I’ve been working on reinterpreting my PLE in order to get a deeper understanding of its nature. My initial approach was to group both formal and informal learning together. This time I’m going into a bit more detail.

I’ve derived three sub-PLEs from my core map. The base categorisation is dependent upon context: the three sub-PLEs represent maps of my MA ODE PLE, my Professional PLE, and my Blog PLE. Strictly speaking, I suppose one could argue that the first represents a formal learning context, while the other two are much more self-imposed learning scenarios. Here they are below:

My MA ODE PLE (Click on the image to view full size)

My Professional PLE (Click on the image to view full size)

My Blog PLE (Click on the image to view full size)

I’ve found that reinterpreting my initial PLE has allowed me to identify components that I had originally missed. For example, I had forgotten that podcasts were made available within my course materials. I think I forgot to consider this technology in the initial map because, as an overall concept, podcasts were interesting to me a couple of years ago but I quickly became overwhelmed by the amount of information available and eventually unsubscribed from the feeds. I think that the fact that I don’t like listening to the radio also has something to do with my disengagement from the podcasting community. And finally, and probably the most important reason why I don’t listen to podcasts, is because I’m not an auditory learner. I process information better when I can read it. I think that’s probably the most important lesson that podcasting technology has taught me. Some other components I forgot to include the first time around are MS Word and Google Scholar, along with a number of creative tools that I’ve added to my Blog PLE.

This PLE drill-down also gave me a clearer picture of my dominant learning tools, namely, Firefox, which in turn means the Internet which then leads me to my laptop. The nodes that are connected by a green line are the only ones that can be accessed without the Internet.

I’m not sure whether the real value of this activity is going to be in comparing my own reinterpretations, or eventually comparing my analyses with others’ reinterpretations…

Click on the image to view full size.

Having played my role of a learning technologist, I am quite familiar with the concept of the virtual learning environment (a.k.a learning management system). It’s quite a controversial topic these days. Sclater provides a nice overview of the issues being raised by both sides of the growing debate.

My experience has afforded me with proof that VLEs can work – students get more (but not always easier) access to resources, students and teachers can communicate with one another outside of a classroom, and the institution has control over who accesses what information (a neat and tidy way of managing the copyright dilemma). However, this sensitive point about control also forms the basis for an argument against VLEs. Some argue that VLEs fundamentally represent the opposite of what the web is all about – freedom to access, share and create whatever content you want. Enter the Personal Learning Environment (PLE).

Similar to Martin Weller, I did not start off by thinking about what elements I needed to include in my PLE in order to make it work. I’m conscious that the integration of technologies is a continually evolving process. Some tools have become part of the foundation of my PLE, while others didn’t quite seem to fit and were subsequently dropped. I’ve noticed that this evolution is made more and more complex as collaborative technologies get better at ‘speaking’ with one another.

When creating a map of my PLE, I have to admit that I had a hard time separating the technologies that I use strictly for ‘learning’ (the definition of which I’m still not clear about!) from those that I also use for plain old socialising or getting around in life. And then there are the ones that I use to build my professional online brand which also didn’t quite fit into the learning or socialising categories. That’s why I’ve chosen to kind of bunch up every technology I use into one overall picture. This way, it seems a bit more reflective of the interconnectedness that many of us are experiencing.

Looking at my PLE map, you’ll notice that I’ve included the software applications I use, as well as the web-based technologies to which I subscribe (is subscribe the right word here?!). I don’t think that a personal learning environment has to necessarily be ‘connected’ at all times, so I didn’t want to limit this map to just the tools that are fashionable now, or that focus strictly on the social aspects of the web. The more I think about it, the more I’m discovering that I tend to collect information from various corners of the web, but most of my reflection (or digestion) actually takes place using disconnected tools like word documents or plain text files. Whether I choose to share these reflections is another story, but when it comes to my process of developing understanding, it often starts with the web, then goes into software applications, and then sometimes flows back out into the virtual space.

Although challenging, it would be interesting to have a snapshot of my PLE at different points in time. For example, prior to starting my MA with the OU, I didn’t even know what FirstClass was. Today, it represents a very powerful connector to my classmates and tutors. It would also be interesting to see a map of the tools that didn’t make it into my orbit – and consider the reasons why they failed to make the cut.

Who knows what my PLE will look like even a few months from now!? For example, I can only imagine how it will change once I finally get an iPhone and the world of developer’s apps opens up to me!

Oh, and yes, I’ve also include a MMORPG in my PLE because sometimes, learning how to take a break is part of learning how to learn!

I didn’t realize how archaic email was until I saw what Wave can do! I first heard about it from David Wiley’s blog, and after posting the YouTube video of its unveiling to my Facebook profile I continued reading public reaction to it which led me to Jon Mott’s post in which he notes how closely the timing of the announcement fell to the launch of WolframAlpha. He also comments about how he thinks this might impact learners:

I’ve Seen the Future and the Future is Us (Using Google)

Based on an hour and 20 minute long video, Google Wave appears poised to dramatically improve on the Twitter model. Accordingly, the possibilities for enhanced interactions between learners are encouraging. And the ripples of the Wave (sorry, couldn’t resist) have profound implications. With Wave, entire learning conversations are captured and shared with dynamic communities of learners.

www.jonmott.com

I’ve included a link to the unveiling below.

I’m still wrapping my mind around the possibilities. I’m definitely one of the believers that this will be a huge revolution in the way we use technology to support communication…and…what is education if not the communication of ideas in the name of greater understanding.

Whether you want your local students to have a way of meeting outside of the classroom, your distance learning students to remotely collaborate in their study groups or for you to conduct seminars online or have one-on-one conferences with your research students, the technology available to us today affords us with many free and easy solutions that connect people, and that allow for the sharing of videos and images as well as text and sound. The types of technologies focused on here are screen capture, screencast and screen share technologies along side video conferencing applications. These types of tools are more and more often being bundled together – so teach yourself what each technology does so that you can decide which ones are important to you.

In this post, I’m not going to go into great detail about the ways in which you could apply these technologies within an educational context. Instead, my intention is to build an evolving list of resources to which you can refer each time you find yourself looking for a new way to connect with your students (or to have them connect with each other).

Because the technologies below can seem similar to one another at first glance, it’s important to have as clear an idea as possible about what you want the technology to do for you. If you’re not sure exactly what it is you’re looking for, browse through the list and start to develop a familiarity with the capabilities of the tools. To help you get comfortable with their features, I’ve included links to demo videos and/or tutorials where they are available.

Just to clarify for those of you who might be unclear about the difference between Screen Capture vs. Screencast vs. Screen Share tools:

Creating a screen capture (a.k.a. ‘screenshot‘ or less eloquently as a ‘screen dump‘) is basically the process of taking a static (still) photo of your screen (great content to add to help documents and other instructional material that mix text with images). A screencast is a way for you to capture moving images (videos) of what you see on your screen and share them with other people so that they can see what you see (useful for demonstrating tools or for giving overviews of resources and course websites to distance learning/remotely located students). Participating in a screen share means to either have access to someone else’s computer or to give access to the other members of your group (lots of security issues arise in this scenario, but some people find the function useful).

Screen Capture / Screencast

Demo Video

Demo Video

Demo Video

Demo Video

Demo Video

Demo Video

Demo Video

Read more about Skitch here

Demo Videos & Tutorials

Read more about sni.ps here

Sample Uses Videos

Video Conference / Screen Share

Demo Video

Demo Videos

Demo Video

Overview

FAQs

Demo Video

About

FAQs

Demo Video

Also see their education program

Tutorials

Demo Video

And remember, if you’re a MAC user, you can easily take quick pictures (screen shots) of any part of your screen by simply pressing COMMAND SHIFT 4 and highlighting the area you want to capture. A .png file of your selection appears neatly on your desktop.

Have I missed a tool you want to share with others? Add a comment and let me know!

Today’s post is about online study aids for students. For the most part, we’ll be looking at different variations of online flashcards. It’s up to you to determine whether they can add value to your teaching strategy. As a learning technologist, I would normally sit down with one or more instructors and discuss the nature of the course/module, how it fits in with the curriculum, the desired learning outcomes, the makeup of the student profile, the resources available within the classroom and throughout the term of the course, as well as how the teachers envision their instructional journey. Seeing as we don’t have that luxury here, I’ll do my best to provide you with an overview of some of the tools available to you – all free, all relatively user-friendly. One thing I will caution is that there is often a stigma associated with flashcards in which they are perceived as being useful only for elementary level learning, but with a bit of creativity and imagination, it’s possible to harness their power to aid in memory work and apply them beyond the basics of any subject – languages, geography, medicine, science and technology, history, etc.

Brainflips is the first tool on our list. The site has a great interface, each set of flashcards comes with a score board, timer, navigation panel and total number of cards in the deck, which makes it easy to see where you are in the testing process and how well you’re doing. You can study the materials in three different modes: introduction (question & answer side-by-side), traditional (question then answer), and response mode (manually enter answer). Learners can join groups which means that, for example, you can start a study group where you can create sets of decks of flashcards relevant to a specific class you’re teaching and have your students join your group. It gives you a sense of community and allows you to contextualize the learning in a clear place on the site. In terms of file formats, you can include audio, text, images and video into your flashcards. The search feature could be a bit more encompassing and there doesn’t seem to be much choice in how to filter and sort the results which makes it all the more important to know what you’re looking for.

FunnelBrain takes a very student-centric approach to learning. Based on the Leitner Method (common in the design of flashcard learning tools), the site emphasizes students working together to collaboratively build their knowledge and skills in common subject areas – a communities of practice approach for students. Mixing the well grounded learning theories with an innovative use of wikis and social software differentiates this from many of the other flashcard tools out there.

Although student teamwork is a great way to develop social as well as scholastic skill sets, how does the student know if they’re on the right path? Having said that, I understand how bringing teachers into the mix would significantly change the dynamic of a student-focused learning approached and these sorts of social dynamics are really important to consider in all technology enhanced educational settings. For example, there was a long-standing misconception prevalent in the educational community (I’m trying to be optimistic and use the past tense here…) that if students are using technologies so widely in their social lives, they will, of course, pick them up just as readily to support their learning. Then we found out that as soon as the context became more formal and people started watching (and assessing) what the students were doing with the technology, voluntary participation dwindled to a meager few. At best, you got a lot of lurkers and a very lonely eModerator creating monologues in the place of what was hoped would become enriching online discussions.

Collaborative online learning is brilliant – I’m a strong advocate of erasing borders, delimiting limitations and just getting on the with the work. Empowering students to take control of their learning is an initiative that, as far as I’m concerned, couldn’t be supported enough.

StudyStack has a nice feature of allowing users to rate collections of flashcards (a.k.a. ‘stacks’) using a star rating system. Users can sort search results by stack ratings, by date or by the description given to each set of flashcards. Some additional features include the ability to export content to mobile devices, sharing content through digg, twitter, etc. and there are even a few games mixed in for fun. (On a side note, if you’re looking for a way to create quizzes that students can complete on their mobile devices, you may want to consider Mobile Study.)

If I had known about StudyStack when I was using Ciao! to study Italian, I would have certainly saved myself some time writing out list after list of vocab and verb conjugations! Students are lucky these days!

Quizlet has a great demo video walking you through the key features of the service. What struck me is that it’s narrated by Andrew Sutherland who appears to be creating a quiz set of some French vocabulary for his high school French class – and he’s not the teacher! He’s the student! Why isn’t the teacher running the demo? Why aren’t teachers the ones advocating this tool? Why is a high school student showing teachers how to create learning resources? Or is this just a marketing strategy designed to make the tool more relatable to students?

In any case, this is a great site full of social networking features, very visual, very user-friendly, and it seems to have a lively community of members. If you get tired of flashcards, Quizlet can convert the information from the flashcards into online quizzes (written answer, matching, multiple choice and true/false formats are available) and if you’re really in the mood for some learning fun, you can play some online games to test your knowledge.

Because these tools are so similar in their functionality and rely so much on the creator of the study aids to suit the needs of the target students, much of the success of online flashcards depends on what you make of them. Remember that this is all based on your summative assessment strategy, so ask yourself a few questions when considering the use of online flashcards:

1. Do you as the instructor design the questions or do you have your students design the questions as part of the learning process?

2. Do you follow up and survey students’ scores, or do you mention the study aid once and hope they pick it up on their own?

3. Is there even a need to design your own cards considering the amount of content already available online?

4. Are you using textbooks that already make online study aids available to students? If not, do online flashcards work any better then end of chapter questions paired with a pencil and paper?

…and remember to have fun with it!

Wordle is getting a lot of hype in the educational blogosphere and also within my current study community, but I haven’t added it to my list of recommended techie tools until now because I just wasn’t totally convinced of its value.  It’s basically a tool that allows you to take a chunk of copied text (from an email, a document, etc., from a website url that has an atom feed, or even based on a user’s del.icio.us name) and paste it into a textbox. What comes out on the other end is a word cloud. Here’s an example below of a word cloud I created a second ago by pasting in the text from the ‘About‘ page of Wolfram Mathworld (a comprehensive learning object repository for all things math-related).

You can customise how the cloud looks, change colours and fonts and layouts, etc.

I suppose that it could be interesting to pick out key themes, terms, ideas, etc. out of selected works but how can it be usefully applied in an educational context?

Well, recently a colleague of mine from Dublin, Karl Duff, shared a really creative example with me of using Wordle within a foreign language context. The teacher creates a word cloud of an article or a short story. Students are then shown the cloud and the teacher explains the premise behind Wordle and the idea behind the bigger vs. the smaller words that are generated. Once students are clear on the concept of Wordle, they are asked to work in groups to create a short story based on what they think the Wordle cloud represents. This is, of course, done in the foreign language they are studying. The students are then asked to share their stories with the rest of the class and to discuss the similarities and differences between each group’s main ideas. Finally, the teacher reads out the article or short story that he/she originally selected to create the word cloud.

That’s the basic idea of the exercise. You could even go further and have the students create word clouds of their stories and compare with the original cloud. You could also add another level to the exercise and have the students individually write reflective essays about how their group’s story aligned with the key themes and ideas of the piece you selected. It all depends on how in depth you want to get.

To break down the design of the first part of this activity a bit more, I’ve adapted the Hybrid Learning Model (HLM) created by the Centre for Institutional E-Learning Services at the University of Ulster to outline the learning events that could take place in the example above using their mapping grid (pdf):

I would be very interested to hear how you’ve used Wordle to support your learning and teaching endeavors.

As I’ve just started studying (online) again, my mind is tuning back into things it normally only focuses on when I’m in hard-core academic mode. This morning, for example, (well, actually, for the last two mornings) I’ve been reading through the introductory materials on both of my course websites, and I ended up going through a lot of information related to library resources and referencing tools. The most common bibliographic and bookmarking tools that we’re being recommended are RefWorks and Furl, respectively.

RefWorks is only available to us while we’re registered students. After that, unless we’re affiliated with an organization that pays for access OR unless we want to pay for an annual subscription ourselves, we loose all of our research collections at the end of the academic term. Basic translation: if you want to be able to access the information you collect and store using RefWorks over then next 6-8 months, this might not be your best choice.

Furl, on the other hand, is a social bookmarking service with many features, accessible from anywhere and free to all. Although they’re not direct substitutes, if I hadn’t already been hooked on Zotero when I first learned about Furl, I probably would have given Furl more of a chance.

Now we get to the reason for this post! I wanted to share a bibliographic management tool with you that I have found to be invaluable during my courses of study (and tangential resource endeavors). Zotero is a free, open source Firefox plugin that allows you to capture resources as you come across them and organise them into neat research collections. I find it thoroughly enjoyable and intuitive to use

Zotero allows me to make sense of the piles of information I collect each time I brave the plethora of resources available within just a few clicks of a mouse. To help bring my point home, imagine that if all the files and links I collected were stacks of random pieces of paper covering every square inch of my inevitably invisible imaginary desk, then Zotero would be like the magical fairy that instantly organises all the information into a beautifully systematic filing system that I structure and that is completely aligned with my thought processes. Essentially, it allows me to know where to find stuff when I need it – whether I’m on or off line.

It also lets me summarise reference collections almost instantly. Let me show you… I’ll share a report I generated from a collection of resources I built relating to online language learning. It generates the report in html format, so I just saved that page as a pdf file which is now available to you simply by clicking here.

Now that I’ve got you hooked ( ), let’s watch the video intro together (the video below opens in a new tab/window):

Zotero even has a social feature called Zotz that allows you to share your reference collections with communities. More info below:

Here’s an exhibit I just generated. The Zotz add-on still needs a little ironing out, but it’s an exciting new development of an already exceptionally functional information management tool.

There’s even a WordPress plugin available that helps Zotero better recognise the information in your blog entries which makes for more seamless referencing of this type of information as well. From the screenshot below, you can see the little additional icon that is displayed in your address bar once this plugin is activated. When you’re viewing a WordPress blog, once you click on this icon, a window pops up (as seen below) asking you which of the entries available on the page you’re on you would like to add to your Zotero collections.

Lots of other screencast tutorials are available for those interested in exploring the tool further.

I’m not sure how much longer I’ll have access to my Sprouts, and as a result, I’m not sure how much longer the Sprouts that I’ve published on this blog will be accessible. Unfortunately, I don’t have enough resources to recreate all of my Sprouts in alternative formats, but there is one in particular that I would like transfer here into this post so that the information can continue to help those interested. This way, we can also build upon it as a community and let it grow.

On 02 Jan 2009, I published a collection of links to various reusable learning object repositories that provide access to free electronic learning tools covering a broad scope of disciplines. I’ve transferred them below (listed in alphabetical order) in case that Sprout becomes inaccessible in the near future.

I wholeheartedly encourage teachers, tutors, teaching assistants, instructional designers, learning technologists, librarians, students (both formal and informal) and anyone else who’s interested to take a look at what’s out there. These are resources for all levels of learning (K-12 through to higher and continuing education) and the list even includes some resources for the mobile learner. They can help you create blended/e-learning lesson plans, stimulate discussion among peers about how to begin integrating technology into your curricula and support your students in the development of connected learning strategies. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel. There are accessible resources out there, produced by people with subject expertise and a genuine intention to share information with the world. Take advantage!

Please note, all links below will open in new windows/tabs.

Let’s talk Sni.ps! Copying and pasting has become on the web what chewing and swallowing is at mealtime (or snack time or nibbles time or whatever else you call it to make yourself feel better ) The thing is, now that we’ve learned how to transfer copied content to other places, it’s time to start doing a better job of acknowledging our sources. Giving credit where credit is due is one thing, not only because it’s nice for an author to feel appreciated, but also because the audience may want to explore further content by the same author, and without accreditation or proper acknowledgment, the connection is lost.

And we’re all about the global connection. Whether we want to be or not, the inter connectivity of all things in all (connected) places in this world impacts all of us, from students doing real-time group projects with classmates scattered across the globe, or grandmothers being sent a stack of photos from grandchildren who simply uploaded files onto a site and had the middleman print, snip and ship then to the desired location. It’s all about the connection.

So, how do we ensure that we keep that connection going? Well, we have to take it a step further – copy and paste turns into sni.p and paste. And what does sni.p mean? It means copy + gather source information + collect some programming code that tells the computer accessing your sni.p how to connect to its source.

What I’ll do now is use sni.ps to copy an excerpt below of the blog entry I read that introduced me to sni.ps:

Sni.ps Attribution Tool at EdTechPost

The premise is simple enough – the service provides a bookmarklet that, when clicked, creates an overlay of whatever page you were looking at. This overlay allows you to then select content on that page, for which it generates ‘embed code’ to paste on your own site. Doing so will reproduce the content along with an annotated attribution link back to the original source.

www.edtechpost.ca

It’s awesome (and it’s free), but don’t just take my word for it, or anyone else’s word for it. Try it out yourself.

Personally, I think I’ll be making quite a bit of use out of it when it comes to sharing videos, flash content, and any other sort of rich media that I can see value in sharing. What about you?

Now, since you’re reading a blog about all things virtually scholastic, let’s spend a moment reflecting on how this tool impacts educational technology? Well, if you still insist that your students submit their assignments in hardcopy only, then I suppose it doesn’t affect you a bit. If, on the other hand, you provide your students with the facilities and the processes to submit and share work electronically, then you’ve just discovered a great way for them to learn more about the importance of copyright acknowledgment in a web 2.0+ world.

Connectedness also means networked which blends into online social behaviors which impact how students learn which…should probably also impact how you teach…shouldn’t it?

The educational potential may not immediately jump out at you, but Animoto is a great technology to explore, and anything that can put an end to PowerPoint presentations is thumbs up in my book! But seriously, any visually-heavy educational content fits perfectly into the Animoto model.

Teach an art history course? Imagine the impact of your presentations.
Teach about music composition? Show the music as you play it.
Photography course? That’s a no-brainer!
How about architecture, drama, social networking technologies or film making?

Tons of educational value in this tool!

Here are some case studies available on their site. Take a look at examples of what fourth graders can do with a little imagination and some accessible technology, or how a language course can benefit from a multimedia injection.

Interested in knowing more about how to get setup and give your students access? Click here. It’s not totally free (although there is a free basic account that allows you to create an unlimited number of videos up to 30 secs in length), but this won’t be as gutting as other pricing schemes

Have you used this technology with your students? Share your experiences