wikis as class projects

Hi all
i'm confident now that i will be setting up a wiki for a class project next semester and will be encouraging each student to make a contribution to their understanding of the concept/or their approach to the first project for our Photographic Concepts class.
I'm really hoping that we will be able to generate continuous conversation and understanding around the topic "People in Everyday Situations". Will keep you posted re its progress, success or not!

Dim Dimmer

Hi Michael and Jim and anyone else who wants to play DimDim!
I've signed up and am ready to go when you want to try this tool out.
My DimDim ID is Gregory_Ackland

Look forward to testing this out.

what am I doing?

I am a lost lamb in this course. I have a flickr pro account which I use to dump pictures from travel onto
see http://www.flickr.com/photos/tesswere/

My son and his beautiful girlfriend are arranging a wedding in Adelaide from Perth and so I have been sent out to take photoes of possible venues then dump them onto Flickr for them to see.

If I had more time I would organise them better. Am heading off to Ireland in a few weeks time and will have more photoes to upload so I should get my act together.....

Ill go and tag some now

cheers
Tess

Social Software

Am I the only one still interested in the course content at this stage? Nobody appears to have tagged any photos other than Michael or myself...

Anyway - The whole course has been a real eye opener for me. I had vaguely been aware of Flickr and Delicious but had never had the inclination to investigate them too deeply. I guess I dismissed them as Facebook type tools used by pimply teenagers who prefer to hide behind monitors in preference to actual face to face communications.

I can now see the benefits of using something like Flickr in a training environment, simply by creating a unique tag to create a network. So simple when you know what tools are available.

Craig M

Wikis - external students

I am thinking that I will definitely be investigating the use of a Wiki with my external spatial students. I am already trying to think of a GIS project where they can all contribute despite the fact that they are all over SA (and a couple interstate)!

Social software - Wikis

I think social software like wikis are going to revolutionise group learning. I love it!!!

It makes it so easy to build material together. I've used wikis to collaboratively write papers and to develop the content for an online roleplay. As the project leader, I was able to put up the structure and people could go in and add their bit and then we could all edit .
We could quickly see the whole project emerging - so exciting.

Teachers could put up questions or areas for research and the group could record what they have found.
You could have debates - building the pros and cons.
Process writing would benefit - students could keep a record of their drafts as they work towards their final draft.
You could build F&As
Great for journaling.

Of course, there could be problems with people changing others work and there being resentment - perhaps there would need to be some norms established. I've not experienced that yet as the groups I've worked with so far have accepted that their contributions could be altered.
Well, there's a few ideas.

Ann

managing all the passwords

I have struggled in the past with managing my passwords for so many things. I have passwords for Banking, work photocopying, Ebay, accessing my phone accounts, all the plethora of online presences such as Flickr, Delicious, New Scientist, ABC, ASX etc etc etc
What do people do?
I try to have one standard one which I use most of the time and put some in my mobile phone as fake phone numbers. The one thing I have found works best for me is this........
I typed up a summary sheet of user names and passwords for things I need to remember. Rather than print and put in bag or purse.... I emailed to my online web address and files away under a folder called "important stuff". When I was overseas and had my bag stolen in Vancouver.....I logged online and had a heap of useful numbers etc. I even stored a scan of my passbook on there so I had everything at the ready.
But the big question is......is it secure to use online web interface in such a manner? It has saved me so many times and all I ever need to do is log on and it as all there.
Last count I had about 30 important links and passwords which i can not possibly remember at once.....

What do others do??

Monty the Mutt AKA Tess

Reflecting on Week 1

The first week of this learning has found me reflecting on a little blog post I read as part of the optional Power Point links but now I have a dream! What an inspiring learning environment to be a part of and I find myself wondering how to create this in the environment of Training Packages!!

http://www.teachandlearn.ca/blog/2007/05/27/making-assessment-personally-relevant/

Audio processing/conversion

Audio conversions.

You probably all know about Audacity, but another free audio program is which you may be unaware of is BeSweet. There is a free GUI front end for this called BeLight. They are both available at Sourceforge.

(SourceForge.net provides free hosting to Open Source software development projects with a centralized resource for managing projects, issues, communications, and code - this a great site for all things free and in development).

The main attraction for this suite is the ability to convert mp3, wav and others to ac3 which is required for DVD authoring and conversion of/to 5.1 channels.

In addition, a free video converter is available from: http://www.koyotesoft.com/indexEn.html.

Cheers. Stuart.

New technologies & access to education

The new Web 2.0 technologies are revolutionising access to education and learning in general. I love the way I can join in conferences that are overseas and link with people from all over the world.
For educators, the ability to link with learners 'where they are' is fantastic, and of course visa versa. Distance doesn't have to be the barrier anymore - except of course if broadband is not in your zone.

We visited Ethiopia in January and here are some pictures of technology in a third world country.

One shows a satellite disc for houses that are made of mud and cow dung and rush matting.
The other is a computer shop in Addis.



Ann Davenport

One way to think of the internet

Browsing through a few sites on new learning technologies and came across this simple but interesting description of the internet at http://www.learningtechnologies.com.au/index.cfm
"The Internet is not a network of computers it is a network of people!"

Craig Moody

New Learning Technologies

How's this for a mouthful..."Without appropriate pedagogy, use of high capacity communication services cannot provide significant improvements in learning outcomes. In general, it is the pedagogy that provides for learning, not the technology or the software alone.” James Carr, PhD., the University of Newcastle upon Tyne.

Welcome to New Participants (2008)

Welcome to all the new participants on the New Learning Technologies (NLT) course for semester 1, 2008. You can see some of the posts from participants on the last course - I have decided to leave them here so you can see what others did last time. I look forward to having many more co-authors to this blog!

Wishing Well

Wishing Well towards a Great 2008

It is necessary to shed old ideas, habits, opinions and even companions.

Letting go is sometimes a very difficult lesson in tasting Freedom.

All Humans are Spirits visiting this World

All Spirits are Beings

All Encounters are Experiences

All Experiences are forever Spiritual Connections