Imagining Learning with Web 2.0 Tools

Having agreed in a previous post with Martin Weller about the inappropriateness of traditional learning management systems in a social networking context I have been reading his blog further.
Martin has established a project called SocialLearn and done some thought research about what a social learning environment might be like. He proposes an interesting scenario and [...]

Learning Management Systems Under Threat from Web 2.0

Hot on the heels of presentations by Iain (HOD) and myself to a group of local teachers of IT comes confirmation of the problems facing learning management systems (LMS). Iain made the point that the structured top-down approach of LMS technology was not necessarily leading to better learning for the students.
We see this point echoed [...]

Connecting Blackboard to Facebook

This influence Facebook has over the social networking of university students across the world is undoubtedly significant and probably growing. The dominant learning management system used in universities is Blackboard. However by design Blackboard is a closed system within each institution and it would be very difficult to emulate Facebook’s global reach.
It is quite natural [...]

Mobile Phones not Clickers

An article in Wired Campus by Catherine Rampell would have us encourage our students into ‘constructive’ use of mobile phones in the classroom:
1) Check the spelling/definition of a word2) Research a topic3) Look up reference images4) Pull up maps (even with satellite imagery)5) Document a science lab with built in digital camera/video6) Fact check on [...]

Books24×7 - An Essential Tool for Teaching IT Subjects

I have been using the Books24×7 ITPro collection for almost 4 years now and continue to rely heavily on the content for my teaching and research. Particularly of late the electronic book collection contains significant numbers of recently published texts full of the very latest technology. In Australia I have found the response times have [...]

Ease Your Marking Load - Use Clickers

Giving all students in your class 100% without looking at their answers certainly reduces marking load. How do you achieve this nirvana? Simple, use clickers in class exams. This excellent solution comes to us via a Wired Campus blog post from Josh Fischman reporting the outcome of a biology exam for 900 students at the [...]

Social Software for Learning

It has been in my inbox for a while but I have just been able to find time to look at the excellent report from The Observatory by Leslie and Landon entitled Social Software for Learning- What is it, why use it? [Note: an institutional subscription is needed to read this PDF document.]
The abstract begins [...]

The Loophole Generation

I finally found some time to look through some of the recent Innovate (Journal of Online Education) issues. I was attracted to the article by Summerville and Fischetti about The Loophole Generation. They define the term thus:
We coined the phrase Loophole Generation to describe a group of students whose approach to coursework is influenced by [...]

Open Access Digital Media & Learning Books from MIT Press

Thanks again to Fred Stutzman for his blog post alerting us to the release of a large collection of books on digital media and learning from MIT Press. After a free registration process all chapters of the books are available for download in PDF. The MIT Press site also generates the citation metadata in a [...]

Information Technology Influencing Teaching & Learning

Two more thought provoking videos from the Digital Ethnography group at Kansas State Uni:

A Vision of Students Today: 

The Information R/evolution:

Each video is only 5 minutes long. Do we believe our students fit this model?
Thanks to Robert Scoble for bringing this to my attention.