Tip Of the Week

http://programs.siast.sk.ca/training/tipoftheweek/

Learning Technologies has been sending out a Tip of the Week since 2004. Examples of past tips include:

• Send Your Calendar Via Email
• Save and Reuse Tables in Word
• Create Appointments, Contacts and Tasks from Existing Emails
• Show or Hide White Space in Print Layout View (Word)

To receive these tips by email please contact Doris Dodge at dodged@siast.sk.ca

Google – Good to Know

http://www.google.com/goodtoknow/

This site from Google gives information and advice in these four areas:

Stay safe online … tips and advice for staying more secure on the web

Your data on the web … and how it makes websites more useful

Your data on Google … and how it makes Google services more useful

Manage your data … and what you share with websites and Google

It may not be for experts, but it provides a lot of background information on thing we should know about safety and security on the web and how the different Google products relate to that.

Best of Breed Tools 2011 C4LPT

Centre for Learning and Performance Technologies (C4LPT)

Just released by Jane Hart, based on over 500 survey responses from eLearning professionals…

http://c4lpt.co.uk/top-100-tools-for-learning-2011/best-of-breed-tools-2011/

 

Gearing up for Mobile Learning

Save the Date – Wednesday, December 7th

You are invited to participate in an Elluminate Webinar: Gearing up for Mobile Learning

Presenter: Dr. Mohamed Ally, Athabasca University

When: Wednesday, December 7^th, 10 – 11am (CST) plus time for questions

Who should attend? Instructional faculty interested in mobile learning; faculty and staff involved in online development and delivery; administrators

Register with Doris Dodge, Learning Technologies, at 659-4694 or dodged@siast.sk.ca

Where:  Visit your local Campus Learning Commons for group audience participation. Limited number of seats will be able to participate from desktop computer.

NOTE: This session will be recorded for future reference.

Session Description

As the world goes mobile with technology (commerce in your pocket, library in your pocket, banking in your pocket, doctor in your pocket, government in your pocket, etc.), education also needs to make the shift to “learning in your pocket.” This session will give a global perspective of mobile learning and the current state of mobile learning in Canada. Dr. Ally will present his research activities on mobile learning and describe the implications for organizations. He will also help to answer the question “Should SIAST get involved in mobile learning?” Finally, he will look into the future of learning.

Resource in Preparation for Presentation

You are encouraged to check out the free downloadable book which Dr. Ally edited, Mobile Learning: Transforming the Delivery of Education and Training. http://www.aupress.ca/index.php/books/120155

Biography – Dr. Mohamed Ally

Dr. Mohamed Ally is Chair of the Centre for Distance Education, Program Director of the Ed.D. in Distance Education and Professor in Distance Education at Athabasca University, Canada’s Open University. He is also a researcher in the Technology Enhanced Knowledge Research Institute (TEKRI) at Athabasca University.  Dr. Ally’s research areas include E-learning, mobile learning, distance education, workplace learning, the use of emerging technologies in education and training, and use of ICT for “Education for All.” Dr. Ally has published four edited books on emerging technology in education and training. His book on mobile learning won the prestigious Charles A. Wedemeyer Award for significant contribution to distance education. Two of his research papers won the best research paper award at national and international conferences. Dr. Ally is Past-President of the International Federation of Training and Development Organizations (IFTDO) and is one of the Founding Directors of the International Association of Mobile Learning (IAML). He was also on the board of the Canadian Society for Training and Development (CSTD). He chaired the Fifth World Conference on Mobile Learning and co-chaired the First International Conference on Mobile Libraries. Dr. Ally has published in peer-reviewed journals, chapters in books and encyclopedia and served on many journal boards and conference committees. He has presented keynote speeches, workshops, papers, and seminars in many countries.

Shared Resources for the Week of October 17

• Moving at the Speed of Creativity – Explaining Google Searches and Page Rank
  “The three minute video, “How Search Works” from Google provides a nice overview of search engine basics, page rank, and online advertising. Consider sharing this with your students and discussing both the function as well as the power / importance / ethics involved in Internet search today.”

• Using Appointment slots – Google Calendar Help
  “The Appointment slots feature lets you set time slots on your calendar that other people can book. For instance, a professor could allow his or her students to reserve time during office hours each week. A hair salon could let anyone visiting their web site schedule an appointment during set business hours. This is a handy tool with many possibilities! Read on to learn how to set up and start using it.”

• Voicethread as an Assessment Tool – AestheTECH
  “VoiceThread  provides a tool to facilitate student conversations using interactive Web 2.0 technology.  Students can engage in dialogue about images and publish the collective work of a classroom. Students can also upload their work and leave an audio or written reflection of their processes and learning.”

• A Guide to Google+ Privacy and Information Control
  “Google+ is the new social networking kid on the block, and one of the main reasons so many people are interested in the service over Facebook is Google+’s proclaimed focus on protecting users’ privacy. Whether you’re a new Google+ user or you’re already a pro, understanding how to control your information on the site can make you feel much more at ease on the social network. Here’s the lowdown on Google+’s privacy controls, including a few of the more buried settings you’ll want to know about.”

• Introducing the Digital Learning Quadrants
  A classification that encompasses all ages and takes into account the realities of
  access and participation levels, we might use the following.

• Pearson and Google Jump Into Learning Management With a New, Free System
  One of the world’s biggest education publishers has joined with one of the most dominant and iconic software companies on the planet to bring colleges a new—and free—learning-management system with the hopes of upending services that affect just about every instructor, student, and college in the country.

• Medical Presentations
  BMJ Learning has recently launched a series of slide presentations on various medical education topics. You are very welcome to use them in your presentations if you wish. They cover a range of topics from curriculum development to setting up OSCE’s.

• Blackboard Embraces Sharing
  Professors who use Blackboard’s software have long been forced to lock their course materials in an area effectively marked, “For Registered Students Only,” while using the system. Today the company announced plans to add a “Share” button that will let professors make those learning materials free and open online.

Shared Resources for the Week of October 10, 2011

• EDU – YouTube

  YouTube’s Education channel. All the videos are related to education including lectures, explanations, etc.

• 10 Tips for Teachers Using Evernote – Education Series « Evernote Blogcast

  Evernote is a great application for educators. It’s usefulness can range from planning a course to delivering a lesson plan to capturing feedback after class. I experimented with using Evernote while I was teaching courses at San Jose State University. It proved to be an excellent classroom companion. Here are some ways to use Evernote to achieve your teaching goals.

• Google Reader in Plain English – YouTube

  How to use Google Reader to read all your favorite news sites and blogs in one place and share news with friends.

Shared Resources for the Week of October 3, 2011

• Steve Jobs’ 2005 commencement speech at Stanford – LA Observed

  Job’s truly inspiring speech and the 1984 Super Bowl add introducing the Macintosh.

• Open Gmail’s PDF Attachments in Google Docs Viewer

  Here’s a useful tip for those using Google’s Chrome browser.

• QR Codes | Common Craft

  “An introduction to QR Code technology which makes the real world clickable like a website.”

• Facebook’s photo-tagging tweaks rig the game against privacy – The Globe and Mail

  Facebook is currently rolling out an attention-getting new look for user profiles. But over the past few months, the company has also unrolled a tiny change, so small as to seem completely unworthy of note.

• UC Berkeley’s excellent anatomy lectures on YouTube – Boing Boing

  “My friend Yasuko is the most talented massage therapist I know, not least because she’s always studying anatomy and related subjects. Last week, she raved to me about the Integrative Biology 131 classes that UC Berkeley puts on YouTube, taught by Professor Marian Diamond, who has many claims to fame, including working with Albert Einstein’s glial cells. She’s also an engaging and clever lecturer, charming and informative. The class runs to about 48h worth of lectures, and it really is fascinating stuff.”

• Surgeons tout Twitter use at hospitals to enhance training – FierceHealthcare

  Although some hospitals are limiting social media use among their physicians in fear of possible legal repercussions, the University of Buffalo is encouraging its surgeons to tweet, according to an article in the Bulletin of the American College of Surgeons. In particular, surgeons should embrace social media to accelerate and enhance the flow of information for medical training, wrote the authors, two surgeons and avid tweeters from the University at Buffalo School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.

• The A-Z Dictionary of Educational Twitter Hashtags – Edudemic

  Whether you’re a new or seasoned Twitter user, you likely come across confusing hashtags that probably look like a bunch of nonsense. First, What’s A Hashtag? The # symbol, called a hashtag, is used to mark keyword or topic in a Tweet. Any Twitter user can categorize or follow topics with hashtags.Those hashtags (usually) mean something and are a great way to get a tweet to appear in search results or discussion monitoring.

• Inside Google Search · Search Stories

  “Information is powerful, but it’s how we use it that will define us.”

Open Access Journals Provide New Options for Scholars

This is a guest post by SIAST Librarian  Kelly Burke.

In the world of traditional academic journal publishing, cost and access are two issues that stand in stark contrast to the needs of users. If you’re a student or faculty member at an educational institution, or are willing to pay for a membership to the institution’s library, then you have it made, since access to premium content is a privilege that’s built into your fees. However, if this isn’t the case, then trying to access academic, scholarly journals can be either futile or very expensive.

However, there is a movement known as Open Access (OA) that is challenging traditional models of journal publishing. The basic idea behind OA is that readers of OA journals can “read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles ” freely and without restriction (BOAI, 2011, Open Access section). In recent years, universities, libraries, and even some publishers, are turning to open access publishing. The obvious benefit to the information user of open access journals is that access to these publications is free! There are other benefits that concern the authors or research, which are mainly tied to greater dissemination and reading of their research, which in turn advances and encourages more research in the spirit of collaboration and information sharing.

However, there is still debate in the publishing world as to the quality of the information published in Open Access journals. Most subscription-based journal publishers will talk about the peer-review process and their ability to secure credible referees, thus ensuring a high quality product in a prestigious journal, which can have a lot of appeal for researchers.

Regardless of the whether you’re an advocate or proponent of Open Access journals it would seem that they are here to stay. The fact that some high profile educational institutions, such as Harvard University and Duke University in the United States, are now supporting OA is perhaps an indication of their growing prominence. In Canada, Simon Fraser University, University of Ottawa in Canada, and the University of Calgary are leading the way for OA in higher education institutions. In fact, all of these institutions are members of a coalition, Coalition of Open Access Policy Institutions (COAPI), which is yet another indicator of the trend towards OA journal publishing in post-secondary academia.

For more information on Open Access, and a great overview of OA check out Peter Suber’s Web site. Also, make sure to visit the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) online, for free, unfettered access to quality scholarly journals.

References

Budapest Open Access Initiative. (2011, Sept, 13). Budapest Open Access Initiative: Frequently Asked Questions. Retrieved from http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/boaifaq.htm.

Shared Resources for the Week of September 26

• How Using Social Media Can Help You with Your Online College Classes

  Taking an online college class might sound like an easy “A” that gives lazier students a chance to sleep in and spend class time in their pajamas and robe instead of dressing and showering the way we used to before the Internet changed everything. However, thanks to the advent of new technologies, increased Internet speeds and a constant stream of information and communication, college campuses are learning new ways to adapt social media into their online curriculum as well as their traditional classrooms outside of the Internet. Here’s why…

• TEDxDesMoines – Angela Maiers – You Matter – YouTube

  Angela Maiers gives a TEDx talk about the importance of telling and showing others that they matter.

• The Dangers of Personalization | Ideas and Thoughts

  The tension between feeding you and your passions and exposing you to ideas and things that you either don’t like or have never even heard of is increasing. I think the secret lies in empowering individuals and leaders to at least be aware of the dangers of being intentional of avoiding routines and comfort on occasion.

Shared Resources for the Week of September 19

• Confessions of an Inquiry Teacher | Wright’sRoom

  “Last year when I began using inquiry and student-directed teaching in Biology, we were part way through the semester. Because of that, there are so many things that I didn’t realize.  But I’m learning them now.”

• Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license enforced in Germany – Creative Commons

  Even if it was free, you still have to give credit and follow the requirements of the CC license attached to the content you use! “The photo at left was used without providing attribution to the photographer and without providing notice of the license used, both core requirements of all CC licenses. This is an exciting ruling for CC, as the attribution and notice requirements are very clearly stated and upheld.”
  

• Will · “Is The Revolution Justified?”

  “That’s the title of a chapter in a new free e-book my Martin Weller titled The Digital Scholar: How Technology Is Transforming Scholarly Practice. And the answer to that question is, in a word, “maybe.” It’s a pretty interesting look at the research on digital technologies in a learning context (or lack thereof) and the tensions of the moment when trying to figure out exactly what all of this means for higher ed with, I think, some useful applications to the K-12 world.”