Skip to main content

Home/ Multiliteracies Evo session/ Group items tagged information

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Vanessa Vaile

A special report on managing information: Data, data everywhere | The Economist - 3 views

  • the world contains an unimaginably vast amount of digital information which is getting ever vaster ever more rapidly. This makes it possible to do many things that previously could not be done: spot business trends, prevent diseases, combat crime and so on. Managed well, the data can be used to unlock new sources of economic value, provide fresh insights into science and hold governments to account.
  • also creating a host of new problems
  • the proliferation of data is making them increasingly inaccessible
  • ...15 more annotations...
  • Scientists and computer engineers have coined a new term for the phenomenon: “big data”.
  • Epistemologically speaking, information is made up of a collection of data and knowledge is made up of different strands of information. But this special report uses “data” and “information” interchangeably because, as it will argue, the two are increasingly difficult to tell apart.
  • business of information management
  • Chief information officers (CIOs)
  • statistician and storyteller/artist
  • many reasons for the information explosion
  • technology
  • digitising lots of information that was previously unavailable
  • access to far more powerful tools
  • many more people who interact with information
  • shift from information scarcity to surfeit has broad effects
  • “Data exhaust”
  • in aggregate the data can also be mined
  • In a world of big data the correlations surface almost by themselves.
  • The way that information is managed touches all areas of life. At the turn of the 20th century new flows of information through channels such as the telegraph and telephone supported mass production. Today the availability of abundant data enables companies to cater to small niche markets anywhere in the world.
Vanessa Vaile

The eXtended Web and the Personal Learning Environment « Plearn Blog - 0 views

  • developments in their relation to Personal Learning Environments as several people over the past months have asked me why I think there is a need to develop a Personal Learning Environment at all.
  • Applications and aggregators of information are freely available and people can take their pick of their preferred ones and create their own network
  • easy it is for conglomerates to take over the development of tools and applications
  • ...20 more annotations...
  • three issues that I find important in this respect.
  • 1. Intelligent data connections are one exciting option for PLE development and networked learning,
  • Recommender systems of information, resources, critical friends and experts could form part of the access options
  • the challenges of an open online networked environment for learning.
  • The reality, however, is different and research is available to show that not all adult learners are able to critically assess what they find online and might prefer to receive guidance
  • difficult it is for anybody to reach and access a deep level of information by using search engines
  • need for critical literacies while learning informally on networks
  • Learning in my view is not synonymous with accessing information, and requires a level of reflection, analysis, perhaps also of problem solving, creativity and interaction
  • 3. Access to technology
  • trends in access and digital divides
  • reasons for their non-participation. Some are related to age and socio-economic group, but some are also related to relevance, confidence and skills set.
  • people least likely to use the Internet are also the least likely to participate in adult education.
  • could PLEs that would provide help with Internet use and might be used on mobile devices be the answer to making the Internet relevant
  • What components would be needed?
  • 1. A personal profiler that would collect and store personal information.
  • 2. An information and resource aggregator to collect information and resources.
  • 3. Editors and publishers enabling people to produce and publish artifacts to aid the learning and interest of others
  • 4. Helper applications that would provide the pedagogical backbone of the PLE and make connections with other internet services to help the learner make sense of information, applications and resources.
  • 5. Services of the learners choice.
  • 6. Recommenders of information and resources.
  •  
    although not specifically stated, this is also about gate keeping and controlling / monitoring information flow
Vanessa Vaile

Weaving a Personal Web: Using online technologies to create customized, connected, and ... - 0 views

  • Abstract: This paper explores how personal web technologies (PWTs) can be used by learners and the relationship between PWTs and connectivist learning principles. Descriptions and applications of several technologies including social bookmarking tools, personal publishing platforms, and aggregators are also included. With these tools, individuals can create and manage personal learning environments (PLEs) and personal learning networks (PLNs), which have the potential to become powerful resources for academic, professional, and personal development.
  • This paper explores personal web technologies (PWTs) and their learning applications.
  • Connectivism and the need for continuous learning In today’s world, learning needs extend far beyond the culmination of a training session or degree program. Working adults must continually update their skills and behaviours to conform to the constantly changing demands of the workplace (Lewis & Romiszowski, 1996). In times of rapid change, it is not always prudent or possible to offer formal training for each individual’s every need, and some needs may best be addressed by the individual him/herself. Using freely available personal web technologies, employees can create a personal learning environment (PLE) to manage their own learning resources; whether these are wikis, news feeds, podcasts, or people.
  • ...34 more annotations...
  • Overview of Personal Web Technologies
  • Visualization of a web-based Personal Learning Environment
  • PWTs allow learners to expand their capacity for knowledge by connecting to external resources (other people, online databases, reference sites, etc.). If individuals can sufficiently develop their ability to find, organize, and manage these connections, their available knowledge does not have to be limited by the confines of their own skulls.
  • To navigate the Internet more efficiently, individuals can assemble a virtual toolbox from an ever-growing list of free, and often open-source, technologies to aid in aggregating, organizing, and publishing information online.
  • Social Bookmarking and Research Tools Social bookmarking and research tools allow users to save web pages, articles, and other media (usually to an online storage location) and organize them in personally meaningful ways.
  • Tools that are geared more towards social bookmarking (e.g., Delicious, Diigo, and Twine) place greater emphasis on features that allow users to easily share their bookmarks with friends, colleagues, or the public
  • Tools that are geared more towards academic research, such as Zotero or Connotea, include bibliographic features, such as citation generators and reference list management.
  • Personal Publishing Tools A variety of free and user-friendly tools are available to publish oneself on the Internet. Iskold (2007) sees the range of personal publishing options as a continuum, ranging from content-focused, formal blog posts to socially-focused, informal messages posted on social networking sites, with micro-blogging falling somewhere in the middle.
  • blogging offer learners the opportunity to explore topics in depth and reflect, while the speed and simplicity of micro-blogging lends itself more towards posing questions and collaborative brainstorming
  • more than online diaries.
  • individualized content management system that publishes, organizes, and archives
  • easy to go beyond basic text and incorporate other media, such as photographs, videos, and audio
  • Micro-blogs,
  • 'follow' other members to receive a stream of their posts
  • allow them to easily "ask and answer questions
  • Aggregators Individuals who follow multiple blogs and/or regularly visit news or media sites may find juggling the disparate streams of information overwhelming.
  • tools filter online information and collect articles, media, and conversations customized to the user's needs
  • Metagators, also called portals or start pages, can aggregate feeds, social networks, and widgets to create a central, personalized location for an individual's Internet usage
  • Two of the most popular metagators are Netvibes and iGoogle
  • Widgets are small, adaptable, programmable, web-based gadgets that can be embedded into a variety of sites or used on mobile phones or desktops
  • Using Personal Web Technologies to Create PLEs and PLNs
  • PWTs can be combined by the individual to make a personal learning environment (PLE) and to create and manage a personal learning network (PLN). Due to the fact that they are user-created, there is no exact definition of a PLE
  • In general, a PLE is the sum of websites and technologies that an individual makes use of to learn. PLEs may range in complexity from a single blog to an inter-connected web of social bookmarking tools, personal publishing platforms, search engines, social networks, aggregators, etc.
  • Users can create an online PLN of colleagues and friends from around the world by joining social networking sites, following and commenting on relevant blogs, sharing resources on a social bookmarking site, or by using a micro-blogging platform.
  • Learning Applications of PWTs Because these are open-source, free, adaptable, and user-friendly, PWTs can be of great value to teachers, trainers, and students. However, there is a catch: PWTs may clash with traditional, linear, teacher-centered instruction
  • critical media and information literacy skills, so that students can effectively navigate the online maze and avoid being fooled by false or misleading information.
  • Five Potential Disadvantages of Using PWTs for Learning Although personal web technologies have the potential to support all types of learning, they also have potential disadvantages, ranging from distractions to security concerns.
  • Connection Addiction.
  • Work Interrupted.
  • Popularity Contests.
  • Echo Chambers.
  • Privacy and Security Concerns.
  • Conclusions When learners adopt personal web technologies, it enables and requires them to discard their roles as passive consumers of information and to take on new roles. To successfully use PWTs, learners must become editors who critically question content and sources, librarians who organize and archive resources, and also creators who add their voice to the online chorus by engaging in discussions, collaborating on projects, and contributing their own ideas and media
  • he true quality and effectiveness of a PLE or PLN depends on the learner him/herself
Vanessa Vaile

All too much | The Economist - 0 views

  • QUANTIFYING the amount of information that exists in the world is hard. What is clear is that there is an awful lot of it, and it is growing at a terrific rate (a compound annual 60%) that is speeding up all the time.
  • data from sensors, computers, research labs, cameras, phones and the like surpassed the capacity of storage technologies in 2007. Experiments at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, Europe’s particle-physics laboratory near Geneva, generate 40 terabytes every second—orders of magnitude more than can be stored or analysed.
  • scientists collect what they can and let the rest dissipate into the ether.
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • What about the information that is actually consumed?
  • households were bombarded with 3.6 zettabytes of information (or 34 gigabytes per person per day)
  • In terms of bytes, written words are insignificant
  • half of all bytes are received interactively
  • “information created by machines and used by other machines will probably grow faster than anything else,”
  • ‘database to database’ information
  • “It is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless information,” quipped Oscar Wilde in 1894.
  • Only 5% of the information that is created is “structured”, meaning it comes in a standard format of words or numbers that can be read by computers.
  • changing as content on the web is increasingly “tagged”, and facial-recognition and voice-recognition software can identify people and words in digital files.
Vanessa Vaile

For All Its Flaws, Wikipedia is the Way Information Works Now - 0 views

  • Wikipedia, which turns 10 years old this weekend, has taken a lot of heat over the years.
  • But as a Pew Research report released today confirms, Wikipedia has become a crucial aspect of our online lives, and in many ways it has shown us — for better or worse — what all information online is in the process of becoming: social, distributed, interactive and (at times) chaotic.
  • 53 percent of American Internet users said they regularly look for information on Wikipedia, up from 36 percent of the same group the first time the research center asked the question in February of 2007
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • more popular than sending instant messages
  • only a little less popular than using social networking services
  • powerhouse of “crowdsourcing,” before most people had even heard that word
  • With Twitter, we are starting to see how a Wikipedia-like approach to information scales even further.
  • Along the way, there are errors and all kinds of other noise — but over time, it produces a very real and human view of the news.
Vanessa Vaile

News: Harnessing Social Media - Inside Higher Ed - 0 views

  • There was always more potentially relevant information out in the world than people could ever hope to know. But Twitter, Facebook, social bookmarking sites, and countless other content streams and conversation threads — constantly available in the era of wireless networks and mobile computing — have thrust many in academe into an endless, unwinnable race to keep up.
  • At a session on Friday here at the Sloan Consortium International Conference on Online Learning, called “Managing the Flow of Information,” a roomful of higher ed technologists commiserated about the information assault and discussed how to figure out what information to ignore without abnegating their obligation to stay current.
  • While some instructors might take the sight of students typing on keyboards and smartphones as a sign of chronic inattention, the authors of this study take it as the opposite.
Vanessa Vaile

Education and the social Web: Connective learning and the commercial imperative - 0 views

  • I argue that commercial social networks are much less about circulating knowledge than they are about connecting users (“eyeballs”) with advertisers
  • not the autonomous individual learner, but collective corporate interests that occupy the centre of these network
  • business model restricts their information design in ways that detract from learner control and educational use
  • ...54 more annotations...
  • Just as commercialism has rendered television beyond the reach of education, commercial pressures threaten to seriously limit the potential of the social Web for education and learning.
  • Web 2.0 and online social networking have been the subject of sustained and lively interest among practitioners and promoters of educational technology
  • what is seen as the radical potential of these services
  • Social networking is so central to these new versions of education that a new “connectivist” theory of learning has come to be closely associated with them
  • a theory in which “knowing” itself is seen to be “defined by connections” making “learning primarily a network forming process”
  • described in terms of the liberation of learners from traditional constraints, as allowing them go beyond the classroom, to network “with peers worldwide,” and ultimately, to “take control of their own learning”
  • These visions are above all associated with the “personal learning environment
  • The personal learning environment is envisioned as a set of applications and services — to a large extent, logos and brands — organized around a single user, according to his or her learning and informational preferences and needs.
  • Through these services, the user is to be connected with teachers, mentors and other learners
  • some advocates of these approaches to learning have been raising concerns about the commercial nature of many of these services.
  • “You are not Facebook’s customer. You are the product that they sell to their real customers — advertisers. Forget this at your peril”
  • “This simple reality underlies almost all considerations having to do with these tools,
  • To use these tools is to reinforce, however indirectly, the ‘advertised life,’
  • The question is whether there is a role for higher education to promote ‘safe spaces’ free of this influence.”
  • the business model of commercial social networks is based on advertising, assisted by the data collection, as well as powerful tracking and analysis capabilities.
  • powerful surveillance functions
  • theories of media ideology and hegemony developed some time ago by Raymond Williams and Todd Gitlin
  • constraints presented by commercialized forms and contents rendered educational television a failure decades ago
  • similar structural issues threaten to sharply limit the potential of much newer social media for education and learning
  • Facebook, Google and other Web 2.0 and social networking services are making enormous sums right now from the users and advertisers they attract, and they are in aggressive competition to do this more efficiently
  • The absence of references to advertising (and also to tracking and analysis) in many discussions of the personal learning environments is surprising given the proliferation of logos and brands of commercial services
  • Because advertising is the raison d’être of services like Google and Facebook, it also provides the basis for the design, organization and maintenance of all of these other services and functions.
  • This way of understanding advertising and Web 2.0 draws on critiques of television (and the role of advertising in it) that were articulated decades ago.
  • the goal of these media organizations, he says, is to sell a product, and the product that “the networks sell is the attention of audiences; their primary market is the advertisers themselves”
  • One thing that is different today is that there is no one monolithic audience that forms a generic product to sell to advertisers.
  • An obvious objection to be raised at this point is that Facebook or Google, unlike television, do not have significant control over the content that is used to assemble audiences for advertisers
  • users have a clear choice regarding the kinds of content that they wish to view and disseminate
  • complex and subtle but very effective ways in which advertisers’ interests shape online social contexts.
  • Raymond Williams’ 1974 critique, Television: Technology and cultural form.
  • Williams’ text requires only minor revision to speak to the situation of commercial Web services today:
  • whether there is a role for higher education to promote ‘safe spaces’ free of this influence.”
  • Williams is making the point that the relationship between content and advertising is subtle and insidious, and that it is slightly different in the case of content “made for TV” than for its non–commercial counterpart.
  • “a dominant cultural form;”
  • what is important for the similarly non–commercial content of the social Web is informational design, architecture, and algorithm.
  • operation in otherwise non–commercial programming is registered in terms of sequence, rhythm and flow
  • Users of Facebook are sure to have been struck by the numerous and varied ways in which it cultivates gregarity and interaction, the way in which it relentlessly structures and supports sociality and connection
  • It is common to observe that the term “friend” itself is emptied of meaning by this incessant use and quantification;
  • Facebook exemplifies a way of generating and circulating information that encourages the expansion of interconnections between users
  • The controversy arises from the possible addition of a corresponding “Dislike” button.
  • lowers the psychological barrier to connecting with commercial entities
  • Gregarious behaviour is rewarded on Facebook
  • approval of a resource will draw ever more attention to it.
  • To provide the option of expressing dislike for a brand like Coca–Cola or to disapprove of a newspaper report or an article like this one is contrary to Facebook’s business interests
  • The dynamics here are rather reminiscent of what television of a bygone era had to offer: In both cases, you can either watch (i.e., “Like”) the products and lifestyles being showcased, or simply walk away.
  • “Like buttons” similar to many other connective features of social networks, “are about connection; Dislike buttons are about division.”
  • Similarly, other services will also systematically exclude possibilities for the expression of dissent and difference.
  • Despite the current prominence of social–psychological and connectivist theories, it is easy to make the case that learning is just as much about division as it is about connection.
  • In fact, the consistent pattern of suppressing division, negativity and interpersonal dissent that is central to the business model of social networking services runs counter to some of the most common models and recommendations for online student interaction and engagement.
  • Opportunities for social selectivity, discretion, privacy and detachment are an important precondition for the acts of disclosure and mutual critique, falsification and validation central to these models
  • selectivity and discretion — the “safe spaces” hoped for by Lamb and Groom — are rendered structurally impossible in convivial, commercially–contoured environments
  • Knowledge is not exclusively embodied in ever growing networks of connection and affiliation, and it does not just occur through building and traversing these proliferating nodes and links
  • Education is clearly a social process, but it is probably much closer to an ongoing discussion or debate than an extended feast or celebration with an ever-expanding network of friends.
  • advertising, tracking and analysis functions of commercial social media present, as Raymond Williams says, “a formula of communication, an intrinsic setting of priorities”
  • It only remains to be seen whether this dynamic renders commercial social networking services as fully unsupportive of educational ends as commercial television has long been.
  •  
    In recent years, new socially‏oriented Web technologies have been portrayed as placing the learner at the centre of networks of knowledge and expertise, potentially leading to new forms of learning and education. In this paper, I argue that commercial social networks are much less about circulating knowledge than they are about connecting users ("eyeballs") with advertisers; it is not the autonomous individual learner, but collective corporate interests that occupy the centre of these networks. Looking first at Facebook, Twitter, Digg and similar services, I argue their business model restricts their information design in ways that detract from learner control and educational use. I also argue more generally that the predominant "culture" and corresponding types of content on services like those provided Google similarly privileges advertising interests at the expense of users. Just as commercialism has rendered television beyond the reach of education, commercial pressures threaten to seriously limit the potential of the social Web for education and learning.
Vanessa Vaile

Personal Learning Networks Are Virtual Lockers for Schoolkids | Edutopia - 0 views

  • A PLN becomes a student's virtual locker, and its content changes based on the student's current course work. When I assign them a term paper, the students comb the Web to sign up for information that will feed into their personalized Web page to construct a PLN for that topic. When they get a new project, they assemble another page.
  • Perhaps the most telling response on the subject of PLNs is from my student Hope, who says, "My iGoogle page is very helpful and helps me keep things organized. It lets me know when my agenda changes." The fact that a ninth grader would talk about her own research agenda gives a glimpse into the power of the PLN; she is using a term here that is often reserved for grad students.
  • Constructing a PLN is the essential skill that moves my students into the driver's seat of their own learning. It helps them sort through and manage the proliferation of online materials that jam the information superhighway. It is also indispensable to our project-learning curriculum
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Tony Wagner, from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, lists assessing and analyzing information as one of the seven survival skills in the new world of work. I think the ability to create a PLN is a fundamental information-management skill that will help my students succeed in the future.
  • An RSS reader is a Web site that puts together all this information in an easy-to-read format. Google Reader, netvibes, Pageflakes, Bloglines, and my preferred reader, iGoogle, are all examples of sites providing RSS readers. The RSS reader is the raw material for building a PLN.
  •  
    Can't resist the title ~ YES ~ my virtual cloud locker, no heaving lifting involved
Vanessa Vaile

How do you manage your information? - 0 views

  • Managing resources is one of the most important skills for students (people!) to master. I started blogging in 2000 and have spent a significant amount of time trying to devise an information management system that I can use to make sense of a topic or discipline. I've attached an image below that highlights the process and tools that I use.
  • This system has a few weaknesses
  • 1. It fails to account for trend development and dissipation
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • 2. Too many aspects of my sensemaking system are manua
  • Information is not something that has value in itself. We use it to do something
  • What tools do you use? Eric von Stackelberg Profile Edit profile icon Following Followers Market Posts Poll Pages Blog Files Photo Albums I have moved to fewer tools with the intention of increasing the depth of data held in those tools while reducing duplication.
  •  
    The Landing: George Siemens's blog:
TESOL CALL-IS

hrheingold: How I use Twitter, search, Diigo Delicious, DEVONthink, Scrivener to find, ... - 0 views

  •  
    "How I use Twitter, search, Diigo Delicious, DEVONthink, Scrivener to find, refine, organize information -->knowledge" A nice illustration in a Screenr screencast of how a Stanford professor uses various online tools to organize Internet information. Focuses on vertical (deep) learning, rather than horizontal (social) learning. Created for his students to demonstrate how to organize Internet resources efficiently.
Vanessa Vaile

Personal Learning Environment (PLE) Project - 0 views

shared by Vanessa Vaile on 03 Jun 10 - Cached
  •  
    The National Research Council of Canada's Institute for Information Technology (Learning and Collaborative Group) has started a research and development project exploring the Personal Learning Environment. The project researches how new technologies can be used in a personalized informal learning environment and focuses on two dimensions. The first dimension is the pedagogical: given the new affordances offered by web technologies, how can access to a wide variety of learning opportunities best be managed in an online environment? The second dimension is technical. Given a set of desired types of connections, what technologies can be assembled to best provide seamless access to a large variety of educational resources and services? Existing learning management technology (such as the Learning Management System) is centered on the institution that owns and operates it as enterprise software. With the increase of lifelong and student-centered learning, individuals are more frequently enrolling in learning opportunities from multiple institutions and have a need to manage their learning through an entire career. Thus there is a need for a type of application that is centered on the learner and would constitute the person's personal learning record, portfolio, business and educational contacts, communications and creativity tools, library and resource subscription management, and related services.
Vanessa Vaile

Perspectives on Tag Clouds for supporting reflection in Self-organised Learning - 1 views

  •  
    paper on tagging, clouds, reflective learning Abstract: Tags are popular for organising information in social software based on the personal views of the participants on the information. Tags provide valuable attention meta-data on a person's interests because the participants actively relate resources to concepts by using tags. This paper analyses three designs for tag-clouds that are integrated in the ReScope framework for reflection support. ReScope provides a widget for visualising personal tag-clouds of the tags that were used with social bookmarking services. The presented designs focus on processing and representing attention meta-data on the levels of recency, of collaboration, and of social connectedness from the perspective of situated learning. The present paper analyses how the designs are related to the underlying presumptions for supporting reflection using the different representations of attention meta-data.
Vanessa Vaile

Reflections on Open Courses: Curation, Ombuds, and Concierges | Learning and Knowledge ... - 0 views

  • Part of the focus in LAK11 is to explore how we can better use data to make sense of complex topics such as:
  • How students interact
  • patterns of activity
  • ...31 more annotations...
  • How knowledge is “grown” as individuals interact with others
  • How individual learners develop their conceptual understanding of a topic
  • How teams solve complex problems
  • tools and activities that are most effective
  • How individual learners “eliminate” unneeded or irrelevant ideas and concepts
  • explore various methods for analyzing data
  • tools that aid that analysis.
  • limitations of an algorithmically-defined world of education
  • Google’s search algorithm has been ruined
  • Reflections on Open Courses: Curation, Ombuds, and Concierges
  • focus in LAK11 is to explore how we can better use data
  • methods for analyzing data produced by learners and numerous tools that aid that analysis
  • Google’s search algorithm has been ruined argues
  • What’s the solution? Well, a return to curation, of course.
  • What does this have to do with LAK11?
  • over the last five years, social networks and social media have taken over the web
  • Google is driven by the mission to organize the world’s information. Facebook is driven by the mission to “help you connect and share with the people in your life”. The two companies are on a collision course: is the future informationally or socially based? Eventually, social bleeds into informational. And vice versa.
  • We trust people we like, people with whom we feel a connection
  • All social interactions are information. Many information interactions are social.
  • urators – they present their views and spin existing stories within the framework of their beliefs
  • “temporary centres”.
  • problem of how to create temporary centres
  • ome commentary or facilitator posts
  • LAK11, we’ve taken a different approach. We’ve retained similar course design elements to previous open online courses (OOCs – I’m starting to think that M=Massive part of MOOCs is misleading or even off-putting
  • What we gain in our decision to run this course on various sites, using more or less accessible tools, is the demonstration that anyone with an interesting topic/idea and a willingness to experiment can open up a course for a broader audience.
  • What we lose – and I’m still uneasy about this trade off – is the integrated archive of activity in the course.
  • Complexity cannot be understood solely through algorithms
  • Curation is an important component in the process
  • data mining, visualization
  • wayfinding and sensemaking in social systems
  • human aspect of data, sensemaking, curation, and trust
TESOL CALL-IS

The Anatomy Of An Infographic: 5 Steps To Create A Powerful Visual | SpyreStudios - 1 views

  •  
    "Information is very powerful but for the most bit it is bland and unimaginative. Infographics channel information in a visually pleasing, instantly understandable manner, making it not only powerful, but extremely beautiful. Once used predominantly to make maps more approachable, scientific charts less daunting and as key learning tools for children, inforgraphics have now permeated all aspects of the modern world."
Vanessa Vaile

Twenty-First Century Literacies | HASTAC - 0 views

  • What cognitive skills are crucial for educators to attend to in our digital age? Media theorist and practitioner Howard Rheingold has talked about four "Twenty-first Century Literacies"--attention, participation, collaboration, and network awareness
  • see http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/rheingold/category?blogid=108&cat=2538
  • Futurist Alvin Toffler argues that, in the 21st century, we need to know not only the three R's, but also how to learn, unlearn, and relearn.  Expanding on these, here are ten literacies that seem crucial for our digital age.  
  • ...13 more annotations...
  • Attention:  What are the new ways that we pay attention in a digital era?
  • Participation:  Only a small percentage of those who use new "participatory" media really contribute.  How do we encourage meaningful interaction and participation?  What is its purpose on a cultural, social, or civic level?
  • Collaboration:   How do we encourage meaningful and innovative forms of collaboration? 
  • methodology of "collaboration by difference"
  • Network awareness: 
  • how we both thrive as creative individuals and understand our contribution within a network of others
  • Design:   How is information conveyed differently in diverse digital forms? 
  • Narrative, Storytelling:  How do narrative elements shape the information
  • Critical consumption of information
  • Digital Divides, Digital Participation: 
  • Ethics and Advocacy:
  • Learning, Unlearning, and Relearning:
  • trying to unlearn ones reflexive responses to change situation is the only way to become reflective about ones habits of resistance.
Vanessa Vaile

What is the unique idea in Connectivism? « Connectivism - 0 views

  • what is the unique idea in connectivism?
  • a new idea is often an old idea in today’s context.
  • what is the new idea in constructivism? That people construct their own knowledge? Or the social, situated nature of learning? Or that knowledge is not something that exists outside of a knower? (i.e. there is no “there” out there)
  • ...30 more annotations...
  • What is new with constructivism today is that these principles are being (have been) coupled with existing calls for educational reform
  • calls for increased learner control
  • From whence does connectivism originate?
  • 1. Tools augment our ability to interact with each other and to act.
  • “carriers of patterns of previous reasoning”
  • all technology carries an ideology.
  • 2. Contextual/situated nature of learning.
  • 3. Social learning theory
  • 4. Epistemological views: all learning theory is rooted in epistemology
  • concept of rhizomatic knowledge and community as curriculum
  • Stephen Downes’ work on connective knowledge valuable.
  • Dave Cormier has been advancing the
  • 5. Concept of mind.
  • 6. We also find a compatible view of connectivism in the work of new media theorists such as McLuhan
  • 7. We also find support for connectivism in the more nebulous theories of complextiy and systems-based thinking
  • 8. Network theory
  • The Unique Ideas in Connectivism
  • Concepts like small worlds, power laws, hubs, structural holes, and weak/strong ties
  • Networks are prominent in all aspects of society, not just education. This prominence is partly due to the recognizable metaphor of the internet…but networks have always existed. As Barabasi states, networks are everywhere. We just need an eye for them.
  • 1. Connectivism is the application of network principles to define both knowledge and the process of learning.
  • 2. Connectivism addresses the principles of learning at numerous levels – biological/neural, conceptual, and social/external
  • 3. Connectivism focuses on the inclusion of technology as part of our distribution of cognition and knowledge.
  • 1) cognitive grunt work in creating and displaying patterns
  • 2) extending and enhancing our cognitive ability
  • 3) holding information in ready access form
  • 4. Context. While other theories pay partial attention to context, connectivism recognizes the fluid nature of knowledge and connections based on context
  • 5. Understanding. Coherence. Sensemaking. Meaning.
  • These elements are prominent in constructivism, to a lessor extent cognitivism, and not at all in behaviourism.
  • But in connectivism, we argue that the rapid flow and abundance of information raises these elements to critical importance.
  • Connectivism finds its roots in the climate of abundance, rapid change, diverse information sources and perspectives, and the critical need to find a way to filter and make sense of the chaos.
Vanessa Vaile

Why We Seek the New: A History and Future of Neophilia | Brain Pickings - 2 views

  • how hard-wired our affinity for novelty is
  • explores the evolutionary, biological, psychological, and cultural forces that drive our deep-seated neophilia
  • how our ability to respond to change saved us from extinction some 800,000 years ago to neophilia’s basic mind-body mechanisms to the profound ways in which the information age has altered our relationship with novelty
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • tug-of-war between our need for survival, which relies on safety and stability, and our desire to thrive, which engenders stimulation, exploration, and innovation.
  • The three affective foundations underpinning neophilia — surprise, curiosity, and interest — are referred to as “knowledge emotions,
  • why the filter bubble exists
  • why the Internet is wired to give us more of what we are already looking for, rather than surprise us with something we didn’t know existed but might find infinitely interesting
TESOL CALL-IS

Infographics & Data Visualizations - Visual.ly - 1 views

  •  
    "See the best data visualizations on the web all in one place." Mainly infographics--charts and informational maps. Students could upload their own graphs, et al., for comment and feedback, and the site purports to be creating new data visualization tools.
TESOL CALL-IS

Nik Peachey's Presentation - The Online Educator - 0 views

  •  
    Links to Nik Peachey's "Developing materials and practices for the digital generation," a webinar presentation for the IATEFL Young Learner SIG. Nik focses on how teacher can combine online tools to encourage students' digital literacy and linguistic skills more autonomously. Both a recording of the presentation (Adobe Connect) and the slides are linked, as well as links to some of his recent informative blog posts.
1 - 20 of 54 Next › Last »
Showing 20 items per page