Tag Archives: hhl08

flickr, twitter

I am not a meerkat…

Leave a comment

Meerkat

…and this is not an invitation…

So can you be both closed and open in social media? Is it oxymoronic to be unsocial and be on social media?

I have been writing and reading many discussions recently on the openness of social media and identity.

Lawrie in a recent post on his blog recounted a story about an adventure on a boat and the potential impact having an active social media life can have on your real life. He makes this point in his post:

There is a role for curating your online self, a conscious curation, it does not have to impact on who you are as a person, your authenticity or credibility, but we should be mindful.

What I found interesting about the story was how being somewhat open and public on the internet, there was an assumption by some in that story that those same behaviours that we find online are acceptable offline in the physical world. It made me reflect on identity both online and offline. Can we be social online and not as social offline? What do we mean by social and what norms of behaviours are acceptable and which are not.

There is a balance between what you do online and undertaking a similar approach offline. I occasionally chat with people on the Twitter, discuss presentations at conferences and re-tweet and like posts that other people make. Off the Twitter, I occasionally chat with people on the train, or in the supermarket, I may discuss presentations at conferences whilst queuing for coffee, and will applaud at appropriate moments.

Though I do talk to retail assistants and other customers in shops, or chat to people at a conference, neither of those behaviours as far as I am concerned do not mean I am your friend and you can pop around my house whenever you feel like it! In a similar vein, just because I @ you in a tweet, or heart your tweet, comment on your blog, this doesn’t mean I feel I can pop around your house for a cup of tea, or you can visit me for Sunday lunch.

Continue reading I am not a meerkat… →

google, keynote, podcast, podcasting

e-Learning Stuff Podcast #006 – You say Asus and I say Asus…

9 Comments

This is the sixth e-Learning Stuff Podcast, You say Asus and I say Asus…

[audio:http://elearningstuff.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/elearningstuff006.mp3]

Download the podcast in mp3 format: You say Asus and I say Asus…

Subscribe to the podcast in iTunes.

In this show, James is joined by Nick Jeans, Kev Hickey, Dave Foord, David Sugden and Lisa Valentine.

The discussion starts off looking at the role of the Asus EeePC and other netbooks on e-learning on colleges across the UK. The discussion also looks at the variety of presentation software now available from PowerPoint to Keynote, Open Office to Google Docs. Then there is other stuff as well…

e-Learning Stuff Podcast #006 - You say Asus and I say Asus...

Shownotes

  • The Asus EeePC is one year old.
  • Case Study: Using Mobile Technology to Encourage Independent Study (John Leggott College).
  • The ZoomStorm FizzBook which has a handle like the OLPC.
  • ZuiPrezi is a zooming presentation editor which allows you to easily create stunning presentations. With the help of ZuiPrezi you can create dynamic and visually structured zooming maps of texts, images, videos, PDFs, drawings. ZuiPrezi has a very intuitive interface and support for online sharing.
  • Create professional video for the classroom with the click of a button! Animoto combines your images and music to produce video with the visual impact of a music video.
  • Using Flowgram you can create interactive guided presentations by combining web pages, photos, Power Point and more with your voice, notes and highlights.  Viewers can control the pages, scroll, click on links, view videos and more. An example Flowgram that was made by James.
  • Wikipedia definition of a mind map.
  • Mindomo is a versatile Web-based mind mapping tool, delivering the capabilities of desktop mind mapping software in a Web browser – with no complex software to install or maintain.
  • Pecha Kucha is a presentation format that allows just twenty slides and twenty seconds for each slide. The presentation from James he delivered at the Pecha Kucha session at Handheld Learning 2008.
  • Dave Foord’s excellent cameraphone!
  • Nice article on how to use web based office tools offline.

Photo source.

google, iphone, mobile

Feeling and touching the Google G1

5 Comments

I have felt, touched and used the Google G1.

Here’s the proof…

First impressions? Well I am impressed.

The web browsing experience is very nice, same kind of touch interface as the iPhone, but with the addition of a scroll wheel which means you don’t need to use your finger unless you want to.

The keyboard is quite small, but looks quite usable and certainly more usable than the numeric keypad of phones like the Nokia N95.

The camera works as would be expected from a cameraphone, I did think that the quality could have been better, but the iPhone and N95 are just as “bad” so it’s not really a disadvanatage.

It was only a quick hands on, so didn’t have a chance to try other features or applications.

It will be in the shops in the UK on the 1st November, and for new customers will be free on £40 per month contracts, on cheaper contracts you will need to pay for the phone.

For existing customers (ie me) a different story depending on your contract, where you are in that contract and how much you pay per month.

It is different to the iPhone, but I am seriously considering getting one now.

stuff

Have you got an Innovation Prevention Department?

3 Comments

Here it is day three of Handheld Learning 2008.

It has been a very good conference and a good chance to see what is happening in the world of mobile and handheld learning.

Some really good stuff out there, but some sessions no more than a showcase of a product rather than how it impacts on learning.

This is not a research based conference (unlike mLearn) so there are lots of practitioners here talking about what they do, but there are also suppliers talking (or is that selling) their wares.

First presentation I have seen today was Lt Alex Smith who is using PSPs with Royal Navy personnel for learning. Quite interesting in what they are doing in what seems to be a very traditional teaching environment.

Have you got an Innovation Prevention Department?

The second session was not really my cup of tea, very much about selling a product to schools.

Third session was presented by Jon Trinder who was presenting about connecting the physical to the virtual.

Best quote of the conference so far came from Jon, “Have you got an Innovation Prevention Department?”.

m-learning

Are we playing games?

Leave a comment

So here we are on day two of Handheld Learning 2008.

I am in the plenary session listening to Steven Berlin Johnson talking about technologies and how children learn through simulations.

Are we playing games?

Common theme so far seems to be about the innate way in which young children learn through the use of technology.

Talking about Civilisation, of which I played the original version, and how this very complicated game is being played by children who are learning while playing.

Some amusing observations from the game.

Moved onto the simplicity of Pac-Man versus the complex goals of Zelda.

Today’s games are a lot more complicated than the games from my generation.

More soon from Handheld Learning 2008. In the meantime check out my Flickr photographs and my Twitters.

m-learning, twitter

Here at Handheld Learning 2008 in the Pecha Kucha

2 Comments

So arrived at Handheld Learing which though does have free wifi does not have free coffee. It’s open day here at Handheld Learning 2008 as a result the organisers are charging for food and drink.

So rather than pay silly amounts of money for conference coffee (which is always awful) myself and Lisa V and Anita (both from RSC NW) went off to a cafe and had a very nice coffee there.

So here I am my first session the Pecha Kucha which allows you to present twenty slides with only twenty seconds per slide.

I  put together a short presentation which seemed to work well, you can watch it live on the internet.

Other good stuff as well, with a really nice presentation from Tony Vincent about Twitter.