Digital Dialogues

Lights out today - 29 March 8pm - worldwide!

It's Earth Hour today - please remember to turn your lights, and in fact all your electrical appliances - that's your computers too - OFF - at 8pm - wherever in the world you are..!
Join 28 global cities and switch off!

Aalborg -  Aarhus - Adelaide - Atlanta - Bangkok - Bogota - Brisbane - Canberra - Chicago - Christchurch - Copenhagen - Darwin - Dublin - Hobart - Manila - Melbourne - Montreal - Odense - Ottawa - Perth - Phoenix - San Francisco - Santa Cruz - Suva and Lautoka - Sydney - Tel Aviv - Toronto - Vancouver

Last year, 2007, over 2.2 million Sydney residents and over 2,100 businesses switched off, leading to a 10.2% energy reduction across the city...
Now - I just want to know why there is a humngous concert (35,000 people expected) happening in Centennial Park (Sydney) tonight...how much power will that suck up while the rest of us enjoy an evening in candlelight? hmmm?

Anyway - a quiet evening of marking assignments by candelight and on battery power on the laptop!
Let's see if we can make a difference tonight - wherever you are!

Powered by Qumana

PS. A cosmic coincidence

According to the Arthur C. Clarke Foundation site a cosmic coincidence was reported on March 19, 2008.
Swift, one of the NASA satellites, recorded 4 separate Gamma Ray Bursts - each one of these massive explosions indicates a star at the end of its life.
4 such explosions have never been recorded before...

"..overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out. "          
from “The Nine Billion Names of God”.

Arthur C. Clarke remembered

Arthur C. Clarke died this week - 19 March, 2008.
I recall as a very young pup, being taken to the movies by my big brothers -  the movie?
2001, A Space Odyessy.

At that young age, I was already into sci-fi and horror stuff - influenced by my big brothers who enjoyed terrifiying me by forcing me to site through old movies in the dark, The Blob, War of the Worlds, Day of the Triffids, and all the Alfred Hitchcock ones... but no single movie has had more impact on my life than 2001.
To me - the others were just plain spooky (remember, I was very little and easily influenced !) But 2001? This was the future! This was how it was going to be! And - of course - man landed on the moon about 1 year after 2001 was released!
This is when I decided I wanted to be an astronaut... I got over it... the closest I got was working in the airline industry for 15 years -  but I never got over the impact 2001 had on me...
I've been an avid follower of Arthur C. Clarke's works ever since - what an extraordinary visionary the world has lost this week!

2 dominant quotes from Clarke that remain as current influencers on my work:

"If we have learned one thing from the history of invention and discovery, it is that, in the long run - and often in the short one - the most daring prophecies seem laughably conservative."
- Arthur C. Clarke, The Exploration of Space, 1951

"In the next Century, the education revolution will ensure that learning will be completely liberated from the tyrannies of schedules and locations.
Anybody, anywhere will be able to study any subject and access any form of information, at his or her most comfortable speed.
This will make education the lifelong process it must be."

- Arthur C. Clarke, 1997

Powered by Qumana

Can you read this?

Cna yuo raed tihs? Olny 55 plepoe out of 100 can.

fi yuo cna raed tihs, yuo hvae a sgtrane mnid too!

i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!

One of my colleagues sent me this in response to my sms essay post... and you know what? This is easier to read than the sms lolspeak! (And I don't have to worry about correcting the spelling or grammar!)

Powered by Qumana

LOLspeak - do you?

A year or so ago, I received a 1,000 word essay in "sms" language  - or lolspeak. When I asked the student what it was, she proudly declared it was her essay.... right then... but when I pointed out that it wasn't in ... well, English - she gave me with this exasperated look like I didn't know anything (actually - that's probably more how I felt!!)...
So - I asked her to re-submit her essay - in language that was appropriate for the reader (me)... and with a level of academic rigeur... She was NOT happy... but the option of not passing was probably the tipping point.
In discussions about this with a retired Professor of English - he laughed and told me to get out more - that English is an evolving language and I should celebrate her ability to write more than 10 words in sms language!
hmmmm - maybe so... but what if the reader is unable to decipher the message - in this case the essay - where does that leave the evolving language when the language is presented in a format incomprehensible by the reader?
OK - I know, you can argue that many academics have been practising this for centuries....
Well - the outcome - a re-written essay, in plain English (and a Pass).
But now I also have a de-coder from this brilliant site I just discovered on Wetpaint:
Speak LOLspeak.
Not sure I'll be bothered to sit down translate a 1,000 word essay... but then again... maybe I will!

Powered by Qumana

2 dot zero versus 2 point zero??

So what do you say?
Web "2 dot zero"?
Web " 2 point zero"?
Web "2 dot o"?
Web " 2 point o"?
or what about:
"2 point naught"?

Is the "point zero" group referring to decimal points? And surely is this the more correct terminology as it's referring to release versions.. right?
And are the dot zero/o mob coming from the dot coms tribe?
In which case they're referring to like a URL "dot com dot au".
I've been hearing lots of versions lately... and can't say that this is life threatening.. but just something to ponder over...
Personally - I'm a "2 point o" person... but I've notice a few Aussies in the social media field saying "2 dot zero" lately... weird..

Powered by Qumana

Zotero: a review

Zotero for about 3 months now.. and I think it's time I shared some experiences...
First - a short historical perspective.

In 2003, I started using Endnote - a free download from the University library's site, or purchase a CD for a small token amount.
It took a little while to figure out - and then I went to a couple of classes conducted by the Library - I was impressed with the functionality - but it was clunky and quite difficult to navigate. This was a, I believed at the time, powerful bibliographic tool - the connection to the library databases was brilliant...
In those days, earlier versions, it didn't have fields for all the types of resources I needed - but I created my own fields for weblog posts, and other online articles I needed to cite. I also carefully backed up my Endnote records onto my PDA - a Sony Clie.
I started to have challenges with the Cite as Your Write function - it was supposed to connect with your Word document and records and correctly insert a reference in the style you wanted... hmmm.. it didn't! It corrupted my Word documents, it used it's own citing style (at random) and made a shambles of my bibliogrpahy. So - I stopped using Cite as your Write.
Then... my laptop had a mother board meltdown... but - as a diligent back-up person, I wasn't too stressed (just midly)... I had my 1,000+ references backed up in my PDA. Phew!
Wrong! When I reloaded the software into my new computer - I told the system to take the references from the Sony Clie... did it? Nope - it gleefully advised me that the PC had overwritten the data held on my PDA with the updated, newer version on the laptop! aaaaaaah - now we're talking tears & tantrums!
I did have a hard copy print out of my bibliography - but not all the notes accompanying each file.
Start again - from scratch...
More difficulties, more corrupted Word files, ongoing dramas....

Then in 2006/7 our Library got a license for Refworks, a web-based bibliographic database.
Initially - this was a huge leap forward from Endnote! The web-based application was particularly appealing - I could access my database from any computer - brilliant...! It had fields that now recognised weblog posts, and online journals... fab! The management facility into folders and categories was nice..
But - it is slow to load a single item... some fields required the page to refresh... on average each entry took about... 3 minutes... waaaaay too slow for me... and I'm working manually from a hard copy of my bibliography... slowly, very slowly... tedious too....
I'm not sure of the back-up security of this - where are the servers? Who is doing this regularly? So I export my files at least monthly to HTML & Word versions - but again - this doesn't bring all my notes across.... :-(
And of course, there are the times where no internet access is readily available... and... I can't access my data! grrrrr....

But then ... in late 2007 I read the Innovate article (you need to sign-in - free - to access Innovate) on Zotero! Wow.... could this be the next gen bibliographic system....? Browser-based, plug in to Firefox, free, open-source... ! So - for the last couple of months I've been playing around... and - I have to say - it's brilliant!
It took me a few minutes to acquaint myself with the features, load the plug in and start using it... It's elegant, intuitive, and it picks up all sorts of valuable information straight from the webpage... cool!! The real tipping point was the integration between journals I was viewing with the Science Direct database.. I just click the icon and whammo! All the data, the PDF file, in fact, everything I needed was in my library... then I add a few tags (it suggests tags) and I'm done.... Now that's elegant!
It's still under development - but the citation style list is growing - it now has Harvard... There are easy back-up guidelines to copy the subfolder within the Firefox folder... you could use a portable version of Firefox on a USB key and install Zotero on that...
Now the only thing I haven't done yet is export my files from RefWorks and import to Zotero. Having said that - I've read all the documentation and it doesn't look like a nightmare... In fact, the entire user guide and documentation over at Zotero is well presented, easy to follow and more supportive than either of the other products mentioned!!!
I'd love to hear from other Zotero users... any stories - good, bad or ugly...
Right now - I think the Zotero team need congratulating for streamlining bibliographic management into my online world - thank-you!   

Powered by Qumana

Adult Education & Training - new text

Hot off the press is Adult Education and Training - edited by Dr James Athanasou. Here's what the publisher says:

"Adult Education and Training arose from a major project to advance the field of adult learning in Australia. It is a collaborative effort that brings together some of the most well-known international and leading Australian authors in the field of adult education.

It deals with the key issues in post-compulsory education and training, such as critical thinking, transformative learning, gender issues, indigenous education and regional factors. There is coverage of adult education in an Australian context as well as the theory and practice of teaching and learning, namely communication, individual differences, assessment, e-Learning and research methods. It provides a unique and comprehensive introduction to the field of adult teaching and learning from specialists in each topice area."

Key contributors include: Stephen Brookfield, Leona English, Roger Morris (recently awarded an Order of Australian for contributions to Adult Education), Ross Brennan Kemmis, Keiko Yasukawa, Pactricia Cranton & Elizabeth Tisdell, Stephen Billet, Shirley Saunders (my PhD supervisor), James Kehoe, Shelley Gillis & Patrick Griffin, Erica Smith, Brian Hemmings & John Connors, Bob Boughton and.. me!

The diverse range of topics address: transformative learning; teaching critical thinking; language, literacy and numeracy; instructional design; communication and learning; competency assessment; vocational education and training; resources sources and methods; ... to name just a few... 
These chapters make this a key text for anyone studying or working in the Adult Learning field.

The text is currently available through David Barlow Publishing in Australia.

Effective communication?!

Thought for the day:

I'm not so sure that what you said is what you think you said or what you thought you said
or what you heard yourself say is what you think I heard you say

Powered by Qumana

Merry Christmas from a couple of Elves

Clearly the girls at the Learning Technology User Group need to get out more.. and stop playing with their computers... just look at what Carol has created as a Christmas wish to all LTUG members: Elf yourself.
And yes, you too can look silly, in fact... you can make several team members look silly if you use their headshots and turn them into elves!

I hope everyone has a happy and safe festive season!

Powered by Qumana