A Bunch of Links

For this post, I thought I would just throw out a bunch of links that I found mostly through other blogs that I follow.

If you click on only one of these links, click on this one A Next-Generation Digital Book. I want to make one of these books!! And maybe I should also get a big brother for my iPhone (i.e., iPad) given this next interesting app called Flipboard         15 Ways to Use Flipboard

Could the iPad be the New Sunday Press?
Over One Million People Wrote an eBook Last Year (need to watch a short ad before the story appears).
YouTube Takes Over Delicious Thank goodness. I wrote about this at the beginning of the year - that Yahoo was no longer going to support Delicious. My Google bookmarking replacement for Delicious is okay, but that's about it, just okay...need to start saving my links to Delicious again!
Possible Blackboard Take Over Well Blackboard seems to have bought up everything else, so I guess it is about time for someone to take over Blackboard.
Canadian eLearning Directory Once populated, this could be good.
7 Principles for Collective Knowledge in Conference and Work Settings  including one point about getting rid of the rectangular conference table!
Android Outselling the iPhone
Netbook Sales Down
iPad has 85% of the Tablet Market
Over 8 million iPads Sold This Year and that story was posted at the end of March!
Mom's Review of the iPad
Farewell Kindle. Buh-Bye, iPad
Amazon Might be Making a Tablet? In January, I commented about this being the year of the tablet, well it is sure going that way. Seems like a new tablet is hitting the market on a daily basis. Including the BlackBerry Playbook that I now have in my hot little hands!
Turn Your iPad into a Whiteboard
Results of iPad Pilot at Oklahoma State
How Students Use the Web to Conduct Everyday Life Research
Stand in the Back of Your Classroom and Watch the Screens
Quality Scorecard for the Administration of Online Education Programs This is a good checklist!
New Math Did you know this?
Where are You Safer...At Home or Online?
How To Use Skype in the Classroom
Bleak Future for Web 2.0 So much for this blog!

Until next time.
Brenda

My Stick Story

Well, to add to my collection of gadgets, I finally purchased one of these Internet sticks on Saturday that allows me to access the Internet via the cellular phone network by plugging it into the USB port of my computer. I wanted to get one a few weeks back, but they told me to wait because the new faster sticks that would work on the new 4G network were coming out at the end of March. Well, all you are supposed to do is plug this stick in and voila surf away. Now that is how it is SUPPOSED to work! It worked fine on my mega laptop at home, BUT after 3 hours of trying to get it to work on my little Netbook that I use for travelling I gave up. Now for me with a never give up attitude that was a huge deal. But all is not lost…right…there is an IT department at work that will help me on Monday.

So, I arrive at work around 0700 hrs eager to try this stick on my work laptop. Plug it in and a few minutes later it is working just fine. Now to wait until the friendly IT folks at the U of M Health Sciences Library arrive. After a phone call, I waltz over with my Netbook and stick in hand, and after about an hour sitting on a monitor box watching the IT guy turn on and off every possible setting, it didn’t work, but he had the same CONQUER THE COMPUTER attitude as me…so I left it there…five hours later, I picked it up in the same state as I left it. The only good thing (in my mind) is that he couldn’t fix it either, so I don’t feel so bad about spending 3 hours of my own time.

Fast forward to today, I am now on my shuttle ride from Calgary to Banff (I am presenting at the CACHE conference in Banff on Thursday with my boss), and guess what I AM ON THE INTERNET (on my work computer), BUT not without fussing with the stick for the last hour! So, wish us luck with our presentation and looking forward to my next new gadget, the BlackBerry Playbook that should be out within the next week or so!!

PS: Just entered the mountains...gorgeous as usual!
Brenda

Try Something New: Audio Feedback

How many professors actually enjoy marking papers…I mean REALLY enjoy marking papers? Now there are those few students who are able to create a masterpiece that is enjoyable to read; however, many times those students seem to be few and far between. For the most part, the enjoyment of reading student papers is overshadowed by multiple grammar and spelling errors to the misuse of the APA format. Then, after working your way through the paper, you have to try to provide meaningful feedback in a typed or written message.

I always try to come up with something new when teaching online, and a few years ago I read an article on audio feedback and always wanted to try it, but never really had the opportunity. This term, for the first assignment, I tried audio feedback in place of written feedback. Now, when making audio recordings, I usually use Audacity and my headset; however, this time I thought I would use my pocket voice recorder (exactly as shown below) that I purchased a few years ago and didn’t really use too much. It is a great little gadget that actually separates into 2 revealing a USB stick that you just plug into your computer and upload the voice file.

So, as I was reading the student papers in digital format, I marked them up with comments (Note: sometimes the comments only made sense to me…but no worry). When finished marking, I went back to the first page, turned on the recorder, and then provided page-by-page voice feedback. When students were having difficulty with the overall organization of their papers, I found it was easier to talk about how to improve their writing than to write paragraphs on how they could improve. I did receive positive comments about the feedback, and today, I posted an informal survey in the course asking about the audio feedback and if I should continue to use it for future assignments. I also think that it not only adds to teaching presence, but adds to the much needed social presence in an online learning environment.

Try it out, especially in courses that you never meet your students face-to-face as they like to hear that there is a real person on the other end! It also adds some interest to the paper marking process. Videos also help in connecting with your students (I did that at the beginning of the course..a flip video camera makes it super easy to do).

Take One: Reflections of 2010 & Predictions for 2011

In the blogosphere world, the end/beginning of a year brings forth a multitude of reflections on the past and predictions for the New Year. This year was no exception, and I have selected a few interesting Internet postings that you can keep in the back of your mind when planning your educational sessions, or engaging in your strategic directions or curriculum revision meetings this coming year!

• 2011 will be the year of the tablet with iPad sales alone predicted to reach anywhere from 36 to 65 million units. Interesting how predictions can be out by a few 29 million, but you get the point. Although there will be competition, at the recent Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, reporters believe that the iPad will continue to dominate the market. If you have not already seen these tablets in your workplace or educational institutions, you probably will in the near future.

• There are approximately 205.8 million registered domains on the Internet. Think of that the next time you ask a learner to find the "best X" on the Web. Your learners may actually be getting some of their information from Facebook, seeing it is the 3rd largest Web site on the Internet and 30 billion pieces of content are being shared.

• Mobile learning needs to be taken seriously given that it is expected that mobile broadband users will hit 1 billion this year. I have said on numerous occasions that one of the best ways to provide education to face-paced healthcare professionals was to give each of them an institutional mobile device (could be used for many other purposes and then you won't have to worry about privacy, security, etc.) and then broadcast an extremely short educational tip-of-the-day (i.e., one or two lines). Young people love their phones, and no matter what you do, you are probably losing the battle against banning phones in the classroom or the workplace, so why not just think of better ways to use those phones for educational purposes. 

• 700 Billion YouTube videos were watched in 2010. It wasn't too long ago (less than 2 years) that videos were blocked from being watched in my workplace. Every chance I had I voiced my concern that we were missing out on literally millions of potential teaching/learning opportunities. The old saying, a picture video is worth a thousand words will work in whatever educational session you have planned. And if you don't like YouTube, there are 47 alternatives. 

• Twitter continues to pick up steam with 44% of all accounts being established in the first half of 2010. Even the University of Manitoba, Faculty of Medicine has a Twitter account to make announcements such as the blogging of our Dean.

• Some of the content in the below video may seem a little extreme when it comes to the future of education, but it might not be so far fetched. It does give you much to think about when considering those capital purchases this year!

• Personally, my prediction for the coming year is that what was once available and free may not be free anymore or even available. Near the end of 2010, there was shock and panic posted by many bloggers that Delicious, a favourite social bookmarking site, was going to vanish. I for one felt the pain in my chest and immediately found a way to download all of my bookmarked Web sites from Delicious, and based on a list of potential bookmarking sites, I selected the one from Google. I am still not sure it that is the best one for me, but at least I didn't lose all of my bookmarks and I can access all the bookmarks from any computer. Is Delicious going away for good...who knows? Another favourite of mine is a site called Xtranormal where you can easily create avatar/comic like movies. Well, much to my dismay, when I was about to create a movie for my Transforming Health Care Through Informatics course that I am teaching on a sessional basis for Athabasca University, I found that the site was no longer FREE. I was in from the very beginning with Xtranormal, so I had a few credits left to create the movie, and they say that educators can request free access, but it is already about 10 days, and my request for free access has still not been approved. There are still thousands of free Web 2.0 tools out there, but realistically, how many can one educator use? My advice is to not put all of your eggs in one basket, as one day the bottom might fall out of that basket leaving all of your hard work in a virtual hole.

My closing point is to keep an open mind when it comes to trying new things. I can clearly remember sitting in one of my doctoral classes at Nova Southeastern University when one of my classmates pointed out this new type of Web 2.0 technology called Twitter. Well, I thought to myself, how stupid is that…what is the point of only being able to send a message of only 140 characters in length. Maybe if I would have opened my mind up a bit more I would be counting the numbers in my bank account as opposed to typing this blog for free!

Copy of Blog Overview Emailed to Contact List

Greetings all and I don’t think it is too late to say Happy New Year!

You are receiving this because you are either a former professor of mine, or maybe a fellow student, or current/past work colleague, or healthcare professional that I have met either face-to-face or in the virtual world through meetings or a project. This first message is being sent to individuals living in four different countries, nearly all provinces in Canada, and several states in the USA.

The majority of you know that in 2009 I clicked the final save button on my dissertation and completed my PhD in Computing Technology in Education. When you are immersed in that student world, it is somewhat easier to keep up with what seems like daily changes in technology and the applicability of that technology to education. So, for my own ongoing professional development, and to be aware of what is going on out there, I have been following various edublogs for about the last two years. I used to share some of my learning with my colleagues at the Health Sciences Centre Winnipeg; however, since moving onto the University of Manitoba, Faculty of Medicine, Division of Continuing Professional Development (CPD), I thought that I should start sharing some of my learning on a monthly basis with individuals like you through a blog called Brenda’s Tips, Blips, and Clips. I started accumulating sharing points just before the New Year and already have 13 pages of interesting tips, blips, and clips just waiting to be shared through a Community of Inquiry.

Thank you to the U of M, Faculty of Medicine, Division of CPD for allowing me to share my own CPD activities through the use of our Division's Constant Contact license.

With all of that now out of the way, here we go!