Educational Concepts

Fair Use, Teach Act, and Accessibility Links

2010-02-24T15:48:00.002-06:00

Fair Use:

Fair use and copyright definitions and policies (great site for defining aspects of fair use). Also offers a chart of what is legally accepted in fair use and restrictions in teaching.
http://home.earthlink.net/~cnew/research.htm

University of Texas systems copyright policy
http://www.utsystem.edu/OGC/intellectualproperty/copypol.htm

University of Texas systems copyright policy article that focuses on university copy centers
http://copyright.lib.utexas.edu/mono1.html

North Carolina State University
http://www.ncsu.edu/copyright/defenses.php
http://www.provost.ncsu.edu/copyright/resources/tutorials/FairUseandPermission.php

Stanford University fair use and copyright
http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/chapter9/index.html

Indiana University Bloomington policy for fair use on education and research
http://www.indiana.edu/~bfc/docs/policies/fairUsePolicy.pdf

University at Buffalo: The State University of New York fair use policy
http://library.buffalo.edu/libraries/aboutus/policies-use/copyright.php

Winthrop University (in South Carolina) fair use
http://www2.winthrop.edu/copyright/copyfair.htm

Example of checklist for conducting a fair use analysis (taken from Cornell University)
http://www.copyright.cornell.edu/policies/docs/Fair_Use_Checklist.pdf

Brown University fair use policies for various different types of sources (links on left hand side of page in red)
http://www.brown.edu/Administration/Copyright/

University of California fair use policy
http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/copyright/fairuse.html

Tufts University policy on fair use
https://wikis.uit.tufts.edu/confluence/display/ScholarlyCommunications/Tufts+University+Policy+on+Fair+Use+of+Copyrighted+Materials

University of Missouri fair use and copyright policies (also focuses specifically on photo fair use too)
http://extension.missouri.edu/staff/marketing/copyright.html

University of Tennessee fair use policy
http://www.lib.utk.edu/copyright/policy.html

TEACH Act:

Description of the TEACH Act (American Library Association)
http://www.ala.org/ala/issuesadvocacy/copyright/teachact/index.cfm

Guide to the TEACH Act for the University System of Georgia (representing numerous Georgia Universities). There is also a link on the left that has information on copyright and fair use for the University System of Georgia as well.
http://www.usg.edu/legal/teach_act/

TEACH Act for University of Texas
http://www.utsystem.edu/ogc/intellectualproperty/teachact.htm

University of Connecticut TEACH Act policy (also information on fair use for this university as well)
http://www.lib.uconn.edu/copyright/teachAct.html

University of Alaska TEACH Act policy
http://hosting.uaa.alaska.edu/designteam/teach_act/teach_act.html

Colorado State University TEACH Act policy
http://tilt.colostate.edu/guides/tilt_copyright/exemption_distance.cfm

George Mason University policy on TEACH Act and fair use
http://universitypolicy.gmu.edu/1104gen.html

Accessibility in ADA Section 508:

Ohio State University web accessibility policy regarding ADA section 508
http://ada.osu.edu/resources/WebPolicies.htm

University of Wisconsin-Madison policy on Web accessibility and section 508
http://www.wisc.edu/policy/wwwap.php

Texas A&M web accessibility policies (offers links to the university's policies as well as federal laws and information on section 508)
http://webaccess.tamu.edu/policies.php

University of Utah section 508 accessibility standards
http://ucomm.utah.edu/webtemplates/section508.html

Thanks to Brent Vance for compiling the list above.

Mobile with Internet Capability to Surpass PC in 2013?

2010-01-28T09:25:00.006-06:00

Analysts at Garner predict that mobile technologies will browser-equipped phones will exceed 1.83 billion, compared with 1.78 billion PCs worldwide by 2013. They expect PCs to remain the most popular browsing device until 2015. Assuming this is very possible, the implication for eLearning is that what you do should be accessible to the small screen.

Also, Gartner claims that 20% of businesses will “own no IT assets” in 2012. Instead these businesses will use cloud-based services and employees will use their own PCs for work. That makes sense.

Copyright Info

2010-01-05T19:27:00.001-06:00

Intellectual property page

(Thanks to Charlie Guest for these)

Code of Best Practices in Fair Use

2010-01-04T17:33:00.001-06:00

Identifying and applying best practices to interpret and apply fair under United States copyright law is an ambiguous task. Nowhere is this more difficult than in the Open Courseware movement in which some leading higher education institutions publish academic course content openly on the Internet for free. A recent guide that simplifies the legalities of using copyrighted materials in open courseware, Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for OpenCourseWare, can serve as a useful tool for educators and administrators struggling with situations involving fair use. It was developed by experts in media and fair use from Johns Hopkins, American University, MIT, Tufts University, University of Michigan, University of Notre Dame, and Yale University. It's available as a free download from the Center of Social Media at American U.

Free eBook for Higher Ed Educators

2009-12-15T09:37:00.002-06:00

The University of Colorado at Denver has published a new, free ebook for online college instructors. The CU Online Handbook covers a variety of issues and topics for distance teachers, including:
* how to transition from face-to-face to online teaching
* how to use web 2.0 tools like Twitter and blogs for educational purposes
* how to use eCollege

Download the e-book at http://www.cudenver.edu/Academics/CUOnline/FacultyResources/Handbook/Pages/Handbook2009.aspx

Short Guide to Evaluation of Digital Work

2009-12-10T14:24:00.001-06:00

One of the recurring issues in higher education regarding faculty developing electronic learning materials is getting all this work considered in the tenure and promotion process. The Modern Languages Association has a wiki that tries to address that question in part, A Short Guide to Evaluation of Digital Work. According to the wiki, "This short guide gathers a collection of questions evaluators can ask about a project, a check list of what to look for in a project, and some ideas about how to find experts in one place." This is a section of the overall Wiki, The Evaluation of Digital Work. You can access the wiki at http://wiki.mla.org/index.php/Evaluation_Wiki

Teaching in Higher Ed-Now

2009-11-14T20:04:00.001-06:00

I came across a blog entry of David Williams, the President of University of Alabama Huntsville, in relation to university teaching at http://www.uah.edu/president/blog/teachingblog.php

Below is the part I found interesting.

"Teaching – Now

If we are to teach our students in the way that they are taught in K-12 system, then we must stay in contact with that system and be aware of how new generations of students will expect to be taught when they come to university.

I was recently in Mobile at the George Hall elementary school – a 100% minority school in one of the poorest areas of that city. The teachers were podcasting some of their classes and in the process of setting up streaming video webcasts for some of their other classes. At another high school in Mobile, foreign language class was taught synchronously on-line from a school where there were enough students who wanted to learn Spanish that a teacher was on site. So the web, the ipod and the video from afar are all common in third grade. Should we not be doing the same at a leading technological university?

As teachers we should continually find out the expectations of our students in terms of the best way for them to learn – not seek their input on the content or the way we test their grasp of the content - but the ways that we communicate the knowledge that we believe they must gain from the courses we teach in order that they be successful in applying that knowledge."

SL Meeting Results in Positive ROI

2009-09-11T15:29:00.003-05:00

Here is is a link to a CNBC video based on a joint Linden Lab/IBM study "How Meeting In Second Life Transformed IBM's Technology Elite Into Virtual World Believers." IBM estimates that they saved $320,000 by hosting a recent conference in Second Life versus holding the event in the physical world. See http://secondlifegrid.net/casestudies/IBM for an Executive Summary.

iTunes U Introductions

2009-08-31T20:10:00.002-05:00

Introduction to iTunes U

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPNQGmCMv1E&feature=related

This is an introduction to iTunes U produced by Apple Inc.

ITunes U at Miami Dade College
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXjVn20co9I&feature=related

This is a pretty good intro into how iTunes U is used at the largest community college in the US.

iTunes U at the University of Georgia
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzTYv7egjKQ

Two early adopters from UGA introduce the iTunes U and talk about their experiences.

Electronic Learning Videos #1

2009-08-31T16:51:00.003-05:00

Technology in the Classroom

(4:43)
This video was created by the University of Alabama to explain how several students use technology. This video explains it from the student side. (contributed by Catherine Armstrong)

Connecting education with how students use technology
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztzfv9zsOLQ&NR=1 (1:47)

This video discusses students use of web 2.0 and introduces a really interesting web site for resources, ConnectingEducation.com. (see http://www.schoolinfo.ca/connectingeducation/index.htm).

Learning to change Changing to learn
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UDdCyr1DZM&feature=related (5:36)

Geared more toward k-12, it's worth watching just for the opening segment. Well produced sound bites by educators. "It's the death of education, but it's the dawn of learning."

10 Digital Writing Opportunities You Probably Know and 10 You Probably Don’t

2009-04-29T10:21:00.001-05:00

This blog post by an English fellow, Tom Barrett, provides some creative ideas for using simple tech tools for education.

See http://tbarrett.edublogs.org/2008/12/12/10-digital-writing-opportunities-you-probably-know-and-10-you-probably-dont/

Educational Affordances of Virtual Worlds

2009-04-03T11:45:00.028-05:00

This morning a colleague at another university emailed me about a presentation he is delivering soon regarding trends in education and instructional design. He wanted to include virtual worlds and asked for my "views regarding some of the key instructional affordances such worlds offer, or key instructional principles associated with this trend."

This was my response.

Hi ___________,

Interesting that you asked that. I'm just finishing a chapter this weekend on a very similar topic. Briefly,

I use a personal framework or taxonomy that consists of elemental learning (actual and simulated elements) and synthetic learning outcomes (basically decontextualized procedures, concepts, and knowledge). In other words, actual and simulated elements involve [assessing or learning] the "real" task or a simulation of that task. Synthetic learning outcomes do not.

If you mean by affordance, the quality of an environment or an object that allows an individual to do something, perform an action, etc., virtual worlds clearly support elemental learning outcomes. This is the top of the food chain in our business, isn't it? Why? Because if you are really going to be a surgeon, what you really have to do is real surgery. The next best thing to that is a simulation of real surgery.

What virtual worlds like Second Life do for us is to provides us with three-dimensional environments including audio and in the near future other sensory outputs, that lets us behave closely enough to the way we would in the real world that we can "feel" part of whatever aspects of the physical world that are emulated.

Actual Elements VR examples:

Conferences, business meetings, office hours, sales presentations, philosophy classes, research focus groups, counseling sessions, business receptions, music concerts, practicing foreign languages

Simulated Elements VR examples:

Archeological excavations, cancer surgery, flying airplanes, historical reenactments, body processes, atomic chain reactions

Curiously, I find it easier to generate actual element examples from my recent experiences in Second Life than simulated elements examples.

I have attached three images I captured in Second Life within the last week. I thought you might use them in your talk.

2 actual elements images

A panel discussion of individuals from global companies (e.g., Sun Microsystems, Crédit Agricole) at the VR Best Practices in Education conference last weekend. This type of thing is especially worthwhile in SL because while listening to audio and watching PowerPoints of one speaker, the audience is interacting in text chat with one or more of the other panelists.

A doctoral student at the University of South Alabama (SL name- Aevalle Galicia) at the reception desk at our Online Learning Lab SL Learning Center. From Sunday to Wednesday of this week, our little visitor gadget recorded the SL names of 35 unique visitors to our learning center. (Of course, much of that time there is no one there and avatars of visitors just wander around wondering why certain of our many gadgets aren't working. :-) But, we're working on it.

Simulated elements image

My avatar (SL name- Learner Magic) going through a CTscan machine in a simulation build called "Cancerland" regarding a young woman's experience with thyroid cancer. Having my avatar physically simulate some of the situations she did was a moving experience to me.

Do schools kill creativity?

2009-03-16T14:53:00.004-05:00

This talk by Ken Robinson is very entertaining and argues for more creativity in educating children. He's a wonderful speaker. No earth shattering ideas here, but definitely not boring.

A higher resolution video is availble from TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design).

FreeRice.com: An Internet Site That Feeds the Hungry

2009-03-15T12:14:00.003-05:00

Free Rice (http://www.freerice.com/) is a casual game using a multiple-choice format to drill a variety of general related knowledge and physical concept areas including language vocabulary (English, French, Spanish, Italian and German), mathematics, chemistry, geography, and art. Simple correct answer feedback is given for each response and levels of difficulty are based on the number of available items in the existing content pool. A few introductory questions set the player's initial level. Questions are repeated on a scheduled basis only if the player responds to them incorrectly.

What sets Free Rice apart from a zillion other similar edu-drill games is that by playing this game and acquiring general related knowledge, the player is contributing food to the hungry. Here's how it works. Every time the player answers a question correctly sponsors donate 10 grains of rice to the UN World Food Program. The rice appears virtually in a simple wooden bowl on the right side the screen as the game progresses, which along with periodic "wow!" comments, provides players with immediate and tangible positive reinforcement.

The "feel-good" socially-beneficial aspect of this game has contributed to its status as a "viral" Internet casual game. The site began in October, 2007. In the following year, 2008, freerice.com reports donating 43,942,622,700 grains of rice. That is sensationally successful for any kind of educational activity! Think of the amount of related knowledge players acquire on a spaced learning schedule. At the same time, learners are reminded on an interval schedule of the importance of ending world hunger.

Web 3.0

2009-03-12T06:25:00.003-05:00

One of the clearest explanations I've come in contact with regarding the whole Web 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 preoccupation comes from Jonathan Strickland at HowStuffWorks.com (See http://computer.howstuffworks.com/web-306.htm).

Before you do that take the Web 3.0 Quiz (See http://computer.howstuffworks.com/web-30-quiz.htm) and see if you can "ceiling out" on the pretest.

Google Scholar Demo

2009-02-08T17:02:00.002-06:00

Last fall I developed a demo on the Internet to show some of the
features of Google Scholar and how you can use it to connect it to
your bibliography manager and the university library. A couple of
people have asked me recently for the URL. Google Scholar is a great
tool and it's relatively easy to use.

See my demo "A Couple of Reasons Google Scholar Doesn't Suck" at
http://www.southalabama.edu/coe/bset/dempsey/googlescholar/googlescholar.htm
If you lose the URL, you can access through my school web site.

Google Scholar is located at http://scholar.google.com

Preston Parker

2009-02-06T21:12:00.012-06:00

Like a lot of guys on February 4th, I kept checking Rivals.com to see how the recruiting at my favorite college football schools was doing. In process I came across an interesting link/article, "Look back at Class of 2005: Good, bad and tragic," which looked at the Top 100 athletes recruited into colleges in 2005, how they did, and what they are up to now. (see http://footballrecruiting.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=908560). It's amazing the contrast in the life stories of some of these kids. So many were thrown out of school—sometimes multiple schools--that the extremes (the ones cashing in with the NFL or are waiting for or are already in prison) pale by comparison. There are many good kids in the middle, outstanding athletes, doing their thing and basically out of this conversation/diatribe. Good guys. Soon to be former athletes and pillars of their communities. But, what strikes you is the number of young men thrown out of their schools. Schools that surely wanted to keep them in school and brag about their success in graduating their athletes.

Being a Florida State fan, I have been really hit with this lately. Two of the best and physically similar players this year were Myron Rolle and Preston Parker. I guess neither was on that graduating list from 2005. It is hard to say who the more talented athlete is. Both are handsome black men with great potential. At FSU they put little tomahawks on your helmet when you do well on the field. Both had so many tomahawks that the gold below barely shone below. To be honest, I did not know their backgrounds, but I suspected one or both grew up without a father around. My father died when I was young, so I know firsthand what that can lead to. I was wrong about Myron Rolle.

Myron Rolle, a potential first or second round draft pick, chose to accept the honor of a Rhodes Scholarship this year. He had two, apparently loving parents, originally from Jamaica. He graduated high school a year early and from FSU in 2.5 years so. I guess he thought he could wait a year to cash in on all his hard work as an athlete. Very good for him! As a young man I'm sure he learned Premack's Principle--likely from his parents.

I can't say I know anything about his life outside of football really, but Wikipedia (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myron_Rolle ) tells a story of a kid who grew up with two parents and whose hero, Robert Smith (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Smith_(football_player) may even be more captivating than Myron Rolle. So, I was wrong about him being without his father like another FSU legend, Dexter Carter. I am glad about that.

There is no Wikipedia entry for Preston Parker.

You could look at the Seminoles page in which they describe Preston Parker as "An All-American candidate as one of the most athletic wide receiver/tailbacks in the nation, " (see http://seminoles.cstv.com/sports/m-footbl/mtt/parker_preston00.html), but I suggest you do that right away as the university is not likely to keep the web site up very long. Preston Parker, stoned out on pot and whatever, fell asleep in a drive-through at a McDonalds in Tallahassee. It was his third major fuck-up and his second within a year. FSU and Saint Bobby had no choice but to toss his ass to the wolves. He still has his scholarship, which is only fair in an organization that makes millions off or these supremely talented kids. It's a symbiotic relationship.

Had he been a little more circumspect, there would be little doubt that he could have been a very rich young man in short order. I've seen him fill in at quarterback at one of the better programs in the US. Physically, Preston Parker is a gem. I think if you placed him down in a Brazilian football team, he would wind up showing them Pele's shortcomings.

I couldn't find anything on the Internet about Preston Parker's personal life except that he was born in 1987, the year after Myron Rolle was born. I'm hoping that Preston snaps out of it. He doesn't have to be a Rhodes Scholar, nor me nor you—whoever you are. I just hope he finds a way to change his M.O. before it's too late. It happens. Like my other brothers and sisters in academia who love these talented young people, I wish we could have given him more of what he needed. We didn't reach him. Or at least we didn't reach him and grab hold tightly enough. Maybe he'll recall something we did to reach him and that will help.

The Business of SL

2009-02-06T18:10:00.001-06:00

The Business of SL (See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZZlV2srUIE&feature=related

And then go to the 3 episodes that follow) is a pretty good discussion of that aspect of virtual worlds. By now, the importance of virtual worlds in business—even my business of higher education—seems obvious. The fascinating thing is the resistance to adopt based on unfamiliarity.

Keep and Convert Video Web Site

2008-12-04T15:24:00.001-06:00

The Keep Vid web site (see http://keepvid.com/) is the easiest method I've found to keep and convert videos such as FLV videos from YouTube. It also can find the original video format (e.g., Quicktime) if that is available. A very handy tool.

Microlearning Links

2008-12-04T14:57:00.012-06:00

Different phones/costs/capabilities/systems

Below are [some of the] links compiled by Bev Ferrell (I think), the moderator of ITFORUM listserv, on topics related to microlearning. Microlearning are small unit of learning or short-term learning activities. They fit well with reusability schemes (as sharable content objects, for example).

http://www.microlearning.org/MicroWiki.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microlearning
http://online.cit.act.edu.au/mlearning/lowoconnell2006.pdf

Microdidactics
http://edutechwiki.unige.ch/en/Microlearning
http://web.mit.edu/comm-forum/mit4/papers/hug.pdf
http://learningspaces.org/n/papers/didaktiksandinstruction.doc.

Free preview page
http://www.springerlink.com/content/k205275167p48k24/fulltext.pdf?page=1
http://www.sivas.com/microcontent/articles/microlearning2005/microlearning.pdf
http://www.trainingpayback.com/
http://www.waag.org/domain/education
http://7scenes.com/

Snelson Paper
http://jolt.merlot.org/vol3no4/snelson.htm

Authoring Framework
http://www.microlearning.org/proceedings2006/ml2006_gugerbauer_paper_authoring_framework.pdf

Software game template
http://sat.researchstudio.at/downloads/publications/boehme_thesis_2007.pdf
http://www.scribd.com/doc/12389/On-Micromedia-Microlearning

Enterprise
http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/marcia-conner/learn-all-levels/enterprise-micro-learning

ASTD
http://tk07.astd.org/Handouts%20for%20Web/TH102.pdf

Web 2.0 in Africa

2008-12-04T14:32:00.007-06:00

This is an eight minute video from Business Africa/CTA video documenting actual cases on the use of Web 2.0 applications in the development sector, specifically among farmers in Africa.

Great Quote! (We'll miss you, George)

2008-07-01T21:19:00.003-05:00

"I've been uplinked and downloaded. I've been inputted and outsourced. I know the upside of downsizing; I know the downside of upgrading. I'm a high-tech lowlife. A cutting-edge, state-of-the-art, bicoastal multitasker, and I can give you a gigabyte in a nanosecond…"

-George Carlin (reported in Time Magazine, July 7, 2008, p. 19)

Augmented Reality Videos Show Promise for Learning Applications

2008-06-28T11:25:00.004-05:00

One of the exciting developing technologies for instructional designers and other educators is augmented reality. There are a couple of YouTube movies that provide a short intro.

Beyond Tomorrow (Augmented Reality) shows the basic idea of AR and demonstrates immediate applications for learning for children with AR storybooks.

Second Life as a Platform for Augmented Reality demos superimposing the SL client, avatars, and other SL graphics on a video or in real time. This is really kool as the SL environment is becoming familiar to many people these days! Follow up information at the AR Second Life site at Georgia Tech.

“In Plain English” Videos on YouTube

2008-06-01T09:54:00.003-05:00

YouTube (see http://www.youtube.com/ ) hosts a number of "In Plain English" tutorials from Common Craft (see http://www.commoncraft.com ). These are very short—under five minutes—and straightforward explanations of current tech phenomena. Search YouTube using "in plain english" and you find links to all of these.

Below are some of my favorites for educators with their explanations from the authors.

Social Media in Plain English
http://www.commoncraft.com/show A simple story that illustrates the forces shaping social media.

Google Docs in Plain Englsh
http://docs.google.com - Create and share online documents, spreadsheets and presentations. It's free.

RSS in Plain English
We made this video for our friends (and yours) that haven't yet felt the power of our friend the RSS reader. We want to convert people and if you know someone who would love RSS and hasn't yet tried it, point them here for 3.5 minutes.

Wikis in Plain English
We made this video because wiki web sites are easy to use, but hard to describe. We hope to turn you on to a better way to plan a camping trip, or create the next Wikipedia. (also embedded in an earlier post below)

Blogs in Plain English
http://www.commoncraft.com/show A video for people who wonder why blogs are such a big deal.

Social Networking in Plain English
We made this video for people who wonder why social networking sites are so popular. We think one reason is because they help to solve a real world problem. www.commoncraft.com/show

Podcasting in Plain English
http://commoncraft.com/show A 3 minute explanation of podcasting.

eLearning Samples

2007-11-12T11:12:00.001-06:00

Cathy Moore's list of interactives and e-learning has some great examples and ideas.

Instructional Design Knowledge Base

2007-11-12T11:08:00.000-06:00

Good site by Nada Dabbagh explaining phases of instructional design.

Wikis in Plain English

2007-11-12T11:05:00.000-06:00

The embedded video below by Lee Fever withthe Common Craft blog makes wikis highly digestible.

Curriki

2007-03-30T09:26:00.000-05:00

The Curriki site, funded by Sun Microsystems' Scott McNealy, looks very interesting and appears to have the financial base to pull it off. It is a Wiki/repository.

From the site:

“The Curriki site "is an ever-growing collection of free lessons, assessments, resources and textbooks," as the home page states. "The resources have all been developed by members of the Curriki community." Like Wikipedia, Curriki members will be able to comment on and edit the materials on the site.”

See http://www.curriki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Main/

mLearning Info

2007-01-26T16:52:00.001-06:00

a Wikipedia URL
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-learning

A Definition:
“M-Learning is the intersection of mobile computing and e-learning: accessible resources wherever you are, strong search capabilities, rich interaction, powerful support for effective learning, and performance-based assessment. E-Learning independent of location, time or space” (Quinn, 2000).

Quinn C (2000). M-Learning. Mobile, Wireless, In-Your-Pocket Learning. Linezine, Fall 2000. Available at http://www.linezine.com/2.1/features/cqmmwiyp.htm

From a pedagogical perspective, mobile learning supports a new dimension in the
educational process. Characteristics (Chen et. al., 2002) of mobile learning include:
1. urgency of learning need;
2. initiative of knowledge acquisition;
3. mobility of learning setting;
4. interactivity of the learning process;
5. 'situatedness' of instructional activities; and
6. integration of instructional content.

Chen, Y.S., Kao, T.C., Sheu, J.P. and Chiang, C.Y. (2002). A Mobile Scaffolding-
Based Bird-Watching Learning System. In M. Milrad, H. U. Hoppe and Kinshuk
(Eds.), IEEE International Workshop on Wireless and Mobile Technologies
Education (pp. 15-22). Los Alamitos, USA: IEEE Computer Society.

“…obstacles can be summarised in the following form:
• Limited memory and storage are major inhibitors.
• Screens are generally too small for the use of any sophisticated applications.
• Intermittent connectivity is a major barrier.
• Cross-platform solutions are not yet possible.
• Links to learning management systems or enterprise systems are in an embryonic stage of development.
• The industry is plagued by proprietary solutions.
• Transmitting across different browsers and platforms is almost impossible.
• Existing applications are not easily integrated to the mobile technology environment.
• Start-up costs are invariably high.
• Tracking outcomes is difficult.
• Security is a major issue.
• Cost of accessing major third-party networks is punitive.
• Multiple permissions are necessary in terms of negotiated access.
• Continuous technology development militates against stability and sustainability in terms of mounting viable m-learning applications.” (McLean, N., 2003).

McLean, N. (2003). The M-Learning Paradigm: an Overview. A Report for the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Vodafone Group Foundation.
accessed 18nov06 at
http://scholar.google.com/url?sa=U&q=http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ltg/reports/mlearning.doc

Brown T H (2003). Towards a Model for M-Learning in Africa.
Available at http://www.up.ac.za/telematic/article.pdf

Kinshuk (2003). Adaptive mobile learning technologies.
Available at http://www.globaled.com/articles/Kinshuk2003.pdf

Mobilearn (2003). The Mobilearn Project Vision.
Available at http://www.mobilearn.org/vision/visiton.htm

O’Malley C et al (2003). Mobilearn WP4 – Guidelines for Learning/Teaching/Tutoring in a Mobile Environment. Available at: http://www.mobilearn.org/download/results/guidelines.pdf

Singh H (2003). Leveraging Mobile and Wireless Internet.
Available at http://www.learningcircuits.com/2003/sep2003/singh.htm

Possible mLearning working definition--
mLearning is the transmission or reception of intentional or incidental learning through physically small mobile and portable devices.

Guidelines on Learning that Inform Teaching at UNSW

2006-12-06T00:00:00.000-06:00

The Guidelines for Teaching and Learning is the University of New South Wales’ overt response to guide faculty toward quality teaching in higher education and act as guiding principles to consider faculty members’ promotion process. See http://www.guidelinesonlearning.unsw.edu.au/guidelinesHome.cfm.

ePortfolios for everyone in an entire nation?

2006-12-05T21:29:00.000-06:00

An interesting take on eportfolios is “employed” by the nationally-supported Careers Wales programs. See https://www.careerswales.com/progressfile/default.asp. The portfolio systems is referred to as “ e-Progress File: an online e-portfolio where you can build up a unique personal profile.”

Endnote and Google Scholar--a Well-Referenced Duo

2006-10-01T07:48:00.000-05:00

I’m on my sabbatical in Malaysia and I’ve finally had a little time to learn and start using Endnote (See http://www.endnote.com/ ) I’m using version 9, which is not the latest, but in general, I am very happy with it. One thing I have found to be very handy when you locate an article or pdf on the Internet, is to use Google Scholar (See http://scholar.google.com/ ) to automatically put the full reference to it in your endnote library. You have to set that up in Google Scholar preferences, but it’s just a check box.
What’s that you say? You haven’t signed up for Google Scholar? C’mon now…

Two Great Connections

2006-09-29T21:30:00.000-05:00

I would like to recommend two sites/blogs about ID and Education that are what I might refer to as "connection" sites. I suppose they are editorialized repositories. Whatever...

One I have often designated as my browser home page in the last couple of years is elearningpost (See http://www.elearningpost.com/ ). It uses a half-blog – half-feature article format. elearningpost’s stated goal is to…
“Explore news, views and stories around Corporate Learning, Community Building, Instructional Design, Knowledge Management and more. Elearningpost's mission is to provide quality e-learning and knowledege management content that attracts a diverse and emerging audience.”
A second blog that I’ve just become familiar with in the last month is the eLearning Guru (See http://www.e-learningguru.com/ ) This site points you to a good number of interesting sites without a lot of yada-yada. Check out the very recent post on cell phone use in Kenya. These kind of demographics are making mLearning impossible to ignore.

Learning Objects and Games at MERLOT Conf.

2006-08-08T21:03:00.000-05:00

I am spending this week attending the MERLOT International Conference in Ottawa, Canada. MERLOT stands for Multimedia Educational Resources for Learning and Online Teaching. See http://www.merlot.org/ . I think of MERLOT as a large repository, and that it is, but I am also interested in seeing what else it is.

Today I attended two half-day workshops. Both were conducted at the University of Ottawa. One workshop concerned choosing and assessing learning objects and the other educational games. The first workshop presented by Liesel Knaack, an Asst. Professor from the University of Ontario Institute of Technology, which she referred to as a laptop university.

Dr. Knaack developed a very useful web site regarding developing learning objects. See http://faculty.uoit.ca/knaack/cualo/index.html. She is also developing a neat site called Learning Object on Learning Objects (still under construction). See http://innovation.dc-uoit.ca/learningobjects/cualo/CUALO_content.html

I hope she keeps these linked, but in case they disappears I have included some of her reference links below.

Two examples of sites that use learning objects (the Plagiarism one is particularly good.)

Learning Object 1: Plagiarism Prevention- http://innovation.dc-uoit.ca/plagiarism_lo/index2.html [This link opens in a new window.]

Learning Object 2: Pharmacokinetics - http://icarus.med.utoronto.ca/lo/pharmacology9/index.swf

Some general links related to learning objects:

A Teacher's Dozen - Fourteen General, Research-Based Principles for Improving Higher Learning in Our Classrooms by Thomas Anthony Angelo - http://aitt.acadiau.ca/research/Best_Teaching/teachersdozen1.pdf
A Teacher's Dozen - Summary of Article - http://faculty.uoit.ca/knaack/cualo/attachments/A%20Teachers%20Dozen%20one%20pager.pdf
David Wiley - The Instructional Use of Learning Objects - http://www.reusability.org/read/
Pithamber Polsani - The Use and Abuse of Reusable Learning Objects - http://jodi.ecs.soton.ac.uk/Articles/v03/i04/Polsani/
Claire Bradley & Tom Boyle - Students' Use of Learning Objects - http://imej.wfu.edu/articles/2004/2/01/index.asp
Interdisciplinary Journal of Knowledge and Learning Objects - Volume 1- http://ijklo.org/volume1.html; Volume 2 - http://ijklo.org/
Wikipedia - Definition of a Learning Object - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_object
Using Learning Objects in Four Instructional Architectures - Chuck Barritt http://www.svispi.org/networker/2002/0702a1.htm

These were all good, but a number of the learning object repositories she recommended were not open like MERLOT, but closed except to a particular group. Surely someone must have a list of “open” learning object repositories around the world.

The second workshop regarding educational games was conducted by David Kaufman and Louise Sauvé, two Canadian academics connected with an organization called Simulation and Advanced Gaming Environments (SAGE) for learning. See http://www.sageforlearning.ca/.

Related to their work is something called Educational Games Central. See http://www.savie.qc.ca/carrefourjeux/an/. Apparently, you can develop frame games using their templates using this site. I’ve registered the University of South Alabama, but it takes a couple of days to get everything clear. It seems worth looking into.

A couple other related sites I bumped into while surfing during the workshop today are…

International Journal of Intelligent Games & Simulation.See http://www.scit.wlv.ac.uk/~cm1822/ijigs.htm
Digital Games Research Association. See http://www.digra.org/
Cyberchase - PBS games. See http://pbskids.org/cyberchase/games.html

And, last but not least---- the latest version of a narcissist competitive video site—Google Idol. The competitions are on two categories, web cams and music videos. I wonder if sites like this can be considered a MMOG? I could argue that either pro or con.
See http://googleidol.com/

Blogger for Word

2006-07-04T17:55:00.000-05:00

Another pretty neat tool I’m just learning about is Blogger for Word. See http://buzz.blogger.com/bloggerforword.html In essence, this tool allows you to compose in MS Word (a huge advantage) and even publish from Word. The only disadvantage is that you can’t automatically publish photos, but one can just insert them in the HTML as I did above.

1st Test of Audioblogger

2006-07-04T17:48:00.000-05:00

Just for fun I recorded off my little laptop mike using SkypeOut which lets you call regular phone numbers. I'll test under better conditions later. The number to call in the US to make an Audio Blog is 4 1 5 - 8 5 6 - 0 2 0 5.

The next revolution...

2005-11-22T22:23:00.000-06:00

…will not be televised; it will be podcast.”
According to one of my podcast books. (It’s typical that middle-aged guys like me gotta read books about what younger techno-kool people like me just intuit.)
So, my dear friend Lulu who sends out the “Farm Report on e-mail”, which concerns selling her and her husband, Farmer Herman’s produce from their farm in North Florida, can now reach a lot more people. Don’t ask me for statistics, but podcasting is only a year old and has changed the world in a limited way. In my view, it has made knowledge and content more specific. That’s something we’ve been waiting for. I can not watch as often as I can listen. I want to know, but I can not read as often as I can listen. Want me to repeat it in a different way?
My friend Lulu’s business depends in some way on communicating effectively in the right time and the right place. Podcasting does that. Not all the logistics are worked out yet, but in my view, podcasting is a delightful tool to get information to people as they need it.
IF we get involved in it now, we can do good work.
Lulu and Herman, who already know what’s what (in that they know what they need to inform people about), can be famous.

2005-02-23T20:53:00.000-06:00

Slam! Bang! Learn! Pow!

What could be more fun than the Periodic Table you had to memorize in Chemistry class?

Now, isn’t that a conundrum?

Actually, speaking as one who as a high school student (and dropout) saw the periodic table as a beast at best, I am really encouraged by the creativity in the delightful site titled, The Comic Book Periodic Table of the Elements.

This is where it’s at!

This is DRY, way DRY, stuff to most students.

Sure, some kids like periodic tables and such. Good. What about everyone else?

The folks who designed this site have taken an unexciting thing and made it pretty Kool!

Good for you, John P. Selegue and F. James Holler at the Department of Chemistry at the University of Kentucky. Good for you! You are educational Supermen!!!

Important Research About How We See Web Sites

2005-01-22T13:38:00.000-06:00

The recent release of Eyetrack III research, though quite limited in scope and depth, is very interesting. This study tracked the eyes of 46 people to learn how they see online news. The participants in this study were observed for one hour as their eyes followed mock news websites and real multimedia content.

I have copied and bulleted excerpts from their findings quoted from their web site below:

• The eyes most often fixated first in the upper left of the page, then hovered in that area before going left to right. Only after perusing the top portion of the page for some time did their eyes explore further down the page.

• Dominant headlines most often draw the eye first upon entering the page -- especially when they are in the upper left, and most often (but not always) when in the upper right.

• Photographs, contrary to what you might expect (and contrary to findings of 1990 Poynter eyetracking research on print newspapers), aren't typically the entry point to a homepage. Text rules on the PC screen -- both in order viewed and in overall time spent looking at it.

• Smaller type encourages focused viewing behavior (that is, reading the words), while larger type promotes lighter scanning. In general, our testing found that people spent more time focused on small type than large type. Larger type resulted in more scanning of the page -- fewer words overall were fixated on -- as people looked around for words or phrases that captured their attention.

• We found that when people look at blurbs under headlines on news homepages, they often only look at the left one-third of the blurb. In other words, most people just look at the first couple of words -- and only read on if they are engaged by those words.

• On average, a headline has less than a second of a site visitor's attention. For headlines -- especially longer ones -- it would appear that the first couple of words need to be real attention-grabbers if you want to capture eyes.

• Navigation placed at the top of a homepage performed best -- that is, it was seen by the highest percentage of test subjects and looked at for the longest duration.

• Shorter paragraphs performed better in Eyetrack III research than longer ones. Our data revealed that stories with short paragraphs received twice as many overall eye fixations as those with longer paragraphs. The longer paragraph format seems to discourage viewing.

• We also learned that the bigger the image, the more time people took to look at it.

• We found that images that are at least 210 x 230 pixels in size were viewed by more than half of the testers. Our research also shows that clean, clear faces in images attract more eye fixations on homepages.

• Overall, we observed that participants were more likely to correctly recall facts, names, and places when they were presented with that information in a text format. However new, unfamiliar, conceptual information was more accurately recalled when participants received it in a multimedia graphic format.

• Story information about processes or procedures seemed to be comprehended well when presented using animation and text. A step-by-step animation we tested supported this idea.

This limited study has real implications for educational web sites. More controlled studies would really be important to explore these variables, but this is a very promising line of research.

Burke Johnson's Educational Research Site

2005-01-11T19:26:00.000-06:00

Want to know the strengths and weaknesses of various data collection methods? Want to see an excellent concept map illustrating mixed model and mixed method research? How about reading a transcription of a lecture on sampling?
If these types educational research topics interest you let me recommend the web site of my good friend and colleague, Burke Johnson.

Open Source Resources

2005-01-08T11:57:00.000-06:00

Two interesting links on Open Source I’ve come across lately are SoundForge.net and the GNU General Public Licence site. I particularly like SourceForge.net, which claims to be “the largest repository of Open Source code and applications available on the Internet.” There are many types of open source software. Probably the one thing it all has in common is that the program source code is openly shared with developers and users.
Open Source has great possibilites, especially for users who are unable to afford commercially available software.

Other Places to Learn Geographic Locations

2004-12-29T18:38:00.000-06:00

I sent an e-mail to some folks I thought might be interested in the geography puzzle I mentioned yesterday. Bernie Dodge from San Diego State responded that he also liked the Geography Olympics site.

In addition, he told me about another great geography game site called Geosense. Geosense is awesome! I've set it as my temporary home page.
Another site that is kind of fun dealing with US state locations is the Can You Pass Third Grade? site.
Terri Wilbanks, a friend and foreign language instructor at my university, had a cute comment about Nunavit, Canada's largest and newest territory.
"Nunavit? I think that's a place my mom used to talk about but I thought it was smaller...... 'I want Nunavit in my house!' "
Finally, if you wish to follow up with some basic knowledge about a particular country, check out the CIA World Factbook. I have no idea what data the CIA is collecting about you if you use this, but the resource is very good.

Burkina Faso?

2004-12-28T18:34:00.000-06:00

Where is Nunavit?
How about Burkina Faso?
Myanmar?
I suggest you order The Global Puzzle from geographyolympics.com/.
It’s about $15. I read about it in USA Today and ordered one for my father-in-law for Christmas and one for me for the hell of it.
That was very fortunate.
I have been sufficiently humbled by my limited geographic knowledge and Brenda and I have had great fun solving the puzzle on our dining room table to boot.
I wish I had thought to market this idea.

Videoconferencing Sites

2004-12-18T15:40:00.000-06:00

Members of a listserv I belong to (DEOS-L - The Distance Education Online Symposium [DEOS-L@lists.psu.edu]) has had a number of good suggestions regarding Videoconferencing reference sites. A few of these are below:

An introduction to using videoconferencing technology for teaching
by Jodi Reed and Merry Woodruff of San Diego State University.
http://www.kn.pacbell.com/wired/vidconf/Using.html

“VCAlberta.ca aims to be a community driven site that provides advice on the videoconferencing standards in Alberta and answers questions on how to effectively conduct many different kinds of videoconferences. There are tools, forums, frequently asked questions in addition to a directory and tips and tricks articles.”
http://vcalberta.ca/

The Center for Interactive Learning and Collaboration has a pretty good resources section.
http://www.cilc.org/tools_and_resources.aspx

Lisa Tyler, of Global Compliance Network, has an internet-based tutorial about educational videoconferencing success strategies
To view it, go to www.gcn1.net and login using "gcn" for the username and "dugan" for the password. You will need the Flash plugin.

Sloan-C-Resources

2004-12-14T17:25:00.000-06:00

From the Sloan-C Resources Report "The online enrollment projections have been realized, and there is no evidence that enrollments have reached a plateau. Online enrollments continue to grow at rates faster than for the overall student body, and schools expect the rate of growth to further increase:

Over 1.9 million students were studying online in the fall of 2003.
Schools expect the number of online students to grow to over 2.6 million by the fall of 2004.
Schools expect online enrollment growth to accelerate the expected average growth rate for online students for 2004 is 24.8%, up from 19.8% in 2003.
Overall, schools were pretty accurate in predicting enrollment growth last year's predicted online enrollment for 2003 was 1,920,734; this year's number from the survey is 1,971,397. "

Distributed vs. Distance Education in Higher Ed?

2004-12-14T11:49:00.000-06:00

This first paper in the ACE/EDUCAUSE series, Distributed Education and Its Challenges: An Overview, provides a general framework for understanding the key questions that distributed education poses to the higher education community. This overview paper identifies significant issues associated with distributed education and suggests a series of questions to help institutional leaders establish and validate their options. (from the paper's abstract)
http://www.acenet.edu/bookstore/pdf/distributed-learning/distributed-learning-01.pdf

2004-11-15T18:37:00.001-06:00

Several IDD students, alumni, and faculty presented at the 2004 eLearn Conference in Washington, DC. Pictured from left to right are Hendon Blaylock, Ann Marie Armstrong, Lin Mulenberg, Brenda Litchfield, and Jack Dempsey. My butt looks pretty big in this photo, doesn't it? Must be the lens.

Some interesting things (and sites) I found out about at the eLearn Conference in Washington, DC (NOV 2004)

2004-11-15T11:23:00.000-06:00

Reuse
http://www.reusablelearning.org
I took a half-day workshop regarding reusability of learning resources. The workshop was delivered by Robbie Robson who chairs the IEEE Standards Committee and is connected with the National Science Digital Library This is a very important movement in education. This site has a good deal information on that topic. A PowerPoint and other materials can be downloaded from:
http://www.reusablelearning.org/index.asp?id=104

Small Talk
http://www.landware.com/smalltalk/
From the web site:
“Small Talk is a software application for Palm OS handheld devices. More than just a phrase book or a dictionary, Small Talk allows you to engage in a real conversation with another person, even if you don't speak the same language.”

CSS Zen Garden
http://www.csszengarden.com/
Shows what is possible with cascading style sheets. The same content is portrayed different ways by graphic designers using CSSs.

Math.com
http://www.math.com/
An excellent site that chunks each subtopic into 4 different levels of engagement. It also is an first-rate example of how to phrase copyright language for content you are willing to share . but not give away all rights to.

ADL, SCORM, and CORDRA
www.adlnet.org
Robert Wisher, director of the Advanced Distributed Learning Initiative, delivered an interesting overview of ADL initiatives, particularly SCORM for interoperability and CORDRA for content repositories. Powerpoint can be downloaded from:
https://www.adlnet.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=rcdetails&libid=752&filterid=37

The Gamer’s Directory
http://www.gamescanner.com/
This site has just about every link related to computer gaming. It’s great!!! Somehow, I had not come in contact with it. I guess it’s my age.

Portfolio Guidelines: Instructional Systems Technology, School of Education, Indiana University at Bloomington

2004-10-29T13:52:00.000-05:00

Portfolio Guidelines: Instructional Systems Technology, School of Education, Indiana University at Bloomington

Indiana University's ID program has a pretty interesting web site on portfolios with examples. Many American higher education programs are seeing the value of portfolios as a method of evidence-based program assessment and promoting student achievement.