Tuesday, June 21, 2005

Two More Feed2JS Mirrors. Yesterday I added two new mirror sites for Feed2JS, bringing the full list of mirrors to seven. The two new kids on the block include: OpenGUI serving feeds from California Astra Systems serving feeds from somewhere in the U.K. All sites have been updated to the same functionality (latest update; al;l are listed as the full frenzy history) [...] [CogDogBlog] 1:18:48 PM      Google It!.

Nokia And Apple Collaborate On Open Source Browser [Slashdot:] 1:10:41 PM      Google It!.

They Got (Video) Game; N.B.A. Finals Can Wait. A growing number of young men would rather play a video game than watch sports, a shift that has professional leagues scrambling to keep their core audience. By SETH SCHIESEL. [NYT > Technology] 8:18:49 AM      Google It!.

Search Engine Interfaces - Donny Smith, Kairos. Even though Internet search engines occupy a huge space in students' lives, there seems to be little examination of the effect of search engines on students. The interfaces of popular search engine such as Yahoo and Google simulate annotated bibliographie [Online Learning Update] 8:15:21 AM      Google It!.

Genes help older women conceive. Scientists have identified a genetic profile that appears to enable women over 45 to conceive naturally. [BBC News | Science/Nature | UK Edition] 8:13:20 AM      Google It!.

Critical Thinking in Asynchronous Discussions. The bulk of this essay is devoted to a description of various strategies that can be employed to introduce critical thinking into online discussions. In a sense, these are all common sense strategies - "Higher level cognitive and affective questions encourage learners to interpret, analyze, evaluate, infer, explain and self regulate." But I think most of all what is required is an attitude, one that is not necessarily taught so much as demonstrated by faculty and advisors, staff that, as the author notes, need to have a good grounding in critical thinking in order to pass it along. By Greg Walker, International Journal of Instructional Technology and Distance Learning, June, 2005 [Refer][Research][Reflect] [OLDaily] 8:12:14 AM      Google It!.

Insights into Promoting Critical Thinking in Online Classes. Many people equate critical thinking with reading skills. This flavour comes through clearly in this article, the core of which is a discussion of critical thinking and reading, with an eye to using the former to "increase the student’s cognitive information processing skills." Applied to writing, the same discourse stresses the importance of reflection and editing. I see critical thinking as related to reading and writing, but distinct from them. I see linguistic forms (such as those characteristic of logical fallacies) as cues for pattern recognition, not entry points for a deconstruction of the material. I see the goal of critical thinking to be instant (and even intuitive) recognition of reasoning, and the end point of writing to be to get it right on the first draft. By Daithí Ó Murchú and Brent Muirhead, International Journal of Instructional Technology and Distance Learning, June, 2005 [Refer][Research][Reflect] [OLDaily] 8:11:10 AM      Google It!.

The Role of Critical Thinking in the Online Learning Environment. "Critical thinking," cites the author, "is the method of evaluating arguments or propositions and making judgments that can guide the development of beliefs and taking action." Having taught critical thinking for seven years I have by habit been leery of proposals to integrate critical thinking into the curriculum, not because I don't think it's a good idea, but because critical thinking isn't a discipline that can simply be picked up in passing, and because the proposals I have seen either misunderstand or misinterpret what is meant by critical thinking. So when Kelly Bruning published an article on the role of critical thinking in last month's IJITDL, I passed it over. Since then, as this month's IJITDL editorial notes, the article has seen a "surge of interest." Maybe so. According to the author, "The BUS105 Create-A-Problem exercise described in this paper incorporates critical thinking in the online environment to meet the goals of developing reflective critical thinking." Maybe - but I don't see it. By Kelly Bruning, International Journal of Instructional Technology and Distance Learning, May, 2005 [Refer][Research][Reflect] [OLDaily] 8:10:37 AM      Google It!.

Conference on Open Source for Education in Europe – Research and Practice. I don't do conference announcements. Just so you know. But this Open Source for education conference is an exception, because organizers of open source conferences usually don't have money for advertsing and publiscity (it's also kinda hard to get corporate sponsorships). I hope to make it to this one - but it depends on the funding situation here at NRC. As an aside - I have been thinking of incorporating a conference announcement and coverage system into OLDaily, using an RSS-events specification. Good idea? let me know. By Graham Attwell, The Wales-Wide Web, June 20, 2005 [Refer][Research][Reflect] [OLDaily] 8:08:18 AM      Google It!.

EdTech Posse. Rob Wall announces: "The EdTech Posse will feature a rotating group of educational technologists who work in K-12, post-secondary and research areas. So far, the posse consists of Rob Wall, Alec Couros, Dean Shareski and Rick Schwier." The first podcast is already available. Comments by Couros, Shareski, Schwier. By Rob Wall, et.al., June 16, 2005 [Refer][Research][Reflect] [OLDaily] 8:07:01 AM      Google It!.