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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.

"Five years ago, we launched a conference based on a simple idea, and that idea grew into a movement. The original Web 2.0 Conference (now the Web 2.0 Summit ) was designed to restore confidence in an industry that had lost its way after the dotcom bust. The Web was far from done, we argued. In fact, it was on its way to becoming a robust platform for a culture-changing generation of computer applications and services. In our first program, we asked why some companies survived the dotcom bust, while others had failed so miserably. We also studied a burgeoning group of startups and asked why they were growing so quickly. The answers helped us understand the rules of business on this new platform. Chief among our insights was that "the network as platform" means far more than just offering old applications via the network ("software as a service"); it means building applications that literally get better the more people use them, harnessing network effects not only to acquire users, but also to learn from them and build on their contributions. From Google and Amazon to Wikipedia, eBay, and craigslist, we saw that the value was facilitated by the software, but was co-created by and for the community of connected users. Since then, powerful new platforms like YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter have demonstrated that same insight in new ways. Web 2.0 is all about harnessing collective intelligence." Web2.0 aus der Sicht O'Reilly and John Battelle heute. Spannend, wie sie die Entwicklungen bewerten.

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.

(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

About the book: In this book, we present a collection of papers and articles which represent the varied backgrounds and interests of the authors, all of whom belong to the VITAE team who developed the materials and approaches which are outlined here. While some articles are practical in their focus, describing the application of pedagogic models and the experiences of the participants; others are more theoretical, offering in-depth explorations of the approaches taken in developing the VITAE model.

During the last of our IM discussions related to the theme upgrade, I told Preshit that I worked my bit of the upgrade entirely using MacRabbit's Espresso. He was surprised, to say the least. Everyone knows me as a Coda fanboy, so did I ditch it just like that? I've always seen Espresso as sort of the underpowered in comparison with Coda. Coda is feature rich, has a splendid user interface, so why switch to something sub-standard? Lately though Coda has been showing its age, especially improvements in the world of HTML and CSS, and its user interface felt a little too heavy, given the current trend towards minimalism. Moreover, with Espresso's 1.1 update, things were looking good for this new kid on the block. So I gave it a serious run-through by doing the theme upgrade entirely in Espresso.

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!

"Should you friend your students? The short answer is no Earlier this year I delivered a further cyberbullying guidance document on behalf of Childnet International for the UK Government's Department for Children, Schools and Families. The Guidance follow up (and designed to compliment) cyberbullying guidance, a comprehensive document  that formed part of the Safe To Learn: Embedding anti-bullying work in schools suite of advice. While the initial document was really well received both within the UK & internationally, teachers unions and associations were increasingly being asked to deal with school employee cyberbullying cases - in which the staff member was the person being victimised." so written by Josy Fraser a very intereting Blog Post about what we call in germany the adaequate "Paedagogische Beziehung" - How to care this in ages of social networks and learning.

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.

Zusammenfassung Der Aufsatz thematisiert die Kategorialanalyse als empirisches Verfahren zur Konzipierung psychologischer Grundbegriffe. Es wird gezeigt, dass die in der Grundlegung der Psychologie vertretene Auffassung, Kategorien seien ausschließlich historisch-empirisch fundierbar, nicht zu halten ist; vielmehr kann Aktualempirie in die Kategorialanalyse eingehen. Abschließend wird gefragt, was dies für das Profil der Kritischen Psychologie heißt. Schlagwörter: Kategorien, Einzeltheorien, historische und Aktualempirie, Vorbegriffe Summary Categorial analysis and actual empiricism. A critical remark on Klaus Holzkamp's "Grundlegung der Psychologie" The article is concerned with the concept of categorial analysis as an empirical method for the conceptualization of the fundamental terms of psychology. It is shown that Holzkamp`s notion, that categories can exclusively be founded by means of historic empiricism, is indefensible; in fact it is possible that actual empiricism becomes part of the categorical analysis. Finally, the article will raise the question about the consequences of this theoretical shift for the Critical Psychology itself. Key words: psychological categories, single theories, historic and actual empiricism, pre-terms

"The research described in this paper is the investigation of interactivity between learners and system in the context of remote access to educational field explorations (field trips). The concept is described generically as remote access field trip (RAFT). The interactivity framework proposed for assessing RAFT considers it within the context of live distance education and needs to be judged in terms of set interaction criteria, e.g. learner & learner, learner & instructor, learner & content and learner & interface. This paper proposes that criteria for distance learning interaction assessment should consider also how the leaner interacts with a pervasive interface. This is particularly relevant in this context because the system involves participants interacting with a pervasive system within a live field trip experience, and creates a unique human-system interaction in the educational domain."

Take the simplicity of Twitter, add some features such as sending attachments, redesign the software to appeal to teachers and students, what you end up with is Edmondo.com, a young site that is rapidly gaining converts in the education community. It is a great example of using digital tools to organize a student's day-to-day workflow. Edmodo provides a way for teachers and students to share notes, links, and files. Teachers have the ability to send alerts, events, and assignments to students. Privacy is the biggest drawback to using traditional web 2.0 tools in a k-12 classroom setting.  (Has Twitter been around long enough to be called traditional?) Edmondo promotes itself as "a private communication platform for teachers and students." I'm not a teacher, so I'll defer to the views of someone who is. Mark Warner is a primary teacher in the U.K. who runs the successful www.TeachingIdeas.co.uk and blogs on MrWarner.com.  He and his students (ages nine and ten) just recently started using the site, and they think it's great.

"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!

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.

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?

Bienvenue! Welcome! 歡迎! Willkommen! Benvenuto! 반갑습니다!  Seja bem-vindo(a)! Bienvenido! The 2010 Global Education Conference will be held November 15 - 19, 2010, online and free.  Sessions will be held in multiple time zones and multiple languages over the five days.  We are now accepting proposals for presentations.  The conference is a collaborative and world-wide community effort to significantly increase opportunities for globally-connecting education activities and initiatives.   (To clarify, this is a worldwide conference on globally-connected education, not a "global conference on general education").  All sessions will be held in the Elluminate platform, will be broadcast live, and will be available in recorded formats afterwards. There is no formal registration required for the conference, as all the sessions will be open and public.  The session schedule will be posted here starting in early November.  You are encouraged to consider presenting, and should use the "Call for Presentations" tab above.

Journal of Virtual Worlds and Education  Volume 1, Issue 1 Below is the inaugural issue of the Journal of Virtual Worlds and Education. Issues of the Journal of Virtual Worlds and Education are available on a subscription basis. But, as an introductory gesture, the Journal editors have elected to make the full premiere issue of the Journal publicly available as a downloadable PDF file. To peruse our first issue, simply click on the cover image below.

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.

Grom the Webpage: "About The Free Music Archive is an interactive library of high-quality, legal audio downloads.  The Free Music Archive is being directed by WFMU, the most renowned freeform radio station in America.  Radio has always offered the public free access to new music. The Free Music Archive is a continuation of that purpose, designed for the age of the internet." Thanx to @anitsirk to pointing us to this!

A production time primer for the podcasting beginner. BY RYAN IRELAN So, you've decided to start a podcast. Good for you! For some people, recording and publishing their voice and thoughts is a huge deal. It is for me. You have a great idea, the energy to do it and the hardware you need. All set, right? So, what kind of time commitment should you be prepared for when embarking on producing your podcast? The bad news is that I don't have the perfect answer. The good news is that I can give you some rough estimates of the time it would take and then from there you can plan accordingly. Let's figure it out, shall we?