Emma Duke-Williams :: Blog :: Archives
http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/duke-wie/blog/2007/03/01/yahoo This tool was a new one to me … I’ve had a bit of a play, and am still rather confused; but I suspect that I need to have a longer look at some of the examples. I’ve signed up with the other systems that Scott suggested, though I can’t test out “Kapow” at the moment, as I’m using a PC that I don’t have install rights to. Dapper, and Yahoo pipes both seem to run online, without the need to install software. Given that I spend quite a bit of time using different computers (most of which I do have install rights to), access to particular tools often dictates my particular choice.
Once I’ve played a bit more (and looked at related tools that Tony Hirst is working on) I’ll report back.
Via: Stephen Downes
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http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/duke-wie/blog/2007/03/01/nspcc NSPCC books in to virtual hotel I’d forgotten about Habbo - I’ve had it bookmarked for quite a long time, so this was a timely reminder. There seem to be several Second Life type environments geared to children - as well as the Teen Grid for SL itself, there are also ClubPenguin, the plan that the BBC have to launch a children’s version - and no doubt others that I don’t know about.
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http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/duke-wie/blog/2007/03/01/blogs Tony Karrer links to Michele Martin’s post about a discussion (on a listserve) discussing lists and blogs. (in this case, discussion groups are email based).
Michele makes some very pertintent points, such as
Blogs offer a place for individuals to process information and put ideas out into the world. I can’t imagine posting some of my blog posts to a listserv–they’d be considered “off-topic” or inappropriate because I’m not asking a question or furthering a discussion.
listservs can create an environment that isn’t always open to “conversation.” Over the years we’ve had many times when lurkers and newbies came out of the woodwork to report that they weren’t participating in the conversation because the list was dominated by a few very opinionated writers who had no qualms about starting flame wars.
and
On many lists I find that some of the most (to me anyway) inane topics will take up HUGE amounts of time, while other far more interesting and meaty conversations will quickly sink to the bottom or have to go off-list to continue.
I’m a member of a listserve (one that has nothing to do with work!). Discussions can get heated, people sometimes take offence and leave. Listserves, as distinct from discussion boards, are generally non-editable. Once you have said it, you have said it! With discussion boards, it’s quite often the case that members can edit their posts, or, if they don’t have those rights, moderators can remove/ edit posts. There is, of course, a debate about whether editing is “right” or not, but we all make errors when writing. On reading, it’s often possible to realise that what seemed to make perfect sense on writing, might, in fact be confusing, or even potentially “flaming”, when that was never the intention.
Blogs and lists are very different beasts (with discussion boards generally more akin to lists), both have their uses and places. When it comes to the “community development”, both have a role to play. A list that is dominated by a few can be very intimidating, a list that is supportive, inclusive, tolerant of newbies, presents a very different face. Equally, bloggers who never link to other blogs, who don’t read their comments (or don’t control the spam, or just ban comments) can be quite hard to start to form links with. Bloggers who answer comments, link to other blogs, start to put out tentacles, from which communities may develop.
One of the reasons that I like Elgg.net, is that as well as the tools on offer supporting community development, the fact that it is heavily used by Educational technologists/ lecturers/ related people does mean that the chances of you finding interesting people is increased (though one could argue that one is limiting oneself …) Having said that I would put “discussion boards” more in the realm of lists than of “blogs”, I’ll be interested to see if people start using the “Community Blogs” in Elgg in a different way, now that they can be displayed as a forum, rather than as a blog. For those who are not used to Elgg, a “Community blog” is a blog that any member of a community can post to. From my own point of view, I have found that I tend to be the main poster, however these are class blogs, which are not compulsory. Personal blogs are compulsory, the class blog is extra. I wonder if the usage would be different, were I to compel them to use it… Perhaps next year!
Tony has some useful links at the end of his post (though note that quite a few are to his posts!). Nancy White’s set of 5 posts last July gave some very useful overviews of how blogs can be used to develop a community.
Via: Steven Downes
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http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/duke-wie/blog/2007/03/01/medic Intel unveils medical tablet It will be interesting to see if it takes off. It’s reasonably light (3.1 lb), has been designed with the hospital environment in mind (washable), so I think it’s a case of watch and see.
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http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/duke-wie/blog/2007/03/02/the-i Mark Berthelemy writes about Networks. He raises several useful points (as well as pointing to other work, including a post by Ewan McIntosh)
One point particularly resonates:
Most of us start by trying to maintain a network that is far beyond our capabilities to maintain. We end up with too much to read, and too much to write. There is always pruning to be done to find the nodes that add the most value to you.
How true!
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http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/duke-wie/blog/2007/03/02/emerg Josie Fraser writes about the Emerge project - one of the new JISC projects. It sounds really interesting (though I wish it was easier to link to particular posts in Josie’s new blog!)
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http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/duke-wie/blog/2007/03/09/explo I’d read a little about Explode! last week, but hadn’t really had the chance to investigate until now, and it seems to be growing rapidly. Rather than trying to explain it myself, just search for “Explode, weekend, elgg” on Google. I’ve started adding a few friends.
It uses OpenID - which seems like a good idea. The trouble with OpenID and me, is that I have several. There are a number of sites that I’ve signed up with that say that use OpenID - and then I forget what they are … so I end up with another. Hopefully I’ll manage to remember to this one!
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http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/duke-wie/blog/2007/03/09/secon As I’ve mentioned before, some of us are starting to look at using Second Life for teaching. One problem that we have is that it is not possible to install software on University Owned PCs, without creating NAL objects - which can take some time. Some staff can install locally, but not all can. This means that students would have to work at home in order to use it.
I originally used the method outlined by Tom Edwards on the SLED Mailing list - which worked fine for me. Infact, the PC that I use quite often in the ExPERT centre, which I don’t have admin rights to, is much higher specced than the one in my School of Computing office, so despite the fact it was running on a USB stick, it worked better!
Jonathan has also pointed me to a post on Penn State Virtual Worlds blog, which uses a .bat file to tidy up afterwards. I’ve just added that, and it still seems to work well.
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http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/duke-wie/blog/2007/03/09/virtu The project that I’m working on, which I keep referring to as a “Second Life” project, actually started out to look at virtual worlds in general. We just seem to have drifted into SL exclusively. Penn State’s Virtual Worlds blog, which I’ve just been referred to for the details about running the SL client from a USB stick, lists several others, some of which I’ve heard of, some of which I haven’t. They have also missed out some that I know of, and, no doubt, there are others!
Kaneva
I was pointed to Kaneva a few weeks ago, from, I think Vicki Davies’ blog. I’ve not really managed to get into it, as getting registered, downloading the software and then creating an avatar seemed to be a really rather protracted process. I also didn’t like the system of “raves”. From what I can tell, it’s a way of saying that you rate someone quite highly. So far three people have “raved” me, and want me to return the favour. Not only do I have no idea who they are, I’d rather not be “raved” by someone unless I know who they are - just as I wouldn’t expect to rave someone until I feel that they deserve it. Now, clearly my views may well not sit well with those who think that many contacts = popularity - I’d rather have fewer, trusted links.
Maybe I just don’t get it yet!
Olive
From the website, this would seem to be a commercial company, offering to develop training / corporate / etc. virtual worlds.
Moove
Seems to be designed for social use. I wasn’t able to install the software to “have a look”, but did have a look at the Flash Demo. Given several of the terms, I think that it was originally German.
Croquet
This looks promising. It’s open source, and would seem to be being used in Education. The software at the moment is still in beta, and you do have to have a server to install it too. They claim Croquet…
is a powerful open source software development environment for the creation and large-scale distributed deployment of multi-user virtual 3D applications and metaverses that are (1) persistent (2) deeply collaborative, (3) interconnected and (4) interoperable. The Croquet architecture supports synchronous communication, collaboration, resource sharing and computation among large numbers of users on multiple platforms and multiple devices.
Active Worlds
This was the first World that I had a play with, probably 3 years ago now, but didn’t get very far - as it didn’t seem to be that cheap for education, and I wasn’t quite sure what I’d do with it, were I to use it. It doesn’t need as big a download as SL does, but it still does require software installation. I think that they all do, though.
Habbo
This was another tool I looked at quite a long time ago - again, going on memory, it seemed to be more slanted to younger teenagers, than to older teens/ adults, though I could be wrong, as I never joined at the time. I’ve just been back, and registered. The avatars look more like Lego people than real ones! However, other than Shockwave, I didn’t have to install any software, so that it useful.
I suspect that SL is the right choice to have made, though Croquet could be worth keeping an eye on.
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http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/duke-wie/blog/2007/03/16/bbc-j Watchdog tells BBC to drop learning website. The Times has a report that the BBC have decided to suspend the BBC Jam site. It was only launched a year ago, and, if the queues round the BBC Jam stall at BETT were anything to go by, it’s popular.
The home page now has information about the suspension, warning users that they could lose work/playlists etc. It will be removed on March 20th.
The BBC’s press release about the suspension outlines the EC Treaty Clause that has lead to this issue:
Article 87(1) of the EC Treaty prohibits any aid granted by a Member State through State resources which distorts or threatens competition by favouring certain undertakings in so far as it affects trade between Member States. All new aid needs to be notified to and approved by the Commission before being put into effect and in the case of BBC Jam this approval was granted in 2003.
They also add that:
“The BBC exists only to serve the public. Its mission is to inform, educate and entertain. Because all the BBC’s services on television, radio and online are funded by the compulsory licence fee, they must meet a public purpose. The Royal Charter requires the BBC to meet six public purposes, one of which is to promote education and learning. BBC Jam has been an important element of the BBC’s delivery of this purpose.
“The Trust’s priority is to ensure the needs of the children and young people who use and value the service are not neglected during this process.
The Media Guardian reports that New Media developers are not pleased:
Andrew Chitty, the vice-chair of the producers’ trade body Pact, estimated that pulling the service would cost the new media production industry £20m-£30m in addition to further revenue from rights ownership.
Mr Chitty accused the UK’s educational publishers of undermining the country’s burgeoning new media industry by objecting to the BBC’s educational services “at every step”.
I’m still trying to decide what I think. Firstly, I think that it’s a great pity that the service has been removed, as it’s a good source of learning resources. I’m not a commercial educational software creator, though I can see their argument, that the BBC, through public money (i.e. licence fees) are creating unfair competition. It’s not the same as the case of someone else undercutting them and/ or a philanthropist deciding to give away content.
However, having grown up on BBC schools programmes, (and Blue Peter!) I think that it’s a real pity that children will have a good, learning resource removed - let’s hope that they can sort something out, as from the statements, there is obviously a lot of material that was going to be part of the site that has yet to be released.
It seems that good, free, educational material for school age children is gradually being removed (e.g. Learn.co.uk) - at least Channel4’s is still there at the moment. However, while this is happening, we’re starting to see more and more universities putting their material online…
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http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/duke-wie/blog/2007/03/18/talkr I’ve been using Talkr for some time now, to automatically create the “Listen to podcast” links at the bottom of each post. I’d not really thought about how much they were being used, till I read Brett’s question about PodPress. I went to have a look at the stats - and was amazed! This year, so far, the podcasts have been listened to 1012 times - with the highest to date being 57 on just 3 days ago (March 15th) - and the most popular post being Jan 23rd’s “Did you know?” Who are these listeners?
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http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/duke-wie/blog/2007/03/18/ning/ Build Your Own Social Network Ning is one of several Social Networking sites that is allowing users to create their own social network. I’ve been using Elgg for some time, on the Elgg.net site - now called “Eduspaces” - which reflects the number of Educational users. I’ve also set up a space on Elgg Spaces, for students I have who are not doing Educational Technology.
Looking at Ning, they already have quite a few Spaces tagged with “Education“. I’ve had a bit of a browse round Ning. One feature that could be useful (though the security issues worry me a little) is the ability to import your address book, when it can tell you who in your address book is also using Ning. I’m not sure I’d like to use it to send my user name & password; I’d rather export the address book as a file & import it. I have more control that way.
It’s got messaging - which Elgg has just introduced, and it’s got a community forum - again, something that Elgg now has with the forum view of a community blog. I’ve had a look through the forum on the Library2.0 space, and, as far as I can tell, the forum is like the Elgg fora, in that the top post is the most recent to be started, rather than the most recent to be commented on, as is more common in most fora.
It does have a chat client, which Elgg doesn’t have.
There are some features of Elgg which Ning doesn’t have. I’ve just found on Elgg “Presentations”. I’ve yet to find someone who has created one, but, from looking at them, it’s not just the ability to upload Powerpoint (which could be done through the file upload anyway) - so I’m looking forward to seeing one when someone’s created one.
Another offshoot of Elgg, that I’m currently trying to get my head round, is “Explode” This, unlike other sites, doesn’t have blogs itself - rather it lets you link create a profile and link to your blog - wherever it’s hosted. I think that thing that slightly confused me, was that I was hoping that it would import friends lists from places like Elgg, though it seems not. I also haven’t quite worked out how to add friends that haven’t yet joined Explode. Or maybe I can’t.
(I’ve also just read about Spangy, but the home page for people of my age was just way to busy and crowded for me. )
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http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/duke-wie/blog/2007/03/20/rss-t As I’ve said in other posts, as well as this blog, I’ve also got one on Eduspaces (was Elgg). I’d decided to get my students to use Elgg, so felt that I ought to have one there too. By the time that we had made the move from Blogspot to Elgg, this blog was starting to get known, so I rather liked the facility of being able to add the RSS feed from here, and have both blogs updated with a single post.
Prior to publishing, you have to agree to the following statement:
(You should only do this if you have the legal right to use this resource - in other words, you must have permission from the content owner, as the feed’s content will appear in your blog as if you had written it.)
I’ve recently started seeing blogs on Eduspaces that are just feeds from the BBC or other news agencies. Those I’ve seen are tagged as BBC, have links back to the BBC site, but, they have the blog owner as the author.
As an Educator - I start to worry … given that it’s so easy to syndicate, how to I encourage my students to cite properly? How can I get them to at least comment on others ideas, rather than just copy them - as happens with most syndicated posts.
As a blogger, I like the ease with which I can maintain two blogs - with differing audiences. But, at what point do I start to be a spammer, having too many things out there?
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http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/duke-wie/blog/2007/03/20/secon It seems that there is so much to learn about second life!
I attended part of the ACHUB Spring Festival on Friday. I went to the session about SL and Health Education. (Includes a link to the slides & a transcript of the chat) It’s the ExPERT Centre that are funding the research we’re doing, so it needs to reflect their interests, as well as ours. Though the ExPERT centre has quite a wide remit, much of the work at present is concentrating on the medical simulation - where we have a ward with adult and child simulators, an operating theatre and a few other facilities. I’m more involved with looking at online support, so I found some of the ideas that were being discussed at the ACHUB session very relevant. Some people are using it for simulation, but rather than a high tech mannequin (with an operator behind a screen), they have SL avatars playing the roles. Definitely cheaper, though clearly a different sort of experience. Another idea that I rather liked, was the idea of having 4 sims (e.g. islands) together to form an interactive body, though I wasn’t quite sure how that would work.
[Screenshot of the discussion]
The second session that I attended was Barbie with Brains: This wasn’t quite what I was expecting, but it was worth attending. Beth Ritter-Guth had spent 30 days working as a lapdancer in a SL nightclub. She acknowledged that it wasn’t a proper research project (in part, she doens’t know that much about real life lap dancing clubs). What she was really looking at was how the dancers interacted and communicated with the customers. The discussion looked quite a lot at gender in SL in general, and what the potential for research would be.
Finally, on Sunday, when I thought that I could have a day off … I picked up the Observer, turning, as I generally do, to the travel section. The lead article was “My Virtual Holiday” I’m afraid, though, that I rather like “real” travel too much, I can’t quite see me getting green and reducing my carbon footprint in that way, somehow. I might, however, take a tour at some point.
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http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/duke-wie/blog/2007/03/22/massi I’m at the Massively Multi-Learner Workshop in Paisley. So far we’ve had some excellent presentations from Dave Taylor - from NPL (National Physical Laboratory) - they’ve done some really interesting things. I liked the Physics in Teen Grid - he also showed several other things. Alex Krotoski’s talk was excellent - a lot about social networking. She kept apologising for not being an educationalist - though as others continally mentioned - community is vital to learning.
I’m just now listening to Jeremy Kemp introducing Sloode v1.0 … excellent talks.
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http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/duke-wie/blog/2007/03/22/massi Some great ideas from Mike Hobbs for SL to support programming. In particular, using it to support the links between design & implementation! Also good for simulating OO. LSL isn’t an OO language, but you have avatars (actors) interacting with objects by passing messages. Very good way of simulating OO.
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Object-Name: Emma's Blogger Region: Knightsbridge (232192, 278784) Local-Position: (224, 10, 22) Lots of good ideas for teaching - many of them involve either working with other students, or exploring SL.
http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/duke-wie/blog/2007/03/27/secon Second Life FridayLive! TLT Group Online Institute I missed this session - I’ve just started watching the archived version. It’s very useful - and has got extra resources. The 5 minute introductory session gives a good overview - before the “meat” of the main session.
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http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/duke-wie/blog/2007/03/30/four- An ABC (Australia) documentary about Second Life. Going on most of the reports that I’ve read about this documentary - most people say that it’s probably the best balance about SL so far - it does cover the seedier side, but it also covers business & educational aspects.
The video player that ABC use is good - I much prefer it to the BBC’s.
- It’s Flash based
- It’s got several bookmarks to key points in the video on the home page
- It’s also got links to websites/ pages - e.g. transcripts, related sites etc.
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http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/duke-wie/blog/2007/03/30/sloog Sloog.org :: Tagging the whole new world Del-cio.us for Second life. It’s quite a new service, so the most popular site only has 67 tags, so far. One education site (Greenbush Land - Education Service Centre) makes it into the top 10 with 6 tags. The Education tag, so far, has 2 pages of sites, but no doubt will increase over time.
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http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/duke-wie/blog/2007/03/30/stop- Vicki Davies has a good range of links designed for “Stop Cyberbullying” day. I also like the new layout for her blog.
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http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/duke-wie/blog/2007/03/30/scila Scilands A group blog - and links to other blogs, for the “Scilands” region of Second life -where a lot of science & technology specialist areas are located.
There is also have a link to a feed of recent SL surnames. Rickenbacker is no longer on the list!
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http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/duke-wie/blog/2007/03/30/video VideoLectures and TeacherTube - both have pretty descriptive titles! TeacherTube is very much modelled on YouTube - it looks very much like it, it’s got the same ability to create playlists & have favourites etc (a feature that I miss in Google Video) From the site, though there isn’t any indication that they are linked. At present, TeacherTube seems to have a more schools (i.e. under 18 bias).
VideoLectures have very much of a Higher Education slant. It’s got the option to use Flash based players or Windows Media Player (embedded or standalone) - and for some there are powerpoint slides etc., to download. Some lectures also have a view that synchronises the slides & video. (It looks like those created by MS’s Producer for Powerpoint & might well be, given that it works best in IE). It’s a bit cluttered to me, and I’m not quite sure whether or not I’d find long lectures easy to listen to. On the other hand, the fact that there’s the ability to go quickly to a particular slide could be useful.
It’s supported by a number of agencies, including Europe’s Information Society, and Jožef Stefan Institute, Solvenia (so there are a goodly number of non-English lectures). The main drawback that I’ve found is the registration - it was nicer than TeacherTubes, in that there was no captcha to work out, but I’m still waiting for the confirmation email - so I can’t comment on the ability to create play lists etc.
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