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Great resources re: creating your own e-books [Michael Haan]

On 05/30/2013, in Adobe, Apple, communications, content development, aggregation, repositories, cost of getting a degree, creativity, digital audio, digital learning, digital photography, digital storytelling, digital textbooks, digital video, e-books, e-publishing related items (EPUB and more), education technology, innovation, interactivity, mobile learning, streams of content, by Daniel Christian

Below are some great resources re: creating your own e-books / streams of content — with thanks to Mr. Michael Haan, Technology Integration Specialist/Purchasing at Calvin College, for these resources
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From DSC:
You might also want to check out Lynda.com for the relevant training materials.
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Let’s create our own streams of content — always up-to-date — plus we could help our students save big $$!  And, as Michael pointed out, such tools could also be used internally for training-related and communications-related purposes.

Thanks Michael!!!

What's the best way to deal with ever-changing streams of content? When information has shrinking half-lives?

 

 

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Game-changing reflections re: “College branding: The tipping point” [Dooley]

On 02/10/2013, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, analytics, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, business side of he, change, changing business models, CMS/LMS, colleges, community colleges, consortiums, cost of getting a degree, creativity, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, data related items, digital learning, disruption, education reform, education technology, elearning, experimentation, faculty, funding / grants, future of higher education, game-changing environment, higher education, innovation, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, internet, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, lifelong learning, marketplaces, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, multimedia, new business models, online learning, online media, online tutoring, pace of change, reinvent, staying relevant, streams of content, surviving, universities, using teams, by Daniel Christian

College branding: The tipping point — from forbes.com by Roger Dooley

Excerpt:

Change is coming to this market. While there are multiple issues of increasing importance to schools, two stand out as major game-changers.

 

From DSC:
Important notes for the boards throughout higher education to consider:

Your institution can’t increase tuition by one dime next year. If you do, you will become more and more vulnerable to being disrupted. Instead, work very hard to go in the exact opposite direction. Find ways to discount tuition by 50% or more — that is, if you want to stay in business.

Sounds like the scene in Apollo 13, doesn’t it? It is. (i.e. as Tom Hanks character is trying to get back to Earth and has very little to do it with. The engineers back in the United States are called upon to “do the impossible.”)

Some possibilities:

  • Pick your business partners and begin pooling resources and forming stronger consortia. Aim to reduce operating expenses, share the production of high-quality/interactive online courses, and create new streams of income. Experimentation will be key.
  • Work with IBM, Apple, Knewton and the like to create/integrate artificial intelligence into your LMS/CMS in order to handle 80% of the questions/learning issues. (Most likely, the future of MOOCs involves this very sort of thing.)
  • Find ways to create shorter courses/modules and offer them via online-based exchanges/marketplaces.  But something’s bothering me with this one..perhaps we won’t have the time to develop high-quality, interactive, multimedia-based courses…are things moving too fast?
  • Find ways to develop and offer subscription-based streams of content


 

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Very interesting web-based exchange: TeachersPayTeachers.com

On 01/04/2012, in content development, aggregation, repositories, K-12 related, marketplaces, new business models, teachers, by Daniel Christian

teacherspayteachers.com

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A good example of pooling resources

On 10/25/2011, in content development, aggregation, repositories, cost of getting a degree, new business models, open courseware and systems, publishing, by Daniel Christian

8 Colleges Collaborate on Open Courses — from Converge Magazine by Tanya Roscorla

Excerpt:

Many students can’t pay hundreds of dollars each term for textbooks. So they choose not to buy any of them.

“They just try to take the class without the book, and boy, that’s hard,” said Marty Christofferson, dean of campus technology at Tompkins Cortland Community College in New York.

This year, eight colleges that primarily serve at-risk students are working together on Project Kaleidoscope. In California, New York and Nebraska, faculty members are collaborating on open general education courses that will cut student textbook costs to less than $30 per class.

 

From DSC:
For some archived examples of pooling resources — and the use of consortiums — see this page on my old website:

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Best idea for higher ed since about 2002 [Davidson]

On 10/24/2011, in content development, aggregation, repositories, higher education, innovation, open courseware and systems, research, society, by Daniel Christian

Best idea for higher ed since about 2002  —  from HASTAC.org by Cathy Davidson

Excerpt:

I just learned about an amazing project (still in Beta) sponsored by the Australian Eight, the eight largest national universities in the country,  called “The Conversation.”  It may well be the most inspiring collaborative project I’ve heard about since about, oh, 2002-2003 (ie I’m joking of course–2002-2003 happens to be when HASTAC went from an “aha!” moment around a conference table to our first actual meeting as a collective; there are tons of other great ideas in higher ed, inc HASTAC’s founding!).   The Conversation translates the best scholarly research into lively journalism.   It makes a giant step towards public intellectualism, taking HASTAC-ish principles of an online network of education innovators learning together in a public and open forum, to their logical (if highly curated) conclusion. Unlike HASTAC, the Conversation’ has a team of professional editors, quite renowned in their collective experience.  They curate and select the best research from many fields produced by specialized academics and recasts it as journalism for the larger public as well as for academics in other fields.   They turn specialized scholarly research written originally for academic experts and peers into accessible, interesting, urgent, and sometimes even delightful fun and creative information for the public at large.

 

Also see:

The Conversation   BETA

Academic rigour, journalistic flair

Addendum later on 10/24/11:

  • Here’s an even BIGGER Idea for Higher Ed! —  from HASTAC.org by Cathy Davidson
    Well, after blogging and tweeting yesterday about the tremendous public aggregator of university research in Australia, an online publication called The Conversation, I heard today from lots of people that there is an even BIGGER version already here in the U.S.—and it includes top research from the U.S., UK, Canada and Australia too.  It’s called “Futurity,” and it is wonderful, and, yes, I should have known about it since Duke is one of the universities that cofounded  it, along with Rochester and Stanford.  But somehow I missed it so now take this opportunity to say how fabulous it is (check it out, it really is fabulous), and how now we have to make sure that HASTAC gets involved to make sure there is even more arts and humanities aggregated as part of its “Society and Culture” category.  Here’s the url for Futurity:  http://www.futurity.org/
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LinkedIn leaps (further) into the content game with SlideShare [Boyd]

On 06/27/2011, in career development, content development, aggregation, repositories, presentations, professional development, publishing, social learning / networks, vendors, workplace, by Daniel Christian

LinkedIn leaps (further) into the content game with SlideShare –– from FastCompany.com by E.B. Boyd

Excerpt:

Everyone knows LinkedIn as a networking tool. But slowly, it’s becoming a media publisher too–or at least a place to find great work-related content.

Back in March, Reid Hoffman’s crew launched LinkedIn Today, a way for businesspeople to share and discover great articles. Today, it announces a tighter integration with SlideShare, so folks can share and discover presentations, videos, and documents from that site.

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Google Building “Global Classroom” in YouTube EDU with 400 Colleges Worldwide

On 06/13/2011, in Australia, Canada, colleges, community colleges, disruption, education technology, Europe, future of higher education, game-changing environment, global / globalization, Google, New "Amazon.com" of Higher Education, online learning, online media, trends, universities, by Daniel Christian

Google Building “Global Classroom” in YouTube EDU with 400 Colleges Worldwide — from blip.tv

About the above video:

Having launched just over two years ago as a hub for college and universitie YouTube channels, YouTube EDU has become a destination for education, providing an index for a broad range of topics and campus activities, says Angela Lin who manages the education program at YouTube. The YouTube site integrates content from 400 colleges and universities in the United States, Canada, Europe, Israel and Australia.

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Association of Educational Publishers & Creative Commons to co-lead learning resources framework initiative

On 06/10/2011, in copyright/ownership/NFTs, internet, publishing, by Daniel Christian

The Association of Educational Publishers and Creative Commons to co-lead learning resources framework initiative — from aepweb.org
Organizations are first to craft industry-specific metadata framework for improving Internet search results

WASHINGTON, DC (June 7, 2011)—The Association of Educational Publishers (AEP) and Creative Commons (CC) today announced a partnership to improve search results on the World Wide Web through the creation of a metadata framework specifically for learning resources. This work is being underwritten with grants from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

— Originally saw this item at Liz Dwyer’s posting at good.is

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Why we need less instruction [Sheperd]

On 06/07/2011, in 24x7x365 access, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate universities / corporate training, formal learning, informal learning, instructional design, social learning / networks, strategy, streams of content, training / L&D, by Daniel Christian

Why we need less instruction — from Clive on Learning by Clive Sheperd

Excerpt:

Another reason you might back away from instruction as a strategy is because it is more efficient to provide how-to materials at the point-of-need – it isn’t learning that’s required, it’s performance support:

 

Information flow150x282

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Nice posting on getting started with RSS and Google Reader

On 06/03/2011, in Google, productivity / tips and tricks, RSS, tools, by Daniel Christian

Getting started with RSS & Google Reader — from the All things Upside Down blog by tmiket

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[From DSC] A note re: RSS feeds and the need to keep the streams moving

On 05/27/2011, in content development, aggregation, repositories, RSS, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:

  • From my perspective and ways of tapping into streams of content, if you don’t have an easy/readily available way to subscribe to an RSS feed — or to enable one to follow your stream on Twitter, Facebook, etc — you have not created a stream of content, but rather a dam. Information and updates are not flowing — they’re stuck. And, most likely, I won’t be coming back.

 

Subscribe to Learning Ecosystems

 

Subscribe to Learning Ecosystems

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Stream Catcher: A new concept for the user interface/learning experience of the future

On 04/15/2011, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, A/V -- audio/visual, content development, aggregation, repositories, convergence, corporate universities / corporate training, Daniel S. Christian, digital audio, digital learning, digital storytelling, digital textbooks, digital video, disruption, distance education, e-books, e-readers, entrepreneurship, future, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), innovation, intelligent systems, interaction design, interactivity, K-12 related, mobile learning, multi-touch, multimedia, online learning, online media, online tutoring, RSS, social learning / networks, social media, training / L&D, usability, user experience (UX), user interface design, web-based collaboration, webinars, by Daniel Christian

 

 

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What’s the best way for learners, employees, organizations, & publishers to deal with constantly-moving *streams* of content?

On 03/18/2011, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, active learning, adult learning, career development, change, collaboration, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, digital textbooks, distance education, informal learning, instructional design, learning ecosystem, learning theories, lifelong learning, microlearning, online learning, online media, pace of change, professional development, publishing, RSS, social learning / networks, social media, staying relevant, strategy, student-related, surviving, teaching & learning, textbooks, training / L&D, ubiquitous learning, workplace, by Daniel Christian

What's the best way to deal with ever-changing streams of content? When information has shrinking half-lives?

From DSC:
After looking at some items concerning Connectivism*, I’ve been reflecting upon the following questions:

  • What’s the best way for us to dip our feet into the constantly moving streams of content?
    (No matter the topic or discipline, the streams continue to flow.)
  • What’s the optimal setup for K-12 based “courses”?
  • What’s the optimal setup for “courses” within higher education?
  • How should L&D departments deal with this phenomenon?
  • How do publishers and textbook authors want to address this situation?

Thinking of Gonzalez (2004; as cited in Siemens (2005)) description of the challenges of rapidly diminishing knowledge life:

“One of the most persuasive factors is the shrinking half-life of knowledge. The “half-life of knowledge” is the time span from when knowledge is gained to when it becomes obsolete. Half of what is known today was not known 10 years ago. The amount of knowledge in the world has doubled in the past 10 years and is doubling every 18 months according to the American Society of Training and Documentation (ASTD). To combat the shrinking half-life of knowledge, organizations have been forced to develop new methods of deploying instruction.”

Stephen Downes addresses this and points to a possible solution to this phenomenon in his presentation from 3/15/11 entitled “Educational Projection: Supporting Distributed Learning Online.”

Excerpt/slides:

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I need to put more thought into this, but wanted to throw this question out there…more later…

 

 

* From DSC: Some of the items I looked at regarding Connectivism — some directly related, others indirectly-related — were:

Siemens, G.  (2005).  Connectivism: A learning theory for the digital age.  Retrieved from http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/connectivism.htm.

Downes, S.  (2005).  An introduction to connective knowledge.  Retrieved from http://www.  downes.  ca/post/33034.  Downes noted that this was published in Hug, Theo (ed.  ) (2007): Media, knowledge & education – exploring new spaces, relations and dynamics in digital media ecologies.  Proceedings of the International Conference held on June 25-26, 2007.  November 27, 2007.

Kop, R.  & Hill, A.  (2008).  Connectivism: Learning theory of the future or vestige of the past? International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, v9 n3 p1-13 Oct 2008.

Tracey, R.  (2009). Instructivism, constructivism or connectivism? Training & Development in Australia, December, 2009. p08-09, 2p.  Retrieved from EBSCOhost. ISSN 0310-4664.

Kerr, B.  (2007).  A challenge to connectivism.  Retrieved at http://learningevolves.  wikispaces.  com/kerr.

Sims, R.  (2008).  Rethinking (e)learning: A manifesto for connected generations.  Distance Education Vol.  29, No.  2, August 2008, 153–164.  ISSN 0158-7919 print/ISSN 1475-0198 online.  DOI: 10.  1080/01587910802154954

Lisa Dawley.   (2009).  Social network knowledge construction: emerging virtual world pedagogy.  On the Horizon, 17(2), 109-121.   Retrieved from ProQuest Education Journals.  (Document ID: 1880656431).

Hargadon, S.  (2011).  Ugh.  Classic politics now extends to social networking in education.  Retrieved from http://www.  stevehargadon.  com/2011/03/ugh-classic-politics-now-extends-to.  html.

Cross, J.  (2001).  Crowd-inspired innovation.  Retrieved from http://www.internettime.com/2011/03/crowd-inspired-innovation.

Rogers-Estable, M..  (2009).  Web 2.0 and distance education: Tools and techniques.  Distance Learning, 6(4), 55-60.  Retrieved from ProQuest Education Journals.  (Document ID: 2017059921).

Marrotte-Newman, S..  (2009).  Why virtual schools exist and understanding their culture.  Distance Learning, 6(4), 31-35.  Retrieved from ProQuest Education Journals.  (Document ID: 2017059881).

Hilton, J., Graham, C., Rich, P., & Wiley, D. (2010). Using online technologies to extend a classroom to learners at a distance.  Distance Education, 31(1), 77-92.  Retrieved from ProQuest Education Journals.  (Document ID: 2074810921).

Attwell, G. (2010). Personal learning environments and Vygotsky. Retrieved from http://www.pontydysgu.org/2010/04/personal-learning-environments-and-vygotsky.

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Content Curation Tools: How to pick the right venue?

On 02/04/2011, in education technology, learning ecosystem, productivity / tips and tricks, RSS, social learning / networks, social media, tools, by Daniel Christian

Content Curation Tools: How to pick the right venue? — from Content Curation Marketing by Pawan Deshpande

Content Curation Venues

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By definition, content curation is the act of continually identifying, organizing, and sharing the best and most relevant content on a specific topic or issue online.  When evaluating which content curation tool to use, there are three primary areas of consideration:

1. The Inputs – Where does the content curation tool get information from? What type of content will this allow me to curate?  Will it help identify and recommend relevant content?

2. The Organization  – What does this tool offer in terms of organizing content once it has been identified?  What type of data models does this represent content as? In a simple chronological list, or an inter-linked structure? Does it let me annotate and editorialize the curated content?

3. The Venue – How and where can I share the content once I have decided to curate it?

In this blog post, I am primarily going to focus on the decided on a content curation tool based on the venue – the channels to which your content is curated.  And just like most things, there’s no one right answer.  It really depends on your goals and objectives.

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eLearning predictions for 2011 and beyond

On 12/27/2010, in 24x7x365 access, accreditation, adjunct faculty, blended learning, career development, content development, aggregation, repositories, copyright/ownership/NFTs, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, e-books, e-readers, educational games / serious games, elearning, faculty, formal learning, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, global / globalization, higher education, informal learning, leadership, learning ecosystem, learning spaces, open courseware and systems, personalized/customized learning, strategy, training / L&D, trends, ubiquitous learning, by Daniel Christian

eLearning predictions for 2011 and beyond — from Web Courseworks.com by Jon Aleckson

Excerpts:

This summer I attended the 2010 Distance Teaching and Learning Conference in Madison, Wisconsin. Some very interesting topics came up in the facilitated Think Tanks, and I wanted to share some of the predictions that were developed from these active group discussions regarding where eLearning will go in the next ten years.

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Below you will find a table that summarizes the different opportunities and challenges that were predicted to arise in the next ten years by the participants in the conference Think Tanks and by [Jon Aleckson].

Opportunities Challenges
Learner
  1. Bridging informal and formal education
  2. Movement between schools to obtain courses needed for custom degrees
  3. Increase in shared knowledge among students and learners
  4. Networking and learning from each other
  5. Resumes will include informal and formal learning experiences acquired via the Internet
  1. Developing standards to gauge education and competency from multiple sources
  2. Providing an authoritative, reliable source for information (e.g. not just Wikipedia)
  3. Physical and psychological distance from other learners and instructors.
  4. Quality measures for informal and formal professional development attained on the Internet.
K-12 Instruction
  1. Reducing barriers to funding, certification, credit and accreditation
  2. Increase access to quality education for all students
  3. Open “course” concept to new blends of delivery and teaching
  4. Providing for more game-based learning experiences and techniques for a variety of learning styles
  5. Using new technology in the classroom
  1. Defining online and blended education
  2. Development of technical infrastructure, internet access and equipment
  3. Maintaining the custodial function of school
  4. Acquiring funding for bold Internet delivered experiences for the classroom
  5. Allowing use of new technology in the classroom
Corporate Training
  1. Just-in-time learning
  2. Greater access to information
  3. Peer coaching
  4. Cloud training
  5. Ability to reach those previously unreachable
  1. Intellectual property rights
  2. Resistance to using open content
  3. Peer review of resources
  4. Unknown impact of open universities
  5. Technical challenges related to size of offerings and rapidly changing technology
Content
  1. Tools allowing for easier collaboration and interaction
  2. Richer media experience (videos and simulations)
  3. Content repositories & Learning Object distribution and searchability
  4. Movement away from static textbooks as primary resource
  1. Growing tension between standard core content and differentiation of content
  2. Where will content for curriculum come from?
  3. What part will student-generated content play?
  4. More copyright issues
Learning Environment
  1. Customized learning spaces, i.e. personal learning environments (PLEs)
  2. Customization of content presentation and access
  3. eReaders and eBooks providing better and more interactive content (just in time)
  4. Changing paradigm of “bounded courses” to unbounded courses where learning is a continuous process that can occur anywhere and at any time
  1. Determining fit and purpose of new tools and pedagogical approaches
  2. Standards for smart phones/mobile apps
  3. Issues with accreditation, privacy and copyrights
  4. Universal access to technology, equipment, and the internet
Faculty
  1. More involvement and collaboration with online and distance learning initiatives
  2. More part-time faculty teaching for several institutions
  3. Faculty practices and entrepreneurs
  4. Changing role of faculty and PD instructors
  1. What will the primary role of faculty be?
  2. Faculty segmentation into master teachers, mentors, researchers, tutors, etc.
  3. Changing of promotion and tenure to accommodate different roles
  4. Changing pay structure
Administration
&
Management
  1. Continued growth of open education with some program stabilization
  2. Improved learner focus
  3. Increased blending/blurring of traditional on-campus with online options
  4. More collaboration with other administrators to influence policy makers
  1. Managing and maintaining growth
  2. How to blend on and off campus learner programs
  3. Regulatory and accreditation issues
  4. Student accountability issues (plagiarism/doctoring)
  5. Improving faculty/ instructor readiness
International Perspectives
  1. Providing access to education even to remote, rural, and developing areas
  2. Promote intercultural mixing and diversity through education
  3. Improving educational access in segregated societies
  4. Sharing resources and co-producing content to reduce cost
  5. Serve new growing customer groups
  6. Informal learning, sharing own learning with others via internet (e.g. blogs, wiki)
  1. Technological infrastructure of societies
  2. Understanding of different people and places
  3. Eliminating the “we and they” thinking
  4. Illiterate audiences
  5. International/cultural conflicts
  6. Developing culturally aware curricula
  7. Differences in cost of education and fees
  8. Selecting suitable types of content delivery
  9. Refiguring content for different learner communities
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