/Message: Pew Internet Study: Why Tagging Matters

Posted

Full story at: http://jondron.net/cofind/frshowresource.php?tid=5325&resid=1244

A summary of the Pew Foundation’s study of tagging behaviour among Internet citizens. You’re more likely to do it if you’re intelligent, well-paid and under 50, and less likely to do it if you’re white (at least in the US) Apparently around 7% of the population might be tagging on any given day, but overall just over a quarter of Internet users tag online content at some point.
So – control from the bottom-up relies on the activities of the minority. No great surprise I guess, but it would be nice if more people contributed.If it’s going to take off as an educational technology then I have one or two concerns about such a relatively small number controlling the shape of things.I’m not sure, because I would rather it were in the hands of those who know what they are doing and who understand what they are tagging and why, but there could be a vast untapped source of knowledge out there.
Created:Sun, 04 Feb 2007 06:16:57 GMT

Original: https://community.brighton.ac.uk/pg/blog/jd29/read/93928/message-pew-internet-study-why-tagging-matters
By: Jon Dron
Posted: February 3, 2007, 11:16 pm

the cluetrain manifesto – the book

Posted

http://jondron.cofind.net:80//frshowresource.php?uid=anon&pwd=&tgid=26&tid=5290&qid=&quality=&show=all&page=&searchstring=&returnto=&perpage=20&order=&expired=&resid=1243&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cluetrain.com%2Fbook.html The entire Cluetrain Manifesto is available online and makes good reading for anyone lost in the ways of the last century. Stirring stuff, not always right, but nearly always either thought-provoking or blindingly obvious, depending on which side of the fence you sit.
Created:Sat, 03 Feb 2007 14:12:20 GMT

Original: https://community.brighton.ac.uk/pg/blog/jd29/read/72103/the-cluetrain-manifesto-the-book
By: Jon Dron
Posted: February 3, 2007, 7:12 am

Social software: E-learning beyond learning management systems

Posted

http://jondron.cofind.net:80//frshowresource.php?uid=anon&pwd=&tgid=26&tid=5290&qid=&quality=&show=all&page=&searchstring=&returnto=&perpage=20&order=&expired=&resid=1242&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.eurodl.org%2Fmaterials%2Fcontrib%2F2006%2FChristian_Dalsgaard.h A paper by Christian Dalsgaard which expresses a similar attitude to mine on system construction and social software’s benefits.
Created:Fri, 02 Feb 2007 02:28:49 GMT

Original: https://community.brighton.ac.uk/pg/blog/jd29/read/72087/social-software-elearning-beyond-learning-management-systems
By: Jon Dron
Posted: February 1, 2007, 7:28 pm

How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School: Expanded Edition (2000)

Posted

http://jondron.cofind.net:80//frshowresource.php?uid=anon&pwd=&tgid=26&tid=5290&qid=&quality=&show=all&page=&searchstring=&returnto=&perpage=20&order=&expired=&resid=1241&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nap.edu%2Fbooks%2F0309070368%2Fhtml%2F An interesting free book from The National Academies Press, which offers more than 3000 books online for free.

The book is a good intro to the subject, but what is particularly interesting from my perspective is the innovative and elegant way that the books on this site are presented. As well as a comprehensive range of navigation controls, each chapter has a ‘skim’ option, which presents a couple of paragraphs with the option to continue reading the page if it piques your interest. This is a great way to provide control to the reader and fits perfectly with my theory of transactional control (buy the book – ISBN: 1599043904), providing an exemplary model of how to build static hypertexts with different needs for control in mind. Unfortunately, it appears that the paragraphs shown are selected by the program, so they are far from always relevant: in fact, an apparent glitch in the system means that it selects empty ‘paragraphs’ from blank pages, with the offer to read more on that page. Good for a book on philosophy, but clearly needs tweaking!
Created:Thu, 01 Feb 2007 22:07:19 GMT

Original: https://community.brighton.ac.uk/pg/blog/jd29/read/72086/how-people-learn-brain-mind-experience-and-school-expanded-edition-2000
By: Jon Dron
Posted: February 1, 2007, 3:07 pm

Blackboard Patent Pledge

Posted

It is nice to know that outrage (and some increasingly unequivocal evidence that Blackboard would find it very difficult to defend their ludicrous patent against an outraged community) and the plummeting popularity of BlackCT has had an effect on the People from the Dark Side. So we can now all breathe a collective sigh of relief and carry on developing the things that we were developing before Blackboard appeared on the scene and claimed that our ideas belonged to them. Meanwhile, BlackCT appear to be saints (unless you happen to work for a company against which they are launching a law suit, of course).
Created:Thu, 01 Feb 2007 05:22:26 GMT

Original: http://jondron.net/cofind/frshowresource.php?tid=5258&resid=1240
Posted: January 31, 2007, 10:22 pm

Flexible learning spaces

Posted

Last week I visited the wonderful creativity CETL team at the University of Sussex where they have spent vast amounts of money on creating a fantastic flexible learning space – every wall is a whiteboard and most of them move, tracks in the ceiling with multi-coloured LED lighting that can be controlled through a touch-screen interface, muslin curtains, huge numbers of projectors and plasma screens everywhere, fully and wirelessly networked, very flexible furniture, brilliant sound system, video cameras throughout, and everything linked and interconnected.CETL at Sussex

 

It would be tempting to think of this as the learning environment of the future, but it comes at a very high cost: the biggest issue is not the infrastructure but that it takes a small team to run it and facilitate sessions. This is not a space for the quick and dirty or low-threshold approach. While learning within the space may be very conversational, dynamic, inspiring and flexible, it all has to be carefully orchestrated and, in an odd way, controlled.

I want such spaces to be thrown together on the fly, with flexibility and virtual space embedded effortlessly. Exactly how we do this in the kinds of buildings we usually find at our institutions remains a bit of a challenge. One starting point is to give every student a laptop (something decent, with a built-in video camera, a nice display and good battery life) and to create the wireless infrastructure to support them. Next is to fill teaching spaces with flexible furniture that can quickly and easily be reconfigured. I love the idea of being able to write on all the walls and to move those walls around as and when we need them. Decent, ubiquitous flexible wireless video displays, perhaps interactive, would also help, together with great sound systems.I have been experimenting with a battery-powered LED data projector that might provide this and can foresee a day in the near future when such technologies may be built into laptops.  Above all, it should be possible for someone to enter this space with little or no training and just use it. 

Not too much to ask, not too expensive to achieve.

 

Original: https://community.brighton.ac.uk/pg/blog/jd29/read/72059/flexible-learning-spaces
By: Jon Dron
Posted: January 31, 2007, 5:51 am