Podcasting is a combination of the words IPod and broadcasting. A way for people to be able to selectively subscribe to audio or video content over the internet. This content can then be automatically added to a mobile device or mp3 player.
Podcasts in education I see a few main arguments to support the use of podcasts in education:
1. The ubiquity of iPods and other MP3 players provides a ready base of users of this tool.
2. Support for students with low literacy skills or other learning difficulties
3. Catering to students with a range of learning styles
4. Providing material to vision impaired students
5. Allowing for self-paced learning
6. Empowering students to create and distribute their own music, poetry, etc.
Links:
http://www.csiro.au/products/CSIROpod.html
http://www.abc.net.au/services/podcasting/
http://www.podcards.com.au
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Thursday, April 3, 2008
What does a Personal Learning Environment look like?
A PLE is comprised of all the different tools we use in our everyday life for learning.
Many of these tools will be based on social software. Social software is used here in the meaning of software that lets people connect or collaborate by use of a computer network. It supports networks of people, content and services that are more adaptable and responsive to changing needs and goals. Social Software adapts to its environment, instead of requiring its environment to adapt to software. Social software underpins what is loosely referred to as Web 2.0. Whereas Web 1 was largely implemented as a push technology - to allowaccess to information on a dispersed basis, Web 2.0 is a two way process, allowing the internet to be used for creating and sharing information and knowledge, rather than merely accessing external artefacts.
Social software is increasingly being used in education and training through such applications as web logs, wikis, tools and applications for creating and sharing multi media and tools for sharing all kinds of different personal knowledge bases including bookmarks and book collections.If we are to use different applications, individually configured then standards are critical for allowing one application to talk to another Rather than monolithic vendor driven and designed applications, Web 2 and social software is based on the idea of ‘small pieces, loosely connected’ utilising commonly recognised standards and web services for linking ideas, knowledge and artefacts.Social software offers the opportunity for narrowing the divide between producers and consumers. Consumers become themselves producers, through creating and sharing. One implication is the potential for a new ecology of ‘open content, books, learning materials and multi media, through learners themselves becoming producers of learning materials.
Social software has already led to widespread adoption of portfolios for learners bringing together learning from different contexts an sources of learning and providing an on-going record of lifelong learning, capable of expression in different forms.The idea of a Personal Learning Environment is also based on being able to aggregate different services.
The list below is of the software I use for my personal learning environment:
- Word processor for writing papers
- E-mail client for communication
- Audio for making podcasts
- Video editor for making multi media presentations – iMovie
- Personal Weblog
- Photo editing programme - iPhoto (and plug infor uploading to Flickr)- Photo sharing service
- Instant messaging – Skype, Msn
- Search engines - mainly Google
Personal Learning Environments - intent and use the development and support for Personal Learning Environments would entail a radical shift, not only in how we use educational technology, but in the organisation and ethos of education. Personal Learning Environments provide more responsibility and more independence for learners. They would imply redrawing the balance between institutional learning and learning in the wider world. Change is difficult but it is probable that the rapid development and implementation of new technologies and social change make change in our educational provision inevitable.There are also many unresolved issues, including who provides technology services, security of data and of course the personal safety of students. Notwithstanding these issues, we are beginning to see how these new tools might practically be used in education, especially through wide scale experiments in the use of blogging.
Personal Learning environments are not an application but rather a new approach to the use of new technologies for learning. There remain many issues to be resolved. But, at the end of the day, the argument for the use of Personal Learning environments is not technical but rather is philosophical, ethical and pedagogic.PLEs provide learners with their own spaces under their own control to develop and share their ideas. Moreover, PLEs can provide a more holistic learning environments, bringing together sources and contexts for learning hitherto separate. Students learn how to take responsibility or their own learning. Critically, PLEs can bridge the walled gardens of the educational institutions with the worlds outside. In so doing learners can develop the judgements and skills or literacy necessary for using new technologies in a rapidly changing society.
References
Cross, J. (2006). The Low-Hanging Fruit Is Tasty, Internet Time Blog, retrieved 3rd April, 2008 from http://internettime.com/?p=105
Nonaka, I. & Konno, N. (1998). The Concept of "Ba": Building a Foundation for Knowledge Creation, California Management Review, 40, 3, 40-54.
Seely Brown J. & Duguid. P. (2002). The Social Life of Information. Harvard Business School Press (2002).
Many of these tools will be based on social software. Social software is used here in the meaning of software that lets people connect or collaborate by use of a computer network. It supports networks of people, content and services that are more adaptable and responsive to changing needs and goals. Social Software adapts to its environment, instead of requiring its environment to adapt to software. Social software underpins what is loosely referred to as Web 2.0. Whereas Web 1 was largely implemented as a push technology - to allowaccess to information on a dispersed basis, Web 2.0 is a two way process, allowing the internet to be used for creating and sharing information and knowledge, rather than merely accessing external artefacts.
Social software is increasingly being used in education and training through such applications as web logs, wikis, tools and applications for creating and sharing multi media and tools for sharing all kinds of different personal knowledge bases including bookmarks and book collections.If we are to use different applications, individually configured then standards are critical for allowing one application to talk to another Rather than monolithic vendor driven and designed applications, Web 2 and social software is based on the idea of ‘small pieces, loosely connected’ utilising commonly recognised standards and web services for linking ideas, knowledge and artefacts.Social software offers the opportunity for narrowing the divide between producers and consumers. Consumers become themselves producers, through creating and sharing. One implication is the potential for a new ecology of ‘open content, books, learning materials and multi media, through learners themselves becoming producers of learning materials.
Social software has already led to widespread adoption of portfolios for learners bringing together learning from different contexts an sources of learning and providing an on-going record of lifelong learning, capable of expression in different forms.The idea of a Personal Learning Environment is also based on being able to aggregate different services.
The list below is of the software I use for my personal learning environment:
- Word processor for writing papers
- E-mail client for communication
- Audio for making podcasts
- Video editor for making multi media presentations – iMovie
- Personal Weblog
- Photo editing programme - iPhoto (and plug infor uploading to Flickr)- Photo sharing service
- Instant messaging – Skype, Msn
- Search engines - mainly Google
Personal Learning Environments - intent and use the development and support for Personal Learning Environments would entail a radical shift, not only in how we use educational technology, but in the organisation and ethos of education. Personal Learning Environments provide more responsibility and more independence for learners. They would imply redrawing the balance between institutional learning and learning in the wider world. Change is difficult but it is probable that the rapid development and implementation of new technologies and social change make change in our educational provision inevitable.There are also many unresolved issues, including who provides technology services, security of data and of course the personal safety of students. Notwithstanding these issues, we are beginning to see how these new tools might practically be used in education, especially through wide scale experiments in the use of blogging.
Personal Learning environments are not an application but rather a new approach to the use of new technologies for learning. There remain many issues to be resolved. But, at the end of the day, the argument for the use of Personal Learning environments is not technical but rather is philosophical, ethical and pedagogic.PLEs provide learners with their own spaces under their own control to develop and share their ideas. Moreover, PLEs can provide a more holistic learning environments, bringing together sources and contexts for learning hitherto separate. Students learn how to take responsibility or their own learning. Critically, PLEs can bridge the walled gardens of the educational institutions with the worlds outside. In so doing learners can develop the judgements and skills or literacy necessary for using new technologies in a rapidly changing society.
References
Cross, J. (2006). The Low-Hanging Fruit Is Tasty, Internet Time Blog, retrieved 3rd April, 2008 from http://internettime.com/?p=105
Nonaka, I. & Konno, N. (1998). The Concept of "Ba": Building a Foundation for Knowledge Creation, California Management Review, 40, 3, 40-54.
Seely Brown J. & Duguid. P. (2002). The Social Life of Information. Harvard Business School Press (2002).
Online Discussion Versus the Blog
Is there anything that online discussion does better than blogs can do in teaching and learning?
Blogs are personal, learner focused tools that are designed for learner directed and orchestrated activity. A blogger has the ability to determine subject matter, customize design, organize content, edit current and past work, and delete unwelcome comments from the blog space at will. Blogs can simultaneously be focused on the educational application, while still retaining the self-directed, internal focus of the owner. For example, the blog enhances social presence by exposing the learner’s affective response through the self disclosure evident in the earlier, perhaps unrelated postings, the links and the graphics they chose to exhibit on their blogs (Anderson & Cameron, 2006). I find the blog a good tool for management and promoting ideas, it can also give each person their ‘personal space’ but I don’t find it an engaging tool to teach with (as a communication tool).It is good as a journal, as discussing an idea or promoting services/products but not for learning or teaching with as I find it abit slow based . I think the virtual class/Java script, Skype, Msn or even discussion forum is a better way to learn online as it is a faster stimulant. Personally doing projects in teamwork, I have used social software as Msn and Skype to communicate and share ideas. The blog doesn’t stimulate as much discussion and the posts seem like a guest book for comments rather than a brainstorm of ideas branching from one topic and further establishing.Ferdig and Trammell (2004) discuss the public nature of educational blogging and argue that, “blogging opens up assignments beyond the teacher-student relationship, allowing the world to grade students and provide encouragement or feedback on their writings.” The infinite potential for comment on their work can be at once intimidating and encouraging for learners and will have implications for how learners want to be perceived by this larger audience. Widening of the audience obviously affects the potential for developing identity but could also result in exchanges that may negatively impact learner confidence as their words are released to anyone on the open Net.Will Richardson (2004) asks the question, “Could blogging be the needle that sews together what is now a lot of learning in isolation with no real connection among the disciplines?” and suggests that blogging has the potential to teach learners “how” to learn. Stephen Downes(2004) argues that “despite obvious appearances, blogging isn’t really about writing at all; that’s just the end point of the process, the outcome that occurs more or less naturally if everything else has been done right. Blogging is about, first, reading. But more important, it is about reading what is of interest to you: your culture, your community, your ideas” (Downes, 2004).Do you think you would atempt to use blogging as a teaching tool or would you use another tool more adapted to your learning style?
Reference
Ferdig, R. & Trammell, K.D. (2004) Content delivery in the blogosphere. The Journal. http://www.thejournal.com/articles/16626Downes, S. (2004)
Educational Blogging. EDUCAUSE Review. http://www.educause.edu/pub/er/erm04/erm0450.asp
Richardson, W. (2004) Reading and blogging. Weblogg-Ed.from http://www.weblogg-ed.com/2004/03/31.
Is there anything that online discussion does better than blogs can do in teaching and learning?
Blogs are personal, learner focused tools that are designed for learner directed and orchestrated activity. A blogger has the ability to determine subject matter, customize design, organize content, edit current and past work, and delete unwelcome comments from the blog space at will. Blogs can simultaneously be focused on the educational application, while still retaining the self-directed, internal focus of the owner. For example, the blog enhances social presence by exposing the learner’s affective response through the self disclosure evident in the earlier, perhaps unrelated postings, the links and the graphics they chose to exhibit on their blogs (Anderson & Cameron, 2006). I find the blog a good tool for management and promoting ideas, it can also give each person their ‘personal space’ but I don’t find it an engaging tool to teach with (as a communication tool).It is good as a journal, as discussing an idea or promoting services/products but not for learning or teaching with as I find it abit slow based . I think the virtual class/Java script, Skype, Msn or even discussion forum is a better way to learn online as it is a faster stimulant. Personally doing projects in teamwork, I have used social software as Msn and Skype to communicate and share ideas. The blog doesn’t stimulate as much discussion and the posts seem like a guest book for comments rather than a brainstorm of ideas branching from one topic and further establishing.Ferdig and Trammell (2004) discuss the public nature of educational blogging and argue that, “blogging opens up assignments beyond the teacher-student relationship, allowing the world to grade students and provide encouragement or feedback on their writings.” The infinite potential for comment on their work can be at once intimidating and encouraging for learners and will have implications for how learners want to be perceived by this larger audience. Widening of the audience obviously affects the potential for developing identity but could also result in exchanges that may negatively impact learner confidence as their words are released to anyone on the open Net.Will Richardson (2004) asks the question, “Could blogging be the needle that sews together what is now a lot of learning in isolation with no real connection among the disciplines?” and suggests that blogging has the potential to teach learners “how” to learn. Stephen Downes(2004) argues that “despite obvious appearances, blogging isn’t really about writing at all; that’s just the end point of the process, the outcome that occurs more or less naturally if everything else has been done right. Blogging is about, first, reading. But more important, it is about reading what is of interest to you: your culture, your community, your ideas” (Downes, 2004).Do you think you would atempt to use blogging as a teaching tool or would you use another tool more adapted to your learning style?
Reference
Ferdig, R. & Trammell, K.D. (2004) Content delivery in the blogosphere. The Journal. http://www.thejournal.com/articles/16626Downes, S. (2004)
Educational Blogging. EDUCAUSE Review. http://www.educause.edu/pub/er/erm04/erm0450.asp
Richardson, W. (2004) Reading and blogging. Weblogg-Ed.from http://www.weblogg-ed.com/2004/03/31.
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