May eWatching

Hi everyone
well here we are already in May (without the darling buds on this side of the world) the year seems to be racing by. However there is much to contemplate in the world of e-learning. It seems that Blogs are taking over the online world. A blog jam is inevitable with millions of new blogs being created every week (according to Technorati), so there are are at least a couple included in this months posting. Also included, some stuff on mobile learning, podagogy, opensource applications and developments, instructional design,emerging technologies, conference information and an online assessment tool, plus the odd one out.
1.Web two point Oh: The Shambles site has been around for a long time and has some good resources. These particular pages take a look at Web 2.0 and related resources. Plenty of links to all sorts of applications

http://www.shambles.net/web2/

2. StudyTXT is an on demand study support system using text messages on cellphones.
StudyTXT is available free to educational institutions in New Zealand. If you would like to try StudyTXT in your educational setting, please use the email link on the site.

http://www.studytxt.com/

3. Pod Pedagogy: A Blog on the educational use of iPods

http://www.bio.purdue.edu/mt/feeds/pod_pedagogy/

and in a similar vein, Podagogy, where podcasting meets teaching and learning.

http://blog.podagogy.com/

4. Educause Connect: This a new site with lots of links to useful articles in Educause review and other sources plus opinions and information on a wide range of topics for those in higher education. Educause. There is an interesting article worth perusing ‘Using a flexible learning space to teach about a flexible learning space ‘
All content on EDUCAUSE Connect is publically accessible. Members can create content and publish to the Connect site.

http://connect.educause.edu/

5.E-Learning 101: An Introduction to E-Learning, learning tools and technologies. Published by Brandon-Hall. You can obtain a FREE copy by subscribing to their Research Newsletter.

http://www.brandon-hall.com/publications/elearning101/elearning101.shtml

6.SHERPA:Some very interesting developments in open access research repositories online is underway in the UK.
Extract from the site:
‘SHERPA is investigating issues in the future of scholarly communication. It is developing open-access institutional repositories in a number of research universities to facilitate the rapid and efficient worldwide dissemination of research’.

http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/

This site has some related projects

http://www.eprints.org/

7.Technical Standards
The Technical Standards website is a gateway to standards, protocols and specifications relevant to learning, education and training.
While much of the information is of a technical nature there are many useful articles and resources within each of the sections. It’s worth exploring.

http://standards.edna.edu.au/standards/go

8. Instructional Design for Integrating Technologies
This is an interactive, online tutorial which is aimed at developing skill in designing instruction which integrates instructional technology. The main page is a login page and registration is free.
The tutorial is divided into 6 categories and the outcome of the tutorial is a professional instructional design. Fascinating experience and worth the time to explore. You can always return to the site and start where you left off. Requires Flash.

http://www.netche.org/idit/

9. Conferences
9.1 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

9.2 ASCILITE 2007: Providing Choices for Learners and Learning.
For the first time ASCILITE is to be held at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.
This is one of Singapore’s largest educational institutes and has a very impressive campus. The campus has excellent resources and personnel and I am sure they will be great hosts. Don’t miss it.
From 2- 5 December 2007.

http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/singapore07/

9.3. Call for Papers ePortfolio 2007
Maastricht 17-19 October 2007

http://events.eife-l.org/ep2007/

The main theme of the 5th International ePortfolio conference is “Employability and Lifelong Learning in the Knowledge Society.” This year the conference will be co-organised by EIfEL in partnership with the TENCompetence project, SURF,
CWI, Kennisnet, Kenteq, the City of Maastricht and the Province of Limburg.
9.4 ALT-C 2007: Beyond control
Learning technology for the social network generation
4-6 September 2007, Nottingham, UK.

http://www.alt.ac.uk/altc2007

You can now register to attend at:

http://www.alt.ac.uk/altc2007/registering.html

Fees for attendance are at:

http://www.alt.ac.uk/altc2007/delegate_information.html

Presenters’ registration deadline: 8 June 2007
Earlybird registration deadline: 29 June 2007
Pre- and post-conference workshops: information for organisers.

http://www.alt.ac.uk/altc2007/pre_and_post.html

Information derived from:
“[the] ALT Digest, a fortnightly publication from the Association for
Learning Technology (ALT) –

http://www.alt.ac.uk/

10. Emerging Learning Technologies. This is a two volume study on emerging technologies. It has a number of short position papers on some of the changes that are occurring in the use of technologies in learning. The papers by Stead and Prensky are particularly interesting.
This is a .pdf download.

http://partners.becta.org.uk/page_documents/research/emerging_technologies07.pdf

12. Scottish Institute for Excellence in Social Work Education: This site has a series of ‘information sheets’ on various aspects of e-learning. They include simple explanations of RSS, blogging, wikis
A very useful set of resources.

http://www.sieswe.org/publications

13. Weblogged. A Wiki maintained by Will Richardson. It has a reasonable number of links to a range of resources, many relating to Web 2.0 developments. There is some useful commentary on the impact of some of the newer technologies plus some ideas and suggestions on their use.

http://weblogged.wikispaces.com/

14. Mobile Learning; if you are contemplating the world of mobile learning, this Blog is worth investigating.

http://mlearningworld.blogspot.com/

15. FAST: the Free assessment summary Tool. A useful tool, worth experimenting with.
Extract from the site:
‘The FAST project is committed to providing users with a simple online tool for assessing their students’ impressions of their courses and their teaching. Using the software does not cost anything.

https://www.getfast.ca/

16. For the Techies amongst you:Drupal, an open source content management platform has the latest release plus DrupalEd availalble for download.

http://drupal.org/learnx/

17. Odd one out. Cartoons from Mark O’Brien. Just to add a smile or two to your day.

http://www.monsta.co.nz/index.cfm?id=17

That’s it until June
Regards
Richard

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