Who’s Watching YOUR Space?

Posted on March 10, 2007 by Judy O'Connell

This is a great encapsulation of the OCLC Symposium: How do we operate as educators and information professionals? If you haven’t joined the conversation, or become part of the action, then it really is time to start.

We need to learn how to experience these technologies and put them into practice!

Click on the link to go to YouTube – the owner of the video does not allow this video to be embedded into a blog!

This is the 3-minute version of the most recent OCLC Symposium at ALA Midwinter 2007. More than 400 people attended this discussion of social networking practices and trends on January 19, 2007 in Seattle, Washington. Michael Stephens, Instructor, Graduate School of Library and Information Science at Dominican University and author of Web 2.0 & Libraries: Best Practices for Social Software, was moderator. The expert panel included: Howard Rheingold, a leading thinker on the cultural, social and political implications of communications media and virtual communities; danah boyd, PhD candidate at the School of Information at the University of California, Berkeley and Fellow at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg Center for Communications; and Marc Smith, Senior Research Sociologist, who leads the Community Technologies Group at Microsoft Research. The full video (2:23:19) can be viewed at http://www.oclc.org/index/symposium

Is the medium the message?

Posted on March 6, 2007 by Judy O'Connell

Response to Web 2.0 … The Machine is Us/ing Us

This recent video on YouTube continues the dialogue about the “The Medium is the Message”. It’s important not to be swept up by the ‘hype’ and to continue to focus on the value of the read/write web. I also like the way this video points us towards the future that SecondLife is busy developing. The blend between our various realities is hard for us to grasp………so let’s continue a healthy dialogue around all the issues and possibilities! Will you make the next video? 🙂

YouTube becomes mainstream media

Posted on March 3, 2007 by Judy O'Connell

A lot of talk in education about YouTube has centred around the ‘dangers’ of this open-access, user-generated visual content repository. In some places this adds up to “if you can’t control it, then block it”.

So the report from BBC news – BBC Strikes Google-YouTube Deal – puts a new twist on media and news distribution, and shows how Web 2.0 tools are re-aligning the global media & communications industry.

BBC has struck three deals in one with YouTube – non-exclusive and set to run for several years.

BBC: One of the BBC’s two entertainment channels will be a “public service” proposition, featuring no advertising.

BBC Worldwide: The second entertainment channel will feature self-contained clips – about three to six minutes long – mining popular programmes in the BBC’s archive.

BBC News: The news channel, which will be launched later this year, will show about 30 news clips per day.

The BBC’s director of Future Media and Technology, Ashley Highfield, said the deal was “not about distributing content like full-length programmes; YouTube is a promotional vehicle for us”.

Thanks BBC! – what you’ve given us is a promotional tool to counter-act hysteria in some education circles.

Youtube Ban Comic

Flickr (business) cards – NOW with Creative Commons!

Posted on February 7, 2007 by Judy O'Connell

Not everyone in a school gets a business card – yet a business card is ‘just the ticket’ for passing out to share contact details when ‘out and about’ at professional development events, or just making contact with someone new in the profession.

So the Flickr Moo cards seemed to me to provide a fun way to promote contact details, promote your blog, and make use of your flickr collection.

Flickr describes Moo Cards as “tiny wonderful calling cards” for the real world. To make Moo Cards, log into your Flickr account and click on Moo in the “Do More With Your Photos!” box. You can choose a photo from your personal Flickr stream for the front of the Moo Card, and you can customize text for the back of the card.

When you customize your text, Moo has introduced a Creative Commons License option that allows you to insert your CC license information and the CC logo on the back of the Moo Card.

Folk at Creative Commons are pretty happy about this addition to the versatile (and fun) Moo Cards.

EduNation SecondLife

Posted on February 5, 2007 by Judy O'Connell

The Consultants-E are proud to launch the first private island simulator in Second Life dedicated to online training seminars and conferences, and the use of Second Life in Education. EduNation is a 65,000m2 island in the Second Life virtual world with seminar, powerpoint, audio and videocast facilities. Use of the seminar facilities is free.

More information at EduNation

Dr Who – and handheld technology

Posted on February 3, 2007 by Judy O'Connell

I had reason to visit my friendly general practitioner (doctor) recently, and as usual we had a bit of ‘IT talk’ as part of the consultation. A multi-talented man, Dr W. writes software-programs for medical practitioners. Proud owner of a new Apple Mac at home, his latest project is putting case notes/diagnoses/treatment tutorials onto handheld devices, that trainee doctors will be able to consult as they learn on the rounds.

This put me in mind of the post from CIO blogger Ben Worthen, who wrote about mobile devices in the corporate work environment.

I have partnered with a new site http://www.urFlick.com that will soon launch to provide training material and instructional videos for our industry to people’s mobile devices.
We already allow our sales team to view inventory, place orders, check customer credit and history via their Blackberries. Next is to utilize urFlick.com and have our communication and sales pitches hand delivered to their device.

When I’m in this conversation/reading space, I am frustrated that we haven’t moved more quickly in education (in Australia) to explore just what we could be doing with handheld devices with our students.

Perhaps iPhones in education will push the agenda for us – eventually!

Ben Worthen thinks the iPhone is the single most important thing to happen to CIOs this year, and asks

if the work and the personal parts of your lives are no longer separate why should the devices that you use in those roles be?

I agree. Yes, I know you will tell me that podcasting has had a big push – but somehow this seems just one (almost gimicky) part of an overall need to refocus how we use our technology tools. But that’s a teacher thing. I have a sneaking suspicion that what kids really want is a pocket-sized combo gadget, and teachers had better start pushing the boundaries of our thinking.

In December 2006 FutureLab released a new Handbook , Learning with Handheld Technologies. The Handbook tells us that pedagogical approaches and teaching styles must accommodate a more autonomous learner role for good use of handheld devices. The trouble is the use of handheld technologies in the classroom may present difficulties for those teachers who do not fully understand their potential in a learning and teaching context.

We have much to learn in this area.

Getting back the start of this post…. TV shows like Doctor Who are expected to be available for download later this year after the BBC Trust gave initial approval to the BBC’s on-demand plans. Under the proposals, viewers will be able to watch popular programmes online or download them to a home computer up to a week after they are broadcast.

MySpace connected generation

Posted on January 19, 2007 by Judy O'Connell

Media reports have emerged about four families whose daughters were sexually assaulted by predators they met on the popular internet social network MySpace. They sued owner News Corp this week for negligence and fraud, the lawyers representing the families said in a statement.

At the same time, the latest ISTE SIG News for January lets us know that ISTE is in Myspace, reaching out to the connected generation.

This juxtaposition is a critical reminder of the need to establish and promote good online culture and behaviours. Technology educators realise that ‘the times, they are a changing’! and as Suzanne says

Wonderful! ISTE is on myspace! This will be a great resource for educators who check their myspace as often as they check their email.

While I admit to not being a regular user of MySpace yet, I know that Australian educators are rapidly moving into online places and spaces. Much has been written about these online issues, so we know that we have our work cut out for us in 2007 to improve our understanding and usage of online spaces.

The MySpace safety guide for parents from Teen Magazine is a helpful handout. As far back as March 2006 Stephanie summed up by saying:

Let’s be honest about what MySpace really is: It’s an online networking tool, orginally developed for the self-promotion of unsigned musicians and bands. There is nothing inherently evil or dangerous about MySpace.

However, like many online tools, it can be abused, and yes, there is danger when inexperienced web users like children and teenagers use a networking or communications tool with complete trust and little scrutiny of who they are communicating with.

My Space is a busy place! According to SirsiDynix OneSource June 2006, it is busier than Google, with 150,000 accounts being created daily. In the same article Stephen Abram asks important questions about the potential of MySpace and other social networking places.

MySpace can foster the learning of new literacies, and present opportunities for self-expression and friendship building. Our students are global citizens who are becoming smarter about new sources of information. What does it mean to be a good global citizen? Amongst other things, it means learning safe and ethical behaviours.

In the end, by being responsible adults on line, educators can act as role models for appropriate online behavior, providing a positive presence online for kids in their classrooms.

ISTE shows us one way!

I know our students are ‘digitally mobile’ (some would say fickle) and I haven’t had a personal need to get into MySpace or Beebo or any other online social networking homebase yet. That will come. The issue for me is not so much about what we use, but more about creating opportunities for learning (and responding) within the Web 2.0 world of our students.

Choose your tool(s) and get on with it 🙂

PS. Thanks to ISTE for listing HeyJude in
Our Top Ten Favorite Ed Tech Blogs for January

Technorati Tags: MySpace, online, ISTE, Web2.0, social networking, social software

YouTube – Time’s Best Inventions 2006

Posted on December 15, 2006 by Judy O'Connell

It’s been an interesting year in technology. Nintendo invented a video game you control with a magic wand. A new kind of car traveled 3,145 miles on a single gallon of gas. A robot learned to ride a bike. Somebody came up with a nanofabric umbrella that doesn’t stay wet. But only YouTube created a new way for millions of people to entertain, educate, shock, rock and grok one another on a scale we’ve never seen before. That’s why it’s Time’s Invention of the Year for 2006.

Best of the Best… in Web 2.0

Posted on October 31, 2006 by Judy O'Connell

One way that many of us try and keep informed about professional directions in education is by the sharing of ideas through blogging – and by tracking the blogosphere via our chosen RSS news feed.

Even so, good information slips through the cracks, so we rely on our exchange of ideas to help stay in touch.

So I had a Eureka moment when I dipped back into PopURLs this morning. If you haven’t paid a visit, check out the way this tool updates the action on digg.com, delicious, reddit.com, flickr, newsvine, metafilter and tailrank, YouTube, news, odeo, furl, etc etc etc. Very nice!

The post I want to highlight that ‘popped’ up this morning is from RealWorld Software Development on Best of the Best Web 2.0 Sites is a great compliation …. for now at least until things change again 🙂

Web 2.0 sites are cropping up all over the place! From Social Bookmarking Sites, to Real Estate sites, this list has only the best Web 2.0 Sites available today! What makes a site a Web 2.0 Site? Web 2.0 is the second coming of World Wide Web. New and improved sites that make the web their platform, provide users a way of interacting with each other, and organize and categorize their content are perfect examples of Web 2.0. Below is a list of web sites that are the best of the best!

……Best of the Best Web 2.0 Sites.