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…
Sunday, October 01, 2006
Friday, September 29, 2006
Two Great Connections
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.
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.
Tuesday, August 08, 2006
Learning Objects and Games at MERLOT Conf.
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:
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…
See http://googleidol.com/
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
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
See http://googleidol.com/
Tuesday, July 04, 2006
Blogger for Word
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.
Tuesday, November 22, 2005
The next revolution...
…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.
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.
Wednesday, February 23, 2005
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 
Saturday, January 22, 2005
Important Research About How We See Web Sites
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.
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.
Tuesday, January 11, 2005
Burke Johnson's Educational Research Site
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.
Saturday, January 08, 2005
Open Source Resources
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.
Open Source has great possibilites, especially for users who are unable to afford commercially available software.
Wednesday, December 29, 2004
Other Places to Learn Geographic Locations
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.
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.
Tuesday, December 28, 2004
Burkina Faso?
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.
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.
Saturday, December 18, 2004
Videoconferencing Sites
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.
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.
Tuesday, December 14, 2004
Sloan-C-Resources
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?
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
http://www.acenet.edu/bookstore/pdf/distributed-learning/distributed-learning-01.pdf
Monday, November 15, 2004
Some interesting things (and sites) I found out about at the eLearn Conference in Washington, DC (NOV 2004)
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.
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.
Friday, October 29, 2004
Portfolio Guidelines: Instructional Systems Technology, School of Education, Indiana University at Bloomington
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.
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.
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