One of my colleagues called attention to the upcoming Python conference in Vancouver, July 31-August 2…
Vancouver Python Workshop Homepage
Though Python is not my language (well, I really don’t program..)
…. it is becoming increasingly important for our community efforts — > we will be looking to migrate out e-learning web site (http://www.elearning.ubc.ca) to a Plone backend… thus the python!
They did extend the deadline for submissions…
Prices are very very reasonable..
I ran across this again via Jim Farmers weblog (while on a wiki chase) Stories of Contemporary Practice at Deakin – 2003 Online Teaching & Learning Fellows.
I really like the format of these case studies.. they provide a synopsis of the work, showcase the faculty member, and link to asssociated resources.
This is close to the model we’re looking to use when we launch our elearning website with a Plone back-end.
Just wanted to blogmark this…
CETIS-Web services stuff we can nick
Nice list and succinct explanations of usefuly Web Services protocols…
Explorers’ archives opened to all…
Oh my — I just can’t wait….
I mentioned in an earlier post that we were going mainstream with this blogging thing (in reference to the PC MAg article). Now, I am sure of it:
These problems could be solved, said Mr Gates, by using blogs and Real Simple Syndication (RSS), that lets people know when a favourite journal is updated.
“What blogging and these notifications are about is that you make it very easy to communicate,” he said.
“The ultimate idea is that you should get the information you want when you want it.”
Source: BBC article: Gates backs blogs for businesses
Oh my.
E-mail provides Arctic lifeline
Michelle — Resist the urge to say — now isn’t this cool?
Ah well… Failed that.
When we think of designing for students in less than ideal Internet conditions… hard to top 2.4 Kbps…
I have to wonder though, did they type the e-mail messages in real time, or did someone council them to compose offline, cut and paste?
Just a plug for our annual e-Strategy Town Hall, scheduled for June 15, 2004.
The Town Hall is an annual event for everyone in the UBC community to come together and discuss the role of technology and e-Strategy at UBC.
This year’s theme is ‘UBC e-Strategy: Enabling People to Excel’, where we’ll explore the ways technology enables learning, research, and community, and the role these initiatives and e-Strategy play in furthering UBC’s strategic goals.
This is event is open to UBC faculty, staff and students.What: Town Hall 2004 ‘UBC’e e-Strategy: Enabling People to Excel’
When: Tuesday, June 15th, 2004
Where: UBC Forest Sciences Centre, 2424 Main Mall, Vancouver, UBC
To Register: Register online at
http://www.e-strategy.ubc.ca/townhall/register.html
Program:
Read the program at http://www.e-strategy.ubc.ca/townhall/program.html
Information: Visit the Town Hall web site at http://www.e-strategy.ubc.ca/townhall
HIGHLIGHTS INCLUDE:
* Our keynote address is ‘Becoming the Change: Linking e-Strategy to Educational Values’, by Dr. Tom Carey from the University of Waterloo. Find out how the values we want to develop in our students can be reflected in our teaching practices and our technology plans.
* A great line-up of more than 30 presentations on a range of topics in e-Learning, e-Research, e-Community, Connectivity, e-Business and more, including an opening address by UBC President Martha Piper.
* An interactive panel on e-Research, where we’ll examine how technology enables opportunities in research and learning at UBC that we couldn’t do before.
* New this year – browse through the poster presentations, after the seminar sessions, where you’ll have the opportunity to talk one-on-one with presenters about their initiatives.
* Sessions are non-technical and accessible to everyone.
* Opportunities to share information and network with colleagues, over a complimentary lunch and at the wine and cheese reception at the end of the day.
Contact: Email us at e-strategy@ubc.ca.
This event is hosted by the e-Strategy Executive Steering Committee.
I think I have said this before — but I’ll say it again.. the Educause Quarterly consistently publishes some of the best papers for learning technologists…
The latest volume is strong throughout..
A few of my favorites this month are as follows:
“Fifth Annual EDUCAUSE Survey Identifies Current IT Issues”
By Donald Z. Spicer, Peter B. DeBlois, and the EDUCAUSE Current Issues Committee
In my mind, this is a must read for those supporting learning technology initiatives. Each year, Educause surveys the IT senior managers and develops this summary. It helps us understand what other campuses are concerned with, as well as place some of our efforts in a wider context.=======================
“Portfolios to Webfolios and Beyond: Levels of Maturation”
By Douglas Love, Gerry McKean, and Paul Gathercoal.
This article is a good follow on to an article from the same authors two years ago (On Implementing Web Based Electronic Portfolios).
I really like how it captures the dynamic nature of portfolios — bringing home the fact that portfolios are a as much a process as a product — and not a single product. Makes me want to make a rubric!! …. I think that this will be fuel for discussion in the e-portfolio community of practice!
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“Using a Framework to Engage Faculty in Instructional Technologies”
By Nancy Chism
Following on the heals of the UBC’s Learning Conference this article is timely! Like the portfolio article, this one emphasizes the iterative nature of the process of incorporating technology into teaching and learning –How we teach evolves over time, so one would expect that how we use technology will as well as we experiment and reflect on the process and results… . I look forward to digging into this much further…
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“One Course, One Web Site-of Course? Maybe Not!”
By Ellen R. Cohn
This article provides a good set of ideas around how one can promote sharing across course boundaries, and the associated curricular and community benefits. This is an area that a number of programs (e.g., Pharmacy) & projects (e.g., learning objects) have been concerned with here at UBC.
Over the years, I think I have seen WebCT-based examples of almost every one of the web site types described here at UBC and elsewhere. The various WebCT conference archives (accessible at the WebCT site — for example, http://www.webct.com/2003) are good places to look for examples, actually. Just goes to show you hwow software is rarely used exactly the way that the developers expect you to use it!
The rest of the articles are well worth reading as well.. just wanted to put in a word! Back to reading..
Trolling around on a Sunday as usual, following a link from Ray Schroeder to the PT3 site, I came across the PT3 e-Portfolio site:
E-Portfolios – the eportfolio description is a nice, concise one…
A gem linked from the Houston Independent School District e-portfolio project site at Rice University , specifically, their Action Plan page, is a paper from the 2001 AERA conference. The paper,
by Peggy Placier, Kathleen Fitzgerald, Peter M. Hall of University of Missouri-Columbia digs into a complex issue:
This study portrays the complex process of adoption of a new cultural tool, the electronic portfolio, in the context of a teacher education program in the throes of internal restructuring and external political pressure.”
This paper provides some good context and detail from both student and faculty perspective, as well, at least to me, serves as a cautionary note for those getting into e-portfolios — make sure that teaching and learning needs of the students (portfolio owners) is what drives your initiatives …. or the results may not be as satisfactory as you hope….
http://www.coe.missouri.edu/~sti/papers/AERA2001/portfolio.pdf
May seem like an odd thing…
sort of like Alan’s comment aboout the e-portfolio job posting.. (shouldn’t people submit an e-portfolio?)
that I bring up printing as the monster under the e-portfolio bed… but it is!
The first question that faculty ask about e-portfolios — as we found in recent workshops — is “how do I print this?”. Promotion and Tenure committees don’t take electronic submissions…
We need to be able to avoid hearing this question….
“Why should I do this if I have to redo this?”
SO… what to do? I’d love to hear people’s thoughts on this one. I would think that somewhere in the eportfolio universe there should be a way of outputting the portfolio as PDF file — is there a magic driver that will allow us to take different file type and merge them into a batch print job?And while I am asking for miracles… format and paginate them… automatically generate the first screen of a movie file with a printed link to the media clip…
And the whole portability thing… can we take a specific portfolio and output it as an IMS content package?
I know this is a new technology — but if we can solve this printing problem anyway … boy would it be nice…
thoughts… ideas on the printing dilemma?
Aside from saying that committees should change — we know that. But it’s not happening fast… and this barrier is one that we should be able to remove, I would think….
Note entered on April 25…
I’m looking for something akin to WebCT’s compile function (see screenshot below)… where I can select the file from a content module that I want, and print them. My idea is to extend that capability further, and be able to output any file into a PDF doc…
I know that I can output a PDF doc from a browser.. though the control level is low — that would at least be a start!
Actually, if my e-portfolio were a WebCT content module, I could actually output it as a content package…
hmm….
