Second Life

Well my new course on Immersive Worlds, Avatars and Second Lives is interesting but challenging. I think I am getting a bit better at negotiating a few aspects of SL but still have a long way to go. My classmates help make it an enjoyable process. Thanks to all.
Cheers

A brief review of a resource or an organization that has recently changed my understanding of mobile learning


I am finding the FutureLab website to be very enlightening when I search by the tag mobile learning. There are 5 pages of search results totalling 46 articles with something to offer everyone.

I like a number of the ideas in Elizabeth Hartnell-Young’s article: What’s in a name? Why we can’t learn with mobile phones from Professional Educator 4, 3 (August 2005) pp 18-21. She provides examples of how mobile devices, particularly their cameras, can be used to capture portfolio evidence of learning. The Nokia Lifeblog software allows for users to connect their images and add reflections about them. That is a key component of learning by any definition. She also mentions that assessment is a key driving factor of learning for K-12 and how that inhibits the widespread use of the devices. Given that adult education often has less attachment to traditional assessments, her ideas could more readily be adopted in the post-secondary realm, whether for informal or formal learning. I have done a lot of work in the area of portfolio development for second career planning (post-military) so can appreciate tools such as Lifeblog. It sounds very useful. Does it only work on Nokia platforms?

Think about the uses of mobile devices for this course. Once we are in a forum, we receive emails of all the posts made in that forum. So no matter where I am, I know what my classmates are thinking vis a vis our course material. That in turn helps stimulate my reflections.

There is also a large handbook on handheld technologies for learning which I have not had time to explore but which highlights lessons learned from four handheld projects and a directory of many more.

This is an interactive site with a “Get Involved” section where anyone can join in the discussion and contribute their ideas on education and technology. For awhile there was a “Submit an idea” section regarding mobile learning but that appears to be closed to new ideas at this time (last call was in fall 09) but they appear to still be looking for those willing to trial projects and participate in R&D.

I am now noticing that there are a number of older articles mentioned and the links for some of those no longer work. Good thing that the above mentioned ones are available as .pdf downloads so that I have copies now for when those sites disappear. A lot stem from 2004/2005. I wonder why that might be. The Senior Researcher who is listed as having a keen interest in mobile learning is still producing lots on other subjects so maybe other innovations are occupying his attention.

There are many other mobile related links which can be followed, not to mention all those on other aspects of technology in education. This is definitely a useful site which is rather over-stimulating for my brain at the moment.

Check this resource out to see what might be of interest you.

Cheers.
Amy

losing focus?

There just don't seem to be enough hours in the day to do some reflection and blogging. Together anyway. I am enjoying exploring the variety of web 2.0 tools out there but have been benefitting on more of a personal level than a professional one. Perhaps because I am at the stragetic level rather than the coal face within my organization? Developing training strategies which could use these tools is more in the realm of some of my colleagues. And it looks like I am staying where I am for the next several years so my work won't see much increase though as our integrated learning environment rolls out, there may be some more opps at my level. TIme will tell. In the meantime, this works for me as student. Perhaps I should post some of my course work on facebook for my friends to see what I have been doing. Is that too boring??!

a pause that refreshes

The past two weeks have been very busy while working on my course assignment. Using Web 2.0 tools to create a presentation on a Web 2.0 tool definitely took me outside my comfort zone. I am more accustomed to writing essays and the like.

For this course, I had to come up with my design concept, then figure out how to execute it by determining the appropriate content and translating that content into the audio, video and slide formats, finally assembling them into the complete presentation. The saving grace, for me anyway, was that we had to post a draft version the week before the final one. That forced me to find out what worked and didn't work in a less threatening fashion, then incorporate the feedback from my peers into improving the final version. A great learning strategy which bears repeating. Thanks everyone.

Now I can relax a bit and continue to work on my concept map.

Cheers

challenges to blogging

This is a challenging exercise for me as I rarely have kept journals and what is a blog if not an electronic journal (with no degree of privacy). I usually prefer to do my learning in an interaction with others, be they in person or through their written and spoken words. I find that it is during the interaction that the sparks of thinking flare into coherent ideas and begin to burn with a lasting flame of knowledge. A case in point - see how my solo reflections are more likely to wax into some kind of poetic eloquence which is too too much.

In any case, this is intended to be my reflections on emerging technologies for learning and at the moment I am struggling with what to put into my slideshare presentation. I feel I have tapped the hobby side of life enough with my various takes from my camping trip to Yellowstone so want to capture material more closely related to this course. I fear it will have more artificiality about it as I try to create extra slides to provide enough against which to sync the voice track. Oh well. The learning continues none the less.
A

improvement to my last

I will try a hyperlink to the screen capture to see if it will go directly instead of someone having to paste a long url into a browser.
Mudpot

trying jing

I am starting to figure out how to use jing but it is a slow process. I have made my first screen capture and it looks like this:
http://www.screencast.com/users/amethystcam/folders/Jing/media/be013c92-8cd6-4e67-bc15-2a06a0c52c4b

It is a picture of a mudhole at Yellowstone and my plan is to figure out how to record sound to explain what it is. I also have a 15 sec video of a mudhole burbling away and I assume there must be a way to share that with Jing.
At this point, I am going to read the jing welcome guide to learn how to do this stuff since the intuitive way only garnered this simple screen capture.