http://notus.org.pl/rss.php Informacje pl pl http://notus.org.pl/index.php/a,s,id,20720,Graphical/Clustering-Searches-for-LO/OER-Information.html Every now and then I like to do graphical searches related to Learning Objects and Open Educational Resources because I find that these searches sometimes yield different frameworks for understanding the information and sites that emerge than I get from my regular reading of rss feeds and blog entries. Recently I tried the new WikiMindMap and was pleased to see that the entry for "Learning Objects" is very good; the entry in Wikipedia for "Open Educational Resources" is a bit sparse, but not bad for starters. If you try "OER" alone as the search term you'll get not only Open Educational Resources but Oregon Electric Railway, Odaku Electric Railway, Offense Efficiency Rating, and Oxygen Efficiency Ratio. Getting outside Wikipedia. I used my favorite graphical search engine, Kartoo. The Kartoo search for "Open Educational Searches" put the fairly new OER Commons right at the center of the display which I thought was accurate and timely. A colleague, Dr. Russ Poulin from WCET, recently recommended the clustering search engine Clusty, so I tried it for both "Open Educational Resources" and "Learning Objects." Ten times as many results were returned for the second search term than for the first, indicating (I suppose) that Learning Objects have been discussed longer in the professional literature than Open Educational Resources. I liked the way Clusty ordered and outlined the results. Finally, I did a search in Google for "Graphical Search Engines" and discovered a kind of meta search engine tool called, appropriately, the Graphical Search Engine Comparison Tool from SEO Tools. This handy tool permits the user to select two from among five popular search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN, Vista, and AlltheWeb) and then enter search terms for the two different search engines (e.g., Google and Yahoo) to compare their results. The resulting display shows which links are at the top, middle, and bottom of one search vs the other and what percentage of the sites overlap in the searches (in this example, 46% for "Learning Objects," 36% for "Open Educational Resources"). Using this tool will convince searchers how important it is to NOT rely on a single search engine. Highly recommended. ____JH   2009-08-22 http://notus.org.pl/index.php/a,s,id,20720,Graphical/Clustering-Searches-for-LO/OER-Information.html http://notus.org.pl/index.php/a,s,id,54421,35-Seriously-Creative-Examples-of-Digital-Artworks.html Collected by WDCore Editorial Creativity has no boundary, no limit, and no measurement; it is basically the act of turning new and imaginative ideas into reality. It involves critical thinking and then turning your imagination into reality. There are many artists who are well-versed with converting their dreams and imagination into paper, canvas, and computer screen; [...] 2010-06-08 http://notus.org.pl/index.php/a,s,id,54421,35-Seriously-Creative-Examples-of-Digital-Artworks.html http://notus.org.pl/index.php/a,s,id,20716,Crashing.html I experienced a major crash of my computer and my backup system recently. Consequently, I've not been able to post messages for several days. Also, I've not been able to fully recover past messages. Hope to fully recover the system today or tomorrow. JH 2009-08-22 http://notus.org.pl/index.php/a,s,id,20716,Crashing.html http://notus.org.pl/index.php/a,s,id,9607,Opening-Up-Education.html Opening Up Education is an MIT Press book edited by Toru Iiyoshi and Vijay Kumar; the subtitle is "The Collective Advancement of Education through Open Technology, Open Content, and Open Knowledge." The free ebook is, appropriately, available in an open access ipaper edition (Flash format) or via pdf files. (A print version may also be purchased from MIT Press.) The book includes a useful Foreword by John Seely Brown and valuable Introduction and Conclusion sections by the editors; the core of the book contains 27 chapters by diverse authors, many of them leaders in their fields.  ____JH____"Given the abundance of open education initiatives that aim to make educational assets freely available online, the time seems ripe to explore the potential of open education to transform the economics and ecology of education. Despite the diversity of tools and resources already available—from well-packaged course materials to simple games, for students, self-learners, faculty, and educational institutions—we have yet to take full advantage of shared knowledge about how these are being used, what local innovations are emerging, and how to learn from and build on the experiences of others. Opening Up Education argues that we must develop not only the technical capability but also the intellectual capacity for transforming tacit pedagogical knowledge into commonly usable and visible knowledge: by providing incentives for faculty to use (and contribute to) open education goods, and by looking beyond institutional boundaries to connect a variety of settings and open source entrepreneurs." 2009-01-12 http://notus.org.pl/index.php/a,s,id,9607,Opening-Up-Education.html http://notus.org.pl/index.php/a,s,id,20721,OER-Commons-Open-Educational-Resources.html Since my own EduResources Portal closed in July 2007, I've been looking for other useful portal entry points to recommend to students and instructors who are searching for educational resources. I highly recommend the OER Commons as a valuable first stop. The Commons is extremely broad in scope, but so well organized that new users can orient to its resources quickly. The OER  materials can be browsed by categories or collections; resources are also searchable with key words. Additionally, the entry page displays the OER Top Ten and the Top 25 Tags for a quick scan of what other users are viewing. Visitors who register can set up their own OER Portfolio and also sign up to receive an E-News newsletter. The "OER Matters" section provides links to News Stories, Articles and Reports, Conferences and Workshops, Discussion Forums, Organizations and Associations, Tools and Technology, and Blogs and Wikis.  The Commons was created by the Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education (ISKME) which is supported by the Hewlett Foundation.  OER professionals will want to mark the OER Commons in their bookmarks and visit the site regularly (an rss feed is also available). _____JH ______ "OER Commons is a teaching and learning network, from K-12 lesson plans to college courseware, from algebra to zoology, open to everyone to use and add to." "Learn more about the worldwide movement to make teaching and learning materials free and accessible for use and re-use by everyone." 2009-08-22 http://notus.org.pl/index.php/a,s,id,20721,OER-Commons-Open-Educational-Resources.html http://notus.org.pl/index.php/a,s,id,9602,Health-Sciences-Online.html HSO is an important new portal for health sciences information. Sponsors of the site include NATO, the World Bank, the US Centers for Disease Control, and the World Health Organization. ____JH____"HSO is the first website to deliver authoritative, comprehensive, free, and ad-free health sciences knowledge. Search and browse any health sciences topic from over 50,000 courses, references, guidelines, and other learning resources. Materials are selected from accredited educational sources including universities, governments, and professional societies, by knowledgeable staff at HSO." "HSO provides free, online linkages to a comprehensive collection of top-quality courses and references in medicine, public health, pharmacy, dentistry, nursing, basic sciences, and other health sciences disciplines. These materials are donated, hosted, and maintained by our distinguished content partners, so quality is maintained, and materials can be constantly updated. HSO is a sieve that includes world-class materials (currently numbering >50,000 resources), hand-selected by clinicians and other experts from already-existing reliable sources and resource collections. This includes medical specialty societies, accredited continuing education organizations, governments, and top-ranked universities such as Columbia, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, MIT, Penn, and UCSF." 2009-01-12 http://notus.org.pl/index.php/a,s,id,9602,Health-Sciences-Online.html http://notus.org.pl/index.php/a,s,id,9603,Better-Learning-with-Web-Tools.html Inside Higher Ed reports on research that shows the effectiveness of adding visual and auditory tools to promote student learning. Web tools can aid in both student projects and in providing instructor feedback. ____JH____ "Even as many instructors embrace digital tools in the classroom, some are pushing the technology envelope with more complex tools for teaching or interacting with students. New research suggests the promise of such approaches. One qualitative study, which surely won’t be welcomed by manufacturers of basic word processing software, found that students who create and edit documents using Web-based collaboration tools include more complex visual media in their assignments--and come away with a better understanding in the process. Another ongoing experiment finds, with statistical significance, that instructors can be more effective in grading students’ work if they record their comments directly into documents as audio." 2009-01-12 http://notus.org.pl/index.php/a,s,id,9603,Better-Learning-with-Web-Tools.html http://notus.org.pl/index.php/a,s,id,20734,WideOpenEducation.html WideOpenEducation is a promising new blog that focuses on resources for higher education. The weblog is sponsored by the same creator who developed the excellent Open Education Datatbase (OEDb). The WOE site will include an rss feed for subscribers and will be searchable by key words. It will be interesting to see how this site develops. _____JH 2009-08-22 http://notus.org.pl/index.php/a,s,id,20734,WideOpenEducation.html http://notus.org.pl/index.php/a,s,id,52849,The-5-Most-Overused-Expressions-On-The-Internet.html Written by Hortense As someone who has been moderating comments for over two years (and using the internet for about 17), I’ve seen a lot of internet slang fads come and go. But there are some phrases, it seems, that just won’t die: I’m not going to go so far as to say these phrases should be [...] 2010-06-01 http://notus.org.pl/index.php/a,s,id,52849,The-5-Most-Overused-Expressions-On-The-Internet.html http://notus.org.pl/index.php/a,s,id,9601,List.it--Free-Software-for-To-Do's-and-Electronic-Postits.html Here's a way to start the New Year. Get the free List.it software for keeping track of information, notes, ideas, resources. The software requires registration before the download link can be obtained, but that step is easily done. Registrants will also be invited to participate in research about how electronic notes are used. List.it also requires that the user have the latest Firefox browser. The developer is MIT professor David Karger with the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab. See the Jan. 5 Campus Technology article for more information about the project. ___JH___"List.it, which focuses on minimizing the time and effort needed to capture information, was developed not by looking at how people organize information, but by analyzing what kind of information they keep and make lists of. The tool resides in a Firefox browser sidebar, which can be pulled up and put away through a customizable hot key. A 'quick input box' allows users to enter information on the fly. A synching feature ensures that notes will be backed up; if the user has List.it installed on multiple computers, notes will be mirrored to all of them." 2009-01-12 http://notus.org.pl/index.php/a,s,id,9601,List.it--Free-Software-for-To-Do's-and-Electronic-Postits.html http://notus.org.pl/index.php/a,s,id,9620,Disruptive-Technologies-or-New-Pedagogical-Possibilities.html Grainne Conole of OpenLearn presents a view of how Web 2.0 technologies can influence pedagogical approaches.  The models and ideas in Conole's presentation are worth considering by learning design professionals whose task is to facilitate the construction of online courses. (The video from the Eduserve Foundation Symposium 2008 was cited by iThinkEd.)____JH 2009-01-12 http://notus.org.pl/index.php/a,s,id,9620,Disruptive-Technologies-or-New-Pedagogical-Possibilities.html http://notus.org.pl/index.php/a,s,id,21789,25-Hilarious-Defaced-Dollar-Bills.html Collected by holytaco This money is funny. LOL Why not subscribe to avoid missing The Best Article Every day! 2009-10-08 http://notus.org.pl/index.php/a,s,id,21789,25-Hilarious-Defaced-Dollar-Bills.html http://notus.org.pl/index.php/a,s,id,20712,Blackboard-Loses-on-Appeal.html Inside Higher Ed reports on Blackboard's latest loss, which is good news for universities and colleges who use open source software because we can be sure that despite their disclaimers, Blackboard would certainly move against open source courseware if they succeed against Desire2Learn and other private companies. Blackboard's loss is also an affirmation of common sense since anyone with long-time experience in course management software knew that Blackboard's patent claims were simply assertions, not valid original contributions to courseware delivery methods. ____JH____"Both companies appealed the parts of the case they'd lost to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which has nationwide jurisdiction over U.S. patent claims. Its highly technical decision upheld the lower court's conclusion that Blackboard's claims 1-35 were invalid. But the three-judge panel rejected the lower court's finding that Blackboard's patented learning system had originated the approach of giving a single user with a single log-in multiple roles, such as being a teacher in one course and a student in another.""The appeals panel embraced Desire2Learn's argument that such technology existed in 'prior art,' in this case previously existing course management systems such as Serf and CourseInfo 1.5. The appeals court essentially ruled that the lower court judge had framed Blackboard's claim incorrectly for the jury, said Bruce T. Wieder, a lawyer for the Washington firm of Dow Lohnes who was not involved in the case. Having done so, the Federal Circuit court "could have said, 'This is how you should have interpreted it, you go look at it again,' " Wieder said. "But instead, the court said, 'Since we've seen what was argued, we now can say that the district court wouldn't have come to any conclusion,' and declared those claims invalid." 2009-08-22 http://notus.org.pl/index.php/a,s,id,20712,Blackboard-Loses-on-Appeal.html http://notus.org.pl/index.php/a,s,id,9621,Open-Education-News.html David Wiley announces the startup of Open Education News. This is another site to add to your list of rss feeds to monitor happenings in the field of open education. ___JH_____ "The young field of open education is gaining momentum and energy. As additional projects, foundations, universities, and other participants join the movement, the need increases for a single source to gather, sort, analyze, synthesize, and disseminate news related to open education. As a field, open education is now where the field of open access was a few years ago. Peter Suber's wonderful Open Access News provides an invaluable service to the OA community, and we intend to replicate this service with Open Education News." "Open Education News is essentially a group blog. A number of individuals from the US, South Africa, and eventually other locations daily monitor the internet for news related to open education. We then aggregate these items and publish them individually with minor commentary. Occasionally we'll publish bigger pieces of our own authorship; analyses and such. If you know of some open education news we should write about, contact David Wiley at david.wiley@gmail.com." "Open Education News is graciously supported by the Open Society Institute and the Shuttleworth Foundation." 2009-01-12 http://notus.org.pl/index.php/a,s,id,9621,Open-Education-News.html http://notus.org.pl/index.php/a,s,id,20724,ACE-Resources-for-Lifelong-Learning-Professionals.html The American Council for Education maintains a useful set of pages for academics who work with adult learners. Included at the ACE site is information about Military Evaluation Programs, Government Relations, and Public Policy. (Of course not very many years ago, most students involved in distance education were included in the "adult learner" category, but today distance education is appealing to more and more younger students.)  ___JH _______ "For more than 60 years, ACE has helped adults gain access to a postsecondary education. We invite you to find out more about our programs and services." 2009-08-22 http://notus.org.pl/index.php/a,s,id,20724,ACE-Resources-for-Lifelong-Learning-Professionals.html