Hi everyone
I guess with all the current activity in elearning and education the year will continue to flash by. ALT-C is just around the corner and in NZ we have the Sharefest in September followed by Ulearn and then Ascilite in Aussie in December.
The debates and discussions on which LMS or similar system is the best for learning are always interesting. I like to keep an open mind. BlackBoard and Moodle are often the most dissected, discussed, debated and probably used.
There are many more systems out there and plenty of opinion as to why they are better than others. One of the links in this post will take you to a very interesting site that looks at 10 other open source LMS.
The comments section is highly enlightening. You may find yourself exploring an alternative to what you use already. eFrontlearning might be a good contender for a switch.
This months posting is a mixed bag and includes details on alternative LMS, a collection of PLE’s (thanks to Thom Cochrane for this link), ebook reader for mobile access, pdf search engine, library resource, online assessment rubric and exercise. Mac apps, information literacy assessment, Curtis Bonk resources, European training survey Conferences, KIWI happenings and the odd one out.
1.Open Source LMS – 10 Alternatives to Moodle
http://barrysampson.com/2009/04/open-source-lms-10-alternatives-to-moodle/
http://www.efrontlearning.net/
2. Diagrams of Personal Learning Environment ( PLE’s) : A collection from Edtech post.
Quite a remarkable smorgsabord of PLE”s reflecting similar but different thinking. Plenty of stuff to fry the brain:-)
http://edtechpost.wikispaces.com/PLE+Diagrams
3. Stanza: A free electronic book reader
Extract from the site:
‘Stanza is a free application for your iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch. Use it to download from a vast selection of over 100,000 books and periodicals, and read them right on your phone. It’s a wireless electronic library that stays open 24/7’.
For those of you into mobile learning, try it for yourself. There’s more to it than meets the eye
4.Ultimate Collection of Google Related Mac Apps. I guess not everyone has realised the power of the Mac in education, yet. This link takes you to an impressive range of Google and third party Mac applications for all sorts of activities. Must be one for you. Probably will work on a PC.
5. Search for pdf on any? topic. A search engine that returns pdf files on your chosen topic. I tried ‘ elearning assessment’ with mixed results, the odd one out of date, but some were useful. The Ads may put you off (some are embedded within the search results) but the site could be used to complement other searches.
6.Online assessment rubrics and guides. There is a lot to this site and whilst it is aimed at K-12 the material and advice could easily be transferred to higher levels.
Choose a subject /grade from the drop down menu and follow the exercise through. Worth the time. Have a look at the rest of the site as well Formative assessment has some useful resources
http://www.exemplars.com/online_assessment/
7. Assessments of Information Literacy. There continues to be strong moves to include comprehensive information literacy and numeracy in courses on and offline. This site provides links to a wide range of assessment approaches for information literacy. Might give yo some ideas for your own initiatives.
http://jonathan.mueller.faculty.noctrl.edu/infolitassessments.htm
8. Curtis Bonk in action. Dr Bonk was at the Australian Moodlemoot in July and his keynote is included in a long list of presentations and activities by the man himself. I guess you would have to have been there to appreciate the presentation. My colleagues who attended the session said it was very entertaining and informative. Plenty of more of his presntations to explore on the Website. Bookmark or RSS for updates.
http://www.trainingshare.com/workshop.php#Moodlemoot2010
9. European training survey. New Research from Cegos – staff driving skills development
An interesting report that provides questions, answers and data on how training is being driven and managed in four European countries. The data may be of interest for comparison purposes, to those of you in the education and training areas in countries other than those on Europe.
An extract:
‘ While classroom training remains the most popular method across all countries, employees are being offered a wider choice of training mediums and emerging learning tools are growing in popularity.
The UK is leading the way in blended learning (41% versus 31% average) and mentoring (44% versus 35% average).
Spain and the UK are continuing to lead in their use of e-learning (with 56% and 53% of learners using it).
France is lagging behind in its diversity of learning techniques and does the least e-learning, with less than a quarter of employees using this tool’.
This is a pdf download.
10. Library a La Carte: The more I got into this site the more I was intrigued by the possibilities this open source software offers. As a Librarian you might find the possibilities endless. You will probably need some technical help to set it up unless your are a IT guru to boot as well!. Worth considering.
http://alacarte.library.oregonstate.edu/about
Conferences
11.1 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
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)
11.2 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
11.3 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
11.4 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/
11.5 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
11.6 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
11.7 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.
The main Web site for the SharEfest is at
http://sharefest.crowdvine.com/
You can create and account and join in. Click on
http://etc.elearning.ac.nz/login/index.php
Submit a paper/ interactive session/ round table/ group activity or workshop asap!
Ascilite are a sponsor of these regional symposia
11.8 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
12. The Odd one out: Timewasters
Try Coma or Reaction Effect or just choose your own, there’s lots of them if you are bored and having nothing better to do than write a curriculum document .
http://www.downloadsquad.com/category/time-waster
That’s it until September dawns.
Richard Elliott
The Eternal Macademic
Auckland
New Zealand