Mar

31

tonight we suspended the Emerge Elgg service

March 31, 2009 | Leave a Comment

After a long deliberation we decided that the Emerge Elgg site should not continue to operate in its current form.
From midnight 31 March/1 April 2009 we discontinued log-in to the Emerge Elgg site and suspended all feeds into the site.
I would like to thank all who have been instrumental in creating a vision a community [...]

Mar

26

Is there evidence of the use of Web2.0 to do deep learning?

March 26, 2009 | Leave a Comment

It is sometimes asserted that while students are using web 2 tools extensively there is no evidence that they are using them to do deep learning. I believe this assertion should be questioned.

Mar

24

An Ada Lovelace legacy: women in (learning) techonolgy

March 24, 2009 | Leave a Comment

There are many women in technology I admire. My field: learning technology is characterised, in part, by many female leaders. I think of Diana Laurillard, Grainne Conole (jfg them); colleagues: Rhona Sharpe, Patsy Clarke, Frances Deepwell, Judy Lyons in OCSLD; there’s Helen Beetham, Helen Barrett, Rose Luckin, Diana Oblinger; Robin Mason, who defined a practice [...]

Mar

21

passaggiato continuo: work life balance

March 21, 2009 | Leave a Comment

I was talking with our Head of Elearning at Brookes about why I find Twitter a-good-thing. He worked for many years in Italy. I described Twitter as the passaggiato of the Internet. I have also heard it described as the virtual office corridor or the space around the water cooler. But, this led me to [...]

Mar

20

Macintosh OS X on a netbook for £400

March 20, 2009 | Leave a Comment

[this is a reposting of a piece I wrote for Seb Schmoller's Fortnightly Mailing.]
OK, I don’t think you can call it a “Mac netbook” but this is how I got Mac OS X 10.5.6 to run on a Dell mini 9. It was easier than I thought.

Mar

20

Digital natives? Analogue colonists

March 20, 2009 | Leave a Comment

Graham Attwell makes an important point here, which resonates with work done on university students’ use of the Internet for learning by colleagues at Brookes.
The locus of work or study: the context in which the person engages in online activity is far more important than other more accidental attributes of the individual such as their [...]

Mar

16

Why blog? Hello crowdsource, friends & lazy web: answers on a Tweet

March 16, 2009 | Leave a Comment

I am writing a series of pages about blogging for http://brookesblogs.net.
The audience is

Teachers of undergraduates,
Undergraduates at Oxford Brookes
Other students and staff who might use the service,
Other stakeholders and policy makers

The first wave of university blogging services has long since flowed. The BBC covered it in 2005 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/4194669.stm)
The list below is only a quick sample of [...]

Mar

14

32GB Mac OSX Netbook for £418

March 14, 2009 | Leave a Comment

I spent much of today reading how to Mac-ify a Dell Mini 9. It seems to be a popular hobby. In a later post I’ll go through the technical how-to with a lot of links.
I have ordered a Mini 9 in its Vostro A90 livery, on special offer from Dell at £199 (£221 with VAT [...]

Mar

13

The institution is a powerful influence in shaping student behaviours with technologies

March 13, 2009 | Leave a Comment

Greg Benfield argues that JISC Learner Experience synthesis work shows that the institution is an extremely powerful influence in shaping student behaviours with technologies. Students expect this guidance. Students do not necessarily have sophisticated or critical information handling skills, even with the technologies that they are so proficient at using. They come to university expecting [...]

Mar

13

Introduced brookesblogs.net at eL@B today

March 13, 2009 | Leave a Comment

nbsp;brookesblogs.net was set up by Phil Whitehead and Jim Hyndman about three years ago at Westminster Institute using the Edublogs WordPress platform.  Meanwhile, Brookes has been running several JISC funded support and synthesis projects.  One of these, Emerge, is using social networking to provide community-based support for a large national R&D programme (the JISC Users [...]

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