Archive for the ‘Learning Spaces’ Category
Wednesday, May 7th, 2008
Shaheen E. Lakhan and Kavita Jhunjhunwala write about open source software in online learning for the April-June 2008 issue of Educause Quarterly. They discuss the history of open source, its implementations in the educational sector including virtual universities and education portals, and its impact on learning. The authors offer a comparison matrix featuring some of the most widely used open source learning management tools including Moodle, .LRN, and Dokeos.
“Open source and digital education and learning, separately and together, aim to reach everyone. Although both movements have gained considerable maturity, a need for greater coordination exists. A cohesive plan must bring together open source principles and technologies, educational institutions, and economic factors so that each component’s role is clearly defined. Both open source and digital education projects are taking their first tentative steps into the consumer world. They have a long way to go before they enter the mainstream, but together they have great potential to change forever the face of education.”
Posted in Information Literacy, Learning Spaces, Open Source | No Comments »
Tuesday, April 29th, 2008
The U.K.’s Guardian, in association with the Joint Information Systems Committee (Jisc), has published a special supplement titled Libraries Unleashed featuring 18 articles on libraries and technology. They have categorized the articles into the following topic areas:
- Colleges, universities and the digital challenge
- Learning spaces
- Library 2.0
- New business models
- Digitisation
- The new user
- Librarians
Posted in Library 2.0, Library Services, Learning Spaces, Libraries, Web 2.0 | No Comments »
Monday, April 28th, 2008
The London Journal of The New York Times covers the controversy having to do with the British Library’s new generation of researchers, and the philosophical debate over who should be allowed access to the national library. Four years ago the esteemed library opened its reading rooms to anyone with “a relevant research need” - including undergraduate students. These new researchers chat with one another, listen to iPods, log onto Facebook, and answer their cell phones, much to the dismay of the Library’s traditional researchers.
“The library has changed and evolved, and people use it in different ways,” said the spokeswoman, who asked that, in accordance with library policy, her name not be used. “They have a different way of doing their research. They are using their computers and checking things on the Web, not just taking notes on notepads.”
Will the Library of Congress experience the same culture clash between this new more “interactive” generation of library users and traditional researchers? They announced last week that they are now opening their main reading room to researchers age 16 and older.
Posted in Library 2.0, Library Services, Learning Spaces, Libraries | No Comments »
Tuesday, April 1st, 2008
John K. Waters writes about the learning commons in his article The Library Morphs in the latest issue of Campus Technology. He concentrates on Ohio State University’s Thompson Library renovation which aims to transform the library into “a library for the 21st century”.
“When people describe what they are going to do with a learning commons,” Bennett observes, “they often talk about integrating the services delivered by librarians and information technologists. Sometimes, they even bring in student tutoring services. The result can be a useful space that integrates these services, but it’s still a space in which the service providers call the shots. We’re very slow to break away from that model and admit that what these spaces should be about is the students taking responsibility for their own educations.”
Also in this issue: Wikis, Blogs & More, Oh My! discusses the adoption of new Web technologies by colleges and universities.
Posted in Library 2.0, Library Services, Learning Spaces, Libraries, Academic Library, Change & Innovation | No Comments »
Tuesday, March 25th, 2008
Judith Tabron at the Chronicle of Higher Education talks about technology and its place in learning environments in her How to Find What Clicks in the Classroom.
“Our students live online. They fall in love, they shop, they order pizza on the Web. Their iPods, TV’s, and Xboxes are sophisticated technologies. They instant-message their blogs from their cellphones, and they can’t picture college having a place in any of this, because we haven’t shown them that it can.
It will be a dismal future if the only thing our graduates cannot do online is learn.”
Posted in Learning Spaces, Academic Library, Change & Innovation, Web 2.0 | No Comments »
Wednesday, March 12th, 2008
University Business discusses the innovative ways colleges and universities are using the Second Life virtual realm for collaboration, instruction, promotion, and machinima creation in Sizing Up Second Life: Higher ed learns how to live in a virtual world.
“The greatest benefit of our Second Life campus has been as a marketing tool, really extending our brand out into a whole different channel,” he says. “Along with creating the campus, we also created a corresponding machinima video on YouTube that has had thousands of hits. That has done wonders in terms of throwing attention not just on our Second Life campus but on Ohio University as well.”
via Educause
Posted in Learning Spaces, Social Software, 3D Worlds, Social Networking, Web 2.0, Second Life | No Comments »
Thursday, February 28th, 2008
The JotSpot wiki service which offered spreadsheet functionality, photo pages, calendars, and file storage, within their wikis has been in limbo since Google’s acquisition of the company in late 2006. According to TechCrunch, Google has relaunched the application as Google Sites, a free service with up to 10 GB of storage. Wiki authors can embed Google Docs and Calendars into their wikis as well as YouTube videos, and make their sites public or private. Like the former JotSpot service, Google Sites’ wikis seem easily adaptable as intranets, team websites, virtual classrooms, or family organizers.
Posted in Learning Spaces, Social Software, Wiki, Social Networking, Web 2.0 | No Comments »
Tuesday, February 26th, 2008
Carleton University in Canada has created a video portal for students, according to Campus Technology, which allows them to share, annotate, search, index, and even remix class lecture videos. The full-length video from each class is uploaded to the site after the lecture. Students can add their annotations and metadata which is then searchable by the community and can be complied into “video notebooks” to create study guides on particular topics.
“We believe students will get great value from being able to search the lecture videos to find the precise topic or concept they are interested in reviewing, then see their classmate’s notes and playlists for that topic. VideoNotes is an example of how we continue to integrate technology and expand the educational experience at Carleton.”
Posted in Learning Spaces, Social Software, Change & Innovation, Web 2.0, Video | No Comments »
Monday, February 25th, 2008
Mashable presents a guide to 12 Screencasting Tools For Creating Video Tutorials. If you’ve ever wondered about how to create video tutorials which record your screen actions, you’ll want to check out this list of programs, many which are free, including CamStudio, an open-source video and audio capture software application.
Posted in Library 2.0, Learning Spaces, Open Source, Web 2.0, Guides, Video | No Comments »
Thursday, January 31st, 2008
The OEDb has created a mega-list of the best educational podcasts from across the globe in their Skip the Tuition: 100 Free Podcasts from the Best Colleges in the World. Take a course in Quantum Mechanics from Stanford, explore the Brain Structure and its Origins through an MIT class, or learn about 50 Years in Media: Changes in Journalism at Harvard. The list highlights education on-the-go from these fine colleges and universities:
- Stanford
- UC Berkeley
- MIT
- Duke
- Harvard
- Queen’s University
- UCLA
- University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine
- University of Glasgow
- Yale
- and more…
Posted in Learning Spaces, Web 2.0, Mobile, Guides, Podcasts | No Comments »
Wednesday, January 23rd, 2008
The OEDb has compiled a report ordering the top 41 accredited online colleges in their OEDb’s Online College Rankings 2008. These rankings which include national, online-only undergraduate colleges which offer degrees are the first of their kind and attempt to provide a quatitative view of this Web-based academic landscape. The rankings aggregate data gathered according to eight different metrics — acceptance rate, financial aid, graduation rate, peer Web citations, retention rate, scholarly citations, student-faculty ratio, and years accredited. Overall rankings are provided as well as a breakdown according to metric.
[Disclosure: iLibrarian is owned and operated by OEDb.]
Posted in Learning Spaces, Web 2.0, Reports | No Comments »
Thursday, December 27th, 2007
This toplist created by Larry Ferlazzo pulls together fifteen Web 2.0 applications which can be used for educational purposes. He summarizes how each one can be used in instructional settings and suggests possible applications. I can’t wait to check these out along with his other lists.
- Tumblr
- Bookr
- VoiceThread
- Show Beyond
- Daft Doggy
- Community Walk
- One True Media
- Fleck
- ESL Video
- CircaVie
- CLEAR
- SMILE
- Footnote
- Sketchcast
- Vi.sualize.us
Posted in Library 2.0, Learning Spaces, Social Software, Web 2.0 | 1 Comment »
Thursday, December 20th, 2007
I’m all for empowering women to learn about technology, so when Women’s Voices for Change asked me to contribute a piece about educational opportunities in Second Life, I was more than happy to write this article about Learning in a Virtual World. If you’re interested in Second Life learning, you may want to check it out.
Posted in Information Literacy, Library 2.0, Library Services, Learning Spaces, Libraries, 3D Worlds, Web 2.0, Second Life, Gaming, Blogs | No Comments »
Monday, December 17th, 2007
Click for full image.
The UK company Path Intelligence has developed a pedestrian path measurement technology which automatically monitors the routes that visitors take within a building from their cell phone signals, (these signals do not reveal user identities). This technology aggregates these visitor movements and presents them within a continuously updating interface indicating visitor concentration levels at different times within different areas of the building. The technology is meant to be used as a way to optimize building layouts and staffing levels by providing insight into where people are naturally going, and also to quantify the impact of marketing campaigns by monitoring foot traffic to particular areas.
The technology may eventually integrate the ability for visitors to link up their actual cell phone number to the currently anonymous signal so that they can receive special offers, etc. according to TechCrunch. I can think of a million uses for this type of technology in libraries - patrons automatically receiving a stacks guide on their mobile phones as they enter the stacks area, etc. The program also tracks the weather with foot traffic as well as whether or not a specific event is happening. Libraries would be able to track whether their traffic levels in some areas are heavier when it’s raining outside, when an author talk is happening, etc. Check out a demo of the software here.
Posted in Learning Spaces, Change & Innovation | No Comments »
Friday, December 14th, 2007
Ohio University Campus
Second Life is a massive virtual world with many opportunities for learning and entertainment. Over 60 colleges and universities have a virtual presence there, and are joined by more than 500 librarians. If you are just starting out in this MMOG (massively multiplayer online game), this guide should get you up and running. Follow the SLURLs (Second Life URLs) by clicking or pasting them into your browser’s address bar and then clicking the “teleport now” button on the page to go to that location, (note: you will need to have established a SL account first & have the program installed).
Library Sites in Second Life
These sites are the 12 islands of the Alliance Library System which make up the Info Archipelago:
Places to Learn about Second Life
(building, working with prims, etc.)
Here are some sites to visit when you’re ready to learn how to build the world around you.
Sights to See
SL Blogs
SL Educational Resources
Videos of Second Life
Key Terminology
Posted in Learning Spaces, 3D Worlds, Web 2.0, Second Life, Gaming | 1 Comment »
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