Science of the Invisible

I use my blog to evolve my research into human net...

2009-06-26T07:34:34.733+01:00

I use my blog to evolve my research into human networks.

i think money is a cause people stop blogging. mos...

2009-04-22T02:49:00.000+01:00

i think money is a cause people stop blogging. most people are hard to find any penny at a blog

The image, "All problems are opportunities in disg...

2009-04-22T01:02:00.000+01:00

The image, "All problems are opportunities in disguise," reminds me of an old joke about someone staying at the Optimists Hotel, the punchline of which was, "Well, call it what you want to but there's a strange woman in my room!"

Hi Alan, I thorght you may also beintrested in a p...

2009-01-05T16:05:00.000Z

Hi Alan, I thorght you may also beintrested in a podcast I heard resently from the south by south west confrence.

"Can Wii Learn? Using Wiimotes in E-Learning" from http://2008.sxsw.com/coverage/podcasts/

Hi Alan,thanks for the link on skimming - I had no...

2008-12-08T18:00:00.000Z

Hi Alan,

thanks for the link on skimming - I had not seen this but your are absolutely correct - the message has to be simple, straightforward and concise.

Congratulations on your nomination for the edublog awards - a good effor

cheers

Andrew

I guess the difference is that we're not planning ...

2008-12-01T03:17:00.000Z

I guess the difference is that we're not planning to mandate use of Pebblepad. It will be there as an option, and yes, they can choose something else, including wikispaces or wetpaint or edublogs. We'll be watching to see what kind of usage it gets - by both academics and students. That will help us determine whether we need to continue with it or if we're ready to go totally to web2.0. I'm guessing that a sizable proportion of people will actually like the security of a system where they have much greater control over sharing PARTS of their portfolio with others, not just the whole kit and caboodle. That's another essential feature of a really good portfolio - having easy control over your public and private spaces and what goes to to whom, but making it all accessible to you as a comprehensible whole. Pp does this better for me at the moment than any Web2.0 tool. But I'm willing to admit there's just as much chance that i'll be wrong! I'll let the users tell me if I am.
SOme will be using the tool for assessment, others not - ie careers services want to promote it as *an option* for career planning, particularly due to the addition in the action plan tools and self-assessment profiles that can be added. Similar for our postgraduate transferable skills program. So a combination. After leavign the uni we're explorign a number of options - including continued use through our alumni program.
Great that you're about to launch the project - really keen to hear your results and what the students have to say.

Thanks for your comment. We are about to launch ou...

2008-11-30T12:37:00.000Z

Thanks for your comment. We are about to launch our students on their ePortfolios, so I'll be writing about the outcomes here over the next few months.
My immediate reaction to your comments is that you may have felt a sense of ownership using PebblePad, but you're the one making the software decisions - how will the students feel if you don't trust them to make their own decisions? I think it's hard to present students with a number of choices in an entirely neutral fashion - if they feel one solution has some sort of institutional status, most will play safe and go for that solution.
You don't say if you are assessing studnets contributions to their portfolios, which for me is the hardest decision: http://scienceoftheinvisible.blogspot.com/2008/11/its-your-eportfolio-now-get-reflecting.html
If you have decided not to assess contributions, what proportion of students participate? And what happens to ePortfolio use after students no longer have PebblePad provided for them, or are forced to pay for it on an annual fee basis?

We're also planning to pilot 'evil Pebblepad' next...

2008-11-30T04:39:00.000Z

We're also planning to pilot 'evil Pebblepad' next year - it's not a blind decision, and we considered using Web2.0 tools carefully and rejected it - for now. Why? Same as one of the other commenters, we loved its security, the level of ownership you have over who sees what and what htey can do with it, and that you can share individual elements of the portfolio - or have multiple portfolios, some for youself and some to share. WHen I played, I did feel very strong ownership, and I actually felt it was a less threatening environmetn to work and build in than, say, wetpaint or edublogs. To explain our decision a little more, we believe we have (at least) two groups of academics/students - some who are very web savvy and comfortable in the web environmetn and have their own partly or fully formed PLEs, and some who aren't at all comfortable with putting themselves 'out there' at this point, and may prefer a more secure environment in which to develop their identity. So what we've decided is to essentially sit on the fence - they have the choice of whether to use their own PLE or Pebblepad. We'll watch thier choice, monitor it, let the users tell us what they want instead of the ed tech advocates telling us what they want, and act accordingly. I htink a large proportion will choose Pebblepad at least for the first few years, then the scales will gradually tilt the other way. I'd be interested in your response to our plan.

I think JOVE is a great way to make scientific res...

2008-11-20T08:01:00.000Z

I think JOVE is a great way to make scientific research accessible to the masses.
However I feel the next step to fully utilising JOVE would be to cite the videos into papers.
To that end, I have been using WizFolio to collect, review and cite my papers. Pretty powerful as it grabs the PDFs easily.
Anyone else tried it?

Ok. I get your point. LOLNow, what are your tips f...

2008-10-11T10:37:00.000+01:00

Ok. I get your point. LOL

Now, what are your tips for a successful video blog? cheers Sarah

One of the things I liked about Pebblepad was that...

2008-08-21T04:37:00.000+01:00

One of the things I liked about Pebblepad was that it was private. You could choose to share/withold each 'item' in your portfolio. I can send an individual 'reflection' to someone without sharing my whole blog. I can choose what I want them to do with it - forward to others, comment, collaborate etc. I don't find this level of user control as easy to navigate in the 'free world', and nor would most of my students.

demography is probably a maximum of 66% accurate, ...

2008-07-29T23:38:00.000+01:00

demography is probably a maximum of 66% accurate, 33%-50% of the profiles on youtube are fake. Fake location and fake age. You get an idea about how fake they are just by looking at the comments people leave and their respective age on their profile. it doesnt match.

Furthermore, there was a demographic survey last year which said that under 18s only made up about 12-13% of youtube users. This is complete nonsense of course. You only have to look at the most viewed top 100 list to see the types of videos that make the list. They're all videos for the teen market. so obvious they've got it all wrong. I would guess that the 0-21 age group makes up about 66% of youtube users.

ajc, we are not mandating the use of PebblePAD; it...

2008-07-09T14:10:00.000+01:00

ajc, we are not mandating the use of PebblePAD; it's there as an optional tool for students to use although, admittedly, some tutors, including myself, are using it for module summative assessment. Students still have that element of choice you mention as they can point to other Web 2.0 tools, eg they could provide a link to a blog on Blogger; use photos from Flickr or embed a YouTube video if they wished. In my mind using PebblePAD is similar to a tutor saying we expect a paper portfolio to be presented in a ring binder with a table of contents etc etc; we're just providing the ring binder in the form of PebblePAD and what students choose to put in it is their decision.

Jo - PebblePad does have the potential for supporting lifelong learning albeit at a price; however, everything in PebblePad is easily exported in a fairly accessible format. Having those potentials satisfied our requirements. We'll be evaluating the take up of these options.

Ruth - will your students still have access to peb...

2008-07-08T21:58:00.000+01:00

Ruth - will your students still have access to pebble accounts on graduation? Promotion of life long learning was one of the goals of our PLE project and without asking the students for money, this wasn't an option for us with PebblePad.

Ruth, PebblePad is also predominantly tutor/instit...

2008-07-08T18:50:00.000+01:00

Ruth, PebblePad is also predominantly tutor/institutionally controlled - the students didn't sign a 5 year contract with PebblePad, and by doing so and mandating it's use, the University has taken away the element of choice with is so important in embedding PDP.

Being one of those who talked the talk, I believe ...

2008-07-08T16:05:00.000+01:00

Being one of those who talked the talk, I believe that having piloted both Blackboard and PebblePAD’s e-portfolio systems with students, I have also walked the walk. In my experience, students engaged far more readily with PebblePAD than BIackboard’s e-portfolio. You appear to miss the point that Blackboard is predominantly tutor/institutionally controlled with students, in the main, being granted access to its components, ie the tutor determines whether they shall be able to access a blog. PebblePAD, on the other hand, is very much a student’s personal space that allows them to choose what they want to create and/or share with whom wish. I, therefore, dispute your comment that “PebblePad is looking like Blackboard all over again” because IMHO PebblePAD is far more in keeping with Web 2.0 functionality. It may not offer the flexibility of your approach; however, it ticked all the boxes for our e-portfolio pilot study, and makes supporting it manageable. I’d also echo Neil’s view that the support from PebblePAD is great and far more accessible than that of Blackboard.

"It was frustrating to hear people giving damning ...

2008-07-08T13:25:00.000+01:00

"It was frustrating to hear people giving damning staff and student views of Blackboard, then immediately say "And we've just signed up for five years with PebblePad". PebblePad is looking like Blackboard all over again."
Putting this into context, the damning staff views were from those who work most closely with Blackboard and get frustrated with the support we get from them. Students are generally happy about it but then they would be happy with anything similar. PebblePAD is not always the best tool but for the moment at least they give us good support.
I think your projects idea of a loosely coupled e-portfolio based on various tools is a good one and something I have toyed with myself.

There's also the thing about staying ahead of the ...

2008-06-10T01:09:00.000+01:00

There's also the thing about staying ahead of the curve, so the signal/noise remains high. You just have to be careful to remember that early-adopterness is a self-reinforcing habit.

Thanks Jean-Claude - you can read about the outcom...

2008-06-09T14:49:00.000+01:00

Thanks Jean-Claude - you can read about the outcomes here!

Congratulations on the funding! This should gener...

2008-06-09T14:21:00.000+01:00

Congratulations on the funding! This should generate some very interesting findings.

Have you seen...http://www.tiil.us/seesmicsearch3-...

2008-06-07T18:59:00.000+01:00

Have you seen...
http://www.tiil.us/seesmicsearch
3-D picview is neat
Also
http://searchmic.com/Searchmic

The TidBITS post makes the point that the iTunes s...

2008-06-07T12:41:00.000+01:00

The TidBITS post makes the point that the iTunes store is the success it is not only because of pricing, but also because of functionality. It has to be easier to buy legit media than to pirate. The restrictions that some academic publishers put on content are a case in point, which in large part is what the edupunk thing has been about.

I'm always of the thought that piracy and sharing ...

2008-06-07T10:16:00.000+01:00

I'm always of the thought that piracy and sharing digital media will never go away. No matter what methods or control chips you hope will stop this from happening, it'll be short-lived.

The problem I think that companies don't look at ways they can monetize an otherwise illegal activity, rather than getting all annoyed and earning nothing for it. One thing I'll admit to doing is watching a streamed movie/tv series rather than torrenting it. The main reason is that my time is precious, so when I'm in the mood to watch something - I want to watch it there and then. Torrenting is too slow for me, and I don't like thinking ahead as to what I might like to watch later...

An area that companies could build on is offering cheap dedicated streams of their shows that I can watch straight away for a very small fee. If I was presented the option to search endlessly for a good stream of a movie or tv show, or pay about 20p a 20min episode or a £1 for a movie - I would probably give that a go.

Companies need to stop trying to stop pirates, just find a way to beat them at their own game and beat the current piracy system.

If you think that was bad Brian takes my comment a...

2008-06-05T13:46:00.000+01:00

If you think that was bad Brian takes my comment about feeling like a middle aged man wearing leather trousers and uses the US translation of pants http://weblogs.elearning.ubc.ca/brian/
Now that leather pants would necessitate therapy.

As far as I'm concerned, disseminating knowledge w...

2008-06-04T19:15:00.000+01:00

As far as I'm concerned, disseminating knowledge within the academic community is a worthwhile objective. I gave up on "hip" decades ago ;-)