About a year ago I discovered netvibes which is a great way of creating your an online page with all the rss feeds and other gadgets that I need to get me through the day. But I am not writting to say how great netvibes is, ive already done that here. Juat to say that netvibes is now avalable for mobile devices via http://m.netvibes.com
I have just tried it on my phone and it seems to work really well.
As well as me getting a new blog site, the rsc has a new website which can be viewed here www.rsc-northwest.ac.uk/ or you can take the new guided tour here http://webtour.notlong.com/. We even have a new (for us) office with some great views. As you can see on the pics taken on my new phone.
I have decided to move my blog from ELGG to wordpress. This is partly due to a few problems I have been having with elgg such as formating and the site being down. The other reason is I am really impressed with the features available on wordpress.
The address of my new blog is
Blog: http://newlearning.wordpress.com/
RSS Feed: http://newlearning.wordpress.com/feed/
The interview i described in the previous post has inspired me to check out in more detail what can be done with some of the websites he uses. There are alot, so i’ve made a list
Use trails to guide others to what’s important on the web. Place comments on web pages. Link them together to form a trail.
Wikispaces lets you create simple web pages that groups, friends, and families can edit together.
Slide –
Slide makes widgets that help people express themselves and tell emotionally engaging stories through personalized photos and videos created on Slide.com and viewed anywhere on the web or their desktop.
Ning Networks
Educators connecting to explore the next generation of teaching and learning.
the social networking site for those interested in the practical application of computer technology (especially Web 2.0) in the classroom and in their own professional development
Bubbl.us is a simple and free web application that lets you brainstorm online. Collaborative online mind map.
Quiz-Busters is an interactive plenary quiz for two teams based on the popular television quiz program Blockbusters. The resource is designed to be used on an interactive whiteboard as a teacher led activity but can be played by individual students. Hopefully you and your students will find this a fun alternative to traditional question and answer plenary and can actively contribute to Assessment for Learning (AFL).
A site dedicated to learning new things, or brushing up on things forgotten, in an innovative and hopefully more fun manner than what’s offered elsewhere. Having to learn new things, especially when told to do so, like memorizing and knowing the capitals of Europe for a test in school, can be real hard and teadious. Most of the people who’s tried the games hosted here has found that there’s actually a way to learn what they need to learn, and have fun while doing so.
So in short, PurposeGames host games to play for a purpose. Hopefully, it’s fun as well!
A lightning fast way to memorize vocabulary lists. It’s like flashcards, but much more fun and interactive.
Colaborative, online word processing and spreadsheets
A VoiceThread is an online media album that allows people to make comments, either audio or text, and share them with anyone they wish. A VoiceThread allows an entire group’s story to be told and collected in one place.
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Tags: Brainstorm, Collaboration, Game, MindMap, Qizz, SlideShow, SocialNetworks, WebQuest, Wiki
In my inbox this morning was a newsletter from The Infinite thinking machine which is a google sponsored website about elearning. The first article was about Kristian Still a sports teacher from Southampton who is using a range of web 2.0 materials to work with disengaged young people. The article included a link to an mp3 of an interview with him, which can be found here: http://www.edtechlive.com/audio/Kristian.mp3 and a link to a Trailfire which goes along with the interview, which can be found here: http://trailfire.com/Kristianstill/trailview/38344
I hadn’t come across trailfire before but it is a trail of the websites he talks about in the interview, with his own notes attached to each page.
If you have an interest in elearning I really recommend that you listen to the interview and go through the trailfire as it is truly inspirational what he has managed to achieve using wikis, discussion forums, collaborative mindmaps, slide shows and various widgets.
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I read somewhere that in order for a blog to be successful then you should never leave it more than 2 weeks between posts. Well its been more like 2 months so I apologise and will try to give a condensed update on what’s been going on.
We (the JISC RSC NW) are moving from a business park in Blackpool to Lancaster University at the end of the month
Jonathan Day, our manager, has moved on to bigger and better things so until a replacement is found, we are a management collective (no more money but we gain experience, so we have been told))
A few weeks ago we held our annual conference in Blackpool. The theme was ‘Personalised Learning’ The Presentations can be found here
The next big glossy JISC publication will be about learner experiences, for a sneak peak at the resources and videos click here
I saw a presentation of by Emma Purnell, who appeared in one of the videos discussing the use of an eportfolio as part of her PGCE. I wish I had that opportunity when I was completing mine. Some interesting quotes from Emma: “The VLE is owned by the university, the eportfolio is owned by me” “The eportfolio is something you can take with you after you have finished study” Her Video is here
Ardcalloch is a 2D, virtual town where legal students work in virtual solicitor companies over the course of a year to deal with the range of issues the town can through at them. The main website is here and video of the students is here
Interesting presentation by Stewart Smith of the University of Manchester on Mobile Learning here
Mark Van Harmelen has some interesting presentations on Web 2.0 in HE which are on slideshare here. He prompted me to think ‘Will Web 2.0 kill off VLEs?’ any thought on this?
MOLeNET is an initiative from the LSC and LSN to give money and support to mobile learning projects for FE colleges and collaborations in England.
Interesting DEMOS Publication “Their Space: Young people are spending their time in a SPACE which adults find difficult to supervise or understand…”
I have signed up to facebook which despite not getting at first, I have now become addicted to. And I can’t put my finger on why its so good.
I have started micro-blogging, first with Twitter but quickly moved to Jaiku. Again, its addictive.
I have my microblog widget on my elgg profile page. I wish I could have it showing down the right hand side of this blog page but I don’t know how. Any Suggestions anyone?
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Tags: Ardcalloch, Blackpool, demos, eportfolios, Flock, Jaiku, JISC RSC, Lancaster University, Leagal, learner experiences, Microblog, mlearning, Mobile Learning, MoleNet, Personalized Learning, Twitter, Web2.0
Notes from Blackpool and Fylde College’s elearning staff development grand day out
An ambitious staff development day for elearning held at preston guild hall. We were in the privileged position of attending as VIPs which meant we could hang out if the dressing rooms, complete with lights around the mirrors.
The first keynote was Professor Stephen Heppel who has been a major influence on ICT and elearning for over 18 years. He is currently involved with Teachers TV advising governments around the world, as well as being the CEO of www.Heppel.net. He gave us an insite to what resources are available to todays students, including a youtube clip on how to use drawings for multiplication.
We also found out a project where students from primary school to university age demonstrate their innovative use of technology at BAFTA. Its called “be very afraid” as this is how you might feel once you realise just how advanced young people are and expect their teachers to be.http://www.heppell.net/bva/default.htm
Unfortunately I missed the rest of the morning’s seminars as I was trying my hand at recording podcast interviews with some of the speakers. These included Alan Carr from mid-cheshire college talking about how they have used pocasts and Lillian Soon from xLearn discussing the use of text messaging.
In the afternoon I managed to get to a seminar by Tim Rylands who I had interviewed in the morning. Tim is a truly inspirational primary school teacher who has been developing children’s language skills by getting them to describe the magical world of the Myst computer games. He also showed us around his school via a powerpoint presentation of photos with hyperlinks taking you forward, left, right and back. He was so enthusiastic and inspiring, I left thinking how lucky his pupils were to have him as a teacher.
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May 18, 2007
This is a free 3D design tool from googlewhich is unbeliveably adictive. On the whole it is extremely intuative but itis work thaking the time to go through the tutorials to ensure you know all thetricks and tips. We are about to move offices and a couple of us have and this tool has helped us plan how the rooms will look.
IKEA also have a range of useful and free 3D room planner tools, including one for an office. Just type in the basic dimentions and drop the furniture into place.
LABORATORY DESIGN FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING
This site has a tool specificly for designing science labs to education. Again its free and 3D.
I havent found similar software for classroom design, but if anyone knows of any please let me know.
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Tags: LearningSpaceDesign
Following on from my last post, congratulations go out to my favorate turtle Billie, who won the Great Turtle Race.
This was a really clever use of the resources provided by TOPP (the Tagging Of Pacific Preditors) who tag all sorts of animals including Sharks, Turtles and Seabirds. The website contains (almost) live data on where the animals are, and the site is going to be improved soon and they also have a good blog site http://ontoppoftheworld.blogspot.com/ (thanks to Lisa Valentine for telling me about it)
I have managed to drag myself away from checking the progress of the turtles long enough to work on transfer the JISC RSC NW existing list of useful weblinks over to del.icio.us. The link is http://del.icio.us/jiscrscnorthwest and there are links on everything to do with elearning.
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Tags: Del.icio.us, Biology, Tracking
GREATTURTLERACE.COM
I have discovered the following website which uses GPS technology to track the progress of turtles as they emergrate from Costa Rica to the Galapagos Islands. http://www.greatturtlerace.com/
You can “meet the turtles” and select a turtle to cheer on. I have already selected Billie. Does anyone else want to select one to have a race?
Thanks to “Andy’s black Hole” for pointing me in the direction of this site
http://andysblackhole.blogspot.com/index.html
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Tags: TurtleTag GPS
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JISC RSC Northwest