EdVentures in Technology

teaching, learning and change

Archive for March, 2008

Diigo Links 03/31/2008

March 31, 2008 at 12:30 pm · Filed under Diigo Links

An Outsourced Open Source LMS and a Pot of Gold? | EDUCAUSE CONNECT Annotated

tags: blackboard, lms, lms-project, moodle

Like many WebCT campuses, SUNY Delhi must select a new LMS and complete migrating to the new system in the next year. The total cost of ownership comparison led us to adopt a remotely hosted open source solution. We’ll examine the facts, figures, and progress of moving from WebCT to Moodle and integrating with Banner.

View this resource:

http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/powerpoint/NCP08060.pps

OpenSourceLMS-shah-nelson

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Diigo Links 03/30/2008

March 30, 2008 at 12:30 pm · Filed under Diigo Links

Listen to your maps with Wild Sanctuary | Tech news blog - CNET News.com Annotated

tags: conservation, google-earth, nature, science

Users can explore various sounds, and see their placement and contextual information on the map. What’s interesting about these “soundscapes” is that they can show the difference in an area before and after environmental impact both with visual maps and sound as. Several examples were given show instances where a once lush diversity of animal noises became quiet, following climate change, human settlements, logging, etc.

How to Prevent Another Leonardo da Vinci « Wandering Ink.

tags: curiosity, learning, teaching

eLearn: 10 Web 2.0 Things You Can Do…To Be a More Successful E-learning Professional Annotated

tags: downes, edtech, productivity

Ten Things You Can Do in Ten Minutes To Be a More Successful e-learning Professional

Listen to a conference presentation. When you run across conference presentations while reading your RSS feeds (EDUCAUSE Connect is a prime source, as is OLDaily), save the conference site as a bookmark and revisit it to hear a presentation.
Record a 10-minute presentation about something you are working on or learning about, either as audio (use Odeo) or video (use Ustream), and post it on your blog.
Do a search on the title of your most recent post or on the title of the most recent thing you’ve read or thought about. Don’t just use Google search, use Google Blog Search and Google Image Search, Amazon, del.icio.us, Technorati, Slideshare, or Youtube. Scan the results and if you find something interesting, save it in del.icio.us to read later.
Write a blog post or article describing something you’ve learned recently. It can be something you’ve read or culled from a meeting, conference notes (which you just capture on the fly using a text editor), or a link you’ve posted to del.icio.us. The trick here is to keep your writing activity to less than 10 minutes—make a point quickly and then click “submit.”
Tidy your e-portfolio. For example, upload your slides to Slideshare and audio recordings to Odeo and embed the code in your presentation page. Or write a description and link to your latest publication. Or update your project list.
Create a slide on Zoho. Just do one slide at a time; find an image using the Creative Commons licensed content on Flickr and a short bit of text from a source or yourself. Add this to your stick of prepared slides you use for your next talk or class.
Find a blogger you currently read in your RSS reader and go to their website. Follow all the links to other blogs in their blogroll or feedroll, or which are referenced in their posts. Well, maybe not all the links, or it will take hours, not ten minutes.
Write a comment on a blog post, article, or book written by an e-learning researcher or practitioner.
Go to a website like Engadget, Metafilter, Digg, Mixx, Mashable, or Hotlinks and skip through the items. These sites produce much too much content to follow diligently, but are great for browsing and serendipitous discovery. If you find something interesting, write a short blog post about it or at least a comment.
Catch up on one of your online games with a colleague—Scrabulous on Facebook or
Backgammon on Yahoo.
Or make a Lolcat. Or watch a Youtube video.

Wikinomics » Blog Archive » Wiki collaboration leads to happiness Annotated

tags: collaboration, fosspreso, wikinomics

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Diigo Links 03/29/2008

March 29, 2008 at 12:31 pm · Filed under Diigo Links

How Seaworld used social network to drum up interest for their new roller coaster - Profit.ca Annotated

tags: @robinyap, measurement, seaworld, social-networking

How Seaworld used social network to drum up interest for their new roller coaster

What are you trying to achieve in measuring the information you are getting?

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US Patent & Trademark Office issues preliminary rejection of Blackboard patent

March 28, 2008 at 5:39 pm · Filed under EdTech, Higher Education, PSU E-Learning Blog

A busy day in RSS-Land. These just flew across my Google Reader account. Apparently the US Patent & Trademark Office (USP&TO) has issued a preliminary finding that rejects all 44 of Blackboard’s patent claims. According to both Desire2Learn and Blackboard, this is just the first step in a lengthy review process but it is interesting for those of us who have been following this saga. Desire2Learn has made a PDF copy of this finding available on their website here.

From Desire2Learn:

On March 25, the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office issued its Non-Final Action on the re-examination of the Blackboard Patent. We are studying the document, found here, but in short, the PTO has rejected all 44 of Blackboard’s claims. We caution that this is a NON-final action; both Blackboard and Desire2Learn will have an opportunity to comment before a final action will issue, and after that, the decision will be subject to appeals.However, we’re still pleased.

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From Blackboard:

Dear Blackboard Community,

Today, the United States Patent and Trademark Office issued a first Office Action in the reexamination proceeding regarding Blackboard’s U.S. Patent 6,988,138 (”the ‘138 Patent”). This Office Action was expected and is the first step in a reexamination process that often takes years to complete. It has no effect on the validity of the patent, the lawsuit between Blackboard and Desire2Learn or the pending injunction against Desire2Learn.

We remain very confident in the strength of our patent and have provided more information about today’s announcement should you have questions. Please see www.blackboard.com/patent for more information.

View Entry

All of this follows on the heels of Blackboard’s victory in their lawsuit against Desire2Learn a few weeks ago.

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Tags: blackboard, patent, lawsuit, desire2learn

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Diigo Links 03/28/2008

March 28, 2008 at 12:30 pm · Filed under Diigo Links

College Students Score Higher In Classes That Incorporate Instructional Technology Than In Traditional Classes Annotated

tags: @courosa, college, edtech, education, higher-ed, technology, university

College Students Score Higher In Classes That Incorporate Instructional Technology Than In Traditional Classes

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Diigo Links 03/26/2008

March 26, 2008 at 12:30 pm · Filed under Diigo Links

TubeSock - Save YouTube videos

tags: digitalstorytelling, hz08, ipod, video

Tubesock lets you download Youtube and Daily motion videos from the web and saves them to your video iPod, Mac, or pLaystation portable. This is cool.

YouTube - Diigo V3: Highlight & Share the Web! Social Bookmarking 2.0

tags: collectiveknowledge, connectingpeople, hz08, hzmeta, mashup, virtualcollab

This youtube video explains the “deal” with Diigo and how it can be used. This is excellent for researchers and educators. (You could even use this for grading!)

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Diigo Links 03/22/2008

March 22, 2008 at 12:30 pm · Filed under Diigo Links

USTREAM.TV Shows: Free LIVE VIDEO, Webcam & Video Chat Rooms, Streaming Broadcast, Stream Video Clips, Internet Radio Cams, Web News Events, Watch .TV

tags: streaming-video, ustream, webvideo

Very cool tool being used successfully by Shareski, Couros and Injenuity to record and deliver video based content. What is really unique is that Ustream provides a chat feature for synchronous communication, allows for recording of streams for asynchronous provision and allows for comments to encourage asynchronous dialogue. A lot of potential here for education, if we don’t get in our own way first.
- post by edventures

A vision of the mobile, connected college experience - Today in Abilene, Texas » Moving at the Speed of Creativity Annotated

tags: college, edtech, higher-ed, iphone, university

The video is a carefully formatted and scripted production, but still quite impressive as a vision for utilizing mobile technologies in transformative ways for learning. I was particularly interested in the comments made by ACU instructors in the video. Students were provided with choices right in class, which they responded to as polls on their iPhone right away. Students self-selected a hybrid version of a class which included both online discussions and face-to-face meetings, or a more traditional seminar-style class that met entirely face-to-face. Students were encouraged to use their iPhone as a digital voice recorder to conduct interviews, as well as take photographs for a class project. I especially picked up on the comment, by one of the students, that most of the course lectures were provided in advance of class so the face-to-face time could be utilized for discussions and interaction. This is a vision of
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21st century blended learning
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, powered by ubiquitous student access to iPhones as well as professors adapting their pedagogic approaches to instruction in ways which appropriately leverage the transformative learning potential of mobile devices.
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Top News - Schools respond to iPhone’s popularity Annotated

tags: college, edtech, higher-ed, iphone, university

Educational utility of iPhone in a higher ed environment. Doubles as a Student Response System, Research tool, Alert mechanism, Polling/Survey system, etc.
- post by edventures

Campus officials roll out programs to take advantage of the iPhone’s potential as a converged, mobile learning device

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