Michelle’s Online Learning Freakout Party Zone

A note from a friend (Leah MacFadyen) bout an interesting conference that will be here at UBC in June and is copied below.

CATaC (Cultural Attitudes towards Technology and Communication) 2010: Diffusion 2.0: Computing, mobility, and the next generations”

On behalf of the Local and Program Chairs, and the CATaC Executive Committee, we are very pleased to pass on to you the Call for Papers for CATaC (Cultural Attitudes towards Technology and Communication) 2010, “Diffusion 2.0: Computing, mobility, and the next generations”.

Venue: University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
Dates: 15-18 June 2010

CATaC’10 will feature keynote addresses by Dr Linc Kesler (First Nations Studies, The University of British Columbia) and Dr John Willinsky (Stanford University School of Education).

The CATaC conference series provides a premier international forum for current research on how diverse cultural attitudes shape the implementation and use of information and communication technologies (ICTs). The conference series brings together scholars from around the globe who provide diverse perspectives, both in terms of the specific culture(s) they highlight in their presentations and discussions, and in terms of the discipline(s) through which they approach the conference theme.

Original full papers (especially those which connect theoretical frameworks with specific examples of cultural values and practices) and short papers (e.g. describing current research projects and preliminary results) are invited. Topics of particular interest include but are not limited to:

• Mobile technologies in developing countries
• New layers of imaging and texting interactions fostering and/or threatening cultural diversity
• Theoretical and practical approaches to analyzing “culture”
• Impact of mobile technologies on privacy and surveillance
• Gender, sexuality and identity issues in social networks
• Cultural diversity in e-learning and/or m-learning
• Both short (3-5 pages) and long (10-15 pages) original papers are sought.
• See “submissions” on the conference website – http://www.catacconference.org for information about submitting papers and formatting guidelines.

The conference web site also provides further details regarding accommodations, submission procedures, etc.

We look forward to receiving your submissions and to welcoming you to Vancouver in 2010!

Local Co-Chair: Leah Macfadyen (UBC)
Local Co-Chair: Kenneth Reeder (UBC)

Program Chair: Herbert Hrachovec (University of Vienna)
Executive Committee:
Lorna Heaton (Université de Montréal, Canada) Maja van der Velden (University of Oslo, Norway)

Fay Sudweeks (Co-Chair, CATaC)
Charles Ess (Co-Chair, CATaC)

Flickr has added a cool new feature to its repetoire – galleries

http://blog.flickr.net/en/2009/09/14/galleries-unleash-your-inner-curator/

This feature allows one to create a collection/set of other people’s photos

I can see some interesting uses for this – including a “webquest” of sorts for students….

As students to create a gallery of minerals or silicate minerals… or other types. Specify that they cannot use more than 2 photos from anyone person.. and ask them to create an introduction that describes what those minerals are, why they are important..

Ask them to create a gallery of photos on a topic, and reflect on the significance, or what they learned…”

Hmmm… maybe that would be a good intro exercise for students to find examples corresponding to items on the geologist’s “Lifetime list”…

If all students have their own account, ask them to create galleries for a specific purpose from other students’ photos…

All kinds of ideas floating…

From Susan D’Antoni of the iiep-0er-opencontent communities list comes a reminder of a few relatively recent OER publications:

“…Open Educational Resources: Conversations in Cyberspace, was released by UNESCO in print in March as the organisation’s first openly licensed publication. It is now also available for free download online. The book brings together the background papers and reports from the first three years of activities in the community. As such, it makes reference to a specific period in the development of the OER movement.  The book is also a fascinating record of our earliest debates and discussions of issues – some of which are still active.”

• Free online edition:
  http://oerwiki.iiep-unesco.org/index.php?title=Open_Educational_Resources:_Conversations_in_Cyberspace.
• Print edition (12 Euros):
  http://publishing.unesco.org/details.aspx?Code_Livre=4671.

She also points to the special issue of Open Learning: The Journal of Open and Distance Learning on Open Educational Resources, which is accessible online:

• http://www.informaworld.com/openurl?genre=issue&issn=0268-0513&volume=24&issue=1

Thought these would be good to note and share!

Perusing through the Chronicle and came across Davis Wiley’s “The Parable of the Inventor and the Trucker“: a reflection on the case for open access scholarly journal publishing. The post is entertaining and pointed, but reading through the comments is even more fascinating as people comment on all aspects of the research/publishing spectrum – journals, books, the role of editors, the various roles of faculty members in different kinds of institutions, peer-reviewers….

David certainly started a conversation!

Ok… I’ve now done it… the new blogging platform is Wordpress.  So far, it seems like:

1. I login using my CWL
2. I see this dashboard thing at the to
3. I click on it.
4. Looks like I’m in this blog here
5. I click on Write Post
6. This form thingy comes up
7. I type in it.

Hmm… this seems tough.

Wait… there’s an add media thing. Stretch those wings

It’s a link, ok…

Need to find the Flickr plugin.. think we have it.

Not sure if I can use this … seems complicated…  

Not sure why I posted a question on a Google Earth Community without posting on my own blog? Love to have some ideas on this question…

I’m trying to understand how I might put together a group activity that allows students to build a collaborative List – without having to do lots and lots of downloading and editing of individual files….

One way I try to help students in my course connect to the course content is to have them read through/explore the “Geologist’s Lifetime list” (http://www.uc.edu/GEOLOGY/GEOLOGYLIST/), then contribute to a discussion where they connect their own experience to the topics mentioned. (They describe their experience relative to some of the topics mentioned in the list, then comment on at least two other students’ experiences). This usually produces a vibrant discussion and is a good way for students to get to know each other.

This year I assembled their list into a downloadable Google Earth tour. This took quite a bit of time (though it was fun!)

I would really like to have the students do this. I know I could ask them to not only post a message, but also attach a kmz file of the location(s). However, I would still need to download & open each file and build a list – not the immediacy that I am I’m looking for.

Is there a way that one could design this so that each student could pinpoint the location on a map and provide a description (plus or minus photos) – and the tour/kmz file builds along the way?

Anyone have a sense of how this could be done?

I really enjoy the “For Better or For Worse” cartoon series. They have been running a series of comics recently which show how young people are communicating with one another. Today’s cartoon was priceless, I thought, and relates strongly to another discussion I have been privvy to about how we support “reluctant” technology adopters.

I, like many of my colleagues believe that the students are helping to drive that train… and today’s cartoon helps drive that home.

Check it out:

For Better or For Worse, Tuesday, May 27, 2008

I was doing some casual Sunday cruising of Flickr and discovered the Library of Congress photostream on Flickr! They have shots from the early 1900’s through the 40’s. All the ones I saw had no copyright restrictions on them…

Its interesting to page through and see some of the comments left by people on these photos. There are the usual flip comments, but in some cases people discuss a memory that that photo brings back or provide links to more resources about the content of the photo. For example, see the comments on”

Suffragettes posting bills (LOC)

Starts me thinking about possibilities for teaching and learning uses for various types of photos on Flickr – “honouring history” mashups….

Cool resource!

In the ever-expanding search for ways to visualize the “new” PLE environment, I ran across Scott Wilson’s latest visual (posted back in Nov 2007). I have to noodle on this a lot more, but it sure points out the “murky land” between…

He explains this to encapsulate ““…. the set of connections between what an institution offers and what individuals manage”.

I re-arranged this a bit for my use, so I thought I would re-post it here. Any messing up of the original is my fault and my apologies in advance to Scott for this.

He’s certainly right – these new systems are not like VLE’s/LMSs we deal with now. We are starting to see some possibilities with the SOA model… I also still struggle a bit with the difference between the coordination space and a portal… Mabe its becuase my concept of a portal is so different than that of the reality of portals.

To me the portal should be the flexible interface that allows us to put things together (ala netvibes) but the reality is a bit too rigid. Sigh.

What I am still trying to figure out is how we make this concept “manageable”. People who are immersed in the Web 2.0 world understand that there is a beautiful order and simplicity in this “chaos”. Those that are used to a world of well-bounded systems shake their head and shudder.

I can’t wait for the day where are institutional identity and portal systems catch up….

Its been far to long since I visited my own weblog and got comfortable again here…

Time to (re)start!

Michelle