dougbelshaw.com/blog

Welcome back!
#uppingyourgame: an educator's guide to productivity is now up to v0.4!
(I'm looking for people to translate it into other languages when finished - if you're interested get in touch!)

I’m delighted to announce on behalf of EdTechRoundUp that we’ll be having a (completely online) ‘TeachMeet’ on Sunday 6th December 2009. It’s called TeachMeet ETRU edition 09 and will hopefully be the first of many!

If you’re not too sure what a TeachMeet is, watch the excellent explanatory video by the BrainPOP team below:

Please do sign up to do a 7-minute ‘micro’ presentation, a 2-minute ‘nano’ presentation or to be an ‘enthusiastic lurker’. The idea is that we’ll be using Adobe Connect Pro for the TeachMeet. Presentations can be done live, but I for one will be pre-recording mine!

I noticed that TeachMeet Falkirk had a QR code* to make life a bit easier for those publicising the event. Here’s one containing the URL of TeachMeet ETRU edition 09

Finally, please remember to include the tag TMETRU09 when discussing the TeachMeet on Twitter, uploading Flickr photos, YouTube videos or blogging about it!

* A QR code, for those who don’t know, is kind of a barcode that stores information – in this case the URL of the wiki page (more at Wikipedia). Try it by downloading the software from qrcode.kaywa.com.

Posted: October 5th, 2009
Categories: ETRU, Education, Technology
Tags: CPD, EdTechRoundup, Flickr, QR Code, TeachMeet, TMETRU09, Twitter, video, videoconferencing, wiki, YouTube
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Ever since I read Matt Mullenweg’s post How P2 Changed Automattic I’ve been thinking about how I could best utilise a similar system. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, watch this video:

But then it dawned on me this morning: there’s no reason I couldn’t use such a system for private, me-only stuff!

As E-Learning Staff Tutor last year and as Director of E-Learning this year, I’ve been keeping a record of what I’ve been up to. This is as much about me being able to cross-reference stuff as proving to others (if needed) that I’ve been fulfilling my role. Up until now I’ve been using Google Docs, which looks like this:

Now, however, with Wordpress, the P2 theme and a plugin called Absolute Privacy, I’ve got a close, web-based system that should hopefully be a lot more flexible and powerful:

We’re discussing productivity for educators tonight at EdTechRoundUp’s weekly meeting. Why not join us? I’ll post my reflections on this system next week!

Posted: September 27th, 2009
Categories: ETRU, Productivity
Tags: Automattic, Google Docs, Matt Mullenweg, P2, plugins, Productivity, theme, Wordpress
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Image CC-BY photoplaydotcom @ Flickr

I’m not so sure on the name, but it’ll do for the time being. What follows comes from a few discussions I’ve had with EdTechRoundUp folk and a previous post entitled The importance of heuristics in educational technology and elearning. You may want to read the latter to understand what I’m getting at.

Suffer the poor person new to the wonderful world many of us inhabit. I don’t think the phrase ‘Web 2.0′ quite covers it any more, to be honest. Some have clutched at different titles to set those who inhabit this ‘other’ space – some have talked of the ‘networked teacher’, the ‘connected educator’ and so on. I’m not sure sure we need a formal title, but I think most people will know what I mean when I say there’s a difference between being a teacher in a classroom with a textbook, and being a teacher connected to literally hundreds of others worldwide through various communications technologies and conventions.

The trouble is, how do you get into this cocktail party?

• What happens if you don’t know who to turn to?
• What if you haven’t got a Twitter network to support you yet?
• What if you’ve just found a tool and you’re wondering if it could be used with students?
• What if you can envisage an end product but don’t know the technological means of getting there?

That’s where this idea of heuristical templates comes in.* If people committed to using a common format to review and discuss tools and applications relating to educational technology and e-learning, then this would have a number of advantages:

1. It would give the newbie a common structure that they could seek out.
2. If Creative Commons licensed, these could be syndicated in a central place.
3. It would lead to some cohesion in certain parts of the edublogosphere.

An example of someone who blogs extremely well about new tools and approaches is Tom Barrett. By the end of reading one of Tom’s posts you know what the tool can be used for, why you’d use is, any problems there may be, and other people who have used it before.

To that end, and inspired by Tom, I suggest the following structure taking Posterous as an example.

* Perhaps E-Learning Templates is better? Hmmm…

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Name

Posterous

URL

http://posterous.com

What is it?

Posterous is a blogging solution. A blog is a website that is easy to maintain and which has the most recent content at the top. Posterous sets itself apart from other blogging solutions as it is almost entirely updated by using email. Sending an email to post@posterous.com serves not only to set up the blog but to update it. Posterous deals ‘intelligently’ with email attachments – for example turning MP3s into an embedded media player and Powerpoint presentations into slideshows.

How much does it cost?

Posterous is free for up to 1GB of space. The FAQ says that in future Premium (paid-for) features will be add-ons to the functionality available for free.

Opportunities

• Low barrier to entry – everyone can email!
• Does intelligent things with attachments.
• Can blog via mobile phone.
• Integrates with Twitter, Flickr and Facebook.
• Custom avatars.
• Group blogs (by adding more than one email address to a blog)
• Custom domain names.
• Blogs can be imported from other platforms.

Barriers

• Limited customisation (stuck with white background)
• Moderation?
• Sidebar not very useful
• Ads in future?

Examples please!

• Doug Belshaw’s Posterous – links to his Year 10 History students’ blogs.
• John Maklary – Texas Weather Bugs
• Mr Herbert’s Geog Blog Site
• Mr Smart’s Learning Smart Blogs
• AJ Cann’s Posterous

Reviews

• TechCrunch
• ReadWriteWeb
• John’s World Wide Wall Display

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So what are your thoughts? A good idea or not?

Posted: September 12th, 2009
Categories: ETRU, Education, Technology
Tags: EdTechRoundup, heuristics, Posterous, review, templates
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As regular readers will know, for the past couple of years I’ve been meeting up on a Sunday evening with like-minded educators to discuss all things relating to educational technology and e-learning. We’re far from being an exclusive group and, although we’re mostly from the UK, some do join us from further afield.

We’ve been on a summer break since the end of last academic year, but we start again tomorrow night, 30 August 2009 at 20.30 BST.

So make it your new (academic) year’s resolution to try and set aside an hour at 20.30 GMT/BST every Sunday evening to join us via FlashMeeting (meeting schedule here). More at edtechroundup.com!

Posted: August 29th, 2009
Categories: ETRU, Education, Technology
Tags: edte.ch, EdTechRoundup, educational technology, elearning, ETRU, FlashMeeting
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In late 2007 I helped bring together a group of UK-based educators with the intention of releasing regular podcasts about real-world educational technology. That group became known as EdTechRoundup. It was officially launched during the TeachMeet at BETT in January 2008. Later in the year, with the weekly discussions becoming well-attended, we made the decision to release our discussions as a separate podcast: EdTechRoundup Weekly.

During February 2009 even bigger changes have taken place. Following a successful ’special’ on student blogging and Wordpress Multi-User, I called a meeting of those for ease-of-reference I called the ‘admin team’. These are simply people who have already got involved with the behind-the-scenes work of extracting the audio from the FlashMeeting, tidying up the wiki, editing podcasts, etc. As such, membership of this team is open to anyone.

The result of our discussion can be found here on the blog. We decided to focus more on developing the community and therefore the following has come about:

• We shall use the hashtag #ETRU on Twitter and other social media sites (#ETR was already taken!)
• As a consequence of the above, we shall be known as EdTechRoundUp (note upper-case ‘U’)
• Those intending to attend our weekly FlashMeetings should sign up on the relevant wiki page. This is to prevent problems if the FlashMeeting becomes full.
• A new subdomain, http://hub.edtechroundup.com brings together blog posts relating to educational technology from those involved in the community. Any regular attender of the weekly discussions can ask to have their blog posts syndicated.
• In order to facilitate better feedback from those who listen to the ETRU podcast a forum has been set up at http://forum.edtechroundup.com. Listeners can then ask questions and seek clarification, as well as it being a place weekly discussion participants can continue their conversations!

If you weren’t aware of what EdTechRoundUp have been up to, we would invite you to come and join us! We meet at 8.30PM every Sunday evening for around an hour. Failing that, please do listen to the podcast, read our syndicated blog posts, and get involved in the forum!

Posted: February 24th, 2009
Categories: ETRU, Education, Technology
Tags:
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After a suggestion received, quite fittingly, from another Twitter user, Tom Barrett is weaving his magic again. This time, after getting educators to collaborate on ways in which Interactive Whiteboards, Google Earth, Google Docs, and Pocket Video Cameras can be used in education he’s turned his (and his network’s) sights on Twitter:

I got involved straight away – in fact mine’s the first tip on there! Get involved by contacting Tom (@tombarrett)

Posted: February 4th, 2009
Categories: ETRU, Education
Tags: edte.ch, Education, educational technology, elearning, Google Docs, Google Earth, interactive whiteboard, Tom Barrett, Twitter
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