NMC Feed Aggregator

"Learning in the Digital Age - are we prepared?" is the title of this year's JISC e-learning conference on November 4th - 7th. Delivered entirely online (but not completely in Second Life, unlike the NMC event I last posted about), the programme is almost a "who's who" of UK-based e-learning research.
Should be interesting, but like all such events, the lack of physical attendance can often make it difficult to carve out the time from a hectic diary but to get full advantage of the discussions and debates you really need to be able to do this, locking the office door and shutting off the phone whilst you're online at the sessions.

Nouriel Roubini, Associate Professor of Economics and International Business, New York University; Brad W. Setser, Fellow for Geoeconomics, Council on Foreign Relations; Benn Steil, Director of International Economics, Council on Foreign Relations

I This EFT will take a look at the timeless song, “Take Me Out to the Ballgame,” written by Jack Norworth and Albert Von Tilzer a century ago. Today, “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” is synonymous with a baseball game’s seventh-inning stretch, but the song was actually written to be performed on home pianos and the vaudeville stage. Broadcast LIVE from Brooklyn, NY, this EFT will explore not only the song’s history, but also how the song has been performed in various musical genres (waltz, swing, jazz, and modern) for the past 100 years, as well as how these musical styles reflected the way people enjoyed entertainment and everyday life.

Apple Distinguished Educator and frequent Cut to the Core contributor, Mike Amante, demonstrates the newer features of iDVD and then shows some proven, solid techniques he has picked up for extending iDVD using other Apple tools, specifically GarageBand, Keynote, and Disk Utility. This is episode 4 of 7.

Apple Distinguished Educator and frequent Cut to the Core contributor, Mike Amante, demonstrates the newer features of iDVD and then shows some proven, solid techniques he has picked up for extending iDVD using other Apple tools, specifically GarageBand, Keynote, and Disk Utility. This is episode 3 of 7.

Apple Distinguished Educator and frequent Cut to the Core contributor, Mike Amante, demonstrates the newer features of iDVD and then shows some proven, solid techniques he has picked up for extending iDVD using other Apple tools, specifically GarageBand, Keynote, and Disk Utility. This is episode 2 of 7.

Apple Distinguished Educator and frequent Cut to the Core contributor, Mike Amante, demonstrates the newer features of iDVD and then shows some proven, solid techniques he has picked up for extending iDVD using other Apple tools, specifically GarageBand, Keynote, and Disk Utility. This is episode 1 of 7.

With all the bad news this week on the economy, think of the BuzzLion as your one-stop shop for good news, at least about educational technology at Penn State.

Definitely some good news for the Blogs at Penn State pilot, as Cole Camplese, ETS director, points out in his blog. There has been a big jump in the amount of not just blogs, but posts on these blogs as well.

Still on the blog subject, Brad Koslek, senior programmer, recently posted about using tags in blogs as a way to add new features. Read more about it on his superbly-named blog, Edushizzle.

Allan Gyorke, ETS manager of educational technology, wants to talk about globalization. Wait, don’t leave! This isn’t more depressing economy stuff. Allan talks about globalization of learning, and it is quite interesting.

Dave Stong, ETS graphic designer, has his head in the clouds. Tag clouds, that is. He blogs this week about an interesting tag cloud tool and its possible uses for marketing.

Video games - better than life? Brett Bixler, ETS lead instructional designer, posted on the Educational Gaming Community Hub about a talk given by a gaming expert that looks at the future of games. You can watch the video here. He makes his points in some surprising ways - give it a watch.

Now for some news:

The International Symposium on Emerging Technology Applications for Online Learning

Call for Proposals open until December 8, 2008.

We are pleased to announce the dates and location for the 2009 International Symposium on Emerging Technology Applications for Online Learning. The symposium will be held June 17-19, 2009 at the Hyatt Regency San Francisco.

In addition, the Call for Proposals is now open at the Symposium website, http://www.emergingonlinelearningtechnology.org/.

Program Tracks include:
- Emerging Technologies for Administration, Infrastructure, and Support Services
- Immersive Learning and Virtual Environments
- Inventive Uses of Media and Tools
- Pedagogy and New Learning Environments
- The New Learning Communities

For more information about this symposium, please visit http://www.emergingonlinelearningtechnology.org/.

And speaking of Symposiums:

Registration is now open for the 2009 Penn State Symposium for Teaching and Learning with Technology, along with call for proposals for presentations.

You can register here.

You can submit a proposal to present on the great stuff you are doing in educational technology at Penn State by going here.

That’s all for this week - thanks for reading!

Technology’s Education Gap

Interesting column by Dan Warmenhoven, chairman and CEO of NetApp, a data storage company headquartered in Sunnyvale, Calif.

Frederick Hitz, senior fellow at the University of Virginia`s Center for National Security Law and former CIA Inspector General

photo credit: jespis (a.k.a. Friends Friends Friend)

Like Leigh and many others (apparently “a hundred thousand” people), I got a Dear John letter from Eyespot announcing their departure from the video editing/publishing service.

It’s not all that surprising; what is surprising that there are not more Web 2.0 dead sites, at least ones that will let you know they are tanking. It’s a useful reminder for anyone who puts all their assets into one bin (if there are such people) as well as the transient nature of the fun web cloud; like the economy it may just collapse on you leaving you to cry, WHY WHY WHY? (or WTF? WTF WTF?).

I am thinking it is the beginning of some Darwinian evolution of only the ______-iest will survive (help me out with what the blank means… Bankrollediest? Funniest? Bought by Googliest?).

The honesty of the first bits of the letter are bottomed out by the plaff in the reason why section

We have spent three years providing over a hundred thousand of you with a unique video experience. We believed that by putting creative tools and rights-cleared media into the hands of influencers and connectors, Eyespot would enable social media and participation culture like no other company.

After playing over two hundred million of your video creations, we have to stop. After assembling possibly the most potent team in digital media ever, we’re now moving on.

That is more likely written by Cupid’s Dear John Letter Generator or some other buzzword spewing bot.

“We have to stop” Is your mother calling? Did you get called in to the principal’s office?

After assembling possibly the most potent team in digital media ever, we’re now moving on. Sounds pretty impotent to me. Moving on to where? Beverly Hills? Public assistance?

I don’t really care all that much about this, but am surprised that people have the gall to spray transparent no-speak words out like that and think the public will just nod and say, yup, you, yup.. Even give us a bit of truthiness.

Well actually I do care. Now My 50+ Web2.0 Ways to Tell a Story is gonna be knocked back down to 62 (once I can edit my wikispaces site; editing seems to be on the fritz tonight). Or I have to go and poke around http://www.fliqz.com/.

Yep, Eyespot shall soon be making an appearance on Ghost Sites of the Web.

So long and thanks for all the fish videos.

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

We’ve gathered links in digital media and learning from around the web over the past few weeks that seem worth highlighting. They include new blogs and social networking tools, interviews with gaming researchers, and cross continental texting. 

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New initiative from the Spencer Foundation: Civic Learning and Civic Action.

Blog Post from Global Kids: Crossing the Metaversal Divide: Second Life teens exchange text messages with Ugandan girl on her cell phone.

New collective blog from researchers conducting an international survey of research in the field of new media and learning: Futures of Learning. (See Mimi Ito’s recent Spotlight post.)

Podcast from RezED, the hub for learning in virtual worlds: Episode 10: GLS Conference Overview.

New civic engagement and social networking site from the Seattle Youth Commons: Puget Sound Off. (See our recent post.)

Article from Wired Magazine: Games Without Frontiers: How Videogames Blind Us With Science. (Featuring University of Wisconsin Professor Constance Steinkuehler.)

Video from Edutopia, a project of the George Lucas Educational Foundation: Grading with Games: An Interview with James Paul Gee.

What are we missing? Comment with new sites or stories you think should be added to this list.

Viktor Yushchenko, President of Ukraine

Mashable’s Guide to Upcoming Conferences and Events

I know we are always looking for conferences, so I figured this might be a helpful tool for all of us.

Asia Express by cogdogblog
posted 8 Oct ‘08, 2.31am MDT PST on flickr

This is what the three previous weeks seemed like with my jaunt to Shangai, Hong Kong, and Japan.

One tired dog.

That worked out to be approximately

photos per day. I’ve plopped them into a single flickr slideshow.

Well, depending how how want to count Hong Kong, perhaps it is 2.5 countries- it is China and then it is not. That is another discussion.

And for some reason…

… I am sitting in an airport less then 24 hours after returning ro Strawberry, heading to Indianapolis for a meeting for a new NMC project.

Road dog.

Air dog.

Must sleep.

And must take more photos

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

Panelists: Christopher Achen, Professor of Social Sciences and Associate Chair of the Department of Politics at Princeton University; Andrew Gelman, professor in the Departments of Statistics and Political Science at Columbia University and director of the University`s Applied Statistics Center; and Larry Hugick, Chairman of Princeton Survey Research Associates International. Moderator: Alan Krueger, the Bendheim Professor of Economics and Public Policy at the Woodrow Wilson School and Director of the Survey Research Center at Princeton.

The New Media Consortium (www.nmc.org) has announced its latest Virtual Symposium entitled "Rock the Academy: Radical Teaching, Unbounded Learning" which will be taking place in Second Life and over the web. The event runs from November 4th to 6th and details plus a registration form can be accessed here.

Professor Oren Gross, University of Minnesota School of Law

We’ve done enough teasing leading up to this, so it is time to unveil the new sim NMC Virtual Worlds has been working on. You are invited this Saturday, October 11 at 5:00 PM PDT (check local time) for the launch of Virtual MacBeth or Foul Whisperings, Strange Matters:

You can find Virtual MacBeth at:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Macbeth/44/54/54

Virtual Macbeth is an island in Second Life which is dedicated to the exploration, adaptation and performance of Shakespeare’s Macbeth. The island was designed by Angela Thomas (virtual worlds content designer), Kerreen Ely-Harper (director) and Kate Richards (producer). Funding was provided by Literature Board of The Australian Council for the Arts, and investor partner, the New Media Consortium (see full credits).

Macbeth is the story of a serial killer, a story that tales place on the battlegrounds and copses (small forest) of a windswept heathland and within the uncanny domestic spaces of the protagonists’ castles. The presence of the paranormal is strong: it symbolises the ‘dark side’ with which one can choose to bargain if one dares; a parallel universe where deepest desires and power struggles are played out. They are the inner demons of us all.

The island is divided into four key spaces: the arrival grove, Macbeth’s head, the “what if?” copse and the teaching studios. In general, the island has a feeling of being windswept heathland. In addition to being windswept, the heath has areas where fog is thick and “dirty”, to resonate with the foul imagery from the play.

In addition to the Second Life experience, the team has produced additional resources included on the Virtual MacBeth wiki including an illustrated guide to the island as well as Teaching Resources:

If you post any photos to flickr, please tag them virtualmacbeth and/or share them in the group photo pool

We hope you can join the team for the launch or visit on your own and “get inside” MacBeth’s head- it should be a most unique experience!

Originally published at NMC Virtual Worlds

We’ve done enough teasing leading up to this, so it is time to unveil the new sim NMC Virtual Worlds has been working on. You are invited this Saturday, October 11 at 5:00 PM PDT (check local time) for the launch of Virtual MacBeth or Foul Whisperings, Strange Matters:

You can find Virtual MacBeth at:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Macbeth/44/54/54

Virtual Macbeth is an island in Second Life which is dedicated to the exploration, adaptation and performance of Shakespeare’s Macbeth. The island was designed by Angela Thomas (virtual worlds content designer), Kerreen Ely-Harper (director) and Kate Richards (producer). Funding was provided by Literature Board of The Australian Council for the Arts, and investor partner, the New Media Consortium (see full credits).

Macbeth is the story of a serial killer, a story that tales place on the battlegrounds and copses (small forest) of a windswept heathland and within the uncanny domestic spaces of the protagonists’ castles. The presence of the paranormal is strong: it symbolises the ‘dark side’ with which one can choose to bargain if one dares; a parallel universe where deepest desires and power struggles are played out. They are the inner demons of us all.

The island is divided into four key spaces: the arrival grove, Macbeth’s head, the “what if?” copse and the teaching studios. In general, the island has a feeling of being windswept heathland. In addition to being windswept, the heath has areas where fog is thick and “dirty”, to resonate with the foul imagery from the play.

In addition to the Second Life experience, the team has produced additional resources included on the Virtual MacBeth wiki including an illustrated guide to the island as well as Teaching Resources:

If you post any photos to flickr, please tag them virtualmacbeth and/or share them in the group photo pool

We hope you can join the team for the launch or visit on your own and “get inside” MacBeth’s head- it should be a most unique experience!