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How to Use This Course All of the content for this course is accessible from the right sidebar titled Course Materials (it's on the right there, just below the search box). But you'll probably want to begin by just diving right into the Syllabus. You'll also notice that Announcements are available in another sidebar there on the right, just below the Course Materials. Course Description Course ImageInnovation continues to occur on the internet at an extremely lively pace. What was once the realm of email, FTP, Gopher, and the Web is barely recognizable a mere 10 years later. Keeping up with the speed of innovation and maintaining a familiarity with the most recent tools and capabilities is handy in some professions and absolutely critical in others. This course is designed to help you understand and effectively use a variety of "web 2.0″ technologies including blogs, RSS, wikis, social bookmarking tools, photo sharing tools, mapping tools, audio and video podcasts, and screencasts.

World Without Walls: Learning Well with Others How to teach when learning is everywhere. by Will Richardson Print Forward Share Comments(0) Comment RSS Four teachers from High Tech High. Bringing Their A-Game: Humanities teacher Spencer Pforsich, digital arts/sound production teacher Margaret Noble, humanities teacher Leily Abbassi, and math/science teacher Marc Shulman make lessons come alive on the High Tech campuses in San Diego. Credit: David Julian Earlier this year, as I was listening to a presentation by an eleven-year-old community volunteer and blogger named Laura Stockman about the service projects she carries out in her hometown outside Buffalo, New York, an audience member asked where she got her ideas for her good work. Her response blew me away. "I ask my readers," she said. I doubt anyone in the room could have guessed that answer. But if you look at the Clustrmap on Laura's blog, Twenty Five Days to Make a Difference, you'll see that Laura's readers -- each represented by a little red dot -- come from all over the world. She has a network of connections, people from almost every continent and country, who share their own stories of service or volunteer to assist Laura in her work. She's sharing and learning and collaborating in ways that were unheard of just a few years ago.

Knowledge Work Types : eLearning Technology Several people have asked for some clarification on my definition of Concept Work and Concept Workers. To help clarify this and to begin thinking through implications for Work Literacy Skills, I went back through a couple of different sources. Thomas Davenport classifies Knowledge Work Types in Thinking for a Living: How to Get Better Performances And Results from Knowledge Workers using a variety of classifications. One was based on the complexity of the work. Work that requires greater interpretation/judgment vs. work that is relatively routine. He also classified these according to the level of dependence on others. Within that he then defined the following types of knowledge workers: * Transaction Worker - Routine, individual, ex. call center. * Integration Worker - Routine, collaborative, ex. systems development * Expert Worker - Interpretation/judgment, individual, ex. family physician * Collaboration Worker - Interpretation/judgment, collaborative, ex. investment banker

First Experience Asssessing E-Portfolios December 17, 2008 by Terry Anderson As an instructor in Athabasca University's Master of Distance Education program, I was involved in providing an e-portfolio option to replace the standard comprehensive exam process for non thesis route students. The old 'comps' consisted of the candidate writing yet two more essays on material covered in the porgram and defending the essays with two faculty members via audio conference. As students in our program write at least 30 papers over the course of the 11 courses in the program the added value of writing yet two more seems of little value. We use the elgg platform with its "presentation" plugin to create the e-portfolio. We extracted the graduate competencies from throughout the program and then required students to demonstrate with a blog reflection and an artifact or two from their course work or 'real life' to show how they have achieved this competence. The assignment also called for a final terminal "reflection" on the whole program and the e-portfolio exercise.

"Don't type it, iShowU it Need to show something to someone? iShowU is your answer! iShowU is designed to record anything on your screen, instantly - both audio, and video! If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a movie is worth a million. Imagine the time you'll save writing Grandma an email about how to magnify her dock when you can just shoot a movie in seconds. "

The Future of Work - good-bye martini lunches, hello working poolside Posted by Erik Larson at 04:28 PM Will social networking and instant messages replace the standard business phone call, the client lunch and the handshake? The Acrobat.com team recently completed a survey with Directions Research, Inc. that points toward an evolution in office workplace culture, including the changing ways white-collar workers are interacting and coordinating their tasks, and how business will be conducted in the social media-rich environment of the 21st century. The survey identified four key categories of knowledge workers: Leaders - Young professionals who use a variety of emerging technologies both at work and in their personal lives Actives - Largely over-35 year old professionals who have adapted to emerging technologies to meet the changing demands of the workplace Followers - The less technically-inclined who rely on e-mail at the exclusion of other technologie Resistors - Generally older workers who are reluctant to adjust to shifts in the workplace and office technologies

The creative learning designer's defence kit Introduction: why "defence kit"? This site is all about legitimising creativity and design thinking in the practice of learning design. One of its basic assumptions is that creativity is not highly valued in learning design processes, or in learning designers. There are increasing pressures on learning designers to prioritise efficiency and cost, rather than effectiveness and benefit. hand.jpg But the design of learning experiences is an extraordinarily creative process. Indeed, it presents an array of design challenges that many other design disciplines do not face. This brief "kit" is intended as a starting point for learning designers who feel that they need to be more creative. Of course, you can't learn how to change your working practice, your organisation or yourself from a few pages of text. (You knew that already). But hopefully it will gain your interest, and give you some signposts about where to go next, either on this site or elsewhere.

Abstract A recent draft manuscript suggested that Facebook use might be related to lower academic achievement in college and graduate school (Karpinski, 2009). The report quickly became a media sensation and was picked up by hundreds of news outlets in a matter of days. However, the results were based on correlational data in a draft manuscript that had not been published, or even considered for publication. This paper attempts to replicate the results reported in the press release using three data sets: one with a large sample of undergraduate students from the University of Illinois at Chicago, another with a nationally representative cross sectional sample of American 14- to 22-year-olds, as well as a longitudinal panel of American youth aged 14-23. In none of the samples do we find a robust negative relationship between Facebook use and grades. Indeed, if anything, Facebook use is more common among individuals with higher grades. We also examined how changes in academic performance in the nationally representative sample related to Facebook use and found that Facebook users were no different from non-users.

Some general comments on the "Twitter Experiment" by Monica Rankin (UT Dallas) There has been a lot of interest in the "Twitter Experiment" video posted by Kim Smith chronicling my U.S. History class at U.T. Dallas and our use of twitter in the classroom. I have fielded a number of inquiries from educators across the United States and even overseas who are interested in finding ways to use social networking in an educational setting. This write-up is intended as an informal summary of my use of twitter in the classroom. I hope it will help to clarify my experience and I welcome additional questions and commentary, particularly suggestions for how to improve this type of classroom interaction. The class: I used twitter in the basic U.S. History II survey course at U.T. Dallas in the spring 2009 semester. This is a "core" course requirement in the state of Texas. It generally enrolls students from all majors across campus. At the beginning of the semester, there were 90 students enrolled in my class. The class met in a large auditorium-style classroom on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 11:30-12:20. I had one graduate student teaching assistant to help with grading and other administrative duties for the class.

How Many Chores Does It All Add May 5, 2009 · Comments milking cows In the morning, I open up Google Reader and start by checking out who's talking about me, my company, PodCamp, and a few other choice terms. I read a few blogs (around 700). I check on some other searches for clients that I've loaded into my reader. When I'm done, I check Facebook to see who's looking for a friend request (because they have a limit on friends, I have to be picky). I see who's sent me Facebook mail (normally junk inviting me to someone's dumb marketing webinar). I try to remember to check the birthdays.

NCSS Position Statement on Media Literacy Media Literacy A Position Statement of National Council for the Social Studies © 2009 National Council for the Social Studies. All rights reserved This position statement was prepared by a task force of the Technology Community of National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS), and was approved by the NCSS Board of Directors in February 2009. "In the twenty-first century, participatory media education and civic education are inextricable" (Rheingold, 2008, p. 103) This position statement focuses on the critical role of media literacy in the social studies curriculum. The statement addresses the following questions. First, why and how has media literacy taken on a significantly more important role in preparing citizens for democratic life? Second, how is media literacy defined, and what are some of its essential concepts? Finally, what is required to teach media literacy and what are some examples of classroom activities?

"I have just read Lisa Lane's article in First Monday entitled "Insidious pedagogy: How course management systems impact teaching". I really liked her paper, not least because it raised some issues that I hadn't considered before regarding default settings in an LMS and the idea of opt in and opt out learning management systems. It also described the way many academics use (or don't use) the web in their work or play and how this effects their ability to use some of the more 'advanced' features of an LMS that go beyond an instructivist model of delivery. Perhaps most importantly of all it discusses the importance of emphasising pedagogy before 'features and tools' when working with web novices."

I liked the opt-in opt-out ideas. The issues raised about the contstraints imposed when customising or installing a cms are timely for us in terms of our new cms and in the light of the impending VLE review. Good food for thought here! The terms novice vs advanced instructors would make some for good debating. Who decides?

Essential multimedia tutorials and resources for do-it-yourself training Wednesday, March 25, 2009 The funny thing about the new wave of journalism is that news organizations are requiring journalists to learn additional technical skills, but aren't making the necessary training readily available. In order to be or remain employed in this industry its essential to hunker down and learn some new skills. The following tutorial sites will take you from journalist to multimedia journalist, something that looks great on any business card.

OpenZine is a publishing platform with web browser based tools that provides an easy way for anyone to make their own magazine, for free. The best way to describe what OpenZine provides is by understanding how magazines work. Magazines have a staff of writers, photographers, designers, illustrators and editors that create & contribute. Here at OpenZine you create & contribute on those same principles but your resources are other OpenZine users! To preserving the design experience of print we've created amazingly powerful one click layouts. You can even change them as you go! Create your magazine cover online with the OhhZee Image Editor. In just a few clicks, you can add shapes, text and effects the OhhZee way!

Google or You? Who Would You Rather Control Your Digital Identity? While many users of the internet have accepted a passive digital footprint over which they have not taken control, Dean Shareski recently presented at #BLC10 on ideas for managing and manipulating what Google says about us. To do this, first it makes sense to 1) Get in touch with what your digital footprint says about you, 2) Determine if that is what you would like your digital footprint to say and if not, determine what you do want. 3) Start establishing your digital footprint. Here's how.

"You have probably noticed that Twitter is more popular than ever. As small business owners and solopreneurs we know how beneficial social media can be but are often overwhelmed at the thought of managing it all. If you are looking to take advantage of Twitter in your business without it taking over your life, here are some great "shortcut" tools and applications to keep you in the social media game without sacrificing all of your precious time!"

"introNetworks can be the catalyst to help your organization accelerate and expand its business potential by increasing productivity from your existing assets. We are particularly effective when working with businesses that place a high value on intellectual capital. We'll look at your business through a lens that focuses on improving connections, communication and collaboration. Our patented technology offers staggering value to companies that truly want to transform how they connect."

Writing in 1992 about technology in museums, Bearman neatly summarizes a profound shift in museums' perception of their mission, which has only accelerated since then with the explosion of the Internet and the World Wide Web . This shift has inevitably placed stress on the curator's central role in the museum. Not that they weren't already under fire on many fronts, from issues of omniscient authority in a postmodern age of multiple meanings to accusations of parsimonious gatekeeping to the challenges of communicating difficult ideas and complex research to a "general audience" (which usually means a lot of very different audiences with specific needs and often-entrenched points of view). Regardless of how the curatorial role is defined, however, the Net in particular and interface culture in general introduce interesting and perhaps profound opportunities, which might also be perceived as competitive pressures in the culture arena quite old but stil interesting

"This is a moodle book I've put together to give people an introduction to open learning at UPEI… It still needs some work… but there it is. This topic considers the concept open learning and explores how being open as an educator can increase the chances for collaboration, access to knowledge and promote lifelong learning in students."

I've been preparing a class session on communities of practice this weekend, and it's been underscoring for me just how important people are to an effective learning environment. We're independent adults, and we like to think of learning as something that each of us does for ourselves, but all the terrific resources in the world can't hold a candle to the power of what can occur between people.