I see the BBC have a report on what Oaklands College are doing with eMentors.
A college is harnessing the power of students’ technical knowledge to teach their lecturers a thing or two about information technology. The college has appointed 35 “eMentors” to help staff with everything from laptops to interactive whiteboards. The scheme works on the premise that students are more technically adept.
Quite an interesting and innovative approach to getting staff to get familiar with the technology.
Earlier, back in July, I blogged about Web Worker Daily which had a nice article on how Facebook could be used to support your work. Well they’ve just published another excellent article on how you can use Twitter in the workplace.
For those of you who still wonder whether it’s anything more than inane stream-of-consciousness, consider these ways in which Twitter can help you professionally.
Though I do have a Twitter account, I much prefer using Jaiku which is a similar micro-blogging site, and all eight ways can also be used with Jaiku. Jaiku also allows you to add RSS feeds which makes it even more useful and you can create channels which will make it very easy to add micro-blogging to an event or a conference.
I can be found on both Jaiku and Twitter, why not give it a try.
The BBC are reporting on how BT Broadband customers will be able to share their broadband connection to others to create a free shared wifi network across the UK.
The UK’s wireless net credentials have been boosted with the launch of a wi-fi sharing community by BT. BT has backed a global wireless sharing service called Fon, billing it as the “world’s largest wi-fi community”.
This means that it will be much easier (and cheaper) to access wireless internet when and where you want to.
What makes this interesting to me, apart from the obvious impact this will have on mobile learning is the following comment.
Joining the BT Fon scheme is free of charge and community members will also have free access to existing BT hotspots in its Openzone network.
This is one good reason for joining the BT Fon network as I suspect at the moment there are more BT Openzone wireless hotspots then Fon spots.
Eduserv have published a report on how Second Life is been used in Higher and Further Education.
As part of their range of Second Life activities, the Eduserv Foundation hired me to do a series of “snapshot” reports, looking at the take-up of SL within the UK Higher and Further Education sector. The update of the first report, containing some new examples of how and where Second Life is being used in UK Higher and Further Education, can be downloaded from the Eduserv Foundation website.
You can download the report here.
If you are developing e-learning materials or learning objects it can be nice to add an interaction.
B J Schone has written a very nice ebook on twenty five different engaging interactions.
I hate boring eLearning courses. I get frustrated when I’m not intellectually engaged in a course and when I feel like I’m wasting my time. I know many learners feel this way, too. As an eLearning developer, I’ve had good luck using engaging learning interactions in my courses. These interactions break up the monotony and improve the learning experience for the end-user. After covering new material in a course, a learning interaction (or from here on, simply an interaction) gives the learner a chance to actually do something and (gasp!) apply their knowledge!
This covers a lot of different ways in which learners can interact with a subject (through e-learning) and therefore enhance the learning process.
The BBC are reporting that students are using content “lifted” from the web for their online UCAS forms.
Sixth form students are being warned not to cheat on their university application forms by copying material from the internet.
The Universities and Colleges Admissions Service has written to every UK school saying doing so could affect students’ chances of winning a place.
Ucas is to use plagiarism detection technology to scrutinise the half a million forms seeking entry in 2008.
Maybe it’s time to move away from a written statement on a form for applications.
The web may have made it easier, but when I filled in an UCAS form (some time ago now) I know people who were given extra guidance and help filling it in over and beyond what you would expect and that was never considered “cheating”.
Copying and pasting is cheating, there is no doubt, using the web to help fill in the form is fine, but who tells the sixth former filling in the form what is okay and what isn’t?
Russell Stannard has posted a range of online animated guides that demonstrate various ways in which you can incorporate learning technologies into teaching.
These videos were created for teachers to help them to incorporate technology into their teaching. My own background is in teaching English, so some of the sites are specific to ELT and are grouped separately. The rest are for all teachers and there is also a section for those interested in more difficult multimedia products like Flash and Director.
The cover how to use iTunes, PowerPoint tips, creating blogs and many other things.
He has used Camtasia to produce the video guides. Personally I am a fan of Captivate which does a similar job, for those looking for a free tool, Wink is certainly one option which does work quite well.
Well worth a look.
An excellent presentation from Merlin Mann on how to deal with e-mail and have an inbox with zero e-mail in it!
One of the key messages, is don’t check your e-mail, deal with your e-mail.
Well worth a watch especially if you have more than fifty unread e-mail in your inbox.
The British Library is taking over one hundred thousand books, digitising them and putting then online.
The programme is focussed on the 19th century, alas if the author died after 1936 then it is unlikely that there books will be digitised, as their works are still in copyright.
The BBC has more on this exciting programme:
More than 100,000 old books previously unavailable to the public will go online thanks to a mass digitisation programme at the British Library.
The programme focuses on 19th Century books, many of which are unknown as few were reprinted after first editions.