Group items tagged

Webinar recording of using Sites. Useful.

Post about using Google Reader. Basic but some handy tips.

School of Open will launch its first courses during Open Education week March 11 - 15 2013. Four facilitated courses launched during March 11 week - two may be relevant to NZ (i) Copyright 4 Educators (Aus) and Writing Wikipedia articles: the basics and beyond. 

Short, simple article on passwords basically saying same as xkcd.

"The ins and outs of online video There is a lot of discussion at present about video content at present including from the Minister, regulator, broadcasters, new competitors, ISPs, and commentators (not to mention TUANZ itself: ed). This post tries to make sense of all that. It looks at the state of broadcasting in New Zealand and reviews the prospects for greater competition. Part 1 sets out how things look at present, and explains some of the basic issues. Part 2 looks at where the market might be headed, and whether the government needs to get more directly involved."

"Within a week of the emergence of Occupy Wall Street, a library surfaced in the midst of the protest. Staffed by volunteers and comprised entirely of donated materials, the People's Library offers books and media to the public, provides basic reference assistance and has built an online catalog of their holdings. In this paper, I analyze the People's Library in terms of larger discussions of libraries, technology and activism. Drawing on personal experiences volunteering at the Library as well as text from the Library's blog, I argue that the People's Library offers two counter arguments to conventional claims about the public library: first, that libraries are being existentially threatened by the emergence of digital technologies and second, that a library's institutional ethics are located solely or predominantly in the content of its collection. Using the People's Library as a kind of conceptual case study, I explore the connections between public libraries, digital technologies and activist ideologies."

A new Twitter guide published by the LSE Public Policy Group and the LSE Impact of Social Sciences blog  seeks to answer this question, and show academics and researchers how to get the most out of the micro-blogging site. The Guide is designed to lead the novice through the basics of Twitter but also provide tips on how it can aid the teaching and research of the more experienced academic tweeter.

Looks to be basically a paid service although has limited free option.

"The book is intended to help administrators gain a basic knowledge base, think critically about some key issues, and get some concrete suggestions for instructional and organizational uses of various digital technologies."

"I've just been in an interesting panel discussion at the JISC Online Conference on the subject of 'digital literacy'. The recording of the Elluminate session is available. The session reinforced to me just how diverse people's views on digital literacies are. Most new to the field make the assumption that digital literacy is singular and consists of basic skills in the digital realm. In effect, digital competency. Those more experienced in the field, such as Helen Beetham, talk of the importance of this baseline - the 'ABC' of digital literacy as she called it, but higher-level skills as well."

"Open Cobalt Alpha is the first step in a long term project to make available to all people a free and open source platform for constructing, accessing, and sharing virtual workspaces for research and education. This 3D multimedia wiki technology makes it easy to create deeply collaborative and hyperlinked multi-user virtual workspaces, virtual exhibit spaces, and game-based learning and training environments that run on all major software operating systems. By using a peer-based messaging protocol to reduce reliance on server infrastructures for support of basic in world interactions across many participants, Open Cobalt makes it possible for people hyperlink their virtual worlds via 3D portals to form a large distributed network of interconnected collaboration spaces. It also makes it possible for schools and other organizations to freely set up their own networks of public and private 3D virtual workspaces that feature integrated web browsing, voice chat, text chat, and access to remote desktop applications and services."

Hey guys. Just watched a live session online at Cisco w the developers of this system, still in development, but interesting differentiators vs 2Life, e.g. peer-to-peer, nested worlds, oh and its open-source. Thought yaz might be interested in tracking it.

Not a day passes by without doing an online search. You may know of basic search operators like AND, OR, etc. but an increasing number of web applications support even more keywords that'll help you fine tune your search to the core. Here are some you may have never heard of.

"In 2008, HIT Lab NZ released the initial version of BuildAR, which provides the basic functionality required to construct augmented reality scenes. You can load a single 3D model onto each marker, and arrange the models using the graphical editing tools or the simple user interface. This version of BuildAR has continues to be free for non-commercial use. For commercial use, or to take advantage of an updated feature set, check out BuildAR Pro."

Eric Mazur has swapped the nature of teaching and non-contact time and released it as a software. "The basic idea is that the bulk of information consumption should be done outside the classroom and in-class time should be spent doing guided, measured, optimized peer-to-peer discussion in order to maximize retention of knowledge"

"In a nutshell: schools are spending billions on technology, even as they cut budgets and lay off teachers, with little proof that this approach is improving basic learning."

We are working with practising teachers to research, and co-construct, an interactive Learning Design Support Environment (LDSE) to scaffold teachers' decision-making from basic planning to creative TEL design.

"An introduction of the basics of plagiarism and how to avoid it, told via a story of a student completing an assignment"

This Guide comprises three sections. The first - a summary of the key issues - is presented in the form of a set of 'Frequently Asked Questions'. Its purpose is to provide readers with a quick and user-friendly introduction to Open Educational Resources (OER) and some of the key issues to think about when exploring how to use OER most effectively. The second section is a more comprehensive analysis of these issues, presented in the form of a traditional research paper. For those who have a deeper interest in OER, this section will assist with making the case for OER more substantively. The third section is a set of appendices, containing more detailed information about specific areas of relevance to OER. These are aimed at people who are looking for substantive information regarding a specific area of interest.