Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

Another site I came across for free audiobooks, Audiobooks.net has more than 400 free choices available. While you do have to make an account to download the materials, the choices available are worth the 2-seconds of link activation. Want more? Two of my favorite other resources and the forementioned LearnOutLoud and the education digg-clone qoolsqool. Qoolsqool has a category of ipod materials full of some of the best links available. Oh yeah, one more good site worth mentioning is Podiobooks, which offers many fresh new materials, in contrast to the many open domain classics you usually come across. (PS, thanks to Nelshael for the image)

For you academics seriously interested in how open and distance learning is affecting education, take a look at the IIRODL.org. Active since 2000, the tri-annual journal covers topics such as mobile learning, OCWs and open-source software on education. The articles are available as html, pdf and mp3 and many other useful links go out to other free and open textbooks and peer journals. The current issue focuses on mobile learning and includes such topics as Mobile Learning and Student Retention, Integrating Mobile Learning into Nomadic Education Programme in Nigeria and The World-Wide Inaccessible Web.

Geosense is an awesomely interactive geography battle game. Logon (or just go on as a guest) and challenge online opponents to locate worldwide cities. Some of the challengers on here are pretty amazing - certainly beat me hands down…

Win or lose, this is a fun and addictive way to brush on your geo-knowledge. US, Europe and worldwide challenges are available.

Been on a bit of poetry kick this week and have been surprised to see all of the good materials on YouTube. Here’s a selection of some of the better video that I’ve come across. As you can imagine, most of the best stuff available relates to the American Beats:

Allen Ginsberg - “Ballad of the Skeletons” (click on link for better audio)

Billy Collins - “The Dead”

Jack Kerouac - Explaining why he wrote on the road…

William S. Burroughs - “Thanksgiving Prayer”

Oscar Wilde - Tribute Animation (also, here is audio of him reading some lines from Ballad of Reading Gaol)

Some more are listed over here at MeFi though many of the links are dead.

While there are lots of great poetry pages on the web, the Poetry Archive is one of the most continually compelling. The site features historical and modern recordings of poets reading their poems, incluing the likes of Langston Hughes, T.S. Eliot and Allen Ginsberg.

The site has lesson plans for teachers, a children’s corner, glossaries and many excellent links. Slightly edgier teachers/students may also wish to check out some of the best “alternative” poetry and arts pages on the web: ubuweb and greylodge.

In response to this post I did on the Top 10 Firefox Research Tools, several readers brought Zotero to my attention. I’ve been using this tool over the past few months and have found it indispensible. The Zotero plug-in allows you to create folders, organising interesting webpages along with tags, notes and inter-linking. Most useful (for me at least) is the ability to save a webpage, highlight and sticky relevant info and export the contents to Word. Zotero is one of the most robust firefox research plug-ins around, and this lengthy video is a good introduction to all you can do with it. Don’t take my word for it. Watch and try for yourself.

Back in 2005 when Stanford first rolled out with their iTunes initiative, it was hailed as a great step towards openness in education. I remembering downloading lectures and listening to them during the workday. Some were good, some were not so good. Many of the materials were focused on alumni and of little interest to the general listener. The less “campus-life” and more academic lectures seemed haphazardly selected and poorly organized. There were no complete courses. All-in-all I was unimpressed by the site and didn’t see why it was compared with MIT and other more developed OCWs.

Two years down the line, the site has developed quite a bit, little resembling how it started. Let’s take a closer look.

Number and Variety of Courses Offered: B

One of the biggest changes on the site is the introduction of courses. Although there are only 13 currently available, they are good selections on interesting topics and appealing to a wide base of users. For instance, “Historical Jesus”, “Virgil’s Aeneid” and “Straight Talk About Stem Cells” could as easily appear on the iPod of my aunt as my old thesis advisor.

Furthermore, the limited number of courses doesn’t communicate the quantity of materials available. By browsing through the “Categories” index to the left of the homepage, you can see all of the audio available under topics such as “Law and Politics” or “Health and Medicine”. These categories list courses but also group materials together under areas of study, making it easy for a user to find relevant audio and video. Also listed are materials by featured contributors (mainly institutes within the university).

I’m really impressed by the quantity and variety of materials on the Stanford iTunes site. While not too many full courses are currently available, I’d expect to see more and more appearing soon. If not for this lack of full courses, Stanford would certainly get an “A” in this category.

Course Substance: B+

With so much material on the site, there’s bound to be some stuff better than others. As regards the actual courses, I found the ones I’ve listened to the be quite weighty and substantive while also easy to understand without being an expert on the topics. For instance, although “Hannibal”only has 7 lectures, each is between an hour and one-half to two hours and full of content. Other courses such as “The Literature of Crisis” has 20 tracks of the same length and “Modern Theoretical Physics” has 17 videos (iPod ready) between two semesters.

Meanwhile, the hodgepodge of lectures organised by topic is a goldmine when it comes to content. Head to International Relations > International Security and you’ll find 31 lectures ranging from “Children in Combat” to “The CIA and It’s Secret War in Tibet”. Institutes such as the Stanford Health Library offers 59 lectures such as “Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers”.

Once again, I’d love to offer a better grade, but this materials is not enough to really simulate being in the classroom. Sure, there’s lots of good stuff on here, but other than the handfull of courses there’s not too much really focused on one topic. And although the courses are really great (don’t get me wrong), 7 lectures or so doesn’t approximate a full semester of studies.

Material Mix & Accessibility: C+

Sadly, this is the area where Stanford most suffers. Although the iTunes platform makes it easy to download and enjoy the audio/video on your iPod, the material is, unfortunately, very tailored to iPod use. Although some materials have some brief pdf lists of recommended materials (eg, the Benjamin Franklin course), there are no textbooks or accompanying readings.

Overall Score: B 

I think that Stanford probably deserves a better grade than “B”. They certainly get an “A” for effort - the site is light years beyond where it was when it started. But the site is very much “stuff to put on your iPod” and not so much “open coursewares simulating university courses”.

The university is moving in the right direction and can only improve. My recommendations to them: move beyond the iTunes platform, create a companion website with space for comments and interaction and open textbooks. Go for the “A” and the gold ring - you can do it!

Next week we’ll be talking about Berkeley - there’s just so much material on it that I need a little more time to do it justice.

The Blue Rectangle book seller/exchange site has created a professionally recorded video reviews of people discussing books that they’ve read. With more than 200 reviews currently available, this is a good place to get ideas on something new to read. The reviews are short, clocking in on under a minute and focused - the interviewees are asked several questions and their answers are clipped together in the video edit.

Unfortunately, there are several downsides to the site. You cannot comment on the reviews, stifling what could be an interesting conversation with the speaker. Additionally, some of the reviews are somewhat bland and lacking in energy. Many of the books discussed are well-known and it could be nice to slip in some more obscure and interesting materials. All that being said, this is a nice and fun site, appealing to a wide audience.

Song stuck in your head? Can’t remember what it’s called? With Musipedia, the Open Music Encyclopedia, you can sing, whistle, tap or key in the melody to search through a user-created melody database. If you plan to use this regularly, try out the firefox and konquerer add-ins.

If you’re looking for a ton of free books - especially for computer programming - try this new site which has been popping up on del.icio.us, digg and the likes… Giuciao.com has topics on operating systems, programming languages, office apps as well as other miscellaneous topics such as combat, medicine, foreign languages and “love” (tantric sex, swedish massage, etc.). Although the site has an ugly 90’s style interface there is a surprising quantity of materials available - most topics have at least 30 links and often more than 100. By the way, the photo above is from the fun, borderline NSFW site Babes With Books.

I’ve been stumbling upon lots of good mythology sites over the past week and Theoi.com is my favorite. The site is thorough with a long encyclopedia, detailed diety family trees and lots of special focuses such as the bestiary and fabulous tribes. The site also has a gallery of sculpture and pottery and a searchable library with text from Homer to Seneca. Although there are many great mythology sites on the web, this site from New Zealand does a great job of assembling interesting topics and detailed info in an aesthetic, modern and easy to navigate interface.

If you’re looking to waste a large chunk of your work day, visit the Free Information Society, a site dedicated to free tech, art, history and much more. With such a broad range of topics, some areas are more developed than others…but some parts are truly excellent. For instance, the historical sounds on mp3 is full of original great speeches (eg, Apollo 11). The math section is quite complete with good resources, especially the calculus section which I’ve been using this week. The site’s not always so educational - art and fun has roms, funny photos and walkthroughs… check it out.

Today we’re going to start a new weekly series trying out and grading university open coursewares. It seems like every week some ivory-tower starts an iniative to open up their doors to us common-folk. While everyone generally lauds these efforts, I think it’s time to ask: how good are these courses?

While here at OEDb we’re pointed out some of the best (such as these 100), in this series we’re going to look at some of the most popular and more obscure offerings with a critical eye, grading each program on (1) the number and variety of courses offered, (2) substance, (3) the material mix & accessibility and (4) overall grade.

To get this started, we’re going to take a look at the series from Utah State University, one of my favorite OCW’s. Although not the largest site out there, this is an OCW with heart, putting lots of attention into each course they post.

Number and Variety of Courses Offered: C+

Hey look, we’ve gotta call a spade a spade, right? USU isn’t going to compete with MIT or Berkeley when it comes to the shear number of courses available. 73 courses ain’t too shabby, but far too many of them are on Weed Control, Turf Management or Lambing and Sheep Management. The courses of more general interest are really excellent, but unfortunately, there aren’t enough of them - eg, there’s only one physics course and three english courses. While I can respect USU for trying to make these more rustic courses available (you aren’t going to find Cattle Management alongside the Charles River), the more general courses are so good that I wish there were more of them.

Course Substance: B+

Far too many OCW programs are lacking when it comes to the quantity and quality of materials per course. USU has done a good job focusing on fewer, well-developed courses. For instance, the course Blogs, Wikis, New Media for Learning has a tremendous amount of content and links (this is a great course to pass along to the parents). With the Quantum Mechanics course, there are pretty detailed notes for each of the 37 lectures. Also, these extension courses on agricultural topics all offer a large quantity of video that you might be hard-pressed to find anywhere else. Overall, I would say that you will find few “substance-light” me-too course on USU where little material actually available.

Material Mix & Accessibility: A-

This is the category where USU truly shines. With most of the USU courses you can say something that you cannot about far too other OCWs: you can use the course and really learn - all the materials I need to learn are provided for me. I’ve previously referred to these courses as Turn-key OCW’s.

Let’s take a look at some examples. The excellent Anthropology of Religion course has multiple videos, lecture notes, images, quizzes and links for each of the ten classes. Although, unfortunately, an interested student would probably need to but this $65 textbook, you could work with these materials and really learn. Similarly, although the excellent 1st year Chinese course would encourage you to purchase some texts, there are plenty of great video lectures and writing lessons that work well on a stand-alone basis.

Meanwhile, there are some online courses that would classify as true turn-key courses, cuash as the Instructional Games class and the English 2010 series. All in all, the courses have a good mix, generally with audio/video, lots of online materials and self-testing resources. If not for the overall reliance on non-open source overpriced textbooks, this would be an ideal example of material mix and accessibility.

Overall Score: B+

USU is an example for other programs to aspire to. The courses are well-developed and accessible while the site is clean and easy to navigate. That being said, there is still room to improve. USU should develop more courses and make them more accessible. They talk about using the Learn HTML course with 60 kids in Hong Kong and Mainland China, while asking you to buy Sam’s Teach Yourself HTML (huh?). With all the free HTML learning resources, I somehow doubt these kids got a copy of Sam’s guide.

So final grade is a B+ … we’re tough graders but just because we want more and more for free. Maybe that’s whiny and needy but if we’re going to offer “open coursewares” I think it’s fair to expect openness and full courses.

Stay tuned. Next week we’ll take a look at Berkeley.

Check out these awesome photos an abandoned Soviet brain research lab.

Last week we took a look at LiveMocha. I was very impressed - it had been a while since I’d checked-out the latest language-learning communities and I was very surprised by the advances. With Mango, I have the same “wow this is great” feeling regarding free online language-learning tutorials.

Mango could be a paid site. But it’s free. Mango starts with some of the traditional online learning site like those at the BBC and takes it to the next level. For instance, I logged in and tried Italian for English speakers. Over 113 flash “slides”, I am walked through exercises to help me understand a basic conversation. The site loads quickly and uses sound, color and repetition to help you get comfortable and familiar with the material. A list of the features is here. But what really impressed me is that after this first lesson I had 99 MORE to go through. Similar options are available for Spanish, French, Greek, Chinese, Japanese, Pig Latin, Russian and other languages. There is also English courses for Spanish speakers.

This is a great site to use and a great site to follow. Glad that it’s free.

An oldie (started back in 2000) but still goodie, Ricci Adam’s MusicTheory.net covers everything from the Treble Clef to Diatonic Sevenths. Although the lessons are really thorough and easy to follow, for me, the best parts of this site are the trainers and utilities. One thing is learning the theory and the other thing is being able to hear it in practice. Try the ear trainers to see if you are accurately hearing the intervals. The utilities include chord calculators, which display the intervals on a keyboard, and custom printable ledger sheets. The course materials are available under an attribution-noncommercial creative commons license, so feel free to use them in class.

Osalt.com helps you find free, open-source software, organizing the materials by their commercial equivalents. For instance, if you don’t have 100’s of bucks for Photoshop, try one of these equivalents (I use GIMP - it’s great). If you’re fed up with iTunes, try Amarok or Banshee. Tired of 5 million video programs and stupid codecs? Download VLC - one video player to rule them all….seriously…you will need no other. Hope this helps!

Now here’s a school commute!

A wonder collection of Chema Madoz’s bizarrely creative photos. More here.

I’ve never been much into cooking and during those university years pre-wife, I’m hard pressed to even think of what I ate and how I managed to survive. Best I can remember is a lot Ramen noodles and friend chicken from the corner shop with bullet-proof glass. I guess that MGD has a lot of vitamins and nutrients.

With my wife pregnant and dead-tired, I’m trying to pick up some of the slack. And feed her something other than a bowl of cereal between groggily waking up from a catnap on the couch and carrying her rapidly-expanding belly to bed.

Here are some of her favorite cooking pages (she really likes to cook…lucky for me…and reads these pages regularly). While I’m still no Ferran Adria…and honestly not even much of a Rachel Ray…I have to admit that I’m starting to have fun.

Delicious Days

Delicious days is the most wonderful food blog around. First off, it is simply beautiful. The bloggers are a couple who live in Munich, who, as far as I can tell, dedicate their time to photography, cooking and travel. The pictures are superb, the recipes varied, well recorded with photos step by step, interesting and well, delicious. The search engine is lovely, you can also browse though the recipes by category - all so organized and professional and good good. The only down side to this blog is that they dont post as often enough as you would like. Maybe it’s more of a quality over quality thing, but it might just be that they’re more into cooking than blogging.

Food Network

Americans will be familiar with this popular cable tv channel with well-known shows such as 30 minute meals and Everyday Italian. Lots of show clippings are on the website.

Jamie Oliver

Jaime Oliver is my favorite celebrity chef and his shows - especially the recent ones such as Jamie at Home - are really excellent. Unfortunately, he’s a bit of a slacker when it comes to his website although there are some good recipes and video clips. The podcast is great and nice to bring with you on the go although he seems to update only every few months.

Yumsugar

Maybe a little too girly, but still a good source for quick tips and interesting recipes. Some of the recipes are interesting, “Yum” posts regularly, and on mondays she talks about making a meal out of her sunday’s recipe, which is pretty clever.

Nami Nami & Milk & Cookies

Two nice amateur blogs in the delicious days vibe though not quite as pretty. Both sites are a bit heavy on baking but still some good info here.

Ask Metafilter: Cooking Tag
The site has tons of great cooking-related posts with lots of recipes and good links (eg, check out this post from today if you still hate the idea of cooking).

Lots of other good cooking sites are book-marked at del.icio.us, although have to admit that these sites are the ones I’ve been frequenting the most.

PS. If you are a total beginner, check out these 20 lessons to kick-start your cooking skills.

Over on the Stingy Scholar we’ve looked at a number of language-learning community sites such as Soziety, Friends Abroad and Shared Talk. But with no disrespect to these great resources, Livemocha takes online language learning to the next level. This is a site I’ll be use a ton over the next few months (I’m try to learn Mandarin). Why is it so good?

Lots of language-learning web sites are based around community interaction, but Livemocha give you something to interact about. It’s one thing to provide a meet-up site where someone who “speaks english / learning italian” can meet someone who “speaks italian / learning english” - but then what do you talk about it?

Livemocha provides some truly excellent Rosetta Stone-styled courses and  shows you who else is doing this course and who is online right now. Rather than blindly seeing if someone wants to talk, you can see who’s studying what and what they already know. Pictures and profiles provide more info on the person to help break the ice.  Additionally, students can upload some writing and speaking samples to receive feedback. In short, Livemocha takes the premise of the language learning community and provides content and a format where that community can really be put to work.

The actual conversation screen is well thought-out as well. While the basics are all handled well - Livemocha can hook into your microphone and webcam and an im screen is available - they’ve also thought to add some neat little features. A virtual keyboard is available so you can copy in foreign accents in your conversation. An translating dictionary is alongside the speaking window. Best of all, some little sample conversations are provides so you can try them out - giving you a basic script for the chat.

I have to admit, I only found this webpage earlier this weekend and maybe my enthusiasm is a bit hasty. I’m going to use this for real over the next few weeks and we’ll reconvene here with some more advance opinions. If you want to try it out, sign up and look for me.