June 20, 2012
World OER Congress Webcast
Jane Park,
Creative Commons, June 20, 2012.
The world OER congress is being webcast. If you are not one of the favoured people selected to attend, you can folow it as follows: "From 20-22 June, the congress will be livecast in two web streams: 1. The official congress featuring discussion on the Paris OER Declaration and governmental actions for OER (English stream, French stream) 2. A parallel stream featuring an Open Seminar & Exhibition of the world’s best OER practices, policies, and initiatives (English stream,French stream). For this stream, UNESCO will have present a digital moderator to whom you can pose questions via identi.ca or Twitter using the #oercongress hashtag."
[Link] [Comment][Tags: Open Educational Resources, Open Content, Twitter, UNESCO]
Rizzoma
Various Authors,
Website, June 20, 2012.
Daniil Kravtsov writes to me to say that (a version of) Google Wave is still alive. He writes, "Our team loved the Wave. We've used it in our business and just for fun conversations. There was no way we could go back to email. When Google decided to shut the project down we had only one true way — to resurrect the great idea and continue its development. At the moment, our project is launched and works pretty good for more than 3000 active users. We would be happy to tell ex-wavers about it."
Opinion Time! Udacity, Pearson, MOOCs and UVA
Amanda Krauss,
Worst Professor Ever, June 20, 2012.
Yet another post complaining about MOOCs (based on the Stanford/Udacity model only). Here's the gist: "there’s basically no direct, individual instruction, evaluation, or interaction with anyone who knows what they’re doing. Period." Which is to me quite ironic because in our MOOCs the main criticism was that there was too much Downes and not enough other people - participants expected it to be a lot less about the instructors. And as one commenter noted, "many MOOCs focus more on the Open part than the Massive part. Certainly the original ones like DS106 or Connectivism did/do."
Unabridged Interview on MOOC for Chronicle of Higher Education
Curtis J. Bonk,
TravelinEdMan, June 19, 2012.
I don't like Blackboard jumping all over the MOOC meme, but I like Curt Bonk, so it all evens out, I guess. Here is the full uncut interview he gave the Chronicle's Jeffrey R. Young (thinking back - did the Chronicle ever interview us during the five or six MOOCs we did before Curt's?) with candid thoughts about “my typical MOOC day” and other Bonkian insights. Bonk's experience - and his MOOC has endured its share of criticisms - shows just how hard it is to run a good MOOC. It's one thing to run a bunch of videos for an intro course, and quite another to offer what is more like "a summer workshop experience for college instructors." See also his 20 thoughts on types, targets and intents of MOOCs.
Flipboard becomes prominent Google+ partner
Stephen Shankland,
CNet News.com, June 19, 2012.
The reason why you can publish from your blog or other RSS feed into Google Plus: that privilege is reserved for special partners, like FlipBoard.
How to Transfer Files to Your iPhone or iPad (for Beginners)
Adam Dachis,
LifeHacker, June 18, 2012.
So I wanted to copy an image file to the iPad because there was no way to print it out and I needed to present an invitation at the door to the reception. Easy, right? Not if you're using Apple. Eventually, I found the answer - you have to open iTunes, click on the iPad from the list at left, click on the 'Apps' tab at the top of the screen, and scroll down where you'll see the 'file transfer' section. None of the native apps actually support file transfer, but some apps you can download (like Terra, a browser you can use to replace Safari) will. To view your uploaded file, use file:///whatever.ext (yes, I know you can also email the file, but this means you have to be online, which doesn't work if you've lost your login credentials, which I had).
Surface, by Microsoft
Various Authors,
Microsoft, June 18, 2012.
One of the things Microsoft learned from the iPad, I think, is that taking up half the viewing surface with a keyboard is a bad idea. Hence the keyboard included in the cover (the like of which large numbers of people bought as accessories for their iPads).
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