FlashVlog

Just had an interesting FlashMeeting with Peter Scott who is at the Knowledge Media Institute in the Open University, and he introduced FlashVlog, the new tool he is developing. It looks very neat and simple, in other words: ideal for educational use. You can see my vlog in the sidebar on the right.
Congrats again to the creative minds at KMI!

Interesting issue on Learning and Emotions

The 'Journal of Learning and Instruction' published an interesting collection of papers on Learning and Emotion. Need to try and find time to read some of the papers :-(.

UNITN - The passion for learning and knowing

Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Organizational and Learning are online available as 2 pdf files: UNITN - The passion for learning and knowing. About 1600 pages worth of holiday readings.
Found this stuff via Wilfred Rubens, via Graham Attwell, via Stephen Downes

EduResources Weblog--Higher Education Resources Online

EduResources Weblog--Higher Education Resources Online can turn out to be a valuable source of information for our EUREA project and website. It provides a newsfeed on higher education resources online !!!
It is linked to a portal which offers a gateway to repositories of Higher Education Resources (though it may not be a harvester or a metadatabase). Need to follow-up...

Communities of Practice: The Role of Classification Schemes and Taxonomies - E-Learning Queen

Through Stephen Downes' OLDaily, I stumbled on to this: An interesting stroy of a teacher looking for learning materials to re-use:E-Learning Queen: Communities of Practice: The Role of Classification Schemes and Taxonomies Could be quite useful for the EUREA project, as a possible use-case or scenario.
The conclusion of the post seems to be that taxonomies and classification schemes (such as the ones that we are investigating in our LERU-projects, are indispensable. Stephen Downes disagrees with this conclusion though.

Awouters - Teaching and Learning with ICT

Valère Awouters, one of Flanders's most distinguished experts in e-learning and Virtual Learning Environments (VLE's) - and a nice colleague as well - was kind enough to provide us with an electronic version of the dissertation for his "M.Sc. in e-Learning, Multimedia & Consultancy" from the Sheffield Hallam University (UK). The English version of the work is called Teaching and Learning with ICT, the Dutch version is called "Digitale didactiek". His dissertation contains - next to an interesting theoretical chapter - an interesting case study from a VLE implementation in an institute of higher education. He draws some quite interesting lessons for general practice.

The dissertation also resulted in a book "Digitale didactiek", co-authored with Jan Schuer and published by De Boeck (ISBN 9045514052).

I can especially relate to some of the conclusions that Valere draws at the end of his theoretical chapter, when describing his view on The Way forward".

Economy of e-learning

Somehow, Stephen Downes seems to have a nack of reporting on matters that are very actual for my work, at just the right time. Two weeks ago, he wrote a comment on the economy of E-learning, at the time that we are producing a final version of the business model for our EUREA project.

The aim of the EUREA project is to produce a feasibility report on a content sharing platform between members of the European university network LERU, the League of European Research-intensive Universities. The idea of the project is to share high-quality learning materials through the development of a meta-database.

At the start, the EUREA business plan envisaged a potential commercial exploitation of the learning materials, especially for institutions and companies outside the consortium, but now the business plan suggests a free offering of learning materials, and a commercial offering of added services, such as coaching, supervision or creditation. The main idea is that no institution is willing to pay for learning content.

Downes' analysis supports the new approach of the EUREA business plan, and offers 'academic' support from a very influential expert in e-learning. Now we may be able to convince the European Commission that our approach is not as silly as they - liberal as they are - might think.

Our report on the EUREA business model should be available at the end of next week, at AVNetWiki.

Finally: HOW TO make Enhanced Podcasts (images, links and more with audio)

Long time since my most recent post: But now I've found something interesting to post about: the 'enhanced podcast'.

Through Stephen Downes' edu_rss I found this manual by Phillip Torrone for making enhanced podcasts: MAKE: Blog: HOW TO make Enhanced Podcasts (images, links and more with audio)

Especially the option to add chapter tracks to the audio (or video) stream makes the enhanced podcast a potential instrument for e- or m-learning. Now you no longer have to sit through 45 or 60 minute audio files to find out whether there is something that might interest you in it. You can just skim through chapters and get a quick overview of what the audio file has in store for you.

This may well be the essential breakthrough that the Podcast needed to become a tool for learning.

Stephen Downes - Some principles of effective e-learning

As a former researcher in Human-Computer Interaction, the principles that Stephen Downes mentions in his article Some principles of effective e-learning sound very familiar.

• Interaction - refers to the interaction of the learner with the learning materials, and not so much with other learners.
  
• Usability - Downes focuses on (only) two aspects of usability: consistency and simplicity.
  The simplicity principle seems rather straightforward, and Downes refers to examples such as Yahoo! or Google, which offer very simple interaction, avoiding pull-down menu's or other fancy designs.
  The consistency principle is not an easy one: do you want your materials to be (only) internally consistent or also externally consistent. Internal consistency refers to having the same 'look and feel' throughout your learning materials, in order to make interaction with the materials more predictable. External consistency would then refer to an adherence to well-established standard 'look-and-feel's from web-based or other applications: e.g. do you want your materials to have a 'Microsoft Office'-type interaction, so that interaction with the material becomes even more predictable?
• As Wilfried Rubens - a Dutch edublogger - remarks, the priciple of relevance is the hardest nut to crack. Relevance is 'in the eye of the beholder', and is contingent upon the 'learning' situation, the particular need, and even the humour of the learner. Therefore the principle of relevance is very hard to operationalise and use in evaluating the effectiveness of e-learning.

Again, Stephen Downes provides us with food for thought, especially when he states that these principles - based on general principles for the production of web-based content - is more important than pedagogical principles such as learning targets, outcomes, etc.
For a Dutch-language discussion of this article, I refer to edublogs.be

Handcuffs on a 5-year old

You have to see this to believe it. Here is the story with the video tapes.
A 5-year old girl in a kindergarten in St.-Petersburg (Florida) gets hand-cuffed by 3 police officers, after teachers and the principal can not calm her down.
To me, this is a typical situation of an emotional build-up in a child, which just passes if you give it a chance to calm down, by isolating her (a so-called time-out).
But to call in the police and have the child hand-cuffed, is beyond my (European) comprehension.

Edublogs are go! - Short history of (North-American) edublogging

As with all Internet-related activity, the cradle of edublogging is supposedly situated somewhere in the USA, as Australian James Farmer states in this interesting semi-historical article Edublogs are go!, which is to be submitted to the web-based version of the new magazine elearning

Wilfred Rubens TE-learning centrum: technology enhanced learning: Voor- en nadelen (t)e-learning

Wilfred Rubens - another Dutch edublogger - has published an interesting - dutch-language - list of (dis)advantages of (t)e-learning: Wilfred Rubens TE-learning centrum: technology enhanced learning: Voor- en nadelen (t)e-learning
This is an interesting contribution to mention in the presentation that I'll be giving on the use of Digital Learning Environments next month. I also want to suggest to the Elise author team to add this comprehensive (yet short) overview to the Elise-course for next year.

Bblog: The Blackboard Weblog

A weblog with items from the BlackBoard user community. Thanks again to Stephen Downes' OLDaily: Bblog: The Blackboard Weblog

Why Online Teaching Turned Me Off (washingtonpost.com)

Thanks to Stephen Downes' OLDaily weblog, I read this very revealing article from the Washington Post by Susan Sharpe, a teacher who was a CBT-enthousiast in the 1980's but now has a more skeptical perspective on online teaching.
Why Online Teaching Turned Me Off (washingtonpost.com)
A very interesting read, I must say.

A Framework of Guidance for Building Good Digital Collections - ICT en Onderwijs BLOG

Pierre Gorissen, one of my favourite edubloggers in the Netherlands refers to this interesting overview concerning A Framework of Guidance for Building Good Digital Collections - ICT en Onderwijs BLOG. This is particularly interesting for the EUREA project.

Critical Computing - the 2005 Aarhus Conference

At the department, we have agreed to start working with PPP's, Personal Publication plans. In the course of developing my own PPP for the next 12 months, I stumbled on this very interesting conference: Critical Computing - the 2005 Aarhus Conference. Now I am considering submitting a paper related to my PhD research to this conference. But the deadline is approaching rapidly, so I'll need to hurry.

AVNet VLIR training

A couple of weeks ago, our department had the pleasure of hosting a small group of staff members from universities from a number of developing countries within the framework of the Vl.I.R. (Flemish Interuniversity Council) I.U.S. programme. The group was given an intensive training course in the development anad production of AudioVisual Learning Materials.
The compilation movie gives a nice overview. On Day 2, Bieke and I presented some ideas for translating learning purposes into choice of media.

edtechNOT.com Website and Blog

In my search for relevant literature with a critical attitude towards technology in the classroom, I stumbled on the work of Larry Cuban & Todd Oppenheimer, through Jim Forde's interesting edtechNOT.com website and recent weblog edtechNOT.com Blog

eLearning reviews

Long time since I posted something. Just can't find the time to keep my Blog up-to-date.
In the midst of my search for rich web-based communication (web-conference, etc.), I am preparing a paper with a critical view on digital learning environments (DLE's) for a seminar with a group of a few hundred high-school headmasters and ICT-co-ordinators, to be organised by REN Vlaanderen in May here in Leuven.

In my search for supporting materials, I stumbled onto www.elearning-reviews.org, a Swiss-based group of researchers who provide reviews on publications within the wide area of eLearning research.
Quite an interesting starting point for research...

Envivio

Today, AVNet was given a demonstration of Envivio webcasting/streaming products by the local Belgian resellers. Impressive, but expensive.

Wanna check out open.ac.uk's XO Backlot solution, developed at their Knowledge Media Institute.

Theory and Practice of Online Learning

Athabasca University offers a 2004 handbook on a Creative Commons license.

"a wonderfully perceptive and complete guide to the theory and practice of online learning." Sir John Daniel, Assistant Director-General for Education, UNESCO

Anderson, T. and F. Elloumi, Eds. (2004). Theory and practice of online learning. Athabasca, Athabasca University.

Webconference & web-presence

In a meeting with Erik Duval last week, he introduced me and my colleagues to two interesting tools that are being developed at the Centre for New Media at the Open University in the UK. These tools are being developed in support of e-learning activiteis. Both tools are developed in Flash, and are therefore platform-independent. All you need is a recent browser, Flash-player 7 (or higher), and a webcam, microphone and speakers/headphones.

• Hexagon is a web-presence tool that allows a number of (international) users to be in virtual rooms and see who else is present.
  
• Flashmeeting is a full-fletched web-meeting tool, that combines audio/video-conferencing, with text-chat, URL-sharing and voting options. One can also choose to have the web-meeting recorded, and then have it stored on a server for later playback.

Neat stuff.

Strategic use of e-Learning in higer education

On the European-Commission-financed portal site elearningeuropa.info there is an interesing interview with dr. Tony Bates about the strategic use of eLearning in higher education.

Predictions for 2005

Always nice to read what specialists predict for the coming year:

- Last year Stephen Downes was tempted into predictions for 2004: "2004: the turning point"
- Recently, he reviewed his predictions in "2004 in the rear view mirror"

- Also this year, he attempts a prediction, albeit in the Lisa Neal's column in eLearn magazine

- A Dutch-language prediction for 2005 can be found in Wilfred Rubens' weblog: "Hoe zal e-learning zich in 2005 ontwikkelen?"

About blogging and RSS

In the Elise course, I have learned about (we)blogging, Wiki and RSS as possibly interesting technologies for e-learning.

RSS
Since that course module, I have installed Mozilla's Firefox as my default browser, partly because it is non-Microsoft and it allows 'tabbed' browsing, but mainly because it integrates RSS-functionailty in the form of 'Live bookmarks'. This means that the 10 most recent RSS-feeds are available from a pull-down menu.

I have also replaced Netscape Messenger by Mozilla's Thunderbird, for similar reasons. The RSS-feeds in Thunderbird are treated like e-mails, which allows one to store them locally, search them, and use them as a personal knowledge base.

The advantage of RSS - dubbed by some as the 'Next killer app for education' - has the advantage that each individual Internet-user can subscribe to content that he is interested in, without having to go look for it. For example, I keep track of what is happening at my old university, what is happening in my region of the country, etc. Even commercial information aggregation services, such as My Yahoo! now allow one to add RSS feeds to your personal pages, thus allowing you to keep track of your information, even when you're using a public computer.

(We)blog
(We)blogging is a technology (or a service) that allows you to write your personal online diary. You can use a weblog to share personal thoughts, poetry, pictures (so-called photo-blogs) or even audio (so-called podcasting). Even serious media, such as the quality newspaper 'De Standaard' have a weblog. There is quite some interest for the educational use of weblogging, for example for student portfolios.

(We)blogging and RSS are often combined, thus allowing one to keep track of people's personal thoughts or interesting discoveries. A landmark in this area is Stephen Downes's site.

Well, that's it for now.

Networking

First of all: Best wishes for 2005!

Spent a large part of the past few days further developing my network within the LinkedIn environment. LinkedIn is an online service that allows you to connect to people that you know, have worked with or are working with. The larger your 'virtual' network becomes, the more opportunities you have of finding people who are doing relevant work (either in research, consultancy or implementation) that could be of interest to you.
Check it out! It's free.