See my posting on my Social Media in Learning blog
19 February 2010
16 February 2010
Guide to 140 Learning: From interactivity to social activity #140learning
A couple of week's ago I blogged about two new projects I was working on.
- 140 University which delivers twice-daily "classes" via Twitter and Facebook to help extend and build a general education
- 140 Learning Centre which delivers daily nuggets via Twittr and Facebook to support productvivity in the workpalce
There has been a lot of interest in these two projects which in turn has generated lots of requests for help in using Twitter in Facebook for social learning.
I have therefore begun to create a Guide to 140 Learning: From interactivity to social activity which describes and explains the many different ways that these tools can be used for social learning - from backchannels in events and presentations, in the lecture or training room, for micro-learning as well as for collaborative and other formal and informal learning projects.
Although I have made some headway into this project, it is very much a Work In Progress as I craft and refine the pages of the Guide. I've also decided now to extend it to include Google Buzz, which I think will be able to add a further dimension to social learning.
You can find out more about the Guide to 140 Learning here - and if you would like me to include any examples of how you are using these tools for social learning, please feel free to contact me in any of the ways listed on the main page.
10 February 2010
Secure websites in plain English
Commoncraft has released a new video: "Secure websites in plain English", which teaches the basics of website security and how to recognize a secure site.
- An overview of the most common security threats
- How SSL encryption works
- How to recognize a secure connection
- In which situations security is most important
08 February 2010
25 places to find instructional videos
Recently I have received a number of emails asking about places that offer free instructional videos (on all subjects), so I thought I would put together a posting of the main ones that I know about:
- 5min Life Videopedia - instructional and how-to videos
- Academic Earth - Thousands of video lectures from the world's top scholars
- blip.tv - next generation TV network
- Google Video - videos on all topics
- Graspr - The instructional video network
- Howcast - How-to videos
- iCue - A fun, innovative, learning environment built around video from the NBC News Archives
- Instructables - Make, HowTo and DIY
- iTunes U - Faculty are using iTunes U to distribute digital lessons to their students, e.g Stangord, Trinity College Dublin, etc.
- John Locker - Documentaries and educational videos
- MindBites - Video instructional marketplace and publishing platform (Some free)
- MonkeySee - HowTo videos
- neoK12 - free educational videos and lessons for K-12 school kids
- Research Channel - 3,500 video titles available
- SchoolTube - provides students and educators with a safe, world class, video sharing webiste
- Sparkeo - a flexible video platform
- SuTree - learn virtually everything by watching how to videos from all over the web.
- TeacherTube - educational videos
- TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) - a clearinghouse that offers free knowledge and inspiration from the world's most inspired thinkers, and also a community of curious souls to engage with ideas and each other.
- TV Lesson - How to videos
- Ustream - watch live broadcasts, explore networks ranging from music, talk shows, sports and politics and/or review our past broadcasts.
- Video Jug - Life explained. On film.
- Vimeo - a thriving community of people who love to make and share videos
- YouTube - videos on everything under the sun
- YouTube EDU - aggregates all the videos from more than 100 institutions of higher education around the US.
04 February 2010
31 January 2010
January 2010 News
Here is this month's round up of tools and resources added to my website:
- Tools added to the Learning Tools Directory in January 2010
- Resources added to my Reading Lists in January 2010
UPDATE
Following Allison's suggestion (see comments below) I have created a word cloud (using Wordle) of January's Reading list. Even on the tiny thumbnail below you can see the key words. Click on the image for the full Wordle.
27 January 2010
140 Learning Centre - daily knowledge and skills nuggets for the workplace
Last week I posted about the 140 University service that I had set up to demonstrate the potential of Twitter and Facebook as formal learning tools - to deliver and share "classes" in the form of daily knowledge nuggets. In the short time this has been live, it has proven to be a popular idea, and at the time of writing there are now over 320 followers on Twitter and over 120 Facebook fans, with many others simply reading the archived nuggets at the website.
I have now set up a "sister service" that operates along the same lines, but is for people to ...
"discover and share daily knowledge and skill nuggets with interesting links - web pages, videos, podcasts and other free resources via Twitter, Yammer or Facebook- in less than 140 characters - to support their personal productivity and performance in the workplace."
It is the first day of the Learning Technologies Conference in London, where I am involved in a number of sessions, so I thought this was a good day to launch the service formally.
This free service is called the 140 Learning Centre. Follow the link for full information about it.
I'd like to think that it demonstrates the way that L&D departments could use these tools to provide relevant and useful resources in an ongoing way to their employeers, which they can then comment on as well as contribute to, thereby build a useful organisational knowledge base of resources.
21 January 2010
140 University - Extend your education via Twitter or Facebook!
I recently set up the 140 University to demonstrate the power of Twitter and Facebook as tools to enable formal approaches to learning. Although they are recognised as personal learning tools, they are not necessarily seen as formal learning systems.
The way the 140 University works is that you receive "classes" in the form of daily knowledge nuggets with links to supporting web resources (pages, videos etc) that provide further explanation and clarification - in tweets of less than 140 characters. You can comment on the classes, and also share your own "classes" too.
It's open for anyone to join up; classes cover wide-ranging subjects and are at varying levels; you explore what you are interested in.
You can find out much more at the 140 University web page and also view all the "classes" so far archived in the "Departments". (Note this week, we've been tweeting classes every hour to establish an initial set of classes, but from Sat 23 Jan this will be reduced to a more manageable 4 per day). I also have plans to incorporate other functionality, so stay tuned!
I'll be documenting how this project progresses and particualrly considering its application (and the implications) for formal education and workplacce training, so any feedback, ideas or suggestions will be very welcome.
16 January 2010
Sputnik Observatory launches
This is the first endeavour of Sputnik Observatory, the non-profit institute dedicated to the study of contemporary culture. The site is free for everyone. Sputnik means "fellow traveler."
The central premise of the Sputnik Observatory is that everything is connected to everything else, and that topics and ideas that may seem fringe and even heretical to the mainstream world are in fact being investigated by leading thinkers working in fields as diverse as quantum physics, mathematics, neuroscience, biology, economics, architecture, digital art, video games, computer science and music. Sputnik is dedicated to bringing these crucial ideas into the learning arena, so that the world can begin to understand them.
15 January 2010
2010 Horizon Report
"The annual Horizon Report describes the continuing work of the New Media Consortium’s Horizon Project, a qualitative research project established in 2002 that identifies and describes emerging technologies likely to have a large impact on teaching, learning, or creative inquiry on college and university campuses within the next five years.
"The 2010 Horizon Report is the seventh in the series and is produced as part of an ongoing collaboration between the New Media Consortium (NMC) and the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI), an EDUCAUSE program.
"In each edition of the Horizon Report, six emerging technologies or practices are described that are likely to enter mainstream use on campuses within three adoption horizons spread over the next one to five years. Each report also presents critical trends and challenges that will affect teaching and learning over the same time frame.
"The six technologies featured in each Horizon Report are placed along three adoption horizons that indicate likely time frames for their entrance into mainstream use for teaching, learning, or creative inquiry. The near-term horizon assumes the likelihood of entry into the mainstream for institutions within the next twelve months; the mid-term horizon, within two to three years; and the far-term, within four to five years."
The 6 technologies described in detail in the body of the report are:
Near-term horizon
- Mobile computing
- Open content
Second adoption horizon
- Electronic books
- Simple augmented reality
Far-term horizon
- Gesture-based computing
- Visual data analysis
[Added to State of Learning in 2010 Reading List]
Recent Comments