http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/duke-wie/blog/2007/05/03/socia

Rashmi Sinha raises some interesting points about the recent events on Digg. She comments:

Most noticeably, it fails the independence of members from one another test

- one of Suroweicki’s key criteria for the wisdom of crowds to be effective.

One wonders, also, how much Kathy Sierra’s recent experiences of being hounded on-line are also related to this failure of independence.

http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/duke-wie/blog/2007/05/04/some-

No, not me … (yet!), but Jason Kaneshiro He’s makes several points, ones that I think that we can all identify with. The first point “Nobody reads my blog” is an interesting point.

When I first started my blog, I wasn’t really expecting anyone to read it, I’d decided to use it for my own purposes. Perhaps I’m not really egotistical enough to have a blog? I’ saw blogging, however, as a way of enabling me to draw together ideas; I was hoping that at least (some of!) my students might read it.

Over the years that it’s been running, I’ve not had that many as many comments as Jason, though askimet has removed more spam than it has from his blog. The comments I’ve had, though, are generally worth reading. So far, no nasties.

The other day, I installed Google Analytics - and was amazed at the traffic that the site’s getting! I’ve now removed the PCs that I use most of the time from the list. On the assumption that the 18% of traffic originating from Portsmouth is me, that still leaves over 80% of nearly 200 visits since Monday as other people! That’s if you’re reading this on my “main” blog. If you’re reading it on the Eduspaces mirror, I’ve only just installed the tracking there; I’ll be interested to see which gets more traffic, as my gut feeling is that it’s this one.

Is knowing the fact that far more people than I’d ever imagined reading this going to make a difference. I hope not. Is knowing that I have readers around the world going to make a difference. Again, I hope not (though I might try to work out who they are when I start to think about my next travels!)

Via Stephen Downes

http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/duke-wie/blog/2007/05/04/barri

Scott Mcleod writes about a school Principal who isn’t able to access a blogging project because the network administrator has stopped it; meanwhile John Connell posts about other problems with administrators banning some services. He’s got a great cartoon!

He’s also got information on the JISC project that allows Wireless users to authenticate with their home university, when visiting another. Portsmouth isn’t yet part of that, which is a great pity; we have an extensive wireless service here - and it would be handy to allow others to use it without having to get guest passes. In addition, as we have an extensive service, many users have wireless enabled kit. Perhaps soon!

Over on the SLED list, similar conversations have taken place..

It can be so frustrating when trying to get ideas going.

See also: http://www.downes.ca/cgi-bin/page.cgi?post=40057

http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/duke-wie/blog/2007/05/04/barri

Scott Mcleod writes about a school Principal who isn’t able to access a blogging project because the network administrator has stopped it; meanwhile John Connell posts about other problems with administrators banning some services. He’s got a great cartoon!

He’s also got information on the JISC project that allows Wireless users to authenticate with their home university, when visiting another. Portsmouth isn’t yet part of that, which is a great pity; we have an extensive wireless service here - and it would be handy to allow others to use it without having to get guest passes. In addition, as we have an extensive service, many users have wireless enabled kit. Perhaps soon!

Over on the SLED list, similar conversations have taken place..

It can be so frustrating when trying to get ideas going.

Via: Stephen Downes

http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/duke-wie/blog/2007/05/08/socia

Though I don’t generally read it, Slashdot has a good post about Social Computing. The comments are Slashdots usual range - the odd few gems in amongst the self opinionated drivel… however, the links that the first poster gives are useful.

Jeremy Zawodny re-asked the “What is Web 2.0?” question and got a good range of answers; there are also some Masters Courses in the US looking at Social Computing. Whatever Web 2.0 is, the ability to network and interact with others is very powerful, and worth following.

http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/duke-wie/blog/2007/05/08/socia

Though I don’t generally read it, Slashdot has a good post about Social Computing. The comments are Slashdots usual range - the odd few gems in amongst the self opinionated drivel… however, the links that the first poster gives are useful.

Jeremy Zawodny re-asked the “What is Web 2.0?” question and got a good range of answers; there are also some Masters Courses in the US looking at Social Computing. Whatever Web 2.0 is, the ability to network and interact with others is very powerful, and worth following.

http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/duke-wie/blog/2007/05/08/web-2

Broadcasting House had an interesting discussion this Sunday, looking at how things are changing. They had Andrew Keen - who is pretty vocal in his antipathy towards blogs, RSS and podcasts - seeing it as killing culture. (The differences in the straplines on the US & UK books is interesting. US: “how today’s internet is killing our culture” - UK “How Today’s Internet Is Killing Our Culture And Assaulting Our Economy” - Does he think that mentioning assaults on the economy will prevent Americans reading it; or does he think that we’re more obsessed about the economy than your average US citizen? Did his shift key break on the US version? Or, given that the UK version also has a picture on the front, maybe it’s just bigger!

Further comments came from Jimmy Wales - founder of Wikipedia, (I’ve just seen a Pew Internet Report, showing that the more highly a person was educated the more they were likely to use WIkipedia - at least in the US. Of course, it didn’t go on to see if they were using Wikipedia to support other research, as a starting point, or as an end point).

The next speaker was looking at online anonymity - how to achieve it and how to trace users.

The last speaker, Stephen Coleman from Leeds University presented a pretty good overview; as with all things, there are some users who take things to extremes, but in the majority of cases, people use and gain from their experiences online interacting with both known and unknown others.

The programme can be downloaded - I’m not sure how long they leave them up. It’s a big download - about 22MB, the actual section is in about the first 20 minutes or so.

http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/rmhttp/downloadtrial/radio4/broadcastin

http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/duke-wie/blog/2007/05/08/web-2

Broadcasting House had an interesting discussion this Sunday, looking at how things are changing. They had Andrew Keen - who is pretty vocal in his antipathy towards blogs, RSS and podcasts - seeing it as killing culture. (The differences in the straplines on the US & UK books is interesting. US: “how today’s internet is killing our culture” - UK “How Today’s Internet Is Killing Our Culture And Assaulting Our Economy” - Does he think that mentioning assaults on the economy will prevent Americans reading it; or does he think that we’re more obsessed about the economy than your average US citizen? Did his shift key break on the US version? Or, given that the UK version also has a picture on the front, maybe it’s just bigger!

Further comments came from Jimmy Wales - founder of Wikipedia, (I’ve just seen a Pew Internet Report, showing that the more highly a person was educated the more they were likely to use WIkipedia - at least in the US. Of course, it didn’t go on to see if they were using Wikipedia to support other research, as a starting point, or as an end point).

The next speaker was looking at online anonymity - how to achieve it and how to trace users.

The last speaker, Stephen Coleman from Leeds University presented a pretty good overview; as with all things, there are some users who take things to extremes, but in the majority of cases, people use and gain from their experiences online interacting with both known and unknown others.

The programme can be downloaded - I’m not sure how long they leave them up. It’s a big download - about 22MB, the actual section is in about the first 20 minutes or so.

http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/duke-wie/blog/2007/05/11/the-b

The Learning Circuits Blog has it’s monthly “Big Question” about Powerpoint this month. I’ve not yet had a chance to read all the ideas, but those that I have seem to agree with what I think.

From my perspective, we have a number of conflicting points.

• Presentations have the potential to be very boring.


• Powerpoint (etc) can provide a handy prop for the presenter.


• Students don’t like “boring” presentations - yet often find it hard to articulate what they do want.


• If presentations have very limited content (i.e. the “Good” presentation with the thought provoking image to form a background to a set of useful comments, then students comment that they need more notes…


• What is the presentation trying to get across anyway?

• A marketing message


• Training material - to be learnt & given back to the teacher as is.


• Educational material - to be taken away, digested & given back with other views embedded?

More thought later.

http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/duke-wie/blog/2007/05/11/the-b

The Learning Circuits Blog has its monthly “Big Question” about Powerpoint this month. I’ve not yet had a chance to read all the ideas, but those that I have seem to agree with what I think.

From my perspective, we have a number of conflicting points.

• Presentations have the potential to be very boring.


• Powerpoint (etc) can provide a handy prop for the presenter.


• Students don’t like “boring” presentations - yet often find it hard to articulate what they do want.


• If presentations have very limited content (i.e. the “Good” presentation with the thought provoking image to form a background to a set of useful comments, then students comment that they need more notes…


• What is the presentation trying to get across anyway?

• A marketing message

• Training material - to be learnt & given back to the teacher as is.

• Educational material - to be taken away, digested & given back with other views embedded?

More thoughts later.

http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/duke-wie/blog/2007/05/11/more-

Radius claims to be a “Social IM” tool - it allows you to know where your friends are, as well as integrating more than one IM accout. I’ve not yet tested it, so not sure if it works outside of the US. (Via: Profy)

Evo is a Java based tool, developed by CERN, and seems pretty powerful. From the information on the site, it seems like a rival to FlashMeeting - and possibly do more. When I installed it, though, it found a firewall in the way (not surprised about that) and then hung. So, more investigating needed I think.

http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/duke-wie/blog/2007/05/11/more-

Radius claims to be a “Social IM” tool - it allows you to know where your friends are, as well as integrating more than one IM accout. I’ve not yet tested it, so not sure if it works outside of the US. (Via: Profy)

Evo is a Java based tool, developed by CERN, and seems pretty powerful. From the information on the site, it seems like a rival to FlashMeeting - and possibly do more. When I installed it, though, it found a firewall in the way (not surprised about that) and then hung. So, more investigating needed I think.

http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/duke-wie/blog/2007/05/11/socia

Several good posts recently.

danah has a paper on the Australian Flexible Learning Framework site; she’s looking at teens & mySpace. It’s got a good overview of just exactly what a Social Networking site is, and then some ideas about how Educators might use them to develop their own space - without feeling like an “aged uncle in the disco”

Dennis Coxe has a post social networking and responsibilites. He includes Munroe’s fabulous Web 2.0 map (which he misattributes to danah).

Finally, Tony Hirst has a long post full of links (most of which I’ve already read), looking at how Web 2.0 tools are actually being used - and he’s got several different ways of categorising how people using these tools.

http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/duke-wie/blog/2007/05/11/socia

Several good posts recently.

danah has a paper on the Australian Flexible Learning Framework site; she’s looking at teens & mySpace. It’s got a good overview of just exactly what a Social Networking site is, and then some ideas about how Educators might use them to develop their own space - without feeling like an “aged uncle in the disco”

Dennis Coxe has a post social networking and responsibilites. He includes Munroe’s fabulous Web 2.0 map (which he misattributes to danah).

Finally, Tony Hirst has a long post full of links (most of which I’ve already read), looking at how Web 2.0 tools are actually being used - and he’s got several different ways of categorising how people using these tools.

http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/duke-wie/blog/2007/05/11/blogs

Mark Berthelemy writes about a workshop he ran, looking at Blogs and RSS for Corporate learning. One of his groups created a diagram which, while it looks at learning professionals needs for a blog, has many points that can apply directly to students - in particular the “very personal thing” and “not one size fits all”

http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/duke-wie/blog/2007/05/11/blogs

Mark Berthelemy writes about a workshop he ran, looking at Blogs and RSS for Corporate learning. One of his groups created a diagram which, while it looks at learning professionals needs for a blog, has many points that can apply directly to students - in particular the “very personal thing” and “not one size fits all”

http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/duke-wie/blog/2007/05/23/bulga

I’m currently in Bulgaria at the moment; visiting the Technical University of Sofia. I gave a presentation today, looking at eLearning and Web 2.0. I’m not sure, though, that I got quite the right level, as few students had used blogs/ MySpace / etc - though several had used Wikipedia & YouTube.

That’s when I realised that perhaps I should have done the “Paper Blogging” idea that I read about a few weeks ago - and also the frustration of not having an internet connection - so having to have taken as many screenshots as I could before hand!

Getting the Slideshow embedded wasn’t as easy as I’d expected! Though slideshare gives you the HTML code, I found that it completely screwed up the formatting. The Wordpress forums quickly pointed me to a plugin to enable the use of the code that Slideshare generate for Wordpress.com. Initially I wasn’t sure that it had worked, as in the edit box, the code still shows… Now I’m wondering what’s going to happen when the post gets imported to my Eduspaces Blog.

http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/duke-wie/blog/2007/05/23/bulga

I’m currently in Bulgaria at the moment; visiting the Technical University of Sofia. I gave a presentation today, looking at eLearning and Web 2.0. I’m not sure, though, that I got quite the right level, as few students had used blogs/ MySpace / etc - though several had used Wikipedia & YouTube.

That’s when I realised that perhaps I should have done the “Paper Blogging” idea that I read about a few weeks ago - and also the frustration of not having an internet connection - so having to have taken as many screenshots as I could before hand!

Getting the Slideshow embedded wasn’t as easy as I’d expected! Though slideshare gives you the HTML code, I found that it completely screwed up the formatting. The Wordpress forums quickly pointed me to a plugin to enable the use of the code that Slideshare generate for Wordpress.com. Initially I wasn’t sure that it had worked, as in the edit box, the code still shows… Now I’m wondering what’s going to happen when the post gets imported to my Eduspaces Blog.

http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/duke-wie/blog/2007/05/25/blogs

James Farmer gives a presentation from the HigherEd Conference. He makes several good points, starting with the current situation that many users are in, they have WebCT or Blackboard as an existing system. One point he raises, which is often overlooked I think when people compare WebCT etc., with Blogs & a more personal setting. When they were launched, most VLEs were at the “cutting edge”. Forums were new, they were making the most of that. Now things have moved on, but many VLEs have yet to really encompass that.

One thing that I really feel is the problem of “caging in”. Information can’t get out of the VLE. The student has to go there to see if there is new information. Now, students are getting increasingly used to RSS feeds etc, to bring the information to them. If more tools such as WebCT were to introduce that, and to have blogs that allowed students to have audiences outside their immediate cohort, then I think they have a future. At present, they tend to concentrate on the very small user group of the class. Which, while useful, especially when studnets are getting to grips with blogs, probably isn’t that useful long term.

James Farmer - useful points re. the fact that when WebCT etc., were first developed, forums were the main tools; now we have more but the standard tools have yet to really react.

http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/duke-wie/blog/2007/05/25/blogs

James Farmer gives a presentation from the HigherEd Conference. He makes several good points, starting with the current situation that many users are in, they have WebCT or Blackboard as an existing system. One point he raises, which is often overlooked I think when people compare WebCT etc., with Blogs & a more personal setting. When they were launched, most VLEs were at the “cutting edge”. Forums were new, they were making the most of that. Now things have moved on, but many VLEs have yet to really encompass that.

One thing that I really feel is the problem of “caging in”. Information can’t get out of the VLE. The student has to go there to see if there is new information. Now, students are getting increasingly used to RSS feeds etc, to bring the information to them. If more tools such as WebCT were to introduce that, and to have blogs that allowed students to have audiences outside their immediate cohort, then I think they have a future. At present, they tend to concentrate on the very small user group of the class. Which, while useful, especially when studnets are getting to grips with blogs, probably isn’t that useful long term.

James Farmer - useful points re. the fact that when WebCT etc., were first developed, forums were the main tools; now we have more but the standard tools have yet to really react.