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Vanessa Vaile

Personal Learning Environment (PLE) Project - 0 views

shared by Vanessa Vaile on 03 Jun 10 - Cached
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    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

JOLT - Journal of Online Learning and Teaching - 0 views

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    tudent response system (SRS) use may provide one solution for transforming the passive and isolated online learning environment experienced by many students. SRS use combined with sound pedagogical practices can create an active learning environment comprised of a collaborative social learning community capable of effectively meeting varied learning needs. Newly developed SRSs have created the opportunity to explore online SRS use. Incorporation of SRS use within behaviorism, social constructivism, and many other pedagogical approaches makes it a tool worthy of consideration in solving pedagogical dilemmas and creating a positive learning experience. Despite a lack of research related to online SRS use, this article utilizes current SRS and online polling research and information to determine the primary benefits and challenges associated with online SRS use.
Vanessa Vaile

The Technological Dimension of a Massive Open Online Course: The Case of the CCK08 Cour... - 2 views

  • Abstract In 2008, a new term emerged in the already crowded e-learning landscape: MOOC, or massive open online course. Lifelong learners can now use various tools to build and manage their own learning networks, and MOOCs may provide opportunities to test such networks. This paper focuses on the technological aspects of one MOOC, the Connectivism and Connective Knowledge (CCK08) course, in order to investigate lifelong learners’ attitudes towards learning network technologies. The research framework is represented by three perspectives: (a) lifelong learning in relation to open education, with a focus on the effective use of learning tools; (b) the more recent personal knowledge management (PKM) skills approach; and (c) the usability of web-based learning tools. Findings from a survey of CCK08 participants show that the course attracted adult, informal learners, who were not concerned about course completion. Time constraints, language barriers, and ICT skills affected the participants’ choice of tools; for example, learners favoured the passive, time-saving mailing list over interactive, time-consuming discussions forums and blogs. Some recommendations for future MOOCs include highlighting the purpose of the tools (e.g., skill-building) and stating clearly that the learners can choose their preferred tools. Further research on sustainability and facilitator workload should be conducted to determine the cost and effectiveness of MOOCs. Investigation is also necessary to understand MOOC participant profiles as they relate to course outcomes and retention and whether terms such as course and attrition are appropriate in this context..
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.
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  • 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

4 principles of using digital tools in humanities research | nicomachus.net - 1 views

  • what is needed is something more closely approximating fluency in another language: the language of digital environments.
  • ess useful to know one program very well and more useful to achieve a level of comfort navigating digital tools for oneself.
  • 1. Think of your computer less as the place where all your data lives and more as the thing that gives you access to your data.
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  • one program: Evernote
  • Off-site storage is more secure in the long run,
  • you need a backup routine
  • online access to your backed-up files means you have nearly universal access to your work.
  • 2. Let your computer (do some of the) work for you; metadata is your friend.
  • Tag everything.
  • hink of tags less as categories or folders and more as the code words in your own personal index.
  • Documents, images, pdfs, articles, notes can all have as many tags as you want. And items in separate folders can be tagged with the same word or phrase.
  • Use tags to describe an article in a way the author might not.
  • Clip articles to read later using Evernote;
  • install the Evernote clip tools {Chrome and Firefox extensions}
  • Use EndNote or Zotero to quickly grab citation information
  • 3. Learn to search, not just organize.
  • Evernote and Google Docs perform OCR by default
  • , which yields searchable text from what was just an image file. 
  • at some point, you forget what you have written or what notes you have taken
  • Evernote is essentially an easy-to-use personal database,
  • 4. Let these techniques and habits help you find patterns that you would not otherwise see.
TESOL CALL-IS

Documentary Tube - Watch Documentaries Online for FREE - 1 views

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    Lots of documentaries on an enormous variety of subjects. These can be used to spark conversation and get students ready to do their own research for a paper. Professionally produced, and free. Many are award-winning. Categories are listed, and there is a search function. Not specifically directed to ESL/EFL, but good authentic content.
Vanessa Vaile

Whither the Wikis? - Inside Higher Ed - 0 views

  • higher education’s relationship with wikis — Web sites that allow users to collectively create and edit content — has been somewhat hot-and-cold
  • tolerance, even appreciation, of Wikipedia as a useful starting point for research
  • using wikis to pool human knowledge of various topics into single, authoritative accounts falls into the “not” category
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  • professoriate is too entrenched in traditional publishing
  • one of two things to happen before wikis can take hold in scholarship
  • “Either senior, post-promotion faculty will need to lead some successful wiki-based projects, or there will need to be an overhaul in the way we think about publication.”
  • highlight individual voices
  • open peer-review — another concept that has struggled to get traction.
  • blogs as a new-media invention that satisfies the scholarly desire for attribution
  • Scholarpedia, meanwhile, only lets selected experts play in its virtual sandboxes, making it more like a traditional journal or encyclopedia than a true wiki
  • Discipline-specific wikis might have an easier time building a community
  • A wiki might also garner more use if it focuses on a relatively young discipline
  • The greatest contributions wikis have made to academic research can be found not in actual wikis but in collaborative tools built on a similar model,
  • “Whether it’s the idea of user-generated content, or inviting many eyes onto a project (e.g., CommentPress), or, tools that facilitate collaboration, such as Google Docs or Zoho Office, wiki-like ideas are increasingly important to the scholarly community.”
  • the areas where they have gotten the most play in higher education seems to be in classrooms and various administrative apparatuses
  • wikis have become popular vehicles for class exercises
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    on the use and future of wikis in higher ed
Vanessa Vaile

The Multiliteracy Project - 0 views

  • esponsibility to not only educate the minds, but also the hearts of my students
  • I want my students to look at knowledge in a connected and ethical way
  • personal self-understanding on an intellectual and emotional level
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  • higher level thinking skills
  • encourage students to attain greater self-understanding
  • The Multiliteracy Project is a national Canadian study exploring pedagogies or teaching practices that prepare children for the literacy challenges of our globalized, networked, culturally diverse world. Increasingly, we encounter knowledge in multiple forms - in print, in images, in video, in combinations of forms in digital contexts - and are asked to represent our knowledge in an equally complex manner.
  • ighlight two related aspects of the increasing complexity of texts
  • (a) the proliferation of multimodal ways of making meaning where the written word is increasingly part and parcel of visual, audio, and spatial patterns; (b) the increasing salience of cultural and linguistic diversity characterized by local diversity and global connectedness .
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    A research collaboration of students, educators and researchers
Vanessa Vaile

100 Powerful Web Tools to Organize Your Thoughts and Ideas - 1 views

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    Organize note-taking, bookmarking websites, highlighting important text during online research, creating mind maps, tracking time, keeping up with appointments, collaborating with others, managing projects & more.
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
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  • 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.
TESOL CALL-IS

Wikidot in Education - Wikidot - Free and Pro Wiki Hosting - 0 views

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    "Are you a researcher, teacher or lecturer? With your Wiki For Education you can easily co-operate with your students." This looks like a full featured wiki that has good features for educators.
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
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  • 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.
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    although not specifically stated, this is also about gate keeping and controlling / monitoring information flow
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
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  • 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.
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    Can't resist the title ~ YES ~ my virtual cloud locker, no heaving lifting involved
Vanessa Vaile

SitesLike - Find and Share Similar Websites - 1 views

  • Find and Share Similar Websites SitesLike is a free service that allows you to find, tag, rate and share websites that are similar to each other. The websites listed on SitesLike are constantly monitored so the content is always fresh and up to date.
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    Find and Share Similar WebsitesSitesLike is a free service that allows you to find, tag, rate and share websites that are similar to each other. The websites listed on SitesLike are constantly monitored so the content is always fresh and up to date.
Vanessa Vaile

Professors Find Ways to Keep Heads Above 'Exaflood' of Data - Wired Campus - The Chroni... - 0 views

  • "Managing the Exaflood"
  • researchers presented ideas for getting a handle on all this data -- an exabyte is one billion billion bytes -- and using it productively.
  • visualization is one way to work with them.
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  • Google, a major source of information overload, can also help manage it,
  • These strategies present challenges for accurately tagging data and archiving it, the presenters warned.
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    navigating chaos ~ Chronicle article in Wired Campus
Vanessa Vaile

The PLN Staff Lounge - 2 views

    • Vanessa Vaile
       
      OK most points but re pt #: I need to clean up follower list & boot off spammers. which is better, checking as new followers sign on or schedule regular list purging sessions?
    • Vanessa Vaile
       
      next thought. question I could use feed back on: how to use a twitter account for multiple purposes, e.g. professional (whatever that is for someone retired), community, personal, special interest (advocacy, avocation research), etc. Not including elements of personal in "professional" affects voice, makes it too institutional. Tweets are a writing genre and voice counts. 
  • 5) You only ever tweet stuff about your daily life
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  • how to use it to build a PLN (personal learning network)
  • My Top Ten Twitter Turn-Off's
  • 1) No profile, or profile picture
  • Your profile tells people who you are
  • If you decide to add a link to your profile, make sure it is not a dead link, an under construction page, an affiliate shop, or a page which launches pop up windows
  • 2) No tweets
  • 3) Hiding your tweets
  • 4) You have lots of spammers following you
  • 10) Being overly-self promotional
  • "Cliff Notes" version of advice for Twitter newbies
  • 7) You are mainly using Twitter to sell or promote something
  • 8) You don't tweet any links
  • Check out some blogs and online newspapers for topical or interesting stories, and use a url shortener such as bit.ly, (http://bit.ly/)
  • Searching for twitter hashtags (#)
  • Some examples
  • 9) You don't interact with other users, or re-tweet other people's posts
  • Twitter is a social media tool
  • collaboration, discussion, and sharing
  • 6) You mainly tweet stuff about yourself
  • the 80/20 ratio (i.e. 80% of your tweets should be about something other than promoting yourself or your blog
  • Karenne Sylvester wrote a great article a while back about how a you can tell a lot about people from what they tweet and how they conduct themselves on Twitter.
  • part of your Digital Footprint
Vanessa Vaile

the lives of teachers » Blog Archive » personal learning networks - the wh... - 0 views

  • Personal Learning Networks – the what, why and how from darren elliott on Vimeo. A presentation at the 4th International Wireless Ready Symposium,
  • list of ELT professionals and educational technologists worth following
  • The reading and research for this presentation can be found on my diigo social bookmarking page
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  • onestopblogs
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