eLearning Blog Dont Waste Your Time

Infographic: Communication intimacy

David Hopkins — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 20:09:58 +0000

A wonderful set of infographics on the Pamorama website today, and this one really caught my eye: “10 Levels of Intimacy in Today’s Communication” outlining the changes in communication (including chatting, texting, Facebook, Social Media, and Twitter) …

iTunesU: Another success story (UCL)

David Hopkins — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 12:33:19 +0000

I was thinking about my posts that cover iTunesU the other day and then found this presentation (only uploaded to SlideShare recently) from Jeremy Speller on “UCL and iTunesU“:

View more presentations from Jeremy Speller.

Can you answer me the following please … who, out of everyone out there, has had the discussion with their management on whether your Institution should (or will) be on iTunesU, or indeed you’ve had the meeting and the decision was made not to make materials available in this way?

If the answer was in the negative, are you in a position to let us know the reasons why (if so, can you leave a comment please)?

It also seems that Jeremy has been a clever boy and used this special little script called KeyNoteTweet – code.google.com/p/keynotetweet/ – but is only available in an Apple Keynote presentation.

LiveBinder: Social Bookmarking and Knowledge Sharing

David Hopkins — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 20:49:52 +0000

I recently came across another example of social bookmarking that caught me eye – it’s called ‘LiveBinders’ and it’s very simple to use. Instead of saving the link to something like Delicious this lets you organise the link as a tab and you can see the content/link in the page – much as you would do with a file divider in a folder/binder.

What is LiveBinders?
Here’s a natty little overview video from the lovely people at LiveBinders:

What is LiveBinderIt?

How can I use LiveBinders?
LiveBinders is intended as a way for you to bookmark and showcase the page/work in the original manner the material was first published. The best way to quickly and easily use LiveBinders is to install the browser ‘bookmark tool‘ by dragging the widget to your taskbar – from here all you have to do is click this when you’re reading a page you want to save to your binder (or a new one) – much the same way my Delicious widget works!!

LiveBinders Cover
You don’t have to choose the thumbnail image as the ‘cover’ for the binder from the selection made out of the URLs you’ve saved/used – you can use the ‘insert media’ option under the ‘edit menu’ (for the binder you are currently viewing) and search Flickr images (yours or not) and use that as the binder cover.

Working Example(s)
You can link to a LiveBinders or embed it in your website or blog page. Here’s an example of one I’ve put together quickly for a demonstration:

Twitter Tips

Here is one put together by Innovative Tools, called “Web 2.0: Online Collaboration“, and it should look like the screen shot below:

Web 2.0: Online Collaboration

Summary
So, is it any good then? Yes it is, but it wont replace Delicious for me, but it is a really good way to showcase website content in the manor it was originally written and presented – excellent for a class project where many students are contributing content and reading materials (and images through the Flickr interface).

If the lovely bods at LiveBinders can sort the method and display on the embed option (I think the small thumbnail icon could be a little bigger and enabled to be more prominent on the web page.

I also had a few minor issues with one of my binders while I was preparing this, and Tina (or Barbara) was able to help through Twitter, in real time … marvellous, thanks girls!

This will be one application that is worth keeping an eye on, see where development and customer feedback take it.

Game-based Learning: recent readings (2)

David Hopkins — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 19:10:34 +0000

Even when I try and get on with something else, I keep finding excellent resources about game- and simulation-based learning. So, here we are again. Below are some links and choice quotes from the resources. Enjoy …

Jeffrey Young: “5 Teaching Tips for Professors—From Video Games”

“Learning is no game on today’s college campuses. It’s serious work that many students dread. Yet when those same students play video games like World of Warcraft, they happily spend hours on difficult tasks, and actually learn quite a bit in the process. Ms. Steinkuehler … noted how players in a chat room had used complex mathematics to argue for a certain plan of attack against some unruly beast.”

Abhijit Kadle: “Top 100 Learning Game Resources”

“So here they are – a Top 100 Learning Game Resource list. If you are already developing learning games, these links will broaden your horizons, as they did mine. If you are contemplating beginning – it might help to look at links that interest you to get some grounding ideas.”

Lucy Cockcroft: “Computer games should be used to assess pupils’ ability instead of traditional tests”

“Professor James Gee believes that the games are an aide to learning, a view that is at odds with that of many parents who consider them a distraction from school work. He has also suggested that the games should become part of the curriculum because they offer pupils a more efficient way of learning by not bombarding them with a large amount of information all at once.”

Karl Kapp: “Using Virtual Worlds in the Conspiracy to Create an ‘ah-ha’ Moment”

“Conspiracies take coordination, effort, planning and a deep understanding of what needs to be done. These adjectives rarely describe the level of effort dedicated to organizational efforts to change behavior through learning experiences. We need to stop creating awareness and start to create conspiracies. What better place to start than in a 3D Virtual Immersive Environment. Involving learners in a story where they can interact and react is the first step in the conspiracy in which we should all partake.”

Augmented Reality: it’s all a load of goo (Cadbury’s goo, that is)

David Hopkins — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 20:07:24 +0000

Here I was, quietly minding my own business and checking my emails when I get a link to the Cadbury’s Egg-mented Reality page. This post is really only a follow up to the technology of augmented reality rather than it’s use in education, but you can see how and why people would start to use it. If both children and adults start seeing and using this technology in situations like this (fun, game-like) then it is only a short leap to accepting and looking for it in an educational setting.

Print off the augmented reality page and hold it up to your webcam on the page and you’ll see the following;

Great stuff, love it!

PS. the emails they send are such a good style and approach of marketing, a good mix of information and fun, and the occasional special offer!

Presentation: Email is so 1973 (Google Wave)

David Hopkins — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 09:58:57 +0000

I’ve posted a presentation from these folks before – Red Magma: eLearning Sucks – which is an excellently presented and very easy-to-understand approach.

This next one is equally easy to follow, all about Google Wave, and equally appealing to read/watch. So, enjoy.

Email Is So 1973

Augmented Reality: does it have a place/future in education?

David Hopkins — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 09:02:55 +0000

Augmented Reality (AR) is still in its infancy, but as people like me look further afield to find interesting technology to use in (and out of) the classroom, it has been on my radar a bit recently. So, what is it?

“Unlike Virtual Reality (VR) that aims at replacing the perception of the world with an artificial one, Augmented Reality (AR) has the goal of enhancing a person’s perception of the surrounding world. Being partly virtual and real, the new interface technology of AR which is able to display relevant information at the appropriate time and location, offers many potential applications; these include aiding in education, training, repair or maintenance, manufacturing, medicine, battlefield, games and entertainment.”
Source: Asia Research News, Augmented Reality: The Future of Education Technology

Check out this YouTube video that demonstrates AR from the SMLXL blog;

It is also worth watching this video, this time from TED Talks: “Blaise Aguera y Arcas demos augmented-reality maps“. Here Blaise shows a new Microsoft online mapping enterprise called Bing Maps, which is amazing (dependent, I would think, on the quality of your Internet connection?) in the implementation and scope for it’s uses. How about a virtual tour around a museum, a building, or even an archaeological dig by a member of the team or organisation involved (in a different country?) while the class stays in the classroom but interacts and even directs the proceedings – bring the field into the classroom:

But what of AR in the classroom? The wiki from Trends in EdTech for “Classroom Learning with AR” (currently) lists the following applications for Augmented Reality in the classroom environment;

Learning styles: rich examples of complex phenomena (engineering, earth sciences, medicine, environmental applications to name a few) while being engaging.
Authentic Learning: AR can tremendously enhance vocational studies for those wishing to enter the trades: auto and aviation mechanics, electricians, carpenters, etc… The ability to annotate real elements and the ability to add to reality by superimposing virtual aids, will aid in instruction and learning for those disciplines where a specific spatial configuration of elements must be learned and remembered (auto mechanics, medicine, chemistry).
Realistic models: AR provides a means of “seeing” phenomena in 3D, thereby bringing the contextual three dimensional nature of the real world to the their learning. Textual and pictorial information in the typical 2 dimensional print-based resources loses much of the richness of the “real” world elements, and involves an element of interpretation that is difficult for some students.
Engagement/Interactivity: Illustrations in books can come to life with AR technology and can captivate readers of all ages.

Rob De Lorenzo, on the Mobile Learner blog post “Augmented Reality and On-Demand Learning” says:

“… that using AR apps is unrealistic given the current reality of school board policies and certain teacher attitudes concerning the use of cell phones for learning. Granted, if students are not allowed to use their cell phone to help them learn then AR apps are useless.”

We have a huge shift in expectations to overcome before technologies such as AR, game-based learning, simulations, etc are accepted in anything more than a fad or ’suck-it and see’ mentality.

Further reading:

Video: History in the making with Social Media and Clay Shirky

David Hopkins — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 09:31:35 +0000

Another inspiration and informative talk from TED, this time from Clay Shirky on ‘how social media can make history’.

“While news from Iran streams to the world, Clay Shirky shows how Facebook, Twitter and TXTs help citizens in repressive regimes to report on real news, bypassing censors (however briefly). The end of top-down control of news is changing the nature of politics.”

QR Codes: Learning Technology

David Hopkins — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 09:00:32 +0000

Since I starting looking into QR Codes and how they can be used in Higher Education (library’s, classrooms, museums, induction, etc) there has been one name that keeps coming up in all my searches: Andy Ramsden at Bath University.

His blog QR Codes at Bath makes for great reading for anyone interested. He writes on all aspects of the uses of QR Codes from Conference badges, Museums, and ticketing to uses in educational context.

His presentation below, given the Plymouth eLearning Conference in 2009 explores the uses of QR Codes in education. It is a must-read for anyone looking for background or uses of this growing technology – while it may be a ‘fad’ at the moment, it has the potential to be so much more.

QR codes as a learning technology

Another excellent presentation on the use of QR Codes in education and learning is from Australian, John Sandler.

QR Codes: tagging for learning performance

I can see that QR Codes is not something that will be easy to implement into an eLearning scenario, but the ability to link the physical world to the virtual one is made all that little bit easier with QR Codes.

What can QR Codes do for education? This is from the Educause wiki on QR Codes:

“QR codes link the physical world with the virtual by providing on-the-spot access to descriptive language and online resources for objects and locations. In this way, the codes support experiential learning, bringing scholarship out of the classroom and the computer and into physical experience.”

QR Codes in the Classroom

“Faculty members might include a QR Code on their PowerPoint presentation which links to the slidedeck stored online. Instead of remembering a long URL, students could just scan the code with their mobile phone as they leave the campus.”

QR Codes on Campus

“Students in an architecture course might be charged with the task of created Web pages for each building on campus that describe the history of the building and the styles utilized. A QR code might be added to each building sign that links to those descriptive pages. During campus tours, students and parents might be encouraged to ‘explore’ using handheld QR code readers.”

It is also worth spending about 10 minutes reading through this Educause “7 Things You Should Know About QR Codes” report which summarises that:

“the codes support experiential learning, bringing scholarship out of the classroom and into physical experience … [and] the greatest importance of QR codes could lie not in their specific use, which may be superseded by newer codes and interpreters, but in the opportunities they offer for moving away from keyboards as input devices in learning environments.”

To finish this little jaunt into the world of QR Codes in education, Andy Ramsden is looking into the ways in which these codes can be used “within an integrated solution to record and monitor the submission (physical hand-in) of assignments” (Andy Ramsden, Thinking Ahead …). I am also very interested in the scripts he mentions, written by Blazej Zieba:

“Mobile Virtual Guide” – web application which allows you to create a virtual tour and generate QR Codes to mark locations, and
“Mobile 2d Code Hunt” – web application which allows you to create urban games.

Amazing work and something I’ll be trying when I can get it hosted – follow me on Twitter or subscribe to the blog or RSS feed for updates. Please feel free to comment or question as well.

Video: Open-source learning from Richard Baraniuk

David Hopkins — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 19:52:02 +0000

I found this list of 25 TED talk videos worth watching. I’ve already referred several times to the inspirational talk by Sir Ken Robinson on Educational Transformation, and I’m slowly wading my way through the rest of them. I cam across this one by Richard Baraniuk this evening … I liked it, I hope you do too.

“Rice University professor Richard Baraniuk explains the vision behind Connexions, his open-source, online education system. It cuts out the textbook, allowing teachers to share and modify course materials freely, anywhere in the world.”

Richard “has a giant vision: to create a free global online education system that puts the power of creation and collaboration in the hands of teachers worldwide. He’s realizing that vision with Connexions, a website that allows teachers to quickly “create, rip, mix and burn” coursework — without fear of copyright violations. Think of it as Napster for education.”