WOW!

I am loosing my faith with WordPress!

What kind of crapy GUI is this! How do I insert Flash on the fly? What about Javascript?

This is not my kind of blogging tool 🙂

Imagine a World of Holographic Learning!

Via This Article

Musion TelePresence Launch – Berlin from Musion Systems on Vimeo.

“It isn’t a hologram, it’s a virtual image…But it looks like people’s expectations of a hologram.”
– Ian O’Connell

Whatever it is, it reminds me that the Spock or R2-D2 holographic who-ha, might become a daily reality much sooner than most of us realize. Imagine having a keynote speaker presenting holographically to 100 locations at the same time.

No, imagine a MIT or Harvard Professor facilitating a learning session to a group of people living in a tiny village in ‘Kuku’ land (and to another 1000+ locations at the same time!), and actually doing it in his bedroom from his holographic launch-pad. A nice enhancement to today’s web or video conferencing.

Just imagine a new holographic learning world, where we can teleport to anywhere within a blink-of-the-eye.

It costs a bomb today, but within a few years, I am pretty sure we will be having it on our mobile device … Let’s just imagine (no harm in that!) 🙂

John Larkin’s Learning World!

John Larkin’s Learning World!

“I will be conducting a series of “Web 2.0″ workshops for academics from 23 universities from across the region on behalf of the Ministry of Higher Education, Malaysia (MoHE). I will be in KL for 8 days. I am working with Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore, on this project. ” – John Larkin

I will be attending a web 2.0 workshop conducted by John Larkin (and Dr. Daniel Tan) next week, so obviously I had to check out his stuff, and I like the fact that he has already shared his workshop notes (guides and tips) on his informative website. Here are some of the workshops he conducts:

• Web 2.0 (You can find the notes there, just scroll down!)
• Digital Videography
• Comic Life
• Podcasting
• Blended Learning
• Web Presence
• Trivantis Lectora
• Managing your computer

Yep, he is a ‘Learning Gladiator‘ and I can’t wait to battle it out! It will be fun learning from another learning gladiator. Actually, I would have preferred going for the Comic Life workshop instead (if ever conducted here), because that would be more useful, as I am pretty familiar with the web 2.0 workshop curriculum. But, since I am invited, I am not going step down against another learning gladiator. It will be a true battle of learning, which only causes harm to the ignorant and ego-boasting male 🙂

P.S. Lance Larkin, just some fun! Hopefully, you take it that way, too 🙂

Educational Technology and Related Education Conferences – 2010

Via Stephen Downes

Educational Technology and Related Education Conferences
for January – June 2010

“Clayton R. Wright has again compiled one of his fantastic list of education and edu tech conferences, this one spanning the period from December, 2009 through to June, 2010.” – Stephen Downes

Couldn’t agree more! If you can’t find an Edu Tech conference that meets your desire in this list, where can you? Clayton, thank you for our thrilling live e-mail learning sessions, and thank you again for this fantastic list 🙂

Top 100 Tools for Learning 2009! Jane Hart is No. 1 :)

Via Jane Hart

Here is the final list of the Top 100 Tools for Learning 2009, compiled (by Jane Hart!) from the contributions of 278 learning professionals – from education and workplace learning – worldwide.

Top 100 Tools for Learning 2009.

View more documents from Jane Hart.

More interesting, you might want to check out Jane Hart’s Top 100 Tools by category, and even more interesting would be the Winners & Losers in 2009.

No. 1 is Twitter! What about the rest? Explore it yourself!

Yes, Jane Hart is no doubt the Queen and King of learning tools (simply No. 1!). If you want to find the right learning tool(s) among literary thousands, the resources (links) above will do wonders.

Though, it would have been nice getting to the No. 1 learning tool climax last, rather than slide 3 (out of 102) in the presentation. But then again, not everyone has the patience to swoosh through 100 slides to get to the climax. Whatever it is, kudos to Jane Hart for her great work, and kudos again to making our learning tools selection a lot easier.

Oops, I forgot to submit my top 10 list this year (1. Notepad, 2. Paint, 3. PowerPoint…)! Next year, I will be back 🙂

Stephen Downes Reflects Open Education Projects and Potential

Via Stephen Downes
Stephen Downes talk at the Educational Computing Organization of Ontario, Richmond Hill, Ontario:

Open Education: Projects and Potential

View more documents from Stephen Downes.

“The internet offers society the opportunity to provide access to a free or affordable education for all. This concept is known as ‘open education‘ and is the subject of various projects, such as ‘Open Education Resources’ (OER) or the Open Courseware Project (OCW). This talk looks at the principle of open education, major projects, and reflects the role played by educational technology, and outlines some of the challenges.”

The best thing now, is to stop writing, explore the slides, click play (audio), listen, learn, reflect, unlearn, reflect again….Enjoy 🙂

Free Worldwide K12 Online Conference! Awesome!

Via Wesley Fryer

K12 Online Conference – Nov 18

“Free worldwide online conference for educators centered on 21st century learning!”

The K-12 Online Conference invites participation from educators around the world interested in innovative ways Web 2.0 tools and technologies can be used to improve learning. This FREE conference is run by volunteers and open to everyone.

When you have time, please explore their K-12 Online Conference blog, K12Online Twitter feed, Facebook page, and K-12 Online Conference Ning. Or why not swoosh-learn more about the 2009 conference presenters. They even have viral “teaser trailers”, where you can get short (30 – 60 second) glimpses about their upcoming sessions! Here we go:

• “Around the World with Skype – Alrededor del Mundo con Skype”
  Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano (presented in both an English and a Spanish version)
• “You Might Be a 21st Century Leader if…”
  David Wells
• “Ways of Working”
  Chris Betcher
• “The Virtual Heroic Journey”
  Kevin Hodgson
• “If You Host It, They Will Come”
  Jen Wagner

Do you really want to bridge the divide?

Enrich and empower everyone with web-enabled mobile learning devices, and embrace web 2.0 tools to create, share, communicate, collaborate, and inspire learning to every corner of the world.

It is seriously that ______! 🙂

3 Interesting Malaysian Learning Initiatives in a Swoosh!

CerdikNet

CerdikNet is the result of an effort made by teachers in Kuala Lumpur to assist primary and secondary students to explore their subjects through interactive and engaging online learning activities (e.g. English activities). Also, you can try out the online learning activities without needing to login. Thumbs up for that!

EDUWEBTV

Alright, if you can’t speak or understand Malay, this site might be… but wait! Here, you will find more than 1400 short videos that give you a glimpse into the wonders of Malaysia and education, and of course free tuition to many subjects. Although, you might not understand the Malay language well, I am certain you will learn a lot by simply watching some of the videos here. If you are a Malaysian reading this (post), then just forget or ignore what I just wrote. In short, a great site to get some insight (at least visual!) into the Malaysian education system. Yes, we have a lot of bright and happy kids here, like anywhere else in the world.

iBoxX IPTV

Yes, now you can even get tutors at your command in your home TV. Alright, this one is not free. And I usually do not promote anything that cost anything in any of my blogs. So, the reason I am bringing it up here, is that Malaysia (and Singapore of course!) are kind of fanatic about after-school tuition, and believe it or not, it is a RM 5 Billion Ringgit (approx. 1.5 Billion US Dollars!) market here (in Malaysia).

So, no wonder some innovative dudes are trying to capitalize it using digital media, too. However, it would be wonderful if every single primary and secondary student in Malaysia got equal, fair and open access to quality online tuition for free, breaking down the barriers that favors too much the rich, or people that can afford it.

I HAVE A DREAM

Better yet, I have a dream! Let’s improve our schools, our curriculum, our assessment approaches, and totally do away with any form of tuition beyond the taxing school hours. Yes, let’s move away from memorizing everything from ants to pants, and empower our students with more time to think, discuss, and reflect together about whatever they are learning. Finally, let them play (games) more, so that they can nurture their competitive and creative abilities, without the exam-oriented roller-coaster stress ride.

Do you know what (no!), I never paid for any tuition, or went for any extra tuition (as much as I can remember) throughout my whole life, and to be honest I didn’t turn out that bad after all (until now!). I had my primary and secondary school in Norway, so that probably explains a bit.

Yep, I got lousy memory, too! But, I do think and reflect a lot 🙂

IRRODL- Openness and the Future of Higher Education

IRRODL – Openness and the Future of Higher Education

Here are the articles from this special issue:

Editorial

• Openness and the Future of Higher Education
  David Wiley, John Hilton III

Research Articles

• Openness, Dynamic Specialization, and the Disaggregated Future of Higher Education
  David Wiley, John Hilton III
• From Open Content to Open Course Models: Increasing Access and Enabling Global Participation in Higher Education
  Tannis Morgan, Stephen Carey
• The Impact of Openness on Bridging Educational Digital Divides
  Andy Lane
• Open Textbook Proof-of-Concept via Connexions
  Judy Baker, Joel Thierstein, Kathi Fletcher, Manpreet Kaur, Jonathan Emmons
• Peer-To-Peer Recognition of Learning in Open Education
  Jan Philipp Schmidt, Christine Geith, Stian Håklev, Joel Thierstein
• Open Educational Resources: New Possibilities for Change and Sustainability
  Norm Friesen
• The Technological Dimension of a Massive Open Online Course: The Case of the CCK08 Course Tools
  Antonio Fini
• Incentives and Disincentives for the Use of OpenCourseWare
  Anne M. Arendt, Brett E. Shelton

If you don’t believe in Open Educational Resources (OER), OpenCourseWare (OCW), and openness, perhaps these articles above will change your views about that.

The future of higher education and openness?

No clue, except that we can learn:

• Whatever We want
• Whenever We want
• Wherever We want
• On any device We want

Yes, most of it will not cost anything except our time. Our time is precious, so if it ain’t of quality, forget it. That applies to any programme or course, too. Yes, increasingly the public will be enlightened, so we better wake up to a new world order of learning beyond any classroom wall 🙂

The ‘Blogger of the Week’ is ZaidSwoosh!

The ‘Blogger of the Week’!

“During the previous week, Zaid posted seven interesting blogs posts. Some of his useful blog posts include:

• Thousands of Free Online Courses
• Medpedia – A New Medical Knowledge Sharing Model
• Mobile Learning: Transforming the Delivery of Education and Training
• MedWorm – The Ultimate Medical Resource Search Engine”

Thanks for discovering ZaidSwoosh! In September (2009), I won Best Blog Post of the Week with the ‘The Secret Recipe to Delivering World Class Lectures‘ (That was with ZaidLearn, and not the Swoosh!). It felt great back then, and to be honest, I feel even better now! Hopefully, I can celebrate this award with some Tandoori chicken (my favorite dish!) this weekend (my ego is bursting in glory right now!).

Having said that, I believe the E-Learning Planet is doing a splendid job in filtering out really good blog posts related to education and e-learning (a filtered repository of learning juice). So, please keep on doing it! It is a creative and fresh way to share juicy blog posts, and being included once a while just makes it even better. But,…

WORLD SERIES AND WORLD CHAMPIONS!
What is it with the Americans and their world series of Baseball, Basketball, American Football, Ice hockey, etc. In America (USA and Canada) when they win the World Series (including only two countries out of say 194) they call themselves World Champions! It is hilarious, but totally ignorant of the rest of the world. It can get annoying listening to fans and players screaming we are the world champions (of what!).

Alright, they are pretty good at American Football, but in Basketball USA has been getting its ___ kicked until the Olympics 2008. In Ice hockey, USA and Canada always struggle with the Russians, Swedes, and Finnish giants. As for Baseball, Cuba, South-Korea and Japan would probably beat USA (for sure Canada!) in a real match. Yeah, this year’s World Series ‘MVP was a Japanese dude (Hideki Matsui), and he is probably not even the best player from Japan.

But, then the counter-argument is that the World Series is about the best teams (not countries) in the world. Good point, but at least include a few of the other best teams around the world, before calling it a World Series (Case closed!). But, will the American sports world ever learn, because if they can’t figure this out after so many years, will they ever?

As for American Football, well the rest of the world plays real football (so no contest!), which is called soccer in America (yes, soccer players actually kick the ball!). How ironic? In American Football they use their hands more than 90% of the time, and kick the ball less than 10% , and they still call it Football. Just call it American Rugby (at least it makes more sense)!

I enjoy American sports entertainment, but hopefully the Americans discover the world beyond the World Series of this and that. Real football is really fun 🙂