Something new: a “blogshop” on online learning + more online learning tools
Tomorrow I move out of my comfort zone in presenting on the uses of online learning in higher education. I am at the University of Newcastle and will, in the morning, give another version of my presentation on Web 2.0 tools for online learning at university (search for “Matthew Allen”). This presentation will be fine: it has worked well before but is very didactic and controlled.
In the afternoon I am giving a “blogshop” which is my neologism for a workshop-involving-blogging. It involves co-present, computer-mediated interactions in which the users (aka labrats) will join and participate in a collaborative blog just for the period of the workshop. The blogshop is called ’5 Steps Towards new-fashioned online learning’ (at http://knl.posterous.com ).
Amongst other things, the blogshop is going to involve Todaysmeet back channelling, identity creation and management via Gmail (for Posterous and Slideshare) and exploring another ‘top 10′ Web 2.0 tools. I’ve already been extolling the virtues of Posterous, Slinkset, Mind42 and others. Now we are going to start exploring:
- Chartle (Chartle.net tears down the complexity of online visualizations – offers simplicity, ubiquity and interactivity instead)
- Flexlists (With FLEXlists you can create simple databases of anything you want, with every field you need.You can share the list with others, invite them to edit the list or just keep it for yourself)
- Groups (Roll your own social network)
- Moreganize (Moreganize is a multifaceted organisation tool. It is suited for both professional and private use and is especially convenient if a larger group of people needs to get organized!)
- Planetaki (A planet is a place where you can read all the websites you like in a single page. You decide whether your planet is public or private.)
- Qhub (Qhub is a platform you can use on your blog or website that allows your audience to ask questions and get real answers, it doesn’t just help answer questions it allows a genuine community to develop around your site.)
- Scribblar (Simple, effective online collaboration Multi-user whiteboard, live audio, image collaboration, text-chat and more)
- Spaaze (Spaaze is a new visual way to organize pieces of information in a virtual infinite space. Your things, your way.)
- Squareleaf (Squareleaf is a simple and intuitive virtual whiteboard, complete with all the sticky notes you’ll ever need. Unlike the real thing, our notes don’t fall off all of the time.)
- Survs (Survs is a collaborative tool that enables you to create online surveys with simplicity and elegance.)
- Voicethread (With VoiceThread, group conversations are collected and shared in one place from anywhere in the world. All with no software to install.)
(all quotes from the websites concerned)
Posterous rocks. I am now too wedded to the flexibility and power of WordPress to change my main blog, but I think Posterous really has a great ease-of-use factor that, if you want simplicity, recommends it.
The substantive point is this:
developing people’s ability to engage in innovative online learning design is not about the software per se: it is about their ability and attitude to work with the cognitive engineering available via the web to create interactive learning experiences (where interactive implies interactions between computers and humans, as well as humans themselves). Therefore the blogshop provides, I hope, an experiential learning activity: learning by doing, while thinking, and communicating about that experience.
Contact me if you want to repurpose, reuse or otherwise mashup the knowledge networked learning blogshop – it’s creative commons