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I struggle with audio especially when I'm out of a controlled environment. I often like to make videos on the road at events - usually in a noisy conference hall with high ceilings. This is a less than ideal recording situation. So, I thought I'd round up a bunch of different microphones at work and compare them for you. Matt Pierce, the Training Manager, and I headed to our soundbooth and tested 6 different microphones. We used Audacity to record the audio at 44,100Hz. We tried to have as much consistency as possible, but we had to adjust the audio levels on each microphone. You will see in the screencast what level we recorded at. Also, I made the links a hotspot in the video, so you can click them if you'd like more info about the microphone. The screencast is short - running 1:30.

Rolf Arnold; Peter Faulstich; Wilhelm Mader; Ekkehard Nuissl von Rein; Erhard Schlutz: Research Memorandum on Adult and Continuing Education The growing importance of lifelong learning and adult education appears to be a generally accepted fact. Less well known, on the other hand, are the causes, conditions, forms and types of development in all their variety as well as the changing trends and options for solutions to be observed at different levels. This situation requires broad, intensive and sustained empirical research on adult and continuing education. This Research Memorandum - commissioned by the Section for Adult Education at the German Society for Educational Science (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Erziehungswissenschaft, DGfE) - seeks to identify, structure and label focal areas and questions in order to stimulate a more effective, coordinated division of labor in the field of research. This portrayal of the need for empirical research focuses on five fields of research: adult learning, knowledge structures and skill needs, professional action, institutionalization, system and policy. These fields of research are once again broken down into certain focal areas of research or topical areas. Questions are then proposed in order to elucidate the various research options. These questions are by no means exhaustive. Their purpose, rather, is merely to serve as examples. Overlapping between research fields, topics and issues is not random - it is, rather, an inherent aspect of all these phenomena.

Wikis are an exceptionally useful tool for getting students more involved in curriculum. They're often appealing and fun for students to use, while at the same time ideal for encouraging participation, collaboration, and interaction. Read on to see how you can put wikis to work in your classroom.

An e-Journal from the EINet: "Impact: Journal of Applied Research in Workplace E-learning A publication of the E-learning Network of Australasia (ElNet) *** Inaugural issue published! *** Editor-in-Chief: Mark J.W. Lee Impact has been established to address the paucity of research publication avenues with a particular emphasis on e-learning in organisational and workplace settings. It publishes both refereed and non-refereed contributions from both researchers and practitioners relating to the design, implementation, evaluation and management of workplace e-learning across a range of sectors and industries. One special issue will be published in the journal's first year of operation (2009). This will increase to two issues in 2010, followed by quarterly publication in 2011 and subsequent years. Articles in the first (inaugural) issue will be freely available electronically to the general public as soon as they are published; thereafter, the journal will adopt a delayed open access model, whereby issues published within the last six months will be restricted to viewing by paid subscribers, including financial members of ElNet, while all other content is accessible free-of-charge. Users are required to complete the free registration process in order to view the open access content on this site." So far the published intro! I recommend a view at the Editorial Board. Thanx to http://www.elearning4.de/2009/12/21/pdf-inaugural-issue-journal-of-applied-research-in-workplace-e-learning/ and @elearnity to pint this out in his blog.

[eBook] Web 2.0 and e-Learning 2.0 Jun 23rd, 2009 von Martin. For our workshop "Quick Start to e-Learning 1.0 and e-Learning 2.0" at this year ED-Media Conference we prepared an eBook about Web 2.0 / e-Learning 2.0 and we make it free available. We hope it is useful and please contact me if there are any questions, remarks or whatever:

I found this video on Jim Groom's website set up to support a course on storytelling. Jim says "Here is a fascinating and quick seven minute video that features interviews with a variety of scholars, theorists, activists, and participants in the changing nature of storytelling. How do they frame social media and participatory culture in this equation?" It is particularly good to see that Jim has put the whole course up on an open Wordpress blog. There's lots of explore there - Open Learning at its best!

(Michael Gorman) Welcome to a post that covers those other ten Word Cloud Generators and some are pretty amazing!  While Wordle is the king of Word Cloud Generators here are some other word cloud tools that have some outstanding capabilities that are worth investigation.  Each tool provides a unique way  that can be used in  the classroom to facilitate the creation and study of word clouds. I especially was impressed with a few tools that actually helped students analyze a group of text using more than just the generated cloud, another that allows the user to be creative with the cloud shape, and still another that connects words in the cloud to web pages! Thanks for the visit, and as always please feel free to follow me on Twitter (mjgormans), I will follow back and we can learn from each other. Also, be sure to visit my 21centuryedtech Blog and check out all of the free resources at my 21centuryedtech Wiki! - Have a great week and enjoy the read! - Mike

So what does it take to impress recruiters today? Daniel Pink, an author on motivation in the workplace, agrees that the bachelor's degree "is necessary, but it's just not sufficient," at times doing little more than verifying "that you can more or less show up on time and stick with it." The author of A Whole New Mind: Why Right Brainers Will Rule the Future says companies want more. They're looking for people who can do jobs that can't be outsourced, he says, and graduates who "don't require a lot of hand-holding."

If you are interested in TV- Animation take a look at http://www.animotionmeat.com from Jon Hooper and Steve Kellener. "Television Animation Some helpful information when dealing with television animation production. "

An other awesoem answer about future of education, by da truss. So he told in his Blog: "… and it occurred to me that what I should be looking at when talking about 'Shifting Learning' is the direction we are shifting to in the future, more-so than now. I tried to do as George asked and represent this in something other than words. I spent a couple hours playing with a slide show of images and now I'm just going to salvage the title page to share with you as a frame for what I'll write about. This isn't a crystal ball look into the future, instead it is my perception of some key trends that will have a powerful impact on how learning will be shared in the future." Worth to read many times.

"I've loved broadcasting my whole life. When I started my first podcast back in 2006, I was hopeful that it would turn into something I could do for fun, and maybe earn a little bit of extra cash. Today, almost 4 years later, I make a large part of my income from podcasting (I co-host Rails Envy, Tack Sharp, and the EE Podcast, as well as a few upcoming projects), and screencasting (at PeepCode)." Thats the introduction about a Podcasting equipment guide, i got notice via http://www.tuaw.com/2009/10/21/podcasting-advice-for-the-amateur-or-expert/ TUAW

In the Daily Galaxy: "Although It has taken homo sapiens several million years to evolve from the apes, the useful information in our DNA, has probably changed by only a few million bits. So the rate of biological evolution in humans, Stephen Hawking points out in his Life in the Universe lecture,  is about a bit a year. "By contrast," Hawking says, "there are about 50,000 new books published in the English language each year, containing of the order of a hundred billion bits of information. Of course, the great majority of this information is garbage, and no use to any form of life. But, even so, the rate at which useful information can be added is millions, if not billions, higher than with DNA." Thanx to @JulianEdward pointing me to this!

The presentation will be to debunk some of the myths around the so-called Net Generation by highlighting the lack solid research to support many of the claims. I will present results from research done at BCIT and elsewhere to argue for a more nuanced approach to the use of educational technology to support the needs of this generation of learner.

"A new task force to ensure our universities become the first choice across the world for on-line distance learning was announced today by Higher Education Minister, David Lammy.The task force chaired by Lynne Brindley, the Chief Executive of the British Library will advise on a wider strategy to build on our past and present successes and ensure we do not lose pace on increased demand in expanding and new markets.It will be backed by a new Open Learning Innovation Fund aimed at helping universities build on their existing world class reputations to access and engage future markets that are expected to value around £15bn in the future. This is a competitive match funding initiative, with up to £10m from HEFCE and therefore worth up to £20m in total, aims to encourage universities to work collaboratively with each other and the private and third sectors, to bid for money to develop projects to help transform the way people can get a degree." Thanx to cris Sharing this! Awesome, seeing public investment in the right direction!

By Adam Hay Some companies have made a living creating a sort of "virtual classroom," allowing members to learn at their own pace when they have the time using video tutorials. The advantages of the classroom setting stem from a one on one experience and the ability of the instructor to show the ideas and theories rather than simply explain them.

when teachers and students connect outside school In my last entry, I made a comment about the value of "cool" teachers interacting with students on social network sites. I received some push-back from non-educators. Most of the concerns revolved around teachers' ethics and their responsibilities with respect to legal structures like the Federal Rights and Privacy Act. There were also concerns that teachers who would interact with students in these environments would be putting themselves at risk.

This book tell the story - one could almost call it an adventure - of how a 'Europe of education and 'training' has gradually been constructed. In so doing, and by focusing on this one specific area of policy, it also provides a concrete example of the process of building Europe itself. European integration may often seem a technocratic business, in the hands of remote institutions responsible for mainly macroeconomic policies whose benefits are not immediately felt by the public at large. The principal merit of this book is to remind the reader that, over the years, a different 'Europe' has also been created, one which connects with its citizens and reaches out directly to a great many people. How widely is it known, for example, that almost 1.5 million students have received an Erasmus grant since the programme began?

Are you ready to lead a revolution at your school or in your district? Leadership Day 2009. Intro: The Professional Networked Learning Collaborative Back in 2002 in his book Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution Howard Rheingold predicted that, "The 'killer apps' of tomorrow's mobile infocom industry won't be hardware devices or software program but social practices. The most far reaching changes will come, as they often do, from the kinds of relationships, enterprises, communities, and markets that the infrastructure makes possible." The prediction, as we now know, was spot dead on. The technology has transformed our relationships, how we are able to collaborate, how we now define communities, what constitutes a network, and what kinds of work we are able to do. According to Deborah Ancona and Henrik Bresman, authors of X-Teams, "…team effectiveness is not just a matter of managing well around the conference table. Success also depends on team's reaching out across their borders to find needed information and expertise."It is this intersection of collaboration and technology that has now allowed us to create and leverage a new form of boundary crossing Professional Learning Community. It's called a Professional Networked Learning Collaborative.

Was ist ein Podcast? Filed under: Podcasting - Thomas at 1:04 pm on Tuesday, February 28, 2006 Aus gegebenem Anlass, weil es immer wieder falsch gemacht wird: Ein Podcast ist nicht einfach eine Audiodatei. Es ist eine Audio- (oder Videodatei), die ABONNIERT werden kann. Der Feed ist das Entscheidende. Wer meint, MP3s auf seine Seite stellen zu können und dann einen Podcast zu haben, sollte Blogmonitoriung betreiben: Das wird schnell zerrissen. Den erst der Feed macht es so bequem für Anbieter und Nutzer: Beide müssen sich um nichts mehr kümmern. Darüber hinaus sind Podcasts von ihrem Sinn her auch als Podcast produzierte Dateien, die meist den Charakter einer Radiosendung haben. Recyclete Radioinhalte sind da eher ein Grenzbereich. Unternehmen, Verbände und Medien, die jetzt mehr wissen wollen: Ich biete da gerne Vorträge und Workshops an.

"Rezension: Albert K. Petersheim Patricia Arnold (2003). Kooperatives telematisches Lernen aus der Perspektive der Lernenden - Qualitative Analyse einer Community of Practice im Fernstudium (Reihe "Medien in der Wissenschaft" der Gesellschaft für Medien in der Wissenschaft, GMW). Münster: Waxmann, 315 Seiten, ISBN 3-83091-262-5, 29,90 EURO Zusammenfassung: Welche Bedeutung kommt dem kooperativen Lernen im Zusammenhang mit dem Fernstudium zu? Kann das Internet dabei eine fördernde, unterstützende Rolle spielen? Diese Fragen untersucht Patricia ARNOLD in ihrer Dissertation, wobei sie sich auf das Fernstudium mit seinen besonderen Bedingungen des Lernens bezieht. In der vorliegenden qualitativ-empirischen Untersuchung einer Gemeinschaft von Fernstudierenden untersucht ARNOLD, wie selbst bestimmtes Lernen innerhalb einer Gruppe kooperativ und online organisiert werden kann. Ausgangslage ihrer Untersuchung ist der aktuelle Stand der Forschung zu kooperativem Lernen im Internet. Die Subjektwissenschaftliche Lerntheorie nach HOLZKAMP (1993) und das situierte Lernen in Communities of Practice nach LAVE und WENIGER (1991) stellen die beiden theoretischen Ankerpunkte in der Studie dar. Im Ergebnis wird eine gegenstandsbezogene Theorie sichtbar, in der sich die Formen des Lernens in einer virtuellen Gemeinschaft zwischen Bewältigung und Gestaltung des Fernstudiums bewegen."