Communities of Practice Steve Dale

Communities of Practice: Conversations To Collaboration

View more presentations from Steve Dale.

Brain Friendly learning. Dr Itiel Dror

Dr. Itiel Dror brain friendly learning, technology and learning, enhanced cognition, e-learning

Google Wave

Google Wave presentation – abridged

Handbook of emerging technologies for learning

A handbook written by  George Siemens and Peter Tittenberger as well as a wiki that will continue to be updated is now available.

“This Handbook of Emerging Technologies for Learning (HETL) has been designed as a resource for educators planning to incorporate technologies in their teaching and learning activities.”

Really worth reading.

Action & Design

Here’s a slideshare from Cathy Moore re an action orientated approach to design

Twine

Twine looks interesting;

“Twine is a new service that intelligently helps you share, organize and find information with people you trust…Twine helps you better leverage and contribute to the collective intelligence of your network…Twine provides one place to tie everything together: emails, bookmarks, documents, contacts, photos, videos, product info, data records, and more. And, because Twine actually understands the meaning of any information you add in, it helps you organize all your stuff automatically……  you can search and browse everything and everyone you know, about anything, in one convenient place….Twine recognizes what makes you special: your unique interests, personality, knowledge and relationships, to help you find and discover things, and be found by others, more relevantly……Twine uses the Semantic Web, natural language processing, and machine learning to make your information and relationships smarter………  just think of Twine as your very own intelligent personal Web assistant, working for you behind the scenes so you can be more productive.”

 

Top 10 Tools

Jane Hart invited me to contribute to the top ten tools  feature. My full thoughts are here;

In summary my top 10 are;

WordPress, Google Search, Google personalised home page, Explode, Facebook, Technorati, Elluminate, Blackberry, You Tube and My ears, fingers, eyes & voice.

I guess I’d struggle with many of these without the last one on the list!

Mind maps & Wiki

What a fantastic tool this is! Wikimindmap

It links mind maps and the wiki together.

Thanks Joan

Stephen Downes, Web 2.0 and Learning

Stephen Downes in his presentation http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5431152345344515009 talks about web 2.0 and learning. This is a summary of the empowering messages linked to learning  that I have taken away from Stephen’s session. I wonder how these will be different from the messages that others retrieve ?

“To gain from self-directed learning, you must be self-directing”

“You are at the centre of your own personal learning network”

“Pull is better than push.” It’s better to retrieve what you want rather than receive what others want you to have

Make sharing knowledge, experiences & opinions a habit and a priority

“If opportunities for interaction aren’t there, create them”

“Take charge of your own learning.” Be clear about how you learn. Use your own words & examples to categorise, make sense of and to store knowledge.

Relevance is about getting what you want, when you want it. If you don’t need it now, delete it, you’ll be able to find it somewhere on the web later. 

Future of Education Conference

 Here are some “musings” from George Siemens about the forthcoming future of education conference. To register for this valuable and free event click the link. http://umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies/conferences/foe/

“Few modern institutions hold the shape of history as faithfully as schools and universities. Rows of learners, segregated classrooms, subject specialization, and “the expert on stage” form images and stories of education over the last several hundred years.

Yet it was not always so. Ancient Greek academies based their educational activities as exploration and pursuit of truth. While it could be argued that less of the world was known in that era (though today’s nanotechnology explorers would suggest a future of greater yet to be charted worlds), a spirit of inquiry and the passion for learning dictated open spaces of dialogue and boundaries of learning imposed only by the mind, not the temporary containers of “courses” and “programs”.

The often repeated claim of “our world is changing” falls on ears immune due to frequent exposure. Yet teachers, professors, and corporate trainers are adopting tools which threaten (promise?) to shift the shape of education. Blogs, wikis, podcasts, social bookmarking, globalization, user-generated content, information growth, corporate research, flexible accreditation models, for-profit education, and international partnerships boil in the cauldron of change.

What will education look like in the future? How will we educate our children? Our employees? What will be the shape of scholarship? Of art? Of research?

Over the next week, we will begin to explore these issues with a combination of insights provided by our speakers…and with dialogue we shape ourselves. “