"From January 2011 Childnet along with the SWGfL and the IWF will be the UK Safer Internet Centre. One of our jobs as the UK Safer Internet Centre is to get as many people involved in Safer Internet Day as possible!
We challenge you to think about the Safer Internet Day theme for 2011:
Virtual Lives : It's more than a game, it's your life!
It's important for all users of the internet to be aware of the consequences of their online actions - both good and bad!
Taking care, being safe and responsible online and offline is an important part of child development.
Childnet International is producing a Safer Internet Day resource pack to help educators participate in Safer Internet Day. Below is an outline of the target areas related to this year's theme. We hope this will help educators to get thinking and planning for Tuesday 8 February 2011. Alongside this content will be a short film and banners for VLEs from the European commission promoting Safer Internet Day."
"The conference is part of the Re-engineering Assessment Practices (REAP) project, a £1m initiative funded by the Scottish Funding Council under its e-Learning Transformation initiative. REAP is a collaboration across the University of Strathclyde, University of Glasgow and Glasgow Caledonian University. REAP is evaluating the impact of new assessment practices supported by technology at course, faculty and institutional level.Conference themes: Focusing on assessment FOR learning in tertiary education the conference has three themes to be addressed through keynotes, case studies and structured discussions.Assessment and the first year experienceGreat designs for assessmentInstitutional strategies (designs) for assessment"
The Research Communications Strategy work is a JISC funded activity to investigate and coordinate many of the emerging themes, ideas and developments in the field of research communications at a strategic level.
"The Research Communications Strategy work is a JISC funded activity to investigate and coordinate many of the emerging themes, ideas and developments in the field of research communications at a strategic level."
"Published February 25, 2013
Matthew P. Long & Roger C. Schonfeld
In this report, we present the results of Ithaka S+R's study of the scholarly practices of academic chemists. This study, funded by Jisc, presents information meant to empower research support providers in their work with chemists. The report covers themes such as data management, research collaboration, library use, discovery, publication practices, and research funding.
The report describes the findings of our investigation into academic chemists' research habits and research support needs. The digital availability of scholarly literature has transformed chemists' research by creating an environment where they can easily search for journal articles and chemical information. However, they often feel overwhelmed by the amount of new research available, and they need better tools to remain aware of current research. Furthermore, despite their heavy use of technology for research, many academic chemists have been slow to adopt new models of sharing data and research results such as online repositories and open access publishing. Our interviews highlighted the importance of the research group as a unit of academic life, and revealed some of the challenges inherent in working in groups that span institutions and national boundaries."
Australian report from Ernest and Young. Some good points about 'drivers' of change but maybe a little too much weight placed on the theme of technological determinism i.e. change is inevitable.
"Data visualization is a running theme of visual literacy here, and Manuel Lima has been one of its biggest advocates since 2005 when, shortly after graduating from the Parson School of Design, he launched VisualComplexity - an ambitious portal for the visualization of complex networks across a multitude of disciplines, from biology to history to the social web."
The twelve first-person films that make up this series explore three related themes, each in its own way at the center of current debate about what works, and what's needed, to help students succeed during school and in life.
Over time the learner has been the explorer of knowledge, its accumulator and skilled 'access-or'. In the 21st century challenges and demands are expanding and changing again. Our new society's environment is one of rapid communication, action and change, of intricate social activity and a huge potential for new knowledge.
What are the models of the learner for this brave new world? How can higher education create these models and support the learners who aspire to them? This paper postulates four models of the learner of the future:
* the collaborator: for whom networks of knowledge, skills and ideas are the source of learning
* the free agent: utilising flexible, continuous, open-ended and life-long styles and systems of learning to the full
* the wise analyser: able to gather, scrutinise and use evidence of effective activity and apply conclusions to new problems
* the creative synthesiser: able to connect across themes and disciplines, cross-fertilise ideas, integrate disparate concepts and create new vision and practice.
The paper describes an example of these kinds of learning and considers what they might imply for the development of learning in higher education in the coming century
"Our Space is a set of curricular materials designed to encourage high school students to reflect on the ethical dimensions of their participation in new media environments. Through role-playing activities and reflective exercises, students are asked to consider the ethical responsibilities of other people, and whether and how they behave ethically themselves online. These issues are raised in relation to five core themes that are highly relevant online: identity, privacy, authorship and ownership, credibility, and participation. For more information, download the Introduction to Our Space [pdf], FAQ [pdf], and Road Map [pdf]. All curricular units and lessons are free and available for download below. The full casebook [pdf - 133MB] can be downloaded using the link at the bottom of the page."
Critiqued by @downes for not addressing the issue properly
"This is "a set of curricular materials designed to encourage high school students to reflect on the ethical dimensions of their participation in new media environments." The content divides into five major subject areas: participation, identity, privacy, credibility, and authorship and ownership. I'm not sure these are the top five things I would list when thinking of ethical dimensions of new media environments. While it's useful that there is a section on flamers, lurkers and mentors I think there should be something about hate, racism and bulling. And while a section on credibility is a good idea, it should be based on the principles of reason and inference, not outrageously bad definitions like this: "Networking-the ability to search for, synthesize, and disseminate information." And this: "Collective intelligence-evidence that participants in knowledge communities pool knowledge and compare notes with others toward a common goal." Wow, those are just wrong. Maybe I need to review this and criticize it more closely."
Unfortunately it's quite expensive
"Event Eye is the first in a new generation of tools to enable event organizers to capture the backchannel and to integrate it with the main themes and presentations of the conference, to create a fluid dialogue that demonstrates an understanding of the audience and makes the links between the disparate comments.
By using Event Eye, organisers will understand the mood and interests of their audience and will be able to react in real time to audience feedback and need. Event Eye has the potential to build the social capital of a conference, capture the collective intelligence and to turn an event into a movement."
"The project funds student partnerships in various disciplines to develop online learning resources using specialist software. This complements our partnership with Jisc on their Developing digital literacies project which aims to give students digital skills by encouraging HE curriculums to include digital elements."