[L’n’ T]

Great article by Tony Karrer on Learning Circuits: Understanding E-Learning 2.0, especially for, but not limited to, those who have not heard about the concept.

I particularly liked his comparison of e-learning 1.0, 1.3 and 2.0. I can’t help noting that he speaks mostly about learning in the corporate world. From a University point of view, I’d go for some 1.3 elements over their 2.0 equivalents (and, as he says, I also believe that the three versions will coexist and that teachers will ‘mix and match’ to choose their best solution to any given situation).

Some resources. Via.

This time in the International Journal of Emerging Technologies in Learning (iJET) (free, requires registration, links are to abstracts):

• Diagnostic models of intelligent tutor system for teaching skills to solve algebraic equations
• Treating metadata as annotations: separating the content markup from the content
• A Digital Library of Language Learning Exercises
• Accessibility of Educational Multimedia: in search of specific standards
• An Application of the Semantic Web Inspired by Human Learning and Natural Language Processing
• Ontological Representation of Academic Programs”
• Web Services Based Learning Objects Generator for Device-Independent M-Learning
• Designing Lesson Content in Adaptive Learning Environments
• Fractal Adaptive Web Service for Mobile Learning
• Personalized E-Learning in the Semantic Web
• Mobile Message Services Using Text, Audio or Video for Improving the Learning Infrastructure in Higher Education
• Evaluating the Effectiveness of m-learning in the Teaching of Multi-media to First Year University Students
• Elearning Systems Based on the Semantic Web”
• Exploring attitudes of learners with respect to different learning strategies and performances using statistical methods
• Using Learning Objects in Teaching Science”

• Dialogue and the Construction of Knowledge in E-Learning: Exploring Students’Perceptions of Their Learning While Using Blackboard’s Asynchronous Discussion Board
• Social software: E-learning beyond learning management systems
• Pedagogic design guidelines for multimedia materials: a mismatch between intuitive practitioners and experimental researchers
• AdeLE (Adaptive e-Learning with Eye-Tracking): Theoretical Background, System Architecture and Application Scenarios
• Elearning measurement of the learning differences between traditional lessons and online lessons

All of them in the European Journal of Open and Distance Learning (EURODL).

I had heard about First Monday, peer-reviewed journal on the internet (it is, after all, home to such classics as The Cathedral and the Bazaar by Eric S. Raymond and The Attention Economy, by Michael H. Goldhaber, but after spending just a few minutes browsing this year’s contents, the amount of very attractive content is quite simply, overwhelming. In reverse chronological order (as belongs to a blog):

• A practical model for analyzing long tails, by Kalevi Kilkki
• Methodologies for Mapping the Political Blogosphere, by Axel Bruns
• Visible Past: Learning and discovering in real and virtual space and time, by Sorin A. Matei, Chris Miller, Nicholas K. Rauh, Laura Arns, Chris Hartman and Robert Bruno
• Assessing the value of cooperation in Wikipedia, by Bernardo A. Huberman and Dennis M. Wilkinson
• Visualizing the Overlap between the 100 Most Visited Pages on Wikipedia for September 2006 to January 2007 and What is Popular on Wikipedia and Why?, by Anselm Spoerri
• Video, education, and open content: Notes toward a new research and action agenda, by Peter B. Kaufman
• Building an open access African studies repository Using Web 2.0 principles, by Anna Winterbottom and James North
• Open educational resources in a global context, by Paul Stacey
• What open access research can do for Wikipedia, by John Willinsky
• The genesis and emergence of Education 3.0 in higher education and its potential for Africa, by Derek Keats and J. Philipp Schmidt
• Five heuristics for designing and evaluating Web-based communities, by Linda Gallant, Gloria Boone and Austin Heap
• Metadata for All: Descriptive Standards and Metadata Sharing across Libraries, Archives and Museums, by Mary W. Elings and Günter Waibel

Something to reflect on on today’s New York times (and not really about the OLPC project): Seeing No Progress, Some Schools Drop Laptops.

The students at Liverpool High have used their school-issued laptops to exchange answers on tests, download pornography and hack into local businesses. When the school tightened its network security, a 10th grader not only found a way around it but also posted step-by-step instructions on the Web for others to follow (which they did).

We should always remember that technology per se is not the solution. We first need a problem, we then pose a question and then we seek for answers. Putting answers forward and then looking for questions is not a good way to move forward. If you don’t have a plan to use computers, don’t buy them. If you don’t have a very good use for a computer in the classroom, don’t use it. If you don’t have a really good idea of how students will behave once they’re given a laptop, don’t give them one.

But, of course,

“Where laptops and Internet use make a difference are in innovation, creativity, autonomy and independent research,” he said. “If the goal is to get kids up to basic standard levels, then maybe laptops are not the tool. But if the goal is to create the George Lucas and Steve Jobs of the future, then laptops are extremely useful.”

Meaning that, for some uses, computers are a tool allowing educators and learners to dome things that would be impossible without them. It is then that you should first do some research and then use computers in teaching (which doesn’t necessarily mean in the classroom).

I just discovered (thank you!) the International Journal of Instructional Technology & Distance Learning. Among the many articles I should be reading:

• Learning Statistics in a Shared Virtual Campus. Summarizing a Five-Year Experience.
• Making Your Own Educational Materials For The Web.
• Making Your Own Materials, Part II: Multimedia Design for Learning.
• M-Learning – A New Paradigm in Education.
• Web-Based Distance Learning Technology: Interface Design Variables and their Effects.

Amazing new service I found today: VideoLectures is “YouTube for lectures”, and could become an AMAZING resource easily…

To get a taste try, for example, Where the Social Web Meets the Semantic Web.

Amazing. Now they’re lacking an easy way to embed lectures in one’s own homepage,à la YouTube… (and RSS feeds, and tagging, and rating, and… ;-) ).