Archive for January, 2008
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.’
January 4th, 2008 by Jorge Goncalves
Collecting, Organizing, and Managing Resources for Teaching Educational Games the Wiki Way, Shelley Henson Johnson, Brett Shelton, and David Wiley, Innovate, Vol. 4, December 2007/January 2008. Synopsis: Recognizing the pedagogical value of gaming, academics along with game designers and educational content developers have begun producing resources to improve educational game design and make instructional games more accessible to teachers wanting to incorporate them into their classes. However, the rapid growth of such resources has made it difficult for educators and other interested parties to find what they need. As a first step towards addressing this problem, Shelley Henson Johnson, Brett Shelton, and David Wiley discuss the creation and proposed expansion of the Teaching Educational Games Resources wiki. They first created the wiki as part of a session at the Games, Learning and Society 2006 conference. Panelists and participants contributed to the wiki before, during, and after the conference session, creating an online space that incorporates syllabi and readings for educational game design, lists hundreds of online resources, and includes links to conferences and multimedia resources. After outlining the creation of the wiki, the authors suggest that its incorporation into an online self-organizing social system could facilitate its growth and the emergence of an online community of game designers, researchers, and educators interested in educational gaming.
Teaching Educational Games Resources Wiki. Current topics: Readings, Multi-media Materials, Technical Resources, Classroom Help, Additional Teaching Resources, Career Resources and Gaming and Libraries. Very good!
January 4th, 2008 by Jorge Goncalves
Leaders of theYear 2007: For the 20th year, T&L is proud to honor outstanding educators. In the following pages we bring you profiles of innovation, of courage, of determination, and most important, of dedication to the future of students. You will read about: a superintendent who turned around a “failing community” through the use of technology; an e-learning specialist who restructured an entire state’s approach professional development; a technology director who, against great odds, developed a digital academy for at-risk students; and a graphic arts teacher who single-handedly trained small-town students to compete and win on a global with 21st-century technologies.’
Awards of Excellence: ‘At this quarter-century mark in our Awards of Excellence program, we are happy to recognize 54 high-quality offerings for the 21st-century education market. From 120 entries, our 32 educator-judges and editorial team had the tough job of whittling down this broad selection of practical and innovative tools and resources.’
