2012 Horizon report
An advance copy of the the NMC Horizon Report 2012 K-12 Edition, due to be launched on June 14, identifies mobile devices and apps and tablet computing as technologies expected to enter mainstream use in the first horizon of one year or less. Game-based learning and personal learning environments are seen in the second horizon of two to three years; and augmented reality and natural user interfaces emerged in the third horizon of four to five years.
OER Quality
A new project is attempting to define quality standards for open educational resources in higher education; this is part of the OER Quality Project, a joint research between the universities of Barcelona, Santiago de Chile and the University of London.
The researchers for this project are lecturers and academic librarians and aim to define a set of quality standards and develop a good practices guide both for content design and for indexing open educational resources in institutional repositories.
They are looking for university lecturers, readers or professors (distance learning lecturers welcome too) willing to answer 2 surveys (20 minutes each) and to evaluate a set of OERs, according to certain guidelines and criteria, which will take 30 minutes to answer. To participate, please register here.
Hangouts on Air
Personally I am not a great fan of Google+, although as Google increasingly integrates its different services it is hard to avoid. But, as Stephen Downes points out in the ever valuable Oldaily, citing an original blog post by David Andrade, “by far and away the best thing about Google+ is the Hangout feature, essentially a way to have a videoconference with ten of your friends. This latest upgrade allows you to broadcast your Hangouts to as large an audience as you want. “With Hangouts on Air, you will be able to broadcast yourself publicly to the entire world, see how many viewers you have, and even record and reshare your broadcast. The public recording will be uploaded to your YouTube channel and to your original Google+ post.”
With free skype video calls limited to two people and the increasing cost of proprietary synchronous elearning platforms like Blackboard Collaborate, Hangouts could become the system of choice for open online courses.
Gadgets and widgets
The Dutch SURFnet have announced the ‘Edu-Socializing Seminar’, to be held in Utrecht, the Netherlands, on June 12th and 13th. They say “Gadget and widget technology is gaining momentum in the Research and Educational community. Projects like the Role Project, Apache Rave, Sakai OAE and OpenConext implement and deploy these technologies, showcasing the possibilities and benefits of such loosely coupled and distributed environments. The projects address a wide variety of needs from within the community like, among others, personalized learning environments, mashing web and social content, distributed learning and online collaborations.
The event seeks to explore trends and foster these developments internationally, by bringing together experts from different fields into one event and joining them in a community. With interactive sessions the workshop wants to enable sharing of ideas and knowledge. At the same time the event wants to trigger new developments. With dedicated breakout sessions, common challenges can be addressed and solutions can be targeted.”
More details on the seminar wiki page.
The keynotes, videos, radio shows and interviews from the ECER 2010 Conference in Helsinki:
If I may, I would really like to comment on the situation in Greece,inspired by the article by (my teacher) Maria Perifanou.
Although the situation across our country may seem surreal, the fact that the youth of this hypnotized country fight back is fairly encouraging. The citizens of Greece have been thus far(from the very first day the governmental party was elected)witnesses of consecutive scandals,all of which incriminate members of the government. All of us students have endured the constant attempt toward the deterioration of our studies,of the value of our degrees and of our lives,consequently. We are watching peacefully as the unemployment increases and the governmental funds destined to be spent on education are becoming meager and meager. In addition to all of this, a 15-year-old is getting shot in cold blood by an incompetent police officer.
Subsequently, the reaction of the entire society is at least reasonable. What we are experiencing right now is the opposition to Police, the most conservative institution of our society. It is, moreover, an opposition to the incapability of the goverment to do the only thing they are supposed to, and that is to govern.
However,it is also the opportunity for some to destroy everything they can, proceeding to actions with absolutely no political meaning. Two of the saddest things that occurred during the riots was the fire that set ablaze the library of the Law School of Athens and the theater Aegeon(if i’m not mistaken). The destruction of places of cultural and artistic interest is probably the only thing that won’t justify Alex’s murder and simultaneously the only thing that will help disorientate the tv spectators (especially from abroad) from the real meaning of this revolution.
Anyway, goodbye to Alex, condolences to his family, but even more, to all of those who stand indifferent and wait for the tv program to return to normal…
Buonasera Maria e Romane
My comments to these destruction are many.Everything in our country have been demolished.Probably the cause of all these is the incapacity of our government to act.Meaning that they have done nothing for this country.People except many things and didn’t got nothing.Our economy go through difficult situation.Billion of euro had been spent from our politician to make their bellies bigger and their pockets heavier.At the same time families survive with low salaries and huge accounts.Ministers like Vouglarakis,Magginas etc,have gigantic bank accounts and live as kings .Of course in order to do that they steal the fonts from Europe that given for education ,agriculture ,economy,isurance.In the last 5 years Greece lived very difficult.It make sense these reaction from the people .Our people indignant.The depts are very heavy and our country can stand no more.We need change and need it right how
YK: Maria tuo amico sono pazzo .Ma che fa il uomo, non ne paura dei terroristi,non so.Ahh
per ieri ma che cosa era la secreteria telefona a me la sera per annullamento la classe.La notte avuto di telefono alla secreteria per completano.Finalle le lessione sara.
Hi Romanis and Kostis…thanks very much for your comments. It is a difficult situation for you. One thing that has encouraged me is to see so many young people prepared to go to the streets and protest and not just accept their situation.
Sadly in much of the English speaking press the protests are presented just as the actions of a small minority of anarchists. there have been very limited attempts to explain why the protests are happening. the more the voices of students are heard, the more such understanding may grow.
I also think it is important on an education based web site like this one, that we understand not just technology but how the social and political issues that young people are engaged in. For me learning is not just absorbing knowledge or adapting to our environment, but the ability to co-shape and change our environments, be that in school, in the workplace or in wider social spheres.
Thanks a lot, Graham! I appreciate your comments and your overall contribution and interest. I’m not sure if many people understand, but it’s crucial that we explain the world and clarify the situation. I can’t say we did not expect that the media around the globe would try to present the riots as the destruction-aimed action of a group of anarchists-terrorists. When a disruption similar to ours breaks out, governments, through their mouthpieces(radio,tv,newspapers) garble the situation intentionally to convince people that the culprit is some marginal minority.
Anyway, this is not the case here. What kind of a minority can that be, when riots and demonstrations are organized across Greece, even in small towns, just like the one I’m coming from?
I also agree to the last part of your comment and especially on our obligation to take part in the evolution of our societies and environments.
Thank you, finally, for providing us with the opportunity to express our feelings and thoughts and especially to communicate them to a well-educated audience, who can transmit the information to even more individuals, as well as families and classrooms all around Europe..