
Pachyderm Project. ‘What is Pachyderm? Pachyderm is an easy-to-use multimedia authoring tool. Designed for people who have little or no multimedia authoring experience, Pachyderm is accessed through a web browser and is as easy to use as filling out a web form. Authors upload their own media (images, audio clips, and short video segments) and place them into pre-designed templates, which include built-in functionality for playing video and audio, linking to other templates, and other features. Descriptive text can be copied and pasted in, or authored directly in Pachyderm. Once screens have been completed and linked together, the presentation is published and can then be downloaded and placed on the author’s website, on a CD, or elsewhere. Authors may also leave their presentations on the Pachyderm server and link directly to them there. The result is an attractive, interactive Flash-based multimedia presentation.’
Pachyderm Project at New Media Consortium. For educational use, the New Media Consortium is offering free trial accounts through June 2007.
Pachyderm Showcase. Some examples of the creative work that is being done with Pachyderm.
June 17th, 2007 by Jorge Goncalves
Fathom - The Source for Online Learning. ‘This archive, provided by Columbia University, offers access to the complete range of free content developed for Fathom by its member institutions. Columbia encourages you to browse this archive of online learning resources, including lectures, articles, interviews, exhibits and free seminars. You can find additional online resources from Columbia University at Columbia Interactive or Columbia Educational Resources Online (CERO) and from the members of the Fathom consortium at their own websites.
Fathom Knowledge Network Inc., founded by Columbia in 1999, launched its website in the spring of 2000 with the goal of providing high quality educational resources to a global audience through the Internet. The Fathom academic consortium grew to include 14 leading educational and cultural institutions dedicated to that goal. The Fathom website ceased operations in March 2003, as part of a reorganization of Columbia University’s digital media activities.
Although visitors are no longer be able to purchase courses through Fathom, Columbia will provide this Fathom archive so that interested users may continue to access to the complete range of free content developed for Fathom by its member institutions. Columbia encourages you to browse this archive of online learning resources, including lectures, articles, interviews, exhibits and free seminars.’
Course Directory: Free Online Seminars from Fathom’s member institutions and course partners, offering the best in online education from top research institutions.
June 11th, 2007 by Jorge Goncalves
InstantWebQuest. ‘InstantWebquest is a web based software for creating WebQuests in a short time. When you use InstantWebQuest, you will not need any of writing HTML code or using any web editor software. InstantWebQuest creates all the necessary files and puts them into the server free. Hosting is free.
A WebQuest is an inquiry-oriented activity in which most or all of the information used by learners is drawn from the Web. WebQuests are designed to use learners’ time well, to focus on using information rather than looking for it, and to support learners’ thinking at the levels of analysis, synthesis and evaluation.’
This site includes a link to Midge Frazel’s great list of WebQuest resources: Understanding and Using WebQuests.
June 10th, 2007 by Jorge Goncalves
WikiGroaning. ‘WikiGroaning is the art of comparing the level of two things nerdyness based off Wikipedia results.
Its a pretty safe assumption that Wikipedia articles, although read by millions, are primarily written and updated by tech savvy people with a large amount of time on their hands (read: nerds).
Based off the level of contribution and size of individual articles, we here at WikiGroaning are able to tell the level of interest for any particular thing in the worldwide nerd community.
Its a very complex algorithm. We count the number of characters in the referenced article on Wikipedia, and then apply an advanced ratio to convert those characters to “Nerd Points”. Currently we’ve determined a ratio of 1:1 leads to the best results.’ [via TechCrunch]
Update: Random Walk in Learning lists 4 Wikipedia games, including WikiGroaning.
June 8th, 2007 by Jorge Goncalves
Landmarks Class Blogmeister. ‘Perhaps one of the most fascinating tools that has emerged from the Internet cloud in recent years is the Blog. A shortening of the term Web log, the Blog is an online publishing tool that enables people to easily publish their loves, passions, dislikes, peeves, discoveries, and insights.
Blogging is also showing up in schools, where teachers have known for a long time that students develop better communication skills when they are authentically communicating. A number of educators are helping their students developing their writing skills by having them publish their work as blogs, and then invite comments from people in the outside.
There are many freely available tools that facilitate blogging, but none seem especially suited for the classroom. That is the reason for BlogMeister. This online blogging tool is explicitly designed with teachers and students in mind, where the teacher can evaluate, comment on, and finally publish students’ blog articles in a controlled environment.’
David Warlick’s The Landmark Project - Landmarks for Schools. ‘Landmarks for Schools provides links to information building blocks: Web sites, pages, and interactive tools that provide information in the form of a raw material. The information and data that Landmarks… points to can be imported into other information processing tools and used in the meaningful construction of unique and valuable information products, within the context of social studies, science, mathematics, and other disciplines.’
June 8th, 2007 by Jorge Goncalves
Utopia Podcast at LearnOutLoud. ‘Written in 1515, Sir Thomas More’s famous narrative describes what could be considered the perfect society, and questions whether a perfect society is possible.’
Wikipedia: Utopia. ‘Utopia (from Greek: “no place” or “place that does not exist”) is an imaginary island, depicted by Sir Thomas More as a perfect social, legal, and political system. It may be used pejoratively, to refer to a society that is unrealistic and impossible to realize. It has also been used to describe actual communities founded in attempts to create an ideal society.’
Project Gutenberg: Utopia by Saint Sir Thomas More
June 8th, 2007 by Jorge Goncalves
ePortfolio 2007 Conference - Employability and Lifelong Learning in the Knowledge Society, Maastricht, The Netherlands, 17-19 October 2007. ‘ePortfolio 2007 is the key international event for the growing community of professionals interested in, and working with, ePortfolios. It brings together policy-makers, researchers, teachers, trainers, human resource managers and technologists. As a thematic event devoted to one domain, it allows an in-depth and broad exploration of the issues - and results in real outcomes. Past events have resulted in the creation of national and international networks, contribution to ePortfolio policy, the launch of the ePortfolio for All campaign, progress in ePortfolio interoperability through the Plugfest, transnational projects and numerous publications. The aims of this year’s conference are to build on this work and focus in particular on the role of the ePortfolio in the development and implementation of lifelong employability.’
