"Using technology to improve the cost-effectiveness of the academy: Part 2 By Tony Bates, on October 14th, 2009 Identifying the problem with higher education in the 21st was the easy part (Using technology to improve the cost-effectiveness of the academy: Part 1). Much more difficult is finding solutions to the problem. Summary of the problem In Part 1, I argued that the challenge for universities today is that * student numbers have increased dramatically, * students are much more varied in abilities, age, and culture, * quality of teaching, as expressed in overlarge classes, as a result has dropped and continues to drop, despite the addition of technology * the cost per graduate is increasing * the teaching and organizational models though have not changed fundamentally to adapt to these other changes."

"Mobile Learning:Transforming the Delivery of Education and Training Download the eBook"

"How I create and publish podcasts posted in open source, podcasting | Jason Kern recently asked me to share information about how I create and publish podcasts here on "Moving at the Speed of Creativity," and rather than send that info to just him I thought I'd create a post to share these links and procedures. Since I've developed these procedures over time it's entirely possible there are much better ways to do this, so if you have suggestions and input on alternative podcasting possibilities I'd love to hear it. I published my first podcast on August 3, 2005, and since that time have utilized a variety of different podcasting tools and websites. Rather than share an exhaustive list of all those links (some of which are included in my Intro to Educational Podcasting wiki page and Intermediate/Advanced Topics in Podcasting page) I am going to attempt to share briefly the software, websites, and other resources I utilize now to podcast, as well as an outline of the steps I follow in podcasting today."

"Twitter Best Practices for Nonprofit Organizations [twitter.com/nonprofitorgs :: More Web 2.0 Resources for Nonprofit Organizations Please Note: Three new best practices are added each month. Please subscribe to DIOSA Communication's Web 2.0 Best Practices e-newsletter to be alerted when new Twitter best practices have been posted. DIOSA Communications also offers a Webinar on How Nonprofit Organizations Can Successfully Use Twitter and Flickr."

"WordPress + Education = ScholarPress ScholarPress is a hub for developing WordPress plugins for Education. It's that simple. So far we've developed Courseware, a course management tool to publish your class schedule, assignments, and bibliography to accompany your blog. There's also WPBook, which can embed your WordPress blog into Facebook and create an application that students can add. Check it out."

Soren Gordhamer writes and consults on ways we can more creatively and effectively use the technologies of our age, including social media. He is the author of "Wisdom 2.0″ (HarperOne, 2009). You can follow him on Twitter at @SorenG. It is hard to know sometimes how our life has changed until we stop for a moment and look at how different it is from ten or even five years ago. In recent years social media, likely more than anything else, has significantly impacted most of our daily lives. Envisioning the global conversation that has developed over the past few years because of tools like Facebook (Facebook) and Twitter (Twitter) might have been unimaginable for most people at the beginning of this decade. But social media communication tools have profoundly changed our lives and how we interact with one another and the world around us. Here are the top areas that social media has affected in our daily lives.

Soren Gordhamer writes and consults on ways we can more creatively and effectively use the technologies of our age, including social media. He is the author of "Wisdom 2.0″ (HarperOne, 2009). You can follow him on Twitter at @SorenG. It is hard to know sometimes how our life has changed until we stop for a moment and look at how different it is from ten or even five years ago. In recent years social media, likely more than anything else, has significantly impacted most of our daily lives. Envisioning the global conversation that has developed over the past few years because of tools like Facebook (Facebook) and Twitter (Twitter) might have been unimaginable for most people at the beginning of this decade. But social media communication tools have profoundly changed our lives and how we interact with one another and the world around us. Here are the top areas that social media has affected in our daily lives.

combinedlogo3.jpgWelcome to the Knowledge Sharing Toolkit Join the ICT-KM Program of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the KM4Dev Community in creating and growing this resource of knowledge sharing tools and methods. While these are applicable in a wide range of contexts, we hope that together we can help frame them in the context of international development with a focus on agriculture, fisheries, food and nutrition, forestry and sustainable development.

combinedlogo3.jpgWelcome to the Knowledge Sharing Toolkit Join the ICT-KM Program of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the KM4Dev Community in creating and growing this resource of knowledge sharing tools and methods. While these are applicable in a wide range of contexts, we hope that together we can help frame them in the context of international development with a focus on agriculture, fisheries, food and nutrition, forestry and sustainable development.

Unlocking Knowledge, Empowering Minds. "My life is in teaching. To have a chance to do that with a world audience is just wonderful." * Gilbert Strang MIT Mathematics professor United States Read more Free lecture notes, exams, and videos from MIT. No registration required.

Unlocking Knowledge, Empowering Minds. "My life is in teaching. To have a chance to do that with a world audience is just wonderful." * Gilbert Strang MIT Mathematics professor United States Read more Free lecture notes, exams, and videos from MIT. No registration required.

Twitter Literacy (I refuse to make up a Twittery name for it) Post-Oprah and apres-Ashton, Twittermania is definitely sliding down the backlash slope of the hype cycle. It's not just the predictable wave of naysaying after the predictable waves of sliced-breadism and bandwagon-chasing. We're beginning to see some data. Nielsen, the same people who do TV ratings, recently noted that more than 60% of new Twitter users fail to return the following month. To me, this represents a perfect example of a media literacy issue: Twitter is one of a growing breed of part-technological, part-social communication media that require some skills to use productively. Sure, Twitter is banal and trivial, full of self-promotion and outright spam. So is the Internet. The difference between seeing Twitter as a waste of time or as a powerful new community amplifier depends entirely on how you look at it - on knowing how to look at it. When I started requiring digital journalism students to learn how to use Twitter, I didn't have the list of journalistic uses for Twitter that I have compiled by now. So I logged onto the service and broadcast a request. "I have a classroom full of graduate students in journalism who don't know who to follow. Does anybody have a suggestion?" Within ten minutes, we had a list of journalists to follow, including one who was boarding Air Force One at that moment, joining the White House press corps accompanying the President to Africa.

Twitter Literacy (I refuse to make up a Twittery name for it) Post-Oprah and apres-Ashton, Twittermania is definitely sliding down the backlash slope of the hype cycle. It's not just the predictable wave of naysaying after the predictable waves of sliced-breadism and bandwagon-chasing. We're beginning to see some data. Nielsen, the same people who do TV ratings, recently noted that more than 60% of new Twitter users fail to return the following month. To me, this represents a perfect example of a media literacy issue: Twitter is one of a growing breed of part-technological, part-social communication media that require some skills to use productively. Sure, Twitter is banal and trivial, full of self-promotion and outright spam. So is the Internet. The difference between seeing Twitter as a waste of time or as a powerful new community amplifier depends entirely on how you look at it - on knowing how to look at it. When I started requiring digital journalism students to learn how to use Twitter, I didn't have the list of journalistic uses for Twitter that I have compiled by now. So I logged onto the service and broadcast a request. "I have a classroom full of graduate students in journalism who don't know who to follow. Does anybody have a suggestion?" Within ten minutes, we had a list of journalists to follow, including one who was boarding Air Force One at that moment, joining the White House press corps accompanying the President to Africa.

I like telling stories. What sort of stories do I like to tell? Stories about days at school, life in the ANZ Bank, stories my father told me, historic sagas and the like. lots of links to digital storytelling later down on the page

I like telling stories. What sort of stories do I like to tell? Stories about days at school, life in the ANZ Bank, stories my father told me, historic sagas and the like.

Anecdote helps business leaders engage their people to be even better collaborators, leaders and change agents using the power of business narrative. Our clients often select us because our approaches are unashamedly pragmatic and practical and are based on our long experience in using these approaches to deliver business value. Building collaborative workplaces

spreadsheet of ted talks

CPsquare is like a town square, a place where people gather to connect and learn together. We are from corporate, private, non-profit, and academic organizations; we hail from many nations across the globe; we are involved in consulting, research, and direct support of communities of practice; and we join together to create our own community of practice. We are a non-profit organization, registered as a 501(c)(6) organization in the US.

The Electronic Journal of Knowledge Management aims to publish perspectives on topics relevant to the study, implementation and management of knowledge management. The journal contributes to the development of both theory and practice in the field of knowledge management. The journal accepts academically robust papers, topical articles and case studies that contribute to the area of research in, and practice of knowledge management.

"Learning Histories" are used in action research projects to enhance organizations' learning capabilities. The approach documents change as it facilitates individual and organizational reflection. Findings and progress in creating learning histories, as well as questions and issues regarding their future use in system-wide learning efforts, are described.

Social Return on Investment (SROI) Primary purpose SROI aims to help organisations understand and manage the social, environmental and economic benefits (value) that they are creating. It is a measurement approach, developed from traditional cost-benefit analysis that captures the economic value of social benefits by translating social objectives into financial measures and focuses on the most important sources of value as defined by stakeholders.1 The SROI model developed by nef is designed to promote the inclusion of all stakeholders' voices in the way organisations make decisions about allocating resources.

Welcome to the DARwiki, a resource and a meeting place for distributed action researchers. If you are new to Wikis you may like to visit introduction to wiki or experiment in the sandbox. You can also ask for help by adding a question here.

Almost the first thing that gets built when anything needs management is a good measurement system. It allows tuning, enables detection of deviations from norm, and gives feedback on the effect of changes and initiatives. Communities of practice are complex creatures, and thus their measurement is not simple. The number of perspectives that can be used is enormous. At the same time, the availability of data for each of them is very different, and the temptation to use subjective management impressions is high. So the history of CoP management is full of references to indicator-building, to attempts at significant reporting, and to a wide variety of more or less objective measurements. But we have not found a coherent, complete set of measurements that could be used to consistently evaluate not just one CoP, but a set of them, and eventually even to benchmark different ones, along most of the lines that can be affected by management. So we've attempted to put forth a simple, practical list and brief explanation of straightforward indicators that can be implemented in most CoPs, and especially in those with an online component. The first result of it is the linked white paper, but it should not be the last one.

Thinking about building or hosting an online community? Looking for specific tips, tools and ideas? Start here. The following is a collection of articles that may help inform your work. They are all covered by our Creative Commons license which makes the material available with limited restrictions. Check it out. Have something to contribute? Let us know!

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.