Category Archives: web2.0

Guest Lecture to Marketing Students

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Earlier today I presented a lecture to Marketing undergraduate students in the Business School. It is the first time I have presented in the new Business School building and I was impressed with the facilities and layout of the room.

The presentation/lecture was about Blogging. So I gave a brief overview of the history and asked the students to perform a couple of tasks during the hour. I feel that it went ok. The only thing that didn’t work was when I tried to upload a blog post via my phone app. I think it was struggling to connect to the wi-fi. It worked fine an hour earlier on the main campus but not in Barrack Road.

It made a pleasant change to present to students. It made me realise amongst other things how far removed I am from them now in terms of age although at times I think I am on their level. Mentioning Friends Reunited got a laugh/perplexed reaction.

Blackboard Teaching and Learning Conference 2010, Swansea, Wales

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Swansea Marina

Swansea Marina as viewed from the Maritime Museum

The notes listed below are some of my own thoughts regarding the conference. Comments from visitors welcomed as always:
http://www.bbworld.com/2010/TeachingAndLearning/content.asp?id=1621

Detailed Programme: http://bb.blackboard.com/Swansea2010Schedule/

Day 1

Conference Keynote – Ray Henderson

  • At Bb sales conference in January the overwhelming message that they received was regarding the Durham Conference and the issues clients had who had migrated to 9.0 in the summer. This cannot happen again…
  • Tripled the resource involved with handling/resolving case issues (don’t know the absolute numbers)
  • An approach of consulting, receiving feedback and suggestions from clients was very much stressed by Ray. As an indicator of this Continue reading →

Durham Bb Users’ Conference – Thoughts

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Durham Cathedral as viewed from Durham Castle 05.01.10

Durham Cathedral as viewed from Durham Castle 05.01.10

Hello all.

What a couple of snowy days this turned out to be! Although weather apart, I thought this was very well attended, even up to the very last session on the second day.

I find that of all the conferences, seminars or symposiums I have attended in the last few years this is without doubt the most useful and relevant to me in terms of my job role and day to day activities. The presenters are of a high standard and knowledgeable about what they do – which helps greatly as most of them are practitioners.

The main pointers I have gleened are:

  • Single sign on for multiple systems (external especially) is still a big issue
  • Institutional VLE regarded as the core tool and other tools/services added as required
  • If Blackboard make a mess of the release of 9.1 they are in big trouble with HEIs in the UK
  • Start promoting Bb 9 to staff asap
  • Students are not necessarily web 2.0 or more specifically web savvy/literate
  • Students are still students and we some times miss this issue in the web hyperbole

Many thanks to Malcolm Murray, the LT staff and Durham University for hosting a well run and professional event.

Durham is 10!

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The Tenth Annual Durham Blackboard Users’ Conference will be held on Tuesday the 5th and Wednesday the 6th of January 2010.
http://www.dur.ac.uk/lt.team/blog/?page_id=405

Theme
We are inviting presentations at this conference which explore the opportunities and challenges that social networking tools offer to the more traditional (some might say ‘monolithic’) institutional online learning environments. The following examples are meant to be illustrative rather than definitive:

Now that social networking tools are legion, do we still need institutional VLEs? Should we all follow the lead of Michael Wesch, abandon Blackboard and run our classes using free web-based tools such as netvibes?
Do students want staff to get involved in their use of tools such as facebook, or is this the quickest way to kill it off? Are there educational applications for facebook?
If students want to learn using their mobile phone rather than their laptop, where does that leave Blackboard?
What can you teach someone in 140 characters? Is Twitter just for ‘Twits’ ? – That was the word David Cameron used, wasn’t it? :^)
If we embrace connectivism, should we be assessing who student’s know rather than just what they know? I’m not suggesting you grade people by the number of friends they have in facebook, but could/should we go further than the open book exam? How could we measure this?
Does it matter if student learning is occurring online in places we can’t access, audit or learn from ourselves?
Amid all the excitement, are we forgetting to ask who is excluded from the Web 2.0 world?
We will also consider proposals for Discussions or Papers on any other topics that you think the community would find of interest.

Teachers’ Aids on Creating Content for Learning Environments (TACCLE)

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TACCLE, not the snappiest of acronyms but a site worth looking at for information and guides relating to the use, source and creation of learning materials. The TACCLE handbook can be accessed by registering on this site . To give you an idea of the content, here is a list of all of the sections:

Section 1: Getting started
Chapter 1: What is e-learning?
Chapter 2: Tools that are useful for communicating and creating e-learning
content
Chapter 3: Weblogs
Chapter 4: Wikis
Chapter 5: Podcasting
Chapter 6: Video sharing
Chapter 7: Presentation sharing
Chapter 8: Social bookmarking
Chapter 9: Voice threads
Chapter 10: RSS feed readers
Chapter 11: Image sharing
Chapter 12: Taxonomies, folksonomies and metadata
Section 2: The pedagogy of e-learning
Chapter 13: Different sorts of e-learning
Chapter 14: The role of the teacher in e-learning
Chapter 15: The target group
Chapter 16: Assessment
Chapter 17: Trends & directions in e-learning pedagogy: social software and
web 2.0
Section 3: Learning environments
Chapter 18: Learning Management Systems
Chapter 19: Personal Learning Environments
Section 4: Creating Digital Learning Objects
Chapter 20: Learning objects
Chapter 21: Designing Learning Objects
Chapter 22: Creating text-based content
Chapter 23: Creating cartoons and comics
Chapter 24: Publishing digital learning objects
Chapter 25: Authoring software
Chapter 26: Copyright and Open Educational Resources
Section 5: Networks and communities
Chapter 27: Networked Space
Chapter 28: Communities of sharing

Although the content is aimed at classroom teachers the information is useful for anyone working in the education sector and using a VLE in some form or another.

Wordle.net

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wordle_addressWordle.net is a tool for generating word clouds from text that you submit to it. You can do this via a RSS feed or select text and paste it into a text box on their site. It then generates a word cloud, with the highest repeated words displayed in larger text. You can alter the images that are produced by altering the font, layout and colours.

I’ve seen this used at conferences and during presentations. It gives a useful snapshot for activities like gathering feedback, responses and online discussions.

In true Blue Peter style here is one I created today from the WP blog feed.

WordPress Blog Feed Image from Wordle.net

WordPress Blog Feed Image from Wordle.net

Open Educational Resources

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OEROpen Educational Resources (OER) are teaching and learning materials that are freely available online for everyone to use, whether you are an instructor, student, or self-learner. Examples of OER include: full courses, course modules, syllabi, lectures, homework assignments, quizzes, lab and classroom activities, pedagogical materials, games, simulations, and many more resources contained in digital media collections from around the world.

Drop.io

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Drop is an online tool to share files. Set up a private space to drop any files by email, web, phone, widget or fax and then share them with whoever you like in a variety of outputs. There is no need to register to use this service.

So you can upload some pictures, set a password on the space and supply that to your friends who you would like to see the pictures. They could also be allowed (or not) to add further pictures to the area. Drops are not searchable or networked.

I’ll be trying this out with a few of my colleagues and friends.

Drop logo

Drop logo

101 Web 2.0 Teaching Tools

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Thinkfree reflected logo

Thinkfree reflected logo

Here is the full link to this resource 101 tools.

Here are a few of them to browse:

  • Awasu - A state-of-the-art feed reader that comes loaded with features for both casual personal use and professional, high-powered information management
  • MyProjectpages.com  – Built by teachers for teachers, use myprojectpages.com to create structured online inquiry-based learning activities for the courses you teach that enable your students to engage in meaningful learning experiences while online.
  • Slideshare – Share presentations online, either openly or with a group. Add other features to them such as audio and join community groups. Discover and promote your interests professionally
  • ThinkFree – Online FREE office package. Allows you to create docs, spreadsheets, presentation and web documents. No need to download any software…comes with 1 GB storage

Explanations in Plain English

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I’m not talking about the latest explanation from my energy provider, explaining why costs are increasing or my bank explaining funding charges – but a site called Common Craft. They produce, among other things, easy to follow and understand video clips about commonly used technologies and products.

I like them for the main reason that they are clear and “get to the point”. Here is an example of the wiki one they have produced and posted on YouTube.