Home » Posts tagged 'kindle' (Page 2)
Tag Archives: kindle
E-Learning : Further reding from the OU
Further reading and distractions. Several I’d recommend here for H800ers and H807ers and H808ers. In deed, anyone on the MAODE.
A couple reveal other interests (Swimming, History) as well as business interests (Digital Marketing/Social Networking)
I just craved a read, cover to cover, rather than all the reports and soundbites. At the top of my list for relevance is the 1994 translation of Lev Vygotsky from a book that was originally published in 1926 – highly relevant to e-learning because perhaps only with Web 2.0 can his ideas be put into action. Also Rhona Sharpe and Helen Beetham (eds) on ‘Rethinking Pedagogy for the Digital Age’, just the kind of thing we read anyway, just valuable to read the entire collection as there is a pattern, a train of thought you follow through the book with an excellent introduction to each chapter by the editors. Others? Several on the corporate side, impressed with Larry Webber. Several practical if you are teaching and want loads of ‘how to’ e-tivities. Don’t touch Prensky – inflated and vacuous. I don’t understand why or how come he is so often brought into conversations … because he irritates people into speaking out?
Some reading if you are interested in e-learning or social media marketing
Reading this:
Picking this up a year ago at the start of the Masters in Open and Distance Education (MAODE) I couldn’t relate to it. I hadn’t enough experience of ‘e-moderators’, the term Gilly Salmon uses for Tutors (also Associate Lecturers). A year on I appreciate the complexity of the role, and potentially the considerable demand on their time and efforts to help us students sing – it can’t always happen. If we are a choir, then at times we have to learn to practice in small groups in oour own time.
‘E-tivities’ is a must read at any time. You may not agree with the five-stage approach to online learning but I’d go this route until you know better from experience; i.e. play a game that has rules and works before you make up your own.
It should be a game. It should be playful.
It can be. It often is. I don’t tinker away at the QWERTY keyboard like this if I didn’t enjoy it; as Andrew Sullivan puts it, this is jazz. These ideas the latest from John Seely Brown. Remember in his lecture to the Open University he described it as ‘Bringing Coals to Newcastle’ (Week 1 or 3, H800). That is respect for the Open University who remain the leaders worldwide. As Lord Putnam, the OU Chancellor put it, ‘It’s as if the Open University was waiting for the Internet’. From TV and Radio, with books, videos and CDs sent out computer-based and now e-learning was and is pioneered right here.
More of this then.
And I’ve made a start on this, the seminal John Seely Brown publication:
I do like a good read, something cover to cover (though these days as a e-book, it does make highlighting and note taking massively easier). And we want to share what we think about what these guys say? I put my notes in the OU e-portfolio My Stuff so could/can share pages from there. Just ask.
I can’t be bothered with this:
I read three chapters nd skimmed through the rest.
I was working in a Brighton-based web-agency in 2000. Ten years ago I would have sung from it. A decade on I find it vacuous hype that occasionally gets it right but often does not.
That said, there are books that I dismiss the first time I look, but can be brought back to sing its praises. Another must read, especially for H807 ‘Innovations in E-learning’ is Roger’s ‘Diffusion of Innovations’.
Diffusion of Innovations – Picking this up a year ago at the start of the Masters in Open and Distance Education (MAODE) I couldn’t relate to it.
I hadn’t enough experience of ‘e-moderators’, the term Gilly Salmon uses for Tutors (also Associate Lecturers). A year on I appreciate the complexity of the role, and potentially the considerable demand on their time and efforts to help us students sing – it can’t always happen. If we are a choir, then at times we have to learn to practice in small groups in our own time.
‘E-tivities’ is a must read at any time. You may not agree with the five-stage approach to online learning but I’d go this route until you know better from experience; i.e. play a game that has rules and works before you make up your own.
It should be a game. It should be playful.
It can be. It often is. I don’t tinker away at the QWERTY keyboard like this if I didn’t enjoy it; as Andrew Sullivan puts it, this is jazz. These ideas the latest from John Seely Brown. Remember in his lecture to the Open University he described it as ‘Bringing Coals to Newcastle’ (Week 1 or 3, H800).
That is respect for the Open University who remain the leaders worldwide.
As Lord Putnam, the OU Chancellor put it, ‘It’s as if the Open University was waiting for the Internet’. From TV and Radio, with books, videos and CDs sent out computer-based and now e-learning was and is pioneered right here.
More of this then.
And I’ve made a start on this, the seminal John Seely Brown publication:
I do like a good read, something cover to cover (though these days as a e-book, it does make highlighting and note taking massively easier). And we want to share what we think about what these guys say? I put my notes in the OU e-portfolio My Stuff so could/can share pages from there. Just ask.
I can’t be bothered with this:
I read three chapters nd skimmed through the rest.
I was working in a Brighton-based web-agency in 2000. Ten years ago I would have sung from it. A decade on I find it vacuous hype that occasionally gets it right but often does not.
That said, there are books that I dismiss the first time I look, but can be brought back to sing its praises. Another must read, especially for H807 ‘Innovations in E-learning’ is Roger’s ‘Diffusion of Innovations‘.
Related articles
- Are you the learning architect or the learning builder? (mymindbursts.com)
- Do I join I club when it is clear I’ve become one of those students the OU will never get rid of? (mymindbursts.com)
- My interactive, web-based, online, offline, inline, e-learning journey to date (mymindbursts.com)
- Pause (mymindbursts.com)
- MOOCs, online education and the rights of learners. (dougbelshaw.com)
- Is it a good idea to base an e-learning module on a book? (mymindbursts.com)
- Accessible e-learning – identefying issues, actions and problems using an Activity System (mymindbursts.com)
Blended learning – read a book then blog about it.
Once again I am reading a book cover to cover. It may not be an attractive model for distance learning, but in reality, six books on a theme with some overlap do form a body of work that develops my understanding. The interplay between authors may only be in my head, but it works.
For me these books bind everything else that I study from one module to the next H807, H808 and now H800.
They are typically OU people, sometimes contributing to the MAODE as Chair or Authors … and of course because of the papers they have written, or a chapter (or part of at best) that we are invited to read.
I have these on a Kindle. I find I can ‘consume’ the content far faster, reading in moments during the day, highlighting and making notes as I go along. It would be interesting to be one of several reading the book together.
Would we not become aware of the passages we each highlight?
Whereas I’d not stand in Waterstones and read through an entire chapter before purchasing I now do this as a matter of course. If I’ve been engaged for a chapter (sometimes a little more) then I reckon I can go the distance. The ease at which one title can be read and others offered has mean feeling that Amazon has a hand down my pocket.
Preparing for blended learning
Once again I am reading a book cover to cover. It may not be an attractive model for distance learning, but in reality, six books on a theme with some overlap do form a body of work that develops my understanding. The interplay between authors may only be in my head, but it works.
For me these books bind everything else that I study from one module to the next H807, H808 and now H800.
They are typically OU people, sometimes contributing to the MAODE as Chair or Authors … and of course because of the papers they have written, or a chapter (or part of at best) that we are invited to read.
I have these on a Kindle. I find I can ‘consume’ the content far faster, reading in moments during the day, highlighting and making notes as I go along. It would be interesting to be one of several reading the book together.
Would we not become aware of the passages we each highlight?
Whereas I’d not stand in Waterstones and read through an entire chapter before purchasing I now do this as a matter of course. If I’ve been engaged for a chapter (sometimes a little more) then I reckon I can go the distance. The ease at which one title can be read and others offered has mean feeling that Amazon has a hand down my pocket.
What’s your take on social media marketing?
Pic from MMC Learning
‘An approach to learning activity design (Sharpe et al. 2005) concluded that, as well as ICT skills, key issues were learners’ emotional relationship to the technologies they were offered – especially feelings of frustration and alienation – and issues around time management.’
In our tutor group and module forums we’ve gone through time management at length.
Understandably.
Though I suspect that for many of us time passing is the only certain thing in our lives. It has required therapy for me to downplay events when they DON’T go to plan … that life as a Dad, husband, parent, portfolio-worker person, studying (two courses, this and sports related), as well as feeding the guinea-pigs, putting out the rubbish, sorting the recycling, putting air in the tyres on the car, fixing the fence … collecting children from an event, taking them to the station … let alone the other generation, four relatives in their 80s and 135 and 210 miles away.
I’m exhausted just thinking about it.
No schedule set for the morning, let alone the day or the week can be followed. (Which is why I get my hours in 4.40 am to 7.00am each early morning … more pleasant with the sun joining me at last)
So, to the emotional response to technology.
I’ve come to apply the same kind of thinking to technology, yet more technology, especially if I don’t like the look of it, as something that WILL, in the fullness of time, have value.
There is no point putting off engagement with it.
The same applies to a difficult to read text (there has been plenty of that lately). It WILL become clear, it just may take three or more attempts, could involve getting advice from others in the peer group, a search on the web and dare I say it a BOOK. I actually pick up copies of ‘Facebook for Dummies’ and ‘Blogging for Dummies’ as a matter of standard practice from the library (remember them?). These books are authentic, scurrilous and engaging. The body and mind enjoy the break from the computer screen.
I got ‘Digital Marketing for Dummies’ for my Kindle though … how else can I read it in the bath while holding a coffee in my right hand (I am right handed) and ‘the book’ in my left, perfectly able to flick on through pages with my thumb.
Design isn’t just programming when it comes to software.
Compare Mac to PC. Mac not only works, but it is obvious, intuitive and often beautiful to look at.
We are so used to the extraordinary simplicity of Google, YouTube and Facebook that we baulk if a piece of software, perhaps Open Source, doesn’t have the look and feel of the familiar. It IS a DESIGN issue, as in creating a love affair with the object that has both form and function, rather than function alone.
Compendium; it is versatile, engaging and intelligent … but could it dress better and be more intuitive and less ‘nerdy’ ?
More from Sharpe and Beetham:
‘The use of technologies can compound existing differences among learners due to their gender, culture and first language’. Beetham and Sharpe (2007)
I like this too:
Learners cannot therefore be treated as a bundle of disparate needs: they are actors, not factors, in the learning situation. (ibid)
And this:
They make sense of the tasks they are set in terms of their own goals and perspectives, and they may experience tasks quite differently if digital technologies – with all the social and cultural meanings that they carry – are involved. (ibid)
Perhaps we should be seeking advice on these feelings too, how they can get in the way of us tackling technology or a tough read/assignment. After all, if motivated, people will overcome such problems, but if we become demotivated it is habit forming.
REFERENCE
Beetham, H and Sharpe, R ‘Rethinking Pedagogy for the digital age’. (2007)
p.s. This book needs an emotionally appropriate cover. Might I suggest a design from Helen A Dalby. Personally I’d like to see academic publishers make all book iPad friendly with illustrations throughout, maybe video and some interactivity too. Why stick with the rough, when you could make it smooth and cool. Video introduction from each of the authors please … and links to their blog.
Sharpe, R, Benfield, G., lessner, E. and de cicco, E. (2005) Scoping Study for the Pedagogy strand of the JISC e-Learning Programme, Bristol: JISC. Online. Available. http://www.jisc.ac.uk/index.cfm?name+elearning pedagogy
Calming the nerves when it comes to new software or tough texts
Pic from MMC Learning
‘An approach to learning activity design (Sharpe et al. 2005) concluded that, as well as ICT skills, key issues were learners’ emotional relationship to the technologies they were offered – especially feelings of frustration and alienation – and issues around time management.’
In our tutor group and module forums we’ve gone through time management at length.
Understandably.
Though I suspect that for many of us time passing is the only certain thing in our lives. It has required therapy for me to downplay events when they DON’T go to plan … that life as a Dad, husband, parent, portfolio-worker person, studying (two courses, this and sports related), as well as feeding the guinea-pigs, putting out the rubbish, sorting the recycling, putting air in the tyres on the car, fixing the fence … collecting children from an event, taking them to the station … let alone the other generation, four relatives in their 80s and 135 and 210 miles away.
I’m exhausted just thinking about it.
No schedule set for the morning, let alone the day or the week can be followed. (Which is why I get my hours in 4.40 am to 7.00am each early morning … more pleasant with the sun joining me at last)
So, to the emotional response to technology.
I’ve come to apply the same kind of thinking to technology, yet more technology, especially if I don’t like the look of it, as something that WILL, in the fullness of time, have value.
There is no point putting off engagement with it.
The same applies to a difficult to read text (there has been plenty of that lately). It WILL become clear, it just may take three or more attempts, could involve getting advice from others in the peer group, a search on the web and dare I say it a BOOK. I actually pick up copies of ‘Facebook for Dummies’ and ‘Blogging for Dummies’ as a matter of standard practice from the library (remember them?). These books are authentic, scurrilous and engaging. The body and mind enjoy the break from the computer screen.
I got ‘Digital Marketing for Dummies’ for my Kindle though … how else can I read it in the bath while holding a coffee in my right hand (I am right handed) and ‘the book’ in my left, perfectly able to flick on through pages with my thumb.
Design isn’t just programming when it comes to software.
Compare Mac to PC. Mac not only works, but it is obvious, intuitive and often beautiful to look at.
We are so used to the extraordinary simplicity of Google, YouTube and Facebook that we baulk if a piece of software, perhaps Open Source, doesn’t have the look and feel of the familiar. It IS a DESIGN issue, as in creating a love affair with the object that has both form and function, rather than function alone.
Compendium; it is versatile, engaging and intelligent … but could it dress better and be more intuitive and less ‘nerdy’ ?
More from Sharpe and Beetham:
‘The use of technologies can compound existing differences among learners due to their gender, culture and first language’. Beetham and Sharpe (2007)
I like this too:
Learners cannot therefore be treated as a bundle of disparate needs: they are actors, not factors, in the learning situation. (ibid)
And this:
They make sense of the tasks they are set in terms of their own goals and perspectives, and they may experience tasks quite differently if digital technologies – with all the social and cultural meanings that they carry – are involved. (ibid)
Perhaps we should be seeking advice on these feelings too, how they can get in the way of us tackling technology or a tough read/assignment. After all, if motivated, people will overcome such problems, but if we become demotivated it is habit forming.
REFERENCE
Beetham, H and Sharpe, R ‘Rethinking Pedagogy for the digital age’. (2007)
p.s. This book needs an emotionally appropriate cover. Might I suggest a design from Helen A Dalby. Personally I’d like to see academic publishers make all book iPad friendly with illustrations throughout, maybe video and some interactivity too. Why stick with the rough, when you could make it smooth and cool. Video introduction from each of the authors please … and links to their blog.
Sharpe, R, Benfield, G., lessner, E. and de cicco, E. (2005) Scoping Study for the Pedagogy strand of the JISC e-Learning Programme, Bristol: JISC. Online. Available. http://www.jisc.ac.uk/index.cfm?name+elearning pedagogy
Gone all Kindley
Why I am buying e-Books of books I already own.
Some books I read a chapter at a time, over several weeks. Some books, like ‘The Isles’ I read more than once. Try going to sleep with this in your hands. You can’t you lay it on the pillow. CUT TO: Kindle version Easily tabbed forward, left hand or right. Various other books are getting the Kindle treatment, some because they work better as e-Books, anything I need to highlight and take notes on … and because I may have four, five or six books on the go simultaneously.
People before technology every time – manage these relationships first
People.
Innovations are who and what we are as human kind. We will advance and trip over each other with each apparent theme or phase.
Web 2.0 or Web 3.0?
It makes no difference if you are unable to carry an audience, your public, your students. Whether they pay for it, or it is free. It comes down to the ability and enthusiasm of a group of people, sometimes the charisma of an individual.
I see learning environments rise and fall on the ability and availability of a single person, some systems flourish and expand – others wither.
Can one person duplicate and transmogrify into a dozen or more parts? Can others pick up on their enthusiasm and replicate it?
Often not.
The technology is not a panacea.
It makes of us a village, a community … then we must behave as if we are in a village or community, which in turn requires that we know how, when and where to contact people and who we are dealing with.
Why I worry more about Web 4.0 than understanding Web 2.0
I’m on training journey … we left Web 1.0 at the platform, I’ve been through Web 2.0 and Web 3.0. The view from the window is confused and dark. By morning all will be clear and the wonderful world of Web 4.0 will show itself. This is the excitement of the journey, NOT knowing what will come next and not having to care too much went before.
Who saw Google or Facebook coming? Who’d have known it from roots in Netscape and Tripod.
Who saw the rebirth of Apple with the iTouch and iPad?
Where Sony now? Or should I not even ask given the events of the last few days.
Are metaphors relating to oceans, waves and techntonic shifts no longer PC?
For an H800 WK 5 activity I’m contemplating the transition from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0.
Meanwhile I’m reading a book that wants to move me on from Web 3.0 to Web 4.0.
Is this akin to the Neanderthal form of teaching that was Modern History at Oxford, ending I think around 1702. My daughter is styding Modern History and takes in the Second World War – this feels like yesterday (though my parents were children during that war).
Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 is starting to feel ancient.
Web 3.0 is where it’s happening.
Web 4.0 is where it’s going … until and only if we coin a different term to trump it.
Never has my head hurt so much, I feel like all the Dr Who’s in one … a person from each era contained in the same being, loyal to each, while desperate to be embraced by the latest think, very conscious that the religion of tomorrow is of more value that the beliefs of the distant past of … well twenty years ago.
Dion Hinchliffe does it this way:”
I’m uncertain which or what analogy to use, but if you are studying ‘innovations in e-learning’ how can what is going on right now not be far more relevant to the thinking of a decade ago, let alone a few years ago?
It’s as if this is 1911 and we’re style unsure (as they were) if heavy-than-air machines would get off the ground. H.G.Wells had his heroes in dirigibles.
Mind Bursts 