Anderson/Ives Links: Blogging inside the garden wall...

A new blog post!!!!! Bet you never thought you'd see the day...

I'm currently writing a paper ('Privacy considerations in the selection of blogging software') for EdMedia 2007, which is going to be in Vancouver this June... can't wait, I've always wanted to go to Canada!!! And of course I also can't wait for the conference itself ;)

Anyhow, just a note to self to review the links below and the argument about whether or not to keep blogs protected within an institution's firewall...

Is Blogging Inside the Firewall an Oxymoron?

Virtual Canuck » Blog Archive » Blogging inside the Garden Wall

Ontologies for Education

I have been looking at ontologies lately - a lot of the literature seems to be in the area of Artificial Intelligence, and then in recent years in the area of the Semantic Web - but here is a web portal called 'Ontologies for Education', which is:

"A collaborative project between Winston-Salem State University, University of Pittsburgh and Saint-Petersburg State Polytechnic University; the main goal of the project is to collect and disseminate web resources in the field of application of ontologies and relevant technologies for the modern educational perspectives."

On this web portal there are links to over 200 research papers relating to ontologies, to the projects that the group are involved in, and the people involved in the group.

Why all the spam?

It seems like all of a sudden I am getting 'spammed' from every direction! In my Gmail account, where I never received any junk mail before, I am now suddenly getting 30/40 junk mails a day - and let's just say they are not too savoury either... Even in my work email I have started getting a few junk mails every day although at least they seem to be 'cleaner' ones! Thankfully both Gmail and my work mail filter out all the spam. But then I find a spam comment on my blog today! It just seems like a bit of a coincidence all this spam seemingly happening all at once... Or maybe I was just lucky before???

The Doldrums...

Well so much for 'regular posts from now on'... where does the time go??? I can't believe it's been three over weeks already since my last post - things are really getting away from me recently :( Boo hoo... on an even scarier note it's November now - I cannot believe I've been doing my Masters research for over 1 year now!!! Which means less than 1 year to go - or if I do transfer to PhD less than 2 years to go - still not nearly enough :(

Ok I am freaking out - I think I am just lacking in direction/motivation/enthusiasm/all of the above at the moment - probably should just spend less time worrying and more time getting on with things!

I found this PhD Calendar on the University of Melbourne website which is a bit funny even if it's not the most helpful!!! If only things were that simple - I'd fill in a couple of dates on this calendar and everything would be ok again!

Goodbye Accessibility!

I had a little logo on my blog previously that stated that the blog was compliant with the W3C WAI Priority One guidelines. With my old template, I tweaked one or two things in the HTML template in order to make the blog accessible according to the Priority One standards. When I changed my template I thought I better do the same again... but I found that I can't make the required changes - I think it is something to do with the way they have used widgets, so all the HTML code can't be accessed through the template any more.

What a pity... I have taken the accessibility logo off my page for now until I figure out what to do... Should I switch back to the old template?

Long time no blog...

I've been a bit of an absentee landlord on this blog lately, and I'm quite ashamed really... but I've trying out other blogging tools such as Wordpress, Vox etc. I'm starting another study as part of my research in a couple of months from now, and as the students involved will be using blogs as reflective journals it's important that they have the option to restrict who views their blog.

However, after finally deciding to use Wordpress, I now find that the new Blogger does have privacy settings... and categories!!! ('Lack of Categories' was another reason I abandoned Blogger there for a while!) It's much easier to edit the template now too... Blogger finally ticks all the boxes regarding what I'm looking for in a blogging tool.

So new theme, new leaf... and hopefully regular posts from now on!!!

Mopsos - Collaboration tools for communities of practice

Mopsos - Collaboration tools for communities of practice:

Interesting weblog post by Martin Dugage here... he suggests that the tools you use to collaborate depend on the level of trust you have established between the parties involved.

The diagram he has used to demonstrate this is great, and really got me thinking where the blogging we are doing in the class experiment fits in on this scale. I think that the 'Cognitive Space' level - react to reach shared understanding - is probably the most accurate. However, it also made me realise that part of the reason that the class are able to operate at this level is that they already know and 'trust' each other.

Makes me wonder if collaborative tools would be effective if used in a Distance Learning course where none of the students have met each other before? Or perhaps they would be more effective because they are the only means of communication for that class?

Lots of interesting thoughts on this one over at Mathemagenic too...

eLearn: Feature Article

eLearn: Feature Article: E-learning 2.o by Stephen Downey

A great article about the evolution of e-learning, which includes the following excerpt:

Educators began to notice something different happening when they began to use tools like wikis and blogs in the classroom a couple of years ago. All of a sudden, instead of discussing pre-assigned topics with their classmates, students found themselves discussing a wide range of topics with peers worldwide.

Thanks Mary for sending this one on to me!

Goodbye to Bloglines

I just can't take anymore... After three or more weeks of not being able to view my feeds properly (or at all most of the time!) I have decided it's time for a change! I have started using NetVibes and so far I like it... much nicer (more customisable) interface... plus you can get email notifications on the same page, a list of your del.icio.us tags and local weather! Not that I couldn't guess it's going to be rainy and/or cold every day for another few months :(

Anyway hurray for NetVibes!!!

elearnspace: How to interconnect the mesh together

Post by George Siemens on elearnspace... "How to interconnect the mesh together"... How indeed! Weblogs, wikis, social bookmarking, RSS feeds and aggregators are all useful tools - and are arguably at their most powerful when used together. But where are educators supposed to get the time to teach students to use all these different tools... especially when many institutions already have a VLE like WebCT that students are also expected to learn?

Wouldn't it be great if one module in the first year of college was devoted to the 'collaborative technologies' mentioned above? First year often has a few 'filler' modules anyway... why not teach students technologies like these that they can then use to organise their learning and collaborate with classmates throughout their years in college?

*Sigh*... yeah I know it'll never happen!

Link to full article here.