Hello there
well summer is just around the corner over here, although with the rain and the cold snaps one has to wonder if it’s lost its way. The NZ e-Fest and ALT-C have come and gone with some good/useful contributions by participants. I guess full papers etc will be available from the respective sites in due course. For this side of the globe, ASCILITE 2005
http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/brisbane05/start.shtml
is next on the list. Good to see that ALT-C 2006 is already flexing it s muscles
http://www.alt.ac.uk/altc2006/
It seems that in many areas of HE, fiscal challenges are again rearing their ugly heads. No doubt it’s becoming a hardy annual along with convincing the bean counters that over time, the use of learning technologies gets a great return on investment , especially where student learning is ‘coincerned’, will always be another challenge. However there is still plenty of room to be innovative, if you get the chance. The recent memorandum between Ireland and UK is a good example of how efforts are being made to reduce the cost of using e-learning resources (see online learning update)
JISC in the UK goes from strength to strength and their latest publication ‘Innovative Practice with e-Learning: A good practice guide to embedding mobile and wireless
technologies into everyday practice’ is a real gem. It points the way of the future for learning and teaching supported by the technology, which in terms of empowerment and increased productivity, should really be owned by the student (learner).
JISC InfoNet also produces some good stuff and the Project Management Guide is very useful, especially if you are picked on to manage a project for the first time or even want to review processs. It has a good set of guidelines (not tramlines) to assist with doing a good job. The online version is well worth exploring.
Other links in this posting include some contributed by Tony Bates on comparison of e-learning tools, some info on open source elearning platforms, interactions and online learning, authentic learning,getting answers, a paper on Blogs as electronic learning journals and an interesting site about mentoring.
1. Innovative Practice with e-Learning :A good practice guide to embedding mobile and wireless technologies into everyday practice
is now available to download from the JISC site
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/uploaded_documents/publication_txt.pdf
or from the download link
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/eli_practice.html
There are some excellent links to other related resources from the download site so take time to browse
Good stuff… promoting support for the mobile learner
2. JISC InfoNet publications and guides. This is an excellent guide on project management one of a series of guides produced by JISCinfoNet, but like a lot of the good stuff on the Web, you need to go and search to find where good people are hiding their light under a bushel 🙂
http://www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk/InfoKits/project-management/printable_version/html2pdf
The Online version with lots of very useful links can be accessed from
http://www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk/InfoKits/project-management/index_html
3. Answers.com has a wide range of resources and information on e-learning and related areas. Well worth exploring
http://www.dotlrn.org/index.html
5. Useful free download of diagrammatic and tabular representation of
Relationships Between Interactions and Learning In Online Environments
by Karen Swan
http://www.sloan-c.org/publications/books/interactions.pdf
6. From Imaginal training in the Netherlands, some tables comparing the relative attributes of various e-learning resources such as CDROM, Websites, Hybrids.
http://www.imaginal.nl/shortcomplatf.html
while you are there peruse the other resources found at
http://www.imaginal.nl/homepage3.html
Some useful stuff to digest
7. Here is a comprehensive site on ‘Authentic learning’ with lots of links to related resources. I listened to an excellent presentation on using authentic learning approaches within Blackboard at the recent Blackboard ASIAPacific Users conference in Melbourne. It was created by the Teaching and Learning Group at Adelaide University and hopefully the full version will be online for the next LT forum.
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~tmarra/authenticity/authen.html
8. From e-JIST, the e-journal of Instructional Science and Technology an interesting paper by Laurie Armstrong, Dr Marsha Berry and Reece Lamshed: Blogs as electronic learning journals. Nicely put together with some good hints and guidance on the use of Blogs. Other papers in the same edition may be of interest
http://www.usq.edu.au/electpub/e-jist/docs/Vol7_No1/content.htm
9. Online learning update provides snippets on happenings around the globe in relation to e-learning. Some links to keep you up to date and perhaps provide some useful resources
http://people.uis.edu/rschr1/onlinelearning/blogger.html
10. Into mentoring? Have a look at the commonsense pages from the PLUS mentoring handbook, much is associated with the organisation concerned, but nearly all help and hints etc can be applied elsewhere.
http://www.firstyear.eku.edu/plusmentor/strategies.php
11. and the odd one out….. Who said “love is grand, divorce is a hundred grand’?… The oldest quotation site on the Web may have the answer, but also useful for the occasional quote for an erudite presentation to your colleagues.
“You’ve reached the oldest quotation site on the Web, established 1994. We have over 23,000 quotations online from over 2,600 authors, and more are added daily”.
http://www.quotationspage.com/
That’s the lot for this time. Last LT Forum will be posted around the end of November this year.
Richard Elliott
Director
Learning Technologies
Unitec New Zealand
Private Bag 92025
Carrington Road
Auckland
http://www.unitec.ac.nz
Ph : +649 815 4321 Ext 7737
Fax : +649 815 3018
Mob: 021 153 4262