Wednesday, 30 January 2008
News from Alison Brackenbury
I have the immense privilege of updating the website of the poet Alison Brackenbury. I love her poems - and a new one appears on her website every two months.
She's let me know that “6.25”, a poem from her forthcoming book “Singing in the Dark”, will appear in The Guardian Review on Saturday 2 February (this Saturday). The first poem in the book, “Edward Thomas’ daughter” will be featured on Poetry Daily on Monday 18 February.Labels: Alison Brackenbury, poems, poet, poetry, websites
posted by Helen Whitehead 10:32 AM
Thursday, 24 January 2008
Women bloggers
Janet Clarey has blogged this month about Women in the edublogosphere 2007
She says "When I first started blogging early in ‘07 I felt there weren’t that many female bloggers."
Which is so sad - I've been blogging since 2003, and I know a lot of women, especially in the new media and education areas who've been blogging that long. Looks from Janet's list that she now knows plenty of women edubloggers too :) I'm looking forward to surfing through her list and adding to my feeds.
Meanwhile we are sorting out speakers for a conference of women bloggers in Leeds on 12th June, and there's no shortage of people to approach - though if you have a suggestion for a speaker I'd be delighted to hear it.Labels: blogging, conference, e-learning, edublogging, educational blogs, Leedswomenontheweb, women bloggers
posted by Helen Whitehead 5:46 PM
80 Million Tiny Images
Here's a beautiful web project: 80 Million Tiny Images, a visualization of all the nouns in the English language arranged by semantic meaning, by Antonio Torralba, Rob Fergus and William T. Freeman at MIT.
It's not just pretty, either: the project aims to use this massive dataset to train a computer to recognize objects within an image and to understand the scenes depicted in photographs. What's fascinating to me is the way the composite image comes out so familiar - colours of the earth, I suppose. This is despite the fact that each of the tiles in the "poster" represents a composite image of one of the 53,463 nouns (retrieved from WordNet) representing an average of about 140 images (a total of about 7,527,697).
Is it art, is it linguistics, or is it science? The answer of course, in the traditions of the best projects, is all of the above.Labels: digital art, image processing, internet policy, linguistics, web projects
posted by Helen Whitehead 9:04 AM
Wednesday, 23 January 2008
Athens to Shibboleth looks like a rocky transition
There's an interesting viewpoint from Andy Powell at Eduserv on the recent breakdown of negotiations between JISC and Eduserv about funding of the Athens-Shibboleth Gateways.
I must admit that I hadn't realised that the change from Athens to Shibboleth was so imminent.
Athens has been the authentication method for access to academic rsources for ten years and Shibboleth is a newwer open standards-based identity management system aiming to reach that "single sign-in" utopia eventually.
The move to Shibboleth is a step in the right direction. But it is a shame that disputes over funding have arisen like this. I can see the views of both sides, but that doesn't help this initiative move on and only foreshadows further chaos as the changeover time gets closer.Labels: academic libraries, access management, athens, shibboleth
Link: posted by Helen Whitehead 8:23 AM
Monday, 21 January 2008
Feedback from Season of Inspiration course
One is allowed to blow one's own trumpet occasionally, yes?
Here is some of the feedback from my last writing course...
"Though I am a published writer (I have an anthology of Short Stories in my name) I must say I have benefitted from the Season Of Inspiration course in a big way. Can creative writing be taught? It is a much-debated question. Story telling, they say, is a gift, not a skill which can be learnt. Helen and Sharon have proved this wrong.
Having participated in Season of Inspiration I feel there is neither a magic moment nor a magic wand which can transform you into a writer. A story teller however gifted she or he may be must also be a wordsmith. You may have most original and inspiring ideas. But all stunning ideas do not end up as stunning stories or a stunning poems. Why? It is here that a course like SOI can come to your rescue. Perfectly and comprehensively structured, SOI gives-- as it should-- equal importance to concept and technique. I particularly liked the way Helen and Sharon used images and visual metaphors as prompts to get you set on a narrative. This is a subtle but extremely effective device or a ploy on the part of the instructor, which urges you to go beyond and beneath the surface and arrive at insights and epiphanies which, incidentally, is the dream of every writer. SOI is a road map to aspiring writers.
It is a truly inspiring course. I felt the nine weeks I spent with Helen and Sharon and the fellow participants in SOI were over too soon. Though hectic and demanding it was a refreshing and enjoyable experience."
Student, Oct 07 (Haryana, India)"This was the best online writing course I have ever done. Writers were given the freedom to be creative without the unnecessary restrictions of other online courses, but whilst also respecting the feelings of other course members (and the instructors). The feedback was useful and constructive - I was praised for the aspects of my writing that worked well whilst being given advice on how to improve my work (exactly what I expect from a top notch course). The technical aspects of the course were excellent in terms of layout, ease of access to lessons and general use of the forums. The other students were amazing. I loved the chat sessions and the terrific effort by Sharon and Helen to accommodate all students' time zones. The support I received from everyone when I experienced major technical problems with my computer was fantastic and really made me feel part of a community of writers. Lastly and not of all least, the exercises we were given each week were fabulous and very much encouraged my creative spirit. I have learned so much from this course."
Student, Oct 07 (WA, Australia)"I have found Season Of Inspiration better each time I took part. Both students and tutors were keen and enthusiastic. The interactions have been helpful, stimulating, forthright, and most importantly, honest. The materials were more than ample and well diversified to cater for different students' individual needs. There was no pressure but a lot of pleasure and fun to be in the SOI course. It has been very productive for me even when I was away overseas for 4 weeks. As a bonus I have improved my English through interacting with the others. I would strongly recommend it to anyone who aspires to be a writer and to writers who want to be better writers. I certainly would recommend it to potential students who are not born with English as their mother tongue."
Student, Oct 07 (NSW, Australia)"The course really was inspiring. The tutors were knowledgeable, supportive and flexible and I enjoyed communicating with other writers from around the world. I would wholeheartedly recommend a Season of Inspiration course to anyone looking for prompts and encouragement to explore their own writing and develop their critical faculties, particularly if the time they have available to write is limited or variable, or they aren't sure how to get started. Season of Inspiration gave me a whole lot of new beginnings."
The next course Season of Inspiration online writing course starts 18th February - plenty of time left to sign up! More information about the course
Student, Oct 07 (Bath, UK)Labels: online writing courses, season of inspiration, writing class, writing tutor
posted by Helen Whitehead 3:06 PM
Sunday, 20 January 2008
H2O playlists
An H2O Playlist is a shared list of readings and other content about a topic of intellectual interest. It's a way to group and exchange useful links to information - online and offline.
Developed at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School, it claims to represent a new way of thinking about education online.
I think it likes to be a more academic version of del.icio.us. It doesn't seem to have changed a lot since 2005 according to the blog posts which reference it, and its page on Wikipedia is a bit of an orphan.
Alexandra Samuel said in July, 2005 "Where H20 comes in handy is if you’re actually trying to turn your playlist into something…prototypically, a syllabus or some sort of guide. For example I could see H20 being a nice way of organizing and annotating my list of RSS resources . Or if I were going to teach my Internet & Politics course again, I might use it to structure the online readings."Labels: e-learning tools, social software, Web 2.0
posted by Helen Whitehead 7:50 PM
Tuesday, 15 January 2008
BBC publishes my comment on summer-born school starters
I repeated on the BBC website my blog post yesterday about the summer-born starting school. They published it at the top of the comment list. See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7178969.stmLabels: primary education, school education, starting school
posted by Helen Whitehead 8:52 AM
Monday, 14 January 2008
Beyond the Campus: Learning Futures Conference at Leicester
The Learning Futures conference at the University of Leicester this year, run by the Beyond Distance Research Alliance (BDRA) had the theme Beyond the Campus. Here are some first thoughts:
Tony Bates emphasised that the most effective model for implementing e-learning in an institution was not a top-down edict (although strong vision, leadership and comitment is vital) nor individual adopters or champions beavering away alone, but a department-based team effort - just as we found in implementing Carpe Diem workshops during the Adelie project.
Phil Candy showed us some great quotes about the Internet, the Web and e-learning including a lovely Buddhist quote (thanks to Lindsay Jordan for the link).
The individual sessions held some gems. I found out all about the Fundacao Bradesco, an educational organisation funded by a bank (more on that later) with some fabulous e-learning going on in deprived areas of Brazil. Also a great project in Leicester's History Department based on the principles of ARG.
One of my favourite sessions was the drama workshop visioning workshop on Wednesday afternoon, led by Paula Salmon. We discussed and played games around three scenarios, My Very Own University, University of the World and University of Earning and Learning. At the end we split into three groups to create a playlet representing each of the three scenarios, which were videoed. Look out YouTube!
A very frendly conference with lots of food for thought and a great standard of participant. I liked the identity badge lanyards which clicked apart to reveal a flashdrive: a great idea that they had at ALT too (from Wimba, thank you). I just wish my flash drive hadn't fallen out at some point, one can always do with an extra one...Labels: BDRA, conference, e-learning, learning futures
posted by Helen Whitehead 2:29 PM
Should summer-born start school later?
BBC News is reporting today about the problems faced by summer-born youngsters at school. Ed Balls , the current schools secretary, launching a review of the primary school curriculum in England, wants greater flexibility for parents in when their children start school, so that it won't necessarily be the case, as it is in some areas now, that an August-born child may start school a few days after their fourth birthday.
With a September-born son and an August-born daughter (and myself one of those who left school at 17 and graduated from University at 20), I see at first hand the difference that a year can make to a student's academic readiness and maturity. At every stage my son is a year older than my daughter was in the same school year. Being the youngest is challenging academically (which I don't feel is necessarily a bad thing for a capable youngster) and socially - but being the oldest can end up frustrating and boring, especially if a child is bright and feels "held back".
If only the school system allowed real personalisation of learning so that children could learn at an appropriate pace whatever their age and stage. Maybe it will come...Labels: primary education, school education, starting school
posted by Helen Whitehead 8:41 AM
Thursday, 10 January 2008
Duplicating or copying resources & items within a Moodle course
I think I've solved a problem here that a lot of Moodle users may be having. Duplicating or copying resources and items within a Moodle course has been difficult. Here's how to use a topic template to duplicate items in topics within your course. (It's a workaround - I suspect this feature will be available in later versions of the software.)
It's easier now to duplicate or copy a course or elements of one Moodle course into another course by using the Import feature.This transfers your chosen course elements, such as forums, resources or quizzes, into the corresponding topics in the new course.
- As an administrator, in the course you want to fill, click Import
- Choose the course you wish to import from
- Choose the elements of the course you want to transfer (e.g., ALL)
- Choose whether you want to transfer course files
- Click Continue lots of times
This is great if you wish to recreate a course for a new cohort or copy items that have taken a long time to create and modify them.
But there isn't so far as I can see, a way to copy items, elements, resources etc. within a course, from one topic to another, or within a topic.
I had a nicely designed resource that I wanted to use as a template, plus a series of other elements such as a forum, and labels, e.g., Resources and E-tivity, that I needed to duplicate every week (or in every topic).
It may help here if you have two windows open, one for the real course and one for the template.There was no need to move items about individually. In the end I had 12 topics with templates that I could adapt. Much less laborious than copying the content of a one resource into another!
- I created a new course called Template, with the same number of topics/weeks as my real course,
- I created the topic template as Topic 1 in there (in this case, containing two resources, two labels and a forum with a template description). The only things in this template course were these template items in Topic 1.
- Then, from my course, I imported, in the way described above, from the Template course, importing ALL. I was then left with the series of template items in Topic 1 of my course.
- Back into Template course, and with editing on move Topic 1 to the position of Topic 2 (one click on an arrow).
- From my real course, repeat the import, which added the template items to Topic 2 of my course.
- Back into Template course, and with editing on move Topic 2 (containing the templates) to the position of Topic 3.
- From my real course, repeat the import, which added the template items to Topic 3 of my course.
- Repeat for as many topics as you need...
Hope this helps someone - if it does - comment and let me know :)Labels: copying, duplicating courses, Moodle, templates
posted by Helen Whitehead 5:45 PM
Thursday, 3 January 2008
Shiftspace commissions
Turbulence has commissioned ShiftSpace and now ShiftSpace is offering artist/software develper commissions.
Ten development grants, of up to $2,000, will be granted to individuals and collectives using ShiftSpace as a platform.
From the ShiftSpace website:
While the Internet's design is widely understood to be open and distributed, control over how users interact online has given us largely centralized and closed systems. The web is undergoing a transformation that promises user empowerment—but who controls the terms of this new read/write web? The web has followed the physical movement of the city's social center from the (public) town square to the (private) mall. ShiftSpace attempts to subvert this trend by providing a new public space on the web.By pressing the [Shift]+[Space] keys, a ShiftSpace user can invoke a new meta layer above any web page to browse and create additional interpretations, contextualizations and interventions – which we call Shifts. Users can choose between several authoring tools we're working to develop – which we call Spaces. Some are utilitarian (like Notes and Highlights) and some are more experimental/interventionist (like ImageSwap and SourceShift). Users are also invited to map these shifts into Trails which can be used for collaborative research and extended as a platform for a context-based public debate.
ShiftSpace has announced a new commissions program based on a developer API, through which users can create their own spaces. The platform evolves through an Open Source process that seeks to build advanced social software tools, develop workshops and create online public spaces within a distributed network architecture.
What interface would you create on top of any website? What trail would you choose through the meta-web?
Submissions should be either a proposal to develop applications using ShiftSpace OR an already created ShiftSpace trail.
Closing date February 25th, 2008.
Labels: digital art, digital creativity, digital writing, new media writing, shiftspace, turbulence.org
posted by Helen Whitehead 10:40 AM
Tuesday, 1 January 2008
The fate of a web prophet
Prophets are not always welcome. It can be difficult to make a great idea stick. In the 1990s I spent years trying to point out to writers and other individuals that the Internet and particularly the Web, was a great place to interact and could revolutionise the way they worked if they just experimented a bit. Mostly people just didn’t seem to “get it”. Yet today, business people, academics, even writers, are online, using the internet and the Web in many ways.
Web guru Don Tapscott started linking computers together in networks in the 1970s and had a vision of a network of managers who would use computers to revolutionise their working lives. However, he says: “The big objection, for years, was that managers would never learn to type … For years, with all these profundities and great visions, my entire life was reduced to me making the case that you can learn how to use a keyboard.”
Yet managers learned how to use keyboards, and in most organisations staff wouldn’t dream of not using email routinely. Change can take some time but it has to happen in the end, and even the most resistant can be brought to see that change can be positive and worthwhile. I really believe that, or I couldn’t do my job.
Ref: Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything, Tapscott, Don and Williams, Anthony D, Atlantis Books, 2007
Labels: change, change management, learning futures, prophets
posted by Helen Whitehead 4:37 PM
