IT Lesson

• Blog Readability Test
• Reference - Blog readability test (Harold Jarche)

WHAT?
What level of education is required to understand your blog?
Click here, Enter your blogs URL, and within a few seconds you will get the results. I am not sure what formula or criteria they are using (US High School level?), but it is always fun to explore simple online tests like this one. Not much thinking needed, so why not!

MY BLOG?
My blogs reading level: Genius.

It felt great, until I thought about it a bit! Mambo-Jambo! From an instructional design (ID) point-of-view it is simply a disaster, unless most of my readers (target audience) are at that level. Hopefully, they are!

If this test is reliable and valid, I suppose I would need to use less jargons and simpler words in the future to reach the lower levels (or more people!). Why not!

Interestingly, Joseph Harts blog reading level is also Genius. Though, Stephens OLDaily blog reading level is only High School. This could be one reason (Unconscious one!) why I ranked Stephens blog higher in my Top 10 ETL blogs ranking. It might not make sense, but it does bring a bit of joy and heartache to our blogging. In short, a little copy/paste job for a lot of reflective fun!

I am still learning... :)

• Link to 60+ OCW Collections for Web Designers
• Via Stephen Carson

2ND GENERATION OCW COLLECTIONS?
Stephen Carson (in his super OpenFiction blog!) talks about a 2nd generation type of OCW (OpenCourseWare) collection, which assembles a list of courses from various university OCWs into a curriculum. And then he shares with us a great example...

OCW COLLECTION FOR WEB DESIGNERS
Jessica Hupp has managed to compile and organize an amazing collection of OCW for web designers. Click here to enjoy more than 60 OCW, covering everything from design theory to Internet culture!

Here are a few gems that caught my attention:

• Information Visualization: Consider space, order, focus, context, and more in this course. [University of British Columbia]
• Art of Color: In this course, you’ll learn the basic principles of color in visual arts. [MIT]
• Algorithms for Computer Animation: Learn about the algorithms that make animations possible. [MIT]
• People-Centered Design: Consider how you can design for people with this course. [The Open University]
• Social Visualization: In this course, you’ll learn how to visualize people and their interactions. [MIT]
• Common Sense Reasoning for Interactive Application: Use this course to discover how you can use common sense knowledge in your design. [MIT]
• Networking Infrastructure for E-Commerce: Learn about the capabilities and limitations you’ll have to work with in e-commerce. [NC State]
• Communicating in Cyberspace: Take a look at digital communication with this course. [MIT]
• The Anthropology of Computing: Consider computers as meaningful tools for society and culture in this course. [MIT]
• The Future of the Internet: You’ll learn about Internet architecture as well as current issues like network neutrality. [Stanford]
• Foundations of American Cyber-Culture: Consider new media, demographics, open source, and lots more in this course. [Berkeley]
• Web 2.0: Get a good look at web 2.0 as it relates to users, online business models, and new technologies. [Weber State University]
• A New Era?: This course takes on the new economy and innovation. [The Open University]
• Search Engines: Technology, Society and Business: Get an introduction to search engines, intellectual property in searches, advertising, spam, and more. [Berkeley]

• SlideShare version
• SlideBoom version
• PDF version (46 MB)

For those of you who have no idea what Ramadan is, you can click here for starters.

"...It is the Islamic month of fasting, in which participating Muslims do not eat or drink anything from dawn until sunset. Fasting is meant to teach the person patience, sacrifice and humility. Ramadan is a time to fast for the sake of God, and to offer even more prayer than usual. In Ramadan Muslims ask forgiveness for past sins, pray for guidance into the future, ask for help in refrain from everyday evils and try to purify themselves through self-restraint and good deeds."

Non-Muslims often think that fasting is a burden to Muslims, but we mostly look forward to it, and really enjoy the daily little struggles. Besides the obvious reasons (health, spiritual growth, empathy, bonding, sharing, awakening, discipline, etc.), I love this month because my brain neurons (or synapses) become more active, stimulating new creative connections during it. Also, my energy level increases. However, this energy increase does not seem to apply to many of my Muslim colleagues (I suppose I am bit different in that sense!). One reason could be that the blood circulation to the brain increases during fasting, while the stomach and digestion organs are taking food-free yoga lessons during the day (Can a doctor please explain why?). In short, I love the month of Ramadan for many reasons.


e-LEARNING eBOOKS COLLECTION
I suppose to continue with the spirit of learning and sharing during this special month, I have compiled an Amazing collection of free e-Learning ebooks in a quite visual stimulating chunked manner (Instructional Designers please evaluate!). Well, whether it is Amazing or not, I leave it up to you to decide. I suppose I used that word to attract your attention, and if you are reading now, I suppose it is kind of working. This time around, I have dumped SlideShare for SlideBoom to stimulate your mind to explore a bunch of interesting free e-learning related ebooks, and sites to find more ebooks:




Click here to download the PDF version (46 MB).

Here are the quick links (my favorite! Easy to access and replicate by others!):

1. LEARNING 2.0
   
2. Educating the Net Generation
3. Learning Spaces
4. Theory and Practice of Online Learning
5. Open Educational Resources Handbooks: One, Two, Three
6. The Insiders Guide To Becoming a Rapid E-Learning Pro
7. Top 100 Tools for Learning
8. MASIE’s Free eContent!
9. FREE eBooks from The eLearning Guild
10. e-LearningGurus 5-Minute Summaries
11. ICT in Schools: A Handbook for Teachers
12. E-Learning Concepts and Techniques
13. Coming of Age: An Introduction to the New WWW
14. Knowing Knowledge
15. Moodle E-Learning Course Development
16. Using Moodle
17. FREE Guide to Online Education
18. Informal Learning
19. Engaging Interactions For eLearning
20. The Cluetrain Manifesto
21. Stephen Downes Papers, Presentations and Books
22. KINEO Magic!
    
23. Learning Technologies (250+ Articles!)
24. Horizon Reports
25. Clives 33 Columns
26. Creating Learning Communities
27. Digital Education
28. Web-Teaching
29. Brandon Hall Free Resources
30. elearningeuropa Papers
31. Learning Circuits Field Guides
32. eLearn Magazine Articles Archive
33. EDUCAUSE Books
34. Google Book Search
35. Project Gutenberg
36. Scribd
37. LearnOutLoud.com
38. LibriVox
39. Great Books Index
40. CIA World Factbook
41. FreeBookSpot
42. FreeTechBooks.com
43. OnlineComputerBooks
44. Free-eBooks
45. ManyBooks
46. Globusz
47. BookYards
48. The Online Books Page
49. Wikibooks
50. Free eBooks
51. Free Online BookStore
    

SLIDEBOOM ROCKS!
SlideShare is still my favorite free slide-sharing site, but SlideBoom is quickly becoming my next favorite one. What do I mean? I will be using both from now on. For the sake of giving SlideShare a wake up call, here are five things I like about SlideBoom, which SlideShare currently lack (hopefully they will upgrade soon!):

1. First, you can upload PowerPoint 2007 files (.pptx), meaning you dont need to convert to PDF or .ppt before uploading (if you are using Microsoft Office 2007).
2. Your original presentation keeps its features after conversion, including content style, animation effects, transitions, embedded audio and embedded video. This is a major weakness in the existing version of SlideShare, which really annoys me. To keep my presentations intact, I have to upload them as a PDF file.
   
3. The uploading process is faster and more pleasant (well at least from my notebook and network). I suppose they have fewer users and uploads to manage. It will be interesting to see SlideBoom tackle this, when the user/viewer tsunami comes.
4. The presentation seems to run smoother in the browser, and you can even create annotations (using pen, highlighter, eraser, etc.) to any SlideBoom presentation to point out its key ideas.
5. The heart of SlideBoom is based on iSpring (An add-in PowerPoint to Flash converter), which enables you to convert PowerPoint to Flash offline, speeding up the process, while retaining the presentations original effects better.

Having said that, SlideBooms presentation size is currently limited to 30 MB (easy to upgrade!), while SlideShare enables 100 MB per presentation. In terms of users and presentation views, SlideShare still rocks big time! For example, the most viewed presentation (as of today) on SlideBoom is only 3100+, while SlideShares most viewed presentation is a whopping 1.6 million+.

In a slideshell, I will not give up on SlideShare just yet, but you never know in the future. Anyway, why not use both! Perhaps I should consider a third free alternative. Got any suggestions?

Oops! You might be wondering, "what happened to the 101 OER presentation I was talking about in the previous post?" Coming soon hopefully. What happened to your non-blogging vacation? Al-Hamdulilla, Ramadan awakens again my need to share amazing learning resources quickly.

Oops, one more juicy item! I have updated the 140+ free learning tools list with one more juicy learning problem solver (in addition to SlideBoom). Hint: Unlimited storage :)

What?
The Webometrics Ranking (of World Universities) is being published since 2004 on a regular basis (every 6 months) using the web data as indicator of the visibility and impact of the activities of the universities, colleges and research institutions worldwide...

Aims?
The Rankings original aim was to show the commitment of these organizations to the electronic publication, the open access to scientific results and the internationalization of their activities. As other rankings are more focused on World Class Universities, our purpose is to offer an extended coverage including information about the developing countries institutions.

Findings?
Webometrics editors are very surprised to discover that Web indicators are not taken into account at all in the evaluation of the universities... The problem is really serious as the data shows a larger than expected academic digital divide affecting also to many developed countries including EU ones and Japan...

How?
The ranking is based on a combined indicator that takes into account both the volume of the Web contents and the visibility and impact of this web publications according to the number of external inlinks (sitations) they received. The ranking is updated every January and July, providing Web indicators for universities and research centres worldwide.

MasterMinds?
The WR is produced by the Cybermetrics Lab (CINDOC), a unit of the National Research Council (CSIC), the main public research body in Spain. The Lab acts as an Observatory of the Science and Technology on the Web.

Top 5 (July 2007)?

1. Stanford University
2. MIT
3. University of California Berkeley
4. Harvard University
5. Pennsylvania State University

Interestingly, ALL the Top 20 Universities according to the Webometrics Ranking (WR) are American! University of Cambridge managed only to get 21st place, and good old Oxford University could amazingly only achieve 40th place (The British Empire is certainly struggling on the Web if we should take WR seriously!). It should also be noted that Harvard still rules in the comparative analysis according to Productivity, Visibility and Impact.

If you look closer at my blog, and explore the right column a bit, I suppose you have one indicator why American Universities dominate the Web according to WR. The key success factor I would argue (according to my understanding) is the willingness, goals, strategies, and actions taken (and financial support provided) by these Universities (or their people) to participate in the Open Educational Resources (OER) global revolution. In other words, to improve ones ranking (WR way!) one needs to SHARE KNOWLEDGE beyond the borders of the University. Why educate only your students, when with todays technologies you can share your knowledge or resources to every corner of the world (Educate the World!). Lets face it content is only one part of the learning process!

Now, lets move one to South-East Asia (Scary!). Below is a selection (interest factor!) of the Regional and Global Ranking of South-East Asia according to the Webometrics Ranking (WR) of World Universities. Click here to download the top 100 list of universities belonging to the South-East of Asia (as of July 2007).

• Link to ZaidLearns Del.icio.us Collection
• Link to ZaidLearns Diigo Collection
• A Free Learning Tool for Every Learning Problem?

• OCW_Repositories
• OER_Repositories
• Podcast Libraries
• YouTube_Channels
• Engineering &_ICT
• Education
• Mathematics
• Natural_Sciences
• Business

2) Learning Tools

• Favorite_Tools
• Gaming
• Authoring
• Survey/Polling
• Graphics
• Learning Management Systems

POWER LINKS?
Please, keep in mind that my strategy is not to bookmark every single free learning tool or resource out there, but instead target those juicy links that I believe are useful, relevant, interesting, and have a long lasting value to our learning adventures. I am still exploring new tagging formulas and naming conventions, so you might find the current tag strategy messy and frustrating. However, I am still learning, and hopefully the power links will be increasingly easy to find as I master (or disaster!) the art of bookmarking and tagging.

REFLECTION!
During the last couple of weeks, I have begun a fascinating journey to find great courses available among OCW repositories around the world. I am certainly not interested in bookmarking every single one of them. MIT alone has now around 1800 free courses! But then again, how many of them give you learning goose bumps? Currently, there are already more than one hundred courses in my collection, and you can surely expect more in the coming weeks. When my learning adventure for full-blown courses begins to slow down, I will begin the struggle to bookmark particular free lectures and talks (videos) that give me learning goose bumps.

In other words, it wouldnt surprise me, if my del.icio.us collection reaches 1000 before July 2008. Having said that, it is not about big numbers, but instead it is about capturing great learning juice out there in the fast growing information galaxy, and making it easily available to hungry learners around the world.

I have to admit that I really enjoy using del.icio.us to bookmark and tag my learning discoveries. It is a brutally simple, focused and easy-to-use tool with no frills to distract you from its core purpose, which is to help you collect, manage, and share your links (URLs) online. And that is probably why this tool is ranked the number one learning tool on the Top 100 Tools for Learning 2008 (Jane Knight).

Another beauty of managing your link discoveries with del.icio.us, is that when you bookmark a link, you can actually see how many other del.icio.us users that have bookmarked it. It is like searching for stars in the galaxy. When you discover one, you can check whether you are the first one to do so or not. Interestingly, I have noticed that del.icio.us users are great in bookmarking learning tools (e.g. Moodle = 6500+ have bookmarked it), but seem to lack interest (or awareness!) in bookmarking great free or OCW courses (Physics I: Classical Mechanics by Professor Lewin = 130+ have bookmarked it). Actually, most OCW courses that I have bookmarked fail even to reach the 20 mark. Perhaps, del.icio.us users focus more on bookmarking individual lectures or resources within the courses.

ZAIDLEARN GOES DIIGO?
There has been a lot of hype regarding Diigo, the new social bookmarking tool in town (it is not that new, brother!). So, to feel the hype I have also explored this tool. As Diigo allows you to import collections from other social bookmarking tools like del.icio.us, it was extremely easy to transfer my power links. Click here to experience ZaidLearns power links in Diigo.

Although, Diigo is a cool tool and has a lot more features than del.icio.us to socialize, communicate, and have fun, it does not appeal to me (at least until now!). The reason is that I want my social bookmarking tool to be brutally simple, easy-to-use and focused. I have enough of other free learning tools to socialize, communicate and have fun!

Though, it would be nice if del.icio.us allowed users to provide comments to our learning discoveries, and be able to report broken links. Besides that, del.icio.us is still my first choice! But then again, I will continue to export my collections, and import them into Diigo (whenever I remember!). You never know in the future :)

Link to site & full report (PDF, 27 pages, 695K)
"The online enrollment projections have been realized, and there is no evidence that enrollments have reached a plateau. Online enrollments continue to grow at rates faster than for the overall student body, and schools expect the rate of growth to further increase:

• Over 1.9 million students were studying online in the fall of 2003.
• Schools expect the number of online students to grow to over 2.6 million by the fall of 2004.
• Schools expect online enrollment growth to accelerate ? the expected average growth rate for online students for 2004 is 24.8%, up from 19.8% in 2003.

Are students as satisfied with online courses as they are with face-to-face instruction?

• 40.7% of schools offering online courses agree that students are at least as satisfied? with their online courses, 56.2% are neutral and only 3.1% disagree.
• Medium and large schools strongly agree (with less than 3% disagreeing).
• The smallest schools (under 1,500 enrollments) are the least positive, but even they have only 5.4% disagreeing compared to 32.9% agreeing.
• Doctoral/Research, Masters, and Associates schools are very positive, Specialized and Baccalaureate schools only slightly less so."

Read the summary (at least) or the full report . This report is excellent (27 pages), and gives us insight to the e-learning or online education state and progress in U.S. higher education.

(Originally posted in ELC on the 2nd November, 2004)

Assalamu Alaikum wrt wbt & Greetings to ALL!

Welcome to the October issue of ELC Knowledge Sharing newsletter. This issue contains several excellent articles and research papers found from various online resources during October, including an article written by Dr. Kamal Kishore (previously with UNITAR) on how to Manage virtual teams in a Virtual University (Students? experience). We hope you find the articles we have selected useful, and if there is something youd like to see in an upcoming issue, please let us know.

In this Issue:

• Managing Virtual Teams in a Virtual University- Students Experiences
• Categories of eLearning
• Tips and Tricks for Teaching Online
• Designing Online Courses to Discourage Dishonesty
• Centers for Teaching, Learning, and Technology: What Fits Your Institution?
• Effective Teaching with PowerPoint: A Learning Theory Approach
• The Need for Universal Design in Online Learning Environments (OLEs)
• Digital Libraries: The Catalyst to Transform Teacher Education
• Game-Based Learning (The 21st Century Learning Appoach)
• Ten Tips for College Success
• 6 free e-Learning Tools from Univesity of British Columbia
• A Convergent Participation Model for Evaluation of Learning Objects
  

1) Managing Virtual Teams in a Virtual University- Students Experiences Author: Dr. Kamal Kishore URL: http://elc.unitar.edu.my/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=250
Traffic congestion, parking problems, and rising transportation costs are forcing people to use electronic medium to communicate and stay in touch with each other. Decreasing costs, increasing speed and reliability of IT has enabled people to use this medium. Mergers and acquisitions across borders have emerged as a growing trend. The business is becoming global in scale and perspective. The developments have encompassed every business activity- education being no exception. The advancement of information technology is already transforming the education industry in a large scale worldwide. The opportunities for learning via the electronic environment are virtually limitless. E-learning transcends typical time and space barriers, allowing students to access learning opportunities day and night from various corners of the world?

2) Categories of eLearning Author: George Siemens URL: http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/elearningcategories.htm
This paper attempts to present the categories, not procedures, of the elearning field. The categories of elearning:
- Courses
- Informal learning
- Blended learning
- Communities
- Knowledge management
- Networked learning
- Work-based learning (EPSS)
These various learning categories do not need to function in isolation?

3) Tips and Tricks for Teaching Online Authors: Kaye Shelton and George Saltsman URL: http://itdl.org/Journal/Oct_04/article04.htm
This paper summarizes some of the best ideas and practices gathered from successful online instructors and recent literature. Suggestions include good online class design, syllabus development, and online class facilitation offering hints for success for both new and experienced online instructors?

4) Designing Online Courses to Discourage Dishonesty Author: Barbara Christe URL: http://www.educause.edu/LibraryDetailPage/666&ID=EQM0348
One of the first questions questions asked of most Web-based educators is, How do you test the student? Following question is, How do you know the student is learning anything?" Barbara Christe presents in this article techniques used at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianaapolis within the Electrical and Computer Engineering Technology Department (offered seven distance education courses 42 times since 1998)...

5) Centers for Teaching, Learning, and Technology: What Fits Your Institution? Author: Kathleen Christoph, Carrie E. Regenstein and Ruth M. Sabean URL: http://www.educause.edu/LibraryDetailPage/666&ID=EDU9963

Centers for teaching, learning, and technology are becoming an important aspect of the emerging strategies for supporting faculty in their IT efforts as well as for the institutional efforts to understand the educational value of IT. Existing models for success include centers for teaching and learning (with or without technology), educational technology centers (often in libraries or IT organizations), and "virtual centers" with distributed collaborating components. What kind of center would work best for your institution considering its needs, its organization, and its culture? Is it a formal organizational unit or a federation of units? Is it physical or virtual? This panel will present the underlying goals, decision points, and strategies and will build a set of guidelines that attendees can use to develop or refine services that fit their campus needs and culture...

6) Effective Teaching with PowerPoint: A Learning Theory Approach Author: David M. Antonacci URL: http://www.educause.edu/LibraryDetailPage/666&ID=SWR0417
This presentation examines teaching and learning from an information-processing perspective, using the events of instruction developed by Robert Gagne. It shows you how to apply these ideas to developing PowerPoint presentations that effectively support instruction. It also presents many example slides highlighting important instructional capabilities of this technology. Gagnes Nine Events of Instruction:

1. Gaining Attention - Reception. Use abrupt stimulus change.
2. Informing Learner of the Objective - Expectancy. Tell learners what they will be able to do after learning.
3. Stimulating Recall of Prior Learning - Retrieval to Working Memory. Ask for recall of previously learned knowledge or skills.
4. Presenting the Stimulus - Selective Perception. Display the content with distinctive features
5. Providing Learning Guidance - Semantic Encoding. Suggest a meaningful organization.
6. Eliciting Performance - Responding. Ask learner to perform.
7. Providing Feedback - Reinforcement. Give informative feedback.
8. Assessing Performance - Retrieval and Reinforcement. Require additional learner performance with feedback.
9. Enhancing Retention and Transfer - Retrieval and Generalization. Provide spaced reviews and varied practice...

7) The Need for Universal Design in Online Learning Environments (OLEs) Author: Roberts, K. URL: http://www.aace.org/pubs/aacej/dispart.cfm?paperID=19
The power of the Web is in its universality. Universal design allows information and communication to be accessed by all users regardless of disability. Websites, educational courseware, and online learning environments (OLEs) are created for those who have good vision and manual dexterity. This eliminates some people, as in the United States alone, 52.6 million people have disabilities. The ability of over 30 million people in the United States is compromised by inaccessible computer design. The Web is a fundamental tool in education. Students who cannot access the Web will be limited in their ability to fully participate and obtain education equivalent to their non-disabled peers. Educational facilities must become aware of the needs and issues of individuals with disabilities so that they can develop a plan for developing accessible Web sites and OLEs. The Internet has the power to provide greater independence and participation for all users, including those with disabilities...

8) Digital Libraries:The Catalyst to Transform Teacher Education Authors: Bolick, C.M., Hicks, D., Lee, J., Molebash, P., & Doolittle, P. URL: http://www.aace.org/pubs/aacej/dispart.cfm?paperID=20
Digital libraries are changing the way academic disciplines within universities are conceptualized. The nation?s scholars are investing their careers and millions of dollars to use technology to rethink the nature of their disciplines. These advances are affecting academic research and instruction as academic disciplines restructure in response to technologies. This article presents a framework for how digital libraries should be used in teacher education...

9) Game-Based Learning (The 21st Century Learning Appoach) Author: Joel Foreman URL: http://www.educause.edu/pub/er/erm04/erm0454.asp
Herein lies a moral about how videogames are influencing higher education. To learn more about videogames in academe, Joel Foreman sought out the insights of five leading-edge thinkers in the field: James Paul Gee, J. C. Herz, Randy Hinrichs, Marc Prensky, and Ben Sawyer. All five had traveled to San Jose, California, in March 2004 for the Serious Games Summit at the annual Game Developers Conference. They discussed the following six topics:

• The dysfunctions of conventional instruction
• The power of simulations
• The importance of game-based learning communities
• The reasons videogames promise a better learning future
• The changes necessary for the new paradigm to take hold
• The practical steps that colleges/universities and influential academics can take to move institutions down the trail blazed by USC and others.
• He spoke with each of the five individually, culled their comments from several hours of recordings, and then combined the comments to simulate the continuity and interaction of a group discussion. He has also asserted some editorial license to eliminate the infelicities and redundancies of speech...

10) Ten Tips for College Success Author: Kimeiko Hotta Dover URL: http://adulted.about.com/cs/studentprofiles/a/frank_k_2.htm
Returning to school and getting a Ph.D. at the age of 47 wasnt easy for former mechanic and rock musician Frank Koscielski. So, he developed a variety of strategies to maximize the time available for study and writing:

1. Take a speed reading course.
2. Never go anywhere without a book.
3. Keep a tape recorder in the car.
4. Find a quiet place to study and be a little selfish with your time.
5. Use post-it notes as bookmarks.
6. Kill your TV! (e.g. ESPN)
7. Be an active reader (Take notes).
8. Find time to rest.
9. Exercise a bit.
10. Read all your work aloud to someone else...

11) 6 free e-Learning Tools from University of British Columbia Author: Univesity of British Columbia URL: http://www.learningtools.arts.ubc.ca/
The six (6) e-learning tools listed below are publicly available for academic use, within and outside the Univesity of British Columbia. Periodically Arts IS will release new tools to this site, so it is worth putting this site in your favorites . You are invited to explore these exciting new learning tools, and make free use of the learning objects they generate for educational or research purposes.

• Timeline Tool - Quickly construct an interactive timeline with audio and visual effects.
• Discussion Extractor - Export and save WebCT Discussions as portable "learning objects".
• WYSIWYG Tool - easy access to an online "What You See Is What You Get" web package.
• Multimedia Learning Object Authoring Tool - A tool that enables content experts to easily create multimedia based learning objects
• Character Stroke Recorder - A language learning tool designed to help students in learning multi-byte based characters.
• Vocabulary Memorization Platform - Self learning vocabulary platform to students while learning a new language The actual source code of all tools listed is NOT currently available, but will soon be made available under the Open Source Initiative Foundations GPL license...

12) A Convergent Participation Model for Evaluation of Learning Objects Authors: John Nesbit, Karen Belfer, and John Vargo URL: http://www.cjlt.ca/content/vol28.3/nesbit_etal.html
The properties that distinguish learning objects from other forms of educational software - global accessibility, metadata standards, finer granularity and reusability - have implications for evaluation. This article proposes a convergent participation model for learning object evaluation in which representatives from stakeholder groups (e.g., students, instructors, subject matter experts, instructional designers, and media developers) converge toward more similar des.criptions and ratings through a two-stage process supported by online collaboration tools. The article reviews evaluation models that have been applied to educational software and media, considers models for gathering and meta-evaluating individual user reviews that have recently emerged on the Web, and describes the peer review model adopted for the MERLOT repository. The convergent participation model is assessed in relation to other models and with respect to its support for eight goals of learning object evaluation:

• Aid for searching and selecting
• Guidance for use
• Formative evaluation
• Influence on design practices
• Professional development and student learning
• Community building
• Social recognition, and
• Economic exchange.....
  

Thats All Folks!

Warm Regards & Sincerely,

Zaid Ali Alsagoff

• Link to Maps-of-War
• Link to History-of-Religion

MAPS-OF-WAR?
Maps-of-War is a multimedia site dedicated to producing diverse, creative visuals that enhance our understanding of war and its history.

HISTORY-OF-RELIGION?
How has the geography of religion evolved over the centuries, and where has it sparked wars? This animated map gives you a brief history of the worlds most well-known religions: Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Judaism. Selected periods of inter-religious bloodshed are also highlighted. Here is 5,000 years of religion in 90 animated seconds:

OTHER MAPS?

• Leadership-and-War
  Which Presidents have led the United States into its deadliest wars?
• Imperial-History
  Who has controlled the Middle East over the course of history?
• Iraqi-Pressure-Vault
  From a geographic standpoint, Iraq is caught between a rock and a hard place...
• Signs-of-Occupation
  Before / after satellite photos of Saddams palace in Baghdad, Iraq...
• Shiite-vs-Sunni
  The pieces of the puzzle are slowly aligning themselves as Iraqs sectarian divide widens...
• CIA-Secret-Prisons
  Anatomy of a secret prison...
• Recapture - of - Fallujah
  In November of 2004, American forces launched Operation Phantom Fury to recapture Fallujah...

In addition, I would not be surprised if more animated maps will be added in the near future.

DOWNLOAD?
Every Maps-of-War animation is available for download so that you can play it on your own computer, even without an internet connection. Maps are provided in Flash SWF Format (.swf).

These Maps-of-War animations are also excellent tools to engage (or motivate) students into thinking and kick-start discussions in your face-to-face or online sessions (as long as they are related in one way or the other to the subject or topic you are teaching/facilitating). Finally, these visual maps should also facilitate great discussions on whether they are really accurate or not :)

Click here to view full article

• MYTH 1: THE ATTRACTION IS THE PRICE TAG
• MYTH 2: THE SAVINGS ARENT REAL
• MYTH 3: THERES NO SUPPORT
• MYTH 4: ITS A LEGAL MINEFIELD
• MYTH 5: OPEN SOURCE ISNT FOR MISSION-CRITICAL APPLICATIONS
• MYTH 6: OPEN SOURCE ISNT READY FOR THE DESKTOP

" (Conclusion)...Is open source right for every organization? In the end, argues Andy Mulholland, chief technology officer for Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, its a question of attitude. "The arguments for and against open-source software often get very trivialized," he says. "Its not a technology issue; its a business issue to do with externalization." Companies with an external focus, he says, which are used to working collaboratively with other organizations, and perhaps are already using collaborative technologies, stand to gain much more from open source than companies with an internal focus, which see the technology in terms of cost savings... "

• Link to Learning Technologies
• Articles Archive

CONFERENCE?
"The Learning Technologies conference (30th - 31st January, 2008) is widely regarded as Europe’s foremost organisational learning gathering. As the field of workplace learning and development grows, so does the conference and in January more than 40 speakers (Including Jay Cross, Stephen Downes, Clive Shepherd and Jane Knight) and over 300 delegates will gather to share experiences on organisational learning, and the ever-changing technology used to support it. The theme for the 2008 conference – our ninth – is Driving workforce performance through learning and development, and the conference programme will look at the what, the how, and the why of learning and development today."

Although, these 40 speakers gave free seminars, I am still searching for free access to the related resources (e.g. presentation slides) that were shared during this conference (If you can find it, please share it!). Perhaps they charge for the resources, or they will make it available soon. Or perhaps they will make it available in their online magazine. Am I getting closer?

ONLINE MAGAZINE?
Yes, that is why I have actually taken time to post something about the Learning Technologies conference here. If you check the Articles Archive, you will have access to over 250 FREE articles (as far as I know!) discussing learning and technologies from January 2000 until today (Latest issue: December 2007). To give you a taste of the learning juice you can find in this juicy archive, here are a few articles from the December 2007 Issue:

• Learning in Three Dimensions - Clive Shepherd examines the role and accessibility of 3D virtual worlds in todays e-learning.
• Collaboration 2.0 - Its Not About The Technology - Jay Cross argues that online collaboration is not just about the technology.
• A Guide to Free e-Learning Tools - Jane Hart talks to us about the pros and cons of using freely available tools, and suggests ten that can be used to create e-learning solutions quickly and easily.
• Ten of the Best...Frequently Asked e-Learning Questions - Alan Bellinger argues that it’s the quality that’s important.
• Key Lessons From the e-Learning Awards - Howard Hills looks at lessons that we can learn from the 2007 e-Learning Awards submissions.
• The Changing Face of e-Learning - Vaughan Waller looks at the evolving e-learning landscape.
• Rethinking Evaluation: Its Value and Its Limits for Learning - David Wilson challenges some of the basic assumptions in L&D about how, when and why it evaluates learning.

Hmm, I suppose I will be busy reading, reflecting and learning :)