WebToolsforLearners:- Every so often I see a blog post that I want to not just save in my del.icio.us account - http://del.icio.us/shiftingsemiosis - but I want to actively learn how to use. LifeHacker's Top 10 Obscure Google Search Tricks is one of those. The list starts at 10, and, although I'd re-order a couple of the tricks, all of them are more than useful, exciting even.

Remote Access:- You may not believe this, but I live in a place where there is no cell service. People are usually astounded when I tell them this. Some people are absolutely mortified, wondering how we survive, while others often give me a slow grin, nod and tell me how great it would be to get away [...]

Online Learning Update:- Last week’s article on online language learning apparently hit a nerve; not only was it widely e-mailed, but a number of individuals told me about other language courses that I had missed in my research. In addition, a few factual corrections to the story are in order. Starting with the latter, the free language courses at the BBC’s web site may not work in all countries. For example, the videos cannot be played in the U.S., but other elements of the program do work.

Online Learning Update:- The purpose of higher education is to equip students for success in life — in their workplaces, in their communities, and in their personal lives. Yet though this purpose has remained constant for centuries, colleges and universities themselves are undergoing major change. The campus, the library, the refereed journal article, the classroom, and the traditional-age student — common features of higher education today—may be inadequate in describing higher education tomorrow.

Online Learning Update:- At first blush, the university seems to be in greater demand than ever. Yet there are troubling indicators that the picture is not so rosy. And we're not talking just about the university endowment reductions caused by the current financial meltdown. A dismal 58 percent of entering freshmen actually graduate from the same college within six years.4 More and more students are questioning the "bang for the buck" as college tuition has risen in cost more than any other good or service since 1990, leaving students with $714 billion in outstanding student-loan debt in the United States alone.5 Students around the world are increasingly choosing alternative models of higher education.

Educational Technology:-

Educational Technology:-

Educational Technology:-

del.icio.us/subscriptions/akarrer:- A computer science professor at an Australian University is doing something revolutionary with YouTube - he's offering students who can't attend his classes college credit for watching his videos. Richard Buckland, a senior lecturer at the University of NSW in Sydney, Australia, was frustrated that high school students with a passion for computing and capable of studying at the college level were not able to make the commute to the university fit into their school day. Buckland then decided to turn YouTube into a remote classroom where the students could attend lectures virtually and then complete coursework just as his other students do. Although several universities today use YouTube as a repository for lectures posted by college professors, they are generally offered as supplementary material for their enrolled students - the videos offer a handy way to go back and review previous classes. In addition, the public nature of those videos allows people from around the world...

Informal Learning Blog:- Pattern Language? A concept invented by Christopher Alexander, award-winning, renegade architect despised by most other architects, but wildly popular among designers and software authors. Alexander used to live in my neighborhood. I wrote up a little presentation on his Pepto-Bismol colored house. Neighbors complained his house was so ugly it lowered the value of each house [...]

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:- FUSE is a portal, a repository, a search engine, a workspace and a way of sharing quality education digital content and resources. FUSE has unique environments for teachers, primary and secondary students. Users can search for websites, images, video, audio, interactives, documents and other rich media types with all resources tagged according to audience.

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:-

Weblogg-ed:- So I ran across this Smart Ease of Use video in the course of one of our threads in a PLP cohort and I have to say, I can’t seem to shake it. I mean, maybe I’m missing something here, but if this is a vision of “transformative” technology, we’re in some serious trouble. Worse, [...]

The Stingy Scholar:- Tired of chasing your finger along the page? Try zap-reader to speed read effortlessly. Paste text of interest to zip along at the pace of your liking.

Jane's E-Learning Pick of the Day:- Recently I have received a number of emails asking about places that offer free instructional videos (on all subjects), so I thought I would put together a posting of the main ones that I know about: 5min Life Videopedia - instructional and how-to videos Academic Earth - Thousands of video lectures from the world's top scholars blip.tv - next generation TV network Google Video -...

del.icio.us/subscriptions/akarrer:-

del.icio.us/subscriptions/akarrer:-

del.icio.us/subscriptions/akarrer:-

del.icio.us/subscriptions/akarrer:- eNcephalon Version 4.2, release 2009 by FH JOANNEUM

del.icio.us/subscriptions/akarrer:- online learning

del.icio.us/subscriptions/akarrer:- Learning for Healthcare

del.icio.us/subscriptions/akarrer:- A 21st-century corporation needs a different kind of organisational structure from the old command and control mechanisms that built the world's biggest companies. Peter Day finds out how people can create learning organisations without commanding and controlling.

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:-

Cool Cat Teacher Blog:- Some really exciting things happened this past week. Just thought I'd share with you today about some of the things happening in my classroom in the hopes that there may be something to ponder here for you.  It is every day to me, so really, none of it seems particularly revolutionary... that is unless I compare it to what my room looked like about four years a go before my teaching model and tools transformed.

The Stingy Scholar:- OMG!

The Stingy Scholar:-

The Stingy Scholar:-

The Stingy Scholar:- Nicole Allen over at Make Textbooks Affordable has been doing some great work lately. The most recent example: she's enlisted the support of over 1000 faculty members at schools around the country who have signed a statement of intent to use affordable textbooks, including open textbooks, whenever they have a choice.

The NOSE: Information Technology in Higher Education:- Imagine having purchased a new household product. Imagine relying on it more and more until it becomes a fixture and eventually your home can't be said to function at all without it. Imagine also that there have been no improvements to the base product, except at the margins and in ornament. Imagine finally that product cost soars, with no end in sight, while your total household budget declines. Would you have cause for alarm? The California State University System and Delta Initiative, a consultancy group, recently concluded a landmark study of "The State of the Learning Management in Higher Education Systems". This is fine work and timely during these difficult economic times. The California State University System is to be commended for not only...

Online Learning Update:- Those of us in the higher education field learned a lot during the 2000-2009 period, mainly that nothing stays the same. Things evolve at record speeds as technology develops, mindsets change, and trends take hold. Here are 8 of the biggest higher education trends I witnessed during the last decade:

Online Learning Update:- Three-fourths of public colleges believe online courses are "critical" for long-term success. The 2009 Sloan-C report on online education confirmed what campus officials have seen during the country’s economic downturn: Americans are flocking to web-based college classes. The seventh annual study, based on responses from more than 2,500 colleges and universities and funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, reported a 17-percent increase in online course enrollment, with more than one-fourth of U.S. college students taking at least one web-based class during the fall 2008 semester.

Online Learning Update:- Bill Gates has recently announced in his 2010 annual letter that he will be offering grants from his foundations to further the usage of online learning. One aspect of online learning is the availability of video lectures online. Many free lectures from universities appear on such websites as AcademicEarth.org, whose goal is to “bring the best content together in one place and create an environment in which that content is remarkably easy to use and where user contributions make existing content increasingly valuable.”

Online Learning Update:- Google Enterprise President Girouard said Google will release Google Wave, the company's real-time collaboration platform, for all consumers and businesses in 2010. Google, which currently offers the open-source Wave platform by invitation only, has rolled the platform out to more than 1 million users. Wave lets users communicate in via instant messaging, and enables multiuser document editing and social networking all in real time on one user interface. As such, it is a sort of lively incarnation of many of the Google Apps programs. Girouard said parts of Wave will show up in other Google products, but it is unclear how this will take shape. For example, Wave and Gmail may be integrated. Wave could easily leverage the word processing, spreadsheet and presentation programs in Google Docs.

eLearning Technology:- After LearnTrends 2009, I received a note from a person I know and highly respect that said, “I dropped in on several sessions over the last three days and wanted to thank you for your good facilitation skills …”

Educational Technology:-

Educational Technology:-