tech-ed collisions

a random ramble on e-Portfolios

Working on a report for e-Portfolios at the moment and it is really interesting to hear the passion and conviction in people when they talk about what an e-Portfolio is. From the JISC e-Portfolio Overview page there is a great little text box which simply states

Fundamentally an 'e-portfolio' is the product created by learners, a collection of digital artefacts articulating experiences, achievements and learning
I was talking to someone the other day who would probably argue that fundamentally, an e-Portfolio must address the process of learning and is about learning itself. When we bring together any group of people to talk about e-Portfolios it seems that there are at least as many definitions for them as there are people in the room. I like the notion that e-Portfolios are simply an application area in which you will find a range of services/functions that you can integrate to form your own. The Web 2.0 mashup paradigm is one that I am really keen on when it comes to ePortfolios. Simon Grant of CETIS did an interesting post recently on a meeting attended where he and some others are working on portfolio interoperabiity prototyping. From his article:
A very interesting idea bubbled up here: that none of the e-portfolio tools are ideal for all the different purposes of e-portfolios ranging from assessment management to PDP, and that perhaps the way forward would be to use more than one tool. Of course, this lifts portfolio interoperability into the limelight - people seemed to concur on this. Rather than being a nice-to-have optional extra, interoperability will become a vital enabler to reusing the same information across these different systems.
This fits in really well with the research that we are doing on creating a roadmap for e-Portfolios here in the VET sector. To me, widely adopted specifications such as RSS, ATOM etc offer many more opportunities for integration and interoperability than some of the more complex specifications that are often touted in relation to e-Portfolios. Some of those specifications really need to be looked at carefully if they are going to remain useful in a service oriented, Web 2.0 and beyond world.

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Filed under  //   eportfolio  

the week that was

so... not much to post about today but here's a few reflections. My iPod Touch is getting better all the time - the release of the iPhone has resulted in a steady stream of new apps that can be installed on the iPod too and with its networking capability its just getting better and better. I like the Facebook app and have tried a couple of Twitter clients (Twittelator and Twitterific, both of which have some annoying features but Twittelator's annoyances are far less intrusive). I went corporate and setup access to the company email which was extremely simple to do and works great - I should have done that ages ago. The remote control app is also another great little program if you use Macs. Browsing through the list of available applications I found a Wordpress client which I immediately installed only to find out later that this blog uses an older version of Wordpress which isn't compatible with it (bummer!). The most impressive app that I have seen so far though is Shazam, which listens to a few seconds of a song and guesses the title and artist and is incredibly accurate. Pity it only works on the iPhone as the iPod just doesn't have the obvious essential hardware! I attended one of those free lunch time seminars the other day where you get an opportunity to see (hopefully) a really interesting presentation and for the privilege, then have to listen to a sales pitch on the company's products. The presentation was on innovation and some recent research into the adoption and impact of new technologies. There were plenty of interesting stats thrown in and on the whole, I walked away with the impression that education, while not leading the way in its adoption and adaptation of new technologies, isn't a complete laggard either. The organisations and industries that are early adopters though are just streaking away from the rest of the field. There was some interesting discussion on the social impact of technologies like the Web though. Perhaps the one that had the biggest impact from the audience was when the speaker mentioned that around two years ago, you probably wouldn't mention (in polite circles) that you used online dating services yet last year, one in eight couples who got married in the US met online. This is a radical shift in the mainstream acceptance of the Web in the way that we socialise and it is incredibly important for organisations to understand what is happening here. From recollection, about 15% of organisations use social networking tools as an important component of their business models, ie using them to drive business, not simply for their employees to communicate. On social networking every now and then I post to Twitter mainly just to try to get a deeper insight into what it's all about and how to get benefits from it. I find that I generally post something if I am doing something a little different or looking at a technology. It seems a good way of connecting randomly with others who might be looking at the same technology. For example, through Twitter I have been able to find out some really interesting stuff about virtual worlds, which we are interested in here at work. Once in a while though, I have posted a more personal comment (ie feeling good, annoyed etc) and what seems to be the case is that these posts attract much more attention than anything else. I am guessing this all comes back to the use of the Web as a social tool. The implications of this are very important in the design of systems that we develop and our use of social networking tools in teaching and learning environments. I'd like to explore this a lot more deeply but am running out of time. Cheers, Jerry

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Filed under  //   Apple   general  

Catchment Detox

Over the last few months I have been spending a bit of time looking at various games platforms, particularly web-based games. Here's a new initiative from the ABC called Catchment Detox supporting learning about environmental issues and management of catchments. From the website:

It's an online game where you're in charge of the whole catchment. You get to decide what activities you undertake - whether to plant crops, log forests, build factories or set up national parks. The aim is to fix environmental problems and provide food and wealth for the population.
It's an interesting looking game which looks like it was developed in Flash. I would like to find out more about it.

Filed under  //   games  

SIFA and ADL partnership

The Schools Interoperability Framework Association (SIFA) and Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) have officially announced a partnership looking at the development and implementation of SCORM into school software applications. SIF is a specification that enables interoperability between applications that you will find in a school system while ADL's SCORM defines learning content. The pilot will be testing a number of use cases around passing content to learning platforms and sharing it. Further information about the partnership is in the press release which is available here.

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Filed under  //   standards  

concern over fingerprinting kids in (UK) schools

Well its supposed to cut down times in the lunch queues and help remove some bullying along with a few other uses but there is nothing like fingerprinting kids to get people worked up. I looked at biometrics in schools some time ago and here it is again in a video piece from the BBC. There is something really emotive about this issue and it strikes wherever we see an opportunity for technology to be misused. Like so many things in our lives, technologies such as these can be put to good use or bad and it is the potential for future bad or un-anticipated use that creates so much fear. No easy answers here.

Filed under  //   emerging technology  
Posted July 22, 2008

content rating system for Aussie websites

From the Ars Technica site is the article 'Australian websites to get ratings for content, age'. I am not sure what to make of this one. It seems that the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has approved a 'Content Services Code'. The code was developed by the Internet Industry of Australia (IIA). It looks like it will align content ratings with that which we are used to for film (MA15+ etc). From the article:

As part of the code, service providers must use access controls in order to host content rated MA15+ or R18+ (content for those over 18)
This is to apply to content originating in Australia. In adopting this there would seem to be some interesting challenges for a number of different types of sites. Many education related sites cater to ages that span the different age rating systems. The article also states that:
According to the ACMA, any content that is likely to be rated MA15+ (for mature audiences over the age of 15) must be assessed and classified by "trained content assessors." The purpose of this is, of course, to assist parents and children to decide what is appropriate for them
Where does this leave educators and the education system? I am not sure who these trained assessors are but will they be familiar with different State's and school systems curriculums etc? While much content for school systems is sourced from within the system's own networks it is clear that students also have access to content on the wider Web. I started to look further into this and had a browse around the IIA website looking for this code. There is a great deal of stuff there and I am currently looking at the Internet Industry Codes of Practice (2005). There is a link to what looks like a really interesting document called 'Guide for Internet Users: Information about online content'. Good luck accessing that one - unfortunately it seems you need to be an Industry member to access it yet the title suggests it should be available to all users. It might still be a 'work in progress' but it clearly looks like it will be useful to parents, teachers etc. Hopefully I can find a link to it elsewhere. The Ars Technica article goes on to highlight some difficulties this initiative may face. Most Internet content originates outside Australia so the rating system, while useful, can only apply to a small amount of content. I like the idea of general ratings systems - they give me a rough idea of what to expect when watching a television program or a film but I think they are much easier to apply to those types of static content. Internet content is dynamic and changes (in some cases, very) rapidly so accurate ratings will be more difficult to apply. To be accurate, they will need to be applied at a very granular level however I expect the overheads on that will mean that ratings will be applied at a less granular level. I look forward to hearing more news and commentary about this one.

Filed under  //   Internet  
Posted July 18, 2008

on iPhones, iTouch and lousy business models

Here's the obligatory post on the iPhone. At last its here and already there are a few around the office. It seems a few people from work joined the queues on Friday and bought themselves the ultimate in cool gadgets for the masses. Unfortunately I wasn't one of them but I have seen a couple of great impromptu demos! I have an iPod Touch so just cannot justify forking out for a new phone for a while so that will have to wait. Anyway, the other night when I got home and turned the TV on there was a story on one of the current affairs programs telling us how the iPhone is going to revolutionise education. While I love gadgets and can see plenty of potential I am not sure how practical this is just yet in the primary school classroom (where I think this story was pitched - I missed quite a bit of the story). Even with the DER it is hard to conceive how an iPhone could be given to every student in the class, and it would have to be every student! There just seems to be so many logistical and other issues to solve. What sort of plans would they be on, who pays for the phones, the plans etc, you would need chargers everywhere, what happens as the phones get lost/stolen/taken from kids (which they would) etc. What sort of training would be required and so on. Don't get me wrong - I would love to see technology such as this being used in classrooms around the country but doing so requires so much more thought than exploiting the hype around a new gadget. On to the iTouch and the business models employed by Apple. They make some cool technology but really irritate me when it comes to some of their approaches to business. Like many, I was an 'early adopter' for the iTouch. Our reward for that - pay up some extra cash to get the upgrade (which did have a few nice applications) to the software back at the beginning of this year. Now with the release of the 3G iPhone, there was another upgrade for the iTouch. There is a whole new raft of applications available now so I went to the Apple site to have a look, downloaded a few and then found out that they cannot run on my iTouch (should really read the fine print). So I paid for the software upgrade to enable them which, on the website had some great images of cool new applications - none of which actually come with the upgrade. The upgrade, at a glance, mostly seems to install an application that lets you install applications! Why Apple insists on charging these fees for minor upgrades that just annoy their most loyal fans I just don't know (I do really - PROFIT). So this time I am going to hold back for a while and not become an early adopter for the 3G iPhone, I might just wait for a few upgrades.

Filed under  //   Apple  
Posted July 16, 2008

on buying with confidence

From ZDNet comes the article "Microsoft on Vista - the time of worry is over". I must say I stopped worrying about Vista a long time ago, in fact I don't think I ever did worry. I just went out and invested in the most expensive piece of technology I have ever bought - a shiny new HP laptop running Vista. Since that time I have experienced a raft of emotions, frustration and anger being the most common. I still can't get wireless networking working reliably and I have spent a huge amount of time trying. Anyway, I did have a bit of a laugh at this latest article which reports on the Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Conference. There is a link to a new site called the Vista Compatibility Center. As reported in the ZDNet article:

During his keynote, Brooks took the wraps off a new portal site, the Windows Vista Compatibility Center, that is designed to provide users with a single place to check whether specific hardware and software is compatible with Vista. The site currently lists 9,000 devices and software products (3,500 apps and 5,500 devices) — a number that Microsoft is planning to expand via customer and partner feedback. The site will be all about helping to “bust the myth” that Windows Vista is not compatible with many apps and devices, Brooks said.
When you go to the site you get a page with the headline "The Windows Vista Compatibility Center will be launching soon, please check back." With my odd way of looking at things I immediately thought perhaps there are no compatible devices yet! Anyway - I applaud the initiative, there should be more of these. I wish there was a site like this available when I made my purchase. I will certainly be looking for similar sites when I make future purchases, it could save a lot of frustration and dissatisfaction. Over the last number of months I have been frustrated at hardware, software, security vendors and pretty much anything else that was bundled on this laptop that had the potential to be interfering with wireless networking. Most of those companies probably had nothing to do with the networking fault but it has still tarnished my opinion of them. I can't wait to see if I have one of the compatible devices!

Filed under  //   Microsoft  
Posted July 10, 2008

Interoperability standards for virtual worlds

Virtual worlds are getting quite a bit of attention at work at the moment and for good reason. Clearly there is a huge potential for their use in education and momentum in this area is really building. Like many I have experimented a bit with platforms like Second Life but am now wanting to do more. Second Life, while being great for some uses may not meet all requirements for everyone. I am particularly interested in installing my own virtual world and there are a number of options. Once installed, the first thing I need to do is start building or populating my virtual worlds and so far this is not easy for a novice. A lot of effort seems to be required to start creating appealing and useful artefacts for these worlds. What I'd really like to do once I have created something is to be able to transport it into another virtual world so that I can get some re-use out of it. Some sort of standards and mechanisms for such transportation would be great here. Interoperability specs here we come! So it was with interest I read this post on the readwriteweb blog. 'Teleporting' sounds a lot more interesting than 'harvesting' (metadata). Sharing and re-using assets from virtual worlds is going to be very important and I look forward to hearing more about work in this area (perhaps we will see an OpenSocial for virtual worlds). Cheers, Jerry.

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Filed under  //   standards   virtual worlds  
Posted July 9, 2008

followup on 20% time

A while ago I blogged about companies providing time to their employees to innovate. Google do it, Atlassian are trialling it and being public about it. Here are some updates from the Atlassian blog on the trial so far. Cheers.

Filed under  //   Google   general  
Posted July 9, 2008