Hi Gina:
I have been working my way through some of the "social software" spurred on by the November workshop. The two that I have found most immediately usable have been Slideshare and Delicious.
Slideshare (http://www.slideshare.net/) has been really valuable as a place to see how others present an idea. My own use has been of these has been in "student" mode, where I am trying to learn what the important dimensions of an issue might be and how others see them fitting in. I don't see these as the whole story on any topic, I refer to many other resources, but it is very valuable to see, often several, different conceptions of a topic. I can imagine that this would be an easy way for me to share any presentations I might create ... and maybe I'll be more inclined to create presentation slides!
Delicious (http://delicious.com/) is a wonderful tool just to keep your own bookmarks with you all the time. When I first started to use the site, I didn't (very often) because I had to stop, login and then save the bookmark. Often that was just too much time, too many steps and would help me forget what I was actually researching. Then I took a closer look and found the bookmarklets (http://delicious.com/help/bookmarklets) which are buttons installed in my normal bookmark toolbar that let me bookmark a site with a single click and a few keystrokes to enter at least a few important tags. By default I share all bookmarks, so anyone browsing or searching by tags would find the sites I have run into. For example, most of the sites that were presented in November have been added to delicious and you can see a list by searching for the tag "etugfall08". I just read in the "Live Session" stream that the tag for bookmarks related to this discussion will be "SCOPE1222". You'll find many links already there.
Neither of these sites give a lot of "context" for evaluating the content which is one of the value-added features of repositories such as Merlot, Connexions or Sol*r but neither do they have the overhead required to provide review and documentation. Perhaps there is not just one kind of thing that is an educational resource. As in Scott's example of the Educational use of Blogging, his original post was itself a resource - even though it also led to the creation of other related resources. Seems there is a lot of discussion in that thought ....
laura
Laura Proctor
Posts made by Laura Proctor
Hi Anca:
Good question to which there are probably many answers.
My perspective is that "we", meaning those in this discussion and like-minded people everywhere, are taking the lead by seeing the great value in sharing of knowledge. It is an attitude adjustment which involves, among other things, recognizing that knowledge belongs to everyone in the first place (and everything each of us does builds on the work of people in the past from whom we have learned!) and trying to make knowledge a "commodity" will not improve the world (just make a little money for a few who likely already have lots of money).
Some evidence that this shift in thinking is moving forward that I have noticed are:
Laura
Good question to which there are probably many answers.
My perspective is that "we", meaning those in this discussion and like-minded people everywhere, are taking the lead by seeing the great value in sharing of knowledge. It is an attitude adjustment which involves, among other things, recognizing that knowledge belongs to everyone in the first place (and everything each of us does builds on the work of people in the past from whom we have learned!) and trying to make knowledge a "commodity" will not improve the world (just make a little money for a few who likely already have lots of money).
Some evidence that this shift in thinking is moving forward that I have noticed are:
- California's new law on OER - see http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/9903 for a commentary. The link to the legislation in that post is out of date (now that there is a new session, so you can see the documents associated with the law by searching for the Bill Number AB 2261 in the Prior session (http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/bilinfo.html)
- UNESCO has an OER toolkit and community reaching out to the world http://oerwiki.iiep-unesco.org/index.php?title=Main_Page
- The Commonwealth of Learning launched the Learning4Content WikiEducator hub to support and encourage development of open resources http://www.wikieducator.org/Learning4Content
- And, of course, there is http://solr.bccampus.ca/cms2/ which gives B.C. educators a place to share their resources.
Laura
Hi Everyone:
Some interesting topics have come up in this discussion and some new, more focused questions still to be tackled have become clearer. The wiki is a place we can use to summarise and formulate the next questions. There is a little structure in place, and everyone is invited to add to the existing pages - or add new pages if you'd like. Please visit the wiki!
regards, Laura
Some interesting topics have come up in this discussion and some new, more focused questions still to be tackled have become clearer. The wiki is a place we can use to summarise and formulate the next questions. There is a little structure in place, and everyone is invited to add to the existing pages - or add new pages if you'd like. Please visit the wiki!
regards, Laura
Sylvia:
I understand that, in some cases in B.C., use of US-based services has been deemed acceptable as long as students are made aware of the location of the service and have the option not to use it. Being sure students have read the terms and conditions is the basis for informed choice and helps students develop goods skills to deal with the online world in other aspects of their life.
My sense is that much of the concern over this issue has come from institutions concerned about possible liability (not quite sure for what). In other cases, the information or discussions may be on topics which are particularly sensitive (politically or personally) in which case privacy issues are more significant - beyond just the Patriot Act issues.
I understand that, in some cases in B.C., use of US-based services has been deemed acceptable as long as students are made aware of the location of the service and have the option not to use it. Being sure students have read the terms and conditions is the basis for informed choice and helps students develop goods skills to deal with the online world in other aspects of their life.
My sense is that much of the concern over this issue has come from institutions concerned about possible liability (not quite sure for what). In other cases, the information or discussions may be on topics which are particularly sensitive (politically or personally) in which case privacy issues are more significant - beyond just the Patriot Act issues.
Thanks for that reference Grant! I suspect that we could have a discussion about the content of the book after giving it a read. Let's keep that thought on the back burner.
There seems to be more and more movement towards this kind of openness which makes me hopeful there is a real shift going on in higher education.
It brings to mind several conference presentations that I attended a couple of years ago - where the faculty and graduate students presenting were celebrating the fact that they had collaborated(!) on the research they presented. That was a dramatic contrast to my experience as a graduate student (nearly 20 years ago now) where the dominant interaction was to "out-do your colleagues" in a competitive environment that didn't support collaboration.
The Commonwealth of Learning has recently published several other books online related to international and online education. You can read about them and download copies from http://www.col.org/
Laura
There seems to be more and more movement towards this kind of openness which makes me hopeful there is a real shift going on in higher education.
It brings to mind several conference presentations that I attended a couple of years ago - where the faculty and graduate students presenting were celebrating the fact that they had collaborated(!) on the research they presented. That was a dramatic contrast to my experience as a graduate student (nearly 20 years ago now) where the dominant interaction was to "out-do your colleagues" in a competitive environment that didn't support collaboration.
The Commonwealth of Learning has recently published several other books online related to international and online education. You can read about them and download copies from http://www.col.org/
Laura