Derek's Blog

Jane Hart has recently published her list of the Top 100 tools For Learning for 2008. Jane's list is compiled from the contributions of 155 learning professionals (from both education and workplace learning) who shared their Top 10 Tools for Learning both for their own personal learning/ productivity and for creating learning solutions for others. You can search the individual top ten lists that were contributed also.

The list ranks the top 100, comparing their 2008 rank with where they came in for 2007. No huge surprises at the top of the table, with del.icio.us and Firefox swapping positions this year at 1 and 2, and as expected the top positions are sprinkled with blog and wiki applications, search tools, and various communications tools such as skype for instance. Interesting to note that Twitter has risen to 17= from 43rd last year, showing how rapidly a relative newcomer to the social networking world can rise in popularity.

It's when you get down the list a bit that there are some interesting applications that appear - for instance, Voicethread, an application for creating collaborative slideshows appears at 24=, PageFlakes at 31 and SecondLife at 41 - none of which appeared in the top 100 last year.

As you work down the list there are a number of applications that I'm not familiar with, many of which do things that other applications I already use do - all of which goes to demonstrate what a rapidly developing field the world of web2.0 and online education is.

I am encouraged to see that eXe has risen from 72nd place last year to 52=. Thanks to Jane for publishing her list again this year!

BTW - if the applications on Jane's list aren't enough for you, check out the list of applications in the OpenSocialDirectory - that should keep you buys for a few rainy weekends to come :-)

Posted by Derek Wenmoth at 9:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Sorry - but I just don't buy it.
Jane pointed me to Chitch.at, described as an educational network where teachers can share real course content, make free class pages, and develop interactive online assignments. Here's a video which explains more about it.

Now the concept of a 'lightweight', flexible way to create, post and share course content sounds appealing - but the underlying design points to a pedagogy that I have problems with. Notice the section that begins... "The Web is great - in theory!", and goes on to argue that while online environments such as blogs and wikis capture our (and our students') imaginations, they are difficult to 'teach' because we can't easily assign tasks, collect submissions or effectively grade student work etc. In other words (their words) these social web applications don't "fit" the traditional classroom.

All of this sounds like a great justification for why we might want an online environment like Chitch.at- but hang on... if these applications are (as they claim) so good at developing critical thinking, engaging student interest and creating a sense of wonder etc, shouldn't this suggest that we ought to be looking to change the nature of the "traditional classroom"??

The focus here is entirely on a pedagogy of setting tasks for students to complete - presumably tasks that essentially invite students to "guess what's in the teacher's head" since the implication is that there's a specific response on which they're then graded! A clear case of the pedagogy of assessment driving the pedagogy of instruction.

In 1915 John Dewey wrote in his "Constructivist Pedagogy" that effective learning occurs when...

• Student autonomy and initiative accepted and encouraged
  
• Teacher asks open-ended questions and allows wait time for responses
  
• Higher level thinking is encouraged
  
• Students engage in dialogue with teacher and each other
  
• Students engaged in experiences that challenge hypotheses
  
• Class uses raw data primary sources, physical and interactive materials
  
• Knowledge and ideas emerge only from a situation in which learners have to draw them out of experiences that have meaning and importance to them

Posted by Derek Wenmoth at 1:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

As if there aren't enough of these around already - but it's always fascinating to see where the new developments are. Lymabean has not yet been released, but you can watch an overview video of what appears to be a very pretty Flash-based interface.

The site has most of the features found on social networks today - profiles, friends, photos, videos, etc. and instant messaging is also built in and integrated with most of the features (drag and drop a photo into IM, for example). It's interesting to see the differences in usability with a Flash interface - although it's going to be a hard road for any new entrant of challenge the dominance of Facebook or Bebo and others that are already dominant in the market. Techcrunch observes that previous attempts to introduce a Flash based environment have not been successful.

Whether it does take off or not, the video clip is a great way of sharing understanding about what these social networking sites are all about and how they might be used - especially for anyone who doesn't already have an account :-)

Posted by Derek Wenmoth at 11:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Here's a little gem that I came across this morning in my RSS feeds....

"Learn More" is a series of self-paced discovery entries for library staff interested in venturing out on the social web. Learn More has been developed by Steve Campion, the system trainer at a large public library system in the Pacific Northwest, USA.

Each post is meant as a short introduction to a different social website, tool, or concept. It might not be ground-breaking information to veteran readers of the blogosphere, but the writer hopes that each brief summary will act as a gentle nudge for newcomers to social networking.

The tutorials are very simple and written in a conversational style that make them accessible to most. I really enjoyed reading the "Meaning For Libraries" section in each tutorial, and wonder if the same thing could be done with classroom teachers in mind - at various levels of the school system.

Posted by Derek Wenmoth at 2:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Economist.com today kicked off a new Oxford-style online debate on social networking and the value it adds to the classroom.

This month's debate proposition is: "The house believes that social networking technologies will bring large [positive] changes to educational methods, in and out of the classroom."

Our expert debaters are two leaders in education and technology, and will square off for three rounds of debate:

• CON - Michael Bugeja, Director of Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication, Iowa State University of Science and Technology. The author of 21 books whose research is often cited by the New York Times, Dr. Bugeja was among the first to analyze the use of social networks (Facebook & Second Life) before their use by students and educators was widespread and well-understood.
• PRO - Ewan McIntosh, National Adviser on Learning and Technology Futures for Learning and Teaching Scotland, the education agency responsible for curriculum development, and a member of the Channel 4 Media Advisory Board. He writes about social media and learning for the Guardian and the BBC, speaks internationally and consults for organizations including the British Council, the RSA, General Teaching Council of Scotland, RM and Scottish Enterprise, advising on how social media can be harnessed for to improve learning. He blogs at http://edu.blogs.com

• Parry Aftab, Founder & Executive Director, WiredSafety.org
  
• Judith Krug, Directory, Office for Intellectual Freedom, American Library Association (ALA)
  
• Ann Flynn, Director, Education Technology, National School Board Association (NSBA)
  
• Nancy Willard, Executive Director, The Center for Safe and Responsible Internet Use

The Economist has launched a Facebook group for followers of the debate. If you're already a Facebook member, feel free to join the group where you'll find syndicated content and be able to interact directly with members of The Economist community, including some of the previous guest participants.

Here's a short debate schedule:

• Tuesday, January 15 - Opening statements & floor opens to comments from public


• Wednesday, January 16 - Guest Participant, Parry Aftab, WiredSafety.org
  
• Thursday, January 17 - Rebuttals
  
• Monday, January 21 - Guest Participant, Judith Krug, American Library Association
  
• Tuesday, January 22 - Guest Participant, Ann Flynn, National School Boards Association
  
• Wednesday, January 23 - Closing statements
  
• Thursday, January 24 - Guest Participant, Nancy Willard, Center for Safe and Responsible Internet Use
  
• Friday, January 25 - Debate winner announced

Posted by Derek Wenmoth at 10:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Here's a new feature for those who use Google Talk that should be of interest to teachers of foreign languages - 29 translation 'bots' that can be added to Google Talk conversations. It all appears quite easy to use - for example, if you add en2zh@bot.talk.google.com as a friend in Google Talk and send it a message to translate from English to Chinese. You can use it as an interpreter in your group chat, or download the Google Talk client for BlackBerry and use it as a pocket translator.

The Google Talk Blog explains that for more languages, just add any of the 29 other translation bots. They're named using two-letter language abbreviations as "[from language]2[to language]@bot.talk.google.com", and the supported language pairs are: ar2en, bg2en, de2en, de2fr, el2en, en2ar, en2de, en2el, en2es, en2fr, en2it, en2ja, en2ko, en2nl, en2ru, en2zh, es2en, fi2en, fr2de, fr2en, hi2en, hr2en, it2en, ja2en, ko2en, nl2en, ru2en, uk2en, ur2en, zh2en. So, for French to German translation, talk to fr2de@bot.talk.google.com.

Posted by Derek Wenmoth at 8:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I had a bit of time over the weekend to explore some new web2.0 applications that I've become aware of recently (thanks to some of my contacts on Twitter)! Each of these provides a new and effective way to easily share video and/or audio messages via the web - replacing the need to go through the more complex process of creating audio and video files to upload or attach.

Springdoo is what the creators describe as the answer for a group of emotional and passion filled people who found it frustrating that email did not deliver so much of what they wanted to say, when asked to write down the key ingredients required for their "ultimate personal connecting solution". With Springdoo you can record simple video messages for others to access - as well as search and view other people's messages. It has many of the features we've come to expect from this sort of application, including the ability to email to a friend, comment, capture a still frame - and, the one I like about this, the ability to view the video clip on your mobile device!

SnapVine allows you to record voice comments and then attach them in a variety of ways, including adding your voice to photos and sharing them with friends, creating an audio blog entry - including from your mobile phone!, and sharing voice comments with friends in MySpace etc. SnapVine integrates with a number of social networking applications, including Bebo, Myspace, Facebook, Xanga and Friendster.

Seesmic is a fun and easy to use application for recording short video messages online. It's only in 'alpha' stage of development at this stage, but looks promising and if you're keen to try it you can register to become one of the alpha users. Thanks to Ewan Mcintosh for sharing this one and the test video he created!

Flixn is another online video creating tool with a simple three step approach to creating video blogs, video comments and even video emails to friends and family. Like SnapVine, Flixn integrates with other social networking software and allows you to upload video comments to MySpace, Blogger or eBay!

Posted by Derek Wenmoth at 8:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Michael Wesch has done it again. For those who enjoyed his "The Machine Is Us/ing Us" video all about Web2.0, this recent one about the Information R/evolution is equally as challenging.

This video explores the changes in the way we find, store, create, critique, and share information. It has been created as a conversation starter, and works especially well when brainstorming with people about the near future and the skills needed in order to harness, evaluate, and create information effectively.

A useful resource to have on hand when considering the idea of "literacies", and the rationale for changes in the new curriculum released in NZ yesterday!

Posted by Derek Wenmoth at 9:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

This week I finished teaching my Global Classroom course which is part of the University of Canterbury's Graduate Diploma of ICT course. I've had (another) fabulous group of teachers who undertook projects including an intercultural study with a class in Malaysia, planning a virtual camp with another class in NZ, participating in a virtual field trip to Antarctica and using ePals to connect with students in the US.

I'm always on the lookout for projects that these teachers can link into for their Global Classroom experience, and so was interested today to come across the Interactivity Center, from Education World, which features collaborative projects, virtual field trips, educational games, and other interactive activities. Most of these are free or very low cost, and illustrate the incredible imagination and creativity of teachers in making use of the opportunities now available in the online world and with the emergence of many creative applications in the Web2.0 world.

If there's not something here that you feel you can participate in, then there are heaps of ideas for projects that you could begin yourself, using some of the online environments and applications that are freely available.

Posted by Derek Wenmoth at 10:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

I've just spent the past few days in Melbourne, working with the Department of Education and groups from schools who are doing some exciting stuff in the area of integrating ICT into learning and teaching.

A hot topic in part of our discussion was internet safety - spurred in part by the concerns around the development of The Ultranet - described as "an intuitive student-centred electronic learning environment that supports high quality learning and teaching, connects students, teachers and parents and enables efficient knowledge transfer.???" The vision for this environment is that it will include various Web2.0 technologies, such as blogs, wikis and podcasting technologies - all within a 'protected' environment (ie closed off from the open internet).

This led to discussions around the potential dangers of social software environments - and the announcement while I've been here by Prime Minister John Howard has of a $189 million program to improve internet safety. The money will be spent on filtering and blocking solutions to "protect" innocent children and families from the nasties of the web.

In another press release I've read since being here is an announcement:YouTube banned in Australian Schools. Such responses to the very real dangers of the internet are based on what some refer to as "moral fear" - by which they justify the banning and blocking of access in the name of safety and protectionism.

But is this really the answer? In a strangely paradoxical situation, in the same paper that I read about the banning of YouTube, I read about the Australian PMannouncing a gap-year Army program on YouTube (watch it here) So where does the PM expect his intended audience (senior secondary students) to view the clip from since they're banned from doing so at school?

Meanwhile, in the USA I read of a Senate bill to promote web safety which will require the FTC to carry out a nationwide public-awareness campaign on internet safety for children. The response to this bill appears to have the support of those promoting the "digital faith" approach, with US ed-tech advocates agreeing the current legislation seems to make more sense and marks a more level-headed approach to internet safety.

"We now see a bill that asks schools to take their proper role in teaching safe and responsible use of the internet, rather than trying to block emerging communication and social-networking systems with great potential for positively engaging students and improving learning," said Don Knezek, CEO of the International Society for Technology in Education.

"One of a school's primary functions is to ensure safety and build responsible citizens, and trying to block every threatening activity that goes on in society is not a formula for effective education."

Knezek applauded the bill's efforts to increase web-safety education and cited New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine's recent request that teachers begin internet-safety training.

"That's exactly the kind of approach we hope to see happen, rather than prohibiting modern communication structures and tools," he said.

It'll be interesting to see how these two perspectives on how we deal with issues of internet safety and cyber-bullying in the future play out. Certainly we can find politicians, policy developers, parents and teachers on both sides of the debate - and in the middle are our students, who, even if they find this access blocked in schools, will face the decision of what to view and how to respond etc. when they access the web from home. So - even if blocking and filtering software is being contemplated, we owe it to our students to also address the issue of personal responsibility around their use of the internet.

Posted by Derek Wenmoth at 12:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Love them or hate them, the use of wikis is certainly gaining momentum in education circles. Take for instance the WikiEducator project initiated by the Commonwealth of Learning,or the Wikipedia version of Wikiversity, not to mention the myriad of educational wikis appearing that have been created within the variety of Wiki software that is available online.

A discussion with my wife over breakfast this morning reminded me of how much we still have to learn and understand about wiki use in education. My wife related to me how the tutors in a course that she is currently studying have told her class that they are not allowed to use wikipedia or Google when completing assignments (something to do with the authority of the information!) I needn't describe my reaction - needless to say it included references to "luddite", and "digital neanderthal" :-)

No-one (certainly not I) will argue that the content of Wikipedia is 100% accurate (although there is some evidence that it may be just as accurate as other "reliable sources") - but that's not really the issue. The fact is that we have a new tool available to us that we have yet to fully understand in terms of the way it is challenging our traditional understandings of things such as the accuracy of information, and the way it is changing the way we can think about (and act on) the development and sharing of information/content.

With this in mind I was interested to come across this article on Wiki Pedagogy by Ren??e Fountain. There's a heap of information in here to provide you with everything you need to know about wikis and their use in education. Fountain explores both the form and function of wikis, before venturing to describe their pedagogical potential. He offers the following justifications for the use of wikis in education:

• Wikis maximize interplay
  
• Wikis are democratic
  
• Wikis work in real time
  
• Wiki technology is text-based
  
• Wikis permit public document construction, that is, distributed authorship
  
• Wikis complicate the evaluation of writing
  
• Wikis promote negotiation
  
• Wikis permit collaborative document editing, or open editing
  
• Wikis permit the public to publish - public as publisher
  
• Wikis make feedback intensely public and potentially durable
  
• Wikis work on volunteer collaboration
  
• Wikis endorse particular ways of writing
  
• Wikis enable complete anonymity.

Posted by Derek Wenmoth at 7:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Last year I was invited to participate in a research project to investigate the use of social software in teaching and learning and in capability building and contributes to our understanding of the ways in which the development of social softwares broadens opportunities for organisations to deliver flexible learning both to internal and external clients. The project project was jointly commissioned by the Research and Policy Advice and the Knowledge Sharing Services Projects as part of the Australian Flexible Learning Framework.

The results of this research have now been published, under the title Networks, Connections and Community: Learning with Social Software, and it provides some interesting insights into into how technology is being used for knowledge sharing, capability development, and teaching and learning.

The approach used for the research followed an appreciative inquiry methodology, and the report provides a summary of each of the four phases of this approach:

• Discovery ??? appreciating ???what is??? (identifying and confirming current practice, collecting success stories)
  
• Dreaming ??? imagining how it could be (identifying future or emerging practice, the vision)
  
• Design ??? determining what should be (recommendations and strategies for implementation)
  
• Destiny ??? implementing the design.

This will prove an invaluable reference work for anyone who is contemplating the value and/or contribution of social software in education - and for anyone who is considering research in this area.

Posted by Derek Wenmoth at 2:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

I've been an avid RSS user for a number of years now - my trusty NetNewsWire provides me with my daily updates from numerous blogs, news feeds and websites that makes it easy for me to browse through dozens of items over breakfast. A significant change from the early days of the web where I'd (not so regularly) browse through the lists of links I accumulated in my 'bookmarks' - most of which were forgotten about soon after I saved them there!

In his recent post titled What is RSS, Robin Good comments in this great little video by Lee and Sachi Lefever in which they introduce RSS for beginners. It's a great 3min viewing, and Robin includes the full transcript of the video clip on his blog, complete with hypertext links to sites and features that are illustrated in the video.

As the producers of the video say:
"There are two types of Internet users, those that use RSS and those that don't. This video is for the people who could save time using RSS, but don't know where to start."

(PS - guess how I came across this link?)

Posted by Derek Wenmoth at 12:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Amid the enthusiastic talking up of Web2.0 (which I confess I've contributed to from time to time) I'm aware that we're very much in the formative stage of Web2.0 development, and that much of what we're told is based on personal anecdote or inferences based on the large numbers of people using these sites and applications.

It was of interest then that I came across a survey of Web 2.0 use by 1369 students, academics and others from this JISC funded SPIRE project.

The survey was carried out in October and November last year, and published just a few days ago. It's a veritable smorgasbord of graphs and diagrams that illustrate just how these tools and applications are being used. Among the findings that I found interesting were:

• The dominance of Wikipedia across all forms of Web2.0 applications, way ahead of MySpace, YouTube etc. This illustrates for me how Wikipedia is now regarded the world???s most important source of knowledge - in the online environment at least.
  
• Blogs also feature large - their use is analysed in a little more detail, with the results indicating that they really must be taken seriously in terms of how they are used to share knowledge.
  
• Surprising to me was the way in which calendaring came out as a key technology. Several calendaring applications were surveyed, and the use of each was very high, suggesting to me that, like my calendar, a lot of activity hangs off what is scheduled here. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised really.
  
• Communication tools also came out as high use across all age groups - the dominant player in this group being MSN Messenger - some way ahead of Skype and Google Talk. Interestingly, the Web2.0 technology that I've come to rely on - RSS - came out very low.
  
• In the institutional data category, institutional email, and institutional VLEs emerged as the dominant technologies (along with Wikipedia) Of interest to me was another favourite of mine, Flickr, which scored very low!

Well done David White and his team on the SPIRE project. These sorts of insights provide a very useful stake in the ground against which we can measure the sorts of tales that we hear from the enthusiasts and spin doctors. Of course, another survey in six months may tell a totally different story in the world of Web2.0!

A PDF version of the 10 page report summary can be downloaded here

Posted by Derek Wenmoth at 8:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Just as one becomes familiar with blogs, wikis and podcasts, seems there's an emerging generation of Web2.0 applications appearing online, known as persistent presence tools. Examples of these are Twitter and Jaiku

To some extent these remind me of the message lines that you can customise on Skype or iChat - I use mine to acknowledge where I am at any particular time, knowing that the people who have me on their 'buddy list'

With these new programs you have the opportunity to maintain a constant flow of information about what you are doing that can be published to your 'buddies' on the web via a web browser or their mobile device. Like any new technology, there's a great deal of debate about the usefulness of these tools - are they just a gimmick or something that could genuinely contribute to our 'social presence' in the virtual world?

Kathy Sierra has written a lengthy blog entry titled "Is Twitter Too Good?", in which she compares these tools with the addictiveness of slot machines, and says

"Twitter is yet another--potentially more dramatic--contribution to the problems of always-on multi-tasking... you can't be Twittering (or emailing or chatting, of course) and simultaneously be in deep thought and/or a flow state."

I'm sure readers of this blog will form their own conclusions over the next few months - in the meantime, I've signed up and have my own profile with Twitter to see just how many of Suarez's ten points might apply to my work situation!

Update - my colleague Greg Carroll just alerted me to Wendy Boswell's post on LifeHacker which has suggestions and links to ideas of how Twitter might be used in a work context - and a comment suggesting its use in school for passing notes around class!

Posted by Derek Wenmoth at 6:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The final session at the TUANZ event in CHCH yesterday was a panel discussion in which thoughts and points of view were shared about the challenges we face around the use of social networking software in schools. The general concensus was that "the party has started", and that we (as educators) need to decide whether we're going to join or not - not whether we can stop this happening.

This isn't as easy as it sounds, however, and discussion at the conference addressed a range of issues that arise, including cyber-bullying and cyber-ethics (including online plagurism, online cheating etc), with the view being that we must find a way of engaging with the students in our classes in ways that model and teach them how to use these technologies responsibly.

My friend Douglas Harre, who was on the panel, sent me a link to a post titled Under 18 Blogs, Wikis & Social Networks which provides some interesting insights along these lines. It reports on a panel discussion held at the SXSW Interactive Festival in Austin, Texas, which started with the challenge: "Young People Online are ... a constant mortal danger or fulfilling their inner potential?"

The panel focused on three questions:

1. What are young people getting out of their online lives?
   
2. What is reality when it comes to dangers for young people online?
   
3. What kinds of social, technological/design solutions are there once we identify experiences we want to facilitate and/or prevent?

The following extract for the report is something that I think is worth further discussion and pondering on. It comes from the introduction to the panel discussion by Danah Boyd who provided the context for the rest of the discussion...

[Danah] talked about how a hundred years ago 14 - 17 year olds participated in society and were mentored by adults. Then during the great depression the government instituted a policy of forcing 14 - 17 year olds to attend high school. She talked about how this began a process of creating a dynamic she called 'Age Segregation'. The concept behind this segregation being that society creates separate activities for teenagers. This however didn't change the fact that 14 - 17 year olds still yearn to participate and express themselves to society at large. The difference is that in the last few years they have begun doing it online. She pointed out 4 things that make this unique:

1. Persistence - The fact that comments, posts, social network pages don't go away
   
2. Searchability - The fact that anyone can find information about others easily. She commented that her mother would have loved to be able to easily search about her interactions, but when she was growing up this wasn't possible.
   
3. Replicability - The fact that you can easily replicate a conversation (such as IM) in many other places (such as a MySpace Page)
   
4. Invisible Audiences - The fact that you don't know who you're talking to.

It's also got me thinking about the value there is in promoting more of these panel-led, open forums at conferences and seminars, where we get the opportunity explore beyond the keynote presentation, and to delve deeper into the issues and concerns that have been exposed and exist among us.

Mmmm - off for more pondering....

Posted by Derek Wenmoth at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I called in on the TUANZ Bus Tour one day conference while it was in Christchurch today, and caught up with Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach who is the keynote speaker on this leg of the journey. Although I only caught the tail end of the final session, it ws evident to me that the 100 or so attendees had spent the day exploring the 'new world' of Web2.0 and social software - many for the first time. There was quite a positive atmosphere - with evidence of many moving into the phase of looking for purposeful ways to incorporate these tools into their teaching and learning programmes.

It was useful then, to discover in my RSS feed tonight, a post from George Seimens announcing to the world that he and his colleagues at the Learning Technologies Centre, at the University of Manitoba, have put together a wiki of New Technologies for Teaching and Learning. George says...

If you're interested in blogs, wikis, aggregators, audio, video, flickr, web conferencing, and social book marking, these wiki pages are a good starting point. They've been put together with the intent of providing a quick overview of the technology...and basic uses in teaching/training/learning environments.

The notes are originally from a series of workshops that were run by the LTC, and each page is laid out with an overview of the session 'objectives' and a list of the page content etc. It's a great idea to see the pages presented as a wiki, as I can imagine others adding all sorts of relevant information that will see these pages develop into a really comprehensive guide.

There are a number of teachers and ICT facilitators here in New Zealand who were at the Learning@School conference earlier this year, or at the TUANZ seminar today who I can imagine would find these notes of enormous value as they take the things they've learned about these new technologies back to their own schools and colleagues. Thanks George!

Posted by Derek Wenmoth at 11:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

An interesting article in this morning's New York Times titled Social Networking's Next Phase to my attention. It makes the announcement that next week Cisco Systems plans to announce that it is buying the technology assets of Tribe.net, a mostly forgotten social networking site.

According to the article, the deal will give Cisco the technology to help large corporate clients create services resembling MySpace or YouTube to bring their customers together online. The article continues:

The new social networking players, which include Cisco and a multitude of start-ups like Ning, the latest venture of the Netscape co-creator Marc Andreessen, say that social networks will soon be as ubiquitous as regular Web sites. They are aiming to create tools to let ordinary people, large companies and even presidential candidates create social Web sites tailored for their own customers, friends, fans and employees.

I find it fascinating for a couple of reasons, firstly, I've been impressed with Cisco's ability to read such trends in the past. Theirs was one of the first papers on learning objects that I came across back in 2000, and although these original concepts have been developed further since then, the foundations were laid.

Secondly, I signed up for an account with Ning when it was first released - then did little with it until the team from Ning announced just a few weeks ago that they'd totally re-vamped the site. Since then I've been looking with interest at the new functionality that has been introduced, and the subtle ways in which the community building capabilities it provides differ from the more established social networking sites mentioned above. I haven't yet got to the stage of creating my own social networking community, but have certainly enjoyed visiting others.

Keep watching this space...!

Posted by Derek Wenmoth at 5:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

The PEW Internet group have released a short report on the use of social networking sites by teenagers in the US.

The survey finds that more than half (55%) of all online American youths ages 12-17 use online social networking sites, and that older teens, particularly girls, are more likely to use these sites. For girls, social networking sites are primarily places to reinforce pre-existing friendships; for boys, the networks also provide opportunities for flirting and making new friends.

No real surprises here - but it's helpful to have this sort of data available to us. I suspect the figures wouldn't be that much different in NZ.

Posted by Derek Wenmoth at 10:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Seems there's a new piece of social software appearing online every day - and with so much around it's difficult, not only to keep up with it all, but to make an informed decision about what is worth using etc.

Thanks to some of the people in the blogosphere who seem to have more time than I do to explore these sorts of things, and who are prepared to share what they have found, I don't need to do this!

Don Hinchcliffe has recently posted his Best of Web2.0 Software for 2006 in which he lists his "winners" in six categories - and the runners up. He also includes a list of "honourable mentions" which I found interesting. His list makes you realise just how many of these applications are out there, and just how sophisticated many of them are becoming. I was interested to note that Don rates StumbleUpon ahead of del.icio.us in the social bookmarking category. I use both, but would have to say that I still prefer del.icio.us - particularly now that I have installed it as a Firefox plugin!

Meanwhile, Robin Good has published his list titled Personal Productivity: The Best Tools And Services From Sharewood. Robin's list contains his selection of some of his preferred personal productivity tools from the over 560 mini-reviews Master New Media published in 2006 through their weekly Sharewood Picnics feature. As his title suggests, Robin's list focuses on productivity tools rather than the social software apps that Don has in his list - thus there's plenty in both of these lists to keep you exploring and experimenting for some time.

Thanks to Don and Robin for sharing this with us!

Posted by Derek Wenmoth at 11:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Something else to play with and explore during the Christmas break - a sharable online whiteboard called Skrbl.. Designed to make online collaboration simple, with a simple selection of fonts and editing features - or, you can set the privacy features so that you simply use it as your personal set of notes or information you want to store. Text you copy and paste into skrbl retains its formatting, so you can copy notes from anywhere and paste them into your skrbl. You can also copy images from the web into skrbl.

I rather like this one - you can have a play with it without even registering.

Posted by Derek Wenmoth at 12:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It's official - the Time magazine Person of the Year for 2006 is "YOU"!!! In a world where stories of war, political intrigue and natural disasters have dominated the news, Time magazine has chosen a different perspective for 2006...

look at 2006 through a different lens and you'll see another story, one that isn't about conflict or great men. It's a story about community and collaboration on a scale never seen before. It's about the cosmic compendium of knowledge Wikipedia and the million-channel people's network YouTube and the online metropolis MySpace. It's about the many wresting power from the few and helping one another for nothing and how that will not only change the world, but also change the way the world changes.

And from the Online Education Database is a list of their Top 100 Education Blogs. These were selected from the 5000-odd blogs that are tracked through Technorati. I'm not sure about the categorisation they've used, but there are some really useful blogs to check out here! (Including yours truly - see under the "Technology" category!)

Posted by Derek Wenmoth at 10:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I had the opportunity yesterday to participate in an online forum using Elluminate as part of The Social Software/Web 2.0 Technologies Research Project which is funded by the Australian Flexible Learning Framework's Knowledge Sharing Services and Research and Policy Advice Projects.

It's really great to be able to be a part of this sort of forum and participate in discussions focusing on research around this emerging area of interest and activity in the online world - particularly as it pertains to education.

There were some really interesting examples of the educational use of Social Software being shared in the forum - and a whole lot more shared on the wiki, some relating to the use of SS with students, and others in relation to the use of SS for professional development. It always impresses me how creative and imaginative some teachers can be with new tools and environments like this.

I can't help but observe, however, the ongoing point of tension in these sorts of discussions. The very fact that we are looking at how to integrate the use of SS into our teaching and learning programmes assumes that this is (a)possible and (b)desirable.

Social software, by its very nature, is essentially about providing forms of expression for individuals who are then connected with other individuals to form mul