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 🙂

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Medpedia – A New Medical Knowledge Sharing Model

“The mission of Medpedia is to openly share and advance medical knowledge…“

Medpedia

The Medpedia Project is a long term, worldwide project to evolve a new model for sharing and advancing knowledge about health, medicine and the body among medical professionals and the general public. The Project provides a free online technology platform to any individual or organization that can benefit from its use.

Users of the platform include medical and scientific journals, medical schools, research institutes, medical associations, physicians, hospitals, for-profit and non-profit organizations, companies, expert patients, policy makers, students, non-professionals taking care of loved ones, individual medical professionals, scientists, etc …more

WOW! This is it 🙂

P.S. You might also want to check out this King Kong list for medical online resources

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Mobile Learning: Transforming the Delivery of Education and Training

“…if you don’t have time to read the whole book, be sure to see John Traxler’s Current State of Mobile Learning (PDF), which outlines major categories of mobile learning, discussion of a definition of mobile learning, the case for mobile learning, and attributes of an evaluation of mobile learning.” – Stephen Downes

Please read this free e-book (including myself! Only 281 pages! No big deal!):

Mobile Learning: Transforming the Delivery of Education and Training

“This collection is for anyone interested in the use of mobile technology for various distance learning applications. Readers will discover how to design learning materials for delivery on mobile technology and become familiar with the best practices of other educators, trainers, and researchers in the field, as well as the most recent initiatives in mobile learning research. Businesses and governments can learn how to deliver timely information to staff using mobile devices. Professors can use this book as a textbook for courses on distance education, mobile learning, and educational technology.”

Today, I actually spend more time learning and surfing the net using my mobile device (or hand-phone) than my notebook (Don’t use PC anymore!), when I am not officially working. What are you trying to say?

Let’s just download the e-book, and then read, reflect, and figure out how we are going to implement Mobile learning (wherever we are!) to facilitate a more enriching and effective online learning environment.

Whether we like it or not, most students will be using their mobile devices to surf and learn in the near future, and surely they will ask…

Why can’t I access my _____ on my mobile device!
They’re so backward and lost!

Time to change? I mean wake-up 🙂

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The Global Text Project

The Global Text Project

Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world
– Nelson Mandela

The Global Text Project will create open content electronic textbooks that will be freely available from a website. Distribution will also be possible via paper, CD, or DVD. Their goal initially is to focus on content development and Web distribution, and they will work with relevant authorities to facilitate dissemination by other means when bandwidth is unavailable or inadequate. The goal is to make textbooks available to the many who cannot afford them.

All books will be released under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. This license allows for the ready distribution of texts in a variety of formats.

Now, this is a project I like 🙂

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Educational Uses of Second Life

Via Karl Kapp

You are using Moodle as your LMS/CMS/PLE/VLE (or whatever!), and want to integrate your Second Life Adventure into it. How? One word: Sloodle

Cool! But, I want an awesome blog that explores Virtual Immersive Worlds (and Second Life) to inspire me to make it happen? Kapp Notes (Karl Kapp)

Cool! But, are there any papers, articles or sites that discusses all the failures trying to use Second Life for educational purposes (especially for tertiary education)? I have heard of Second Life failures, or students screaming that it is lame and boring (No action!), and it would be nice to learn or avoid past mistakes in trying to transform dull online learning environments, into immersive and engaging ones.

Please, help me out here! Already struggling with the first life, and now we have to think about the second life, too 🙂

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Moodle 2.0 Tools or Web 2.0 Alternatives?

Mark Drechsler has swooshed a concise, relevant, useful and engaging presentation about Web 2.0 tools within and outside of Moodle, and how to decide which one is right for you.

Web 2.0 tools and techniques

View more presentations from Mark Drechsler.

When considering whether to use Moodle’s inbuilt web 2.0 tools (blogs, wikis, etc), or purpose-built web 2.0 alternatives (which often can be integrated!), you need to consider (at least):

• Feature set
• Usability
• Risk

…Before making a decision. Please explore the excellent presentation above to find out more, and be swooshed with some juicy purpose-built web 2.0 alternatives worth considering. Please, don’t say you are still using Blackboard? Your choice 🙂

Click here for more Moodle presentations by Mark Drechsler. Thanks! Moodle here I come 🙂

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A Pocket University (or iTunesU at Oxford University)

Via David Hopkins

“If you have any question about whether you and your Institution should think a little more seriously about getting involved in iTunesU, then take a look through this amazing presentation below from Peter Robinson and Oxford University. It was presented at the 2009 Future of Technology in Education (FOTE) conference.” – David Hopkins

FOTE09 – Peter Robinson: A Pocket University: Open Content and Mobile Technology – Oxford on iTunesU

View more documents from University of London Computer Centre (ULCC).

Of course we want (At least I do!), but iTunes U seem to be only interested in supporting rich countries and famous universities. Sickening! Wake up! Let’s spread this post (or image above) virally, and make a point they never forget! WOW! I must be dreaming 🙂

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Evaluation of Evidence-Based Practices in Online Learning

Via Clive Shepherd & Donald Clark

Evaluation of Evidence-Based Practices in Online Learning (819KB, PDF)

You might die from boredom reading this report from the US Department of Education. Please get Steve Jobs involved for the next report. I suppose it could have been simplified and presented in a more creative, visual, and mind (or eye) stimulating way.

Luckily, Donald Clark has swooshed out some of the juice, which is replicated right here…

• “Online better than face-to-face
  “The meta-analysis found that, on average, students in online learning conditions performed better than those receiving traditional face-to-face instruction.”

• Jury out on blended
  “Instruction combining online and face-to-face elements had a larger advantage relative to purely face-to-face instruction than did purely online instruction.

• Online and on-task
  “Studies in which learners in the online condition spent more time on task than students in the face-to-face condition found a greater benefit for online learning.”

• Online is all good
  “Most of the variations in the way in which different studies implemented online learning did not affect student learning outcomes significantly.”

• Blended no better than online
  Blended and purely online learning conditions implemented within a single study generally result in similar student learning outcomes.”

• Junk video & quizzes
  “Elements such as video or online quizzes do not appear to influence the amount that students learn in online classes.”

• Let learners learn
  “Online learning can be enhanced by giving learners control of their interactions with media and prompting learner reflection.”

• Online good for everyone
  “The effectiveness of online learning approaches appears quite broad across different content and learner types.”

• Get them doing things
  “Online learning can be enhanced by giving learners control of their interactions with media and prompting learner reflection.”

• Groups not way forward
  “Providing guidance for learning for groups of students appears less successful than does using such mechanisms with individual learners.”

…”One should note that online learning is much more conducive to the expansion of learning time than is face-to-face”. In other words it’s better at getting learners to continue learning after the event. What more can you ask for?”

MY TAKE!
If you ask me, I would argue that all this whoa about delivery methods is not the real essence to effective learning, instead we should focus more on the actual actors in the learning events: Educators and Students.

If your educator or learning facilitator is crap, it does not matter what method you use, the outcome is probably going to be crap. But then again, if you are a die-hard learner, it does not really matter what method you use, because you are going to learn anyway. But let’s face it, would you rather wait for a whole semester to learn something, or learn-it-yourself right now.

In short, today with all the free online resources, communities, communication/collaboration/learning tools available to us, we can practically learn whatever we want, whenever we want, and no crappy lecturer is going to distract us with outdated rubbish, or silly scheduled course is going to slow us down in the process.

Did I just say that? But, sadly in many instances it is a reality. I know, I have been there 😦

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99 Free EduGames to Spice Up Your Course!

99 Free EduGames to Spice Up Your Course!

Thanks to 11 new discoveries replicated from Jeff Cobb’s juicy EduGame post, ZaidLearn’s updated EduGames list must be one of the juiciest EduGame lists of all time. If not, who cares!

Here are 99 reasons to forget about Santa Claus for a few years! If you can’t beat ZaidLearn, just enjoy that old long-winded fart. But remember, ZaidSwoosh is the next big thing in ‘Swoosh’ blogging. Whatever!!! 🙂

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Insidious Pedagogy: How Course Management Systems Affect Teaching

Via Stephen Downes

“But lo! men have become the tools of their tools.” — Henry David Thoreau

AUTHOR:
Lisa M. Lane

ABSTRACT:
“Course management systems (CMS), like any other technology, have an inherent purpose implied in their design, and therefore a built–in pedagogy. Although these pedagogies are based on instructivist principles, today’s large CMSs have many features suitable for applying more constructivist pedagogies. Yet few faculty use these features, or even adapt their CMS very much, despite the several customization options. This is because most college instructors do not work or play much on the Web, and thus utilize Web–based systems primarily at their basic level. The defaults of the CMS therefore tend to determine the way Web–novice faculty teach online, encouraging methods based on posting of material and engendering usage that focuses on administrative tasks. A solution to this underutilization of the CMS is to focus on pedagogy for Web–novice faculty and allow a choice of CMS.”

Insidious Pedagogy: How Course Management Systems Affect Teaching

Flush Blackboard down the toilet, and use Moodle instead (until a better one comes around!) for online facilitation and learning!

But, I don’t have a server or an IT team to support me? Use Moodlerooms then (or other hosting alternatives)!

But I am a stingy goat, and don’t want to invest a single cent (Except my time!). Please, show me an excellent free CMS alternative that includes a web-conferencing tool? Try Sclipo!

Don’t complexify simple problems 🙂

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