These are my links for January 13th through February 4th:

• Auckland University campus goes smoke-free | Stuff.co.nz:
  Students and staff at Auckland University can no longer slip outside for a quick puff.
  The university has become a smoke-free campus, inside and outside, and smoking has been banned, even in areas once designated as smoking areas.
• BBC News – Hi-tech exam cheating increases says Ofqual:
  More than 4,400 people were caught cheating in last year's GCSEs and A-levels in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, the exams watchdog says.
• BBC News – ‘Internet addiction’ linked to depression, says study:
  There is a strong link between heavy internet use and depression, UK psychologists have said.
  The study, reported in the journal Psychopathology, found 1.2% of people surveyed were "internet addicts", and many of these were depressed.
  The Leeds University team stressed they could not say one necessarily caused the other, and that most internet users did not suffer mental health problems.
  The conclusions were based on 1,319 responses to an on-line questionnaire.
• BBC – dot.Rory: Fast broadband – an election issue?:
  At the weekend, the Conservatives unveiled their plans to ensure the rollout of superfast broadband – or "up to 100mbps to the majority of homes" by 2017.
  Last summer, the Labour government outlined its vision in the Digital Britain report, now making its way through Parliament in the form of the Digital Economy Bill, which also sees superfast broadband reaching 90% of the UK by 2017.
• KnowledgeWorks Foundation – Future of Learning:
  KnowledgeWorks has developed two forecasts highlighting the key forces that will influence public education in the coming decade. Each forecast is a powerful tool for engaging with the future. The forecasts do not predict what will happen, but rather serve as a guide to the as-yet-unwritten future. They are designed to help us see connections among things that once seemed unrelated and to help us consider the challenges that are facing all of us today within the context of wider patterns of change.

  In order to shape the future of learning, we must envision it together. The Institute for Creative Collaboration at KnowledgeWorks partners with teams, groups, and organizations to uncover how systems really work and to create new ways of thinking, learning, and working. Find out how we can work together.

• BBC News – The rise of the web’s digital elites:
  Ahead of a major series on the BBC about the impact of the web, presenter, social scientist and journalist Aleks Krotoski asks whether the web has already missed its greatest chance.

  The web is an extraordinary innovation, with the greatest potential to usher in social change since the invention of the printing press or the steam engine.

  Built upon a technology that is apolitical, unregulated and decentralised, it empowers everyone – men, women, children – to be creators of information, rather than passive consumers.

  It is also an enormous library of global consciousness, a digital collection of human knowledge from the past and the present and presented in an easy-to-access format.

  As a result, we now have the unprecedented power to create our own truth, and share it with everyone in the world. It has ushered in an equality of access that we have never seen before.

  But has its potential as a great leveller for the whole world already passed?

• HOW TO: Build a More Beautiful Blog:
  Whether you’re blogging for business or pleasure, now is the time to take your little corner of the web to the next level. Social media makes your blog more visible and valuable than ever, and the amount of resources available to beautify and streamline your blog is enormous, and ever growing.
• Symbaloo – start simple:
  Home page replacement
• BBC News – PlayStation 3 ‘hacked’ by iPhone cracker:
  A US hacker who gained notoriety for unlocking Apple's iPhone as a teenager has told BBC News that he has now hacked Sony's PlayStation 3 (PS3).

  George Hotz said the hack, which could allow people to run pirated games or homemade software, took him five weeks.

  He said he was still refining the technique but intended to post full details online soon.

• BBC – Spaceman: Why hasn’t ET made contact yet?:
  He's absolutely convinced. Frank Drake has been scouring the sky for 50 years, looking for signs of extraterrestrial intelligence.

  He's heard nothing… but he's in no doubt they're out there.

  Drake was a founder-member of Seti, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence.

• The Internet Strategist: Top 13 Ways to Drive Blog Readership:
  If you have a blog then you know that the biggest challenge next to content is readers. How do you get your audience, who are bombarded by hundreds (thousands?) of messages per day, to focus on your messages?
• Cloudworks – Motivating teachers to use technologies:
  Cloud created by:
  Gráinne Conole

  Technologies seem to offer lots to improve the learner experience, but are still not being used extensively by teachers.

  * What are the reasons for this lack of uptake?
  * How can we motivate teachers to use technologies more?
  * How can we support them in their use of technologies?

• BBC News – Google co-founders to sell shares:
  Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin are selling 10 million of their shares, raising $5.5bn (£3.4bn) at today's prices.
• Top 50 Blogs for e-Learning Tools and Tips:
  If you want to learn a new language or if you want to know how that e-learning tool works, you have plenty of online help to reach those goals. The following list of fifty top blogs for e-learning tools and tips concentrate on technologies, resources, business strategies and more for teachers and students. We’ve even included a category that may inspire you to reach even further during 2010.

  The following links are listed alphabetically by blog title under each category. We use this method to show that we do not favor one blog over another.

• BBC News – Schools must embrace mobile technology:
  "Turned off devices equals turned off children. Sensible schools use mobile technology to their advantage, putting up a telephone number about an issue such as bullying and getting pupils to text their views," said Prof Heppell.
• Mastering Distraction « Cactus Wrangler – It’s tough. Distractions rule our lives – from social media and phone calls to other workers. Maybe you work at home and you have pets or children. Our hobbies and passions are more compelling than the work we have to get done.

  What do you do?

  There is only one answer. Discipline. Make some choices about priorities and Choose. Easier said than done. Here are a few tips that work for me.

• The Power of Educational Technology: 10 Tips for Beginning Bloggers – My brother has recently started blogging and asked me for some tips. I thought I would share them here. I started blogging in 2006 and it has been some of the best professional development for me that I have ever done. Blogging forces me to think, reflect and write about my experiences. Blogging helps me retain my learning and connects me to others who help and support me in my endeavors. If you don't yet have a blog, I recommend giving it a try. You don't have to blog every day or every week. Just establish a place Online to share your thoughts. If you give it a chance, I think you will find it a rewarding experience.

  Here are few tips to get you started.

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A review of the evidence of the impact of digital technologies, on formal education. Includes sections on what the evidence says, and challenges for the future.

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Thanks to Susan Sedro for alerting me to this:

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I’m a great fan of Jane Hart’s Learning Tools Directory which she started in 2006.

For 2010 she has completely revised the structure, reflecting how things have changed over the last 4 years. Go have a look, but in brief here are the 12 new categories (taken from Jane’s blog post)

1. Instructional Tools
   Tools for creating, delivering,  managing learning and/or providing a social learning environment.  Includes course authoring, testing, LMS, CMS and SLEs Currently listing 290 tools
2. Live Tools
   Tools for delivering live meetings, screen sharing and accessing/building virtual worlds.  Includes web, audio, video conferencing, live broadcasting, 3D/virtual worlds
   Currently listing 85 tools
   
3. Document & Presentation Tools
   Tools to create, host and/or share documents, PDFs, e-Books and/or presentations. Includes word processing, presentation tools, PDF convertors, document and presentation hosting sites
   Currently listing 177 tools
4. Blogging, Web & Wiki Tools
   Tools to create blogs, web pages/sites and wikis as well as provide interactivity on those sites. Includes blogging tools, web site tools, wikis, widgets, RSS feeds tools, forms,  web poll and survey sites
   Currently listing 255 tools
5. Image, Audio & Video Tools
   Tools to create, edit and/or host images, avatars, audio files, podcasts, screencasts and videos.  Includes image editors, images hosting sites, audio editors, video makers, screencasting tools, video hosting sites
   Currently listing 270 tools
6. Communication Tools
   Tools for a range of synchronous and asynchronous communication activities.Includes email, voice/video messaging, instant messaging, chat rooms, discussion forums
   Currently listing 151 tools
7. Micro-blogging Tools
   These tools are for real-time updating (140 characters at a time) both publically or privately, as well as a range of useful Twitter apps. Includes micro-blogging, back channel tools, Twitter apps
   Currently listing 141 tools
8. More collaboration tools
   These are (further) stand-alone tools suitable for individuals to work and learn more effectively with others – as well as on their own. Includes social bookmarking, calendar sharing, mind mapping, notetaking/sharing, whiteboards, research and other tools
   Currently listing 188 tools
9. Social Networking and Collaboration Spaces
   These social media platforms include public social networks as well as tools to create private collaborative, social spaces for groups or communities, as well as enterprise collaboration systems (with multiple group sites).  Includes public social networks, networking and community platforms, group spaces, Enterprise 2.0 systems
   Currently listing 107 tools
10. Personal Productivity Tools
    These tools are for an individual’s personal working, learning and/or productivity purposes. Includes mind mapping, information and time management tools, web search, and other productivity tools
    Currently listing 149 tools
11. Browsers, Players & Readers
    These tools are useful for browsing the web and accessing web content. Includes browsers, extensions, plugins, bookmarklets, toolbars, readers and players, online start pages
    Currently listing 68 tools
12. Mobile Tools
    These mobile tools are for working, learning and/or productivity purposes.Includes tools for iPhone/iTouch, Blackberry and Android devices
    Currently listing 47 tools
    

Oh and if you want to recommend a tool to be added to the Directory go here.

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Blake, Denise A (2009) What I Learned from Teaching Adult Learners Online. eLearn Magazine.  Dec.

http://elearnmag.org/subpage.cfm?section=articles&article=105-1

Abstract:
One summer, I was asked to take over an online course (in a master of education program) that had already begun. I accepted the job, but with hesitation. I knew the course material because it was within my field of expertise, but I had never taught an online course or taught masters-level students.

I asked a colleague for help in determining what course material to use. Since my colleague had originally designed the course and had taught online for manyAdult learner years, I figured she would be the logical contact.

My colleague was a tremendous resource in determining both the amount and type of material to use. After spending a week sorting through and updating the materials, I posted the course requirements online. I had already contacted the students to let them know that they were not behind (seeing as I had taken over a course that was already in progress), and that I would be the new instructor. After that initial point of contact, I used email to correspond with the students and Blackboard to post assignments and the syllabus, and for discussions between students.

Because the class was a skills course on how to evaluate articles for a literature review, I had the students read articles of their choice (related to their thesis topics) and evaluate them according to specific criteria. They posted the articles and evaluations on Blackboard. Additionally, the students were asked to read other students’ articles and evaluations, and then comment on at least two postings.

I found that I had to be explicit in explaining what I expected for each assignment and in drafting the syllabus. I made certain that the students understood what was expected of them, such as what time the assignments were due and when their feedback on other articles were to be posted. This was one of the most challenging academic activities I have ever tried to do.

I was curious: What experiences have others had teaching online, and are they similar to my own? What did I need to know about masters-level students? And what exactly would I need to do to teach a quality online course?

In this article, I share my findings. In the end, I will reflect on how well my first online teaching experience went.

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A friend in the UK sent me this today.

I immediately had to find my partner and show it to her. Yes it captured my attention all right. And I went off to look at the web site mentioned at the end of the video.

Now if more of our teaching could be like that.

1. Grab and keep  the attention of students
2. Encourage them to work collaboratively
3. Facilitate self exploration for more information/knowledge

Hope you all have a great break.

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• EduBlog Awards 2009 are underway. See how to nominate at http://edublogawards.com/the-edublog-awards-2009/ #
• Dilbert on Twitter http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2009-11-24 #
• Edinburgh Uni to offer graduation in 2nd Life for distance students http://tinyurl.com/yetdf5f #
• Freedom of information or just plain offensive? http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8377902.stm #
• Google reader to allow favicons in subscription lists http://googlereader.blogspot.com/2009/11/let-your-subscriptions-personality-come.html #
• C4LPT Guide to Social Learning has been updated http://c4lpt.co.uk/handbook/ #
• 20+ Brand New and Incredibly Useful WordPress Plugins http://tinyurl.com/yh852bg #
• Mentoring for 21st Century Skills It’s all about the Learning New book Xmas hols reading http://tinyurl.com/yzkr89y #
• Attitudes in Britain toward the use of learning technologies are changing http://elearnmag.org/subpage.cfm?section=opinion&article=126-1 #

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• Paper submissions for next year's DEANZ conference (25-28 Apr) extended until Fri 11 Dec http://www.deanz.org.nz #deanz2010 #
• Are you tweeting from Hawkes Bay NZ? Let me know and I will add you to my list http://bit.ly/1ja4zU #
• Where To Upload And Share PowerPoint Presentations: Guide To The Best Online Services http://tinyurl.com/leegdh #
• free way to create crossword puzzles http://www.eclipsecrossword.com/ #
• Blogs in Education – great resources http://www.det.wa.edu.au/education/cmis/eval/curriculum/ict/weblogs/ #
• Is blogger.com down – can't login, can't even get page up #
• Great Key Note from @ChrisBrogan http://www.chrisbrogan.com/the-serendipity-engine-web-2-expo-speech/ #
• Second Life numbers waning "Half the time you're just wandering around talking to weirdos" http://tinyurl.com/yja99hb #
• YouTube introduces automatic captions for deaf viewers http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8369941.stm #

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The 2009 list is out from Jane Hart at the Centre for Learning and Performance Technologies.

As always this makes a great read.

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• Gt wk in Rarotonga. Napier flight delayed. Stuck in Auckland airport. #

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