What is Web 2.0 workshop

My PowerPoint presentation for the What is Web 2.0 and what can it do for me? workshop uploaded to SlideShare, and converted to a Flash file and embedded in this blog post for demo purposes:

Pedagogic PowerPoint 2

I've been looking at some of the recommended reading for an MSC I've just enrolled on.

One of the books, Brabazon, T. (2002) Digital hemlock: internet education and the poisoning of teaching, looks like a provocative read (i.e. something to disagree with).

I found another article by the author on the ipodification of space (iPod consistently written as i-Pod!) with a truly toe-curling opening paragraph which doesn't bode well:

Our popular cultural clocks stop at the point of our greatest immersion, passion and excess. For me, 1987 was the musical zenith. I never quite recovered from acid house, chalk-stiff styling mousse, black eyeliner and pixie boots. I remember Rick Astley with fondness ...

Enough already!

I've reluctantly ordered a copy but a review I came across would seem to indicate that the book articulates some familiar (remember David Noble's Digital Diploma Mills?) criticisms of technology. PowerPoint is one tool that comes in for a particular bashing.

However, it looks like another case of an author citing the poorest possible uses of technology in order to discredit its use (it's Edward Tufte again) just like some awful old right-winger citing Stalin in order to dismiss communism.

I wouldn't defend for a second a tedious lecture supported by PowerPoint, but "mental absenteeism" in the lecture theatre (see pic below) and students bunking off lectures existed well before that Microsoft product so many love to hate.


I'm with Kinchin on PowerPoint:

…what PowerPoint is actually doing is to make explicit the taken-for-granted assumptions and implicit epistemological leanings of lecturers who are using it. The stereotypic teacher-centred, noninteractive mode of lecturing … is simply clarified and amplified by the use of PowerPoint. (Kinchin, 2006 p.647 - see my PP presentation for full reference)

Linking from a blog to a discussion forum

In theory it's simple to link from a blog to a discussion forum like this one on blogging.

PLE -v- VLE

There's been a lot of debate about PLEs that I'm only just catching up with now.

Crudely defined, a PLE seems to be about moving away from the big cumbersome VLEs (yes, we're talking about you, Blackboard) and opting instead for smaller bits of technology (e.g. a blog, a Flickr account, RSS feeds, favourited web sites etc.) held together by, for example, a start/portal page like Pageflakes or Netvibes (My Yahoo!, iGoogle, and Microsoft Live are other types).

Is a PLE just a nice idea (see this post from the elearnspace blog) or a bit of Blackboard-bashing software (PLE Project - Bolton University) that's under development?

I'm not sure. Talk of PLEs feels like the (utopian) expression of a desire for a future beyond monolithic systems: something small, customisable, decentralised/user-centred, open-source, open to the hundred of new developments happening, eclectic, supportive of sharing, collaboration etc..

Here are some links to blogs on PLEs:

• History of personal learning environments (Wikipedia)
  
  
• The Bamboo Project (Michelle Martin)

Embedding video into a blog post

This is a test to see how easy it is to embed video into a blog post:



It's of Prince Buster singing Judge Dread on Jools Holland's music show.

More on what blogs can do

Here are some more thoughts - from Anne Davies - on what blogs can do.

I'm not sure about the research that supports these assertions but it's an interesting argument.

One of the advantages of blogs is the ease with which one can deep link to other individual entries (the techie term seems to be the `discreet addressability of information objects').

Here's an entry on Future learning environments (the talk I never gave) from Martin Weller's blog that chimes with discussions I've been having with colleagues.

Feeds

Found this on the web and it struck a cord. Not entirely convinced that subscription is really making life easier ...

Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.

Cult of the amateur -v- the tyranny of the guilds

There was a provocative article in last week's Observer on Web 2.0 and blogs (Enough! The Briton who is challenging the web's endless cacophony, David Smith, technology correspondent
Sunday April 29, 2007 The Observer).

It gave (unnecessary) publicity to Andrew Keen's forthcoming book on "digital narcissism" (laughably entitled The Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet is Killing Our Culture and Assaulting Our Economy).

However, it did provoke an interesting response the following week from an academic who sees blogging, social networking etc. as continuations of an earlier radical tradition of published dissent from formerly marginalised voices (e.g. The Black Dwarf). Here's the response in full:

Don't bash bloggers

In his rush to dismiss bloggers, Andrew Keen ('Enough!', News, last week) seems to be unaware of the very history of journalism. We need only to consider the English radical press of the 19th century to find powerful examples of writing that can be thought of as the precursor to social networking on the web. The 'pauper correspondents' of political newspapers such as Black Dwarf were not professional journalists, but members of communities who found their rights threatened. In similar fashion, the citizen journalism of the present day offers those who find their voices marginalised or misrepresented by the mass media the opportunity to speak in their own voices from within their communities (think of South Korea's successful OhmyNEWS).

Keen's desire to separate the author from the audience also flies in the face of the practice of journalism. I first read the work of music journalist Paul Morley in his self-published fanzine, Out There. It is as a fan that Morley, like so many amateur and professional journalists, remains a member of an audience, of a community. It is when we lose touch with our communities that we begin to lose our humanity, and our writing loses its relevance.
Dr Chris Atton
reader in journalism
Napier University, Edinburgh

I've just created a Slide Show!

I've just created this slide show using Slide.com.

It was easy and instant.