Group items tagged

Teaching/Learning Activities What do you want to use technology for? To help you answer this question, we've outlined some teaching/learning activities below that are used across the disciplines and tried to suggest through examples from the Web how each might utilize a certain kind of technology or a combination of different technologies to accomplish specific learning objectives. Each example represents a different discipline, and there are over 40 disciplines represented in the examples. Each example is associated with one or more interactive tool, and information about each kind of technology-what it is and how to use it-appears in the technologies section.

"The UDL Guidelines are organized according to the three main principles of UDL that address representation, expression, and engagement. For each of these areas, specific "Checkpoints" for options are highlighted, followed by examples of practical suggestions. In addition, Examples and Resources to guide implementation as well as a listing of the Research Evidence are offered for every checkpoint. Like UDL itself, these Guidelines are flexible and should be mixed and matched into the curriculum as appropriate. The UDL Guidelines are not meant to be a "prescription" but a set of strategies that can be employed to overcome the barriers inherent in most existing curricula. They may serve as the basis for building in the options and the flexibility that are necessary to maximize learning opportunities for all students. Educators may find that they are already incorporating many of these guidelines into their practice."

Spaces for learning The Council is keen to encourage reflection and discussion about effective learning and the design and use of space. In 2008 we commissioned the Space Collaboration report (from Critical Thinking and Bellevue Consulting), looking at space collaboration between universities and colleges. The report draws on practice and case studies from the UK and internationally. It focuses predominantly on space for pedagogic-related purposes (for example, learning and teaching, libraries and learning support) and where appropriate also considers space collaboration in support services (for example, information and guidance and students' association services and facilities). The purpose is to aid institutions considering collaboration in the use of space, with advice on planning, management and implementation.

"The Invisible Technologies of Goffman's Sociology Trevor Pinch Old technologies live on alongside new ones. Often the old technologies become invisible, just part of the stuff of life while attention is focused on a subset of technologies deemed new and interesting. For example, David Edgerton points out that whereas the Second World War is often seen as the crucible for new technologies from microwave radar to the atomic bomb, the extensive role of horses in the war is frequently overlooked.1 These invisible, mundane technologies are my focus here, and I wish to address how making such technologies more visible might contribute toward our sociological understanding of technology."

"We believe the time has come to broaden the traditional approach to leadership and decision making and form a new perspective based on complexity science. (For more on this, see the sidebar "Understanding Complexity.") Over the past ten years, we have applied the principles of that science to governments and a broad range of industries. Working with other contributors, we developed the Cynefin framework, which allows executives to see things from new viewpoints, assimilate complex concepts, and address real-world problems and opportunities. (Cynefin, pronounced ku-nev-in, is a Welsh word that signifies the multiple factors in our environment and our experience that influence us in ways we can never understand.) Using this approach, leaders learn to define the framework with examples from their own organization's history and scenarios of its possible future. This enhances communication and helps executives rapidly understand the context in which they are operating."

"The Cognitive Edge Network is evolving a series of open source methods based on naturalising sense-making through the Method Development Cycle. The full list of methods can be accessed here. The Method Template is designed to provide some guidance to users of the Cognitive Edge Wiki and also a cut and paste capability to assist in setting up a new page. In general the following principles should be followed: 1. Consistency: should be consistent with the principles of naturalising sense-making. In other words it should avoid idealistic approaches based on defining future states rather than enabling evolution 2. Minimalism: a method template should contain the essence of the method and should be written so that a practitioner can quickly glance through the sheet (especially the work flow) during use without the need to navigate through a large amount of text. 3. Use HTML: additional material, illustrations, detailed check lists, supporting documents, action forms or whatever can also be stored as files or as new articles and then referenced from the method document. 4. Object based: methods should be descrete items, which can easily be combined with other methods. As such they should be codified at a level which allows that. Assemblies can be written up as Offerings 5. Non-specificity: as far as possible do not make the method description specific to a particular application area or industry sector. If there is a good example of the application then create a new article and create a link to that article 6. Avoid recipes: the Cognitive Edge method is object based, it is not a recipe. We expect adaption in context. Methods should therefore not read like recipes, or encourage people to repeat past practice. The method document is an original from which context specific practice can be developed. "

By a "research talk" we mean a presentation of 30-60 minutes, given to a group of people who are motivated and intelligent, but who may not know much about your particular area. The paper is heavily on our personal experience of giving talks in the area of Computing Science. What we have to say is quite different from what business people are often taught, but perhaps that's due mainly to a difference in the style of presentation needed for technical material. Papers like this one often tend to consist mainly of "motherhood" statements, with which nobody could possibly disagree (such as "prepare well"), and thereby end up with little real punch. We have tried to avoid this, partly by deliberately overstating some things (the title, for example) in order to make our points more vividly. We make no claim to have all the answers; rather, we have simply tried to write down suggestions which have worked for us in the hope that they may be useful to you. Everyone is different, so take what is useful for you, and ignore the rest.

"A definition for the term Personal Learning Environment (PLE), remains elusive. Conception about what should constitute a PLE depends on the perspective of the commentator. For example, the priorities for a PLE are different for a tertiary student, a university administrator, an instructor, a working professional, or an adult who persues an eclectic path of lifelong learning. Metaphorically, an individual may engage in a learning process that is either more acquisitional or participatory (Sfard, 1998). There are inconsistencies across these positions about what a PLE should do. But whether constructively and defensively, interest in PLE appears to be growing. At the time of writing this introduction (August 2006), no particular product or service exists that can definitively be categorised as a PLE, although some prototypical work is in progress. An inclusive, authoritative account about PLEs does not yet exist. Only a handful of articles have appeared in the academic and public press about PLEs since the term gained currency in 2004. This article has been compiled after tracking recent conversations in the blogosphere and following social bookmarks. "

"About four years ago, I wrote an article on Learning Ecology, Communities, and Networks. In many ways, it was the start for me of what has become a somewhat sustained dialogue on teaching, learning, knowledge change, connectivism, and so on. Connectivism represents the act of learning as a network formation process (at an external, conceptual, and neural level …and, as I've stated previously, finds it's epistemological basis in part on Stephen's work with connective knowledge). Others have tackled the changes of technology with a specific emphasis on networked learning - Leigh Blackall, for example). And some have explored network learning from a standards perspective (Rob Koper). While not always obvious, there is a significant amount of work occurring on the subject of networked learning. What used to be the side show activity of only a few edubloggers now has the attention of researchers, academics, and conferences worldwide. Networked learning is popping up in all sorts of conference and book chapter requests - it's largely the heart of what's currently called web 2.0, and I fully expect it [networked learning] will outlive the temporary buzz and hype of all thing 2.0."

There are growing expectations among college students to be able to access and manage their course materials over the World Wide Web. In its early days, faculty would create web pages by hand for posting this information. As Internet technologies and access have matured over the past decade, course and learning management systems such as Blackboard and Web CT have become the norm for distributing such materials. In today's Web 2.0 world, wikis have emerged as a tool that may complement or replace the use of traditional course management systems as a tool for disseminating course information. Because of a wiki's collaborative nature, its use also allows students to participate in the process of course management, information sharing, and content creation. Using examples from an information technology classroom, this paper describes several ways to structure and use a wiki as a course management tool, and shares results of a student survey on the effectiveness of such an approach on student learning. Keywords: Wiki, Course Management, Collaboration, Web 2.0, Content Creation, Student Learning.

Marking with Voice tools December 14, 2008 by Terry Anderson I have nearly completed this term's paper and report marking using Adobe Acrobat to add voice comments and annotations. In a word, the results are terrific!! First, it saved me time. I am not a fast typer and using voice, meant I didn't even have to spell check!! My comments were much longer than text annotations and I was able to give examples, suggestions etc. that I could have done in text, but likely would not have due to time constraints.

eLearning Papers adds a new dimension to the exchange of information on e-learning in Europe and stimulates research. As such, the articles provide views regarding the current situation and e-learning trends in different communities: schools, universities, companies, civil society and institutions. eLearning Papers provides all those interested with an opportunity to have their texts published throughout Europe. Through these articles, the journal promotes the use of ICT for lifelong learning in Europe. The scope of the eLearning Papers reflects the four interest areas of elearningeuropa.info: schools, higher education, training and work and learning and society. All e-learning related themes are accepted as topics. The following topics are given as an example: * Technologies * Pedagogy * Process * Quality and evaluation * eInclusion * Learning environments

Welcome to TiddlyWiki! TiddlyWiki is a single html file which has all the characteristics of a wiki - including all of the content, the functionality (including editing, saving, tagging and searching) and the style sheet. Because it's a single file, it's very portable - you can email it, put it on a web server or share it via a USB stick. But it's not just a wiki! It has very powerful plugin capabilities, so it can also be used to build new tools. You have full control over how it looks and behaves. For example, TiddlyWiki is already being used as: * A personal notebook * A GTD ("Getting Things Done") productivity tool * A collaboration tool * For building websites (this site is a TiddlyWiki file!) * For rapid prototyping * ...and much more!

Designing Spaces for Effective Learning was launched at the JISC Conference 2006. A visually-rich publication, it is designed to promote better understanding of what makes an effective design for the 21st century and to summarise the key points to consider when approaching a refurbishment or new-build project.  This publication takes the reader on a 'walk through' of an educational institution, exploring the relationship between learning technologies and innovative examples of physical space design at each stage of the journey. Discussion of the key points is illustrated by 10 case studies from further and higher education, and floor plans from AMA Alexi Marmot Associates, architects and space planners, which provide up-to-date guidelines on the integration of technologies into teaching and learning accommodation.

These pages seek to describe tools that are used by communities of practice, explain how each functions from a community perspective, and suggest why you might select the tool, given your community's orientation and the activities your community wants. The pages attempt to define each tool, describe relevant features, the tool's uses in a community of practice, how the polarities can show up, examples, and resources. Although not all pages conform to a standard, we have developed a Tool Description Template that suggests a standard of completeness for tools pages. A Use in Combination Template suggests how tools are used together in a community context.

How to Hack Together a Twitter Client Guy Kawasaki of How to Change the WorldGuy Kawasaki of How to Change the World | May 4th, 2009 - 03:57 PM (89) found this useful. Do you? Yes NNW.jpg Sometimes you can make do with what's available. Take, for example, Twitter clients. Until someone creates my fantasy Twitter client, I am using an application that doesn't have "Tw" anywhere in its name or heritage. It's called NetNewsWire. This is bizarre because NetNewsWire is a RSS reader. Its purpose is to aggregate news feeds from websites and blogs. (Ironically, my company, Alltop, is in the business of making RSS readers unnecessary, but that's another story.) Using NetNewsWire for Twitter is like using a Toyota Prius as a taxi cab: it makes sense because of the Prius's great mileage, but I doubt that Toyota planned it this way or optimized Prius for this purpose.

October 28, 2008 Kevin Kelly Q&A Filed under: Uncategorized - wadatripp @ 9:56 am Tags: Kevin Kelly, masie, Q&A On Collaboration Tools of the Future: Tools we have right now are minimal. Not good in sense that they dont structure the information we are generating. Info needs structure to be readable and parseable. We'll see tools come along where the structure of the information is parsed and shared. Example: Parsing out arguments. If you use the word "Pacifica" for my hometown, the machine should know that…because we know that. Tools today are not aware of semantic structure of an argument. Hello Semantic Web ; ) Awareness of structure and interactions of conversations. Meaning of what we are doing is better captured and parsed.

Design your best elearning yet Fun guide helps you create powerful elearning every time The Elearning Blueprint™ guides you through a streamlined approach to instructional design that helps you turn even the most boring content into lean, lively materials. Practical advice and lots of examples make it easy to choose the most powerful activities, organization, media, and writing style.

T&L blogger Ryan Bretag recently sat down with his students and asked them about 21st-Century Learning strategies. Their suggestions are amazing. Read the whole piece here: http://www.techlearning.com/blogs.aspx?id=15776 Some snippets: Each discussion point started and ended with the focus on learning. For example, the students talked about creating a learning environment that was about learning not just memorization. To do this, they wanted to seek out partnerships both locally and globally in order to build connections that would foster a "learning to learn" movement where students are learning for learning, open to learning, and innovative. Clearly, textbooks were not fast enough nor diverse enough in their eyes. They longed for ways to interact with materials that were updated frequently and offered a wealth of perspectives. In fact, a good portion felt there was a need to move beyond the textbook because "information changes to rapidly" for textbooks to be the main source in the classroom. Along with this, information and resources needed to come in a variety of formats if the curriculum was going to remain progressive and current: narrative, fiction, digital, multimedia, and non-fiction.

Social Software Introduction When the web was originally introduced to the world it was seen as a means of dramatically improving the way in which people communicate and socialise. Tim Berners Lee, inventor of the worldwide web, saw it as a place where people could share information through a series of hyperlinked pages. "In 1989 one of the main objectives of the WWW was to be a space in which anyone could be creative, to which anyone could contribute." (Tim Berners Lee, 2005) Unfortunately, although the web became an excellent repository of information, it became a place where only technically adept users and organisations would author content. The arrival of new services (often referred to as 'Web 2.0') has helped to remove many of the barriers preventing users from participating. Thanks to this wave of new services we have seen a massive rise in the uptake of web authoring and collaboration. The term this new wave of social activity has been given varies i.e. Social Software, Social Media and Social Computing. The key word is 'Social'! Social software tools, such as blogs, wikis and bookmark sharing services, offer exciting new ways to communicate and collaborate online. Their potential is already being keenly explored in teaching and learning, but they also offer considerable possibilities for research and the business and community engagement (BCE) sectors within higher and further education, since their flexibility and ease of use are particularly well-suited to collaboration across different sectors. As a recent article explained, "The advent of social software has brought a new culture of sharing, and this time around, people are willing to give up some of their knowledge..." (Tebbutt, 2007). Furthermore, social software's increased emphasis on multimedia, as well as text-based content, means that universities can find new ways of harnessing and making their knowledge and research accessible, thus creating what has been described as "a new form of acade