G’day everyone
Almost time to join the erudite community at ALT-C 2006. The timetable/programme look great, with comprehesivve coverage of a wide range of topics for the forward thinking elearning community.
Back here in NZ there are quite a number of activities planned for the rest of the year to tempt the appetite of elearners.
Leigh Blackall (Otago) is organising a ‘new’ form of e-learning conference. According to Wikipedia, The term conference can be used to ‘describe any meeting of people that ‘confer’ about a certain topic’. It is the ‘confer’ in the context of Leigh’s approach that should be the exciting bit, mobility and inclusivity seem to be promised with a focus on collaborative/interactive activities and a minimum (if any) traditional presentations. A rich social e- learning environment to boot!
The new e-type conference (OpenSpace) will be up and running in September.
The event will coincide with eFest and several other elearning events in New Zealand. It will be very interesting to see how Leigh’s experiment works.
Interesting to note that Stephen Downes (a keynote speaker at eFest) has indicated he will participate in the NZ experience…. that can only be good for the pundits. Good luck Leigh and let’s hope the NZ e-learning community gets behind the events.
Apart from Leigh’s activities this posting includes a site for all your analytical tools, some more stuff on Moodle.
New Zealand educators have made a big contribution to the development of Moodle and the Wintec site provides some examples of what’s being done.
There’s stuff for those researchers and librarians amongst you (can be shared of course). A little bit on free software and open source developments, some links to a conference or two. Also included are Websites on online teaching, learning and designing resources plus social software and finally the odd one out.
Until September comes our way. That’s it for this month
1. New Zealand eFest 27 – 29 September
The theme of eFest 2006 is ‘Moving Learning’ as we are now entering an era where the notion of lifelong learning, anytime, anyplace, anywhere is truly coming of age.
2. A travelling OpenSpace conference:
The e-learning event/experiment of the decade? This is Leigh Blackall (in conjunction with Otago Polytechnic) behind the creation of the future of social networked e-learning.
‘Otago Polytechnic has initiated a travelling open space conference called The Future of Learning in a Networked World. 10 international speakers will come to Dunedin on September 18 and travel to participating institutions to discuss this topic with local audiences. This event coincides with the annual meeting of the Teach and Learn Online (http://protopage.com/teachandlearnonline) network being held in Dunedin on September 18, and eFest being held in Wellington September 27’.
Check out the Blog and related site
http://learningnetworkedworld.blogspot.com/
http://networkedlearning.wikispaces.com/future+of+learning+in+a+networked+world
3. Social Software Tools and their Application in VET Teaching & Learning.
From the Blog of Sean FitzGerald comes an excellent account of Social software along with some very useful resources and links.
http://seanfitz.wikispaces.com/pharmacyguild
4. The flexible learning group in Aussie land produces some good stuff and their Knowledge Tree online e-journal of Learning Innovation is an excellent example. Well worth meandering through the resources especially as they provide a number of podcasts of conversations with some ‘experts’ in e-education.
http://kt.flexiblelearning.net.au/
5. Stats, stats and more stats
There are over 600 links from this Website to all sorts of resources for whatever calculation you wish to make. Excerpt from the site
‘The web pages listed here comprise a powerful, conveniently-accessible, multi-platform statistical software package. There are also links to online statistics books, tutorials, downloadable software, and related resources. All of these resources are freely accessible, once you can get onto the Internet’.
While you are perusing the above site you might like to digress and visit
where you will find much to occupy your free time doing /creating quizzes on almost any subject
6. Research Methods in the Social Sciences: An Internet Resource List.
This another one of those well designed sites, easy to navigate to a wide range of resources related to research. Much is transferable to any other area of research.
http://www.library.miami.edu/netguides/psymeth.html
7. More Moodling around
This site is the home of Moodle activities being pioneered by Wintec (Waikato Institute of Technology) in New Zealand. Nice job boys and girls.
and this one will give you some ideas on creating an engaging Moodle site.
http://www.ballisticlearning.biz/moodlethemes/
8. English, as she is spoke: teaching resources
Another excellent resource from the BBC for all of you who are involved in teaching English.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/learning/subjects/english.shtml
9. Learning Designs
Learning designs has been around for a few years and in the context of the current focus on LAMS, evidence based practice, authentic and situational learning environments and social software, it’s well worth a revisit (Ron Oliver would be pleased if you did).
‘This web site has been designed for teachers and instructors in higher education to access a rich set of resources that support the development of flexibly delivered high quality learning experiences for students’.
http://learningdesigns.uow.edu.au/
10. Learning support Centres in Higher Education
You could wile away many a beneficial hour following links from this site developed by Paradise Valley Community College from the Maricopa group of colleges. Search the rest of the site while you are at it.
http://www.pvc.maricopa.edu/~lsche/resources/onlineteaching.htm
11. Online Learning Sites
You may have seen many of these before but there are likely to be a few you haven’t as there are a huge number of links (some with interesting quotes), so take some time to check them out from a site specially developed for Librarians.
http://www.librarysupportstaff.com/ed4you.html
and some more stuff/links relating to library support for distance learning
‘The purpose of this site is to provide an informational resource for librarians interested in the many issues of library support for distance learners’.
http://people.lis.uiuc.edu/~b-sloan/libdist.htm
12. ALT-C 2006 programme.
http://www.alt.ac.uk/altc2006/programme.html
13. ALT-C 2007
Call for Programme Committee members for ALT-C 2007
1. ALT-C 2007 will be held in Nottingham, UK, 4-6 September 2007. The
co-chairs, Prof Mike Sharples (Nottingham University, UK) and Sharon
Waller (Anglia Ruskin University, UK), are seeking Programme Committee
(PC) members to take an active part in planning the programme, reviewing
papers and (where possible) chairing sessions at the conference. The co-
chairs wish to encourage applications from all areas of education and
from outside the UK.
2. The theme for ALT-C 2007 will be ‘Beyond control’.
The theme reflects that fact that students are constructing their own
informal learning environments through file sharing, social networking,
and mobile communication. These new ways of learning are beyond the
control of formal education, yet educational providers will need to adapt
to the skills and technologies that students bring. There are
opportunities to integrate formal and informal learning and to widen
access to non-traditional learners, but also challenges of ownership,
privacy, scholarship, and security.
3. PC members must be able to commit to:
* reviewing at least 15 abstracts/ short proposals for sessions
and/or
* refereeing at least 2 research papers
– during March and April 2007.
4. Attendance at PC meetings (usually only two) is desirable but not
essential. The first committee meeting will be held in November 2006. It
is important that a good number are available to attend the 24-hour PC
meeting (lunchtime to lunchtime) which is likely to be held in April 2006
(dates tbc). Reasonable travel, accommodation, and subsistence expenses
will be met. PC members are entitled to a discount on the earlybird
conference fee.
5. To express an interest, send an email to Hayley Willis
with the subject ‘ALT-C 2007 PC application’.
Include your full address and brief details of your:
a) reviewing/refereeing experience
b) conference organising experience
c) general experience in learning technology, including current
position (please do not send CVs).
If you are not able to attend meetings, please tell us. Applications
to arrive by Friday 16 September.
Informal enquiries only to Rhonda Riachi: rriachi@brookes.ac.uk
14. SUPER (Simplified Universal Player Encoder & Renderer)
For the digital natives and multimedia gurus amongst you, this site indicates that the FREE download provided will convert full-length movies to any other format. From what I have read it looks very comprehensive and worth exploring
http://www.erightsoft.com/SUPER.html
and in the same sort of vein, Opensource for Learning is worth exploring and getting an idea of what’s available out there
http://www.squidoo.com/opensource4learning/
15. After all that,the Odd one out for fun.
http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/eggsong
—
Richard Elliott
E-learning Watch
http://elearnwatch.falkor.gen.nz/
Auckland New Zealand
‘Learning in the Driver’s seat, Technology turning the wheels’
Member of the Programme Committee for ALT-C 2006