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"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. "

"Welcome to Quality Matters Quality Matters (QM) is a nationally recognized, faculty-centered, peer review process designed to certify the quality of online courses and online components. Colleges and universities across the country use the tools in developing, maintaining and reviewing their online courses and in training their faculty. "

"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."

"As the world's leading source of intelligent information, we recognize that our employees actively participate in social media and online communications. These guidelines are designed to help protect the reputation and credibility of Thomson Reuters, our employees, and contractors who create or contribute to blogs, wikis, social networks, virtual worlds or other social media. Whether you use Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Yammer, Wikipedia or MySpace - or comment on blogs or online media stories - these guidelines are for you. They cover three main areas: 1. Basic principles for all types of social media 2. Special guidelines for professional use of social media on behalf of the company 3. Special guidelines for personal use of social media "

"My suggested assumptions in MOOC include: * people would learn in a self-directed manner * Knowledge is distributed * Knowledge is negotiated * Knowledge is emergent * Knowledge is rhizomatic (thanks to Dave's video posted - refer to How to be successful in MOOC?) * Learning is capacity to construct, navigate and traverse across networks * personal learning networks would be a far better way for people to learn * people like to learn via social networks * people know how to connect (people have the communication, literacy and critical literacy skills) * people know how to use the technology to connect * people are self motivated (intrinsic motivation) * people like to accept challenges, chaos and complexity is just part of the learning process * people don't need to follow a course or qualification for learning to be effective * Learning is emergent, and is based on connections, engagement and interactions * Learning is open * Identity in networked learning is based on individual's "participation, interaction" in the networks, and is reflective of ones involvement in the media, it's dynamic, adaptive * Individual and social learning is emphasised - cooperation * Sensemaking and wayfinding are important"

"A PLE (personal learning environment) is: a system that helps learners take control of and manage their own learning. This includes providing support for learners to set their own learning goals, manage their learning, manage both content and process, and communicate with others in the process of learning. In contrast, a virtual learning environment (VLE) or learning management system (LMS), such as Blackboard or Moodle, is: a software system designed to help teachers by facilitating the management of educational courses for their students, especially by helping teachers and learners with course administration. The system can often track the learners' progress, which can be monitored by both teachers and learners. Notice the difference? A VLE/LMS is all about controlling how you learn. A PLE is about giving you control over how you learn."

The Future of Online Learning: Ten Years On An MS-Word version of this essay is available at http://www.downes.ca/files/future2008.doc In the summer of 1998, over two frantic weeks in July, I wrote an essay titled The Future of Online Learning. (Downes, 1998) At the time, I was working as a distance education and new media design specialist at Assiniboine Community College, and I wrote the essay to defend the work I was doing at the time. "We want a plan," said my managers, and so I outlined the future as I thought it would - and should - unfold. In the ten years that have followed, this vision of the future has proven to be remarkably robust. I have found, on rereading and reworking the essay, that though there may have been some movement in the margins, the overall thrust of the paper was essentially correct. This gives me confidence in my understanding of those forces and trends that are moving education today. In this essay I offer a renewal of those predictions. I look at each of the points I addressed in 1998, and with the benefit of ten year's experience, recast and rewrite each prediction. This essay is not an attempt to vindicate the previous paper - time has done that - but to carry on in the same spirit, and to push that vision ten years deeper into the future.

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.

8 Online Discussion Response Techniques Posted by: wiredinstructor in Course Design Reflections, Technology Integration, Top Posts, UW-Stout, Virtual School, e-learning, research, virtual high school Online discussion is the heart of a community of practice oriented e-learning course. However, it can be difficult to know how to respond. It's a good idea to think in terms of value added responses. What can you add to advance the discussion? I like to post the following list at the top of discussion forums in my online courses. It's a good reminder and a handy reference! Here are some suggestions to guide you as you respond to each other in discussion forums.

Faculty Development Programming: If We Build It, Will They Come? Added by the EDUCAUSE Librarian Author(s):Ann H. Taylor and Carol McQuiggan View a PDF of this article © 2008 Ann Taylor and Carol McQuiggan. The text of this article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/). EDUCAUSE Quarterly, vol. 31, no. 3 (July-September 2008) Faculty Development Programming: If We Build It, Will They Come? A faculty development survey analyzed what faculty want and need to be successful teaching online By Ann Taylor and Carol McQuiggan The number of courses offered online grows every year, resulting in an increasing number of higher education faculty entering a virtual classroom for the first time.1 It has been well documented that faculty need training and assistance to make the transition from teaching in a traditional face-to-face classroom to teaching online.2 Faculty professional development related to teaching online varies widely, from suggested readings to mandated training programs. Various combinations of technological and pedagogical skills are needed for faculty to become successful online educators, and lists of recommended competencies abound. Although many institutions have offered online courses for more than a decade and train their faculty to teach online, the research literature reveals that little is known about how best to prepare faculty to teach in an online environment. Designers of faculty development programs typically rely on commonly held assumptions about what faculty need to know-a constant guessing game regarding what topics to cover and what training formats to use. The resulting seminars, workshops, training materials, and other resources are typically hit-or-miss in terms of faculty participation and acceptance. To provide faculty with the proper training and resources for online teaching requires more information to determine

This applied infoKit includes a rich layer of associated resources, navigation points for which you can find throughout the material. This section brings all these resources together in a 'quick find' directory, and includes guidance notes on use where applicable.

SMALLab - Situated Multimedia Arts Learning Lab Central to our work is the development of the Situated Multimedia Arts Learning Lab [SMALLab]. SMALLab is an environment developed by a collaborative team of media researchers from education, psychology, interactive media, computer science, and the arts. SMALLab is an extensible platform for semi-immersive, mixed-reality learning. By semi-immersive, we mean that the mediated space of SMALLab is physically open on all sides to the larger environment. Participants can freely enter and exit the space without the need for wearing specialized display or sensing devices such as head-mounted displays (HMD) or motion capture markers. Participants seated or standing around SMALLab can see and hear the dynamic media, and they can directly communicate with their peers that are interacting in the space. As such, the semi-immersive framework establishes a porous relationship between SMALLab and the larger physical learning environment. By mixed-reality, we mean that there is an integration of physical manipulation objects, 3D physical gestures, and digitally mediated components. By extensible, we mean that researchers, teachers, and students can create new learning scenarios in SMALLab using a set of custom designed authoring tools and programming interfaces.

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.

"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. "

Participatory media may be the future, but a look at most comment threads shows that technology hasn't figured out a good way to force humans to act like citizens instead of fifth graders. UC Berkeley's Center for New Media hopes it has a way to fix that mess in its Opinion Space visualization tool, which provides a planetarium view of users opinions. Opinion Space, which launched Wednesday, is quite pretty, mildly addictive and full of rich possibilities for visualizing a community's opinions. Wired.com would love to have such a tool at its disposal, though its almost certainly going to be an addition to, rather than an substitute for, traditional comment systems. The center built the tool as a response to President Barack Obama's call for greater civic participation, which it says is "designed to go beyond one-dimensional polarities such as left/right, blue/red to actively encourage dialogue between people with differing viewpoints."

Introducing Edupunk The concept of Edupunk has totally caught wind, spreading through the blogosphere like wildfire. This post summarizes several recent posts and offers something like a definition (I would like to think that true edupunks deride definitions as tools of oppression used by defenders of order and conformity): "edupunk is student-centered, resourceful, teacher- or community-created rather than corporate-sourced, and underwritten by a progressive political stance. Barbara Ganley's philosophy of teaching and digital expression is an elegant manifestation of edupunk. Nina Simon, with her imaginative ways of applying web 2.0 philosophies to museum exhibit design, offers both low- and high-tech edupunk visions. Edupunk, it seems, takes old-school Progressive educational tactics--hands-on learning that starts with the learner's interests--and makes them relevant to today's digital age, sometimes by forgoing digital technologies entirely."

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.

Home About the eLearning Network What is the eLN? The eLearning Network (eLN) is a non-profit organisation run by the elearning community for the elearning community. The eLN is the number one source for guidance on best practice and future trends in technology-based learning and development at work, with more than 1500 members in the UK and beyond. Here's why it has never been a better time to join the eLN: Inspiration Technology has never developed so quickly and with such far-reaching implications. You need information you can trust, practical advice and standards to aspire to. As a member of the eLN expect to be inspired: * The E-Learning Awards, run each year in conjunction with e.learning age magazine, provide a showcase for the very best elearning projects that the UK has to offer. In 2009, we are extending our programme to recognise talented practitioners in a wide range of disciplines from graphic design to project management. * Our 1-day conferences address the most critical issues faced by the elearning community and provide an opportunity to explore future trends. In 2009, we are looking at hot topics such as making the case for elearning, creating engaging and effective elearning content, the future of learning management systems, and next generation blended learning. * Our face-to-face events are supplemented by a series of free online events and, for the first time, premium webinars providing opportunities to interact with internationally-reknown experts.

"For several years, the predominant blog layout has remained unchanged. Posts, usually shortened to fit neatly, sit on top of each other in descending order, headlines over each post. This creates a "log" feel from which the term "web log" or "blog" came. However, redesigns at two of the web's best-known blogs, Techcrunch and Mashable seem poised to shake up the traditional layout, offering slight variations that make the sites appear more like a traditional newspaper. The trend appears to be spreading. While no hard numbers exist, magazine layouts are among the most popular themes for existing blogs. These themes are generating some of the most hype among bloggers. Although the design of a blog is not always of particular import, as many readers read the content in an RSS reader, it is still an important consideration. It is one to which many novice bloggers don't give adequate weight. Choosing the wrong theme can make a site look dated or unprofessional, completely destroying any attempt to modernise one's web presence. For those seeking to enter the blogging realm, or to modernise an existing platform, a magazine theme may be a major step in the right direction. "

Interesting stuff - I quite fancy giving this a go with my blog and might try out some of the new Edublogs themes which appear to be flirting with this trend. I can see this layout being more appropriate for those looking to create an 'uber-blog' to accompany a programme of study - maybe with additional course management functions such as those offered by the Courseware plugin for Wordpress...?