Archive for the 'Educational Technologies' Category
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.
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 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 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.’
November 9th, 2007 by Jorge Goncalves
Campus Technology: Tips for Using Chat as an Instructional Tool by Ruth Reynard. ‘Chat software (text or media-based) provides an excellent tool in supporting academic dialog (exchange), critical thinking, and knowledge building. The immediacy of the technology provides students with a direct connection with the instructor as well as other students. While chat software is usually used for “chatting,” and, therefore, it has a relaxed and colloquial protocol, with a little thought and planning, it can also be used well to support instruction.
Many classroom instructors and online instructors use chat software to provide virtual office hours and for easy question and answer sessions. More, however, can be achieved in the instructional process using the tool to create real-time collaboration and discussion that leads to in-depth academic processing of course material.’
October 25th, 2007 by Jorge Goncalves
iLearning Forum 2008. The iLearning Forum 2008 will take place on Monday 4th February and Tuesday 5th February 2008 at the Palais des Congrès de Paris. This event is the largest international and European eLearning conference in France and attracts policy-makers, human resource managers, trainers, teachers and suppliers of learning technology solutions from all over Europe and worldwide - over 30 countries were represented in 2007. Following from eLearnExpo, this will be the 7th year that eLearning professionals from France, Europe and overseas are brought together in Paris to explore learning technologies. The theme of this year’s event is “Learning in the 21st century”.
Access to the exhibition as well as the Exhibition Presentation Area is free. Pre-registration is recommended for quick and easy
access to the event.
Conference themes: Designing eStrategies for learning organisations, Designing learning spaces with advanced learning technologies, Exploiting the full potential of digital identity and Improving quality of learning with technologies.
October 18th, 2007 by Jorge Goncalves
The Economist Debate Series:
First Debate, Oct. 15th-23rd, 2007: Effectiveness of Technology - Does new technology add to the quality of education?
In favour of the proposition is Sir John Daniel, President and CEO of The Commonwealth of Learning. Opposing the motion is Dr Robert Kozma, Emeritus Director and Principal Scientist at SRI International.
Second Debate: National Competitiveness - Should countries compete to attract qualified students regardless of nationality and residence?
Third Debate: Social Networking - Does it bring positive change to education?
October 7th, 2007 by Jorge Goncalves
‘Alice is an innovative 3D programming environment that makes it easy to create an animation for telling a story, playing an interactive game, or a video to share on the web. Alice is a freely available teaching tool designed to be a student’s first exposure to object-oriented programming. It allows students to learn fundamental programming concepts in the context of creating animated movies and simple video games. In Alice, 3-D objects (e.g., people, animals, and vehicles) populate a virtual world and students create a program to animate the objects.
In Alice’s interactive interface, students drag and drop graphic tiles to create a program, where the instructions correspond to standard statements in a production oriented programming language, such as Java, C++, and C#. Alice allows students to immediately see how their animation programs run, enabling them to easily understand the relationship between the programming statements and the behavior of objects in their animation. By manipulating the objects in their virtual world, students gain experience with all the programming constructs typically taught in an introductory programming course.’
October 1st, 2007 by Jorge Goncalves
Art Education 2.0 - Using New Technology in Art Classrooms. ‘Art Education 2.0 is for art educators at all levels who are interested in using digital technologies to enhance and transform teaching and learning in their classrooms. The aim of Art Education 2.0 is to explore ways of using technology to promote effective art education practices, encourage cultural exchanges and joint creative work, and support artistic projects and curricular activities deemed important by members. Art Education 2.0 is a social network created by Craig Roland on Ning.’
Ning in Education - Using Ning for Educational Social Networks: the social network for those using the Ning social networking platform in education.
Ning social networks tagged ‘education’
September 30th, 2007 by Jorge Goncalves
University of Manitoba’s Learning Technologies Centre’s Blended Learning Wiki. ‘There is no agreement on the definition of blended learning. The term is used in a wide variety of ways, and applied to a wide range of teaching and learning approaches.
Many blended learning definitions refer to conventional face-to-face teaching and learning activities (synchronous) that are mixed or blended with technology mediated learning activities not offered in real time at a specific location (asynchronous).
It should also be noted that in most formal educational settings (credit courses) there has always been a blend of space/time learning activities. Whether in the form of homework, assignments, or studying, almost all courses require independent or group learning activities to occur beyond scheduled instructional time.’
University of Manitoba’s Learning Technologies Centre (TLC). ‘Now in its second year, the goal of the Learning Technologies Centre (TLC) is to provide faculty and graduate students the resources and collaborative support to research, develop, and create pedagogically and technologically sound teaching and learning resources.’
Visit also: LTC Wiki
