WebToolsforLearners

Moved to WordPress

2008-02-18T14:51:00.002-05:00

Well I've made a move I've been contemplating for a long time - I've moved my WebToolsForLearners blog from here on Blogger to WordPress - http://joanvinallcox.wordpress.com/ because -

So many bloggers I admire are using it;
It has more possibilities to play around with; and
I learn by playing around and it's time for a new "sandbox".

Please read me there - http://joanvinallcox.wordpress.com/

WebTools For Learners via kwout

Web 2.0 and Responsible Educators

2008-02-14T11:53:00.005-05:00

If you read this blog regularly, you will know that I believe setting up your computer as your own PLE (Personal Learning Environment) or as some call it, your PLWE (Personal Learning and Working Environment) is a basic step in being efficient on the web. When I have research time, and sometimes just because I feel like it, I go to the web to learn more and to keep up with what is available and useful for me and for other educators. I see this as basic life and professional research, and something all educational professionals should be concerned about, both for themselves and for their students.

Uploaded with plasq's Skitch!

Although I've been using my RSS reader Bloglines as the source for my "harvesting" for my ongoing learning, recently I find I've been neglecting it somewhat because I go to it after I collect professionally and personally relevant URLs from those I follow on Twitter.

Uploaded with plasq's Skitch!

An aside, I'm proud of the background I uploaded, a photo I took, then manipulated in Photoshop. I plan to continue being seasonal in my background.
The people I follow on Twitter:

Uploaded with plasq's Skitch!

As you can see, I like having visuals along with my text;->

A couple of days ago, I found some interesting-looking material that I didn't have time to read. I added them to my del.icio.us account and tagged them, but knew they could easily disappear into that great reservoir of learning possibilities. So I tried out something I'd read about on Twitter - Instapaper, which allows me to save articles and blog posts to be read later. I have put its link on my personal Bookmarks toolbar, and I save things there, and maybe ;-> read them later. (There are so many choices, so much available!)

Uploaded with plasq's Skitch!

This description of my PLE and my web reading/researching process is a lead-up to, and I hope, a demonstration of, what the two articles I eventually read, and am blogging about, said.
First, from JISC - http://www.jisc.ac.uk/news/stories/2008/01/googlegen.aspx -

New report reveals the information needs of the researchers and learners of the future
A new report, commissioned by JISC and the British Library, counters the common assumption that the ‘Google Generation’ – young people born or brought up in the Internet age – is the most adept at using the web. The report by the CIBER research team at University College London claims that, although young people demonstrate an ease and familiarity with computers, they rely on the most basic search tools and do not possess the critical and analytical skills to asses the information that they find on the web.

and

The findings also send a stark message to government - that young people are dangerously lacking information skills. Well-funded information literacy programmes are needed, it continues, if the UK is to remain as a leading knowledge economy with a strongly-skilled next generation of researchers.

This research supports what I have seen in Canadian classrooms, and leads directly to my next quote from David Parry's Science Progress blog post about the use of Wikipedia in academia - http://www.scienceprogress.org/2008/02/wikipedia-and-the-new-curriculum/ I was particularly struck by the following:

It is irresponsible for educational institutions not to teach new knowledge technologies such as Wikipedia. I should probably admit upfront that I am not a scientist by training; my scholarship grows out of literary studies and a concern for how literacy changes in the age of the digital. Wikipedia, or more generally the networked archival structure it represents, alters the way in which we create, share, and record knowledge, and thus has rather significant effects on how we approach education across all disciplines, and specifically in technology and science. Students and teachers alike must understand how systems of knowledge creation and archivization are changing. Encyclopedias are no longer static collections of facts and figures; they are living entities, and the new software changes the rules of expertise.

and

When I hear debates about the digital divide, access is often the largest issue, as if merely having access to computers solves the problem. “Bring computers into the schools and fund technology” are the regular solutions. However, the technology here is merely secondary: what is more important is teaching people how this technology changes the social sphere so that students too can be empowered to engage the polis rather than being passive users of Word Processing programs. Knowledge of how to indent paragraphs on a computer or make bullet points for a Power Point presentation is meaningless without the more important literacy of how to use these new media collaboratively to create a different kind of knowledge. Literacy in modern society means not only being able to read a variety of informational formats; it means being able to participate in their creation, with Wikipedia serving as the marquee example.

I suggest that you read the whole post, especially if you think you disagree.

Book-Reading Online

2008-02-13T09:09:00.004-05:00

I have put a book up online, where it can be read easily and comfortably, even aesthetically. Let me introduce how and why.

My high school typing class was pre-electric typewriter, and what I learned was that I was lousy at typing and I hated it. The first time I saw a student who was a struggling writer learn how to use the Bank Street Writer, an early word processor, I knew writing with a computer, where I could correct without re-copying, was for me.

olivettimp1grey-03221.jpg (JPEG Image, 500x433 pixels) via kwout

I was introduced to dos, and I hated it! Even when I copied out step-by-step instructions, I still frequently had to ask for help. Mild dyslexia might have been part of this, and only a very strong pull to write kept me going back to this early computer system.

When the college where I worked introduced Windows, I was delighted to discover the GUI - that is, the Graphical User Interface! (Imitating the visual and user-friendly Mac)

GUIs in the era of commodity hardware via kwout

As a writer and a writing & communications teacher, I began to see what a profound communications tool this was. Mentored by two women who were computer experts, I began to play. I created a website using Netscape Navigator's Composer (I love WYSIWYG) and managed to learn about computer and web use for communicating without ever learning anything but a few dribbles of HTML code.

If you are wondering what this had to do with reading books online, be patient, just a little more introduction;->

I had come to believe that we, my generation, were living through the most profound change in communications (and therefore of human culture) since the printing press. I returned to school determined to write a thesis both about and demonstrating the learning required for, and the impact of, the personal computer and the web. I was lucky enough to have Dr Patrick Diamond supervise me as I wrote an autoethnographic arts-based narrative inquiry, probably the only way I could actually demonstrate the possibilities of word-processing and the web. I would have made my thesis multimedia, if I'd had the skills required at that era (2004). I was happy to settle for using a variety of fonts and layouts, each conveying a different "voice" (inspired by authors such as Stephen King in Misery) and lots of screenshots.

I sent my thesis out to some academic publishers, who rejected it. I knew that the extensive use of different fonts and coloured screenshots would make it very expensive, and that in itself, made it unlikely to be published. After a couple of years, I investigated what it would cost to publish through lulu; too much.

A few days ago, someone on Twitter, (sorry I forget who) referred to issuu. I looked at it. I was struck by four things:

It kept the appearance of my pages intact;
It suggested the aesthetic experience of reading with a beautiful page-turning animation;
It accepted even very large pdf files; and
It was free.

I uploaded my thesis and embedded it in the previous post in this blog. I had some struggles with the size of text and moving through it, but it was beautiful. I mentioned my blog post in Twitter and Ignatia responded, and expanded in her blog - http://ignatiawebs.blogspot.com/2008/02/document-sharing-software.html - and I discovered Scribd . (Thanks Ignatia.)

I liked four things about Scribd :

It kept the appearance of my pages intact;
It was easy to move through the text;
It accepted even very large pdf files; and
It was free.

So my thesis is up on both issuu and scribd.

I'd love to hear what you think of both issuu and scribd, and maybe even of my thesis;->

Following The Thread - my Ph.D. Thesis

2008-02-10T17:55:00.000-05:00

Losing My Web Home

2008-02-08T11:17:00.000-05:00

Gratitude and acknowledging what I have been given are important values for me, and, while I appreciate the space I have here on Blogger, my first web community, my first web home, was Elgg/EduSpaces. On my most recent birthday, I wrote about it, and the community I am/was part of there:

Joan Vinall-Cox :: Blog via kwout

A year earlier, I had described why I liked Elgg/EduSpaces so much, and quoted some student comments about it.

Joan Vinall-Cox :: Blog :: An Encomium for Elgg via kwout

Now the EduSpaces community is being migrated to another home, and I am grateful that Elgg's creators have set up that solution, but I can't help feeling that something important is being lost, so I am grieving.

Change happens; I know that. And some of my EduSpaces Friends show up on Twitter, and I will find their blogs so I can continue to follow them through RSS, but my first web home, where I learned so much about web possibilities, will be dismantled at the end of this month.

I've already have a number of web spots outside of my elgg/EduSpaces nest, for example this blog, but I will miss the nurturing I experienced in my first web community, and I thank Dave, Ben and Misja for what they have given me, my Friends, and my fellows.

For eNews Junkies

2008-02-05T11:45:00.000-05:00

For those of you who are fascinated by this American electoral process, the BBC have a very comprehensive site - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/629/629/7223461.stm - where American bias is less likely.

For Canadians and those interested in copyright news, I recommend THE most knowledgable person in Canada on Canadian copyright legislation, and elobbyist for a democratic web - Michael Geist.

Michael Geist - Blog via kwoat

On copyright legislation - http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/2666/125/
On the role of technology in Obama's run for the presidency - http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/2675/135/

Learning by Ear

2008-02-02T14:09:00.000-05:00

I grew up listening to my mother play piano "by ear". She'd taken piano lessons after her older sister and heard her practice all the pieces she would be learning. After a few lessons the teacher told my grandparents that there was no point in paying for piano lessons for my Mom, as she was playing "by ear". She could play any piece after hearing it a few times so she didn't need to learn to read music. She played beautifully, and very expressively without the benefit of lessons.

94samick.jpg (JPEG Image, 1681x1607 pixels) - Scaled (46%) via kwout

A few years back, fellow teachers and some students began to talk about visual, audio, and kinesthetic learners, declaring that each person favoured certain senses for taking in information, for learning. With the advent of the web with its sight and sound possibilities, learners can choose to learn through a variety of media, and perceptual channels.

Podcasting specialist, Donna Papacosta, in her Trafcom News blog, links to the Online Education Database, where you can listen, for free, to speakers, using iTunes U, on topics like Human-Computer Interaction, Engineering Ethics, or a wide variety of others, from universities such as Queen's , Harvard, and the University of Glasgow. If you see yourself as an auditory learner, (cross-sensory phrasing deliberate) or simply would prefer to listen rather than read while commuting, check out the Online Education Database

Google Searching Tricks

2008-02-01T17:30:00.000-05:00

Every so often I see a blog post that I want to not just save in my del.icio.us account - http://del.icio.us/shiftingsemiosis - but I want to actively learn how to use. LifeHacker's Top 10 Obscure Google Search Tricks is one of those. The list starts at 10, and, although I'd re-order a couple of the tricks, all of them are more than useful, exciting even.
Here are some of my favorites:

Lifehacker Top 10: Top 10 Obscure Google Search Tricks via kwout

There are other tricks - go to Lifehacker - Top 10 Obscure Google Search Tricks - to see the rest!

"That's The Way We've Always Done It." & Schools

2008-01-25T17:27:00.000-05:00

Ian Jukes of edtechnot.com has an excellent, easy-to-understand article explaining why school reform is so necessary and so difficult:

Ian Jukes article - 1/03 via kwout

I recommend the whole article, especially if you disagree with it - http://www.edtechnot.com/notarticle103.html - because the snippit I've supplied doesn't include the logic.

Via Experiencing E-Learning - http://christytucker.wordpress.com/2008/01/24/daily-bookmarks-01242008/ - final link.

Newpapers and the Web - Influences

2008-01-22T15:44:00.000-05:00

I'm finding it fascinating watching how the web is influencing the look and structure of newspapers. By the 1940s, magazines with their frequent images had begun influencing newspapers, as pictures became frequent, especially on the front page.

f0d7_1_b.JPG (JPEG Image, 400x300 pixels) via kwout

Readers read by glancing at various headlines and choosing articles, and often reading only a bit before moving on to another, or back to a previously started one. In some ways, the layout of these midcentury newspapers predated the glancing way people currently read web pages, as seen in this reading map of webpages:

F-Shaped Pattern For Reading Web Content (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox) via kwout

spapers appeared to be more influenced by the layout of magazines than by the web.

250px-Liberal_Landslide,_Globe_and_Mail_cover.jpg (JPEG Image, 250x405 pixels) via kwout

However over the past year I've seen changes that I attribute directly to the influence of the web. While many people I know would think that I was making a negative and critical statement about the changes in newspapers, I am not. I see these changes as intelligent awareness of the impact of the web on how we read. I also see them as making newpapers both more attractive too, and more likely to be read by, the digital generation, a real positive.

The first change I noticed had to do with the numbering of the newspaper sections in the Toronto Star. All my adult newspaper-reading life, the sections had been numbered by using the letters of the alphabet. I knew where to find the comics because I could find the section labelled 'F' right after the section labelled 'E' and before 'G'. I was used to that. Alphabetical indexing was a well-established structure (which developed as a result of the invention of printing, but that another story.) Then some time ago, something called "tagging" was invented for the web, because linking is part of how the web works. This resulted in people expecting a "label" that was also a "keyword".

When the Toronto Star switched from alphabetical labelling to a kind of tagging of its sections, I didn't notice at first. The logic of labelling the Sports section 'S', and the Life section 'L' made immediate sense to me, and I'm sure to almost everybody. The first section remained 'A' and the, usually second, World section became the variation 'AA', but the Business section was 'B' even though it was rarely, if ever, second. Perhaps not verybody sees this change as influenced by the web, but I do.

I challenge anyone to deny the influence of the web in the way today's front page is laid out.

TheStar.com - Today's Paper via kwout

Pictures catch the eye first, and the text is there to support the information in the pictures, just as on well-designed web pages. Then it's almost as though headings were hyperlinks, that you could click on (read below) for more information. The information is conveyed initially by the graphics, and the text is augmented further by graphics.

Our culture is becoming more visual in the representation of information, and was even before the net. The increasing use of photos as part of newspapers and magazines grew steadily during the 20th Century, and was indirectly augmented by movie and tv. We like visually conveyed information and attractive graphic design, and the smart communicators know that. And, the side of the newspaper and web connection I haven't mentioned, the fact that I collected all my images from the web and are publishing them on the web, even though what I'm observing is newspapers!

Also posted at http://eduspaces.net/vinall/weblog

Fun, fun, fun!

2008-01-17T21:41:00.000-05:00

Through Jane Hart's Jane's E-Learning Pick of the Day, http://janeknight.typepad.com/pick/2008/01/waholizer.html here's me, as seen through the Warholizer Give it a try;->

Has the Computer and the Web Changed Writing?

2008-01-16T19:00:00.000-05:00

I was at a session for writing instructors today; we were discussing whether we could actually teach students how to edit their writing. As we talked about our various approaches, I remembered the room I boarded in my last year as an undergrad. I remembered how small it was and how the roof sloped over the bed so I had to be careful sitting up or I could bang my head. I remembered the really small table and how I did my editing on the floor, on the throw rug, usually after midnight before the day of the class it was due.

I would have books from my university library or the local one piled on my bed. I would have recipe cards with the names of the books I was quoting from and/or using in my bibliography in a pile to the side. I would have another pile of cards with useful quotes copied out onto them fanned out in front of me on the rug I was kneeling on. Lots of blank pages and scotch tape would be in front of me too, and my rough draft on my knees as I cut it into stripes so I could restructure it. I would lay out the stripes of paper and the cards with my quotes in the order I thought would 'work', then I would read through the collection and rearrange it a few times, before finalizing. I would write out new bits in between and then tape the stripes or cards that fit in next on the page. I would end up with several very messy, floppy pages, carefully numbered so I wouldn't get the order confused.

Then I would move to the small table that served as my desk, get some fresh paper, and begin copying out my essay by hand, on every other line. I hated doing the bibliography; I could never remember where the periods, commas and semi-colons went, and I couldn't believe it was all that important. And I knew I was a poor speller but often defiently refused to look up words. (At 3:00 a.m. I often felt defiant.) I used White Out too often, and did the covering page last, often as the sun was rising. Then I had breakfast and staggered through the day until whenever class was, when I handed in my essay in person, as required. Then I crashed!

I suspect some of today's students have a somewhat similar pattern in terms of timing. But let's look at some of the details of their process. Today almost all students will have, or have access to, a computer, and their rough draft will be written using a word processor. They will also use the computer for research, using the web to access web sites, some available on the open web, but also some found using Google Scholar or other academic search engines. Some will use Google Scholar as a portal into their university's online resources and journals, if their university has added their library to the Google network, and if the students have their student number and the password. Some will order books, using the deep selection available online through sites like Amazon and Indigo rather than local bookstores. Some will have books from the library, but chances are they will use the web to check and see if the book was available and perhaps to put a hold on it.

Some students will be using their del.icio.us account or some other social bookmarking application to collect their online resources and tag them with helpful labels, including, perhaps, the name of the course or the essay topic. Some of the more (web 2.0) sophisticated students may be using the research tool, Zotero, a free Firefox extension.

Zotero: The Next-Generation Research Tool via kwout

Even if they find Zotero too web bound for their taste, they will be writing up their notes and drafts using a word processor. Copying and re-copying text writing by hand or by typing is just too onerous. They will copy & paste, not kneeling on the floor using scissors, paper, recipe cards and scotch tape, but by using keystrokes or clicking on menus. They won't be getting defiant about their spelling, they will just right click on the words underlined in red, and then click on the correct (we hope) word to replace it. They need to learn new skills with this new tool, like making sure that the word they chose is, indeed, the word they mean. And they will have to be taught to double-check what happened when they copied & pasted. It's way too easy to leave a word dangling or the wrong form of the verb sitting there after the copy & paste, (especially at 3:00 a.m.!)

When they get close to the final draft, today's students should be pushed to print their work up, read it out loud looking for typos, and doing a final proof-reading to make corrections. When they have made the corrections, they need to make sure they have the font specified by the professor, and the line-spacing. There are more things to check for in word-processing, even though it looks neater and, therefore, deceptively as if it is correct.

The title page can be done minimally, or almost graphically designed, if the student is sophisticated enough to understand that it will likely influence the prof's attitude toward the paper even before he or she reads it. And what about the bibliography? Even if today's students haven't taken the time to use Zotero's many tutorials to learn how to use it to cite, there are ways to make creating a Works Cited or Bibliography section that are much easier than I had it back in the pre-web days.

BibMe is one of the many web-based automatic bibliography-makers that makes this final stage much easier.

BibMe - Free Automatic Bibliography Maker (MLA,APA,Chicago,Turabian) via kwout

Getting to class and turning the essay in isn't the same either. Some profs, sometimes, accept the essay by email, which means that s soon as today's student attaches the final file and hits "Send", it's bedtime!

In the years since I was a student the phenomenological aspect of writing an essay has changed phenomenologically! Do those assigning and/or teaching writing understand that and help the students cope with these differences?

del.icio.us - Effective Social Bookmarking

2008-01-15T10:19:00.000-05:00

One of my favorite aspects of the web is the ability to link to other sites. My favorite part of being able to link to other sites is the capacity to store, organize, and re-find those sites using tagging, and social bookmarking. (If you aren't familiar with these terms and actions, I've linked backup information at the bottom of this post.)

As part of collecting and organizing links, I'm always watching for links I can learn from, and share so others can learn from them to (and to avoid unnecessary reinventions of already well-made wheels.)

In that vein, I offer this link from Lifehack.org
- http://www.lifehack.org/articles/technology/top-10-ways-to-use-delicious.html

Wikipedia

tagging - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tag_%28metadata%29
social bookmarking - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_bookmarking

WebToolsForLearners

tagging - http://webtoolsforlearners.blogspot.com/2007/12/tagging-for-organizing-information.html
social bookmarking - the indepth version - http://webtoolsforlearners.blogspot.com/2007/08/understanding-social-bookmarking.html

Knowledge and Learning - Graham Attwell

2008-01-10T12:33:00.000-05:00

I find Graham Attwell's (research-based) thoughts on how learning occurs now fascinating.

| View | Upload your own

What do you think?

Skitch - An Easy Tool for Pictures - Macs Only

2008-01-09T20:31:00.000-05:00

Skitch Beta, a Mac application, is free and a lot of fun. It's almost worth buying a Mac just to get a copy;-> I've been using it to add pictures to my edublog - here and here. It works well with Flickr, my photos, and screenshots. Unfortunately, it isn't available for PCs yet.

You can see the screenshots that I simply dragged onto Skitch, which made them .jpgs, and the two places I could either click to drag the image onto the desktop or another page, or with two clicks get a Skitch webpage opened - and simply click to copy and paste it into the post using Blogger's image icon
To learn more - go here - http://skitch.com/ - and request your own version - if you are on a Mac.

Using Styles for Academic Papers, & Zotero for Research

2008-01-01T16:22:00.000-05:00

Writing essays, papers, dissertations and other academic pieces is (or should be) radically changed by two tools:

the Styles tool in word-processing;
Zotero, the Firefox researching tool.

Teachers who have your students research and write, take note: your students need to learn how to use these tools, consequently so do you;-> There's an article on the Next Generation of Bibliographic Manager in the latest issue of Innovate, a journal of online education. You can register for free and get an email notifying you whenever a new issue and the related podcasts are available. I recommend it, especially if you plan on getting further education yourself. (Most of the links to tutorials below come from the article on the bibliographic manager, Zotero.)

The Styles Tool

The name of this tool confused me for a long time and I initially avoided it. Luckily, one of my students took the time to explain it to me, and I immediately set out to lean how to use it because I could see how time-saving it would be. Here is a brief explanation of what Styles is and why it's so useful: http://spot.colorado.edu/~baileysm/tutorials/Word_Styles_Demo.htm Although this demo is based on MSWord, a version of Styles can be found on the free office software, NeoOffice, and on the Mac iWorks word-processor, Pages.

Just the automatically generated and clickable updating of a Table of Contents is worth the time it takes to learn how to use Styles. Not to mention the fact that it is simply part of a professional writer's skillset.

Managing Research and Creating a Bibliography

You can get a sense of why Zotero is so important and useful by checking out this Zotero Quick Start Guide, especially the two brief videos.

While I recommend getting students using Zotero ASAP, some easier bibliographic tools, without the research component, are the following:

So get ready for writing your own academic pieces and helping your students write theirs by learning about these tools and practising using them.

Cross published at http://www.commun-it.org/community/vinall/weblog/663.html

The Challenge!

2007-12-28T09:31:00.000-05:00

Uploaded with Skitch!

from - http://www.weblogcartoons.com/2007/04/17/you-vs-technology/

Tagging - For Organizing Information

2007-12-27T12:43:00.000-05:00

One of the most important aspects of the web today is a way of organizing information called tagging (or, on Blogger, labelling). You could say that tagging is the child of alphabetical indexing - a post-Gutenberg information management invention - and hyperlinking - a web networking development. You can see what this looks like in the tag cloud pictured below.

Uploaded with Skitch!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tag_%28metadata%29 (If you want to learn about Web 2.0, you can click on the link to Wikipedia and then click on the various hyperlinked terms in the image to read the Wikipedia definitions. The size indicates how often each is used.)

A Very Small History Lesson
Humans spoke before we wrote and for centuries we dealt with information by remembering, sometimes using memory aids like rhyme, rhythm, and formulaic storytelling. Then writing developed, and people could note down information, and compose stories. Sacred writings passed wisdom along the generational chain, with "books" being tied together into one unit, no matter what their subject matter. A small elite of those who could read and write formed, and were usually part of a priesthood devoted to preserving, accumulating, and passing along the wisdom. All the "books" were hand-copied and some priests had books virtually memorized, but that didn't create the absolute uniformity that came with the printed word.

Uploaded with Skitch!

from - http://etc.usf.edu/clipart/4200/4255/printing-press_1.htm

When the printing press was invented, exact copies could be made, and human interventions, mistakes and alterations didn't cause variations among copies. Reading, in the European world was still associated with the sacred, although universal literacy was seen as a way to allow everyone to have immediate connection with the Holy Scriptures rather than having to go through a hierarchy of priests. With the growth of universal literacy, many other developments followed, including the ability to "read" (and interpret) the same texts differently, which created dissent. People began to reproduce books other than scriptures, and thus to share and spread philosophical and scientific thought, which sped up "progress" and led to even more differing opinions.

For scholars and readers, other developments were built on the uniformity of the books being published using a printing press. In order to avoid reading a whole book while looking for one piece of information, the organizational development that most links (pun intended) to tagging was developed.

Uploaded with Skitch!

While information and ideas were being discovered, collected, and published, readers began to want to read just parts of (non-narrative) books. Now that many people could read books where the pages always stayed the same, it became easier to manage information. Scholars started creating categories, or taxonomies, so they could find specific information quickly and completely. They began using indexes at the ends of books, and alphabetizing these indexes; it was worth the time it took for someone to index the information in a book to make it more accessible to the many readers of the book.

It quickly became essential for any learner to learn how to use indexes in books and in libraries, and systems of organizing information developed as rigid categories were set up, and people learned how to use them.

With the arrival of the World Wide Web came the possibilities of hyperlinking. Taxonomies & alphabetical indexing (top down hierarchically controlled) plus hyperlinking (giving choice in reading/viewing paths)combined and in Web 2.0 tagging was born.

I use tagging for my blog posts, to make it easier for readers to search for the topics that interest them. However, the real power of tagging, for me, comes with my online bookmarks. I use del.icio.us - to collect website addresses, URLs, for future reference. I use words or phrases that have meaning for me as keywords. Sometimes when I'm adding a site to my del.icio.us account, a tag may be a general topic, like, say, "social_bookmarking" or it might be highly idiosyncratic, like the course code of a course I teach, or I might add both plus the name of a friend whom I'll send the link to next week, or all of them. For example,

Uploaded with Skitch!

While I check through the blogs I follow, using my feed reader, I don't read them in full, but I do add the relevant ones to my del.icio.us account, and now have an extensive collection of tags -

Uploaded with Skitch!

far more than I can show you in a screen shot. They are an invaluable resource, and they are named for my interests and needs, not according to a rigid and prescribed set of terms.

Tagging is a new and highly useful way to organize information, a method that didn't exist, before the web.

Understanding PLEs and Learning

2007-12-26T11:52:00.000-05:00

Through Stephen Downes' OLDaily I encountered What the Heck is a PLE and Why Would I Want One?. It is aimed at teachers, but students and parents would find its brief, clear explanation of the differences between Course Management Systems (CMS) and Personal Learning Exvironments (VLE) helpful.

| View | Upload your own

Have your sound up when you check it out.

How Lucky Do You Feel About the Environment?

2007-12-20T13:42:00.000-05:00

Through Twitter, (and sorry but I can't remember whose blog), I discovered an interesting and diverse collection of 2007 videos - one is essential to watch. Our lives depend on it, - - - and it can be used in schools to teach critical thinking. Here is the link: http://www.twistimage.com/share2007/#/Joseph-Jaffe/

I urge you to watch it and share it!

Canadian Copyright - Educate Yourself!

2007-12-17T20:37:00.000-05:00

From Michael Geist's Blog - http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/2431/125/ - how to take action - and power!

The Good and the Bad News About Teaching Writing

2007-12-17T11:03:00.000-05:00

Now that I am no longer buried in teaching and marking, I can begin to read (and learn) from my favorite blogs again. Here, through a link from my favorite information disseminater, Stephen Downes, is a clear honest evaluation about the state of writing, and teaching writing, and why this is important in the overall scheme of things, by Michael Umphrey. Please read it!
How to Improve the Teaching of Writing/

A Novel at 14

2007-11-22T20:18:00.000-05:00

For about a year and a half I've been working with a very bright young woman, now 14 years old. I am pleased and proud to announce that she has recently published her first novel, Amelie of the Mitesen. It is a coming-of-age story set in a fantasy world somewhat similar to that of the Metis.

I did none of the writing; I simply told her what I thought was well written, and where she needed to add more of a set-up to parts of the story. It is all her ideas and all her words.

Feel free to order a copy from Lulu.com - http://www.lulu.com/content/1151511

In My Study

2007-11-17T23:29:00.001-05:00

What the sun says in passing ...

The remains of beauty.

Hacking Mail Accounts

2007-11-04T19:19:00.000-05:00

I heard a disturbing story today from a friend. She has a Yahoo mail account, or rather, she had one. Someone hacked into it and sent emails to everyone in her contacts list. I can't remember if she said all her files were destroyed as well; we were both rushing in different directions.

All her contacts got an email starting "Hello Dear" which her kids immediately recognized as a fraud because she never uses that kind of phrase. The email continued, telling her contacts that she was stranded in Africa, and where they could send the money she needed to get back home.

I don't want to increase anyone's paranoia, but that level of fraud is pretty scary. My friend is a smart lady, and she took action immediately, but it has caused her a lot of trouble and anxiety. I don't know what would allow that kind of security breech. Does anybody know how to avoid that kind of hacking?

Urban Architecture - Reflecting Contrast

2007-10-31T21:47:00.000-04:00

Lately I keep 'seeing' the contrasts and correspondences of current urban architecture and how it frames itself. Digital cameras entice me to practice seeing what I see.

Zonbu - A Green and Cheap Computer

2007-10-26T15:56:00.000-04:00

I was sitting in my exercise Second Cup, a 20 minute walk each way, and leafing through one of the magazines - Forbes, I think, when I came across and article on a new make of computer. I could hardly get my head around the price for Zonbu, a computer.

Just $99.00 - (and currently, it doesn't matter whether that's Canadian or American!) It's a gift price. Even though you have to supply a keyboard and pay $12.95 (or more) a month, it's still remarkably cheap.

I like the set-up, too. I'm a fan of online applications, especially free ones. I already use Firefox and Open Office, and store some of my files online in my G.Space - http://www.getgspace.com/ and in my Box account. I think the plan to use the web is very forward thinking.

This is not an advertisement and I'm not going to give up my Mac for a Zonbu just yet, but this is the future. High storage and high cost applications will be for professionals, and perhaps the first home computer. Second or third computers, and computers for students, will be Zonbu computers, or something like them.

Mac + Kitten - Way Too Cute!

2007-10-22T21:55:00.000-04:00

Sometimes even cuteness has a purpose

My apologies if you're offended by cuteness or kittens, or Macs;->

Found through Christopher Sessums

A Wiki Showcasing Web 2.0 Learning Tools

2007-10-20T23:34:00.000-04:00

releasethehounds - http://releasethehounds.wikispaces.com/ is a wiki aimed at teachers and showing what can be done, by teachers and by students.

Among the tools it showcases are VoiceThreads, - www.voicethread.com - YouTube, - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZfqOTWQCuA - and SlideShare, - http://www.slideshare.net/charbeck1/scribepost-119097 - all free and fairly straightforward to learn how to use. All both audio and visual.
Courtesy of the prolific and generous Stephen Downes's OLDaily

The Information Revolution

2007-10-18T09:33:00.000-04:00

I believe that we are in the middle of an amazing shift in our knowledge semiosis. After about 6000 years of writing and 400 years of print, we are in the digital age with world wide access to an abundance of information, available on a world wide platform, delivered in a mixture of media. Michael Wesch has put another of his brilliant short videos up on YouTube, this one demonstrating the impact of the information revolution we are currently careering through.

Link found through Donna Papacosta, blogger, podcaster, and all round amazing!

"Knocked Up" - A Story by and for the Boys

2007-10-16T14:16:00.000-04:00

I saw "Knocked Up" a couple of nights ago, and I was underwhelmed. What I had expected to focus on a highly female experience was told from the point of view of immature males. First, to respond at the depth the movie encouraged, that is, shallowly, I couldn't believe the couple. The woman, Kathleen Heigl, was beautiful, and she can act; I've seen her in Grey's Anatomy. The male lead was about as unlikely as possible, and certainly no pleasure for females to look at. (Did I mention "shallow"?)And he declaimed rather than acted. I couldn't feel any chemistry between him and Kathleen Heigl, or, indeed, between him and his future brother-in-law. He was the geeky guy who got, so to speak, the girl, and thus the projection of male fantasies.

The jokes and gags were male-oriented; it was a story about how one of the gaggle of pointlessly-stupid males got cut from the herd. From the bong jokes to the practical-joke jokes, it was male sentimentality and gross-out humour all the way. Even the sex scene was about the male's problems with sex with a pregnant woman, not about her experience, except for her frustration at his irrational idiocy.

One contrast to this male-oriented approach did exist. Kathleen Heigl kept her bra on and her butt covered in all the sex scenes while he had his ass clearly displayed on camera - no treat that! However, there were improbably large breasts displayed in the nightclub scene to balance Heigl's dignity.

I had read that "Knocked Up" was a "sweet" story of young people taking responsibility and "growing up". What I saw was a version of the "Animal House" approach applied (quite improbably) to a situation that could have been seen in a less shallow and more nuanced way.

I give it a finger down the throat.

In Plain English - Commoncraft

2007-09-28T19:04:00.000-04:00

As the web develops new possibilities for communication are created. Here are three examples. The main example is how Commoncraft uses simple video and recorded voice to communicate basic concepts. Both of the following videos are illustrations of this.

This first is about how to use Google Docs to write collaboratively. Notice how clearly the information is displayed and described.

The second is an explanation of the new communication situation for PR and is, I think, like the Google Docs one, an ad wrapped in a concept - a style of communication that works particularly well in this era of rapidly changing communications.

I think this is really clear communication. What do you think?

September = School

2007-09-08T19:53:00.000-04:00

All my life, since I was 4, September has meant that school starts again. I remember in grade school, promising myself that this year my notebooks would be beautiful, that I wouldn't make messy mistakes in them. Always, September meant the chance to see old friends who were somewhere else over the summer, the chance to find a new friend who would truly understand me and like me, the chance for something wonderful to happen. Is it any wonder that I find September an exciting yet anxious month?

Business and Web 2.0 - Again

2007-08-23T11:27:00.000-04:00

A couple of weeks ago I posted a link to a SlideShare site on Enterprise 2.0 - http://webtoolsforlearners.blogspot.com/2007/08/understanding-web-20-and-business.html

I believe that business, like all of our culture, is on the edge of a whole new way of communication with a generation that understands and uses the new way, but not the old way. Rich Hoeg, in his blog, eContent, has put up an interesting webcast on the subject of learning in business

From Flat Learning - Learning 2.0

Why Schools Need to Learn About the Digital Ecomony

2007-08-20T10:49:00.000-04:00

The digital economy is part of globalization and will be a big part of the future Canadian economy, and we need to get it right. Michael Geist has written about what would enhance Canada's digital economy in the Toronto Star today. I recommend the article.

If you are interested in recognizing writing skills, check out my comments here.

Visualizing Data

2007-08-16T19:59:00.000-04:00

I have trouble understanding numbers, however visual images make sense to me.This shows house prices around the world, and I "get" it.

Check out the Daily Mail link to see how the following are spread out over the world: alcohol consumption, HIV prevalence, house prices, military spending, war and death, toy imports, toy exports, the wealth of nations in 1500, and the wealth of nations in 2002.

Geography and political science teachers should be using this kind of visualization, IMHO, so students who are visual can understand even if they are numbers-blind.

Understanding Social Bookmarking

2007-08-15T08:05:00.000-04:00

commoncraft has done it again! Another very brief, very clear, virtually whimsical video explaining web 2.0. This time on social bookmarking, showing how it works with del.icio.us.

Enjoy!

Google add-ons Can End Ads!

2007-08-13T18:53:00.000-04:00

If you use gmail, as I do ever since my computer crashed and I lost all my computer-based contacts, and if you get annoyed by the ads, as I do, here's a solution:
http://www.customizegoogle.com/ courtesy of a comment by Miguel Guhlin on my Eduspaces blog - http://eduspaces.net/vinall/weblog/189380.html

I've installed and it works! No more annoying ads.

VoiceThreads

2007-08-09T20:24:00.000-04:00

VoiceThreads is a beta application that looks like a lot of fun; it's very easy and free. You use photos or other images, upload them, and use your computer's microphone to add narration or other audio, or, if you don't have, or don't want to use a sound recording, you can simply type copy. Then people can comment, by voice or text, on your VoiceThreads, or you can limit who comments and who sees/hears the comment when. For more information, see my EduSpaces blog on it - http://eduspaces.net/vinall/weblog/189270.html

Understanding Web 2.0 and Business

2007-08-02T16:51:00.000-04:00

Meet Charlie - Enterprise 2.0 is a slide show that shows where Web 2.0 is taking business. I've hesitated adding it to my blog because it is filled with misused apostrophes. (Please see Lynn Truss's Eats, Shoots and Leaves for a detailed explanation of what I'm complaining about!)

However,Scott Gavin's slide show, posted on SlideShare - http://www.slideshare.net/slgavin/meet-charlie-what-is-enterprise20 - provides an excellent description of where the business world is going, because of the web, as well as demonstrating how a PowerPoint can communicate effectively even without audio.

Enjoy - and learn!

Top 10 Tools, or What Other Educators are Using

2007-07-26T08:52:00.000-04:00

I stumbled across Top 10 Tools yesterday, and found it a rich resource for web tools I could using in my teaching, learning and playing on the web. I sent in my own choices:

Check out my full list - http://www.c4lpt.co.uk/recommended/joanvinallcox.html
and find the riches in the collection of lists - http://www.c4lpt.co.uk/recommended/index.html

Thanks to Jane Hart and the Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies

Another Brain Backup - Backpack

2007-07-25T08:29:00.000-04:00

I have been using the free version of Backpack for years. It's especially handy for reminders, where I can set up a reminder to be emailed to me regularly. For example, I get a monthly reminder to check my bank account so that an automatic monthly withdrawal won't cause me to be overdrawn. I get my monthly reminder in my inbox, and I haven't had to worry about forgetting since I started using Backpack.

Now it has some new stuff making it even more interesting and useful -

http://www.backpackit.com/tour

This is a remarkably versatile and easy-to-use application, and I suggest you add it to your Bookmarks Toolbar, and make it part of your personal learning/work environment, i.e. keep it always handy!

I'm still playing with Jott, which I posted about yesterday, and have found some problems with it, which I'll cover when I get a message back from them.

Jott - Another Fun Application

2007-07-23T17:37:00.000-04:00

My friend, Bob Collings, sent me a link to Jott a new application still in Beta, that is very interesting. You phone their number, tell them who you want to leave a message for, including yourself, speak, and Jott emails your message to you or any of the contacts you've named. It is absolutely simple and requires no technical knowledge at all!

It's good for reminders, to do lists, and recording ideas, as well as messages. I'm going to play with it and see how it works for me.

Mapping Wikipedia

2007-07-12T09:59:00.000-04:00

Teachers who want a way of introducing their students to a new topic may find it useful to use WikiMindMap to create a mindmap to introduce the subject, and as a quick way of getting basic resources into the hands of students. Mindmaps are especially useful for visual thinkers and those starting to research an area. John Dewey is one of the most important writers on teaching and learning, in my opinion, so I put his name into the search box, made sure that I was using the English Wikipedia, and got this -

Under "Select a Wiki", make sure you select "en.Wikipedia.org"; the default is "de.Wikipedia.org", which finds German results. The green circling arrows are direct links, and the plus signs can be opened out for further links. At this point WikiMindMap is in beta.

I had a lot of fun seeing what I could find through it.

via Tris Hussey's A View from the Isle

Canada and the Web

2007-07-05T12:25:00.000-04:00

I'm Canadian, and I'm pleasantly surprised to see the Canadian stats and apps:

from the Read/Write Web:

Canadians use the Internet more than anyone in the world. According to comScore, Canadians spend on average 39.6 hours per month on the Internet, followed by Israel at 37.4 and South Korea at 34, while the USA is in 8th position with 29.4. Canada also leads in online reach with 70% of households having Internet access. The average pages viewed per visitor is 3800 in Canada, while the U.K. is second at 3300. And at 67%, Canada has one of the highest broadband penetrations in the world, 21 points higher than the US. Finally, while Canada still lags in online advertising, with $28.05 per Internet user and the US with $71.43, ad spending is expected to grow 32% this year (Ernst&Young LLP). So Canada is a sophisticated, and growing, market for Web apps.

As in any other country, Canadians heavily use Google, Yahoo and other global services like ebay and craiglist; each of which has their own english and french canadian localized versions. In social networking, Facebook is the star app of the moment. For instance, Toronto has more than 650.000 facebook users, more than the combined facebook users in New York, Boston and Los Angeles.

So Canada is still a communications leader!

A Quick History of our New Digital Environment

2007-07-04T16:10:00.000-04:00

This is about our communication tools and how they are changing. It's short and fast. You might want to watch it more than once, if you're not a digital native. I needed to watch it more than once;->

The Question of Wikipedia

2007-07-03T09:03:00.000-04:00

The first time I heard about Wikipedia, I got really excited; I characterized it as a "world mind".

I saw it as a place to share knowledge that anyone (with an online connection)could contribute to and/or benefit from. I confess I was initially impatient with, and disparaging of, those who told students not to use it. As the conversation about Wikipedia developed, I moved into the "use it to start researching, but don't cite it" for my students, and "It's an amazing source; check it out" for my friends and acquaintances.

I stumbled across Jon Udell's screencast which gave me an understanding of how Wikipedia works; I highly recommend you take the 9 minutes to view it

After watching Udell's screencast, (or instead of, or before) read danah boyd's short take on the importance of Wikipedia - http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2007/06/27/knowledge_acces.html
I find myself in close agreement with her.

Wikipedia brings me great joy. I see it as a fantastic example of how knowledge can be distributed outside of elite institutions. I have watched stubs of articles turn into rich homes for information about all sorts of subjects. What I like most about Wikipedia is the self-recognition that it is always a work-in- progress. The encyclopedia that I had as a kid was a hand-me-down; it stated that one day we would go to the moon. Today, curious poor youth have access to information in an unprecedented way. It may not be perfect, but it is far better than a privilege-only model of access.

A New Web Research Tool - Yoono

2007-06-20T11:24:00.001-04:00

Text and image notes below video
I'm editing the shared post from my Yoono account because, although Yoono looks very handy for saving material found on the web, (text, images and video), it isn't completely my fantasy.

You only get to see one section of my notes on my "buzz" on the Yoono demo page; I couldn't select the whole "buzz", just one individual "note" on the "buzz" to share.
I couldn't drag the "notes" into the order I wanted; they appeared in the order they were "buzzed".

Of course, I'm a completely new user so I may just have missed some of the information provided in the video and the text/image explanations.

In any case, it looks to be like a cross between del.icio.us and digg. I suspect it will be more popular among the digital natives than del.icio.us because of its ease of connection with MySpace and because it feels more like the social web aspects they are familiar with.

I suggest you take a look at it, and spend some time playing with it. (In my opinion, you can't judge just from the demo; you need to play/learn, which is what I'm engaged in this morning.)

Art From Art!

2007-06-13T09:40:00.000-04:00

500 Years of Female Portraits in Western Art
Web 2.0 art - it reminds me of a music video from years ago where faces continuously and rapidly morphed into others - "Cry" by Godley and Creme - read about it here

Too Funny Not to Share!

2007-06-11T09:36:00.000-04:00

Remember Abbott & Costello's "Who's on First?" Here's the digital version -
From Diva Marketing Blog, http://bloombergmarketing.blogs.com/bloomberg_marketing/2007/06/friday_fun.html thanks to A View From the Isle - http://blog.larixconsulting.com/blog

The scene: Costello calls to buy a computer from Abbot.

Abbott: Super Duper computer store. Can I help you?
Costello: Yes. I'm setting up an office in my den and I'm thinking about buying a computer.
Abbott: Mac?
Costello: No, the name's Lou.
Abbott: Your computer?
Costello: I don't own a computer. I want to buy one.
Abbott: Mac?
Costello: I told you, my name's Lou.
Abbott: What about Windows?
Costello: Why? Will it get stuffy in here?
Abbott: Do you want a computer with Windows?
Costello: I don't know. What will I see when I look at the windows?
Abbott: Wallpaper.
Costello: Never mind the windows. I need a computer and software.
Abbott: Software for Windows?
Costello: No. On the computer! I need something I can use to write proposals, track
expenses and run my business. What do you have?
Abbott: Office.
Costello: Yeah, for my office. Can you recommend anything?
Abbott: I just did.
Costello: You just did what?
Abbott: Recommend something.
Costello: You recommended something?
Abbott: Yes.
Costello: For my office?
Abbott: Yes.
Costello: OK, what did you recommend for my office?
Abbott: Office
Costello: Yes, for my office!
Abbott: I recommend Office with Windows.
Costello: I already have an office with windows! OK, let's just say I'm sitting at
my computer and I want to type a proposal. What do I need?
Abbott: Word.
Costello: What word?
Abbott: Word in Office.
Costello: The only word in office is office.
Abbott: The Word in Office for Windows.
Costello: Which word in office for windows?
Abbott: The Word you get when you click the blue "W".
Costello: I'm going to click your blue "w" if you don't start with some straight
answers. What about financial bookkeeping? You have anything I can track
my money with?
Abbott: Money.
Costello: That's right. What do you have?
Abbott: Money.
Costello: I need money to track my money?
Abbott: It comes bundled with your computer.
Costello: What's bundled with my computer?
Abbott: Money.
Costello: Money comes with my computer?
Abbott: Yes. No extra charge.
Costello: I get a bundle of money with my computer? How much?
Abbott: One copy.
Costello: Isn't it illegal to copy money?
Abbott: Microsoft gave us a license to copy Money.
Costello: They can give you a license to copy money?
Abbott: Why not? THEY OWN IT!
A few days later:
Abbott: Super Duper computer store. Can I help you?
Costello: How do I turn my computer off?
Abbott: Click on "START"

Power Point Advice

2007-06-08T14:26:00.000-04:00

The video is comical but the advice is excellent! Don McMillan Stars

Link thanks to Donna Papacosta

Another Wikipedia Evaluation

2007-05-02T19:36:00.000-04:00

There are still people who think Wikipedia isn't reliable, that people should be warned away from it. I think it is an utterly amazing example of collaboration, the creation of an external collective mind.

The Denver Post got 5 experts to evaluate articles in their areas of expertise.

The results? Four out of five agreed their relevant Wikipedia entries are accurate, informative, comprehensive and a great resource for students or the merely curious.

The fifth scholar called his chosen entry "not very good," found some details to be inaccurate by omission, and said similar entries in more accepted encyclopedias like Encarta do their job better.

http://www.denverpost.com/entertainment/ci_5786064

For more details, including the University of Colorado history professor William Wei's negative comments, follow the link to the article.

Booth, Michael. "Grading Wikipedia." Denver Post 30 Apr. 2007. 2 May 2007 .

Link courtesy of Steve Rubel at Micro Persuasion

The Learning Implications of MySpace, Facebook, etc.

2007-04-30T12:26:00.000-04:00

The changes in what can be done on the web are massive and occurring very quickly, which makes it hard for digital immigrants (most of us older than 25 - 30) to keep up. Yet we teachers need to know what world, what culture, our students are living in. Sometimes we can learn from our students, and get a vivid sense of what excites them; sometimes research can gives us the big picture.

Henry Jenkins, Director of the Comparative Media Studies Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has published this white paper, Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century that explores new frameworks and models for media literacy.

A central goal of this report is to shift the focus of the conversation about the digital divide from questions of technological access to those of opportunities to participate and to develop the cultural competencies and social skills needed for full involvement. Schools as institutions have been slow to react to the emergence of this new participatory culture; the greatest opportunity for change is currently found in afterschool programs and informal learning communities. Schools and afterschool programs must devote more attention to fostering what we call the new media literacies: a set of cultural competencies and social skills that young people need in the new media landscape. Participatory culture shifts the focus of literacy from one of individual expression to community involvement.The new literacies almost all involve social skills developed through collaboration and networking.These skills build on the foundation of traditional literacy, research skills, technical skills, and critical analysis skills taught in the classroom. (Bolding added)

The whole paper can be downloaded from - http://tinyurl.com/yyrdpl

Even reading just the two page Executive Summary will give you lots to think about. And the concluding statement shows the dangers of ignoring the new participatory culture Jenkins is writing about:

The Challenge Ahead: Ensuring that All Benefit from the Expanding Media Landscape

Writing in the Chronicle of Higher Education (May 19, 2006), Bill Ivey, the former chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, and Steven J.Tepper, a professor of Sociology at Vanderbilt University, described what they see as the long term consequences of this participation gap:

Increasingly, those who have the education, skills, financial resources, and time required to navigate the sea of cultural choice will gain access to new cultural opportunities....They will be the pro-ams who network with other serious amateurs and find audiences for their work.They will discover new forms of cultural expression that engage their passions and help them forge their own identities, and will be the curators of their own expressive lives and the mavens who enrich the lives of others....At the same time, those citizens who have fewer resources—less time, less money, and less knowledge about how to navigate the cultural system—will increasingly rely on the cultural fare offered to them by consolidated media and entertainment conglomerates... Finding it increasingly difficult to take advantage of the pro-am revolution, such citizens will be trapped on the wrong side of the cultural divide. So technology and economic change are conspiring to create a new cultural elite—and a new cultural underclass. It is not yet clear what such a cultural divide portends: what its consequences will be for democracy, civility, community, and quality of life. But the emerging picture is deeply troubling. Can America prosper if its citizens experience such different and unequal cultural lives?

Ivey and Tepper bring us back to the core concerns that have framed this essay: how can we “ensure that all students benefit from learning in ways that allow them to participate fully in public, community, [Creative] and economic life?” How do we guarantee that the rich opportunities afforded by the expanding media landscape are available to all? What can we do through schools, afterschool programs, and the home to give our youngest children a head start and allow our more mature youth the chance to develop and grow as effective participants and ethical communicators? This is the challenge that faces education at all levels at the dawn of a new era of participatory culture.

This is a rich and inspiring read for all who are involved in education.

Jenkins, Henry. "Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century." Digital Media and Learning (2006). 27 Apr. 2007 .

Deceptively Low Tech Fun!

2007-04-26T13:39:00.000-04:00

I can't resist showing you this website -

It looks, and in some ways is, low tech but it has its own url and isn't a web 2.0 application, so it has some high tech elements. However, what I loved about it is the concept. I read through to the end because of the creative approach. It is different and very amusing.

I'll probably buy the book;->

Thanks to Gloria - http://www.ohouse.ca/ - for the link

RSS in Plain English

2007-04-24T13:35:00.000-04:00

If you have heard the term "aggregation" or "RSS" or even "newsreader" and aren't sure what they mean of how to use them, this video is for you.

RSS in Plain English

It's short and clear. Watch and then set up your account.

Link thanks to Donna Papacosta

Understanding the Net Generation's Academic Interests

2007-04-16T16:46:00.000-04:00

The new tools that attract students to blogs and social networking software—including the resources that make possible site design, intertextuality, the combination of video and audio elements with text, the ability to comment and respond—can be used for the age-old project of developing the thinking, reading, and writing skills of students.

from MyLiteracies:
Understanding the Net Generation through LiveJournals and Literacy Practices - http://innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=384 by Dana J. Wilber

We have a radically new communication tool that uses text, images, sound, and moving images with sound, and can be made fully public, public in a limited way, or kept private. Many, probably most students, are rapidly teaching themselves elements of this new communication tool, and the academic world needs to - not just allow but - encourage the use of the web as a formal learning tool. Wilber's article explains what is happening with the Digital Generations' communication habits and patterns, and why faculty should be aware of and using these tools to help students learn.

I strongly recommend this short article.

Howard Gardner on the New Digital Media's Impact

2007-04-10T00:52:00.001-04:00

http://spotlight.macfound.org/main/entry/medium_the_message - Link courtesy of Stephen Downes
Ever since I came across Gardner's theory of Multiple Intelligences, I've had enormous respect for his insights. Politics and Commerce are central, but education SHOULD be as deeply affected, as those because they both depend on appropriately educated citizens and workers.

clipped from spotlight.macfound.org

Returning to the question at hand, two spheres that have been most immediately impacted by the new digital media are politics and commerce. Political candidates and operatives need to master the new media of communication, lest they become victims thereof; and any company or corporation that attempts to operate without employing the speed, flexibility, and advertising powers of the NDM is likely to have a short life. We can call these changes in human culture?more fundamental aspects of human cognition, emotion, and character are not significantly altered.

Mobile Learning: The Next Step in Technology-Mediated Learning

2007-03-31T09:56:00.000-04:00

"Mobile Learning: The Next Step in Technology Mediated Learning" - http://tinyurl.com/3ckqlz - looks at both what learning is and how it might be changing as mobile devices become ever more common. The author of the article, Ellen Wagner, is the director of worldwide e-learning at Adobe Systems Inc. I recommend this brief but insightful article highly.

Courtesy of Stephen Downes - http://www.downes.ca/cgi-bin/page.cgi?post=39608 - I really like the quote he chose to highlight:

Learning is a deeply personal act, best facilitated by relevant, reliable and engaging experiences, yet many teaching approaches still rely on more impersonal 'command and control' models that include an instructor in charge, specific goals to be met and criteria to be mastered.

A comment that captures the complexity of education today.

For those who need a break from reading blogs - my Flickr account of being a tourist http://www.flickr.com/photos/shiftingsemiosis/sets/72157600030976263/

The Web: Risks and Rescues

2007-03-21T09:59:00.000-04:00

I believe that (most) technology is neutral; it's how people use it that makes it good or bad. It is curious that humans pay more attention to the relatively few predators than to the far larger problem of bullying, which is growing in our culture, not just online. Look at some of the most popular reality TV shows for examples.

Link courtesy of Stephen Downes - http://www.downes.ca/cgi-bin/page.cgi?post=39533,
From BlogSafety.com - http://www.blogsafety.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1100000263&tstart=0

Cyberbullies

Now let's look at a very different number deserving of parental attention: peer harassment, or cyberbullying. Compare the figure of 100 adult-to-minor predation cases in 2005 to 6.9 million "cases" of teen-to-teen cyberbullying. The latter number comes from a 2006 study by criminology Profs. J.W. Patchin and S. Hinduja which found that 33.4% of US teens have been victimized by cyberbullying (see "Bullies Move Beyond the Schoolyard"). According to Jupiter Research, there were 20.6 million US teens online by the end of last year. One third (33.4%) of 20.6 million suggests 6.9 million incidents of cyberbullying. These are the best figures we have on the noncriminal, peer-to-peer side of the social Web's risk spectrum, but are actually much better numbers (based on sound research methodology) than the 100 cases of sexual predation compiled from news media stories. The CACRC researchers tell me they're starting work on a study that will update and vastly improve on that 100-cases figure, but it won't be publicly available for over a year.

I find it interesting too, that I've never seen the positives of social networking highlighted before either:

[And consider one more notable number on the positive side of social networking: MySpace is the source of more than 100,000 visitors a year to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline's Web site. It's the hotline's single biggest source of referrals... .]

So the web is neither good nor evil; it is simply a communication channel for humans.

Teaching and Learning

2007-03-02T23:05:00.001-05:00

George Seimens says:

clipped from www.elearnspace.org

Innovation requires experimentation. When our schedules are too full for experimentation (a vital activity for helping teachers/educators understand the affordances of social software), we end up in a role of validating the existing structures of learning...rather than pushing boundaries of education for the benefit of learners.

I believe teachers should be actively learning the new media, as part of keeping our own sense of how challenging and difficult learning can be. We need to model how to take on the challenge of learning for our students,

Clipmarks Again

2007-03-02T13:11:00.001-05:00

The first time I tried to clip the demo, I just got the image; see below.

This time I got to the demo on YouTube and was able to clip it there.

If I was successful, you will see it here, however, I will have to edit this post to add the tags.

clipped from www.youtube.com

Sharing Accelerated - Clipmarks

2007-03-02T13:00:00.001-05:00

Here's an interesting service I'm playing around with. I download it and now I'm clipping the demo and sending to my blog. Found through Scoble's blog on Clipmarks.

clipped from clipmarks.com

Learning on the Web

2007-03-01T11:00:00.000-05:00

I find the web a wonderful place for learning. While learning on the web, I have discovered that I like to see and hear how to do things using the web, not just read about it. When I find a new application that I might be able to use, I look for the Tour or for a video and/or screencast. I start from seeing and hearing; I read howtos, tips and Help later, when I get stuck.

As a result, when I read, in my Bloglines, about Scoble's post about Ning having a new drag and drop set up for creating personal social networks, like Elgg, (my choice) MySpace or Facebook, I immediately watched the 12 minute video on Ning's new and easy functionality.

Now I have my own social network and travel site! And it took me about half an hour! http://whatwesaw.ning.com/

How do you best learn using the web?

We Live in Exponential Times

2007-02-26T17:16:00.000-05:00

The rate of change in our world in exponential. Through Tony Karrer's blog, - a link to the video below:

Great music and a truly important message!

The Growing Impact of Web 2.0

2007-02-26T01:03:00.000-05:00

Alja Sulčič describes the impact of web 2.0 on her daily activities, and suggests some questions arising from the changes the read/write web is bringing.

I'm really amazed at what big part Web 2.0 plays in my life (and I in its life). In just a few years it has entered our lives from different doors and it's growing stronger and more powerful days by day. And for this reason I agree with what Michael Wesch pointed out in his video - we really need to rethink a lot of things. Among these things I think that rethinking ourselves is one of the key points. We are being linked in previously unthinkable ways and our lives are being changed. What kind of changes is that bringing us? Are the changes improving our lives or crippling the social aspect of our analogue real lives as some fear?

The answers to these questions are many - and there should be. For me the most important changes are the feeling of connectedness, the feeling of responsibility, the need to share and the trust systems that the users of Web 2.0 are building among each other (just take for example Wikipedia). These are the changes I find most valuable and that I hope I (and others) will be able to keep and use not just for a better and more useful Web 2.0, but also to build a better future - together, by connecting are ideas and constructing new worlds.

If you want to understand more about how web 2.0 is affecting people, both young and old, I recommend the whole post - http://ialja.blogspot.com/2007/02/living-web-20.html - and the comments.

Image - "Open Clip Art Library/Clip Art." Open Clip Art Library. 24 Feb. 2007 .

eLearning Explained

2007-02-21T09:37:00.000-05:00

If you aren't sure what eLearning is currently, and want to have a richer understanding, I recommend Tony Karrer's post on it - What is eLearning 2.0? - http://elearningtech.blogspot.com/2006/02/what-is-elearning-20.html

We are in the midst of the biggest change in communications since the printing press, and it is affecting both the methods of teaching/learning, and the content. We need to learn what we can, and use it when we can.

After the Crash: A Final Accounting

2007-02-19T19:49:00.000-05:00

Well, my computer is as back to normal as I can get it. Some stuff was recovered, some was replaced, and some was lost forever.

What was Recovered
Many of my Word files were recovered, Not all; I keep discovering that something I know I had is missing. But, thanks to the service people at Canadian Computer on Speers in Oakville, I have much to be grateful for.

most of my applications were recovered, so I have the work set-up I'm used to.
many of my Word files were recovered but not the files from the course that I worked hardest on. I might be able to salvage some information from the histories of pages in the course wiki, but ...
my old poetry is gone and I only have some of it in hard copy.
and there's more that I will discover missing in the future, I suppose.

Some Replacements

I've downloaded QuickImage again, so I can easily turn my screenshots into jpegs for uploading to Flickr
I've downloaded Audacity and Lame so I can make MP3s
I'm going to get my podcasts set up in iTunes again

Lost Forever

my pictures. Some were in Flickr, but I use that mainly to provide images for my blogs. Many of my personal pictures are gone.
As I mentioned earlier, much of my older poetry is gone, and much of my carefully collected and built course materials are gone.
My Address Book and all my email files are gone

Lessons Learned

Backup, backup, backup!!!
At least for now, I'm forwarding all my email addresses to my gmail account, so I can store my addresses and the messages I save online.
Using online services, like del.icio.us for bookmarking and Bloglines for collecting blog urls, is not just social, it's a safety move. What I had online, I still have.

What I've Added

I now have a 120 GB hard drive, bigger than the one that crashed.
I now have a 640 MB RAM, much bigger than I used to have.

So I've learned a lot, more about the mechanics of computers, more about the wise use of my computer (did I mention you should backup your files?) and that my computer is my external brain, but that I can rebuild and repair it when accidents happen.

A Dark Note
I was going to add a photo of my computer that I had stored in Flickr, but Flickr appears to be closed down for now. Even online is not a complete safety net. Backup!

After the Crash!

2007-02-14T20:28:00.000-05:00

Well the people who worked on my crashed Mac iBook G4 returned it to me with most of my programs on it, but with small things missing, like the Spell Checker in Word. Not really such a small thing, as I type quickly and need the backup. There were, however, no documents pictures or other data!

When I went into Finder and found everything empty, I couldn't believe it! I felt shaky. I started to enumerate all that I no longer had - pictures, and poetry, and saved pdf downloads, and all my documents from teaching materials to business records. I was not happy.

I called the people who had replaced my fried drive and I think I sounded quite pathetic as I begged them to see if there wasn't at least some data. They asked if I had back-ups; I confessed to being stupid. They said they'd try again, but it would take a long time. The other option was to send the fried drive to a lab and pay a couple of thousand dollars. I said I'd wait to see what they could do, and not to send it to the lab ('cause no way was I paying $2000.00, even if I had been really, really stupid.)

I ignored documents and data for a couple of days, just doing web work, and re-configuring what I needed to do that. Then, when I was looking for something else, I discovered a cache of backups from 2004. (I'm really bad with organizing material objects - I'm much better at organizing files, - and I will get in the habit of backing them up!)

So I took my 2004 CDs, which I hadn't made, but a technician had made them at the school where I worked when my assignment changed and I'd had to move from an IBM laptop to a Mac. (I wouldn't want you to think I used to be smart; someone else had done it for me.)

By that time, I was grateful to have anything. I dragged the files that were still useful over onto my new hard drive and began to put my external brain together again. And began to face the idea of re-creating work I had already done and lost. (Stupid! Stupid! Stooped!)

Today, I rewrote a consulting report on a website, and I think I actually improved it because I changed the structure and made it problem - suggested solution, problem - suggested solution rather than the more traditional business structure with all the recommendations at the end. This structure will be easier, I think, for the website owner to understand & implement.

Then - a reward for the virtues of acceptance and rewriting - the people with my fried drive called and said they got some of the document files off it. Tomorrow, I find out what has been returned to me. And I promise, promise, promise to back-up daily!

Getting Help with New Media Tools!

2007-02-12T17:23:00.000-05:00

Through Stephen Downes and Mark Federman,
new media tools have always been difficult to learn without help!
Link here for an amusing illustration from YouTube

eLearning Technology: K-12 Blogging, Wiki and Social Bookmarking Resources

2007-02-07T20:47:00.000-05:00

eLearning Technology: K-12 Blogging, Wiki and Social Bookmarking Resources
I suggest Wikispaces - http://www.wikispaces.com/ - which is free for K - 12, and can be made private so only (class) members can see it. It also has a (WYSIWYG) visual editor that is similar to a 'lite' word-processing application, and therefore very easy.

I also recommend Elgg Spaces - http://elggspaces.com/features.php - &/or Elgg.net - http://elgg.net/ - because blogging and friending and Community Blogs and lots of other wonderful social things are free there, plus it's an academic environment where each person can set their own privacy (or not) level. As well, I believe people (teachers) can set up free (private) group blogs in Blogger.

I recommend she explore my blog WebToolsforLearners - http://webtoolsforlearners.blogspot.com/index.html - where I post about useful, free tools for teachers and students.

When My Computer Crashed ...

2007-02-02T14:46:00.000-05:00

When my computer crashed, I borrowed one. Those of my fellow web-addicts will still be cringing and crying out, "It's not the same!" And that's true. My own computer has all my files, plus an extensive collection of bookmarks on my Personal Toolbar, not to mention the mail application I'm used to.

So what am I doing writing a Blogger post? I'm writing to describe the backups I have, and the ones I will create when I get my computer back next week.

I write this blog for two kinds of readers, who may, in fact overlap. I write it for people learning how to use the web as part of their own personal learning, whether informal or education or job related. Second, I write this for teachers and students who want to use aspects of the web in their classrooms or for homework uses. (You can see the overlap!) So now the good news about what I am still able to (easily) do even on a borrowed computer.

I can write this post. I searched for my blog title using Google and found it at the top of the list. I knew my user name and password, so I could log in and write. The same is true for my other blogs. They are easy to find, and all I need is Google and my registration info. Which brings me to some bad news about where I store my registrations, which I'll get to later.

Breaking News
The phone just rang and I heard bad news from the computer repair guys. My hard drive is toast. Perhaps some of the data can be recovered, but I'll need a new drive or a new machine. ARGHH!!!!!!!

I love my Mac iBook. It was the first laptop I owned, and the fifth computer, and second platform, I wrote my thesis on. It was loaded with all kinds of nice programs, and I used many of them. It was beautiful in appearance and operation! I don't want to believe it's dead, but the repair guys have been helpful and money-saving before, so I trust them. Arghh;-(

Back to the good news and I'll get to the other bad news later.

I've put a lot of my work on the web. So most of my (important) pictures are on Flickr, and a few of my word files are on Box (but not enough - I've been negligent about back-up. That's the real bad news! I've been careless about backup and may have lost everything I haven't backed up, and that's a lot!) Sorry - back to the good news.
All my blogs are safely up on the web.
My wikis are safe on the web.
My big bookmark collection, in del.icio.us, is safe on the web.
My RSS collection is safe on the web, in Bloglines, - though I've been reading a lot of good things about Google Reader and thinking of transferring.
I can get to my two conventional email accounts by using webmail, which I find visually unattractive and operationally limited and slow, but hey! I can get my mail, and my Gmail, already on the web, is safely there.
And my most recent good move, which I thought I'd wasted time on and now find a lifesaver - I set up my own Google Account with my own personalized Google Homepage and filled it with widgets and links.

So my overall good news, is anything up on the web is safe and accessible.

My bad news is I have to get a new hard drive or laptop and I may have lost extensive data because I didn't back up.

My (unsolicited) advice: Backup, backup and backup! And put as much as you can up on the web for easy retrieval.

Engrade - A Wonderful Teacher's Tool

2007-01-18T11:02:00.000-05:00

Engrade - http://www.engrade.com/ - is a wonderful teacher's tool. If you want to share marks with individual students privately online, and aren't on a Learning Management System like Desire2Learn, Moodle, or BlackBoard/WebCT, Engrade is just what you need. With Engrade you can post your students' marks, and they can use the password you assign individually to see their marks. Plus you can then download your class records into an Excel worksheet and save them there.

It's free and straightforward. You set up a class, add the students' names, and give them their own individual password, (I did that by email). When you've finished marking an assignment, you add the marks to Engrade and make them accessible.

I used it with my 3rd year university students last term and it worked just fine. They checked their marks, I got some emailed queries, but I simply answered those, and found it far smoother than discussions about marks in class. Some after-class conversations still happened, but most students were happy with the system - if not the marks ;->

The best thing was that they had adjusted to their marks before they got their assignment or assignment comments back, and, when they got them back, could focus more on my feedback and less on the mark.

SlideShare on Blogging

2007-01-12T10:30:00.000-05:00

I've mentioned SlideShare, the YouTube for presentations, before - http://elgg.net/vinall/weblog/134207.html I like to browse it sometimes and just read what I find. Dr. Steven Warburton has put up an interesting set of slides on student blogging - http://lookleap.com/slideshare.net/a1 - I recommend it, and using the full screen mode.

I found it quite interesting, a bit different from mine.

I used an Elgg Community Blog which gave my students some control over how public, or not, their post was, set topics, often based on current readings, and required they write in it for a portion of their marks. Oral Rhetoric was classroom based, but the frequent writing paired with personal icons, either their photos or a chosen image, created a kind of threading in which we could, with a quick glance, see who the writer was.

The setting of weekly questions scaffolded the students in learning how to use a blog, which many, if not most, were uncomfortable with, especially using it for an educational purpose. As I believe they will sometimes be using blogs for professional purposes in their futures, I wanted them to begin to understand that there are different genres of blogs, and different rhetorical approaches - which I've explored here,

I wrote up my opinion of blogs used as part of a learning / teaching strategy - http://elgg.net/vinall/weblog/145563.html - I believe that that blogs can be used in many ways, and that they are especially important in creating learning communities.

technorati tags:edublogging, SlideShare

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Switching Platforms? From Mac to Windows

2007-01-11T20:02:00.000-05:00

Kathy Sierra, in a post in Creating Passionate Users links this video her daughter Skyler made about switching from a Mac to Windows. Enjoy!!!

http://www.wickedlysmart.com/skyler/SkylerSwticherQT2.mov

Courtesy of Donna Papacosta

What All Students (and Teachers) Should Know About Using the Web

2006-12-29T21:44:00.000-05:00

In my Elgg blog, I'm reflecting on what I've learned this very busy past term. In it, I recommend the web basics every students (and therefore every teacher) should know.
http://elgg.net/vinall/weblog/145525.html

Temporarily Away

2006-09-12T09:05:00.000-04:00

The view from my study.

I won't be posting in this blog until after Christmas, due to a heavy workload. I will, however, continue posting here - http://elgg.net/vinall/weblog - on, among other things, my experiences as I use wikis and blogs in place of a commercial Learning Management System. Hope you can link to me there.

Free Applications for Education

2006-09-05T21:14:00.000-04:00

From the blog - AcademHack - http://academhack.outsidethetext.com/home/?p=51 - a list of tech tools for academics. The two I liked the looks of best are NeoOffice Aqua - a free suite of office tools for Macs (For Windows, there's OpenOffice, also free) and Google Apps for Education which is downloadable for free.

With Google Apps for Education, you can offer all of your students innovative email, instant messaging, and calendaring, all for free.* You can select any combination of our available services (see below), and customize them with your school's logo, color scheme and content. You can manage your users through an easy web-based console or use our available APIs to integrate the services into your existing systems — and it's all hosted by Google, so there's no hardware or software for you to install or maintain. Find out more by reviewing detailed product information or attending an online seminar.

Google Apps for Education

I hope some educational administrators take advantage of this time-limited offer.

technorati tags:free, education, apps

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VideoJug - How to do Just About Anything!

2006-08-31T14:25:00.000-04:00

I was driving with the radio on, listening to CBC, and heard a description of a website called VideoJug that has short videos about how to do a wide variety of life necessities, and decided to check it out.

The videos I looked at are clear, short, easy to follow, and you can print up the instructions! Most are narrated with a lovely British accent, and the Aussie computer guys are funny.

Teachers might find it useful to show students how to give instructions clearly, and/or as a backup or reference to something they're teaching. they might also find the instructions useful personally ;->

If you have a blocked toilet, or want to know how to use make-up to give yourself smoky eyes, or how to floss your teeth, or how to make a martini, just go to VideoJug - http://www.videojug.com/

technorati tags:VideoJug, how_to, instructions

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Convergence Learning & Class Blogs

2006-08-22T12:32:00.000-04:00

Via Will Richardson - http://weblogg-ed.com/2006/more-henry-jenkins/ - quoting Henry Jenkins

In talking media pedagogies, then, we should no longer imagine this as a process where adults teach and children learn. Rather, we should see it as increasingly a space where children teach one another and where, if they would open their eyes, adults could learn a great deal. (Emphasis mine.)

Weblogg-ed » More Henry Jenkins

I used to have a page tacked to my bulletin board with a quote from Elliot Eisner - from a Google search, this reference - Elliot Eisner (in Saks (Ed.), 1996, p. 412)

"Working at the edge of incompetence takes courage."

I thought this was true of all teaching, because we never know what our students don't know, and how they can actually 'get' what we want to ~~transmit~~ ~~convey~~ help them learn. I also thought it was true of all teaching because, especially in rhetoric or English lit., my areas, views and rules change.

I also thought it was what made my learning, (and theirs) exciting. When you are at the vygotskian point in your proximal development that you mostly know and can venture into interweaving your own experiences and ideas into what you are getting from the mentor/experts (teachers, books etc.), it is terrifically exciting. Things click, synapses connect, and you are in a wonderful state of flow!

As a teacher, I can sometimes feel the class in this state, and I work to keep that liveliness happening. As a student, I am very good at helping move the class (if the teacher allows it) into a space where this is possible.

Last term I used an Elgg class blog with a 3rd year undergrad course in oral rhetoric, which I've blogged about before - here, and here. I've had trouble writing up a "final report" on my experience for two reasons.

I had my students use Elgg and I feel (I think the best description is) shy. (Paranoia - "If they look, they will find it, anywhere on the Web, but they know how much I like Elgg, so they'll know to look there." Well, yes, but it is only my opinion and they are welcome to differ. I guess this is a trace of the Staff Room effect where you can say what you want, get as extreme as you want because you won't be overheard. It's also a bit of a response to the "Rate Your Teacher" effect. Time to get over that.)
The Henry Jenkins quotation at the beginning of this post. I feel some ownership of the class, but they own their success. In their blog posts I could see how they began to expose where they needed help, and I could see some of their classmates helping.

Many of the students in the class began the interactive learning that I believe is the most powerful and natural way of learning. I set up the environment, but they taught one another. Those who were active with helping each other learned the most, and learned a pattern of learning that will benefit them the rest of their lives, I believe.

The best part for me, is how much I learned from watching them teach each other. Teaching and/or learning "at the edge of incompetence" is both exciting and valuable. And, with our rapidly changing and developing communication technologies, a necessity.

technorati tags:learning, class_blogs

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Flock & Teaching/Learning

2006-08-19T09:47:00.000-04:00

From Dave Tosh's Edufilter interview with Stephen Downes, Downes says -

In my mind, the browser is the LMS, and will continue to be the LMS. This is why I watch developments on the browser side, such as Flock, very closely.

edufilter

(LMS = Learning Management System)

This fall I will be encouraging my students, as I have been encouraging my JNthWEB clients, to use Flock for their Web work. It is the Web 2.0 browser, aimed at the social user, perfect for a variety of communication tasks. In the screenshot above you can see

both the icon for connecting to a Flickr or Photobucket account and how it can be displayed;
the address bar's blue circle with an embedded white star which allows you to add a site to your Favorites, and if connected to a social bookmarking account, like my del.icio.us account, to that, all in one click; and
The plume icon for the (WYSIWYG - see the Toolbar!) blogging tool and its window open and in use.

The other major aspect of Flock that I don't use but am recommending to my students and clients is its aggregation tool for blogs and news sites you want to follow easily and regularly (in the icon bar between the photo and blogging icons above). I will continue to use my Bloglines account (second from the left in the tabs under the photo stream) because I am used to it and like its set-up.

Oh, and of course, its Search Field on the upper right which searches a variety of search tools and lets you choose which one you want this time.

Flock has, as you can see, centralized a number of important Web communication aspects all within itself as a browser. For someone just beginning to learn how to use the Web, especially the social aspect of communicating using Web 2.0 tools, Flock is a great browser to introduce both the concepts and the tools.

The education is not in the tools, but rather, in the use of the tools

edufilter

If people can learn the concept of what they can do, they are better off learning the open access free tools, such as Flock, than other over-specialized and over-complex systems that have limited uses. IMHO.

technorati tags:browsers, Flock, LMS

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Elgg Interviewed!

2006-08-12T12:50:00.000-04:00

Elgg - social network software for education:
An interview of the founders of Elgg

I heartily recommend the Elgg Learning Landscape to any teacher and/or professor who wants to use blogs with their students. To learn more, you can click the link at the top to read an interview with Elgg's founders. Elgg itself is both free and very user-friendly. I recommend giving yourself some time to explore it. I also suggest that, if you decide to use it, you ask your students to explore it and see if any can find aspects that you've missed. I've learned a lot that way.

What makes Elgg particularly recommendable - (Is that a word? Oh, well, you know what I mean.) - is that the individual user can set their own level of privacy for each of their own postings. Students can set their post as "Private" and no one, not even the Community Owner/teacher will be able to see it. They can also set it for just the community, or just the logged-in users of Elgg, or make it completely "Public" - at their own discretion. I like that (except when some students don't understand "Private" and can be upset to get '0' on their post) and the students like it. I sometimes am shy when I think about certain people reading what I'm saying. Although many of the student generation are very (too?) casual about who might be their audience, there are some that appreciate the "walled garden" approach to posting their thoughts on the Web.

Last term I used an Elgg Community blog with a class, and it gave me a view of how the class was working that I'd never had before. I gave a combination of guidance on what to post on and the language etiquitte required, and the freedom of their own casual 'voices' plus the freedom to go beyond the topic guidelines. What I got to see was their thinking, including problems, and, delightfully, how they were helping each other both think and accomplish assignments. I believe the Community blog encouraged more of a community experience for the class members. They were also required to use a wiki (on Wikispaces) and post their assignments there, which gave them a larger (and consequently more 'real') audience than just the teacher!

I also use Elgg for a blog of my own where I explore the pedagogical implications of this new communication medium, Web 2.0.

I am part of a more loosely-joined community. Elgg is designed so that I can designate other Elgg members as "Friends". How I use that function is by clicking on "Friends Blogs" (see the menu bar in the image above under the forest and railway image) and I get to read an aggregated collection of the posts of the people I have designated as friends. Here's what part of my Network page looks like:

You can see, above, some of the people whose blogs I follow. It was through Dave Tosh's blog that I found the reference to the interview link that I started this post with.

And yesterday, I noticed the menu bar's "Friends of" link and discovered who was connecting to my Elgg blog! When I checked out their profiles, I could see that we had interests in common, and added many of them to my Friends list. Thus I'm gaining a loose community of people interested in ideas, and possibilities that we can share.

As you begin to think about the fall and your teaching, I recommend you check out the possibilites of Elgg for your class and for yourself.

technorati tags:Elgg, Class_Blogs, blogs

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Following DOPA

2006-08-10T08:42:00.000-04:00

If you want to keep track of what is happening in the States with DOPA, here are some links:

from Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deleting_Online_Predators_Act
from Technorati - http://www.technorati.com/tags/DOPA
from Andy Carvin - http://www.andycarvin.com/dopa.html

It looks like it's beeing slowed down, but the fact that only 15 voted against is very scary, especially combined with the apparent lack of Internet and Web knowledge of central people in the American government. Jon Stewart gives some insight in this area - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiZ-TqvVdGM&mode=related&search=# It's worth the under 3 minutes it takes to watch.

technorati tags:DOPA, Jon_Stewart

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The U.S. DOPA Legislation

2006-07-31T10:41:00.000-04:00

Damming the Ocean!

US House Resolution 5319, the Deleting Online Predators Act (DOPA), was passed by a 410 to 15 vote tonight. If the Resolution becomes law social networking sites and chat rooms must be blocked by schools and libraries or those institutions will lose their federal internet subsidies.

Techcrunch » Blog Archive » US House: Schools must block MySpace, many other sites

This American move could have a huge impact on Canada, and the world, and the Web, but I think they are simply trying to dam the ocean. It's too late. And it's totally ironic.

It's Too Late

Pandora's Box has been opened, the genie is out of the bottle, this new semiosis will not be stopped, as long as there's electricity, computers, and networks. If/When those are destroyed, we'll have more to worry about than MySpace!

It's Totally Ironic

Guess who created the ancestor of the Web? The American military during the Cold War, wanted a way to make sure they could keep controlling their fighting forces even if all major cities were wiped out, so they created ARPANET, and from ARAPANET came the Internet, followed by Tim Berners-Lee's development of a visual interface, and, thus, the World Wide Web, and, currently Web 2.0, the Read/Write or Social Web, where the fearful MySpace is located.

Net Neutrality and the American Internet Regulator

The video, with sound, will start to play after you click - almost 5 minutes - on YouTube and Jon Stewart - It's funny, but it's terrifying because the people making the rules appear to know so little.

Net neutrality, BTW, is a different issue than DOPA - it's the attempt of commercial interests to make the Web less democratic, to set up a two-tiered, or multi-tiered system where some sites would be less available than others depending on your service providers whims, or business deals. And this could affect Canada directly too, as Michael Geist has pointed out:

Websites, e-commerce companies, and other innovators have also relied on network neutrality, secure in the knowledge that the network treats all companies, whether big or small, equally. That approach enables those with the best products and services, not the deepest pockets, to emerge as the market winners.Internet users have similarly benefited from the network neutrality principle. They enjoy access to greater choice in goods, services, and content regardless of which ISP they use. While ISPs may compete based on price, service, or speed, they have not significantly differentiated their services based on availability of Internet content or applications, which remains the same for all.In short, network neutrality has enabled ISPs to invest heavily in new infrastructure, fostered greater competition and innovation, and provided all Canadians with equal access to a dizzying array of content.

Michael Geist - The Search for Net Neutrality

But I digress.

To Learn More About DOPA, go here -

and find this section and read the links

I’m not the best person to analyze this though. Here’s who I recommend:

Declan McCullagh at ZDNet has posted a very thorough background article on DOPA.

Andy Carvin writes Learning Now, a blog about education and technology for PBS, and has set up a page called DOPAWatch to aggregate blog posts on the topic.

danah boyd is probably the web’s leading expert in analyzing the politics of MySpace and youth social networking.

Will Richardson’s Weblogg-Ed is a great source for all things Learning 2.0

Vicki A. Davis is a Christian school teacher in Georgia who uses blogs, wikis, podcasting and more in her classrooms. Vicki has written a number of powerful posts on DOPA

Techcrunch » Blog Archive » US House: Schools must block MySpace, many other sites

The most important communication development since the printing press, maybe even since the creation of writing, is being threatened! The most significant education tool is being blocked because some people misuse it. Why not ban cell-phones instead, because way more people misuse them!

What Is Needed

People of all ages need to learn how to use the Web safely and intelligently, because it isn't going to go away. The older and/or less Web-aware need to learn more about how it works and what it can do for them. The younger and supposedly Web-adept (but often strangely Web-naive) need to learn about b.s. detection (academically known as critical thinking) and privacy-protection. IMHO.

technorati tags:TechCrunch, DOPA, Net_Neutrality, Geist, Web

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Daniel Pink's A Whole New Mind

2006-07-27T11:07:00.000-04:00

Amazon.com: A Whole New Mind: Moving from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age: Books: Daniel H. Pink

A Whole New Mind reveals the six essential aptitudes on which professional success and personal fulfillment now depend, and includes a series of hands-on exercises culled from experts around the world to help readers sharpen the necessary abilities. This book will change not only how we see the world but how we experience it as well.

Dan Pink | A Whole New Mind... and more

This is a conceptual book, and deceptively easy to read. In some ways it is a travel guide to surviving our future. Pink points out the impact of "Abundance, Asia, and Automation" which is already affecting the kinds of jobs available. He then explores, and helps the reader think through, the six senses that are central to our developing culture: Design, Story, Symphony, Empathy, Play, and, the most important of them all, Meaning.

When I read Pink's work, I kept having a "Yeah!" response as he repeatedly wrote about things I'd noticed but hadn't read other people writing about. The computer and the Web are changing our culture at very deep levels. Reading A Whole New Mind will help you recognize this new space we're moving into. I recommend it.

technorati tags:DPink, right_brain, design, story, play, meaning, WholeNewMind

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Generosity

2006-07-20T09:08:00.000-04:00

Steve Rubel says in his blog Micro Persuasion: Only Generous Bloggers Influence and I agree.

The generosity dynamic that exists in the blogosphere is really important.

Micro Persuasion: Only Generous Bloggers Influence

Being generous is an act of creativity. In an interesting way, blog generosity is, in my opinion, a good metaphor for how generosity works in life-off-the-Web.

There's no way around it. You have to lavishly dish out links, advice, news, ideas, commentary, freebies, you name it. It's up to you.

Micro Persuasion: Only Generous Bloggers Influence

When you help people connect with others or ideas relevant to what they want to/need to do, you help them create by linking them. That can happen on the Web, and, as I said before, in life-off-the-Web. This is also the pattern that makes a good teacher or learning community member. I think it is more innate or socially patterned in some people than others; I also think it can be learned.

A major difference between generosity on and off the Web is that in life-off-the-Web generous people can be burned. I remember, in my late twenties, feeling really ripped off by a few people whom I had been friendly and generous to, but who just didn't bother to help a mutual friend when it would have been easy to. I started feeling like I had been designated "the server of others" by them. I decided to try to limit my generosity to those who I had received generosity from, or whom I had seen being generous to others.

Maybe I'm making an artificial distinction between life on and off the Web. Rubel also notes about selfish bloggers and reacts much like I did -

They focus solely on themselves and not an iota on others. I have unsubscribed from all of these blogs. They're just not worth my time.

Micro Persuasion: Only Generous Bloggers Influence

Targeting my generosity is the choice I make. I don't want to throw my energy into the service of the greedy and neglectful. I try to be conscious of receiving generosity, and only welcome those who also share.

There are also, though, the free gifts to the universe, and that are both generosity and something that is spiritual. WebToolsforLearners, for example, is my attempt to share what I know to anyone, generous or not, who might want to learn more about using Web 2.0 for themselves, their associations, and for teaching. And the Web is filled with people offering that kind of generosity, and I hope that spirit continues to be a major part of the Web culture.

technorati tags:generosity, Rubel, Web2.0

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Summer & Blogging Tools

2006-07-16T23:38:00.000-04:00

It's hot, hot, hot! And time to play.

I suggest you read Seven Blogging Tools Reviewed and then play with the one(s) that sound most promising. Play (practise) now so you can use them when school begins again in the fall.

Although I love Elgg, and think its Community Blogs are the best for teaching, you can set up group blogs on Blogger and add audio with AudioBlogger.

It's easy, if you just read the instructions!

Have fun and learn!

Happy heatwave!

technorati tags:Blogging, summer, teaching

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Where We Are Now

2006-07-07T09:43:00.000-04:00

Social software and learning: An Opening Education report from Futurelab
By Martin Owen, Lyndsay Grant, Steve Sayers and Keri Facer

Futurelab - Research - Publications - Social software and learning

For anyone who wants to understand the implications of what is happening on the Web now for education, this report is essential. It is clear, easy-to-read, long, and filled with information and ideas. I cannot recoomend it too highly as a foundational overview.

Here are some quotations from it, (collected by using WebSnippits, part of the Flock browser, which I am more and more impressed with.)

If learning to learn, if collaboration, and if the personalisation of educational experiences are at the core of current educational agendas, we need to find ways of enabling young people to come into contact with, collaborate with and learn from each other and other people. Social software is about bringing minds and ideas into contact with each other and is already, in the world outside schools, creating what was described by McLuhan as the global village.

Futurelab - Research - Publications - Social software and learning

New forms of collaboration tools are also emerging, based on collaborative document building rather than individualist blogs. We are also seeing a shift in the ‘modality’ of communication away from text alone: podcasting or audio publishing via the net is a growing movement and it will be relatively a short time before there is also good support for video publication on the net. Locative and geographically mediated activity is also a likely area for growth.

Futurelab - Research - Publications - Social software and learning

... there is a shift in the nature of knowledge and how knowledge is created and organised, and secondly there is a cultural shift growing from the use of information and communication technologies, the so-called cyberculture. These two strands mirror the twin concerns of those arguing for a shift in educational processes to align with the perceived demands of a knowledge economy: namely, the concern with developing young people able to act as innovators and creators of knowledge; and the concern with developing young people able to operate effectively within digital and information-rich environments.Identity, space, attention and creativity are all clearly central to the question of how we learn with digital technologies. These are not marginal questions to be relegated to the ‘out of school’ world, but are intimately bound up with the ways in which young people may be coming to expect to learn in a digitally rich environment.

Futurelab - Research - Publications - Social software and learning

Digital technology allows easy peer-to-peer exchange and amateur cultural production. Consumers can easily become producers. Mass market and user-generated cultural media is appropriated and critiqued, adapted and remixed allowing users and consumers to change the meanings intended by the original producer. This critical culture of consumption and remix blurs the line between consumption and production.

Futurelab - Research - Publications - Social software and learning

The researchers suggest that what these young people are doing is creating and projecting their emerging identities within a group of friends. Blogs, as with mobile phones and other technologies, facilitate a range of social and emotional work for young people (Ito and Okabe 2003, referenced in Carrington 2005).

Futurelab - Research - Publications - Social software and learning

schoolsshould not expect students to leave the 21st century in the cloakroom,for example, many schools do not allow e-mail, instant messaging,mobile phones or blogging. As a corollary there is an imperative toteach appropriate use and appropriate behaviour for ICT. This shouldinclude protection of students’ own identity.

Futurelab - Research - Publications - Social software and learning

There is a “substantially more subtle shift” pertaining to forms of reasoning. “Reasoning, classically, has been concerned primarily with deductive, abstract types of reasoning. But what I see happening to today's kids as they work in this new digital medium has much more to do with bricolage than abstract logic. Bricolage, a concept originally studied by Levi Strauss many years ago, relates to the concrete. It has to do with the ability to find something - an object, tool, piece of code, document - and to use it in a new way and in a new context.”2

Futurelab - Research - Publications - Social software and learning

Contemporary creativity may no longer be focused towards creating original content, but is a practice of rip, mix and burn, where content is taken, appropriated, adapted, mixed, and distributed in a way in which consumption of media and information also becomes a productive act. Digital technology can, then, give young people the opportunity to take control of information and media to consume and produce cultures of importance and relevance to their own lives and identities. Social software adds to the ways one can be creative and it has changed and expanded the audience for personal and social creativity. [Emphasis added]

Futurelab - Research - Publications - Social software and learning

Students who pool their research (in a bookmark tool or in a wiki) can clearly help each other do better. Students who peer assess their work can clearly help each other. Students who can work in different media extend the range of their thinking. Students in contact with people outside the school can learn more. Students who have a sense that their work is for a wider audience may be better motivated.

Futurelab - Research - Publications - Social software and learning

4.7 Conclusion: e-Learning 2.0?Our discovery of new ways to transform our lives using digital technologies is not slowing down. In recent years we have witnessed the emergence of new tools and services. Some of these have been characterised as Web 2.0, some of them have been characterised as social software. The significant attributes that these new tools and services display are that they are about knowledge creation, knowledge management, knowledge sharing and knowledge dissemination. Keywords have been creation, collaboration and communication. These technologies are changing the way we are able to deal with knowledge. This raises two issues for those engaged in education. Firstly they supply the enterprise of learning with new tools and new and useful ways to go about learning. The second suggests that because of the changing nature of human knowledge management we need to change priorities in what we need to learn.The individual learner has many choices available for their personal learning. The list of social software activity is long and is growing. However, there is also a need for a response in formal education. These technologies do provide a mechanism for transformation in education that appropriates these technologies for educational advantage. This includes a change in our vision of e-learning to a more open approach to the acquisition, organisation, creation and assessment of knowledge: e-Learning 2.0.

Futurelab - Research - Publications - Social software and learning

All teachers at all levels should be reading this and responding to this paper, IMHO!

technorati tags:Education, pedagogy, social_software, learning, teaching

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MySpace + YouTube = The Global Village

2006-07-05T11:13:00.000-04:00

You can see the enormous changes in communication that have occured in the last few years by looking at MySpace and YouTube.

We live in a global village, as Marshall McLuhan predicted in the 1960s. My daughter, an active MySpace participant, told me several weeks ago about a group she'd discovered through MySpace called Gnarls Barkley. She talked with great energy and enthusiasm about noticing the spread of their music in Toronto, hearing it on the street, and finding people who already knew about it. This was not formal advertising, but the new "word-of-mouth" based on social networks such as MySpace.

When I heard that I could see the Gnarls Barkley video for their song "Crazy" on YouTube, I searched for it, and found it there. The lyrics are great, and the video is striking, both beautiful and interesting But that's not what this post is about. What is amazing is that in a very few weeks, this music and video spread "virally", as they say, through the social networking sites, MySpace and YouTube.

Most of the social netwarking I look at is in English, my language. But YouTube uses videos, a more univeral language of images. We may not uderstand what is on the audio (or what they were thinking, for that matter) but there can be no doubt that we are only part of the world.

Look at the variety of languages that show up on YouTube. The Web shows us that we live in a global village, and the ease with which people can put content on the Web shows us how the enforced passivity of movies and television is being superceded by the activity of posting on the Web, whether it be homemade or professionally produced content.

To me, this worldwide activity is what is most amazing about the Web.

technorati tags:MySpace, YouTube, Global_Village, Gnarls_Barkley

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Elgg Described, with Examples

2006-06-27T14:50:00.000-04:00

Supporting online communities with Elgg

by Josie Fraser, with help from Sasan Salari

Elgg is an open-source social software programme which is free for institutions to download and use. Elgg provides an excellent way to investigate e-portfolio provision or to support your college communities online. By laying out a number of scenarios, this article clearly highlights the benefits of Elgg, and demonstrates its ...

This description of the various aspects of Elgg, followed by examples of how students and/or teachers can use them is inspiring, in the deep meaning of the word. You can breathe in ideas, circulate them through your experience, and imagine possibile uses. My own experience of using an Elgg Community blog for a class last term matches what the authors describe, and I have seen some new possibilites for my teaching in the fall.

Great article - very practical, with helpful images. I recommend it.

technorati tags:Elgg, edblogreader

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Connectivism vs Constructivism - G. Siemens

2006-06-26T11:22:00.000-04:00

A succinct and clear look at how we learn and learning theories. Siemens says:

Most learning needs today are becoming too complex to be addressed in "our heads". We need to rely on a network of people (and increasingly, technology) to store, access, and retrieve knowledge and motivate its use. The network itself becomes the learning. This is critical today; the rapid development of knowledge means that we need to find new ways of learning and staying current. We cannot increase our capacity for learning ad infinitum. We must begin to conceive learning as socially networked and enhanced by technology (it’s a symbiosis of people and technology that forms our learning networks). We need to acknowledge our learning context not only as an enabler of learning, but as a participant of the learning itself.

...

We rely on Google, libraries, friends, social bookmarks/tags, etc. to serve as our personal learning network (we store the knowledge external to ourselves). When we need something, we go to our network (know-where is more important than know-how or know-what)...or we expand our network. In the end, the constant act of connecting in order to stay current is a much more reflective model of learning than constructivism.

Connectivism Blog

That matches my experience as a learner.

Also very interesting, the

matrix posted by Derek Wenmoth on online learning (including a continuum of learning theories)

Connectivism Blog

http://blog.core-ed.net/derek/archives/001082.html

A final note - I think using the Flock blogging tool is helpful, but it does alter my style.

technorati tags:Siemens, learning_theories, Constructionism, Connectivism

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Flock - One-Stop Web Browsing

2006-06-19T17:34:00.000-04:00

I was checking what was happening on the SocialLearning.ca site and saw D'Arcy's post -

Flock Beta 1 Available Now | SocialLearning.ca.

Finally, I thought, someone is pulling things together for the user - a Web 2.0 (social) browser that is a one-stop space.

So I decided to play with it.

I like it. A lot! In fact, I'm creating this blog using all the integrated bits, from putting my screenshot into Flickr and then into this blog post, all in one window. And the Favorites link to del.icio.us, so I can tag them for future reference. I haven't used the aggregator because I'm happy with Bloglines, but I would recommend using the Flock newsfeeds to anyone who has been thinking about using an aggregator, but hasn't set up their own Bloglines account yet. That way you would have everything you need, including a Search space, right in the same browser.For more detailed information, check out http://paulstamatiou.com/2006/06/15/the-definitive-flock-beta-1-review/

Using Flock gives me a simpler interaction and saves me time. So I'm really impressed, so impressed, in fact, that I'm making Flock my default browser.

Give it a try - see what you think.

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tags
Flock

Blogged with Flock

Social Software & Academic Commons

2006-06-14T20:58:00.000-04:00

If you want to understand the "big picture" of the impact of social software on education, including the problems, I suggest you go to the Academic Commons and read Joseph Ugoretz"s Three Stars and a Chili Pepper

Ugoretz starts from this premise:
Social software includes many communication media, but the new tools which are the subject of this essay all fit three broad descriptions. These tools are interactive, with the content created and structured by a wide mass of contributors. These tools are also interconnected, with user-provided searchable links structuring and cross-referencing that content. And finally, these tools are bottom-up and communitarian, with the users of the tools providing and benefitting from associations, reputations, and authority within a many-to-many community. The various tools of social software are an increasing presence in the online world, as well as the offline lives of their users.

He uses anecdotes and clear explanations.

I recommend it.

tags
social software
education

A New Resource for Learning

2006-06-14T09:46:00.000-04:00

I've been playing on (with?) a new resource for learning and teaching called SocialLearning.ca

You can learn a lot on this site. For direct learning, take a look at the Tutorials section - the link is on the far right on the navbar at the top.

You can also learn by exploring a little using the (right)sidebar to click on tags or other links -

And finally, you can learn by exploring the navbar at the top. For example, by clicking on "Software" you will find information on various software that SocialLearning.ca members recommend and/or describe.
If, as a teacher, you have trouble filling your time during the summer (;-> irony alert!) you could spend at least some of your "free" time exploring and learning from this site.

tags
SocialLearning.ca
social learning
social

Tagging - for Bookmarking Favorites

2006-06-08T08:33:00.000-04:00

Tagging is an essential tool for anyone who wants to find interesting Websites again sometime in the future. In a previous post, I explained tagging, using extensive quotes from Ellyssa Kroski's post, The Hive Mind: Folksonomies and User-Based Tagging at InfoTangle. It's still an excellent starting point for understanding the significance of tagging. However, sometimes "quick and dirty" howto's are all someone wants to know. With that in mind, here's a link to -

Thirteen Tips for Effective Tagging, an excellent post on the "how's" of tagging with del.icio.us. For example:

Below are some tips for choosing tags on del.icio.us from Web Consultant Alexandra Samuel.

1.
Be a lemming. Check how other people are tagging the kinds of sites you want to remember. Del.icio.us Linkbacks makes this very easy. Bear in mind that different people will bookmark the same site for different reasons: I might bookmark Terminus 1525 as a great example of a Drupal site, while you are saving it as a link to young Canadian artists.
2.
Follow the herd. When in doubt, pick the tag that seems to have the most links -- this is the leading tag of the options you're considering, so hopefully will emerge as the dominant focal point (so you don't have to check "open-source," "opensource," and "open_source" to keep on top of the big world of open source).

I recommend the whole post, and suggest you bookmark it using del.icio.us ;->

tags
tagging
tags
del.icio.us
tips

Contextual Spell Checking - a Great Advance

2006-06-06T09:14:00.000-04:00

From CorrecteurOrthographiqueOffice, a truly significant development in spell checking - contextual spell checking!

A writing-teacher fantasy come true!

tags
MS Office
spell checking

Matthew McKinnon on Web Megasites

2006-06-04T08:11:00.000-04:00

The Web can be a confusing and therefore intimidating space. Matthew McKinnon, published on CBC's Arts & Entertainment Website, gives the clearest map I've seen:

Think of the web’s old guard as TV networks — they provide mainstream programming for amorphous audiences — and its young turks as cable channels, offering niche content to avid subscriber bases.

The leaders of this new school excel at creating online communities. MySpace, YouTube and Flickr function as self-contained planets in cyberspace; Blogger is chief architect of the blogosphere. All of them encourage their users to contribute content, engage in conversation and form personal relationships. It’s a totally different tao of building traffic: Yahoo! takes you places, MySpace means you’re already there.

Settle in, and get a load of the big stars of the net’s new wave...

Here's the link to his article: http://www.cbc.ca/arts/media/megasites.html.

Enjoy!

tags
Web 2.0
Matthew McKinnon
Web Megasites

Connecting the Dots - CCHRD's 2006 Conference

2006-05-31T20:52:00.000-04:00

Some conferences are just great, and this was one. Today I attended the CCHRD (College Committee on Human Resources Development) Central Region (Centennial, Seneca, George Brown, Sheridan, Mitchner Institute) Conference called Connecting the Dots. The one & a half hour rush-hour commute was not fun, but shortly after I arrived, I was greeted by two women, one of whom, with a lovely warm smile, told me she reads this blog! It was exciting to meet a such a positive reader!

Then Dr Marcel Danesi spoke, and he's wonderful! He talked about the fact that academic researchers don't actually know how people learn, however the person and their background, both personal and cultural, are at the core. He went on to affirm that human contact is central to teaching. Yes. I agree totally.

As a teacher you have to shut up and listen, which is part of becoming wise, and part of seeing your students as researchers of what you both are interested in. Absolutely! You want your students' respect, not their friendship. You want to be a "wise elder" and their mentor.

I can't possibly impart the flair and humour of his talk, but I enjoyed and benefitted from it.

The students on the student panel had interesting comments and insights.

The morning workshop session I went to was called "Popular Culture and Critical Media Literacy" given by Lena Carla Gutekunst, and it was very interesting. She's an engaging speaker with real insight into the culture many of our students live in, and how to teach critical thinking using (and respecting) it.

Lunch was great, as was the conference space Centennial had provided.

I presented on Blogs, Wikis and Students in the afternoon, and was grateful for the help I got from the sound man and a quiet stranger I later realized was Dr. Sandy Shugart, the closing keynote speaker. I loved talking about Web 2.0, and how it helped my students connect with each other, and how it gave them a real context for communicating with each other. (If they didn't reseach, present and post on the wiki, their fellow students wouldn't learn what they needed to learn.) And the subtext to both the class and the presentation, was that my students had engaged with each other because they had heard each other's stories, and had been heard when they told their stories.

The Web, my message was, is easy and allows our students to communicate in ways they find meaningful, using a technical tool they are familiar with, though they might have to learn some new elements. It is a powerful teaching/learning tool, especially when combined with face-to-face time in class.

Dr Sandy Shugart gave the closing keynote and what a wonderful note to close on. He spoke holding, and occasionally playing his guitar. He talked about Robert Frost's "Two Tramps in Mud Time" and how our work can deform us, how it can be a shrinking prison, or how it can be a crucible, where we are transmuted into our full humanity. He spoke about how important it was to a "servant leader" - and he sang great lyrics. I was very glad I'd stayed (instead of leaving early to miss the traffic). I needed to hear what he was saying, at many levels. Here's a description of him - http://www.imakenews.com/orcc/e_article000400176.cfm?x=b11,0,w

A lovely, rewarding day!

tags
Connecting the Dots
Marcel Danesi
Sandy Shugart

Cool Cat Teacher

2006-05-25T22:48:00.000-04:00

Vicki Davis's students explain the difference between a blog and a wiki.

Synopsis of their posts
The most meaningful point that they have brought out for me is that they see wikis as a place to share information and they see blogs as a place to share opinions and discuss.

For more detailed versions of her students comments - go here

mesh06 - Reflections

2006-05-18T09:27:00.000-04:00

Looking back on mesh
Of course my first observation is that I had fun and learned a lot. Those are my two central requirements, and they were certainly fulfilled. Can't ask for more.

Last year at a college conference in North Bay, I noticed something significant, and I could see it again at mesh. The Web used to have distinct groups, especially at conferences. The technical people gathered and talked about java and ruby-on-rails and other obscure (to me) topics. Teachers, or in the case of mesh, PR, marketing, and business people (Web entrepreneurs), got together to discuss how to use the Web.

Both at This is IT in North Bay last spring, and here at mesh this spring, I see the two formerly distinct (except in rare cases) groups starting to overlap. There is a Web culture that includes engineers and communicators, and I see the business actions as coming from the middle, the overlap, where we are in the same space with similar enough understandings that we can disagree. (If you don't have similar maps and language, you can't communicate enough to argue ;->) A fascinating development.

So I see the emergence of a strong Web culture with segmented areas attached to it.

Other Observations
The conference had an interesting mix of (Web) business, PR/marketing, and engineers. I noticed a few differences from academic conferences - which is what I'm used to.

more hands are shaken more often;
more business cards are exchanged;
people move on from conversations more often; there's a faster pace;
the attendees were not as old in general as at academic conferences, but the conference wasn't as skewed towards youth as I expected. I would say most attendees were from 30 to 50, and there were more older than younger. Would love to hear from someone who found it different.

I did encounter a couple of misogynist moments.

I overheard, in the lunch lineup first day, two guys talking about a woman who was "too aggressive". They used the phrase repeatedly. It turned out they were talking about someone who didn't share back business contacts and information. (Hey, the lunch lineup was long and I couldn't help overhearing!) The phrase "too aggressive" has more negative connotations when applied to a woman than when applied to a man, and it is rarely applied to a man. "Aggressive" is a complimentary term when applied to a male. I have yet to hear people talking about a man who is "too aggressive" when what they mean is he doesn't share business contacts and information. They usually skip the negative definition and get straight to the information, maybe adding that he's an "a**hole" which is a nicely non-gendered perjorative.
I saw in one of the blog comments, a reference to "that Tara chick". I can't even imagine someone referring to "that [insert male name] pup". And she was criticized for preparing an interesting presentation that enacted what she was describing. I am NOT being critical of the interview approach (I liked it) but it takes less work to prepare for.

On a related topic, my husband, after watching a public school talent show, commented that the boys got more applause for ballsy improvisation than the girls did for skill and preparation. I think some of that mindset is still there in less mature men.

So mesh was fun, amusing, educational, and provided grist for my tendancy to engage in analytical observations.

tags
mesh
mesh06

mesh - Viable Web Applications

2006-05-16T15:57:00.000-04:00

Live blogging is something I saw Stephen Downes do last year at the This is IT Conference in North Bay. As I watched him blog during the sessions, I wondered how and why he did it. I can’t answer for him but now that I’m blogging my way through mesh, I’m finding it helps me focus! It’s not doing 2 things aat once, it’s sort of like taking notes in a lecture, where you ‘get’ more of what’s being said because you write it down.

I’m in Idee‘s Leila Boujnane’s session on Creating a Viable Web Business, with Michael McDerment of FreshBooks, Malgosia Green of Nuvvo and Albert Lai of Nuvvo
They are describing the start-up mistakes they made, and what they would do differently if they were to do it over.

Being flexible and responding to change seems to be central. Feedback is essential.
Different patterns for getting your name out, some through the blogosphere, some more traditional newsletters etc. plus the blogosphere.
Making things simple to use and having good customer support are really important
Different approaches for tech support, one by phone, others by email and forums
Your tech support can be your sales department – you build loyal users who stay and refer others
Nuvvo – most users are free, then they can subscribe for more robust services. The free users are more forgiving of weak support.
Bubbleshare and Idee find customers want to help each other, (like on MySpace)
This conference – mesh http://www.meshconference.com/ – was advertised by 4 guys writing on their blogs, and the news spread.
simplicity of use, a fluid user-experience, is what users find attractive. Design for these, not for elite super-users
Understand the purchasing process of your customers, and it’s different for different applications
Set up almost a funnel – first someone looks, then a free trial, then full users – about 5% of the lookers
Raising money takes a lot of time
Recruiting talent is tricky
Knowing enough to know how to communicate with employees is important, worth taking some courses in their areas.
churn is scary but a chance to learn
mentors are a real help

tags
mesh
mesh06
Web Business