All posts by James Clay

google, social networking

Google helps the web to go social

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BBC reported on how Google is making it even easier for people to interact online.

Google has joined the drive to make the web more social by introducing tools to enable people to interact with their friends.

Of course this means that educational and learning sites can use the same tools making it easier for learners to interact and engage with each other.

This may mean of course that learners from other “places” and “institutions” will interact and engage with each other.

Some institutions will see this collaboration as a “danger” or “cheating” and therefore block the sites. Whilst others will engage with this process and look at how it could impact on learning and enhance it and the changes that may be needed to be made to assessment models.

facebook, web 2.0

Adverts on Web 2.0 Services

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BBC reports on how credit companies are using Facebook to advertise their wares.

Credit companies are using the Facebook social networking site to target young people, a debt charity has warned.

Credit Action says adverts promising cheap loans for people with poor credit ratings are appearing on the site and many break advertising regulations.

In particular, they are promoting two new products – payday loans secured against a salary or logbook loans secured against a car, it says.

It is an issue with any advertising based Web 2.0 service and one that you do need to consider if you are considering using Web 2.0 services within an educational institution.

Blocking the ads though may be considered one option, this generally doesn’t work for learners who are accessing the services outside the institution.

Even this blog has advertising inserted by WordPress.com over which I have no control and therefore if you found this blog through Google I suspect that there may be a credit advert embedded into the page.

It happens most times that a new viewer searches Google and finds a link to my site in the search results and clicks through as seen here.

Adverts on Web 2.0 Services

I have no control over those adverts and they are based on the text of my entry (and who is visiting), therefore you could potentially have an unsuitable advert. Now these are text based adverts so offence is less likely.

I could of course move the blog to my own web host and lose all the advertising, but the advantage of WordPress.com is that it is a free service and I don’t need to pay for hosting or bandwidth. Of course the real price I then have to pay is on the inserted advertising.

No such thing as a free lunch!

However other Web 2.0 services (such as Facebook) use banner and image based adverts and therefore there could be some unsuitable advertising.

I recall looking at a video streaming service and the two I looked at Stickam and Ustream, I chose Ustream as the adverts on Stickam could potentially cause offence.

As with any website (or service) which depends on advertising, there is a risk that there may be unsuitable advertising content over which you have little or no control.

It’s all about making a compromise between paying for services through upfront costs or using free services which are funded through advertising. What should we do as institutions?

Personally I believe that the decision about which services we should use it being made for us, by our learners.

Post first appeared on Hood 2.0 Blog.

stuff

Microsoft is cutting the cost of putting Windows XP on low cost laptops

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BBC reports on how Microsoft is making it easier and cheaper for manufacturers to put Windows XP on the current plethora of micro low cost laptops (such as the Asus EeePC) that are currently very popular.

The price cuts will only be available for ultra-portable laptops that meet a strict set of specifications.

The move is widely seen as an attempt by Microsoft to bolster its market share in one of the PC industry sectors showing growth.

Low-powered laptops, such as the Asus Eee PC, are proving hugely popular in developed nations and in projects trying to bridge the digital divide.

I am sure that (depsite the ease of use) the fact that many of these cheap laptops run Linux have put off many a purchaser (as does Mac OS X put off potential purchasers of the Mac) the fact that you will soon be able to have Windows XP on the laptop without a huge increase in the cost of the device will make these low cost laptops even more popular.

Microsoft is cutting the cost of putting Windows XP on low cost laptops

Regardless of whether we think these are good or bad devices, I have certainly seen quite a few now in the college, including one a student was using (with Windows XP on it) and a Three 3G dongle for access to the internet.

I think more and more of our learners will start to buy these. One of the main attractions other that price is the portability, the small size means it is very easy to carry on the bus or in a bag as you move around college. Before if you wanted a small micro laptop, the only real choice was from Sony and these cost a lot, five or six times the current price of the Asus EeePC.

Expect to see more of these devices in your college.

psp

Sketching on the PSP (or teaching an old dog new tricks)

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One of the advantages of giving technology to learners is more often then not they will teach you what it can do.

We have been using PSPs (with the camera attachment) with a group of 14 year old learners. This is part of our MoLeNET project.

They have been using them to create stuff.

One of them today told their tutor about the effects option (something I had certainly missed) and the tutor told me.

One of the nice effects is the Sketch effect.

Sketching on the PSP (or teaching an old dog new tricks)

Now from a photography purist perspective you should really shoot in full colour and then use filters for this kind of effect.

Well that’s all nice and dandy if you have the computers (and software) to do this, but sometimes you don’t and come on let’s be honest a 1.3MP camera (which is what you have on top of the PSP) is certainly not a high end camera.

It’s actually quite an effective effect and much better than other sketch type effects or filters I have used.

Alas you can’t capture video with a sketch effect (though I am thinking if I can using a Pinnacle device we have.

Need to write a guide.

facebook, social networking

Fed up with Facebook

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It would appear that I am not the only one fed up with Facebook applications. I do like the social and interactivity that Facebook provides, however I am fed up with the super pokes, the zombies, the quizzes and so on…

Fed up with Facebook

Mashable undertook a poll of their readers and the resounding response was people were fed up with Facebook.

The results were a fairly resounding “yes.” In our most active poll ever, only 13% of you said that you are “Not At All” fed up with the social network and are still enjoying it just as much as when you signed up.

Does this mean we are seeing the decline of Facebook (as we did with Friendster) and seeing an opening for a new social networking site?

Are you fed up with Facebook?

What is going to be the next “thing” that will replace Facebook?

Can we still use Facebook for learning, or are our learners fed up too?

stuff

Linux Ultra-Portables

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Engadget has a nice feature on the growth of Linux based UMPCs.Linux Ultra-Portables

ASUS set the pace with Xandros on the Eee PC, and HP has tapped Novel SuSE Linux for the 2133 Mini-Note, but whereas the Eee’s positioning has been somewhat of a loose hybrid between an adult OLPC and the Nintendo Wii’s culture of global inclusion, the HP Mini-Note has been strongly focused on reckless, immature students while acknowledging potential for senior executives that have been known to share their temperament.

It’s interesting to see how this product niche has almost appeared from nowhere and is growing rapidly.

It seems to be a product that appeals to people who already own a computer, but want a laptop (and a small laptop at that) to complement it. The advantage of these little Linux laptops as well as the small size is the small price.

I have already seen quite a few of these laptops in college, brought in by learners, so I am expecting to see more of them.

stuff

Wireless security

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When it comes to wireless security there are lots of myths out there.

Wireless security

Ars Technica has published a nice article on wireless security which covers many of the key issues and importantly debunks some of the myths out there as well.

The SSID (Service Set Identifier) is an identification code (typically a simple name) broadcast by a wireless router. If a wireless device detects multiple SSIDs from multiple access points (APs), it will typically ask the end-user which one it should connect to. Telling a router not to broadcast its SSID may prevent basic wireless access software from displaying the network in question as a connection option, but it does nothing to actually secure the network. Any time a user connects to a router, the SSID is broadcast in plaintext, regardless of whether or not encryption is enabled. SSID information can also be picked up by anyone listening to the network in passive mode.

Read more.

Photo source.

m-learning, mobile

Flash on mobiles opens up

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The BBC reports that

Adobe has announced a plan to try to get its Flash player installed on more mobile devices and set-top boxes.

Dubbed Open Screen the initiative lifts restrictions on how its multimedia handling software can be used.
Adobe will stop charging licencing fees for mobile versions of Flash and plans to publish information about the inner workings of the code.

In taking this step Adobe hopes to repeat on mobiles the success its Flash technology has enjoyed on the web.

This is excellent news for mobile learning as so much e-learning content out there is in a flash format including a lot of video and audio.

altc2008, conference, web 2.0

Web 2.0 Workshop at ALT-C 2008

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I have received the following e-mail in my inbox.

I am pleased to inform you that your proposal Hood 2.0 – it’s a Web 2.0 World out there, has been accepted for presentation at ALT-C 2008.

Yay

The workshop will examine the concept of Web 2.0 services in addressing the tensions between formal and informal learning, and empowering learners to take responsibility for their own learning.

It will explore how we need to address the pedagogical needs to drive the use of Web 2.0 services and not be blinded or awed by the technology of Web 2.0

It will demonstrate and allow participants to discuss and debate different learning scenarios and activities which utilise Web 2.0 services.

Web 2.0 services will be used to demonstrate these scenarios.

Source: Hood 2.0.

m-learning, mobile

Mozilla calls for mobile mashup

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The Chair of Mozilla, Mitchell Baker, has made a plea to developers to harness the creativity of the internet and apply it on mobile phones.

Mozilla calls for mobile mashup

BBC reports from the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco:

Developers are being asked to devise applications for mobile devices so users can “access it, mix it up, save it, and store it”.

The plea to harness the creativity of the internet and apply it on mobile phones was made by Mitchell Baker the chair of Firefox developer Mozilla.

All of this functionality “should be the same if I am on a laptop or phone, at home or on a train,” says Ms Baker.

“The breadth of the new ideas floating around and the different ways that people are thinking about information and using the web further away from browsing into more personalised information is exciting,” said Ms Baker.

This is an interesting report on how we could be using mobile devices and of course a lot of these ideas are transferable to mobile learning.

The fact that phones know where they are (even without GPS they have a rough idea) adds a dimension to mobile learning that the traditional (dumb) PDA could never have. Having said that we will see more devices with GPS chips as they get smaller, cheaper and use less power.

Well worth a read.