G’day
There’s some interesting discussion going on around the iPad in education (surprise) and a lot of innovative ways of using it. I’m not all all surprised at the number of iPads that have been sold. As with many innovations, a little bit of lateral thinking can work wonders. Never say never.
There’s loads of apps (Omnigraphsketcher for ipad is just one)
http://www.omnigroup.com/products/omnigraphsketcher-ipad
It’s visually stunning, apart from being great for graphs and data plotting).
To local Kiwis, don’t miss out on the NZ Sharefest in Hamilton in September. It promises to be a vibrant and stimulating event.
Also note that ECHO 360, the lecture capture people, are going to have a lunch time presentation at AUT University in Auckland (and possibly elsewhere), details below.
Congratulations to Blackboard Inc for gaining a coveted CODiE award
http://www.siia.net/codies/2010/
Doesn’t matter which LMS camp you are in. The excitement of winning an award for all your efforts is always intense and worthwhile!
Really great to see ALT launch their series of guides,’What research has to say for practice’ through their Wiki. An invaluable resource compiled by some of the best in the business and bound to grow
This months posting has something on the iPad. information literacy, a couple of sites packed with elearning resources, e-portfolios form Helen Barrett, keeping elearners engaged, a couple of blogs focused on elearning, ALT guides, web usability, an interesting article from Tony Bates on instructional design, open access journals, conferences and the odd one out.
I’ll be at ALT-C again this year, should be another great event, don’t miss it!
1. Game Changer: Is it iPad? [thanks to Thom Cochrane for the link] A very interesting article, well worth the time to read. There’s a lot to it,with a number of challenging comments and insights
http://www.handheldlearning.co.uk/content/view/64/60/
2. Kineo free thinking.
A wealth of resources and links to all things e-learning. Some really good information, guides and links. You could spend forever wombling through this lot!
http://www.kineo.com/elearning-resources/elearning-resources-home.html
I found the podcasting guide very useful
http://www.kineo.com/ufi-learndirect-kineo-guides/good-practice-guides-with-ufi-learndirect.html
3. Australian Learn Information Literacy Initiative: LILI
Useful site for your students.
http://www2.tafe.sa.edu.au/lili/
and in a similar vein
Searchpath: find and critically evaluate information sources
http://www.wmich.edu/library/searchpath/
4. Balancing the Two Faces of ePortfolios: A work in progress from Helen Barrett which has recently been updated. An excellent overview of e-portfolios . Well worth the time to read
Extract from the site:
‘This paper focuses on the two major purposes for developing ePortfolios, and how to balance both approaches to enhance learner engagement with the ePortfolio process’.
http://electronicportfolios.org/balance/index.html
5. Engaging Interactions for elearning: 25 Ways to keep Learners Awake and Intrigued. by B.J Schone.
35 pages of interesting stuff which should keep you awake let alone your students. Some useful ideas to adopt. This is a pdf download.
http://www.elearningpulse.com/eBook/EngagingInteractionsForELearning.pdf
6. Making Change: Ideas for lively e-learning. The Blog of Cathy Moore
Extract from the site:
‘In this blog, you’ll find practical ideas that will help you create lively, powerful elearning for adults in the business world’.
There are definitely some good practical ideas and suggestions to consider.
7. ALT guides: ‘What research has to say for practice’
A series of excellent guides produce by various well known authors on subjects such as tutoring online,Learning using mobile and hand-held devices and Learner acceptance of on-line learning and e-learning. There are 9 guides in all. A must read for the innovative practitioner and the newbies of elearning
http://wiki.alt.ac.uk/index.php/What_research_has_to_say_for_practice
[taken from the] ALT Digest, a fortnightly publication from the Association for Learning Technology (ALT) ]
8. Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox on Current Issues in Web Usability.
I think it must be at least 12 years since I last visited Jakob’s Website. He was very active in the early days of the Web and a good source of useful information. Nothing has changed . His site is still worth perusing. The latest article on Website response times is very interesting.
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/
9. Blog: elearninfo
Here is another site which which has many links ,reports, guides and some advice likely to engage you for some time.You might want to look at the LMS comparison template while you are there.
The section linked below refers to free open source course content applications. Might be one there that you have been looking for, and it is free!
http://elearninfo.com/2010/06/08/course-content-authoring-tools-open-source-free/
10.The future of instructional design – or my heart belongs to ADDIE. An article by Tony Bates.
Well worth reading and contemplating and maybe passing some of your own thoughts onto Tony.
http://www.tonybates.ca/2010/06/08/the-future-of-instructional-design-or-my-heart-belongs-to-addie/
11. The Directory of Open Access Journals
This service covers free, full text, quality controlled scientific and scholarly journals.
Must be some for you to read, only 5114 to peruse. Maybe ‘Education Next’ from Stanford or ‘Educational Technology & Society’ from New Zealand or BMC nursing from the UK?
Conferences
12.1 ALT-C 2010: “Into something rich and strange” – making sense of the sea-change 7-9 September 2010, Nottingham, UK.
ALT’s online booking system is now open for this event:
http://www.alt.ac.uk/altc2010/registering.html
Early Bird registration deadline: 5 July
Registrations close: 13 August
Conference fees:
http://www.alt.ac.uk/altc2010/delegate_information.html
Accommodation details:
http://www.alt.ac.uk/altc2010/accommodation.html
Social programme:
http://www.alt.ac.uk/altc2010/social.html
Keynote speakers
* Vanessa Pittard, Director of e-Strategy, Becta, UK;
* Professor Richard Noss, Co-director of the London Knowledge Lab and Director of the Technology Enhanced Learning research programme.
Keynote speakers
* Barbara Wasson, Professor of Pedagogical Information Science at the Department of Information Science and Media Studies, University of Bergen, Norway;
* Sugata Mitra, Professor of Educational Technology at Newcastle University;
* Donald Clark, Board Member of Ufi, and former CEO of Epic Group plc.
[taken from the] ALT Digest, a fortnightly publication from the Association for Learning Technology (ALT)
12.2 ascilite 2010 ‘Curriculum, technology & transformation for an unknown future.’ is the 27th annual ascilite Conference. The conference will be held in Sydney, New South Wales Australia. It is being jointly hosted by The University of Technology Sydney, The University of Queensland and Charles Sturt University
You are invited to develop proposals for full papers, concise papers, posters and workshops.
Please note the deadline for full and concise papers, symposium
and workshops has been extended to 5 July 2010.
Full Details from
http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/sydney10/index.htm
12.3 mLearn2010
Dates
Submission of Abstracts : 14th May 2010
Submission of Papers: 11th June 2010
Posters/Demos: 15th September 2010
Notification to Authors: 30th July 2010
Early Bird Registration: 30th July 2010
Pre-Conference Workshops: 19th October 2010
Conference: 20th-22nd October 2010
12.4 The 4th International Malaysian Educational Technology Convention 2010
ELECTRONIC EDUCATION: Towards an Immersive Learning Environment
26 – 29 September 2010,KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia
Extract from the site for potential presenters:
‘This year we are not requesting for abstracts and contributors will submit full papers for evaluation. Selected papers submitted within the deadline will be published in a book by Pearson. The papers not selected for the book will be included in the Convention Proceedings, together with papers submitted after the 15th May 2010’.
http://imetc2010.yolasite.com/
12.5 JISC Online Conference Innovating e-Learning 2010
Bringing Innovation to Life: from adversity comes opportunity
The fifth JISC international online conference
23-26 November 2010
Full details from
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/elpconference10
12.6 DEHub and ODLAA will host the
EDUCATION 2011-2021: GLOBAL CHALLENGES AND PERSPECTIVES OF BLENDED AND DISTANCE LEARNING SUMMIT
15 – 18 Feb 2011.
Summit website
http://www.dehub.edu.au/summit2011/index.html
Call for papers and submissions
The deadline for the submission of full papers is 27 August 2010.
Posters, Workshops, Research notes and plenary panel proposals by the 25 September 2010.
Papers may be submitted here
http://dehub.edu.au/papers/SubmitAbstract.php
KIWI happenings
12.7 For the local KIWI’s (and anyone passing through). Wintec in Hamilton will be hosting an elearning SharEfest on September 27 and 28th with Peter Looms as a Keynote. Peter has students in Hong Kong and in Denmark. One of Peter’s presentations is liable to be on the nature use of handhelds and the results of research being carried out on iPads and the like by his students in Hong Kong.
Details will be published on the Ako Aotearoa site
http://akoaotearoa.ac.nz/communities/e-learning-education-and-training
So go there and register in the ‘e-learning in education and training’ community to keep up to date:-)
The main Web site for the SharEfest is at
http://sharefest.crowdvine.com/
(you can create and account and join in)
Submit a paper/ interactive session/ round table/ group activity or workshop asap!
Ascilite are a sponsor of these regional symposia
12.8 AUT University in Auckland are hosting an Echo360 NZ Lunchtime Seminar on 8 September 2010.
Echo360
develops lecture capture software for education – with over 500 institutions globally using its premier EchoSystem product.
Echo360’s former Lectopia product is known internationally and well established in the Australasian region.
The seminar will include lunch, and cover the following topics:
Discussion of enterprise-level lecture capture
Demonstration of EchoSystem lecture capture for venue recording
Demonstration of EchoSystem Personal Capture for staff and students
Client demonstration of lecture capture implementation and use
Echo360 are also offering ten travel bursaries valued at NZ$200 for New Zealand residents who wish to travel to the event.
For event registration and bursary applications please see the website:
http://www.lectopia.com.au/nzseminar-2010-overview.lasso
13. The Odd one out
Wordle:
‘Wordle is a toy for generating ‘word clouds’ from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends’.
Have fun and find a use, even if its just for basic word recognition, spelling, sentence composition or brainstorming.
Have a look at
http://thecleversheep.blogspot.com/2008/10/top-20-uses-for-wordle.html
for more ideas
In a wordle or two, that’s it until August:-)
Richard Elliott
The Eternal Macademic
Auckland
New Zealand