Hiyall
As usual February has disappeared at a rate of knots and March is upon us. This month has a range of links to get the neurons excited or at least into some kind of action.
I am watching with interest the rise and rise of Moodle and who is adopting the system for their learners. There is a lot of movement out there. Maybe the adoption by the Open University in the UK was a catalyst to galvanise others into action?
Where the nature of the learning space and associated resources is concerned, it is critically important to listen to the learners voice. JISC through their pedagogy experts group have long recognised this and are working towards publishing some useful guides. Watch their space.
Talking of JISC, I had a visit in New Zealand from a senior member of the JISCInfonet group. Jacquie Kelly. It was really good to be able to get a first hand account of what Infonet are up to and their future plans. It also reinforced for me the fact that these people are completing a number of worthwhile projects (CAMEL is a great example) and what’s more the outcomes are available to anyone from the JISCInfonet Web site.
Jacquie was kind enough to share her knowledge of JISC (and its branches) activities and future directions, with a number of colleagues from NZ Universities and Institutes of Technology. Very much appreciated by all.
When compiling these links it is easy to imagine that ‘everyone’ will know about the various resources. So vast is the number of people who probably have limited time to search that the ‘Webnet cross fertilisation’ between the bloggers, wikiers, website gurus, emailers, webgroups , RSS and the like, that the chances of being informed of useful resources is increasing all the time. So if you have seen a resource before, have another look and be nice and pass it on to someone who hasn’t.
Apart from links to JISC activities this posting also provides links to some upcoming conferences, some e-learning sites about pedagogy and barriers, guide for use of handhelds plus synchronous activities on the Web, Webware,You the person of the year, sites to watch, useful tools and of course the odd one(s) out
1. Practical Guide to elearning for Industry.
I came across this site while doing some research into vocational education. I thought is was well designed and provides an excellent resource for those in the industry sector interested in adopting flexible learning approaches for their staff.
(Even if they did lose the Cricket 3 zip the Aussies do produce some good stuff!)
http://industry.flexiblelearning.net.au/Guide/default.htm
2.Learner Experience Guides
There is such a wealth of useful information on JISC and its related sites that navigating sometimes requires an advanced pilot’s licence. One area that I visit often is to do with pedagogy and learners experiences of e-learning.There are lots of links here to outcomes and related projects.
Have a look at some of the material linked from the site. The Learner Experience guides are particularly well constructed and useful click on the link LEX under :
Learner experiences of e-learning (LEX) project (This is a .pdf download).
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/elearning_pedagogy/elp_learneroutcomes.aspx
3.The Higher Education Academy UK and Centre of Recording Achievement(CRA) have published a new report:
A survey of e-pdp and e-portfolio practice in UK Higher Education
(don’t you just love acronyms)
http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/resources.asp?process=full_record§ion=generic&id=631
4. Futurelab publishes some excellent resources. The latest is
‘Learning with Handheld Technologies’.
It has some commonsense suggestions and case studies around the use of handhelds and is well worth perusing.
http://www.futurelab.org.uk/research/handbooks/05_01.htm
5.Online Instruction: pedagogy guide
This is a very ‘neat’ site with some very clear and straightforward material which aims to help teachers prepare and conduct web-based instruction as well as explain the background/theoretical aspects of instruction online.
http://www.southalabama.edu/oll/pedagogy/pedagogycourse.htm6.
6. Links to some useful resources related to e-learning from the Higher Education Academy in the UK. There are many more accessible resources on the site if you have the time to wander.
http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/resources.asp?process=filter_fields§ion=generic&type=some&id=4
7. Network of Excellence in Professional Learning: This is a European Commission project.
Extract from the site:
‘PROLEARN is a ‘Network of Excellence’ financed by the IST (Information Society Technology – Contract number 507310) programme of the European commission dealing with technology enhanced professional learning. Our mission is to bring together the most important research groups in the area of professional learning and training, as well as other key organisations and industrial partners, thus bridging the currently existing gap between research and education at universities and similar organisations and training and continuous education that is provided for and within companies’.
There’s some interesting reading here. Follow links to social software, being the topic of the day.
http://www.prolearn-project.org/articles/wp15/index.html
Conferences of Note:
8. JISC Online Conference: Innovating e-Learning 2007
June 11- 14th
Extract from site:
‘This conference will bring together a selection of key innovators in e-learning to present and discuss the current and future impact of e-learning. The two themes are designed to look at the impact of e-learning from an internal institutional perspective and from the more personalised view of the lifelong learner.
The conference programme will be of interest to practitioners, managers and e-learning coordinators in further and higher education, researchers, staff developers, learning technologists and key stakeholders supporting lifelong learning’.
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/elearning_pedagogy/elp_conference07.aspx
8.1
LEARNX ASIA PACIFIC 2007 eLearning and training solutions
International Conference & Expo
26-27 July 2007 Sydney Convention & Exhibition Centre.
Some well known presenters at this one
Abstracts from lead session can be accessed from
http://www.learnx.net/learnx/leadsessions.html#702
8.2 ALT-C 2007
4-6 September 2007
Nottingham, England
http://www.alt.ac.uk/altc2007/
Keynote speakers: Dr Michelle Selinger, Education Strategist, Cisco
Systems, Dr Peter Norvig, Director of Research, Google, and Professor
Dylan Wiliam, Deputy Director of the Institute of Education.
Online registration is now available: Get in early, remember what happened last year!
http://www.alt.ac.uk/altc2007/registering.html
http://www.alt.ac.uk/altc2007/registering.html
Costs to attend: http://www.alt.ac.uk/altc2007/delegate_information.html
http://www.alt.ac.uk/altc2007/delegate_information.html
http://www.alt.ac.uk/altc2007/travel.htmlhttp://www.alt.ac.uk/altc2007/accommodation.htmlhttp://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/singapore07/8.4 ICOOL 2007
3rd International Conference on Open and Online Learning
Pedagogical Scripting for Open and Online Learning (OOL)
11-14 June 2007
Hotel Equatorial, Penang, Malaysia
http://icool.uom.ac.mu/2007/user/index.php
9. WebWare: Cool Web Apps for everyone.
This is an interesting development on the Web, focussing on Web based applications that can run in a browser. Google Maps
adding subway stops and building outlines, is a good example.
Extract from site:
‘There’s a shift underway in how people use computers and the Internet. Every day more utility is being delivered over the Web. Full applications can now be run in a browser, accessible from any computer. Software? It’s no longer required. Software is becoming Webware.
Webware.com is the site where computer users can learn about new and useful Web applications’.
10. TIME’s Person of the Year:You
If you haven’t read this article it’s about ‘time’ you did. Thought provoking and current. Explore related links.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1569514,00.html
11. FreeMind- free mind mapping software. I picked this link from Derek’s blog
http://blog.core-ed.net/derek/
a few weeks ago. Nice piece of software and simple to use once you get the hang of it and let your mind roam free, so to speak. It’s multiplatform so must be a download for you
http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page#Download_and_install
12. Synchronous ELearning Resources and Tips.
There’s a lot about Elluminate on this site plus a myriad of links to other sites which provide resources/guides/help and information on synchronous applications.
I watched/listened to an Elluminate
http://elluminate.com/index.jsp
session from Illinois last week through the learningTimes Network
http://home.learningtimes.net/
It certainly is a powerful application suite.
This is the link to Synchronous ELearning Resources and Tips.
http://www.circl.pitt.edu/home/elearningresources.htm
13. Sites to keep an eye on (lucky for some)
13.1 The Learning edge (Australia)
Extract from site:
‘The Learning Edge International’s principal offering is EQUELLA, a Learning Content Management System) that incorporates a digital repository and content authoring tool’.
Some very useful developments going on here.
http://www.thelearningedge.com.au/
13.2 Flexible Learning solutions (NZ)
Extract from site:
‘Since the advent of the web the world has undergone radical rethinking on how knowledge is taught and learned. Intuto enables New Zealand – now the world – to harness the outcomes of this change via practical, stimulating, intuitive educational systems’.
http://www.intuto.com/partners_tertiary.htm
13.3 OneFile: Portfolio Assessment Solution (UK).
An interesting concept.
Extract from site:
‘OneFile can be used by training providers, e-Assessment providers, learning centres, colleges and universities. Learners, Assessors, Internal Verifiers, Employers, Centre Managers and Awarding Bodies can all use OneFile depending on their role in the assessment process. OneFile has been specifically designed for NVQ/SNVQ, Key Skills and Basic Skills, although it is modular by design and can be customised for any criteria-based qualification’.
14. This is a Blog with some reflections and comments on barriers to elearning plus links to some useful resources. Well worth reading.
http://breakthroughelearning.com/
15. Odd one(s)out
Introducing the book: There will always be a need for the help desk.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRjVeRbhtRU
and
for purrfect fun (‘Cat’egorically speaking)
http://www.broenink-art.nl/maukie2.swf
and
for manipulating or at least improving your best photos.
(thanks to Nicola van den Berg in Swansea, Wales for the last link)
Well that lot should keep you occupied until April fools us into believing we all know what we are doing in elearning.
TTFN
Richard
Richard Elliott
ElearnWatch
New Zealand
‘Learning in the Driver’s seat, Technology turning the wheels’