Faculty Development News This Week:

Conferences

--The Collaboration for the Advancement of College Teaching and Learning

November 19-20, 2004 Collaboration conference: Learning Through Discovery: The Power of Inquiry in the Construction of Knowledge and February 18-19, 2005 Assessment: Informing Teaching, Learning, & Institutional Change

For more information, visit the Web site:

Collaboration...Learning

Tools

--KartOO

What in the world is KartOO?

KartOO is a metasearch engine with visual display interfaces. When you click on OK, KartOO launches the query to a set of search engines, gathers the results, compiles them and represents them in a series of interactive maps through a proprietary algorithm.

Try it!

Kartoo

--ZapMeta

ZapMeta is a search engine. Read on:

ZapMeta is a meta-search engine, a search tool that provide users the ability of simultaneously search multiple search engines under one interface. Meta-search engines benefit users by saving them time and effort from having to individually visit multiple search engines in order to find the desired result. Along with web search, ZapMeta currently offer a directory based on data from The Open Directory Project and Product Search powered by Pricegrabber.

ZapMeta

--Web Collaborator

Read how Web Collaborator works:

In order to start a project, all you need is a list of email addresses of the participants.

As soon as you press create, it will send email invitations to all of the people you invited asking them to join your collaboration. When they sign up, all of you can immediately start editing your project.

It is free, too!

Web Collaborator

--Tutorials and Help Pages on the Internet

Interested in learning EXCEL? How about the ins and outs of HYPERSTUDIO? This site has a variety of tutorials and help pages for about a dozen different software programs and various utilities.

tutorials and Help Pages

--Thingster

What is Thingster?

An experiment in online publishing. FREE, too!

Thingster

--Free Learning Activity from HCI training

In this version of the Matching Game, you can use any text editor to personalize the instructions as well as the questions and answers. You can choose between the football theme (shown) and the Christmas tree theme. Instructions are included in the .zip file.

Learning Activity

--FreeMind

What is FreeMind? Read on.

FreeMind is a premier free mind-mapping software written in Java. The recent development has hopefully turned it into high productivity tool. We are proud that the operation and navigation of FreeMind is faster than that of Mind Manager because of one-click "fold / unfold" and "follow link" operations.

So you want to write a completely new metaphysics? Why don't you use FreeMind? You have a tool at hand that remarkably resembles the tray slips of Robert Pirsig, described in his sequel to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance called Lila. Do you want to refactor your essays in a similar way you would refactor software? Or do you want to keep personal knowledge base, which is easy to manage? Why don't you try FreeMind? Do you want to priorize, know where you are, where you've been and where you are heading, as Stephen Covey would advise you? Have you tried FreeMind to keep track of all the things that are needed for that?

FreeMind

--WorldKit

This is so neat:

WorldKit is an easy to use and highly flexible mapping application for the Web. It's a Flash based app, configured entirely by XML, data fed by RSS, and requires no programming or extra software. It's in the style of World as a Blog, with many more features: customizable design elements, multiple projections, thumbnails to plot points, ...

WorldKit

TiddlyWiki

This is a free wiki platform.

TiddlyWiki

--Audacity

Audacity is a free audio file sound editor.

Read more:

Audacity is a free audio editor. You can record sounds, play sounds, import and export WAV, AIFF, Ogg Vorbis, and MP3 files, and more. Use it to edit your sounds using Cut, Copy and Paste (with unlimited Undo), mix tracks together, or apply effects to your recordings. It also has a built-in amplitude envelope editor, a customizable spectrogram mode and a frequency analysis window for audio analysis applications. Built-in effects include Echo, Change Tempo, and Noise Removal, and it also supports VST and LADSPA plug-in effects.

Audacity

--Catalyst

Catalyst allows you to pick and choose what online utilities you would like to use. Offered by the University of Washington, you can get a free guest pass.

Catalyst.

ViaVoice

Read about IBM's ViaVoice, a multi-modal environment that frees users from dependence on the mouse, keyboard, and stylus for many applications.

ViaVoice

Blogging

--Diaries as Interaction Research Tools: From Ashton-Warner to Blogs

This article discusses blogging in the familiar context of diary writing, and then shows how a diary in the form of a blog (allowing others to comment on the 'diary') can be useful as a qualitative research tool.

Diaries as Interaction Research Tools

--Designing Blogs for Education

This source is courtesy OLDAILY, 29 September 2004.

Designing Blogs for Education

Trends in Higher Education

--The Values of Community Source Development

The author of this article, Lois Brooks, helps us understand open source in the context of higher education. Brooks, a professor at Stanford University, lays a groundwork based on the work of some of the best thinkers in the software development world.

The Values for Community Source Development

--The Sakai Project

This is an educational powerhouse. Read on.

The Sakai Project is a $6.8M community source software development project that describes a model for the purposeful coordinating of work in a community. It is based on many of the principles of open source development efforts, but community source efforts rely more explicitly on defined roles, responsibilities, and funded commitments by community members than some open source development models. software development project founded by the University of Michigan, Indiana University, MIT, Stanford, the uPortal Consortium, and the Open Knowledge Initiative (OKI) with the support of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The project is producing open source Collaboration and Learning Environment (CLE) software with the first release in July 2004. The Sakai Educational Partners' Program (SEPP) extends this community source project to other academic institutions around the world, and is supported by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and SEPP member contributions

SakaiProject

Technology

--The Semantic Web

This is an interview of Tim Berners-Lee,the founder-inventor of the World Wide Web.
It appears in the September 27, 2004 issue of Technology Review, a publication of MIT.

The Semantic Web

Pedagogy

--Constructivism and Instructivism

This resource is provided by em technologies.

Constructivism

--Learning Theories Resource

This resource is provided by em technologies.

Learning Theories Resource

--Learning Styles and Pedagogy in Post-16 Learning

This report critically reviews the literature on learning styles and examines in detail 13 of the most influential models. The report concludes that it matters fundamentally which instrument is chosen. The implications for teaching and learning in post-16 learning are serious and should be of concern to learners, teachers and trainers, managers,researchers and inspectors.

Substantial bibliography.

Learning Styles and Pedagogy

This is a 182-page PDF file.

--International Perspectives on Education, Training, and Skills

This is an issue (Autumn 2003) of Learning Skills and Research,an innovative journal of research published three times a year. Contributions come from a wide range of colleges, local LSCs,work-based and community-based organizations, universities and independent research agencies. Emphasis is given to concise statements of project findings to help busy practitioners make better use of research.

International Perspectives

This is a 60-page PDF file.

--Reports from the Regions

This is a special edition (Summer 2003) of the journal Learning Skills and Research

Some of the articles:

Lifelong Research: Reflexivity in Teaching and Learning; Rewarding achievement: Promoting students’ awareness of soft outcomes; When Students Mark – An Experiment in Peer Marking; A Short Report on the Personal Learning Conversation Workshop; Post Choices and ;16 The Role of Confidence in Overcoming Barriers to Learning; Learning in Practice: Perspectives on Adult Learning.

Reports from the Regions

This is a 41-page PDF file.

--Free Digital Book

This is a FREE digital book offered by the MASIE Center, and it is full of teaching tips from instructors all over the globe.

701 e-Learning Tips

--The Circle of Learning: Individual and Group Processes

Read the abstract:

We present a paradigm for modeling the processes found in individual and group learning. Using combinations of two dimensions, the first being whether the learner's activities are By-Oneself or With-Peers, and the second whether the process orientation is toward the Person as the focus of the learning or toward the Group as the focus, we derive four quadrants in Activity-Orientation learning space.
These four quadrants represent: lectures, individual learning, concurrent learning, and collaborative learning. From these combinations of Activities versus Orientation, we can describe many characteristics of these different learning categories.

The Circle of Learning

--Online Education Terms

A glossary of terms.

Online Education Terms

This is a 14-page PDF file.

-A Review of Learning Design: Concept, Specifications and Tools

This article provides a primer on learning design theory.

A Review of Learning Design

Research and Development

--The Research and Development Toolkit

The Research & Development Toolkit is a modular series of in-house training designed to equip its delegates with effective research skills for the workplace. Over its nine modules delegates can build understanding and practical approaches for all stages of the research process, from planning or commissioning research, through skills for carrying it out, to understanding and communicating the results.

The toolkit would suit anyone who is not a researcher, but whose work requires research skills. The toolkit has been designed for staff in the learning and skills sector and will suit staff from a wide variety of backgrounds, ranging from Further and Higher Education, funding bodies such as Local Learning and Skills Councils or even commercial organizations that make use of research.

The Research and Development Toolkit

This is a 7-page PDF file.

Blog Grab Bag

--Eighteenth-Century E-Texts

The following catalogue includes most of the electronic editions of eighteenth-century works publicly available on the network. "Eighteenth century" is understood extremely broadly — this very long eighteenth century runs from Milton through Byron, or thereabouts. All are available publicly from this page. Another class of texts is available by mail from the Oxford Text Archive. Note that libretti are catalogued on the Music page.

Eighteenth-Century E-Texts

--GlobalIdeasBank

Read the Mission Statement for this organization's site:

The Global Ideas Bank aims to promote and disseminate good creative ideas to improve society. It further aims to encourage the public to generate these ideas, to participate in the problem-solving process.

- These ideas we term social inventions: non-technological, non-product, non-gadget ideas for social change. These are a mix of existing projects, fledgling initiatives and new bright ideas.

- In this way, the Global Ideas Bank is part-suggestions box, part-ideas network and part-democratic think-tank, giving the "ordinary" person a chance to have their creativity recognized, rewarded and even put into practice.

- The Global Ideas Bank further aims to provide information and a community to help those individuals who wish to make their idea or project a reality in their own community

GlobalIdeasBank

--Online Etymology Dictionary

This may not be the OED, but it is a good substitute!

Online Etymology Dictionary

--Popdex

This site ranks Web sites by popularity.

Popdex

--Poetry Daily

Poetry Daily is an anthology of contemporary poetry which each day brings you a new poem from books, magazines and journals currently in print. Poems are chosen from the work of a wide variety of poets published in the English language. Our most eminent poets are represented in the selections, but also poets who are less well known.

Free E-mail newsletter available.

Poetry Daily

--Mentors are Important

This article is from Fast Company.

Mentors

--The Art of the Start

This is a book by Guy Kawasaki, a former Apple Fellow and entrepreneur extraordinaire. In his new book, Guy talks about up-starting a start-up. In this sneak preview from his upcoming book, "The Art of the Start," Guy encourages entrepreneurs to make meaning, make mantra, and get going. According to Kawasaki, some examples of making 'meaning' are: make the world a better place, increase the quality of life, right a terrible wrong, and prevent the end of something good. Plus, his brilliant FAQ's (frequently avoided questions) will answer almost all your fears about starting a new business.
The Art of the Start

This source acquired courtesy of E-LearningPost, 27 September 2004.

--Using Live Journal in Foreign Language Instruction

This paper describes a way for teachers to set-up and facilitate authentic international communication in the EFL classroom using LiveJournal.com: a free, hosted weblog tool with a 1.9 million-member-strong community of active users and built-in social networking features. It also highlights the potential that social software, like LiveJournal, has for encouraging greater autonomy and self-direction in foreign language learning.

Live Journal...Foreign Language Instruction

--Word Count

WordCount is an interactive presentation of the 86,800 most frequently used English words.

WordCount

--ERIC Database Update

More than 105,000 Full-Text Documents Added To ERIC Database!!

Those of you who use ERIC will be happy to learn that, for the first time, more than 105,000 full-text non-journal ERIC resources (added to ERIC from 1993-July 2004) are now available for FREE as PDF files via the ERIC database on the Education Resources Information Center web site. These documents were previously sold via E*Subscribe from the ERIC Document Reproduction Service (EDRS).

ERIC

--Phrase Finder

Looking for the meaning or origin of a phrase or saying? This site is for you!

Phrase Finder

Until next week!

(Why this photo? I like mules; furthermore, he / she is a good role model: keep rocking!)

Blog editor

Image Credit:

"Leaf," bxp42519.jpg, 300 x 198 pixels - 14k, www.fotosearch.com/ BDX247/bxp42519.

"MindMap,"inspirationmap.gif, 664 x 543 pixels - 19k www.learn-line.nrw.de/.../ inspirationmap.gif .