EdTechUK

Near Near Future

Haven't blogged about Régine Debatty's blog, Near Near Future before - so it's about time. Currently my absolute favorite feed, Régine's site (aka we make money not art) is a must for all cultural junkies, and the first place emerging, pervasive and hands-up bizarre technologies seem to surface.

She's recently blogged about location-based mobile phone game Scoot, research into altering public perceptions of pollution, and Chanel’s new Tokyo headquarters.

So I'm recommending it here and also in the recent interview I did for the Merseyside Center for the Information Society on (what else) blogging. It's in PDF and it's called 'Inside the mind of a blogger' .

Is it just me or are the psychological overtones of the title a bit scary? & not helped by the categorisation of the article under 'case studies' ;-)

Caterina Fake interview

I've mentioned Flickr a few times before - one of the best resources for people interested in democratic photography, moblogging and/or photo-sharing on the web. Engadet posted an interview with Flickr's fantastically named co-founder Caterina Fake last week and it's worth a minute if you missed it.

Engadget are also currently going head-to-head with Gizmodo for the Best Tech Blog in the 2004 Weblog Awards. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for them - as well as actually voting, and not just because I write for them (very occasionally). I think they've been doing a great job establishing themselves as the most informative and entertaining tech blog over the last 9 months, and they really make an editorial commitment to acknowledging that women are as interested in technology as men. 

the future of elearning needs us more than it needs you!

Go and check out John Rowett's Workblog (now formally divorced from his non-work blog) for some recent, really funny diagrams. Here he is, teasing us with how good his service orientated milkshake is. And here he is again, playing with Mindmanager X5 pro.

Scot Aldred's e-learning

Scot Aldred, a Learning Designer somewhere in Rock Hampton, Queensland, Australia (Scot your CV PDF won't open!) has just started up what looks to be an excellent new blog, e-learning. Stephen Downes and Alan from CogDogBlog have already mentioned it - Alan helpfully provides the RSS feed Blogger are hiding: http://e-learning-engagement.blogspot.com/atom.xml.

There's some interesting stuff already - I'll just mention a post called What's Wrong with Group Work? which points to the SPARK self and peer assessment kit, which as well as the open source software provides some good references to the litereature on group work. From the site:

Abstract “Group projects aren't fair” is a frequent student response in higher education. Group work is used to facilitate peer learning and encourage students to develop collaboration, a crucial graduate attribute. Since assessment strongly influences learning, any course objective to improve peer learning and/or collaboration must have assessment that promotes it.

Self and peer assessment is a valid solution for promoting these objectives and overcoming potential inequities of equal marks for unequal contributions. Group members are responsible for negotiating and managing the balance of contributions and then assessing whether the balance has been achieved.

SPARK enables confidentiality to students rating their own and their peers' contributions. A range of criteria related to team tasks and maintenance promotes fair acknowledgment of individuals' contributions. SPARK automates significant data collection, collation and calculation problems that academics would otherwise face. The factors produced by SPARK are used to change group marks to individual marks. Without this automation, academics with large classes simply could not consider self and peer assessment.

As with all educational technology the essential caveat applies: Careful and thoughtful student-centred integration is vital for success!

James Farmer's Graduate Certificate in Higher Education Website, Weblog & Wiki

Check out James's amazing new site – it’s like a sweetie shop over there at GCHE. Treats are organised into the following flavours: Communication, Collaboration & Community Online, Evaluation Online, Assessment Online, Culture and Internationalization Online & Using Online Resources.

Also:

"Guidance and purpose in using a weblog (I'm using WordPress here) and a wiki in this context... I've done a quick step-by-step for the wiki for any Tiki enthusiasts out there."

Go leave some feedback!

Auricle - the case of the UKeU debacle

Auricle is one of my favorite UK edublogs.

The public blog of the University of Bath’s e-learning team is consistently interesting and thought provoking, typified by their recent couple of posts on Learning Material Repositories - Rafts or Battleships? (part 2 here)

They’ve been tracking the case of the UK e-University debacle (and the mystery of the disappearing economies of scale) for a while too. Special mention has to go to UKeU: The Movie, Derek Morrison's breakdown of the UK Parliament's video stream of evidence about UKeU given to the Parliamentary Education and Skills Committee in June.

Very much recommended reading/feeding.

UKeU UPDATES: OBHE article tones down the UKeU Platform
UKeU: the financial fallout
UKeU - Peeling the Onion - layer 2

Furl

Since I gave a heads up to Bloglines this week, I thought I’d also mention Furl - another free resource I've been using (for both work & not-work. I’ve been starting to collect different translations of Rilkes Orpheus, Eurydice, Hermes recently – you can check out my public archive here). There are also some great articles about Furl & things to do with it about at the moment.

Of course you can check out the official Furl FAQ, where you’ll find out how Furl works, how Furl is different to a blog, and perhaps most obviously, why is Furl better than just using your bookmarks?

Amy Gahran, who keeps the excellent Contentious blog, has written some interesting things about Furl – most recently this entry about Furl, File Sharing & Copyright. She also came up with 10 Cool Things to do with Furl, currently one of the most Furled articles around. In More Furl Tricks she also rounds up the current crop of Furl related pages.

Software Subversions

Robert O'Toole (University of Warwick)'s Software Subversions has moved from its old home to its new home here. What a transformation! It’s gone from an austere modernist aesthetic to a beautiful explosion of soft colour. Really makes me wish I had the time to do my own changing rooms here. Maybe in the summer.

Where have your trackbacks gone though Rob? And an about page would be nice.

EdTechAZ

I've just come across CogDogBlog, Alan Levine's excellent blog. Alan Levine is an instructional technologist at the Maricopa Community Colleges in Phoenix, Arizona – the hotbed State of Instructional Technology.

Alan has a great writing style and there are some handy resources to be found there too, like this entry on Jo Moxley’s Teaching Wiki. I’m hoping he’ll be blogging pretty soon about The Arizona Technology in Education Alliance (AzTEA) Westside chapter’s third annual Way Out West (WOW) Technology Conference, which took place yesterday.

Key EduBloggers

I've just added a list of urls to my sidebar for people I consider to have the most essential RSS feeds in edublogging right now. I’ve selected on the grounds of active blogging, tied to the quality and relevance of posts. Of course these are the feeds I find the most informative and interesting – so there’s plenty of room for contention.

Let me know what you think.