E-Learning

This thirty-nine minute podcast features a presentation from the 2007 EDUCAUSE Annual Conference. The session, "Stanford Online: Evolution of Stanford University's Online Learning Platform," concerns Stanford University's next-generation course delivery interface, which features dramatically enhanced video assets combined with an innovative bookmarking tool. This tool enables the creation of personal notated bookmarks synchronized with streaming media content, innovative one-click navigation, sharing functionality for collaborative learning, and direct dialog with teaching staff.

Session presenters include:

This forty-three minute podcast features a session from the 2007 EDUCAUSE Annual Conference. The presentation, "Riding the 2.0 Wave (Successfully): A Strategy for Deploying Web 2.0 Technologies," explains Marist College's award-winning work with Web 2.0 applications. This work has led to the development of an e-learning 2.0 strategy for the pedagogically based deployment of these technologies. This session includes methodologies for controlling costs, enhancing learning, and ensuring alignment with strategic goals. PowerPoint slides are also available for this session.

Session presenters include:

Back from ED-MEDIA, I wanted to flag up this really interesting ESRC project that I heard about at the conference. It is being conducted by an interdisciplinary team from the OU and Mike Sharples’s LSRI group in Nottingham (standard disclaimer: I’ve previously worked with the OU’s Grainne Conole, who is a key team member, on various CARET/OU projects :-) ). The Personal Inquiry (or "PI") project is designing new educational methods of scripted inquiry learning, and aims to evaluate their effectiveness through a process of scientific enquiry. The curriculum focus is UK Key Stage 3: “Myself, My Environment, My Community”, with emphasis on engaging young learners in investigating their world. Lots more details available on their website.

Report on ’Sharing Learning Designs: Lessons from the LAMS Community’, presented by James Dalziel, Macquarie University, Australia

I'll begin by noting that James’s presentation was not designed for an audience of ‘specialists’ or LAMS practitioners - many attendees were totally new to LAMS, or else use ED-MEDIA as their annual opportunity to glean news on the latest updates. James began by introducing LAMS, explaining that it is a toolset for adding structure / scaffolding to the learning process, and in particular, building a framework for educational activities "that a simple list of course resources on a [web] page [or LMS site] doesn’t have".

Greetings from Vienna, where I'm attending this year's Ed-Media meeting. The conference is being held in possibly the ugliest building in this beautiful city of Vienna - but the surroundings are fabulous, the weather warm, and there is a good buzz among the throng of delegates. There have been various administrative hurdles to overcome (I've overheard several conversations muttering about lengthy queues, especially at registration this morning) - in particular, our Pathfinder Cluster symposium on embedding e-learning, which was supposed to be a two-hour event, was unfortunately carved up into two separate sessions with a coffee break in between. We eventually managed to rearrange this, thankfully, so at least all the presentations from the five participating institutions (Brunel, London South Bank, Reading, Cambridge, and the Open University) are all grouped together.

I'm looking forward to attending the ED-MEDIA conference next week in Vienna, Austria. Together with my colleagues from University of Reading, London South Bank University, and Brunel University, we'll be delivering a symposium on the challenges and success stories from our experience engaging with the Higher Education Academy's 'Pathfinder' programme. Give me a shout out if you're planning to attend.

'Pathfinder' was an ambitious national initiative, that aimed to achieve a step-change in e-learning in UK HE. With that in mind, our symposium, led by the OU's Grainne Conole (who is also writing for the Ed-Media blog), will focus on the institutional embedding of e-learning.