Ken Ronkowitz - Serendipity35

Will the iPad change anything about education?

nospam@example.com (Ken Ronkowitz) — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 00:09:00 -0400

Back in June, I started reading articles about how the iPad will forever change education. I was a new iPad owner.

I have had an iPad for three months and I have been making notes in a draft of this post since June. I wasn't one of the earliest adopters and I have avoided writing anything about it until now because I didn't want to join the many people posting about it in that crazy rush/gush that accompanies many Apple new products.

Also, I got my iPad as a gift, and I know that has colored my opinions. My first impression of the iPad was that it was a cool toy. It wasn't a computer. It couldn't replace my computer. In fact, the first thing you do when you take it out of the box and power up is connect it to a computer. You need the computer to sync your content (songs, podcasts, and eventually your apps). And you immediately need an Apple iTunes store account to use the device.

If you ask me "Will the iPad change anything about education?" I would have to give at least two answers.

Short answers: 1. It depends on what grade level you mean - primary, elementary, secondary, higher ed. And that's because of availability and cost. 2. Yes, it will change things. But it won't be the actual Apple device that ultimately changes things. It will be the concept of the device, its uses and the way we interact with content when we are using it.

I still tell people that ask me about my iPad that it's a toy. It hasn't made me abandon my laptop. Since I have the Wi-Fi only model (without an additional data plan that you pay for - I can't afford yet another fee on top of my phone, cable, and Internet bills), it's only useful when I'm in an area that has free Wi-Fi. That's fine at home and at my college, but the iPad is pretty much useless in other places.

The iPad is even newer in educational sett But commentators are correct that they are not the same thing. ings. I suppose that teachers have been playing with them over the summer and maybe this fall we'll see more use in schools. They are a pricey tool - at least $500 to start off. Many teachers would take 2 Netbooks over 1 iPad, though not all, as this post: Why I’d Rather Have a ‘Limited’ iPod/iPad in My Classroom Than a Netbook.

Looking at some of the educator posts, I do agree with some observations.

- Students can easily/automatically have updated information and applications.
- Textbooks can be easily stored and used along with the "computer" apps (as opposed to having a Kindle and) There are also a good number of free books and even textbooks being made available for the iPad and other devices.
- iPads are more active and engaging than other e-readers like the Amazon Kindle.
- When learning apps (perhaps even ones designed by teachers and students themselves) are more prominent in the marketplace, we may see a new learning platform that's not quite face-to-face, online or hybrid emerge. All the big players in this space are already working in mobile. Apps from Blackboard
and other education content organizers, will push that new learning space.

Here's where Apple's tight control over apps might be limiting - in development - and yet, the idea of a closed/walled/protected environment will also have immediate appeal to educational administrators, especially in K-12.

- Cost is both a plus and minus. Cheaper than full blown desktop computers or laptops, but not cheap. More economical tablets will be available in the next six months, but will they have the cachet of the Apple product? No one ver caught up with the iPod in mp3 players despite there being a number of fine alternatives. If you think of a model where students keep the same iPad for several years, it's cheaper than purchasing sets of textbooks for each child. Start moving to open textbooks and the cost is even lower.
- There's the old saying in tech "It's not a flaw, it's a feature." That might be true of the iPad's current lack of multitasking which I find to be a real disadvantage. Other than listening to my iPod music while doing other things, it's one thing at a time. Close what you're typing to look at the web page. Still, some will like that students can't be playing a game and accessing content.
- iPads aren't phones but they are mobile. Lightweight and easy to carry class to class and home. Minus textbooks, that backpack is pretty light.
- The social aspects of using an iPad and all the opportunities for social interaction are also either a plus or minus. An article from the University of Texas’ Continuing and Innovative Education blog says that "as ideas or questions occur to a student while reading an online textbook, he or she can immediately share them with other students through a class’s social networking group page." For every teacher who sees that as exciting, there will be five who will see it as high-powered eCheating.
Additionally, students have instant access to reference tools and multimedia support to help them understand what they’re reading, even if they’re away from their laptops.

Apple itself hasn't done as much for the education side of iPads as I might have expected since they have always had a strong presence in schools. (see http://www.apple.com/education/ipad/ )

Do some searching online and you'll find lots of people are recommending apps for educators. Since I haven't done anything with using iPads in a classroom yet, I am following what others are trying. As usual, I find a lot more innovation in K-12 than in higher ed.

I found a site using LiveBinders called iPads in Schools that has collected lots of material on its early use.

Another site to watch is the Fraser Speirs' iPad Project.

AppAdvice
a site that started with the iPhone but includes apps that work on the
iPad too and ones that are made specifically made for the iPad. Their AppGuides group apps together and you can find ones for educators - for example, a guide to mind-mapping apps both free and for sale.

The use of the far simpler e-readers on college campuses has been largely disappointing. The Kindle lacked good highlighting of text and slow refresh rates. Princeton and George Washington universities thought there were iPad network problems. Most e-readers cannot accommodate disabled students. And, despite their digital proficiencies, it seems that many students still prefer regular textbooks.

I could pull out articles from 10 years ago about using electronic books (maybe on DVDs) as a way to do many of the same things that are being attached to iPads and their imitators. Most of those efforts failed.

Where the iPad will change things may more likely be in having us expect to touch a screen to make something happen, or swipe a page for it to "turn" or download what we used to call a program in a few seconds and have updates for all our apps waiting in a store for a one click refresh.

Remember the first wave of tablets at the turn of this century? That was a pretty resounding flop. Will these new tablets (maybe we need a new generic name - pads? binders? folios?) have us expecting that we can have our notebooks, pens, textbooks and all our educational tools in that one lightweight object?

Moodle: 8 Years Old and Very International

nospam@example.com (Ken Ronkowitz) — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 08:51:00 -0400

Moodle, the open source course management system, passed the eight year mark in August. (The actual launch date was also the the birthday of Moodle’s lead developer and founder.) Moodle usage now includes 52,000 registered Moodle sites and over 950,000 registered users on moodle.org (see Moodle statistics) with many more users at those sites.

Moodle.org in August 2004 via the Internet Archive Wayback Machine

One interesting aspect of its growth is the addition of language packs that allow Moodle to be used in many languages. There are 86 language packs for Moodle version 1.x. The latest language pack announcements might send you to Wikipedia. They recently announced a pack for Dzongkha, the official language of Bhutan, South Asia which is spoken by around 600 thousand people.

It's also important that these packs are also open source projects with the language packs being done by volunteer translators who continue to work on versions for Moodle 2.0 and future releases. If you look at the Moodle 2.0 language packs download page you can see some of the progress for each language.

Two of the new languages are Tigrinia and Amharic. Amharic and Tigrinya are languages spoken in Ethiopia and Eritrea, and have around 25 million and 6.7 million speakers respectively.

I started working with Moodle in 2005 when I was at NJIT. We were WebCT users but wanted to see what Moodle and Sakai offered. I focused on Moodle and we piloted a few courses but faculty were hesitant to make the big shift.

A presentation that I posted on Slideshare in 2007 has gotten 26,053 views and has been embedded on 55 other sites (including at The College St-Michel in France!), so there is certainly interest in open source learning management systems. It was a presentation I did at the NJEDge.Net Faculty Best Practices Showcase in March 2007 about NJIT’s pilot program and examining the open source/free aspect of Moodle and the support needed to implement it on a campus.

I left NJIT in 2008 but the exploration continued and the university moved fully to Moodle last year. I still adjunct a few grad courses at NJIT, so I'm still using Moodle. And my current college is making a determination this year about what LMS to use in the future and Moodle is definitely in the mix.

ExploraVision Competition Addresses STEM Concerns

nospam@example.com (Ken Ronkowitz) — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 23:02:00 -0400

The Toshiba/National Science Teachers Association ExploraVision Awards Program competition is now in its 19th year. The program addresses many of the concerns addressed by STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) programs across the country.

The ExploraVision program, sponsored by Toshiba and administered by the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA), challenges teams of 2-4 students to research scientific principles and current technologies as the basis for designing innovative technologies that could exist in 20 years.

Students on the four first-place ExploraVision winning teams will each receive a $10,000 U.S. Series EE Savings Bond valued at maturity. Students on second-place teams will each receive a $5,000 bond valued at maturity.

Teachers can learn more about ExploraVision and how to use it as a tool in the classroom through a series of Web Seminars at the NSTA Learning Center starting Wednesday, September 15, 2010.

For more information visit http://www.exploravision.org

EDUCAUSE Member Update

nospam@example.com (Ken Ronkowitz) — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 15:40:00 -0400

EDUCAUSE will have its Member Update as a web event on Tuesday, September 7, 1:00–2:00 p.m. EDT.

Log in on Sept. 7 and you will also hear about plans for October's annual conference and its corresponding virtual event.

Topics will include:

EDUCAUSE 2010 Conference overview
•   Current and upcoming innovations in our professional development events
•   An update on the Core Data Service redesign project
•   Newsworthy items from other EDUCAUSE programs

No registration is required. Prior to the session, run the Acrobat Connect Connection Test on the computer you plan to use for the session to ensure your configuration is compatible with the web conferencing system. They will archive the sessions and make the recordings available online so you have the opportunity to listen and provide feedback beyond the session itself.

Bad News For Bloggers

nospam@example.com (Ken Ronkowitz) — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 12:50:50 -0400

A very unpleasant story out of Philadelphia for bloggers. The city wants to crack down on people who are running a business without a license. Sounds reasonable - until I read that this includes little ol' local bloggers who are running ads on their sites.

According to the weekly Philadelphia City Paper, several small-scale bloggers received letters from the city demanding that they get a $300 license to operate a local business.

I don't know about Philly bloggers, but a $300 license would wipe all the "ad revenue" from Serendipity35 for the past five years!

The idea that a blogger with a few Google or Amazon ads is "conducting commercial activity" is stretching it. I actually have listed on my tax form any income from blogging in the past, and that seems to be what triggered the city to find local businesses operating without licenses.

"The IRS is the fastest way to find them, though we have other avenues that we don't advertise," a Philadelphia Department of Revenue representative told CNNMoney.com.

Downloading Legalities

nospam@example.com (Ken Ronkowitz) — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 15:50:00 -0400

New federal regulations that took effect this summer requiring colleges to take steps to deal with illegal music and movie downloading on campus networks.

I listened to Heidi Wachs, Georgetown University's director of IT policy, talk about it on an episode of Tech Therapy.

It reminded me of the time back in early 2007 when I was bringing NJIT into iTunes U and we needed legal to review our policies on copyright. Like many colleges, there were policies that needed to be there that didn't exist.

It's hard to fall back on protections like the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) when you haven't done any of the work that affords you that protection.

The firestorm of fines and publicity about students downloading files illegally seems to died down the past year, but the consequences still exist - and many schools are still very unprepared.

Copyright infringement is the act of exercising, without permission or legal authority, one or more of the exclusive rights granted to the copyright owner under section 106 of the Copyright Act (Title 17 of the United States Code). These rights include the right to reproduce or distribute a copyrighted work. In the file-sharing context, downloading or uploading substantial parts of a copyrighted work without authority constitutes an infringement.
For more information, please see the Web site of the U.S. Copyright Office at www.copyright.gov, especially their FAQ's at www.copyright.gov/help/faq.

Tech Therapy on iTunes

More in The Chronicle

Resources from Educause

Teachers Without Technology

nospam@example.com (Ken Ronkowitz) — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 12:00:00 -0400

No-Tech Teacher

Just sending those of you who read this blog but don't follow me or other education tech types on places like Twitter or Facebook to an article on The Chronicle site.

They call it "College 2.0: Teachers Without Technology Strike Back" but I'm not sure I would consider this to be in the College 2.0 category or how much of a "strike back" movement we have going in education, but... you decide.

It points to several teachers trying a no-tech approach including a University of West Florida teacher who banned laptops, cellphones, and such in his summer class in English literature and found that "The students seemed more involved in the discussion than when I allowed them to go online."

The Chronicle had earlier run a related (on the other side) piece on "Reaching the Last Technology Holdouts at the Front of the Classroom."

Good Reads Are Good Reads On Paper or a Screen

nospam@example.com (Ken Ronkowitz) — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 20:15:00 -0400

Lots of news these days about books going electronic and e-readers and the continuing death of print.

Two articles today that I read online. One, a column in the LA Times, is about GoodReads, a popular site for book lovers that started in 2006. The site has reading clubs, book giveaways, author chats, literature quizzes, quotations, trivia and many of the features of a social neywork (friends, followers, news feed etc.). They have about 3.5 million members which is small compared to Facebook, but big for a book site.

Otis Chandler built the site and he faces the classic web site business problem of how to make money from the Web audience. Chandler says that "Book reviews in newspapers, well, those are gone. Independent bookstores are almost gone. Chains will probably be gone soon. It's all happening online now."

Otis Chandler's great-great-great-grandfather founded the Los Angeles Times, so he has print ink in his blood even if he is fighting the genetics.

The second article was on The New Yorker site. It's about yet another "Kindle Killer" from the company Kobo. (Why do new apps and devices have to kill the earlier product? Can't they co-exist and compete?) Kobo is now partially owned by Borders and they built the Borders iPhone app. But Borders stores seem to have disappeared - and Barnes & Noble has announced that they are considering selling. Who's left?

The Kobo ereader is in the e-book battle and they have an online store whose catalog of e-books that can be read on almost any mobile device (except the Kindle!).

The Kobo e-reader is scheduled to hit the magic 99 dollar price point by the magic holiday shopping season.

Kobo - like Amazon with the Kindle and Apple with iPods - looks at the devices as marketing tools for the content. But Kobo seems really intent on allowing the content to be on any device you want it on.

Shift happens.

Search Beyond Google

nospam@example.com (Ken Ronkowitz) — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 09:54:00 -0400

It's getting to the point that when you say search, people think Google. Maybe you also use Bing or Yahoo, but there are also other search engines.

David Kapuler a K-12 media and technology specialist, made a list of search engines useful for educators. I will admit to never having used or heard of any of them. But they really do take different approaches to search - tag clouds, visual search etc.

For example, I typed in my own name into the Oamos search engine and got a screen full of my life online in several acts. Quite interesting. Even a bit scary in what it was able to piece together from my online droppings.

Explore...

Eyeplorer

Oamos

Quintura

BevyFind

Kngine

Spezify

Scoopler

Webkruz

Sputtik

Feedmil

Quiz Creators

nospam@example.com (Ken Ronkowitz) — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 11:29:00 -0400

Back to school sales also mean that some teachers are prepping for the September start. Here are two tools for making tests & quizzes.

EasyTestMaker allows for multiple-choice, fill-in-the-blank, matching, short answer or true and false questions - even all of them on the same test.

I first came across Hot Potatoes using Moodle. Six different interactive web-based test types can be made that would work at different grade levels - multiple-choice, short answer, jumbled sentence, crossword, matching/ordering or gap fill exercises. It also lets you add images and mp3 files to your tests (especially nice for language classes).
It's open source, hence its inclusion in Moodle. Check out some tutorials.

Slow Traffic Ahead

nospam@example.com (Ken Ronkowitz) — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 01:00:00 -0400

Yes, traffic to Serendipity35 certainly slows down during the summer. Only 97,793 visitors in July. Second lowest month of the year. Bloggers slow down accordingly. Some will even post a cartoon in place of a text post.

Is blogging dead?

Cartoon created at http://stripgenerator.com

Campus Technology: Ready or Not

nospam@example.com (Ken Ronkowitz) — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 13:00:00 -0400

At the Campus Technology 2010 Annual Conference last month CDW-G released a report titled "Ready or Not: Next-Gen Students' Technology Expectations Surpass Students' Today" based on their annual survey.

I'm always careful about bias in reports that comes from vendors. CDW Government LLC (CDW-G), is a leading vendor of Information Technology (IT) solutions to educators and government because you know they have something to sell. The report is based on a national survey of 1,000+ college students, faculty and IT staff members.

Some results are obvious - many colleges have increased their campus technology offerings to meet the demands of current and incoming students. Other results are less obvious depending on how closely you work with ed tech.

Both high school and college students view technology as an engaging and interactive way to learn, and they expect it will be available on their campus. Therefore, it rates high for 63% of respondents on their reasons for selecting a college.

College students also expect that the technology they use in their classes will help bridge them to the technology they will need in their professional life.

Campus IT professionals have a broader view of how technology can be used than faculty. 72% of IT professionals said online collaboration software is an essential classroom element but only 31% of faculty members agreed. For "virtual learning," 68 percent of IT staff thought it was important compared to only 35% of faculty.

We might argue that faculty have a better sense than IT staff about that is needed and what will work in their classes. But my own experience has been that many teachers are simply not aware of new technologies.

It makes sense that IT leaders believe their infrastructure needs to be refreshed and that need to improve or expand their storage, security and server infrastructure. Doing those things makes their job easier and maintains their place on campus. But their concerns are not all self-serving.

Students in the survey were most concerned that a lack of professor technology knowledge seemed to be the biggest hurdle to technology integration in their classes. Is more professional development needed? This lack of faculty tech knowledge ranked second among concerns expressed by faculty and IT staff. (Budget pressures, which students don't really care about, was first.)

64% of the college students use social media to connect with classmates to study or work on class assignments and that ny=umber moves up to 76% with high-school students.

Digital content (like electronic textbooks) is a technology gaining preference because of cost savings, instant access to content, access to current content and ease of note taking.

What are the "must-have" campus technologies? Wireless networks (77 percent), off-campus network connections (57 percent) and course management systems (47 percent). High school students want a computing device (84 percent), digital content (64 percent) and e-reader devices (28 percent).

Are things improving on campus? Apparently not. 67% of faculty and 76% of students said their schools are adequately preparing students to use technology at work - but that is down from 74% in 2009 and 82% in 2008.

Read more and get the full report at http://newsroom.cdwg.com/features/feature-07-19-10.html

Confessions of a Tech Laggard

nospam@example.com (Ken Ronkowitz) — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 18:42:13 -0400

I don't think I am a laggard. Not in the usual sense of being one who is behind the rest of the group. When it comes to technology, I actually consider myself ahead of the group. In fact, it's been part of my job for many years to keep ahead on technology particularly as it is used in education.

But, I was reading a piece by a writer I like, Clive Thompson, and as usual, it got me reconsidering. He wrote in the June issue of WIRED about tech laggards and I fit the bill.

When it comes to new applications, new ways of using technology, websites, services and software, I am at the front of the line. But when it comes to the big purchases - hardware - I am in less of a rush to be that early adopter. You might guess it's a matter of money, and that might be true with personal technology. But I am hesitant to buy even when the money isn't mine personally but institutional funds.

The iPad is a good example. I had the chance to get one "free" in exchanges for "services rendered" rather than a lesser payment. I wasn't sure I needed or wanted one. Eventually, I did take it. I'm still not sure I need or want it.

One of the things Thompson questions is the standard wisdom that new tech hardware success depends on grabbing the "early adopters." Those are the people who stand on line overnight at the Apple store to but the next big thing sight unseen. They are about 13% of the market but they get a lot of attention from companies. Why? You want them on board and talking (positively) and blogging to friends (in the Net sense) and getting that all important word of mouth going.

We laggards, on the other end, are about 16% of the population. We might wait years to adopt new technology. I still haven't bought a smartphone.

Thompson references some marketing research that shows that laggards might be a very important high tech demographic. The example he uses is a laggard who bought the Walkman and loved it, but doesn't upgrade when the Discman that uses CDs or a mini-disc. But 15 years after his Walkman purchase, Mr. Laggard replaces his tired cassette technology for the hot, new mp3 player (iPod or otherwise). This is called the "leapfrog effect." He becomes an early adopter of the mp3 player.

Even outside hardware, I think of all the people and businesses who kept Windows XP and did not upgrade to Vista. I bet a lot of them leapfrogged early on to Windows 7.

I agree with Thompson that marketers should actually target laggards and try to figure out what features or new product will make them take a leap.

I never bought an iPhone or iPod Touch, yet I went with an iPad that has many of the same features. Screen size was one big factor. I suspect some other iPad purchasers might be people (I have read that this is true with older consumers) who never bought a laptop or even a home computer. Their fear of updates, viruses, device drivers and other techno-babble was allayed by a simple appliance that allowed them to surf the Net, get social and read email easily.

Are you an early adopter or laggard?

Seeking Evidence of Impact

nospam@example.com (Ken Ronkowitz) — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 14:53:46 -0400

Too often in education we have a sense that something is working (or not working) but it's difficult for us to produce the evidence that some practice or piece of technology is the reason.

The Seeking Evidence of Impact Initiative that is part of the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) is an ambitious new initiative intended to bring the teaching and learning community into a collective discussion about ways of gathering evidence of the impact of innovations and current practices.

Called Seeking Evidence of Impact (SEI), this new effort will draw faculty, IT professionals, librarians, students, and research experts into a collective exploration of ways to measure the impact of innovations in teaching and learning.

The goal of the initiative is to identify current effective practices and discover new ones—as well as to provide models of evidence-based practice in teaching and learning in higher education.

With many options and constrained budgets, faculty and administrators must make careful decisions about what practices to adopt and about where to invest their time, effort, and fiscal resources.

Unfortunately, many of us will admit that the information available about the impact of these innovations is often scarce, uneven, or both. What evidence do we have that these changes and innovation are having the impact we hope for? What are the current effective practices that would enable us to collect that evidence?

With the advent of Web 2.0, the themes of collaboration, participation, and openness have greatly changed the teaching and learning landscape. In light of these changes, what new methods for collecting evidence of impact might need to be developed?

Established practices and good data have made inroads in these areas. Often, however, they are scattered, disconnected, and at times in competition, making it challenging for the teaching and learning community to discover and compare their merits.

The SEI program will consist of a variety of events, meetings, workshops, and publications over the next 18 months united around the theme of "seeking evidence of impact" demonstrated by our new practices and technologies.

Share Your Stories of Global Collaboration

nospam@example.com (Ken Ronkowitz) — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 01:02:00 -0400

Word comes from Julie Lindsay (China) and Vicki Davis (USA) that their group, Digi Teen, has put out a call for digital collaboration stories for a book they will be doing with Pearson Publishing.

DigiTeen is Digital Citizenship for Teenagers and I have written about them here before. It's a great K-12 project that has won numerous awards.

They are looking to create a book that teaches how to connect classrooms on a global basis.

Has global collaboration changed your view of the world?
Has it improved some area of your life?
Established friendships that you still maintain?
Was it a positive experience? Negative?
What lesson did you learn from the project?

If you want to share your story of collaboration by emailing it to story@flatclassroombook.com If your story is selected, they will email you a permission form and confirmation of the text selected (if edited) for the book.

Visit Digi Teen

Call For New Courses For Peer 2 Peer University

nospam@example.com (Ken Ronkowitz) — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 00:24:00 -0400

The Peer 2 Peer University is gearing up to launch its third cycle of courses this coming September, and we’re looking for new faces to join the community. Do you have an idea for a six week course? Whether it’s Physics 101 or Poker and Strategic Thinking, all ideas are welcome. You can propose a course at http://wiki.p2pu.org/Create-a-Course (deadline is August 6, 2010).

If you’ve never designed or run a course before, that’s okay, too. P2PU is running a Course Organizers Orientation

( http://wiki.p2pu.org/orientation) for newbies to introduce organizers to the practice of online facilitation and provide support while they build a new course. The orientation will be three weeks long and will enable future course organizers to:

Experience open social learning first-hand

Distinguish peer-2-peer learning from formal online teaching

Navigate the different features of the P2PU site

Design a course on a topic of their choice on the P2PU site

Learn how to use different synchronous/asynchronous platforms effectively

Review and provide feedback for others; revise and refine syllabi for their course

Weekly video conferences will be held to discuss important aspects of community building, course design, finding and creating course content, open educational resources (OER), and troubleshooting. Conferences will be recorded and posted for those unable to attend. The orientation leader will also post office hours to provide additional support.

Building on the feedback from participants and organizers in the last two cycles of courses, the P2PU community realised that many potential course organizers had reservations about some of the technological and pedagogical aspects of running courses online. This orientation aims to address these concerns, as well as help organizers become an active part of the P2PU community.

The P2PU community consists of a diverse group of people. They are writers, teachers, designers, doctoral and alternative grad students, artists, copyright specialists, scientists, and blues guitar players. Above all, they are learners–peers working together to learn from each other.

More information, including how and where to sign up, can be found on the P2PU wiki: http://wiki.p2pu.org/orientation
You can submit course proposals until August 6, 2010.

reposted from http://blogs.p2pu.org/blog/2010/07/23/p2pu-call-for-courses/

Nixty

nospam@example.com (Ken Ronkowitz) — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 06:57:00 -0400

And now "open" online education has Nixty http://nixty.com.

It is a website that let's you take and create courses for "free."

They are starting with courses available from open-source sources (like MIT's OpenCourseWare Project), but Nixty users will be developing new courses using the site.

The Nixty LMS has tools typically found in systems like a grade book, ways to test and discussion areas. There are already "free" and open learning management systems (like Moodle), so, I suppose what is new here is the combination of offering courses and a way to create one if a topic is missing.

It sounds like Nixty is more open than free though. They have plans to introduce a payment system for courses that would allow a course creator/instructor to charge students who want to enroll. Instructors will pay $4.99 a month for three courses and also a commission of 20% of the "tuitions."

They also plan to partner with some online institutions. No college credits are issued, but they may try to arrange credit using the College-Level Examination Program.

The Dumbest Generation

nospam@example.com (Ken Ronkowitz) — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 09:09:00 -0400

I had not heard of a book by Emory University professor Mark Bauerlein called The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future (Or, Don't Trust Anyone Under 30). Its title is a curmudgeonly play off the Tom Brokaw's The Greatest Generation book and video series.

I have been reading and writing about a number of non-fiction books lately that focus on the dangers of technology. This one is very school focused. Bauerlein feels that the immediacy and intimacy of social-networking sites has seduced kids and that their Internet focus makes what they study in school seem boring.

I'm not sure that the boring school versus engaging outside world comparison hasn't been around since schools began. But he thinks that because what we teach isn't happening in this moment and because it's not about (or seemingly relevant) to them and their friends, that school content loses.

I think he is right in saying that students more often use the Net today as a way to communicate and connect than as a learning tool. That is certainly more true now in Web 2.0 than it was in the early days of student Net use.

Besides teaching and writing, Bauerlein has also directed the office of research and analysis at the National Endowment for the Arts.

In a Teaching & Learning Q&A, Bauerlein answered the question, "So what role (if any) should technology play in education?" by saying in part:

"...insert a few assignments now and then that prohibit the use of (technology). Have them do research that uses microfilm and archives, no Google. Have them spend 15 minutes each morning reading a print newspaper, not a news web page. The goal isn't to dispel technology, but just to preserve a small but critical mass of non-technological learning and inquiring.

For one hour after dinner, for instance, everybody reads (parents have to model this themselves - they can't just say, "Go to your room and read a book".) In the morning over breakfast, they might wheel a TV into the room and have the kids watch C-Span or some other serious programming."

Research without technology. A reading hour. Forced C-Span viewing. Useful solutions?

Flipboard: Your Social Magazine?

nospam@example.com (Ken Ronkowitz) — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 00:05:00 -0400

Billed as "the world's first social magazine," Flipboard is a free app that allows you to flip through news, photos and updates your friends are sharing on Facebook and Twitter in a "magazine" layout.

I heard about it and watched the video (see below). I put the app on my iPad but I can't add Twitter and Facebook until I get an "invite" from the company. (I'm not a big fan of beta teasers that require invites.)

Is it something we need? Will you discover fresh content using it? Will it make some people more comfortable by using the familiar layout of print media to view social media?

You don't scroll through lists of posts and links and you wouldn't have to switch between Twitter and Facebook (and other sites eventually).

Can it become YOUR own personalized social magazine? The idea of a home page for your social graph that brings it together in a more enjoyable way than a list or RSS feeds has some appeal.

I'll let you know - when I get my invite...

Mozilla Drumbeat in NYC

nospam@example.com (Ken Ronkowitz) — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 15:00:00 -0400

If you are an Open Web advocate, mark Saturday, August 7th for a meetup event where you can meet people and projects that are keeping the web open. (Plus, free pizza and beer.)

Mozilla Drumbeat asks "Will the web still be open in 100 years?" Mozilla thinks it can, and should, and must be.

That's why we're starting Mozilla Drumbeat, an invitation to everyday internet users to imagine ideas and projects that build a more open web. We want you to get involved! We are building a new community that includes teachers, artists, designers, filmmakers, writers, lawyers, and policymakers—not just open web geeks. Online, Drumbeat is catalyzing new open web projects that address critical needs and make the Web healthier.

Check out current projects or initiate your own at www.drumbeat.org/projects.

Drumbeat NYC will showcase cool projects and people that are keeping the web open. Come to Drumbeat NYC and learn how you can get involved, or show others what you've been working on. Drumbeat events aren't just for geeks. We're here to weave together local networks of creative, Web-loving people and start new projects to make the web better.

You can RSVP at Facebook or Eventbrite

Check out the agenda.