Something I just posted on a forum about the Moodle course management system. Using Moodle: Thinking Through Groups Here are some comments and observations about the “Groups” interface (where an instructor can put participants in distinct groups) and other group-related features in Moodle. I’m currently teaching a smallish ethnomusicology seminar and a large (170 students) … Continue reading “Moodle and Collaborative Learning”
Using WordPress to build content directories and databases.
I posted the following on a forum in my "ANTH202/4B Introduction to Culture" course and realized it might be useful for other people. So I decided to post it here, in the spirit of "Alex's Teaching Tips." Some parts are specific to this course and most of it is about the way I teach, but … Continue reading “ATT2: Study Advice to my Students (via Rapport: The Informal Ethnographer Podcast)”
Sounds like iWork for iPad will export to Word but not to PowerPoint or Excel.
Diigo comments about a CHE piece on moving lectures out of the classroom.
Interestingly enough, in the last several days, at least five unrelated items of online content have made me think about what I’d call “online literacy.” Not too surprising a co-occurrence, given the feeds I follow, but I think still interesting. Especially because different perspectives were behind these items and the ways I was led to … Continue reading “Thought Streams about Online Literacy”
Been attending sessions by Meri Aaron Walker about online methods to get paid for our expertise. Meri coaches teachers about those issues. MAWSTOOLBOX.COM There’s also a LearnHub “course”: Jumpstart Your Online Teaching Career. Some notes, on my own thinking about monetization of expertise. Still draft-like, but RERO is my battle cry. Some obstacles to my … Continue reading “Selling Myself Long”
I’m still giving Diigo.com a try, so this is partly an excuse to try out the “send to blog” feature. These are selected links to blogposts and articles about issues related to the One Laptop Per Child project, with my embedded annotations. graphpaper.com – Challenge: If You Can’t Say Something Nice about OLPC… tags: OLPC … Continue reading “OLPC Linkfest”
Forty years ago this month, students in Paris started a movement of protests and strikes. May ’68. Among French-speakers, the events are remembered as the onset of a cultural revolution of sorts (with both negative and positive connotations). As we reached the 40 year anniversary of those events, some journalists and commentators have looked back at … Continue reading “And We’re Still Lecturing”
Last year, I wrote a short post about academia and teaching which I meant to be fictional. In it, the character was listing things s/he had assumed about academia and asked not to be called “professor.” The fact that it was supposed to be fictional wasn’t very clear and my perspective is in reality quite … Continue reading “Academia and Education: Am I Naïve?”
Repost from: Lounge: Apple Touch Devices in the Classroom? (Some redundant parts from the last post.) Watched and blogged about Apple’s enterprise and development media event, yesterday. The event was about what I call “Touch” products (iPhone and iPod Touch). One thing which struck me is that Phil Schiller started the enterprise section of that … Continue reading “Touch Devices in Education”
While discussing educational systems in relation to Finnish results in the OECD’s PISA results, I got to think about my high school. Here’s a slightly edited version of my forum post. Focusing on those who need help? Interesting learning philosophy. Several WSJ forum comments mentioned this and it goes well with some parts of the … Continue reading “Reminiscing about Mont-de-La Salle”
In a blogpost, Learning Systems ’08 host Elliott Masie lists 12 features learning management systems could/should have. Elliott Masie’s Learning TRENDS – Learning TRENDS – 12 Wishes for Our LMS and LCMS A summary: Focus on the Learner Content, Content and Content Ratings, Please More Context Performance Support Tools Social Knowledge Learning Systems as Components … Continue reading “Learning Systems Wishlist”
As an obvious example of “Old Media” in the U.S., The New York Times is easy to criticize. But the paper and the media company have also been showing signs that maybe, just maybe, they are home to people who do understand what is happening online, these days. Back in September 2007, for instance, the … Continue reading “New/Old Media: NYT Groks It”
It might not be so hard: As I see it, the biggest shortcoming of social-networking sites is their inability to play well with others. Between MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, Tribe, Pownce, and the numerous also-rans, it seems as if maintaining an active presence at all of these sites could erode into becoming a full-time job. If … Continue reading “How Can Google Beat Facebook?”
My friend Jay Pottharst has created a Facebook group for a section he’s teaching. Thought about doing the same thing myself but I still prefer Moodle for learning and teaching contexts. One thing which could be quite useful is Jay’s Tips for people who are concerned about joining Facebook. Though he wrote those three tips … Continue reading “Facebook for Teaching and Learning”
The following was sent to the Moodle Lounge. Business schools and research | Practically irrelevant? | Economist.com My own reaction to this piece… Well, well… The title and the tone are, IMHO, rather inflammatory. For those who follow tech news, this could sound like a column by John C. Dvorak. The goal is probably to … Continue reading “Schools, Research, Relevance”
Lots to mull over. Haven’t read this report by Daniel Miller and Heather Horst (PDF) yet, but it does sound quite insightful: The whole report is full of examples for ethnography’s ability to check (and often disprove) common-sense beliefs concerning the benefits of new technologies Rich ethnographic reports about the uses of ICT in low-income … Continue reading “One Cellphone Per Child? Ethnographic Insight and Individualism”
Oops! I did it again. Launched on one of my long-winded ramblings about the convergence between learning management systems (in this case, Moodle) and social networking sites (in this case, Facebook). Executive summary: Facebook’s power’s in fluid, organic networks. Moodle’s power’s in structured but flexible learning-based groups. I personally see a marriage made in heaven. … Continue reading “Social Networking and eLearning”
Yep! One of those blogposts about blogging. This is somewhat interesting. For some reason, I’m getting much fewer daily views on this blog but I’m getting a lot more feed views, a good proportion of which come from Google Feedfetcher. Maybe WordPress.com has changed its usage statistics to switch Feedfetcher to feeds instead of views … Continue reading “Views and Feeds”
Disparate 