Laura Blankenship March 26th, 2008
We successfully recorded the Information Management Workshop. It ended up in two parts.
We covered using Google Reader and RSS Feeds generally, EndNote Web, del.icio.us, and Zotero.
Laura Blankenship February 28th, 2008
Shameless self-promotion. Here’s a podcast I did at ELI with Veronica Diaz. We talk Web 2.0, faculty support and education. Enjoy.
Laura Blankenship February 25th, 2008
Here is the presentation from our session on using blogs. It’s also available as a video from iTunes U.
Laura Blankenship February 25th, 2008
Over the weekend (and snow day), I saw the educational blog world aflutter with the news about Blackboard’s win over rival D2L. Inside Higher Ed covers the story quite well. (Also at The Chronicle.) Blackboard’s patent has long been disputed and many in the educational technology community have been critical over Blackboard’s recent business practices. In fact, according to Michael Feldstein, who has been following the case since it began, Blackboard is losing customers and some blame these practices in part. Blackboard’s many patents are still being reviewed after several entities, including the Software Freedom Foundation asked the patent office for the review (which I discussed here). Educause, the leading organization for higher education technology, also criticized Blackboard’s patents. I think it will be a while before we fully know what the fallout (if any) is. D2L is likely to appeal and we’ll be waiting for the patent review as well.
Laura Blankenship February 6th, 2008
Google has announced the ability to use spreadsheets combined with a form to collect data. Let’s try it out. Here’s a link to my form.
Laura Blankenship February 6th, 2008
I’ve been back from the Educause Learning Initiative Annual Conference for a few days now, finally catching up on everything. There were lots of great sessions from ELI that I want to recommend to those who did not attend. All the recorded sessions are available here.
First, I’d recommend George Siemens’ talk on Connectivism, which provides a new way to think about learning. I’ve been following his work for quite a while and find it quite compelling. This talk was a good introduction.
Second, I’d recommend Michael Wesch’s talk on Human Futures for Technology and Education: A Crisis of Significance. I didn’t get to see this talk myself as it conflicted with my own panel, the video for which you can find here and the audio here. You may know Wesch’s work from YouTube. He’s had a few videos go viral.
Third, Intellagirl’s talk on using Second Life to teach rhetoric was quite inspiring and had me looking at Second Life in a new way.
Each talk is about an hour, includes video and slides and is well worth the time spent viewing them. It’s a great way to see some of the ideas from a conference without having to go. But it’s also well worth going for the discussions in between. Hopefully, in watching these videos, you’ll have things to discuss as well.
Laura Blankenship January 12th, 2008
For the last two days, I’ve been at NITLE’s Scholarly Collaboration and Small Colleges in the Digital Age conference. It’s been a great conference so far. Both Tim and Kathleen have been liveblogging the panels and have really good notes and commentary on each of those sessions. Here are what I think are some key points so far:
I’m looking forward to a few more good sessions today.
Laura Blankenship January 3rd, 2008
As it turns out, those who are computer literate are more likely to use the library than most others. Young people between the ages of 18 & 30 who are internet savvy, those that some in older generations complain are less interested in such things, are twice as likely to use a library as those who are not. Interesting finding that bodes well for information literacy, if we seize the opportunity.
Laura Blankenship October 19th, 2007
Everyone should read this article in The Chronicle. It’s some food for thought for many of us whose work often blends between home and work and vice versa. How hard a line should one draw between work use and home use?
Laura Blankenship October 5th, 2007
A couple of people sent this to me and I’ve already printed it out and put it on my door (come see it and more!). It’s also blog worthy.
