Social Software and more…

Today, we will be holding our E-Assessment and E-Portfolio Workshop which is a continuation of our Ne(x)t Generation Workshop Series which started with a workshop on wikis, blogs and podcasts a few weeks ago. Anyway, here’s the link to the program (in German). We’re looking forward to welcoming Prof. Karsten Wolf from the University of Bremen, Torsten Maier from the Swiss Raiffeissenverband in St. Gallen, the team around Prof. Andreas Pospischil from the University of Zurich and last but not least Sandra Schaffert from Salzburg Research/Austria.

Of course, I will sum up the main points later today or tomorrow.  

In addition to my post on blog habits I found an interesting post by Kathy Sierra on how to insert graphics into your blog, presentations and so on (via Jochen Robes and Stephen Downes). Of course, we all know how important it is to illustrate our thoughts with graphics and how well some people (the visual type) learn from these illustrations. However, I guess we all need to be reminded every one in a while.

I really like and enjoy Gliffy which is a free tool available to make graphics online (can also be used by a team). In my opinion this tool lets you get quite a long way. Enjoy!  

Lately, Norm Friesen tried to elicit a number of E-Learning Myths on his blog Ipseity. Norm is involved in the Canadian project Learning Spaces which aims at a "Phenomenological Comparison of Simulated and Mediated Computer Worlds" as it says on their website. His first two posts on E-Learning Myths were about the net generation and about the connection between technology and educational change. His last piece has just been published and deals with the knowledge economy and the myth of the knowledge worker and how this could change society. It is very well written and I’m glad that Friesen brings up the digital divide again which might even widen due to technology. I don’t quite agree with his position on Scardamalia and Bereiter’s Knowledge Building because I think that their theory might actually help to close the digital divide.

"Assuming that educators are to play a progressive role, their task would be best captured in terms of a game of catch-up in the knowledge age, but in an expression like "stepping into the breach" –to address the widening discrepancy or gap between the "knowledge class" and other classes. This can be done by providing skills and abilities apposite to knowledge work in those cases where it is possible, but not capitulate to and certainly not celebrate an order which has no place for others."

Source (and direct link to the complete article)

I’ve been following Christopher D. Sessums Weblog for quite a while now and I always found that his posts were very thoughtful and elaborated. So today he provided some insights on Action Research and Social Software and how action research might be a model for educators to try out social software for teaching and learning. He provided a straighforward graphic on how action research works, i.e. experiment by actually acting, monitor and evaluate and then start to plan again, try it out and so on… Here’s the picture which I’ll attribute to him since he didn’t give any citation (hoping that I’m not violating any copyright).

I’m glad that the connection between social software and research has been stated by Christopher. This is exactly the focus of a recent study that we did at SCIL. We basically focussed on the literature of the past few years and tried to find scientific research on social software and its application in education. Results will be reported on this blog as well as soon as I’m done with translating them into English. Anyway, in my opinion we should have a closer (more scientific) look at how social software is used in the classroom and what are the factors that help teachers and learners. This might be the starting point for wider adoption of social software.

technorati tags:research, actionresearch, sessums, socialsoftware

I found this list on “Ten habits of bloggers that win” quite interesting (via James Fadden who got it form the Cool Cat Teacher): 

The habits are good guides for beginning bloggers.

1. If you mention it hyperlink it.
2. Get a Good Title
3. Write and then cut in half
4. Write and then format
5. Draw a picture
6. Before you bag it tag it
7. After you post it ping it
8. Make sure you set your pages to archive
9. Comment on articles you quote and hyperlink to your article
10. get the stats back.

So, I’ll try to tag my blog post from now on. I’m already doing this on FURL and in my endnotes library but never minded to do it with my first blog posts. Well, well, I guess I’m still figuring this out

technorati tags:blogging, bloghabits

A former colleague of mine just sent me the link to the results of a study on Work-Life-Balance and its effects on the economy. The study aims at showing the positive effects of work-life-balance on companies, employees and the society as shown in the following graphic:

Source: Prognos-Study 2006, p.7 

It provides some thought-provoking results and also some very practical recommendations on what to do to retain employees with a  detailed analysis of the supportive and hindering factors.

Why do I blog this in a blog on social software? Because I think that work-life-balance will become increasingly important, especially for the net generation … but not only for them as a current article in the German magazine Zeit "Der Fluch der Unterbrechung" (via Mandy Schiefner) shows where the author Jürgen von Rutenberg describes in very neat writing how often we get disrupted by telephone, e-mail and, I guess, also by social software. So, the philosophical question remains: Is progress curse or blessing?

I just found out about Using Wiki in Education, the wiki-based book via the blog Using Wiki in Education. This looks like a wonderful resource. It must have been available for three weeks by now and I’m wondering how I could miss it up to now.

As far as I could discover up to now, two chapters of the wiki-book are free and you can access the rest for $19. This for sure is an interesting enterprise model. Anyway, I’ll let you know in a few days if I find it worth it.

So much for now…

Since November 8, the Edublog Awards are open for nominations. Appearantly, only educational bloggers are allowed to nominate other blogs (as it says on the awards homepage and in the OLDaily) are allowed . The categories for this year are:

• Best audio and/or visual blog
• Best group blog
• Best individual blog
• Most influential post, resource or presentation
• Best library/librarian blog
• Best newcomer
• Best research paper on social software within learning and teaching
• Best teacher blog
• Best undergraduate blog
• Best wiki use

Source: Edublog Awards 2006

The nomination period is open until November 30. Nominations should be sent to 2006awards@googlemail.com

The category on the “Best research paper on social software within learning and teaching” is quite interesting. Let’s see what they will vote on in the end and don’t forget…

…to get your European vote in today!

via A Difference

There’s an interesting discussion going on whether George Siemens’ Connectivism is indeed a learning theory or just another pedagogy. Verhagen from the University of Twente reviewed

1. Is connectivism a learning theory or a pedagogy?
2. The principles advocated by connectivism are present in other learning theories as well.
3. Can learning reside in non-human appliances?

Source: Connectivism: Learning theory or Past Time of the Self-Amused by George Siemens (connected blog post: Externalizing Knowledge)

The keynote presentations of the EDEN Research conference are online now. I would recommend to take a look at the presentations by

• Rop Kopper,
• Martin Weller, and
• Stephen Downes.

Apparently, the recordings of the keynotes will be put online as well.