Well made video summarising latest social science research on social networking and the use of social media in the UK. A couple of things – the first is that I like the use of short videos like this for presenting research findings. The other is the results of the survey. Whilst most of it rings pretty true, I do not believe one in four of us is writing a blog – or does that include micro blogging?

Neat video introduction to Critical Pedagogy from the Freire Project.

This presentation by Steve Wheeler has been causing some comments around the edubloggers networks. George Siemens responded saying “The development of the semantic web, linked data, and open data, coupled with location-awareness, recommender systems, augmented reality, data overlays, and similar developments is having a dramatic impact on how people interact with information and each other”.

What can I say. Hailing from Pontypridd we at Pontydysgu are always proud to promote all things Welsh – yes even Newport. Great stuff – hope you enjoy it.

Shaping Space: The d.school’s Environments Collaborative from Stanford d.school on Vimeo.

There are some great ideas emerging about how we can design learning spaces. this makes even more criminal the UK CONDEM government’s decision to abolish the school rebuilding programme, condemning thousands of teachers and learners to struggling in old, inadequate and frequently run down buildings totally unsuited to learning.

This video is by Jane Challinor from Nottingham University in the UK.

Firstly it is heartening to see any other economic models than multi national corporations taking everything over. But I also love the way the producer has used short clips of ‘talking heads’ shots to tell the story of co-operatives. Great storyboarding – now I am thinking how we can emulate this approach.

Interesting and timely presentation by Ilone Buchem for thePLE2010 conference in Barcelona in July.

If you have ideas for presentations or videos you think we should feature – your own or other peoples – please get in touch.

I found this video on Cool Infographics which is always worth looking at for interesting videos and data representations. It is an illustration of a presentation by Dan Pink created by the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce. The video discusses research on what motivates people, and provides some interesting results.

The song tells the story of a little boy who on the first day of school started drawing pictures of flowers using many different colors. The teacher tells him that he’s coloring the flowers all wrong and that he should paint them red and green, “the way they always have been seen.” The boy disagrees and continues to color them from his imagination until the teacher punishes him by standing him in a corner. Finally, the little boy gives in and tells the teacher that “flowers are red, and green leaves are green.” When he goes to a different school, he continues mechanically painting flowers red and green, to the dismay of his new, kind teacher.

In the live concert versions, Chapin extended the song’s ending to: “There still must be a way to have our children say…” before featuring the little boy’s chorus again and bringing the song to a better conclusion. A version of this is featured on his album Legends of the Lost and Found.”

I believe learning about Politics is something that should be embedded somewhere within standard curriculums in the education system to avoid this sort of ignorance.
Pontydysgu is currently working on a European project called POLITICS which hopes to increase knowledge of Politics on both a national and European scale.

‘The POLITICS project is built around an e-book “Straight into Politics”. Learners will be invited to form (transnational) teams online and develop a digital and humorous story based on the scenario of a politically active young person who is convinced they can change the world for the better and organizes a election campaign.’

If you’d like to know more about this project this can be found out on the project website at http://www.politics-project.eu/index.htm.

I was browsing the icould videos and saw a tag to search by age. This videos was one of those thrown up. It caught my interest mainly because it made such a strong connection to work experience and the value of learning and working at the same time. These are two things that throughout my time with Pontydysgu I have held in increasing regard.
In my opinion two weeks of work experience in Year 10, in the English compulsory education system, isn’t enough. This video I felt went some of the way to showing why.

JESS3 / The State of The Internet from JESS3 on Vimeo.

Forget the title – this is a great introduction by Emily Albion to using web 2.0 for research for any research area.