Education, Web 2.0, & Yahoo!

The recent announcement that Yahoo! and the University of California, Berkeley will open a joint research facility-Y! Research Labs Berkeley--is one of many signs that Yahoo! is rapidly creating "the place" on the web for the education community.

As Yahoo! points out, the agreement with UC Berkeley, “expands scope of research in Search Technology and Social and Mobile Media; [and is a] first step in establishing closer ties with university campuses.”

Yahoo! + Social Software & Education

• Yahoo! has donated hardware, hosting, bandwidth, as well as financial resources to support the expansion and ongoing development for the online encyclopedia Wikipedia.

• The April 2005 announcement that Adobe was going to acquire Macromedia puts Yahoo! in a prime spot to expand on their existing strategic partnership with Adobe. Macromedia already has a strong foothold in the education community and has invested a lot of time cultivating those relationships by attending education conferences, hosting online product seminars, teacher outreach , community forums, and support.

• FlickrEDU: While not originally developed as an education tool, Flickr, and other social networking technologies have the ability to play an important part in student motivation, retention and learning—especially in distributed learning environments. Social software technologies and other Web 2.0 media are important tools because of their ability to foster interaction and communication between students.

• My Web 2.0 is a new Yahoo! Search product based on social networking, tags, folksonomies, and group collaboration. This new "social search" engine allows users to save their links and then share them with people they know and trust by placing them in a community knowledge pool dubbed, My Community.

• Y! Search provides a stripped down version of the Yahoo portal, providing students with a “distraction free” zone to conduct research, WebQuests, or other collaborative web-based projects.

• Yahoo! 360: One of the key benefits of Yahoo! 360, in terms of educational blogging, is that it provides the user with the ability to manage who can view their personal information based, in part, on user-defined criteria. In other words, the user controls who has access to any and all parts of the content on their blog. Now open for public beta, Yahoo! 360, features integration with several Yahoo! products including: Flickr and My Web 2.0 (via RSS Feeds).

• The Open Content Alliance is a collaborative effort of several organizations to build a permanent archive of text and multimedia content. The content archive will be available exclusively via Yahoo! Search.

• 9/06 Update: Yahoo! buys JumpCut. Read more >>

Technorati Tags: yahoo education flickr my+web+2.0 uc+berkeley+yahoo adobe macromedia web+2.0 yahoo+360 educational+weblogs

Blogging in Education

A very small pilot class completed last spring showed how successful blogs can be in education when used in conjunction with EFL/ESL classes. The students were highly motivated to come to class and well prepared to write their blog entries.

When Flickr was introduced to create photoblogs students had no problem learning the technology of digital cameras and uploading images. Even the "sign-up for a Flickr account" page can be used as an English learning activity.

More on Blogs in Education



blogs+education flickr+education blogs flickr education edublog educational+weblogs

Free iPod Book & Back to School Guide

"It’s here: The Free iPod Book & Back to School Guide, by iLounge.com. Covering all things iPod and iTunes, our first book includes exclusive sneak peeks at new iPod accessories from JBL, Belkin, Griffin, Oregon Scientific, Blumac and Sumo Cases, plus tutorials, contests, and more.

Click here for the details and the download links. Two versions - printable and widescreen - are available; please download only one."



ipod podcast education+ipod education learning

Education is Flat

Amazon.com: Where Were You When You Realized the World Is Flat? (Or Have You?) A Conversation with Thomas L. Friedman

Amazon.com: You have two children who will be entering the work force in the next few years. What do you say to parents and to young people about how to prepare themselves for the new terrain they will face?

Friedman: I have a daughter who is a sophomore in college and another who is in the 11th grade of high school. My message to them is very simple: Girls, when I was growing up my parents used to say to me, "Tom, finish your dinner. People in China and India are starving." I say to my girls, "Girls, finish your homework. People in China and India are starving for your jobs."

When the world was round, say 30 years ago, you would much rather have been born a B+ student in Indianapolis, Indiana, rather than a genius in Bangalore, India. Because the Indian genius, unless he or she could get a visa out of India, really could not plug and play with his or her talent.

Today, you do not want to be a B+ student in Indianapolis. You would much rather be a genius in India, because that genius can now innovate at a global level without ever having to emigrate. That is what the flat world makes possible. Read More >>>

Links

• The World is Flat
• Thomas Friedman
• BlendedEdu+Flat World

Technorati Tags: learning education education+technology ICT teaching flat+world thomas+friedman you+tube video

Berners-Lee on blogging and the web

BBC News: "In August 1991, Sir Tim Berners-Lee created the first website. Fourteen years on, he tells BBC Newsnight's Mark Lawson how blogging is closer to his original idea about a read/write web." more >>




educational+weblogs

H2O Playlist | Academic Social Bookmarking

"H2O Playlists, developed by the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School, are more than just a cool, sleek technology -- they represent a new way of thinking about education online.

An H2O Playlist is a series of links to books, articles, and other materials that collectively explore an idea or set the stage for a course, discussion, or current event." (via)


Additional Resources

• H2O Playlist Philosophy
• About H2O Playlist
• Social Software Playlist
• The Berkman Center for Internet & Society

social+bookmarking h2O+playlist web+2.0 tags folksonomies

Google Talk: Instant Messaging + VOIP

(via shellen.com)


google google+IM google+talk social+software

FlickrEDU | Art History 101

I recently ran across this example of an art history teacher who used the social networking features in Flickr---groups, comments, and notes--to discuss the Merode Altarpiece by Robert Campin.

Great idea!

flickr social+software education FlickrEDU yahoo

Digital Culture & Learning in a Digital Age

"Rethinking how today's kids that grow up digital learn, think, work, communicate and socialize. Understanding today's digital kids is of growing importance, not only to educators, but also to human resource departments, strategists, and marketing folks.

Understanding the social practices and constructivist ecologies being created around open source and massively multiplayer games will provide a glimpse into new kinds of innovation ecologies and some of the ways that meaning is created for these kids -- ages 10 to 40.

Perhaps our generation focused on information, but these kids focus on meaning -- how does information take on meaning?" - John Seely Brown

Read more of John Seeley Brown's thoughts on learning in the digital age on his website. You can also view his presentation: The Social Life of Information in the Digital Age and Kids that Grow Up Digital ; view paper or video (Quicktime).



open+source education social+technology multiplayer+games

Viva Papert! And Kyle too...

I’m fascinated by the different and innovative ways people tweak and tinker with technology to meet their needs. Recently I posted an idea to blend Flickr + BlinkList to create an online tutorial. Then just last week the My Web 2 blog posted an excellent “real life” example of a student utilizing his blog and online photo software to create an on-demand presentation about social bookmarking for his classmates. Great job Kyle!

Dr. Seymour Papert, co-founder of the Artificial Intelligence Lab at MIT, stresses the importance of bricolage (tinkering) as a pathway to creating concrete knowledge. Bricolage is a French word which (loosely translated) can be taken to mean "trial-and-error," learning by poking around, trying this or that until you eventually figure it out.

According to Dr. Papert this is one of the best ways to approach learning on the computer and very significantly, widens the range of opportunities to engage as a bricoleur. “If you do something wrong," he states, " the sky won't fall, you won't get shot. Just try again...Soon you will come to enjoy this process, becoming a true bricoleur.”

So (and here's the big tie in) when thinking about integrating technology into your curriculum, you must allow yourselves (and your students) space and time to experiment with new technologies, and web tools in an authentic context. It's during this process of 'tinkering' that learners will be able to 'construct' new knowledge.

Moreover, utilizing web-based tools not only provides students with an opportunity to design their own learning experience through self-directed projects, but also allows them to work in a collaborative matter in an authentic context, using the technology as a tool to facilitate and support their own learning!

Tres cool, no?


yahoo education social+software Flickr my+web+2.0 educational+weblogs

Simulation and Animation in e-Learning

A lot of people in the e-learning community are buzzing about the use of simulations, animation, and other participatory media as an avenue to provide experiential learning opportunities for students in both online (and blended) learning programs.

I recently interviewed Quinn J. Sutton VP of Marketing and Education at TestOut, a leading provider of online labs for IT training and certification, about the pros and cons of using simulations and animation in education. Quinn J. Sutton is rapidly becoming a sought after expert in the field of simulation and animation in e-learning, and has extensive experience working with education organizations in both the U.S. and Europe.

Sutton noted that “simulations lend themselves to task or skill related objectives but are less effective in knowledge-based objectives. On the other hand, animations, demonstrations, video instruction or even some text-based media tend to be better for knowledge-based learning objectives.”

In the August 2005 edition of the TestOut Academic Newsletter, Sutton makes the important point that while animation and simulation can greatly enhance the online student learning experience, it’s vital that their use be closely tied to course learning objectives.

In his July 2005 column, Virtually Better Than the Real Thing, he further notes that, “Simulated labs, if done properly, can provide students with as much reality as is necessary to give them the hands on experience they need to learn real skills.”

In the end, effective neo-millennial course and user experience design should provide engaging content that allows the user to draw connections between the context of the learning objectives and “real world” applications, while maintaining their ability to mediate their (current) level of understanding within an interactive simulation-based learning environment.

Quinn Sutton produces a new monthly newsletter for Test Out geared towards the education community, which you can subscribe to by clicking here. In addition, Test Out sponsor’s the TestOut Challenge, a free, worldwide computer skills contest for high school students.



simulation animation education

Advancing Open Source Education Conference

Advancing the Effectiveness and Sustainability of Open Education Conference, is the 17th Annual Instructional Technology Institute at Utah State University. This growing field of research and practice is called "open education."

Advances in information technology have spread communications capabilities to every clime. There is a great potential and responsbility for educators, instructional technologists, and learning scientists to leverage these advances in order to extend educational opportunity to literally everyone who desires it. As Epictetus said, "Only the educated are free."

Conference Home :: At-a-Glance :: Program :: Keynote Speakers :: Call for Papers :: Travel Info :: Register :: Sponsors

It is a multidisciplinary event designed to promote discussion of research and development activities that advance the effectiveness and sustainability of the open education movement. Two of the four conference themes for 2005 are:

open educational resources - new and old media that provide reusability across a variety of open access environments, including learning objects, knowledge objects, and sharable content objects, as well as "older" media like books and movies

overcoming barriers to open education - services and tools that make it easier for people to learn using open educational resources in a diversity of formal and informal environments, including wireless infrastructure, blogs, wikis, massively multi-player online games, simulations, instant messaging, texting, and discussion boards, as well as "older" tools like hand-powered radios or televisions

Please join us September 28 - 30, 2005 on the Utah State University campus to discuss, share, and work together in this important area of educational and technological research. Among the keynote speakers is John Seely Brown noted author and expert in digital culture, ubiquitous computing, organizational and individual learning.

Please help us advertise the conference by using this PowerPoint slide or this flyer. (via)

We Are the Web

Wired 13.08: "The Netscape IPO wasn't really about dot-commerce. At its heart was a new cultural force based on mass collaboration. Blogs, Wikipedia, open source, peer-to-peer - behold the power of the people." read more >>

Online Field Trips Boost Reading Skills

Teachers search the Internet for sites that will provide students with a glimpse of places around the world. Now students don't have to leave home to see virtual museums. Many virtual field trip sites have begun streaming video and audio to substitute for the real thing. Technology has leveled the 'playing field' taking students to places they have only seen through other eyes or heard second-hand.

Explore for yourself, Thinkport, a site designed by MPT- Maryland Public Television- in collaboration with Johns Hopkins University Center for Technology in Education. Thinkport, a free comprehensive site that houses virtual field trips along with teacher resources, support strategies and interactive activities that make these field trips meaningful learning experiences.

Pathways to Freedom: Maryland & the Underground Railroad tells the story of slavery and escaping to freedom. It is loaded with facts, resources and an interactive section that is an amazing activity. "Make your Own Secret Quilt Message" is a great example of using technology and tools to actively engage students in their learning.

Knowing Poe: The Life and Times of Edgar Allan Poe and Exploring Maryland’s Roots are other virtual expeditions offering students the chance to explore independently, a chance to make decisions on their own and participate actively in a virtual environment.
Knowing Poe won a Webby in Education Award, an award honoring excellence in Web design, functionality and creativity and recent research substantiates that these sites are helping students learn and increase reading skills.

According to a scientifically-based research study completed by MPT "Kids are critical consumers of electronic media. We designed the online field trips to teach, but they also had to be very sophisticated, fun, and relevant in order to capture the students' interest," said MPT Vice President and Chief Education Officer Gail Porter Long. "Since we began our digital projects in education using our public television resources, we've believed that the web can help teach. This study now backs that up."

Blog to School

mgsOnline: The website of Musselburgh Grammar School, was the first British school to use public weblogs, where pupils could write posts and expect comments from their friends, teachers or anyone on the planet who wanted to have their say. They were used principally for international exchanges of work and ideas between pupils.

edublogs: Ewan McIntosh shows how blogs and podcasts aren't just a gimmick: they can be used to provide powerful learning in Scottish schools.

Blogbinders: A self-publishing tool that allows students to transform their weblogs into book format on demand.

RAMBLE (Remote Authoring of Mobile Blogs for Learning Environments) has been investigating the use of weblogs as a reflective authoring activity in an educational context.

Yahoo! 360: One of the key benefits of Yahoo! 360, in terms of educational blogging, is that it provides the user with the ability to manage who can view their personal information based, in part, on user-defined criteria. In other words, the user controls who has access to any and all parts of the content on their blog.

Now open for public beta, Yahoo! 360, features integration with several Yahoo! products including: Flickr, My Web 2.0 (via RSS Feeds), and a recently added feature allows users to blog via Yahoo! Messenger.




blogs education+blogs edublogging yahoo yahoo+360 education social+software flickr my+web+2.0 educational+weblogs

Social Networking & Learning Podcast

Click podcast icon to download file!

Social Networking & The World of Learning: A 7 minute streamed Podcast audio segment (or text transcript) with Elliott Masie.

Social Networking tools, techniques and technologies will be evolving within our organizations. The learning field has an opportunity and perhaps responsibility to sponsor, direct, manage and integrate diverse Social Networking capacities from these areas:

• Collaboration Arena (email, instant messenger, web conferencing, groupware)
• Knowledge Management
• Talent Management

via MASIE Center

Blogger + Word = Blogging Bliss

Blogger for Word is a plug-in that lets you write your blog posts in Microsoft Word and then publish them to your Blogger blog--directly from Word.

Jason Shellen, Product Manager for Blogger, explains on the Google blog how they came up with the idea to integrate Blogger and Word:

“Last July, a few of us visited the Democratic National Convention to see political bloggers in action. Many were using Microsoft Word to post their reports. It was a multi-step process that didn't look like fun, but for citizen journalists, punctuation, spelling and grammar are important. That got the Blogger team thinking about how to help Word users to become bloggers.

So just now I fired up Microsoft Word, wrote this, hit 'Publish' on the brand new Blogger for Word toolbar and voila - you're reading it. Which means there's really no excuse, blogwise, if you prefer to finely craft your posts over time. Use Blogger for Word as a way to back up your document drafts with the 'Save as Draft' button or work on posts while you are offline and post them later. Hope you enjoy this new add-in.”

I think that many educators will be more apt to try blogging now that they can use familiar software like Word. Not to mention that students will be able to use Word to blog as part of techno-constructivist activities that develop writing and technology skills.

This is an exciting development in social software and blogging, and one that I hope really opens educational blogging to many new possibilities--and converts!

Additional Resources

• About
• FAQ
• Blogger Buzz
• Educational Blogging
• BlendedEdu + Blogging
  
  
  

blogger blogger+word education+blogging google education educational+weblogs

Social Interface & Web 2.0

There is a great article in the current edition of the MIT Technology Review about burgeoning social web technologies, and how people are increasingly using chat rooms, blogs, and wiki’s to collaborate.

The constant connectivity of the Internet has changed what it means to participate in a conference, classroom, or any other social gathering. This article is very timely given the big buzz about social software and bookmarking.

Open Source Social Software for Education

Open Learning Support (OLS) is social software designed to integrate with collections of open access educational materials. OLS provides learners with a mechanism for finding other people in order to ask questions, give answers, and exchange ideas.



open+source education social+technology

Educational Cyber Playground

This site is quite a Cyber Playground with so many resources you have to browse extensively to view all the toys to play with and bookmark to share with your students.

The Literacy area is loaded with ideas for ESL instructors. My favorite section "Why the English Language is so hard to learn?"explained why teaching English is so hard, because let's face it, "English is just a crazy language."

The site also is host to the National Folksong Repository and has many ideas that could be used with classes by downloading & watching streaming video.

Check out "Play is Important" highlighting the "social" aspect of learning and emphasizing the important role games play in learning.

Also try Babel Fish Translation. I translated "Would you like Milk Tea?" into Korean, Chinese and Japanese. I was a little disppointed that it didn't pronounce it for me, but I'm sure that's coming soon!

It's About Relationships, not Technology...

We-Learning: Social Software and E-Learning
Eva Kaplan-Leiserson

"Early e-learning traded technology for human interaction. Now, the personal element is being added back in. New social software tools borrowed from business and the younger generations combine tech and touch for the best of all possible worlds (including virtual ones)." {read}



education blogging social+software learning student+blogs online+course+design online+community

New York Times & Education Technology

Last week The New York Times published three noteworthy articles on the convergence of social software, tech gadgets, and neo-millennial students. Together, they provide an interesting look into the ways students use technology, as well as the way teachers are using social software to support student-led learning.

• The Digital Student: Packing for the 'Net Generation' {view}
• New Tools: Blogs, Podcasts and Virtual Classrooms {view}
• The Gadgets They've Got, And Why They Got Them {view}

education blogging social+software learning student+blogs online+course+design online+community

BBC Learn English and The Flatmates

I stumbled across the BBC World Service site, Learning English, a dedicated web site with resources, including lesson plans, message boards, email discussion groups and a weekly newsletter for English Language learners.

Learning English is an online community site that offers a wealth of resources and information for teachers and learners of English. Users can choose between text or audio files allowing users the choice of reading or listening. Click on English by Radio for more audio choices It is so exciting experiencing the 'net with audio!

The Flatmates, a soap opera that spins off Learning English is designed to teach English Online. This is a fabulous example of utilizing the ‘net for learning activities that allows anyone to access learning online anytime, anyplace!

Share this with your net-generation students, they will love listening to the episodes, learning the language points and taking the quizzes. Imagine using this site to get your ESL EFL classes talking!

Web Resources

• BlendedEdu + ESL/EFL
  
  
  Technorati Tags: education+technology education BBC+education learn+english ESL EFL net+generation

More Ideas for Y! Audio Search

This summer I began working with EFL Instructors to download Mp3’s and Podcasts to use with EFL course curriculum. These Podcasts and Mp3’s are a creative way to get students motivated to learn English using audio.

Why not use an audio clip from Y! Audio as a ‘spark’ to introduce your lesson? Or use it for the students to listen to and practice orally? The best way to learn a language is to hear the spoken word, and then practice it, right? So why not use the media that these students are using for their own entertainment? Students are all attached to mp3 players, ipods and cell phones; these are the media choices of this generation.

Instructors can download the audio files and even save them to a CD for use during class time, just in case there is a network outage (Oh No does that really happen?) or if your classroom isn’t connected. You can also download the audio files to your ipod and bring it to class. Now thats guaranteed to make you a hit with your students!

iPod Goes Back to School

The 2004 Duke iPod experiment has been closely watched by many in the higher education community and this fall several colleges and universities will also begin testing the use of iPod technology in an educational context.

Drexel University, for example, is providing iPods for students in the school of education. In addition to the iPod, Drexel is distributing the Pod2Go software, which allows students to turn their iPod into a PDA, receive over 1,000 news or other RSS content feeds (including social bookmarking RSS feeds), as well as the ability to read or write Word, RTF, or text files.

iPodSoft also makes several applications which can be used to support student learning, including iStory and MarkAble. Teachers are also rapidly adopting podcasting as a means to distribute original curriculum materials and provide 'on demand' learning opportunities for their students.

ipod podcast education+ipod pod2go education learning

Yahoo! Audio Search

Audio Search in the Online and Blended Classroom

Yahoo! Audio Search (YAS) is a new Yahoo! product that allows users to scour the web for a myriad of audio files including: music, podcasts, speeches, e-books, and interviews. Y! Audio Search also displays related content such as video, websites, Wikipedia pages, and images. These constructivist-based design elements allow users to both discover new content as well as self-regulate their experience based on their own intrinsic needs and interests.

For example, a student who enters a query for “Neil Armstrong” will also have the video version of the Moon Landing listed in their search results. This way, if a student is a visual learner they can utilize the media that best suits their learning style. This is a nice integration of Yahoo services and one that makes the student user experience, not only easier, but also more productive.

In addition, web-based audio content can be easily saved to My Web 2.0 with a just click of a link on the results page. Once audio files have been saved to My Web 2, you can add tags, share your audio files, and organize your content. Members in a “My Community” group can then search their community knowledge pool adding yet another layer of relevance to the social bookmarking space.

Y! Audio Search Curriculum Ideas

• Teachers can create original audio content (such as lectures) and then upload them to Y! Audio Search for download by students onto their computer or mp3 player. In addition, teachers can link to the audio content (or “podcast”) from their web-based course syllabus, web-based group, weblog, Flickr group, or wiki.

• Learning communities that have formed a Flickr group can link relevant audio files to the pictures in their group photo pool. For example, an American Studies teacher with a series of Mississippi River photos can post an audio link in a Flickr discussion thread to a dramatic reading from Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn.
  
  Or a history teacher can start a discussion thread in a Flickr group about the Civil War, providing a link to Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address in her pool of Gettysburg photographs. This application provides both audio and visual elements, thereby appealing to the differing and multiple learning styles of students.
  
  In all of the aforementioned examples, teachers are doing more than combining different types of media to support student learning. They are also providing “on demand” learning opportunities designed to meet the “always on” learning styles of today’s students.

• Listening to content in its original context is also an effective situated learning tool that provides an avenue for students to actively participate in their learning. Instead of reading about Albert Einstein’s scientific contributions in a textbook, students can use Y! Audio Search to actually hear Einstein himself explain his Theory of Relativity.
  
  Moreover, having students listen to period news reports about the fiery crash of the Hindenburg, the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Robert F. Kennedy’s news conference announcing the assassination of Martin Luther King, or Eleanor Roosevelt’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights speech helps them make emotional connections to shared cultural experiences.
  
  
• Audio Search also has the potential to provide educational resources for teachers in underserved areas by providing them access to low (or no) cost audio content they can integrate into their curriculum. For example, teachers could burn multiple audio (mp3) files onto a CD-ROM and then distribute audio ‘resource discs’ to students.

Y! Audio Search provides students with an opportunity to research, replay, and reflect on their own learning experience. More importantly, as students incorporate different types of social media into their collaborative project-based learning activities, they develop the critical problem solving, web, knowledge management, and technology skills they will need to succeed in the 21st Century.

And in that regard, Y! Audio Search is an important milestone in the evolution of online learning, social software, and self-publishing on the web.


yahoo+audio+search my+web+2 yahoo education+technology flickr constructivism situated+learning

Online Course Community | Connexions

Looking for a place to share knowledge & resources in an online community? Search through Connexions to find over 100 online courses being developed by over 1 million people from 157 different countries.

Connexions is a rapidly growing collection of free scholarly materials and a powerful set of free software tools to help

• authors publish and collaborate
• instructors rapidly build and share custom courses
• learners explore the links among concepts, courses, and disciplines.

Scroll through the collection of courses to find Learn Chinese via Mobile Phones. This is just the beginning of uses for social media devices such as the mobile phone we will be seeing in the educational environment.

Why not use the play toys of this generation? The possibilties are endless just as with iPods and podcasts. With the new social media tools we have today the only thing that is limited is your imagination.

After all, learning is social isn't it?

Technorati Tags: learning education education+technology ICT elearning collaboration ESL EFL language+education mlearning language podcasts ipod

Technorati Tag Generator

These days it seems like everyone in the blogosphere is talking about tags. Tags are everywhere. There are even blogs about tags. So you're ready to jump on the tagging bandwagon, but aren't sure how to create a Technorati tag?

Never fear! Fintan Darragh has created a handy little tool called (drum roll please!) Fitan's Technorati Tag Generator which can as the name suggests, generate the html code for your Technorati tags.

Here's how it works: Enter your desired keywords, click the “generate code” button and presto! Your tags will automagically appear, ready to be cut & pasted into their new home on your blog, webpage, or e-portfolio.

Handy, eh?


tags blogs tagging tag+generator