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Friday, April 30, 2004 |
Untitled Document
Backup muckup..... last coupla' days postings in this one post Welll. I got phoenixed and my backup is somehow (despite the fact that I did it this morning!) a few days old... hmmm... so apologies to your aggregators... her's the last few days postings:
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Phoenix
I'm getting 'phoenixed' today... which means my laptop is getting one of those 'ah ha we in IT are soooo powerful and mighty that we shall control each and every one of you through our centralized network'... which is not good :o( and makes me genuinely think about spending money I don't have on another PC!
Also... 'twill be interesting to see how Radio reacts... so if you don't hear from me for a while...
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Thursday, 29 April 2004 |
My Manila Pitch
Leading on from the business pitch... here's a quick Manila pitch I'm trying out (we'll see if it works or not!)
It would also be greatly appreciated if any real Manila users out there could tell me if I'm talking out of my bum or not!
"Personal Publishing
Manila would allow for simple creation of 'reflective journals of practice'. Essentially users would just have to enter their details to create a reflective area and then post their thoughts to it. You can see a similar set-up (although the software is flexible) at Middlebury: http://manila.cet.middlebury.edu/ (where you are able to set one up yourself if you like!)
While there is a requirement for some knowledge this can be easily attained using the quickstart guide (and guessed at equally easily while using it)
Now users can write with whatever frequency they want to the web and a facilitator (and peers or whoever they choose to advertise the feed to) can subscribe to their 'RSS' feed for new postings. (RSS is the 'version' of your web-page (RDF Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication) that anyone with an RSS-reader can subscribe to then receive any new content when that site is updated. This essentially gives web-based writing the same power as email (it 'pushes' content to subscribed users) without the inefficiency, graphical and formatting issues and problems such as spam.)
For example, you can view my RSS subscriptions at: http://www.bloglines.com/public/jamesfarmer
This ease of publishing, instant communication with an audience (most likely the facilitator and peer group if appropriate) and the (admittedly anecdotal) development in reflective writing skills and knowledge of the area being written about makes personal webpublishing an exciting new development in reflective journaling and something I think could distinguish any course.
In essence, personal publishing with RSS allows for situated cognition:
"As James Greeno (1989) puts it, situated cognition promotes the view that "thinking is situated in physical and social contexts. Cognition, including thinking, knowing and learning, can be considered as a relation involving an agent in a situation, rather than as an activity in an individual's mind" (p.135). "Situated" cognivitists argue that everyday learning (i.e., learning that occurs as a function of being in the world) always takes place within a socially and culturally informed context; it is this context, this situation, that shapes both knower and knowledge. Such a view eliminates the distance between a learner and a subject matter, by emphasising, as Vygotsky did, that "learning is a way of being in the social world, not a way of coming to know about it" (Hanks, 1991, p.24)"
Collaborative Publishing
While personal publishing can add much to an individual's learning experience, collaborative publishing can add much to the social context.
Essentially following the same technical lines as personal publishing, a collaborative effort can be easily set-up using Manila and produces an RSS feed which can be read using an RSS newsreader.
In the case of this particular course I envisage one collaboratively published 'weblog' contributed to by participants, facilitators and relevant experts across the institution along the essential theme of the course. I believe this would:
- Give a voice to the participants and an area to allow them to share with a wider audience and their peers their experience and perspectives on the area.
- Provide a coherence and guiding force to the course by drawing on participants experiences and current practice and needs throughout our institution
- Raise the profile and level of interest in the course together with distinguishing from offerings elsewhere
- Provide an immensely valuable ongoing resource and conversation related to the subject matter that would provide both a 'socially and culturally informed context' to the course and, categorized and effectively archived, a pool of resources and experiences from across and beyond the university.
Costs, Resources & Configurations
A yearly academic license for Manila is around AU$500, some (a week or so) technical support would be required for installation with ongoing support at around 1-4 hours per week. Manila will run on almost any system and does not require any database software."
3:14:13 PM |
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Well worth a read:
"A little more than a year ago, I had no idea what a weblog was. But my world was turned upside-down when Aaron Campbell introduced me to web publishing and blogging. From the very beginning, I had the selfish idea that within a few months time I would have a bustling community of readers and writers surrounding my weblog, taking interest in my writing, and interacting with my thoughts within huge discussions. I was so hopeful in the success of my soon-to-be community that I worked tirelessly to bring it to life. I joined existing blog communities, put my blog on search engines, databases, and link lists, but lightning never struck and my 'monster of a community' never rose from its operating table
This reflective essay is all about how I bent over backward to promote my weblog and attract the attention of wandering websurfers to a small corner of the net called @ Home & Abroad. It is also about how I failed to keep even my own attention and how I lost touch with the reasons I once enjoyed blogging. It is about a struggle between myself and a community which would never be, it is about learning community building through failure. More importantly, this essay is a purely subjective one, representing my ideas and insights from the direct experience of weblogging..." [Weblog Dynamics]
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Wednesday, 28 April 2004 |
Inside and Between: The tyranny of online learning environments and the seeds of the revolution [Abstract - 2nd Draft]
Here's a quick abstract for the paper I mentioned earlier... any feedback or thought would be wonderful... I'm especially thinking about whether or not I should stray into the 'commercial operations' of LMSs and alike and the degree to which I should focus on their inadequacies as compared to the possibilities of social software.
Incidentally, you have got to read this paper, A City is Not a Tree... I await Clay's further thoughts with avid interest!
Inside and Between: The tyranny of online learning environments and the seeds of the revolution
There is no such thing as a learning management system. Learning simply cannot be managed in the traditional sense of the word. However, commercial providers of online teaching and learning solutions have sought to exploit the myth that it can and to pull the wool of content creation and management over eyes unused to and unsure of the concept of online teaching and learning. The myth goes that through content and communication creation and management tools, you will get “unprecedented efficiency [in] course management” or that which “allows [you] to communicate with [your] students more frequently and more effectively”. The reality is that the technology delivered by the main commercial providers is painfully restrictive and structured, extremely unsuited to organic communication, collaboration and learning community formation and a pedagogical straightjacket within which more and more learning organizations are tying themselves up.
This paper will attempt to explain how it is that these by and large woefully inadequate ‘learning management systems’ have become the norm in higher education. It will examine where the technical solutions imposed by the majority of large providers fall far short of the pedagogical necessities of quality teaching and learning and how it is that the evolution of social software, in particular of personal and collaborative webpublishing and it’s associated technologies, offers the opportunity for us to successfully facilitate what goes on ‘inside and between’ [Stevick, 1980:4] learners and teachers and hence reinvigorate online teaching and learning in the age of the semantic web.
Stevick E. (1980) Teaching Languages: A Way and Ways. Rowley, MA: Newbury House.
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4:29:45 PM 
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