Oovoo - Multiple Video Conferencing

As Christmas approaches we've been looking into ways we can talk to friends and relies over the hols. Skype works well but only allows two participants. Oovoo however allows up to six, and you can text chat and send files to each other while you speak. Spies will be pleased that you can also record conversations and take snapshots. The layout is very mac-inspired - as you can see with the 'iTunes cover flow' influence! Best of all it's completely free and quick and easy to download and use. Check it out at www.oovoo.com You may also want to have a look at www.inspeak.com and www.paltalk.com

Silver Bells and Golden Spurs

Silver Bells and Golden Spurs is a poem brought to life as a movie in Second Life. The attention to detail such as set designs and camera angles is very impressive. The voice-syncing isn't perfect but it's not bad. I found this movie really inspiring as we could possibly use this format to create interactive stories for the Children With Special Needs - Difficult Situations series. Thanks to Becky F and Mark P for sending me the link.

Floorplanner

I wanted to share a great bit of software that was sent to me by Nick and Liz. Floorplanner is free for personal use and allows you to plan rooms and even your garden through accurately plotting your space, adding doors, windows and power sockets, then choosing your flooring - carpet, wood, etc... You can then drag in furniture, resizing it and colouring it to suit your scheme.
Brilliant fun ...and really useful!

What's wrong with elearning...

... no, seriously, what's wrong?

I mean, when was the last time you went to a conference, workshop, some meeting with fellow professionals, and the agenda included presentations with titles like, 'We tried this new thing in elearning and it was rubbish', or, 'This great new product which we all use is actually so flawed it's almost unuseable'.

As a scientist I've been to a few conferences in my time where fellow professionals have had the opportunity to tell a group of peers about the fantastic research they have done. Indeed, I've had the same opportunity myself. What has always worried me is how little we communicate about what hasn't worked. So much effort must be duplicated by the fact that we have the same flawed ideas as our peers across the world and pursue them into the same cul-de-sac as several, maybe hundreds of other researchers. If only we knew what others had done that didn't work!

Now I find myself in a 'new' profession, and we seem to be steering ourselves into the same darkness, sharing with our peers only what has succeeded, and perhaps replicating the unsuccessful again and again across our community. What a waste of energy, if only we could tell someone we failed...

I did once, at a conference. Having evaluated an off-the-shelf elearning product, and expecting to be able to go to conference with a presentation about how wonderful it was and how successful our pilot had been, it turned out to be pants, (professional jargon:)). As my abstract had been accepted I was not sure what to do. Withdraw the paper? Nah, I attended, presented and received some degree of thanks from several attendees who had been considering investing some time in evaluating the same product. I hope their energies were better spent on looking at something else, but I'll never know whether the alternatives they investigated were also 'pants'.

My point? Well here's a challenge. Can we as a professional community bare our scars and wounds received in our investigations of elearning resources and practice? Lets have conferences and publications where we discuss what failed and save others from going into blind alleys and intractable swamps. Perhaps the energy saved could lead us into the promised land, wherever that may be...

Edupunk: let the beast free

Steve Wheeler (Learning with 'e's) seems to have kicked off something interesting in the ALT-C fringe event this year with talk of 'anarchy' and 'no quarter' whilst mooting the concept of Edupunk - self-organised learning!

While we all struggle with the incoherence, inconsistency, chaos and downright stupidity that abounds in our institutional support of 'e-learning', there is a rumble in the jungle that might be the beast rising against the tide of over-constrained, bloated, expensive and often not fit for purpose services we're expected to work with.

Edupunk, maybe not a new phenomenon, but certainly the breaking out into the open of the idea of going outside the box, breaking the convention of using institutionally controlled facilities, letting students (and teachers) have more freedom and control in their e-learning endeavours: self-organised learning. I like it.

So where is this rumbling coming from? Well, there have for some time now been educators and students working together outside the confines of their universities' online facility, often in small, quiet and pretty successful ways. They have kept their heads down, who needs the aggro (and possible contractual worries) of standing up and saying, 'Hey, I'm doing this outside of your control, in a way that doesn't fit how you think, and it works'?

Now it seems that the time has arisen to give this 'out of control' e-learning a name, and to stand up and be counted if you're in for the ride. It will not suit all, that goes for teachers and learners alike, but lets go with it, let the creativity be exposed, see what might come of it.

Edupunk - I like it...

Why a Wii could be good for your health

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/aug/07/research.games

Why a Wii could be good for your health
Nintendo's Wii console is not just a toy - one US hospital is using it as a training tool for its surgical residents....................

'Wii warm-up' good for surgeons

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7193588.stm

Playing computer games such as the Nintendo Wii can improve a surgeon's performance in the operating theatre, a US study shows................