May 2005 Archives

Found this series of slides in Flickr. if only an audiocast accompanies the slides :P

more bits of the fast fading limited understanding ...

5. Marcus O�Donnell on 'Blogging as pedagogic practice: artefact and ecology'

this is one of the paper i personally find very thought-provoking and provided me with insights from a broad perspective. marcus looked at the broad theoretical models (from bloom's taxonomy to seymour papert's constructionism) and tried to draw their significance in the use of blogging. he also touched on metaphors that are related to deep/surface models of learning. he ended off by suggesting the implementation of course-wide blogs which "would evolve together with (and record) the student's learning and practice experience"

I believe we will only unleash the full practical potential of blogging when we pay due attention to its place in this complex field of new communicative practices. We need to look at blogging, not as an isolated phenomenon, but as part of a broad palette of �cybercultural� practices, which provide us with both new ways of doing and new ways of thinking...... At the material and experiential level participation in cybercultures occurs along a continuum that begins with activities which are now almost ubiquitous such as web surfing, email and googling, the use of more specialist techniques such as RSS feeds, instant messaging, peer-to-peer file transfer and podcasting through to participation in emergent movements such as those centred around open-source software or creative commons, �copyleft� initiatives...... So how does blogging change the way we think? How does it embody the virtual, dynamic, emergent and idiosyncratic characteristics of cyberdiscursivity?

6. Ian MacColl et al. on 'Reflections on reflection: Blogging in undergraduate design studios'

this paper gave a very good overview of integrating blogs into two two design-based degree courses. we can look at it as another example of use of blogs for portfolio building. a successful one in fact :-)

7. Angela Thomas on 'Fictional Blogging and the Narrative Identities of Adolescent Girls'

a pity angela was sick and unable to present this paper. after reading it, i have gotten a good understanding of the typology of blog fiction as an emergent genre. it is interesting to learn that the girls involved in the study are actually "authoring versions of themselves as they write in their role". wondering if this "fusing/hybrid identities" is common or typically the case in blog fictions. how wonderful if we can introduce this form of writing to our classroom lessons, not only will we be cultivating creativity and imagination, some form of collaborative effort is in place if students were allowed to develop character diaries.

To continue the documentation of my quick fading memories containing my limited understanding ...

2. Rebecca Blood's Keynote

Did not manage to catch the title of her keynote if there is one. She placed in perspective our current day blogger as a publisher, who seeks to establish conversation with his/her reader. She sees our shift from "the age of specialist" towards "the age of amateur". We are also shifting from the mode of "collaborative media" towards a world of "participatory media". Bloggers are filtering and producing news with their own perspectives, and some of these can first be based on news by media and professional reporters.

Quoting the evolvement of wikipedia as an example, she further touched on her belief that everyone is interested in something, and given time, everyone can be good in something.

very forward looking keynote and place her belief on the world's future development, if only i can catch more of the thoughts in words:| some other reflections by Michael Specht goes here.

3. Mark Bernstein on "Protecting the Blogosphere"

A very inspiring presentation with a very global view of things, specifically the blogosphere. Blogs have different popularity and many of these exist in "the long tail". Those in this 'tail' are least often referenced but their existence are just as important. Helping to keep them alive (by reading and linking) keeps the whole blogosphere alive.

I was unable to capture the full (high speed) train of thoughts but if you would like to 'visit' the presentation, listen to this podcast by Mark Bernstein himself. Also, check out this note on the presentation by Michael S.

4. Adrian Miles on 'Media Rich versus Rich Media'

This paper shares insight on the video prototypes that Adrian Miles is working on. By making videos granular, some affordances of blog (text-based) postings can be transferred into videos! This include clickable hyperlinks in the video itself, which is shown in his 1st prototype; The 2nd prototype allows 2 separate video streams to run side-by-side, with separate controls, allowing one video to 'quote' something in the other video; The 3rd prototype demonstrates the possiblity of placing commentaries after a clip hyperlinked from elsewhere has been played. In other words, video streams from different sources can be combined into one 'screen'.

(to be continued ...)

Developed back in 2001, this API allows users to hook up Blogger with other programs, interfaces, or environments. Will require some programming knowledge to get it going though :|

This posting off weblogg-ed resonate with one of the issues we have had when thinking of bringing blogging into classroom(s), yes, that of assessment.

Unless, of course the standardized exam is to identify and reflect upon the learning evidenced in the Weblog. It would be so simple, right? Take the goals and objectives of the class. Heck, for that matter, take the state standards and say to students "Here, find where you've done this in your Weblog. Reflect on what it took to learn it. If you can't find evidence of the standard, reflect on why. What prevented you from reaching that goal or understanding that concept? What do you think you need at this point in order to master it?" - Will R.

If at a certain level (e.g. secondary? upper pri?) we can start introducing such thinking processes into our students' learning, we are on the way to cultivate life-long learning. (Continual) assessment can be done based on blog postings and not just our usual one-off paper-and-pen(cil) tests.

Cool! Thanks to Mary Nolan for sharing this example with us! This Canadian K-6 school has most of their 400 4 to 12 years old pupils and most of the teachers use blogs to capture everything and collaborate. These blogs are called cyberportfolios.

Though the blogs are in French, but taking a look at them still gives us some basic idea of the implementation. Truly, I am waiting for the day when we can see a similar attempt at school-wide adoption of edublogging in one of our schools.

[via: Loic Le Meur Blog]

Back yesterday morning from Sydney, was hit most significantly and almost immediately by our most _wonderful_ weather here (29-34C, >90% humidity) *hmm*

It was a short, yet enriching trip. Heard many wonderful presentations and thought it would be most appropriate to capture my limited understanding here while memories are still fresh :)

There are two main streams of blogging in effect:
(1) Social blogging (with emphasis on political blogging)
(2) Edublogging (with more papers from higher education settings)

I'll start by looking through the keynotes and invited speakers.

1. Thomas N. Burg on "technologyLog - innovating knowledge sharing"

The work on innovation "technologyLog" is introduced. It is a platform in development that has many features. And the whole thought behind this whole development is the need for innovation in order for a corporation to move forward. With social interaction and democratising innovation as the requirements for innovation, perhaps that's why a major part of the engine is blog or blog-related.

Slide 6 is interesting, as it captures the adoption cycle of any form of innovation (not restricted to the use of blogging). Particularly the chasm, if we look at ourselves as early adopters/visionaries, we'll need to bridge the gap(s) before the early major pragmatists will come on-board. This reminds us that when we introduce portfolio using blogs, we are in fact faced with TWO CHASMS and not just one to address.

Some other interesting discussion on this presentation can be found here.

(to be continued ...)

The NIBC 2005 launch was on last friday. Couldnt be there and heard from Guat Kheng that everything went smoothly. Looks like the news for this competition is catching up everywhere, locally and abroad. Check out some of them:

TODAYonline reports
SG Gov Official Press Release
Weblogg-ed
Couros Blog

Witness the competition here from 1st Jun onwards.

It'll be interesting to see how some of (edu)bloggers from abroad react to the existence of the competition :)

This is the 2nd day of the BlogTalk Downunder, in the midst of a presentation in fact :P

Great exchange of ideas had went on between the presenters and the participants. Yesterday's presentations were more on social/political blogging and today we see more edublogging lined up. Will follow up with findings later, back to listen to the presentation.

Visit the conference blog first for the postings streaming.

Just to blog our paper submitted for BlogTalk DownUnder 2005 for future reference :|

at t1 now, have passed the gate, oh btw, gate c25, cannot go any further :O waiting to board the plane. last called, yh3 is still sleeping :| yh2 almost falling asleep, yh1 still awake, else cannot possibly type this :P

going to be ccccccooooollllldddddddd when we reach *grrrr*

looking forward to reaching sydney though :)

let's go give yh3 a call and see if he's awake :@

After 5-6 months of blogvangelism, not sure how many of our workshop participants has actually realised the use of edublogs in their teaching and learning. If you are one of them reading this post and you have been/started introducing blogs to your students, do let us know ;-)

As I have shared with Jeanne the other day, (edu)blogs, unlike other edtech, can quite easily be integrated into existing classroom practices. So from now on, we are going to embark on another dimension of our sharing, to scout for local Singapore examples of teachers who too have experimented with edublogs.

So, to get our "Showcasing local stories" series going, the first one that I am going to share is the "Fun with English" blog, by Mrs Letitia Tan from Beatty Sec School.

Mrs L Tan is an EL teacher. Gathered from her blog, she would like to "interest students in the eng language" via "spontaneous writing in a more creative and casual way". Great!

She has employed the students 1-to-1 approach of using blogs on Blogger.com, so in her blog, she has linked up to the blogs of classes 3E2 and 3E4 students.

To start everything going in the right perspective, she has set ground rules for the students to follow. Read on if you are interested to find out more!

Wiki has been around for 10 years now, and much like blogs, it is another technology which educators are trying to adapt for use in their classroom.

This article (in a wiki also) shares some experience on the use of wiki in a university course, and students are giving positive feedback on the use of the technology in their course. Check it out.

In 1 week's time, we will be flying to Sydney to participate in the Conference.

Our paper is but one of the many papers that has been brought online, thanks to James Farmer for his hard work and effort.

Getting excited about this trip as we'll be able to hear and learn from the blogging gurus. Hope to gain as much as possible to return and share the learning.

Yes! The details has been confirmed! It is just next Friday, 20/5, and the registration booth will be opened from 1330hr onwards. The venue is exciting, the big SG "durian", yup, you have guessed it, and the exact location is Level 2 Recital Studio.

For schools that have signed up, the registration is open, checked it out here.

It's going to be exciting, not sure if this is the world's first blogging competition involving schools. With 50 over schools participating times the number of students in each school. Though not every student will be blogging, but the sheer number of postings should be quite high.

Looking forward to the day when the blogging begins ... *Ooo*

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ga! ta! （婴语）

Look no further, here goes:

Official Microsoft themes

A few other links gathered off Windows Mobile Pocket PC Community:
Pocket PC Themes.com
PocketThemes.com
Pocket McDeb

Want to make your own themes? Download ThemeMaker McDeb.

No more boring themes any more :P

Din occur to me that there is such a thing called National Teacher Appreciation Week (1st May - 7th May). Quite a pleasant surprise to receive this ecard from an ex-student (丽琳)：

作为老师希望学生能够考得好成绩是不言而喻的，因为此成绩是将来的"本钱"，是属于学生自己的。但！分数不是一切，能有多几个A固然好，少几个也不是世界末日，正是"天生我材必有用"，给自己多一些时间和空间，去探索念书以外自己的长处，并把它发挥出来，为社会尽自己的一份力，放一份光。错误谁都会犯的，分别只在于一个人是否从中学习，还是置之不理；只要保有求进步的心，不断更新自己，还怕改正不过来吗？ :-)

Posted a question in the helpdesk and received prompt replies with a tip to this two sites to start off:

1. Blogplates

2. Style Monkey

Most wonderful :)