31/01/2008 by nicola.

Only went to exhibition, found that everything seems a bit more packaged, maybe just me - didn’t find any real ‘hubs’ of innovation from smaller companies, but there was a nice buzz around. And no 3D rollercoaster ride down a molecule like BETT
One takeaway for me - PSP in education, the PSPs can now use Skype - e.g via Connected Education so you can have Skype video calling using your PSP as well as the language practice and other features such as vlogging (I think it is or similar) an initiative from BT & Sony called Go Messenger on the PSP.
I have always been a fan of the PSP browser size - for a mobile device, it felt sufficiently big enough to look at comfortably. When I was doing web stats for Poole, I noticed we had regular PSP visitors which I guess means there are others out there who feel the same way. Nice to see things from Sony like Messenger and Virtuoso for language training.

This article from iD4, describes a new Nokia phone which can read text from anything that that is photographed text into speech, this is great. The brilliant Little Springs have more on this with a link to this article as well

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30/01/2008 by nicola.

This quick sketch will give an indication of the variations that can occur using some sample widths, heights, depths. Will also help structure the links should these become mobile web pages. If you’re not a carpenter this may seem very meaningless but if you have furniture to make, having sizes as a reference that you can quickly open is useful.

On a separate note, Microvision among others, demo’d a mobile phone friendly projector at CES 2008. This seems more significant in terms of changing how mLearning can be created than device specific learning such as iPhones, although it will be interest to see projects emerge with those this year. However, mobile projector means that you can quickly display at your line of vision, instead of having to look down at a device, if you are in a practical role, learning ‘on the job’ - being able to quickly project something will be invaluable. Also, in terms of size, you no longer need to take as much of account of having either miniaturised or mobilised screen, your options are greatly increased. Can’t wait to see more of this.

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28/01/2008 by nicola.

Have finally got around to submitting Top 10 Tools for January 2008 no idea why its taken so long. Jane Hart has put together such a great resource for anyone in learning.

Need to point out that don’t have access to Mac pcs or macbooks otherwise some of these might be different. This is as of January 2008, these change depending on what projects involved with etc

1.Notepad - any time needing to cut and paste particularly into web pages also I handwrite my html code with it all the time.
2.Pageflakes - my newspaper on the world, finding updated information via RSS
3.Searchcrystal for attractiveness and finding stuff
4.Yahoo Answers - not really a tool but use regularly to get quick answers to anything
5.del.icio.us for accessing my bookmarks, just discovering networking features at the moment
6.Babelfish - for quick translations, to get a general idea of meaning
7.WinAvi / DivX / QuickTime Pro for playing around with video and conversion to podcast friendly formats
8.Paint.net - when don’t have access to Fireworks or Photoshop, easy to use and quick to convert for decent graphics
9.PDF995 - for quick PDF conversion, more functionality than CutePDF
10.iGoogle - not really a tool but quick access to Google Talk, docs, mail, calendar etc

Some tools I think I’m going to be using more of in my new role, so starting to keep an eye on are:
Skype for group presentations/sessions and tutor-student sessions
Turnitin - plagiarism detection tool
Logmein - RemoteAccess - free version
OutLook Web Access - already using

Other useful tools I’m using:
McAfee - site advisor - having recently had some virus problems at home, this is a nice tool which informs you about nasty little things lurking on web pages and its nice having the colour as a quick clue in the toolbar
Audacity - for quick editing or recording of audio
Snitter - attractive, easy to use Twitter client, uses Adobe Air

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27/01/2008 by nicola.

Highlighted on Africa News and also by Paula on the Baraza blog

I’m watching a tv drama about a wildlife park in Africa and it seems a million miles away from the images appearing in the news from Kenya in recent weeks.

They are hoping to raise $160,000 in 5 months and explain how the impact of tourism has already affected the area with 90% less visitors and the knock on effects to local business.

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26/01/2008 by nicola.

We have a vacancy at Surrey for an eLearning Facilitator to work as an eLearning specialist in Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, any q’s please let me know.

Have temporarily stalled with the size guide developing for mLearning - we have worked out that to cover most items of wooden furniture there are potentially millions of size combinations, so we are just going to showcase a few to give an idea. We have worked out structure and I hope to post something up to the website this weekend. Progress is a little slow at the moment,due to having started at Surrey/starting an online tutor refresher course next week for 6-8wks - but hoping to spend more time on this after March if not much before.

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25/01/2008 by nicola.

Presentations now available
1. There was a mixed audience, some discussion around using technologies in learning/e-learning at all (some universities do not have eLearning or learning technology teams yet) and at the other end of the scale, learning in virtual worlds such as Second Life. Some discussion around use of Web2 (anyone got an online charity ’swear box’ for people who use the term web2 this year and organising content although metadata and basic tagging still most common - but pedagogical, meaningful tags related about the learning experience and/or ratings can be helpful.

Jon Dron of Athabasca Uni also mentioned wisdom of crowds vs stupidity of mobs and how people are often led by what they hear first. Similar to he who shouts loudest….. I guess.How many of us just take something because we hear it first and don’t meaningfully reflect on it. Younger students are web savvy but not necessarily so in terms of web research - the cut and paste generations. Emma from University of Bristol mentioned how one student had recently handed in assignment where the whole web page, complete with banners and adverts had been inserted ! There was general agreement in the room about the need for web or internet research skills being essential for inclusion in / prior to UK degree courses. Intute developed by academic community, offer free tutorials, feeds, blogs and integration with HE websites/VLEs, to assist in this process. I know we do something with this at Surrey but need to check what.

2. Wikis at Uni of Plymouth - Steve Wheeler has developed a 5 stage model for wiki use : Exploration, Exhibition, Explanation, Elaboration, Evaluation. EEEEEsy to remember and highlights similar themes for any online community building or project work in an online space.The model takes students through a process of understanding an online editable space that is viewable by everyone. Students remarked in several cases that it has improved their practical writing skills (no inbuilt spellchecker or grammar tool)and also concerns about their views being public - so their viewpoints were relevant, well referenced and better written. This is similar to corporate wiki use, people are concerned about writing in a space that ‘anyone’ can look at and depending on how familar they are with previous shared online experiences, may take a lot of time initially to make any contribution or see the value - which brings it back to the overall reason why wikis work or not work - motivation (IM not very HO at times!).

Has seen not seen much evidence of students editing others contributions - people felt ‘protective’ and e.g. there is a locking feature in wikispaces.No serious concerns about privacy which differs from corporate use, (regulation about what can be said being a key factor in whether corporate wikis are public or not), the students saw the wiki as being related to the ‘institution’ whereas something like Facebook is their own personal uncontrolled space where they can express things differently, in some cases. Mentioned that there is an argument about whether plagiarism is a serious offence or not - some people may believe that some of the skills involved in apparent plagiarism may be part of the essential process of developing ICT and web research skills. I agree - plagiarism tools can be used as self-diagnostic tools in an effective way of trying things out.

3. Second Life - there was a demonstration of activities used for language learning in second life including commercial businesses providing these services as well as a pilot teacher group investigating options and potential activities - linking what is discovered whilst exploring SL, back out to blogs and promoting discussion on either. Another option would be about preparing students for their placement year by role playing some of the situations they might encounter (as well as visiting islands where only that language is being used - there are a few around) Some questions around amount of time it takes for a newbie to be able to do basic navigation and conversation within SL - estimating around 2+ hours with things like building or shopping for items taking additional time. Lots more events taking place in SL offering educators opportunities to take orientation in a way that is more relevant to them.

They are starting a project called M3 which is looking at integrating Twitter, Moodle and SL. Further resources mentioned to look at when investigating SL within education:

• Edumove
• EdumoveUS Fashion Show by students, also project page
• SL educational uses wiki
• guidance on using SL with students
• Language learning activities in SL wiki

Will Second Life continue to be of use to educators, are other virtual worlds better/worse/no different ? I am going to be producing an internal paper on pedagogical value / benefits of SL for my team soon-ish. Maggi Savin-Baden at Coventry University has explored / is exploring this with problem based learning activities in SL and a JISC project

see also:

• http://www.coventry.ac.uk/researchnet/d/153/a/4002
• http://education.guardian.co.uk/link/story/0,,2221098,00.html
• http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue53/kirriemuir/

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18/01/2008 by nicola.

webstats.doc

Tony Karrer has a post on web stats for 2007. Here are mine.

This blog has been live since end of September 2007, I’ve removed stats which relate to other areas of the website - the stats package I’m using is built in - so there are a lot of ‘other’ or unknown or ‘could not be categorised’ type stats which leaves me guessing If I was using this blog for other purposes then I would definitely invest more time in stats and following up (I used to complete web stats for Borough of Poole when I worked there) but its interesting to see that regularly I seem to achieve around 30-40 at most.

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16/01/2008 by nicola.

Aydin Design on GogoFrog

A free 3D visualisation or a completely 3D website. I have spent about an hour today creating a 3D representation of Aydin Design. You do not need to code anything - just add some colours,images, furniture from either your own graphics or choose from preset ones.

I have not chosen to make it completelydifferent or abstract and used images and text which were already on our 2D website. Have just put in some basic furniture and added 2 discussion forums - please go and post, we would love to hear from you !

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04/01/2008 by nicola.

Brief details so far include:

The background, target audience (carpenters, joiners, apprentices) and factors for consideration such as environmental conditions,suitability of learning.

A brief look at mobile learning theoryapplicable to this ‘experiment’, is it different to other learning theories, is informal learning appropriate etc

Learning objectives for mobile referenceware that will assist in identification, recall and calculation of different wood sizes and thickness.

Design wireframes and mobile web coding to follow soon, all suggestions and comments welcomed.

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03/01/2008 by nicola.

Step 2 continued

Have managed to produce some examples of how it can display as a mobile page by stripping out some of the content, reducing the size of the graphics and removing the main navigation which is at the top of each Aydin Design page.The code is available for download but this is not a perfect mobile web page. Please feel free to do with as you wish.

The font size could still be reduced further, but to leave all the content on there would involve scrolling down at least 3 times on a phone.Its also slightly insane to start creating a mobile web page in the middle of the site, but has been useful to get a feel for some the CSS and graphic display that can be used. I think it will now be a useful step to try and start creating something from scratch.

So for Step 3, now going to try to create some mobile learning available as simple mobile web pages, considering purpose, objectives before getting anywhere near the code - this will be available on the site possibly tomorrow or asap. Any suggestions welcomed.

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