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Wired 11.09: PowerPoint Is Evil
PowerPoint is a competent slide manager and projector. But rather than supplementing a presentation, it has become a substitute for it. Such misuse ignores the most important rule of speaking: Respect your audience.
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JOLT – Journal of Online Learning and Teaching
Learning happens, if it happens at all, in one’s head. The only learning management system that matters, in the end, is the one that happens in the heart and mind of the learner. As Ken Kesey might say, striking a match may or may not be a revolutionary act, depending upon the heart of the person striking the match. Every technology application hosted by an institution or available on the web can be a technical and bureaucratic obstacle course, or it can be a launch pad into the learning imagination.
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globeandmail.com: What’s to love about LinkedIn?
If you want to stay connected with the people you know and spark professional relationships with those you don’t, LinkedIn does the trick. But it also has its irritations.
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globeandmail.com: Head in the clouds
instead of having a powerful desktop computer on every desk, users would all be working on “thin clients”—low-powered PCs (or even laptops) that would be connected to the network at all times and would store most of their data in “the cloud.”
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globeandmail.com: Creating a global brain
Clear explanation of web 3.0 with examples
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globeandmail.com: Q&A with Bill Buxton
“we have a new class of product—PCs, mobile phones, MP3 players and GPS—but there’s no user interface in either the hardware or software. Traditional industrial designers can’t solve the problem. They understand the hardware but not the software. Computer scientists understand the software, but they have no experience with design. To get that right, we need a new kind of designer who understands both the technology and the context. There’s no place to learn that right now,”
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Calaméo – Publish and share documents
Could be useful – similar to Scribd & issuu
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Twitter search
Category: education
WebTools For Teachers 06/25/2008
WebTools For Teachers 06/24/2008
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Simple Framing — Rockridge Institute
Excellent, clear description of steering opinion. “Communication itself comes with a frame. The elements of the Communication frame include: A message, an audience, a messenger, a medium, images, a context, and especially, higher-level moral and conceptual frames. The choice of language is, of course, vital, but it is vital because language evokes frames — moral and conceptual frames.
Frames form a system. The system has to be built up over time. It takes a long-range effort. … Most of this system development involves moral and conceptual frames, not just communicative frames. Communicative framing involves only the lowest level of framing.
Framing is an art, though cognitive linguistics can help a lot. It needs to be done systematically.”
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JOLT – Journal of Online Learning and Teaching
Excellent overview of how to use a wiki to contain and extend a course. Matches (and extends) my own experience. “This paper describes techniques and pedagogical considerations when using a wiki to augment a traditional course management system, and presents best practices for their use. Building a course around the use of a wiki invites students to become involved in the process of creating course content and sharing their knowledge with their classmates. The results of this study suggest that many first year college students only have a cursory knowledge of what wikis are, and incorporating their use in the classroom will add value not only to students’ studying and learning, but also to their potential success as future knowledge workers and technology professionals.”
WebTools For Teachers 06/23/2008
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JOLT – Journal of Online Learning and Teaching
Journal of Online learning and Teaching – MERLOT
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loex2008collaborate wiki / The CRAP Test
“a way to evaluate a source based on the following criteria: Currency, Reliability, Authority and Purpose/Point of View”
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Communication and Skills. Methods, Models and Theories
Communication and Skills, Methods, Models and Theories
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dria.org » Blog Archive » Field Guide to Firefox 3
The fastest, safest, slimmest, and easiest to use version of Firefox yet including a list of the features covered in this Guide.
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Flickr Photo Download: My PLE Diagram
Diagram of a personal PLE from EdTechPost – http://www.edtechpost.ca/wordpress/2008/06/18/my-ple-diagram/
WebTools For Teachers 06/21/2008
WebTools For Teachers 06/20/2008
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socialmedia » Social media game
“the game will be useful to those with roles in helping individuals, groups, organisations and networks plan how to use social media …. circuit riders, technology stewards, social reporters, buzz directors.”
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Connectivism and Connective Knowledge is a twelve week course that will explore the concepts of connectivism and connective knowledge and explore their application as a framework for theories of teaching and learning. It will outline a connectivist understanding of educational systems of the future. George Siemens and Stephen Downes – the two leading figures on connectivism and connective knowledge – will co-facilitate this innovative and timely course.
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Make your own comic with MAKE BELIEFS COMIX! Online Educational Comic Generator for Kids of All Ages
Make your own 3 pane comic. Very, very easy.
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You can set up a “private” room in FriendFeed, and designate who can enter.
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Edupunk – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
DIY approach to education – avoiding government and corporate restrictions, especially of when & how to use emerging technologies.
WebTools For Teachers 06/18/2008
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E-Learning Queen: Research Paper Sources: Is Your Data Original or Derivative?
Conducting research for a paper or study requires students to be able to determine where and when their sources are reporting information derived from the primary research, which is, in essence a derivative or second-order reporting. Needless to say, this could lead to errors. Here are a few ways to avoid the problems.
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discuss the use of these and other free tools for education or training as well as issues surrounding their use.
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del.icio.us/help/firefox/bookmarks/quicktour
del.icio.us/help/firefox/bookmarks/quicktour
WebTools For Teachers 06/17/2008
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EclipseCrossword – the fast, easy, and FREE way to create crossword puzzles in minutes
Make crosswords for online or paper.
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colourful tag cloud
WebTools For Teachers 06/15/2008
Autodidacts and Web 2.0: Are Universities Still Needed, Part 2
As I thought again about being an autodidact and what universities could do for learners, I realized that universities have been part of my Personal Learning Environment. (If you are an autodidact, you have to have your own PLE. For years mine only included books and other people. Now it includes bloggers, social bookmarking, the way I’ve organized my computer, other people in person, and books, probably in something like that order;->)
That wasn’t true for my undergraduate degree, or only partially so. I took the courses I had to and the ones I believed I could pass. But while I can recall nothing from my Astronomy for Humanities Students except the professor’s disdain for Astrology, I did learn which is which. Of some importance I guess;->
What I learned in the courses I thought I could pass was that some courses (in my stronger areas} that I took because they gave me a nice schedule, could open up into new insights, understandings and interests. I came to appreciate that courses could have hidden treasures for me, that some academics had an approach and a breadth of knowledge that I could learn from, that they weren’t just showing off their knowledge so they could win some obscure “I know more than you – ha, ha” game. I learned that, sometimes, struggling through ideas and information allowed me to construct a complex web of understanding that was deeply meaningful to me in my life. It was a thrilling discovery. That and a mate who habitually reads, questions and wants to know more, have made me a learning addict (and an autodidact).
I have spent my life trying to figure things out. Both my graduate degrees unlocked new understandings for me, and both were part of my PLE. I signed up for each because I had a question that the books and the people around me couldn’t answer. Both times, some of my courses were blind alleys to endure, and many were quests that left me with new treasures. And both times, I chose what I wanted to learn about and continued my learning outside my studies as well as inside.
So my attitude towards universities and learning is that of a frustrated idealist. I know I learned deeply and richly because universities have been part of my life, but why are the pockets of innovative and exciting learning/teaching about communications so few and/or so hard to find in this era of explosive change in communication tools and concepts?
Learning Living 