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What it Means to Educate Today's Students February 4th, 2009 Comments The Carnegie Foundation is focusing on where and how technology can add value as we seek to advance more ambitious learning goals for all students, and where we can assist educators as they move toward making these new learning goals universal. The Foundation has enlisted expert advisers to help us look at how technology is transforming how we educate. One of these advisors is Nichole Pinkard, Director of Innovation at the Urban Education Institute, University of Chicago.

The result of 12 months research by the European Commission - Institute for Prospective Technological Studies on the impact of Web 2 innovations on education and training in Europe.

great model for staff dev program on web 2.0 in T&L About Learning 2.0 @ Mac What is Learning 2.0 @ Mac & why are we doing it? Learning 2.0 @ Mac is a hands-on, immersive learning programme that provides an opportunity to explore Web 2.0 tools and the impact these tools are having on libraries & library service. All participants are encouraged to use the programme as an opportunity to check out 2.0 technologies and think about ways in which McMaster Libraries can use these tools to deliver innovative library services. Learning 2.0 @ Mac is all about exploration, discovery, and play! How does it work? For 12 weeks (starting February 12, 2007), participants will use freely available online tools (such as Blogger, WordPress, Bloglines, and del.icio.us) to complete a number of activities. Each week focuses on a specific type of tool (e.g. blogs, RSS, wikis) and each activity will give participants a chance to explore the tool and consider the ways in which it can be used in a library environment. Participants are encouraged to use their blogs (which they will set up in week 2) to discuss their thoughts about and reactions to the tools and technologies they explore.

The present and future of Personal Learning Environments (PLE) - 9 comments This post is recast from an assignment I completed about four months ago in a Masters Degree course entitled Innovative Practice and Emerging ICT, in which I investigated what PLEs are meant to be and where they might be going. It was originally part of a class wiki. Contents 1. Introduction 2. Towards a Definition 3. Driving Forces 4. Developments to Date 5. Barriers 6. Future Potential 7. References 8. Web Links Introduction 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.

Engagement Streams As Course Portals April 18th, 2009 This podcast comes from a presentation Chip German and I did at the ELI 2009 Annual Meeting earlier this year. Here's the session abstract: What if course portals, typically little more than gateways to course activities and materials, became instead course catalysts: open, dynamic representations of "engagement streams" that demonstrate and encourage deep learning? The session will begin with case studies in enabling and designing such course portals, from both administrative and faculty perspectives. Participants will then form groups to imagine and design their own catalytic course portals. Finally, the presenters will discuss action steps that can lead to effective innovation at participants' home institutions. Presentation resources, including a record of the participants' design work, will be posted to an online collaborative space for continued discussion after the session.

"The STUDIO 20 concentration at NYU offers master's level instruction with a focus on innovation and adapting journalism to the web. The curriculum emphasizes project-based learning. Students, faculty and visiting talent work on editorial and web development projects together, typically with media partners who themselves need to find new approaches or face problems in succeeding online. By participating in these projects and later running their own, students learn to grapple with all the factors that go into updating journalism for the web era."

Why IT Investments Often Don't Improve Educational Outcomes At least three basic problems have dogged most attempts to translate technological investments into improvements in educational outcomes.

"ePioneers is a new approach to e-learning adoption, based on mentoring of 'quick gain' projects, with individual and School-wide outcomes. It offers a way to move e-learning beyond early adopters and into the mainstream. Through 23 video conversations, and supported by 29 documents, 11 School of Education staff offer a balanced view of e-learning adoption …"

A new approach to e-learning adoption based on mentoring of quick gain projects

http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/epioneers/programme/auditing/ Check this one out in particular - I like the way it highlights the common misconception that there are just a couple of innovators in each person's 'sphere'; it reminded me of the plan you had about the 'go to' survey.

Bringing it Together Friday, November 14th, 2008 | PSU Blogging, Thoughts I thought I'd share a few quick thoughts on the progress of our Blogs at Penn State project with everyone. We've been at this for quite some time and it is starting to really feel like it is catching on. Measuring a service's success at a place like PSU is tough. Is it measured through the number of users? Is it measured through positive feedback? Perhaps through novel uses of the service? No one can really tell me one way or the other … so for the Blogs at Penn state, I am using my own metrics - and they are probably flawed, but that is why I am saying they are my metrics.

Tracy Boyer is an award-winning multimedia producer, specializing in Flash development and multimedia production. She is obtaining her masters degree at UNC-Chapel Hill, studying Human-Computer Interaction in the School's Information Science program. Previously, she was a multimedia producer at Roanoke.com, served as the UNC correspondent for CNN.com and interned with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. In 2007, she was selected to participate in the Poynter Summer Fellowship. Boyer graduated with a multimedia degree from UNC's School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Her passions lie in travel and multimedia production with a focus on video, audio and Flash-based interactives. See more of her work at www.tracynboyer.com.

Changing Nature of Physical Spaces Each Saturday I meet my friend and colleague, Scott McDonald, at a local coffee shop for an hour or so to discuss some emerging research topics we're working towards. Each week we are amazed at the number of people in Saint's sitting on their laptops working - most of them are doing browser based work like google docs, Facebook, and the like. It is rare that I see anyone not using the browser as the primary mode of work. That is a big change from even a year or so ago. The same can typically be observed if you walk onto our campus and into the student union building. You see table after table of students on laptops, living in their browsers - Facebook, gmail, and ANGEL seem to be what I see. Rarely do I observe work happening in "real" applications. I am guessing that will only get more common as the Blogs at PSU gain wider adoption for writing and students begin to weave google docs into their daily workflow.

Yochai Benkler explains how collaborative projects like Wikipedia and Linux represent the next stage of human organization. About Yochai Benkler Yochai Benkler has been called "the leading intellectual of the information age." He proposes that volunteer-based projects such as Wikipedia and Linux are the next stage of human organization…

Voices Carry I was feeling really restless early last week about our ability to run and manage new and emerging services in a World where change happens at a pace that is nearly out of control. I thought my post, Why Run a Service would be a signal that I've come to a conclusion that there are real reasons to try and keep up. I didn't honestly expect it to strike the chord it did, but when you ask people interesting questions you sometimes get more interesting questions in return that demand to be explored. Lots of killer conversation going on in the comments of that post … one particular thread emerged about how encouraging open writing and blogging can generate greater depth of connections within our community. That last word is the really important piece to us - how we work to engage our community to embrace these emergent trends is what we think will ultimately make what we do more interesting and important. The more they participate, the more we can contribute opportunities to change teaching and learning.