“Teach Us Something” – Submit Your Microlectures

Posted on August 18, 2009 by Alec

As part of the open graduate course discussed in my last post, I have put out a call for microlectures to be included as a resource on the course wiki.

From the wiki:

As an experiment in this course, I am attempting to solicit short, five minute or less, recorded microlectures that will benefit the course participants and hopefully, will also benefit those individuals who submit them. The basic request is simply “teach us something” in a style and media format of your choosing (screencasts, talking-heads, lectures, presentations, hands-on, audio, music, animation, drawing, machinima, etc.). While the course is focused on topics related to social media & open education, I also welcome other subjects as I believe it is important that the power of social media is not in simply teaching about social media.

If you would like to submit a microlecture, please fill out this Google Form with the appropriate information including a web link to your media. Once submitted, the information will appear in this Google spreadsheet.

Thanks to all who consider this request. The course runs from September until early December, so you will have several months to participate. I am hoping that this will become a useful resource for others.

Edtech Posse Podcast 5.6 With Howard Rheingold

Posted on June 19, 2009 by Alec

Dean, Rob, Rick, and I had the privilege of speaking with Howard Rheingold for our latest podcast. In this podcast we discussed “twitter, community, and the challenges of creating inquiry-based learning”. It was a great conversation where I think we all learned and reflected quite a bit, and I hope you enjoy.

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Twitter Search in Plain English

Posted on June 16, 2009 by Alec

Twitter search and tagging is becoming increasingly relevant, especially in light of recent events in Iran. This timely video from Common Craft explains the basics of Twitter search, tagging, and trends. This may help people who are not currently on Twitter to understand it’s usefulness and relevance for capturing public thoughtstreams.

200 Years That Change the World (Hans Rosling)

Posted on May 3, 2009 by Alec

In this video, Hans Rosling demonstrates GapMinder, a tool for “unveiling the beauty of statistics”. The content for the brief video is the change in the life expectancy & income throughout the world in the last two centuries. Gapminder looks like a really neat tool, and the trends described through the tool are interesting.

If you would like to play with the simulation used in this video, go to http://www.gapminder.org/world. If you want to see more of Hans Rosling, check out his TED Talk.

CBC Sask on Twitter

Posted on February 18, 2009 by Alec

Jordan (a former student of mine) and I were briefly interviewed for a short CBC piece about Twitter. It is interesting to see the increased interest in the service by mainstream media, especially in the past several months.

Additionally, here’s an older piece from the CBC (March 2002) that discussed the implementation of highspeed Internet in every Saskatchewan school (was quite a big deal at the time). While there is a shared focus in the two pieces around connectivity, there is certainly a shift in what this means. In 2002, the focus here was in retrieving content/information. Now, the focus is much more on establishing human connections and social interactivity.

History of Educational Technology (pre-computer) by Schwier & Wilson

Posted on January 20, 2009 by Alec

Dr. Richard Schwier and Dr. Jay Wilson were our guests in EC&I 831 on the night of January 13, 2009. They gave a wonderfully entertaining and informative presentation on the history of educational technology before the introduction of the computer. Below is the captured video of the presentation, taken from Elluminate. The full Elluminate session is also available here.

Click To Play

A couple of my favourite insights voiced in the comments during this presentation were (a) where did teachers get the time to do things this way?, and (b) the idea that teachers often hoarded the resources they created. The first point is quite interesting as I find it still the most frequent complaint from teachers using technology today. The second point interests me as I feel that the hoarding mentality may have been necessary at an earlier time in history, but I am not sure education in general has really adjusted to this perceived “age of abundance” in relation to resources and information. Or, perhaps I am just being naive.

Also related, do check out Dr. Schwier’s presentation from last year on the history of educational technology where he takes a different approach, and focuses on the people of educational technology vs. the tools.

Interactive Video Object Manipulation

Posted on November 28, 2008 by Alec

Dan Goldman recently posted a video on Interactive Video Manipulation, a new technology being developed. This has great possibilities, and the demo is very impressive.

Interactive Video Object Manipulation from Dan Goldman on Vimeo.

I can’t wait until I get to play with a consumer version.

This demo illustrates our research to bring interactivity to video editing: Our system analyzes videos using computer vision techniques, enabling interactive annotation, browsing, and even drag-and-drop composition of new still images using video footage. This is a joint research project of Adobe and the University of Washington.

Networked Student – The Video

Posted on November 28, 2008 by Alec

With a style borrowed from the Common Craft videos, Wendy Drexler has put together an excellent video depicting what she calls the networked student. This is a terrific description of how networked learning may look for an individual student. Thanks Wendy for your obvious hard work on this concept and video!

More info:

The Networked Student was inspired by CCK08, a Connectivism course offered by George Siemens and Stephen Downes during fall 2008. It depicts an actual project completed by Wendy Drexler’s high school students. The Networked Student concept map was inspired by Alec Couros’ Networked Teacher. I hope that teachers will use it to help their colleagues, parents, and students understand networked learning in the 21st century.

Self Child-Pornography

Posted on October 9, 2008 by Alec

Here is another interesting case for your digital internship discussions, one that shows that our legal systems are not always equipped to handle issues arising from emerging uses of technologies, especially by teens.

A 15-year-old Ohio girl was arrested on felony child pornography charges for allegedly sending nude cell phone pictures of herself to classmates. Authorities are considering charging some of the students who received the photos as well.

The unnamed student from Licking Valley High School in Newark, Ohio was arrested Friday after school officials discovered the materials and notified police. She spent the weekend in juvenile detention and entered a plea of “deny” on Monday, according to The NewarkAdvocate.com.

Charges include illegal use of a minor in nudity-oriented material and possession of criminal tools. If convicted, the girl could be forced to register as a sexual offender for 20 years, but because of her age, the judge hearing the case has some flexibility in the matter, an official told the Advocate.

Full story here.

open thinking

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