http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/duke-wie/blog/2006/09/05/web-20-directory-econsultant/

Web 2.0 Directory : eConsultant More lists of “Web 2.0″ apps. (Tim Berners-Lee isn’t keen on the phrase Web 2.0, and I tend to agree with him, despite using it)

I’ll have to start thinking of another way of categorising interactive services …

http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/duke-wie/blog/2006/09/05/lorelle-on-wordpress/

Lorelle on WordPress I’d originally found Lorelle’s site from a link to a post about Copyright theft; however, the whole site seems to have a lot of useful information about Wordpress & blogging in general.

Some of her (I think it’s a her!) about  maintenance,  accessibility/usability & keywords are very pertinent - and things that I have though/ am thinking about.

http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/duke-wie/blog/2006/09/06/global-text-project-brings-wiki-textbooks-to-the-world/

Global Text Project brings wiki textbooks to the world An interesting idea; it’s arisen from an XML book that was developed as a wiki, when a class hadn’t got a book covering what was needed. In terms of content management, pages are locked, so that though edits can be made, they aren’t live until they’ve been approved. The XML book is hosted on Wikibooks, though the two that they are working on seem to be currently on the GlobalText server.

The aim is that they will develop 1000 books, each to be sponsored by a Global 1000 company - so there will be some advertising. Students who make significant contributions can earn up to $100, which, for a student in the majority world (the main intended audience), is a significant sum. The initial language will be English, though all will be translated to a range of other languages.

By trying to get sponsorship, they’re clearly thinking about the long term & sustainability issues; which are important; I’ve seen a great many good ideas that don’t get off the ground due to lack of financial support.

The aim is very much to gear the books for the needs of first and second year undergraduates in the majority world, not those in the West.

The original article has been slashdotted, so the server could start to suffer from too many hits for a while.

http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/duke-wie/blog/2006/09/06/safe-blogging/

Safe Blogging Though these guidelines are written for school age students, many of them are highly applicable to under/post graduate students as well … such as

• I will avoid the use of chat language.


• I will try to spell everything correctly.


• I will only give constructive criticism.


• I am responsible for anything posted in my name.


• I will not plagiarize.


• I will use common sense.

Via:Think:lab

http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/duke-wie/blog/2006/09/14/testing-from-flock/

I’ve got Flock installed on my laptop … given that it’s based on Firefox, I assumed that CTRL B would open my Bookmarks. It didn’t. It opened a “Blog Post”, so thought I may as well test it! So far, so good.

Blogged with Flock

http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/duke-wie/blog/2006/09/14/flock-test-2/

Flock can link directly to Flickr … Though it wasn’t immediately clear, it seems that I can have a flickr Stream open at the top, enable “Web snippets” in the Blog post tools, drag the image you want to WebSnippets and then drag it to the blog post. Wonder if there is a shorter route.

The photo is one that was taken at Blog.ac.uk 2006

Blogged with Flock

http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/duke-wie/blog/2006/09/25/collaborative-notetaking/

DyKnow seem to supply some collaborative notetaking software. It looks interesting, but, though I can find several places telling me that the *client* is free, I can’t seem to find the cost of the server - which it seems to need! There are other tools that I have found, that are free; for example:

• Google Notebook (can have private or public books)


• MyNote it - designed for students - and you can enter your University.


• Wikis


• etc., etc., etc,

Then we might want to see if it’s possible to draw together this, with other tools, either for an individual or an institution to form a PLE.

Having tested that I can use Flock to post to a WordPress blog, I now want to test to see if I can post to an Elgg one ...

Blogged with Flock

http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/duke-wie/blog/2006/09/25/flock-and-elgg/

I have just been testing the ability of Flock to post to an Elgg blog - and it works!

I’m hoping to get the MSc eLearning Students to use Elgg, rather than Blogger this academic year, and I was slightly worried that would mean that they wouldn’t be able to use Flock to integrate directly with it. It seems that you can!

Blogged with Flock

http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/duke-wie/blog/2006/09/29/us-homework-outsourced-as-e-tutoring-grows/

U.S. homework outsourced as ‘e-tutoring’ grows A report about a company, TutorVista, based in Bangalore India, that offers on-line tutoring to students. They started in the US about a year ago and have just expanded to the UK.

I’m not sure what I think about it - the headline that CNET have used “homework outsourced” initially made me think that it was more akin to the essay buying phenomenon that has lead, among other things, to the “scrapping” of  Maths coursework (and discussion about doing other coursework in a supervised setting, rather than at home). However, this doesn’t seem to be that, rather it’s tutoring. The report seems to cover the aspects of helping children - and making up for shortfalls in the school. I think that a significant part of me would rather see schools improving - so that children can be children in the evenings and holidays - not having to work. However, if the schools aren’t able to deliver for whatever reason, then this solution does *seem* to have benefits - primarily the cost.

They  claim that all teachers are qualified and all can teach to (US) standard tests. It’s possible to have an hour’s free tutoring, though that does seem quite US centric at present.

I’m just not sure …