A recent new blog, From Toy to Tool Cell Phones in Schools, highlights new developments in web 2.0 applications focusing on mobile learning in k-12 and higher education. With the high proliferation of cell phone use among k-12 and college students across this country, more and more applications seek to structure niche social networks and experiences based solely on how users access information through cell phones. With the cost and use of cell phones significantly lower, than acquiring a computer with high broadband internet service, educators are designing course curricula around cell phone technology and the way their students communicate and access information.

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An interview with Drexel University’s Jean-Claude Bradley discusses educational uses of Second Life. Jean-Claude Bradley also indicates when Second Life might not be appropriate to use. Among the benefits mentioned are that students get to meet other students and teachers from around the world who are attracted by the content. Among the constraints is that students aren’t always familiar, interested or motivated to use Second Life. For Jean-Claude Bradley that translates to a strategy of providing Second Life as another channel for learning, not a required component of his class. He also wouldn’t use it for a course with a large number of students.

http://campustechnology.com/articles/57198/

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Alan Levine of the New Media Consortium has posted a list of more than 50 different Web 2.0 tools that can be used to tell stories in digital form. He provides variations on a single story for each tool, along with some additional examples for many cases. This is a great list to explore to get ideas of how different tools might be useful, accompanied by some tips for generating story topics, using media and preparing your project.

List of 50 ways (plus a few extras) to tell a story using Web 2.0 tools
Slide show of Levine’s conference presentation that is the source of this list

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Two recent articles have highlighted popular teaching content (and the professor- stars who have created it)

The New York Times proudly proclaims: At 71, Physics Professor Is a Web Star. Professor Lewin’s course materials, including videotaped lectures are available on OpenCourseWare at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and at iTunesU.

Fans e-mail him from all over the world, discussing both his inspirational style as well as the concepts he has taught them from watching his videos. Even people who are not students have a new appreciation for physics after watching his presentations.

Two mathematics professors, Douglas Arnold and Jonathan Rogness, at University of Minnesota have created a YouTube hit about Möbius transformations; in the 6 months since this was posted, it has received over one million hits. An article in the Chronicle of Higher Education describes the animation.

We may be able to all have our 15 minutes of fame on the internet. Or, use someone else’s popular content in our teaching.

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Today Yale launched its Open Yale Courses project with seven complete online courses in Astronomy, English, Philosophy, Physics, Political Science, Psychology and Religious Studies.

According to their FAQ, “each course includes a full set of class lectures” as downloadable videos or audio-only files with searchable transcripts and includes other materials such as “syllabi, suggested readings, and problem sets. ”

The Chronicle of Higher Education’s Wired Campus blog post about the project also noted that the project’s scope is intended to be international, with lectures broadcast over Chinese television and an Indian satellite network.

Under the project’s Terms of Use, “Most of the lectures and other course material within Open Yale Courses are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 license.”

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Tired of YouTube? There are at least 3 sites for finding videos on scientific subjects: SciVee, LabAction, and JoVE.

SciVee offers “pubcasts“, which are videos of scientists speaking about a paper they have just published. This is a painless and time saving way of keeping up with some of the peer-reviewed literature.

SciVee also offers videos on scientific topics, from pushing a styrofoam cup through a box to an animation of exploring the moon, to organic chemistry lab videos, to mapping ear wax genes onto human migration patterns across the globe, and a comedy routine about infectious diseases.

“SciVee is about the free and widespread dissemination and comprehension of science. SciVee is operated in partnership with the Public Library of Science (PLoS), the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC).”

Watch the inner life of a cell, or learn real time PCR, or see a simulation of childbirth on LabAction.

“… here at LabAction we make efforts to provide the biology community with the latest videos/movies/information on human genetics, science experiments, science projects, biotechnology, current biology news and much more. LabAction is a community driven free resource for the information on biotechnology, cloning, human genetics, genetic disorders, stem cell research and marine biology. “

JoVE, the Journal of Visualized Experiments is an online video-publication for biological research.

“Journal of Visualized Experiments (JoVE) is an online research journal employing visualization to increase reproducibility and transparency in biological sciences. “

You can learn about motor neuron disease, using microarrays to analyze gene expression, and biofilms, as well as several techniques for maintaining human stem cells.

These sites may be useful not only for scientists, but also for people interested in current events and public policy to help visualize the human genome, stem cells, or simply see how scientists work. And some of them are entertaining.

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Would you like to have your students work together to build an annotated map? Google Maps has just added a collaboration feature. When you are creating a personalized, annotated map using the “My Maps” feature of Google Maps, there is a new button entitled “collaborate“. This feature allows you to email an invitation to others to allow them to help annotate the map. For example, a group of students could create a map based on a course reading, annotating placemarks with insightful interpretations. Alternatively, students could map geological features, watersheds or species distributions. Students involved in community projects could place their own pictures together on a map.

Next to the collaborate button on Google Maps is another feature for sharing information. If you’ve found or created a wonderful KML/ KMZ file using Google Earth, and want to share it with someone who does not have access, click the “import” button to upload the file from the web or your computer. You can then send Aunt Mary the link to see your vacation trip, or share the link with your students via Blackboard. Your students or Aunt Mary do not need to have or use Google Earth to see your map.

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Amazon.com will be soon releasing their highly anticipated e-book reader device, code-named Kindle.

The CIT tested the Sony Reader earlier this year and the Amazon device has many similar features - a screen that uses E Ink technology that resembles a printed page and the ability to hold up to 200 titles. However, Amazon’s entry into the market will include wireless capability that allows for purchase of titles directly on the device without a computer and can even be used to update purchased titles with new information. It can also search through books for particular words and phrases. Amazon has several partners in the publishing industry, providing what promises to be a wide range of content.

feature article at Newsweek

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Two professors are leading a project to produce and freely distribute 1,000 original open content electronic textbooks that will be freely available from a Web site. The goal is to make textbooks more available to those who are disadvantaged and cannot afford conventional textbooks.

Richard T. Watson, interim head of the department of management information systems at the University of Georgia, and Donald J. McCubbrey, a professor of information technology and electronic commerce at the University of Denver, have started what they call the Global Text Project. Professors and experienced professionals (including graduate students, in some cases) from around the world each write, pro bono, at least one chapter of a book. Each chapter is reviewed by a scholar. Editors then assemble the chapters into complete books. The books are written using wiki software which allows writers to frequently edit and update the material. Scholars and professors have the final word in the content, to avoid the criticism sometimes leveled at wikis, namely that the communal editing process can introduce errors or result in unsubstantiated information. The project leaders also plan to work with traditional publishers and relevant authorities to facilitate dissemination by other means when bandwidth is unavailable or inadequate.

The Global Text Project intends to publish books in Arabic, Chinese, English, and Spanish. The project leaders estimate that they will need 20,000 volunteers to write all the materials they have planned.

The Chronicle of Higher Education’s article about the project is here.

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Audio and even video capture of lectures is becoming more common on college campuses, which post the material to their Web sites so that students can revisit a lecture after the fact.

But Drexel University in Philadelphia, long known as a technology powerhouse, is using the university’s academic capture product in another way. There, instructors are far more likely to produce recordings from their desktops, including individual commentaries to a student from a professor. Staff members also are using rich media recording software, a product from TechSmith called Camtasia Studio, in new ways, such as creating online training videos for new hires.

However, where Camtasia really shines at the university is in what Drexel’s director of academic technology innovation, John Morris, calls “individual capture.” Most Drexel instructors who are taking advantage of Camtasia, he said, are using it at their desktops… ( Here’s an example* of a professor providing written and audio feedback while marking up a student’s paper and recording the process in a Camtasia video.  *Need a RealPlayer to view the video)

The source is from: Linda L Briggs, “Drexel Puts Course Capture To Work on Desktops,” Campus Technology, 10/24/2007, http://www.campustechnology.com/article.aspx?aid=52378

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