Apunts per a un capítol d'un llibre. Diversitat de propòsits de l'eportfolio, la pedagogia del programari, relació amb el Web 2.0 i les xarxes socials i amb l'entorn personal d'aprenentatge (PLE), etc. etc.
Graham Attwell sobre el canvi de llicència que el govern del Regne Unit aplica a les seues dades públiques (coses com ara convocatòries, calendari escolar, festes locals, entre moltes altres). Sembla que a partir d'ara utilitzaran la llicència de Creative Commons Attribution 3.0. Això vol dir que s'autoritza per defecte qualsevol tipus de reutilització.
All this augers well. I have been working on developing mash up applications for careers guidance and counselling and in particular for using Labour Market Information. All to often, the major barrier is the lack of available data, license restrictions and the lack of APis to query data. At last attitudes seem to be changing.
Pontydysgu revisa (i extracta) l'article de 1971 d'Ivan Illich, "Education Without School: How It Can Be Done".
Illich, best known for his groundbreaking book, Deschooling Society, remains as relevant today as he was 40 years ago. And in many ways he anticipated the use of computers for social networking and collaborative learning.
John Fontaine (Blackboard) defensa els entorns virtuals d'ensenyament/aprenentatge davant de les acusacions d'inflexibilitat i manca d'innovació.
[...] The simple use case of making it easy for a class to post and share information through a secure website continues to be a highly useful and has had a great impact on teaching and learning.
My colleague at Blackboard Dr. Demetra Katsifli wrote a research paper with the University of Kingstown which provides a summary of research into the impact of the VLE on education in the last 10 years. It summarizes a enormous volume of research demonstrating the positive impact of the Virtual Learning Environment on education.
Finally, when surveyed I do not see students requesting that instructors use Blackboard less. A recent editorial in the GW Hatchet argued for Blackboard mandatory [...]
Potser per a donar unes passes més enllà d'aquest tipus d'eines -com es reclama últimament- sí que ens faltaria encara que tothom hi arribe :-)
Omeka és un programari lliure que permet implementar fàcilment exposicions i museus virtuals. Ara s'anuncia Omeka.net, un servei d'allotjament que elimina la necessitat de comptar amb un servidor i instal·lar programari.
Omeka.net will expand Omeka’s current offerings with a completely web-based service. No server or programming experience required. Similar to services offered by WordPress, the popular open-source blogging software, with the launch of Omeka.net users will be able to sign up for a free hosted Omeka site. Just create a username and password, and your online collection or exhibition is up and running.
This new hosted web service will further the Omeka project’s mission to make collections-based online publishing more accessible to small cultural heritage institutions, individual scholars, enthusiasts, educators, and students.
Podcàsting i informe del JISC sobre els avantatges econòmics per a les universitats d'un model obert de difusió del coneixement. Amb estimacions en lliures esterlines.
A new report launched today (25 February 2010) shows how universities can work out how much they could save on their profit and loss accounts as well as increasing their contribution to UK plc when they share their research papers through Open Access.
Graham Attwell sobre la Free Technology Academy
(FTA), un projecte conjunt del Free Knowledge Institute i tres universitats europees (UOC, OUNL, Adger), finançat per la Comissió Europea. La FTA ofereix formació en línia sobre tecnologies lliures. Els programes d'estudi es basen en recursos educatius oberts i s'utilitza un entorn virtual de programari lliure.
The FTA Consortium partners aim to accelerate the adoption of Free Software and Free Knowledge by working on strategic projects like the FTA, the international SELF Project, and other initiatives. They collaborate with parties to set up a solid ecosystem for the production of free educational materials.
The courses are not free – according to the website the “FTA charges tuition fees to cover only the marginal costs of running the courses and tries to keep costs as low as reasonably possible to make participation in its tutored courses accessible to those interested.” This year the fee has been set at 380 Euro a module. But it is particularly interesting that the consortium has agreed a standard fee, which in many cases is substantially lower than that usually charged by the participating universities and is justifying this through the use of OER and open source.
Un article interessant de Don Tapscott i Anthony D. Williamsen el darrer número EDUCAUSE Review, amb resposta de Tony Bates en els comentaris, més interessant encara.
We have seen a major enlargement of the higher education system, but basically we have not increased the number of tenured professors or even adjunct instructors to maintain the elite system of teacher:student ratios of 1:20, except in the most expensive Ivy League institutions. Using lectures and increasing the number of students per lecture is an exceedingly cost-efficient way of dealing with larger numbers with less resources. The extra student added gets exactly the same education as all the others, at no extra cost. (Note that I said cost-efficient, not cost-effective.) Also the investment in technology has actually taken away resources that could have been spent on teaching.
The basic problem is that you cannot use constructivist learning approaches with classes of 100 students or more [...]
Also, Tapscott and Williams write about the ‘new’ constructivist way of teaching. I’m sorry, but this is not new. It’s been around for over 100 years and has been used in elite universities from the middle of the 19th century. (It was called in Oxford and Cambridge the tutorial method). Why universities don’t use it now is not because they don’t understand the technology of the Internet but because it doesn’t work well with very large numbers.
[...] Lastly, the suggestion that the privatization of the universities or ‘market forces’ are needed to bring about change also misses the point.
Disponible ací: http://www.boe.es/boe/dias/2010/01/29/pdfs/BOE-A-2010-1331.pdf
Capítols sobre interoperabilitat organitzativa, interoperabilitat semàntica, interoperabilitat tècnica, reutilització i transferència de tecnologia, signatura electrònica, etc. Inclou, entre altres coses, l'obligació d'utilitzar estàndards oberts des de les administracions públiques en les relacions amb els ciutadans. Annex amb glossari de termes, molt interessant.
La interoperabilidad es la capacidad de los sistemas de información y de los procedimientos a los que éstos dan soporte, de compartir datos y posibilitar el intercambio de información y conocimiento entre ellos. Resulta necesaria para la cooperación, el desarrollo, la integración y la prestación de servicios conjuntos por las Administraciones públicas; para la ejecución de las diversas políticas públicas; para la realización de diferentes principios y derechos; para la transferencia de tecnología y la reutilización de aplicaciones en beneficio de una mejor eficiencia; para la cooperación entre diferentes aplicaciones que habiliten nuevos servicios; todo ello facilitando el desarrollo de la administración electrónica y de la sociedad de la información.
Notes de Hans de Zwart (i presentació en Slideshare) referents a la seva conferència en iMoot 2010. "El futur de Moodle i com no aturar-lo". Després de recapitular les opinions recents sobre "la mort dels LMS" en el context del Web 2.0, de Zwart insisteix que Moodle s'ha de transformar en una plataforma (a la manera de Drupal) i mostra com hi contribuiran les noves API de la versió 2.0: repositori, eportfolio, comentaris i serveis web.
Journal of Emerging Technologies in Web Intelligence, Vol 2, No 1 (2010). PLE, distributed environments, connectivism, conversation, participation.
We often talk about games, simulations and other events in learning, but these technologies support only episodic learning. Equally important are those technologies that provide a context for these learning episodes, an environment where students interact and converse among themselves. This paper describes experimentation in the development of distributed online courses and in software - particularly, the personal learning environment - that support the formation of connections between the far-flung pieces of such courses. This work, in turn, is suggesting and supporting the model of learning described in the first section, that of a course network supporting and informing an ever-shifting set of course episodes. This in turn suggests a pedagogy of participation rather than retention, and even suggests distributed and locally-based forms of evaluation and assessment. Future developments will focus on realizing these concepts as software or at least software prototypes. The intent of such systems is to facilitate the conversation and interaction around episodic learning events in a distributed environment, transforming them from elements in a linear flow-based design to free-floating objects in an environment.
Creative Commons explica els seus plans per a l'any 2010 en relació amb l'educació, que inclouen:
...you can expect to see much more OER-related content and news on the CC home page, main site, and wiki. This is a big win for the open education movement — many more people will learn about OER, and for CC as well — OER may be the single most compelling use of our tools, and one that any member of the public can understand right away.
The reorganization results in the departure of one staff, but the addition of direct open education project responsibility to several of our most senior staff, including our CEO, Creative Director, CTO, GC, and VP.
També s'enumeren alguns dels projectes de 2010, en els àmbits jurídic (llicències, materials creats pels menors a les escoles, formació per a advocats...), tecnològic (metadades, DiscoverEd, assessorament per a implementacions...) i político-social (materials de divulgació, estadístiques, etc.).
David Wiley, iterating toward openness:
Our good friend Cathy Casserly, former Director of the Open Educational Resources Initiative of the Hewlett Foundation, as just been elected to the Creative Commons Board of Directors. While there were already people on the CC board who cared about OER, the addition of Cathy means that the Board now has one of the most articulate OER champions around in their ranks. This is great news! Congrats to Cathy, CC, and anyone who cares about OER!
El Grupo de Tecnología Educativa de la Universidad de Sevilla acaba de publicar las Memorias de investigación (Resumen ejecutivo y versión completa) del Proyecto de Investigación de Excelencia en Equipos de Investigación “Usos del e-learning en las Universidades Andaluzas: estado de la situación y análisis de buenas prácticas”, financiado por Resolución de 19 de diciembre de 2007. Secretaría General de Universidades, Investigación y Tecnología (Orden de 15 de marzo de 2007. Convocatoria 2007). P07?SE?J.02670.
L'Open University del Regne Unit ha anunciat que adoptarà el paquet d'aplicacions en línia Google Apps for Education a fi de proporcionar els serveis següents als seus més de 200.000 estudiants (i posteriorment també al seu personal):
Les raons que addueix Niall Sclater (Director of Learning Innovation) són les ja habituals: Google pot garantir una qualitat de servei major que la mateixa universitat i fins i tot pot aportar eines addicionals. A més a més, destaca el caràcter complementari i el valor afegit d'un servei com aquest, quan se suma a un entorn virtual d'ensenyament/aprenentatge de la institució, relativament tancat i segur.
[...] These systems will increasingly start to compete with some of the features of learning management systems / virtual learning environments such as Moodle and Blackboard. They provide a higher level of individual control for students and potentially remove some of the administrative burden from the university. Google’s recent integration of their Groups application in the the Google Apps for Education suite is going to present us with some interesting questions such as:
- What would be the additional maintenance issues for us in turning on that functionality so that any student can set up a forum e.g. dealing with inappropriate comments, flame wars etc?
- Should Groups be a space for informal collaboration with formal teaching taking place in Moodle forums?
Actualització. Comentaris interessants en el blog de Graham Attwell: Personal Learning Environments in the Cloud?
I like D'Arcy Norman's definition of "educational technology" a lot more than Januszewski and Molenda's. Their definition, that "educational technology is the study and ethical practice of facilitating learning and improving performance by creating, using, and managing appropriate technological process and resources," defines an academic discipline, rather than the object of study, and for good measure throws in normative elements ("ethical", "appropriate") inappropriate in a definition. It is also essentialist, trying to define something in terms of inherent properties of that thing (as opposed to external factors, such as use). Norman's more colloquial definition, "educational technology is whatever stuff you need to use to support the practice of effective teaching and learning," is also more accurate. It identifies a set of entities as defined by how they are used. And it allows for unethical and inappropriate uses of stuff (still a good idea in a world of SCORM and page-turners).
The special track "Mashups for Learning" (MASHL 2009) took place within the "International Conference on Interactive Computer Aided Learning" (ICL 2009) in Villach, Austria. Personal Learning Environments (PLE) are the application type for mashing up learning services. We asked for contributions for an increasing research field. MASHL 2009 provided an excellent space for discussions in order to improve the learning and teaching routines of tomorrow. This special issue consists of the outcomes of this intensive process with international experts.
Cinc eines -alternatives a Twitter- vàlides per a implementar un back-channel a l'aula.
Via OLDaily:
Many people use Twitter as a backchannel, but there are some people (like me) who would prefer a different solution - because, otherwise, audience members must obtain Twitter accounts participate, which they may not want to do, and the conversation may be more public (i.e., broadcast to the entire universe) than some people might like. Also, it's really annoying to read one half of a conversation through an individual's tweets (whch is what hashtags address, of course, provided people use them correctly, or consistently, and... sigh.) anyhow, here are five alternatives for a classroom back-channel (and I know, I know, you love twitter and think everyone should - but you'll have to get past that and realize that the world has more than one religion).
Vilaweb es fa ressò del portal Materials Docents en Xarxa, repositori cooperatiu d'universitats catalanes que conté materials i recursos digitals resultants de l'activitat docent, i el compara amb iniciatives com Patatabrava.com o Rincón del Vago.
Graham Attwell. Recursos educatius oberts, ensenyament vs. aprenentatge (?) i el paper de les institucions d'educació (superior) en el futur pròxim.
[...] My prediction of trends for 1010 is that the crisis over the future role of institutional education will continue to deepen. The crisis, engendered largely by technological and social change, can only be exacerbated by the financial cutbacks facing higher education in many countries. At the moment education institutions can fall back of their function in providing recognised qualifications. Although the degree of regulation regarding qualifications and the weight such qualifications carry for employment varies between sectors and countries, in general we might expect that increasingly employers will look to a person’s digital identity and digital record of learning, rather than accepting qualifications as the basis for employment.
So do educational institutions have a future? I think they do but this will require profound change. Already a few pioneers like Dave Wiley, George Siemens and Stephen Downes have tested new models for online courses including both participants registered for a course credit and those not registered. But more fundamentally institutions may have a role in motivating and supporting the learning of students at particular phases in their (lifelong) learning. But this requires far more flexibility than our present (higher) education systems provide [...]
Un altre examen de les novetats més destacables de Moodle 2.0 (que encara tardarà mesos a sortir). En aquest cas, Timothy Hart (College of Education and Human Development, University of Maine) destaca els aspectes següents:
Article en ReadWriteWeb. Analitza molt breument la tendència a la baixa del RSS com a mitjà per a mantenir-se al corrent de les novetats, amb la competència ara d'aplicacions com Twitter, Facebook, les pàgines d'inici de l'estil d'iGoogle o Netvibes, etc. També, significativament, el predomini a què ha arribat Google en aquest camp del RSS.
Hans de Zwart ha assistit a les darreres presentacions de Martin Dougiamas sobre Moodle 2.0. En aquest apunt del seu blog resumeix i comenta quines seran al seu parer les novetats més importants. El nou sistema de plantilles i temes, les activitats condicionals o el redisseny de la navegació, entre altres. I sobretot la reinvenció de Moodle com a plataforma mitjançant les API de repositori i d'eportfolio i la capa de serveis web.
[...] Moodle was approaching the end of its life cycle as a “Walled garden” product. Moodle was ahead of the game in 2001, but has been passed by many of the developments on the Internet since its inception. When Moodle was first conceptualised things like WordPress MU, Ning, Flickr, Delicious and Wikipedia did not exist. Moodle needed to reinvent itself. The repository and portfolio APIs in combination with the Web Services layer will allow Moodle to become much more a platform than an application. Moodle will keep its relevance or will become relevant again (depending on your viewpoint on the state of educational technology). I am already imagining the Moodle App Store.
Jornada de treball de la Red de Coordinadores del Campus Virtual dels centres de la Universitat del País Basc. Vídeos i presentacions de les conferències de Jordi Adell, director del CENT i Amelia Sanz, subdirectora del Campus Virtual de la Complutense de Madrid.
Scott Wilson ens presenta una idea que es va debatre fa poc en CETIS: implementar una API que permeta l'accés extern a les dades de les universitats. Quines dades? Per a quina mena d'aplicacions? Per a quin públic? Les possibles respostes a aquestes preguntes s'estan recollint en una wiki: University-API.
Molt interessant, sens dubte. Penseu per exemple en directoris de cursos, cerca de grups d'investigació/experts, congressos i jornades...
[...] At the end of the session, Brian took us through University API: WTF? to get us to question ourselves. I think overall the whole API thing is a no-brainer for the digerati, but persuading management is a problem. As Andy Powell pointed out - its easy to confuse the concrete examples of what you might use an open service for (and its value proposition), with the point of providing open services because you don't know what they might be useful for! [...]
