ClappingTree’s Web 2.0

27 Sep 2005: University of Michigan School of Dentistry collaborates with Apple Computer to post audio lectures online for download by registered students, and uses RSS, a Web syndication method, to send instructional content to students automatically. (U-M News Service)

20 Oct 2005: Students in University of Washington get class lectures on demand, thanks to podcasts. (uweek.org)

3 Nov 2005: The “Stanford on iTunes” debut in late October marked the first time a university made audio content from lectures, interviews, commencement speeches and the like publicly available through a system like the iTunes Music Store. (CNet News.com)

24 Feb 2006: Students in the School of Psychology at University of Wales, Bangor, are now able to gain access to Podcast lectures . (iPod in Education)

5 May 2006: IT Sligo has become one of the first third-level institutions in Ireland to deploy video podcasts of lectures to online engineering students, allowing them to view their lecturers using their iPod, mobile phone or any MP3 player with a video display. (siliconrepublic.com)

26 May 2006: A microbiology lecturer at a West Yorkshire university, has abolished traditional lectures in favour of podcasts. Students will access the podcasts via MP3 players, phones or computers, and ask questions via text messages, to be answered in the lecturer’s blog. (BBC News)

A neat summary from Educause on how to make sense of emergent technologies such as Screencasting, Virtual Meetings, Grid Computing, Collaborative Editing, Instant Messaging, Augmented Reality, Blogs, Video Blogging, Wikis, Podcasting, Clickers, and Social Bookmarking. (Thanks to Lay Kock.) Good to know that there are only 7 Things You Should Know:

• What is it?
• Who is doing it?
• How does it work?
• Why is it significant?
• What are the downsides?
• Where is it going?
• What are the implications for teaching and learning?

Read the rest of this entry »

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” — Romeo to Juliet, in reply to her complaint that his name is all that keeps him from her (a play by William Shakespeare)

WHILE BROWSING IN THE LIBRARY two weeks ago, i happened to pick up a book published in 2002 by Diana Laurillard entitled, “Rethinking University Teaching — a framework for the effective use of learning technologies”. Was quite excited when i learnt about Laurillard’s five media forms for supporting active learning. They overlap almost neatly with Nichani’s four Interactive Visual Explainers (2003). Read the rest of this entry »

AFTER HEARING MAISH NICHANI SPEAK at an e-Learning Practitioners’ Forum in the National Institute of Education last Thursday, i felt excited and yet later, vaguely uneasy.

Excited that Information Design was finally introduced to e-learning practitioners, and Maish has done it very well, with lots of diverse and interesting examples. Particularly liked revisiting the first two — Charles Joseph Minard’s Mapping Napoleon’s March, 1861 and The New York Times’ From One Hotel Guest Many Infections (SARS) infographic.

Concerned though about a few probable issues: (1) The examples were mostly CBT-like, with little indications of actual information design principles at work (perhaps not enough time), (2) Maish’s focus had been wholly on visual design and nothing on the writing, (3) How are we going to teach this complex stuff to our academic staff (or students) who have very little time and motivation?

Is this a problem of academic theory vs. industry practice again? Read the rest of this entry »