Fact tank what a great phrase

Those great people at Pew research in the US have done it again. There description of themselves as a fact tank carries less baggage than the phrase over worked in some areas of education of being a Think Tank"

this video about the Millennial Generation around Pews work in this area http://pewresearch.org/millennials


Lee Rainie is the Director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project appears in this video worth a look

Shape of clouds to come in HE

Just been reading the "Shaping the Higher Education Cloud" published by EDUCAUSE/NACUBO obviously US orientated but UK HE people need to read . It answers and poses many questions. which servers to keep in house which to place somewhere elese . cost data security and service levels are all addressed . It is the findings from a two conference http://www.educause.edu/Resources/ShapingtheHigherEducationCloud/205427 well worth a look over to help your formulate ideas for the shape of the cloud over your institution.

New Trends and Old Habits:

Interesting reports looking at Relationship of 12 to 17 Year Olds and the Media in Hungary. table below shows just one snapshot form the report

TV	video	Internet	computer	PC game	TOTAL
2005	174	65	50	97	25	411
2009	146	69	159	140	61	575
change	-28	+4	+109	+43	+36	+164

 Access report at http://www.saferinternet.org/web/guest/blog;jsessionid=1C6EFCEEF2FB9ED7A8DB9967537ECE89?p_p_id=homeBlog_WAR_insafeportlet&p_p_lifecycle=0&p_p_state=normal&p_p_mode=view&_homeBlog_WAR_insafeportlet_action=detail&_homeBlog_WAR_insafeportlet_articleId=94130&#p_homeBlog_WAR_insafeportlet

Learning on the Beach

After recent events if one thing is guaranteed to raise my spirits and to paraphrase Gene Hunt of Ashes to Ashes "fire up the Quattro!" is attending Learning on the Beach 2010 http://lob10.wikispaces.com The idea of creative thinker and educator John Davitt www.newtools.org a man that has inspired a lot of my activity over the last 3 or 4 years . The space and creativity that programme contains will be personally a real fillip to aid my future thinking . I am taking a few days leave to attend at my own cost .

If you cant be there follow the #lob10 and the wiki at  http://lob10.wikispaces.com/

cloud course another block in the google Learning Platform

Cloud course simply integrates with Google Calendar to allow uses to build courses etc. Using Google apps engine this is a serious development for google in education . It also allows user profile . Interesting eh !!http://code.google.com/p/cloudcourse/

Mobile phone telco's as bankers

Mobile payment will never work "11% of Kenya's GDP was shifted through M-Pesa last year, and this year we expect to shift 20%,"

and transaction size is above $20 dollars nearing $30  http://www.totaltele.com/view.aspx?ID=455751&G=4&C=1&page=2

M learning at the whitehouse

Huge headsup for Geoff Stead and colleagues getting there work in Africa http://moblearn.blogspot.com/2010/05/m-learning-at-white-house.html

great stuff and worth a look.

The Google job experiment

The Google job experiment thanks for @fireglo for pointing this out . Alec Brownstein has published a video called 'The Google Job Experiment', showing how he personally harnessed the power of Google's micro-targeting to land himself an interview with a variety of well known creative directors:. Basically he micro tailored so a specific search would yield this result yes he did get offered interviews


worth a look

Open Mobile Learning: Helping Integrate Mobile Phones with Curriculum | Digital Media Learning Competition

Now if you do one thing yes one thing today do this view the video as part of a submission to the digital media and learning competition supported by the MacArthur as part of the Hastac Initiative its about open mobile learning and is put it simply an attempt and a good one to suggest to educators how learners own devices can help with there learning . Worth a view and to be honest people express a view .I know my readers friends in Japan Australia Ireland and Scotland to name but a few will have something to say so leave a comment and support a simple but well thought out proposal. No tactical voting required just your view


Open Mobile Learning: Helping Integrate Mobile Phones with Curriculum | Digital Media Learning Competition

Tales of things brings QR to wider audience

Story telling tagging and a dash of good old QR codes from the BBC click on programme definitely one for myfriend John davitt to hook up with and of course it has an iphone app can we have android one please. But to be honest this is brilliant .
The sites description says it all

Wouldn't it be great to link any object directly to a 'video memory' or an article of text describing its history or background? Tales of Things allows just that with a quick and easy way to link any media to any object via small printable tags known as QR codes. How about tagging your old antique clock, a building, or perhaps that object you're about to put on eBay.

http://talesofthings.com/

interested in the biggger picture take a look at Are the New Millennium Learners Making the Grade? Technology Use and Educational Performance in PISA 2006

Interrested in the bigger picture and what the digital divide looks like and what makes it happen is it acccess to kit or lack of skills or both.

Its from a huige data set and the whole report can be browsed at http://browse.oecdbookshop.org/oecd/pdfs/browseit/9609101E.PDF

Using data from PISA 2006, this book analyzes to what extent investments in technology enhance educational outcomes. One of the most striking findings of this study is that the digital divide in education goes beyond the issue of access to technology. A new second form of digital divide has been identified: the one existing between those who have the right competencies to benefit from computer use, and those who do not. These competencies and skills are closely linked to the economic, cultural and social capital of the student.

This finding has important implications for policy and practice. Governments should make an effort to clearly convey the message that computer use matters for the education of young people and do their best to engage teachers and schools in raising the frequency of computer use to a level that becomes relevant. If schools and teachers are really committed to the development of 21st century competencies, such an increase will happen naturally. And only in these circumstances will clear correlations between technology use and educational performance emerge.

Text anyone Pew report on American teens and mobiles

American teens have got that SMS bug big time. whole report is about much more than this and is well worth a read .

"Daily text messaging among American teens has shot up in the past 18  months, from 38% of teens texting friends daily in February of 2008 to 54% of teens texting daily in September 2009. And it's not just  frequency – teens are sending enormous quantities of text messages a  day. Half of teens send 50 or more text messages a day, or 1,500 texts a month, and one in three send more than 100 texts a day, or more than  3,000 texts a month. Older teen girls ages 14-17 lead the charge on text messaging, averaging  100 messages a day for the entire cohort. The youngest teen boys are the most resistant to texting – averaging 20 messages per day."
Link to report here

QR google muscle in and Clic2c

vThanks to James for point this out now I am a huge fan of splashurl.net that not only shortens urls on the fly but displays them in a huge point size useful if your  presenting but it also generates a large qr code . James Clay with his excellent blog has pointed me in the direction in Dave Hopkins blog http://www.dontwasteyourtime.co.uk/

Dave points out Google are now in on the url shortening act in http://goo.gl/ and suggests if you add .qr to shortened urls it generates qr codes not its on of those annoying under control of big G things at the moment but will I am sure creep out to wider use.

On a seperate note I have been looking a propriety (well I think it is is) embedded codes or watermarks these are codes hidden in images as a way of watermarking ownership of images or imparting hidden information behind a graphic picture. I am led to believe getty use it to mark there images . but its worth a look |Clic2c has an app for iphone and android phones   http://www.clic2c.co.uk/ its currently used in marketing but certainly could be used in education

internet user in india and Mobile phone users "a pocketful of worldwide possibilities"

India according to this report has 52 million active internet users and up to 71 million occasional internet users may not be many  in the context of a 1 billion population. but the figure I found much more striking is the growth in mobile 15 million mobile users a month (a figure equivalent to about 1/4 of UK population ).
The move to rural areas over urban areas in terms of growth of internet use is interesting. As Gandhi said "the soul of india lies in its villages".

worth a look it may challenge the way you view the world the fourth fifth generation smart phones may excite us in the developed world but potential using simple 2nd or 3rd generation phones (SMS,voice and maybe simple browser email functionality  ) in countries like India  is quite simple a pocketful of worldwide possibilities .

view article at  http://trak.in/tags/business/2010/04/07/internet-usage-india-report-2010/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+trakin+%28India+Business+Blog+%21%29

Digital Natives , Digital Residents Digital Visitors or are we approaching something like post digital.Digital Native

Digital Natives a phrase that was launched by Marc Prensky in 2001 . Suggesting to some that young people have a universal propensity to use Tech and be comfortable with it. That is the central core of Marc debate but even in conservation has suggested its not universally true or at least becoming less relevant since he wrote.

I have and mentioned many time that the phrase isnt universal digital competency/digital comfort is not totally age or even gender dependent . I have seen a really valiant effort that in my opinion succeeds to move the debate on by Dave White of Oxford University  with vehicle of digital Residents and Digital Visitors with a presentation at ALTC2009 http://tallblog.conted.ox.ac.uk/index.php/2009/10/14/visitors-residents-the-video/ This work has made me think over the last few months and I have thought of adding a phrase how to get your Digital Visa around training and CPD . It fits how I personally view the area than digital Natives V Immigrants even the the "V" suggest confrontation not difference . Whats your view.

This post was sparked by a post on the edtechdev blog at
http://edtechdev.wordpress.com/2010/03/19/the-d...
worth looking at this blog and some of the comments

Easy Youtube

Is it just me or is this potentially a great way of viewing YouTube video in a controlled and beautifully usable/accessible way

http://icant.co.uk/easy-youtube/

Thanks Adrian for link.

BBC World Service - News - When mobile internet phones came to a rural Nigerian village

BBC World Service - News - When mobile internet phones came to a rural Nigerian village interesting programme very short five minutes worth a listen

TeachMeetGameOn March 29th The Brewery London

Well those Teachmeet giants are having another outing described by some as the best evening CPD you will ever have this adult show and tell of teacher practices in relatin to Tech is not to be missed.

The organisers of Games Based Learning 2010 http://www.gamebasedlearning2010.com/ have lent a room and free WiFi to hold a TeachMeet that is primarily focussed on use of games in education but in true teachMeet tradition is open to anybody who want to share their practices in using any kind of tech in education. You can do a 7 minute talk a 4 minute nano presentation or just lurk !! Find out more at http://teachmeet.pbworks.com/Teachmeet_Game_on_edition please note its free but you need to register here to gain access to the bulding at http://teachmeetgameon.eventbrite.com/
these are great events see my post from earlier Teachmeet in Scotland for a little flavour of what a Teachmeets about. http://andysblackhole.blogspot.com/2008/09/in-company-of-giants-but-ever-so-modest.html



ss

ARM Powered LEGO/Nokia 4x4x4 Rubik's Cube Solver

Well this involves one of the finest mobile ever built (N95) IMHO , Lego NXT and loads of technics and of course a Rubiks cube.

Very clever and a bit of fun

 

ARM Powered LEGO/Nokia 4x4x4 Rubik's Cube Solver

If you do nothing else today follow this guy on twitter

Ok its not totally tech related but he is using twitter face book and google maps. Adam Wooly a resident of that gem of Suffolk Countryside Saxsted is doing a small bike trip of 10'000 miles . On  2nd of January 2010  he  left from London to cycle the 10,000 miles to Cape Town through 17 countries in around 7 months, all in aid of Malaria Consortium.

He is doing it as sponsored ride for the malaria consortium now first off all visit his website and donate some cash http://www.wheresadam.net secondlyfollow him on twitter as off this lunch time today he had only 242 followers I reckon between us we can give a boost and reach a thousand follow him on twitter @london_capetown so come on everybody follow his progress . 140 characters is a lot of encouragement !!