Hobgit Web Hosting News

Every web publisher knows the “>importance of Google traffic and of avoiding the risks of being penalized. All too often, a sudden traffic drop may be the symptom of a hacking attack to your web site, and until you realize what has exactly happened and what to do to correct it, you may lose lots of traffic and its associated revenues. WordPress in particular, the most popular blogging platform today, is increasingly targeted by spammers and malicious attackers trying to exploit each and every code vulnerability.

Matteo Ionescu and Daniele Bazzano

Are you sure your web site is completely under your control? Spammers and hackers easily add fake web pages and malicious links to your web site without you even knowing it. Then they steal your content and redirect your visitors to bad web neighborhoods. When the Google bot find out all of this, you know your site will not be among the first set of search results anymore.

To better understand how to prevent your web site from suddenly losing its traffic or authority within the Google SERPs, I have asked in these two short videos Matteo Ionescu, Robin Good’s personal SEO advisor, to suggest some basic guidelines to follow to prevent such situations from happening and to protect your content from being used in ways that may damage the credibility and visibility of your web site.

Here the two videos with a full text transcription with all of Matteo’s advice:

Intro by Daniele Bazzano

Sudden Google Traffic Loss: Possible Causes And Remedies

Duration: 4′ 41″

Full English Text Transcription

Intro

Daniele Bazzano: Hello everyone, this is Daniele Bazzano for MasterNewMedia, and I’m here today with Matteo Ionescu, which is Robin Good’s personal SEO, search engine optimizer.

Hi Matteo, how are you doing?

Matteo Ionescu: Fine Daniele, thank you. How are you?

Daniele Bazzano: I’m doing great, thank you.

Google Traffic Failing Issues

Daniele Bazzano: Matteo, I just contacted you because I wanted to know… What can I do if I see that Google traffic is failing on my site?

Matteo Ionescu: If your Google traffic is going down, I’d suggest to look for all your recent changes in your web site, especially regarding outgoing links.

Maybe you’ve put some links to a bad neighborhood, or maybe there’s a link on your web site to a bad web site and you don’t even know anything about it.

Keep a Good Security Level on Your Web Site

Daniele Bazzano: So, there can be links to bad neighborhoods in my web site that I don’t know anything about? How this could be possible?

Matteo Ionescu: Unfortunately today hacking is very common.

Hackers use some tricks to put links to spam web sites, like using some comment forms or mailing forms, or also using some FTP magic in order to put some web pages that you don’t know anything about on your web site.

So, check your FTP and be careful about keeping a good security level on every aspect of your web site.

Check Your Web Site For Duplicated Or Stolen Content

Matteo Ionescu: Another thing I would suggest to look closely is the web site’s navigation.

If you’ve made some changes to navigation menus, I’d suggest to turn off Javascript and have a look around and check if all pages are still reachable also with Javascript disabled.

Besides this, duplicate content problems can also be critical. if you’ve introduced some new features on your web site, that allow to see content in a different way, be careful not to create too many useless pages or take care of this with a noindex tag.

Also, go on Google and search for your main keywords and your articles’ titles and see if some scraping has been done.

Maybe some other web sites are ranking with your keywords, using your stolen content. This can be a serious issue especially if your domain is not too strong.

Pretty much that’s it.

Scraping

Daniele Bazzano: Matteo, you mentioned scraping. What is that exactly? I’ve never heard about it.

Matteo Ionescu: Yeah, content scraping is an old technique which unfortunately is used by spammers which steal text, or content from web sites, and then put it on another domain, on another frame, and try to steal your traffic using your work.

Helpful Resources When Building A Web Site

Daniele Bazzano: I see. There are many things to care about when you build up a web site, but are there any tools that can help me out when building a web site and checking its integrity?

Matteo Ionescu: For sure, there are lots of them. Building a complete list is very hard, also because this is a fast-moving world.

But I’d personally start from Google Webmaster Tools, which can be an excellent tools for diagnosing some kind of problems early.

Regarding the duplicated or stolen content problem, I also suggest Copyscape.com, and to read the most popular SEO blogs, like Matt Cutts‘, which gives good advices on how to build web sites and how to make sure nothing goes wrong.

Daniele Bazzano: Thank you very much Matteo, these sure were great advices.

I think that’s pretty much it, so thank you very much, and talk to you later. Bye, ciao!

Matteo Ionescu: Ciao!

WordPress Site Hacked: What To Do And What To Check

Duration: 4′ 54″

Full English Text Transcription

Intro

Daniele Bazzano: Hello everyone, this is Daniele Bazzano for MasterNewMedia, and today I’m here with Matteo Ionescu, which is Robin Good’s personal SEO.

Hi, Matteo, how are you?

Matteo Ionescu: Fine, thank you Daniele. How are you?

Daniele Bazzano: I’m doing great, thank you.

How to Prevent Hacker Attacks on WordPress Sites

Daniele Bazzano: Matteo I wanted to ask you today… If I have WordPress installed on my web site, how can I prevent any hacker attacks?

Matteo Ionescu: WordPress hacking has been quite a problem a lot of times, even on famous blogs, like on all open source software.

I suggest to keep your WordPress updated, always to the latest version. Be careful that upgrading WordPress is easy, but you should make sure first that all your plugins are compatible with the new version, or you might experience some problems in some functionalities of your blog.

Another big advice is to try to hide which WordPress version you are using. This is almost easily accomplished with a small plugin which is called WordPress Version Remover. Just install this plugin on the head section of the page. The version will not be shown anymore.

Be careful also to have a closer look to the source code of your blog pages.

See if the WordPress version is shown, even in the footer, because sometimes, some themes call the WordPress version tag in the footer. If this is the case on the footer.php file of your theme, clean the WordPress version part.

What If Your Site Has Already Been Hacked?

Daniele Bazzano: Ok, Matteo, thank you. But I was just thinking… these were advices to prevent hackers to attack my site, but what if hackers have already screwed up my site? What can I do after?

Matteo Ionescu: The best thing would be to replace a backup.

This is why I strongly encourage everybody to install automatic database backup. There are many plugins which can accomplish this task.

And backup your FTP at least once a month. This is a very good practice.

But if you’ve been hacked, and you don’t have a backup, you can try to recover the situation upgrading to the latest version of WordPress, making sure that there are no more backdoors for the hackers like usernames that are not created by you.

If present, remove some malicious strips in folders that are not standard WordPress folders. You can download WordPress again and have a look at the structure of the folders and check that everything matches to your own website.

Then, obviously change the password after upgrading, edit your wp-config.php, and change or create the secret key definition.

Also a good practice on a new log might be to insert random code or random word in the secret key definition, to make life more difficult for hackers.

Pretty much that’s it.

WordPress Plugins

Daniele Bazzano: Thank you Matteo, so you mentioned that using plugins I can accomplish many things on my site.

Would you mind just naming a few that can be useful?

Matteo Ionescu: There are a lot of WordPress backup plugins.

I think there’s a good one which is called WP-DB-Backup. But if you Google for “wordpress database backup“, you’ll find lots of plugins which do this.

Besides that, you can also do it by hand, or using phpmyadmin, which is a very popular interface that you find on most hosting packages.

Daniele Bazzano: Thank you very much Matteo, this was surely useful. I thank you, and I’ll talk to you later. Bye, ciao!

Matteo Ionescu: Ciao!

Originally shot by Daniele Bazzano for MasterNewMedia and first published on December 5th as “Traffic Drop? WordPress Site Hacked? What To Do And How To Protect Your Blog From Sudden Disaster“.

Is our worldwide education system ready to prepare for the unpredictability and fast changes that the 21st century will be serving?

Photo credit: Elizabeth Hanson-Smith

Education isn’t only about creating employees. It’s about empowering individuals to become individuals with the ability to manage effectively the increasingly faster transformations of a complex world like ours.

This is why, one should measure education by looking at how tangibly such goal is achieved rather than by measuring the number of tested and certified students the school system is capable of producing. True education, when successful, must essentially prepare its students for dealing with greater and more complex problems. But not those served in a neat and sanitized math test, but rather those emerging from the clash of the multidisciplinary realities we inhabit.

Learning how to handle uncertainty, as well as how to rapidly adapt to fast changing environments is the real blockbuster formula to an education approach that provides the mental tools to cope with whatever can come your way, rather than pre-emptying you with static notions and arid, reality-isolated formulas..

Here all the details:

eLearning Resources and News

learning, networks, knowledge, technology, trends

by George Siemens

Connectivism: Networked Learner

Over the last 12 weeks, Stephen Downes and I have facilitated a course on Connectivism and Connective Knowledge. The final “project” for enrolled participants is to reflect on the quality of their own learning networks.

Wendy Drexler has posted a video of her final project that is (deservedly) getting significant attention: Connectivism: Networked Learner (also available on YouTube)

Definition of Emerging Technologies for Learning

I received an email recently asking for my definition of emerging technologies for learning. To enlarge the conversation, I asked the question on Twitter. The following are responses:

• Eduinnovation: “Those technologies that allow learners to connect, collaborate, and create with other learners, mind-to-mind, anywhere & anytime”
• prawsthorne: “an innovation that captures attention, engages and deepens learning so the learner/teacher can self-measure the improvement.”
• MarkMilliron: “any technology YOU don’t quite understand that you’ve heard might improve teaching and learning”
• UNMVCTLC: “using technology TOOLS to improve the learning process while enhancing the instructional environment” and “using those tools that are not fully explored to reach new frontiers in methodology, experiences and concepts”
• jdwilliams: “I think emerging (web) technologies are just sites/apps my district hasn’t found to block (yet)”
• Darren Draper: “Emerging technologies for teaching and learning consist of all hardware, software, concepts, and ideas that can be employed to advance social, connective, and educational processes”
• davecormier: “usually defined as - stuff George likes - I believe”
• bengrey: “A body of knowledge or innovation not yet widely adapted or fully actualized which holds educational implications”
• StonyRiver: “New Direction Learning Technologies”

How do you define emerging technologies for learning (or is the attempt to provide a definition sooo web 1.0?)?

Social Computing

Dave Snowden is well-known in the knowledge management field. He has been kind enough in the past to present to online conferences that we have hosted at University of Manitoba (most recently, our Future of Education conference). Over the last few years, his writings / presentations have taken a turn that very much fits in with concepts presented in this forum and in CCK08.

Dave started blogging about two years ago, but I’ve been following his work through his publications and contributions to ACT-KM. I could be imagining things, but his shift to blogging seems to coincide with his increased attention to the fragmentary nature of information.

Distributed conversations, not packaged as they have been in the past through frameworks such as articles and books, in blogs provide an interesting experience in personal sensemaking.

In a recent presentation (.pdf of slides - why not slideshare?… podcast is here), Dave details seven principles of KM, including: “Tolerated failure imprints learning better than success.”

Visualizing Data

Click the image to go to the interface page

OECD has been learning from Hans Rosling and Gapminder. In order to make their data more accessible, they’ve created (or had someone create) an application for visualizing data.

I personally prefer gapminder’s interface, but OECD’s contribution is appreciated. If data is made more accessible it will be used more often as a guide for decision making (he says in his most idealistic voice).

Microsoft’s Personal Reboot: Web-Centric, But Beyond “The Cloud”

Microsoft has been a favorite source of mockery for all the cool web 2.0′ers.

Microsoft is seen as too closed, too confined to the desktop, too late to search, and too out of touch with how people want to compute. In the face of this criticism, Microsoft continues to attempt a transformation - Personal Reboot: Web-Centric, But Beyond “The Cloud”:

“Cloud computing may be trendy, but Ozzie says MSFT’s best course moving forward is a hybrid desktop/Web-based strategy… future success hinges on new products that win over the masses instantly.”

Education Needs to Be Pulled Into The 21st Century

Short rant. Articles like - Education needs to be pulled into the 21st century - cause many educators to smile and nod in agreement.

The report broadly splashes all the latest and coolest terms that cause sensible educators to viciously agree:

“In an increasingly complex and competitive world, teachers must understand technology and connect coursework to the global economy, curricula should eliminate less relevant material and incorporate modern skills such as global awareness, technology and media literacy, and standardized tests must include these new subjects”.

Ok. That’s very nice. We are then treated with the typical mis-focused comment: “I hope to encourage policymakers to better equip our graduates for today’s and tomorrow’s jobs”.

Education isn’t only about creating employees. It’s about assisting individuals to develop into the types of people that can tackle and handle the continual gyrations of a complex world. I don’t buy into the “education must prepare people for jobs that don’t yet exist” view. Education - as it always has - must prepare people for an unknown future. This isn’t new.

When I was going to school, the particular job that I have today did not exist. How should we prepare people for, let’s say, the current financial crisis? By training people to be stockbrokers? No. You can’t prepare people for black swans. People must be capable of handling uncertainty, but also adapting as environments shift and change.

At its most basic, education must move from epistemology to ontology. Getting back to the report: give us something useful. Statements as broad as those provided in the article (i.e. “develop new programs, standards, partnerships and assessment measures”) are hardly a basis for action. Perhaps it’s time that we stop focusing on what our curriculum is and start focusing on how we actually do curriculum in the first place.

Systems for Supportive Open Teaching

We’ve experienced this in CCK08: Systems for Supportive Open Teaching:

“I think it more valuable to think about how openness changes the basic praxis of teaching from an essentially individual activity to a shared activity.”

But, as we’ve discovered, openness may produced shared activity at some levels (students helping each other, taking on leadership roles, connecting to others outside of the course, etc). Open teaching is really best seen as open learning. When we learn in transparent ways, we become teachers. But not everyone wants to learn in open ways.

In CCK08, we had numerous participants who did not contribute by posting or commenting. Instead, they observed / lurked. They did not contribute in the way we would have expected. Lack of direct participation does not mean they didn’t learn - at least that’s what some participants have expressed here.

Open teaching, therefore, means also rethinking our expectations of engagement. We simply can’t control students the way we have done in classroom environments. Open teaching will become a rather shallow concept if we bring too much of closed-classrooms to the process.

Online Learning Requirements

Grassroots activities in incorporating technology into teaching and learning goes a long way. Due to the current design of the education system, grassroots activities keep bumping up against barriers.

However, initiatives like this one in Minnesota will become more common:

“To expand access, increase technology skills, provide exciting and inspiring course content, and maximize efficiency and use of taxpayer resources, Governor Tim Pawlenty and Minnesota State Colleges and Universities (MnSCU) Board of Trustees Chair David Olson today announced a goal to have 25 percent of all MnSCU credits earned through online courses by 2015.”

It’s a start. I’d like to hear more about how they’re planning to develop the faculty to actually teach the online courses… and how they’re redesigning the existing education system to ensure that they aren’t only transferring content online, but that they are actually transforming the learning experience to utilize the affordances of the medium.

Google’s Experimenting With New Search Features

Google is experimenting with search. Basic idea: when you’re signed in to your Google account, you’ll see the option of voting results up / down and to add comments to results. This doesn’t (yet) impact the results others see. It’s supposed to help personalize search.

Results are mixed.

• Some hate it.
• Others question it.
• Others love it.

Originally written by George Siemens for elearnspace and first published on November 27th 2008 in his newsletter eLearning Resources and News.

About the author

To learn more about George Siemens and to access extensive information and resources on elearning check out www.elearnspace.org. Explore also George Siemens connectivism site for resources on the changing nature of learning and check out his new book “Knowing Knowledge“.

Photo credits:
Connectivism: Networked Learner - solarseven
Definition of Emerging Technologies for Learning - PDAToday
Social Computing - Dawid Makowski
Visualizing Data - Gapminder
Microsoft’s Personal Reboot: Web-Centric, But Beyond “The Cloud” - PDA Thoughts
Education Needs to Be Pulled Into The 21st Century - Helder Almeida
Systems for Supportive Open Teaching - Andres Rodriguez
Online Learning Requirements - sefa öncül
Google’s Experimenting With New Search Features - Google

As more and more students begin to attend online courses, is the educational system well aware of the potential of outside-the-classroom approaches in learning?

George Siemens - Photo credit: Injenuity

The abundance and consequent fragmentation of information gives increasing opportunity to specialized forms of education that more effectively address personal contexts and individual needs rather than the usual pre-packaged, dogmatic, teaching-like approaches.

Educational technology expert George Siemens suggests that, online learning, homeschooling, and PLE (Personal Learning Environments), are just some of the new alternative choices learners are increasingly considering when interested in learning outside of the traditional classroom.

Here all the details:

eLearning Resources and News

learning, networks, knowledge, technology, trends

by George Siemens

Need Help.

I often hear educators talking about “education needs to change” (I do it too). This is the case for the K-12, higher education, and corporate training / education markets.

As a small research project, I’d like to ask people to answer the following questions (on their blog, in YouTube, Seesmic, or wherever):

• Does education need to change?
• Why or why not?
• If it should change, what should it become? How should education (k-12, higher, or corporate) look like in the future?

E-Learn 2008

I don’t like Powerpoint a whole lot. We don’t really have a good alternative for presentations.

I’ve been experimenting with different approaches. Most recent is PersonalBrain, which I used for my presentation at E-Learn 2008 in Vegas today.

Moving to Neutral Tools and Applications

Common Craft has produced a short explanatory video on Microsoft Live.

The internet is starting to look like the desktop in the 80’s - numerous companies trying to mainstream new applications through a new centre.

Microsoft integrated a variety of tools into its Office suite, making it possible for many new users to try tools that had each been unique. Working in a spreadsheet or word document became more seemless than when working with two different vendors. Now, the web is moving in that direction, with Google, Microsoft, and MySpace / Facebook all trying to do to with the web what Microsoft did to the desktop.

I’d like to see a world where any content works on any device… but I wonder if it will mature before someone has managed to lock in a good portion of the web in one application (or cloud).

With Students Flocking Online, Will Faculty Follow?

It really doesn’t have to be said, but I’ll do it anyway: we are in a climate of uncertainty. Awareness of economic issues (cost-cutting, layoffs) is high. Online learning has the potential to play a significant role in this climate.

Trends indicate a growing move to online teaching and learning. This article asks: With Students Flocking Online, Will Faculty Follow?:

“As online courses’ popularity continues to rise, many administrators are struggling with a steep learning curve, one whose ultimate end point is far from being determined.

Questions such as how such courses should be taught (by adjuncts or full-time faculty?) often depend on institutions’ missions (expand access or generate extra revenue?) and can lead to clashes and tensions between proponents of online learning and those who remain wedded to the traditional classroom.”

My question is directed at institutions: Are our institutions (and systems) of education ready to embrace online learning strategically and more than an add-on?

Homeschooling Goes Mainstream

Education is being enlarged. More choices, more options. F2F, augmented, blended, online learning, etc are enlarging options for learners and educators to deal with individual, personal needs and contexts.

Much like content is fragmented from large holding structures (newspapers, books, courses), the entire education system itself is breaking into muliple specialized choices. For example - homeschooling goes mainstream:

“Home education is now being done by so many different kinds of people for so many different reasons that it no longer makes much sense to speak of it as a political movement.”

High-Speed Internet Coming to Africa

I’ve been suffering connection issues.

Earlier this year, I was in Accra for Elearning Africa.

The connection issues were significant there as well. Participants at the conference knew the importance of connectivity in advancing African economies. Yet the problem was / is huge. Many areas don’t have electricity, never mind internet connectivity. Still, news like this - High-Speed Internet Coming to Africa - is encouraging.

While foreign aid and development work are critical for Africa, the long term challenge is one of providing individuals with the tools and opportunities to shape their own future.

If Only We Had Something Other Than Content on Which to Base Education…

The hype around open educational resources (OERs) is growing to the level that web 2.0 inhabited several years ago (I recently posted a short overview of openness in education).

The problem with OERs is that they are too often focused on content.

More recently, a few educators have been pushing the concept of openness through open teaching and open accreditation. But, as Brian Lamb notes,

“if we live in an era of information abundance, why is the primary drive around OERs the publication of more content? And what other activities around the open education movement might be an effective use of our energies? What other needs have to be met?”

Personal Learning Environments

Learning happens constantly. The formal education component receives more respect than informal learning.

As content and conversations fragment, I doubt existing systems of education will retain their shape. The real opportunity lies in how institutions think about “tying together” the multiple learnings across our daily lives.

Canadian Council on Learning introduces the multiple learning domains as “limitless dimensions of learning”.

Two approaches are possible to serve as the glue to pull learning together in a manner that can be accredited or evaluated by traditional educational models:

1. eportfolios
3. and personal learning environments.

Eportfolios have great potential, but little uptake.

Personal learning environments have similar potential, but the concept is a bit difficult for educators to grasp.

I would have loved to sit in on a recent session by three individuals who know what they’re talking about…here’s their commentary on the workshop: Jared Stein, Chris Lott, and Scott Leslie.

This PLE thing will yet take root :).

Higher Ed: Next Bloated Industry to Go?

With the financial world in turmoil, it’s logical for people to turn attention to other fields that are in need of change. Nothing like a crisis to force introspection that should likely be ongoing.

Higher Education is often criticized for its bureaucracy. Now that governments and businesses are in “belt tightening” mode, we’ll see pressure on higher ed as well: Higher Ed: Next Bloated Industry to Go?:

“Like so many of our great industries and social sectors, higher education has grown huge, bureaucratic, and in many cases bloated (think 24-hour coffee shops in dorms).

The ongoing trends of globalization, technology, and innovation continue to pressure societies and economies and America’s world leading system of higher education is going to have to respond just like other great institutions.”

While it is unsettling to be staring into an uncertain future, times of change offer opportunities for transformation. I’m optimistic that the catalyst needed to foster innovation in education can be found in the current crisis.

The Future of Learning: Ten Years On

Stephen Downes has written an important paper: The Future of Learning: Ten Years On.

I need to spend more time reviewing the specifics of future learning, but after an initial read, Stephen has created a valuable document that should serve as a discussion piece for detailing the direction of our field.

I suspect this document will be prominent in this week’s CCK08 discussion on systemic change in education. I’d recommend Stephen arrange a few illuminate sessions in the near future to flesh out his predictions and engage with the online community for feedback (I’d like to see an exploration of data visualization and sensemaking techniques).

Second Life & Divorce

Any space in which people can interact (physical and virtual) brings out human nature. Our minds don’t seem to really care if something is real, observed, or imagined (at least this is the suggestion made with the discovery of mirror neurons).

Several months ago, I was chatting with an individual who said her location didn’t allow her to see sunrises and sunsets. Instead, she watched them in Second Life while she enjoyed a cup of coffee or tea.

The social impact of virtual worlds is not fully understood (especially considering they are still first-generation tools - virtual worlds will continue to get more real, further blurring what we physically experience and what we create online).

Second Life & Divorce presents a glimpse of how morals and ethics will be (re)considered online.

Google and Video Conferencing?

While it’s not video conferencing, Google has added video functionality to Gmail. Many tools (notably Skype) already offer similar (but superior) functionality. I’m interested in where Google will go with this.

It would be exciting to have video conferencing options available for educators who are already using Google Docs, Gmail, and other services.

Originally written by George Siemens for elearnspace and first published on November 21st 2008 in his newsletter eLearning Resources and News.

About the author

To learn more about George Siemens and to access extensive information and resources on elearning check out www.elearnspace.org. Explore also George Siemens connectivism site for resources on the changing nature of learning and check out his new book “Knowing Knowledge“.

Photo credits:
Need Help. - Pathathai Chungyam
E-Learn 2008 - AACE
With Students Flocking Online, Will Faculty Follow? - Financial Aid TV
Homeschooling Goes Mainstream - Rob Marmion
High-Speed Internet Coming to Africa - The Robert Goldwater Library
If Only We Had Something Other Than Content on Which to Base Education… - Robyn Mackenzie
Personal Learning Environments - Ana Blazic
Higher Ed: Next Bloated Industry to Go? - UW Madison
The Future of Learning: Ten Years On - Education World
Second Life & Divorce - Teenagers Street
Google and Video Conferencing? - pro it zone

Pretty soon mobile devices will be used to stream live and on-demand, recorded training courses, engaging learners on the move even in the absence of traditional face-to-face approaches. But, would you attend a course via your mobile phone?

Photo credit: lumigopereira

Easy of access to high-speed networks is indeed empowering individuals, while forcing elearning designers and content producers to think more thoroughly at how to best engage the learner when his surrounding environment (public places, bus, underground station, etc.) becomes so potentially noisy and distracting.

In all cases, what emerges clearly is the individual’s shrinking reliance on traditional brick-and-mortar institutions in favor of new and emerging virtual ones.

In this edition of the Media Literacy digest, George Siemens keeps exploring the development of different technologies and their potential impact on teaching and learning. His focus is on tools that increase learner control over content, interaction, and on the creation of learning networks with peers and experts outside of classrooms.

Here all the details:

Intro by Daniele Bazzano

eLearning Resources and News

learning, networks, knowledge, technology, trends

by George Siemens

Emerging Technologies Course

Final week to register for the first course in University of Manitoba’s is offering a Certificate in Emerging Technologies for Learning: Introduction to Emerging Technologies (starts November 17). I’m co-facilitating the course with Dave Cormier…so I’m looking forward to a great course!

From the course description (.pdf):

“New technologies offer new opportunities for educators to increase learner engagement and improve the overall value of the learning experience.

The last five years have resulted in the introduction of numerous new tools and approaches: blogs, wikis, podcasts, social bookmarking, virtual worlds, and social networking services. This course will explore the development of different technologies and suggest their potential impact on teaching and learning. Focus will be placed on tools that increase learner control over content, interaction, and the formation of learning networks with peers and experts outside of classrooms.”

Creating Knowledge: Network Structure and Innovation

When organizations begin planning new ways for employees to share knowledge, the focus is often misplaced on the explicit act of sharing knowledge itself.

We cannot meaningfully “force” people to share. At best, we can create situations / conditions / ecologies in which exchange of ideas will occur. Or, more succinctly:

“Promoting knowledge sharing is a matter of :

1. creating the relational conditions that facilitate interpersonal transfers, and
2. creating the structural conditions that facilitate diffusion.

”

Designing Mobile Learning

According to the Oxford Internet Institute, the use of smart phones (i.e. mobile phones used for multiple activities: browsing, maps, music, video, etc.) is doubling every two years (.pdf).

Designers and educators are recognizing that it’s no longer appropriate to think only of laptop / desktop browsing to access learning materials.

Major LMS vendors - such as Desire2Learn (see here) are developing mobile functionality with their platforms. As is generally the case, consideration of the medium and its unique attributes is important.

Designing Mobile Learning emphasizes this point from the learners perspective:

“Before embarking on creation of a mobile accessible course you will want to understand how the learner’s experience changes when they view your course through a mobile device.

Mobile devices are typically used in a very distraction-filled environment. Learners may be on a bus, on a train, at the store, eating lunch, or at work. The mobile device screen is very small. This limits what the learner can see and can make it difficult to read a large amount of content, view graphics, or see moving graphics.” (via Workplace Learning Today)

My First Keynote

ZaidLearn has been an active blogger, focusing on open learning and open tools. Great to see he is giving (has given) his first keynote address to a Malaysian conference.

As Stephen Downes states, it’s great to see people achieving genuine success in the pursuit of new tools / approaches in education. Congrats Zaid!

(On a side note, I’m looking forward to my first visit to Malaysia in December as an extension of a presentation in Singapore. Wonderful things happening around the world in educational technology).

Analyzing The Obvious: Technological and Social Connections

I’ve been enjoying the delightful Australian weather and hospitality for the past week.

Today, I presented at Learning Technologies 2008. My slides - Analyzing the Obvious: Technological and Social Connections have been posted.

Richard Feynman, the legendary physicist and educator, used to state a concept most students first encounter in physics: everything is made of atoms. The key to understanding learning is similar: connections, and the patterns they create, are the foundation.

Understanding The Real Structure Within Your Organization

Strategy is enacted not by mandate, but by how resources are allocated.

Bill Ives suggests leaders need to understand the actual structure of organizations. Organizational structure and information flow is often not what appears in formal policies and org charts.

While organizations may not be very adaptive, people are… and people will find ways to address challenges and concerns based on context and need. Unfortunately, planning is future-focused, rather than reality-focused.

I’m Leaving

Formal education faces some of the most profound changes in its history. Social learning theory, technology, and learner empowerment / engagement are only a few of the change pressures facing education. Times of change, however, reveal our character (wasn’t it Warren Buffet who said something to the effect of “you only find out who is swimming naked when the tied goes out”?).

After decades of changes in educational philosophy, divisions are becoming more evident.

I’m Leaving is an article that should raise the blood pressure of any educator. The author reveals a disdain for learners and calls for a return to high ideals and expectations of education (can’t we be learner focused and still adhere to high ideals??). The comments further reveal strong divisions.

Some educators agree that learners have “become soft” with a growing sense of entitlement. Others suggest the real problem is with the professor.

The Future of Universities

How are universities likely to be impacted by current technological trends? Two publications seek to address this question:

The Tower and the Cloud:

The emergence of the networked information economy is unleashing two powerful forces.

1. On one hand, easy access to high-speed networks is empowering individuals. People can now discover and consume information resources and services globally from their homes. Further, new social computing approaches are inviting people to share in the creation and edification of information on the Internet.

   Empowerment of the individual - or consumerization - is reducing the individual’s reliance on traditional brick-and-mortar institutions in favor of new and emerging virtual ones.

2. Second, ubiquitous access to high-speed networks along with network standards, open standards and content, and techniques for virtualizing hardware, software, and services is making it possible to leverage scale economies in unprecedented ways.

The Future of Higher Education:

Technological innovation, long a hallmark of academic research, may now be changing the very way that universities teach and students learn. For academic institutions, charged with equipping graduates to compete in today’s knowledge economy, the possibilities are great.

Distance education, sophisticated learning-management systems and the opportunity to collaborate with research partners from around the world are just some of the transformational benefits that universities are embracing.

Both publications are technology-centric. I can understand that emphasis, after all, technology is changing the rest of the world, surely it will soon make a more significant impact in education.

A view of educational change pressures needs to be more broad. Economic, societal, population trends, rise of education levels in emerging countries, may all apply as much influence in altering education as technology.

New Issue of IRRODL

Terry Anderson just announced a new issue of IRRODL focusing on a timely range of issues: transactional distance education theory, student blogging, connectivism, etc. I found the process reengineering article particularly interesting. It’s a bit too narrowly focused for my liking, but starts on a path that will continue to gain explorers; namely - how do we change education? How do we change our systems to account for trends?

Originally written by George Siemens for elearnspace and first published on November 7th 2008 in his newsletter eLearning Resources and News.

About the author

To learn more about George Siemens and to access extensive information and resources on elearning check out www.elearnspace.org. Explore also George Siemens connectivism site for resources on the changing nature of learning and check out his new book “Knowing Knowledge“.

Photo credits:
Emerging Technologies Course - Microsoft
Creating Knowledge: Network Structure and Innovation - Leonardo Da Vinci
Designing Mobile Learning - Feng Yu
Understanding The Real Structure Within Your Organization - Stephen Coburn
I’m Leaving - ronen
The Future of Universities - adistock
New Issue of IRRODL - IRRODL

Lijit is a free solution that helps you increase page views and reader engagement on your own site. By placing a non-intrusive search box on the side of your web pages, Lijit scans your site and discretely suggests your readers for additional relevant content.

Todd Vernon and Robin Good - Photo credit: Robin Good

In this video interview with Todd Vernon, CEO of Lijit, Robin Good goes after understanding what are Lijit main strengths and key benefits for an online publisher.

With Lijit not only you can provide your visitors with a normal search tool, but also redirect their interest across other content you’ve already published. And the more valuable content you offer to your readers, the more you establish your credibility as a trusted source of information.

Here all the details:

Intro by Daniele Bazzano

Increase Page Views And Reader Engagement On Your Site - Video Interview With Todd Vernon - CEO Of Lijit.com

Duration: 10′ 37″

Full English Text Transcription

Intro

Robin Good: Hi everyone, this is Robin Good from Rome, Italy, and today I’m talking to Todd Vernon, CEO of Lijit. Is that the correct pronunciation Todd?

Todd Vernon: That’s pretty close. It’s Lijit (emphasis on the second ‘i‘). Like too legit to quit.

Robin Good: Oh, I hadn’t seen it that way. Being a foreigner with your language, we cannot pick it up the way we do. Thank you for giving a new insight into it.

Why Lijit Is Special

Robin Good: I’m just a small guy representative for the typical would-be professional web publisher, and I’m very curious to know from you: why would Lijit be something that I would want to consider integrating with my blog, new site, professional review, web magazine, or whatever I have?

What are the key things that make Lijit so special?

Todd Vernon: Ok, it’s really simple Robin.

What we do is replace or enhance the search box that’s already on your site, your blog, your publication, because a lot of people don’t get any value from that as a publisher.

There is very little publisher side value to search. What I mean by that is you don’t know when people come to your site:

• What they’re looking for.
• What items they’re searching for.
• What’s happening.

We provide a lot of great intelligence around that. But that’s not it. That’s not the only thing.

From the reader side value we provide a much different experience than you would get from your existing normal search box.

We search the content in your blog, your publication. We search the content that surrounds that, such as your Flickr photos, or your YouTube videos, or things like that. We also crawl out through your blogroll and search your influencers.

When you think about it, it’s really interesting. It’s just exactly like things happen in the real world, when one of your readers would like to ask you a specific thing; maybe you’re not always available to answer that live on e-mail, but if they search through you they’ll get a lot of valuable information you’ve written about, bookmarked, or you’ve heard from your friends.

How Lijit Works

Robin Good: Very cool indeed. Do I gather that basically Lijit can act as a major search on any type of RSS-based content output that I produce anywhere out there. Is that the correct way of thinking?

Todd Vernon: That is exactly right. We have a really cool sign-up situation when you come to our site, and you enter your URL for your publication, we actually automatically find out most of your relationships through your blogroll. We also find out most of your other content’s sources automatically.

It literally takes four minutes to install our service with very little input from you. You can just tweak little things, but you get and your readers the wealth of information, and you get this wealthy statistics about what they’re looking for.

Use Lijit on Your Site

Robin Good: You said that installation takes only a few minutes. People get always scared when they hear that word: installation.

You want to get just briefly through what that entails. Do I need to have a server, is it a plugin for the browser, something that I download, install on my computer…

What are we talking about?

Todd Vernon: Super simple. You just go to our site, enter the URL of your blog.

We find all these things automatically, and it’s real fun to watch as we go out and search for all those different contents, sources, and people. You’ll see all that happen on the screen in front of you.

Then the final step is a one-click install for TypePad or a simple small one-line of Javascript that you insert in your publication, and you’ll get a customized looking search box with a search cloud or some other features that you select. It instantly works.

There is different ways you can get search results on your site.

It can be a Javascript overlay, or it can be a separate page loaded with different things. But the whole thing together is super simple. It’s a lot of fun, it’s a really quick fun installation, which is why we have a huge number of people that install that come to the site, and it should not take you more than two-three-four minutes, probably.

Customize Your Content Sources

Robin Good: Good. You mentioned that it’s a fascinating process when Lijit gets into my setup at the beginning… discovering the relationships and things that are related to me. But can I then, after the process has taken place, still go and edit and add some things you haven’t discovered yet, or take off some that I don’t want to be public?

Todd Vernon: Yeah, all your relationships and your content sources are editable. If perhaps one that we didn’t just find out automatically, it’s super simple to add it, and then that gets wrapped into the whole corpus of search information that gets returned to your readers.

SEO Advantages of Lijit

Robin Good: Do you think are there specific advantages in using Lijit from a search engine visibility standpoint?

Todd Vernon: I don’t know that it helps one way or another from a search engine visibility standpoint. But what we do is a really cool feature when your readers come from a search engine… as typically about 27 per cent across our network of readers, who come to a blog, or a publication, come from a search engine…

What happens is they usually find a specific document within Google or Yahoo! that you have particularly high PageRank on, and that’s why they came to your site. They read that one article and then what typically happens is they hit the back button in their browser and you’ve lost them.

That’s what we call it a “second click situation“.

What Lijit does as a feature of installing our service: when someone comes to your blog, or your publication and it loads, we go out and do a proactive search of the content that also matches that specific search term that was entered into Google. We open up a sidebar that shows other content you have written about that same subject, but perhaps didn’t have high PageRank. That actually grabs readers, keeps them on your site once they’ve done reading the one thing that brought them there, which is a huge benefit to publishers.

We all know it’s hard enough to get high enough PageRank to get people to come and recreate that drawer that pull, and what we do is keep them around.

Prices

Robin Good: Fantastic, that’s really useful to know.

Finally, I wanted to ask: what about the cost of this? For us users it’s just all free and no ads… what’s your business model?

Todd Vernon: When you install Lijit, we place ads along the sidebar within the search result page. Much like someone like Google would do. That helps pay for the service. But the really interesting thing, we just announced a couple of weeks ago, is now as a publisher you can come back to your statistics page where we show you all the cool information, and you opt into revenue that is generated from those pages.

In the coming weeks we’re going to release some other cool stuff, which will allow you as a publisher to actually manage and sell your own keyword inventory in your search results. Which is something that has never been able to be done before.

For a publisher that has some ad relationships already, perhaps, or a publishing network that may have ad relationships, we can create a very cool system for them, where they can broker all their own search keywords and sell them to a specific ad representatives. We can do a different split for them where they receive the majority, because they brought the sale of the ads to the deal, and it’s a new capability that no one has ever been able to do before.

Lijit vs. Google Custom Search Engine

Robin Good: Last but not least, I guess many of my publishers would ask you: what would you say is the key advantages comparing Lijit and using Google CSE (Custom Search Engine), which is the solution most of the independent web publishers use to monetize through AdSense utilize?

Todd Vernon: Yeah, I would say that probably there’s two things that I can think of right at the top of my head, and there’s probably like five… But the ones that really resonate with me are:

1. As a publisher, you get almost any value from search.

   You don’t get any statistics, you don’t know what people are looking for, what search terms were entered that perhaps didn’t return results. This is whole wealth of information: where are people located on the planet, when they enter the search term, all geo-location.

   We provide a really cool piece of publisher value to search to really make it more really in-depth than analytics tool for a publisher.

2. The second thing is we provide so much more information than you can get through CSE, we have much deeper integrations with Flickr and YouTube, using all their right APIs to pull data. You get rich photographs in your search results, and other great stuff like that.

   We actually have two levels of service with us when you sign up off the Web. We actually use Google CSE in the backend to be the search engine for you, but if you send us an e-mail we will put you on our proprietary platform that has all these deep integrations, and it’s really cool.

So if anybody wants that part that we kind of reserve for the larger publishers, we’re all about turning you on. All somebody has to do is ask us, and if they mention Robin Good we know where they came from.

Robin Good: Fantastic, that was wonderful information.

I’m getting off this call with lots of things that I want to try out myself, which is a good sign.

I’ll be comparing and testing Lijit with Google CSE, and hope to be reporting in an article what I find out that is interesting for everyone.

I appreciate you sharing all these practical, direct information without any hype Todd.

I wish you to keep me in the loop for anything new that happens on your site.

Todd Vernon: I’ll absolutely do it, thanks for having us.

Robin Good: Alright. Have a great day Todd, talk to you soon.

Todd Vernon: Thank you, bye-bye!

Originally shot and recorded by Robin Good for MasterNewMedia and first published on November 4th 2008 as “Increase Page Views And Reader Engagement On Your Site With Lijit - Video Interview With Todd Vernon“

“New technologies offer new opportunities for educators to increase learner engagement and improve the overall value of the learning experience.” (Source: George Siemens)

George Siemens - Photo credit: Dean Shareski

Is your university or college using Facebook, wikis, podcasts, or other social media technologies to communicate, interact and engage with its students?

Educational technologies expert George Siemens, focuses once more on the relevance collaboration technologies have in shaping today learning. While collaborative tools and new media technologies provide great help in supporting teachers’ work and in helping learners interact and share their personal discoveries, their use should not be driven toward envisaging them as a total replacement of existing educational approaches but rather as extensions of it.

What technology is supposed to do instead, is to serve as a walking stick to provide learners with the ability to collaborate, confront and exchange ideas to make a better and more complete sense of the world, even outside classrooms physical limits.

If you are passionate about learning, about understanding more of what new technologies and media are transforming, this weekly digest takes you to places, facts and resources that help you make greater sense of the increasing relevance and impact these tools are having on our educational landscape.

Here all the details:

Intro by Daniele Bazzano

eLearning Resources and News

learning, networks, knowledge, technology, trends

by George Siemens

Introduction to Emerging Technologies

A few weeks ago, I mentioned that University of Manitoba is offering a Certificate in Emerging Technologies for Learning.

The first course - introduction to emerging technologies - starts November 17. From the course description (.pdf):

“New technologies offer new opportunities for educators to increase learner engagement and improve the overall value of the learning experience.

The last five years have resulted in the introduction of numerous new tools and approaches: blogs, wikis, podcasts, social bookmarking, virtual worlds, and social networking services. This course will explore the development of different technologies and suggest their potential impact on teaching and learning. Focus will be placed on tools that increase learner control over content, interaction, and the formation of learning networks with peers and experts outside of classrooms.”

Social Networks, The Next Educational Tool?

Social Networks, the Next Educational Tool?:

“At last year’s Educause conference, in Seattle, educators pondered what to do about students’ technology habits. Should they try to change them? Accept that they’re here to stay? Try to co-opt them?

A lot can change in a year. Many colleges seem to have moved on from the question of whether to follow students’ lead on technologies they prefer, from Web-based e-mail to Facebook to text messaging. Now, the dilemma they face is whether to adapt students’ existing habits - of messaging each other, checking each other’s profiles and browsing upcoming parties - to the educational realm.”

The key concept I’m seeing in the use of technology in the service of education is that of enlargement.

New technologies are not meant to necessarily replace existing approaches; instead, they are enlarging the range of options for learners. We’re not doing away with email. Or even learning management systems. We’re adding blogs, wikis, social networking , virtual worlds, and numerous other technologies to current practices. And that’s exactly how it should be.

It’s difficult to predict which technologies will survive and which will fade. A spirit of perpetual experimentation is needed. Try many approaches. Stick with the ones that demonstrate some promise.

Microsoft Office Embraces The Browser

Microsoft doesn’t really have an option: Microsoft Office embraces the browser.

I watch how my children use software. Multiple devices (ipods, laptop, desktop, mobile phones) access the same resources (gmail, google docs).

Microsoft still has a dominant position on the desktop. But the desktop is no longer our sole option for creating and sharing documents. When our computing and interaction with others is not device centric, our software can’t be either.

Storytelling: Web 2.0 Style

Click above to enlarge image

Alan Levine and Bryan Alexander have published an important article: Web 2.0 Storytelling: Emergence of a New Genre (and a supporting wiki).

When new faculty or training professionals encounter read / write tools (blogs, wikis, video, podcasts, etc) the initial excitement usually turns to “oh, but how will I use this beyond posting blogs for students?”. The focus of this articles is on using storytelling (my preference is for the term narrative) to assist faculty and students to better make use of technology that offers personal control.

What’s Web 2.0 storytelling? It’s “the telling of stories using Web 2.0 tools, technologies, and strategies”.

Corporate Learning Trends & Innovations 08 Agenda

Like Jay Cross, I’m looking biased and forward to our upcoming online conference on corporate learning trends and innovations. Jay has compiled an agenda for a quick overview of topics and speakers. Should be a great event! Sign up here.

Free Learning Events

Curt Bonk lists a variety of free learning events during the month of November.

Online conferences and workshops are a great way to increase dialogue around key topics. Numerous for-fee online events exist - and I’m sure, will continue to exist. No-fee events are great opportunities to discuss/advance a concept and to bring together practitioners in emerging fields.

Connectivism Course (CCK08)

For those interested in the connectivism course, but haven’t been directly following the flow of conversation, here are a few links of potential interest:

• Live Session Recordings
• Main Site
• Course outline and weekly activities
• Moodle Site

Rhizome Project, or, What Have They Done With Dave Cormier?

Earlier this year, I edited an issue of Innovate on the future of education. One of the most frequently cited articles from that issue is Dave Cormier’s article on Rhizomatic Education. If the discussion in CCK08 is any indication, the rhizome metaphor resonates with people.

Today, I encountered this site - Rhizome Project - on the same theme. Surprisingly, no mention of Dave’s work or article. It seems unlikely that they wouldn’t have been aware of the article (it’s one of the first several returns when searching rhizomatic on google). An oversight of the project leaders? Or just ignoring Dave’s article and drawing credit for themselves? Participating in open environments requires acknowledgment as we build on the work of others.

Photo credits:
Introduction to Emerging Technologies - Jose Manuel Gelpi Diaz
Social Networks, The Next Educational Tool? - iMedExchange
Microsoft Office Embraces The Browser - BostonStrive
Storytelling: Web 2.0 Style - Bryan Alexander and Alan Levine
Corporate Learning Trends & Innovations 08 Agenda - Mike Rohde
Free Learning Events - Quavondo Nguyen
Connectivism Course (CCK08) - Ignite
Rhizome Project, or, What Have They Done With Dave Cormier? - Dave Cormier

Originally written by George Siemens for elearnspace and first published on October 31st 2008 as a weekly email digest on eLearning Resources and News.

About the author

To learn more about George Siemens and to access extensive information and resources on elearning check out www.elearnspace.org. Explore also George Siemens connectivism site for resources on the changing nature of learning and check out his new book “Knowing Knowledge“.

How do you make sense of the huge quantity of the increasing amount of fragmented, separate, granular information you’re exposed to when learning?

George Siemens - Photo credit: Terri Brown

“We make sense personally. No one makes sense for us.” If you just rely on educational and academic institutions to make sense of the issues you’re keenly interested into, you may be following the wrong path.

Educational technologies expert George Siemens strongly advocates a personal, individual learning path freed form academic restraints. More often than not, such institutions have become indoctrinating labs more than the ideal settings to question, experiment and evaluate information under many different lights.

Beliefs should not be accepted just “as they are“, but rather being the output of personal analysis and inquiry, and possibly of a collaborative research and knowledge-sharing process.

If you’re looking for a more critical approach to making sense of how new technologies and media are affecting the way we learn, study and work, this weekly digest may help you recognize the forest from the trees.

Here all the details:

Intro by Daniele Bazzano

eLearning Resources and News

learning, networks, knowledge, technology, trends

by George Siemens

Corporate Learning: Trends and Innovations

A few months ago, I posted a link to the upcoming Corporate Learning: Trends and Innovations conference Tony Karrer, Jay Cross, and I are organizing. We now have a list of speakers posted on the site. If you’d like to be kept informed, please sign up. The conference is no charge, fully online, and runs from November 17-21.

I’m Sure I’m Doing It Wrong

Most educators have been told, during the completion of their degrees, that learning starts with objectives or outcomes. Then, often relying on a Bloom’s Taxonomy verb list, those outcomes are translated into activities and ultimately assessment.

It’s an ok model, I guess. I just don’t like it.

I have yet to find research that states that learning outcomes contribute to more effective learning (if you know of research on the subject, please let me know). I’m not advocating for disorganized approaches to teaching and learning. Some organization is obviously required. But we can organize without wearing and educational theory straight jacket. As Dean Shareski states in I’m sure I’m doing it wrong: “Simple. Meaningful. Necessary. Education has become very good at making the simple very complex. That just seems wrong to me.”

Social Lending

This afternoon, I presented to a group of masters / phd students on the potentially transformative impact of technology on how we teach and learn. The age of grand narratives - or even narratives of coherence - have given way to fragmentary information and interactions.

Instead of making sense of the world through a grand narrative provided by others, each person has the potential to make sense of the world according a personal context narrative.

The fragmentation of information influences society in more levels than media and news - education is feeling the effects as well (note the development of open educational resources and open teaching). And the financial field is also experience some (though limited) pressure for change through services / sites based on social lending.

Thoughts on “Learning Spaces” Presentation

Whether you agree or disagree with this post, it’s worth thinking about: Thoughts on “learning spaces” presentation:

“You know why a student would prefer to look at a picture or watch a video? Because it’s way easier than reading something that would nearly always be more informative about the subject at hand. You know why a student would be more interested in producing, say, a video than writing a paper? Because writing well is DIFFICULT and it’s far easier to gloss up poor research by packaging it in a video format that appears to involve a lot of work.

Yes, older people who think that games, social networks, collaborative learning environments, and the creation audiovisual mashups are the future of education, the basic message I’m sending here is that young students don’t want to learn, they want to play, and presentations like the one I saw today essentially seem to be saying that we need to support this play (masked as educational needs) as much as possible in order to try to get some learning in there.“

Airline Scheduling

I spend more time in airports and airplanes than I would ideally like.

Multi-hour layovers are good opportunities to catch up on email, read, write, and ponder how this complex structure of global air travel operates. Think of the enormous difficulty in scheduling flights, maintaining airplanes, customer interactions, and so on. What’s the nature of training and development in this industry? Obviously formal education (such as for mechanics and pilots) and continual ongoing training due to new procedures, regulations, and economic circumstances.

I’d love to get a better handle on how the airline industry meets its multiple challenges through it training and development departments (and how it strategically ties the use of technology to organizational goals).

WSJ looks at the complexities of scheduling for Southwest. How did it innovate its scheduling practices to reduce costs / improve efficiency? Did consultants provide the solution? Nah. Innovation occurred on a home computer by an employee - saving the airline millions of dollars. How do organizations foster and recognize that type of innovation and creativity?

Britannica and 1999

Britannica is hosting a discussion on Brave New Classroom 2.0. It sounds like discussions we were having in 1999 about whether technology was effective in classrooms (oh, and remember the “no significant difference” discussion?).

Countries like India are not asking “is technology effective?“. They are using it because it’s the only way to meet the learning needs of their population (note their goal of offering 40% of higher education via distance (which suggests the use of technology)). We’re asking “is it?“. They’re asking “how“.

With that said, Britannica has put together a good list of presenters who will likely be able to redeem a poorly conceived and outdated discussion topic.

Is Online Noise Really Bad For You?

This post reads like wishful thinking from someone who has not yet been able to come to grips with the time-destroying joys of online noise and, instead of modifying his behaviour, has decided to turn vices into virtues - Is online noise really bad for you?:

“Quiet time, time off-line, deep thoughts and long books are all beautiful things - essential to a healthy intellectual, psychological and social life.

We argue, though, that the opposite of all those things - online social media noise, is also a great opportunity that deserves to have its worth recognized at a time in history when many of us are struggling to deal with it.“

Is Reputation Obsolete?

Is reputation obsolete?:

“Today, I often no longer have to rely on someone else’s account of your past behavior: I can see for myself.

In a world in which all action is recorded, is there still need for reputation information? If I can see the events of the past for myself, is getting other people’s potentially biased and self-serving opinions about it worth anything? Or, has reputation become obsolete?“

The question of the obsolescence of reputation is provocative. Maybe I’m unusually dense today, but I don’t fully follow the author’s argument.

It’s not reputation that’s obsolete.

Closed reputation, accessible only under certain restrictions (usually monetary or some type of privilege), is increasingly obsolete.

Reputation is open due to online participation. People can read what our views were 5 or 10 years ago. They can evaluate us by our behaviour in other forums. Reputation still remains as an important way to understand other people.

Peer 2 Peer University

This - Peer 2 Peer University - is one of those concepts that I would love to strongly endorse as a step in a different direction from traditional universities. It reflects much of what I write about on this site (parts of the proposed document read very much like my post on content, conversation, and accreditation).

Yet, as I reviewed the site, I find myself in disagreement with certain elements.

I like the approach of openness (it’s hard to argue otherwise, especially in education where we can open doors to more hopeful futures simply through providing access to learning opportunities).

I like the view of shorter courses.

I like the grassroots “we had a good idea and did something about it” approach. I also like the participatory design of learning.

What do I disagree with? I disagree with the notion of “sense makers“.
We make sense personally. No one makes sense for us.

I’m also somewhat unsure of the formality of this approach. It bears within it too much of the existing university model. Why centralize things? The only thing we really need to centralize is the accreditation (i.e. open accreditation).

Who really cares where or how people “got their learning“? Use existing networks of learning opportunities.

This is P2P University administered through centralized models (which, then means, it’s not really P2P). I love the concept. I like the vision. I don’t like the execution. It’s foreplay when we need consummation.

Publish and Be Wrong

In the absence of good data or research results, thinking (even uncommon common sense) can prove to be surprisingly valuable.

Researchers are suggesting that a good portion of research is wrong (of course, the researchers making this statement overlook the irony of a similar critique leveled at their own theory).

From the article:

“Dr Ioannidis based his earlier argument about incorrect research partly on a study of 49 papers in leading journals that had been cited by more than 1,000 other scientists. They were, in other words, well-regarded research. But he found that, within only a few years, almost a third of the papers had been refuted by other studies.

For the idea of the winner’s curse to hold, papers published in less-well-known journals should be more reliable; but that has not yet been established.

The group’s more general argument is that scientific research is so difficult — the sample sizes must be big and the analysis rigorous — that most research may end up being wrong. And the “hotter” the field, the greater the competition is and the more likely it is that published research in top journals could be wrong.”

As information and knowledge continue to develop more rapidly (note the rising contributions of China to scientific journals in relation to EU and US), research results will continue to be best viewed with an understanding that “it’s all in a state of flux“.

Photo credits:
Corporate Learning: Trends and Innovations - Learn Trends
I’m Sure I’m Doing It Wrong - Pavel Losevsky
Social Lending - Pathathai Chungyam
Airline Scheduling - Xiao Fang Hu
Britannica and 1999 - 5min Blog
Is Online Noise Really Bad For You? - Artsem Martysiuk
Is Reputation Obsolete? - pblscooter
Peer 2 Peer University - Riverside Community College
Publish and Be Wrong - Kirill Zdorov

Originally written by George Siemens for elearnspace and first published on October 24th 2008 as a weekly email digest on eLearning Resources and News.

About the author