WebToolsforLearners:- I grew up listening to my mother play piano "by ear". She'd taken piano lessons after her older sister and heard her practice all the pieces she would be learning. After a few lessons the teacher told my grandparents that there was no point in paying for piano lessons for my Mom, as she was playing "by ear". She could play any piece after hearing it a few times so she didn't need to learn to read music. She played beautifully, and very expressively without the benefit of lessons.

WebToolsforLearners:-

Learn Online:- So, 3 months later and my library has finally delivered my order of Yochai Benkler's The Wealth of Networks - How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom.

Learn Online:- It has been great to witness Stanley Frielicks thoughts emerge as he processes his experiences with the Future of Learning in a Networked World. He, more than anyone has sparked important debate in that tour. He has suffered tirades and rants from many, flames from some, and institutional dogma from others, but maintained a willingness to engage and expose himself more. What emerges from this is a presence, a node, an extension in the connected knowledge, a person with whom I feel I can communicate with and relate to.

Learn Online:- So I'm back in Australia, sitting in a friends house in the Blue Mountains, looking out his window over the National Park, watching the mist roll on by, contemplating an image I might use for a talk at the Global Summit. 'bloip' goes skype as a Stephan messages me a link to that only-good-for-fire-starting rag, The Sydney Morning Herald.

Learn Online:- Andrew Cappie Wood, Director General of the NSW Department of unEducation is up on stage to start us off.

Learn Online:- So! here we are, at the very fancy Shangri-La Hotel under the coat hanger in Sydney, for Education.au's Global Summit. Sunshine went to dinner and sat next to George Siemens and Charles Jennings. We had a long awaited discussion about ye old LMS, and I got to flex my work in progress, out from under the umbrellas/what would it be like to be the rain.

Learn Online:- I'm quite relieved to have finished my talk. Seemed to go well, great that Education.au are audio recording and publishing as we go too. Unfortunately the main access to the files is through EdNA groups - which requires a user name and password :( but a little birdy showed me where the media is being stored wide open. Here's a feed coming out of the bloggers of the conference.

Learn Online:- The word realpolitik makes me picture this man.

Learn Online:- Stanley makes a good summary of his thoughts out of Global Summit, and is hopefully going to articulate something of an ecological perspective towards learning sometime soon.

Learn Online:- Wikiversity is taking votes for their logo. This is the only one I would wear on a t-shirt. The others look like some polluted snow flake or something. Make sure you cast a vote - a. to show your support for wikiversity, b. to make sure the better logo wins :)

Learn Online:- Another inspiring post from Artichoke, giving me yet another great reason to go to Brazil next year - to meet Ricardo Semler. A man enacting a concept that is only just now unfolding for me. Democratic schools and industry. Semler has founded a democratic school called Escola Lumiar in Sao Paulo.

Learn Online:- William Lucas, a language teacher here at Otago Polytechnic has been experimenting with chatbots for language tuition. I popped around yesterday and spun me out with JabberWacky and sat back with a grin watching me talk to a robot.

Learn Online:- An interesting project unfolding at North Sydney Institute. A draft set of guidelines for the use of blogs in wikis in formal educational settings. Acknowledges things llike duty of care to minors, and public and private communications etc... (I was surprised to see my blog linked in there - so this is not a self promo).

Learn Online:- DimDim - open source web conference tool, is available as an alpha download. Dimdim is an open source web conferencing product with features like Application, Desktop and Presentation sharing with A/V streaming and chat. No installation is needed on the Attendee side and all features are available through a web browser.

Learn Online:- Will posts a much needed rev up in owning the teaching... and the learning.

Learn Online:- Stephan Ridgeway alerted me to an article in the Sydney Morning Herald yesterday that is definately worth looking at - Youtube is a class act - a refreshing look at the positive adaptation of undeniably popular communication into some Australian school curriculum. Certainly a more informative counter to an earlier SMH article that should shame not only the paper and its 'journalist', but a doctor, the...

Learn Online:- At last! an alternative to this back breaking, arse flattening, nerdy looking laptop interface!

Learn Online:- Graham Stanely has published an excellent video that overviews educational uses and ideas of Web2.0 and Web3D. Quite useful if you are still introducing people to the concepts, or trying to motivate people to stay on it.

Learn Online:- I just got off the phone with Peter Shanks, creator of the Training Packages Unpacked tool. It is a system that reaches into the MSAccess data base of the Australian National Training Information Service NTIS (a place that manages expressions of Australian competency standards or training units for qualification), and pulls it out of the PDFs and RTFS and redisplays the information that teachers and learners need on a web page for us web people to more easily reuse. Then he goes the full 9 yards and makes the newly formatted data available for those of us using wikis, Moodle, html, XML and an assessment spreadsheet. Now its just a simple process of finding the competency unit you are using for learning, teaching or assessment and copy pasting your prefered format into your prefered system.

Learn Online:- There are times when I feel like my feedreader is talking to me... "go on Leigh, did you read that, its says what you say, say it again, here you go, read this, and this, and don't forget this, say it again..." Its a strange sensation hearing these little voices - am I going schitz? No its a reminder of how small our little band of web2/elearning2/networked learning enthusiasts are...

Learn Online:- EdNA's Recent Items RSS pointed to an article in eSchool News that references a interesting results from a study of high school and college student's information literacy. Unfortunately I couldn't get a link to the actual published results as eSchool News wanted me to register before reading the rest of the article.. no wonder bloggers kick linkless journalists. I did manage to grab this though:

Learn Online:- I had a very interesting phone conversation with Cormac Lawler today. Cormac is an experienced user, researcher and collaborative coordinator of wikiversity. In it we talked about the history of wikiversity, the possible structure and uses for it, some issues and considerations, and future developments.

Learn Online:- Sorry about this, but I'm moving off Blogger and onto Wordpress. New location is http://learnonline.wordpress.com and the feed URL is http://learnonline.wordpress.com/feed

Learn Online:- As many no doubt already know, Blogger is upgrading (catching up) with better web2 like features. But somewhere along the way they have stuffed up. I have just now tried to help 2 lecturers get started with blogging - now I'm certain that they will never blog again!

Learn Online:- I've kinda sat on the fence with Second Life. But really, there's no arguement about it. SL is an intensly engaging and inspiring space to be working in. Ever since the Future of Learning in a Networked World and talking more with Jo Kay and Sean FitzGerald I can see it more clearly.

Learn Online:-

del.icio.us/subscriptions/akarrer:-

del.icio.us/subscriptions/akarrer:-

del.icio.us/subscriptions/akarrer:- Educational podcasts

del.icio.us/subscriptions/akarrer:- Learn.com – Cloud-Based Talent, Performance, Learning Management (LMS) and Training Software

del.icio.us/subscriptions/akarrer:- Lots of resources at sites to explore related to plagiarism...

del.icio.us/subscriptions/akarrer:-

del.icio.us/subscriptions/akarrer:-

del.icio.us/subscriptions/akarrer:-

del.icio.us/subscriptions/akarrer:-

del.icio.us/subscriptions/akarrer:-

del.icio.us/subscriptions/akarrer:-

del.icio.us/subscriptions/akarrer:-

Educational Technology:- by John Cox, Computerworld The top back-to-school IT projects at 10 colleges and universities show a tidal wave of change in higher education. Many of the changes could presage broader shifts in enterprise and consumer technology. Not surprisingly, wireless is fast becoming the default network connection for campus users, who typically own between two and four [...]

Educational Technology:- by Allison Hesford, KFYR Bismarck`s newest school, Sunrise Elementary, will be starting its first school year next Thursday, and students can expect to see their teachers working with some new types of technology in the classroom. Sunrise will be using new multi function printers and short-throw projectors this year, both of which help the school function [...]

Educational Technology:- By Audrey Watters, Read Write Web We are beginning to hear announcements fairly frequently about the states, school districts, and universities that are moving to the cloud for their email and productivity tools. As schools and universities adopt cloud technologies, what will become of the school computer lab? Computer labs have been important locations on campus [...]

Online Learning Update:- By MEGAN BOEHNKE, iStock Analyst Hundreds of students taking one of the University of Tennessee’s most popular courses, remedial algebra, arrived last week to the first day of class — in their dorm rooms. For the first time the university will deliver half of its Math 119 sections, which enroll about 1,000 students each fall, online. [...]

Online Learning Update:- by Andrew Pantazi, University of Florida Alligator The old Online Learning is out at UF, and Sakai is in. Sakai, an open-source course management system, is run by a community of universities, including the University of Michigan, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Cambridge University. It was chosen to replace UF’s previous system, WebCT Vista 8, because [...]

Online Learning Update:- by Rob Manning, OPB News Oregon’s schools have at least two really big problems heading into the new school year: a graduation rate of only 66 percent, and a budget crisis of historic proportions. Some education officials say you can address both problems with one fix: getting more students to take classes online. Rob Manning reports [...]

Cool Cat Teacher Blog:- Image by edenpictures via FlickrThis morning.

The Learning Circuits Blog:- This month's big question comes from an inquiry I received from Robert Kennedy via my blog. The question was:

Remote Access:- Over the years that I’ve been using social media and 2.0 technologies in my classroom, I’ve tried plenty of different services. When accounts are free, it is easy to try things out. Of course, what ends up happening is that plenty of these get abandoned. A service didn’t do what you thought it would, the service dies, or the you simply end up not using the tool in your classroom. Whatever the reason, we’ve all created plenty of online orphans. What happens to all of the wikis we’ve created and never used? Or the email addresses we’ve changed from? The services we’ve signed up for and left behind. What happens to all of these things? Nothing. And that is part of the issue. Every place you’ve created an account or a profile can be tracked back to you. Every single piece is a part of your digital footprint. With a memory the size of Google’s, these orphans, that we give little or no thought to, are an important part of who we are...

Remote Access:- - My father and father – in – law are both the type of men that could build a passable ark with a bunch of toothpicks and twine. While I have no trouble doing things around my house (one of the things you simply need to be able to do when you live in small town and there are few people around that you could possibly hire for anything) it has never been my “thing.” Which is why I’m surprised at myself this summer. For a few weeks at the end of June and for most of the last two weeks that I’ve been home I’ve been very busy working outside of my house. I’ve needed to build an extension on my garage and a new fence between my yard my neighbour’s. Add to this a dozen other smaller jobs and you see how day after day I’ve found myself outside each morning with a cup of coffee, my carpenter’s belt, and a whole lot of tools. But the amazing fact is that I’ve actually enjoyed it. The smell of the wood. The puzzle of...

Jane's E-Learning Pick of the Day:- I am delighted to be the first stop on the blog book tour for Jane Bozarth's new book, Social Media for Trainers. Jane is the author of a number of excellent books, including. E-Learning Solutions on a Shoestring and  Better than Bullet Points - books that I wish I had written myself because of their clear, concise approach to the subject and packed with plenty of practical examples.  Jane's new book, Social Media for Trainers, is no exception, and it provides an ideal introduction for anyone who wants to understand how to use tools, like blogs, wikis, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, SlideShare, Flickr, etc  to deliver training,...