I've been thinking. If the highest level of e-learning is augmentation of existing teaching and learning capabilities, then why not investigate cloud supercomputers - the logical extrapolation of today's cloud computing.
Imagine the learning possibilities if students could easily run simulations using real-world data to investigate real-world phenomena or even social ones, to see what would happen if you tweaked certain environmental / historical conditions. Then teachers could use the various simulated outcomes as a starting point for discussion purposes - e.g. if everyone on earth had a car, what would happen to the earth's temperatures in the next few years? and then ask further questions from there using fundamental principles. Less time spent on tedious models, and more time spent observing systems interactions, may help make the next generation of
It sounds like a very high-level concept, but I think a practical example is when I used the speech-to-text convertor feature of an English dictionary app on my iPhone to help a boy learn how to pronounce words correctly. It turned a boring dictionary into a fun interactive game for him, and he learnt a few new words along the way.
Just some food for thought this holiday season. Merry Christmas!
In the schools, too, there is no reward for helping others (indeed, it is heavily penalized). Suppose educational achievement was measured at least partially according to how much (and how well) you helped others. The value of the achievement would increase if the person is a stranger (and conversely, decrease to zero if it's just a small clique helping each other) and would be in proportion to the timeliness and utility of the assistance (both of which can be measured).
Suppose instead students were rewarded for cooperation. Not collaboration; this is just the school-level emulation of the creation of cliques and corporations. Cooperation, which is a common and ad hoc creation of interactions and exchanges for mutual value. Cooperative behaviours include exchanges of goods and services, agreement on open standards and protocols, sharing of resources in common (and open) pools, and similar behaviours.
Imagine receiving academic credit for contributing well-received resources into open source repositories, whether as software, art, photography, or educational resources. Imagine receiving credit for long-lasting additions to Wikipedia or similar online resources (we would have to fix Wikipedia, as it is now run by a gang of thugs known as 'Wikipedia editors'). We can have wide-ranging and nuanced evaluations of such contributions, not simple grades, but something based on how the content contributed is used and reused across the net (this would have the interesting result that your assessment could continue to go up over time).
There is, again, no reason why public service cannot be incorporated into individual assessment. Adding value to fire and police services by means of monitoring and reporting (not the piece-work model of something like CrimeStoppers, but actual prevention), supporting environment by counting birds, sampling water, servicing sports events by acting as a timer or umpire - all these can add to a person's assessment.
I'm not thinking of the simple sort of tasks grade school students can perform. Indeed, a person hoping to attain a higher level qualification would need to contribute to the public good in a substantial and tangible way. Offering open online courses (that are well-subscribed and positively reviewed by the community) should be a requirement for any graduate-level recognition. The PhD used to be about offering a unique research contribution to the field; now it's about paying tuition and being exploited as a TA.
These three things - helping others, being cooperative, contributing to the public good - are obviously not easy to assess. To be sure, it's far easier to ask students simple questions and grade the number of correct responses. But assessing students in this way, far from measuring putative 'content knowledge', is really an exercise in counting without any real interest in what is being counted. It acts as an invitation to cheat, as it places self-interest ahead of the values it is actually trying to measure.
A research paper on how low-tech SMS can be highly effective for certain learning tasks such as teaching social English. And now, there's Whatsapp and other social-messaging platforms that can be an intermediate level between simple text messages that work on any basic phone, to sophisticated native apps that must be programmed for a specific operating system.
"As SMS is technologically and functionally very simple, it can be considered to be a relatively primitive
technology. However, viewing it from another angle, we see that SMS ranks very highly in terms of user
convenience.
Successful uptake of mobile learning strategy is more likely in the situation when "learning activities can integrate into our lives in an unobtrusive fashion". SMS can deliver information in this unobtrusive fashion more readily than other strategies.
SMS, thus, can be regarded as a practical and realistic mLearning technology for use in natural settings at present."
Google Gooru is a good resource for the latest Google Apps updates. A one stop site which keeps up with all the new releases and updates for Google Apps.
Try Ask Google Guru where you can find Google Apps Training Videos by topic, by level (beginner, intermediate, Gooru), and Migration Guides.
I'm sure you'll find this very useful.
That's an interesting thought! While the revised taxonomy + digital component are more for writing objectives, they might be suitable for evaluation.
The other issue to consider is that e-learning efforts will typically have a spread of objectives rather than just one or two. It will be difficult to pin point what they are.
The Technology Integration Matrix (TIM) illustrates how teachers can use
technology to enhance learning for K-12 students
The TIM incorporates five interdependent characteristics of meaningful learning
environments: active, collaborative, constructive, authentic, and goal directed
(Jonassen, Howland, Moore, & Marra, 2003). The TIM associates five levels of
technology integration (i.e., entry, adoption, adaptation, infusion, and
transformation) with each of the five characteristics of meaningful learning
environments.
Together, the five levels of technology integration and the five
characteristics of meaningful learning environments create a matrix of 25 cells.
Nice find! I particularly like the concept items on the x-axis and they could be used for evaluating e-learning. The vertical concepts are a bit dated.
This slideshare illustrates why social medias- blog,wiki etc alone is not the solution to the old problems of knowledge management.
knowledge management and social media look very similar on the surface but are actually radically different at multiple levels, bother cultural and technical, and are locked in an undeclared cultural war.
A recent Department of Education study suggested that blended classes (part online and part face-to-face) had higher achievement levels than either face-to-face or totally online classes. Students felt greater community in blended classes. This session will explore the design and delivery of blended classes to provide the benefits of both on campus and virtual instruction.
What a Blended Course is NOT:
Traditional classroom activities + "let's put some stuff on the web"
Online courses with campus tests
On campus lectures with reading and tests online
Folksonomy (tagging) is 1 of 3 categorizations of Web 2.0 tools. This article from the "Handbook of Research on New Media Literacy at the K-12 level" provides clear definition and powerful application of tagging activities. This excellent article shows Web 2.0 technologies as cognitive tools.
Responsive web designs, on the other hand, are inherently complex because they are trying to support many viewing experiences without necessarily optimizing the experience for one particular device (or genre of devices).
With a higher level of complexity comes a higher resource cost.
With responsive web design, gone are the days of simple mock-ups in Photoshop and a designer's work is done.
It allows you to switch between front and rear cameras while recording and snap photos while recording. For those looking for a professional level of control, Video Camera also lets you manually control exposure, focus, and white balance via a triple tap. The recent update also grants the permission to record up to 8 remote cameras.
Hi Ashley, I've been reading through this section for developers: http://tincanapi.com/page-developers/.
From what I understand so far, an LRS should do at least one of the following:
- Standardize and serialize the various types of data from different networks (e.g. Twitter, Facebook) into an LMS-friendly format
- Act as a stand-alone enterprise-level web-service from which other web-services can extract the collated data for their own usage.
The Tin Can APIs look useful so far for our own use (including mobile support), since they support Javascript, Objective C and Java.
I believe these APIs can link up with Google Enterprise Apps for greater LRS functionality too.
Well,
that was quick. Right after yesterday's surprising announcement,
Sony flew its yet-to-be-released NEX-VG10 camcorder into London just in time for
today's showcase event. Naturally, we had to get our hands on this shiny baby,
and boy we were impressed. In case you missed the news, this snazzy device is
the world's first consumer HandyCam with interchangeable lens, meaning you can
share E-mount lenses with your young NEX DSLRs, or take advantage of
the abundant A-mount lenses with the help of an adapter (which will cost you
extra, mind you). Likewise, there are also hot and cold shoe mounts on the mic
shaft to cater your current camera accessories. Read on for our thoughts on the
rest of the camcorder -- we've put together a little sample clip for you at the
end as well.
There
isn't much to complain about with this $2,000 (and, sadly, possibly £2,000 for
the Brits) piece of kit in terms of appearance and ergonomics. We like being
able to hold it by either the seemingly solid body (using the strap) or the mic
shaft, and both ways provided comfortable grip without much fatigue due to the
light weight (even with the bundled lens). We were also able to quickly master
the jog-dial control next to the 3-inch screen, but for this price, we expected
a touchscreen interface as well to make life easier. As for the bundled F3.5-6.3
18-200mm lens, we found that zooming required a bit more effort than we liked,
so thankfully there's auto focus mode -- just like any ordinary camcorder -- to
save us from further wrist work with the focus ring. We must also point out that
unlike the Olympus PEN,
this Sony camcorder didn't pick up any mechanical noise from its lens auto
focussing; otherwise, this kit totally wouldn't deserve such price tag.
Of
course, what we really care about is the picture and sound quality. All is
revealed in our sample reel below (remember to enable HD playback mode), but in
brief: stunningly accurate colors, sharp 1080/60i picture, and impressive audio
sensitivity (notice how the mic was able to pick up conversations from afar; you
can also enable just the front mics to minimise background noise). You may
notice some shakiness while we were adjusting the lens -- we'll blame it on our
lack of practice from the little hands-on time we had. Regardless, the NEX-VG10
certainly lived up to our expectation, and we look forward to hear what the
filming hobbyists think of this prosumer-level camcorder when it comes out in
September.
Update: commenter
aim120 dropped us a link to Sony's own sample clip. Enjoy!
The Levels of Teaching Innovation (LoTi) Framework was first conceptualized by Dr. Chris Moersch in 1994 as a research tool to assess authentic classroom technology use.
measure classroom teachers implementation of the tenets of digital-age literacy
The LoTi Framework focuses on the delicate balance between instruction, assessment, and the effective use of digital tools and resources to promote higher order thinking, engaged student learning, and authentic assessment practices in the classroom--all vital characteristics of 21st Century teaching and learning.
as a learning tool, the iPad’s
single-screen interface reduces elements of interruption and
potentially enhances user orientation to a specific task. An
abundance of features can be a disturbance to the cognitive process,
and educators often prefer mobile devices without distractive
features like messaging and phone calls.
Modern educators are voicing the need for learning to be more
contextual and engaging. Mobile phones and digital whiteboards add a
level of interactivity, but not a lot of computing power, and a
laptop is not always convenient.
The iPad fills this gap by enabling a host of activities such as
referencing, collaborating, and creating content. In an August 2010
Wired.com article, “The Web Is Dead. Long Live the Internet,” the
transformation from open Web browsing to specialized apps was a
change driven by the Apple model of mobile computing. The iPad
leverages this trend by providing personalized choice of content, a
big plus for student users.
If you have ever entertained that seemingly laughable thought of installing anti-virus software on your mobile phone, you are not alone.
A few months ago, Kaspersky Labs discovered two Trojan-SMS malware that masqueraded as media player apps for Android devices. Once installed, the malware can send premium SMSes costing US$6 ($7.70) each without the user's knowledge.
the money is still on computers, and cyber criminals follow the trail of money. The increasing number of people using smartphones is a factor, but not a big one yet. There are some banking services on mobile platforms, but the majority of consumers still use computers to access banking services
According to Kaspersky, closed platforms (iPhone, BlackBerry and the old Symbian) are more secure while open platforms (Android, Windows Mobile 6 Series and the new Symbian) are less so. This, Kaspersky explains, is because the level of security is inversely proportionate to the ease with which developers can build apps on it.
"The more secure a system is, the harder it is for development - both for the good guys and the bad guys," he said.
security and ease of app development are two sides of the same coin that have to be finely balanced in order for a mobile platform to succeed.
iPhone users face exactly the same problems, but unfortunately, Apple has a very strict regulation on the apps industry, and the SDK it gives to software companies doesn't let us develop what we need. (Thanks to Apple's efforts policing the platform) iPhone users face maybe fewer virus problems, but the threat with confidential data is still there - and it only takes one threat. Android may face more viruses, but at the same time, there will also be more solutions from us and our competitors
Open source and Closed source mobile platform faces security issue. An open source platform may be more prone to malwares and viruses.
Some factors we should consider in our context here in education to protecting confidential contents and issues while considering developing apps. for example we could risk all of our contacts information being stolen and end up being sold to some advertising spamming companies who spam you daily or watches your daily activities.
I used to think open source platform was very good for development but now you can have different view if you think like a hacker. It will take at least a year or more before mobile security catch up.
Blog > Putting Together an Effective Portfolio
Putting Together an Effective Portfolio
most freelancers with a decent body of work nowadays will also have an online presence, used, in the main, to display their work. Take as much care with your online portfolio as you would your physical one. Strive for a uniformity and dynamism in your photography of projects, and make sure that images and pdfs saved from the computer are of sufficiently high and consistent resolution. Write concise, foolproof explanations to accompany the work and organise it all in an intuitive level-based fashion, much as you would a website. Sites like Flickr and View Creatives go some way to aiding the freelancer in this professional-feeling endeavour, but you’ll still need to pour energy and vim into the whole enterprise to create the right appearance.
Useful Top Tips
Keep things small. A portfolio any larger than A3 is really too big
Keep things clean & uncrumpled
Loose-leaf sheets are better than ring-bound sleeves
Assembling a portfolio should not be a one-off exercise, but a dynamic and continual process
Request and absorb other people’s comments and allow this information to flow back into the way you maintain your portfolio
Interleave your loose-leaf sheets with a bold and dazzling substrate, though choose something that doesn’t overpower the work contained within
If you choose to carry your portfolio on a laptop, for pity’s sake avoid using Powerpoint in your presentations!
yeuann on 23 Dec 11I've been thinking. If the highest level of e-learning is augmentation of existing teaching and learning capabilities, then why not investigate cloud supercomputers - the logical extrapolation of today's cloud computing. Imagine the learning possibilities if students could easily run simulations using real-world data to investigate real-world phenomena or even social ones, to see what would happen if you tweaked certain environmental / historical conditions. Then teachers could use the various simulated outcomes as a starting point for discussion purposes - e.g. if everyone on earth had a car, what would happen to the earth's temperatures in the next few years? and then ask further questions from there using fundamental principles. Less time spent on tedious models, and more time spent observing systems interactions, may help make the next generation of It sounds like a very high-level concept, but I think a practical example is when I used the speech-to-text convertor feature of an English dictionary app on my iPhone to help a boy learn how to pronounce words correctly. It turned a boring dictionary into a fun interactive game for him, and he learnt a few new words along the way. Just some food for thought this holiday season. Merry Christmas!
