By Stephen Downes
June 11, 2004
NUTN 2004: Quality in Distance
Learning
I am off to Kennebunkport, Maine, in a
few minutes to speak at the National University
Telecommunications Network (NUTN) annual conference. I
thought going to Maine would be easy because it's just down
the road - but this has turned out to be one of my more
difficult trips to plan. It's one of these places where
people just expect you'll drive (or fly in on your private
plane, I suppose). So if you see me wandering aimlessly
around the Boston bus station this evening, you'll know I
missed one of my insanely tight connections. Meanwhile, I
already know that my internet access will be minimal, so I
may miss one or two issues next week. But I should get some
nice photos and may write up a report or two. By Various
Authors, June 12, 2004
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
Wink - Tutorial Creation
FreeWare
Alec says this as well as I can, and
it's well worth passing along: "Wink is a neat little tool designed for
the development of online tutorials or presentations ...
and it's freeware! In the past, I have used more
comprehensive packages such as Camtasia Studio or Viewlet
Builder to create instructional Flash-based animations, and
while Wink doesn't offer all of the functionality, it's a
good start. And did I mention it's free? Oh yah, I did.
Freeware is a wonderful thing ... and if you are interested
in more great freeware programs, check out The 46 Best Ever Freeware Utilities. Most
are PC-only, but there are a few programs in the list
available to other platforms." By Alec Couros, Couros Blog,
June 10, 2004
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
The Wide World of Wiki: Choosing a Wiki for
an Element of a Fully Online Undergraduate
Course
James Farmer provides a nice review of
wiki software that can be used to support an online class
(a wiki is essentially a website that allows any reader to
chaneg the contents). Following up, he adds a Wiki wish list and links to some wiki
software missed in the first article. By James Farmer,
Incorporated Subversion, June 10, 2004
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
WebJay
So of course there's a
whole community around the idea of 'playlists', which is
the generic term for what I created with Ed
Radio. Seb pointed me to the author of this site, which
takes any HTML page containing links to MP3 files and
converts it to a playlist which you can play using Real or
some other audio player - just what I did with Ed Radio,
but (presumably) without the bugs. Ed Radio, meanwhile, is
starting slowly, both in terms of content and visitors.
That's all right, that's what I expected. Onward and
upward. By Lucas Gonze, WebJay, June, 2004
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
Review of Learning Design
Tools
Link to and description of A Review of Learning Design: Concept,
Specifications and Tools, a report for the JISC
E-learning Pedagogy Programme by Sandy Britain (MS Word
doc). If you have any interest in learning design at all,
or just want to learn about it, you should read this
report. The first part of the article is a good overview of
the nature and history of learning design. The extended
second part is a review of a number of learning design
tools, including some I hadn't heard of before (such as
eduPlone and Lobster). The Auricle article linking to the
report provides a summary and discussion, including some
useful links. By Derek Morrison, Auricle, June 11, 2004
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
VoIP in the Enterprise
I have
always hated telephones, and I discovered when I installed
Skype onto my computer that I hate them as much online as
in the traditional form. But most people like telephones,
and they are looking for the ease and savings that may be
obtained by transferring voice communications to the
internet. This raises new issues - we have new IP
telephones in our office, but unlike traditional phones,
you have to take a course to learn how to use them. So now
I hate telephones even more. Anyhow, all this is to
introduce this round-up of articles at eWeek which will be
like manna from heaven for those of you who need to know a
lot about VoIP in a hurry, By Various Authors, eWeek, June,
2004
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
Miquel’s Pentagram Theorem
Your
word for today is 'concyclic' - points that lie on the same
circle. I didn't know that word yesterday, but now I do,
thanks to this nice contribution to the internet from Peru.
By Antonio Gutierrez, Geometry Step by Step from the Land
of the Incas, June, 2004
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
A Model for Sustainable Student
Retention
The drop-out rate for online learning,
note the authors, is steadily about ten or twenty percent
higher than for traditional learning. It may be tempting to
seek a simple explanation for this, but as they note, there
is no simple explanation for drop-out rates in general.
What follows is a fascinating excursion through several
explanatory models of retention culled from the literature.
Good overview; worth reading. By Zane L. Berge and Yi-Ping
Huang, DEOS News, May, 2004
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
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