Friday, 13 March 2009
Introduction to SCORM elearning standard for non-techies
SCORM is a standard for online elearning materials for a single user – typically self-paced modules. It stands for Sharable Content Object Reference Model. It’s a very technical specification that governs how the learning materials are created and delivered to learners. The basic idea is that if you create a piece of elearning that is SCORM compliant (the latest version is SCORM 2004) then it can be used in any learning management system (LMS) – so it could be used in or transferred to Moodle, Blackboard, Sakai, Blackboard WebCT, Desire2Learn, SumTotal, or any other VLE.
The first job it defines is how content should be packaged. Data is included in a document called the "imsmanifest", based on XML, which gives the LMS all the information it needs to import and launch the content automatically (without someone having to start editing bits of code). The XML describes the structure of a course both from the learner perspective and as a file structure on the server. Type and name of content is included here, for example.
The second part of the SCORM specification is about data exchange. It specifies how the content ”talks” to the LMS while it is being used. This part of the specification is about delivery and tracking of content. It means that the LMS can find and deliver the content to specific learners and exchange data such as marks and other learner-specific information.
SCORM is a standardized “plug and play” format for elearning modules that was invented by the US Department of Defense but is now acknowledged as the standard across the world. It does not define the look and feel, design or content or even the learning design of the materials in any way. It just makes them easier to use.
Full information on SCORMLabels: e-learning, elearning, learning design, online learning, SCORM, writing elearning
posted by Helen Whitehead 12:27 PM
Wednesday, 4 February 2009
'New and extraordinary insights' at ELESIG
Rhonas Sharpe has made a couple of posts about ELESIG (one of the academic networks I manage the online space for) on her blog. She asked members what benefit they found from the experience of being a member of the community, and got some great answers:From Esyin Chew's "I have experienced something new and extraordinary insights that have challenged my preconceptions about digital literacy and learners' experience through ELESIG.”
to Jana Dlouha's "ELESIG is the working group with great potential for changes in higher (and other) education system as it works with learners' perspective - this is not as usual as it should be! Access to this research (and meta-research, researching the ways of research itself) is available through ELESIG work - often providing free methodological and other resources."
I'm pleased too that Amanda Jefferies was able to say that "The online NING network for ELESIG has been an excellent way to keep in touch 'virtually' with other researchers into the Student Experience and to be inspired by examples of innovative practice. "
More on Rhona's blogLabels: communities of practice, e-learning, elearning, elesig, HE, learner experience, onlne communities, Reach Further, research
posted by Helen Whitehead 12:45 PM
Wednesday, 31 December 2008
Top ten elearning tools of 2008
I've posted my top ten social media tools for 2008 on my social media and ebusiness blog at Reach Further.
I guess if I were to do my top ten e-learning tools they would be the same - except I would probably say Moodle instead of Yammer :)Labels: e-learning, elearning, social media, top ten tools
posted by Helen Whitehead 10:47 PM
Tuesday, 23 December 2008
Technobabble
Today I had a discussion on Twitter about geek dreams, after I dreamed in Twitter messages (sad, isn't it?) and others admitted to also twittering, as well as dreaming in HTML and CSS. I remember when I was learning Photoshop that I used to see web-safe colour codes on car number plates...
Meanwhile, there has been a Call for eLearning Papers on the European Year of Creativity and Innovation 2009 tinyurl.com/5dfm22 Deadline 12 Jan 09. Sounds like my kind of year!
Labels: creativity, elearning, elearningeuropa.info, Innovation, twitter
posted by Helen Whitehead 11:14 AM
Monday, 1 December 2008
Technology-enhanced learning in the Teaching and Learning Research Project
Personalisation of learning involves using the responsive and adaptive capabilities of advanced digital technologies
It's all about inclusion – about improving the reach of education and lifelong learning to groups and individuals not well served traditionally. It promotes flexibility and productivity.
What's more important for managers and strategists, it enables institutions to achieve higher quality and more effective learning in affordable and acceptable ways.
The TLRP (http://www.tlrp.org) felt it important that their technology-enhanced learning (note not e-learning) projects were interdisciplinary.
They were intended to support the co-evolution of the understanding of learning & technology – avoiding the problems of communicating between groups who don't normally talk to one another.
The research found that the introduction of innovative technology into learning settings can lead to changed activities – but can also lead to a change in the technology itself. Both the activity and the technology are adapted to serve the needs of teaching and learning. While technology may change the activity to better meet the learning outcome the technology itself must be adapted to meet the needs of learners. In some contexts, technology has been seen as the leading influence in this context, but learning design and activity is just as important if not more so.
The question is: is this appropriation or transformation?
Short thoughts (as LoudTwitter isn't currently doing its job..)
- I have 3 online courses at critical points - two near the end, one halfway through - but is there ever a non-critical point? !
- Anyone have any interesting examples of digital taylorism (including workplace surveillance)?
Labels: e-learning, elearning, learning technologies, personalisaton, technology-enhanced learning
posted by Helen Whitehead 10:49 AM
Tuesday, 4 November 2008
Join us at our Digital Literacies Symposium
ELESIG - the Special Interest Group for those interested in Evaluating the Learner Experience of elearning is having one of its occasional face to face events on November 20th in Birmingham. here are the details:Impact of learner experience research – digital literacies
Thursday, 20th November 2008
Evolution Suite, Longbridge Technology Park, 1 Devon Way Birmingham B31 2TS
http://www.longbridgetechnologypark.org/innovation.html
Building on previous successful on-line and face-to-face events, ELESIG is now organising a series of ‘Impact Symposia’ in collaboration with colleagues currently undertaking research into selected areas of the student experience. At each of these events, as well as receiving input from key researchers in the field and engaging in developmental activities, there will be opportunities to share your own research and practice related to the topic under investigation. The first of these symposia concerns digital literacies.
The event is free to members of ELESIG and membership is free to anyone interested in the learner experience and the learner voice.
Labels: birmingham, conferences, elearning, elesig, learner_voice, seminars
posted by Helen Whitehead 2:44 PM
Monday, 27 October 2008
Online activities for action learning sets
We've been setting up some online spaces to support action learning sets for groups of businesspeople. These groups have some face to face meetings and the online space is to support these. In such cases we don't need strictly defined e-tivities. Action learning is defined by the participants themselves. The online activity is clearly simply to continue discussion. For an e-moderator the job is to facilitate this continuing discussion in a hands-off kind of way. There is no need to set a topic, although it might be useful to summarise and reframe any topics that have come out in the face to face action learning sets just as a reminder to participants about what they may decide to continue the discussions about here.
Action Learning Sets are very similar to Communities of Practice in that the topics come from the participants and the e-moderator's job is to facilitate (not lead) discussion - the ideal e-moderator in this context is virtually invisible, enabling from the sidelines, dealing with technical problems and access, providing information about the system, sending out emails reminding people to take part. People will also need to be assured of confidentiality.
The subject matter expert (live workshop facilitator) may or may not be part of the online discussion - but they will be better able to facilitate future workshops if they have at least popped in to read the discussions or had some kind of report back to them. (If a report of the online discussions is required to feedback to the next live workshop, for example, then the e-moderator's job will be to facilitate the choice of someone from the group do that if necessary, advise on time-scales etc.)Labels: action learning, communities, e-moderating, elearning, emoderator, online action learning sets, online communities
posted by Helen Whitehead 1:31 PM
Thursday, 16 October 2008
Free international webinar on mobile learning
Yesterday I posted on the Reach Further blog for Blog Action Day on how Online communities bring the world together to share I talked about ELKS, the community of expertise for the UN-GAID run by BDRA at the University of Leicester - a network for e-learning practitioners and researchers to share good practice, ideas and opinions.
ELKS is hosting a free webinar on mobile learning, anyone can become a member (it's free) to join in.Tuesday 21st October from 11 am - 12 noon BST
The webinar will take the form of a 20 minute presentation and a live chat followed by a discussion.
Mobile technologies for education in development contexts - challenging the obvious.
Speaker: John Traxler,
Reader in Mobile Technology for e-Learning, Director, Learning Lab, Conference Chair, mLearn2008 Ironbridge, Associate Editor, International Journal of Mobile & Blended Learning (School of Computing and IT, University of Wolverhampton).In the seminar John will talk about his work on mobile learning in Kenya, the lessons learned and their transferability to other developing country educational contexts.
A short introduction to the seminar:
In 2003, the Government of Kenya announce the introduction of Free Primary Education, leading to an increase in primary enrolment of nearly one million. The subsequent fall of the school population pointed to a retention problem aggravated by over-crowding and under-training. A major challenge was to increase the numbers of trained teachers rapidly whilst at the same time improving the quality of the school system and using it as a vehicle for radical social and cultural transformation across issues that included child-marriage and other tribal practices, perceptions of endemic corruption, poor communications, an over-centralisation and widespread adult illiteracy. Ministry developed an in-service distance learning programme intended to meet needs for 200,000 primary school teachers.
Mobile learning in the form of an SMS service was introduced as part of the in-service programme.
The SMS component underwent field trials in 2006. The system is free to authorised users using a short-code. The messages themselves have a limited and predefined syntax, each type starting with a keyword, and the system has been extended to gather and analyse schools’ enrolment data. At the end of the second trials, the technical and organisational achievements of the system are impressive.
A spin-off of the current system making school exam registration and results nationally more accurate, fast and transparent has already become a self-funding service for Kenyan parents.
This presentation looks these projects and at the confusing insights they provide into the notions of ‘development’.
=====
The webinar is free to ELKS members and staff of member institutions but numbers are limited in the chat session so please book your place by emailing hw74@le.ac.ukMembership of the ELKS community is free and open to e-learning practitioners and researchers around the world: email hw74@le.ac.uk to join.
The webinar will take place in Adobe Connect and online in the ELKS forums
Labels: e-learning, elearning, ELKS, free, mlearning, mobile learning, online seminar, webinar
posted by Helen Whitehead 11:17 AM
Friday, 12 September 2008
ALT-C report: Audio feedback & podcasting
This is the first of a series of posts reporting on papers and happenings at the ALT-C conference held this week in Leeds.
Bob Rotheram (Leeds Met) reported on the Sounds Good pilot about giving audio feedback to students, both formative and summative feedback on coursework.The technology involved direct-to-mp3 recorders (with direct USB connectors), free Audacity audio editing software and WIMBA voice-tools. The resulting files could be delivered via email, through the VLE or via mobile devices.
Very practical tips for technical setup & for advice on how to structure audio feedback, plus other useful information is available at the Sounds Good website
The headline is -students like audio feedback!
It can save staff time but only if:
Staff type slowly but speak quickly
Staff are comfortable with the technology
Staff give lots of feedback - it's not worth it for just a few words or marks.
The Closer! educational podcasting pilot and continuing research was reported by Andrew of Sheffield Hallam. The technology involved adding the the Podcast LX module to Blackboard VLE.
Headline news:
- Students prefer to access podcasts thru VLE (rather than mobile devices)
- Staff want variety in the VLE
There was no real enthusiasm around RSS podcasts in this context, which seems to be typical of educational podcasting within institutions. Where students have access to a VLE they aren't really interested in subscription ability.
I feel this means that what is being produced aren't really podcasts but digital audio files. However, many of the same issues apply to podcasts as to this type of educational audio.
Digital audio is seen as an everywhere technology: acessible, reliable, flexible, easy to use, appropriate, an 'everywhere' technology.
Advantages of digital audio include:
- voice and presence (eg empathy, significance, emphasis)
- timeliness, currency, immediacy, authenticity
- constructionism (student design and generation)
- formative intervention
- media seeding further learning activity – ie challenging, provoking, motivating, and orientating
- variety & teaching “punctuation”
New and emerging technologies provide innovative opportunities for new and emerging pedagogies.
Some of the possible uses of digital audio include:
- Audio Glossary
- Professional Briefings
- Newscasting
- Field assignments
- clinical skills vodcasts
- learning stories
- audio announcements
- found audio
- peer assessed AF
- Conversatonal AF
- Broadcast AF
- Audio Scaffolding
- Tutor centred PC AF
- Audo Conversations
- Audio Summaries
- Vox pops
- Audio features
- Audio FAQs
- Global Experts Voices
- Audio Introductions.
Labels: ALTC2008, elearning, learning technologies
posted by Helen Whitehead 10:47 AM
Thursday, 24 July 2008
On being an expert in elearning and online communities
Quotations can be puzzling, irrelevant and downright incomprehensible, and sometimes I wonder why I bother to read them - but on my iGoogle page I have "Quotes of the Day". I find that random quotes are at least as relevant to my life as any horoscope would be! Sometimes, even, the quotes are truly inspiring.
Recently one of my daily quotes came up as:My definition of an expert in any field is a person who knows enough about what's really going on to be scared. - P J PlaugerApparently this is a quote from Computer Language, March 1983, and Mr Plauger is an SF writer and an expert in the C programming language.
This one spoke to me - as I pride myself on being an expert in several aspects of elearning and online community planning, management and facilitation, and just recently I have been wondering why I sometimes feel scared. Mr Plauger is right. If you are an expert then you are at the level where you know what you know - and you also know how much you don't know. Or in the case of technology - you know how fast it is moving and therefore how alert you have to be to keep up.
Keeping up with technology and the ways it is used for bringing people together for learning, for sharing and for work is a challenge, but it's also very exciting. Like performers and mountaineers, it's healthy to be scared sometimes. It keeps you on the edge.Labels: elearning, online communities
posted by Helen Whitehead 7:52 AM
Wednesday, 23 July 2008
The importance of tutor / e-moderator presence
For an elearning course led by a tutor to be effective, the tutor presence is one of the most important elements. Showing good e-moderating practice the tutor must:The immediacy of the online environment leads students to expect an instant response. It's a good idea as an online tutor or e-moderator to set expectations at the beginning of a course - e.g., that you will normally respond within 24 hours, or whatever interval is relevant to your course.
- login regularly
- model good online behaviour
- be seen to be present
- post encouraging messages for students
- respond to student queries as quickly as possible
- always sign postings and use people's names
- respond to emails but try to keep learning points within the forum
One of the most useful tools for the teacher is a subscription, such as that offered by Moodle, so that you know whenever a student has posted to your forums (and with Moodle, the content they have posted). This enables you to plan your visits to the course space. If everything is quiet, for example students are working on their own projects or are between e-tivities, then visits do not have to be as often.
Comments from students emphasise the point of tutor presence and encouragement being vital, and appreciated, especially in the early stages of developing the group.
Typical student comments include:Encouraging responses don't have to be long and complicated. The simple can work well. Here are some examples from my courses (which would all be signed with my name):
- "Tutor support has been pretty immediate and I have found that very encouraging."
- "The comments from the tutor have been helpful and encouraging and have prompted reflection."
- "[The tutor] has been really prompt and supportive in replying."
- "Well done, Martin and Louise - keep going. Thank you for your thoughtful postings."
- "We'll be looking at this issue of XXXXX in Week 3
Thank you for bringing up the subject."
- "That's a very interesting point you made, Karen. What would it look like in practice do you think? Does anyone else have any further ideas?"
Labels: e-learning, e-moderating, elearning, online tutoring
posted by Helen Whitehead 10:06 AM
Wednesday, 18 June 2008
Twist in the tale of Robin Hood
Robin Hood as a baddy and the Sheriff of Nottingham as the goody? Only in Hollywood!
Whatever next?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7460634.stm
There are some conventions that it just doesn't work to play with, something that designers of every kind - and including elearning developers - need to remember.
A recent newsletter from usability guru Jakob Nielsen talked about do you put the OK button first and then Cancel? Or Cancel and then OK? The answer is that you follow the convention, which happens to be different for Macs and PCs. Unless you really do want to make things difficult for users and stop them in their tracks, conventions should be flouted at your peril.
How annoying is it that when you save a Microsoft Word document in some other format it asks you do you really want to do that? and the default is No! Microsoft of course wants you to keep files in their format, but it's highly irritating.Labels: elearning, film, learning design, media, usuability
posted by Helen Whitehead 8:46 AM
Monday, 9 June 2008
Best Practice: Summary: Distinguishing Learning Communities and Communities of Practice (CoP)
This is a summary by Lynn Tveskov of part of the recent discussion in the Best Practice Models community on Communities of Practice. From here this post is all Lynn's summary:
In the spirit of the practice we are setting up around public blogging about our discussion, I will put names to distinct ideas and comments in the summary. Contributors to the discussion were: Sylvia Currie, Alex Hardman, Jenny Mackness, Nana Matsunaga, Alberto Ramirez, Glynn Skerratt, Bronwyn Stuckey, Jack Tseng, Lynn Tveskov, Etienne Wenger, Helen Walmsley, Carole Weale, Helen Whitehead, Bill Williams, Rowin Young
Helen Whitehead put together this wonderful side-by-side comparison and I filled it in with content from the discussion.
Learning community
Community of Practice
The essential goal is to pursue some academic objective. (Alberto Ramirez)
CoP can pursue any kind of purpose. (Alberto Ramirez)
Learning agenda may be set.
Learning "evolves" and can be "accidental" (Nana Matsunaga)
All participants join at the same time
Participants join (and leave) at different times
Clear motivation to take part - it's part of their course
Voluntary: Have to be motivated by "what's in it for me"
Participants move (and can be guided through) community-building and group-forming activities (cf Salmon's 5-stage model)
Members of the community are at different stages, though the community can move as a whole through stages (but not the same ones as Salmon's model)
Can become a community of practice. You can try to set up the conditions for a community of practice to develop
Learning takes place but is more informal than in a course-based community
Tutor-led and facilitated; easier to facilitate.
May be facilitated but members have much more ownership. More challenging to facilitate
Likely to be more hierarchical in structure, which will influence relationships (Jenny Mackness)
In a community the core group or group of leaders will probably have a less hierarchical relationship with members.
(Jenny Mackness)
Responsible for one’s own learning
You take responsibility for more than your own learning in a community.
(Bronwyn Stuckey)
Formal learning at the core
Might include formal learning but it is not the core. (Bronwyn Stuckey)
Learners may or may not take on the role of practitioners.
Learning is closely associated with what you do/practice. It is more than an interest it is about enactment. Learning is grounded in real experience but the learners are in the role of the practitioner, behaving as a member of the profession they aspire to be part of. So more than examining at an authentic task - being in an authentic roleYou are learning it in order to enact it, apply it, refine what you do - not just know it. (Bronwyn Stuckey)
“…the "social body" of a classroom or a course. In this case, it does refer to an "institutional" structure, which…may or may not become a community of practice, or any kind of community at all.”
…if by "learning community" people simply mean that a group of students have peer-to-peer learning-related interactions. In this case, the community of practice concept is more a heuristic than a goal, and it seems definitely "easier" and also usually more realistic given the life trajectories of students.
(Etienne Wenger)
Development can be more organic or spontaneous, independent of organizational structure.
“Good CoPs develop from the ground up – if prospective participants simply *want* to be part of it and contribute to it then that’s of much higher value than a top-down approach trying to create a framework that the authors think might be attractive. Once started and growing, the natural evolution of the community will take care of overall direction and critical mass.” (Glynn Skerratt)
Learners negotiate the building of shared meaning.
Members negotiate not only shared meaning, but also the structure of participation (Alberto Ramirez)
Other Points
- Not all learning communities or courses can or should be communities of practice.
- Community of practice perspectives can usefully inform the design of traditional courses and learning communities, perhaps even leading to change in a system or institutional culture.
Bronwyn Stuckey
Would we want all courses to be communities? I don't think so. I know when I worked in learning development with people preparing regulatory accounting courses - they were about learning the laws and knowing them inside out and passing the regulatory tests...the application was held until later when you were in practice - and then could join a community. This was a necessity in this particular course.
Alex Hardman
There is a time and a place for community within learning and a time and a place for hiding yourself away and reading the texts.
Jenny Mackness
[A teacher] can espouse to the values of a community of practice. Thinking of a course as a community of practice will influence the way in which the course is designed and how it will be taught.
Etienne Wenger
It is often the case that the membership from the outside that students bring to the classroom will make it difficult to create a community inside the classroom without acknowledging and honoring the conflicts in identity and practice that this creates for students.
At the same time, I think it is also useful to hold these perspectives as distinct so as to be clear that you can hold one without committing to the others. So you may use a "community heuristic" in your design without having to worry about whether students are "really" becoming a community. Or you may see that a strongly instructor-led learning event actually opens students to the realities of a target community in an experiential way. Different combinations are possible, and valid if applied for the right purpose.
Labels: communities of practice, CoPs, elearning, learning communities, online communities
posted by Helen Whitehead 8:26 AM
Thursday, 5 June 2008
Read the question!
My son is in the middle of GCSEs and I've been giving him the best piece of advice I know for success in exams - read the question!
It sounds basic, but it is surprising how easy it is, especially in a stressful situation such as an exam, to miss the obvious, to answer the question you wanted to answer or that you thought was being asked. Taking some time to really read and ponder on the question before starting to answer is an excellent tactic - and then halfway through, and at the end, reading through what you've written to see if it really answers the question.
It is a tip worth bearing in mind in many aspects of life, not just exams. In my workshops and courses supporting University and college lecturers in developing elearning, I emphasise again and again how important it is to be absolutely clear and explicit about the task the students should be doing, how they should do it and when they should do it. However, even my own students don't always read the questions I so carefully frame - they often leap in and give their opinion - even if it's not what was asked for!
To some extent, it doesn't worry me - especially with adults, who are in charge of their own learning. Sometimes it can be frustrating, yes, when you've carefully framed a question for discussion and the students go off and discuss something else entirely - but if that discussion furthers their learning, then it's perfectly valid. Yes, it's more work for me to reframe the questions that follow, or to moderate the discussion in a way that brings in my original learning points (because they can't just be abandoned), but that's my job as a tutor.
In the Best Practice Models community discussion on online communities yesterday, we were discussing whether a community of practice can be used for learning, and I made the point that a community of learners is something I aspire to, but that ultimately learning is planned and guided within that community. A community of practice is much more member-led, and the learning is more informal - though obviously it can still be facilitated, one example being that very discussion yesterday in a community of practice that was focused on communities of practice... I'll probably come back to the differences between learning communities and communities of practice in a later post.
There are deep challenges for the tutor in turning the learning over to the learner, but it's wonderful when it all comes together. One encouraging example for me was yesterday when one of my students on our How to Blog course posted exactly the material I had ready for that day's posting. And she hadn't even SEEN the question yet! A learner taking control of learning in a very real way. Wonderful.Labels: ACL, adult learning, BestPracticeModels080604, blogging, e-learning, e-moderating, elearning, emoderating, exams, How to Blog course, informal learning
posted by Helen Whitehead 9:40 AM
Sunday, 1 June 2008
Work Literacy
Tony Karrer and Michele Martin have just announced the launch of Work Literacy - a network of individuals, companies and organizations who are interested in learning, defining, mentoring, teaching and consulting on the frameworks, skills, methods and tools of modern knowledge work.
Their goal, they say, is to "create a vibrant network of individuals, companies and organizations interested in participating in a variety of ways: learners, testers, experts, teachers, coaches, and I'm sure many others. The network is intentionally defined in a way that will allow it to emerge over time, but there are some very interesting people involved already."Labels: communities of practice, elearning, knowledge work, networks, social media, workliteracy
posted by Helen Whitehead 2:43 PM
Wednesday, 16 April 2008
eXe - for creating elearning NOTan .exe. file!
The project eXe has been brought to my attention. A New Zealand-based open source authoring application, it aims to assist teachers and academics in the publishing of web content without the need to become proficient in HTML or XML markup. Resources authored in eXe can be exported in IMS Content Package, SCORM 1.2, or IMS Common Cartridge formats or as simple self-contained web pages. Obviously an alternative to CouseLab which I looked at last week.
I'm testing out both to compare, and will report back in due course (though don't hold your breath as I'm pretty busy and will have to spread this research over some time!)Labels: e-learning, e-learning tools, elearning, elearning tools, eXe, learning technologies, tools
posted by Helen Whitehead 5:38 PM
Sunday, 13 April 2008
E-learning tools
CourseLab
CourseLab, is a free authoring tool, with lots of great features - very usable and professional. It offers a WYSIWYG environment for creating interactive e-learning content.
FeedBlitz enables you to provide blog posts in a newsletter format - it's a way to give blog readers the option to read a blog feed by email, rather than via RSS. It works by converting the RSS feed into email.
Polldaddy Polldaddy is another very useful and functional free tool to create polls and surveys. As usual, there is a subscription level with more useful features.
PointeCast Publisher
PointeCast Publisher is a PowerPoint® plug-in that automatically converts your PowerPoint 2000, XP/2002, and 2003 presentations into a highly compressed Internet-ready presentation in the Macromedia Flash™ format.
Pinnacle Studio Pinnacle Studio: This is an inexpensive (not free) video editor.
Validator Validator - The World Wide Web Consortium offers this free validation tool which enables you to test easily whether a web page, or blog post etc., is valid HTML or XHTML.Labels: e-learning tools, elearning, online web resources
posted by Helen Whitehead 1:10 PM
Wednesday, 19 March 2008
Using del.icio.us with students in a course
Social bookmarking can be used in a variety of ways to support students taking a course. Here are some helpful links on how to use del.icio.us in education;
Using del.icio.us As a Class or Department Resource
http://www.teachbabel.com/...del-icio-us-bookmarking.html
Here's how one tutor used del.icio.us for a course on Computers and Writing course in 2005: http://wrecking.org/...delicious-and-teaching/
And another, more recent: http://jenverschoor.wordpress.com/...delicious.../
Homework-casting using del.icio.us http://teaching.mrbelshaw.co.uk/...homework-...-delicious/
Why save web sites to your computer where they can not be accessed by your students? Using a social bookmarking site such as del.icio.us teachers can bookmark web pages to be used in the classroom or for student to reference at home for homework. A screencast by Jeff Utecht about using del.icio.us. http://k12online...delicious.htmlLabels: del.icio.us, education, elearning, social bookmarking
posted by Helen Whitehead 5:27 PM
Tuesday, 11 December 2007
E-learning Advent Calendar
I've been writing less in the blog at the moment - lots of effort is going into the ELKS "Advent of Technology" Calendar, full of people's favourite tools for teaching and learning with technologies.
You don't even have to be a member to see the calendar :)
DIRECT LINK to calendar
Today's entry (December 11th): Google and Google ScholarA good search engine has to be among the “best tools”. And can I be controversial and recommend Google Scholar too? Although it’s nothing like as good as the databases and services your institutional library undoubtedly offers, I find it’s a great place to start my literature search to get a bit of a feel for the subject and its primary exponents.
It’s surprising how many students don’t know how to use a search engine properly, or how to evaluate the results when they get them. It’s something that a group of us at ELKS have started creating guidelines for. Hopefully the guidelines can be used by any tutor for any class where students need to search the web (there’ll be a section on Wikipedia as well… but that’s a ‘whole other story’ !).
Labels: advent calendar, e-learning, elearning, Google, learning technologies
posted by Helen Whitehead 8:34 AM
Monday, 3 December 2007
Advent (of technology) calendar
This December at ELKS (the community of expertise which I manage for the UN's Global Alliance for ICT in Development initiative) we've adapted a December tradition to produce an "Advent of technology" Calendar - with a resource, tool or tip about e-learning for every day of December.There are 30 days to fill - so we need your contributions! Tell us what tool (including software, hardware or gadgets), or what resource (such as website), or what conference, journal, model of best practice, or even person has greatly impacted on your practice as a teacher using technology. What's been the greatest boon? What changed your life? Well - at least what changed your teaching practice, at least a little!
Email helen.whitehead AT le.ac.uk with your suggestions to add to our calendar, the sooner the better. If you can accompany it with a photo related to your location (as square as possible), that would be even better. You'll see December 2nd is a view up the Attenborough Tower at the University of Leicester, where the Beyond Distance Research Alliance (where ELKS is based) has its offices.
There's also a discussion - please let us know what your tool, resource etc. means to you.
To find the Advent Calendar go to ELKS and click on Showcase in the left hand menu. Click on the Advent of technology Calendar then double-click on today's picture and "view details" to see the resource behind it. You don't have to login to see the calendar.
If you have an interest in the role of e-learning in development, and would like to become a member of ELKS, just get in touch with me and I'll send you a password. helen.whitehead AT le.ac.uk
Labels: calendar, e-learning, elearning, elearning tools, ELKS, learning futures, online communities, UN, UN-GAID, universities
posted by Helen Whitehead 9:39 AM
Wednesday, 21 November 2007
Discovery: topicality of e-learning materials
I love it when materials in a course turn out to be relevant and topical. In my Season of Inspiration writing course at the moment we are this week writing about caves and other underground spaces.
We already have great inspiration from some fabulous photographs from Nottingham's Papplewick Pumping Station Victorian underground reservoir on the day it opened to the public, and Aborigine cave art from my co-tutor's Australian property.
Today, the BBC reports on the discovery of what is thought to be the Lupercal, a mythical Roman cave, the long-lost underground grotto where ancient Romans believed a female wolf suckled the city's twin founders.
And here is the e-tivity which we have offered to our writing participants this week...
E-tivity 7.6: Discovery
Purpose: To write about the thrill of discovery.Task: Something marvellous is found in a cave or subterranean space, it could be rock art, engravings, smuggled treasure, prehistoric artefacts, a mummified animal or person. Describe your discovery and its significance to the local population. What will the discovery mean to those who found it? Will this important discovery end happily or will it end in conflict? Write a poem or story about this marvellous discovery.
Respond: Give a reasoned critique to at least two of the stories posted.
Labels: cave, discovery, e-learning, e-tivities, elearning, etivities, learning design, online writing courses, underground, writing
posted by Helen Whitehead 7:48 AM
Friday, 16 November 2007
Do you use Salmon's 5-stage model or E-tivities framework?
Do you use e-learning or learning technologies such as discussion forums etc. in teaching?
Have you used or adapted Salmon's 5-stage model or e-tivities framework in your teaching? Or have you used it at any time in the past few years?Gilly Salmon's 5-stage model and e-tivities framework have been used successfully to support learning in a variety of contexts, courses, disciplines, types and levels of education from schools to Masters to continuing professional development.
References
I am doing some research to find out how they have been applied in learning and teaching across the world in the last ten years. We know that teachers have used them in a variety of different ways, adapting and developing the models to suit their own purposes. As part of the background to a new book, we would like to find out about the models in practice. The general results of this research will be made available to all practitioners.
If you have any good examples of using the 5-stage model or e-tivities,
please would you take my survey?
http://www2.le.ac.uk/.../smeltsurvey
E-moderating: The Key to Teaching and Learning Online
Gilly Salmon, (2004) Routledge Falmer
ISBN: 0415335442
lifelong learning, m-learning, mobile learning, online courses, online learning, online tutoring, technology, universities, wiki-tivities, wikitivities
E-tivities: The Key to Active Online Learning
Gilly Salmon, (2002) Routledge Falmer,
ISBN: 0749431105Labels: collaborative working, e-facilitation, e-learning, e-learning tools, e-moderating, education, elearning, learning and teaching, learning design, learning technologies
posted by Helen Whitehead 12:48 PM
Monday, 5 November 2007
Links for week commencing 5th November
The Bazaar - Home
http://www.bazaar.org/
The Bazaar - portal for Open Source for Learning in Europe
The Bazaar is a community portal for people who want to use, exchange and share Open Source Software and resources to support learning.
Distance Learning through Telematics
http://www2.plymouth.ac.uk/distancelearning
The University of Plymouth's e-learning website, containing regularly updated pages of research, projects, events, personnel and news on e-learning, web 2.0 and distance education. Also holds course content including handouts, workshop materials and PowerPoint presentations for free download.
World map of social networks
http://valleywag.com/networks-273201.php
A map of the world, showing the dominant social networks by country, according to Alexa. Very different in different countries. Facebook has sway in the UK, but hi5 is the most international network…
Coming Of Age: An Introduction To The NEW Worldwide Web
by Terry Freedman et al.
http://fullmeasure.co.uk/Coming_of_age_v1-2.pdf
Ebook (2006)Labels: e-learning, ebook, elearning, links, social networking
posted by Helen Whitehead 10:37 AM
Monday, 22 October 2007
Links for week commencing 22nd October
Some interesting social software for learning:
Ecto
http://www.ectolearning.com/
Their blurb: "Ecto is a hosted, open networked Personal Learning Environment. Use Ecto to transform learning into an interactive, collaborative, and student centered activity. Ecto is the only learning management system built from the ground up on the principles and architecture of social software."
It's an online service and at the moment you can join for free although it's a commercial offering. At the moment it looks pretty vanilla - it seems to be social networking aimed at learning and teaching, nothing really new about it.
ELGG
http://elgg.org/
Elgg is an open source social platform based around choice, flexibility and openness: a system that firmly places individuals at the centre of their activities. ELGG is being used by a LOT of universities and educational organisations, but you do need a server to run it on so it's not a solution for individuals.Labels: e-learning, education sector, elearning, FE, HE, online learning, social networking, universities, VLE, web applications
posted by Helen Whitehead 9:20 AM
Wednesday, 17 October 2007
Drivers to e-learning
The reasons why University staff are considering e-learning in their courses tend to be as varied as the disciplines they come from and almost as varied as the individuals concerned.
Some of the drivers are:
- from above, e.g., Department or Faculty head: "our modules should use the VLE more";
- from students - our students are arriving more e-literate and they will want to use the kind of digital environments and resources that they are used to at school;
- assessment - can e-assessment be more effective or time-saving?
- new course - time to use some of this e-learning stuff;
- have been using the Web so far and want to find out if the VLE can be used instead;
- have heard about wikis and blogs: how can I use them?
- distance learning courses - for which there are obvious advantages in using e-learning - but what does it mean?
- competition - similar courses have more e-learning - are we falling behind?
- there is a particular topic in the course that students have trouble with - can we solve this with e-learning (answer - it might or might NOT be appropriate!)
Labels: e-learning, e-learning drivers, elearning, learning, learning and teaching
posted by Helen Whitehead 12:40 PM
Tuesday, 16 October 2007
What does 'embedding' mean?
One of the "hot topics" at the HEA Pathfinder workshop in York that I attended with the University of Leicester's Adelie project was the definition of "embedding" - which was important to the description of what the Pathfinder pilots were asked to do.
How can an institution measure embedding? What does it mean - is it the provision of technology or something much more radical relating to attitudes and blends of learning opportunities?
For me: it is about embedding skills relating to learning technologies into lecturers' (and other staff's) everyday practice of designing, delivering and facilitating learning opportunities.Labels: Adelie, e-learning, elearning, embedding e-learning, HE, online learning, Pathfinder
posted by Helen Whitehead 12:19 PM
Thursday, 4 October 2007
E-learning is greener than conventional learning!
The University of Leicester is having a Big Green Week from October 15-19 and various events are taking place. In another environmentally friendly initiative, soon all our litter bins will be removed from our offices and we will have to walk to the nearest recycling bin. (May I say that I am very keen on recycling - and re-using for that matter.) However, I'm not sure what we are supposed to do with non-recyclable waste like my lunchtime banana skin and boiled-egg shell (let's not go any further into detail!). Tempted to throw them out of the window... I'm on the 18th floor...
Anyway, here in the Beyond Distance Research Alliance we were wondering what we could do to contribute to the week and we decided that as e-learning champions we are probably already promoting green education. But is e-learning really more energy efficient?
The Open University have proved e-learning is green (bit of an old study, but I would think computers are even more energy efficient now...)
"a study by the Open University found that on average 'distance/open learning courses used 90% less energy consumption and produced 90% fewer CO2 emissions than the conventional campus-based university courses.' The major factors in this fairly huge saving were travel and the energy consumption associated with housing students on campus."
http://www3.open.ac.uk/events/3/2005331_47403_o1.pdf
Hurrah!Labels: Big Green Week, e-learning, elearning, environment, recycling
posted by Helen Whitehead 8:20 AM
Tuesday, 2 October 2007
Integrating Web 2.0 - some doubts
Here are some issues that have been mentioned to me (by academic staff) about integrating Web 2.0 technologies into institutional VLEs, and how they might be overcome.
- Institutional IT policy can be a barrier - you don't know what's available.
Fear of "what people will say"- How to cope with the student who goes "off the rails"
- Managers fear adverse comments about their services and don't see it as constructive.
- Can cause horrendous" problems in mature learners who aren't familiar with the technology.
- Students (esp. mature students) worry about "breaking" the technology.
Labels: challenges, e-learning, elearning, issues, learning design, learning futures, learning technologies, student expectations, Web 2.0
posted by Helen Whitehead 1:52 PM
Tuesday, 11 September 2007
How they do mobile learning in Japan...
This is a 2D barcode of the URL of the ELKS community.
Apparently these barcodes are all the range in Japan where people use their web-enabled mobile phones to read them and then surf to the URL. They are used, e.g., on a poster for a radio station to encourage people to listen, on the doors of public libraries to direct users to a page that shows opening hours, or on tutor's offices to direct students to a page that shows opening hours.
As 100% of students have web-enabled mobile phones and data transfer is cheap, they can be used for all sorts of learning applications from voting on which of the videos shown in the lesson they preferred, to assessment quizzes, to sending a question randomly to one of the students in the class (of course - you could just point at one!).
Thanks to Keiso Katsura for introducing me to these tools in a seminar at Leicester University yesterday.Labels: e-learning, elearning, Japan, Keiso Katsura, learning technologies, mobile learning
posted by Helen Whitehead 8:58 PM
Tuesday, 28 August 2007
Wikis - advantages and disadvantages
A wiki is a universally-editable website with minimal formatting. The word comes from the Hawaiian wiki-wiki which means "quick".
Advantages of using wikis in learning and teaching
- No special software needed
- Immediate posting of content
- Low graphics content - fast loading
- Simple or complex hypertext structure as required
- Can have email notification of new content
- Can track changes
- Can have associated discussions
- Can easily link to other wikis and websites
- If students do not like what they see, such as the approach taken by others, they may be more inclined to participate in order to propose an alternative approach.
- Facilitates collaborative and constructivist approaches to learning
- Students can see what they are learning
Although it is "new" technology in learning, wikis could soon move into the "Pets' Corner" or familiar area of the Media Zoo.
Disdvantages of using wikis in learning and teaching
- Students reluctant to make public unfinished working documents
- Students reluctance to let others contribute changes.
- Students very competitive about changes
- All content modifiable including pages for instructions, handouts etc.
- Simultaneous edits are allowed but not successful
- No standardised markup/spellcheck - formatting is basic
- No equations or drawing
- Institutional wikis vs external wikis: using external wikis brings problems of copyright, ownership, continuity, etc.
- Institutional IT policies: still relies on an infrastructure that enables the permissions to be set appropriately (e.g., some universities allow wikis to be editable only by those with University accounts)
- The wiki is forever evolving.
- Not really appropriate for tracking contributions or discussion, following individual students
- When new to both tutors and students lack of familiarity causes problems: can cause confusion and lack of clarity
- Staff opposition to student collaboration
- Research shows that on moving to an online environment, even groups that already know one another well face-to-face have to go through the access and socialisation stages, albeit in a more abbreviated manner, to be able to work together collaboratively in an effective manner.
(For reference list see this post)
Labels: e-learning, elearning, HE, online learning, wiki, wiki bibliography, wiki-tivities, wikis, wikitivities
posted by Helen Whitehead 9:01 AM
Tuesday, 7 August 2007
Uses of wikis in education
Contrary to the usual practice on a blog, I am going to use this post to assemble links to published papers, resources, etc. on the subject of wikis. (This may in fact be more of a wiki-type activity itself, except that I am the only person contributing.)
This post will therefore change as links and resources are added.
McAlpine, M. (2007) The use of Wikis for Assessing Collaborative Learner Achievement Proceedings for 11th CAA Conference 2007
Phoebe Project. A practitioner-focused environment to support design for learning, Phoebe is a prototype online tool designed to encourage teachers in colleges and universities to explore new approaches and tools in their pedagogy. (A wiki based tool for designing a learning session.) From Oxford University
http://phoebe-app.conted.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/trac.cgi/
Augar, N., Raitman, R. & Zhou, W. (2004). Teaching and learning online with wikis. In R. Atkinson, C. McBeath, D. Jonas-Dwyer & R. Phillips (Eds), Beyond the comfort zone: Proceedings of the 21st ASCILITE Conference (pp. 95-104). Perth, Australia. 5-8 December. Accessed August 2007 http://www.ascilite.org.au/.../augar.html
PDF READ
"In an attempt to remedy the lack of interaction noted in online discussion groups in previous years, a traditional icebreaker exercise used in classroom situated tutorials at Deakin University was adapted for use on a wiki"
Bergin, J. (2002) Teaching on the Wiki Web. In Proceedings of the 7th annual conference on Innovation and technology in computer science education (pp. 192-195). Aarhus, Denmark. 24-28 June 2002 ISBN:1-58113-499-1 http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=637610.544473 (abstract only not full text)
Proceedings of the 2006 international symposium on Wikis, 2006, Odense, Denmark 21-23 August 2006 ISBN:1-59593-413-8 http://portal.acm.org/toc.cfm?...=88179999 (abstract only not full text)Hao-Chuan Wang, Chun-Hung Lu, Jun-Yi Yang, Hsin-Wen Hu, Guey-Fa Chiou, Yuch-Tzu Chiang, Wen-Lian Hsu : Inst. of Inf. Sci., Acad. Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan; An empirical exploration of using Wiki in an English as a second language course Advanced Learning Technologies, 2005. ICALT 2005. Fifth IEEE International Conference on
Publication Date: 5-8 July 2005, p 155- 157, ISBN: 0-7695-2338-2
Accessed August 2007 from http://iasl.iis.sinica.edu.tw/...Course.pdf
Their finding of a significant, but inverse, relation between students' editing usage and academic performance challenges some idealistic hypotheses that Wiki technology is "naturally beneficial" to learning. They believe that building an instructive or constructive instructional model with Wiki in a rigorous manner requires more empirical evidence.Desilets, A. and Paquet, S., Wiki as a tool for Webbased collaborative story telling in primary school: A case study.
Forte, A.; Bruckman, A. From Wikipedia to the classroom: exploring online publication and learning, Proceedings of the 7th international conference on Learning sciences, Bloomington, Indiana, p.182 - 188, June 27-July 1 2006, ISBN:0-8058-6174-2 http://portal.acm.org/ft_gateway.cfm?...27
In Proceedings of Ed-Media 2005, (Montreal, Canada, June 27-July 2, 2005). Retrieved August 2007 from https://iit-iti.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/...NRC-48234.pdf
Interesting look at how primary aged children can create a collaborative hypertext story, with enough detail for tech-savvy teachers to use for themselves. READ
Retrieved August 2007 from http://www.cc.gatech.edu/~asb/papers/forte-bruckman-icls06.pdf
READ "suggest that collaborative publishing on a wiki offers an interesting model for creating authentic classroom writing activities and can be a powerful tool for constructing knowledge."
Parker, Kevin R., Chao, Joseph T., Wiki as a Teaching Tool,
Interdisciplinary Journal of Knowledge and Learning Objects, Volume 3, 2007, p. 57-72 Retrieved August 2007 from
http://ijklo.org/Volume3/IJKLOv3p057-072Parker284.pdf
READ "Reflective learning requires structured approaches that enable students to reflect upon their learning and to understand their own learning processes. An essential part of reflective learning is that learners should be encouraged to reflect on their knowledge and make it explicit. Wikis allow this reflection to be done collaboratively, moving closer to a fully social constructivist mode of learning."
Boulos, M.N.K., Maramba, I., & Wheeler, S. (2006). Wikis, blogs and podcasts: A new generation of Webbased tools for virtual collaborative clinical practice and education, BMC Medical Education, 6(41).
Retrieved August 2007 from http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1472-6920-6-41.pdf
"Wikis in particular actively involve learners in their own construction of knowledge" in a study of virtual collaborative clinical practice and education.
Schaffert, S., Bischof, D., Buerger, T., Gruber, A., Hilzensauer, W. & Schaffert, S. (2006). Learning with semantic wikis. Proceedings of the First Workshop on Semantic Wikis - From Wiki To Semantics (SemWiki2006), Budva, Montenegro: June 11-14, 109-123. Retrieved August 2007 from http://www.wastl.net/...SemWikiLearning.pdf
"The collaborative features of wikis make them particularly well suited for cooperative
learning environments"
Schwartz, L., Clark, S., Cossarin, M. & Rudolph, J. (2004). ISSN: 1492-3831 Technical Evaluation Report 27. Educational wikis: Features and selection criteria.
International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 5(1). Retrieved August 2007 from http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/163/692 (PDF)
http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/163/244 (web) READ "wikis can provide an efficient, flexible, user friendly and cost-effective interface for collaboration, knowledge creation and archiving, and student interaction."
Leuf, B. and Cunningham, W. (2001), The Wiki Way: Quick collaboration on the web. Boston:
Addison Wesley.
creators of the original wiki concept
Godwin-Jones, R. (2003). Blogs and wikis: Environments for on-line collaboration. [Electronic
Version]. Language, Learning and Technology, 7(2), 12-16.
suggests that wikis may be ideal for building communities of practice by creating a collective repository of expertise in a subject area, which is refined over time by the contributions and problem-solving of interested individuals. It is this function that distinguishes communities of practice from other online communities, such as chat groups or bulletin boards. See also PROWE project
De Pedro, X., Rieradevall, M., Lopez, P., Sant, D., Pinol, J., Nunez, L., et al. (2006). Writing documents collaboratively in Higher education (I): Qualitative results from a 2-year project study. Congreso Internacional de Docencia Universitaria e Innovacion (International Congress of University Teaching and Innovation), Barcelona: July 5-7. Retrieved August 2007 from
http://uniwiki.ourproject.org/...Congressos
Wikis enhance asynchronous communication and cooperative learning among students, and promote cooperation rather than competition
Reinhold, S. (2006). WikiTrails: Augmenting wiki structure for collaborative, interdisciplinary learning. Proceedings of the 2006 International Symposium on Wikis, Odense, Denmark: August 21-23, 47-58.
Retrieved August 2007 from http://www.wikisym.org/ws2006/proceedings/p47.pdf
Wikis will facilitate not only communication but also the collaborative finding, shaping, and sharing of knowledge, all of which are essential properties in an educational context.
Mader, S. (Ed.) (2006). Using wiki in education, a wiki-based book (some chapters free, some fee-based). Retrieved August 2007 at
http://www.wikiineducation.com
Mader, S. (2006). Ways to use wiki in education. Retrieved August 2007 from
http://www.wikiineducation.com/...education
Fountain, R. (2005). Wiki pedagogy. Dossiers technopedagogiques. Retrieved August 2007 from http://www.profetic.org/dossiers/...110
Website with some interesting examples
Duffy, P. & Bruns, A. (2006). The use of blogs, wikis and RSS in education: A conversation of possibilities. Proceedings of the Online Learning and Teaching Conference 2006, Brisbane: September 26. Retrieved August 2007 from
https://olt.qut.edu.au/...Duffy_OLT2006_paper.pdf
READ Lists several possible educational uses of wikis:
• Students can use a wiki to develop research projects, with the wiki serving as ongoing
documentation of their work.
• Students can add summaries of their thoughts from the prescribed readings, building a
collaborative annotated bibliography on a wiki.
• A wiki can be used for publishing course resources like syllabi and handouts, and students
can edit and comment on these directly for all to see.
• Teachers can use wikis as a knowledge base, enabling them to share reflections and
thoughts regarding teaching practices, and allowing for versioning and documentation.
• Wikis can be used to map concepts. They are useful for brainstorming, and editing a
given wiki topic can produce a linked network of resources.
• A wiki can be used as a presentation tool in place of conventional software, and students
are able to directly comment on and revise the presentation content.
• Wikis are tools for group authoring. Often group members collaborate on a document by
emailing to each member of the group a file that each person edits on their computer, and
some attempt is then made to coordinate the edits so that everyone’s work is equally represented; using a wiki pulls the group members together and enables them to build and edit the document on a single, central wiki page.
Naish, R. (2006). Can wikis be useful for learning? e.learning Age. Retrieved August 2007 from http://www.qiconcepts.co.uk/pdf/C...earning.pdf
Describes icebreakers
Lamb, Brian. (2004). Wide open spaces: Wikis, ready or not. EDUCAUSE Review, 39(5) (September/October), 36-48. Retrieved August 2007 from http://www.educause.edu/....bhcp=1
Describes using wikis for writing instruction
Wikipedia (2007) School and University Projects Retrieved August 2007 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/....projects
Bruns, A. & Humphreys, S. (2005). Wikis in teaching and assessment: The M/Cyclopedia project. Proceedings of the 2005 International Symposium on Wikis, San Diego, CA, U.S.A.: October 16-18, 25-32. Retrieved August 2007 from
http://snurb.info/files...Assessment.pdf
In a new media technologies course, students developed the M/Cyclopedia (Media/Culture), a wiki-based encyclopedic collection of information on new media concepts and topics. The wiki was also used for student interactions, discussions and coordination outside the official tasks.
Lund, A. & Smordal, O. (2006). Is there a space for the teacher in a wiki? Proceedings of the 2006 International Symposium on Wikis, Odense, Denmark: August 21-23, 37-46. Retrieved August 2007 from http://www.wikisym.org/.../p37.pdf
Discusses ideas of letting the learners co-construct subject entries in an encyclopedia.
Chen, H.L., Cannon, D., Gabrio, J. Leifer, L. Toye, G. & Bailey, T. (2005). Using wikis and weblogs to support reflective learning in an introductory engineering design course. Proceedings of the 2005 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition, Portland, Oregon: June 12-15. Retrieved August 2007 from
http://riee.stevens.edu/....._and_Weblogs.pdf
A pedagogical challenge common in project-based courses is that students see what they have produced but they do not see what they have learned. A wiki helps solve this.
Seitzinger, J. (2006). Be constructive: Blogs, podcasts, and wikis as constructivist learning tools. Learning Solutions e-Magazine. Retrieved August 2007 from http://www.elearningguild.com/pdf/2/073106DES.pdf
provides a thorough discussion of the benefits of constructivist online learning environments
Hamer, J. (2006). Some experiences with the "contributing student approach". Proceedings of the 11th Annual SIGCSE Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education (ITiCSE’06), Bologna, Italy: June 26-28, 68-72. Retrieved August 2007 from
http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1140123.1140145 (abstract only not full text)
Betty Collis' contributing student approach
Chang, Y.-F. & Schallert, D.L. (2005). The design for a collaborative system of English as foreign language: Composition writing of senior high school students in Taiwan. Proceedings of the Fifth IEEE International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies (ICALT’05), Kaohsiung, Taiwan: July 5-8, 774-775. Retrieved August 2007 from
http://portal.acm.org/cita...18 (abstract only not full text)
Honegger, B.D. (2005). Wikis – a rapidly growing phenomenon in the German-speaking school community. Proceedings of the 2005 International Symposium on Wikis, San Diego, CA, USA: October 16-18, 113-116. Retrieved August 2007 from http://www.wikisym.org/ws2005/proceedings/paper-10.pdf
Notari, M. (2006). How to use a wiki in education: Wiki based effective constructive learning. Proceedings of the 2006 International Symposium on Wikis, Odense, Denmark: August 21–23, 131-132. Retrieved August 2007 from http://www.wikisym.org/ws2006/proceedings/p131.pdf READ
This paper asserts that collaboration is less likely to be a success without proper guidance,
such as a script.
Pearce, J. (2007). Using wiki in education. The science of spectroscopy. Retrieved August 2007, from http://www.scienceofspectroscopy.info/...wiki_in_education.
Interesting website READ
Jon Udell: Heavy metal umlaut: the movie an illustration of the growth of a wiki page over time
Ebner, M., Zechner, J., Holzinger, A. (2006) Why is Wikipedia so Successful? Experiences in Establishing the Principles in Higher Education, Proceedings of I-KNOW 06, 6th International Conference on Knowlegde Management, Graz, Austria, S. 527-535, ISSN 0948-695x Draft accessed August 2007 at http://lamp.tu-graz.ac.at/...iknow.pdf
READ Trying to use Wikipedia paradigm: Unsuccessful wiki in creating an encyclopedia of concrete due to lack of motivation (using "free time"), and community feeling and inertia (new technology and environment). "Learners usually consume the learning content and are generally not interested in creating it on a voluntary basis."Labels: e-learning, elearning, wiki-tivities, wikis, wikitivities
posted by Helen Whitehead 12:03 PM
Saturday, 4 August 2007
E-books on online community
Useful resources, especially for beginners
Otis Online Tutoring e-Book
NCSL's e-learning facilitation toolkit and 70,000 heads are better than oneLabels: e-learning, e-moderating, e-moderation, e-moderator, ebook, elearning, emoderating, online communities, online community, online learning, online tutor, online tutoring
posted by Helen Whitehead 5:53 PM
Friday, 3 August 2007
Join me on the Creativity in E-Learning network
Labels: creativity, e-learning, education sector, elearning, FE, HE, learning and teaching, learning technologies, social networking, universities, Web 2.0
posted by Helen Whitehead 4:06 PM
